nednobbins @ nednobbins @lemm.ee

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2 yr. ago

Timing matters. I have family in Austria. I like a lot of things about Austria and I also don't approve of a lot of things the government does and did.

If someone were to have voiced that sentiment loudly in 1942, they'd probably be an asshole.

CFR has a discussion on the aid to Ukraine https://www.cfr.org/article/how-much-us-aid-going-ukraine The accounting can be a bit confusing but it's certainly costing the US money.

That seems to be the crux of the matter. People are objecting to the implications of a proxy war rather than the actual meaning. Past treaties, and Russian aggression have nothing to do with whether or not it's a proxy war. The intent to strategically prevent future Russian aggression, without direct involvement, is exactly what makes it a proxy war.

There also seems to be some implication that "proxy war" means that the entire purpose of the war is to satisfy the greed of some shadowy cabal. It literally just means that there's someone who's helping pay without being directly involved.

That makes it even more like a proxy war.

The cold war era proxy wars were all about saving Democracy and the "free world". We funded one war after an other under the "domino theory." Those are the same arguments we hear today except we've replaced USSR with Russia and Communist with Authoritarian. The message is the same; we don't want to get involved directly but we'll support this country as a bastion against world domination.

Some of the aid to Ukraine is structured as loans with expedited provisions to forgive the loans and some of it is outright grants. The US made a lot of money off of the lend lease program to the UK. I haven't ready any analysis that suggests that the US expects to make any money off of Ukraine.

This is much more like our support of Afghanistan than our support of the UK.

I see. Even with that expanded, and very subjective definition, it's still hard to see how this doesn't qualify.

The US has obvious strategic interests in the war. Various US and EU politicians and even Zelinsky himself keeps making that point. Ukraine obviously isn't just fighting for to support US interests but that's the case in every proxy war. The rich, third party nation doesn't hire mercenaries, they fund the groups who already have an interest in fighting (like defending their home).

Zelinsky would obviously like that situation to change. If the US and EU were willing to send troops it would stop being a proxy war and Zelinsky would clearly be thrilled.

If we're using this more detailed definition of "proxy war", which includes intent, I'd say that Russia is not a proxy for China. The difference is that isn't providing any donations to Russia. It's buying, selling and lending on terms that are so favorable to China that it's better described as carpetbagging. China, and to a lesser extent India and Iran, are all raking Russia over the coals. China also trades with Ukraine. It does so at a much lower rate than with Russia (565 vs 21,800 respectively in September) but at a higher rate than the US does with Ukraine (197 in September (source: https://oec.world/).

I'm not sure why people keep saying this.

A proxy war has nothing to do with either side being "a proxy." It only means that one of the sides is being supported by some nations that's not part of the war. That's very obviously the case here.

Yes. They would. There are no “free passes” on a definition.

I get that people don't want to associate Ukraine with the US's horrible track record with proxy wars but the term is still just a dry political definition and the Ukraine war fits it perfectly.

It would stop being a proxy war if the US (and everyone else) cut off funding or if they actually engaged in hostilities. As long as the US (or any nation) aids Russia or Ukraine without directly participating, it's a proxy war because that's how proxy wars are defined.

Why is "proxy war" in scare quotes?

It's just a war where at least one of the belligerents is supported by at least one third party. Is there anyone who doubts that the Ukraine war meets any part of that definition?

I don't need to guess. I know from having been to China and having talked to people.

It's mostly a combination of 3 things:

1. Tons of infrastructure. If you decide to start manufacturing some random thing you can easily get all the stuff you need to get started.
2. Regulations are generally very favorable to small startups and businesses. This is partly why so much of the stuff on Temu is crap.
3. A huge population. That's the main source of ultra cheap labor. Farmers in rural China can still make as little as $1.90 per day. All a factory owner needs to offer is more than that and they'll have a line of applicants.

The thing is that it's not PURE crap.

It's kind of like going to a flea market. Most of it is crap and you can still find some decent and good stuff that's way cheaper than it should be.

I think a lot of this is that Republicans used to follow what used to be the recommendations of the most prominent main-stream economists. We can judge that as foolish in hindsight, but, "let the economics experts handle the economy" is a fairly reasonable policy.

2 big things changed. Republicans push more and more policies that economists consider dumb and economists have updated their models and recommendations based on new research. Even those old free market economists were not fans of tariffs and trade wars. It's pretty hard to find an actual economist (like with a PhD from a respected econ school) who thinks wanton deregulation is a good idea.

At the same time, Democrats still hold on to a few ideas that economists all agree are dumb. There's tons of evidence that things like rent control and home purchase credits make housing problems worse.

Democrats tend to support better economic policies than Republicans do but they support enough bad ones that it's easy for Republicans to argue that the old status quo is correct.

That was also part of Trump's platform. You can generally take whatever bad thing is happening at the moment and blame it on whoever is in charge in the moment. The only time that doesn't work is when most people agree that things are going well.

I sincerely hope that Democrats do care.

Like it or not, MAGA can currently take that attitude. They control the SC, both chambers of Congress, and the White House. If they decide to say, "Fsck it. We'll ignore the Demorcrats," they'll still have all the process in place to enact their agenda.

MAGA doesn't need to analyze what went wrong during the election. They got everything they wanted.

For at least the next 2 years, Democrats will be able to do nothing that Republicans don't approve of. The law says that they get to set the standards.

If Democrats want any chance of checking that power or reversing it at the next election, we are the ones who need to adapt.

There's an "ancient Chinese saying", "卧 薪 尝 胆". You don't do it because it's fun or because you obliged to, you do it so you can win next time.

That would be true if every one of those answers didn't also strongly support AOC, Democrats, or Bernie.

That's the whole point of this exercise. A bunch of deep red voters citing Fox is expected and doesn't tell us anything new. When a bunch of deep vlue voters do that, something is going on.

We normally expect AOC and Bernie supporters to be very Blue. If Fox is resonating with those voters we should really be asking ourselves, "Why?"
Why is it that some Democrats hear Fox News and immediately judge them as naked propaganda while other Democrats give them consideration?

edit: grammar

Laws constantly need to catch up.

I'm not sure what law would be an improvement though. The courts tend to frown on laws that are directed at specific groups of people so you probably couldn't have something as specific as, "When a man says YBMC to a woman she's allowed to consider it a rape threat and knee him in the nuts." It also wouldn't be terribly effective since those people would likely find some variation that skirts the law but carries exactly the same message. That's so common a tactic we even have a name for it, "dogwhistles".

The most general form is a "stand your ground" law. Ie we don't question the motives of the "defender", we just assume they were right. That has some obvious issues too.

There might be something between those two that would work, but I don't know what it would be.

People are confusing moral and legal rights.

Women absolutely have the moral right to nut-knee someone who says that to them. I wouldn't stop them or testify against them.

People generally don't have the legal right to do that. If someone tries that and gets sued, it will be up to them to prove that there was an imminent credible threat. If the guy is still alive, they'll be able to claim that YBMC is just a joke and it would be up to the victim to prove that it wasn't.

Women's Suffrage (and additional rights) and the Civil Rights movement both had many successes. They also used many tactics and strategies besides protests and that makes it hard to attribute their success to protests. That's why I looked at the 10 largest protests in the US on Wikipedia. There's obviously some subjectivity to which protests are the most salient but it's fair to assume that a large number of those should actually be the most important protests. The fact that we didn't see progress as a response to any of the biggest protests suggests that they don't have much of an impact.

I view the Firefly situation a bit differently too. We actually wanted them to bring Firefly back as a show. As near as I can tell Joss made the movie (which I agree was and still is awesome) because he loved the story and wanted to finish it. He may have been uplifted by the support of the fans but he didn't give in to anyone's demands. Fans kept badgering him to pick the series up after the movie and argued that the success of the movie proved that the series would make money but he told us that wasn't possible because too many of the actors where on other projects. I have to admit that Summer Glau made a pretty good terminator.

Ghandi is an interesting case. He also used many tactics and strategies beyond protest and he was dealing with a very different situation. Their oppressor was thousands of miles away and got a bit tied up with bigger problems. There is also a strong academic consensus that he likely delayed Indian independence.

It's cute that you can call me names.

Can you also articulate positive changes that have resulted from the 10 biggest protest?

The sexual revolution was the product of many changes. Cheap and effective ontraception was one of them, legal abortion was not. Roe v Wade wasn't until after the sexual revolution had already happened. Ante hoc ergo non propter hoc.

Maybe the point of the protest is to bring awareness to the public?

Maybe. How useful is "awareness"?

When I look at the biggest protests in the US there's plenty of awareness about around all the biggest protests. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_protests_and_demonstrations_in_the_United_States_by_size

Going down that list, it's hard to find evidence that the awareness got us anywhere.

1. George Floyd - We keep saying his name. Has there been any change in police violence or accountability?
2. Earth day - We've been talking about this forever and we keep breaking records on extreme weather events.
3. 2017 Women's March - We just elected the chief pussy grabber.
4. March for Our Lives - Guns are still everywhere.
5. 2018 Women's March - See number 3.
6. RickyRenunicia - I have to pass on this one. I have no idea what the state of corruption in PR is.
7. Great American Boycott - Democrats switched to agreeing with Republicans on immigration.
8. LGB - You can reasonably argue that sexuality related rights have improved. It's not clear that this protest was a particular catalyst for that. If we want to pin things on a single event, Stonewall probably had a bigger impact.
9. Anti Nuclear - More countries than ever believe they need nukes to survive. We're now unironically talking about the use of tactical nuclear weapons.
10. Million Man March - See number 1

I could go on, but the track record for the 10 biggest protests isn't great.