|
Duckbag posted:Umm, there are several hundred people who regularly post in dnd and they're mostly different people than posted here ten years ago. The one constant in my experience here is that there have always been contrarian trolls like Thug Lessons who rage against the mostly imaginary dnd "hivemind." The hivemind has never been a consistent group though, it's always just "people who disagree with me." Weird how its Thug Lessons side of the debate that gets banned by State Department employees.
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 07:11
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 18, 2024 18:09 |
|
|
Also isn't the D&D hivemind full anime communism now, not rah rah America's so great?
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 07:12
|
|
|
Volkerball posted:For real. It's one of the worst long term side effects of that loving war. ...because it made the American public realize that regime change in the Middle East is loving retarded?
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 07:16
|
|
|
Woozy posted:Weird how its Thug Lessons side of the debate that gets banned by State Department employees. Thug Lessons has been posting like this for years tho and is still here. Also, what?
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 07:18
|
|
|
Woozy posted:Weird how its Thug Lessons side of the debate that gets banned by State Department employees. Thug Lessons is a good poster who debates and discusses things. Also, he's been probated only half as many times this year as Volkerball has
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 07:22
|
|
|
Volkerball posted:For real. It's one of the worst long term side effects of that loving war. I can think of some worse ones.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 07:23
|
|
|
Flavahbeast posted:Thug Lessons is a good poster who debates and discusses things. Also, he's been probated only half as many times this year as Volkerball has Yeah some seriously good examples of great discussion in good faith in this thread from good friend thug lessons.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 07:28
|
|
|
Volkerball posted:For real. It's one of the worst long term side effects of that loving war. This is pretty much what the Iraq War architects thought about Vietnam too. Real shame that disastrous wars make the public leery about future disastrous wars!
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 07:38
|
|
|
Some state department statements re: syria before the upcoming G20 meeting https://twitter.com/LucasFoxNews/status/882781646151405569 
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 07:42
|
|
|
RedSpider posted:...because it made the American public realize that regime change in the Middle East is loving retarded? Nah, I don't think the public thinks that, sadly, but they do think "Bush lied about wmds, so maybe this other thing is a lie." Thing is, this "the rebels gassed themselves" nonsense is a lot more like the 9/11 conspiracy theories than what happened in Iraq. It's all coming from an incredibly misguided and ethnocentric worldview that assumes anything that happens in the world must be America's fault. Even though it seems like these "anti-imperialist" conspiracy theories are opposed to the US government, they're often an expression of American chauvanism. There's an implicit assumption that the US is so powerful that it can control global affairs and those times when it seemingly can't (like failing to enforce the red line) are actually faked as part of a hidden agenda. And so, the messy chaos of the world becomes proof of a deeper hidden order (a delusion that defines most conspiracy theories.) Anyone who still asks why Assad would do something as stupid as gassing "his" people needs to take a step back and reflect. Why is it stupid? Because the "international community" will stop him? They haven't yet. Because the US will depose him? Will they? When? Are they going to fight Russia? Maybe there wasn't anything stupid about using sarin at all. Maybe he just figured he'd get away with it. I mean, was he even wrong?
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 07:45
|
|
|
Flavahbeast posted:The only Bellingcat story I've personally seen get widespread media coverage is their research into the MH17 downing: do you believe that Bellingcat's findings are false in that case? The Dutch seem to take Bellingcat's work pretty seriously This question is pointless until you and the parade of useless bloodthirsty pedants on this board demonstrate both the capacity and the desire to examine in detail why you even give a poo poo about MH17 in the first place. Ideology is not "Oh, some people believe this what this guy says and other people believe what this guy says", its the question itself. It's the thousands of little assumptions embedded within these moronic debate club slapfights that constitute the grotesque fraud of American foreign policy discourse and the intellectuals who partake. Without any understanding of the big picture of imperialism, the strategic objectives of Western belligerence, the relationship between foreign conflict and domestic crisis (and importantly the reason anyone calling themselves a leftist absolutely should despise Brown Moses' NATO dick sucking--even when he's factually correct), the role of political psychology and the whole menegerie of facile self-serving lingo to do with "tyrannical despots" and "authoritarian regimes", the rank liberal moralizing masquerading as rational discourse, and the endless parade of cynical careerist hacks running through the various NGO, foreign corps, and intelligence community circuits, there's no answer to the question you posed that doesn't lead to either war or a different causus belli for war. Fortunately for you, having to drag every idiot child in D&D through this whole network of critical perspectives while dodging bans from the various imperialist flunkies that have run this board over the years (RIP) is an extreme burden so instead what you get are thousands of narrow avenues full of petty minutiae that all lead to the same intellectual cul de sac of intervention and forever war. The only question that ever gets answered is whether it was necessary to kill a hundred thousand people or whether it was both necessary and good to kill a hundred thousand people. If you actually give any kind of poo poo about the crimes of murderous political regimes I can think of at least two dozen that sit behind Western borders and they all have the same thing in common: the source of all their subjects' complacency and apathy and the very substance of their power is achieved through foreign exploitation and warmongering. Anyone who wants to cry and bitch about Russia in this sort of environment (let alone bemoan the plight of the noble Ukrainian nazi) is nothing better than the worst kind of moral and intellectual hack.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 07:58
|
|
|
Jesus Christ.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 07:59
|
|
|
Duckbag posted:Nah, I don't think the public thinks that, sadly, but they do think "Bush lied about wmds, so maybe this other thing is a lie." Thing is, this "the rebels gassed themselves" nonsense is a lot more like the 9/11 conspiracy theories than what happened in Iraq. Ahh of course! Those opposed to the US / NATO bombing yet another middle eastern country are the real imperialists. Really makes you think...
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 08:01
|
|
|
Duckbag posted:Nah, I don't think the public thinks that, sadly, but they do think "Bush lied about wmds, so maybe this other thing is a lie." Thing is, this "the rebels gassed themselves" nonsense is a lot more like the 9/11 conspiracy theories than what happened in Iraq. Overthrowing Assad will lead to something worse. This really isn't debatable at this point.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 08:03
|
|
|
Woozy posted:*incoherent psychotic rambling RIght, of course, it's the Ukrainians and Dutch that are all Nazis. In other news: http://www.news.com.au/travel/trave...7786409eb94e278
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 08:08
|
|
|
thatfatkid posted:Ahh of course! Those opposed to the US / NATO bombing yet another middle eastern country are the real imperialists. Really makes you think... I've said several times itt that I'm a pacifist. I don't like bombings and I don't like insane conspiracy theorists claiming bombings didn't happen, or happened differently. Is that really so hard to grasp?
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 08:17
|
|
|
Woozy posted:If you actually give any kind of poo poo about the crimes of murderous political regimes I can think of at least two dozen that sit behind Western borders and they all have the same thing in common: the source of all their subjects' complacency and apathy and the very substance of their power is achieved through foreign exploitation and warmongering. Anyone who wants to cry and bitch about Russia in this sort of environment (let alone bemoan the plight of the noble Ukrainian nazi) is nothing better than the worst kind of moral and intellectual hack. Maybe you should care about murderous political regimes regardless of what borders they sit behind? Even notwithstanding the downing of MH17, the Russian government's war on Ukraine is monstrous and stupid. Imperial aggression should be condemned regardless of which imperial power is responsible. I'm pretty sure annexing bits of your neighbour and occupying a couple of their cities still counts as imperialism And you parrot the Russian state media line that Ukrainians are Nazis who deserve to be invaded, but still you say it's only westerners who are complacent and pliable?
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 08:22
|
|
|
RedSpider posted:Overthrowing Assad will lead to something worse. This really isn't debatable at this point. Who's debating that? I wasn't. Although I can if you want. Assad has killed half a million people and exiled millions more. "Better than Arab Hitler" is a pretty low bar. That said, I don't think US-instigated regime change is anything like a good idea. Obama had no interest in it, Trump doesn't seem to either, and there would certainly be enough domestic and foreign opposition to make it profoundly unattractive. Assad knows this as well as we do. Hence thinking he'll get away with it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 08:28
|
|
|
If you want to get down to brass tacks, where were both far-right and centrist elements to the Euromadian protests. Usually, the centrists were clustered on the Maidan itself (although some far-right militias had occupied some buildings on the square) while the far-right/nationalists/ultras were fighting a picked battle with police forces down Hrushevskoho Street. These riots in many ways became the decision inflection point for the protests since they had started to dwindle in early January. Svoboda was part of the first post-takeover government but was forced out by later elections. Basically, yeah it is a mixed bag. Are the Ukrainian government all Nazis? No Did the far-right have significant influence on Euromadian and some of its aftermath? Yes (Btw I was literally watching much of this on live streams while it was happening especially Hrushevskoho Street.) Ardennes fucked around with this message at 08:40 on Jul 6, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 08:33
|
|
|
thatfatkid posted:Do you seriously think it's healthy to hate an investigate journalist because he came to a different conclusion than the ones you're conditioned to take as fact? Do you seriously think it's healthy to just mindlessly believe everything a journalist said because he did some good things in the past and you're conditioned to take everything he says as fact? thatfatkid posted:I don't know what happened, none of you know either. I'm not going to draw conclusions from a report based on secondhand evidence provided by a biased party. Oh, now you do a 180° and say Hersh can't be trusted? You're a rather weird person. Sinteres posted:As another anti-interventionist, I want to say that I think the truther poo poo about sarin is embarrassing, and I wish more people felt that it was possible to find a middle ground between continually expanding our forever war vs parroting Russian propaganda. There is no hope WhiskeyWhiskers posted:Does anyone itt support the FSA even a little? I've not seen anyone argue they're not murderous sectarian arseholes/don't exist. We supported the FSA a lot back in 2011 when they were just a bunch of Syrian army deserters, but that old FSA has been dead for a long while now. 6 years of civil war will do that sometimes.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 08:34
|
|
|
Try reading my posts instead before you reply to them. I've argued that the OPCW report explicitly states that the dispersal method of Sarin was not proven or even investigated and therefore bellingcats attack against Hersh are unfounded. Is it a prerequisite for imperialists to blatantly misread opinions that aren't frothing at the mouth with lust for bombing the middle east?
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 08:45
|
|
|
Ardennes posted:Are the Ukrainian government all Nazis? No Yeah, there are certainly influential right wing groups within Ukraine, I was just taking issue with 'Nazi' being used as a slur against Ukrainians in general. How many Nazi states have Jewish prime ministers? Not many I imagine Flavahbeast fucked around with this message at 08:56 on Jul 6, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 08:53
|
|
|
Flavahbeast posted:Maybe you should care about murderous political regimes regardless of what borders they sit behind? Maybe what you should do instead is read my post again. This crass reduction of politics to naive moral propositions for which one can be "for" or "against" is precisely the intellectual disease I'm talking about. Russia has its own domestic resistance and opposition movements whose work is not made the least bit easier by liberal posturing in the imperial core, just as lives of American dissidents are made immeasurably more difficult by the stupidity and bloodlust engendered by this brand of "principled" horseshit, just as struggles within Syria and everywhere else in the Middle East are tainted and sabotaged by disastrous CIA-backed color revolutions no matter how many credulous tools are permanently willing to ascribe them some noble intent. The fact that you have today a Western political class making effortless end-runs around domestic labor movements by setting up shop in the craters of third world depravity should silence forever this idiotic question about how to characterize the "regimes" of America's international victims and whether there is sufficient moral justification for this bombing campaign or the other one. Deploy just the most basic understanding of the structure and purpose of global imperialism and any child can see that your brand of politics is effective only in closing avenues for resistance to that which you only feign opposition.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 08:54
|
|
|
It's kind of funny how the most insane, tedious bastards always demand that we read their long, psychotic rants. And if we come to a different conclusion after subjecting ourselves to their messes, what is the first thing they answer? "You didn't read my post, go back and try again!" It's like being in some kind of school related nightmare. You can't win. I suggest putting the genuinely crazy people like Woozy and the genuine bastard trolls like thatfatkid on ignore and just go on with your lives. Stop engaging them. They obviously do not want a discussion, just attention.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 09:01
|
|
|
thatfatkid posted:Try reading my posts instead before you reply to them. I've argued that the OPCW report explicitly states that the dispersal method of Sarin was not proven or even investigated and therefore bellingcats attack against Hersh are unfounded. Is it a prerequisite for imperialists to blatantly misread opinions that aren't frothing at the mouth with lust for bombing the middle east? and several posters have pointed out that one of hersh's contentions is that sarin wasn't what caused the deaths, it was either chlorine or a pesticide from a bombed industrial building. the opcw report, assad, and the russians have all stated that sarin was responsible for the deaths, thus contradicting hersh regardless of dispersal methods.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 09:01
|
|
|
Woozy posted:This crass reduction of politics to naive moral propositions That one expanding  gif except at the end it explodes into thousands of small :ironicats:.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 09:08
|
|
|
Libluini posted:It's kind of funny how the most insane, tedious bastards always demand that we read their long, psychotic rants. And if we come to a different conclusion after subjecting ourselves to their messes, what is the first thing they answer? "You didn't read my post, go back and try again!" My post is five sentences long and wouldn't be necessary if any single one of you could be loving bothered to read a book at any point in your lives.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 09:09
|
|
|
Woozy posted:My post is five sentences long and wouldn't be necessary if any single one of you could be loving bothered to read a book at any point in your lives. What is your number one most highly recommended book?
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 09:10
|
|
|
RedSpider posted:...because it made the American public realize that regime change in the Middle East is loving retarded? No, because it made them see ~regime change~ hiding behind every corner when it wasn't there, and the politics around it made people think the Iraq War was the worst possible thing that could ever happen to a country when it's not at all. Also it created a fake reality where the US is the only nation that has engaged in imperialism, and so it must be opposed, when the reality is that countries like Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Iran just fill the void and are far less accountable to their citizens than the US. And as we've seen in Syria, they're capable of worse than the worst the US has to offer. Volkerball fucked around with this message at 09:21 on Jul 6, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 09:14
|
|
|
Woozy posted:Maybe what you should do instead is read my post again. This crass reduction of politics to naive moral propositions for which one can be "for" or "against" is precisely the intellectual disease I'm talking about. I think there are some actions which deserve un-nuanced condemnation. Maybe that's naive of me? I do agree that US govt support for any opposition movement within Russia would be unhelpful, though
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 09:23
|
|
|
thatfatkid posted:Try reading my posts instead before you reply to them. I've argued that the OPCW report explicitly states that the dispersal method of Sarin was not proven or even investigated and therefore bellingcats attack against Hersh are unfounded. Is it a prerequisite for imperialists to blatantly misread opinions that aren't frothing at the mouth with lust for bombing the middle east? Do you believe Sarin was present?
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 09:51
|
|
|
I hope that fuckers like Woozy, Thug Lessons and thatfatfag get a nice delivery of Sarin courtesy of the Russian air force, while the world looks on with indifference and snidely suggests that their deaths are all part of a convoluted false flag operation in order to encourage regime change in their countries by the US. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 10:10
|
|
|
Flavahbeast posted:I think there are some actions which deserve un-nuanced condemnation. Maybe that's naive of me? I do agree that US govt support for any opposition movement within Russia would be unhelpful, though Okay fine but your condemnation is worth exactly loving nothing--zip. It's a fart in the wind. It's as meaningless to Assad et al.'s victims as it is to their supporters. To the extent it plays at all at the level of public opinion, it's entirely counter-productive. The best possible outcome is everyone ignores you, the worst is that its a drop in the bucket of hysterical warmongering and the whole fraudulent discourse of political psychology that has citizens of a nation with 2.2 million prisoners castigating the "authoritarian" regimes of its perennial victims. Why would anyone in their right mind give a poo poo about what you think in these circumstances? The only people who even kind of care about your outrage have spent millions of dollars trying to convince you that the U.S. campaign of terror in the Middle East is some noble act of imperial benevolence, so what does that tell you? Why are you doing their work for them? It's not hard to guess why Brown Moses does it, especially after witnessing the embarrassing human centipede wrapped around this thread. But the only advantage for you is cheap imports and looming crisis courtesy of American-engineered global catastrophe, which is something you so far at least pretend to oppose. Why bother? The only line on this issue that's worth anything at all is a totally uncompromising anti-war and anti-imperialist platform that makes zero concession for the idiotic delusions of liberal crusaders, because its the only thing that even attempts to challenge the prevailing wisdom of American foreign policy (reminder that this has been an unqualified disaster at every stage of the 20th century). Everything else is cheerleading or worse. Woozy fucked around with this message at 10:13 on Jul 6, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 10:11
|
|
|
Taking a little pause from the truther arguments for another kind of truther bullshit: Al-Arabiya is now claiming the Houthis deliberately cause the cholera epidemic for western sympathy https://twitter.com/AlArabiya_Eng/status/882381011014647808 This is disgusting even by Saudi standards.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 10:15
|
|
|
Agnosticnixie posted:Taking a little pause from the truther arguments for another kind of truther bullshit: Al-Arabiya is now claiming the Houthis deliberately cause the cholera epidemic for western sympathy Good god, if you have any understanding of how cholera spreads (through fecal matter) you know it would make a terrible bioweapon. They're literally accusing the Houthis of poisoning wells.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 10:33
|
|
|
Duckbag posted:Good god, if you have any understanding of how cholera spreads (through fecal matter) you know it would make a terrible bioweapon. They're literally accusing the Houthis of poisoning wells. Maybe they are shooting the poo poo, literary.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 12:36
|
|
|
E:gnn.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 12:39
|
|
|
Thug Lessons is obnoxious, but his posting is perfectly fine if you just take a couple of deep breaths and engage a moderately sceptical position on its merits even if (horror of horrors) it marginally weakens the rhetorical position against Assad, rather than taking it as a challenge to discover the secret code phrase that will make him admit his true agenda of sunni genocide.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 12:55
|
|
|
Duckbag posted:So you don't really have a perspective, you're just hurling insults, is that right? Yeah sorry, I was making fun of Woozy's crazy rant. Duckbag posted:Thug Lessons has been posting like this for years tho and is still here. Unless Woozy is still salty about Thug getting banned by Vilerat years ago (if that even happened, I don't know), I'm guessing he is a firm believer in the "Brown Moses is a NATO/State Dept. propaganda outlet" conspiracy theory. Agnosticnixie posted:Taking a little pause from the truther arguments for another kind of truther bullshit: Al-Arabiya is now claiming the Houthis deliberately cause the cholera epidemic for western sympathy Did you know that the Houthis are responsible for blockading their own country? Sad really. e: wait, gently caress, that's a Saudi talking point isn't it? That the Houthis destroyed port facilities or something? Godlessdonut fucked around with this message at 14:39 on Jul 6, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 13:05
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 18, 2024 18:09 |
|
|
Peel posted:Thug Lessons is obnoxious, but his posting is perfectly fine if you just take a couple of deep breaths and engage a moderately sceptical position on its merits even if (horror of horrors) it marginally weakens the rhetorical position against Assad, rather than taking it as a challenge to discover the secret code phrase that will make him admit his true agenda of sunni genocide. Calling first responders and civilian victims terrorists based on nothing other than a desire to undermine any sort of support the US could give them isn't "moderate skepticism." It's lies and slander to support an agenda.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2017 13:14
|
|