Racism...Forever?

Been saying this for years. National Defense is not at all really about "national" defense. Our military is the corporate imperial force.

 

Honestly, I don't even know what motivates the defense fetish. What I do know is that it has been political suicide to propose cutting that budget. Since forever. Maybe, finally, that might be possible, as there is a distinctly non-interventionalist mindset these days, even among many Republicans.

 

The military is both the "big stick" that the government will use to protect corporate interests abroad and the massive customer for the technological weapons produced by the defense industry as well as for sale to "partner" governments

Power - it's always been power

Only because there is little to no place to intervene until the Mars Colony seceeds as the Martian Constitutional Republic and we have to crack down on rogue "belter" mining colonies in the Asteroid Belt where Mars & Earth compete for mineral resources

 

How does that work versus Europe or China?

 

There was a certain level of "we're all one" with the US / NATO, but we know what Trump did to that, but it was already fraying because the US wanted a coalition anytime it went adventuring into someone else's country. The upside of that for the NATO countries is it allow them to place military hardware & troops on Joint Bases to keep their military sharp, the downside is that is was expensive and cost lives and became less and less popular, plus contributing to refugees flooding Europe.

China has been posturing to become not only the dominant military & economic power in the East, but also the Global south, doing lots of "aid & infrastructure" stuff in Central / South America & Africa, which is really just extractive resource colonizaiton

 

I don't want to get fired before my resignation takes effect.

 

You cant be fired from Big Soccer, silly.

 

Is it really though?

I think the level of power and coercion has to be taken into account. Economically, China is still far, far weaker than the US. Sure, it's kinda comparable in GDP, but in GDP per capita it's still way behind so it doesn't have the reach that American corporations do.

Militarily it's not even close. The US still blows absolutely anyone away.

Politically it's not on the same planet, either. The US has threatened and actually invaded Latin American countries (and others) when they get out of line economically/politically for 200 years. China hasn't done it once (Vietnam was part of a larger left wing movement).

For right now, it's just a big, powerful country interacting with smaller ones. I wouldn't call it colonizing though.

 

Depends on if you want an exact reenactment of the colonization of the Americas, or something more akin to our economic recolonization of Latin America & Asia

Sure, at one time, America was far weaker than the Roman or British empires at their peak too

See above - not only that, we had a rock solid combined alliance with Europe too - now, that's being put to the test

The further we got into 20th century, the harder it has been to invade a country and / or install and maintain puppet regimes.

America didn't physically colonize Central America, but we certainly created an area where US corporations extracted raw materials and exported manufacturing to the dirt cheap labor force, making them economically dependent on the US. Not colonies in the 16th / 17th century sense, but certainly in the 20th century sense

 

@Coyote-Trickster you should read some William Appleman Williams. I think you'd like it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Appleman_Williams

 

Some people are like Mengele:

Coronavirus: France racism row over doctors' Africa testing ...
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2 dagen geleden - Two French doctors spark anger by suggesting coronavirus vaccines be trialled in Africa.

 

Shades of 'Skegee.

 

What's that?

 

https://www.cdc.gov/tuskegee/timeline.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment

 

Disgusting.
Germany paid the Jewish survivors damage for their wrong doing. If the States were to do the same to populations they abused the nazi way I guess mass emigration would strike and our resident coyote would have the place for a large part again for themselves again.

 

Damages were paid to the Tuskeegee patients, along with lifetime free care. Was quite a little scandal in 1972 or so.

Probably called for executions and imprisonments too, but in the context I doubt that any of the people involved would have understood why-- if they would do such a thing in the first place they must have completely misunderstood their oaths, after all...

 

Yeah, but the US had imperialist ambitions from the very founding of the country. The Founding Fathers were arguing whether to expand all across North America or throughout the Western Hemisphere.

Meanwhile, China has expanded and contracted in basically the same area of the world for 5,000 years.

Right, and China has installed 0 puppet regimes and invaded 0 countries this century.

The US didn't annex Central America but they actually sent troops there well into the 1980s. China, again, has done zero of that in the 20th or 21st century (their row with the Philippines over the South China Sea is the closest it got, and even there it took the least militaristic and most civilized route: took the case to an international court)

If we start seeing Chinese companies having the political influence that American companies did and do, then maybe they can be compared.

 

News to me, and I've studied on it some. Ptior to the Louisiana Purchase, who do you think was proselytizing Manifest Destiny?

That's gonna come as a big surprise in Lhasa. Such whiners, those monks.

Seems to me I recall something about a few hundred thousand crossing the Yalu one midnight clear, and driving well into South Korea, too...

 

I've been staring at this tweet and responses for hours.

Does anyone else think the ‘Karen’ slur is woman hating and based on class prejudice?

— Julie Bindel (@bindelj) April 5, 2020

It reminds me of those willfully ignorant people who refuse to acknowledge original context.

 

Haven't heard of this. Is it like calling a white woman "Becky"?

 

I had not heard of Karen either.

 

Two things:
1. @sitruc, if you have been staring at it for hours, get up and take a walk. Please.
2. What is wrong with the name Karen? All of this is so dumb.

 

The Karen are a people in Burma who are commonly in rebellion against the central government.

 

Have you ever heard the phrase,"I would like to speak to your manager?"
Then you've heard of Karen.
I believe in the interest of inclusivity,we must recognize that men can be Karens too.

 

Well, you don't have GenZ kids, do you - been around since Christmas.

At least that's how long my daughter has been using it - pisses the wife off