Greenleaf [he/him]

  • 28 Posts
  • 913 Comments
Joined 10 months ago
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Cake day: December 11th, 2023

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  • All US client states in the region only have the individuals at the very top - kings, some of the national bourgeoisie - who are allied with the US. The overwhelming majority of the people despise the US. Not a stable situation for an ally. The client states also have their own allegiances and enemies across the region. Those entanglements make unilateral action harder. Israel is a completely foreign entity to the region without any sort of entanglements - everyone hates them. And as you have seen over the last year, these clients have to tread very carefully with their own populations in terms of being seen openly helping the US. Israel has a population that is bloodthirsty and loves it when their military causes death and destruction in the region.




  • This was the path that was open to them in 2014. Arguably, it’s the path most Ukrainians wanted. That big economic deal that Yanukovich tried to make with Putin would have kept them neutral, because they had to make a deal with someone and Putin was more interested in keeping Ukraine away from NATO than pulling them into Russia’s orbit.

    But that was unacceptable to the US and NATO. So they fanned the flames of Maidan, which in itself led to tremendous division in Ukraine. And when Ukraine was looking to make a deal to end the conflict quickly, that’s when Boris Johnson came by with either threats or lies (or both) to keep them fighting. For any Lemmy libs who may wander in here, that is why I give my critical support to Russia in this fight. In no way is some inevitable, ancient conflict between Ukraine and Russia. In fact, every time Ukraine has had a chance to pull the car over to side of the road, the US has been there to jerk the steering wheel back and step on the gas.

    Death to America.






  • I started by looking at a James Lindsay tweet, and then spent waaay too much time reading the replies, and then going down too many rabbit holes of seeing profiles of boomer MAGA weirdos with the worst takes on communism you can possibly imagine.

    Americans brains are so deeply broken. They are convinced there’s some massive conspiracy, led by the Democrats and noted communists like George Soros to bring about a communist revolution, which apparently is going to happen definitively if Trump isn’t re-elected.

    I don’t know why it bugs me as much as it does.



  • Saying this as an outsider, so I can only speak to appearances, which means I may be very wrong.

    But it seems to me that China still trusts the United States way too much. It’s almost as if they can’t see why the US would be will to throw away a relationship that has been so profitable for both countries for so long. Or at least, they do not quite see the full threat that the US poses.

    It could just be that China doesn’t feel like they are in a position yet to make strong counter-moves against the US. I mean, yes, I think they do recognize this and that’s part of the rationale for the belt and road initiative, for dumping US T-bills and moving into gold, etc. But I don’t know if they realize the speed at which the US is moving.

    I really enjoy board games - those complicated ones that can take hours to play. And I usually play with a good friend of mine since we were little kids. This friend of mine is absolutely brilliant, too. And whenever we play games together, he wins almost every time. Why? Objectively, the strategies I take are usually “correct” and well thought out. I don’t think my strategies are any worse than his. However, my friend operates on another level when it comes to speed. I will have this whole machine built in my head, but I will say to myself that I still need to do X and Y to win. And then by that point, my friend will already have won.

    Maybe that’s a silly parallel to the China/US situation. While I don’t think China actually trusts the US anymore, I do hope they realize the implications of what the US is planning on doing, and realize that they may need to rapidly speed up their plans to counter.



  • Requesting thoughts from the New Mega Economic Bureau:

    I do believe the prospects for the Israeli economy are very grim (inshallah). They’ve lost a huge number of citizens to emigration, disability, and death. The economy relied quite a bit on over 200k Palestinian workers who Israel has said they don’t intend on welcoming back. I think they will stick to that, and their plans for replacing those workers from others from places like India I don’t think will pan out (both for logistical reasons and because Israelis are deeply racist). I can’t imagine they will be able to draw immigrants like they used to and will likely bleed more citizens as they’ve shown their own people just how precarious their lives there are. The tourism industry there is dead. Their reputation in surveillance and security - an important export industry for them - has taken a massive reputational hit. I doubt Intel will want to continue on there.

    When the potential destruction of the Israeli economy (and thus, by extension, the Israeli state) is brought up, a perfectly understandable retort is that the US will do whatever they need to to prop up the Israeli economy. That’s what I more or less what I think at least on the surface. But the question I have been asking myself is: is it even possible for the US to prop up the Israeli economy?

    My understanding is that all “aid” from the US to Israel takes the form of US dollars being used to purchase US-made munitions and military equipment. The money never touches Israeli hands, is never sent through the Isreali economy, and is not used for anything “productive” from the Israeli economic perspective. And this the general modus operandi for US foreign aid - the foreign country doesn’t get cash and they CERTAINLY aren’t granted like, the ability to recruit US firms to build facilities there. So point being… sure, the US can take USD and buy not just military gear from the US MIC, but they can also buy food from US farmers, cars from US manufacturers, etc. They can make sure Israel has food to eat and coal to keep power plants running. But all of that won’t actually do anything for the real, productive economy of Israel.

    Oct 7 has shattered the very foundations of the productive economy of Israel - industrial capital, in the language of vol 2 of Capital. And these fundamental problems that have been created cannot be cured with US foreign aid. If I’m right then I don’t think there’s any the US can do in order to rescue the Israeli economy in the long run.

    Thoughts?