cfgaussian

cfgaussian @lemmygrad.ml 2d ago

I like how China's PLA is so often involved with disaster relief and does so much work to help people, rescuing them from floods and earthquakes and the like. That very much appeals to me. If i could be in like the engineering corps where i could build roads or bridges or something that would be really cool. But yeah, in a capitalist country i would rather frag the nearest officer or go to jail than serve.

cfgaussian @lemmygrad.ml 2d ago

That's awesome! I'm not into dancing personally but i do think it looks cool. Definitely good exercise, keeps you healthy that's for sure.

I love how there are always old people dancing and exercising in public in China in the mornings and evenings.

Wish we had that here. But for one thing we don't really have the public spaces for it the way China does, and also you would 100% have someone making a complaint to the police about you if you tried gathering people together in the middle of a city for that. They'd probably tell you you can't play loud music and that you need a permit as a registered sport club. Once again the irony of the realization that China has more freedom than we do in the West...

cfgaussian @lemmygrad.ml 2d ago

Well said. If the only way you keep people on your side is through violence and intimidation, you are inevitably on a clock to where eventually you are no longer strong enough, and then the people you repressed will take their revenge.

No one stays strong forever. Neither people nor countries. Eventually you will decline and someone else will be stronger than you. That's why it's best to treat others well when you are in a position of strength.

cfgaussian @lemmygrad.ml 2d ago

It can be that. But more often i think it's western chauvinism. The belief that whatever its flaws, the West's system has to be ultimately morally superior, and therefore any system that is different has to be somehow worse. You have to believe there is something about those other systems that is sinister or evil, or else it would be too painful admitting to yourself that you live in the worse system, and that the suffering you endure (and cause to others) is not actually necessary and unavoidable because the alternatives are not all worse.

So you can admit that the government and media are lying to you about the things they are doing in your country, but surely they cannot be lying about other countries too, because then you would no longer have anything to hang onto that makes you feel superior.

China is just the biggest of the foreign "others" in the present day, but it's not exclusive to China. You see the same willigness to believe propaganda about Russia, Iran, DPRK, etc.

cfgaussian @lemmygrad.ml 2d ago

Same. Every action comes with a reaction. The more aggressive the US gets the more pushback there will be. They are accelerating their own imperial decline.

There are good reasons why, for so long, the US largely refrained from blatant aggression (except where they could weave a credible narrative to justify it as "defensive") and direct use of hard power coercion, and preferred soft power subversion instead.

It wasn't because they couldn't use hard power - if anything they were more militarily dominant in the past - but because domination through economic superiority is preferable. It creates much less resistance.

The imperialists of the past were no less brutal or ruthless, but they weren't stupid. They understood that maintaining western hegemony depended on the illusion of international law.

The fact that they are now having to resort to direct aggression is the opposite of a sign of strength, it's a sign of weakness and desperation.

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cfgaussian @lemmygrad.ml 2d ago

It's r/China so it's actually pretty good for Reddit standards. I liked this comment in particular:

You are now in the position of a flat earther on the space station. You can see with your own eyes the shape of the earth. So why are you insisting it's flat?

cfgaussian @lemmygrad.ml 2d ago

Nothing to see here. Just another confused liberal.

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cfgaussian @lemmygrad.ml 2d ago

When you start from the axiomatic assumption that the anti-China propagandists cannot be lying, you have to assume that it is reality itself that is lying to you.

cfgaussian @lemmygrad.ml 2d ago

In my estimation, the western empire acts quite a lot like a cult as narrative and loyalty goes.

You've really hit the nail on the head. It is exactly like a cult. Up to and including the threat of very real and brutal consequences as a result of ostracization by the cult.

See: EU extrajudicial sanctions against people who have a different opinion on Russia-Ukraine than the one allowed.

They will literally try to starve you and your family with no trial and no legal recourse. And people in the cult will justify and celebrate it.

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cfgaussian @lemmygrad.ml 2d ago

Of course they would have, if the US imposed a blockade and criminally hijacked tankers off the high seas. What are they supposed to do, pick a fight with the US Navy? It's not a question of will, it's a question of capabilities. Material reality. Maduro does not have superpowers to magically teleport oil to Cuba and neither did Chavez. I haven't seen the interim administration of Venezuela do anything so far that Maduro or Chavez wouldn't have done in the same circumstances.

It's obviously not ideal, but you have to play the hand you are dealt. For now Venezuela and Cuba are both practicing strategic patience. They are betting they can outlast whatever the US can throw at them in the short term.

Because everyone can see that, in the long term, the US is in decline.

cfgaussian @lemmygrad.ml 2d ago

Don't believe your lying eyes!

cfgaussian @lemmygrad.ml 2d ago

Perhaps. We will see. They need to do something to save face, something that can be spun as a "win". Very likely there will be some kind of attack, because they cannot be seen to back down now.

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cfgaussian @lemmygrad.ml 2d ago

I don't think that the assessment about Venezuela was wrong at all. The reason they went for a kidnapping rather than trying to actually occupy it or get embroiled in a protracted invasion is because they know it would have been a disaster. The kidnapping was an easy PR win but it changed nothing in terms of the Bolivarian socialist path that Venezuela is on.

The US captured Maduro within a few hours, if that.

Easy to do when Maduro made no secret of where he was at any time and the fact that he chose not to hide. He remained out in the public eye showing that he was not afraid. He kept the Venezuelan military in a peacetime posture, and constantly emphasized in speeches that he wanted nothing but peace.

I wouldn't be surprised if he gave explicit orders to the military to not engage against a US incursion. Whatever the case, it is clear that a strategic choice was made by the Venezuelan government to not give the US any possible pretext of "responding to Venezuelan aggression".

The US has come out of this looking like criminal violators of international law for all in the world to see, with an unjustifiable act of aggression against a peaceful country. This was not a win for the US. Such rogue acts only accelerate the transition to multipolarity.

Anyway the comparison with Venezuela is asinine because Iran's military is on an entirely different footing and on an entirely different level.

The US has more than enough forces for a sustained bombing campaign if the choice is made.

Yeah, for a couple of weeks. Then they will sue for peace again just like last time, especially once Iran starts hitting their bases in the middle east and shutting down the Persian Gulf. No matter how many forces the US amasses it is still a bluff. Iran can outlast them.

The US/Israel are betting on an internal revolt following some kind of "decapitation strike" to overthrow the government because they buy their own propaganda. They fundamentally underestimate the domestic support of the Iranian government.

Just one look at the numbers and you can tell a lot of these articles by politico or whoever are just making stuff up. Information warfare.

So are the numbers you are quoting. The build-up itself is a form of psychological warfare. So is overstating US capabilities and spreading false narratives about the 12-day war. It is meant to intimidate Iran and its supporters by portraying the US/Israel as invincible with their "stealth wunderwaffen". It hasn't worked and it won't work. There are no wonder weapons.

The window for action is narrow.

The window of action has already passed. Iran has more than enough capabilities to survive and embroil the US in an unwinnable war that would devastate the global economy. Trump wants a quick PR win, that is the lesson that you should learn from Venezuela.

The build-up is part of his typical brutish "negotiating tactics" of applying pressure and intimidating the other side into making a deal. Just like he did with the tariffs, which were also a bluff, and one that China called just like Iran is calling this bluff.

cfgaussian @lemmygrad.ml 2d ago

Well, isn't it? Last i heard they own more than 25% of the shares and sit on the board.

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cfgaussian @lemmygrad.ml 2d ago

I'm confused. What is anti-semitic there?

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cfgaussian @lemmygrad.ml 2d ago

Good. Settlers and their accomplices should leave occupied Palestine. A bluff is still a bluff even if calling it forces a double down as the only way to save face when the intimidation attempt fails. Whether the US backs down or whether they are forced to launch a disastrous (for the US and the Zionist colony) war, which they cannot win that will further drag their empire down, is still a win for Iran. The only way for Iran to lose is to allow itself to be intimidated by US threats.