Comments by "John Roberts" (@view1st) on "Geopolitical Economy Report" channel.

  1. NATO is outdated. There is nothing that NATO can do that the EU can't, security wise (not that I support an EU army).
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  2. Why would they want to imitate a failed/failing socioeconomic system as American liberal democracy!
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  3. Everyone will be living in "fusion centers".
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  4. More like a resumption of the Cold War – the global hegemony war of transnational capital and finance, led by the USA. The aim, like in the first Cold War, is to destroy Russia and China as independent sovereign states or at least as states that are not controlled by, or actively resist, the transnational capital and finance located in western Europe and North America. Nukes weren't used in the first cold war, – which lasted 50 years, 2-3 generations – and are just as unlikely to be used now. Of course there can always be accidents and incidents.
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  5. a) Is it communist? b) Is it Chinese communism, NOT European or even Marxist communism?
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  6.  @pfroudzdo  to keep its military-industrial economy functioning. The USA appears to have given up on having a non-military industrial base so it needs constant war and conflict to keep itself going.
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  7. The USA. At this point in time the West is basically the USA.
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  8. Theatrics. I doubt they have the ability or desire to really go against China or Russia. If there is some kind of military confrontation it will probably be semi-accidental, limited and of short duration.
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  9. @burdizzoid  Non-imperialistic nationalism (or, more properly, state sovereignty) is not the same as American Exceptionalism whereby the USA (and western Europe) has the right to its own culture, who it allows into the country, and how it uses its national resources free from the interference of others (i.e. absolute and unqualified sovereignty within its national territory but others do not. Just some examples of your kind of "patriotic nationalism" are: Telling Iran it cannot have The Bomb but the USA can; That Europe cannot import Russian oil and gas while the USA can still do so on the sly; That China has no right to exercise full sovereignty over its national territories of Tibet, Hong Kong and Taiwan but the USA can exercise de facto semi-sovereignty over the national territories of countries like Syria and Kosovo; That Muslims and Hindus (fundamentalists) must interpret their religions in ways that don't offend the sensibilities of secular liberals while Christian fundamentalists are free to go around banning abortion; Telling the world that it cannot have socialism or communism but only Anglo-American corporatism and killing millions to stop it.
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  10. And at least one of those has always belonged to China since at least the 17th century and is currently recognised in international law as Chinese. As for the other, I'm presuming its khanates have always recognised Chinese suzereinty under the tribute system in place for hundreds of years even if the Chinese didn't formally rule them.
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  11. The (collective) West should really be called the empire of the United States, more truthfully, the empire of capitalism.
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  12. That will also make them less dependent on foreign oil and gas for their economic needs and thus less vulnerable to blockade.
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  13. But loves corporatism and the monopoly profits that goes with it. Unfortunately.
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  14. We Brits have been successfully stopping Franco-German and Russo-German collaboration for 150 years, since at least the time of Napoleon. Now it seems the USA is carrying on where we left off. Anything that looks like pan-Eurasianism or European autarky/mercantilism is anathema to the USA.
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  15. Unfortunately, their assets tend to be held abroad by powers extremely hostile to such attempts at recompense.
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  16. The island of Taiwan is recognised by the international community as represented by the UN and the EU as being an integral part of the People's Republic China. Even its people identify as Chinese, albeit with a different government to those on the mainland. Under international law I don't think the PRC taking back by force what most people consider its own territory and overthrowing the government of the Republic of China would constitute a jus ad bellum, a legitimate reason for foreign intervention. And it's not like anyone can do anything about it given the massive military, political and economic power that present-day China wields. A fortiori the Republic of Ukraine vis‐à‐vis the Russian Federation, of which it was a part for most of its history until recently.
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  17. Or he's unwittingly or otherwise carrying out a plan of some sort. 😉
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  18. Their thinking is better a Hillary Clinton than a Bernie Sanders, but a Hitler (or a Zelensky) if that option isn't available.
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  19. Love being a wage slave do ya! People work to live, not live to work. It's only socialisation and compulsion that make people work for spend their lives slaving so others can get rich on pain of immiseration if they don't.
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  20. The BRICS members should emphasise the nature of the organisation – to facilitate trade between nations – and that it's not like the UN or the SCO where countries compete for influence.
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  21. realpolitik is entirely indifferent to ideological constructs like communism, fascism and capitalism. It's all about business, national security, and securing access to resources. Ethics, morality, political principles are at best given second-order status.
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  22. 4 centuries is a long time, you'd expect a country to be invaded at least once during that time. Now if Russia had been invaded 4-5 times in one century it would be worth talking about, but 4-5 in as many centuries not so much.
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  23. Regime change has never been popular that is why it has been the go-to for the USA (and France, Britain) as it's the only way for them achieve their objectives by overriding the wishes of the majority. Just ask the natives.
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  24. How can you separate the two?
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  25. You are right. In the same way non-western countries apparently appear to be unable to break the same psychological conditioning.
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  26. If the Chinese want to they can easily – and do – have access to western media and internet. To say otherwise is pure ignorance.
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  27. Communism and socialism both belong to an era long gone in the West (certainly fast vanishing) – that of heavily industrialised societies with genuine proletariats made up of an industrial working class with common interests that could be mobilised and coopted – ironically – by the (petty) bourgeoisie in their own fight with the haute bourgeoisie/aristocracy. In post-industrial societies increasingly dependent on outsourcing, insourcing (i.e. mass immigration), automation, AI, and with a workforce made up of atomised individuals seeking self-actualization through individualism this is no longer the case.
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  28.  @fun_ghoul  Eventually, yes, by certain metrics and looked at from within the capitalist paradigm, but for most of the time that capitalism has existed the benefits for the ordinary person were haphazard and limited. Only from the 1850's onward was there any significant rise in living standards, life expectancy and general overall improvements to the conditions of ordinary people.
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  29. The stick is riddled with wood rot and is more brittle than it looks. Good for bludgeoning soft things but if it strikes something hard it it is liable to break.
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  30. It would still be capitalist/corporatist with all the attendant problems.
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  31. Ordinary people demanding free speech and trying to escape from the oppressive yoke of church and state is what gave him that (in so far as he has it to any meaningful degree. I mean, his words are hardly causing to a revolution now are they).
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  32. That's basically what China has done. Indeed, all the countries that are counted as successful did something similar during their rise.
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  33. You assume there exists some kind of effective political or social mechanism by which the majority can effect change, or even know and would be able to disseminate a coherent idea what that change would look like.
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  34. Centre-left? Neoliberalism is not centrist, it's hard right. Traditional Conservatism may be described as centrist, but not Neo-Conservativism in my opinion.
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  35. The US government was dangerously provocative towards Cuba and by extension the Soviet Union. And it took the world almost to nuclear war. Just goes to show how capitalism is such a success that it needs constant subversion and the threat of nuclear war to keep it going.
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  36. Stop making sense, the IMF don't like it.
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  37.  @sheezle3  Not necessarily. The USA might create a preference area the way Britain did in the interwar years and it and Europe might then trade with a basket of currencies and/or the euro but with the dollar still the foremost currency. It might even hold Europe's gold reserves the way that it holds Germany's and the way that France holds some of Africa's. Britain already sold its gold reserves so is now completely vulnerable to economic blackmail because it has nothing to fall back on. Maybe that gold was bought by the USA and is intended to be used to back up a planned dollar-eurozone digital central bank currency area.
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  38. But what is NATO protecting Europe from? The Warsaw Pact is no more.
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  39. Human rights have been weaponised by the USA and the EU and the whole issue surrounding their application completely politicised.
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  40. The European Union was never really democratic because it never was intended to be. Ditto the United Nations.
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  41. Or slowly, almost imperceptibly, take over the old one. Ideally no one nation should be able to exercise as much control over the UN as the USA – and to a lesser degree Britain and France – currently does. It needs serious reform to give a voice to more countries.
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  42. Exactly! Not to mention most of the products that Americans denigrate as garbage that are made by Chinese factories on behalf of American corporations and made to US specifications. The government of the United States (its mainstream media at least) is disingenuous and very hypocritical.
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  43. The USA appoints the British prime minister, not the electorate and it shows in the piss poor quality of our leadership; as piss poor as the United States. Same goes for Canada and Australia. People chosen for their loyalty and unwavering, fanatical devotion to neofascist bankster liberalism and the corporate empire.
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  44. All talk and nothing but talk. Until the Chinese (or whoever) are able and willing to do something about it the status quo will remain indefinitely. And anyway the dollar losing its reserve currency status will no more reduce the power of the US to coerce that it did Russia and China during the cold war; no more then it did France or Britain.
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  45. The West is basically the USA and its UK protégé where the major monopolistic corporations and rentier banks are based.
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  46. When the USA was attacking Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq did Europeans boycott or sanction them? When the USA attacked Yugoslavia to allow for it to spread NATO and the EU to eastern Europe, did they? When they couped Ukraine, precipitating civil war? No! Then why should we Europeans boycott or sanction the Russian Federation when they are re‐incorporating a former part of their territory when it is being used by a foreign power to threaten their very existence? — Europe using Russian gas, oil and other natural resources makes perfect economic sense, using the USA's less so.
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  47. Do you think he'll end up like one of his predecessors, executed?
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  48. I heard that too though I don't know whether the amount quoted includes the budgets for the civilian intelligence agencies and civilian military-related research and development or whether those are considered separately.
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  49. 'Global South' and 'Developing countries' are themselves terms invented by the West and used to slyly denigrate the non-European world.
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  50. It is not CCP (Chinese Communist Party). It is CPC (Communist Party of China). A Chinese person would know that. The fact that you used the typical spelling of western — expecially US — media outlets casts suspicions upon your authenticity, in my personal opinion.
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