On Wednesday, President Trump signed an executive order designed to crack down on pro-Palestinian activism in the US in the name of “combatting antisemitism” that could lead to the deportation of foreign students involved in protests.
Pro-Israel politicians have labeled protests against Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza that have taken place at college campuses as “antisemitic,” even though many Jewish students have participated in the demonstrations.
Trump’s order directs US government agencies to identify “all civil and criminal authorities or actions” that could be used to “curb or combat antisemitism” and refers to incidents on college campuses.
The order says the Attorney General shall submit a report analyzing court cases “against or involving institutions of higher education alleging civil-rights violations related to or arising from post-October 7, 2023 campus antisemitism” and indicate whether or not the AG will take action over any of the cases.
The section of the order that could result in deportations directs US agencies to come up with recommendations to familiarize colleges with grounds for foreigners with vias to be deemed inadmissible, which means they would not be permitted by law to remain in the US.
The order says colleges should “monitor for and report activities by alien students and staff relevant to those grounds and for ensuring that such reports about aliens lead, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to investigations and if warranted, actions to remove such aliens.”
On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to deport pro-Palestinian protesters. “If you come here from another country and try to bring jihadism or anti-Americanism or antisemitism to our campuses, we will immediately deport you, you’ll be out of that school,” he said in May 2024.
Let’s see if the ACLU bothers.
Rights of International Students and Scholars in the United States
As international students and scholars in the U.S., you have specific rights while you are here. You may have questions about what you are permitted under U.S. law to do or say.
1. I am not a citizen of the U.S. Do I have any rights?
Yes. All individuals have basic rights, regardless of immigration status, country of origin, or citizenship.
2. What rights do I have?
All individuals in the U.S. have the following rights:
• Free speech, freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, and freedom of
religion;
• Freedom from illegal search and seizure (a law enforcement official must have a subpoena or warrant), unless a crime has been committed where the
search would take place;
• Permission to remain silent (and not say anything that could be used against you);
• Guarantee of “due process” and “equal protection under the law”, which means that you have the right to an attorney and to have a hearing before a judge in most cases; and
• Right to contact your country’s Consulate.
3. What government or law enforcement officials might ask me questions?
There are several different agencies that you may want to be aware of, including city, state and federal officials such as city and state police officers, as well as federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Intelligence (FBI) or the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which includes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as well as Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
4. What if I choose to remain silent? How do I communicate that?
In some states, you must provide your name to law enforcement officers if you are stopped and asked to identify yourself. In all cases, if you wish to remain silent, you will need to say that you are choosing to remain silent or that you wish to speak to your attorney before answering any questions.
5. Do I have the right to an attorney?
Yes, you do have the right to an attorney, even if you are not informed of this by a law enforcement officer. You may ask for a lawyer at any time if you are questioned by immigration or law enforcement officials, and you may continue to remain silent if you are still being asked questions. In criminal cases, an attorney may be provided to you by the government if you cannot afford one if you meet certain financial requirements. You must pay for your own attorney in immigration cases. There are many organizations that provide pro bono (free or reduced cost) legal assistance.
https://international.indianapolis.iu.edu/doc/visas/international-students-scholars-rights.pdf
I mean, the long and short of all this is, if you're human and in US territory, the US Constitution and Bill of Rights applies to you.
I travel to the US maybe once a year (despite living and/or working anywhere from 20km to 10' from the border) and I've known this a long time.
I get travel medical insurance for the trip, and my civil rights are (were ?) already protected.
I brought up the ACLU because they seem more driven by donors than principles as of late.
Seems so.
The ripping off of the veneer of civilization. https://youtube.com/shorts/iudNh3Vqpcc?si=TJ5aMrLhg9C2xnzi
The religious ideology of Judaism is giving IDF soldiers their religious right to commit this genocide, which is a sad fact that Leftists have to start acknowledging.
The religious ideology of Islam is telling Palestinians that Palestinian land is more valuable than Palestinian life, and any other land on Earth, which causes Palestinians tragically to not care as much about simply being let out of the country.
The religious ideology of Christianity is telling Trump and his Christian supporters of genocide that this “Israeli” land must be safe for Jesus’ second return.
Though it may seem that way, the Abrahamic religions are not 3 separate ideologies, they are one system of thought, just like the US two-party system. And just like the US 2-party system, the solution to this horrible culture war in the Middle East, is recognizing the system’s role in dividing the working class, and discarding the ideological system all together.
I am Libertarian Left, and would point out there are a LOT of atheists on the Left who have, for decades, been well aware of the hideous excesses committed by the Abrahamic religions (the worst among many).
“committed by some of the adherents of the Abrahamic religions”
Fixed, no charge.
Weaponized religion is a powerful tool.
I'll re-visit the quote I used before :
"With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil – that takes religion."
Those of the Abrahamic Three that do NOT strictly follow the dictates of their holy books, are the exceptions to my all-inclusive statement.
Tho it may sound like a tautology, "Not all fanatics are religious, but all religious fanatics absolutely are."
Some nitpicks:
1) It’s not obvious that most people who call themselves adherents of Judaism, Islam, or Christianity strictly follow the dictates of their holy books, even if they can identify and understand those dictates. Most people just call themselves whatever their parents called themselves, and go through the minimum necessary motions to retain the identity.
2) Most varieties of Christianity aren’t Abrahamic — they’re descended from Paul’s pagan offshoot of the Judaism Jesus taught. That offshoot eventually replaced YHVH with Rome’s Sol Invictus and slotted e.g. Jesus and Mary into other pagan gods’ previous roles.
As to 1). It’s actually fairly obvious that most adherents of the Abrahamic Three do NOT follow their holy books to the letter. This is how we have ~35,000 distinct variants of Christianity worldwide. Most of whom disagree with most all of the others, both in “correct” biblical version (of which there are ~100) and in matters of soteriolgy and literalism.
As to 2), I follow a cladistic view of religions. Whatever Humans evolve into over the next milleniae, we will never “evolve out of” being mammals, chordates, great apes and such.
By that same token, every new sect of a religion that splinters off from another will always BE a subset of that other. Judaism (Abrahamic) pre-dates Christianity and Islam, both of whom ‘evolved’ out of Judaism.
And further, as Christianity is a daughter-group of Judaism, everything Christian-related (Baptist, JW, 7th Day Adventist, Catholicism…) are daughter groups from Christianity. Sacred Heart as a subsect of Catholicism is still cladistically Christian.
Hinduism, predating Judaism by a wide margin, is a different Kingdom (in the biological sense) and while its daughter groups may have interbred with other religions (Sikhism may be such a hybrid), the Abrahamic family is not a descendant of Hinduism and stands apart.
Even the Judaism taught by Jesus was a hybrid. His three years of public life were classical Greek mystery school stuff married to pharasaic law-oriented Judaism, both in support of his claim to be the Messiah (a priest-king of the Davidic line who would — supported by the Zealots/Maccabeans/Nazoreans he surrounded himself with — kick the Romans out of Judea and restore the Kingdom of God).
Paul basically excised the links to Judaism, turning Jesus into an actual divine figure and part of a multi-god pantheon rather than the mortal Messiah, throwing in some more Greek and Roman magic tricks, etc. His sect’s fourth century return to monotheism wasn’t about Judaism, it was about Constantine’s order that all religions recognized by Rome must be monotheistic, with their gods as essentially avatars of the official Roman sun god, Sol Invictus (that’s what the halo in subsequent Christian iconography represents). Hence the “trinity” kludge to retreat from 250 years of Pauline Christian polytheism.
Excellent assessment.
Now, given we have no writings or reliable direct quotes from Yeshuah bin Yosef or any of the possibly many itinerant apocalyptic rabbis named Yeshuah compiled into the eventual “Jesus” character (I am not a Mythicist, but I hold very high confidence that our postmodern Caucasian English-speaking Obi-Wan Kenobi Jesus H. Christ did NOT exist), we come back around to 2nd-4th century CE writers and demagogues penning their own, often competing, versions of a new religious tradition that would become a proto-planetary debris cloud of early-onset Christianity.
What is the NEO definition of NEO-liberalism? Neo-Liberal economics protect and justify neo-conservative trickle down economics? Neo-liberal economics for example, what does it stand for compared to social-market economies, or social democratic societies?
It all has become a NEO hodgepodge. We do have a one party legislature like neo-democrats/republicans > neoliberal?
For sure! But the Left, in general, is too aligned with the Liberals on this issue of religious, racial, nationalist tolerance. I don’t believe religion or race or nation should be tolerated at all, they are all some form of spiritual segregation.
it looks like religion is being used to cover up the real reason of genocide which is greed for land, resources, and markets. Wars, genocide, massacres, any greed and violence must be covered, the best way is to wrap it all in religious morality and goodness. Modern Feel Good propaganda.
For sure. But don’t dare say Israel is killing Palestinians in order to make money from the land, because then Max Blumenthal, Aaron Mate, Noam Chomsky, Medea Benjamin, Lee Camp etc would say that you should be blaming ZIONISM for that, even though Zionism is not an ideology that literally condones genocide, but Judaism is.
Yes, you are right, Zionism was secular from the start, but it has been packaged in Judaism to sell better. Secular humanism is not enough.
The currently empowered version of Zionism literally condones — and, more importantly, PRACTICES — genocide.
Some sects of Judaism also resemble that. Others don't.
Ditto for the global Jewish ethnicity — some members of it are Zionists, some aren't; some practice Judaism, some don't; of those who practice Judaism, some are also Zionists and some aren't (some are solidly ANTI-Zionist).
I guess maybe it's a good gig setting yourself up as the sole arbiter of what is by required by a religion with several million adherents (of which you are not one) and any number of conflicting sects/beliefs … if you can make that con work. But you can't make that con work with very many people.
Palestinians are like South African Blacks under apartheid.
If some group of thugs decided you were less than human, broke into your house, beat you, killed members of your family, stole everything you own. Do you fight or walk away with nothing into a desert?
They would prevail just like South Africans…!
Recall that the world, by-and-large, joined heavy sanctions against the RSA's Apartheid in solidarity.
International trade with the Apartheid State of Israel remains constant; and some nations have laws AGAINST Boycott, Divest, Sanction actions that could or would impede trade.
They must be unchosen…!
But in the end USA/ISRAEL together will lose too, it happened in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran and Libya, the mighty US lost but left scorched earth behind. Ukraine and Palestine will end like that too.
If we can't win we will destroy you anyway. Carpet bombing of Germany and two Nuclear bombs in Japan took care of that.
AND the American Indians and the J*ws in concentration camps, in modern history.
It is all about material wealth and power.
I’d go somewhere i can live and not listen to what my Islamic leaders say about God and Land and Nation and all that bullshit.
And they can stay where they choose, or do they have to do what you want?
If thugs come and steal your property, kill your family and tell you you have to move..If you’re good with that, give up your address. You should move.
And the TV immersed masses wonder why Russia and China have gained so many technological and cultural leadership points,
https://sputnikglobe.com/20250128/china-has-edge-over-us-on-much-more-than-ai-models-1121511181.html
For todays young people that is ancient history, they know nothing about the beginning of the space age.
MSM preaches the religious government narrative, the religion for the people.
Can you name a few of those points?
High speed railroads that leap out of tunnels onto genius engineered bridges, Rockets that can land on the far side of the moon and bring back samples. Athletes taking their place at world sporting events. Eight hundred million people escaped poverty in a very short time. Explorations at the bottom of the Marianas Trench.
I became interested in Chinese news quite awhile ago because Chinese people were the most visitors on my website ferrocement dot com,,, online since 1999.
Their leaders serve the people and invest in people, in body and soul, healthcare and education. The best investment a governing elite can make.
One reason, Russia and China INVEST in PEOPLE, The leadership serves the people, they have a social conscience and know that their job is to serve the nation, they are the people. President Putin is still one of the people.
That is not true of our class of billionaires they are totally disconnected from the people and their needs and live on another planet, Mars comes to mind.
Democracy is government BY the people and FOR the people. Do we have that kind of real democracy or not?
Well, someone (you) is totally disconnected from something (reality), anyway.
Thomas, with all due respect, you are well educated and you do know your response is total nonsense.
Correct me if you can, if not, sh*t up.
If you think that Putin — quite possibly the richest oligarch in the world — is or ever was a “man of the people,” that thing you’re doing that you think is thinking isn’t.
As for China, even its regime’s own public economic disclosures say that its wealth inequality is in the same general area as that of the US. The only difference is that the US calls its rich people “CEO” and China calls its rich people “high party officials.”
Thomas I disagree with you, you have no evidence concerning Putin’s wealth. As much as we can see in public he is not after money, he is serving his nation and he is a proud Russian. He did clean up a good deal of corruption, not all of it of course, but he reduced it and some of the kleptocracy went to prison and after time served immigrated to the US/UK. No one is perfect but Putin is a competent President. I know of no Putin scandals. As far as China goes I can only trust my judgement based on the news and statistics, China has come a long way with outstanding leaders. And of curse the party officials are well paid, they also have rich business people their government suits their culture, plus they don’t waste wealth on wars and military equipment. Don’t let prejudice spoil your judgement.
I do appreciate your reply, and hear why you have a different opinion.
“you have no evidence concerning Putin’s wealth”
Putin wears a half-million dollar watch (an A. Lange et Sohn Toubograph) in public. When he’s not wearing his $80,000 Patek Philippe Perpetual Calendar 5140J. Or his $60,000 Patek Philippe Perpetual Calendar 3974. Or his $12,500 Blancpain Leman Aqua Lung Grande Date. Or his $15,500 Breguet Marine Automatic Big Date.5817ST. Or his $23,000 FP Journe Chronometre Bleu 1304.
On a supposed $140,000 per year salary.
He’s a standard-issue kleptocrat.
Sorry, I have no idea what you are talking about. Maybe he gets paid for advertising these toys. In any case I am sure that if he bought the toys he got them for half price. I DON’T KNOW A THING ABOUT IT.
NO opinion, imagine that. That is funny, at least Zelensky purchased a couple of villas.
You said I had no evidence of his wealth.
I pointed to evidence of his wealth.
But you prefer your fantasy of Putin to the real Putin.
Other than you pointing at it without evidence is NO evidence. I saw him wear golden shoes, just believe me, I saw it, my evidence.
Thomas your words are no facts, just words anyone can make up. Where do you get your information from? I noted the French names of the products, I don’t know how you know the price of the item and the brand names, and not a mention in MSM. Forgive me, but that is not good enough to buy it.
Yes, I’m well aware that when facts you find inconvenient are pointed out to you, you’ll just deny that they’re facts.
And that you would do so even if I showed you video of him purchasing the watches and of me retrieving the receipts from his trash.
He’s one of the richest men in the world, and every dime of his wealth was stolen from the Russian people by him and his oligarch masters.
How do you know that, what is your EVIDENCE???? Real, credible, undeniable evidence.
Thomas with all due respect, you know exactly what I mean, you are not stupid.
Thomas, you know you pointed at no credible evidence, you named products and company names and prices and that is not credible evidence and you damn well know it. It is not prove that Putin owns the products, and even if he did what is it to us? He is still a popular Russian President like it or not, it is reality, we have to deal with.
How did I name the products? By looking at public photos of the watches on his hands. Photos you can look at as well if you like.
As to what it is to us, well, it’s nothing to me. I already knew he was ultra-wealthy oligarch strapped on top an authoritarian kleptocracy. I didn’t need to see his multi-million dollar personal jewelry collection to know that. But you pretended to want evidence of it, and those watches are evidence of it.
I’m not surprised that as soon as I provided the evidence you started looking for ways to bucking out of facing the truth about your favorite authoritarian kleptocrat. That’s your modus operandi.
So you did, does that prove ownership?
I am concerned about our corrupt criminal idiots in our so-called civilized democracy. The Russian people can take care of their leaders, they have a longer history than the USA. It is a sovereign nation and they manage it well, I would not say that for us. We are wasting the nations wealth on bombing and destroying other nations, not based on self- defense. What nation threatened and invaded the USA? Cuba or Venezuela, Mexico, Canada, Panama, Greenland, China, Russia, Iran, Iraq, Libya and and so on, or did I miss something? Did any nation sanction the USA?
We have sh*tty government, that is what concerns me. Did Russia ever threaten and invade the USA?
Two demented presidents in a row and a useless congress, something to be proud of?
Yes, the US has shitty, corrupt, incompetent government.
Just like Russia.
You had to say it.
Anyway, no bad feelings on my side, I still like you.
Don't let's forget one thing – it was the present Democrats who created and made it possible for Trump to be president again.
For 4 years Biden and the rest of the Dems supported, aided in Gaza genocide by sending weapons and money. Then they fed billions after billions to Zelensky and his elite cronies so they could get rich on dead bodies as well.
The other idiotic things the Dems supported and pushed from transgender children's body mutilations are too many to list.
That gave a person like Trump a perfect shoo in to save "the people and America", and boy is he going to town.
When a country is close to collapse it always gives rise to a strong man first. law of physics.
The powers that put Biden in power are the same that put Trump in power, the oligarchs are running the show, the people who stood around him when he was inaugurated, the richest people on earth own the richest president, he will take care of them.
Our legislators are a club of ONE PARTY millionaires wanting to become BILLIONAIRES.
Amusing, since the value of being a billionaire is thar few other people are billionaires. Much like the old "millionaire club" that preferred the 99% to subsist in the lower middle class, modern billionaires know a club isn't valuable or exclusive if everyone can join.
Sure, they'll make it SEEM like hard work and {additional capitalist propaganda goes here} can make anyone a billionaire. But if everyone's rich, then no-one is.
I think they compete and having a $ more than Trump, makes Musk the winner. But now Trump is president how is Musk going to beat that?
My guess is that Musk is out to get more publicity than Trump. We are watching two wrestlers, it will be interesting to see which one will win the match.
The long game.
Elon Tiberius Musk…first President of Mars.
"transgender children's body mutilations" do not happen. You are reciting far-Right, uninformed talking-points, all of which are demonstrably false.
It is easier and quicker for anyone under 18 to obtain a dozen military-grade assault rifles, than it is for them to receive gender-affirming surgery (surgery which, by the way, requires YEARS of medical and psychological counselling beforehand).
I don't know much, by my understanding it is like any birth defect and we should open our hearts and minds to understand the conflict and pain a child must suffer not to be sure of ones gender. They need help from parents and professionals and we should respect and love them.
It is evil politicians to weaponize their pain, a civilized nation we would provide help as discreet as possible.
Indeed. It is an inside-group/outside-group thing. The Right always needs an enemy, a “Not-Me” to justify all the laws and policies that benefit the “Me”.
Making an outside-group of trans, gender-dysphoric, nonbinary people gives the Right a “they” (pardon pun) to rally the Right against.
THEY are different. We don’t and can’t understand THEM. We think THEY commit atrocities we imagine THEY commit. THEY aren’t human like WE are. WE have value, THEY do not.
Tribalism 098.
They are human and have plenty mental health issues but are no more criminal than other people.
Mental health issues on the same level as depression, anxiety, addiction, or any other conditions which also should be non-stigmatised and categorized as “mental health issues” only from need of classification, not indictment.
Which I expect was where you were going with.
Yes, you are right, that is exactly what I meant.
So far as I know, the only presidential candidate last year who went on public record as supporting "transgender children's body mutilations" was one Donald J. Trump.
"When a country is close to collapse it always gives rise to a strong man first" Like 1930s Germany. How well did that work out?
Its actually quite simple and not really complicated at all. i stand up to injustice by the act of itself not the one wielding the harm.
'It doesn't matter what you say you are, or what/whom you claim to be, it only matters on your deeds to your fellow human beings that matter…'
'Judge on the deed not on the clothes'
When the Democrats were in power and censored free speech, the Republicans screamed bloody murder. The Republicans were positioning themselves as the party of the Constitution and free speech. Ok. Well now that the Republicans are in power and censoring the free speech of pro-Palestinian activists (and canceling the student visas of so called pro-Hamas supporters) the Democrats can't say a word — because they have been complicit in genocide and censorship up to their eyeballs. When you sell your soul, the sale is final.
Without free speech without credible public information there will be no democracy. We are watching the bankruptcy of Democracy as we know it. Our bankrupt governing regime has no social conscience, greed is motivating them, money and power and fame. To invest in people, families and education and health care, a functioning society based on justice and fairness never occurs to them.
That is what socialism is about, see China and Russia and the European social/democratic societies, it works. Oh dear, China is governed by the Communist party, that is not possible, or is it? Russia recovered and is doing well in spite of sanctions and war.
Our minimum wage is still $7.25 since 2009, poverty and homelessness is up and the working middle class is shrinking joining the poor.
I suspect the DPRC's Chinese Communist Party has waffled and bent and handwaved so many economic policies in Capitalism's favour that Chairman Mao (not even to say Lenin, Engels, or any of the Marx brothers) would be openly shocked and horrified to see 21st Century Communism in such a (failed) state.
They may have been just as pragmatic as the Chinese and the Europeans. The goal was decent living for the working people, including all people. Like religion they picked what could get them there based on culture and economic conditions.
Socialists shaped modern European Democracies, but neoliberal economics are destroying it. Greed and profit are powerful forces. Wars satisfies both, it is profitable business for the powerful and paid for by the people with blood and life.
China, a nation of 1.4 BILLION people lifted 800 million out of deep poverty in about 30 years while our poverty in the richest nation on earth increased. I call it success. The same is true of Russia.
We call ourselves the richest and most successful nation, but we have rising poverty and many people rely on CC to make ends meet.
Maoism was built on benefits to the masses (am meandering through his Little Red Book) and by that metric, Mao might approve.
But the CCP and DPRC’s willingness to embrace a capitalist-Communist chimera for sake of GDP and wealth and prestige (neither if which guarantee equal success for all Chinese) – I think ANY early-gen Communist thinker would lose they MINDS at the thought of such corruption of a “pure and sound ideology”.
As lofty as Mao’s ideas sounded (and they got wishful and poetic as f**k) I haven’t got the sense he was about “…or if it doesn’t pan out the way I envision, get Apple and other Western corporations to set up shop for their profitability and ours.”
You know it takes time to adjust to social changes. The industrial age came with huge social changes, new economical ways had to be found. Marxism is a philosophy, like religion. Different nations based on culture and history will find ideas and solutions they can shape to the nations needs and culture. That is what social democracies and communist nations like Russia and China and the Europeans did.
Even you, if you really look, will find that even you benefited from Marxism. Labor laws, social services like SS, health care, have a socialistic basis. Germany has one payer health insurance since Bismarck, in the 19th century, the socialists were the biggest German party under Bismarck mind you. There is much more, Marxism has contributed to your life, it has given you HUMAINIZED CAPITALISM, less in the US than in Social Democratic European societies.
The New Deal saved capitalism, but our greedy oligarchs are too uneducated to know their wealth are the result of communist/socialist and UNION influence.
A growing working middle class made their wealth possible.
Well, let’s talk about what poverty means.
The US government classifies you as being in “poverty” if your income is less than US $15,060 per year.
The Chinese government classifies you as being in “poverty” if your income is less than US $839.50 per year.
How many Chinese have been lifted out of the US standard of “poverty?”
How many Americans have fallen below the Chinese standard of “poverty?”
Apples, oranges, since comparison between two cultures with wildly disparate political systems, which matured in their present political form at widely different times, with inertial characteristics which are in no way comparable, given the fact that one of them has existed for a few thousand years.
That's precisely what I was trying to point out.
In the context of China, "lifted out of poverty" doesn't mean anything like what it means in the US, because in China "poverty" still means "might starve to death" while in the US "poverty" means something a lot closer to "couldn't afford a ribeye dinner at Outback on Friday night because the cable bill came due."
Hi Thomas.
I’ve never been to China. Could it be that their cost of living is much, much lower than ours? 🤔
How to measure poverty is debatable. I have another possible standard of living measure.
I want to know how many hours does it take to work to earn enough to buy a hamburger, French fries and a coke after payroll deduction or to pay the utilities and rent to have a decent roof over your head, adjusted to our national wealth? Quality of life in 2009 compared to now 2025 include health care and education?
800 million people have been lifted out of poverty, about 50% of the total population, during the same time how many people fell into poverty, became homeless in the good old USA? It takes a critical illness forcing working people into bankruptcy and poverty.
QUALITY of life is another measure, and we lose, government has to bail out the banks and car industry and more. But many low income people losing their jobs are not qualified to receive any unemployment compensation, as little as it is, and they never earned enough to save a little.
Quality of life, low income people are forced to have private transportation to get to work, they need a car they can't afford because there is no adequate public transportation, that is why we have old, poorly maintained cars on the road with uninsured and no DL drivers.
Free enterprise does not have to imply capitalism, which from where I sit, is predicated on asset ownership as opposed to enterprise.
Enterprise can thrive in any society – and does.
I don't think it has failed. Marx was a philosopher, his ideology was like a religion it split between Communists and Socialists, and different nations selected different parts and formed it based on their culture and local conditions.
All our destabilizing of societies and regime changes was war against social economics. We claim Cuba is a failure, Cuba has been sanctioned by the USA for more than 60 years and we say their economy is a failure. Did our sanctions and economic warfare have nothing to do with it? Why did the USA sanction them if not to keep their economy down. How many times did our own economy have to be bailed out since Vietnam, why do we sanction Venezuela if not to destroy their economy?
CUBA TRAINED SO MANY DOCTORS AND TEACHERS THEY WENT OUT TO HELP OTHER POOR NATIONS.
All we do is to bomb the living daylight out of them, total destruction is what we bring to them, not Freedom and Democracy.
The CCP failed Maoism in as much as modern DPRC Communism diverged from Mao’s treatise on the subject. Bit of a ‘Ship of Theseus’ question – at what point is modern China no longer Communist, having adopted so many Capitalist methods and ideals as it has ?
Is it just a question of the DPRC holding presidential elections voted on by its citizens ? Just watering down one form of Authoritarianism for a more palatable Western version of the same ?
As to Cuba – they’re punished perpetually by the USA for the same reason the Russian Federation is punished now for the same sin of the USSR. As John Rambo lamented, “Why wouldn’t they let us WIN ????”
Both Cuba and USSR/Russian Federation had the NERVE and GALL to not lose outright to the mighty United States of America.
RIGHT ON…!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Deport foreign students where, one might ask, if they happen to be Palestinian? Deport them to Israel [the one state solution answer that implies Israel has been murdering its own] or to the Palestine we claim doesn't exist? Not a small point. When you're in power you needn't make cohesive arguments.
Send them to Guantanamo! (I don’t want them sent there.)
So now the the US of I will get the stupid and corrupt while the best foreign students will go to the last island of Western Civilization, Russia. Way to go, Donald!
Funny but not as funny as the stupidity of Donald inadvertently exposing and criticizing Biden's financing condoms to Palestinians for the wrong reasons? #4 in the definition of GENOC!DE: "Preventing births within the group." Or, is it just me laughing about the utter evil stupidity!?
Someone reported that it wasn’t true. But who knows?
Thanks. I looked that up and you’re correct. It seems the MSM is feverishly denying it. But I think my major point is still valid. He was criticizing it for the wrong reasons, labeling it as we were giving $50 million to Kkkkhamas. I hope you agree.
Right.
We can’t possibly expose what USAID and NGOs are really about. Tossing money to control nations by empire.
Kit Klarenberg @KitKlarenberg
Trump admin's aid suspension order is extraordinarily starkly underlining how many "civil society" orgs, "independent media", activist groups and NGOs overseas are wholly or almost wholly sustained by the US government. These entities literally cannot exist without US funding.
Jan 28, 2025 •
Kit Klarenberg @KitKlarenberg
On top of regime change and propaganda utility, such "aid" also ensures a colonial-style forced dependency in target countries, while ensuring those on payroll – and those who need/want to be – stay in line, as I investigated for for @MintPressNews:
Enslaved by Nonprofits: How NGOs Colonize Developing Countries
What's happening in Sarajevo provides a palpable demonstration of the enfeebling impact and influence of Western NGOs, Kit Klarenberg reports.
https://scheerpost.com/2023/12/14/enslaved-by-nonprofits-how-ngos-colonize-developing-countries/
Over 90% of the Ukrainian press is dependent on money from the US taxpayers. Of course the oligarchs own all of the Ukrainian press, so at least part of that money is on its way to banks back here in New York.
Brian, I appreciated your comment on MoA about NGOs/USAID.
About the destruction of the Bolivian countryside? Yeah. Since Evo Morales’s election the situation has changed completely. A Google Streetview trip through the same region today shows a rural community in revival.
Hi NA
Maybe they were going to fill the condoms with water to throw at the invaders? 😁
Sure they will flock to Russia where protests by students or anyone is against the law.
WTF is wrong with you?
You got to realize the brainwashing and total ignorance regarding this subject. it is far worse in the regular media and on many other internet sites. YouTube will censor almost all comments when they include words like Zionist, Genocide etc.
But this person comments here.
YouTube is a growing nest of f**kwits. Content creators are terrified to say "suicide" or "murder" or "vaccine" lest they get de-monetised or a Strike against their channel.
Hells, even say "political climate" and the f**king Nanny Algorithm tacks on a b.s. "info panel" about Climate Change, to combat everything perceived to be "disinformation".
I avoid YouTube whenever possible. YouTube is shit.
That’s my line.
My comment is very appropriate given that Trump recently proposed sending the worst illegals there and given how terribly Palestinians are treated. The Houthis try to defend them, and the Houthis might soon face starvation for it.
You’re just angry that I had previously highlighted how terrible it is that Gazans, and also somewhat those in the West Bank, are treated horribly. Life is made difficult or nigh impossible, but they’re often not allowed to leave. No one will take them in lest the ethnic cleansing be facilitated.
They’re between a rock (Israel) and a hard place, and you hate that I keep pointing it out.
You’d make a “good German” WWII.
I’m not German, but we’re supposed to believe the Germans are the ultimate evil, I suppose.
My motive for caring for the Palestinians is largely that I know the US is responsible for their plight.
I’m not Arab. I’m not from the Levant. It isn’t my group being driven out of its ancestral land, no.
Regardless, it’s in my interests for the Israelis to destroy their reputation on the world stage. If the Palestinians remain in Palestine, that will happen.
But it’s very sad.
I think you are a despicable person for believing that protesters (against genocide, of all things) belong in a fucking dungeon.
And it just proves you never gave a shit about Palestinians writ large, while you pushed for ethnic cleansing multiple times.
I do think Lynchpin was making an absurdist, satirical comment about Guantanamo. 'Pin's sense of humour is similar to mine and that's exactly where I sense he was going.
I might accept that theory had it not been for persistent advocation that Palestinians should just leave.
I’ll ascribe any such advocacy as from a place of pragmatism.
I think the situation IS one of true dichotomy at the end state. Either Palestinians are gone from Gaza and the ASI takes it permanently OR the Palestinians keep it exclusively and the Israelis cede all past and future claim to it. Neither is likely and/or desirable, but both sides are deeply entrenched and committed to owning that specific territory.
It’s a silly obsession over territory, geography highly valued because of arbitrary, subjective reasons. Apart from a Gordian Knot / scorched earth permanent poisoning of the territory so NO humans can ever live there, it’ll be “this important place” where two sides literally kill to own.
Hells, it may be so primitive and childish an obsession that I bet you could offer the Palestinians or the Israelis an entire Earth-like PLANET somewhere, to walk away from their claim, and BOTH sides would stubbornly pout “It’s MY land because my genealogy/ my book of fables SAYS it’s mine.”
In short what I'm saying is, I think Lynchpin sees the inevitability of this dichotomy and, with Palestinians evidently on the inevitable losing side of a lopsided conflict over X coming years or decades, is pragmatic in his position that (as I might parallel with the case of Ukraine v. Russian Federation) the losing side is wisest to end the game now with something in hand (lives) rather than play through to the extinction ending.
It's not a good solution. Just a practical, pragmatic one given all currently available evidence.
But the life without basic human rights is not worth living, that is what motivates them to fight, they want a real life and human rights for their children not yet born. That makes the Ukraine different.
I think it is false equivalence.
People were already there.
I'll ascribe any such advocacy as from a place of pragmatism.
Personally, I think being pragmatic about the inevitable ethnic cleansing is disgusting in itself. But that's just me. I mean, my government will have to be complicit for it to happen. I'm going to have to buy a gun.
Wars: you haven’t a gun?!
I know you’re a peace- loving gentleman, but the Revolution’s coming.
I used to be the most anti-firearm person on the planet until it hit me like a ton of bricks: we need to be armed for this very reason. I have a .38 ( very useful for self-protection) and an AK47 ( very useful for widespread destruction.)
For you, I might suggest a .22 with an extended clip. Hubs has one, plus a Bonelli.
I made it to 70 without one. I'm not anti-firearm, I just never felt the need to have one. And if there is a revolution it will be a giant clusterfuck. I was using hyperbole about buying a gun.
I understand your reluctance, Wars. Still, I think it’s in EVERYONE’s best interest who plans to participate in the Revolution to own a firearm.
They may take ME out, but not before I take a few of THEM out first! 😉
Who is "them"? I don't want to be ruled by some red neck militia either. There is so much hate out there that a revolution will look like a nuclear war. Everybody just shooting at everybody.
Wars, I refer to the three-letter agencies.
But how would we distinguish who they are? Like I said, it would be one big unorganized clusterfuck. And my reference to the red neck militias was about the "day after" and what course would be taken. It's not like there is a big consensus on what that would be. I dislike the "Oath Keepers" and "Proud Boys" as much as I dislike the 3 letter agencies. Might as well be run by the "Crips" or "Bloods".
Wars, you know I luv ya and always have.
But politics ain’t workin’ as long as our congresswhores are owned by AIPAC . I ask in all sincerity: do you have an alternative solution?
Because personally I’d take the Crips or Bloods over the Ziopaths!
No, I don't have an alternative solution. But I really don't see an upgrade with a revolution that won't have any clear-cut objectives. Do you actually think the revolution will be one faction against the other? I don't. I've resigned myself to living my life pretty much the way it has been for most of my years. Besides, I have had a good life, so there is that. I'm just not willing to take the chance that it could and, almost certainly, will be worse. Maybe at 20 or 30, but not at 70.
I too have had a good life Wars. I grew up in a great neighborhood, have been married for 44 years, live on a farm, and had my lifelong dream of my own horse.
But I don’t want to die before seeing CHANGE.
As an anarchist, I’m against the state even existing, let alone requiring anything of anyone.
But if I wanted to have a state, and if I wanted to require anything of anyone, I’d probably make one of those things “at a certain age, each person will be required to acquire a rifle of no smaller than .223 caliber and a pistol of no smaller than .38 caliber, and attend a basic marksmanship course.”
I might be prejudiced on that for various reasons (including having been a Marine Corps marksmanship instructor), but I think we’d have a much more polite society if everyone knew two things;
1) That everyone else knew how to use a gun; and
2) That anyone else might actually have a gun with them.
I'll take my chances. I'd rather not live a life of paranoia. I live in a very low crime area, and I don't feel I need a gun. If someday someone shoots my ass because I don't have a gun, well then, I'll be proven wrong. I'm already on gravy time and I'm not afraid of death so I guess I'll take my chances.
Well, I won’t lecture you for being self-centered — I am too, albeit in different ways.
If you prefer a world whether other people get treated violently with impunity to one where people go, or at least potentially go, armed, that’s your business so long as you don’t try to force it on others.
If you prefer a world whether other people get treated violently with impunity to one where people go, or at least potentially go, armed, that's your business so long as you don't try to force it on others.
What? I prefer not to own a gun. That's all. I already said I wasn't anti-firearm.
Agreed, Thomas!
Michigan is an open-carry state, and my .38 likes to go places with me 😁
What’s a cowgirl without her pistol?
To be clear, I don’t necessarily go everywhere armed myself.
I’d just like to live in a society where it was assumed that a high percentage of people might be armed at any given time.
But the government has the real fire-power, that is why you are allowed to have your guns, the rulers have more and bigger and paid for by you and us.
Lysi:
There are far more of US than THEM. 😉
I think many Americans can not imagen the real tragedy of the real destruction of the Palestinian people and their homes. The reality is three dimensional, we get to see only two dimensional misery we don't hear the cries. For most of us it is like a movie.
I clearly wrote under the comment at the time of the post that I didn’t want to send them there.
Ethnic cleansing is exactly the issue here.
You wouldn’t respond when I asked whether you thought the Israelis would allow the Palestinians to rebuild.
You want to win so badly in Palestine. The Zionists are in decline, and you can taste victory.
Anyway, I don’t know you to judge you.
It sounds like Trump campaign talk to have it both ways.
Sorry I got so pissed off. There are limits.
Send them to Guantanamo! (I don’t want them sent there.)
Excellent question. Does the US (post-9/11 & Bush II) still have laws about sending political prisoners somewhere they are very likely to be tortured ?
So someone midway through a college degree could be kicked out just for calling a genocide a genocide. Foreign students shouldn't come to the US.
Agreed. Foreign students should avoid this shithole like the plague.
And the Arabs for Trump group must be so proud.
The US government will remain a useless tool for terrorism, mass murder and the destruction of the constitution if it does stop the snake called AIPAC. Both houses are bought off by this sociopathic monstrosity which is why they act with such a myopic obedience .
Another stupid move by Trump…! What if the student protesters are US citizens or Jews…?! They will be deported to Guantanamo Bay or Tel Aviv…?!
Since when is it OK to mass murder people in a "collective punishment" (aka genocide) manner? Collective punishment IS a war crime! Just the fact that the USA, the self-avowed "champion of human rights", allows Israel, enables it, to murder thousands upon thousands of defenseless innocent civilians is a dark blot on the American scene! Sure- there MAY be some protestors who for some reason "hate" Israel, but most of these protestors are aghast at how Israel can get away with the most egregious of crimes!
How can normal people NOT HATE Israelis???
Normal people (like me; tho I think the name on my brain-jar was Abby…Normal) are wise to hate the STATE of Israel (its gov't and formal policies) and retain a tentative neutrality towards the people/NATION of Israel.
I'm not convinced any subset of humanity can be truly monolithic on any topic.
Normal people don't hate other people just because they're from a particular place.
The Israelis are being hated for their inhumane sadistic treatment of the Palestinians. The Zionists robbed Palestinians of their land, not the other way around. I notice Americans hating Palestinian people who never did anything to any American. But the brutality, the sadism the Israelis do to the Palestinian people, including BABIES is unforgivable, despicable. You are not normal if your moral compass does not tell you how criminal and evil they are.
NORMAL people DON'T DO what the Israelis DO to the Palestinians, including BABIES, snipers killing toddlers, how can you justify that?
Who cares where they come from, they are being hated for what they DO, nothing else, what they do is SADISTIC and EVIL.
Tom:
Give me one reason NOT to hate IsraHell.
And that is the nations president? He acts like a deranged ignoramus not like a president, and he does not look like one either, his facial expressions too speak loud and clear.
Meet the new boss,
Same as the old boss . . .
The Second Term for the United States of Israel…!
So Trump is just as much in Adelson's pocket as his predecessors. Go figure.
I'm glad I voted third party. Only a gesture, but I do not support people who promote war crimes under the guise of national policy.
In my case, I would have to go back 50 – 70 years before encountering presidents who endeavored to give more than thin-lip service to human rights and equality. The past 35 years have stood out with exemplars of disregard for the right of others to live their lives free of our evangelical superiority.