fiat_lux @ fiat_lux @kbin.social

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2 yr. ago

Perhaps some more familiar packaging would be more to your taste:

The US enjoys its positioning as a global leader by addressing security challenges using strategic partnerships with the goal of ensuring freedom and bolstering regional security and prosperity. To stop providing strategic support to Israel would compromise their historic friendship, their good economic relations, and an integrated Middle East.

Phrasing credit to the US justice department's 1999 memo on the Agreement Between The Government Of The United States Of America And The Government Of The State Of Israel Regarding The Application Of Their Competition Laws and the 2023 Announcement of "Operation Prosperity Guardian".

The US needs to condemn Israel because of the atrocities it's committing - the fact that those haven't been convincing enough is horrific. And the idea of hoping for a reactionary policy change because a single poor excuse for a human being was showboating? Somehow that's even more terrifying than just having a military-industrial economy making strategic genocide-supporting decisions.

Perpetual war is how the US maintains hegemony. They have no interest in stopping Israel, because it both pays the US ruling class and keeps the wealthy Islamic nations busy spending money on keeping their own people alive and borders intact. If you and other Americans want your government to condemn genocide, you're going to have to do more than hope Ben-Gvir is irritating enough. Because the entire US economy banks on this continuing.

The centerpoints of major waterways and roads are often the places with the most conflict, especially when it's good fertile land that someone might want to live in. Different religious sects have had major presences in the region, some even established there - the first Christian Roman Emperor was born nearby. They're also positioned directly in the path of many cultures, both ancient and modern, attempting to increase the size of their own Empires.

The land was built on conflict.

While humans continue to choose competition instead of collaboration with other slightly different humans, it will remain in conflict - much like other strategic arable accessible locations we see in the headlines.

Climate change will slowly increase the amount of land affected by conflict, when resource shortages become more severe from natural disasters; but the flashpoints are places like the Balkans.

I'm pleasantly surprised they didn't start up again sooner. But, like, in the tiniest glimmer of silver lining kind of way.

Edit: tl;dr We all live in a shitty Civilization game but with less predictable players.

In places that were invaded, resistance were thrown from the top of buildings after they were interrogated, their bodies were left there to be collected by whoever dared. At night all you could hear were their screams while they were being tortured in cellars by the Gestapo. Dissidents were hanged from lampposts in the main street and left as warnings. The concentration camps were often in the middle of the town, not placed at a distance to avoid offending the locals.

And the next generation in those places grew up right next to those concentration camps and mass graves. They were raised by physically and psychologically scarred people, in places that were not funded by the Marshall Plan reconstruction funds that even West Germany received. Decades later there was still rubble and half destroyed buildings.

I appreciate there is much trauma involved in losing any family, friends or community members to war, or to experiencing the bombs being dropped around you. But, I think the level of cruelty and fear experienced by invaded regions was next level. And I don't think Germans generally understand the details of what life was like for the places that were occupied - but that is only my suspicion. I can't understand how else the AfD could discuss deportations or receive such a huge proportion of the vote.

Neither Axis aligned country tesidents nor the invaded would cherish reliving it, but they have had and continue to have very very different experiences as a consequence of the war.

I just use Vegemite, same principle and basic production method, different ingredients.

And about 2 decades being how long the US has been using drone strikes in Yemen.

There is never an end to any "who started it?" question, but it's pretty clear that the US military hasn't been there to make friends. When people ask what the Houthi expected, perhaps they should also be asking why a foreign military was there at all.

Attacking the US brings them to the region.

The US never left the region. Airstrikes have been conducted by the US in Yemen almost every year for nearly a decade.

The US has also bombed Syria and Iraq this year. It is the beginning of February.

There's nothing more human than killing each other to stop war, either.

The human species' best creations have been through collaboration on new ideas and projects, but we keep going back to the old competitive methods that have clearly demonstrated that they don't make good long term solutions. We just don't learn.

Thanks for standing up to Nazis. It gives those of us who had family experience the horrors wrought by fascists in WW2 hope that Germans haven't been won over again by the same poisonous ideas.

The word "fossil" could have made an appearance in this article title, and yet it is noticeably and somewhat misleadingly absent.

Can we... see them?

Edit: some quick math, the minimum recommended space between trees is 3m, 200 million of those is 600km² / 148k ac , which would make the space required bigger than 17 countries (larger than Andorra but very slightly smaller than Saint Lucia). They have a blog with their tree planting updates but I wish there were more photos.

Perhaps if we consider slavery as more of a spectrum, like we do other kinds of abuse, then economic coercion still fits the definition.

One person being denied medical care, working inhumane lengths of time in hard labor for almost no money, being unable to access different forms of work and being beaten is clearly slavery, as you've identified. But that doesn't mean the person who is experiencing all of that, but only without being beaten, is not experiencing slavery. It just makes it a (possibly) less severe form of slavery.

If the key difference between a fast food worker living in rural wherever who can't access healthcare, doesn't have a choice to move or change jobs etc. and a slave is immediate physical violence... perhaps we need to revisit the definition of "slavery" or of "employment" or both. Dying a slow death from homelessness and poverty due to systemic inequity isn't actually a hugely better deal than a fast death at the hands of one person. In some cases it may even be worse because the suffering lasts much longer.

You assume that people who are unemployed can access help and resources, I'm not sure that the reality on that widely reflects people's experiences, depending on their location.

Well, I'm suitably terrified. That is a face of impending mischief.

Thanks for understanding and being willing to entertain a different perspective! I'm glad I could help.

Whenever I catch myself wanting to call someone or their actions stupid, I consider whether telling a 5 year old child that they're stupid has ever helped them learn (good) lessons, and whether calling them stupid is a better teaching strategy than rewarding positive behavior. Research suggests that killing someone's self esteem isn't great for learning, especially pro-social behaviors, so it's probably also not a great first choice for whatever situation I've run into.

This guy was found guilty of two felonies (plus a bunch of misdemeanors) that carry a maximum sentence of 8 and 5 years each. He got 6 years.

Charles Littlejohn who released Trump's tax records got the maximum sentence of 5 years for his felony.

I just thought that 100% punishment vs (arguably) 50% punishment was an illuminating comparison worth noting.

It seems to me that if we're talking about addressing starvation, war and political instability, then allowing the demographic who largely are responsible for food production and family health to lead and participate in a single (probably 1 hour long weekly) conversation on TV about those issues might be a key step to better understanding the core problems facing them and increasing democracy by ensuring 50% of the population is heard. Problems can't be properly addressed until they are accurately identified, and missing 50% of the the population's voices about problems won't help.

Also, for just 6 people to address a huge communication gap on a national scale in multiple media formats that can reach a population that is largely illiterate? That sounds like a hugely impactful and solid strategy for organizing important community projects and initiatives that increase stability.

What specific projects would you suggest to these 6 women that address the problems you have identified and make a larger positive impact than their current efforts?

Is it possible that people with lived experience might have a better knowledge of their needs and the next steps in fixing their own problems than you?

Is it possible that millions of people who lack the critical evaluation skills to determine when they're being scammed are victims of malicious grifters instead of just being people who are to be dismissed? And is it possible that lacking intellectual and cognitive skills is a disability and we should approach disability with empathy?

When you relegate people to the "stupid" and "deranged" categories, you dismiss them as people capable of learning skills (even if they haven't already for skills that are considered "basic") or possessing any other valuable skill that contributes. Dismissing them also shifts the responsibility from the people who are trying to take their money and radicalize them for their own ideological purposes.

The people trying to exploit others are the ones we should be condemning.

More important things to worry about than journalism on issues that affect (at least half) the entire population? Issues that have never been acknowledged institutionally due to women being denied employment and education? In a country that ranks fourth lowest for gender equality globally, maternal and infant mortality rates? Do you really think Somali women have nothing to add to these conversations that hasn't already been covered?

Adding to this: Bilan's self introduction video (1 min 41 sec, hardcoded English subtitles). Sorry, no transcript for those who rely on real text. I wanted to watch this but I was left with no information in the article on how or if English speakers even could.

The entire Western media's approach to African nation reporting also enrages me. The continual insistence of media (especially UK based) on choosing photos to remind us that black Africans are poor and "backwards" is shameful racism. It's no wonder that African nations are distancing themselves economically and ideologically from the West when their colonizers allies' media machines continue to treat them this way.