Jullian Assange has been arrested following removal of asylum by the Ecuadorian Government

That’s lot of things dying, including free speech...and yet....here he is on Youtube, and you’re posting about him on this forum. Go figure.

BTW: it's was FDR, not Bush, that started the destruction of liberty for the individual, with his ”Hungry men are not free”.

 

Freedom of Information has long been recognised as necessary in a Democratic Society or one where people are supposed to be giving informed votes. I think that interview very clearly illustrated the way the West has changed since 9/11. I was watching a talk by Tulsi Gabbard. She was talking about how people are played off against each other. The two things came together. Since 9/11 Governments appear to have managed to divide their populations. As Gore Vidal said Government run by Corporations. It smells of fascism. I am remembering that what used to bring us together was our feeling of empathy as civilians. We didn't think in any way our Governments were pure and trustworthy in those days. We knew they were not and we had to keep an eye on them and that was what kept them in order. People used to see things from the point of view of other citizens like themselves and that made them less keen to go to war. This was certainly true in the UK. The US was as Carter said at war all the time, apart from when he was in office. Nonetheless I believe the will of the people has been lost as people have been encouraged to see other people as the problem not the political elite. Like for you with FDR there. You appear to believe the New Deal destroyed liberty. That is exactly the tale neo liberalism got people to buy. Roosevelt was right. Hungry people are not free. What is more hungry people will do whatever they need to do to get food. Roosevelt according to economist Richard Wolff, was was no friend of the poor. He simply understood that if he did not do something to help those who were so in need and who had now joined together in unions and what not there could be revolution and the rich would feel that. Neo liberalism only allows an ever fewer number of people to have almost all the wealth and hence power. It takes away liberty and power from the majority of people and it is managing at the moment by never ending war and keeping people not just divided and immune to feeling for other civilians who are being killed but even an ever growing hatred of some of their own to keep their elite place. This is not liberty for any but the new aristocracy. I know the neo cons/neo libs did not like democracy. This seems to be the way they found to tame it and it does look like fascism.

I am curious. Were you alive in those days?

 

That's a lot of hatred for a system that extended life, created unheard of prosperity, lifted human life not only out of the Dark Ages, but onto the moon, and past the solar system, Capitalism. You might say, you have a very strong dislike of the good for being good.

 

Its not hatred. Its an educated assessment. I leave the hatred to those who hate. As you cannot honestly answer what was posted and have to get into name calling, I accept you do not debate and will ignore you in future as obviously there is nowhere to go.

 

So your assessment of Capitalism and Western Civilization is that the human race was better of living with tribal chiefs, which doctors, and human sacrifices? And you don't think that that's not hatred of anything? Just a honest rational assessment of the history of human existence?

Well, if I said that dog crap is better for human life than chocolate pudding because that's just the reality of it, would you say I had the love of the ”good” at heart? At best, wouldn't I be a mischievous imp; and at worst, a vile being consumed by hatred?

There is too much evidence, an overwhelming abundance of facts, a universe of stored knowledge, that demonstrates that Western Civilization is the greatest of all time, and has been, and always be the biggest benefactor to the peace and prosperity of the human being.

No one wants to live like a primitive, not even the primitives. Only those with a deep-seated hatred of the good, of human life, of their own existence would even care to want to try-- like, you know, Pol Pot?

It is what it is. And it can't be any other way. It's reality.

So, Assange, come to the center of Western Civilization and answer for your sin of using the truth to wipe your arse. You only have the truth to fear.

 

Er… who launched the first satellite and first man into space?

Capitalism? Can't even organise an orderly, timely global transition to green energy, resulting in half of humanity having to actually increase their consumption of filthy fossil, in order to continue to lift themselves out of poverty.

 

Oh, so that's why China continues to build coal plants. Its because we didn't organize their orderly transition to green energy for them.

 

"We"?

We are all in this together - which is what you, as a good capitalist, don't recognise. China and India would starve (or melt/freeze) if they had to go green with the resources available within their own economies, without increasing use of fossil, even while much of the developed world is continuing to use filthy fossil, while claiming they are reducing, or not actually increasing usage of same.

 

LOL. You keep believing the Soviets were superior to America. You keep believing exploiting natural resources to improve one’s life is evil. And you keep believing fossil fuels are evil. Me? I’ll keep driving my kids to Disney World, and enjoying my life

 

I stated the fact: the USSR launched the first satellite and the first man into space, while capitalists were apparently more interested in grooming their pet dogs.

As to what I believe, I want to exploit the world's resources to, eg, supply free, green electricity to the world, while closing filthy fossil (avoiding not only CO2 emissions, but smog, acid rain, poisonous particulates etc). Technically achievable, after a once-off global infrastructure build, but admittedly not conceivable by capitalists.

Keep enjoying driving your kids to Disney world, while Assange is locked up as a direct result of the consequences of your still prevalent world view; but you're already living in a make-believe world of your own creation: <"reason is subject to nothing more than conscious choice"> - forgetting to add: by the instinctively self-interested individual.
Hint: self-interested, survival instincts in individuals have nothing to do with reason.

Hope this helps...

 

Yeah, but like the Soviets, you want to do it at the point of a gun. No thanks. If you can’t achieve your vision of the the future without the forcing your fellow humans to do go along with you, then you are no better than a Castro, or a Chavez, or a Maduro, or a....? Stalin.

 

The point of a gun????

Good Grief Man, your tax dollars and mine support US drone activities all over the globe. Those drones kill innocents, and have done so for years.

https://www.knowdrones.com/

Yes, there are conscientious people exposing what we already know, that the US practices terrorism on a daily basis, and that the last several presidents have been war criminals.

Blaming the Russians means you need to have a good look in the mirror.

 

I have an idea, let’s send Assange to Russia. That would be be justice. I can laugh, and live with that. He can spend his evenings with Putin. They deserve each other.

 

China has more "resources" than they know what to do with, and they are spreading across the globe like a plague of rats, building coal plants and other fossil fuel infrastructure wherever they go.
We, the western world, are the only ones falling for the idea that we have to get off of fossil fuels and pay everybody else to do the same.

 

You say I want (an international rules based system) "at the point of a gun."

As has been already pointed out, you should look in the mirror...and also listen to the voice of reason, rather than to the force of undemocratic self-interest, whether of individuals or nations.

"The unconditional veto possessed by the five governments (in the UNSC) has been seen by critics as the most undemocratic character of the UN" .​

https://www.un.org/press/en/2018/ga12091.doc.htm

<<Member States Call for Removing Veto Power, Expanding Security Council to Include New Permanent Seats.
...warned of the arbitrary use of the veto power, saying that it undermines the Council’s work and renders it unable to preserve international peace and security. “The use of the veto reflects the pure political interests of permanent Council members,” he said.>>

But as a (blind) disciple of Ayn Rand.....

"Man is a creature of volitional consciousness" - omitting...."which resides in the latterly evolved cortex brain", an omission arising from the self-serving instinct in her reptilian brain),

... you are unable to exercise your ability to reason on behalf of the community, only on behalf of yourself.

Hope this helps....meanwhile Assange is locked up in jail, a crime for which your world view must bear responsibility.

BTW, here is another example of the Right's simple-minded identification of international law (or in the link below, democratic socialism) with the collectivism of Stalinist Russia.



Kyle's exasperation* with the dumb question from that chick (Harvard educated???) at the start is spot on.
*follows at the conclusion of Bernie's speech.

 

LOL. Democratic Socialism. Suicide by vote. What difference.

Those who seek to control the economy, want to control your mind; those that want to control your mind ought to be avoided like the plague. Social Democracy is a political plague that kills liberty, which means it kills the creative soul, which means it murders the most sacred and holy of all things on earth, the independent mind.

Now, if you could look past your hatred of your betters, the good, you would notice there is nothing more democratic than the free market--free men trading freely to make their life the best it can be.

With regards to internal law, any governing body that does not recognize capitalism as the only moral economic system is not a body of government, its a gang of looting thugs.

 

Your tunnel vision, typical of the Right, manifested in this case by a Pavlovian-like reflex to the words Marxism, socialism, etc. is fully on display. Kyle and Bernie know it.

Capitalism's strength is in the efficient allocation of resources for

production of consumer goods via 'blind' markets.

Socialism provides the required vision and planning, namely to achieve universal peace, prosperity and security.

That's why the USSR launched the space age, while you were busy grooming your pet dogs.

In fact we need a synthesis of both principles, in the global economy. ​

Don't want to look at the politics?

<<Member States Call for Removing Veto Power, Expanding Security Council to Include New Permanent Seats.
...warned of the arbitrary use of the veto power, saying that it undermines the Council’s work and renders it unable to preserve international peace and security. “The use of the veto reflects the pure political interests of permanent Council members,” he said.>>

 

1. I think China already has the largest installed solar capacity in the world; the problem is they still have c.800 million people to lift out of poverty.

2. Battery/storage technology is still too expensive for most nations individually; however, no doubt - in a hypothetical situation where the survival of human civilisation depended on exiting the fossil industry in (say) no more than a decade - present technology could complete the job by UN authorisation of the IMF to create the funds necessary for the required resource allocation, without undue dislocation of the global economy. (And then of course electricity would be free for everyone....since the 'fuel' (sunshine/wind etc) is free.

Meanwhile, while we are debating these things, Assange is unjustly locked up - because of the prevailing system of MAD as the basis for international relations - which is no governance at all, in a global world.

 

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The only reason Assange is alive and a hero to some is because he stole from the USA. If he would have stolen classified info from the Russians and dumped it on the internet he would have been assassinated.

 

The USSR built armaments and space rockets while their citizens lived in poverty with no freedom and no rights.

 

Socialism? Peace? Prosperity? At the point of a gun? In violation of individual rights? That's pure evil. Your not preaching salvation; your preaching economic armageddon. Don't want any part of it.
Capitalism: The Power of the Dollar. Socialism: The power of the gun-which you'll have to bring because I will defiantly state: "Hell no to Socialism! Up with Capitalism. (BTW: You do realize after Ayn Rand, Socialism is in the sh*tCan? You are so out of it)

Capitalism, it's why when America launched the space program, Americans were watching television, driving to the drive-in theater, listening to their transistor radios, and eating at McDonald's; while Russians were drudging themselves through cold Moscow winters to wait, while they shivered in queues that stretched on, and on, and on, and on, to get state supplied toilet paper. As for Sputnik--Russia didn't have any dogs to send into space, they were eating them. Sputnik wasn't an achievement, it was a knife in the back of the living.

At least if Assange comes to America he won't face any Soviet show trials and peoples courts.

Assange, come to America and stand up for justice.

 

Damn. Some one else gets it. Good words.

 

What are you, my alter ego? Fantastic.

 

i would like to point out while capitalism and communism are great on paper but if you let it go to far its ussually pretty flawed in many ways
and mankind was already long passed the dark ages before either concept was even invented