Calling Trump the American Gorbachev is brilliant and we all should be using it immediately. Mostly because people in the west think Gorbachev was “good” and this highlights how the actually just murdered the USSR.

Also, I believe it also means Hezbollah is cut off from Iran.

I don’t think the following is actually “true”, just describing it this way to get a point across:

It feels like, maybe two weeks ago, for the first time in years those involved at the absolute heights of imperialist power all got together in a smoky room and planned out their next moves. NATO has ratcheted up support for Ukraine in incredibly dangerous ways (for the first time in over 2.5 I’m starting to get genuinely concerned NATO will risk all out war with Russia). What’s going on in Syria has very obvious NATO and Israel coordination. Then there’s the ceasefire - which I am not a doomer about, but I have also been assuming there must be some sort of unwritten agreement to wind down the fighting in Gaza.

None of this is dooming, just that this all feels coordinated and very significant.

The empire strikes back.

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Hamas is all but dismantled

I don’t think this is correct at all. The Resistance in Gaza is constantly on the attack and has not let up in over a year. Even in the Netzarim Corridor - land the IOF “holds” - is constantly under attack. This is what urban guerrilla warfare looks like.

Biden’s comments made it clear that this ceasefire really only applied to Lebanon. He talked tough about consequences for Lebanon / Hezbollah if they broke the ceasefire, but not a peep about what if Israel broke it.

I’ll use this opportunity to plug the Boycat app; it’s not affiliated with the official BDS list but it’s been great to have handy. If a brand is owned by Coca-Cola it will usually list them, too. For example, this is what I got when I pulled up Honest Tea (owned by Coca-Cola, something I didn’t know until today):

I used GOS for about a year and a half, it’s pretty great. Tbh I didn’t feel I was really losing anything from the standard Android experience, but of course gaining more privacy and security.

Sandboxed Play Services works great. The only downside is you still need a Google account to use it, even if you only use the account for that purpose. And Google has really clamped down on not letting you create an account without providing a phone number.

But overall I definitely recommend GOS.

most normal people sympathise with Palestine. The zionists are getting away with a lot but they have alienated a generation

I’m still fairly plugged into the white American Evangelical community - a community whose support for Zionism is well known. And one of the more surprising things to me over the last year was how, both IRL and online, I could barely find any evangelicals under 45 who actually support Israel. Not the same thing as supporting Palestinian liberation - that was extremely rare in that group. But still, not what I was expecting to see.

Eh I still like it.

The US will never reshore industry.

Though this does tell me what I suspect, that the idea of the tariffs is more to try and squeeze concessions from China, Mexico, et al and not actually implement them or implement them for long.

I could see making a “ceasefire” deal with the Lebanese government and not Hezbollah as political cover. Perhaps “Israel” pulls its troops out of Lebanon and stops the bombing campaign. Then when Hezbollah continues attacking the north, the “Israelis” will say that they’re just being peaceful and Hezbollah is attacking them despite a “ceasefire” being signed. And then basically everything goes back to where it was just before “Israel” tried to invade Lebanon.

But I am seeing reports (particularly on Al-Jazeera) that it’s a ceasefire with Hezbollah, and for that I have no idea. It would be hard to imagine Hezbollah capitulating, but just as hard to imagine Israel ending the genocide in Gaza.

What’s never clear to me when a “ceasefire” is being discussed is whether it’s an agreement with the Lebanese government, or with Hezbollah. I usually assume it’s the former so it’s not going to be an actual ceasefire since it’s not the Lebanese government but rather Hezbollah that’s doing the actual fighting.

The problem with getting rid of the badposting comm is that it doesn’t stop people from posting that crap. They just do it on other comms so now everyone has to see it. Sucks that the only solution is to log in but I curate my comms and when I’m logged in the Hexbear experience is much better. I don’t like badposting any more than you but unfortunately having a quarantine comm is the only practical solution.

AUKUS, I knew I was forgetting something.

When Spain left Western Sahara there were people in Morocco who lined up on the border moved in to Western Sahara like white Americans taking over Oklahoma.

Morocco is one example of a non-European country doing settler colonialism (in Western Sahara).

I know you’re speaking in hyperbole but we know one time Biden was really getting angry and defensive (right as people were questioning whether he was competent enough to run again) was when he was defending how he got Finland and Sweden into NATO et al. Foreign policy seems to be something he cares about and he’s equal parts incompetent and evil at it.

In the US right now, there is no other word or group more closely associated with “terrorism” than Hamas. It’s not quite at the level of Bin Laden or Al-Queda… but it’s close. Right now to say that you sympathize with Hamas is scandalous. I don’t think it’s a position you would sorta default into without giving it much thought.

Libs cannot imagine that the Cuban people support the revolution.

I just finished reading Helen Yaffe’s Che Guevara: The Economics of Revolution, which documents Che’s time as head of MININD in Cuba as well as his economic ideas. One thing that is clear is that Che thought you need to develop that revolutionary consciousness in the people even in the earliest stages of the transition to socialism. I was a bit skeptical - not because that’s not important, but because it seems like idealism to me to think you can change hearts and minds (the superstructure) while development of the socialist base is just starting the transition away from capitalism.

But then again, the people of Cuba do seem to fully back the revolution, and to this day Cuba is communist. Meanwhile, folks in the Eastern Bloc were envious of westerners who had rock music and blue jeans, and they have capitulated to capitalism (I know the abandonment of communism in the Eastern Bloc is more complicated than that, but I do think there certainly was a lack of revolutionary spirit was a contributing factor even if it wasn’t the main factor). So clearly I think Che was on to something.