Comments by "Halfdan Ingolfsson" (@Halli50) on "The Damage Report"
channel.
-
4
-
4
-
4
-
It is hardly a matter of serious dispute that the Nordic countries are currently the most successful in providing prosperity and security to their general public while also allowing entrepreneurial people to flourish and reap the benefits of their contribution. They usually call it social democracy themselves, but in reality it is simply a mixed economy where capitalists can thrive without being allowed to screw everyone else over. Some functions are handled by the government, like the police, fire departments, health care, education and social safety nets. While we have to be ever vigilant to keep out corruption, it WORKS, period.
It is astounding how the US seems to be unable to study and understand what works and what does not work in the Nordic countries, and constantly try to flip from one extreme to another. After all, almost all the ideas the Nordic countries are using - with fairly good success - were pioneered in the US at one time or another.
You should NOT try to eliminate capitalism, just rein it in and make sure you have what a wise man called "compassionate capitalism".
4
-
4
-
Is Trump a Genius Media Manipulator? Who knows - he is just traveling where no other public figure has dared to travel before. Normally, public figures care about what they say in public but Trump has absolutely no shame; He will say something outrageously stupid and untrue on camera and, 5 minutes later, he will unabashedly declare "I never said that!". The masterful part is the simple fact that the bloody stupid reporters will breathlessly chase the outrageously stupid and untrue nonsense, and waste a lot of time making fools of themselves. Meanwhile, Trump will have been in the spotlight the entire time. True, he has been is the spotlight as a lying idiot, but by simply throwing out another ridiculous stink-bomb, Trump manages to shamelessly distract from the first outrageously stupid and untrue nonsense and, through the entire process he has continued to stay in the limelight. The old adage: There is no bad press, there is just PRESS -time in the limelight!
The worst part: The US public appears to be stupid enough to swallow this spiel, hook, line and sinker!
4
-
4
-
4
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
Tomandtob , you are probably right that the media in every country laments their own dead while making little of other deaths (e.g. the media in Islamic countries do not lament the death of "infidels"), but I find the US media more than a bit over the top, for a western nation, when it comes to this issue while hardly mentioning the hundreds of thousands of e.g. Iraqi and Afghan civilians that have died in these conflicts. The European media do this to some extent as well, but they are not nearly as bad.
I HAVE traveled quite a bit. Apart from regular traveling to many countries for my own pleasure, I spent around 2 years in a war zone in the early nineties (Angola) flying for the ICRC, as well as a year in Yemen (flying for oil companies) when they were finally mending after a long civil war between the North and the South. Now they are a disaster zone, AGAIN, even worse than before!
You are right that there are absolutely no "good guys" in any conflict, and that includes the superpowers that used to have their fingers in every pie (the US and the USSR). I truly hope that you are right in that the "defend corporate interests" model has died, but the evidence says otherwise. It may be the Trumpzis that are pretending to "spread democracy" these days but, while it IS a sad joke, Trump is a very recent (and hopefully short-lived) phenomenon. The US's direct and indirect military involvement in conflicts all over the world during the last 50-60 years has sometimes been benign but frequently quite sinister, especially when dictators and despots in South America have been endlessly propped up.
2
-
2
-
2