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5 yr. ago
  • I feel for you comrade but I really must advise you that unless your parents are wealthy and willing to set you up you really need either a HS diploma or a GED. You can get GED's online often. RV's are expensive, even used ones cost a lot of money and there are maintenance concerns. The type of money you're going to struggle to get without a GED or diploma.

    I'd recommend if you think school isn't for you that you get that GED, you find a trade, you get certifications in it or whatever and you start working on that path. I knew someone in a similar situation to yours, ADHD, only they lied about college not HS. They had dreams of van-life and things like that but didn't do anything about it and though their parents let them live with them for a while what eventually happened is both retired, felt money was too tight and they moved away and left this person homeless. If they hadn't had an uncle willing to take them in they would have been on the streets and in terrible danger but even so things are not that great for them.

    So I'd highly recommend getting that GED since conventional school doesn't agree with you and then picking up a trade. Because life will be sooo much better and easier for you if you do those two things and it'll give you the money and ability to move away from your family and live how you want in a secure way that retail work (where you're often not paid enough to survive and have to roommate up) just often won't in many areas (especially heading into a trade war with tariffs where retail could crash). You'll have so much more to fall back on than without them where you're going to kind of be a leaf on the wind which can sound kind of romantic but for every great writer who has that kind of bumming around and bumping into success as a backstory there a thousand people who are suffering and stuck on the streets sometimes until they die who tried doing the same thing but failed and were abandoned whose stories are never told in our capitalist society. Don't think the odds will favor you, take care of yourself, be safe but get a plan, find a trade, get a GED. It's some work and pain now yes but it saves you a lot of work and pain later and for the rest of your life compared to trying to go without.

    Looking at that list darkernations posted, pretty much everything there requires at least high school degree (or GED) and/or on top of that some certifications or community college.

  • I partially agree, I think drugs should be outlawed and/or limited. I'm not against people in certain mental health situations being given ayahuasca or similar drugs with potential therapeutic effects but I don't think people should be able to buy heroin at the corner store for regular recreational use and that there should be allowed this drug culture (420, etc) around it.

    I think ceremonially people should be allowed reasonable limited amounts of certain substances like alcohol (and weed) in state regulated amounts (like tied to a state ID card) like a bottle of wine for new years and a few other holidays and a bottle of whiskey a year but not like 2 bottles of whiskey and a case of beer a week type consumption. Not you know spending every other day high out of your mind on weed for hours at a time. I think what weed that is available recreationally should be weakened back to mid 20th century levels of THC and no one under 24 should be allowed access to it given the potential dangers to developing brains. As smoke is a carcinogen by itself consumption in that form should be discouraged for those who wish to use it, those who require it be done that way for traditional ceremonial/cultural reasons can still do so but most should be encouraged to bake it into foods or imbibe in some other manner that reduces the harm.

    I understand why under capitalism people drink heavily or do lots of drugs, how miserable life can be, how hard labor conditions are so I'm not in favor of harsh restrictions on alcohol/weed under capitalism (though I'm also not in favor of legalization of more hard drugs which would be used to harm the proletariat, drug people into a sense of uncaring acceptance, exploit people to addict them to a product for profit, etc).

    I think it's a definite harm and people don't understand that say the type of weed that Stalin smoked was like a hundred times weaker than the stuff you can buy in a shop today. Back in Stalin's day weed was a mild relaxant really compared to what it is today.

  • US News @lemmygrad.ml
    darkcalling @lemmygrad.ml

    US teen killed parents, plotted to kill Trump and flee to Ukraine

    A very extreme example of Ukrainian Nazism supporters (this guy openly wanted to topple the US government because he believed it was controlled by Jews and saw Ukraine as a based Nazi bastion). Some kid killed his parents and was in talks with someone online about hoping to kill Trump and get asylum in Ukraine.

    A Wisconsin teenager accused of murdering his parents also plotted to assassinate US President Donald Trump and flee overseas while framing Russia for the crime, according to an unsealed FBI affidavit.

    Nikita Casap, 17, was charged last month with first-degree murder after police found the bodies of his mother and stepfather, both shot in the head, inside their Waukesha home. He was arrested in Kansas after fleeing in a stolen vehicle with $14,000 in cash, passports, and the family dog. Officers also recovered an unloaded revolver, boxes of ammunition, and two cell phones during the traffic stop.

    “Casap appears to have written a manifesto calling for the assassination

  • I think it would be a mistake to view China as isolated in this.

    In -ALL- of this? No. In this specific situation where everyone else has already slipped the tariffs? Yes. Absolutely they're standing on their own basically in the immediate moment.

    As to US soft power I think Trump was already the sign that they've given up on that. If they hadn't they wouldn't be gutting all the soft power operations with DOGE and doing so much damage to image with threats to annex Greenland and Canada. I think the die has been cast there that hard imperialism is the way forward, cold war 1.0 playbook basically. I think Ukraine was a wake-up call because US propaganda didn't pull in the global south, it just plain failed outside of Europe and US vassals in Asia. What soft power they retain will be aimed at "traditional values" crowd as in the cold war, running up red-scare stuff about Chinese commies gay marrying you against your will and things like that.

    America is very much in a do or die situation and we know it, they know it, China knows it. They're trying to undergo a transformation which will either succeed in prolonging their grip on power or hastening their demise, the way to delay and hedge against either was to continue the old path but that led to certain doom while this they feel gives them a chance.

  • So many people here who are so uncharitable towards me...

    Please point out where I said "this plan is brilliant and guaranteed to succeed and socialism and China are doomed and we're fucked and Trump and the US are the most masterful planners to ever exist" or anything along those lines which everyone seems to assume I've said based on the hostile response.

    Not a one of you has pointed out how this is impossible for the US planners to be thinking this or acting along these lines. It's no more ridiculous than assuming it's all just Trump throwing a tantrum or doing greedy things which to me is true absurdity when it's clear there are bipartisan plans. It's buying into the liberal lie that Trump is some aberration breaking things which were it the case Biden would have reversed a lot of his decisions instead of doubling down.

  • We shall see won't we? I wouldn't discount dollar hegemony and control of things like SWIFT given the replacements are years away still. For that matter I wouldn't discount how Europeans and a few other vassals may be happy or coerced into offering themselves as firewood for the US empire to keep it going.

    Notice to the downvoters: I never said this would work I just said I think this is their thinking. But apparently even the idea that the reactionaries have some sort of cogent thought or plan in their head is anathema to far too many people here. I'm sorry to say there is at times in the western left a kind of circle-jerk of acceptable logic. It pays to at times attempt to get into the heads of our enemies.

  • This is just phase 2.

    IF Trump was rattled by China's retaliation he would include them in the pause and pretend it had nothing to do with them, he'd attempt to play it off as a global thing so as to not given undue impression of power on China's part. That he hasn't tells you he doesn't care.

    The point of this was never hurting say India. It was always about China, other nations were included to disguise this fact and to shake them down because why not. Also to pressure them to bring them into the fold for the next phase.

    But the fact that China's tariffs were increased, not removed tells you all you need to know. Namely they are absolutely dead serious about decoupling from China.

    India is not going to help China, they're a reactionary/fascist nation actively trying to stab China in the back and take their industry and courting the US for a trade deal which the US will give them in exchange for helping move important (iphone, etc) manufacturing from China to India for the US. China is courting them anyways in public but it won't work. The only real allies China has in this are likely to be Vietnam (maybe, US is trying to peel them from China and stoke division and these moves were going to badly hurt Vietnam but were pulled back), DPRK, Russia. The US likes those odds. The US feels it can deal with an isolated bloc of those countries and Trump feels he can maybe peel Russia away with time.

    China made a call and Trump seized on them trying to stand fast and rally the world to them to fight the US by giving everyone else a reprieve and thus no reason to stand with China while he leaves them isolated and alone. They can't back down now so in a way I think Trump has them where he wants them. Namely standing alone, with the rest of the world negotiating with the US on terms which will doubtless include measures to pull them into the US orbit and away from China's orbit in exchange for tariff relief.

    I don't disagree with China's call but they may have walked right into a trap of certain intent and design by the US. To be fair they didn't have any great choices. If they just bowed their heads and pleaded on their knees things would also be bad for them. I've heard that Trump admin has been refusing meetings with envoys and so Trump and co are lying about China not trying to negotiate, it's just a lie they're pushing while they refuse to listen or treat with China so they can justify all of this and cast China as the belligerent aggressor who doesn't want to be fair.

    It's about isolating China. It's about creating economic interests and incentives that isolate China and I think its working at least at this stage. The pause will cause most countries to come and negotiate and most will be given relief for token concessions which Trump will trumpet as big deals and big wins.

    The US may indeed be intent on devaluing their currency to make exports competitive but as part of this they have to isolate China, they have to smash Chinese industry and competitiveness and look what we have? China standing alone against the US, calling out to other nations who even now slink away from it leaving it alone because no one else wants this fight, they all want to take the out because the US is still too strong.

    China needs to use what strength it has to really hit the US.

    Though I worry it doesn't matter. I worry they've built into their plans a hope that tariffs can continue to spiral out of control, that Chinese goods become unaffordable, that the economy crashes, that supply chains are forcibly rerouted and there are years of shortages but that they achieve a quick, fast, if painful decoupling from China leaving them free to isolate, sanction, blockade, and attempt to destroy China using their navy, their control of global finances to sanction and make trade with China for third party nations impossibly expensive or painful, and so on and use this to crush Chinese industry and economy, to break up the belt and road, to re-enslave the global south that China was trying to free with better loan and development terms. If that's the case and capital doesn't revolt and I think there's a very good chance it doesn't as at least tech capital seems to be standing with Trump and can always be bought off with specific exemptions for say Apple to import x amount per year not subject to tariffs then China has a hell of a fight ahead of them.

    And no rerouting goods through India for finishing for lower tariffs isn't a long-term solution as at that point the capitalists begin to ask why they're paying those higher Chinese wages and then a cut for the Indian finishers when they could just move production itself to India as Apple has been doing to a degree.

    The way for China to defeat the US and specifically Trump's anti-Nixon shock was to rally other countries to it and create their own system based on common interests of resisting US tariffs and they seemed to be making moves to attempt this, but now no other major country on earth (save maybe Russia which is subject to sanctions instead of tariffs) has that common interest, the US quickly peeled them away by offering everyone else a way out but keeping China in the cross-hairs after China had already escalated leaving China alone locked in a loop of escalation with the US with other countries looking on but having no interest in challenging the US while it's still this strong.

  • They’re a cabal of pedophiles. And also what you said and they took Anakin because of that but usually take all kinds of kids under the guise of training them. CTH talked about this on and off throughout their 3 riff tracks for the movies.

  • Cope

  • Democrats didn’t introduce it. It’s a ballot initiative (submitted by private citizens) and the writers named it that but it’ll get a number instead if it’s voted on and if it becomes law it will be as prop #x.

    Democrats are not that cool in California or anywhere.

    Just typical reactionary distortion of California. Though this is not smart given how many reactionaries agree with what happened in NY.

  • It's begging to be weaponized against LGBTQ people to push selective cases to push the narrative that they're all like that, just as the Nazis had regular columns on "Jewish crime" to give the impression the Jews were all criminals. Or to be used as a cover. I think in Russia there were stings for gay people done along similar lines, filmed and they'd often accuse them of being child molesters, of being after kids which was the homophobic narrative there.

    It's a very sick individual-centered, glory-seeking approach to a problem which is fundamentally that capitalist cops don't invest serious resources in this, are often predators themselves, etc because they don't exist to protect the citizens but to protect capital. The solution then isn't these individualist acts of violence and attempts at mob justice but collective action, not for views, not for clicks, not to portray oneself as some sort of hero but to actually tackle the problem. It's also of course an issue of the family, of the lack of community involvement in each others lives which makes isolating kids easier. But that would require actual work, community-building, effort, it wouldn't be dramatic, it wouldn't stoke the egos of those involved, it wouldn't sell on youtube, so nothing is done.

  • Nuclear umbrella's are interesting to talk about but I think they're a bluff against any kind of peer power. Washington is not going to get LA, NYC, Dallas, Denver, San Diego, Boston, Washington DC and a hundred other American cities wiped off the map to avenge say Seoul getting nuked or Berlin getting nuked by the DPRK or Russia respectively.

    Because nuclear war is hard to do in a limited way between nuclear powers. A nuclear power can nuke a non-nuclear power in a limited way because the non-nuclear power cannot respond with any nukes let alone a full barrage that completely destroys them. But once you hit back at a nuclear power that can wipe you off the map the doctrine states any limited strike is only an attempt to blind you and suppress your response before a full strike, you can't know what is or isn't coming in terms of more so protocol is launch a full response and at that point both parties are destroyed and those do no good to the umbrella party which previously was still intact and spared and could undertake other choices against the attacking party.

    Likewise I'd have doubts if China extended a nuclear umbrella to say Iran that they'd be willing to hit the US with a nuke because the US hit Iran.

    Certainly the US has a lot more to lose as does France in hitting back a big nuclear power than say China who is still a rising power, still does not have any kind of vassals, whose only interests in security are immediate neighbors like Vietnam/DPRK that they've assisted in the past militarily. But even there I think it would be a hard choice to make watching say the DPRK in flames but knowing if you hit the Americans back that Beijing and every other city in China will be in flames as well.

    The US might buy such an umbrella for the DPRK and say Vietnam from China and not hit them but they wouldn't buy it for say Pakistan I think because of the dissimilarities there. Likewise the US probably buys Russia's threats to defend Belarus because well they've backed them into a corner, they know they've backed them into a corner and they have almost nothing left. The US on the other hand and France can stand to lose a lot, they have a lot of countries and/or ocean between them and enemy states like Russia/China.

    I think it's easier to turn the other cheek unless you really think you can suppress the enemy's response.

  • I'm worried that they arrested this guy and his wife and disappeared them to a torture facility under the notion that they're spies because they chatted with colleagues about work topics while in China thus giving away valuable 'murican knowledge and advantage to the dastardly Chinese. Either that or they got lucky and skipped the country first, hope it's that one but I'd expect they'd be saying something.

  • Well in a way they would be but the US wants to be the one to actually field the weapons. The zionists have been saying they might resort to using their nukes and Trump and the US given the strategic situation are saying, "no, if they're used, we'll use them to assert our power and dominance and deterrence and enhance our credibility as an empire that can still fuck you up if you don't obey us". Plus the US doing it vs the zionist entity means less blow-back for the zionist entity directly. If the zionists do it, with the current climate against them through much of the world a BDS movement might build to a fever-pitch amid calls to completely isolate the outlaw state which would be a headache at least for the US requiring them to pour more resources in. But if the US does it, well the US is vital to world trade and though they're pissing people off with tariffs presently it's not practical to attempt to strangle them from a consumer point of view via buying choices and pressure campaigns given their size, reach, financial, economic, cultural, etc power.

    And best of all with the US they have Trump in power who has been sold as an aberration. They can simply push him out or he'll die and then they paint his actions as too far, as being those of a dictator and that the US has changed(tm) and was like that then but has learned and is now better and a perfect angel.

    Mostly the US fears its vassals nuclearizing and gaining independence from them that way. Very few strategic enemy countries to the US don't already have nuclear weapons already so the risk of proliferation is not really seen as a problem in using nukes. Vietnam still isn't likely to pursue a nuclear weapons program but even if they were they're important enough to China that the US couldn't invade without Chinese retaliation anyways. Other than that who is there? The AES alliance in Africa might have the raw uranium to make nuclear weapons possible but they lack the industry, the science, the knowledge, and the base to put them together and build ICBMs anywhere near fast enough to be able to create a credible deterrent (though they are close enough to Europe they could get by with shorter range missiles able to hit 2500miles away in say Berlin or Paris and use that to threaten the US into backing off, still even that would take a lot of work).

    Importantly using nuclear weapons in defense of a vassal would the US may think re-assure other vassals like occupied Korea who have been murmuring about acquiring their own nukes, would re-assure them not to try and do that but that the US will use nukes in their favor if the time comes (hint: it won't as long as the DPRK can hit numerous cities in the US mainland in retaliation which it should be able to soon). So it would be a credibility building maneuver after Ukraine's humiliation.

  • I've often wondered and worried about this.

    It's easy to be anti using nukes against another nuclear power that can completely destroy your country in retaliation (e.g. Russia), it's not so common when the enemy is a non-nuclear power who your simulations show would defeat you in a conventional war leaving you humiliated, weakened, and looking both for the whole world.

    In such a situation it's obvious the option there if you'd lose in a conventional war is to deploy nuclear weapons. When you're the US you already have far too many of them for deterrence needs, they're decaying, after Ukraine your credibility is in question and nuking a smaller power that can't do the same back would send a message to the whole world: it doesn't matter if we can't defeat you conventionally, if our interests demand it we will obliterate you using nuclear weapons to maintain our empire and hegemony.

    It won't cow China or Russia, it will cause them to build up even more capabilities and become alarmed but both already are to some degree by US saber rattling and actions in Ukraine as well as talk of actions in the SCS. But it doesn't have to, the point then is it cows smaller regional powers to not dare to challenge the US, to know there is ZERO HOPE, (hope has been killed so to speak) of resisting if the US deems there to be a strong enough imperative. That you either bend over and submit at our sanctions or you pray you're not important enough to war over because if the US goes to war and you're important enough and you start defeating them, they'll just nuke you. That's the message it sends. That you cannot win against the US unless you're a nuclear power and to nuclear powers it signals the US may be run by mad men who would even use nukes against them knowing they might be destroyed in the counter-attack.

    For some countries becoming a nuclear power is possible but not for most. It's a time-consuming and expensive process to not only develop multiple, dozens of nuclear warheads but the capability to deliver them as payback intercontinentally to the US via ICBMs. It's also a process you cannot hide and once the US knows they might be tempted to nuke you to stop you from getting any further to say nothing of sanctioning and blockading you as they have done with the DPRK.

    The thing is, what was stopping this from being done before was the US image, the propaganda narrative of this liberal/progressive shining city on a hill type place contrasted against "authoritarian" "dictatorships" of bad-places(tm), that it would look incredibly bad. But with Trump they've made a turn, no more of that, no more DEI, traditional values, traditional values and so on. Naked strength. And this I think is tied back to Ukraine, which was the moment they learned all that work, all that propaganda wasn't enough to get the global south on their side at which point some faction (which I believe has power now) said basically well we need to revert to the old ways of hard power and intimidation and open gangsterism then, hence allowing Musk to tear down the edifices of this old way of trying to shape the world, to bulldoze them in favor of this new policy, this new naked oppression and power.

    More than that I'm afraid that Russia's constant threats of having to use their nuclear weapons against the west if they got directly involved, of outlining a policy where if a defeat is imminent they reserve the right to use them IF such a defeat was in a war of strategic importance necessary to the survival of the nation. I'm afraid their successful usage of this has only emboldened US planners to think and plan along similar lines and logic, the precedent is there so to speak for them. For the US defeat in any war against an important regional power like Iran would be a danger to the survival of their nation-empire so under this rational they could easily justify it using this kind of thinking. The west will never miss a beat to weaponize the desperation of a weaker country (Russia compared to US+NATO) to advance the conversation, the window of the acceptable in their interests.

    And it makes sense from a cold calculating point of view. Most countries are not nuclear powers, those that are will not intervene and get in a direct war with the US to protect non-nuclear power countries who are not immediate neighbors and vital to security and interests (e.g. Vietnam and Korea for China, Ukraine, Georgia for Russia).

    I honestly worry about Yemen, compared to Iran that at least has some strategic importance to Russia and some economic importance to China in the B&R, who would be outraged on any grounds but moral ones if Yemen was nuked by the US or the zionists? Not many major powers and it would be awfully tempting to make an example of them, perhaps even to use it to send a message to Iran before hitting them with nuclear weapons that they're serious and will use them.

    Fact is also the US and the zionist entity smell blood in the water. Iran has been routed, they are on the back foot and have suffered major strategic defeats. Their influence and power is at a multi-decade low. They've lost Syria and Assad, Hezbollah is dazed and somewhat weakened with Lebanon pounded and their supply lines through Syria now cut meaning Hezbollah is weakened after being decapitated. Hamas can't be in a great position, there's a question I'd say of how much ammunition and weaponry they may still have for a prolonged war and sad as it is to say the zionist entity has basically won the battle, they've won US support to take and colonize parts of Gaza, they've destroyed large parts of it, they're trying to squeeze out the remaining Palestinians and I have doubts the Sunni Muslims in the region actually would do anything but some protests and flag burnings, nothing to topple the US regimes that rule them or cause the US to think twice in other words.

    So the US wants to inflict the final blow on Iran and lock down hegemony and control of west Asia as part of an ability to cut off the belt and road, to encircle and blockade China as well as control that vital crossroads. Trump would accept their fealty, their subjugation to the US, their renunciation of ties with China, their pledge of obedience to the zionist entity, their in other words removal from the chessboard as an impediment to US control of the region.

  • As someone else put better than I, you need to free yourself of the western propaganda framing that is "authoritarianism" as a snarl word and an insult as well as a set of blinders designed to shut down critical thought and inquiry.

    Was the US "authoritarian" when it installed brutal military dictatorships in south Vietnam and Korea? How about when it supported Pinochet and helped him murder leftist catholic priests? When did it stop being authoritarian hmm? Like a serial rapist was it ever doing anything but putting on an act of being good? Because deep down that's what it is. It can pretend to be good, it can even on the surface seem to be on its best behavior but deep down it's structurally a monster and like the serial rapist is not going to be reformed. Let me remind you Biden fully supported Israel's genocide against the Palestinian people so don't go thinking Trump flipped a switch from good-mode to evil-mode or something. Trump just cranked the dial up a bit more on the brutality and oppression machine and got it extra revved up domestically (the red scare ring a bell? there were actually two of them, this isn't the first time, how about after 9/11 when anyone not with Bush was a traitor and they passed the Patriot act to punch holes in the constitution and rule of law?).

    One should be wary of over-simplifying but I'd be remiss not to point out the old war-time adage that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Obviously this isn't always true but when fighting a unipolar hegemon that won the cold war, that has dominated the entire world ever since, that controls finance, wields dollar hegemony, sanctions as weapons against anyone who displeases it, who violates international law flagrantly without consequences, you can't get too picky. You can be critical, you can point out that hey I heard those guys we're temporarily allied with saying they want to knife us once we win the battle together and that's wise and you should be critical in your head of capitalist powers who are not friends out of choice but out of necessity. Yet as long as that necessity holds they are friends. We call this critical support. We support Russia against NATO and the US, we don't support Russia's reactionary moves at home, their homophobia, etc.

    And no, Russia cannot replace the US if it falls as an equal or worse imperialist power. US world hegemony was built directly on the legacy of centuries of European colonialism, it was cemented in a unique historical moment in 1990 with the illegal dissolution of the USSR. It was not built in other words in a year or a decade but the work of centuries, cemented by various historical events which cannot re-occur. For one China has risen and is continuing to grow in strength. This is historical materialist analysis, this is analysis based on the material realities and the historical material realities.

    So yes Russia may become an enemy but for now the greed and arrogance of the west is forcing them to be our ally. Russia wanted to be an equal capitalist partner with the US over Europe and eventually other parts of the world. That would cut into profits, it couldn't be allowed, like all large countries which cannot be easily subjugated the US slated Russia for being broken up by internal ethnic tensions, it stoked problems in Chechnya and various other regions, it started a fire in Georgia, then in Ukraine. It's the same thing in China and Xinjiang, divide and conquer. The British used this strategy to occupy and plunder India for a hundred years, pitting various minor powers against each other, keeping Indians divided, subterfuge and shifting alliances to maintain the upper hand. Again and again Russia reached out their hand attempting to be a partner with the US and again and again the US responded by turning a blow torch on it. With Ukraine Russia may have finally learned that it is not going to happen.

    See also this post and the excellent replies explaining the history behind Russia's move in Ukraine if you haven't already: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/7357678

  • Hmmm. Will we see the US invade to claim the canal anyways? Or perhaps just lean on Panama to invalidate the contracts and seize the ports to sell to the US? Guess we'll find out how much bite the US has left.

    There's also this:

    The person added the development does not mean the deal has been called off, and April 2 is not a hard deadline. The second source, who also declined to be identified for similar reasons, said talks are still very much underway.

    Also apparently these are only 2 of 5 ports around the canal. It's interesting, the way the US propaganda rags phrase it China has exclusive control of both ends of the canal because of these ports.

    Probably the company tries to do something to ease the pressure at home and give the US something but what that might be I don't know. I could see them trying to do something like selling some sort of stake but not outright control to Blackrock, something that can be presented as not capitulating in China but as a successful raid and seizing of value and a veto over port use by the US or something. I don't see the US backing down on this and when push comes to shove they can just use sanctions to pressure the company.

  • Honestly I wouldn't use technology. I'd avoid it as much as possible. I'd go to meetings in person without phone and make sure everyone else does the same. I'd arrange future meetings in person with hand signals to draw the person out of a room with electronic devices into one without before discussing the when, where, and why.

    Just so many ways for it to be used against you by the empire with their hacking of telecoms and devices.

  • GenZedong @lemmygrad.ml
    darkcalling @lemmygrad.ml

    Saw a post on lemmy claiming Signal downloads in Yemen have increased

    I hope this isn't true. Signal is in the ways that matter compromised by US national intelligence. They demand phone numbers to sign-up and though it's possible they can't read the messages they know who is talking to whom and that's far more interesting to intelligence and drone targeting.

    Because with that you find someone using it who is a known member of Ansar Allah, you then find who they're talking to, those are also probable members or supporters of the movement and you find who those people are talking to and suddenly you have a network of people to drone strike along with their phone numbers which can be used with hacking of cell networks to reliably pin-point their location.

    This is bad opsec and I almost think this whole press person added accidentally thing may be an op to get more people aware of Signal and on it as opposed to other platforms.

    World News @lemmygrad.ml
    darkcalling @lemmygrad.ml

    Thousands protest Trump son-in-law’s Serbia hotel project

    (Archive link)

    They're building a luxury building which might as well be a victory monument on the site of an army compound NATO bombed in 1999.

    Jared Kushner plans to build a luxury hotel on the site of a military headquarters in Belgrade bombed by NATO in 1999

    The location for the new hotel in central Belgrade is the General Staff building, a former Yugoslav army headquarters heavily damaged during NATO’s 78-day bombing of Serbia and Montenegro over the Kosovo conflict. Over 500 cilviians were killed by the US-led military bloc throughout the months-long raids, which had no backing from the UN.

    The Serbian government last year approved a multimillion-dollar deal with Affinity Global Development, to redevelop the location. The agreement includes a 99-year lease for a three-block area and plans to build a Trump-branded hotel, luxury apartments, offices, shops, and a memorial for bombing victims.

    Opposition parties have criticized the deal, w

  • This is just the usual Russia pokes and prods the zionist entity's local ambassador and they issue a condemnation because they want good relations with Russia. Meanwhile the main entity itself, its government with the borders of its colonization is silent. This has been going on for several years now. The main entity refuses to condemn because well they like Nazis and there's no benefit to them.

  • The west has been brewing fascism in Ukraine longer than most people on this website have been alive. Besides that those Banderite fascist militias aren't going to all do suicide attacks on Europe or just give up and sit in their homes watching football.

    They're going to be fighting and they are organized, armed, trained, and still have ties to western intelligence which would likely want to prevent a communist take-over as communists would be against NATO, against the US and align with Russia, China, etc.

    Some of these Hitlerite worshippers will put on business suits, act as liberals, tone down the use of swastikas and so on but still make sure to find time to use the resources of state or their old friends to beat up and murder any leftists gathering in numbers and this will be fully, emphatically supported by the EU and the US.

    Most Ukrainian Nazis have not been killed. They are blocking units who retreat first and keep the conscripts fighting. They will be alive at the end of the war.

    They've indoctrinated a whole generation of kids into Nazism in their schools and before that liberalism.

    Besides that China is strictly non-interventionist. Russia, their big important ally would not at all be okay with them meddling and setting up socialism there right on their border nor is China in the habit of exporting revolutionary thought. They very much would like for the newly joined regions in the east to be solid voting blocks for Putin's party of United Russia as they likely will be as Putin is the one who saved them.

    The western parts of Ukraine have long had larger problems with fascist/nationalist sympathies as well as liberal aspirations. Very good chance they double down on fascism and stabbed in the back myth or just seek to become EU euro-liberal types thinking that's the formula for success. Fact is the Eastern parts are already part of Russia as far as Russia is concerned and they were the ones with the strongest pro-Soviet nostalgia I would bet and probably with the strongest communist movements.

  • World News @lemmygrad.ml
    darkcalling @lemmygrad.ml

    Panama to scrap participation in China's Belt & Road after meeting with Trump's envoy Rubio

    non-archive link

    The US has demanded curbs to Beijing’s alleged influence over the country’s key waterway

    Panama will not renew its participation in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, President Jose Raul Mulino said on Sunday.

    The announcement comes on the heels of Mulino’s meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who demanded “immediate changes” to management of the Panama Canal, a key waterway built by the US in the early 20th century and handed over to Panama in 1999. Washington believes that China has too much influence over the waterway.

    “The 2017 memorandum of understanding on the Belt and Road Initiative will not be renewed by my government,” Mulino told reporters following the talks with Rubio, adding that his government will also study the possibility of terminating the deal earlier, as it is not due for renewal for a couple of years.

    During the talks, Rubio warned Mulino that by allowing Ch

    Comradeship // Freechat @lemmygrad.ml
    darkcalling @lemmygrad.ml

    The knee-bending to Trump signals part of a shift

    We're seeing something happening.

    All these wealthy and powerful people who snubbed Trump now flock to him to talk. Class is now on full display as even those who disdained him now flock to be courtiers in his court. Capitalist diversity initiatives designed to paper over the exploitation of the system with carefully tested language and a few hiring preferences are being tossed out. The long, decades-old corporate push in this direction has been discarded.

    This is a sea-change and a departure from the collective shrug of the powerful to his first election years ago.

    The question is are they visiting Trump to kiss his ring? Or are they visiting him to make him kiss theirs and telling him what the plan is now that they're onboard with the reactionary side of the culture war and are shifting messaging and strategies a bit?

    The Democrat-led but empire supported push for cracking down on "disinformation" and "misinformation" which targeted domestic problematic elements outside the gri

    World News @lemmygrad.ml
    darkcalling @lemmygrad.ml

    The US could join Israel to strike Iranian nuclear sites, sources have told the newspaper

    The transition team of US President-elect Donald Trump is considering options for targeting Iran, including a direct attack on its nuclear facilities, sources have told the Wall Street Journal on condition of anonymity.

    [...]

    Trump is understood to have told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a recent phone call that he does not want Iran to go nuclear on his watch. Tehran denies that it wants to achieve nuclear capability [...]

    ”Trump aides and confidants supporting military options for his second term said the main idea would be to support Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities like Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan, and even potentially have the US participate in a joint operation,” the newspaper reported.

    The Times of Israel reported this week that the Netanyahu government is preparing strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities. The sites are highly fortified, so i

    US News @lemmygrad.ml
    darkcalling @lemmygrad.ml

    Days earlier, the Pentagon reported another major breakthrough with interception of an intermediate-range ballistic missile

    The US Department of Defense (DoD) has reported a successful test of the hypersonic weapon system dubbed the Dark Eagle, which is being developed jointly by the Army and the Navy.

    The two military services intend to use the same hypersonic glider warhead, the C-HGB, whose booster rocket could be launched from either land or a vessel, including a Zumwalt-class destroyer and a Virginia-class submarine.

    The recent test launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida and which the Pentagon announced on Thursday, involved the Army’s version, officially named the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW).

    The weapon has a reported range of 1,725 miles (2,775km), with the warhead travelling at speeds of over 3,800 miles per hour (6,115km/h), which corresponds to Mach 5 and defines the weapon as a hypersonic projectile.

    The joint program faced del

    World News @lemmygrad.ml
    darkcalling @lemmygrad.ml

    US State Department is denying visas for Chinese tech company employees who wished to attend CES: Global Times

    The annual CES (formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Show) is set to take place in Las Vegas, the US. It is reported that around 4,000 exhibitors from around the world have registered to attend, with more than 30 percent of them coming from China. However, latest media reports indicated that many employees from Chinese technology companies were denied US visas despite holding invitations to attend. Some commentators have called this visa rejection "unprecedented." So far, there has been no official response from the US government on this matter. We urge the US Department of State to verify relevant reports as soon as possible, reduce visa and entry policy obstacles, facilitate normal people-to-people business and industrial exchanges between the two countries, and implement the consensus reached by the two heads of state.

    [...]

    For this reason, the large-scale visa denials faced by Chinese companies have left even the American side, including the event organizers, stunned

    World News @lemmygrad.ml
    darkcalling @lemmygrad.ml

    (https://archive.ph/xkEFP)

    Plans are being made to freeze the conflict by sending 100,000 foreign troops to the country, according to the SVR

    The West is secretly planning to occupy Ukraine and freeze the conflict with Russia by deploying tens of thousands of supposed peacekeepers to the country, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has said.

    In a statement on Friday, the spy agency cited intelligence sources as saying that NATO is increasingly in favor of halting the hostilities along the current front line, as the US-led military bloc and Ukraine have come to realize that they are failing to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia.

    Freezing the conflict would allow the West to rebuild the shattered Ukrainian military and “prepare it for an attempt at revenge,” the SVR stated. It further claimed that NATO is already setting up training centers to process at least one million Ukrainian conscripts.

    “To solve these tasks, the West

    World News @lemmygrad.ml
    darkcalling @lemmygrad.ml

    (archive link)

    The idea of direct Western participation in the conflict is reportedly back on the table, according to the newspaper

    The UK and France have “reactivated” talks on sending troops to Ukraine, French newspaper Le Monde reported on Monday. The idea has already caused a rift among European NATO members.

    Back in February, French President Emmanuel Macron caused controversy by declaring his willingness to send ground troops to Ukraine “to prevent Russia from winning this war.” The statement was quickly disavowed by NATO officials, while German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told reporters that Ukraine’s Western backers were “unanimous” in their opposition to the idea.

    The plan was seemingly shelved, Le Monde has reported, until British Prime Minister Keir Starmer visited Paris earlier this month. Citing anonymous sources, the French newspaper claimed that talks on a possible Franco-British deployment to Ukraine were “reactivated” by Starmer

    World News @lemmygrad.ml
    darkcalling @lemmygrad.ml

    Greta Thunberg joins Georgia protests on side of color revolution forces

    The climate activist is supporting a push to overturn the national election by the country’s pro-Western opposition

    Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg joined thousands of demonstrators who marched on the Georgian parliament in Tbilisi on Monday as they protested against what they say was a rigged election last month.

    The parliamentary elections in the former Soviet republic took place on October 26, with the ruling Georgian Dream party, which advocates pragmatic relations with Russia, winning around 54% of the vote.

    Various opposition parties each garnered between 11% and 3%. The opposition has refused to recognize the results of the poll, insisting they were falsified. President Salome Zourabichvili has backed these claims, urging the people to protest and saying Georgia had become a “victim of a Russian special operation.”

    In an interview with Reuters, however, she insisted that she was not directly accusing Moscow of meddling, saying only that the “methodology

    US News @lemmygrad.ml
    darkcalling @lemmygrad.ml

    (archive link)

    Democrats are reportedly coordinating activity on Reddit and abusing X Community Notes

    Kamala Harris’ and Tim Walz’s campaign staff have organized “astroturf” operations on the social media platform Reddit and conspired to manipulate the Community Notes feature on X, according to an American researcher.

    The Harris-Walz campaign “fraudulently games Community Notes with sock puppet accounts and astroturf tactics. And we have the screenshots and spreadsheets and campaign comms to prove it,” Sean Davis, founder of the outlet Federalist, posted on Wednesday.

    Davis was citing a series of articles by a researcher going by the handle ‘Reddit Lies’, including screenshots taken from the Harris-Walz server on the messaging platform Discord, purporting to show how the Democrats conspired to swamp social media with their content, while suppressing criticism.

    What a surprise. All that crying about Russia, Russia, Russia. Many of us have long

    World News @lemmygrad.ml
    darkcalling @lemmygrad.ml

    Pentagon Claims DPRK Has Sent 10,000 Troops to Russia to Fight in Ukraine

    For those a bit confused, this is the first time the US military has agreed with Ukrainian and occupied Korean claims that the DPRK has sent troops intended for Ukraine itself and marks an escalation in propaganda rhetoric.

    I've archived the source to avoid giving the AP clicks for uncritically carried western propaganda.


    US issued meaningless threat that they would be considered combatants and targeted by weapons the west gave them if they fought there alongside Russian troops (duh, very confusing and kinda telling statement).

    “Today, I can confirm that North Korean troops have been sent to Russia, and that North Korean military units have been deployed to the Kursk region,” NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte told reporters. Rutte said the move represents “a significant escalation” in North Korea’s involvement in the conflict and marks “a dangerous expansion of Russia’s war.”

    Adding thousands of North Korean soldiers to Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II will

    World News @lemmygrad.ml
    darkcalling @lemmygrad.ml

    Georgia’s pro-Western opposition refuses to accept election defeat (potential western coup underway)

    Leaders of several opposition parties in Georgia have said they will not recognize the results of the weekend's national parliamentary vote. According to the official results, the ruling Georgian Dream party received almost 54% of the vote, while various opposition forces attracted between 11% and 3%.

    Georgian Dream party chairman Mamuka Mdinaradze has claimed the party is likely to win at least 90 of the national chamber’s 150 seats, up from the 74 it won in the last election. The party will then be able to form the next government since a simple 76-strong majority is needed in Georgia to pick the next prime minister and cabinet.

    Tina Bokuchava, who heads the pro-Western Unity-National Movement (UNM) party, has accused the nation’s central election committee of doing Georgian Dream’s bidding and of “stealing the European future” of Georgia.

    "The European future" really giving the game away with that anti-Russian chauvinism.

    Bokuchava also said on Sunday that she’d al

    GenZedong @lemmygrad.ml
    darkcalling @lemmygrad.ml

    Trust in US news media hits record low

    https://www.rt.com/news/605764-us-media-trust-drops/

    Only 31% of Americans say they have confidence that the press reports news fairly and accurately

    For the third consecutive year, the number of Americans who claim to completely distrust the media remained higher than those who trust it. The new poll, however, demonstrated a slight drop, with 36% of respondents expressing complete distrust versus 39% in 2023.

    A large gap remains between Republicans and Democrats, with only 12% of the former expressing trust in media reporting against 54% of the latter. However, the partisan gap has actually been narrowing in the last couple of years. According to data aggregated by Gallup, in 2022, for instance, some 70% of Democrats expressed confidence in the media.

    We must continue our efforts to educate the masses, increasing numbers of Democrats are becoming aware of the propaganda because of the water carrying for the zionist genocide of the Palestinian people.

    World News @lemmygrad.ml
    darkcalling @lemmygrad.ml

    The billionaire distributed the money to “fascists” through opposition figure Maria Corina Machado, the Venezuelan leader has claimed

    Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has accused tech tycoon Elon Musk of “investing” at least $1 billion in inciting violence in the South American country after the presidential election earlier this year.

    Maduro was declared the winner of the July 28 poll by the national election authorities, though the US claimed that victory had been stolen from opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez.

    During his weekly television program on Monday, Maduro alleged to have direct knowledge that Musk – with whom he has been engaged in a long-running public feud – had spent “no less than $1 billion” on “the coup d’etat, the fascist outbreak, the violence against the electoral process in Venezuela.”

    The Venezuelan leader named his political opponent, businesswoman Maria Corina Machado, as the distributor of the alleged funding to “fascist” groups, claimi

    GenZedong @lemmygrad.ml
    darkcalling @lemmygrad.ml

    Something I noticed: A lot of talk of health issues/regulation of smartphones seems to revolve around loss of productivity

    The WHO has recently declared Smartphones a public health problem.

    It's interesting that the real problem here seems to be addictive and abusive algorithms deployed by social media and gaming companies but that's not mentioned because those are where the capitalists make their money and it's forbidden to interfere with their profit generation or point that out.

    Instead they paint it as this vague addiction of which social media is depicted as merely a small part but the real problem is the hardware, the Smartphones and too much use and access to them. And the real issue is people are distracted at work (and school) and productivity is suffering.

    And the solution is bans on use of smartphones at schools and crackdowns on use at work because we can't have the proles enjoying the addictive treats we've made to distract them from their horrible lives while they're supposed to be earning us money, those ar

    World News @lemmygrad.ml
    darkcalling @lemmygrad.ml

    Filed under: Decoupling is real and happening AND India is not really a friend to the global south but happy to join with the US to backstab China for some very limited gain of its own

    New Delhi and Washington are seeking to reduce their dependence on China, which dominates the lithium supply chain

    India and the US have signed an agreement to “expand and diversify” critical supply chains for lithium, cobalt and other critical minerals, New Delhi announced on Friday.

    Both countries are seeking to overcome their reliance on China, which dominates the global supply of lithium, a mineral essential for electric vehicle manufacture and the clean energy economy.

    The pact, signed on Thursday by Indian Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, who is visiting Washington this week, and his US counterpart Gina Raimondo, will “leverage complementary strengths to ensure greater resilience in the critical minerals sector.”

    The two countries are focusing on “identifying equipment, servic

    World News @lemmygrad.ml
    darkcalling @lemmygrad.ml

    cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/20775855

    Israel conducted an unprecedented airstrike on Beirut’s southern Dahiya district on Friday evening in what Israeli media described as an attempt to assassinate Hezbollah’s Secretary General, Hasan Nasrallah.

    The strike targeted and leveled six residential buildings. The Israeli army’s spokesperson, Daniel Hagari, released a video statement shortly after the strike claiming that the buildings contained Hezbollah’s “Central Headquarters.” Lebanese media reported that over 10 Israeli missiles were dropped in less than three minutes on the complex, situated in the Haret Hreik area in Dahiya. The Israeli army’s radio said that Israeli F-35 fighter jets dropped 2000-pound bunker-buster bombs on the residential buildings.

    Lebanese first responders continue rescue efforts to pull out survivors from under the rubble. As of the time of writing, the number of civilians killed has not been specified.

    The Israeli army’s r

    World News @lemmygrad.ml
    darkcalling @lemmygrad.ml

    The video-sharing platform TikTok has deleted three Arabic-language accounts of RT, without explanation. The measure comes as the Israel-Hezbollah conflict has spurred fears of a regional escalation.

    RT Arabic, RT Online and RT Newsroom accounts vanished on Tuesday evening. The Spanish-language Actualidad RT account has also been blocked without explanation.

    They had survived last Saturday’s purge of accounts belonging to RT International, Sputnik Afrique, Sputnik Africa, Sputnik International, Sputnik Brasil, Sputnik Mundo, Sputnik Indonesia and Sputnik Serbia. TikTok has not yet commented on the latest development.

    [...]

    TikTok is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, which has come under intense pressure from US authorities in recent months. Under a law enacted in April, the social network could be banned if ByteDance does not sell it to a US owner within a year.

    I don't get this. Why give in to pressure from the US when they've already passed a law to kick you out?