Chinese prisoners broke Chinese laws as well.  You seem to think the US is the only government that locks people up based on broken laws.  I don't remember voting for the authors of the constitution.  Neither do the native Americans or puerto ricans or Hawaiians and all the other territories with little representation or choice to be governed by it.   If Chinese want to make reforms, they can work really hard in school, join the party, work their way up and reform it from within.  See how your logic against the american poor sounds?

Equivalence implies equal which I never did. Saying a group of things are all bad is not saying they are all equally bad.  These are different degrees of the same thing.  Beer and vodka are both alcoholic beverages but that doesn't mean I think they are equivalent.  I'm also not going to tell an alcoholic to quit drinking while I'm blowing through 6packs. 

I acknowledged that China does some things that are worse than what the US is doing at this point in time but that Americans should focus on what they have control over as a priority over what is going on in other countries.  I think its much more effective to set an example of how others should be instead of trying to dictate what others should do.   

You are excusing the one you're responsible for while crying out against the one someone else is doing.  That is worse than drawing an equivalence.

I am talking about Trump.

Does he have any conflict of interest with Turkey.

The obvious answer is yes.  I think that's why you refuse to give a direct answer.  It's like you've been programmed to never criticize your dear leader.

I really enjoy fucking goats.

The thing is, when you're the president you have the FBI, CIA, and DOJ all at your disposal.  They are all fully capable of investigating Bidens and his sons behavior as VP, even if it involved another country - and if they found anything it could actually be used to prosecute Bide.  He also could have gone through the Department of State.

Instead he asked the president of Ukraine to do him a favor.  I mean, wtf?

Even if Ukraine comes back and says "oh yeah, Biden broke our laws, he's guilty!" It literally would mean nothing over here criminally.  The only thing it would do was give Trump ammo to attack Biden on the campaign trail.

Am I making sense?



Nixon, Carter, Raegan, Bush, Bush, Obama, all the Dem candidates besides Biden and Warren (I'll throw her in so we don't have to debate the pocohantas thing.)

I'm not aware of any evidence, or even semi-reasonable accusations that any of these people were criminals when they were running for president.

(Exceptions being marijuana use, Bernie getting arrested for protesting and Nixons campaign for second term)

Wow, you just got proven wrong and then you called the person who proved you wrong "Captain Obvious."


Wrong. An impeachment isn't a criminal proceeding. You were wrong, now admit it.

If honestly haven't seen a direct response from you.  Pretty sure I've read all your responses, and I just went back and checked again, but maybe I missed it.  Could you just give a yes/no answer?

I'll be more specific to make it simple.  Do you think there would be a conflict of interest if Trump was receiving payments directly from his deal with the Trump Tower in Turkey.

Do I have to break out the NO U! meme again? You aren't talking about Trump directly, you are talking about his sons. Any accusations of conflict of interest against Trump have already been gone over 1000 times by now. If there was ANYTHING substantial dems would have been all over it like a 2 bit whore by now. The combination of the pattern of Joe Biden's direct involvement in favorable policy towards foreign entities combined with funneling large amounts of money to his immediate family is clearly illicit. There is no equivalence here no matter how desperate you are to manufacture it with more accusations of NO U!!!1

Let's be clear, you're trying to manipulate.

Your first statement was:

Now, you're trying to concatenate two statements: "Communism itself was the creation of European and US bankers" and "idea that bankers want to control everything and everyone and form international government above national sovereignty"

Even i agree with second, this doesn't mean that first is right. Even if they use communism and socialism as a weapon now, this doesn't mean that they created it.

For example: I'm using a gun. This is doesn't mean that i invented this gun. This doesn't mean that i manufactured this gun. This just mean that i'm using it, nothing more.

No one said that captain strawman.  I simply pointed out the fact that california electricity wasn't coming from coal.   

The discussion wasn't even about cars but if you're interested in my position, here . it is..  The greenest trip is one taken on foot, then bike, and mass transit if those aren't appropriate.   I think personal vehicle ownership is too resource intense no matter how "green" your car is. 

I'm really confused because you definition of poor seems to be changing within every post.  What is your definition of poor?  You said poor people want to stay poor then you said you know what poor people want because you were poor, then you said know nothing about being poor yet somehow will die poor and then you said my children and grandchildren (who don't exist) will die poor and all of this with no explanation.   

It seems like you are just ranting out of anger and throwing words at the keyboard.  Like, do you really think a lazy person would go through all this trouble to try and explain poverty to people who clearly don't give a damn about what happens to poor people in this current system?  I may be an ineffective teacher but definitely not a lazy one. TECSHARE has been in my class for a few years and still thinks its about the USSR. 

My assertion was not even baseless.  My assertion was based on your statement that poor people "want to stay poor".  What evidence do you have of that?  I've worked with thousands of adolescents and I've never met a single one who wanted to stay poor.  This is why I have the privilege of a more diverse perspective.   I've worked in poor schools and rich schools and had the opportunity to see the differences first hand and experience how poverty affects education.

As for tecshare...Just because I haven't personally been poor doesn't mean I haven't learned about the experience by accompanying poor children in their academic journey.  I've also done service and work in homeless shelters, soup kitchens and NGOs in Brazil, Peru, Kenya and Cambodia.

With all that said, research is more valuable than experience in the context of a generalized discussion.  Experiences can be anecdotal and due to chance.  I have both so I also have the ability to recognize when the mechanisms I've learned about through research are being experienced by people in front of me.   I've used my privilege to work to bring people up. 

So here I am talking about mechanisms backed by trends in data and research going against one person who thinks the fact that they ate out of a dumpster gives them the authority to refute entire bodies of research on poverty and psychology. 

and another person who thinks any criticism of capitalism is an endorsement of the soviet system because they think there are literally only two ways to setup a society

Really!?
I lived in one former communist country and they told me exactly that, at school and on TV, that socialism is fairer and better than capitalism because all people are equal in socialism.
Are you saying they lied to us?

I'm not drawing an equivalence between what happens in the US, China, or North Korea.  Of course you can say one is not as bad as the other or one is much worse but I'm simply pointing out that they are all doing bad things.  

I'm not even interested in comparing and splitting hairs over which one is worse because I only live in one country and should focus on what my country is doing. You think Chinese prisoners didn't break laws? Even Otto Warmbier broke a law.   You clearly understand that laws can be unjust but you only look outward.  No one silenced him, they just made the business decision that someone speaking out against the government killing innocent people was not good for business.

No one's stopping NBA from commenting on China but they have to accept the consequences of what they say.  Colin Kaepernick was banished from the NFL for having an opinion against the Police killing innocent people.  

You're projecting your line of thinking onto me.  You might believe in enforcing your idea about how government should work onto other countries but I don't.   I don't like China's form of government but don't want to change it because I am not Chinese and it is not my place to tell other people how they should run their country.  So although I'm not defending the actions of the Chinese, I am defending their sovereignty and right to run their own country without American intervention.  

You can say that the US doesn't have gulags and concentration camps but China also denies all of the things you say about them.   No one would admit to running concentration camps.  China calls them "Vocational education and training centers".

Everyone has their own excuse for human rights violations and every authoritarian government goes as far as necessary to protect the existence. .   Maybe you should learn a bit about your own country before focusing so much on a country on the other side of the world.    

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_violations_by_the_CIA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_(2001%E2%80%932007)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Murder_of_Fred_Hampton
https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2019-08-15/police-shootings-are-a-leading-cause-of-death-for-black-men
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_detention_in_the_United_States#Human_rights

Are you saying you don't think there's any conflict of interest?

There is no evidence in that post. It's just Biden bragging about threatening to withhold funds as part of the goal to pressure them into doing a better job at dealing with corruption. Where the proof that it was a bribe? Quoting "the hill" where they interview the guy who was fired and will have an axe to grind is your proof? You haven't presented any proof anywhere. I mean seriously. At least I could dig up again a document that outlines a bunch of allegations based on some "interview" or other. Course, it's over the top and smells of being a fake given things like it's in English yet says it was translated from Ukrainian to Russian. But still.

Geez. Now you're making yourself out to be some sort of delusional person that thinks he's the "savior" with your comment about me not being savable.

Why would you be afraid of being criticized if you have facts and proof you can show to backup your claims.

The argument would be a lot more solid if there was no good reason, other than a corrupt one, to make firing Shokin a prerequisite for a $1b+ in loan.

That's just not the case though.

The whole thing is really about the EU/USA vs Russia.

Ukraine was recovering from just ousting an extremely corrupt president who had Putins full support. 

Russia had just been kicked from the G9 (now G8) for invading Ukraine and annexing crimea.

Shokin had a record of being very pro Russia and very corrupt.  He blocked the prosecution of a bunch of guys who open fired on a Ukrainian Independence protest.  He blocked the prosecution of a bunch other prosecutors who were caught taking bribes.  Yet he raided and prosecuted anti Russian groups for anything he could find.

Basically, he was an obstacle in Ukraines fight for independence from Russia.

The US and the EU considered helping Ukraine maintain their independence a matter of international security.  So did the IMF, EBRD and a bunch of other international organizations.

All of these countries and organizations also considered Shokin a serious threat to Ukraines future.

The Obama administration (not Biden) decided that loaning Ukraine the money while Shokin was still in power would make things worse, not better. 

Biden went over and convinced them to fire him.  Then he bragged about it because he accomplished something that most of the world was hoping would happen.

Ah. So you're now going to resort to personal attacks on my field of study and myself in order to push your false claim.

The Fed is probably one of the most scrutinized agencies in the US and they are under audit from themselves, from the GAO, and from third party auditors.

But I'm going to entertain your line of thinking for a moment. What do you think is going to be found in 'full audit of the fed'? What do you think they're hiding?

If 'audit the fed' means that you want Congress/ The President to have more control over the fed -- then okay, that's at least something that has a lot more substance then 'audit the fed'

Are you talking about him going on Alex Jones? I think it's far more likely he played to that particular audience with a conspiracy in order to get loyal followers. But as I said, we'll never know the truth. Even if he said he was "forced", or if he said he wasn't, could we really believe him? I've seen too many people claim thing one thing one day and a decade or two later claim something else when it comes to these sorts of things.

That's just not true in the least. This is a conspiracy theory.

The fed is already audited at least once per year, typically MULTIPLE times per year.


All the 'audit the fed bill' is doing is trying to audit more of what the Fed does, it's not like Ron Paul is saying that the Fed is not being audited right now. As they are, every year.

LeBron James is a professional athlete and business man, why should he meddle in China politics? Like he has any influence in China internal affairs. What about all other major american companies that are making billions in China, i didnt hear them talking against China Government and these Hong Kong protests. So if Apple, Boeing, Starbucks bosses are keeping quiet afraid that they will loose shit load of money, why should LeBron talk about it?

I am not at all defending them.  I'm just saying that as americans, its none of our business.  I'm defending Lebron and the NBA for not taking basketball away from the Chinese people just because their government is bad.   If we have a problem with mass incarceration, we should start right here in the country that has the highest incarceration rate by far.  Americans criticizing China for prisons is hypocritical.  Lead by example.

The NBA doesn't have power to create change in China.  They will simply be banned from China and any influence they did have will be lost.  Thats bad for everyone.  I have massive problems with concentration camps and all the shady stuff that goes on in China which is why I'd like to start by closing our concentration camps, dark prisons, and reforming our police.  Once we clean up our own yard, then I might consider telling other countries how to run their shit. 

That's marxist theory, not a fact. One of the problems with something like "socialism" is that there can be different forms and degrees but people jump to assuming the extremes. The thing that's always struck me as odd though, is that the US for example already has some socialism and there's no way the majority would want to get rid of any of it and yet "socialism bad" is the mantra. The reality though is that it's not a question of having it, it's simply of how far to take it. I suppose the issue really comes down to culture. Which culture will win out in the end. The one that wants to put people first, or the one that wants to put money first. I don't rally want to see either side "win" but instead reach a balance that works far better than it currently is.

UK investigating Zlochevsky and gets Ukraine to do so as well.
US gets involved and pressures Ukraine to do more for the UK.
Ukraine does nothing and Zlochevsky gets the money and whisks it away.
Biden goes to Ukraine and tells them to deal with corruption.
US ambassador slams them for not doing enough to deal with corruption and in particular, Shokin.
Embassy suggests to WH that they tie the money to anti-corruption
Biden threatens to withhold funds if Shokin isn't fired.
IMF threatens to withhold funds if Shokin isn't fired.
Shokin is fired and replaced.

So all these groups wanting the guy fired. Where exactly is a "bribe" by Biden. Point me to the proof that it was a blatant bribe so they wouldn't investigate his son.



You wouldn't make these sorts of threads unless you wanted people to believe you. Well. I suppose you would if you were nothing more than a troll.

So you know the truth about everything but won't share with everyone all your sources of this fantastic information. Gotcha.

This thread is a freakin train wreck. The majority don't know the difference between socialism, socialist and communism. Wow.

My first message was about how ineffective you are in trying to make people see your point of view when you use blatantly false information and then continue to argue about it even when it's shown how it's false. The fact that you took that as a personal attack says more about you and your state of mind than about anything else.

I didn't say they were valid news sources. But they are a good way for me to come up with alternate avenues of thought and research for information. I would love to know where you get all your "valid" information from. Please do share as I'm always looking for more places for facts.

Could be. But I watched an interview with someone that's worked with him and they said he's not an Ideologue. They said he's basically a business guy who will go where the "clicks" are. Doubt we'll ever know the truth though.