Comments

  • Is the United States an imperialist country?
    A staggering 80% of all the global conflicts and wars since WWII involved the USA. Here is a PARTIAL list of the meddling and wars of the United States of Aggression.

    1947–1949: Intervening in the Greek civil war

    1947–1970: Meddling in Italy's elections and supporting anti-communism activities

    1945-1949: Intervening in China’s civil war and establishing Taiwan

    1948: Supporting anti-government forces in Costa Rica's civil war

    1949–1953: Supporting anti-communism activities in Albania

    1949: Staging a coup in Syria (it was CIA’s first coup)

    1950–1953: Korean War

    1952: Intervening in the Egyptian Revolution of 1952

    1953: Orchestrated a coup in Iran and overthrew the democratically elected leader

    1954: Invaded Guatemala and installed a puppet

    1956–1957: Plotting a coup in Syria

    1957–1959: Supporting a coup in Indonesia

    1958: Creating a crisis in Lebanon

    1960–1961: Supporting a coup in the Congo

    1960: Meddling in Laos’ reforms

    1961: Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba

    1961–1975: Supporting civil war and OPIUM TRADE in Laos (look up “Air America”)

    1961–1964: Supporting anti-government activities in Brazil

    1963: Supporting civil strife in Iraq

    1963: Supporting riots in Ecuador

    1963–1975: Vietnam War

    1964: Intervening in Congo’s rebellion (and bombing)

    1965–1966: Intervening in Dominica's civil war

    1965–1967: Installing, arming and aiding fascist Indonesian military government’s massacre of communists (2-3 million killed)

    1966: Engineering an insurgency in Ghana

    1966–1969: Creating conflicts in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), which is a region on the Korean peninsula that demarcates North Korea from South Korea

    1966–1967: Supporting an insurgency in Bolivia

    1967: Intervening in the change of the Greek government

    1967–1975: Intervening in Cambodia's civil war

    1970: Meddling in Oman's domestic affairs

    1970–1973: Aided a military coup in Chile (overthrew democratically elected and popular progressive leader, Salvador Allende)

    1970–1973: Orchestrating a coup in Cambodia

    1971: Supporting a coup in Bolivia

    1972–1975: Assisting anti-government forces in Iraq

    1976: Supporting a coup in Argentina

    1976–1992: Intervening in Angola's domestic affairs

    1977–1988: Supporting a coup in Pakistan

    1979–1993: Supporting anti-government forces in Cambodia

    1979–1989: Arming, funding, training the Mujahedin in Afghanistan. This led to Al Qaeda and the largest network of Islamic terrorist groups in the world.

    1979–1989: Used Saddam Hussein to wage a proxy war against Iraq. Funded and armed Saddam for ten years.

    1980–1989: Financed anti-government Solidarity trade union in Poland

    1980–1992: Meddling in El Salvador's civil war

    1981: Attacking Libya in Gulf of Sidra

    1981–1982: Engineering regime change in Chad

    1982–1984: Participating in a multilateral intervention in Lebanon

    1982–1989: Supporting anti-government forces in Nicaragua (the U.S. armed fascists, death squads, drug lords etc.)

    1983: Invading Grenada

    1986: Invading Gulf of Sidra, Libya

    1986: Bombing Libya

    1988: Shooting down an Iranian airliner

    1988: Sending troops to Honduras

    1989: Attacking Libya in Tobruk

    1989: Intervening in the Philippines' domestic affairs

    1989–1990: Invading Panama

    1990–1991: Persian Gulf War, Part 1

    1991: Intervening in Haiti's elections

    1991–2003: Leading the enforcement action to establish a no-fly zone in Iraq

    1992–1995: Intervening in Somalia's civil war for the first time

    1992–1995: Intervening in the Bosnian War

    1994–1995: Sending troops to Haiti

    1996: Supporting a coup in Iraq

    1997: Sending troops to Albania

    1997: Sending troops to Sierra Leone

    1998–1999: Waging the Kosovo War

    1998: Launching cruise missile attacks on Sudan and Afghanistan

    1998–1999: Sending troops to Kenya and Tanzania

    2001–present: War on Afghanistan

    2002: Sending troops to Côte d'Ivoire

    2003: Orchestrating color revolution in Georgia and installing a pro-US government

    2003–present: Iraq War, Part 2

    2004–now: Inciting wars between Pakistan and Afghanistan in their contiguous areas

    2004: Orchestrating color revolution in Ukraine and installing a pro-US government

    2006–2007: Supporting Fatah, a Palestinian political and military organization, in overthrowing the elected government of Hamas

    2007–present: Intervening in Somalia's civil war for the second time

    2009: Supporting a coup in Honduras

    2011: Supporting anti-government forces in Libya

    2011–present: Arming, funding, training jihadists, Al Qaeda, and “moderate rebels” in Syria. Occasionally bombing Syria. And occupying the oil-rich parts of Syria.

    2011–2017: Carrying out military operations in Uganda

    2014: Orchestrating a color revolution in Ukraine and overthrowing a democratically elected leader.

    2014–present: Leading the intervention actions in Iraq

    2015–now: Arming, directing Saudi Arabia's participation in Yemen's civil war

    2017-2019: Attempting regime change in Venezuela

    https://californiaman.substack.com/p/list-of-us-wars-and-interventions

    There is no other country that even comes close. Like, it's the difference between having gone to Pluto and having walked out of one's backyard. And this list doesn't even cover the economic imperialism that the US has imposed on the world. Americans who panic monger over China and Russia as though America is not the biggest and worst threat to the entire world a million times over have no idea what they are talking about. The closest fictional depiction that comes close to allegorizing the absolute terror waged on the rest of the world by US empire is 'The Empire' in Star Wars. The US are the world's 'bad guys', and have been for nearly a century now - and that's after they colonialized and genocided their own population of native Americans (~5 million dead). Everything they touch turns to blood. The genocides carried out with US support since WWII would rival the body-count of the Holocaust multiple times over.
  • The Essence Of Wittgenstein
    Put it this way: can you not know you have a headache? And if not, then what is 'know' doing when you affirm that you do know it? What does 'I know I have a headache' do that 'I have a headache' does not? After all the usual grammar of 'knowing' implies that we can in principle not know a thing (or maybe know it only vaguely). And when we model 'knowing' on 'I know I have a headache', are we mistaking a dummy expression (like the 'it' in 'it is raining') for legitimate instance of knowing? (like the person, who, without a grasp of grammar asks: "but what is 'it'?"). Wittgenstein would suggest yes. You can of course say, "I know I have a headache" - but are you saying something about knowing? Wittgenstein would suggest not (it might be a rebuke: "I know I have a headache! You don't need to remind me!" - but this speaks to one's, call it, annoyed comportment with respect to someone else at that point in time, who probably said something to provoke it - and it probably wasn't "are you sure you have a headache?"; that's the point of the rebuke; it's not an affirmation of my cognitive understanding of my state of being).

    On Certainty, §467: "I am sitting with a philosopher in the garden; he says again and again "I know that tree", pointing to a tree that is near us. Someone else arrives and hears this; and I tell him: 'This fellow isn't insane. We are only doing philosophy.'"
  • Currently Reading
    The idea of the family used as excuse for implementing market discipline kind-of thing?Manuel

    Kind of. It's how 'the family' became the last bastion of non-market socaility, and how much this absolutely has ruined people. Also explains how neoliberalism and social conservatism basically dovetail into one another on this basis. She kind uses the family unit as a prism through which to view the neoliberalism's social effects. It's devastating.
  • Currently Reading
    Melinda Cooper's Family Values - this book more than any other made me realize the depravity of neoliberalism. It's one of my all time favourite social studies. Wendy Brown's work is usually one of the standard references (Undoing the Demos and In the Ruins of Neoliberalism), but Coopers book really shows you how it works at a 'on the ground', social level. US focused, but exemplary of its world-wide creep. Can't recommend it highly enough.
  • Roll20 experience?
    That's really cool! I have a one-shot coming up, I'll probably have fun with the breeder and see if I can some up with something fun. I only have a basic idea of a character for it: someone who thinks they are really wise, but is in fact thick as bricks. I swear when I create characters I base it mostly around whatever stupid voice I think is appropriate at the time. Especially for one shots lol.

    I've used dndbeyond for guides and stuff, but I didn't realize they had a online board as well.
  • Currently Reading
    :up: Cool and based.

    Nice list!
  • Conjecture on modifications of free speech
    The US in currently in the process of trying to throw Julian Assange in prision forever, for exposing wonton American murder overseas.

    The human rights lawyer Steven Donzinger was just thrown into jail by Chevron - literally by Chevron, the private company, and not the government - as punishment for winning a case against them for poisoning the environment, and securing an $18billion judgement against them.

    Edward Snowden is still in exile because he exposed illegal government surveillance.

    Academics lose jobs over critiquing Israel's protracted genocide against Palestinians.

    The idea that we need less, rather than more free speech, is the height of lunacy.

    It is of course, a classic liberal idea. Rather than have anything at all to say about the corporate control of the media - because liberals are effectively capitalist stooges who will go to bat for money wherever it is and whose politics is based on how comfortable they personally feel - and which has left (official) media a barren wasteland of corporate propaganda, they'd prefer to accelerate the problem by handing the keys of speech over to further control.
  • The Inflation Reduction Act
    Oh wait people here think Manchin and Sinema are the 'bad guys' and are not doing exactly as the Democratic party apparatus is telling them to do? Lol. Guess there are idiots everywhere.

    "Wreck the democratic party from the inside". My God, the fact that anyone has bought into the idea that things are not going exactly to plan is even more depressing than the manufactured drama itself. You are the very guarantors of this kind of thing perpetuating over and over again, till infinity.

    "Manchin is owned by the fossil fuel industry" - yeah Manchin is owned by the fossil fuel industry, uh huh, the rest of them are green eco-warriors held back by the forces of Manchin darkness. Frankly Manchin is the only honest one among them all - along with Sinema of course.
  • Joe Biden (+General Biden/Harris Administration)
    Is it as bad your country?ssu

    What do you mean?
  • Joe Biden (+General Biden/Harris Administration)
    You underestimate how successful the two parties have been in establishing a partisan divide between them.ssu

    Yeah gee it's not like I talk about it all the time yeah real underestimating.

    Right now I think the most lovely thing to watch is liberals get mad about Sinema and Manchin. As if they are not playing the roles dictated to them by the democratic party apparatus to a tee. Biden probably couldn't be happier. Meanwhile liberal rags will churn out article after article about their 'obstructionism'. The democratics will likely be utterly relieved when they get wiped out in the mid-terms. They can go back to blaming Republicans for things and not their own totally-in-agreement agenda.
  • Joe Biden (+General Biden/Harris Administration)
    It's funny 'cause Nietzsche was a notorious loser. Probably the original incel.
  • Joe Biden (+General Biden/Harris Administration)
    The annoying thing about having a thread for Trump and a thread for Biden is that the two are barely distinguishable except for how comfortable one of them makes liberals. A nice merged one on conservative American Imperial leaders would be cool. Doesn't help that one of them is simply a caretaker president for the other.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    teaching [insert name of American reality tv celebrity]baker

    Oh God no American celebrities are beyond the pale.

    Actually probably most Americans in general tbh.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    I don't love "my" countrybaker

    Cool.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Yes, we learn how to feel about something,baker

    Excellent. Now go read about how everything you love about your country is probably the fruit of genocide or colonialism or continuing exploitation which remains unaddressed.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Can you sketch out your idea of how a person under capitalism can feel shame?baker

    Do... do you need someone to teach you how to emote?

    When did you land on Earth and can you tell me about your galaxy and what it's like over there?
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Ah yes I also remember the bit in armchair fabricated psychology 101 where every response to shame is exactly the same and it is consumerism yes mhmm.
  • Joe Biden (+General Biden/Harris Administration)
    It's not. It comes in behind China, Russia, Germany, and the British.frank

    Sure, if you guzzle US propaganda.
  • Joe Biden (+General Biden/Harris Administration)
    https://www.amazon.com.au/Killing-Hope-Military-Interventions-Since/dp/1567512526

    https://www.amazon.com.au/Washington-Bullets-History-Coups-Assassinations/dp/1583679065

    https://www.amazon.com.au/Jakarta-Method-Washingtons-Anticommunist-Crusade/dp/1541742400

    Or maybe learn how the US is in fact the most destructive piece of shit country on Earth that has consistently ended democratic movements and consistently crushed the freedoms of billions around the world. And continues to.
  • Joe Biden (+General Biden/Harris Administration)
    Yeah gee I wonder why anyone would complain about the US being complicit in worldwide genocide what losers lol
  • Joe Biden (+General Biden/Harris Administration)
    Love to see all the bootlickers come out. It's great.
  • Joe Biden (+General Biden/Harris Administration)
    Name another country with 750 military bases in 80 countries around the world.
  • Joe Biden (+General Biden/Harris Administration)
    But who is going to hold the US accountable anyhow?Wheatley

    It would be a good start to undermine any legitimacy it has and for it to be universally ackowledged as the most destructive country on the planet.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    You enjoy its fruits. But then, the answer is to laugh in the face of patriots.
  • Joe Biden (+General Biden/Harris Administration)
    Is Biden well enough to change his mind?Wheatley

    Why would he change his mind? Biden is the head of American Empire. It's literally his job to ensure the US can get away with murders it commits.
  • Joe Biden (+General Biden/Harris Administration)
    And on the international front the Biden regime continues to press its case to persecute journalists who expose American warcrimes:

    "They say: we guarantee that he won’t be held in a maximum security facility and he will not be subjected to Special Administrative Measures and he will get healthcare. But if he does something that we don’t like, we reserve the right to not guarantee him, we reserve the right to put him in a maximum security facility, we reserve the right to offer him Special Administrative Measures. Those are not assurances at all. It is not that difficult to look at those assurances and say: these are inherently unreliable, it promises to do something and then reserves the right to break the promise."

    So the prosecution's legal argument here is essentially "We promise we won't treat Assange as cruelly as we treat our other prisoners, unless we decide we really want to."

    This is not just a reflection on the weakness of the extradition appeal, it's a reflection on the savagery of all the so-called free democracies that have involved themselves in this case."

    https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-assange-persecution-is-western
  • Scotty from Marketing
    In other, absolutely glorious news:


    No wonder they want to water down voting.
  • Joe Biden (+General Biden/Harris Administration)
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/28/cant-find-workers-why-not-pay-more-instead-of-exploiting-children-and-migrants

    How sweet, the capital strike has turned into an excuse to reintroduce child labour in the US. Biden's America, going along swimmingly.

    I guess going after children was the next logical step after going after women's uteruses.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    The only appropriate patriotic attitude under capitalism is extreme and unabiding shame.
  • Scotty from Marketing
    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/oct/26/voter-identification-to-be-compulsory-under-morrison-government-proposal?

    This is like my worst fears coming through - Morrison aping American anti-democratic bullshit. The last thing we need to to become anything close to the shitfuckery that is the American asylum. What a malignant fucking cancer on the world. Fuck the US, and fuck Scott Morrison.

    And of course it's inspired by our resident racist piece of shit MP, Hanson:

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/oct/28/i-understand-the-need-centre-alliance-could-offer-crucial-support-for-coalitions-controversial-voter-id-laws
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    The only problem was Jan 6 was that it was carried out by elements of the right.
  • The Essence Of Wittgenstein
    So could be just a little reminder to insiders, with a mischievous wink, that he's not doing that anymore. In certain quarters at the time, the word "description" alone carried a whole theory along with it.Srap Tasmaner

    Ha. Entirely possible. Although Witty mischievously winking is a very weird image.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    The endless fight for the gun will just be that, an endless fight for the gun and in the process millions get shot and die.Tobias

    Not if we win :blush: