You're not getting it. If you like a girl, but there's a part of her that you don't like, you can't just break up with that part of her, you break up with all of her. ALL of her. You get what I'm saying?
You say you love America, but there's this big part of America you hate. So you don't love ALL of America, do you?
But you also ignored the part of my comment where I rightfully pointed out that racism in America is not limited to only the South. Again, if Trump had won only the South, he wouldn't be president. You also ignored the part of my comment where I, again, rightfully pointed out that racism is not America's only problem.
Do you say to a significant other I love 2/3 of you? It's an odd compartmentalization, to slice off a large part of something, set that part aside, look at what remains and say I love this thing. I'm talking about America, all of America. The good and the bad, taken together.
You might say that taken together, the good outweighs the bad. In your mind, the bad is contained, concentrated in one specific region, but that's just not true. If you think racism only exists in the South, you're foolish. Did Trump only get votes in the South? If Trump had only won the South, he wouldn't be president right now.
There's also a lot more wrong with this country than racism. That is not our only problem. Even in the areas that might not be as racist, there's plenty of greed, selfishness, an attitude of "I've got mine, screw everyone else."
The South is a big part of this country. You say you love this country, but are you sure you don't just love your small part of it? There's a lot more to this country than just your community.
When I say I hate this country I'm talking about the whole thing. The aggregate, the sum of all its parts, the good and the bad. There are good things about this country but they are outnumbered by the bad. For every good person, there are ten terrible people.
Here, GDF has an in depth analysis on why has and continues to US supports Israel: Part 1 and Part 2. The short answer is money, but the long answer is well worth the watch
I've seen these videos. They're great. I really like GDF. The second video especially has several references to the incredible influence that Israel, Zionists, and the Jewish lobby in the US has over US foreign policy in the Middle East.
And who determines the interests of the State Department? Powerful lobbies, like AIPAC. The defense contractors lobby also has a significant amount of influence, but their interests are aligned. They both benefit from the current Israel policy.
AIPAC aligns with the interests of the US State Department
I think it's more accurate to say that the US state department aligns with the interests of AIPAC, because that's just how much influence and power AIPAC has.
it's not like the US is opposed to what Israel is doing in the region
Many in the US are opposed to what Israel is doing, but those people have very little representation in the Federal government, largely because of the power and influence of AIPAC.
That's just not how politics works in the US. Politics is a career, or in many cases a stepping stone to a career. They're not there to fight anyone, they're there to achieve their personal ambitions. They're not ideological warriors, they're white collar elites. They don't necessarily have any ideological commitments, and as such they will simply adopt whatever the ideological paradigm is at any given time.
I don't expect any politician to fight Trump, if doing so means compromising their career ambitions. If there's going to be a fight, it has to be fought by the people, not the politicians.
Why is the US continuing to back Israel despite starvation claims and renewed assault on Gaza?
On a recent episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Senator Bernie Sanders blamed Washington’s reluctance to change course on the financial muscle of lobbying groups. “If you speak up on that issue, you’ll have super Pacs like Aipac going after you,” Sanders said, noting Aipac’s record $14.5m campaign to unseat Democratic representative Jamaal Bowman after he accused Israel of genocide.
That's why. AIPAC. They are insanely powerful. They hold incredible influence over our Federal government. Some conspiracy theories are true.
Our ancient ancestors, like most primates today, lived in groups dominated by violent and aggressive alpha males. Yet over the course of our biological and cultural evolution, unlike our primate cousins, we learned to work together to counter those bullyboys, organising to diminish their influence.
Yeah, that's true, if you ignore essentially ALL of human history, in which violence and aggression were ever present, as was social hierarchy, that almost exclusively had a single male sovereign at the top.
I understand why the Democrats want to try to resolve conflicts peacefully. No reasonable person wants violence. However, what the Democrats perceive as compromise is actually often appeasement. The Republicans use the threat of violence to extort the Democrats, and the Democrats often concede because they don't feel like they have any other choice. But appeasement does not prevent violence, it only delays it. The only real solution is the destruction of the extortionists.
I don't expect AOC and her octogenarian colleagues to strap on an assault rifle and go full commando, but they do need to recognize what the Republicans are already well aware of: not all conflicts can be resolved peacefully.
The Republicans are more than willing to use all tools at their disposal to achieve their goals. If the Democrats are not, then they are putting themselves at a severe disadvantage.
You can't defeat an enemy that you refuse to fight.
I'm sure the Democrats will take every legal avenue available to them. However, if they run out of legal, nonviolent options, they're going to be in a very rough spot because they don't have any other arrows in their quiver.
And I believe such a solution is within reach. In fact, I think I’ve stumbled upon an idea that could help us get there....I'm currently putting the finishing touches on the concept and plan to publish it in the coming days. This article serves as a prelude
It really depends on how you define "successful." If your measure of success is based on how closely these societies resemble Western, liberal, capitalist societies, then, yeah, you're probably not going to see a whole lot of "success," but that's not what these revolutionary movements were trying to achieve. I would say that first and foremost what essentially every communist movement was striving for was just autonomy and independence, and many have been successful in that regard. Vietnam is an independent nation, instead of a French colony. China, similarly, is no longer under the thumb of the British. You may not like what these nations do with their autonomy, but that is what they were striving for and they have achieved it.
Social democracy isn't really an alternative to capitalism, it's more of a progressive modification of capitalism. Under social democracy, the factory would still be owned by a capitalist and operated for their profit, but the government would use its authority to regulate the factory, tax the owner's profits (to help fund public services), protect workers, etc.
I think we need to be clear about what capitalism actually is:
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit.
So, a person with access to sufficient capital buys a factory and hires people to work in the factory, and pays them a wage. The workers make a product that gets sold on the open market. Those proceeds are the source of the company's revenue. Once expenses, including the wages paid to the workers, are subtracted from the revenue, if there is a surplus, that is profit that goes back to the owner. That's capitalism in a nutshell. The point, the objective is to generate a profit for the owner, as a return on their initial capital investment.
Ok, so, what's the alternative? Well, socialism:
Socialism is an economic system characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. Social ownership can take various forms, including public, community, collective, cooperative, or employee.
So, a government, a group of workers, or a community acquires a factory. If it's a government or a community that acquires the factory, they hire people to work in the factory and pay those workers a wage. If it's acquired by workers then it's worker owned. In either case, the workers make a product. That product can either be sold on an open market or distributed by other means. If it is sold, those proceeds are the source of revenue. Once expenses are subtracted from the revenue, if there is a surplus, that surplus either gets reinvested into the factory (to buy new machines or hire more workers), or, in the case of the worker owned company, that surplus might be distributed among the workers as profit, since they are also the owners.
People act like socialism is just some hypothetical that only exists in theory, but that's not true. The fact is, socialism exists and works right now, today. All over the world, products and services are produced and made available to people by organizations that are government, community, or worker owned, either for a profit or non profit.
Well, I disagree. I think most of it is shit.