President Trump told reporters on Thursday that he believes US military spending could eventually be cut in half and that he wants to pursue the idea as part of an agreement with Russia and China. He also said there was no reason to build new nuclear weapons.
“At some point, when things settle down, I’m going to meet with China and I’m going to meet with Russia, in particular those two, and I’m going to say there’s no reason for us to be spending almost $1 trillion on the military … and I’m going to say we can spend this on other things,” Trump said.
“When we straighten it all out, then one of the first meetings I want to have is with President Xi of China and President Putin of Russia, and I want to say let’s cut our military budget in half. And we can do that, and I think we’ll be able to do that,” he added.
The US spends significantly more on its military than Russia and China combined. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), in 2023, the US accounted for 37% of global military spending. China came in second but was still far behind, accounting for 12% of military spending, and Russia was in third at 4.5%.
Discussing nuclear weapons, Trump said, “There’s no reason for us to be building brand new nuclear weapons. We already have so many you could destroy the world 50 times over or 100 times over. And here we are building new nuclear weapons, and [Russia] is building new nuclear weapons, and China is building new nuclear weapons.”
The US has been working to modernize its nuclear triad, a project that’s expected to cost $1.5 trillion. Trump also repeated his call to seek “denuclearization” with Russia and said Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed to do so “in a very big way.”
Trump has previously claimed that he was pursuing denuclearization with Russia and China in his first term in office, but the US also withdrew from key arms control treaties during that time.
Russia recently said the outlook was not good for the state of US arms control as the last nuclear arms control treaty between the two powers is due to expire in February 2026, and there’s currently no replacement. But Trump’s talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the Ukraine war could lead to arms control negotiations.
On the other hand, Trump also recently signed an executive order to build a major new missile defense system to cover the US and its military bases abroad, which could lead to a new arms race and will come with a huge price tag. Republicans in Congress are also looking to increase military spending by at least $100 billion.
“When we straighten it all out, then one of the first meetings I want to have is with President Xi of China and President Putin of Russia, and I want to say let’s cut our military budget in half. And we can do that, and I think we’ll be able to do that,” he added.
Is he talking about "our" as in the US only? Or our, as in the US, Russia, and China? For some reason I can't think he wants them to catch up to our spending, so this is pretty much a proposal for downsizing while the US continues to spend the same % more than Russia or China.
That is how it worked with the very successful Washington Naval Limitation Treaties of 1922, extended into the 1930's.
The powers kept their relative positions, but everybody spent less, and everybody felt safe from the "need" for constant increases just to prevent losing position.
Of course the exact positions were contentious, and produced some ill feelings, but far less so than the alternatives. Some of the compromises were arcane, but bridged those feelings. Battleships were 5:5:3 but cruisers were 10:10:7, which seems silly a century later, but at the time really helped make it work politically. There was a lot more like that, even sillier in distant retrospect.
So yes, you put your finger on a lively issue. But that issue is a big part of the whole point, save money and increase the subjective sense of security in the known relative positions.
How was that successful?
Did you forget that Nazi Germany and even Weimar Germany just completely ignored the rules, well not ignored, but found loopholes to them, and became a threat again?
Saying the naval limitations were successful in preventing new navies is like saying that appeasment prevented Hitler from taking the rest of us in Poland.
They were not part of the Treaty. They were limited by a different Treaty, kept to a level that was far below the others. They were kept way down there, despite some cheating.
The Treaties did not attempt to prevent new navies. They tried to and did prevent naval arms races that were both expensive and destabilizing.
That a later generation did a new World War 20 years later is not a failure of the 1922 Treaties (a group of five treaties).
Germany started rebulding and rearming immidiately after the war
In mid-March 1920, Marshal Foch reported that Germany was exporting heavy artillery, trench mortars, machine-guns, rifles, grenades, machinery, you name it
They then started researching military as well
They were within the rules. Tonnage was the limitation, not what that tonnage consisted of.
After the humuliation of the Treaty of Versais, inflation, depression, Germany turned to a funny looking man with a funny looking mustache to restore pride.
Germany was the pennacle of information, etc, W.E.B. Dubois traveled to Germany for further insight and educaiton.
It was a veneer. Germany was. Beneath that veneer, there lurked ugliness.
Hitler peeled back that veneer.
Wait i learned about WEB Dubois in school once a few years ago
I still have no clue as to why
In the 30's your Poland was aggressive militarily, and caused lots of trouble Poland took half of Lithuania, including the capital. It was denying German access to German land. It was threatening action in Russia. That's why Germany and Russia took Poland.
The Poles happily took a piece of their neighbor Czechoslavakia in 1938 and they never should have been awarded the German city of Danzig after WW l.
Poor baby
Excuse me?
We took half of lithuania?
Denying German access to German land?
Threatening action in Russia?
You are literally parroting Nazi propoganda
You can not make this shit up
Germany took Poland based off of a false pretex/false flag and invited Russia because of Molotov-Ribbentrop
Victims blaming at it finest.
That "successful" treaty did save money in the beginning. But than Pearl Harbor happen. And all the money saved was spent multiple times over in building 25 fleet aircraft carries and 100 escort carries. One of the reason Japan was willing to attack is that because of the treaty the US Navy did not significant fire power advantage over Japan. Without a crystal ball one never knows what would have have happen, but if US Navy had say 10 Yorktown class carriers instead of three in the fall of 1941 would Japan still make the attack?
Pearl Harbor was the result of insulting Japan, then creating an oil embargo, then a general embargo.
Regardless of the reason that Japan attack, the question still remains would they have attack if the treaty did not limited number of US Navy capital ships ? We will never know the answer to that question. What we do know is all the money saved by that treaty was spent multiple times over later on.
He is emphasizing on nuclear weapons but Pentagon spends far less than one half of $1 trillion on nukes…!
Nukes are every bit as dangerous as the rest of the arsenal and even more so. To everyone. Cutting them will indeed help bring about a safer planet.
Perhaps when the little guys watch the big boys put away the toys, they'll get the same idea.
That ship sailed. I can't imagine anyone giving them up completely so there will always be enough to blow up the world.
A nice toy to have laying around, just waiting for a madman to want to use one or two.
Wait a minute. We had such a madman. Truman…………..
Militaries should be disbanded
Not entirely. I wrote in the Sixties that the aim of the military should change from war mongering to assistance during natural disasters. Because it is the military who ahs the tools, power and discipline to quickly step in and help and organize the reconstruction.
The military should be there to do good things only
How?
Defend?
Defend by bullying a lesser country thousands of miles away?
"War is a Racket" by Maj. General Smedley Butler, recipient of TWO Congressional Medal of Honor for actions during WWI.
Thats wht Russia does
Kruschev, then Stalin proposed to Ike an end of the nukes.
He refused.
Oh how horrible, Trump's peace plan does not meet your whims.
This:
It means he wants or appears to want cutting the nukes but not necessarily cut the defense budget…!
Tr. "is emphasizing…nuclear weapons."
1/ Yes – Some press says T called for 'halving' military spending.
Whereas other media grasps T was saying 'some time in future, reduce nuclear bomb production' – not greater military budget. (e.g., Newsweek, on T's call for 'denuclearization.')
2/ And it's the second reading that fits w/White House statements:
a/ Tr., only days ago:
"'We want to raise defense spending…we have to have it." ("As Musk tries to slash trillions from federal spending, Trump publicly states desire for more military money," Independent)
b/ And Hegsith: "Pentagon's Hegseth sees growth in defense spending despite Musk review" (Reuters).
Ten nukes in the realm of many kilotons could decimate half of the world.
No. Ten sub megaton weapons could not decimate half the world. Since 1945 nearly 1900 nuclear bombs have been set off in the air, ground and water for testing. Look it up. Quit making things up.
His approach to BRICS??
The GDP of BRICS outpaces the U.S. Six more countries want to join.
The storm is gathering. An empire is sinking. Rapidly.
You can make up anything you want for your comic books.
You can play pronoun games all you want. Trump's statement is clear, you are not.
Call your comic book series "the bad orange man returns".
I asked a legitimate question. I can't help it if your mind is so warped over your obsession with Trump that you can't comprehend that. Do you actually think Trump won't try to keep our military budget superior to ALL others? What else will allow "peace through strength" is you can't threaten anybody?
Trump's statements are rarely clear. And they change daily.
Minute by minute.
Meanwhile, Repubs in Congress want a $100 billion annual increase for, you know, more stuff.
Congress has the power of the purse, not the President. Congress' gonna win this one.
President Trump has power of the Veto.
And what he uses it or doesn't use it for will tell us what he really cares about.
I hope he does actually want military spending cuts and will certainly praise him if he does go for them.
Don't worry he won't
I think you should already be well aware what Trump cares about.
Everybody should. Trump cares about Trump. Period.
Too much ego?…!
Trump is full of it
And some other things…!
😉
You forgot the "s" and the "h".
lol
Sure Trump ego is number 1. Make money is number 2.
Bankruptcies is number 3 (5 bankruptcies, 3 defunct casinos)
Sadly
For a warmonger like you, yes.
MAGA freak thinks I’M the warmonger?
It would be interesting if it came to that. All those kickbacks are tough to give up. If the republicans would turn on Trump for anything, this probably would be it.
OF course, the veto can be overridden with a 2/3 majority in house and senate…
is that a pipe dream?
I don't know. That's why I was wondering if they would. I would hope they wouldn't if Trump is serious. But like I said, they make big bucks off the MIC so if they were ever to override Trump on anything, that might be it
Would 2/3 of MAGA alone even go against trump?
Not likely, probably not even 1/30 would
Don't need 2/3 of MAGA. Just enough votes to override Trumps veto.
To preserve their perks, they would go against Mother Teresa.
The GOP has already turned on Trump several times with the leftist spending bills they help pass.
When was the last time the GOP stood up to trump? Not saying they did not, but I would like an example.
He must be talking about when Trump was leading the republicans around by their noses from his golf course in Florida.
Trump wasn't president then. They didn't have to override his veto.
The military budget isn't going anywhere, they're all very aware that the people who run the MIC have plenty of guns and loonies at their disposal, and no morals at all.
Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, wanted to cut military spending, smash the CIA to bits and spread the pieces to the winds, pull out of Vietnam, fired Allen Dulles for ordering the assassination of Patrice Lumumba (behind Kennedy's back), had terse words for Ben-Gurion over Israel getting the bomb.
All brave acts.
The Deep State punished him with death, then followed up with killing his brother.
Alistaire Crooke said it best when he described the Deep State as an entity that no President dare to challenge.
Trump is no different.
Didn't Lee Harvey Oswald kill him for not preventing the Cuban Missile Crisis before stopping it?
Where oh where will then get their perks, money?
Executive Order is Trump's method of rule. Congress and Senate are henhouses keeping up a facade of democracy.
All the more reason we should celebrate Trump taking over the GOP.
Assuming of course, that "at some point things will settle down" and "when we straighten it all out" will happen before Trump's first budget is completed. Otherwise, I'd be willing to bet it's going to be a doozie and could very well contain that extra 100 billion the House republicans want.
No that is horrible
The GOP used to be respectable
You are unable to provide any useful content whatsoever.
LOL
What useful content have you provided? Most of your remarks are empty and present no real information. Just insults.
Lincoln was a long time ago . . .
That was before Nixon sold its soul to the war industry. Previously it had been the 'peace party', as opposed to the Dems. who were considered the 'war party'.
Ike was a part of the war industry, until he wasn't.
It is well to remember that Ike was President when Iran was subjected to a coup, that displaced Mossadegh with the Shah.
It is also well to remember that Ike was a young Lt. taking orders from MacArthur when the Army put down the Bonus Marchers.
Two "great" men??
Yeah, Iran, but don't forget Guatemala. And military aid to South Vietnam. And planning for the Bay of Pigs. And what did I forget?
Trump shoots his mouth off constantly.
Please watch this segment of Judging Freedom:
Every man is great, until they fall or fail!….
The NRA gives him ammunition to SHOOT OFF HIS MOUTH!
The serial lying felon…. you actually believe him? Really?
Republicans are a Tax & Spend Party when it comes to military spending, they & the Democrats are on the same page. Republicans think the Free Market & Religion are the answers to everything but they will neither make the corporations nor televangelists fund the MIC.
Is he serious, or is this just another idea somebody was talking about five minutes earlier?
It comes down to Talks versus Actions…! Only time would tell…!
The latter
Name one US leader who has talked about this since Reagan.
You question Trump's motives, well I question your motives. Tell us for a good laugh, who is your US leader hero that has proposed this?
The race isn’t over nukes, it’s who’s bullet is faster to catch the other guys bullet.
It was Trump who insisted that European NATO members should increase their military budgets drastically. How it is compatible with denuclearization and demilitarization of Russia? Russian military budget even after recent increase is still 10 times smaller than military budget of NATO. Everyone could hear as NATO leaders talked about their plans to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia. By the way, their anti-Russian rhetoric never changed.
Chinese military budget is three times smaller than American one. China is surrounded by American military bases while there are no Chinese military bases anywhere near U.S. Of course Xi would point out to those facts in any negotiations about disarmament.
Our European money is not his US money and in fact should produce big profits for the US MIC if implemented, as most European arms "investment" is by design on US weapons.
EU governments are free to pay as much as they wish to American MIC oligarchy. The point is: the arm race is incompatible with disarmament.
Not from my viewpoint. I'm a EU citizen. I don't think they should spend a single €uro in US hyper-expensive junk, be it weapons or LNG. My viewpoint is that amounts to corruption (bribes and other comparable abuses are all over the place) and high treason.
Europe does not need US protection: it has no enemies and it has a very strong economic and even military power base (or used to before 2022 at least). The USA on the other hand "needs" to keep Europe divided and subordinated, else there would be a very comparable superpower at the other side of the North Atlantic.
And, of course, you're right in your "end point": the arms race is opposite of disarmament. I just can't see how it can end without global unity (democratic and just), which is not a realistic expectation in any mid-term. Maybe if we join to fight our collective "inner demons" (notably predatory Capitalism, the ecocatastrophe and psychopaths in power) we can find a common enemy to join forces around?
I do agree that governments and parliaments of majority of EU countries don't work in best interest of their nations. Still it is their responsibility and their legal right to spend tax payers money. No one else can do it instead of them.
The fight against "inner demons" is internal business of every individual nation. Even such a minor country as Georgia can do it quite successfully. First of all, the influential people of every country should be honest at least among themselves. Only then they can have a coherent conversation and decide what should be done to improve the situation.
If we keep going the path of “individual nations”, which is the kind of idea that fascism clings to, then we’re bound to war.
Fascism was clinging to something quite opposite. All European fascist parties followed Hitler and Mussolini. They never allowed an open honest discussion within their nations. No one had right to say what he thinks if it didn't coincided with fascist party line.
You're right in a sense but it's the pecking order. Fascism or not countries have to fall into ordered blocs by the power they have, it happens even among communists (less often maybe but it does).
Anyway nationalism is often not about "a honest discussion with the nation" but rather: wag the flag, follow the leader, cry together with shared songs of our grandparents, lynch dissidents and strangers, go to war for a resource, colony or piece of land that our neighbor holds "wrongly". Don't get me wrong: there is a legitimate nationalism or patriotism (liberation nationalism) but the kind that fascists do is not that thing at all, that can something communist or socialist, liberal maybe in the old days of the greater 19th century (or even later in some cases), but not fascism. Fascism is about fighting the class war and make it disappear: fully subjugate workers to patrons in a "corporate state" dominated by the latter but dropping some crumbs for the sake of social peace and national efficiency, hyper-Fordism.
That's why fascism (but not only fascism) must go to war (if powerful enough): because it rallies the nation over a classless issue (and also produces profits if successful). They can't have that "honest conversation" about what the nation is or should be, it's an top-down approach to nationalism much like Leninism and especially Stalinism (which is also nationalist, as oppossed to Trotskyism, which is internationalist) is a top-down approach to socialism.
Radical nationalism is unpleasant thing, no doubt about that. However in modern Europe, as we can observe, only nationalist (or maybe better to call them patriotic) parties can defend their countries. Orban is particular good at that. Le Pen is doing not so bad too. Slovak Robert Fico. Others are following blindly EU bureaucrats, and EU bureaucrats all those years were following blindly American neocons. Probably all of them are corrupt. Anyway they don't care about European interests at all.
By the way, as we know, European fascist parties originated from socialist parties. So, after WW II, for example, Italian fascists could easily convert themselves back into socialists. Before Bolshevik coup, all Europe was dominated by socialist parties. After Russian socialism was hijacked by Bolsheviks, European socialists became fascists. Some of them became communists. At the time everyone was radicalized.
Please don’t use “radical” when you actually mean “extremist”. Radical means going to the roots and is oppossed to shallow. I try to be radical in my though and actions and I consider it a good thing. It can be “extremist” too (because the middle tends to be rather shallow) but fascism or similar extremisms are not “radical” in any way I can think of. The whole key concept of Mussolini (who single-handedly was the main ideologue of fascism) is that class war is or should be wrong (or wronged: eradicated) and that the true actors are nations, what leads to international war (as well as to brutal repression within each nation). This idea is not radical in any way I can think of, really: it avoids the radicalness of understanding class struggle by going back to the shallowness of “wag the flag”, which mostly exists to rally the masses and hide the shameful imperfections, corruption, etc. of the ultra-nationalist regime.
I like Fico but he’s socialist. Orban is quasi-fascist however and has implemented ultra-capitalist policies against the Hungarian working class and is also a rabid Zionist (that’s the main difference between his Fidesz party and the true neonazis who used to be the main opposition). Fico and Orban converge on some things, notably the issue of Russia and being outside of the EU consensus but that’s about it: nobody ever tried to murder Orban, Fico on the other hand was swiftly targeted once he reached power. Le Pen is “interesting” in the sense that she’s been trying to capture the center by endlessly “moderating” the discourse and trying to evolve from Vichyist to Gaullist. I sorta like her at personal level because we’re the same age, born in the same month, and she ditched her dad into an asylum because he was shaming her with antisemitic remarks and what-not. But that’s about it: we’re in totally opposite political positions and I kown all too well that if she (or her protegee) wins, it’ll be all just as with Macron (with minor “cultural” variants and emphases, the same capitalist police state).
We can’t just understand politics in terms of “relations with Russia” and anyhow beware: Meloni is pretty much like Le Pen and she was totally aligned with US aggressive policies in Ukraine and Palestine and even becoming best friends with Ursula von der Pfizer. The tragedy of Italy is that the once very strong communist left became something like the US Democrats (they even copied the name and became also a “big tent” party, which soon drifted to the extreme center), the glory of France is that they retain a powerful communist left (LFI and other smaller parties, all gathered now in the New Popular Front, which is the largest force in Parliament) and, unlike Italy, Spain, Germany or Britain, has a very long story of grassroots protests and uprisings even, very especially since day one of Macron’s ascendancy to power.
It’s absolutely false that fascist parties “originated from socialist parties. That’s a total far right smear! Mussolini was, by family tradition, once in the PS but he was kicked out in 1910 for being totally not-socialist but ultra-nationalist. He did use some socialist concepts like “party of the masses” but overall he was totally against the working class and his trademark squadristi or black shirts were originally mercenary thugs for the oligarchs to attack and even murder socialists and trade-unionists. That’s how he rose to power without ever getting a single elected representative even: the King and his oligarchic clique just appointed him (Britain applauded in the background).
The Nazis, who were a later development, did took even greater symbolic elements from socialism, calling themselves National Socialist Workers’ Party of Germany (NSDAP in the German acronym) but they were never socialists and as Niemöller wrote: “first they came for the communists…” (which is how it actually happened) and the communists were, before they were declared illegal, the only ones to truly oppose the rise of Nazism (the social-dems gestured a bit at the very end but they were weakened and overwhelmed by their right-wing Weimar coalition allies anyhow, who eventually backed Hitler even if he could not fully win any election). Within the NSDAP there was a “leftist” faction anyhow, best represented by the SA, direct heir of the Freikorps… all their leaders were all killed in the Night of the Long Knives and the SA disbanded. The oligarchs applauded again.
In politics, by radical they mean those parties and those politicians who's goal is the radical change of society. So both, fascists and communists were radical. Indeed, at the beginning of 20th century, all socialists were rather radical.
I don't agree with much of what you have written but it would be too long to answer all your points.
I think the difference between Le Pen and Macron is great. I don't believe Le Pen would so easy betray all her ideas as Meloni did. Particular her attitude toward migrants.
Maybe what is most important about all those otherwise different politicians who are defending their national interests against EU top bureaucracy, is the fact that they are all in opposition to neocon agenda.
Fascists change nothing: they are just conservatives on steroids. More militant maybe but same thing.
Fascists change nothing: they're mere militant ultra-conservatives. I know particularly well because I come from one such fascist family… married to a Christian-Dem/Liberal one. When I was a kid I was regularly sent to buy the regional conservative paper and two state-wide ones: one social-dem/liberal and the other the most fascist panflet ever. Then the latter went into bankruptcy, what did my fascist relatives read then? Conservative media.
Of course, fascists were not so radical as Bolsheviks, still they changed their societies quite substantially in order to prevent the radical left to get to the power. Most radical of them were, of course, German national socialists. If they succeeded in creation of their New Order, we would have a different world now (sure it would be much worse).
I think they reactionarily conserved them… for a while. They changed nothing but retained everything they could from the Middle Ages and Absolutism. I grew up under Franco, I’ve studied the relevant history… they changed nothing other than port the totalitarian nature of Constantinian Christianity to the modern world, which was of course doomed to fail in the long run but did much harm in the meantime by delaying progress.
The Nazis were not a bit more radical, they were more racist. That’s the only substantial difference between classical fascism and nazism.
Yes, German Nazis were also racists but German Nazism, unlike west-European racism, was a fake racism. They invented a theory about a separate Nordic Race which doesn't exist in reality. Genetically Germans are much closer to east-Europeans than, for example, English or Spanish people are. Even genetically there are nothing "nordic" about Germans. For example I1 y-haplogroup which is common among Scandinavians, has only 16% in Germany. West European racism was clear: they believed in racial superiority of white people because Europe was technologically and otherwise more developed than black Africa. German antisemitism and antislavianism was based upon a wrong idea that Germans are somehow more developed than those people. There are no real evidence of that. Besides, there are no racial difference between them. German Nazism was more inspired by Zionism than by west-European racism.
What?! Races do not exist in reality (or barely so). My own fascist granpa, who loved Mussolini and Franco but lamented Hitler because of excessive aggressiveness and racism, and because of dragging fascism to its very doom after a good decade or so, taught me: “races do not exist, only ethnicities do”. A white and black Anglo-Americans havr much more in common among them than either with their respective “genetic relatives” in Scotland (both have genetic relatives in Scotland and the Scots could not care less: they have other problems like getting rid of English imperialism and reactionarism, for example).
West European racism is not that clear: Latin Europeans were always reluctant to racism and typically that’s also the case among Slavic peoples: both traditions tend to assimilationism and not segregation, even if it’s a mixed bag in real history, of course and Slavs tend to get fragmented, while Latins tend to, well, be Catholic (Roman) and thus sluggishly bureaucratic and relatively inefficient. All this is cultural anyhow, not essentialist, it’s the burden of history and not of genes. Racism is in my understanding a very Germanic thing (not only but especially so) and this has to do with their own historical legacy from the “Hyperborean” barbaric north and their relative distance to people with other appearances in Africa and Asia, buffered as they were from the wider world by Latins and Slavs and other peoples.
And probably nowehere else that is manifest so extremely as in the USA. When the Paris Liberation parade was held, Uncle Sam forced France to exclude its colonial troops, the many Africans who fought to liberate Italy, France and the Low Countries, from it because it wanted a white-only parade for its own very reasons. And nowhere like in the USA the issue of race is conceived in such extemely polarized forms, which are indeed Nordic/Germanic (other Europeans are accepted but reluctantly only and only after many anti-racist struggles anyhow, mostly fought by Afroamericans). This is very apparent even today, with Hollywood often trying to depict Egyptians as Black Africans and Greeks as Nordics (Alexander was brunet and quite tanned, not blond), that’s because that’s how race is conceived in the USA for its own historical reasons of segregation against Afroamericans (who are a historical caste rather than a race).
Anyway, original fascism was not racist (not more than usual, very Roman-assimilationism). I grew with the notion of Romani, the main traditional “racial” minority in Spain, being just perfectly white, just somewhat different because of isolation and cultural peculiarities. That doesn’t mean that there wasn’t (and isn’t) racism against them or that they were not “racialized” from outside and inside their own community but again they are ultimately a caste rather than a race in terms pseudo-biological (and in this case it probably comes from their own ultimately Indian millenary traditions and not just from European prejudice, which in my experience is very ready to assimilate them in full… even by force (that’s how the Spanish Gitanos lost their language but did not fully assimilate anyhow).
The Western (Latin) tradition is assimilationist: you’re “Roman”, like it of not, white or black or whatever. There is lots of hypocrisy in it but it’s definitely not the same as Germanic racism, which tends to segregation, communitarianism and emphasizing differences in looks (“race”).
I have written that Nordic Race doesn't exist. Races of course exist: black, white, yellow, mongoloid. As I said, unlike west-European racism, German Nazism was a fake racism because Nordic Race doesn't exist in reality, it was invented by German Nazis. West-European racism was the real racism based upon believe that white European people are superior than black people. White and black people belong to different races. Germans and, for example, Poles belong to the same race. They call it now Caucasian race.
West European racism was institutionalized for practical purpose. They proclaimed black Africans not quite human, so they could exploit them as animals. Slave trade and exploitation of Africans was very lucrative. It was about money.
I’m telling you that nope: that no races exist even if some genetic/ancestry nuances do. I’m quite knowledgeable in terms of prehistory, population genetics and anthropology (I used to be a reference blogger on these matters: For what they were… we are
) and thus I can tell you that clinality (admixture) is at least as important as cluster-ness (“races”) and that any boundary that a pseudo-perfected racialist imaginary as that of the USA (forged by the “one drop rule” and polarized in a Nordic-Black axis that lacks all the Mediterranean-Arab-Horner clinality does not really apply. It doesn’t in the Old World (where clines are everywhere) and it doesn’t in the Americas either (where admixture is also everywhere, even more so).
I’ll grant you that “Caucasoid” may be a cluster of sorts (because of Upper Paleolithic founder effect, reinforced by Neolithic expansion, all from West Asia and not Europe as many people imagine) but that’s about it. “Mongoloid” and “Negroid” are not real, “Australoid” much less. We could maybe talk of “Sinoid” (a subset of East Asian, largely excluding Mongol-Siberians-Central Asians and Native Americans, there’s some clustering merit in that, and we can talk of a Niger-Kongo ethnolinguistic cluster with some genetic “homogeneity” (but Africa is much more diverse than just that in spite of Bantu expansion). There are even “races” (clusters) like Horners (Ethiopians, Somalis, etc.) who are clearly a mix of Aboriginal Africans and West Asians but it’s so extremely ancient that it tends to show up as their own unique cluster and only “splitting hairs” very carefully one can understand its ultimate bicontinental origins (vide: http://forwhattheywereweare.blogspot.com/2011/12/north-african-genetics-through-prism-of.html )
I do think that North Europeans (“Nordics”) tend to look somewhat different than Mediterranean peoples (although these are much more diverse than their looks tend to show, even if we only consider Southern Europeans, clearly divided in three or more distinct but somewhat admixed subpopulations: Iberians, Italians and Balcanics) but ultimately, look it at the matter craniometrically or in terms of genetics, Norwegians and Egyptians are pretty much the same thing. All the other racial categories seem to be too Eurocentric to mean much and, as you correctly say, splitting hairs within the broader Caucasoid or West Eurasian population is doomed to fail, as the common founder effects are too strong.
Said all that I still demand from Hollywood and AI art that Alexander looks Greek and not English, German or idealized Viking, and that Ramesses the Great looks Egyptian and not Nigerian.
Again I don't agree with much of what you have written because it is obviously wrong. Before the start of civilization, Earth was much less populated and tribes didn't mixed much with each other.
"in terms of genetics, Norwegians and Egyptians are pretty much the same thing" – Norwegians have about one third of I1, one third of R1b and about a quarter of R1a (other y-haplogroups have much less %). Among Egyptians, y-haplogroup E is dominating, 46%, next J1 – 21%, others are much less. It is obvious that genetically based on y-haplogroup tests they are very much different.
"Mongol-Siberians-Central Asians" – Mongolian tribes mixed only with Central-Asians in what is now Kazakh ethnos. Other Central Asians genetically much closer to Europeans than to Mongolians. Siberians are mostly haplogroup N, so we may say that they indeed mixed with Mongolians because Mongolians also have quite a lot of N. By the way N originated from NO. Then NO was split in N and O (O is dominating in China). Only one of those haplogroups migrated to Europe – N, which is dominating northern area between Finland, Baltic sea and Ural mountains. It happened several thousand years ago, so they distinguish two N subclades: Asian which is mostly concentrated in Yakut people (over 90%) and European which is over 60% in Finland, between 30% and 4o% in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. And about a quarter in Russia among ethnic Russians. Russian Finno-Ugorians have much higher % of N and also they linguistically closer to Finns.
Y-DNA is the least important thing when talking ancestry or “race”. R1b or I are common in Africa, while E1b is common in Europe (even Hitler had it) and East Asian N is the trademark of hyper-white Finns and Estonians. Autosomal DNA would be what actually matters, if anything, and that’s much more related in practice to mtDNA (matrilineal heritage). Ultimately, while somewhat interesting, Y-DNA is a patrilineal/patriachal fetish.
I’m perfectly aware of Y-DNA NO and now Japanese or Tibetans have very little of it and yet are genetically close to Chinese, etc. I’m also aware (Karafet 2017) that NO is part of K2 (it’s also called K2a), which also produced K2b, one branch of which is dominant in Papua and the other in Europe and Native Americans but not in West Asia: K2b2 = P > P1 > R and Q. R2 is common in India, where R1 probably also originated, while Q is dominant among Amerinds and Inuit-Chutkis (but not Na-Dené) but originated in West Asia, where still lingers at low frequencies. So there you have it: all the “races” of Eurasia united but that threat that you chose to use to construe a very wrong argument.
People do admix, every single generation is an act of admixture, and there are some 4,000 generations since the out-of-Africa migration (7000 maybe since mtDNA “Eve”). They also move around often, for good or bad but they do. Don’t say “races”, say “regional family airs”. It’s a very small world.
Let's not pile everything in one heap.
1. Do you agree that your claim that "in terms of genetics, Norwegians and Egyptians are pretty much the same thing" is wrong? If not, I would like to see why you came to such a conclusion.
2. Do you agree that you can't use such term as "Mongol-Siberians-Central Asians" because all Central Asian people with exception of Kazakhs (who really rather south Siberian than Central Asian), Uzbek, Kirghiz, Tadjik and all others, genetically are much closer to Europeans than to Mongols?
Now you say "Y-DNA is the least important thing when talking ancestry or race" – the only way to trace the ancestry is DNA tests. When we are talking about nations and ethnic groups Y-DNA tests are much more convenient for the investigation than mt-DNA because the male DNA mutations are much more frequent than mutations from mother to daughter, and also because we had patriarchal tribes where related by blood men stayed together, and women could easier change tribes than men.
The race is a different thing. Racial features are created by environment. We don't know how many generations needed for a black man to become white and vice versa but definitely the nature works this way when people are living in an environment which creates those features.
Not only Hitler had E haplogroup. 5% of Germans had it too. It doesn't change the fact that three most common in Germany haplogroups are: R1b over 40%, R1a and I1 over 15% each. People mix and then we have something like average German.
https://forwhattheywereweare.blogspot.com/2012/01/egyptian-genetics-in-regional-context.html1. No. I disagree and the very concept of “Caucasoid”, which is the only classical “grand race” that I see any merit to, hangs on that. I’ve seen the statistics of both genetics (autosomal) and craniometrics and they are very similar (because they come from mostly common ancestors 50,000 and then again 10,000 years ago). And by “they” I mean “we” because I also fall in that category or cluster. I would like to show you the craniometric data but it’s a very old analysis Dienekes made more than a decade ago and it’s impossible to find anything that old with the decadent search engines we have now. As for the genetic data including Egyptians, Europeans, etc., I already linked to a relevant study by myself (also from more than a decade ago) when discussing Horners and the only thing I can add is a very similar peer-reviewed study which was published just weeks later and produces the same results (i.e. it’s not just me). Vide: https://forwhattheywereweare.blogspot.com/2012/01/north-african-autosomal-genetics-again.html
2. You’re splitting hairs: “Mongol-Siberians-Central Asians” was meant as a negative category, i.e. those who don’t fit well (most apparently) in the “Sinoid” genetic category, which is probably of Neolithic origins (and thus influence mostly areas where agriculture is a reasonable option and not the far north). This is again because of autosomal DNA (North Asians are relatively complex in their ancestry and so are Native Americans as a distinct but somewhat related population). Does that mean that they don’t have common ancestry? Of course not, we all have common ancestry from South Africa to the Arctic, but their common ancestry is at least largely more “pan-Asian” or “pan-Eurasian” than specifically East Asian (and that shows not just in the genetics but also in the phenotype or physical appearance, even if it may be subtle to you).
3. Re. Y-DNA: the reason why it matters much less is because men migrate much more than women, especially in pastoralist or warlordist contexts. That’s why you have R1b in Black Africa, Western Europe and East Turkestan, for example. It has an ultimate common origin but it’s old enough (much more than usual molecular clock speculations say, probably early or middle Upper Paleolithic) to have also many many different branches, skin colors, hair textures and nose shapes. By just looking at Y-DNA you’re missing like 90% of the picture, especially when talking of “race”. In most cases where admixture matters Y-DNA is not a good guide, while mtDNA fits much much better with the autosomal (general) genetics/ancestry. That indicates a dominant pattern in which males migrated (conquered or outmarried to neighboring groups patrilocally) only once and then married locally over and over, generation after generation, with great patrilineal success but limited autosomal/general genetic effect. That’s apparent in the Amerinds (who began at Altai with West Eurasian genetics but are now much more closely related to East Asians, yet retaining Western Y-DNA Q), for Uralics (who began around Mongolia with East Asian genetics but in most cases are now pretty much European in their overall genetics, but retain their Eastern Y-DNA N1 in large amounts), for Chadics and many of their Sudanese precursors (who are overall genetic Black Africans but retain West Asian Y-DNA R1b) and a very large etcetera.
I know of one exception: coastal Caribbean Colombians in which X-DNA studies show that they had many repeated male immigrations from Spain and, even if they married locally since the 16th century, that makes them pretty much European or “Caucasoid” in terms genetic, even if their mtDNA is Indigenous almost at 100%. They demonstrate how the exception to the general rule can happen but in the Old World, where most migrations and conquests are rather ancient (and thus not sustained in time as happened in modern colonialism but product of single waves rather), that doesn’t seem to apply in any case, at best we observe balanced male-female migrations (typically in Neolthic conditions, the Metal Ages tended to produce male-dominated conquests).
4. “Racial features are created by the environment”? Not really, at least mostly not. Else Afroamericans would have become white (vitamin D definiency obligues) and White Australians would have become black (vitamin B9 seems the main culprit). Even in a much longer timeline Native Americans living in the tropics should have turned black as well and they did not (because they surely lost key alleles while transiting Siberia, they have re-browned somewhat but only that much).
Other traits are mostly “family airs”: random or quasi-random traits that get fixated because of ancestry, with no or very limited environmental pressure.
In any case they tend to be inherited. A study in Cape Verdeans showed that 80% of skin color is inherited (half from four well-known genes, the other half from unknown genes) and only 20% is non-genetic variance: https://forwhattheywereweare.blogspot.com/2013/04/eye-and-skin-pigmentation-genetics-cape.html
Skin color was however strongly pressured by natural selection in the past because of vitamins. Definitely vitamin D deficiency is a major issue in high latitudes and got much worse with the Neolithic diet. So people probably de-melanized twice in the northern or semi-northern reaches of Eurasia, first as hunter-gatherers (generally reaching a light brown Inuit-like color, I believe) and then again as farmers, at least in Europe, where there’s clear association with Neolithic arrival for the relevant alleles being driven to fixation since the Neolithic (while other pre-Neolithic traits such as blue eyes, almost totally unrelated to skin color, and general genetics survived into modern populations instead).
A mystery trait that also shows signs of selection is straight hair, which seems to be Neanderthal in origin. To be precise the allele for which positive selection has been claimed is the Neanderthal keratin variant but that should show up mostly in hair texture IMO.
Fair enough re. E1b being 5.5% in Germany (just checked and seems correct). It’s still an Aboriginal African haplogroup… which was surely adopted by, then matrilocal, West Eurasians in or near Egypt some 50,000 years ago, and then spread around in the Neolithic via West Asia. In other very European places like Greece (20-30% depending on region) or Albania (28%) is much higher, in Kosova reaching the vast majority because of founder effects that are probably medieval.
The issue is that, unless you check other data than just Y-DNA, you’re likely to get very confused. Camerun Chadics are even more than 80% R1b, does that mean that they are Basque or Irish? Nope. White? Nope. It’s not at all that simple.
"No. I disagree and the very concept of Caucasoid " – Why Caucasoid? We are talking about genetic difference, not about race.
"they come from mostly common ancestors 50 000 and then again 10 000 years ago" – Yes, I separated from J something between 40 000 and 50 000 years ago. It is too long time for calling them the same in terms of genetics. J and I are not the same. DE separated from CF more than 80 000 years ago. So the main Egyptian haplogroup is remoted from Norwegians even further. And again, it is a different haplogroup. How can you call it the same? J and E together make near 70% in Egypt. In Norway they have only one and half percent. The most shared between Egyptians and Norwegians haplogroup is R1b – 6% in Egypt. So, obviously, genetically Norwegians and Egyptians are very much different. Only about 10% of y-haplogroups are the same. For example, Volga Tatars and Germans have more than 50% of the same y-haplogroups.
Oh! That’s fine with me, I also prefer to use “West Eurasian” but acknowledging that it includes North Africans and also penetrates in more or less admixed form (as genetic ancestry) in other regions like The Horn of Africa or the Indian subcontinent (ANI component is West Eurasian, only ASI is truly Indian Aboriginal). But, as you were talking of “races”, I thought I could use the “traditional” equivalent in that parlance (is the only case where a clear-cut genetic component and a “traditional race” fit well).
I wasn’t talking of “E” in general but the very specific Neolithic haplogroup E1b-V13, which is almost 100% of European E (main exception being West Iberia, where E1b-M81 is important). It’s just a good example of how people with African Y-DNA are clearly non-African (West Eurasian) in real life (100% or 99.9999999% of their overall ancestry), of how Y-DNA may easily mislead you. The same with R1b but in the opposite migrational direction, N1 among Finns, etc.
You keep not seeing it anyhow for what you say.
Y-haplogroup E is older than E1. E 1 is older than E1b1 etc. That's why when comparing Norwegian and Egyptian genetics, I use y-haplogroup E. As I said, Norwegians have only 1.5% of it. That, of course, includes all later mutations of y-haplogroup E (E1b1 and others). Maybe it would be also more convenient, when we compare Egyptian and Norwegian genetics, to talk about y-haplogroup R. Norwegians and Egyptians share 8% of it (6% R1b + 2% R1a). So, when counting everything, we have a bit more than 10% of the same y-haplogroups (there were many different tests, and not all of them coincide. According to some tests, it is 10%, according to others – 11%).
You are right that men are moving more frequent from one country to other than women. But it is true only for the time after the beginning of civilization. Before that (and we are talking about tens of thousands years), wild tribes migrated together with all their members. Exchange of women happened between neighbors. Also, female mutations are not so frequent as from father to son line. That's why through mt-DNA, all nations from Central Asia to North Africa and West Europe are closer to each other.
Egyptians are largely E1b-M27, and Egypt is at the ultimate origin for the spread of this patrilineage around the Mediterranean, be it to NW Africa or to West Asia and therefore to Europe eventually. You’re muddying things either out of ignorance or mischief.
R1b is not relevant re. Egyptians (seemingly low frequencies) but it’s very relevant re. Sudanese, for example (although we don’t know much about particular sublineages yet, it’s clear that it’s a major haplogroup there and that there’s also other “European” lineages like I, which is even more surprising to me but has also been found in ancient Canarians or Guanches, but not anywhere in between).
I’m not really “counting” Y-DNA because it has no “accountancy” value unless you only care about strict paternal lines and their sometimes quite extreme founder effects. I count autosomal DNA fractions if anything, and even that very carefully.
As for the last thing you say, I believe that we should consider different periods: hunter-gatherers (most of our prehistory), early farmers, metal ages (patriarchal warlords) and industrial era. Each seems to favor a different pattern of migration:
1. Hunter-gatherers, at least those who migrated from SE Asia to West Eurasia at the transition between the Middle and Upper Paleolithic (c. 60-50,000 years ago), seem to have been largely matrilocal and thus favored the assimilation of male neighbors and no or much less that of women from outside their groups. This is apparent in that “proto-Caucasoid” population incorporating Indian Y-DNA haplogroups IJ, T and pre-G (probably) first and then African ones (E1b) upon arrival to Egypt but no mtDNA in India and little in Egypt.
2. However Siberian HGs show patrilocality, both in the case of proto-Amerinds first and Uralics later. This may be adaptation to the more hostile environment, where people rely more on nuclear families and a few allies and not so much on larger communities.
3. Early farmers in general seem to migrate as integrated populations with both genders represented equally (they do show some admixture but doesn’t seem gender biased).
4. In the Metal Ages (all the way from the Copper Age to the Early Modern Age) the main pattern we can observed by far is men migrating with few women at best and conquering the pre-existing populations to work for them as serfs or similar, chattel slavery was also probably common. This mode seems to accentuate as time passes (in general terms, case by case study is always necessary) with, for example, Bronze Age Greeks showing a significant Indoeuropean immigration (maybe 20-30%, would need to check) but later Turkish or Hungarians showing nearly no immigration at all (at least that remains discernable in modern DNA, Hungary is a truly extreme case because it seems as if the ancient Magyars vanished altogether).
5. In the Industrial Era migrations generally return to the Neolithic pattern (both genders are balanced or mostly so) and are at times very massive thanks to the mass expulsion of farmers to the cities or to overseas migration, and also because transport is much better, as well as healthcare, etc.
It is rather funny when you are using the word "ignorance" while you yourself are incapable of a coherent discussion.
I think the most bright evidence of your ignorance is your claim: "Y-DNA is the least important thing when talking ancestry or race".
Why do I bother?!
PS – I wrote a very lenghty reply but unsure if it went through. Anyway, we’re getting very off topic. Let’s agree to disagree.
Race is a fake human construct
Yes, Aryan race (Nordic) is a fake.
All race is fake
lol
None of the money is Trump's money, never was, never will be, he never said it was, you said it.
He’s the President, so he’s in charge of spending US money, if Congress allows (or possibly even without permision).
It's very compatible, to anyone what is capabler of analysis.
The US is going to spend less on Europe, so they better do something for themselves for a change, since they are the ones always whining about Russia. That is a separate matter.
According to Trump, NATO's budget is going to drop, you missed that.
As usual Trump proposes a good thing, and you whine about it, much more than you ever whined about Biden. Go figure.
Wasn't he bleating until just recently how he's gonna rebuild America's allegedly neglected and run down military, how he'll make it shiny and strong and the most beautiful in the world? Now this.
And even if he is dead serious (and I'm not sure what to think), JFK was assassinated for less.
He should watch his back…!
He is not serious
He is a liar
You are a non-sensical babbler.
And you aren’t?
A reasonable analysis of this, which you did not provide at all, is that Trump intends to fortify certain parts of the military, and arrange peace through strength. Russia and China will not disarm if the USA is already disarmed. Your one dimensional post does not apply. Any contradiction you claim to identify does not exist.
A criticism of Trump is that he'll say anything, but this is a particular thing which really isn't said ever in mainstream political discourse despite plenty of popular support. We'll have to see what happens; I doubt he'd see this through.
Also, the US military budget could be cut 90%. There are two oceans, Canada, and Mexico surrounding the country and none of them represent any form of threat. There is no realistic ability for any country in the world, Russia and China together even, to invade and hold the US. The US couldn't control much beyond the Green Zone in Baghdad, and some days that was shaky.
Trump needs cooperation from China, Russia and Congress, so the onus is not on him. That is how this works.
It has always been on us. Common now.
And how is going to get cooperation from China? LOL. Threats don't work with the second most power country in the world.
Getting cooperation isn't tied to constant military sabre rattling and threats of going to war with those countries. But, war has been the policy since the end of WWII and there's no indication there will be any policy change, regardless of the regime in Wash.
Judging Freedom:
Your first graph describes politicians today, in the past and probably forever. Nobody gets to the top of the heap in gov. by being a nice guy or girl.
Excellent ideas. Who would have thought that such a humanistic idea would ever come from the Orang Bully? Of course, again, there is that little matter of a new budget increase, but, we'll get round ot it won't we?
Seriously, that they are talking about de-nuking the world cannot in the least be treason.
Please expand on your last sentence.
Anyone that writes cheap smears such as "orang bully" does not want dialog.
Writing "cheap smears" is your gig. Your lack of dialog is constant.
Surrealist, a good and fitting avatar.
Anyone who actually follows Trump's statements, including before he ran for president, knew he felt that way.
There is a not so small matter of you confusing points.
Anyone who follows Trump’s statements, including before he ran for president, knew that Trump’s statements can’t ever safely be treated as indications of his feelings or predictors of his actions.
Only a prize fool would pledge with Trump to hand in his gun.
Pledge or plead?… ;-/
Yes, that too.
Donna, think of the Anderson fairy tale,
"The Emperor has no Cloth"
Soon the children will be in the streets and telling the adults the simple truth they must know but don't dare say.
Only a fool writes a junk post like that, in response to a bold intent to demilitarize the world. If Trump makes progress on demilitarization, you will whine more.
You are a dreamer, wake up, Trump and his crew are a nightmare as was Biden and his people. Two insane presidents in a row like a tag team.
At the same time he says we need to take over Greenland to "protect us from an aggressive Russia" (and probably China too, coming at us from the other side of the Arctic! LOL!). An answer for everything, no matter how contradictory it is to something he just said before.
Good.
Don't get excited, Trump has not changed
No, he hasn't. But people have not changed either. Showmanship, snake oil sales, pomp and glitter still attract a large majority.
That's what all politicians do and always have.
But Trump likes to talk to ordinary people who are un-awared and can easily be conned…!
Apparently 77 million believed him.
We are in deep trouble.
Just wait until Muskrat messes with Medicaid and the other services beneficial to the poorer and middles classes.
That is frightening.
Trump has that effect on people
based on good cause, that is a real problem.
A, potentially, good start…
It won't happen dont worry
The people who count, know it is just a joke of a 5 year old.
But a good joke as far as the rulers behind the scene are concerned. Let China and Russia cut their military while the US will do no such thing. They will produce some fake papers that they cut here and there and that will be the end of it.
I did not think that far. But you are so right.
Foreign provocation had to be involved…!
Yup
Donna, it is too crazy and irrational to be a good start.
But being able to hope keeps us going.
The MIC will be very very angry.
Tough…! They ripped off US taxpayers money for decades… Now it’s people’s turn…!
They’re very “consolidated”, in both senses of the word. They will be very hard to unseat and less spending, if it happens, will cause a major economic crisis in one of the US most important economic sectors most likely.
But yes: they’re not very efficient anymore. Monopolism is a curse (and the natural end-point of Capitalism, as the very game Monopoly, designed by an Anarchist, illustrated quite well).
Eisenhower pointed at the problem, but only on his way out of office in his farewell address.
JFK seemed to be interested in paring back the national security state, and we know how that turned out.
Other than that, since World War 2 the most we've seen have been cosmetic cuts and, once, Reagan throwing the idea at Gorbachev that maybe both sides could get rid of their nukes, but that went no further than the musing.
If Trump is serious about cutting "defense" spending, he deserves support on that.
If you're not serious about cutting "defense" spending, you're not serious about cutting spending. On the discretionary spending side of things, that's the single largest fat deposit.
Thomas, if Trump were serious he would be rational and speak of realistically reducing the defense budget, starting with unlimited waste.
All of us know it, but no one in government touches the subject in any credible way.
We are being governed by idiots, with a few exceptions and they don't last long in office. We are governed by idiots like Graham, I think that is his name. He is an outstanding huge A**hole.
This:
Trump has the habit of throwing out ideas that sound good, but that's the last you hear of them. He doesn't follow through, but that's probably the way he does things. Say one thing, do another like politicians always have done.
Type A for sure…!
Trump is a conman, a good one, that is the only expertise he has.
Call it what it is, predator capitalism, all else is socialism or communism or something like that.
That's it in a nutshell – but who rules over those two ideologies?
The Marxist Left and the Capitalist/Fascist Right keep changing the guard from time to time and their followers cheer whenever they are in power while the people really are losing out more and more.
That's why large corporations and Big Tech, Wall Street and billionaires can change party at a whim without blinking an eye. The puppets on the Left were messing up too much so they switched to a puppet king on the Right. When he gets a bit too big for his britches they will switch again.
There has never been a marxist left in power.
Most people, even "educated" people, do not know what Marx wrote of.
Marx used Hegel's philosophy, which came from the Lutheran Mystic Jacob Boehme's theosophy and theology and applied it to history and economics. i.e. thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Marx was mistaken to believe that every synthesis is a step up; most mutations are dead ends; communism being an example in history and economics as well as in nature.
Communism utilizes a form of capitalism to stay alive.
The difference is in the ownership of the means of production, which is the state.
China has been quite good at it.
China has an economy very close to fascism. From what I understand from history and economics is all economic schemes eventually lead to fascism. That’s because there’s a symbiosis and very close relationship of power and money, and both factions trade what the other needs for more power and money.
We must not forget Marx was a philosopher and not an economist with all the computer printouts modern economists have. He believed in a better and fairer society in an industrializing age.
Of course not. But to some lunatics everybody to the left of Hitler is a communist or Marxist or socialist. That's how we ended up with Kamala Harris being a Marxist.
The other day Musk and Alice Weidel even called Hitler a communist! That must have come as a surprise to the one million socialists and communists that Hitler's jackbooted Nazi thugs killed between the 1920s and 1945.
Stupid people lead stupid people. What does one expect from a gov. that changes axioms, ignores semantics to change the language for its own purpose of controlling the masses for nefarious reasons, which include profiting from mass death and destruction.
Kamala didn't have much choice in a lot of things, especially Israel.
Her husband is Doug Emhoff, for heaven sake.
That's been a right wing meme for a while, that the Nazis were "socialists" because the word was parrt of the party name. Of course by that logic the GDR was, you know, a democratic republic.
At least nobody living in the GDR had any illusion they live in a democracy. I wish I could say the same for people living in the West.
The European social democracies picked the best of both and did well until Maggie's and Reagans neoliberalism took over.
I think China and Russia did the same, based on their culture and societies.
The German successful economy was called their economy Sociale Marktwirtchaft. (Social market economy)
Capitalism they call "Raubtier Kapitalismus"
That is why the Scandinavians have high living standards and high quality of life.
I know, I am off topic.
Capitalism is predatory by nature: you don’t get rich being a honest worker but by exploiting others (people and the environment) at every turn, squeezing from them every last bit of market value.
The MIC has facilities in most of the 50 states.
Try to cut those facilities and there will be revolt. You don't mess with peoples' money.
Indeed, it’s the most important industry the USA has or one of them anyhow. However they are delivering only very expensive junk, instead of affordable good stuff as do other less pampered MICs in Russia, Iran, China, etc. When you have a problem like that you’d better address it, because it’s not costing you mere monet, it’s costing you power, credibility, sustainability as superpower. It’s like instead of training martial arts you do coke: you get a costly illusion of power instead of the real deal. Then you lose and collapse and it’s overe. It happens to the best, from Rome to the USSR… or rather to the not-so-best-anymore, tho those fell asleep on their laurels and let their viced and shortcomings overcome them.
It should be, but it won't.
He will never allow himself to get Mrs. Adelson angry.
Orange Pigs are flying!!!!!!!!
But it wont be because trump is an imperialist gaza annexing greenland taking canada grabbing imperialist
and the Republican party is squeezing out all anti-Trump opposition so effectively, 2028 and beyond will be worrying for the MAGA cult
You are a babbling childish whining noisemaker, you support the MIC war machine, especially in Ukraine.
blah blah blah blah blah blah over and over every time
All you have are cheap smear in response to Trump's call for less military. We read you loud and clear. You are not capable of discussion.
The interests of the USA are paramount to patriotic Americans. That is why you like to smear them.
Yawn
Come back when your done whining and will actually respond to me
He will not. He does not know how to do anything but cheerlead for trump and insults those who don't bow down to trump. He was born a 100 years to late and in the wrong country. He would have made a great NAZI.
Orange Pig on the Wing
Well,
after so many
too many
stupid statements
deplorable
at so many levels
the orange pig
took a faubulas leap
he aimed for the sun
that his big brother
never found
and daddy
daddy
never liked that boy
but here he is
icarus
dont get too close
profits above your pay grade
your an useful https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b0a8517dc25c248db5d586eb5bd797e425e2fe7f5742d9d85a0bf89bc55857f4.jpg idiot
but the mob has rules
doncha know…
We have an irrational government, a privatized moneycracy.
A president and a co-president on the same throne.
They govern based on one, Trump, is signing hundreds of EOs without reading or considering any consequences, the other egomaniac, Musk, is all over the place with some teens tearing down the government departments serving the people, including health care and education and increasing gov. fees replacing legal taxation.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order aimed at encouraging the U.S. government and consumers to buy plastic drinking straws, pushing back efforts by his predecessor to phase out single-use plastics and tackle waste."
That is what Trump does when he does not play golf near his kitsch palace in FL.
We have become so used to the insanity in government we are not aware of the manipulation and gaslighting we endure.
Topping the criminal insanity is UKRAINE and the GAZA brutally sadistic genocide.
Are we so insanely manipulated we don't notice?
Biden shot down $20.00 weather balloons with million $$$ missiles, remember that?
The pecking order is Musk number 1 and trump number 2. Musk controls trump with money.
You are right, there are reports that Musk paid $$ 250 million to heave Trump in the chair, understandable, he now wants half of the throne.
Trump hasn't noticed that a Russian Federation military budget of ~US$100 billion means that
a) the USA cutting its military budget in half STILL makes it 5x bigger than the RF's, 10x bigger if they cut in half…
and b) the USA would have to halve its military budget THREE TIMES (1000 billion to 500 billion; again to 250 billion; again to 125 billion) to get close to the Russian Federation's current military budget.
No real "generosity" in Final President Trump's offer.
All than and the RF can barely take over ukraine
Regardless, Russia is spending like 20% of its gdp on military. I know i'm in the ballpark but you'd need to check
USA only spends like 5% of its gdp on Military
Basing one's military spending on GDP is bullshit. The US spends more than Russia and China combined. And by far.
True, Russia can't defeat Ukraine but now the rhetoric is that Russia plans to attack NATO and start WWIII in 5 years. What a load of propaganda to try and get the masses on board with more wars and weapons manufacturing, once again profiting those who benefit from death and destruction. And, the people who will pay for it and possible die for such policy have no say in it. That is not democracy in action. https://duckduckgo.com/?t=lm&q=russia+to+attack+nato+in+5+years&ia=web
For Russia it is an existential question, border security, for the USA it is question of profit, wars are good for business, not the people.
When Wash. says ‘the people’ it means a few who profit from their corrupt policies.
you need to work a bit more on your math…!
It would take close to a decade to go down from $1 T to $1/2T military spending's…!
Trump speaks like an idiot, which he really is. Who would trust him or any American president to honor an agreement?
Sure rambles a lot…!
Am I dreaming? Many people wont like that, too many pigs at the M.I.C. trough. But, at least he is saying it.
Yes, you are
As much as it would be nice it is still Trump.
You know why he is sayin it? He is saying it because his base is fed up with wars, it gives him extra brownie points. He also knows that the US does not have to stick to any treaties it has ever signed in the past.
What better way to become king of the hill again by China and Russia reducing all their military while the US will do no such thing behindclosed doors.
How dare you suggest american citizens who serve their country without thought or ethical remorse would be dishonest..Its ‘Universe 25’ in 2025-seriously and we have a lonnnnggg way to go as spin down the drain faster faster faster …hang on kiddies…
Cudos to you.
Mr. Trump did withdraw from two important treaties with Russia, then sanctioned Russia.
re: Military Spending Could Be Cut in Half
Start with the Army, because a standing army is unconstitutional.
Constitution —
Powers of Congress
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years; To provide and maintain a Navy;
That means that Congress must renew the spending for an army every two years. What is does not prevent is the US government buying equipment on long term basis. So if they want to buy 100 bombers over the next ten years that is OK. The funds to operate and staff the bombers must be renewed every two years. Now traditionally it is done on a yearly basis.
No, clearly the intention was two year limit on a standing army was not like Navy, provide and maintain, but keep your army for two years. . .George Washington: "Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. . ."
The elite oligarchy took care of it, they look for conflicts on every continent on the globe because wars are good for business, even the one party Congress supports it. They members are MIC shareholders and they know what is good for them.
The Munich Security Conference begins today on 14.02.25 with numerous politicians from all over the world, the USA (Vice President Vance), China (Wang Yi), Ukraine (Zelenskyy), etc.
https://securityconference.org/en/msc-2025/agenda/
Mysteriously Rubio's plane had to turn back after an incident. The conference may have to wait.
This reminds me of Reagan's disarmament agreement with Gorbachev at Reykjavik, which didn't survive five minutes once the deep state weighed in.
The orange slob will more likely call on his underlings in Congress to double the military budget. He is an imperialist scumbag.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/08d897b208a33ed6d0976f44dd77a502270dc138b6949d5e1a81d5f438f04734.jpg
The US is not a company, it is a country. Trump would do well to remember that…
Trump was not a successful business man, he inherited his wealth, he had 6 bankruptcies, he never worked a day in his life, he is a compulsive liar and convicted felon, why anyone would vote for such a creature beats me. He knows nothing about economics either. One has to wonder if he ever read a book.
Still Trump is much better than previous head of state. His team is also much better than previous administration. Vance's speech in Munich was great. I don't think any politician talked to Europeans so good in the last 17 years, and yet Europe badly needed someone with authority who could point out to failures of European democracy.
What about our democracy here, he should clean house here first.
It is time the Europeans tell the Americans to get lost, go home. The Obama/Biden neocons started the conflict in Ukraine in 2014 with regime change putting neo-Nazis, fascists, in power. The American way to colonize nations by putting RW fascist dictators in power serving US interests. See the Monroe doctrine for S. America.
Americans have no business on the European continent, the UK/USA are predators, troublemakers. They are greedy, predator Kapitalists.
I do agree but at the moment Europe is more pro-neocon than America. This change of U.S. administration is very beneficial for European democracy. I hope, it is also good for U.S. At least, the situation with illegal migration and aggressive sodomy will improve.
Europeans are fighting for their national interests, that goes for the German conservative AfD, the party is a conservative nationalistic party like the GOP but the old parties who sold Germany try to demonize the RW center party.
The voters know who blew up the pipeline destroying the German and with it the EU economy. They supported a neutral Ukraine, the Minsk agreements. The USA/UK are only trouble for Europe, starting with WW I.
How was WW1 US/UK fault?
It was a continental regional conflict before the UK and Poland combined against Germany. The Bismarck Germany was the rising economic competitor of the UK/USA. Versailles unconditional surrender destroyed the German economy and the middle class and we all know what came after that.
Bullshit
We didn’t exist then and Germany was never going to challenge and up and coming america
Why did the USA get involved in WWI a war on another continent?
To savedemocracy
Its this pissy isolationist America is Special attitude which screws over the rest of the world
"USA/UK are only trouble for Europe"
Sometimes U.S. and UK are helping to save European democracy. I hope, U.S. is going to do it now. On the other hand, of course, U.S./UK are doing everything to destroy EU-Russia economic cooperation which is extremely profitable and important for EU. Hopefully the common sense in EU will prevail. It is time for EU elites to stop and think what they are doing. They can't just sit and wait instructions from Washington.
I’ll believe it, when I see it. Hell has to freeze over three times.
ditto…!
No president has said this before that I can remember. It is the only route away from the bottom of the barrel that I can see. Go for it President Trump!
Cut way back on wasted research and production on war and then tax everyone fairly and progressively, We will find that US citizens are as ingenious as other people.
Thank you for some reality
Heh
Tax everyone fairly and progressively. You must realize that trump's tax idea is counter to that point. It is exactly the opposite.
Musk says he paid billions. So what.
Percentage of income, please.
He has an army of accountants, tax lawyers. We, the people do not.
He has power.
We do not.
Why is that?
because you allow it
How do "I" fight it? How about you?
WE THE PEOPLE allow it is how and as to i? i dont do as much as i should but i spent some of my time in youth learning. i found 'heros' that i could look up to and in my time,do what little i could do to be a good person. i missed my calling by avoiding poltics but i despised the dishonesty of it and the herding the people like cattle by it and the sad part is 90 out of a 100 want to be led and basically left alone to chew the cud and shop. But as i got older i seem to lean a bit to the george carlin spin on our divine species and yet, i consider what is happening in 2025 is literally Universe 25(John Calhoun) with a spice of Idiocracy to boot. i could go on in depth but whats the point? i have no right to judge even if i could increase the good i do a billion(pun intended) fold… i just observe as ive done since i was a child. im good at that…
we
This:
stripes
Republicans are moving closer to their goal of raising defense spending by at least $100 billion in the next decade as two budget resolutions paving the way for a massive bill that targets President Donald Trump’s domestic agenda advance in Congress.
There is the "hypothetical" could and the "practical" could.
As a "hypothetical could," I jump off the Empire State Building, and survive.
As a "practical could," I will not jump off the Empire State Building, and survive.
Hypothetically, President Trump (with the continued agreement of future presidents) "could eventually" cut military by fifty (50) percent.
Practically, neither President Trump, nor any future presidents, "could eventually" cut military by fifty (50) percent.
Why?
What percent only United States, and only U.S. spending comprises the United States G.N.P.?
"Eventually" the big fire ball in the sky, the so-called "sun," will burn out.
As a practical matter, it is not now, nor will it ever be, in the human species life time, a human concern.
Do you see the principle of identity?
dennis hanna
Are you saying without MIC and Pentagon… US would be bankrupt…?!
World War I, or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers.–AI-Generated
The population of the United States in 1914 was 99,111,000 people. This was an increase of 1,886,000 people from 1913.
Explanation
The U.S. population has increased every decade since the first census in 1790.
In 1910, the population was 92,228,496, a 21% increase from 1900.
In 1920, the population reached 100 million.
In 1970, the population reached 200 million.
In 2010, the population exceeded 300 million for the first time.–AI-Generated
The world's deteriorating currencies and the Energy Cliff. The year 1945 may have been the ideal period to have been born.
i see this as an open forum so
Russia hit Chernobyl nuclear power plant
Russia stole the six nuclear reacreactors ZNPP
Russia used the nuclear reactors to store military equipment in violation of the Geneva Convention.
Russia has laid 25,000 square kilometers of Ukraine with landmines which is guaranteed to blow the limbs off of innocent children for the next hundred years
Russia demolished Khakovka dam, flooding 400,000 civilians Downstream
Russia has struck schools hospitals and printing houses which are in no way military targets
Russia shot down MH 17 from Amsterdam killing over 200 Dutch Nationals with a BUK anti-air system and then of course blamed it on Ukraine
What most people don't realize when they compare US 'defense' spending to China's and Russia's spending is both countries defense industry is nationalized which takes the profits out of it. Wash. has spent trillions since the end of WWII on defense simply to increase profits for the contractors which come back to Wash. as bribes and other goodies politicians like. It's a symbiosis and cycle that enriches both industry and government. It's that simple, but there will be no change in policy because of the mutual benefits to and from both factions.
Right, 'defense' is not what they are wasting money on, it's offense. The bought-and-paid for congress-critters want us to think we don't know what's going on, while they receive money by the bundle.
How about paying down the National Debt with the half trillion dollars instead of spending it on something else?
Could be related…!
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2025/02/14/742792/Pentagon-chief-implies-that-US-troops-might-leave-Europe
If only this were true.
https://missionventureministries.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/heart-e.png
Nice three dimensional heart…!
https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/trumps-shock-and-awe-month-7a9
”Never a borrower nor a lender be…!”
I thought Trump said that China was the big enemy, then sanctioned China.
I also thought Trump withdrew from two critical treaties with Russia, and then sanctioned Russia too.
I could be mistaken………..
Even a delusional has a right to change his mind…!
He is more than delusional he is a criminal egomaniac.
Trump expects something for nothing, he is a robber baron robbing others to pay his bills, he is a pretty vile conman. Who would trust him or any US official? Trump has a long record of broken agreements and he is not the only one, he is a convicted felon and a compulsive liar. He can't be trusted.
He can only be trusted for being a neocon artist, liar and felon. He can be trusted for being dishonest.
You can count on him for being a Reverse Robin Hood. He steals from the Poor to give to the Rich.
Russia has no incentive to dismantle or lessen its nuclear triad or umbrella. The nuclear triad is all the US has. Its conventional forces and weapons are notably below Russia's capabilities.
Russia won't agree to 'peacekeeping forces' in Ukraine.
President Zelnsky has the 'con-fidence' to see Ukraine through his self-engineered morass, so the US departing Ukraine in every sense will allow Europe the 'confidence' it doesn't possess to assist Ukraine. That's if Zelensky, Rutte, and Von der Leyen approve.
How could they not?
President Trump should take it as a given that the CIA, MI6, and the City of London disapprove of his recent policy change toward Ukraine. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer will discuss this and global financial issues (gold) when he travels to Washington next week to meet President Trump.