Two days ago, a Duma member suggested nuking Rotterdam.

Show me a source. Earlier in this conversation you said something was the “stated policy of Russia,” then when you went to find a source it turned out it was not.

Russian soldiers also actually shot down an airliner

Presumably you’re referring to Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. That was not shot down by Russia, but by Ukranian separatists using a Russian-supplied weapon. I’m not aware of any evidence that anyone intentionally targeted it, either, much less intentionally targeted it because it had Dutch citizens. Non-Russians mistaking an airliner for a military target is not the same as Russia targeting you.

I didn’t say that I support US policy

OK, so what military retaliation against the U.S. do you endorse? Do you apply your policy of retaliation to everyone, or not? That’s what I’m getting at – you do not apply your policy of retaliation to everyone, only countries you’ve already decided are Bad Countries. This isn’t deflecting, it’s showing that you are not being honest when you say “aggressive countries should see military retaliation.”

the peeps who said they will nuke Rotterdam

Who is saying this? Russia sure isn’t. You keep making up threats.

And on changing the subject, why are we talking about the US again?

If you actually believe that aggressive, militaristic countries should face retaliation to get them to back down – if you actually hold that as a principle – you would apply it to all such countries, and the #1 example of that is the U.S.

You don’t apply it to the U.S., which shows you don’t actually believe it. You only apply it to countries you’ve already deemed enemies.

You keep saying Russia is your enemy because they’re threatening you, but all you’ve mentioned are invented threats, not anything Russia has actually said or did towards your country.

So “Finalndization” (again, whatever you think that means) is not in fact “the stated goal of Russia.” You claim (without sourcing) it’s from a Russian academic and then acknowledge there’s room to speculate how much impact that academic’s work has on the Russian government.

The US is not an immediate military threat for Europe.

You’re changing the subject. I said:

1. You do not apply your “retaliation against warmongers” logic against the most aggressive country on the planet. This is because you do not actually believe it; you’re just using it to justify fighting an enemy you already wanted to fight.
2. Retaliation against the most aggressive country on the planet has not deterred it from further warmongering, so your logic is largely disproven, anyway.

It’s laughable to cry “whataboutism” when discussing international politics. Comparing how countries act in similar situations is one of the foundations of international law.

Which politicians, and what is your source for popular opinions in Hong Kong?

I mean what do you have sex with

the stated goal of Russia, the finlandization of the whole of Europe.

Would love a source for whatever you think this means

A policy of retaliation against warmongers is a policy of promoting peace.

The U.S., by far, is the most aggressive country on the planet. You certainly don’t apply this logic to it, and there has not been a single time retaliation against the U.S. has deterred it from future aggression.

Retaliation is the opposite of hawkish? Are you listening to yourself?

No politician ever in their lives did anything in good faith

“My country has broken hundreds of treaties and wipes its ass with international law, but it’s actually OK because it’s impossible for anyone to operate differently”

Lmao what a cop out. At bare minimum Ukraine should have stopped allowing fascist paramilitary groups to shell civilians in the east, an act that was illegal a half a dozen other ways, too. And Angela Merkel admitted the agreements were not an attempt to actually resolve that issue or the issue of the west installing a hostile foreign government via coup, but to give Ukraine time to arm up to fight Russia:

In an interview published in Germany’s Zeit magazine on Wednesday, former German chancellor Angela Merkel said that the Minsk agreements had been an attempt to “give Ukraine time” to build up its defences.

https://www.reuters.com/world/putin-russia-may-have-make-ukraine-deal-one-day-partners-cheated-past-2022-12-09/

I’m talking about liberals in general. For those of us in the U.S., there’s no conceivable path to a mass movement that doesn’t involve bringing millions of them around to our side. This means learning how they think is important, as is giving them a path to leave the Democratic Party and move left.

Most libs believe their own bullshit – it’s West Wing brain, we talk about it all the time. They aren’t cheering on horrors only to cynically cry about them when they think it’s appropriate; they really believe the shit they see on CNN or read in the Atlantic and have the object permanence of people comfortable enough to consume politics like they do sports. They don’t scoff at evidence of horrors because they support those horrors; they reject it because it deeply challenges the fundamental tenets of their worldview (i.e., that the U.S. is a good country). This is dishonest and cowardly – they’re libs, after all – but it’s not knowing exactly how the sausage is made and then perpetually lying about what they think of it, which is what you seem to think is going on here. My point is that this misunderstands how libs usually think.

The ur-gooner

I’m not trusting what she says absolutely, but it does align with what I’ve heard from basically every other U.S. liberal I know. It’s a core part of how libs view the country. You should absolutely give a fuck about how libs think if you harbor any hope for building a mass movement.

she is jumping ship now to protect her own career

At best, this is a low-risk, temporary setback that will not be held against her going forward. The much more likely outcome is that she will never again hold this high of a political position and will also have the cushy revolving door jobs closed to her, because she is very much biting the hand that feeds.

I once saw the Biden-Harris administration as a beacon, blinking brilliantly as a hopeful symbol of democracy in the encroaching dark.

It’s not what she wanted, though. Lots of libs are libs because they buy the bullshit that the U.S. empire is a positive influence on the world (and associated myths about how domestic politics work). Most dig in on that position when confronted with the terrible things this country has done – here’s someone with an immediate material stake in that position rejecting it instead.

She deserves blame for having every opportunity to educate herself earlier and failing to do so, and she deserves blame for whatever she did in the administration, but the choice she just made is a choice millions of other libs will have to make if we are going to get anything done.

Make it way worse quicker, so more people become friendly to the revolution.

Why would people join a movement that is making things worse right now? Why would you want to race towards increased state repression when your movement is small? Accelerationism isn’t a good idea in this situation, and it’s hard to think of a successful leftist movement that employed it ever.

The reason democrats don’t like shooting fascists is because they are have bought their own lies about the current system working

Agreed. I’d say this makes Democrats useless at best (at least with respect to the “uh so what about all this fascism we have going?” question) and enablers at worst.

You’re not really engaging seriously here, but “if voting doesn’t work, what is to be done?” is actually the first (and too often last) political thought most people have outside of our mostly useless sham democracy. And you’re right that fascists deserve to be shot (though you aren’t yet asking why Democrats’ don’t seem to believe that), so it’s understandable your thoughts would go straight to shooting them.

What you’re missing is that this whole conversation has happened countless times before, to the point where there’s an established name for “well why don’t you just go shoot the bad guy?”: adventurism. A bunch of anarchists tried it against high-level state actors 100+ years ago and it accomplished nothing of note, and the consensus among communists is that it’s a bad strategy. It lacks “stable or serious principles, programme, tactics, organisation, and… roots among the masses,” so it doesn’t develop into any systemic change (and makes your organization vulnerable to bad actors). Turns out you can’t take a shortcut around building a mass movement.

Building that movement is the logical conclusion you’re looking for, not random outbursts of violence.

One of the principle contradictions of capitalism is that any capitalist who thinks of heading off long-term problems gets replaced by one who can juice up the numbers in the immediate future. Who cares about sustaining a great position when you can make a shitload of money next quarter?

You have one ass and pretend it’s a mouth

Well thanks for at least providing an honest answer since the other guy couldn’t answer a direct question to save his life.

You don’t get to be a condescending asshole and then whine over stuff like this; incredibly soft posting

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/hillary-clinton-2016-donald-trump-214428

So to take [Jeb] Bush down, Clinton’s team drew up a plan to pump Trump up. Shortly after her kickoff, top aides organized a strategy call, whose agenda included a memo to the Democratic National Committee: “This memo is intended to outline the strategy and goals a potential Hillary Clinton presidential campaign would have regarding the 2016 Republican presidential field,” it read.

“The variety of candidates is a positive here, and many of the lesser known can serve as a cudgel to move the more established candidates further to the right. In this scenario, we don’t want to marginalize the more extreme candidates, but make them more ‘Pied Piper’ candidates who actually represent the mainstream of the Republican Party,” read the memo.

“Pied Piper candidates include, but aren’t limited to:

• Ted Cruz
• Donald Trump
• Ben Carson

We need to be elevating the Pied Piper candidates so that they are leaders of the pack and tell the press to [take] them seriously."

…

An agenda item for top aides’ message planning meeting read, “How do we prevent Bush from bettering himself/how do we maximize Trump and others?"