Musk claimed that a journalist just posting their names was committing a crime. Doing real harm to his little twerps would probably put you first in line for the Gulag

The one whose name sounds like a printer model

For the record, every major country is enagaged in Political Warfare against their enemies so I’ve said nothing controversial. Secondly, China is not inherantly bad or inherantly virtuous. They participate on the global stage just like everyone else, so you should ask yourself why you immediately dismiss China’s agency here. Finally, and most importantly, China’s approach to Political Warfare is laid out in the Three Warfares doctine, and has been well-documented. You can read more about it here if you’re really interested acting in good faith: https://sci-hub.ru/10.1080/01402390.2013.870071

If not, you can continue to label people who say things you don’t like as conspiracy theorists. Oh and I’m not a Democrat, I’m probably further to the left than most people on this app but I don’t worship or apologise for vast and powerful nation states. Whether that’s China or anyone else.

Edit: spelling

I think it’s important to make such arguments without neglecting to point out that some very real, very desperate people are counting on the assistance USAID currently provides. People will die because of this.

A much less evil way to handle this is to reroute the funds to some benign organisation who will carry out the existing functions of USAID. But that’s not what Musk is doing. There’s no nuance. Much like his first month at Twitter, he’s just taking a wrecking ball to the government and seeing what’s left standing. Unfortunately the largest imperialist arms of the US government (State Department, DoD) are still left standing, while the one that is currently relied upon by some of the most desperate souls on the planet has been destroyed.

It was no secret that USAID was an arm of the State Department and used as a smokescreen for CIA business. But that won’t matter to all the mothers who will watch their infants die because Musk pulled the plug with no warning

That’s literally what USAID was for. For spreading anti-communist, pro-capitalist, sentiment by feeding the needy. Until the world’s evilest richest man got rid of it and showed how nakedly corrupt the US political system is

Let’s not forget that China is actively engaged in political and information warfare against the West. Any hypocrisy they can point out will just contribute to the fracturing of alliances between the West and the rest of the world. So it very much benefits them, strategically and financially, to point out stuff like this. Not that I think the people of Gaza will care about the selfish reasons a superpower might have for speaking up for them

Some insight from across the pond:

Our last Prime Minister was a British Indian from the Conservative party. Recent right wing and far-right members of cabinet have included many more Brits of Indian descent, including two of the most heinously anti-immigrant cabinet members we’ve ever had. One of them, Suella Braverman, ran for party leadership on an anti-immigrant platform, pointing out that Indians are the largest group who overstay their visas in the UK.

I think very similar things can explain why Usha Vance, Kash Patel, Vivek Ramaswamy and the like can align with an openly racist MAGA crowd:

1. Class matters more than race. Most of these people grew up privileged and don’t identify with the common immigrant or brown person’s experson

2. Power hungry people come from all backgrounds and will do whatever they need to get what they want (in Usha Vance’s case that’s being first lady one day)

3. Submitting to model minority status, as many well-to-do immigrant families from South Asia do, means implicitly accepting, and ultimately reflecting, white supremacist values

And as with all issues rooted in history, you can blame the British for some of this. A white supremacist world view where Indians stand above the darker races was introduced to India by the British over a century ago. The British wanted East Africa to become “the America of the Hindu” so they educated and trained a generation of Indian colonial administrators and enforcers. This world view of Indians as superior to others, if subordinate to whites, did not disappear with colonialism. A lot of the people who held those views came directly to Britain and their children became right-wing voters and politicians. The connection with the US is less of a straight line, but you can hear it when you listen to Vivek talk about African-Americans, for example.

You couldn’t invent a more cartoonishly evil guy than ‘than world’s richest man, who actively took food out of the mouths of starving people so he could save a little bit on taxes’

I’m well aware of how Bernie turned individual donations into a funding juggernaut. But if you think a third party candidate would win in a first past the post system, then you’re the one who’s not paying attention

The sad thing is that no Democrat will say fuck the norms to undo corporate fuckery, or to fix serious problems of inequality, or to slash the military budget, or to save the precious planet we live on from climate doom. They’ll insist on doing things the right way but get 1% of their agenda done before the other team takes over and rolls all progress back 50 years

I feel like I’m on something. Was there a deleted comment because I’m struggling to follow what happened here?

There was 0% chance a third party candidate was winning in 2016, Bernie or not. There was about a 50% chance of Hillary winning.

Also, viewing this as ‘bending the knee’ is so juvenile. Bernie knows who he is and has advocated for progressive values for longer than most of us have been alive. He made a calculated decision to do what had the highest chance of defeating Trump. It’s not his fault that Hillary and the Democratic machine are completely inept

You mean him running as a third party candidate? That’s a guaranteed loss under the current electoral system. He would’ve siphoned votes from both sides, but more from Hillary and delivered Trump an electoral college and popular vote victory. The left would’ve been demonised even more than they already were and AOC/The Squad would never have been elected to congress in 2018. Under First Past the Post, the only option for a populist progressive candidate is to do what Trump did. Take the party over from inside out. Going third party is just a fantasy.

Bernie was ratfucked out of the nomination, no doubt. What happened in West Virginia, for example, where he won all counties and they lied about it, was insane.

But… you cannot blame him or call him a coward for doing the right thing. At some point he saw the writing was on the wall. They were coronating Hillary no matter what. The next president would either be Hillary or Trump. Bernie put country before himself and stood aside. He didn’t make Trump’s path to victory any easier, and actively did his best to prevent a dangerous man from rising to power. None of that makes him a coward, it makes him a leader. A mensch.

Trump’s first term was like this for me. Every day was like watching a car crash and waiting, praying for someone to do something.

I told myself I wasn’t going to do it this time, but we’ve gone from the slow-moving car crash of the first term to a full-on NASCAR accident happening every day. Not paying attention feels like they’re winning, but there’s only so much I can take

They know she’s popular enough to win a general election one day, just as they knew Bernie was. But the moderate crowd would rather lose with one of their own than win with a progressive

The difficulty is asking people to get started with this. People want to get to work/navigate as quickly as possible to where they need to be, they don’t want to be figuring it out. Social media can be janky and you’ll be patient, but if you’re late for something because you’re struggling to adjust to an app you’re more likely to go back to Google/Apple Maps

Kanye still gets features and collaborators despite his Nazi turn. All the major rappers associated with him chose silence over condemnation. Biggie would most likely make the same choice with Diddy

His ego couldn’t take the mockery. Hence the 22 cry-laughing emojis when he was actually seething