USA Politics

Kim has been threatening the US long before Trump took office so NK would be doing this whether he took all this action or not. Trump is not going to stand idly by and wait for them to fire at us or our allies. And yes, the surrounding areas around NK are a HUGE factor. The strike on NK has to be such a clean one that almost all of their weaponry is taken out so they can do as little damage as possible.

Also, the DEFCON Warning System has again moved the level from 5 to 4. Here are the reasons for that:
This is the DEFCON Warning System. Alert status for 11:30 A.M., Friday, August 11th, 2017. Condition code is Blue. DEFCON 4.

There are currently no imminent nuclear threats against the United States at this time, however there are events occurring in the world theater which require closer monitoring.

Tensions between North Korea and the United States are reaching almost a fever pitch, with new threats coming out every day. Most of the rhetoric is bluster, however, and diplomatic communications continue to be open, though through backdoor channels. There have been no military movements of concern at this time, and there does not appear to be any sign of an impending attack by either side.

Nevertheless, the threat level remains high and is concerning. Each side is taking very seriously the threats made by the other, and both the United States and North Korea are currently on the defensive, with North Korea expecting some kind of action.

Later in August, South Korea and the United States will engage in large-scale war games, which is certain to raise tensions even higher. Additionally, North Korea is formulating plans to fire missiles near Guam, overshooting Japan airspace.

United States intelligence believes North Korea has succeeded in miniaturizing a nuclear warhead that can fit inside its missiles. This places the United States itself in danger of a direct nuclear attack, which the U.S. has stated it will never allow. China has stated through its State-run publication that it would remain neutral should North Korea start a war, but has also said it would come to North Korea’s aid should the U.S. start a war. This is likely China’s last effort to warn either side from provocation.

The world, however, is showing signs that it believe a conflict is coming and is taking sides, with some areas beginning to prepare their citizens in the event of a nuclear attack.
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From: https://www.defconwarningsystem.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=81061#p81061
North Korea is threatening to launch missiles toward Guam; U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted Friday morning that military options were “locked and loaded;” NBC News ran a story Wednesday claiming the U.S. had ”prepared a plan” to strike North Korean missile sites with B-1 bombers.

But while the rhetoric is nearing a fever pitch in D.C., out in the Pacific you’d never know the world was on the brink of nuclear war.

The current flare-up is the latest example of the war rhetoric far outpacing the facts on the ground, a U.S. official said on background Friday morning.


“This may come as a shock, but the rhetoric doesn't match reality,” a U.S. official said. ”[I’m] worried about a ‘Guns of August’ scenario, where we stumble into a conflict,” referring to the popular history book of World War I that argued the war happened because of a series of diplomatic miscues.

Out at U.S. Pacific Command, or PACOM, the command that would lead any attack on North Korea, its situation normal, according to a source familiar who spoke on background.



“Nobody at PACOM is setting their hair on fire; its calm and professional,” the source said. ”It‘s really D.C. rhetoric that’s driving this whole thing.”

https://www.defensenews.com/global/asia ... -military/
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Eh. Any group that advocates for revolution isn't my cup of tea. The red part of Redneck is certainly right in their case! But I am sympathetic with most of their goals.
 
Any group/movement that brands itself as anti-oppression and pro-freedom while advocating communist principles is inherently flawed. The anti-racist motives are good though.
 
I said I am impressed. As in that was unexpected. I'm not a fan of people without military training handling firearms (that includes cops too, and especially private security), I am not a fan of forcing your policy. But to be honest, they write about armed uprising against capitalism, not against democracy. It's two different things. When you have a regulatory agency that should enforce fair competition between corporations, and ensue that customers don't get a bad deal, and when it's the CEOs of those corporations sitting in the agency HQ, fucking up both the market and the customer, and the electoral body doesn't seem to understand anything of significance, what then? It's failed democracy. People have failed the democracy, not vice versa. They have allowed the ruling class to corrupt the system so much, that in the endgame, nothing can be done via democracy on the state level.

You can't have democracy without an educated electoral body. Like I always compare the Swiss, freedom of speech, freedom of gun possession, no Nazis around and no kids killing each other in schools.
 
The Flash said:
Any group/movement that brands itself as anti-oppression and pro-freedom while advocating communist principles is inherently flawed. The anti-racist motives are good though.
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I wanted to respond in argument, but you did make a good post. There's a difference here in "communist principles" vs "principles of Communism". The latter is a pure economic theory. The former is a person or a group trying to implement it from the perspective of a ruler, a policymaker. There you will have all the usual caveats and pitfalls of power hunger. Communism should be implemented when there's an abundance of all the basics, yet some people are still being poor to death. It was never implemented over this state, even if we rule out the power hunger caveat, it was always done in environments that had huge economic problems and scarcity of basic things like food, etc.

There's also the issue of communists being locked away, tortured, executed just for saying "I am a Communist, I deserve to have 2 of moneys for a day in factory", before Communists started holy war against capitalism and incorporated industrial entities. It was the freedom loving proto-democrats of the 19th century that treated these young workers as animals and masters of their life. We just returned the favour afterwards.
 
Perun said:
Sooo.... Charlottesville, anyone?
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Trump's handling of this has been, at best, idiotic and, at worst, both racist and idiotic. But with all of that being said, I have a question for those of you who have more time to follow the news than I: When Trump said that there was violence by "many sides" including those protesting the white supremacists, was he wrong? Was that statement inaccurate? I actually find it a little hard to believe that no one punched, or even threw a cabbage at, a Nazi. It's really beside the point, I realize, and Trump's tone-deafness to the prevailing popular sentiment is unusual for him and may be his undoing, but the "fact-checkers" at the NYT seem to be conspicuously quiet on this one.

If it's possible to find humor in this incident -- and, bad taste or no, I think it's important to keep a sense of humor about just about everything -- I simply cannot help thinking of this:
 
The question I keep coming back to is what if it was a BLM rally? Would Trump make a "many sides" comment then? The answer is pretty obvious imo.
 
The whole thing is idiotic. If someone wants to show to to protest or celebrate the removal of some statue ... cool. Anyone showing up with baseball bats/driving cars into people .. not cool at all.
 
It's not just not cool, if these acts were planned, or even just knew of in advance, by right wing organizations that staged the counter-protest...hey you now have some real deal for the Guantanamo Bay!
 
Well you should ditch a bit of that nice objectivity and see that the only one side ran over people with a car. I agree with your defense of right to act like an idiot in public, but you know where are borders between being an idiot, being a violent idiot, and being a terrorist. Guy just ran over people in Barcelona, people that he obviously didn't like. I fail to see the difference here.
 
I don't see a difference either .. I am just saying the reason why you beat someone up with a baseball bat or run them over with a car, or whatever does not really matter to me.
 
So here is what I have gathered so far. The "Unite the Right" movement got a permit to protest the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue. Their posters, however, make no mention of that being the reason instead using the slogan "They will not replace us." Their permit was initially blocked, they petitioned the ACLU, went to court and won... they got their march.

As they are marching down Charlottesville chanting, "Jews will not replace us," as well as "Blood and soil," while holding (Tiki) torches, a clear sign of a mob, not a "march," they are confronted by counter-protesters who also got a permit. Shouting matches ensue. The "alt-left" the Umpaloompa is referring too is ANTIFA or Antifascist group who also showed up along with the counter-protesters.

From here reports are mixed. Some say ANTIFA started the violence, others say it was the Nazis. The little video I've seen shows Isolated incidents rather than a clash reminiscent of Brave Heart. What we do know, is a young man from Ohio drove all the way to Virginia with the sole purpose to run over people who did not agree with him, injuring 19 and killing one, Heather Heyer 31-years-old. He faces Murder 2, fleeing the scene of an accident and a third charge which at the moment eludes me.

The moron in chief has flipped flopped in his statements (nothing new), first condemning the violence "on many sides." Then, two days later, finally calling out the Neo-Nazis and the KKK, much to the dismay of former Grand Dragon, David Duke. Later to reverse AGAIN pointing out there are "fine people" on "both sides" and "what about the alt-left? Do they have any guilt in this?" This, of course, receives praise from David Duke and other white supremacists.

As it stands the orange clown is having a "Rally" in my old stomping ground of Arizona, Phoenix specifically, other "Alt-Right" marches have been scheduled and due to the presidents idiotic remarks and inability to call a spade a spade a wave of vandalism of both Confederate and Union statues are being vandalized. No one feels safe, and racial tensions haven't been this high since the Rodney King beating of 1991.

So glad I moved... so glad. You know how many Narcos, narco drive-by shootings, Narco related violence I have witnessed since coming back to Mexico? NONE. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but my personal life and safety is not directly affected. But oh yeah, Mexico is "less safe" than the U.S. Mmmhmmm.
 
Cornfed Hick said:
When Trump said that there was violence by "many sides" including those protesting the white supremacists, was he wrong? Was that statement inaccurate? I actually find it a little hard to believe that no one punched, or even threw a cabbage at, a Nazi.
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The problem is - it is, as you said, beside the point. A protester was killed by a Nazi, others were wounded. He employed the same method that Islamists have used recently, including n Barcelona yesterday. Yet, Trump barely acknowledged that someone died, and he did not call out this act of terrorism. Instead, he's playing the whataboutism game, and it's wholly inappropriate.
 
Cornfed Hick said:
It's really beside the point, I realize, and Trump's tone-deafness to the prevailing popular sentiment is unusual for him and may be his undoing, but the "fact-checkers" at the NYT seem to be conspicuously quiet on this one.
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Based on the footage that has been made available, it's almost impossible to see who threw the first punch. Both sides showed up equipped for violence - the Nazis had units in armour with Shields and batons, and the counter protestors had pepper spray with some of them. But there's a bit of a difference there. Some of the early footage I saw on CNN had a group of alt-righters charging headlong into the counter-protestor lines, like you might see in a movie about medieval combat. Based on the equipment levels, I'd say the concept that this was going to be a peaceful protest was a farce. The alt-right guys were ready for a war. But none of that shows who started the violence. It's likely impossible to know. And it could have been started by different sides in different areas.

Trump could have given a presidential statement about freedom of speech. But he didn't. He suggested there were good people on both sides (a common refrain when he says something he knows is controversial), which is patently untrue. He equated the two sides. That's wrong.

But to get back to Charlottesville - if the protestors goal was to save Confederate statues and monuments it's backfired, as so many places are now removing them at an even more rapid speed. I equivocated on whether or not they should be removing statues for awhile, to be honest, but I think they should be removed and placed in museums or, if available, Confederate graveyards.

The Confederacy was evil. Straight up.
 
I see a lot of comments across the internet about the statue, the legality of the protests, the responsibility of violence and all that. I don't get it - this is not what it's about anymore. A Nazi ran his car into the leftist crowd, he killed one person and injured others. Trump failed to acknowledge this, and the Alt-Right is applauding him for it. Whatever the Confederacy or Robert E. Lee stood for, whoever was right to carry baseball bats and who wasn't - it's irrelevant. It's diverting attention away from the core. Fuck Lee, he stopped being relevant when a person died. This isn't about the interpretation of history. It's about Trump neglecting to care when people in his country kill each other, and about people loving him for it.
 
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