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in slovenia, we call this "pulling a jankovič" the mayor of my town's been mired in corruption bullshit for literal decades now, though he's never been convicted of anything. that's not surprising, seeing how he's a fairly competent person, even if he did do any of things, he'll definitely get away with it. also, he's serbian, this'll be relevant later. he and his party still win every single election. a lot of people say "idc about the corruption bullshit, all those fuckers are corrupt anyway, at least these guys do useful poo poo with the money". when he first became mayor, the big right wing party was in charge of the parliament, and they diverted funds from our town "literally anywhere else" just as he was doing a couple big projects, and then started the usual racist+austerity line of "but the town is so deep in debt, look at this serb bullshit" <shows number>. didn't work at all tho lmao. it's been like 15 years since he's in office, and our town is now the only place in the country with a positive budget sheet and actually lowering debt, despite the mentioned budget cuts on national level, and despite looking nothing like the garbage dump it did 20 years ago lmao i love my dumbass balkan state of affairs
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Aug 12, 2019 10:03
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gradenko_2000 posted:Lula didn't get caught, and he wasn't corrupt. The Lava Jato investigation was a right-wing, US-lead effort to sabotage the Worker's Party government and the Brasilian economy to prevent them from being able to make any kind of progress. you must concede that the us involvement had the best of intentions but had unpredictable unfortunate outcomes, lessons were learned but we must not become reluctant to lend a helping hand in the future
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Aug 12, 2019 10:09
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So I guess this is the unofficial thread for Latin American countries the US is loving with, which I guess just makes it the unofficial Latin America thread. Anyway what's a good source to follow what's going on in Honduras? The total media blackout is insane and completely unsurprising, but I still want to know.
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Aug 12, 2019 10:22
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Goon Danton posted:So I guess this is the unofficial thread for Latin American countries the US is loving with, which I guess just makes it the unofficial Latin America thread. The two most recent episodes of the "Moderate Rebels" podcast are focused on it
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Aug 12, 2019 10:25
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Yeah that's where I got my background info, I'm just wondering from a "latest news" perspective.
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Aug 12, 2019 10:27
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Lightning Knight posted:I don’t have the tweet handy but Ben Norton and Max Blumenthal are (still?) in Venezuela making videos and stuff again. Wait, you like Blumenthal? This guy? Who was holding Maduros sword dong like it was going to bestow him with holy powers? Seems impartial. Just saying if there was an equivalent video of a guy holding onto Trumps hair like it was god itself I wouldn't want him doing critical think pieces about the USA administration. https://twitter.com/cohenluc/status/1156385120644947968
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Aug 12, 2019 13:40
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Also grayzone is very anti-hong kong protests. Someone explain that one to me. Or its just the general "whatever russia/china supports we support" thing that grayzone has shown is their jam time and time again.
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Aug 12, 2019 14:00
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Blumenthal is good if you let go of the notion that press should strive for impartiality or needs to have a correct analysis on what they report. Reporting on real and relevant things few others bother to is a net good for society, at least I’m pretty sure that he’s genuine rather than some kind of forger. Individual press representatives cherrypicking what they investigate shouldn’t be much of an issue because no one can see the whole picture alone, much less fit it into a few articles. Actual issues start when cherrypicking becomes viral and systemic, there are no available sources that strive to be impartial or it becomes really hard to tell who is attempting to be impartial and who's pushing a narrative.
uncop has issued a correction as of 14:09 on Aug 12, 2019 |
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Aug 12, 2019 14:04
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536 posted:Wait, you like Blumenthal? 536 posted:People have been starving and mass emigrating for years because of the USA?
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Aug 12, 2019 14:08
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that boy ain't right
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Aug 12, 2019 14:14
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I was in the infantry during the surge op. You've seen war from one side. You didn't see it from the side of the Kurds in Iraq, who were protected from a second Anfal campaign for a decade through a no fly zone, which ended with Saddam hanging at the end of a rope on a day that is still an unofficial Kurdish holiday. You didn't see it from the perspective of Arabs in Iraq who were subject to unaccounted violence from US forces that unjustly targeted them, to the extent that they were willing to support loving AQI and bloodthirsty Shia militias in Iraq because they were so desperate. You don't know what it is to be under a boot, you've only worn it. And yet you sit there and judge people who are under one themselves, because you haven't experienced anything like what they experienced, and you refuse to acknowledge or listen to them. I don't give a gently caress about what Guiado, Bolton, or you have to say about what is going on there. I want to know what the protesters are saying. What the streets want, what they feel, and why. And that's the only information that will factor into determining what I want to see in Venezuela. In lieu of that, I'm not going to make poo poo up to serve my own ends, because I don't have any beyond human rights and dignity for Venezuelan people who as of right now, are being oppressed by a shithole government that refuses to cede power. Those are the people who need to be at the center of this discussion, not the US. Maybe if people had a coherent counter-strategy to the John Boltons of the world that wasn't rooted in some cold war era chessboard nonsense that sees those trapped in the middle as pawns on a board rather than people entitled to self-determination, those types of neocons would become obsolete. But as it stands, they're the only people offering solutions, albeit ridiculously lovely ones. If the "anti-imperialist" left ever offered anything other than the status quo, maybe they wouldn't lose the debate so goddamned always.
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Aug 12, 2019 14:15
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Actually doing an iraq is good, op
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Aug 12, 2019 14:19
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brugroffil posted:I was in the infantry during the surge op. You've seen war from one side. You didn't see it from the side of the Kurds in Iraq, who were protected from a second Anfal campaign for a decade through a no fly zone, which ended with Saddam hanging at the end of a rope on a day that is still an unofficial Kurdish holiday. You didn't see it from the perspective of Arabs in Iraq who were subject to unaccounted violence from US forces that unjustly targeted them, to the extent that they were willing to support loving AQI and bloodthirsty Shia militias in Iraq because they were so desperate. You don't know what it is to be under a boot, you've only worn it. And yet you sit there and judge people who are under one themselves, because you haven't experienced anything like what they experienced, and you refuse to acknowledge or listen to them. I don't give a gently caress about what Guiado, Bolton, or you have to say about what is going on there. I want to know what the protesters are saying. What the streets want, what they feel, and why. And that's the only information that will factor into determining what I want to see in Venezuela. In lieu of that, I'm not going to make poo poo up to serve my own ends, because I don't have any beyond human rights and dignity for Venezuelan people who as of right now, are being oppressed by a shithole government that refuses to cede power. Those are the people who need to be at the center of this discussion, not the US. Maybe if people had a coherent counter-strategy to the John Boltons of the world that wasn't rooted in some cold war era chessboard nonsense that sees those trapped in the middle as pawns on a board rather than people entitled to self-determination, those types of neocons would become obsolete. But as it stands, they're the only people offering solutions, albeit ridiculously lovely ones. If the "anti-imperialist" left ever offered anything other than the status quo, maybe they wouldn't lose the debate so goddamned always. I like this because it implies he only cares about listening to the people and the very next paragraph just starts making demands on what should happen.
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Aug 12, 2019 14:21
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wait that’s volkerball, that’s cheating the dude might actually be John Bolton
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Aug 12, 2019 14:28
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just lol when a liberal stumbles into C-SPAm and does an imperialism
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Aug 12, 2019 14:32
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536 posted:Just saying if there was an equivalent video of a guy holding onto Trumps hair like it was god itself I wouldn't want him doing critical think pieces about the USA administration. I have terrible news about the entirety of corporate media, friendo
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Aug 12, 2019 14:39
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536 posted:Also grayzone is very anti-hong kong protests. Someone explain that one to me. Or its just the general "whatever russia/china supports we support" thing that grayzone has shown is their jam time and time again. there's a very specific commonality shared by the venezuelan opposition and the hong kong protests, i want you to think very hard about what that commonality is 536 posted:People have been starving and mass emigrating for years because of the USA?
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Aug 12, 2019 14:39
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536 posted:Wait, you like Blumenthal? lmao thread continues to deliver
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Aug 12, 2019 14:43
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also this actually owns
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Aug 12, 2019 14:44
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CharlestheHammer posted:wait that’s volkerball, that’s cheating the dude might actually be John Bolton it's a quote from D&D I thought about responding to a "Iraq invasion was good, actually" post in tyool 2019 with the Grover Classic but don't feel like getting another probe
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Aug 12, 2019 14:52
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brugroffil posted:I was in the infantry during the surge op. You've seen war from one side. You didn't see it from the side of the Kurds in Iraq, who were protected from a second Anfal campaign for a decade through a no fly zone, which ended with Saddam hanging at the end of a rope on a day that is still an unofficial Kurdish holiday. You didn't see it from the perspective of Arabs in Iraq who were subject to unaccounted violence from US forces that unjustly targeted them, to the extent that they were willing to support loving AQI and bloodthirsty Shia militias in Iraq because they were so desperate. You don't know what it is to be under a boot, you've only worn it. And yet you sit there and judge people who are under one themselves, because you haven't experienced anything like what they experienced, and you refuse to acknowledge or listen to them. I don't give a gently caress about what Guiado, Bolton, or you have to say about what is going on there. I want to know what the protesters are saying. What the streets want, what they feel, and why. And that's the only information that will factor into determining what I want to see in Venezuela. In lieu of that, I'm not going to make poo poo up to serve my own ends, because I don't have any beyond human rights and dignity for Venezuelan people who as of right now, are being oppressed by a shithole government that refuses to cede power. Those are the people who need to be at the center of this discussion, not the US. Maybe if people had a coherent counter-strategy to the John Boltons of the world that wasn't rooted in some cold war era chessboard nonsense that sees those trapped in the middle as pawns on a board rather than people entitled to self-determination, those types of neocons would become obsolete. But as it stands, they're the only people offering solutions, albeit ridiculously lovely ones. If the "anti-imperialist" left ever offered anything other than the status quo, maybe they wouldn't lose the debate so goddamned always. I think there's a good point and a bad one here about 'the "anti-imperialist" left'. Yeah, they tend to be stuck in a mindset that leads them to fail to sufficiently fight the media blackout regarding regular people, instead focusing on getting out the narrative of the governments of their countries. On the other hand, their job isn't to offer alternatives, it's to inform about what kinds of progressive factions exist in the countries they look at and transmit their messages to the world. It's a difficult job, and failure means that we only know about the governments and their reactionary opponents, and we are taught to assume that all arising opposition is just going to be co-opted for reactionary purposes. Venezuela doesn't represent that problem so much though, because it has a prominent progressive grassroots movement that 'the "anti-imperialist" left' does report on and who have expressed their solutions, responding to aggression by building popular self-defense capacity and doing more with the meager domestic production capacity through distribution based on need. They don't seem to be government flunkies, it's more like they don't see an already existing alternative to it that could be supported, including themselves, and don't want a power vacuum either.
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Aug 12, 2019 14:54
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536 posted:Also grayzone is very anti-hong kong protests. Someone explain that one to me. Or its just the general "whatever russia/china supports we support" thing that grayzone has shown is their jam time and time again. the hong kong protesters have been waving the union jack
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Aug 12, 2019 15:37
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also lol at you coming back to this thread after your shameful display last time
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Aug 12, 2019 15:37
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536 posted:Wait, you like Blumenthal? just on the non-existent chance this is in good faith: it’s a replica of Simon Bolivar’s sword, the closest thing for the US would be giving someone a replica of George Washington’s sword (but Bolivar founded what eventually became like 5 nations). it’s a v nice gesture.
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Aug 12, 2019 15:39
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brugroffil posted:I was in the infantry during the surge op. You've seen war from one side. You didn't see it from the side of the Kurds in Iraq, who were protected from a second Anfal campaign for a decade through a no fly zone, which ended with Saddam hanging at the end of a rope on a day that is still an unofficial Kurdish holiday. You didn't see it from the perspective of Arabs in Iraq who were subject to unaccounted violence from US forces that unjustly targeted them, to the extent that they were willing to support loving AQI and bloodthirsty Shia militias in Iraq because they were so desperate. You don't know what it is to be under a boot, you've only worn it. And yet you sit there and judge people who are under one themselves, because you haven't experienced anything like what they experienced, and you refuse to acknowledge or listen to them. I don't give a gently caress about what Guiado, Bolton, or you have to say about what is going on there. I want to know what the protesters are saying. What the streets want, what they feel, and why. And that's the only information that will factor into determining what I want to see in Venezuela. In lieu of that, I'm not going to make poo poo up to serve my own ends, because I don't have any beyond human rights and dignity for Venezuelan people who as of right now, are being oppressed by a shithole government that refuses to cede power. Those are the people who need to be at the center of this discussion, not the US. Maybe if people had a coherent counter-strategy to the John Boltons of the world that wasn't rooted in some cold war era chessboard nonsense that sees those trapped in the middle as pawns on a board rather than people entitled to self-determination, those types of neocons would become obsolete. But as it stands, they're the only people offering solutions, albeit ridiculously lovely ones. If the "anti-imperialist" left ever offered anything other than the status quo, maybe they wouldn't lose the debate so goddamned always. wait does this post really say "i know what it's like to be oppressed based on my time oppressing people as a member of the us military in iraq"????
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Aug 12, 2019 16:19
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Weird how impartiality is required of leftists but questioning the motivations of rich expats is disgusting
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Aug 12, 2019 16:20
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vyelkin posted:wait does this post really say "i know what it's like to be oppressed based on my time oppressing people as a member of the us military in iraq"???? volkerball's entire angle makes a lot more sense when you realize it's all working backwards from "my friends didn't die for nothing" which, i mean, they did, but try telling him that
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Aug 12, 2019 16:26
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gradenko_2000 posted:Lula didn't get caught, and he wasn't corrupt. The Lava Jato investigation was a right-wing, US-lead effort to sabotage the Worker's Party government and the Brasilian economy to prevent them from being able to make any kind of progress. Car Wash is total bullshit yes, but Lula has been implicated in wheel greasing corruption since his 1st term. I think some of it is true. If y'all feel confident that it has been bad faith "lawfare" from the beginning then I'm inclined to believe it. But if Odebrecht was full of poo poo the whole time and he purposefully implicated left-wing pols, why did they also implicate neoliberals in Colombia and Mexico?
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Aug 12, 2019 16:47
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brugroffil posted:I was in the infantry during the surge op. You've seen war from one side. You didn't see it from the side of the Kurds in Iraq, who were protected from a second Anfal campaign for a decade through a no fly zone, which ended with Saddam hanging at the end of a rope on a day that is still an unofficial Kurdish holiday. You didn't see it from the perspective of Arabs in Iraq who were subject to unaccounted violence from US forces that unjustly targeted them, to the extent that they were willing to support loving AQI and bloodthirsty Shia militias in Iraq because they were so desperate. You don't know what it is to be under a boot, you've only worn it. And yet you sit there and judge people who are under one themselves, because you haven't experienced anything like what they experienced, and you refuse to acknowledge or listen to them. I don't give a gently caress about what Guiado, Bolton, or you have to say about what is going on there. I want to know what the protesters are saying. What the streets want, what they feel, and why. And that's the only information that will factor into determining what I want to see in Venezuela. In lieu of that, I'm not going to make poo poo up to serve my own ends, because I don't have any beyond human rights and dignity for Venezuelan people who as of right now, are being oppressed by a shithole government that refuses to cede power. Those are the people who need to be at the center of this discussion, not the US. Maybe if people had a coherent counter-strategy to the John Boltons of the world that wasn't rooted in some cold war era chessboard nonsense that sees those trapped in the middle as pawns on a board rather than people entitled to self-determination, those types of neocons would become obsolete. But as it stands, they're the only people offering solutions, albeit ridiculously lovely ones. If the "anti-imperialist" left ever offered anything other than the status quo, maybe they wouldn't lose the debate so goddamned always. 
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Aug 12, 2019 17:07
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just wanted to use that smilie for the first time
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Aug 12, 2019 17:08
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536 posted:Wait, you like Blumenthal? I don’t have a strong opinion on Blumenthal or Norton, I was just observing that they are still making content and posting it. Ben Norton makes good jazz music tho check out his website lol
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Aug 12, 2019 17:26
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the disconnect in that post between how it starts and how it ends is annihilating my brain
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Aug 12, 2019 17:29
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brugroffil posted:I was in the infantry during the surge op. You've seen war from one side. You didn't see it from the side of the Kurds in Iraq, who were protected from a second Anfal campaign for a decade through a no fly zone, which ended with Saddam hanging at the end of a rope on a day that is still an unofficial Kurdish holiday. You didn't see it from the perspective of Arabs in Iraq who were subject to unaccounted violence from US forces that unjustly targeted them, to the extent that they were willing to support loving AQI and bloodthirsty Shia militias in Iraq because they were so desperate. You don't know what it is to be under a boot, you've only worn it. And yet you sit there and judge people who are under one themselves, because you haven't experienced anything like what they experienced, and you refuse to acknowledge or listen to them. I don't give a gently caress about what Guiado, Bolton, or you have to say about what is going on there. I want to know what the protesters are saying. What the streets want, what they feel, and why. And that's the only information that will factor into determining what I want to see in Venezuela. In lieu of that, I'm not going to make poo poo up to serve my own ends, because I don't have any beyond human rights and dignity for Venezuelan people who as of right now, are being oppressed by a shithole government that refuses to cede power. Those are the people who need to be at the center of this discussion, not the US. Maybe if people had a coherent counter-strategy to the John Boltons of the world that wasn't rooted in some cold war era chessboard nonsense that sees those trapped in the middle as pawns on a board rather than people entitled to self-determination, those types of neocons would become obsolete. But as it stands, they're the only people offering solutions, albeit ridiculously lovely ones. If the "anti-imperialist" left ever offered anything other than the status quo, maybe they wouldn't lose the debate so goddamned always. CharlestheHammer posted:wait that’s volkerball, that’s cheating the dude might actually be John Bolton lmfao
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Aug 12, 2019 20:41
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lol i didnt know volkerball was a troop. that makes sense
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Aug 12, 2019 20:42
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Sheng-Ji Yang posted:lol i didnt know volkerball was a troop. that makes sense went to high school with a dozen more just like him our whole generation of downstate illinois white kids was supposed to grow up to be the next round of Moderate Conservatives (tm). now even the guy who instinctively barks "WE WILL BE GREETED AS LIBERATORS" when you mention brown death has a hard time talking himself into voting Republican
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Aug 12, 2019 20:59
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touching a sword dong is a less problematic conflict of interest in the media than being literally funded by the companies trying to overthrow venezuela and lol if you wouldnt touch a sword dong bestowing magnifico empanada powers
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Aug 12, 2019 21:20
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I'm not much for ceremony but the sword is cool.
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Aug 12, 2019 21:21
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comedyblissoption posted:touching a sword dong is a less problematic conflict of interest in the media than being literally funded by the companies i agree we shouldn't give much thought to lovely journalists that literally took plane tickets, hotel stays, and spending cash from a ruler and "reported" on them in country. gray zone is garbage. rather have al jazeera op-eds about how VZ shouldnt be trifled with.
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Aug 12, 2019 21:41
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we could have had rubio unleashing chiang and maduro against him with bolivars sword in another world, alas
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Aug 12, 2019 21:47
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536 posted:i agree we shouldn't give much thought to lovely journalists that literally took plane tickets, hotel stays, and spending cash from a ruler and "reported" on them in country. gray zone is garbage. you seem to have way more issues about how the travel is funded than the actual reporting.
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Aug 12, 2019 21:56
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