uuldika

I plan to, actually. I don't support CCP at all - it's authoritarian as fuck, with the Great Firewall, the reeducation camps in Xinjiang and the annexation of Tibet - but it's fascinating to me that the country hasn't completely collapsed into corruption like so many autocracies, and that they do so much long-term planning.

my impression is that China is a hybrid of state capitalism and central planning, with a lot of poor rural areas and a moderate oligarchy, but that they see billionaires as political rivals (e.g. Jack Ma) and Gilded Age economic inequality as a risk of social unrest and keep it from getting as out of hand as the US.

I kinda get why tankies would defend China (CCP is still ostensibly Communist), but why Russia?? it's literally a kleptocratic oligarchy led by a billionaire dictator/mob boss. ain't nothing Soviet about it.

South Sudan seems likely. maybe they'll try Libya again. or Saudi Arabia. all of those are back on the table after DHS v DVD.

yeah, they could have been like Belarus!

I support NATO, in the sense that if NATO dissolved Europe would get eaten like a three-course meal by Russia. Ukraine shows that all too clearly. it has many problems, though.

Czechia seems like it'd be pretty based. or Estonia. I like Central/Eastern Europe. or maybe Thailand.

TERF term for trans woman. It stands for "trans-identified male." Presumably TERFs felt clever having the acronym be a man's name.

the seventy maxims of maximally effective mercenaries?

(for the record, I voted for Harris. obviously.)

specifically on Gaza, I'm not convinced Trump is worse than Biden II would have been.

Trump (and the RNC in general) have been exploiting American Jews as a pawn in their efforts to destroy academic institutions and purge leftist intellectuals, the way Democrats exploited trans people (until we stopped being politically convenient, then they folded like a house of cards, and predictably abandoned us.) that's horrible, of course, and the narrative of Gaza is tied up in it, but it's not actually focused on Gaza - the effects are domestic.

aside from Trump's inflammatory bluster on Gaza (building casinos and beachfront resorts for billionaires), what has he actually done? he's negotiated with Hamas directly, and cut Netenyahu out of the loop. Trump has a huge ego, and he doesn't play well with other world leaders with huge egos, like Netenyahu (or recently, Musk.) so when Netenyahu tried to push him around he told him to pound sand. and - for better or worse - with "America First" foreign policy, it's increasingly hard to justify giving Israel billions of dollars to prosecute their genocide. I think Biden would have 100% been a pushover.

meanwhile, they wouldn't even address Gaza during the DNC convention. they were initially going to have a Palestinian-American person speak, but decided "nah" and cut them at the last minute. the DNC smugly decided that us minorities were "in the bag," and told us shut up, while they pandered to the Neocons. now they've lost, and the DNC is toast, and if we ever get a shot at democracy again, whatever rises from the DNC's ashes will have to actually be Progressive.

JD Vance is Catholic. he converted right around the time his political ambitions deepend. Leonard Leo (Federalist Society president) is Catholic, as are most of FedSoc leadership. Roberts, Barrett and Kavanaugh are Catholic.

the deep power in the RNC is very conservative Catholic.

based as fuck. I'm so glad some Democratic governors still have our back.

Sleazy Musk, sleazy DOGE, will he let X go?