remzem
2d ago
Even the white and right leaning younger people in the west aren't as fond of Israel since they are either more isolationist or further right are more ethnonationalist and so oppose helping non-whites.
remzem
8d ago
Yes everyone knows, they all know parts of Palestine, Lebanon and Syria were always part of Israel as well, but everyone knows Crimea was never part of Russia, just as Taiwan was never part of China. We've always been at war with Eurasia.
remzem
10d ago
Ah so if you don't overtly annex the territory but control it in everything but name imperialism is okay? So also China invading Taiwan would be entirely ok since most countries recognize the one China policy and Taiwan as part of China?
remzem
20d ago
Ideastan isn't really a group, it's not an identifier, at least not in any meaningful sense. Picking Ideastani feels almost like a tautology? It's like those people that point out we are all human, or things like, "look what humanity is capable of accomplishing!" as some sort of attempt to recruit. It makes no sense to recruit me for being human as I am human so I have no choice in the matter. It's definitionally the least you can have in common with another human, it's not a useful identifier, it's just like some universal set of anyone that exists.
Preference requires things to have distinguishing characteristics, since in the Ideastan universe being Ideastani is universal and their dominance eternal it lacks any of these so it's only possible in the Bloodtopia universe for preference to meaningfully exist.
If both "countries" exist at the same time (seems contradictory or not possible based on their descriptions but w/e) then it would be better to be Bloodtopian, you get the advantages of "being" Ideastani innately since there are no requirements to be part of that group, while at the same time getting w/e the Bloodtopian benefits are on top of that.
remzem
22d ago
It's like Vivek read this and said, "hold my beer"
https://x.com/VivekGRamaswamy/status/1872312139945234507
The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over “native” Americans isn’t because of an innate American IQ deficit (a lazy & wrong explanation). A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture. Tough questions demand tough answers & if we’re really serious about fixing the problem, we have to confront the TRUTH:
Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG.
A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.
A culture that venerates Cory from “Boy Meets World,” or Zach & Slater over Screech in “Saved by the Bell,” or ‘Stefan’ over Steve Urkel in “Family Matters,” will not produce the best engineers.
(Fact: I know multiple sets of immigrant parents in the 90s who actively limited how much their kids could watch those TV shows precisely because they promoted mediocrity…and their kids went on to become wildly successful STEM graduates).
More movies like Whiplash, fewer reruns of “Friends.” More math tutoring, fewer sleepovers. More weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons. More books, less TV. More creating, less “chillin.” More extracurriculars, less “hanging out at the mall.”
Most normal American parents look skeptically at “those kinds of parents.” More normal American kids view such “those kinds of kids” with scorn. If you grow up aspiring to normalcy, normalcy is what you will achieve.
Now close your eyes & visualize which families you knew in the 90s (or even now) who raise their kids according to one model versus the other. Be brutally honest.
“Normalcy” doesn’t cut it in a hyper-competitive global market for technical talent. And if we pretend like it does, we’ll have our asses handed to us by China.
This can be our Sputnik moment. We’ve awaken from slumber before & we can do it again. Trump’s election hopefully marks the beginning of a new golden era in America, but only if our culture fully wakes up. A culture that once again prioritizes achievement over normalcy; excellence over mediocrity; nerdiness over conformity; hard work over laziness.
That’s the work we have cut out for us, rather than wallowing in victimhood & just wishing (or legislating) alternative hiring practices into existence. I’m confident we can do it. 🇺🇸 🇺🇸
Seems like he's torched his political career, or at least presidential ambitions, in one post.
remzem
1mo ago
On one hand, allowing countries to subvert foreign elections seems obviously bad
From the POV of western empire it's hard to argue this though. With examples like Georgia where earlier this year they voted to limit and track foreign NGO funding and this was met by western backed protests. Now that a non western government got elected the west is full tilt on propaganda and encouragement for violent protests and overthrowing the elected government.
Had something similar in Hungary as well where they tried to limit foreign NGO funding and this was met by mass tantrums from the EU who said it was contrary to European values. So apparently European values are that they get to influence others thinking and no one else does.
remzem
1mo ago
Health care is a bit more important than shoveling shit or working with the dead as well. People might be disgusted by that kind of work but it's unlikely it'd spiral into real hatred. With something as important as healthcare this caste could end up straight genocided, as people directly blame them for their ailments, and if the genocide failed they could end up a protected class with extra powers that controls a necessary and lucrative industry which would give them a lot of power over society.
remzem
1mo ago
I suppose, but when we decide to find out how far a drop is before it's lethal, which is of course useful information. I propose that we throw you and the other neocons off for the test. Not random Americans or Ukrainians.
remzem
1mo ago
Treaties are pieces of paper, ask the native american's how much the US cares about treaties. Trying to hold the US population hostage to a group of war mongering imperialists because some out of them have made agreements with other countries has nothing to do with morality. It's part of this whole conveniently framing things in bizarre ways in a weak attempt to justify your position thing you have going here that isn't convincing anyone.
remzem
1mo ago
This is the same bot talking point NAFO bots spam all over twitter...
It's less an endorsement of the war and more an indictment of our government spending. DOGE save us.
remzem
1mo ago
If by the US you mean the oligarchs and the MIC then yes. Though it seems short term focused given the damage they've done to global finance. For us ordinary serfs living here not much of a win.
remzem
1mo ago
I think the obvious escalation here is that the houthi's suddenly sink a western military vessel in the red sea with far more advanced and accurate missiles. It's more symmetrical, you strike us via a proxy, we strike you via a proxy. It also has the added benefit for Russia of shifting US and the public's focus more to the middle east which a lot of the zionists in the incoming administration already seem to be focused on.
Oh and there will be some big conventional missile launch pummeling the last remaining bits of Ukraine's industry and electrical grid of course.
remzem
1mo ago
I think it depends on what form of deescalation you're talking about. If we just pull all funding and equipment then things will deescalate as Ukraine will fall over in a few months. This is easy regardless, and maybe slightly easier if Biden fucks things up enough that Russia refuses to negotiate since Trump can just say he tried but Biden mishandled things too much so his only option is to just pull out.
The other form would be some sort of negotiated settlement, how this plays out is less within the US's control. Russia is having a lot of success now with Ukraine facing serious infantry shortages. There are no weapons systems or equipment we can send that would make up for the lack of bodies Ukraine has to actually man it. Russia might just prefer to continue the grind for another year or so, capture the rest of the territories they annexed, see if they can push Ukraine to a complete collapse. Further escalation makes it harder to bring them to the negotiating table.
remzem
1mo ago
Don't even have to go that far back in history to find an example. Russia said in 2008 that Ukraine joining NATO was a red line. They invaded in 2022 after the west started pumping the country full of weapons and refused to back off its NATO talks. Now half a million Ukrainians are dead and 6 million fled, it's industry and economy are in ruins and it's demographics with those 6 million being mostly women means it's pretty much done as an independent state even if the war ends tomorrow.
Russia clearly has red lines. I don't know why the imperialist faction of western political groups is so intent on finding out where its nuclear one is.
remzem
2mo ago
This isn't even really an example of the markets rewarding companies. Their stocks went way up because the government gave them blanket immunity from liability to bring to market a technology that would normally take years of RnD and also preordered massive batches. This ended up being a failure of central planning because millions of doses went to waste after they failed to convince the court systems they could strong arm people into getting vaccinated and demand for the vaccines was lower than anticipated.
remzem
2mo ago
I don't see how Syria made the US look weak and vulnerable. It just made it apparent that leadership was out of touch since he had no popular support for involvement in Syria and had to backtrack.
If anything Iraq and Afghanistan have done the most to make the US look vulnerable. They showed that a strong enough opposition can actually defeat the US military and this was a case of the US overextending. Too much chest beating.
Russia is harder to say since the information environment has gone fully 1984 and there is almost no factual information circulating in western media at this point about the conflict. Equal odds we are deluding ourselves about Putin's red lines.
remzem
2mo ago
He also got outmaneuvered on Ukraine and with all the MIC Russian collusion agitprop had limited options when it came to Ukraine without giving their propaganda more credence and further tanking his reelection prospects. The Soleimani thing was pointless though and did nothing to better America's position in the ME and that's entirely on him. He's also definitely in Israel's pocket, but so is most of the US government, there's a reason we'll never get the full info on Epstein. Only politicians I can think of not owned by them without doing research would be the ones owned by Islamic interests and Thomas Massie.
remzem
2mo ago
Nah it's 2024, you don't need to beat your chest and throw your spear threateningly in the direction of the rival tribe's line of warriors. We have enough nukes to destroy the world multiple times over. Speak softly and carry a big stick and what not. Trump's bravado stems more from insecurity and narcissism, which makes him easy to manipulate by the deep state.
remzem
2mo ago
Most of his confirmed appointments seem to be Rubio tier or worse. Complained about the Cheney's during his campaign and literally appointed a Cheney loyalist and ex-advisor as his national security advisor. Trump's criteria for a cabinet member is how loudly nice they are too him, not their political policy.
Really the big question surrounding Trump's second term was, "Has he learned from his first term?" and the answer is clearly no. X seems to be in near open revolt after all the appointments and Thune getting voted Majority lead. He's gonna lose all the libertarian support, all the weird center-left? populist RFK support and so on. It'll be funny if he loses the house because he appoints to many people from it and republicans all lose the follow up special elections.
remzem
2mo ago
Yeah they've been cooking this one for a while, started around the first assassination attempt. They were already seeding Trump with "intelligence" about Iranian assassination plots, after the first one (which was entirely homegrown) they fed this intel to the media to attempt to co-opt the backlash into fueling the deep state's global imperial ambitions. https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/16/politics/iran-plot-assassinate-trump-secret-service/index.html
Now we have this convenient arrest. Pompeo and his lackey Hook starting to worm their way back into Trump's inner circle. etc.
Probably a good chance this is the deepstate's new strat, similar to how they used the Russian pee tapes to corner Trump on backing out on their expansionist efforts in east europe.
Some other smaller deep state moves as well, like McConnell coming out and saying the filibuster will remain which was framed as being nice and magnanimous but will conveniently limit republican power. Then you have the proposed new senate majority leads with Thune and Cornyn both leading and being RINO deepstate ghouls. Senate of course has to confirm cabinet picks and so will have some influence there.
remzem
2mo ago
For longer really, ever since people over corrected their priors on Ukraine's chances vs Russia after Russia failed to take Kiev in 2022.
It just solidified things more, there's uncertainty in anything even if all the facts point in one direction you can't account for every variable. If time passes and you continue to get the results you're expecting it becomes more likely you're correct. That's all.
Trump did so but only after a mass pressure campaign coordinated by the three letter agencies that painted him as a compromised Russian asset. Which conveniently for the MIC put Trump in a tough spot when it came to doing anything that could be construed as pro-Russia. This time after the whole Russiagate investigation fell flat it will be harder for them to pull off the same maneuver.
Johnson is a snake for sure though and it's a point against Trump's judgement that he was up there celebrating with him at the rally last night. Really a lot of Trump's next term is going to depend on whether he has finally managed to be able to tell friend from foe and won't just fire anyone that doesn't tell him what he wants while hiring every brown noser. Hopefully some of the better allies Trump has picked up can steer him away from the mistakes he made last time.
remzem
2mo ago
Earlier this year I would've said it'll make a forced Truce more likely, but at this point I don't think the outcome of the election matters that much. The ball is no longer in the West's court after how disastrous this summer was for Ukraine. Ukraine's lack of manpower and conscription failures mean it's basically out of steam regardless of what the west does. There weren't many weapons systems left to deliver that weren't risking overly escalating things anyways. Unless maybe an EU country decides to throw their population into the FAB grinder which seems unlikely Ukraine is SOL.
It'll come down more to how much more Putin is willing to spend and what his goals are. I'm guessing at least the rest of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporozhia and Kherson oblasts. If things really start to degrade even faster for Ukraine maybe Kharkiv and Odessa I'd put at the more maximalist goals, unless he thinks he can just regime change Kiev at some point.
The whole point of Russia invading was to prevent Ukraine from becoming armed to the point that it was a threat to Russia, and it seemed like they waited too long on that. There is no way Russia will sit back and let the US train up and further arm what is left of Ukraine simply due to a temporary cease fire. They aren't that dumb.
Seems like they are more focused on carving off pieces of Lebanon and Syria now anyways so I don't see why they wouldn't take the deal to keep in Trump's good graces.
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