Yeah, as an independent who wears by beliefs on my sleeve (civil libertarian, pro-capitalist, foreign policy conservative admittedly sometimes bordering on neocon) who doesn't identify with any party (and loves discussing these things), I'm not seeing wonderful change either. I don't want to go off on a long rant but suffice to say there's some domestic and foreign issues that are really shaking my faith in the future of our society, I'm becoming genuinely concerned.
I was thinking the wonderful change was the person who is the President today. He was here to support our state, and gather support for his policies. That stands in stark contrast to the last time Air Force One was in Lansing, last October the former guy was here on one his one man comedy tour, he insulted our Governor, and other state and local officials, called on hundreds of supporters to attend his rally in the freezing rain, all braking local mask and health rules. He praised the gunmen who invaded our State Capitol and made light of the attempt to kidnap and execute our Governor. This criminal held his cult rally one month after my younger brother died from Covid 19 in Florida after the former guy and his bud the FLA gov. convinced my brother it would be just OK to go mask less on a cruise ship filled with foreigners for card tournament. I have a view of all this from that prospective. So take a moment to think about life one year ago and you will forgive for waring my politics on my sleeve I am proud to be a liberal. I think the differences between this October and last are wonderful indeed. BTW I was mainly impressed to see Air force One and the other aircraft fly right over my building
I agree that the aircraft themselves are always an impressive sight. But when it comes to covid rhetoric both sides seem to be full of grossly inaccurate views of reality but in opposite directions. I've kept up with science news for years, following those trusted sources it was clear by March of 2020 what the realities of covid were; projected infection fatality of .2%-.5% (looks like it's about 0.27%), it was already known that the young were at very little risk while the old were at a considerably high risk, it was becoming clear that certain pre-existing conditions also greatly increased risk, a vaccine was projected to take at least a year (they beat that already optimistic estimate) and perhaps most importantly, it was already suspected very early that the virus would inevitably become endemic. Rather than broadcasting this information and focusing on protecting vulnerable people and accurately informing the population of their respective risks the bureaucrats and politicians did and continue to use covid as a political football to all sorts of different means. Of particular concern to me is the controlling of speech on social media, from the Wuhan lab leak being banned speech until someone decided it wasn't, to the the silence about natural covid immunity despite clear evidence it's far better than the vaccine by itself, to the experts shut down for answering questions regarding exceedingly rare but very real vaccine side effects. I don't even like the muzzling of the worst among us, to see well respected scientists and researchers be silenced for speaking on things within their field of expertise because it doesn't jive with whatever narrative has been established is concerning, this is an incredibly dangerous direction for society to go in.
The long term outlook of the country seems incredibly foggy. Internal divisions are worse than I've ever seen in my lifetime and some argue worse than during the civil rights era, inflation is at risk of getting out of control and war with China is almost certainly on the horizon. All this turmoil can certainly lead to better things but it seems likely to be rough path.
Perhaps there is a lot of "blame" to go around, and I don't have an option some of the points you bring up, except I am pretty sure Democratic leaders and our local health officials where doing their best to keep us informed with the best and true advice and precautions like the lock down and masking up. I have not heard any sensible thing fall out of the mouth of a repub since this whole thing began. This whole both sides are at fault, both sides lie is baloney, while realizing that yes they are politicians, one side was and has helped the other not so much. The vax was created during the x-administration but not by the x-administration. I think inflation today is a result of the economy restarting and will slow soon. I think someone in China either ate or was bitten by a bat, the same as HIV which came from some infected by eating a monkey or being bitten by a monkey. I don't think China is going to start a war that would destroy their major trading partners and impoverish their own country. I am optimistic about our future here in Lansing and our country. Sorry to bring politics into this page, I should have just talked about the planes. I had never seen Air Force One. Thank you for the discussion.
I personally love to talk about politics and the like passionately and without grudges, certainly no apology needed for me.
I considered myself a liberal throughout my youth but the seeming shift to the far left to the point of embracing socialist and communist ideals has been a turn off. It's not like the Democrats are even making progress on any of the things I expect would fall in their wheelhouse so to speak. In particular they've failed to address police qualified immunity or civil asset forfeiture and won't seriously discuss meaningful drug law reform. Republicans seem to be a bullwark for free speech and gun rights, two issues I feel are of life and death importance, that's not enough for them to get my vote over a third party most of the time but it's enough for me to consider their candidate. I'm mostly just scared of the one-sided establishment media in favor of the Dems and the social media censorship clearly targeted much more heavily at Repubs, it's a recipe for societal disaster.
The covid virus leaking from a lab in Wuhan seems to be incredibly likely at this point. That lab was doing research on bat coronavirus' that was intentionally making them more contagious to humans, some of that research was even being funded by the US. China has done everything in its power to stop an investigation and any opportunity to prove the origin beyond a reasonable doubt has probably passed. IMO common sense strongly suggests that the most likely origin is the Wuhan Lab, what are the odds that a rather abnormal coronavirus just pops up in the city that was doing gain of function research on coronaviruses?
China doesn't think a war with the US will impoverish their country, they believe it will propel them to the top of the global power structure, and if they win they would be likely be correct in that assumption. I think the only hope to avoid war is to pound our chest, stand our ground and show that belligerence towards us or our allies will not be tolerated. I simply can't understate this, for the first time in decades we have a peer state competitor and they've already been fighting a soft was against us for decades, they and nations aligned with them all have their own regional goals that they could accomplish with the use of force and the only way they can use force without being destroyed is by working together to stretch their enemies (us and our allies) resources thin. You'd think the fact that they're committing genocide and using mass forced labor would be enough to warrant a little more seriousness, maybe work more quickly towards economic disengagement.
I believe China does have a five thousand years of history for much of which they were the largest and most powerful country in the world, and they look at the last 200 years as a brief moment of turmoil in a long history of also believing in their leaders, most times without choice of course. The leaders really think the current "Chinese Way" is for the best. I do not understand their brutal racist policies and they should have to answer for their atrocities. I think their relentless capitalism will curb their longing for world domination. I kind of think in certain ways they already do!
I believe the virus popped up in a city market that sold wild animal meat, this is a region where folks eat bat meat, which means they must go out a capture the bats, the bats carry many unique viruses, they bite when captured, the bat harvester takes his bat meat to the city wild animal meat market along with the virus.
Eating the meat or being exposed to blood & fluids would have nothing to do with the transmission of the a respiratory virus, living breathing things being in confined spaces is the risk for this type of virus. More often than not when a zoonotic virus jumps to humans it can only infect the person it initially jumped to and stops there, when it is able to jump human to human it typically does so inefficiently and so dies out before doing much harm. I've heard experts argue that it is unlikely that a zoonotic virus jumped to humans in such a form that it would be so contagious between humans, they argue a virus typically wouldn't become that infectious until it floats around in the human population awhile at which point it's likely to have also become more benign. I'm no expert in any of these fields but I'm well read in general and after listening to/reading different points of view it seems very likely it was an artificially evolved virus leaked from that lab. But of course, any concrete proof at this point is extremely unlikely and anyone who worked at that lab and had knowledge of what happened has been brought in close with the power at be or has been disposed of.
The current Chinese government has never been capitalist or anything very close to it, certainly not displaying "relentless capitalism". They began to adopt some free market principals for awhile and the result was an explosion in wealth and prosperity and a dramatic decline in poverty, if they had stayed on that path they would have already surpassed the US in many ways. China is still very much communist, there's no private property and the state ultimately controls all business and industry, much of it is controlled directly by the party. They've been moving more and more back towards more pure communist principals since Xi took power. Capitalism is simply economic freedom, it's what has virtually wiped out extreme poverty and starvation while making the snowballing technological advancement of the past couple centuries possible. Look at the global per capita wealth chart, it was stagnant for millennia then exploded, and that's despite fixed land & resources and an exponentially growing population. That being said capitalism, much like democracy, is only as good as the people partaking in it.
Of course I understand China is "communist" in that this is what they call their governing body, what they actually have is not communism, today it is a autocratic dictatorship and one ruling party with an centralized economy controlled by that dictatorship/party, controlling the economy and and nearly every other aspect of society which has lifted millions out of poverty but there are still millions of very poor there.. I meant that China has had that type of system [whether it was an Emperor or Mao]of governing for most of their history, they have never really had a free society for very long period of time, and the ruling class believes this is the best way to run a society. I was also trying to say China participates in the capitalist world economy, and are very aggressive about it, not that China is capitalist they are not even communist. I know they are not the good guys, and I think if they trusted their people it could be a much better place.
I'll concede that the world economy can be described as capitalist and that China has never had a very free society, certainly not in recent history. They have learned how to prey on that world economy and exploit it to their benefit, by all means bravo to them and shame on us. For capitalism to function well it requires genuine competition, a massive controlled economy with state-owned enterprises having low or no barrier trade with the market economies throws a wrench into the whole system.
I'd also agree that if China was to continue to move in the direction of more freedom for its people it'd be good for the world, unfortunately things are heading in the opposite direction at an increasing pace. I just hope no more free democratic societies are destroyed and/or absorbed by them.
I watched an interesting report on the YouTube channel "The B1-M" about the renovation of the Battersea Power Station in London. [The one on the cover of the Pink Floyd Album]. It made think of our Ekert Station and the possibilities for a smaller scale version of London's project. The smokestacks are iconic for London as ours's for Lansing, let's do something great on the banks of the Grand, as they did on the banks of the Thames!
Comments
The long term outlook of the country seems incredibly foggy. Internal divisions are worse than I've ever seen in my lifetime and some argue worse than during the civil rights era, inflation is at risk of getting out of control and war with China is almost certainly on the horizon. All this turmoil can certainly lead to better things but it seems likely to be rough path.
I considered myself a liberal throughout my youth but the seeming shift to the far left to the point of embracing socialist and communist ideals has been a turn off. It's not like the Democrats are even making progress on any of the things I expect would fall in their wheelhouse so to speak. In particular they've failed to address police qualified immunity or civil asset forfeiture and won't seriously discuss meaningful drug law reform. Republicans seem to be a bullwark for free speech and gun rights, two issues I feel are of life and death importance, that's not enough for them to get my vote over a third party most of the time but it's enough for me to consider their candidate. I'm mostly just scared of the one-sided establishment media in favor of the Dems and the social media censorship clearly targeted much more heavily at Repubs, it's a recipe for societal disaster.
The covid virus leaking from a lab in Wuhan seems to be incredibly likely at this point. That lab was doing research on bat coronavirus' that was intentionally making them more contagious to humans, some of that research was even being funded by the US. China has done everything in its power to stop an investigation and any opportunity to prove the origin beyond a reasonable doubt has probably passed. IMO common sense strongly suggests that the most likely origin is the Wuhan Lab, what are the odds that a rather abnormal coronavirus just pops up in the city that was doing gain of function research on coronaviruses?
China doesn't think a war with the US will impoverish their country, they believe it will propel them to the top of the global power structure, and if they win they would be likely be correct in that assumption. I think the only hope to avoid war is to pound our chest, stand our ground and show that belligerence towards us or our allies will not be tolerated. I simply can't understate this, for the first time in decades we have a peer state competitor and they've already been fighting a soft was against us for decades, they and nations aligned with them all have their own regional goals that they could accomplish with the use of force and the only way they can use force without being destroyed is by working together to stretch their enemies (us and our allies) resources thin. You'd think the fact that they're committing genocide and using mass forced labor would be enough to warrant a little more seriousness, maybe work more quickly towards economic disengagement.
I believe the virus popped up in a city market that sold wild animal meat, this is a region where folks eat bat meat, which means they must go out a capture the bats, the bats carry many unique viruses, they bite when captured, the bat harvester takes his bat meat to the city wild animal meat market along with the virus.
The current Chinese government has never been capitalist or anything very close to it, certainly not displaying "relentless capitalism". They began to adopt some free market principals for awhile and the result was an explosion in wealth and prosperity and a dramatic decline in poverty, if they had stayed on that path they would have already surpassed the US in many ways. China is still very much communist, there's no private property and the state ultimately controls all business and industry, much of it is controlled directly by the party. They've been moving more and more back towards more pure communist principals since Xi took power. Capitalism is simply economic freedom, it's what has virtually wiped out extreme poverty and starvation while making the snowballing technological advancement of the past couple centuries possible. Look at the global per capita wealth chart, it was stagnant for millennia then exploded, and that's despite fixed land & resources and an exponentially growing population. That being said capitalism, much like democracy, is only as good as the people partaking in it.
I'd also agree that if China was to continue to move in the direction of more freedom for its people it'd be good for the world, unfortunately things are heading in the opposite direction at an increasing pace. I just hope no more free democratic societies are destroyed and/or absorbed by them.