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
10mo 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
14d ago
NATO will inherit the rump state of what is left of Ukraine which is the part without the mines and the good agricultural land.
functor
4mo ago
Why do you even need an SUV to buy things? You could just walk a few blocks in a sensible city and get whatever you need. The SUV solves the problem the stroad created. The issue is that people live in suburbs that have the greenery and freedom of a city while having the services of a rural area forcing people to drive places.
The car based city layout makes people obese, is ugly as sin, and isn't functional as it is incredibly demanding to maintain.
functor
5mo ago
First, unlike other colonial powers the people making the decisions have no where else to go.
If Americans are so adamant about a jewish state they should give them a small plot of land. Jews have managed 2000 years without a state so it would hardly be anything new. A large portion of jews lived in the middle east without a jewish state for the past 2000 years. A jewish population in an Ottoman style empire would be return to normalacy.
and their military ability to defend themselves they fully expect a return to periodic pogroms and expulsions
Jews require constant conflict with everyone around them in order to maintain group cohesion. If they didn't want to be disliked a good start would be to stop killing large numbers of civilians. The cause of antisemitism is the type of behaviour Ben Gvir and his likes are engaging in.
Second, Israel has the full backing of the USA
Along with Vietnam and Afghanistan? Evangelical Christians who honestly believe Jesus will return if the foreskins in exchange for Israel deal is upheld is shrinking. The fact that the Jewish community is deeply antagonistic towards the Christian groups that support them doesn't help.
functor
10mo ago
Of course, if you're determined to be charitable you will interpret any "death to [country]" chant as a desire to merely rid it of the bad elites in a manner surgical enough to not kill the entire country, or at least large amounts of countrymen. However, it does not appear to work out that way often.
Why are they chanting death to America and not death to Iceland, Zimbabwe or Uruguay? It is clear that they are motivated by the absolutely abhorrent policies that american impoerialists have imposed on them. They are fighting the same military industrial complex that is a cancer on western societies.
I'm also curious if you'd extend the same charity to the domestic extremists who say "death to AmeriKKKa".
A lot of that crowd seem to be actively pushing the same wokeness as the people trying to impose gender studies on Afghans. If they strictly meant the NSA, black rock and Lockheed Martin I would support it. If they want to impose all sorts of wokeness then I don't support it.
functor
10mo ago
Israel is only "a burden" and "causing headaches" in so far as our current so-called "elites" are more aligned with the interests of Iran and HAMAS than they are those of thier own nations.
The elites are completely bought by Israel and are far more zionist that the populations.
We have zero interests in wasting trillions destroying middle eastern countries and we have no interest in causing massive refugee crisis on the border of Europe. We absolutely share an interest with iran, we want a stable Iran that isn't causing a migrant crisis, we want jihadists defeated in Syria and an end to the forever war.
There is nothing "European" or "Western" about Iran
Far more than there is with Saudis. Iranians tend to be the easiest middle easterners to integrate. They even speak an indoeuropean language.
Thier current tegime relies far more heavily on foreign support to maintain thier grip on power than the current Isreali government does.
Yes, they sell oil and cashews to us. I hope they continue and don't have their oil industry go the way of Libya's.
Hence thier support for anti-western and anti-enlightenment policies like a two-tiered justice system for migrants vs non-migrants under the guise of "decolonization", "social justice", and various other flavors of socialist nonsense.
The same woke politicians want to bring the migrants here from the wars they created. I oppose the wars that brought them here and the mass surveillance state migration requires. One of the advantages of the middle east rejecting the globalists is that they don't get infected with wokeness.
Christians aren't getting discriminated against or killed by the state of Isreal
Israel has driven a large portion of the christians out of the country, killed thousands, bombed churches and orthodox jews spit on christians. The Christian community in Syria has been wrecked during the war in which Israel sponsored the Al Nusra front. Jerusalem should be a christian city and jews are the one religion in the area that completely rejects christ.
functor
10mo ago
in that they deeply resent western values.
The ones who resent western values are Israel. AIPAC and ADL are some of the biggest threats to western values. Israel is a state fundamentally opposed to western values that causes constant headache for the west.
They want to see Isreal as a western ally weakened
Israel isn't a western ally, it is nothing but a giant burden on the west causing constant problems in the middle east, engaging in massive foreign interference and receiving a tonne of aid.
as they want to see Iran
Iran is an indoeuropean nation that is stable and exports oil. They are socially conservative while still having a modern and industrial economy. They have done an excellent job at resisting the catastrophic neo-con policies that have swamped Europe with refugees and let jihadists run amok in the middle east. We should be thankful that Iran helped liberate large parts of Iraq and are fighting jihadists in Syria.
to a Isreali woman's right to choose not to be raped
What about European women's right not to be raped by the migrants IsraAID is bringing into Europe? What about the christians in the middle east that are being destroyed by the hostile nation of Israel?
functor
13d ago
Israel killed as many civilians in two months as Russians killed in 3.5 years of fighting against a far more competent opponent.
functor
23d ago
The difference being Israels exceptional brutality, their politicians using references to biblical genocides and the high civilian death toll.
functor
1mo ago
I am wondering if we are going to see a rise in relationships between ugly women and relatively attractive men. A lot of men are priced out of the dating market and will be forced to date down. There could be strange effects were a woman who is a 4 and a women who is a 7 could end up dating equally attractive men. We end up with the elite of women getting the elite of men. Then a huge surplus of men who are 6-8 attractive and a large span of women being able to meet equally attractive men with many choosing not to in the hopes of dating up.
functor
4mo ago
No issue on a cargo bike. Also I prefer fresher food that buying tens of kg of food that is meant to be stored for years.
functor
5mo ago
First off the British military wasn't incompetent enough to get pwnd that hard. The Israelis were defending military outposts with hundreds of soldiers and got owned by men in sandals running over an open field. Of the 797 civilian casualties a large portion was killed by Israel blasting the area and preferring to kill civilians rather than letting them be taken prisoners. That is a civilian to military casualty rate well below two civilians killed by Hamas for every IDF soldier.
functor
6mo ago
While there are large slums and the underclass lives an awful life it is possible to live very well on a decent income. I have been to other developing nations but not to India.
functor
10mo ago
The start -stop behaviour is fairly unnatural. People don't do it when walking, cycling, boating or ridng horses. It is really a car specific behaviour. Urban areas existed for thousands of years without traffic lights and then as soon as the car came they were all over the place. Good urban design is less built around starting/stopping and more around interactions. Speed probably needs to come down a lot.
functor
30d ago
Depending on your age you already need to show ID. Just make passports the only valid ID if it is latin american.
functor
2mo ago
Ukraine fell for the Vietnam, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria trick of divide and conquer. Just like in Syria were groups of extremists started a war that drove ethnic tensions and collapsed the country Ukraine has become far more ethnically divided and forced into a more militant position.
It is painfully obvious that Ukraine will end up like every other neocon project. For some reason liberals think that Poland is the expected outcome of becoming an American puppet. The west bank, Afghanistan and Iraq are much more typical examples. The Ukrainians must first realize who the real enemy is and stop falling for divide and conquer tactics.
functor
8mo ago
They were pushed into Gaza by militia groups that ethnically cleansed the towns they came from. They can return to the place they were forced out of.
functor
10mo ago
The same people will happily make terror attacks in arbitrary non-majority muslim countries they can get into
How did they get into western Europe? They came because of the wars. Bombing Libya opened up the borders, Syria was a disaster for Europe.
The US sponsored jihadists in Syria and Libya. The west isn't fighting against jihadists as much as the west is fighting stable pan relatively secular states. The trillions wasted fighting "terrorism" in the middle east didn't stop terrorism, it made it much worse.
When the Iraqis kicked the Americans out the refugee waves stoped coming. That means less terrorism here.
functor
10mo ago
I mean, yeah; a state organized around blood-and-soil nationalism premised on a mythic past and present-day military conquest is pretty opposed to the modern deracinated, pacifistic, cosmopolitan western ideal.
Funny how the ADL and AIPAC have been pushing hard for the polar opposite of nationalism for us. Mass migration and open borders to Europe, an ethnostate for Israel.
Clearly the gentile governments of European nations don't care about protecting that right. Sounds like a problem with the Gentiles.
Yes, we need to get rid of the AIPAC and ADL influence.
Jews are famously neurotic and their school math scores are just above Turkey's in the pisa ranking.
More options
Context Copy link