Does it really matter? Israel had the sympathy of the world after Oct. 7 and they threw it all away with their genocidal response. They’ve created infinitely more enemies than they’ve killed, and it doesn’t matter if these enemies are called Hamas. Israel has guaranteed decades more violence be directed their way by whole new generations.
Educated, intelligent people don’t vote Republican.
Remember how Biden wasn’t running for reelection? Yeah no one else does, either.
Bukele has been locking up random El Salvadorian citizens without charges…
So you don’t remember being a teenager?
People have disassociated the idea of buying stock as support for a company–they just treat it like a game. Not to mention all the amoral index fund managers who control most people’s investments.
The problem is application of this kind of law tends to be highly subjective depending on who is in power. This law is ironically ripe for abuse by fascists. This type of free speech should be met with universal scorn, shaming, and ostracism, not jail.
It’s totally logical even aside from the economics. The consequences are too great, which is why nuclear plants are uninsurable. You think this French plant and Vogtle were expensive? Imagine if they had to be insured like everything else in our society. But they can’t, because no insurance company is large enough. By default the public ends up footing that cost to the tune of trillions.
As an engineer, Chernobyl is terrifying. It was close to being 10x worse than it was. The thought that capitalism could do it better is the height of hubris. If you think your technology is fail-safe, nature (including humans) will find a better way to fail.
There are many reasons besides safety that nuclear makes no sense. Others have listed them here. But this recent hand-waving away of safety is frightening. Saying that our technology today is so much better while anti-intellectualism is running rampant. Saying facilities could always be staffed by experts while our political system is more unstable than ever. Thinking that we could store waste for 10,000 years when humanity has never built something that has intentionally survived a fraction of that time.
The downside of this equation is just too severe. Nuclear plants are uninsurable for a reason, and by default are insured by the public. That cost is ignored in the equation, because it’s too large for even the biggest insurance conglomerates to consider.
Yet he still managed to overturn Roe, stack the scotus and thousands of judgeships for a generation, and sabotage countless government agencies which has been a nightmare for our rights, environment, and the rule of law. We’re still feeling the repercussions and this time is shaping up to be an order of magnitude worse.
I saw old women with straw brooms sweeping the side of the (active) freeway.
My impression is informed primarily by visiting several small and medium sized businesses across China. What I saw in these industrial regions was an incredibly widespread entrepreneurial spirit. Everyone wanted to get ahead and have their own business. When the money gets really big, I don’t have direct experience, but it stands to reason the autocracy takes control. Greedy pieces of shit who Elon it up like Jack Ma find this out when they get too big for their britches.
As I’m sure you’re aware, many democracies around the world are largely performative (see e.g. USA) and based on fear, lies, and social engineering. Nothing and nobody in the world could honestly achieve a 90 percent favorability rating, and having observed thousands of workers in China I cannot believe such a number.
The most obvious flaw in your narrative is the assertion that China maintains a dictatorship of the proletariat, which is patently false. China is an autocracy of the party elite, with one man at the top. A dictatorship of a dictator. The fact there may be high level power games and intrigue among the upper echelon doesn’t significantly change this. It doesn’t matter that Xi happens to be the dictator du jour.
What this means for day-to-day life of the citizenry is something very divorced from socialism or communism. There are some elements of safety net and job placement, but just beneath that is a hyper-capitalist libertarian hellscape punctuated by fearful, feigned, and forced reverence of the party. As long as businesses play along and grease the right wheels the exploitative accumulation of wealth is sanctioned and encouraged.
The US MIC doesn’t give a fuck because the DOD will never pay a reasonable price for anything, ever.
Protests bigger than anti-Trump ones in the US incoming in 3…2…1…