those advisers coming out against the Biden administration would have had a lot more power behind their words if hey hadn’t waited over a year until Biden’s term was over… for their silence I think they just as much deserve to go to The Hague

I peed my pants in solidarity as I read this

so it sounds like they want to make a distinction without a difference… but china and the us may both be upset- the us for having 100% of its parts manufactured in china still… china for trying to “leave china” to avoid tariffs… the cost of moving assembly might still be expensive and take time to occur. anything that takes more than a few business cycles, let alone 4 years when the political situation could change. apple has deep pockets from all the chinese labor they have exploited, so maybe they could get away with that, but what would it even accomplish?

I don’t think it will actually happen. They have been saying for some time that it would take at least a decade to move the supply chain out of china- and I think that is an overly optimistic one given that they are probably basing their predictions off of how things went in china, where they are used to effective state support and a highly educated workforce. … there are other issues, like how all of the glass utilized in smartphones is made by like, one factory/company in china…. China could also just utilize the infrastructure there to sell what is effectively the iphone but without the rentier rates charged by apple… that isn’t even getting into the mineral resources smartphones require- like rare earth metals that china controls the production of

idk, maybe they are saying that to get trump off of their back, or help him save face… and/or ease skittish investors

It’s true, brainwashing does imply that the brain had been sullied beforehand

having baphomet on the patch would have gone so hard and would have been 10x cooler though

this was already a thing. they called it the up to the mountain, down to the countryside movement

This party is pro-ukraine (pro-nato) and does not stand for the liberation of Palestine and the end of the apartheid state of “Israel” … I can’t think of any positions that are more discrediting than being in the imperial core and not being anti-imperialist

I don’t know who this is an indictment of, but the failure to form a nascent marxist pole at this point feels embarrassing. Germany had a strong (actual) left before the rise of fascism… obviously the left wasn’t strong enough, but now it seems like even the “left” in Germany are more comfortable with serving US imperialism than any talk of socialism. Is this assessment wrong?

Trump: “First of all, during the trade war, everybody has problems, even you. But you have nice ocean and don’t feel now. But you will feel it in the future. God bless –”.

Xi: “You don’t know that. You don’t know that. Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel. We’re trying to solve a problem. Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel.”.

Trump: “I’m not telling you. I am answering on these questions.”

Xi: “Because you’re in no position to dictate that.”

Lin Jian: “That’s exactly what you’re doing.”

Xi: “You are in no position to dictate what we’re going to feel. We’re going to feel very good.”

Trump: “You will feel influenced.”

Xi: “We are going to feel very good and very strong.”

Trump: “I am telling you. You will feel influenced.”

Xi: “You’re, right now, not in a very good position. You’ve allowed yourself to be in a very bad position –”

Trump: “From the very beginning of the trade war —”

Xi: “You’re not in a good position. You don’t have the cards right now. With us, you start having cards.”

Trump: “I’m not playing cards. I’m very serious, Mr. President. I’m very serious.”

Xi: “You’re playing cards. You’re gambling with the lives of millions of people. You’re gambling with World War III.”

Trump: “What are you speaking about?”

Xi: “You’re gambling with World War III. And what you’re doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country that’s backed you far more than a lot of people said they should have.”

Lin: “Have you said thank you once?”

Trump: “A lot of times. Even today.”

Lin: “No, in this entire meeting.”

Trump: “No.”

Lin: “Offer some words of appreciation for the paramount leader of China who’s trying to save your country.”

Trump: “Please. You think that if you will speak very loudly about the trade war, you can –”

Xi: “He’s not speaking loudly. He’s not speaking loudly. Your country is in big trouble.”

Trump: “Can I answer —”

Xi: “No, no. You’ve done a lot of talking. Your country is in big trouble.”

Trump: “I know. I know.”

Xi: “You’re not winning. You’re not winning this. You have a damn good chance of coming out OK because of us.”

those are two separate buttons

The United States has always been a dictatorship. Was chattel slavery democratic? Was legal apartheid? Does mass incarceration a.k.a. a police state (i.e. the largest prison population in the whole world, most number of people in the carceral system/under state supervision, ) a free country make?

It has always just been several banks and business cartels wearing a trench-coat. They only protect the rights of exploiters without question. You get a vote that matters next to nothing, and then the guy you vote for can do whatever they want for a few years without any consequences. They vote to destroy democracy abroad and murder as many people as possible with bombs. Then if you try to hold them accountable, someone with almost identical politics, but they say mean stuff out loud will win instead.

Oh wait, lol, Ford sold Volvo to a Chinese company

Volvo is owned by Ford

dementia

It makes sense for that kid to say that… Western Germany has been under occupation for 80 years, and the occupation extended westward 35 years ago

idk, maybe things have changed but the “some ethnic armies” seem much more developed and militarily powerful. With coalitions like the Three Brotherhood Alliance playing a decisive role in the tide turning against the military government. Some of these national liberation armies have been i. armed struggle for self determination for decades, with only a brief respite in fighting during Myanmars brief period of liberal democracy, while NUG is a coalition that was sort of hastily put together with the liberals who fled and went into hiding after the coup in 2021.

I think what has been missing from some of the analysis I have read is just how we are supposed to understand the class-politics of the conflict and relationship to imperialism in the conflict. I disagree that the conflict is entirely a US proxy war, although the US has played an important and malign role. The military government was looking at political defeat in 2021, in part because they had nearly identical politics with the NLD but no mass base or celebrity leader. I think the military government saw the rising conflict with China and the US and felt that seizing power would avoid the same level of isolation and sanction that they had had before liberalizing. They believed they could get away with it, because both China and the US would want to continue a positive relationship with whoever was left in power (for different reasons)— But this has led to a strange position for China, who seems to only want a stable neighbor without conflict on their border. As the military government falters, China is less likely to put all of its eggs in one basket. On top of that the military government has also done things to upset China (one of Myanmar’s generals was implicated in a fraudulent call-center ring across the border in Yunnan). So even though I am sympathetic to the argument that the US is flooding the region with arms to destabilize China’s neighbor, I am not certain that China is committed to upholding the current government. They just want to conflict to resolve (but preferably with a government that isn’t hostile)… I am not sure that there hasn’t been historic support for the national liberation factions from China in the last, particularly in the 60s and 70s… If relations are relatively good between China and the major nations in Myanmar, given their outsized influence in fighting the government I could see China coming out of the conflict without a major loss if either side wins. The loss already occurred for them when the coup happened (and Myanmar was embroiled with armed struggle)

its just dumb bullshit, and i refuse to try and make sense of the metaphor any further. They are saying that we should ignore booker’s actions in support of trump, because he is a voice of opposition… but they are literally saying this in response to booker voting for trumps actions. so it doesn’t make sense

You are already mistaken that you have any agency in the trolly problem. You also don’t even seem to understand what the choice was.

“ding don purity tests” like… not committing genocide… got it

edit: also wanted to point out that you served up two more thought-terminating cliches in your response… the democrats aren’t good, they are actually also doing bad things. They murdered something like half a million Palestinians— we all watched it happen— and then they told us, “who are you going to believe? me or your lying eyes?” … All of this was after they dramatically and intentionally created more childhood poverty in their own country. They aren’t “good” at all, they don’t want to be good. They want to serve their own faction of billionaires donors who have a vested interest in things not changing for the better at all.