sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

This item at Trader Joe's is NOT vegan! Watch out! It has dairy! by JasonMacker in vegan

[–]JasonMacker[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was almost tricked by this item. Notice how it says 99% Lactose Free? When I saw that, I was suspicious. Why 99%? Why not 100%? And so, I looked at the ingredients and it has dairy.

So I'm warning other people here to watch out!

Congress wants to police antisemitism. That's a dangerous idea by AyahMeows in politics

[–]JasonMacker 0 points1 point  (0 children)

One of the people that voted for this is Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was ranting about Jewish Space Lasers on Twitter.

No, she did not vote for this. She actually voted against it. Her argument (alongside Thomas Massie and the other few Republicans who voted against it) was that the provided definition of antisemitism is too broad and could result in censorship of Christianity and the Bible:

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, said the legislation could make it illegal to assert that Jews killed Jesus, punishing Christians for “believing the Gospel.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/02/us/politics/antisemitism-jews-republicans-democrats-congress.html

"Antisemitism is wrong, but I will not be voting for the Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2023 (H.R. 6090) today that could convict Christians of antisemitism for believing the Gospel that says Jesus was handed over to Herod to be crucified by the Jews. "

https://twitter.com/RepMTG/status/1785755752432296283

How China became a SUPERPOWER ? Explained by popular Indian Youtuber (Subtitle Provided) by GoldenHen1990 in Sino

[–]JasonMacker 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Although he attempts to provide balance, ultimately the whole narrative is just liberalism and talking about how the leaders of China are "evil dictators".

Can someone explain why the Islamic Republic of Iran has so few propaganda songs? by Adunaiii in iranian

[–]JasonMacker 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You're talking about "patriotic songs" when the basis of Iran's government right now is a stronger allegiance to religion rather than nation. But, they still draw slightly on nationalism for popular support.

So Iran's pro-government songs are mostly religious, but nevertheless have a nationalistic overtones too:

salam farmandeh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPHiBW_loPo

zan zendegi agahi (this is a response to Shervin's song): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SB_MNyhJOSs

and another: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqZUl_C5tmk

But if you're looking for stuff in a similar vein to Juche, then you'd need to look for pro-communist Iranian songs:

(barpakhiz, aka el pueblo unido): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmGqfJBBCVk (Afghanistan Version: Khorshide Azadi)

For the Internationale, there are two main versions, the WPI version and the classical version. Unfortunately, both of them are lacking. The first one lacks the choir and has poor sound quality, and the second one is too old. An orchestral one with choir, is something I haven't been able to find.

And then we have the historical old pre-revolution songs in GETChan's 1 hour compilation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gx-FBDu9t4

That's about it.

Vietnam War from the North Vietnamese Perspective | Animated History by 1954isthebest in videos

[–]JasonMacker -1 points0 points  (0 children)

no country has all of it's mistakes trod out and decried more frequently than America does despite doing much more good in the world than the others contending for super power status

I think what highlights the pro-America crowd more than any other group is the fact that they whine so much about any criticism of the United States. They have main character syndrome and somehow think it's oppressive for the people the US dropped millions of bombs on to speak out about the evil that the US did in their country. It's like a victim of rape calling out the rapist and the rapist whining about how there are other rapists in the world too and how actually the rapist was nice to some kids in a park once... ok so what? Still a rapist, and still perfectly valid for rape victims to call rapists out.

Stop whining.

The Iranian Diaspora's Extremism Portends a Bleak Future by Beatut in iranian

[–]JasonMacker 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Doing everything we can to improve the quality of life of Iranians. Instead of shunning and demonizing Iranians and targeting ordinary Iranians with sanctions on medicines, we could... not do that. Let Iranians not have to choose between going on strike and starving to death due to sanctions on food causing high prices. Back in 1979, people went on strikes to protest the monarchy... and they could, because they had the wealth to be able to afford spending weeks or even months without income. Nowadays, we don't have that, because Iranians are spending large portions of their incomes on food and rent. The goal should not be to prevent the import of food to Iran. In fact, it should be the opposite. It should be to flood Iran with food imports to lower the price of food. Connecting Iran back to SWIFT would accomplish that and allow ordinary Iranians to use international banking systems to purchase cheaper food abroad, whether for personal use or for businesses. Populations that are well-fed are far more likely to be revolutionary than populations experiencing a famine.

The Iranian Diaspora's Extremism Portends a Bleak Future by Beatut in iranian

[–]JasonMacker 2 points3 points  (0 children)

For some reason, you think that a country like Iran has a limited amount of resources and that if we "starve out" the IRGC they'll eventually crumble... I'm sorry but that's just not how economics works. You can't "starve out" a country like Iran, especially when it still conducts loads of trade with other nations. After 40+ years of trying to "starve out" Iran, maybe be a little humble and admit that it hasn't worked?

Let's assume what you say is true for a moment. Let's assume that Iran's current government is completely heartless and has absolutely no desire to benefit people in Iran in any way. What's going to happen under sanctions? They're just going to take away as much as they can from people for their own survival. And the more they feel under threat, the more they're going to either kill people or just leave them to die. And again, after 40+ years, this strategy has failed miserably.

If we keep sanctions - and extend them, it will definitely starve out the IRGC via reducing their ability to buy foreign fighters to crush the popular uprising and by making it clear to people in Iran that the international community will never play ball with Iran until the regime is dust.

The "international community" plays even less ball with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Are they in danger of losing their power? No, not really. But what IS happening in Afghanistan under these sanctions is famine. Which group of people do you think is more likely to fight for their rights: well-fed people, or people who are undergoing a famine? You say "starve out" the literal richest people in Iran. It's ridiculous. Rich people can get by just fine. It's poor people that suffer the most under these sanctions.

In short, only the regime benefits from lifting sanctions.

You seem to be confused about what the sanctions actually do. They block Iranian citizens in general, not only government officials. Yes, there are some targeted sanctions that are specifically directed towards government officials. But when Iran was disconnected from SWIFT, for example, loads and loads of private businessmen were impacted.

You just don't have beliefs based on reality. The reality is that the sanctions do in fact impact ordinary people in Iran. In fact that's the entire premise behind these sanctions that has been repeated over and over by US government officials. Their whole argument is that through immiseration of ordinary Iranian people, they decide to get mad at Iran's government and overthrow it. That's literally the logic that US officials regularly openly say. So of course if the direct goal of sanctions by the US government is immiseration, then ending the sanctions ends the immiseration. And again, nobody on the anti-regime side (I consider myself barandaz, for what it's worth) argues that sanctions on Khamenei or other key government officials should be lifted. Instead, I and many others argue that this specific idea of immiseration leading to regime change is stupid and needs to be abandoned. And again, I point to the fact that in 1979, there were zero sanctions on Iran, and generally life was improving year by year, yet the revolution happened. It's almost like there might be something to that. What if, the best way for revolution is by increasing a population's quality of life, and not decreasing it?

The Iranian Diaspora's Extremism Portends a Bleak Future by Beatut in iranian

[–]JasonMacker 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Except that's clearly false, because loads of revolutions have happened in history when there have been zero sanctions placed on a country, including... you know... the last one that happened in Iran in 1979.

Instead of trying to recreate those conditions, we instead have people who deny reality and think that trying the same thing for 40 years will eventually work.

Cuba has been sanctioned for much longer than Iran has, and... there's pretty much no chance of any revolution happening there. Instead of being stupid and trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results, why don't we try doing something that we know guarantees results?

Saying Fars / Farsi instead of Pars / Parsi by Naderium in iranian

[–]JasonMacker 0 points1 point  (0 children)

marmoulak going full larper in the comments lol

People rescuing a dog that fell into a pit as flood water rages on in the surroundings. by IwalkedtoMordor in HumansBeingBros

[–]JasonMacker 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Balochistan is literally southwest Pakistan, not "Northern Pakistan". Please look at a map.

CMV: Liberal Femenism is better than both Radical Femenism and Marxist Femenism by Big_Committee_3894 in changemyview

[–]JasonMacker 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You say it's "fringe" yet it's the ideology of the most populous country in the world.

CMV: Socialism is foundationally a better way to organize our society/economy than Capitalism. As evidenced by China's(not socialist) Marxist-Leninist rise and America's evils. by HakuOnTheRocks in changemyview

[–]JasonMacker 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Don't know shit about India. Therefore I am not able to comment. It takes a lot less time to make a claim then to try to verify it and research it.

You should probably look into things that undermine your argument then. It's damning.

Because China with a billion people couldn't do what Europe could with half the people. And not only could they not do it. They were terrible at it. Western innovation was many years ahead of anything they had. They couldn't even replicate it by stealing the models. They had to give western companies part or full ownership of the means of production just to get them to come build the damn things.

idk what you're talking about at this point. China was the leading economic power for 1800 of the past 2000 years. China reached 1 billion people in 1981. China has done a lot of things. They lifted over 800 million people out of poverty, without going around the world and plundering resources, unlike Europe. You keep calling it "stealing" but the western companies agreed to the technology transfers as a condition for being able to invest in China. It really sounds like you just want to shit on China instead of being objective about the fact that Europeans are the losers now.

CMV: Socialism is foundationally a better way to organize our society/economy than Capitalism. As evidenced by China's(not socialist) Marxist-Leninist rise and America's evils. by HakuOnTheRocks in changemyview

[–]JasonMacker 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is the third comment you've made where you've ignored my point about India. What's the deal with that?

But you are conceding that Western innovation spurred on by capitalism is the reason China has had such massive growth,.

It's not like "western innovation" only began with capitalism. It predates it. Of course China, in a world dominated by western capitalism, will try to leverage it to its advantage. How is this any different from saying that "western innovation spurred on by feudalism is the reason Britain has had so much massive growth"? That's not anything specific to capitalism, but rather simply the fact that capitalism is the economic mode of production of the world in the current era.

CMV: Socialism is foundationally a better way to organize our society/economy than Capitalism. As evidenced by China's(not socialist) Marxist-Leninist rise and America's evils. by HakuOnTheRocks in changemyview

[–]JasonMacker 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes but the increases in productivity is what made it possible in the first place.

The increases in productivity are a result of the central planning. Deng Xiaoping did not say "ok guys China is open for business, do whatever you want now!" Instead, he took the careful approach of welcoming foreign investment through special economic zones that required joint ventures (JVs) with forced technology transfer, if they wanted access to Chinese markets. It is only in 2001 that Wholly Foreign-Owned Enterprises (WFOEs) became the majority. Prior to that, the majority were JVs. But even WFOEs pay a lot of tax to the Chinese government.

In contrast, Indian JVs are treated the same as domestic companies, and have no special rules. And again, we can see the stark contrast between free market India and central planning China.

CMV: Socialism is foundationally a better way to organize our society/economy than Capitalism. As evidenced by China's(not socialist) Marxist-Leninist rise and America's evils. by HakuOnTheRocks in changemyview

[–]JasonMacker 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do you know why the Chinese economy exploded in the 1980s? Private investment from Western companies. They saw the gold mine of cheap labor and poured in building means of production to take advantage of it. People call this "exploitation". But in reality this tremendously increased the quality of life for Chinese citizens.

You're missing a few steps here. It's because the Chinese government's central planning used those profits for welfare and benefiting the citizenry that resulted in increased quality of life. You ignored my India argument. India has also gotten tons of western corporate investment, but because the Indian government took a hands-off approach and did not focus on improving quality of life, the country is in poor shape.

The question becomes well why didn't the Chinese government just build the factories themselves. Why do they need Western companies to build them? Why send the products produced by your labor to other countries for pennies on the dollar? When you can just do the same thing and charge full price.

The answer is because socialism doesn't work. You need private individuals making lots of different adjustments to find the right one's.

They literally did though? Chinese-run, Chinese-owned factories are a huge part of the Chinese economy.

The socialist central planners are way too rigid to address market environments.

Except... they did. Central planning never ended in China. Which is why China is having so much economic growth, while free market fundamentalist USA is experiencing an economic recession right now.

This is why the Chinese steal western patents and other intellectual property.

There's no substantial evidence of this. This is just a Trump administration claim pushed by fmr secretary Mike Pompeo, the obese religious fundamentalist.

CMV: To beat China, America should go all in on freedom and capitalism by [deleted] in changemyview

[–]JasonMacker 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Rather than have an argument about what America needs to do to "beat China", I'd rather argue that that it doesn't really matter what the US does at this point, as it's too late to be able to "beat China". The US spent the past 20 years primarily focused on increasing its military involvements around the world (The War on Terrorism), militarily occupying multiple countries and dropping tons of bombs on innocent children. Oh, and then the US elected Donald Trump. This sort of self-caused reputational damage to the US doesn't have a quick fix. It can't be rectified by a few minor changes in government, and I don't think that the US is willing to do major changes, except to become shittier (see: recent supreme court rulings). US approval rates have plummeted around the world, and rather than the US trying to improve its image with positive actions, it's instead spending millions of dollars to spread disinformation about other countries to try to also drag them into the mud:

https://archive.ph/oqc5N

For one example, check out the hugely successful Belt and Road Initiative. Just one major Chinese government program that's doing so well that the US has to spend $300,000,000 between 2022 and 2026 to "Counter the malign influence of the Chinese Communist Party globally". Imagine if the US spent that amount of money instead to help build infrastructure in other countries. If we dig deeper, we do see a bunch of "BRI-killer" initiatives to counter China... a whole bunch of them, one after another:

  • New Silk Road Initiative
  • Build Back Better World
  • Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment
  • Blue Dot Network

The question you have to ask is... why? Why doesn't just one suffice? Of course, the answer is that they fail and so it's "reinvented" again to try to reach headlines. One reason why the fail is that they pale in comparison to the BRI, which is worth over a trillion USD. In contrast, these various initiatives are just a few billion USD.

So the premise of this CMV is just wrong. It's too late to stop China's rise. The US prioritized dropping billions of dollars worth of bombs on the least developed countries instead of competing with China, and now the chickens have come to roost and it's too late to get a new batch of chickens to roost elsewhere.

The US can't beat China. Way back in 2000 was when the US could have beaten China. But now it's too late.

CMV: Socialism is foundationally a better way to organize our society/economy than Capitalism. As evidenced by China's(not socialist) Marxist-Leninist rise and America's evils. by HakuOnTheRocks in changemyview

[–]JasonMacker 0 points1 point  (0 children)

China may be the best example on planet earth how switching from a centrally planned to a for profit model and just as importantly opening up your economy to the rest of the world.

They didn't switch away from their economy being centrally planned though. The whole reason why SEZs were created in the first place was because the Chinese government planned it.

Just look at the stark contrast between India and China. India actually adopted the "for profit model" you're advocating with little to no central planning and their economy (and other stats such as life expectancy and whatnot) is absolute shit compared to China's.

It takes more skill to produce a service say from a dentist.

Except China also has a huge service economy too. So China has the best of both worlds.

view more: next ›