The only rape in all these events that's actually proven is the Israelis raping prisoners on camera.

How do you explain that?

Ah yes ... — boethius

"Accuse the other side of that which you are guilty" - J. Goebbels. — BitconnectCarlos

:100:

And given Israel's conduct it's not the only lesson they're taking from the Nazi playbook.

That's profoundly cute, coming from someone who is literally spinning apologetics for a genocide.

Main difference is that this genocide is being broadcast live and there's also no plausible deniability, muddy the waters, kind of usual bullshit people easily swallow as you mention above. Israeli officials literally just get up on podiums and declare their intention to starve the Palestinians, that rape is ok, that their animals, that children are just future terrorists and must be killed etc.

Normally you have clear evidence of mass murder on the one hand and a long winded plausible deniability bullshit narrative on the other and most people are then like "huh, who's to say what happened". — boethius

One could make the prediction that this will be the straw that finally breaks the camel's back.

Not an altogether unreasonable prediction, but at the same time I don't think it's obvious enough to take it as proof of US incompetence.

But they didn't!

The famous child burning photograph turned public opinion against the war, massive protests, huge cultural change.

It was so shocking to American elites that they did not in fact get away with it, they wanted to "win the war", that they completely reorganized the military, and in particular the draft, in order to be sure not to be bothered by public opinion in subsequent wars they will want to wage.

Of course, US remained a superpower and the threat of the Soviet Union was still current and so on and there were plenty of "rational" parties involved in US politics at the time.

For example, in 1975 you not only have the end of the Vietnam war but also the Churchill committee that investigated the CIA (for the first and only time). That no one was held accountable represents the fact corruption wins out over democracy basically in a process that continues to this day getting more and more corrupt all the time, but the fact the investigation happened at all represents things were on a knifes edge. It could have easily gone another way. — boethius

The US suffered strategic defeat in Vietnam and had to pay a price, but did it take responsibility for the millions of innocent dead it caused, and the effects of chemical warfare that last up until this day?

I'll let you be the judge, but in my opinion Vietnam vets paid the worst price, and the US itself largely got away with it.

Did Afghanistan really need to be wrecked? — boethius

Of course.

Afghanistan connects Russia and China to India.

Can't have the continental powers developing land-based trade relations on Uncle Sam's watch now can we?

Don't get me wrong, I do get the basic geopolitical idea of crashing the rest of the global economy and then sitting pretty in North America ... but how do you actually go about doing that? — boethius

The plan isn't so much crashing the global economy. The plan is, if things were to come to blows with China, to be able to cut off its land-based trade by sowing chaos in the bottlenecks that connect it to the rest of the world.

China is connected to Europe via Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Iran. It's connected to India via Pakistan and Bangladesh.

What do we see in all these regions? Long-standing US involvement.

The US empire benefited from a strong Europe. — boethius

Emphasis on the past tense.

When the Soviet Union was the big bad, the US empire benfitted from a strong Europe.

Today however Europe is unlikely to get directly involved in a war with the new big bad, China. In fact, a strong Europe would likely be able to slip US influence if it got into a war with China, and actually be able to benefit from the conflict. That's why Europe is now treated as a potential rival and no longer as an actual ally.

Not only that, but Europe can also potentially function as a critical market that can keep the Chinese economy afloat after its sea-based trade is cut off - this is why the disruption of Chinese-European trade routes is a fundamental part of US Eurasian strategy.

Europe's position in relation to the US empire fundamentally changed after the Cold War ended, and the Europeans were too slow the realize.

For example, we go from abandoning Afghanistan and "fighting for democracy" there to a discourse of fighting for democracy in Ukraine as the most important thing to ever happen and Putin is literally Hitler and a genocidal maniac ... to supporting an actual genocide in Gaza!? — boethius

Who would believe that bullshit, right? Well, as it turns out a lot of people continue to believe that bullshit. Propaganda is a powerful thing.

And if we're honest, how is Gaza any different from the de facto and actual genocides the US has perpetrated and supported, like those in Vietnam, East-Timor and the Middle-East, with casualty figures running into the millions?

It's crazy, but they continue to get away with it. I can't blame the Americans for thinking they'll get away with it again.

I'm open to the possibility that they won't - times are changing - but that will require US assets from putting their money where their mouth is. No sign of that so far. Just "Oooh"ing and "Aaah"ing.

... and then escalate to regional war with Iran ... which the whole point of abandoning Afghanistan was that Iran was no longer such a big priority and the region generally, time to pivot to East-Asa. — boethius

Iran and Afghanistan are part of the same geographical region, so in my opinion this is not so strange.

Afghanistan has been wrecked, while Iran is now threatening to jump the gun on US intervention.

So the switch makes sense, and again I see continuity.

I would also point out that Ukraine and Iran both play vital roles in that they connect China to the rest of the world - they may very well be part of the 'pivot to Asia', in that they directly relate to US strategy vis-á-vis China.

Add into that blowing up critical infrastructure of key allies, going from decades of the war on terror to now conducting state terrorism openly is ok and actually super clever if you kill some enemies in their living rooms with their families, running low of ammunition after deuces of outspending essentially the rest of the world on the military for decades (where'd the money go??) and so on. — boethius

Yep. It's all bullshit.

I'm as surprised as you are that people keep falling for this shit, but alas here we are.

By bombing Nord Stream the US has rolled out a plan that has been in place since at least 2014, of transfering European energy dependency from Russia to the US.

And the US has succeeded. Germany and the rest of Europe took it like a bitch. The US reaps the benefits.

The main point I'm trying to make is we're in a phase where the top elites, what I refer to as the Imperial primary beneficiaries, have personal plans that are more important to them than the interests of the empire. — boethius

Maybe this is true, but I will believe it only when the US empire is definitively put in the trashbin of history. Until that happens, history shows they're way too dangerous to underestimate.

I'm saying "this plane is definitely going down" and your reply is "well we still have a lot of fuel so can't be that bad". — boethius

We actually agree that the plane is definitely going down, however I think a better representation of our arguments is "Plan vs. No plan", and to that end I've tried to repeatedly point out that there is clear continuity in US policy over the course of decades, both with regards to Ukraine and Iran.

A continuity that is in line with geopolitical theories like for example Heartland theory by Mackinder and Geographical Pivot theory by Brzezinski.

I view that continuity as a clear indicator of a wider strategy, and the idea that the US has operated on the basis of complex geopolitical strategies is not a difficult argument to make considering its history of achieving, maintaining and defending hegemony, and continuously outmanoeuvring geopolitical rivals and unfortunate assets.

Though I did read it, I don't have the time nor energy to respond to your full post. If we could narrow the discussion down to one or two subjects that would be neat.




... And neither do Americans.

Will it be Muppet A or Muppet B?

Oh, the suspense is palpable.

But then you'd want to negotiate with the ultranationalists to delay their genocide the time to attack whoever needs to be attacked.

There is no strategic path in which genocide is necessary nor conducive. — boethius

Whatever the case, the Israelis disagree and the Americans don't feel called upon to correct them.

Your argument has been premised on the US imperial goal being avoiding regional integration and so becoming a land corridor, attacking Iran is not necessary to avoid this regional integration.

Furthermore, Israel isn't destabilizing Iran either and can't really wage war on Iran. It could nuke Iran as we've already discussed but that doesn't require a genocide and you're position on Israel using nukes is that would be too high a diplomatic cost (but not for genocide?).

As far as attacking Iran goes, as mentioned we've been hearing the neocon reasons for this being important for decades but no actual pathway has ever been presented for how you actually go about attacking Iran. — boethius

Israel has proven capable of assassinating high-profile targets within Iran, and it's likely they are holding back various means at their disposal for when shit truly hits the fan.

So personally I would not underestimate Israel's capability to hurt and/or destabilize Iran in significant ways, even without the nuclear option.

If things were to come to global conflict, I believe Israel may use nuclear weapons on Iran.

Now, Israel will "get away" with the genocide to the extent that no one can intervene due to the US protecting Israel, but this is at a massive diplomatic cost to the US and not really the world shrugging off the genocide. — boethius

I think the onus is on you to provide clear indications of this diplomatic cost.

So far, I'm not seeing it.

When countries start putting their money where their mouth is, and impose tangible costs on Israel or the United States, I might change my mind.

People are pretty mad about it, including as mentioned nearly 2 billion muslims. — boethius

This is true, but I think the signal from Israel is that they are definitively abandoning rapprochement (and thus embracing conflict - as good ultranationalists do) - probably because they now believe it was never feasible to begin with.

Without a solution to the Palestinian problem, no rapprochement. And any real solution to the Palestinian problem (either a Palestinian state or an end to the apartheid) would be anathema to the Israeli hardliners.

We're talking about the US empire, which is its hegemonic influence outside its borders.

Now, if the grand strategy you're talking about at the end of the day is just the US spoiling as much of the rest of the global economy as it retreats into isolationism on their island as you say, that's simply accepting US imperial decline. — boethius

The US still has Europe, the Anglosphere and several East-Asian nations like Japan and South-Korea in the palm of its hand.

I think one shouldn't exaggerate the decline of the US empire.

Yes, Ukraine paid far higher a price than America for the war with Russia ... but the important question is what did the US gain? — boethius

Eastern Europe is a vital bottleneck that connects China, via Russia, to Europe over land. (Iran is the other one, remember?)

What the US has done is economically decouple Europe and Russia, and created long-lasting conflict with fertile soil for further escalation.

A forever war in Ukraine is the goal, and it's what they're getting.

In the case of the anticipated global conflict (which may be instigated by the US, or simply turn out to be an inevitability), this serves two purposes: it denies China overland access to European markets, and it involves two potential US rivals, Russia and Europe, in a war with each other.

If Israel fully embraces the ultranationalist path, genocide/ethnic cleansing is not necessarily desirable to the US, it is inevitable. In the case of Israel, and indeed most ultranationalist endeavors, crimes against humanity are par for the course.

I'm sure the US has made peace with that fact decades ago, which is why US support for Israel remains unchanged no matter how many American bombs fall on hospitals and refugee camps.

There's plenty of ultra-violent groups in the Middle East already completely willing and able to cause further chaos for the right price, training, equipment and a large amount of intelligence. — boethius

That isn't necessarily true.

Iran is the target here, and there is no other proxy that could destabilize Iran.

Therefore, if America actually wanted to get into a big war in the Middle-East [...] — boethius

The Americans are not going to get directly involved in this war if they can help it. They are going to stay on the sideline and have the Israelis do their dirty work, just like they use the Ukrainians to fight the Russians.

The genocide places significant pressure on US alliances which you do actually need when going into a global conflict. — boethius

Does it?

I'm seeing some hand-wringing, strongly-worded letters, etc.

Is there any chance of alliances dissolving over US support for Israel? I see no sign of that, to be honest. As far as I can tell, they're getting away with it.

Likewise escalating the war in Ukraine was an obvious blunder.

Likewise getting into long wars in the Middle-East.

Likewise destroying the empires finances.

Likewise offshoring critical production.

Likewise a lot of things are obvious blunders in terms of geopolitical strategy. — boethius

You may view these as 'obvious blunders', but to me they are not obvious at all.

The US is doing quite well, all things considered. The ones who are paying the price are the Ukrainians, the Europeans, soon it will be the Israelis too, but the Americans are safe on their island, with their economy doing largely fine.


Finally, I believe it is the US that has a vested interest in pressing the issue when it comes to global conflict.

With Russia, China and Iran in an alliance with each other, the Eurasian continent is dangerously united. This creates an economic base that the US simply cannot compete with in the long run.

In other words, the status quo favors BRICS, so it is basically up to the US to throw a wrench in the wheel which most-likely will be in the form of global, large-scale conflict.

Power to do what though?

Defend their own borders? Nuke the world? Bomb a few weaker states into a internal chaos. Sure.

The US has no where near the power it did even a decades ago, let alone 2 decades or 3 deuces ago. It's in imperial decline.

We could of course discuss exactly what the US power status is at the moment, but my point here is not to argue that the US does not have a lot of power. Indeed, it is precisely because the US build up such a large amount of power that it can withstand such incredible levels of corruption without collapsing yet. However, the waste is very evident wherever one looks.

But perhaps that would be best to discuss in a new thread. — boethius

:up:

Is the main point I'm responding to, which I feel is fair to assess as the US needing Israel to commit a genocide for "strategic reasons", those reasons being solidifying Israel's position (which also the genocide is unlikely to accomplish).

If you're objection is the use of the word "need" in the sense of some sort of categorical need, then I agree that's not what you're saying, but in this case I'm using need in the sense of "need for these strategic reasons" and those reasons being strengthening Israel's position through genocide. My intention was not to connote that you were suggesting the genocide was some sort of US strategic imperative.

My argument is that the US empire is not benefiting at all from the genocide and is in fact greatly harmed by it in various ways. If the US benefits from chaos in the Middle-East generally speaking, which I also disagree with, that is easily achieved without a genocide.

I.e. if your theory was true then it would make sense to say "The US needed Israel to commit a genocide to better secure the latter's borders and so the strategic position of it's proxy would be improved to more optimally contribute to further Imperial machinations". — boethius

If Washington wants to sow chaos in the Middle-East, a nuclear-armed Israel that fully embraces violent ultranationalism is the perfect vessel to do so.

Genocide and ethnic cleansing, while dooming the Israelis in the long run, are critical steps towards its short-to-medium-term survival as an ultranationalist nation. Since, if it goes down the ultranationalist path (as increasingly seems to be the case) it will soon be at war with various neighbors, at which point the housing millions of possible partisans within their borders would become a critical strategic vulnerability.

In other words, Washington doesn't need Israel to commit a genocide, but it doesn't exactly have a reason to stop it either. If anything it means they might get more use out of their proxy before it eventually kicks the bucket.

Damage to US reputation/prestige is the price to pay, but if we are entering the prelude to global conflict, that really isn't all that significant.


PS: I would be exceedingly careful with ascribing the label "obvious blunder" to the actions of great powers.

People incorrectly interpret the actions of great powers all the time, as was for example the case with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which many must have deemed 'an obvious blunder' at the time.

The great powers' chess game is vastly superior to ours.

My litmus test for this is whether or not the great power in question shows signs of backtracking, or instead continues to double down. In the case of the US we see them continuously double down on 'obvious blunders' - in my view a clear indicator that they may not be blunders after all.

I think you're grossly underestimating the power of the United States.

Of course it has various domestic issues, and corruption is undoubtedly one of them.

However, settling on 'incompetence' as an explanation for US behavior is, as I said previously, not something I find convincing - not as long as there are clearly discernable patterns that betray a strategy like the ones I have pointed out.

Calling this '5D chess' is a bit ridiculous. The US has always behaved according to the tenants of realism, and used elaborate schemes to outmanoeuvre - often successfully - geopolitical rivals and unfortunate assets.

Your view is in line with the image the US tries to export of itself, namely that of a 'benign hegemon,' that only does ill out of incompetence and clumsiness. One glance at history, even recent history, however, betrays Washington's utterly Machiavellian disposition, and I see no indication that this has changed in recent years.

the idea the US needs Israel to commit a genocide for "geopolitical reasons" is simply laughable — boethius

This is a strawman that I rejected in the very post you replied to.

The Israeli government clearly believes a genocide is in its best interests. The US may tacitly accept that and let the Israelis carry it out.

And it is not hard to see why the Israelis believe that. I've given you the reasons.

(I decided to put my response in this thread, because the main topic is becoming the Middle-East)


Personally, I think it is self-evident that the US action is guided by a geopolitical strategy. The idea that a nation achieves, maintains and defends hegemony 'by accident' is just not a very convincing argument to me. I also think there is plenty of historical and contemporary evidence to suggest that the US follows deliberate geopolitical strategies.

That does not presuppose that the US is always correct in its assumptions or successful in its execution.

Nor does it deny that there is a wide variety of domestic and external factors that impose limits on what those strategies can feasibly entail.


As for the list of things you named - I don't think those are very self-explanatory at all. Take the draft for example. Vietnam showed the draft to be completely unfeasible for the types of foreign intervention wars the US was fighting.

I could go through the whole list, but I don't think that is very constructive. If you want we can zoom in on one or two items which you think best illustrate your point.


On the topic of Israel's genocide:

I did not call Israel's crimes part of a "US cryptic plan." What I said was that the US may tacitly agree to let Israel carry out the genocide.

The US is supplying the very ordnance Israel uses to bomb refugee camps, and the US could stop those weapons deliveries today if it wanted to.

Israeli hardliners clearly believe genocide is in their interest and worth the cost, because otherwise they wouldn't be pursuing it with such fervor. Perhaps the US government agrees, but doesn't want to be seen agreeing with it in public.

Like I said, in the case of a large-scale conflict, Israel is completely strategically compromised for various reasons, one of them being the existence of a large Palestinian population which will likely rise up the moment the Israeli state gets under military pressure.

So it's not hard to see (albeit from an utterly cynical perspective) why the Israelis want to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians, and will even resort to genocide.

Yes, it kills any chance for a rapprochement in the Middle-East, but perhaps that was never feasible to begin with, and perhaps the US isn't even interested in a rapprochement. Since the Middle-East is slipping from the US' grasp, it will be more interested in denying the use of the Middle-East to its rivals.


To be clear, I have often argued that Israel's belief that it can survive without first becoming a normal Middle-Eastern nation is foolish. In the long-term, the balance of power will inevitably shift against it at some point, and that's when it will be presented with the bill of decades of belligerence.

However, as I said before, the fact that I believe the Israeli government is deliberately pursuing a strategy of belligerence does not mean they are correct in the assumption that it will bring them long-term security.

The Americans on their part may understand the long-term implications of Israel's actions, but ultimately Israel's long-term survival may not be something that concerns Washington.

Washington is gearing up for a massive clash between itself and the rising powers. Israel is going to be used as a pawn in that clash, and its survival is of secondary importance to the defense of US global dominance.

The US will happily entertain Israeli delusions if it means the Israelis will voluntarily put themselves before Uncle Sam's cart. That's exactly how the US played Ukraine.

And second, solve that strategic weakness to do what exactly? Conquer the whole Middle-East in a giant US-Israeli war on everyone and then occupy the place forever? — boethius

First of all, Israel is (correctly, in my opinion) anticipating a period in which power relations in the Middle-East will shift, and Israel itself may come under heavy pressure from other actors in the region, most notably Iran. The fact it is housing an oppressed population of several million within its borders means it is defensively completely compromised.

And secondly, the Israelis themselves are openly talking about 'remaking the Middle-East' - they clearly have great plans for what the Middle-East should look like in the future, and they're probably correctly assessing that this may be the last window of opportunity they will have to drag the United States in.

I do not know the details of such a plan, if it even exists, but the most obvious part of such a plan would be a 'reset' on Iran, aka, knock it down from 'regional power' status. This is what the US has already done once with Iraq, and what the Israelis are hoping it will do again with Iran.

And the reason the US may be willing to take part in this is because Iran, as I have argued, is an incredibly important trade corridor that connects all US geopolitical rivals to each other - Russia, China and India.

Note that Iran doesn't just cover Persia (the gateway between Central Asia and the Middle-East) but also touches the southern Caucasus (the gateway between Russia and the Middle-East).

It is of paramount strategic importance, which is why US meddling in Iran goes back almost a century.


By the way, not to be snarky, but your posts have a tendency to be a bit long-winded, with it being difficult to discern exactly what parts of my argument you take issue with, and what you want me to react to. Usually I respond to sentences that have a '?' at the end, but they're sprinkled all over so responding to all of it would become rather tedious.

Lets try to discuss topics one at a time, to avoid overly lengthy exchanges. I'll let you decide what you want to discuss first.

On the topic of Israel's genocide:

Arguably, ethnic cleansing and genocide are the only options the Israelis have left if they want to cling to their ethno-state ideal.

The fact that they are occupying millions of Palestinians makes them extremely vulnerable in a large-scale conflict since there is a good chance the Palestinian population would rise up and/or join in a partisan war.

That's the reason the US may tacitly approve of Israel's genocidal actions, since, if successful, it gets rid of a critical vulnerability of their Middle-Eastern proxy.

Of course, there is a cost to this as well. The question is how heavy that cost will be. It's entirely possible that we are overestimating the damage to US reputation and the consequences it has on the balance of power.

The idea that the US will somehow be 'punished' for supporting genocidal regimes may just be wishful thinking. Israel has been at this for decades, and it isn't the first genocidal regime that the US and allies have supported.


On the topic of geopolitical strategy:

The red thread throughout US Eurasian strategy today is the denial of land-based trade routes. The US wants Eurasian geopolitical rivals to be reliant on sea-based trade, since the US has an overwhelming advantage in naval power.

To deny a trade corridor, it is not always necessary for the US to control it directly or to completely deny it to the rival. Sowing chaos and conflict in these areas is often enough to stop trade from flowing.

In all the places that connect US geopolitical rivals to the rest of the world via land, we see long-standing US involvement, the most important ones being:

Eastern Europe, the Middle-East, the Caucasus and Central-Asia (Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan). Forever wars in these areas are perfectly suited for long-term denial of trade. Of course, the US does not want to fight these costly forever wars themselves - much better to let the Ukrainians, Europeans, Afghanis (etc.) and Israelis fight these wars for them.

Note that even a neutral actor like India had to suffer both of its land corridors (Pakistan and Bangladesh) falling under long-standing US influence.


Of course, in conjunction to this we see a very successful effort at the control/denial of sea-based trade as well, with the US and cronies completely boxing in China, and seeking to deprive Russia off its central position in the Black Sea.


Finally, there is another element to US global strategy which involves stopping regional powers from rising. The theme here being: the US is unable to divert its attention to many powerful actors at the same time, so must work pre-emptively to keep potential regional powers weak.

Iraq was one such potential regional power. Iran is another. The US has been interested in curbing both of these nations since the end of WW2. This is of course where US and Israeli geopolitical strategy meet.

These countries are also somewhat unique is that they are both a potential regional powers (Iran already is a regional power) and they are located on a vital trade corridor.

This is especially problematic for the US, because destabilizing a regional power is much more difficult, which is why it now is using Israel. Israel is able to cause a lot of chaos with its intelligence aparatus, high-tech military and nuclear arsenal.

All indicators are that (unlike Iraq) Iran has slipped the window of a US intervention (mostly because Chinese pressure in the Pacific is keeping the US from being able to commit elsewhere in the world), so the US must now rely on harsher means to protect its interests.

Excommunicated? But...

How can they be wrong about what it means? :chin: — BitconnectCarlos

' :chin: ' indeed...

Jews can't be wrong about Zionism?

Well, then I have some unfortunate news for you...

Facing war in the Middle East and Ukraine the US looks feeble. But is it just an act? (The Guardian, 2024)

An interesting article that appeared in the Guardian (of all places) written by historian and writer Adam Tooze, echoing a sentiment that I have expressed in this thread pertaining to the nature of US actions in the current crises.

Tooze questions the surface-level appearance of the Biden administration as being incompetent, and instead hypothesizes that Biden's neocon administration is rolling out an elaborate strategy:

There is one school of thought that says the Biden administration is muddling through. It has no grand plan. It lacks the will or the means to discipline or direct either the Ukrainians or the Israelis. As a result, it is mainly focused on avoiding a third world war.

[...]

But what if that interpretation is too benign? What if it underestimates the intentionality on Washington’s part? What if key figures in the administration actually see this as a history-defining moment and an opportunity to reshape the balance of world power? What if what we are witnessing is the pivoting of the US to a deliberate and comprehensive revisionism by way of a strategy of tension? — Adam Tooze

And I agree with Tooze on various points.

I've made similar arguments pertaining to the crises in Ukraine and Israel - namely that Washington feigns weakness and reluctance, when in fact it is doubling down on all the policies that drive towards escalation in a way that suggests it is following a coherent strategy.

Countries outside the West have long understood this. These sentiments aren't exactly new. But what is interesting is the fact that a big Western media outlet would publish such an article.

Could it be that Europe is slowly starting to regain some of its geopolitical wits?

One year on since the Hamas attack,


- Hamas remains undefeated while tens of thousands of civilians lay dead.

- Israel's international reputation has evaporated and it is probably the most isolated it has ever been in its history.

- Israel now finds itself at war with another adversary, Hezbollah, in a war that it is equally unlikely to win.

- Tens of thousands Israelis have already left the country.

- Recent seismographic anomalies suggest Iran may have tested a nuclear weapon.


A right clusterfuck if ever I saw one.

When people start talking about 'revolutionizing the home' I get chills down my spine. It smells of authoritarian tendencies that have often assaulted the home, and that the home was often the last bastion against. (Though you haven't added Coccia's thoughts on what this 'revolution' should entail)

When intellectuals and (god forbid) politicians start making claims about what the home should be, we are on a dangerous path. There is no greater 'We' when it comes to my home.

The home isn't anyone's business except of the people living there. A fundamentally human castle, indeed, against the clutches of the inhuman mass hysteria that goes for politics these days.


On the topic of mobile/electronic devices - I think in time societies will start to regard these with caution, as we do alcohol and smoking. Not just due to physical and mental health risks, but also due to them increasingly infringing upon people's privacy through mass data collection.

How is that a rabbit hole? Irish resistance against British rule lasted multiple centuries. The Dutch resisted Habsburg and Spanish rule for hundreds of years too, and fought an eighty-year-long war to end it.

The suggestion that the Palestinians are somehow uniquely violent or unable to compromise simply has no basis in reality.

Of course, each one of those cases/regions is different, and culture plays a factor in this. At the end of the day, whether uneasy peace or not, the Irish resistance compromised with the British. — schopenhauer1

It took them eight centuries of resistance.

Israel is not going to last eight centuries. It will be lucky if it lasts another eight years by the way things are going.

Arguments about what belongs to who have no other purpose than to justify apartheid and/or ethnic cleansing, and don't need to be taken seriously from either side.

The only real solution here is equal rights for Palestinians, and for Israel to become a normal, modern state where multiple ethnicities can coexist.

And it's Israel's only option for survival too. It cannot solve any of its problems with the sword, and attempting to do so is just going to ensure its adversaries will treat Israel in kind once the pendulum swings.

In those cases I think 'oppression' is indeed a strong term. In the case of Ireland there were various historical grievances that fueled the resistance to English rule. In the case of the Basques I am not sure.

But people's sense of identity and the desire for self-determination which flows from that - basically nationalism - is a very powerful force.

Self-determination is also a human right cemented in international law, the denial of which historically has led to all sorts of bloody conflicts.

In other words, it appears the denial of self-determination is in itself perceived as such a grave violation of human dignity that it alone is enough to spur people towards violent resistance.

To suggest that World War 2 and the Israel-Palestine conflict are in any way comparable is a ridiculous argument that I cannot fathom anyone takes seriously.

The fact that you would try to make the comparison while simultaneously ignoring much more obvious examples like the Irish IRA and the Basque ETA (which undoubtedly would be much less suited to support your arguments) tells me all I need to know.

And no, partisans taking part in a wider military effort are not the same as civil resistance against long-standing oppression.


What even are these arguments?

Is it a classic example of flinging shit at a wall hoping something might stick? Or are you really that far gone that you genuinely believe in these nonsensical comparisons?

Anti-Nazi partisan groups largely focused on weaking German military infrastructure, not going on rape & murder sprees of uninvolved German civilians. I am not familiar with anything comparable to 10/7 among groups persecuted by the Nazis. Being oppressed shouldn't automatically turn one into a complete animal free from all moral considerations. — BitconnectCarlos

Apples and oranges, as usual.

The Serbs tried to justify their violent ethno-nationalism in exactly the same way during the Balkan wars. Netanyahu is literally a Jewish Milošević.

Violent resistance movements tend to use very comparable methods, that usually extend to acts of extreme cruelty and targeting of civilians.

You can even find contemporary examples in Europe that followed those patterns, like the Irish Troubles and the Basque conflict in Spain.

I think it's a human tendency to prefer peaceful solutions over costly violent conflicts, but when there are no peaceful paths available its equally human to resist violently.

Violent resistance against oppression is historically quite common across all regions of the world.

All cryptocurrency, at least all that is valuable, is scarce. — hypericin

Is it? Or just expensive and sometimes artificially so? — Benkei

Loss of "value stability"(that is, decline) happens in proportion to loss of scarcity and loss of confidence in future scarcity. — hypericin

Scarcity means that something is in limited supply. Colloquially one may refer to goods which are 'very scarce' (like precious metals) and goods which are 'less scarce' (like food), but ultimately both are scarce.

In order for a good to be considered 'not scarce' it must be so readily available it has no value whatsoever. Like seawater, earth, air, etc. - obviously such goods are unsuitable as a means of exchange.

The lack of value stability with cryptos does not have anything to do with a changing nature of its scarcity, nor with sudden increases in supply, which is what some people mistakenly believe.

To illustrate, even if the cryptomarket would be flooded with ShitCoin XYZ, BitCoin would remain largely unaffected, because ShitCoin XYZ is not the same product as BitCoin.

It's also not clear whether the aforementioned rapid changes of perception are inherent to cryptocurrency, or simply inherent to a new and experimental market as it slowly gravitates towards the 'true' value of the good.

Long story short, this has nothing to do with scarcity.

They are willing to buy to the degree it is scarce. As I said scarcity is a necessary but insufficient condition for value. — hypericin

I think cryptocurrency derives its value from the fact that it is an independent means of exchange. It's much less stable in value than gold, but it is much easier to make transactions with.

The means of exchange probably needs to have some kind of inherent value, such as gold has. — Leontiskos

I'm not sure whether I agree gold has inherent value. Its main guarantor of value is its track record of several thousand years. Gold has the property of being an incredibly stable compound, but this is probably not as important in the modern age as it was historically.

There's no scarcity of let's say the US dollar. Only that the Central Bank won't do this. But with a few pushes on a computer, they could make tomorrow 100 trillion dollars. — ssu

That's a possibility, albeit an unrealistic one. I think that's why the US dollar can still be said to be scarce. For it to be considered 'not scarce' there would have to be more dollar bills than people know what to do with. That may happen during a hyper inflation.

The common problem money printing creates isn't necessarily a lack of scarcity, but a lack of value stability.

A lot of the experts I think we both follow are discussing this pretty intensely right now of whether US is controlling Israel policy for US imperial interests, or Israel is controlling US policy for Israeli imperial interests, or even that it may appear Israel is driving policy at the moment but US imperialists wisely set things up this way decades ago to happen (to act as that cross-roads spoiler you've described, come-what-may style).

It's quite fascinating, but I feel there's just too much long term degradation of US prestige for what we see Israel doing to be some sort of cryptic US policy. General idea, sure, but no one concerned with US imperial interests would want to see a genocide in Gaza; They'd want to see what the US does: insane amounts of damage and suffering ... but aha! not quite genocide motherfuckers! Purposefully starving a population, for example, US imperialists simply view as beneath them (if people are eating while the US drops bombs on them, that doesn't bother them much, it's a sort of "why not?" attitude within the US war machine to people having basic food stuffs supplied by various humanitarian organizations; what we see Israel doing is I think too profoundly different to be driven by US imperialists; certainly enabled by zionists within the US administration, but this I think should be viewed as Israel effectively in control of US policy and not US imperialists, as such apart from being also zionists, view the extremes of zionism as somehow serving US foreign policy). — boethius

Personally, I am reserving judgement on this issue, though I am leaning towards the US being in the driver's seat.

The basic question is, could Israel be used to plunge the Middle-East into chaos once controlling it becomes unfeasible?

(That's ultimately why the US is interested in the Middle-East. Oil, yes, but more importantly it is a vital land corridor that connects several geopolitical rivals - plunging it into chaos would be enough to deny that connection)

And I think the answer is yes, especially considering Israel will be a nuclear-armed power that's conceivably fighting for its survival.


Conversely, if Israel is in the driver's seat it's entirely unclear to me what power base they would be deriving that position from.

AIPAC? Ok, then where does AIPAC get its power from? If the Israel lobby is capable of coercing the former hegemon, it must have some practical levers of power that can be discerned, and personally I have never seen a convincing argument to that end.


US prestige taking a hit is certainly a factor worth considering, but once global domination becomes an unfeasible goal, perhaps prestige starts to matter less. We also have to consider the US may be gearing up to play hardball with the rest of the world (thus throwing its reputation out of the window) to protect its hegemonic position.

We are in general agreement, but the West will be pushing the envelope because it knows Russia will get more risk averse the closer it gets to victory. Thus, the West could theoretically get away with more blatant belligerence. Russia on its part is signaling it will meet escalation with escalation.

Whether or not NATO is directly involved in the hostilities is not really an interesting practical question (obviously they are deeply involved), but it is an important legal question, and it's important for international perception which is something Russia does care about.

There's a world of difference between Russia being seen as reacting to the West, as oppossed to aggressing the West. This will be vitally important if it ever comes (God forbid) to nuclear escalation.

That's why I think these nuances are worth pointing out.

Ukraine cannot strike targets deep inside Russia without NATO ISR capabilities.

That's the problem here - NATO becoming a direct participant in the war by giving Ukraine the targeting data for its long-range strikes.

This would put two nuclear-armed powers in direct conflict with each other.

That's what the recent signaling is about.

The Kremlin keeps playing the nuclear card, because they know they have a much higher stake in this game than the West does.

People's perception of the longevity and value of the currency, I suppose.

Certain cryptos have turned out to be scams, or became completely valueless. This is of course the investor's nightmare.

BitCoin has survived some serious drops, and recently experienced some big rises. These trends seem to suggest it is able to hold its value over time.

And of course, the longer it continues to exist, the stronger its reputation as being reliable will become.

The biggest problem with crypto is their trustworthiness, so cryptos which are perceived as more trustworthy, like BitCoin, are a distinctly different product from ShitCoin XYZ.

The process of building up a trustworthy reputation takes time, thus it is not easy to recreate the product, thus it remains scarce.

What do you think?

Can one be a "culturist", meaning can one morally be "against" certain cultures, or should people be tolerant of all cultural aspects, whether you agree with them or not? — schopenhauer1

One can be morally against something, while still being tolerant of it. (In fact, tolerance of something seems to already imply some moral distaste for it?)

I'm not one to tell other people how to live their lives, but I'll pass moral judgements if prompted or given good reason to, in the sense that I won't shy away from calling a spade a spade just to appear 'tolerant'.

In that context, it seems obvious to me that dysfunctional or degenerate cultures can undermine a society's capacity for prosperity.

Culture very strongly correlates to the moral values people are brought up with, whether they're taught implicitly or explicitly.

It will translate firstly into how children are raised, subsequently how they unfold as adult individuals, and lastly what they pass on to the following generations.

One reason why these cultural moral teachings are so important, is because they become so deeply ingrained into people and the society they live in, that many will not be able to question these teachings at any point in their life. They become so normalized that the majority of people will be unaware they even exist and affect their lives on a daily basis.

To make a long story short: some moral values are simply worse than others, and by their fruits you will know them.

Europe, including Britain, is heading for a new dark age, mainly because its political elites are too corrupt and incapable to adjust to a world that is rapidly changing (and not in their favor).

Eventually, the situation will become so dire that change will be imposed from the bottom up in a political (or perhaps an actual) 'revolution'.

At that point, the old structures inherited from the period of US hegemony will be done away with, and something new will take its place that is probably more capable of adapting to the new global state of affairs.

Palpable hand wringing as the clowns refuse to face the music. :lol:

The Middle East is in a perpetual war zone that benefits a big ass weapon industry. — javi2541997

It is instrumental to the US empire, and that's the primary reason for the way things are.

The military industrial complex, BlackRock, etc. - these are the vultures who flock to the smell of fresh carrion, but they are not the main driver behind these conflicts. The main driver for US involvement is US geopolitical strategy, and that's what we ought to analyse and understand in order to make sense of events.

The US establishment on their part of course has no problem with corporate interests taking the blame. Much better for people to believe the US government is not to blame, but "evil corporations" are, or so the reasoning in Washington goes.



If you look at a map you'll note that the Middle-East is located on a critical junction that connects several regions of the world via land. Why is that important?

The US possesses the world's most powerful navy. It controls sea-based trade. Any nation that gets into a large-scale war with the US can say its sea-based trade goodbye.

China is heavily dependent on sea-based trade, and is deeply aware of its vulnerable position should its sea lanes of communication be cut off.

That's why China is seeking to create land-based alternatives.

The US is trying to deny such alternatives by trying to control critical trade junctions, or cause chaos if controlling them turns out to be unfeasible.

Note that Iran ("public enemy #1") is a critical bottleneck that connects China and India to the Middle-East, Africa and Europe via Central Asia.

The other critical bottleneck is Eastern Europe, which connects Russia (and by extension China) to Europe.

It is of course no coincidence that we see intense US involvement in these regions.



If you want another example, you can look at India. India has a much more neutral disposition towards the US, yet we see the same pattern.

Bangladesh and Pakistan are the land-based trade corridors that connect India to the rest of the world. What do we see there? Long-standing and intense US involvement.

What exactly is the difference between Israel as a rogue genocidal, raping and terrorist state and Israel as all those things in addition to dropping nukes? — boethius

The difference is that the former does not threaten the security of the great powers, whereas the latter undermines it in the most dangerous way possible.

Nuclear proliferation is one of the only topics the great powers have generally been in agreement over. They realise the consequences to global security, including their own, if the nuclear genie is let out of the bottle.

What would ensue after an unprovoked nuclear attack is a mad scramble where virtually every nation on the planet will be trying to get their hands on nuclear deterrents and anti-ballistic missile defenses of their own.

At that point, the great powers would likely do everything in their power to crack down on the culprit in an attempt to cool global fear.

I don't think you're understanding the full gravity of what you're describing, which is essentially Israel becoming an aggressive, nuclear-armed rogue state.

The taboo on nuclear weapons use is enormous. If Israel were to launch an unprovoked nuclear strike on another country, the entire world would be seeking nuclear armament and anti-ballistic missile defense, and with good justification.

Unlike the genocide in Gaza, this would directly undermine the nuclear deterrence and security interests of every nuclear-armed power in the world, including the US. This would be everybody's problem.

If any nation were to do something like that, there'd be an international coalition on their doorstep the next day to dismantle the regime.

That's pure realism, by the way. It has nothing to do with humanism.

Take the example given by the report - 25 strikes on military targets. It would inflict a lot of damage, but Iran would remain largely intact. So it doesn't even solve that problem, and it would create a million more.

Israel would turn itself into a global threat overnight, putting itself in the crosshairs of literally every nation on earth. Israel would be crushed diplomatically, economically, politically, etc.

Nuclear proliferation (and missile defense) in the Middle-East would skyrocket as every nation in and outside of the Middle-East will scramble for security. Similar strikes on Israel would be expected - strikes which Israel is a lot less capable of absorbing due to its small size.

Etc.

I think you're overestimating the damage and deterring effect, and underestimating the geopolitical consequences of a nuclear first strike.

Again, nuclear deterrence works mainly because of mutually assured destruction - threatening the literal end of the world after which there will be no consequences to consider. Israel can do no such thing.