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Don't get me started. It's not even tankies. Much of the far-left "anti-Zionism" is rooted in Soviet era propganda.

anti-Zionism was a Soviet invention and much of the rhetoric used by left-groups stems directly from the Soviet propaganda arm – which in turn, just rebranded the infamous Protocols of Elders of Zion which was extremely popular in pre-Soviet Russia.

The usage of words such as "colonialist" "apartheid" etc, is explicitly created by the USSR

I have more fear of left-wing anti-Zionism than I ever have of right with anti-Semitism.
One is explicit and almost universally rejected. The other is cloaked in liberation political rhetoric and is often heralded as brave and moral. Both use rhetoric that is virtually the same.

Well don't look now because, along with the right being responsible for the majority of actual hateful actions, right-wing anti-semites have a long-term goal of igniting an apocalyptic end war by supporting Israel and preventing stabilization efforts in the region. Evangelism is a hell of a drug. Neither should we ignore Israel's actions as a state.

But yes, soviet propaganda about Israel was all leftover Imperial era bigotry mixed with "everything America is evil". Tankies, of course, believe everything without question.

I am not convinced evangelism has been anything more than windowdressing to the millitary industrial complex.

The insanity uniting most every ism is the belief that they are the one group that can be trusted not to focus on enriching themselves when given access to a nation's taxes.

Okay, none of this proves kyle is hiding in a safe house and his lawyers know where he is.
You do know they would have to tell the courts if they moved him to a safehouse right? Its not like they would need to tell the public where he is or even the fact they moved him to a safe house, but they would absolutely need to inform the court of this decision. His lawyers didn't tell the courts, because they don't know where he is

From the sounds of the quotes, his lawyers know where he is. It even sounds like the court knows he's in a safehouse, but not where this safehouse is, which is the part that's making them upset.

Now, while it's not especially important imo, I'd like proof that his lawyers "would absolutely need to inform the court of this decision", simply because that's a rather steep claim to make.

The far extreme right's hateful actions are almost always universally condemned. And every time one of their own bombs some synagogue it sets their movement, or any legitimacy of their movement, back – as been the case constantly. At the same time, we have people advocating for the literal pogrom of Israeli Jews and are praised for it because it's cloaked in emancipatory politics. And even now, what's emerging a lot is violence done to the Orthodox communities in places like New York and is defended because it's often a black person attacking some orthodox Jew.

It's one thing to criticize the actions of a state – I have a shit ton of it myself (I am against the settlement projects despite understanding the necessity for it, as an example, I also think there ought to be way better treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank) for one welcome such criticism – it's entirely another to advocate it's elimination – often through violent revolutionary means. It's one thing to criticize violations of human rights by a state, it's another to exclusively focus almost entirely on the violations of that state in comparison to others. It's hypocrisy to advocate for self-determination of ethnic groups but deny that right to Jews. This is largely something that the UN is notorious for. It largely ignores or rarely condemns blatantly horrible human rights violations in many countries while almost exclusively focusing on Israel – incidentally, the only Jewish state there is. It's damn hard to separate "criticism of Israel" and "anti-Semitism" when almost all of the criticism is levied on that one particular state while simultaneously rarely if ever criticizing any other states for actions that are similar if not worse.

Hell numerous UN chairs, including Ben Ki Moon, brought up the obsession that the UN has with targeting Israel.

It's not even just Tankies either – Anarchists, Marxists, and Socialists have deep roots in anti-Semitism.
Personally I think "the left" wants Jews where they belong: an opressed minority that is completely dependent on the good will of the host nation they belong to. A perfect hotbed for class-consciousness and proletariat activism, after all, much of the early Labor movements in the West were organized and supported by Jews. So many prominent leftist "heroes" were explicitly anti-Semitic, something all the left tend to ignore. From Marx, to Bakunin, to Proudhon. I'm not surprised that the USSR adopted a lot of the rhetoric.

Bit o' Geo Politics!
Myanmar.

Man this is becoming a bigger deal – and while we, today, may not yet feel the sting of what's happening on our streets, it's something that I think is going to manifest itself far larger down the line. It reminds me greatly of the cold-war era between USSR and the US where actual geo-political conflict between two nations often was dealt with in proxies, and what may seem like contradictory positions held by both nations were entirely a practical counter-measure against one another.

So a bit of a background from my diggings. The military has held power in Myanmar for decades until 2015 when Myanmar experienced it's first free-elections, and elected Aung San Suu Kyi (I'll refer to her as ASSK) and her party the National League for Democracy (NLD) as President. Under the NLD Myanmar experienced increased prosperity, a slow shift towards Western trade and diplomacy, which saw outstanding debt with China decreased by 26%. Also, trade with Western countries increased and the trade deficit with China shrank.

However, like Egypt, most of the economic sectors of Myanmar remained in the hands of the miltiary, under a conglomerate Myanmar Economic Holdings PLC , a conglomerate set up by the military in 1990 that has major joint projects with Chinese corporations. Traditionally the military has held negative views of Chinese economic interference which actually prompted the initial elections, however recent most increased ties between Myanmar and China may have been changed that perspective.

In 2017, the Rohingya genocide occurred – although not called a genocide due to the impact of such a designation in international relations – ASSK (who won noble peace prizes mind you) did not condemn the military. This was viewed with contempt internationally, but domestically it was a popular move. ASSK's administration has had to deal with competing power internally from the military, specifically with General Min Aung Hliang (MAH), who owns massive shares of the MEH PLC. As some international relations deteriorated there was increase relations with China.

In November, Myanmar held it's elections – with ASSK's NLD party winning in a total landslide against the military backed party. It seems that the military has continual breakdown of relations with the NLD who sought to curb the military power with attempts at constitutional reform. "With Min Aung Hlaing set to retire when he turns 65 in June, experts say he had his sights set on the presidency. To do that, the military's proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) would need do well in the November elections. But Suu Kyi's NLD won 83% of the vote, giving her a mandate and signaling a strong rejection of the military -- putting those presidential ambitions out of reach."

China has a lot invested in Myanmar. Maynmar is a crucial part of China's Belt and Road initiative, giving China access to the Indian ocean. In the exchange, China has invested heavily in Myanmar's infrastructure. China blocked UN's condemnation of the coup, although not happy with the coup as it has fostered relationship with ASSR, it continues to seek good will and bring Maynmar closer to it's fold.

In the US this has caused a problem for President Biden's administration. Besides being extremely early in the administration, one person described the situation as "chaos", as many positions in the State Department have yet to be filled. So far the administration has not called it a coup due to such a term invoking specific laws that prevent US assistance. Furthermore, any antagonism from the West, such as sanctions would ultimately push Myanmar further into the orbit of China. At this crucial point where the current military junta, historically wary of Chinese influence? We are back to the old cold-war tactic of the US having to support illiberal governments for realpolitik i.e. supporting dictatorships to counter similar endeavors from a geopolitical rival.

This would ultimately strain President Biden's goals of strengthening Democracy in a world where authoritarianism has been steadily growing.

Meanwhile, protests across Myanmar have broken out, with multiple days of people going into the streets. In response military leaders order curfew and ban gatherings on top of already blocking social media groups where anti-coup protesters organize.

Seems it's back to the 20th century for us.

Trump's impeachment lawyer, David Schoen, last night on Fox News, basically admitted to Trump's inflammatory language affecting his dedicated followers.

"Democrats have used 'rhetoric that is just as inflammatory or more so' than Trump but 'the problem is, they don’t have followers, dedicated followers when they give speeches.'"

Sounds about right, Trump's followers march right into the halls of power on thier own initiative, whereas the dems have trouble getting theirs to leave Portland.

Sigh, and Trump is acquitted again. God, I hate the Republican Party.

I just hope they'll be voted out before a fascist USA becomes real, other than that I feel like America is as good as doomed.

Blame the democrats being so stupid as to try a incitement charge on rhetoric they themselves overindulge on.

We are doomed because of the idiots voting for the 'lesser of two evils'

The closest the US has been to fascism was under FDR, when actual fascists outright praised him and his policies as a US variant of fascism, and prominent institutions such as journalism outright praised fascism and wanted it in the US (looking at you New York Times ). I sincerely doubt that those people who are worried about America turning into 'fascism' or even 'socialism' know what those ideologies really entail. Saying that, I think what people dread most is for the US to turn into a Totalitarian state, or an authoritarian state, or a dictatorship – and I sincerely doubt that can happen or will happen anytime soon. And it certainly will not happen when you have someone like Trump in office – a President who is outright maligned and despised by a good half of the country – where almost every non political institution is aimed against them. Neither fascism, or socialism would come out of such a leader. If they would come, they would come from a leader that is fairly charismatic, and very popular, where the worse of the ideas the leader does is obscured. I can think of a few close-calls with that.

I also find it ironic that the people most concerned about either fascism or socialism in the US tend to be the biggest proponents of methods that make such a system a reality. For example, the Nazis purged any political party opposition – the communists, the socialists, the democrats, etc. Similarly, the Bolsheviks purged any other alternative ideological strain to their version of socialism.

When you find people, people you agree with, making a case that the US should be a one-party rule, by purging the opposing party from political relevance, it may be a good time to gently remind them what the historic precedence for that is. And that kind of thinking is increasingly common in the last 20 or so years. I heard it a lot from the conservatives during the Bush years, and Obama years, and I am hearing it a lot now from the liberal side.

I get what you’re saying about FDR being as close to facist as you can get (especially with his 4 terms, his attempt to pack the supreme court, and the Japanese internment camps), but I feel like he still toed the line and remained democratic, as he didn’t greatly restrict freedom of the press (admittedly he somewhat did in WWII, but everyone understood cause of, yknow, the war) and he did promote civil rights during his New Deal.

I just don’t think it was really that far then

FDR was considered closer to fascism for his economic policies and the way the New Deal was rolled out. Much of what I am talking about happened in the in 1930s, before WW2, when Fascism was in vogue by a large part of the institutional "progressives" who saw it as reasonable answer to the two prevailing conflicting ideologies of capitalism and socialism. FDR complained a bunch about the press that was against him calling it poisonous propaganda. Hell, FDR created the FCC so that the government had control over the airwaves. This was before the war, this was in 1934. CBS Vice President Henry A. Bellows said that "no broadcast would be permitted over the Columbia Broadcasting System that in any way was critical of any policy of the Administration." During the 30s, before the mention of fascism invoked Nazi Death camps in peoples' heads, the idea of Italian corporatism (the economic model of fascism) was extremely similar to the NRA system FDR created.

Civil Rights?
bruh. We are told by history books that Hitler was offended by Jessie Owens, a black man, winning 4 gold medals, but by his own words " "Hitler didn't snub me--it was Roosevelt who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram" Because FDR only invited white athletes to meet with. While FDR considered lynching as murder, he certainly didn't support the GOP's demands to make lynching a federal crime. The man actually nominated a KKK member to the supreme court. Don't even get me started on his responses to the Holocaust and how Jews were treated in Europe and Vichy North African system which he chose to maintain even after the allied victories.

I am perpetually amazed as to how often FDR is looked up as a role model when he was a horrible President who's policies literally haunt us to this day, and had massive massive impact on the real shit that the US has to deal with today.

FDR and Woodrow Wilson are two of the worst Presidents in the last 100 years, and they, especially FDR, is treated like a messiah. The fact that our education system routinely fails to educate people properly on the reality of those two Presidencies is a testament to how utterly revisionist our education system is. All they can remember is how badly he treated the Japanese. Like, sure that's shit as hell dude, but compared to his other policies?

Guess who's party has majority support in the public education system.

Through the teachers they seek to control the past, through the media they seek to control the present. Thus they would show the image of a party heroic and without fault to the voters so as to maintain power and control the future.

He was flawed
but his economic policies were worth remembering positively
far more progressive than what we have now

Gee, I wonder why the public education system favors the party that doesn't directly try to take away their funding

his economic policies may have been sound for his era, but they were built on early 20th century reality and made in such a way that they are entrenched and cannot reform to meet the reality of 21st century.
Case in point, social security. It's all well and good when you have a large worker to pensioner ratio and the difference between retirement age and average death age was roughly 5 years. It doesn't work well when the worker to pensioner ratio has shrunk, the retirement age stayed relatively the same, but life expectancy went up 25 years. This is a recipe for disaster that is so deeply entrenched in our political system that any prominent politician that even dares undertake drastic reform spells political suicide.

It is also hotly debated by economic historians about the efficacy of FDR's economic policies – with many arguing that it exacerbated and prolonged the problems it was meant to fix. However, I am not going to readily subscribe to that notion. I will however point out that his policies have echoes that are far louder, and far more devastating today than the yester year.

I have to agree with Kenetic Kups on both of those points.

You may disagree with the policies, but they are liked for a reason.

Conversely: Gee, I wonder why the party tries to take the funding from a system that whitewashes thier opposition's history to the next generation.

Seems to be the fate of public institutions to become partisan battlegrounds; one side tries to pervert it, the other tries to burn it down, both giving less that 0.001 of a care for the institute's original intent, repeat ad infinitum.

That's not the kind of endorsement you think it is.
People like policies that they don't have to pay for in any immediacy.

Especially policies that more or less benefit them, but would have to be paid for by generations to come.

It’s almost as if getting the country out of the great depression will guarantee your reelection…

He didnt end the great depression, the war did and only for the duration, ceasing wartime production and returning the GI's back into the civillian workforce made the post war economy anemic, entering recession twice in 5 years.

Post War boom didnt take off until 1950.

Good way to lower unemployment → send the workers to fight in a European war.

Interestingly the wartime economy wasn't that great – the propaganda was. People had to ration their food, use scraps as consumer goods plummeted, and entire factories were converted into war-time footing. After the war ended, the factories had to go back to consumer good staples, which took years. But the propaganda at the time was powerful people felt it was their patriotic duty to suck it up and treat a worsening quality of life as a necessary burden for the cause. I'm not going to debate whether that is a good thing or bad, but it is a reality.

Ted Cruz needs to resign.
It's the most politically savvy and graceful move he can make. But he needs to do it.

Hm, I dont know, Cruz was ahead of the pack when it came to telling which way the wind was blowing, but he's not lacking in ambition; might try to trump his way through and count on the media's ever shrinking attention span.

How come Trump banned or tried to ban tik tok yet a page like reddit is allowed to be completely free?

Because Tik Tok is used by a foreign power – one that is increasingly hostile to the US and emerging as our rival – as a spying device.

From a sheer political careerism: If Cruz offers his resignation he sends extremely strong signals to the people that he owns his mistake, and he recognizes it for how dire and out-of-touch it is. He would be praised across the board and even more left-leaning-centrists would probably nod in some approval to this action. Even if he does resign, he can still run again. (and would have the clout of "hey I fucked up, and I owned up to it and decided to step down to reflect", which carries a lot of weight conservative values and personal responsibility).

you can say that about all social media though

They sell your info, ticktock is state owned and just hands it over.

Depends on what kind of information is gathered. The Chinese explicitly use the information they gather from their users to find dissidents, and also push propaganda on TikTok itself. This Vox article covers it fairly well from a little over a year ago.

It is imperative that we recognize that apps that we deem as fun can be used as tools of statecraft, often by hostile powers.

What makes China, in particular, so dangerous is that a lot of Chinese students actively come to the US to study. A lot of Chinese Americans, many of whom immigrated here decades ago, and have no desire to ever go back and are full 100% American patriots can be, and are, forced to become unwitting spies for the Chinese. This is because some of those families have relatives still in China, who are threatened. Students are routinely used to further the agenda.

But it's not what one would think. It's not like China emails some person and says "send us this information". On the contrary, they do things which make it so the "agent" is unaware that they are doing anything nefarious.

A cousin from Beijing came for the summer holidays, she brought to you a present! A brand new, high powered laptop for you to use at school! How badass. You go to class, connect to the wifi and do your work, while your laptop is secretly collecting data from the school.

One of America's greatest assets: it's laws against discrimination, are routinely used against it.
As someone who's nationality was suspect by the US for well over 50 years – I can empathize with the fear some Chinese-American may have to be suspected of being a willing or unwilling spy for a hostile foreign government. How do you navigate this? I do not know.

What I do know is that in California, 42% of all foreign students are Chinese. They go to schools that are nearby prominent technological centers – and, little to people's knowledge, military bases and R&D areas.

Facebook is currently usurping Australia's government.

Biden: "American is back"

Assad: "Ah crap"

EU: Can you stop destabilizing the middle east FOR FIVE MINUTES
US: I'm makin' waffles!

I wanted to clarify this.
22% of the labor force, 11 million people, were conscripted into the army. Of course unemployment levels immediately go down – a prominent hallmark of the Great Depression. But it's not just that. Nothing riles my bones then the blind admiration people in the US have towards the FDR administration for "getting us out of the depression". It's so bereft of historical context, or knowledge about the time that it boils my blood that this crap is still taught in public school as if it was fact. Besides me constantly having to remind the fact that FDR praised Mussolini, when fascism was in vogue, and was viewed by the Germans and the Italians as a like-minded-President.

They never go into details such as the Agricultural Adjustment Act which had offered farmers subsidies in exchange of limiting their production of certain crops, so that the price of those crops would rise. Born out of the fact that cotton farmers in Georgia saw the price of Cotton drop due to increased production in other parts of the country and cheaper foreign imports, on top of the new fashion line requiring far less textile products. Or how pigs were slaughtered by the millions, and the meat virtually destroyed so that the price of pork would go up. This act was found unconstitutional but modified in 1938, and ended in 1942, despite lingering on in various agricultural subsidies that exist to this day. Subsidies that force price mechanisms that have directly led to obesity pandemics in the US. But, oh the farmers got the help they needed! But it didn't, when everything else the farmers needed, such as tires, were rapidly climbing up in costs.

But then the National Recovery Act, allowed each industry to set a code of production, which set working hours, wages, and prices – it means that any new upstart competitive business cannot compete. How can a new tire-business compete with something like GoodYear which has so much name recognition? Better prices – but if those prices are artificially controlled there is no way to compete.

An entire damn generation was raised in that era to outright fear the concept that a bunch of big business will collude together and jack up the prices and squeeze the population out of as much money as they could. This was the nightmare that oligarchic system brought, it's what Teddy fought so damn hard! Monopolies were a terrible thing – we still believe this! But now it was outright codified by law! Under his nephew, FDR. And no one taught you this in 8th grade US History class.

Literally the entire US policy in the ME is to protect European energy interests.
It has been since the Brits outright tricked the US in involving itself in Iran, because British Petroleum was about see it's Iranian assets nationalized. The EU only publicly speaks out against US intervention in the ME when it get's out of hand, but in reality, it's not the US who is dependent on the perpetual flow of oil from the ME. It's the Europeans.

It's actually kinda funny how the UK and France used communism to enforce the legacy of Sykes–Picot. I just wish that in the intervening FUCKING 70 years since that the west would realize the limitations of realpolitik in the region.

In order to remain useful to the Saudis, Egypt, and Israel the US has to go along with whatever dumbshit plan will next cause blowback and nobody ever learns. Values-based diplomacy would have long-ago reintegrated Iran into global trade, and optimistically we could have seen a blunting of the urges that lead to the sectarian wars. It reaches out further too, there's a whole list of idiotic decisions and policies that lead to Israel supporting Hamas in order to break Palestinian unity.

Have you seen Trump's speech at CPAC? Rambling, casually transphobic and racist nonsense at its finest. And his audience just eats it up. God, it's so frustrating to even think about it

@thebigguy123

This guy should have been arrested after what happen the 06/01.

The masses will eat up anything

A lot of people will eat up anything said about him, at least.

Just like a lot will eat up anything said by him

And even more eat up anything "said" by him.

Last 4 years were a grand exhibition of the power of information control. That there are still people who still believe the Covington Kids were the ones to approach Nathan Phillips is distressing.

I'm not 100% sure if it's to enforce Sykes Picot.
To be honest, and I may be wrong, but I believe the real issue is oil and energy. And it's not just the UK/France that stands to gain from it. The French are more focused on Africa than the ME, and still are. The gas-crisis which came from the oil-embargo by the Arab nations in the 70s created an entirely new dynamic for the cold-war situation in Europe. Namely, because the Pan-Arabism failed, once again, against Israel and blamed Europe for it (and not their own blatant failures and inability to comprehend Israeli air-superiority). The Europeans were dealt a heavier blow than the Americans during the gas crisis, and the attitudes towards the ME among European nations changed with it.

The US is smart with it's oil. For the US it's not just energy. It's the backbone of the military machine which runs almost entirely on oil. The long term view is this: the US can afford to buy everyone else' oil, but when shit starts to run dry, and there is a threat to the current US military assets, then, and only then will it go gung-ho on tapping it's own resources. Makes sense, if you ask me. Why tap into your own reserves when you can just buy everyone elses' until they run out.

For Europe it's entirely about energy. But I think, in modern times, it's not Europe as a whole, but it's main players; Germany, UK, and France. Germany's greatest weakness is that it exhausted it's coal reserves in the 70s, and it is extremely dependent on foreign energy sources from Russia, and the ME, which is also why they haven't pushed hard against Russia.

Anyhoo, I don't think it's the US's interest to be useful to Egypt, Saudi or Israel, more that those nations are useful to the US. Don't get me wrong, the US is definitely useful to them, but they are fairly useful to the US. Egypt has the Suez Canal, which can disrupt global trade on massive scales, Saudi Arabia is a key energy exporter, and Israel is not just a technological partner, but also a fairly strong and willful foothold for the Americans in the region. Also, Israel's position with the US is not just mutually beneficial, but strategically important. If it wasn't the US that held Israel's influence, it would be Russia – and why not, a third of Israelis are Soviet ex-pats, the Israelis and Russia have a fairly warm and cordial relationship. (I can go on and on about the geopolitical realities of this, even in the most recent example of Azerbaijan and Armenian conflict). Israel creating Hamas was a horrible mistake that even it's own internal intelligence officials perpetually warned against, but were ignored by the political class for a "lesser of two evils – at the time".

I blame the Germans for making the empires too weak to stay.

Give it a hundred years and those natives would come to respect our nice clean lines! What, what.

Republican lawyers admit before the Supreme Court that Arizona's voter discouragement laws are to keep them competitive with Democrats, and that politics is a zero-sum game.

Actual audio from the hearing.

McCain is rolling in his grave