Occasional Reader 4/16/2023 6:58:22 AM

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Other than the hard-boiled egg (blecch), that’s a very appealing breakfast.

In other news: Civil war in Sudan.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-65284948

I eagerly await all my proggie neighbors bedecking their lawns with I STAND WITH SUDAN signs.  Because that’ll happen.  Right?

JCM 4/16/2023 8:57:33 AM

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Reply to Occasional Reader in 1:

Sometimes for the sake of the people in places like Sudan and Somalia, I wish we were more Imperialistic and did a little nation building.

But I also know it's wrong on many levels.

Doesn't mean I still don't have compassion for the people in those countries.

Kosh's Shadow 4/16/2023 10:23:44 AM

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Reply to JCM in 2:

Nation building is tricky. Mostly, it worked after WWII because Germany and Japan had a history of at least somewhat democratic self-rule, and culture that supported it. Other places need time to create such a culture, and that is eeeevil colonization by today's standards.

Somehow, it worked in India, but not in Africa, so much. Some of that is that India was already a large number of individual states that had been able to live with each other, and they were quite willing to copy the British model of democracy. (And that could help explain how Japan came out of feudalism - they looked at countries where government worked and adopted it)

And the problems with Africa and the Mideast were that the culture is tribal, and the colonization was not based on tribal boundaries, leading to resentment between tribes. 

Then there are cases where a stable government was toppled by polulsim of a charismatic leader. Take Venezuela and Rhodesia/Zimbabwe (..please).

Note that despite how many people accuse Trump of being such a leader, the Deep State had to try to incite rebellion to make it look like Trump would not leave the Oval Office - and failed. The rioting is all on the Left to keep and increase power. It is worth looking at the difference between Mugabe and Chaves vs Trump. Trump was saying people get to keep what they worked for FROM the government; the others were all calling for poor to take stuff from those who had it.

There has never been a working system of redistribution of wealth; the search for it is the search for the Philosopher's Stone of Political Alchemy (which seems to be what Political Science has become), trying to turn people's baser instincts into gold.

JCM 4/16/2023 10:30:58 AM

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Reply to Kosh's Shadow in 3:

All true.

I like personally, and have a bias since I lived in Iran of the Shah. He was working the country toward stability and infrastructure. He was perfect but he was working on it. Most of the oil profits he plowed back into the country with the White Revolution. And yes he did make himself wealthy with some. He also was divesting some of his power to the parliament. It was working. The unrest before he was topple appears to me have been in large part Soviet provocations. The Shah didn't met the execrable Rabbit Bait's human rights standards.... human rights sure took a step backwards with that shitbird president.

It's hard, next to impossible to find a "strong man" to bring order to country, and then step back and divest that power.

Kosh's Shadow 4/16/2023 11:02:24 AM

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Reply to JCM in 4:

The Shah of Iran was nowhere as bad as he was made out to be. It is believed the KGB vastly and deliberately overstated the number of political prisoners to bring him down and get influence in Iran.

Kosh's Shadow 4/16/2023 1:16:07 PM

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This whole deep state stuff gets curiouser and curiouser

Low-Rent Mind Control? Anheuser-Busch CEO Is a Former CIA Agent

Kosh's Shadow 4/16/2023 1:22:04 PM

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Black Lives Matter

Crime Killed a Quarter of a Million Black People.

Black people are disproportionately affected by crime. Pro-crime policies led to the deaths of an additional 2,244 black people in 2020. According to a Johns Hopkins report, “in 2020, one out of every 1,000 young black males (15–34) was shot and killed” and, “more than half of all black teens (15–19) who died in 2020—a staggering 52%—were killed by gun violence.”

Occasional Reader 4/16/2023 6:11:28 PM

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Reply to Kosh's Shadow in 7:

BLM is the worst thing to happen to black people in this country since Jim crow.

Kosh's Shadow 4/16/2023 6:26:16 PM

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Reply to Occasional Reader in 8:
The Democrats are still the party of the KKK