Comments by "Xyz Same" (@xyzsame4081) on "LastWeekTonight"
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In what way is Russia a threat - a legitimate threat to the US ??. Of course Russia and China are the only countries that will stand up to the US empire, so they are a threat in that respect. And the regime change in Syria did not work as planned - blame Russia, and even China has made some strategic statements about their intebtuib ti help (with weapons, etc.) - a hint for the big bully to step back. (Unlike Trump the leader of these countries carefully craft their statements, so they are worth reading between the lines.
And then there is of course BRICS and their own settlement bank - meaning they intend to sell their commodities (mainly oil) NOT in US Dollar. China buys Russian oil/gas in their own currency. Not in Dollar any more. When countries are not using the Dollar that will weaken the Dollar over time. The cure for that would be more domestic production, either to avoid imports or to export them (which again would strenghten the Dollar)..
The stragic goal of US dominated NATO is to encircle Russia (look at the map), the US supported coup in Ukraine was one more step in that direction. Did not quite work out. If the US did not KNOW that the Russians would not risk their naval base on the Crimea they are fools. Or they knew Russia would act and saw that as win / win. Either Russia would let it happen that the US and the EU in a coordinated fashion tried to alienate Ukraine from Russia and cut Russia off it's naval base on Crimea later
OR Russia would act, the US could clutch their pearls and whine about the violation of international norms. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya anyone ? Or Haiti, or Hondoras ? Panama, the Contras in Latin America ?
Just to mention more recent history.No one was killed BTW on Crimea, the ethnic Russians there - which are the overwhelming population majority on Crimea - are quite happy to belong to Russia. Even if they are no fans of Putin or Russia- under the given circumstances they are much better off as citizens of Russia than as citizens of Ukraine.
It was foolish to try to separate Ukraine from their neighbour country. And unusual that the EU would even consider to offer at rade agreement, Ukraine is poor, underdeveloped and corrupt. That agreement was a pretext (containing also military clauses in the fine print).
All that is not a threat to the US CITIZENS, but a threat to the US "elites" who want the lucrative arms race that accompagnies the empire building. No arms race without a good enemy.
Another advantage of the empire (not for the US citizens of course). Big Biz gets always some help from the US military and Intel agencies if the leadership of a developing country think their resources are meant to benefit their citizens first and foremost. Such ridiculous demands were always brutally and usually efectively crushed. Which explains why the Cuban sanctions went on forever ! - and no one really knew what they were for. The US tried to bully all other countries into adhering to these sanctions. Not because Cuba is a threat - it is not in the military sense, never sent terrorist to the US (but the US commited acts of terrorism in Cuba). It is unimportant as economy and does not have natural resources on top of it. However Cuba gave a very bad example, it threw out rich people and took their property, and to make things worse many disposessed had ties to the US.
And then Cuba successfully resisted the US - and they got away with it.
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@kevinw712 it is not so hard to convict someone of homicide as you like to believe. - Oprah had a man who was framed by the police in the 1990s - and it has not gotten better (in the South, of course he was black). The police did not even bother to look for other suspects. I think he even had some alibi and it was not allowed. The police when he told them desparately (he was young then, no money of course) that he did not do it, told him: Well, in that case you take one for the team.
He was offered a plea deal, which he did not take - but he got life. and it took 20 years or more for justice.
Then there was the man that was executed. He was divorced and his 2 daughters died in a fire in the house of his ex-wife. An "expert" testified that it was sure that it was arson. There was only circumstancial evidence (and that was meager), but he was sentenced to death only on the testimony of that self styled expert on fires and arson.
NOW experts believe that it very likely was a tragic accident, that it very likely was NOT arson (he had no history of violence, no threats against ex-wife, or children). The testimony of the person that believed to have seen him nearby, was shaky as well.
This was an emotional case, we can assume the defense was not too skillful (for that to be sure you need to invest a LOT of money) and the jury emotionally influenced and the prosecutor likely talented and AMBITIOUS ("winning" is more important than that justice is served. The prosecutor has a incentive to invest time and effort in such a case - a not too highly paid lawyer ... )
If he had not been executed he likely would have been exonerated a few years later, when more and more doubts arose about the validity of those "arson" assessments.
The inconsistencies were so glaring, that the case was reopened and he was exonerated - after 15 years or so. I am not sure if it was murder of for life.
Of course if he had a better attorney (the public attorneys are hopelessly overworked) or if that had not been in the South, or if family had paid for an attorney, ....
When the case is very high profile (think a politician or member of the police has been killed or it was a terrorist attack) the pressure on the police / FBI can lead to framing a suspect, so that they are "successful".
In the name of the father describes such a case in England. IRA bomb attack. The prosecution forged evidence and withheld the testimony of a homeless man (who had seen the main suspects at a time that made the scenario of the prosecution improbable.
Later the IRA terrorist who had done the attack was caught, sentenced to life - and admitted to the crime (knowing that 7 people had been caught up in the net). The authorities ignored that as well (that was some time after they all had landed in prison).
The prosecutor had written a confidental note to disregard the testimony of the homeless man - it was kept in the file - that became later important to reopen the case. By sheer luck the defense attorney working on the case again got access to that file, which was a mistake by the adminstration.
with that note they reopened the case - and then it ALSO came out that the lab had forged the report that was used against the aunt (the rubber gloves with residue of explosives - that did the aunt and the 17 year old nephew in).
Now luckily in the UK they do not carry out the death penalty - so the exoneration did not come too late. - those criminals throwing 7 innocent citizens under the bus for reasons of career, convenience were not punished. Not the prosecutor and not the lab.
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The phrase: "Thank you for your service" has nothing to do with reality - It is ONLY the service for the U.S. oligarchs, war lusting politicans (often chicken hawks), donors ... military contractors, oil industry - not to forget Wallstreet and banks who are also behind those industries.
Afghanistan ? PIPELINE, maybe the CIA had interests to drive up heroin production for black budgets - who knows. Also to be nearer India Pakistan Kashmir China - Larry Wilkerson, chief of staff of Powell made an interesting point in recent years * regarding that (the U.S. will stay in Afghanistn for the next 20 years, not sure if he thinks the war was started and continued ! for that reason, or if that is the reason now. The Taliban were willing to come to the negotiating table after a few months - Cheney / Bush wanted anything but a peace deal, and they escalated).
* Colin Powell had to intervene in a conflict between Pakistan and India, in 2002 I think, he flew there. both nations have nuclear weapons.
The persons enlisting may think they "serve" and "protect" the U.S. - they don't - and let's keep it real: many wouldn't enlist, if there were other good jobs to be had and healthcare wouldn't be as dysfunctional. (Wilkerson: 1 in 5 new recruits come from Louisiana. They have a lot of military families, that is one reason, they have a tradtion. But in the past and now the economic reasons dominate. - slightly paraphrased.
People that like jobs where they are not stuck in an office, with a lot of physical activity can also serve in other capacity: ambulance drivers, firefighters, street workers, FBI, ....
U.S. soldiers are stooges / cannon fodder for special interests. It shows in how they are treated when they come back - the ruling class in the U.S. has always been messing with other countries (especially ! if they had democracies. A real real democracy will look after the majority of people. Who are lower to regular income.
That is naturally against the interests of the U.S. (Western) oligarchs. The oligarchs of the first world countries had to put up with paying decent wages, some worker protection, some environmental protection and for quite some time (until 1980) they had to pay taxes if they made good profits. At home !
But the Western oligarchs intended to exploit the workforce, land and natural resources of developing countries (typically in collusion with the local oligarchs). All the talk about keeping communism at bay (during the Cold War) and the war on terrorism is a pretext for imperialism.
The soldiers do not keep the U.S. safe - when have there been foreign troops on U.S. soil ??
When Hawaii was attacked, hawaii was still an U.S. colony (same with Philippines, the Japanese bombed that too - and it was also a U.S. colony).
If the Cheney / Bush admin had wanted to keep the U.S. safe they should not have been asleep at the wheel. CIA and FBI did not cooperate well THAT should have had consequences. Of course Cheney / Bush were sitting in the glasshouse when it came to incompetence to "keep America safe".
Incompetence is the friendly assumption.
I think Cheney knew something was coming and let it gladly happen. It would be pretext for a war and it would be also pretext to crack down on civil liberties AT HOME.
A ruling class that is so craven will also gladly accept a permanent (and growing) underclass. That is not new, around 1900 there was a lively debate whether the U.S. should mind its own business and stop the wars, and regime chanages and interventions abroad. (Unfortunately the press found out that war sells their product so they supported the war mongering of the U.S. governments).
(FDR left Latin America alone - well the former admins had installed the dictators, not much work left - but with Truman it was back to imperialism, business as usual. The oppressed people in Latin America and in the colonies in Africa and Asia had sniffed morning air, time to crush them).
These "elites" and politicians will make it safe and lucrative to outsource jobs. They will allow big finance to run amock and then bail out the banksters and big auto - while the homes of 5,5 million families were forclosed.
At some point If not even a lot of consumer debt can prop up the equally dysfunctional economic system, they will dare to show some of that brutal disregard for their own population.
If the narrative of the American Dream for all cannot be upheld, the mask slips.
We are well into that process (that is the reason all other wealthy countries handled their stimulus bills differently. They still are somewhat responsvie to the population, there 80 - 85 % of the population VOTE. In the U.S. the voter participation has been successfully supressed (60 % in the 2016 race - that would be 85 % in other wealthy nations).
The elites know that they will need a militarized police (some have the gut feeling while others seem to be quite rational about it).
The police has always been used to keep the underclass down (which was gladly ignored by the part of the population that was then better off - and the police did not harrass them ). But now more and more people are financially insecure, it becomes harder to maintain the division of economic interest within the population.
Now it is the 20 or 30 % against the rest.
They need an out of control miliatrized police, with a "us versus population" mindset, which is willing to turn on the population, even citizens that do not come from the underclass. - nothing new they did the same in the 1960s and 1970s.
When the shit hits the fan the middle class and white people that peacefully protest against the status quo are also targetted.
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Timeline and EXCERPTS: John Oliver on net neutrality (and mergers, and monopolists)
10:15 - "The cable companies have figured out the great truth of America: if you want to do something evil, put it inside something boring."
Comcast extorting payments of Netflix 4:12
That has all the ingredients of a Mob Shakedown
Cable companies
Time Warner Cable, COX, Comcast, at&t, Verizon
6:07 Bloomberg video Clip: Lobby spending in DC number 1) Northrop Grumman (Military Industrial Complex) number 2 was Comcast 18,8 million USD
(source: center for Responsive Politics) Bloomberg video May 2014
6:23 Obama golfing with the CEO of Comcast
Obama saying at a cable executives house he had been there for so many occasions that "The only thing I haven't done in this house is have Seder dinner."
Nov. 14 2013 headline of an article: Remarks by the president at a DSCC event
Tom Wheeler was the lobbyist for the industry before he was appointed as FCC chairman (by Obama)
7:26 A federal study found that approx. 96 % of the population has at most two wireline providers - read TWO OR LESS
source: Site: Broadband.gov
National Broadband Plan
Connecting America
Chapter 4 Broadband Competition and Innovation Policy
It is almost as if they had agreed to stay out of each other's way like a drug cartell.
7:35 …. If hypothetically a cable company like Comcast were planning to merge with a cable company like let's say Time Warner, it is not like their CEO would sit down and mark who had which turf, right ?
7:53 CNBC video Comcast CEO on TWC Deal "Both in video and in broadband we do not compete with Time Warner. It did start with this very fundamental point. They are in New York, we are in Philadelphia, they are in L.A, we are in San Francisco. You can't buy a Comcast in New York, you can't buy a Time Warner in Philadelphia. So there is no reduction in competition"
John Oliver: Exactely - you can't reduce competition, when nobody is competing. you could not be describing a monopoly more clearly.
Maybe it is because of their lack of competition that they get away with such shitty service.
8:36 Zoom in on Ookla Speedtest May 2014 Download Speed by country
number 24 United Kingdom 27,75 Mbps
number 25 Estonia 26,85 MPS
then come Germany, Israel, Lichtenstein, Czech Republic, Spain (number 30)
then the United States as number 31 with 24,49 Mbps
8:58 Zoom in on BGR article May 20, 2014 Massive survey finds Comcast and TWC are the two most hated companies in America - period.
"In a massive customer satisfaction survey Comcast and Time Warner Cable came in dead last" (Zoom in shows the text "Comcast and TWC have the lowest customer satisfaction ratings")
Corporations like Bank of America (foreclosures) Taco Bell (diarrhoea) GM (technical problem causing deadly accidents that were ignored by GM) were rated better
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4 continents, many countries, different cultures, lifestyle risks, age structure of population. 70 years later the overwhelming majority of these countries end up spending betweeen 49 and 54 % of what the U.S. is spending per person. All grandfathered in existing solutions back in the day and had decades to develop apart (the solutions are PER country).
But they applied the indispensable principles of single payer. - One of them: do not have large powerful for profit actors in the system. That includes of course healthcare insurance companies.
The U.S. spent USD 10,260 per person in 2017 (all that is spent in the country no matter WHO pays for it divided by all the people. Which may or may not have insurance in the U.S. or may go bankrupt, or get insufficient care or too late.
Or approx. USD 5,500 for all other wealthy countries, take or leave a few hundred bucks.
Age is a major driver for spending in healthcare and there are other legitimate reasons why a country is on the lower or higher end of that range. The difference is a few hundred USD per person.
Or what a nation pays for prioritizing the wishes of the profiteers (we want to keep private insurers relevant let's pretend we can "regulate" them): that is a surcharge of almost 5,000 USD per person (compared to country with a reasonably set up system leaning strongly in the direction of non-profit).
You can multiply those 5k with 330 million people. Per year.
The U.S. could save per year 1,5 trillion USD if they had transitioned to a reasonable system years ago. Or only 1 trillion if you assume there are specific cost drivers in the U.S. (on the other hand the U.S. population is younger - typical for an immigration country).
The Sanders plan is generous, the U.S. will not achieve the cost efficiency of other countries soon. Obesity is worse than in other countries. The opiode crisis was allowed to develop. Backlog because of neglect in very basic, simple low-cost care. Neglect in preventive care.
Example:
Badly managed diabetes is not only a human tragedy. It also causes avoidable high costs later. IF the people can get treatment then (else they die, and not always fast and w/o pain eihter). The reformed system will have to deal with people needing amputations, having heart attacks (they would have later or not at all), needing kidney transplants, gone blind, wounds that will not heal, people needing full care when they could be active and independent living - because they could not afford the doctor or the insuline IN TIME.
It is also a major disadvantage to have for-profit hospitals. Plus at least a part of the U.S. doctors earn much more than their counterparts in other countries (even when you factor in high costs for medical school, which they must recoup. While most other countries train doctors and nurses for free).
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