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[smjjames]

Now Trump is saying that China of all countries should investigate the Bidens. After which he made a context free claim.

I can easily imagine China seeing this and going "What?! No way, we're not getting involved in this clusterf**k" (except in more diplomatic language), especially not after he's straight up blurted it out in public since everybody is going to know. It's probably an attempt along the lines of his "Russia, if you're listening, please find Hillary's 30,000 (or whatever number) emails!", but it's in the middle of where people are already wary.

[ggamer]

I'm not reading anything necessarily shocking anywhere in this article, although it's good to be reminded that revolutions can happen without anyone seeing them coming. I was taught in high school that perestroika and awareness of both how bad the common man's life was/how easy those at the top had it led to that revolution, so I didn't know that was striking news or anything. Although, like with a lot of things, the modern alt right has turned it into the completely wrong lesson, which i think is america outspending russia or something daft like that.

There's an awful lot of America's corruption that stays bottled up and behind closed doors. I wonder if the reason we haven't seen any attempt to clean up this corruption is that any attempt to start clearing it would - by its very nature - reveal that corruption to the masses, and thus lead to a startlingly similar situation. How patriotic would you feel if you knew about how your defense dollars are spent? Or how many decisions in the past twenty years that were made as ostensibly moral choices, but instead were to increase tax revenue? Or, even, how congressmen and senators choose to spend their money? Or where the majority of their money comes from?

[Naturegirl1999]

How patriotic would you feel if you knew about how your defense dollars are spent? Or how many decisions in the past twenty years that were made as ostensibly moral choices, but instead were to increase tax revenue? Or, even, how congressmen and senators choose to spend their money?

Not very

[smjjames]

So, a rather interesting analysis about the nature of the collapse of the USSR. Going off of the logic there, it is unlikely that China will collapse under Xi Jinpeng's rule.

Then again, no one predicted the collapse of the USSR.

Well, Xi Jingpeng has been given the possibility of keeping his position for life and he's 66, so, assuming he keeps the party happy enough that they don't decide to toss him out, he's got maybe 20 years. 20 years is plenty of time for multiple crisises to happen.

I'm not reading anything necessarily shocking anywhere in this article, although it's good to be reminded that revolutions can happen without anyone seeing them coming. I was taught in high school that perestroika and awareness of both how bad the common man's life was/how easy those at the top had it led to that revolution, so I didn't know that was striking news or anything. Although, like with a lot of things, the modern alt right has turned it into the completely wrong lesson, which i think is america outspending russia or something daft like that.

I wondered if anybody in the 1780's predicted if the French Revolution was coming, but I don't see anything on wikipedia about it. However, the article mentions economic/financial crisis as being a key part behind the collapse, as was the French Revolution. But an economic crisis alone isn't guaranteed to start a revolution, it'll probably end up being some sort of social crisis that even they can't contain plus political problems.

[WealthyRadish]

So, a rather interesting analysis about the nature of the collapse of the USSR. Going off of the logic there, it is unlikely that China will collapse under Xi Jinpeng's rule.

Then again, no one predicted the collapse of the USSR.

Looks like a clickbait pro-RF propaganda piece by the "American Enterprise Institute" (from 2011) that briefly states the thing everyone knows about the event, and then fills the space with languid intonations about "great revolutions" and the newfound depths of "moral and spiritual magnificence" of liberal capitalism in one of the most illiberal and corrupt oligarchic dictatorships in the world. Maybe it was forgivable in 2011, but it was amusing seeing him quote Medvedev as some kind of liberal intellectual, who today we know as the gimp Putin keeps around to evade consecutive term limit restrictions.

If something is calling what happened to Russia in the 1990s a "revolution", that should probably be enough to start questioning it.

[Iduno]

Now Trump is saying that China of all countries should investigate the Bidens. After which he made a context free claim.

Your link says Bernie Sanders? Also, was Trump's question "We just can't find any dirt on this senile old man complaining that black people don't listen to enough radio shows, and making up a guy named 'Corn Pop.' He seems like a reasonable person. Can you find anything?"?

[smjjames]

Now Trump is saying that China of all countries should investigate the Bidens. After which he made a context free claim.

Your link says Bernie Sanders?

Huh? The links work fine for me.

Also, was Trump's question "We just can't find any dirt on this senile old man complaining that black people don't listen to enough radio shows, and making up a guy named 'Corn Pop.' He seems like a reasonable person. Can you find anything?"?

That'd be a good summary of it, yes. lol.

I think you're misreading my point. My point is twofold:

• We suck at seeing these things coming
• They don't generally happen at the peak of suppression

If nothing else, pulling those two things out of there seems reasonable enough, regardless of the rest of the author's perspective.

China is also not undergoing an economic crisis, which would make it harder to keep a lid on things.

[WealthyRadish]

I think you're misreading my point. My point is twofold:

• We suck at seeing these things coming
• They don't generally happen at the peak of suppression

If nothing else, pulling those two things out of there seems reasonable enough, regardless of the rest of the author's perspective.

Oh sure, it's just hard to read an article like that without commenting on it.

One point about China that I think is worth keeping in mind is that the CPC is known for its meticulous and exhaustive historical and political studies of the USSR, made with the express interest of not repeating similar mistakes and losing power. It's one reason why the PRC has had basically no political liberalization despite generations of extensive economic liberalization pushed by the party leadership. So really, I think the only thing that can said with some certainty about the PRC's future collapse is that it won't look like the Gorbachev debacle.

[SalmonGod]

There's an awful lot of America's corruption that stays bottled up and behind closed doors. I wonder if the reason we haven't seen any attempt to clean up this corruption is that any attempt to start clearing it would - by its very nature - reveal that corruption to the masses, and thus lead to a startlingly similar situation. How patriotic would you feel if you knew about how your defense dollars are spent? Or how many decisions in the past twenty years that were made as ostensibly moral choices, but instead were to increase tax revenue? Or, even, how congressmen and senators choose to spend their money? Or where the majority of their money comes from?

I don't think corruption has been hidden from the masses in the USA for a long time. 

• We've had the Bush and Trump administration's flagrant, obvious, well-known corruption, with egregious consequences to life and liberty
• 13 years of Wikileaks
• the Snowden leaks
• the Panama papers
• like a dozen attempts to pass internet censorship laws hidden from the public behind national security classification (SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, COICA, etc)
• and a general avalanche of investigative journalism and research blatantly revealing how everything (environment, food industry, finance, inequality, medicine, etc) is fucked to extremes and it's all because of corruption

I stopped expecting information to be enough to motivate people several years ago.  It's going to take direct, immediate, tangible threat to the well-being of the majority of people for them to finally be ready to act.  And I don't mean something abstract like the impending threat of environmental apocalypse.  I mean the hammers battering down their doors.  I genuinely think that the media has conditioned everyone to be looking for their cue to be something out of an action movie.

[smjjames]

In these hyperpartisan times though, said majority would have to be bipartisan in order for it to work effectively, especially in a split Congress.

[Naturegirl1999]

In these hyperpartisan times though, said majority would have to be bipartisan in order for it to work effectively, especially in a split Congress.

Not to mention both sides of the split have no motivation to stop the corruption since they benefit from it. If something was to work, those who want to stop the corruption must act in a group, since individuals are easier for them to stop.

[Max™]

I will be a kindly old gentleman, the one thing I learned from old white guys was how not to be, and history is after all on my side there, for what is it but a litany of horrors inflicted on everyone else at the hands of old white fuckbags?

I honestly can't decide which is worse here, the "every old white man sucks, without exception, but when I am an old white man I won't" or the bald claim that all of notable history is about (old) white men.

I'd be lax if I didn't point out I said old white guys and in particular those seeking power. A man is a rare thing and definitely not a bullying cheating fucker trying to screw over everyone they can in the name of getting theirs or burning it all before they die, but our government is full of them, and the history of the americas after a certain point is literally possible to sum up as "white dudes show up in boats and fuck over everything" once you strip out the patriotic bullshit. This holds for many other parts of the world, and it's still going on, or did you not notice that fossil fuels became a serious issue once other parts of the world started getting interested in using them to get some of that first world lovin' going on. Sorry for ya folks, we got ours over here, we're gonna need you to cut back and struggle more because we kinda made a big mess and we're damn sure not gonna pay for it ourselves.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I'm liking this trend of unofficial campaign ads.

[Naturegirl1999]

I'm liking this trend of unofficial campaign ads.

Why are people hung up about him not constantly smiling? Smiling is not a prerequisite to be president

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The corporate propagandists will say anything that comes to mind to try and get their way. It is best to listen to them as little as possible for this reason, all they touch is tainted.