I couldn’t agree more. Also:
“America is one party state. However in the typical American exuberance, they have two of them”
US Democracy = Vote Far Rights or Fascists to combat this terrible Comunism, wearing shirts in Stars and Stripes design. Neo-liberal feudalism
And that stuff about abortion shouldn’t even be there after they didn’t do anything for it.
Really the only thing that needs to be put in the “Democrats only” section is: Lip Service. It sums up every issue they are supposedly “better” on.
Last election the uncomitted wanted basically only lip servce but didn’t get even that.
the rights were appealed under genocide Joe
… By the Supreme Court Trump packed?
To be fair, you have to credit Democrats with Obamacare which was really a way to improve the lives of poorer people
And the 2000s bank bailouts.
We may have got here eventually anyway, but things are a lot worse for Americans right now because of Trump’s Republicans. Let’s not lose sight of that when complaining about the shit they have in common.
There’s also nobody who might emerge out of the right who would bring something that will make life for everyone better. Only the Democrats have a chance of doing that and engineering a better system that might eventuallyundermine their own political hegemony. Would they without pressure? Of course not. But the right will never even be pressured to do anything like that intentionally by it’s base, almost by definition basically.
Only the Democrats have a chance of doing that and engineering a better system that might eventuallyundermine their own political hegemony.
No they don’t
But the right will never even be pressured to do anything like that intentionally by it’s base,
The Democrats couldn’t be pressured to stop doing genocide even at the cost of losing the election
I don’t think you’re listening. That’s one of the issues both sides share in common that sucks. Doesn’t change the fact they’re our only hope.
I’m listening, I just think you’re wrong.
And I brought up that issue specific to show that the Democrats also “will never even be pressured to do anything like that intentionally by it’s base”
Progressive social change has always occurred under the auspices of the left-most of the two major parties. That’s just how it overwhelmingly is. What’s not to agree with? How do you think progress will happen next time it happens?
If your only hope is a party comitting genocide you might as well abandon it and look elsewhere
Where?
PSL, DSA or whoever organizes where you currently are
“The United States, too, has a single party system. But in typical American extravagance they have two of them.”
Don’t remember the last time the Democrats had military storming our streets and black bagging US residents en masse and deporting them to war zones like South Sudan or Libya despite those people having zero ties to those countries.
This reeks of fucking shitpost right-wing propaganda.
war zones like South Sudan or Libya despite those people having zero ties to those countries.
Damn I wonder why Libya is like that!
You absolute ghouls literally don’t see foreigners as human
I dont think there is a lib alive who remembers the dems role in the destruction of Libya other than those directly involved in it.
Another difference. Republicans just convinced Europe that the USA cannot be trusted anymore as a commercial and defence party, and new deals should be made with the rest of the world to move away from the Dollar.
Which is a good thing
I fucking hope, but we already seen that at 1st Trump term and after Biden was elected entire EU again got back to licking US boot, including something as unbelivable as fully allowing nordstream sabotage.
I don’t know what to believe about Nordstream, but I’m not even mad if that accelerates the transition out of fossil fuel.
FYI: in the EU we don’t play the “it was Biden vs it was Trump” game. We stop at “it was the US”. Besides marginal sympathy for some presidents or over the top ridiculous facts, US politics is not that visible or interesting here.
Bullshit. German politics is riddled with the same talking points as the US. Just today i read a german article talking about a “german roe v wade”
Of course, also in the EU there are far right groups like ECR and Patriots. It doesn’t mean that they rule though.
BTW, I struggle to imagine Germans discussing certain topics using American terms.
In seiner Stellungnahme gegenüber „t-online.de“ führte Reimer weiter aus, dass er Brosius-Gersdorf, deren Wahl vor einer Woche aufgrund mangelnder Unterstützung innerhalb der Unionsfraktion ausgesetzt worden war, als Aktivistin wahrnehme, „die über eine Neuinterpretation des Grundgesetzes ein deutsches ,Roe v. Wade‘ erreichen will“. Darin sehe er einen „Bruch mit der gesamten bisherigen Rechtsprechung des Bundesverfassungsgerichts zu Art. 2 Abs. 2 GG“. Jener Artikel besagt: „Jeder hat das Recht auf Leben und körperliche Unversehrtheit. Die Freiheit der Person ist unverletzlich. In diese Rechte darf nur auf Grund eines Gesetzes eingegriffen werden.“
Republicans just convinced Europe that the USA cannot be trusted anymore
FYI: in the EU we don’t play the “it was Biden vs it was Trump” game. We stop at “it was the US”.
What?
What what?
You literally just said that it was because of Republicans that the EU soured on the US and now you’re telling me that in the EU you don’t look at which party is in charge but at the US as a whole. Do you not see how these statements are contradictory?
It don’t though, it just rises the price of energy because the gas still flows, even more than before, just from USA, Norway and yes, sill Russia, even more of it, but through middlemen. The sabotage also caused significant ecological catastrophe in the Baltic.
About the sabotage itself you have three versions available:
- Truth, that USA bombed it, possibly with participation of Norway (note above paragraph, curiously the very same countries that gained the most on it, qui bono, eh?)
- USA version, where Ukraine did it, despite lacking means
- Official German/EU version, that is no version, because both above versions means that Germany is either vassal (ver1) or war ally (ver2) of country which attacked Germany in a biggest peacetime sabotage in German history.
Didn’t Biden basically announce the US was gonna do it before it happened?
Yup, and immediately after Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski, closely related to atlanticist circles, thanked USA for that.
It made it painfully clear to the public opinion how much society relies on gas.
Unfortunately the general public doesn’t understand long term reasoning: nor climate change, nor energy independence. If it doesn’t happen right now, it’s ignored by most people. The high spike in price worked really well to open a debate to support more renewables or nuclear power.
Consider that even now, after all that happened, the EU has a noisy minority trying to shoot down alternatives to gas.
No, that one belongs in the shared space too. It was Biden who literally bombed the infrastructure that made it possible for Germany to meet its energy needs without reliance on buying US oil/lng. Who froze all foreign assets that belonged to Afghanistan, essentially stealing billions of dollars that belonged to the Afghani people? Biden. Who froze all Russian assets and tried to make it illegal on a global scale to do business with “the bad guy” state? Biden. And while you may hate Russia if you’re a typical propagandized westerner, that doesn’t mean most of the rest of the world, particularly global south countries, do as well.
From 3 years ago:
“With Russia losing access to its foreign currency reserves, a message has been sent to all countries that they can’t count on these money stashes to actually be theirs in the event of tension. As such, it may make less and less sense for global reserve managers to hold dollars for safety, given that they could be taken away right when they’re most needed. Russia isn’t the first country to get this lesson in recent months. The Biden administration’s move to seize Afghanistan’s cash assets and prevent their access by the Taliban was another recent signal that reserves can be frozen.”
That was all thanks to the Democrats during the Biden regime. Trump is putting as many nails into that coffin as he can, but we shouldn’t pretend Republicans are the only ones responsible for showing the world that the dollar is dangerous and the US cannot be trusted.
No man, sorry. European here and before this last Trump term nobody cared about the US, nor knew what people did over there.
Now we see all the craziness from Harvard to ICE, and the nonsense of vaccines and Medicare. Some people and companies are actively seeking alternatives to American products, we are talking about an European tech stack for the first time, a multi billion program just started to replace US in defence, there are funds specifically designed to attract American scientists, the EU is coming for startups too, and intense chats with Canada, China and others try to replace the US market.
You are free to believe that Dem were the same, but I can assure you that nothing like the last 6 months pushed the EU to break up with the US and stand up alone. Which is great for us in the old continent.
To tell the full story though, there are some EU groups that still try to tighten the bonds with the US. I’m talking about ECR and the Patriots with leaders such as Meloni and Wilders. They are the far right xenophobic homophobic nazi-fascist area that are basically a noisy minority that a few years ago was all for Putin.
Europeans may be a bit slow on the uptake, considering much of Europe is still imperial core and it’s all still the global north, but just because European liberals have been struggling to let go of the propaganda that the U.S. is a benevolent force for “order” in the world doesn’t mean that it is suddenly Trump alone that has irrevocably damaged U.S. soft power as well as a positive image of the U.S. in Europe.
and the nonsense of vaccines and Medicare
More examples of issues that were major in the “discourse” under Biden (and earlier). Come on.
Some people and companies are actively seeking alternatives to American products, we are talking about an European tech stack for the first time, a multi billion program just started to replace US in defence, there are funds specifically designed to attract American scientists, the EU is coming for startups too, and intense chats with Canada, China and others try to replace the US market.
And a lot of this takes longer planning than just the 6 months Trump has been in office again. You may not have been aware of it, but many were (I may not be a European, but I have been speaking with plenty of them especially since February of '22). The U.S. has been advertising the fact that its is tightening its leash on its vassals (you Europeans) for a while now, which in turn is unintentional but unconcealable admission that its empire is struggling. Those with eyes to see it, and there are many, most certainly have been watching since long before Trump. I won’t argue that Trump hasn’t ramped it up in terms of how blatant it is with his overt buffoonery and open fascism (as opposed to the Democrat’s false pretense of not being fascist), but to say it’s something that the Democrats do not share in, or haven’t deeply contributed to just as Trump has, well you’re burying your head in the sand.
I honestly don’t mean offense by this because it is so heavily dependent on what you hear in your MSM, but you and those who think this is new are slow on the uptake when compared to Europeans who closely follow this sort of thing, and Europe on the whole considering its relationship to US imperialism is going to be slow on the uptake compared to the rest of the world. And if we’re talking about the rest of the world beyond Europe already knowing these things, well let me just say: BRICS+. But honestly, if you think that even European leaders didn’t take a major fucking lesson from the blowing up of Nordstream, you’re… well, I guess just living under the same rock most of the population who gets their news from major outlets are living under - still doesn’t change the fact that the absolute dismantling of U.S. soft power and power projection (as “defenders” or as a country with whom deals and promises will be kept) is 100% a bipartisan project.
One characteristic of the European politics is that it’s slow. Painfully slow. With 27 countries with veto power and different interests it is certain that at any time you will have any possibility on the table together with its opposite.
Making an EU independent from the US has been certainly a dream for several groups since decades. The idea never got much traction because it seemed more convenient to go in the direction of a single market with the US for some kind of goods.
That was true until Trump’s second term with the tariffs, the NATO power play, and the BS around Greenland. Now there is no doubt that the EU should seek independence from the US and seek agreements with Canada and China first. The only question is how quickly it should be done because some countries (like Germany, Italy and Greece) have more to lose than others and there is the issue with Ukraine.
That said, you are free to think that with Biden it was all the same (or even worse).
Hostility to Russia, Iran & China
Now we have to guess which country’s propaganda machine is responsible for this post.
It’s Russia. It’s always Russia.
Naturally, the common people don’t want war. . . but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.
Fucking bootlicker.
If someone doesn’t support the Iraq war they must be a terrorist sympathizer.
What are your thoughts on the 1999 War in Dagestan?
What are your thoughts on the sand war of 1962? Motherfucker we’re talking about “Russia is influencing the world into hating Iran and China” dumbfuck what the hell does this even mean
Amazing.
It’s Russia. It’s always Russia.
As if your own country hasn’t been filling your head with propaganda from the day you were born 🙄
Oh, but that’s different. We’re the good guys!
Everything i don’t like is “russian”.
Blaming problems on an external enemy to distract from internal problems and also to assemble the people behind a “strong man” leader.
Women = Stuff
Democrats
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Retain marriage rights for gay couples.
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Expand legality of recreational drugs.
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Free food for schoolchildren.
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Tax credits for families with children.
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Subsidized for free childcare.
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Expand electric car charging nationally.
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Subsidize sustainable fuel sources.
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Fact based education standards.
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Stop racism in policing.
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Expanded healthcare subsidies.
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Preserve democracy.
Republicans
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Being gay or trans should be illegal.
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White supremacy is great!
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Christianity as national religion.
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Privatize the post office and weather service.
*Eliminate the EPA, Department of Education.
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Defund IRS.
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Disenfranchise nonwhites and women.
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Antivax agenda.
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Expand fossil fuel use.
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Eliminate worker safety laws.
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Eliminate collective bargaining and union rights.
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Defunding science research.
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Deregulate crypto.
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No regulations on AI.
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No recognition of child’s educational or bodily autonomy rights.
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Eliminate hate crime laws except for straight white men.
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End democracy, install fascist dictatorship.
But yeah, they are totally the same, right guys? RIGHT!?!
I think you dropped this:
Democrats
- Bombed kids
- Tortured innocent people
- Increased the surveillance state
- Took money from the poor and working class, and gave it to their rich friends
- Spent billions on wars, while claiming that they couldn’t afford to fix our healthcare or housing problems
- Boasted about deporting more people than Republicans
- Backed a Genocide
Wait, where does this not apply to Republicans?
Who said it doesn’t?
You kinda implied it by titling it “Democrats:”
Either you’re stupid or you’re lying.
Fact based education standards.
Teaching a bunch of lies about American exceptionalism and how imperialism is actually good isn’t what I’d call “fact based”
Stop racism in policing
Right like how democrats in nearly all major cities increased police funding and almost none passed any meaningful reform.
Expanded healthcare subsidies
But don’t remotely consider universal healthcare
Preserve democracy
Preserve the status quo which I wouldn’t call a democracy. A democracy enacts the will of the people, democrats don’t even have a democratic primary for their own party.
Teaching a bunch of lies about American exceptionalism and how imperialism is actually good isn’t what I’d call “fact based”
That’s a right thing, not a left thing.
Right like how democrats in nearly all major cities increased police funding and almost none passed any meaningful reform.
A lot of left leaning places pushed consent decrees, for example:
https://www.chicagopolice.org/community-policing-group/consent-decree/
But don’t remotely consider universal healthcare
The list time Democrats had a filibuster-proof trifecta it was for about 2 months and they passed Obamacare. Since then Republicans have nullified about 40% of it.
Preserve the status quo which I wouldn’t call a democracy.
Except by definition it is a democracy. Like it or not, most people vote for the status quo.
Except by definition it is a democracy.
Barely.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index#List_by_country
You’ve certainly whitewashed Dems quite a lot. You’re fundamentally not wrong though. As bad as the Dems are, and they are very bad, MAGA is undeniably worse. If we had some other electoral system, we could safely explore other options. But we don’t. We have FPTP, which makes it a binary choice between bad and worse.
And worse is just so, so much worse. That doesn’t make bad good, but it’s still a binary choice. You’d have to be evil or stupid to try to muddy the waters so that bad seems close enough to worse that people don’t feel the urgency of choosing bad to prevent worse.
The lesser evil choice is whichever hastens the collapse of your monstrous, genocidal empire
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Thank God this image not only has the label “Venn Diagram” but also has a big red arrow pointing to the center and labeled “things the two parties have in common”. I had forgotten the name of this extremely common diagram and I also had no idea how it worked.
This meme seeks to get an emotional response and it’s good at it. There’s some hidden truth there.
But both parties are nowhere the same and wouldn’t have a problem with such a two party system in different countries.
But they’re only parties, with all that brings. They alone won’t make the US a better country.
Change my mind
Capitalism is a tool to maximize profit. Whoever thought it was a good idea to let capitalism have influence on laws so that they can maximize its profit was a big fool.
What do you expect? Capitalism, a tool, has by definition no morale. Let it decide politics to increase profit and you end up with that kind of shit society we have today.
Don’t blame the hammer, when you hit your thumb. Also, don’t let the hammer decide where to make the biggest dent.
Can we please start again focusing on the people? Without people there is no society, and there is no market to increase profits.
Start using capitalism and free markets like a tool. Want more renewable and clean energy? Make rules and see the magic of capitalism in making the best out of it.
Instead we let capitalism decide what should be done next and suffer the consequences. It’s as easy as that.
Unfortunately capitalism not only create the rules, they also decide what is news and influence societies views. And that’s why OPs picture is as it is.
Fuck socialism, am I right guys?!
I agree with this 100%.
Capitalism is exceptional at finding ways to provide value when there is a new market. The issue comes when capital gets accumulated and concentrated in the hands of a few.
We’ve seen it dozens of times throughout history where a healthy merchant class with lots of opportunity for upwards mobility ends up in an oligarchy as the market becomes saturated then monopolies, duopolies, and cabals (guilds) form.
The state needs to use the “P” and “L” in PESTEL forces (Political, Economical, Social, Technological, Environmental, Legal) that businesses (from single to large multinational) to identify new markets that need investment.
An examples would be new clean renewable electricity and one way of giving preferrence to this green energy by minimally taxing profts on this energy sold in the national market or international market via grid-interconnect networks (“Gridternets” if you will) with a clear plan to increase the tax to a normalised amount slowly overtime as the green share of the market approaches 100%.
It also has to be used to more aggressively dissuade markets that are more harmful than good now. An example of this is dirty power.
Coal, Oil, and Gas have done wonders for increasing people’s quality of life because they unlocked a new energy density previously unattainable. Now we have alternatives that are by every metric better; more efficient and less polluting.
Therefore, these industries need to be taxed out of existence by using a logarithmic energy carbon tax that keeps increasing year on year. Corruption needs to be rooted out like a weed as much as possible using a politically independent organ of the state to keep it healthy.
Then there’s markets that are stagnant in some state of capture: crumbling infrastructure, food retailer hypermarkets, etc. Windfall suprise taxes on incumbents and grants / zero interest loans for new competitors would reignight competition in those markets and the additional tax revenue can be used to fix the crumbling infrastructure these markets rely on.
And finally, I’d like to see a strong preference for co-operatives where ownership in a free market is much more evenly distributed by making them the least taxed commercial entities with businesses that have a higher concentration of ownership are taxed more through some sort of profit tax multiplier.
It’s much harder for a business to act in a pure profit motive to the detriment of society if the employees have more ownership as it allows morality to be expressed through political power within this business. These employees also then benefit from the profit share as well which gives stability and upward mobility in exchange for their labour.
There, that’s three proposals that could help towards decarbonisation, investing in underfunded infrastructure, and reducing inequality.
I am not a policy expert and there’s bound to be problems with each of those proposals that I haven’t thought of, but we have so much more to gain by working cooperatively together to build a system that aims to better humanity as a whole by using the best tools correctly and safety.
Until we reach an energy density which unlocks technology that enables things like a resourceless economy (a la Star Trek luxury space communism), we’re stuck with the tools of money and capital as the ways to transfer value.
I personally can’t wait for the day where “reputation” rather than money becomes the currency of society, I am willing to work with the tools we have right now to build that future, and I have faith that others are willing to build it with me.
Yes, definitely, but I think you mean an exponential energy tax law, not a logarithmic one.
Yes, correct I do. Engineer brain working in dBs constantly.
