binarray2000

2018 Macedonian referendum is one example of the contrarian. It was invalid as the turnout was mere 36.89% (most were probably Albanians). And (I think) in non other country that is a NATO member now, there was a referendum.

For a broader perspective: NATO was created to “keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” (from the horse's mouth)

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/declassified_137930.htm

EDIT: For even broader perspective: Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island; who rules the World-Island commands the world. — Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality, p. 150

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geographical_Pivot_of_Hi...

You are trolling, I get that now.

Whenever one mentions misdeeds of the West, the other side answers with "whataboutism" and basically stops the discussion. How convenient to hide behind counter-accusation. It is easier to do that than to lose time and energy defending the undefendable. For example, how would one defend my sentence "USA is literally built on the genocide of the Natives and the susequent landgrab!"? You cannot, it is a fact. A fact that changes the perspective of the world in which an amoral entity preaches morality.

Yanukovych was no doubt corrupt, but Ukraine after 2014 is so squeaky clean? And, the "entire Russian Army" is after the Comedian Zelensky? Are you serious?

You obviously don't know a squat about Russia. Otherwise, you wouldn't write "Russia is weak and corrupt and cannot bend Ukraine to its will". Too bad.

It hurts to read the prevailing opinion in the western sphere these days, Fukuyama and comments here included. HN was mostly logical and rational in the past, but lately (Cov-19 and Russia) it is outright one sided.

Are you aware that the USA and its "allies" have orchestrated a Coup d'etat in Ukraine? Are you aware of the "F*ck EU" phone call in which Nuland moves people in Ukrainian politics like peons on the chessboard? Are you aware of real Nazis being part of government and security aparatus in Ukraine? Are you aware of Odessa, where dozens of pro-Russian people were burned alive by those same Nazis? Are you aware that Zelensky threatened to make atomic weapons at the Munich Security Conference mid February 2022? Are you aware of the complicity of Biden and his family in this (Hunter and his board seat at Burisma), not to speak of VP Biden blackmailing Ukrainians to fire their attorney general for probing Burisma or they'd get no money from (I think) MMF?

This is just a small selection of past events, not to mention new ones.

All this is not an isolated, Russia/Ukraine (both predominantly Orthodox Christian), issue. The collective West is causing death and destruction in the Muslim world for at least 30 years, as well. Furthermore, Snowden and Wikileaks documents have revealed a part of corruption in the US political and intelligence system. And there was no war waged by the West that wasn't supported by the Western media. Speaking of Fukuyama: He is a neocon, part of the cabal whose ideology has caused millions of dead and displaced people, their property destroyed. Their ideology has immensely weakened the US with meaningless and costly wars. And you still listen to him instead to shun him.

You look ridiculous to the World Outside of the West (~6 billion people) with your "we stand with Ukraine", with how you cancel and sanction everything Russian, how you moralize. Business model of the West for centuries is robbery and enslavement, who rises against it gets bombs on his head (hint: that are those in the World Outside the West). USA is literally built on the genocide of the Natives and the susequent landgrab! That West led by that USA is now condemning Russia for not wanting Nazis with nuclear weapons at her doorstep - imagine that!

Do you really don't get all this or do you act out of pure self interest (Russia is a too rich country to have all those riches/resources only for itself)?

The "best" eufenism for war, cooked up in western propaganda kitchens, is "intervention".

Following your logic, what USA and its vassals have done to Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Serbia... is "an unprovoked war of aggression".

Adding for (future) reference

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30269286

> Sponsored by NATO Allied Command Transformation

> Analysis Facing Worldwide Jihadist Violence and Conflicts

While "The US has helped ISIS":

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2015-00935...

and "The Dirty War on Syria: Washington Supports the Islamic State (ISIS)":

https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-dirty-war-on-syria-washing...

And how and why USA supported Bin Laden in Afghanistan:

https://dgibbs.faculty.arizona.edu/brzezinski_interview

And to close this: NATO was created to “keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” (from the horse's mouth)

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/declassified_137930.htm

Food catch.

In other words: This article itself contributes more to increase mistrust in the media than it increases the trust in the media.

Especially considering this quote from the article: Axios has a stated mission to "help restore trust in fact-based news".

I was convinced by the USofA politicians that Russia is "a gas station masquerading as a country" (Sen. John McCain, on the Senate floor nonetheless [1]) and that "Russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbours, not out of strength but out of weakness" (POTUS Barack Obama [2]).

So, why is USofA obsessed with Russia, why is it even wasting its time on Russia? The US politicians must be right (and I really believe them; after after all, the US is the pinnacle in democracy and its representatives are all elected in free and democratic elections).

[1] https://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/john-mccain-russia-ga...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/25/barack-obama-r...

Could someone please explain page 11 (Top 15 DAX Investors)? It lists four different entries for BlackRock, what is their strategy behind it?

In laymans terms: We spit on (international) law, because of our (military / media / political / intelligence) might.

I wonder, what will happen when the money dries out? Keyword: Dedollarisation. Russia and China are leading it, others try to follow.

Maybe this time the "elite" wants prostitutes of Asian race

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/dark-side-of-davos-den-of...

Twenty years ago, a bearded man in a cave ("Ali Baba") and his 19 "thieves" have managed to attack the superpower with a combined security budget (military and all intelligence agencies) of around 1.000 billions (1) on its soil, (2) using only box cutters!

The explanation offered to the world by the superpower was: Everyone failed. Yet, no one of those in high positions in the security aparatus of the superpower who has failed at doing his highly responsible job has resigned and no one was prosecuted.

What sounds like a (bad) fairytale really happened. Over 3.000 people died that day and many more thousands have died and are still dying as a consequence of what happened that day.

Attackers budget was probably 0.00...1% of the budget of the superpower.

Yay... let's put a price tag on everything! Let "the market" decide. What could we also sell... let's see: Air, water, children... the highest (richest?) bidder decides.

Especially if he got rich by exploiting workers (through low wages and bad working conditions, like wearing diapers) and exploiting state regulations (through tax evasion).

Today that is an US base, it doesn't matter if it existed before or not.

The US has not "maintained" the presence in Germany and Japan. US still maintains presence there. And that 75 years after the WWII ended! Also: The US has fought a major war with Germany and Japan and after their defeat it occupied them (still ocupies them?). All that does bot apply to the former USSR.

You are right. But, why then do I keep hearing in the western mainstream media about Russia being a threat when it is the USA that puts its base near Russia?

I wasn't precise, I am sorry: I get it that it was/is used for the support of US forces.

I am interested in how the US can put a military base on a piece of land that in not so distant past (ten years prior to 9/11) was part of its arch enemy - the USSR? It may be completely natural to some, but to me that's awkward.

Honest question (since it is essential for any further discussion and the article says nothing about it): Why the USA has to be in Uzbekistan?

Are concentration camps (black sites, Guantanamo...) the reason why companies have left the USA?

The Guardian also saw an increase of their circulation - in a dying industry - during the time when they've published WikiLeaks and Snowden documents. Which translates into an increase of ad spending and consequently revenue.

(1) Even according to Wikipedia: "The Etruscans called themselves Rasenna, which was syncopated to Rasna or Raśna(...)"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etruscan_civilization

(2) Again, even according to Wikipedia: "Rascians (Latin: Rasciani, Natio Rasciana; Serbian: Рашани / Rašani) was a common exonym for Serbs during the late medieval and the early modern period. It was used most frequently in the Kingdom of Hungary, and also in the Habsburg Monarchy. The term was derived from the Latinized name for the central Serbian region of Raška (Latin: Rascia; Serbian Cyrillic: Рашка). In medieval and early modern Western sources, exonym Rascia was often used as a designation for Serbian lands in general, and consequently the term Rasciani became one of the most common designations for Serbs.(...)"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rascians

(3) During WWII, Svetislav Bilbija was a secretary to an episkop of the Serbian Orthodox Church (equivalent to a bishop in RCC) in Italy where he has cracked the code of Etruscan because he had noticed the similarity of Etruscan letters and modern serbian cyrillic.

Ofcouse, connecting a culture that is precursor to the Roman culture (to which the modern West sees itself as a successor) with some (now) small peoples from the Balkans, peoples that have been put on a shame pole for the last 30 years, the Serbs - that is a big no, no. Which is why you'll find people who smear the work of Bilbija. But, some have a different opinion. For example, people at the Rand Corporation (yes, that US military contractor), or at least those on their mailing list:

“In a brillant piece of work rivalling that of Michael Ventris, Bilbija has deciphered the Etruscan Mummy Book.”

http://ixoloxi.com/voynich/etruscan.txt

They refer to this book (which has a direct connection to The Mummy of Zagreb):

https://books.google.ba/books/about/The_Mummy_of_Zagreb_and_...

USA has troops in European countries (and elsewhere) not to protect them, but to have (1) political, military, intelligence and economic influence there, (2) to use those countries as a launchpad to threaten (and eventually easier attack) countries who still haven't submitted to its power and which are in the vicinity of the countries harbouring the US troops, (3) to make it seem like its power is much greater by having "allies" (but, in reality, "vassals", as Zbigniew Brzezinski has called them in his book The Grand Chessboard).

Or, as NATO’s first Secretary General, Lord Ismay, has put it: NATO exists to “keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.”

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/declassified_137930.htm

Well, it is not only the "Christian" "Democratic" Union that is attacking on freedom in Germany, "Social" "Democrats" are in a Grand coalition with them (for the uninformed: "Grand coalition" is a term used in Germany to describe a coalition of two major parties).

I assume the "Greens" and the "Liberals" are opposing the law, but do it out of pure opportunism. Because, as the past teaches us, if they'd be in a coalition with one of the major parties, they would be for such a law.

> You can, actually, especially if you aren't the president of that country, and I'm fairly confident none of us are.

Following your logic: It would have been OK for morally bankrupt administrators of Nazi concentration camps to criticize what administrators of Gulag were doing.

> Whataboutism

Another word/concept used by the west to preempt/fight criticism of its crimes from the east. It is perfidious, but after one learns about it, it is transpicuous.

> China was the topic that Simulacra was writing about.

Simulacra was writing about China in the context of "human rights issues" (exact these word used). OP even asks "do these tariffs have any chance of improving China's behavior". ("behavior" being human rights behavior).

To close this thing off (I simply don't care for the USA or the west as a whole to criticize them at length from the perspective of wishing them get better)... I find it interesting that neither you nor anyone else who has responded to my comment has said anything about the core of it: The hegemon USA commits heinous crimes by itself and indirectly through its allies; until it stops doing it and does something to at least a bit mitigate the effects of the disastrous imperial politics it leads for hundreds of years it has no moral authority to criticize anyone who commits much less heinous crimes.

This evasion of the core issue is the reason why the west and its allies (Turkey, Saudi Arabia) are so hated and despised as it shows your unwillingness to be a good "citizen" of this Planet. You want to conquer, to subjugate, to enslave everyone.

It is no wonder why people in the rest of the world speak of three cities of evil: Vatican, London and Fashington. For they are responsible for millions upon millions of liters of human blood spilled, for millions maimed and abused human beings, for millions of slaves. (other western empires are not far behind: Germany, Austria, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy)

Why? Because, you cannot criticize others for crimes you are committing at much, much larger scale.

All roads have to lead to the USA because the US meddles into affairs of other countries, it has numerous military and intelligence installations in other countries, it finances the NGO's in other countries (absurd: non government financed by the foreign government)... and those who are resisting this meddling are its worst enemies (China, Russia, North Korea, Iran...).

Regarding: "The only countries mentioned were China and Canada." I've explained it above, it's silly to repeat myself.

We weren't talking about "human rights issues" either, yet OP started talking about it.

And when the OP moved the discussion in the other direction, one must also look at the track record of the USA in that particular area.

Due to simplicity Russian tanks were also cheaper and easier ti build. Which is why they outnumbered the Germans.

From a man who knew, what he's talking about, George F. Kennan:

"Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy."

https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_F._Kennan

For anyone wondering, why the US oligarchy is so thirsty for war, I'll quote a man who knew what he talked about, George F. Kennan:

"Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy."

https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_F._Kennan

Bitter truth, it seems, is that without making military supplies and equipment, without using them (killing someone), without the military industrial complex the whole US economy would undergoe "a shock". Therefore a boogie man (Russia, China, Serbia, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Vietnam...) is needed.

Also, before Facebook and along with it, there is a warmongering US media (90% of which is held by five corporations) to sell a war to US citizens.