The United States and Europe continue to escalate tensions over Ukraine.
Oddly enough the United States continues, with its european allies, to take destabilizing actions towards Ukraine. Ostensibly, these actions seek to weaken Russia but are coming at the cost of global food scarcity and run the risk of triggering a second great depression.
They say you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, but it does not seem like the US and allies learned this basic lesson.
US media are complicit in pushing CIA and government propaganda regarding the war. Google/Alphabet is acting like a state actor, suppressing dissent. Major tech companies, propped up by the security industrial complex, are engaging in widespread censorship.
The truth is now hobbled because of U.S./western censorship and pro-NATO disinformation. Russia has also turned to state censorship in response to U.S. corporate censorship. Dialog between Russians and the U.S. citizenry has broken down as a result of companies like Alphabet/Google, Twitter, etc. shutting down communication lines, which is the direct cause of Russia initiating its own censorship.
This direct shutdown can be attributed to government officials pushing and prodding private companies to engage in censorship.
NATO countries freeze Russian foreign reserves and then complain when Russia cuts off gas supplies, despite this being caused by their own actions. NATO laughably then complains about "Russian blackmail". Russia should just call the disconnects for nonpayment "sanctions".
NATO refuses to fight Russia but continues providing weapons to Ukraine.
Ukraine is resorting to conscription (a form of male genocide) to support its government despite lacking support from the population to get voluntary enlistment. There are reports that Ukraine appears to torture people who flee the military and Russian prisoners of war. Because of proven historical censorship and propaganda by western powers and the CIA, we should view these accusations as credible until proven otherwise.
Ukraine is also a country which has been fighting a civil war with its own people for over 10 years. This indicates extreme dissatisfaction by at least a portion of society and thus should be viewed as invalidating the legitimacy of the Ukrainian government.
Western media also push lies, such as claiming Russia is a dictatorship when in fact it is an elected republic. Based on the diversity of political parties, Russian democracy is more effective than in the United States, where the people have no parties that represent centrist interests because of corrupt voting rules.
The widespread practice practice of product+service bundling needs to be regulated and mostly prohibited.
For example, bundling subscription services with you car.
A service that allows you to purchase books bundled with an e-reader.
Hardware should not be bundled with services, and there should be a service neutrality requirement.
BLM and Defund the Police have been growing in popularity lately. Calls to abolish or defund police abound. You might think saying "Black Lives Matter" is a good thing. It's not. First, let's talk about what BLM wants: Your money. Black lives matter is about obtaining reparations for black people, i.e. free handouts to black people. Black lives matter is a racist movement. Instead, we should deal with police brutality. But defunding police isn't the answer. Simply remove qualified and sovereign immunity so that police and state governments can be held accountable for their actions.
Or, just watch the world burn. Maybe now is a good time to buy precious metals.
EDIT: I am not going to post here anymore. This site has turned into a shithole.
Current riots and civil disturbances are a long overdue predictable consequence of "qualified immunity" and other branches of the Suprme Court's "sovereign immunity" bullshit. Sovereign Immunity must be eliminated so people can fight the government in courtrooms with lawyers instead of on the streets with torches by burning down police buildings.
Soveriegn Immunity is bullshit made-up by the Supreme Court, it's time to overrule this 200 year old mistake and change the interpretation of the 11th amendment to the competing view, that it restricts diversity jurisdiction of federal courts instead of endorsing sovereign immunity. Sovereign immunity was tolerable when you could still sue government officers for breaking the law, but the recent invention of qualified immunity has made it intolerable.
Or, you know, let the USA burn to the ground as I know it will if nothing is done. I'm usually right in the end.
Update:
Justin Amash is introducing legislation to end qualified immunity. Support this bill!
https://twitter.com/justinamash/status/1267267244029083648
Update 3:
Congressional democrats are dodging the real problem, qualified immunity, and trying to only remove the protection for police officers. We need to remove it for ALL government officials, not just police officers. Police officers are not the only ones who abuse authority.
The great words of Patrick Henry which he spoke in 1775, "Give me liberty, or give me death!" perhaps posits one idea, that freedom and liberty are worth more than life. There is however, one particular freedom that may soon be under attack: The ability to keep your phone clean of non-free and proprietary spyware. We now find that some advocates of the digital surveillance state suggest that the United States force all citizens to install a proprietary non-free app on their cell phones. [1] To which I say: "Over my dead body!". Today looms the insidious threat of an all out assault upon our digital liberty. Personally, I would far rather take my chances with the coronavirus than give up my liberty. There may soon be a time when we must choose between risking our lives and losing our digital freedoms.
As Benjamin Franklin once said Benjamin Franklin is often said to have said without supporting historical records, "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.". I fear that those of us who believe in free software may soon find ourselves a lamb voting against two wolves. Let us hope we are a well-armed lamb, it's time to prepare for the worst or else we may be unprepared for this assault. Prepare yourself; go buy a gun. Let us take a stand here, we shall not tolerate a mandatory surveillance app forced upon our devices! Give me digital liberty, or give me death!
The average age of senators being over 60 years old, it might be time to rethink who we are electing. Maybe we should elect younger people to the house and senate. Young people's problems get ignored because politicians are old bastards. That's why most of the tax money goes to benefit rich old folks, themselves. Whereas student loan debt and other "young people problems" get ignored.
Time to consider, should age be a factor in who we elect? Should we consciously choose to elect younger politicians? I vote yes.
Seriously. We need ethanol to make hand sanitizer. Please let normal people distill it. All the other ingredients are only needed in small amounts. I don't want to have to pay a gazzilion dollars for hand sanitizer because of excise taxes.
Plus how are people gonna entertain themselves at home during the coronavirus quarantine? Not my thing, but hey, I'm sure most people would support it.
Ask your politician if they support chemical deregulation.