Do you not think that the mythic has any power on outer life? — Jack Cummins

No. Dance all you want, it won't rain in a drought; no sacrifice of goats will prevent a volcano from erupting; no consultation of the oracle halts an invading army. Civilizations have died believing in those methods.

One aspect of the influence is positivity and negativity in the social sphere. I know that others respond so differently according to my own mindset. — Jack Cummins

Again, no. They respond to your words and actions. Your positive or negative mindset affects your words and actions, but the thoughts end at the pia membrane of brain. It's easy to attribute effects to the wrong cause: you're aware of your state of mind from the subjective side; other people become aware of it through how you express your state of mind.

Mindset may have a real affect in influencing so much which happens in outer life. It also has the power to demoralise or inspire others. It creates ripple consequences. — Jack Cummins

On a very small, intimate scale, this is true: you show what you're thinking through facial expression and body language, even without speaking, and that demeanour has an effect on the world immediately around you. Within very strict limits. Try, when you're feeling down, dispiriting an exuberant drunk. Try inspiring someone who is tone deaf to compose a symphony.

Right now, my own mood is quite buoyant: I've done the chore I wasn't looking forward to; there is a loaf baking in the bread machine; I have an idea for a short story that might be appropriate for a contest; there is a new episode of Vera on public tv tonight. OTOH, I don't think any of these happy thoughts will save a single species of butterfly from extinction. And the opinion I'm expressing here will certainly be read as negativity, which is unfortunate, but I'm not letting it get me down.

You seem to dismiss prayer, prophecy, which alongside medication which may be essential aspects of the finetuning of subconscious depths. I am a little surprised by this as you write fiction which draws on mythic dimensions. — Jack Cummins

The trick is to know the difference. I have no illusion that my stories, or wishes, or conversations with the ancestors, or dreams or supplications to the genie of the keyboard have any effect on the external world. Stories don't make me young or healthy; they don't reanimate the dead or erase my mistakes or change the course of elections.

Your inner life - dream-interpretation, meditation, mysticism, hallucination or divination - affects you, your attitudes, your approach to problem solving. That will certainly help to determine your reactions to external events; your actions will certainly have some effect on the outcomes. But you have no control over what the rest of the world throws at you, or what limits and constraints reality imposes on you.

It's nice to have a positive attitude - I usually do... or did until last fall. But if you're locked in a cell, waiting for deportation, parole hearing or execution, none of your hopeful ideation will bring about a sudden reversal. I know that's not our common experience, but for many thousands of people, it's their exact situation. For billions more, the range of possibility, the freedom of action, the scope of ambition is so limited by circumstance as to be invisible. They may be praying fervently, but Fate is just as deaf as any of our gods.

Yet Trump will his utmost to create destruction and destroy the economy and the foreign relations that the US has. In the end this will anger a lot Americans. — ssu

That's my hope. Right now, he's pissing off veterans again - the US has alot of veterans from its many unsuccessful wars - and maybe servicemen, too, which should make it harder for him to consolidate a military dictatorship. OTOH, those very actions may precipitate a change of leadership (".... peacefully, at his big white house, while tweeting in all caps....") After all, he's an old man and Vance is a relatively young man, sane, intelligent and master of the quick change. That's my fear.
Perilous times. But first, we just have to get through this brutal winter.

There only one answer: only the people themselves. — ssu

Not yet. And the division is so deep, maybe never without a revolution or civil war. Which, depends on whether the present regime has time and sufficient support to entrench a dictatorship, or their egregious actions cause massive opposition. Even if the progressive forces win either kind of confrontation, it will require leader of enormous vision, courage, wisdom, persuasive powers and stamina to close the rift.
I'm not expecting a rapid or neat resolution.

I think the Americans could be better served by a total reform of the two party system. Centrist Democrats and actual conservatives, not the MAGA-church, could find themselves and simply demand justice, respect of the Constitution and the end of oligarch rule. — ssu

Yes, of course. The electoral process has always been flawed and the corruption that's crept in over the last few decades renders it damn near unworkable. But who can effect a major reform? In Canada, we've been flirting with and even courting a more representative model than first-past-the-post, but nobody can get it done, because the legislature is composed of people who won by the old method and have a vested interest. The US system is so deeply mired in money and circuses, I can't see politicians being able to change it, even if they were willing.

This actually is the reality. How you kick out the MAGA lunatics will be the question, — ssu

Not for us; for Americans. Other countries are forced to defend themselves against Trump's economic wrecking crew, and that will hurt innocent Americans. I can only hope that other countries won't be held responsible for that pain: Trump is well practiced in diverting blame to things he caused onto his victims, and far too many American voters have fallen for his line of bullshit more than once.
Are the Democrat up to organizing a good enough opposition, or will the bitterness erupt in random acts of violence against random scapegoats? One glimmer of light: this insane pogrom on government workers is getting some blowback from former Trump supporters.

Perhaps the way here is just to keep the door open for the US to join it's allies once this mental breakdown called the Trump administration is over — ssu

I think they're sensible enough to do that. And hope a savvy Dem leadership reaches out to them though non-official channels. For sure, there will be a thriving black market back and forth, so lines of communication will still be open.

This is exactly what I thought. He came to power on the heels of a bogus war. War is his friend. But everyone I talked to about it nixed the idea. — frank

It's been working to Netanyahu. But then, his war is not so costly that they'll depose him and lock him up for fraud.

Indeed. The only viable strategy for democratic nations right now is to work around the US. Withhold intelligence, reconfigure trade agreements among themselves, shutting the US out whenever possible, exclude the Trump regime from discussions, negotiations and diplomatic endeavours. It won't be easy... but it may not have to be carried on for too long: once the Trumpites are kicked out, relations can resume.

It is absolutely crazy, but it's understandable when people are so full of hubris that they think that their government is just a service that costs too much and could better done without. — ssu

They have better uses for the money: their own enrichment. There is more to the wrecking of government: Trump wants to be king, which he can't be until the constitution is well and truly scrapped. So do Vance and Musk.... I wonder which one will do him in. Either way, it won't be an improvement: he's evil, crazy and stupid; they're evil, crazy and smart.

And these anarco-libertarians who seem to think they are the heroes in an Ayn Rand novel and their government is their enemy,

I doubt any of these thugs have ever read a novel. Trump probably couldn't.

go smashing everything is just creative destruction and the means to get cuts implemented because the actual legislative course wouldn't work... because liberal democracy and liberal democracies don't work.

Not because it doesn't work - it worked fine until their forerunners corrupted it - but because it still limps along and might bring them down, unless it's destroyed very quickly.

Likely Canadians start to think of Americans like the Mexicans do, as the "Gringos". — ssu

We've been eyeing them askance since Bush II, but Obama was a welcome change. Now, we're back to 1811, waiting for the invasion. We need to make friends across both ponds and around the Gulf of whatever it's the gulf of, to trade and form alliances around the disunited states of America. Trudeau won't be here to do it, and I despair of a Polievre government, so..... we are either in some god's hands or royally f'd, maybe both.

Or who are you meaning? — ssu

Russia?
Yes, Trump is hell-bent on destroying the US government, department by department, agency by agency. He doesn't give a flying fig about international relations or long-term stability: he wants revenge on his opponents, real and imagined, harm to everyone who has ever been 'disrespectful' to him and the last big money-grab before closing time.

First, being very interested in Marxism, I have read a lot of history focusing on communist movements. Here, activists' faith in the eventual triumph of communism, its inevitability, was often a potent force motivating their persistence in the face of adversity. — Count Timothy von Icarus

And yet communism didn't triumph; the prophecy was never fulfilled. Communism exists, if it still does, in tiny pockets that have to deal with the capitalist world on its terms, not theirs. Moreover, those true believers were among the first victims of a system that called itself communist while it was, in fact a monetized oligarchy.

Essentially, the fear that war must come motivates people to actualize that very fear, hoping to start such a conflict on more favorable terms, rather than seeking to avoid a conflict, since they see time as "on the side of the enemy." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Appeasement has a very poor track record in the face of a determined aggressor.

Yes people act on both hope and fear, as well as anger, lust and greed. It takes no great acuity to predict that a corner animal will attack, but it's not the expectation that causes him to attack, its the imminent threat of death. Predicting that something that's happened a thousand times in similar circumstances will happen again doesn't cause it to happen, though it may cause people to prepare for that event.

It does go back to the Old Testament times and comes with an element of belief in divination. — Jack Cummins

It goes back a good deal farther than the OT. People have been throwing sticks, consulting their ancestors, staring into fire, eating mushrooms and going into trances since before civilization. From the earliest civilizations, they made pictures in the stars, cut open chickens, tossed coins, inhaled smoke and went into trances. Having so much imagination, humankind is constantly uncertain, aware of the many possibilities resulting from any situation. We desire control over our lives and our environment. So we look for logical cause and effect chains, for patterns; we hypothesize and predict. We long for an intelligence behind the patterns - an intelligence like ours, with which we can communicate, which we can influence. Hence, prayer and prophecy, ritual and sacrifice.

Other animals don't do this. They are certain of their needs and desires and act on them, without the slightest doubt that they control their own actions, and nothing outside of themselves. Domestic animals are aware that humans control their environment and so try to influence the behaviour of their humans.

Prayer and prophecy have no effect on the universe; there is no almighty master in the sky. But the belief that prompts faith in higher powers or fate or fortune or destiny affects how we perceive things (what information we pay attention to, how accurately we assess the situation and our own capabilities) and how we respond (fight, flight, denial, strategy, subterfuge, surrender). Every time our soothsayers are perceptive enough to guage the likely outcome accurately and a prediction comes true (more or less; it's usually couched in ambiguous language, open to interpretation: mediums hedge their bets), we come to rely more on their prognostications. When they're wrong, we cope with whatever does happen, move on and forget. The same with dreams. Our brain keeps working when we're asleep, processing information we may not even realize we have, forming patters, calculating the odds and often coming up with an accurate projection. Those are the dreams of which we take notice, which we report to others. We ignore all the incidental memories, fantasies and surreal images our subconscious throws up.

Anxiety dreams are something else. They tell us less about the external world than our own abilities. We know what we're capable of and how much we can affect the environment. We know, even if we don't make an honest accounting when we're awake. Most o the people who had faith in their ability to traverse Niagara Falls died trying. Thousands are forgotten; only the 16 who survived were celebrated. Faith walks on water.

You say that there are no situations whereby faith has any power personally or collectively in bringing about desired ends, which does not make sense to me. Every time a desired end is thought of and actioned it involves a creative leap of faith. This is not bound up with religion but may involve some sense of being able to shape destiny. On the collective level, protest movements and the entire radical spirit( such as the 60s counterculture) may have been about a culture of faith inspired changes. — Jack Cummins

We may be using the term differently. I use faith to mean belief unfounded in observable fact. I use belief to mean assumptions based on experience and/or learning. I use trust to mean confidence in the truthfulness of a source of information, or the character of a person, based on personal knowledge. I use conviction to mean a philosophy regarding the world and one's relationship to it.
The concept of destiny is bound with the belief in a guiding principle or purpose to [human] life - which is contradictory to individuals shaping it. That's an eat-your-cake-and-have-it kind of idea held by most humans.

Protest movements are collective actions intended to bring about a change. Whether they succeed is not a matter of how much faith the participants have but how many and how persistent they are, on how strong and resolute the powers in office are: which side is able to intimidates the other. Certainly, it takes imagination to envision a more desirable state of affairs and hope of success to organize an effort to bring it about. It takes courage to oppose the ruling elite's enforcement agents.
Failed revolutions and their collateral damage are buried in unmarked graves and scholarly footnotes; the successful ones commemorated in statues, street names, annual holidays and history books. Just like the prophecies and dreams: their worth is measured only after the results are known.

Prophecy is a biblical term. The ancient prophets saw what was going on, interpreted it according to their belief-system and predicted an outcome.
" Look east: a great big empire is expanding this way. Way bigger than we can defend ourselves against. But our god should be able to protect us. The king was remiss in his observance of the religious rites and the god is miffed with us. Therefore the barbarians will win."

Prediction depends on several factors: accuracy of observation, knowledge of the characters of key players, reading of the societal trend, understanding of the prevailing circumstances and the probability of each likely outcome. A clever prophet, if he's adept in all those assessments, can then choose to report his prognostication straight, like the February groundhog, embellished like a sci-fi author, or spun according to the prophet's desired result.

In order to have a self-fulfilling prophecy, you'd need a predictor of great influence. Someone people listen to and adjust their actions accordingly. That's not a writer of fiction, nor an older brother who warns you of a peril you're courting, nor a scientist or jurist; that's a government spokesman or Nobel prize winning economist or revered media pundit... and even they are usually ignored.

Prophecies don't fulfill themselves. People act in predictable ways.

Personally, I have often wondered if my own black hole states of fear have triggered the manifestation of negative experience. — Jack Cummins

The negative experiences were going to happen anyway. Your state of mind may make it more difficult for you to deal with them. Under that, I wonder if there is a modicum of self-blame: "I was afraid this would happen, and now it's happened. Did I cause it?" No, you didn't cause it. You were alert enough to discern the probability and that's why you were afraid.

Through faith, as opposed to fear, is it possible to create desired ends individually and collectively? — Jack Cummins

I'm not aware of any situation in which this worked. The thing about faith is, it's never wrong - by definition. If it fails, doesn't bring about the desired result, it's because your faith wasn't strong enough: it's you fault. If the desired result is achieved, it's not to your credit; it's because faith enlisted the help of a deity, to whom you must now be grateful. Gods never lose; mortals never win. Faith is a sucker's game.

Hope you're right.

I find the occasional, casual dip into You Tube more informative.
Bonus: if it's too upsetting, you can always switch to Bibi the monkey.

Don't even try to beat them; join up and help them eat Europe. Then Greenland, then North America, then central America, then....

Maybe it's time to rectify that mistake? You have to create the conditions for stability, if we never try we will never have it. — ChatteringMonkey

OK, then we won't.
I do, however, resist the urge to correct you King James English.

Russia has 6000 nuclear bombs, but sure let's just brush away the stability of the region like it's a nothing burger. — ChatteringMonkey

The region has no stability. A Putin-Trump divvy will not provide one. What the hell are you on about?

No, and you would do well not to quip when you've clearly not understood what has been said. We've been here before too, Vera. — AmadeusD

I might do well not to quip... But I do better, quipping.
I always understand what you mean; I just don't agree with it.

She claimed to have them [statistics]. — AmadeusD

I didn't claim anything; I asked a question: do you have a factual basis for saying that my perspective is wrong? I have piles of facts and statistics, dates and events. I often choose to share them. Didn't seem worth my while this time. You have an opinion. I have a different opinion. I answered Amity's question honestly. Your response was not relevant.

I was talking to Vera. Not you — AmadeusD

I was talking to Amity. Not you. (Didn't even know you were lurking.)

Our time is not special. — AmadeusD

I expect that's pretty much what Romulus Augustulus said, the year before he was deposed.

Most people in those threads you mention are absolutely out of their minds on panic and sniffing their own arses. If you cannot see that, so be it. But given I spend time outside of lil political bubbles, and subscribe to no common ideologies, It is clear as day. — AmadeusD

I got mine, Jack. (for now) Whatever others suffer is no skin off my ass.

So why bother to jump in here?

Seems to me, it is only perspective that can lead to these sorts of rants (not derogatory - anything adequately complete will be a rant in this context). If this were based on 'facts' then your personal feelings wouldn't be relevant. — AmadeusD

I see. An overview of history is insufficient basis for an opinion. OK

While marches may seem futile, they and campaigns are not about losing. They are about fighting for justice and a way to come together - to show we are not alone. — Amity

I have all those teeshirts. The last campaign I supported was a Green; some previous ones were NDP. This riding is solid fake Tory - the Alliance stabbed them in the back and stole their name some decades ago. All my candidates are plucky little losers. I simply meant that the winning streak my generation enjoyed is over; this is the down-slope before the next up, which may be next year or next century or never - I don't know. There is hope, but its heart beats faintly now.

This strikes me as the exact out-of-perspective thinking that everyone of every age who wants to feel good about themselves would put forward. — AmadeusD

Oddly enough, the perspective doesn't make me feel the slightest bit good. Can you cite where I've gone wrong on facts or statistics?

And if he decides it's a good idea to stay in the war, do we just support him no matter what, effectively delegating our foreign policy to him? — ChatteringMonkey

Who are your "we" ? I imagine the several sovereign - for the moment - nations of Europe will formulate their own foreign policy according to what they perceive as their own long-term interest and commitment to one another. If any one of those heads of state and his or her compatriots choose to fight for their homeland to the bitterest of ends, it will be up to the others whether they support that action.
I'm really fed up with references to "the war" as if the Ukrainians had any choice in the matter. This is not a two-sided conflict: they were attacked and have been defending themselves. The "stability of the region" was not endangered by Zelensky or his people and they are not responsible for restoring it by letting themselves be subsumed in Putin's empire.
Shall we ask the Palestinians to seek refugee status in Greenland in order to maintain Nyetenyahu's 'stability'? Who's next to be required to give up their freedom and their home for stability in some region?

What do you mean by that? And what does it mean for the way you feel and live your life now? — Amity

Things end. Stars implode; species go extinct, civilizations collapse; biological entities die. Like every story, the history of the human race has a natural ending. I know that my personal death is not far off and believe that one or more of those other endings is also inevitable - I'm hoping it's collapse of this civilization, rather than extinction, because that allows me to imagine a new, more positive human story.

The way I live is pretty much the same as it was in optimistic youth: a compromise with modernity and capitalism; trying to keep my footprint small without giving up ordinary comforts; trying to effect change, without giving up my tenuous security. These days, I don't go on futile marches or campaign for losers; I just write books nobody reads.
Thing is, I lived through a full cycle of history: from the wreckage left behind that great global insanity we fondly recall as WWII, through the decades of technological and social progress experienced by fortunate first-worlders, the elation of winning battles in civil rights, reproductive rights, gay rights, workers' rights... only to see it all clawed back, torn down and trampled again. Just as it had been a hundred times before in other civilizations. Meanwhile, we were gobbling up the bounty of this planet, not to improve the lot of all mankind but to enrich a few, and turning it into, not useful manure but toxic waste and debt-bondage.

I saw the dark tunnel opening one spring day in 1976, four years after the first summit in Stockholm on preventing climate change - a very hopeful thing that had been! I was having lunch with colleagues and one of them ordered imported bottled water . Four more years later, not only had none of the promises been kept, but resource extraction, automobile use, industrialization, deforestation and pollution had accelerated sharply. Then the three nations of most concern to me elected the Reagan-Thatcher-Mulroney axis to govern our affairs. It's been downhill since, with very few moguls to slow the descent.

It looks to me like each period of madness in history ends in greater destruction. Is this one big enough to be the last? We can hope not, but I left my faith in humanity in the 20th century.

I have no final solutions, I'm just describing what I think I see. And yeah, history is long, and never finished. — unenlightened

This is a truism, not a truth. We're still seeing suns that no longer exist and not seeing planets that once flourished.
I take your meaning and laud your principles; it's the long term I don't believe in.

The state of oppression is exactly a state of inequality, and the solution is exactly to move to a state of more equality. So how does that happen? — unenlightened

That movement happened while democracy functioned reasonably well. After a shake-up of the class structure and economy via war and technological change, redistributed some wealth and expanded education and woke the ex-soldiers and female factory workers to their own potential. Even so, it was a slow, hard climb.

I think it is done by establishing an equality of the oppressed. — unenlightened

Only, that is a long way from done, anywhere, and even while progress seemed to be speeding up, the anti-democratic factions were busy undermining it and corrupting the means of governance.

So we have been playing monopoly for a century or so, and now we can see who has won. So that game is over, and we can ignore the winners counting their money and gloating, and get on with our spirited levelling without them. — unenlightened

Make that 6 millennia and it's not exactly over. Those who have won will not let anybody else ignore them or form coalitions against their control. The worst part is, they've always been able to persuade plebes to do their oppressing of other plebes.
I appreciate the efforts of individuals, groups and organizations that work toward mitigating the fallout, adapting their lifestyle and forming supportive communities or preparing the survivors for a changed world. I can't fight down the conviction that it's too little, far too late. But I'll certainly check out your link, which looks very positive.

This is because the oppressed are motivated to understand and transcend the social order. — unenlightened

Hardly ever, if history is anything to go by. The masses generally support the status quo: the oppressed are loud in their defence of the social order and take it for the moral order, the natural order, the unchangeable, necessary order. That's exactly where all discussions of capitalism, vegetarianism and American-style democracy very quickly go. The most oppressed only ever revolt under the leadership of an unoppressed elite - that is, middle-class intellectuals who had the luxury of an education, the leisure for reflection and the freedom to speak. But without the education, reflection and deliberation, the revolting oppressed, fuelled by anger and heedless of consequence, turn into oppressors - or monsters.

How we liberate one another, oppressed and oppressor, and find our humanity, is through the spirit level. Essentially, organizing society horizontally rather then vertically. In practical terms, this is what a properly functioning democracy would accomplish in two or three generations. Which is why oppressors and aspiring oppressors invariably corrupt democratic systems.

The term 'new world order' is, of course, not necessarily the same as 'order'.
I meant it as the major change in American politics with its global implications. A new balance of power in international relations; we see history in the making. Where Trump's vision of 'peace' is all about 'making a deal' and if he says it often enough, and loud enough, he will be seen as 'Peace-maker Extraordinaire'. — Amity

Yes, I realize it meant change in the balance of power. Just can't resist some fun with words. What I meant was that, atm, it's all up in the air; we can't tell whether will land on its ass or its head - for damn sure, not on its feet! - or whether there ever will be a balance again, or just more flux and heave until we blow it all up.
He may get a chunk of Ukraine - after all, he's had it in for the Zelensky government since 2019, when they wouldn't give him any dirt on Biden - but he's not getting that medal. Meanwhile, he and his merry band of monsters are tearing apart their own country. There may not be an America left that holds any kind of power in the world. Probably China's turn anyway. At least they don't want to accelerate climate change.

People have different ideas of what constitutes science and of how it is practiced.
I think all intelligent living things practice science: observe, experiment, theorize, test, conclude. Somebody contained and controlled fire, invented a wheel, dammed a river and irrigated a field, built a boat, made a bow and arrow, planted a garden, all without knowing what science is. People found analgesics and disinfectants, preservatives and dyes, without a concept of science. That's just stuff you do to deal with the physical world.

But they didn't need that to know how they felt or how to interact with one another.

That doesn't make you agree with Harris, though, unless, like him, you believe the example of health and scientific medicine suggests that our knowledge of right from wrong ought primarily to rest on the scientific investigation of what it is that makes people enjoy higher degrees of "well-being". — Pierre-Normand

You're right. I don't think science has any part in it. We understood sickness and health, happiness and sorrow, love and hate, right and wrong long before we had a concept of science. oddly enough, we also practiced the scientific method long before we had made science a concept.

My question is do you agree with Harris’ point regarding topics that have no strictly objective or easily proven right or wrong? — Captain Homicide

Sure. Language may be be variable, malleable, open to interpretation and tricky, but there are some words we all understand through common human experience. We know when we feel well and when we feel ill, no matter how somebody defines those conditions. We know when we love someone, even if there are many kinds of love and definition is elusive. We know what hunger, fear and grief are, regardless of the words used to describe them.
We also know right from wrong, ever since that fatal apple that put us within striking distance of divinity and got us expelled from Eden. We spin it, skew it, twist it and pervert it; we can argue, legislate and lie about it, but we know.

Wait and watch.

I'll stop chattering if you stop beating the wardrums. — ChatteringMonkey

Like Chamberlain did? It doesn't matter; neither of us has any influence.

I lost my copy decades ago. But, yeah - very little has changed.

But rather misogyny and the manosphere is something that's man's fault majority wise. Sure there may be some women counterparts to it but they're not the prime movers. — DifferentiatingEgg

They're secondary game-pieces, deluded by false promises of security, while men, deluded by false promises of autonomy are the primary game pieces. Neither are movers; both are moved. Looking to set one another straight is as futile as blaming one another - these controversies are noting more than devices to keep us - not just men and women, but Christians and Muslims, migrants and natives, blacks and whites, city and country, red and blue, perpetually divided so that we can never take effective action against our common oppressors.

That you lot want to pretend Nietzsche doesn't belong here is the side track... not me, I know he brings a lot of food for thought to this table... — DifferentiatingEgg

He, like Mills, is a little out of date, Nietzsche, more out of tune - on every subject, with any mainstream thought - each formed by a different time and culture.

Thing is, you can't educate men who have gotten their own way, or think they have. Women are hardly the only ones shaping and adapting themselves to fit an image made by someone more powerful: men have been allowing themselves to be defined by nationality, caste, occupation, education and sports franchise since the dawn of civilization. They, too, serve their kings and generals, foremen and CEO's; wear the required uniform, speak the expected passwords... and lose themselves. Unless the men are liberated*, they will continue to oppress women, children and livestock at every opportunity.

* Some men, in all historical periods have managed to liberate themselves and then gone on to speak up in behalf of the women, the slaves, the factory workers, the children and even the animals. They are usually punished for it by the men they try to educate.

Agree that it's a good idea to sell out Ukraine?
If by 'good', you mean idiotic, self-destructive and downright disastrous - sure.
So now can you stop chattering about that option?

How it could go wrong is if Europe goes in unprepared without the US in a foolish attempt to become the champion of the free world — ChatteringMonkey

The current US administration is nothing remotely like the "champion of the free world" and has no intention of saving any country from any aggressor; is, however, intent on getting its greedy little fat hands on Ukraine's resources, even if it has to go halvsies with Putin. Who cheats whom in this arrangement is moot, as far as Ukraine and Europe are concerned (though it's obvious which one is smarter) : they're to be sacrificed and served up to dictators willing to share with the TP monster.

But the literal killer is that production is becoming possible on a one off basis, with 3d printing for example. The end point for all this is indeed medieval — a few robber barons with robot armies instead of serfs. 'The People' will cease to exist. That is the vision towards which the oligarchy is moving the world. It doesn't even require a conspiracy, because it is plain economic sense. The world will be so much easier to control without all these wretched greedy peasants. — unenlightened

Have you read Moorcock's novel Dancers at the End of Time?
But meanwhile, the peasants are still needed to do all that buying and consuming, tax-, rent- and interest-paying. How they gonna do that when half are in law-enforcement and the other half in jail?

I am sure that philanthropy is still a thing but it is well-hidden. — Amity

Not hidden, so much as ignored. While most philantrophy throws crumbs to the poor or supports their church and highbrow arts, some is actually directed toward improved living conditions for the third world ... uh ... developing countries. They're not all evil, but the money they give is first gained by the wrong means and the spending of it feeds capitalism. That is: they suck up a huge amount of the world's natural and human resources and replenish a very small part, while perpetuating the system that caused all the misery they're trying to alleviate.

Trump is a 'clear and present danger'. — Amity

It's March. We'll soon find out whether my addled prophet had the right vision for the wrong year.

They have almost succeeded, and I hear no credit being given to the founder because, who (else) cares about Africa! — unenlightened

Bill Gates, I understand, though apparently not always in the right way. Carter was a uniquely human individual, massively underappreciated by his country. Capitalism corrupts more than transactional behaviour; it degrades language and rots minds.

Should Europe have to carry a drawn out war against Russia, and devote a lot of its allready strained budget to the military, where do you think this is going? — ChatteringMonkey

If they don't stand up to Russia now, and exhaust its military and economic capability, all of Europe will be salami-sliced. More quickly, if Russia is allowed to gobble up the Ukraine's resources.

And I don't think the current US administration is all that worried about forming coalitions. — ChatteringMonkey

The present administration is not worried about anything. It's insane and undirected, except toward the profit and aggrandizement of a few oligarchs. They may or may not make land-grabs around the globe - starting with Greenland, which is European property, while Putin bites off Kosovo. Chubby-T will make a deal with Putin, on which one or both will renege, unless one or both is/are assassinated before they can.

It's a trap strategically, and would make sure Europe will become technologically dependant on the US for decades to come because that's where it would be forced to buy its weapons. — ChatteringMonkey

I guess it will - assuming the US weapons industry survives Trump's disastrous economic policy. But it will be done on a very dark market, not as international trade. Then again, there is always China.

For sure, there is a new world order. That much is obvious. — Amity

I don't see order here. I see upheaval, crisis, imminent threat to all life on the planet. But if we do survive this one, I maybe the asteroid will sort us out.

The US has waged wars of aggression, and that's 2/3 of the NATO. — ChatteringMonkey

The US and NATO are separate entities. Why do you think the US wars of aggression required a coalition of consenting nations? Only four of the thirty-two NATO members were involved in Iraq and six in Afghanistan - nowhere near two thirds.

Not wanting an alliance specifically designed to keep your country in check, on your border, seems pretty reasonable to me. — ChatteringMonkey

So, you can understand why Ukraine wanted to join NATO. They've been under threat from Russia their whole lives.

You're so much more succinct than I am.