VIM
2mo ago
Israel is not apartheid state. There doesn't seems to be segregation inside Israel. People in the west bank and gaza are not israeli citizens so how can Israel apply apartheid to them?
The South Africans also claimed "Zulus in the Bantustans aren't South Africans so how can we apply apartheid to them" and yet that little trick didn't fool anyone. The essential element is that the West Bank and Gaza are under effectively under Israeli sovereignty yet their people have no citizenship, the textbook example of apartheid.
For the ethical cleansing - Israel seems to be pretty bad at it. We have more Palestinians than ever.
Yes, they are bad at it. The essential difference between them and the Germans is competence: the Israelis are more cowardly, less capable and less self reliant. First as a tragedy, now as a farce and all that. There have been plenty of incompetent genocidaires throughout history; the Rwandan genocide ended with the genocidaires actually losing the war to their would-be victims, for example.
Also we have no idea how many Palestinians there are since they refuse to allow any kind of unbiased outside monitors in to actually figure out how many Palestinians there are. Famously the 1948 World Almanac claimed that the Jewish population had actually increased during the war but that was because the Almanac was using old data.
VIM
2mo ago
I don't know if anyone here is still discussing stuff on Reddit regularly, but Reddit has rolled out a new improved block feature, where someone blocks you and then you can't see them and they can't see you. Of course inevitably this is being used regularly to get the last word in a discussion; that's why our Block feature is specifically designed to make that impossible.
Or worse, they ask a question in the final post and then they block to give readers the impression that their interlocutor was left speechless.
No better place to find the most bad faith actors imaginable than Reddit.
VIM
2mo ago
They may also be releasing their SPRs, but that's not clear, nor is the volume of this buffer; I've seen numbers from 1.2 to 2 billion barrels. Combined with domestic production of ā4.3mbd and some 6.4mbd of remaining imports, they can presumably keep this up for years. Their strategic objective is removing oil import dependence anyway (much to the chargin of Malacca blockade enthusiasts). There may be backchannel verbal agreements too. So Trump can assume that there won't be a sudden spike to $150+ per barrel, gas pump voter outrage and other externalities of the closed Strait.
Another factor is that there's a planetary bull run driven by AI and upstream HPC hardware supply chain, where oil-importing Asians are all winning massively, the US is getting huge capital inflows, and that's papering over bad war news. American dominance in AI, demonstrated with Claude Fable release drama, is also being rapidly converted to diplomatic leverage over the squeezed NATO allies.
Another factor is that Asian oil importers have been dumping Treasuries like crazy, pushing yields up on the long term bonds. Oil prices haven't spiked but yields on the 10 year and 30 year are already rapidly approaching multi-decade highs.
VIM
2mo ago
That's not true and you have to know that
Did you miss Operation Prosperity Guardian? Operation Rough Rider?
The Houthis explicitly said they were shutting down the Red Sea because of Israel and then the US Navy failed to stop them, ultimately settling for a mediocre ceasefire. If the point of the alliance with Israel is to defend trade going through the Suez then it's objectively backfired since traffic through the Suez has collapsed since the Houthi blockade and never recovered.
VIM
2mo ago
We can withold weapons from the Israelis, but that scotches the peace deal with Egypt which puts the Suez in play (and so on down the line of international consequences)
Well, supplying Israel with weapons led to the Houthis blocking the Red Sea so...
VIM
2mo ago
All the people with money and brains seem to still like Israel.
Paul Graham and Nassim Taleb would suggest otherwise.
Regardless, it seems more like the people with money who like Israel are willing to basically devote their entire fortunes towards supporting Israel whereas the people with money who don't like Israel have other priorities.
VIM
2mo ago
Israel hasn't allowed any international observers into Gaza to measure, how could you possibly know whether they've negated the natural population increase or not?
VIM
2mo ago
If they had such a strong aversion to beheadings they wouldn't have enthusiastically supported Al Qaeda taking over Syria
VIM
2mo ago
It feels kind of perverse to say "I hope my guy loses" but losing isn't always a terrible thing. I suspect Trump 2020 would have been a far less powerful president than Trump 2024.
Sometimes to win a war you have to choose to retreat from certain battles
VIM
2mo ago
but are there any DSA senators and not just House of Representatives?
By my count so far there's Platner in Maine plus AES in Michigan, though the latter still has to win the primaries. Am I missing anyone else?
VIM
3mo ago
After one of the cofounders, Gabe Einhorn, posted Francoās reply with his last name blocked out, Franco was quickly identified.
Einhorn said he did not āwant to ruin his life,ā but wanted to āraise awarenessā of antisemitism.
Franco, in a now-deleted post, said that in his personal and professional experiences, Jews were tribalistic and vengeful, and tended to ruin and bully others who opposed them.
Franco stated, āI am sure that if you indicated you didnāt want to work for someone who was White or Christian this would not have blown upā¦ā
Franco claimed that the actions by Einhorn and the Jewish community, posting his reply, doxxing him, and then trying to investigate and uproot his personal life, vindicated his concerns that Jews do not work with others politely.
Subsequently:
-
the British Daily Mail ran an article calling this random 19 year old an "entitled Cornell student"
-
FOX ran multiple stories on this kid, with one contributor demanding that his "life be ruined" while another compares being jewish among goys to being a human amongst the Planet of the Apes.
I was told that "woke is dead" but it seems cancel culture is alive and well on the kosher Right. How is one supposed to take any of the clowns seriously attacking "woke leftists" when they act like this? Why is "student doesn't want to work for jews" worthy of being elevated to international news?
VIM
3mo ago
I believe the US can blow up bridges and power plants, I just don't believe that blowing up said bridges and power plants would lead to victory.
Rather, since Iran's missile cities have proven nearly impervious to US airpower I suspect that the Iranians would respond by hitting Gulf power plants and desal. Iran has less firepower but Iran is also a huge country while the typical GCC member could be depopulated with just a few hard hits against the right infrastructure. The top buyers of American protection getting Spec Ops: The Line'd is probably an even worse outcome than simply failing and giving up
VIM
3mo ago
"I chose to lose because I just don't know what would happen if I really let loose" - every guy who ever got beat up at a bar
VIM
3mo ago
What will they do if Trump cuts off their munitions? The IDF doesn't even make its own bombs. They have about as much independence as Mussolini circa 1944
VIM
3mo ago
Maybe, but if they actually have much worse stuff to drop then one would imagine they'd hold off on dropping anything so that they could clobber him after the nomination to guarantee the reelection of Susan Collins. If they're too successful right now they're just going to get Platner replaced with someone they don't have a vast stash of oppo research on
Also IIRC the woman making the (most serious) accusations is also the same one who dropped the tattoo allegations which would suggest she's personally trying to torpedo Platner
VIM
3mo ago
None of the other women suggested he did anything comparable, though. Her allegations are clearly an outlier so far
VIM
3mo ago
On the contrary, since it's coming from a Republican political operative it seems immensely sus that he's being accused of something that doesn't quite rise to the level of criminality sufficient to justify discovery but is more than sufficient (if true) to torpedo a Senate campaign. It's the perfect level of accusation if you don't actually want to have to back up anything you're claiming in court.
A lifetime of knowledge, reading & education vs "DURR GROK DID DIS HABBEN!?!"
I'd recommend you learn what "books" are and what a "university" is before trying to engage in discussion of complex topics in the future. I'm afraid Grok can't save you
VIM
3mo ago
Have you ever heard of books? University classes? Conversations with people from wide ranging backgrounds?
Are you a real human being or are you some sort of AI chatbot that has never experienced the real world? I suppose if you literally only exist on the internet it would make sense to conclude that all knowledge comes from machines.
Dude. You 100% used a machine to research whatever you said occurred in Iran. You used either Wikipedia, Google, or maybe some podcast bro. AI can just scan more data points than google.
Fact check: false.
I knew that Saddam used chemical weapons against the Iranians and that his war killed hundreds of thousands of people from prior knowledge, not Wikipedia or Google. I'll grant that I double checked after you claimed it "never happened" but unlike you I don't use a machine to replace my brain :)
History is filled with stories of high civilian casualties and destroying civilian infrastructure led to victory.
It's also filled with stories of high civilian casualties leading to defeat, as Hitler, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein and ISIS can attest. Not to mention that in nearly all of the examples you give the military victory came first and the civilian casualties came later which confuses cause and effect. Where is your evidence that this sort of strategy will produce results instead of just running up the kill count while failing to produce surrender?
VIM
3mo ago
And from what I know about the US military they tend to find chemical weapons as not effective but Iām no expert.
My point wasn't that chemical weapons are effective, it's that Saddam was willing to cross all moral red lines against the Iranians and it didn't work. Where is the evidence that your strategy works?
Grok say this never happened
Perhaps you should think and research with your own brain instead of replacing it with a machine
VIM
3mo ago
What happens if Trump commits bombing warcrimes, they're ineffective and Iran returns the favor against the Gulf? Iran is a huge country that would take quite a bit of effort to actually depopulate whereas the Gulf is entirely reliant on a handful of desalination plants. Such an exchange could easily wind up going worse for America's allies than Iran. At that point what do you do, nuke Tehran to reestablish deterrence?
It seems like the reason the US is in this mess is because it keeps doubling down, losing, and winding up in an even more humiliating position than before.
to be clear, those were intended as separate statements, as in "Saddam used chemical weapons on Iranian civilians and he killed hundreds of thousands", not "Saddam's chemical weapons killed hundreds of thousands"
If I meant "Saddam killed hundreds of thousands specifically with chemical weapons" then I wouldn't have separated the statements with an "and" but I suppose I was too imprecise. My bad
Well no, because none of those countries are exercising sovereignty over conquered territory whose people are kept in a state of permanent statelessness for purely demographic reasons. Try again
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