Why Continuity is Important

[_sabotage_]

The US supplied the war, then cut The Soviets out of the loot. They then positioned the Russians as an imminently threatening superpower while simultaneously theatening to nuke them.

The Soviets lost 13,5% of their population and had been turned into a war zone! but somehow seen as a massive, global threat shortly afterwards(see steinbeck's travels for examples of his post-war contempt for this concept).

Countries who were not pro-Soviet were attacked by the US. We stirred up strife and sold weapons. Vietnam was a great marketing success for the CIA and military industrial complex. When McNamara went over to Vietnam, he was taken to sites already turned to shit by the massive number of CIA operatives present and blamed it on the local leadership. This was followed by a coup, but we didn't like the new leader and asked him to step down, which of course he did, and then we had a decent enemy to fight apparently. Sorry for this side track, but if the US had the power to tell the leader of Vietnam to f*ck off, and he does so, why is this a place we need to go to war to tame? Well because when McNamara returned home, the reports were already written by the CIA. What that means is that the war was pre-planned and they just wanted to get the president to give the go ahead. With Johnston, the CIA had much more sway, but he still wanted to look good and worried about the public perception.

The whole war was set up to sell weapons. They were tying some other stuff to the package, sending a message, trying some new toys, but essentially it was a fabulous success.

We falsely created demand for weapons spending in the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, 00's and 10's.

While the general public could be said to have benefited off this, free trade would have provided even greater mutual and long term benefits. We managed instead to enrich the assholes of the world and call ourselves a superpower.

Well we can only have a superpower by comparison, and many things have been done negatively to the world to maintain this power, such as the war on drugs, denying use of thorium technology, the ending of free speech, and other rights.

To me a superpower is like a massive diarrhea. Seeing that you are taking ownership and hence pride in it is understandable, but it's strange that you would expect others to take as much interest in how big the shit is.

[DoomYoshi]

I'm the insane one, yet you don't think there should be a superpower. So you are only railing against the fact that they are a superpower, which is a tautology.

End of discussion.

[_sabotage_]

I'm railing against the fact that they are a superpower?

No I'm railing against the fact that the people of the US have been putting trillions of dollars developing weapons technologies on their tab and that those weapons have been used to create a New World Order by politicians and corporations that have no attachment to the US and will be happy to leave those folks at the mercy of the rage they've incited.

Soon the US will be cut off and we will find that those weapons were never ours, only the bills are and that those weapons are now being pointed at us to ensure we pay the bill for them.

When you deal with a government who has been doing this to people worldwide and who have no attachment to the US, why wouldn't you expect them to do the same to you?

That you equate my position of being against the sale of weapons for the benefit of the few and to the detriment of the many as not liking a superpower...remember that you like a superpower and are ok with how they roll when the shoe is on the other foot.

Rosetta Stone is a decent way to learn basic Mandarin.

[TheProwler]

End of discussion.

No...please continuitye.

[waauw]

Soon the US will be cut off and we will find that those weapons were never ours, only the bills are and that those weapons are now being pointed at us to ensure we pay the bill for them.

I hardly think so. The US has not been sharing it's top technologies even with it's allies.
Don't confuse privatization with globalization.

[DoomYoshi]

End of discussion.

No...please continuitye.

No; arguing against a tautology (although they are generally internally consistent systems) is useless.

[_sabotage_]

It's not a tautology unless you are a biased college kid who has spent too long in the same lead-based painted room.

China was and is returning to be a superpower. They build ties through joint ownership. Whereas the West used the World Bank and IMF to create debt based on projects they knew were never going to happen, China creates the infrastructure for shared profit. One enriches a dictator of choice, the other builds the country.

Since you can only equate a superpower with a super asshole, I see your problem.

[_sabotage_]

Soon the US will be cut off and we will find that those weapons were never ours, only the bills are and that those weapons are now being pointed at us to ensure we pay the bill for them.

I hardly think so. The US has not been sharing it's top technologies even with it's allies.
Don't confuse privatization with globalization.

The US has not been sharing its top technology even with its allies.

Hi, my name is sabotage. Nice to meet you CNN boy. The US developed nuclear power in two forms from the 40's onward, spending billions. The technology for one was given to Westinghouse, which was then largely owned by the Rothschilds, a non-American group, and has since been sold to the Japanese. The second form was recently given to the Chinese.

When the US public invest in technology, we do so for private firms. We say that the government cannot compete with the private market. All the skills, infrastructure, patents, processes, knowledge belong to the private firms. This isn't just true for weapons technology. You, nor I, own a part of a weapons company unless you buy a share, even though the US government provides their profit, subsidies, r&d money.

We have seen this in many examples in the US and other countries.

To say that privatization doesn't equal globalization is true, but of no consequence, because all companies may act on the global level. When there are restrictions for trading with a certain country, the CIA may sell drugs, launder money and provide the same weapons that these companies develop without worrying about the restrictions.

When the Soviet Union fell, a lot of their tech vanished, but they had a new leadership that was somewhat concerned about the losses, but at the same time facing a global community that was demanding privatization. A lot of the money buying up the newly privatized companies was coming from the CIA through various nefarious means. The records of these transactions were held in two separate secure locations, one of which was blown up apparently by a plane that 70+ cameras failed to see! and the other was the first time in a history a structural steel building has collapsed due to office fires. They happened within a few hours of each other on 9/11.

So not only was the nationalized technologies lost through privatization, they were lost to a foreign nation that brought about the collapse.

In the case of the US, the technologies don't belong to the public anyways. Were the US deficit to blow up the economy, there are zero restrictions on any of these companies to not seek profit where they may. While the US funded their ability to create these weapons, we own none of it.

[_sabotage_]

If we wish to speak about continuity, then why not speak of the continuity of MIC spending leading up to and following the demise of the main reason for MIC spending.

Reagan had just achieved new military spending heights while not actually engaged in a war. Cheap proxy wars and assassinations, economic threats and sanctions kept countries in check. War became so cheap and unregulated, that the CIA could get congress to fund a war on drugs, use this money to collect drugs, created a crack epidemic, and use the proceeds to arm Iran. US companies could be sent to Saddam through Rumsfeld to use US funded tech to provide Saddam with chemical weapons. Arming some rebels in the middle of nowhere was enough to help bring down the big bad boogeyman that provided reason for the massive amounts of spending.

If you were part of one of the MIC funded think tanks watching the Soviets disintegrate, you may be thinking about sweeping up some of the spoils, which was done, but you'd be more concerned about the several trillion passed your way by the government that decade because of the idea of the Soviet threat.

Well, the MIC materialized and capitalized off the Soviet threat in the first place and with their new found tools and products they were able to create a new threat out of one of their existing products, the rebels they had been arming to deal with the soviets. It's not that opportunities for peace haven't existed, it's just that they were always rejected because the people with the chance to reject it happened to be the ones with the most to lose by accepting it.

But they didn't just want more money, they wanted greater control over it. They started privatizing every aspect they could. Now not only are they getting the money to develop the weapons, they are getting to put it in the hands of their own private soldiers, directing their own private agenda helping their own private prisons and helping build their own private infrastructure for their own private corporations with guaranteed tax-backed profit so that they may sell their products to whoever they wish.

If we believe in continuity, then there is no reason to believe that this pattern won't persist with the newly established global market and a broke US. There is no reason to believe that their own members won't be rewarded as they have always rewarded themselves. There is no reason to believe they will ever, or ever have an interest in working towards a perception of peace.

[DoomYoshi]

It's not a tautology unless you are a biased college kid who has spent too long in the same lead-based painted room.

China was and is returning to be a superpower. They build ties through joint ownership. Whereas the West used the World Bank and IMF to create debt based on projects they knew were never going to happen, China creates the infrastructure for shared profit. One enriches a dictator of choice, the other builds the country.

Since you can only equate a superpower with a super asshole, I see your problem.

Ok, when I asked "what tactics would you have liked them to use to become a superpower?", why didn't you reply with "creating infrastructure for shared profits?" instead of replying "being a superpower is a pile of shit".

You lied, and completely changed your story from one page to the other. Go f*ck yourself.

[_sabotage_]

Your idealized superpower is a pile of shit. You posed the idea of superpower to have no other meaning. You said, they either do it or they are not a superpower. By your definition the fact that China didn't act that way and hasn't been acting that way means they are not a superpower to you.

When responding to your posts, it would be pointless not to respond along the lines of the meaning you implied in your post. I have not assumed that meaning when I use the word. There were many indicators of what I would consider to have granted the status of superpower to China. Unlike Mets and some other posters, I don't hide this fact and then bring it up as an escape several pages along.

That you are ignoring any of my points and going straight for the personal assault is a brilliant bit of continuity on your general strength and basis of conviction: none.

[DoomYoshi]

Your idealized superpower is a pile of shit. You posed the idea of superpower to have no other meaning. You said, they either do it or they are not a superpower. By your definition the fact that China didn't act that way and hasn't been acting that way means they are not a superpower to you.

When responding to your posts, it would be pointless not to respond along the lines of the meaning you implied in your post. I have not assumed that meaning when I use the word. There were many indicators of what I would consider to have granted the status of superpower to China. Unlike Mets and some other posters, I don't hide this fact and then bring it up as an escape several pages along.

That you are ignoring any of my points and going straight for the personal assault is a brilliant bit of continuity on your general strength and basis of conviction: none.

I didn't pose that idea at all.

Statement: the United States is a superpower.
Question: how would you have liked them to become a superpower?

How much clearer can it get?


---------------------------

What idealization? I haven't described what a superpower is or should be, both of which should be required for an idealization.

[_sabotage_]

You equate the arming of ISIS to being a superpower.

You then state, I don't like superpowers therefore there is nothing left to discuss.

In your previous post you describe why it is good to arm ISIS. So that they can be then killed, instead of other policies that would be used, like in SA (which was actually pretty much the same).

Why a superpower needs to pursue those policies is beyond me. Why my dislike of arming ISIS is equated to hating superpowers is beyond me. Why my dislike of the US pursuing these strategies with other countries equates to hating a superpower is beyond me.

It would appear that the only way you could have written that is if you automatically assumed that those acts were necessary to being a superpower and therefore in disliking them I am disliking a superpower.

The acts were not necessary to being a superpower and they have not brought the US any more resources or resource security then other policies would have. They could have made a good example of how great a country thrives by tying itself with the US. Instead they showed how much others would suffer if they didn't do as the US wanted. This is due to the unwarranted influence of the military industrial complex.

In Doomyoshis world, providing a good example is apparently impossible. It's better to arm folks and then send folks in to kill them. Why not spend the trillions we spent since 9/11 on world infrastructure, development, opportunity? Because instead little college boys want to see something go boom. And if you disagree with this, you are insane.

[DoomYoshi]

You equate the arming of ISIS to being a superpower.

No

You then state, I don't like superpowers therefore there is nothing left to discuss.

Yes

In your previous post you describe why it is good to arm ISIS. So that they can be then killed, instead of other policies that would be used, like in SA (which was actually pretty much the same).

That is one of two reasons I gave.

Why a superpower needs to pursue those policies is beyond me. Why my dislike of arming ISIS is equated to hating superpowers is beyond me. Why my dislike of the US pursuing these strategies with other countries equates to hating a superpower is beyond me.

It would appear that the only way you could have written that is if you automatically assumed that those acts were necessary to being a superpower and therefore in disliking them I am disliking a superpower.

Non sequitor.

The acts were not necessary to being a superpower and they have not brought the US any more resources or resource security then other policies would have. They could have made a good example of how great a country thrives by tying itself with the US. Instead they showed how much others would suffer if they didn't do as the US wanted. This is due to the unwarranted influence of the military industrial complex.

Unwarranted? What is a warranted influence of the military industrial complex?

In Doomyoshis world, providing a good example is apparently impossible. It's better to arm folks and then send folks in to kill them. Why not spend the trillions we spent since 9/11 on world infrastructure, development, opportunity? Because instead little college boys want to see something go boom. And if you disagree with this, you are insane.

Correction: If you believe everything printed in the Utne reader is undisputed fact, you are insane.

[_sabotage_]

Yes, thanks for pointing out your non-sequitur.

I say ISIS, your response is superpower. You ask about US as a superpower and then say I don't like superpowers.

Hence, for continuity, you relate ISIS to the US being a superpower, equate the US's role as a superpower in dealing with them as going after them: you are perfect example of what happens when one believes the weapon's dealers nonsense.

You did not ask me how the US could be a superpower, and when I give an example of another form of superpower, to show that your idea of what a superpower is is corrupt, you call me a liar.

You have accused me of using a tautology when I wasn't, lying when I wasn't, being insane, using poor sources. And as a biologist, it is rather depressing that you'd choose hempcrete as a point of attack.

You haven't attempted to challenge anything I've said by any valid means. You've failed at continuity.

[DoomYoshi]

Line 1 of conversation:

Here's a better question: America became a superpower by certain tactics. Which tactics to become THE world superpower would you have liked it to use?

Line 2 of conversation:

To me a superpower is like a massive diarrhea.

Therefore, tautology: a superpower is like a massive diarrhea.

Line 3:

I'm the insane one, yet you don't think there should be a superpower. So you are only railing against the fact that they are a superpower, which is a tautology.

End of discussion.

Line 4:

China was and is returning to be a superpower. They build ties through joint ownership. Whereas the West used the World Bank and IMF to create debt based on projects they knew were never going to happen, China creates the infrastructure for shared profit. One enriches a dictator of choice, the other builds the country.

Therefore, lie since a) you claimed that all superpowers are massive diarrhea and then b) gave an example of a superpower which isn't a massive diarrhea.

[_sabotage_]

I was answering your question as defined according to continuity of the thread. Your question came from a post on ISIS and a definition you gave of what a superpower is, under your definition, a superpower is a massive diarrhea. And as I stated, you've chosen to call it yours.

It is not my definition of a superpower as I clarified.

That you consistently repeat the same argument, and that I've already said previously everything that I have said in this post is the only continuity in this thread.

[mrswdk]

China was and is returning to be a superpower. They build ties through joint ownership. Whereas the West used the World Bank and IMF to create debt based on projects they knew were never going to happen, China creates the infrastructure for shared profit. One enriches a dictator of choice, the other builds the country.

Don’t be naive. Chinese investment in the developing world is every bit as self-interested as Western investment. China generally ensures its loans to developing countries are spent on Chinese contractors who then develop local resources partially or entirely for China's own benefit.

‘One enriches a dictator of choice, the other builds the country’. Are you seriously going to try and argue that Chinese links with Zimbabwe and North Korea fall into that second category? Dream on.

I normally slam the Chinese is on making crappy shit that stupid Americanadians buy, even though they don't need it. I slam them on thinking that economic growth is a good thing, and on communism.

1) Those North American consumers are purchasing Chinese goods of their own free will. If you have a problem with that trade arrangement then your beef is with North Americans, not China.

2) China is not communist.

[Phatscotty]

DY, if interested, start with the Thrawn Trilogy/Star Wars books, you'll be going back to start from the beginning. The other best introduction is 'Shadow of the Empire' Which fills the gap between Empire STrikes Back and Return of the jedi. One of the villains, Prince Xisor, rose to challenge Vader for the #2 spot in the pecking order, it was kind of cool to see Vader being challenged around every possible corner while keeping on the mission to find Luke Skywalker at all costs. If I remember right the Prince even got close to or actually did bang Princess Leia.



This coming from a guy with 2 full bookshelves, all History, Military, Religious, Economic, Philosophy and Politics, 95% non-fiction, it's kinda funny to observe an entire shelf dedicated to the Star Wars books, my 5% of fiction, my guilty pleasure. Grand admiral Thrawn is a Sun Tzu of Star Wars villians. He not only fight physically with the military, but is also a cunning politician who can achieve goals sometimes without firing a single bullet, while keeping everyone else pertinent in an information bubble vacant of anything relevant. He also controlled a Sith clone, Jorus C'Boath, who might have matched the powers of Emperor Palpatine himself had they lived in the same time. I once gave ode to my CC lifetime partner PoleDancer as that of '...a Grand Admiral Thrawn, controlling entire fleets with his mind n shit.'

[_sabotage_]

Sorry mrs,

But China is acting as a economic superpower while the US is a military superpower.

The US will thrust a loan upon a third world nation, and if the nation refuses the loan, they consider them hostile. In order to accept the loan, privatization clauses have been added to the loans. This money is also tied to specific projects, if you look at the success rate of these projects, one can conclude that lending money had nothing to do with the project since they rarely happen.

China ties profit to the success of the projects, the US ties profit with the failure. JVs were the only way foreign companies succeeded in China and now China is using JVs internationally. The stated benefits of the project will be achieved, while with US projects, a very well bribed dictator is achieved.

As someone living in China, you may hear the constant news of "economic cooperation" between China and other nations. When Tzor, I believe, pointed to India as a possible competitor of China, I showed that China was supplying the money for the projects that would help make India more competitive.

While the US does this, they only do so when being a military superpower does not allow successful implementation of policies.

The loans that the US are providing to secure the resources and dictator are printed out of thin air. The moment a nation accepts the loan, the value of the loan has already decreased.

But we can look at some major proposals of late and see why China is an economic superpower and the US is a military one:

US proposes to invest $1.5t in a new jet fighter. This will not benefit anyone except the military industrial complex.

China proposes to invest $2t in a train to Vancouver. This will have a wide range of benefits and has a way for the return on investment to be realized, if not in transport fees then in utility generated.

China actually has $2t because they don't have military budgets of $700b, but are under $200b. Every four years China can invest in such a project and:

China proposes to reopen Silk Road.

Trade routes, trade vehicles, building trading partners, and building trading relations.

Here's another thing China is doing:

AIIB, a proposed competitor for the ADB. The ADB is a local branch of the World Bank, with two minor exceptions, it is more lucrative to their employees, but provides less status. I know this because my mother worked there before moving directly to the World Bank. It's own auditors describe the ADB as: intentionally promoting corruption. They also enforce privatization.

In short, China is making business more profitable for its trading partners, as it used to. The US is using any underhanded means that they can.

If this is same-same to you, well...

[2dimes]

So there is a picture and videos but they are not Gwen Stacey.

[DoomYoshi]

DY, if interested, start with the Thrawn Trilogy/Star Wars books, you'll be going back to start from the beginning. The other best introduction is 'Shadow of the Empire' Which fills the gap between Empire STrikes Back and Return of the jedi. One of the villains, Prince Xisor, rose to challenge Vader for the #2 spot in the pecking order, it was kind of cool to see Vader being challenged around every possible corner while keeping on the mission to find Luke Skywalker at all costs. If I remember right the Prince even got close to or actually did bang Princess Leia.



This coming from a guy with 2 full bookshelves, all History, Military, Religious, Economic, Philosophy and Politics, 95% non-fiction, it's kinda funny to observe an entire shelf dedicated to the Star Wars books, my 5% of fiction, my guilty pleasure. Grand admiral Thrawn is a Sun Tzu of Star Wars villians. He not only fight physically with the military, but is also a cunning politician who can achieve goals sometimes without firing a single bullet, while keeping everyone else pertinent in an information bubble vacant of anything relevant. He also controlled a Sith clone, Jorus C'Boath, who might have matched the powers of Emperor Palpatine himself had they lived in the same time. I once gave ode to my CC lifetime partner PoleDancer as that of '...a Grand Admiral Thrawn, controlling entire fleets with his mind n shit.'

Ok, I'll pick them up if I see them at a second-hand book store (I go at least once a month).

[DoomYoshi]

So having an economy that is 70% as large makes you a superpower. I would like to see the maths on that one.

[DoomYoshi]

2) China is not communist.

See, I would generally agree with that, except the leading party is still called CCP.

I deal with psychologists the same way. The original psychologists were whack jobs who were anti-scientific. Therefore, psychology is the act of being a whackjob anti-scientist. These days, psychology has started growing its poison ivy vines into pharmacology, neuroscience, behaviorism, etc. I say, too bad. None of those things are psychology.

Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet? NO. That's the entire point of this thread.

[_sabotage_]

For 70% the price of this:



You can get this:



Which do you think may increase your ability to generate more economic output?

Meanwhile a friend of mine who has a PhD in electrical engineering from Tsinghua turned down a job in Germany that was offering him 8 times the salary because it wouldn't be increasing his standard of living over what 1/8 the salary can provide in China.

If a military contractor costs the same as 8 top Chinese engineers, then I'll take 4, fire the contractor and invest the rest elsewhere.