Triumph is going to destroy the 'BUSA :(

[El Jefe Uno]

Oh man, some one here needs to make that into a bumper sticker.

 

Or a shirt.

 

I'd rock that with pride.

@misteraven ☝️

[Hua Guofang]

Seriously, that is a seller and not just for the 12oz crowd. Could be a nice little viral that attracts people to the website.

 

Captain serious/D-habs,I'll respond later but I'm pretty comfortable that I can make a joke here and there without being worried about my level of contribution to serious discussion on these topics.

[One Man Banned]

Will ultra liberals continue to whine and boo hoo or can they organize into something greater? Either way, you might say that Trump has grabbed America by the pussies.

[Hua Guofang]

I really think it's complacent and passive behavior that is allowing the stupidity to thrive in the USA so much. Sure you can say "u mad" and giggle to yourself but the merit you've offered is arguably none.... unless you're going for a comedy routine, which then, I still argue the merit of saying "u mad" is next to none.

 

I'm not suggesting that you're not a funny guy or you have nothing smart to say, just that many people tweeting and meme lording out there have very short paths to gratification and the gratification they get is rather cheap. I dunno, I guess whatever you eat doesn't make me shit so I shouldn't care, right? :)

 

Dude, you're on a bit of a rant lately, you're on hardcore transmit on a matter that gets you fired up. Good for you, you're having a say and the world matters to you, I appreciate and respect that. However, not everyone is going to reinforce your position or even offer constructive argument. For me your issue is redundant - people are acting childishly and over-sensitively to politics. Yup, that's what people do, it's happened for ages and there was a pretty big backlash to Obama too (birthers, he's a Muslim bent on destroying America, he's a communist, he's the anti-christ, he's manufacturing gun masacres to take our freedom and enslave us...., these were all constant themes when he was elected and thoughotu his presidency. I mean shit, the current president was one of the loudest anti-Obama freaks out there!!!). It always happens when trade deals are done, people are elected and new laws are passed. Welcome to the world we live in. These people mean nothing to me, I'm more focused on things like social equality and cohesion, national security, foreign affairs and those kinds of things that actually have an effect on my life.

 

You can spend your time and energy getting pissed about people crying in the streets and you can spend your energy ranting about them on the internet. But don't get bent when some people don't buy into it and make an off-handed joke regards your behaviour. Well, you can I guess, free world and all. Just don't expect me to care!

 

Downtown Austin is shut down today so that cry babies can "stand up" and "reject politics". Funny thing is, I am fairly certain that no amount of standing, sitting, accepting, or rejecting is going to change what is going to happen. It just means i get to work from home today on my couch playing Street Fighter 5 on my big screen and getting paid to do it. Nailed it fuckos. :D

 

Austin is a pretty liberal town, kinda gotta expect that from a large uni hub. I'm willing to give Trump a chance, he's there now, make the best of it. However, his inauguration speech was pretty shocking for people who know the history of populism (Some good examples of populists are Chavez, Mussolini, etc.). Protectionism doesn't have a good track record as a successful economic model - that's not to say that things are fine now, just that protectionism is not a great answer. Trump wrote a lot of cheques during his campaign and that speech and I am very skeptical that he will be able to cash even half of them. I just hope that it only takes the voting public in the US 4 years to work that out, not 8 like it took with Bush II.

[theprotester]

[~KRYLON2~]

Yeah take that trump!! You can't deport all the illegal immigrants, because they're one's who will be cleaning up our mess because no one else will do it for minimum wage!!! ANARCHY IN THE U.S.A.!!!

[Hua Guofang]

So, to revive my credibility in the realms of seriousness, I give you the reason why the US became involved in WWI, WWII, the Cold War and why there is still tension with Russia.

 

 

 

No major power like the US wants any other power to become stronger than them, if they can help it. It doesn't matter if they have good relations or not - relations can change and intentions can shift when new national govts come into power. So the idea is to not let any powers rise that could rival your own. The way nations rise in power is by location and access to resources.

 

Strategic location -

Natural boundaries such as bodies of water, mountain ranges, deserts, jungles/forests, etc, assist in national defence. They are called force multipliers in that to defend flat ground you need whole armies to cover expanses and have depth of forces. If there are only a few ways through you only need the forces to defend those small areas, the mountains do the rest for you. Deserts and steppe make invading forces stretch supply lines over long distances. These lines can be attacked meaning that invading forces don't receive the fuels, foods, medical, food, ammo, etc. they need to keep fighting forward. If those lines are to be defended then troops have to be diverted from the vanguard to the rear for protection and the forward advance is reduced in its fighting potential.

 

Water is obvious; navies are expensive to build and take huge lead times to develop into fighting forces. That gives the defending nation time to develop defences, create alliances, sabotage, etc. etc. Lastly, controlling naval chokepoints allows nations to restrict access to regions and force other nations to travel further distances (think the Suez Canal; if the US can control passage it forces Russia/whoever to sail around the bottom of Africa to reach the Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf, etc. The extra time usually means an increase in vessels/resources in order to sustain effect). So when you are the US, you have oceans to the left and right, cold climes with a small population to your north and a disorganised continent to your south with relatively inhospitable environment for large troop movements. The US is very well protected and quite safe (disregarding ICBMs, cyber, etc.)

 

Access to resources -

Great powers need resources to achieve their ends. Raw materials such as iron ore, coal, oil, bauxite, etc. for materials, food and energy supply for self-sufficiency and manpower for economics and manning forces, etc. Access to all of these resources means that a nation can develop a self-sufficient defence industry (or military-industrial complex, if that's the way you want to term it) in terms of fiscal capacity, inputs and sustainability. When a nation has these things other nations close by sense that potential and understand the risks inherent with having some one close by that might be able to defeat you should they choose to try.

 

If a nation doesn't have access to the required resources they sometimes go looking for them. Japan is an excellent example. Japan has little to no resources for energy and metals on its islands. In the late 1800s and early 1900s it pushed outward into Korea and then Manchuria to access resources. It was sourcing materials such as rubber and oil from Southeast Asia and other materials from the Asian mainland. Being an island it had the advantage of strategic geography, protected on all sides by bodies of water. The US, Russia and other countries were concerned what would happen should Japan control East Asia (think of all the people and natural resources there, that's a whole military/industrial complex of grand scale).

 

The United States -

The US is protected by bodies of water on each side and above and below by climate, small populations and disorganisation. The US also has internal river systems to cheaply and safely transport produce/capital. The US is a major producer of food, energy and raw materials and has the third largest population in the world. It has strategic geographic positioning and access to all the resources required for a modern military/industrial complex. The US owns and runs the Western Hemisphere and is super-powerful as a result. However, the resources available in Eurasia utterly dwarf what is in North America.

 

Russia -

The industrial revolution saw the rise of the military industries in Europe and some historians argue that is what brought about WWI. Others would say that geography was the main factor; Germany's geography is shit. It has no mountains, desserts or bodies of water to anchor its national defences with. IT exists on the Northern European Plain and saw the French building up their industry, Russia doing likewise and a British navy that could block it from accessing the open oceans. So it started (both) wars to take the initiative. The problem was, IF Germany defeated France, Netherlands, European Russia, etc. and controlled Italy and Spain, it controlled access to huge resources. The US looked at that and would prefer not to have one country in control of all that power, which it may choose to aim at the US one day. Hence, the US cannot help but get involved in European intrigue, regardless of what the Monroe Doctrine said.

 

Russia was even worse, because if it controlled Western Europe, not only would it control most of the resources in Eurasia but it would also be looking at the US across BOTH oceans. Having one (belligerent) nation commanding all that power and able to launch simultaneous, large-scale attacks across the Atlantic and the Pacific is a nightmare scenario for the US. That is why the US confronted Russia in the Cold War (forget about ideology, that was a means, not an end). And that is why the US cares very much about what happens in Europe today, because nothing has really changed, other than cyber.

 

China -

The issue in East Asia is no different at all. If China can convince the region to come over to its side (politically speaking) they will have resurrected their old tributary system from centuries back and they will have de facto control over a huge amount of resources as well as be very well strategically placed (Chinese mainland will have an island chain to its east, the Siberian steppe to its north, the Tarim dessert and steppe to its west, the Himalayas and jungle to its south) and will also be in control of the Malacca Straits, which is arguably the most important maritime bottleneck/choke point in the world.

 

 

So when you hear trump putting shit on NATO and saying that the US is going to stop help other countries and putting the US first. Ask yourself what that actually means in terms of global strategy. If the US said fuck the world and simply looked inwards, what's to stop China and Russia from pushing their spheres of influence outward and gaining control over all that geography, resource - power? And once they are more powerful than the US, which they will be if they control Eurasia between them, what's going to keep them from eating the US?

 

Geopolitics -

This is the discipline of geopolitics (geography and politics and how they interact). The granddaddy of geopolitics is sometimes said to be Halford John Mackinder. He wrote a thing called The Geographical Pivot of History, which is now said to argue the Heartland Thesis, which basically says that whoever controls the world island (Eurasia) controls the world. No one has really argued against that idea, to any real degree, and that's why the US still does not want to sea either Eurasia or East Asia fall under the control of a single power. Because then the US is no longer top dog and will live in fear of the greater power.

 

 

I would have copy/pasted Mackinders piece here instead of writing all that shit out but I couldn't find it in HTML. So here is a link to that item if you want to read it yourself (keep in mind that it was written in 1904) - click here to DL a PDF

 

There you go Dirty_Habits, that's what I spend my time getting worked up over and why I couldn't give a shit whether there are cry babies in the street after an election or people on the internet getting angry about the cry babies.

[theprotester]

http://theslot.jezebel.com/i-m-in-the-greys-so-whatever-last-night-i-decided-t-1791452860

[theprotester]

Arguing about how many people came to his birthday party.

 

Classy.

[misteraven]

@misteraven ☝️

 

Yeah man, working on tees. Not sure that one will make it, but finally getting back in the groove so hoping to have some stuff to show you guys soon enough.

[Dirty_habiT]

I'm not angry, I am amazed at how people think their waste of time matters to anyone with more than two brain cells to knock together. We don't quite live in a world where chucking rocks at eachother over a river constitutes war so I'm not sure that the things that mattered "in history" matter as much now. This is no where close to the old wars that were fought. Thank you for going to great lengths to do what I could only consider you to believe is appeasing me as it did add a meaningful tone into the thread. I like coming here to read what people have to say when it's more than broke dick umad jokes and images that don't contribute. That was pretty funny to me 15 years ago when I came here.... but not so much anymore if that's of any consequence.

 

Obama, arguably, did fuck us up a lot worse than we were. You can claim he brought us out of a depression, but it really wouldn't have mattered who was president when the economy dips so low - it's going to recover and we can parade around whoever got the popular vote. I don't think that's a sticking point for his presidency because it was some okie doke shit. If you look up "10 ways obama has failed as a president" you will be hard pressed to refute that he did bad things for our country. I'm not suggesting you're ignorant of these things but when people talk about the past and how things used to be (or worse say that history is going to somehow repeat itself) it just reminds me of South Park's Member Berries. I have a very difficult time believing that humans are prone to repeat a loop of events due to ignorance of said events occurring previously. I'm not sure the power struggle that some deem so important matters as much as they're giving it credit for.

 

[Hua Guofang]

"We don't quite live in a world where chucking rocks at each other over a river constitutes war so I'm not sure that the things that mattered "in history" matter as much now."

 

The technologies of war are far faster, more efficient and devastating than ever. Informationalisation of war has increased the speed and accuracy of offensive weapons and conflict itself. We have vastly increased the capabilities of missile technology since the Cold War and nuclear and missile technology has proliferated massively. The fields of conflict have also spread into space (the agreement between the US and the Soviets is history, the Chinese and the US are weaponising space as without satellites battlefield communications suffer) and cyberspace.

 

The power to destroy and the means to destroy with are more potent and more prevalent than ever in human history and to say that things don't matter now is to utterly misunderstand pretty much everything about where we are now.

 

 

"when people talk about the past and how things used to be (or worse say that history is going to somehow repeat itself) it just reminds me of South Park's Member Berries. I have a very difficult time believing that humans are prone to repeat a loop of events due to ignorance of said events occurring previously. I'm not sure the power struggle that some deem so important matters as much as they're giving it credit for."

 

So as I understand it you're saying that geopolitics, as I've explained it doesn't matter anymore. My first question is "why not"? I understand your assertion but you haven't made any argument or provided evidence to convince me your take is worth believing.

 

I would argue the exact opposite. The elements of geopolitics are geography, economics, demography and technology. Geography hasn't changed. Technology has, it has reduced the effects of geography in terms of time to cover distance and time for information to travel but that's about it. You can't march armies over oceans, you need to resupply your forces, resupply lines are vulnerable (just look at what happened to the convoys traveling through PAkistan to supply troops in in Afghanistan, they were constantly destroyed, often in their hundreds in a week), you can't drive tanks across mountains in battle formation and aircraft can carry little more fuel than they used to in the 1950s. Technology has not changed enough to overcome geography.

 

Demographics and economics are constantly changing but their influence on politics is the same. Countries need people to create an economy and a strong economy is needed to protect the population from risk and threats. Israel still needs money from the US (just as it did from Russia, Czechoslovakia, France, etc. in the past before the US became its benefactor in the middle of the Cold War) because its population isn't big enough to support an economy that can provide the defence required from the amount of threats Israel faces (regardless of who's fault that is).

 

Russia still requires deep water ports that don't freeze over in winter, that's why it seized Crimea from Ukraine a few years back. China still needs to break out of the first island chain and that's why it's building defensive out-posts in the South China Sea, Australia still needs to stabilise the archipelago to its north so it doesn't face the same situation of an invading force like in WWII and that's why it's just commissioned two massive LHDs (amphibious combat vessels). Pakistan continues to develop its nuclear arsenal because its 180 million population cannot compete with India's 1.1 billion population in terms of economics or shear conventional military capacity.

 

It's not like there is a switch where "history" changes and completely new realities begin with totally different standards and meanings. You know that there was a World War One and then over 20 years later there was another World War between all the same countries, right? That would suggest, in your logic, that history DOES repeat and loops of events ARE a fact. Or, that against what you've implied, "history" is not over and there is now clear and precise break with the past and that the same pressure and influence don't experience wholesale shifts.

 

For if you are correct in what you say, why then are China and Russia strategically cooperating against America's interests exactly the same why they did during the early Cold War when Stalin and Mao were partners? IF history was just in the past and had no impact on today surely Russia and China would not be struggling with the US the same way they did during the Cold War, right?

 

Keen to hear your argument as to why our history is not connected to today and why geopolitics is merely a relic of our past.

[Dirty_habiT]

I understand very well about what you said before and anticipated that you would rebuke with our technology of war. The point I was making is that we're in a state of waging war doesn't matter because when the last straw drops we're going to be blown to smithereens. I don't think anyone in the world is able to defend against being nuked at this point and there are several powers that have nukes. This is what you call a stale mate and nobody is in a good spot to have a check mate if you want to consider this on chess terms. Not Russia, not China, not America, definitely not Africa or Europe.

 

I don't think, and never think, that this is a time for fear and to be afraid of what might happen. It's time to move on and think about other things. Having the biggest stick is caveman shit and for those that still think in those terms, they're probably doomed to be a caveman for life.

 

Geopolitics and the means of waging war are an archaic way of solving problems. Which fist fight ever solved anything? China and Russia would only want to overthrow us because they're scared that we can break the toys they love so much and mess up their room. Money is nice, but it is not the answer to everything. You reach a threshold where more money doesn't do "more" for you because you have the things you want. I would argue that the countries with much higher poverty rates than us have leaders that wish things would magically go right for them but since it won't without a lot of hard work and SMART people they just use the few smart people they have to figure out ways to blow someone they don't like up. I highly doubt that if our country were to be invaded that it would not be absolutely full of people with resentment trying to exact revenge on their oppressors.

 

Further, I would assert that just because we have two similar wars between 3 similar b-holes doesn't mean that history will CONTINUE to repeat itself in the same way. I'm not a fortune teller and I would imagine that nobody else is either, although I cannot vouch for what people I don't know can predict. I just haven't met anyone that knows the future and knowing the past only is a limited view of what the people in our world are capable of. I have always been reluctant to believe that history repeats itself because I think at some point there will be enough smart people to realize that fighting isn't the answer. Getting kicked in the balls sucks and if that is what someone seeks to do to someone else they have to either be masochistic and not care if they themselves are kicked in the nuts or they're ignorant to the idea that they're vulnerable in the same manner they're trying to exploit in someone else. You can throw mountains and oceans, and economies into the mix but I believe the best mountain, ocean, or economy is the one that everyone contributes to and is a part of.

 

I'm not being a hippy here and suggesting some one love circle jerk between everyone. I'm suggesting that the powers that be will grow tired of expending resources on shit that doesn't matter and start trying to focus on problems that we actually have no control over but could be more prepared for. I highly doubt that anyone would be worrying about their bank accounts if china got destroyed by a meteor that threw dust into the rest of the world's atmosphere. It would cause anarchy within every country as people "stood up for their cause" and became selfish about wanting to survive by stealing and looting the more weak people. This is a very microscale of war that everyone is much more familiar with seeing in today's world. People get pissed, they break the windows on starbucks, beat up someone wearing a t-shirt, and then they go home and drink their cheap beer.... but what was accomplished that moves life forward for them? Getting their message out there? Trying to convince others they walk with a big stick while they hide behind a faggy black motorcycle mask with black skinny jeans on? This is essentially what China and Russia would be trying to do. They should get a Starbucks or try to figure out how they can be Starbucks rather than the guys wearing backpacks and beating things with rocks/sticks.

 

The middle east gets bombed because there are a bunch of unruly fucks over there still arguing about religion and who's land is who's. This is just slightly bigger than the hipsters vs. starbucks/mcdonalds war on city streets.... but it's the same concept. You have what I want and I am not very good with social situations so I'm going to just punch you and break your toys.... because my dad didn't give me enough props at soccer when I was a kid. It's not on us to fix anyone else's country and we need to stop playing Social Justice Warrior for people that cannot help us do anything productive. The smart people from the middle east are mostly already over here in the universities studying to be engineers or they're engineers already. They're not hiding in sand hills w/ automatic weapons putting their life on the line for a gamble.

 

Cliff notes: if history indeed will repeat itself, it was nice knowing all of you since the weapons we have are much stronger. I think the leaders know this and will avoid repeating conflicts where many people had to die to accomplish next to nothing. We have bigger fish to fry in the universe and I'm not someone that is a Trekky, or a star wars dork.

[Hua Guofang]

"I think the leaders know this and will avoid repeating conflicts where many people had to die to accomplish next to nothing."

 

I truly wish I could agree with you but history, ancient and modern, is the only evidence we have to go on and it teaches me to be pessimistic.

[Dirty_habiT]

I don't mean to be hard headed here. I just think that the way people think about things will eventually change. For instance, at the Women's Rally (supposedly for women that don't believe they have the same rights as men in America) in Austin the other day, people dressed up as transexuals and went down there to "troll" the women and find out what their cause was about. Even the leader couldn't explain what they were trying to accomplish. They even made "pussy hats" that everyone was wearing to kind of make fun of the "grab her by the pussy" comment. I'm not sure how this did anything in regards to their rights though other than booger the city up for a day with topless women. Out of everyone interviewed, including the leaders of the Austin march, not one person gave an intelligent, logical answer as to what they were trying to accomplish.

 

I don't intend to segue into another conversation outside of history but I'm saying this is an example of the thinking that will (or should) eventually change for the better. When people stop playing their victim cards then we'll be in a better spot. I don't know what happens to someone in life that makes them believe that "standing up" will somehow make things fair again. I cannot tell you how many times, as a child, I "stood up" against my parents because i thought something was not fair. It never worked out for me, not once. The answer was always that life isn't fair and I've grown up believing that not everything is fair for everyone all the time. When people learn to be stronger and work on things together rather than polarizing themselves as "i'm 180* different than you are and we're just not friends, " we'll get something accomplished together. I won't get into how women think they're paid less and the other points of this "movement", but I will divulge one tip I've learned from what I believe to be "being paid unfairly":

 

The biggest pay raises you will ever get are not from staying at one job. You HAVE GOT TO negotiate your starting salary to be what you want it to be or close to what you want. It should be realistic based upon your skill set. Loyalty to one company is going to, at most, get you 2-5%, raises a year.... which isn't shit and which is why it's important to negotiate your starting salary. 5% of 200k is decent and maybe worth sticking around for but 5% of 35k is like an extra case of ramen noodles every paycheck. I did not know these things when I first started working in my profession, but I know now and it's helped me. I don't stick around at a job when things start feeling stagnant, my loyalty is to myself because nobody is going to pay my bills. This advice will help each and every person that reads it and figures out how to make it work for them regardless of their wieners or boobs.

[Hua Guofang]

Hey, we're on the same page but we reading differnt shit.

 

Let me drink this and cook some onion rings adn I'll have a rave.

 

Cliff notes: yeah, but....

[Hua Guofang]

Spiced it.

 

 

Where is symbols? Hope queen is trail blazing somewhere off the beaten and out of range.

[theprotester]

RESIST

[Hua Guofang]

punk as

[Hua Guofang]

IPA

Cherry toms

fuck off

[Hua Guofang]

Live the uglinesss

love the beauty of it

[theprotester]

That's some fancy fucking sorby paper mate

 

Happy straya day cunt

[Hua Guofang]

Full half ply cunt, so fuckin what

Eh? Talkin shit cunt? Straya day cunt, eh?! [kinged].

 

Schooey

[Hua Guofang]

Celebrate value anonymity or I'll gang-shame ya, ya cyber-dream time ne0-denialist Hanson fag shit cunt

 

Carn then?'

[Hua Guofang]

I got a nunchuck-teatowel dance.

 

You bland.

[theprotester]

...

[theprotester]

[Dirty_habiT]

Your onion rings look good.

[~KRYLON2~]

I second that

[theprotester]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-executive-order-slash-regulations-151135855--business.html