zazen

My bad, good that they are. I just haven’t seen it on front page news for the significance of the event - it’s tucked away like some side story. Most of the commentary I’ve heard isn’t covering it so much as they are spinning it. The Sirius report is a very good follow that covers a lot of this btw.

The rules based order was born after WWII. Its a US led system of global governance to promote stability, trade, and economic growth which defo merely benefited China. The Bretton Woods system anchored currencies to the US dollar, which was backed by gold (US had the most gold and was the strongest most intact country after world war 2). The deal was that countries would trade using the dollar in exchange for US security guarantees and access to markets. It reinforced US dominance in exchange for economic stability and protection, but has allowed the US to abuse that power with impunity. Majority of the world now seek to create a more just, fair system where US power and the dollar can’t be weaponised against them. That system is BRICS - a summits being held right now in Kazan, Russia which Western media won’t cover for obvious reasons. By Arnaud: An interesting observation is that in many ways this war is the "rules-based order" vs "international law". We're seeing a wholesale and unprecedented attack on all institutions meant to preserve international law: the UN (with even a physical destruction of their offices in Gaza, and I'm not even mentioning the 100+ UN workers killed so far!), the WHO, the ICJ, the ICC, etc. And of course on the very laws and principles they were set up to defend and represent (be it humanitarian law, the rights of the child, the law of war, etc.). By who? By Israel and, ultimately, their backer the US who defend the "rules-based order", meaning a system outside of international law that essentially defends whatever the US judges is in its and its allies' interests at any moment in time. So if one takes a step back, that's a key aspect of the battle at play here. Which is of course immensely ironical because many of these institutions and principles under attack were set up by and within the rules-based order, often in order to preserve and entrench the interests of the order! But the world has changed, many countries have adapted to the actual rules of the order and so respecting the rules, respecting international law, has evolved from being a burden on others to being a burden on those who created them... Which is why there's now such a huge gap between the actions of the proponents of the "rules-based order" and what they should be doing if they respected international law. The other immense irony is that countries of the global South - China, ASEAN countries, South American countries, African countries, etc. - have now become stronger advocates for those multilateral institutions defending international law than the West. Because they're the ones who adapted to those rules, in many cases much more successfully than the West. All this to say that when you're told that global South countries seek to upend the "rules-based order", you need to be very clear about what you're speaking about. They seek to change the situation whereby the US and its allies can do whatever they want and thereby make a mockery of international law. In fact what they want is actual rules that everyone respects: they want international law! And those who really want to upend the rules and essentially do whatever the hell they want regardless of any rule - as we're witnessing right now in Gaza - are the West, those seeking to gaslight us into thinking THEY defend a "rules-based order". How will this end? I know how I want it to end: I strongly believe we do need a set of international rules everyone needs to abide by, especially on matters of war and peace, sovereignty, meddling in other countries affairs, etc. I don't want a "might is right" world where you can just slaughter thousands of children in total impunity if you happen to be the stronger party. But I am also a realist and I am afraid that the only way we'll ever get such a world is if the mightiest states want it to be like this. And I've totally lost any confidence in the US to ever do the right thing in that regard. Which is why I look forward to and encourage a world of reduced American influence and power where other wiser powers might succeed where America failed. If the horrors that are happening in Gaza have any silver lining, it should be this: to impress on the peoples of the world the need to ditch the US's unhinged "rules-based order" in favor of international law.

@Gennadiy1981

Terrible. “Equality” minister calling for Nakba. Not sure what’s more absurd, an equality minster saying such a thing or a “Green Party” head in Germany saying civilian targets can become legit military targets if terrorists are among them. It’s as if the West hit moral rock bottom, but they just keep digging.

You can’t convince a person who believes in a literalist interpretation of religion (whether Islam, Judaism or Christianity) on rights. Because to them God tells them what’s right and wrong. You’ll have to loosen the grip of literalism and orient them around the essential truths their religion contains, but that no religion including theirs has a monopolistic claim to. Literalist religionists need to be brought to the realisation that any extras around those truths are just cultural confetti that is contextual to their people’s history, time and place - but that those universal truths are beyond history, time and place.

It’s absolutely fine for Jews to want to seek refuge after being persecuted for centuries around the world. Palestine/Israel seems to be the most obvious and natural location due to their religious and ancestral connection. For secularists who don’t understand or care for religion, ancestry or belonging - this doesn’t mean not respecting others who do. Obviously, the problem comes when this becomes a right given to them by one group of people (Brits) at the expense of another group (Palestinians already living there). Aspirations that don’t involve injustice to another group are fine, even beautiful - but thinking in terms of your rights at the expense of another's is where trouble begins. Rights imply something enforceable, a demand, something concrete you are entitled to. But those rights stop the moment they transgress over another’s.

When commies seize assets it’s evil, but when liberal democracies do it, it’s angelic.

The question is whether “True Communism” much like “True Capitalism” can ever be implemented in their purest forms by a human nature that isn’t 100% pure. Communism demands we not be greedy for the sake of community (the commune) and assumes others will fend for us - capitalism demands we be greedy enough to fend for ourselves and assumes doing so will have a trickle down effect on those less able to compete with us. Communism throws a suffocating net on talent (suffocating innovation and growth), capitalism has no safety net for those with little to no talent.

True, I've changed it to Ultra-Zionist to specify it is the more extremer strand of Zionist that thinks that way.

He goes home a hero, but isn't a hero to the world if his cause was unjust. The framing that Ultra-Zionists come from is that this is a just cause, because it is for their survival which is at stake - which it objectively isn't by any measure. What is at stake is Palestinian statehood, dignity and livelihood which is a just cause - which is objectively recognized in international law and by the global community. The situation makes ethical warfare extremely difficult which is why the most ethical solution is a political one, not a military one. The only caveat is unless Israel's existence is at threat, which it isn't. But Ultra-Zionists will claim it is to justify the''needed'' destruction in Gaza. Gaza is a extremely small and densely populated area, making it almost impossible to have distinct military zones. This means that any military activity by Hamas inevitably takes place in civilian areas. What makes Gaza unique is the fact that Gazans have no where to escape the conflict to let the two sides battle it out - which is why the global community urged Israel to be restrained and not continue its bombing campaign. If a situation is so complex that a distinction can't be made between civilians and combatants - the ethical thing is to not go to war in the first place. Even the term ''war'' is tricky to describe this specific situation. Words aren't just labels but weapons that shape narratives and legitimize actions. Describing the situation as a "war" leads us to focus on military solutions, whereas recognizing it as an "occupation conflict" brings our attention towards political solutions and addressing the root causes of the tension which is and always has been Palestinian right to self determination, obstructed by a occupation within which settlement expansion and violence occurs.

This debate over whether sanctions negatively impact countries is gets stuck in the technicals. The main point is that if a country has internal problems, does that justify making those problems worse by imposing sanctions? Sanctions are intended to create pressure that exacerbate economic and political issues that already exist in a target nation. It may not cause a death blow to the country, but a body blow isn’t ethical either, especially when it’s the average citizen getting the brunt of it. It’s essentially collective punishment. The argument that “internal factors are also to blame” doesn’t absolve the moral responsibility of sanctioning countries. If we know that a country is struggling with governance, corruption, or a failing economy, how can it be ethically justified to further undermine its capacity to develop? By this logic, if a boat capsizes due to incompetence of the crew and captain (ie politicians) and everyone’s drowning (citizens) - it doesn’t make it okay to pierce their life jackets because the crew and captain wronged you.

The imperialistic factions within US are lashing out because their hegemony is dying out. Power is being wrestled out of American hegemony. Parallel structures and alliances are being made to ensure this - partly because the global order under the US was predatory. As we speak, BRICS is holding a summit in Kazan, Russia - where the future is being written. India and China just settled a border dispute, Saudi Arabia and Iran are on good footing - all this goes counter to the Western misconception of the global South as being some backwater, tribalistic group of countries that need Western intervention and US patrol to keep things stable. They perceive them as 'un-developed' people unable to be diplomatic with one another, when in fact it is the West who are un-diplomatic and come in the way of others diplomatic efforts. We can't get rid of greed, but channel it. The question is, which states greed has manifested in devastating ways across the world? The negative effects of US greed pales in comparison to Russian or Chinese greed - yet China and Russia are constantly painted as some global threat. Their a threat to Western dominance and false self perception, thats all.

I wasn't. Though I can see why you may view that as conspiratorial because the tone does attribute a level of intent that probably isn't there. But that doesn't change the facts, the writer just framed them in the wrong way. The problem with social programs is that when money gets involved it skews the incentives. It then becomes more profitable to manage the problem rather than solve it, and theirs a whole web of interests who become dependent on the problem persisting for their own financial needs or wants. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/04/black-lives-matter-6-million-dollar-house.html https://californiapolicycenter.org/the-bullet-train-epitomizes-golden-state-corruption/ https://calmatters.org/housing/homelessness/2024/08/hud-hcd-audit/#:~:text=A critical new federal audit,issues that affect all Californians. Of course corruption isn't just a democrat thing, its a human thing. But we can't turn a blind eye to the problems of certain policies and their outcomes which is what causes a lot of good Americans concern when they see the state of California or New York these days.

But the thing is they do own it. Private ownership is one of the capitalist mechanisms they've introduced. How can we explain that there are 400 billionaires in China, most of whom have accumulated that wealth through private enterprises with companies in their own names. It's just that the state has a lot of oversight and regulation. Again, lets say there was a commie aspiring country that had accumulated wealth, the wealthy elite got blissed out on meditation, became compassionately selfless and said to the state its time to bring this utopian communist dream into reality, then gave up their wealth.Or lets just say the state took it as their own and said it wasn't theirs any way lol. The problem of maintaining that wealth to be re-distributed and circulate is the problem communism runs into. As stated in my message:

In non-communist cases, sanctions are clearly weaponized against countries to maintain US hegemony or undermine those countries. It's usually the US that imposes the sanctions which then pressures others to follow suit via penalties on third parties who continue doing business with the sanctioned country. Many non-Western countries still trade with sanctioned countries through various means although it is difficult to do. Sanctions are basically economic warfare and can result in chaos, instability and deaths indirectly via poverty. But in the case of communist countries it's clearly a response to seizing foreign assets without compensation. @Bobby_2021 Leo's reasoning is sound in that if a country expropriates foreign assets this can expect a response as it violates property rights and global norms. Whats understandable is that countries want to achieve economic sovereignty and weaken imperialistic chains, but how they do so can back fire. If done so in a revolutionary way rather than a gradual way through buy outs, partnership etc this causes back lash and capital flight - because why would anyone want to invest in a country that could just seize your investment (to nationalize it) without compensation. Related to above, the issue is that the process involves theft when it wants to transition to communism - which is un-ethical and assumes that the elites who got rich through capitalist elements will voluntarily give up their wealth for a communist utopia. But lets say they do. The problem then is that communism assumes the wealth it takes which was built off of capitalist mechanisms can then be sustained without those mechanisms. In simple terms, if capitalism is good at growing the pie, and communism divides the pie - how does it replenish the pie? Wealth isn't static, once the pie is eaten its eaten. Communism fails at making pies and growing them due to lack of innovation and incentives. Where Marx is right is that capitalism comes before communism, because Communism first needs something to re-distribute in the first place. But he shouldn't stop there - how does it then maintain there's something to be continuously re-distributed when you get rid of the mechanism that creates things to re-distribute. Once the pie runs out, another revolution will occur, capitalism will come back, and communists will say lets try again because the last time we didn't implement it properly. Communism can work in a tribal settings but is much harder at scale where communal ties barely exist. But technological advancements could help resolve a lot of the issues. If work can be automated with AI and robots then we don't have to worry about incentives to motivate people to produce. Big data can be analyzed with AI to not mis-allocate resources and plug inefficiencies caused by central planning trying to manage such complexities. Blockchain and decentralization can help things not be authoritarian.

From Balaji: “VOTE BLUE, NO MATTER WHO The last objection is around motive: ok, but why would Democrats destroy democracy? It’s simple: once blues gain total control, they begin funneling tax dollars to Democrat affiliates. This is how you get a $100B train in California where no train is built but Democrat unions get paid. And this is how the homeless industrial complex makes money, by getting people addicted to drugs and then getting paid by the size of the problem: This is also how BLM burned down black businesses while lining blue pockets, and why student loan relief goes to Democrat voters and in general why so much public money produces so little today in the way of public goods. This, in short, is the blue business model. The purpose of the blue political machine is to fleece Americans while enriching Democrat loyalists. However, they can only pull off this scam with total one-party control. Outside eyes would stop the gravy train. And that's how you get “vote blue, no matter who.” Is the above a valid example of corruption from the left?

Its valid to not dismiss ideas simply for not working in the past except that certain aspects of Marxist theory, like the idea of a centrally planned economy - are inherently problematic and can lead to the kind of authoritarianism which you say is the reason for it failing in the first place. The question is whether “True Communism” much like “True Capitalism” can ever be implemented in their purest forms by a human nature that isn’t 100% pure. Communism demands we not be greedy for the sake of community and assumes others will fend for us - capitalism demands we be greedy enough to fend for ourselves and assumes doing so will have a trickle down effect on those less able to compete with us.

Two things can be true at the same time. That economically carpet bombing countries with sanctions holds them back immensely and is anti-democratic and anti-capitalist - ironically perpetrated by the West who claim democracy and capitalism as what exemplifies them. That life is too complex to fit into ideologies such as capitalism and communism in their purest forms. China doesn’t fall into the trap of aligning itself purely ideologically but see’s them as utilities/tools/mechanisms. It’s done extremely well with its hybrid system and the world should learn from it. If the core tenant of communism is that the means of production are owned collectively, in order for their profits to be redistributed equally, in order to make a society classless and stateless - China has deviated from this a long time ago. They have political authority with control of strategic industries, whilst providing social safety nets, whilst using the market forces of capitalism to generate wealth - which create classes that are evident in the disparity between rural and urban China (similar to Americas coastal elites vs rural working class) Whilst the state owns land, this doesn’t exclude people from owning the means of production to accumulate wealth through business, factories and leased property. These create inequalities (which is opposed to Communism) but that China handles the excesses of very well. Land can be leased through a leasehold system, which also occurs in Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai and UK (especially London which is owned by the Crown and aristocratic families) - yet these aren’t communist countries but in fact often hailed as the successful fruits of capitalism.

@Raze Connected to what you just shared By Jonathan Cook: ''More than 20 years ago, a group of extreme ideologues known as the neoconservatives seized the foreign policy initiative during the presidency of George W Bush. They have since become a permanent foreign policy elite in Washington, whichever administration is in power. What is distinctive about the neoconservatives is the centrality of Israel to their worldview. They regard Israel’s unapologetic Jewish supremacism and militarism as a model for the West - one in which it returns to an unashamed white supremacism and militarism in a revived spirit of colonialism. Like Israel, the neoconservatives see the world in terms of a never-ending clash of civilisations against the so-called Muslim world. In this context, international law becomes an obstacle to the West’s victory, rather than a guarantee of global order. In addition, the neoconservatives view Israel as the battering ram to keep the US in charge of international affairs in the world’s main oil spigot, the Middle East. Israel lies at the heart of Washington’s policy of full-spectrum global dominance. The neoconservatives have long been sold on Israel’s strategy for achieving such dominance in the Middle East: by Balkanising it. The aim has been to demand utter subservience to Israel, with any source of dissent not only punished, but the social structures that support it crushed into ruins. As I documented in my 2008 book Israel and the Clash of Civilisations, Israel was supposed to carry out a central chunk of Washington’s post-Iraq plan, starting with its war on Lebanon in 2006. Israel’s attack there was supposed to drag in Syria and Iran, giving the US a pretext to expand the war. The plan went awry largely because Israel got bogged down in phase one, in Lebanon. It blitzed cities like Beirut with US-supplied bombs, but its soldiers struggled against Hezbollah in a ground invasion of southern Lebanon. The West subsequently found other ways to deal with Syria and Libya. Now we are back where we started, nearly 20 years later. Israel, Hezbollah and Iran have all been preparing for this second round. The western-Israeli goal, as before, is to destroy Lebanon and Iran, just as Gaza has been destroyed. The aim is to smash the infrastructure of Lebanon and Iran, their governing institutions, and their social structures. It is to plunge the Lebanese and Iranian people into a primaeval state, where they can cohere only into simple, tribal units and fight among themselves for the bare essentials.''

Zionist imperialists love to talk of human rights and “Western civilisation” when they excel at human wrongs. Political suppressions exists but your exaggerating with burning alive lol. Israel literally burned alive a young man in a hospital bed on a IV drip.

https://x.com/suppressednws/status/1847351166231072889?s=46&t=DuLUbFRQFGpB8oo7PwRglQ So this is what’s going on in Northern Gaza as it’s now designated a terrorist zone. Israel and the US are terrorist states.

This is the conflation that takes place with people: they think because a country is democratic, it means people have choice - but they only have a choice in certain things and not others. Mostly social / cultural issues but never security / corporatist issues. Though even social and cultural causes get co-opted by security and corporate interest for their own ends. The majority of people only have access to periphery democracy, not core democracy, or in other words fringe politics (socio-cultural) that doesn't involve core power structures (national security, corporate dominance). The democratic majority manage the margins while the minority manage the direction of the entire system at its core. This is why a lot of non Westerners perceive Western democracy as fake - because for them they've only ever seen one style of foreign policy play out for decades on end (sanctions, meddling, coups, bombs and drones). So when Westerners drop the D word of democracy as if it automatically means something good, non-Westerners recoil and respond - well not for me lol.

Quotes from Jabotinsky (ideological forefather of the Likud party): https://en.jabotinsky.org/media/9747/the-iron-wall.pdf ''My readers have a general idea of the history of colonisation in other countries. I suggest that they consider all the precedents with which they are acquainted, and see whether there is one solitary instance of any colonisation being carried on with the consent of the native population. There is no such precedent. The native populations, civilised or uncivilised, have always stubbornly resisted the colonists, irrespective of whether they were civilised or savage'' ''Every native population in the world resists colonists as long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonised' ''Colonisation can have only one aim, and Palestine Arabs cannot accept this aim. It lies in the very nature of things, and in this particular regard nature cannot be changed.'' ''Zionist colonisation must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population. Which means that it can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power that is independent of the native population – behind an iron wall, which the native population cannot breach. That is our Arab policy; not what we should be, but what it actually is, whether we admit it or not. What need, otherwise, of the Balfour Declaration? Or of the Mandate? Their value to us is that outside Power has undertaken to create in the country such conditions of administration and security that if the native population should desire to hinder our work, they will find it impossible.'' Quote from the Oded Yinon plan which seem to be how history has unfolded till today https://www.voltairenet.org/IMG/pdf/A_strategy_for_Israel_in_the_Nineteen_Eighties.pdf ''Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon.'' ''Lebanon’s total dissolution into five provinces serves as a precedent for the entire Arab world including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian peninsula and is already following that track. The subsequent dissolution of Syria and Iraq into ethnically or religiously unique areas, as in Lebanon, is Israel’s primary target on the Eastern front in the long run. The dissolution of the military power of these states serves as the primary short-term target'' ''Dispersal of the population is therefore a domestic strategic aim of the highest order; otherwise, we shall cease to exist within any borders. Judea, Samaria and the Galilee are our sole guarantee for national existence, and if we do not become the majority in the mountain areas, we shall not rule in the country and we shall be like the Crusaders, who lost this country which was not theirs anyhow, and in which they were foreigners to begin with. Rebalancing the country demographically, strategically and economically is the highest and most central aim today.'' Great video:

From “Mowing the lawn” in West Bank, to settlements over the bones of Palestinians in Gaza, to declaring Lebanon non sovereign and in need of a coup or else… Israel has no shame.