People are often all to willing to go to war. I've been reading about and even experienced this increasing turmoil even in Seattle. The young, testosterone driven males are frustrated because of what they felt they lose during the pandemic and have been doing more drag racing and just going crazy with their cars at night. The city is putting in more and more speed bumps and setting up road blocks on certain streets. Crime is increasing especially targeting people of Asian descent. A Asian fish dealer has gone out of business after being around for decades. Increasing crime and robberies of the place was the cause. The Asian Art Museum had someone smash 9 windows and a robber broke into a house lived in by an Asian family. The robber held a gun to the head of a ten year old and made him go from room to room to find valuables. Point is, with more outsiders coming into the country we are breaking into a tribalistic society. Resources are becoming either unavailable (like housing) or non-existent and people are looking for someone to blame. This is how wars get started. It is now and almost always has been an overpopulation issue. I don't understand why that's so hard for people to see.

@jackjr But before the over population issue there was the slow grinding slide to disenfranchisement. The pandemic really brought it to a head. The result of trickle economics and now we have a group in DC that want to burn it to the ground. What they do not realize is that with nothing left to lose the disenfranchised will come for them, unless we go total authoritarian and they can get the military to attack the angry hoard of the disenfranchised.

@silverotter11 True all, but the overpopulation issue has been around from the beginning. Even indigenous peoples, living during the times of hunting, gathering understood their way of life could only support so many of them. Infanticide was often used.. With agriculture and especially the constant growth economy that simple fact got tossed out the window.
Overpopulation talk is seen as a form of blasphemy among economists. They flood the internet with bogus blogs on how overpopulation is not a problem as our technology will always save us Technology will bring about AI and this technology may decide humans with all their weaknesses are superfluous and will do away with unnecessary life form..

@jackjr Over population is certainly a real problem, I did not add to it but I have no ideas on how to mitigate it.

@silverotter11 The only way is through education. It was a major topic (even indigenous people's understood this. Then corporations came along and made it a non-issue. The importance of this issue has not abated and has only become worse. Many are again waking up but it may be too late. Funny, yesterday I was off island and went into an ACE hardware store. The woman (about our age) had problems with her computer and a young worker came along and solved her problem. She remarked how the younger people are so computer savvy. We got into a discussion and how we have actually lost brain mass (a NPR report) and we are actually getting dumber. We started a conversation about where we are headed and another guy (again our age) came along and joined it. Finally she had to server others but said she would love to continue this and she could discuss this all day. I'll bet few in your area would get involved with such a 'woke' conversation.

@jackjr Well that ship done sailed! It was apparent to me and my Dad, it came up with a lot of other topics during one of my last conversations with him before he passed.
You are correct, there are a few of us that would enjoy a conversation with the like minded folks you ran into at the hardware store. Did you make a date to have more conversation? Inquiring minds want to know.
Thing is it's really more about critical thinking and spotting the con as well as education. As long as we have groups like the bitches who got together after the Civil War to rewirite how slavery was viewed (it was states rights! NOT slavery) we have an up hill struggle.
On the Pod Save America episode yesterday Jon Favreau interviewed Cassidy Hutchinson. While she does the mea culpa pretty well, what I saw lacking was a real understanding of economics, human nature and gulliblity. Combined it all almost got her in a very bad financial bind had people not stepped up to help her. She mentioned her parents being blue color and always supporting the GOP.
Hell as soon as Reagan began his run my Dad stopped his Union bustin' self. One one visit east we ere talking about Reagan and the advent of Bush becoming president, bad that would be, etc. and we literally had my twin in tears! Which led Dad and I into talking about how bad it is to identify that way with some thing or someone outside of yourself. In the late 80s my sister's main influence of course was her alcoholic, racist, money worshiping asshole of a husband. He was so verbally abusive when no one (or he thought!) no one could see or hear it was disgusting.
It has all been made worse by the inability for people to filter stuff out because of the internet. If you failed at critical thinking you will be sucked into crazy on social media.

Does equivalence make it right? No it doesn’t, but there is actually a big difference anyway because Ukraine is a stable democratic country which was not needing intervention from Russia or any other county because it wasn’t a hotbed of unrest or a threat to the stability of the region.

@Marionville Libya and Iraq weredoing fine in their own way, particularly Libya. They both threatened the US $ as the prime trading currency. Ghadalfi's pipe line would have been an enormous benefit.
I'd really question Ukraine being stable. It had a strong Nazi element. Being the world's bread basket it should have been immensely wealthy, not the poorest country in Europe. Masses of corruption which Zelenski is still having to try and deal with.
I see that Slovakia and Hungary are turning towards Russia.

@rogerbenham Roger..there can be NO justification for Russia invading Ukraine…you like others are spouting Putin’s line. A small Nazi element is no excuse, the majority of people wanted to look westwards…Putin could not allow that prospect. Stop equating what happened in other countries where USA and others were involved in regime overthrow…they have no bearing at all on this issue.

@Marionville I've known about the Nazi elements in Ukraine for a very long time. There are many Nazis who came to Canada after WW2. There were plenty in power before Zelenski.
Ukrainians fought Germans and fought Russians both in WW2. After all both were invading Ukraine. But there was a huge massacre of Poles in Ukraine by Ukrainian SS troops.

@rogerbenham Nazi elements are not a justification for Putin’s invasion…I know my European history as well as you do Roger, but regurgitating facts from 80 years ago isn’t all that relevant to the fact that Putin invaded a neighbouring country in the 21st century because he wanted to prevent it from becoming a western democracy and joining the EU and NATO…something as a sovereign state they are entitled to do.

Most reasonable people can see there is a big difference. First off, the Russian people are not allowed any outside news and if they dare question Putin's actions they will either be jailed or 'accidentally' fall from a high place. Also, our invasions (misguided as they were) were not done by one person and any of the leaders behind our invasions (W for one) were not branded a world criminal for the barbarity of actions under which he was responsible. We have a democratic system, with all it's inherent flaws and Putin is one person who uses his powers to get whatever he wants and no system will stand in his way. People who think our system is hypocritical and rotten are those same ones who vote Republican and thing djt is a hero.

@jackjr Sorry, but I think there should have been several powerful people put on trial for the war crimes committed by the USA in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. They caused so many innocent deaths.

@rogerbenham According to some. So if this were true who would do the job. We can't even remove the most corrupt, narcissistic, insane POS this country has ever known never mind someone who created chaos with lies (another republican "W" ). Maybe, in a perfect world. The world may be perfect but the humans living on it are not.

@jackjr As long as the lawmakers get elected because of money spent, the donor class control it anyway. As long as there are no qualifications and suitability tests for your senators and congress (and our members of parliament), you are ruled by greed and stupidity.
The planet will recover from us and if UFO's are watching us, their only question is when to end humans and prevent humans wiping out all other life. In a million years all will have recovered.

@rogerbenham The reason more and more money is needed is because there are sooo many of us. Either we are distracted or don't know the culture or even the language. With so many competing needs few want to become a politician. Someone is always unhappy and looking for a way to get rid of you. Too, many think it's about individuals when, in fact, it is about the ignorance and number of the electorate. We complain about the increasing moneyed class but, at the same time we are bringing in millions of people who are desperate and have no to little money. We are importing poverty hence the loss of the middle class.

Do you view it as propaganda?

@barjoe Everything that is remotely pro-Putin MUST be propaganda.
Supporting a guy who started a terrible war just because he is dreaming of becoming the new czar of a New Russian Empire is just insane. Unless of course you are Russian and shares his dream

@Thibaud70 I agree. You are one of the good guys.