A new world order? BRICS nations offer alternative to West

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Who provided arms for Apartheid S Africa? Who provided arms for the liberation movements?

You may want to check yourself, friend.
Vladimir Putin's Russia didn't supply a damn thing, the USSR did and you don't LIVE IN the USSR because it ceased to exist.
Yes, the USA previously wanted to just do business and keep the S.A. apartheid dictatorship wealthy enough to send us more of their money.
It gets humorous when you attempt your ham-handed ploy of decorating ordinary Americans with the stench of supporting that idea.
WHEN AMERICAN PEOPEL (and people in the West in general) LEARNED how brutal South African apartheid was we were just coming off the victory of the Civil Rights movement here and we applied what we learned.

Artists United Against Apartheid​

Artists United Against Apartheid was a 1985 protest group founded by activist and performer Steven Van Zandt and record producer Arthur Baker to protest against apartheid in South Africa.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

I believe we have an enormous opportunity to take the B and I out of BRICS by forming direct alliances and deep partnerships. With Brazil it will take significant capital investment.

With Brazil AND most of South America in general, the United States is still more than a bit locked into the old 19th and early 20th Century plantation mentality.
In other words, from a business standpoint, we present as not even giving half a warm shit.
It's disgusting and the more ordinary Americans learn about it, the more disgusted they are.
But ordinary Americans have zero power to do much about it beyond refusing to enrich the US corporate plantation "Massas" who call the shots.

And...the fact is, ordinary Americans continue to BUY the narcotics produced by South American cartels, which cements this abusive relationship even more.
Ranting and raving about Venezuela is a sad joke. We punish ordinary Venezuelans and then turn on each other with vicious red-baiting, and then out the other side of our face we talk nicey nice to VZ dictators regardless if they are left or right. We don't care as long as the VZ OIL keeps flowing.
We do the same thing with Saudi Arabia.

I can really only speak for myself on a lot of this...I would like to see incentives that reward South American governments for making their nations more democratic.
Brazil backslides in part because too many wealthy American oligarchs are happiest when Brazil IS an authoritarian dictatorship.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Most of the world lives under authoritarian rule - that's just the world we live in.

And they* would like nothing better than to drag you and I under into that same authoritarian rule, because that would be very convenient for them.

(*The wealthy despots who bankroll that authoritarian power structure.)

 

[ColdHardTruth]

The one leading isn't Russia but China.

Which is why China needs to be ruthlessly sanctioned in much the same way Russia has been.

 

[multivita-man]

And they* would like nothing better than to drag you and I under into that same authoritarian rule, because that would be very convenient for them.

(*The wealthy despots who bankroll that authoritarian power structure.)

I think it's more like they want to minimize foreign influence so that they don't have to preoccupy themselves with fighting dangerous ideas. The sad part is that America's rightward tilt, including the Capitol attack on January 6th, has fed right into that authoritarian propaganda. The CCP didn't have to do anything but show the chaos on that day and of course now with Trump in the headlines as the first former president ever prosecuted, he is the gift that keeps on giving.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

You clearly avoid such discussions because it messes up your conception of good west vs evil Russia

It's been amusing to watch you act like a character in "Mister Twister".

 

[Galactic Spin]

A new world order? BRICS nations offer alternative to West – DW – 04/10/2023

Predictions about the BRICS countries as the fastest growing economies haven't quite panned out. Instead, the alliance is now offering a diplomatic forum and development financing, outside of the Western mainstream.

www.dw.com

That's an interesting way of saying they plan to turn developing nations into vassal states.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

That's an interesting way of saying they plan to turn developing nations into vassal states.

The anti NWO folks now love new world orders.

 

[ralfy]

There are very few countries supporting Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine.

I think more are not following sanctions, and are working with China, which is also avoiding that.

 

[ralfy]

Countries are not moving away from the US. Finland just joined NATO, and Russia's former allies are backing away from this debacle in Ukraine. And Russia has not been seriously "antagonized" by the US or NATO since the cold war. NATO was not a threat to Russia in the 21st century. Putin is just using that false narrative as an excuse to try to justify a war of conquest to further his pipe dream of rebuilding the Soviet Union. A justification, incidentally, that NO ONE outside of Russia is taking seriously.

France is now buying gas from China in yuans, and Japan buying oil from Russia, and even at a higher price. More countries from the Global South are doing similar:

‘It’s not a pretty picture’: Russia’s support is growing in the developing world

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/30/ukraine-war-how-russias-support-is-growing-in-the-developing-world.html

debatepolitics.com

NATO expansion started in the 1990s:

A new world order? BRICS nations offer alternative to West

Nice try but I've BEEN to your country, comrade. And I know how those other ethnic groups are treated. Yeah, tell me, a non-Russian, how other ethnic groups are treated in Russia)) Wait, maybe you're talking about ethnic republics with their republican national languages, where the entire...

debatepolitics.com

The claim was not made by Putin but by Goodman. Read the article shared carefully. See also Kennan:

Kennan’s Warning on Ukraine

Ambition, insecurity, and the perils of independence

www.foreignaffairs.com

Stop being an ignoramus.

 

[ralfy]

Which is why China needs to be ruthlessly sanctioned in much the same way Russia has been.

Spoken like a true neocon.

 

[ralfy]

That's right, glad we agree.

I'm talking about the blinkered view of the issue. To go away from that, read this thread for more details.

 

[ColdHardTruth]

Spoken like a true neocon.

I am not a neocon.

I want China to cease funding the murders in Russia. They way to do that is to make them poor.

 

[ralfy]

If China’s going to lead anyone it needs to figure out how to make electric cars that don’t catch on fire or explode.

Reminds me of

A nation of outlaws - The Boston Globe

 

[Luce]

The U.S. needs the global economy to continue using the dollar for trade, or else its borrowing and spending economy will fall apart:

A new world order? BRICS nations offer alternative to West

Nice try but I've BEEN to your country, comrade. And I know how those other ethnic groups are treated. Yeah, tell me, a non-Russian, how other ethnic groups are treated in Russia)) Wait, maybe you're talking about ethnic republics with their republican national languages, where the entire...

debatepolitics.com

And this would help the Chinese how, exactly? We're their biggest market.

 

[ralfy]

...Which is "funny" because Russia IS the tip of the BRICS spear.
A political alternative "to the West"....
Hmmm...what kind of alternative is that? An alternative to democracy, I guess.
Well cheez whiz, I guess the world needs an altern...why in God's name does there need to be an alternative to democracy?

No, but seriously, I get it. They WANT an alternative to the oligarchs that own and run the West, and in point of fact that is what this boils down to in practical terms, like where the money meets money, rubber meets the road.
But the problem is, democracy gets stomped in the process.

And that IS a problem, if you happen to sort of ... I dunno ... like living IN a democracy, and maybe keeping it around for a while.
If you're an oligarch, your life really IS life in a democracy because your billions insulate you from the...ummm...shall we say, MINOR INCONVENIENCES that come along with the destruction of democracy.
If you're a billionaire oligarch you don't even FEEL that at all, right?

Yeah, a few billion, or even tens of billions, or a hundred billion, and I guess it doesn't even matter what kind of government it is because it doesn't affect you.

The U.S. is essentially controlled by Wall Street, and both parties working for it, and has been engaged in decades of mayhem:

FROM WOUNDED KNEE TO YEMEN – Zoltán Grossman

Many of its client states included dictatorships. Even today, its major trading partners include Saudi Arabia and China.

 

[ralfy]

Yup, and South Korea at least adds a little bit OF democracy to the mix, which is healthy.

South Korea industrialized because of military dictatorship, and even today remains authoritarian, together with many Asian countries.

 

[ralfy]

With Brazil AND most of South America in general, the United States is still more than a bit locked into the old 19th and early 20th Century plantation mentality.
In other words, from a business standpoint, we present as not even giving half a warm shit.
It's disgusting and the more ordinary Americans learn about it, the more disgusted they are.
But ordinary Americans have zero power to do much about it beyond refusing to enrich the US corporate plantation "Massas" who call the shots.

And...the fact is, ordinary Americans continue to BUY the narcotics produced by South American cartels, which cements this abusive relationship even more.
Ranting and raving about Venezuela is a sad joke. We punish ordinary Venezuelans and then turn on each other with vicious red-baiting, and then out the other side of our face we talk nicey nice to VZ dictators regardless if they are left or right. We don't care as long as the VZ OIL keeps flowing.
We do the same thing with Saudi Arabia.

I can really only speak for myself on a lot of this...I would like to see incentives that reward South American governments for making their nations more democratic.
Brazil backslides in part because too many wealthy American oligarchs are happiest when Brazil IS an authoritarian dictatorship.

FWIW, most Americans can't even identify Ukraine on a map:

34% of Americans Can Find Ukraine on a Map

Voters who can identify Ukraine on a map are more likely to back stronger policy responses against Russia, according to a new Morning Consult poll.

morningconsult.com

I think many of them can't even identify various U.S. states on a map.

They likely also don't know that most of their economy is controlled by a few rich who fund the government, both political parties, and the defense industry, plus provide credit to them:

Krugman and the Pied Pipers of Debt

Investors are celebrating an incipient “recovery,” but the interventions that were responsible for it are sowing the seeds of a more violent contraction...

seekingalpha.com

 

[ralfy]

That's an interesting way of saying they plan to turn developing nations into vassal states.

That's how neolibs imagine rival economic powers. The problem is that reality gets in the way. For example, I recall The Economist reporting over a decade ago 40 pct of Chinese manufacturing involved assembly, which is why other countries have been taking over:

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

Eventually, we will see not another U.S. but a multipolar world, especially given factors like the effects of late capitalism and population aging.

But for neolib-chicken hawks? It's still the nineteenth century for them.

 

[ralfy]

I am not a neocon.

I want China to cease funding the murders in Russia. They way to do that is to make them poor.

If you're really not a neocon, you would call for that and for wanting the U.S. to cease funding countries like Ukraine, which it manipulated through regime change and NATO expansion, or at least insist that both the U.S. and China provide only humanitarian aid, and to everyone affected by the war.

But that will only make the rich angry, right?

For Western Weapons, the Ukraine War Is a Beta Test (Published 2022)

Though the battle for Ukraine remains largely a grinding artillery war, new advances in technology and training there are being closely monitored for the ways they are starting to shape combat.

www.nytimes.com

Zelenskyy, BlackRock CEO Fink agree to coordinate Ukraine investment

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink have agreed to coordinate investment in rebuilding Ukraine, Kyiv announced Wednesday

www.cnbc.com

That's why military aid to Ukraine must continue, and aid provided by the rich, from which the rich profit, and passed on as debt to the U.S. public.

 

[ralfy]

And this would help the Chinese how, exactly? We're their biggest market.

BRICS refers to Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, plus around forty emerging markets. Add most of the Global South.

More of them are moving away from the dollar. Even Japan and France are doing the same.

 

[Ahlevah]

Reminds me of

A nation of outlaws - The Boston Globe

Does China have a muckraker or progressive movement? A free press with McClure’s Magazine? Democracy with a government accountable to the people? The rule of law? Separation of powers? No, it does not. China is a corrupt, one-man, one-party totalitarian dictatorship selling a vision more polished than any produced by a Madison Ave. advertising agency. China is presented as an emerging, avant-garde state advancing world peace and harmony exemplified by its fight against global warming. Meanwhile, it saturates the landscape with greenhouse gas-belching coal-fired power plants and peddles electric cars and buses to an unsuspecting public that spontaneously combust and put lives at risk. The Chinese people aren’t aware of it because there’s no Upton Sinclair or Ida Tarbell to tell them about it. Even if they were aware of a problem, who would they complain to? NHTSA? Consumer Reports? Congress? The people in any position to do something about it are the ones given stakes in these companies or receiving payoffs. Whatever incentive they have is to keep Beijing happily in the dark.

So what the public ends up with is smoke and mirrors, the Chinese version of a Potemkin village. The only thing that might change that would be another revolution, or possibly the threat of one.

 

[Ahlevah]

If you're really not a neocon, you would call for that and for wanting the U.S. to cease funding countries like Ukraine, which it manipulated through regime change and NATO expansion, or at least insist that both the U.S. and China provide only humanitarian aid, and to everyone affected by the war.

But that will only make the rich angry, right?

Was Harry Truman a neocon? How about Vladimir Putin? Because, honestly, I can’t think of a better cheerleader for NATO or its expansion since Harry Truman than Comrade Z. He basically did what Donald Trump with all of his threats and chest pounding could not do: he got Western Europe, especially Germany, to eliminate its reliance on Russian energy, and he got them to actually increase their defense spending and NATO commitments. Vlad’s also been a boon to the U.S. LNG industry, as well as a fantastic necromancer, breathing new life and fangs into the alliance with the more than capable defenses of Sweden and Finland, more than doubling NATO’s frontier on Russia’s border. He really is Superman, able to accomplish in a single stroke feats no one else could. Even Switzerland, which has been neutral since 1815, looks like it wants to join the fun. What an idiot.

 

[lwf]

France is now buying gas from China in yuans, and Japan buying oil from Russia, and even at a higher price. More countries from the Global South are doing similar:

‘It’s not a pretty picture’: Russia’s support is growing in the developing world

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/30/ukraine-war-how-russias-support-is-growing-in-the-developing-world.html

debatepolitics.com

NATO expansion started in the 1990s:

A new world order? BRICS nations offer alternative to West

Nice try but I've BEEN to your country, comrade. And I know how those other ethnic groups are treated. Yeah, tell me, a non-Russian, how other ethnic groups are treated in Russia)) Wait, maybe you're talking about ethnic republics with their republican national languages, where the entire...

debatepolitics.com

The claim was not made by Putin but by Goodman. Read the article shared carefully. See also Kennan:

Kennan’s Warning on Ukraine

Ambition, insecurity, and the perils of independence

www.foreignaffairs.com

I'm sorry... Are you referencing yourself as a source to lend weight to your own premises? What if I don't consider you a credible authority on the matter?

Here is how you reference credible sources other than your own subjective opinions to back up your position:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuart...ve-gone-from-bad-to-terrible/?sh=7d22440e74bc
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/russias-economy-end-2022-deeper-troubles
https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia...raine-exposes-blunders-poor-training-28a14b1e
https://www.npr.org/2022/12/31/1145...-isolated-and-struggling-with-more-tumult-ahe
https://ecfr.eu/article/mob-unhappy-why-russia-is-unlikely-to-emerge-victorious-in-ukraine/
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/12/sanctions-russian-economy-effects/

 

[Galactic Spin]

That's how neolibs imagine rival economic powers

This is what peope with nothing smart to say and no arguments or evidence to present imagine is a good tactic.

The point of BRICS is more than just forming a new economic bloc. It's about creating vassal states whose own governments are undermined. They are intentionally creating debt for countries who cannot pay it back. And they aren't doing so out of kindness.