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Originally posted by Wishimay:
*Waiting for you to realize there is nothing you can do.
*Waiting for you to realize how incredibly out of your hands all this is because "they" will never let you affect change at all, even if a group does agree... mental illness will assure there will NEVER be a consensus.
*Waiting for you to get angry and feel impotent.
*Waiting for you to realize the futility.
*Waiting for you to realize it's a chronic condition.
*Waiting for you to realize "freedom" is a joke, an illusion.


Waiting for you to go back to #1.

Repeat until death.

I'm literally seven steps ahead of you.

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I have a problem with the argument.

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While they say - be the change you wish to see - they also say - WWII wouldn't have been prevented by dumpster diving. Holding an individual personally responsible to address a social ill misses the whole 'social' part of 'social justice'. It's trying to fit an apples solution into an oranges problem.

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Ultimately, if you calculate it out far enough, and apply it to everyone, reparations are a good thing. We all come from reasonably classless small primitive societies, and reparations would cause a great levelling.

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But that's only one part of the equation, because there would still be an active system of winnowing.

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So, completely going past the reparations question, there's still the question of existing justice. And what can we do to create a more just system today, going forward. That question hasn't been addressed.

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On the one hand, recent tensions between China and the US appeared to have been defused following this weekend's visit by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to Beijing, where it was "all smiles" during his meeting with China's president. With warm words from Xi, Tillerson on Sunday ended his first trip to Asia since taking office, with an agreement to work together with China on North Korea and putting aside trickier issues.

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Furthermore, as Reuters adds, preparatory work for a meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump has begun, China's Foreign Ministry said on Monday, after a weekend visit to Beijing by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. The planned summit between Xi and Trump could happen as soon as next month in the United States.

On the other hand, however, China's government is already preparing for retaliation for what it deems an inevitable first trade war step by the US, and has been seeking advice from its think-tanks and policy advisers on how to counter potential trade penalties from U.S. President Donald Trump, "getting ready for the worst," even as they hope for business-like negotiations Reuters adds. The policy advisers believe the Trump administration is most likely to impose higher tariffs on targeted sectors where China has a big surplus with the United States, such as steel and furniture, or on state-owned firms.

** China could respond with actions such as finding alternative suppliers of agriculture products**

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** or machinery and manufactured goods, while cutting its exports of consumer staples such as mobile phones or laptops, they said. **

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** Other options include imposing tax or other restrictions on big U.S. firms operating in China, or limiting their access to China's fast-growing services sector, they added.

Beijing was a particular target of Trump's rhetoric during last year's election campaign, and officials see some friction as inevitable due to China's large trade surplus, according to several sources involved in the internal discussions. China's State Council Information Office, the government public relations arm, and the Ministry of Commerce did not return requests for comment.**

"There is still room for both sides to resolve problems through co-operation and consultation, rather than just resorting to retaliation," said a policy adviser who spoke on condition of anonymity. "But we should have plans in case things go wrong."

Premier Li Keqiang said last week that Beijing did not want to see a trade war with the United States and urged talks between both sides to achieve common ground. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also said last week that the Trump administration did not want trade wars, but that certain trade relationships needed re-examining to make them fairer for U.S. workers.

** No major U.S. measures have been announced, and there were no public indications of Washington's intentions on trade at the weekend when Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visited China.

Meanwhile, maintaining the facade that all is well, Trump is expected to host President Xi Jinping next month.

A glimpse of the uncertain future, however, came on Saturday in a communique after a meeting of finance ministers at the G20 in Germany, which dropped a pledge to keep global trade free and open, acquiescing to an increasingly protectionist United States after the two-day meeting failed to yield a compromise. The sources said China could step up some imports from the United States and boost its investment there to help create more jobs as a goodwill gesture, but would not meekly accept any unilateral U.S. action. **

"We will have contingency plans to cope with the worst policies from Trump," said a second policy adviser. Trump has previously threatened a 45 percent tariff on China's exports and frequently said on the campaign trail that he would label China a currency manipulator, even though Beijing has not been actively weakening the yuan in recent years.

In an interview with Reuters on Feb. 23, he declared China the "grand champions" of currency manipulation. "It's hard to say his views have changed or he has become more pragmatic," said the first adviser. Mnuchin has pledged a more methodical approach to analyzing Beijing's foreign exchange practices.

** Under the three criteria set by the U.S. Treasury to determine whether a country is manipulating its currency for a trade advantage, China only meets one: running a trade surplus of more than $20 billion with the United States. The U.S. Treasury's next report on the issue is due in April. China's surplus with the United States fell by $20.1 billion to $347 billion in 2016, the U.S. Commerce Department said on Tuesday, while Chinese data put it somewhat lower. **

One of Reuters' sources said he thought it unlikely that Trump would label China a currency manipulator. "If he does that, China will let the yuan go, and the yuan will fall sharply," the source said. Weakening the yuan or dumping some of China's massive holdings of U.S Treasuries could be considered only when trade relations deteriorate sharply, the sources said.

Earlier this month, former commerce minister Gao Hucheng said during the annual meeting of parliament that China was not afraid of a trade war, though it hoped to avoid one. "We are willing to deal with it properly, but we are not afraid. Once the U.S. side take certain measures, we will evaluate and analyze such measures, and take actions when necessary," Gao said.

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Finally, in a parallel report from Axios, the website cites China expert Richard McGregor who lists 5 things he believes Xi wants from Trump in order to maintain cordial relations between the two nations:

** Don't upend the status quo with North Korea: China's worst nightmare is that the regime would collapse and be subsumed by South Korea, which would make for a U.S.-ally on their border. It needs North Korea as a buffer state. Contra Washington conventional wisdom, the Chinese can't just snap their fingers and tell the North Koreans what to do. China and North Korea deeply distrust each other. So the Chinese hope Trump's tough talk is just bluster.

Avoid a confrontation in the South China Sea: Xi will likely deliver to Trump a quiet warning on the South China Sea. During his confirmation hearing, Rex Tillerson told Senators China needed to stop its island building there. The Chinese want Trump to understand they will defend their interests if the U.S. pushes back. (See our Facts Matter on the South China Sea.)

Stick to "One China": Regarding Taiwan, they want Trump to stick with the "One China" policy. Xi was furious when Trump took a call from Taiwan's president, and wouldn't speak with him over the phone until Trump agreed to support the status quo. (See our Facts Matter on the One China policy.)

No trade war: The Chinese, like everyone else, don't know what Trump might do on trade. They are closely following the reports about the tussle within the White House between nationalists (especially Bannon and Wilbur Ross) and the Goldman Sachs wing, led by Trump's chief economic advisor, Gary Cohn. As Axios revealed: trade in automobiles is the big sleeper issue.

The big picture: Xi wants a stable international environment that allows China to continue to develop and accumulate wealth and power. **

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** They abhor the prospect of military disruptions and interruptions to trade, with Xi going to Davos this year to sell China as an apostle of the open international order to all the folks Bannon would call "globalists." McGregor says China's ideal state for America is "slow and steady bourgeois decline." Anything too chaotic — Trump's MO, basically — hurts China. **

Clearly, point #4 will be the most controversial one in the coming months.

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180,000 people have fled west Mosul since the latest offensive there started on the 19 of February this year.

Hitham is 9. He is from Mosul in Northern Iraq. As the Iraqi forces continue their offensive to re-take the city, the frontline reached his home in the western parts of the city. The fighting eventually drove them away.

There are many like Hitham. Since the offensive to re-take Mosul started in October last year, 330,000 people have fled their homes. A quarter of those have already returned to their houses in neighborhoods damaged by war in the eastern parts of the city. Life there is tough. There is a shortage of clean water. Little healthcare. Schools are yet to open. But is it home.

For Hitham and 180,000 others displaced from the western parts of Mosul, going home is not an option. Fighting continues. As more than eight thousand others that early day in March, he arrived at one of the camps set up to accommodate the growing numbers of people escaping war. The path is muddy. They have fled for hours or days, after weeks of fighting and little to eat, after years under ISIS rule.

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Fleeing IS, Mosul's civilians cart out the living and the dead

From a distance, the exhausted Iraqis fleeing parts of Mosul controlled by Islamic State appeared to be pushing their worldly possessions on handcarts.

By the time they reached Reuters journalists it was clear that their cargo was far more precious, and more tragic. One man lifted a grubby, fluffy blanket to reveal the dust and blood-covered body of a child, one of several piled up on the cart.

"This is my son. He is gone," he said, describing how his family's home had been hit by an air strike. Iraqi helicopters have been pounding west Mosul with missiles as its troops push into Islamic State's last holdout in Iraq.

"This happened because of air strikes. These were in their homes and the air strikes killed them," the man said, showing other small bodies, cut by shrapnel or debris, on the cart.

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Iraqi Troops Using Indiscriminate Weapons in Fight Against ISIS

Worrying evidence is emerging that fighting against the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) in west Mosul is dirtier and deadlier to civilians than the fight to retake the city’s eastern part.

A citizen journalist posted photos and video of Iraq’s emergency response division, a special police unit, firing inaccurate rockets into west Mosul on February 17. These weapons are commonly known as improvised rocket-assisted munitions (IRAM), and they are inherently indiscriminate.

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According to a recent report a new Sunni insurgency is already taking root in Iraq as the U.S.-led coalition continues to weaken the Islamic State's territorial strongholds, particularly in Mosul. The report, by the Washington D.C.-based Institute for the Study of War, warned that al Qaeda's top leadership will likely capitalize on ISIS's continued losses and attempt to gain influence within splinter militant groups opposed to the Shia-led government of Iraq. Al Qaeda has always remained active in Iraq despite being overshadowed by ISIS in recent years. Al Qaeda chief Ayman al Zawahiri last August urged its Syrian branch to rebuild alliances in Iraq and resume a "long guerrilla warfare."

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Originally posted by G:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Ok, I get your angst about Trump. He's a pussy-grabbing racist narcissist who knows next to nothing about anything, and reacts unpredictably whenever his ego is tweaked. He bullshits constantly. Plus, he has small hands. And then ... BUT RUSSIA!.

Ok, now what?

Can we possibly talk about more important/ interesting things now? The USA is in deep deep dept. We owe the entire world's output somewhere between 10-1000X over. I know it's fashionable to think that "debt doesn't matter", but when you use your currency to pay for stuff all over the world, and your currency suddenly drops ... what then? It will be like Venezuela, or worse.

Our foreign policy is in shambles because we have been kowtowing to Saudi Arabia and the banks which hold our petrodollars. Our elected officials have been almost completely corrupted by money. Our economy, the REAL economy, is withered because most of our "money" has flowed into "financials".

We're facing massive environmental challenge.

Worse, we no longer even agree on what our problems are, how can solve them, or whether or not we even SHOULD solve them together because we're so atomized that any additional effort on our part already feels like another sacrifice for a scam that's been pulled on us too many times.

People know that something is wrong, they do. There was the Tea Party, but then it was co-opted. There was Occupy, but it was ignored. Now there is Trump, elected as a populist. This can't go on forever.

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"Oh, I looked into this stupid thread. My bad." - sound familiar?

Deflection, stat! Getting a little too hot being a Trump supporter?

How about you post whatever you want and we'll do the same?

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Originally posted by 1KIKI:
I have a problem with the argument.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Which argument? The one that says there should be reparations, or the one that says there shouldn't?

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While they say - be the change you wish to see - they also say - WWII wouldn't have been prevented by dumpster diving. Holding an individual personally responsible to address a social ill misses the whole 'social' part of 'social justice'. It's trying to fit an apples solution into an oranges problem.

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Good argument against individually-applied reparations.

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Ultimately, if you calculate it out far enough, and apply it to everyone, reparations are a good thing. We all come from reasonably classless small primitive societies, and reparations would cause a great levelling.

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"Leveling?" Maybe. "Redistribution"? okay. "Reparations?" Pointless.

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But that's only one part of the equation, because there would still be an active system of winnowing.

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Yes.

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So, completely going past the reparations question, there's still the question of existing justice. And what can we do to create a more just system today, going forward. That question hasn't been addressed.

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True. Part of the reason to bring up the "reparations"/ collective guilt question is to show that it's a deflection from establishing a just system. Instead of figuring out how to move forward, we wind up squabbling over the impossible, which is how to bring justice to past generations.

Hey, those people are dead. The time for reparations was then, when they were alive, not now. So I guess one lesson to learn from this whole "reparations" discussion is that since justice delayed really is justice denied, we really need a system that applies justice at the moment, when somebody is being robbed.
You and I, we work for our money.

Banks? They - literally- create out of thin air what most people have to sweat and slave for. So I suppose the first place to break up unfair stores of wealth is to make the currency devoid of value... maybe guarantee a minimum value (like the FDIC) but wipe out the quadrillions of dollars of "notional value" embodied by hedge funds and speculators. That would immediately wipe out the ability of banks and financiers to command poor cocoa farmers and poor renters everywhere.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

or do whatever activities (multiple) restore calm, either by giving back control or by showing that all things shall indeed pass .... even the earth.


You know what "they" say - you can't control events, you can only control your reaction to them.

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