• ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I said that UK and the rest of US vassals states weren’t independent because they’re entirely dependent on US for military protection as well as US economy. This is the system US set up after the end of WW2 which is what NATO essentially is, a protection racket. US has a long and well documented history of political influence and interference in Europe, and entire books have been written on this subject. Claiming this is some sort of a conspiracy theory is the height of hilarity.

    It’s saying disproportionate wealth equals disproportionate power. Which should be obvious, no person should have too much wealth or too much power. That’s why the US government was designed with checks and balances built in, which is not working as well as desired, but works farrr better than you see in a dictatorship like Russia.

    What it says in black and white is that the government in US passes policy in the interest of people with disproportional wealth. The study actually very clearly explains that the checks and balances US has are no better than in Russia. Again, don’t take my word for it. Here’s what the authors of the study conclude as reported by BBC:

    “American democracy is a sham, no matter how much it’s pumped by the oligarchs who run the country (and who control the nation’s “news” media),” he writes. “The US, in other words, is basically similar to Russia or most other dubious ‘electoral’ ‘democratic’ countries. We weren’t formerly, but we clearly are now.

    Nobody is cherry picking anything here. You just keep acting like you’re being told something outlandish out of sheer ignorance.

    There’s no secret group controlling this big US Empire of vassal states. It’s many many rich people of varying degrees of wealth (from the US or the UK or elsewhere) all fighting amongst themselves for more, and most of the time hurting the rest of us common folk in the process.

    Nobody suggested anything of the sort. That’s just a straw man you’re using to pretend you have some point here. There doesn’t need to be a secret group controlling US empire of vassal states. All that’s needed is having shared class interests that rich people have. Meanwhile, it’s obvious that US oligarchs want to exploit countries like UK to create more profit for themselves, and US being the dominant economy in the west puts them in a position to do so.

    • FaeDrifter@midwest.social
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      1 year ago

      Here’s where this turns into a low IQ conspiracy theory.

      You take a man, whose entire life and personality are devoted to business and capitalism and profit. Born with a golden spoon in his mouth, he’s in every wealthy inner circle, he even pays a ghostwriter to write him a book called “The Art of the Deal”.

      He gets voted into the single most powerful position in the US. He now has the single best position to enrich himself and his family, like he has literally devoted his life to doing. He talks to his inner advisors, they crunch him the numbers, and he decides he wants to pull out of NATO, because it costs the US more than it profits.

      I’m a business man. That’s how business works. You want to be profitable. If a deal isn’t profitable, you back out. Only keep the deals that make your business money.

      It’s a no-brainer, if NATO was the imperial profit generating machine you claim it to be, Trump would have been all over it. Trump would have expanded NATO, expanded the borders, made more wealth. That’s what Business men like Trump do. That’s why Nazis, like Tankies, are anti-NATO. Nazis don’t want to pay to protect other countries, Nazis want more power. Nazis would just invade a country, like Russia does, not tried to maintain an expensive treaty.

      If you find yourself often agreeing with Nazis on worldview and policy, you need some self reflection.

      • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        I agree, your straw man is a low IQ conspiracy theory.

        The reality is that there are plenty of different capital interests in US, and not all of them are aligned. Some US capitalists make money from financial investments and prefer globalization, others are industrial capitalists who run the military industrial complex. Anybody with a couple of brain cells to rub together would understand that US capitalists don’t have homogeneous interests and that Trump represents the financial camp that doesn’t see much value in NATO.

        The only low IQ take here is to think that Trump speaks for your entire capitalist class when it’s pretty clear that US capitalists are fighting each other.

        I also love how you expose yourself as lacking any capacity for critical thinking here. Just because the nazis are against NATO doesn’t make NATO a good thing. The fact that you frame what you support solely in terms of opposing what the people you don’t like support really underscores your intellectual capacity. I guess if nazis eat food and breathe air then you should stop doing that too.

        It’s always hilarious to see how liberals are incapable of thinking of anything in systemic terms. Everything is just a knee jerk reaction.

        • FaeDrifter@midwest.social
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          1 year ago

          I never framed NATO as a good thing, lol (reading comprehension is difficult I guess). I just pointed out that it costs the US more than it makes. Although given Putin’s invasion, the capitalists of the military-industrial complex are 100% making a profit, so I guess they can thank Putin for his choice to make them lots of money.

          True, the capitalists don’t have homogeneous interests. You can’t have an empire without an emperor - a single unchanging authoritarian leader that decides the movement for the rest of the country.

          • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            It’s a no-brainer, if NATO was the imperial profit generating machine you claim it to be, Trump would have been all over it. Trump would have expanded NATO, expanded the borders, made more wealth. That’s what Business men like Trump do. That’s why Nazis, like Tankies, are anti-NATO. Nazis don’t want to pay to protect other countries, Nazis want more power. Nazis would just invade a country, like Russia does, not tried to maintain an expensive treaty.

            That very clearly frames NATO as a good thing since otherwise the orcs would invade you. Never mind the fact that NATO expansion was the reason for the war and that NATO is the primary destabilizing force in the world today.

            You can’t have an empire without an emperor - a single unchanging authoritarian leader that decides the movement for the rest of the country.

            You used so many words to say you’re historically illiterate. Late stage empires have always looked precisely the way US empire looks today where the oligarchs put in political puppets to do the governing. Late Roman empire often had demented old men as emperors who didn’t actually make any decisions.

            I just love how you flaunt your ignorance with each and every comment.

            • FaeDrifter@midwest.social
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              1 year ago

              That very clearly frames NATO as a good thing since otherwise the orcs would invade you.

              I wouldn’t call anyone an orc, but Russia is an imperialist power trying to expand its border through a military invasion, so that is always something you need to consider. I don’t consider it to be a good thing to lay down and let colonizers run over you.

              NATO is not good, but Putin gives reason for NATO to not disband yet.

              Never mind the fact that NATO expansion was the reason for the war

              Lol, no. Did it influence Putin? Sure. Did it make the decision to lie about invading and then immediately after invade like he’s a helpless little puppet on strings? No.

              The $1 billion question is why isn’t Putin reaching out to create defensive treaties with his neighbors first. Why not a defense treaty with Ukraine?

              Once you can figure that out, your worldview will start to be a lot more sane.

              Late Roman empire often had demented old men as emperors who didn’t actually make any decisions.

              The US is not a late state empire like Rome. That’s a * hits bong * “what if history is just like repeating itself over and over again man” kind of take. Not that no similarities exist.

              Just list for me for how many years the US has a demented old man in charge.

              • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                I wouldn’t call anyone an orc, but Russia is an imperialist power trying to expand its border through a military invasion, so that is always something you need to consider. I don’t consider it to be a good thing to lay down and let colonizers run over you.

                Nobody who has any clue regarding the subject believes that Russia is an imperialist power trying to expand. Plenty of western experts have been saying that NATO expansion would lead to a war for many decades. This only became controversial to mention after the war started. For example, here’s what Chomsky has to say on the issue recently:

                https://truthout.org/articles/us-approach-to-ukraine-and-russia-has-left-the-domain-of-rational-discourse/

                https://truthout.org/articles/noam-chomsky-us-military-escalation-against-russia-would-have-no-victors/

                50 prominent foreign policy experts (former senators, military officers, diplomats, etc.) sent an open letter to Clinton outlining their opposition to NATO expansion back in 1997:

                George Kennan, arguably America's greatest ever foreign policy strategist, the architect of the U.S. cold war strategy warned that NATO expansion was a "tragic mistake" that ought to ultimately provoke a "bad reaction from Russia" back in 1998.

                Jack F. Matlock Jr., US Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987-1991, warning in 1997 that NATO expansion was "the most profound strategic blunder, [encouraging] a chain of events that could produce the most serious security threat [...] since the Soviet Union collapsed"

                Even Gorbachev warned about this. All these experts were marginalized, silenced, and ignored. Yet, now people are trying to rewrite history and pretend that Russia attacked Ukraine because it’s aN iMpeRiaLisT PowEr TrYinG tO ExpaNd. Maybe you can explain why Russia has never tried to invade places like Kazakhstan which would be a lot easier to do.

                NATO is not good, but Putin gives reason for NATO to not disband yet.

                Oh weird, then why did NATO not disband after USSR dissolved and before Putin was in power?

                Lol, no. Did it influence Putin? Sure. Did it make the decision to lie about invading and then immediately after invade like he’s a helpless little puppet on strings? No.

                Read above and educate yourself instead of making clown of yourself in public.

                The $1 billion question is why isn’t Putin reaching out to create defensive treaties with his neighbors first. Why not a defense treaty with Ukraine?

                Because your regime ran a coup in Ukraine in 2014 and overthrew a democratically elected government to put literal fascists in power. Here’s western media reporting on your friends

                and here’s what they’ve been up to since 2014 as even CNN reported at the time

                The US is not a late state empire like Rome. That’s a * hits bong * “what if history is just like repeating itself over and over again man” kind of take. Not that no similarities exist.

                You really love to straw man don’t you. I gave you an example of a late stage empire not having a strong emperor in charge, nowhere did I make any comparisons with the US.

                Just list for me for how many years the US has a demented old man in charge.

                I dunno can you do basic math to figure out how may years it’s been since you chuds elected Trump and then Biden?

                • FaeDrifter@midwest.social
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                  1 year ago

                  The $1 billion question is why isn’t Putin reaching out to create defensive treaties with his neighbors first. Why not a defense treaty with Ukraine?

                  Because your regime ran a coup in Ukraine in 2014 and overthrew a democratically elected government to put literal fascists in power. Here’s western media reporting on your friends

                  This is astonishingly stupid, you completely sidestepped the question. Let’s assume your point about 2014 is true, that’s still 23 years Russia did not form a treaty, which would have prevented the coup. That should have been the easiest, most obvious first move to counter NATO. Instead Russia is tearing itself apart trying to keep its claws dug into a little bit of Ukrainian territory.

                  In any scenario where you create an image of the west as some kind of empire overlord powerhouse that manipulates all global events, you make Russia and ex-Soviets look hopelessly stupid and incompetent.

                  • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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                    1 year ago

                    This is astonishingly stupid, you completely sidestepped the question.

                    I did not sidestep any questions. Ukraine and Russia had normal relations until the coup, and Russia was even fine with Ukraine joining the EU at the time.

                    Let’s assume your point about 2014 is true, that’s still 23 years Russia did not form a treaty, which would have prevented the coup.

                    There was no need for a treaty because there weren’t any tensions between Ukraine and Russia, Ukraine also expressed no ambitions to join NATO until the coup, you get that right? All the problems started after the coup.

                    Instead Russia is tearing itself apart trying to keep its claws dug into a little bit of Ukrainian territory.

                    In what universe is Russia is tearing itself apart exactly? Russian economy is growing, the government has higher approval rating than pretty much any western country, and Russia managed to refocus its trade away from the west. Even mainstream western media is openly admitting all this now.

                    In any scenario where you create an image of the west as some kind of empire overlord powerhouse that manipulates all global events, you make Russia and ex-Soviets look hopelessly stupid and incompetent.

                    Among the dumb things you’ve said in this thread, this certainly take the cake. The reason US emerged as a global hegemon out of WW2 was for the simple reason that US was not subject to the destruction of the war. While USSR, Europe, and China were completely devastated, US profiteered off the war, and then subjugated Europe to itself after when the Cold War started. I realize that you’ve had the misfortune of being subjected to US “education” system, but not understanding this is frankly embarrassing.