FunkyStuff [he/him]

No Republican had to give anything up to achieve this, this is literally just the Democrats doing exactly what they want to do because they want to do it.

They have a journalistic responsibility to include relevant information and seek comment from relevant groups. The article doesn’t include any comment from healthcare professionals or advocacy groups, nor does it contain any information about potential consequences of the surgeries being banned. It fails to actually inform the public on the issue at hand, and the auxiliary information that is brought up just puts the medical procedure into question by positing it as controversial (yeah, controversial because of transphobes) and questionable. Presenting only a limited section of the issue, but making it seem like it encompasses its entirety, makes this article functionally the same as transphobic propaganda.

Stalin Putin shouldn’t have stopped at Berlin Bakhmut.

There is absolutely reason to capitulate: the fact that the Ukrainian Armed Forces have an average age above 40 and are absolutely scraping the barrel by conscripting any poor man they find. There is no universe where Ukraine pushes back the front to recover any substantial amount of territory. They have already attempted to launch counteroffensives in better conditions, and all they’ve achieved is to slow down Russia, never actually regaining any territory. The only reason they’re even in the war still is because NATO wants to sacrifice Ukrainian lives to weaken Russia, and corrupt Ukrainian politicians are making a quick buck by privatizing they country in the meantime. This is obviously not sustainable long term; in another year or two they won’t be able to recruit more people, or they’ll run out of artillery shlels.

Of course, if you want to enter into debt with no strings attached (no such thing, but let’s just say minimal strings attached) you don’t go to the IMF. The IMF is the loan shark of the world. Makes the claims that China is doing “imperialism” so completely absurd when you put BRI next to the IMF and the World Bank. Also, if you just read Lenin for a little bit, you’ll realize there’s an enormous difference between the myopic, manipulative activities that Western colonialist finance capitalists are doing, vs the long term mutual development plans China is putting into action.

Went ahead and did it:

Source for GDP estimates was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)

Top 5:

1. Sierra Leone, 7.61%
2. Central African Republic, 7.46%
3. Barbados, 5.97%
4. Suriname, 5.62%
5. Argentina, 5.13%

Yeah, meant globally though, so top 5 countries by % of their GDP as debt. Could’ve expressed that more clearly, sorry.

Would be cool to see the same statistic relative to each country’s GDP.

The nature of the dialectic is for it to continually and fluidly evolve, every now and then contradictions mount to a point of qualitative change and give rise to a new system that resolves the contradictions of the last, but gains new ones. It never ends. Marx only said, capitalism will bring about socialism, which will in turn bring about communism. Everything after that is too far away to really make any concrete statement that isn’t grossly biased by the conditions of our time.

The proof is the article, the burden of proof to provide a comparable case of someone who happened to be doing the most suspicious thing possible and was crucified by the media, yet turned out to be innocent, is on you.

If I had to pick which person is exhibiting behavior in a discussion where one side is playing devil’s advocate for a dude who had 2 small children in his hotel room in an area known for kidnapping and child sex abuse, and another is saying the obvious despite not technically having strong evidence beyond the previously stated, my finger’s on the guy that doesn’t understand burden of proof.

Can you elaborate on how modern sanctions have materially changed from how they were pre-Iraq?

The current situation over in China still allows internet users to easily access services like Facebook or YouTube through VPNs, it was more of a measure of digital protectionism to allow local development of IT companies, online business, etc. If China wants to do similar censorship in response to these measure, they very well could still crack down on VPNs.

Justifying their attacks with claims of superiority, defending the obvious contradictions with equivalence. Classic motte and bailley.

I’ll incorporate this in my own agitation, thanks Luntz!

Allow those things and you’re proof that Bernie bros are just as bigoted as the Trumpists, disallow them and you’re an authoritarian with no respect for .

(disallowing them is 100% the right call btw)

The state is part of the superstructure that is shaped by the economic base, which is in turned maintained by said superstructure. However, changes in the superstructure are never transformative unless they also come with radical change to the mode of production. Billionaires, and the capitalist class as a whole, completely block the path for the workers to seize the means and reshape society towards progress. It doesn’t matter what faffing idiot you put in power in the state, when the economic base keeps operating with the same logic of capitalist extraction.

If Libya didn’t want us to drag their popular leader through the streets and humiliate him before assassinating him, completely destabilizing the country and establishing open air slave markets, they should’ve thought twice before supporting a misogynist.

Love to live in a world where China is committing genocide, everyone was paying close attention and were super concerned, then Ukraine happened and suddenly everyone dropped it. How is anyone meant to take that seriously? You’re telling me China did the second Holocaust and all that came of it was some people stopped buying Nikes? Hello?