remzem
4d ago
When someone/thing with that sort of power kills a family member you got to be a little bit crazy to not fall in line and just accept whatever they get payed for the endorsements though.
remzem
6d ago
just a puppet state and source of expendable shock troops for the new Russian Empire.
So if they lose they end up being in exactly the same place they are now but for the Russian Empire instead of the Atlanticist Empire?
remzem
6d ago
It's continually baffling to me how the majority of this forum thinks that defending your own lands from a hostile foreign invader somehow makes you a puppet.
and it seems like bad faith to me when globalists are suddenly completely certain that nationalism is universally supported and good. Even the more right wing people I chat with aren't purely line on a map nationalists that ignore cultural differences. Ukraine is an especially poorly partitioned country where you have entire regions that are mostly Russian speaking, then others that are Ukrainian speaking, and still more that are heavily Hungarian. The place is a complete mess. It doesn't matter if they fix the "conscription issues" (which is a very clinical way to say that 10k+ a month are dying and their older male population is so exhausted the only way to keep the front from collapsing is to lower the conscription age and get rid of any opportunity for long term conscripts to demobilize)
credibledefense bans all opposing views... it's an echochamber like most of reddit.
remzem
8d ago
I think Bibi needs a war to stay in power. The west has been looking to replace him with someone more global west friendly for a while. Israel probably also recognizes that it's long term prospects are quite bad. Demographic issues. Surrounded by enemies and probably the most hated country in the world with large parts of Africa and almost all of the ME being against it for religious regions. West also seems to be losing support especially younger generations due to increase in immigrants and the upper classes obsession with oppressor/oppressed dynamics that they then racialize and apply to the global population. It probably feels now or never for them.
remzem
14d ago
Link just seems to be to a globalist ngo that ranks globalist countries positively?
These data sources are collected by a variety of reputable institutions, including the World Bank and the World Economic Forum.
WEF and World Bank? really?
Just write your own list of countries you don't like and it'd have as much credibility.
remzem
15d ago
I don't really see any evidence that authoritarianism is the sole variable when it comes to corruption. It can be a factor but on the other hand the west is nominally democratic and it's ruling classes central ideology, DEI, is an ideology that exists entirely to enable grift. Lots of things can lead to corruption. In Russia's case the necessity of winning the war now that things have gone hot is reducing corruption. Can't win a war if your bombs are full of water and your intelligence gathering agencies are lying to you.
I would say that this 'being under pressure' is the bigger underlying factor when it comes to corruption. At least corruption that doesn't get caught quick and exists long term. That's basically the way that democracy and capitalism combat corruption when they actually function properly. If you're a corrupt business or politician you are going to have unhappy constituents or products that aren't competitive, they vote you out / don't buy your stuff. Authoritarianism is kinda like Monopoly where this pressure is removed. Though I think people overestimate the amount of power and freedom to act that authoritarians have, people still have the power to 'vote' via violence, but the stakes are a lot higher and coordination issues mean that this 'vote' is rarely exercised.
In the textbook definition of authoritarianism where one entity does have sole power to do whatever, like if a god came down to earth or something, this pressure is entirely removed though. This probably ties in with the idea that ,"Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times."
remzem
16d ago
These two points are circular. A complacent and lazy Europe leads to a complacent and lazy Russia where the priority is people enriching themselves instead of furthering national goals. That's why recent events are such a disaster for the west. Russia is adapting to foreign pressure, which means this kind of corruption is decreasing as a necessity lest they lose to the US and get color revolutioned into a failed state.
remzem
24d ago
Finishing up ff7 rebirth. It's pure nostalgia for me, nice bonus that the combat is probably the best in a mainline ff game in ages. Really makes me wonder how ff16 scored as well as it did, that game feels like just the bare framework of a game compared to ff7.
remzem
27d ago
https://youtube.com/watch?v=WBZGgrgMwvU
Mike's got this alt channel, quick perusal makes me think either right or far off the beaten path left. I don't think he'd qualify as mainstream right either actually. Not that his exercise videos really push any agenda, way too many gay jokes for someone like Ron Desantis to ever be comfortable around him.
remzem
28d ago
UN Security Council demands immediate Gaza ceasefire after US abstains
UNITED NATIONS, March 25 (Reuters) - The United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution on Monday demanding an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas and the release of all hostages after the United States abstained from the vote. The remaining 14 council members voted for the resolution, which was proposed by the 10 elected members of the body. There was a round of applause in the council chamber after the vote.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the failure of the U.S. to veto the resolution was a "clear retreat" from its previous position and would hurt Israel's war efforts and bid to release more than 130 hostages still held by Hamas.
"Our vote does not, and I repeat that does not represent a shift in our policy," White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters. "Nothing has changed about our policy. Nothing."
Following the U.N. vote, Netanyahu canceled a visit to Washington by a high-level delegation that was due to discuss a planned Israeli military operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where some 1.5 million people have sought shelter.
Trump calls on Israel to ‘finish up’ the war in Gaza because it is ‘losing a lot of the world’
“You have to finish up your war ... You gotta get it done. And I am sure you will do that. And we gotta get to peace, we can’t have this going on. And I will say, Israel has to be very careful, because you’re losing a lot of the world, you’re losing a lot of support,”
The former president has refrained from issuing running commentary on the war since the Hamas attacks of 7 October and the subsequent Israeli response. The comments represent his most forceful intervention yet on the matter ahead of an expected United Nations Security Council vote later today that is expected to demand a ceasefire in Gaza.
When asked how he would have countered a rise in anti-Semitism that followed the Hamas attacks and Israel’s response, Mr Trump appeared to blame the images of Israeli bombings coming out of Gaza.
“Well, that’s because you fought back,” he said. “And I think Israel made a very big mistake. I wanted to call [Israel] and say don’t do it. These photos and shots. I mean, moving shots of bombs being dropped into buildings in Gaza. And I said, Oh, that’s a terrible portrait. It’s a very bad picture for the world. The world is seeing this … every night, I would watch buildings pour down on people.”
Seems like the Israel Palestine stuff might wind down. Both sides of the aisle now disapproving.
remzem
29d ago
Since it seems like all parties are incentivized to lie here I propose a test that I will call the "Budanov test" in order to eventually determine who is likely culpable. People are missing the point when it comes to ISIS claiming to have done it. ISIS isn't the same as it was during the Obama era. It's been beheaded and is just a loose collection of various Islamic extremists. These guys specifically seem to have been really low IQ hired meat, with the whole op having been planned by others and them recruited through telegram. Anyone could contract them or the people that contracted them, there is no central command. Could be actual Islamic extremists or state actors and we won't ever know. It's like 'Anon' claiming to be behind a high profile hack.
When it comes to the response even if Russia has information that it was in fact Islamic extremists they will be incentivized to point fingers at Ukraine. The same is true for the opposing parties. Ukraine will deny and so will any western country if they are involved. None of the big players are likely to reveal specifics as this could compromise their intelligence gathering with little to gain in a low-trust post fact deepfake environment.
However, if Russia does in fact have information it believes points to Ukraine their response would potentially differ from their response if it's purely being used as propaganda to further war goals. They are likely to use the attack to further support for Ukraine war yes, but it's not clear that they'd want to escalate things much beyond their current level as this risks more western support and they are currently, albeit very slowly, winning the war.
If they do have information that points to it being planned in some way by Ukraine from the logic of a state actor this is a major escalation and would require a response so as to deter similar attacks in the future and not appear weak. In this case Russia would not only be incentivized to ramp up the usual bombings they would likely target the people involved which would be Budanov or people in the intelligence agencies that are involved with Ukraine's assassinations. A response like this occurred after the dugina, and cafe assassinations. Where Russia targeted the main Kiev hq of intelligence services and Budanov went off the radar and was rumoured dead or injured for a while.
So tl;dr if Budanov is still in Ukraine and no major attempt or escalation has been made towards him and/or Ukrainian intelligence within the next couple months, it was probably just run of the mill extremism. If we see some ramped up attempts at Budanov or targetted attacks on Ukrainian intelligence agencies then Russia at least suspects it was Ukraine.
I suppose there is also the case they suspect it was western backed, seems less likely to me. There could be retaliation via an islamic terror attack in the US or a western country, but given the upcoming elections and the geopolitical stakes for the great powers in an election between maximalist and isolationist parties, the state of the US border, and also the current turmoil in the middle east... it's probably not a useful indicator. An attack is too likely in the lead up to the election and too many groups are incentivized here.
remzem
29d ago
I mean the actual leadership. Western control of Ukraine came about after Maidan, the false flag theory is that the Maidan shootings were Ukranian ultra-nationalist or Western false flag. The various figureheads after that like Zelensky haven't mattered anymore than the previous Russian figureheads mattered.
remzem
1mo ago
We banned freedom of association in the 60s. It's a legal thing now, not really a cultural thing. If anything the fact that people made so many attempts to still create communities since then shows that westerners are still healthy in that regard. It's just illegal, so inevitably some expansion of inclusion lawfare will torpedo any community you build. If you want to have some semblance of sanity focusing on very small local/extended family social interactions is the socially healthiest choice available.
remzem
1mo ago
Isn't Hanania full open borders? Maybe i'm mixing him up with someone else but I don't think he's focused on immigration.
remzem
1mo ago
They need anti-air, until they can regularly shoot down Russian aviation at range they will get glide bombed into oblivion. This is something Taiwan will also need an impossible amount of. Both conflicts are not winnable at current levels of production and cost of production.
remzem
1mo ago
I mean there are really two Navalnys. There is the western mass market patron saint of liberal democracy edition Navalny and then there is the real life Navalny. They have virtually nothing in common with each other and they are marketed to entirely different audiences so it doesn't really seem that weird that they should die of different causes as well. I doubt people that are following updates from Budanov are the sort of people that the state seeks to win over or that they will be overly concerned with how real life Navalny died regardless. Budanov probably just doesn't care.
remzem
1mo ago
Being young + getting botox, boob job and some minor plastic surgery seems to be the way people do that here. Car is less invasive though.
remzem
1mo ago
They don't really need to though? I mean I think the main reason China hasn't tried to take Taiwan is that it recognizes it would end up destroying Taiwan and that it can just wait for US influence to continue declining due to internal issues.
When it comes to actual capability it wouldn't be a problem for them. The Houthi's are still disrupting shipping lanes in the red sea despite American Navy presence and it's a big problem for the US. Iran can produce missiles for far cheaper than the missiles the navy uses to intercept them. Operating a navy that far from home has massive increases in cost due to logistics in resupplying etc. Would be the same with Taiwan. China can churn out missiles for far cheaper and can lob them from it's home turf while the US has to supply an island or a navy on the other side of the world. It's like a long range war of attrition / siege. If the US tried to actually put boots on the ground in China to counter production it would be laughably stupid even ignoring the threat of nuclear escalation. The US military is a lot less of a deterrent to China than the economic consequences of trade disruption. Which is probably why China is pushing overland trade routes so hard and otherwise just waiting.
remzem
1mo ago
China doesn't need a navy to fire missiles at Taiwan. It's only 120 miles off their coastline. It could continue firing them as long as it could produce them well after it's navy was gone.
remzem
2mo ago
basically https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Excalibur
which that might be based off.
It gives me 2000s edgy atheist vibes. Come on my podcast and offer hard evidence that god exists! That sort of thing.
Of course there isn't hard evidence. That's how the secret ballot works, if you manage to make the switch successfully no one can prove otherwise because you can't trace the votes back. The evidence simply doesn't exist unless one of the conspirators leaks it or fucks up. If they fucked it up the evidence would already be out there. It's not really a debatable issue, you could flip it on OP and ask him to provide hard evidence that the votes that were counted were in fact the votes cast by the voters and they wouldn't be able to prove that either.
You can point to other things like motive, ability, etc. Talk about how institutions and 3 letter agencies were openly coordinating against Trump and even foreign government spy agencies like mi6 appear to have coordinated with them. It's not hard evidence though, so OP can sit around and twirl their fedora all day.
remzem
2mo ago
Higher courts typically defer to the trial court's fact-finding
Surely this doesn't apply when the judge is openly partisan and basically making stuff up out of thin air? In other words that has to have actually been an attempt at fact finding for them to defer to.
remzem
2mo ago
You never watched Black Hawk Down?
Also conducted strikes a little over a decade after that on Al-Shabaab, supported Ethiopia in the War in Somalia, and Kenya during Operation Linda Nchi. Trump pulled troops out of Somalia, though they continued airstrikes from Kenya and Djibouti. Biden has sent troops back in (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/16/us/politics/biden-military-somalia.html) and that's just the military stuff and not the economic warfare.
I think it's still true everywhere but in cities even in the WEIRD west.
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