@jwray I think genetic factors play a role in how aggressive someone is, I just think that in a society as genetically diverse as the US it will be impossible that that is the difference compared to other countries. My guess is that genes only explain a small part of gun violence, and no more than in other countries.

I think the vast majority of the high gun violence can be explained by culture. The US is a dog eat dog world. The mindset of the country seems to be Ann Randish / Neo Liberal / Right compared to similar countries in the rest of the world. The US seems to prefer personal freedom over common good.

In a country with that state of mind, you tend to get that everyone fights for themselves and there is less willingness to compromise. Everyone becomes defensive. Throw in poverty (another part of the same mindset) and guns and you get an explosive mix.

It is a classic prisoner dilemma. Everyone would be better off if they cooperate, yet because of lack of trust everyone defects.

Japan is one of the many places that shows what you can achieve with more social safety. It costs higher taxes and less personal freedom, you get back less death.

It depends on who the potential winning candidates are. If neither poses an apparent threat to democracy, the US, or the rest of the world, I have no problem with it.

When one candidate is a Trump or worse, I think it is completely irresponsible not to do everything you can to stop that candidate from winning, even if it's an epic nose holding if you really hate the other candidate.

And Trump is that bad. I am not a fan of Hillary Clinton. I trashed her on the email thing. And she doesn't take strong stands on things she absolutely should, like against big banks and what not. But she absolutely would not have emboldened racists and neo-nazis. She would not encourage hatred of the press and opponents to the point of dog whistling potential violence. I know that's a really low bar, but you can't have a functioning democracy without opposition that can feel free to oppose, a media that can resport basic facts without threats and being disbelieved simply because they report info contrary to what the President wants to be true, etc.

This was one of those elections that voting third party was simply not an ethical choice. Trump never hid what he was before he got elected. He was all these things in a very apparent way.

I am a moderate with no allegiance to any party. And I can say voting wise I did everything I could to stop Trump. I voted for the best chance against Trump in the primaries for my state, and I voted for Clinton in the general. I just wish more people did the same, because I think a year from now we are going to realize in a very big way how we really should have done everything we could to have stopped him from becoming president.

The way some people have written about "destroying" North Korea, it would make you think that we haven't been talking about a weapon of mass destruction which would indiscriminately incinerate women, children, pets, and leave swathes of radioactive land uninhabitable which would then leak mutation/radioactivity into the rest of the world's ecosystem.

Western civilisation has surely succumbed to some kind of mental sickness, turning us all into mindless clones repeating "the greater good" when we get promised large, colourful explosions. When war after war ends in disaster and further misery, we continue to talk about "bringing an end to suffering" everywhere in the world as though it's both a duty, and something we haven't catastrophically screwed up time after time. Worse is the underlying pride in that perceived duty; "We're gonna make their lives better whether they want it or not! OORAHH!"

The moralising about whether or not they deserve it is an exercise in narcissistic god complexes, covered with a veneer of regret, "oh no, we should have gone to war years ago, now it's too late, should we? shouldn't we?" Like it's great fun to discuss whether or not people should burn and rot to death over the course of weeks, from the comfort of your breakfast table back in good ole metropolis.

And if you decide to bomb? Ah well, it had to be done. Yes, it's a terrible burden, the kind of pain that people burning to death will never understand or thank us for. But we'll continue, because we're the hero they need not the one they want.

Trump's handling of the NK situation is a perfect marriage of the worst elements of the usual neoliberal approach (pro- profit & power orientated) and the thuggish exaggerated threat approach favoured by teenagers in playgrounds.

Our own countries are in an absolute SHIT state. With our indifference towards global warming, the developed nations are the most dangerous threat to life on Earth for *every* country. Why do we still have the arrogance to go around discussing how to improve countries that we've never even fucking been to?

Um, in case the accent didn't give it away, this news broadcast is from Australia. Stop blaming the "Clinton Obama media" - they have nothing to do with it. This is how the rest of the world views Trump.

The media you speak of is overwhelmingly liberal biased and I don't for a second doubt they take some of their cues from Americas media.
As for Trump tellling other nations to pay up for defense or telling it like it is in the climate deal and other common sense yet outrageous as viewed by the brainwashed masses ideas ..
Yes I can see why he is unpopular but he is trying to do what he was elected to do and not win speaking contests on the world stage.
As a canadian I'm pissed off to no end how we the public are supposed to suffer while well off politicians make stupid deals that result in our hydro rates tripling so they can impress the "other" nations about our commitment to saving the earth.
We are in a time of change as Justin Trudeau puts it and well it's just too damn bad for us regular folk so suck it up.
If we really want everyone to make fancy useless speeches maybe Trudeau could offer acting lessons as well as outfit the world leaders in costumes.

Um, in case the accent didn't give it away, this news broadcast is from Australia. Stop blaming the "Clinton Obama media" - they have nothing to do with it. This is how the rest of the world views Trump.

Have you ever "listened" to Trump? The amount of bullshit, lies, and self contradictory statements that comes out of his mouth - not just from Twitter - is staggering. You can't just cherry pick the things he said that's "correct", and ignore everything else.

@kir_mokum

what makes the irony even more grotesque is that:

1.look at who projectveritas actually IS.it was founded by that slug james o'keefe..yes..THAT james o'keefe,and due to CNN being such an absolute failure of journalistic integrity,they just made that repulsive man actually credible again.

2.CNN had to post a massive retraction,a formal editors note and a at least three correspondents had to fall on the sword.

3.the projectveritas video has a CNN producer openly admitting that it is about the ratings,and nothing more.the russia story makes CNN money....period.

4.there is STILL no evidence of the trump administration "colluding" with russian intelligence,but there IS evidence that the russia story is being pushed by the american "deep state" to discredit,and/or control trump.

*of course this is from independent media who are not part of the corporate media tentacled network of obfuscation,propaganda and gaslighting.

5.the only media still giving the russia story any credence is american media.the rest of the world has moved on.why? no evidence.

this whole situation stinks to high fucking heaven.

Because the rest of the world doesn't make a hard association with the stache and Adolf Hitler.

I know old people that have worn them their entire lives. No one cared. Not once did anyone make the connection.

-scheherazade

@Diogenes they're all very good points, but you say yourself that the environment doesn't give a damn about abstractions. This isn't a kickstarter where we only get the payoff if we hit the target, it's more like a charity where every reduction we make saves lives.

Is the US pulling out going to cause China to rethink their gaming of the system [edit: if that's indeed what they're doing]? I think it's more likely to have the opposite effect, where other counties can now make the kind of argument you're making: "if China's cheating and the US are out , what's the point in us sticking to our targets."

Trump's right that this kind of thing makes the rest of the world stop laughing at him. Even the leaders have gone from "what a clown" to "what an asshole" [adjectives and expletives removed].

Bob i hate to break it to you, but America has started to become a little bit of a joke in the rest of the world... Your rude, pig headed and frankly severely lacking in intelligence and personal skills president is taking you backwards. But that's no indictment on Americans, because many states have thankfully backed the climate accord, and if non-Trump aligned Americans are to blame for anything, it is only not being able to force the correct candidate through to beat Trump. If we want the drift of American political opinion in Europe these days, we have to watch late night talk shows rather than listening to the president.

Three things happened RE: Paris accord.
One - the American president has used a European stage to demand spurious money from Europe and turned them publicly into opponents rather than allies. Even the worst Brexiteers had the good grace to make that claim on smaller stages where they could be laughed at - it's banter, not a serious political point, except to Trump! Apparently friendship is now an issue of economics, so if Russia decided to start a war, America's involvement might depend on how much it costs to be involved (or who Trump's personal mates are, or what Russia has on him) despite being a key cause of war.
Two - other countries including China all came together to show international brotherhood *against Trump*. This is now Trump's position in the eyes of worldwide public opinion; Trump stands opposed to the entire rest of the world save two countries Syria and Nicaragua! America has *stepped away* from the rest of the world. So now the rest of the world is by definition leading America, showing her the way.
Three - Trump has shown us that he is not interested in listening to the best logical reasoning, the best mathematical models, from the combined talent of the best minds that this planet has produced. So he's completely unreliable.

I think even Trump's fiercest proponents must now start to admit, in private, that they didn't get what they thought they were getting. He is a psychological child with the arrogance of a rich grown man.

Region *blocked. Perhaps the USA doesn't want the rest of the world knowing how embarrassing their political circus has become?

You say that like those are bad things.

Taking money from the rich? Fuck yes. In case you missed it, they've been taking money from you for decades.

Killing babies? Well, most people would call it "allowing a woman to decide what happens to her body", but either way, there are too many damn people on the planet, so anything that lowers the birth rate is good.

Oppressing business owners? How exactly? Making them pay their employees a fair wage? Not allowing them to discriminate against people? Making sure they don't fuck up the environment? Zero problems with any of that.

Allowing illegal immigrants to enter? Leaving aside the fact that that is completely untrue, immigrants commit less crime, work harder and contribute to your economy. Get rid of the immigrants and watch your country fall apart in a week.

Get rid of capitalism? The fucking DEMOCRATS? Seriously, you think the democrats are socialist? You seriously need to see the rest of the world. In most other developed countries the democrats would be the right wing party.

But capitalism is ultimately on borrowed time anyway. Not in the short to medium term, but in 30-50 years, capitalism won't be sustainable. You can't have a capitalist system if the majority of the populace is unemployable (see automation, AI, etc).

And then Christians wonder or get upset that I think Christianity is a sham... got to love the "Foremost expert on terrorism" on the one guy. As I've said before, even if I was still a Christian, at this point I'd be 99% sure the whole Republican movement is part of the Anti-Christ movement. It is the Christians after all that need deceived, not the rest of the already Hell bound world. What better way to deceive them, than to make them stand up for everything Jesus stood against, while standing against everything He stood for, all the while proclaiming how they alone were the true Christians the way the Republican/Christian right claim. As a bonus, they make Christianity so vile, it repeals anyone away from even considering Christianity, when it's most public image isn't one of love and acceptance that Jesus taught, but of bigotry and hate that is at the core of the right today. But I know these sort of people, both sides of my family are it, and they think the rest of the world is being deceived, that the Democrats practice a fake Christianity ("if you read the Bible you couldn't be Democrat, you'd have to be Republican" never considering that Democrat Christians say the same thing but reversed) and that we are clearly in the end times, which is why global warming doesn't matter, as Jesus will be back long before we can do any real harm... plus Revelations talks about the bad weather in the end times anyhow.

I 100% regret every second of my life that was wasted being such a person as these, and believing their filthy lies... and for most of these televangelist and Fox news types, they know they are lying, not just deluded, which the smaller preachers and many in the faith are.

I'd say more, but I shouldn't really watch these videos, it just fuels my anger at them, and then I have a hard time focusing on the actual good in the world.

"Hillary Clinton was the lesser of two evils...."

I beg your pardon Bill? What part of lesser of two evils was an endorsement for Trump?

If one were to describe Hillary as the lesser evil, would that not effectively be an endorsement? The underlying inference being that Trump was the greater of the two evils surely?

I think I'll just chalk that one up as a brain fart and assume he said it bass aackwards.

Though lets not forget Mrs Sandwitch would have given us TPP and the Syrian no fly zone.

Genuinely struggling to call it between who would have been most disastrous.

Trump was probably worse for America, I suspect Clinton might have been worse for the rest of the world. Not that it matters what any of us think in hindsight.

& yes @LiquidDrift it clearly isn't an actual Muslim ban! The fact that the majority of the worlds Muslim population is not affected by it should probably have been a big clue.

I guess though, given Trumps rhetoric, people can be forgiven for seeing it that way.

But yes it's a list of seven countries compiled by Obamas administration for being hotbeds of terrorism (if not before being bombed, certainly after). Not even close to banning all Muslims from entering the country.

Probably useless and needlessly divisive, but the man does need to at least appear to be fulfilling his campaign promises.

I certainly don't think the Nazi comparisons are at all helpful. There's no shortage of genuine things to attack the man on, hysterical fabrications just make him look right.

You know you're on shaky ground when Piers Morgan is the voice of reason

How about I quote Steven Erickson's succinct summary of humankind:
Children are dying.

I never advocated killing children, I advocated quite the opposite, killing the people who are killing children.

Again, it's context. Should the allied bombing campaign in WW2 have been abandoned because of the huge toll of children they were killing?

I get it, and even said upfront I know you refuse to acknowledge the act of war context, just at least acknowledge that's the context within which my statements were made.

All I really can ask is acknowledge that children are still dying even if we steadfastly sit safely on this side of the ocean ignoring the rest of the world's problems. Acknowledging the possibility that killing the killers could at least theoretically have the potential to reduce the body count would be even better, but I'm not crossing my fingers that you accept that as a possibility.

@radx and @enoch

radx said:
Painting Truthout, Truthdig, Counterpunch, Alternet, BlackAgendaReport, NakedCapitalism and others as stooges of the Kremlin is such an obvious attempt to discredit dissenting voices that it's, quite frankly, rather offensive.

enoch said:
i have considered his works and found them informative and reflective of our current situation.

just as i have found:howard zinn,noam chomsky,amy goodman,jeremy scahill,laura poitrus,glenn greenwald,paul jay,richard d wolffe.

All of the outlets and authors listed above have been very thorough or exhaustive in documenting the evils of America or Capitalism(as represented by America). The length, depth and detail they have all given and time spent documenting any and every instance is almost breath taking. For a long time, I sort of sat closer to you both by looking at the merits of each instance and case weeding through which stories were accurate, which ones were complete, which ones were misleading or fair. Lots and lots of the coverage from those groups and individuals were very accurate.

Here's the counter balance though, how much time, detail and effort have all of those groups combined given to any positive outcomes of America or Capitalism(as represented by America). How much time, detail and effort have all of those groups combined given to the evils of any alternatives or opposing forces that would or did fill the voids were America isn't involved? It's crickets all around.

Chomsky's work alone could fill a library with the thorough documenting of America's evil corporate execution of class war on the workers of the world. How many books and documentaries can we count form the entire group that attempt anything similar for China, Russia, Middle Eastern nations, heck, the rest of the world combined?

I don't draw attention to this to point out that anything they have all observed is even wrong or incorrect. I draw attention to the glaring omission of similar documentation of alternatives. As it stands, a country like Russia couldn't dream of a better and more effective propaganda coup than the work of these groups and individuals. That doesn't in anyway say any of them are in allegiance with Russia, or even like anything about Russia. It still stands that even if Russia set out to discredit and smear America and leave itself looking clean, it couldn't pay people to do a better job of it. That's something worth considering and the deep, deep absence of balance and perspective that the listed sources represent is DAMAGING when taken in isolation.

Perhaps more pointedly, is the problem with Breitbart merely with it's fact checking department? They are, in as close as investigated them both, about on a Howard Zinn level for accuracy/honesty. None the less, it's the facts they willingly and knowingly leave out that makes them so damaging. The fact they fall right wing instead of left wing doesn't make their damage so much more appalling to me.