The US WANTS to be in those bases because it gives them a lot of soft power in foreign relationships
I’d say that military bases within European countries is the definition of projecting hard power. If 40 000 soldiers in a military base are called ‘soft power’, what’s hard power then? Nuking the city?
And you complain about pro Israel accounts getting banned. Literally justifying the murder of children should be banable no matter what county you’re supporting. Despicable behavior that everyone now sadly expects from rabid genocide supporters.
That’s not a Västgötaspets, looks more like a mixed breed.
It’s definitely not a good precedent for governments to shut down communication platforms. But free speech is for all, and Twitter censors speech it doesn’t like, mainly left wing opinions. So I’m not going to act like free speech is the main issue here, even if I dislike governments shutting down or blocking platforms.
You know that Twitter isn’t banned in Turkiye and India because they complied with their requests for censure, since you know, those are right wing governments run by strong men that the Apartheid beby likes? Funny how free speech becomes the issue just when the requests come from governments whose ideology don’t align with this particular clown’s. GTFO with the free speech posturing, if you’re defending the free speech of a platform where it’s fine to harass trans people but you’re banned if you correctly call someone cis gendered. Free speech my ass, Twitter is a right wing cess pool, not a beacon of free discourse.
There’s evidence of apple cultivation in the middle east from around 5000 years ago as far as I know.
“ingrained in the middle eastern mentality”? I’d have a look at my own mentality if I was this comfortable generalizing several hundreds of millions of people like that. It seems like you have disdain for both victim and perpetrator irrespective of which in your mind is which, because they’re middle eastern. Weird.
Meanwhile here in Sweden, everyone’s criminal record is public, and even available to search online. Unless the crime is something minor punished with a fine. It’s really ridiculous, everything is publicly available online, like addresses, phone numbers, the cars or pets people own. Unless you have a protected identity, it’s all available to everyone online. I tried to apply for a protected identity on account of being a public servant that is involved in making decisions many people very much dislike. But I couldn’t provide a concrete threat so it was denied. It’s like the system is still geared towards pre-internet times. The system itself in fact doxxes every resident in the country.
Spent a year in the south/south east of Africa, and different variations of fermented maize beer were the most common alcoholic drink among locals.
Thobwa is the Malawian/Zambian version, while umqombothi is the South African one.
If so, then it’s just as inaccurate and ridiculous to say that Uganda, India, Algeria and Morocco have regressed in their development. What part of that do you consider controversial? Are you unwilling/unable to have a negative attitude towards the current regime, while also acknowledging that they’ve done more to develop the country than the Pahlavis ever did? There’s no contradiction at all in that in my view, those are just the facts. Iran has raised its HDI by +40% in the last 35 years, going from 0.577 in 1990 to almost 0.8 in 2018, with the international average for countries with high HDI being 0.75. Iran went from non-existent research output during the Shah’s reign to being number 15 in the World, placing 4th in Asia after India, Japan and South Korea. All of this happened within the framework of the “theocratic shitheads”, despite the existence of socially repressive laws, and not during the Shah’s time when the laws were more relaxed and all of the West supported his regime in any way possible. He was just uninterested in channeling that support into things beneficial to the people of Iran, and suffered the consequences of that by steering the country into revolution. So just comparing a picture of a woman in a miniskirt in the seventies to the mandatory hijab of today and concluding that the country has regressed in general seems like the most uncharitable and shallow analysis possible. It’s not helpful in understanding the World at all, and leads to foolish slogans like “they hate us for our freedom”, which in turn leads to disastrous decisions like the invasion of Iraq.
I don’t know why it should be so difficult to acknowledge that there are different degrees of bad, and the record suggests that the current “shitheads” are still far superior to the former. Nothing I wrote was meant to imply that the current regime doesn’t do a lot of bad stuff, there are no governments that don’t do bad stuff. To make sense of international politics at all, I think it’s essential to be able to compare different degrees of bad and grade on a curve. Just pointing and saying it’s all bad doesn’t seem like the best of ideas to me. But to each his own.
Or look at the literacy rates. At the time of the revolution, so past when this photo was taken, less than 40% of Iranians could read and write. And let’s not mention The Celebration of the 2,500th Anniversary of the Founding of the Persian Empire by the Western puppet ruler, spending millions and millions on a tent city for foreign dignitaries in the desert plains, while his subjects were living in abject poverty without access to education or health care. Let’s just look at the mini skirt in the photo and wonder at the enlightenment of those days and the backwardness of today, when the literacy rate has more than doubled in 40 years for example. But they have hijab, therefore the society has obviously regressed. That’s the measure for how advanced a society is, the length of the skirts of the few who are well off.
Hade aldrig hört luftlök! Det brukar stå supersolo där jag bor.
“Goddamn it! I don’t know how to express myself unless through anger and personal attacks!”
Alright. I was thinking about bank holidays here in Sweden. They’re generally off days for all workers here. You can choose to work, it’s not like everything is closed. But that’s a voluntary thing that your employer can’t force you to do, and which is handsomely compensated on account of it being a bank holiday. So people in the hospitality sector for example generally seem to like these shifts and there’s no shortage of volunteers to cover them. This is yet another area where the US system is raping US workers it seems.
That’s just an appalling situation for workers in the US. I work in the public sector and get 37 days off a year in vacation time. Admittedly, I work in the public sector and have a generous vacation deal, but it’s absolutely insane that workers in the US have a worse deal than many third world nations. My 37 days are working days, meaning I get almost 8 whole weeks of vacation time, on top of all the other regular bank holidays everyone else gets. The people there often seem to cherish your second amendment, but fuck, what tyranny are you guys waiting for. How about using them weapons for something else than suicides and accidental shootings?
You assumed she was muslim because she’s Iranian, I assumed she wasn’t because she was being bigoted against muslim women., which was the point of the article What you did is the equivalent of assuming Ayaan Hirsi Ali is Muslim because she’s Somali, ignoring that she’s made it her brand to vilify Islam.
Regarding the ridiculous comparison to gender: gender isn’t connected to nationality, which is the point we were discussing. Furthermore, I think most people would consider it reasonable to assume a person attacking trans people for being trans isn’t trans themselves. That you have trouble making this connection is the issue I have been criticizing all along.
Regarding what I comment on other people’s comments or don’t, you’re just reaching and it’s getting sad. It’s none of your business at all what I comment on, and no amount of nagging on your end has an impact on that decision. Either respond and defend your position or don’t. Beyond that is none of your business.
I did not change my tone in any of the comments I wrote, and it’s obvious to the people reading the exchange. It’s funny that you call it “returning to civility”, but whatever helps you cope I guess.
You literally wrote there’s no reason to believe she’s not a muslim herself. It’s still up there in your comment. If that’s not assuming then what is?
You do whatever you need to do. Again, it’s clear what I wrote and I stand by it. There’s nothing uncivil about what I wrote, that’s clear to all who read it. I don’t need one more opportunity, if you consider criticism and questioning of your ideas disrespectful, that’s your prerogative. So stop trying to threaten me into silence and do whatever you need to do in order to avoid examining your own biases.
The IDF just announced that they’ve discovered a Hamas command and control center under Jimmy Wales’ khouse. It’ll be dealt with accordingly.