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2 points

3 months ago

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.

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https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/3/11/changing-global-order-china-restores-ties-with-iran-and-saudi

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Joncash2@lemmy.ml

0 points

3 months ago

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.

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.

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1 point

3 months ago

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.

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Joncash2@lemmy.ml

1 point

3 months ago

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.

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0 points

3 months ago

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.

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Joncash2@lemmy.ml

2 points

3 months ago

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.

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1 point

3 months ago

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

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