After the Election - Page 17

Suni why do you continue to spew garbage on here about the US, especially when you cannot even tell us what religion your own leader is? Perhaps your time would be better spent researching your own country.

Gee, you ALWAYS seem to say that when I post something that doesn't line up with your opinions, and you can't refute! :D

Justin Trudeau professes to be a Christian. He was raised Catholic, but does not agree with the church's stance on abortion. 

Sunsilver
"Anyone who thinks that the United States took it easy on Communists during the Cold War needs to read up about the Un-American Activities Committee"

you see, Cold War have never ended. as long as marxism exist in legal form and invested with power over world recognizable state[s], Cold war still persist.
all that blah-blah about peaceful coexistence is naive (or could be intentional) delusion of the Western democracies, who in fact helped to create first monster under name USSR and now tirelessly nurturing new monster under name Peoples Republic of China.

Oh for crissakes Val, it IS those same Western democratic governments that are actually being supported here, under the guise of support of Chump. Where are the calls for MORE democracy, more thought, better support of anybody who unfortunately does not 'fit' the System ? Instead its all hatred of the Other ... Of course that is 'intentional'. It is called Divide & Rule.

We will never make progress, as a society, as a planet, until we get past this sort of thinking (much of which boils down to being a quest for power and wealth) - every time there is even a hint of starting to make a better world for all, it is bashed down again. That is why Obama was of some use but Biden will be of next to none.

ValK, yes, I don't trust Russia at all, and Trump's friendship with Putin would scare the heck out of me if I live in the States. I have no doubt Russia was allowed to interfere with the 2016 election, and heaven knows what else.

Former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe, when asked to comment on calls from some on the right for Trump to order the declassification of everything related to the Trump-Russia investigation, says the following:

"There is some very, very serious, very specific undeniable intelligence that has not come out that, if it were released, would risk compromising our access to that sort of information in the future. I think that it would also risk casting the president in a very negative light."

And I definitely don't trust China, either! 

Hundmutter, well said!

"I have no doubt that Russia was allowed to interfere with the 2016 election and heaven knows what else".

Absolutely Sunsilver; and oddly enough which outgoing POTUS still has possible legal proceedings overhanging him for allowing that to happen ? Can anyone be absolutely sure that Russian interference does not apply also to these disputed boxes of missing - *or is it additional - ballots which maybe do / *do not exist, this time around ?

[*NOTE TO READERS: Choose whichever suits your particular paranoia ... ]

Sunsilver
Russia can pretend to be big player but with its economy (Russian GDP 1.28 trl. when Texas alone have GDP 1.70 trl.) do not have capacities and means to be an imminent threat to Western democracy.
that danger to West comes from withing itself.
b.t.w. interesting observation. majority of books of SciFi genre are describing future societies as kind of technologically advanced feudalism where rich families, clans or royals rules. i really can't recall any, in which society described as an impeccable form of democracy.

ValK, I think the Star Trek TV series describe a form of democracy, and definitely a very advanced society in which all people in the Federation are equal. They never go into much detail about how the Federation is governed, but it seems that wealth is no longer important, and no one is living in extreme poverty.

Roddenberry describes what he was trying to achieve with S.T.

ValK that is only partly true. Apart from those stories (which DO exist) where there has been a different take on 'how society works' in the future or an alternate universe - including, as Sunny posts, all the Star Trek series to one degree or another - there are a number of reasons why a book or film might concentrate on perpetuating the structure that includes monarchies / hierarchies / Martial bureaucracies.  One is that it is considerably easier to describe a state of society with which the author is already familiar : "write from your experience, write what you know (it is more convincing)" is advice oh so often given to writers.  And they do not know what it is like to live under a better alternative, 'cos most western authors have never lived anywhere that they can study a different society.  Mostly the larger and greedier societies grow, the more authoritarian and less socially-concious & cohesive they become.

Some writers also actively set out to warn about this; they show, through having a 'Ming the Merciless' style government in their stories, how detrimental that is. What do you think Margaret Atwood is doing, with Gilead ?