Say no to authoritarianism, say yes to socialism. Free Palestine 🇵🇸 Everyone deserves Human Rights

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Joined 2 years ago
Cake day: August 18th, 2023
  • Keeponstalin@lemmy.worldtoA Boring Dystopia@lemmy.world•Trump posts bizarre AI video of Gaza vision as beach resort on Truth Social
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    1 day ago

    It was a major issue that the Democratic Party chose to ignore, in opposition to the vast majority of their voter base and domestic/international law. That cost them votes at a time when they should have been doing everything possible to earn as many votes as possible. If they instead leaned into popular progressive policies, they could have instead fractured the Republican base. The party is 100% responsible for how they ran their campaign, despite all the polling data showing a change would give significant gains in votes, at the time where they should have done everything possible to win against a fascist.

  • Keeponstalin@lemmy.worldtoWorld News@lemmy.world•Trump says US will not make Ukraine security guarantees ‘beyond very much’ and Kyiv can ‘forget about’ joining NatoEnglish
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    2 days ago

    Yet Chomsky’s world-view does not leave space for Ukrainian agency. It is the “US and Britain” who have “refused” peace negotiations in Ukraine, Chomsky tells me, in order to further their own national interests, even as the country is being “battered, devastated”

    Chomsky is pointing out that the US, who Ukraine is still very dependent on for military weapons, and Russia, who is invading Ukraine, have the power here. That’s the reality of imperial hard power, they don’t give a shit about Ukrainian Sovereignty. They only care about economic resources. Of course Ukraine should have sovereignty, the issue is that the US and Russia have no interest in respecting their sovereignty. They have robbed Ukraine of it for financial gain. Imperialist powers always rob countries of their sovereignty and natural resources.

    On February 24th, Putin invaded, a criminal invasion. These serious provocations provide no justification for it. If Putin had been a statesman, what he would have done is something quite different. He would have gone back to French President Emmanuel Macron, grasped his tentative proposals, and moved to try to reach an accommodation with Europe, to take steps toward a European common home.

    The U.S., of course, has always been opposed to that. This goes way back in Cold War history to French President De Gaulle’s initiatives to establish an independent Europe. In his phrase “from the Atlantic to the Urals,” integrating Russia with the West, which was a very natural accommodation for trade reasons and, obviously, security reasons as well. So, had there been any statesmen within Putin’s narrow circle, they would have grasped Macron’s initiatives and experimented to see whether, in fact, they could integrate with Europe and avert the crisis. Instead, what he chose was a policy which, from the Russian point of view, was total imbecility. Apart from the criminality of the invasion, he chose a policy that drove Europe deep into the pocket of the United States. In fact, it is even inducing Sweden and Finland to join NATO — the worst possible outcome from the Russian point of view, quite apart from the criminality of the invasion, and the very serious losses that Russia is suffering because of that.

    So, criminality and stupidity on the Kremlin side, severe provocation on the U.S. side. That’s the background that has led to this. Can we try to bring this horror to an end? Or should we try to perpetuate it? Those are the choices.

    At least use quotes from a full interview instead of from someone intentionally framing snips that go against statements Chomsky has already said.

    https://chomsky.info/20220616/

    Most Taiwanese want no change from the current situation. They don’t want any escalation whatsoever.

    But that image of Lloyd Austin announcing the deployment of U.S. forces to four new bases, in addition to five U.S. bases where U.S. troops are deployed in the Philippines, making a total of nine, potentially, in days and months to come, that’s precisely the wrong image and precisely the wrong direction that the U.S. should be going in. The United States, the Biden administration and a larger foreign policy elite, I’m sad to say, has hijacked our foreign policy and is currently escalating military tensions with China at precisely the moment we need to be moving in the other direction. We need to be drawing down U.S. military bases and forces in the region, while building up our diplomatic presence.

    The U.S. Has 750 Overseas Military Bases, and Continues to Build More to Encircle China

    Sixty percent of Taiwanese support maintaining the “status quo,” with 34 backing it “indefinitely,” and 26 percent favoring either declaring independence or unifying with China at a later date, depending on the conditions.

    https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2024/12/05/2003828000

    Reflecting on our conversation, I came across a passage in an essay from Chomsky’s 1970 book At War with Asia. “As long as an American army of occupation remains in Vietnam, the war will continue,” he wrote. “Withdrawal of American troops must be a unilateral act, as the invasion of Vietnam by the American government was a unilateral act in the first place. Those who had been calling for ‘negotiations now’ were deluding themselves and others.” These words seem to me to be more applicable to the war in Ukraine than anything Noam Chomsky said during our conversation 53 years later.

    Russia completely withdrawing is still the correct thing for Russia to do. Good luck convincing Putin, many thousands in Russia have already been arrested for protesting the war. See what Chomsky has said on the anti-war movement in the US and it’s effects on the US withdrawing, then see if that’s applicable to the citizens of Russia protesting the war having an impact on Russia foreign policy. The US does not have the power to force Russia to do a full withdrawal, and that’s assuming the US is interested in protecting Ukrainian Sovereignty which it’s not. Chomsky is critiquing US foreign policy and how it fails to be in any genuine interests of protecting Ukrainian Sovereignty.

  • Keeponstalin@lemmy.worldtoWorld News@lemmy.world•Trump says US will not make Ukraine security guarantees ‘beyond very much’ and Kyiv can ‘forget about’ joining NatoEnglish
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    2 days ago

    The longer the war persists, the more destruction and devastation there will be, the more what’s called collateral damage elsewhere, massive starvation because of the closing off of Black Sea exports — there’s some relaxation of that, but we have little information about it — threat of nuclear war increases, and perhaps most significantly of all, and least discussed, is the fact that as the war continues, the limited efforts to deal with the overwhelming crisis of climate destruction, those reverse.

    2nd part of the DemocracyNow interview

    Now Putin has moved on to the anticipated escalation, “targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure over the last few weeks and stepping up its strikes in the eastern region of the country.” Putin’s escalation to the U.S.-U.K.-Israel model has been rightly condemned for its brutality — condemned by those who have accepted the original with little if any objection, and whose ghastly gamble laid the groundwork for the escalation, exactly as was warned throughout. There will be no accountability, though some lessons may have been learned.

    https://chomsky.info/20221116-2/

    Is reading the headline as far as you got? The US was incredibly brutal when invading Iraq. That doesn’t mean Russia isn’t also very brutal when they target civilians and civilian infrastructure, it means the US has historically been more brutal than Russia currently is when the US invaded other sovereign countries. If you think Chomsky doesn’t consider Russia’s invasion criminal, brutal, and unjustifiable, that’s just not correct. If you actually read the interviews, his analysis is on what aspects of US foreign policy are prolonging the conflict. The US has never cared about Ukrainian Sovereignty, the US only cares about continuing US foreign policy of Neo-colonialism. Funding Ukraine militarily was/is the correct thing to do, that doesn’t mean the US in invulnerable to criticism in all aspects of it’s foreign policy on Ukraine. Like how they went weak on sactions, or how they refused to give iron dome tech to Ukraine.

    Yet those who take a “Genocide is okay because it’s expensive or hurts my fee-fees to oppose 🥺” position gets a pass from you on one genocide, but infinite criticism and accelerationism for the other.

    What drugs are you smoking? I’ve never been ok with any genocide for any reason. Unlike many liberals who were fine with Biden funding genocide because “it’s not an important issue”. I’ve always been against genocide and accelerationism. Quote me proving otherwise or get your pathetic strawman out of here.

  • Keeponstalin@lemmy.worldtoWorld News@lemmy.world•Trump says US will not make Ukraine security guarantees ‘beyond very much’ and Kyiv can ‘forget about’ joining NatoEnglish
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    2 days ago

    Until the question of doing anything about it comes up, in which case it very quickly turns to “Well, suddenly I’m a fiscal conservative” or “Russia has Legitimate Security Interests 🥺”

    No, I’ve always supported arming Ukraine fighting against imperialism. My criticism of the US and Europe has been that they were not sending enough and should send in troops to assist Ukraine in fighting back against Russia. My other criticism was that the US was not genuine with the process for a ceasefire, regardless of whether Russia is serious or not (it’s still a critical pressure point) and instead prioritized prolonging the war with Russia the same way the Afghanistan proxy war was used against the USSR, at the cost of Ukrainian lives. Russia may have legitimate security interests concerning NATO from a geopolitical standpoint, but the invasion is unjustifiable and only justifies the necessity of a security pact. I’d prefer a different security pact where all European countries participate Democratically, since the US only cares about NATO as a form of US Hegemony and not about the well-being and sovereignty of any European country.

    Isn’t that the exact position you criticized mainstream Dems for, just on Palestine?

    I criticized the Dems and the Republicans for funding, defending, and facilitating a genocide. As anyone with a conscience should. We should be doing everything possible to fight back against imperialism and genocide. That’s what international law is supposed to be about.