functor
2d ago
People need to reflect upon the fact that a mayor race of a US city is having an ethnic group's view of its homeland as the main issue. Imagine if a significant US city was having its election being about the Sudanese communities view of the mayor's Sudan policy. The absolute level of capture and control by a lobby of a small country is reason enough to vote for anyone opposed to it.
As Israel is becoming an increasingly brown country consisting of jews from MENA countries and religious fanatic ultra orthodox groups it is going to be hard to push the narrative that Israel is a pro western country. Israel has a long history of oppressing Christians, is causing chaos in the middle east and is doing extensive lobbying.
Which group is supposed to be supporting the west? The ultra left LGBTQ groups in Tel Aviv? The ultra orthodox? Ben Gvir talking about moving millions of Palestinians and creating a migrant tsunami?
What makes the zionist narrative difficult is that the ADL, AIPAC and the average Likud voter aren't really representing Matt Walsh base. Mainstream republicanism seems to be a wide tent as long as they are Israel first. The Israel first part is an increasingly difficult sell. They can pander Matt walsh as legitimate because he satisfies the jewish donors but he won't have the same appeal to the base. The base won't see him as more legit.
functor
3d ago
Ukraine has a tfr of 0.98, Russia at 1.41, Russia's is 44% higher. Also Russia has immigration of ethnic Russians from former soviet countries. Ukraine is experiencing an exodus combined with south korean birth rates...
functor
3d ago
Most likely massive exaggerations of Russian incompetence, a massive downplaying of Ukrainian successes, huge depletions of western stockpiles, wild levels of corruption and a war based on slogans rather than reality. It will be hard to sell Russia is collapsing, Ukraine are uber mench as Ukraine is falling apart. They are way more loudly invested in this fiasco than some fiascos in the Middle East. It will be embarrassing when the charade falls apart.
functor
3d ago
Ukraine was Russia for centuries, it was still Ukrainian. Ukraine now has collapsing demographics and will end up being completely replaced.Their culture will be some washed out American culture and their population will be Pakistani workers extracting resources for black rock. There is no force that is more culturally corrosive than western liberalism.
Ukraine wasn't even a part of Russia. There are parts of Russia with strong cultures. Ukraine would easily have remained Ukrainian.
functor
4d ago
While London is 50+% non British? Ukrainian culture will be as deconstructed as western culture and replaced by bland American consumerism while their population will be replaced by Bangladeshis extracting resources owned by western financial institutes. Ukraine's demographics rival South Korea's as the most catastrophic on Earth while they are allying with people who want mass migration with incredible fervor.
Don't think the Black rock owned plantation is going to have an HR department that cares about traditional Ukrainian culture or that the Nigerians working there have any interest in it.
functor
4d ago
, wants to suppress the Ukrainian language, indoctrinate their children into Russian culture with its own historical narratives
Unlike the western globalists who would never ever do something to dismantle a country's ethnic and cultural heritage...
If they want ethnic Ukrainian culture Macron and Keir Starmer are their worst nightmare.
functor
4d ago
Half the population of Gaza are children, I don't think most woke people advocate for mass murdering people in non woke countries.
Also Israel's goal is to create a massive refugee crisis on Europe's doorstep. In other words, Israel is trying to export Palestine to the west.
functor
4d ago
I would say it is a result of hyper moralism, a view of history that reads francis fukuyama as a prophet and the dumbing down of politics. The way Russians are being treated is similar to how transphobes were treated during peak wokeness. They can't be acknowledged to have any legitimate concerns, they are motivated by evil and we all have to performatively show our disgust on social media. It becomes impossible to have a sane, rational and calm debate regarding topics when they go BLM 2020.
We can't have a debate regarding war aims, what the security architecture of Europe should look like, whether pax Americana is feasible in a world in which the US is 17% of global GDP or whether Ukraine in NATO even makes sense. Just like we couldn't have a calm, rational debate about what defund the police will actually look like. There is just people performatively screeching slogans.
This has some roots back to the Afghanistan war. We could never have a debate or calm discussion. It couldn't be treated like a normal war because we were fighting "terrorists" and that apparently justified anything. Nobody could explain a path to victory, just slogans. It is amazing that it took five months from 20 years of Afghanistan fiasco to the start of the next forever war. At least after Vietnam there was a long cool down period.
Also it took years for the true scale of lying and issues in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq to be revealed by whistle blowers. During those wars the media was far more critical than they are now. Sooner or later there will be a Daniel Ellsberg of Ukraine and most likely we will find out the lies and propaganda for this war were at least as spectacular as they were in the previous wars.
The models aren't accounting for rare upsets. What happens to the market if there is only one factory in the world that makes some component we never have heard of but is super critical for hospitals, food production or airplanes and that factory burns? What happens to the market if there is a major war and the electrical grid relies on spare parts from few places? Bringing production home reduces the risk of extreme downturns so even if the median return is lower the average return is higher due to a smaller risk of extreme negative outcomes.
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