Continuing on from the last post...(How can Western Muslims survive muscular Liberalism?
Blogging Theology) Bismillah Ar-Rahman Ar-Rahim. Al hamdu lillahi rabbil-ala-meen.
THE POWER OF APPLIED FAITH GRAVEMIND • 240K views
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Even though those are videos made by a Muslim Shiekh, they are really universal, anybody can watch and learn and please do - I learned and the first video ties in well with the second video (you'll see if you watch).
" What the Right Hand Possess "
Shiekh Omar Baloch • 2.2K views
American Injustices on its Own People Shiekh Omar Baloch • 2.9K views ------------------ Islamic Video Shorts -------------
Islamic video short - some of the comments, made by fellow Muslims are that how can this Shiekh say such things...well it is based on hadith and another comment is to the effect of "that's mean, we should follow what Jesus (A.S. (peace be upon him)) taught" - My response and I think anybody with understanding I think could easily defend a position that Saudi Arabia itself, while proclaiming to be an Islamic State, does not (not speaking for the whole of the population of Saudi Arabia (that's impossible to do for any nation-state!)) is not, does not follow the teaching of Jesus A.S. (peace be upon him) and/or The Prophet Muhammad S.A.W. (peace and blessings be upon him) - Who do they treat their neighbors??? How is allying with Israel, killers and oppressors of the Palestine people, Islamic? How is constant rivalry towards all Shia Muslims (Iran)(and all this sectarianism and shedding of fellow MUSLIM'S blood have ANYTHING TO DO WITH ISLAM?) following the Quran or what the Prophet S.A.W. preached and lived? How is their treatment of Yemen following what the Prophet S.A.W. taught and lived? How is their structuring and how they are building up their society following what the Prophet S.A.W. taught and practiced? Or the early Muslim caliphates and scholars? It's not.
- Last Words Of QURAN Exposes The Real Truth By Sheikh Yusuf Estes
-Human Being Stages of Life By Sheikh (Dr.) Omar Sulleiman
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WATCH:
is that what those elections teach us is what they said nothing about in other
3:49 words the importance of these elections is what was absent from them
3:56 and there was much that was absent from them that I want to go through with you
4:02 and I think will come out at the end with a conclusion that has been building in this country
4:09 for quite a while because there are important lessons
4:15 the first one and it has been noted by others is that in a country beset by
4:22 some of the most profound problems imaginable an inflation that
4:29 defies getting under control Rising interest rates that compound the
4:35 burden of the inflation a war Without End in the Ukraine
4:44 it just it's extraordinary economic inequality off the chart a
4:50 housing crisis a medical care crisis a transportation crisis the climate crisis
4:59 I could go on it's remarkable that a sitting government which deserves
5:07 a good bit of blame for many of those problems and for sure for not solving
5:12 them or making much progress would have been vulnerable
5:17 the American people who normally break away from a president in the midterm
5:23 elections had every reason to break away more that's why there were the proposals
5:30 of or the plans or the expectations of a sweep by the right wing GOP
5:37 that that didn't happen is our first lesson it didn't happen because the Republican Party offers no
5:47 solutions to any of these problems either however upset the American people are
5:54 and they are more upset than I have seen in my lifetime
6:00 they found no compelling reason to go to the right to reject the party in power
6:08 not because they're satisfied with Mr Biden and the Democratic administration
6:13 every sign shows they're not but the Republicans presented nothing to be
6:21 excited about and you know that's been true for our elections for some time
let me give another example and then I'll talk about what it means
15:12 we are coming to the end of the fossil fuel vehicle in our cultures as is
15:19 happening around the world when you come to the end of a form of
15:26 transportation you probably in most cases have Alternatives that you are
15:33 going to rely on since transportation is a basic requirement in geographically
15:39 dispute dispersed societies which we all now are
15:46 there are two major alternatives to the
15:51 combustion engine vehicle the electric vehicle the electric car
15:57 or public transportation that's a fundamental choice
16:05 it ought to be made socially why because we're all affected by which one it is
16:12 it's a completely different system if we rely on the private automobile whether
16:18 it's electric or fossil fuel for the moment it's the private car as opposed
16:24 to public transportation buses trains planes as the basic way we move people
16:31 around that ought to be a social decision because it affects Society in countless
16:38 ways for many years it's really important it should not be decided by
16:44 profit calculations of a handful of automobile companies who don't want to lose the business
16:52 yeah they go they make their deals with the politicians and the end result this
16:58 enormous social decision is not put before the people not by the Republicans
17:04 not by the Democrats neither one of whom because the job of this election I hope
17:09 I'm making this point over and over again is to evade avoid be quiet about
17:15 distract from what real issues there are for us to debate and choose between
17:23 and to spend time instead on something else so let me draw the first conclusion
17:32 fundamentally all these problems have to do with the growing inequality in the
17:38 United States that has a great deal to do with inflation with interest rate
17:43 policies with the housing dilemma with all of it
17:49 and it's an issue most Americans are very concerned and certainly deeply affected by
17:55 you might have had an election in which a real commitment was made concretely we are for leaving this
18:03 system alone let it become more unequal which by the way is what's been going on
18:09 it's been going on under Obama it's been going on under Bush it's been going on
18:14 under Trump and it continues under Biden so one of the other parties or maybe if
18:20 they were honest both parties would say yes we're in favor of increasing
18:26 inequality or maybe some candidates that would likely be Democrats might have
18:33 come forward and said no if we get in we are going to take the following profound
18:39 Steps either in changing the tax system or in changing how people are paid what
18:46 for what kind of work or we're going to do these things to radically address the
18:53 radically changed distribution of income and wealth over the last 40 years not one basic
19:01 word of either party or either of its major candidates in most cases with a
19:08 few exceptions doing anything on this topic it's amazing
19:13 here's something else that's amazing the United States one of the richest countries in the world with one of the
19:20 most developed Medical Systems in the world failed miserably in coping with the
19:27 covid disaster well over a million people died
19:33 tens of millions of people got sick and millions are suffering with so-called
19:39 long covet now this issue shook the country to its
19:44 foundations it killed over a million people aren't those sufficient realities
19:52 to say let's have a debate what was the problem why did we work so poorly as a
20:02 nation to deal with this why are you one of the worst in the country to deal with this why was the
20:11 decision made not to shut down areas where there was the virus
20:16 the way other countries did and really pursue it why was the decision made was
20:21 it in order to allow Commerce to continue and if so are we happy with
20:27 that decision do we regret it will we go in a different direction real issues
20:33 could have been engaged here that are profound for the nothing
20:38 nothing silence then in the last weeks we were treated
20:46 to a daily drama that could have in a society where politics is serious could
20:53 have gotten us into a good debate and there's some choices we have a social institution
21:00 that was taken over by private Enterprises
21:06 and we watched their behavior here's the social institution it's called Twitter
21:12 it's become a mode of communication among hundreds of millions billions of
21:19 people in the United States and abroad it is a way we communicate talk to each
21:25 other advertise promote disagree conflict it's a social institution
21:33 like all social institutions it was created by individuals
21:38 that's how social institutions happen and over time any individuals contribute
21:44 and it evolves that's true of social media it's true of Twitter
21:50 but what we saw was a tiny group of people who control this social
21:56 institution decide to sell it to another individual Mr Musk
22:04 a tiny groups of individuals deciding who is going to be in control of a
22:10 social institution we all rely on or most of us do
22:16 that's crazy and then we watch as decisions about who is going to be
22:22 allowed and who isn't going to be allowed to participate in this social institution or might are made by one
22:29 tiny group of individuals or now the new one the new one showing us what we're doing
22:35 by firing thousands and thousands of people in a kind of sweeping decision
22:43 Mr musk makes electric vehicles
22:50 he is not qualified to be in charge of a social institution first of all nobody
22:56 should be in charge of it the community should the society should that's what the word social means and in a democracy
23:04 it implies we have Democratic decisions about a social Institute nothing did did
23:13 anybody come forward and say well let's use the election do we want to have a different way of it nope nope nope we
23:21 watch the spectacle nothing is concluded I draw this conclusion then
23:28 when it comes to the domestic situation our elections are designed to distract
23:34 people from what's going on that's really urgent and profound and about our
23:40 lives as we live them and that's in the in order to protect this status quo to
23:46 keep things pretty much the way they are which an awful lot of Americans have
23:52 noticed and therefore they don't vote at all as a kind of small
23:57 measure of statement I'm not I'm not fooled I'm not drawn into this charade
the Urgent international issues that the United States faces
29:05 and you'll see the analysis is very parallel to what we just did with the
29:11 domestic so let me begin we are now involved we the United States
29:18 in this case are now involved in a fundamental choice to be made about the
29:26 relationship between the United States and the People's Republic of China
29:33 it is the number one international issue facing this country and I say that not
29:39 because it's simply my opinion it is but it's also the opinion of an immense
29:45 number of those people paying attention and interested in this topic both inside
29:50 the United States and around the world it's an urgent issue
29:55 and it's pretty clear what the basic choice is
30:01 either the United States a declining Empire is going to work out
30:09 a live-in Let Live relationship with the emerging New Economic Powerhouse in the
30:16 world the People's Republic of China yes involving challenges that are no
30:23 Rising power always gives to a mature power that is on the way down
30:31 Live and Let Live you know the United States once
30:36 threatened an existing Empire was the British Empire the United States
30:42 threatened it in the most dramatic way possible we waged war against Britain in
30:48 1776 and again in the War of 1812 twice war and then these two Powers the
30:58 rising American Empire and the falling British Empire decided that wasn't a
31:04 productive useful tolerable Arrangement so instead of a conflictual relationship
31:12 they became allies as they have been in the 200 years since
31:21 they learned their lesson you'd think a society that went through
31:27 that learning process might want at the very least to put before its people do
31:35 we want to go down the road of conflict and War and sanctioning one another and
31:43 helping my industry and hurting your industry we're well along that road already but before we make the final
31:51 steps from which there will be little chance of return
31:58 maybe we ought to say to our people look this is so important this will affect so
32:05 many people's jobs and I hope not but maybe lives
32:11 that it ought to be where do our people sit let's have a debate if one party
32:17 wants to be in favor of conflict and the other one wants to be in favor of working out a a Cooperative way to live
32:26 together however it's done put that decision
32:31 democratically before the people we had nothing remotely like that both parties
32:39 if they have differing points of view kept quiet about it those who spoke
32:45 seemed if they did deal with the subject at all and they didn't merge to be
32:51 basically jousting as to who could be more anti-chinese than the next one we
32:58 don't need that no choice was available to the population anyway to deal with
33:04 this issue so we won't know what the American people think or want in that
33:10 area because the political groups in this country who run the country could
33:16 care less about what the people want in this area as in so many
let me turn next to the second most important the Ukraine war in which the Americans
33:33 are already involved granted there was no public Choice
33:38 discussion about that were in it but we could have put it
33:45 choice to the American people in this election we didn't of course but we could have
33:52 let me explain there were three decisions that were
33:58 made that we need to um deal with foreign number three that could have been made
34:04 first when Russia invades Ukraine the United States had a decision to make
34:12 what's our response to this event and the response we know happened was
34:18 that the United States immediately began to provide Ukraine with money and
34:24 weapons weapons paid for by the United States taxpayer
34:30 to fight against the Russians in that situation
34:35 then there was a second decision to be made the United States escalated the
34:42 conflict there by imposing with its European allies and a few others
34:49 an immense set of sanctions the greatest set of economic sanctions ever put by
34:57 any country against another seizing the reserve the currency
35:03 reserves of Russia um unprecedented kind of behavior
35:09 among major powers in the world when the dollar where you capture reserves was
35:15 supposed to be a kind of neutral Global resource
35:21 refusing to buy oil and gas blocking other countries and other
35:27 companies from dealing with Russia I mean a whole host of sanctions that a
35:33 real escalation of the war and the Russians responded not much Surprise by
35:40 a set of sanctions counters sanctions themselves
35:45 and that included cutting off supplies of oil and gas one of the few weapons
35:51 they have to push back with and they did that
35:56 and what that did is created a shortage of oil and gas and fertilizer and other
36:03 things like that as a result which is causing inflations
36:08 around the world as the price of energy goes through the roof the price of food
36:13 made with fertilizer goes up dramatically and you all know the result
36:19 and the third decision that could be made is to sit down and negotiate
36:26 to see whether there are ways to accommodate what the ukrainians want and
36:31 accommodate what the Russians want in some solution that doesn't lay waste to
36:37 the country of Ukraine which is what's happening they're the ones paying the worst price
36:42 here and that maybe saves lots and lots of lives mostly again ukrainians
36:50 and that relieves the inflationary pressure of wild Energy prices by
36:56 resuming some reasonable transactions between Russia and Europe particularly
37:03 where the energy was delivered we could try that we kind of
37:10 ought to don't you think present to the American people in a real political
37:16 Choice which of these three do you want should we limit ourselves to giving
37:22 Ukraine money and weapons with which to fight the Russian is that a reasonable
37:29 response or should we have the sanctions program working red hot the way they
37:36 have been with their contributions to the inflation and all the rest of it or
37:42 should we negotiate tell Mr zielinski that he has to do that
37:49 otherwise we can't provide the support offer even if you want other supports to
37:57 help in making the negotiations hopefully successful that's a fundamental set of choices to
38:04 be made they are being made choices were made to give Ukraine the
38:12 support choices were made to push NATO ever closer to Russia by the noises of
38:19 Ukraine becoming nuclear or NATO a lot all of that those were choices made
38:25 we're caught up in the results the question is shouldn't that be a
38:30 democratically arrived at wasn't the election a prime time to see how the
38:36 American people feel on these issues here's the quintessential irony
38:44 even while the election was quiet about it the United States was in fact making
38:52 decisions that it didn't tell people about for
38:57 months according to the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal the United States and Russia have been discussing
39:06 the war what no one told us this had to be snooped out by clever
39:13 investigative reporters now it's admitted yeah we were
39:19 wow so the governments are talking but we are excluded
39:26 as a people from having anything to say about this a few courageous congressmen
39:34 and women wrote a letter a few weeks ago saying you know you ought to include
39:39 negotiations among the policies being considered they were slapped down
39:46 two weeks later the people who slapped them down shame-facedly admitted this has been
39:52 going on already there are negotiations the statement that they're only getting
39:57 together to discuss avoiding nuclear war is the usual diplomatic BS
40:04 Russians and Americans are sitting down and negotiating what's going to happen
40:09 in that country but a Democratic Society that does it and excludes it from its own people even
40:17 in the election which could have allowed the people to say what they think about
40:22 those three options that's a politics that is designed to squelch
40:28 democracy not to give it a chance
here's another one remember I promised four when you raise interest rates in the
40:40 United States given the importance of the United States and the world economy you make interest rates go up everywhere
40:46 in the world this is a crisis for many many poor countries
40:53 Emerging Markets is the nice phrase we use for them mostly in Asia Africa and
40:59 Latin America they are now in an impossible situation they had to borrow for development of
41:07 their countries because they're poor excuse me to cope with the pandemic
41:12 because they don't have the resources at home to do it they had to borrow to pay
41:17 for vaccines to pay for all the ways of trying to cope with that horrible
41:23 disease now they have to pay back the loans but the interest rates are going
41:29 up and they can't so what are they doing in order to keep the loan they have to pay them off
41:36 otherwise new loans that they know they're going to need will not be available but if they pay off at a
41:42 higher rate they're going to have to what constrict other expenditures to free the money to pay the higher
41:49 interest rate there ought to be a conversation if the point of the interest rate rise here is
41:56 to constrain the inflation here why should we allow victims all over the
42:03 world from this part aren't there some ways we could insulate
42:10 developing countries that we want to help to do something about the distance between rich and poor in the world that
42:17 is so dangerous and destabilizing aren't there ways to raise interest rates here
42:23 that don't have that impact on you of course there are I'm an economist I give you half a dozen
42:30 but it could have been put to the American nope we're all going to read about the
42:35 emerging debt crisis of four countries as if it were some kind of natural event
42:42 cluck our tongues say how sad it is but not understand that we could have been
42:49 able to intervene to express an opinion about how this ought to be managed and
42:57 we're going to live with the results and if the poor countries of the world were the majority of people live suffer
43:04 beyond what they are willing to tolerate we will be drawn into conflicts that
43:09 will cost us way more than anything we might have decided to do now to deal
43:15 with that problem and the final International issue that
43:22 should be a topic for voting and debate wasn't of course
43:30 is the economic nationalism that is now being pursued by the United States's
43:38 leadership we are deciding that the old Notions
43:43 that the government shouldn't interfere that the private capitalist Market is an
43:48 engine of wonderful efficiency none of that was ever true but that was the
43:54 official Mantra the religion economic religion of the United States
44:00 all of that religion has just been chucked out the window now the
44:05 government is intervening in every witch away knocking this industry from that
44:11 country shutting out that industry from this country this com company is
44:16 sanctioned that company is sanctioned your country has to pay due uh tariffs
44:22 uh your country we're going to seize your uh monetary reserves we are going
44:27 to have a bill passed that gives a subsidy to companies that build electric
44:34 vehicles here in the United States the Europeans are going crazy in case you don't know why because what this is
44:42 doing is providing an incentive a subsidy for companies to leave Europe
44:47 and come to the United States if they want to have a market if they want to be able to build electric vehicles the
44:55 United States will not let them in if they aren't built here how interesting now the Europeans are going to do the
45:01 same thing they're proposing it in their Parliament that's called economic nationalism we're all gonna fight it out
45:11 economic nationalism in the past has often led to war
45:16 number one number two if each country does it itself it's much more expensive
45:21 than having it done in that place where they are the most efficient that was the
45:27 rationale for globalization about which we heard so much in the 60s 70s 80s and
45:35 90s we were supposed to celebrate companies going to where the production
45:40 was cheapest because it would make it cheaper for us instead we're pursuing a
45:45 nationalism that's going to actually aggravate our inflation but no no no no
45:51 no no no don't get aggravated because this was all kept off the
45:57 election no question about whether really do we want to go in this nationalist Direction and of course it's
46:04 tied to the competition with China because we're trying to hurt them
46:13 by insisting that everything be done here after 30 years of American and other
46:21 companies investing to produce it in China this is a a momentous issue is going to
46:30 affect all of us for the rest of our lives it should have been on the ballot do we want to go in this direction do we
46:36 want to question it could have been done in a hundred different ways Pro or con more less
46:43 we can devise the questions that let people understand and then debate it so
46:48 people understand what's involved none of that was done none of it
46:59 instead here's what we had about International
47:04 and I won't go into more detail I'm going to give you the general message and it says old as the United States
47:12 which is an important reason to question it the United States constantly
47:20 as the most militarily equipped as one of the
47:25 richest countries in the world with one of the most impressive Global influence
47:31 you could imagine has given all I've just said many times
47:38 intervened in the world pursuing its own objectives
47:44 and often in an aggressive way but it never
47:51 can admit that the country is bizarre
47:56 other Britain has a war department we don't we have a defense department
48:04 everything that we do as a nation is couched in a language of Defense
48:12 it's become second nature the Europeans who came here
48:18 intruded aggressively against the indigenous population
48:25 portrayed itself as defending against
48:30 the Savage attacks of the indigenous people the aggression was clearly from
48:37 Europe here not the other way around the victims were obvious and intended
48:44 but in the mind in the Reconstruction of what was going on
48:50 white people were defending themselves against the indigenous people
48:57 First Time I Ever Saw Deerfield Massachusetts uh old Deerfield which is a
49:02 reconstruction of the colonial time in that part of Western Massachusetts and
49:08 if you read the little plaques on the reconstructed old how Colonial houses they're full of Stories of the
49:16 endangered situation of the colonists because the local people the Indians as
49:23 they called them threatened them amazing who threatened who
49:32 reminds us of course of the tendency of conservatives today
49:39 to keep referring to invasions of immigrants those desperately poor
49:46 families coming from Central America trying to escape climate disaster War
49:54 repressive governments economic horrible conditions of poverty coming across to
50:03 do what the United States has been telling them about itself even for
50:09 people a place to which migrations have come for a long time a Melting Pot uh
50:17 bring me your tired and your home all of that gone and we're suffering invasions
50:24 what an imagery an imagery of we must defend ourselves
50:31 wow and then of course the Cold War we had to defend ourselves against
50:39 communist Russia let me give you a statistic which I do
50:45 only because so few people seem to get it and I'm going to use today and then
50:51 we'll reason back what is the GDP that we refer to often
50:58 the gross domestic product it's a measure of the total output of goods and
51:03 services in a year in a country and it's a simple statistic that we collect and
51:09 we use because it gives you a rough it's just a very rough idea of the size of an
51:16 economy because the total amount of goods and services is a measure of what an economy
51:24 can do how how many people it's got what kinds of resources it has access to and
51:30 so on and it's very widely used and it has been widely used for many many decades
51:39 okay here we go I'm going to compare the GDP of Russia now
51:46 with the GDP of the United States now so you understand the relative size
51:54 by the way you can go to Google and look it up yourself you don't have to rely on
52:00 me most recent number for Russia about one and a half trillion dollars most recent
52:08 for the United States about 21 trillion dollars
52:14 okay and in the past the relationship was about the same or more extremely
52:22 different in other words in economic terms we are talking about a
52:28 relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union that was a little bit like David and Goliath
52:36 the Soviet Union was could not would not be an economic threat to the United
52:43 States it's silly it always was silly
52:49 and they weren't much of a military threat either because when you're that different in your capability of
52:55 producing you you may make a bomb you may make a nuclear bomb but your ability
53:01 to wage a war and to survive it are Slim
53:06 this is very important there is a a need to have your feet on
53:13 the ground when you're gonna but no we represented to the American people for
53:19 decades an imminent powerful dangerous threat against which
53:27 we had to defend ourselves and now we are defending ourselves
53:32 against the aggressive Chinese or we're defending ourselves against the
53:39 aggressive Muslims I mean it's extraordinary the United States has military bases all
53:47 over the world Russia doesn't and China doesn't they have barely any I mean whose
53:55 defending who's aggressing
54:00 we all know the truth because it's hardly possible even with
54:08 this tendency but the tendency tells us something the United States can't quite face what
54:18 it's doing it can't quite say what the reality is
54:24 that's not a strength but it is a powerful ideological tool
54:31 and the job of the elections is really to refine that tool to repeat those
54:37 things to portray us as endangered the seventh fleet of the United States is in
54:44 the China Sea right right there threatening them we
54:49 are threatened by the Chinese it's repeated in the newspaper every day and our politicians cannot break from it
54:57 cannot give us a chance to say as we need to and as I said earlier in this
55:04 talk make a decision about whether the relation with China is going to be
55:09 conflictual or work something out
55:15 and let me assure you that the conversations between the United States and the one hand and Russia and China on
55:22 the other are always going on they're just not revealed to the public
55:29 they are kept secret as long as a newspaper doesn't find out about it as
55:34 long as a diplomat doesn't make a slip but for the public consumption
55:40 we present the story of their aggression and our defense
55:48 the Afghans aggressed us and we defended by invading the Iraqis aggressed against
55:55 us and we offended by invading the Vietnamese we invaded
56:02 but when the Russians invaded Ukraine it was an unspeakable outrage we were
56:09 threatened you have to really get into this very deeply
56:15 in order to get caught up but our elections are like advertising
56:21 advertising doesn't tell you the pros and cons about what it
56:27 celebrates it just tells you about the good ones the things that are good about this
56:34 product and if there are bad things they're not going to tell you they're going to hide
56:40 those from you elections which should be opportunities to face debate and decide
56:49 crucial issues in the United States function as these midterms did with that
56:56 exception of the abortion issue they're not
57:03 anything other than advertising and even what they advertise is hidden
57:10 they advertise that all those other issues that I've gone through
57:16 yeah they may look important but don't worry they're they're being taken care of we Republicans are taking care of all
57:23 we Democrats are taking care they don't need to be discussed they don't need your input they don't need to know what
57:31 the mass of people need or feel or want
57:38 let me conclude by the conclusion I hope you've come to
57:43 on your own the midterm elections like most
57:49 elections in the United States most of the time are not a celebration of our democracy
57:58 they are a desecration of the concept of democracy they are a mockery of
58:05 democracy they exclude the mass of people from the
58:11 participation in the debate and deciding of the most momentous issues that
58:18 confront us and the midterms just concluded are no exception to this sad
58:24 rule and if there were a single conclusion I would urge you to think
58:30 about because it's going to be practically the conclusion we see in the period ahead
58:39 such a failure of your political system
58:44 such a pathetic failure of your elections
58:50 they teach people consciously or unconsciously
58:55 that on the important political issues we face the American system of Republicans and
59:04 Democrats is a show of fakery
59:10 the political issues will then have to be decided some other way
59:17 and what the country needs is a recognition of this sad reality maybe
59:24 these midterms will help bring that about we either need
59:31 new and different political parties who will bring these issues forward make it
59:39 impossible for the Republicans and Democrats to continue their pathetic
59:45 theater of politics embarrass them force them into articulating some position
59:54 we need either a new party to do that or we need a different kind of politics
1:00:02 a politics that happens in the street when masses of people explain to these
1:00:11 political hustlers that the era for them to exclude all the rest of us from all
1:00:19 the decisions that matter is over and a new genuine
1:00:26 democratic system for governance will replace it
1:00:33 the hint that that's coming takes us back to the abortion issue it
1:00:39 is splitting this country pro-abortion States anti-abortion states
1:00:46 The Next Step May well be those states where democracy is going to be taken
1:00:51 seriously and those that are continue the sad spectacle we just went through
1:01:00 it is going to be a very hard problem for a society that is after all
1:01:08 a declining capitalism losing its Empire
1:01:14 losing its self-assurance accumulating problems however often
1:01:20 kicked down the road the reality of these elections
1:01:26 is that the truth about this Society is kind of coming out despite all these
1:01:34 efforts to exclude us to hide it to deny it
1:01:42 it's advertising friends it's the opposite of an honest assessment of
1:01:48 strengths and weaknesses enabling us to make good decisions instead we're
1:01:55 bombarded by paid Husker hustlers pushing us in one direction or another
1:02:02 but systematically excluding us from the evaluation of strengths and weaknesses
1:02:07 which we would like to carry out in order to make the right purchase I hope
1:02:13 the analogy helps make the point
1:02:19 thank you very much for your attention these elections have gotten a lot of
1:02:24 attention but I hope not of the sort I tried to argue and present with you
1:02:30 today if all of this strikes you as the kind of intervention that ought to be
1:02:37 discussed and debated in our society which is why we do this please partner
1:02:44 with us share this video send it around to friends co-workers
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Is China really the enemy, or are we just creating self-fulfilling prophecies? Jeff Sachs talks with Rob Johnson about the tragedy of modern geopolitics, and how our current race to the bottom...
our semi-crazed policy makers view all of this not just in the lens of
0:05 economic competition but in the lens of uh of uh military
0:11 dominance which is again a little bit boring a little bit predictable and very
0:17 dangerous to have a mindset uh the way that our policymakers do that's what's going
0:24 on right now this is a war of technology they think now as
0:30 as an economist it's all mind-boggling to me because in economic think technology is
0:38 the way we do things the way we solve problems the way we overcome climate change the way we stop
0:44 poverty the way we treat people for health it's not a general saying my god if we
0:51 don't have the best autonomous weapons that can murder other people with ai we've got to stop
0:57 china so the idea that it's all a technology battle
1:02 is wrong this is rob johnson president of the institute for new economic thinking i'm here with a fellow detroit veteran
1:10 jeffrey sachs but is one of the real leading lights all around the world and has been for
1:15 many years i always pay tribute to my good friends the romells because when i was
1:21 an undergraduate at mit they turned me on to this brilliant graduate student who's a friend of their family and
1:27 i've kept track ever since anyway jeff uh is the director of
1:34 the institute for sustainable development at columbia university and he's also the head of a sustainable
1:41 development solutions program or initiative at the united nations
1:47 jeff thanks for being with me again ah it's great to be with you and uh yes fun to uh
1:54 be fellow detroiters very important oh it's what i always say is we were canaries in
1:59 the coal mine because as children we got to see a cauldron of unsustainability let's talk a little
2:05 bit about a number of things i recently i saw you on the bbc
2:10 talking about u.s china relations and took quite a bit of issue with how it was being framed
2:16 and i know you've written pieces project syndicate in february was an extraordinary piece
2:22 we are turning a corner climate change is now in everyone's awareness it can't be done without u.s and chinese
2:29 collaboration but i think you're let's talk about what you think
2:35 is mischaracterized in the potential for us and china to work together i i think the basic
2:42 point is we need a world in which cooperation is is the dominant
2:49 mode whether that's to fight a pandemic or to fight climate change
2:54 or to promote uh development uh we can't do this
3:02 in a divided world and yet the tensions between the u.s and china have
3:08 been rising i think dangerously so and i believe unnecessarily so
3:15 so that puts me uh a bit at odds with the a lot of people in the united states i
3:21 would say most of the political class at this point which takes it more or less for granted that
3:27 china's an enemy at best we'll have harsh competitive
3:34 relations could get worse i view all of that as wrong spirited wrong-headed
3:41 bad analysis uh contrary to my own eyes and ears over the past 40 years
3:49 i've been going to china since 1981 typically a couple of times a year
3:55 at a minimum often several times a year i've been all over china
4:02 for decades visiting remote areas visiting western china xinjiang visiting tibet
4:10 visiting yunnan visiting the coastal regions and i
4:17 do not see china as the enemy i do not see china as the
4:24 hostile force out to undermine u.s well-being which is actually even
4:31 taken as an article of faith in our formal foreign policy documents
4:36 that china's out to undermine the united states and undermine
4:41 the world i think that this is a
4:46 absolutely dangerous perspective and by the way if you believe it the
4:53 solution is sit down and negotiate and talk to the other side and solve problems but not this kind of
5:01 name calling shouting through the press of course it was even more insane when
5:06 we had a president on twitter because we should not have politicians on twitter i'm not sure we
5:13 should have twitter at all frankly but we shouldn't not be doing foreign policy by
5:19 tweets we should be discussing solving brainstorming presenting
5:25 evidence uh analyzing but not just name-calling uh unilateral
5:34 sanctions attacking chinese companies warning as our officials do
5:41 everywhere in the world don't you dare buy from huawei uh this will cause a great damage to
5:47 your relations with the united states we're making threats all over the world that aim to
5:55 really stop china's continued economic and technological
6:02 development i think it's disgusting and stupid frankly that's those are those are the two adjectives that i
6:08 would would use they do not comport with our well-being with our
6:15 national needs and certainly not with the world's needs that's what i called out
6:23 there aren't too many voices in the united states unfortunately
6:28 calling for balance we have both political parties that are anti-china divided
6:35 administration just about every time it opens its mouth about china is negative uh trump was crazy so that was erratic
6:44 but biden is not positive not even neutral and not so far saying let's sit down and
6:51 negotiate in fact the the formal position is we're not going to have a strategic dialogue
6:58 with china because we can't trust them and we don't come out well in such strategic discussions that's
7:05 always a mistake uh you know president kennedy said
7:11 let us never negotiate out of fear but let us never fear to negotiate
7:17 that is the right position and the position is sit down and talk because so much
7:24 is a misunderstanding so much is biased thinking so much is lack of perspective
7:32 that unless we talk we can't understand each other and we can't solve problems the u.s is the one that walked out of
7:39 all the agreements that doesn't abide by international agreements were the one that said
7:44 no no we're not going to be part of the international criminal court uh we're the ones that that is not
7:51 a party to a convention on biological diversity we're not a signatory of the
7:57 international covenant of economic social and cultural rights there's so many parts of
8:03 international law that we don't abide by because a lot of united states
8:11 action really is in the kind of trump mindset that he put it you know
8:17 vulgarly and crudely but it is no one's going to tell us what to do
8:24 not the u.n not anyone else as as if law is some kind of
8:30 punishment well if you think that you're almighty then you say i don't want to be
8:36 constrained by international law and that has been a u.s view of the us
8:42 right wing for a long time but i think china actually wants
8:49 international law because they see that with international law they wouldn't be held back they they
8:56 would be responsible for their own development i think that they are proud and
9:01 believers that if they have an international rule of law they're
9:08 going to thrive i think that's true too it's a very talented nation a great
9:14 civilization a great history a lot of catching up to do because of the horrible
9:22 period under uh european and japanese imperial
9:28 pressure and war so china's catching up good that's what i would like to see in
9:35 the world countries uh overcoming a sorrowful past history that had a lot to
9:43 do with the imperial dominance which was the 19th
9:49 and 20th century experience up until the mid-century of the 20th century
9:55 after world war ii and that's not pernicious that's not against u.s
10:01 interests but it is pro-china interest uh and my feeling is
10:08 that's great i i want to see china develop but american policymakers are you know
10:15 they're horrified oh they'd be bigger than us well yeah they have four times the population
10:21 so of course china would be bigger than us oh they would catch up in technology yeah why not capable people investing heavily
10:30 in research and development the idea that that necessarily diminishes the united states
10:39 is a the kind of dangerous uh zero-sum
10:46 thinking that will get us into a lot of trouble if we
10:51 persist in that and you're right rob that the playbook is the cold war and there is a
11:00 reading of the cold war that god didn't we do great you know we went uh toe to toe with the
11:06 soviet union and they ended up collapsing that's not how i read
11:11 the cold war i read the cold war as
11:17 strongly unnecessary extraordinarily dangerous almost brought the world to annihilation
11:24 annihilation i'm not using the term uh casually and uh something that we should be
11:30 trying to avoid uh desperately not to go back to that kind of danger which existed
11:38 in that time oh cite my acquaintance and and recently
11:45 uh partner in making a video daniel ellsberg whose book the doomsday machine talks about not
11:52 just the bilateral conflict but the burning of the upper atmosphere and the nuclear
11:57 winter that can destroy basically turn us into an ice age and destroy the food sources all over the earth and
12:05 uh no one has no no one has been more vivid more correct more perspicacious
12:12 than daniel ellsberg about these risks that's a phenomenal book the doomsday machine but it's based on a
12:19 phenomenal history he was assigned as you know very well uh as as a rand officer after uh
12:27 being a brilliant student in the first days of game theory in harvard he was assigned to
12:35 [Music] look at the nuclear policy of the united
12:40 states and he came to the horrifying realization that we had a finger on
12:48 not only on the button but on the button that would destroy the whole world and that our doctrine was just about any
12:55 accident could trigger a full-scale nuclear attack that by
13:03 u.s intelligence estimates would take out 700 million people
13:08 or so because it was going to be an attack to destroy the soviet union and china even if china wasn't directly
13:15 involved why not uh we should target them as well and then as usual with the idiocy of our
13:23 intelligence agencies they didn't understand any of the atmospheric dynamics and the
13:28 physics that would have ended our lives too i think the you know there's a funny
13:34 kind of blind spot that i saw you take on on that bbc program
13:39 which is a lot of people in the united states say china is an authoritarian country and
13:45 they don't treat people right in some regions there's pretty good evidence for that and you said
13:51 yeah but what about how the united states treats people like african americans it runs
13:56 its prison systems and all the kind of things that we're not in a place where what you
14:02 might call uh we're gonna go save the world unless we change how we practice what we
14:08 preach ourselves and i i thought you're standing up to that mind frame really created quite a luster
14:17 quite a momentum in that conversation in bbc i i i have a uh a foreign policy doctrine
14:23 i call jesus jesus is foreign policy uh because in the in the gospel uh of course jesus
14:30 famously says why do you point to the moat in the other's eye when you have the
14:35 beam in your own eye and what jesus is doing in the gospels
14:41 is explaining basically uh how how not to judge in the wrong way uh and
14:48 he is saying you better take care of your own uh base your own ethics uh
14:56 in order to be able to uh be ethical with regard to others as well yes and
15:03 yes we have of course a terrible blind spot here the united states uh has
15:12 walked out of the paris climate agreement under trump walked out of the world health organization under trump
15:17 walked out of unesco uh cut aid behaved atrociously
15:24 imposed unilateral sanctions that's all abroad not to mention all of the uh
15:30 civil rights and human rights violations at home and the first thing we do when the trump
15:37 administration when the buy demonstration comes in is point the finger at them
15:42 even in the shadow of the insurrection that we had on january 6th yes well that's that's not how to behave
15:53 how we should behave anyway with the new administration is to meet and say
16:00 let's hope for good cooperation and that we can come to mutually beneficial
16:08 understandings that's how you greet someone anyway as a civilized human being
16:13 but in alaska we did just the opposite we opened first words what about xinjiang what
16:20 about hong kong what about taiwan fighting words the very first
16:26 moment of interchange as if the united states didn't have a lot of explaining
16:32 to do about having a weird psychopathic president over the preceding four years
16:38 and can we pick up the pieces to get something normal going again so this this is my my basic point which
16:46 is you know we need to behave in a civilized way so that we can have a
16:53 civilized relationship with other countries and in a nuclear-armed world
16:58 it's insane to do otherwise i've seen you in the halls of the vatican i've seen the things you're exploring
17:05 on what you might call framing the relationship between economic theory and
17:11 the deeper moral teachings you know i i do
17:16 think as you know what pope francis is is telling us is extremely
17:24 pertinent of course he's written two wonderful encyclicals one called ledotto c which is about
17:32 climate change uh and about environmental destruction and he he says you know do not destroy creation we
17:40 depend on it we are a part of of this world and
17:45 nature doesn't forgive it will kick back very hard and then he wrote a second encyclical
17:51 called fratelli tutti a brotherhood of all or brotherhood and sisterhood of all
17:56 properly translated and it's it's really a perfect uh accompaniment to
18:04 the sustainable development encyclical because it's about encounter with others so it's framed
18:11 around the good samaritan who helps the person in the road uh and yes it's basically
18:18 wisdom pastoral wisdom of how to get along in this world uh and i think that that is part of
18:26 ancient uh truths of course the ancient world also had its non-stop wars and genocide
18:32 so it's it's not as if they knew necessarily better but the teachings of how to get along we
18:39 can remember as it's being extraordinarily important and pope francis is basically
18:45 saying right now we need a world that recognizes its
18:50 interdependence we need actually he says we need a plan for our common home and he's absolutely
18:57 right about that yeah yeah let me come back a little bit to the
19:02 dynamic between the united states and china i've worked quite a bit in china
19:08 starting around 1990 and ran the quantum emerging growth fund uh
19:13 non-japan asia portfolio was my focus i've been going there for many years and
19:19 many of the trusted people i've never met xi jinping but many of the high-level people i have met repeatedly and they say one
19:26 thing to me after donald trump came into office
19:31 we had china 2025 and there are concerns about property rights
19:36 or access to our financial markets we understand all those things but what we don't understand
19:44 is why we are being blamed for the american leadership not just under trump but before that
19:51 engaging in globalization when we're a very large country that had at this starting gate a per capita
19:58 income roughly 140th of the american program india and the americans did
20:03 nothing for their own people in the transformation in the adjustment
20:09 assistance in the retraining and reallocation and the winners got their taxes cut got
20:16 to keep their money offshore exacerbated class divisions
20:22 and we were powerless to do anything about that and now we're being blamed for that
20:28 and i think i didn't have anything to say but but they are it's an interesting uh
20:35 point you know i think broadly speaking uh the notion in any event that
20:42 china is somehow a source of major u.s social ills is
20:50 trunked up if i could put it that way wildly but i would say more than that there is
20:57 a point which is true that as trade with china expanded there were
21:04 places in the united states in the midwest i think predominantly that did
21:12 lose jobs to the import competition from china and it's the first it's the second
21:19 lesson of trade because i used to teach trade at harvard it's the second lesson of
21:26 trade theory that trade expands the pie that's the first lesson but the second lesson is it doesn't
21:33 necessarily distribute it uh the way that uh you would want it distributed there could be absolute
21:40 losers and uh more than uh fair winners but the theorem that paul samuelson uh
21:49 the great economist proved about trade uh already uh about 80 years ago
21:56 is that the winners can compensate the losers so that everybody can be made better off
22:02 that's what you teach in trade theory that look the the pie is going to grow ah but
22:07 the slices of the pie could really leave some people short but it's possible that those that are getting the
22:15 huge slice of the pie and they could share something so everybody's slice is bigger
22:21 than it was without trade well we didn't have that at all because our society
22:28 our politics our political economy since reagan was so anti-social democratic so
22:36 anti-sharing that losers were losers uh in in the moral way
22:42 not only in the financial way hey if if you lost tough for you you must be a loser
22:48 uh and trump was of course the uh you know the most extreme
22:54 weird expositor because for him they're killers and they're losers so when trump came in the only thing he
23:01 really did was cut taxes for the rich even more
23:06 but you know what he what he claimed that he was going to do was uh reverse the trade
23:14 with china and that that would bring back some jobs and i think that was a part of his
23:20 success in 2016 elections because he carried by a sliver those swing industrial states
23:28 in the midwest and that's what put him into the white house the truth is that's not where the jobs
23:35 were really lost the jobs were lost automation to technology and so forth those are not jobs coming back so it was
23:42 all based on uh you know a of a phony economic or false economic
23:48 perception but even if it were true the right way to handle an issue
23:55 of inequality is through u.s redistribution rather than closing down
24:01 global trade you close down global trade everybody loses you redistribute then the winners help
24:07 to compensate the losers but that's a mindset that america doesn't have because
24:13 we're lacking that discourse in american political economy that
24:20 winners should help losers in in the american mindset and it's a pretty complicated
24:27 cultural mindset it goes back to john locke it goes back to the puritans uh it goes back to the prosperity gospel
24:35 it goes back to the racism the mindset is if you lose that's pretty tough uh
24:42 but you're probably a loser and if you're depending on somebody else's help you're
24:48 really a loser uh so that's an american view which is
24:53 quite distinctive in our culture uh really pernicious but it feeds
24:58 into the china question because the chinese leaders
25:04 can't really understand well if you have some people that need help why aren't you giving them help
25:10 why are you blaming us just just like you said and they're right the truth is
25:17 that cooperation that's been a mutual gain but not an equally shared gain
25:25 and china doesn't face the same thing vis-a-vis europe because in europe i would say the social
25:31 democratic ethos is pretty pervasive it's not the american ethos that
25:37 if you if you lose that's your tough luck it is much more somebody will come to help you pick up
25:43 and you certainly won't lose your health benefits because those are for everybody yeah it's fascinating
----------------------------------------------------
Just reading (dont mind this too much):
Google search (yesterday): people selling food stamps for cash
Food Stamp Fraud - https://www.lawyers.com/legal-info/consumer-protection/consumer-protection-law/food-stamp-fraud.html
Google Answer: Today the trafficking rate is down to 1.3 percent of the roughly $80 billion in current spending, or $858 million annually, according to the latest figures available from the federal government.Nov 10, 2014 - A New Push to Halt Food Stamp Trafficking
Goofle search (yesterday): welfare being used scandalously in america
Pretty decent reads, have some interesting information:
"Mississippi Shows What’s Wrong With Welfare in America"
Public officials plundered a system built on contempt for poor people. By Annie Lowrey
"The End of Welfare as We Know It"
America’s once-robust safety net is no more. By Alana Semuels
Pretty decent story: https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-food-stamp-trafficking-0821-biz-20160819-story.html
--- Homeless Population by State 2022