UN special resolution removes sexual orientation protection

[Serenx55]

If that last is true, it's because most people have got a few pennies more than they used to but those on top have a few grand more.

By any sensible standard, that means the people on the bottom are slipping.

I think historically the people at the bottom are doing pretty well compared to the 19th & early 20th century poor in the US.

 

[construct]

Albania is a shit hole.

Why do you say that? Albania is further along on gay rights than the United States is; so it disappoints me that they abstained from the vote. Were you expecting them to abstain? If so, I'd love to know why.

 

[Serenx55]

Why do you say that? Albania is further along on gay rights than the United States is; so it disappoints me that they abstained from the vote. Were you expecting them to abstain? If so, I'd love to know why.

Have you ever been to Albania? It is a messy mess, if they're ahead in terms of civil liberties thats the only thing they have then. Anyways Yugoslavia isn't particularly the place i'd think about going for human rights sorry.

 

[EastMed]

Global revolution? The problem is that any alternative will change the whole world. The world is a global economy and an easy one to affect at that.

My dear, we in Europe can put up with your military adventures. But what really affects us is your economic incompetence which has plunged us into recession and bailouts. We didn't cause it, we don't need it, and we're tired of it.

 

[rareboy]

My dear, we in Europe can put up with your military adventures. But what really affects us is your economic incompetence which has plunged us into recession and bailouts. We didn't cause it, we don't need it, and we're tired of it.

Agreed. To a point.

Let's be clear here though.

The European Banks, Iceland and Great Britain all did contribute to the ruin.

Countries borrowing way beyond their capacity to prop up inefficient and unsustainable growth or socialist labour policies, ....the list goes on and on.

I have to say to all of you in the US and Europe.

Thank God our Liberal government for the last decade was fiscally conservative and that in Canada, we never let our banks run out of control the way that all the other nations did..

And even though there is clear evidence that the Bush regime actually thought that war would make the US wealthy, the reality of all wars is that they lead to economic depression at some point.

But let's get back to the topic at hand. The removal of protection.

 

[Kulindahr]

I think historically the people at the bottom are doing pretty well compared to the 19th & early 20th century poor in the US.

That method of comparison is really a way to lie about economic reality. People on the bottom in the nineteenth century were actually far better off than today's poor by the most important way of measuring: access to the day's technology. Except for a few gadgets, today's poor are seriously behind the technological curve, lacking things considered basic a decade or two ago. A more useful way of looking at that is to compare the technology in place in a home of the top 1%: these days, the vast majority of it isn't even without dreaming range of the people on the bottom; in the nineteenth century, it wasn't that far out of reach, because it wasn't that much different.

Anyway, in terms of liberty, your scale is totally irrelevant: the measure that matters is not between different years for a give socioeconomic level, but between the shapes of the wealth distributions. That today's poor are poorer than their counterparts of five and ten years ago with respect to their share of the whole is what matters, because the constant upward movement of wealth is a danger to liberty. It is movement toward feudalism.

The Republican Party is a good demonstration of the danger: its efforts for a good twenty years have been toward crippling human rights and handing ever more power to the astronomically wealthy. I'd say that example in the United States is what emboldens the despots in their opposition to human rights: this country looks ever more like theirs, and when a horde of reactionary bigots gets elected, they take that as approval of their bigotry and authoritarianism. From here, it may still look like democracy, but from there what we have is seen as no different than their own system: the filthy rich run things as they bloody well please, while elections are run in obeisance to the narrative of the age.

 

[construct]

Have you ever been to Albania? It is a messy mess, if they're ahead in terms of civil liberties thats the only thing they have then. Anyways Yugoslavia isn't particularly the place i'd think about going for human rights sorry.

A UN resolution related to gay rights--specifically freedom from governmental oppression--is the specific topic of this thread. Of course, that was what I was talking about.

Albania never was part of Yugoslavia. But if you want a fairly progressive country that was part of Yugoslavia, you might look at Slovenia.

 

[rareboy]

Actually the more I think about it, the more pissed off I am that Morocco voted the way they did.

Their King is a homo.

 

[rareboy]

A UN resolution related to gay rights--specifically freedom from governmental oppression--is the specific topic of this thread. Of course, that was what I was talking about.

Albania never was part of Yugoslavia. But if you want a fairly progressive country that was part of Yugoslavia, you might look at Slovenia.

Or even moreso, Bosnia Herzogovina.

They voted with the angels on this and it is surprising given the traditions of the country.

 

[EastMed]

Actually the more I think about it, the more pissed off I am that Morocco voted the way they did.

Their King is a homo.

True. I love Morocco and spend a few weeks of our winter there.
Moroccan men are ........ well, I'll leave it to your imagination!

 

[Kulindahr]

Actually the more I think about it, the more pissed off I am that Morocco voted the way they did.

Their King is a homo.

And a direct descendant of Mohammed.

True. I love Morocco and spend a few weeks of our winter there.
Moroccan men are ........ well, I'll leave it to your imagination!

According to what I've read, foreigners having gay sex with locals are risking their freedom, or even lives.

 

[EastMed]

And a direct descendant of Mohammed.



According to what I've read, foreigners having gay sex with locals are risking their freedom, or even lives.

All things happen in the shade of a lemon tree.

 

[FunFunk]

I'm also surprised about south africa. I mean they are generally ahead of the US when it comes to gay rights policies. The UN should be ashamed of itself. They are essentially supporting government-sponsored murder based on rampant homophobia. Thoroughly disgusting. One more development to discredit the UN as a viable institution.

 

[construct]

I'm also surprised about south africa. I mean they are generally ahead of the US when it comes to gay rights policies. The UN should be ashamed of itself. They are essentially supporting government-sponsored murder based on rampant homophobia. Thoroughly disgusting. One more development to discredit the UN as a viable institution.

Generally? On paper they're way ahead of us. I'm not sure that I completely understand what was going on there either.

 

[Kulindahr]

Generally? On paper they're way ahead of us. I'm not sure that I completely understand what was going on there either.

Maybe it has to do with the shade of a lemon tree.
What would happen if it was the right guy?

 

[Serenx55]

A UN resolution related to gay rights--specifically freedom from governmental oppression--is the specific topic of this thread. Of course, that was what I was talking about.

Albania never was part of Yugoslavia. But if you want a fairly progressive country that was part of Yugoslavia, you might look at Slovenia.

And I was talking about how Albania is a shithole. I'd rather live in a homophobic town in Texas than live in Albania. Politically I'm completely apathetic to its existence sorry.

 

[Serenx55]

My dear, we in Europe can put up with your military adventures. But what really affects us is your economic incompetence which has plunged us into recession and bailouts. We didn't cause it, we don't need it, and we're tired of it.

Europe's got many more problems economically sorry. Military adventures well I can agree with you on that, but hey we fight the wars so the French don't have to lose them .

 

[Serenx55]

That method of comparison is really a way to lie about economic reality. People on the bottom in the nineteenth century were actually far better off than today's poor by the most important way of measuring: access to the day's technology. Except for a few gadgets, today's poor are seriously behind the technological curve, lacking things considered basic a decade or two ago. A more useful way of looking at that is to compare the technology in place in a home of the top 1%: these days, the vast majority of it isn't even without dreaming range of the people on the bottom; in the nineteenth century, it wasn't that far out of reach, because it wasn't that much different.

Source this please.

Anyway, in terms of liberty, your scale is totally irrelevant: the measure that matters is not between different years for a give socioeconomic level, but between the shapes of the wealth distributions. That today's poor are poorer than their counterparts of five and ten years ago with respect to their share of the whole is what matters, because the constant upward movement of wealth is a danger to liberty. It is movement toward feudalism.

I'd so oligarchy rather than feudalism. But you'll need to realize that our poor are better off than a lot of people in a lot of other nations.

The Republican Party is a good demonstration of the danger: its efforts for a good twenty years have been toward crippling human rights and handing ever more power to the astronomically wealthy. I'd say that example in the United States is what emboldens the despots in their opposition to human rights: this country looks ever more like theirs, and when a horde of reactionary bigots gets elected, they take that as approval of their bigotry and authoritarianism. From here, it may still look like democracy, but from there what we have is seen as no different than their own system: the filthy rich run things as they bloody well please, while elections are run in obeisance to the narrative of the age.

I agree. What's your solution?

 

[Kulindahr]

Source this please.

Not sure I've got any except class notes and articles in memory. But to a certain extent it's obvious; there's a greater technological spectrum that there was before, and not much that widely different between what was available at the top as at the bottom.

I'd so oligarchy rather than feudalism. But you'll need to realize that our poor are better off than a lot of people in a lot of other nations.

On this, how people are in other nations isn't really relevant. What's important is that the gap between our poor -- of whom there are increasingly more -- and the rich.
It's feudalism we're heading toward -- corporate feudalism, to be specific. Feudalism is a sort of oligarchy, though of a plutocratic sort. The difference is that the few rule different fiefdoms within the whole; a recent example in history was the Third Reich, where all the different aspects of the regime had different leaders who treated them as private preserves -- part of Hitler's task was keeping them from literally going to war with each other.

I agree. What's your solution?

If I could get away with it?

Take half the wealth of everyone worth over $5 million; use it to pay down the debt (I can't get any solid figures on just how much that would do). Then make a tax structure sufficient to reverse the upward drift.

I once read a statement by, IIRC, Warren Buffet to the effect that when you get down to it, if the top 2% in the country were suddenly stripped of the majority of their wealth, most wouldn't feel more than a brief annoyance, because for those who just like enjoying great wealth, there would be no change in their ability to do and spend as they pleased, while for those to whom it's all about the numbers, they'd just adjust some decimal points and keep playing.

I don't like that, philosophically, but without some even more radical social change, I don't see much else that could be done. In fact, personally I'd rather see more radical change, beginning with instituting a rational basis for land ownership......

 

[Serenx55]

Not sure I've got any except class notes and articles in memory. But to a certain extent it's obvious; there's a greater technological spectrum that there was before, and not much that widely different between what was available at the top as at the bottom.

However to what extent is that technology vocational rather than necessary.

On this, how people are in other nations isn't really relevant. What's important is that the gap between our poor -- of whom there are increasingly more -- and the rich.
It's feudalism we're heading toward -- corporate feudalism, to be specific. Feudalism is a sort of oligarchy, though of a plutocratic sort. The difference is that the few rule different fiefdoms within the whole; a recent example in history was the Third Reich, where all the different aspects of the regime had different leaders who treated them as private preserves -- part of Hitler's task was keeping them from literally going to war with each other.

I don't think it'll be a truly feudalistic system because I really doubt we will have serfdom if this progresses forward. However I do agree that companies if allowed to be as they are could grow to the point where they could conquer small countries.


If I could get away with it?

Take half the wealth of everyone worth over $5 million; use it to pay down the debt (I can't get any solid figures on just how much that would do). Then make a tax structure sufficient to reverse the upward drift.

I once read a statement by, IIRC, Warren Buffet to the effect that when you get down to it, if the top 2% in the country were suddenly stripped of the majority of their wealth, most wouldn't feel more than a brief annoyance, because for those who just like enjoying great wealth, there would be no change in their ability to do and spend as they pleased, while for those to whom it's all about the numbers, they'd just adjust some decimal points and keep playing.

I don't like that, philosophically, but without some even more radical social change, I don't see much else that could be done. In fact, personally I'd rather see more radical change, beginning with instituting a rational basis for land ownership......

I think that could be interesting, although completely impossible in our current system. The moment any rumor of this comes about you'll have the rich liquidate their assets and leave. However if you ever make a deal with a witch and obtain the power of Geass then we can see this happening. That or global revolution. Sigh the world is too complex. This is why I didn't go into government.