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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 6, 2026

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Strait is still closed, you are impotent to resolve that. Genocidal threats, begging for help, counterblockades, general pathetic thrashing. Any timeline on actual solution? This is a costly chimpout for the rest of us.

This is a costly chimpout for the rest of us.

I think the term is "vae victis".

Indeed, though rather than applying to the US or Iranian governments it more aptly applies to the Occupiers of the Government who chose this war vs the Occupied tax cattle expected to pay the price for it.

Wasn’t America supposed to have surrendered and accepted terms by now? I thought mining the straits was supposed to be some death blow to American empire but apparently Trump is fine with blockading it himself

Your only rejoinder to the fact that America is losing is the fact that it hasn't surrendered yet? By this kind of logic, if I told you the US accepted a strategic defeat and begrudgingly pulled out of Iran, you'd still claim it's a victory because the Iranians didn't conquer the moon.

  • America destroyed 80-90% of Iran’s military in weeks
  • Lost one pilot and pulled off an unprecedented military operation within Iranian territory that made a mockery of Iranian integrity
  • America now controls a near-majority of global oil supplies while other countries face a deficit
  • America is about to blockade the straits itself, which was supposed to be Iran’s leverage against America

Sure yeah America is losing I’m sure we’ll surrender any day now

America destroyed 80-90% of Iran’s military in weeks

80-90% of what?

80-90% of missiles? No.

80-90% of drones? No.

80-90% of IRGC troops? No.

80-90% of fast attack craft? No.

And Iran has the largest missile arsenal out of any single other country in the entire Middle East... I actually wonder if I'm being trolled or not.

My understanding is that the US is depleting it's stockpiles and it's causing concern amongst the administration. Especially because our high tech conventional arms rely heavily on advanced guidance and strike systems, which are in turn dependent on accessing key supplies of rare Earth metals that are overwhelmingly found in China. Restocking and resupplying these munitions isn't a walk in the park. Those supply chains are extremely fragile and the dependencies on them is enormous.

Restocking and resupplying these munitions isn't a walk in the park.

The US can build more than 100 JDAMs bomb kits per day, and there are good reasons to believe that the US has switched a substantial portion of its strike packages over to JDAMS.

This does not necessarily mean that more bespoke munitions like JASSMs, which might be employed for a number of reasons, are off the table.

Yeah... I'm definitely curious to know where you're getting your news from so all of these claims can be vetted.

Just to take one of your points as an example, I assume this is the rescue operation of the pilot in question that you're referring to? I hope you'll forgive me for doubting official statements made on this matter; because I'm not buying it. The massive show of force is highly disproportionate for a discreet personal recovery mission.

There's precedent for the US pulling out the stops in rescue operations.

It's definitely possible that the entire story isn't being told, but the rescue mission wouldn't be unprecedented.

I actually like history legends videos but he's definitely a pro russian shill. You have to take everything he says with a massive dose of salt.

Frankly I don't care about labels, no matter what the source. You have to address the arguments made by people, not the person. There's a very serious deficit of critical thinking in the population that goes dangerously unaddressed. Even in more intellectual circles.

You shouldn't read sources that only suit your preconceived ideas. You pay attention to both sides. All cranks distrust sources merely because they disagree with them and they often use no valid appeals to evidence to justify their claims. Back when I was in school and Wikipedia first became a thing, there was a lot of controversy using it as a source when doing your homework. It's been demonstrated to be just as reliable as any other encyclopedia. Which is to say, not great; but it's better than asking Uncle Joe. The principal value it has is that it at least tries and makes an effort to have a cited source for a claim, and more than that, one that is a 'good' source as opposed to a bad one. Because of that, it's a valuable place to begin when you decide to want to start "doing your own research."

You have to address the arguments made by people, not the person.

It's more than just arguments, it's evidence and what sources they cite. If someone is constantly citing the Weekly World News as their proof that Bat Boy exists (or worse, is straight up lying or making up their own fake evidence), it doesn't matter how good their arguments are for why Bat Boy is real. There have been tons of lies on all sides of the Ukraine war, and I'm extremely skeptical of any of the Youtubers that regularly comment on the war because of the amount of sheer lies many of them have peddled.

I literally said that I watch his videos, but you're proving nothing if you just give his hot take on the situation without corroborating it with other mainstream reporting or alternatively osint info.

The US government and mainstream news companies are reporting we infiltrated Iran to rescue our guy. You are not going to bait me into trusting some pimply YouTuber instead and I am not going to watch a 23-minute video to find out if he says anything interesting. Frankly this is embarrassing. It’s always possible if not likely that the official story covers up deeper truths but if you don’t believe basic facts about the war there’s nothing for us to argue about. Maybe the Iranians are marching on Washington as we speak.

So then I assume Trumo/Hegseth and CNN are who you're quoting?