> looking for a new source on China

> ask the liberal if their source is CIA or Zenz

> they don't understand

> pull out illustrated diagram explaining what is CIA and what is Zenz

> they laugh and say, "It's a good source sir"

> click the link

> its Zenz

man, getting more and more exposure to the libs on here, it's just...

I, too, once thought Castro was a dictator. I, too, once thought that China was a totalitarian hellscape in which people are governed by social credit scores. I, too, once thought that the DPRK was a so-called "hermit kingdom" of its own making with effectively hereditary monarchs. I, too, once thought that the Soviet Union was an abject failure, or at best a highly imperfect project that "proved" that communism cannot work in practice. I, too, thought that liberalism and civility and rational debate and compromise between differing political parties was the only way to really achieve anything, and that you must always take the high road even while your right-wing opposite takes dishonourable stabs at you. I believed that swathes of Africa and Asia were undeveloped - rather than underdeveloped - because of corruption, not exploitation. The war in Iraq might have been bad in retrospect and we shouldn't have gone in based on a lie, but somebody had to be the world police. That's obvious, right? The police are what keeps us safe!

These were all beliefs I had when I was young and sheltered from the world, when the hard edge of economic consequences hadn't yet really hit me. When those consequences and problems did hit me, I didn't have the classic experience of going from a dreamy liberal living in fantasies of equality to a hardened conservative who understood that things have to be unfair because that's just life. I realized, through personal experiences and also through exposure to ideas from the left, including some of the people on here, that most of what I knew about other countries and history was tainted with misinformation, or twisted beyond recognition, or just flatly not true. I wasn't brainwashed. I haven't been turned into an agent for a foreign government. I'm certainly not in an echo chamber - I'm literally surrounded by contrary ideas every day because other people play the radio or watch the television around me and expose me to the latest and greatest of liberal arguments for X and Y.

Others have expressed this point before, what strikes me about all the libs on here is that they seem totally unaware that the vast majority of us once held the exact same positions that they once did and have moved past them. That we might have been in their shoes. We all know the arguments, we've not only seen them, many of us were previously convinced by them.

Rule of thumb for all hexbearian comrades: You see a hexbear post, you upvote it because you like it! Get it to the top of the lemmyverse charts so everyone can appreciate our big beautiful posters!

Document leak confirms that Imran Khan, former PM of Pakistan, was removed at the request of the US State Department

I'd like to thank federation for reminding me that liberalism is a festering husk kept afloat solely by the collection of literal compound interest on 500 years of genocidal plunder.

The liberal mind is where critical thinking skills go to lay down and die. Lemmy and the anglosphere writ large is a space of pure mental atrophy where you can see reflected the decline of the Western bloc in real time. No one left to fill critical roles, every administrative organ just exposed to open air, infected and dying.

Colonisers were never supposed to believe the words they were saying.

I like to imagine people stomping in here from the fucking 900 comment thread going on right now, taking off their blood-stained helmets, laying down their gore-dipped swords against the wall, taking off their ragged armor

this really has be the funniest week on this site in a while, federation was a great idea. just imagining the typical reddit liberal who has experienced no pushback whatsoever on any take on China or Taiwan or Russia for years and getting ready to bask in the upvotes again by saying "China bad, everybody is a slave" and then being attacked by a hive of hornets

the communists remaining on lemmy trying to keep the liberals out like at Helm's Deep and then Hexbear arrives. "at dawn, look to the east."

I fucking hate the USA

c/news is the 11th most subbed comm in lemmyverse

The offensive failed

So it's time for peace talks then?

It's time for peace talks, right?

I like how libs come from other instances to say this place is an echo chamber, when like half of our news stories in the socialist news mega come from the FT, WSJ, and other Western business press.

There's some unironic NAFO fella in one of the China threads. Bonus is they're from the Canadian instance lmao

It’s so funny how libs stumble in here peddling their tired bullshit that they’re used to getting absolutely zero pushback on and then going “I can’t believe the Hexbear fascists don’t Slava their Ukrainis, my word!” and running off to their home instance bitch and cry about it while their fellow cretins pat each other on the back for how brave they are for standing up to Hexbearian fascism and how they’re never wrong and always right

Also, meeting some Cuban communists in a few hours.

Lukashenko boots Wagner out of Belarus

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has reportedly kicked the Wagner PMC out of Belarus, after refusing to finance the Russian mercenaries.

Wagner forces left Russia for Belarus as part of a settlement deal brokered by Lukashenko following the armed mutiny on June 24 that saw Wagner’s leader Yevgeny Prigozhin turn on his boss, Russian President Vladimir Putin.

But reports have now emerged suggesting Lukashenko has refused to finance their stay in the country and the mercenaries are being "bussed" back to Russia for a “vacation.” According to the VChK-OGPU Telegram channel, operations to remove all Wagner Group men began earlier in the month, with a second phase to remove the rest going into effect this weekend.

Wagner’s services don’t come cheap. Putin recently admitted that the Kremlin has spent around $1bn on the private military company last year, using state budget funds. Previously the Kremlin denied all knowledge of Wagner.

VChK-OGPU said the men headed for Russia are mercenaries that rejected re-assignment to Libya, where the Group has been operating for years.

"A source of the Cheka-OGPU said that after the meeting of PMC Wagner, everyone who did not sign up for a business trip to Libya was urgently sent on vacation to Russia,” VChK-OGPU posted on its channel. “Right now, mercenaries in Belarus are packing their bags and going back to Russia on vacation. At the same time, everyone was asked to stay in touch with PMCs, since at any moment a certain command from above could follow." Earlier Lukashenko said that the Wagner forces would be used to train the Belarusian army.

lmfao

"nah, actually, get out of my country, freeloaders!"

Extremely sad that I was able to find actual conscription/draft defenders in the year 2023. Liberals on the lemmyverse have gotten really scratched lately.

Imagine defending military conscription for the Ukraine war. Seriously. Absolute ghoul behaviour.

Just occurred to me that instability or armed conflict in Niger will also worsen the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean.

For all that western countries love to say they don't want people coming there, they sure love to create the conditions that force people to.

Surprise surprise, the coup forces in Niger have widespread popular support.

A key consideration for ECOWAS must surely be whether foreign troops would be welcomed or opposed by Nigeriens themselves. Canvassing by Premise Data, a polling firm, for The Economist in the first survey conducted since the coup found that 78% of respondents support the actions of the junta and that 73% think it should stay in power “for an extended period” or “until new elections are held”. A slim majority of 54% said they were not in favour of an intervention by regional or international organisations. Of those supporting foreign intervention, an alarming 50% said they preferred it to be by Russia, presumably because they think it would support the putschists, as Wagner has done in Mali. Just 16% chose America, 14% the African Union and a paltry 4% preferred ecowas. These findings are not representative of opinion across the country because the poll was conducted quickly with a small sample. In this survey most of the respondents were relatively well-educated men and 62% were in the capital. Even so, the poll provides an indicative snapshot of the prevailing mood.

https://archive.is/KE5Yf

NATO training leaves Ukrainian troops ‘underprepared’ for war

Ukrainian soldiers are being left underprepared for the realities of Russia’s war because of a disconnect between NATO and domestic military training, according to one frontline brigade.

So far, more than 60,000 Ukrainian soldiers have taken part in military training in the West. Yet NATO can only currently offer Ukrainian soldiers basic training, shifting the burden of vital combat training back to Ukraine. Time constraints mean that stage two training doesn’t always happen, or happen in full, in Ukraine or the West.

“I don’t want to say anything against our partners, but they don’t quite understand our situation and how we are fighting,” said a senior intelligence sergeant in the newly formed 41st Mechanised Brigade who goes by the name ‘Dutchman’. “That’s why the main training and the integrated training happens here.”

Nick Reynolds, an expert at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a UK defence think tank, said that the West’s current training for the Ukrainian military is less realistic, but safer and simpler. He admits that this approach shifts the risk from things going wrong at the training stage to things going wrong during live operations.

...

Members of the 41st Brigade said that their instructors often used examples of NATO operations in the Middle East, where the objective is to clear houses and identify potential insurgents among the local population, but “that’s not really relevant to us”.

“For the most part, [Western instructors] have fought wars in cities and towns – urban settings. We are on flat ground a lot of the time,” said Dutchman. The tactics that Ukrainian officers and commanders badly want their troops to learn while being trained abroad are either only part of the syllabus or not featured at all.

“The [Western] training was good and interesting. But there was very little about de-mining,” Yura said. They showed us a minefield about two metres wide. The training lasted about two hours. But you get here and look at what’s in front of you, it’s just not comparable.”

what the fuck?

Another major difference, argued Dutchman, who has attended several Western training courses in the UK and Germany, is in planning. Referring to the fact that NATO forces usually outgun (and overpower) their enemies, he said that Western instructors plan “with a weaker enemy in mind”.

This is all somehow even worse than I imagined it going, and I expected disaster right from the start. Literally getting fucking anti-insurgent house-clearing training for a month when it should be a year or two, being shown how to navigate a 6-foot wide minefield, and then being funneled off back to Ukraine to die in artillery barrages. These people are complicit in the murder of these soldiers.

any military instructors in NATO can't fight. all they know is assuming air superiority, getting ambushed by terrorists, clear houses, die in minefields, kill brown children, eat hot chip and lie

Ugh. When I was back on Reddit comments like those would always be downvoted to hell.

Found this on Twitter posted by an Ukraine flag account. And it’s actually perfect, it shows how they prefer victory at the cost of Ukrainian blood over a negotiated peace to save Ukrainian lives.

ECOWAS has activated its standby force with all its elements immediately to restore "constitutional order" in Niger. War is eminent.

I've also seen tweets like this claiming the Nigerien coupers will kill the neocolonial puppet of a president if ECOWAS sets foot into Niger, but this claim ultimately comes from anonymous US officials. I could not verify this claim that suspiciously gives justification for the invasion.

I believe in News Megathread supremacy

activity is popping off

It's pretty cool that people are calling anyone who wants an end to the Ukraine war "pro-genocide". What does victory look like to these people?

Damn, just zero federated interaction in here

bit idea: calling anyone talking about Russian attacks on civilians a kremlin shill because "everyone knows Russian missiles can't penetrate Ukraine's air defenses"

Hey add another dipshit Ukrainian government to the list, its like they can't help themselves openly saying just how much they want to do some cleansing holy shit.

"A Russian passport is as dangerous as a rocket." Fucking saying that unironically

Telegram

“We understand that obtaining a passport in itself is not a crime. But Russia is doing everything to go further for a passport. Steps that can then be qualified as signs of collaborationist activity. Now Russia, in September, plans to hold elections. That is why they are so hastily passportizing our people,” the official added.

When you deem anyone regardless of ethnic or cultural background trying to obtain a passport a "collaborator".

Go fucking die you dipshit libs that openly support this openly fash shit.

Zelenskyy advisor says Ukraine "optimistic" about counteroffensive

When you’ve been afraid of the Russian army for 20 years, saying it’s the world’s second army, then expect that it can be destroyed in a matter of days. That seems a little strange to us. In reality, this war will take some time.

my brother in christ, you were the ones talking about being in Crimea by the summer

Financial Times: Is Britain really as poor as Mississippi?

https://archive.ph/ZJp4m

It was almost nine years ago to the day when the question of where Britain would rank among the US states for economic heft first became “a thing”. In an article for the Spectator, Fraser Nelson calculated that on a gross domestic product per capita basis, and after adjusting for price differences, the UK would sit in 49th place out of the 50 US states, narrowly squeezing in ahead of Mississippi.

As Britain’s economy has half slumbered, half stumbled its way through the nine years since, pausing to commit occasional acts of egregious self-sabotage, the Mississippi Question has only grown more popular. Could this be the year the UK economy is surpassed by that of the US state with America’s highest poverty rate and a life expectancy almost 10 years shorter than Britain’s?

For a fleeting moment recently, it looked like the time had come, but this was due to an erroneous comparison of nominal figures for Mississippi with inflation-adjusted numbers for the UK.

So no, the short answer is that to date, Britain remains free of that one particular ignominy. GDP per capita has remained ahead of Mississippi’s by about 15 per cent over the past two decades, and indeed as recently as 2019 the UK ranked ahead of no fewer than six of America’s poorest and most economically anaemic states. Heady days, indeed.

No, the UK isn't as poor as Mississippi.

It's a poor as Alabama. Big difference!

But the focus on one comparison, and one surface-level statistic, masks more interesting — and no less troubling — trends beneath the surface. If we’re going to compare Britain to each of the US states individually, then why not also look at the UK’s constituent parts?

It will surprise nobody that London accounts for an outsized share of Britain’s output, but the magnitude of the UK’s economic monopolarity is remarkable. Removing London’s output and headcount would shave 14 per cent off British living standards, precisely enough to slip behind the last of the US states. Britain in the aggregate may not be as poor as Mississippi, but absent its outlier capital it would be.

Sorry, correction. If you remove the money laundering capital of the world, the UK is in fact as poor as Mississippi.

By comparison, amputating Amsterdam from the Netherlands would shave off 5 per cent, and removing Germany’s most productive city (Munich) would only shave off 1 per cent. Most strikingly, for all of San Francisco’s opulent output, if the whole of the bay area from the Golden Gate to Cupertino seceded tomorrow, US GDP per capita would only dip by 4 per cent.

And the chart they put together:

Britons have mixed feelings about London. It’s the home of the metropolitan elite and sometimes seems more at home with New York than Newcastle, but it keeps Britain economically afloat. Not only in terms of the goods and services it produces but also in its higher tax revenues and fiscal transfers to poorer parts of the country.

As it turns out, letting a psychotic gammon deindustrialize your country so she can one up Reagan was not smart.

There were fears that the capital would suffer more from Brexit than most regions, but thus far the opposite has been true. Exports of services have held up relatively well while trade in goods has cratered, and London’s economy is 4 per cent larger today than it was in 2019, bucking the broader national trend of stagnation or decline. London is the only one of the 10 regions in England and Wales to have grown in every quarter since the nadir of the pandemic recession in the second quarter of 2020, while three others — including the South East — have dipped into regional recessions in the past 12 months.

Money laundering is even easier now that we don't have the EU regulating us!

This is not to say the capital is in rude health — its status as the pre-eminent global financial hub is slipping away, and its productivity growth has been lagging behind that of the rest of the country for the past 15 years — but merely to highlight the double-edged sword Britain has ended up with.

Its capital is the one thing keeping the UK hanging on in the upper economic echelons, but the decades-long London-centricism of everything from finance and culture to politics has engendered a reluctance to allow any other part of the country to be an agent in its own destiny in the way that London has been.

If Britain is to one day banish the Mississippi Question and return to upward mobility, it will require more than one economic engine.

LOL good luck!

We are federated with a lemmy.ca? We will regret all of fediverse decisions. Mark my words.

I don't think you all understand how shitlib this hellhole is. The entire political spectrum is separated with one party hating queer people , the homeless, the environment, and poc slightly more the the other.

HOW IS LEMMY.ML SO LIB NOW

The tanks must roll, my return is nigh

Eleven Objectives of Neoliberalism, by Michael Hudson

You know what also had 11 points? Combat Liberalism. Stay woke.

Lathe: North Korea is mobilizing because it is about to send troops to Ukraine in exchange for Russian grain and expects an American response. The force will just be 10k tops, replacing Wagner. America will respond with massive cyber attacks,sabotage Forest fires and a reboot of that videogame in which totally not China super Korea took over America.

That or they will attack the DMZ when Japan decides to reinforce Taiwan, at which point we’ll have about two hours before the end of all things.

Question for the libs: which part of an offensive is it when you start marching backwards? Ukraine order evacuation of towns in path of Russian advances

When things are going well

Ukraine to fire all regional military recruitment chiefs

Ukraine has faced recruitment challenges as the war with Russia nears the 18-month mark and the military is occasionally hit by scandals revealing graft or heavy-handed recruitment tactics.

I guess you could describe kidnapping as a "heavy-handed recruitment tactic"