ZanarkandAbesFan
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User ID: 2935
ZanarkandAbesFan
1d ago
National pride doesn't provide working electricity or keep you warm in the winter. The current protests in Iran seem to mostly be caused by the dire economic situation, which has only come about due to sanctions.
I also think a mistake you might be making is assuming that the primary aim of sanctions is to spread democracy in the first place, rather than as a means of weakening an enemy state so it's less able to harm you. A state that's poorer is one that's less able to buy weapons, pay soldiers, fund an air force etc.
I'm not an expert on Iran or military matters but from what I see on Twitter it doesn't look like the US is carrying out the expected movements of troops/hardware you'd expect to see before a military intervention. My weak prediction is that Trump does nothing, the protests are harshly suppressed and Trump claims "credit" along the lines of "If it weren't for my warnings there would have been a lot more bloodshed, let me tell you".
That being said, I'm not sure how long the Iranian regime can carry on in its current form. The grand masterplan of:
1/Economically immiserate yourself for 40+ years for the sake of picking a fight with Israel and the USA
2/Get militarily humiliated during the first direct conflict with these two nations
3/Seethe
4/Profit
Seems to have hit a very visible snag around the last step and I don't know how long the regime is even going to be able to recruit enough people to fill its security apparatus to the extent necessary to continue keeping a lid on public frustration while it's abundantly obvious that essentially none of their citizens benefit from the country being run like this.
ZanarkandAbesFan
1d ago
If you want America to commit to yet another military intervention in the middle east, I think you should provide something pretty close to a guarantee.
Why? Surely it can be justified on the grounds that almost any replacement is going to be better for the US + allies than the current one.
ZanarkandAbesFan
2d ago
If you're white, and if black and brown people give you warm and fuzzy feelings—those feelings are not only unreciprocated—but reciprocated in the inverse direction.
Interesting that Hispanics and Asians also rate every other group above whites (although "Asian" as a category is so broad as to be almost useless)
Your point of view is consistently that of a wealthy, entitled person who sees the police as her personal gendarmarie whose job it is to keep the riff-raff from inconveniencing her life in any way. From that point of view, yes, anarchy is a much greater threat than tyranny, because tyranny will mostly leave you alone, while anarchy threatens you. Not to get all "woke" (har) but this is exactly why "privilege" dialog took root. There was originally a legitimate point to it. You consider the lower classes to be undesirables to be kept away from you, and the only thing you fear is revolting peasants. So nearly any level of state crackdown is acceptable to you because only at North Korean levels would it actually threaten your lifestyle. Whereas those beneath you understand what tyranny will do to them.
I don't agree with the general argument you're making. In first-world countries, wealthy people generally have less to fear from increasing steps towards disorder than poorer people, as they can afford things like private security and to live in areas with non-violent and conscientious neighbors. It's poorer people who live next to violent crackheads who have more to lose when the local mayor decides to enct policies that make it impossible to lock up the person who just break into your house because of racism or whatever. This is also reflected in revealed preferences: it's almost always richer people who vote for soft-on-crime, restorative-justice (read: anarchic) policies and candidates while poorer, less educated voters choose candidates with a much more hardline attitude towards criminals.
ZanarkandAbesFan
2d ago
(2) There exists a Mossad operation to make Pahlavi the Shah (paywalled, Haaretz seems to be a mainstream Israeli newspaper.)
I'm not Israeli, so I don't have much sense of the media landscape over there, but from what I've seen Israelis on Twitter say Haaretz is basically their version of the UK Guardian: a firm disciple of the international progressive cause which means they can only ever be overtly hostile when writing about themselves or the west more broadly. Notably, their journalists sometimes seem to get caught being paid by Qatar.
This isn't to say I don't think the Mossad are active in supporting less hostile parts of Iranian society (they'd be fools not to be). But I suspect the pro-Shah sentiment of the recent protests exists for many more reasons than Israeli involvement.
The Guardian recently decided to publish an opinion piece written by the Iranian foreign minister. I don't think the Guardian editorial staff are dumb enough to plaster their website with "WE LOVE HAMAS" or "DEATH TO THE WEST" but it's pretty clear where their sympathies lie when it comes to the Israel+US vs Iran+proxies conflict.
ZanarkandAbesFan
7d ago
I've recently started Robin Hobb's Assassins' Apprentice. I read and enjoyed The Liveship Traders ages ago so thought I'd give her earlier series a try.
ZanarkandAbesFan
7d ago
But how can Greenland make noises about independence with a straight face when its economy would collapse without the huge subsidies that Denmark sends to it?
The same reason many people in Scotland and some in Wales want independence. The emotional allure of self-determination overrides economic concerns.
ZanarkandAbesFan
10d ago
Time is a pretty good proxy for competence. Time is also money. Maduro was a thorn in the US' side, and for a minimal investment of time and money the US is at the very least going to get someone marginally preferable to Maduro running Venezuela. That's a good deal.
ZanarkandAbesFan
10d ago
What foreign policy losses has Trump incurred?
Not OP but has someone who had the same questions I appreciate the explanation. I've seen some people say that Maduro has links to Hezbollah's drug-smuggling enterprise - do you know if this is also true?
ZanarkandAbesFan
10d ago
Then perhaps they should have cast one that was "still pretty far" rather than heading straight into the uncanny valley?
I think they did. I didn't for a second look at Holly Wheeler and think "that's an adult woman".
ZanarkandAbesFan
11d ago
A more principled approach would have been for the Brits to indicate a willingness to prosecute her for any and all crimes she may have committed for Daesh, while also allocating funds totaling zero pounds towards facilitating her safe return to the UK.
The practical issue is that realistically it would be a whole new headache trying to prosecute her if she ever got back to the UK, given how many human rights lawyers I'm sure are itching to make the case she was only a child, was groomed etc.
ZanarkandAbesFan
11d ago
I recognise the double standard, but I suspect many of the female so-called collaborators were really just girls who the occupying soldiers took a liking to and who were forced into sexual relationships. It seems quite cruel to call them collaborators for that, and it's probably not a problem most of the men faced.
Lots of people say season 1, and I get it, but I liked season 2
What makes S2 really unforgivable in my eyes is how they emasculate/relegate the Demogorgon. Like, I can overlook whatever that weird Chicago Antifa episode was supposed to be, but taking the most engaging part of the first season and replacing it with...dogs? That can be dispatched with bullets like any other animal and that show loyalty to certain humans? The fuck?
ZanarkandAbesFan
11d ago
It's a grown woman wearing child-face.
I think this is a bit hyperbolic (perhaps deliberately so). Plenty of 14 year old girls are still pretty far from physical adulthood.
ZanarkandAbesFan
11d ago
On top of that, the squad of Demogorgons which had, a few episodes ago, demolished a small military base, were nowhere to be found.
The show's handling of the Demogorgon post-S1 has been so dumb that this would probably be the least of my criticisms. Remember when Hopper literally beheads one with a sword?
ZanarkandAbesFan
11d ago
Will being gay is because the actor is gay and wanted Will to be gay.
I don't believe this at all. Him being gay has been hinted at since the start of the show. In the very first episode Joyce mentions that her ex-husband used to call Will queer.
ZanarkandAbesFan
12d ago
Stranger Things has been circling the drain for many seasons
I really think that only the first season was good. The second one had its moments, and everything after that was trash.
The name "Kneecap" specifically refers to the IRA torturing suspected informants. I think this scans rather differently to torture committed by agents of the state, which is the first thing people think of when they hear "waterboarding". A lot of Irish people still carry a residual fondness for the IRA (hell, one of our most popular political parties is literally the parliamentary wing of the IRA).
Sure, but is this disagreeing with my point? The fact that there's plenty of support for the IRA and Sinn Féin suggests a lot of the Irish openly favour extreme violence against their perceived enemies in a way that I don't see as usual in other first world nations. My question is whether the fact that the typical Irish person's attitude towards Israel seems indistinguishable from that of Hamas/Hezbollah is a consequence of this type of attitude being redirected towards an easy new target more than a consequence of anti-semitism per se.
ZanarkandAbesFan
25d ago
Something I've wanted to ask you for a while is how much of the Irish obsession with Israel you think can be explained by Jew hatred (probably at least some) vs widespread Irish enthusiasm for horrific gratuitous violence as some sort of spectator sport. The fact that a band like Kneecap can name themselves after a torture procedure and have backing from the country's elites is pretty remarkable to me as someone not from the country - I can't imagine even the most gung-ho Americans would want to be publicly associated with a band called something like "Waterboarding".
ZanarkandAbesFan
27d ago
I will admit that it’s difficult to directly link all the events over last year or two, but some of it sure seems memetic. Attempted assassination of a presidential candidate, his lackey, a healthcare ceo, to name a few. What’s it gonna take for people to notice?
If you're a committed progressive, i.e. most journalists, what's the incentive to notice?
but I don't want to be ruled over and shut out of good positions by a cabal of people who don't like me much, especially when nobody else gets to play the same game.
I mean, some UK MPs have Jewish backgrounds but I don't see them advocating for particularly ethnocentric positions. The highest profile Jewish MP, Zack Polanski, is an example of the opposite.
Regarding getting shut out of good positions, if that's been your professional experience then I can't say otherwise, but I've literally never heard of this happening in the UK (not to say it's never happened, but I would think it's exceptionally rare). There simply aren't enough Jews for them to be regularly hiring each other over everyone else.
I don't doubt that incompetence has a large role to play, but I think sanctions have to be somewhat responsible. I don't think you can claim for instance that their economy would be just as bad if they were as free to take part in global trade as Germany.
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