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International Thread 4

Tywin Manderly

By Tywin Manderly,
in General Chatter

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Rippounet Council Member

Rippounet

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Altherion said:

Having diplomatic relations with the UAE does very little for Israel in the event of conflict with Iran --

My reading is that it's not that easy to tell whether it's Israel heading for a conflict with Iran.
That's kinda my point: this news shows new alignments in the Middle-East, and it's difficult to know what the outcome of that will be. News that seem good today might be seen differently in the future. Or not. I'm just being cautious.

2 hours ago, Altherion said:

I can't agree with you here. Most of Israel's neighbors have lousy (or worse) human rights records, but this does not stop from the US and Europe from having diplomatic relations with them. In fact, our countries go considerably further than that and supply the UAE with arms. Normalization of relations does not imply an endorsement of the other side's system of government. It simply removes a lot of annoying limitations such as the lack of direct air travel (particularly annoying here because the Dubai airport is massive and serves as the hub for the entire Middle East).

You're missing the point, which is about what the lack of consideration for human rights shown by Israel entail for the future rather than the morality of it. To my eyes this confirms that Israel is unlikely to revert to more moderate (humane?) policies any time soon.
And that's pretty bad, independently of diplomacy/geopolitics.

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Toth Council Member

Toth

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Posted

Yikes... 40 unmarked Russian military trucks sighted on their way to Belarus... Here we go for just another Russian invasion on Putin's quest to gobble up former Soviet Union territory...

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JGP Council Member

JGP

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Posted
2 hours ago, Toth said:

Yikes... 40 unmarked Russian military trucks sighted on their way to Belarus... Here we go for just another Russian invasion on Putin's quest to gobble up former Soviet Union territory...

[frowns] 

There is literally zero plausible justification for this. No canards Putin can trot out, like Russia did v. Ukraine. 

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Toth Council Member

Toth

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33 minutes ago, JEORDHl said:

[frowns] 

There is literally zero plausible justification for this. No canards Putin can trot out, like Russia did v. Ukraine. 

Well, my guess is that Lukashenko will continue his spin that the protesters are foreign agents and he already gave Putin an invitation to invade in case of foreign meddling. So the narrative is being made. Certainly Putin doesn't want a regime change in Belarus and he was considering increasing his influence in (annex) Belarus for years now. Given Putin's general lack of giving a shit about anyone's objections, I feel like he will have free reign about just how aggressively he will 'help out' Lukashenko, with a full-blown occupation certainly being a last resort, but still on the table.

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Horza Council Member

Horza

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Posted

It doesn’t look like there’s any real line on Belarus coming out of the Kremlin. The ‘guarantees’ to Lukashenko are in regards to external activity and hence basically worthless (Russia could decide to treat the protests as an external operation, but the discretion is Russia’s alone) and the language regarding Lukashenko has been far from fully committal.

State TV has played around with Polish conspiracy stuff as well as reported on Lukashenko’s massive unpopularity and regular media has been similarly mixed, and if anything unflattering to Luka. This is a big contrast with 2014 where Russian media was all Novorossiya all the time. 

The other big reason this isn’t like 2014 is Belarus isn’t Crimea. It’s many times bigger in land and population and not regarded by Russians as a piece of core territory carved out by a lamentable Ukrainian premier in the 50s. Belarusians are culturally pro-Russian in the way a lot of the post-industrial Donbas is but they’re not Russian and can’t be expected to appreciate little green men propping up a throughly unpopular President.  

Given that most of the opposition is anti-Lukashenko rather than pro-Western (a big part of its mainstream success) the dynamics don’t really work in favour of serious Russian intervention not least because domestically most Russians think Lukashenko lost.
 

Which isn’t to say mistakes can’t be made but just that a lot of things indicate that the stakes aren’t as high as 2014, there isn’t a big push to back up Luka as yet and all of the intervention options look bad for Putin.

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Varysblackfyre321 Council Member

Varysblackfyre321

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Posted

https://aszdziennik.pl/130413,kaja-godek-napisala-ustawe-stop-lgbt-oto-18-najglupszych-punktow-z-18

A Polish LGBT aquantice of mine shared this to me in a discord server, it's about the Polish far-right proposing legislation that  

Some of it includes the following;

• during the protest it's prohibited to: carry any emblems resembling catholic and national symbols changed in way to resemble LGBT symbols.

• referring religion in any way

•questioning if marriage is a relationship between male and female.

•"propagation" of treating same sex relationships in privileged way.

Honestly, I would have shared it in the last cancel thread if it hadn't been shut down.

It's the ultra-right attempting to cancel the Lgbt of Poland.

When people discuss Cancel culture it seems the main crux seems to around people losing economic or social status for their conservative or right wing ideals or allegiances.

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Horza Council Member

Horza

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Posted
47 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

h

Honestly, I would have shared it in the last cancel thread if it hadn't been shut down.

It's the ultra-right attempting to cancel the Lgbt of Poland.

When people discuss Cancel culture it seems the main crux seems to around people losing economic or social status for their conservative or right wing ideals or allegiances.

Yeah it’s funny how cancellation only goes in one direction. Solidarity to LGBTQ Poles and everybody fighting PiS.

—-

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/christopherm51/russian-opposition-leader-alexei-navalny-poison

Alexey Navalny is fighting for his life after being poisoned. FWIW the timing seems weird if this came from the top, the big referendum is done with and Khabarovsk aside there hasn’t been anything particularly troubling for the Kremlin on the domestic front. Which isn’t to say it couldn’t have come from on high, or that it makes a huge difference if it was some underling trying to curry favour with the boss.  

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Heartofice Council Member

Heartofice

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36 minutes ago, Horza said:

Yeah it’s funny how cancellation only goes in one direction. Solidarity to LGBTQ Poles and everybody fighting PiS.

—-

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/christopherm51/russian-opposition-leader-alexei-navalny-poison

Alexey Navalny is fighting for his life after being poisoned. FWIW the timing seems weird if this came from the top, the big referendum is done with and Khabarovsk aside there hasn’t been anything particularly troubling for the Kremlin on the domestic front. Which isn’t to say it couldn’t have come from on high, or that it makes a huge difference if it was some underling trying to curry favour with the boss.  

The trend is to paint Putin as some evil mastermind, but when looking at the stories behind these poisonings you often see tales of incompetence and poor communication, often not appearing to be especially well planned. Who knows who ordered what and when.

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Horza Council Member

Horza

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Posted
32 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

The trend is to paint Putin as some evil mastermind, but when looking at the stories behind these poisonings you often see tales of incompetence and poor communication, often not appearing to be especially well planned. Who knows who ordered what and when.

Eh, up to a point. He’s not an evil mastermind but he’s made himself the main node of a political system where troublesome people get poisoned and publicly gunned down to make a point. He didn’t bring that to Russian politics but nor has he put an end to it. I don’t bring up the diffuse and murky ways in which Russian politics performs exemplary murder to absolve Putin but to highlight that the malaise extends beyond him.

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Clueless Northman Council Member

Clueless Northman

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Posted

Considering how many Western governments didn't give a shit and have let tens of thousands of us die from covid, and one could make the point our governments pretty much killed them, and that these governments are pretty much ensuring many more thousands of deaths before the end of the year, and considering how little mainstream media has made a fuss about governments' incompetence if not downright criminal behaviour, I'm a little bit pissed off that the same MSM are making a big fuss about what happens to a guy who's basically a random nobody in Russia. What kind of stupid diversion will they come up with next month to hide their criminal incompetence when dealing with the 2nd wave? War with North Korea?

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The Anti-Targ Council Member

The Anti-Targ

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On 8/20/2020 at 11:13 PM, Varysblackfyre321 said:

https://aszdziennik.pl/130413,kaja-godek-napisala-ustawe-stop-lgbt-oto-18-najglupszych-punktow-z-18

A Polish LGBT aquantice of mine shared this to me in a discord server, it's about the Polish far-right proposing legislation that  

Some of it includes the following;

• during the protest it's prohibited to: carry any emblems resembling catholic and national symbols changed in way to resemble LGBT symbols.

• referring religion in any way

•questioning if marriage is a relationship between male and female.

•"propagation" of treating same sex relationships in privileged way.

Honestly, I would have shared it in the last cancel thread if it hadn't been shut down.

It's the ultra-right attempting to cancel the Lgbt of Poland.

When people discuss Cancel culture it seems the main crux seems to around people losing economic or social status for their conservative or right wing ideals or allegiances.

At the risk of keeping the cancel discussion going, I thought cancellation was an in-group thing (libs cancelling libs, fascies cancelling fascies) when it's out-group then it's something different: victimising, systematic oppression, bigotry, persecution.

On 8/21/2020 at 12:48 AM, Heartofice said:

The trend is to paint Putin as some evil mastermind, but when looking at the stories behind these poisonings you often see tales of incompetence and poor communication, often not appearing to be especially well planned. Who knows who ordered what and when.

 

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JGP Council Member

JGP

Posted
Posted

Since this doesn't really belong in the US politics thread [and I'm a Canuck]

'Unsurvivable' storm surge, not the whole length, but 10' - 15' with a smaller area at 15' to 20' even [boggles]

Stay safe, neighbors. Staying safe meaning, get the hell out of there. 

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Horza Council Member

Horza

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Posted
On 8/25/2020 at 3:30 AM, HelenaExMachina said:

Pfft,2020 isn't even trying anymore, pretty sure this is a rerun of an earlier episode

In this case it’s literally the guy who claimed he was in a coma in April doubling down and insisting that he’s still in a coma despite all evidence to the contrary. 
 

By all appearances KJU does not have a healthy diet or lifestyle and did miss some important public events in April, but we don’t know why and you’ll never find out by reading recycled Chosun Ilbo stories.

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Larry of the Lawn Council Member

Larry of the Lawn

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44 minutes ago, Horza said:

In this case it’s literally the guy who claimed he was in a coma in April doubling down and insisting that he’s still in a coma despite all evidence to the contrary. 
 

By all appearances KJU does not have a healthy diet or lifestyle and did miss some important public events in April, but we don’t know why and you’ll never find out by reading recycled Chosun Ilbo stories.

Are you basing his diet on all those memes of him thinking everything is cake?  

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Horza Council Member

Horza

Posted
Posted
31 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Are you basing his diet on all those memes of him thinking everything is cake?  

Honestly I’m more worried about his cigs habit, and not just because he lights up next to liquid fuelled ICBMs.

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