Right To Left

Except the actual numbers don't show the North carrying the Antebellum (I assume you're talking about) South. Until long after the Civil War, cotton production was what oil is today....or has been up till three months ago! The large plantation owners were the richest men in America, and states like Mississippi, which had long been first or second among wealthiest states in the republic, went to last place after the War and never really recovered...even today. Read: The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism by Edward Baptist, who does a full economic analysis of how slavery developed American capitalism...and shows why, even to this day, the exploitation of prison labor after Jim Crow was legally ended, the economic rulers tried many adaptations to maintain slavery-by-another-name. When were the Byzantine Christians driven out? Not until after these regime change wars got started in Iraq and Syria. Not counting all of the Palestinian Christians who lived there for centuries, but have an easier time in recent decades emigrating and escaping Israeli oppression than Muslim Palestinians do.

Right! That was all a long, long time ago.....EXCEPT WHEN WE WANT TO CELEBRATE OUR NATIONAL HERITAGE, FLY THE FLAG, SHOOT OFF FIREWORKS ON NATIONAL HOLIDAYS, SING THE NATIONAL ANTHEM AND TALK ABOUT HOW GREAT WE ARE! Then, all of a sudden, when it comes to mythologized history, it's still with us. Which it is of course, because the authorities who rule over us and remake history to their liking, won't allow any real historical reckoning...because that would jeopardize present day claims to having a right to exploit the rest of the world by way of the World Bank, IMF and the military alliances that enforce the global rules. There is no disconnecting modern day Euro-American Imperialism from its European origins and white identity today, regardless of how liberal and colour-blind it pretends to be today! Sure a few Africans and Asians get rich enough to be welcomed into the club (as long as they follow the club rules), just as a few 'visible minorities' who get rich enough or serve the Empire sufficiently are rewarded (Obama sure comes to mind), but there is still no hiding who started this so called 'enlightened' system today and who's interests it primarily serves and if it doesn't end, will continue to serve far off into the future. When it comes to racism, you need to define it down to what kind of racism you're talking about here! Cause most people who belong to groups targeted because of their race, ethnicity, religion etc., are less concerned with social acceptance by white majorities than whether they face economic discrimination or are at risk of attack by white rightwing mobs who proto-fascist leaders incite to divert attention from the real enemies who use them as a means to control or threaten societies to stay quiet and not fight for their rights. And there may be some instances where immigrants or other minorities - blacks, natives etc. can be turned against each other. But that's the exception, rather than the rule. Which you might notice if you look at any group demonstrating against immigrants or immigration...you never see the descendants of the first North Americans among them! Just the descendants of the interlopers who crossed the Atlantic and claimed everything for themselves.

Eliminate the "shining city on a hill" BS and you end up with an empire that was largely built with slave labor on stolen land! Historian- Gerald Horne, makes a good case that the primary reason for the 13 colonies' revolt against the British Crown was anger over laws stopping them from expanding their territories into Indian lands on the other side of the Mississippi River, and out of fears that laws abolishing slavery and the slave trade in the British Empire would lead to an end of slavery in America. And too many founding fathers, like Washington and Jefferson had enriched themselves from both! Now, after those beginnings and a long history of formal slavery that morphed into unofficial slavery - "Jim Crow" laws that still persist today, why would you think that a nation which promotes racism would not be racist?

Aside from this forum, I doubt you see that much racism as you go about your daily life anywhere in Canada.....maybe I better walk that back a bit, cause Alberta has always been a haven for rightwing clowns, and Quebec's fascist-leaning rightwing seems bigger than it's been since the days of the Union Nationale. But, if you're in the US, you're saturated with stupidity...and it's not just in the south! That's what happens to people living in empires that are about to collapse under the weight of their imperial overreach.

I'll ignore the rest of your racist horseshit and just say: NO, inequality is NOT a condition of democracy; it's a condition of capitalism! And capitalism is more conducive to authoritarian government than it is to democracy. How else do you explain America's aversion to democratic movements in Latin America and the Middle East? And instead following a decades-long pattern same as the Brits- looking for the local potentate who can control his people and understand it's in his best interests to support the foreign colonialists!

And how is your stock 'Canada's just as bad' arguments using facts? That certainly has been a factor in Canadian foreign policy in recent times, i.e. Canada jumping on the Guiado bandwagon in Venezuela because Canadian-based mining companies want to exploit the southern region along the Amazon Valley. But, if it goes back to Vietnam in fact, why was the Canadian Government following an antiwar track? Weapons makers and other business interests didn't have as much political influence back then? No argument here! The "you better watch out for my big friend here" Canadian foreign policy in the post-cold war era, makes me totally sick and feel like flying the flag upside down! Along a similar theme as above, your Democrats and faux Trump opposition in the Republican Party and all across MSM play the same game of decrying and lamenting Trump's statements and actions....while quietly signing on and making sure Congress approves and forwards the money in their budgets.

The horses are out of the barn on that one aren't they? I believe that this latest debt-fueled recession that has been hit by a pandemic, is going to sink the over-extended global supply chains that have allowed all of this outsourcing. It's not like China or Mexico..as this narrative was originally argued, put a gun to anyone's head and demanded that our manufacturers close down their plants here and outsource production to China! Part of the environmental movement has been a drive to re-localize our agriculture and production. Up till now, the immovable object in the way has been the Globalist agenda of corporations that have benefited the most from creating this regime. Now, many of the same players that outsourced everything, are being rewarded to move back to North America. The latest tantrum by Trump just tells us that he and other US policymakers are mad that China did not want to remain a vassal state like the US was able to do with Mexico, and started turning trade to their own advantage. Can't blame them for that; it's up to us to do the same thing in our own interests!

Do you have anything else in your bag of tricks besides blameshifting? See, I'm not a Canadian nationalist or a Canadian patriot(however that's defined...especially now, after losing Canadian-owned industry and most businesses, we're just a satellite of the United States. And the days when Canada could adopt an independent foreign policy line (like Pearson and Trudeau One on the Vietnam War) are long gone! Take a look at the Tories' much hated Justin Trudeau. He couldn't jump on board and recognize the puppet- Guiado as Venezuelan leader, something no Canadian government would have agreed to in days past...even Mulroney wouldn't have backed this crap! Now, when it comes to domestic-especially economic policy, our feds and provincial leaders are always chanting the balanced budgets mantra when it's about budget cutting. And just like England with its NHS, the first thing they do is defund Medicare. When it all began, the Feds agreed to pay half the costs for each province that set up a public health insurance plan. Last time I checked, Fed money was less than 25% of medical costs. Therefore, each province that decides to hold the line on spending/rather than raise more money through taxes, cuts money from OHIP (here in Ontario) or the Education budget. All that aside, Canada isn't in a position to go to war with China for any reason....even if there was a legitimate one! The US is the nation that practices gunboat diplomacy today. Canada just tags along in the wake of the Empire! Now where do you stand on the issue at hand: does the US Empire have a legitimate right to attempt a shakedown of China or any other nation in an attempt to extract wealth and keep the empire functioning?

That still does not justify what the OP and Trump are demanding: the looting of the Chinese economy to pay for the mistakes and deliberate misconduct of our leaders and business authorities, who are stealiing from the real economy to line their pockets...i.e. the Trump Bailout - 2.2 Trillion (with the promise of an extra 4 Trillion to guarantee banks and dodgy investments) is mostly going to Wall Street banks and major corporations like Boeing (which is already so far in debt it would be bankrupt without government support). America had 1.5 million hospital beds before 1980/ less than one million today, with a much larger population! How is it China's fault that American hospitals were already at full capacity even prior to a pandemic? And therefore unable to withstand any medical emergency...let alone a major pandemic! And in the great capitalist 'efficiency' innovation - "Just In Time Inventory Control". Bad enough if penny-pinching - no inventories strategies were just applied to retail and manufacturing, but this principles of capitalism shit has been applied in US hospitals also! So, any major epidemic would spread like wildfire as soon as staff realized they didn't have enough PPE to keep themselves safe or stop the spread of the virus to others. Then there's the great innovation "let's privatize our hospitals" cause like business and industry private enterprise makes everything run better and more efficient! So, nobody in Canada, even if they are dumb enough to be backing Conservatives today, should be buying in to Trump&Co.'s latest evil, ruthless and reckless attempt to shift blame from America's failures of the past 40 years that have just come to fruition!

Our dollar was higher when oil prices were higher, and now that we're down to dirty tarsands that are less viable and nobody surrounding the oilpatch wants pipelines running Dil-bit through their territory, I don't see it happening again! Other Canadian resources are running low also; that's why our gold and copper mining companies have gone international...giving our nation a bad name in poor countries where they set up operations that poison the land and water supplies of locals. Other than that, it's been ridiculously overinflated real estate values that have kept our economy running over the past 20 years.

Just like the US, what's called 'left wing' media here is the same corporate sponsored crap as rightwing media! Only difference is it has a liberal veneer on social issues and maybe isn't locked at the hip to the oil industry.....which sure looks like a stupid gamble at this point in time! Oh they will! Because it's been the US Federal Reserve banks and central banks in the EU, Japan and other club members that have been flooding financial markets with near-free money, which has kept interest rates ridiculously low. For example, if the big investment banks like Goldman-Sachs get zero or near zero interest loans from the Fed, how much do they have to charge to earn a profit? But that game is coming to an end, and buyers of US and Euro debt are going to be demanding higher interest rates to take on the risk....just like they've done in Japan alreay.

When I first was here many years ago, I never could take anyone seriously about anything who considers Bush and Cheney heroes to idolize and use as examples to follow on everything, including financial advice! Now George is dancing with Ellen and has become a welcomed part of the fold of woke democrats...at least Cheney doesn't bother to put on an act to hide his malevolence. As far as currencies go, I don't claim any expertise, aside having a basic understanding that since we all abandoned the gold standard back in the early 70's, ALL paper currencies are fiat, and are only worth whatever everyone agrees they are worth! Now, what exactly is the Canadian Dollar worth if we run afoul of US demands? Trudeau wouldn't even condemn the Trump Admin theft of PPE shipments that were en route to Canada or the order given to 3M to cancel sales of N-95 masks to Canada! Fact is Canada hasn't had economic independence since the full rules of NAFTA were applied after 2000. And since our economy depends on so many exports to the US, how far is our Dollar going to carry us if the US economy collapses because of its debtload and the added extended period of economic inactivity? Internationally, it's because the US economy has been the 800 lb gorilla since the collapse of the Soviet Union, that it has used the opportunity as the global superpower to tighten the screws on the entire global economy and make sure the costs of trying to circumvent US rules of "soft power" i.e. sanctions, aren't circumvented, except under extreme cases when US forces have to be sent in to bomb and occupy incalcitrant colonies overseas! The rest of the world (including putative allies) have tried to pretend they are independent. But as we have seen most recently with the Trump scheme of destroying Obama's Iran nuclear deal just out of spite and little else, the Euros' may whine and jump up and down, but end up forced to end their deals with Iran. Only nations that are rich in natural resources like Russia OR have significant economic power like China, have been able to endure US sanctions easily and carry on. Now, Covid panic and shutdowns have got US policy planners scared that this game is over and a receding US economy that was already facing a debt crisis when the pandemic started, never fully recovers the power it once had over so many nations that have been waiting for their chance to break free of the Dollar. When the end comes.....which I expect within the next five years, the US may find itself with no actual allies in the world aside from lackies like us....because we tied our economy firmly with the US instead of taking the more risky and possibly less rewarding route of real independence!

We're tied at the waist to your Dollar, and if the USD sinks under the waves as Trump and future presidents run up $Trillions more in debt, our Dollar sinks also! The ones you got to worry about is China mostly, but your allies - Eurozone are also interested in the "basket of currencies" model for the trade. Those are the ones your finance geniuses should worry about.

I can tell you how far I take the C.D. Howe's word on anything....even whether it's sunny or cloudy outside! House prices rising faster than the rate of inflation year over year, has nothing to do with the conservative bogeyman - Government Regulations....shudder! The money is coming free and easy; the banks assume no risk, cause they're going to get bailed out if they're loaded with bad mortgages in default. It's not like the 30's! Sure, you lower requirements for down payment and you get more people who can buy a house.....extra demand causing prices to rise, and soon the guy with no down payment can't pay his mortgage when interest rates go up and it's time to renew.....doesn't anyone remember the late 70's?

I already did! My position is that if you don't provide at least a minimum basic income for all, then it's no deal! I'm still for more/not less equality (of outcomes) if you insist! 2. Equal time with politicians doesn't mean much! The billionaire who sends his lobbyists to see the politician....bags of money in hand....that's who the politician is going to listen to!

Even in the early days of Microsoft, he shared development of Microsoft BASIC, first designed for Altair - the first desktop personal computer with Paul Allen. Creating MS-DOS and the later Windows operating systems were group collaborative projects also. You're dreaming if you think Gates was Thomas Edison...tinkering around in his garage inventing everything himself! And worth noting that several years later, Gates started badgering Allen about his 50% cut on the profits from BASIC and wanted a 60/40 split. Later he tried to buy out Allen at $5.00 a share, just before the company went public. Allen refused the deal, but later took a buyout when he wanted out of the company. This kind of ruthless business behavior towards Allen and other early partners has a shitload more to do with how Gates got rich than any big ideas he came up with or any big inventions! And then there's loading Windows with a free browser to drive Netscape out of business, and working towards establishing Windows as a monopoly, leading to the last real attempt at an antitrust lawsuit by the US Government....which mostly failed. But it didn't matter, because Microsoft didn't focus enough attention on the looming impact the internet would have on computing, and by the time they got in the game with MSN, there were other major contenders ahead of them. And yes, he's evil as far as I'm concerned. Just a little more self-conscious and needy to be popular than the typical billionaire sociopath! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft#cite_note-findingsoffact-65

I was surprised to see this story posted on the Guardian UK yesterday: Revealed: 6,000 passengers on cruise ships despite coronavirus crisis If the companies can be trusted for accurate information (dubious), they still let cruise liners set out after a March 15th deadline, when all of these ships were supposed to be heading back to port and discharging ALL passengers! One of the ships being tracked....off the coast of Uruguay - South America, has over 60% of its passengers testing positive for Covid-19! WTF are they doing and why were these ships allowed to set sail after March 15? So, people who go on cruise ships are obviously stupid and greedy (all it takes is offering a discounted price in front of them). When it comes to the crap...literally, from these luxury passenger ships, the typical passenger is probably similar to the railway sightseers of the 1880's, who took trains heading out to see "the wild west" and shoot some buffalo, like they read and heard about from the dime novels written about Buffalo Bill and other heroes of the west. So, some of the passengers brought or rented guns for special passenger cars that had open windows on one side to shoot and kill thousands of bison that were stampeded by the train and its horseback assistants to be mowed down by the thousands by the assholes on board the train...and left for dead out on the prairie....just so they could tell everyone later they went on a 'buffalo hunt!' A pox on all their houses....literally! I've talked about this elsewhere, but the rich fat parasites who feed off of working people are in line ahead of us grabbing the lion's share of the free money for themselves, and naturally the worst case is in the US, where almost nothing is left for the majority of people. I don't think it has to be this way! And, in the aftermath I hope people can create a system that doesn't feed the parasites anymore! Because events of the past month, shows these sociopath monopolists are not the JOB CREATORS....but instead are just useless parasites who are in line ahead of us at the government trough trying to grab all the goodies before everyone else!

Well, that is what every war has been since the second half of the 20th century....."just add it on to my final bill." The last big war that was paid for.....eventually....was WWII; but look how long that took! Canada was still paying off its war bonds and debts until the end of the 60's. And that couldn't have even happened if it wasn't for the exceptional economic growth after the War ended. The problem now is that the notion that bills never need to be paid has led most governments to borrow more and more from the future, while as the years go by, economic growth slows down and is unable to pay off past debts. The US strategy through Dem and Repub administrations since Reagan, has just been to keep adding it on to the bar tab. Now, after at least 6 trillion for Covid-19 (most of the that going to the billionaires), who's going to keep investing in America Inc. with more trillions created to pay for another new war? Certainly, being 'world reserve currency' adds a not-so subtle implication of blackmail to force the rest of the world to keep supporting the USD; but that can't last forever either!

Very true! The radical individualism of the modern era is a blip in history that only a privileged minority could indulge in during past times. Primitive societies depended on each other in the community for survival; and later farming and herding cultures also understood the need to consider the importance of family and extended family. I feel fortunate that I grew up during a time in Canada when you could earn a decent living working with your hands and having no college or university education. Anyone who learned a trade could make good money. But that started changing in the 80's when the plutocrats felt working people were getting it a little too good, and wanted to drop everyone down to the wage levels of exploited labor in third world countries. More and more working people who are just trying to survive are already understanding that libertarian notions are of no value, and they need strong families and communities for support today!

One factor in creating high rents and housing costs that could never have happened before 40 years ago, when you still had to pay 25% down on a house before you got the mortgage, and the best the banks would do was give you a 2nd mortgage for 15%- leaving you still having to pay 10% down. Now there is so much free money sloshing around, created by the world's central banks, that the chartered banks feel free to mortgage the entire value of a property to anyone with a job....who has to slave away for 30 years paying the damn thing off and may likely see other bills piling up waiting for them when they finally are mortgage-free. This is the shit that has driven up costs of living for everyone down the line. And those at the end of the line who were living in the cheapest, grungiest apartments and rooming houses, end up out on the street because the building is mortgaged and the owner wants to charge higher rents to pay off his mortgage!

I doubt it's on the menu, but if money is created now out of thin air, it is presumed that economic growth will reabsorb that new money in the future. So, this is essentially mortgaging the future. If the future can't pay of its debts, then what! It would be nice if we emerge from the crisis with a new attitude about focusing on things that are important, and cast off a lot of the garbage that's being subsidized right now.....starting with Agribusiness- producing poor quality food by dumping toxic amounts of chemical fertilizers on fields planted with GMO seeds...at least half of it to feed caged livestock kept in sickening depraved conditions to provide us cheap meat! Cruise ships come to mind as a totally useless subsidized industry...which are toxic on so many levels....dumping wastes and polluting coastal waters, third world registrations - let Liberia support them, and exploiting cheap third world labor. And then there's the airlines....the industry receives enough subsidies already! A lot of crap consumer products that are sold by aggressive mind-warping advertising and marketing campaigns. Hopefully the future world will be simpler, less polluting and less of a demand on resources, so more than one or two generations can survive! As for me, I'm surprised my place of work was classed as "essential" so I'm still going to work.....for now at least!

It takes two to drift! Remember, this all started 3 months ago when someone was apparently outraged that Donald Trump wasn't sufficiently warlike and not providing enough guns and missiles for the Ukraine Gov in Kiev to attack and kill rebels in the eastern part of their country. I thought that in itself makes it worth examining why these ongoing wars have so much bipartisan support in US government and media. That calls into question notions that present drivers of world events can somehow lead to a more peaceful world. I could have got into a lot of other criticisms of the "Happy Days Are Here Again" narrative for the future, like the failure to consider any US/NATO operations officially titled as 'fighting terrorism' to be in fact - state sponsored terrorism themselves. Libya and Syria for example. My main objection in 2. and 3. is that when it comes to the economic value of warmaking by imperial powers who face no significant threat of being attacked and overrun by enemies; it goes through fluctuations over time, as former 3 star general - Smedley Butler, wrote in 1934 "War Is A Racket," he viewed his stellar military career that began in his youth as being a foot soldier for corporate power- mining companies, banana plantation growers etc. who had an interest in using the US Government to overthrow regimes that did not fill their wish list, and sent guys like Smedley off to fight and die on their behalf and lead younger men to do likewise. So, after becoming America's most decorated soldier, Smedley Butler became one of the few to have enough insight to examine his career in the Marines and the motives of those above him to ordered him in to battle from the Spanish-American War through to the Banana Wars in Central America before he retired and wrote a book about his own thoughts on who sent him to war and why! And Aristotle was just another shit who grew up and lived in a slave-holding empire where men of his class did not/nor have to do any real work! So he could while away the hours and the days pondering the wonders of the universe, pontificating on the state of the world and why there was evil. BUT, the reason why no modern day scientist or philosopher can take Aristotle as a voice of authority is because one of his core beliefs was that great minds (such as his) could learn everything that was essential about the world, about human nature and how societies should be governed by just unleashing their great minds to think and discover the answers to all of the problems of the universe....no experimentation required! So, no surprise, Aristotle like every "great man" of history who was born into a life of class privilege considers working class and slave class to be lesser humans who are animalistic by nature, and must be tamed by the rules and laws that govern 'civilization.' This standard upper class framing of the 'lower classes' is found throughout Judeo-Christian culture and right through the Enlightenment of the western European imperial powers that provide Pinker's secular humanist framing of a view of humanity that we are depraved unless modernity shapes our behaviour. The flipside of the depraved man perfected by civilization began with Jean Jacques Rousseau who read accounts of the early explorers in the tropics regions of Africa, the Americas and Indonesia, and presented a near universal message of surprisingly peaceful and happy natives (on first contact at least) who appeared to be living in a garden of eden paradise already, confounding the priests who went along to save souls of the heathens! From this radical perspective, neither profit-driven capitalism nor new inventions will perfect us. Instead we have to recapture the values and ways of life of our ancestors...who led simple lives, not accumulating anything more than what they needed or had use for. Since many are discovering that this hiatus in the rat race provided by the Covid Pandemic has made a lot of people re-examine what is and is not important in their lives, many have a chance to simplify their lives in ways they likely would not have wanted to try before.

That could better describe US policy and that of many other western governments....like Sweden, who was celebrated at first by making a test run of the "herd immunity" "let the old bastards die off" strategy. Now that disease rates are climbing faster in Sweden, they're starting to push the panic button and talking about increasing restrictions on 'safety zones' and closing public places. Trump and a bipartisan pack of American liberals and conservatives are all agreed on using the growing pandemic at home as a launching point for a propaganda war against China that may soon turn into a real war....depending on the support within military leadership, health of sailors and soldiers and ability to pay for a big war...the clock may be ticking on that one, and that's why Trump wants to open everything up in May. He needs money to support his military goals.

Liberal billionaires like Buffet, Soros and Gates, care about image and PR above all else! They want to be highly esteemed and admired by the plebes. Buffett makes the occasional comment feigning concern for working class: musing about how his tax rate is less than his secretary's...doesn't do anything about it, so who gives a shit! Soros made most of his fortune through arbitrage...destroying currency values, starting with the British Pound. Gets treated as liberal hero for sponsoring liberals who don't challenge capitalism or western imperialism. Stupidest thing rightwingers always have to say about Soros, is calling him a communist or a leftist. Do some reading and do some research! Gates is pushing himself as a vaccine creator, and even if he does put his own money rather than the usual tax dodge and demands for matching government funding, it doesn't mask the fact that he's built up a multibillion dollar empire through stealing other people's ideas and setting up monopolies.

I'm almost 63, and have been planning to retire at the end of this year....see how things go now of course! But don't go making assumptions about people you don't know....I've been working long enough now!