There are "simply nations"?

So we should treat Russia and Iran, for example, the same as Canada and the UK, threat-wise?

We could call them ally. But we may never know.

Nations are made up of people. People never want war. Only governments, and that usually to promote business interests.

If we took just half of the $1.1 trillion we spend of OUR tax money each year on war and 'security' and instead funded policies that encourage social, economic and environmental justice, then these nations would BE allies and terrorism would die on the vine.

If, instead of worrying that the nations we call 'enemy' will somehow hurt us by taking something of ours, if we worried about making sure everyone had enough, then we would be a light on the hill and have no enemies.

If instead of worrying that corporations like Halliburton, Raytheon and General Dynamics need war for continued profits, we should be worrying about whether workers everywhere are making enough to make ends meet.

If, instead of worrying about maximizing value for shareholders, corporations were re-chartered to maximize value to all stakeholders, and at the same time eliminate the concept of 'externalities,' the world would be a much better and cleaner place, and we wouldn't have to worry about global warming. Consider Somalia. Somalia doesn't even have a government now, just warlords. Why?

Well, the Somalis used to be fishermen. That's how most made their living. Unfortunately, Russian and Japanese trawlers fished out their waters. So the Somalis turned to piracy to make a living. Then, as if that weren't enough, European corporations began dumping toxic waste off the Somali coast because it is cheaper for them to dump there illegally than it is for them to get rid of the toxic waste in according to environmental regulations.

Tell me, are the Somalis less than we? Do their lives not matter as much? How about the workers in Indonesia and Vietnam being exploited by Nike and other corporations, forced to work for LESS money than it takes to live? Are their lives 'worth' less than ours? Or on a more sensitive note, how about the family that is wiped out by drone attacks and our government pays off the survivors and apologizes for the 'collateral damage?' Are their lives somehow 'worth' less than ours?

See, this is the rub. Our corporations and our government seem to work on the notion that the lives of foreign workers and persons in other countries, particularly in the Third World, are NOT as valuable as ours. This is why terror organizations exist, Nye, and why we have enemies.

I'm not saying we should unilaterally disarm by any means, but I AM saying we need to rethink our entire approach to foreign policy and our definition of 'business interests.' It won't happen overnight but it could happen if we began doing the right things, and then made a habit of it.

There is an essay called 'regenerative capitalism' that I read recently and was much heartened by. It points out many good things being done and that can be done at the local level to make peoples' lives better. Things like micro-lending, slow money, slow food, employee cooperatives and the new B Corporations.

But, as to the original post, I believe it to be true, and you must not fall for the first fallacy the right wing pundits promote: working for economic, social and environmental justice does not mean we all of a sudden will unilaterally completely disarm. It's a process.

Keeping America, especially young people of color and mentally ill, safe from police.

Another unarmed black man shot to death in Louisville today. Armed only with the flag.

Otherwise, BRAVO!

Thank you! Perfect.

How do we make that insanity stop?

if you think that a country that still believes that it is
so exceptional and is the only "righteous" superpower,
will accept this, well, at this time and for the considerable
future you will be terribly disappointed. Sorry.

Still, you have to try to plant the seeds.

or a Mao might appear."

If you actually believe this statement to be true, then I believe you are extremely naive, and I think I am being kind using that adjective.

I doubt even Putin would go that far, but he has shown that he is willing to try.

What you say is what I want to hear from a candidate and by what I do hear, Hillary is saying the wrong, old things. Bernie has the much better message. I am sure Bernie would agree with your words.

Keep the posts coming.

There are always tweeks and personal opinions but still I like your thoughts.

The US is the worlds only superpower. The President is the Commander in Chief of the military of that superpower. To not stand powerful in that position is a loser approach.

these winners, we don't seem to be safer.

Candidates seem to keep making a lot of money. Perhaps that's what "winning" means - just for a few.

So if a candidate talks about "doing anything to get terrorists" I take it with a grain of salt.

If they talk about "doing something about police brutality" I will listen more carefully.

The best way to stop terrorism is to address the things that drive people to it and resolve most of those things before people decide that terror is their only option. The Troubles in Northern Ireland could have been totally avoided if the world community had insisted at the that the Catholic-nationalist minority in the Six Counties be protected against all forms of discrimination and oppression.

cops get the press, but the rentiers have foreclosed on nearly 5 million families, and moved about 100 million people either into poverty or nearer to it during these past 6 years. Cops don't approach near those numbers or damage even in their wildest jack-booted fantasies.

That the bank$ter/donors commit these atrocities without any press, other than that which gleefully chortles about profit, and the people continue making it possible for them is an extraordinary crime. And the damage from it is very likely to extend out at least three generations, maybe the end of the country.

I would like to have seen someone take them on that wasn't part of a party beholden to them, but perhaps next life.

In part because Democrats miscalculated about how Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could be severely harmed by MBS' and CDOs and other mortgage shenanigans. The idea was to get lower income or lower middle class people into houses. It was taken advantage of by the banker class (and part of the fault does fall on Bill Clinton for opening up the floodgates but Bush's lax enforcement is more to blame).

than continues today. I doubt we will ever be secure until forensic accountants from the FBI are staffed up and set to work on those thieving bastards.

Good overview on Ritholtz' site, here.

F&F got intertwined in the buying of subprimes and alt-a's and that was by design. The bankers saw an easy paycheck.

Our insistence on using that phrase and seeing ourselves that way is probably half the reason Russia put Putin in charge. He'd never have had that chance if we'd done what we should have and said "it's enough to just declare the Cold War over-it's not something anyone ever had to 'win'- and from now on we'll be in an equal partnership for peace with Russia".

BTW, most of the people killed by drones were innocent bystanders who were hit by mistakes.

War can never lead to anything positive again. It's time to have a non-death based foreign policy.

World GDP (all countries):



Defense budgets:



Putin put Putin in charge. He has never legitimately won an election.

If we'd treated Russia with full respect and dignity after 1991, Yeltsin would never have done that. Putin emerged because the US insisted on humiliating post-Soviet Russia rather than doing what we should have and giving the new government a clean slate and a fresh start.

The West made the same mistake with post-Soviet Russia that the victors in the 1914-1918 war(especially France and England, who refused to listen to Woodrow Wilson's desperate warnings on the subject at Versailles) made with Weimar Germany. Both times, the "winners" stopped a vanquished nation from becoming a stable, prosperous democracy solely out of vindictive spite-and it was even less justifiable the second time, because the West itself had never been harmed in any significant way by the Soviet bloc.

We refused to learn from history.

Putin's elections have been a farce: http://www.santafe.edu/news/item/pnas-thurner-fingerprints-election-thieves/

Putin "emerged" because Russia fell into a bad state after the Soviet Bloc fell. But differs to the oligarchs.

Even with the fraud gone he still would've won, by lesser margins but not that badly. I think the fraud is intended to create an image of force.

Thanks for that correction, btw, I did not know / remember that Putin had been selected in that way, though it's literally in the first paragraph of Wikipedia. I just know all his elections have been fought with irregularities.

But if he hadn't been abruptly elevated into the job, he wouldn't have had the chance to rig them. Always seemed to me that the West wanted somebody like him running Russia so they wouldn't have to get out of the habit of being at odds with the place-as if the just couldn't let the Cold War totally end.

With what measures you mete it out to others, those others will mete it out to you.

I think it was Lincoln who said that this country would never be defeated by enemies on the outside, only those within.

And many thanks for the post.

Edit: I meant to be replying to Ken Burch's post, not to the one indicated.

it is today, and used to bring the entire population along with better education, food, jobs. No longer.

So if one thinks they are as secure now as they were when it was more equal, they might be fooling themselves.

Which could make it both an exaggeration AND arrogant.

The statement that the US is the worlds only superpower does not mean that US citizens are getting a fair shake.

I don't mean to say anything like that at all.

any longer.

I think we have a lot of guns, and missiles, and boats, but I am not sure we have the ability to wield those in a leadership role where we are trusted by the world.

And I don't think there is enough force to overcome that.

Besides, all those bombs ain't gonna help when there is no water, when people don't have jobs or hope, and we have burned everything up in the search for more profit, eh?

So I know the sign on the door says we are a superpower. But I think the paint is so worn it is hard to read.

Whether you agree with it or not, can't you concede the American public is easily swayed by hysterics about how powerful a given leader candidate shows themselves?

Superpower talk aside. I don't see it selling.

the pope.

I'm not religious, but he noted that Pope Francis thinks it is one of our great sins for a leader to hold themselves out as better or above the people they lead, to pretend they are what you suggest.

I agree with both of you. People are to easily swayed, and the people holding themselves out as leaders many times aren't all that and a bag of chips, as it were.

It's time to let the human race run itself, from below.

Hope to see a Ken Burch campaign someday. I'll support you happily.