To be disgusted at the talks between Russia and the US

[SunnyDayInFeb]

So Russia and the US are meeting in Saudia Arabia to carve up Ukraine.

And Ukraine, whose people have been fighting and dying since their country was invaded, haven't even been invited to the table.

It's like we are back in the 19th century with the European colonial powers drawing lines on a map to divide Africa between them.

Even within the third Reich there was a lot of backstabbing within the upper echelons. I feel like a pretending to work together but plotting assignation attempts and gathering evidence to denounce each other feels really traditional.

It’d mean a real change to the constitution.
The constitution is ultimately a piece of paper. He's actively dismantling the justice system, who's going to stop him now?

I think it can be changed via Congress and Senate. It was after the war

Pretty sure that it needs a supermajority. Much easier for Musk to arrange a coup d'etat.

You’d need 2/3 of the senate and congress anf for 3/4 of the states to ratify it.

No there aren't.

@bemoresloth there are dozens but let me guess, it’s now all about the nod or the facial expression or something else other than the actual “salute”.

I hope you’re as concerned about the actual anti semitism that we are seeing on a daily basis as this nonsense. Macron

You are not denying that Musk and Bannon did the Nazi salute then?

https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/internet-digs-out-french-president-macron-s-video-amid-elon-musk-s-nazi-salute-controversy-tesla-ceo-reacts-trump-president-rally

Thought so. Much easier to sack anyone who might stop him and do it by force.

I will just leave this here. No one says it as perfectly as Jonathan Pie 👌

https://www.facebook.com/JonathanPieReporter/videos/962868195816786/?app=fbl

The irony of Muskrat calling for elections in Ukraine. Who voted for him then?

Yes it will impact the world and it will impact the US, too, even if they think no-one else matters.
I have already said in the other thread I will readjust which brands I buy and which services I use, and probably people in the US will reconsider their travel options if air travel becomes less safe and readjust their expectations on consumer safety of products, too.

The layoffs in services like national parks and fire crews can have an impact on the safety of visitors. And the next floods or wildfires won't be so easily blamed on the previous administration if he axes civil service even more.

You can't protect yourself against diseases, unsafe food, technically unsafe transportation or infrastructure just by carrying guns.

I never thought civil service is perfect or an array of support measures is always 100% right. But if you think something is wrong, you need to evaluate properly and also understand what each agency is actually doing before you gut it by numbers alone.
All the lies and smokescreen in the end could lead to citizens who do not believe in and trust their state anymore and that will be the fault of all the politicians and loudspeakers (Musk etc) who sowed all that mistrust. It might just turn against them in the end.

Here, in Canada, there really does seem to be a strong movement, accross the political spectrum, to avoid buying American where possible. Our local supermarket is promoting Candian brands with stickers on shelves. I know it's a drop in the ocean, but I've cancelled 7 or 8 ongoing subscriptions to US companies.

One area where the boycott seems particularly pronounced is, indeed, tourism. Canadian travel agents are reporting masses of cancelled trips and a hugely reduced interest in US tourism.

The U.S. Travel Association had estimated that a 10% reduction in Canadian tourism could lead to $2.1 billion in lost revenue and result in the loss of 14,000 in the US. I think the reduction will far exceed 10%.

Of course, perhaps Trump thinks (and perhaps he is right) that tourism losses can be offset by other means - but I do think the prospect of the US economy, or at least the economies of various states, could be meaningfully and negatively impacted through the actions of individuals, worldwide.

@OneLemonDog That's interesting to hear that things in Canada are changing like that. I've read some news about it but that's not the same as people telling their own experiences.

Consumer power is way underrated. Remember the BudLight boycott? Regardless of whether you were for or against them, that was a very drastic and quick impact by disgruntled customers.

But I prefer to focus on large brands. I like some authors from the US who are on indie level and I don't want to them to be thrown in with the majors.

Entirely fair to pick and choose your "boycotts". On threads more specifically on that issue, some have suggested that there's no point trying since its hard to find non-US alternatives to some items. I'm not saying, nor do I think its realistic, that people should avoid all US products or services in every instance. Where I can make a change, though, I will endeavor to do so.

I think that streaming services (Disney+ and Tidal) are the only American services I use. I can't think of any American goods, though the Sony phone I'm buying presumably paid a licence fee to Google. The US just doesn't make much that I'd want to buy, the orange shitgibbon was raving about trade deficits in cars but failed to acknowledge that this is because American cars are crap. Hence why the most popular car models in the US are Japanese.

The US exports a lot of wine, beer and liquor into the UK, as well as fruits or fruit products (particularly orange juice) and lots of flour, grains and cereals. There's really quite a lot of American products around but they're not necessarily immediately recognized as American (save, perhaps, for the alcohols).

Even people switching alcohol brands would put a significant dent in the US economy. The UK is the second largest importer (after Canada) of US wine.

Thank you very much @bombastix
Very, very interesting and, even it is not happening right this second, it goes to show how big the ripples are.

For me the big issue is the American tech companies. Why do they have such a stranglehold on the software we use? The tech to write operating systems has been around for decades yet the only commonly used ones are Windows and MacOS. They then bundle in so much stuff. Tying us into using their cloud computing services (aka storing all our data for us) makes it worse. Now AI addins like copilot are being forced on us.

I would love to see user friendly, uk or European owned alternatives that were less monopolitic.

We are very dependent on US tech. This will be used against us - Elon Musk is not reliable is he? He is already threatening Ukraine by saying he will remove their access to Starlink.

European countries need their own tech. Urgently. We are well behind the US and China on this.

Brilliant

@DdraigGoch

I thought so, too, at first, that it's just a bit of tech and a few chain stores. But I took the time to check out who owns the brands that I buy at the supermarket or drugstore, and it turns out quite a lot are owned by conglomerates from the US.
If you are interested, check out names like Procter & Gamble or Keurig - Dr. Pepper, Mars or Kraft-Heinz for example. All these companies own dozens of brands, even those that look British or French. There are probably many more, like @OneLemonDog mentioned. And this is just one example of many.

Unfortunately it is very difficult to get rid of Amazon or Meta or other media and tech companies (these men stood next to Trump at the inauguration), but I'll do what I can, with the exceptions of small businesses and artists as mentioned, and they can thank Trump and Vance for that.

This movement could turn out positive in the end. When there is more demand for brands from your own country, be that Canada or some European country or whereever MNetters are located, it can help support regional industries. It is not impossible to rearrange production and distribution chains.

I hope that the reliance on US tech can be overcome somewhat, too, like other posters mentioned.

I don't think it will lead to isolationist tendencies, because there is a dominance by a few countries, and it is better when creation and production of things are more equally distributed. We are basically correcting an imbalance, just like during Covid many companies reconfigured their logistics and moved more production closer to their HQ.
This perfect economic theory of every country only producing what they are best at and can do the cheapest would only work in a perfect market, in reality it's not the best solution.

Yeah, there's a lot of Californian wine about but I haven't bought any in yonks. The only wine in my house at the moment is from Liechtenstein of all places. There's a bottle of Jack Daniels in the house but it was something a friend was looking to get rid of quite some time ago - if I'm buying whisky for myself it'll be Penderyn if I'm not actually in Scotland at the time. There is a bottle of Kraken rum, but again that was a gift, the last one I bought for myself was from Anglesey. The brandy is Romanian and the Port is Portuguese. I think that most of the oranges I buy are Spanish but it's been a while since I've had any. Not sure where my oats or pasta come from, maybe I'll ask the refill shop about their suppliers next time I'm in. A couple of shops I use stock flour from Wessex Mill so I've been buying this for years: https://wessexmill.co.uk/

It probably helps that I was already careful with my purchases and always tried to prioritise local produce where I could. I suspect that most imported products are industrial (steel etc.) rather than consumer goods.