On a more positive note, the article shares this incredibly based quote from a former Bethesda PR-head:
During an interview with Vice News which centered on this outrage, Bethesda’s then-director of PR, Pete Hines, told the outlet, “Unless you’re a Nazi, there should be nobody who’s opposed to the idea of being against Nazis.” When told that the game’s aggressive marketing tone might be poking the hornet’s nest, Hines even doubled down, saying, “Maybe a little bit, but the hornet’s nest is full of Nazis so…fuck those guys. I’ll poke a Nazi hornet’s nest.”
I hope the company still has people like this working in it.
I would argue Israel already is an existential threat to HTS’ control of Syria because they still occupy the South-West of the country.
The main factor is not the threat of regime change by the West, but how much HTS is willing to tolerate Israeli aggression before they completely lose support of the Syrian people. A comprador may not want to bite the hand that feeds them, but they also cannot ignore the hearts and minds of the masses. And the Syrian masses want peaceful self-governance after 15 years of civil war, NOT Israel invading and occupying their land. Right now, HTS can still ignore the South-West/ Golan Heights because they don’t have any control over that region, but if Israel decides to expand further towards North, or attack the capital directly, they will have a huge problem. If they still choose to not respond and keep focusing on fighting their civil war/ violently purging minorities, the Syrian people will start turning against them.
Of course, I could be getting ahead of myself here and maybe HTS will strike some official non-aggression pact and just let Israel keep the Golan Heights in the near future, but they can’t ignore the main contradictions in their own country forever.
Yeah it was a spelling mistake, I meant HTS. I'm aware they're looking the other way when it comes to Israel/ US aggression in the region, but even a comprador has certain limits they are willing to tolerate (see the recent increased hostilities between Saudi Arabia and UAE over Yemen for example). I could see HTS turning against Israel if they were to hit Damascus directly or attack HTS-controlled military outposts to try and sow more chaos in Syria (a weakened Syria benefits Israel regardless of who is in charge) as Israel has avoided HTS targets entirely, so far.
Then again, HTS has said nothing of Israel still occupying the South-West of the country, so that's why I put a maybe on HTS fighting Israel.
Israel being emboldened by America’s recent aggression in the Western hemisphere, decides to attempt simultaneous attacks and/ or decapitation strikes on Iran, Lebanon, Yemen, and Syria all at once. This ends up dragging Israel into a multi-front war with Iran, Hezbollah, Ansarallah, and maybeee HTS all at once.
Saudi Arabia, angered at Israel’s interference in Yemen, especially after the UAE recently used Somaliland (which Israel diplomatically recognized last month) to smuggle a UAE-backed STC leader into the UAE to avoid peace talks with the Saudis, decides to let the Iranian missiles and drones fly over Saudi airspace unimpeded.
Israel gets utterly overwhelmed and asks the US to intervene. America tries doing some precision airstrikes ala Iran 2025, but Iran cannot afford another “peace agreement” that results in a return to status quo when there’s currently mass protests/ colour revolution happening within their borders too. America continues airstrikes and decides to hit a nuclear facility partially run by Russians. Putin calls Trump and warns him to back off or he will retaliate ten fold in Ukraine. Trump agrees because Putin is a “nice, but tough guy” and he likes tough guys. Also, he is already too busy starting conflicts in the Western hemisphere.
Now there is no off ramp and the entire ME region has become an Arab-Iran vs. Israel conflict. Israel eventually faces internal revolt which forces the government leadership to flee the country, resulting in total chain of command collapse which the Palestinian resistance takes full advantage of to liberate the remaining occupied territories.
Well it's good to see some Latin American solidarity on this. That being said, none of those countries are materially backing Venezuela, and won't dare to or risk provoking the beast.
Nah but seriously it's likely because Cuba was backed by many countries, especially the USSR. Venezuela does not have any tangible allies, hell as of this comment only Columbia has condemned this invasion while China and Russia are just passively observing.
Critical support to James Cameron for his unrelenting passion to continue making Hollywood CGI slop films with anti-colonial themes that will trigger Chuds for an eternity.
What shocked me was just how quickly local Zionists have capitalized on the whole thing. I'm watching this on live TV right now and many people in the crowd are wearing Israeli flags. One of the speakers, a guy named David Ossip who is the president of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, just said "Am Yisrael Chai" on stage after talking about fighting against anti-Semitism. When the Australian Prime Minister arrived to the vigil, he was getting boos from the crowd. In contrast, the NSW Premier (who ironically is from the same party) was getting cheers, no doubt because he has historically been way more of a hardliner in regards to suppressing anti-zionist activism.
Meanwhile, an anti-immigration rally led by the far right One Nation party is being held in Sydney at the same time and is also attended by Zionists calling for pro-palestine individuals to be deported. All without any pushback from the government.
Obviously they wouldn't ban EVERY social gathering because that would be deeply unpopular just like the COVID lockdowns were (Australians are kinda like Americans in that depriving them of too many treats will cause massive public discontent), but the parameters of "specific areas" and "public assemblies" are intentionally kept ambiguous so they can target whatever they feel like. However, given the NSW Premier's recent comments, especially in regards to hate speech, he clearly wants to use these powers to suppress pro-palestine/ anti-zionist organizations.
According to the article the NSW government will send the law proposal to a federal parliamentary committee to provide recommendations on what rhetoric should be banned and also to make it harder for anyone to legally challenge the free speech crackdown. Based on this separate article the federal government is looking to enact similar policies nationwide, so this will not just affect NSW.
It’s also hilarious that they are trying to group in Hamas and Hezbollah with Islamic State as terrorist organizations that cannot have any of their symbols or flags publicly displayed when IS has always opposed Hamas and Hezbollah AND both orgs have fought them before. Gotta hand it to one of the most racist and Islamophobic countries in the world to not understand the difference between Islamic organizations.
Regardless of whether we believe the Bondi beach shooting was allowing to happen by Australian intelligence or not (circumstantial evidence points to yes), the shooting provided the perfect opportunity to scapegoat and suppress pro-Palestinian activism, given how widespread and successful it has become, as well as Australian state and federal leaders voicing very vocal opposition to said activism in the past year.
The CPC is at least aware of the issue of slagging domestic consumption, judging by their goals of the next Five-Year Plan. The question for me now is, what steps will they take to try and address this? Maintaining a devaluated currency and relying more and more on exports of manufactured goods is clearly not helping, but as you have pointed out before the issue is the political will to move away from this neoliberal mindset that came out of the reform and opening up era.
On top of that, you also have the CPC’s almost stubborn adherence to a non-interventionist foreign policy, which is not just born out of ideological pragmatism but also because changing the current economic strategy risks antagonizing the US, which jeopardizes the ability to maintain non-aggression towards the global hegemon.
China has essentially backed itself into a corner where it can’t solve an economic issue without fundamentally changing how it views itself as a world leader, and its official ideological line on “the new era”.
I feel the next 5-10 years will be the most interesting but also the most critical for the continuation of China’s socialist project.
Furthermore we now know the identity of the second gunman, who was his father, Sajid Akram. ASIO started looking into Naveed Akram soon after the July 2019 arrest of IS terrorist Isaac El Matari in Sydney.
An ASIO official said Naveed Akram was closely connected to Matari, who is serving seven years in jail for planning an IS insurgency as the self-declared Australian commander of the terrorist group. Matari was part of an IS cell with several other Sydney men who have since been convicted of terrorist offences and were also close to Naveed Akram, according to sources with close knowledge of the matter.
ASIO director-general Mike Burgess said on Sunday that one of the gunmen was known to the agency, but did not specify which man.
The article also reports that Sajid Akram had been a licensed firearms holder for the past 10 years.
My opinion: Either ASIO fucked up big time, or they intentionally let these two guys off the leash the same way the FBI lets certain lone shooters do their own thing because it may be politically convenient to do so.
We don't even have any motive yet and Australia's media, intelligence agency, and politicians are already calling it a terrorist attack out of the gate. Solely because an Arab-looking guy was involved.
And because there just happened to be a Jewish event nearby (and it's the first day of Hannukah), the mass shooting is already being used by the aforementioned groups to paint it as an attack on Jewish-Australians, and how we need to reconsider our (already overwhelming) support for the Zionist entity and Palestinian statehood. Fucking dumb country.
Notice how they attribute all these deaths to “Communism” and “Islamism” but whenever a death occurs under Capitalism they make up every possible excuse to say it wasn’t Capitalism. Hell just look at how Hitler is defined as “Socialism” in that tweet. Also, none of these guys ever cite a death toll count for Capitalism because it would exceed every made up statistic for “victims” of Communism.
Sorry for late reply, was very busy with IRL stuff last few days.
I’m not an expert on the economics of the construction industry, but growing bamboo farms is generally cheaper than trying to mass produce steel, because bamboo doesn’t need the massive power requirements than the steel supply chain does. It’s also funny that you mention China as the world’s biggest steel producer, because China is also the world’s biggest bamboo producer and HK, despite having local bamboo producers, actually imports most of its bamboo from mainland China to fulfil the city’s massive demand. So I imagine the construction companies in HK can source their bamboo scaffolding at very cost-effective prices that are at least competitive with steel, if not cheaper because of the lower production cost.
As for sustainability, while it is true that steel can be easily recycled, it still has a huge environmental cost from mining and refining the metal composite. According to this article which sources its data from a EU environmental report back in 2020, steel and concrete applications account for 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions alone. Another reason is because bamboo is also a very fast growing wood, a newly planted bamboo farm can be harvested in just a few years, which is why it can still be applied to large scale modern construction scaffolding so easily in HK. Combine that with the lower environmental cost, and bamboo can be seen as a sustainable building alternative to metals.
However, as I said in my previous comment, bamboo lacks the consistency in integrity properties that steel can provide (as it is a naturally produced material), and on top of it not being as safe as steel for working conditions, is the reason bamboo isn’t used widely in the construction industry today.
The synthetic netting used for the exterior cladding and the styrofoam used for internal patch work was a primary factor yes, but bamboo also contributed to it. Bamboo is a natural thermal insulator and can be quite resistant to prolonged high heat exposure, but it is still highly flammable due to being made out of a porous material. So when bamboo catches fire, it doesn't rapidly disintegrate like the synthetic netting and mats did (which I think were made out of polyurethane composite), however, it does allow the fire to spread to other flammable materials easily.
As I briefly mentioned in my original comment, It is no coincidence that while the government is publicly stating now that synthetic cladding was the main cause of the fire spreading so fast, they were also sending government cabinet members to meet industry leaders in the last couple of days about accelerating the phase out of bamboo scaffolding.
FYI I'm not against the use of bamboo scaffolding because it does have economic and sustainability benefits (plus it is a cool alternative to steel/ aluminium), but it's simply not as reliable as metals for high rise or huge construction projects due to its inconsistency.
On a more positive note, the article shares this incredibly based quote from a former Bethesda PR-head:
I hope the company still has people like this working in it.