Why nearly? They are just as bad, if not worse.

That thread is wild. I had no clue slrpunk was like that (I only go to some non-political communities on slrpunk).

This is a bit a of tangent, but I’ve read some of the author’s takes on russia and China (and briefly discussed the articles with him on twitter) and he has no clue what he is talking about. The “articles” are sophomoric takes that clearly show a lack of knowledge or interest in understanding anything.

He might have a better understanding of US internal politics, but his confidently ignorant approach (with respect to russia and China) does not inspire confidence.

Come on. This is a delusional take.

And insightcrime is not “imperial news”, I read them a lot of. They clearly aim for a factual perspective, almost academic in a sense.

And by bringing up imperialism in this context, you really are condoning the actions of those degenerate gang members.

Putin will give a Trump a list of demands. The demands are likely exclude complete dealbreakers such as surrendering Zaporizhzhia and Kherson (I am from Ukraine, this doesn’t seem viable).

Trump will go with putin’s demand; his plan will be to come back to the US public and say “I stopped the war” even though he essentially submitted to putin.

Sounds like this is the work of the Islamic State.

I wonder if the Taliban thugs are able to see the irony of the situation.

Saw the comment further down in the thread.

Fascinating stuff.

It’s understandable though. I don’t think US oligarchs are too concerned about security per se (US is sufficiently wealthy, on a compative basis, for anything approaching a real rebellion), but the whole situations does raise uncomfortable questions about their regime.

Curious if this a reddit-wide thing (i.e. implemented by oligarchs) or something specific to that community.

More than 100 mostly elderly people were murdered between December 6 and 7 by a gang operating in the Cité Soleil neighborhood, one of the capital’s poorest, according to Haiti’s government and human rights groups. Gang members shot or stabbed victims to death with machetes and knives, and burned bodies in the streets, according to a statement released by the National Human Rights Defense Network (Réseau National de Défense des Droits Humains – RNDDH).

The gang’s leader reportedly ordered the slaughter after being told that elderly people in the area were practicing witchcraft to harm his young son, who had fallen ill. He subsequently died on December 7, according to the RNDDH.

This is intense brutality, chaos and collapse of government authority.

This isn’t political violence in the sense of supporters of different parties killing each other.

These are Mexican drug cartels killing and intimidating politicians to protect their turf, enable corruption and make it more difficult to fight them.

I am not necessarily arguing against what you’re saying, just pointing out that what’s going on in Mexico is primarily linked to drug cartels and not violent conflict based on ideology or political goals.

That’s not good. I was hoping they would move towards more open, inclusive governance.

I guess we’ll see how things develop, but this is not good sign.

I do believe this is true to some degree.

NK may be more fundamentally more aligned with China, but I do think NK at least tries to play them against each.

This does seem very strange. I don’t understand why they would even bother with such a specific, minor tariff.

Perhaps some senior goon (i.e. pretty close to putin, not just a regular oligarch or a regional fief) has money in the furniture business? Still I would imagine it would be easier to implement some sort of local subsidy or corruption scheme as opposed to a tariff against China. It just doesn’t seem worth it.

This is honestly a tiny tariff that has no real impact on trade between russia and China.

I tried to keep the discussion somewhat measured.

And yet you come up with “Admit you are wrong and stupid!” What? How? What is going through that head of yours? Are you a teenager? Do you really expect anyone to go through with this?

I guess it’s on me that I expected something different.

You can fuck righ off, you shit eating lemming!

We are going in circles. Short sentence on what you think I need to admit to. This shouldn’t be difficult.

I made a relatively calm (considering your shit eating lemmings rant), jovial remark about how a clear case of corruption (on an outcome basis) might undermine people’s view of legal proceedings against a rich, well-connected celebrity/businessman.

You then went on a rant about how I am wrong to view the sackler case as an example of judicial corruption and that it was no big deal that some oligarchs who engaged in mass killings escaped criminal liability.

Where is the strawman?

You said I am not making sense. Can you in one (somewhat short) sentence say what I need to understand or admit to, in order for my agreement to make sense?

Because I don’t like ignorant Americans calling Ukraine (or any other country) a “corrupt shithole” while arguing that’s it’s OK that criminal oligarchs (who organized a massive drug cartel with deaths in the 10s of thousands) should avoid all criminal liability and retain enough money to live opulent lifestyles. You are really in so deep that you can’t understand this?

I also don’t like people who call others lemmings who like eating shit just because they happen to be be a more sceptical and are more critical about proganada polemics.

P.S. I said I currently live in Ukraine. Does that mean I haven’t lived/worked/studied in the US for many years? I’ve even been to Flint multiple times! I loved how well the US judicial system worked when all those poor black people got life long poisoning.

Not very “free speech” of you I must add.

I am assuming you mean $4B not $40 B (was not able to find anything around a $40B). The exact number is irrelevant if it allows the criminal organization to retain enough money to live an opulent lifestyle on a “generational” basis. This is not a controversial statement.

Not really, no. What do you mean by compromised? The American judicial system is set up in such a way that it’s largely transparent, so large scale corruption would be nearly impossible to sustain.

Remember when I said in Ukraine the criminal do things in a direct manner, while in the US it is done with lots of pomp and in a roundabout manner? With the actual outcome being the same. Why do you think I mentioned this?

As far as the legal system is concerned, that money doesn’t exist, because it can’t be proven that they possess it. This is frustrating, but it’s legally sound.

This is just an excuse. If anything a country like the US can very much resolve this issue. There is a lack of desire. In another case the issue would be solved and there would no pretend BS about “legally sound”. Imagine if something similar was relevant to a terrorism case on the scale of 9/11. They would resolve this without any pretend excuses, they would find a way.

You have a very naive view of the world if you think the judges are merely implementing the law. There is a massive feedback loop between the oligarchs, politicians and the judicial system. It’s a bit supremacist to think that Americans are inherently incapable of such corruption constructs.

Getting the Sacklers sent to prison would feel good, but it wouldn’t directly help anyone suffering from opioid addiction.

So you believe that if you are an oligarch, it is a reasonable for a “non-compromised” (your implied words) judicial system to allow them to skip prison for their crimes (in this case organizing a massive drug cartel with probably 100K+ deaths)? Do you even read what you’re writing? You’re basically saying it’s good that criminals don’t get any liability as long as they are rich and well connected.

How do you know what was the goal of the original ruling being overturned (and subsequent the outcome)? And I didn’t see anything about liability for the Sackler family.

I will give you an non-US example. There was a really corrupt court (with scandalous behaviour) in Ukraine that was scheduled to be shut down following the passage of new laws to improve the judicial system. This move was overturned by another high court. Can you guess why this happened? They eventually shut down the court following the fullscale russian invasion because the corrupt judges got scared (angry population) and due to the state of emergency.

Back to Jay-Z. Considering your own admissions that US criminals can and do go free as long as long as they are rich (and for starting a drug cartel that enabled 100K+ deaths, no less), it is reasonable to be skeptical of the overall process w.r.t criminal liability. Not to mention there are earlier examples where it was basically impossible to get anywhere with a criminal lawsuit.

Isn’t it reasonable to assume the judiciary in an oligarch run state is going to be compromised (I am referring to the US civil vs. criminal distinction and the inability of winning criminal lawsuits)?

I see a lot of parallels between the judicial corruption in my own country (Ukraine) and the US. Sure our goons are more direct, while Americans prefer more pomp and roundabout methods for corruption, but the outcomes are the same. My favourite US oligarch group is the Sackler family.

In a bankruptcy court filing on July 7, 2021, multiple states agreed to settle. Though Purdue admitted no wrongdoings, the Sacklers would agree never to produce opioids again and pay billions in damages toward a charitable fund. Purdue Pharma was dissolved on September 1, 2021. The Sacklers agreed to pay $4.5 billion over nine years, with most of that money funding addiction treatment. The bankruptcy judge Robert Drain acknowledged that the Sacklers had moved money to offshore accounts to protect it from claims, and he said he wished the settlement had been higher.

What I mean by this tangent is that is not unreasonable to assume that groups that are de facto protected are going to engage in criminals behaviour.