I honestly think that they had nothing else to do with the character, the moment the fanbase of the first movie got too toxic, they decided to bury this incarnation of the Joker. So what to do with a non-canon Joker?

A shitty cashgrab movie, of course.

Russia literally has nukes. Hell, even without The Bomb, Russia has 10x the population, all Putin needs to do is declare Total War and initiate a general mobilization of troops.

Ukraine exists only insofar as Putin’s patience allows.

I like to draw a contrast with Xi Jingping’s recent summit with the Arab League.

1. He praises them on their achievements, acknowledges the difficulties and asks them to strive to create creative new solutions to existing problems.
2. Asks the leaders a bunch of questions as to what is going on right now to get their insight.
3. Thanks them for educating him.
4. Asks what role can China play in a mutual “win-win” relationship.
5. Thanks them for their time and gifts them some Chinese food, beverage or trinket.

That’s largely the way he goes about interacting with nations, compare that with the Occupied Indigenous Nations that we commonly call “USA”, and how they claim to “run the world”.

Putin there for some odd reason.

I think it’ll be the “shooting of Franz Ferdinand” moment for the end of Israel and possibly the end of the US’s empire. Even on Twitter you have Israelis fretting over what happens if the US gets involved and needs a draft and then it’ll radicalize the youth against Israel in a revolutionary way.

You’re saying Christian Parenti? He’s progressive for the most part (especially his fight against climate change) but an odd well meaning liberal, while he is anti-imperialist, he supports Trump because of his embrace of Russia and rejection of NATO.

I feel like he must’ve processed Michael’s ideas on imperialism but got his brain all scrambled up when he went to the London School of Economics (the flagship of liberalism) to get his PhD and rejected Marxism and believes that the evils in the world can be solved by the tired old line of liberalism.

His idea that Trump might be better than Biden is probably true, at least in American foreign policy but he lacks the vision and solutions that his father has.

I hate how liberals say it's because "they're dumb". No, it's legitimately the case that most of these people have unironically never held a hammer in their lives.

I might be overly optimistic, but I do believe that this is the beginning of the end for Israel. The genocide has been so cruel that this time, people won’t “just forget” like before. I think these next few years will bring divestment and sanctions… and sometime in the 2030s, “Israel” will be forced to dissolve.

I only support Russia as a foil to American power on an international level. Russia is not the USSR and Putin is no communist, in fact those absurd ideas are what liberals try to push. I don’t know if people who defend Putin in these ways are incapable of nuance or they’re just Russoboos, but defending Putin’s reactionary far-right nationalistic rule in modern Russia is NOT a leftist position. I’m sure the “democratic victory” in Russia is a farce, just like all liberal democracy is a farce.

But you can be anti-Nazis in Ukraine, against the extreme liberal transformation of Kiev, not think the invasion is good… but also understand that Russia was against a rock and a hard place and had to invade Ukraine to push back on NATO, think Russia is a crucial ally of the PRC and fundamental building block in BRICS+, and also abhor the racist, homophobic, transphobic and capitalist government of modern Moscow… and at the same time understand that Russia cannot be a Western style liberal (and Putin refuses to be communist) and they NEED something to unify the people. Black and white thinking goes against everything we believe in… nuance is what matters.

Modern Russia is like the USA during WW2, an ally of convenience, that’s it. Fuck Putin but also thank the universe for him.

Of course the US government can still simply nationalize it and resell it, but it would force the US government to show how government actually works when it desires to.

I think it was Ben Norton that the US wants to find a reason to get away with banning all Chinese imports… but their capitalism is holding them back as “just pay more to make it at home” or “deal with the consequences of an embargo” is not an option for the fragile American economy.

___ >Antisemitism tripled… if you consider anti-zionism to be antisemitism.

He just told on himself, basically.