JarJarJedi
Streamlined derailments and counteridea reeducation
User ID: 1118
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
The reason why Democratic views used to be more pro-Israel, is because the Israeli population used to reflect a more liberal view of the conflict, and now it really doesn't
Erm, what? What timeframe are you talking about? Israel has been moving towards more conciliatory and liberal view of the conflict for decades now. It evacuated Gaza in 2005 (forcibly uprooting many Jewish communities) and tolerates Hamas shelling the southern cities for 18 years since, with only sporadic limited response carefully calculated to punish Hamas, but not endanger their rule. One of the main reason of the current catastrophe is that Israel got so immersed in the liberal concept of "peace is inevitable, Hamas is just representing the last throes of retrogrades that can not tolerate the inevitable coming of peace, but they are weak and dying off" - that's why such thing as "peace festival" on the border with Gaza with virtually no protection beyond token security guards meant to handle people who got over their norm of mind-altering substances - became possible. That's why most of the smaller towns and villages had no armed guards and had weapons locked up - something one couldn't imagine in the vicinity of Gaza some years ago, before "peace process". Israel has been moving to the liberal side since early 90s, at least, and the more they moved there, the more the Left hated them. It's just American Jews and Israeli Left made titanic effort not to notice it, but now it became a bit hard not to notice.
we believe even terrible have the right to vote, and self-government
Do you really? The left never seems to have any problem with leftist dictatorships (too long to list here). Sure, they may recognize Kim is taking it too far, and maybe Pol Pot made a goofie or two, but otherwise dictatorship of the proletariat doesn't seem to represent any serious problem. If there are some staged "elections" where the ruling junta always wins, then everything is completely perfect. The treatment of the Islamic dictatorships seems to be very situational - while some Islamic dictatorship get some critique, most of them are silently ignored (especially the rich ones donating amply to Left's Places of Power) and surely absolutely none of them gets as much hate as Israel does.
Now, if said Palestinian government passes anti-LGBT laws or whatever
If??? If??? Are we talking about real Palestinians under Hamas (or Fatah) rule or some Celestial Palestinians existing only in Harvard classrooms? Of course, since most Palestinians that are discernibly gay are either dead or fled to Israel years ago, this is more of a theoretical question. Hamas does not "pass laws" - it just throws you off a building.
then we'll treat them like we do other countries with no leverage on us - sanctions and such until they embrace the loving arms of deviancy, or whatever
Not only this is a lie, you know this is a lie. Many Muslim countries have such laws, and there are no sanctions.
In the long run, if this is all old news by Election Day 2024, it'll likely be forgotten
I'm not sure how it matters if it isn't. I see no group on the Left that even theoretically could switch their vote or stay home (in significant numbers) except one - American Jews. For some of them, it has been really shocking how much their parteigenossen hate them. But, unfortunately, I do not see any way that would move them to vote for Trump. It's just not something decent people do. Maybe some of them will stay home, but given that most of them live in deep blue areas anyway, it won't change anything. So, some Democrat will be elected with 70% of votes instead of the usual 89% - who cares. So, my prediction - absolutely nothing will change in 2024.
JarJarJedi
7mo ago
...I'm not sure where to even begin with this statement. I cannot form a sensible model of a thought-process that would have this statement as its output. Could you elaborate?
Elaborate what? You pre-declare that US intervention must be a failure and the only question is when we recognize that failure. In that model, of course it'd be a failure. I just don't accept that model as something having to do with the reality.
Do you agree that the american occupation of Afghanistan was a failure?
Irrelevant for the question being discussed.
That if we had only pushed harder, been willing to commit more, worthwhile outcomes could have been secured?
No, I think if they pushed smarter, and been willing to do different things, then yes, they could be. It's not a direct function of dollars spent or boots standing on the ground. At least not that alone. But again, this is irrelevant for the question discussed.
That is a pretty wild response to someone pointing to three decades of extremely ruinous policy failure.
Again, policy failures in Afghanistan are not relevant here, as we're not talking about Afghanistan.
If no one knows anything,
I didn't say "no one knows anything", I said exact picture years ahead is not possible to predict right now. That's not the same thing at all. If you demand "before we do anything, tell me and guarantee me you can exactly predict what would happen in a multi-factor hyper-complex event 10 years ahead" - then of course you won't be able to do a single thing. That's not how things are done. You have a general goal, and general means of achieving it - in this case, trim Russia's ambition of territorial conquest in Europe, and giving Ukrainians the weapons - and then you adapt your tactics depending on the circumstances arriving.
you criticizing the people who don't want to spend a lot of money and resources escalating this war
The war is already "escalated". That choice is past us. The question is - does the "collective security" arrangement in Europe survive, or do we go back to "every little country for themselves" and the inevitable endless bloodbath that follows that. There's still a chance to preserve that order, but it is going away fast. And more we talk about "when we already recognize we lost everything and should give up?" the sooner we lose everything, including all this nice cushy civilization we enjoy so much. It's much more fragile than commonly thought.
Is politics literally nothing more to you than good fucking vibes?
I can't even begin to understand what you mean here, but let me assure you in one thing. Contrary to the belief popular on many college campuses, adding swearing to your argument does not make it more convincing, it just makes you look more unhinged.
Prove it. Support that statement. Why is it better? On the basis of what data? What leads you to this conclusion?
Observation of the existing facts. When somebody literally proposes as a solution for the war the situation from which the war started, I conclude he's either ignoramus or is lying to my eyes. When somebody proposes a bunch of non-sequiturs as a supposedly logical argument to a goal - I assume he is either bad at logic or is lying. Carlson has been proposing wildly illogical concept of if we let Russia consume Ukraine, Putin somehow would be friendly to the US (this is laughable to anyone who listened for the last 5 years of Russian propaganda, which has been full of mouth-foaming anti-Western paranoia, and their whole geopolitical concept is rooted at opposition to the West, which is weak and decadent and soul-less) and somehow commit himself to fighting China (despite Russia having zero motive for that and tons of motives to the contrary) - and doesn't even bother to support his fantasies with anything but other wild stories (like the stupid biolab shit). That makes about as much sense as saying if only we helped Hitler to introduce common sense banking regulations, he'd be off the whole Jews thing - about that level of silliness. Vivek is simpler, he's just playing ignorant. He's proposing a solution which he must know - since he is not actually dumb - is not solving anything because that's where the war started. But it sounds nice to people who are ignorant in the matter, and makes him sound like he has solutions for everything to people that want somebody to have solutions. And also to the people who think "fuck Ukraine, better give that money to me!" but are ashamed to say it aloud, so they are looking for someone to say the same but in a smart way, so it doesn't sound asshole-ish but geopolitically smart. That's all his play, the whole con. Fortunately, he's also irrelevant since there's no chance he'd be anywhere near any real power anytime soon.
They do, though, from the West.
Correct, but that will be drying up as soon as we achieve "agreement". The war is over, why waste money anymore?
Figures from around June place total US military aid alone at around $50 billion since the start of the war
The correct figure of the aid actually delivered (not promised, not allocated, not potentially available if the President wants to, but actually sent) is a little below $20 billion. The economic assistance about the same. The total figure (military and economic aid) is about $38 billion. To compare, US spent in Afghanistan about $110bn (only military expenses, not counting humanitarian/economic aid) Source: https://centerforsecuritypolicy.org/factcheck-washington-post-false-claims-about-size-of-us-aid-to-ukraine/
These figures, however, are hot-war figures. Once the shooting stops, sustaining this level of investment will be politically impossible. That's my whole point - the situation now is radically different from the one that would be when the "peace" is achieved.
in the ballpark of Germany's annual military budget
Germany is not really a good benchmark, even they agree now their military is hilariously underfunded and is not capable of any serious task. They were mostly relying on US coming in if any shit is going to go down, and that's why Trump was screaming at them to shape up (to which they reacted with derisive laughter).
and yesterday they successfully struck an airport in Pskov
Ukrainians are pretty good at pulling of spectacular one-off strikes where Russians don't expect them. It's a great thing, awesome for morale, and keeps Russians on their toes. But it doesn't win a war. It doesn't even win a battle. While Ukrainians successfully neutralized the threat of naval invasion on the south, the sea blockade and the constant bombardment from sea-based missile carriers still continues, and Ukrainians can do nothing about it. If Russia is allowed to upgrade their Black Sea fleet (which is largely blocked by Turkey not letting them pass into the Black Sea in war time), the threat of the invasion from the sea will be restored, and given time, the Russians will find a solution for Ukrainian sea drones too. Again, the current situation will change once the sanctions and the wartime impediments will be removed. And the sporadic harassment of Russian airports, while great at embarrassing them, does little to decrease their strike capability, which they regularly exercise against Ukrainian (mostly civilian) targets, and which are limited only by available rockets/drones - again, this capacity will be hugely increased once the sanctions are off.
Now most Western newspapers are freely carrying reports that it seems to have been the Ukrainians.
I can write a report claiming it was Martians. The factual basis would be about as strong. By the grace of Almighty, we still manage to maintain some freedom of speech in the West, but that also means anybody can "freely" publish anything in the papers. If we talk about Pravda, if something is printed there, you can be sure even if it's a lie, it's an officially approved and vetted lie. In the Western newspapers, it only means somebody thought it will bring clicks. And so it would.
Do you see any sign that Western support is in jeopardy because of it?
Do I need to explain the difference between a strike at enemy's vital economic asset at wartime and initiating warfare after a ceasefire agreement, in peacetime?
Ukraine can do whatever it wants
Not if we achieve "peace in our time". In the middle of the war, it's one thing, peacetime is quite another.
such as when they firebombed a university in Donetsk
Spare me the histrionics. Donetsk is a war zone city, and that building is no different from any other building, thousands of which were destroyed (by both sides, but mostly by Russians). The fact that an organization calling itself "university" (no idea what kind of education it can do in the middle of the war zone, probably none) owns the building means absolutely nothing. And if your best complaint about Ukrainian atrocities is that they set on fire a roof on a building that required three (!!!) ladders to extinguish, no damage, no casualties, then I say Ukraine is doing an unexplainably bad job at striking back, they should have much more impact on Russians than that.
"well, they are being invaded by an overwhelming power that does not adhere to any principles after all" (as with the pipeline now).
Again, strike at enemy's economic capacity is a long-existing principle of war, and Russia did that - and much more, as they had striken at purely civilian infrastructure like electrical grid in the middle of the winter, clearly to maximize impact on civilian population, not just blew up a pipeline in the middle of the ocean. Trying to present this clearly legitimate act - which, I emphasize again, not proven at all, but legitimate even if we assume for a second it was Ukrainians - as some kind of outrageous atrocity only emphasizes the dearth of any other examples. If you had anything else but the pipeline and a wooden roof on fire, you'd mention it - but you mention these ones, so I assume that's the best you have. And man, is it weak sauce.
Claims to the contrary, that there is any threat to Western support from actions that Ukraine takes against Russia, should be furnished with evidence.
You can evidence it amply from the speeches of red tribe politicians. Carlson is now in all out PR war against Ukraine. He was also the one who tried to force (and still is trying) the idiotic biolab conspiracy. There are many others that are on the crusade against Ukraine on the red side. On the blue side, it's all pro-Ukraine now, but it will change in a moment once they'd have "peace in our time" signed.
JarJarJedi
9mo ago
What is your evidence that Vladimir Putin is a genocidal maniac?
Him directly causing the death of hundreds of thousands of people may give a hint. His propaganda claiming Ukraine is a "fake" nation and truly belongs to Russia may give another. But for some Putinverstehers nothing would be enough - they have Russian propaganda bookmarked to justify anything.
JarJarJedi
8mo ago
In Israel there's no "refugee camps" as far as I know. They are either on "territories" - which are under military administration, and yes, military administration can - and does - set up checkpoints, as needed for security, but they are not exclusive to the places called "refugee camps"; or they are in "Palestinian Authority" territory - inside which they are in security control. When entering Israel-controlled territory, again, from PA-controlled territory, there would be security checks - as there would be when crossing any border between areas where people don't exactly trust each other. But this has nothing to do with "refugees". I don't think PA limits movement inside their zone of control - I may be wrong here, not too up to date on the details of their security. Israel does limit entrance for non-citizens - but that applies for every non-citizen, nothing special for "refugees" here, every country I know would somehow regulate entry of non-citizens.
people who lost their homes.
That's the point. None of them lost their homes. None of their parents lost their homes. Maybe their grandparents abandoned their homes 75 years ago - but how many generations should be enough to start getting some other homes finally? By pretending there are some mythical "homes", which current occupants of these places "lost" - despite none of them every living there and most of those not existing already, and those that exist having no chances to be given to them after 75 years - they are only perpetuating the situation where living a normal life is so much harder. I don't think it is reasonable - and probably hasn't been reasonable for half a century now.
JarJarJedi
11mo ago
Because an army of mindless psychopathic murderers is a bad way to conduct wars. And releasing them into society when they're done service would be even worse.
JarJarJedi
11mo ago
Marines are trained to kill though
Yes, that's one of the things they are trained to do. But I really hope that's not the only thing they are trained to do. Knowing when it is appropriate and not appropriate to kill should have been part of it too.
but in a way that maximizes your safety and doesn't really take into account that you'll be fighting some drug ridden mentally ill lowlife but an actual enemy combattant.
How does it make any difference? I'm sure if you choke an enemy combatant for 15 minutes he'd die just as well as a mentally ill lowlife. Anybody would. That's what I don't understand - he knew what would happen and he must have had other options. Why did he choose this one?
JarJarJedi
3mo ago
The interesting twist here is that the haste with which Iran propaganda blamed Israel for that forced them then to claim that ISIS is actually working for Israel and the US, which is beyond hilarious.
JarJarJedi
5mo ago
Nonsense
I was talking about the partisan structures specifically, not the government structures, and about open and openly practicing Marxists who do not hide their ideology and openly come to elections with it, not Soviet spies pretending to be regular Americans to get to governmental secrets. Maybe "infiltrated" in the hindsight wasn't the best word to use as indeed it also can be used for clandestine activities, but that's not what I meant. I meant if you are an open and genuine Marxist, and do not hide it, you would be much more at home at Dem party now than back then, and conversely, there are many more such people in the party now than there was back then. I would imagine back in Stalin's era there were much more hidden Soviet spies (who we can assume being Marxists by default) in partisan and governmental structures, and even if Russian spies are there now, they aren't probably Marxists anymore. But that's not the part I was talking about.
I'll address the other points later, hopefully, a bit busy now.
JarJarJedi
5mo ago
When was the last time you saw ordinary Republicans protesting for those things?
Republicans are usually much less supportive of intervening into other countries - even tyrannical ones - when they don't mess with us.
Biden has issued statements calling for democracy in Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, etc, against their Marxist-Leninist regimes
If you look from proclamations to actual actions, though, you see that the policy towards tyrannical regimes is always softened - that happened with Obama, and that is also happening with whoever pulls Biden's strings, which some say is the same Obama. Be it Iran, be it Cuba, be it China - beyond some perfunctory words, it's never any serious action. In fact, it's plenty of the actions in the opposite directions.
The think tanks and NGOs that catalogue the human rights crimes of these various countries and demand democracy are also pretty much always staffed by progressive democrats.
I don't know what these NGOs have in their files, deep in their computer drives, but if you look on their public stance, the impression one gets is that there's about two countries that ever commit human rights crimes worth discussing - one of them is the US, and you can easily guess the second one.
Of course, if you take the longer view you will Democrat Presidents taking military action against Marxist-Leninist movements quite regularly throughout the past century.
Well, if we talk about the whole century, the Democrat party wasn't as thoroughly infiltrated by the Marxists as they are now. Marxists were mostly on the fringe, and they are full mainstream now, with wide representation in all institutions of the society. Thus, of course, what has been then and what is happening now is rather different.
Is it possible to make it so I won't get posts from people I have blocked when doing the janitor duty thing? I mean, I support the right of people whose day is not complete without whining about the Joos to whine to their heart's content, and having blocked them, I don't care about it any more. But when my whole janitor duty screen comes out composed of whining about Joos, it really doesn't make me happy to contribute my time to it (which I am otherwise happy to). Also, the Joo-whiners probably won't consider me a fair arbiter of the quality of their contribution anyway, so it's better both for me and for them if I don't score their posts.
JarJarJedi
8mo ago
In broader context, at least what I saw from that person until I blocked them, it appears to be on the mark. If not to a particular comment, then definitely to the particular personality.
JarJarJedi
9mo ago
lol
I think I understand the argument you are making here, though there could be a possibility it is too complex and nuanced for my weak mental facilities.
JarJarJedi
9mo ago
But I think it’s beyond clear that Poland couldn’t be conquored by Russia
Whole Poland? Probably not, at least not in the near future. But some borderline territories, for starters? Say, the corridor leading to Königsberg, now known as Kaliningrad? Why not. Do you imagine President Ocasio-Cortez sending the best US troops into the harm's way to defend places with names like Szypliszki and Stańczyki, which no CNN commentator could even pronounce - especially if it comes with the risk of global nuclear war? I think a lot of people would object to that.
JarJarJedi
9mo ago
Putin’s skulls on her wall,
This must be the reason Russian Sberbank paid her husband for "lectures" and why she approved sale of Uranium One to Rosatom after a modest bribe. All that was leading to nailing Putin's skull to the wall, somehow. Must be one heck of 3D chess.
JarJarJedi
11mo ago
Interestingly enough, you don't pray that you do. It's always the other guy that has to do the work. Always others that are imperfect and need God to correct them (and, of course, even God needs your advice in that - there's no way He Himself could figure it out without your input! After all, he's only God - and the rumors are, He's at least 2/3 Jew at that, so no wonder!) Always praying for the other guy to be saved from his ignorance and delivered into the light, never for yourself. How selfless! It is really admirable.
JarJarJedi
11mo ago
Ethnic/Cultural representation is considered to be important by many
Sure. Astrology is considered to be important by many too, so is the sacred status of cows (India has a billion people! If we go by numbers, I think we should talk about cows much more than about the White House!). That doesn't mean it makes any sense, and if your answer to "how does it make any sense" is just "a lot of people agree with me" - then probably you know it doesn't make any sense, but can't gather the strength to defy your peer group and get your mind free. Maybe one day.
JarJarJedi
11mo ago
You literally asked me if my criteria for declaring someone my superior is “more Aryan”. Don’t pretend you didn’t make it racial.
I also asked if it's a longer dick, so let's get into the gay angle too, right? I just enumerated the known definitions of "superior", without having or implying any idea which one is yours. I thought mentioning the dick would be enough to make sure this list is made in mockery of the whole concept, not as a suggestion for it, but of course, it wasn't.
That said, if you are fine with eugenics, I am not sure why the racist angle offends you so much. Even if racist eugenics is wrong (which I am not sure if you believe or not, but it's immaterial) - it's a small wrong. It's like an argument between two theoretical physicists about quantum theory - one may come out right and another may come out wrong, but they both are and remain respected scientists, and their ideas, even is occasionally wrong, would still gain them respect. If eugenics is fine, the only sin of racist eugenics is they get some small details wrong, not that the whole thing is morally abominable.
but also because Jews are a generally high-quality, high-human-capital population.
Again, thanks, but fuck that. As a Jew, I don't want my shield against the fires of Auschwitz to be "high-quality genes", by any definition. Neither I want anybody else's. Either we agree that we don't do "genetic engineering by murdering people" thing (and forced sterilization and other things - which can not be "non-violent" by definition - are only a small step removed from it), regardless of how sure we are we got it right this time (we didn't, we never will) - or we are in the deepest pits of Hell, and no rationalization ever changes that.
Real eugenicists, of the turn-of-the-century progressive-aligned variety, stayed focused on removing actually dysgenic elements from the population
Yeah, I remember, the forced sterilization programs and the Nobel prize for lobotomy. Thanks but no thanks.
Also, weren't those the same guys that were super-worried too many Jews are getting into Harvard and Yale? They finally solved that problem, I hear, took them a century but it's done.
JarJarJedi
2mo ago
Not really, it just needs to have the same set of vulnerabilities as legitimate governments, or at least a sizeable subset of them.
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
I'm probably too far away to see minor differences, but I don't think I have seen/heard/read a lot of "progressive democrats" criticizing leftist dictators and their approach to elections. I mean, when did I have the last opportunity to see a leftist protest demanding to hold free elections in Cuba? Venezuela? North Korea? China? Anywhere where a leftist or islamist dictator holds power? I mean, a lot of Americans have opinions, as we recently found out, about how Israel's democracy must be managed, but none have any opinions on any of those? Doesn't it look a little bit weird?
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
I'm not sure how the second part follows from the first. It's like saying "we desperately need the cure for common cold, so I am using charmed bracelets and pyramid power". The proposition that something is sorely lacking does not imply logically acceptance of something that is clearly inadequate for that purpose.
I mean, one can hope "he's clearly a grifter but may be he will fool some of the most stupid of Dems" but one can't rely on this as a plan for anything?
JarJarJedi
7mo ago
The implication being that the pro-Ukraine side, by contrast, has a plan?
Whatever plan they may or may not have, it's certainly less stupid than Carlson's "we feed Ukraine to Putin and he'll battle China for US" or Vivek's "We feed Ukraine to Putin and there would be peace in our time". But I suspect, different "pro-Ukraine" sides - many of which aren't as pro-Ukraine as they present - have different plans. US Democrats probably try to maximize the profit (both pecuniary and political) from the war while committing to as little as possible and not letting Russia become unpredictable (because that looks like work and who needs that), most of the EU tries to show off as much as possible while doing as little as possible, Ukrainians try to survive...
Like, what's your actual conception of how this is all going to roll out?
Given current players, likely pretty badly for all involved. Probably there will be some temporary ceasefire and then a new war in 5-10 years, and so on. Until Russia finally collapses, but that can take a long while - last time it took 70 years.
But what's the endgame, here?
We all dead, sooner or later? I mean, what exactly you expect the "endgame" to be? It's not some kind of Magic The Gathering match, where you sit down, play a round, then come up and go back home. Who told you there's such a thing as "endgame" at all? The war surely will end, one way or another, at least all the previous wars did. How it will end depends on a lot of things, and anybody who says they can predict it, are lying.
What are you willing to call failure, such that you agree that it's time to cut our losses?
If you approach any task with "when are we calling it a failure finally", then yes, the question would only be when you call it a failure. But then, why you are surprised there are so many failures? You're literally rooting for it, so you're getting what you asked for.
JarJarJedi
7mo ago
companies can go for long periods without CEOs. losing coders would be a disaster for a company like Meta or Google
Losing all coders - sure. Losing one coder - nope. Of course if you compare one Elon Musk to the collective intellectual capacity of all programmers in Meta or Google combined, he's likely lose, as would any single human. But that's hardly a fair comparison.
but management can be done by many people and is a more inclusive skill
Management can be done poorly by many people. Doing it well is a skill not unlike any other skill, and probably less frequent than the ability to write Python scripts.
They are both smart, but a top coder wins out in the IQ game compared to a top manager.
What's "the IQ game" and by which rules is it played?
JarJarJedi
7mo ago
Nothing "modern" about artillery shell production.
So, you are saying the West does not have any manufacturing capacity to produce something what doesn't even require any modern technology? This is a very sharp contradiction with everything I can observe, where the West is producing a lot of things right now. Of course, there's an obvious solution to this contradiction - the capacity of the Western economy and manufacturing power vastly exceeds the necessary one to produce any number of shells. But nobody wants to direct all that capacity to producing shells for Ukraine, because that would mean withdrawing the capacity from other products, and consequent troubles in the areas of economy that currently use that capacity. US does not want to be on WW2 war economy footing just because Ukraine needs shells. I think it is much more plausible explanation than your suggestion that there's no way to produce more than 100k shells by 2025 in the US. There is, but the US does not want to do it, because any politician that would propose it would be thrown out in the next election, or maybe recalled even before that.
Modern world industrial production and logistical capacity is at least by magnitude higher than during WW2 time, all these things can be ordered online
Wait, so you are claiming the West can't produce any sizeable amount of shells, but all the necessary components for producing any sizeable amount of shells can be easily "ordered online" and deployed in 20 days? Are you not noticing how you are contradicting yourself? I don't even need to argue with you - you are doing it for me!
This is not even slight exaggeration of things that were routinely done in the past.
This wasn't a) routine b) building from empty field c) done in 20 days. The very article you are quoting states that the preparations begun in 1940 and the production started to increase in 1942. And that was building on existing industrial base - nobody evacuated the factories into empty fields, they were evacuated to existing industrial and population centers.
Doubleplusgood duckspeak! I do bellyfeel.
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