Random Rant Thread

[h]

you said eurofags. lolol.

[miscmisc]

Nov 7, 2014 21:35:05 GMT 1 h said:

you said eurofags. lolol.

Believe it or not, that's precisely the word a Belgian, of all people, used to describe his fellow Europeans when I talked to him in English.  And no, he's not a Muslim immigrant, but a far-right white dude.  Those people basically hate everyone.

[miscmisc]

Are Czechs giving up on moral responsibility?

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/are-czechs-giving-up-on-a-sense-of-moral-responsibility/2014/11/16/dfa0d0fc-6c41-11e4-b053-65cea7903f2e_story.html

The author is deploring Czechs' unwillingness to confront Putin's Russia (and other "pariah states" in the world), while praising the Czechs from older generations who supposedly fought hard for so-called liberal democracy.

Well, I guess he wants an answer from us, so I will give him mine: the answer is Yes, and the reason is the stink that "moral responsibility" emits.

These obsessive Russia-haters seem to share one persistent theorem:

1. Putin out
2. ??
3. Russia becomes a "liberal democracy"
4. ?????????
5. Peace and prosperity!

There is absolutely no explanation on 2 or 4, nothing beyond "Then a miracle occurs - then, an even bigger miracle occurs", really.

Let's say Putin is out, liberal democracy blah blah blah, and Russia will have an election.  You decide to run for the job.  You promise your voters that you will suck up to the EU and US for "peaceful relations", desert the rebels in Donbass, and practically let Ukraine become a crypto-NATO base right next to Russia.  Well, you know what, you will lose the election in a fucking nanosecond, bomb 10 times as hard as the Raiders.  Hell, quite a few Russian voters are already saying that even Putin sold out, even though he managed to keep Ukraine in the state of chaos and deadlock, and the EU in the state of disunity.  Does it never occur to those batshit neocons that Putin's replacement could very well be even worse, much worse?

And does it never occur to them that quite a few Russian citizens are perfectly content with the absence of "liberal democracy"?  Hell, the last time they had something close to it, what followed it was total chaos.

Look, this is 2014, and Czechs do tons of trade with Russia.  And their economy isn't doing great at the moment.  They would need to believe that something good would come out of Russia turning to "liberal democracy" which would benefit them in one way or another.  They would need to see something beneficial to themselves.

And they don't see shit, and neither do I.

Czechs have already realized that what made their country liberal is not a few politicians, but the country's proximity to several wealthy countries in Europe and rigorous trade with them.  They know that if you simply declare yourself a "liberal democracy" on an island, not much is likely to happen.

You may criticize them for thinking that way all you want, and I would probably see a point in your argument, but at the same time, I'm pretty sure that the last thing the Czechs want now is irresponsible, nosy scolding from some delusional Yanks.

[h]

poor Raiders.

[miscmisc]

CIA "Torture Report" is out, against all kinds of threats from all kinds of people from above, and the details are unsurprisingly horrific.  Threats to rape their moms, to harm their children, actual rapes, murders, senseless maiming, etc.  To mere suspects, many of whom were in all likelihood innocent, at least on the particular charges against them (if they were lucky enough to get actual "charges", that is).  What I suspect is most shocking to many people is the realization that torture has been completely normalized in the US intel world.  It's clear that torture has been a "fact of life" there for the longest time by now, and arguing over specific "incidents" is pretty much meaningless.  They just torture people, period.  There is no moral ambiguity whatsoever.  There are shit tons of "experts", such as physiocists and psychologists, involved, advising the CIA and others to put hummus up the ass of the "subject" if he is too dehydrated, to constantly remind him of getting his female family members to be raped (and not to leave out the option of actually raping his wife/daughter every once in a while), etc.

Torture is officially a crime in case you didn't know, BTW.

Many are saying that this will infuriate Muslims even further and create more recruits for the Islamic fundamentalist groups.  It might, but I think they are kinda missing the point.  As far as I know, most Muslims are well aware of what the US (and UK, for that matter) government has been doing to their "fellow Muslims" without any help of this kind of reports.  Hell, many of them might even find the report slightly underwhelming, as they have surely heard worse stories whether they are true or exaggerated/fabricated.  In any event, this is simply a confirmation, and re-confirmation of what they already knew.

The bigger problem is that this kind of expose/revelations create the sense of "it's a serious battle, and it's all fair game".  The "terrorists" commit atrocities, and the "West" responds in kind, or vice versa.  It appears to be just two sides fighting for survival of a sort, playing dirty at every step to gain advantage.  The reality, though, is that the "West" is vastly superior.  Its "survival" is hardly at stake here.  With its superior resources and finance - the few drawbacks that come with it notwithstanding - it would have all the luxury to be the man on a high horse looking down on its opponents.  But it chose not to be that man, and instead decided to go full Nazi.

This report is certainly "damaging", but not exactly because of the impact on the reputation (whatever still remains of it), but because of the fact that it makes it clear that both sides are more or less in the same playground.  The "terrorists", who aren't exactly the brightest bunch either, will have extra motivation to trumpet how scary and fearsome they are through committing more atrocities and publicizing them on youtube and elsewhere, to get even with the infidel "monsters" of the "West".  Thus the vicious cycle of violence will go on and on and on, creating the sense of fear all around.  Which is usually what the materially inferior side wants more than the other does.  So, purely strategically speaking, the "terrorists" win already.  But then, it takes two to tango, and obviously the other side doesn't mind it either for whatever reason.

This is also basically the logical consequence of Dick Cheney's principle - rule by fear and might, and fuck "respect".  That old country-boy idiot from godforsaken Wyoming genuinely thought that it would work great in this day and age.  I suspect he read too much memoirs written by old British imperial officers.

As I read this report, I really began to consider Cheney to be a less successful version of Saddam Hussein.  They shared the same principle, but Saddam managed to rule such a vast pseudo-country as Iraq for as long as he did with as little as what he had.  On the other hand, Cheney and his cronies/mentors/groupies simply fucked things up.  Even such a megalomaniac as him should genuinely admit (as he indeed does in public, though he only blames all on Obama) that this situation in the Middle East and beyond is not exactly what he wanted.

You give so much power to idiots, and this is what you get.  You almost wish that Saddam and Cheney had switched places.  We would be living in a better world, if not by much.

[miscmisc]

I'm reading Hilary Clinton's memoir, and this woman really is outrageous, particularly on foreign policies. I don't know what to call this kind of people. Not exactly neocon. Liberal hawks? Maybe, but what kind of "hawks" are they? They don't mind stirring shit up in all kinds of places in the world, but never dare to follow through on that. They always expect others to clean up the mess, which is clear from this phrase that she constantly uses - "We must move on". Yeah, she can "move on" in her mansion, but the people who are right in the middle of the actual shit can't. The word "irresponsible" doesn't even begin to describe it. Obviously she sees no value in actually analyzing and learning from past mistakes. The Vietnam lesson has been completely wiped out of these people's brains, and they keep doing the same shit over and over again, only to "move on" in the end, to leave those in the region who trusted them in a world of shit.

Hell, she seems to think that Libya shit was "success". She also thinks that Russia invaded Georgia. Jesus Christ.

Hell, forget about Russia and Ukraine. We are supposed to trust this kind of idiots to resolve the issues in the real powder keg of the world - East Asia. That notion sends shivers down my spine, really. Jesus Christ.

[miscmisc]

Anne Applebaum thinks that Russia, under Putin, is bad because it's not capitalist.

www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/dec/18/how-he-and-his-cronies-stole-russia/

I don't know what exactly she means by "capitalist", but Russia, under Putin (or Yeltsin), has been absolutely capitalist.  What else could it be?

You know, the problem is that intellectually lazy twats like her think "capitalist" automatically means "good".  It never occurs to them that the *actual* capitalism - not the creepy utopian idea that only exists in their heads - is mostly grotesque almost anywhere in the world.  In many ways, Russia, with its enormous corruption, gross inequality and whatnot, represents something close to the historical norm of capitalism.  If countries like France, Germany, Denmark etc. appear to be less grotesque, that's rather largely because of the *anti-capitalist* elements of those societies.  You could even say the same about the US, as the primary function, and goal, of American liberalism is to tame the capitalist beast, so to speak.

Historically speaking, Russia today is even more capitalist than many other counties.  Capitalism has been around for many, many centuries, and in much of its history, it basically looked like - or even worse than - Russia today.

I guess Applebaum also represents the historical norm of gung-ho punditry - fucking idiotic and grotesque most of the time.

[miscmisc]

I used to know this very right-wing, racist, fuck-human-rights FBI guy, and he once told me that the problem with torture was that it never worked well enough for it to be worth keeping trying, especially given all the PR risks and drawbacks (about which he didn't care much, though).  It was a long time ago, and the Torture Report still doesn't refute his argument.

As you probably know, the FBI thinks that the CIA is a bunch of maniacs who justify every stupid thing under the name of "national security".  Yes, that's coming from the fucking FBI, who isn't exactly a thoughtful bunch either.  I guess that the guy was implicitly telling me about the impulsive gravity toward torture and other ghastly stuff in which agencies like the CIA tend to operate, though we weren't talking specifically about the CIA.

It seems almost like they torture people for the heck of it, and of course it's not just the Americans.  In the Soviet Union under Stalin, torture led to so many false confessions that sent the whole country into historic chaos.  In Vietnam during the civil war (which means the Vietnam War in the American context), the rampant use of torture led to so much waste of resources which actually made it very hard for them to keep fighting the Americans.  The North Vietnamese were totally aware of the problem very early, but the intelligence bureau just never stopped it, as if torturing people were a symbolic act to prove its raison d'etre regardless of the outcome. 

These are only two of many, many examples.  On the other hand, I have yet to see good examples where torture led to a major breakthrough to gain advantage, despite what that horrible movie Zero Ground Thirty says.  Yes, maybe they have never publicized the cases due to the PR problems, as torture has been an internationally-defined crime for the longest time, but I know for a fact that the vast, vast majority of the critical pieces of information for intel come from informants.  More than 90% of it according to some sources, in fact.  And the CIA is actually good at sending agents into its enemy organizations.  Nevertheless, apparently they still believe in the mysterious power of torture.

What the Report exposes (or confirms) is that torture is a whole industry involving so many "experts" and "professionals", and that there is no evidence to justify the existence of such an industry.  The cost-performance ratio there is obviously awful, but they keep doing it just because.  You climb the mountain because it's there, I guess.

And the majority of Americans seem to think that torture is "necessary" according to the latest polls.  I assume that all they have is the gut feeling that torture should work, based on "Oh, I would say anything if they threatened me that they will rape my sister!" or such.  Well, I guess that the fact that he would "say anything" is the problem right there doesn't really matter to them.

Welcome to the brave new era where torture is completely normalized in the most powerful country in the world.

[miscmisc]

The Russian ruble has been in free fall, and many people in the "West" (which is a meaningless word that no one can actually define, but anyway) seem unable to contain their excitement.  Now, they say Putin is an idiot who had it coming, and that Russia is a laughing stock of the world.  Note that the same people were saying not so long ago that he was an evil genius that the rest of the world would have to stop with all of its might, and that Russia was the new Nazis threatening Europe.

I've been saying for a long time that Putin is neither an idiot nor a genius.  He certainly doesn't have the power to take over the world, and I doubt he has anything remotely close to such ambition no matter what the moronic Applebaums of the world say.  The fact of the matter is that Russia is not the Soviet Union.  It's not one of the most major countries anymore.  I know this rather rubs Russians - most of whom I think are a tad too proud of themselves - the wrong way, but it's not a terribly important country, with a mid-sized economy and limited influence on the world stage, pretty much already surrounded by hostile countries from all angles to boot.  If I talk a lot about Russia, that's simply because I'm a freak, not because it's a China.

So, the only problem is the plenty of nukes that the country still possesses.  That's why we should be careful not to bully the country too much into an ultra-defensive mode.

And that's exactly what the "West" has been doing, and people are excited that the Russian economy is in huge trouble now after the sanctions and all else, wishing for the fall of Putin, apparently oblivious to the strong possibility that his potential replacement could be so much worse than him.  It's Mikhail Khodorkovsky that said Putin was more liberal and more democratic than 70% of Russians, and that's coming from someone who was destroyed by Putin.  I would say that he was exaggerating it a bit with that statement, but it's not hard to guess what he was getting at.  He knows his country and its situation today, as someone who climbed up the Russian oligarchy mountain, and eventually fell off it.  I mean, if Boris Yeltsin is someone close to the "Western" definition of more "liberal" and more "democratic", Russians certainly have a reason to steer away from that.

Russia may be not as important as it was in the past, but still keeps attracting stupidity, particularly from those who dislike it for whatever reason, like some sort of idiocy magnet.

[K1power]

Sony cancels The Interview release amid threats
www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30526406

Sad that Sony caved..

[miscmisc]

I have to say, though, that the fact that that movie is considered a bigger issue than the torture report and others tells you a lot about the completely screwed-up priorities of the current world.  Movies have been pulled/buried by the studios for much worse reasons for decades, so frankly I don't understand why such a fuss.  And apparently, according to many American pundits/politicians, it is the highest level of patriotism to watch a mediocre comedy flick produced by a Japanese company because America!  Because freedom!  Because otherwise terrorists win!  Or something like that, I guess.

I don't know what people expected from the Hollywood industry, and this is definitely not the worst thing that it has done to the art of cinema and freedom of expression.  Not even remotely close, and it's not like Sony buried an intelligent masterpiece.  It's just, um, Seth Rogen...

[miscmisc]

Yet another pundit who thinks Russia should have less Putin and more "capitalism":

www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/12/21/putins-groundhog-day-the-russian-people-keep-paying-the-price-for-their-leaders-incompetence/

Matt O'Brien may be generally less idiotic than Anne Applebaum, but he's really gone retard on this one.  He is another one who thinks everything about Russia - AND the Soviet Union (!) - is and was about oil.  Which is absolute nonsense.

But I would be repeating the same shit, so I'll spare you the details.  Nevertheless, there is just one thing: what really irritates me is this notion that so many people, particularly Americans, seem to share.

It shouldn't be this way. The one thing Russia doesn't have a shortage of, after all, are brilliant scientists, programmers, and mathematicians. By all rights, it should have a booming high-tech economy. A Silicon Valley-on-the-steppes. But that would require giving people the freedom to challenge authority, which is far too much for Putin when he thinks that any opposition amounts to a "fifth column."

Aside from the fact that Russia does have a big (and largely successful) IT industry, which seems to have eluded him, why do these people think that all it takes to have a "Silicon Valley" in your country is a fair number of "brilliant scientists, programmers and mathematicians" and "freedom"?  That's just fucking nonsense.  I'll list up the REAL reasons for why the US can have Google, Apple, eBay, PayPal, Facebook, and so on:

1. Immediate access to a huge market (= the US market)
2. Presence of a huge financial sector with global reach in the same country
3. Native language that happens to be the global standard
4. Presence of a very strong government sector which excels at technology in general (e.g. the internet, search algorithm)

Just tell me how many other countries have such a straight flush. The answer is zero. American companies by default have a significant head start in virtually anything.  So-called "economic freedom" is just a minor element compared to these four.  Apple Pay would've been around for years now as "NTT DoCoMo Pay" or something if the Japanese had had as easy an access to the US-based credit card companies and the whole non-cash payment infrastructure as Apple does, as Osaifu Keitai - virtually the same technology as Apple Pay - has been widely used locally in Japan for more than 10 years now.

Some people talk about the "hi-tech sector" in the Baltic countries and elsewhere, but the reality of that is just a bunch of cheap local programmers working for non-Baltic business owners, whose companies are located there for the cost/tax reasons.

What's far more likely to happen is that those "brilliant" Russians move to the US and work for big companies/start their own business with American partners.  Which is exactly what's been going on.

The global market is not a fair place.  Your economy being "free" alone doesn't mean a whole lot, and quite often means literally nothing.  Americans tend to miss such a basic point, presumably because they can afford to have that illusion thanks to the fact that they live in the most advantageous market place, somehow thinking that's the norm everywhere else.  They ignore the truth that if Mark Zuckerberg was French and stayed in France, we wouldn't have Facebook.  A similar global service could be around, but that would be an American company with a different name started by someone else in America.  Mark Zuckerberg was hardly original, but was born in the right place.  Nationality still matters a lot in actuality, which is the cunning aspect of so-called globalization.  The table is largely tilted to begin with despite all the pretense.

Pretty tiresome to read their drivel.

[miscmisc]

Oh man.  Apparently, Norwegian activist Thor Halvorssen is planning to drop the Interview DVDs over North Korea via balloons.

LOL.  I guess this movie - what Seth Rogen described as "a movie that will maybe for two seconds make some 18-year-old think about North Korea in a way he never would have otherwise" (<-- funniest comment ever, but unfortunately he was totally non-sarcastic when he said that) - delivers a real dark comedy without even being released to the public.

Anyway, in case you don't know who Halvorssen is, he's an enthusiastically neoliberal-con clash-of-civilizations Norwegian guy with sleazy Venezuelan oligarchical family background, known to much of the world as a "global human rights activist".  I did talk about him in this thread before, but this article goes much deeper, I think:

electronicintifada.net/content/oslo-freedom-forum-founders-ties-islamophobes-who-inspired-mass-killer-anders-breivik/12451

An Electronic Intifada investigation uncovers evidence that Thor Halvorssen, the founder of the Oslo Freedom Forum, receives significant funding from the same financiers who support the Islamophobes who inspired anti-Muslim Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik. Despite being presented with this evidence, the Norwegian government and Amnesty International are embracing Halvorssen, a long-time far-right activist and the scion of a politically-connected family tied to Venezuela’s US-backed opposition.

His father was an anti-commie CIA asset involved in dirty ops in Latin America, and Thor idolizes him.  His "human rights" organizations receive funding from far-right bigots and hard-right libertarians, which he tends to obfuscate/play down.  He also tries to hide his past as a right-wing student activist at the University of Pennsylvania railing against feminism, multiculturalism and so on.  I guess that fact is very inconvenient in light of what he's trying to sell to gullible "liberals" in particular.

So, he's one of those Euro-upper-class right-wing liberty-uber-alles creeps, but not many people know that.  They think he's a fellow "liberal" or something.  Amnesty International vouches for him, after all.

Anyway, this shit is getting even stupider than it already was.  Why is George Clooney feigning shock and circulating a petition when he as a veteran actor should perfectly know that there isn't a single Hollywood exec, let alone at Sony, who ever takes risks in such a situation?  He surely has seen movies canned for much smaller reasons.  Is he trying to run for the office or something?  And we are supposed to take sides with either North fucking Korea, or juvenile clowns like Seth Rogen/James Franco, and Thor Hallvorssen now apparently?
 
What about fuck you to both? 

If you need a Seth Rogen to think "for two seconds" about North Korea "in a way [you] never would have otherwise", consider yourself a fucking idiot.  A better option is NOT to think about North Korea even for a nanosecond, because that would be much better than being even slightly thought-provoked/educated by a Seth Rogen of this world on actual world matters. 

Our civilization is on the decline.

[miscmisc]

One of the best things about Obama's attempt to normalize America's relationship with Cuba is to get to see those right-wing Americans, particularly of Cuban descent, going totally apeshit.  Man, it feels so good to see people like that coke-tard Marco Rubio in despair.  America's policy against Cuba has been one of the most irrational and stupid in the history of the country.  It served no one but a small group of people, yet dragged the entire country (and Cubans in Cuba who continued to suffer a lot economically, of course) down the sorry road for decades.  And it seems like that might end at last.

I don't exactly know what will happen to Cuba afterwards.  It might go full neoliberal and back to the colonial days, with the new American mafia building casinos and brothels - both figuratively and literally - left and right, exploiting the hell out of the local labor.  That would be really bad news for most Cubans, but whatever it's going to be like, it's certainly nice at this moment to see a historical wrong finally corrected, as it should have a long time ago.

I wish Obama could "normalize" America's relationship with Israel too while we are at it, but unfortunately the Israel lobby is about 20 times as powerful as the anti-Castro Cuban one. He actually tried, and failed miserably after all.

[miscmisc]

Each dot on this world map is an American adult's guess about the location of Ukraine:



I would say that statistically, they are close.  Probably not close enough for people of a country so actively engaged in that part of the world, though.

Also, I'm reading the transcript of Putin's Q&A, and he comes out sounding so much like a clueless neoliberal that it's painful.  An authoritarian neoliberal to be precise, one of the worst kind that is unfortunately on the rise in many places in the world today.  Just watch/read the way he talks about "the markets", citizens as nodes in the economy, etc.  His rationale for cutting healthcare is just ridiculous.  Ridiculously supply-side-economic nonsense.  His problem is clearly that he believes way too much in the neoliberal capitalist snake oil crap juice.

It's just so clear to me that I don't know why people look at me in a funny way when I say that.  It's just so fucking bizarre, that something so clear is somehow not clear to many.  People totally lose objectivity when it comes to Russia, I guess.