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You've had a one party state for 40 years, just in typical american extravagance you had 2 of them.

Endless war
Medical bankruptcy
No taxes for the one percent
Spy on their own citizens

Do you know which political party supports this things? Both do. I know this seems shocking, but if you leave your neoliberal bubble you’ll realize the US is a single party state.

No bud, I was specifically saying we kill off a major party so we can replace it with another one that actually cares about the people
we currently have a one party state

Yeah, pretty much. The differences between the two parties seem more extreme than they actually are due to the hyperpartisan bluster and vitriol of politicians and the corporate news media.

Also, I feel like Brent is projecting here. Judging by his rhetoric, he'd very much enjoy a one-party state, assuming it's his wing.

Texas Governor Greg Abbot has defunded the State Legislature over Democrats refusing to allow the restrictive voting bill SB7 to pass.

My state's Senator, Ron Johnson, gets booed at a Juneteenth event.

I've been struggling hard to come up with a good way to present the information I'd like to make a post about. In some ways I want to frame it historically, making a parallel comparison to the events in the 80s which unraveled the Soviet Union – the war in Chechnya, the brutal failure in Afghanistan, and Chernobyl – to the unravelling of the Chinese CCP government amidst the COVID outbreak.

We are over a year since this whole thing began, and where as we are finally opening up, moving beyond the lockdowns, the mandates, the chaos, the economic downturn, and a global death toll of nearly 4 million people, it's increasingly becoming clear that we are entering stage 2. How did this happen? Who is responsible, who are culpable, what exactly are the ramifications then and now, and going forward.

Earlier in February of this year Vice Minister of State Security Dong Jingwei a high ranking Chinese official defected, with his daughter, to the US. Vice Minister of State Security Dong Jingwei has passed on important information about the Wuhan Institute of Virology to the US government, which some speculate may have prompted the Biden administration into turning a U-Turn in investigating the Wuhan Institute.

A growing list of countries are starting to demand increased transparency over what exactly happened in China, and the Wuhan Institute. Increasingly we are getting reports of how far the Chinese government went into burying their own culpability in this crisis. Although nothing is concretely proven, a hell of a lot of circumstantial evidence is squaring that this accident was well known by the CCP, and purposefully hidden – to the cost of millions of lives.

So much so, that evidently Zhou Yusen, a military scientist for the People’s Liberation Army who died in May last year, had filed a patent for a Covid-19 vaccine on 24 February 2020.

"Despite Zhou’s status as an award-winning military scientist, there were no reports or tributes, with him only being labelled as “dead” in a Chinese media item from July and a scientific publication from December last year.

However, the report revealed that the patent, filed by the PLA’s Institute of Military Medicine, was lodged just five weeks after China acknowledged human-to-human transmission of the novel virus."

Unlike the Tiananmen Square in 1989, China is a far more internationalist country, wholly dependent on it's export power, but also it's large international projects, such as the Belt and Road Initiative.

The wolf doctrine international diplomacy and the disaster of the covid virus, with China's lack of transparency, and suspect influence on major international health institutions like the WHO has certainly not helped it's image across the world. Indeed, "face" is an important cultural element in China, that is, saving face takes a far larger precedence than admitting incompetence and failure.

Obviously the mood in the US towards China, across both political aisles has drastically decreased, but that mood is mirrored across the Atlantic in the EU, with a large percentage of the European countries holding China in very negative view:

The Chinese promises to it's international partners has fallen on deaf ears. The Belt and Road Initiative is beginning to stagnate, with little to no results for the Chinese people or the prestige of the CCP.

The CCP fears, above all else, not the outside world, but it's own people. They are well versed in history, their own, and their neighbors'. They know fully well that what birthed the CCP itself was a result of a violent revolution that claimed tens of millions, that revolutions and revolts have been a staple of disasters that hit China for almost 200 years now. That, it took a series of a few disasters to destroy the USSR from within – not the military might of the US, or the Western World.

Indeed, that is why the Chinese government, since 2011, spends more on domestic security than it does on it's own military. By a significant amount, in fact. This signals that the CCP is far more afraid of it's own people than it is of international enemies. It would explain it's draconian attempts to control the internal and external dialogue to make sure the CCP is not in fact harmed.

Chinese diplomats, once quietly posting a few positions on twitter have become actively engaged in social media propaganda war buying fake fans, using these platforms to actively parrot the CCP's message across the internet world.

Last year we saw the Republicans and the Trump administration wage war on TikTok. But with good reason as the massive social media platform is an increasingly effective Chinese propaganda tool

And yet…The CCP is dealing with a series of it's own internal problems – with the near breaking of the Three Gorges Dam last Summer, to the re-emergence of the COVID virus in some of it's major cities and now emerging threats of a potential nuclear disaster we are seeing a Chinese government eager to distract itself with what the Authoritarians governments do best when there is a threat to their power; cultivate nationalist fervor through bellicose stances in the international arena.

The cornered tiger begins to lash out as record number of Chinese airplanes were sent to the Taiwan airspace (although it seemed to have been kind of a flop). Indeed, the Biden administration is ready to meet this by seriously considering increasing relationship with Taiwan and there has been rumors circulating that t he US may place a permanent presence in Taiwan, which effectively tells the Chinese that if they plan on any invasion of Taiwan, they are putting US troops in the way – in turn – risking an all out war.

I am left wondering how the next few years will unfold as the world increasingly turns against the over-reaching Chinese, and the CCP. I wonder how much pressure can the CCP maintain of increasing discontent within it's own country. A country that is riddled with severe social-demographic issues that cannot be easily solved. For example, for the first time ever the CCP actually created it's own version of Social Security – fearing that due to the one-child policy the old system of children obligated (even by law) to take care of their elders is untenable.

But what worries me more about the demographic situation is the male to female ratio. in China is 105.302 males per 100 females. That is, 738.25 million males and 701.08 million females in China today. That is 37 Million men who will not have a wife, or any hope for a family. That has historically created severe discontent, and that kind of energy is often channeled into war, or rebellion.

Senate Republicans are promising to filibuster debate on the Democrats' Voting Rights bill.

The GOP blocked discussion of a big voting rights bill that would end voter suppression.

The GOP is nothing but a stain on American democracy.

I'm not sure "end voter suppression" is the right phrasing. Begin undoing the widespread damage of Shelby vs Holder is a better one.

Well that doesn't sound sexy though

You gotta make it sexy, otherwise you don't eat.

Hips and nips!

BIDEN: "Those who say the blood of Patriots, you know, and all the stuff about how we’re gonna have to move against the government.”

"If you think you need to have weapons to take on the government, you need F-15s and maybe some nuclear weapons."pic.twitter.com/WVHUffpphP

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) June 23, 2021

Man, imagine the shitstorm if trump had said that during Chaz

It would be funny if both "sides" of the predicted Cold War collapsed due to internal issues and infighting.

It might spare the world a lot of proxy wars between China and the "West".

Democrats 2020: Defund the Police!
Democrats 2021: Fuck, go back!

He’s right though

Tell that to the taliban or the viet kong.

Hell, tell that to him and the rest of the democrats 6 months ago when they screamed about the government toppling potential of an unarmed crowd.

Trump openly contemplating nuking his own countrymen, christ you never would hear the end of it, but biden does it and you dont hear a peep. Hypocrisy with no end.

The Taliban and the Vietcong have the terrain advantage, rhis advantage don't work if the army is native.

You keep posting that "unarmed" lie, because police were beaten that day with batons and flagpoles.

Being native would make it worse for the army, not better, as for terrain america is 10 times larger than either and contains pretty much every terrain type short of jungles.

Flags and batons, hah, by that standard you could count MLB in the 50 largest millitaries.

Has anyone warned the pentagon? They need to get a hold of the pee-wee hockey threat!

The goalpost seems to have moved from that this was just a "peaceful" protest. The funny thing about hypocrisy is that I recall also that over the years American Republicans and their supporters liked threatening to overpower or nuke others on the international level, "turn the country into a glass crater" as the phrase went, while using intimidation on the domestic level.

Did the Civil war rhetoric suddenly feel less like a fun fantasy? I think this is just a call to reality for LARPers to remind them of what they're facing, but it's funny how the same people who threatened others completely lose their shit when there's the possibility of the same happening to them, "who lives by the sword, dies by the sword".

Hypocrisy with no end is absolutely right.

"These people are just making their voices heard!" to "Actually ANTIFA did it!" to "Actually it wasn't that bad! Don't investigate it!" to "Actually it was a CIA/FBI/Deep State conspiracy!"

'Course, if I was making an argument. It's not, it's an expression of anger, schadenfreude and bit of disbelief.

I personally think it was just an injection of reality for those who still cling to the January 6th logic, but it would be a case of poetic justice, considering how utterers of botched fear tactics get botched fear tactics.

Tell me, was it decent when Trump supporters wished more terrorist attacks on us? Disapproval is seen as a badge of pride, taunting a way to gain votes, and there's no common honesty or decency. All of that went out the window years ago, it's almost funny to try to frame events under the lens of respectability.

Relations go both ways. Everyone get's what they deserve.

Arguments are pointless, but you know what does seem to work? Action. Talk of economic hardship, then cheer for a trade war against other countries even if it hurt them, until they got a black eye and lost the trade war. Speak of violence, until talks of intervention, retaliation or arrest pop up, and suddenly the bad faith arguments disappear and actual fear and anger pops up as well as appeals for derided civility.

And the past paragraph was me quoting what an American said years ago, if you think it's extreme. There's already a page on why it wasn't a "peaceful protest".

It's like they took a look and said "Not enough dead bodies".

Neo-Confederate group's member list got leaked, VIP members include elected officials and Army members

Well, thats certainly not going to help with the already rampant insecurity of the biden admin.

Emerging as one of the fastest growing economies in the Middle East post it's decade long civil war in the 80s, the country of Lebanon experienced massive growth and prosperity. But a series of events have culminated in a financial and economic crisis that may lead to a total collapse of the country in the coming months.

Per capita Lebanon hosts the second most refugees in the world – primarily from neighboring Syria. In fact, 20% of it's entire population consists of Syrian refugees, and this has led to serious pressure on the country and it's economy – unemployment sky rocketed and wages began to drop as there is now a glut of willing workers. These refugees, many now living in their 10th year in the country and fearing to go back to Syria are living in absolute poverty.

"An estimated 90 percent of Syrian refugee households live in extreme poverty, up from 55 percent in early 2019. The U.N. says these households are living on less than half the Lebanese minimum wage, roughly $36 monthly and shrinking in real terms. This means deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation, health, shelter, and education. Indeed, over 80 percent of Syrian refugees lack legal residency since Lebanon stopped allowing UNHCR to register Syrians in 2015. To register outside UNHCR, a Lebanese sponsor, the approval of the authorities, and an annual $200 renewal fee are required. This is unaffordable for most and approvals are difficult. Thus, many cannot access services, are hampered in their movements, and are exposed to exploitation, detention, and deportation."

This is partially by design as the government is making it difficult for the refugees to live them and is using the economic destitution as coercion to leave.

By 2019 the crisis has reached a tipping point. Liquidity problems in the financial sector, followed by a string of wildfires that the government failed to resolve, a poor wheat harvest. Major protests broke out in October of 2019 over the economic deterioration of the country and government malfeance in trying to solve it. Triggered at first by outrage that on top of rising taxes on commodities, a 20 cent daily charge would be placed on VOIP use for social media. These protests lasted into 2020. Simultaneously in November of 2019, panic in the financial sector led to illegal capital control. Then 2020 happened.

As the pandemic began to spread even to Lebanon, in March of 2020 the Banque du Liban, the central bank of Lebanon, defaulted on $90 billion of sovereign debt obligations, triggering a collapse in the value of the Lebanese pound. This exposed the fragility of the Lebanese economy, in the face of massive foreign debt which accounted for 30 percent of budgetary expenditures. In July of 2020 it was discovered the BdL central bank governor literally cooked the books

To put it into perspective: The BdL exchanged 1,507.5 pounds per U.S. dollar artificially. By June of 2020 it was 5000 pounds per U.S dollar. By March of 2021…20,000 pounds per US dollar.

By June of 2020, Lebanon GDP fell by $49 billion, equivalent to 91 per cent of Lebanon’s total economic output in 2019.

Worsening the crisis in August of 2020 the explosion at the Beirut port which destroyed hundreds of homes, buildings, and 200 people dead, also revealed that it destroyed the country's only major grain silo. Estimates that this explosion caused an additional 20% loss of GDP for that year.

Protests broke out, which led to violence from the military. On August 10th 2020, a week after the explosion the Lebanese government resigns, putting the military effectively in charge. On 14 August, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah "referred to the possibility of civil war" were the anti-government protestors to force an early election.

Lebanon’s 20-month economic and financial crisis has led to severe shortages in fuel, medicine and medical products. Electricity cuts last for much of the day and lack of diesel has led the owners of some private generators to cease supplying power.

The Army is still in charge of the government, but even this is starting to crack.
The Lebanese army has tried to cut costs. Last year, as the situation worsened, the army announced a vegetarian diet for on-duty soldiers. The army could no longer afford the tripled price of meat.

A few weeks ago a donor conference was hosted by France to provide the army basic supplies.

"The army is one of the few institutions seen as a unifying and stabilising force in the deeply divided country.

It has a reputation for neutrality and enjoys broad support among all of the 18 recognised religious groups, as well as the many political factions.

Western powers also view the army as a counterweight to the powerful, Iran-backed militant Shia Islamist movement, Hezbollah, which refuses to disarm."

"“If, God forbid, the LAF collapses,” warned General Aoun, “the state entity will collapse and the country will be in total turmoil.” "

If the financial crisis is not resolved, and the army begins to collapse as soldiers desert the country may erupt into a total civil war with Hezbollah, backed by Iran, being a formidable faction that may take over. This could trigger a larger regional crisis as the current proxy-wars between Gulf Arab states and Iran would find an entirely new conflict to get involved with. One that is situated between Syria and Israel, which could inevitably bring even more international actors into the stage.

I hate to say this because it sounds cold but I hope the USA doesnt intervene more than it is now in the Syrian-Israel conflict, because while it could end really really badly if USA doesnt intervene in the long run most of USA interventions in the last years has had a negative effect in the long run.

I hope so, but expect not; considering the "lets bomb the iranian militia" game has been ramped back up again over the last 6 months.

There isn't really a Syrian-Israeli conflict. There is a Israeli – Iranian conflict. The reason Israel bombs bases in Syria is because those bases belong to Iran. And incidentally, the Israelis are cooperating with the Russians when they do so, and the Syrians are effectively turning a blind eye. At worst, there is a public rebuke, but no real action.

Israel doesn't really need the US to be involved in it's conflicts, it just needs the US to support it in international diplomacy. But Israel's reliance on the US is incredibly small in any militaristic sense, and that's a good thing.

I agree I think international diplomacy is something US should be involved in…just not war unless its the only real option, cause it has a terrible track record since after ww2

I don't know if I agree.
We handled Korea fairly well. We did fairly well in the Gulf-Wars, and the 2003 Invasion of Iraq was a success – the occupation and nation building – not so much.
It's unfortunate that so much of the wars post WW2 that the US has been involved with was at the behalf of our allies – namely European allies. For most of the 20th century after WW2 we effectively tried to maintain British and French colonial presence in the name of "FiGhTiNg CoMmUnIsM". And it did bite us horribly. I mean, look at Iran. It's a literal theocratic fascist country in every sense of the word and it was one of the most progressive liberal places (relatively) in Asia. Why did we do this? Because the British couldn't stand the idea of losing their cheap oil supplies.

… This again? We've already gone over the role over successive administrations in Vietnam, and I would say it was a colonialist war that was extended past it's time due to "the domino theory". "The Fog of War" was a good documentary on the misunderstandings and convictions that led to it, but the US didn't have to support French colonialists, many of the generals involved tried to do a coup d'état in France years later. The attempt to intervene as a "third force" between communism and colonialism was the US's prerogative, for good or for evil.

Afghanistan ? NATO soldiers got killed and Americans not only denigrate and spit on their sacrifice (pretending it wasn't Article 5), there was even some who tried to pin Iraq on us, which is mind boggling. France and Germany were against that war and the US decided to unleash a media campaign on us, and we were hit by ISIS, after they left. "Mission accomplished".

"The 1953 Iranian coup d'état, known in Iran as the 28 Mordad coup d'état (Persian: کودتای ۲۸ مرداد‎), was the overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in favour of strengthening the monarchical rule of the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi on 19 August 1953. It was orchestrated by the United States (under the name TPAJAX Project or "Operation Ajax") and the United Kingdom (under the name "Operation Boot")."

Looks like partners in crime, don't you think? The British weren't even involved for all of the following foreign incidents, such as last year's threat to bomb "52 important sites, including important Iranian cultural" sites.

An earlier accusation in this topic was that Europeans try to pretend they have no role in the issues that have popped up today, but I would say the opposite is true. At least for some. One hasn't learned anything at all since Bush or the Cold War, just justified the same strategies by trying to shift blame away, whether it's to the old Soviet Union or European Empires.

Nation states have their share of mistakes and outright crimes. They also earn their share of hatred.

All things considered, the US is withdrawing from the Middle East anyway, pivoting instead to Asia to counter China with their attempt to build up the "QUAD", including a charm offensive on India and a renewal in their stated protection of Taiwan.

The Middle East currently has Egypt, Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia as it's big players with Russia, and the US as the main "foreign powers" with a presence. Maybe France will be involved as a bloc if their projects with the UAE, Lebanon (as mentioned earlier), Greece and Cyprus in the Eastern Mediterranean continue, same for the UK with their base in Cyprus and relations with mentiones countries.

Who knows, the general public is exhausted of wars.Whichever the case, the Middle East today ressembles Europe a century ago, so one can only hope that tensions wind down and that countries in the area can heal.

God I hope things are bad enough without constant global war so even a bit less of that would be great

I recently talked with some émigrés from Rwanda and Ethiopia who are working as civil engineers, and the opinion of the conversation is that it will only get worse as resources before more scarce and contested.

The flashpoint between Ethiopia and Egypt over the former's dam (the US recently stoked tensions over this issue), and the tensions between Turkey and other riparian nations nations like Syria and Iraq over the former's dams are likely to worsen.
Even without a new cold war, there will still be conflicts. It's human nature, no need to get too depressed.

China warns US to sever all military ties with Taiwan or face war

Why should we have accepted? We paid for every penny of the infrastructure extracting it and had an agreed lease till 1993, and we should roll over when one day they decide to take it by force before the agreed time?

Mossadegh provoked the boycott and blockade of oil exports from the British by breaking their oil concession and seizing the property of the Anglo-Iranian oil company. This souring of relations from thier main consumer of oil turned the economy south and was going to lose Mossadegh's party the next election in 1952.

While it was feared that Mossadegh's support from a pro-soviet party "Tudeh", combined with his "screw the aristos" streak was concerning the west that he might start looking to the Soviets for support during the British blockade; the planned Operation Ajax did not go ahead until the conventional efforts were exhausted;

As the numbers were coming in and his party was losing convincingly Mossadegh stopped the count early when the minimum number of deputies had been elected to form a parliament, the election was suspended indefinitely citing "foriegn agents". When the negociations with the Shah over the approval of a cabinet fell through Mossadegh resigned announcing "in the present situation, the struggle started by the Iranian people cannot be brought to a victorious conclusion"

5 days of demonstratuons and 250 people dead or injured later the Shah re-appointed mossadegh and gave him what he wanted. Mossadegh used that and the popular support to push the parliament to give him emergency powers to rule by decree for 6 and then 18 months. With these powers he went on a trend of limiting the power of the Shah and reducing the landed aristocracy with land reforms.

As this was going on the blockade was drawing blood, Iranians were becoming poorer and his actions were turning iranians against him; Rich and poor. In the end he called a referendum to dissolve parliament and give his cabinet sole power to rule.

That referendum came back with a 2,043,389 yes result.

Against 1,207.

The referendum did not have secret ballots.

This blatant rigging finally convinced the Shah to agree with the pressure to dismiss Mossadegh: Mossadegh refused, his supporters took to the streets, the Shah fled the country, anti Mossadegh figures were arrested. Thinking it was over Mossadegh told his supporters to go home and they did.

With that MI5 and the CIA's backup plan Operation Ajax was executed, "Behbahani dollars" paid for infilutrators who encouraged Mossadegh's aformentioned Tudeh communist allies into trying a revolution.

The overwhelmingly anti-communist iranians took to the streets to beat the shit out of Tudeh; then the army came out, finished off the Tudeh and while they were at it put a tank round into Mossadegh's house in the name of the Shah.

Mossadegh was a naiive idiot who turned tyrant when the consequences of his picking a fight he could not win turned everyone against him, the tragedy of the whole mess was that his people suffered for his stubbornness.

Police attempted to use Taylor Swift songs to have videos of their content taken down from YouTube.
It failed.

The election of the next New York Mayor has turned into a bit of a shitshow with the Democrat primaries pulling an action replay of 2020

The GOP just admitted it doesn't want to help, only make things worse for money

Christ, mate. Just admit that you want a one-party state already.

Also, bigguy, you linked to the comments section and not the actual article; while it's quite the impressive echo chamber, it holds nothing of substance. The article doesn't go as far as you did, despite the clear bias of the site, only quoting someone who purports that it's McConnell's plan.

Just saying the quiet part loud