The all things Political topic -In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie

[Hurlshort]

I think he is on to something with his campaign goals.

[Zoraptor]

Joe Biden finally recognised the Armenian Genocide, and good on him for it too. Despite the talk that it was going to happen I thought he'd chicken out like Obama did, when push came to shove.

[rjshae]

4 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Joe Biden finally recognised the Armenian Genocide, and good on him for it too. Despite the talk that it was going to happen I thought he'd chicken out like Obama did, when push came to shove.

It probably didn't hurt that their President is such an intolerant autocrat. It's not like our relations are going to improve any time soon.

[Zoraptor]

Might be a bit of payback for Erdogan's shenanigans during the Trump term, too, which ended up making the US look pretty weak. But, it will only shore up Erdogan's domestic support at a time when it's been increasingly shaky due to covid and funny money economics; even the opposition CHP feels it has to support him on the subject of genocide.

Edited April 25, 2021 by Zoraptor

[Gfted1]

14 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

So Caitlyn Jenner is running for the governor of California. Matthew McConaughey might run for the governor of Texas. And people seem to think the rock is going to run for president. There was a lesson, a rather harsh one, talk to us between 2016 and 2020. And that’s not to make dip**** celebrities into politicians. Let’s see if that lesson was learned.

We did it from 81-89, so why not.

[Skarpen]

8 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Joe Biden finally recognised the Armenian Genocide, and good on him for it too. Despite the talk that it was going to happen I thought he'd chicken out like Obama did, when push came to shove.

I winder if it was that reported by Young Turks? Must have been an awkward report. 

[Gorth]

Feudalism seems alive and well in Belarus... A country in need of something else?

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/4/24/belarus-leader-to-amend-emergency-power-transfer-to-empower-son

 

[Guard Dog]

8 hours ago, Gfted1 said:

We did it from 81-89, so why not.

Not the same thing. He had over 20 years of hands on political experience before running for president.

[BruceVC]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/at-least-50-people-were-shot-in-chicago-over-memorial-day-weekend-the-next-day-another-23-were-shot-including-a-5-year-old-girl-standing-with-her-family/ar-BB14FxJS

Guys I am looking for opinions of members on this link and what it means  but more relevant to this post is something about the local  global response to BLM that I dont understand or rather seems inconsistent to me based on certain objectives of BLM

But I want to be clear, this post is not a way to dismiss the legitimate concerns around BLM. I support certain BLM objectives and I can easily separate what BLM  stands for and the large number of African Americans that get killed in gang violence....both have separate causes and different solutions but they overlap in the sense they both lead to black people being killed 

But this is what I am uncertain about, I always assumed BLM was about the deaths of black people in unnecessary ways but specifically through police unlawful action. However its about black lives meaning we dont want any black people being killed ?

But we dont seem to get even remotely the same reaction around the killing of black people in gang violence. That link I posted talks about 50 people getting shot and some killed in one weekend in Chicago !!! Of course their are people in these communities that care and know about the violence but outside of that type of support it seems not to be really news worthy

So what I am asking is does this mean BLM is more about examples of racism generally and not so much about  the killings of black people? And the reality of the support of BLM  is its different types of people from different backgrounds but I have seen people on CNN talk about how deeply racist and dysfunctional the USA is and how US citizens dont want to accept the reality of what the USA is ....I am not an American citizen but those types of comments always annoy me because they suggest a simple target for a complicated debate about what we think about the general state of the USA? So I reject the premise of the view that the USA is deeply racist and dysfunctional and also I wouldn't need to refresh the history of the Slave trade and how this finally ended during the American Civil War

Another misunderstanding people have is that the economic success of countries like USA and the EU  was it wasnt just about the contribution black slaves made in southern states  or the impact colonialism had on the trajectory of the various EU countries. Yes these things would  not have contributed but they are not the  main reason. 

Anyway in closing why does their seem to be  a greater global support for BLM but its framed as " killings of African American by police " but you can have 20 civilians  killed in gang violence and that's not seen as something that civil societies rally around ?

I have read several opinions on this but I dont have an answer that explains the response we see ....am I missing something?

 

[ComradeYellow]

11 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

Not the same thing. He had over 20 years of hands on political experience before running for president.

Yes Americans like celebrity-type people, even as politicians.  The perfect American POTUS would be both famous and experienced in (probably local) politics.

I'm saying this as someone who's not particularly fond on Reaganism (he polluted our landscape with harsh right wing politics that screwed over future generations) so bias isn't a factor here.

Edited April 25, 2021 by ComradeYellow

[Pidesco]

On 4/24/2021 at 2:52 PM, Guard Dog said:

So Caitlyn Jenner is running for the governor of California. Matthew McConaughey might run for the governor of Texas. And people seem to think the rock is going to run for president. There was a lesson, a rather harsh one, talk to us between 2016 and 2020. And that’s not to make dip**** celebrities into politicians. Let’s see if that lesson was learned.

While not making celebrities politicians is usually a good rule, the problems with Trump's "reign" went well beyond that.

[Darkpriest]

This might be an intriguing piece

https://www.aier.org/article/the-ignorant-world-and-what-to-do-about-it/

[Darkpriest]

12 hours ago, BruceVC said:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/at-least-50-people-were-shot-in-chicago-over-memorial-day-weekend-the-next-day-another-23-were-shot-including-a-5-year-old-girl-standing-with-her-family/ar-BB14FxJS

Guys I am looking for opinions of members on this link and what it means  but more relevant to this post is something about the local  global response to BLM that I dont understand or rather seems inconsistent to me based on certain objectives of BLM

But I want to be clear, this post is not a way to dismiss the legitimate concerns around BLM. I support certain BLM objectives and I can easily separate what BLM  stands for and the large number of African Americans that get killed in gang violence....both have separate causes and different solutions but they overlap in the sense they both lead to black people being killed 

But this is what I am uncertain about, I always assumed BLM was about the deaths of black people in unnecessary ways but specifically through police unlawful action. However its about black lives meaning we dont want any black people being killed ?

But we dont seem to get even remotely the same reaction around the killing of black people in gang violence. That link I posted talks about 50 people getting shot and some killed in one weekend in Chicago !!! Of course their are people in these communities that care and know about the violence but outside of that type of support it seems not to be really news worthy

So what I am asking is does this mean BLM is more about examples of racism generally and not so much about  the killings of black people? And the reality of the support of BLM  is its different types of people from different backgrounds but I have seen people on CNN talk about how deeply racist and dysfunctional the USA is and how US citizens dont want to accept the reality of what the USA is ....I am not an American citizen but those types of comments always annoy me because they suggest a simple target for a complicated debate about what we think about the general state of the USA? So I reject the premise of the view that the USA is deeply racist and dysfunctional and also I wouldn't need to refresh the history of the Slave trade and how this finally ended during the American Civil War

Another misunderstanding people have is that the economic success of countries like USA and the EU  was it wasnt just about the contribution black slaves made in southern states  or the impact colonialism had on the trajectory of the various EU countries. Yes these things would  not have contributed but they are not the  main reason. 

Anyway in closing why does their seem to be  a greater global support for BLM but its framed as " killings of African American by police " but you can have 20 civilians  killed in gang violence and that's not seen as something that civil societies rally around ?

I have read several opinions on this but I dont have an answer that explains the response we see ....am I missing something?

 

It's about short term goals of political partisans... 

You need to point to some 'evil' and have people consolidate around. 

That mentioned gang voilence kills more black people daily than police yearly, but to deal with that, you'd have to talk about some unconfortable truths and wade through some deficiencies and disfunctionalities. People don't want that, often don't understand that, and thus it's much harder to sell, especially if there needs to be work done and some self sacrifice (like with things related to overpopultion, and overconsumption - which are the underlying reasons of all the climate woes we have produced in a collateral damage). 

No, it's easier to point to some mythical bad guy blocking you and making you miserable, like white, straight, masculine male and its power enforcer the police. These two are almost as vilified for all the bad things as were the jews prior to WW2, who were "hoarding wealth, stealing from nations they do not identify with, and corrupt wealthy and politicians to oppress poor working people" 

Edited April 26, 2021 by Darkpriest

[BruceVC]

2 hours ago, Darkpriest said:

It's about short term goals of political partisans... 

You need to point to some 'evil' and have people consolidate around. 

That mentioned gang voilence kills more black people daily than police yearly, but to deal with that, you'd have to talk about some unconfortable truths and wade through some deficiencies and disfunctionalities. People don't want that, often don't understand that, and thus it's much harder to sell, especially if there needs to be work done and some self sacrifice (like with things related to overpopultion, and overconsumption - which are the underlying reasons of all the climate woes we have produced in a collateral damage). 

No, it's easier to point to some mythical bad guy blocking you and making you miserable, like white, straight, masculine male and its power enforcer the police. These two are almost as vilified for all the bad things as were the jews prior to WW2, who were "hoarding wealth, stealing from nations they do not identify with, and corrupt wealthy and politicians to oppress poor working people" 

Its interesting that you have raised the point that BLM activism is easier and more politically correct than admitting that more African American die in gang violence than any other type of crime but is that true ?

We can accept the high numbers of gang related killings but is BLM more popular because of what we saying or is because BLM is also about racism and people that are racist despite no reason to be. So maybe all the attention on BLM killings is about societal realities in the USA and the police profiling just becomes something that many minorities have had bad experiences with

Because if you right and this is about an easy way to express outrage I would be very surprised because when I follow journalists on CNN who support BLM they reasonable people and genuinely seem to be concerned with racism

But where I have found comments that are difficult to believe is where people say things  like " their is targeted killing of black people "  .....because then the gang killings should be more important ?

[BruceVC]

3 hours ago, Darkpriest said:

This might be an intriguing piece

https://www.aier.org/article/the-ignorant-world-and-what-to-do-about-it/

One of the issues with expecting teenagers to guide global policy is they dont have lived experience and their views need to be balanced and not considered more important than adults 

For example in the article it says

This is a point that many schoolchildren have raised, Greta Thunberg perhaps most prominently. The world is heading for an urgent climate disaster, so why should they study for a future they won’t have? 

School children shouldnt be making points about things they dont understand ....I like Greta and she is very well meaning but come on. She never said anything we dont already know and their solutions were always the same which was basically making demands at the UN that governments immediately address the problems.......not really helpful as it ignored reasons why governments dont always address the problems of climate disaster 

[Pidesco]

36 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

not really helpful as it ignored reasons why governments dont always address the problems of climate disaster 

Intense lobbying from the oil industry?

[Gorth]

5 minutes ago, Pidesco said:

Intense lobbying from the oil industry?

Or like in the case of Australia, outright owned by the coal, oil and mining industry...

[Hurlshort]

4 hours ago, Darkpriest said:

This might be an intriguing piece

https://www.aier.org/article/the-ignorant-world-and-what-to-do-about-it/

Seems like a very negative way to say we need to be more positive about the world we live in.

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, Pidesco said:

Intense lobbying from the oil industry?

 

55 minutes ago, Gorth said:

Or like in the case of Australia, outright owned by the coal, oil and mining industry...

Guys lets be fair, these are factors that do influence how quickly you move away from them. So for example would you suggest we shut down oil refineries in any country if that is what Pidesco means is a source of pollution

But more important and relevant is how in  some countries, like SA,China  and Poland, most of the countries energy grid is driven by coal refineries. And we have had massive issues with Eskom, our national energy provider,  with corruption in tenders around coal production and failure to build new coal stations or them taking 10 years instead of 6 

So even though I agree coal is dirty and pollutes the environment you cannot remove stations until we can diversify our power grid so we keep using coals stations

But you guys are raising a " first world problem " in a normal way.  Countries that created alternative energy grids like Sweden can correctly dismiss coal as a polluted but for many countries coal is an unfortunate necessity 

[Elerond]

Coal question is interesting one.

Like for example here there are multiple coal powered heath plants even though coal is more expensive than alternatives, and we need to buy coal from other countries which strains our economy. Mentioned cheaper alternatives for coal are domestic and would create new jobs here. Our coal plants are already old and their constant repairs make using coal even more expensive.

But regardless of mentioned facts we have lots of politicians in city councils and in parliament who adamantly claim that coal is necessary and do their best to block any attempts to replace coal with domestic energy sources (wood, waste, peat and hydrogen burning plants, deep geothermal plants and nuclear powered heating plants).

[Gorth]

1 hour ago, BruceVC said:

But you guys are raising a " first world problem " in a normal way.  Countries that created alternative energy grids like Sweden can correctly dismiss coal as a polluted but for many countries coal is an unfortunate necessity 

No idea what Sweden is up to these days (@Azdeus would probably know), but my old country used to be all coal powered. My old hometown had a large coal power plant, easily recognizable in the flat coastal terrain with it's huge blocks build for the turbines and a 250m chimney which you could probably see from 30km in the completely flat landscape. Now, this is based on childhood memories (the original powerplant was built in 1965 I think, which had two shorter chimneys, so even before old greybeard here was born), but I could have sworn at some time having gotten the impression that all that coal was shipped by boat from South Africa (just musing out loud because now of the coincidence of sharing this with a South African)

It's going to be demolished and torn down now, being decommissioned (first part of it, "block3 " to be shut down in 2022 , as Denmark moves more and more towards renewable energy.

https://denmark.dk/innovation-and-design/clean-energy

"Clean energy is a Danish passion, and in Denmark 30 percent of all energy used already comes from renewable sources.
Wind energy is well-established in Denmark, which long ago decided to put the Danish climate’s constant breezes and blusters to practical use. Now Denmark produces almost twice as much wind energy per capita as the runner-up among industrialised countries in the OECD.
But you may be surprised to hear that wind energy isn’t the most widely used renewable energy source in Denmark. First place actually belongs to bioenergy, followed by wind, solar and geothermal energy."

Yes, Denmark is a "first world country", but I suppose this works as a proof of concept that it's doable if the will is there. Denmark once produced so much oil they would likely have been accepted by OPEC

Edit: The reason I seem to remember it coming from SA was because it was controversial at the time, those guys having something down there called "apartheid", which this young schoolboy here had no clue what was, but it was apparently not the right thing to buy stuff from SA in the 60's and 70's

[Pidesco]

1 hour ago, BruceVC said:

 

Guys lets be fair, these are factors that do influence how quickly you move away from them. So for example would you suggest we shut down oil refineries in any country if that is what Pidesco means is a source of pollution

But more important and relevant is how in  some countries, like SA,China  and Poland, most of the countries energy grid is driven by coal refineries. And we have had massive issues with Eskom, our national energy provider,  with corruption in tenders around coal production and failure to build new coal stations or them taking 10 years instead of 6 

So even though I agree coal is dirty and pollutes the environment you cannot remove stations until we can diversify our power grid so we keep using coals stations

But you guys are raising a " first world problem " in a normal way.  Countries that created alternative energy grids like Sweden can correctly dismiss coal as a polluted but for many countries coal is an unfortunate necessity 

The question of poor countries is a good one, as as far as I know construction costs for coal plants are still lower, but the question is neither here nor there, because the current issue are developed countries, which share the bulk of energy expenditures in the world, have the resources to move to cleaner energy, but either have dallied and taken their sweet time to get things going or, in the case of the US, have flat out refused to admit there is a problem to be addressed. When goals are set they are also always half measures.

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, Gorth said:

No idea what Sweden is up to these days (@Azdeus would probably know), but my old country used to be all coal powered. My old hometown had a large coal power plant, easily recognizable in the flat coastal terrain with it's huge blocks build for the turbines and a 250m chimney which you could probably see from 30km in the completely flat landscape. Now, this is based on childhood memories (the original powerplant was built in 1965 I think, which had two shorter chimneys, so even before old greybeard here was born), but I could have sworn at some time having gotten the impression that all that coal was shipped by boat from South Africa (just musing out loud because now of the coincidence of sharing this with a South African)

It's going to be demolished and torn down now, being decommissioned (first part of it, "block3 " to be shut down in 2022 , as Denmark moves more and more towards renewable energy.

https://denmark.dk/innovation-and-design/clean-energy

"Clean energy is a Danish passion, and in Denmark 30 percent of all energy used already comes from renewable sources.
Wind energy is well-established in Denmark, which long ago decided to put the Danish climate’s constant breezes and blusters to practical use. Now Denmark produces almost twice as much wind energy per capita as the runner-up among industrialised countries in the OECD.
But you may be surprised to hear that wind energy isn’t the most widely used renewable energy source in Denmark. First place actually belongs to bioenergy, followed by wind, solar and geothermal energy."

Yes, Denmark is a "first world country", but I suppose this works as a proof of concept that it's doable if the will is there. Denmark once produced so much oil they would likely have been accepted by OPEC

Edit: The reason I seem to remember it coming from SA was because it was controversial at the time, those guys having something down there called "apartheid", which this young schoolboy here had no clue what was, but it was apparently not the right thing to buy stuff from SA in the 60's and 70's

What an interesting story around events of the past, I can believe coal came from SA. So you were not suppose to buy SA goods which was correct due to Apartheid. Interesting that even back then Nordic countries were doing the right thing about rejecting systems of discrimination that could never be sustainable

Reading your comments and other members I am surprised but also a little glad that other countries still use coal, we are now implementing what they call an energy mix and we are going to implement wind, solar , coal and other cleaner types. We wont be going Nuclear because its too expensive and we have cleaner natural sources 

 

[ShadySands]

8 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Its interesting that you have raised the point that BLM activism is easier and more politically correct than admitting that more African American die in gang violence than any other type of crime but is that true ?

We can accept the high numbers of gang related killings but is BLM more popular because of what we saying or is because BLM is also about racism and people that are racist despite no reason to be. So maybe all the attention on BLM killings is about societal realities in the USA and the police profiling just becomes something that many minorities have had bad experiences with

Because if you right and this is about an easy way to express outrage I would be very surprised because when I follow journalists on CNN who support BLM they reasonable people and genuinely seem to be concerned with racism

But where I have found comments that are difficult to believe is where people say things  like " their is targeted killing of black people "  .....because then the gang killings should be more important ?

I don't know why but it always seems like you are fishing for reasons to validate your dislike of BLM. BLM isn't about gangs and gang related violence and if you don't want to support them because of their focus on police brutality and racially motivated violence then that's perfectly fine. There are many other organizations and movements for you to support that focus on gangs if that's what you're interested in.

[Malcador]

11 hours ago, Darkpriest said:

No, it's easier to point to some mythical bad guy blocking you and making you miserable, like white, straight, masculine male and its power enforcer the police. These two are almost as vilified for all the bad things as were the jews prior to WW2, who were "hoarding wealth, stealing from nations they do not identify with, and corrupt wealthy and politicians to oppress poor working people"