Yay, at least you bothered to watch the video.

And yes, No Bullshit's channel is loaded with a lot of biased opinions as he leans significantly to the right. But you'd be hard pressed to argue that, despite this particular video not making the mainstream air, that the coverage has shown the depths both sides have plunged to. Australian coverage has been downright blinkered at this point, there is no violence on the left at all and it's all nazi's killing folks... /eyeroll

So instead, you could look at channels like Sargon's, who, despite being constantly labelled as an alt right dickhead, is generally slightly left of center but who calls out violence where/when ever it happens.

I've seen a lot of shit in burrowing in to this, from a lot of sources on both sides (and people who try to be objective). Objectively, if you show up in black masks with pre-bagged shit, urine, fireworks and glass bottles, weighted sap gloves, bike locks and pepper spray combined with a clear message that it's okay to attack "nazi's" who's crime is expressing their admittedly vile ideology, you're not a good person.

Red shirts vs brown shirts, Wiemar Germany pre-WWII anyone?

You can try to make this about me ('ermagerd, you caused me to downvotes the video'), but you've admitted you didn't even watch the vid. At least I gave it a fair hearing, and while I do certainly admit the videos maker has an agenda, it is still documenting what is going on out there. Turn off the fucking voice track if you're too much of a snowflake to hear commentary you don't agree with, but the footage is damning...

As for Bob, I've been fairly unequivocal in the past about his line of deeply partisan BS and the veiled racism he espouses. As per the Ruins Everything sift up (https://videosift.com/video/Why-Proving-Someone-Wrong-Often-Backfires) atm about arguing and how it generally reinforces opinions, do you think that you two haranguing each other constantly (or even you and I) is going to accomplish anything other than entrenching the other side? \= |

I was under the impression that companies like that paid 'reparations' (restitutions) based on their actions under the Nazis. Is that wrong?
What I meant was they weren't allowed to keep the spoils of the war they lost...as far as I know....and were forced to paid for their complicity, along with the nation as a whole (right? I just assumed Germany paid reparations, but I admit my post war European history is spoty at best)....that doesn't mean eradication, or even stop further success, but it would mean that later successes cannot be attributed to profiting from war crimes. I hope that's right.

My Grandfather also served in the Nazi army. It's not like they had a choice. Men were forced to fight. In the end my grandfather was arrested for desertion because he wanted to be with his family. He was put to death. His family had to be smuggled out of Germany in the dark and were brought to Canada.

There's a ton more I'm leaving out because frankly, it's none of your business. But my point is, unless you personally know the specific circumstances, which you don't, you don't have to right to pre-judge someone based on a family tree you know nothing about! And you don't. You only know the published short facts, and know nothing about the human side of his family.

In Germany, you just did what you were told or you were put to death. Many families were destroyed. Mine included. Don't go pushing that self righteous crap around like you know what you're talking about!

Thank you

I'm part way there. In government buildings, city parks, etc., sure -- take 'em down. State flags incorporating the confederate flag? Yeah. Probably time to change.

Civil war battlefields / memorials? Leave 'em up. Stone Mountain? Leave it. Placards noting that these people fought for the wrong side, for wrong reasons (90% of which boils down to slavery) can / should be included. Make it clear that the efforts of these people to try to keep slavery around were evil and wrong.

I've seen it noted that there are no monuments to Hitler in Germany. True, but reminders of the terrible Nazi legacy remain, in Germany and elsewhere. Concentration camps remain, still standing as a reminder of the human capacity for evil. Nazi flags, logos, and equipment remain in museums.

In China, images and monuments to Mao are everywhere. In spite of the fact that even the Communist Party there admits that his policies and actions were terrible -- the devastating Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, etc. Some Chinese can remember and celebrate the good that Mao did (perhaps a small list) while simultaneously acknowledging his extremely tarnished legacy.


I think that being very quick to say that ALL people on the Confederate side of the Civil War were evil and wrong while their counterparts in the Union were clearly the "real Americans" is entirely too easy. The CSA was founded almost entirely in support of a very evil primary goal -- to keep slavery around. But the people in it, even the people running it, were different from the people on the other side mainly due to accidents of birth location. They fought for what they thought was necessary / right. They were wrong. But, they were real Americans -- and acknowledging that they could have been wrong in that way reminds us that the potential to end up on the wrong side of history also exists for us.

It's easy to agree with you, because your not wrong.

I would add the caution though that oversimplifying things risks underestimating this threat to us all. This level of hatred, division, anger and violence doesn't cease to exist if we could go back and make Clinton president. It might move it down a notch, but just as good of odds it would have set it off sooner and stronger.

The threat from identity politics, nationalism and hatred is much worse than just Trumps failures as a president. The divide between people has been growing for long before even Obama was in office. It used to be that a push from the extreme left or extreme right was met by a push to more centrist ideas. Lately though the political parties and media have started taking the opposite approach and it's destroying our society.

The Republicans pushed in the direction of the extreme right with the tea party. The left push back though wasn't to woo moderate right-leaning folks, but instead pushed out to the extreme left with SJW movements like BLM. The right then pushed back again not wooing the moderate left, but doubling down the tea partiers. Then the pinnacle of this insanity was Hillary Clinton's campaign arrogantly believing she could win without wooing the moderates because who in their right minds would follow the extreme right leanings that Trump represented?

The end result has become not only less choice for all us moderates on election dates. The sinister part is it has bled off the number of moderates and made them more extreme.

The Nazi's used the brutal reparations against Germany to rise to power. The Neo-Nazi's and nationalists in america are able to similarly use the SJW policies of the left, even affirmative action, to similarly expand their base. A former coal mining town filled with young, unemployed white people that start feeling like affirmative action is making them second pick for what few jobs remain is BAD.

The situation is MUCH worse than anybody is giving credit to. The problem isn't this crowd of neo-nazis that we can outnumber, push into a corner and beat up or throw behind bars. The real threat is the tipping point were a dangerously meaningful number of folks decide joining the likes of them is in their own self interest. It ALREADY went as far as that number voting Trump. The fact the democratic party and members still don't see this threat and still don't realise they need to stop chasing this base of people away and start trying to reach out and appeal to them is baffling, and terrifying.

The deeply conservative (!) "Die Welt" in Germany has two pieces by Sy Hersh, completely debunking the supposed chemical attack by the Syrians at Khan Sheikhoun. It also paints a highly disturbing picture of the decision-making process in both the White House and the Pentagon.

The first one is a rather short conversation that includes all the goodies: the chemical attack in Syria was, once again, not a chemical attack by Syrian forces -- they hit a stash, just like both the Syrians and the Russians claimed at the time.

The piece also details that US forces are keenly aware that it was not a chemical attack, that the response (Tomahawk strike on Syrian airfield) was equally ridiculous and dangerous, and that the bellicose stance of the US vis-a-vis Russia is complete lunacy.

The longer piece by Hersh himself and displays in great details the disconnect between Trump and his military advisers, as well as between the upper echelons of the military and the troops in the region.

Just a snippet about the strike itself:

A Bomb Damage Assessment (BDA) by the U.S. military later determined that the heat and force of the 500-pound Syrian bomb triggered a series of secondary explosions that could have generated a huge toxic cloud that began to spread over the town, formed by the release of the fertilizers, disinfectants and other goods stored in the basement, its effect magnified by the dense morning air, which trapped the fumes close to the ground.

And the media went along for the ride, for the umpteenth time. Remember Brian Williams fawning about the beauty of the weapons?

At some point, this volatile mixture of warmongering and McCarthyism is going to start WW3, and they'll blame it on the Russians.

I think this quote illustrates the issue quite nicely:
“Did the Syrians plan the attack on Khan Sheikhoun? Absolutely. Do we have intercepts to prove it? Absolutely. Did they plan to use sarin? No. But the president did not say: ‘We have a problem and let’s look into it.’ He wanted to bomb the shit out of Syria.”

SPD (Germany): 23%
PSOE (Spain) : 22.6%
SPÖ (Austria): 26%
PS (France): 10%
PvdA (Netherlnds): 5.7%

Those are just some of the latest election/polling results of social-democratic parties in continental Europe. Corbyn's Labour came in at 40.1%. Yet somehow, Corbyn (and Sanders) is painted as the destroyer of his party's electability.

Watch all the trolls come out of the woodworks again, after claiming for months and months that Corbyn would be the ruin of Labour. And keep track of all the hacks who will still maintain that neoliberal party apparatchiks are the only option to win elections. The mental gymnastics will be hilarious, and the smear campaigns against Corbyn will be even more ferocious. They cannot let anyone challenge the neoliberal consensus and get away with it.

Edit: https://twitter.com/TKMarx/status/873157244967432192

We had this event in Germany last week. A group of activists showed up with a statue of Martin Luther that had some quotes of his printed on his cape. Result: activists got removed by the cops and charged with incitement.

Guess people don't like to be reminded that Luther's antisemitism in 1524 might very easily be mistaken for quotes by Hitler.

Or in Germany, or in Sweden, or in France, or...

@newtboy
i like the 'failing liver" analogy.
appropriate and easily understood.

and i can understand where milkmandan is coming from,but my perspective is more aligned with yours newt.

what consistently baffles me,is how so many people are willing to simply accept this short term strategy from our politicians.

there is no surprise when corporations push for this,they are just focusing on their own interests and bottom line,which is short term profit.

or the politicians who bow to their neoliberal masters to receive those tasty campaign contributions.

or even the banks,who again focus on their short term gains.

these players are all behaving as they always have:for their own self interest.so there should be no shock or surprise when they act exactly as they have always acted.

but when i see everyday,normal people defend the behavior and actions of oliticians,financial institutions and multi-national corporations.it baffles me as to why they would choose to do such a thing.

we can understand why those players seek to retain a system which benefits them,their shareholders and their bottom line,but that system no longer serves the interests of the people,community and society as a whole.

so why make arguments defending it?

it is,quite frankly,killing us slowly as a species.

look at germany.
that country has slowly been recruiting,educating and now poised to corner the market in:new energy,renewable energy and are leading the world in breakthrough technologies in all energy fields.

germany has long played the long game.
they now dominate the entire EU in finance,and are now focusing on dominating the globe with new energy technology.

and what are we doing here in america?
pushing through more and more neoliberal policies that immiserate the working poor,both here and abroad.desperately continuing our destruction of entire ecosystems to exploit our natural resources for:oil and gas.military conflicts,which only make this country less safe,all to exploit other nations and extract THEIR oil and gas,and the cost in human lives is absolutely indefensible.

all of it.
every single bit of it for short term gains for an extremely small minority.

and here we are,with trump opening the flood gates to further exploit and destroy our natural resources with no thought or plan for the future.no investment in our communities,nor our society as a whole.

and for those who wish to make an argument that hillary would be better.i will only concede that on a domestic level this may have been true,but hillary is a neoliberal corporatist,and she would have pushed for even MORE military intervention in the middle east.MORE sanctions against countries unwilling to play ball,in order to politically squeeze them out,and even MORE of this countries policy of "regime change" to exploit and extract from those countries their precious resources.

i strongly suspect Iran would have been next on her agenda.

so when are some of these people going to step up,and realize that both trump AND clinton are (or would have been) disasterous for us as a community,a nation and as a species?

because they both only offer short term solutions to long term problems.and those short term solutions only benefit a minority of the population.

we could turn this ship around TODAY,right now,if we so choose.
we need more politicians like elizabeth warren and tulsi gabbard.we need more integrity in our media and journalists willing to do their job and criticize power,not bow to it just for access.we need the people to become engaged and confront their representatives,and make them uncomfortable,not treat them as celebrities.

and we need to reject the system where rich people choose who we get to vote for,and begin to dismantle this two party duopoly.

because trump vs hillary?
this election cycle has just revealed that both these candidates are not the disease,but rather the symptom of a very broken,and dysfunctional political system.

we need to begin to invest in the future.
and reject the status quo as no longer being viable for the continued existence of the human species.

and with the newly energized american public,who are growing in numbers daily,and is a direct response to the unmitigated disaster that is trump.there may be hope for us yet.

because if we stay on this trajectory,we are fucking doomed.

*dead -- "'Mashup-Germany - Some Blue ...' The YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated due to multiple third-party notifications of copyright infringement. "

Mark Blyth is my third favorite Scot, right after two brothers who are dear friends of mine. After his famous interview for Athens Live, every video of his released by the Watson Institute has pretty much been a must-watch, particularly his takes on "The Deplorables" and the Front Nationale.

I got his book "Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea" after it was praised heavily over at NakedCapitalism 3-4 years ago -- to me, there is no bigger compliment for an economist than praise by Yves and the commentariat over at NC.

His takes on the mercantilism of Germany are among the best, and by far the clearest. Bill Mitchell had some great pieces on it as well, but Blyth's capacity for facilitating understanding of these concepts is on a different level entirely.

So do I disagree with him on parts of his economic analysis? Yes, but only on the fringes where MMT/functional finance is concerned.

Check out the companion talk to his book:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQuHSQXxsjM

And a recent bit:
https://youtu.be/vGiHiZyKuAE?t=43m2s (juicy, this one)

Funny thing is the old left is acting that extreme and downright lunatic, that the new right and new left are finding a lot of common ground now.

In Germany for example you can see that on Die Linke, a pure left party (links means left in German), which is actually well established. They are now suddenly talking about things that only the right wing would have talked about, so much that a new right wing party already offered some of them to join their party. Sure, they still have a lot of the old leftists among them who just keep raving in their delusions, but they are realizing reality and are leaning more and more to a policy of reality.

I said that before, if you act like extremists, you will lose the moderates and people who can still think for themselves, and thats exactly whats happening now. I considered myself more of a leftist than right winger too until a few months ago actually. Now, I would never go that far, because I know with what lunacy, hypocrisy I would be identified with. And that is actually making me mad, because there were a lot ideas from the left, that now have lost most of their credibility, throwing us all back decades, or more.

"the argument followed"...

Things Jim Jefferies said:
"She wouldn't have a Muslim ban
Oh fuck off
Fuck off
It's a fucking Muslim ban
He said there was a Muslim ban, there's a Muslim ban
It's, k, this is what you do, this is what you do Piers, you say "he hasn't done this, he hasn't done that, he's not going to do all these things", give him a fucking chance mate, you know what I mean? 'Cause Hitler didn't kill The Jews on the first day, he worked up to it.
Not ridicu... if people got hysterical in Germany right away then it wouldn't of...
You just like, you just like that you won The Apprentice and have a famous friend mate, that's all you fucking like, that's all you like
I'm not losing my audience, am I losing it?
Fuck off."

Things Jim Jefferies didn't say: any coherent arguments.

A couple.... is an bit of an understatement, we're talking a 1500% rape increase in Sweden over the last 20 years, which are disproportionately committed by immigrants.

And this was before 2015's mass wave of immigrants started to come into Germany.

To deny that there is a valid correlation between immigration and crime is just as ignorant as any of Trumps policies. Possibly more because it's coming from people who are far smarter than Trump.