131–140 of 315 posts
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You’ve forgotten how to protest. I recall you guys getting pretty upset over some tea with Britain. Seriously as long as folks are content at home the politicians won’t give a damn about you. Go march in the streets en mass and things will slowly change.
Are you implying that putting some filter over my facebook picture isn't an effective method of protest?
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> considering their ongoing Brexit One of the big campaigns for Leave was that the EU was dampening our ability to trade with the rest of the World. I guess maybe not then?
One of the realisations from after the result was Leave had no plan at all. Nothing admissible or written. I'm sure Rees Mogg had a plan, but it wouldn't have won votes, so that's staying in his head. The Scottish Independence referendum had a plan running to hundreds of pages. Good bits and bad bits, but a good few people had put thought into what came next. Leave had a bus, with a slogan.
sadly visible all over the world
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We see enough people profiting from these wars to wonder how much global conflict is manufactured. I hope we stop buying in. We, the people, are pretty powerless here. Lobbyists and elected officials have too much power and election cycles are too far apart. So even when recent American military action gets relatively low support from Americans [0], neither congress nor the president has any motivation to do anything…
> We, the people, are pretty powerless here. Most US americans have been voting for Democrats or Republicans or not at all for decades. Of course the politics remain the same: Wars and politics that favor the richest. Please, vote for the Green Party or another reasonable party in 2020.
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> considering their ongoing Brexit One of the big campaigns for Leave was that the EU was dampening our ability to trade with the rest of the World. I guess maybe not then?
Free trade is a socially acceptable excuse Brexit voters can use to mask the real reasons they voted to leave. As is sovereignty.
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We see enough people profiting from these wars to wonder how much global conflict is manufactured. I hope we stop buying in. We, the people, are pretty powerless here. Lobbyists and elected officials have too much power and election cycles are too far apart. So even when recent American military action gets relatively low support from Americans [0], neither congress nor the president has any motivation to do anything…
> We, the people, are pretty powerless here. Most US americans have been voting for Democrats or Republicans or not at all for decades. Of course the politics remain the same: Wars and politics that favor the richest. Please, vote for the Green Party or another reasonable party in 2020.
I'm not going to vote for someone just because they're different from the establishment if they have positions I find ridiculous.
A "deal" that has near-zero value for both parties where the EU is more trying to save face by showing it is "independent" while trying to not anger the USA anyway by applying other sanctions. IMHO this is a pretty weak move from the EU, and shows that there is no clear driver behind the EU wheel after the souring of US-EU relations.
This deal is entirely designed to cut US out the loop of international payments, one step at a time. It is extremely valuable to EU to able to conduct oil payments with Iran directly in Euro, without the US being able to say no.
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> As an European, I just don't get the Israeli fixation with Iran, I agree, but let's not forget also the ridiculous fixation of Iran with Israel, which is even more senseless. I do not understand where the Irani animosity towards Israel comes from. Both countries are surrounded by arabs that hate them, wouldn't they all be better of as best buddies?
I have studied this very question previously and it's a bit more complex than that.
Iran had a democratically elected government, but in the early 50s, the UK & US orchestrated a coup that ousted that government, since they wanted to nationalize their natural resources and kick foreign oil firms out of the country.
The U.S. the installed the King of Iran as their puppet dictator. The King was a close ally of Israel and Saudi Arabia as well.
After some 20+ years, the dictator was overthrown in the Iranian Revolution of 1979.
Part of Iran's national defense strategy since then, is to have allied forces in some neighboring countries like Lebanon, Iraq etc. These forces are not occupying the territories, they're native to the land, but just ideologically align more with Iran than other countries in the region.
This strategy exists because Iran knows it would not be able to defeat an invasion on its own, were that to ever happen.
Part of how Iran was able to attract their support was by positioning itself as the force to stand against Western abuses in the region, (including Israel).
Because Israel was an ally of the old Iranian dictator, who was hated in Iran and because their abuses against the Palestinians, it was natural for Iran to position itself as against Israeli abuses, both because of its own history and because it strengthened its image as an alternative in the region against Western abuse.
It is therefore far from true that "arabs hate them". Some Arabs hate Iranians, mostly Sunni gulf states, who supported the previous Iranian regime, but some consider them an ally, including a significant portion of Lebanon, Syria, portions of Yemen and the Palestinians.
Looking at it this way, it does at least make some sense.
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The fact that some boogiemen are not as terrible as portrayed, or that we shouldn't put too much effort to go after them, does not imply that all boogiemen are actually nice.
There's the fact that nobody appointed them the global cops in charge of boogiemen. There's also the fact that more often than not, they act based on internal power plays and national interests of its own, and not for some "greater good". There's also the fact that they have fucked up tons of countries with their interventions -- 4 countries in the last 20 years ago, turning relatively stable regimes into hell-holes…
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> Yeah, except that the US has reduced emissions more than any other country Starting from insanely high emission levels > and is highly competitive on a per-capita percentage basis. No. That's just false. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
??? Your link says in 2013 the U.S. was near its neighbor Canada on per capita carbon emissions. That's still double the EU. But that's also 6 years ago; the gap will have closed somewhat.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/02/france-blames-...
https://freebeacon.com/national-security/eu-sanctions-iran-o...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/08/iran-behind-tw...
And on and on and on.