barrbaric [he/him]

For Interstellar, at least, I’d say it’s incredibly low-brow. The resolution is just “the power of wuv saves humanity!”, which is extremely simplistic and easily understood by the masses.

Reading the wikipedia article on Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine and thinking it looks good until I get to this:

One could argue that anyone paying taxes to the US (or any US-allied states) are “part of the problem” in that they’re partly paying for a state that is dead set on exterminating all life on the planet by accelerating climate change and embracing fascism (or, at the bare minimum, doing nothing major to oppose it). But the people paying those taxes are only doing so under threat of violence, imprisonment, or death. I think anyone who opposes this state of affairs is not part of the problem. They might not be part of the solution, which imo would require engaging in activism to attempt to overthrow the current state of affairs, but they’re neutral at worst. I’d like to think I do enough to fall under the former umbrella, and so would not think of myself as “part of the problem”.

The people who are “part of the problem” in my mind are three groups:

1. Those who willingly go along with the fascist project but do not meaningfully contribute to it. In america, these are your typical Trump voters who happily go along with everything he says but aren’t doing anything beyond that. It also includes many liberals who still believe in american exceptionalism and, for example, don’t see anything wrong with committing genocide so long as the person doing it is polite and pretends to be trying to stop it.
2. Those who contribute to the fascist project but are following orders. These are the kind of people who will go to Jan 6th, or scream about woke teachers at a schoolboard meeting. They might even run for small-time local office.
3. Those who are orchestrating the fascist project. These are the billionaires, high-level politicians, media personalities, and right-wing think tanks who have been actively pushing and/or masterminding the fascist movement for decades.

Clearly it’s one point three-twenty em-bee.

You forgot Women’s Beach Volleyball.

Taiwan only exists because it served, and continues to serve, US interests as a staging point for military operations against China. A war over Taiwan would absolutely see the US using Taiwan as a proxy, much as they are currently using Ukraine against Russia.

We’ve had one, yes, but what about second proxy war?

Well, BRICS isn’t really a formal alliance but if it were? Yeah, joining a hostile alliance while sharing a border with the US is asking for trouble, and the US has committed all matter of atrocities in latin america. I do think an outright invasion would be less likely than their usual method of military coups and death squads.

At a 2008 summit, NATO stated that it would attempt to expand to include Georgia and Ukraine, despite Russia having stated that NATO membership for those countries was a red line for them. Georgia was immediately invaded by Russia in response. Imo this makes it clear that NATO membership for either of those countries was so unacceptable that Russia would rather invade.

If we assume that Russia (and Putin in particular) is acting violently and irrationally like a wild animal, why did NATO continue to agitate Russia when the only possible outcome would be violence? Surely a neutral or even Russia-aligned Ukraine would be preferable to a war-torn Ukraine? This is proof that the US and NATO don’t care about the average person actually living in Ukraine, and indeed don’t care about the Ukrainian state beyond it being a useful (and profitable) proxy against a geo-political rival.

To be clear, I’m not excusing Russia here, but geo-politics aren’t about what’s “fair” or “right”, and if they were, the US would be a global pariah.