Nah I don’t like authoritarian simpers either but Platner is pretty sus

Just 5 years ago he said he joined the marines because he:

Wanted to have an adventure and kill some people. Joined up in ‘04, did Fallujah and Ramadi, and managed both. Hell of an excellent experience.

Also he did definitely serve as a prison guard in Abu Ghraib and took part in suppressing people trying to liberate others from being imprisoned and tortured:

Later, while he was on patrol at Abu Ghraib, there was an attack on the prison. (It was nearly two years after human-rights abuses were first reported at the prison; Platner was not involved.) “That was my first real taste of combat,” he said.

Also he was calling everything bad “gay” and used “fags” as an insult as late as 2021 (oddly seems a bit closeted tbh but w/e)

And look it’s not like the Mothership PAC lover Jordan Woods will fight the oligarchy so this kinda leaves Janet Mills who isn’t ideal but idk at least she didn’t rejoice in killing brown people 🤷

Rich coming from the UK/EU that had no issues selling weapons to the UAE (and indirectly the RSF) until oopsies suddenly they’re doing massacres so the gov has to wag their finger and go “bad insurgents you weren’t supposed to murder masses with the weapons of mass murder we sent you”

British-manufactured Militec small-arms target systems and Cummings engines for armoured personnel carriers have literally been recovered from RSF combat zones in Sudan. Not to mention BAE and Leonardo have been doing massive deals with the UAE for years - typhoon jets, helicopters, missiles, the whole deal.

But sure, now they want a ceasefire. After years of arming the UAE knowing full well where those weapons were going. So even if they were to stop right now (spoilers they’re still arming the other big genocidal state two years into a genocide) there’s still so much already shipped there.

And let’s be real I’m sure the defense contractors’ bleeding hearts will see the new genocidal campaign and are gonna stop salivating and say no to the infinite money glitch…

#1 goes mostly from claims by the Ukrainian government. It is true that Russia has extracted children from the warzone and it is true that in some cases these children have been sent to adoptive families in Russia, which I heavily condemn, but it’s not a generalized thing and most confirmed extracted children have been returned eventually.

wat

Thanks for linking the UN Report - really horrific stuff:

Two-thirds of the twenty-six former detainees interviewed, reported having been subjected to treatment that would amount to torture and/or other forms of ill-treatment, either in VETC facilities themselves or in the context of processes of referral to VETC facilities. These claims of mistreatment took place either during interrogations or as a form of punishment for (alleged) wrongdoing. Their accounts included being beaten with batons, including electric batons while strapped in a so- called “tiger chair”; being subjected to interrogation with water being poured in their faces; prolonged solitary confinement; and being forced to sit motionless on small stools for prolonged periods of time.

Some also spoke of various forms of sexual violence, including some instances of rape, affecting mainly women. These accounts included having been forced by guards to perform oral sex in the context of an interrogation and various forms of sexual humiliation, including forced nudity. The accounts similarly described the way in which rapes took place outside the dormitories, in separate rooms without cameras. In addition, several women recounted being subject to invasive gynaecological examinations, including one woman who described this taking place in a group setting which “made old women ashamed and young girls cry”, because they did not understand what was happening. The Government has firmly denied these claims, often through personal or gendered attacks against the women who have publicly reported these allegations.

The extent of arbitrary and discriminatory detention of members of Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim groups, pursuant to law and policy, in context of restrictions and deprivation more generally of fundamental rights enjoyed individually and collectively, may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.

You’re right it’s incorrect to call it a genocide but I’m glad you at least agree that “rape”, “torture”, “deprivation of fundamental rights” and probable “crimes against humanity” are being committed in the “re-education” camps against non-Han ethnic groups with the government being at the very least complicit by denying any wrongdoing - so it’s good to know you don’t blindly believe the CCP to be a benevolent force for good but can recognize the harm they’ve already caused to Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks and Huis in Xinjiang.

Vowing that streets in the UK must not become a “theatre for intimidation”, she said: "You see it manifest in the shameful behaviour on the streets of our cities, protests which are in fact carnivals of hatred directed at the Jewish homeland.

Obviously the recent attack on the synagogue was horrific but the framing that this is why we need to protect the “Jewish homeland” without even a passing mention of the myriad of anti-muslim attacks (including the mosque arson) and the general animosity that has grown out of the genocidal campaign of Israel against the Palestinians is obviously done in bad faith.

How about the UK stops supporting the genocide, sanctions Israel and promises to keep both Muslim and Jewish communities safe? Wouldn’t that be much more effective in creating a safer country for everyone, instead of just expanding the violence apparatus of the state?

But we all know that in the face of popular unrest they’d much rather beat everyone into submission that submit to the will or the people.

I’m just sad that leftists called this even at the start of this wave of the genocide that both denominations will continue to feel more and more unsafe so long as the UK (and the west in general) keeps providing cover for an increasingly more obvious genocidal campaign and are now being blamed for it as if the messenger is the perpetrator…

actually that’s only for laser printers - inkjets don’t have tracking dots

Can’t say he isn’t willing to get his hands dirty…

I tried ladybird and it’s obviously very early stages but it’s so slow that I am quite curious how they’ll solve the JavaScript performance problem that V8 engineers have spent the last almost 20 years solving.

I wish them luck tho as we do need more alternatives in the space

Depends on your definition of “favor” - I’m not in “favor” of militant resistance as much as I’m not in “favor” of oppressive powers.

But I acknowledge that while the latter exists the former has a role in protecting those being oppressed until societal shifts occur that make such resistance unnecessary.

I feel your argument is that such resistance groups only perpetuate violence itself and will end up being the ones oppressing others once they’re on top - this seems like a valid concern on the surface but is again historically inconsistent (eg. all the groups we’ve discussed became less militarized once they achieved their aims - not more)

Furthermore, it echos “swart gevaar” like rhetoric and is often based on oppressor groups’ projection that assumes marginalized people will behave exactly as they themselves have when given power, as they literally cannot imagine equality because their own experience of power has been about domination. (not directed at you just more as an example of why armed resistance is generally seen as more violent than the banality of state violence)

Also, I understand you were speaking in the present and future tense, but without exploring the historical context of similar struggles in the past it makes it impossible to consider what can work now or in the future.

Finally, dismissing militant resistance entirely essentially tells oppressed people to limit themselves to tactics that those in power find acceptable, which is a very convenient arrangement for those wanting to maintaining existing hierarchies.

TL;DR I don’t condone violence but when violence is already routinely perpetuated against those most vulnerable then I acknowledge violent resistance can become necessary as an action of last resort

Violence is not and never will be the answer.

This is historically inaccurate and not acknowledging the role that militant resistance has played in the Indian, Civil Rights and even women’s liberation represents a particular form of contemporary sanitization that only serves existing power structures.

Of course saying violence is the only way is just as absurd as saying that non-violence is the only way. As MLK and Malcolm X have shown you need both the carrot and the stick to make the carrot seem like the appealing option - as the state will always attempt to extinguish both.

I’m always reminded of this letter by Dr. King when this question arises:

First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens’ Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season …

Vivaldi is an european employee owned cooperative from Norway

This is blatantly and easily verifiably false - Jon von Tetzchner owns 81% of the company via Vivaldi Invest AS

I just hope you’re genuinely uninformed and aren’t intentionally misleading people but this makes me mistrust everything you’ve written.

At that point why not just use a fully FOSS project like ungoogled-chromium and avoid doing free advertising for a company that makes money off Amazon kickbacks?

So like Israel?

Or I’m guessing just people with certain “jeans” will count as “American”?

So you consider a state censoring all it’s citizens from discussing certain words and topics to not be authoritarian?

better to try and fail than not try at all

as someone in close proximity with ai doomers and with a reasonable knowledge of computer science - I don’t think AGI is as silly as this meme presents it - however climate change is a much more pressing and encompassing issue that I feel takes precedent over any super intelligence fears.

like the “best” argument I’ve heard is that climate change isn’t as big a deal since super intelligence will solve it but then we’ll get subjugated by it - ok but how about it solves our most existential problem first and then we worry about the aftermath?

they all seem to just throw up their hands and say we shouldn’t let it save us (if it even could) and just live out the rest of lives since there’s nothing we can do about either… weird tho how this argument only ever seems to come from comfortable westerners… if they were really serious they’d be out there destroying chip fabs in Taiwan…

idk I just think it’s the new climate inaction narrative but in a tech doomerist clothing.

The article you’ve linked says they’ve forgiven less than 5% of the total amount lended so not sure I’d classify that as “frequent”

Further, the PRC does not require austerity politics or otherwise giving up sovereignty over the recipients economy, they pay for infrastructural development.

I agree this is definitely a good thing but I want to acknowledge they do also directly profit from all this development - they’re not doing it to help others for the socialist ideal but for strategic geopolitical goals

they just fundamentally don’t have the same mechanics that force imperialism in the west, like huge private monopoly and falling rates of profit.

But they still operate in the same system which is why even their renegotiated loans never fall below the 2% inflation rate.

Idk I can understand critical support of China when it comes to challenging western imperialism I just don’t agree with their approach of rejecting egalitarianism and enforcing material inequality as a means to supposedly reach communism

So you’re saying that China didn’t extend or take advantage of western debt traps for their own economic and geopolitical goals?

So

• Sri Lanka desperately needs $1.12 billion to avoid defaulting to Western bondholders
• China provides that cash immediately
• In exchange they get 99-year control of a $1.4 billion strategic asset
• Sri Lanka still owes them the original construction debt
• China now controls 70% of future port profits for a century (or two)

And look I’m not claiming that this crisis wasn’t caused by western imperialism - but calling it a “trade” or “multilateral exchange” when China very obviously took advantage of a country in crisis for almost exclusively their own benefit is disingenuous.

Do you really see no issues with such predatory lending (irrespective of it being done by the IMF or BRI)?

Didn’t Mao do the Cultural Revolution specifically to prevent (not that it was implemented well or that it worked) what he saw the USSR was becoming and wanted to prevent China from following in the same capitalistic footsteps?

As in do you believe the person who said

(2) The imperialist powers have forced China to sign numerous unequal treaties by which they have acquired the right to station land and sea forces and exercise consular jurisdiction in China, [17] and they have carved up the whole country into imperialist spheres of influence. [18]

(3) The imperialist powers have gained control of all the important trading ports in China by these unequal treaties and have marked off areas in many of these ports as concessions under their direct administration.[19] They have also gained control of China’s customs, foreign trade and communications (sea, land, inland water and air). Thus they have been able to dump their goods in China, turn her into a market for their industrial products, and at the same time subordinate her agriculture to their imperialist needs

would approve of the belt and road debt trap or the actual 99 year lease China used to take over the port of Colombo in Sri Lanka ?

Or is it fine to exploit other countries if the people in your country benefit?

Even then you believe they’re socialist when Deng Xiaoping says (and Xi repeats this “common prosperity” rhetoric) that

“Our policy is to let some people and some regions get rich first, in order to drive and help the backward regions, and it is an obligation for the advanced regions to help the backward regions.”

So you recognize the failure of neoliberal “trickle down” economics but refuse to accept that if the same capital accumulation happens in a “socialist” country its suddenly not a problem?

And you really think that Jack Ma and his family won’t fight tooth and nail to keep their private jets and offshore million dollar houses instead of forgoing them voluntarily for the good of the socialist project? please…

It’s a blog post that uses a 1957 CIA invasion plan of Ukraine to frame the conflict in a very one-sided manner (ie. the CIA put Ukrainian nazis in power who then indirectly burned pro-Russian protestors to death in the Union House Building)

Even ignoring the very broad brush strokes the author paints with - I still don’t understand why he seems incapable of recognizing that two things can be true at once?

Like it is both possible for the the US to take advantage of Ukrainian tensions for their benefit - while also acknowledging that Russia is an imperialist power in and of itself and can also do the same.

I just don’t understand how you’d go through all the trouble of laying out how both sides are ripping up Ukraine and come out with the conclusion that it’s all the fault of Ukraine and the US.

Oh right we’re only allowed to make that connection if neolibs are in power…