from MicroWave@lemmy.world to world@lemmy.world on 14 Sep 2024 10:59
https://lemmy.world/post/19758110
The United States on September 13 said the Russian news outlet RT is taking orders directly from the Kremlin and working with Russian military intelligence to spread disinformation around the world to undermine democracies.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States has gathered new evidence that exposes cooperation between RT and four other subsidiaries of the Rossia Segodnya media group, and it intends to warn other countries of the threat of the disinformation.
In addition to RT, Rossia Segodnya operates RIA Novosti, TV-Novosti, Ruptly, and Sputnik, but the announcement on September 13 focused largely on RT. The outlet, formerly known as Russia Today, has previously been sanctioned for its work to allegedly spread Kremlin propaganda and disinformation.
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https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-disinformation-elections-moldova-blinklen-rt-propaganda/33119329.html
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No shit
It’s like saying “Republican party working directly with Fox News, Breitbart, and OANN to spread disinformation”
Yeah … No shit!
And MSN, CNN, voa.
Stuff on MSN and CNN is generally not just made up though
Lol
I’d give you a source, but I feel like your critical thinking skills are approximately that of a goldfish and I would therefore just be wasting my time.
Yes because terms like "unemployment" and "criminal" have static definitions.
I’m old enough to remember when Glenn Beck and Eric Erikson had hour long programs on CNN.
They were more than happy to mainline all sorts of bullshit, from “Iraq has WMDs” lies under Bush to Don Lemon’s insistence that a black hole from the LHC had eaten Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. MSNBC hyped “Lab Leak” theory around the COVID epidemic and has spent decades carrying water for the IDF.
Don’t give these people a pass just because they’re not taking money directly from Rupert Murdoch. Cable News is full of reactionaries and nitwits.
Can’t be true. That’s just liberals being partisan. Fox is Fair and Balanced. It says do right there on the Chyron.
Can we get a little deeper of a discussion as our top comment please? We used to be better than this…
Most upvoted top 2/3rds of the thread are all repeats of the same ‘yeah no shit’.
The remaining 1/3 is actual discussion…
What is there to discuss? The article is just stating the obvious: that a news site called “Russia Today” is in cahoots with the Kremlin, the goverment of a country with state-controlled media and well-known influence on Western media.
Tactics on how to spot propaganda
shared stories of propaganda sources exposed
Little know practices of the putinbots for study purposes
there’s a fucktonne of stuff that’s better than 35 renditions of ‘no shit sherlok’.
What? No!
🤯 /s
does the pope shit in the woods? stay tuned to find out!
I’m genuinely confused as to what USA’s point is here. I mean they do this constantly. Are they saying it’s OK when USA does it but bad when anyone else does it?
www.cia.gov/…/cia-rdp90-00552r000201100005-4
www.reuters.com/…/usa-covid-propaganda/
www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/…/ar-AA1qp59U#:~:tex….
I mean it sounds to me like they just don’t want competitors.
*Edit: I just want to add, I think Russia should get out of Ukraine and what they’re doing is awful. But USA complaining about propaganda from other countries is hilariously hypocritical.
No you see it’s different when RFA/RFE/RL/VOA, a CIA creation, under the wing of the State Department exist because…
Imo, it's different. When your own government is heavily invested in your nation's citizens believing lies to prop up your own nation's financial elites, individual or corporate, it's especially egregious.
Do you read yourself? Jesus.
Yes, and I try to think about it, and ask questions. What's wrong with what I said?
You’re literally posting this on the thread for an article by a government funded news organization created to propagate US foreign policy.
Yes I am.
And apparently you don’t see a shred of irony in it.
That's where it's especially appropriate, in my estimation.
You’re not supposed to talk about that.
The BBC is, has always been, state apparatus. Parts of its , especially the World Service, was set up to promote Britain around the world. It’s been fantastically successful. The Brits are masters.
For the US, this week they were fed the news that China has raised the retirement age by 1 year, in order to pour scorn on it.
No mention of the fact that the Chinese have on average been retiring 5-7 years earlier than Americans for many years.
That's why I talk about it, and ask questions. It's not appreciated, and people dismiss these conversations as not worth talking about. The consequences of not talking about core issues and focusing on identity politics are about to become very real.
ETA; I had to look that up. Retirement age for men is going from 60 to 63 over a period of 15 years. We recently raised our own retirement age to 70, and we still don't have universal health.
Do you know what platform you are own lol
Yeah, we’re not new to information warfare, this stuff goes all the way back to the Cold War at least.
The point is that its on, and since its on, it’s a question of do you want to win or lose.
Spanish American war, and some *say the revolutionary war. We all lose with lies, especially when it's done to a propagandist's own people (except the billionaires and corporations).
Yeah I agree, I don’t like it when we push propaganda overseas. That does not mean, however, that we shouldn’t pay attention when its being done to us.
Does that person want us to just shut up and take it? Let this happen to us without complaint or countermeasure? It’s a whataboutism, ultimately.
Critical assessment of all information we have available to us isn't whataboutery, imo, and often means breaking down large chunks of information into digestible bits. If it's not acceptable for them to do it to us or their own, it's not acceptable for us to do it to ours, or our own, full stop. From my obviously limited perspective, there are very few who benefit from regular people infighting or fighting regular citizens of other nations, about this. The people benefitting from this aren't us regular people.
When someone points out a wrong, and someone else points out a different wrong of the same sort with the intent of making an argument around hypocrisy, that’s a whataboutism.
In this case it’s an article about Russia doing it, and a commenter essentially saying “what about when America did it?”
I ask again, what decision do they want us to make right now, in the current moment? We can’t go back in time and undo what we did. So what is that commenter’s proposal, what do they think would be the best path forward concerning RT, today?
We can stop pretending we didn't, and aren't still doing that.
I can't speak for that person. I also can't raise Ed Bernays from the dead and lock him up, but guess who he worked for?
Nobody is pretending we didn’t. The articles linked were all in our news, right? And you and I are talking openly about it right now on the internet, yes? So, who is pretending it never happened?
It’s about what next? What should we do concerning RT in your opinion then? Because I haven’t personally had any good ideas asides avoid overseas propaganda efforts in the future. But that’s not an idea about RT, and it won’t make RT go away.
So we can enact criminal and financial penalties on untrue articles, and stop redefining terms when what is untrue when it becomes inconvenient for us, especially businesses and politicians. And redirect institutions away from retribution to rehabilitation. If a behavior is repeated, by domestic or foreign entities, they don't get to operate here.
So, we have a first amendment, we actually cannot prohibit or penalize someone for distributing propaganda to our citizens, that law would be illegal to make. We can make them register as foreign agents, that’s how the tenet media people got in trouble, that and being shady with where their money was coming from. We have no charges for propaganda distribution though, despite the very clear evidence of the behavior.
To your other question, like I said, I have no real good ideas on concrete steps we can take that might prove useful. Unless we want to repeal the first amendment or something, which I don’t think is a good idea.
So your idea is rules for foreign entities, not our own?
Who will serve as a check for what's true and when terms are *redefined, if it's our darlings, whether media moguls or politicians, doing the redefining?
For the third time, I don’t have any good ideas. I don’t have a “my idea” and haven’t presented one. That’s why I asked for yours, since maybe you, as a human that is not me, thought of or read something that I haven’t.
This sentence:
is something you concocted in your head somehow.
I just pointed out that your idea is illegal, that’s all.
I'd point out that you're asking of me solutions you're unable or unwilling to deliver, but that's whataboutery, and off limits, so I myself should just "shut up."
Asking someone if they have any good ideas when I can’t think of any is not some sort of foul play. I don’t know how you get such a basic “can anyone think of something?” idea so twisted up.
And whataboutism is this:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
And I gave you ideas. You gave* me nothing of value. You wasted my time, because you're more invested in "winning" the argument, rather than working out viable solutions. Silencing RT doesn't give any pushback on anything our own propagandists feed us.
All I did was point out your idea was illegal, knowing an idea would not work is not “nothing of value”. Perhaps I should have clarified, are there any legal ideas that might move us forward in a positive direction? Knowing that it is illegal to violate:
The key is working out viable solutions. We can’t just magic up unviable ones and get upset when someone points out they’re not viable.
I'm not upset, and I'm not upset at pushback on it own propaganda machine, either.
That’s fair. I’m just pointing out it’s a really difficult situation for us to address in any way. If anyone has any ideas on productive steps forward beyond just not doing it in the future, I remain interested.
Btw, yelling fire in a crowded theatre isn't protected speech, any more than fighting words. I don't believe saying it softly in eloquent words with ever redefined terms should be, either.
Yeah I’m inclined to agree. The “press” gets a double dose, frustratingly. Protected speech, but also freedom of the press, where they can publish fighting words or make up news about fires if they want. If we look at groups like OAN they can just blanketly make up whatever lies they find convenient while avoiding any criminal penalties. Nothing stops the National Enquirer from just writing about any alien abduction they feel like, regardless of factuality.
So far civil lawsuits asking for compensation for harm done have been the only thing that even slowed them down, like the Dominion defamation suits, or the Sandy Hook families suing Alex Jones. I don’t think tort law is enough though, not even close. Especially since it waits until after the harm is already done.
Were I a lawyer, I would argue that the fifth estate has a duty to uphold a stricter standard, since public opinion largely relies on them. I would include "leftist" news organizations, too.
Oh that’s some wild whataboutism. It’s OK for USA to do it because everyone else does. Man that’s some awful way to think.
Yeah, at no point did I say anything was okay. That’s a strawman you concocted.
What are your solutions?
So yeah the head of a crime organization probably shouldn’t be pointing their fingers at other crime organizations. Just because crime exists historically doesn’t mean you should head a mafia group.
This is exactly what a whataboutism is. Let’s take an axe murderer who murders people’s families. If another axe murderer goes and murders that guy’s family, would it be smart to just ignore it?
The question isn’t what has been done in the past or who deserves what. It’s what should be done now?
You clearly do not understand whataboutism. It’s when someone uses someone else doing the same thing as an excuse. If Russia does it it’s OK for USA to do it. That’s whataboutism.
And yes. Let the criminals kill themselves. That’s why USA doesn’t really do anything about gang wars.
No, that is not a whataboutism in general, perhaps it’s your personal definition to just reverse it like that. This is whataboutism:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
Note, my example was not an axe murderer murdering another axe murderer. It was murdering the axe murder’s family. Not him, his family. Siblings, children, cousins, aunts and uncles, you know. People related to you that aren’t actually you.
Your article agrees with me. But it’s clear I’m not going to be able to explain it to you.
Are all those involved in gang wars guilty? Probably not but it’s still wise of the police not to get involved.
And similarly, yes the axe murderer who just murdered the other guys family and is asking for help. I’m probably gonna ignore him.
That family didn’t do anything wrong though. His kids are still just kids, yet you’re fine with them dying just for being born to the wrong father?
And no, the whataboutism article is sort of the opposite of your definition. Your definition says its a defense for an action. The article says it’s a defense for an accusation. These are not the same thing. The person doing an action, and someone else accusing them of their action, are not the same ones. That’s pretty key.
Why do I get the vague impression I’m arguing with a right winger?
It’s saying it’s deflecting against an accusation. It’s clear your not able to understand basic things.
Your idea that someone who disagrees with you is a right winger proves this to me.
Finally you have no idea what the family did. It’s why in a court of law we have laws about facilitation or accessory. But I think that will go over your head.
Cute insults aside, his kids are still kids man. We shouldn’t be letting kids die to axe murder, most people usually agree on that one.
Yes, but you said
Not the same as saying “Russia is doing it!” “Oh yea? But what about when US did it?” That’s real whataboutism, as the article describes in detail. Spot the difference?
When you understand both are whataboutism because it’s about the deflection not the action or the accusation, you’ll understand whataboutism.
And how do I know he has kids? I’m gonna trust an axe murderer?
Okay, so you not being able to spot the difference does not mean there isn’t one. While your “nuh uh’s” are kinda funny, you can’t just redefine words any time it’s convenient for you, not when they’re commonly used by others. Not all deflections are whataboutisms, just one single type, specifically, to an accusation. Like the very first line in the article, that says:
So, it’s what we call a hypothetical, where I was proposing two axe murderers that targeted families. It’s just a possible thing that we can think about to discuss a finer point. So, if we say he has kids, since he doesn’t exist in the first place, then he has hypothetical kids.
edit: Just to save you a little scrolling, since I’m such a nice guy:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
The problem with your hypothetical is that it doesn’t exist. The information is coming from an axe murderer and your just magically asserting the family is real and what he says is real.
The problem is when your an axe murderer, I no longer trust you. Just as we shouldn’t trust the USA because they do all the bad things they say others are doing. It’s an accountability issue. Which is if you want to say your a good guy, you kind of have to actually be a good guy.
*Edit. This is why I said innocents get caught up in gang wars but the police can’t do anything because the source of information is gangsters
Hypotheticals don’t have to exist, that’s what makes them useful. Is it possible that an axe murder could have kids? Of course it is, they can have sperm, right? So, it’s a workable hypothetical. We can then use it to illustrate how actions that hurt innocents are not necessarily right, just to punish someone related to those innocents.
We don’t need to ask the axe murderer anything either, we can check birth records. Like with the US covid propaganda scheme, we don’t have to believe the govt, we can check international news sources if we like.
You can conveniently forget about independent information sources, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
I think your either avoiding what I’m saying or misunderstanding. This whole conversation is based on USA accusing Russia. Just like your axe murderer accusing another murderer. The whole point is when your a psychotic genocider, your opinions and statements should be rightfully ignored.
Ah, I think we get to the crux of the matter, you seem not to perceive any innocents being harmed. You perhaps see the US as a single evil entity, and not a collection of disagreeing people living on a chunk of land.
Not if we care about truth vs falsehood, objective fact vs made up things, and an understandable world we can all fairly discuss. Even an axe murderer should be allowed to testify in his own defence. What if he is merely accused of axe murder, and the evidence has been fabricated and planted by corrupt police?
Well unfortunately there are no international courts of law that USA would submit to. The only one, the ICC, they have literally threatened to invade if they did any kind of investigation into the GENOCIDAL CRIMES of the USA. So your argument that a court should prove it is moot since USA would nuke the court. Which is why I also find it hilarious that USA talks about rule of law when they actively threaten to wipe Brussels off the face of the earth.
*Edit: Oh man even Harvard is mocking them for that.
…harvard.edu/…/“invade-hague”-“support-icc”-ameri…
Also, I’m not talking about USA as in it’s people, I’m talking about the US government. Sorry I did not make that clear. After all, it’s not Joe Schmo talking about RT spreading propaganda.
Eh, don’t believe everything our more asshole legislators say. With a little luck they’ll get thrown out over the next decade for supporting Trump, going down with the sinking ship.
For better or for worse, they can say whatever they want. Even that Haitians are eating people’s pets and shit. lol It’s just bluster from small-dicked people compensating for their fear and insecurity, trying to gin up support from the fascist wing.
It’s not what they said. It’s an actual bill. We nicknamed it the Invade Hague act. We literally have a law that says we will kill Europeans if they investigate our war crimes such as murdering children. Even the Australians recently took away medals for the horrible war crimes they committed.
Oh, that one. We tried to repeal it in 2022, we just need a few more votes and we can strike it from the books. Neocons gonna neocon, GWB was a dick.
The fact that the US can’t repeal a horrifying violation of international law is well… I think we’ve made a full circle. When the US says ANYTHING we shouldn’t believe them and should doubt them.
I think we got off on the wrong foot. My statement wasn’t actually about Russia, it was about the US and how horrible they are and how the world really needs to think twice before agreeing to anything USA says.
Yes, I believe I understand you now. My focus is on doing what I can while standing with my loved ones, who are all also Americans, of the less crazy variety.
But unfortunately the US government has proven your vote doesn’t matter. Especially for foreign policies like not genociding people. Who do you vote for to force a cease fire?
Force a cease fire? Nobody, we’d have to threaten Netanyahu with military force to accomplish that, which would be political suicide with the American public.
Best you could get is divestment utilizing our law against supplying arms to war criminals, that would be unpopular with a lot of Americans, but we probably have enough support to make it happen since it’s less extreme.
Problem is Netanyahu could just cut off the last remaining food aid into Gaza. They’re already on the brink, they’d starve very shortly, while he makes up some bullshit about “starving out hamas” to the cheers of his crazy right wingers. He doesn’t need rockets to do that. Hezbollah could retaliate, but so what? Netanyahu doesn’t give a rats ass about his own people, he doesn’t care if a few thousand die in rocket attacks if it gets him Gaza. Hezbollah can’t invade, even without advanced arms, the IDF numbers about 300k according to reports, that’s a lot of soldiers.
So we seemed to think we needed to work with the asshole, let him use us so we can exert pressure. Except pressure isn’t proving to be enough.
Personally I’m leaning towards withdrawing from the ME and leaving them all to whatever fate has in store for them. See if the UN can pass economic sanctions. That would also be very harmful for a politician though, since AIPAC would throw all their lobbying money at that politician’s opponent. They have a lot of lobbying power.
It’s a really shitty situation, overall.
That’s sort of besides my point. And yes, the situation is wildly complicated and there are no easy answers.
What I was pointing out is simply for many policies there are actually no options. Such as wanting a cease fire. But this could go on with others like not wanting tariffs or lowering the military budget etc… Particularly for foreign policies both Democrats and Republicans are pretty much exactly the same.
Yea for a lot of things that’s true.
That’s all I was pointing out. And just wanted to add I think your right we should just leave ME. We have done nothing but destroy those people. There’s even a great movie about it. Charlie Wilson’s war. What ever human rights reasoning or freedom excuse always ends in massacre’s there. We should realize we are just a destabilizing force and leave. We saw China build a bridge between Saudi and Iran. We said it wouldn’t last, it did. Thus, perhaps we simply need to learn our lesson.
Well, you were saying a good bit more than that. lol We got into this whole thing starting with Russian propaganda efforts as I recall.
There’s a thaw between SA and Iran? That’s news to me.
Well I am saying a lot more now. I find you are receptive to information and aren’t just insulting me like most people online do. So I figure I’d share information because I honestly like that. Anyway yes China negotiated a lasting peace. The reason you don’t hear about it is because you live under US propaganda.
aljazeera.com/…/changing-global-order-china-resto…
While I agree all propaganda is bad, IMO the US one is the absolute most evil. It’s so effective Americans are actually under the delusion that we have to maintain our violent order to “keep the peace”. And so any people buy into it. To the point as you said, it would be politically devastating for our politicians to admit we are supporting genocide in Gaza.
*Edit oh and of course when real peace happens, we’ll just brush it under the rug. After all it won’t last. And when it lasts, well media black out. You’ll note the link is from Al Jezzera not a US paper.
*Edit 2: Also I was actually never talking about Russian propaganda. I think everyone misunderstood that. My argument is even if it’s true that Russia is doing this, US is so evil we need to question their statement. And then I made a list of evil things that USA does. Finally I followed with obviously I don’t support Russia, I just really don’t support USA. Here’s a horrible fact. USA has killed more people in less time than the Russian Ukraine war for even smaller reasons. Yes this is whataboutism, but my point is, anything that comes out of this empires mouth, we need to question. If it was Germany or France saying it, I wouldn’t have made my comment.
Re-opening embassies is certainly a good step, though I will admittedly be impressed if it keeps for the long term. It’s happened before, and they’re still major regional powers with one being a theocratic Shiite state with regional aspirations and the other a secular Sunni state.
I don’t think Americans are quite as unified in our opinions as you might think, global disengagement is a fairly popular position in multiple different circles of the populace. From the isolationists under Trump to people like me that would prefer selective disengagement from particularly difficult regions, ceding them to other powers so it can be their headache instead of ours for a change. Most of the rest have either a progressive view based on peaceful foreign aid, which don’t forget that we do a lot of, and realists that see human lives as numbers on a sheet and the globe as a chessboard, and tend to favor a strong military presence. That last category is probably still the largest majority.
We may not agree with it, but it’s a view.
Note, I never said it’s difficult to admit a genocide is occuring. AOC, Omar and Bernie have all done that many times. Stopping it is what is difficult. The question is how to fix it, which recall, is complicated and difficult. If we pull out, the Gazans probably all die, let’s not fall for magical wishful thinking. Very little holds Netanyahu back from finishing them off, they’re barely hanging on. Everyone who says cutting weapon shipments now will accomplish it is just lying through their teeth, there’s no evidence or logic that it would work that way. You just don’t need fancy bombs for Gaza, machine guns and bulldozers would be sufficient.
Well, everything should always be taken with a grain of salt. I’m well familiar with people that single the US out as an exceptional evil, that’s extremely common, though I think it’s a very selective lens. Countries are countries, and realpolitik remains the general guiding philosophy of major powers on the global stage. Any given country is subject to the current philosophies of its current leaders, nothing more. Good can become evil and evil can become good at the flip of a coup or election, that’s just life. Singling any out for special hatred really accomplishes nothing productive.
On a whole I agree with you. You’re absolutely right I am singling out USA because they do the most damage. But arguably, they do the most damage because their so large and influential. Similarly as China grows, their decisions cause more and more damage as well. It’s the ripple effect of a Boulder vs a pebble.
But as you’ve highlighted, the people’s voices in USA don’t seem to matter and that bothers me. There are lots of voices, but the voices that go against the establishment, even if it’s a majority go unheard. That concerns me. A democracy that doesn’t listen to its voters isn’t a democracy to me.
Worse as this goes on, it appears to me that they’ve found the perfect way to ignore voices. By conflating all issues, they’ve created a system where all that matters is politicking and not actual policies. For example, the Republicans tied immigration to Ukraine funding. That’s fucking insane, but it worked.
In my opinion. USA needs to stop worrying about other nations and needs to fix our own democracy first. Unfortunately it’s clear to me now that isn’t going to happen. Instead they’re conflating issues to keep voices silent. Like the Democrats running around saying you have to vote for them on abortion and OK so they’re still allowing the massacre of Palestinians, but it’s toted not as bad as what Republicans would do. It’s messed up blackmail. And that’s all the US politics has become.
Don’t let online discourse influence you too much. Our people tend to be fairly content with portions of the leadership, with most people having their favorites and disliking all the others. I never did actually highlight that people’s voices don’t seem to matter, our votes very much choose these people.
You wouldn’t know it here with Lemmy’s natural lean, but the average American is roughly centered on neoliberalism, most Lemmings find that somewhat upsetting and prefer to ignore the fact. Even with Biden being the oldest pres in our history, and with such unpopular things as Gaza on his record, he’s maintained a 30-40% approval rate. That’s a percentage of total Americans that approved of his Presidency. Obama, with slightly more right-leaning policies, was around 50%.
Ultimately, it’s more moderate, suburban parents that pick our leaders. They’re not as excited about change as the more progressive folk you’ll find here, they like stability, decorum, they don’t rush to judgement, they are not overly focused on foreign policy, stuff like that. They do not generally believe the country is in any sort of dire straits, they tend to underestimate global warming, they don’t particularly like people like Greta Thunberg, Just Stop Oil or pro-Palestinian protestors. They do not spend that much time on social media.
On the whole, I’d recommend not listening too much to the rhetoric of politicians or political operatives. Words are cheap, its actions once in office that tell the story. Do they cut taxes for the wealthy? Do they add or remove environmental regulations on business? Do they try to enact policies that will benefit people? The track records do vary tremendously, anyone who says its some uniparty is just spewing propaganda. They’re very, very distinct, both interparty and especially between the parties. You wouldn’t necessarily notice if you just listened to their words though, you do have to watch for actions. They do end up trying to have their cake and eat it too, and are more than willing to rhetorically dance around to try to avoid displeasing as many people as possible. They still have to vote on things though.
Who keeps down voting you? It’s weird. It’s not me. But I noticed someone seems to keep down voting you. I upvoted your post to try to counter act that. That’s annoying since they obviously even part of our conversation. Anyway, I hear you and what you’re saying. The problem is I don’t see it. Let’s take tariffs for example. I’m opposed to tariffs because it’s a market distortion, and we’ve always known that. Which party do I vote for to stop tariffs. And not just on China but in general. We should be promoting free trade, after all that’s what made USA great to begin with. Yet now that our manufacturing isn’t up to snuff we decide that the solution is tariffs? Look at what happened to the Russian Lada. In the end the only way to keep that company running was to stop the tariffs and start buying foreign products into their production.
But that’s just one example. Obviously the cease fire is another and so on and so forth. Yes, there are minor differences in policies, but none of the ones that I really care about, save abortion (I can’t even believe that’s a thing right now). But the problem is the parties use these tiny differences to pretend that they’re different. Where’s the policies to support small business? What about giving small businesses a tax break so they can catch up?
I’m sure we can all find those pet issues that they do fight over, but that’s their trick. They go out of their way to force you to focus on the small things and ignore the bigger issues. It’s not new, but OMG is it spreading like wild fire.
We are a nation based on trade. If we destroy our trade, we destroy the fabric of the nation. And everyone is so focused on destroying trade.
I’m not too worried, I seldom pay too much attention to small vote tallies, especially in long back-and-forths. Longform discussions of political nuance are also minefields, especially during an election year. lol
Yeah, the tariffs irritate me a good bit. I suspect that foreign policy is largely what is driving them, but that makes me fear that more China-hawkish types are being a little too successful in pushing their opinions. I’m pretty sure they’re just a geopolitical weapon though, as opposed to domestic protection. Trump wanted a trade war, he was seeking to punish China for intellectual property theft, currency manipulation, etc. Not that shit wasn’t happening, but I don’t think trade war was a good answer, nor do I think it’s too late to reverse course instead of doubling down. Global economics aren’t really my strong suit though, so I do have to admit I could be mistaken on something. Still though, I do believe that trade helps secure peace, and peace is the preferable state of affairs. So trade should be encouraged on that alone, not discouraged.
Not just minor differences, higher vs lower taxes is pretty huge. So is business regulation in this era. I have no interest in living in an actual oligarchy, by some actual council of billionaires. What the communists like to claim, but literal and overt, instead of billionaires merely having an outsized degree of influence due to the power of mass media technologies and how money can influence mass perceptions. The perceptions are still what directly controls our government, the necessary middleman between billionaires and govt that prevents them from getting everything they want. At a sufficient degree of wealth and power, they can get rid of that middle man via a transition to a different form of government, which I have no interest in seeing. Reducing their wealth is becoming a necessary precaution, we’ve reached a point on par with the Gilded Age, and we need to deal with our robber barons. Fortunately, we do have candidates and politicians desiring to do this. An unrealized capital gains tax would be a very heavy blow to capital. Biden pushes 35%, Harris is a little weaker at 28%. Both could be higher, but these are significantly better than our current 0%.
It’s funny you mention small business too, Harris just recently started running on a 50k tax credit for new small businesses. Which I think is fair, so long as other taxes can be implemented to cover the shortfall. Really it’s higher taxes that I’m most in favor of though, personally. I dislike how strong the business sector has become in American life, and taxes are a good way to attack that.
And election reform, but that’s the hardest thing to do, since you require a filibuster-proof majority to get even one step anywhere. Probably the only thing harder than fixing immigration. When we have one party driven primarily by slowly vanishing demographics like religious affiliation, they’ve realized democracy is no longer a viable path for them. Consistently losing the popular vote each election is a pretty clear harbinger of things to come, yet they can’t switch their policies because those are core and faith-based, soooo… we’re in deep shit. lol
You bring up a great point. I do wonder about Kamala’s small business exemption. I do hope that passes, but I’d bet money it’ll go the way of Obama’s healthcare plan. Which is it’ll pass in a horrible form that won’t help anyone. Oh god, just remembering that makes me upset. The Republicans claimed that they wanted to protect the free market healthcare system and the ONLY THING they removed was the free market part of Obama’s plan. That still gets under my skin.
I realize, you have the same opinions as I do, except you don’t seem to be as terrified of the outcomes as I am. AND I’ll say, perhaps you’re right. And even if you’re not, perhaps I need to stop fretting about it as a whole, not exactly much that I can do.
So a bit of my own background. I’m Taiwanese American. This China hawk stuff scares the ever loving shit out of me. For reasons that has nothing to do with China. I fear the racism that this can create or has already created. The average American doesn’t know the difference between Taiwan and China and the hate just spreads from there. Don’t forget, Chinese people used to have to wear shirts in California that said don’t spit on me I’m Chinese.
Ultimately, I as many Taiwanese people agree believe that USA needs to stay the fuck out of it. They create issues and problems that they do not understand. The Taiwanese vote actually shows that, though you’ll never see it reported in a US newspaper. Taiwan voted in a Pro-US president and a Pro-China congress. We want stability and standing in the middle we believe is our best bet. But it would be super nice if USA stopped focusing on us. ESPECIALLY because the US politicians mostly just use it to enrich themselves rather than actually helping us.
Yeah, I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Harris has been fairly successful with small dollar fundraising, so she’s a little more insulated from having to rely on big doner money as a typical politician. She does have room to pivot on Gaza and implement a few tough policies if she can wrangle the legislature. That’s the steepest hurdle though, and she doesn’t have Biden’s half century of experience and saved-up political capital in the Senate. She’ll need to be bolder, I think, but the Byzantine nature of legislative wrangling is getting a bit outside my ken.
I think people tend to misunderstand East Asian cultures in general. There’s a patience present in most of them, that I know anything about anyway, that is less present in West European cultures. Xi seems to exemplify this, and has seemed to be in no rush to make bold moves when they’re unnecessary and carry a significant degree of uncertainty. Where a westerner sees the naval buildup and might be inclined to see it as a massive red flag, I see a man keeping his options open. Having a tool is one thing, it allows flexibility. Using that tool puts you on a course from which you cannot return. I suspect he understands this, so I don’t foresee any immanent attacks on Taiwan. Especially given the rugged Taiwanese geography and having their fabs in such an easy-to-destroy state.
Hawks gonna hawk though. While our MIC isn’t the major power it was in the Cold War era, it does still carry some influence. Though personally I’d be happier if we simply built our own navy up, perhaps in partnership with S Korean industry to help keep costs down, and otherwise adopted Teddy Roosevelts philosophy of “walk softly and carry a big stick”. If a country wishes to partner with us, like the Philippines for instance, that’s one thing, but we don’t need to posture and message so aggressively. Green Berets on Taiwan was a miscalculation, for instance, even if invited imo. Taiwanese soldiers could come here for specialized training if they wished, we didn’t need to deploy there.
And yeah, we’re mostly all different shades of left and/or progressive on here. lol Personally I’m a progressive, and while I tend to take a detail-oriented view instead of trying to keep things exclusively at the much more accessible broad-strokes level, I think the majority of Lemmings all want the same general direction for the world. With some disagreement on how to get there. That’s healthy though.
edit: Oh, and on the racism note … yeah. ~sigh
I consider myself center right actually. I’m sure you’ve noticed I’m very pro-business. Though socially far left as I think people should have the freedom to express themselves however they choose, that’s really none of my business. But perhaps that’s why you’re not as freaked out as I am. Because the reason I think I’m center left is because I’m pro-business. Watching the supposedly pro-business party light itself on fire and commit to incredibly un-business friendly decisions, especially based on personal feelings and worse anti-LGBTQ reasons it has put me into despair. Who’s here to protect businesses and make sure that the government doesn’t overreach? Our deficit spending is already almost 1 trillion dollars in payments a year, that’s insane. Cooler heads need to prevail and we need to get our economy back to normal. And part of to normal means normal trade with everyone. But who knows, like I said, maybe I’m over thinking it.
China will never attack Taiwan. I don’t know why people think they would since they keep telegraphing what they’ll do if push comes to shove. In the event that Taiwan declared independence and only in that situation (and Taiwan wouldn’t, they just passed a law that states the president can’t make that declaration alone) would China blockade Taiwan. They would try to starve Taiwan out and they could because as an island nation it’s entirely dependent on imports. The question people actually need to ask is who would be willing to go to a hot war for that? Especially since China would make exemptions to let trade through anyway, that they would only have this blockade here until Taiwan submits. And then you’ll have another frozen stand off like the one you have now. Because that’s what China really wants. They don’t want change they want stability. As you’ve so aptly pointed out, they are a patient people who are in no hurry for things to change. And you know what’s really really sad? How the west had twisted Xi’s words to make it out that he wanted to declare war. When Xi said the Taiwan situation will be resolved in this decade, what he was saying is he thought the relationship was going so well that Taiwan would wish to return to China willingly. You see at that time trade between the two was at a high point. People from Taiwan were going to China to get educated and find jobs there. Then the US started saying those were fighting words and that it meant China was going to attack to reunify within the decade. That China was only building up it’s military to do this, the attack would come before 2027. I think you know what happens next.
USA’s MIC is terrifying. They create scenarios and publish them and the news media gets ahold of them and suddenly fear is created everywhere. It just starts off as scenarios, they see one country has an advantage and then a torrent of articles will come out about it. Suddenly, now you have a new enemy. All China was doing was building up because as you said they’re building up because they’re wise. Well actually for sales, they really really want to be big in the arms market but that’s another thing entirely. And now we have what we have. This awkward stand off where there are no winners. And it’s all very sad really.
Ah, that makes sense. Yeah, I admit I misjudged you based solely off of the server you’re from, which was rather immature of me. I imagine you’ve probably noticed that .ml has a high population of overt Marxist-Leninist folks on it, and is one of the hubs of leftism on Lemmy. That certainly doesn’t apply to everyone who signed up on it though. lol Centrist does make a lot more sense in hindsight. I doubt you can really call yourself center-right anymore though, in the American scale at least, simply due to how crazy the right has gotten in recent years. That Overton Window jumped like 5 notches rightward on us, and left a lot of people behind. You could be a fairly typical neolib, free-trade, privatization, etc. We have a community of them here on .world, they post a fair bit of news, you might find some like-minded people if you are.
I agree wholeheartedly. The only places I’ve heard that extensively discussed are more serious geostrategic groups. CSIS most prominently. Most of the media plays into the more potentially … dramatic possibilities though. Much better as clickbait I imagine, for us peons.
Regarding navy I’m not so sure. The scale of their fleet build up is very impressive. Generally, naval ships are not exactly a hot export market, especially when you’re considering the larger, more advanced blue water stuff. They’re pretty clearly moving towards global power projection capabilities. This does not necessarily indicate a future of aggression, though, as such a force also has a very important role in securing the sea trade that China relies so heavily on in addition to being a strong tool for diplomatic pressure. Look at how we use ours, after all. Naval power is also the sort of thing that needs to be developed over many years, you can’t just spin up the institutions and knowledge base necessary to effectively deploy to another hemisphere in just a few years, it takes decades. So I see it as a long-term investment and hedge against the future.
<CRY> You are absolutely right. I cannot rightfully call myself center-right anymore. The right has literally jumped off a cliff and I’m stuck here shaking my fists in anger at the sky. I probably am close to neo-lib. I would have used to call myself libertarian but whoo boy that went sideways. It’s a sad reality for me. Maybe that’s why I’m so upset about it all.
So here’s a surprising thing about China’s Navy. Besides small arms, naval ships are what China sells the most. There are a lot of weird political reasons for this, for example fighter jets and tanks are almost exclusively sold to close allies and allies just isn’t China’s thing. Just look what happened to Egypt’s purchases of SU-35s as they got hit by CAATSA. So China decided to focus on a niche to get the word out that they’re selling high end military equipment, not just small arms. Something that would go under the radar of many super powers (read USA) and would still be able to show off high end equipment. Secondly, you have to remember who China’s buyers are. SE Asia is mostly island nations, so they don’t go for the more conventional equipment that you’re thinking of. They’re islands, so they’re more likely to buy maritime equipment rather than ground assault equipment that you would see pretty much everywhere else on the planet.
I mean just recently you have Thailand and Cambodia both buying Chinese Naval warships. Here’s a super fun one, Malaysia is one of their customers. A country they’re having a spat with over the SCS. So you have Malaysia buying Chinese warships to protect Malaysia from China.
www.voanews.com/a/…/3780026.html
That all said times they are a changing. Egypt just signed a deal for J-10CE fighter jets and Algeria is ready to buy VT-4 tanks. Both are abandoning Russia in favor of Chinese military equipment for very obvious reasons. This is likely one of the reasons China is in no hurry to see the end of the war. Watching Russia destroy itself and having all of it’s customer’s go to China doesn’t seem like it’s against China’s interests at the moment.
Yeah, exporting some smaller craft is definitely not out of the question. It’s always nice when you can gather up additional buyers for your kit, that way you can leverage additional economies of scale to keep your own costs down. They are building large amounts of naval assets that won’t be suitable for export though. Patrol craft are one thing. Larger seagoing warships are another–most countries simply don’t maintain a very large fleet of them, as they’re very expensive to operate and not broadly useful during peacetime outside of certain niche situations. Since its the type of thing where a few countries would maybe buy a few every few decades, it’s never really going to be a big money maker for anyone.
That’s an interesting insight on moving into Russia’s export market. I hadn’t thought of that, but it actually makes a tremendous amount of sense. lol Aircraft are definitely a hotter export market. They’re just something you want in greater numbers, generally speaking, and have a much broader appeal.
You’re smart, I like you. What your saying is absolutely correct which is exactly why China by and large doesn’t build the large sea crafts and instead focuses on littoral patrol ships. Even the US had noticed it.
forbes.com/…/yes-china-has-more-warships-than-the…
The US states it’s because the Chinese navy is focused on power at home and not power projection. I say it’s for sales purposes.
Now, China also makes the large super ships. But those are made in small numbers. They have their type 55 destroyer that has been compared to the Agies which I think there are 8 and their 3 aircraft carriers. But those ships are basically marketing brochures. They catch the attention of the media and not much else. These you hear talked about all the time, and China sails them everywhere for photo ops.
I know it’s weird, but it actually is easier to think of China as a corporation that’s gone off the rails rather than a country.
This is just off of wikipedia, so I’m not sure how up-to-date it is:
3 aircraft carriers 4 landing helicopter docks 12 amphibious transport docks 32 landing ship tanks 33 landing ship mediums 58 destroyers 54 frigates 75 corvettes 150 missile boats 26 submarine chasers 17+ gunboats 36 mine countermeasure vessels 79 submarines 19 replenishment ships 232 auxiliaries
Those corvettes, missile and gun boats could all be considered “small”. The frigates and up are all capable of deep water work further out, independently if necessary. Interestingly, it’s almost a revival of the 19th century French naval doctrine Jeune École, which was typified by a heavy reliance on torpedo boats, with the idea that that would be a cheaper way to operate a navy while still posing a threat to the larger battleships that dominated naval strategy during that period.
It’s certainly more than just a big business. Which is also smart, a large country would want a significant blue water navy if it hopes for influence on the global stage. Even the UK and France have them, and they are much smaller countries. It would just be very illogical for China to ignore blue water capabilities.
True, while a lot of it is clearly for business purposes. I may have been flippant stating their blue water navy stuff, that absolutely won’t sell, is just marketing material. In truth, their blue water Navy moves which only began like 10 years ago or so is in fairness quite impressive. They’ve created large destroyers that the US is saying is on par with Ageis and aircraft carriers that have shown similar sortie rates to UK’s carriers. If it really was just for show as I’m trying to say, it would have probably been more like Russian equipment. What with their sole aircraft carrier constantly catching fire and their stealth fighter jet that they’re scared to put into the front line. The fact that China can demonstrate the equipment working on a fairly consistent basis in different weather conditions should tell me they’re much more serious about all this than I give them credit for.
That said, this shift is too new to know what they’re really thinking. Plus, they absolutely have been parading around the Type 55 to future prospective buyers of their equipment. Yet there’s also clearly some movement towards actually being able to use this stuff. For example about 4 years ago, India showed off to the world that they could operate both of their aircraft carriers simultaneously. Something that at the time at least China was unable to do. However, last month they sailed all three of their carriers out simultaneously. Clearly this is an attempted signal that we do have enough trained officers and we’re not just building equipment without training soldiers.
China’s just done the this stuff is for sales for so long it’s honestly hard for me to see it any other way. On top of them actually doing the training starting so recently that it’s hard for me to say this is a permanent shift and not just a way to throw off the comments from India mocking their training.
All in all, this IMO is why China was befriending Russia to begin with. China has powerful technology, but ironically they don’t have the bodies to put behind them. The one child policy has basically made every parent in China refuse to let their kids become soldiers. Russia on the other hand seemed to have a limitless supply of bodies to throw at a problem as they’re doing in Ukraine. With China’s best friends constantly facing off with terrorists, Pakistan, Myanmar, Saudi Arabi, UAE, Egypt and many more I think it made perfect sense China wanted access to Wagner to deal with this. Then, uh… Well Russia PROVED they have the bodies to throw in the grinder because they threw the bodies into the grinder.
China does have a very large number of active duty servicemembers, though I don’t think that’s all that surprising when they’re one of the planet’s largest countries, and have been steadily modernizing over the last few decades. I also imagine their unusually high youth unemployment numbers contribute to the ease of recruitment. When you have over a billion population, keeping 1% of them active duty is probably not particularly difficult.
Russia has the advantage of global recruitment, and are offering frankly huge financial incentives to anyone willing to fight. It’s got to be rapidly draining their coffers. I suspect Xi is mainly just war profiteering off of them. In light of western sanctions, this has probably been the best period to be a Chinese exporter in many years. lol Russia is likely willing to pay top dollar for whatever they require to fuel their war machine. And there’s always their raw material exports as well.
That's actually a decent and well -thought possibility, thanks. I'm sorry I missed that earlier, and am interested in hearing any rebuttals or variations.
I thought I had Lemmy.ml blocked
Military Intelligence took the Limitless pill I see.
Was there ever a time when they didnt?
If it’s set in stone now, does it mean they are on the course to further investigate russian and other foreign ties in american media and politics? I’ musking for a friend.
I already knew this because I watched RT once at a friend’s house
How is this news to anyone?
Next, is water still wet? Find out at 11.
State news agency works with government to spread negativity about adversery? Unprecedented.
Always have been
This is a surprise to anyone?
No way
I mean no shit? Its state run media lol
Duh, Its been clear that they were a mouth piece of pooty poots for over a decade.
I remember when PBS showed RT regularly. I guess they were just doing it because it was international news coverage from a different perspective but the bias became quickly apparent when I watched it a few times. They only reported on negative stories from the United States and everything bad that happened in Russia was due to Western influence.
Water is wet.