Okay? Target it then.
They’ve stated multiple, multiple, multiple times they seek regime change. They killed the supreme leader, they’ve said they did that to remove the regime. So go ahead. It’s the whole purpose of this war, they’ve never hidden it.
And in response the US will have its proxies Britain, France, etc step up a naval blockade of Russian oil and cargo hoping to break Russia’s will and economy and force them to accept unfavorable terms.
While I do understand that private businesses are inherently exploitative and as a communist I seek to abolish such structures in favor of communal structures, am I wrong or misled to see companies like Valve Software as a major step up in comparison to others like Microsoft, Apple and the like?
Not entirely wrong. For sake of argument I won’t address the actual shortcomings of Valve in practice as others already have here. I’ll take it that for some reason Valve is actually a great company, Gabe is some great man with a progressive vision, etc, etc for the sake of argument.
There have always been within capitalism elements, even capitalists who have done progressive things or gone against the worst impulses of capitalism in their time for various reasons including genuine personal belief and conviction as well as marketing and carving out a niche. The problem is such sentiment is never widespread, often has some sort of contradiction or caveat to it (something bad they do despite overall being so much better than anyone around them by contrast), and rarely lasts much beyond the lifetime and/or control of the particular people pushing it (Gabe and others at Valve who work there but have significant control of what they and the company do).
So to be even a liberal capitalist who thinks that the Gabe/Valve way is the way to some form of ethical capitalism is to ignore history. It is to wishfully say well we just need more ethical, progressive people leading companies when the system itself disincentivizes this at any scale and indeed when it is as hardened and calcified as capitalism with as many old money types who have so much capital and so much push in the system of capitalism that while you can stand out of their way and do your thing up to a certain size you can’t push them around, dislodge them, or dislodge how they’re engineering the overall structure and you remain a fluke.
Capitalism is the way it is for a reason. It inevitably moves in this given direction and you can’t stop it. It is its nature.
You mention China. China is different because they control the larger apparatus, they have a dictatorship over the capitalists and can use coercion and violence against them (and understand violence here doesn’t just mean beating them with a truncheon it also means the violence of the state, they can harass them legally, intimidate them, make their lives uncomfortable and unpleasant in ways that involve no physical blows) if they step too far out of line and the capitalists know and are constrained by this though some still push (Jack Ma) and have to be checked and put back in their place.
“So anyways, if you want any chance of stopping that please deposit at least 1 if not several trillion dollars in that bin over there marked Nvidia”
Free college. Counseling. Community focused outreach and events to encourage socialization. Jobs programs that meet people, determine their skills, either refer them to further education if that’s what suits them or refer them to a selection of jobs.
Don’t use discord. Also I find it hard to believe all of that could have possibly fit on bullets.
Who? Proof? Any evidence at all.
Just making them this vague boogeyman we assign blame to is not a good look.
Stop using Microshit products China. Anything critical, really anything, but especially anything government or military related should be run on hardened systems. Anything public-facing like email servers that unlike say a Windows 10 desktop cannot be really locked down or secured via other systems should be something other than Microsoft. I really hope China still extensively keeps secrets exclusively on paper as that’s the only way to stay safe at the level of exposure they have to western tech from the empire of hackers that is the west.
This is why Chinese software and hardware is a threat to western national security. If they can’t learn of and make use of vulnerabilities before they’re patched how can this evil empire of hackers and criminals continue to dominate?
I mean this isn’t the right way to frame things. The right way is this is a distraction from the actual problem which is child sexual grooming on roblox being an epidemic. This or making a child kill themselves “for satan”, either way the pretext is just a sensational distraction from the actual problem.
The child grooming potential from roblox despite their moderation and heavy censorship systems is due to capitalism. It is due to capitalism because it is a monetized game. The monetization provides an incentive to lure children to predators who are willing to pay for game-bucks for them and encourages the children to meet them, to talk to them, to stick around and be groomed by them, to do sexual things for money for them, and to enable the children to be potentially blackmailed by those acts if that wasn’t enough into further acts.
Roblox itself is the disease with its disgusting monetization system which creates this world where any child predator with a few hundred or thousand dollars to blow can get children who just want some shiny game things their minds have been groomed by corporations to crave even at the expense of their safety to cooperate with, even seek out predators.
Frankly, ban children from playing games with monetization systems like that and lootboxes. Or ban the games from using them if they target or are found to have a large population of under 18 players they can’t get rid of. Roblox is a pedophile corporation. One of many. It grooms children, it exploits children, it opens them up to further predation and profits off it.
What is to say that the anti-imperialist Russian Federation will not simply take the place of the United States upon its defeat?
Historical and material reality.
The US didn’t appear as a magician on the scene out of nowhere. It invaded western Europe not to defeat Nazis but to ensure the survival of western European capital, under new management of course. With US troops and guns at their backs they were spared their people being liberated by socialism, in exchange fealty was given to the US.
Quite honestly the US is a product of and beneficiary of CENTURIES of European colonialism. Russia cannot reproduce that in a day or a decade.
The wealth, power, geopolitical control, cultural dominance and propaganda hegemony the US enjoys was built off those European empires, their looted wealth, and their influence. Was built off cooperation with the British who in the post-colonial moment of WW2 still had deep penetration of many societies, governments, etc.
Even assuming the US suffers a huge fall in a few years the lingering tendrils of its cultural influence and dominance will be fighting it out with Russian and Chinese influence for many years if not decades to come.
In other words Rome was not built in a day, the US did not morph magically into an omni-power empire in a year or a decade out of nowhere. And Russia cannot do the same.
Western Europe did not resist US imposition as it came as a rescue, they will likely resist joining with or being dominated by Russia to form a new bloc to subjugate the world.
One strong, all-powerful enemy or a bunch of enemies in disarray with shifting alliances, backstabbing, and various weaknesses and uncertainty. In the latter situation one can even bargain with imperial powers scrambling for influence a socialist in some cases because of their weakened state being but one of many smaller fish.
Saying the Iranians put themself in this position is ridiculous though.
I mean they didn’t put themselves in this position alone but they teased the monster by enriching uranium beyond their needs.
They don’t need 60% enrichment, not at the quantities they were making. Not for medical research or other bullshit I’m pretty sure. It was done as a middle finger to the west to kind of taunt them to get them back to the table and to get something like the JCPOA back. It was a negotiating tactic and an attempt to punish the west by saying “see, you break your deal, we’ll enrich far beyond our needs, now that we’re here at this mark you need to give us more concessions compared to when we were at that lower mark”. It was a bunch of “bad stuff” they could in theory trade to a west that doesn’t exist, the west that maybe existed in the minds of Iranian liberals in exchange for things they wanted.
That was a tease, it was insincere and a negotiating tactic most likely and a taunt against the zionists and the US who have been hounding them about getting nukes. It was silly to go half-way thinking they could negotiate with the west and it was a bluff clearly as they didn’t go the rest of the way.
And we can see from other Iranian actions they do other gestures like firing their oldest and most easily intercepted rockets at the Americans, warning them ahead of time as a “response” to US aggression and bombing them that they intone highly of “retribution” and god and blah blah blah but when the time comes they duck the war or striking back. They avoid doing anything that would seriously escalate the situation and alter the status quo they’ve had in tit for tats with the zionists for decades. They chose the off-ramp.
Fact is Iran blinked. It was probably the right move under the circumstances for their own situation (maybe not the world, probably not Palestine but who knows). They threatened the US not to get involved, the US punched them in the face and they did this purely propagandistic gesture of spitting at their feet and stomping off while declaring victory (while the US does the same).
So yes, in conclusion they put themselves in this position to be doubted as anything but a paper tiger with their moves as mentioned AND by not getting that nuke.
I have no doubt if the US starts a full on invasion of Iran they’ll respond but the US knows this and is content to manage it and knows what lines it can step up to and how to salami-slice. The zionists got Iran to stop firing missiles at them after all. Palestinians got nothing. Iran got a propaganda victory that’s transparent and empty.
To be fair the Iranians put themselves in this position by enriching uranium beyond their needs and teasing getting a nuclear weapon without ever getting one or intending to get one likely entirely as part of positioning themselves better for bargaining after losing JCPOA. So it wouldn’t be a first and this is why you shouldn’t act that way.
The US? They’re the ones who do nuclear “sharing” under NATO.
This is 100% for their planned war of aggression.
It’s not just kayfabe, it’s not just money for land mine manufacturers. It’s to provide a defense against a Russian counter-thrust after they drive NATO forces deep into Russia via a hole in this. That way they figure they can shape things via controlling where troops end up. Russia should 100% lay their own mine-fields in response because it’s impossible to know exactly where NATO forces are going to dismantle their own minefields in future to thrust through some armored columns. They should wait until after NATO does it of course so they look worse but make the mines now, get out the plans for razor wire deployments and signage to attempt to block off the mine-fields from wandering people.
Westoids are completely deranged about losing hegemony to China and multipolarity and are preparing a suicide-rush on Russia. That or they want to dissuade Russia from helping China when they commit 80% of their forces along with the US to attacking and containing China (and possibly attacking Russian shipping in the process thus giving them valid reason to respond).
I tend to agree with this. If Washington is able to do regime change in Iran (and I do believe they can kill Khamenei and many other top officials within the next few weeks/months) and able to thus destabilize them as a power or cement a puppet government they will establish complete control of the cross-roads of Eur-Asia, of the strategic triangle of control region long identified (The Grand Chessboard) as a spot to control to prevent the uniting of Asian, Russian, European, and African land powers that locks the US out.
This is for all the cards. Much more important than Ukraine which is strategically irrelevant really. If they can do this they will have a wall against China, a wall against Russia, a knife against Russia’s belly, a way to pour Islamist extremists like ISIS who are their pawns into nearby regions like Russia to destabilize them and sap resources. But more importantly for their war with China it will give them complete control of most global oil, it will give them the ability to gut-punch China economically by cutting off gasoline and petrochemicals, it will give them the ability to block Chinese trade both over land and via strategic straits via the ocean. It will be the final piece in their locking puzzle to encircle, blockade, sanction, and turn up the pressure on China.
It will also give them more freedom to brew up more ISIS types who they will pour into China specifically into Xinjiang to cause trouble though that will be the least of China’s problems if they do this and lock them out of selling to or buying from Africa, west Asia, Europe, etc and force them into a tiny trading bloc with Russia, DPRK, Vietnam and a few other regional countries who risk US anger.
Iran must not be allowed to fall. Russia or someone needs to give them air defenses that work as right now they can throw them into chaos by killing their leadership and operating with impunity in their skies and throwing missiles into the zionist entity while well deserved doesn’t really matter if ultimately Iran collapses as the US still has the strength of its Arab vassal nations and could rebuild the zionist entity or continue its plans without it if Iran is removed from the chessboard.
Sadly the US is an old master at front companies and re-routing logistics. They bought all that titanium from the USSR for their SR-71 and other advanced warplane projects through an elaborate network of front companies. So it will mildly increase costs but not stop the US from getting what it wants if any significant amount at all is made available to western companies.
Critical support to him in exposing the empire’s lies. At a time like this I think his role in providing an anti-empire view is far more important than his problems.
Yes, he is problematic to put it mildly as he has patronized prostitutes in Germany and bragged about it. Being proud of r*pe is not a good look but I’d certainly rather he be popular and young people flock to him and his views than any other mainstream view on offer in the US. He is unambiguously a net good at present despite his problematic attitude towards sexual exploitation of women, his ambiguous views towards China, the fact he’s not an ML, etc.
So now is not the time I think to attack him as he’s on the right side of these issues at least usually.
The problem is the zionists also have access to the production capacity of Europe and the US. As well as other vassals like occupied Korea. Combined these are substantial amounts of production.
The war against Iran will be economic, by sea, and by air not by land. So having working anti-air, being able to intercept enemy stealth bombers (including US) before they can deliver big payloads to take out industry or nuclear sites is important.
The big worry is the zionist entity resorting to using nuclear bunker busters on Iran’s nuclear sites, likely with US approval and help and with Europe rushing to justify it as being absolutely necessary and/or cast doubt on the bombs being nuclear and call it Iranian propaganda. At that point Iran’s nuclear program is moot and in the past and the west and the zionists can afford to settle with Iran in exchange for some sanctions relief and an end to direct hostilities. I expect if that approval goes through, the US and the zionists will burn another cyber-weapon and/or electronic warfare to bring down Iran’s air defense long enough to deliver the nuclear weapons.
This will buy the zionists breathing room to complete the genocide and cement hegemony over the middle east/west Asia so sadly I think its very likely they do it especially once this conventional war escalates to stopping shipping and taking out oil refineries and infrastructure (we’re basically there already) they have little to lose at that point. As it is Hezbollah is out of the picture for the time being, Yemen and Iran are the only ones standing aside from the resistance in Palestine which is well only able to do so much and really on the back-foot at this point.
Russia cannot help Iran given its own war with Ukraine and its need to apply its entire arsenal there. Another reason why the west might be okay with the zionists using nuclear bunker busters is their own resources are stretched thin by Ukraine and short of abandoning it and just dropping it right this moment to shift all production to supporting the zionists they can’t do both so may see this as their option to continue Ukraine while also allowing their zionist proxy to win its battles.
I really hope they don’t dare do that but they seem so deranged and probably feel so close to victory and yet also collapse at the same time that they may be pushed to do it.
If the US and Europe get dragged into an extended war here or have to empty their reserves to support the zionists it’ll push back conflict with China by years more. Then again the plan could be all along to do everything to cement hegemony in as many places as possible before confronting China in order to ensure they have few friends, no trade routes, and limited partners.
Then don’t make threats you’re not prepared to act on.
Don’t draw red lines then let the enemy cross them or the enemy will never take you seriously. The very fact they’re already attacking you in such a massive operation and seeking regime change shows the time for deterrence by words is long gone and the time for deterrence by deeds has arrived.