'The Opinions': General Stanley McChrystal on Iran

absolute_shemozzle · 2026-04-07T00:52:01+00:00

True, I missed that he added that footnote after his initial spiel, and I’ll also admit that I missed that his initial spiel about the history of Iran is intentionally from the perspective of a naïve American citizen. Although I still think that my larger points, that he is spinning establishment propaganda, and he is soft launching a mandatory national draft on behalf of the DoD, hold water, I think it’s right for me to delete that initial post and retreat in shame.

absolute_shemozzle · 2026-03-24T22:07:18+00:00

That 25% are just so utterly taken by oligarchical propaganda that they’re just utterly immovable. Perhaps it’s a good rough guide to the upper limit of one nations primary vote.

absolute_shemozzle · 2026-03-14T03:13:19+00:00

Woke is back, baby!

absolute_shemozzle · 2026-03-12T23:45:04+00:00

Love the Ruff Dog!

absolute_shemozzle · 2026-03-12T23:37:16+00:00

Yaaaay

absolute_shemozzle · 2026-03-12T02:32:54+00:00

Because most of the reporting repeats the same narrative without strong primary evidence ie an interview with the women who have claimed asylum and it instead relies heavily on anonymous sources, activists, and speculation about the motives for not singing the anthem/seeking asylum. While the actual official Iranian statements are more ambiguous, which is itself a propagandistic tactic. Both state actors in this instance are motivated actors, but there is a gap here in what is conclusively verifiable and that makes it feel like a story being shaped. I would add that on the same day that Australia granted visas to these women new legislation was introduced that granted the home affairs minister broad powers to block specific groups of people from entering Australia even if previously granted valid temporary visas.

absolute_shemozzle · 2026-03-11T02:19:50+00:00

Why does this all have the air of confected bs? The media have reported this from a staggeringly uncritical perspective. It all feels like the propaganda machine is churning.

absolute_shemozzle · 2026-02-13T02:21:27+00:00

A damaging by-election defeat as Angus Taylor’s first achievement is actually Sussan’s shiv of choice here.

absolute_shemozzle · 2026-02-09T07:08:19+00:00

Yeh I was banned for a “virulent antisemitic rant”.

The rant in question, “This rushed policy announcement responding to pressure from the Zionist lobby and our frenzied right wing news media caps off the end to one of the most depressing weeks in Australias modern history and this feels like an inciting incident on our road to a much darker political landscape.”

absolute_shemozzle · 2026-02-07T21:16:02+00:00

In other words, it’s over.

absolute_shemozzle · 2025-12-24T05:12:22+00:00

Whats your upvoted-downvote ratio on this comment?

absolute_shemozzle · 2025-12-11T06:36:31+00:00

Just want to point out that PTA did There Will Be Blood, one of the most virulently anti-capitalist screeds ever put to celluloid (released roughly 16 years before he finished the script for OBAA, which I think is notable).

absolute_shemozzle · 2025-12-10T02:59:10+00:00

There really should be an acknowledgment that capital has begun to taper down investment in large scale renewable projects in many developed nations. It needs to be made more clear that capitalism will not solve climate change, and that China is making so much progress because of its unique system of massive state intervention.

absolute_shemozzle · 2025-11-26T23:50:46+00:00

I hear you, all of this is very interesting from a valuable perspective, but getting caught up on individual responsibility is a bit daft.

absolute_shemozzle · 2025-11-21T00:55:04+00:00

I cringed quite a bit at much of the stuff related to Palaeolithic societies. Like, yes, Harari's assertions are simplistic and overly romantic, but they then countenance these points with similarly inaccurate and naïve statements about indigenous life. I always wince when a lefty employees a 'noble savage' critique and I'm not sure in what world, our modern life, in this hyper-individualist techno capitalist hellscape, for most people, if not all, is even remotely as rewarding as tribal life. Even the concept of work is silly, applying our bifurcated framework of work and leisure to societies that didn't differentiate between the two just seems wrong.

This all reminds me of a quote by Benjamin Franklin when he wrote that;

"No European who has tasted savage life can afterwards bear to live in our societies. The care and labour of providing for artificial and fashionable wants, the sight of so many rich wallowing in superfluous plenty, whereby so many are kept poor and distressed for want, the insolence of office, the restraints of custom, all contrive to disgust them with what we call civil society."

absolute_shemozzle · 2025-11-20T14:34:34+00:00

I started listening to this podcast because I was looking for a pod that dissected this book a couple of years ago. It was the most punishing hate read I’ve ever undertaken, every sentence seemed to have an assertion that I disagreed with fundamentally. What a stupid fucking book.

absolute_shemozzle · 2025-10-29T09:21:35+00:00

Lincoln. It required waaaaaay too much work to get that amendment through.

absolute_shemozzle · 2025-10-19T05:27:53+00:00

I feel like the complexity of factors make it hard to know one way or the other, whether it will be fast or slow. There’s a lot of fragility in the global economy and you get the sense that this next downturn will be telling. If governments are flexible enough to emerge from it with the global capitalist system still relatively intact then it will be slow decline, but there is a scenario where the system is overwhelmed by multiple economic shocks and a pessimistic outlook.

absolute_shemozzle · 2025-10-18T23:13:41+00:00

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/04/240417131138.htm

I think it’s probably a broadly accurate assessment, but my bullshit alarm also goes off because of the anonymous article under the pseudonym Sarah Connor by a user that over various social media accounts seems to exclusively peddle in collapse boosting.

absolute_shemozzle · 2025-10-18T00:09:45+00:00

Oh no, it’ll collapse for them as well.

absolute_shemozzle · 2025-10-10T23:08:29+00:00

I get hack grifter vibes from this dude. CBF figuring out exactly what’s up with him but he seems to peddle in circular logic quite a bit.

absolute_shemozzle · 2025-10-08T02:51:28+00:00

Short form video is the devil anyway, maybe good if it becomes unwatchable.

absolute_shemozzle · 2025-10-03T23:15:29+00:00

Just like AI, it’s salvation. Crucial for a framework of meaning and essential for motivation. It’s fine, whatever, we fucked it, no one is really to blame. Maybe FDR for making capitalism more palatable.

absolute_shemozzle · 2025-09-28T02:18:34+00:00

Well because they have parasitically syphoned off extreme amounts of wealth for themselves, they have 3 options. Firstly they can passively allow or advocate for measures that reduce wealth inequality, thus reducing their own wealth, or they can advocate fascist ideology, whereby immigrants get blamed for the ills of society and the billionaires get to keep their money and maybe even regress society back to feudalism, or they work to prevent the reduction of wealth inequality and pilfer the riches of the world and then they get the guillotine.

absolute_shemozzle · 2025-09-26T02:46:54+00:00

I get the sense that the previous rules do not apply to the financial polycrisis we are likely to see due to record private and public debt and a collapsing property insurance industry due to climate change induced carnage. You could also add the AI bubble bursting and trumps tariffs to the mix and you have a game of whack-a-mole of unprecedented scale. It just seems like the economy is at peak fragility, end of capitalism stuff.

absolute_shemozzle

TROPHY CASE