> However, with our current political system, the solutions to these problems are nearly impossible to accomplish. Unions, socialized health care, workers rights, mandated vacation time, overtime limits, minimum wages, and UBI are all lightyears away.
All of those (except the UBI) exist in most developed countries.
There are many problems, from taxes (the poor already pay zero, the rich avoid them, the middle class gets fucked), to foreign/illegal worker (why pay a fair pay to a local worker, if you can employ a foreigner for cheaper), to widespread corruption, anti-covid measures (mostly printing money and giving it around, bringing high inflation), to political sanctions (eg. ukraine war - it's no different than eg. the war in afghanistan or iraq or libya, syria, etc., but somehow we act as if it is, and with many political steps inbetween, the gas prices and food prices are soaring high), to people abusing all the buzzowords you've mentioned in countries that have them.
Honestly, if just the police and courts did their jobs, and all the corruption was punished (from heads of government, to paying plumbers under the table and people abusing social benefits), a lot of the problems would be solved.
In my country, we just had an election, and the two most pressing matters were healthcare (fscked) and housing prices (double fscked). Noone on TV ever mentioned how much an average worker pays for healthcare (it's automatically deducted in two different ways from your "gross-gross" paycheck), because people would get mad and ask where does all the money (a lot of it) actually go,... and also noone asks why we can have cornfields and cows in prime locations of our capital city, and even more prime development land in other cities, and the government (from national to local) doesn't allow building there, to bring the prices down.
> and also noone asks why we can have cornfields and cows in prime locations of our capital city, and even more prime development land in other cities, and the government (from national to local) doesn't allow building there, to bring the prices down.
For one, healthy good soil is rare and expensive. We're already wasting too much of it.
And as for "prime development land" - I know the thoughts as a Munich resident and every time I see a rare piece of land that's not been built I always think "just how much housing could be built there". The thing is, a city also needs un-obstructed green space for local micro-climate reasons [1]. You can't just build up everything and expect livable temperatures, especially not with climate change looming.
We should ask politicians instead why they let the rural areas rot to hell and beyond and people are forced to coop together in extremely dense unhealthy urban monster areas.
I'm literally talking about an area inside the city highway ring or on the outer edge, with high congestion, where noone wants to eat food grown there.
On the other end of the spectrum, we have rural areas, where locals have been basically thrown out by airbnb (have kids, want them to live in your village? Good luck, no way), and we still don't let people build more houses there, even with a ban on airbnb.... one example, city of "lesce" where a friend wants to live, but can't neither buy or build anything there, nor extend his parents house:
> it's no different than eg. the war in afghanistan.
I agree. But that doesnt mean that we should care less about Ukraine though (which still makes sense bc its closer to 'home'), it means we should have cared way more about the same war happening in the middle east.
But you didn't care back then... also noone cared about yugoslavia/serbia in 1999, and it was even closer,... you just justified it the same way putin is now justifying the attack on ukraine. Yes, including bombing school, bridges, busses and trains full of people, etc.
The current sanctions are hurting european people a lot more than they are hurting putin, and thus should be removed. European/american/NATO soldiers should go home, since they are currently occupying more than one sovereing country (the same way putin is), and preferably do it a bit better than they did when they left afghanistan. Only after all of yours and ours (since my country is a part of nato too) soldiers are back home, can we point fingers at putin.
First, 1999 was a generation ago (about 25 years). Priorities are allowed to change in a generation, in this case for the better. Sorry that your first response to drawing a line at bombing schools, bridges, busses in Ukraine is to shout 'what about...' instead of to be glad people are willing to you know, be against bombing schools, bridges, and busses in at least one situation.
Second, do you believe in preventative maintenance? In this case, Ukraine is preventative maintenance for future actions Russia will take (Russia has already shown from 2014 to now that it will make a peace deal, build strength, and attack again) that will result in more lives lost and worse economic impact. While the price is painful now, it is much less than it would be in 10 years.
Third, what countries meet the definition of being occupied by European/American/NATO soldiers in Europe? Definition: control and possession of hostile territory that enables an invading nation to establish military government against an enemy or martial law against rebels or insurrectionists in its own territory. Your twisting of you know, the actual meaning of words shows your comment is nothing but propaganda, in this case propaganda promoting the bombing of schools, bridges, busses and trains full of people because it has been done in the past and appeasing violence because it impacts your pocket book.
We from the balkans still remember nato plans flying above our heads bombing a country 400km away. The problem is that, when americans do something like that (dorne bomb a wedding), people treat that as "ok", and the bombers even get a Nobel peace prize.... if it turns out, that the people they kill are eg. Reuters journalists, they punish the leaker and the person who publishes that... there was sam public backlash for wikileaks, but practically zero sanctions from any country against americans killing civilians, even if it was cought on video.
Nato is currently not occupying any european country (unless we count kosovo US base as an occupation), but currently even ours (slovenian) soldiers are in quite a few countries as a part of nato, eg. Syria being one of them.
So yeah... why does Obama get a peace prize for bombing weddings and occupying sovereign countries, and we get expensive gas when putin is saving their minorities in ukraine (atleast this was the narrative when nato bombed serbia)?
Ah, much better post, where you actually outline your agenda. Your stance appears to be that because others suffered from war, Ukrainians should suffer too, especially if otherwise it means you have expensive gas. Do I have your position right?
I can't find anything about a NATO deployment to Syria. Can you point me to something? NATO aligned countries in Syria <> NATO deployment in Syria. Like your definition of occupation you continue to blend facts and false claims to push your position. Again that is what is known as propaganda. Stretch the truth (NATO aligned countries in conflicts) to appear to have support for your false claims (NATO occupation/NATO deployments that don't exist).
I have many Russian speaking friends in Ukraine. Before the war they identified themselves as 'Russians from Ukraine'. They were educated at Moscow University, speak Russian not Ukrainian, and carry Ukrainian and Russian passports. They now identify as Ukrainian. They are not being saved. But again you are not above using propaganda. In this case you present a false casus belli (that Russia is saving minorities in Ukraine) to sanitize your position of supporting (or at the least not opposing) Russia's war of aggression because bad things happened in the past and also gas prices.
Yes, the USA sucks. Yes, the USA has done bad things. Yes, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has destabilized oil and food markets. I don't see how any of that justifies that Ukrainian should surrender their right to self determination or should prevent governments choosing to take actions to support Ukraine. You present classic 'What about'ism in order to prevent doing good now because bad has been done in the past. It is a form of propaganda not designed to get people to believe something, but to manipulate them into doing nothing, and leads to nothing but apathy. If you can get the good decent people paralyzed with your what aboutism (because oppressors don't care about past atrocities) only aggressors like Putin benefit because there is less resistance against them. You want to setup a world where aggressors go unchecked because we can't have our gas prices going up and bad things have always happened. That sounds like a horrific world, and one we suffered through in WW2. Should England not have fought in WW2 because they had a horrible record of repressive empire? That seems to be your argument.
All of those (except the UBI) exist in most developed countries.
There are many problems, from taxes (the poor already pay zero, the rich avoid them, the middle class gets fucked), to foreign/illegal worker (why pay a fair pay to a local worker, if you can employ a foreigner for cheaper), to widespread corruption, anti-covid measures (mostly printing money and giving it around, bringing high inflation), to political sanctions (eg. ukraine war - it's no different than eg. the war in afghanistan or iraq or libya, syria, etc., but somehow we act as if it is, and with many political steps inbetween, the gas prices and food prices are soaring high), to people abusing all the buzzowords you've mentioned in countries that have them.
Honestly, if just the police and courts did their jobs, and all the corruption was punished (from heads of government, to paying plumbers under the table and people abusing social benefits), a lot of the problems would be solved.
In my country, we just had an election, and the two most pressing matters were healthcare (fscked) and housing prices (double fscked). Noone on TV ever mentioned how much an average worker pays for healthcare (it's automatically deducted in two different ways from your "gross-gross" paycheck), because people would get mad and ask where does all the money (a lot of it) actually go,... and also noone asks why we can have cornfields and cows in prime locations of our capital city, and even more prime development land in other cities, and the government (from national to local) doesn't allow building there, to bring the prices down.