Comments by "SkyRiver" (@SkyRiver1) on "Historian Alfred McCoy Predicts the U.S. Empire is Collapsing as China’s Power Grows" video.

When you say we, you really don't mean it, unless you are one of the power-elite who actually determines that covert and overt action of government resources. I know I am not part of your we, and I doubt very much if you are either.
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@RussCR5187 I firmly believe that the number one thing that can be done is real campaign finance reform that disallows all political contributions entirely. Many think this is an unachievable goal. It may be. The power-elite may never be able to be motivated to give up their method of control and corruption. But I feel exactly like you do. Democracy has become unworkable in the face of a 24/7 deluge of disinformation and spin. Ideally I would like to see a system were the officials became so by demonstrating superior abilities and idealism and judgement. Perhaps though scientifically designed series of tests and virtual real-time scenarios that are public and continually upgraded and vetted. But hey, as is, I despise both the republicans and democrats.
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The people in Taiwan should be able to determine their own future.
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To the extent that Israel meddles in the politics of the USA you still may not be far off in your belief.
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This will continue in the USA until there is real total campaign finance reform. Totally unsexy issue but also the lynch pin that enables the nomalization of acts that were crimes just a few decades ago. If you care about these things this is the paramount issue, the only issue, the prime issue without which every other advancement will be subsumed and undermined by the power elite.
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Alfred needs to keep up with the military balance of power. In recent wargames in Thailand, scores of China's most advanced jets were quickly destroyed by the Thia air force using Swedish jets that are in no way close to as capable as those of the USA. Chinese military power is mostly hype.
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@freelance_commie Forgive me but I do not believe that anyone knows what will happen in the future. But you are quite correct in that this fountainhead of corruption will not go quietly without a struggle. The sole objective of the power-elite is to maintain and increase their power. Any of them that seems to act counter to this axiom is truly an anomaly. Nevertheless, no one, including you and me, knows what the future will bring in specifics. Sure you can be almost guaranteed to be correct if you say something like, "The lesson of history is that people will not learn from the lessons of history." But if you contend to know what will happen in specifics such as campaign finance reform, you are just kidding yourself.
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This is such bull, stating that rare earth minerals are crucial. People, rare earth minerals are not rare at all, they are literally everywhere, but their processing is highly toxic, which is why China holds most of them, because we care somewhat about how much toxic poison a company dumps and China doesn't.
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Well Chad, you do realize that the USA would support Australia with treasure and blood to the point of total ruin if it came down to it.
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@lapinchechismosa In other words you are in favor of violently forcing free people to become part of a totalitarian authoritarian regime that has total surveillance of every act of their population, even when these free people will oppose it to the death. Very heroic of you.
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@jackchiu7560 I said the people of Taiwan should be able to determine their own fate and government. Despite your irrelevant rant, that is still what I believe.
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@Raiderology The "opium war tradition" sounds like an erzats conceptual structure devised to rationalize a particular narrative. You can find such stories everywhere on all sides of all issues. I have found in almost sixty years of study that one of the most important things a human can learn to differentiate is the difference between things that only exist if someone is thinking about them or entertaining them in some published work, and things whose existence persists even if they are entirely outside of the scope of human attention. As simple as this seems I have no doubt that no one who reads this will appreciate the significance this little factor has in society in general and their personal life. There is almost no chance that you will personnally understand this despite understanding what the words I have written mean conceptually. A real physical fact is the wholesale death of desperate Americans due to the importation by the Mexican drug cartels of Chinese produced fentanyl. In some circles is thought to be a stratagem of the CCP. I do not believe this, but some do. What there is no doubt about is that Chinese businessmen are becoming rich by the wholesale destruction of an entire social class of Americans. I am quite aware that some American shipping companies, mostly out of NYC were involved peripherally in the Opium trade, but not nearly to the extent of the British East India Company. What is significant today is not the politics of a bygone age which the US government had no hand in, but this continual assault on the most desperate of Americans, by the collusion of criminal Mexican billionaires and conscienceless Chinese businessmen. Personally I hold the position that all drugs should be decriminalized and that addictive drugs such as heroin should be provided free of charge to addicts in a clinical setting along with the continual offer of therapy and perhaps the offer of ibogaine preparations that are known to quell addiction quite well. But know in advance that I totally expect you to cling to the side of things with no real physical existence in that that is the only manner in which to see you view as valid. So, as they say, more pouring of the null into the void.
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@f16poor I do not consider myself a part of "WE" -- I have no say in the government's actions, voting for a republican or a democrat is a farce, and federal taxes are not something most people have a choice about. I paid heavily for my activism against the Vietnam war, but it did no good beyond that event, and the power-elite simply changed their tactics on reporting and draft issues. I decide what "WEs" I am a part of not some bought off politician who spews lies 24/7. To address your twisted reasoning: The power-elite brags about how they pay most of the federal taxes (mostly because of the incredible almost unbelievable difference between their wealth and the average persons} on the other hand I pay only sales taxes, and as of now the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania does not wage war against foreign nations. So you may believe you are a part of "WE" because you are compelled to support the Federal Government, but the simple fact is you are not an insider, as far as the people who make these disastrous decisions are concerned you are are not "We or US" you are a peon a "Them" a meaningless almost nonexistent inconsequential nonentity who hold the delusional belief that what they think matters to the system in general. It does not. I will not read the book. I don't care. This has always been the program of hegemonic nations since the dawn of agriculture. The people who thirst for power are of the same now as then. I am not one of them and neither are you.
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@eviloreo5439 Really? I guess that is as much a comment on your perception as my comment, being as I disagree with that undeservidly famous little chipmunk on almost every iota of what he says. He is like a Randian objectivist, and I am more a RetroConfucian TechnoMeritocritan. lol. And I don't know what it looks like on your screen, but on mine: Mr Hombre deleted his comment that my comment was a response to, probably out of embarrassment. That sort of deleted much of the context of my response along with it, so your comment makes more sense to me now that I noticed that. Peace be with you.
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@Raiderology You must have developed your historic outlook by reading comic books. You should get together with the Qanon people, you have a lot in common. Your mention of the Opium Wars is ridiculous in the context you have established. Nothing in British foreign policy is based on the opium wars. That is the equivalent of someone saying that Chinese foreign policy is based on the piling up of Muslim skulls outside of the walled cities of the Middle East by the Mongols. Just GD idiotic.
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@RussCR5187 You got it Russ. And in addition they keep us dummies divided against each other -- mostly with meaningless and often manufactured issues. Nothing has changed on earth since the dawn of civilization. I can think of no hegemonic nation-state or group who behaved otherwise. The only saving grace is that from time to time one state becomes so dominant that there is a period of peace for great swaths of land and population, except of course for those on the periphery of that state or it's frontier. No power should ever be given to anyone who seeks it. I mean the Greeks knew that, but evidently it passed with the short lived quite exclusive democracy in Athens.
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@slappyfun Not true. China is the number one polluter of all nations. And so many of their common products contain toxins that most informed consumers avoid all food stuffs that come from China. Their air quality is the worst, they burn the most coal, and I have no idea where you got such faulty info when the facts are so easily found on line.
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@ethericboy It may not have occurred to you but the USA is one of the most self-critical nations on earth. All the rot is exposed continually, and lots of fantasy rot too. Your metaphor is a metaphor for nothing real. And your perception is so exacting that you did not even realize that Steve meant exactly the opposite of what you think he did.
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@lapinchechismosa Grow up. I reply where ever on what ever.
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@RussCR5187 Because the guy who I was responding to deleted his comment, which had the metaphor in it. It was just nonsense anyhow.
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China is literally surrounded by countries that are antagonistic toward it. The USA will contain China until it's population bomb catches up with it then it will settle into a less aggressive stature.
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Yep people are just lining up to become ruled by the totally authoritarian system in China: Tibet, Hong Kong, Taiwan, those little islands that Japan owns, they all want to be part of it.
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@samh628 I guess your must be right since you have the last word and I consider you too stupid to waste any more time on.
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@eugenechun4140 Maybe it was Eugene. During the primaries Bidden invited the peoples of Central America to "surge" the boarder. I bet he doesn't remember that.
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@silveriver9 Oh I agree about the fascism. The fact remains that the power-elites of all nations and all times -- given the potential -- acted exactly the same as the USA. And China, given the possibility will do the same. The power elite mostly consists of people who thirst after power. Such people should never be given power. So they do war upon each others peons under whatever guise of nations. But to them it's not the USA or China, it's the me in them, that they happen to call the USA or China.
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@bingosunnoon9341 Yep, but rare earth processing is, or has been until recently extremely toxic, far more than coal, or other common mining products.. Apparently there is a company in CA that has done some outstanding work on this lately. But it holds true, wow onto he who finds he lives atop mineral resources that he does not own title to -- death from one or other toxin without recompense is the probable eventual outcome.
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@rdpatterson2682 Sure, because the CIA cares what a few malcontents think. Or is it that when you have no real response you can always rely of the old chestnut of CIA meddling. How lame.
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