The simplest way for most people to communicate better is to just communicate more.

Austerity may be painful in the short-run, but it is necessary to resolve this economic crisis. Except when the crisis happens in the US or EU, the government will bailout the economy.

No, Greece, Portugal and Spain don’t count as a real EU member when it matters. Bailouts are for core members only!!

Likud’s not very interested in resolving it nonviolently. Palestinians can’t resolve the conflict peacefully in a unilateral manner.

The accommodations are a bit lacking.

This is not a fair comparison. The American medical system has to keep Americans alive while the Spanish medical system merely has to keep Spaniards alive. It is a medical miracle that Americans get to live above the age of 70 on average with their lifestyles.

In a reversal, this is looking more and more like Russian sanctions on the EU instead based on who is really hurting.

“People were killed by Indonesian parties, fearing every moment [their] life will end in a gruesome way,” he said. “That gives a certain anxiety and stress that makes you ‘trigger happy’. And who were these military troops? Young lads from the country, who had just experienced a war and were dropped with no good training, information or education into a conflict where they were told they would be restoring peace and order.

“You can’t make a group of people responsible for what a state does. Our victims have never been recognised, and today they are stamped perpetrators.”

The Dutch were the real victims of the colonization of Indonesia. Finally someone is brave enough to say who the true victims were without political correctness. Always support the troops people!

Yes, the correct nuanced take is pallets of cash to arms dealers and pallets of weapons to allies and puppets.

Al Jazeera English? One of the most respected publications in the west Al Jazeera?

Israel sure is a beacon of democracy and freedom as it claims to be.

He’s obviously biased to a fault.

You, on the other hand, are the very image of objectivity and neutrality.

My point exactly. The USSR didn’t coup every country that ran counter to their orthodoxy.

Those events are notable precisely because they were exceptions to the general rule of no direct interference.

Eastern European countries weren’t Soviet puppets because soviets didn’t control them. A few examples below.

Yugoslavia - great tensions with the USSR all the way until the end, including plenty of denouncements on both sides.

Albania - sided with Mao in the sino-soviet split

GDR - friendliest with the USSR, but still did whatever they wanted in the end (such as building the berlin wall which the soviets were strongly against)

The eastern bloc wasn’t unified like the western bloc because the USSR didn’t coup every country that didn’t toe the line like the USA. They even dissolved their main method of influencing foreign countries in the 50s (comintern).

Where are all the doubters and haters now? Everyone called AMLO a liberal but I always believed in el presidente.

I declare uncritical support for MORENO. Viva Mexico!

My belief is that in a fair socialist society, there would be a constant flow of outsiders because that is the natural order of things if everyone’s given fair education and opportunity.

That has been seen in most socialist countries historical and current. If this state of affairs is not true, that implies the existence of formal or informal institutional mechanisms in which connected people are favored. I dislike such mechanisms inherently after decades of living in it.

I don’t see how I would suddenly like such mechanism just because it occurs inside a socialist framework comrade. Equal distribution of material goods and services is not the only concern for me. I also favor socialism due to the fact that impoverished peasants can rise to high stations unlike capitalism. Favoritism towards Pyongyang makes such things less likely.

That is true. I amend my statement to mean top level positions held by Kim Il Sung’s descendents.

Note that I didn’t criticize the Kim family specifically.

The whole of North Korean military and governmental high level positions are much more closely related than CPC for example.

Lineal succession of the Kim family is just a visible portion of the inner-circle domination. The Party itself has a problem.

I agree. For a counterexample, Cuba passed the torch to an outsider after Fidel and Raul retired.

There is a tendency amongst western communists of uncritical support for AES countries. Yes, I do support North Korean people and their right to exist outside of capitalism. Yes, I am critical of their incestuous leadership structure and the consequent corruption that arises from such practices.

There’s plenty of Chinese Americans who speak Mandarin fluently. The problem is that the intelligence community doesn’t want to hire them due to sinophobia. They want someone who is an adult, has a history of hating China, yet is devoted enough to learn the language through years of study. Unsurprisingly, there aren’t many.