Well that’s an early fucking Christmas present!
Can they fuck off out of Australia, too?
Pull them all.
Right? I mean I hate Trump with a passion, but when he called out I forget how many EU nations (like 8?) that weren’t paying anything into their agreed upon defense budget. It was kinda ridiculous. Everyone talks shit about the US in every way possible until the rubber meets the road.
that weren’t paying anything into their agreed upon defense budget
A ridiculous statement; obviously false
You forget how many EU nations were paying nothing into their defense budget? The correct figure is zero (0) EU countries. Every EU nation is paying into its defense budget. Also, Trump is a liar, so it’s safe to assume anything he said about anything is incorrect. Also, the US is a shit show at the moment, so own it. Also, the US soldiers are there because it’s in the US interest for them to be there, not because they’re protecting the EU.
The above replier gives me similar vibes to USians saying “I dont like trump but canada has been ripping the US off”. No, it hasn’t. Its been the opposite since forever. From invasions in the early days to softwood lumber tariffs and now a trade war. US exceptionalism is a hell of a drug.
Canada didn’t wholly abandon domestic industry like the US did. All these years later (and covid) the US is starting to realize just what they lost and how difficult it would be to get it back.
They didn’t rip anyone off, the captains of industry chose cheaper places to innovate.
You’re conflating two separate things. US trade deals were very favorable for the US for a long time
US industries off-shored much of the production, leading to a decline in US industry
Both things are true and largely unrelated
Oh, my bad. I was really just talking about near and off shoring. I don’t honestly know much about trade deals.
I know the US gets a lot of goods from Canada and Mexico and just assumed it was because it was closer than other trading partners.
Woosh.
Finally some good news.
Don’t let the door hit your arse on the way out 👋
This just happens to coincide with the daily intrusion of Russian drones and jets into NATO airspace.
People need to realize that the US and Russia are on the same side. Putin owns Trump.
Yes, please fuck off
Good, Europe should avoid depending on the US.
Russia is struggling to invade Ukraine, the idea that Europe needs the US is ridiculous, especially when you realize that Ukraine did worse when it was getting more US support.
The USA is not an ally, they’re opportunistic jackals, the second they stop profiting they’re out. We’re better off without them, they can’t be trusted at all.
Good. Kicking fascists out of Europe is a good thing.
Societal collapse is imminent. I just watched a historian predict this only days ago. FWIW, he’s Chinese immigrant to Canada.
Now Germany will be forced to step up.
Then Russia claims its 1941 all over again.
Now Europe is at war.
Nobody is talking.
Nobody is trading.
First world amenities dry up.
Everyone else starves.
Mass migration.
Destabilization from within as governments swing further right in response to a very real “national identity crisis” as uninhabitable parts of the world move to the habitable.
Social systems buckle under the weight of unaccounted for millions surging in.
Totalitarians seize what power is left to keep theirs while they can which only further isolates everyone.
In the midst of Europe doing this, the Middle East has Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the independent militias allied with the IRGC as proxies exacerbating things throughout the region by targeting Saudi (American-aligned) petroleum facilities. Also harassing anyone in Hormuz and the Red Sea because they can. And uh, have we heard about how difficult it is to stop the rebel mountain tribes in that part of the world from operating as they please?
Tl; Dr https://youtu.be/C5o3tgr-AgI
This breaks down pretty quickly under scrutiny.
Germany steps up military, probably.
Russia claims it’s 1941 again: not really… 1940s Germany was already invading, and it was more than Russia involved in that. There’s currently amicable relations between them and the UK, France, Spain, Italy, etc…
Nobody is talking.
? There’s so much cross nation communication. Plus there’s official venues to address issues in the EU, UN, etc…
Nobody is trading.
Not reflected in the actual trade numbers… Except for the US where there are nonsense tariffs changing at the whim of an orange clown. Overall international trade is continuing fine and mostly recovered from the COVID dip: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/growth-of-global-trade?time=2000..latest
Is Russia - this same Russia whose stated reasons for invading Ukraine require less scrutiny than any of my claims to be revealed as utter bullshit - really so above exaggerating a threat to justify a response that is in Putin’s best interests versus everyone’s? And what about the AfD and their nationalist tendencies?
I saw that Sweden(?)'s Far Right party got spanked despite early polls much to my relief, but there’s still way too much Trump-style fascism out there to say that any of what this guy laid out is genuinely far-fetched. The scenario he lays out complete with maps is disturbingly feasible.
I personally hold on to the hope that there are enough genuinely good people in the world to be able to avert the worst of things for those I know personally, but as first-worlders we have a very different perspective on just how fucked up the world actually is from, say, kids in Gaza. You know, not living in a warzone which is actively trying to genocide us with a secondary goal of bringing about the literal end of the world as they believe it because sky daddy.
My synopsis was poor and that’s entirely on me, but the video is worth watching even if you don’t like the interviewer or the premise. Which I don’t. It is all terribly uncomfortable to examine as he has. Which is why its worth watching.
I’m skeptical and (perpetually) short on time; but I’ll queue it up and give it an initial opportunity to make a case.
My stance going in is that Russia’s failed invasion and the US debacle in Iran make future aggression less likely (at least for the short term). I’d argue it’s similar to how the US “war” in Vietnam diminished the US appetite for war ~50 wars ago.
War is costly to direct participants; only Israel seems to have a continued appetite for it among developed nations… Putin’s once solid grip on power is now showing significant cracks, Trump & republicans currently look to lose some share of electoral power due to their policies (which involves more than just Iran, but that seems to be the single biggest polling impact).
I’ll certainly acknowledge the tensions in the middle east could easily inflate to become a larger conflict. Hopefully the wiser people prevail over the “strongmen” who somehow keep getting elected.
I can appreciate the skepticism, and I wouldn’t have pressed the issue if I didn’t appreciate both your approach and your position.
Regarding the war in Vietnam, that was back when we had leaders who were bothered by things like optics and polling. Nixon was a crook, lied about it, got caught, was impeached, felt shame, resigned during that era. That precedent clearly doesn’t apply here.
The issue with Israel/Iran is that the US is feeding on all sides of it. Trump is doing whatever the hell he’s doing and in order to (in his mind) save face, he’s gotta do something big. So the oil pipeline to the rest of the world gets shut down. Manufacturing and shipping slows by default. What shipping does occur is under assault by Houthis and the IRGC because hurting trade hurts the US.
It’s a very ugly cascade web effect.
And once more, thank you for hearing me out through my own verbal static.
That guy is a hack.
I see, thinly veiled right wing immigration rhetoric then.
Nah. Just how people behave in groups. Or is recent history too opaque?
Recent history being what?
I dunno, the past eight to ten years of western politics shifting right? The resurgence of fascism in an increasingly globalized world? The fact that despite how we feel there are clearly pluralities of people who support that evil shit and actively cheer it on while declaring anyone who sees the value in trade and cooperation a liberal cuck bitch etc etc?
I hated his message. Especially at the end when he says “I’m okay because I believe in God.” Plainly, fuck that and fuck him. Doesn’t mean I can’t hear the logic in everything else he’s saying, however.
Also I kinda can’t stand the CEO kid because he gives equal weight to morons like Musk and Thiel, but he does at least have decent follow-up questions.
We don’t have to like something to appreciate what it means.
Inviting Putin to invade.
The US has been saying Europe needs to do more to defend itself since Obama, and likely before that even.
This should not come as a surprise. And to be honest, they have a point. The state of some European militaries while one of their neighbours is actively being invaded is pretty embarrassing.
who got a good, role model military? China? Ukraine?
Russia not that good. America is very bad.
Ukraine definitely, their armed forces are pretty damn good.
Poland has a very high degree of readiness, they’ve been part of Russia within living memory, and don’t want to go back.
