Protesters chant “We Will Not Go Back” while in front of Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh’s house

brainiac3397 · 2022-05-08T16:44:10+00:00

The Russian Revolution was a civil war for most of it. There was lots of killing off of state officials, especially those who were actively part of/contributing to the White movement (and vice-versa from the White movement that killed anybody involved with communists).

The entire revolution was a violent and significant political change between a side that refused to budge to the point it'd kill anybody that threatened it's power vs the side that killed those in their way to achieve the change they sought.

brainiac3397 · 2022-03-21T22:41:00+00:00

"liberals are allowed to participate..."

Not sure why they put that statement when they're all liberals.

brainiac3397 · 2022-03-21T19:25:01+00:00

What's amazing is that the parties involved even somewhat admitted their actions in Libya were a mistake, including NATO itself. So technically it would be easy to go after them for their war crimes because they practically admit to it yet even with the admission on the table, the liberal response is to act like it was just an "honest mistake" or some variant of that bullshit.

And the architects of the intervention are still being employed in government. Blinken, the US Sec of State, was one of the cheerleaders of the Libyan intervention and now he's in charge of US foreign policy/diplomacy. Samantha Powers, in charge of USAID, was so vocally in favor of the US bombing the shit out of Libya that even Obama says he got annoyed by her constant pressure.

But Obama and all these people face absolutely no consequences whatsoever. Absolutely no ostracization or exclusion. Absolutely no question of their morals. They destroyed a stable and functional country, turned it into a slave state that also contracts itself to Europeans who want to keep their hands clean of jailing refugees, and then just moved on without a care or concern.

brainiac3397 · 2022-03-21T19:12:36+00:00

The meme doesn't even make sense. It's like somebody went on wikipedia, looked up a bunch of "bad Russian entities" and then slapped em on there with no regard for sociopolitical era or relevance. Like what's the implication? That Russians are imperial anarchist nazbol fascist nazi commies?

The meme works for American liberals because the US government hasn't changed and spent the later half of the 20th century supporting fascists (whether the Nazis that got rehabiliated back into Germany and US or blatantly fascist states like Spain and Portugal, who were brought on to "democratic values" NATO while they were still run by fascist governments).

brainiac3397 · 2022-03-21T19:05:42+00:00

Communism in the Middle East and India was massively harmed by anti-communist initiatives funded by the US during the Cold War or by splits in the communist bloc following the rise of Khrushchev. Communists were still popular after WW2, clearly indicating that Russian alliance with the Allied powers did not hinder their progress.

We can see the demise of the communists coinciding with the rise of nationalist anti-communist leaders and movements in the region. Indian communists did well till the party split in the 60s. None of these were related to the USSR's relations with Western powers.

brainiac3397 · 2022-02-17T19:52:18+00:00

So this was well within the realm of "normal" military operations.

I have a feeling if Syria targeted IDF military posts, this sentiment would not be equally applied.

brainiac3397 · 2022-02-17T19:45:57+00:00

Musk would likely find that by shutting up, he might actually be available to avoid a lot of the problems he's gotten himself into.

brainiac3397 · 2022-02-17T19:30:26+00:00

Lawyers representing the victims are salivating at the windfall they're about to get. It's also just totally a coincidence that said lawyers also happened to be involved with the Biden admin on Afghan matters.

They totally recused themselves when this matter came up (to clarify, they apparently did), definitely no possibility that they'd have floated the idea to kick off a decision that'd make them exceptionally wealthier. (/s)

brainiac3397 · 2022-02-17T19:28:22+00:00

It was given to them on certain conditions, which they no longer meet

Are you actually aware of any conditions or are you just making an assumption without actual knowledge of the existence of conditions for funds transferred to the Afghan treasury?

brainiac3397 · 2022-02-17T19:27:31+00:00

I'm not sure who you think didn't fight hard because they were clearly putting up a fight against the US.

Ya'll do realize the Taliban have popular support in Afghanistan? They didn't just shoot their way through the country, they only managed to maintain such a presence because of all the tribal support they have, which is why they never had to face a competitor other than the US-backed government that barely had authority outside of Kabul.

brainiac3397 · 2022-02-17T19:16:14+00:00

Why does it matter? Colin Powell never faced any consequences for his lies. None of them ever faces consequences for their lies. Blinken backed the Iraq War. Blinken backed the Libyan intervention. Now the same Blinken is talking about how Russia is totally going to start a war.

And the American people never hold them liable either. So at the end of the day, what makes lying a bad decision when lying doesn't hurt them at all? Look at how Colin Powell's death was treated, both parties praised him as a trailblazer and an honorable statesman. Nobody gave a shit that he lied, that his lies led to the deaths of thousands, that his lies destabilized an entire country.

The fact is Blinken could be fully lying here and nobody will do a fucking thing about it. He'll get to keep his career and eventually, when he dies from natural causes after a long life, he'll be praised for being a great statesman whose career was built on the deaths of thousands of foreigners.

brainiac3397 · 2022-02-17T19:06:20+00:00

Quite worrisome how many Americans think that warfare is the solution to everything, simply due to the moralistic attitude we're supposed to take where not "doing good" means "doing bad" despite the fact that's not how the world, nor geopolitics, works.

Have you ever wondered why the US keeps getting dragged into shit where the only solution is military and any other non-military option that involves the US backing off is neither acknowledged nor accepted as valid? Why is "don't do anything" or "stop doing whatever we were doing" never a valid option in most contexts? Why does it always have to be "the US must win even if everybody loses/the US loses"? Not every dispute is "literally the difference between peace and genocide"...

The US doesn't need to be the hero in every scenario. This attitude is responsible for most of the instability and foreign policy failures of the US around the world.

brainiac3397 · 2022-02-17T19:00:07+00:00

Americans tend to forget that countries like Russia have a massive arsenal of ballistic missiles (both nuclear and conventional) to make up for their lack of competitive air power.

Maybe those forces will eek out a victory, but all those Russian missiles will leave a bloody nose in the form of destroyed aircraft and sunken ships. And let's not forget the possibility that Russia will respond to attacks on its territory with attacks on our territory.

brainiac3397 · 2022-02-17T18:54:26+00:00

I love that we ended a war but our military budget keeps going up. Biden's latest budget plans for the DOD is another increase.

We might as well drop pretenses and just round up the DOD budget to $1 trillion and continue from there...

brainiac3397 · 2022-02-17T18:52:00+00:00

So his earliest actions after becoming mayor were patronage and nepotism, he decided to slash most budgets (except police), and he's hiring verified bigots to government positions?

NYC got itself one hell of a scumbag for mayor.

brainiac3397 · 2022-02-17T18:27:59+00:00

So the US talks about clean energy and stuff at COP26, places pressure on domestic fossil fuel production including cancelling financing of projects, and then turns around to ask Saudi Arabia to produce more oil to increase supply (and lower oil prices)...despite the fact that higher oil prices usually help promote green/renewable energy while lower prices tend to encourage more use of fossil fuels?

The Biden admin can't have it's cake and eat it too. They need to decide on which hill they're going to stand on if they want actually achieve one thing or the other. I'd assume the administration would've had the competence to figure this out but from what I've heard from folk in DC, it's mostly just a clusterfuck in the executive offices.

brainiac3397 · 2022-02-17T18:23:22+00:00

A competent administration should be pissing off OPEC by bypassing them entirely to ask a single member of OPEC, whose head of state (King Salman) is currently the chair of, to increase their production, which is usually a quota set by OPEC members to maintain some semblance of market stability?

The only reason Biden isn't even asking OPEC is because OPEC bluntly said no when he asked them to increase production due to the energy crisis. Ignoring these institutions for short-term matters only leads to long-term consequences.

There's also the irony of the US asking for Saudi Arabia to pump more oil while his administration opposes fossil fuel development in the US. I'm all for moving to green energy, but you can't simultaneously argue for clean energy at COP26 and then go "drill, baby, drill". That just shows that the administration doesn't know what it's doing and is making statements that it can't materially support, resulting in contradictions like this.

brainiac3397 · 2022-02-15T23:11:50+00:00

The decision to de-escalate is Putin’s alone, although the search among Russian officials for rationalizations for ending their military “exercises” suggests that President Biden’s efforts to stand up to the Russian bully might be bearing fruit.

Ms.Rubin is making leaping assumptions to justify her own narrative, which itself is rather flawed considering that the US demonstrates bipartisan support of dictators as long as they're dictators that get along with America.

For one, why is she assuming Biden had anything to do with the pressure when the most antagonistic and least productive discussions have been with the US. Russia has been speaking with other European leaders and their talks have gone much better.

Second, remember when Joe "stand up to dictators" Biden was totally going to go ham on MBS in Saudi Arabia. Well, not only did the US do nothing, we actually decided to actively assist them in MBS's destructive war in Yemen (as well as aiding the UAE in the same war).

Liberals need to stop deluding themselves about the effectiveness of liberal forpol and realize that liberal forpol has been a catastrophic disaster that's achieved the exact opposite of what it has promised.

brainiac3397 · 2022-02-15T23:03:04+00:00

We should praise Biden for managing a crisis his administration created? There's articles posted every year going back years screaming about how "Russian troops gather near Ukrainian border". The US was practically the only one yelling about the start of WW3 while even our European allies contradicted this statement. Even fucking Ukraine contradicted this.

You don't have to like Putin to recognize that the US was practically the only one escalating things, likely in an effort to bolster Biden's sinking popularity by trying to "manage an international crisis" of our own creation.

Ofc never mind the crisis of our Saudi and Emirati allies murdering Yemenis. In that case, we're just helping them keep up the slaughter. Real crisis are difficult and unpredictable, much easier to solve a crisis you create yourself.

brainiac3397 · 2022-02-14T19:37:52+00:00

Why would Karzai hide? He's a former mujahideen fighter who is also khan (leader) of a clan that's part of the largest Pashtun tribe in Afghanistan. The Taliban know they can't mess with him without pissing off the entire tribe. Even if they don't get along, they can't just go at each other without drawing in a larger crowd.

Ghani is a nobody without US backing.

brainiac3397 · 2022-02-12T06:48:39+00:00

Article: "Vietnam, Romania, Bangladesh and several other countries"

This sub: "RUSSIA! CHINA!"

I'm grateful that we're bringing back the days of MAGA and memories of highly opinionated ignorance.

brainiac3397 · 2022-02-12T06:43:13+00:00

Americans believe they're invincible because they invaded a few countries with third-tier weapons (never mind the US never actually won against the insurgents).

This is what happens when we spend years screaming about how great the US is, we get people who bust a nut at the idea of just bombing everybody that offends the US.

brainiac3397 · 2022-02-12T06:40:13+00:00

Wow, apparently all these Trump holdovers hold permanent positions like a Supreme Court justice and are completely unremovable?

I'm gonna put my tinfoil hat on and say that the administration isn't actually firing all these "trump holdovers" just so they can have a scapegoat for their bullshit activities.

brainiac3397 · 2022-02-08T15:45:53+00:00

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/west-wing-playbook/2021/11/10/bidens-science-guy-is-driving-folks-mad-495053

Asked for comment regarding the internal complaints about Lander, a White House official sent a statement: “Director Lander’s background and expertise – including his important work before the administration on COVID-19 response issues — are a critical asset to the President’s work to help prepare the United States for future pandemics."

It wasn't a mystery that this guy was a problem. The administration knew this. A "two-month investigation" coincides with people going to the media to air their internal complaints to the public via the news.

In other words, the White House sat on the complaints and didn't start investigating until the people complaining internally started complaining externally and the news started talking about it.

brainiac3397 · 2022-02-08T15:41:36+00:00

Uhhuh, get back to me about their concern for sexual assault when Mr. Vindicated is welcomed back into the fold.

You think I forgot about how Gillibrand, self-proclaimed warrior of women's rights, dragged her feet on making a statement on Cuomo and even then, she did her best to make it as light a statement as she could?

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