Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting!
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On March 01 2025 16:15 oBlade wrote: The key dispute seems to be: -Zelensky says he wants to ensure security -The administration says Zelensky doesn't have a sincere interest in negotiated peace, which is a problem since the administration isn't interested in a forever war
Zelensky may see himself as being in an analogous position as the UK/USSR during the lend-lease period staving off Nazi Germany (in this case modern Russia) but the current administration doesn't seem to share that view, doesn't want escalation, and even Lindsey Graham has turned on Zelensky.
According to Rubio, going to the White House to make the mineral deal official was the Ukrainians' idea. Flipping the script was Zelensky challenging the concept of cease-fires because they can be broken, and demanding security guarantees up front while not committing to ending the war. Trump's opinion appears to be getting a cease-fire ASAP and then negotiating a full peace is preferable to waiting for an ideal peace - by Zelensky's unrealistic standards - that is never going to happen. Rubio correctly identified that the previous administration was using Ukraine as a meat grinder, and unfortunately for the Ukrainians, Russia has more meat.
Basically it looks like once the US are on board, Trump thinks Zelensky will be emboldened to continue indefinitely without peace. And it's not clear publicly what Zelensky's long-term endgame is, and there's no evidence that it's privately clear either. He seems to think he can get Russia to pay for all or part of the war, or that he can get some or all of the territory back. These goals are not necessarily consistent with reality. So if he's holding out for that forever, if he was to use the mineral deal just to drag the US deeper into the quagmire - he messed up because now he's flying back home with nothing, having overplayed his hand.
He should be feeling the pressure both domestically and internationally. Putin was trolling the other day saying he would welcome foreign cooperation in the "new territories" re:rare earth minerals, even from US partners. He is not in an enviable position, through no fault of his own Russia is a stronger country. But Trump used the word "embolden" multiple times meaning they're not trusting Zelensky's interest in peace while Zelensky got himself art of the dealed right out of the Oval Office, that's on him.
Here was Zelensky's scheduled interview after the WH summit:
EU and Biden using Ukraine as a proxy war and as a meatgrinder against Russia is so correct.
This has been a huge talking point in Asia for a while already. The fact that EU is just letting this happen, while saying "peace through strength" is just brutally inhumane. Even North Korea sent men to help Russia.
it takes something drastic to nudge the EU. Hopefully with European nation's troops deployed at Ukraine even as non combat role, the reality of things will hit.
Russia is completely free to stop throwing men into the meat grinder at any point. They are invading Ukraine and if they pack up and go home tomorrow, the war stops. Ukraine is NOT free to stop the war. If they surrender tomorrow (can't "go" home because they are fighting in their home), Russia rampages all over Ukraine committing atrocities as they go (see any town they occupied, such as Bucha).
North Korea isn't "sympathising" with Russia and sending troops to stop the poor Russians being thrown into the meat grinder. That was purely transactional, although it's doubtful we'll ever 100% know what NK got in exchange, it'll almost certainly include ICBM technology. Such altruism.
But who am I kidding, you're balls deep in the RT koolaid.
Precisely, even North Korea got a deal to send troops. That's how uncommitted EU is, they can't even send arms reliably on time. Or it's unreliable because it's not a deal?
And no, I don't read RT. EU hypocrisy in many policies and fall off in global politics like disastrous africa policy are well covered in Asia. Crying about tariff when EU is established precisely for protectionism.
I don't see how extending the war means less atrocities than a ceasefire.
Yeah and I wish China would stop funding Russia. How do you think Russia would just stop attacking? Again, once Europe sent their troops and recapture lands, then it is committed.
Would you be able to share where you get your news from? Social media maybe? Your take is very similar to RT, just because you are not reading it directly does not mean it does not influence the places you are taking your news from.
On March 01 2025 05:41 Hat Trick of Today wrote:
On March 01 2025 05:33 Simberto wrote:
On March 01 2025 05:11 Uldridge wrote: Zelensky's blood must be boiling there holy shit. His facial expressions said it all when Trump & Vance were talking.
Who can look at this shit and think "Yeah, this is what i want out of a leader for my country". Zelensky is 50 times the president that Trump could ever hope to be.
Because they’re not actually looking for actual leadership. Look at Asmongold, who is currently the biggest political influencer on social media. He approaches politics like it’s Keeping Up With The Kardashians. It’s solely about the drama and nothing else.
Look at the type of people who would reference Asmongold in a forum debate and read how they casually and jovially they talk about Trump’s desire to annex Canada. None of this is serious to them because it isn’t.
You know how 90% of NBA fans don’t even watch the games and just talk about streamable lowlights, trade rumours, wild comments from players, and off-field drama? Change ‘NBA’ with ‘politic’ and that’s your typical viewer base of your typical new age right wing influencer. Its like a huge chunk of the world is gripped by some sort of sociopathic nihilism.
On February 28 2025 17:45 oBlade wrote: Yep right on the money, every time a Democratic Congress votes for a budget, and that budget spends more than tax revenues bring in - that was George W. Bush's fault. I learned about it on the Daily Show.
My dude. Do you really not recognize that decisions now can influence costs in the future?
Lets say Obama sets the White House on fire, and just lives in a burned out husk for the remainder of his term. Then Trump has to spend money to rebuild and renovate the burned down White House. Is that Trumps spending or Obamas spending?
I am leaning more an more towards the Colin Robinson theory.
Is your position that Congress has had no choice but to spend more federal money than revenues for 25 years in a row because of 1-2 wars that Congress never voted to stop or defund? Because my question is simply again - even if that hypothesis goes 100% your way - what about the other $25 trillion?
I do not live in the world where every Republican is a MIC-captured crooked Cheney clone and every Democrat is... an angel. Because it's not true.
Decisions do affect the future. For example, if you cut taxes, then encourage growth, then you hopefully end up with a wider base of tax revenue.
I wrote a lengthy response to this. Then i deleted it. Because i thought: "Nevermind. I should take my own advice and stop replying to you. You are simply not worth talking to."
Debatelord conservatives are fucking exhausting. If anyone else wants to talk about anything else but this constant idiotic fight with oBlade, i am open for it.
LibHorizons: I have a standing invitation to discuss how libs/Dems/Ilk like myself and others can work together towards opposing the Trump administration's agenda. Developing a deliberate and executable plan to gain power and use it. As well as something people can organize around accomplishing over the coming months and years.
It's notable that no one is doing it. Especially those that insist they want a better Democratic party but are doing nothing to bring that about besides "hoping", "wishing", and maybe voting in a primary ~year from now .
Instead everyone prefers to incessantly do the "Republicans are so stupid and bad, look at how stupid and bad they are" thing while interspersing pointless bad faith arguments with the oBlades of the world.
There’s just as much disagreement and engagement between everyone else, it’s not like people lurk and don’t contribute unless there’s some conservative for everyone to dunk on. I don’t think that’s an especially fair categorisation.
I also think more broadly, most posters here tick the following two boxes: 1. We can collectively do better, the Democratic Party sure as fuck can. 2. That aside, we should keep Trump out of office, or politics of this kind in Europe etc. If we can’t even collectively do that, pushing the status quo towards the left is a bloody tall order.
I’m not an expert political strategist, but I don’t think a ‘hey the election is done now, let’s not mention all the stuff we did to let Trump in, what are you going to do now?’ is particularly effective.
LibHorizons: There really isn't much engagement or disagreement that isn't in some capacity about how bad and stupid Republicans/their supporters are. My point wasn't that though. It was that people claiming to want Democrats to do/be better and/or to oppose Trump aren't actually doing the bare minimum work required in a democracy for that to happen. Therefore, they can't be taken as being sincere in that expression.
2. Trump taking office required decades of bipartisan collaboration in empowering people like Trump. How to avoid it in Europe and what we can all do about it now is what I think we should be discussing. That it'll be hard is a given.
We can and should mention all the stuff done to let Trump in, but that's decades of bipartisan empowerment of people like Trump through third way neoliberalism (and literally helping to make him the nominee). If we do that, we can actually advance our understanding of the issues at hand and develop our plans to address them effectively.
On February 28 2025 17:45 oBlade wrote: Yep right on the money, every time a Democratic Congress votes for a budget, and that budget spends more than tax revenues bring in - that was George W. Bush's fault. I learned about it on the Daily Show.
My dude. Do you really not recognize that decisions now can influence costs in the future?
Lets say Obama sets the White House on fire, and just lives in a burned out husk for the remainder of his term. Then Trump has to spend money to rebuild and renovate the burned down White House. Is that Trumps spending or Obamas spending?
I am leaning more an more towards the Colin Robinson theory.
Is your position that Congress has had no choice but to spend more federal money than revenues for 25 years in a row because of 1-2 wars that Congress never voted to stop or defund? Because my question is simply again - even if that hypothesis goes 100% your way - what about the other $25 trillion?
I do not live in the world where every Republican is a MIC-captured crooked Cheney clone and every Democrat is... an angel. Because it's not true.
Decisions do affect the future. For example, if you cut taxes, then encourage growth, then you hopefully end up with a wider base of tax revenue.
I wrote a lengthy response to this. Then i deleted it. Because i thought: "Nevermind. I should take my own advice and stop replying to you. You are simply not worth talking to."
Debatelord conservatives are fucking exhausting. If anyone else wants to talk about anything else but this constant idiotic fight with oBlade, i am open for it.
LibHorizons: I have a standing invitation to discuss how libs/Dems/Ilk like myself and others can work together towards opposing the Trump administration's agenda. Developing a deliberate and executable plan to gain power and use it. As well as something people can organize around accomplishing over the coming months and years.
It's notable that no one is doing it. Especially those that insist they want a better Democratic party but are doing nothing to bring that about besides "hoping", "wishing", and maybe voting in a primary ~year from now .
Instead everyone prefers to incessantly do the "Republicans are so stupid and bad, look at how stupid and bad they are" thing while interspersing pointless bad faith arguments with the oBlades of the world.
There’s just as much disagreement and engagement between everyone else, it’s not like people lurk and don’t contribute unless there’s some conservative for everyone to dunk on. I don’t think that’s an especially fair categorisation.
I also think more broadly, most posters here tick the following two boxes: 1. We can collectively do better, the Democratic Party sure as fuck can. 2. That aside, we should keep Trump out of office, or politics of this kind in Europe etc. If we can’t even collectively do that, pushing the status quo towards the left is a bloody tall order.
I’m not an expert political strategist, but I don’t think a ‘hey the election is done now, let’s not mention all the stuff we did to let Trump in, what are you going to do now?’ is particularly effective.
Agreed on both boxes. I must also say that i apparently missed whenever GH started doing the LibHorizons thing, so i don't really get what that is about and mostly ignored it. Is it GH roleplaying as a Democrat?
I'd argue LibHorizons since inception is demonstrably a better Democrat than anyone here despite being on the periphery of the party and an informal demonstration of my capacity to behave like Democrats should.
Wait, you think you are the best? Who could have possibly seen this turn of events.
It’s well-established that the EU and states within that benefit from subsidies via the Common Agricultural Policy do end up with big surpluses, and some of that is dumped into places like Africa in a manner which does suppress local producers and markets.
ETisME is entirely correct in pointing that out, while I think their overall framing is wrong, in areas while internally extremely free market, in others the EU is protectionist, albeit in a multi-state continent wide sense rather than state by state.
Of course rather than actually engage with aspects of that, or investigate yourself, or interrogate further, you’re just assuming they’re getting bad information and don’t know what they’re talking about it with your usual smug disdain
Plus a little dig at GH to tick off the bingo card, quel fucking surprise!
But that's not what he claimed. He claimed "when EU is established precisely for protectionism".
That statement is like saying that monarchy was established to promote equality. It just doesn't work. It's not true. It's as far from true as you can get. It's 100% false.
The explicit purpose behind the EU project, traced back through the ECSC, was the creation of a free market, the removal of international trade barriers, and the integration of national economies with each other through free trade between them. The text of the Schuman declaration is available for anyone to review. He explained exactly how it was to work.
Well aye, which is why I said ‘while I think their overall framing is wrong’
It is free trade, internally, with the consequence you also have a bloc of such a size that it starts to have, and wield influence elsewhere.
Be that CAP surpluses messing with markets elsewhere, or European standards in labour, green initiatives, or other regulatory standards like GDPR impact on what other actors can do in their interactions.
I’d also add that I don’t think this is a bad thing. But it’s more a 1-2 punch. 1. Standardisation and free trade within Europe for people who wanna get with that program. 2. A degree of a more solidified European bloc wielding their collective power to push whatever European standards are into the international sphere.
I think ETisME is wrong, but they’re wrong in interpretation. Their basic observation that there’s a degree of protectionism innate in the European project isn’t. Where they are wrong is in considering it a bad thing, IMO.
Europe isn’t going to magically prosper if we join a race for the bottom, ruthless competition and strip out those pesky regulations. Quite the opposite for my money.
On March 02 2025 01:37 Sent. wrote: How about we focus ourselves instead of trying to use economic weapons against them? I don't want our resources wasted on making Americans do anything. If they want to leave the Western world it's their choice. They can be another Saudi Arabia if they want. I want to buy their weapons or energy as long it's more optimal in the short term, until we develop our own weapon industry and deal with nuclear energy haters.
The problem is that this kind of thinking leads to addiction. If we keep buying american weapons, it will be more cheaper to keep buying american weapons instead of developing and building our own from scratch, so we will keep doing that. This gives America one massive bullet to use and threaten us with, directly or indirectly. If they just keep selling from one day to another, it will take a long time until we get our own shit running.
It is the same thing that happened with Russian gas. It was always cheap and advantageous to buy it, so no one did anything else. And then suddenly Russia could threaten us with it. We ignored that threat, but that was incredibly expensive.
It would be better to make sure that we don't get in a position where the US can do the same to us.
On March 02 2025 01:37 Sent. wrote: How about we focus ourselves instead of trying to use economic weapons against them? I don't want our resources wasted on making Americans do anything. If they want to leave the Western world it's their choice. They can be another Saudi Arabia if they want. I want to buy their weapons or energy as long it's more optimal in the short term, until we develop our own weapon industry and deal with nuclear energy haters.
The problem is that this kind of thinking leads to addiction. If we keep buying american weapons, it will be more cheaper to keep buying american weapons instead of developing and building our own from scratch, so we will keep doing that. This gives America one massive bullet to use and threaten us with, directly or indirectly. If they just keep selling from one day to another, it will take a long time until we get our own shit running.
It is the same thing that happened with Russian gas. It was always cheap and advantageous to buy it, so no one did anything else. And then suddenly Russia could threaten us with it. We ignored that threat, but that was incredibly expensive.
It would be better to make sure that we don't get in a position where the US can do the same to us.
Sure but there are massive disadvantages to quiting to.
The optimal way to handle this is to keep buying US products and weapons.
Meanwhile seriously expand a European nuclear weapons program. Once that is in place you can start buying only "domestic" weapon systems because a) we don't really need the US for our survival and b) some efficiency loss and lower quantity in the beginning doesn't matter when you have a nuclear shield.
On March 01 2025 16:15 oBlade wrote: The key dispute seems to be: -Zelensky says he wants to ensure security -The administration says Zelensky doesn't have a sincere interest in negotiated peace, which is a problem since the administration isn't interested in a forever war
Zelensky may see himself as being in an analogous position as the UK/USSR during the lend-lease period staving off Nazi Germany (in this case modern Russia) but the current administration doesn't seem to share that view, doesn't want escalation, and even Lindsey Graham has turned on Zelensky.
According to Rubio, going to the White House to make the mineral deal official was the Ukrainians' idea. Flipping the script was Zelensky challenging the concept of cease-fires because they can be broken, and demanding security guarantees up front while not committing to ending the war. Trump's opinion appears to be getting a cease-fire ASAP and then negotiating a full peace is preferable to waiting for an ideal peace - by Zelensky's unrealistic standards - that is never going to happen. Rubio correctly identified that the previous administration was using Ukraine as a meat grinder, and unfortunately for the Ukrainians, Russia has more meat.
Basically it looks like once the US are on board, Trump thinks Zelensky will be emboldened to continue indefinitely without peace. And it's not clear publicly what Zelensky's long-term endgame is, and there's no evidence that it's privately clear either. He seems to think he can get Russia to pay for all or part of the war, or that he can get some or all of the territory back. These goals are not necessarily consistent with reality. So if he's holding out for that forever, if he was to use the mineral deal just to drag the US deeper into the quagmire - he messed up because now he's flying back home with nothing, having overplayed his hand.
He should be feeling the pressure both domestically and internationally. Putin was trolling the other day saying he would welcome foreign cooperation in the "new territories" re:rare earth minerals, even from US partners. He is not in an enviable position, through no fault of his own Russia is a stronger country. But Trump used the word "embolden" multiple times meaning they're not trusting Zelensky's interest in peace while Zelensky got himself art of the dealed right out of the Oval Office, that's on him.
EU and Biden using Ukraine as a proxy war and as a meatgrinder against Russia is so correct.
This has been a huge talking point in Asia for a while already. The fact that EU is just letting this happen, while saying "peace through strength" is just brutally inhumane. Even North Korea sent men to help Russia.
it takes something drastic to nudge the EU. Hopefully with European nation's troops deployed at Ukraine even as non combat role, the reality of things will hit.
Russia is completely free to stop throwing men into the meat grinder at any point. They are invading Ukraine and if they pack up and go home tomorrow, the war stops. Ukraine is NOT free to stop the war. If they surrender tomorrow (can't "go" home because they are fighting in their home), Russia rampages all over Ukraine committing atrocities as they go (see any town they occupied, such as Bucha).
North Korea isn't "sympathising" with Russia and sending troops to stop the poor Russians being thrown into the meat grinder. That was purely transactional, although it's doubtful we'll ever 100% know what NK got in exchange, it'll almost certainly include ICBM technology. Such altruism.
But who am I kidding, you're balls deep in the RT koolaid.
Precisely, even North Korea got a deal to send troops. That's how uncommitted EU is, they can't even send arms reliably on time. Or it's unreliable because it's not a deal?
And no, I don't read RT. EU hypocrisy in many policies and fall off in global politics like disastrous africa policy are well covered in Asia. Crying about tariff when EU is established precisely for protectionism.
I don't see how extending the war means less atrocities than a ceasefire.
Yeah and I wish China would stop funding Russia. How do you think Russia would just stop attacking? Again, once Europe sent their troops and recapture lands, then it is committed.
Would you be able to share where you get your news from? Social media maybe? Your take is very similar to RT, just because you are not reading it directly does not mean it does not influence the places you are taking your news from.
On March 01 2025 05:41 Hat Trick of Today wrote:
On March 01 2025 05:33 Simberto wrote:
On March 01 2025 05:11 Uldridge wrote: Zelensky's blood must be boiling there holy shit. His facial expressions said it all when Trump & Vance were talking.
Who can look at this shit and think "Yeah, this is what i want out of a leader for my country". Zelensky is 50 times the president that Trump could ever hope to be.
Because they’re not actually looking for actual leadership. Look at Asmongold, who is currently the biggest political influencer on social media. He approaches politics like it’s Keeping Up With The Kardashians. It’s solely about the drama and nothing else.
Look at the type of people who would reference Asmongold in a forum debate and read how they casually and jovially they talk about Trump’s desire to annex Canada. None of this is serious to them because it isn’t.
You know how 90% of NBA fans don’t even watch the games and just talk about streamable lowlights, trade rumours, wild comments from players, and off-field drama? Change ‘NBA’ with ‘politic’ and that’s your typical viewer base of your typical new age right wing influencer. Its like a huge chunk of the world is gripped by some sort of sociopathic nihilism.
On February 28 2025 17:45 oBlade wrote: Yep right on the money, every time a Democratic Congress votes for a budget, and that budget spends more than tax revenues bring in - that was George W. Bush's fault. I learned about it on the Daily Show.
My dude. Do you really not recognize that decisions now can influence costs in the future?
Lets say Obama sets the White House on fire, and just lives in a burned out husk for the remainder of his term. Then Trump has to spend money to rebuild and renovate the burned down White House. Is that Trumps spending or Obamas spending?
I am leaning more an more towards the Colin Robinson theory.
Is your position that Congress has had no choice but to spend more federal money than revenues for 25 years in a row because of 1-2 wars that Congress never voted to stop or defund? Because my question is simply again - even if that hypothesis goes 100% your way - what about the other $25 trillion?
I do not live in the world where every Republican is a MIC-captured crooked Cheney clone and every Democrat is... an angel. Because it's not true.
Decisions do affect the future. For example, if you cut taxes, then encourage growth, then you hopefully end up with a wider base of tax revenue.
I wrote a lengthy response to this. Then i deleted it. Because i thought: "Nevermind. I should take my own advice and stop replying to you. You are simply not worth talking to."
Debatelord conservatives are fucking exhausting. If anyone else wants to talk about anything else but this constant idiotic fight with oBlade, i am open for it.
LibHorizons: I have a standing invitation to discuss how libs/Dems/Ilk like myself and others can work together towards opposing the Trump administration's agenda. Developing a deliberate and executable plan to gain power and use it. As well as something people can organize around accomplishing over the coming months and years.
It's notable that no one is doing it. Especially those that insist they want a better Democratic party but are doing nothing to bring that about besides "hoping", "wishing", and maybe voting in a primary ~year from now .
Instead everyone prefers to incessantly do the "Republicans are so stupid and bad, look at how stupid and bad they are" thing while interspersing pointless bad faith arguments with the oBlades of the world.
There’s just as much disagreement and engagement between everyone else, it’s not like people lurk and don’t contribute unless there’s some conservative for everyone to dunk on. I don’t think that’s an especially fair categorisation.
I also think more broadly, most posters here tick the following two boxes: 1. We can collectively do better, the Democratic Party sure as fuck can. 2. That aside, we should keep Trump out of office, or politics of this kind in Europe etc. If we can’t even collectively do that, pushing the status quo towards the left is a bloody tall order.
I’m not an expert political strategist, but I don’t think a ‘hey the election is done now, let’s not mention all the stuff we did to let Trump in, what are you going to do now?’ is particularly effective.
LibHorizons: There really isn't much engagement or disagreement that isn't in some capacity about how bad and stupid Republicans/their supporters are. My point wasn't that though. It was that people claiming to want Democrats to do/be better and/or to oppose Trump aren't actually doing the bare minimum work required in a democracy for that to happen. Therefore, they can't be taken as being sincere in that expression.
2. Trump taking office required decades of bipartisan collaboration in empowering people like Trump. How to avoid it in Europe and what we can all do about it now is what I think we should be discussing. That it'll be hard is a given.
We can and should mention all the stuff done to let Trump in, but that's decades of bipartisan empowerment of people like Trump through third way neoliberalism (and literally helping to make him the nominee). If we do that, we can actually advance our understanding of the issues at hand and develop our plans to address them effectively.
On February 28 2025 17:45 oBlade wrote: Yep right on the money, every time a Democratic Congress votes for a budget, and that budget spends more than tax revenues bring in - that was George W. Bush's fault. I learned about it on the Daily Show.
My dude. Do you really not recognize that decisions now can influence costs in the future?
Lets say Obama sets the White House on fire, and just lives in a burned out husk for the remainder of his term. Then Trump has to spend money to rebuild and renovate the burned down White House. Is that Trumps spending or Obamas spending?
I am leaning more an more towards the Colin Robinson theory.
Is your position that Congress has had no choice but to spend more federal money than revenues for 25 years in a row because of 1-2 wars that Congress never voted to stop or defund? Because my question is simply again - even if that hypothesis goes 100% your way - what about the other $25 trillion?
I do not live in the world where every Republican is a MIC-captured crooked Cheney clone and every Democrat is... an angel. Because it's not true.
Decisions do affect the future. For example, if you cut taxes, then encourage growth, then you hopefully end up with a wider base of tax revenue.
I wrote a lengthy response to this. Then i deleted it. Because i thought: "Nevermind. I should take my own advice and stop replying to you. You are simply not worth talking to."
Debatelord conservatives are fucking exhausting. If anyone else wants to talk about anything else but this constant idiotic fight with oBlade, i am open for it.
LibHorizons: I have a standing invitation to discuss how libs/Dems/Ilk like myself and others can work together towards opposing the Trump administration's agenda. Developing a deliberate and executable plan to gain power and use it. As well as something people can organize around accomplishing over the coming months and years.
It's notable that no one is doing it. Especially those that insist they want a better Democratic party but are doing nothing to bring that about besides "hoping", "wishing", and maybe voting in a primary ~year from now .
Instead everyone prefers to incessantly do the "Republicans are so stupid and bad, look at how stupid and bad they are" thing while interspersing pointless bad faith arguments with the oBlades of the world.
There’s just as much disagreement and engagement between everyone else, it’s not like people lurk and don’t contribute unless there’s some conservative for everyone to dunk on. I don’t think that’s an especially fair categorisation.
I also think more broadly, most posters here tick the following two boxes: 1. We can collectively do better, the Democratic Party sure as fuck can. 2. That aside, we should keep Trump out of office, or politics of this kind in Europe etc. If we can’t even collectively do that, pushing the status quo towards the left is a bloody tall order.
I’m not an expert political strategist, but I don’t think a ‘hey the election is done now, let’s not mention all the stuff we did to let Trump in, what are you going to do now?’ is particularly effective.
Agreed on both boxes. I must also say that i apparently missed whenever GH started doing the LibHorizons thing, so i don't really get what that is about and mostly ignored it. Is it GH roleplaying as a Democrat?
I'd argue LibHorizons since inception is demonstrably a better Democrat than anyone here despite being on the periphery of the party and an informal demonstration of my capacity to behave like Democrats should.
Wait, you think you are the best? Who could have possibly seen this turn of events.
It’s well-established that the EU and states within that benefit from subsidies via the Common Agricultural Policy do end up with big surpluses, and some of that is dumped into places like Africa in a manner which does suppress local producers and markets.
ETisME is entirely correct in pointing that out, while I think their overall framing is wrong, in areas while internally extremely free market, in others the EU is protectionist, albeit in a multi-state continent wide sense rather than state by state.
Of course rather than actually engage with aspects of that, or investigate yourself, or interrogate further, you’re just assuming they’re getting bad information and don’t know what they’re talking about it with your usual smug disdain
Plus a little dig at GH to tick off the bingo card, quel fucking surprise!
So many big words, I like everyone else am very impressed. How could I respond to something so well articulated. Well played!
If you find a post like this too difficult already you should probably educate yourself and in any case stop shitposting in response to it. As someone whose first language is not English I found it quite clear.
On March 01 2025 16:53 Jockmcplop wrote: Free market monopolies don't exist, because there is no such thing as the free market.
It's not a binary thing, markets have state interference in very diferent degrees, less intervention less monopolies.
Can you expand on this? I have always thought its barriers to entry that create situation of monopolies. Like it does not matter how big Subway gets, I can make a sandwich shop and compete. That is not the same for competing with Amazon on cloud computing.
When I think past times, the robber barons like rockefellers, carnegie, and vanderbilts it is not state interference that created the monopolies and all the awful that went with them but rather intervention that stopped them.
That’s kinda objectively not true in the tech sphere though? That free market = efficiency thought works in very small low capital environments like your marble factory but it completely breaks down the bigger scale you can get.
There are so many defacto monopolies because of insufficient regulation preventing these corporations from vertically and horizontally integrating the entire industry. It’s naturally efficient for a Microsoft or nVidia to effectively create a monopoly because it makes them the only vendor in town and therefore juice their profit either through volume or raw price.
You can’t dislodge these monopolies through the “free market” in a timely manner because very few companies truly have the capital to do so. AMD just doesn’t have enough money to dislodge nVidia in the GPU computing space because CUDA, their proprietary API, has a stranglehold on everything making nVidia the defacto GPU vendor for anything compute related. The only people who are going to dislodge nVidia and their obscenely expensive GPUs from their monopoly is the Chinese government and their command economy putting their whole weight behind domestically developed computing products.
It took AMD around 15-20 years to dislodge Intel from their monopoly on desktop, laptop and (more importantly) server offerings. And that’s with Intel literally doing everything wrong in the process. If nVidia isn’t stupid (they’re not), there’s no free market coming to dislodge them from their monopoly on computation because <waves arms towards their insane revenue and profit>.
On March 02 2025 09:09 Hat Trick of Today wrote: That’s kinda objectively not true in the tech sphere though? That free market = efficiency thought works in very small low capital environments like your marble factory but it completely breaks down the bigger scale you can get.
There are so many defacto monopolies because of insufficient regulation preventing these corporations from vertically and horizontally integrating the entire industry. It’s naturally efficient for a Microsoft or nVidia to effectively create a monopoly because it makes them the only vendor in town and therefore juice their profit either through volume or raw price.
You can’t dislodge these monopolies through the “free market” in a timely manner because very few companies truly have the capital to do so. AMD just doesn’t have enough money to dislodge nVidia in the GPU computing space because CUDA, their proprietary API, has a stranglehold on everything making nVidia the defacto GPU vendor for anything compute related. The only people who are going to dislodge nVidia and their obscenely expensive GPUs from their monopoly is the Chinese state government and their command economy putting their whole weight behind domestic products.
It took AMD around 15-20 years to dislodge Intel from their monopoly on desktop, laptop and (more importantly) server offerings. And that’s with Intel literally doing everything wrong in the process. If nVidia isn’t stupid (they’re not), there’s no free market coming to dislodge them from their monopoly on computation because <waves arms towards their insane revenue and profit>.
Pretty much, and even if you’re doing the right thing, albeit gradually, you may still be shit out of luck.
If NVIDIA is the top dog at a particular point in time where GPU demand explodes outside of traditional demands, i.e. right now, they’ll get the lion’s share of that additional demand. Which they largely are.
NVIDIA have to be basically grossly incompetent to not leverage that to something other than an overwhelming, insurmountable market advantage.
Even if AMD are better run, more innovative, they’ll still be fucked because they weren’t best positioned to benefit from the modern day gold rush.
I’m not even an anti-market guy but the idea that the Free MarketTM solves fucking everything are lunatics
On March 01 2025 16:15 oBlade wrote: The key dispute seems to be: -Zelensky says he wants to ensure security -The administration says Zelensky doesn't have a sincere interest in negotiated peace, which is a problem since the administration isn't interested in a forever war
Zelensky may see himself as being in an analogous position as the UK/USSR during the lend-lease period staving off Nazi Germany (in this case modern Russia) but the current administration doesn't seem to share that view, doesn't want escalation, and even Lindsey Graham has turned on Zelensky.
According to Rubio, going to the White House to make the mineral deal official was the Ukrainians' idea. Flipping the script was Zelensky challenging the concept of cease-fires because they can be broken, and demanding security guarantees up front while not committing to ending the war. Trump's opinion appears to be getting a cease-fire ASAP and then negotiating a full peace is preferable to waiting for an ideal peace - by Zelensky's unrealistic standards - that is never going to happen. Rubio correctly identified that the previous administration was using Ukraine as a meat grinder, and unfortunately for the Ukrainians, Russia has more meat.
Basically it looks like once the US are on board, Trump thinks Zelensky will be emboldened to continue indefinitely without peace. And it's not clear publicly what Zelensky's long-term endgame is, and there's no evidence that it's privately clear either. He seems to think he can get Russia to pay for all or part of the war, or that he can get some or all of the territory back. These goals are not necessarily consistent with reality. So if he's holding out for that forever, if he was to use the mineral deal just to drag the US deeper into the quagmire - he messed up because now he's flying back home with nothing, having overplayed his hand.
He should be feeling the pressure both domestically and internationally. Putin was trolling the other day saying he would welcome foreign cooperation in the "new territories" re:rare earth minerals, even from US partners. He is not in an enviable position, through no fault of his own Russia is a stronger country. But Trump used the word "embolden" multiple times meaning they're not trusting Zelensky's interest in peace while Zelensky got himself art of the dealed right out of the Oval Office, that's on him.
EU and Biden using Ukraine as a proxy war and as a meatgrinder against Russia is so correct.
This has been a huge talking point in Asia for a while already. The fact that EU is just letting this happen, while saying "peace through strength" is just brutally inhumane. Even North Korea sent men to help Russia.
it takes something drastic to nudge the EU. Hopefully with European nation's troops deployed at Ukraine even as non combat role, the reality of things will hit.
Russia is completely free to stop throwing men into the meat grinder at any point. They are invading Ukraine and if they pack up and go home tomorrow, the war stops. Ukraine is NOT free to stop the war. If they surrender tomorrow (can't "go" home because they are fighting in their home), Russia rampages all over Ukraine committing atrocities as they go (see any town they occupied, such as Bucha).
North Korea isn't "sympathising" with Russia and sending troops to stop the poor Russians being thrown into the meat grinder. That was purely transactional, although it's doubtful we'll ever 100% know what NK got in exchange, it'll almost certainly include ICBM technology. Such altruism.
But who am I kidding, you're balls deep in the RT koolaid.
Precisely, even North Korea got a deal to send troops. That's how uncommitted EU is, they can't even send arms reliably on time. Or it's unreliable because it's not a deal?
And no, I don't read RT. EU hypocrisy in many policies and fall off in global politics like disastrous africa policy are well covered in Asia. Crying about tariff when EU is established precisely for protectionism.
I don't see how extending the war means less atrocities than a ceasefire.
Yeah and I wish China would stop funding Russia. How do you think Russia would just stop attacking? Again, once Europe sent their troops and recapture lands, then it is committed.
Would you be able to share where you get your news from? Social media maybe? Your take is very similar to RT, just because you are not reading it directly does not mean it does not influence the places you are taking your news from.
On March 01 2025 05:41 Hat Trick of Today wrote:
On March 01 2025 05:33 Simberto wrote:
On March 01 2025 05:11 Uldridge wrote: Zelensky's blood must be boiling there holy shit. His facial expressions said it all when Trump & Vance were talking.
Who can look at this shit and think "Yeah, this is what i want out of a leader for my country". Zelensky is 50 times the president that Trump could ever hope to be.
Because they’re not actually looking for actual leadership. Look at Asmongold, who is currently the biggest political influencer on social media. He approaches politics like it’s Keeping Up With The Kardashians. It’s solely about the drama and nothing else.
Look at the type of people who would reference Asmongold in a forum debate and read how they casually and jovially they talk about Trump’s desire to annex Canada. None of this is serious to them because it isn’t.
You know how 90% of NBA fans don’t even watch the games and just talk about streamable lowlights, trade rumours, wild comments from players, and off-field drama? Change ‘NBA’ with ‘politic’ and that’s your typical viewer base of your typical new age right wing influencer. Its like a huge chunk of the world is gripped by some sort of sociopathic nihilism.
On February 28 2025 17:45 oBlade wrote: Yep right on the money, every time a Democratic Congress votes for a budget, and that budget spends more than tax revenues bring in - that was George W. Bush's fault. I learned about it on the Daily Show.
My dude. Do you really not recognize that decisions now can influence costs in the future?
Lets say Obama sets the White House on fire, and just lives in a burned out husk for the remainder of his term. Then Trump has to spend money to rebuild and renovate the burned down White House. Is that Trumps spending or Obamas spending?
I am leaning more an more towards the Colin Robinson theory.
Is your position that Congress has had no choice but to spend more federal money than revenues for 25 years in a row because of 1-2 wars that Congress never voted to stop or defund? Because my question is simply again - even if that hypothesis goes 100% your way - what about the other $25 trillion?
I do not live in the world where every Republican is a MIC-captured crooked Cheney clone and every Democrat is... an angel. Because it's not true.
Decisions do affect the future. For example, if you cut taxes, then encourage growth, then you hopefully end up with a wider base of tax revenue.
I wrote a lengthy response to this. Then i deleted it. Because i thought: "Nevermind. I should take my own advice and stop replying to you. You are simply not worth talking to."
Debatelord conservatives are fucking exhausting. If anyone else wants to talk about anything else but this constant idiotic fight with oBlade, i am open for it.
LibHorizons: I have a standing invitation to discuss how libs/Dems/Ilk like myself and others can work together towards opposing the Trump administration's agenda. Developing a deliberate and executable plan to gain power and use it. As well as something people can organize around accomplishing over the coming months and years.
It's notable that no one is doing it. Especially those that insist they want a better Democratic party but are doing nothing to bring that about besides "hoping", "wishing", and maybe voting in a primary ~year from now .
Instead everyone prefers to incessantly do the "Republicans are so stupid and bad, look at how stupid and bad they are" thing while interspersing pointless bad faith arguments with the oBlades of the world.
There’s just as much disagreement and engagement between everyone else, it’s not like people lurk and don’t contribute unless there’s some conservative for everyone to dunk on. I don’t think that’s an especially fair categorisation.
I also think more broadly, most posters here tick the following two boxes: 1. We can collectively do better, the Democratic Party sure as fuck can. 2. That aside, we should keep Trump out of office, or politics of this kind in Europe etc. If we can’t even collectively do that, pushing the status quo towards the left is a bloody tall order.
I’m not an expert political strategist, but I don’t think a ‘hey the election is done now, let’s not mention all the stuff we did to let Trump in, what are you going to do now?’ is particularly effective.
LibHorizons: There really isn't much engagement or disagreement that isn't in some capacity about how bad and stupid Republicans/their supporters are. My point wasn't that though. It was that people claiming to want Democrats to do/be better and/or to oppose Trump aren't actually doing the bare minimum work required in a democracy for that to happen. Therefore, they can't be taken as being sincere in that expression.
2. Trump taking office required decades of bipartisan collaboration in empowering people like Trump. How to avoid it in Europe and what we can all do about it now is what I think we should be discussing. That it'll be hard is a given.
We can and should mention all the stuff done to let Trump in, but that's decades of bipartisan empowerment of people like Trump through third way neoliberalism (and literally helping to make him the nominee). If we do that, we can actually advance our understanding of the issues at hand and develop our plans to address them effectively.
On February 28 2025 17:45 oBlade wrote: Yep right on the money, every time a Democratic Congress votes for a budget, and that budget spends more than tax revenues bring in - that was George W. Bush's fault. I learned about it on the Daily Show.
My dude. Do you really not recognize that decisions now can influence costs in the future?
Lets say Obama sets the White House on fire, and just lives in a burned out husk for the remainder of his term. Then Trump has to spend money to rebuild and renovate the burned down White House. Is that Trumps spending or Obamas spending?
I am leaning more an more towards the Colin Robinson theory.
Is your position that Congress has had no choice but to spend more federal money than revenues for 25 years in a row because of 1-2 wars that Congress never voted to stop or defund? Because my question is simply again - even if that hypothesis goes 100% your way - what about the other $25 trillion?
I do not live in the world where every Republican is a MIC-captured crooked Cheney clone and every Democrat is... an angel. Because it's not true.
Decisions do affect the future. For example, if you cut taxes, then encourage growth, then you hopefully end up with a wider base of tax revenue.
I wrote a lengthy response to this. Then i deleted it. Because i thought: "Nevermind. I should take my own advice and stop replying to you. You are simply not worth talking to."
Debatelord conservatives are fucking exhausting. If anyone else wants to talk about anything else but this constant idiotic fight with oBlade, i am open for it.
LibHorizons: I have a standing invitation to discuss how libs/Dems/Ilk like myself and others can work together towards opposing the Trump administration's agenda. Developing a deliberate and executable plan to gain power and use it. As well as something people can organize around accomplishing over the coming months and years.
It's notable that no one is doing it. Especially those that insist they want a better Democratic party but are doing nothing to bring that about besides "hoping", "wishing", and maybe voting in a primary ~year from now .
Instead everyone prefers to incessantly do the "Republicans are so stupid and bad, look at how stupid and bad they are" thing while interspersing pointless bad faith arguments with the oBlades of the world.
There’s just as much disagreement and engagement between everyone else, it’s not like people lurk and don’t contribute unless there’s some conservative for everyone to dunk on. I don’t think that’s an especially fair categorisation.
I also think more broadly, most posters here tick the following two boxes: 1. We can collectively do better, the Democratic Party sure as fuck can. 2. That aside, we should keep Trump out of office, or politics of this kind in Europe etc. If we can’t even collectively do that, pushing the status quo towards the left is a bloody tall order.
I’m not an expert political strategist, but I don’t think a ‘hey the election is done now, let’s not mention all the stuff we did to let Trump in, what are you going to do now?’ is particularly effective.
Agreed on both boxes. I must also say that i apparently missed whenever GH started doing the LibHorizons thing, so i don't really get what that is about and mostly ignored it. Is it GH roleplaying as a Democrat?
I'd argue LibHorizons since inception is demonstrably a better Democrat than anyone here despite being on the periphery of the party and an informal demonstration of my capacity to behave like Democrats should.
Wait, you think you are the best? Who could have possibly seen this turn of events.
It’s well-established that the EU and states within that benefit from subsidies via the Common Agricultural Policy do end up with big surpluses, and some of that is dumped into places like Africa in a manner which does suppress local producers and markets.
ETisME is entirely correct in pointing that out, while I think their overall framing is wrong, in areas while internally extremely free market, in others the EU is protectionist, albeit in a multi-state continent wide sense rather than state by state.
Of course rather than actually engage with aspects of that, or investigate yourself, or interrogate further, you’re just assuming they’re getting bad information and don’t know what they’re talking about it with your usual smug disdain
Plus a little dig at GH to tick off the bingo card, quel fucking surprise!
So many big words, I like everyone else am very impressed. How could I respond to something so well articulated. Well played!
If you find a post like this too difficult already you should probably educate yourself and in any case stop shitposting in response to it. As someone whose first language is not English I found it quite clear.
On March 01 2025 16:53 Jockmcplop wrote: Free market monopolies don't exist, because there is no such thing as the free market.
It's not a binary thing, markets have state interference in very diferent degrees, less intervention less monopolies.
Can you expand on this? I have always thought its barriers to entry that create situation of monopolies. Like it does not matter how big Subway gets, I can make a sandwich shop and compete. That is not the same for competing with Amazon on cloud computing.
When I think past times, the robber barons like rockefellers, carnegie, and vanderbilts it is not state interference that created the monopolies and all the awful that went with them but rather intervention that stopped them.
Unsure why you have to double down on being a facetious, sanctimonious dick to Fildun but hey you do you
On March 01 2025 16:15 oBlade wrote: The key dispute seems to be: -Zelensky says he wants to ensure security -The administration says Zelensky doesn't have a sincere interest in negotiated peace, which is a problem since the administration isn't interested in a forever war
Zelensky may see himself as being in an analogous position as the UK/USSR during the lend-lease period staving off Nazi Germany (in this case modern Russia) but the current administration doesn't seem to share that view, doesn't want escalation, and even Lindsey Graham has turned on Zelensky.
According to Rubio, going to the White House to make the mineral deal official was the Ukrainians' idea. Flipping the script was Zelensky challenging the concept of cease-fires because they can be broken, and demanding security guarantees up front while not committing to ending the war. Trump's opinion appears to be getting a cease-fire ASAP and then negotiating a full peace is preferable to waiting for an ideal peace - by Zelensky's unrealistic standards - that is never going to happen. Rubio correctly identified that the previous administration was using Ukraine as a meat grinder, and unfortunately for the Ukrainians, Russia has more meat.
Basically it looks like once the US are on board, Trump thinks Zelensky will be emboldened to continue indefinitely without peace. And it's not clear publicly what Zelensky's long-term endgame is, and there's no evidence that it's privately clear either. He seems to think he can get Russia to pay for all or part of the war, or that he can get some or all of the territory back. These goals are not necessarily consistent with reality. So if he's holding out for that forever, if he was to use the mineral deal just to drag the US deeper into the quagmire - he messed up because now he's flying back home with nothing, having overplayed his hand.
He should be feeling the pressure both domestically and internationally. Putin was trolling the other day saying he would welcome foreign cooperation in the "new territories" re:rare earth minerals, even from US partners. He is not in an enviable position, through no fault of his own Russia is a stronger country. But Trump used the word "embolden" multiple times meaning they're not trusting Zelensky's interest in peace while Zelensky got himself art of the dealed right out of the Oval Office, that's on him.
EU and Biden using Ukraine as a proxy war and as a meatgrinder against Russia is so correct.
This has been a huge talking point in Asia for a while already. The fact that EU is just letting this happen, while saying "peace through strength" is just brutally inhumane. Even North Korea sent men to help Russia.
it takes something drastic to nudge the EU. Hopefully with European nation's troops deployed at Ukraine even as non combat role, the reality of things will hit.
Russia is completely free to stop throwing men into the meat grinder at any point. They are invading Ukraine and if they pack up and go home tomorrow, the war stops. Ukraine is NOT free to stop the war. If they surrender tomorrow (can't "go" home because they are fighting in their home), Russia rampages all over Ukraine committing atrocities as they go (see any town they occupied, such as Bucha).
North Korea isn't "sympathising" with Russia and sending troops to stop the poor Russians being thrown into the meat grinder. That was purely transactional, although it's doubtful we'll ever 100% know what NK got in exchange, it'll almost certainly include ICBM technology. Such altruism.
But who am I kidding, you're balls deep in the RT koolaid.
Precisely, even North Korea got a deal to send troops. That's how uncommitted EU is, they can't even send arms reliably on time. Or it's unreliable because it's not a deal?
And no, I don't read RT. EU hypocrisy in many policies and fall off in global politics like disastrous africa policy are well covered in Asia. Crying about tariff when EU is established precisely for protectionism.
I don't see how extending the war means less atrocities than a ceasefire.
Yeah and I wish China would stop funding Russia. How do you think Russia would just stop attacking? Again, once Europe sent their troops and recapture lands, then it is committed.
Would you be able to share where you get your news from? Social media maybe? Your take is very similar to RT, just because you are not reading it directly does not mean it does not influence the places you are taking your news from.
On March 01 2025 05:41 Hat Trick of Today wrote:
On March 01 2025 05:33 Simberto wrote:
On March 01 2025 05:11 Uldridge wrote: Zelensky's blood must be boiling there holy shit. His facial expressions said it all when Trump & Vance were talking.
Who can look at this shit and think "Yeah, this is what i want out of a leader for my country". Zelensky is 50 times the president that Trump could ever hope to be.
Because they’re not actually looking for actual leadership. Look at Asmongold, who is currently the biggest political influencer on social media. He approaches politics like it’s Keeping Up With The Kardashians. It’s solely about the drama and nothing else.
Look at the type of people who would reference Asmongold in a forum debate and read how they casually and jovially they talk about Trump’s desire to annex Canada. None of this is serious to them because it isn’t.
You know how 90% of NBA fans don’t even watch the games and just talk about streamable lowlights, trade rumours, wild comments from players, and off-field drama? Change ‘NBA’ with ‘politic’ and that’s your typical viewer base of your typical new age right wing influencer. Its like a huge chunk of the world is gripped by some sort of sociopathic nihilism.
On February 28 2025 17:45 oBlade wrote: Yep right on the money, every time a Democratic Congress votes for a budget, and that budget spends more than tax revenues bring in - that was George W. Bush's fault. I learned about it on the Daily Show.
My dude. Do you really not recognize that decisions now can influence costs in the future?
Lets say Obama sets the White House on fire, and just lives in a burned out husk for the remainder of his term. Then Trump has to spend money to rebuild and renovate the burned down White House. Is that Trumps spending or Obamas spending?
I am leaning more an more towards the Colin Robinson theory.
Is your position that Congress has had no choice but to spend more federal money than revenues for 25 years in a row because of 1-2 wars that Congress never voted to stop or defund? Because my question is simply again - even if that hypothesis goes 100% your way - what about the other $25 trillion?
I do not live in the world where every Republican is a MIC-captured crooked Cheney clone and every Democrat is... an angel. Because it's not true.
Decisions do affect the future. For example, if you cut taxes, then encourage growth, then you hopefully end up with a wider base of tax revenue.
I wrote a lengthy response to this. Then i deleted it. Because i thought: "Nevermind. I should take my own advice and stop replying to you. You are simply not worth talking to."
Debatelord conservatives are fucking exhausting. If anyone else wants to talk about anything else but this constant idiotic fight with oBlade, i am open for it.
LibHorizons: I have a standing invitation to discuss how libs/Dems/Ilk like myself and others can work together towards opposing the Trump administration's agenda. Developing a deliberate and executable plan to gain power and use it. As well as something people can organize around accomplishing over the coming months and years.
It's notable that no one is doing it. Especially those that insist they want a better Democratic party but are doing nothing to bring that about besides "hoping", "wishing", and maybe voting in a primary ~year from now .
Instead everyone prefers to incessantly do the "Republicans are so stupid and bad, look at how stupid and bad they are" thing while interspersing pointless bad faith arguments with the oBlades of the world.
There’s just as much disagreement and engagement between everyone else, it’s not like people lurk and don’t contribute unless there’s some conservative for everyone to dunk on. I don’t think that’s an especially fair categorisation.
I also think more broadly, most posters here tick the following two boxes: 1. We can collectively do better, the Democratic Party sure as fuck can. 2. That aside, we should keep Trump out of office, or politics of this kind in Europe etc. If we can’t even collectively do that, pushing the status quo towards the left is a bloody tall order.
I’m not an expert political strategist, but I don’t think a ‘hey the election is done now, let’s not mention all the stuff we did to let Trump in, what are you going to do now?’ is particularly effective.
LibHorizons: There really isn't much engagement or disagreement that isn't in some capacity about how bad and stupid Republicans/their supporters are. My point wasn't that though. It was that people claiming to want Democrats to do/be better and/or to oppose Trump aren't actually doing the bare minimum work required in a democracy for that to happen. Therefore, they can't be taken as being sincere in that expression.
2. Trump taking office required decades of bipartisan collaboration in empowering people like Trump. How to avoid it in Europe and what we can all do about it now is what I think we should be discussing. That it'll be hard is a given.
We can and should mention all the stuff done to let Trump in, but that's decades of bipartisan empowerment of people like Trump through third way neoliberalism (and literally helping to make him the nominee). If we do that, we can actually advance our understanding of the issues at hand and develop our plans to address them effectively.
On February 28 2025 17:45 oBlade wrote: Yep right on the money, every time a Democratic Congress votes for a budget, and that budget spends more than tax revenues bring in - that was George W. Bush's fault. I learned about it on the Daily Show.
My dude. Do you really not recognize that decisions now can influence costs in the future?
Lets say Obama sets the White House on fire, and just lives in a burned out husk for the remainder of his term. Then Trump has to spend money to rebuild and renovate the burned down White House. Is that Trumps spending or Obamas spending?
I am leaning more an more towards the Colin Robinson theory.
Is your position that Congress has had no choice but to spend more federal money than revenues for 25 years in a row because of 1-2 wars that Congress never voted to stop or defund? Because my question is simply again - even if that hypothesis goes 100% your way - what about the other $25 trillion?
I do not live in the world where every Republican is a MIC-captured crooked Cheney clone and every Democrat is... an angel. Because it's not true.
Decisions do affect the future. For example, if you cut taxes, then encourage growth, then you hopefully end up with a wider base of tax revenue.
I wrote a lengthy response to this. Then i deleted it. Because i thought: "Nevermind. I should take my own advice and stop replying to you. You are simply not worth talking to."
Debatelord conservatives are fucking exhausting. If anyone else wants to talk about anything else but this constant idiotic fight with oBlade, i am open for it.
LibHorizons: I have a standing invitation to discuss how libs/Dems/Ilk like myself and others can work together towards opposing the Trump administration's agenda. Developing a deliberate and executable plan to gain power and use it. As well as something people can organize around accomplishing over the coming months and years.
It's notable that no one is doing it. Especially those that insist they want a better Democratic party but are doing nothing to bring that about besides "hoping", "wishing", and maybe voting in a primary ~year from now .
Instead everyone prefers to incessantly do the "Republicans are so stupid and bad, look at how stupid and bad they are" thing while interspersing pointless bad faith arguments with the oBlades of the world.
There’s just as much disagreement and engagement between everyone else, it’s not like people lurk and don’t contribute unless there’s some conservative for everyone to dunk on. I don’t think that’s an especially fair categorisation.
I also think more broadly, most posters here tick the following two boxes: 1. We can collectively do better, the Democratic Party sure as fuck can. 2. That aside, we should keep Trump out of office, or politics of this kind in Europe etc. If we can’t even collectively do that, pushing the status quo towards the left is a bloody tall order.
I’m not an expert political strategist, but I don’t think a ‘hey the election is done now, let’s not mention all the stuff we did to let Trump in, what are you going to do now?’ is particularly effective.
Agreed on both boxes. I must also say that i apparently missed whenever GH started doing the LibHorizons thing, so i don't really get what that is about and mostly ignored it. Is it GH roleplaying as a Democrat?
I'd argue LibHorizons since inception is demonstrably a better Democrat than anyone here despite being on the periphery of the party and an informal demonstration of my capacity to behave like Democrats should.
Wait, you think you are the best? Who could have possibly seen this turn of events.
It’s well-established that the EU and states within that benefit from subsidies via the Common Agricultural Policy do end up with big surpluses, and some of that is dumped into places like Africa in a manner which does suppress local producers and markets.
ETisME is entirely correct in pointing that out, while I think their overall framing is wrong, in areas while internally extremely free market, in others the EU is protectionist, albeit in a multi-state continent wide sense rather than state by state.
Of course rather than actually engage with aspects of that, or investigate yourself, or interrogate further, you’re just assuming they’re getting bad information and don’t know what they’re talking about it with your usual smug disdain
Plus a little dig at GH to tick off the bingo card, quel fucking surprise!
So many big words, I like everyone else am very impressed. How could I respond to something so well articulated. Well played!
If you find a post like this too difficult already you should probably educate yourself and in any case stop shitposting in response to it. As someone whose first language is not English I found it quite clear.
Completely agree, thanks for contributing!
On March 02 2025 07:40 baal wrote:
On March 01 2025 16:53 Jockmcplop wrote: Free market monopolies don't exist, because there is no such thing as the free market.
It's not a binary thing, markets have state interference in very diferent degrees, less intervention less monopolies.
Can you expand on this? I have always thought its barriers to entry that create situation of monopolies. Like it does not matter how big Subway gets, I can make a sandwich shop and compete. That is not the same for competing with Amazon on cloud computing.
When I think past times, the robber barons like rockefellers, carnegie, and vanderbilts it is not state interference that created the monopolies and all the awful that went with them but rather intervention that stopped them.
Unsure why you have to double down on being a facetious, sanctimonious dick to Fildun but hey you do you
More impressive thesaurus work, well done. Really appreciate your posting.
On March 01 2025 16:56 ETisME wrote: [quote] EU and Biden using Ukraine as a proxy war and as a meatgrinder against Russia is so correct.
This has been a huge talking point in Asia for a while already. The fact that EU is just letting this happen, while saying "peace through strength" is just brutally inhumane. Even North Korea sent men to help Russia.
it takes something drastic to nudge the EU. Hopefully with European nation's troops deployed at Ukraine even as non combat role, the reality of things will hit.
Russia is completely free to stop throwing men into the meat grinder at any point. They are invading Ukraine and if they pack up and go home tomorrow, the war stops. Ukraine is NOT free to stop the war. If they surrender tomorrow (can't "go" home because they are fighting in their home), Russia rampages all over Ukraine committing atrocities as they go (see any town they occupied, such as Bucha).
North Korea isn't "sympathising" with Russia and sending troops to stop the poor Russians being thrown into the meat grinder. That was purely transactional, although it's doubtful we'll ever 100% know what NK got in exchange, it'll almost certainly include ICBM technology. Such altruism.
But who am I kidding, you're balls deep in the RT koolaid.
Precisely, even North Korea got a deal to send troops. That's how uncommitted EU is, they can't even send arms reliably on time. Or it's unreliable because it's not a deal?
And no, I don't read RT. EU hypocrisy in many policies and fall off in global politics like disastrous africa policy are well covered in Asia. Crying about tariff when EU is established precisely for protectionism.
I don't see how extending the war means less atrocities than a ceasefire.
Yeah and I wish China would stop funding Russia. How do you think Russia would just stop attacking? Again, once Europe sent their troops and recapture lands, then it is committed.
Would you be able to share where you get your news from? Social media maybe? Your take is very similar to RT, just because you are not reading it directly does not mean it does not influence the places you are taking your news from.
On March 01 2025 05:41 Hat Trick of Today wrote:
On March 01 2025 05:33 Simberto wrote:
On March 01 2025 05:11 Uldridge wrote: Zelensky's blood must be boiling there holy shit. His facial expressions said it all when Trump & Vance were talking.
Who can look at this shit and think "Yeah, this is what i want out of a leader for my country". Zelensky is 50 times the president that Trump could ever hope to be.
Because they’re not actually looking for actual leadership. Look at Asmongold, who is currently the biggest political influencer on social media. He approaches politics like it’s Keeping Up With The Kardashians. It’s solely about the drama and nothing else.
Look at the type of people who would reference Asmongold in a forum debate and read how they casually and jovially they talk about Trump’s desire to annex Canada. None of this is serious to them because it isn’t.
You know how 90% of NBA fans don’t even watch the games and just talk about streamable lowlights, trade rumours, wild comments from players, and off-field drama? Change ‘NBA’ with ‘politic’ and that’s your typical viewer base of your typical new age right wing influencer. Its like a huge chunk of the world is gripped by some sort of sociopathic nihilism.
On February 28 2025 17:45 oBlade wrote: Yep right on the money, every time a Democratic Congress votes for a budget, and that budget spends more than tax revenues bring in - that was George W. Bush's fault. I learned about it on the Daily Show.
My dude. Do you really not recognize that decisions now can influence costs in the future?
Lets say Obama sets the White House on fire, and just lives in a burned out husk for the remainder of his term. Then Trump has to spend money to rebuild and renovate the burned down White House. Is that Trumps spending or Obamas spending?
I am leaning more an more towards the Colin Robinson theory.
Is your position that Congress has had no choice but to spend more federal money than revenues for 25 years in a row because of 1-2 wars that Congress never voted to stop or defund? Because my question is simply again - even if that hypothesis goes 100% your way - what about the other $25 trillion?
I do not live in the world where every Republican is a MIC-captured crooked Cheney clone and every Democrat is... an angel. Because it's not true.
Decisions do affect the future. For example, if you cut taxes, then encourage growth, then you hopefully end up with a wider base of tax revenue.
I wrote a lengthy response to this. Then i deleted it. Because i thought: "Nevermind. I should take my own advice and stop replying to you. You are simply not worth talking to."
Debatelord conservatives are fucking exhausting. If anyone else wants to talk about anything else but this constant idiotic fight with oBlade, i am open for it.
LibHorizons: I have a standing invitation to discuss how libs/Dems/Ilk like myself and others can work together towards opposing the Trump administration's agenda. Developing a deliberate and executable plan to gain power and use it. As well as something people can organize around accomplishing over the coming months and years.
It's notable that no one is doing it. Especially those that insist they want a better Democratic party but are doing nothing to bring that about besides "hoping", "wishing", and maybe voting in a primary ~year from now .
Instead everyone prefers to incessantly do the "Republicans are so stupid and bad, look at how stupid and bad they are" thing while interspersing pointless bad faith arguments with the oBlades of the world.
There’s just as much disagreement and engagement between everyone else, it’s not like people lurk and don’t contribute unless there’s some conservative for everyone to dunk on. I don’t think that’s an especially fair categorisation.
I also think more broadly, most posters here tick the following two boxes: 1. We can collectively do better, the Democratic Party sure as fuck can. 2. That aside, we should keep Trump out of office, or politics of this kind in Europe etc. If we can’t even collectively do that, pushing the status quo towards the left is a bloody tall order.
I’m not an expert political strategist, but I don’t think a ‘hey the election is done now, let’s not mention all the stuff we did to let Trump in, what are you going to do now?’ is particularly effective.
LibHorizons: There really isn't much engagement or disagreement that isn't in some capacity about how bad and stupid Republicans/their supporters are. My point wasn't that though. It was that people claiming to want Democrats to do/be better and/or to oppose Trump aren't actually doing the bare minimum work required in a democracy for that to happen. Therefore, they can't be taken as being sincere in that expression.
2. Trump taking office required decades of bipartisan collaboration in empowering people like Trump. How to avoid it in Europe and what we can all do about it now is what I think we should be discussing. That it'll be hard is a given.
We can and should mention all the stuff done to let Trump in, but that's decades of bipartisan empowerment of people like Trump through third way neoliberalism (and literally helping to make him the nominee). If we do that, we can actually advance our understanding of the issues at hand and develop our plans to address them effectively.
On February 28 2025 17:45 oBlade wrote: Yep right on the money, every time a Democratic Congress votes for a budget, and that budget spends more than tax revenues bring in - that was George W. Bush's fault. I learned about it on the Daily Show.
My dude. Do you really not recognize that decisions now can influence costs in the future?
Lets say Obama sets the White House on fire, and just lives in a burned out husk for the remainder of his term. Then Trump has to spend money to rebuild and renovate the burned down White House. Is that Trumps spending or Obamas spending?
I am leaning more an more towards the Colin Robinson theory.
Is your position that Congress has had no choice but to spend more federal money than revenues for 25 years in a row because of 1-2 wars that Congress never voted to stop or defund? Because my question is simply again - even if that hypothesis goes 100% your way - what about the other $25 trillion?
I do not live in the world where every Republican is a MIC-captured crooked Cheney clone and every Democrat is... an angel. Because it's not true.
Decisions do affect the future. For example, if you cut taxes, then encourage growth, then you hopefully end up with a wider base of tax revenue.
I wrote a lengthy response to this. Then i deleted it. Because i thought: "Nevermind. I should take my own advice and stop replying to you. You are simply not worth talking to."
Debatelord conservatives are fucking exhausting. If anyone else wants to talk about anything else but this constant idiotic fight with oBlade, i am open for it.
LibHorizons: I have a standing invitation to discuss how libs/Dems/Ilk like myself and others can work together towards opposing the Trump administration's agenda. Developing a deliberate and executable plan to gain power and use it. As well as something people can organize around accomplishing over the coming months and years.
It's notable that no one is doing it. Especially those that insist they want a better Democratic party but are doing nothing to bring that about besides "hoping", "wishing", and maybe voting in a primary ~year from now .
Instead everyone prefers to incessantly do the "Republicans are so stupid and bad, look at how stupid and bad they are" thing while interspersing pointless bad faith arguments with the oBlades of the world.
There’s just as much disagreement and engagement between everyone else, it’s not like people lurk and don’t contribute unless there’s some conservative for everyone to dunk on. I don’t think that’s an especially fair categorisation.
I also think more broadly, most posters here tick the following two boxes: 1. We can collectively do better, the Democratic Party sure as fuck can. 2. That aside, we should keep Trump out of office, or politics of this kind in Europe etc. If we can’t even collectively do that, pushing the status quo towards the left is a bloody tall order.
I’m not an expert political strategist, but I don’t think a ‘hey the election is done now, let’s not mention all the stuff we did to let Trump in, what are you going to do now?’ is particularly effective.
Agreed on both boxes. I must also say that i apparently missed whenever GH started doing the LibHorizons thing, so i don't really get what that is about and mostly ignored it. Is it GH roleplaying as a Democrat?
I'd argue LibHorizons since inception is demonstrably a better Democrat than anyone here despite being on the periphery of the party and an informal demonstration of my capacity to behave like Democrats should.
Wait, you think you are the best? Who could have possibly seen this turn of events.
It’s well-established that the EU and states within that benefit from subsidies via the Common Agricultural Policy do end up with big surpluses, and some of that is dumped into places like Africa in a manner which does suppress local producers and markets.
ETisME is entirely correct in pointing that out, while I think their overall framing is wrong, in areas while internally extremely free market, in others the EU is protectionist, albeit in a multi-state continent wide sense rather than state by state.
Of course rather than actually engage with aspects of that, or investigate yourself, or interrogate further, you’re just assuming they’re getting bad information and don’t know what they’re talking about it with your usual smug disdain
Plus a little dig at GH to tick off the bingo card, quel fucking surprise!
So many big words, I like everyone else am very impressed. How could I respond to something so well articulated. Well played!
If you find a post like this too difficult already you should probably educate yourself and in any case stop shitposting in response to it. As someone whose first language is not English I found it quite clear.
Completely agree, thanks for contributing!
On March 02 2025 07:40 baal wrote:
On March 01 2025 16:53 Jockmcplop wrote: Free market monopolies don't exist, because there is no such thing as the free market.
It's not a binary thing, markets have state interference in very diferent degrees, less intervention less monopolies.
Can you expand on this? I have always thought its barriers to entry that create situation of monopolies. Like it does not matter how big Subway gets, I can make a sandwich shop and compete. That is not the same for competing with Amazon on cloud computing.
When I think past times, the robber barons like rockefellers, carnegie, and vanderbilts it is not state interference that created the monopolies and all the awful that went with them but rather intervention that stopped them.
Unsure why you have to double down on being a facetious, sanctimonious dick to Fildun but hey you do you
More impressive thesaurus work, well done. Really appreciate your posting.
Go talk about dinosaurs somewhere else you weird nerd
On March 01 2025 18:48 Acrofales wrote: [quote] Russia is completely free to stop throwing men into the meat grinder at any point. They are invading Ukraine and if they pack up and go home tomorrow, the war stops. Ukraine is NOT free to stop the war. If they surrender tomorrow (can't "go" home because they are fighting in their home), Russia rampages all over Ukraine committing atrocities as they go (see any town they occupied, such as Bucha).
North Korea isn't "sympathising" with Russia and sending troops to stop the poor Russians being thrown into the meat grinder. That was purely transactional, although it's doubtful we'll ever 100% know what NK got in exchange, it'll almost certainly include ICBM technology. Such altruism.
But who am I kidding, you're balls deep in the RT koolaid.
Precisely, even North Korea got a deal to send troops. That's how uncommitted EU is, they can't even send arms reliably on time. Or it's unreliable because it's not a deal?
And no, I don't read RT. EU hypocrisy in many policies and fall off in global politics like disastrous africa policy are well covered in Asia. Crying about tariff when EU is established precisely for protectionism.
I don't see how extending the war means less atrocities than a ceasefire.
Yeah and I wish China would stop funding Russia. How do you think Russia would just stop attacking? Again, once Europe sent their troops and recapture lands, then it is committed.
Would you be able to share where you get your news from? Social media maybe? Your take is very similar to RT, just because you are not reading it directly does not mean it does not influence the places you are taking your news from.
On March 01 2025 05:41 Hat Trick of Today wrote:
On March 01 2025 05:33 Simberto wrote: [quote] Who can look at this shit and think "Yeah, this is what i want out of a leader for my country". Zelensky is 50 times the president that Trump could ever hope to be.
Because they’re not actually looking for actual leadership. Look at Asmongold, who is currently the biggest political influencer on social media. He approaches politics like it’s Keeping Up With The Kardashians. It’s solely about the drama and nothing else.
Look at the type of people who would reference Asmongold in a forum debate and read how they casually and jovially they talk about Trump’s desire to annex Canada. None of this is serious to them because it isn’t.
You know how 90% of NBA fans don’t even watch the games and just talk about streamable lowlights, trade rumours, wild comments from players, and off-field drama? Change ‘NBA’ with ‘politic’ and that’s your typical viewer base of your typical new age right wing influencer. Its like a huge chunk of the world is gripped by some sort of sociopathic nihilism.
On February 28 2025 17:45 oBlade wrote: Yep right on the money, every time a Democratic Congress votes for a budget, and that budget spends more than tax revenues bring in - that was George W. Bush's fault. I learned about it on the Daily Show.
My dude. Do you really not recognize that decisions now can influence costs in the future?
Lets say Obama sets the White House on fire, and just lives in a burned out husk for the remainder of his term. Then Trump has to spend money to rebuild and renovate the burned down White House. Is that Trumps spending or Obamas spending?
I am leaning more an more towards the Colin Robinson theory.
Is your position that Congress has had no choice but to spend more federal money than revenues for 25 years in a row because of 1-2 wars that Congress never voted to stop or defund? Because my question is simply again - even if that hypothesis goes 100% your way - what about the other $25 trillion?
I do not live in the world where every Republican is a MIC-captured crooked Cheney clone and every Democrat is... an angel. Because it's not true.
Decisions do affect the future. For example, if you cut taxes, then encourage growth, then you hopefully end up with a wider base of tax revenue.
I wrote a lengthy response to this. Then i deleted it. Because i thought: "Nevermind. I should take my own advice and stop replying to you. You are simply not worth talking to."
Debatelord conservatives are fucking exhausting. If anyone else wants to talk about anything else but this constant idiotic fight with oBlade, i am open for it.
LibHorizons: I have a standing invitation to discuss how libs/Dems/Ilk like myself and others can work together towards opposing the Trump administration's agenda. Developing a deliberate and executable plan to gain power and use it. As well as something people can organize around accomplishing over the coming months and years.
It's notable that no one is doing it. Especially those that insist they want a better Democratic party but are doing nothing to bring that about besides "hoping", "wishing", and maybe voting in a primary ~year from now .
Instead everyone prefers to incessantly do the "Republicans are so stupid and bad, look at how stupid and bad they are" thing while interspersing pointless bad faith arguments with the oBlades of the world.
There’s just as much disagreement and engagement between everyone else, it’s not like people lurk and don’t contribute unless there’s some conservative for everyone to dunk on. I don’t think that’s an especially fair categorisation.
I also think more broadly, most posters here tick the following two boxes: 1. We can collectively do better, the Democratic Party sure as fuck can. 2. That aside, we should keep Trump out of office, or politics of this kind in Europe etc. If we can’t even collectively do that, pushing the status quo towards the left is a bloody tall order.
I’m not an expert political strategist, but I don’t think a ‘hey the election is done now, let’s not mention all the stuff we did to let Trump in, what are you going to do now?’ is particularly effective.
LibHorizons: There really isn't much engagement or disagreement that isn't in some capacity about how bad and stupid Republicans/their supporters are. My point wasn't that though. It was that people claiming to want Democrats to do/be better and/or to oppose Trump aren't actually doing the bare minimum work required in a democracy for that to happen. Therefore, they can't be taken as being sincere in that expression.
2. Trump taking office required decades of bipartisan collaboration in empowering people like Trump. How to avoid it in Europe and what we can all do about it now is what I think we should be discussing. That it'll be hard is a given.
We can and should mention all the stuff done to let Trump in, but that's decades of bipartisan empowerment of people like Trump through third way neoliberalism (and literally helping to make him the nominee). If we do that, we can actually advance our understanding of the issues at hand and develop our plans to address them effectively.
On February 28 2025 17:45 oBlade wrote: Yep right on the money, every time a Democratic Congress votes for a budget, and that budget spends more than tax revenues bring in - that was George W. Bush's fault. I learned about it on the Daily Show.
My dude. Do you really not recognize that decisions now can influence costs in the future?
Lets say Obama sets the White House on fire, and just lives in a burned out husk for the remainder of his term. Then Trump has to spend money to rebuild and renovate the burned down White House. Is that Trumps spending or Obamas spending?
I am leaning more an more towards the Colin Robinson theory.
Is your position that Congress has had no choice but to spend more federal money than revenues for 25 years in a row because of 1-2 wars that Congress never voted to stop or defund? Because my question is simply again - even if that hypothesis goes 100% your way - what about the other $25 trillion?
I do not live in the world where every Republican is a MIC-captured crooked Cheney clone and every Democrat is... an angel. Because it's not true.
Decisions do affect the future. For example, if you cut taxes, then encourage growth, then you hopefully end up with a wider base of tax revenue.
I wrote a lengthy response to this. Then i deleted it. Because i thought: "Nevermind. I should take my own advice and stop replying to you. You are simply not worth talking to."
Debatelord conservatives are fucking exhausting. If anyone else wants to talk about anything else but this constant idiotic fight with oBlade, i am open for it.
LibHorizons: I have a standing invitation to discuss how libs/Dems/Ilk like myself and others can work together towards opposing the Trump administration's agenda. Developing a deliberate and executable plan to gain power and use it. As well as something people can organize around accomplishing over the coming months and years.
It's notable that no one is doing it. Especially those that insist they want a better Democratic party but are doing nothing to bring that about besides "hoping", "wishing", and maybe voting in a primary ~year from now .
Instead everyone prefers to incessantly do the "Republicans are so stupid and bad, look at how stupid and bad they are" thing while interspersing pointless bad faith arguments with the oBlades of the world.
There’s just as much disagreement and engagement between everyone else, it’s not like people lurk and don’t contribute unless there’s some conservative for everyone to dunk on. I don’t think that’s an especially fair categorisation.
I also think more broadly, most posters here tick the following two boxes: 1. We can collectively do better, the Democratic Party sure as fuck can. 2. That aside, we should keep Trump out of office, or politics of this kind in Europe etc. If we can’t even collectively do that, pushing the status quo towards the left is a bloody tall order.
I’m not an expert political strategist, but I don’t think a ‘hey the election is done now, let’s not mention all the stuff we did to let Trump in, what are you going to do now?’ is particularly effective.
Agreed on both boxes. I must also say that i apparently missed whenever GH started doing the LibHorizons thing, so i don't really get what that is about and mostly ignored it. Is it GH roleplaying as a Democrat?
I'd argue LibHorizons since inception is demonstrably a better Democrat than anyone here despite being on the periphery of the party and an informal demonstration of my capacity to behave like Democrats should.
Wait, you think you are the best? Who could have possibly seen this turn of events.
It’s well-established that the EU and states within that benefit from subsidies via the Common Agricultural Policy do end up with big surpluses, and some of that is dumped into places like Africa in a manner which does suppress local producers and markets.
ETisME is entirely correct in pointing that out, while I think their overall framing is wrong, in areas while internally extremely free market, in others the EU is protectionist, albeit in a multi-state continent wide sense rather than state by state.
Of course rather than actually engage with aspects of that, or investigate yourself, or interrogate further, you’re just assuming they’re getting bad information and don’t know what they’re talking about it with your usual smug disdain
Plus a little dig at GH to tick off the bingo card, quel fucking surprise!
So many big words, I like everyone else am very impressed. How could I respond to something so well articulated. Well played!
If you find a post like this too difficult already you should probably educate yourself and in any case stop shitposting in response to it. As someone whose first language is not English I found it quite clear.
Completely agree, thanks for contributing!
On March 02 2025 07:40 baal wrote:
On March 01 2025 16:53 Jockmcplop wrote: Free market monopolies don't exist, because there is no such thing as the free market.
It's not a binary thing, markets have state interference in very diferent degrees, less intervention less monopolies.
Can you expand on this? I have always thought its barriers to entry that create situation of monopolies. Like it does not matter how big Subway gets, I can make a sandwich shop and compete. That is not the same for competing with Amazon on cloud computing.
When I think past times, the robber barons like rockefellers, carnegie, and vanderbilts it is not state interference that created the monopolies and all the awful that went with them but rather intervention that stopped them.
Unsure why you have to double down on being a facetious, sanctimonious dick to Fildun but hey you do you
More impressive thesaurus work, well done. Really appreciate your posting.
Go talk about dinosaurs somewhere else you weird nerd
On March 02 2025 01:37 Sent. wrote: How about we focus ourselves instead of trying to use economic weapons against them? I don't want our resources wasted on making Americans do anything. If they want to leave the Western world it's their choice. They can be another Saudi Arabia if they want. I want to buy their weapons or energy as long it's more optimal in the short term, until we develop our own weapon industry and deal with nuclear energy haters.
The problem is that this kind of thinking leads to addiction. If we keep buying american weapons, it will be more cheaper to keep buying american weapons instead of developing and building our own from scratch, so we will keep doing that. This gives America one massive bullet to use and threaten us with, directly or indirectly. If they just keep selling from one day to another, it will take a long time until we get our own shit running.
It is the same thing that happened with Russian gas. It was always cheap and advantageous to buy it, so no one did anything else. And then suddenly Russia could threaten us with it. We ignored that threat, but that was incredibly expensive.
It would be better to make sure that we don't get in a position where the US can do the same to us.
Sure but there are massive disadvantages to quiting to.
The optimal way to handle this is to keep buying US products and weapons.
Meanwhile seriously expand a European nuclear weapons program. Once that is in place you can start buying only "domestic" weapon systems because a) we don't really need the US for our survival and b) some efficiency loss and lower quantity in the beginning doesn't matter when you have a nuclear shield.
The UK and France don't have a sufficient nuclear deterrent for Europe as-is? My understanding is the UK has more nuclear warheads than tanks and the main issue is conventional security. Once you have a few hundred warheads the way China/India/Pakistan do it essentially deters any escalation, unless of course it fails and causes a regional nuclear annihilation.
On March 02 2025 01:37 Sent. wrote: How about we focus ourselves instead of trying to use economic weapons against them? I don't want our resources wasted on making Americans do anything. If they want to leave the Western world it's their choice. They can be another Saudi Arabia if they want. I want to buy their weapons or energy as long it's more optimal in the short term, until we develop our own weapon industry and deal with nuclear energy haters.
The problem is that this kind of thinking leads to addiction. If we keep buying american weapons, it will be more cheaper to keep buying american weapons instead of developing and building our own from scratch, so we will keep doing that. This gives America one massive bullet to use and threaten us with, directly or indirectly. If they just keep selling from one day to another, it will take a long time until we get our own shit running.
It is the same thing that happened with Russian gas. It was always cheap and advantageous to buy it, so no one did anything else. And then suddenly Russia could threaten us with it. We ignored that threat, but that was incredibly expensive.
It would be better to make sure that we don't get in a position where the US can do the same to us.
Sure but there are massive disadvantages to quiting to.
The optimal way to handle this is to keep buying US products and weapons.
Meanwhile seriously expand a European nuclear weapons program. Once that is in place you can start buying only "domestic" weapon systems because a) we don't really need the US for our survival and b) some efficiency loss and lower quantity in the beginning doesn't matter when you have a nuclear shield.
The UK and France don't have a sufficient nuclear deterrent for Europe as-is? My understanding is the UK has more nuclear warheads than tanks and the main issue is conventional security. Once you have a few hundred warheads the way China/India/Pakistan do it essentially deters any escalation, unless of course it fails and causes a regional nuclear annihilation.
Would the UK or France be willing to deploy their nuclear deterrant to protect the Baltic states? Or Poland? Or Germany?
I think the bet that Putin is making is that the UK and France won't use their nuclear weapons to protect anyone except their own sovereign borders. That Article 5 isn't really worth the paper it's printed on.
That's the only way he can make the kind of aggressive moves he does, because he doesn't think the West has the stomach to escalate things to the levels he's willing to go to.
On March 02 2025 01:37 Sent. wrote: How about we focus ourselves instead of trying to use economic weapons against them? I don't want our resources wasted on making Americans do anything. If they want to leave the Western world it's their choice. They can be another Saudi Arabia if they want. I want to buy their weapons or energy as long it's more optimal in the short term, until we develop our own weapon industry and deal with nuclear energy haters.
The problem is that this kind of thinking leads to addiction. If we keep buying american weapons, it will be more cheaper to keep buying american weapons instead of developing and building our own from scratch, so we will keep doing that. This gives America one massive bullet to use and threaten us with, directly or indirectly. If they just keep selling from one day to another, it will take a long time until we get our own shit running.
It is the same thing that happened with Russian gas. It was always cheap and advantageous to buy it, so no one did anything else. And then suddenly Russia could threaten us with it. We ignored that threat, but that was incredibly expensive.
It would be better to make sure that we don't get in a position where the US can do the same to us.
Sure but there are massive disadvantages to quiting to.
The optimal way to handle this is to keep buying US products and weapons.
Meanwhile seriously expand a European nuclear weapons program. Once that is in place you can start buying only "domestic" weapon systems because a) we don't really need the US for our survival and b) some efficiency loss and lower quantity in the beginning doesn't matter when you have a nuclear shield.
The UK and France don't have a sufficient nuclear deterrent for Europe as-is? My understanding is the UK has more nuclear warheads than tanks and the main issue is conventional security. Once you have a few hundred warheads the way China/India/Pakistan do it essentially deters any escalation, unless of course it fails and causes a regional nuclear annihilation.
Points already been made but when Marie Le Pen is elected in France would they be willing to deploy nukes to protect Finland?
Probably not. Will they use their conventional forces. Maybe not.
We have seen the kind of attritional war being afraid of escalation makes you figth. I don't want to die in a ditch hunted down by a drone.
If Finland (or a local alliance) you can have a doctrine that allows tactical nuclear strikes (taking out enemy border towns important for logistics for example) if a conventional war can't be fought effectively.
Guarantees a few things:
A) if you are loosing you have the choice to escalate B) your allies are going to send their own troops or at least very serious aid because they don't want escalation C) there is no uncertainty about this deterence so your enemy is far less likely to even make an attempt.
Otherwise you can get the situation where Putin sends some green men to see what happens. If he gets a strong response just pull back. If not great some free real estate.
But if the country has a share of the nuclear shield there is always going to be a strong response. No reason to even try.
On March 01 2025 16:15 oBlade wrote: The key dispute seems to be: -Zelensky says he wants to ensure security -The administration says Zelensky doesn't have a sincere interest in negotiated peace, which is a problem since the administration isn't interested in a forever war
Zelensky may see himself as being in an analogous position as the UK/USSR during the lend-lease period staving off Nazi Germany (in this case modern Russia) but the current administration doesn't seem to share that view, doesn't want escalation, and even Lindsey Graham has turned on Zelensky.
According to Rubio, going to the White House to make the mineral deal official was the Ukrainians' idea. Flipping the script was Zelensky challenging the concept of cease-fires because they can be broken, and demanding security guarantees up front while not committing to ending the war. Trump's opinion appears to be getting a cease-fire ASAP and then negotiating a full peace is preferable to waiting for an ideal peace - by Zelensky's unrealistic standards - that is never going to happen. Rubio correctly identified that the previous administration was using Ukraine as a meat grinder, and unfortunately for the Ukrainians, Russia has more meat.
Basically it looks like once the US are on board, Trump thinks Zelensky will be emboldened to continue indefinitely without peace. And it's not clear publicly what Zelensky's long-term endgame is, and there's no evidence that it's privately clear either. He seems to think he can get Russia to pay for all or part of the war, or that he can get some or all of the territory back. These goals are not necessarily consistent with reality. So if he's holding out for that forever, if he was to use the mineral deal just to drag the US deeper into the quagmire - he messed up because now he's flying back home with nothing, having overplayed his hand.
He should be feeling the pressure both domestically and internationally. Putin was trolling the other day saying he would welcome foreign cooperation in the "new territories" re:rare earth minerals, even from US partners. He is not in an enviable position, through no fault of his own Russia is a stronger country. But Trump used the word "embolden" multiple times meaning they're not trusting Zelensky's interest in peace while Zelensky got himself art of the dealed right out of the Oval Office, that's on him.
EU and Biden using Ukraine as a proxy war and as a meatgrinder against Russia is so correct.
This has been a huge talking point in Asia for a while already. The fact that EU is just letting this happen, while saying "peace through strength" is just brutally inhumane. Even North Korea sent men to help Russia.
it takes something drastic to nudge the EU. Hopefully with European nation's troops deployed at Ukraine even as non combat role, the reality of things will hit.
Russia is completely free to stop throwing men into the meat grinder at any point. They are invading Ukraine and if they pack up and go home tomorrow, the war stops. Ukraine is NOT free to stop the war. If they surrender tomorrow (can't "go" home because they are fighting in their home), Russia rampages all over Ukraine committing atrocities as they go (see any town they occupied, such as Bucha).
North Korea isn't "sympathising" with Russia and sending troops to stop the poor Russians being thrown into the meat grinder. That was purely transactional, although it's doubtful we'll ever 100% know what NK got in exchange, it'll almost certainly include ICBM technology. Such altruism.
But who am I kidding, you're balls deep in the RT koolaid.
Precisely, even North Korea got a deal to send troops. That's how uncommitted EU is, they can't even send arms reliably on time. Or it's unreliable because it's not a deal?
And no, I don't read RT. EU hypocrisy in many policies and fall off in global politics like disastrous africa policy are well covered in Asia. Crying about tariff when EU is established precisely for protectionism.
I don't see how extending the war means less atrocities than a ceasefire.
Yeah and I wish China would stop funding Russia. How do you think Russia would just stop attacking? Again, once Europe sent their troops and recapture lands, then it is committed.
Would you be able to share where you get your news from? Social media maybe? Your take is very similar to RT, just because you are not reading it directly does not mean it does not influence the places you are taking your news from.
On March 01 2025 05:41 Hat Trick of Today wrote:
On March 01 2025 05:33 Simberto wrote:
On March 01 2025 05:11 Uldridge wrote: Zelensky's blood must be boiling there holy shit. His facial expressions said it all when Trump & Vance were talking.
Who can look at this shit and think "Yeah, this is what i want out of a leader for my country". Zelensky is 50 times the president that Trump could ever hope to be.
Because they’re not actually looking for actual leadership. Look at Asmongold, who is currently the biggest political influencer on social media. He approaches politics like it’s Keeping Up With The Kardashians. It’s solely about the drama and nothing else.
Look at the type of people who would reference Asmongold in a forum debate and read how they casually and jovially they talk about Trump’s desire to annex Canada. None of this is serious to them because it isn’t.
You know how 90% of NBA fans don’t even watch the games and just talk about streamable lowlights, trade rumours, wild comments from players, and off-field drama? Change ‘NBA’ with ‘politic’ and that’s your typical viewer base of your typical new age right wing influencer. Its like a huge chunk of the world is gripped by some sort of sociopathic nihilism.
On February 28 2025 17:45 oBlade wrote: Yep right on the money, every time a Democratic Congress votes for a budget, and that budget spends more than tax revenues bring in - that was George W. Bush's fault. I learned about it on the Daily Show.
My dude. Do you really not recognize that decisions now can influence costs in the future?
Lets say Obama sets the White House on fire, and just lives in a burned out husk for the remainder of his term. Then Trump has to spend money to rebuild and renovate the burned down White House. Is that Trumps spending or Obamas spending?
I am leaning more an more towards the Colin Robinson theory.
Is your position that Congress has had no choice but to spend more federal money than revenues for 25 years in a row because of 1-2 wars that Congress never voted to stop or defund? Because my question is simply again - even if that hypothesis goes 100% your way - what about the other $25 trillion?
I do not live in the world where every Republican is a MIC-captured crooked Cheney clone and every Democrat is... an angel. Because it's not true.
Decisions do affect the future. For example, if you cut taxes, then encourage growth, then you hopefully end up with a wider base of tax revenue.
I wrote a lengthy response to this. Then i deleted it. Because i thought: "Nevermind. I should take my own advice and stop replying to you. You are simply not worth talking to."
Debatelord conservatives are fucking exhausting. If anyone else wants to talk about anything else but this constant idiotic fight with oBlade, i am open for it.
LibHorizons: I have a standing invitation to discuss how libs/Dems/Ilk like myself and others can work together towards opposing the Trump administration's agenda. Developing a deliberate and executable plan to gain power and use it. As well as something people can organize around accomplishing over the coming months and years.
It's notable that no one is doing it. Especially those that insist they want a better Democratic party but are doing nothing to bring that about besides "hoping", "wishing", and maybe voting in a primary ~year from now .
Instead everyone prefers to incessantly do the "Republicans are so stupid and bad, look at how stupid and bad they are" thing while interspersing pointless bad faith arguments with the oBlades of the world.
There’s just as much disagreement and engagement between everyone else, it’s not like people lurk and don’t contribute unless there’s some conservative for everyone to dunk on. I don’t think that’s an especially fair categorisation.
I also think more broadly, most posters here tick the following two boxes: 1. We can collectively do better, the Democratic Party sure as fuck can. 2. That aside, we should keep Trump out of office, or politics of this kind in Europe etc. If we can’t even collectively do that, pushing the status quo towards the left is a bloody tall order.
I’m not an expert political strategist, but I don’t think a ‘hey the election is done now, let’s not mention all the stuff we did to let Trump in, what are you going to do now?’ is particularly effective.
LibHorizons: There really isn't much engagement or disagreement that isn't in some capacity about how bad and stupid Republicans/their supporters are. My point wasn't that though. It was that people claiming to want Democrats to do/be better and/or to oppose Trump aren't actually doing the bare minimum work required in a democracy for that to happen. Therefore, they can't be taken as being sincere in that expression.
2. Trump taking office required decades of bipartisan collaboration in empowering people like Trump. How to avoid it in Europe and what we can all do about it now is what I think we should be discussing. That it'll be hard is a given.
We can and should mention all the stuff done to let Trump in, but that's decades of bipartisan empowerment of people like Trump through third way neoliberalism (and literally helping to make him the nominee). If we do that, we can actually advance our understanding of the issues at hand and develop our plans to address them effectively.
On February 28 2025 17:45 oBlade wrote: Yep right on the money, every time a Democratic Congress votes for a budget, and that budget spends more than tax revenues bring in - that was George W. Bush's fault. I learned about it on the Daily Show.
My dude. Do you really not recognize that decisions now can influence costs in the future?
Lets say Obama sets the White House on fire, and just lives in a burned out husk for the remainder of his term. Then Trump has to spend money to rebuild and renovate the burned down White House. Is that Trumps spending or Obamas spending?
I am leaning more an more towards the Colin Robinson theory.
Is your position that Congress has had no choice but to spend more federal money than revenues for 25 years in a row because of 1-2 wars that Congress never voted to stop or defund? Because my question is simply again - even if that hypothesis goes 100% your way - what about the other $25 trillion?
I do not live in the world where every Republican is a MIC-captured crooked Cheney clone and every Democrat is... an angel. Because it's not true.
Decisions do affect the future. For example, if you cut taxes, then encourage growth, then you hopefully end up with a wider base of tax revenue.
I wrote a lengthy response to this. Then i deleted it. Because i thought: "Nevermind. I should take my own advice and stop replying to you. You are simply not worth talking to."
Debatelord conservatives are fucking exhausting. If anyone else wants to talk about anything else but this constant idiotic fight with oBlade, i am open for it.
LibHorizons: I have a standing invitation to discuss how libs/Dems/Ilk like myself and others can work together towards opposing the Trump administration's agenda. Developing a deliberate and executable plan to gain power and use it. As well as something people can organize around accomplishing over the coming months and years.
It's notable that no one is doing it. Especially those that insist they want a better Democratic party but are doing nothing to bring that about besides "hoping", "wishing", and maybe voting in a primary ~year from now .
Instead everyone prefers to incessantly do the "Republicans are so stupid and bad, look at how stupid and bad they are" thing while interspersing pointless bad faith arguments with the oBlades of the world.
There’s just as much disagreement and engagement between everyone else, it’s not like people lurk and don’t contribute unless there’s some conservative for everyone to dunk on. I don’t think that’s an especially fair categorisation.
I also think more broadly, most posters here tick the following two boxes: 1. We can collectively do better, the Democratic Party sure as fuck can. 2. That aside, we should keep Trump out of office, or politics of this kind in Europe etc. If we can’t even collectively do that, pushing the status quo towards the left is a bloody tall order.
I’m not an expert political strategist, but I don’t think a ‘hey the election is done now, let’s not mention all the stuff we did to let Trump in, what are you going to do now?’ is particularly effective.
Agreed on both boxes. I must also say that i apparently missed whenever GH started doing the LibHorizons thing, so i don't really get what that is about and mostly ignored it. Is it GH roleplaying as a Democrat?
I'd argue LibHorizons since inception is demonstrably a better Democrat than anyone here despite being on the periphery of the party and an informal demonstration of my capacity to behave like Democrats should.
Wait, you think you are the best? Who could have possibly seen this turn of events.
It’s well-established that the EU and states within that benefit from subsidies via the Common Agricultural Policy do end up with big surpluses, and some of that is dumped into places like Africa in a manner which does suppress local producers and markets.
ETisME is entirely correct in pointing that out, while I think their overall framing is wrong, in areas while internally extremely free market, in others the EU is protectionist, albeit in a multi-state continent wide sense rather than state by state.
Of course rather than actually engage with aspects of that, or investigate yourself, or interrogate further, you’re just assuming they’re getting bad information and don’t know what they’re talking about it with your usual smug disdain
Plus a little dig at GH to tick off the bingo card, quel fucking surprise!
So many big words, I like everyone else am very impressed. How could I respond to something so well articulated. Well played!
If you find a post like this too difficult already you should probably educate yourself and in any case stop shitposting in response to it. As someone whose first language is not English I found it quite clear.
On March 01 2025 16:53 Jockmcplop wrote: Free market monopolies don't exist, because there is no such thing as the free market.
It's not a binary thing, markets have state interference in very diferent degrees, less intervention less monopolies.
Can you expand on this? I have always thought its barriers to entry that create situation of monopolies. Like it does not matter how big Subway gets, I can make a sandwich shop and compete. That is not the same for competing with Amazon on cloud computing.
When I think past times, the robber barons like rockefellers, carnegie, and vanderbilts it is not state interference that created the monopolies and all the awful that went with them but rather intervention that stopped them.
Sure you can open a sandwich shop. But aside from just being bigger to force better deals from their suppliers Subway can afford to sell their sandwiches at a loss for a time, and you can not. They can simply wait for you to go out of business and then jack up the prices again.
Modern history is full of examples like this. Wallmart is famous for destroying local economies
On March 01 2025 16:15 oBlade wrote: The key dispute seems to be: -Zelensky says he wants to ensure security -The administration says Zelensky doesn't have a sincere interest in negotiated peace, which is a problem since the administration isn't interested in a forever war
Zelensky may see himself as being in an analogous position as the UK/USSR during the lend-lease period staving off Nazi Germany (in this case modern Russia) but the current administration doesn't seem to share that view, doesn't want escalation, and even Lindsey Graham has turned on Zelensky.
According to Rubio, going to the White House to make the mineral deal official was the Ukrainians' idea. Flipping the script was Zelensky challenging the concept of cease-fires because they can be broken, and demanding security guarantees up front while not committing to ending the war. Trump's opinion appears to be getting a cease-fire ASAP and then negotiating a full peace is preferable to waiting for an ideal peace - by Zelensky's unrealistic standards - that is never going to happen. Rubio correctly identified that the previous administration was using Ukraine as a meat grinder, and unfortunately for the Ukrainians, Russia has more meat.
Basically it looks like once the US are on board, Trump thinks Zelensky will be emboldened to continue indefinitely without peace. And it's not clear publicly what Zelensky's long-term endgame is, and there's no evidence that it's privately clear either. He seems to think he can get Russia to pay for all or part of the war, or that he can get some or all of the territory back. These goals are not necessarily consistent with reality. So if he's holding out for that forever, if he was to use the mineral deal just to drag the US deeper into the quagmire - he messed up because now he's flying back home with nothing, having overplayed his hand.
He should be feeling the pressure both domestically and internationally. Putin was trolling the other day saying he would welcome foreign cooperation in the "new territories" re:rare earth minerals, even from US partners. He is not in an enviable position, through no fault of his own Russia is a stronger country. But Trump used the word "embolden" multiple times meaning they're not trusting Zelensky's interest in peace while Zelensky got himself art of the dealed right out of the Oval Office, that's on him.
EU and Biden using Ukraine as a proxy war and as a meatgrinder against Russia is so correct.
This has been a huge talking point in Asia for a while already. The fact that EU is just letting this happen, while saying "peace through strength" is just brutally inhumane. Even North Korea sent men to help Russia.
it takes something drastic to nudge the EU. Hopefully with European nation's troops deployed at Ukraine even as non combat role, the reality of things will hit.
Russia is completely free to stop throwing men into the meat grinder at any point. They are invading Ukraine and if they pack up and go home tomorrow, the war stops. Ukraine is NOT free to stop the war. If they surrender tomorrow (can't "go" home because they are fighting in their home), Russia rampages all over Ukraine committing atrocities as they go (see any town they occupied, such as Bucha).
North Korea isn't "sympathising" with Russia and sending troops to stop the poor Russians being thrown into the meat grinder. That was purely transactional, although it's doubtful we'll ever 100% know what NK got in exchange, it'll almost certainly include ICBM technology. Such altruism.
But who am I kidding, you're balls deep in the RT koolaid.
Precisely, even North Korea got a deal to send troops. That's how uncommitted EU is, they can't even send arms reliably on time. Or it's unreliable because it's not a deal?
And no, I don't read RT. EU hypocrisy in many policies and fall off in global politics like disastrous africa policy are well covered in Asia. Crying about tariff when EU is established precisely for protectionism.
I don't see how extending the war means less atrocities than a ceasefire.
Yeah and I wish China would stop funding Russia. How do you think Russia would just stop attacking? Again, once Europe sent their troops and recapture lands, then it is committed.
Would you be able to share where you get your news from? Social media maybe? Your take is very similar to RT, just because you are not reading it directly does not mean it does not influence the places you are taking your news from.
On March 01 2025 05:41 Hat Trick of Today wrote:
On March 01 2025 05:33 Simberto wrote:
On March 01 2025 05:11 Uldridge wrote: Zelensky's blood must be boiling there holy shit. His facial expressions said it all when Trump & Vance were talking.
Who can look at this shit and think "Yeah, this is what i want out of a leader for my country". Zelensky is 50 times the president that Trump could ever hope to be.
Because they’re not actually looking for actual leadership. Look at Asmongold, who is currently the biggest political influencer on social media. He approaches politics like it’s Keeping Up With The Kardashians. It’s solely about the drama and nothing else.
Look at the type of people who would reference Asmongold in a forum debate and read how they casually and jovially they talk about Trump’s desire to annex Canada. None of this is serious to them because it isn’t.
You know how 90% of NBA fans don’t even watch the games and just talk about streamable lowlights, trade rumours, wild comments from players, and off-field drama? Change ‘NBA’ with ‘politic’ and that’s your typical viewer base of your typical new age right wing influencer. Its like a huge chunk of the world is gripped by some sort of sociopathic nihilism.
On February 28 2025 17:45 oBlade wrote: Yep right on the money, every time a Democratic Congress votes for a budget, and that budget spends more than tax revenues bring in - that was George W. Bush's fault. I learned about it on the Daily Show.
My dude. Do you really not recognize that decisions now can influence costs in the future?
Lets say Obama sets the White House on fire, and just lives in a burned out husk for the remainder of his term. Then Trump has to spend money to rebuild and renovate the burned down White House. Is that Trumps spending or Obamas spending?
I am leaning more an more towards the Colin Robinson theory.
Is your position that Congress has had no choice but to spend more federal money than revenues for 25 years in a row because of 1-2 wars that Congress never voted to stop or defund? Because my question is simply again - even if that hypothesis goes 100% your way - what about the other $25 trillion?
I do not live in the world where every Republican is a MIC-captured crooked Cheney clone and every Democrat is... an angel. Because it's not true.
Decisions do affect the future. For example, if you cut taxes, then encourage growth, then you hopefully end up with a wider base of tax revenue.
I wrote a lengthy response to this. Then i deleted it. Because i thought: "Nevermind. I should take my own advice and stop replying to you. You are simply not worth talking to."
Debatelord conservatives are fucking exhausting. If anyone else wants to talk about anything else but this constant idiotic fight with oBlade, i am open for it.
LibHorizons: I have a standing invitation to discuss how libs/Dems/Ilk like myself and others can work together towards opposing the Trump administration's agenda. Developing a deliberate and executable plan to gain power and use it. As well as something people can organize around accomplishing over the coming months and years.
It's notable that no one is doing it. Especially those that insist they want a better Democratic party but are doing nothing to bring that about besides "hoping", "wishing", and maybe voting in a primary ~year from now .
Instead everyone prefers to incessantly do the "Republicans are so stupid and bad, look at how stupid and bad they are" thing while interspersing pointless bad faith arguments with the oBlades of the world.
There’s just as much disagreement and engagement between everyone else, it’s not like people lurk and don’t contribute unless there’s some conservative for everyone to dunk on. I don’t think that’s an especially fair categorisation.
I also think more broadly, most posters here tick the following two boxes: 1. We can collectively do better, the Democratic Party sure as fuck can. 2. That aside, we should keep Trump out of office, or politics of this kind in Europe etc. If we can’t even collectively do that, pushing the status quo towards the left is a bloody tall order.
I’m not an expert political strategist, but I don’t think a ‘hey the election is done now, let’s not mention all the stuff we did to let Trump in, what are you going to do now?’ is particularly effective.
LibHorizons: There really isn't much engagement or disagreement that isn't in some capacity about how bad and stupid Republicans/their supporters are. My point wasn't that though. It was that people claiming to want Democrats to do/be better and/or to oppose Trump aren't actually doing the bare minimum work required in a democracy for that to happen. Therefore, they can't be taken as being sincere in that expression.
2. Trump taking office required decades of bipartisan collaboration in empowering people like Trump. How to avoid it in Europe and what we can all do about it now is what I think we should be discussing. That it'll be hard is a given.
We can and should mention all the stuff done to let Trump in, but that's decades of bipartisan empowerment of people like Trump through third way neoliberalism (and literally helping to make him the nominee). If we do that, we can actually advance our understanding of the issues at hand and develop our plans to address them effectively.
On February 28 2025 17:45 oBlade wrote: Yep right on the money, every time a Democratic Congress votes for a budget, and that budget spends more than tax revenues bring in - that was George W. Bush's fault. I learned about it on the Daily Show.
My dude. Do you really not recognize that decisions now can influence costs in the future?
Lets say Obama sets the White House on fire, and just lives in a burned out husk for the remainder of his term. Then Trump has to spend money to rebuild and renovate the burned down White House. Is that Trumps spending or Obamas spending?
I am leaning more an more towards the Colin Robinson theory.
Is your position that Congress has had no choice but to spend more federal money than revenues for 25 years in a row because of 1-2 wars that Congress never voted to stop or defund? Because my question is simply again - even if that hypothesis goes 100% your way - what about the other $25 trillion?
I do not live in the world where every Republican is a MIC-captured crooked Cheney clone and every Democrat is... an angel. Because it's not true.
Decisions do affect the future. For example, if you cut taxes, then encourage growth, then you hopefully end up with a wider base of tax revenue.
I wrote a lengthy response to this. Then i deleted it. Because i thought: "Nevermind. I should take my own advice and stop replying to you. You are simply not worth talking to."
Debatelord conservatives are fucking exhausting. If anyone else wants to talk about anything else but this constant idiotic fight with oBlade, i am open for it.
LibHorizons: I have a standing invitation to discuss how libs/Dems/Ilk like myself and others can work together towards opposing the Trump administration's agenda. Developing a deliberate and executable plan to gain power and use it. As well as something people can organize around accomplishing over the coming months and years.
It's notable that no one is doing it. Especially those that insist they want a better Democratic party but are doing nothing to bring that about besides "hoping", "wishing", and maybe voting in a primary ~year from now .
Instead everyone prefers to incessantly do the "Republicans are so stupid and bad, look at how stupid and bad they are" thing while interspersing pointless bad faith arguments with the oBlades of the world.
There’s just as much disagreement and engagement between everyone else, it’s not like people lurk and don’t contribute unless there’s some conservative for everyone to dunk on. I don’t think that’s an especially fair categorisation.
I also think more broadly, most posters here tick the following two boxes: 1. We can collectively do better, the Democratic Party sure as fuck can. 2. That aside, we should keep Trump out of office, or politics of this kind in Europe etc. If we can’t even collectively do that, pushing the status quo towards the left is a bloody tall order.
I’m not an expert political strategist, but I don’t think a ‘hey the election is done now, let’s not mention all the stuff we did to let Trump in, what are you going to do now?’ is particularly effective.
Agreed on both boxes. I must also say that i apparently missed whenever GH started doing the LibHorizons thing, so i don't really get what that is about and mostly ignored it. Is it GH roleplaying as a Democrat?
I'd argue LibHorizons since inception is demonstrably a better Democrat than anyone here despite being on the periphery of the party and an informal demonstration of my capacity to behave like Democrats should.
Wait, you think you are the best? Who could have possibly seen this turn of events.
It’s well-established that the EU and states within that benefit from subsidies via the Common Agricultural Policy do end up with big surpluses, and some of that is dumped into places like Africa in a manner which does suppress local producers and markets.
ETisME is entirely correct in pointing that out, while I think their overall framing is wrong, in areas while internally extremely free market, in others the EU is protectionist, albeit in a multi-state continent wide sense rather than state by state.
Of course rather than actually engage with aspects of that, or investigate yourself, or interrogate further, you’re just assuming they’re getting bad information and don’t know what they’re talking about it with your usual smug disdain
Plus a little dig at GH to tick off the bingo card, quel fucking surprise!
So many big words, I like everyone else am very impressed. How could I respond to something so well articulated. Well played!
If you find a post like this too difficult already you should probably educate yourself and in any case stop shitposting in response to it. As someone whose first language is not English I found it quite clear.
Completely agree, thanks for contributing!
On March 02 2025 07:40 baal wrote:
On March 01 2025 16:53 Jockmcplop wrote: Free market monopolies don't exist, because there is no such thing as the free market.
It's not a binary thing, markets have state interference in very diferent degrees, less intervention less monopolies.
Can you expand on this? I have always thought its barriers to entry that create situation of monopolies. Like it does not matter how big Subway gets, I can make a sandwich shop and compete. That is not the same for competing with Amazon on cloud computing.
When I think past times, the robber barons like rockefellers, carnegie, and vanderbilts it is not state interference that created the monopolies and all the awful that went with them but rather intervention that stopped them.
Sure you can open a sandwich shop. But aside from just being bigger to force better deals from their suppliers Subway can afford to sell their sandwiches at a loss for a time, and you can not. They can simply wait for you to go out of business and then jack up the prices again.
Modern history is full of examples like this. Wallmart is famous for destroying local economies
Or if none of that works, they can also just buy the building you're in and toss you out.
On March 01 2025 16:53 Jockmcplop wrote: Free market monopolies don't exist, because there is no such thing as the free market.
It's not a binary thing, markets have state interference in very diferent degrees, less intervention less monopolies.
Great, I think you and Jon Stewart agree. But I guess that isn't the type of market interference you're talking about. You'd rather cut the VA nurses and let the "free market" take care of people's health.
On March 01 2025 16:53 Jockmcplop wrote: Free market monopolies don't exist, because there is no such thing as the free market.
It's not a binary thing, markets have state interference in very diferent degrees, less intervention less monopolies.
It is quite the opposite, as mentioned above. A lot of regulation is in place to prevent monopolies, which are terrible for customers. If you can bully your way to becoming the only alternative, there is no incentive to be neither good not fair.
Healthcare just does not work in the free market. Even with competition, people will always be willing to pay much more than its raw cost, and the industry will always find ways to spend much more money than necessary.
On March 02 2025 15:43 Vindicare605 wrote: Would the UK or France be willing to deploy their nuclear deterrant to protect the Baltic states? Or Poland? Or Germany?
The use of nukes to protect Poland is not even expected. The nuclear detoriation, as we see it, is only to deter the enemy from using nukes against our country. If Russians did ground invasion, we do not expect anything but sending as much convensional NATO firepower as possible and bomb down there asses back to the kolhoz they crawled from. Numerical superiority of Europeans will not allow Russia to go 1:1 causulty rate with hopes they will overhelm us by attrition. As such, it would be sufficient enough to give us some nukes and we would execute retaliation to any nuclear strike on Warsaw without need for British or French to be blamed for. Russia than shal be met with dilema - treat it as french/british nuclear strike, start nuclear war and perish as a great power in apocalytpic fire, or just not use nukes at all.
On March 02 2025 01:37 Sent. wrote: How about we focus ourselves instead of trying to use economic weapons against them? I don't want our resources wasted on making Americans do anything. If they want to leave the Western world it's their choice. They can be another Saudi Arabia if they want. I want to buy their weapons or energy as long it's more optimal in the short term, until we develop our own weapon industry and deal with nuclear energy haters.
The problem is that this kind of thinking leads to addiction. If we keep buying american weapons, it will be more cheaper to keep buying american weapons instead of developing and building our own from scratch, so we will keep doing that. This gives America one massive bullet to use and threaten us with, directly or indirectly. If they just keep selling from one day to another, it will take a long time until we get our own shit running.
It is the same thing that happened with Russian gas. It was always cheap and advantageous to buy it, so no one did anything else. And then suddenly Russia could threaten us with it. We ignored that threat, but that was incredibly expensive.
It would be better to make sure that we don't get in a position where the US can do the same to us.
Sure but there are massive disadvantages to quiting to.
The optimal way to handle this is to keep buying US products and weapons.
Meanwhile seriously expand a European nuclear weapons program. Once that is in place you can start buying only "domestic" weapon systems because a) we don't really need the US for our survival and b) some efficiency loss and lower quantity in the beginning doesn't matter when you have a nuclear shield.
The UK and France don't have a sufficient nuclear deterrent for Europe as-is? My understanding is the UK has more nuclear warheads than tanks and the main issue is conventional security. Once you have a few hundred warheads the way China/India/Pakistan do it essentially deters any escalation, unless of course it fails and causes a regional nuclear annihilation.
Would the UK or France be willing to deploy their nuclear deterrant to protect the Baltic states? Or Poland? Or Germany?
I think the bet that Putin is making is that the UK and France won't use their nuclear weapons to protect anyone except their own sovereign borders. That Article 5 isn't really worth the paper it's printed on.
That's the only way he can make the kind of aggressive moves he does, because he doesn't think the West has the stomach to escalate things to the levels he's willing to go to.
I’m not sure anyone is willing to deploy nuclear weapons in anything other than a retaliatory response these days, at least as it pertains to a scenario of antagonists all being nuclear powers.
We may be seeing some of the pitfalls of MAD play out. If party A is reticent to countenance playing that card, but party B is not, or at least perceived not to be, the calculus starts to get wonky.
EPT
