DreamerOfImprobableDreams

Yeah, there’s precisely zero chance this doesn’t blow the fuck up in El Salvador’s face in the long run. Not to mention it’s horrific on every possible level.

Hope to god El Salvador manages to figure out a way to get rid of this guy, and fast. Otherwise they’re in for a very bad few decades.

For the same reason fascists constantly accuse of “virtue signalling.” Dickheads like this have convinced us everyone is secretly as much of an amoral, power-hungry narcissist as them. So when we talk about caring about other people, they assume we must be lying for some kind of political benefit-- because there’s absolutely no way we actually care about other people, nobody does that, right?

(This is also how they sleep at night, by the way: sure, they’re bad, but everyone else is just as bad as them if not worse, so who cares.)

So yeah, a dickhead like Putin is going to assume every other country must secretly be just as revanchist as his Russia.

Also the fact that the most recent Republican president, spent pretty much his entire term trying to serve Ukraine to Russia on a silver platter.

And Republicans reacted to this betrayal by… making him the frontrunner for the GOP nomination in 2024.

Yep, the Republican base has proven they’ll vote for literally anyone with an ® next to their name no matter how many felonies they commit. And because they’re fanatics, they turn out to vote every time, no matter what.

The only way we get out of this nightmare is to hold the line, keep voting every cycle to keep the mainiacs out of power until the party inevitably implodes due to demographic shifts. Hopefully it’ll happen soon, worrying about this shit is exhausting. But until then, we can’t afford to be complacent.

Nah, it’s what happens when you read them as instruction manuals.

The fact that the guy you replied to totally ignored all my points about, ya know, the ongoing genocide is fucking telling.

Friendly reminder Russia is committing atrocities in the occupied territories. So any kind of negotiated “peace” that involves Ukraine giving up territory means them consigning all their citizens living there to torture, random executions, wanton sexual violence, having their children taken away, and worse!

That’s what you’re calling for when you advocate a “negotiated settlement”.

True, but there are definitely places where it’s much better to be trans than others, and Russia’s near the bottom of the pack.

My bad, I mixed it up with them increasing coal consumption / expanding existing coal mines. The overall point stands though that even as stupid as shutting down all the nuclear plants was, Germany’s still on a good path long-term when it comes to fighting climate change-- and the rest of Europe is making impressive progress, too.

Agreed. What I’m really curious about, though, is how the atmosphere here is gonna change as thrediverse culture starts diverging from reddit. Are we going to stay depressed, are we going to gradually trend more optimistic, or will something completely different and unpredictable happen?

Because most lemmy users used to be redditors, and redditors are morose and pessimistic as fuck.

Germany is building coal plants, pretty much the rest of Europe is transitioning away from fossil fuels at a breakneck pace.

(And to be fair, Germany’s also investing heavily in clean energy and has made huge progress on that front. They just made the incredibly stupid decision to shut down their remaining nuclear plants before they had enough clean energy sources to make up for the power difference, which is why they’re temporarily using coal as a stopgap.)

The US passed the largest climate bill in human history last fall, Europe is now getting a plurality of its energy from carbon-free sources (and growing rapidly), and China’s continuing to make progress too. And the reason that’s all happening is because of all the people who care, who’ve been pushing for change this past decade.

It’s not enough, but it’s a huge step in the right direction-- and it’s proof we can accomplish even more if we keep standing together.

Seizing Rostok Von Don was a clever initial play, since its a major logistics hub.

This also means if the coup lasts for more than a few days, the Russian Army’s going to start running out of ammunition in significant portions of the front in Ukraine.

Yeah, calzones being a subset of burritos makes more sense to me than burritos being a subset of calzones.

Did people’s parents not teach them about putting things on the internet they didn’t want shared?

They used to, then social media became a thing and they stopped. Suddenly, it was normal to put your entire life up online for other people to see, and if you didn’t feel comfortable doing that you were the weird one.

My rule is, never post anything you wouldn’t mind the media tracing back to you IRL and then making the top story of the day in your country. Because, while rare, that does occasionally happen!

Okay, here’s why it upsets me so much when people call the US an “empire”. There’s a cold civil war in this country right now about who we’re supposed to be. Should America be a multicultural, inclusive democracy trying to atone for the sins of the past and build a better, kinder future, or is it an imperialistic ethnostate built on white supremacy?

When people write America off as always having been the latter, and act like it’s doomed to always be the latter, they’re effectively giving up on the fight. They’re basically saying they agree with the far right, their vision of the country is correct. Which gives them more power.

There’s so much good here, mixed in with the bad. This country has made incredible progress towards becoming a more perfect union. Sure, there’s still huge, glaring ways we fail to live up to that promise, still a huge amount of work to be done. But looking back at how far we’ve come, I really do believe we can make it.

But that’s not going to happen if the far right smothers democracy in its crib right now. And so that’s why I push back against people writing America off as an “empire”: because it could easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy. And I really don’t want to live in that world.

Exactly. America has done some truly horrific stuff in the not-so-distant past, and there’s no moral equivalency between the modern US and Russia. None. Both statements can be true at the same time.

1. Puerto Rico, American Samoa, and all the other territories can vote to apply for statehood or leave at any time they want. They stay territories because, as of the most recent referendums held in those places, the majority of the population are happy with the status quo. (From what I understand, they get tax breaks and exemptions from certain federal laws as territories which they’d have to give up as states. I don’t get it either, but it’s what they’ve chosen so far.)

2. Yes, we have military bases all over the world-- at the invitation of the host countries, which can kick us out any time they want to. They chose not to, not because they’re being puppeted by evil Amerikkka, but because they genuinely want the troops there-- much cheaper to have America pick up the tab for your nation’s defense than to have to build out your own armed forces yourself.

3. What do you mean by “infiltrate other countries with our corporate interest”? Multinational corporations running amok and exploiting vulnerable people for their own gain isn’t a uniquely American phenomenon, it’s a problem with corporations based in countries all over the world. And the current faction in charge of the US is at least trying to reign them in.

I can say said labeling the current tyrannical regime with “Empire” is a misinterpretation.

My brother in Christ, your government is forcefully annexing territory into itself and making the conquered people culturally assimilate at threat of being tortured if they don’t comply. That’s literally the definition of imperialism.