Comments by "Alan Friesen" (@alanfriesen9837) on "The Duran" channel.

@paulafortin3811 He's not necessarily weak because he is soft-spoken. He is weak because he is dependent on the support of six different parties. This means he's going to be pulled in multiple directions all the time and he'll be spending most of his rule trying to preserve it by herding his cats.
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Hey Alexander. I may not be totally in sync with my countrymen in the United States, but I don't think the war in Ukraine is going to carry that much weight in the U.S. election next year. I think there is still a predominance of sympathy for Ukraine, and what seems to be a built in animosity towards Russia (or more accurately towards Putin), but there aren't any American soldiers dying in the conflict or being exposed committing atrocities. I think this consensus spans both parties and so long as the conflict continues without a total Russian victory and Americans aren't obviously physically involved, the elections will ride on other issues. It'll still be talked about. Democrats will talk about how the current administration is helping Ukraine and Republicans will talk about incompetence in that support. Neither of these will be as strongly based on reality as on the message that is most useful for them during the election. What's going to decide it though are things like the walking back of decades of social progress by our courts, legal scandals, frustrations regarding the perceived slow pace of those legal scandals, and fear of what seems to be an ever more unpredictable economy.
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@darginmahkum3190 You certainly know a lot more about this than I do. I'm basing my statement, not on the details in Turkey, but on the tendency of coalition governments to struggle to survive everywhere. If Kilicdaroglu is charismatic and astute enough to garner the long-term support of the majority of power wielders in Turkey, including the support of the people—particularly the people in the countryside, then he might be strong indeed. It would be a historical anomaly though, most coalition leaders don't last long and accomplish very little during their brief reigns. I certainly would like to see someone less conservative running things in Turkey. Before Erdogan came to power Turkey was the most progressive country in the region. It would be nice to see that again.
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@darginmahkum3190 Well then, best of luck to you and to the people of Turkey. I hope it goes as well as you think it will.
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Neither is Blinken really.
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@Leo Jansen In fairness, we all do that.
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@Leo Jansen Yeah, I'm sure you're better than the rest of us.
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I don't know about this. Maintaining a blockade is difficult. And as we've seen with the U.S.'s sanctions, cutting off trade just makes a country double-down on self-sufficiency. I think that there is a lot we won't know until it happens. I think the ability for both sides to protect their warships is going to be sorely tested. This affects both blockaders and blockade-runners—surface ships and submarines. If there is a naval war around Taiwan it will be like nothing we've seen before, and I don't think I can reliably predict a victor, nor do I think anyone else can.
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I've always been annoyed with our proclivity to encourage separatist movements around the globe. We fought tooth and nail against our own separatist movement in the 1860's and we wouldn't be nearly as strong or successful as a country had we allowed it to go uncontested or lost that conflict. I think that we support the right of self-determination primarily because it keeps countries small, weak, and poor. However, it sounds so good to the ear that most American's have been trained to defend it on moral grounds. I know from experience that it's very difficult to succeed arguing against it even though it destroys the lives of so many. It's also frightening considering the number of potential groups in America that could theoretically plant a flag and declare their desire to be free. Fortunately, we don't yet have foreign countries working to create and support any such movements, or at least I'm not aware of any.
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If the exercises are strictly political, then I wonder at their utility. I can't see Taiwan moving towards China because of this. When you threaten a society, it binds together against the threat. What I'd like to see China do is to offer congratulations to the new leader in Taipei, along with an offer to come to Beijing and discuss reunification with some degree of preservation of Taiwan's political system in the province. I know it would be rejected, but I think it would be at least as effective as these military exercises at moving Taiwan in the right direction.
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I disagree. Neocons want to win wars. They want to spread liberal democracy across the globe. It's kind of a religious thing. It's not about reality, it's a matter of faith. The fact that they can get rich in the process and help their neocon brothers and sisters get rich as well, that just proves that liberal democracy smiles on them. As for the men and women who have to die to spread the faith, well, every movement has its martyrs.
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What's so extraordinary about the most competent leader in the Western world flying to negotiate directly with the most competent leader in the rest of the world?
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The Nationalist government was based in Nanjing (and Chongqing during the Japanese occupation of Nanjing), not Beijing.
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The U.S. is concerned about somebody else being the big dog in East Asia. The best case for American dominance in the region is protection of the trade routes of our long-term allies, South Korea, Japan, and the Philippines, to Europe and the Middle East from a China that might block their access, especially considering their long-term animosity towards Japan. While I think this plays a role, I think the actual reasoning runs more along the lines of China becoming a powerful enough entity to challenge American leadership on all sorts of global stages. And as long as the United States can thwart this high priority of the PRC, the U.S. can claim to be more powerful than China. It's playground politics at its worst.
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@Sooner-im9qf Democracies are no better than any other system. In fact they are very high-maintenance. What matters is the level of corruption. This includes legal corruption like Citizens United. Governments' top responsibility is taking care of the people. Uncorrupted (or less corrupted, no government is completely uncorrupted) governments that take that responsibility seriously are good governments, regardless of their system. Governments in which the policy makers and executors value their own wealth and comfort above the welfare of the people and siphon off resources for themselves and their friends and families fail because there is no trust. This is just as likely to be the case in a democracy as it is in an autocracy, in part because the people are often highly corruptible.
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I thought I saw a thumbnail suggesting that he wished to start a dialog with Beijing. If I didn't misinterpret that, it would be a welcome first step.
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@willengel-vs8ht I wouldn't doubt it.
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