Trump supporters storm Capitol Building

When making a post, please ensure it complies with this site's Main Rules at all times.
  • As I said the best thing for the world would be if the US do have another civil war and shoot themselves in the foot.

    I have been banging on about this for few years now...as the US are no better than Hitler and the Nazi's going for world domination, starting wars with anyone that gets in their way. Got to give Trump his dues, he never invaded any countries or started any wars outside the US unlike all the other presidents. OK there was Mexico and the wall but that is their border. We should have a wall like that a mile offshore and wrapped around the UK coastline with guarded border patrol gates every so often so boats, ferry's etc can get in and out.

    2020 was a great year for the American Big Tech Empire. COVID-19 meant it consolidated its position across its dominions worldwide: digital thrives when we are unable to leave our homes and have to socially distance when we do. It takes over from the face-to-face.

    Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook had an extraordinary third quarter, with $38 billion in profits on nearly $240 billion in revenue. Amazon’s profits are up 200% on the previous year. Google’s grew by 60% and Facebook’s by 30%. Even Microsoft/Alphabet made $14 billion in profit during the same period as its cloud computing business has boomed.

    So what’s been bad for restaurants, theatres, cinemas, airlines, higher education and countless other industries has been good for the world’s biggest tech companies. Big Tech is in its imperial pomp. And it’s not yet crying salt tears. There is plenty left to conquer and power to consolidate.

    But where are the European tech giants? Nowhere. We are subjects of the American empire. The US itself is home to 14 of the world’s 20 most valuable tech firms by market capitalisation. In Europe we have one – the dull but worthy SAP – and the others are, predictably, Chinese who have imperial ambitions of their own.

    The US tech sector, incidentally, is today worth more than all of the stock markets of the 27 EU member countries combined.

  • If America is to impeach anyone, it should be impeaching itself.

    There is no getting away from the fact that the USA has some distinctly different citizen segments and one of the biggest differentiators is between .......

    - White collar, socially-amenable, class-oriented joiners, moderately outgoing, aspirational in social-economic class. This segment would favour a Democrat Party that is good hearted, not overly corrupt, not too far left of centre and hence not seeking a substantial redistribution of wealth and/or hampering wealth creation.

    vs

    - Blue collar, socially robustious, outspoken, independent-minded and freedom-loving, fiercely patriotic to an America heritage from a golden age which is felt to have lost its pioneering “can-do” prairie spirit.


    Trump appealed strongly to the pioneering segment and, thanks to the justifiable suspicion of a two-faced Democrat Party, he roped in enough from the white collar social amenables who wanted America to continue serving their aspirations by remaining a country dedicated to wealth creation rather than a Leftie-Bernie societal-economic restructuring.

    During the campaigning, Trump’s main shortcoming was illiterate hyperbole, a non-stop lacing of his views and promises with superlatives and doing so in an inarticulate way that was felt to be embarrassingly unpresidential. That mattered less for the larger-than-life rough-edged pioneering segment but created scepticism and dissociation among the white collar social-amenables. Biden’s shortcoming was a non-stop prepared repertoire of campaign cliches which alienated that part of his supporter base who were able to detect obfuscations, lies and bu!!5h!t. In short, a contest between uncomfortable truths exaggerated versus lies and cliches conspicuously over-rehearsed.

    These two substandard candidates for US presidency are merely accurate reflections rather than creators of their respective core supporters.

    America’s illness lies in the way it runs itself. For quite a while it has been the Dis-United States of America. It needs to reinvent its system of democracy, governing and election of leaders. Right now there are too many citizens who don’t trust their government and when the response from Capitol Hill is to look for ways to externalise self-reproach, that is bound to inflame matters.

    I don’t view UK’s brand of democracy as much better. Although at least we’ve only got one house of over 600 partisan politicians to argue between themselves in ever-decreasing circles - while I regard the Lords as a rest home for redundant, retired or senile politicians whose only contribution is to delay political decision-making for a short while, which is surplus to need when actual decisions are so few and far between.

    Edited once, last by casablanca (February 10, 2021 at 6:15 PM).

  • In no small part America's illness is due to their press which encourages social division... Very much backers of the democratic party. The chattering classes are influenced and led by the Press Barons. I fear that Biden's term in office will do nothing to bring the American social sectors any closer. I also think that Biden himself will be merely a puppet to the bitter puppet master Nancy Pelosi.

    I do agree that the House of Lords is an anachronism, well past it's sell by date and needs to be abolished.

    The Voice of Reason

  • In no small part America's illness is due to their press which encourages social division... Very much backers of the democratic party. The chattering classes are influenced and led by the Press Barons. I fear that Biden's term in office will do nothing to bring the American social sectors any closer. I also think that Biden himself will be merely a puppet to the bitter puppet master Nancy Pelosi.

    I do agree that the House of Lords is an anachronism, well past it's sell by date and needs to be abolished.

    What, like the New York Times?

    As far as TV is concerned, CNN does a pretty good job, but if that is too centralist for anyone, there’s always Fox News!

    To be honest, I think people choose those media outlets that best suit their own narrative.

    I have long argued that the press and media should confine themselves to reporting the facts, not putting their own slant on it (except in personal opinion columns/programmes and editorial comments). Unfortunately, all too many people just want to hear what they want to hear and will make their choices accordingly.

    I think everyone agrees that our House of Lords needs reform or abolition. But we do need a second chamber to review the decisions taken by the House of Commons. The new-style upper House should comprise professionals and others with specialist or practical skills to give advice. They should be nominated by the government at the time to serve no more than 5 years unless re-nominated. They don’t need to be elected because they are advising, not making policy.

    The present system that allows hangers-on to keep claiming their allowances despite not contributing until they die is clearly well in need of reform.

  • It's interesting to note who has suffered as a result of Twitter's ban of 70'000 accounts on the QAnon conspiracy theory following the Capitol Building insurrection.

    Nigel Farage lost 50'000 followers, in Australia, right wing extremist politician Pauline Hanson lost 2'500 follower, Boris Johnson lost a total of 8'000, and Priti Patel, Liam Fox and James Cleverley also lost a few.

    Nigel Farage Loses Twitter Support After QAnon Accounts Banned

    OK... so they lost some Twitter followers, I sense you shrug. But that's not really the point.

    The point is, what were those people...... including the Prime Minister and other highly positioned Conservative Party figures......... doing following such a clearly false and inflammatory campaign, promoted by extremist right wing organisations in the first place...?

  • Biden is geriatric old fool. He will read out absolutely any speeches put before him by his manipulators. I very much doubt if he will be president for anything like the full four years. The Democratic Party has been infiltrated by Marxists and Communists. They want their champion Kamala Harris to take the top job. America will become yet another ruined country.

    .

    The Voice of Reason

  • The similarities between the US and the UK never ceases to amaze me. How many times have we been put in a position where it's voting for the better of the two evils. The problem lays with the system and there's never been any real choice. That's the democratic way, the choice out of two bad which is easy to fix to make us think our vote makes a difference. It's always a two horse race.

  • Good points Norra. The American public could only vote for two equally terrible candidates. But at our last election the UK had two clear choices. Good and Evil.. (The Conservatives and Labour). The voters overwhelmingly chose good over the evil racist policies of Commie Corbyn. That's the advantage of our parliamentary system over the American corrupt voting scenario.

    The Voice of Reason

Participate now!

Don’t have an account yet? Register yourself now and be a part of our community!