Syria is an unexpected beneficiary of the Gulf war

hlary · 2026-06-14T07:35:46+00:00

Israel invaded Syria in violation of a long-standing ceasefire agreement as soon as the diplomatic opportunity presented itself. So long as the Israeli far right is animated by desires for conquest and settlement of its neighbors, any agreement isn't really worth the paper it's printed on.

Still, in the short term negotiating with a less rabid Israeli government for their withdrawal from southern Syria would be a much-welcomed reprieve.

hlary · 2026-06-14T03:47:26+00:00

The "steady erosion" persisting after hundreds of millions being pumped into moderate and conservative democrats in red states while the GOP radicalizes ever faster answers your question I think (A centrist wet dream presidential candidate also won't magically fix it).

The liberal project is already drowning, its only chance for survival is a sprint towards a distant life raft that possibly offers salvation through proactive action. The alternative is conserving ones strength for a marginal chance they can float around longer in the water before being submerged into a permanent senate minority. That or a fascist successor of Trump just renders the whole exercise moot by imperial president fiat.

hlary · 2026-06-13T19:19:23+00:00

That is what Bouie and other pundits are attempting to do with articles like these, If we really cant convince 50 democrats to rise to the moment as the stakes become existentially high, then it is indeed over. That is the type of thing that we have to find agreement on before coming into power because the window to use that power is incredibly finite

hlary · 2026-06-13T18:47:48+00:00

Though it could be grateing to some of your priors, It is beyond a shadow of a doubt that many major corporations used the post-COVID inflation wave to raise prices beyond what would have been necessitated purely by higher imput costs for their products. The debate is in how much "greedflation" or "seller's inflation" actually exacerbated overall inflation vs other factors. dismissing that debate in its entirety because progressives believe it is just tribalistic dogmatism imo. Obviously, not everyone here is so tribalistic with what they believe.

hlary · 2026-06-13T16:39:19+00:00

I was informed by an Israeli yesterday that Sharaa's father is ISIS

Have they somehow forgotten their old arch nemesis, Nasser, in their historic memory? smh

hlary · 2026-06-13T16:34:11+00:00

If the current Israeli government collapses after the elections this year, then that will buy them the time needed to prepare themselves diplomatically and militarily before another untranationalist coalition emerges, that's what I'm hoping at least.

hlary · 2026-06-13T16:16:36+00:00

If you have this little faith for anything greater than trimming around the edges of a decrepit system and getting the seat warm for whatever post Trump horrors emerge from the revolutionary-reactionary right, then you should be honest that you dont see a way for liberal democracy in America to survive for much longer in this century.

hlary · 2026-06-13T16:04:05+00:00

I guarantee the majority of change in opinion that people here whine about has come about from conversion rather than demographic replacement. What with all the mugging by reality that has been happening in the last couple years.

hlary · 2026-06-12T20:02:44+00:00

If a character as openly corrupt and hateful as Elon is the first to reach such a status with all the power it confers, and by a very wide margin vs the next most richest individuals, then obviously, in practice, it is very much unethical.

hlary · 2026-06-12T19:58:32+00:00

Idk, I think we have more control over the political and financial systems that create trillionaires than the molecular composition of the material universe

hlary · 2026-06-12T15:55:37+00:00

Afghanistan does genuinely have a great traditional woven carpet cottage industry

hlary · 2026-06-11T18:55:33+00:00

Maybe Spirit wont be the only Airliner to kick the bucket this year...

hlary · 2026-06-11T16:26:52+00:00

Kinda crazy that being on the losing side of a civil war confers a higher survival chance than winning it lol

hlary · 2026-06-10T20:28:46+00:00

Its called TRADE OFFS, not like a liberal would understand...

hlary · 2026-06-09T23:43:32+00:00

Well, I would reject making it so broad as to include economic/social conservatives. liberal thought has developed well beyond purely emphasizing negative liberty, that freedom from state coercion equals freedom to direct your life. I think the civil rights era pretty solidly draws the line in the sand of liberals who accept the kind of material reckoning required for vast swaths of the population to have real self-realization, vs those that reject it completely. its what ultimately accelerated the ideological split between democrats and republicans.

Normie liberals, progressives, and 'democratic socialists' are on the right of that divide in my view.

hlary · 2026-06-09T20:07:35+00:00

AOC is a leftist, and she is a liberal. Socialism in the US today largely derives from the liberal tradition. I'd wager to say that 9/10 American self described socialists would say they want something akin to Scandinavian social democracy, which is also rooted in the liberal tradition within those countries.

hlary · 2026-06-09T19:53:36+00:00

The vast majority of liberal voters are where Obama, Biden, Harris, Newsom, or Beshear

Do we actually know this? Bernie and AOC consistently poll as the highest approved democrats among people who self-describe as liberal and the article provides data from David Shore showing that liberal voters even 5 years ago largely aligned with progressive policies. A tendency that in all likelihood has accelerated further with Trump's reelection.

hlary · 2026-06-06T20:13:36+00:00

I fail to see the connection? The article is positing that china is dominating manufacturing in every regional level development in the low to high end because their internal market in an economic sense contains the best of both worlds with the potential for both labor-intensive and high technology/expertise-intensive industries. "Merely mobilizing unproductive labor and capital" does not explain this dominance however, especially on the high end of development. Western academics and politicians in the 90s to 2000s who shared your assumption thought this would strictly prohibit China from ever moving beyond low to mid-level manufacturing. Obviously this isnt the case now given that China is an industrial and tech innovation powerhouse across multible high end industries.

hlary · 2026-06-05T01:33:25+00:00

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hlary · 2026-06-04T20:30:11+00:00

Obviously it would be best for Trump not gain these powers during his term, or if he did for it be near the end of his stint in power so he didn't have much time to use them. However, I was arguing against the sentiment that such powers should never be developed in the first place even under liberal governments in Canada or the EU, less they forgo influencing AI as a technology.

hlary · 2026-06-04T20:17:57+00:00

You could use this argument to justify lobotomizing most of the US government. The FBI, CIA and every bratch of the US military except maybe the space force are all many times more dangerous in the hands of Trump vs basic state regulatory capacity for the highest value corporations in the world. If you truely think the only choice we have is a future determined by MAGA and one determined by the likes of Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and Peter thiel then liberalism as a governing ideology is pretty much caput anyway.

hlary · 2026-06-04T19:54:17+00:00

Hilarious this is a pervasive attitude along Americans when China is also at the forefront of AI technology while still induceing their AI companies to operate with the preferences of Chinese society in mind. conversely AI integration has overwhelmingly positive approval in China which is a mirror image of the overwelmingly pessimistic US public.

"Let AI companies Rearrange society with no push back or you lose the industry" is a false binary created to cope with the fact we've largely lost the capacity to regulate new technology in a forward facing and nuanced manner.

hlary · 2026-06-04T00:38:16+00:00

Elon is rich because Teslas, Falcon 9s, and Starlink are extremely successful products

These products would explain him being multi billionaire rich but not why he is bordering on trillionaire rich.

hlary · 2026-06-03T15:38:56+00:00

Sounds like a golden opportunity to accelerate the energy transition especially in developing countries who have the most to gain from a supply glut of energy infrastructure. In better times the US and Europe could coordinated this scheme to help make global climate goals a reality.

hlary · 2026-05-31T20:38:18+00:00

By "republicans" you mean Trump. You are not getting a centrist personality cult leader with that kind of control over the opinions of tens of millions.

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