#this is the empire's new propaganda strategy

[piiinkfreak]

Happy Easter for everybody who celebrates!!

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[theculturedmarxist]

It’s not the big, glaring, obvious lies that get you. The New York Times is the world’s most destructive propaganda outlet not because it publishes giant ham-fisted whoppers, but because it appears trustworthy. Its reporting looks authoritative. Children are taught in school that it’s what credible news media looks like. This lets the well-crafted propaganda slide into people’s minds, undetected and without resistance.

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The western media are so ridiculously deceitful and propagandistic that the fact that popular comedy shows and famous comedians aren’t making fun of them constantly proves those shows and comedians are themselves part of the propaganda network.

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Most mainstream western reporting on Chinese military activity essentially amounts to “OMG you guys China isn’t just passively sitting there while we militarily encircle it and prepare to attack it!”

Example:

That’s what all the banging on about China’s “military build-up” is doing too; acting like it’s alarming and sinister that China isn’t just passively allowing itself to be surrounded with war machinery amid glaringly obvious western preparations for war without doing anything to defend itself.

China’s still spending vastly less on its military than the United States, both overall and as a percentage of GDP. Yet we’re meant to act like China is the obvious aggressor nation, even as it’s being rapidly surrounded by US war machinery and increasingly militarized US allies.

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One thing I’ve learned from interactions with Robert F Kennedy Jr supporters is that many of them sincerely don’t understand why his position of “unconditional support” for Israel is such a deal breaker for many anti-imperialists. They think it’s all about Palestinian rights, but it’s a lot more than that.

Unconditional support for Israel doesn’t just mean supporting apartheid abuses and frequent bombings of Gaza, it means supporting the regular bombing of Syria, the annexation of the Golan Heights, and Israel’s insane warmongering against Iran. Israel is always in a state of war.

“Unconditional support” for Israel means imperialist foreign policy throughout the middle east. This isn’t just conjecture — we already see it in RFK Jr’s other middle east foreign policy like his staunch opposition to the Iran deal.

It’s a nonsensical, self-contradictory position to claim you want to dismantle the empire out one side of your mouth and pledge “unconditional support” for a nation that’s never not at war out the other. If you’re saying both, there’s one you’re not being truthful about.

There’s not enough rage at the US empire for provoking and perpetuating the war in Ukraine. Objections you see to this proxy war are mostly just griping about how much it costs or whether it’s sound strategy or whatever, but how about the fact that human lives are being spent like pennies for the advancement US global hegemony?

Think about how much it hurts to have one death in your family. Think about how much it rocks an entire community to lose even one life to violence. Mountains of human bodies are being piled up in violent deaths, all to secure US geostrategic interests in Eurasia. It’s pure horror.

The empire had multiple opportunities to end this before it started. It had an opportunity to end it in April 2022. It had an opportunity to end it this past November. But it kept shoving it through to advance US interests, and young lives kept being sacrificed to the war god.

Meanwhile US officials openly gloat all the time about how much this war is serving US interests, while anonymously whining to the press that the counteroffensive is failing because Ukrainians are too cowardly to charge through Russian minefields under heavy artillery fire. This should draw white hot rage from everybody.

Basically the US empire’s strategy is to use Ukrainian bodies like a giant sponge to soak up as many expensive Russian military explosives as possible.

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For western war propagandists Syria was like a dress rehearsal for the war in Ukraine. The lies are being peddled mostly by the same people, using mostly the same methods, funneled up into the same mainstream media platforms. The only real difference is that the empire is on the side of the official government in Ukraine, so it can simply use its officials and its media platforms as on the ground sourcing instead of setting up a bunch of weird little propaganda constructs like the White Helmets etc. Syria marked a new era of imperial narrative management.

[fireemblems24]

Scarlet Blaze Ch 15 (Final)

Last one, everyone! After this, I finally get to play Spiritfarer which I got on . . . Christmas 2022.

NARRATION

Last chapter. Finally. Killing so many people in this route is really awful. Especially since you just . . . don't in the other two.

I think the last chapter will take place at the monastery.

Oh, great, does this mean I have to protect Bernie's dad in this route? I hope Rhea kills him, like gets this badass cut scene where she cuts him down for perverting her faith by using it as a propaganda tool.

So TWSITD showed up and is attacking Rhea and the Empire.

They're mostly after the "beasts" (aka Nabateans? Or humans?)

I wish this meant that we teamed up with Rhea, but we know Edelgard would team up with TWSITD first.

Catherine and Rhea got a cool moment together though.

Yep, we have to protect Count Varley, gross.

MAP

No side battles! This final chapter will be super quick, which is nice.

I'm VERY curious what the Golden Deer students say after Claude's moment last chapter lamo.

And if any Lions mention Sylvain :((((

OMG, Ignatz is savage. He only cares about painting the battle. No mention of Claude.

Yuri wishes he could kill Varley instead of save him. Good for him. He really feels more suited for AG/AM/SS/VW than SB/CF/GW.

Well, at least Mercedes mentioned Sylvain. And Ingrid and Annette. Saying they died for what they believed in and admires them for it, since she could never.

Poor Ashe is having a crisis. Still had no idea wtf he's doing in the Empire's war camp. Honestly, this game made him so much more interesting.

Linhardt also has no fucking clue why he's here. I swear he does nothing but complain every map (in a funny way) and wish he was doing literally anything else.

Lorenz is more concerned about his future bc of Claude than worried about him. Man, guy really has no one loyal to him lol.

DOROTHEA & CASPAR C

I swear I did a much better job getting supports in GW and AG.

Caspar has a bunch of books, and Dorothea's horrified by the idea that he'll use them in training.

Caspar plans to read them. Dorothea teases him. Apparently Lin made similar comments.

Dorothea makes him promise not to hurt the books. A woman after my own heart.

Caspar's like, did you know my dad reads! Dorothea's like, yeah . . . how do you think he got his role if he didn't.

Dorothea tells a story about an unlearned commander who studied strategy in books and improved to become legendary.

The only stupid part of this is thinking you can read and understand complicated books in 5 days and become an expect in 5 days. For once, Caspar was the smart one being like, uh, I need more time.

MERCEDES & LYSITHEA B

This support is SB locked, but neither characters are Eagles. It may be the only support like that in the game. But, hey, new Mercie content, I'll take it!

Mercedes comes across Lysithea in the kitchen, trying and failing to cook.

The fruits she wanted to use are moldy though. Lysithea has an idea to use something else for the fruit - a sugar syrup.

Lysithea has dedicated her time to learning how to cook because of how good Mercedes' cooking was, so she credits Mercie for the sugar syrup, which she learned because of that.

Baking also helped Lysithea learn the importance of taking breaks.

Mercie calls her a wizened old grandma, lol.

They arrange a tea party.

SHEZ & LINHARDT A

It starts with Linhardt saying they haven't learned anything about Shez's powers. I wonder how funny this sounds if you get it after the special chapters.

Linhardt says it's find because the war is almost over, so there's less need and chance for the powers to go out of control.

Shez pretty consistently wants to continue working as a mercenary after the battle.

He also seems to have no desire to stay in Enbarr lol.

Linhardt wants Shez as a personal bodyguard. Honestly, not a bad choice.

Then Linhardt says something like "spending the rest of my life with some random bodyguard" and then makes an excuse to leave. so he wants to stick with Shez for life. It's kind of sweet.

EDELGARD & PETRA A

Their only support

Edelgard comes across Petra praying to Bigid gods. In Brigid they pray in nature rather than in churches in Fodlan.

Edelgard asks Petra why she's risking her life in the war because it's bad for Brigid.

So Brigid will only be freed if Petra remains alive.

To be fair, it's because she doesn't know the new leader. Still feels a bit icky for Petra.

Edelgard warns about "tricks" the enemy will use. She really has a beef with anyone using tactics.

Petra just says she's happy to fight and can't run while everyone else remains and fights.

Edelgard says she can't back out, which true, but she could've just not started one. But that's in the past I guess.

Overall, came across better than the Houses one where Petra didn't seem like an equal.

EDELGARD/LYSITHEA/HAPI PARALOGUE

My plan is to have Edelgard and Shez make the other two adjuncts and see if I can't beat the paralogue that way.

It's about TWSITD, which isn't surprising given that character list.

God, I've made SB Shez so fucking stupid. Never understanding anything. It's so funny.

So is this about Cornelia? They found one of her old hideouts.

I had Shez shrug about joining. Hapi got offended.

They're talking about Hubert. I wish he was here. He's my best unit.

I wish Cornelia showed up. She's so fun, but sadly she did not.

They didn't find anything. Hapi was mostly chill about it. Edelgard and Lysithea were more bothered.

Shez could show concern or change the subject. Obviously I made him change the subject since SB!Shez is not intelligent.

CASPAR/LINHARDT PARALOGUE

Like the last time, I just plan to adjunct Caspar and let Shez and Linhardt do all the work.

They're arguing if Caspar saw a ghost or not. Linhardt remains unconvinced.

Lamo, their dads showed up and Linhardt's dad called him a "fountain of positivity" when he brought up their could die any day.

Linhardt is also upset that he has to help.

We're hunting down Empire people who've turned against Edelgard.

I had Shez not want to go lol.

The main battle changed to defeating their dads. I don't think I'm supposed to take this paralogue seriously.

Linhardt had no fun.

Bergliez gave Caspar some gaunlets, and I could either be happy for him or jealous. I obviously picked jealous since it's fun to pick the dick answer lol.

FINAL BATTLE

Why is the S rank reward Edelgard's axe? This is the last battle, right? Is there some post game stuff? Because I'm so ready for this to be done (I don't think I'll do it).

Funny, Edelgard is the one defending the monastery this time, and Varley. Imagine your final battle being about protecting Varley. Ugh.

Only 40 points for the final battle?

Just killed Catherine :(

Cyril just showed up. Rhea's so concerned. Not looking forward to killing a child :((( He died too. This is by far the bloodiest route. I swear no one even dies in AG, and in GW it's only Sylvain's dad.

This can't be it, right? That was too easy. And Cyril as the final boss makes no sense. I'm betting it's a Thales and Rhea fight.

Rhea turned into a dragon. Badass. Glad she was the final boss poper and not Thales.

Spoke too soon. I think they're both here now.

Think I beat it. We're at a cut scene now. Thales is doing magic shit. Rhea attacked him and just ignored Edelgard and Shez like they weren't worth her notice lol.

Wait, that's it?

Rhea pushes Thales off a cliff? So RHEA's the hero??

There's no way they could've survived that - Edelgard. My girl, Rhea is a fucking dragon and Thales can warp. I have bad news from you. Also, Byleth survived a fall too so . . .

What happened to Dimitri? I don't think I killed Claude either?

Is that really it? The war just keeps going. The war just keeps on with no end in sight. Hahahaha. You mean I played how many hours for THAT? I'm going to laugh my ass off if all 3 routes end like this. What a cheap way to avoid killing any of the lords.

OMG. What a stupid ending.

Except for Rhea. She got the big hero moment lol.

I kept waiting for another battle. Esp since there's an S rank reward that's Edelgard's axe, so Idk what's going on.

OMG, this is going to take FOREVER. They're showing the MVP of every single side battle and not just the main ones. I'm only at ch 6.

There was a lot more variety in MVP than I thought. I thought it would be the Hubert show, but it's pretty varied.

Ok, so around ch 10 turns into the Hubert show. I like seeing battle data though, so I sat through it.

Ok, so you get a letter from the person you get a whistle from. Aww, I eventually won Hubert's trust, and he admits he and the army needs us. Glad I picked him.

Wait, no paired endings? That blows. I hope this isn't a new trend since Engage didn't do that either (I love paired endings)

Ok, so it looks like some stuff would carry over to another playthrough on this file. So, in the future, I'd replay AG over my GW or SB playthrough to at least get 2 on the same one. I can't see myself replaying SB or GW. It's not like the story would matter since I could just skip it, but the gameplay is pretty much the same, so why not play the route with my favorites and the most unit choices on top of that?

So you can carry over supports and even unit level. So I could play Dimitri as the absurd level he's at in level one if I saved over my AG file? Because that would be funny. Probably boring. But funny.

Still feels good. One down. Two to go.

xxxx

[liesmyth]

That Ask you got about the Resurrection Beasts and the shepherd planets got me thinking, and I'd love to know what you think.

What DOES John want with the shepherd planets?

Like, we get various statements - including from John himself! - about how he can never forgive those who abandoned earth and all that.

But the Empire's policies aren't what I'd expect if John was actively trying to inflect maximum punishment onto the descendants of the FTLers.

Like, just the fact that the Empire calls them "shepherd" planets. It's propaganda, yeah, but it's propaganda of the "we are benevolently ruling these planets because we know better than them" imperialism where the goal is control and extraction of resources. The Empire isn't calling them the "heretic" planets or the "evil" planets or anything that would lend itself to a justification of inflicting Righteous Punishment (tm).

Thoughts?

I think John is creating climate refugees. That's his punishment. To make the descendant of those who "betrayed earth" ("left you on dollar-store support) live as constant refugees from one planet to another, never allowed to lay down roots.

Why I think that: John's strategy obviously isn't extermination; clearly the Houses have 0 concerns about killing people, but it's not the main goal. He wouldn't even need an army if that was his objective. It's also not "empire-building" in the purest sense of the word, because the way the shepherded planets are run doesn't maximise economic benefits for the Empire, and the lifetime contracts seem to be more about "punishing" the locals than benefiting the Houses. And they flip planets, making the unlivable for native life forms.

Flipping a planet "prepares it for necromancy" as per HtN, but barely any necromancers are even going to live there anyway, because the Houses don't have settlers; there's no imperial presence in those planets beyond the Cohort. It seems like a lot of work for little reward. They don't intend to ever live there, but they are making damn sure that the locals won't be able to remain there either. The planet will flip, the biosphere will change forever, and the population will have to evacuate, and maybe resettle at some point in the far-off future when the environment has become completely different.

On propaganda, we actually have very little info on what the perception of Non-House planets is within the empire. Gideon seems to think they're enemies, not protectorates, but then again Gideon only knows about the Cohort via propaganda comics. I agree though that it seems in line with John's paternalistic approach to use a phrase like "shepherded planets."

(Also this is all going with the assumptions that non House planets = settled by descendants of the FTL fleet, which isn't 100% proven but seems the most likely explanation)

(I also have Many Thoughts about why I don't think the economy of the empire is actually supported by the shepherded planets but that's a whole other post; the tldr is that they were economically sufficient for millennia, so clearly they are capable to be; and that paper and wood are SUCH luxury items in the Houses and commonplace in New Rho, and there doesn't seem to be any sort of market for that. Like, even the green planet Harrow kills is a whole forest! If the Empire cared about supplementing the economy they'd have been there decades ago cutting down that whole forest.)

[mikeo56]

Israel and Hamas have reportedly agreed to a four-day ceasefire which will entail the release of 50 hostages held by Hamas in exchange for 150 hostages held by Israeli forces. 

In an article titled “Biden admin officials see proof their strategy is working in hostage deal,” Politico describes the deal as “the administration’s biggest diplomatic victory of the conflict” and reports that White House officials are calling it a “vindication” of Biden’s decision making. Which is an entirely inappropriate level of verbal fellatio for an achievement as minimal as not murdering children for a few days.

Tucked away many paragraphs into this report is a sentence which is getting a lot of attention on social media today saying that according to Politico’s sources there has been some resistance to the pause in fighting within the administration due to fears that it will allow journalists into Gaza to report on the devastation Israel has inflicted upon the enclave.

“And there was some concern in the administration about an unintended consequence of the pause: that it would allow journalists broader access to Gaza and the opportunity to further illuminate the devastation there and turn public opinion on Israel,” Politico reports.

In other words, the White House is worried that a brief pause in the Israeli massacre of civilians in Gaza will allow journalists to report the truth about the Israeli massacre of civilians in Gaza, because it will hurt the information interests of the US and Israel. They are worried that the public will become more aware of facts and truth.

Needless to say, if you’re standing on the right side of history you’re not typically worried about journalists reporting true facts about current events and thereby damaging public support for your agendas. But that is the side that the US and Israel have always stood on, which is why the US empire is currently imprisoning Julian Assange for doing good journalism on US war crimes and why Israel has a decades-long history of threatening and targeting journalists.

During Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza in 2021 the IDF reportedly targeted more than 20 Palestinian press institutions in the enclave, as well as the tower hosting the international outlets AP and Al Jazeera. During this current onslaught Israel has been killing dozens of Palestinian journalists, sometimes by actively bombing their homes where they live with their families. The IDF’s campaign to wipe out inconvenient news reporters has resulted in the Committee to Protect Journalists calling this the deadliest conflict on record for journalists anywhere, ever.

Both the US and Israel have been attacking the press in this way because their governments understand that whoever controls the narrative controls the world. They understand that while power is controlling what happens, ultimate power is controlling what people think about what happens. Human consciousness is dominated by mental narratives, so if you can control society’s dominant narratives, you can control the humans. 

This is why the powerful have been able to remain in power in our civilization — because they understand this, while we the public generally do not. That’s why they bombard us with nonstop mass media propaganda, that’s why they work to censor the internet, that’s why Julian Assange languishes in prison, that’s why Israel routinely murders journalists, and that’s why the White House is afraid of what will happen if worldwide news reporters are able to get their cameras into Gaza.

[zvaigzdelasas]

Bloomberg - China and Russia's Lies Are Winning Over the Global South

Putin has long seen opportunity there. He has fished in troubled waters, using arms sales, mercenaries and even direct military intervention to make Russia a player in conflicts in Syria and Libya. Moscow has created distractions for the US by cultivating military and intelligence ties with autocratic states in the Western Hemisphere such as Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Amid the war in Ukraine, Putin is seeking to rally developing countries against the punishments the US and its allies have imposed on Russia, in part by blaming those sanctions — rather than Moscow’s aggression — for worldwide economic turmoil.

China is looking for advantage in similar places. Developing countries from Pakistan to Argentina have been the primary recipients of the loans and infrastructure deals of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. African, Latin American and Middle Eastern nations figure prominently in Chinese strategy as providers of natural resources, recipients of Chinese-made technology, and a potentially sympathetic voting bloc in the United Nations.[...]

Disinformation is one of the critical tools. During the 1980s, the Soviet Union sought to blacken America’s image by spreading the lie that the Pentagon had cooked up the AIDS virus. The modern-day echoes are powerful: In 2020-21, a Chinese disinformation campaign claimed that Covid was a US bioweapon gone awry [& the US disinformation campaign claimed likewise][...]

Russian state-funded media outlets such as RT amplified such allegations, while firing off falsehoods about everything from racial violence in the US to the supposed Nazi leanings of the Ukrainian government.

Russian and Chinese disinformation campaigns frequently work in parallel, as when Chinese outlets mimicked Russian claims about nonexistent US bioweapons facilities in Ukraine.

Disinformation aimed at the developing world is more pervasive than many Americans realize. A report by the Atlantic Council [lmao] revealed how China uses a network of seemingly independent websites, newspapers and TV channels to launder fake news into the information ecosystem, where it can be promoted as objective truth by the Chinese regime. RT has created a global media empire: It is ubiquitous in Latin America, is expanding operations in Africa, and its messages are often fanned by Russian diplomats and a veritable army of bots.

While Beijing and Moscow use disinformation nearly everywhere, the developing world is a particularly attractive target. Long legacies of anti-Americanism and anti-imperialism create a receptive information environment. Whereas many advanced democracies are now cracking down on RT and Chinese influence operations, those endeavors enjoy freer rein in poorer parts of the globe.[...]

US officials report that they have returned from recent trips to Africa and Latin America sobered by the degree to which Moscow’s narrative about Ukraine has taken root. Covid was a soft-power catastrophe for China in developed countries, but its Covid-related disinformation appears to have left a mark in the global south.

The US, for its part, is fighting from a position of weakness [sic]. During the Cold War, it had the US Information Agency, an entity devoted to telling the truth and exposing the enemy’s lies. In the 1980s, the Active Measures Working Group coordinated the intelligence, law enforcement and diplomatic efforts to refute the AIDS smear and other Soviet disinformation. Neither institution exists anymore

Why are all these poor stupid moronic brainless people buying into Russian and Chinese propaganda - didn't they see the BBC & VOA reports about how those were propaganda? I guess they're just brainless zombies who are being programmed against their will by China & Russia (the bad guys) who think for some reason that it's our sanctions making their gas more expensive. It's sad how powerful Chinese & Russian propaganda is & how weak, bumbling & powerless we, the Good Guys, are [8 Sep 22]

[thenuclearmallard]

“Prison of the Nations”: How Russia is Using Indigenous Peoples in the War Against Ukraine

05.10.2022Police detain protesters against mobilization in Dagestan. Photo: REUTERS

For centuries, the Kremlin’s politics focused on the Russification of all the nations living on Russia’s territories, quenching national self-awareness, and pushing forth the “Russian world” ideology. This is the politics one would call imperialism. 

And now, after it started the full-scale war against Ukraine, Russia is mobilizing the indigenous population first. It uses them as cannon fodder, destroying these ethnicities to fulfill its rapacious goals. 

In this article, we’re going to discuss Russia’s politics of ethnocide. We’ll see how Russia is destroying entire ethnicities in the war, killing Ukrainians at their expense, all the while trying to save the “titular nation” of the empire — that is, ethnic Russians.

How Russia’s politics of ethnocide works

The total number of nations living on Russia’s territory approaches 200, including ethnic communities and indigenous peoples. Reaching 80%, Russia’s largest ethnic group is Russians. They are followed by Tatars (around 4%), Ukrainians (around 1–2%), Bashkirs, Chuvash people, and Chechens (each group constituting around 1%). The rest are even smaller ethnic groups.

The Volga region (the republics of Mordovia, Chuvashia, Mari-El, Tatarstan, Udmurtia, and Bashkortostan) and Karelia, the Caucasus, and the Urals are Russian territories inhabited by indigenous peoples for ages. But these peoples have limited political rights and no opportunity to develop their own cultures and languages.

Indigenous peoples in Russia are considered “non-titular” ethnic groups and are therefore viewed as second-rate and unimportant.

Currently, as many as nine indigenous peoples are already on the verge of extinction: they have no more than a thousand people left. This includes Keriks, Enets, Oroks, Negidals, and Chelkans. 

At the same time, the historical territory of small indigenous peoples constitutes approximately three-quarters of Russia’s entire territory. These lands are also where many of Russia’s economy-defining resources come from. Despite that, the Kremlin despises the histories and cultures of the peoples living there.

The so-called politics of ethnocide, that is, the politics aimed at the extermination of identities and cultures of specific nations and ethnic groups, has always been an essential part of Moscow’s strategy. 

In fact, “ethnocide” is the basis that allows the “Russian world” to “grow.” Moscow is the “imperial center” destroying the languages, cultures, and histories of the indigenous peoples, taking away their riches, and using the money made on them to spread the “Russian world” further to new territories.

How the Kremlin is set on destroying indigenous peoples in the war against Ukraine

Since the beginning of the full-scale war against Ukraine, Russia’s discriminatory approach has manifested itself in yet another dimension: it is mostly indigenous people that are sent to Ukraine to die. It is the Buryats, Dagestanis, Tuvans, Kalmyks, and Yakuts who become the “cannon fodder” of the Russian army in Ukraine — not ethnic Russians. And it is among these “non-titular” ethnic groups that a disproportionately high death rate is observed.

The thing is, Russia’s regions that are home to indigenous peoples (used as consumables in Moscow’s war to get Ukraine) are in large part depressed and economically underdeveloped. They have high unemployment rates (15 to 30%, give or take) and some of the lowest salaries in Russia.

Seeking to escape poverty, residents of those regions, particularly young people, have no other choice but to go to war either under contract or as volunteers. And Russian propaganda is only adding fuel to the fire, saying that fighting against Ukraine brings not only good money but plenty of loot too.

That said, indigenous people often belong to the least privileged caste of soldiers in the Russian army(as it happens, along with Ukrainians mobilized in temporarily occupied territories). They have practically no rights, no training, no proper supplies, food, weapons, or equipment. After all, their main task is to be a makeshift “plug” for the hole at the front. In fact, it’s themselves that are this plug. They are not supposed to “close” it using their military skills.

So we see that the Kremlin’s plan for the conquered indigenous peoples is the destruction of their cultures and languages, assimilation of the peoples themselves, and their depopulation and extinction. This is a forced policy whose goal is to plunder natural resources and establish the “Russian world” at the cost of the indigenous peoples’ lives.

That is why the Russian authorities are purposefully mobilizing these ethnic groups for the war against Ukraine. Their goal is to reduce their numbers while avoiding dissatisfaction with mass calls for death among ethnic Russians. Instead, the war against Ukraine and the discontent caused by it may give these peoples a chance for freedom. After all, the destruction of the Russian Empire will also destroy the “prison” of these nations.

And the world is already witnessing the first events that can trigger an avalanche. The announcement of the so-called partial mobilization in Russia was followed by increased internal tensions: for example, people went out to protest in Dagestan. This means that despite the seven months of blindness, the people in Russia have finally seen the true nature of Moscow’s politics. It is not just an invasion of Ukraine — it’s also discriminatory against certain ethnicities among the population of Russia itself.

[chronostachyon]

Came across your responses to the post about spiderverse nimona and anarchism\communism, loved the tags too, thank you for your responses!

This is long and mostly not related to your ask, but since you liked my tag ramble I thought I'd share my deeper thoughts on the matter.

Firstly, I think anarchists and MLs waste so much energy by fighting amongst ourselves rather than paying attention to the fact that we hold more beliefs in common than anything. I suspect there's a lot of disinfo from capitalist regimes to try to divide us; we know for a fact thanks to FOIA that the US government (CIA and FBI) has infiltrated both in the past, in order to keep us divided and bickering! Both the anarchist and ML camps have bad actors, many of which are being encouraged by imperialist plants, capitalist propaganda, and/or the unquenchable human instinct for groupthink, but there are a lot of genuinely good people doing genuinely good work in both camps too, and it makes me sad that we don't work together more often.

One of the reasons I consider myself an anarcho-communist, rather than a Marxist-Leninist or pure Marxist of any stripe, is because of an insight I got from Marx himself! Among their many reading sources, anarchists should read Marx too! But Marx also got bogged down in the idea that revolution had to be a process achieved through violent overthrow of the capitalist state, and replacing it with a new state, rather than eroding the capitalist state at the foundations until it washed away as he'd originally envisioned in his Manifesto / Das Kapital era. He also lost sight of the fact that alienation of labor, as he originally envisioned it, is not merely about alienation from the profits of labor, but alienation from the purpose of labor: working on something because someone in charge tells you to work on it is inherently dehumanizing, no matter how the profits are distributed. We need a personal connection to our labor, to personally see the ways in which our labor benefits our community! Even under Lenin and Mao, the USSR and PRC were alienating laborers from their own labor by assigning jobs to them instead of letting them pick and choose among the jobs that needed to be done.

And the very concept that some people deserve to rule over others, to lord over them with "superior information" and tell them what to do, is inherently kyriarchal and eugenics-adjacent, making it very easy to slide into red-brown fascism and to perpetuate sexist/racist/queermisic/ableist beliefs. Everybody gets it wrong sometimes! Marx, Lenin, Mao, Trotsky, but anarchist writers too! The more power you concentrate into fewer hands, the worse the consequences when we inevitably make mistakes, and then we have the instinctual human response to not want to admit that we fucked up and to pretend that the mistake never happened, and the bigger the scope of the harm the stronger that instinct is when it kicks in.

(It's also weird the sheer number of MLs who stan Putin's capitalist kleptocracy in 2023, as if communism and capitalism themselves were always just strategies in a global football game between empires over whether the East or the West deserved total power over everyone else in the world. I can honestly understand China stans more than Russia stans, because China is at least nominally still communist, even if it abandoned Maoism ages ago. But MLs really should be pointing more at Cuba or Vietnam than at any imperial power if they want to convince us that statist communism can actually work for the people.)

[flesh-into--gear]

the morality debate of using nuclear weapons on imperial japan will never not be fascinating to me. because on the whole face of it, like anything done in war, of course it was wrong in hindsight, and objectively, it should be wrong.

but at the same time, we’re talking about a people (yes i understand not everyone) driven to fanaticism through absolute and complete indoctrination and propaganda, for an idealized society that never actually existed.

and it just… it fascinates me to no end that a lot of people cannot fathom that. they can’t fathom, despite decades and centuries and millennia of history where it happens over and over and over again, that an extremely loud vocal almost-minority (it sure wasn’t a minority in the 20s/30s and early 40s) can push a country over the edge, take complete control, and effectively brainwash generations.

it’s not like there are any glaring examples of that in our own US history that are extremely recent or anything. and i mean if you really need to see how far that extent goes, just look at what happened when Imperial forces lost Saipan. the first-hand accounts are horrific.

im not going to get involved on the morality itself, and im not going to go on and on about how Imperial Japan’s military and government were completely enamored with idealized bushido code and blah blah, because that’s research you can do yourself.

but i just wish that people would stop treating that as a black and white “BAD”. Imperial Japan on all fronts is a fucking tragedy, especially for every other Pacific and Asian nation, and for the japanese civilians that were simply born in the wrong time and place. but fuck me dude is there about eighty miles of nuance to the debate that just gets glossed so hard over. like you don’t know what it’s like to see news reels every day talking about casualty reports on Iwo Jima or Peleliu or any of those islands that Imperial Japan considered “home islands” and the absolute defense zone. we’re talking near-on WWI numbers of bodies, for strips of land that are tiny, being held by people with standing orders to die in their positions, and take as many lives possible. that was the whole point of the Imperial strategy in the Pacific, to make the losses so great that the American home front would call for ceasefire.

like… Imperial Japan was doing this /on purpose/.

if they’re fighting like this for islands that aren’t even technically a part of the main chain, what the fuck was a mainland invasion going to look like?

The Pacific Theater is a fucking tragedy for everyone that it involved. it doesn’t matter what side.

and for the record, of course, the nukes were wrong. but that’s also the benefit of almost 80 years of hindsight, and a life so comfortable i cannot fathom what it would be like to see entire parts of town populations just… disappear on some island i’ve never heard of and can’t find on a map.

again, it’s not that i agree. but at the same time as much as i want to poke holes in it, “oh the empire was winding down, the populace was beginning to pull support, etc etc”, knowing the history makes it a lot harder to do it

[swan2swan]

Star Wars fans don’t talk enough about just how much the Death Star’s destruction kriffed the Empire’s entire war effort.

The Imperial military and naval high command knew this weapon was being built. They knew what it meant, and they knew the timetable. 

For years, the Imperial battle strategies for finalizing Separatist system conquest and subduing unruly sectors would have had one natural solution:

Don’t waste your resources hitting the major bases.

Chandrila, Mon Cala, and other systems probably went mostly-untouched for years before the Battle of Yavin. The Empire looked at planets nearby and sent their special forces to push propaganda, assassinate leaders, and stifle resistance cells on lesser worlds like Lothal (which was also, notably, ignored for the years leading up to Yavin).

After all, why bother coming up with schemes and resources to bring down the deflector shields of Chandrila when you’re going to have a superweapon that will ignore them? Just siege the system, harass it...you don’t want to attempt a full invasion because that’s going to waste ships and troops (picture the ion cannon on Hoth but, like, one in every major city on Earth and a hundred more in other places). Obviously having Chandrila exist as a rallying point is a terrible strategic move--every day you’re not invading is another blockade runner slipping through with resources and refugees, every day you’re not invading is another foxhole dug to resist you, another bomb planted on a key facility. And are you going to Base-Delta-Zero Chandrila? The planet with seven billion Republic citizens, billions of whom are still willing to follow the Empire once the traitors in power are gone? Families, relatives...you could risk igniting revolutions on Coruscant! 

So, instead, the military focused on satellite worlds. Driving out rebels from the more midline population centers, winning them over to the Empire...and, like tiny pieces of dust being drawn to a source of static, the rebels who fled every system the Empire conquered gathered on these entrenched systems. The shipyards of Mon Cala were filled with workers, the schools of Chandrila were flooded with new diplomats, the hangars of Yavin were lined with excited new pilots. It was too easy for the rebels, really: every week the Empire delayed its invasion of these major systems was another month it would cost them when the invasion finally began.

Or so the Rebels thought.

Because the Emprie was laughing into its hand the whole time: as Imperial loyalists deserted the planets and pushed them further into Rebel hands, they only made sure that the collateral damage would be minimized when the Death Star’s light touched the planet’s surface. The central hubs of entire sectors of resistance, planets that were supplying troops to hundreds of neighboring systems, would be gone in less than a month of fighting. The Rebel supply lines would be cease to exist, their morale would shatter like the crusts of their fortress worlds, the basis for the past decade of resistance would be eliminated. No individual planet would dare to compose a resistance force to drive the Empire offworld, because if the Empire was gone, then the Death Star would appear in the sky. There would be no hope, no chance. 

The only risk was that if the Death Star somehow didn’t factor into this and a lot of planets got upset, the central hubs would be almost impossible to conquer via conventional means and fuly prepared to assist all the freshly rebelling worlds. Fortunately, the odds of that are...oh dear.

[mariacallous]

VENICE (JTA) — The heir to an Italian winery that has long produced an Adolf Hitler varietal says he will be putting a cork in its “historical” series of wines next year.

“That’s enough. We’re sick and tired of all this controversy,” Andrea Lunardelli, who expects to take over Vini Lunardelli in early 2023, told an Italian newspaper this week. “So from next year, the whole historical line with labels of people like Hitler and Mussolini will disappear.”

If Lunardelli goes through with his promise, it would bring to an end a three-decade line of Nazi-themed business for his family’s company — and to waves of criticism, including from Jewish groups, that have accompanied it.

Vini Lunardelli, located in Friuli Venezia Giulia, in northeastern Italy, first introduced the series featuring dictators and fascist figures such as Francisco Franco and Josef Stalin in 1995. The company’s site currently boasts over 37 different labels, featuring dozens of Nazi-glorying slogans such as “Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer!” (“One People, One Empire, One Ruler”); “Sieg Heil” (“Hail Victory”)” and “Der Prosecco Vom Führer” (“The Führer’s Prosecco”). Another series features symbols and words associated with Benito Mussolini and his fascist government in Italy.

The wines have long generated outrage as well as official censure. In 1997, the German government lodged several complaints, and 10 years later Italian police seized bottles from the business in an effort to “minimize fascism’s propaganda.” But a month later, an Italian judge determined they were legal to sell. 

In 2012, a Jewish couple on vacation from the United States raised alarm about the wines, triggering an inquiry by Italian prosecutors. The Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Holocaust memorial organization and antisemitism watchdog, has repeatedly condemned the Italian government for permitting the items and in 2013 called for a boycott of the company.

The latest wave of criticism began earlier this month after a tourist in Jesolo, a seaside resort 20 miles from Venice, came across the bottles in a grocery store and posted about them on Facebook.

“A shock! In an Italian supermarket! The bottles are very popular with German holidaymakers, the saleswoman explained with a laugh,” the woman wrote, according to Heute, an Austrian news site. “Supposedly it’s been around for years! But for me, it was new, and I couldn’t believe it!”

The wines cannot be sold in most European countries, including Germany and Austria which have stringent laws prohibiting the sale of products or memorabilia celebrating Nazism. But they are sold in supermarkets across Italy and online.

The Sunday Times in Britain followed up on the viral post with a column titled “Vine Kampf: Hitler wine for sale in supermarkets,” a play on the title of Hitler’s infamous manifesto. Vice World News also covered the episode, securing an interview with Andrea Lunardelli, who said the wines represented “a nice joke” because Hitler was well known as a teetotaler.

“Whoever buys [the Hitler wine] is a collector, or remembers history, or wants nationalism against the current policies of multinationals… not against Jews,” he told Vice.

Germany’s Jewish Forum for Democracy and Against Antisemitism has intervened in the past, trying to stop the sale of the wines.

“The marketing strategy is disrespectful to all victims of the Nazi regime and their descendants,” the Jewish group said in a statement to Vice World News.

burn this fucking vineyard to the ground

[i3asil]

Writing Tips : Conflicting Nations

Getting to replay Fire Emblem Fates inspired me to write this post, simply because of how well written most of it's story is. Fire Emblem Three Houses later borrows a lot from Fates and unfolds it even further.

So how DOES one write about conflicting nations? How does one make it seem real? How does one intrigue readers? How does a Protagonist or other characters in that sort of fictional world react? What is their role? WELL! I say. Allow me to at least sprinkle some ideas on this topic.

There's multiple steps to this, and usually its important to have a rough idea and inspiration of what you want before you start world building and figuring out details. But once you're ready, I would suggest starting with the conflicting nations themselves.

Why are those nations at conflict, what are their motivations and what are their roles in this story? Analysing history is important here. Usually all parties involved in such conflict have a role. One side is often an aggressor, the other the victim or defender. Which can create a Monochrome feel for the readers and make it usually easy to discern good from bad. It creates contrast. Good examples are the Fire Nation from Avatar being the obvious aggressor, or the Empire from Star wars. But there's more options to play with here. There's also cases where all sides are aggressors, or all are defenders. Sometimes its even a mix. So this is where a motivation comes into play. Why does a nation begin a conflict with another? Is it for resources and wealth, or is it for size of land? Is it as simple as hatred and pettiness and pointless bloodshed? Or perhaps its not as greedy but a nation is forced to be offensive for their own survival. Are they lacking basic living resources like food and water or medicine, and thus need to plunder?

Once we've figured out a motivation and the sort of role a nation would be placed into, it becomes time to figure out their strategy. How do they approach this conflict? There's always politics involved with what happens, and while you don't need to figure out a whole party system, its at least good to figure out roughly what the people within your story get to know. Nations can be entirely honest with their people, or they can lie. Are they telling the truth, that the enemy is the aggressor? Or are they using propaganda to cover up their own aggression? Are they actively recruiting new people, or are they trying to involve the public as little as possible? Perhaps the public doesn't even know of this conflict?

As soon as you have an idea of how you want to handle their conflicts, you can begin to place in your Protagonist and other characters and try to think of how they would react. Perhaps the Protag is gullible to the propaganda and wants to join the efforts. They might enter with a naïve point of view, allowing your as the writer to slowly damage their innocent views and show them the cruelties of the conflict, perhaps even make them start to see that its façade? Or is the Protag the sceptical type, someone who can see through the propaganda. Or perhaps they're on the edge of both.

Now knowing their point of view, you can begin to debate their motivations too. If they're the ignorant type, do they want to join the effort to do their part? Or do they just want to make money? Or do they enjoy conflict even? Or if they're the sceptical type, do they help the enemy? Or do they act passively? And if so, how long can they be passive before the conflict becomes their issue too?

Knowing their motivations, it's important to think of a turning or break point. How do you throw their points of view on the head? Does the ignorant one get scared by the reality of conflict? Do they lose a loved one? Do they get hurt themselves? Perhaps they received a vital piece of information by accident. Really think hard about how you can make your Protag interact with the idea of having been wrong about their previous ideas and assumptions. It creates tension and allows readers to begin thinking what they would do in the protag's shoes. Allow them to sympathise or in reverse really hate the protag. Both are viable choices.

This was all you really needed. Now its up to you to figure out how the conflict continues over time, and how it all ends. It is even worth considering whether the story should have a happy ending or a sad ending. Often, when conflict is involved, someone is either a hero, or they're dead. So which one is your roster of characters going to end up being? And how do the nations evolve afterwards? Who wins? What happens to the loser and what happens to the winner?

There's many case specific questions you must ask yourself when beginning to think up a story involving conflicting nations, as it requires a good know how of history and psychology.

For now I hope this can help at least some of you. I can really only recommend playing Fire Emblem Fates, Echoes and Three Houses for their beautiful storytelling with conflicting nations. Even Gundam series are a great watch as they are known to get serious and dark with their stories.

Have fun writing, have a good time and thanks for reading! -Basil

[indiawiki]

Democracy Under Threat: Challenges to Governance and Civic Participation by Atul Pagyal

In his compelling work, "Democracy Under Threat: Challenges to Governance and Civic Participation," Atul Pagyal embarks on a profound exploration of the contemporary hurdles confronting democratic systems worldwide. Through meticulous analysis, Pagyal navigates the complex terrain of global democracy, unraveling the multifaceted issues imperiling its integrity, from the ascent of authoritarianism to the dissemination of misinformation and the struggles of managing diverse societies.

Key areas of focus within the book include:

Historical Context: Delving into the evolutionary journey of democratic governance, drawing lessons from historical triumphs and tribulations.

Rise of Authoritarianism: A detailed examination of the factors fueling the global surge of authoritarian regimes and their repercussions on democratic institutions and liberties.

Impact of Misinformation: Exploring the insidious role of misinformation, fake news, and propaganda in corroding public trust in democratic processes.

Economic Inequality: Critically analyzing the nexus between economic disparity and the erosion of democratic values, while proposing potential policy remedies.

Managing Diverse Societies: Discussing the challenges and opportunities presented by increasingly diverse populations, emphasizing the imperative of inclusive governance.

Role of Technology: Scrutinizing technology's dual role in both enabling and threatening democratic mechanisms, with a spotlight on innovative models of digital democracy.

Through rich narratives and empirical insights, "Democracy Under Threat" serves as a rallying cry for collective action to fortify and revitalize democracy. It underscores democracy's indispensable role in fostering stability, prosperity, and the safeguarding of individual freedoms.

This seminal work is indispensable for policymakers, scholars, activists, and conscientious citizens alike. It furnishes invaluable perspectives and actionable strategies to confront the ongoing struggle to preserve and invigorate democratic governance in our increasingly intricate and interconnected global milieu.

Keywords: democratic erosion, authoritarian rise, misinformation impact, economic inequality, diverse societies, technology, digital democracy, civic participation, free elections, civil liberties, global governance, political institutions, civil society, populism, nationalism, globalization, political polarization, civic education, democratic values, media role, accountability, defending democracy, global trends, political stability, rule of law, democratic institutions, participation promotion, transition challenges, public discourse, youth engagement, gender equality.

[thatstormygeek]

The rubric of “winning hearts and minds” contains within it all of the callous, misguided, patronizing strains of thought that have powered all of history’s empires into their own pits of destruction. It suggests that injustice is a tactical problem; that pacification, not justice, is the goal of great powers; that people who are deprived of their humanity should be convinced that things are okay via the skillful application of candy and money and advertisements. The essential purpose of the Hearts and Minds strategy is to allow the strong to carry out their wishes in full without the resistance of the weak. Its weapon is propaganda rather than bullets, but its purpose is the same. The easiest way to win the hearts and minds of a brutalized population is to give them justice—to remove the brutality and repair its damage. To reverse the policies of the strong that got them thinking about this in the first place. This, of course, is a nonstarter in the world of geopolitical wise men. The fact that the great powers must have their way is assumed. The only real question is how to help them escape the consequences.

But the fix for these obvious parallels would be to demand that strong nations stop oppressing the weak, and such demands are not going to get you taken seriously in Washington’s national security think tank world. The United States and Israel and their vast “security” apparatuses are looking not for justice, but for what slaveholders wanted when abolition came: To be free from retribution for what they have done.

[...]

the majority of scary crimes that occur on the subways would be most effectively eradicated by providing affordable housing and living wage jobs and good education and good health care and good social services for the people of New York. To deny those things to the public while spending vast resources to flood the subways with police and soldiers is to pursue the same approach that Israel does when it denies Palestinians equal rights and then traps them behind border walls and military checkpoints. It is the same approach that America pursues when we aid friendly dictators and help overthrow governments hostile to our own interests and then deploy the world’s mightiest military against anyone pissed off enough about those things to lash out at us directly. It is unjust, and even if you don’t care about that or find that naive, it also won’t work. Not in the long run. Oppressed people will be angry. Victims of injustice will not be pacified forever. Even the richest and strongest nations cannot kill everyone else in the world until the end of time. It is absurd. Yet our public conversation on topics of safety and security tend to start at a point that has already granted the premises that ensure that we will be having these same pointless conversations for many generations to come.

To advocate building an enormous and lethal military and deploying platoons of armed men to kill anyone who threatens to upend the normal daily lives we enjoy is the baseline, median, and utterly unexamined foundation of all respectable mainstream discussion of questions of “security.” Implied, accepted from the beginning, is the idea that security is owed to those of us who have things, and that obeisance is demanded of those who have nothing. The job of the oppressed is to not harm the rich, on pain of death. This is an accurate description of the point from which American political discussions of these issues proceed. I do not have any illusions about changing this any time soon, but it is incumbent on all of us to understand that the lunacy of all of this is baked in from the very beginning. If we start instead from the idea that everyone on earth is owed justice, is entitled to their own humanity, then these discussions can play out in very different ways. Until then, we will just continue to solemnly tell the suffering people of the world: We are here to win your hearts and minds, or to kill you. The choice is yours.

[usagirotten]

Disney and DK Publishing Announce “Star Wars: The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire”

Disney and DK Publishing announced Star Wars: The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire, a new book that will take a deep dive into the Emperor's rise to power and his fall from the throne in Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi. The book will span the Fall of the Jedi, Reign of the Empire, and Age of Rebellion eras of the official Star Wars timeline, and will explore the dark times from stories across mediums — movies, games, series, books, and comics — with chapters covering every aspect of the Emperor's regime. Author and historian Dr. Chris Kempshall, known for his work on Star Wars: Battles that Changed the Galaxy, takes the helm on this ambitious project. His mission? To explore the untold stories, secrets, and machinations that shaped the galaxy during the Empire’s reign. From the glittering halls of the Imperial Palace to the gritty battlefields of distant planets, Kempshall promises an immersive experience that spans movies, games, series, books, and comics.

What to Expect

- Comprehensive Coverage: The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire leaves no stone unturned. Chapters dissect every facet of the Emperor’s iron-fisted rule, from military strategy to propaganda machinery. - In-Depth Analysis: Ever wondered what it was like to serve in the Imperial Navy or attend a stormtrooper academy? Kempshall provides answers, drawing from canonical sources and his own historical insights. - Post-Empire Reflections: As the dust settles after the Battle of Endor, how do citizens view the fallen Empire? What legacy does it leave behind? Prepare for thought-provoking perspectives.

A First Look

  The striking cover art hints at the dichotomy between power and vulnerability. Palpatine’s sinister visage looms large, while the fractured Death Star II serves as a stark reminder of the Empire’s ultimate defeat. Uncover a history of galactic evil. “So this is how liberty dies—with thunderous applause.”  —Senator Padmé Amidala When Sheev Palpatine declared the birth of his new Empire, he expected it would stand for thousands of years. Instead, it lasted only 24. This is the story of how a tyrannical regime rose from the ashes of democracy, ruled the galaxy with an iron fist, and then collapsed into dust. It is a story of war and heroes. It is a story of propaganda and the power of fascism. But most of all, it is a story of normal people trying to live their lives in the face of brutal dictatorship. From the barbarity of Darth Vader’s campaigns to the horrors of the Tarkin Initiative, this book offers new insights into the dark entity at the core of the Star Wars saga, with chapters covering economic strategy and political organization, propaganda, crime and punishment, military tactics, and warfare, giving even the most expert Star Wars fans a fresh perspective on the Galactic Empire.

Release Date

Mark your calendars! July 9, 2024 is when this tome of Imperial lore hits the shelves. Pre-orders are already available on Amazon. Whether you’re a seasoned Star Wars scholar or a curious Padawan, The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire promises to be an essential addition to your library. Stay tuned to StarWars.com for more exclusive insights into the dark side of a galaxy far, far away. Read the full article

[xtruss]

Anti-China Narrative Psychological Projection of US

— By S.L. Kanthan | February 08, 2024

Illustration: Tang Tengfei/Global Times

The US has struggled with a congenital defect - its addiction to wars. President John Quincy Adams famously said, "America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy." However, history tells a very different story, with the US having spent about 94 percent of the time in wars since 1776. The American Empire now has 800 military bases in 140 countries, and keeps doubling down on perpetual wars. Not satisfied with the current proxy and real wars in Ukraine, Gaza, Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria - and possibly Iran soon - the cackle of American think tanks and corporate media is clamoring for a delusional hot war against China.

The narrative against China can only be described as psychological projection. Using twisted logic and fallacies, the China hawks scream that China is a threat to the US and the world. But they forget to mention that the US has been waging non-stop economic war and propaganda war against China for years. Also, it is the US that surrounds China with hostile military bases - building new ones in the Philippines. Yet, in the world of inversion, China is the bad guy.

The US tries to hobble China's economy in countless ways, and then claims that China's slower GDP growth - relative to China's past performance, but still much better than the G7 nations - is an indication of China's intent to "invade Taiwan."

From Monday through Wednesday, US media gloats that China is collapsing. And Thursday through Sunday, the same media cries that China is on the cusp of taking over the world. Which one is it - China is weak or omnipotent?

Another popular talking point among anti-China hardliners is the rapid growth in China's defense investment. China's military strategy is mostly defensive like the Great Wall. China is a "threat" only to rapacious invaders.

As for Taiwan, here is the bitter pill for imperialists: there will be reunification. When China was weak in the 19th century, it was attacked by vultures who plucked off strategic regions. However, as China regained its rightful position in the world, former colonialists retreated, giving back the stolen lands. Remember how Portugal returned Macau and the UK returned Hong Kong? Similarly, the US will one day let go of Taiwan. The sooner the Americans accept this inevitability, the better the world will be.

"America Does Not Go Abroad in Search of Monsters To Destroy." — President John Quincy Adams

There was a time when one could tell the difference between a sensational tabloid and serious journalism in the US, but not anymore. Now, the once respectable media outlets such as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal are filled with fake news, disinformation and war propaganda.

A recent article by Hal Brands in Foreign Policy is an exemplary case for this decline in American intellectualism. By the way, Mr. Brands has stellar credentials - educated at Stanford and Yale, author of numerous books, and a regular columnist. However, his article is filled with misinformation and sensationalism. Lacking any real evidence of "China threat," he quotes the CIA, the organization that lies, cheats and steals - to paraphrase Mike Pompeo, former CIA director.

Finally, Hal Brands' entire premise about the state of China's economy is deeply flawed. In his echo chamber, nobody talks about China's 5.2-percent GDP growth in 2023, a trade surplus of a staggering $800 billion, China becoming the world's #1 exporter of cars, BYD surpassing Tesla, the resurgence of Huawei, and a long list of other accomplishments.

China watchers have been wrong for long but nobody gets fired for being wrong about China. Why? The goals of incessant big lies are to convince Americans that they have the greatest economic and political systems, and to manufacture consent for a war against China. Sadly, the propagandists are quite successful - the number of Americans who view China favorably dropped from 53 percent in 2018 to 15 percent by 2023 (Gallup Poll).

This is not the old Cold War. Today, the US economy is intricately linked to and dependent on China. From Apple and Tesla to Walmart and Starbucks, American corporations' fortunes depend on Chinese workers and consumers. Even the US military cannot function without Chinese products - for example, the CEO of Raytheon admitted that his company relies on "thousands of Chinese suppliers." Decoupling is a pipe dream.

US elites need a grand reset in their understanding of the world. A multipolar world is emerging. The US needs to stop being the "most warlike nation in history of the world," as Jimmy Carter put it. It's time to discard the paradigms of the military-industrial complex, and instead embrace a future of multilateralism, development and peace.

— The Author is a Geopolitical Analyst, Columnist, Blogger, Podcaster, and Writer Based out of Bangalore, India. His work can be found on Substack, X and more.