Yes, if the Houthis would act differently, I would judge them differently.

But they do not.

$7trillion is three times the GDP if Brazil. It is bigger then the US federal budget. Seriously it is insane.

Right now the Houthis in practise blockade the Bab-el-Mandeb for everybody. The first ship they sunk Rubymar, was Belize flagged and Lebanese operated and ultimatly owned. It also caused a massive enviromental disaster in the region, due to carrying fertilizer.

What I am saying, is that an act of war against Lebanon, is not a moral response to actions of the state of Israel.

However you clearly disagree with that and consider any and all action justified as long as somebody labels them anti Israel.

Lenin ended any oppurtunity for none CPSU members to be elected to the Soviets and banned factions in the CPSU in 1921. He then eliminated opposition with the Cheka. Even before that the Communists acted under “war communism”, which meant killing anybody not 100% in line. That very much included Machnos work in setting up a Soviet Democracy in Ukraine, due to them being Anarchists. Stalin then abolished the Soviets in 1936.

The Soviet Union had a bit of it, in the very beginning, but it failed and turned into a statist dictatorship. That is why Stalin ordered the Anarchists to be killed in Spain as well, the Prague Spring got crushed due to moving into a more democratic direction as well as many other movements of worker uprisings.

Socialism means collective ownership of the means of production. The issue with the Soviet Union was that all means of production were controlled by the state. However there was no way in which the people controlled the state, since at least 1936 and argueably earlier then that.

Sanctions are not a blockade. Sanctions would be the Houthis stopping all of their own trade with Israel for example. The Houthis blockading Israel mesns they try to stop everybody from trading with Israel by force. Hence a blockade is an act of war.

And no I do not believe somebody being vegan is an act of war.

5.6%of GNP is well above the 2% inflation rate and France economy is also not growing fast at forecasted 0.7%.

I am not saying media is not bias, but that some media just spins the truth, whereas others do not have a problem with fslse reporting. After all tankies are called tsnkies, because they ignored that the Soviets used tanks to violently get rid of the Prague Spring. This happens on the left as well.

And yes that is why I like reading economics news websites like the economist. They report on subjects left leaning news tend to not care about, but which can be incredibly important. Also with rich people using their reporting as a bases for invedtments, makes it hugely important that they do not outright lie. Commentary on them is horrible though, unless they go somewhat agsinst the neoliberal norm, which is rarer, but usually some of the best stuff.

False neutrality is propaganda, but so is being so is being activly biased. So a good left news source has to be wiling to show the fscts, when they speak against the left.

Why not run for the House? A seat has 750k-800k population and quite a few districts are much further left then US average. If a further left candidate would run its those seats, that would force the Democrats to move left.

RT is not bannd, but sanctioned due to being fully owned by the Russian government. The content they produce is not illegal, but US companies are not allowed to work with them. Stripe just wants to avoid problems and bsas them, due to Blinken claiming they are connected. That does not have to be true, but it pretty much gurantees legal trouble for Stripe, if they keep them as clients.

But also they are clearly professionals. Most employees having worked for Russian, Chinese, Iranian or Venezuelan state media is a clear sign. It also makes a direct connection to RT much more likely. So I get why Stripe wants to get far away from this.

Moving away from Office and Windows and so forth is a nightmare for any larger company. If you use specialized software, it might very well only run on Windows or only have an integration into Office. Even if you could, you then have to retrain staff to use Libre Office, Linux and other alternatives. You also will have problems converting, changing servers and so forth.

So companies just do not switch. That is how Microsoft makes money. They really do not care that much about private users. That is only usefull so people can use their products.

Mark Robinson described himself as a “Black Nazi”, but no LOTR is not real.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/19/politics/kfile-mark-robinson-black-nazi-pro-slavery-porn-forum/index.html

China has been waiving no intrest loans, which can not be repaid. Debt restructuring inckuding forgiving loans is part of a debt trap too.

Beijing, which has come under criticism for its lending practices to poorer nations, accounts for almost 40% of the bilateral and private-creditor debt that the world’s poorest countries need to service this year, according to the World Bank. It has helped forge recent debt-relief agreements, participating in the Group of 20 suspension of repayments during the pandemic.

(From the Bloomberg article) The amount is certainly right and already working with the Western lenders as well.

The AlJazeera opinion piece you linked shows pretty well, what it means. After all the IMF adjustment programs were how the West was able to exploit the South. China is starting to take part in that exact process.

Obviously those are just loans. Do you seriously believe they sign documents named “debt traps”?

https://nation.africa/oped/opinion/Kenya-must-avoid-China-debt-trap-or-fall-into-Sri-Lanka-pit/440808-4551200-kv7y59/index.html

https://www.news24.com/fin24/Economy/South-Africa/da-demands-details-of-r370bn-chinese-loan-warns-of-debt-trap-20180916

For example, but that took me a minute to find. Just asking for proof does not work, when the other site is unable to argue its case beyond “I looked into it”. Not even an unsourced explanation of how Cowbee came to the cconclusion. Only that it is supposed to be “obvious”.

I doubt I get a reply from Cowbee due to that.

So you consider North Korea or Eritrea to be better then the US? Seriously?

Can you proof China is not debt traping poor countries?

It is very easy to call the US the worst country, when you ignore the bad other countries commit.

China is currently debt trapping most of Africa. They pretty much appointed the current dictator of Zimbawe for example.

The way I look at good and bad is on a scale. Whenever a country makes the life for the average human better in terms of material well being, but also political freedom, that is a good thing. Whenever they make those things worse then it is bad.

A huge reason the US is the country doing so many bad things, is that nearly nobody else can. Any large scale war between two countries in recent times had the US being the agressor or the US intervening massivly. Iraq was done after invading Kuwait and Russia despute having nukes and a resilient economy is not liking it either.

So we have to look at what countries choose to do with the power they have and the US is not the worst in that metric.

Looking at the countries currently trying to replace the US none of them are better. Russia an Iran are pretty obvious. China is already working hard on enslaving the poorest countries in the world. For most of the rest the US Empire falling apart, just means local dictators continue their rule.

Add to that the violence of the conflicts and I gurantee you very few will celebrate that collapse.

Empires breaking up tends to be extremely violent. Just look at what happened during the collapse of the European empires.

Also what replaces them is not necessarily better. Not all evil comes from the US. Other countries are perfectly able of horrible stuff as well.

Hollywood accounting is insane. Offically all movies loose money.