The US Republican Party - A Threat To The World?
- Thread starter maxflinn
- Start date
Just wondering where were max and many of his friends if the USA, like he is now,was thinking that there is no need to be involved in a far away war...
Arye
And I hadn't hear one Brit saying : We don't need the USA helping us with
The Ukraine problem. I even not sure that Europe is by any meaning threat against Putin's will to expand Russia if the USA is not in the background.
There is reality outside there and there is a totally different reality in the forum. Putting it "gently" I'm not sure that the reality in the forum is the true one.... I'll not forget the posts here when the Arab Spring started in Egypt, but it seems to me that you are forgetting.
I also don' forget posts about the Isis: A small organizations in a far place...
Maybe your understanding of the world is not completely right?
Arye
The Ukraine problem. I even not sure that Europe is by any meaning threat against Putin's will to expand Russia if the USA is not in the background.
There is reality outside there and there is a totally different reality in the forum. Putting it "gently" I'm not sure that the reality in the forum is the true one.... I'll not forget the posts here when the Arab Spring started in Egypt, but it seems to me that you are forgetting.
I also don' forget posts about the Isis: A small organizations in a far place...
Maybe your understanding of the world is not completely right?
Arye
maxflinn
pfm Member
Ha, I'd never thought of that.It has occurred to me (maybe I'm late on this one!?) that maybe in the UK even the Green Party may be getting most of it's funding from manufacturers of wind turbines, wave power installations, solar panels etc rather than eco concerned individuals....
They probably are
Colin L
High-tech low-life
The Ukraine problems is to a very large extent a creation of the US. There is video of Nuland bragging that they spent $5bn developing "democracy" and "protest groups" in the Ukraine to put in place a right-wing Euro friendly government, all the better to extent Nato to Russia's borders.
Is there any surprise that there is a response?
Is there any surprise that there is a response?
I like living in America, Ellie and I are planning on moving back there as I am not happy in the UK, I gave it 15 years and frankly I am living in a lovely house in a culture that outside the valley I dislike so I remain in the valley and never leave it. As a teetotal I get on very well out there and all my US friends are asking me when I am coming back - a few days ago we decided to move. Portland or Seattle most likely, San Franciso is a bit too much but Santa Cruz is an option We don't need citizenship yet, our PhDs will enable us to move in the short term but a very real descision has been made so much so we booked an interview with the U.S. embassy and that is "a good thing."
So we will move and use UK rental income (and our RHI and Solar subsidies) as incomes to pay for rent in the USA.
For me America is the East Coast and the West coast, the stuff in the middle is too vast to really categorise one way or the other but a vast majority of working class middle Americans I have met have all been extremely easy to get along with, they don't pry, they don't want government in their lives like the British do and they are ok as long as you are ok with gun ownership. Healthcare is a problem but I am working on that.
My main reason to move is because I can get pony episodes a full 8 hours earlier than the UK.
So we will move and use UK rental income (and our RHI and Solar subsidies) as incomes to pay for rent in the USA.
For me America is the East Coast and the West coast, the stuff in the middle is too vast to really categorise one way or the other but a vast majority of working class middle Americans I have met have all been extremely easy to get along with, they don't pry, they don't want government in their lives like the British do and they are ok as long as you are ok with gun ownership. Healthcare is a problem but I am working on that.
My main reason to move is because I can get pony episodes a full 8 hours earlier than the UK.
maxflinn
pfm Member
PaulMB
pfm Member
Right, the Americans should have taken lessons from the British (Suez, Cyprus, Palestine), from the French (Indochina, Algeria) or maybe from the Soviets (systematic destruction, with show-trials and executions, of democracy in eastern Europe, Afghanistan, various civil wars in Africa).
I sometimes wonder if British anti-Americanism is not a sour grapes phenomenon, since the UK is no longer a "world power."
And while the United States is bitterly criticised, it is also expected to step into situations (Yugoslavia?) that Europe, as single countries or as one entity (ha ha), is completely incapable of tackling.
maxflinn
pfm Member
One might argue that is true apart from during Carter's reign?
No US involvement in war during that time AFAIK.
Yank
Bulbous Also Tapered
We refer to the stuff in the middle as "flyover states".
The farther you get from a major body of water (ocean, gulf, great lake...), the less sane the culture gets.
Steven Toy
Accuphase newbie
52 hostages held in the US embassy in Tehran for a year might disagree, Max.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis
Alan Brown
Registered LUser
Most of that resonates with me. Except the ponies, but I love my trek, so perhaps that will follow in time? As I mature...?
I was thinking about Portland recently as so much music I love seems to come from there, surely a sign I could feel at home there. However, I wonder if a place which rains so much would truly suit you? Maybe more sun is a consideration? Mind you, looking at where you are currently...
Laura Veirs is from Portland, her beautiful 'Sun Song' reflects what I'm getting at:
First rays of light are coming through
Been seven months since I saw that much blue
Water rushing in the banks
Freed from the ice, it has the sun, the sun to thank
It has the sun, the sun to thank
Matches inside your golden hair
Catch all the light, I fight to death, I swear
As all the other mothers would remember
Stalked by winter solace in a small, warm hand
We got the sun, the sun to thank
We got the sun, the sun to thank
Every morning rising to the East
Shadows fall behind me, shining never sleep
Till it'll be what I'm asking, no regret
That you pin the arrows in the wheel
Sun, the sun to thank
We've got the sun, the sun to thank
We got the sun, the sun to thank
We've got the sun, the sun to thank
There. Reading it again, I reckon I could get with that, sun or no. Achingly beautiful. Apparently it rains for 8 months of the year...
Alan Brown
Registered LUser
maxflinn
pfm Member
Might disagree with what?
Arkless Electronics
Trade: Amp design and repairs.
Many of the worlds conflicts and "flash points" are of USA making even if there are no American "boots on the ground". The Ukraine situation is one and most of the M.E situation is another one. USA would rather have civil wars and regional conflicts going on (and killing millions) as it keeps the protagonists busy killing each other and using up their weapons stock piles rather than organising themselves into proper armies with modern technology which could threaten USA/Israel interests... They then make a fortune selling arms to selected (puppet) regimes...
I really hope Iran gets it's A bomb in order to balance regional/world power somewhat. How dare the west try to tell the whole world whether they can/cannot have the same weapons they have! Hypocrisy of the highest order! They may as well just say "we require Iran to stay weak and incapable of defending itself against us... just so we can "swat" Iran whenever we choose without fear of any reprisal"
I really hope Iran gets it's A bomb in order to balance regional/world power somewhat. How dare the west try to tell the whole world whether they can/cannot have the same weapons they have! Hypocrisy of the highest order! They may as well just say "we require Iran to stay weak and incapable of defending itself against us... just so we can "swat" Iran whenever we choose without fear of any reprisal"
Greg
2t5b
though this is why that happened:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'état
"The 1953 Iranian coup d'état, known in Iran as the 28 Mordad coup, was the overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran Mohammad Mosaddegh on 19 August 1953, masterminded by the United States (under the name TPAJAX Project) and backed by the United Kingdom (under the name 'Operation Boot').[3][4][5][6]
Mossadegh had sought to audit the documents of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), a British corporation (now BP) and to limit the company's control over Iranian petroleum reserves. Upon the refusal of the AIOC to co-operate with the Iranian government, the parliament (Majlis) voted to nationalize Iran's oil industry and to expel foreign corporate representatives from the country.[7][8][9] Following the coup in 1953, a military government under General Fazlollah Zahedi was formed which allowed Mohammad-Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran (Persian for an Iranian king),[9] to effectively rule the country as an absolute monarch. He relied heavily on United States support to hold on to power until his own overthrow in February 1979.[7][8][9][10] In August 2013, 60 years after, the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) admitted that it was in charge of both the planning and the execution of the coup, including the bribing of Iranian politicians, security and army high-ranking officials, as well as pro-coup propaganda.[11][12] The CIA is quoted acknowledging the coup was carried out "under CIA direction" and "as an act of U.S. foreign policy, conceived and approved at the highest levels of government."[13]
Iran's oil had been discovered and later controlled by the British-owned AIOC.[14] Popular discontent with the AIOC began in the late 1940s: a large segment of Iran's public and a number of politicians saw the company as exploitative and a central tool of continued British imperialism in Iran.[7][15] Despite Mosaddegh's popular support, the AIOC was unwilling to allow Iranian authorities to audit the company accounts or to renegotiate the terms of its access to Iranian petroleum. In 1951, Iran's petroleum industry was nationalized with near-unanimous support of the Majlis in a bill introduced by Mossadegh who led the Iranian nationalist party, the National Front. In response, Britain instigated a worldwide boycott of Iranian oil to pressure Iran economically.[16] Initially, Britain mobilized its military to seize control of the British-built Abadan oil refinery, then the world's largest, but Prime Minister Clement Attlee opted instead to tighten the economic boycott[17] while using Iranian agents to undermine Mosaddegh's government.[18] With a change to more conservative governments in both Britain and the United States, Winston Churchill and the Eisenhower administration decided to overthrow Iran's government, though the predecessor Truman administration had opposed a coup.[19] Classified documents show that British intelligence officials played a pivotal role in initiating and planning the coup, and that the AIOC contributed $25,000 towards the expense of bribing officials.[20]
Britain and the US selected General Zahedi to be the prime minister of a military government that was to replace Mosaddegh's. Subsequently, a royal decree dismissing Mosaddegh and appointing Zahedi was drawn up by the coup plotters and signed by the Shah. The CIA had successfully pressured the weak monarch to participate in the coup, while bribing street thugs, clergy, politicians and Iranian army officers to take part in a propaganda campaign against Mosaddegh and his government.[21] At first the coup appeared to be a failure when, on the night of 15–16 August, Imperial Guard Colonel Nematollah Nassiri was arrested while attempting to arrest Mosaddegh. The Shah fled the country the next day. On 19 August, a pro-Shah mob paid by the CIA marched on Mosaddegh's residence.[22] According to the CIA's declassified documents and records, some of the most feared mobsters in Tehran were hired by the CIA to stage pro-Shah riots on 19 August. Other CIA-paid men were brought into Tehran in buses and trucks, and took over the streets of the city.[23] Between 300[1] and 800 people were killed because of the conflict.[2] Mosaddegh was arrested, tried and convicted of treason by the Shah's military court. On 21 December 1953, he was sentenced to three years in jail, then placed under house arrest for the remainder of his life.[24][25][26] Other Mosaddegh supporters were imprisoned, and several received the death penalty.[9]" ...
G
Guest432
Guest
The UK was never really a world power but unlike the yanks it only takes a few to do something that would require 1000's of spams. This was why the Navy was able to dominate the Oceans with a relatively small highly trained and organised fleet.
Perhaps the US just has sour grapes because they have to throw resource at everything compared to a tiny little island.
sean99
pfm Member
Unfortunately due to "protections" for less populous states inherent in the US system of government the less sane parts of the US wield disproportionate influence over the Federal government.
tones
Tones deaf
It all comes down to my old belief that the modern nation-state is the worst invention ever foisted on the world. We get a silly bit of rag to salute, a silly song to sing, saying how great we are, and we are expected to go forth and fight and die for for this entity and its purported glory/honour/worthiness/divine ordination. And all of these nation-states are the same - perceived national interest trumps everything every time.
Steven Toy
Accuphase newbie
Twice round the bowl?