I think Americans often have trouble understanding the way nationalists in other parts of the world think because it is quite alien to their own thought process
Is it? The US spent two trillion dollars trying to spread liberalism to Afghanistan. Americans would rather bomb a village half way around the world to pieces than accept that they have a different view on feminism, transphobia or lgbtqaxzypdfsdfsffw than Americans have. If a country doesn't have McDonalds, Coca cola and tinder Americans become so outraged that they want to invade it before they even can find it on a map. There is no country or group that is as obsessed with ensuring the rest of the world follows their rules as the US.
The US can't accept that countries in Latin America aren't copies of the US.
functor
6d ago
What would their alternative be? Ukraine is being pressured along the entire front. They haven't had a proper attack since August, in which they claimed an equivalent of less than 1% of the land they have lost while attack an area that the Russians barely were defending. Ukraine is facing a demographic crisis not seen since the collapse of Rome.
Ukrainian nationalists seem to be wildly detached from reality. They want a national socialist state financed by Keir starmer after their war has a miraculous turn around in which they go from being pressed back to smashing through the Russian lines and Russia collapsing. At some point they have to stop speaking in slogans and start focusing on what is practical. Their negotiating position isn't improving with time.
functor
10d ago
Not liking jewish behaviour has been a staple of western conservatism for 2000 years. The Bush era wasn't a historical norm, it was an exceptional outlier. Christianity and judaism are not to religions that have gotten along well. The amitions of ADL and AIPAC are difficult to reconcile with right wing America first politics.
functor
18d ago
A palestinian nation would be like Jordan, a country that doesn't create much trouble and is easy to forget about. There is no Jordanian ADL, no Jordanian support to Al Nusra in Syria, no Jordians committing genocide. Israel has a unique ability to be in conflict with everyone under the sun.
functor
18d ago
How likely today is the return of North America to the American natives?
you mean giving all the Palestinians citizenship + reserves + the complete freedom of movement?
The only way to ensure Israel’s survival in the long term is an end to the Palestinian issue.
Israel was a giant mistake and should end similarly to French Algeria. The French were their for a century, it wasn't sustainable and they left.
If he had killed 200,000 over 18 hours he would not have faced half as much opprobrium.
A completely genocidal country that is sees murdering people fast as a way to get away with it is going to be an enemy of everyone around them.
functor
18d ago
The ADL and AIPAC, Israel's behaviour, the Syrian war, etc haven't exactly helped. Jews reached a feeling invincibility, and got arrogant, and entitled. The jewish community should reflect upon their own behaviour and why they consistently end up in conflict with everyone around them. Instead they promote conflict because an external enemy is required to keep the jewish community together.
functor
20d ago
lithium mining
Being self sufficient is a goal in itself. Being reliant on other countries is a risk.
It creates good jobs in the US.
More smaller mines and processing plants in different countries is less risky than having a globally centralized industry.
functor
20d ago
There really isn't a lot China needs to import from the US. China mainly buys airbus jets and China has already been cutting back on American goods. China imports 140 billion USD worth of goods from the US. These tariffs are on about 0.1% of the global economy and people act like the sky is falling.
What I find most interesting is how many on the left have come out as supporters of free trade. Historically opposition to free trade has been a corner stone of left wing politics.
functor
21d ago
If china was just producing plastic junk it wouldn't be an issue. BYD can produce cars at a similar quality as American companies while using their enormous home market, their mineral and processing capacity and the fact that Chinese engineers cost 20% of what American engineers cost. Far more Chinese people in the 100-120 IQ range go into trades while the west unfortunately dumps low Iq people into these jobs while pushing the slightly above average into meaningless office jobs.
Free trade was great in 1950 when the US bought bananas and sold cars. It isn't great when almost everything can be produced in China, India, Poland or Vietnam. China can even compete with AI models and satellite systems. The US can't compete without tariffs. The US risks becoming a real estate bubble using debt to buy goods from Asia.
Free trade was based on American supremacy, the rise of tariffs is the US becoming one country among many. The US isn't a global empire any more, they are a sphere of influence and need to be self sufficient.
Also with covid and Ukraine we should have learned that self sufficiency is paramount and that the US shouldn't be dependent on convoluted global supply chains. Having several supply chains in the world with local suppliers is a lot less fragile.
functor
26d ago
European manufacturing is suffering. Also Europe is largely a lot cheaper than the US. Engineers in Milan made on average 35 000 Euro last year. French electricians make around 25000 Euros a year.
functor
26d ago
There are plenty of benefits.
Makes domestic manufacturing more competitive. The US economy can't be based on finance and a tech. Wall street and silicon valley simply don't employee anywhere near enough workers to satisfy a country with 340 million people. Having a few people make vast fortunes in the medical industry and insurance while a hundred million people sell services won't be sustainable. The US has rising income inequality and the fracture between wall street and average Joe has become way too large. If pollution happened in the same area as the consumers live we would have a far greener world.
Outsourcing increased the distance between owners and workers. American oligarchs have no connection to their workers in Vietnam. If they lived in the same city the connection would be a lot stronger. Boeing workers working at the same complex as the bosses in Seattle will be treated better than workers in Mexico.
Sovereignty: Being dependent on long international supply chains is a major risk. The world risks a bronze age style collapse if global supply chains break down. Imagine a war in Taiwan, a serious pandemic, a tactical nuclear war or a meteor shutting down a few key factories. It could upend our entire civilization. We could quickly find out that farms are dependent on some supply chain for some component we never have heard of but keeps us all fed and this factory has been knocked out. The number of suppliers that supply key components to medical care, the electrical grid, oil and similar is shockingly small. Many companies are dependent on numerous supply chains and if one of them broke down it could cause cascading effects. It may be more efficient to have 1-4 global suppliers of key components than to have dozens. However, it is far more anti fragile.
functor
28d ago
I disagree with the notion that the dissident right has a weak presence on tiktok. I am seeing lots of dissident right content on tiktok and the comment sections are on fire. Tiktok has more freedom of speech than most big tech platforms and has an algorithm that makes it a lot more likely for niche content to go viral. There is a reason why tiktok is overrepresented in producing memes and trends. Tiktok is more interconnected and users are less siloed into tiny communities than most other platforms.
The group that is missing on tiktok isn't dissidents, it is the mainstream republicans, never Trumpers and American enterprise institute types. These groups need to seriously take a look in the mirror and have a long think about why their message has a non existent resonance with tiktokers. Just because Dick Cheney wears a suit doesn't make him respectable.
functor
29d ago
That’s what second strike capability is for, to maintain the threat of MAD even if a stealth first strike successfully eliminates one of the parties. Russia maintains second strike capability in two ways: 12 nuclear submarines (nuclear here meaning armed with nuclear weapons, not just nuclear powered) and a system of road mobile ICBM launchers that would be dispersed out into the Siberian countryside in the likely event of a conflict.
Historically, the submarine commanders don't have the launch codes. The soldier's with the roadmobile ICBM launchers don't have the launch codes. A second strike has historically required authorization from the two of the three launch code holders. That system doesn't work with 10 minute launches.
Russia would have to go from 3 people having launch codes and two having to push the button and having 30 minutes of time to dozens of people individually having the power to do so.
functor
29d ago
Russia has the world's largest nuclear arsenal and have modernized their platforms. There is not much Soviet hardware left in the Russian arsenal.
Russia has a solution to the first strike problem, decentralization. If it takes 30 min for a nuke to reach Russia, then Russia can have the setup where two of the three following must vote yes for a strike: the president, the commander of the Russian military, the chief of the Russian military staff.
With 10 minutes flight time there isn't enough time to have that system. Russia won't give up on mad, instead they will start handing out launch codes to lower level people. These people have an absolutely awful incentive structure. If one of their peers fire they are better off if they fire asap. Most nukes are aimed at enemy nukes. If you think one of your peers will fire and a nuclear strike in imminent, your best option is to fire away at enemy nukes. Giving more people ability to push the button, giving them less time to verify the attack and giving them an incentive to react fast is absolutely awful.
Pulling out of the INF treaty and expanding NATO eastward could be the start of the worst chain of events in 65 million years.
For Russia this war is worth it if they think the risk of a nuclear exchange is reduced by even 1% over the next century which is 1/10000 per year.
Has the US ever bombed a country with a state endorsed pride parade?
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