functor
10mo ago
anti-Christian graffiti in Isreal
Israel bombs churches, displaces christians and treats them like second class citizens.
non-muslims in Syria
Israel sponsored jihadists in Syria, chaos ensued. The christians benefited from a stable regime.
Iran has colossal numbers of Afghan refugees
Whose fault is that? They didn't create the Taliban and then fight the Taliban for 20 years.
says ‘Death to America’ serves Western foreign policy aims in Yemen?
What do they mean by death to America? I don't think they mean death to ordinary Americans. They mean death to neoliberal imperialists.
I have no issue with them delivering death to people who are trying to infect the Middle East with gender studies and push millions of migrants into Europe. I consider the people who participated in the wars in the middle east absolute traitors well deserving of the Houthis are delivering.
It serves an important foreign policy goal, kicking the globalists out of the middle east.
functor
10mo ago
Once a road that can accommodate a delivery vehicle or pickup truck is constructed for their purposes, why shouldn't I be able to use it to go visit my cousin?
A huge difference between a low throughput street and a high throughput street. This street can accomodate deliveries. This street is made for mass transportation The first street has far, far more people on it, takes less space and is much less demanding in terms of resources. Also the people in the second photo are likely fatter.
Second of all, it doesn't fix the problem that people don't live in a line.
Which is why many trips require a connection. A bus or subway is far more efficient at moving people than cars. They also require less space and make the city less hostile to cycling and walking. This reduces the distances and the need for travel.
functor
10mo ago
Walking, cycling, kids playing, outdoor cafés, selling stuff, meeting place.
functor
10mo ago
Bicycles are far more efficient than cars
By moving people from cars to bikes saves a tonne of space. One of the main problems in cities is that too much space is taken by cars which makes the city spread out and hostile to walking and cycling. This also makes public transit hard as people don't want to walk to it. When everything is spread out walking, cycling and public transit doesn't work well.
functor
1yr ago
And how do you think running Venezuela into the ground by sanctioning them will impact migrant flows? Migrants flee Venezuela because it is bad, so making it worse should lead to more migrants. Clearly, the US hasn't been able to topple Venezuela's government, and the US has made it worse in Venezuela. In other words, foreign meddling once again lead to a migrant crisis.
The US has a long history of backing coups in Latin America, funding militias and creating banana republics. This has made the region less stable and created more incentives for people to leave.
functor
1yr ago
Especially in the US there are probably a lot of people who would rather blame lizard people than face the reality that their own ideology is at fault. You can't have complete separation between church and state while the state enforces Christian morality. Much of the American right clings to the constitution and libertarian ideas while wanting society to enforce their morality.
If the state is supposed to be not involved in religion, who says gays can't marry?
functor
1yr ago
I also read something about the underground reservoir being polluted which is why they now rely in water from Israel but not sure.
2.3 million people in a tiny strip of desert are going to need to import water. It is the US and Israel that forces Egypt to police imports to Gaza. If it was up to Egypt they would allow more trade.
functor
1yr ago
I have never really understood why the right is so anti China. I understand bringing the jobs back but I can't why the right is so eager to defend LGBT on Taiwan.
functor
1yr ago
Right wing is group oriented, left wing is individually oriented. The moral foundations of the right are geared in group loyalty, authority and purity. Traditions, cultures and religions are ways of promoting group oriented behaviours. They are designed to make people take the option that benefit the group rather than themselves. left wing people are more narcissistic so it isn't surprising that they like to virtue signal about sacrificing themselves. When it comes down to making the actual choice the psychological correlates of leftism would be associated with saving oneself.
functor
1yr ago
The US has destroyed latin American countries, sucked resources out of them and bullied them for a century. Pretty much every awful social trend comes from the US.
functor
2yr ago
It is the reason why I support Russia. Being nothing more than an American colony run by hyperwoke American financial institutions and state department critters is the end of Europe.
functor
2yr ago
A quick look on google maps and Oklahoma city has far bigger freeways and far more of them than Copenhagen.
functor
2yr ago
In the 60s civil engineers were allowed to go wild and the results were disastrous. Old cities and beautiful historic sites were turned into massive freeways and oceans of parking. This is what some of the most historic parts of Stockholm looked like after traffic engineers sunk their teeth into it. The cities that went full traffic engineering in the 60s are now often the cities with the worst traffic due to induced demand. Building massive freeways didn't reduce traffic, it turned cities into Houston, while people in Copenhagen take a 15-minute walk to work.
Civil engineers were reined in for a reason, civil engineers tend to optimize for speed*volume of traffic. That isn't exactly a great metric for building a place in which kids bike to school.
functor
12d ago
They have effectively beaten NATO in a conventional land war. They are fighting an enemy in which every operation is run by NATO, the equptment is NATO, thousands of NATO mercs are running things on the ground.
While Israel and the US can't take an area the size of a municipality in Gaza against enemies with no resources Russia took the area the size of Denmark in a week against an enemy with 3x larger force.
functor
6mo ago
In a sense the US does. The US/Britain forced Ukraine to consistently talk the most hawkish stance and reject negotiation with the promise that the US/UK would have their backs. The Ukrainians are slowly waking up to that they are effectively taking the role the taliban had in the 80s. Their job is to be thrown under the bus for America's interests.
functor
9mo ago
functor
9mo ago
Fundamentally the solution to this war can't be from an Israeli perspective. We have hundreds of millions of middle easterners and then we have Europe close by. The solution needs to be one that benefits arabs and Europeans.
They have been kicked out of countries 109 times and seem to be a fairly nomadic people. If they want to settle somewhere it has to be on land that is available and doesn't cause a constant headache for the rest of us. The jewish autonomous oblast is bigger than Israel and available to jews.
functor
9mo ago
Why aren't people in the middle east ever allowed to engage in armed resistance when they are occupied? When Iraq was under a brutal occupation they were still labled terrorists despite having every reason and right to defend their country from occupation.
The same goes for the Lebanese. They are under attack and should be expected to fight back.
functor
10mo ago
The issue is that they hyped it up so massively that there is no easy way of pulling out. They lost Afghanistan in 2021, now they have spent three years talking up Ukraine and have wasted enormous resources on it and are losing. Not only has the cost been in the trillions counting the inflation, higher interest rates, and higher energy prices. But the US is constrained in weapons manufacturing. NATO suffers from a lack of hardware, old hardware and low production rates. At the worst possible time a sizeable portion of the stockpiles have been shipped off to Ukraine.
To make matters worse the US will have to reconstitute a military about 30% of the size of the US military. It simply isn't sustainable.
functor
11mo ago
Being bullied by the US isn't a good policy for Europe. American meddling is terrible for Europe. From the loss of culture to being dragged into forever wars the US creates constant headache for us. The US makes the rules, we follow the orders is a sad arrangement for Europe. With the US becoming more diverse, more divided and increasinly dysfunctional it is high time to move on.
functor
1yr ago
is practically designed to mislead. What the poll results say is that 35% say Australia should recognise an independent Palestine, 21% say it shouldn't, and 44% don't know.
So most voters don't care and don't have an interest in the issue. Those who do lean pro Palestine and there are few of their voters that are actually pro Israel. No reason to cause conflict over such an issue.
well, it's what I said just above about details - the question is the way in which that recognition can or should happen. In the SBS piece I linked about the Greens bill in May, the Assistant Foreign Minister says
Israel is a great threat to Palestine and the lack of a Palestinian state is a direct threat to the Palestinians. There is no reason except the donors to value Israel higher than Palestine.
- In the last year I've actually been particularly concerned by what seems like the importing of American-style activism over Israel/Palestine, with disturbing effects.
Israel is diversifying its support from the US and investing a lot more in lobbying in Europe and other places. They don't want to be dependent on one state. Unfortunately that is having an impact in other parts of the world when more politicians are going on paid trips to Israel and more Israeli lobbying money enters politics.
functor
1yr ago
Funny how the western media loved a supposed nationalist. If Navalny's critique of Putin was that he wasn't nationalistic enough he would have gotten zero-support for Navalny. At best it would be like Ukrainian nationalism where they get to wave WWII paraphernalia while the government rams through neoliberal and culturally leftwing policies.
Yes, it is abolutely tiny and they haven't been able to properly take it in a year despite exceptional brutality.
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