redtea @ redtea @lemmygrad.ml

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7

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816

Joined

3 yr. ago

That's what the bananas want you to think. But they're working with the dolphins and elephants to bring us all down.

…waited 10–12 years for a car and it wasn't cheap…

Meanwhile, in capitalism, cars are so cheap that so many car 'owners' get into a debt that lasts longer than the car. Some of them even find out that after weeks or months of payments, their credit application can be refused and the car can still be taken off them.

Nothing wrong with your English.

Did people care about the colour thing? Almost everyone I know can only afford second hand cars, which means the colour is less important than the engine history, etc. Then again, most cars only come ina shade of black, white, grey, blue, and red. So much for choice under capitalism.

Bananas have a history of dividing and brutalising the working class everywhere:

• https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50473654
• https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/06/21/482952581/bendy-bananas-and-barmaid-bosoms-the-u-k-s-crazy-anti-eu-food-myths
• https://historyhustle.com/united-fruit-company/

Literally clicked into this thread to say, 'the world's largest prison but the greatest sex on earth and a dope flag.'

https://inteltoday.org/2019/08/18/cia-declassified-mao-tse-tung-workout-routine/

There is a bizarre editorial introduction, which reads:

While Stalin’s secret police had set up a special department to analyse Mao Tse Tung’s faeces in order to construct his psychological portrait, the CIA was trying hard to get inside his mind.

If this is true, you don't want to be following the CCCP plan!

Still, the full text of Mao's plan seems to be in the article. I'm unsure if it's untampered.

The reason it seems like I'm dodging the question is because if I can challenge the assumptions in the question and show that it's a faulty question, the answer becomes irrelevant. Still, if you keep reading, you'll see that I have provided an answer below.

As for my opinion, it's like anyone else's. It isn't worth much. My statements of fact, however… in a world where people try to paint the US in a positive light, endlessly making distinctions to deny any blame to the US state for all the horror that it unleashes on the world… probably also not worth much.

I either make a logical argument that stands up to scrutiny or I don't. If my argument stands up, it doesn't matter whether I look like a weak idiot. If my argument fails, it doesn't matter if I pretend control or to appear smart or to act it.

For a bourgeois state, it is ahistorical to separate the government from it's businesses. Companies and the government go hand in hand. It was, for example, the East India Company, rather than the British 'state', that colonised so much of Asia.

In relation to WWII and the US-Nazi connection, Michael Parenti wrote in Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism (City Lights Books, CA, 1997, p17):

Corporations like DuPont, Ford, General Motors, and ITT owned factories in enemy countries that produced fuel, tanks, and planes that wreaked havoc on Allied forces. After the war, instead of being prosecuted for treason, ITT collected $27 million from the U.S. government for war damages inflicted on its German plants by allied bombings. General Motors collected over $33 million. Pilots were given instructions not to hit factories in Germany that were owned by U.S. firms. Thus Cologne was almost levelled by Allied bombing but it's Ford plant, providing military equipment for the Nazi army, was untouched; indeed German civilians began using the plant as an air raid shelter. [Citing Charles Higham, Trading with the Enemy (Dell, NY, 1983).]

Fn14: After the war, Herman Abs, head of the Deutsche Bank and in effect "Hitler's paymaster," was hailed by David Rockefeller as "the most important banker of our time." … Rockefeller [failed to say] a word about Abs' Nazi connections, his bank's predatory incursions across Nazi occupied Europe, and his participation, as a board member of I.G. Farben, in the use of slave labor at Auschwitz: Robert Karl Miller, Portland Free Press, Sept/Oct 1994

All this, and we haven't really touched on:

• the way that US state officials intervened to—
• • protect Nazi war criminals from prosecution at Nuremberg,
• • rehabilitate and promote Nazi officials to lead NATO,
• • doing the all this with Mussolini and others,
• how the US ruling class platformed Nazis in the US press and silenced critical domestic voices,
• the relationship between the US government and its ruling bourgeois, the familial relations.

The US is to be applauded for is role in defeating the Nazi war machine, including supplying the allies. The US soldiers who fought the Nazis were heroes. But it is problematic to claim the US (i.e. it's ruling class) was on the right side of history through that period.

Likewise, in Ukraine, the US worsened the whole mess, possibly caused it all, by meddling in the region since before the 90's. Since the recent invasion US media and spokespersons have been nonchalantly saying the US has reaped many benefits from the war with very little cost (except for Ukrainians—added in parentheses, as if the Ukrainians are of secondary concern).

I do think the invaders are bad, whichever war were talking about.

I think we agree in principle and I think I know what you mean but I must raise a challenge. There's an example that shows an invasion is not necessarily bad, the one that you pointed out: the Allies invading Nazi Germany.

If invasion is not bad in one example situation, then logically it doesn't hold as a blanket statement. It cannot of itself lead us to conclude that Russia is bad for invading Ukraine. To be clear, I am not saying Russia is good for invading Ukraine; I'm saying it is not self evidently bad by virtue of being the invader.

To further the clear statement, I wish Russia had not invaded. I wish the war would end today. Short of that I wish a ceasefire could be negotiated for today, so that peace and an end to the war can be negotiated for the near future.

No flippant comments about how dangerous war is for the workers who must fight in it. Only firm conviction that the only right choice is to stop the killing and maiming as soon as possible, not to send increasingly dangerous weapons with increasingly higher chances of causing collateral damage.

Unfortunately for Ukraine, the US wanted the opposite at all stages and it's representatives (officials and corporate agents) have machinated to ensure that war broke out and now that it cannot stop.

There is no English on that sign. Did you get a Covid vaccine, by any chance? Maybe your translation chip is starting to work. It's powered by a motor like you get in battery-less wrist watches so you have to jump up and down a lot to get it to turn on.

I would also like to know this. There appears to be an autobiography written in English but not one written in Spanish. At least I couldn't find it. Suspicious.

You brought up the example of the US in relation to WWII. If you make a comparison, you can't get stroppy when people point out that it contradicts your main argument and in fact supports the argument that you're trying to challenge.

However, for as long as you think the US is the Good Guy^TM, you're going to struggle to find examples that support your viewpoint, so you may want to be careful with any comparison. Otherwise, you'll start to notice a pattern of them pointing out that the US was as monstrous as always in the cited example and then you'll say they're doing whataboutism ad infinitum.

I wonder whether the yanks have decided it's too dangerous for them to fuck with China, so they're pivoting towards Europe, where Estonia is another potential sacrificial lamb.

It's remarkably easy to forget that the logic of capital leads people to make some questionable decisions.

Good points.

I believe there is some evidence for that idea.

It's actually easy to forget that in the current climate.

You know things are fucked up when Erdogan is the sensible adult in the room.

The yanks were funding the WWII Nazis before they 'sent supplies to the allies'.

I have some thoughts, some scepticism, some questions. First, some quotes from the article:

Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the strikes.

…the Estonian government has firmly denied the claims.

…the closest distance between the Russian city and Ukraine is about 310 miles. This would have required the drone to fly through the airspace of Belarus. Avoiding Belarusian airspace could extend the journey to 700 miles or 435 miles, depending on the route.

However, Ukrainian drones are reportedly able to fly to distances up to and beyond this.

…reports suggested Ukrainian "Beaver" drones could have been behind attacks on Moscow, which are believed to have a range in excess of 620 miles.

In June, a spokesperson for Ukrainian state arms producer Ukroboronprom also posted on Facebook that it had successfully tested a drone with a range of 1,000 kilometers (620 miles).

Russia blamed Ukraine for other drone attacks overnight, which caused authorities to close the airspace over the Moscow and neighboring Tula oblasts.

I wouldn't be so sure that Estonia launched these attacks. I wouldn't be surprised to find that Ukraine (with US support) 'secretly' launched the drones from Estonia. Although it would apparently be possible to launch those drones from Ukraine.

It's in some Ukrainians' interest to find a way to get NATO more deeply involved before the hints that NATO is losing interest become more explicit, vocal, and practical. But I can't see how it would be in NATO's interest to let Estonia get involved like this because it would drag the whole of NATO into it. If NATO gets directly involved, the whole of NATO is fair game. Are we to believe that:

1. The US thinks Estonia could attack Russia and that Russia would only retaliate against Estonia?
2. If (1) were true and Russia would only retaliate against Estonia that Estonia would be stupid enough to sacrifice itself for the rest of NATO? After watching what Russia has done to Ukraine? I know libs are oblibious, but…

One possibility is that someone in Ukraine 'persuaded' someone in Estonia to make this happen or allow it to happen. Considering how corrupt all capitalists are, this is not unimaginable.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that whoever did this was behind blowing up Nordstream II.

It may seem like a workable solution but don't take the batteries out. It's like taking the batteries out the smoke alarm and carbon monoxide alarm. You get a bit of peace and quiet but the problem gets bigger.

Congratulations on your promotion.