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Song of the Day - Manbird - Jun 3, 2023 - 11:15am
 
Trump - steeler - Jun 3, 2023 - 11:09am
 
Lyrics That Remind You of Someone - oldviolin - Jun 3, 2023 - 10:56am
 
Wordle - daily game - ptooey - Jun 3, 2023 - 10:25am
 
Ukraine - R_P - Jun 3, 2023 - 10:23am
 
Things You Thought Today - westslope - Jun 3, 2023 - 8:44am
 
Today in History - Red_Dragon - Jun 3, 2023 - 7:12am
 
Out the window - DaveInSaoMiguel - Jun 3, 2023 - 4:01am
 
Counting with Pictures - ScottN - Jun 2, 2023 - 8:28pm
 
Puzzle it - oldviolin - Jun 2, 2023 - 2:04pm
 
Talk Behind Their Backs Forum - VV - Jun 2, 2023 - 1:41pm
 
Fascism In America - R_P - Jun 2, 2023 - 1:24pm
 
(Big) Media Watch - R_P - Jun 2, 2023 - 12:43pm
 
China - R_P - Jun 2, 2023 - 12:26pm
 
What Makes You Laugh? - kcar - Jun 2, 2023 - 12:00pm
 
Musky Mythology - Proclivities - Jun 2, 2023 - 11:50am
 
Climate Change - R_P - Jun 2, 2023 - 11:09am
 
Name My Band - oldviolin - Jun 2, 2023 - 11:05am
 
TWO WORDS - oldviolin - Jun 2, 2023 - 9:53am
 
ONE WORD - oldviolin - Jun 2, 2023 - 9:51am
 
Country Up The Bumpkin - oldviolin - Jun 2, 2023 - 9:21am
 
What Makes You Cry :) ? - Beez - Jun 2, 2023 - 9:00am
 
Bad Poetry - oldviolin - Jun 2, 2023 - 8:39am
 
Allergies ( aka pollen hell) - black321 - Jun 2, 2023 - 8:02am
 
Radio Paradise Comments - lily34 - Jun 2, 2023 - 7:09am
 
Food Democracy - Proclivities - Jun 2, 2023 - 6:23am
 
Canada - westslope - Jun 2, 2023 - 12:57am
 
Rock mix no longer available in Denmark - klausf - Jun 1, 2023 - 11:37pm
 
Dialing 1-800-Manbird - oldviolin - Jun 1, 2023 - 9:00pm
 
THREE WORDS - oldviolin - Jun 1, 2023 - 8:52pm
 
• • • The Once-a-Day • • •  - oldviolin - Jun 1, 2023 - 8:33pm
 
RightWingNutZ - R_P - Jun 1, 2023 - 4:32pm
 
Republican Wingnut Freak of the Day - Red_Dragon - Jun 1, 2023 - 3:56pm
 
Artificial Intelligence - R_P - Jun 1, 2023 - 12:38pm
 
Pernicious Pious Proclivities Particularized Prodigiously - R_P - Jun 1, 2023 - 10:56am
 
Come join us in Eureka! - lily34 - Jun 1, 2023 - 5:10am
 
RP in a Tesla EV - miamizsun - Jun 1, 2023 - 4:37am
 
USA! USA! USA! - R_P - May 31, 2023 - 4:49pm
 
FOUR WORDS - Red_Dragon - May 31, 2023 - 4:28pm
 
21 - ScottFromWyoming - May 31, 2023 - 2:27pm
 
Get the Quote - thisbody - May 31, 2023 - 7:53am
 
Mixtape Culture Club - miamizsun - May 31, 2023 - 7:24am
 
Russia - westslope - May 31, 2023 - 6:56am
 
Outstanding Covers - Steely_D - May 30, 2023 - 9:35am
 
Bug Reports & Feature Requests - renaultr17 - May 29, 2023 - 9:50pm
 
What Did You Do Today? - KurtfromLaQuinta - May 29, 2023 - 4:52pm
 
Helpful emergency signs - Proclivities - May 29, 2023 - 7:14am
 
Eversolo DMP-A6 streamer and RP? - William - May 28, 2023 - 8:36pm
 
MQA in administration - William - May 28, 2023 - 8:27pm
 
Stream stopping at promo - William - May 28, 2023 - 8:18pm
 
What's your favorite quote? - maryte - May 28, 2023 - 9:12am
 
Ask for a tea - DaveInSaoMiguel - May 28, 2023 - 3:29am
 
Graphic designers, ho's! - Manbird - May 27, 2023 - 5:43pm
 
Lyrics that are stuck in your head today... - ScottN - May 27, 2023 - 5:28pm
 
Animal Resistance - Red_Dragon - May 27, 2023 - 7:46am
 
Little known information...maybe even facts - miamizsun - May 27, 2023 - 7:24am
 
Guns - Red_Dragon - May 27, 2023 - 6:57am
 
You're welcome, manbird. - Bill_J - May 26, 2023 - 6:00pm
 
In My Room - KurtfromLaQuinta - May 26, 2023 - 4:17pm
 
The Lincoln quote ... wasn't from Lincoln - Proclivities - May 26, 2023 - 1:19pm
 
Live Music - Steely_D - May 26, 2023 - 10:51am
 
It seemed like a good idea at the time - Red_Dragon - May 26, 2023 - 10:35am
 
Nuclear power - saviour or scourge? - miamizsun - May 26, 2023 - 8:31am
 
A Picture paints a thousand words - Proclivities - May 26, 2023 - 8:00am
 
The Daily complaint forum, Please complain or be Happy - sunybuny - May 26, 2023 - 7:08am
 
Gas or Electric? - ColdMiser - May 26, 2023 - 6:19am
 
Need help - anyone got a copy of Aristotle's Politics? - lily34 - May 26, 2023 - 5:48am
 
Republican Party - westslope - May 26, 2023 - 2:30am
 
Word Association - temporary - oldviolin - May 25, 2023 - 1:34pm
 
Florida - R_P - May 25, 2023 - 11:22am
 
What's playing - lily34 - May 25, 2023 - 9:17am
 
• • • BRING OUT YOUR DEAD • • •  - oldviolin - May 25, 2023 - 9:15am
 
What the hell OV? - oldviolin - May 25, 2023 - 9:03am
 
Happy Birthday! - lily34 - May 25, 2023 - 8:40am
 
NASA & other news from space - miamizsun - May 25, 2023 - 7:51am
 
Index » Radio Paradise/General » General Discussion » USA! USA! USA! Page: Previous  1, 2, 3, 4 ... 10, 11, 12  Next
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Welly

Welly Avatar

Location: Lotusland
Gender: Female


Posted: Apr 9, 2023 - 6:36pm

 R_P wrote:

The response of the American public to the cognitive dissonance between our wrong assumptions about the world and the real world they keep colliding with has been to turn inward and embrace an ethos of individualism. This can range from New Age spiritual disengagement to a chauvinistic America First attitude. Whatever form it takes for each of us, it allows us to persuade ourselves that the distant rumble of bombs, albeit mostly American ones, is not our problem.

The U.S. corporate media has validated and increased our ignorance by drastically reducing foreign news coverage and turning TV news into a profit-driven echo chamber peopled by pundits in studios who seem to know even less about the world than the rest of us.




Oof - nailed it.
R_P

R_P Avatar



Posted: Apr 9, 2023 - 4:39pm

Hegemonic containment of allies
Mr. Yoon’s secretary for foreign affairs, Yi Mun-hui, told his boss, National Security Adviser Kim Sung-han, that the government “was mired in concerns that the U.S. would not be the end user if South Korea were to comply with a U.S. request for ammunition,” according to a batch of secret Pentagon documents leaked through social media.

The secret report was based on signals intelligence, which meant that the United States has been spying on one of its major allies in Asia.

Both Mr. Yi and Mr. Kim stepped down last month for unclear reasons. Neither man could be reached for comment.

(...)

Instead, according to the document, Mr. Kim “suggested the possibility” of selling 330,000 rounds of 155-mm artillery shells to Poland, since “getting the ammunition to Ukraine quickly was the ultimate goal of the United States.”

Mr. Yi agreed that it might be possible for Poland to agree to being called the end user and send the ammunition on to Ukraine, but that South Korea would need to “verify what Poland would do.” It is unclear exactly what he meant by this, since South Korea’s export control rules stipulate that its ​weapons or weapon parts sold to a foreign country should not be resold or transferred to a third country without Seoul’s approval.

The senior South Korean official on Sunday declined to reveal details of what he called “internal discussions” within Mr. Yoon’s government. But he added that “nothing has been finalized” and that there was still “no change” in Seoul’s policy on Ukraine. South Korea has been shipping humanitarian aid to Ukraine but has insisted that it would not directly provide any lethal weapons.

“South Korea’s position has been that it will cooperate with the United States while not clashing with Russia,” said Yang Uk, a weapons expert at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul. “The documents leaked put South Korea in a more difficult position.”

And the mere fact of the spying taking place, leaving aside what it might uncover, is a damaging revelation, he said.

“It’s reasonable to suspect that the United States spies on top defense and security officials in Seoul, but it’s bad news for the general public ahead of the South Korea-U.S. summit,” he added. “People will ask, ‘We have been allies for seven decades, and you still spy on us?’”

"The focus now is on this being a U.S. leak, as many of the documents were only in U.S. hands," Michael Mulroy, a former senior Pentagon official, told Reuters in an interview.
R_P

R_P Avatar



Posted: Apr 6, 2023 - 3:25pm

China is ghosting the United States
R_P

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Posted: Apr 5, 2023 - 12:25pm

The response of the American public to the cognitive dissonance between our wrong assumptions about the world and the real world they keep colliding with has been to turn inward and embrace an ethos of individualism. This can range from New Age spiritual disengagement to a chauvinistic America First attitude. Whatever form it takes for each of us, it allows us to persuade ourselves that the distant rumble of bombs, albeit mostly American ones, is not our problem.

The U.S. corporate media has validated and increased our ignorance by drastically reducing foreign news coverage and turning TV news into a profit-driven echo chamber peopled by pundits in studios who seem to know even less about the world than the rest of us.


islander

islander Avatar

Location: Seattle
Gender: Male


Posted: Apr 5, 2023 - 6:24am

 Welly wrote:


Wow - that's ten years less than Canada.


It's astonishing to me that we 'the greatest country' can let this happen. There are many studies that clearly define the issues - Gun suicides in the southwest, diabetes in the southeast, social isolation and access to care everywhere. The number of people who die before age 40 is so high that ~1 person in every kindergarten class is likely to die before they can even plan for retirement.  Meanwhile, other civilized nations (and many less civilized as well) march on with steady improvements, while the US screams "rugged individualism" before swerving into the ditch. I just don't get it.
kurtster

kurtster Avatar

Location: where fear is not a virtue
Gender: Male


Posted: Apr 5, 2023 - 12:19am

 Welly wrote:
 kurtster wrote:

Born in 1952 I've already exceeded my life expectancy which was 68.4 years.  I'm now 70.4.  Or now well into overtime.
Wow - that's ten years less than Canada.
 
That was what the life expectancy was for someone born in 1952 in the US at the time of birth according to the posted chart.  The next highest age was for Europe which was 64.0 years.  According to this chart, the life expectancy for someone born in Canada in 1952 was 68.8 years
R_P

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Posted: Apr 4, 2023 - 10:33pm

The Tragic U.S. Choice to Prioritize War Over Peacemaking
Medea Benjamin and Nicholas Davies explain how American ignorance and
jingoism, even at supposedly elite levels, allow neocons to continue to
foment war, despite their record of failure.
R_P

R_P Avatar



Posted: Apr 4, 2023 - 12:47pm

Why are Americans dying so young?
US life expectancy is in freefall as the young and the poor bear the brunt of struggles for shared prosperity

R_P

R_P Avatar



Posted: Apr 4, 2023 - 11:44am

Centrist DC think tank: US should threaten war, regime change in Iran
The Center for a New American Security suggests this can all be done through ‘private messages’ to Tehran’s leaders. Like texts?
The Iran policy debate in Washington suffers from a poverty of ideas. Despite the trail of failures left behind by policies based on coercion and threats over the last two decades, the debate over Iran’s nuclear program usually comes back to some combination of backfiring sanctions and reckless proposals for war and regime change.

A new report by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) is just the most recent example of this. The report describes the findings of exercises that the think tank conducted, and it concludes by recommending that the U.S. broaden its threats of military action to include targeting the Iranian political and military leadership as well as their nuclear facilities. Nothing could be worse for the cause of nonproliferation or for U.S. interests than to seek regime change again.

It seems incredible that anyone in Washington still floats the options of war and regime change 20 years after the invasion of Iraq showed how disastrous these policies are, but there has been no real learning from the crime of the Iraq war. One of the main reasons why Washington hasn’t learned from the Iraq war is that there was never any accountability for any of its architects and cheerleaders, and the incentives in our debates still tend to favor aggressive and militarized policies. Instead of repudiating wars for regime change, many people in Washington have no problem using the same fatally flawed policies against other countries.

R_P

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Posted: Apr 3, 2023 - 5:18pm

Investigators skeptical of yacht’s role in Nord Stream bombing
(...)

‘Don’t talk about Nord Stream’
For all the intrigue around who bombed the pipeline, some Western officials are not so eager to find out. At gatherings of European and NATO policymakers, officials have settled into a rhythm, said one senior European diplomat: “Don’t talk about Nord Stream.” Leaders see little benefit from digging too deeply and finding an uncomfortable answer, the diplomat said, echoing sentiments of several peers in other countries who said they would rather not have to deal with the possibility that Ukraine or allies were involved.

Welly

Welly Avatar

Location: Lotusland
Gender: Female


Posted: Apr 3, 2023 - 2:45pm

 kurtster wrote:

Born in 1952 I've already exceeded my life expectancy which was 68.4 years.  I'm now 70.4.  Or now well into overtime.


Wow - that's ten years less than Canada.
Welly

Welly Avatar

Location: Lotusland
Gender: Female


Posted: Apr 3, 2023 - 2:44pm

 R_P wrote:
Some Rules of Global Politics Matter More Than Others
Norms are real, but there’s enormous room for interpretation.
If there’s a phrase that (supposedly) defines what U.S. foreign policy is all about these days, it’s “the need to uphold a rules-based order.” Case in point: a desire to strengthen the current order is one of the main reasons the Biden administration has worked so hard to assemble a set of like-minded nations this week, in the second iteration of its so-called Democracy Summit. One can understand why: Saying the United States is just trying to uphold the rules is politer than saying its goal is to preserve U.S. primacy in perpetuity, weaken China permanently, topple governments it doesn’t like, or undermine its other adversaries.

Of course, when U.S. officials say “rules-based order,” they mean the current order, whose rules were mostly made in America. It’s not the existence of rules per se that they are defending; any order involving modern states must by necessity be rules-based, because the complex interactions of a globalized world cannot be managed without agreed-upon norms and procedures. These norms range from foundational principles (e.g., the idea of sovereign equality) to mundane everyday practices (e.g., the use of English as the standard language for international air traffic control). This raises the question: Which parts of the current order is the United States most eager to defend? Which norms matter most? (...)



Further to this, I'm in the midst of reading The Nutmeg's Curse by Ahmitav Ghosh. You might enjoy it. Here's a link to a recent interview with him: https://emergencemagazine.org/...
thisbody

thisbody Avatar

Location: Nose Hill
Gender: Male


Posted: Apr 3, 2023 - 2:14pm

Guess who continued to buy Israeli spyware through a shell company right after the public ban?
That's right! The US government!
Hey, do you actually understand where this disenchantment with politics comes from? Me neither!
R_P

R_P Avatar



Posted: Apr 1, 2023 - 10:23am

More than 40 years later, a Texan reveals a secret that may have swayed an election
Ben Barnes went to the Middle East with John Connally to delay the release of American hostages in Iran – and potentially help Ronald Reagan win the presidency.

On April 25, 1980, President Jimmy Carter gave a televised address to update the nation on the 52 American hostages at the American Embassy in Tehran, Iran. The day before Carter’s speech, U.S. army special forces attempted to rescue them. But the mission failed, and eight U.S. servicemen died in a helicopter crash. President Carter took responsibility and vowed not to give up on the captive Americans.

“Throughout this extraordinarily difficult period, we have pursued and will continue to pursue every possible avenue for the release of the hostages,” Carter said.

The Carter administration faced more opposition than the president knew, though.

The hostage crisis was a key issue in the 1980 presidential election, in which Carter faced a re-election challenge from Republican Ronald Reagan. If the hostages were released before the election, Carter would get a big boost in the polls. (...)

A Short History of Everyone Who Confirmed Reagan’s October Surprise Before the New York Times
A lot of people beyond Ben Barnes have said that Reagan’s 1980 election campaign conspired to keep American hostages in Iran.

(...) All this is powerful evidence that the Reagan campaign did — as has been alleged for decades — strike a deal with the Iranian government to prevent the hostages from being released. While that has never been proven, what’s known beyond a shadow of a doubt is that the Reagan campaign was deeply worried that Carter might get the hostages out before November and thereby give a big boost to his prospects.

You might understandably ask: If this actually happened, how could it have been kept secret? Why hasn’t anyone with knowledge of it spoken up before? The answer is that it hasn’t been kept secret, and many, many people have said it occurred. But most of the people doing so have been foreigners. Barnes is merely the most important American to finally come out and support the story.

The 1980 October Surprise theory has always been plausible on its face. Casey had worked on Richard Nixon’s 1968 presidential campaign (and was later named head of the Securities and Exchange Commission by Nixon). It’s since been proven that the Nixon’s presidential campaign secretly collaborated with the government of South Vietnam to prevent President Lyndon Johnson from striking a peace deal ending the Vietnam War. The Nixon campaign was concerned that peace would help his opponent in the race, Johnson’s vice president, Hubert Humphrey. Nixon’s cynicism can be measured by the fact that thanks to his gambit, 20,000 additional American soldiers, plus unknown hundreds of thousands of other people, died as the war continued for many years.

The concept of the October Surprise seems almost benign in comparison. A mere 52 American hostages had been seized by Iranian revolutionaries at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, and all the scheme required was keeping them there for another few months. (...)


R_P

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Posted: Mar 29, 2023 - 12:31pm

 black321 wrote:

(...) Anyway, my meandering thoughts...you can ignore as most are apt to.


MAGA!

black321

black321 Avatar

Location: An earth without maps
Gender: Male


Posted: Mar 29, 2023 - 7:40am

Re. the life expectancy charts below, there was also another interesting story this week re. the decline in traditional values - God & country.
pic below didnt copy over correctly - lines are 20%, 40%, 60% and 80% - and relate to patriotism, religion, community involvement, children and money, respectively, from 1998-2023

There was a steep drop off during the pandemic (all are now below 40%, except money), but clearly a downward trend prior to that for the first three.   It would appear the “social contract” is coming unsealed. The curtain has been pulled to reveal the wizard as a fraud. We all knew this 30, 40, 50 years ago, but it seems the last decade or so, we are less inclined to be polite about it (manners, another value, were dropped).  E.g, 30 or 40 years ago if you were at a party and you overheard a friend or neighbor say something you thought was ridiculous, like human’s play no role in climate change, you were more apt to ignore for the sake of not creating a fuss (manners), or at the very least engage in a cautious debate. No longer, as people now feel obliged to correct this person’s statement…ignoring manners, increasing discourse, but also disrupting the previously allowed harmony. So when you find yourself not able to even get along with neighbors, friends and family, that leads to questioning values. Unfortunately, I think once moving beyond God, family and country (all challenged by the pandemic, and our politics), most people don’t have a grasp of what their values are (other than $). So, they either dig in (conservatives) or look for new, better ways (liberals). Both are fraught with danger and harmful if not done as a group/society. While the pandemic has had a role, this deterioration of values, without implementing a broad, socially acceptable replacement could also be why US life expectancy is falling. We all know how psychology or our mental states play a roll in our physical well being. Anyway, my meandering thoughts...you can ignore as most are apt to.

R_P

R_P Avatar



Posted: Mar 28, 2023 - 12:52pm

Some Rules of Global Politics Matter More Than Others
Norms are real, but there’s enormous room for interpretation.
If there’s a phrase that (supposedly) defines what U.S. foreign policy is all about these days, it’s “the need to uphold a rules-based order.” Case in point: a desire to strengthen the current order is one of the main reasons the Biden administration has worked so hard to assemble a set of like-minded nations this week, in the second iteration of its so-called Democracy Summit. One can understand why: Saying the United States is just trying to uphold the rules is politer than saying its goal is to preserve U.S. primacy in perpetuity, weaken China permanently, topple governments it doesn’t like, or undermine its other adversaries.

Of course, when U.S. officials say “rules-based order,” they mean the current order, whose rules were mostly made in America. It’s not the existence of rules per se that they are defending; any order involving modern states must by necessity be rules-based, because the complex interactions of a globalized world cannot be managed without agreed-upon norms and procedures. These norms range from foundational principles (e.g., the idea of sovereign equality) to mundane everyday practices (e.g., the use of English as the standard language for international air traffic control). This raises the question: Which parts of the current order is the United States most eager to defend? Which norms matter most? (...)

kurtster

kurtster Avatar

Location: where fear is not a virtue
Gender: Male


Posted: Mar 27, 2023 - 8:46pm

 miamizsun wrote:
from our world in data...
 
Born in 1952 I've already exceeded my life expectancy which was 68.4 years.  I'm now 70.4.  Or now well into overtime.
miamizsun

miamizsun Avatar

Location: (3261.3 Miles SE of RP)
Gender: Male


Posted: Mar 27, 2023 - 3:49pm

from our world in data...



R_P

R_P Avatar



Posted: Mar 27, 2023 - 1:31pm

'Live free and die?' The sad state of U.S. life expectancy

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