United States Corrupt Twattery

[Scouse]

Politicking @Gwadien. The US has a fair point about the fact that we've been freeloading. He told Europe last time he was in power to massively up defense spending. We didn't do it.

The EU has near 500 million people in it. Many more than the US. So why are we still reliant on the US for defense?

They probably won't pull out. Or if they do, they'll not totally abandon us. But it'll get uncomfortable.

But answer this - why should the US continue to align with a Europe that is - unequivocally - retreating from the values that previously bound us.

 

[Scouse]

I'm more interested in his threats to pull out of the IMF and World Bank (if they did indeed say that):

I've long been of the opinion that the American Revolution failed with the Federal Reserve act of 1913. Like Jefferson said:

The system of banking we have both equally and ever reprobated. I contemplate it as a blot left in all our constitutions, which, if not covered, will end in their destruction, which is already hit by the gamblers in corruption, and is sweeping away in its progress the fortunes and morals of our citizens. Funding I consider as limited, rightfully, to a redemption of the debt within the lives of a majority of the generation contracting it; every generation coming equally, by the laws of the Creator of the world, to the free possession of the earth he made for their subsistence, unincumbered by their predecessors, who, like them, were but tenants for life… And I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.

...

Edit: Maybe there's hope for the dream of crypto yet! (If that doesn't trigger you, nothing will!)

 

[caLLous]

I'm firmly of the opinion that Putin has proof of Trump abusing children.

There are any number of shady reasons for his behaviour... There's the idea that they have some hardcore kompromat on him (eg child abuse), there's the whole Krasnov thing (that he's a bona fide Russian agent, recruited in the 80s), there's the fact that he absolutely swoons over actual dictators and is desperate to impress Putin however he can, or that he obviously despises Zelensky (probably the quid pro quo Biden shit from his last term) and is hellbent on burying him or lastly that he's just that bad at making deals that he's revealed his whole hand before anyone has even started talking. There's no diplomatic or political reason to go into it so biased towards one side.

The thing is, if Russia are actually controlling him somehow (via blackmail or because he's an asset or whatever), surely they'd tell him to tone it down a bit because of how obvious he's making it.

Everything he's done has been anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia, literally everything and there's no logical reason for it unless he's personally involved somehow. This is what I can think of off the top of my head, mostly from the last couple of weeks:

• halting aid to Ukraine,
• ambushing Zelensky in the Oval Office (proper useful idiot stuff to deny that this happened btw),
• ordering other nations to stop sharing US intel with Ukraine,
• halting all cyber activities against Russia (this one on its own is particularly eyebrow-raising, looking at how much damage Russia has done via the interwebs over the last decade),
• making moves to revoke the legal status of 240k Ukrainian refugees in the US,
• already talking about lifting sanctions on Russia,
• saying from day 1 that NATO membership wasn't going to happen,
• shaking Ukraine down for 3x what they "owe" (and btw it's doubly vile to demand "payment" for aid received before peace has been achieved "or else we won't help you any more but... we're not going to make any promises to actually help you even if you sign the deal"),
• calling Zelensky a dictator (we know he's not one of those because Trump would be sucking up to him if he was)
• refusing to call Russia the aggressor in their G7 statement
• sneaking around, talking to Zelensky's political opponents in Ukraine, trying to get them on board to force an election

That last one just came out today, what possible legitimate motive could Trump have for doing that? Zelensky isn't choosing to not have an election, it's in their constitution that they can't when they're under martial law (because, you know, invasion) and it seems like all of the political opponents said as much. Luckily there's still a bit of integrity left.

 

[Scouse]

How about this @caLLous : Oligarchy is the next logical step from democracy. You could quote the Iron Law or we could just accept that Aristotle knew and wrote about this 2400 years ago.

Yeltsin, when the USSR fell, pleaded with the West for stabilising assistance in the transition from Communism to help prevent the meteoric rise of Oligarchy and gangster-capitalism in Russia.

We walked away.


Trump & Musk are oligarchs. Russia is essentially an oligarchy. Alignment with Russia may just be enlightened self-interest.

Meanwhile, Europe retreating from it's fundamental charter and principles...

 

[Gwadien]

View: https://youtu.be/xfccsaSaqFY?t=1336


I made a post earlier about this exact point @Scouse but I deleted it, this is why america leaving is very bad and why we can't just immediately fill the gap now, I think this has made it very clear that we need to, I just hope we can before trump goes full retard.