In the way the other poster compared them? Yes, in so far as people who complain “the new, developing technology isn’t immediately as optimised and refined as I want it to be” for both.
We can carry on throwing money at it, I’m fine with that. Thinking that fusion is going to save us is dangerous though. We need to be taking action now to get us off fossil fuels and the most cost-effective way to do that is renewables + storage.
i think a central barrier at the moment is fusion doesn’t readily start a chain reaction like fission can. scientists are likely exploring the use of the yield of the fusion reaction to reload the reactor (kind of like an automatic firearm) and these techniques are far from mature in this setting.
PV is a simpler mechanism in every way and we’ve been studying it for more than 100 years. They’re very different both technologically and maturity-wise
It’s not though, not withstanding stars. We’ve managed 17 minutes so far. We’re so far away from turning this into a useable power source that it’s absurd.
We’ve been working on fusion in one form or another for nearly 100 years. We’re still nowhere near turning it into a useable energy source. I don’t really care if research continues or not, I’m sure the research can be useful in other areas but fusion is not going to save us.
While this is exciting and there are many reasons to continue to research fusion, fighting climate change is very much not one of them. It has all of the real problems of fission, namely high cost, low scale, and difficult construction, but exacerbated to an extreme degree. If new fission projects struggle to get investor funding becuse of low profitability and difficult construction times dispite nearly a century of development, it is unlikely that a technology so complex and expensive that we don’t even had a plan for a power plant yet will do better.
We might have a fusion pathfinder plant by 2050 or 2060, we need to be off fossil fuel by 2030 to 2035. We might be able to built sufficient fission by then if we started now at scale, national average construction times tend to be between 5 to 10 years, but fusion is a tool that might at best replace the power plants we build today, not the coal and natural gas plants we built yesterday.
I bring this up not because I oppose funding fusion and pure science, but because any argument that calls it an answer to climate change is going to fall apart the second you consider any alternative on a cost or time basis.
99% of Snowden's revelations have never been published
several of the existing copies of Snowden's documents have subsequently been destroyed
I also find it depressing that people like Appelbaum are routinely criminalized:
Public speeches made by Appelbaum taking a humorous and provocative tone and with titles like “Sysadmins of the World, Unite!” were interpreted as an attempt to recruit sources and as incitement to steal classified documents. To this day, however, there are no publicly-known charges against Appelbaum or Harrison.
But then they couldn’t ask him questions about it before he arrived…but maybe they did and his sell out happened way up the line. In any case, if you think what Trump did was wrong this was the same crime.
You are not in charge of deciding the morality of law. We have courts that decide such matters. What you’re really saying is that your feelings about a law is more important than the law itself.
Their surveillance people do, sure - just like all the 5-Eyes governments obviously know 100% and so do any spooks from anywhere else with competent spy networks, including the Chinese, Israelis, etc etc.
That's not really my point though. It's ordinary people that need to know about it.
Snowden asserted and still does that he deleted his own copies once Greenwald et al. got their copies, well before he had to flee Hong Kong and ended up trapped in Russia.
Remember, it was the US who trapped him in Russia by revoking his passport – an international crime in and of itself, rendering him stateless which no country should do to its citizens, no matter what crimes they have allegedly commited – and he had no intention of ending up there; he was trying to get to Chile I believe, and the EU did the unprecedented step of force-grounding their equivalent of Air Force One, with their president on board, thinking Snowden was a passenger.
Imagine if the POTUS had his plane accompanied by fighter jets to force-land in any other nation. The response would have been explosive, literally. Such hypocrisy that they just wave off other nations’ sovereignty and diplomatic norms on the treatment of foreign leaders so easily.
It wasn’t that long ago that this kind of conspiracy would land someone in prison for the rest of their life.
In 1994 Aldrich Ames, a CIA case officer was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for being a Russian agent. He certainly had far, far less access to classified information than Trump, Kushner and Flynn.
But in his case, there was proof that and what information he shared, right? Because right now, I don’t think there’s (public) information on what Trump’s government gave the russians
The CIA also realized that, despite Ames’ annual salary being $60,000, he could afford:
A $540,000 house in Arlington, Virginia, paid for in cash
A $50,000 Jaguar luxury car
Home remodeling and redecoration costs of $99,000
Monthly phone bills exceeding $6,000, mostly calls by Ames’ wife to her family in Colombia
Premium credit cards, on which the minimum monthly payment exceeded his monthly salary
In March 1993, the CIA and FBI began an intensive investigation of Ames that included electronic surveillance, combing through his trash and the installation of a monitor in his car to track his movements. From November 1993 until his arrest, Ames was kept under virtually constant physical surveillance. When, in early 1994, he was scheduled to attend a conference in Moscow, the FBI believed it could wait no longer, and he and his wife were arrested on February 21
Does it matter? They were trying to communicate with a hostile power and hide those communications from their own government. If that’s not treason, i don’t know what is.
There’s a ridiculous amount proof of a Trump conspiracy with Russia that’s already public, but when the traitors are actually running the CIA, FBI, and Justice Department laws don’t get enforced. Even after the administration changes the same organizations do not want to investigate because many of their employees would be found actively and passively complicit in one or more conspiracy.
A tiny portion of the unredacted findings from the Senate Intelligence Report on Russian Interference in the 2016 Election:
The Committee’s bipartisan Report unambiguously shows that members of the Trump Campaign cooperated with Russian efforts to get Trump elected. It recounts efforts by Trump and his team to obtain dirt on their opponent from operatives acting on behalf of the Russian government. It reveals the extraordinary lengths by which Trump and his associates actively_sought to enable the Russian interference operation by amplifying its electoral impact and rewarding its perpetrators - even after being warned of its Russian origins. And it presents, for the first time, concerning evidence that the head of the Trump Campaign was directly connected to the Russian meddling through his communications with an individual found to be a Russian intelligence officer.
Additionally, the Committee’s bipartisan Report shows that, at the June 9, 2016 meeting in Trump Tower, senior members of the Campaign sought, explicitly, to receive derogatory information for electoral benefit from a Russian lawyer known to have ties to the Russian government, with the understanding that the information was part of “Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” Prior to and during that meeting, members of the Trump Campaign’s leadership clearly stated their desire to receive the promised derogatory Russian information, and ultimately they also clearly expressed their displeasure that the Russian information that was presented was not sufficiently damaging.
The Committee’s bipartisan Report shows that, during the campaign, Donald Trump and the Trump Organization were pursuing a business deal in Russia. This is a topic about which the Campaign and its associates misled the public and Congress. The Committee’s Report shows that Trump’s outreach to the Kremlin began early and that during the Republican’ ’ primary campaign, around the time that Trump authorized pursuit of the Russia deal, Trump asked for an in-person meeting with Putin.
There may be some who attempt to minimize the seriousness of Trump’s actions, or the actions of his associates, by arguing that these individuals were motivated simply by self- interest or self-promotion. This argument overlooks that when self-interest is intertwined with the goals of a malign Russian influence operation, and when self-interest promotes the known Russian effort while also being promote~ by that same Russian effort, then self-interest and Russia’s interest become one and the same. Moreover, this argument misunderstands the deep counterintelligence vulnerability that is created when those who seek positions of great power, or proximity to that power, are willing to trade away national security for personal gain.
Candidate Trump’s pursuit of private business in Russia during the campaign, and his Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort’s deep financial ties to a Kremlin-aligned Russian.oligarch during the campaign, are not the only sources of leverage to which Trump and his Campaign were vulnerable. The Committee’s bipartisan Report shows that dt1ring the campaign Trump maintained personal correspondence with a Russian oligarch and his adult son on topics including the upcoming U.S. election. The Moscow-based oligarch and his son, who were involved in offering the Trump Campaign derogatory information related to the election and who gave Trump a sizable gift during the Campaign, maintain significant and concerning connections 'not only to Kremlin leadership but also to Russian organized crime. Trump had previously done business with the oligarch in Moscow.
This is ONLY about the 2016 conspiracy. There’s copious public information about continuing Russian contact, including known releases of highly classified information to Russia by Trump. Suggesting that there isn’t public information is ill-informed at best.
you don’t really have to support Putin per se, many of us including myself would feel glee watching him be put up against a wall by communist revolutionaries, but supporting NATO is a pretty big dealbreaker given NATO’s imperialist and fascist history. e.g. Several Nazi German officials being put into NATO’s government. Gladio and funding of fascist stay-behind groups in the event of Soviet invasion. Yugoslavia. Libya. I certainly want NATO to be destroyed, hopefully from within rather than without to prevent nuclear war, and unfortunately for us, the reactionary state of Russia seems to be the best bet to maybe have that eventually occur.
also, stop calling things “wars of aggression” unless you’re going to call everything a war of aggression, my god. what an annoying thought-terminating cliche.
Very typical lib talking point though. What socialist spaces do you get your news and information from? Any at all? Or do you just immerse yourself in liberal spaces then end up repeating everything they say and wonder why socialists all call you a liberal? Serious question btw. What socialist media and socialist spaces do you actually participate in and follow? How can you possibly consider yourself to have gotten rid of the liberal brainworms you’ve had your entire life if you continue to immerse yourself within the liberal superstructure?
I think you all made things pretty clear when you consider that the only thing I’ve actually done here is make it clear that I don’t support Russia in this war and am being blasted for being a “lib” for doing so.
You’re being delusional. I don’t owe you anything.
And not use misgendering language? We all make mistakes at times, it’s what happens, and it’s fair to ask questions to better understand, but being against it after you’ve been informed strikes me as silly
The only way I think it can be construed as misgendering language is if the parts of the idiom or turn of phrase are parsed individually, which is exactly the opposite of what you’re supposed to do with an idiom.
If this sentence is misgendering myself, then I’m the Queen of England. I get that this guy is a shithead but pretending that he’s also doing something wrong here seems to be playing for some esoteric own.
I don’t think ronjonguaido is a shithead, I don’t think that it was done on purpose or anything, and I can see what you mean - I didn’t myself pick up on it being misgendering language. I think maybe it comes down to intent? I dunno. On the one hand sure there are phrases, but on the other, maybe we should question the gendering of idioms? Way out of my league tbh.
The idiom isn’t gendered, a component of it is. Likening someone to ‘the little dutch boy with his finger in the dyke’ makes no claim on the gender status of the referent and is equally applicable across all genders. If they insisted on calling you Mr. Egon, then sure, that’s misgendering, but ‘go off king’ is a established turn of phrase that I have also seen generically applied because it likewise makes no claim to the gender status of the individual referred.
I’m not saying it’s not a thing, but I have literally never seen it used, and I couldn’t find an ngram viewer with a corpus end date after 2019.
It would never occur to me to say “go off queen” , in much the same way it would never occur to me to say “yass slay king” regardless of the gender of the referent, making them both gender neutral in my use.
There’s a lot of gendered turns of phrases, which doesn’t necessarily make them acceptable. I make a lot of mistakes myself it’s alright, it’s what happens.
Wait until you find out that “go off queen” is also a thing. I wonder why “go off king” and “go off queen” has to both exist. Could it be that this idiomatic expression is a gendered one and that using the expression on someone who doesn’t identify with that gender is a form of misgendering?
I haven’t seen either of these phrases, but in my experience even when something is supposed to be the equivalent versions of each other, it somehow feels different to hear and say. Like, it feels alright to call my group of friends “bros” but not “sisses.” Could it be that “go off queen” and “go off king” have different connotations despite the fact that they should mean the same thing?
The reason that one version of the “go off” phrase (identical in every way to the other except for one word that specifies gender) might feel to you like it has different connotations is because we live in a patriarchal society that doesn’t assign value the same across all genders. That’s not an excuse to use the version of that phrase which misgenders someone.
And your example is really weird and obscures what’s actually at issue. The difference in meaning between the words “bros” and “sissies” goes way beyond just a difference in gender. One is a common and generally affectionate term that men call each other when being friendly. The other is most often used as misogynistic term to insult men by disparaging their masculinity.
And your example is really weird and obscures what’s actually at issue. The difference in meaning between the words “bros” and “sissies” goes way beyond just a difference in gender. One is a common and generally affectionate term that men call each other when being friendly. The other is most often used as a misogynistic term to insult men by disparaging their masculinity.
I wanted to give a couple of other examples too, but that’s just what I thought of at the moment. “Hey guys” or “hey dudes” also works though.
That’s not an excuse to use the version of that phrase which misgenders someone.
Are the Hexbear users who are saying Ukraine is being ungrateful repeating Kremlin propaganda or are the Hexbear users who are saying Ukraine has a point repeating Kremlin propaganda?
Is Kremlin propaganda just ontologically what a Hexbear user says?
I’m referring to the concerning number of users from your instance who seem obsessed with parroting what has been confirmed to be Kremlin propaganda and lies spread through deliberate misinformation campaigns. Obviously, this isn’t all HexBear users, but you guys clearly have a general problem with this kind of stuff.
Edit: Lmao they’ve responded with a post that points out Ukraine has been killing people in the Donbas before the war started and a post that highlights the many offramps to the current conflict
Allright, I guess we’ll just wait until all the able-bodied ukrainians have been killed (despite themselves not wanting to fight) and then the land will be ceded. I’m sure its much better if thousands more die first!
Lots of assumptions on what would happen to Ukraine, and you are also implying that Ukraine is not an “authoritarian” (a word with no meaning) borderline oligarchy, so that’s fascinating.
But yeah, even if these assumptions were true, then yeah I think it’s better for people not to die in an unwinnable war, than for people to die and then for the same thing to happen. I’m a big fan of people Not Dying actually.
Good thing the bucha was debunked, but if it hadn’t been I’d probably have urged you to look inward since you’re the one who tried to use the tragedy as a way to score a cheap point, despite it not detracting from my overall arguement
Ok so why don’t you teach all us damn talkies a lesson and explain to us how you stop the war then other than libs usual line of Russia just gives up and goes home for no apparent reason.
Because currently either land changes hands at some point or everybody on one side dies and libs keep insisting the first option is a no go.
So please, inform us. We’re all very excited to hear what you have to say.
Ceding land to a foreign aggressor is not a viable off-ramp. Get real.
This is nationalist rhetoric. Claiming to be a socialist and yet obsessing over the borders of one bourgeois state over another bourgeois state is one of the reasons you are being called a liberal here. You are a nationalist cheerleading for one group of billionaires to rule over the people instead of another group of billionaires, all while hundreds of thousands of people get killed in the name of that. Meanwhile socialists are out here saying we don’t want people dying and do not give a fuck what borders exist as long as people aren’t dying, the best solution is the quickest and fastest way to minimise death.
You are defending the state, not people’s lives. You are sacrificing people for states and borders. You are a bourgeois nationalist, and you would have advocated for the same thing in every past conflict. You’re not even a social chauvinist and they were shitbags, you’re just straight up nationalist.
Ironic when liberals act how they claim communists act. I mean I know it makes sense logically, that it’s all projection with scratched libs, but it’s still so weird to see in practice
I mean the Ukranians are doing suicidal infantry attacks against entranched positions with conscripts ffs, it’s just too on the nose
In the post-ww2 period we had a long period of people being anti-nationalist as a result of experience of what nationalism and this obsession with borders instead of people causes.
The current crop of liberals have no experience or connection to this and are incredibly easily led by the ultranationalists into supporting them, because nationalists share a priority with ultranationalists.
The primary issue here is nationalism. We need an absolutely massive anti-nationalism movement. Anti-nationalism is anti-fascism.
it’s an extremely viable off-ramp in fact that’s how the majority of wars have ended
as Ukraine have tried military force and it didn’t work then an outcome that doesn’t relly on the Russians just deciding to give up on the whole idea for no reason might be better alligned with reality
The same group that did when the USSR invaded. The same group that did when the US invaded. They’re terrible people, but you can’t argue their strategy wasn’t effective.
That’s what Lenin did and it saved countless lives. The Tsar kept feeding people into a meat grinder and the communists took power of the promise that they’d end the war, and they had to accept heavy concessions but they did it. Which position do you agree with, Lenin’s or the Tsar’s?
Acting as if ending the war is Ukraine’s responsibility, rather than one of the country engaging in a literal invasion.
Anyone who doesn’t take the 2014 referendum with an extreme grain of salt is slotting nicely into Russia’s current playbook.
I seriously don’t understand why so many of you dickride Russia, other than “west bad”. The current Russian government is antithetical to so many of the values you claim to champion.
Numerous comments people claiming that the Maidan Revolution was actually a US backed coup, with zero evidence provided outside of Kremlin and state operated mouthpieces of course.
Possibly the most egregious yet: apparently the Bucha massacre was a hoax. Remember all those videos we saw of Russian soldiers gunning down unarmed civilians? Apparently they all must have been doctored, or were actually Ukrainian soldiers dressed up as Russian soldiers gunning down their own people.
One of my close friends is a Ukrainian photographer/videographer who was among the first on the scene after the Russians left Bucha. You’ve very likely seen some of his photos before. I can only imagine the rage he’d feel if he were to read some of the bullshit that these comments are attempting to spread.
Honestly, my opinion of HexBear has reached a new low after this thread. I used to be against defederation, but now I can at least understand why people don’t want to be associated at all with your instance.
EDIT 2: This post was locally removed on HexBear. I think that says enough on its own.
You claim that these are examples of “confirmed Kremlin propaganda”. What sources and/or authorities confirm the opinions contained in these posts as Kremlin propaganda?
Possibly the most egregious yet: apparently the Bucha massacre was a hoax. Remember all those videos we saw of Russian soldiers gunning down unarmed civilians? Apparently they all must have been doctored, or were actually Ukrainian soldiers dressed up as Russian soldiers gunning down their own people.
There is no video evidence of the Bucha massacre though? It is based on Ukrainian investigation and an Amnesty investigation. Granted I tend to believe it happened, or at least I disbelieve the counter narrative that the UAF did it, but I don’t know what videos you’re talking about
See, this is what everyone is talking about. At lest you believe it, but so many others only believe the Russian propaganda and when someone disproves it, they just say it’s western propaganda, which is apparently not true but Russian propaganda is?
There’s tons of photos, videos, satellite images, and accounts by locals. It’s been investigated by the UN Commissioner of Human Rights and numerous news agencies who published their proof. Most of the footage was of the aftermath but it’s still proof, especially when combined with drone and satellite footage from before the reporters got there. Or you think the bodies were faked (been disapproved) and reporters from CNN, BBC, AFP, and more didn’t see what they saw when they entered the area? They saw a bunch of fake Halloween corpses and couldn’t tell the difference between that and real dead civilians, who had been raped, burned, and murdered? Or actors? Some of The Russian lies are unbelievable so it’s incredible to me that people keep buying into them.
Yeah I’ve seen a lot of the evidence, journalistic investigations, which were pretty compelling I just noted there’s no direct video evidence. But I do also believe UAF committed severe damage retaking the territory. There is a lot of evidence of civilian murders in UAF retreats in Mariupol as well. AFRF executing prisoners like in the NYT video, or the indiscriminate front line fire against civilians, the Kyiv corridor and southern campaign were a guerilla mindfuck. Civilian casualties are a lot lower now, but the urban conflict at its height was just incredibly brutal and indiscriminate.
It’s possible to believe both at the same time and I applaud you for being able to hold both thoughts in your head. I’m not even being sarcastic, I’ve never seen a hexbear user criticize Russia or say they’ve ever possibly done something wrong in the war or it’s lead up. So just by admitting the possibility that they could’ve done it, even if the UAF have done terrible things too, you’ve made me feel a little better. It’s nice to see some nuance finally lol. And ya, war is hell.
So a post that highlights the many offramps to the current conflict, and describes how Ukraine can no longer “win” is Kremlin propaganda?
The other is a post that describes that Ukraine has killed civilians in the Donbass under Zelensky, do you dispute this?
I seriously don’t understand why so many of you dickride Russia, other than “west bad”. The current Russian government is antithetical to so many of the values you claim to champion.
Seriously, who? Who is “dickriding Russia because west bad”? The current state of Russia is the result of the USSR’s undemocratic dissolution and the subsequent shock doctrine, obviously it’s antithetical to our values. Everyone knows that. People aren’t being blinded by “west bad” - because they generally aren’t literal children who can only understand the world in terms of good guys and bad guys. What they’re doing is critically analyzing media and history.
Hate to employ the dreaded whataboutism, but it seems to me this critique applies more to the opposite side. You say people are “Slotting nicely into Russia’s playbook”, “parroting Kremlin propaganda”. On their own, these are empty thought-terminators. You’re not concerned about understanding reality, just about making absolutely sure you’re 100% not on “Russia’s side” of this issue, because they’re the bad guys in this dichotomy.
I seriously don’t understand why so many of you dickride the west, other than “Russia bad”. The current western governments are antithetical to so many of the values you claim to champion.
You guys say that but I’ve never seen a hexbear criticizing Russia or their side of the story, only accept it as gospel. You say you don’t do that but then blindly accept their time line for the Bucha massacre or pretend their reasons for attacking a sovereign nation are real or ignore a bunch of irregularities in their 2014 referendum voting. Russia leaving is apparently never an option when they talk about possible solutions, only Ukraine giving up territory. You say the world isn’t only good guys and bad guys but because when the things you guys say are actually analyzed, it’s obvious that it’s a lie. The west is bad, everyone else is less bad. Therefore in any thread with Ukraine, because the west is on their side, they are the bad guys. Even though Russia also has a corruption problem and Nazi problem and has a history of invading their numbers for decades. But they have the bigger military, so I guess all their neighbors have to give up their best territory to Russia for free and their citizens shouldn’t expect to do anything about it and the the rest of the world has to let them.
Meanwhile, many of the people who criticize Russia in this attack don’t dickride the West at all and hate plenty of things about it and will say it in the same thread or tons of others. Like they should definitely decide whether they’ll fully support Ukraine or not, but we all know that to do that they’d have to get more support from their voters, which is often more difficult said than done, especially since Ukraine isn’t actually in NATO.
Russia leaving is apparently never an option when they talk about possible solutions
Yes… it isn’t. Thats how reality works. Russia isn’t going to just up and leave. They aren’t going to have thousands of their own people killed and then just… nothing. They have goals, they want to meet them, and if not then at least get somewhat of a victory. The people in Russia aren’t going to like “oh, we just left”. I don’t fucking understand how people can say “the war ends when russia [just up and leaves]”. This isn’t fantasy land, that isn’t how it works. Russia will leave, if Ukraine negotiates a peace with them. If Russia wants land then UK has to negotiate for that not to happen.
A ton of people in Russia don’t care that much about the war. They’ve had protestors and even people who report their news and propaganda speak out about it. There’s no reason they should be there. They can easily leave, it’s very much an option. Now the Ukrainians are fighting for their homeland, so they have just as much a motivation to not give up either. But they also have support from the strongest military in the world.
I do hope they come to some sort of negotiation soon, but saying it never would have been this bad if Russia got everything they want from the beginning and the world stayed out is appeasement and we already know how that ends with the Nazis.
spoiler> I seriously don’t understand why so many of you dickride Russia love how liberals manage to weave in casual homophobia whenever geopolitics comes up, you people make me sick
It’s not because of blind allegiance to Russia or anything like that, people have positions counter to your narrative as the result of actually paying attention to events, as they’ve unfolded, over years.
Impressive how mad you babies get when people don’t swallow the lies you’re peddling, expecting them to be taken as implicitly true or something.
Talk about swallowing lies after regurgitating Russian propaganda? You are all blinded yourself by your hate for the US that you are willing to deny massacres or genocides.
What Russian propaganda? I live in the US, I have more of a problem with my government than a government on the other side of the planet, no matter how scary the liberals try to make them sound.
And it’s not even an exhaustive list. I’ve seen others parrot the idea that Ukraine was doing a genocide in Donbas, a Russian accusation without proof, for example. This is what I mean about you guys skeptical about every side of the story except for Russia’s.
Also, which side do you think the Russians are supporting in the US? Because it’s not the left…
Just because they used the word “dick” doesn’t mean it’s homophobic/mysognist. Also it doesn’t detract from their other points.
The insurgents had been shooting people and using bombs or mortars and artillery since at least 2014. They even shot down airplanes back then. It wasn’t just the Ukrainian government.
OK, but why take the Russian propaganda for their word? And at some point you have to take some evidence of historical accounts or you’re just going going by conspiracy theories.
I don’t take Russian propaganda at their word, I also have decades of history to reference, all the rabid-ass Ukrainian propaganda, plus literally paying attention to shit going on in the last decade
The insurgents had been shooting people and using bombs or mortars and artillery since at least 2014. They even shot down airplanes back then. It wasn’t just the Ukrainian government.
Yes, since the coup shit has been absolutely fucked, and all diplomatic solutions have been derailed.
Just because they used the word “dick” doesn’t mean it’s homophobic/mysognist. Also it doesn’t detract from their other points.
I had to circle back to this one because the comment in question was not just misogynist for using " dick", but because of the implication that dickriding bad, why else use it in that context if it was intended to read as a positive connotation?
As soon as libs feel like it’s a “safe” target they just let loose with the misogyny and homophobia.
I didn’t address the threads they presented as evidence because I didn’t see anything wrong.
Also, which side do you think the Russians are supporting in the US? Because it’s not the left…
I frankly don’t care who the Russians are supporting politically in the US because their propaganda capacity is near insignificant. Also, the Democrats are a right wing political formation, they will fight to protect landlords and break strikes.
If they’re spending their time messaging to a bunch of powerless leftists on their own closed off server they’re wasting their time, what does that even accomplish?
Daily reminder that we all see this pop up on our feed too and you’re going to have a higher quantity of people from other federated instances commenting by virtue of their being more of them active. No one is getting pings telling them it’s time to go to X thread and post Y take, that’s just a main character mindset people get into when they want to think they’re the underdog and the ‘other side’ isn’t playing fair.
During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them. If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.
You’ve all got to get used to the way federation works. Because everyone is federated with different instances the /all/ page is different for different instances. This means that when a thread reaches /all/ on a specific instance you will get a lot of their users showing up at the same time. This is true of all the large instances, lemm.ee and lemmy.ml pour into our threads all at once when they reach the top of their feeds, but it’s different for every site so you get this outcome where a lot happens all at once.
It’s funny seeing the replies to your comment crying about “not brigading” but then the vast majority of the comments in this post come from hexbear users commenting tankie shit
And why aren’t you responding to anything? So much for being a socialist, you have zero engagement with anything other than liberal beliefs and do absolutely nothing to defend your position or challenge yourself.
Lol, I’ve responded to plenty. Do you seriously expect me to respond to each of the 100+ comments that have been left by HexBear users? It’s not like any of you are capable of changing your mind about anything. Waste of time.
And again, all I have done is said that I support Ukraine. I also happen to be a socialist. Why is that so hard for you to wrap your head around?
Because you don’t support the people, you support the bourgeois state and your position boils down to “I am willing to kill hundreds of thousands of people to protect it.”
This is not socialist ideology. This is first and foremost nationalism, which variant of it I am as yet uncertain as you’ve said nothing about what your “socialism” entails. I am unable to assess whether you’re a nazi or a plain old liberal that pretends to be a socialist by saying you like welfare while still completely and totally supporting capitalism and liberal institutional design to maintain the bourgeoisie as the ruling class. The german gothic aesthetic you choose for your username certainly doesn’t help the suspicions I have over what you really are though, literally retvrn.
I have never seen one of these alleged “socialists” engage on this point. I would really like to see their rationale, and it’s really frustrating that none of them will respond.
They just dance around and repeat that they’re a “socialist”, but never point to a single socialist principle that informs their perspective
They never engage with it because they know damn well that they have no excuse. Rather than engage in something that they are completely caught out on they resort to non-engagement.
Ironically this strategy of online rhetoric is literally in the handbook from the 77th brigade that was leaked, British military psyops. However I suspect these people just learned it naturally from many bad experiences with how that went for them. This picture from their webpage makes me laugh every time because it’s literally fedposting : https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/6e61333c-3115-410c-9cf0-dddd01eda1e6.png
You know, thinking about it, i don’t think i have even seen a self-described “socialist” even bring up theorists or figureheads that they say influenced them. At most, it’ll be something like “someone told me they read Chomsky and they gave a quote that sounded pretty good” or “Bernie/AOC/The Squad say some pretty good things and i agree with them”. I don’t think i’ve ever seen someone talk about Kautsky or Bernstein or any of the other reformists.
The german gothic aesthetic you choose for your username certainly doesn’t help the suspicions I have over what you really are though, literally retvrn.
Fuck you for concerntrolling coward.
Why do you think it is a negative to have autism?
Why are you using terminology for autistic people being overstimulated as a way to insult me?
Why is that so hard for you to wrap your head around?
Because you were defending the US revolution to own more slaves and commit more genocide elsewhere in the thread, which isn’t a particularly socialist position.
Here’s you having it explained to you why the American Revolution was mainly undertaken so that the American ruling class could continue expanding and genociding and enslaving and then you refusing to even read it
Yea, they’re defederated from your instance. You can check it out in the instances list of each instance under “blocked”, here’s yours: lemmy.ca/instances
I do, but evidently you don’t since your comments make it pretty clear that you are on the side of literal self proclaimed nazis. And there’s nothing ok about that.
I’m gonna sound like a fringe conspiracy theorist here, but you guys, What if this was no random accident? What if someone intentionally made the plane crash? But who? And why?
Nonsense. The plane obviously accidentally collided with a surface-to-air missile that was randomly flying at the aircraft’s vicinity. Nothing to see here, move on.
Right!? I don’t get it. Why aren’t we so far beyond this by now? This was shit that should have been solved ages ago yet here we are having the same goddamn discussions decade after decade. Let’s just collectively grow the fuck up already. I just don’t get it. I just don’t. Fuck these people.
We have a massively growing right wing due to people finding little answers from the center-right. Left wing is a minority, and the only time a major center-left party went to power it was a split power with a right wing party that months later voluntarily sabotaged its own position of power just so the center-left party was not in power anymore. We went into technical government, during COVID.
What the people want to hear is increased wages, lower gas prices and less taxes. Yet, they vote “the queen of the traditional family” (almost actual quote) and now we have a prime minister that has cut welfare for the unemployed and reverting rights. But hey, they want to implement minimum wage I guess.
Still, you can’t get away with cutting welfare like that. We have places like Naples almost rioting.
Connationals, I beg you, go vote. Don’t let this happen so often…
Nope. It was an optional complex system where organizations would sign deals to pay workers at least specific amounts if those workers are in particular fields.
Here is the thing. A major issue in Italy is “dark labor” (“lavoro a nero”), that essentially means working without signing a contract (so you are without any worker protection), making it not known to the state you are working and so evading taxes. In the current state adding minimum wage now adds a real chance to only fuel this terrible practice.
Voting is NOT the way out of the situation that we’re in. You should still vote but it’s critical to understand that the absolute best that voting can achieve is the lesser evil.
If we want a solution that is actually good, we need to a fundamental change in the structure of society that can only happen outside of traditional electoral politics.
The structure fundamentally responsible for our problems - unequal distribution of resources and labour and the concentration of wealth into the hands of a very, very small minority (100 individuals have more wealth than an entire continent of ~1,460,000,000 people) - is the same one which completely dominates the outcome of elections.
Money decides who can run a campaign, buy support, pay for smear campaigns, control the media narrative, dominate the conversation by astroturfing social media, etc. etc. The system is so fundamentally controlled by money that there is absolutely no way to beat it using the rules of that very same system.
We need to build alternative systems that work outside of capitalism, for example, mutual aid (helping/supporting someone in return for their help/support in future), establishing co-operatives for food, housing, etc. to meet our needs, and establishing networks of support built on trust, mutual respect, and solidarity. Then we can withdraw our labour from capitalism entirely, causing it to collapse, and form the structure of a new society in the shell of the old.
Only by building an alternative to the system, can we truly make things better.
Only by knowing that voting can’t build that alternative, we realise that means we need to take action beyond voting.
I have an idea, fostering a labour movement and radicalizing the proletariat through the use of a vanguard party so that conditions for a, let’s say, revolutionary change can have place.
How about that?
Also, despite how great co-operatives and mutual aid are they still work within a capitalist society and economy. They cannot be used as a band aid end all be all solution but a furthering force for the overthrow of capital and establishment of socialism.
Also, please do not repeat the mistakes of the Paris Commune. We cannot just detach from capitalism so peacfuly. The bourgeoisie will send death squads and paramilitary groups to anythint they consider remotely dangerous to their power.
I’ve said this for my country and I’ll say it again, if you don’t vote, you are effectively voting the winning party. It’s your right, but don’t you fucking dare complain later .
“The complaint said Robertson came to the attention of federal agents in March after he posted a threat against Mr Bragg on Truth Social, the social network owned by Mr Trump. The company alerted the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center.
FBI agents then visited the suspect, who told them that the post was a “dream” and ended the conversation by saying: “We’re done here! Don’t return without a warrant!””
Not only does Truth Social narc on him, but the “dreams” defense was a true sign of just how far gone that asshole was.
Truth social is in it for the grift, not for the heat. They aren’t really the revolutionary counterculture fortress they make themselves out to be. They just figured out that stupid people are easy to monetize. Which is rapidly becoming MBA canon for all social media.
Honestly monetizing stupidity if you don’t have any personal morals is exceptionally easy. I often get jealous at the revenues even some of the simplest of these gifts are, and monkeypaw wish I was a shittier person.
It’s why every scammer goes after old people. They usually aren’t as sharp as they once were unfortunately…
My coworker just told me a story about his grandmother being robbed of 300k because some asshat came to her house and said she absolutely had to have the roof redone asap or it would collapse on her… She drove him to the bank and emptied her account… I was infuriated hearing about that and that he got away…
Why do you say that? Do you think an obvious grift like truth social isn’t going to be play nice with the government? Why would any action they do hold more weight then something like facebook, reddit or lemmy?
I imagine they put him down like a dog after he said that. I also imagine they just killed him first and made up that statement afterwards. Who’s going to contradict the crazed armed murderers, not the dead guy I can tell you that, just ask Fred Hampton.
it’s a really bizarre story, I can’t find a single article explaining what actually happened. usually the cops lie and say he drew a weapon on them, or shot at them first, or they feared for their lives or something. there’s nothing with this, they’re just saying he’s dead.
It all boils down to, there used to be subbed crazy idiot mouthing off to his phone. Then the cops came and now there’s a dead body.
This is what’s on the table with cop interaction, they’re going to kill you. They know the game better than you, they’ll always find a way to justify it and you’ll be too much of a rotting course to care.
“Making the world a better place” would be an enormous sacrifice for most people. There would be massive financial ramifications. Our quality of life would decrease significantly.
You can’t eat money. Our quality of life is already decreasing because of this. How do you think people’s quality of life in Europe is going to be when the Gulfstream current shuts down and stops bringing warm tropical water to them? Reducing our exploitation of natural resources is not a sacrifice, it’s the right thing to do. What we’ve been doing is wrong.
Most predictions are generalized statements like “the world as a whole will be hotter” or “extreme weather will be more common”. I’d bet good money that you could verify both of those predictions using only your own personal experience and that of the people you know. You’re not being honest with yourself if you say the climate isn’t changing at all. If your point is that predicting the future is hard and therefore there’s no point in trying to understand what’s happening then that’s an idiotic point of view that shouldn’t require a rebuttal.
I can tell from the way you’re speaking that you have your mind made up and none of these responses will make any difference to you but they may help someone else reading them.
Are you okay now? I had to sit down after about six paragraphs. Metaphorically, of course; I wouldn’t stand up to read a dissertation on climate denial.
No thanks. Considering they don't support the consensus on climate change and are a far right, anti-government, anti-immigration group. I doubt their articles on climate change are factually sound. So miss us with your bullshit.
“And very credible.” Lol. These are opinion pieces you are linking to. Let us know when you have a scientific article (ie Science, PNAS, Nature) to support your climate denial.
Hey, ivermectin worked for Rogan. And as a right wing unvaccinated gigachad I certainly don't need it. Got through 4 COVID infections with just basic flu medicine.
I wouldn’t dismiss an article just because a fact check website down rates it.
In this instance, though, it’s not far off. “The famous scientists at the Newsweek lab got things wrong a few decades ago, so all scientists today must be wrong.”
Not exactly a news source known for it’s unbiased and trustworthy reporting.
Even if it were credible, the article is almost 10 years old.
You need to do better than use a far-right organization’s outlet. Go to the true scientists, not reporters with a political agenda.
Reputable sources such as NASA, the United Nations, and the National Geographic Society, which base their conclusions on scientific evidence and rigorous research are much more reliable.
It is understandable to feel unhappy with the current reality. However, ignoring the situation and trying to find evidence that it is not real will not benefit anyone. In fact, it may even cause harm. As the saying goes, it is better to be safe than sorry.
It is important to face the reality and take appropriate actions to improve the situation. How else will a difference ever be made?
Edit: I named American websites (apart from the UN), because I assume by your source that you are American. This is a global issue, though. European reputable institutions:
That article was the epitome of the old saying “figures don’t lie, but liars can figure”. They cherry picked studies and statistics to support the conclusion they wanted to reach, absolute garbage “science”.
That’s not far off liberal scientific methodology, to be fair, but it seems to put the cart before the horse. You might want to look up ‘falsifiability’, ‘confidence factors’, and, if you have the time and inclination, Karl Popper’s Objective Knowledge.
This won’t give you everything but it should go some way to explaining the scientific method in more detail.
The process is roughly as follows:
Make a hypothesis that is capable of being disapproved;
Test the hypothesis;
Refine the hypothesis based on the findings;
Test the hypothesis;
And so on.
The more times the hypothesises is not disproved, the more likely it is too be correct, the more confident the prediction. According to this theory, it’s impossible to prove anything; we can only be confident that knowledge is objectively true if we have tried and failed to disprove it. This is a bit of a blunt summary.
If you don’t trust this method, I wouldn’t ever get on a plane or take any medication.
The key point being that a prediction won’t become the consensus until it has a fairly high confidence factor (i.e. lots of people have tried and failed to disprove the prediction). Climate change is one of those things. Every time someone conducts another experiment, the new data strengthens the view that global warming cannot be disapproved.
Just to put all my cards on the table, I think Popper is wrong. But he sets the scene for a lot of liberal conceptions of science. It’s his ideas that underpin many of the kinds of predictions that you’re talking about, I think. (When I say liberal, I’m referring to the main ideology of capitalism, not to the ‘left’ brand of US politics.)
That is, climate change about as ‘true’ as things can get, and so it is predicted. But even ‘prediction’ in this sense, makes it seem as if we’re taking about something in the future (I couldn’t help but challenge the Popperian model just a little bit, I’m afraid). But climate change is already here. It’s the present. The prediction only concerns how bad it’s going to get.
Feel free to come back if you want to talk about Popper more. His work can be quite difficult to read. Some paragraphs/chapters read smoothly, then others are very technical. It might be worth having a quick look into ‘hypothetical deductive methodology’ for an overview of Popper’s main idea before tackling him directly.
It might also help to know that his theory comes from his anti-communism. So when he’s talking about the problems of prediction and historicism, he’s challenging the Marxist method (poorly, IMO, but I won’t get into why, here, unless you want to talk about it).
Actions that work in the possible world in which it collapses soon are actively harmful in possible worlds in which it doesn’t. Acting as if a threat will happen only makes sense if the action isn’t significantly harmful in cases where it doesn’t, where significantly is based on the harm of not being prepared and the chance of it happening.
If the Gulf Stream will collapse by 2025, the response isn’t to be more eco-friendly. In fact, it’s the opposite. Everyone in the north should prepare to burn a lot more fuel, and concern for global warming would definitely be reduced. Global warming is something you can only afford to give a shit about when temperatures haven’t just dropped by 3.5C and you haven’t just lost 78% of your arable land (UK figures, because that’s where I live).
Do you mean that people need to see how their life will get worse before they will be willing to act? That sounds a little accelerationist to me. But I’m not entirely sure of your argument. You seem to be saying that people would not be worried if they lost 4/5ths of their arable land, but I think I must be misunderstanding something.
(I think it’s s tributary to the Gulf Stream that is at risk of collapsing, not the Gulf Stream itself, which, I’m told, is based on the earth’s rotation rather than climate.)
You are. People would be very worried. It’s just that their worry would not be expressed in attempts to improve things in the long-term when there’s a short-term disaster.
If the Gulf Stream will definitely collapse in 2025 (which is not what the study says), then that’s too soon to do anything about, so the priority is surviving it rather than preventing it. Fundamentally, things that help prevent disaster are not the same as things that help survive it.
I see, yes, that makes more sense: if conditions get that bad that quickly, it won’t be a question of preventing worse change, it’ll be figuring out how to survive day-to-day.
I think it’s more 99.9% of the scientists think it will get proper fucked up in the 2100s, but this one report says it’ll happen in the next few years.
But we should be doing something about it anyway.
If we actually cared we’d ban everything that’s fucking the world up, and ban any imports from countries that don’t agree. But if the last 5 years or so have told us anything, it’s that a lot of people don’t care. Even about things that directly affect them.
And people who do care often feel impotent to do anything about it.
Agree that drastic measures are necessary. It doesn’t even have to mean a drop in living standards; but it will take radical changes to protect (and even raise) those standards.
Agree about imports. The problem I see is that even if products with a high carbon footprint are imported, it doesn’t mean the person responsible for that carbon footprint isn’t domestic to e.g. (going by your ‘feddit.uk’ handle) the UK. This could still be captured by an import ban (i.e. shareholders can’t just export their emissions and pretend everything is okay), but the people with the power to export their emissions tend to have a lot of power to lobby the government, sit on government decision-making panels, or even choose MPs. They’re unlikely to shoot themselves in the foot like that.
An example is laptops. They break every few years. For the past decade-or-so, they’re made to be irreparable. They become landfill, and all that embodied carbon is wasted. Today’s laptops don’t even do anything that laptops of 15 years ago couldn’t do, except deal with websites bloated with adverts. It doesn’t matter so much where that consumer item is produced. The problem is the decision to make it so that it breaks and has to be replaced. Those decisions tend to be made in the west by people who will never willingly change their ways. It’s all about profit.
I think part of the reason that people feel apathetic is that they know it’s all about profit and are convinced that a system based on profit is the only way, so there’s nothing to be done. Another way is possible, though, people just need to be organised and educated§ to achieve it.
§ I mean working-class education, not e.g. going to college/university.
I didn’t realise how bad laptops had got until I had to repair one for my uncle a few years ago.
I’d always known laptops to be pretty good. Panels underneath for access to RAM and HDD (the most common things to need replacing), and a removable battery.
This thing was glued shut. I did manage to get it open and replace the drive with an SSD, but it was clearly designed to be thrown away once anything went wrong with it. Getting it back together again meant the trackpad didn’t work reliably any more, but what can you do?
Anyway, I digress. I fear that real change means a drop in living standards for many. It’s unpalatable to the career politicians whose only real motivation to do anything is to get re-elected every 4-5 years, and maybe line their own pockets courtesy of corporate donors.
Silverstein said Hughes also violated the policy earlier in the year, when she signed an open letter protesting the Times’s coverage of transgender issues. “She and I discussed that her desire to stake out this kind of public position and join in public protests isn’t compatible with being a journalist at The Times, and we both came to the conclusion that she should resign,” he wrote in the email.
It seems having a spine isn’t compatible with being a journalist at the Times.
Well, “anywhere where they expect their journalists to present a neutral point of view or the appearance of it” would be more appropriate than saying it’s something that only applies to The Times… Journalists know they’re risking their career by doing something like what happened here. 8t might lead them to become columnists instead, as happened with a local TV journalist that decided to write a letter criticizing a controversial bill and to submit it for publishing in a journal, she lost her job and started writing books and opinion pieces instead.
You believe the right wing op ed writers at the times could ever get fired for their opinions? Bari Weiss was making mid 6 figures posting trash on the NYT before she accused her employer of discrimination to jump start coverage of her new substack.
Everyone is biased, it’s how the brain operates. Some biases try to reflect reality while others try to manipulate people to believe propaganda. The Times is perfectly fine employing propagandists.
I’m so disappointed with the global status this shithole maintains. They are spending so much money on bots and propaganda that if you look at Twitter, Tiktok or Instagram it’s full of organic spam and any comments calling out this disgusting place get removed or piled on.
If it helps, that money is leaving their country which is funded by a natural resource that is losing its economic value and they have nothing economically beyond that, plus will get drilled by climate change which they are responsible for in a lot of ways!
“Of course we regret the inconvenience” is so disingenuous. Just shows how procedural this response was. To me, it reads as “We regret the inconvenience because we have to, not because we actually give a shit.”
Once they minimize it as “the inconvenience”, I’m already hopping mad. They don’t know how badly I wanted the thing we agreed to before money changed hands. They act like the consumer surplus of the trade is zero; that all you’ve lost is some pittance and not the opportunity to solve your problem in a better way.
They won’t say “our mistake” or “our choice” because that would be actually owning their own fuckup.
Clearly everyone should just let China do whatever they want to avoid war, if we appease them by expanding their territorial claims and avoiding conflict then surely everything will be fine. The politics of appeasement has historically been very successful.
Edit: Stop replying please, I don’t want to waste any more time arguing with y’all.
This is a US passport. Born in Iran, moved there as a child is my bet. Probably from a wealthy family, usually Iranians don’t get to move to the US unless they’re wealthy. Unless you won a green card lottery or something.
What's funny about this is Americans love to claim they are "X nationality" while they are like 5 generations down living in America and have never left their home town. Not saying OP is, they could very well have moved here very young, but as an American it reads just like that and those folks always make me facepalm in secondhand embarrassment lol.
Yep, it is like that, and for all we know, it’s grandpa’s passport. Again, I can’t be sure on that, but I am sure that they identify as American, except for this one moment where it was convenient for them to identify as Iranian.
It is the USA that has been the target of appeasement. Every expansion, every death squad, every war crime, every black site, every assassination, every war of aggression, every single time the world appeases the USA.
If you think the USA is appeasing China, your head is screwed on backwards. I know it’s a common trope for abusers to feel offended and attacked when their victims standup for themselves, and I know you probably stand with the victims and see through the abusers’ bullshit. You need to do that with the USA.
Abu Ghraib - appeased.
Nord Stream 2 - appeased.
Solemaini - appeased.
Iraq - appeased.
Iraq 2 - appeased.
Vietnam - appeased.
Laos - appeased.
Cambodia - appeased.
Korea - appeased.
Hiroshima - appeased.
Nagasaki - appeased.
Guantanamo - appeased.
Libya - appeased.
Syria - appeased.
StuxNet - appeased.
Pulling out of nuclear treaties - appeased.
Refusing to be accountable to ICC - appeased.
Refusing to sign landmine treaty - appeased.
Agent Orange - appeased.
Napalm - appeased.
White phosphorus - appeased.
Depleted Uranium - appeased.
Yugoslavia - appeased.
Afghanistan - appeased.
School of the Americas - appeased.
Wiretapping the entire US civilian population - appeased.
Wiretapping every embassy through Siemens supply chain attack - appeased.
NATO expansion - appeased.
Economic shock therapy kills millions - appeased.
Training terrorists - appeased.
Airlifting terrorists into other countries - appeased.
Environmental devastation - appeased.
Sending expired vaccines - appeased.
Refusing to send vaccines - appeased.
Refusing to follow the predefined protocol for sharing vaccine research - appeased.
Iranian regime change - appeased.
Color revolutions - appeased.
Extracting trillions from Africa - appeased.
Child separation - appeased.
Toddlers in solitary confinement - appeased.
Forced hysterectomies - appeased.
Collective punishment of civilians - appeased.
Support for Israeli apartheid - appeased.
Iran-Contra - appeased.
Fast and Furious - appeased.
CIA drug trafficking - appeased.
Haitian assassination - appeased.
Bolivia - appeased.
Nicaragua - appeased.
Pinochet - appeased.
Fuck the United States. They’re easily the worst, most imperialist nation on the planet. But we’re capable of more nuance than “any country in opposition to the US can do no wrong”
Why do you try to attack an identity you’re assuming that I hold, rather than addressing my actual arguments? Could it be because you’re incapable of actually successfully arguing against the points I’m making?
And no, I’m not an “ultra”, though it’s quite a vaguely defined term, I’m not opposed to all of the structures that ultra-leftists are traditionally opposed to. Keep guessing, though. You’ll probably get it eventually. The world is a nuanced place and you shouldn’t try to shove everything into a convenient box to make it easier to deal with. That’s lib behaviour. You should know better.
My argument is that neither side should invade the other and that they should peacefully coexist. I support peace, balanced reconciliation, and the end of capitalism.
Seem contradictory to use charged language like 'appeasement '. And then to say you want everyone to coexist peacefully. It seems to advocate for containment which isn’t peaceful coexistence.
Would you explain what the contradiction is between a desire for peace and an opposition to imperialism?
If “containment of x” means “making it harder for x to invade” then yes, I am advocating for that so long as the ends justify the means, and yes, that is peaceful coexistence. If you have a personal problem with that, then I don’t care. But it’s a perfectly coherent philosophy.
Pretty good, actually! Thanks for asking. I don’t want to get into too many details, but let’s just say that the roles were reversed from what you’re imagining. He was a lovely guy, it’s a shame that he was so inflexible with his beliefs, we got along really well because we shared a lot of common ground. I think the India/China thing was the first thing we actually disagreed on, and that was enough to end our relationship. Which is absolutely fair, but it took me a bit by surprise at the time.
New hexbear tagline lmao. Also he probably broke up with you because you keep saying “CCP” instead of “CPC” and he realized you were a sinophobic racist lmao.
He called it CCP himself lmfao you guys are so fucking funny. Love that being in a relationship with a Chinese guy meant that I was sinophobic. This is literally the most amusing thread I’ve ever created, I’m so glad I wrote my comment.
What the fuck is wrong with you? The idea that the USA could possibly engage in appeasement is completely undermined by the fact that THEY ARE THE AGGRESSOR WHO IS BEING APPEASED. When China pushes back against the USA they are not doing something wrong, they are doing something against the USA’s interests. When China doesn’t push back against the USA, they are appeasing.
The entire analysis of “oh everyone is bad and therefore the USA shouldn’t appease them” is completely structureless. It’s all moron vibes.
I would need to analyze the situation. The CPC has established it will not do this for any reason except to protect Chinese national security interests. If it turns out that the USA delivers advanced missile “defense” systems and other nuclear capabilities including submarines, air power, and other plaforms and assets, then it will be all but strategically certain that China will be forced to use military action to push the USA off the island and out of the surrounding waters.
Given the analysis of the Ukraine conflict, it’s possible that China may need to include other considerations that I am not fully up to speed on about American capabilities and American proxy war strategies.
In short, yes, I trust the CPC to only use military force when all other options for defense against the USA have been exhausted. This has been their policy and doctrine for a while and there are no indications of it changing anytime soon.
Honestly, I don’t think we really disagree all that much in broad terms. We both hate US imperialism. I just don’t see the CCP as an omni-benevolent state which can do no wrong. Until the world is ready to fully transition away from capitalism, greed and totalitarianism, it is best to limit the power and influence of nation states. And that includes states which claim to be transitioning towards communism. Checks and balances against supremacy prevents anti-revolutionary elements from seizing control of the state and turning its power against the people. Let’s just agree to disagree, move on with our lives, and spend our energy arguing with people who still support capitalism instead.
My Chinese ex would refer to it as CCP, so I’ll stick with that, since I trust him on this more than internet randoms. Actually, he’d usually just refer to it as “the party”, or occasionally “zhonggong”, but that would be a bit confusing, so CCP it is.
My point is that despite the party using CPC officially, even Chinese people will use CCP or “the party” when communicating outside of China, and inside China they will call it zhonggong, or the full name, which I will not embarrass myself by attempting to reproduce. Like I said, I know more about this shit than you do, so give it a fucking rest. It doesn’t matter whether I call it CPC or CCP as long as my communication is clear, and everyone knew exactly what I was referringn to.
Frankly, I think you are a liar and don’t care what you have to say. “The Communist Party of China” is the official English-language title, and is in the format of the majority of communist parties worldwide.
Calling it the CCP is a transparent and pathetic attempt to demonstrate information control, to force your enemy to be referred to by the name you assign them. It is a method of racist dehumanization and a way for liberals to affirm to each other that they are not committing wrongthink by using the name officially sanctioned by their masters.
If you think I’m a liar and you don’t care what I have to say then I have nothing more to say to you. But I have told the truth 100% of the time in all of my comments on this website. You can look into my history for all of the times where I have made errors or mistakes and apologised and admitted that I was wrong, and all of the times where people have asked me to prove my claims that they found unbelievable which I was able to prove.
I don’t have any proof of my relationship that I could share which isn’t extremely personal, so there’s no much I can do to prove my claim, but what I do have is a WeChat account. You cannot have a WeChat account in the west without getting a citizen of mainland China to vouch for you. I know it’s not much proof, but yeah, I’m not going to share photos of us together or our conversations or anything like that.
We do disagree, a lot. For example you think I believe that China is omnibenevolent. I don’t.
Another example, you think it’s possible to limit the power and influence of nationstates without simultaneously expanding the power and influence of nationstates. Exactly how do you think this is possible? Who, exactly, is going to limit the power and influence of China? After that power and influence is limited, what do you think will happen to the power and influence of others.
What you don’t seem to understand is that China is STILL going through the process of limiting the power and influence of the North Atlantic in China’s own physical location. The USA however, is busy limiting the power and influence of other nations in those nations’ physical locations. Pushing back against the North Atlantic is literally how you achieve the goal you say you want.
The idea of having checks and balances in an international world order that has spent the last 600 years dominating 80% of the world’s population with abject brutality and genocide required the expansion of power and influence of formerly oppressed states. Like it or not, you can’t just reduce the USA’s influence with vibes while the USA reduces China’s influence with nukes.
If the United States’s Union split in half tomorrow, then the power of the United States would be diminished. This would simultaneously strengthen every other nation state in comparison. So by limiting the power of the CCP, we reduce their ability to cause harm. It’s not a zero sum game between the US and China or even NATO and China. There are plenty of other people involved. This isn’t a video game. We are talking about people’s lives.
And yes, I also oppose NATO.
Anyways, I’m done with you. I have tried to build consensus and establish equal ground but you just refuse to admit that you made assumptions about me that were wrong. I don’t want to spend any more time talking to someone who won’t respect what I write enough to actually read it.
LOL, you tried to establish common ground by assuming shit about me and when I explain my position you take offense. You can’t imagine that reducing Chinese power inherently increases North Atlantic power despite not being a zero sum game. You live in a fantasy world.
You see - fuck the US - but if the US is putting 12 000 km away from their mainland military equipment on what they recognize as China’s territory, it is actually “CCP imperialism” if they react ;)
I agree, we are capable of more nuance than the ludicrous position you just made up right now to shut down the conversation before you have to do any uncomfortable introspection.
You realize that if country A does something bad, "Country B did something bad too!" is not actually a defense of country A's behaviour? Indeed, it just implies that you agree that that behaviour is bad.
China isn’t doing something bad. The USA is an aggressor in the region and has been for decades. The USA took over for the French in Vietnam, and that goes back a long time. The USA took over from Japan in Korea, and that goes back awhile too. The USA is the active aggressor here. The idea that China pushing back against USA aggression could ever be considered appeasement is completely illogical.
What China is doing is not capable of being appeased. It would be like saying that if Nazi Germany left Poland alone because Poland was fighting back then Germany would be guilty of appeasing Poland. It’s moronic beyond fucking belief.
No. It’s not whataboutism, it’s evidence that your argument is illogical. The USA cannot possibly appease China because the USA is the one being appeased the world over. The USA is the Fourth Reich. When China opposes it, China is doing its part to create a future where the USA no longer can hurt the supermajority of the world’s people.
If this is bad behavior than what do you call the countless military exercises the US does all over the world as a show of force against other sovereign nations?
The reality is that doing a military exercise in your own backyard is required for national security. Look at a map some day. Tell me what’s wrong with China doing exercises off their own coast.
no, it's off the coast of Taiwan, and there is no international consensus on Taiwan. Most countries have distinct foreign relations with Taiwan separate from China.
also, you know, caring what the people of Taiwan want, if that's remotely a possibility for you.
There are a large number of things that are factually incorrect with your position.
Taiwan is a small island off the coast of China. By virtue of its size, the coastal waters of mainland China contain the island of Taiwan. By virtue of its distance from the mainland, if the island were not present, off the coast of the mainland includes off the coast of Taiwan. The island of Taiwan is about as far from mainland China as Key West is from Florida. Activities off the coast of Key West are considered activities off the coast of Florida and not of some other state.
The nation of China has included the island of Taiwan from centuries. When two different political groups fought a civil war for control over the nation, the losers fled to the island of Taiwan and declared themselves the government of the nation of China in exile. At no point did either group decide that the mainland and the island were part of different nations or nations unto themselves.
The historical reason many nations have distinct relationships with Taiwan is historically relevant here. The reason is because most nations were anti-communist, refused to acknowledge the communist government of China, and still wanted to exploit China. So, they recognized the KMT as the government of China - not of Taiwan but of China, because the nation of China includes Taiwan. The reason they did this is because they had been dominating China for 100 years and believed the KMT would act as their vassals and believed the CPC would not. So, imperialists who were dominating China protected the losers in the civil war. Had they not intervened, the losers would have been captured. UK and USA creates a dependent puppet government while it conducted a mass murder campaign for decades. All the whole, no one said Taiwan was a separate and new country, not even the KMT on the island of Taiwan.
The UN has a seat on the security council for the nation of China. The KMT was the political body occupying that seat on behf of the nation of China. When the CPC won the war and took over the nation of China, the UN continued to assert that the KMT was the rightful government of China, the nation that includes the island of Taiwan. Eventually, no one could sustain the bullshit anymore and the CPC, the political group in charge of the nation of China, took the seat at the UN.
Thus, the world sees Taiwan as a province of the nation of China and the CPC as the political government of the nation of China. The people of Taiwan, that is to say, the survivors of the 40-year reign of terror where it was a crime punishable by death to even talk about the CPC as the government of China, some of these people now wish to figure out a way to secede. Why do they wish to secede? Because the UK and USA have invested decades and trillions and in creating conditions that make this a reasonable position. Like Hong Kong, the West has established significant finance capital and high tech operations that give an elite upper crust a very high quality of life and the middle class a quality of life like a wealthy European nation. In addition, the West has spent 40 years propagandizing and manipulating the people on the island under the banner of protecting the KMT from the evil commies.
So yes. There is a secessionary movement. It is explicitly motivated by desire to be economically dependent on the West. But it is a secessionary movement to become something other than a province of the nation of China, which means it assumes from the get go that Taiwan is not an independent nation.
Your utter lack of historical understanding is appalling, especially in light of your position that military response by the West is justified.
Taiwan is a sovereign nation with its own coastal waters. Does Singapore not have rights to its coastal waters? Taiwan is about 50 times larger than they are.
Weird how nations becoming independent had a history of not being independent beforehand, this is a non-point at best, pro imperialism at worst.
I dont care how you feel about countries reasons for having foreign relations with Taiwan separate from China
this isnt relevant to Taiwan's sovereignty who gets to have the seat of 'China' at the UN.
I also dont appreciate the notion that the people of Taiwan just have no free will and are all brainwashed. That's a very lazy approach anyone can take against anyone they think has the wrong opinion. You can pull up any material from western sources supporting Taiwan and call it proof of manipulation. And I can point to China posturing its military against Taiwans will outside its waters for daring to have a US official visit them as intimidation to manipulate their opinions. Taiwan has been exposed to both sides, and this is what they want.
If Taiwan were a sovereign nation, then its coastal waters would be coincidental with China’s, so again, your claim is spurious. But as Taiwan is not sovereign, has never claimed sovereignty, and has never been recognized as an independent sovereignty, the point is moot.
Pro-imperialism is supporting the European-imposed order. Taiwan’s separation from the mainland was a European intervention - literal imperialism. Ending the separation is, by definition, anti-imperialism. Could Taiwan secede from China eventually? Sure. Not now, though, when secession from China guarantees nuclear encirclement by imperialists.
I don’t have feelings about countries’ reasons for Taiwan relationships. I am just reporting history. You can make stupid claims about feelings but it doesn’t change the fact that your argument has no basis in reality.
The relevancy is to disprove your saying that Taiwan isn’t recognized internationally as a part of the nation of China.
why are you showing me excerpt's from PRC's constitution? Yeah, China claims Taiwan the same way Russia claims Ukraine, I dont care what the aggressor imperialist country thinks, I care what the people within the territory think. And what they wanted was to host a US official in their territory, and then China decided to threaten them. I get the impression folks in your circle have nothing but disdain for the people in Taiwan and dont care what they want.
That UN vote is not about Taiwan being a part of PRC, it's about who represents 'China' in the UN.
That UN vote is not about Taiwan being a part of PRC, it’s about who represents ‘China’ in the UN.
Exactly, and the Taiwan Province is a part of CHINA, which is represented by the government in Beijing (PRC), before UNGAR 2758 it was represented by the government in Taipei (ROC).
“Taiwan” is not a country, regardless of one’s position on this they are either a province of the People’s Republic of China or of the Republic of China.
one country's constitution doesnt get to decide the sovereignty of other nations. And that's what you've shown me, plus an unrelated vote in the UN. Neither of these preclude Taiwan as a country. And ignoring the part about what the people within the territory of Taiwan want just confirms for me the inhuman view your circle has of people.
It’s not just the PRC’s constitution though, it was decided by UNGAR 2758 that the People’s Republic of China represents “China”, which includes the Taiwan Province inside it’s territory.
really weird strategy coming into a discussion with someone who believes in Taiwan sovereignty, and just expect Taiwan being a part of China as a given I'll just accept
different from a hundred years ago and compared to a world without any nuclear weapons
I don’t see why, China is constrained by the same consequences of nuclear war, and has the same responsibility to avoid it, e.g. by relaxing claims that it owns and controls the entire South China Sea. Especially because I don’t think you’d say the same would be justified if the US claimed the entire Gulf of Mexico, or bearing sea, for example
The United States is clearly evil and doesn’t have good intentions. I’m not an idiot. But we also need to be critical of the wrongdoings of the Chinese state.
There is a spectrum of options between “do nothing” and “go to war”. I would not support a US military intervention in a war between Taiwan and the CCP.
Clearly, the CCP is nowhere near on the scale of Nazi Germany, though when we talk of appeasement, it wasn’t quite at the levels of conquering all of Eastern Europe at the time, but I’m not going to split hairs over that - your point that I shouldn’t compare them is completely valid and fair.
I think continuing to keep things at a stalemate where neither country gets invaded is the best state of affairs for the time being, until something changes geopolitically. For that reason, I am not going to decry the supply of weapons to Taiwan, because that provides disincentive for an invasion of Taiwan, and makes military conflict less likely.
I agree with your comment completely, stability and peace in the region is definitely not what the United States wants, long term. But that doesn’t mean that every single thing they do is wrong, and it doesn’t mean that every thing the US’s opponents do is right. We should take the actions and outcomes of these actors at face value, continue to advocate for peace and reconciliation and encourage more nuanced, balanced takes rather than hugely polarising positions. Thank you for engaging and considering what I wrote, we can build a better world if we keep building consensus, treating those with whom we disagree respectfully (assuming that they’re not being intolerant assholes!) and talking things through! <3
I appreciate your openness here. I think the PRC would also prefer peaceful engagement with the longer term goal of peaceful reincorporation, the trade ties they’ve cultivated in spite of US hostility I think lend credence to their sincerity there. In the big picture I just don’t think the region can sustain two governments that each claim sovereignty over the same areas, and given their historical cultural and economic ties I think reunification would be the outcome of a process of dialogue between them.
I agree, it seems that the political instability can’t last for too much longer, and I’m hoping for a peaceful resolution in whatever way that is. I have to admit that I would prefer a peaceful bipartisan result where each state relinquishes their claims on the other, but I have to admit that seems very unlikely and that your conclusion that they would most likely reunify is the most likely result.
Your second paragraph is a great point. Even taking whatever the U.S. State Department says about China at face value, comparing a nuclear standoff to 1930s Europe is ridiculous.
The only territorial claims China has tried to enforce recently are to literally uninhabited lands (Aksai Chin and the SCS islands) and Taiwan (which they are still at war with).
How much do you really care about a piece of rock with no people and no animals living on it?
So the CCP is full of idiots that are willing to weaken their international relations for a bunch of useless pieces of rock? Is that what you are saying?
Again, not a liberal. Opposing imperialism from China doesn’t make one a liberal. This is like an example of what a school kid would write as an example of affirming the consequent. Pretty funny stuff!
Yeah, I wanted to be on a relatively small, relatively politically neutral instance with a lot of normal people, where I could express myself freely, argue for balance and nuance in an increasingly polarised world, and build working class solidarity where it actually needs to be built, rather than confining myself to an echo chamber.
These are the territorial claims of the government on Taiwan, from a state the US and much of the Western world support or at least de facto like to defend in Asia. They never made any remarks regarding Taiwan’s claims with 18 other countries. If the US supports peace in the Asia Pacific (besides looking at a map and asking why the US has even a say about Asia in the first place), then surely Mainland China must be supported, as by protecting & legitimizing Taiwan’s constitution, you’re approving this shit in Asia.
Well, if they are so democratic, and support other nations sovereignty as they would like their own, why don’t they remove them from their constitution? I have a feeling you have no idea of the ideology of the state on that island.
Wdym? I said it does not make sense to say appeasement politics is bad but then by supporting the government on Taiwan, and appeasing their claims. If anything we need to define sovereignity first and then support a side on conditions. Which are obvioulsy not made regarding Taiwan’s claims because of Westerners lust for hegemony.
the only claim being appeased is to what they already control, Taiwan. That's their country. I asked for specific actions being taken by Taiwan to take territory from sovereign nations. What other claims are we appeasing? Has there been military action against Mongolia, or Japan, that we are hypocritically ignoring? What threat to other nation's sovereignty are we ignoring from Taiwan?
the only claim being appeased is to what they already control, Taiwan
That’s not true, or at least what I would argue. You can point me to any article where some Western politician is saying “as long as Taiwan want it’s island we support that, but not more than that”. In fact, I don’t know of any conditions the US or anybody who defends Taiwanese independence, is making regarding their claims. There is no “Taiwan only” constitution that the US supports. This is the needle in the ass of the PRC. I think it would be a different situation, if Taiwan (and the US) would say "we want Taiwan to be its own country, and we recognize the PRC as the successor of China.
But they don’t do that. They actually support the ROC and everything on their constitution. Including the 11-dash line in the South China Sea, that is larger than what China is drawing with their 9-dash line That they are for the “will of the Taiwanese to just be independant on their island” is for the public of the G7 countries. Nobody is willing to give up the territories of ROC afaik. Yes the ROC can’t do anything about it in terms of military power, but they equally don’t make any steps to remove them. (But I think if the US tells it’s guys at the DPP to create such a constitution that claims only the island of Taiwan, they will only do it to provocate an attack by China. But that’s beyond my point and the map above.)
Not only has US never endorsed their claims outside Taiwan, they still dont formally endorse their claims to Taiwan itself. So no. They dont support RoC's constitution and as far as im aware have never commented on it.
You couldn’t be more wrong. The ROC wouldn’t exist had the US not intervened in the civil war by stationing the US navy between Taiwan and the mainland. The US recognized the territorial claims of the ROC for around 30 years. The US even pushed the ROC to recognize Mongolian independence in the 60s.
And whats the part where US endorsed RoCs constitution? Youve given me an example of them protecting just the island territory, and an example of them disagreeing with their constitution.
Let me get this straight. You think the US intervened in the Chinese civil war because they thought the ROC had a rightful claim to Taiwan and nothing else? Amazing lol
It’s just funny that you believe that. Remember the KMT wasn’t from Taiwan. When fleeing the mainland, they invaded Taiwan and oppressed and murdered the indigenous people of the island. Yet you’re here stating that the US only defended the KMT’s right to Taiwan as if that was a sensible position to take at the time.
Not only has US never endorsed their claims outside Taiwan
You keep pulling shit from your ass. The US has formerly recognized the ROC and all its claims, then put the PRC into UN instead in the cold war to get them on their side. And recognized the One-China Policy.
Now, if the US is again violating the One-China Policy, that means they deal with ROC as a state again. Here you start to pull out without sources or proof an assumption that there is an imaginary state called Taiwan, with a constitution with claims only about the island itself, and that the US is exactly protecting this state, which I said does not exist in that form.
My whole point is the absence of that nuance, and that this state the US de facto recognized has claims worse that any other country in Asia.
They dont support RoC’s constitution
I mean yes now they don’t recognize it officially, but they and the government on Taiwan do not make any considerations regarding these claims, they just still have them? That is literally my whole point.
Dude, you like have never heard of the Chinese civil war? And on which side the US was? The US supported the Guomindang of ROC because they should have been according to them the successor of mainland China. And long after they escaped to Taiwan, the US was putting sactions, economic blockades and manipulations on the PRC because according to the US they were just terrorists residing on the mainland, and in the beginning they wanted to re-establish the ROCs rule on the mainland.
You now demand from me to post some specific stuff that is never explicitly stated. You also won’t find any document from Western countries in Europe recognizing that the Donbass is a region of Ukraine, what matters is when they recognize it’s constution and accept that state on international levels.
Its time for you to put up some of that bold claims. I actually am interested, if you have any constitution or proposal of that Taiwan nation you keep talking, you can send it to me, I would really like to know what they have in mind if there is something like this.
Holy shit, you’re telling me that both sides in a civil war think they should have full control of the country they’re in a civil war over? Hang on I need to sit fucking down my head is spinning
No, but if it weren’t for Western provocations that would never have been on the table. What do you think giving weapons to Taiwan does? China will not tolerate an arms buildup in Taiwain, it will attack as a result. That’s not good and I don’t support it, but that’s the material reality that you refuse to accept.
If the Taiwanese state would never capitulate and reintegrate peacefully with the CCP state, which is their claim, then wouldn’t that make an invasion of Taiwan inevitable, regardless of weapons?
Assume that it wouldn’t, though - I could just as easily say “with the right incentives, the United States could elect a communist president and transition to a people’s republic”, so let’s take them at their word that never means never and go from there, shall we?
I definitely answered your hypothetical? If the Taiwanese state would never capitulate and reintegrate peacefully with the rest of China, then China could peacefully try and fail to reintegrate for a million billion years. That’s it. Nothing else has to happen.
I think your argument is dumb, but that definitely addresses it.
Oh, my apologies, you’re quite right, I initially misread your message, sorry about that - thank you for your answer and I appreciate your consistency. I appreciate you arguing in good faith and I understand your position.
I disagree with you, I think you have an altogether a bit too optimistic perspective of the CCP, but I understand why you would be inclined to feel that way.
My point is, I think it’s pretty clear that Taiwan stands no chance whatsoever in a hot conflict with the Red Army - I hope that’s something that we agree on. I am sure that Taiwan is also very aware of that fact.
So what threat is posed by providing conventional munitions to Taiwan? If they were used in aggression, they would guarantee their own demise. Do you really think that they would be so desperate to strike a meaningless blow against the CCP that they would trade everything to accomplish that?
If so, why would these weapons change anything? They could have sacrificed everything for a single meaningless act of violence long before now. It’s not like Taiwan is being supplied with nuclear weapons, is it?
Providing Taiwan with conventional weaponry only accomplishes one thing: making an invasion of Taiwan less compelling.
Taiwan stands no chance right now, but how many billions of dollars in weapons would it take to change that calculus? Ukraine is fighting off Russia despite being in a much worse position because of the endless funnel of weaponry from the West, so it seems that if Taiwan can dig itself in and arm itself to the teeth it can become a legitimate threat. China will be forced to deal with having a hostile enemy as a neighbor, and even if Taiwan didn’t openly invade they could still become a serious regional threat to China and Chinese interests.
Think about the Korean peninsula for what the future might hold.
A threat to CCP interests it may be, but that wouldn’t justify a military invasion that would kill a shitload of people, would it? It would have to be sinking food or medicine shipments with coastal guns or something equally abhorrent to justify such an act. And again, that would absolutely be valid justification for an invasion, so they wouldn’t do it. How can you claim to be one of the good guys when you justify a military invasion and the deaths of thousands of innocents as “just a fact of how things will turn out”.
No, I think you need to read my comment and your’s again. You say appeasement politics will lead to no good, so… you protect the ROC’s claims instead, which is even appeasing more that just leaving China. I caught your illogical argument, and distilled it to the meaningless content that it was. Now you pretend stupid to run away from that illogical claim. But you can’t win against me, who studied at Oxford, Nato boy
you can’t win against me, who studied at Oxford, Nato boy
This is the most unbelievably embarrassing thing I have ever read on Lemmy. Honestly, if you regret writing this, please let me know. I will amend my comment to erase the fact you ever wrote it.
you protect the ROC’s claims
Please cite evidence of my support of Taiwan’s territorial claims. If you believe that opposing CCP imperialism means that one must also support Taiwanese territorial claims then you have made an incorrect assumption - and a converse error on your part does not constitute a failure on mine.
I’m very sorry that I refuse to defend the strawman you so thoughtfully prepared for me. By all means, whack away at him. I would suggest that you take your own advice, by the way, and read my actual comment and respond to the text of what I wrote, not some imagined subtext your Oxford-educated brain conjured to allay your cognitive dissonance. Oh, and one last thing - whatever your parents paid for that education, unfortunately it would appear to have turned out a poor investment.
Then get prepped, cause I did my postgraduate at MIT as well. There are no smarter guys than those graduating there. I knew you would now claim “where did I said we need support Taiwanese territorial claims mimimi”. Did you read the article and what it is about? What is the US and what is China’s point of conflict? Tell me, how can you say “we can’t appease China blabla…” to do what? Taiwan is the exact part of their sovereign terrorial claims. Opposing them on the fact that Taiwan becomes/remains independant is exactly enabling the territorial claims of the state on that island, ROC.
And now you backpedal, “I’m commenting on the article but in fact I do not support US point of view and argue without the context of any article we comment on!!!1! Its my isolated opinion from those events and blabla” or “Actually I meant we should oppose China but also make demands on Taiwan’s contitution and put conditions on their clams blabla…”. I know that if you would understand any of this conflict or history you wouldn’t actually call under the article of US warmongering, encirclement and violation of the One-China policy regarding China’s claim of Taiwan, an act of “CCP imperialism”. But know you backtrack and try to slip away like a oily snake. There is no escape from my superior arguing skills, and you’re critic of appeasing hypocritical is false even on the level of formal logics.
whatever your parents paid for that education, unfortunately it would appear to have turned out a poor investment.
You sound like Donald Trump lmao. “Oh I went to Harvard got really good grades”.
I haven’t backpedaled on shit. I wrote a top level reply in an off-site comments section. I am not required to take an all-or-nothing position, either wholeheartedly agreeing or disagreeing with every claim in the article. The world has nuance.
I haven’t backpedaled on shit. I wrote a top level reply in an off-site comments section. I am not required to take an all-or-nothing position, either wholeheartedly agreeing or disagreeing with every claim in the article. The world has nuance.
A lot of words for saying you have no consistent logic. If you understand the claims of Taiwan and that the US is supporting this state, you can’t impossible speak of “CCP imperialism”, in the context of ROC’s claims, and call their right for their territory as appeasement. But I know that people outside of Harvard have liquid arguments.
Btw lmao I neither studied at US nor UK, that only a joke. Yes I think he said something along that with Harvard lol
You’re making a converse error again - A TV can’t turn on if it’s not plugged in. Therefore, if the TV can’t turn on, it’s not plugged in. The TV could be broken, there could be a power cut, etc.
You’re saying that the United States supports providing arms to Taiwan and the United States supports Taiwan’s territorial claims. Therefore, by supporting providing arms to Taiwan, that means I support Taiwan’s territorial claims.
No. I don’t. So I don’t have to defend their territorial claims. I am sorry if that makes it difficult for you to argue your preferred argument with me, but you’ll just have to engage with my argument on its own terms, not on the ones you imagined.
Article about US provocating a war with China and violating their One-China principle
"So we should just appease China or what?"
“If anything, you appease Taiwan by opposing China”
“No, I don’t, what do you mean, I have a 4D chess move on this, it is nuanced”
Lmao you stand for absolutely nothing. Saying let China exercising their right for their sovereign territory is appeasement is bs, a Western-centric point of view, and China’s claims are less and would result in more peace, as shown by my map above. Only thing you could attack was my sarcasm. Lmao, what a lib
I have to say that you are wearing my patience very thin. I have addressed your arguments quite directly, respectfully and tried to encourage understanding, but you’re just continuing to hurl insults. Are you just trolling or are you so steeped in toxic internet culture that you can’t imagine a discussion without insulting your interlocutor?
We both know that Taiwan would stand no fucking chance if it was invaded. You’re basically saying, “if anything, you appease the Sudetenland by opposing Nazi Germany”.
Anyways, I’m done with this argument, I have proven you wrong countless times now and you just keep pushing me to defend a position that I do not hold and then you’re just getting mad about it. I wouldn’t be arguing with you if I didn’t stand for anything, would I? I support peaceful coexistence, reconciliation and the end of capitalism.
I guess you’re like an anarchist whose talking points just happend to align with the US department. I proved my case that the “appeasement” of China is the lesser “evil”, and there is nothing that they demand that is crazy and actually would result to more peace than even Taiwan’s constitution, which was the point of the map.
I have to say that you are wearing my patience very thin.
I don’t think you have proved that case at all. How is increasing the likelihood of an invasion of Taiwan the lesser evil, pray tell?
Who and why would anybody invade them? The elections are in January, the pro-mainland politicians will win, if one followed their general public opinion in the slightest, and will stop buying weapons from the US and work towards a solution to join like an autonomous region. The only difference? The claims above will disappear, and they will continue calling Taiwan a region like they do now.
The only way they will get invaded if the US creates a color revolution before January, keep this ROC alive with all it’s claims, and if you read the article, will increase their military presence on and around the island. In case of a successful provocation, they will throw Koreans and Japanese as well into the meatgrinder.
what do you think imperialism is? the island of taiwan has historically been part of china, the KMT just held onto it after losing the civil war. it’s like if the CSA somehow kept florida
And United States has historically been part of the United Kingdom. Does that mean if the UK redrew maps to show that the US was their territory it wouldn’t be imperialism? Imperialism is the expansion of the territory or influence of a state especially through the use of violence. The CCP wishes to extend its influence into Taiwan and they are willing to use military force to do so. That’s why they’re so mad about Taiwan being provided with the means to defend themselves. It would make a military invasion more difficult and costly.
The 21st century indo-pacific is not a comparable issue to 20th century Central Europe. Also appeasement wasn’t even the complete disaster casual observers like to make it out to be (who still won the war after all?) but that’s beside the point here. Taiwan is not some defenseless independent country being threatened by the reincarnation of Hitler calling for world domination. It’s a part of China that broke away in an ideological civil war that China wants back. Even the US state department acknowledges this fact, yet they still believe it is very important that they protect one part of China from another part of China and extend their civil war which should have ended for good decades ago. This is not an act of peace or charity, this is creating a conflict situation, with Taiwan right in the center of any potential explosion.
See, the US doesn’t care about these concerns is because the real reason America is in Taiwan is so they can use it as a strategic base for operations to oppose and weaken the PRC, a “West Berlin of Asia” so to say. And somehow, liberals and social democratic opportunists have deluded themselves into believing that stationing the most powerful naval fleet in history (US 7th Fleet) to permanently do ‘freedom of navigation exercises’ (armed provocations) in Chinese coastal waters is the “moderate” solution to this conflict. And I suppose we’ll just have to keep the navy there forever right? Or until the PRC finally collapses? (I’m still waiting lol)
I say we should cut a deal with the PRC, let them have Loser Island in exchange for mediating other border disputes with their neighbors. A majority of Taiwanese citizens want more integration with China, and they’re still their largest trading partner. While immediate annexation wouldn’t be popular, a gradual process of integration would be best for the entire region. It would allow the two biggest military powers to step down their aggressive actions against each other, end the period of Taiwanese citizens being used as a geopolitical pawn, and provide a solid diplomatic framework to settle future disputes in the region (as this would be a massive rapprochement in Sino-American relations) This wouldn’t even weaken American national security (which is what everyone hates about ‘appeasement’) since it’s, you know, an occupied imperialist outpost on the other side of the world’s largest ocean, not even in America’s hemisphere.
Of course this option would be totally unacceptable for the American imperialist apparatus, they would never be willing to lose such an important base in the Pacific (just ignore that they would still have Japan, Guam, Philippines, etc). So what’s going to happen instead is that the US is eventually going to get distracted and entangled in some other imperialist mess, because they can’t recognize their empire is hopelessly overextended, and China will just take Taiwan when they think the balance of power is in their favor. This would be the worse thing to happen: a chaotic breakdown of the region instead of a negotiated reordering. There will be decades of bitterness and calls for mass violence. Maybe it will also escalate and some ships get sunk and the nukes fly and oh well its World War 3. Beware those who call diplomacy ‘appeasement’ in the post-atomic age, they seek your death.
Is the Donbas a separate country because it declared independence from Ukraine?
EDIT: Which is actually more than Taiwan has done, the government in exile on Taiwan considers itself the rightful government of the entirety of mainland China and parts of Mongolia.
I’m not moving the goalposts, I’m just pointing out that it’s a bit disingenuous to frame a question about what should happen in an unresolved civil war as a question of nations and their sovereignty. It would be disingenuous to frame Russia’s intervention in Ukraine as defending the independence of an entire country, I think it’s a similar situation between ROC/PRC, the primary difference being the length of the dispute.
Which is relevant if we’re talking about how one can consistently be anti-imperialist, I think. I agree it’s a bit flippant to say stuff about ‘giving up Loser Island’ but I think it’s important to recognize that it’s more complicated than ‘two independent countries fighting over the territory of one of them.’
Donbas isn’t comparable. The government in Taiwan has had a continuous existence since before the CCP.
If the rebellious territories of the Donbas was actually a preexisting government that had all the rest of its territory taken in a civil war you might be onto something. In reality Ukraine gained sovereignty from imperial USSR and now imperial Russia wants to take it over again.
Taiwan isn’t a country. They don’t consider themselves independent, China doesn’t consider them independent, the U.S. doesn’t consider them independent.
How can you consider yourself anti-imperialiat when you don’t know the basic facts of the situation?
the current Tsai Ing-wen administration of Taiwan maintains that Taiwan is already an independent country as the Republic of China (ROC) and thus does not have to push for any sort of formal independence.
Did you even bother to read the comments you’re replying to? Taiwan isn’t a country and it never has been. It has been a part of the nation of China for centuries. When the civil war broke out, it was between two political groups inside the nation of China, a nation that includes the island of Taiwan. The communists won the war and the KMT lost and fled to Taiwan, an island in the nation of China. Because the KMT fled, the civil war continues, but the imperialist countries (UK, USA) intervened to protect the losing army that was holes up on an insland in the nation of China.
That army, the KMT, never declared independence, never said they were a separate sovereign entity, and never created a new country. They said they were the rightful rulers of the nation of China, which includes the island of Taiwan.
The imperilaists wanted the civil war to continue because they wanted control over the nation of China, which includes the island of Taiwan. So they made the KMT their proxy and funded and armed them, even while the KMT engaged in brutal mass murder campaigns and brutal political repression for 4 decades. It’s called the White Terror. Look it up. People living on Taiwan, an island in th nation of China, were Chinese nationals. When the KMT lost, many of those people wanted to end the war and recognize the communists as the new leaders of the nation of China, of which they were a part. The KMT murdered thousands of them. The imperialists agreed that this was right and good.
The UN had a seat for the nation of China. The recognized the KMT and gave them the seat at the UN. Not two seats, one for one nation and one for another, one seat for one nation, the nation of China which includes the island of Taiwan. Eventually it became untenable to recognize the KMT as the leaders of the nation of China and the world shifted to recognizing the communists of the nation of China, a nation that has an unbroken history of having an island called Taiwan which no one has challenged.
And since then, the imperilaists who cannot allow other nations to govern themselves in their own interests, has been maintaining and exacerbating the civil war to keep their proxy war against communists going.
It is anti-imperialist to support China against the interests of the West.
Have you considered the possibility that people living in Fuzhou, Putian, Quanzhou, Xiamen and Zhangzhou (among many millions of others along the coast) don’t want to have American nukes pointed at them a mere 200-300 kilometers away?
Also neither China, the US, the :international-community-1::international-community-2: or the rest of the world do not recognize Taiwan as independent. Only the :nato-cool: despite this, want to wrest Taiwan away to build a puppet state.
Also “appeasement” is a made up post-hoc explanation for the western Allies’ actions before WW2, blaming the supposed naivete or lack of spine of the leaders for simply allowing the Nazis to make expansionist moves uncontested, rather than it being an intentional policy to get out of their way and try to direct them eastwards against the Soviet Union.
Wanting US empire to collapse is certainly not everything I am as a person. I guess some are only capable to see others are cartoonish cardboard cutouts as opposed to actual people.
I do have a bit of a clue about the world, the UK is not a vassal state of “the US Empire”. You’ve taken a goofy LARP that you’re some kind of revolutionary fighter up against an evil empire so far, that you’ve started to think your fantasy game is real.
Imagine saying that you have a clue about the world and that UK is not a vassal state of the US in the same sentence. UK is entirely dependent on US for military protection, that’s a relationship of a vassal. And if you think UK has any semblance of an independent economic policy you’re even more delusional. You’re like a poster child for the Dunning-Kruger effect. 😂
Oh, so you don’t know the definition of a vassal state either. I understand your confusion now. A vassal state is a state that is subordinate to another; government chiefly directed by the interests of an overlord or patron state. The US is the patron state of the UK because UK can’t have a sovereign and independent policy when it relies on military protection from US. That would be obvious to anybody with a couple of brain cells to bang together.
The UK is not subordinate to the US. The US does not direct UK policy.
it relies on military protection from US
No, it doesn’t. The UK has its own military, and it’s own military-industrial complex. The UK is not at war. It’s in a co-operative military alliance, so if someone like Russia came to invade, the US would assist.
can’t have a sovereign and independent policy
The US does not give a shit about the UK’s policy. The UK can do what it wants.
You’re literally just making stuff up, this is like flat-earth level content.
The UK is not subordinate to the US. The US does not direct UK policy.
Absolutely adorable that you think this. US has very direct impact on UK policy and UK politics, and being part of US run NATO is the main reason UK is deeply involved in the war in Ukraine right now.
No, it doesn’t. The UK has its own military, and it’s own military-industrial complex. The UK is not at war. It’s in a co-operative military alliance, so if someone like Russia came to invade, the US would assist.
You need to do a massive mental leap to jump from that opinion piece, to “the UK is a vassal state of the US Empire”. It’s like you don’t even read your own sources except the tiny bits that validate your insane worldview.
I love how you think that a single example I provided is all the evidence for US dominating UK policy that there is. It’s like you have absolutely no clue regarding what’s actually going on in geopolitics. Go read up on the “special relationship” US and UK have as another example.
It’s absolutely hilarious how you keep talking about me having an insane world view here. Enjoy pretending that you live in a free and independent country I guess. 😂
Enjoy pretending that you live in a free and independent country I guess.
I live in the US, so what are you going on about? The US doesn’t rank well globally in freedom (IE SCOTUS stripping away rights provided by RvW), but what do you mean by independent?
What is the US a vassal state to aliens? Because you smell suspiciously similar to the reptilians/adrenochrome/Jews/NWO conspiracy theories.
Ah, well you should’ve said you were American to start with, then I wouldn’t be shocked by the stunning amount of ignorance on display. And what I mean by independent is a country that is able to make sovereign decisions in the interest of its people. I love how you have to explain the meanings of common words to Americans.
Like the wealthy capitalists who own practically everything in your country and who run your government. I guess in your fantasy world, a Princeton study analyzing decades of US policy is just a hair away from saying the exact same thing a Nazi would say.
Again, it’s like you didn’t read the article except the tiny bits that fit your confirmation bias. It’s not saying that America is “not independent”, it’s not saying the oligarchs “control America”. It’s saying disproportionate wealth equals disproportionate power. Which should be obvious, no person should have too much wealth or too much power. That’s why the US government was designed with checks and balances built in, which is not working as well as desired, but works farrr better than you see in a dictatorship like Russia.
There’s no secret group controlling this big US Empire of vassal states. It’s many many rich people of varying degrees of wealth (from the US or the UK or elsewhere) all fighting amongst themselves for more, and most of the time hurting the rest of us common folk in the process.
I said that UK and the rest of US vassals states weren’t independent because they’re entirely dependent on US for military protection as well as US economy. This is the system US set up after the end of WW2 which is what NATO essentially is, a protection racket. US has a long and well documented history of political influence and interference in Europe, and entire books have been written on this subject. Claiming this is some sort of a conspiracy theory is the height of hilarity.
It’s saying disproportionate wealth equals disproportionate power. Which should be obvious, no person should have too much wealth or too much power. That’s why the US government was designed with checks and balances built in, which is not working as well as desired, but works farrr better than you see in a dictatorship like Russia.
What it says in black and white is that the government in US passes policy in the interest of people with disproportional wealth. The study actually very clearly explains that the checks and balances US has are no better than in Russia. Again, don’t take my word for it. Here’s what the authors of the study conclude as reported by BBC:
Nobody is cherry picking anything here. You just keep acting like you’re being told something outlandish out of sheer ignorance.
There’s no secret group controlling this big US Empire of vassal states. It’s many many rich people of varying degrees of wealth (from the US or the UK or elsewhere) all fighting amongst themselves for more, and most of the time hurting the rest of us common folk in the process.
Nobody suggested anything of the sort. That’s just a straw man you’re using to pretend you have some point here. There doesn’t need to be a secret group controlling US empire of vassal states. All that’s needed is having shared class interests that rich people have. Meanwhile, it’s obvious that US oligarchs want to exploit countries like UK to create more profit for themselves, and US being the dominant economy in the west puts them in a position to do so.
Here’s where this turns into a low IQ conspiracy theory.
You take a man, whose entire life and personality are devoted to business and capitalism and profit. Born with a golden spoon in his mouth, he’s in every wealthy inner circle, he even pays a ghostwriter to write him a book called “The Art of the Deal”.
He gets voted into the single most powerful position in the US. He now has the single best position to enrich himself and his family, like he has literally devoted his life to doing. He talks to his inner advisors, they crunch him the numbers, and he decides he wants to pull out of NATO, because it costs the US more than it profits.
I’m a business man. That’s how business works. You want to be profitable. If a deal isn’t profitable, you back out. Only keep the deals that make your business money.
It’s a no-brainer, if NATO was the imperial profit generating machine you claim it to be, Trump would have been all over it. Trump would have expanded NATO, expanded the borders, made more wealth. That’s what Business men like Trump do. That’s why Nazis, like Tankies, are anti-NATO. Nazis don’t want to pay to protect other countries, Nazis want more power. Nazis would just invade a country, like Russia does, not tried to maintain an expensive treaty.
If you find yourself often agreeing with Nazis on worldview and policy, you need some self reflection.
I agree, your straw man is a low IQ conspiracy theory.
The reality is that there are plenty of different capital interests in US, and not all of them are aligned. Some US capitalists make money from financial investments and prefer globalization, others are industrial capitalists who run the military industrial complex. Anybody with a couple of brain cells to rub together would understand that US capitalists don’t have homogeneous interests and that Trump represents the financial camp that doesn’t see much value in NATO.
The only low IQ take here is to think that Trump speaks for your entire capitalist class when it’s pretty clear that US capitalists are fighting each other.
I also love how you expose yourself as lacking any capacity for critical thinking here. Just because the nazis are against NATO doesn’t make NATO a good thing. The fact that you frame what you support solely in terms of opposing what the people you don’t like support really underscores your intellectual capacity. I guess if nazis eat food and breathe air then you should stop doing that too.
It’s always hilarious to see how liberals are incapable of thinking of anything in systemic terms. Everything is just a knee jerk reaction.
I never framed NATO as a good thing, lol (reading comprehension is difficult I guess). I just pointed out that it costs the US more than it makes. Although given Putin’s invasion, the capitalists of the military-industrial complex are 100% making a profit, so I guess they can thank Putin for his choice to make them lots of money.
True, the capitalists don’t have homogeneous interests. You can’t have an empire without an emperor - a single unchanging authoritarian leader that decides the movement for the rest of the country.
It’s a no-brainer, if NATO was the imperial profit generating machine you claim it to be, Trump would have been all over it. Trump would have expanded NATO, expanded the borders, made more wealth. That’s what Business men like Trump do. That’s why Nazis, like Tankies, are anti-NATO. Nazis don’t want to pay to protect other countries, Nazis want more power. Nazis would just invade a country, like Russia does, not tried to maintain an expensive treaty.
That very clearly frames NATO as a good thing since otherwise the orcs would invade you. Never mind the fact that NATO expansion was the reason for the war and that NATO is the primary destabilizing force in the world today.
You can’t have an empire without an emperor - a single unchanging authoritarian leader that decides the movement for the rest of the country.
You used so many words to say you’re historically illiterate. Late stage empires have always looked precisely the way US empire looks today where the oligarchs put in political puppets to do the governing. Late Roman empire often had demented old men as emperors who didn’t actually make any decisions.
I just love how you flaunt your ignorance with each and every comment.
That very clearly frames NATO as a good thing since otherwise the orcs would invade you.
I wouldn’t call anyone an orc, but Russia is an imperialist power trying to expand its border through a military invasion, so that is always something you need to consider. I don’t consider it to be a good thing to lay down and let colonizers run over you.
NATO is not good, but Putin gives reason for NATO to not disband yet.
Never mind the fact that NATO expansion was the reason for the war
Lol, no. Did it influence Putin? Sure. Did it make the decision to lie about invading and then immediately after invade like he’s a helpless little puppet on strings? No.
The $1 billion question is why isn’t Putin reaching out to create defensive treaties with his neighbors first. Why not a defense treaty with Ukraine?
Once you can figure that out, your worldview will start to be a lot more sane.
Late Roman empire often had demented old men as emperors who didn’t actually make any decisions.
The US is not a late state empire like Rome. That’s a * hits bong * “what if history is just like repeating itself over and over again man” kind of take. Not that no similarities exist.
Just list for me for how many years the US has a demented old man in charge.
I wouldn’t call anyone an orc, but Russia is an imperialist power trying to expand its border through a military invasion, so that is always something you need to consider. I don’t consider it to be a good thing to lay down and let colonizers run over you.
Nobody who has any clue regarding the subject believes that Russia is an imperialist power trying to expand. Plenty of western experts have been saying that NATO expansion would lead to a war for many decades. This only became controversial to mention after the war started. For example, here’s what Chomsky has to say on the issue recently:
George Kennan, arguably America's greatest ever foreign policy strategist, the architect of the U.S. cold war strategy warned that NATO expansion was a "tragic mistake" that ought to ultimately provoke a "bad reaction from Russia" back in 1998.___ https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/832e713d-8963-4ecc-ae1f-8b366830bbd4.png
Jack F. Matlock Jr., US Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987-1991, warning in 1997 that NATO expansion was "the most profound strategic blunder, [encouraging] a chain of events that could produce the most serious security threat [...] since the Soviet Union collapsed"___ https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/706556d4-ae53-4140-9cb2-bb2cfefd9c52.png
Even Gorbachev warned about this. All these experts were marginalized, silenced, and ignored. Yet, now people are trying to rewrite history and pretend that Russia attacked Ukraine because it’s aN iMpeRiaLisT PowEr TrYinG tO ExpaNd. Maybe you can explain why Russia has never tried to invade places like Kazakhstan which would be a lot easier to do.
NATO is not good, but Putin gives reason for NATO to not disband yet.
Oh weird, then why did NATO not disband after USSR dissolved and before Putin was in power?
Lol, no. Did it influence Putin? Sure. Did it make the decision to lie about invading and then immediately after invade like he’s a helpless little puppet on strings? No.
Read above and educate yourself instead of making clown of yourself in public.
The $1 billion question is why isn’t Putin reaching out to create defensive treaties with his neighbors first. Why not a defense treaty with Ukraine?
Because your regime ran a coup in Ukraine in 2014 and overthrew a democratically elected government to put literal fascists in power. Here’s western media reporting on your friends
The US is not a late state empire like Rome. That’s a * hits bong * “what if history is just like repeating itself over and over again man” kind of take. Not that no similarities exist.
You really love to straw man don’t you. I gave you an example of a late stage empire not having a strong emperor in charge, nowhere did I make any comparisons with the US.
Just list for me for how many years the US has a demented old man in charge.
I dunno can you do basic math to figure out how may years it’s been since you chuds elected Trump and then Biden?
The $1 billion question is why isn’t Putin reaching out to create defensive treaties with his neighbors first. Why not a defense treaty with Ukraine?
Because your regime ran a coup in Ukraine in 2014 and overthrew a democratically elected government to put literal fascists in power. Here’s western media reporting on your friends
This is astonishingly stupid, you completely sidestepped the question. Let’s assume your point about 2014 is true, that’s still 23 years Russia did not form a treaty, which would have prevented the coup. That should have been the easiest, most obvious first move to counter NATO. Instead Russia is tearing itself apart trying to keep its claws dug into a little bit of Ukrainian territory.
In any scenario where you create an image of the west as some kind of empire overlord powerhouse that manipulates all global events, you make Russia and ex-Soviets look hopelessly stupid and incompetent.
This is astonishingly stupid, you completely sidestepped the question.
I did not sidestep any questions. Ukraine and Russia had normal relations until the coup, and Russia was even fine with Ukraine joining the EU at the time.
Let’s assume your point about 2014 is true, that’s still 23 years Russia did not form a treaty, which would have prevented the coup.
There was no need for a treaty because there weren’t any tensions between Ukraine and Russia, Ukraine also expressed no ambitions to join NATO until the coup, you get that right? All the problems started after the coup.
Instead Russia is tearing itself apart trying to keep its claws dug into a little bit of Ukrainian territory.
In what universe is Russia is tearing itself apart exactly? Russian economy is growing, the government has higher approval rating than pretty much any western country, and Russia managed to refocus its trade away from the west. Even mainstream western media is openly admitting all this now.
In any scenario where you create an image of the west as some kind of empire overlord powerhouse that manipulates all global events, you make Russia and ex-Soviets look hopelessly stupid and incompetent.
Among the dumb things you’ve said in this thread, this certainly take the cake. The reason US emerged as a global hegemon out of WW2 was for the simple reason that US was not subject to the destruction of the war. While USSR, Europe, and China were completely devastated, US profiteered off the war, and then subjugated Europe to itself after when the Cold War started. I realize that you’ve had the misfortune of being subjected to US “education” system, but not understanding this is frankly embarrassing.
There was no need for a treaty because there weren’t any tensions between Ukraine and Russia, Ukraine also expressed no ambitions to join NATO until the coup, you get that right? All the problems started after the coup.
Let me get this right, all the experts are warning about NATO expansion putting pressure on Russia, but Russia is feeling no pressure from NATO expansion. All the experts are warning about it! But there’s no tension. Again, you’re just saying that ex-Soviets are severely stupid and incompetent, because apparently this was a big deal since 1997, but also no big deal until 2014. Your timelines are incoherent.
In what universe is Russia is tearing itself apart exactly? Russian economy is growing, the government has higher approval rating than pretty much any western country, and Russia managed to refocus its trade away from the west. Even mainstream western media is openly admitting all this now.
Lol, I would approve of my government if disapproving meant being thrown out of a window.
You know what, you’re right. Russia is doing great, we’re going to see a massive victory over Ukraine and the war will be over. Any day now.
The reason US emerged as a global hegemon out of WW2
Obviously the US had a huge economic advantage, explain how that economic advantage leads to the extreme geopolitical incompetence of ex-Soviets. The incompetence that means they can’t from treaties, they dangle like a puppet by NATO strings, and start wars they can’t finish.
Let me get this right, all the experts are warning about NATO expansion putting pressure on Russia, but Russia is feeling no pressure from NATO expansion.
I don’t know what part of this you’re having trouble wrapping your head around. Ukraine was a neutral state that did trade with both Russia and the west and wasn’t joining any military alliances with either side. If you have some new information nobody knows about that contradicts this then feel free to share it.
Again, you’re just saying that ex-Soviets are severely stupid and incompetent, because apparently this was a big deal since 1997, but also no big deal until 2014. Your timelines are incoherent.
Nowhere am I saying anything of the sort, these are just your delusional ramblings.
Lol, I would approve of my government if disapproving meant being thrown out of a window.
You’ll have to forgive me, I keep forgetting I’m talking to a child.
You know what, you’re right. Russia is doing great, we’re going to see a massive victory over Ukraine and the war will be over. Any day now.
How do you think this war is going to end exactly?
Obviously the US had a huge economic advantage, explain how that economic advantage leads to the extreme geopolitical incompetence of ex-Soviets.
What extreme geopolitical incompetence are you talking about exactly? Last I checked, Soviets managed to fight against your despotic regime for over 70 years.
I don’t know what part of this you’re having trouble wrapping your head around. Ukraine was a neutral state that did trade with both Russia and the west and wasn’t joining any military alliances with either side. If you have some new information nobody knows about that contradicts this then feel free to share it.
It’s not about just Ukraine. You’re so narrow, it’s like you can’t engage with my points outside of a pre-programmed response. Russia could be forming treaties with ANY and ALL neighboring countries. There is (almost…) no reason not to. If NATO has the geopolitical savvy to expand with treaties, what is stopping Russia. That’s what you need to figure out.
You’ll have to forgive me, I keep forgetting I’m talking to a child.
Lol, do you deny the high rate of people falling out of windows in Russia?
How do you think this war is going to end exactly?
Likely not for years, and either Russia will back out, or they will successfully genocide the people of Ukraine and take the bombed-out land.
What extreme geopolitical incompetence are you talking about exactly? Last I checked, Soviets managed to fight against your despotic regime for over 70 years.
“Soviets managed to fight” you mean ex-Soviets, because the USSR is kaput. Plus all the NATO territory expansion, the US empire growing its collection of vassal states, extracting and growing its wealth. That is your story, not mine. What does Russia have to show since 1991?
Exactly, now explain why NATO is overwhelmingly more successful in expanding its alliance. Why does 80% of Ukraine’s population support joining NATO instead of SCTO?
Weird way to say Russia will protect people in Donbas from the fascist regime your country is sponsoring.
Oh right, protection is when you genocide the majority to protect the minority.
You have a literal despot who has not relinquished power in over two decades leading an invasion, bombing cities, shooting civilians, and raping their wives and daughters. Tell me more about what you know of fascist regimes.
Exactly, now explain why NATO is overwhelmingly more successful in expanding its alliance. Why does 80% of Ukraine’s population support joining NATO instead of SCTO?
I have already explained to you that US was in the dominant position after WW2 by virtue of profiteering from the war. What part of that are you still struggling with?
Why does 80% of Ukraine’s population support joining NATO instead of SCTO?
You want me to explain something you made up?
Let’s just take a look at a few slides from this lecture that Mearsheimer gave back in 2015 to get a bit of background on the subject. Mearsheimer is certainly not pro Russian in any sense, and a proponent of US global hegemony. First, here’s the demographic breakdown of Ukraine:
As we can clearly see from the voting patterns in both elections, the country is divided exactly across the current line of conflict. Furthermore, a survey conducted in 2015 further shows that there is a sharp division between people of eastern and western Ukraine on which economic bloc they would rather belong to:
Ukraine is clearly not some homogeneous blob, but a large country with complex cultural and ethnic situations.
Oh right, protection is when you genocide the majority to protect the minority.
The only one projecting here is you buddy given that your country is the one actually responsible for genocide across the globe.
You have a literal despot who has not relinquished power in over two decades leading an invasion, bombing cities, shooting civilians, and raping their wives and daughters. Tell me more about what you know of fascist regimes.
If you want to see what an actual fascist regime looks like then maybe you should look back home. US empire is responsible, or shares responsibility, for close to 300 million deaths nyupress.org/9781583679890/endless-holocausts/
Ukraine is clearly not some homogeneous blob, but a large country with complex cultural and ethnic situations.
Good job, you described every country that has ever existed.
You’re also making the common US right wing fascist L of conflating empty land mass with population. Yes, it’s a complex population, and a map of empty land looks 50/50, but there is a pretty overwhelming pro-West majority. The question that you still refuse to answer is why. Because it will break your worldview.
If you want to see what an actual fascist regime looks like then maybe you should look back home. US empire is responsible, or shares responsibility, for close to 300 million deaths nyupress.org/9781583679890/endless-holocausts/
Oh, I do not at all defend any of the violence, the bombings, or the genocides committed by the US. I condemn every imperialist invasion, and the evil people who lead them. I will happily take part in imprisoning any US president for life. Because I have actual values. You wouldn’t know what that’s like.
You’re also making the common US right wing fascist L of conflating empty land mass with population.
Not doing any such thing, nowhere did I talk about land at all. I love how all your arguments are just straw man.
Yes, it’s a complex population, and a map of empty land looks 50/50, but there is a pretty overwhelming pro-West majority.
The parts that joined Russia do not have western majority as the map clearly shows. In fact, the whole civil war started in 2014 because western backed fascists went after the minority in the east. Of course, you don’t give a shit about those people as you’ve amply demonstrated there.
The question that you still refuse to answer is why. Because it will break your worldview.
I didn’t refuse to answer anything. The only one with a bleak world view here is the one who thinks it’s fine for western backed fascists to exterminate minorities. Thanks for admitting what you actually stand for.
Oh, I do not at all defend any of the violence, the bombings, or the genocides committed by the US. I condemn every imperialist invasion, and the evil people who lead them. I will happily take part in imprisoning any US president for life. Because I have actual values. You wouldn’t know what that’s like.
The only thing you’ve condemned so far was Russia protecting people of Donbas from the fascists you support. You claim to condemn evil people while allying with literal fascists, and you expect people to take you seriously.
Not doing any such thing, nowhere did I talk about land at all. I love how all your arguments are just straw man.
Literally right in the pictures you posted but nice gaslighting.
The only one with a bleak world view here is the one who thinks it’s fine for western backed fascists to exterminate minorities.
It’s wrong for western backed fascists to exterminate minorities. It’s wrong for fascist Russia to exterminate majorities. It’s not hard for me to say, why is it hard for you to say?
You claim to condemn evil people while allying with literal fascists, and you expect people to take you seriously.
I’m not allying with anyone. You’re making the same L you accused me of earlier. Just because I condemn Russia doesn’t mean I support the other side. I condemn both sides, several times now. I haven’t seen you condemn fascist Russia even once.
Literally right in the pictures you posted but nice gaslighting.
The picture I posted illustrates the views of the demographic in the different regions showing that eastern regions that joined Russia have predominantly pro Russian views. The only one doing gaslighting here is you.
It’s wrong for western backed fascists to exterminate minorities. It’s wrong for fascist Russia to exterminate majorities. It’s not hard for me to say, why is it hard for you to say?
Except you very clearly are. You can deny it all you want, but it’s quite clear from this thread that you support the fascist regime in Ukraine. You haven’t seen me condemn fascist Russia because it only exists in your deranged mind.
The whole pattern of this thread has been you making fantastical claims then me providing sources contradicting your nonsense and you just pivoting to new fantastical claims without ever acknowledging your prior bullshit. You’re like a little wanna be Trump.
The whole pattern of this thread has been you making fantastical claims
“The UK is a vassal state to the US Empire” is a fantastical claim.
“Russia is a fascist xenophobic homophobic transphobic country ruled by a corrupt despot that made the sovereign decision to start an invasion” is real life.
“The UK is a vassal state to the US Empire” is a fantastical claim.
It’s not, and I’ve explained to you in detail why as well as having provided you with numerous resources on the subject. You’ve never actually contradicted anything I said either and just pivoted to other bullshit.
“Russia is a fascist xenophobic homophobic transphobic country ruled by a corrupt despot that made the sovereign decision to start an invasion” is real life.
That’s precisely what a xenophobe from US would say. Russia certainly has plenty of issues, however in practice it’s not very different from many western countries. The real life is that the war was a product of decades of NATO policy, and it’s not even hidden. RAND literally published a study titled Extending Russia where it outlines goading Russia into a proxy war in Ukraine as a way to achieve that.
Maybe spend some time educating yourself instead of shitposting on public forms. Just a thought.
It’s not, and I’ve explained to you in detail why as well as having provided you with numerous resources on the subject.
Resources that say nothing about the UK being a vassal state or the US being an empire. You make a huge logical leap to conclusions based on your inherent biases.
Russia certainly has plenty of issues, however in practice it’s not very different from many western countries.
Atrociously bad policy on LGBTQ rights, freedom of speech, but does better on homing the homeless and other human rights. Can’t get rid of its corrupt ruling despot; the US has many corrupt government officials that don’t see term limits.
I agree, Russia is overall no worse or better than the West.
The real life is that the war was a product of decades of NATO policy, and it’s not even hidden
Are you familiar with the narcissist’s prayer?
“I didn’t do it, and if I did, it’s your fault”
Defense of Russia I’ve noticed follows the narcissist’s prayer pattern. “Russia didn’t do it, and if it did, it’s the West’s fault”.
Resources that say nothing about the UK being a vassal state or the US being an empire. You make a huge logical leap to conclusions based on your inherent biases.
The sources make it very clear that UK politics are subordinate to US, and it’s very clear that UK economic and military dependency on US means that it’s not able to pass sovereign and independent policy that’s at odds with US interests.
Defense of Russia I’ve noticed follows the narcissist’s prayer pattern. “Russia didn’t do it, and if it did, it’s the West’s fault”.
It’s frankly depressing that you evidently don’t understand how infantile this framing is. NATO has been expanding to Russian borders and violently invading countries for decades, but you expect that Russia should just ignore that. How do you think US would react if Russia ran a coup in Mexico, invited Mexico in CSTO, stated intention to put nuclear weapons in Mexico.
The reality of the situation is that Ukraine was a sovereign and neutral state that did trade with both Russia and the west. This wasn’t good enough for the west, and the west decided to overthrow the legitimate government in Ukraine. That’s how this war started back in 2014. And if you just ignore all that then you’re morally and intellectually bankrupt.
It’s pretty clear than neither one of us is going to convince the other of anything here, and we’re just going in circles here. So, you can have the last word if that makes you feel better. I’ve said all I have to say here.
@Cloudless & I maintain a zine tracking all Sponsors of Russia's invasion at https://kbin.social/m/SponsorsOfRussianInvasion . We use multiple sources viz. Ukraine govt sites, Yale's tracker, and credible news sources.
Because China (and Mexico, India, Southeast Asia, South America, Africa, and the Middle East) have not really introduced sanctions (except against military equipment)? These companies are following their government’s policy, which is more than can be said for companies like PepsiCo and Mars (both American).
International trade is dictated by countries, not by companies. If a company is breaking the policy of the country it operates from, that’s obviously very bad. These companies aren’t trying to pick sides: their government hasn’t picked a side and so there is no reason for the company to.
The sponsors of war list is a list of companies circumventing everyone else’s efforts to place a defacto embargo on Russia to show that their actions have consequences. When companies cross that picket line, they undermine the entire exercise, making it easier for Russia to continue operations. The idea, for the rest of us, is to in turn boycott the companies on the list so they’ll also experience their actions have consequences.
We have that luxury right now. Ukraine does not. So the idea is that we can help Ukraine by not doing business with companies that are making extra special bonus money by selling their products with a defacto monopoly in Russia right now
Who’s efforts? From what I can see, only North America and Europe have joined in this so-called international embargo. In fact, not even Mexico has any sanctions against Russia.
What’s the motivation for including companies based in countries that haven’t called for trade restrictions?
Sure, I agree fully that countries based in Europe or North America should follow government policy or relocate, but I’m not expecting companies to behave outside of the policy detailed by their government.
If you buy a drone for lets say 1000$ from Xiaomi via AliBaba, 100$ of those go to AliBaba maybe 1$ goes to Russia. from the 900$ left for Xiaomi, 600 are gone for the production. 300 left, 3 go to Russia. 4$ for Russia. But if this drone helps invalidate only one russian soldier, that 4$ are easily worth 100000$. If it helps invalidate a tank, it goes to the millions. Thats easily worth it if there is no alternative
I have also seen people say “I buy from Amazon, because I don’t want to support Alibaba”… like dude where do you think “VURUU” brand you just bought from sources all their shit from?
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