@henry_pet: Agreed. The problem is the current school of economic thought.
I think MMT (link to en.wikipedia.org) offers us a way out of the mess we are in and in the direction you have indicated, although making this a reality will be a long and arduous task.
Obama is too invested in being the nice guy on stage and making deals with the big players off stage to actually disrupt the status quo and create change at a fundamental level.
The only real way to create change is to support the emergence of a third front in US politics by voting for the Green party.
That is a part of what being a professional is. You dont act on all your instincts but stamp out the ones that get in the way of you doing a good job.
No one is saying you cant think about the killers motivations in your private time. But as a journalist on air you do not voice that thought unless you have a solid answer from the accused. How does speculation help anyone but the bean counters?
To someone on the outside it looks even more baffling.
As a teenager I got very confused on how American's said one thing but did another in practice and thought that I was not understanding the bigger picture properly.
It was only after I read Chomsky and others that I realized that a lot of what was said/done was actually in the context of special interests. After understanding that, connecting the dots became much easier.
The appearance of doing the right thing seems to be more important than doing the right thing. The way MSM handles these things by being partisan does not help matters.
The gun control issue is so simple when seen in the right context but it is muddled by an amazing amount of doublespeak.
I was using the example in the sense that a small party has little leverage among big parties.
Right now Palestine has little leverage, politically or in the mainstream media and with US support Israel feels free to act with little consideration for the response of the international community.
But once the US has oil/energy security its likely that they will not support Israel in the same way as the do now. By not earning goodwill with its neighbors today, Israel is undermining its future.
The difficulty is that at present Israel's only argument seems to be that possession is 9/10's of the law. With that as the starting point, it is difficult to reach a sensible compromise. Israel is annexing the land that by UN resolution belongs to the Palestinians. That is wrong in itself but whats worse is that Palestinians living there are not given Israeli citizenship as that would dilute the idea of a Jewish state. So where are the Palestinians supposed to go?
It will not end well for anyone especially after the US interest in the region wanes.
Tibet got crushed after the US decided it was better to improve relations with China rather than help the Tibetans.
Unless things change quickly the Palestinians can expect the same to happen to them. The critical differences are that Muslims don't value peace in the same way that Buddhists do, Israel is much smaller than China and is surrounded by a lot of Islamic countries. Recipe for disaster in the making.
TYPO ALERT: ... that because Abu Ghraib is oversees, it is beyond...
That should be overseas.
@henry_pet: Agreed. The problem is the current school of economic thought.
I think MMT (link to en.wikipedia.org) offers us a way out of the mess we are in and in the direction you have indicated, although making this a reality will be a long and arduous task.
There is no left and right in American politics.
The Republicans are the far right and the Democrats are the right with the occasional swing to the left.
The only way to fix this dysfunctional political system is to have a third political party that actually is on the center-left.
Obama is too invested in being the nice guy on stage and making deals with the big players off stage to actually disrupt the status quo and create change at a fundamental level.
The only real way to create change is to support the emergence of a third front in US politics by voting for the Green party.
That is a part of what being a professional is. You dont act on all your instincts but stamp out the ones that get in the way of you doing a good job.
No one is saying you cant think about the killers motivations in your private time. But as a journalist on air you do not voice that thought unless you have a solid answer from the accused. How does speculation help anyone but the bean counters?
To someone on the outside it looks even more baffling.
As a teenager I got very confused on how American's said one thing but did another in practice and thought that I was not understanding the bigger picture properly.
It was only after I read Chomsky and others that I realized that a lot of what was said/done was actually in the context of special interests. After understanding that, connecting the dots became much easier.
The appearance of doing the right thing seems to be more important than doing the right thing. The way MSM handles these things by being partisan does not help matters.
The gun control issue is so simple when seen in the right context but it is muddled by an amazing amount of doublespeak.
That would rather get in the way of the US wanting to be colonists without appearing to be colonists. :D
The sooner the US realizes that the Middle East is not its backyard, the better it is for everyone.
I thought that Tibet became independent sometime before WW1 and then was invaded by China post WW2 ?
You are right Juan.
I was using the example in the sense that a small party has little leverage among big parties.
Right now Palestine has little leverage, politically or in the mainstream media and with US support Israel feels free to act with little consideration for the response of the international community.
But once the US has oil/energy security its likely that they will not support Israel in the same way as the do now. By not earning goodwill with its neighbors today, Israel is undermining its future.
The area has a very complex history as this video illustrates. Jews were not the first inhabitants of the region.
link to blog.ninapaley.com
The difficulty is that at present Israel's only argument seems to be that possession is 9/10's of the law. With that as the starting point, it is difficult to reach a sensible compromise. Israel is annexing the land that by UN resolution belongs to the Palestinians. That is wrong in itself but whats worse is that Palestinians living there are not given Israeli citizenship as that would dilute the idea of a Jewish state. So where are the Palestinians supposed to go?
It will not end well for anyone especially after the US interest in the region wanes.
Tibet got crushed after the US decided it was better to improve relations with China rather than help the Tibetans.
Unless things change quickly the Palestinians can expect the same to happen to them. The critical differences are that Muslims don't value peace in the same way that Buddhists do, Israel is much smaller than China and is surrounded by a lot of Islamic countries. Recipe for disaster in the making.