Zuzak [fae/faer, she/her]

pennies on the dollar

Psychopathic framing. “Look how efficiently we’re killing people!”

Also great example of conflating states with people. Maybe Ukraine still wants to fight, but Ukrainians are being conscripted against their will. In the same way, wearing Russia down may serve the interests of the US government, but it certainly doesn’t benefit the American people in any way. The best thing for the Ukrainian people would be to stop the killing at any cost, even if it meant territorial concessions. They could’ve saved countless lives if they’d done this from the start, and eventually that’s what’s going to happen anyway, but unfortunately countless people have died and countless more will before the ruling class decides to stop forcing the poor into the meat grinder.

How the fuck is my life supposed to be better because of dead Russian soldiers?

NATO is seeking to take control of decision-making powers on future aid packages — normally led by the US — in an effort to limit the impact of a potential second Donald Trump presidency on the ongoing conflict.

This is wild. It’s bad enough that the US president has the power to start wars wherever he wants with no congressional approval. But now they’re trying to make it so that the only people with the authority to withdraw from a conflict are unelected NATO officials accountable to no one.

Dronies will support this, because they love endless war across the globe and want to remove any potential for popular support to achieve peace.

girls dressing like men

As a transfem in a situation where I frequently have to present as a guy: thanks?

Wow this thing’s going crazy over here

Because no fighting was happening in Ukraine before the Russians entered the country, right? The war just fell out of a coconut tree?

I don’t immediately remember any particurarily good (liberal, free, non-oppressive, democratic) nations that NATO poses a risk to, however. Perhaps you can refresh my memory.

Liberal, free, non-oppreasive, democratic nations that oppose Western neocolonial interests tend to get coup’ed by the CIA and replaced with pro-Western fascists. Countries that do survive, like for instance Cuba, have their name dragged through the mud by an enormous propaganda machine - which also whitewashes or conveniently forgets the crushing of the leftist projects that don’t survive.

There are countless examples throughout history, but my go-to is Mohammed Mossadegh of Iran, in the 50’s. No doubt the line will be that “that was a long time ago so it doesn’t count,” but the CIA covered up their involvement for decades, and if I picked a more modern example you’d likely either deny involvement or say that the government deserved it.

Iran suffered under British colonialism for decades. In the 1800’s, the shahs signed all sorts of deals selling out the country at absurdly bad rates and no expiration, to fund their exorbitant lifestyles. A large scale popular movement ousted them, but the agreements remained, and a new dynasty took power with British support, and the exploitation continued. Britain secured enormous profit and wealth through Iranian oil while falsifying records to pay virtually nothing for it while the Iranians lived in abject poverty. For decades the Iranians sought a diplomatic resolution and we’re completely stonewalled.

Finally, another popular movement caused the shah to appoint Mossadegh as PM (a position that had previously been hand-picked by the British). Mossadegh nationalized the oil industry to enormous popular support, but the British responded with a blockade, and offered Eisenhower support in Korea and in forming NATO in exchange for having the CIA oust Mossadegh (an offer Truman had dismissed in disgust, as this was the first case of CIA involvement of regime change).

Mossadegh, like many Iranians at the time, saw their struggle as being only against the British and trusted the US to uphold the values it preached and saw it as a potential friend. The CIA took over every newspaper in the country and started publishing anti-government propaganda nonstop. They hired false flag protesters, who claimed to support the government and then wrecked shit (as well as hiring protesters to march against the government). Politicians, vote counters, religious leaders, journalists, anyone with an ounce of power was getting bribed by the CIA. Mossadegh believed that these were genuine and legitimate expressions of dissent and did nothing to crack down. Finally, a US diplomat told him a made-up sob story about people at the embassy getting death threats from his supporters and threatened to close it, and Mossadegh got on the radio and told his supporters to stand down and stay home - the next day, the CIA launched a coup that ousted him from power.

What followed was the restoration of the shah’s power, which included hunting down leftists with secret police, banning traditional religious garb to make the country appear more Western, and of course the continued exploitation of Iranian oil, the proceeds of which went straight to the king’s bank account. When the Iranian Revolution of 1973 happened, decade of political repression of the left allowed the Islamic fundamentalists to be the ones that took power, and the US allowed the shah to flee there which outraged the Iranians, considering that he had previously been installed by them.

I could tell you the same story over and over again about countries all around the globe. Many nations had resources stolen from them via violence and colonialism and these resources remain in the hands of the people who took them, and anyone who attempts to reassert control over their own resources is putting themselves in the crosshairs of the the US and NATO, whether through sanctions, seizing assets, CIA backed coups, or overt military aggression. But all they have to do is cover up the truth or present a bullshit justification, and by the time it falls apart it’ll be too late to do anything about it, it’ll have faded from the public consciousness, and people will assert, without reason or evidence, that “they don’t do that anymore” dispite having clear means and motive to and never having faced any sort of punishment for it. Meanwhile the historical examples can continue to be used to intimidate countries outside of the imperial core who don’t have goldfish memories, and understand that they could be next. So they either comply with neocolonial exploitation, or they take measures to prevent CIA infiltration, which then gets them derided as “authoritarian” by people like you - and if they do neither of these things, then they get coup’ed and replaced by a fascist.

I suppose time will tell whether that trend will grow to the point of being really significant. I don’t really trust the state as it stands to regulate speech in my interests. I do still believe in deplatforming hate speech when possible, and I don’t really see the marketplace of ideas as being reliable due to certain ideas having stronger signals, either from monetary backing or grabbing attention. As things stand though, I don’t really have a better answer than just personally using the fediverse over big social media sites.

Is the tendency for devisive content to be promoted a quirk of certain social media platforms, or is something more inherent? I’d argue that people are more likely to click on something if it presents a message of, “You are under attack!!” as opposed to say, “Firefighter rescues kitten from tree!” because the former invokes more and more powerful emotions. Brains are designed to seek out and pay attention to threats, and I think even something like a print newspaper is going to be subject to that incentive, at least to a degree.

The other question I have is:

What we need to do is take away the power social media companies have to influence the types and quantity of information we receive.

Do you mean through state regulation, or just consumer choice?

I agree with you in part, but:

Societies which stifle dissent, especially using the power of the state, grow weaker because they aren’t able to effectively adapt to change. Remember it is not too long ago that advocating for gay marriage would have been seen as morally deviant and repugnant. But strong speech protections allow us as a society to have that discussion and come to the correct conclusion which is that it’s fine to be gay, that love is love, and that gay people deserve equal protection under the law.

Free speech is also allowing a massive, astroturfed campaign to spread transphobia. The people with the most money have the loudest voices, and printing sensationalist bigotry to provoke fear, anger, and hate gets the clicks which makes more money.

What makes it especially terrifying, and I’m speaking from personal experience, is that you don’t know who’s on the other side of the screen. Most people in the target audience will just get a little pissy and keep clicking headlines (and voting to take away rights), but there’s also people who are unstable, whether due to drugs or psychological issues or simply being too deep into the narrative. When you have for example far-right media outlets saying trans people are pedophiles, and more mainstream sources validating that perspective in not so many words, and that’s being broadcast to some meth head watching hours on end every day, then I’m not really a fan of that speech being free.

Just last weekend, for instance, some queer friends and I were threatened by an unstable person with a metal pipe just walking down the street, idk how much the media plays into that but I also had a family member who did what I described above, shooting up meth and watching shit like OAN all day every day. And even regular people who watch too much cable news, and it doesn’t even matter that much what they watch, if you try to reason with them, no matter how much sense you make or what facts you have on your side, it’s one conversation vs all the time they’ve spent watching the news - I like to compare it to trying to win an argument when the other side gets to say 100 words (or more) every time you say 1. In this way, good ideas don’t always win in the marketplace of ideas.

But yeah I agree with your overall point, sanctioning someone for interviewing a world leader is some bullshit, fuck Tucker Carlson but it’s always important to understand rival geopolitical powers.

Tfw your subscription-based private court rules that weapon emplacements pointed directly at your neighbor’s house are not a NAP violation

I believe that Russia should’ve waited things out because its the open state of war that gives Ukraine enough diplomatic cover to push to its pre-2014 borders.

That’s kind of a fair point I think but I don’t think the Donbas would ever be able to join Russia in this timeline. Without Russian intervention, the separatists likely lose and the years that follow establish precedent for Russia control of Crimea but also for Ukrainian control over Donbas. I think it’s a valid, if cynical, argument to say that Russia should’ve cashed out with Crimea instead of going all in to try to take Donbas, but it means leaving the separatist out to dry. I do kind of agree with it though, I guess it comes down to what happens to the separatists if Ukraine wins, and I’ve seen people say they’d be genocided but I don’t really buy that, seems speculative and like propaganda.

That’s what the rumor said, but googling seems to indicate it was a hoax. Though like I said the original is basically the same thing.

I’m perfectly fine with a negotiated settlement. Ideally, the areas where more people want to stay in Ukraine should stay with Ukraine and the areas where more people want to join Russia should join Russia. That would minimize the amount of displacement while allowing people to live under the government of their choice. My real issue is that Ukraine won’t negotiate at all, even on Crimea, and I just think that’s unreasonable.

the Muslim/Hindu migrations between Pakistan and India during partitioning

This was the biggest example that came to my mind and it’s not exactly comparable but it’s not exactly a ringing endorsement of relocation.

I don’t think you understand how this works. You cited Wikipedia asking me to accept it as a source. That means that you accept it as a source, and I may or may not accept it as a source. Given that Wikipedia says that your claims of genocide are disputed, you have to accept that. I don’t have to accept Wikipedia as authoritative, because I never claimed it was, I’m just saying that if you accept it, then you have to accept that all your claims are disputed. That’s just how citing sources works.

Or I could… not base my views on history entirely off of Wikipedia articles?

The Irish Famine was a genocide, because it was intentional. I should’ve clarified I mean that famines can be genocides, but are not inherently genocidal.

I’ll note that your own source says in the introduction:

While scholars are in consensus that the cause of the famine was man-made, whether the Holodomor constitutes a genocide remains in dispute

Likewise, the article on the Kazakh famine:

Some historians describe the famine as legally recognizable as a genocide perpetrated by the Soviet state, under the definition outlined by the United Nations; however, some argue otherwise.

And

The de-Cossackization is sometimes described as a genocide of the Cossacks, although this view is disputed, with some historians asserting that this label is an exaggeration.

The last one I didn’t see any mention of genocide though it might be buried deeper in the article, it’s pretty long.

Famines are not genocides lol. Though I suppose you could make the case that the embargo on the USSR caused a lot of excess deaths. Famines were extremely common before the USSR took power because it was a pre-industrial society, the USSR ended that. Also, the USSR is a completely different government from the Russian Federation.

TIL. Apparently what it actually said was “The Gallant People of Afghanistan,” but the point is largely the same.