I love checking the byline on these opinion pieces.
The author is a member of the “Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong” and has based most of his career on fearmongering Tiananmen Square. He was banned from entering China years ago, so obviously is extremely unbiased.
It's not subtle but there exists a not insignificant group of fascists who take it totally at face value.
I am guessing the same group of people who watched Starship Troopers and thought the Terran Federation were awesome. (I would say the book too but let's be honest, they never read it)
How about overalls? Are those required or optional?
I didn't realise how strict the dress code was, so I need to take notes.
"Fatigue"
Not compassion or trauma from murdering civilians. Not from a sense of moral outrage over the unjust orders that they were given. Not from a sense of justice or even from guilt. Just fatigued of having to do it so much. I get fatigued from too much overtime.
Fucking fatigue.
Yup, all countries supporting them are lumped in as "bad/evil". Honestly they don't count any countries that aren't predominantly white western powers to begin with. Anyone else is "misguided"/"taken advantage of", like they aren't capable of making their own decisions about those countries.
When your understanding of geopolitics is less nuanced than GI Joe, it doesn't take a whole lot to persuade you. Which is exactly what they've been conditioned for. Critical thinking is the worst thing that could happen.
It always impresses me how hard the concept of countries acting in their own self-interest is for people to grasp. Instead they need "good guys" and "bad guys" in any kind conflict.
but they haven’t at all explained aside from “well Putin will attack NATO” despite them publicly saying numerous times that they have no intention or interest in attacking NATO.
The argument that they would make is that because Putin is a saturday morning cartoon villain, that obviously he is lying and will be staging an invasion of the rest of the world as soon as the Last Bastion of Freedom, Ukraine, falls.
I have talked to people like this. Their understanding of the background of the war is so poor that they see it as nothing besides a land grab. Which would already make no sense. It's impossible to have any kind of real discourse because they believe the only motivation is either more land (for the largest country in the world) or just that "Putin is Evil".
Somewhere between "balkanization of the entire country" and "elimination of every human being with any russian ancestry".
EDIT: Sorry I also forgot. A huge vacuum in Ukraine that USian forces can drain the last remaining resources from as they make it a vassal state that only exists to house US military.
Only the most premium screws are accepted for consideration by the great US. How else can you be expected to shoot down weather balloons...eventually?
Seriously though, I had friends who worked for military contractors (they've escaped) who told me stories about how much they overcharged the military on every single line item because it would never get reviewed.
True, they have gotten away with it every time before, including everytime this has been done to Palestine in the past. They probably were pretty confident they would be able to use the same playbook yet again and not get any attention.
"Mr. Biden’s critics on the left are angry about his willingness to provide more weapons to Israel, though the legislation also includes $1 billion for humanitarian aid that the president said will be rushed to Gaza."
In what world can ANYBODY spin this in a way that makes sense. This is the most positive take they could manage and they still are literally saying that the US is supplying aid for victims of the weapons that the US is supplying.
You know what US let's call it even. Just stop sending any more weapons to Israel and we won't expect you to send any aid, let other countries handle that. There, you save billions!
They managed to sell the "Russia bad, Ukraine heroes of democracy" line so well, I wonder if they just are at a loss when it comes to the Palestine narrative. Like they expected everyone to fall in line [yet again] and support a genocide.
Honestly, part of me would have expected the same, though I suppose even libs can only handle so much overt lying.
US speedrunning driving their economy into the ground. I would be curious to see if this is just a momentary blip or actually some kind of long running sanction.
There are so many things I get from China that I would be missing out on if I were in the US. Nevermind the most simple things like care packages for people living overseas.