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I really should've known Robert was some CIA psyop for the American Empire when he was able to so vividly describe Schumer's weird spore dick.
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# ? Jan 17, 2021 22:34 |
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# ? May 30, 2024 09:03 |
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Spore cum.
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# ? Jan 17, 2021 22:38 |
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Firstscion posted:Can we get to the real reason Robert is a bastard, that he only released the first chapter of his book and I really want the rest of it. i think he is a bastard because he hasnt talked about the biggest bastard yet,,,,,, loving og strong sad himself Lorgar Aurelian
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# ? Jan 17, 2021 22:46 |
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Generic American posted:I really should've known Robert was some CIA psyop for the American Empire when he was able to so vividly describe Schumer's weird spore dick. i think he's a left-liberal who means well but doesn't really understand how the US imperial apparatus works. i enjoyed his series about a possible 2nd US civil war very much.
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# ? Jan 17, 2021 23:31 |
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So i'm a little behind but I listened to the first chapter of Evans' novel and it was fun but oh man somebody's been playing or reading some Shadowrun.
lonelylikezoidberg fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Jan 18, 2021 |
# ? Jan 18, 2021 01:03 |
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lonelylikezoidberg posted:So i'm a little behind but I listened to the first chapter of Evans' novel and it was fun but oh man somebody's been playing or reading some Shadowrun. I enjoyed it, but was amazed that Robert of all people would be that optimistic about the future of the UK
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# ? Jan 18, 2021 01:09 |
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Lobster God posted:I enjoyed it, but was amazed that Robert of all people would be that optimistic about the future of the UK I think he said he wrote it around 2016 maybe so that could explain it. England is turbofucked, tho
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# ? Jan 18, 2021 02:19 |
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lonelylikezoidberg posted:I think he said he wrote it around 2016 maybe so that could explain it. Oh yeah, we're hosed. Over a decade of an austerity driven Tory government, forty years of Murdoch dominated press, half a century of cuts to our health and education systems, all culminating in the election of a populist Trump-lite during a global pandemic, an encroaching recession, and the utter clusterfuck that is Brexit. I haven't listened to the first chapter yet, but yeah we're omnifucked. 7seven7 fucked around with this message at 02:48 on Jan 18, 2021 |
# ? Jan 18, 2021 02:45 |
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gh0stpinballa posted:*bullshit from twitter* don't care about loving twitter, it's a lovely site that sucks the nuance out of everything
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# ? Jan 18, 2021 05:23 |
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7seven7 posted:Oh yeah, we're hosed. Over a decade of an austerity driven Tory government, forty years of Murdoch dominated press, half a century of cuts to our health and education systems, all culminating in the election of a populist Trump-lite during a global pandemic, an encroaching recession, and the utter clusterfuck that is Brexit. The first chapter is fun, give it a listen! Fwiw its not like England has half a billion guns like the US does, so I guess thats something?
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# ? Jan 18, 2021 05:31 |
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gh0stpinballa posted:i think he's a left-liberal who means well but doesn't really understand how the US imperial apparatus works. i enjoyed his series about a possible 2nd US civil war very much. That's weird because he's stated outright a whole bunch of times that he's an anarchist who thinks governments should be abolished. Admittedly I've only listened to about half the stuff he's put out but that doesn't really scream "left-liberal" to me. Lemniscate Blue fucked around with this message at 05:44 on Jan 18, 2021 |
# ? Jan 18, 2021 05:42 |
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Robert's sci-fi novel should be a series on netflix or something. He can have a cameo in it as a neurologically altered fighter. And ask Charlie Brooker to be the British journalist.
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# ? Jan 18, 2021 10:30 |
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Lemniscate Blue posted:That's weird because he's stated outright a whole bunch of times that he's an anarchist who thinks governments should be abolished. Admittedly I've only listened to about half the stuff he's put out but that doesn't really scream "left-liberal" to me. I don't know how someone can listen to the women's war and think Robert is anything other than an anarchist.
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# ? Jan 18, 2021 11:48 |
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Testekill posted:I don't know how someone can listen to the women's war and think Robert is anything other than an anarchist. It's the part where he's pro US intervention. Like when he supported the coup against Evo Morales. Also the part where he bragged on twitter about working with feds or hanging out with Mossad agents.
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# ? Jan 18, 2021 16:17 |
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MonsieurChoc posted:It's the part where he's pro US intervention. Like when he supported the coup against Evo Morales. Uhhh citations please?
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# ? Jan 18, 2021 17:59 |
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Lemniscate Blue posted:That's weird because he's stated outright a whole bunch of times that he's an anarchist who thinks governments should be abolished. Admittedly I've only listened to about half the stuff he's put out but that doesn't really scream "left-liberal" to me. he has worked with feds supposedly to teach them how to spot right wing extremists, supports the interventions in libya, syria and venezuela, works for an outlet that is at least part funded by the state department, amplified the obama admin's line on ukraine, and was clearly uncomfortable labelling the bolivian coup a coup until the evidence was so overwhelming he could perhaps have alienated some of his listeners by persisting w the denial/obfuscation. this all indicates a pretty strong faith in US institutions and the good intentions of the imperial state, the very definition of a left liberal. again, i enjoy some of his work, and none of this is a value judgement of him or his fans. it simply is what it is. it could happen here is still a very interesting piece of work.
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# ? Jan 18, 2021 18:09 |
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Bobby Evans is was what no theory does to a mf.
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# ? Jan 18, 2021 19:26 |
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I never voiced support for regime change in Venezuela. Saying "Maduro sucks" is not the same as saying "his regime should be violently overthrown and Guaido put in". I also never voiced support for the coup against Morales. I'll fully admit to not having understood the situation in Bolivia with much depth when I initially posted about it. I was definitely part of a problem there that is endemic to having large platforms on social media: talking poo poo about situations you don't know enough about to comment responsibly on. I've repeatedly called it a coup and shared information about the situation as the fight against Anez proceeded. As for Libya, Syria, Ukraine, my opinions on those countries are based on repeated interviews with people who live there and- in the case of Syria and Ukraine, time actually spent in country. It's bad to allow dictators to mass-murder hundreds of thousands of people. My desire for some form of effective humanitarian intervention in Syria came out of repeatedly talking face-to-face with victims of the Assad regime. I think a lot of people whose initial opinions on a situation are based on tweets and heavily skewed reportage (and I include my initial take on Bolivia here) would have their minds radically changed by seeing the situation on the ground and talking to people present. IE, actually talking to Iraqi Kurds who lived through Saddam's genocide and hearing their opinions about the no-fly zone. The history of U.S. intervention in Iraq is largely horrific, but when you're actually in the country you run into differing experiences from an awful lot of folks who live north of Mosul, mainly on the no-fly zone, which many credit for the survival of their family.
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# ? Jan 19, 2021 05:21 |
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so you have at least some faith in US institutional power and support military intervention where you feel it is appropriate. that's why i disagree with your own/your listeners' description of your politics. i am not saying i think it's good that "dictators mass murder people", or that adopting leftlib/liberal interventionist positions makes you or your listeners bad people. i might disagree with your opinion on intervention but it hardly matters does it, i'm just some person on the internet. is there going to be a sequel to ICHH btw?
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# ? Jan 19, 2021 11:24 |
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Just listened to the first chapter of the novel and I'm pretty jazzed to get the rest of it. I didn't get the impression of optimism about the future of the British state like some other posters did, and considering Robert's (rightful) disdain for the entirety of Britain's insanely lovely history I was curious to see what angle that took. But I did thoroughly enjoy his seemingly earnest attempt at an upper class English accent. I'm hoping Jake Hanrahan calls him up to take the piss out of him for that.
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# ? Jan 19, 2021 11:51 |
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gh0stpinballa posted:so you have at least some faith in US institutional power and support military intervention where you feel it is appropriate. that's why i disagree with your own/your listeners' description of your politics. i am not saying i think it's good that "dictators mass murder people", or that adopting leftlib/liberal interventionist positions makes you or your listeners bad people. i might disagree with your opinion on intervention but it hardly matters does it, i'm just some person on the internet. Please don't take this as an attack, because I'm genuinely curious about your position. I just don't understand people with your point of view. Do you think intervention is NEVER a good thing? I mean, intervening in Rwanda might've prevented a genocide. Intervening in Syria earlier could've helped prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of refugees living in poor, desperate conditions. We could've saved even more lives had we intervened in Kosovo or Bosia earlier. Do you think because our history of loving up invasions and occupations (Iraq v 2.0, Vietnam, Afghanistan) that we should allow crimes against humanity to happen in places where we have the capability to intervene? Do you just think that we'll gently caress it up even if we do intervene, and the second and third order effects of an intervention make it counterproductive? Or are you against the U.S.'s nominal role in the world, and wish it to be more "let's worry about our people here first" type of deal?
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# ? Jan 19, 2021 19:50 |
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Bored As gently caress posted:Please don't take this as an attack, because I'm genuinely curious about your position. I just don't understand people with your point of view. Do you think intervention is NEVER a good thing? I think it’s more that if you look at the outcomes when we do intervene, be it with boots on the ground, air campaigns, or through funding and supporting state or non-state actors, the results seem to consistently result in a greater disaster than the status quo. This is true in Libya, obviously, and also Iraq and Afghanistan and throughout Central America. Our intervention in Syria has been a disaster and I’m unconvinced a larger intervention wouldn’t be another Libya or Iraq. So do we stop the horror, or do we inevitably break everything even more than it’s already broken. I’m not particularly keen on whitewashing or ignoring the very real human rights catastrophes we use to justify intervention, I’m simply unconvinced our involvement does anything other than make everything worse. It’s conceivable to me that an intervention might be done in a way that’s a net positive, but it would take frontlining certain values, values that US and European intervention does not tend to frontline (except rhetorically). Instead, our interventions consider first what’s in our interests and what we can extract of value. Any intervention predicated on those considerations is doomed.
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# ? Jan 19, 2021 20:16 |
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HashtagGirlboss posted:I think it’s more that if you look at the outcomes when we do intervene, be it with boots on the ground, air campaigns, or through funding and supporting state or non-state actors, the results seem to consistently result in a greater disaster than the status quo. This is true in Libya, obviously, and also Iraq and Afghanistan and throughout Central America. Our intervention in Syria has been a disaster and I’m unconvinced a larger intervention wouldn’t be another Libya or Iraq. So do we stop the horror, or do we inevitably break everything even more than it’s already broken. I’m not particularly keen on whitewashing or ignoring the very real human rights catastrophes we use to justify intervention, I’m simply unconvinced our involvement does anything other than make everything worse. Yeah, I agree with most of this. In my opinion, we have just screwed up the interventions because we don't listen to the people on the ground, and the subject matter experts. We don't plan correctly for second and third order effects. I believe we had opportunities to make the interventions work, if we did them correctly, but either through incompetence (Iraq, Afghanistan), outside domestic political factors (Libya - Obama being held back by the GOP), or sheer stupidity, we bungle them more often than not. The problem is our attention is almost always focused on the "war," when winning the "peace" is much more difficult, time consuming, resource-intensive, and complicated. For instance, with Afghanistan, we had a pretty decent chance of "winning" in 2002 to 2004. Winning in the sense of having some sense of stability in the major cities, perhaps even a negotiated peace with the Taliban. However, because of the Bush administration's lust for war with Iraq, we moved a majority of our assets to Iraq. Assets that included everything from intelligence community assets and attention, to helicopters and SOF units, and perhaps most importantly, attention from the State Department and DoD. There's a great book by Ahmed Rashid, the author of Taliban, called Descent Into Chaos: The U.S. and the Disaster in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia, that outlines every single fuckup the Bush administration made, and how, if they weren't so loving stupid, and didn't switch our focus onto Iraq, we could have had a much better outcome in Afghanistan. It's a heartbreaking read. https://www.amazon.com/Descent-into-Chaos-Disaster-Afghanistan/dp/014311557X In my mind, if we had a democratic president in office on 9/11, Afghanistan would've had a much better outcome, we wouldn't have stuck our dick in the beehive that is Iraq, and Iran would still have been kept in check by Iraq. Instead, by invading Iraq, we gave Iran the best gift they could have ever asked for - a friendly Iraq almost puppet state, and way more influence in the ME than it had before. Second and third order effects. Done intelligently, with realistic goals, realistic timelines, and proper funding and manpower, I do believe humanitarian interventions can work. I look at Kosovo and Bosnia as relatively successful interventions. As for Central and South America, and also for that matter Vietnam, those interventions were done because of the outdated and debunked "domino" theory about Communist regimes spreading from country to country. There is no excuse for propping up fascist death squads in Central and South America, no excuse for enacting military coups on democratically elected countries for the crime of being socialist. Any and all interventions Reagan did were despicable. Those aren't the kinds of interventions I am talking about - I'm only talking about recent ones. Bored As Fuck fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Jan 19, 2021 |
# ? Jan 19, 2021 21:49 |
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Bored As gently caress posted:Yeah, I agree with most of this. In my opinion, we have just screwed up the interventions because we don't listen to the people on the ground, and the subject matter experts. We don't plan correctly for second and third order effects. I believe we had opportunities to make the interventions work, if we did them correctly, but either through incompetence (Iraq, Afghanistan), outside domestic political factors (Libya - Obama being held back by the GOP), or sheer stupidity, we bungle them more often than not. The problem is our attention is almost always focused on the "war," when winning the "peace" is much more difficult, time consuming, resource-intensive, and complicated. I'm not sure I agree that Libya was limited by the GOP. I think that the goals of the intervention were to remove Qaddafi and to take control of the mineral resources as inexpensively as possible. This did not work out very well in the long term. Interestingly, this is one of the not very many places where Joe Biden and I align, lmao Edit: and to avoid being misunderstood, I don't see how a larger invasion of Libya would have worked out any better, nor do I see a more limited intervention having worked out better. All possibilities would have expanded the immiseration of the people. Which isn't to say that there aren't people who benefit. And it's not to say that there aren't people who would have been much worse off who are put in a much better place. But on the whole everything seems much, much worse. HashtagGirlboss fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Jan 19, 2021 |
# ? Jan 19, 2021 22:07 |
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i don't think a larger invasion of Libya would have been the answer but I do think better and more extensive humanitarian aid could've secured the people there a better situation than they currently have. that said I don't think the situation in Libya is as cut and dried as some make it out to be. A much higher percentage of the population of Syria has died fighting Assad than have died in Libya since Qaddafi's ouster, and a lot of the takes that Libya was particularly stable and safe prior ignore an awful lot of horrible poo poo. For example, folks tend to ignore the absolutely nightmarish treatment of migrants attempting to make it to Europe by the Qaddafi regime: https://www.hrw.org/report/2009/09/21/pushed-back-pushed-around/italys-forced-return-boat-migrants-and-asylum-seekers Much of this occurred as part of deals Qaddafi made with authoritarian European leaders to stop immigration into Europe of non-white people: "Libya’s recent immigration “reforms,” introduced by Colonel Muammar Gadaffi apparently after overtures from Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, resemble a catalogue of human rights abuses against migrants and asylum-seekers. African internees and migrants in Libya are being detained in what one MEP has described as “catastrophic conditions.” And Libya continues forcibly to deport Eritrean refugees to Eritrea, where they face arrest, illegal detention and torture. If Libya is called on to run EU processing camps, we can surely expect more of the same." Here are some things Qaddafi said to stoke European fears of African migration: "Tomorrow Europe might no longer be European, and even black, as there are millions who want to come in," "We don't know what will happen, what will be the reaction of the white and Christian Europeans faced with this influx of starving and ignorant Africans," "We don't know if Europe will remain an advanced and united continent or if it will be destroyed, as happened with the barbarian invasions." The videos of slave dealing in modern Libya are horrific. But this went on under Qaddafi as well: https://www.washingtonpost.com/arch...m=.35802ecef723 Now I am NOT in agreement that there was ever any way an invasion of Afghanistan was likely to work out. But my support of very specific humanitarian intervention is based around the fact that there have been a number of successful humanitarian interventions that have saved lives and provided people with a higher standard of living (including Iraqi Kurdistan) and I've spoken to many people who owe their lives to these interventions. I'm no more willing to erase their stories and perspectives than I am willing to erase the numerous failures of U.S. foreign / military policy, which I have discussed at length in my show and in my career as a journalist.
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# ? Jan 20, 2021 03:02 |
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You people, including Robert, are terminally naïve if you think that the military does anything that isn't in service of some kind of imperial ambition. Humanitarian intervention is a happy byproduct when it isn't just a straight-up lie. Intervention is war. edit: tfw you just love empire Bored As gently caress posted:In my mind, if we had a democratic president in office on 9/11, Afghanistan would've had a much better outcome, we wouldn't have stuck our dick in the beehive that is Iraq, and Iran would still have been kept in check by Iraq. Instead, by invading Iraq, we gave Iran the best gift they could have ever asked for - a friendly Iraq almost puppet state, and way more influence in the ME than it had before. Second and third order effects. GunFondler42069 posted:I never voiced support for regime change in Venezuela. Saying "Maduro sucks" is not the same as saying "his regime should be violently overthrown and Guaido put in". Just say you supported the coup, man. C'mon. Marijuana fucked around with this message at 03:31 on Jan 20, 2021 |
# ? Jan 20, 2021 03:29 |
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Marijuana posted:You people, including Robert, are terminally naïve if you think that the military does anything that isn't in service of some kind of imperial ambition. Humanitarian intervention is a happy byproduct when it isn't just a straight-up lie. Intervention is war. You're grasping at straws, dude. So what's your response to 9/11 look like in Afghanistan?
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# ? Jan 20, 2021 03:34 |
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I've never supported a coup in Venezuela. And this black and white poo poo is part of the problem the left has today. Internationalism is dead because grifters like the Grayzone and their cadre of idiots have pushed a form of anti-imperialism that ignores every imperialist power that isn't the U.S. I'm glad to know the folks I've talked to in Bosnia, Syria and Iraq are liars who don't know what happened in their own lives. Gotta love the anti-imperialist left who actively denies the agency of people whose life experiences contrast with easy answers.
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# ? Jan 20, 2021 03:39 |
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Bored As gently caress posted:You're grasping at straws, dude. Easy. Ignore it. Don't start seven or eight wars.
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# ? Jan 20, 2021 03:44 |
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Sadly, there is no cure for terminal C-SPAM.
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# ? Jan 20, 2021 03:47 |
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GunFondler42069 posted:I'm glad to know the folks I've talked to in Bosnia, Syria and Iraq are liars who don't know what happened in their own lives. Gotta love the anti-imperialist left who actively denies the agency of people whose life experiences contrast with easy answers. Why are you denying the agency of pro-Maduro Venezuelans or pro-Assad Syrians?
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# ? Jan 20, 2021 03:50 |
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GunFondler42069 posted:Now I am NOT in agreement that there was ever any way an invasion of Afghanistan was likely to work out. But my support of very specific humanitarian intervention is based around the fact that there have been a number of successful humanitarian interventions that have saved lives and provided people with a higher standard of living (including Iraqi Kurdistan) and I've spoken to many people who owe their lives to these interventions. I'm no more willing to erase their stories and perspectives than I am willing to erase the numerous failures of U.S. foreign / military policy, which I have discussed at length in my show and in my career as a journalist. Did you ever read the paper by a SF (Green Beret) Major Jim Gant, One Tribe at a Time? It's a great read. The full PDF is here (it's only 45 pages): https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...5NFXQ_Fq2w6YZeC It goes over how using Tribal Engagement Teams made up of SF (Green Berets) officers and A Teams, instead of large amounts of conventional forces, we could support, arm, equip, train, and help each tribe fight against the Taliban. Instead of wasting time money on the ANA and ANP, and instead of painstakingly attempting to force a western style of democracy into a nation that hasn't ever had a central government that controlled the entire country, we could instead work within Afghanistan's thousand-year cultural framework. quote:We will be totally unable to protect the “civilians” It's very well worth the read, even if you disagree that we ever could've "won" there.
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# ? Jan 20, 2021 03:54 |
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GunFondler42069 posted:I've never supported a coup in Venezuela. And this black and white poo poo is part of the problem the left has today. Internationalism is dead because grifters like the Grayzone and their cadre of idiots have pushed a form of anti-imperialism that ignores every imperialist power that isn't the U.S. These kind of leftists often tend to ignore the imperialist actions of countries like China and Russia. Ain't that some poo poo?
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# ? Jan 20, 2021 03:55 |
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GunFondler42069 posted:i don't think a larger invasion of Libya would have been the answer but I do think better and more extensive humanitarian aid could've secured the people there a better situation than they currently have. that said I don't think the situation in Libya is as cut and dried as some make it out to be. A much higher percentage of the population of Syria has died fighting Assad than have died in Libya since Qaddafi's ouster, and a lot of the takes that Libya was particularly stable and safe prior ignore an awful lot of horrible poo poo. For example, folks tend to ignore the absolutely nightmarish treatment of migrants attempting to make it to Europe by the Qaddafi regime: Using migrants to justify Libya isn’t particularly compelling as the situation remains as bad or worse. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/09/libya-new-evidence-shows-refugees-and-migrants-trapped-in-horrific-cycle-of-abuses/ Further, you can always find a sympathetic case to justify intervention. Governments are oppressive and I don’t know how you get around that. The only thing stopping any country from being invaded is hard and soft power and how much anyone cares about what that country has. In fact, this can be seen quite clearly in where we intervene and where we wring our hands at the horror (say Myanmar or Sri Lanka). Or where we just outright back the wrong side like in Israel or Yemen The question is whether the intervention can feasibly be expected to resolve the human rights issue without creating greater chaos that ultimately leads to more death and destruction than the underlying justification. It’s impossible to see the US, especially with the underlying motives that inform where interventions occur, ever doing more good than harm. We invade for our interests and in the interest of resource extraction and global capital. When that’s your underlying motive you’re interventions will be planned and executed in a way that takes human life into account. So I don’t see a US intervention helping. Syria is a horror but the US can’t fix it, anymore than we could have fixed for example Cambodia. I’m not saying the Vietnamese did it the right way either (although British and quite possibly US direct support of the Khmer Rouge didn’t help at all) but the US had no place there and could only have made everything worse. I’m confident the same is true of Syria and Venezuela. HashtagGirlboss fucked around with this message at 04:02 on Jan 20, 2021 |
# ? Jan 20, 2021 03:58 |
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Bored As gently caress posted:These kind of leftists often tend to ignore the imperialist actions of countries like China and Russia. Ain't that some poo poo? Who are you talking about, homie?
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# ? Jan 20, 2021 04:03 |
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Marijuana posted:Who are you talking about, homie? There’s a pretty clear orthodoxy that before we can be critical of US imperialism, the nation that the majority of us are residents of and ostensibly are represented by, and that we theoretically have some influence in the actions of, we must first ensure our geopolitical rivals are taken down. Charges of whataboutism get tossed back and forth and that’s that. That’s kind of how these things go
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# ? Jan 20, 2021 04:12 |
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I didn't bring up China or Russia. If it makes you feel better to paint me with the tankie brush, you do you I guess. It's cool that Bob spoke to some very specific people in the various countries the US has attacked and thinks he knows enough so that he can decide their president for them and lobby the deadliest empire in history to make sure his pick for president is placed in power, though.
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# ? Jan 20, 2021 04:16 |
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Bad things happening in other countries is sad, and I'm no fan of foreign dictators, but American intervention has made things worse consistently, is always about imperial power projection instead of helping people on the ground, and should never be promulgated. Also most dictators are US puppets and they replaced by other US puppets. Edit: I also missed when someone mentionned Kosovo as a good intervention. It wasn't. The US bombed hospitals and in general just blundered through like a blind idiot. The conflict ended but the US did not make things btter. MonsieurChoc fucked around with this message at 04:33 on Jan 20, 2021 |
# ? Jan 20, 2021 04:26 |
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I’ll also point out that the US interest in Syria is weakening an adversarial regional power and loving with Russia. Any action the US takes in Syria will be informed by those goals. Those goals do not in any way align with securing the safety of the Syrian people
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# ? Jan 20, 2021 04:40 |
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# ? May 30, 2024 09:03 |
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Marijuana posted:I didn't bring up China or Russia. If it makes you feel better to paint me with the tankie brush, you do you I guess. Hey, sorry. Didn't realize you weren't "one of those." It's just I see that a lot and I guess I misjudged you. So, sorry about that.
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# ? Jan 20, 2021 04:56 |