Russia just employed a firehose of falsehood tactic. That could only achieve a low level distrust of government and institutions. It was American social media algorithms that matched up the falsehoods to the people that would believe them and presented people with an endless stream of false but consistent information. I don’t think the social media companies were colluding with Russia (that would be evil but not stupid) they were just maximizing profits for the shareholders without any consideration for how what they were doing would negatively impact society.

What Glavset did wouldn’t have been impactful had it not been for the stupid greed that permeates American culture. It’s still happening, though obviously Russia is less of a factor, and it’s more China and Iran doing these things now. Though Iran is less significant than China and may be out of play soon enough. But the damage is done and the US will never fully recover.

China is no different from the US.

Trump is in power because Americans have been made to think they need a strongman to make the economy work and protect them from the evil foreigners that are trying to screw them over.

Xi is in power because Chinese have been made to think they need a strongman to make the economy work and protect them from the evil foreigners that are trying to screw them over.

They are the same.

I’m in Canada and I see Taiwan as being in a similar situation to us. Trump wants Canada to be part of the US. Xi wants Taiwan to be part of China. The Taiwanese are facing the same struggle as us, and because of that, they are our brothers and sisters.

Fuck Xi and fuck Trump. They’re no different. We have to make deals with China but we know they’re the same as the US. They’re further away so not an immediate threat to us while the US is. That’s the only difference between them.

Americans are taught at a young age that a piece of paper they’ve never read with pretty about freedom and equality written by slave masters makes them the best country in the world.

It’s always been a stupid country.

Yeah, an innocent American “just tying to feed his family” LOL.

No one needs to “vilify” you. You’re always ready to be villains with very little prompting.

I recall giving you this link before:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

But then maybe that was someone else. All of you hateful people sound the same.

Yeah MAGAs also do the “I was just joking!” thing when I explain how stupid the things they post are.

You have more in common with MAGAs than you think.

The image you posted portrays large pits in some places in the world, with large stacks of resources (gold presumably) in other parts of the world.

That is how Trump understands the world. You seem to think the same way.

What you’re both missing is the fact that people create value. Gold doesn’t actually improve people’s lives, it’s the products and services that are produced by people that make your life better. Your understanding of economics is out of date by about two and a half centuries.

This is the logic I apply to the Free Palestine movement. There are anti-semites within that group, and they are tolerated by others in the movement. Therefore the Free Palestine movement is an anti-semitic movement.

But for some odd reason I don’t think I’ll get as many upvotes as you’ve gotten.

What? Someone is going on the internet and telling jokes? How is this allowed?

What is their agenda? Which nefarious shadowy group are the promoting by doing this?

Yeah well y’all need to understand there are people in Venezuela and Greenland that are just trying to feed their families.

If Trump attacks my country I’ll need to be capable of going to war against your country. And that demands considering you to be nothing more than collateral damage if you happen to be in the wrong place at that wrong time. Just like those 100 people he killed in Venezuela.

If Trump carries out some of the threats he’s making right now, you’ll need to get used to being vilified. The rest of the world may need to burn your country to the ground, and we can’t let feelings get in the way of what must be done to prevent him from destroying our countries.

You shouldn’t be surprised when people have the same consideration for your life as Americans generally have for the lives in countries you go to war with.

Don’t spend any more time telling people to not “vilify” Americans, spend more time trying to make it so America is not the villain. We aren’t making you the villains, the actions of your President is making you the villains of the world.

So you believe the Trump zero sum game view of the world? Wealth is entirely about resources, and people don’t create value?

Heard this one?

People: We need healthcare!
GOP: Fuck off!
Democrats: Don't vote GOP, you'll be paying more for healthcare, they'll take away people's rights, and we may even lose our democracy
Leftists: Both sides! #uncommitted

After the election:

People: We're now paying double for healthcare and there are masked men in the streets disappearing people
GOP: Fuck off! We're invading countries now!
Leftist: Both sides! WHY ISN'T CHUCK SCHUMER PREVENTING THIS!!!!
Democrats: FFS we don't have any power because you didn't vote for us

You’ve already killed the the Democratic party, now you’re just beating on dead corpse becuase you’ll do anything other than oppose the people actually doing the bad things.

Tell your bullshit about how accelerationism is working to the families of the ~100 people Trump’s special military operation killed in Venezuela. That’s modern leftism for you… killing people in the developing world is somehow good because it helps leftism somehow and it hurts the Democrats (the real enemy!). How are you any different from MAGA at this point?

Don’t tell me what my intent is.

Words carry meaning. Which is why news media is careful of the words they use because some words to avoid showing intent they don’t actually have. If someone interprets your intent based on the words you choose, when they get your intent wrong, it may be because you aren’t choosing the best words to convey your intent.

So, do you believe that the violation of Venezuelan sovereignty and coup of their leadership is justified?

Maduro was not elected as leader and basically stole his position from the rightful leader of the country according to democratic norms. He’s not a legitimate leader so I really don’t car about him in terms of any legal terms since his hold on power was dependent on his ability to exert violence on the people of Venezuela. The issue isn’t Maduro, it’s the ~80 people that US forces killed on their way in to get him. Had it been a bloodless operation, there would then be potential violence caused by the instability created potentially leading to a civil war in the country.

Now I get to ask you a question. If the US conducted similar operations in Israel and/or Russia to arrest Netanyahu and/or Putin, would you consider that a kidnapping? Are we only in disagreement over which world leaders should be arrested or which political body is allowed to call for world leaders to be arrested?

So, do you believe that the violation of Venezuelan sovereignty and coup of their leadership is justified?

The nature by which Maduro has and maintains power does not make him a legitimate leader. Putin is a leader in power by similar means. Netanyahu on the other hand is democratically elected. So do you believe that a violation of Israeli sovereignty and a coup on their leadership is justified? Should the media be reporting that the ICJ wants to “kidnap” Netanyahu?

Personally I think Netanyahu is a bad dude, but arresting a sitting leader of a country is attempting to exert political force, not seeking justice. Same goes for Maduro. But Netanyahu is elected (in a proportional representation system, which sucks but it is a democracy) so has legitimacy as leader of a country while Maduro doesn’t have that legitimacy. If the ICJ waited until after he was no longer in power that would be seeking justice, but doing so while a leader is in power is a geopolitical thing, not a justice thing. But Even if there was a world where some country arrested Netanyahu, I still wouldn’t be demanding the news media term it a “kidnapping” because that’s stupid.

Do you believe the President should be conducting similar operations in Columbia and Cuba as stated and Greenland as leaked?

These operations would be even more stupid than the operation in Venezuela. If they were done on democratic countries, it would be a violation of the will of the people and that would be a true violation of sovereignty. In Canada and Greenland there are free and fair elections. For Cuba, while there are elections, it’s a one party system so the elections aren’t exactly free and fair. So Cuba’s government’s legitimacy is in a grey area. For Canada and Geenland it would be attacking allied countries, a massive betrayal and it in time it would result in the end of the USA.

To me, crying crocodile tears over Maduro accomplished nothing other than making people seem like they like Maduro. Like it’s not oppressive governments that are the problem it’s just personal preference over which particular leader of oppressive governments you like or don’t like. Maybe it’s not your intention, but at this point you’re upset over the media not crying enough crocodile tears over one leader of an oppressive government because maybe you feel like that will make Trump look bad somehow? The reality is that it would be the media pushing propaganda which isn’t their job (and obviously doesn’t line up with the reality that Maduro was a bad dude) which really only helps Trump’s narrative that you shouldn’t trust the “fake news” media. A narrative that you’re helping push only from a different angle.

It’s all a big grey area here. But it seems you want to demand other people to use certain words to make it feel like something is illegal. What do you think that will accomplish? Even if you successfully make out Trump’s actions to be illegal, you’ve already made the case it would be a violation of sovereignty and kidnapping for anyone to do anything about it. And that’s only if it were feasible to do anything about it, which it isn’t.

Also there’s a willingness of many to go along with a lie.

It’s a big power move to say an obvious lie and have others have to say they believe the obvious lie.

It was Americans that created a culture where people will believe anything as long certain symbols are referenced. Throw in a flag or a cross and they’ll believe any bullshit.

Americans made themselves stupid, Putin just exploited that stupidity.

NATO won’t end, only the US being part of NATO will end.

In fact if NATO didn’t already exist, something just like it would be formed if the US starts invading countries just because a crazy old man thinks the world map is a colouring book.

Yeah I think the ordering on that is China, Japan, UK, Canada in terms of the countries that hold US bonds.

A diplomatic delegation came to Canada recently and then Mark Carney went to China. Maybe just coincidence, or maybe not.

Tanking the bonds is essentially the economic equivalent of a nuke. You don’t want to use it because there will be fallout which isn’t good for anyone. But the US actually using military force on Greenland would be a circumstance where you might push the button on that. China has some business interests in Greenland, and generally the US just invading places based solely on the whims of a deranged old man is worse for everyone than the economic fallout from tanking the bonds.

China is not some all powerful country, nor is it altruistic.

The end of Russia’s war in Ukraine is the end of Putin. Do you think Putin will basically kill himself because of a word from China?

And you’re thinking too small. There is a lot of diplomacy going on between every country in the world. Mark Carney is in China at this very moment. There are other delegations in India. Japan, Korea, and China are working together a little more now, and they hate one another. Everyone is making temporary alliances. It’s shaping up to be US and Russia vs. the world.

Trump is trading NATO, the most powerful alliance in history, for Russia, a collapsing country.

BRICS is just a propaganda thing, it’s all it will ever really be. Most trade happens between countries near to one another, though sometimes there’s cultural similarities countries can come together on. The BRICS countries are all over the world, they all speak different languages and have very different political systems and interests.

Brazil is a democracy in South America Russia is a fascist regime in Europe and Asia India is a democracy in Central Asia China is a fascist regime (that pretends to be communist) in Asia South Africa is a democracy in Africa

Some of these countries have more trade and closer relations with western countries than with each other. China and India occasionally exchange gunfire over border disputes. Brazil has other trade agreements in South America which are way more meaningful. South Africa is similar.

It’s just some fantasy of internet contrarians that have fallen for the “liberal democracies are bad actually” bullshit and want some weird group of countries that are going to… well no one knows.

And LOL at the EU wanting to do trade with Russia right now. Did you even think about what that R in BRICS stood for?

I think it’s more that Americans are stupid.