Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
No, As of the end of the day in Ukraine today, there was no AFU counteroffensive. MOF, there is not much going on at all. Bahmut is systematically turned into rubble with gliding bombs, Wagner took over several high-rises, Avdeevka had unsuccessful minor offensive by AFU. That's it.
Everything is quiet on the Western front.
The infamous by now counteroffensive is supposed to be on April 30th, or mid May, or early June, or mid July or early fall. Probably, as soon as thousands of the latest US and GB tanks will finally get there, in good working order, along with several thousand of the latest jet fighters and bombers and millions of shells for NATO artillery (read - never).
I remember back when the Kherson offensive was "never going to happen" and "should have already begun" and was "a failure" and on and on.
Then one day it happened and the Russians bailed out.
Here's a kick in the teeth to Russia. The US is sending a bunch of Super Tucanos to Ukraine for close support and reconnaissance. They carry guns and things that go boom, too, and they can stay aloft 8 hours. Sort of a descendant of the Mustang.
Why is that a kick in the teeth?...... They are made in Brazil, who has declared itself to be best buds with Russia.
Imagine if your children are kidnapped by the enemy and brainwashed to fight against you. Ukrainian children are enduring this inhuman treatment at the hands of Russian terrorists. Some were lucky to have escaped that horrible fate.
Hard to say. What was it Russia said...."Who are we to say what our military personnel do on their time off? Were a free country, and they can do what they want."
something along those lines. But really aren't these the guys who are in charge of making sure that the donated equipment is being used? not helping them. Probably a bit of the opposite.
Anyways, What were seeing going on is just light probing. Seeing how Russia reacts, etc. Maybe pull units out of position so they can move small units in behind, or leave mines. etc. All sorts of mayhem. But just light probing for now. When we see some serious new tanks such as the leopards show up? Right about then I suspect. Might see some bradleys as part of the scouting soon I suspect. Thats going to be interesting. This wont be like in Iraq of course. But I think they will be effective.
Alternatively? Russia could leave. That by far would be better.
Imagine if your children are kidnapped by the enemy and brainwashed to fight against you. Ukrainian children are enduring this inhuman treatment at the hands of Russian terrorists. Some were lucky to have escaped that horrible fate.
These children are not of the "fighting" age, but at least they will be allowed to speak their native tongue for a change - the one that has been outlawed in Ukraine for the least three years.
These children are not of the "fighting" age, but at least they will be allowed to speak their native tongue for a change - the one that has been outlawed in Ukraine for the least three years.
Wow. I mean....No. Thats not what good humans do in my opinion.
As for the first video - all these philosophical dissections of the "East" of the Western powers - what good do they do yet again, when the "West" is the one that holds the keys of the technologies and science, the overwhelming majority of people that are capable of it hail from the Northern Europe ( predominantly white males,) so in the PRACTICAL sense there is not much the "East" can do about it, unless the "West" decides to share somehow these advancements, the ABCs of it with the "East," or rather to say with the part of the East that is capable of receiving it. Like, for example moving part of its know how to China, along with the factories.
The Nation-State is a creation of the West, which resulted from the Treaty of Westphalia. It was not the superiority of Northern Europeans, but the superiority of Northern European institutions and social dynamics which enabled them the conquer the world. And while democracy is often associated with Northern Europe, democracy has nothing to do with the rise of Northern Europe. Furthermore, the institutions that allowed Northern Europe to conquer the world were not created by "the people"(and were usually opposed by the people).
My point was, ideologies are only relevant if they are powerful because the only thing that matters is power. At best an ideology enables large groups of people to coordinate/organize together for shared interests, but ideologies are always and inevitably a creation of "intellectuals" supported by special interests who exploit them for power/control.
China is adopting the western institutions that work and rejecting those that don't work. If their system proves superior, it will take over the world unless we can mobilize the world against them(or destroy them in war).
Quote:
Originally Posted by erasure
The "West" keep the controlling power in their hands, and there is not much the "East" could do about it so far.
What is the controlling power? Technology? Finance? In both cases China is outflanking and overtaking the west.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erasure
Simply for a reason that math is a very "racist science" indeed ( very sexist too btw,) and people are either born with these abilities or not.
I'm also racist and sexist, but East Asians are not intellectually inferior to Northern Europeans. They are called the "Yellow Peril" for a reason.
Well yeah, but those were completely different times, when the US was still the industrial power, there were plenty of businesses (both in industry, agriculture and hospitality areas,) that were craving the supply of labor, and that's what both Bush and Reagan were trying to assure American business with.
If it was only about cheap labor, it would have happened decades earlier. The United States took a hard line against illegal immigration for decades, such as Operation wet back.
Moreover, immigration to the United States virtually stopped after WWI until the 1965 immigration act. And it wasn't because businesses didn't need cheap labor during the roaring 20's, or during WWII, or even post-WWII. It was because of the communist revolution and the large number of immigrants coming from Eastern Europe who were politically destabilizing the United States.
In short, immigration policy is informed both by geopolitics and economics(and economics is itself informed by geopolitics).
Quote:
Originally Posted by erasure
That's how the Mexican labor turned from the beneficiary factor into the burdening factor for the US, and that's how the standards of living started falling down in Mexico as well I suspect.
1) The American people have virtually no say in American immigration policy. 99% of Americans have no idea how many immigrants come to the United States, or how they come. When Ronald Reagan granted amnesty in the 1980's, it was for 3 million illegals. In 2023, the government claims there are 11-12 million illegals but the real number is at least twice that. The problem isn't that American businesses don't want cheap labor. The problem is that immigrants destabilize society. If immigrants didn't create problems we would have open-borders.
PS: If they actually wanted to stop illegal-immigration they would.
2) Immigration didn't cause standards of living to fall in Mexico, but various trade deals, especially NAFTA, caused the restructuring of the entire Mexican society. Mexico had largely been an agriculture country with relatively small-scale manufacturing/industry dominated by trade unions.
To explain the situation, all civilizations derive from what is called a "food-surplus". When we were hunter-gatherers, everyone partook in acquiring food. Early civilizations required about 90% of the population to work in agriculture. In advanced countries today it is usually 5% or less.
What happened? A combination of improved farming methods and heavy machinery. The tractor replaced the need for almost all agricultural labor.
In Medieval Europe this process was gradual as we moved from the two-field system to the three-field system, we invented various labor-saving machines, and the peasants were slowly pushed from the countryside into the cities. This created some social upheaval, such as opposition to enclosure which is discussed in Thomas More's "Utopia". There was also pushback against industrialization as well, such as the Luddites. But overall these processes were slow, happening over hundreds of years.
But today, developing countries are essentially going from medieval conditions to modernity in a single generation. When Stalin industrialized Russia, he invested in tractors and other farm equipment to reduce the demand for agricultural labor, then he sent all the surplus agricultural laborers to work in Soviet industry. Thus he killed two birds.
In the developing world today, the problem is that you have a lot of foreign capitalists bringing in heavy machinery that displaces local labor, but there is no corresponding investment in industry or services. Which is why the result is skyrocketing unemployment, often 50% or more.
That is the process that happened in Mexico. Agricultural laborers were pushed out of the market by technology with nowhere to go. That was the powder-keg that Ronald Reagan was worried about. But eventually the United States moved thousands of factories and assembly plants to Mexico, so the Mexicans have less of an incentive to leave. And the same process moves on to Central and South America.
If you've ever watched the Sir Oswald Mosley speech that I often link, I like how he describes it.
"All these countries which have been exploited, thrown and tossed aside by finance, and now becoming the victims of Communism, so finance seeks fresh fields of exploitation. A great new field for sweatshops to be opened up, so that these new industries, which we’re creating in Britain today, will be destroyed as the old industries were: simplified, rationalized machinery, with a few White surveyors, and then the masses of cheap colored labor, torn off the land and taken into the sweatshops... Is that worthy of Britain? Is that to be the future of Europe? And is this competition to be organized within our European brotherhood? Bringing in these sweat-fields in Africa, into our Europe civilization, so that the financial power in one European country can use it against the financial power in another? All the great financial central power of the world, now shifted from the city of London to Wall Street New York, shall be able, on the mass of money, of wealth, and of power, which it brings to it, again and again, to exert its influence in politics, until as you see today, it is childish nonsense to say that a British government rules Britain! It’s nothing to do with British government or the British people! The government of the world is the financial government, the power of money and of money alone!"
Quote:
Originally Posted by erasure
27 million of dead Soviets killed during the WWII beg you different.
Soviet Union != Russia, and Russia != Russians. Have you ever read "200 years together" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn?
Last edited by Redshadowz; 04-20-2023 at 04:24 AM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
