The West went bonkers and due to its brainless leaders now it's lost its hegemony! People responsible for some of the worst atrocities in the history of mankind to patronize the rest of the world how to change "for better" using it as a model was a total failure! I am from the Balkans, i.e. much closer to the Western culture, yet I don't like being patronized - and I can imagine how much more distant nations feel about the Western ideological, financial, and military grip! If the West wants to seed freedom around the globe, it should start with the freedom of not twisting arms and let them freely choose what's best for them and stop patronizing! And as they say - fix your backyard first!
but you get Kentucky Fried Chicken, Enterprise Rent-a-Car and Western Union immediately.. like weeds in the field. Plus, everything is written in Latin script AND the dollar / Euro.
The first ever rent-a-car company is German (Sixt). Enterprise sucks. I've never used WU or Moneygram - didn't need given the other options. We use the Cyrillic alphabet and local currency and most of us reject joining the Eurozone.
Anyway, you don't get my point. People lived healthily and happily before these "improvements" of life, driven by greed and hunger for power. When you ignore child mortality, people didn't live much shorter lives on the Balkans before - didn't need a bunch of meds to deal with chronic disease either. Anyway, the good thing is that many Westerners have started to realize this too recently - progress does not necessarily improve life, but you become so dependent, i.e. less free and happy!
I've never set foot in KFC. After 23 years in the States, I've been 2-3 times to Mickey Dees. I do frequent In-N-Out though. But it's not particularly amazing - I've had much better food meaty food in the Balkans - especially in Serbia and Montenegro!
This is, by far, the most important story of the decade and explains a lot of what we're seeing. The implications for the US Dollar are especially dramatic.
This explains nothing. It is a side-effect of poor domestic monetary and social policies that call into question the long term stability of Western democracy.
This is also why the US is in the manufacturing consent stage of a war with china. China may or may not have aspirations to global imperialism, but the US certainly does. And providing economic alternatives to subservience to american interests is a direct threat to that.
Such a fun term to discredit popular consensus or democratic votes. "Manufactured consent", the rallying cry of failed and unpopular ideologues. But it certainly tracks that the person who coined the term is a genocide denialist for a foreign dictator.
> A Gallup poll made on behalf of CNN and USA Today concluded that 79% of Americans thought the Iraq War was justified, with or without conclusive evidence of illegal weapons. 19% thought weapons were needed to justify the war
Remember that the popular consensus isn't always the right thing to do. We can nearly always explain this as a product of emotions and groupthink. Why then does our favorite genocide denialist resort to convoluted conspiracy theories?
>In Manufacturing Consent (1988), Chomsky and Herman discussed the media reaction to their earlier writings on the Cambodian genocide. They summarised the position which they had taken in After the Cataclysm (1979):
>>As we also noted from the first paragraph of our earlier review of this material, to which we will simply refer here for specifics, “there is no difficulty in documenting major atrocities and oppression, primarily from the reports of refugees”; there is little doubt that “the record of atrocities in Cambodia is substantial and often gruesome” and represents “a fearful toll”; “when the facts are in, it may turn out that the more extreme condemnations were in fact correct,” although if so, “it will in no way alter the conclusions we have reached on the central question addressed here: how the available facts were selected, modified, or sometimes invented to create a certain image offered to the general population. The answer to this question seems clear, and it is unaffected by whatever may yet be discovered about Cambodia in the future.”
its like a child, after being caught with chocolate on their entire face, and after a long scolding, admits that it is possible that there might have been at some point been a chocolate eating binge (but that he was correct in eating the chocolate).
you should go read what they originally said at the time of the genocide. its similar to saying we shouldnt believe the stories of jewish refugees at the time of the holocaust because the us and the nazis happened to be enemies.
> how the available facts were selected, modified, or sometimes invented to create a certain image offered to the general population
imagine if someone said this about the reporting of the holocaust. the cambodian genocide is comparable in terms of numbers to the holocaust btw. so shameless and yet people still defend these people
Their point was that the US media downplays its own atrocities while playing up those of its enemies.
Their statements seem reasonable in that context. What you’re claiming is outright denial is more like hedging, and an open admission that they don’t trust the source.
It reflects poor judgment on his part, but what you’re arguing isn’t in good faith.
Denying the holocaust today is reprehensible. Denying it in 1943 was understandable, given the limited facts at the time. Similarly, denying the Cambodian genocide in a book in 1979, literally right in the middle of it, isn’t the same as denying it today.
He sure fucking is! He's incredibly shitty and racist, and will make hypocritical excuses for all kinds of horrors. That doesn't make his insights about certain aspects of US imperialism incorrect. It's a useful concept and an accurate term to describe what is happening in this context.
I have a hard time believing any country which requires an international bailout will get more favourable terms from the New Development Bank than the IMF, as if they did, they could just convert the yuan into dollars and be better off at China's expense. What am I missing?
Fascinating. If I read the Wikipedia article, initial capital is paid in dollars. However all the bonds they issued are RMB-denominated. I wonder who the buyers are.
Countries are not friendly or hostile to each other. They have different geopolitical goals that sometimes converge and sometimes diverge.
Remember that those countries have highly pragmatic external relations policies and are probably a bit tired of being bossed around by the west.
Notwithstanding the possible merit of the decision, weaponizing the US dollar monetary system against Russia would inevitably have some unintended side effects. One of them is that countries like China, India, Iran, and Saudi Arabia would become interested in strengthening their commercial, monetary, and diplomatic ties.
I can assure you that across the other side of the fence from the western world, every leader started wondering what it would take for their countries to have their foreign reserves seized and have their banks cut off from the western banking system.
We can be certain that Saudi leaders absolutely despise the Americans and that this feeling is reciprocal. Yet, Saudi Arabia has been a strategic partner of the USA for decades because their particular interests aligned in many things.
If their common interests align, you can be sure that China and India will find common ground for agreement.
Lived in China. World class cities. Amazing public transportation locally and continentally. Low inflation. Extremely low crime. No random gun violence. Amazing natural and historic wonders.
All that plus traffic much worse than an American could imagine and 500+ 2.5 PPM days. Ultimate had to leave because the wife couldn’t handle the AQI and we had a baby on the way.
It turns out that most people don’t get randomly shot in the USA (most gun violence is suicide or with people that are already looking for trouble), but everyone gets stuck in traffic.
The traffic didn’t bother me that much, I just went to work at 6AM and came back around 3 PM. The problem was the air pollution, when you start affecting life expectancy and unlike gun violence isn’t easy to avoid.
The alternative offering is this: "BRICS nations launched the New Development Bank as an alternative to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund".
BRICS are only a thing in the mind of the Ivory Tower set.
Brazil is barely a country, has a declining QOL and is remarkably unstable. Lovely people, culture, beaches - but they're not even the best off LatAm country (that's Colombia, Chile, or Argentina)
Russia is a joke and an international pariah
South Africa is about to split in half (or not? who knows!) and is declining into a race-centered downward spiral. Again, horrible to see bad things happen to a lovely group of people, but ESKOM is emblematic of the countries problems.
India and China despise each other and are becoming more, not less hostile. India will soon be larger than China (may be today) and is betting the Chinese Miracle is ending. China has pretty openly racist views about India and doesn't treat them like equals in any way shape or form.
I guess the definition of "international" here is NATO.
BRICS have a population of 3.24 Billion. B - Billion.
NATO has a population of about 950 Million. M - Million.
BRICS countries are actively Trading with Russia.
America's favorite ally in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia is doing deals with Russia and Iran.
BTW Saudi Arabia wants to join BRICS.
Iran is friendly with Russia.
>India and China despise each other and are becoming more, not less hostile.
China has pretty openly racist views about India and doesn't treat them like equals in any way shape or form.
You are not completely wrong about this.
Still India and China Trade is USD 135 Billion.
That's after many restrictions they impose on each other.
In the Indian and Chinese mindset, it's a very practical relationship.
Don't consider each other friends, do business when necessary.
About your last point.
Chinese don't consider anyone as their equals.
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The world order is changing.
BRICS countries are not dictating to anyone how they should live.
They are just finding new opportunities among themselves.
> I guess the definition of "international" here is NATO.
Rather, UN. See e.g. various votes last year.
> BRICS have a population of 3.24 Billion. B - Billion.
> NATO has a population of about 950 Million. M - Million.
Yeah, BRICS is 3240-ish Million. M - Million. And NATO - ~0.95 Billion. B - Billion.
And the cherry on top which is more important - in NATO countries opinions are much close to the actual opinions of people, while in BRICS R, I and C are various degrees of autocracies. Just ask people in Russia what do they think about the events in Ukraine, and you won't even need to remind them of laws which essentially prohibit non-official point of view.
> BRICS countries are not dictating to anyone how they should live.
Technically, most Taiwanese neither want to be apart of the ROC or PRC. They dislike the Chiang/nationalists/KMT as much as they dislike the Mao/communists. But if the DPP renounced being the ROC and Taiwan’s claim in the rest of China tomorrow, technically ending the civil war, they know that would provoke the mainland and would definitely invade.
China’s leadership is constantly telling the world, however, that they might use their military if X happens, they simply don’t after X happens each time. If we judge china by it’s actions, you are correct, but if we judge china by what it says…
GDP (PPP) Ranking according to the IMF in USD Trillions
1. China | 30.07
2. USA | 25.03
3. India | 11.66
4. Japan | 6.10
5. Germany | 5.31
6. Russia | 4.65
7. Indonesia | 4.02
8. Brazil | 3.78
Considering that China is the premier industrial powerhouse of the world, and Russia is probably the country with the vastest reserves of natural reserves in the world, with a highly educated population, and that probably the BRICS will be soon joined by the oil behemoths of Saudi Arabia and Iran, things don't look to me as straightforward as they look to you.
PPP is a bit of a lie. Plenty of things in china, like cars and even housing, are more expensive than they are in America (you get cheap by a reduction in features/capabilities or square footage).
