SeventyTwoTrillion

‘The F-15 is in a tough spot, no doubt, and he can’t separate against a Flanker. His only option is to fight until he kills the Flanker or a wingman shows up and saves the day.

‘Step 1 – see that yellow button with the black stripes I’ve circled? It reads “Emer Jett.” The Eagle Driver hits that button. If he’s out of missiles, the pylons and launchers under the wings are just weighing him down and creating drag. The Emer Jett button will blow every cart on the airplane, leaving the mighty-mighty Eagle a lean, clean, gun-killing machine. The Flanker won’t know what hit him: first, he’ll see sh*t falling off the Eagle and wonder if there’s combat damage or an ejection about to happen.

‘Then, as the Eagle driver defends against IR missiles and min-ranges radar missiles, the Flanker will realize he’s losing the fight. “How is this possible?” he asks himself as he trades in all his smash to pull the Eagle in front of his 3/9 as he attempts one last Archer that the Eagle flares off. And now he’s jinking in front of the best air-to-air gun platform ever fielded, flown by a single-mission pilot who is a PhD at finishing this particular fight.

‘As the 20mm HEI rounds start pounding thru his speed-brake and wreaking carnage inside his jet, it’s up to him. Does he bow to the inevitable and eject, or does he stick it out until the Eagle-driver walks the pipper up to the canopy and watches the RATR pop up just as the plexiglass shatters and the Flanker-driver’s last sight is his heart being blown out of his chest and splattering across the instrument panel (I borrowed that particular visual).

..."Anyway, that's what I would have done if I wasn't immediately shot out of the sky by a consolidated Russian air defense system that has prepared months in advance for this exact situation because we advertised what weapons we are handing to Ukraine well in advance."

Is anybody else just kinda... sad about this? I was annoyed for a bit, but then I finished the article and just felt kinda bad for the guy. Like, did the journalist just catch this dude on a lunch break and was describing the daydream he just had? I feel like laughing at a person who is overcome with delusion is kind of in bad taste, but then I guess this guy is a fucking American pilot who would probably feel no emotion whatsoever about bombing thousands of civilians.

even assuming totally rational actors, the Israeli and Palestinian proletariat would be unwilling to work together because imperialism is the primary contradiction here, not the contradiction between the classes

it's honestly a really good distillation of that concept. if you hear a communist say something like "Iran deserves critical support despite being a capitalist country with a bourgeoisie that exerts political control, as it opposes the United States and its empire" then certain stripes of left-wingers get uneasy because it (outwardly) seems to fly in the face of supporting the working class and opposing the capitalists of any and all countries, but with a very tangible example of Israel and Palestine, it's much easier to understand that opposing the Israeli government and opposing Hamas and the Palestinian authorities inside Gaza is totally nonsensical and if you hold that position, you deserve to be forced into a clown outfit for the rest of your life

what's the minimum requirement to be legally "running for president"? this could be a pretty funny law depending on how loose that definition is

How to get liberals to support Adolf Hitler. The Adolf Hitler. The Austrian mass murderer of millions of people:

1. Clone Adolf Hitler.
2. Program the clone of Adolf Hitler to be fine with gay people, but every other minority is fair game for the concentration camps.
3. Give each Hitler a party.
4. Run the parties against each other.

They will be totally indistinguisable in their actions from the Hitler-saluting, goose-stepping, brown-shirted fascists of 1930s and 1940s Germany, except they're yelling "No, this is the BETTER alternative and you NEED to vote for him if you care about gay people!" rather than various white supremacist and anti-semitic slogans.

The funniest possible outcome is that Biden beats Trump in 2024 and then Trump beats Hillary in 2028

I don't really give a shit about the 2024 election, but if the circus is in town, you might as well go watch the clowns for a while, y'know?

The Country of the Week is New Zealand!

As mentioned in the preamble, feel free to post or recommend any material related to New Zealand, whether from a thousand years ago or yesterday. You can post it anywhere in the thread, but you can also reply to this comment if you wish.

If you're feeling particularly ambitious and want homework, you could take on any or all of these questions (no reward, but I'll be very proud of you):

• Who are the main political actors? Are they compradors, nationalists, international socialists, something else?
• What are the most salient domestic political issues; those issues that repeatedly shape elections over the last 10, 20 years. Every country has its quirks that complicate analysis - for example, Brexit in the UK.
• What is the country's history? You don't have to go back a thousand years if that's not relevant, and I'm counting "history" as basically anything that has happened over a year ago.
• What factions exist, historically and currently? If there is an electoral system, what are the major parties and their demographic bases? Are there any minor parties with large amounts of influence? Independence movements? Religious groups?
• How socially progressive or conservative are they? Is there equality for different ethnic groups, or are some persecuted? Do they have LGBTQIA+ rights? Have they improved over time, or gotten worse?
• What role do foreign powers play in the country’s politics and economy? Is there a particular country nearby or far away that is nearly inseparable from them, for good or bad reasons? Is their trade dominated by exports/imports to one place? Are they exploited, exploiters, or something in between?
• If applicable, what is the influence of former colonial relationships on the modern economy and politics?
• Is the country generally stable? Do you think there will be a coup at some point in the future, and if so, what faction might replace them?

The previous country was South Africa.

This is our Geopolitics Reading List so far! Please chime in with suggestions!

General Theory:

• Super Imperialism, by Michael Hudson.
• Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century: Globalization, Super-Exploitation, and Capitalism’s Final Crisis, by John Smith.
• Superexploitation and the Imperialist Drive of Capitalism: How Marini's 'Dialectics of Dependency' Goes beyond Marx's 'Capital', by Andy Higginbottom.
• Capital Volume 3 Lecture Series, 32 videos, 10-15 minutes each, by Andy Higginbottom.
• World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction, by Immanuel Wallerstein.
• Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire, by Radhika Desai.
• Capitalism, Coronavirus and War: A Geopolitical Economy, by Radhika Desai.

Canada:

• Canada in the World: Settler Capitalism and the Colonial Imagination, by Tyler Shipley.

Chile:

• 1000 Days of Revolution: Chilean Communists on the Lessons of Popular Unity (I cannot personally find an online version).
• Santiago Boys Podcast, analyzing Allende's government and Cybersyn.

Lebanon:

• A History of Modern Lebanon, by Fawwaz Traboulsi.

United States:

• Drug Cartels Do Not Exist: Narcotrafficking in US and Mexican Culture, by Oswaldo Zavala.

Venezuela:

• Objective Conditions in Venezuela: Maduro’s Defensive Strategy and Contradictions Among the People, a longform article by Steve Ellner.

Next thread here.

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Hell yeah.

While we shouldn't pretend the blockade is like, going to singlehandedly and imminently collapse the Israeli economy (it won't), saying that "Oh, only these products are affected by it, so who cares?" is a little like saying "Oh, why do you care about massive swathes of farmland around the world becoming non-arable due to climate change? Agriculture only makes up a small part of the global economy." Unless the only things that are transported via ship to Israel nowadays are like, funko pops of David Ben-Gurion or something.

'Stalemate' may well be over soon.

congratulations, you've extended the war by 2 years by saying this

I simply cannot wait to see how the US will attempt to juggle supplying+helping Ukraine and Israel, supplying bases in Syria and Iraq, bombing and possibly invading Yemen, very possibly having to battle a blockade of the strait of Hormuz, and keeping sufficient military presence in South Korea and Taiwan to dissuade the DPRK and China from potentially making moves. obviously they're beginning to ditch Ukraine but there's still a lot of resources being poured in - satellite data, reconnaissance planes, intelligence services, military strategists, etc.

and this isn't even counting all the other hundreds of military bases throughout the world, and having to also make arms and vehicles for NATO countries as they very politely handed over many of their old ones to the giant scrapyard that is eastern Ukraine

it would be very funny if future historians write like "Several analysts and members of the communist commentariat were predicting the imperial regime of the United States to collapse in the late 21st century. So, it came as a surprise when the empire collapsed in 2027, and..."

That whole thing remains so fucking funny to me. Like, there's exaggerating events to make yourself look better; there's making shit up to boost morale; and then there's just completely, outrageously giving out information that not only isn't true, but is essentially physically impossible to be true. They might as well have said that Ukraine has bred magical unicorns that shoot rainbow beams out of their horns and those shot down the Kinzhals, and it would at least be a more entertaining lie

we're gonna get a retraction in the NYT in 3 years, hidden in fine text at the bottom of an article that is hidden from most users and can only be accessed directly via URL, saying "Turns out that Ukraine did not in fact shoot down 10 hypersonic missiles with air defense missiles that travel several times slower than said hypersonic missiles." whoopsie daisy, at least our journalistic integrity has now been restored