On the issue of whose spawn will rule the future, I commented over on Geezers.
On the question of arms manufacturers profiting from the Ukraine War, it is, after all, their product and they did not create the demand; the Russians did. Are you suggesting they shouldn't;t charge for the orders they are receiving?
On the railway labor issue, the Supreme Court of Harry Truman's time wouldn't let the government seize the steel mills. I wonder why they can seize the railway workers. It is, of course, undeniable that a rail strike would cause the American economy to implode and I wonder if that would be a good thing from a progressive's point of view since it would impact far more jobs than those of the railway workers.
The bonanza oil and gas companies and weapons makers are enjoying from the war provides every incentive to prolong it. Fighting a proxy war has so many advantages.
Regarding a rail strike, the power of any strike is the threat of causing economic harm, whatever the scale. One would hope that a) the prospect of it would produce a better deal, and b) that if rail workers wildcatted other workers whose jobs would be jeopardized would join them. Hard to tell how fed up or not people are.
Well, the arms manufacturers are not making the decision on prolonging things. Where are you on the issue of "prolonging"? You think we should give Putin some of Ukraine?
I hold no brief for the oil and gas people. Again, though, should they be expected to give it away? Who gets to decide how much profit is "enough"?
I don't think you're going to get a general strike out of the railroad issues. The other workers are far more concerned with keeping their own jobs and it's hard to blame them. The economy is tough on blue collar people. The masses are too busy surviving to rise.
I don't know how one could reasonably say that the military and their vendors, and the energy companies for that matter, don't have an outsize say in how the U.S. (and some other countries) is governed and how foreign policy is decided. Ukraine isn't my country to say whether or not they should give up some land, but the U.S. is my country to say that continually providing the means to make a violent situation ever more violent, which is to say killing people on an accelerating basis, is not something I support.
I'm sure you're right about the sparse chance for a general strike, but the progressive point of view is that unions have the right to strike and if politicians and corporations don't want them to do that, then they have every opportunity to give the workers a deal good enough to dissuade them from it.
If that's what it takes to stop an escalatingly destructive war, sure. But as I said, that's a decision for the Ukrainians to make. They don't get to decide whether we should be the primary driver of it by providing weapons and other support.
Well, if you take away their weapons, you insure that they lose. You also insure that Putin will keep on being Putin. At some point, he needs to be stopped. Remember Hitler? How about when Putin goes after Poland? They aren't the U.S. either. Do you think we should have stayed out of WWII? We could have. Poland, France and England weren't the U.S. either.
If I recall correctly, Poland is a NATO country an attack on which would compel our attendance. We're not actually obligated to fund somebody else's war forever, and we'd be pushing hard for negotiations if we were feeling the kind of squeeze the EU is. As for WWII, Germany and Italy declared war on us immediately after we declared war on Japan following Pearl Harbor. Regardless one's sentiments, that guaranteed our participation.
Do you support arming and otherwise subsidizing Ukraine indefinitely, or is there a time limit? A year, two, three . . . ?
Putin has rather clearly expressed his intention to restore the Soviet Union countries as Russian. Poland is one of them. Dismissing that as rhetoric would be foolish given his behavior to date with Ukraine, Georgia, Chechyna. Biden has, so far, been trying to avoid direct confrontation with NATO but the Russian "spokesmen" have been characterizing their war as defending against NATO despite it being an invasion by Russia.
In WWII, Germany and Italy declared war after the Japanese attack, yes, but also in response to Roosevelt's lend lease support of Britain and, wait fo it. . . Russia.
I favor support of Ukraine as long as they have a reasonable chance of prevailing. Ukrainians have not forgotten Stalin's starvation of them, nor should they. It represents Russia's attitude toward them as a culture. Putin seems to have adopted Stalin's tactics.
Finland and Sweden have applied for NATO membership. I wonder why. Perhaps it's because Russia is openly proclaiming its "right" to be an empire. I don't suppose I need to bring up Chamberlain's failure.
On the issue of whose spawn will rule the future, I commented over on Geezers.
On the question of arms manufacturers profiting from the Ukraine War, it is, after all, their product and they did not create the demand; the Russians did. Are you suggesting they shouldn't;t charge for the orders they are receiving?
On the railway labor issue, the Supreme Court of Harry Truman's time wouldn't let the government seize the steel mills. I wonder why they can seize the railway workers. It is, of course, undeniable that a rail strike would cause the American economy to implode and I wonder if that would be a good thing from a progressive's point of view since it would impact far more jobs than those of the railway workers.
The bonanza oil and gas companies and weapons makers are enjoying from the war provides every incentive to prolong it. Fighting a proxy war has so many advantages.
Regarding a rail strike, the power of any strike is the threat of causing economic harm, whatever the scale. One would hope that a) the prospect of it would produce a better deal, and b) that if rail workers wildcatted other workers whose jobs would be jeopardized would join them. Hard to tell how fed up or not people are.
Well, the arms manufacturers are not making the decision on prolonging things. Where are you on the issue of "prolonging"? You think we should give Putin some of Ukraine?
I hold no brief for the oil and gas people. Again, though, should they be expected to give it away? Who gets to decide how much profit is "enough"?
I don't think you're going to get a general strike out of the railroad issues. The other workers are far more concerned with keeping their own jobs and it's hard to blame them. The economy is tough on blue collar people. The masses are too busy surviving to rise.
I don't know how one could reasonably say that the military and their vendors, and the energy companies for that matter, don't have an outsize say in how the U.S. (and some other countries) is governed and how foreign policy is decided. Ukraine isn't my country to say whether or not they should give up some land, but the U.S. is my country to say that continually providing the means to make a violent situation ever more violent, which is to say killing people on an accelerating basis, is not something I support.
I'm sure you're right about the sparse chance for a general strike, but the progressive point of view is that unions have the right to strike and if politicians and corporations don't want them to do that, then they have every opportunity to give the workers a deal good enough to dissuade them from it.
So, you are in favor of giving Putin some of Ukraine for the sake of "peace"?
If that's what it takes to stop an escalatingly destructive war, sure. But as I said, that's a decision for the Ukrainians to make. They don't get to decide whether we should be the primary driver of it by providing weapons and other support.
Well, if you take away their weapons, you insure that they lose. You also insure that Putin will keep on being Putin. At some point, he needs to be stopped. Remember Hitler? How about when Putin goes after Poland? They aren't the U.S. either. Do you think we should have stayed out of WWII? We could have. Poland, France and England weren't the U.S. either.
If I recall correctly, Poland is a NATO country an attack on which would compel our attendance. We're not actually obligated to fund somebody else's war forever, and we'd be pushing hard for negotiations if we were feeling the kind of squeeze the EU is. As for WWII, Germany and Italy declared war on us immediately after we declared war on Japan following Pearl Harbor. Regardless one's sentiments, that guaranteed our participation.
Do you support arming and otherwise subsidizing Ukraine indefinitely, or is there a time limit? A year, two, three . . . ?
Putin has rather clearly expressed his intention to restore the Soviet Union countries as Russian. Poland is one of them. Dismissing that as rhetoric would be foolish given his behavior to date with Ukraine, Georgia, Chechyna. Biden has, so far, been trying to avoid direct confrontation with NATO but the Russian "spokesmen" have been characterizing their war as defending against NATO despite it being an invasion by Russia.
In WWII, Germany and Italy declared war after the Japanese attack, yes, but also in response to Roosevelt's lend lease support of Britain and, wait fo it. . . Russia.
I favor support of Ukraine as long as they have a reasonable chance of prevailing. Ukrainians have not forgotten Stalin's starvation of them, nor should they. It represents Russia's attitude toward them as a culture. Putin seems to have adopted Stalin's tactics.
Finland and Sweden have applied for NATO membership. I wonder why. Perhaps it's because Russia is openly proclaiming its "right" to be an empire. I don't suppose I need to bring up Chamberlain's failure.