You have an interesting way of seeing the world - strict names claim geography ideology.

So by your definition, which Congo is the real Congo? Or should the US own all of the Americas? Or perhaps the reverse, China gives up Tibet and Inner Mongolia then? Or maybe we should extrapolate to the absurd, all lands named after saints are now owned by the Vatican?

Oh you are challenging the wrong person on this one bub. Can you point out Grenada? How about Marshall Islands? Nauru? Kiribati (pronounced like Gilbert’s), Comoros? How about where Japan ends and Russia begins?

Sun Tzu says don’t underestimate your opponent. Pretty sound advice.

The people of Taiwan disagree with your sentiment. Some think that the ROC is the true government of China, others think that Taiwan and China are now two separate countries, but, go figure, officially saying so would instigate a hostile reaction from the PRC.

So it seems that they’re under a bit of duress to acquiesce to the PRC line, no?

"They're Chinese" sounds a great way to "liberate" the people's of Taiwan, Bhutan and Singapore from their current democratic shackles.

The way you phrase this makes it seem like the oligarchs had no responsibility in shaping how Russia is today.

Russia is at least as complicit in its own destiny.

I think you can understand why any nation wouldn’t just fully embrace a failed state with their arms wide open, particularly one that, up until a recent turn, had been its most vehement opposition.

I’m glad you agree that the Politburo has resulted in untold human suffering.

While I agree with your sentiment regarding people losing faith in their government, we have been on this road before a few times (antibellum era, William Jennings Bryan era, Joe McCarthy era). After a time of painful soul searching, we've always come back from these low periods. I have no reason to believe we won't overcome it again.

Keep fighting, my brothers and sisters.

Your typo took me way back. There was a game called "Wall Street Kid" for the NES where you could "invest" in companies in the stock market, with the hopes to make it big. Many of the companies in it were a play on words of real-world companies. Boeing's was "Boing Boing". Thanks for the nostalgia today, though I wish it would have arrived on a more optimistic post.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_Kid

And 3) you can’t because I’m right!

Sick burn with that picture. Ya sure got me there!

Just imagine if Marx was equipped with memes back in the day. We could have wrapped the WORLD in breadlines!

This article reads like a China/ Russia propaganda greatest hits album. What does a Y2K worker revolt have to do with WW3? What does some hedge fund selling rare earth mining have to do with the price of tea in China?

NATO didn't allow Russia into NATO because Russia had been the one who invaded the Eastern Block (huh, sounds oddly prescient what with them invading Ukraine nowadays). Maybe if Russia had gone through “shock therapy” and not given all of their state owned assets to a few oligarchs, who then installed who they thought was going to be a weak president, who then provoked a false flag attack on his own people to incite a war, which eventually culminated in that president becoming dictator for life…perhaps then Russia would have transformed into a healthy capitalist state with less corrupt politicians, and perhaps then NATO would have included them. But alas, change is hard and it is easy fall into such traps along the way.

China on the other hand. For one, TPP for the US didn’t happen, so it’s fairly toothless. The author seems to argue that the US sending some of its manufacturing to China was a bad thing, but I’d argue that it helped to form the Chinese middle class. Shanghai was a little more than a backwater in the 80s, Hong Kong was the crown jewel of East Asia. Those manufacture jobs made China what it is today.

So far as including the US in belt and road, it could have been great idea, but there were some concerns with that. For one, China continues to steal US businesses IP, they don’t seem to value the concept of IP in their country, especially of the foreign type. Without IP protections, fewer people are encouraged to innovate or share their knowledge with the public. Secondly, the US already has the World Bank and IMF for such initiatives. The money comes with strings attached to incentivize countries towards the path of democracy, probably why China went a different path.

And that’s the rub isn’t it? Democracy scares the hell out of countries with centralized government (and the dictators as well.) Can’t be putting all of that political power in the people’s hands can we? (Oh the irony).

To close, I’ll ask you this. Is any of this really worth fighting WWIII for!? Chinas butthurt, Russias butthurt, the US, also butthurt. But ultimately my take is that we’re all here to give a better life to our citizens. Is WW3 really going to deliver on that?

The guy you replied to has replied in a similar variant of “x event happened, therefore dems don’t want to win.”

Can’t fault them though, he’s just doing his job and following orders. The opposite would be …. Unthinkable