New show: NewsReal with Joe & Niall

Beau said:
Yes. The American middle class is basically gone. Most people live check to check. Companies hire illegal immigrants because they don't want to pay Americans a living wage. Our cities are riddled with crime and homeless people. Covid destroyed trust in the authorities. The idea that "things are too good" for the average American may have been true 15-20 years ago, but not anymore. Living standards have gone to shit.
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I think that depends on how one defines good, I think people are struggling more today than 20 years ago, but at the same time, the average struggling American has it way better than the majority of the rest of the world. Having said that, and Interestingly enough, I think people who struggle in the US are doing so because of the status quo being what it is and doing what it does, so people wouldn't have known a good life that they could compare against their current life without that empire status, which is what is hurting them now.

So, when people think MAGA, they think of turning things back a few decades, but not really to get rid of the source of their ills today, which is the same source of their greatness back then. It's like a junkie who has lost everything to drugs, and wants to get rid of that state but who at the same time chases that same sensation of the first high which was mostly pleasure, but can't recognize that they're one and the same thing, the source of the misery and the initial pleasure. And it's an adequate analogy as just like cocaine for instance, its availability to buyers means a lot of misery elsewhere in the world.

And in my experience it is an inevitable state of affairs, in reality when it comes to the greatness of the US, all both parties ever argue about is how to maintain it, with different approaches but they both seek the same thing.
 
Great show and all four of you make a great podcast lineup. Last week you guys were discussing the leverage Israel has on the world, how no one takes definitive action to stop its madness. A case can be made about having proxy influence through the US, about the intelligence agencies having the ability to conduct terrorist acts in Western countries, and perhaps that is enough of a deterrent for everyone, but there is also this to add to the mix:

Session 13 January 2024

Q: (Ursus Minor) Has Israel hidden small nukes in Europe and the U.S. for retaliation?

A: Yes.
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No follow up question was made then, but I think is very possible, a requirement perhaps, that these countries know about and are constantly reminded of this.
 
Alejo said:
I think that depends on how one defines good, I think people are struggling more today than 20 years ago, but at the same time, the average struggling American has it way better than the majority of the rest of the world.
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Right, but I think that's a false equivalency because Americans don't have that context to compare it to life in the third world. That's why the MAGA dream is about going back to life in the 90s. Because many people remember what that was like and how much worse it is compared to then. Now Joe is right that the US had to keep this empirical grip on parts of the world to do that and the majority of Americans were/are ignorant how their lives were made comfortable by the suffering of others.
 
luc said:
For a long time, yes. But I think part of the reason why so many people, especially younger people, started questioning the Israel thing (and other things) is that at least for them, things have been shifting for 10 years or so, with unaffordable housing, mass migration, difficulty finding jobs, inflation and so on. Of course it's relative, but if people feel things are declining and don't go well for them, they start having ideas...
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Right, and that produced Trump. And the reason for it was a changing global power dynamic, specifically related to the rise of Russia and China and the effects of outsourcing production (which itself was a 'benefit' of empire). In response to that, the US establishment, including Trump, decided to do something about it, i.e. Ukraine and now Iran. Both of which are efforts to maintain US global hegemony. Trump tried to focus on the economic problem as a solution, but has been forced to engage with the 'deep state's' preferred method: continued empire building and warmongering.

Iran (i.e. control over the ME) is the most important to the USA. In fact, one could propose that embroiling Russia in a war in Ukraine in 2022 was designed to make sure Russia was distracted enough when the war on Iran was launched, so it it could not significantly intervene.
 
Alejo said:
So, when people think MAGA, they think of turning things back a few decades, but not really to get rid of the source of their ills today, which is the same source of their greatness back then. It's like a junkie who has lost everything to drugs, and wants to get rid of that state but who at the same time chases that same sensation of the first high which was mostly pleasure, but can't recognize that they're one and the same thing, the source of the misery and the initial pleasure.
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Really good summary of the situation IMO.
 
Alejo said:
So, when people think MAGA, they think of turning things back a few decades, but not really to get rid of the source of their ills today, which is the same source of their greatness back then. It's like a junkie who has lost everything to drugs, and wants to get rid of that state but who at the same time chases that same sensation of the first high which was mostly pleasure, but can't recognize that they're one and the same thing, the source of the misery and the initial pleasure. And it's an adequate analogy as just like cocaine for instance, its availability to buyers means a lot of misery elsewhere in the world.
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Yes! Even smart people like Tucker Carlson often talk about going back to the 80s or 90s, as if the US was in a bubble. Don't they know that in order to create that "great democracy"and those good times, the US did a lot of damage to the rest of the world? It still amazes me when they don't even point that out. And Trump is acting like the perfect embodiment of that attitude, whether he means well or not. OSIT.
 
Chu said:
Yes! Even smart people like Tucker Carlson often talk about going back to the 80s or 90s, as if the US was in a bubble. Don't they know that in order to create that "great democracy"and those good times, the US did a lot of damage to the rest of the world? It still amazes me when they don't even point that out. And Trump is acting like the perfect embodiment of that attitude, whether he means well or not. OSIT.
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And to go from there to conclude that, just like today maybe having people live the life they did back then was servile to their plans, because they needed a strong economy, to generate funds to play the stock market, fun the MIC and to push their global plans. The greatness of American families back then was the engine to the machinations of the empire builders. Today is different so today familles going bankrupt is what's more desirable.
 
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