freagle @ freagle @lemmygrad.ml

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8

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1,644

Joined

3 yr. ago

Bloodthirsty, insane, and suicidal

Ooohh, that was the point.

History isn't subject to popularity. You'll note that the revelations about the CIA's assessment are from this year, though the assessment was from the beginning of the SMO. You'll also note that Russia still has not made any attempt to actually march across Ukraine and take it despite Ukraine's losses being so steep that the average age of their military went up 20 years.

You could point out WHY my talking points fall apart now, but you won't because history hasn't changed much. Nuland was still there at Maidan square and the tape of her planning the next leader of Ukraine still exists. McCain still stood on stage with Right Sector and said it was a proud day for democracy less than 24 hours before Right Sector stormed the capital violently and forced the sitting president and his cabinet to flee the country. Operation Gladio is still on the books. The Banderite leave-behind still killed a lot of Jews. The neonazis in Ukraine are still getting training and arms from the USA.

Not much has changed, honestly.

Believe what you need to believe. I was just communicating.

Yeah, no. Russia is fighting NATO expansion. The head of NATO said so. The people of Russia know what Western economic shock therapy did to them and they have a learned distrust of the West. They do not want yet another European military invading them over the Ukraine border like the last 2 European armies did.

Ukraine, on the other hand, had a movement for alignment with the West that was cultivated, stoked, and supported by the USA to the degree that John McCain and Victoria Nuland were literally on the ground during the Maidan protests. Nuland is on tape discussing the replacement of the elected leader of Ukraine. And then the minority Right Sector faction stormed the capital with guns drawn and forced the sitting government to flee for its life. The replacement government simped for the EU and USA because it meant the USA would allow them to kill the ethnic Russians within their territory and also enrich their political elite. So for 8 years the neonazis, tied to the NATO leave-behind militias of Nazi supporters created under NATO'S Operation Gladio, bombed and murdered ethnic Russians inside Ukraine's border.

And when the move towards NATO expansion was too close for comfort, Russia acted to prevent that expansion.

This has nothing to do with expanding Russia. The CIA has said so. The NYT has reported so. NaATO has stated so. Within Russia, there is no material possibility, no military strategy, and no political desire to take and hold Ukraine.

Russia is literally fighting for itself. What are you fucking talking about? Is it only fighting for themselves if Slavs align with Western Europe?

LOL, this is how they're gonna manufacture consent for removing Zelensky?

What are you talking about "struggling to maintain it's democracy". Have you read the founding documents and the letters among the nation's founders? "We must protect the opulent minority. The Senate will be that body". The Electoral College. The 3/5s compromise was not a moral thing, it was a power thing - it gave slave owners more votes. The USA's democracy is functioning exactly as it was designed and isn't straying from that path in the least.

It’s invincible against any adversary that still operates with 20th century technology, except for nations that had F-22’s prior.

That invincibility has a carve out for thunderstorms, though

More like:

Inside America's failed plan to subvert global economy by pumping billions of state money into pet industries in an anti-comeptitive scheme to undermine the global rules-based order

How's that F35 working out?

So the Holocaust didn't do the same thing to Romas, queer folk, Black folk, etc? Only the Jewish folk?

When was the last time the Iranian military launched missile strikes against someone on Israeli soil as an act of aggression instead of an act of retaliation?

Answer: never. The Iranian military has never launched a strike against Israel.

So your attempt to draw a parallel fails. There is no equivalent Iranian aggression.

That's because the USA is an authoritarian shit hole that imprisons more of its people than anyone in modern history, including the USSR at the height of the GULAG. It also charges the vast majority of prisoners $150 - $350 PER DAY for being in prison which is debt they must pay back after release. The USA also makes it legal for companies to discriminate against ex-prisoners when hiring. While in prison, the USA uses prisoners as slave laborers producing over $11Bn annually for for-profit companies.

Wow. This is not a signal of universal solidarity in the ruling structures.

Downvoters are bots. Fite me

China’s domestic economy [...] is also fiercely competitive, plagued by price wars

Really? Plagued? I thought free market competition was good. The Economist, what of your god, Adam Smith?

Johnson Wan of Jefferies, an investment bank, reckons the main reason Chinese firms are building factories abroad is to avoid tariffs

That's it. That's what you've got? This guy? A Hong Konger who got a Masters in Stats and immediately started a career with the title "Head of", got an MBA from London Biz, and went straight back into "Head of" roles for the rest of his career. His "reckoning" is going to stand in for like actual journalism or analysis? Why do people buy this rag?

In June American tariffs were extended to many of the solar products made by Chinese firms in South-East Asia, after the Department of Commerce judged that the factories in question were adding little value beyond final assembly.

Oh man, wait until that judge find out about all the "Made in America" products here. Boy I bet that judge will just be red in the face!

Chinese firms have nearly quadrupled their sales in the global south since 2016, whereas Western firms have grown theirs by only a third

Based.

As recently as 2016 listed American and European firms together generated 15 times the foreign sales of Chinese firms in the global south. That ratio has since shrunk to five. Chinese firms already outsell Japanese ones in the developing world.

That's a HELL of a steep trend line. I wonder what would happen if it was extrapolated.

That's literally why Russia launched the invasion of Ukraine - appeasement of the USA failed.

You see, when the USSR demonstrated that the West could not hope to destroy it via military conquest (by beating 80% of all Nazis forces and taking Berlin), the USA formed NATO and staffed it with former Nazi officers and then oversaw Operation Gladio where NATO cultivated, armed, and trained "leave-behind militias" of Nazi-sympathizers to be used against the USSR. NATO established itself as a transnational nuclear military staffed by the most dangerous people in the world and accountable to no nation's people and no democratic oversight.

Then, when the USSR was dissolved by internal reactionary forces seeking to reestablish liberal class society, NATO began to expand Eastward, just like Napoleon's army and just like Hitler's army, except this time they expanded using the new logic of political hegemony instead of military hegemony. They guided the rise of Nazi sympathizers all over Eastern Europe, voting against UN resolutions to condemn the glorification of Nazis, and worked to expand this unaccountable transnational nuclear military to the detriment of shared security globally. They even launched the first ever war for humanitarian causes and bombed Yugoslavia, including with depleted uranium bombs in civilian population centers.

Russia, for its part, invited the USA in to reorganize it's economy and then suffered some of the worst outcomes seen in peace time, including a drop in life expectancy of 7 years over 7 years of time. But they were liberal capitalists now so they figured they could work with the USA and sought inclusion in NATO. They were rebuffed. They sought mutual security guarantees. They were rebuffed. They sought economic cooperation. They were rebuffed. America kept driving NATO Eastward at every opportunity. Russia eventually had to respond.

And they did. In 2014, after the USA participated in the Maidan coup that elevated the Right Sector faction after years of supporting Nazis in Ukraine, Russia annexed Crimea. It did so in direct response to the USA demonstrating its intent to expand NATO to the Ukraine border with Russia - the same border used by Napoleon and Hitler to invade Russia and kill millions of Russians. The USA had years of push back from Russia, and appeasement, eventually escalating to the annexation, but the USA did not stop. Under Trump the USA overtly armed Ukraine for the first time providing weapons that everyone knew would be used against Russia. The USA escalated. And eventually, Russia needed to escalate further to stop the spread and stop the appeasement. So Russia invaded Ukraine to occupy its border, preventing Ukraine from joining NATO (due to rules about border conflicts), and militarizing the region to prevent further expansion and development of NATO positions.

It is the USA and Western Europe who are the global aggressors and it is the rest of the world who have been appeasing the USA.

America's stifling of civic freedoms dramatically up since...
... Japanese residents considered threat during WW2... ...Nixon didn't want Blacks and hippies voting...
...politicians and businessmen decide to purge communists across the country...
...the Black Panthers decided to give food to black kids in schools...
...9/11...

When murderers and thieves raise and train watchdogs, what are we supposed to conclude when they bark?

2.6ms by the end of the century. They claim that people might be feeling like the days are getting longer. 2.6ms is not noticeable