Just stating here that you'll almost never find Mullvad on a list of top vpns solely due to the fact that all of the top vpns are owned by the same company masquerading as separate ones and pays for all of those lists.
Streaming services take efforts to block VPNs. VPNs targeting users who want to access streaming services need to work to circumvent the efforts of streaming services. Mullvad does not attempt to do this so.
At this point it's safe to assume that this is always the unstated part of the plan. Keeping individual areas destabilized
1. decreases nations' ability to organize,
2. prevents them from properly utilizing their natural resources,
3. reduces possible competition at the global economic level,
4. increases the the possibility of extracting resources and labor from them due to an increase of various factors like economic desperation and political variability.
It serves fully developed countries' interests better to keep everyone else down so they can be exploited. Negotiating with blocs rather than newly instated and flexible rulers annoying and difficult.
This is just a typical conspiracy theory to explain the mess that is reality. It borrows aspects of the real world:
1. Predatory resource extraction from poorer countries,
2. Cases where western militaries / intelligence agencies have helped overthrow democratically elected governments,
Etc
But! Then it fuses these pieces and makes it seem like they are part of a larger plan. A plan where "someone" has incentive, lack of ethics and almost all powerful capability to manipulate events.
Thing is, masterminds don't exist. Opportunists do.
*It doesn't serve developed nations interests to keep everyone else down.* Look at globalization. How much money has western companies made from utilizing manufacturing in Asia? More than they would extracting some minerals mined by child laborers...
My experience is different. These things are planned. There is a grand plan. The planners are incompetent nincompoots, though, and things rarely go according to plan.
I've been in enough power positions to see that grand plans and grant ambitions do exist, as do lots and lots of conspiracies. It's just that the external conspiracy theories rarely line up with actual conspiracies. What's going on inside is usually far, far stupider than even the conspiracy theory.
> far, far stupider than even the conspiracy theory
That was my big takeaway from reading a bunch of "insider" books after the 2008 crash. The banks thought they were getting away with an great scheme (not a conspiracy, per se), but had the common human inability to properly model out the logical chain of implications over the long term (and perhaps a touch of "emperor's clothes" preventing proper risk assessment within larger organizations). Meanwhile the market punters were caught up in a frothy bubble ("this time is truly different!") which clouded their perception of reality, which led to all kinds of bullshit hype in the media. There were outliers, of course (e.g. I rememeber an eye-opening article in Harper's in ~2006 which was extremely dire in its outlook, and of course there were various people who were fortunate with their shorts), but the folks bought into the alternate reality tended to ignore warnings, given that their money was invested in the fever dream (also perhaps trusting the authority of the banks to have put together a low risk product, without truly understanding it).
In short, there's no need to conjure up an illuminati when you have all of the various standard fallacies of human thinking to work with.
> In short, there's no need to conjure up an illuminati when you have all of the various standard fallacies of human thinking to work with.
You definitely don't need an Illuminati-esque mastermind when the participants in the system have similar goals, motivations, and capabilities. In retrospect an event might look coordinated but really it's just an aggregate of every participant acting entirely independently but according to similar constraints.
a) Nobody not even POTUS is in a position to even have such a 'Grand Plan' in this regard.
b) Yes, some 'Grand Planners' exist, and fully agree that they are often a mess.
c) There is no plan to destabilize Africa. Totally the opposite. The plan is definitely to bring stability, because everyone wins there. It's in that endeavour 'they fail' in 1000 different 'unforeseen' ways. Those systems are arguably inherently chaotic and will be for some time.
There were plenty of well-documented plans, mostly by oil companies, to destabilize African countries. The idea is to keep a level of corruption high enough to where you can get lucrative profits through bribes, but not high enough to have an open war zone and where contracts you made are enforced.
This isn't a conspiracy; it's well-documented.
Good book: Poisoned Wells: The Dirty Politics of African Oil
Nobody wants chaos, especially not corrupt people.
Saudi Arabia is effectively 'fully institutionalized corruption backed by the US Army' and it's almost 'model'.
The Oil Flows, the Leader does whatever he wants with his cut, as long as there is stability and order.
Instability leads to failed contracts, downfall of leaders knocks over dominoes, attracts attention, people are arrested and go public, war etc..
This idea that somehow 'an Oil Company' could actively keep something a bit broken but not fully broken gives way, way too much agency to them. They are not that smart or powerful.
They would all be happy just to pay 'The Guy' his cut in perpetuity.
Arguably, Russia is such a country. Putin et. al. take their cut, the plebes get some scraps, everything is cool.
Everyone was willing to look the other way at his minor intransigence.
Until he crossed the line, and now he has to be dealt with.
All he had to do was take his billions and literally not invade anywhere. He could do anything he wanted in his borders.
As you can see all of Europe is roiling as the result of chaos, nobody wants it - not Putin, not Europe, not any Oil Company.
I have been trying to take over the Illuminati brand, since discovering that actually no one is in control. Have survived enough psychological trauma to do a way better job than whoever is attempting it right now.
Not an ego thing. I just find it embarrassing that this is the best purported enlightened people can do.
It's also possible to go too far in the direction of seeing only tactics but never strategy, and taking countries publicly stated goals and motives at face value. Zbigniew Brzezinski was one of our most influential contemporary foreign policy thinkers - here's the NYT reviewing his book 'The Grand Chessboard':
Brzezinski ... describes a very forbidding situation in the years ahead if the United States does not make more permanent the dominance it now has over a vast area of the world. "This huge, oddly shaped Eurasian chessboard -- extending from Lisbon to Vladivostok -- provides the setting for 'the game,'" Brzezinski says. "If the middle space can be drawn increasingly into the expanding orbit of the West (where America preponderates), if the southern region is not subjected to domination by a single player, and if the East is not unified in a manner that prompts the expulsion of America from its offshore bases, America can then be said to prevail. But if the middle space rebuffs the West, becomes an assertive single entity, and either gains control over the South or forms an alliance with the major Eastern actor, then America's primacy in Eurasia shrinks dramatically."[1]
In other words, for the US to continue its unipolar domination requires the lack of cohesive blocs dominated by other great powers. Obviously in this context Brzezinski is alluding to Russia and China in the Eurasian 'chessboard', but the logic is broadly applicable around the globe. There's also a difference between controlling events like a puppeteer pulling strings and the more common scenario where our actions help catalyze events we may not have intended but were nonetheless predictable and seen as not worth the effort or trade-offs to avoid.
Brzezinski is a very good example considering his “Arc of Crisis” strategy was to literally keep the Islamic states on the periphery of the Soviet Union destabilized. Not exactly a conspiracy, actual US policy.
You seem to be misunderstanding what Brzezinski said to and portray it as having the opposite meaning. The point of the "Arc of Crisis" speech was that the U.S. needed to help _stabilize_ the area, because a destabilized region could fall to the Soviets. This was in response to American concerns that instability in its ally Iran could spill over to other allies as well. Here's an article from the time[1]:
> High‐ranking White House and Defense Department officials argue that other key nations in the region, such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey, are prone to the same domestic disorders that have struck Iran and that Moscow seems increasingly inclined to exploit these difficulties.
> As a result, while some middle‐level specialists in the State Department caution against exaggerating the impact of the crisis in Iran and complain that the White House is in danger of creating a Vietnam‐type “domino theory,” ‘the Administration is said to be fashioning its policy toward Iran and its neighbors in regional terms, treating the area as “an arc of crisis,” a description used recently by Zbigniew Brzezinski, Mr. Carter's national security assistant.
> In a speech to the Foreign Policy Association last week, Mr. Brzezinski said “the arc of crisis” stretched “along the shores of the Indian Ocean with fragile social and political structures in a region of vital importance to us threatened with fragmentation.”
> “The resulting political chaos,” he added, “could well be filled by elements hostile to our values and sympathetic to our adversaries.”
I find it ironic that the very people who dismiss everything they cannot comprehend as “conspiracy theory”, because it does not fit their conditioned frame of mind; are not all that different than the other end of the spectrum that is convinced everything is fake.
It’s similar to how people dismiss that TV (among other things) can be used to brainwash/condition/ manipulate people, while being totally blind to one of the biggest industries in all of humanity exists on that very premise … advertising.
But when both occur together, they become extremely powerful: once you start buying into "everything is a lie", you are free to pick whatever claim on TV is the most convenient, no matter how much evidence there is for the other side.
you are forgeting all the concrete evidence that the opportunists DO have access to power.
look no further than the leaked usa diplomat cables. for example, brazil found new oil reserves. president announces it will be nationalized to pay for new education reform. cables then show conversation about oil companies wanting that resource and that the local diplomats must "solve it". later brazil have a senate coup where president is removed on bogus charges and very first act if new president is to sell rights to the oil reserves bellow market value.
so, yeah, both your comment and the one you replied to are correct. it's all oportunistic, but the opportunists are the defacto masterminds of the power machine somehow.
That said, I think this type of quasi-conspiratorial narrative building (like parent) tends to exist because there is no credible good guy theory currently.
Flawed as it was the 90s neoliberalish, globalish ideology was... at least it was an ideology. It had a a sense of good and bad. It had some promises of better futures. Etc.
What we have now is "stuff happens, sometimes that sucks."
> What we have now is "stuff happens, sometimes that sucks."
I think this is exactly the scenario where conspiracy theories thrive. It’s really hard for people to accept that stuff happens and sometimes that sucks. We need to assign a “reason”. Preferably a reason that makes us feel like it wouldn’t or couldn’t happen to us.
I meant, there isn't a current ideological rationale for trade/development/etc. There isn't a vision for where it leads. Etc.
I mentioned 90s neliberalism-ish policies. Well... those were a promise of a better world. So was communism, democratic socialism, etc. They had visions of the future. Rationales for how things get better.
Now... There isn't. Trade or security are just about trade and security. They aren't part of a bigger whole. They aren't about a vision for anything. There's no reassurance that this is good for Africans, or even for Americans. It just is.
Islamism, as mentioned up thread, is a powerful ideology that is thriving.
There's also social justice and related movements in the West, but that's internal ideological development in liberalism, not something that can be sold to the world.
China's brand of profit-oriented authoritarianism state capitalism is also spreading around the world, though. Including Africa.
It is quite interesting seeing these comments, I wonder what the age of the commenter is, these older fellows in the thread and elsewhere might have longer memories and remember things such as
> "Protecting the free flow of Africa's natural resources to the global market is one of AFRICOM'S guiding principles"
few problems with your reasoning (and reality is a lot more sinister):
> Thing is, masterminds don't exist. Opportunists do.
I agree. But an incentive, or a grand hidden plan, etc are not required. What conspiracy theorists see as "the man behind the curtain" is just a side effect of the system (this is where they are wrong and fail). This is also the ultimate defense of the system because accusing a single individual/group of a hidden agenda can easily be dismissed (it isn't logic), they are "nutters" etc (and everyone sane will agree). But a system that promises freedom/equality, etc but produces predictable losers of one group ("the global South", "the poor", "the deplorables", "the plebs"), while the other group is able to bastardize them as part of the design is actually more wrong and hypocritical than a system that is doing the same but being honest about how they inflict terror.
"Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich." -- Peter Ustinov
...
> How much money has western companies made from utilizing manufacturing in Asia? More than they would extracting some minerals mined by child laborers...
Western companies have been very successful utilizing child labor in Asia and only the most high profile companies are being called out (because nobody cares about a no-name org from the West with only 50 employees being responsible for chemical burns of Bangladeshi kids limbs dying fabric for the fashion industry, ... This story only ever gets clicks as when a company the size of Nike is involved). The power systems in Asia are great at disappearing people silently[1]. Literal slavery still exists in all parts of the world. And there is no industry immune to it, e.g. if you enjoy seafood like me there is no way you haven't eaten fish that was caught by slaves (and if you're vegan you probably consumed fruit and veg picked by slaves)
There really is a long established track record of the US government and CIA doing these exact things, especially in Latin America, and in my experience at least, countries are creatures of habit. Why should anyone believe they aren't playing similar games in Africa today? The absence of an easily identifiable "someone" is not much proof to the contrary, especially when actions on the ground match up with the phenomenon referenced.
>But! Then it fuses these pieces and makes it seem like they are part of a larger plan. A plan where "someone" has incentive, lack of ethics and almost all powerful capability to manipulate events.
>Thing is, masterminds don't exist. Opportunists do.
You are forgetting that everyone is consciously or subconsciously wanting these things. You don't need a single super villain, you just need a critical mass of people who want a benefit for themselves at the expense of people they are never going to meet.
In Germany the amount of people that think they have a god given right to cheap meat and cheap oil is astonishing and they clearly don't care how that end result is achieved, they just demand that their politicians do something about it.
The idea that Africa being poor and unstable is related to cheap goods in Europe and the US is complete fiction.
Furthermore, you rate unconscious desires of westerners over the actions of Africans. What would have to occur for you to attribute a coup in an African country to the actual human beings who carried it out?
I am almost certain these masterminds exist. There are just very few countries with these kinds of imperial ambitions left. It doesn’t take much to find examples of French and US intelligence and militaries interfering in various countries in South America, Africa and Indo-China for the purpose of securing mining rights etc. The genocide in Rwanda involved ethnic militias backed by / advised by French and US on either side with the French foreign legion training the genocidaires for example. There are well documented cases where French plots to secure copper mining rights through bribery were uncovered by cia counterintelligence. Most German heavy industry when operating in Africa / South East Asia / Middle East does so by mix of bribery, political interference and cooperation with intelligence fronts like the GTZ. Africa has countries that still use the Franc and whose infrastructure is firmly in the hands of large French cooperations.
We are just witnessing in Ukraine how years of foreign interference can go horribly wrong.
A coup supported by the west in 2014, a color (orange) revolution before that. In both cases there was overt support for the anti-government protests and vetting and planning for the US favored successor (“Fuck the EU”).
A former Georgian prime minister (same that got Georgia into an armed conflict with Russia and who came into power in Georgia by a flower revolution) became head of Odessian Oblast with US support some time after 2014.
Various paramilitary groups were funded / backed by Russia / US / other people. Among them obviously the “peoples republics”.
Years of investment in “pro”-democracy NGOs many of which are known to be affiliated with the State Department and intelligence fronts, to the point that many maidan protesters / organizers were essentially paid to be there.
The Crimean referendum happened under Russian influence obviously.
The whole Nordstream 1/2 project came into existence because Ukraine was annoying to deal with and some German politicians were more than a bit too friendly and open to Russian suggestions.
In turn there was a lot of planning by the US happening to slow down Nordstream 2.
There are a lot more examples like that. Ukraine is an excellent case study how large blocks / nations follow through on their foreign policy goals over decades.
> A coup supported by the west in 2014, a color (orange) revolution before that. In both cases there was overt support for the anti-government protests and vetting and planning for the US favored successor (“Fuck the EU”).
And what were the events that led up this revolution? Walk me through the details.
> In turn there was a lot of planning by the US happening to slow down Nordstream 2.
And now Nordstream 2 is cancelled. Are you saying Putin is working with western oil and gas companies? Had Russia not invaded Ukraine last month, Nordstream 2 wouldn’t have been cancelled and gas would continue to flow into Europe.
The 2014 one was basically an association agreement with EU fell through, in part because they / the IMF were unwilling to extend a line of credit without massive cuts to government subsidized gas / energy and Russia threatened to cancel the Tarif agreements between Ukraine / Russia (as they otherwise would have given unrestricted access to EU goods to Russia. Russia instead gave a ~15 billion credit. Various NGOs then followed a typical playbook, occupy a central square, agent provocateurs showed up and created violent incidents, the Kiev mayor ordered a violent removal of protestors in order to install christmas decorations. Some protestor was shot, turned into a martyr, the investigation who was responsible has been inconclusive afaik. Various neo nazi groups (right sector) started arming themselves and attacking security forces, trying to storm government buildings. In total I think roughly ~120 protestors and ~20-40 security forces were killed. Janukovitch narrowly escaped the storming of his residence. Orange Revolution I don’t really remember any details.
I answered above in relationship to foreign interference and how sophisticated it can be. Ukraine has been of interest since the end of WWII to American intelligence, with many former Ukrainian Nazi Collaborators and Resistance fighters being approached by British and US intelligence.
Nordstream is in many ways just s bargaining chip, strong German and Russian interest in it, US obviously opposed. Instigating as much instability in Ukraine and making sure that German, Russian cooperation becomes untenable, was surely part of the US plan. Germany will now import US / US client states LNG and build corresponding terminals. US imposed various sanctions and the pipeline was held up for various reasons even before the war started. Obviously that doesn’t justify Russian aggression. This is just to say that the whole Gas thing is an excellent example of foreign interference in a country both in Germany (Russia & US) and in Ukraine (Eu & Russia & US). Note how it also played a role in the maidan revolution.
All of this to say, if Russia hadn’t invaded, Germany and Europe would be moving right along with buying Russian gas.
The problem with this theory is this idea that somehow an EU-aligned Ukraine represents a threat to Russia or Russian energy. It doesn’t. All the foreign interference in the world is irrelevant.
The truth of the matter is that Putin thought that gas supplies to Europe were a sufficient bargaining chip to prevent the EU and an in-fighting United States (thanks China/Russia/Iran, appreciate the taste of our own medicine) from acting while he took over a resource rich and to Putin, historically important Ukraine. Putin tells you this. He wrote about it and has talked about it endlessly. There is no mystery here. No grand “foreign interference” conspiracy. The US has no reason to care if Russia supplies energy to Europe except to the extent that Russia then goes on to cause chaos and trouble elsewhere. This is evident by the actions of the US which have been appeasement after appeasement.
The US propped up pro-western governments in Ukraine and sentiment as a wedge issue in particular between Germany and Russia, but also France Russia. They invested upwards of 5 billion to do so. Relationships between Russia - France - Germany were good in the early 2000s they began to deteriorate from 2004 (Orange revolution) onwards. It has been a long standing strategic goal of both the British empire and now the American Empire to keep these three countries non-aligned. Both project power by controlling sea trade routes, an economically integrated Russia would eventually significantly reduce American influence.
The natural resources of the Russian Empire / Soviet Union / Russia together with the industrial base of Germany and France would have been no match at any time of the 20th Century. Both world wars were fought in part about gaining control of the Ukranian (then Russian) resources. The separate peace of Brest-Litovsk split off essentially Ukraine and made it a protectorate of Germany. In many ways the collapse of the Soviet Union and the attempts at integrating former parts of the Russian empire are analogous.
But yeah this doesn’t explain putins actions. I would mostly agree with your analysis of his motivations.
It's not going so well for Ukrainians, and it remains to be seen for the Russians, but recent events have been a triumph huge success for those particular foreigners whose primary goal is selling more weapons manufactured in USA.
It’s going much better than even the most optimistic assessment. I fail to see how selling more American weapons (many of which are being given away?) is more economically advantageous than like, not having a destroyed Ukraine. Maybe you can walk me further through the logic here. Who is making these decisions? Was it Trump when he fought to get Nordstrom’s 2 cancelled? Or is it Biden? Or…?
Even those weapons that are "given away" are first purchased by USA taxpayers. This whole dynamic was observed long ago by Eisenhower. Probably he could have done something to resist it, but puppets like Trump and Biden have very little say in the matter. The most they can do is pick among options when TPTB suffer from a lack of unanimity: see our pathetic withdrawal from Afghanistan. The last guy who really stood up to this, got shot in Dallas.
A stable prospering Ukraine is of no more value to the actual decision makers than a stable prospering DR Congo.
Well then there isn’t much to do nor any reason to care is there?
> see our pathetic withdrawal from Afghanistan
Eh withdrawal was fine. Needed to get out of their ASAP. A little chaotic but the military (woah Biden made the MIC do something they didn’t want to do???!) didn’t think he’d actually order them out since everyone has talked about it for years and they were too far invested to cut their losses.
But sure. The Us wants to sell more weapons. So does Russia. The Russian MIC started the war so Putin would have to buy and upgrade equipment. So there ya have it.
This leads one to suspect trolling. The withdrawal was pathetic because it didn't take place two decades earlier, after ObL left Afghanistan. Also, because it has been followed by the "asset freeze" and associated starve-the-children policy.
Russia isn't led by its MIC; it is led by the dictator that USA installed. Putin, who came to power via USA manipulation, is now opposed by USA manipulation. In this, he takes his place on a long list of world leaders:
Victoriano Huerta,
Raoul Cédras,
Jean-Bertrand Aristide (actually democratically elected, but later removed and reinstalled numerous times in some weird Clintonian game),
Augusto Pinochet,
Suharto,
Rafael Trujillo,
Saddam Hussein,
Mobutu Sese Seko,
Ngo Dinh Diem,
Dương Văn Minh,
Nguyễn Khánh,
Fernando Romeo Lucas García
I'm probably missing a lot here. Especially I think there are many African leaders who could be added to this list. If the fondest dreams of CIA reptiles come true and they somehow manage to replace Putin with some other awful person, we can be sure that eventual opposition to that person's rule will fuel even more sales of armaments.
> The withdrawal was pathetic because it didn't take place two decades earlier, after ObL left Afghanistan. Also, because it has been followed by the "asset freeze" and associated starve-the-children policy.
I don't follow this chain of reasoning. Bin Laden left Afghanistan for Pakistan, the closest realistic staging area was Afghanistan (if you're going to attack this from a "get Bin Laden" angle).
> Russia isn't led by its MIC; it is led by the dictator that USA installed. Putin, who came to power via USA manipulation, is now opposed by USA manipulation. In this, he takes his place on a long list of world leaders:
Speaking of trolling...
If the US is so powerful that it can easily install whoever it wants as a puppet leader in any country, including Russia, then you should go grab a beer and relax and just enjoy your life because there is nothing you can do and nothing for you to be concerned with. The US is all-powerful and all-seeing.
Alternatively, you can not peddle very ridiculous conspiracy theories and not waste my time.
You are native. I know for a fact that these things are planned, not just in short, but in very long term plans too. You may not plan ahead, but I can assure you there are many people that plan for even the century and beyond.
The farther out the plan, the more likely it will need to be adjusted, but people who plan so far out in advance have an extreme advantage; because people like you do not plan ahead and therefore do not act to affect or are even able to effectively counter the future they have planned for you, you are merely a passenger on a rail that is taking you where others have determined you shall go.
However, you are correct, it is not a “mastermind” even when it may appear so, it is always an organization, one with a life expectancy beyond the event horizon of individual people.
Seeing how poorly the US seems to be handling China, it does not look like a long thought out plan. At this point the only hope is that China peters out before their coming population implosion and collapses under that pressure. Essentially a strategy without a plan..or is that the plan all along?
USA policy in Eastern Europe over the last two decades seems designed to push Russia into a subservient "little brother" role with China. If China is the "real" opponent, why did we just give them exclusive access to all of Russia's natural resources?
I don't buy it. Developed countries want stability in their allies/trading partners, unless they are actively at war or see another state as a threat. I doubt the US sees many threats in Africa. The crucial thing is though that historically nobody has really cared from where such (pro-western) stability came: if it was from a democratic government, fine - but if not, also fine.
> Developed countries want stability in their allies/trading partners
If you take a look at our history and our actions with our "allies" and "trading partners", do you see that to be true? Say for example with our immediate neighbours like Mexico? How about our history with Haiti the moment they became independent? Does it seem like we wanted stability for them?
How about our history with Panama, Granada, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Columbia, etc? I'm assuming everyone is familiar with the history of why and how the term banana republic got coined.
Oh, how about our history with Cuba?
It seems to me that your statement is not an accurate representation of history for those specific cases. Do you feel that's a fair perception of reality?
Yes, I think the US did/does want stability in Mexico. I think historically the US has actually been quite good at ensuring stability in other countries. Things like the Marshall plan were not altruistic and are a clear example of this. It's also possible that you want to occasionally destabilise a country as a threat to others (Vietnam?) to make them stay stable (=status quo). If you just look at the unstable results you're probably ignoring the many successful examples of stability that the US created. Again, often using and supporting terrifying regimes. Often not. Typical empire.
I make no claim that the US a) always stabilises countries b) doesn't use brutal methods to stabilise countries c) always acts in a purely rational manner.
> I think historically the US has actually been quite good at ensuring stability in other countries.
I'm now unsure whether your meaning of "stability" is equivalent to my meaning of "stability". I'm curious what is your basis for this thinking and whether you have a factual basis for "has actually been quite good". What measurement statistic would be reasonable to use for measuring that? Lets re-visit some counter facts that will be likely to be raised. How would you quantify these in opposition to your claim?
In Argentina, military forces overthrew the democratically elected President Isabel Perón in the 1976 Argentine coup d'état, starting the military dictatorship of General Jorge Rafael Videla, known as the National Reorganization Process. Both the coup and the following authoritarian regime was eagerly endorsed and supported by the United States government[5] with US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger paying several official visits to Argentina during the dictatorship
The US government supported the 1971 coup led by General Hugo Banzer that toppled President Juan José Torres of Bolivia.[9][10] Torres had displeased Washington by convening an "Asamblea del Pueblo" (Assembly of the People), in which representatives of specific proletarian sectors of society were represented (miners, unionized teachers, students, peasants), and more generally by leading the country in what was perceived as a left wing direction. Banzer hatched a bloody military uprising starting on August 18, 1971, that succeeded in taking the reins of power by August 22, 1971. After Banzer took power, the US provided extensive military and other aid to the Banzer dictatorship.[11][12] Torres, who had fled Bolivia, was kidnapped and assassinated in 1976 as part of Operation Condor, the US-supported campaign of political repression and state terrorism by South American right-wing dictators.[13][14][15]
US-backed[16] 1964 Brazilian coup d'état against social democrat João Goulart. Under then-President John F. Kennedy, the US sought to "prevent Brazil from becoming another China or Cuba", a policy which was carried forward under Lyndon B. Johnson and which led to US military support for the coup in April 1964
After the democratic election of President Salvador Allende in 1970, an economic war ordered by President Richard Nixon,[19] among other things, caused the 1973 Chilean coup d'état with the involvement of the CIA[20] due to Allende's democratic socialist leanings. What followed was the decades-long US-backed military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.
Peasants and workers (mostly of indigenous descent) revolt during the first half of the 20th century due to harsh living conditions and the abuse from landlords and the government-supported American United Fruit Company. This revolt was repressed, but led to the democratic election of Jacobo Arbenz. Arbenz was overthrown during the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état, endorsed by the United States
In 1912, during the Banana Wars period, the U.S. occupied Nicaragua as a means of protecting American business interests and protecting the rights that Nicaragua granted to the United States to construct a canal there.[38] The intervention, utilizing the U.S. Marine Corps, was sparked by a rebellion that opposed the United States. After quelling the rebellion, the U.S. continued occupying Nicaragua until 1933, when President Herbert Hoover officially ended the occupation.[39]
After the Sandinista Revolution that overthrew pro-American dictator[40] Anastasio Somoza Debayle, Nicaragua fought the Contra guerrillas supported by the United States.
I think this is very deserving of a response, and I'd agree I'm possibly using 'stability' in a way that needs to be much more rigorously defined. Not sure if I'll get the time/energy to do that though, unfortunately.
France spended billions of euros to fight islamist groups in Mali at the demand of the government. No resources worth the billions France spended in Mali
Can’t that be done in parallel to parent’s claims ? By helping the gov. France secures its influence on the area and makes sure French company’s business is safe.
For instance from a quick search Mali seems bound to Veolia for its water distribution network building. And I’d assume it is or will go the same for electricity, transportation etc. where anytime a big contract needs to be passed with an external technology provider, excluding French companies from the call won’t be an option.
PS: to add, French companies entering these kind of deals will usually be predatory and make sure the gov. is under enough pressure that they can’t just move to another provider. Development will only happen within a tight control of the situation by external debtors.
> By helping the gov. France secures its influence on the area and makes sure French company’s business is safe.
That's not how things played out in real life, in fact the exact opposite is true. There is now a very strong anti-French sentiment in Mali (in part exacerbated by Russia), and France lost a huge part of the influence they had in the whole region.
It looks to me like France/Mali gov relations took a turn after the 2020 coup ?
All in all I can totally imagine Malian population having an anti-French sentiment, while their government is in bed with French entities.
Do you mean the second coup from 2021? That’s when France started to have clear difficulties to deal with the Malian government, the coup was in May, Macron announced the planned end of the operation in June IIRC due to issues related to the new government.
In any case it’s a quite complicated topic, but it’s not one government being in bed with French entities. You have multiple groups fighting for territory and resources in the region for their own interest, France went there to support the government fight against Islamist groups by demand of Mali. And you now have a lot of Wagner mercenaries too (see https://www.csis.org/analysis/tracking-arrival-russias-wagne... for example. Trigger warning: be ready to read some horrifying details if you look at recent events…).
You can read about the Operation Barkhane article on Wikipedia it has lot of context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barkhane
(I would recommend the French article if you read French).
There was a general opposition to French forces, from part of the population since the beginning which is to be expected. If you go a bit more into the details you will see that Russia took the opportunity to start an information war in the region to push against French forces, as a soft evidence you can see that protesters started asking for a Russian intervention in 2019 (in French, sorry https://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2020/01/10/au-mali-le...).
That has also been communicated by Macron as a reason to stop their operation and leave the region (he made public speeches clearly pointing to Russia without explicitly saying it’s name, you can easily find them online and official translations).
I only spent about 20 minutes looking this up. Western nations overthrew Gaddafi in Libya in 2011. Less than two years after they're mostly done in Libya, they roll those forces over to Mali and get Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta in as acting president. NATO/UN forces had a hand in both situations. Western nations were just rolling our already funded and armed forces through the region to set things back up for proper resource and money extraction. This is all on wikipedia.
When I say "our" forces I mean any people who are holding weapons provided by us, eating food provided by us and working towards goals that are set by us. How all of that is funneled to them I have no idea.
Now that the west instated former leader of Mali was ousted France wanted to re-de-stabilize again it seems. It might or might not be worth it.
I should have stated it more as an opinion rather than fact but I stand by it. It's hard to believe that the US has so much intelligence yet we're unable to predict the guys we're training are going to attempt to take over the country. It's also not hard to understand that if we're committing billions of dollars to a war effort there isn't someone or a group of someone who have a hugely vested interest in either keeping the status quo for existing streams of income or removing some impediment in a potential stream of income. Those streams mostly don't go to the governments themselves, rather they go to companies headed by well connected individuals who somehow are able to drive policy and decisions either directly or indirectly.
On the flip side of this, you might have competing interests from other nations as well so it may not be as clear cut. It's no longer border expansion, annexation and "this country" vs "that country". Instead now we have nameless rebels or terrorists (depending on who's side their on) who then sign deals and feed money and resources to their "sponsor countries", or get loans for construction, or some other financial games that are far more opaque.
I have no more specific information, this is all broad strokes based on what I've seen and read. Maybe I'm wrong.
Gravel Institute marketing itself as a counterweight to PragerU is about the most honest thing they've done, because they lie just as much and in similar ways as PragerU likes to.
No country act on others for charity or humanitarian purposes. France was in Mali because France have a long colonial history in Africa and need African's resources. Russian Fed. try to bring back relations from the URSS era in Africa and get a better welcome because in the past they do not colonize Africa so their actions are less badly seen by local populations.
France was one of the less oppressive colonizers in Africa, but still left a significant trail of blood and suffering behind so while with Mali there was an agreement because western-created (yes, you read correctly) "islamic" militias are worse for Malian than French colonial legacy, though when Russia step-in it was and perhaps still is considered better: they do not really have means to colonize, they can just make agreements less unfair perhaps than western countries.
And that's happen almost everywhere, China is far less welcomed because various populations already experience China BRI policies and so the news they are not much friendly than the west is already spread. You do not need more resources than just history. The worst western colonizer were, from the more bloody and oppressive:
- Dutch & Belgian & British
- Germans & Italians & Spaniards
- Frenches & Portuguese
Chinese are "new" outside China, so are Russians and Russians are still seen a bit as Soviet witch to gain influences was far lighter than anyone else outside their borders.
I don't agree with you ranking.
Read about French behavior in colonial south-east Asia, like Vietnam.
I don't think, it is better than Britain behavior in India.
They still not have done a genocide (like British with USA native Americans, or Spain in south America many years before) also for France colonies was and some still are part of the State, so their Citizens get French nationality witch does not compensate their oppression, but let them potentially emigrate far more easily and becoming French Citizens like immigrants in USA can apply, UK have never done something similar. Also France have always colonized by the State, with troops etc, not with opium smuggling or commercial criminals (Indian's companies). That's why I put UK at the top of the most criminal in the list. They are ranked third there because Dutch and Belgian crimes was far bigger even if for a limited period of time and geographical areas, but still at the top IMO.
I rank Spain crimes a bit lower because South America colonization is far in the past, in an era where certain crimes was not considered much crimes from the point of view of most populations, otherwise they would be at the top position, perhaps counting also they religious crimes against also their own citizens.
Anyway any power have a blood trail, that's just a rank for the most "recent" ones...
Ok. My bad here, I don't have Americas in my day-to-day mental picture, opposite to South-East Asia and Africa. Yes, with native Americans it looks much worse for British and Spain, you are right.
But, no, Vietnamese people can not get French citizenship on special conditions and never could. But they was killed & tortured on the grounds of owning too thick and too long stick, and French soldiers sent postcards with such photos to home! It was not 18 or 19 century, as in Americas, but 1910-1920!
On the other hand, British not only build roads and railroads in India (Myanmar railroads built by British colonial administration are still in use, including some gorgeous and highest mountain bridges), but cut weavers' hands in India, too.
The west gives enough humanitarian aid to feed the continent a few times over. It's hard for some to understand but adequate amounts of money or assistance isn't the problem here.
> The west gives enough humanitarian aid to feed the continent a few times over. It's hard for some to understand but adequate amounts of money or assistance isn't the problem here.
The west?
The continent?
"isn't the problem here"?
Citations needed. Definitions needed. Tell us what you perceive is the problem here?
So many downvotes without a response, looks like everyone seems to know some facts or has a consensus belief/faith that I don't know about or don't accept as a given fact/truth.
Agreed. I’ve seen the UN-led humanitarian system up close (albeit not in Africa). In my experience, it has many, many flaws. One of these is that it is resource constrained.
Or partner with local entities to push local production of goods and sponsor infrastructure building directly owned by the gov. and not external providers.
Giving away stuff without helping to build a production chain is usually just “we’re helping” signaling.
PS: except for very punctual, extraordinary events. Like helping rebuild schools after an earthquake.
Islamists are like talibans western creatures built to overthrown local dictatorships and governments in general when they do not behave in ways the west like, as the talibans they grow enough to a point they can revolt against those who have created them.
Keeping this in mind you'll understand why African's do not like us except when they live in EU, so when they see the difference and hypocrisy of our oppressive élite governance.
If this were true, especially #4, why aren't more companies doing business there? The instability seems to be reducing resource extraction. It seems China wants to increase stability and build infrastructure so that they can can exploit it. The only industry that would likely benefit from the inability to extract resources are the diamond companies since price is artificially inflated.
This reasoning is absurd in every way! Besides assuming China is an enemy of the US - what does that even mean?
Let me illustrate how ridiculous this reasoning is: "North Korea wants to prevent rampant global warming, North Korea is an enemy of the US, the US wants to...?"
Ever hear the enemy of my enemy is my friend? If the enemy is instability, the US and China may have a shared goal and cooperate (or at least not sabotage each other on that issue).
This is bad logic if you look at the bigger picture. So you’re saying that the US spends money for coups only to have China swoop in for the diplomatic win? Instability is also bad for US conglomerates to take advantage of the situation.
Not to mention everyone always assigns extreme competence to these conspiracy theories… yet the US couldn’t see that China would swoop in for a diplomatic win? C’mon.
Don't believe the marketing for our many stupid wars. It's never about democracy or women's rights or education or business or terrorism or even oil. (You know this, because none of our wars have ever improved any situation with respect to any of these supposed values.) The only point, ever, is to sell more weapons manufactured in USA. All of our stupid media and stupid politics are subordinate to this tawdry motivation.
For this purpose, it's actually better if Africans can momentarily imagine better lives, before their hopes are dashed again by more violent coups.
It is actually not about selling weapons. It is about getting access to natural resources such as oil and rare earth metals for things like chips. For that, you need stability in order to do business. Constant coups and armed insurrections is counter productive, which is why these types of conspiracy theories fall apart.
The first Iraq war could credibly be argued as improving USA commercial access to resources. A more tenuous argument could be made for our current ongoing occupation of Syria. However, which of these African interventions has improved the access of USA interests to natural resources? I can't identify any? Were you going to suggest Libya?
This thread is funny, because at the top the "fallacy of USA government competence" is invoked to argue in favor of our ghastly policies, and here you argue in favor of those same policies by assuming such competence. CIA, "special" forces, and less well known unsupervised services aren't in any sense a part of our government anyway. They are separate entities, and they pursue their own agendas.
> However, which of these African interventions has improved the access of USA interests to natural resources? I can't identify any?
It didn’t happen because China beat us to it with their One Belt Road. Despite bad strategy and poor foresight, it doesn’t weaken my argument that US intervention is mainly about getting access to natural resources.
In certain cases like Libya, it was to protect US strategic interests like maintaining USD as the global reserve currency. It was rumored that Libya was willing to deal with euros instead of dollars for oil.
Nothing you wrote backs up the nonsensical conspiracy theory that the US intervention is primarily for sowing chaos and disorder, or selling weapons. We can’t even compete price wise with modern manufacturers of weapons like the AK47 in Eastern Europe or Asia. Of the few countries in Africa that the US sell arms to, they tend to be more stable than other countries in the continent.
You keep typing the phrase "conspiracy theory", but that shibboleth is only potent for weak minds. Adults understand that temporarily coinciding interests are sufficient to coordinate action. We don't have to locate any particular smoke-filled backroom. We observe actions and results, and attribute repeated results to the actions that typically precede them.
We spend a trillion dollars a year on our military, without even considering military "aid" or the spending of allies. Unlike the AK47 you cite, American military weapons are mostly not fit for the purpose of "winning" wars: we haven't "won" a war since 1945. Since our armaments manufacturers don't have to worry about value or functionality, a great deal of money sloshes about in search of media producers, pundits, think tanks, retired officers, and politicians to influence. USA itself is completely safe from "conventional" military threats (of course all humanity lives in the shadow of nuclear annihilation), so talk of "security" is just more marketing. In the first half of the twentieth century, resource firms like United Fruit did control policy in the way you describe. Since then, because they must spend most of their money actually extracting resources, they've been outbid by the armaments manufacturers.
"Belt and Road" is investment plus a clumsy marketing campaign. American firms are certainly capable of that. Why haven't they chosen to invest in these areas? One possible reason would be the ongoing violence; perhaps they had a better idea of the schedule than the Chinese had. I've seen no evidence that China has reaped huge profits from this project, particularly in Africa.
Suppose you're right, though. Suppose that none of the carnage is for its own sake. Your preferred justification then is colonial resource extraction? What kind of justification is that? Why should the average American care about Chevron's profits? Why should we care what currency Libya accepts in exchange for its own oil? (Do you suggest that Russia's preference for rubles or even renminbi is a justification for the current mess?) Why should we kill and bleed and toil and pay, for that?
> Why haven't they chosen to invest in these areas? One possible reason would be the ongoing violence; perhaps they had a better idea of the schedule than the Chinese had.
I think from an investment standpoint it's probably not worth it. American/European/Western firms are occupying higher margin/revenue deals in safer countries. They have limited capacity so they have to choose investments. Likely ROI for investing in African countries is quite low. China on the other hand due to its self-imposed handicap is likely looking to invest in African countries to mine resources to bring back to China to make iPhones for everyone else. They just occupy a lower margin space. Otherwise, to your point, Americans could be doing what the Chinese are doing.
But also, there are so many things at play here I doubt any of us have much insight except speculation. Which is fun. But let's be clear about that.
> Unlike the AK47 you cite, American military weapons are mostly not fit for the purpose of "winning" wars: we haven't "won" a war since 1945.
People like to repeat this, but if you're talking about militarily (since you're talking about equipment) we've actually won quite a few wars. I'm sympathetic to your point that we haven't won any wars (Korea actually may be one we've "won", how do we classify Yugoslavia and Desert Storm?) but you have to be clear about it. If you want to criticize military equipment, I don't think you're correct and the numbers bear that out. If you want to say overall because we lose political will, then yea I think there are a number of wars that we've "lost".
There’s a lot of great non-sequiturs that veer far away from the original conspiracy theory that you can’t support.
> we haven't "won" a war since 1945
To my knowledge, the government that we installed in Iraq is still around and it’s still friendly
> Since then, because they must spend most of their money actually extracting resources, they've been outbid by the armaments manufacturers.
You still haven’t been able to prove this assertion. There are only five countries in Africa that buy our arms. Those countries are also some of the most stable nations in Africa.
> "Belt and Road" is investment plus a clumsy marketing campaign. American firms are certainly capable of that.
This veers from the original topic of the conspiracy theory that the US is sowing chaos in Africa to “keep them down”, but the Belt road initiative works because it’s just a slightly different copy of our IMF strategy… both end goals are to secure natural resources and cooperation by keeping those nations forever indebted. Chaos is counter productive because it can’t be controlled like a puppet
> Your preferred justification then is colonial resource extraction?
I am describing both history and current events. Let’s not confuse this for being a proponent of these initiatives.
> Why should the average American care about Chevron's profits?
Because it keeps gas prices down and anything related to gas cheap as well
> Why should we care what currency Libya accepts in exchange for its own oil?
Because it allows the US to keep spending with a deficit. Many American entitlements such as federal student loans, welfare, mortgage tax credits, and social security depend on the US being able to carry a deficit. One of the primary benefits of being the global reserve currency holder is that we can print money for longer before we have a hyperinflation situation like wehrmacht Germany
> Do you suggest that Russia's preference for rubles or even renminbi is a justification for the current mess
No. They prefer rubles because they are locked out of the global financial system. They also prefer it so they don’t have to pay conversion fees. This was also after the fact. Ukraine is Russia’s buffer zone, similar to NOrth Korea being China’s buffer zone. Before climate change melts the Artic, Russia’s main access to the seas is Crimea. They always want access to it.
I highly suggest that you do a lot more reading. It didn’t take much to debunk your unfounded and highly illogical conspiracy theory
Yea I agree. I wish Republicans would stop creating new ones ya know?
I’m also surprised at how small the defense industry is. What do you think we do to support tech companies? Do you think wars in Africa can be traced back to government support for Netflix and Stripe? Maybe we’re not supporting the defense industry, but actually supporting someone else behind the scenes yea?
> At this point it's safe to assume that this is always the unstated part of the plan. Keeping individual areas destabilized
If you read the article, it's all about how the instability is harming U.S. strategy in the region because the coups trigger laws that require the U.S. to break off partnerships:
> But U.S. commanders have watched with dismay over the past year as military leaders in several African allies—including officers with extensive American schooling—have overthrown civilian governments and seized power for themselves, triggering laws that forbid the U.S. government from providing them with weapons or training.
And lists several examples of that happening, such as:
> Last year, a logistics advisory team from Col. Sullivan’s brigade had just arrived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, and was waiting out its Covid-19 quarantine at a hotel when the Biden administration decided to cancel the deployment “due to our deep concerns about the conflict in northern Ethiopia and human-rights violations and abuses being committed against civilians,” according to a State Department spokesperson.
This disruption has opened the doors to other countries to take United State's place:
> Malian commandos attended U.S.-led special-operations exercises in Mauritania in 2020, but were cut off from American training after its military overthrew the president last May. The Malian junta hired Russian mercenaries from the Kremlin-linked Wagner Group to provide security.
Thing is that where USA elite is best is nontangable goods like financial systems, computer software and cultural stuff(movies, brands etc) and this stuff needs strong consumer markets. So if they would be that kind entity doing this stuff then it would not work for USA elite.
On the other hand these are fragile governments at best, and handing the military more effective troops is always going to cause a rise in the number of Coups.
This is not true, and it's relatively easy to prove.
It's nary impossible to 'extract resources' when nations are 'unstable'.
'Instability' means nothing can happen in the long term, and most of the necessary underlying necessary factors can't exist either.
'Instability' means contracts are ripped up, money disappears, rights are re-allocated, 3rd parties drop out etc. etc.. IMF contracts for the development of 'an electricity' grid - essential in doing anything - fall through.
And nobody is afraid of 'competition' from a completely underdeveloped nation. In some very niche cases (perhaps some unique resource), but that's negligible.
It's actually completely the opposite:
Everyone wants stability.
Stability means the system can start to develop, resource extraction starts to happen, but more importantly - 'the rest of the economy' starts to need and consume things. Factories buy German equipment, they buy gear from Caterpillar, they need IT from Cisco, they build dams using requiring myriad tooling, consulting from IBM and Accenture.
Consumers start to buy cars from Toyota and Ford, business need financial services from NY and London, they need loans and investment from abroad, they start to buy iPhones, Androids, they use Facebook, Twitter.
If you want to be cynical, then you can say what the West wants is 'stability' over democracy, which frankly is not entirely irrational.
Consider the situation in Saudi Arabia. House of Saud is held in power by the US, with the guarantee that the 'Oil Flows' and is sold at market prices to 'whoever'. Implicit in that is the nation remains stable. That they do not become a vassal of Russia or China etc., and that they act as a 'good neighbour country' and mostly they do. (Not always). Internally - it's not so nice. Lack of democracy and human rights, however, there's enough pressure for progress to be made, and there is.
Gadaffi was literally a terrorist, he shot down an airliner (Lockerbee). But via is 'nice guy son' was being 'rehabilitated' (i.e. image was cleaned up), because we don't mind and evil turd, as long as there is stability. Unfortunately, the 'Arab Spring' happened, his people rose up, and there was a civil war. Western involvement probably shifted the outcome, but the resulting instability was inevitable - and Oil contracts went to shit. Nobody wants that.
In reality - intervention in utterly chaotic and despotic states is just hard. You can train 'Your Man' and when he gets into power, he's not much better than the last guy.
Arguably, the West could steer more clear of it, but 'lack of involvement' is also a choice.
Botswana in the last couple decades has prospered amazingly - they are stable. They are a shining example for Africa. 'The West', China, India - absolutely want it to be like that, it's good for everyone.
I mean, idt that’s really fair. Apple purposefully makes the experience of communicating/texting with another Apple user more physically enjoyable than with a non-Apple user. I don’t think it’s a personal/shallow issue, when you’re behind a screen your brain isn’t making the same personal decisions as in person. I mean if the phone is making the experience poor compared to talking with other Apple users, it becomes unappealing to pursue more of that communication. Why power through that for a person you just met/are just dating?
Are you joking or is this serious? I wouldn't want to date someone who could be deterred from interacting with another person solely due to the color of a text bubble. The fact that their mind allows for that possibility is a huge signal that they most likely don't have anything interesting for me to discover about them or discuss with them. Colors are shallow. Actions are not.
If anything I'm being more fair than they would be.
I understand where you’re coming from, but isn’t it possible it’s not really a conscious decision being made? I mean do you think that people are actively choosing colors over people? I just think it may be more likely users of Apple devices are generally manipulated to associate interacting with Apple devices as a more enjoyable experience than with non-Apple devices. You say you are being more fair than “they” would be, but purposeful lack of understanding doesn’t seem very fair to me, it seems like you’re maybe trying to retaliate against an invented perception. I don’t think it’d hurt anyone to consider opposing actions in a realistic light.
It's not Apple making the experience bad. It's the Americans trying to use a tech from the 90s to text each other. Of course it's not enjoyable - it's SMS. In other parts of the world people install and use modern cross-platform apps to text each other. Yes, Apple made sure to seamlessly transition iPhone to iPhone chats to use modern tech while pretending it's still SMS. But the fact is that the users in USA are intentionally opening an SMS app to text people. Everywhere else, the native Messages app is completely ignored.
Unless you're taking drugs when using iMessage, it's not appreciably better than just using Meta Messenger. In fact, it's missing features compared to both Meta Messenger and Whatsapp that make it an objectively less useful app.
Agreed. It sucks to experience, but ultimately if you're that shallow then I'm not interested either. I just thought the whole thing was a meme, but it's pretty real.
I like this. I've always had to force jumping down line by line to pick up words if I was trying to speed read, but with the extra highlighting I'm picking them out and jumping almost effortlessly. It's pretty neat.
I'm honestly wondering if this would make me lazy for reading non explicitly partway bolded text.
I am very happy to hear that.
I don't think you will have problems if you can't apply BR. But you will probably find that the "reading pull" is less strong without Bionic Reading.
What's disgusting is when you solve the coding test with flying colors but the interviewer pulls the "candidate doesn't seem interested about X company" and still fails you. That should be illegal if the session you're in is called a Technical Screen.
The trick is to just be better than everyone else or use the rules in a way that others don't or can't, which in a way makes you better than everyone else.
Don't cry about it, there's always a way nowadays if you're intelligent and driven.
Voting me down instead of explaining how I'm wrong is both lazy and cowardly. I am a single data point, sure but I've lived it.
My lived experience is the opposite of yours: All those nice tests that put me in the top 0.01% of IQ + problem solving ability and the drive that got me through 2 degrees and cross-continental moves with zero support completely deserted me when I had my first MS relapse. I couldn't will my body into staying awake, or not being in excruciating pain.
The idea that being intelligent means you can't or won't be slapped down by life is a coping mechanism.
The problem is you can dump anything that doesn't meet your initial post into the 'exceptional circumstances' bucket.
For other examples from my life, my being female and homosexual aren't really issues now, but my femaleness made my stepmother disapprove of my tech interests, and my father started pressuring me to give it up as a teenager because she was more important to him. I also don't have to worry about having the crap beaten out of me anymore for being a dyke, but 15-20 years ago when I was making my career and educational decisions, I was pretty restricted in where I felt safe living.
I lucked out and have 'benign' MS, so the MS is less of an ongoing problem than the Brazilian (in the Terry Gilliamesque sense) system we have in this country for health care. My meds cost 300k+/yr for life; health insurance and care dictate a LOT of my decisions. But it blows up a lot of conventional advice. Try making 'responsible' saving/retirement planning decisions when you have no idea how long you'll be able to work.
And that's why I'm pretty sympathetic to people who are affected by circumstances beyond their control: You never know when it's going to be your turn. It benefits all of us to extend grace, lest we be the the one penniless in a hospital bed in the future.
Well I think it's reasonable to dump most of whatever isn't mentioned in conventional advice into the 'exceptional circumstances' bucket. They are anything that brings you off of the conventional happy path of normal income, normal job, normal career and life progression that isn't the result of your decisions after adulthood.
You seem intelligent - It looks like you've figured out how to compensate for the less than optimal hand that you were dealt. It's up to everyone else to figure it out as well. I have little sympathy for anyone who can't and I'd expect the same for anyone's opinion of my situation if something horrible and unforeseen were to happen to me.
There's two related, but slightly different, things that we're discussing here I think.
I think that, broadly speaking, such people do deserve sympathy from society as a whole. That is a different question as to whether or not they deserve your particular sympathy or attention. Much like how I agree that fire fighters are a good idea, but would look at you as though you were brain damaged if you suggested I run in and fight fires. People can be entitled to sympathy and understanding and you are also allowed to have your own boundaries, strengths, etc. (Or even just not like supporting people emotionally. That's fine.) Or hell, maybe this topic is just boring to you and you're sick of it taking over everything. That's also understandable.
> I'd expect the same for anyone's opinion of my situation if something horrible and unforeseen were to happen to me.
I don't often tell people their views of themselves are wrong (because how the hell would I know?), but this made me wince, because it's like talking to myself 10 years ago. It's one thing to say this, it's another when it actually happens.
I'll also submit that it's easy to say that about yourself, but it's going to be much harder if it's say, something horrible and unforeseen happening to (for example) your child or spouse. Basically, life is a giant game of Russian Roulette, and while some of us have guns with more bullets in the chamber, nobody has zero.
those who made the web stadards capable of doing _anything_ with the user's computing environment, let it be any useless/arbitrary, and those who forced this arbitrary code execution platform to be the same as the information browsing / catalogue system / document viewer platform what the web originally meant to be.
today users can not manage their bank account, enlist to classes, read newspapers online without the real fear of mining bitcoin for someone involuntarely, DDoS-ing goverment sites by hidden pixels, presenting unsolicited unrelated content to his audience on a presentation, and now, having sight damage...
The Atlantic. The New Yorker. The Economist. These are neutral to left facing. In a feeble effort to avoid being put in a different bubble, does anyone have something that an educated republican/conservative would read?
> That someone can honestly say with a straight face that "the Economist is left-facing" speaks volumes to the sad state of the Overton window.
Or that they are viewing things entirely through the lens of American culture war dimension of politics (where the Economist might fit in the neutral to left-facing description), rather than the usual left-right economic spectrum, where it is agressively center-right.
The Economist is old school liberal: let companies do what they want (US "right-wing"), let people do what they want (US "left-wing"), but unlike US libertarians, also have some regulation and support in place to prevent the worst abuses.
You keep repeating the Economist is rightwing in this thread, but it seems most here disagree with you. I mean, Fox, Breitbart or the NY Post are pretty much rightwing, and the Economist does not even compare, both in tone and in content. What puts them in the right wing camp according to yo?
Growing up in NZ, If you championed free market capitalism and privatisation, you would definitely be considered right wing. That is the Economist's bread and butter.
That NZ's major left wing party was and is still a big proponent of these policies didn't change that.
Today, it could be argued that neoliberalism has moved the overton window, but many, many people still don't buy it.
I'm not sure it does "champion privatisation". I've read some pretty damning reports on bad privatisation, for example about the problems from rail privatisation, as well as on monopolistic practice by big companies. I would say it's rather more nuanced than private good, public bad.
What is "left" and what is "right" is a question of consensus, of course. The Eke is surely considered right-wing in Britain, and likely in most of Europe.
Wall Street Journal - there's a quip from someone that when he wanted to read things he agreed with, he opened Jacobin, when he wanted to know what was going on in the world, he went to WSJ. Being based entirely on serving money anchors you to a certain reality that can't be swung to far left or right. The journalism has had some really great scoops these last few years - they broke a lot of the Facebook drama, and some tax evasion shenanigans - while the editorials tend to be pretty principled conservatism ("we'll give a voice to anyone, but we'll put a letter from the Editors in where we call them liars" seems to be their approach to Trump and co).
National Review is similar to The Atlantic in that their long form pieces meant for print publication are wonderful, and tend to be rather nuanced, whiletheir short pieces meant for immediate internet consumption are heavily biased. They're interesting in that they take a "big tent" approach, and will allow a lont of dissenting voices to appear under their mast head - this was always true but became really rather evident during the 2016 elections.
The Dispatch is made up of authors and editors who didn't like that Trump supporters were allowed under the "Big Tent" of the National Review. It's edited by Jonah Goldberg, and David French, who shows up as a guest writer for the Atlantic every now and then.
Agree there. Econlib podcasts by Russ Robert of the Hoover Institute are fantastic. He has a range of guests on, seeks to understand opposing views and it’s more of an academic discussion.
His podcasts about the 2008 financial crisis were fantastic.
None of those publications are leftist in the least. However, they do all happen to share a very strong neoliberal bias—which would put one in more of a corporate centrist bubble—akin to watching just CNN and MSNBC on cable. If you want news without extra commentary, just go straight to Reuters and/or AP.
Realclearpolitics has started providing some original content to go with their aggregation. Tends to be non-reactionary 'traditional' Republican leaning.
