ALB
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Another conspiracy theory circulating is that the Democratic Party, representing the old gang establishment, let it happen so that they could discredit Trump and get rid of him for good.
In any event, that woman Pelosi’s publicising the fact that she had contacted the chiefs of staff to ask them to stop Trump pressing the nuclear trigger was pure theatre. Trump is not that mad (his main concern is himself). Also, as an Isolationist (another reason why the establishment hated him) he was in principle against involvement in further military adventures. It is much more likely that Biden would press that button or start a war as his Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, is said to be in favour of military intervention on so-called “humanitarian” grounds (as the bombing of Serbia under Milosevic in 1999).
Compare those results with the 2.4% obtained by the leftwing third party candidate, former Vice President (under FD Roosevelt) Henry Wallace, for the Progressive Party in the 1948 US presidential election.
No wonder “progressives” prefer to bore from within the Democratic Party.
“At last, people are told to wear masks at all times outdoors. About time!”
Where? Sounds like fake news.
Vegans could take the next steo and become nutarians — as long as they only eat nuts that have fallen to the ground.
Talking about words, it seems that many of those who say they support UBI haven’t understood what the U stands for : Universal or, sometimes, Unconditional.
All proposed pilot schemes and the actual ones that have been done have not been universal but have targetted a particular group such as those who are unemployed or who are on other welfare benefits. Which of course means that they are neither universal nor unconditional.
No scheme has yet experimented to see what would happen if everybody living in a particular area, even (in fact especially) those with jobs, were to receive a regular unconditional payment from the state for, say, a year. After all, this is what UBIers propose should be done nationally and permanently.
What this means is that most of its advocates are just proposing a change in the poor law system.
There is also the term “no property” which would be a state of affairs where no individual or group of individuals can exercise ownership rights over any of the productive resources, natural or human-made, at the disposal of society.These would simply be there to be used under various forms of democratic control.
This is about a possible stock market crash rather than an economic recession. Stocks and shares might well be over-priced but any bubble is not likely to burst until central banks stop the “Quantitative Easing” which has fuelled this.
There is no sign of this happening. In fact it is being stepped up in the pandemic and could be a reason why it is unlikely to be reversed (as in the theory behind it, it is eventually supposed to be). If/when it were to be, that would provoke a downturn in bond prices as the central bank sold off those it has been buying and also in share prices as this would be taking money out of financial markets.
Actually, Robbo, there was a talk on Discord a month or so which brought out that point. It can be listened to here:
It seems I may have been too pessimistic as a headline in today’s Times reads ”US unlikely to overturn Assange extradition ruling.” Obviously lawyers can make a better judgment than me but I still find it hard to believe that a British court will want to rule that, as a fact, US prisons are worse than UK ones (as by all accounts some of them seem to be).
Obviously BLM is not a threat to elections — it’s a simple expression of the view that all humans should be treated equally. Antifa, on the other hand, is another matter. They are openly contemptuous of the electoral process abd would love to have been able to mount a stunt like this. The only trouble from their point of view is that they have far less support and no police sympathy than the Trumpists.
Heads are no doubt going to roll over this, even perhaps of the deranged monomaniac himself. But millions throughout the world will be experiencing a feeling of schadenfreude at seeing the self image of the US state as a beacon and bastion of democratic practice tarnished. A bit of a taste of their own medicine after encouraging those favourable to their interests to do the same in the Ukraine and applauding the storming of the Hong Kong legislature. Reduced to the same level of any tinpot African state where the losers traditionally cry “fraud” and “stolen election”.
It does not surprise me that they haven’t given him bail on the grounds that he might abscond. That’s what he ought to do ! The final decision rests with that Patel women who is Home Secretary and we know she would hand him over now if she could. Remember Theresa May sacked her as a minister for visiting the Golan Heights, occupied by the rogue state that is America’s main ally in the region. Sorry to sound like Private Fraser but poor Assange is doomed.
Well they let him off for the time being but it could well be overturned as the judge’s reasoning does not seem all that tight from a legal point of view (she ruled that he should normally have been extradited except for his health…). Not sure that would be upheld by a higher court. So, if he gets bail on Wednesday, he’d be well advised to start planning how to get to Russia.
In the meantime I’ve been listening to some of his podcasts. I think we would agree with every word in #3 (on human nature) while there is a good criticism of capitalism and some interesting ideas on a “post-scarcity economy” in #11. Follow the link in the last previous post here.
