It's interesting for people like me, a professing Christian, to listen to conversations like this; queue the rolling of eyes; fingers down fake "gagging" throat. But it is, none the less.
While they may not profess it, these two people come across as disgruntled humanist. They embrace the thought that things are getting worse each year but they can't see the reason, they think there is an "... inability to resolve the collective action problems that we face ...". Thus the big problem, humans have the innate need to make the simple, complicated. This interview oozes such a need.
So the masses will continue to turn to their fellow human for solutions to the problems their fellow human created; that's what humanist do. Quite sad actually.
I'm an atheist and philosophically liberal (nothing to do with Canada's moronic Liberal Party), and a hard one at that, nonetheless I agree with the error you see.
Something happened simultaneously on the "left" and in atheism, and in feminism. Until the 70s, people were fighting for better status of living for everyone, and people got to work in their little pockets of friends, but it was all for a "greater good". But activism is no longer for the "greater good". Activism has become a form of punishment.
I was raised in a strict Roman Catholic schooling system, the nuns were horrifyingly evil to us, and several students were broken by them. Those were the years were the guest rightly points out that the "left" where the shakers, and the "right" (conservative/religious) were the authoritarians, his analogy to the movie Footloose was a good example.
But something happened to the Left along the way, it became authoritarian on "progressive values". On this too the guest is partially correct. Take people like Steven Pinker. His religion is progressivism. He sees nothing about how the world has gotten worse, Steven Pinker sees ALL "progress" as a "positive". But by "progress", people like Steven Pinker are actually mostly focused on tech, and less child labour, which is a ridiculous way to assess societal happiness.
Among atheists, the SAME thing happened. Atheists USED to be simply religion-free people, but around the 90s-00s, the doctrine of "Humanism" came along and took over the atheist movements. Humanism is the exact same system of faith as Christianity, with basically all the same rules, and all the same assumptions, and all the same authoritarianism, EXCEPT, Humanism is a godless faith. In Humanism, all that the greatness once attributed to god, was now attributed to amazing and genius human beings. ( I really despise Humanism and Steven Pinker).
So, you may not "get" why I'm totally agreeing with your take on this ridiculous interview, because I'm coming from the opposite side of the spectrum.
The guest was right about half the time, and wrong about half the time, not because he's some sort of centrist, but because he sees there are consequences to a problem, but has no idea what the true problems are, nor does he have any inkling of what needs changing.
The last two decades have forced me to reassess by views about conservatives. But now I'm not even on the political spectrum any more.
There was a point in my earlier days when I identified with your “philosophically liberal” perspective. While we were not the in-your-face types we see today I think our feelings were similar to those of the left today. However, as I grew older and considered the results of my efforts, and of those I supported, I started to realize there was a massive shell game going on. After that reality finally sank in I thought that maybe the right was the place to be, but as time went by I realized that party is nothing more than the opposite side of the same coin. I am now the founder of “The Christian Conservative Contrarian Party” (CCCP); a party of 2. 😉
I have never aligned myself as an atheist but for most of my life I had a weak head knowledge of Christ, what’s the point in that? Might as well be an atheist.
It would be fun having a conversation with you about this, it’s an amazing subject, but this isn’t the place. I will say I have concluded, since I am a supporter of small, limited government, that in religion, denominations are nothing more than religious government. Jesus didn’t, to the frustration of many Jews, come to overthrow Rome, he came to overthrow religious structure. Denominations are extremely corrupt.
Yesterday, curious timing???, I came across a message that is a good, succinct explanation of the world we see today and what the future holds, so in case you are interested here’s a link, it’s around 40 minutes in length:
I hope you will listen to it, and if you do remember the thief on the cross with Jesus went from ridiculing Him to believing on Him is just a few hours. He never jumped through one man-made, denominational hoop. Faith in Christ is actually quite simple, and much cooler than I ever imagined.
One more thing and I’ll shut up. Each day I try to listen to an approx. 20 minute program of “Thru The Bible”, a program recorded by the late J Vernon McGee. McGee isn’t perfect, I argue with him from time to time, but he knows the simple basics and communicates them well. But at the end of the day only the individual is responsible for their soul, no man-made laws or coercion have any effect, except maybe making one resist. Thanks! Thru the Bible link https://ttb.org/
That's interesting. Related to your questions "... who am I? Why are we here? What else is there?" I am not intelligent or "spiritual" enough to answer them by using my own resources. Of course I didn't realize that for much of my life, there were many a day when I thought I had it all figured out; now I know I didn't.
Earlier I said faith in Christ is much cooler than I ever imagined; it is what drives me every day. We take so much for granted in our daily lives, and that's where we shortchange ourselves. It's the things that I know to be true, yet can't understand that truly fascinate me. Looking at God's creation is awe-inspiring, and He put us here to enjoy it, not to destroy it. But since humans turn their backs to God, He addresses it in His way; a way we can't comprehend. Consider this, if our Sun were the size of the period I will put at the end of this sentence, the galaxy were are in, the Milkey Way, would be the size of the continental US. And the Milky Way is one of billions of galaxies. Wrap your head around that.
My final example, I subscribe to the Christian premillennialist school of thought. I believe as this age we live in, the age of Grace, winds down God removes, via the "Rapture", the Church, aka the body of true believers, before the final seven years, aka the Apocalypse. As far as I can tell most American Christians who also subscribe to this belief assume the US will still be humming along when that happens. Personally I don't think that.
While I am in no-way dogmatic about it I expect the US will have been dealt a very serious blow before the Rapture. The US in not in end-times prophesy; Russia, China, Iran, Egypt and Israel are. Time will tell.
The Liberal Party has moved along the spectrum from moronic to demonic. They are a sub cult of the WEF death cult. Depopulation by any means necessary, with as much cruelty and suffering as possible, is the game they play. They believe they are, by birthright, planet saviors, demi gods to be spared. Yes, their thinking is that skewed because they are thoroughly programmed by psychopaths. That's how cults work and "succeed" - if we let them. The inculcated are blinded to the fact that their days are numbered. Unspeakably sad for their children, who hopefully will be spared by divine love.
The cult masters are after our children and our pets, by the way. The more innocent, the more easily consumed. Time not for the Great Reset, but the Great Cleansing. Thus will the Liberal Cult of Canada be washed away. Forever.
I don't understand this obsession with "depopulation". Since neoliberals have ruled the Earth the population has DOUBLED. Since this stupid virus, the world population has continued to increase.
There are so few large mammals left on this planet, and soon Humans, cows, pigs, will be the only large mammals left on Earth.
Why are people so obsessed with growth at all costs?
“humans have the innate need to make the simple, complicated.”
Yes, while at the same time also frequently making the complicated over-simplified.
Human nature is complicated as human moral behavior is largely emotive driven. The flaw of the scientist is to deny this in himself while pursuing projects to correct for it in others.
Biologically speaking, "needs" are food, air, water, shelter, and group bonding. We don't have an innate need to make things complicated. The problem is the majority of infants are taught lies from their day of birth, and then the lies clash with material reality, which ensues people arguing about narratives vs facts.
But without the grooming into lies, all infants would grow up rational (unless dealing with trauma) and materialistic, as tribes humans were before arbitrary "civilisation" became the dominant narrative
Interesting podcast, thank you! I appreciated his insight that the “left” and “right” have switched places on the political spectrum, with the left becoming more rules-based and authoritarian and the right becoming the counterculture rebels. That is a fascinating development that deserves to be explored further. However, his simplistic right/left political dichotomy in relation to the truckers’ protest was, in my opinion and experience, completely off-base. Rather than fuelled by the right, which he argued, a great many people on the left fully supported the truckers’ protest, including myself. As I’ve emphasized before on this platform, the truckers’ protest crossed all political lines, no matter how much people want to label it as right-wing motivated - simply because the issue that was and is being protested is an inherently and deeply “human” issue, which is an individual’s right to choose what they inject into their body without being discriminated against, and segregated and ostracized in society.
That's the very purpose of the institution of "marriage" to ensure that ALL humans are used for breeding purposes, to support the never ending wealth of the elites.
Before civilisation, Homo sapiens didn't go in twos. Homo sapiens used to sleep in groups, and the fittest (not sport fitness, but overall biological fitness) males and females were the reproducers, while the rest of the tribe had other jobs. Females only used to have 3-4 periods per year, and with breast-feeding until 2nd teeth came in, reproductive rates used to be very low, both societally and individually. What modern civilisation did was ensure maximum reproductive output, like a pig farm, and it's not for zero reason. The reason elites developped this system is because it's very efficient and providing expendable bodies for endless warfare. Endess reproduction is basically a military strategy, overwhelm the enemy with endless capacity. It is an efficient system, but recent centuries have declared death and sickness and ageing illegal (or not PC), at least before the extreme reproductive output was somewhat counterbalanced by death rates. But now that death is no longer acceptable, our we now reproduce like rabbit herbivores with no predators. And you know what happens in an ecosystem with herbivores have no predators, they destroy the ecosystem.
The restrictions imposed by governments (which were complying with the demands of fear-mongered populace simply perpetuate the system already in place.
For the elites to continue to accumulate wealth, they need endless masses of compliant minions, not wise citizens.
The endless "they want to depopulate us" is the reason the fear-mongerers are so effective, because the resistance sometimes has nonsense resistance. In order to defeat these elites, we are going to need to be more savvy.
There is nothing new here to speak of...a lot of what you hear in this is based on these events that have happened in the past, WW1, The Great Depression, WW2, The Korean War, then Vietnam. Natural disaster such as climate change that been going on for millenium. A lot of what we see today is based on computer modeling which is just another way to control the narrative. We are a society that bows to technology and are becoming dumber & dumber. In this life there is a cycle that we go through time after time the clothing is the different the message the same. All these things are part of the world wide pysche that it will get bad maybe worse and after much turmoil things level out and for a while peace and stability are returned, study the patterns after WW1 &WW2. Climate change is the same thing, floods, storms, and many other natural disasters have come and gone many times and we did survive them. Life is a balancing act and in the final point it will right itself until the next big event comes along to scare and challenge us all, and how we handle it...30
There’s a lot packed into your comment, thank you. One statement that particularly struck me is “A lot of what we see today is based on computer modeling which is just another way to control the narrative.” I saw a correlation of this thought with Potter’s observation that human psychology is being “hacked” on the internet in a way that undermines reason and promotes disarray, which affects all our institutions (political, educational, etc.) in a negative way - I would say degrades them. This technological ability and control was obviously not present in the former eras you refer to. We are in a completely different ballgame now, when decisions that affect us are determined by algorithms that are developed by software engineers. His question, “how can this be fixed?” Is one of the most crucial questions of our time. I doubt that anyone knows the answer to this as it will depend entirely on how humans respond to this predicament. Will we sink further into degradation and despair as a species or will we find a way to resist this control and learn to harness technology in a way that elevates and preserves humankind and all of life?
Thank you for your very sensible, logical comment om my post, its nice to meet like minded people with whom you can share an opinion and not be mocked for it. I share your sentiment Patryce very much as what you say is very is straight up. I suggest that you look up Maurice Strong as he is the o0ne who essentially got the ball in motion over climate change and when you read about it you will see that he went to the UN and it became a total money grab. Just how can one " tax nature."??? Again nice to share with you, stay safe and well...speak soon
This guest has some good ideas, but he's really lacking in historical knowledge, and pre-historical knowledge.
As for the changes that occurred at the turn of the previous century, he should have a look at the wonderful BBC 4-1h-parts documentary that discusses how our brains have been co-opted by larger forces... of evil... yes they are evil... I'm not a person of faith, I use evil in the sense of harm to humans and the ensemble of nature.
The documentary CENTURY OF SELF describes the same thing as your guest when he describes life having become a casino.
The last century has been a massive social experiment, where all of humanity are just guinea pigs.
"This episode explains how politicians on the left, in both Britain and America, turned to the techniques developed by business to read and fulfil the inner desires of the self.
Both New Labour, under Tony Blair, and the Democrats, led by Bill Clinton, used the focus group, which had been invented by psychoanalysts, in order to regain power. They set out to mould their policies to people's inner desires and feelings, just as capitalism had learnt to do with products.
They believed they were creating a new and better form of democracy, one that truly responded to the inner feelings of individual. But what they didn't realise was that the aim of those who had originally created these techniques had not been to liberate the people, but to develop a new way of CONTROLLING them."
I am always heartened when apparently left leaning thinkers recognize how authoritarian the left has become, because for me it is one of the most shocking and massive shifts in American politics in my lifetime. I am shocked to find that groups which I always supported since they seemed to be fighting against an unjust establishment, have now morphed into enforcers for that same establishment---the cheerleader for the sabotage Trump movement literally engineered by the intelligence community, which leftists always DIStrusted, being the most obvious and insane manifestation of the newly developped bankruptcy of the left. But what is missing, in this discussion, is what to DO about this reorientation. Even those leftists who recognize this reorientation seem unable to change THEIR orientation and perhaps...ADMIRE the fact that President Trump wound down the butchery in TWO longstanding wars, strolled in the demilitarized zone with the intractable leader of North Korea, cancelled and renegotiated the disastrous trade treaties which Bernie Sanders railed against in 2016 and promised to cancel and renegotiate, produced the lowest unemployment in HISTORY for various minorities and women. I mean, for chrissake, how much does a populist have to do before you stop HATING him and have the decency to PRAISE his accomplishments. And even those who supposedly reject the stalinistic turn the left has taken, like a Glenn Greenwald, and like the Tara and Andrew Potter, lack the decency to praise Donald Trump's accomplishments. Until they do, there will remain an unreality about their thinking. If you can praise obvious accomplishments, then you're reaction to events is...quite simply...warped.
Well, yes, even Tara is not willing to go as far as Greenwald has gone in separating himself from his former colleagues on the left who have turned into such authoritarian curmodgeons. As for me, I had written off American politics for at least a decade after the Bush/Cheney coup and the insanity of the war on terror, and was only lured back to it by, of all people, Bernie Saunders, even to the point of working on his campaign quite actively. But in the process of doing things like get out the vote calls during the primaries, I became aware of how hopeless corrupt the Democratic Party had become, and I decided to look at few Trump rallies online to find out why he was so popular in spite of being vilified by everybody else... It took time for me to progress from grudging acceptance of the guy as the only alternative to the horridly corrupt Clinton...to appreciating some of his accomplishments furthering the same agenda as Saunders had (cancelling the free trade treaties, promoting the repatriation of manufacturing jobs), to celebrating a foreign policy which began with an historic first trip abroad not to Europe but to a meeting of the Arab League (by a supposedly islamosphobic president), moved on to winding down military operations in Syria, then strolling in the DMZ with N. Korea's leader, and finished with making peace with the Taliban. So by the end of the four years, I was asking what is NOT to like about the guy. Neither Greenwald nor Tara will go that far...hahaha
A lot like the CBC, though they did retract a couple of articles re: the funding of the Freedom Convoy - albeit too little too late. This really is an information war, isn't it. You were right, Alex Jones.
Whew. First reaction? That was a flurry of fast-talking, ADHD, simplistic overgeneralization lacking in depth and coherence. This fellow needs to learn how to focus his thoughts and attention. Having said that, he had a few interesting insights worth noting, but they were really hard to disentangle from the rambling. A bit like watching a child chasing butterflies.
To be fair, in an interview (presuming he didn't get the questions in advance), it's hard to deliver as you would in a lecture. I think Potter presented a lot of food for thought, which is what something like this series should be (not (re)education, per se).
This guest is so weird. He manages to say something correct and something incorrect every second sentence. It's too much to unpack, but just to take one simple example. Covid. He claimed that "Canada did poorly at fighting covid". That's a ridiculous statement!!! The provincial governments, egged on by the Fed, put in place some of the most draconian restrictions in the world. Canada has lower covid stats than nearly all of Europe. All the while he's extolling the virtues of even worst authoritarians! This is ridiculous.
With an IFR under 0.05%, there should have been ZERO restrictions. All protective measures should have been voluntary and focused on the elderly and frail, which were the only target group for c19.
He basically sounds like Justin Trudeau: We're not authoritarian centralising enough! gah!
The Korean example was about a people who came together quite effectively to use a tool which had utility in dealing with the early crisis. Not about people who followed orders to stay home, stay away from each other, take pay for nothing, etc. (the Canadian example.)
I believe his point was that we are, in Canada, too invested in talking about things and not invested enough in rolling up our sleeves and _doing something together_ to actually deal with things. So we had to stay alone in our little 'bubbles' because, frankly, there was not a good option for rolling up our sleeves to work together.
I'm from Winnipeg, and when the flood comes, we don't 'talk about' it. We get together, fill sandbags, pile sandbags, and repeat as fast as bloody possible.
That is what is missing from Canada right now. A dedication to pragmatism and trust in our collective power. Trust in our neighbours, in our institutions, and in our ability to get the job done (together.)
Lee, it's not that Canadians are missing trust, it is that we have lost trust in our institutions. Our universities are full of privileged, me-first snowflakes who need safe spaces and demand "free" education. Our government, if we don't agree with its every policy, calls us racists and misogynists. We're told we have a world class healthcare system, but we have 18-month waiting lists and can't handle a crisis when even a small one comes along. And to adapt and manage the crisis, we go $1T in debt. No, we're not MISSING trust; we've LOST trust. And justifiably so.
I hear you, Tom. The institutions we used to trust have themselves lost their way, and so have lost our trust. Perhaps soon they will also lose our funding, we shall see.
If I understand you, those were the very institutions meant to ‘knit us together.’ The containers of trust, the shapers of action. They are failing at both of these jobs, and we are left without either the place to gather or the mobilizing mechanisms we are used to.
I feel compelled towards forming new trust bonds, albeit imperfectly at first, through new institutions. Likewise, new modes for action, again imperfect at the outset, to replace the ones I believe we have lost.
Tara is providing an example, the Truckers another, and there are more. Ways we can gather outside the old containers, and take actions without them.
The more of us that shift outside the standard modes of assembly and action, the quicker the change. At least, that’s what my gut tells me.
Well-said, Jewel, and an excellent point made about the coming together of people in the truckers’ protest against formidable odds. It reflected a dedication to and pulling together around a common cause that was (and is) truly remarkable.
I do get Lee’s point also, though, that there was absolutely no direction or inspiration coming from the governments on how we could pull together as a society, just hollow, superficial words. In fact, as we know, just the opposite happened, which was a deliberate and strategic decision to divide society in order to serve political purposes. The damaging consequences of that decision, on an individual and collective level, will linger for decades.
The flood is an extreme example, absolutely. Still, the treatment of the unvaccinated isn't that far removed as it represented the opening of floodgates which previously sought to hold back ill treatment of minorities (ACTUAL ill-treatment, not imagined.)
Yes, indeed, to me the Trucker's Convoy was like a group coming together to deal with an actual problem. And they got hammered for stepping up to do what was obviously the right thing (albeit not entirely in the right way, IMHO, 'cause we should not block path's to commercial success, ever.)
Don't. Give. Up. Keep on trucking towards actually solving problems, real problems, in the best possible ways. Like the Koreans used technology (together) to battle a problem. We can do similar things.
You know there are reasons they try to divide us, and it isn't to do what is best for us. We resist, and work together, and set a different tone for the Governments to follow.
Right now, they mostly follow Twitter. It isn't that hard to unseat Twitter if we work together.
Hear. Hear. Not draconian enough. Populists just don't know what's good for them, you see: If only the camps had been ready for some serious covid fighting.
Don't stress your dopamine receptors about those pesky Eurasians good professor. The best and brightest are working day and night on the problem.
"If one day the situation were reversed and the fate of the vanquished lay in my hands, then I would let all the ordinary folk go and even some of the leaders, who might perhaps after all have had honorable intentions and not know what they were doing. But I would have all the intellectuals strung up, and the professors three feet higher than the rest; they would be left hanging from the lampposts for as long as was compatible with hygiene."
--I Will Bear Witness, Volume 1: A Diary of the Nazi Years: 1933-1941" by Victor Klemperer
When Mr. Potter talks of economic stagnation, it would seem no one told him about what a mature economy is: it is defined as an economy that has reached an advanced stage of development, characterized by slow GDP growth, decrease spending on infrastructure, and a relative increase in consumer spending, this would include countries like the United States Canada in several nations in Western Europe.
Here’s an example of technological stagnation since 1970: Laptops, cell phones, digital photography, photovoltaic solar energy, mapping of the human genome, and oh yes, humanity circling Earth. Then he points out, home appliances, as an example of our decline, apparently he’s not aware of planned obsolescence, the damping things were designed to fail. Additionally, he seems unaware of a person’s second-largest purchase, a car, that last twice as long as it did in the 70s. Mr. Potter has a strange idea of what stagnation is!
I often wonder what people think when you’re complaining about regulations. Do they think there’s a magic regulation fairy who pops into the air and decrees regulations? Regulations are usually a response to an occurrence that was not beneficial to society or, to put it another way, someone was misbehaving.
I have no idea how he conceptualizes that social media prevents politicians and corporations from resolving collective problems, does he really think politicians and corporations are taking heed of the insanity taking place in social media? The only thing politicians heed is the top 10%, who corporations employ, and the 1%.
I was somewhat baffled by his statement about technological stagnation as well. It seems absurd when we are witnessing a revolution in automation. Maybe he means that current technology is not serving humankind in a particularly elevating and edifying way. If we can harness it for the benefit of the majority of human beings and not to maximize the profits of a greedy and opportunistic minority that exploits and manipulates this majority, we might have a chance.
Patryce, baffled indeed, you mention automation, taken to its ultimate end, automation would end manual labor. You will note I only mentioned technology that one could touch. I left out artificial intelligence, machine learning, and algorithms, things you can't hold in your hand. Additionally, I neglected to mention the James Webb telescope. An author's age makes no difference to me, but this time I was curious wholly based on his perspective; he said technologies in the 70s onward, were not making much advancement; it so happens he was born in 1972. Your comment about greed made me think; there is something making advancement, that would be income inequality.
Why would you say the news out of Ukraine is almost too much to bear? Anymore, for instance than the "non-news" out of The Donbass over the past 8 years. You know, where 14,000 civilians were killed from constant shelling by Ukraine military.
I am always heartened when apparently left leaning thinkers recognize how authoritarian the left has become, because for me it is one of the most shocking and massive shifts in American politics in my lifetime. I am shocked to find that groups which I always supported since they seemed to be fighting against an unjust establishment, have now morphed into enforcers for that same establishment---the cheerleader for the sabotage Trump movement literally engineered by the intelligence community, which leftists always DIStrusted, being the most obvious and insane manifestation of the newly developped bankruptcy of the left. But what is missing, in this discussion, is what to DO about this reorientation. Even those leftists who recognize this reorientation seem unable to change THEIR orientation and perhaps...ADMIRE the fact that President Trump wound down the butchery in TWO longstanding wars, strolled in the demilitarized zone with the intractable leader of North Korea, cancelled and renegotiated the disastrous trade treaties which Bernie Sanders railed against in 2016 and promised to cancel and renegotiate, produced the lowest unemployment in HISTORY for various minorities and women. I mean, for chrissake, how much does a populist have to do before you stop HATING him and have the decency to PRAISE his accomplishments. And even those who supposedly reject the stalinistic turn the left has taken, like a Glenn Greenwald, and like the Tara and Andrew Potter, lack the decency to praise Donald Trump's accomplishments. Until they do, there will remain an unreality about their thinking. If you can praise obvious accomplishments, then you're reaction to events is...quite simply...warped.
As in, perhaps, the insane western media reaction to Russia finally taking their own measures after 15 years of pleading with western leaders of all stripes to stop the insanity of using NATO as a cudgel to bring them to heel. And 8 years of having to watch and try to bring a halt through endless, futile negotiation to the constant bombardment and killings by the Nazi backed Ukraine government of their Russian descendant citizens in The Donbass.
Well, I'm afraid I don't exactly share your point of view. There was conflict in the Donbass because Russian backed separatists were trying to secede from Ukraine! The Russians have not at all been angels in this scenario. Moreover, do you not see that Russian intervening in Ukraine, to protect ethnic Russian separatists in the Donbass, is a move straight out of Hitler's playbook with Czechoslovakia in the late 1930s, when Germany backed the ethnic German separatists in the Sudetenland, and then move into to occupy it and dismember Czechoslovakia into a rump state in order to "protect" the ethnic German separatists whom the Germans had encouraged???? Yes, American intelligence agencies engaged in brinksmanship which led to the current situation, and yes the Obama/Biden administrations engaged in hopeless corruption in Ukraine, not just through Joe, but Hunter, and then John Kerry's son, and others. But in the final analysis, of COURSE the Ukrainian government was going to try to use force to stop the separatists in the Donbass from leaving---just as much as the Czechs would do to keep the Sudetenland and the northern states in the U.S. did during the civil war. You cannot blame them for doing so, or excuse Russia from stirring up the separatist troubles. I'd say there is plenty of blame to go around. But the bottom line is that the Ukrainian government's attempts to put down an internal rebellion did not constitute a threat to international peace. The Russian wholesale invasion of Ukraine DOES constitute a massive breach of international peace, such as Europe has not really seen on its lands since, well, since Hitler marched soldiers into Sudetenland to protect the poor ethnic Germans there whom he had egged on to engage in separatist activities. That cannot stand. You cannot forbid a country from putting down an internal rebellion. But you can, and should, forbid a country from INVADING another country on the grounds of the longstanding pretext of protecting a common "ethnic" minority. You do that, and boundary lines all across central Europe are in trouble... It threatens massive destabilization.
You go to great lengths to compare the actions of Russia in this instance to the history of Nazi Germany, and then go on to justify the atrocious actions of the Nazi backed, illegitimate Ukraine government against a huge swath of their own peoples as being quite in order. Amazing. For 8 long years the "breakaway republics" endured devastating bombardments even after their government entered into an agreement to work with those republics to develop a constitution that recognized them as autonomous regions. An agreement ratified by the UN Security Council, no less. The ink was not even dry when the agreement became dust in the wind because the Nazi descendants wouldn't stand for it. If western nations wouldn't protect them even with UN backing, then whom? This is, and has been a matter that sane governments could have addressed years ago had they even deigned to listen to the Russians. But because they are Russians, to hell with their internal security concerns. Ukraine is not self-governing nor has it been since 1990. It has been a USA/NATO/EU lacky since gaining "independence" and as such a serious threat to Russian internal security. A fact stamped in stone with the 2014 coup.
Well, I described the parallel between Germany/Sudetenland and Russia/Donbass in detail because the comparison IS detailed. A larger country encouraging people belonging to its ethnic group to revolt against the government of a smaller country. These are just historic facts. Nor is it amazing that the Ukraine government (regardless of whether YOU consider it illegitimate) fights to maintain its own territorial integrity. If the Czechs had been able to hold onto the Sudetenland in 1938, and Neville Chamberlain et al. had not acquiesced, the conflict with Nazi Germany might have developped very differently. I do not share your penchant for calling people Nazis, other than the actual Nazis who ruled Germany many decades ago. And I think you are just obviously flat out wrong when you say that Ukraine has been a USA/NATO/EU lacky [sic] since 1990. That's just demonstrably not true. Indeed, up until the Orange Revolution in the early 2000s, the Ukrainian government was very heavily influenced by Russian interests. And then some years after the Orange Revolution, pro-Russian political forces once again retook control of the national government. And then control shifted again towards Western countries with the Maidan revolt of 2014. So, you're talking through your hat when you reduce the history of the conflict between the West and Russia for influence over the Ukraine to the false statement that every Ukraine government since 1990 has been a lackey [correct spelling here] to the West. You have some interesting points to make about the failure of the parties to follow up on an agreement to provide for more autonomy for the Donbass, but no doubt shifting allegiance from Russia to the West of successive Ukrainian governments, as well as violence on the part of Russian separatists, may well have played a role in these difficulties. All in all, I don't think your brand of vilifying Ukraine, while it may satisfy your apparent desire to indulge in purple rhetoric, captures the complexity of Ukrainian history...
The complex history of Ukraine is merely another exploitive portfolio of the American State Department. Such was to have been the fate of Russia beyond Yeltsin had the little known V. Putin not been thrust into the breech. Ukraine will always be the useful idiot to western governments as long as the lunatic Nazi fringe are encouraged and financed by them. As it is they must be really pissed at losing the massive economic potential of the eastern oblasts. Karma can be a bitch. In any event, thank you for the rose colored glasses view of events in Ukraine over the past 8 1/2 years. Now where is file 9?
I'm not sure the people at large are as cowed by the mainstream media's hate propaganda against Trump as leftists and the media would have you believe. After all, Trump increased his voter support from about 60 million votes to about 74 million votes from 2016 to 2020, which shows an incredibly popular presidency. But the left and the liberals have been completely coopted from their former default position of distrusting the national security apparatus, opposing restrictions of free speech, and opposing regime change wars...by a combination of two things. First, the hate Trump mania just spread like wildfire among the left and the liberals. They have just engaged in an orgy of hating---perhaps because their political philosophy on the surface forbids hating anybody, so they have all this repressed ill will and no one to pin it on---until Trump pops up. Here, you wanna hate, knock yourself out, and you can do it in the name of opposing hatred!!! hahaha. Second, the establishment has bought off the left with the talismans of Critical Race Theory and Queery Theory. Mesmerized by these almost entirely useless sociological analyses, the left and the liberals have dropped any and all opposition to the establishment and the national security apparatus. I mean, they literally abandonned their traditional identity, in return for getting a chance to engage in mass hatred of Trump and in truly vapid sociological crusades which lionize a small fraction of the population while everybody else gets screwed. It's sad. It's perverse. And only a few on the left (like Greenwald or Jimmy Dore) manage not to drink the establishment's koolaid...
Dead wrong on covid. The entire "test, isolate, and snuff out covid" was a pipe dream. It never worked anywhere. The only places that "did well" with covid never attempted any of that garbage. Sweden and Florida. And basically anywhere that distributed ivermectin on a large scale. The idea that you can "snuff out" covid with apps and authoritarian nightmare policies such as the ones adopted by Australia is just childish. Ooh Daddy government will save me. I thought this was the kind of thought that he was criticizing in the rest of the interview.
10:30, "the forces of chaos and nihilism... are all on the Right". What really did happen, perhaps easier to see in the US, was the joining of the big corporate forces, big money putting it's weight behind figures like Hillary, where the woke progressives felt assured that they were on the winning side. When government, business and 'rebels' are all on the same side to 'fight the climate' and 'stop hate' perhaps someone is being tricked.
Nihilism, such as the grotesque sculptures thrown up in public spaces, or the sad state of TV are promulgated by government and business weight - they want a downward spiral. If the Right is the people who want to retain the good aspects of the past, I say that the author has some aspect of his analysis completely off.
Why the F would I want to do your legwork you lazy SOB. Your geopolitical horizon likely ends at the top of your TV set glued to the likes of CNN, CBC or some such.
It's interesting for people like me, a professing Christian, to listen to conversations like this; queue the rolling of eyes; fingers down fake "gagging" throat. But it is, none the less.
While they may not profess it, these two people come across as disgruntled humanist. They embrace the thought that things are getting worse each year but they can't see the reason, they think there is an "... inability to resolve the collective action problems that we face ...". Thus the big problem, humans have the innate need to make the simple, complicated. This interview oozes such a need.
So the masses will continue to turn to their fellow human for solutions to the problems their fellow human created; that's what humanist do. Quite sad actually.
I'm an atheist and philosophically liberal (nothing to do with Canada's moronic Liberal Party), and a hard one at that, nonetheless I agree with the error you see.
Something happened simultaneously on the "left" and in atheism, and in feminism. Until the 70s, people were fighting for better status of living for everyone, and people got to work in their little pockets of friends, but it was all for a "greater good". But activism is no longer for the "greater good". Activism has become a form of punishment.
I was raised in a strict Roman Catholic schooling system, the nuns were horrifyingly evil to us, and several students were broken by them. Those were the years were the guest rightly points out that the "left" where the shakers, and the "right" (conservative/religious) were the authoritarians, his analogy to the movie Footloose was a good example.
But something happened to the Left along the way, it became authoritarian on "progressive values". On this too the guest is partially correct. Take people like Steven Pinker. His religion is progressivism. He sees nothing about how the world has gotten worse, Steven Pinker sees ALL "progress" as a "positive". But by "progress", people like Steven Pinker are actually mostly focused on tech, and less child labour, which is a ridiculous way to assess societal happiness.
Among atheists, the SAME thing happened. Atheists USED to be simply religion-free people, but around the 90s-00s, the doctrine of "Humanism" came along and took over the atheist movements. Humanism is the exact same system of faith as Christianity, with basically all the same rules, and all the same assumptions, and all the same authoritarianism, EXCEPT, Humanism is a godless faith. In Humanism, all that the greatness once attributed to god, was now attributed to amazing and genius human beings. ( I really despise Humanism and Steven Pinker).
So, you may not "get" why I'm totally agreeing with your take on this ridiculous interview, because I'm coming from the opposite side of the spectrum.
The guest was right about half the time, and wrong about half the time, not because he's some sort of centrist, but because he sees there are consequences to a problem, but has no idea what the true problems are, nor does he have any inkling of what needs changing.
The last two decades have forced me to reassess by views about conservatives. But now I'm not even on the political spectrum any more.
There was a point in my earlier days when I identified with your “philosophically liberal” perspective. While we were not the in-your-face types we see today I think our feelings were similar to those of the left today. However, as I grew older and considered the results of my efforts, and of those I supported, I started to realize there was a massive shell game going on. After that reality finally sank in I thought that maybe the right was the place to be, but as time went by I realized that party is nothing more than the opposite side of the same coin. I am now the founder of “The Christian Conservative Contrarian Party” (CCCP); a party of 2. 😉
I have never aligned myself as an atheist but for most of my life I had a weak head knowledge of Christ, what’s the point in that? Might as well be an atheist.
It would be fun having a conversation with you about this, it’s an amazing subject, but this isn’t the place. I will say I have concluded, since I am a supporter of small, limited government, that in religion, denominations are nothing more than religious government. Jesus didn’t, to the frustration of many Jews, come to overthrow Rome, he came to overthrow religious structure. Denominations are extremely corrupt.
Yesterday, curious timing???, I came across a message that is a good, succinct explanation of the world we see today and what the future holds, so in case you are interested here’s a link, it’s around 40 minutes in length:
https://bbn1.bbnradio.org/english/home/all-programs/conference-pulpit-various-speakers/conference-pulpit-wednesday/
I hope you will listen to it, and if you do remember the thief on the cross with Jesus went from ridiculing Him to believing on Him is just a few hours. He never jumped through one man-made, denominational hoop. Faith in Christ is actually quite simple, and much cooler than I ever imagined.
One more thing and I’ll shut up. Each day I try to listen to an approx. 20 minute program of “Thru The Bible”, a program recorded by the late J Vernon McGee. McGee isn’t perfect, I argue with him from time to time, but he knows the simple basics and communicates them well. But at the end of the day only the individual is responsible for their soul, no man-made laws or coercion have any effect, except maybe making one resist. Thanks! Thru the Bible link https://ttb.org/
That's interesting. Related to your questions "... who am I? Why are we here? What else is there?" I am not intelligent or "spiritual" enough to answer them by using my own resources. Of course I didn't realize that for much of my life, there were many a day when I thought I had it all figured out; now I know I didn't.
Earlier I said faith in Christ is much cooler than I ever imagined; it is what drives me every day. We take so much for granted in our daily lives, and that's where we shortchange ourselves. It's the things that I know to be true, yet can't understand that truly fascinate me. Looking at God's creation is awe-inspiring, and He put us here to enjoy it, not to destroy it. But since humans turn their backs to God, He addresses it in His way; a way we can't comprehend. Consider this, if our Sun were the size of the period I will put at the end of this sentence, the galaxy were are in, the Milkey Way, would be the size of the continental US. And the Milky Way is one of billions of galaxies. Wrap your head around that.
My final example, I subscribe to the Christian premillennialist school of thought. I believe as this age we live in, the age of Grace, winds down God removes, via the "Rapture", the Church, aka the body of true believers, before the final seven years, aka the Apocalypse. As far as I can tell most American Christians who also subscribe to this belief assume the US will still be humming along when that happens. Personally I don't think that.
While I am in no-way dogmatic about it I expect the US will have been dealt a very serious blow before the Rapture. The US in not in end-times prophesy; Russia, China, Iran, Egypt and Israel are. Time will tell.
The Liberal Party has moved along the spectrum from moronic to demonic. They are a sub cult of the WEF death cult. Depopulation by any means necessary, with as much cruelty and suffering as possible, is the game they play. They believe they are, by birthright, planet saviors, demi gods to be spared. Yes, their thinking is that skewed because they are thoroughly programmed by psychopaths. That's how cults work and "succeed" - if we let them. The inculcated are blinded to the fact that their days are numbered. Unspeakably sad for their children, who hopefully will be spared by divine love.
The cult masters are after our children and our pets, by the way. The more innocent, the more easily consumed. Time not for the Great Reset, but the Great Cleansing. Thus will the Liberal Cult of Canada be washed away. Forever.
I don't understand this obsession with "depopulation". Since neoliberals have ruled the Earth the population has DOUBLED. Since this stupid virus, the world population has continued to increase.
There are so few large mammals left on this planet, and soon Humans, cows, pigs, will be the only large mammals left on Earth.
Why are people so obsessed with growth at all costs?
Why has growth become a religion?
Growth is the talisman of neoliberalism.
“humans have the innate need to make the simple, complicated.”
Yes, while at the same time also frequently making the complicated over-simplified.
Human nature is complicated as human moral behavior is largely emotive driven. The flaw of the scientist is to deny this in himself while pursuing projects to correct for it in others.
Biologically speaking, "needs" are food, air, water, shelter, and group bonding. We don't have an innate need to make things complicated. The problem is the majority of infants are taught lies from their day of birth, and then the lies clash with material reality, which ensues people arguing about narratives vs facts.
But without the grooming into lies, all infants would grow up rational (unless dealing with trauma) and materialistic, as tribes humans were before arbitrary "civilisation" became the dominant narrative
Interesting podcast, thank you! I appreciated his insight that the “left” and “right” have switched places on the political spectrum, with the left becoming more rules-based and authoritarian and the right becoming the counterculture rebels. That is a fascinating development that deserves to be explored further. However, his simplistic right/left political dichotomy in relation to the truckers’ protest was, in my opinion and experience, completely off-base. Rather than fuelled by the right, which he argued, a great many people on the left fully supported the truckers’ protest, including myself. As I’ve emphasized before on this platform, the truckers’ protest crossed all political lines, no matter how much people want to label it as right-wing motivated - simply because the issue that was and is being protested is an inherently and deeply “human” issue, which is an individual’s right to choose what they inject into their body without being discriminated against, and segregated and ostracized in society.
That's the very purpose of the institution of "marriage" to ensure that ALL humans are used for breeding purposes, to support the never ending wealth of the elites.
Before civilisation, Homo sapiens didn't go in twos. Homo sapiens used to sleep in groups, and the fittest (not sport fitness, but overall biological fitness) males and females were the reproducers, while the rest of the tribe had other jobs. Females only used to have 3-4 periods per year, and with breast-feeding until 2nd teeth came in, reproductive rates used to be very low, both societally and individually. What modern civilisation did was ensure maximum reproductive output, like a pig farm, and it's not for zero reason. The reason elites developped this system is because it's very efficient and providing expendable bodies for endless warfare. Endess reproduction is basically a military strategy, overwhelm the enemy with endless capacity. It is an efficient system, but recent centuries have declared death and sickness and ageing illegal (or not PC), at least before the extreme reproductive output was somewhat counterbalanced by death rates. But now that death is no longer acceptable, our we now reproduce like rabbit herbivores with no predators. And you know what happens in an ecosystem with herbivores have no predators, they destroy the ecosystem.
The restrictions imposed by governments (which were complying with the demands of fear-mongered populace simply perpetuate the system already in place.
For the elites to continue to accumulate wealth, they need endless masses of compliant minions, not wise citizens.
The endless "they want to depopulate us" is the reason the fear-mongerers are so effective, because the resistance sometimes has nonsense resistance. In order to defeat these elites, we are going to need to be more savvy.
There is nothing new here to speak of...a lot of what you hear in this is based on these events that have happened in the past, WW1, The Great Depression, WW2, The Korean War, then Vietnam. Natural disaster such as climate change that been going on for millenium. A lot of what we see today is based on computer modeling which is just another way to control the narrative. We are a society that bows to technology and are becoming dumber & dumber. In this life there is a cycle that we go through time after time the clothing is the different the message the same. All these things are part of the world wide pysche that it will get bad maybe worse and after much turmoil things level out and for a while peace and stability are returned, study the patterns after WW1 &WW2. Climate change is the same thing, floods, storms, and many other natural disasters have come and gone many times and we did survive them. Life is a balancing act and in the final point it will right itself until the next big event comes along to scare and challenge us all, and how we handle it...30
There’s a lot packed into your comment, thank you. One statement that particularly struck me is “A lot of what we see today is based on computer modeling which is just another way to control the narrative.” I saw a correlation of this thought with Potter’s observation that human psychology is being “hacked” on the internet in a way that undermines reason and promotes disarray, which affects all our institutions (political, educational, etc.) in a negative way - I would say degrades them. This technological ability and control was obviously not present in the former eras you refer to. We are in a completely different ballgame now, when decisions that affect us are determined by algorithms that are developed by software engineers. His question, “how can this be fixed?” Is one of the most crucial questions of our time. I doubt that anyone knows the answer to this as it will depend entirely on how humans respond to this predicament. Will we sink further into degradation and despair as a species or will we find a way to resist this control and learn to harness technology in a way that elevates and preserves humankind and all of life?
Thank you for your very sensible, logical comment om my post, its nice to meet like minded people with whom you can share an opinion and not be mocked for it. I share your sentiment Patryce very much as what you say is very is straight up. I suggest that you look up Maurice Strong as he is the o0ne who essentially got the ball in motion over climate change and when you read about it you will see that he went to the UN and it became a total money grab. Just how can one " tax nature."??? Again nice to share with you, stay safe and well...speak soon
Thanks for your kind reply, James. Good to connect!
You are very welcome Patryce, nice to share good info with you....stay safe and well and we shall speak soon..............toodles
This guest has some good ideas, but he's really lacking in historical knowledge, and pre-historical knowledge.
As for the changes that occurred at the turn of the previous century, he should have a look at the wonderful BBC 4-1h-parts documentary that discusses how our brains have been co-opted by larger forces... of evil... yes they are evil... I'm not a person of faith, I use evil in the sense of harm to humans and the ensemble of nature.
The documentary CENTURY OF SELF describes the same thing as your guest when he describes life having become a casino.
The last century has been a massive social experiment, where all of humanity are just guinea pigs.
The Century of the Self - Part 1: "Happiness Machines" https://youtu.be/DnPmg0R1M04
The Century of the Self - Part 2: "The Engineering of Consent" https://youtu.be/fEsPOt8MG7E
The Century of the Self - Part 3: "There is a Policeman Inside All Our Heads; He Must Be Destroyed." https://youtu.be/ub2LB2MaGoM
The Century of the Self - Part 4: "Eight People Sipping Wine in Kettering" https://youtu.be/VouaAz5mQAs
"This episode explains how politicians on the left, in both Britain and America, turned to the techniques developed by business to read and fulfil the inner desires of the self.
Both New Labour, under Tony Blair, and the Democrats, led by Bill Clinton, used the focus group, which had been invented by psychoanalysts, in order to regain power. They set out to mould their policies to people's inner desires and feelings, just as capitalism had learnt to do with products.
They believed they were creating a new and better form of democracy, one that truly responded to the inner feelings of individual. But what they didn't realise was that the aim of those who had originally created these techniques had not been to liberate the people, but to develop a new way of CONTROLLING them."
Thanks for the links to the documentary series. I will have a look.
I'm not at all impressed with this professor
I am always heartened when apparently left leaning thinkers recognize how authoritarian the left has become, because for me it is one of the most shocking and massive shifts in American politics in my lifetime. I am shocked to find that groups which I always supported since they seemed to be fighting against an unjust establishment, have now morphed into enforcers for that same establishment---the cheerleader for the sabotage Trump movement literally engineered by the intelligence community, which leftists always DIStrusted, being the most obvious and insane manifestation of the newly developped bankruptcy of the left. But what is missing, in this discussion, is what to DO about this reorientation. Even those leftists who recognize this reorientation seem unable to change THEIR orientation and perhaps...ADMIRE the fact that President Trump wound down the butchery in TWO longstanding wars, strolled in the demilitarized zone with the intractable leader of North Korea, cancelled and renegotiated the disastrous trade treaties which Bernie Sanders railed against in 2016 and promised to cancel and renegotiate, produced the lowest unemployment in HISTORY for various minorities and women. I mean, for chrissake, how much does a populist have to do before you stop HATING him and have the decency to PRAISE his accomplishments. And even those who supposedly reject the stalinistic turn the left has taken, like a Glenn Greenwald, and like the Tara and Andrew Potter, lack the decency to praise Donald Trump's accomplishments. Until they do, there will remain an unreality about their thinking. If you can praise obvious accomplishments, then you're reaction to events is...quite simply...warped.
Well, yes, even Tara is not willing to go as far as Greenwald has gone in separating himself from his former colleagues on the left who have turned into such authoritarian curmodgeons. As for me, I had written off American politics for at least a decade after the Bush/Cheney coup and the insanity of the war on terror, and was only lured back to it by, of all people, Bernie Saunders, even to the point of working on his campaign quite actively. But in the process of doing things like get out the vote calls during the primaries, I became aware of how hopeless corrupt the Democratic Party had become, and I decided to look at few Trump rallies online to find out why he was so popular in spite of being vilified by everybody else... It took time for me to progress from grudging acceptance of the guy as the only alternative to the horridly corrupt Clinton...to appreciating some of his accomplishments furthering the same agenda as Saunders had (cancelling the free trade treaties, promoting the repatriation of manufacturing jobs), to celebrating a foreign policy which began with an historic first trip abroad not to Europe but to a meeting of the Arab League (by a supposedly islamosphobic president), moved on to winding down military operations in Syria, then strolling in the DMZ with N. Korea's leader, and finished with making peace with the Taliban. So by the end of the four years, I was asking what is NOT to like about the guy. Neither Greenwald nor Tara will go that far...hahaha
A lot like the CBC, though they did retract a couple of articles re: the funding of the Freedom Convoy - albeit too little too late. This really is an information war, isn't it. You were right, Alex Jones.
Whew. First reaction? That was a flurry of fast-talking, ADHD, simplistic overgeneralization lacking in depth and coherence. This fellow needs to learn how to focus his thoughts and attention. Having said that, he had a few interesting insights worth noting, but they were really hard to disentangle from the rambling. A bit like watching a child chasing butterflies.
To be fair, in an interview (presuming he didn't get the questions in advance), it's hard to deliver as you would in a lecture. I think Potter presented a lot of food for thought, which is what something like this series should be (not (re)education, per se).
This guest is so weird. He manages to say something correct and something incorrect every second sentence. It's too much to unpack, but just to take one simple example. Covid. He claimed that "Canada did poorly at fighting covid". That's a ridiculous statement!!! The provincial governments, egged on by the Fed, put in place some of the most draconian restrictions in the world. Canada has lower covid stats than nearly all of Europe. All the while he's extolling the virtues of even worst authoritarians! This is ridiculous.
With an IFR under 0.05%, there should have been ZERO restrictions. All protective measures should have been voluntary and focused on the elderly and frail, which were the only target group for c19.
He basically sounds like Justin Trudeau: We're not authoritarian centralising enough! gah!
Mmmm... but did he really say that?
The Korean example was about a people who came together quite effectively to use a tool which had utility in dealing with the early crisis. Not about people who followed orders to stay home, stay away from each other, take pay for nothing, etc. (the Canadian example.)
I believe his point was that we are, in Canada, too invested in talking about things and not invested enough in rolling up our sleeves and _doing something together_ to actually deal with things. So we had to stay alone in our little 'bubbles' because, frankly, there was not a good option for rolling up our sleeves to work together.
I'm from Winnipeg, and when the flood comes, we don't 'talk about' it. We get together, fill sandbags, pile sandbags, and repeat as fast as bloody possible.
That is what is missing from Canada right now. A dedication to pragmatism and trust in our collective power. Trust in our neighbours, in our institutions, and in our ability to get the job done (together.)
Lee, it's not that Canadians are missing trust, it is that we have lost trust in our institutions. Our universities are full of privileged, me-first snowflakes who need safe spaces and demand "free" education. Our government, if we don't agree with its every policy, calls us racists and misogynists. We're told we have a world class healthcare system, but we have 18-month waiting lists and can't handle a crisis when even a small one comes along. And to adapt and manage the crisis, we go $1T in debt. No, we're not MISSING trust; we've LOST trust. And justifiably so.
I hear you, Tom. The institutions we used to trust have themselves lost their way, and so have lost our trust. Perhaps soon they will also lose our funding, we shall see.
If I understand you, those were the very institutions meant to ‘knit us together.’ The containers of trust, the shapers of action. They are failing at both of these jobs, and we are left without either the place to gather or the mobilizing mechanisms we are used to.
I feel compelled towards forming new trust bonds, albeit imperfectly at first, through new institutions. Likewise, new modes for action, again imperfect at the outset, to replace the ones I believe we have lost.
Tara is providing an example, the Truckers another, and there are more. Ways we can gather outside the old containers, and take actions without them.
The more of us that shift outside the standard modes of assembly and action, the quicker the change. At least, that’s what my gut tells me.
Well-said, Jewel, and an excellent point made about the coming together of people in the truckers’ protest against formidable odds. It reflected a dedication to and pulling together around a common cause that was (and is) truly remarkable.
I do get Lee’s point also, though, that there was absolutely no direction or inspiration coming from the governments on how we could pull together as a society, just hollow, superficial words. In fact, as we know, just the opposite happened, which was a deliberate and strategic decision to divide society in order to serve political purposes. The damaging consequences of that decision, on an individual and collective level, will linger for decades.
The flood is an extreme example, absolutely. Still, the treatment of the unvaccinated isn't that far removed as it represented the opening of floodgates which previously sought to hold back ill treatment of minorities (ACTUAL ill-treatment, not imagined.)
Yes, indeed, to me the Trucker's Convoy was like a group coming together to deal with an actual problem. And they got hammered for stepping up to do what was obviously the right thing (albeit not entirely in the right way, IMHO, 'cause we should not block path's to commercial success, ever.)
Don't. Give. Up. Keep on trucking towards actually solving problems, real problems, in the best possible ways. Like the Koreans used technology (together) to battle a problem. We can do similar things.
You know there are reasons they try to divide us, and it isn't to do what is best for us. We resist, and work together, and set a different tone for the Governments to follow.
Right now, they mostly follow Twitter. It isn't that hard to unseat Twitter if we work together.
Moi aussi. lol. How about we try some haiku...
Hear. Hear. Not draconian enough. Populists just don't know what's good for them, you see: If only the camps had been ready for some serious covid fighting.
Don't stress your dopamine receptors about those pesky Eurasians good professor. The best and brightest are working day and night on the problem.
https://twitter.com/RealPepeEscobar/status/1503349513255325699?cxt=HHwWhsC47dma_NwpAAAA
"If one day the situation were reversed and the fate of the vanquished lay in my hands, then I would let all the ordinary folk go and even some of the leaders, who might perhaps after all have had honorable intentions and not know what they were doing. But I would have all the intellectuals strung up, and the professors three feet higher than the rest; they would be left hanging from the lampposts for as long as was compatible with hygiene."
--I Will Bear Witness, Volume 1: A Diary of the Nazi Years: 1933-1941" by Victor Klemperer
Yes like and like then like so like . Annoying to listen to.
When Mr. Potter talks of economic stagnation, it would seem no one told him about what a mature economy is: it is defined as an economy that has reached an advanced stage of development, characterized by slow GDP growth, decrease spending on infrastructure, and a relative increase in consumer spending, this would include countries like the United States Canada in several nations in Western Europe.
Here’s an example of technological stagnation since 1970: Laptops, cell phones, digital photography, photovoltaic solar energy, mapping of the human genome, and oh yes, humanity circling Earth. Then he points out, home appliances, as an example of our decline, apparently he’s not aware of planned obsolescence, the damping things were designed to fail. Additionally, he seems unaware of a person’s second-largest purchase, a car, that last twice as long as it did in the 70s. Mr. Potter has a strange idea of what stagnation is!
I often wonder what people think when you’re complaining about regulations. Do they think there’s a magic regulation fairy who pops into the air and decrees regulations? Regulations are usually a response to an occurrence that was not beneficial to society or, to put it another way, someone was misbehaving.
I have no idea how he conceptualizes that social media prevents politicians and corporations from resolving collective problems, does he really think politicians and corporations are taking heed of the insanity taking place in social media? The only thing politicians heed is the top 10%, who corporations employ, and the 1%.
I was somewhat baffled by his statement about technological stagnation as well. It seems absurd when we are witnessing a revolution in automation. Maybe he means that current technology is not serving humankind in a particularly elevating and edifying way. If we can harness it for the benefit of the majority of human beings and not to maximize the profits of a greedy and opportunistic minority that exploits and manipulates this majority, we might have a chance.
Patryce, baffled indeed, you mention automation, taken to its ultimate end, automation would end manual labor. You will note I only mentioned technology that one could touch. I left out artificial intelligence, machine learning, and algorithms, things you can't hold in your hand. Additionally, I neglected to mention the James Webb telescope. An author's age makes no difference to me, but this time I was curious wholly based on his perspective; he said technologies in the 70s onward, were not making much advancement; it so happens he was born in 1972. Your comment about greed made me think; there is something making advancement, that would be income inequality.
Why would you say the news out of Ukraine is almost too much to bear? Anymore, for instance than the "non-news" out of The Donbass over the past 8 years. You know, where 14,000 civilians were killed from constant shelling by Ukraine military.
Herr Professor is upset. But not THAT upset. If you know what I mean.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/27/ukraine-appeals-for-foreign-volunteers-to-join-fight-against-russia
I am always heartened when apparently left leaning thinkers recognize how authoritarian the left has become, because for me it is one of the most shocking and massive shifts in American politics in my lifetime. I am shocked to find that groups which I always supported since they seemed to be fighting against an unjust establishment, have now morphed into enforcers for that same establishment---the cheerleader for the sabotage Trump movement literally engineered by the intelligence community, which leftists always DIStrusted, being the most obvious and insane manifestation of the newly developped bankruptcy of the left. But what is missing, in this discussion, is what to DO about this reorientation. Even those leftists who recognize this reorientation seem unable to change THEIR orientation and perhaps...ADMIRE the fact that President Trump wound down the butchery in TWO longstanding wars, strolled in the demilitarized zone with the intractable leader of North Korea, cancelled and renegotiated the disastrous trade treaties which Bernie Sanders railed against in 2016 and promised to cancel and renegotiate, produced the lowest unemployment in HISTORY for various minorities and women. I mean, for chrissake, how much does a populist have to do before you stop HATING him and have the decency to PRAISE his accomplishments. And even those who supposedly reject the stalinistic turn the left has taken, like a Glenn Greenwald, and like the Tara and Andrew Potter, lack the decency to praise Donald Trump's accomplishments. Until they do, there will remain an unreality about their thinking. If you can praise obvious accomplishments, then you're reaction to events is...quite simply...warped.
As in, perhaps, the insane western media reaction to Russia finally taking their own measures after 15 years of pleading with western leaders of all stripes to stop the insanity of using NATO as a cudgel to bring them to heel. And 8 years of having to watch and try to bring a halt through endless, futile negotiation to the constant bombardment and killings by the Nazi backed Ukraine government of their Russian descendant citizens in The Donbass.
Well, I'm afraid I don't exactly share your point of view. There was conflict in the Donbass because Russian backed separatists were trying to secede from Ukraine! The Russians have not at all been angels in this scenario. Moreover, do you not see that Russian intervening in Ukraine, to protect ethnic Russian separatists in the Donbass, is a move straight out of Hitler's playbook with Czechoslovakia in the late 1930s, when Germany backed the ethnic German separatists in the Sudetenland, and then move into to occupy it and dismember Czechoslovakia into a rump state in order to "protect" the ethnic German separatists whom the Germans had encouraged???? Yes, American intelligence agencies engaged in brinksmanship which led to the current situation, and yes the Obama/Biden administrations engaged in hopeless corruption in Ukraine, not just through Joe, but Hunter, and then John Kerry's son, and others. But in the final analysis, of COURSE the Ukrainian government was going to try to use force to stop the separatists in the Donbass from leaving---just as much as the Czechs would do to keep the Sudetenland and the northern states in the U.S. did during the civil war. You cannot blame them for doing so, or excuse Russia from stirring up the separatist troubles. I'd say there is plenty of blame to go around. But the bottom line is that the Ukrainian government's attempts to put down an internal rebellion did not constitute a threat to international peace. The Russian wholesale invasion of Ukraine DOES constitute a massive breach of international peace, such as Europe has not really seen on its lands since, well, since Hitler marched soldiers into Sudetenland to protect the poor ethnic Germans there whom he had egged on to engage in separatist activities. That cannot stand. You cannot forbid a country from putting down an internal rebellion. But you can, and should, forbid a country from INVADING another country on the grounds of the longstanding pretext of protecting a common "ethnic" minority. You do that, and boundary lines all across central Europe are in trouble... It threatens massive destabilization.
You go to great lengths to compare the actions of Russia in this instance to the history of Nazi Germany, and then go on to justify the atrocious actions of the Nazi backed, illegitimate Ukraine government against a huge swath of their own peoples as being quite in order. Amazing. For 8 long years the "breakaway republics" endured devastating bombardments even after their government entered into an agreement to work with those republics to develop a constitution that recognized them as autonomous regions. An agreement ratified by the UN Security Council, no less. The ink was not even dry when the agreement became dust in the wind because the Nazi descendants wouldn't stand for it. If western nations wouldn't protect them even with UN backing, then whom? This is, and has been a matter that sane governments could have addressed years ago had they even deigned to listen to the Russians. But because they are Russians, to hell with their internal security concerns. Ukraine is not self-governing nor has it been since 1990. It has been a USA/NATO/EU lacky since gaining "independence" and as such a serious threat to Russian internal security. A fact stamped in stone with the 2014 coup.
Well, I described the parallel between Germany/Sudetenland and Russia/Donbass in detail because the comparison IS detailed. A larger country encouraging people belonging to its ethnic group to revolt against the government of a smaller country. These are just historic facts. Nor is it amazing that the Ukraine government (regardless of whether YOU consider it illegitimate) fights to maintain its own territorial integrity. If the Czechs had been able to hold onto the Sudetenland in 1938, and Neville Chamberlain et al. had not acquiesced, the conflict with Nazi Germany might have developped very differently. I do not share your penchant for calling people Nazis, other than the actual Nazis who ruled Germany many decades ago. And I think you are just obviously flat out wrong when you say that Ukraine has been a USA/NATO/EU lacky [sic] since 1990. That's just demonstrably not true. Indeed, up until the Orange Revolution in the early 2000s, the Ukrainian government was very heavily influenced by Russian interests. And then some years after the Orange Revolution, pro-Russian political forces once again retook control of the national government. And then control shifted again towards Western countries with the Maidan revolt of 2014. So, you're talking through your hat when you reduce the history of the conflict between the West and Russia for influence over the Ukraine to the false statement that every Ukraine government since 1990 has been a lackey [correct spelling here] to the West. You have some interesting points to make about the failure of the parties to follow up on an agreement to provide for more autonomy for the Donbass, but no doubt shifting allegiance from Russia to the West of successive Ukrainian governments, as well as violence on the part of Russian separatists, may well have played a role in these difficulties. All in all, I don't think your brand of vilifying Ukraine, while it may satisfy your apparent desire to indulge in purple rhetoric, captures the complexity of Ukrainian history...
The complex history of Ukraine is merely another exploitive portfolio of the American State Department. Such was to have been the fate of Russia beyond Yeltsin had the little known V. Putin not been thrust into the breech. Ukraine will always be the useful idiot to western governments as long as the lunatic Nazi fringe are encouraged and financed by them. As it is they must be really pissed at losing the massive economic potential of the eastern oblasts. Karma can be a bitch. In any event, thank you for the rose colored glasses view of events in Ukraine over the past 8 1/2 years. Now where is file 9?
Bill, please point to examples (include references in popular media) that support the notion that Ukraine is "Nazi-backed." Otherwise, STFU.
I'm not sure the people at large are as cowed by the mainstream media's hate propaganda against Trump as leftists and the media would have you believe. After all, Trump increased his voter support from about 60 million votes to about 74 million votes from 2016 to 2020, which shows an incredibly popular presidency. But the left and the liberals have been completely coopted from their former default position of distrusting the national security apparatus, opposing restrictions of free speech, and opposing regime change wars...by a combination of two things. First, the hate Trump mania just spread like wildfire among the left and the liberals. They have just engaged in an orgy of hating---perhaps because their political philosophy on the surface forbids hating anybody, so they have all this repressed ill will and no one to pin it on---until Trump pops up. Here, you wanna hate, knock yourself out, and you can do it in the name of opposing hatred!!! hahaha. Second, the establishment has bought off the left with the talismans of Critical Race Theory and Queery Theory. Mesmerized by these almost entirely useless sociological analyses, the left and the liberals have dropped any and all opposition to the establishment and the national security apparatus. I mean, they literally abandonned their traditional identity, in return for getting a chance to engage in mass hatred of Trump and in truly vapid sociological crusades which lionize a small fraction of the population while everybody else gets screwed. It's sad. It's perverse. And only a few on the left (like Greenwald or Jimmy Dore) manage not to drink the establishment's koolaid...
Korea "famously" did it "really well" cause they've got tracking apps.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-korea/#graph-deaths-daily
Australia did it right early.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-01/multiple-people-escape-howard-springs-quarantine-facility-darwin/100663994
The professor is right about doing things better in the 70s
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iKllBHvpZcE
GIGO
Dead wrong on covid. The entire "test, isolate, and snuff out covid" was a pipe dream. It never worked anywhere. The only places that "did well" with covid never attempted any of that garbage. Sweden and Florida. And basically anywhere that distributed ivermectin on a large scale. The idea that you can "snuff out" covid with apps and authoritarian nightmare policies such as the ones adopted by Australia is just childish. Ooh Daddy government will save me. I thought this was the kind of thought that he was criticizing in the rest of the interview.
10:30, "the forces of chaos and nihilism... are all on the Right". What really did happen, perhaps easier to see in the US, was the joining of the big corporate forces, big money putting it's weight behind figures like Hillary, where the woke progressives felt assured that they were on the winning side. When government, business and 'rebels' are all on the same side to 'fight the climate' and 'stop hate' perhaps someone is being tricked.
Nihilism, such as the grotesque sculptures thrown up in public spaces, or the sad state of TV are promulgated by government and business weight - they want a downward spiral. If the Right is the people who want to retain the good aspects of the past, I say that the author has some aspect of his analysis completely off.
Why the F would I want to do your legwork you lazy SOB. Your geopolitical horizon likely ends at the top of your TV set glued to the likes of CNN, CBC or some such.