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Headlines “Politics” [read the OP before posting]
- Thread starter vonFiedler
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Besides some childish view of "justice" I absolutely do not see an attempted fascist coup and crippling instability in the US as helpful at all for the rest of the world. If you think any percentage of the US population is looking at this and thinking "wow maybe what we did in South America was bad. I sure did learn my lesson" you're wrong. At best we're going to see Republicans rapidly pull back from Trump-ism and a bit of a return to normalcy. At worst we're going to see pro-Trump riots for weeks.
I'm requesting January 20th off from work just so I can watch Trump escorted out of the White House live. I can't wait.
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There's one thing I want to add onto this.
The footage of this whole debacle will be used for Chinese and Russian propaganda for years to come. There are a few other cliques you could cite, but they are the most important and absolutely the countries that are watching closely. They have waited for something like this for years, as it allows them to substantiate their anti-democratic and anti-American rhetoric. America calls itself the most democratic country in the world, and look at what's been shown off here: the antithesis of such. These kinds of countries have shown this kind of propaganda on their political ads for years, but this is big. Very, very big. So if there's anything this coup has been "good" for, it's the countries that want America booted off the world stage so they can expand their influence. Is it good for us? No, it's fucking terrible. It's a catastrophic failure.
This is nitpicking on a post I greatly agree with, but I feel it's useful context: At least Russia hasn't just been waiting; they've been actively using real/perceived American/western miscarriages as persuasion since the Soviet days, and have continued to actively do so as modern Russia has turned away from the west in the past decade and a half (eg criticizing of the Kosovo intervention as unilateral). Kosovo reminds us that Russia isn't just working from a moral angle, but from a stability angle as well, especially with the instability Eastern Europe/the Caucasus/Central Asia has had in the past twenty five years. That stability angle just got a good bit stronger with the recent Capitol events.
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It would be a catastrophic failure if it had succeeded. It's doubtlessly a shameful event, but I think the revulsion it inspired and a recency bias are causing us to overstate its importance. As it stands, Trump will be out of office in less than two weeks, and the Biden administration will have years to work to repair the damage done to US international standing. Of course he won't be able to repair it entirely, nor will he be able to check the rise of China as a competing superpower. But that rise was already underway before Trump was elected.
How is it remotely out of context?It's impressive how in just one sentence some posters can distort, oversimplify, and take out of context what others write, isn't it?
Sam was misapplying what I said about the broader political ramifications of the event to the feelings of non-politicians like us. I agree that it was a pretty terrifying day, and nowhere did my post deny that. But in the context of long-term foreign policy and the international balance of power, our being afraid doesn't change much.
Well my relatives on Facebook are already saying that antifa plants did it to hurt trump.
I’m at a loss.
I’m at a loss.
people will legit watch the united states be the most evil entity in history and be like 'noooo its world standing is falling! now china will take over!' like ;_; what the hell
edit: mrhands' reply to this was so fucked up that i put them on ignore instantly. someone else can deal with that
edit: mrhands' reply to this was so fucked up that i put them on ignore instantly. someone else can deal with that
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I mean there's the video of the viking literally screaming his support for Trump. - VIKING SCREAM
There's also a good ol' fact check that you can use. - https://www.politifact.com/factchec...ainted-man-horned-fur-cap-capitol-riot-suppo/
Just shove the facts in their face and let them cry. It doesn't matter what they think, but it's important to meet their idiocy head on with facts so the dozens of more neutral or unsure onlookers have a chance to understand reality. If they argue on just ask them for evidence. If they post any most of the time Facebook automatically just links to a fact check website for you lol.
China literally has concentration camps right now and you're trying to call the US the most evil entity in history? I get the US isn't a perfect utopia but its global hegemony and economic / military dominance has helped bring the world into the most peaceful, economically prosperous time in human history. The web of secure alliances worldwide has all but guaranteed peace to any nation willing to work with the US. Obviously the US is working with its own best interest in mind, as literally every nation does, but it has a wonderful side effect of ensuring military and economic security to almost every global power.
Edit: if you're going to block someone for replying to a post you made on a public forum then maybe you shouldn't make posts on a public forum.
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Mainly the genocides. A bunch of other stuff I dont like, but the genocides are really the biggy.
That's not what I'm expecting, though. I'm expecting and hoping for pain, chaos, and the beginning of the end of this detestable system.
oopsie! you said the quiet part out loud!
unless you live in the middle east or south america ig...
also, last time i checked there were still concentration camps on the us border. or did those all go away when the blue team won the election?
Name one single nation in human history that consistently acts to sacrifice its own best interest in favor of others. Just kidding, you can't. Because any nation that does that would quickly have an uprising by the people to replace a corrupt government or would otherwise gradually bleed global influence. Sorry but in the real world you can't be the nice guy every time. All nations work in the interest of their people and allies even if it is sometimes to the detriment of others.
Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Pakistan, Jordan, Iraq, Palestine, Yemen, Egypt, and Turkey all have extremely close military, economic, and intelligence networks with the US. The US donates a lot of money to all of them to help keep their nations secure and offers military assistance when needed (ISIS / drone strikes). That doesn't mean the US is "best buddies" with them but if you're implying that the US has brought untold destruction and ruin to "the entire middle east" that's a horribly simplistic view.
Edit: Also Israel is an ally, how did I forget that one lol.
We don't like Iran, ISIS, Hezbollah, Al Houthi, Hamas, or Syria though but there's pretty solid reasons for all of these.
Besides Venezuela and Bolivia virtually every nation in South America is a democracy and has close trade ties with the US. In modern day with the exception of mostly 2010-2015 Venezuela US - South / Latin America relations have been cordial.
Unless you're trying to reference the US funded revolutions in the 70s during the cold war in which case... who gives a fuck. That's just what happens when two superpowers are fighting over control of the world. The Soviet Union did the same and generally they were much more brutal about it. Also if you're really desperate to smear the US over things that happened decades ago Germany did that thing with Hitler. That was bad. Also the British Empire sure did ruin some nations. Do we still hold that against them or, maybe, is it only reasonably to judge a nation by their more recent choices?
I oppose the US's current immigration policy but yes, most likely we'll see it relaxed a bit now that the Democrats have control of the house, senate, and presidency. But also while I disagree with it those people snuck across the border and, at least for the most part, came here illegally. What did the people in China's concentration camps do? Huge god damn difference and trying to compare border detention to China's ethnic cleansing is disgusting.
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I think the millions of people negatively affected by US-backed regime changes that destabilized countries for decades to come might give a fuck. Your take is needlessly callous. You can acknowledge the (vastly) detrimental impacts of American imperialism while still being fearful of growing Chinese hegemony.
I mean I can agree that I feel safer under US global hegemony than I might under Chinese hegemony, as might be natural for any US citizen to feel, but c'mon...
i can't talk about china much, but russia i can. if you want sources let me know.
There are Russian Nazis. Some random examples. Then you have people like Zhirinovsky, a major politician (Duma member, former chairman, presidential candidate who got 10% of the vote in 2008 and 5% other years) who does things like allege that both the U.S. and Russia are "under occupation" by a "small but troublesome tribe". While I wouldn't quite call the "little green men" that acted in Ukraine "Nazis", there's something rather fascist-esque about stealth-dropping your unidentified soldiers into a sovereign country to set the groundwork for hostile territory annexation. What there are more of than Nazis, though, are "Neo-Stalinists"? "Stalin apologists"? A big chunk of Russia's population views Stalin positively, over 50% as of 2008. The modern Communist party leader, Zyuganov, explicitly says things like "the greatness of Stalin's era is self-evident even to his most furious haters". There are many reasons Russians vote for the communist party besides explicit Stalin love, but Zyuganov still did get 17% of the vote for a second place finish in 2008.
Russia's idea of "cooperation without the U.S." is having its neighbors cooperate with a stronger and more important Russia whether they like it or not. It will and has used trade deals, unions, and supply chains as weapons to enforce this. Russia doesn't want the Soviet Union back, but it will and has used force and underhanded means to prop up authoritarian neighbors who support it and crippling those seeking another direction to enrich itself.
- Lots of stuff with Ukraine. Besides the Crimea and Donbas annexation/conflicts, Russia trying to use natural gas pricing and access as a weapon to bend the Ukranian regime stands out.
- Using the interference in internal conflict as a carrot to cajole Georgia into hosting a pro-Russia regime instead of a pro-NATO one, stoking conflict when that didn't pan out before and during directly invading Georgia in the 2008 war, and de facto annexing its de jure territory afterwards. This isn't a free pass to Georgia, but Russia is not a humanitarian actor seeking to right great wrongs to the Abkhaz and Ossetians.
- Interfering in elections through fraud, bribery, and explicit candidate support to keep corrupt/pro-Russia regimes in and pro-Western regimes out, including in Ukraine and Moldova;
- Propping up strongman Lukashenko in Belarus, whose authoritarian regime makes the least free European country by far. I know Freedom House has American bias, but getting a seven out of one hundred for their democracy score means you've fucked up bigtime.
- Serving as a security and military broker to authoritarian Asian regimes like Tajikistan and Uzbekistan;
- Something about the CIS especially and also EAEU and SCO probably
There are Russian Nazis. Some random examples. Then you have people like Zhirinovsky, a major politician (Duma member, former chairman, presidential candidate who got 10% of the vote in 2008 and 5% other years) who does things like allege that both the U.S. and Russia are "under occupation" by a "small but troublesome tribe". While I wouldn't quite call the "little green men" that acted in Ukraine "Nazis", there's something rather fascist-esque about stealth-dropping your unidentified soldiers into a sovereign country to set the groundwork for hostile territory annexation. What there are more of than Nazis, though, are "Neo-Stalinists"? "Stalin apologists"? A big chunk of Russia's population views Stalin positively, over 50% as of 2008. The modern Communist party leader, Zyuganov, explicitly says things like "the greatness of Stalin's era is self-evident even to his most furious haters". There are many reasons Russians vote for the communist party besides explicit Stalin love, but Zyuganov still did get 17% of the vote for a second place finish in 2008.
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It breaks my heart seeing vulnerable people manipulated into doing stuff like this.
I mean, it was obvious, but...man.
fact check bias exists
not this one specifically but dont take politicofact with 100% certainty like that
even if facts are 100% correct you can spin them any which way
democracy as a whole wasnt infiltrated. a building was.
if you say the protesters were infiltrating democracy by claiming voter fraud then i can say companies also infiltrates' democracy by making it impossible to claim v. fraud in the future
china be emitting fossil fuels like mad
catching up, sure, but they still are emitting fossil fuels with worse tech and no way the gov't would let the population nknow about it
you dont know about russia or china's ideological systems
e; turns out china has less emissions/capita so
v vitroholic
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I originally wrote this post in response to someone not liking my above post, but I feel that there are multiple people who would share that feeling, so this is to all such people.
Did you think it condoned terrible actions done by the U.S.? It's true that I would probably prefer the current U.S.-centric system to one where countries like Russia have more power. But that doesn't mean I'm a jingoist, or that I think the U.S. is some virtuous foreign policy angel fighting the evil devil of Russia/etc., or that the U.S. hasn't done both idiotic and clearly malicious things. It obviously has! The only reason I prefer the current system is I believe a system that strengthens countries like Russia leads to even more abuse.
I demonstrated this through examples of the country I know enough to talk about, Russia, abusing the limited amount of power it currently has. Did you find fault with my examples? Did you think my examples were incorrect or unfair, not current anymore, justified, or not a predictor of future behavior? Did you think it's unfair to only talk about Russia and not other countries? Sorry, I just do not know enough about Chinese foreign policy to make a comparable examination for China.
Is it unfair to say Russia has significant neo-Nazi and/or neo-Stalinist elements? Is it unfair to put neo-Stalinist elements in the same group as neo-Nazi elements? (in severity, admittedly perhaps, but they're both current extremist authoritarian sentiments that are often manifesting through nationalism, which is why I brought them together)
Do you think my post was misleading without a comparison to what the U.S. has done? Such a comparison would be useful, but would be difficult for multiple reasons. The U.S. and Russia have occupied very different positions and trajectories of international power, with the "modern Russia" as a moderately capable global power being even younger than the Russian Federation as a country. The "what about"s would likely come from all corners. I'm not sure I want to commit the time to researching American foreign policy as to be justified in analyzing it at length in this specific context.
Did you think it condoned terrible actions done by the U.S.? It's true that I would probably prefer the current U.S.-centric system to one where countries like Russia have more power. But that doesn't mean I'm a jingoist, or that I think the U.S. is some virtuous foreign policy angel fighting the evil devil of Russia/etc., or that the U.S. hasn't done both idiotic and clearly malicious things. It obviously has! The only reason I prefer the current system is I believe a system that strengthens countries like Russia leads to even more abuse.
I demonstrated this through examples of the country I know enough to talk about, Russia, abusing the limited amount of power it currently has. Did you find fault with my examples? Did you think my examples were incorrect or unfair, not current anymore, justified, or not a predictor of future behavior? Did you think it's unfair to only talk about Russia and not other countries? Sorry, I just do not know enough about Chinese foreign policy to make a comparable examination for China.
Is it unfair to say Russia has significant neo-Nazi and/or neo-Stalinist elements? Is it unfair to put neo-Stalinist elements in the same group as neo-Nazi elements? (in severity, admittedly perhaps, but they're both current extremist authoritarian sentiments that are often manifesting through nationalism, which is why I brought them together)
Do you think my post was misleading without a comparison to what the U.S. has done? Such a comparison would be useful, but would be difficult for multiple reasons. The U.S. and Russia have occupied very different positions and trajectories of international power, with the "modern Russia" as a moderately capable global power being even younger than the Russian Federation as a country. The "what about"s would likely come from all corners. I'm not sure I want to commit the time to researching American foreign policy as to be justified in analyzing it at length in this specific context.
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