Do you really need to put "neoliberal" in front of oligarch? It imparts on them a commitment to principles that they don't uphold. This is a government that undermines core liberal values like private property rights and privacy rights, with a multitude of financial regulations, surveillance state anti-money-laundering laws, and prohibitions on unrestricted use of encrypted communication.
>This is a government that undermines core liberal values like private property rights and privacy rights, with a multitude of financial regulations, surveillance state anti-money-laundering laws, and prohibitions on unrestricted use of encrypted communication.
But "neoliberalism" is frequently derided as a free-market fundamentalist ideology that was the driving force behind a period of alleged deregulation and government cut-backs extending from the early 1980s to the present. It's really an inaccurate characterization of both the last 40 years and the beliefs of the parties in charge.
As I understand the term 'neo-liberal' it's kind of a hybrid ideology that strides the two US political parties. Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton are both neo-liberals, though ostensibly, opposed to each other. It's basically the worst of the political philosophies espoused by the two parties. Basically it means more authoritarian control and the prosecution of wars all over the planet for the sake of establishing a new world order.
Norway is doing pretty well for a country with such a large sovereign wealth fund; most places would have had it stolen by now. It seems they just have the ordinary run of scandals: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45173500
I love Norwegian political scandals. Compared to American scandals, they are just nothing but people are held accountable anyways. I would love to see some American politicians career ended because they took their phone to a country they should not have.
It's worth noting that while the wealth fund is enormous, it is also being spent [1] to cover budget deficits. (More specifically, the returns are being spent.)
The government has historically tried to avoid doing so, but had to dip into the funds in 2016–2018. The rules around spending was formalized in 2001 [2], but the extent to which Norway was dipping into the funds has been controversial the last few years, with economists warning that it puts the country at risk in a future economic downturn.
Norway's wealth fund is actually codified as law, which makes it difficult for a future government to "steal" it.
I'm Danish. Prime minister is a drunken buffoon with no apparent shred of personal integrity, and generally I hold all politicians to be only in it for the perks and the power and the sex, but no, I wouldn't call our government corrupt, just institutionally inept, because politicians are not in the business of reasoning, and the administrative apparatus is Pournelle's iron law run amok.
We simply don't do corrupt to any significant degree. Probably the niftiest social trick the Scandinavian societies ever evolved.
Come to think of it, I was offered a bribe today, just a few hours ago. Turned it down without even thinking.
This is anecdotal, but I think the common perception is that voting just doesn't matter - politicians make promises to get votes and don't follow through after the elections. And it's the same politicians cycling in and out, year after year. Clearly people are voting for them, but just as clearly there is a large portion of the population that feels like their concerns aren't being addressed.
What's interesting is that the people I know personally who've more or less given up on politics can't be clearly identified as belonging to a specific demographic. Some of them are students, some are male knowledge workers in their 20's and 30's, some are female medical professionals and administrators in their 50's and 60's. My father, who is an academic, has the most faith in the political process among the people I know.
One of my Singaporean friends mentioned that the population is quite content with their government, they are enjoying the countries prosperity and the country is peaceful. He said, "Why change a working system?"
As a former resident of BC, I think the former government was dysfunctionally corrupt, in the sense that the corruption was actively leading to dysfunction in the province.
It's one thing when politicians steal for themselves. It's another thing entirely when they steal for their friends.
You're basing this on what? St. Mueller has finished his investigation, and precisely no one will be going to prison for "Russian election meddling". If they didn't do this horrible thing (that is entirely protected by 1A), then how could anyone have helped them do this horrible thing?
OP said they won’t go to prison because Trump wasn’t found colluding. It’s nonsensical. As though, Trump not telling Russia what to do means it didn’t happen. We know beyond a doubt Russia interfered. We also know Assange was one of their stooges. Read the indictments.
So what? Netanyahu once gave a speech to Congress in the middle of elections. All countries interfere all the time. Some citizens have positive views of the countries those individuals represent some don’t. It doesn’t matter. Countries don’t have friend, they have interests that either align or don’t. Singling out Russia doesn’t in anyway lead to causation on the part of Assange.
They won't go to prison in USA because they'll never go to trial in USA. Hint: they're Russians who live in Russia. Even if they did show up to a USA courthouse, the trial would just be indefinitely postponed, like for instance the trial of Concord Management which was supposed to start a year ago. Mueller didn't give them a day in court, for a year, and now he has retired.
Don't waste too much effort defending Mueller. Just like with e.g. Comey who was praised before he was reviled before he was praised, alternate orders on Mueller will soon come through for you. The war pigs are not pleased with his performance.
I never said they were convicted. I said the factual evidence is laid out in the indictments.
I said he was their stooge. That doesn't mean he knew he was their stooge.
Indictments contain allegations, not facts. This is Civics 101. An informed commentator could not honestly post multiple attempts to blur this distinction. What does that say about you?
We know, because we are informed citizens, that indictments contain allegations. Having read an indictment, how could it change that? Is there some special incantation that could have been included, which would have transformed it into some sort of super-indictment that also contains facts? No, there is no such incantation. If an indictment claims that the sun rises in the east, that's still just an allegation. Someone might believe an allegation for whatever idiosyncratic reason might personally obtain, but that's totally subjective. No one else cares.
Once an allegation has been defended against cross-examination in a court, it might make the transition to fact. (Or it might totally fall apart. I doubt the charlatans at Crowdstrike would fare well under cross. "You mean you never actually examined the servers, and just took your clients' word that they had properly imaged the hard drives before destroying them? These were the same clients who had placed similar servers that neither you nor FBI ever examined in a restroom next to a toilet?") You're probably ill-informed enough to think that court proceeding has happened already. To be better informed, you should read more reliable journalism.
Yes, but none of the charges are related to conspiracy with the Russian government.
There are only a handful of conspiracy against the US charges, and they are all related to Ukrainian interests long before the 2016 election (which were related to pro-US Ukrainian interests).
So yes, there are many Mueller indictments, but they do not fit the (now discredited) Russia-Gate narrative. Yes, Trump is surrounded by all kinds of criminals (and almost certainly is one himself) but this should be a shock to nobody -- he hired people directly related to mafias in several countries.
I was referencing indictments of Americans (which is what almost everyone thinks of when you refer to Russia-related conspiracies). None of those were in relation to Russia-related conspiracies and the Mueller Report (or rather the Barr summary) confirms as much.
The Barr summary has been disputed by some of Mueller's team but those disputes are in relation to the obstruction of justice questions.
As for the Russian indictments, I'm not sure if there's much to say. Quite a few of the indictments are related to sockpuppet accounts and Facebook ads (illegal but not to the degree suggested by the tone of the media coverage). The ones related to Russia hacking the DNC were disputed by some research done by Bill Binney and a bunch if other intelligence veterans[1] -- showing some evidence that the information must have been leaked by an insider because the transfer speeds were too fast for exfiltration over the internet. Unfortunately all the people indicted are Russian nationals and thus won't face prosecution in the US, so we won't ever know what the truth of the matter is.
Reading is fundamental. Said nationals will never see the inside of USA courtrooms. That being the case, standards for indictment were even lower than their usual ham-sandwich levels. FBI never saw the damn servers. They just believed Crowdstrike when he said "oh yeah those servers were just infested with Russkies. By the way we've melted down all the hard drives. We like to recycle!" Good grief, this wouldn't pass the laugh test even in the pathetic courts we have.
Why did Mueller put on such a goofy show, when he knew all along he would indict no American for "Russian collusion"? He was throwing his friends in the media a bone. They've pushed this long enough to guarantee Trump's reelection, which is all they ever wanted. Ratings gold!
Sorry to burst your stereotype, I'm getting this from such "alt-rightists" as Greenwald, Maté, Taibbi, Caitlin Johnstone, Jimmy Dore, etc. We don't want Trump reelected; we didn't want him elected in the first place. Unfortunately the self-interested news media have at this point made that inevitable.
What are talking points? I thought the claim was that I am "alt-right", except now I find you don't support the only authentically pacifist candidate? Did you know that our blood and our taxes are being wasted at war in eight nations, right now? Which leaves out the dozens of nations where we have troops or spooks lurking in support of God-knows-what evil CIA plots? With Venezuela scheduled as soon as CNN can stage a convincing attack on a soi-disant humanitarian aid convoy? Meanwhile you're cheering on your best buddy Trump in persecuting Manning and Assange? Meanwhile you cling without evidence to a facially risible conspiracy theory about the Russians changing an election with a couple thousand dollars worth of Facebook ads, while most Trump voters aren't online but watch TV news for the entire 27 hours a day that Trump is on it? You're incoherent.
I am skeptical, and I've always been skeptical. You seem instead to be credulous. The topic of the day is bullshit, so skepticism is more appropriate than credulity.
Simple people imagine that "freedom of speech" is primarily good for the speaker. In fact, it's good for everyone in USA to know true facts about their politicians, no matter who publicizes those facts.
> Noncitizens undeniably have a wide range of rights under the Constitution. Indeed, within the borders of the United States, they have most of the same rights as citizens do, and longstanding Supreme Court precedent bans most state laws discriminating against noncitizens. There is little if any serious controversy among experts over this matter.
I was actually intending to reply to somebody else (or the parent post has been edited since I posted my reply) that stated Assange and Wikileaks only ever released stuff about the west and its allies.
My accusation of lies was about that, because there have been leaks of all manner of countries (Russia included) through Wikileaks.
As for that article, I have no idea whether Assange is a Russian operative now, or has been in the past. There are interesting links, for sure, and after the threats of drone strike and execution from various US government officials I wouldn't be surprised if he wanted to hurt the US.
So I don't know if he is or isn't. He may very well be.
As I said above though, my initial accusation was intended for another poster that (falsely) claimed Wikileaks never leaked anything about Russia.
He is a dual national now, which only complicates any attempt, Australia's connection with Five-eyes and other military and political arrangements aside.
When has that complicated anything? Being a dual citizen is a huge benefit everywhere on Earth. For anyone with enough resources and time I'd encourage collecting citizenships like they were Pokemon.
Because usually you are treated as being a citizen of the country whose passport you are travelling on. If you flew to China and were arrested of a crime, you are much better off having used your US passport than the Malta passport you purchased, or worse, the Sudanese passport you bribed an official for.
> Because usually you are treated as being a citizen of the country whose passport you are travelling on.
By your host country maybe (though I don't agree it's as cut-and-dry as that), but your home country will still treat you as a citizen regardless of your other citizenship statuses (except in the case you are a citizen of your host country). So they should still give you the same aid they'd give any other citizen -- and in some cases the UK has actually helped UK citizens flee a country even though they are a citizen of said country (examples include forced marriages of dual Iran/UK citizens in Iran).
> For anyone with enough resources and time I'd encourage collecting citizenships like they were Pokemon.
Care to elaborate? What kind of benefits one could get out of it? There's tons of information on topic from biased sources like law firms, but very little otherwise.
Well, technically any country that accepts a doubly nationality accepts a plurality - you simply don't inform all the other countries of your other nationalities.
Generally being able to customize the terms of your travel, being able to permanently leave your home country, somewhat being able to choose tax jurisdiction, consular support from multiple sources if things go pearshaped.
Older people probably value choosing favourable healthcare systems too. Nations aren't static entities, I'd doubt you'd find many people willing to bet on a single country's circumstance being exactly the same 30 years from now.
For the wealthy gaining dual/multi citizenship is common across the world and plenty of Western nations sell it off willingly.
