It's not so severe as you make it to sound, because once the operation ends and we have some kind of a cease-fire, then the people will forget the issue. Out of sight, out of mind. — ssu
The only reason would be if Trump's base would be upset about Israel. It's not. It's the leftist students in the university campuses and the Arab Americans who are upset about the treatment of Palestinians. — ssu
Yes, it could be argued that Hamas committed genocide on October 7th. — Punshhh
And that policy has to start with the real situation. — ssu
Many times it can be the politician that falls out from the "in-crowd", messes up or gets his hand in the cookie jar. You won't find a better person to tell how crooked the elites are!
The real issue is, what really to do then! — ssu
Yet are these individuals? Or is this a class or something vague? — ssu
The real question is if targeting people is the answer in the first place. — ssu
And one thing is how do you define someone to be the culprit. Is trying, but making mistakes wrong? Or not doing anything about some issue when believing it's not your responsibility in the first place. — ssu
Your definition is more like saying "Yep. Populists got it right!" :wink: — ssu
So if that is basically universal for all politicians, then what makes the populist different? In short, it's the antagonism, which is in the core message of populism: the culprits are the elite, who are against
the common honorable people. And if the populist has been part of the elite, that's absolutely no problem: he or she can just say: "Believe me, I know these people, I've been part of them!" And immediately the populist is made, by his or her own count, as a rebel and the enemy of this elite, who he or she has betrayed here when coming to the help of the common people.
A political ideology that has antagonism and starts from an inherent juxtaposition might not be the most helpful to create social cohesion, and can surely be abused.
Before anybody makes the remark here that "Isn't sometimes antagonism justified", it surely can be so. Revolutions do happen because of justified reasons. You can have a corrupt, out of touch elite that is ruining the country and when there is no other way to correct the system, then you can have in the end a revolution. But then it should be about the individuals in that elite, not about general hatred toward elites. It should be about correcting the culture of corruption and unlawfulness. It is abot the absolutely crucial question of how to solve the problems and what to build in the place of the old. When the ideology itself is antagonist from the start, it has the difficulty to then make the small fixes that are needed. There's the urge to just throw everything away and you can end up throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Also when you have started from the idea of the "evil elite" that you have to oppose, it's quite logical to replace this with your "own elite" of the right-minded. It isn't that your objective is to listen to your opponents and try to get some consensus. The populist has the moral high ground: he or she is working for the people, the common man and woman. — ssu
There is a long history of "the people" supporting the centralization of power as a means of keeping recalcitrant elites in check. — Count Timothy von Icarus
But then the "people's" will often is to do some pretty nasty things. Massacre the Jews, again and again, disenfranchise and segregate African Americans, etc.? — Count Timothy von Icarus
Good that you point out this, because here lies one important reason why populism is in the end anti-democratic. — ssu
My question is whether anyone disagrees with what I've said and believes that the press has a duty to stake out a preferred social objective and then to use its power to promote that objective? Do you see the press as a legitimate political force, rightfully empowered to promote the good as the outlet sees fit, or do you see the press as having no objective other than the presentation of facts from various viewpoints, leaving to the reader the conclusions he wishes to draw? — Hanover
If the US would be such a Machiavellian player when it comes to Europe, why favor then the emergence of the EU? — ssu
To put it in a terminology that hearkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together. — Zbigniew Brzezinski
So learn how to use references, Tzeench. It's very sloppy and wrong (at least in academic circles) to say something and then refer to papers that don't say what you are saying! — ssu
And the decision to join NATO was based on non-hypotheticals? — boethius
However, let's imagine the war in Ukraine comes to an end and a decade from now there's some entirely new crisis we can't really imagine now between the US and Russia.
Or then Macron makes good on his threat to send in ground forces, and tensions spiral out of control and Russia is risking conventional defeat.
By your own reasoning Russia would then use nuclear weapons. — boethius
Because US politics doesn't align with EU interests and they are warmongering reptiles. If we stay in NATO sooner or later we will be pulled into a war which isn't anything else but the death throes of the end of an empire. — Benkei
I think that supposing that even if the main problems we as humanity face are not CAUSED by the ‘rulers’ and their allies (corporations, banks, governments, militaries), they are certainly AMPLIFIED by such agents.
As a whole, the system seems to be locked into a game that it can’t stop, even if willing.
(Not unlike the nuclear weapons escalations and potential global war in the past century). — 0 thru 9