Yeah, I feel my hypocrisy. I am trying to understand more, but my mind always ends up melting. Individuals I’ve met that maybe could do what I want done are a different breed from me. I am pushing myself to understand more, but I am pushing uphill and it will take years before I can achieve what probably so many all around the world could do now. While I sharpen myself, I ask: who were those in the V masks of years past?

These behaviors will only get worse, unless we change the system. We just need to help each other understand that, and then execute it!

Where are the hactivists?! Are they all too well employed?

I am still confused by your thoughts. I truly do not mean to entrap you somehow, if that’s what you mean. I am only trying to understand your beliefs and then refine mine. A cycle of asking refining questions and getting candid answers is how I try to understand someone’s beliefs. Also, some of the questions were answers to your assertions. I was hoping the questions would reveal that I am not referring to a mental process that constrained to any time or place. Not constrained to family.

Yes, the situation was different with the civil rights movement. I was referring to a very specific trait in human behavior that I am trying to fully understand. I can understand if white moderates looked down on blacks and decided that now is not the right time and such, but they didn’t necessarily look down on them. The changes would inevitably cause personal pain to those white moderates. Within them is the full spectrum, including ultra-wealthy who would prefer stability of their economic realm. My thoughts circle around to how a group can be strong and united for a worthy cause, but totally fail to do what is needed, because of individual selfishness. I don’t mean selfish in a bad sense, but in that we will all naturally consider our situation and how our situation will be affected. Consciously, or not, we will account for our own needs, desires and fears. I strongly believe that this an abstract thought process that we apply everywhere.

I just looked up about yes sets. Haha, I was so so confused why you writing of car sales. No, I was trying to establish a foundation of agreement. I hoped you would agree with caring for yourself and others in your life. I also assumed that your brain would process the implications, whether you’d like it to or not. Sometimes those questions seem to cause some sort of cognitive dissonance (something else I try to understand) and the person refuses to answer in a candid way, or has an emotional outburst. I experience it all the time in the US now. MAGA mind will argue in bad faith until they pass out. If one won’t answer questions that ground the conversation, they are likely a troll.

We can end it here, that’s fine.

Firstly, thank you for the discussion.

And my point is that you cant expect every culture act similary to 30’s/40’s white american nuclear family

I must be poorly making my point. I am writing about something all humans do in all times and future. No healthy animal decides to hurt itself. Parents instinctively protect and care for their children. Parents often try to safeguard their children’s futures by making them healthy, educated and financially secure. This has nothing to do with a nuclear family. If my friend takes medicine to live, I want them to always have that medicine available to them. If I have a pet, I want them fat and warm in the winter. I don’t want to die. I want to live. These are all things humans consider, or they are brain dead.

Please answer this question: Would you sacrifice yourself, and everyone you’ve loved, for your principles?

perspective afro american male It was this reason he was able to see the underlying causes of the injustices so well.

I am not communicating this well then. The hesitancy of the moderates was, and still is like your statement: “when people have lots of money tied to something, they try to keep things steady.” That is why I assert this is a fundamental trait we all share as humans. If fixing the status quo upsets my life, then I will probably temper my will for those changes. How do you not have this behavior? What if the changes necessitate a generation of austerity; a forced collapse of the existing system? If you have children, why would you NOT consider how it will impact them? This is basic human stuff. For me personally, I will likely die early for this principle, but I struggle with these contentions in my mind. I haven’t lived a nice life and I don’t have much of anything to lose in the way of children, partners, or money. But I do take care of my elderly parents, and my remaining siblings are both fully disabled in different ways. I imagine the situation where I get killed or jailed at the sunset of my mother’s life. She has experienced much pain hers. She has lost children. Do I want to send her off with more pain? No, and it absolutely affects my decisions. There are animals that I care for. I can imagine the stress and pain that they will experience when abandoned. Most people have WAY MORE to lose than I do, and my few things restrict me.

The Soviet Union was a communist authoritarian nation. I never implied that the strongmen were the oligarchs. Fascism is a particular flavor of bad people putting themselves over others. In this flavor of assholery, capitalist oligarchs have always had a large roll. It is part of the definition of fascism. People seem to think fascism == authoritarianism, but they are not the same, for one is a subset of the other.

There’s a whole spectrum of wealth. There are a surprising amount of batshit-crazy ultra billionaires. They have the same weaknesses as everyone else. They succumb to their own collective propaganda. They are narcissistic sociopaths.

Scholars also noted that big business developed an increasingly close partnership with the Italian Fascist and German Nazi governments after they took power. Business leaders supported the government’s political and military goals. In exchange, the government pursued economic policies that maximized the profits of its business allies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_fascism

In the US, we have been pulling our hair out trying to understand why so many us are believing stark lies that lead to ruin. We have about a dozen billionaires in cabinet positions. Our oligarch class wholeheartedly supports Trump. Yeah, some push back when their pot gets disturbed, then they give the admin money or power in exchange for a carve-out and contract.

Yes please, but you must realize, that it is not a few that need to jump to prevent meal

From my shallow understanding and my observations, I sadly agree that Canada is also succumbing to the oligarchs, like everywhere. It’s painful when so many deny the reality of what is happening globally. We are all on a stove top in different pots being heated at different rates.

The oligarch class is again showing why we need to upset their cart.

He is a corpocrate. A shill for the wealthy. He represents the white moderates.

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

• MLK https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

MLK advocated for some pretty radical changes to our society. Not just racial equality. We need the white moderates to lose their investments, or they won’t really help. They have too much to lose, they think maybe tomorrow would be more opportune.

Same then, same now.

How are different people and such? My parents were adults when MLK was murdered. My parents are still alive and politically active.

EU would definitely handle a downturn better than us. That has nothing to do with what I was saying. I am talking about innate psychological phenomenon within all of us.

If money is so smart and free of all human mental fragility, then why is it that they always have a giant hand in fascism? It’s part of the very definition of fascism. Fascist regimes last a long time and destroy economies, yet they still happen. Interesting, maybe they are not gods of wisdom and logic, but slaves to greed and power. They seek not to strengthen each other’s hands, but to dominate each other. Money payed to power returns them power and money to even stomp on each other.

Everyone is accustomed to Google’s bundled apps and various backend web services. People generally don’t like change, so they will continue to use them. Those components are binaries and runtime calls to proprietary software. You can’t go compile them yourself. So it will continue to be a viable foothold.

MLK wrote about the white moderates being the largest stifling force to change. Collectively, they’d say we need these changes for justice and equality, but always bail and say not like this, or not at this time. The changes that needed to happen would disturb or destroy the lives they individually sought. Individuals think about themselves first. If the changes needed would cause a period of economic hardship for their families, then they may soften their support. If they have kind hearts, but are completely accustomed to privileged lifestyles, they will have internal contention if the needed changes could upend it. They will have fear. If individuals or families have medical conditions, they will have internal contention about anything even temporarily interrupting care. On and on and on. This is the problem we are facing right now in the US. As a people, our majority calls for change. Individually, we are calculating what we would truly sacrifice. Have you not read the endless comments from the US individuals stating why they can’t do more?

Oligarchs created our current situation. The long term goal in the EU is same as for the US, regulatory capture and then privatization of public services and resources.

The rich seem to be common evil denominator. It is time to act against them. Worldwide.

I forgot to mention Google’s Android. So it seems nearly 100% of the EU is using a US controlled device in their pocket. Nice little spy devices.

“Algeria’s growing willingness to collaborate with the United States should not be seen solely as a security measure, but as part of a comprehensive strategy to reposition itself geopolitically in an increasingly unstable international environment.” https://www.atalayar.com/en/articulo/politics/russias-growing-influence-in-the-sahel-is-forcing-algeria-to-rethink-its-defence-strategy/20250510130000214532.html

If Algeria gets in bed with US oligarchs, then they will be used as a pawn against the EU. What would you do in winter when some pressure campaign or insurgency is upon you, but budgeted energy is cut short?

A lot of expensive painful changes will have to happen in the EU. Individuals are weak and don’t want their boat rocked. A great period of austerity may be needed to fund the changes. Individuals will hang on to lifestyles that they are accustomed to, and expect the same in the future. When presented with reality, they will experience cognitive dissonance. Many individuals will choose to fool themselves that there is another way, or that things aren’t bad enough to warrant the loss of what they expected their short existence to be like.

Huh? Why can’t imports be banned? If my country bans imports (it has), then I cannot get around it by inly dealing with citizens.

I agree. People elsewhere, like here, will just want to try carrying on like normal. The alternative is too hard. Where are they going to get their supplemental LNG and oil? Are they going to switch to only Linux instead of Windows or macos? Iphones? Our oligarchs, and others will continue to corrupt the world’s politicians, and fund increasingly sophisticated propaganda campaigns. The decision makers will cave to oligarchs’ carrots and sticks.