Greenleaf

This was the path that was open to them in 2014. Arguably, it’s the path most Ukrainians wanted. That big economic deal that Yanukovich tried to make with Putin would have kept them neutral, because they had to make a deal with someone and Putin was more interested in keeping Ukraine away from NATO than pulling them into Russia’s orbit.

But that was unacceptable to the US and NATO. So they fanned the flames of Maidan, which in itself led to tremendous division in Ukraine. And when Ukraine was looking to make a deal to end the conflict quickly, that’s when Boris Johnson came by with either threats or lies (or both) to keep them fighting. For any Lemmy libs who may wander in here, that is why I give my critical support to Russia in this fight. In no way is some inevitable, ancient conflict between Ukraine and Russia. In fact, every time Ukraine has had a chance to pull the car over to side of the road, the US has been there to jerk the steering wheel back and step on the gas.

Death to America.

He was also managing the empire before the era of neoliberalization. From the Great Depression up until the 1980s, it was generally understood and accepted among the powerful regardless of party affiliation that you have to intervene in the market. There was no interest in laissez-faire libertarian capitalist, in the US that only came about with Reagan.

Also ignored everyone who said “don’t go along with Elise Stefanik’s little congressional university president witch-hunt”, much less totally debase yourself in front of her. They will not see you as one of the “good ones”, they will just smell blood in the water.

The most far-reaching price controls in US history were initiated by noted communist Richard Nixon…

I started by looking at a James Lindsay tweet, and then spent waaay too much time reading the replies, and then going down too many rabbit holes of seeing profiles of boomer MAGA weirdos with the worst takes on communism you can possibly imagine.

Americans brains are so deeply broken. They are convinced there’s some massive conspiracy, led by the Democrats and noted communists like George Soros to bring about a communist revolution, which apparently is going to happen definitively if Trump isn’t re-elected.

I don’t know why it bugs me as much as it does.

It’s 100% faked.

Saying this as an outsider, so I can only speak to appearances, which means I may be very wrong.

But it seems to me that China still trusts the United States way too much. It’s almost as if they can’t see why the US would be will to throw away a relationship that has been so profitable for both countries for so long. Or at least, they do not quite see the full threat that the US poses.

It could just be that China doesn’t feel like they are in a position yet to make strong counter-moves against the US. I mean, yes, I think they do recognize this and that’s part of the rationale for the belt and road initiative, for dumping US T-bills and moving into gold, etc. But I don’t know if they realize the speed at which the US is moving.

I really enjoy board games - those complicated ones that can take hours to play. And I usually play with a good friend of mine since we were little kids. This friend of mine is absolutely brilliant, too. And whenever we play games together, he wins almost every time. Why? Objectively, the strategies I take are usually “correct” and well thought out. I don’t think my strategies are any worse than his. However, my friend operates on another level when it comes to speed. I will have this whole machine built in my head, but I will say to myself that I still need to do X and Y to win. And then by that point, my friend will already have won.

Maybe that’s a silly parallel to the China/US situation. While I don’t think China actually trusts the US anymore, I do hope they realize the implications of what the US is planning on doing, and realize that they may need to rapidly speed up their plans to counter.

Requesting thoughts from the New Mega Economic Bureau:

I do believe the prospects for the Israeli economy are very grim (inshallah). They've lost a huge number of citizens to emigration, disability, and death. The economy relied quite a bit on over 200k Palestinian workers who Israel has said they don't intend on welcoming back. I think they will stick to that, and their plans for replacing those workers from others from places like India I don't think will pan out (both for logistical reasons and because Israelis are deeply racist). I can't imagine they will be able to draw immigrants like they used to and will likely bleed more citizens as they've shown their own people just how precarious their lives there are. The tourism industry there is dead. Their reputation in surveillance and security - an important export industry for them - has taken a massive reputational hit. I doubt Intel will want to continue on there.

When the potential destruction of the Israeli economy (and thus, by extension, the Israeli state) is brought up, a perfectly understandable retort is that the US will do whatever they need to to prop up the Israeli economy. That's what I more or less what I think at least on the surface. But the question I have been asking myself is: is it even possible for the US to prop up the Israeli economy?

My understanding is that all "aid" from the US to Israel takes the form of US dollars being used to purchase US-made munitions and military equipment. The money never touches Israeli hands, is never sent through the Isreali economy, and is not used for anything "productive" from the Israeli economic perspective. And this the general modus operandi for US foreign aid - the foreign country doesn't get cash and they CERTAINLY aren't granted like, the ability to recruit US firms to build facilities there. So point being... sure, the US can take USD and buy not just military gear from the US MIC, but they can also buy food from US farmers, cars from US manufacturers, etc. They can make sure Israel has food to eat and coal to keep power plants running. But all of that won't actually do anything for the real, productive economy of Israel.

Oct 7 has shattered the very foundations of the productive economy of Israel - industrial capital, in the language of vol 2 of Capital. And these fundamental problems that have been created cannot be cured with US foreign aid. If I'm right then I don't think there's any the US can do in order to rescue the Israeli economy in the long run.

Thoughts?

Well that's "good".

It was the most obviously thing in the world that Hunter being on the Burisma board was naked corruption.

I have had the displeasure of working with corporate boards before. I can tell you that these positions are highly coveted not just for the prestige, but for the easy money. You basically get paid well into 6 figures to attend 4 quarterly meetings per year and pretend to hold the CEO accountable.

Given how easy the money is, these board positions are incredibly difficult to get. Most companies (really, their shareholders but I’m keeping it simple) do actually bother to get people who are capable by bourgeois capitalist standards. So an oil and gas company will typically put former top industry executives, scientists, lawyers, etc on their boards.

The idea that some coked-up bro from America with no real accomplishments or experience in that industry would be granted that highly compensated of a board position on his own merits strains credulity. It would be like if Trump nominated Jared Kusher to a federal judgeship. There is no rationale in the realm of possibility other than they just hired the VP’s son for reasons just like this. The fact that libs deny this shows just how unserious they are.

A while back I visited the completely renovated museum at the Gateway Arch. The Arch itself is a symbol of ~~genocide~~ “westward expansion”, so the old museum from the 1960s was problematic to say the least.

I had heard that the new museum was actually… not terrible with respect to Native Americans. And by and large, this was somewhat true. It not only gave a significant amount of space to Native American exhibits, but the museum didn’t shy away from mentioning genocidal acts, et al. You could almost say the new museum is kinda “good”.

Except one thing stood out to me clearly. Not once did any exhibit question the validity of treaties made between native tribes and the federal government. The treaties made were never even implied to be incredibly lopsided or made under implied threats or extreme duress as they all were. Whenever the topic of treaties came up the exhibits treated them as if they were totally valid.

Then I realized it. The Arch is now a federal, national park. From a legal standpoint, they cannot even imply a treaty made was illegitimate because those treaties are currently enforced. If the federal government backpedals even a little, they are at risk of at least losing massive amounts of federal land and potentially more.

All this to say, the US is at the point that they will pretend to be progressive on indigenous issues. But they will not do anything that risks making actual, material concessions to native peoples. So… if they can “allow” the Haudenosaunee have an Olympic team and not suffer any material harm, they’ll probably do it.