Is it time to get rid of the G7?

[matte]

It seems like an informal grouping that may have had relevance back during the cold war, but is of little relevance today.

Should it be replaced with a "council of democracies"?

[pim]

Gee Matt, if you were in Star Trek you’d be delivering homilies on how to run the United Federation of Planets.

[ponto]

Possible to maintain G7 and have a council of democracies that can coordinate better responses to Global matters such as pandemics and more importantly action on climate change.

[pim]

For Scotty from Marketing to deliver homilies on how to restructure the G7 is a bit like a junior bridesmaid grandstanding on how to organise a wedding. Did I say bridesmaid? Try flower girl!

[matte]

What is the point of the G7 in 2021?

It seems to be a feature from a bygone era that for some reason or another hasn't been thrown out during spring cleaning.

[pim]

What is the point of any international talkfest? You’re trying to frame it in a geopolitical context. G7/refers to the group of 7;big economies. Now Matt if your critique was based on “truth in labelling “ I might take you a bit more seriously. How is it, for example, that Canada is a full member of the G7 and India isn’t? Indonesia has a bigger economy than Australia so why is Australia invited as the cute little flower girl and not Indonesia? You’re talking about restructuring the G7 as another club of whitefellas with a concession to the Japs by letting them in.

You should get out more Matt and watch/read outside Sky News After Dark and the Daily Bellylaugh.

[matte]

It needs to be replaced with an alliance of free nations. Russia (or the USSR as it was when the G7 was at its prime) is not the big threat these days. China is.

The G20 isn't an alternative as it includes China.

[Stellar]

Jun 13, 2021 9:48:24 GMT 10 pim said:

For Scotty from Marketing to deliver homilies on how to restructure the G7 is a bit like a junior bridesmaid grandstanding on how to organise a wedding. Did I say bridesmaid? Try flower girl!

You are so condescending!  What actually is that you hate about Australia?  The fact that we - the majority - elected a conservative government - again and again?  

Would you be happier if they had invited The Netherlands?  

Have you ever considered it might be about our strategic position down here in the antipodes?  

[matte]

The G7 should be replaced with a D[insert number] of democratic nations.

[ponto]

Clearly graph shows neo liberalism ideology has failed democracy economics....and if that is what council of democracies is promoting then what's the point..?

[matte]

Jun 13, 2021 11:22:29 GMT 10 ponto said:

Clearly graph shows neo liberalism ideology has failed democracy economics....and if that is what council of democracies is promoting then what's the point..?

Unity against the CCP.

[ponto]

China is not going to change....and the more the world tries to bully China into change the more steadfast China will be in staying communist which isn't so dissimilar to capitalism....the elite get it all and then trickle it down.

[Stellar]

What a naive thing to say!  We're talking about communism but somehow you equate that with capitalism?  

[pim]

Jun 13, 2021 10:35:54 GMT 10 Stellar said:

Jun 13, 2021 9:48:24 GMT 10 pim said:

For Scotty from Marketing to deliver homilies on how to restructure the G7 is a bit like a junior bridesmaid grandstanding on how to organise a wedding. Did I say bridesmaid? Try flower girl!

You are so condescending!  What actually is that you hate about Australia?  The fact that we - the majority - elected a conservative government - again and again?  

Would you be happier if they had invited The Netherlands?  

Have you ever considered it might be about our strategic position down here in the antipodes?  

I fail to see what NL has to do with it. Has it been invited as a bridesmaid too? Or flower girl?

As for “condescending”, Scotty from Marketing has a lot for his critics to be condescending about!

Regarding the “hate Australia” thing, it’s a slur that people like you, Toots and Matt often cast. In fact if I look back over the years through Nomads of Chit Chat back back into the mists of time to the original NTB on MSN the “why do you hate Australia” nasturtium was cast at anyone who questioned the prevailing xenophobic orthodoxy.

1. Offer a critique of John Howard’s “we-will-decide”? You must be a supporter of terrorism.

2. Disagree with the burqa ban? You’re a Muslim-lover.

3. Critique the jingoistic glorification of war that the Howard Liberals have turned Anzac Day into? You must hate Australia.

4. Accept the election result, even acknowledge the ongoing electoral success over the past 100 years of the conservative non-Labor side of politics, but nevertheless critique their policies and have a history in your adult life of trade union and Labor Party membership and activism in the hope of making a contribution, however minuscule, to changing national policy and politics and you’re pretty well accused of sedition.

Here’s the thing: critiquing a democratically elected government within democratic parameters of parliamentary elections marked by peaceful activism and non-violent campaigning is not seditious. Rather than it being a refusal to accept the democratic process it’s the very opposite: it’s a celebration of the democratic process. I realise that this is beyond your powers of understanding but I’m actually ferociously patriotic. And it’s that very patriotism that drives me to support peaceful and democratic opposition to the Morrison coalition government and to do what I can, within the law, to participate in campaigns for its defeat at the next elections.

I think that Matt’s parroting of the latest Sky News/Liberal Party line about the G7 is ridiculous and completely against Australia’s interests. I’m dismayed that the only Labor voice that you hear giving a robust critique is that of the WA Premier. I take my hat off to him but where’s Albo on this? Where’s Penny Wong? None of this had transpired when in my local area we’d held a Labor FEC meeting (that’s “Federal Electorate Committee” where sub-branches in an electorate meet to discuss federal issues) so it wasn’t debated. You can be sure about a string of motions at the next FEC meeting. Instead we had a silly motion about changing the flag which I opposed and called it a waste of time when there was no shortage of more important issues to attack the Morrison government on. Disappointingly, the motion was passed so it moves up the food chain to state council level where hopefully it’ll die.

Find this irrelevant and tedious? I don’t blame you because I also find these politically correct “perfect-is-the-enemy-of-the-good” motions to be irrelevant and tedious. But “unpatriotic”? Bullshit. People like Bender (sorry to drop you in it without warning, Bender), Ponto, myself and others who are no longer with us have been posting for years and years that while the United States and their Coalition lickspittles in Australia were obsessing about terrorism and its concomitant Muslim-bashing, and devoting huge military assets to that end, they’d taken their eyes off the main game in our region which is the rise of China. Voices have been warning about this for years but they’ve been drowned out and ignored in the anti-Muslim panic, hysteria and clamour. Now all of a sudden the paranoid fruitcake hysterical far right has “discovered” China. No more talk about free trade agreements, instead flick the switch to “Cold War #2”. Next thing you know we’ll have a modern version of the Cuban Missile Crisis except that the roles will be reversed: the Americans will demand the right to sail their naval assets at will in the South China Sea and the Chinese will be giving ultimatums about boarding any foreign naval vessel in “their” back yard. With this important difference: while the Cuban Missile Crisis ended with Khrushchev blinking and a triumph for JFK, the Chinese won’t be ones doing the blinking.

It’s revealing that the “solution” advocated by the far right (I don’t credit Matt with sufficient intelligence or originality, he just parrots the latest line on Murdoch/Fox News/2GB) is the classic “containment” solution by a club of whitefella nations who think that they run the world. In Australia that stems from the old idea of White Australia that sees “Asia” as a threat. Consequently we make security alliances with “great & powerful” friends - preferably English speaking.

There is an alternative view which accepts our geopolitical reality as a nation located in the Indian/Pacific hemisphere as our starting point and has “security in Asia” as its objective, rejecting the old White Australia “security from Asia” as a mid-20th century mindset that bears no relation to our 21st century multicultural reality and indeed in itself constitutes a threat to our national security.

[ponto]

What a naive thing to say! We're talking about communism but somehow you equate that with capitalism?

So China does no global business trade, we don't sell Coal and Iron Ore to China...??

While not quite as bad as the west with its increasing poverty, and where China is actually decreasing its poverty, it is  the same in China that the elite do really well out of trade and business and the poor get fucked over.

Democracies can be democratic and socialist with free trade capitalism, Communist are authoritarian politically with free trade capitalism.

Neo Liberalism economics is  not about democracy it is purely about capitalism  that is close to laissez faire economics as it can be,  that had the notion to employ the cheapest Labour it can get at the expense of a democratic country  which have  paid the price for that economic rationalism of capitalism introduced by Thatcher and Reagan. 

Chian and Russia are very much capitalistic.

[matte]

We need to get rid of the G7, an informal grouping that was created during the Cold War, and replace it with a grand grouping of free, democratic nations, to combat the nefarious influence of the CCP. Such a grouping should extend an invitation for membership to Taiwan.

[caskur]

Corrupt India and China want a seat. I would dissolve it if those evil regimes wanted a seat and got it.

A Taiwanese Canadian poster visited Taiwan last March... She said shamefacedly Taiwanese were racist. She was shocked. I thought, good for them.

Canada is so woefully intolerant of other people's feeling and concerns. I am embarrassed for them.

[pim]

Jun 13, 2021 15:34:54 GMT 10 matte said:

We need to get rid of the G7, an informal grouping that was created during the Cold War

Its formation was more about the Oil Shock of the early 1970s and the collapse of the post WW2 Bretton Woods Agreement that underpinned the postwar economic boom by establishing the $USD as the reserve currency of global capitalism and basing it on the gold standard

and replace it with a grand grouping of free, democratic nations, to combat the nefarious influence of the CCP. Such a grouping should extend an invitation for membership to Taiwan.

Code for “club of whitefella nations with a couple of Asian faces as window dressing aimed at containing China”. So what’s new and original about that? Seems like we’ve heard this one before. What’s the track record? How did it all work out the last time “we” (who the fuck is this “We” dude that Matt keeps banging on about?) tried this script?

[ponto]

After Trumps fiasco of stuff you world and international relations that ScoMo was oh yeah boss right on..Bido will get relations back on track again....simple as that.

[matte]

Joe Biden has dementia, his wife literally has to prompt him.

[ponto]

While Biden is of an age at 78 its not expected he would be as sharp as tack yet he s cognitive reasoning still functions to high degree exploiting misinformation about a complex health issue for political point scoring is gutter minded.

The truth is, without a thorough medical examination it is difficult to justify your claim...just nasty hearsay.

What sort of mental health was Trump in when he incited a crowd to violence to overthrow a duly elected government, to deny climate change and kill off EPA laws, and give the bird to Europe and the rest of the world....??

Trump was a despot leader and you cheer that on..which says a lot for your own state of mental health.

[caskur]

Jun 13, 2021 21:17:24 GMT 10 ponto said:

While Biden is of an age at 78 its not expected he would be as sharp as tack yet he s cognitive reasoning still functions to high degree exploiting misinformation about a complex health issue for political point scoring is gutter minded.

The truth is, without a thorough medical examination it is difficult to justify your claim...just nasty hearsay.

What sort of mental health was Trump in when he incited a crowd to violence to overthrow a duly elected government, to deny climate change and kill off EPA laws, and give the bird to Europe and the rest of the world....??

Trump was a despot leader and you cheer that on..which says a lot for your own state of mental health.

He is a tool and Americans despise Kamala. If she does replace Biden, she'll be assassinated. That is my prediction.

[pim]

If your foresight is anything like your hindsight (“the moon landings were fake”) then your predictions aren’t worth a pinch of shit!

[caskur]

Jun 13, 2021 23:51:24 GMT 10 pim said:

If your foresight is anything like your hindsight (“the moon landings were fake”) then your predictions aren’t worth a pinch of shit!

Kamala paid a shill to praise her
Thread starterLotusBud Start dateThursday at 9:04 PM

Red flags were raised Tuesday with the supposed journalist’s question to Harris at a news conference following her meeting with Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

“Thank you, Madam Vice President,” the woman began after an announcer introduced her as Maria Fernanda of Univision. “For me, it’s an honor because I actually got to vote for the first time as a nationalized citizen. I voted for you.”

www.yahoo.com/news/kamala-harris-univision-news-conference-154809455.html

Yeah. And she isn't actually a journlist at all.

So disgusting. Harris is a monster, as I have said many times before. God forbid she ever becomes president.

_______________________________________________________

Libertarian Dovey
Friday at 4:28 AM
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Shes a disgusting sociopath and does not deserve to be the first female VP.

All the possible choices listed were bad.. but she was the worst.

________________________________

Lefty LotusBud says

Friday at 7:14 AM
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#13
Her presidential run was also corrupt. She was meant to be a spoiler candidate because she fooled people into believing she's a liberal. She's a corporate whore, the worst kind, who put people out of their houses and who supports the prison industrial complex. I detest her.

[caskur]

If the lefties hate her... that is VERY telling.