If our country’s elected and appointed leaders had chosen to satisfy their constitutional oaths 30 years ago, I don’t think this shit in Ukraine would have happened, if only because post-Cold War Russia transitioned to a new flavor of kleptocratic rule in the early 90s under the tutelage of American oligarchs. To make matters considerably worse, during Trump’s “brilliant” time in office he purposefully and with clear understanding (or whatever passed for learning with Old Mushroom Dick) empowered Putin to do whatever he wanted. Just think of all the criminally stupid decisions Trump made to help Russia and hurt our country. Why would Trump commit such an amazing array of treasonous acts? Occam’s Razor leads me to believe that it’s no more complicated than Putin owns the paper on Trump’s loans and has commanded America’s greatest grifter to do things that were (and continue to be) adverse to our rights and our communities’ interests.
We need more democracy to "Protect Democracies Around the World?"
We don't need another authoritarian organization that must be trusted and funded to keep peace. It can be bought by oligarchs We need more citizen control of politics and economics, including a say on military/police budgets.
We need to maximize democracy world-wide. Citizens need more control over both their political and economic systems. Both systems need greater democratic oversight by citizens.
We must create nations that are the opposite of any fascist nation we have seen. These fascist systems maximize their authoritarian control of both the political and economic systems to protect and empower a small select group. We need to prevent total authoritarian control of both our political and economic systems. Any authoritarian economic system will be in opposition to any democratic political system. Both systems must be as democratic as possible. We need to maximize democratic systems and, in turn, maximize political and economic equality.
Both democratic political and democratic economic systems are necessary for maximizing equality. I don't mean we are all equal. I mean we are all more equal and less divided. Excessive political and economic division must be democratically limited and that requires more than just a democratic political system that is susceptible to an authoritarian economic system, as we have now.
As we have seen, our authoritarian economic system has created such income and wealth inequality, the oligarchs now own all three branches of our government. Recently, the oligarchs stopped the expansion of political democracy by preventing the passage of major legislation to protect and empower citizens as voters. That left state laws in place to override future elections. Oligarchs have reversed the growth of the greatest national middle class in the US. That authoritarian political and economic power needs to be ended. The authoritarian oligarchs need to be disempowered and defunded through political taxation and economic democracy.
Economic democracy means employees of large corporations must own the means of productions and democratically decide how the profit they produce is distributed. The workers democratically decide where their factories and jobs will be located. The workers democratically decide how to avoid externalizing costs to protect the communities they live within. They will limit income inequality and eliminate wealthy oligarchs so they can’t buy governments.
More democracy is necessary to "Protect Democracies Around the World?"
There are no easy answers, although I am certain one of them is not flooding regions of instability with billions in weaponry. Even a corruption fighter in Ukraine was asking for more weapons and a no fly-zone. So if democracy or at least the pretense of it requires perpetual war, is that democracy at all? I do agree that some form of International Criminal Court should have the power to prosecute leaders like George W Bush, Putin, Bin Salmen, Obama etc for illegal invasions, bombings and war crimes. The question becomes who is that court comprised of and what world leaders would remain in office?
As usual, the 'Devil is in the details.' And the mass concentration of money in our giant corporations and trusts, with the aid of the few news media we have left will corrupt any global, singular umbrella Peace organization.
Perhaps we do need to be more vigilant citizens, and perhaps we all need to be eternally carrying sufficient self-defense weapons to protect us from the 'protectors.' During the last two years many people have realized what a fearsome political, military machine we have allowed our health agencies to become.
However, in order to maintain some degree of peace in the world we need a faster response system, obviously. And we need the Global Industrial Military Industry de-fanged.
I find this comment by Andy W. compelling:
"Economic democracy means employees of large corporations must own the means of productions and democratically decide how the profit they produce is distributed. The workers democratically decide where their factories and jobs will be located. The workers democratically decide how to avoid externalizing costs to protect the communities they live within. They will limit income inequality and eliminate wealthy oligarchs so they can’t buy governments." A good example is the Mondragon unit in Northern Spain (https://www.theguardian dot com/social-enterprise-network/2012/mar/12/cooperatives-spain-mondragon), or the eelctric utilities we have in Tennessee.
If our country’s elected and appointed leaders had chosen to satisfy their constitutional oaths 30 years ago, I don’t think this shit in Ukraine would have happened, if only because post-Cold War Russia transitioned to a new flavor of kleptocratic rule in the early 90s under the tutelage of American oligarchs. To make matters considerably worse, during Trump’s “brilliant” time in office he purposefully and with clear understanding (or whatever passed for learning with Old Mushroom Dick) empowered Putin to do whatever he wanted. Just think of all the criminally stupid decisions Trump made to help Russia and hurt our country. Why would Trump commit such an amazing array of treasonous acts? Occam’s Razor leads me to believe that it’s no more complicated than Putin owns the paper on Trump’s loans and has commanded America’s greatest grifter to do things that were (and continue to be) adverse to our rights and our communities’ interests.
We need more democracy to "Protect Democracies Around the World?"
We don't need another authoritarian organization that must be trusted and funded to keep peace. It can be bought by oligarchs We need more citizen control of politics and economics, including a say on military/police budgets.
We need to maximize democracy world-wide. Citizens need more control over both their political and economic systems. Both systems need greater democratic oversight by citizens.
We must create nations that are the opposite of any fascist nation we have seen. These fascist systems maximize their authoritarian control of both the political and economic systems to protect and empower a small select group. We need to prevent total authoritarian control of both our political and economic systems. Any authoritarian economic system will be in opposition to any democratic political system. Both systems must be as democratic as possible. We need to maximize democratic systems and, in turn, maximize political and economic equality.
Both democratic political and democratic economic systems are necessary for maximizing equality. I don't mean we are all equal. I mean we are all more equal and less divided. Excessive political and economic division must be democratically limited and that requires more than just a democratic political system that is susceptible to an authoritarian economic system, as we have now.
As we have seen, our authoritarian economic system has created such income and wealth inequality, the oligarchs now own all three branches of our government. Recently, the oligarchs stopped the expansion of political democracy by preventing the passage of major legislation to protect and empower citizens as voters. That left state laws in place to override future elections. Oligarchs have reversed the growth of the greatest national middle class in the US. That authoritarian political and economic power needs to be ended. The authoritarian oligarchs need to be disempowered and defunded through political taxation and economic democracy.
Economic democracy means employees of large corporations must own the means of productions and democratically decide how the profit they produce is distributed. The workers democratically decide where their factories and jobs will be located. The workers democratically decide how to avoid externalizing costs to protect the communities they live within. They will limit income inequality and eliminate wealthy oligarchs so they can’t buy governments.
More democracy is necessary to "Protect Democracies Around the World?"
There are no easy answers, although I am certain one of them is not flooding regions of instability with billions in weaponry. Even a corruption fighter in Ukraine was asking for more weapons and a no fly-zone. So if democracy or at least the pretense of it requires perpetual war, is that democracy at all? I do agree that some form of International Criminal Court should have the power to prosecute leaders like George W Bush, Putin, Bin Salmen, Obama etc for illegal invasions, bombings and war crimes. The question becomes who is that court comprised of and what world leaders would remain in office?
As usual, the 'Devil is in the details.' And the mass concentration of money in our giant corporations and trusts, with the aid of the few news media we have left will corrupt any global, singular umbrella Peace organization.
Perhaps we do need to be more vigilant citizens, and perhaps we all need to be eternally carrying sufficient self-defense weapons to protect us from the 'protectors.' During the last two years many people have realized what a fearsome political, military machine we have allowed our health agencies to become.
However, in order to maintain some degree of peace in the world we need a faster response system, obviously. And we need the Global Industrial Military Industry de-fanged.
I find this comment by Andy W. compelling:
"Economic democracy means employees of large corporations must own the means of productions and democratically decide how the profit they produce is distributed. The workers democratically decide where their factories and jobs will be located. The workers democratically decide how to avoid externalizing costs to protect the communities they live within. They will limit income inequality and eliminate wealthy oligarchs so they can’t buy governments." A good example is the Mondragon unit in Northern Spain (https://www.theguardian dot com/social-enterprise-network/2012/mar/12/cooperatives-spain-mondragon), or the eelctric utilities we have in Tennessee.