Global counter-reaction to the rise of far-right in the West?

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Re: Global counter-reaction to the rise of far-right in the West?

Post by ray245 »

madd0ct0r wrote:
Singapore is a tiny city (5.6M) that is a finance hub in a key strategic position and happens to be run by an unusually competent set of begin dictators. It's not a model that has easy replicatability.
But the export-driven model is why the East Asian states managed to rapdily outpace everyone else in Asia. Take a look at India and other Southeast Asian states for instance.
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Re: Global counter-reaction to the rise of far-right in the West?

Post by K. A. Pital »

East Asia succeded due to a stable predictable bureaucracy. Extrapolating this to everyone does not work. Full stop.
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Re: Global counter-reaction to the rise of far-right in the West?

Post by Pelranius »

MKSheppard wrote:Not sure whether to put this here or in the Coal Miner thread:

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index ... 93.0%3Ball

Key post on that forum:
He is also far more interested in getting jobs back, which in the long run gets more federal revenue, which will get NASA more money.

In my area alone [East Alabama], within 50 miles, we have lost 10-15,000 textile jobs. Many of these factories were modernized and had new equipment, but went overseas with the free trade agreements. Most were lower middle class wages, but they had health care. In my hometown alone, we have lost around 3,000 textile jobs, 950 tire manufacturing jobs, 750 jobs with the bankrupcy of Ampex Corp, another 700 with the closing of Diversified Products exercise equipment, a foundry that made manhole covers, a welding company that made tree climbers. My hometown has 25,000 people.

I don't know what happened to these people, but some were union jobs. If we can't make things to provide jobs, there will be no revenue from income tax, corporate income tax, etc. Without returning to our sources of revenue, we can't afford a space program.
The problem is, if those industries did come back, there wouldn't be very much in the way of actual jobs created, since automation is kicking into high gear for a lot of the manpower intensive things, and the US is doing pretty, pretty good at the high value added sectors.
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Re: Global counter-reaction to the rise of far-right in the West?

Post by Alferd Packer »

Pelranius wrote:The problem is, if those industries did come back, there wouldn't be very much in the way of actual jobs created, since automation is kicking into high gear for a lot of the manpower intensive things, and the US is doing pretty, pretty good at the high value added sectors.
Right. You bring back a big factory that previously employed, say, 1000 people in blue collar positions, it will now employ 100 technicians, 100 mechanical engineers, and 1000 robots. The only blue collar jobs in the factory will be the 4-5 janitors and the guys who man the gate at the parking lot. Granted, 200+ jobs back in the area is better than none, but it's not going to be plug-and-play, and the volume of jobs will not be the same.
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Re: Global counter-reaction to the rise of far-right in the West?

Post by K. A. Pital »

Some jobs are better than no jobs.

Decent, but still a bit lower wages are better than survival wages or modern slave labour.
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Re: Global counter-reaction to the rise of far-right in the West?

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Those 200+ jobs instead of the 1000+ old jobs might still end up with disposable income so the remaining 800+ other jobs can be in... other jobs catered to the market of the first 200+ jobs? I know it's shit but it's probably less-worse?

But Stas what about the workers in the non-Western countries then? Is "no don't let these Easterner workers take the jobs of OUR glourious nation's workers!" truly internationalist comradely proletarian people power parties' play?
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Re: Global counter-reaction to the rise of far-right in the West?

Post by K. A. Pital »

Shroom Man 777 wrote:But Stas what about the workers in the non-Western countries then? Is "no don't let these Easterner workers take the jobs of OUR glourious nation's workers!" truly internationalist comradely proletarian people power parties' play?
By making transnational capitalists pay a living wage and have no option to escape, one can at least set an example to aspire to. Stopping a race to the bottom is just as important as raising the bar, because if you don't stop it and the bar sinks to an "acceptable" ever-growing level of social insecurity, then the workers in the Third World have been betrayed as well: they will have no hope for a better future than now because the "future" they're aspiring to (industrialized nations with strong social guarantees, job security and an income that allows education, healthcare and other things) - these things won't even exist in the places where they began. So what incentive would anyone have to grant them to the newcomers? "Look, you're asking for something that doesn't even exist in Europe any more. Be happy to work for the pennies we give you".

The whole world could be turned into many things, but globalists only aspire to turn it into a gigantic plain of sweatshops and dumps. They can nicely avoid them by moving around in airplanes, after all.

Internationalism was supposed to be a brotherhood of workers - not a brotherhood of their masters, which is what Obama and Clinton have largely achieved with their free trade policies.
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Re: Global counter-reaction to the rise of far-right in the West?

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

So wouldn't the internationalist thing to do be the reaching out to foreign workers in Asia, Latin America, Africa, etc. and the advocacy of the raising of their living conditions, their wages, the taxes on said transnational corporations... rather than just saying "no, transnationals come back here, don't give jobs to foreigners abroad" ?

The solution would be to internationalize the socioeconomic justice/equality movements, internationalize their fight against injustice and inequality. Enable free borders. *Not* just forcing businesses to stay local? Because that logic is not too far from likewise preventing the free movement of workers and people across borders?
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Re: Global counter-reaction to the rise of far-right in the West?

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Tribble wrote:
Swindle1984 wrote:Fuck it, let's just bring back the Holy Roman Empire.
So the answer to people's backlash over globalization, the gutting of the middle class, mainstream political parties ignoring their voters wishes and sovereignty being steadily being transferred out of the hands of the electorate and into the hands of unaccountable corporate lawyers is... that? Really?
No, not really. :roll: I realize sarcasm is difficult to convey in text, but c'mon. Has anyone seriously suggested doing something like that?

If the mainstream poltical elites decided to, you know, actually do their damn job and make the lives of their citizens better, then things like Trump and Brexit wouldn't happen.
100% wholeheartedly agree. Problem is, mainstream political elites couldn't give two shits about making the lives of their citizens better, and in many cases seem to be actively working to fuck their citizens over as much as possible.
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Re: Global counter-reaction to the rise of far-right in the West?

Post by Starglider »

Swindle1984 wrote:Has anyone seriously suggested doing something like that?
Yes, google 'dark enlightenment'. It's just a few dozen bloggers though, not a 'movement' in any meaningful sense.
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Re: Global counter-reaction to the rise of far-right in the West?

Post by Tribble »

No, not really. :roll: I realize sarcasm is difficult to convey in text, but c'mon. Has anyone seriously suggested doing something like that?
I wasn't taking it seriously, but I didn't see it as sarcasm given the number of people I've seen throwing a tantrum over Trump's victory. I was hoping for something a little constructive then what appeared to be at first glance yet another "fuck the world!" comment. Sorry for that.
100% wholeheartedly agree. Problem is, mainstream political elites couldn't give two shits about making the lives of their citizens better, and in many cases seem to be actively working to fuck their citizens over as much as possible.
Which is what is leading to Trump and Brexit, ya. Unfortunately the left either doesn't have an effective response and/or is being shut out at every opportunity, though IMO its more the former than the ladder.
So wouldn't the internationalist thing to do be the reaching out to foreign workers in Asia, Latin America, Africa, etc. and the advocacy of the raising of their living conditions, their wages, the taxes on said transnational corporations... rather than just saying "no, transnationals come back here, don't give jobs to foreigners abroad" ?

The solution would be to internationalize the socioeconomic justice/equality movements, internationalize their fight against injustice and inequality. Enable free borders. *Not* just forcing businesses to stay local? Because that logic is not too far from likewise preventing the free movement of workers and people across borders?
IMO the problem isn't so much the idea, but the timing and the execution. It's great to want to change the entire world all at once but IMO its not practical in the short to medium term. It's not practical to advocate dissolving national states and borders when nationalism is still a fairly powerful force and the alternatives so far (such as the EU) have been shown to be demonstrably worse. It's not practical to be working on a global workers paradise when your own house is not in order. IMO it would be far better to get your own country sorted out first then start helping others, because at least in that case you would have a solid base for support.

IMO the single biggest failure of the EU (apart from its obvious neo-liberal agenda) is that it tried to do too much too soon and expand too quickly. IMO the EU has clearly demonstrated that you cannot simply try to drag a bunch of countries into some kind of higher standard all at once. If the EU had focused on getting a few core members fully integrated then gradually started expanding out I think things would have turned out a lot better (especially with the Eurozone).
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Re: Global counter-reaction to the rise of far-right in the West?

Post by Highlord Laan »

Battlehymn Republic wrote:Modi in India, Abe in Japan, Duterte in the Philippines, whoever replaces Park Geun-hye in South Korea, Netanyahu, Erdogan... the far-right is marching everywhere. There's no continent without nationalists coming to power, except Oceania and Antarctica. It's not just in the West.
Hopefully it doesn't keep escalating until it reaches a flashpoint and explodes. I'd rather not live in a era of global war.

Horrifyingly enough, there's right-wingers that just got handed the keys to all three branches of the government that look at the idea of a continent-wrecking (ie: Europe) war with Russia and/or China as a good thing. Balancing the scales and "putting the commies in their place," ect. And no, I'm not joking. I've heard these dumbasses espouse such beliefs.

"Kick their ass, take their gas" as I've heard them say. The stupidity and outright jingoistic nationalism, not to mention the pure disregard for human lives, makes me stand in true awe of the sheer depths of pure stupidity of these people. And the far-right panders to them.
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Re: Global counter-reaction to the rise of far-right in the West?

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Starglider wrote:
Swindle1984 wrote:Has anyone seriously suggested doing something like that?
Yes, google 'dark enlightenment'. It's just a few dozen bloggers though, not a 'movement' in any meaningful sense.
The dark enlightenment asshats are enablers of the alt-right and isn't Peter Thiel amongst these cliques?
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Re: Global counter-reaction to the rise of far-right in the West?

Post by Sidewinder »

Swindle1984 wrote:
Tribble wrote:
Swindle1984 wrote:Fuck it, let's just bring back the Holy Roman Empire.
So the answer to people's backlash over globalization, the gutting of the middle class, mainstream political parties ignoring their voters wishes and sovereignty being steadily being transferred out of the hands of the electorate and into the hands of unaccountable corporate lawyers is... that? Really?
No, not really. :roll: I realize sarcasm is difficult to convey in text, but c'mon. Has anyone seriously suggested doing something like that?
YES.
New York Times wrote:Consider a Monarchy, America

By NIKOLAI TOLSTOY

NOV. 5, 2016

Southmoor, England — As a foreigner with dual British and Russian citizenship, it is not for me to comment at length on the merits of the rival candidates for the presidency of the United States. But it seems uncontroversial to say that neither appears to be a Washington or a Lincoln, and that the elective presidency is coming under increasingly critical examination.

That their head of state should be elected by the people is, I imagine, the innate view of almost all American citizens. But at this unquiet hour, they might well wonder whether — for all the wisdom of the founding fathers — their republican system of government is actually leading them toward that promised “more perfect union.”

After all, our American cousins have only to direct their gaze toward their northern neighbor to find, in contented Canada, a nation that has for its head of state a hereditary monarch. That example alone demonstrates that democracy is perfectly compatible with constitutional monarchy.

Indeed, the modern history of Europe has shown that those countries fortunate enough to enjoy a king or queen as head of state tend to be more stable and better governed than most of the Continent’s republican states. By the same token, demagogic dictators have proved unremittingly hostile to monarchy because the institution represents a dangerously venerated alternative to their ambitions.

Reflecting in 1945 on what had led to the rise of Nazi Germany, Winston Churchill wrote: “This war would never have come unless, under American and modernizing pressure, we had driven the Hapsburgs out of Austria and Hungary and the Hohenzollerns out of Germany.”

“By making these vacuums,” he went on, “we gave the opening for the Hitlerite monster to crawl out of its sewer on to the vacant thrones.”

<snip>
As it's difficult to convey sarcasm in text, I can't tell if Tolstoy is serious or not.
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Re: Global counter-reaction to the rise of far-right in the West?

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Shroom Man 777 wrote:So wouldn't the internationalist thing to do be the reaching out to foreign workers in Asia, Latin America, Africa, etc. and the advocacy of the raising of their living conditions, their wages, the taxes on said transnational corporations... rather than just saying "no, transnationals come back here, don't give jobs to foreigners abroad" ?

The solution would be to internationalize the socioeconomic justice/equality movements, internationalize their fight against injustice and inequality. Enable free borders. *Not* just forcing businesses to stay local? Because that logic is not too far from likewise preventing the free movement of workers and people across borders?
It is not as simple. I have been a proponent of the "great equalization" that would wipe out Elysium - and for a very long time.

For all intents and purposes enabling free borders (=abolishing borders) would crush the living standard in the First World immediately and abruptly. The level of rights which a person inside Elysium is familiar to, that level is absolutely foreign to immigrants.

There is this idea of hard-working migrants, for example. It is true. I would presume migrants to work longer hours. In fact, Mexico has some of the longest working hours in the world (remains dirt poor shithole nonetheless - you spend your life for The Man, but end up just as poor in the end).

For a long time I have been convinced that this free trade rampage would put us into a situation of a global collapse of capitalism, of the Mother of all Crises. This view has been largely vindicated in 2008-2014 during one of the most severe economic crises the modern world has seen.

But the crisis met the left in disarray. Fascists and nationalists have largely capitalized on this free trade mutilation of industrial economies. Instead of a global uprising of workers against their masters, we have witnessed a rapid rise in the "close the gates of Heaven" people. There's absolutely no solidarity, there are no organizations with significant power which could lead a global resistance against capitalist globalization. So there is no globalization but the oligarch one, and it has been playing into fascist hands, not our hands. The left is weak and unable to protect itself from either the neoliberal liars or the fascist and nationalist populists.

If you think Trump is bad, just think what kind of leader would come to power in a future industrial ruined dystopia which former "great powers" will become if the situation develops further in the free trade and free border vein. That'd be Brexit times 1000, to borrow from the US President elect.

In a perverse way "let the burn" I guess it is possible to encourage more free trade and more globalization. But the reaction will be even more severe, and I don't know if the modern left is at all prepared for the rise of industrial fascism one more time.

Franky, I am at a loss. The "modern left", the so-called "progressive movement" has shown itself to be a total political failure. Behind fighting for animal rights and minority causes, they've colluded with the oligarch yuppie globalist camp and embraced their culture and policies. In the end, this caused the working class to go more and more to nationalists or even embrace open fascists.

Until there is some class consciousness in the workers, no amount of closing or opening the borders would introduce real solidarity. It would only introduce different types of hate and distrust.
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Re: Global counter-reaction to the rise of far-right in the West?

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K. A. Pital wrote:It is not as simple. I have been a proponent of the "great equalization" that would wipe out Elysium - and for a very long time.

For all intents and purposes enabling free borders (=abolishing borders) would crush the living standard in the First World immediately and abruptly. The level of rights which a person inside Elysium is familiar to, that level is absolutely foreign to immigrants.

There is this idea of hard-working migrants, for example. It is true. I would presume migrants to work longer hours. In fact, Mexico has some of the longest working hours in the world (remains dirt poor shithole nonetheless - you spend your life for The Man, but end up just as poor in the end).

For a long time I have been convinced that this free trade rampage would put us into a situation of a global collapse of capitalism, of the Mother of all Crises. This view has been largely vindicated in 2008-2014 during one of the most severe economic crises the modern world has seen.

But the crisis met the left in disarray. Fascists and nationalists have largely capitalized on this free trade mutilation of industrial economies. Instead of a global uprising of workers against their masters, we have witnessed a rapid rise in the "close the gates of Heaven" people. There's absolutely no solidarity, there are no organizations with significant power which could lead a global resistance against capitalist globalization. So there is no globalization but the oligarch one, and it has been playing into fascist hands, not our hands. The left is weak and unable to protect itself from either the neoliberal liars or the fascist and nationalist populists.

If you think Trump is bad, just think what kind of leader would come to power in a future industrial ruined dystopia which former "great powers" will become if the situation develops further in the free trade and free border vein. That'd be Brexit times 1000, to borrow from the US President elect.

In a perverse way "let the burn" I guess it is possible to encourage more free trade and more globalization. But the reaction will be even more severe, and I don't know if the modern left is at all prepared for the rise of industrial fascism one more time.

Franky, I am at a loss. The "modern left", the so-called "progressive movement" has shown itself to be a total political failure. Behind fighting for animal rights and minority causes, they've colluded with the oligarch yuppie globalist camp and embraced their culture and policies. In the end, this caused the working class to go more and more to nationalists or even embrace open fascists.

Until there is some class consciousness in the workers, no amount of closing or opening the borders would introduce real solidarity. It would only introduce different types of hate and distrust.
The reason why the "Close the Gates of Heaven" people are winning is cultural. The world is too entrenched in the Peace of Westphalia mindset where there are still individual nation-states, and when a crisis hits the default reaction is to rally to the flag and turn guns towards the outsiders.

Ironically one of the main cultural forces against this mindset is the global internationalized middle class - who are increasingly sharing one common culture through mass media and the Internet - particularly those with friends in other nations. Problem is even in America and other advanced states this seems to remain a minority.
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Re: Global counter-reaction to the rise of far-right in the West?

Post by K. A. Pital »

This so-called "global middle class" is a tiny fragment of the world capitalistic elite with a living standard that is so far beyond that of the common worker, that there is basically no connection between them.

But the global working class has been thoroughly shackled. It started with crushing of the unions and redbaiting by Reagan and Thatcher in the 1980s and ended with the current batch of Blairites and Clintons who are nothing more than talking heads for the oligarchy. They're now challenged by the Trumps and Farages, but those are also bourgeois creatures.

The left is weak. There is simply no way the left could control such a thing as globalization. It would always be an oligarch project, a neoliberal project. The EU, NAFTA and TTIP plus TTP have proven this 100%. The only thing neoliberals can build is just another neocolonial empire that runs the periphery into the ground and a tiny elite of plutocrats enriches itself in the process.

As such, perhaps it is better to have the whole thing collapse in ruins sooner than later.
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Re: Global counter-reaction to the rise of far-right in the West?

Post by Zinegata »

K. A. Pital wrote:This so-called "global middle class" is a tiny fragment of the world capitalistic elite with a living standard that is so far beyond that of the common worker, that there is basically no connection between them.
Eh, I wouldn't say that. The Philippine situation is very different with every family basically having at least one family member abroad; and these families are hardly capitalistic elite.

Internationalization can only happen if there are actual social bonds between workers of different countries. That it remains the minority is because we still actively teach Westphalian ideas in our schools and don't maximize the communication power of the Internet.
But the global working class has been thoroughly shackled. It started with crushing of the unions and redbaiting by Reagan and Thatcher in the 1980s and ended with the current batch of Blairites and Clintons who are nothing more than talking heads for the oligarchy. They're now challenged by the Trumps and Farages, but those are also bourgeois creatures.
Unions were stronger before the First World War but it didn't exactly stop the workers from being convinced that there is no such thing as international solidarity and that they should shoot other workers speaking a different language and wearing a different uniform. Nationalism, even with the death of imperialism, remains ever-present and in many ways the United States became much more dangerously hyper-nationalistic in the past ten years.
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Re: Global counter-reaction to the rise of far-right in the West?

Post by K. A. Pital »

There are some exceptions, but they underscore the rule.

You don't even understand just what people who seek to undermine Westphalian sovereignity are really after.

They want that national law no longer reign supreme, and the state would no longer have full authority over its territory.

In practice, this means that corporations take over. Private prisons, private regulations, private everything will become the norm. Governments that challenge corporations will be swiftly disposed of, one way or the other. Corporations would no longer need to encourage other nations to fight wars for their interests; they could fight these wars directly on the soil of the recipient state.

There will be thousands of "Corporate Republics of Bumfuckistan" in a place where formerly there were nation-states. A world of banana republics.

Those who attack the Westphalian system to replace it with "world government" are even more dangerous than Trump.

They are wolves in sheep's clothes.

We didn't need to even fight colonialism for decades if we are about to erect something like this.
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Re: Global counter-reaction to the rise of far-right in the West?

Post by Zinegata »

K. A. Pital wrote:There are some exceptions, but they underscore the rule.

You don't even understand just what people who seek to undermine Westphalian sovereignity are really after.

They want that national law no longer reign supreme, and the state would no longer have full authority over its territory.

In practice, this means that corporations take over. Private prisons, private regulations, private everything will become the norm. Governments that challenge corporations will be swiftly disposed of, one way or the other. Corporations would no longer need to encourage other nations to fight wars for their interests; they could fight these wars directly on the soil of the recipient state.

There will be thousands of "Corporate Republics of Bumfuckistan" in a place where formerly there were nation-states. A world of banana republics.

Those who attack the Westphalian system to replace it with "world government" are even more dangerous than Trump.

They are wolves in sheep's clothes.

We didn't need to even fight colonialism for decades if we are about to erect something like this.
The problem I'm seeing with your vision is that corporations don't want to take over, for the simple reason that no corporation wants to actually undertake the enormous actual responsibility known as governance. Corporations nowadays are in large part profitable because they can focus on sectors that make money while completely ignoring all of the other problems of governance - which remains the problem of the national governments.

Now, it's true that many national governments are also corrupt, but that's also pretty much the reason why most corporations refrain from doing business in such areas. They know that, aside from the bribes involved, they will have to bring in their own infrastructure and security because they can't take it for granted that the government can provide these services properly. Having a world without national governments is going to make corporations paying for the full cost of everything the norm.

Finally, the dissolution of the idea of nation-states does not imply the dissolution of government - indeed in a world without individual nation-states the government can implicitly only be a unified global one. And in a world where corporations can derive much of their power through their multi-national nature, in many ways only a one world government can really combat their excesses.
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Re: Global counter-reaction to the rise of far-right in the West?

Post by K. A. Pital »

A one world government would be totally coopted by the corporations - it would be like a snake biting its own tail and nothing more. They already have everything in place for such a government: totally unelected bodies (EU Comission, WTO, IMF, World Bank).

This government would do nothing to combat the corporate excesses - it would only exacerbate them.

It would be so gigantic and remote that it could no longer care about any particular territory at all.

Now people are already suffering from the fact that their governments do not really represent their local interests, but instead work for the global capitalists. Already there are calls even from inside the nations that regions are subjected to neglect by remote central governments, and this feeds separatism.

You propose to double down on this globalist vision? Well let me warn you with an adequate quote:

The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.

As for corporations not willing to take over because it means own enforcement... I will only note that this is a rosy eyed view of the world. The private security sector is balooning. Not just growing - it is explosive growth. I fear that it will not be long before we see the fruits of this.

Corporations will not pay the costs. They will make us pay. The costs will be manifested in a corporate rule dystopia, which is being created even now as we speak.
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Re: Global counter-reaction to the rise of far-right in the West?

Post by Starglider »

Zinegata wrote:The problem I'm seeing with your vision is that corporations don't want to take over, for the simple reason that no corporation wants to actually undertake the enormous actual responsibility known as governance.
Dick Jones would disagree;
Robocop wrote:Take a close look at the track record of this company, and you'll see that we have gambled in markets traditionally regarded as non-profit. Hospitals. Prisons. Space exploration. I say, good business... is where you find it. As you know, we've entered into a contract with the city to run local law enforcement. But at Security Concepts, we believe an efficient police force is only part of the solution. No, we need something more. Fellow executives, it gives me great pleasure to introduce you to the future of law enforcement. ED-209.
Or somewhat less flippantly, this prophetic piece from 1998;
Welcome to the Brave New World
Party Political broadcast on behalf of SPECTRE given to Alliance of Manufacturers & Exporters Canada on October 2, 1998
by Ian O. Angell
Professor of Computer Science, London School of Economics
Personal advisor to Ernst Stavro Blofeld

Welcome to the future. Welcome to a world as different from today, as today is from the pre-industrial age. Welcome to Spectre: We are NOT the Special Executive for Counter-Espionage, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion. The James Bond myth, that the state is good and global corporations (we in Spectre) are bad, is blatant propaganda on behalf of the nation-state; a morality tale told by tax collectors. We're merely global capitalists, and we are tired of the vicious lies pouring out of the nation-state; lies that categorize global business as criminal, just because we refuse to kow-tow to mere politicians. The nation state is dead. James Bond, the patron saint of civil servants, the thug of state, is now just another dirty old man.

Welcome to our Brave New World. But why new? New, because new technology is forcing new order upon an unsuspecting world. The future is being born on the so-called information superhighways, where everyone in the world (at least those who can afford it) can talk to everyone else. Anyone bypassed faces ruin. We're on the verge of a new revolution, an Information Revolution, that is taking us out of the Machine Age, into who knows what .... into that Brave New World.

But why Brave? Brave, because this is not a world for the timid. None but the brave will win here. The certainties of the twentieth century are collapsing. The twentieth century is over. It ended at the Berlin Wall in 1989. Everything is changing, and I really do mean everything: politics, economics, society as a whole. And I really do mean change; not the nice neat change that snake-oil salesmen peddle in their change management seminars; not nice tidy transition, but severe and total dislocation with the past.

Organizations, like Spectre do not identify with, are indifferent to, any particular country, and relocate (physically, fiscally or electronically) to where the profit is greatest and the regulation least. We think globally, because we communicate globally and because our shareholders, our executive, and our employees are spread out across the globe!

We are virtual enterprises at the hub of loosely knit alliances, all linked together by global networks: electronic, transport and human. We assemble to take advantage of any temporary business opportunity; and then we separate, each company moving on to its next major deal. We are project-based, and developed around complex information systems.

The information system IS the virtual enterprise; it IS the headquarters; and it can be based virtually anywhere in Cyberspace. And while in cyberspace the apparent size of the firm can be amplified far beyond the physical reality. You are what you claim to be; you are what you can deliver via telecommunication networks. Global business will desert factory or office if the demands of workers are excessive just like Timex did when it abandoned its Dundee site. They sent in the helicopters and took what they wanted; they waved to the demonstrators fuming below, and left the local
>authority with useless real estate. We are changing the nature of work. With the networked portable computer and the mobile phone, we are turning office workers into road warriors, and squeezing 30% more work out of them. The virtual office is merely a mobile node in a telecommunications network. Cars, homes, airports, aeroplanes are now just extensions of the office.

The all-knowing company (just-in-timeshare) information system will establish the exact location of each and every employee, and messages for her will be delivered directly, just-in-time, no matter where she is in the building, no matter where she is in the world. I say she, because the workplace (whatever that is) will be feminized. In the UK women already take up 44% of the jobs. Because of the changing nature of work, and the freedoms delivered by home-working, the Henley Centre predicts that women will take on 80% of all new jobs being created in the next decade. Companies will shed office space. Offices can be hired on short time scales perhaps within even just a few hours. Hotels, railway stations and airports are already supplying temporary office space. We in Spectre don't pay any rent at all. We hold our meetings in the lobby of the best hotel in town, and all for the price of afternoon tea. The demand for space is a tiny fraction of the supply: And so the value of commercial real estate will enter free-fall. There are going to be very bad times ahead for the owners of office blocks. So don't get tied into long-term office leases; there are bargains galore around the corner. Sell your property shares quickly before the meltdown.

No office, means: no rent, heat and light, insurance, and the number of support jobs can be slashed: tea ladies, security men, cleaners, receptionists, canteen staff, porters, electricians, plumbers, carpenters, janitors. All the jobs that supported the workplace of the Machine Age are now endangered species in the Information Age. Companies will use fewer workers to cover the same work load. Those lucky enough to be in work, will have to work harder, for more hours each week, for less pay, in less secure jobs: and they had damn well better be grateful for it. No longer tied to a single location, we are free to exploit the workers. Management can finally get its revenge and kill off those damn trades unions. We can really shaft troublesome workers. In Spectre we don't even look them in the eye. We fire them by E-mail.

For humanity is polarizing into two employment categories: the financial, intellectual, cultural and business elite (the knowledge workers) the Alphas; and the rest (the service workers). It is time to rid ourselves of the backward looking idea that work involves physical effort. Of course labour is needed - but there is a world full of labourers out there. It is that rare commodity - human intellect - that is the stuff of work in tomorrow's world. No company can survive without its Alphas, but it can replace service workers with robots or export the jobs anywhere on the globe. Offices, factories and headquarters will move from high cost areas to low cost. British Telecom Directory Enquiries for London is based in Scotland. Companies can just as easily move abroad. ICL, the British computer company, runs main-frame help line from Poona in India. Courage, British institution, makes all its toys in China. A host of countries are out there making you an offer you can't refuse.

Meanwhile, money, which is merely a means of facilitating economic transactions, has itself become electronic information. What constitutes money can no longer be monopolized by the state. Money does not have to be created legal tender by governments. Like law, language and morals it can emerge spontaneously. Such private money has often been preferred to government money, but government has usually soon suppressed it (Hayek). In the age of Internet can government keep suppressing it? Hayek's vision of the Denationalization of Money can now become a reality.

The real issue is not dollar bills, but Bill's [Gates] dollars; every corporation will issue its own electronic money. Such trends make taxation of profits and regulation of the process almost impossible. But a real competitive advantage for those who are willing to trade their expertise in this electronic market. We Alphas are the real generators of wealth. Our income will increase substantially. We will be made welcome anywhere in the world. Foreign entrepreneurial investors with 1 million at their disposal can bypass the usual entry rules into the UK. But poor Britain has been very slow off the Mark, with the added embarrassment that none of the migrant rich want to live there. In the United States, there is a fast-track immigration policy for businessmen who can offer $1 million and employ 10 people. In 1993 six hundred millionaires emigrated to America.

However, service workers are a net loss. There are a billion new workers in the global marketplace. It is no accident that most Western companies are instigating major downsizing, delayering and >outsourcing programs. The motto for everyone is "add value or perish!" There is no room for sentimentality in this Brave New World. Companies must ask, and answer, some very brutal questions concerning which workers are resources and which are liabilities. Acting in this way they are not being callous, unscrupulous, unprincipled or immoral. "Nature is not immoral, when it has no pity for the degenerate." (Nietzsche).

Of course, out-of-touch politicians, both the knaves and the naive, incant the words - training - in New Technology and - jobs - through growth, pretending they can conjure up new jobs for the huge number of soon-to-be-unemployed - it's not that simple. For technology is the problem, not the solution. Productivity is delivered by a technology needing only a few machine minders growth comes from the intellect of knowledge workers, not from the labour of service and production workers. States must learn that they are now just a form of commercial enterprise and they will have to be run like corporations. Governments, like all other organizations will have to survive economically on the efforts of an elite few and no nation-state has an automatic right to exist.

Now the Alpha chooses to give his loyalty freely and voluntarily; loyalty is no longer an accident of birth. It is individual, not tribal; contractual not judicial; it is made consciously on the basis of unashamed rational self-interest. If the state can't produce quality people products, in sufficient quantities, then it must buy it from abroad. Each state must scour the globe for elite knowledge workers, no matter what their age, sex, religion or race. Drag them off the planes if necessary. These entrepreneurs, who can flee, will be immune to taxation. Tax credits and tax holidays will be the name of the game everywhere. Governments have no choice. They must submit to the will of global enterprise. The British government had to bribe the Chung Hwa Picture Tube Company with 80 million to open a factory in Scotland.

In order to attract the elite with their knowledge and money to enliven the economy, Alphas will be expected to be less taxed and not more! Arbitrage pressures, exploitation of price/tax/regulation differentials mean the end of progressive taxation. Companies can demand that its senior executives be given diplomatic status: no income tax! When Leona Helmsley said only the little people pay taxes she was making a prediction. Strapped for cash, governments will tax anything in solid form: we will see taxes on fuel, food and clothes. Property taxes will rise: in 1913 60% of US tax revenues came from property; today it is 10%; in 2013 will it be back at 60%?

But nobody wants more service workers; each state has a surplus of its own to support. Barriers will be thrown up everywhere to keep out alien service workers. It is already happening. In California, proposition 187 bars nearly two million illegal immigrants from schools, welfare services, and all but emergency health care. How long before there are differential rights, for differentiated citizens, identified in data base, and policed by smart cards? How long before the notion of Human Rights is as outdated as the Divine Right of Kings?

The fact is - many too many are born. The state was devised for the superfluous ones.

Mass-production methods needed an over-supply of humanity; the Machine Age spawned the nation-state, but with its demise what is to be done with the glut as we enter the Information age? Not only will state be pitted against state, but also against area, town against town, even suburb against suburb. Global corporations have shown that the nation-state is too small for the big things and too big for the small things. Nation-states will fragment. Rich areas will dump poor areas. The number of states in the United Nations will increase from its present number of 184 to over a thousand. Belgium will break up. So will Italy, Spain, France and Germany. and what about the United Kingdom(?) which has never been truly united. How soon before the rich South-East of England realize the benefits of discarding that black hole for taxes north of Watford?

And what will replace the nation state? We Alphas, tired of supporting the ungrateful masses, are on the move to hot spots modeled along the lines of Hong Kong, Singapore, Liechtenstein. We are reinventing the medieval City State as the Smart City at the hub of global electronic and transport networks. An independent cosmopolitan City State of London makes real economic sense. Think of it! Home rule for London inside the M25 orbital motorway. The Free City of London can be a tiger economy attracting in global corporations, but only if we chop off the dead hand of the Mother of
Parliaments, the sleaze-machine of Westminster. If the House of Commons really wants to help London, then they should move to Birmingham.

The lights are going out for wide sectors of society, And for whole categories of employment. Involvement in the black economy, in essence an alternative economy, is the only option open to the losers who are surplus to requirements in the legitimate economy. We're entering a new Dark Age: an age of hopelessness, an age of resentment, an age of Rage. Redundancy Rage is appearing among the unemployed. Newly redundant workers attack senior management and their ex-colleagues in the workplace, on the street and in their homes. A certain Los Angeles company has had five senior executives murdered in the past two years. Grudge terror, whether the grudge is real or imagined, is reality: just think of the unabomber in the US and the Mardi Gras bombers' attacks on Barclays Bank in the UK.

Societies are re-stratifying; new elites are appearing. The rich are getting richer, and the poor poorer. We are already witnessing the emergence of a rapidly expanding underclass. The streets of London are again littered with beggars. In the transition we can expect massive civil unrest and disorder. The soon-to-be-have-nots - have nothing to lose and will riot. This is what happened in France in the winter of 1995, when workers and students took to the streets in defense of their cradle-to-grave welfare system.

It happened in Belgium, South Korea and Germany. German coal miners are subsidized to the tune of 150,000DM each year! It can't go on. This is the economics of the madhouse, and the lunatics are in charge of the asylum. These crazy politicians cannot indefinitely keep buying votes and still hope to fend off the inevitable. Real world crime is finding a counterpart in Cyberspace: computer variants of protection rackets, blackmail, murder, kidnapping, smuggling, counterfeiting, fraud, threatening behaviour, vandalism (fax graffiti) and pornography will inevitably appear.

Don't look to the police for help. With the lack of government resources, the main role for state police, perhaps the only role, will be the maintenance of civil order. Governments are control freaks, they will never give up pushing the population round. But because of the lack of revenue, other police duties, such as solving crime, which today you take for granted, will increasingly be outsourced.

Today in the US there are nearly three times as many private security guards as there are public police - even in the UK the figure is two to one. The eleventh biggest police force in the US is the New York Schools Authority. The natural order is reasserting itself: the police are not there to protect the masses, they are there to protect the property of the rich from the masses. Lack of government funding may mean the end of the Welfare State, but the rich will always find money for security. The security of Alphas is going to be big business, perhaps the only growth business in the Information Age. Whenever anyone asks me for career advice I always say: if you can't be a knowledge worker... be a policeman.

So this is not a time for despair, quite the opposite. It is a time of great opportunity for the few, a great opportunity for YOU. It is in such times that new empires are made - today that means new global business empires. For a few companies the future looks very bright. Information technology has liberated the elite few, from the mind-set and the moralities of the tribe. We ignore tribal loyalties. There are enormous opportunities for those who have the vigour and vitality, the nerve, to break free of the limitations of tribal boundaries drawn from the past, and who have the vision to redraw their own orders, their own future.

It isn't going to be easy, and it isn't going to be nice. "I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had no claws" (Nietzsche). Societal evolution is not benign. Evolution is by nature red in tooth and claw; it spawns carnivores as well as herbivores. The carnivores of Spectre care nothing for democracy or the rules of parliament, that are representative of herbivores. Grass eaters beware, the jackals are circling, the hyenas are laughing. Specter's time has come. Why not join us?

In this brutal and brutish world remember Baudelaires' words: "one is punished for being weak, not for being cruel." From your expressions I seem to have shocked many of you. It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit. I'm discouraged, but not surprised. But whether you like it on not, you are faced with a very simple choice: create your own future, or fall into somebody else's; take control of your own destiny, or be at the mercy of another's whim.

Grab hold of the future. "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." SPECTRE is very unreasonable. And Spectre is going to win. Global business is not your enemy - populist governments are. Petty politicians are merely moving the deckchairs on the Titanic: we've already launched the lifeboats. Spectre is the government in waiting. We will create our own new world order. Don't think you can deny global business. For remember, those who are not with us are against us.

Take the advice of Niccolo Machiavelli. On his deathbed, a priest asked him "do you renounce the devil and all his works?". Machiavelli replied: "This is no time to be making enemies." Don't make an enemy of global business. Why not join us? The choice is yours. Where will you fit in? will you fit in?
1998 was the peak of the dot com boom and middle class prosperity; Angell was ahead of his time. In fact the only major item that hasn't happened yet is a property crash; despite widespread teleconferencing, so far the majority of companies are still hanging on to prestige offices in major cities. Of course this caused a storm of protest with the left of the time, back on Usenet (pre web forums). 'We reject your hell, we will create the heaven of global comucollecisyndicaliberlism instead'. Empty defiance of course. Angell was never saying 'this is what should be', he was saying 'this is what will be, adapt or die'. If supranational organisations such as the EU are no longer the best way to progress globalisation, then countries will be pounded down into gravel (city states) and private trade organisations will dominate them. I find it funny when I visit Sheffield and so-called socialists honestly say things like 'England should be split into the seven historical kingdoms again, local government is the only way to make governments care about people'. Thousands of nations, with politician-led transnational federations destroyed or severaly weakened (functionally replaced with sector-specific corporate alliances), would be quite a bit easier to divide and conquer. And if the immigrants do breach the walls in large numbers (unlikely given the normalisation of applying military force to civillians that is in progress), the response will be South Africa style apartheid, implemented across the global north.

I see even Stas has taken steps to be an 'alpha', even as he hypocritically condemns capitalism.
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Re: Global counter-reaction to the rise of far-right in the West?

Post by K. A. Pital »

I have taken steps that would ensure I can protect myself in the coming Capitalocalypse.

Don't blame me, dear Starglider, for having more foresight than some "useful idiots" for the current elites.

If you know what is coming and take no steps to prepare, you will be crushed. No matter if you are for the corporations or against them.

In fact it is those who are against that need to think long and hard now about how to secure their existence in the future, as well as the ability to freely propagate anti-corporate propaganda without consequences for their livelihoods.

Precisely the insider knowledge is what makes the future horrible. But thanks to the pathetic "modern left", there is no other better future in sight. Yet.
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Re: Global counter-reaction to the rise of far-right in the West?

Post by Zinegata »

I think you both need to consider that the rise of the "security" industry is just people taking advantage of other people's anxieties. Security guards and body guards are pretty common things in the Third World even before the whole globalization thing and are hardly the heralds of a corporate Gestapo. Indeed, in the Philippines "security" agencies tend to be small, fragmented, and barely able to recoup the costs even though they essentially give zero training or effective weaponry to their security guards. This is why virtually no major corporation in the Philippines maintains its own private security arm and instead outsources it to a smaller (and often barely profitable) company. There's no real money to be made there. Threatening to pull out security guards would also be a very feeble one to the poorer sections of society - it's the rich that need them to begin with.

PMCs are a different story - those have actually helped depose some Third-World government - but as is their economics. I don't see PMCs being effective police force replacements when they cost even more than the private security industry.
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Re: Global counter-reaction to the rise of far-right in the West?

Post by MKSheppard »

Shroom Man 777 wrote:The dark enlightenment asshats are enablers of the alt-right and isn't Peter Thiel amongst these cliques?
Thiel is now working in the Trump Transition team. :mrgreen:
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