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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   36584 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022

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By the metric of "created enduring friendly sphereling", and by the metric of "didn't crater military morale", at the least. Whether you want bullion more than the first is a matter of taste (getting both trades off against each other to some extent), but I don't think there's anyone who'd claim the Vietnam/Afghanistan occupations went better than Germany/Japan (Iraq didn't fail nearly as hard as Afghanistan and Vietnam - no more strong, hostile Iraq - although I still think you'd have a hard time finding someone who thought it went better than Germany/Japan).

By the metric of "created enduring friendly sphereling"

I ask this in all seriousness, don't think I'm being facetious: what good does that actually do (a) the West/USA as a whole, and (b) me, some pleb in the West, personally.

Because I don't feel like I am deriving much advantage from the "privilege" of these "friendly spherelings" allowing my leaders to spend my tax money on giant boondoggle bases on their land while Germany doesn't pay it's NATO contributions.

I really would rather that Russian citizens were paying their taxes for Russian bases in Germany and Japan, and I am very happy that I don't have to fund Afghani bases any more. Happier than I was when my taxes were paying for Afghan tribal leader's boy sex slaves.

I ask this in all seriousness, don't think I'm being facetious: what good does that actually do (a) the West/USA as a whole, and (b) me, some pleb in the West, personally.

After you've already won the Cold War? I'm not sure, maybe it's no longer useful.

Didn't do me any good during the Cold War either. The reason we work a 40 hour week instead of an 80 hour one is because Soviet tanks scared Western capitalists into making concessions to labor. If those bases hadn't been in Germany the Western capitalists would have been more scared and we'd be working a 20 hour week now instead.

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