On February 08 2019 16:46 Loco wrote:
Even more convenient is fully ignoring the radical democracy that came to exist under Chavez, that was pushed by Chavez himself, in the form of communal councils and communes, which stands at the absolute opposite of a dictatorship, since Chavez had zero power of decision over theirs.
Mao Zedong also pushed "peoples communes" in China, so I suppose Mao was a radical democrat or a "benign dictator" under my terms, right?
The end of term limits is an interesting subject though. If you are under the powerful delusion that a place like the US is a working democracy, rather than a corrupt two-party system which is effectively a one-party system, just like Venezuela pre-Chavez was, then I can see how that would infuriate you.
Of course not, the US is far from an example of democracy, its a bureacracy ran by oligarchs due to legally-corrupt system of lobbying.
In a real democracy however, term limits don't make any sense. Forcing a good leader out arbitrarily who has massive popular support doesn't make sense
You mean aperfect democracy, but in reality its extremely dangerous to leave such a door open because people will inevitably abuse it and cling to power, it is no coincidence that every civilized country in this world has term limits.
How this isn't blatantly obviouis to somebody who goes on and on about how corrupt the powerful are is beyond me.
Knowing that this is a doomed discussion, we'll just have to agree to disagree, and you can view my stance as Chavez having been a "benevolant dictator", obviously a contradiction in terms for me, but which works with your idiosyncratic definition.
Thank you, we can finally get past words and at least know each other positions.
Neoliberalism is precisely shrinking the government as much as you possibly can get away with. It's also implementing "structural adjusment packages" that benefit the rich at the expense of the poor, which is what led to the revolution that put Chavez in power. Neoliberalism is the realistic version of the Ayn Rand fantasy world you'd like to be possible.
Bill Clinton is a realistic depiction of neoliberalism in the same way that Joseph Stalin is a realistic depiction of communism.
Also I have fundamental differences with even theoretical neoliberalism, for example central bank and fiat currencies like Friedrich Hayek suggested, even Friedman wanted a fixed algorithmic inflation to avoid bullshit like quantitive easing, also things like international bureaucratic banking institutions (who you also seem to despise).
So I am far closer to a libertarian than to a "neo-liberalist" which has become just a pejorative vaccuous term used by extreme left and right.
That is precisely why you do not care about "the will of the people" or self-determination and favor interventionism, whether you say you are or not.
You are wrong, if people want communism or any system I would never want to impose anything over them as long as some conditions are met first that the more "radical" the system the more transparent the elections would have to be, people should be able to easily leave the country and not held hostages like Cuba and that presidential terms have to be defined with no exeptions.
And again I don't consider trade changes interventionalism since you dont owe any country the purchase or sale of your goods, however the UK seizing funds is definitelly wrong and plain theft.
On February 08 2019 18:15 RiKD wrote:
I don't trust people in suits similarly to the fact that I don't trust that the Democratic Republic of Congo is actually a democratic republic.
apparently there is no correlation between wealth and integrity in any serious study.
And suit doesn't mean wealth but I think this absurd reductionism is ignorant and dangerous.
There was little to no discussion of a Syrian troop pullout before it was announced, its not something that is a part of any actual political ideology, and caught everyone in Trump's own administration by surprise.
It makes sense from a broad post WW2 cold war type perspective that the US would be sabotaging Northern Syria to thwart their socialist agenda, but in 2019 no one really cares. Its too small a region surrounded by too many foes to have any real international influence. US forces have been working well with Northern Syrian forces the past several years fighting ISIS. All the biggest hawks dealing with US foreign policy, like Bolton and Pompeo are pro-Kurd. There's basically no anti-Kurd animosity at all in any shade of US politics, which is actually amazing because we're polarized on virtually everything these days.
The 'Nato forces are building up on the Turkish boarder' article is just really misleading. The argument seems to be that because Turkey is in NATO, Turkish forces are therefore NATO forces, but there's not actually a separate army massing on the border. US and Turkey have been cold war allies and Turkey has been supplied with a ton of arms from the US but its not like there's some global conspiracy involving France and Great Britain, etc. to wipe out tiny Rojava.
They would love for the Kurds to be exterminated by the Turks, not because they fetishize violence, but because it is a threat to them in the long-term that any such experiment would succeed and grow. Why do you think NATO has branded the PKK a terrorist group? The truth is that the they have more in common with ISIS than with the Kurdish people.
I'm not really familiar with PKK, its tough to tell to what extent its involved in the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria since it seems like a lot of these parties are reorganized/renamed. It's not listed as one of the DFNS political parties on wiki and was designated a terrorist organization back in 1997.
What makes you think Pompeo and Bolton are pro-Kurds?! That blows my mind, I have never heard that before. Is it just something they said at one point and you trust their word or what? You think it's a conspiracy to think that the US and NATO are acting in their self-interest by not preventing a better-armed ally to run over a socialist experiment while it is still in its infancy, one which they have declared to be run by terrorists indirectly? The PKK are the Kurds that are fighting and living there, ideologically speaking. One thing is that they aren't fighting for an independent state anymore in recent years, they are asking for autonomy and peaceful co-existence; another is that the ideology of many of its members has shifted from Marxism towards libertarian socialism and communalism influenced by Öcalan's readings of Murray Bookchin. If you brand the PKK as terrorists, you brand the Syrian Democratic forces as terrorists too.
On that same theme, I posted this a couple pages ago, straight out of the horse's mouth... maybe it's actually just so disturbing that most people don't want to believe it?
The FBI has long acknowledged previous decades-worth of oftentimes unlawful surveillance, sabotage and violence aimed at American anti-war protesters, feminists, communists and Civil Rights leaders. The FBI even once infamously sent Martin Luther King, Jr. a letter advising him to kill himself.
The American Civil Liberties Union describes some of those efforts:
During the Cold War, the FBI ran a domestic intelligence/counterintelligence program called COINTELPRO that quickly evolved from a legitimate effort to protect the national security from hostile foreign threats into an effort to suppress domestic political dissent through an array of illegal activities. COINTELPRO targeted numerous non-violent protest groups and political dissidents with illegal wiretaps, warrantless physical searches and an array of other dirty tricks. The FBI used the information it gleaned from these improper investigations not for law enforcement purposes, but to “break up marriages, disrupt meetings, ostracize persons from their professions and provoke target groups into rivalries that might result in deaths.” The Church Committee, a Senate Select Committee that investigated COINTELPRO in the 1970s, found that a combination of factors led law enforcers to become law breakers.
In the FBI’s own words, the program referenced above was intended to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise Neutralize” left-wing movements and their leaders. Official COINTELPRO operations ceased in 1971 around the same time as the Church Committee’s investigations were publicized.
Former FBI director Clarence M. Kelley later apologized for the agency’s lawlessness.
“Some of those activities were clearly wrong and quite indefensible,” Kelley told the American public in 1976. “We most certainly must never allow them to be repeated.”
Turchie’s tenure in the FBI, however, confirms that the basic thrust of the FBI’s domestic counterintelligence efforts remained essentially unchanged–long after the public mea culpas.
fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount
Last edit: 09/02/2019 14:48
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Stroggoz New Zealand. Feb 09 2019 04:40. Posts 5299
I agree that the US should stay in the middle east to protect the kurds, although it is a sick joke to think the US government is pro-kurdish, remember the US gave arms to turkey in the 1990's, and gave arms to saddam in the 1980's-both killing a lot of kurds with them. It's clear the kurds have been used as a pawn in the middle east, a useful tool to get rid of Isis but at the same time socialist idea's have always been seen as a cancer that can't spread-the idea that the rich should be plundered instead of the poor is very popular in the 3rd world and it is why america has roughly 1000 military bases around the world. This situation in cambodia is similar to when the US support a 'communist regime' in cambodia to go to war with vietnam, (pol pot).
Clinton was a right wing president and neoliberal, way far to the right in economic policy than someone like Nixon, as he said 'the age of big government is over' ; he punished the poor the same as reagan and bush did, and imprisoned the poor as well. There is a good study on his policy by thomas ferguson, and chris hedges has written a lot about clinton's betrayal of the working class, esp with NAFTA.
One of 3 non decent human beings on a site of 5 people with between 2-3 decent human beings
Things are continuing to heat up for Maduro. It is really quite amazing to me to compare the Nixon/Kissinger coup with this one. The first thing Nixon asked after the coup was whether their hand was showing (confident that it wasn't) while this one is done completely in the open. We live in an era where people are so distracted and easy to manipulate, and American exceptionalism is so rampant and unquestioned, that it seems to matter little. In this administration it goes back to just a few days after Trump was elected, he invited one of the leading opposition members' wife to the White House, basically telling us that it was always in the works.
Another day of protests today in France, another person losing a hand.
fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount
Last edit: 09/02/2019 16:28
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NMcNasty United States. Feb 09 2019 20:54. Posts 2039
On February 09 2019 01:56 Loco wrote:
What makes you think Pompeo and Bolton are pro-Kurds?! That blows my mind, I have never heard that before. Is it just something they said at one point and you trust their word or what?
Despite being recent appointees they immediately came out and contradicted Trump on the pullout, to the extent that it enraged Erdogan to the point where he started making threats.
If you brand the PKK as terrorists, you brand the Syrian Democratic forces as terrorists too.
Again I really don't see any evidence that that group specifically is a significant part of Rojava politics as a whole especially since they have a fairly large number of Arabs, which is why they prefer 'Northern Syria' to 'Kurdistan'. Also, reading wiki, I'm not uncertain that the terrorist label isn't justified.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, in an effort to win increased support from the Kurdish peasantry, the PKK altered its leftist secular ideology to better accommodate and accept Islamic beliefs. The group also abandoned its previous strategy of attacking Kurdish and Turkish civilians who were against them, focusing instead on government and military targets.[107] In its campaign, the organization has been accused of carrying out atrocities against both Turkish and Kurdish civilians and its actions have been criticised by human rights groups such as Amnesty International[108] and Human Rights Watch
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NMcNasty United States. Feb 09 2019 21:12. Posts 2039
On February 09 2019 03:40 Stroggoz wrote:
I agree that the US should stay in the middle east to protect the kurds, although it is a sick joke to think the US government is pro-kurdish, remember the US gave arms to turkey in the 1990's, and gave arms to saddam in the 1980's-both killing a lot of kurds with them.
See again, alliances shift too quickly to view everyone as pro this or that based on a 50-year timeframe. Is the US permanently pro-Saddam because we were supporting him at the same time we were anti-Kurdish? The US has been fighting alongside the Kurds the past several years. Pretty much no one in the US political landscape has a problem with that, and the Kurds certainly don't either. The proposed pullout (basically just a dumb tweet) has nothing to do with political ideology. Likewise, the following tweet is in no way pro-socialism, its just the ramblings of an insane person.
Venezuelan authorities say a U.S.-owned air freight company delivered a crate of assault weapons earlier this week to the international airport in Valencia to be used in “terrorist actions” against the embattled government of Nicolás Maduro.
A senior Venezuelan security official, Bolivarian National Guard Gen. Endes Palencia Ortiz, who is the nation’s vice minister of citizen security, said authorities found 19 assault weapons, 118 ammunition cartridges, and 90 military-grade radio antennas, among other items.
An Ottawa-based analyst of unusual ship and plane movements, Steffan Watkins, drew attention to the frequent flights of the 21 Air cargo plane in a series of tweets Thursday.
“All year, they were flying between Philadelphia and Miami and all over the place, but all continental U.S.,” Watkins said in a telephone interview. “Then all of a sudden in January, things changed.”
That’s when the cargo plane began flying to destinations in Colombia and Venezuela on a daily basis, and sometimes multiple times a day, Watkins said. The plane has made close to 40 round-trip flights from Miami International Airport to Caracas and Valencia in Venezuela, and Bogota and Medellin in Colombia since Jan. 11.
On February 09 2019 01:56 Loco wrote:
What makes you think Pompeo and Bolton are pro-Kurds?! That blows my mind, I have never heard that before. Is it just something they said at one point and you trust their word or what?
Despite being recent appointees they immediately came out and contradicted Trump on the pullout, to the extent that it enraged Erdogan to the point where he started making threats.
If you brand the PKK as terrorists, you brand the Syrian Democratic forces as terrorists too.
Again I really don't see any evidence that that group specifically is a significant part of Rojava politics as a whole especially since they have a fairly large number of Arabs, which is why they prefer 'Northern Syria' to 'Kurdistan'. Also, reading wiki, I'm not uncertain that the terrorist label isn't justified.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, in an effort to win increased support from the Kurdish peasantry, the PKK altered its leftist secular ideology to better accommodate and accept Islamic beliefs. The group also abandoned its previous strategy of attacking Kurdish and Turkish civilians who were against them, focusing instead on government and military targets.[107] In its campaign, the organization has been accused of carrying out atrocities against both Turkish and Kurdish civilians and its actions have been criticised by human rights groups such as Amnesty International[108] and Human Rights Watch
Well, we could go down the rabbit hole of examining the source of the claim, AI and HRW and how they may very well be compromised, and look to understand the context behind these actions (the extreme oppression of the Kurds under the Turkish regime), and whether they represented the PKK, but it's quite clear to me that they do not represent the PKK now, so I don't think it's necessary.
Like I said, they are pretty much ideologically the same. The PKK is 'Rojava politics'. After these initial conflicts in the 80s, the organization was put on the terrorist list, and the founder of the PKK was arrested. He read Bookchin in prison and converted from Marxism to communalism and deeply inspired the Kurds to organize under this new vision (he is like the Nelson Mandala of the Kurds, and Nelson Mandala, who was also branded a terrorist by the US until 2008, supported him). The current armed forces of the Kurds are considered to be the same by the US or at least some notable US figures. Don't take the so-called pro-Kurdish stance as anything other than Trump's administration being stupid, deceptive, or maybe just lagging behind, IMO. From Wiki:
According to U.S. Special Forces Commander General Raymond A. Thomas at the Aspen Security Forum in July 2017, the SDF is a PR-friendly name for the YPG, which Thomas personally suggested because the YPG is considered an arm of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is designated as a terrorist group by the U.S. government.[9][10] American Defense Secretary Ashton Carter confirmed "substantial ties" between the PYD/YPG and the PKK.[11] Testifying to the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee Congress, Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats, the top U.S. intelligence official, explicitly defined the YPG as the terrorist "PKK's militia force in Syria”.[12][13] Turkey has designated the YPG as a terrorist organization,[8] and in 2018 Turkey captured most of Afrin Canton from the YPG.
The simple fact is that the people fighting this war from Rojava, if they are not from the PKK, do support the PKK, and they believe the Erdogan-led Turks are the actual terrorists, and that they have ex-ISIS fighters (which they bribed) among them, so the fact that Trump pulled the troops and claimed that the pullout was "long overdue" and that they "defeated the terrorists" should tell you something about the political situation, unless you want to think the guy just flipped a coin without a reason. Don't take it from me. Do some reading and listen to them. Here's a German YPJ fighter commenting on it (at 27:00 and also at 35:00).
I've looked a bit more into this today and I'm very worried and surprised that in these interviews, the fighters are not worried. Turkey has so much more armament than them, of much higher quality, and a lot more soldiers, and we know they want them exterminated... it's a really big deal.
fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount
Thats a really weird move by the USA. They needs the kurds to keep Erdogan in check. The guy is pretty fucking ruthless and could easily turn NATO into chaos
Then again we dont have the whole information most likely
Last edit: 10/02/2019 02:30
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Santafairy Korea (South). Feb 10 2019 15:41. Posts 2227
On February 09 2019 03:40 Stroggoz wrote:
I agree that the US should stay in the middle east to protect the kurds, although it is a sick joke to think the US government is pro-kurdish, remember the US gave arms to turkey in the 1990's, and gave arms to saddam in the 1980's-both killing a lot of kurds with them.
See again, alliances shift too quickly to view everyone as pro this or that based on a 50-year timeframe. Is the US permanently pro-Saddam because we were supporting him at the same time we were anti-Kurdish? The US has been fighting alongside the Kurds the past several years. Pretty much no one in the US political landscape has a problem with that, and the Kurds certainly don't either. The proposed pullout (basically just a dumb tweet) has nothing to do with political ideology. Likewise, the following tweet is in no way pro-socialism, its just the ramblings of an insane person.
DPRK obviously has to open up and KJU knows and wants it to happen. similar position as to gorbachev's was if you know history. you're right it's not a message of support for socialism but of optimism for the expansion of market economy and the future of investment and development
It seems to be not very profitable in the long run to play those kind of hands. - Gus Hansen
NMcNasty United States. Feb 11 2019 00:07. Posts 2039
On February 09 2019 22:13 Loco wrote:
so the fact that Trump pulled the troops and claimed that the pullout was "long overdue" and that they "defeated the terrorists" should tell you something about the political situation, unless you want to think the guy just flipped a coin without a reason.
I'm not at all trying to argue Donald Trump specifically is pro-Kurd, though I don't necessarily have reason to believe he's anti-Kurd. Again, the most likely reason for the troop pullout, or at least its proposal since at the moment his advisers are preventing it fully happening, is that Trump is deferring to what Putin wants. Not sure if that's because he's actually compromised or if he'd just rather eat McDonalds and watch TV than have to deal with such a formidable adversary. That this align's with Edrogan's interests is coincidental, though its possible Trump's feeling some pressure from there too.
Its absolutely true that the situation is very dire for the Kurds and their Arab allies, I'm not sure why you think I'm arguing otherwise. Its exactly why they need military support.
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NMcNasty United States. Feb 11 2019 00:10. Posts 2039
On February 10 2019 14:41 Santafairy wrote:
DPRK obviously has to open up and KJU knows and wants it to happen. similar position as to gorbachev's was if you know history. you're right it's not a message of support for socialism but of optimism for the expansion of market economy and the future of investment and development
KJU is more like Stalin than Gorbachev. Its like Trump is calling Stalin "little mustache boy" but you know later on they hug it out and send each other love letters, so its all OK, just a buddy sitcom, even though one of the stars just happens to be someone who tortures and imprisons thousands of innocent people.
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NMcNasty United States. Feb 11 2019 00:43. Posts 2039
Really is just impossible to know what's going on, his tweets contradict each other so frequently.
On February 10 2019 23:01 Baalim wrote:
even if it is, the tone of the tweet is crazy
no its not... have you read other tweets from Trump?
How are you guys still surprised by anything he tweets honestly... he has been using the same old lame strateg since before even being elected.
On February 09 2019 22:13 Loco wrote:
The current armed forces of the Kurds are considered to be the same by the US or at least some notable US figures. Don't take the so-called pro-Kurdish stance as anything other than Trump's administration being stupid, deceptive, or maybe just lagging behind,.
just another tool the be used by the USA to reach their goals
I'm still wondering how the USA has any credibility in Syria considering the massive propaganda they did with the false flag attack in Douma, which almost a year later the OPCW hasn't proven to have happened.... then again those are just one of the many things the USA get away with
USA lost the Syrian war and with that most of the chances to push into Iran next. Trump proved ISIS was a completely fake problem considering everyone knew ISIS mostly traded with Turkey and Trump demolished Turkey's economy with 2 moves... meaning the USA could've dealt with ISIS with far less casualties and without the necessity of physical intervention. Naturally they could've stopped funding them as well.
Assad will stand unless the CIA somehow kills him, the USA will probably back off, unless some major accident happens soonish.
Also it makes perfect sense for them to abandone the Kurds right now, as this will cause massive problems for Russia. Russia obviously wants influence in the region so they need the kurds, they also need Turkey, meaning they would need to invest a good amount of resources to stop both sides from causing troubles... A burden for Russia, and a chance of relax and waiting for a new opportunity for the USA
On February 09 2019 01:56 Loco wrote:
What makes you think Pompeo and Bolton are pro-Kurds?! That blows my mind, I have never heard that before. Is it just something they said at one point and you trust their word or what?
Despite being recent appointees they immediately came out and contradicted Trump on the pullout, to the extent that it enraged Erdogan to the point where he started making threats.
If you brand the PKK as terrorists, you brand the Syrian Democratic forces as terrorists too.
Again I really don't see any evidence that that group specifically is a significant part of Rojava politics as a whole especially since they have a fairly large number of Arabs, which is why they prefer 'Northern Syria' to 'Kurdistan'. Also, reading wiki, I'm not uncertain that the terrorist label isn't justified.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, in an effort to win increased support from the Kurdish peasantry, the PKK altered its leftist secular ideology to better accommodate and accept Islamic beliefs. The group also abandoned its previous strategy of attacking Kurdish and Turkish civilians who were against them, focusing instead on government and military targets.[107] In its campaign, the organization has been accused of carrying out atrocities against both Turkish and Kurdish civilians and its actions have been criticised by human rights groups such as Amnesty International[108] and Human Rights Watch
Well, we could go down the rabbit hole of examining the source of the claim, AI and HRW and how they may very well be compromised, and look to understand the context behind these actions (the extreme oppression of the Kurds under the Turkish regime), and whether they represented the PKK, but it's quite clear to me that they do not represent the PKK now, so I don't think it's necessary.
Like I said, they are pretty much ideologically the same. The PKK is 'Rojava politics'. After these initial conflicts in the 80s, the organization was put on the terrorist list, and the founder of the PKK was arrested. He read Bookchin in prison and converted from Marxism to communalism and deeply inspired the Kurds to organize under this new vision (he is like the Nelson Mandala of the Kurds, and Nelson Mandala, who was also branded a terrorist by the US until 2008, supported him). The current armed forces of the Kurds are considered to be the same by the US or at least some notable US figures. Don't take the so-called pro-Kurdish stance as anything other than Trump's administration being stupid, deceptive, or maybe just lagging behind, IMO. From Wiki:
According to U.S. Special Forces Commander General Raymond A. Thomas at the Aspen Security Forum in July 2017, the SDF is a PR-friendly name for the YPG, which Thomas personally suggested because the YPG is considered an arm of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is designated as a terrorist group by the U.S. government.[9][10] American Defense Secretary Ashton Carter confirmed "substantial ties" between the PYD/YPG and the PKK.[11] Testifying to the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee Congress, Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats, the top U.S. intelligence official, explicitly defined the YPG as the terrorist "PKK's militia force in Syria”.[12][13] Turkey has designated the YPG as a terrorist organization,[8] and in 2018 Turkey captured most of Afrin Canton from the YPG.
The simple fact is that the people fighting this war from Rojava, if they are not from the PKK, do support the PKK, and they believe the Erdogan-led Turks are the actual terrorists, and that they have ex-ISIS fighters (which they bribed) among them, so the fact that Trump pulled the troops and claimed that the pullout was "long overdue" and that they "defeated the terrorists" should tell you something about the political situation, unless you want to think the guy just flipped a coin without a reason. Don't take it from me. Do some reading and listen to them. Here's a German YPJ fighter commenting on it (at 27:00 and also at 35:00).
I've looked a bit more into this today and I'm very worried and surprised that in these interviews, the fighters are not worried. Turkey has so much more armament than them, of much higher quality, and a lot more soldiers, and we know they want them exterminated... it's a really big deal.
Die Deutsche Frau is repressing a bit of death in that video. It could be powerful fuel for the movement and watching that video only inspires me more but my gut tells me that things could go really bad there. I don't necessarily want to walk into a genocide type of thing you know? There are some rotten eggs in the U.S.A. military but Turkish and ISIS troops are a whole other story. Especially considering the U.S.A. will take the stance that the YPJ are terrorists but will mostly ignore it and cover their tracks. In fact it will probably be sparsely reported on. It would be like if a Jew was living in NYC and then decided to go poke around in Germany in 1933 for a while. That's kind of a lacking analogy because there was no revolutionary Jew Democratic Confederalist Movement taking place. I am very much drawn to the Rojava Movement though. Even if I was just cooking, doing dishes, and servicing weapons all day I don't think I would mind.
Thanks for the video and the channel. I will be making my way through it over the next handful of days I am sure.
United States. Feb 08 2019 19:15. Posts 8557
