TranscendentalEmpire

I wouldn't bother too much, he's not arguing in good faith. He's just a Russian nationalist pretending to be a campist. Capitalist imperialism is a disease and needs to be stomped out.....except for in Russia, which is totally going to be socialist any day now.

didn't have any actual point to make here.

Being purposely obtuse is not a rebuttal....

was independent in a sense of having sovereign domestic policy which it lost after the coup by the west.

Just because the people of Ukraine overthrew a government that was being controlled by the benefactors of Russian capital for a government controlled by people who want to take loans from the US and Western Europe does not mean there was a "coup by the west".

Not surprisingly you are stripping any sense of autonomy from the people of Ukraine. Could it be that the people of Ukraine were just tired of being the poorest nation in Europe despite their size, agricultural output, and mineral wealth?

Ukraine was allowed to stay independent then the war would not have happened

Meaning if Ukraine had continued to be controlled by oligarchs loyal to Russia, Russia wouldn't have had to invade. Sure.

We've already established that it's actually that the west that wants to maintain control over Ukrainian politics as was evidenced by the west overthrowing the government in Ukraine.

I don't think posting the substack of an author who works for the Russian media is really enough to establish anything. The guy is clearly not a reliable narrator, and his "evidence" is hardly sufficient to validate his claims.

shred of intellectual integrity.

Lol, the pot calling the kettle black.

Literally that org that is known for doing regime change around the world.

Every powerful nation in the world has lobbying groups of a similar order. Saying that they are solely responsible for regime change all over the world is just reductionist and ignores the autonomy of the people in those nations.

The whole western proxy war is backfiring right now as well.

So America is so powerful they can overthrow a nation with a ngo, but so weak they can't capitalize on it...... curious.

As opposed to the oligarchic system in the west?

Did I deny that the west had its own oligarchic system? No, it wasn't pertinent because we were talking about Ukraine prior to 2014.

Your claim was that Ukraine was "independent", when in reality the majority of the wealth was held by Ukrainian oligarchs with deep ties to Russian capital.

Russia wanting to maintain economic relations with Ukraine isn't the conspiracy theory you seem to think it is.

Russia wanting to maintain control of Ukrainians politics through the wealth of their oligarchs is literally a conspiracy. I'd say it's a lot more influential than a US backed org like freedom radio or what have you.

The credit goes to the US and it's pretty well documented at this point https://kitklarenberg.substack.com/p/anatomy-of-a-coup-how-cia-front-laid

Ahh, yes... The national endowment fund..... So powerful they could take over the government by funding..... Independent Journalism?

Surely having a few people control 80% of the countrys wealth has nothing to do with people being upset at the status quo..

certain oligarchs in Ukraine decided to throw their lot with the US

Yeah, because that worked out for them....

November 2023 there were only two billionaires left in Ukraine, these being Rinat Akhmetov ($6.59 billion) and Viktor Pinchuk ($1.72 billion).[7] In November 2022 they had counted nine billionaires.[7] The February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and its negative impact on the economy of Ukraine led to the decline in billionaires.[8]

What actually happened was that the west was not ok with Ukraine being independent and instigated a coup there.

By independent, you mean controlled by the same oligarchic system as the Russian federation?

While you are correct that Russia really didn't need the minerals in Ukraine, they did want to maintain relations with the oligarchs that controlled the majority of Ukraine wealth. They especially wanted to maintain relations with the oligarchs like Akhmetov, Kolomoisky, Pinchuk, and Firtash. Who were responsible for mediating Russian gas sales to Ukraine.

Of course the US has their fingers in geopolitics around the globe, but giving them credit for the revolution in 2014 is a bit generous imo. I mean, when is the last time America did anything at this scale with any kind of competency?

In 2008, the combined wealth of Ukraine's 50 richest oligarchs was equal to 85% of Ukraine's GDP.[3] In November 2013, this number was 45% (of GDP).[

In reality this is the reason for the revolution. It's also the same reason why America's billionaire president is now supporting Russia. The ultra wealthy have long craved the control Russia's oligarchy has over the state.

It is not an appeal to authority.... It's called a rebuttal. If someone makes a claim that no real smart person can do x, an easy way to prove them wrong is to provide an example of a smart person doing x.

Also as Yogthos alluded to, China doesn't have eminent domain, they can't just take your house like in America. This has lead to people who refuse to sell having highways diverted around their house, parking lots, and in 1 case, a shopping center surrounding the house.

They don't have eminent domain because their legal system isn't designed off of common law. They do however have forced evictions and land expropriations, which basically boils down to the same thing.

It's just academically dishonest to claim that the Chinese government can't just take your home, as that is by far the most common reason for organized protest in the country.

1993-2003, Shanghai From 1993 to 2003, 2.5 million people were evicted in the city of Shanghai.[9]

2008, Beijing Olympics In preparation for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, many of Beijing's densely populated neighborhoods were torn down in order to make way for new developments and infrastructure projects. The Center on Housing Rights and Evictions estimated that 1.5 million people in and around Beijing were forced from their homes, often with inadequate compensation. Chinese authorities maintained only 6,000 families were relocated, and that all received proper compensation.[10]

1995-2005, Chongqing Three Gorges Dam From 1995 to 2005, an average of 86,754 people were evicted annually in connection to the Three Gorges Dam,[9] totaling an estimated 1.4 million people.[11] Recalcitrant residents in the city of Chongqing had their water and electricity turned off in order to force them to move; the residents said they had not yet left because proper resettlement hadn't been arranged.[12]

2013-present, Beijing "Limited Property Right" houses From 2013 to present, 108 communities that are listed as "limited property right" houses, with over ten thousands households are forced evicted. At the same time, thousands of households with "limited property right" due to historical reason, which are not included in the 108 communities list are also being evicted illegally, such as XiangTang village and JiuhuaYuan community eviction. During the winter of 2020, the city of Beijing and government of Xiaotangshan township cut off water and electricity of the residents, and send unpermitted security guards to the community, in order to force the residents to leave. The security guards and excavators go to residents' house when they go out for food and water, and demolish their home without any negotiation or arranging settlement.

Every government that has transitioned to an industrialized economy has some sort of way of land procurement for public works. One of China's main economic advantages compared to the west is this procurement can be done at scale via a centralized apparatus of the government.

To say there is no way for the government to procure "private property" is either very ignorant or very dishonest. Especially considering that the procurement and sales of rural property is a large part of how local governments create funding in China.

I personally see nothing wrong with governments procuring private property for public works, it's just part of securing economic growth for the nation. However, claiming that it doesn't happen at all is just inaccurate.

enact genocidal policies like the US still does on the indigenous peoples of the mainland and occupied Hawai'i which has been gentrified and settled to the point of being unlivable for most of the locals.

And the same has been said about tibet, inner Mongolia, and xinjiang. I mean you can look at Chinas own census data and see that han Chinese are migrating to cities in xinjiang, displacing ethnic minorities to move away from their cultural cities.

The claims of China's abuse of ethnic minorities are a scam espoused by the same people profitting off the genocide in Palestine. Anybody who takes the evidence seriously instead of treating accusations as trustworthy because of the volume of them doesn't understand (or chooses to ignore) how the US propaganda machine has always worked.

You are conflating the accusations of genocide in one region with the accusations of ethnic discrimination. Even in that grey zone article it is conflating the study from some weird neocon group with all investigations into ethnic discrimination in China.

Han chauvinism is an established concept that even Mao took aims to curtail. Something they are still combating considering there has only been one ethnic minority to serve in the central committee in the last 35 years.

An actual criticism that I have about Xi is that he is a bit culturally conservative. The belt and road initiative utilized a lot of han centric language and the current central committee is notably the first committee that has no women serving on it in the last +25 years.

Same to you!

what do you suppose the Taliban would have done to those same people and more if the US had not pulled out when Trump told them we would?

I don't really think slowing down a pull out a few weeks or even months would really upset the Taliban anymore than what we had already done, I mean we've been there for more than a decade.

The point would be that it would have given more time for people to make their way to the airbase, and for more than just a couple airplanes full of people evacuate.

The only reason the Taliban was able to capture Kabul so quickly is because they and the security forces knew that the US wasn't providing any air cover.

Eh, I guess it's a matter of opinion. To me knowingly finishing your opponents mistake is worse than making an honest one yourself.

I may be a little biased though, as I have had the opportunity to provide healthcare to a few of the Afghan interpreters that were lucky enough to evacuate and make it state side.

I work in orthopedics and rehabilitation, so they had all been pretty banged up, missing limbs, or had lower limbs injuries that affected their mobility. But their personal injuries were nothing compared to how much uncertainty they faced about not knowing about the well being of extended family and friends still in Afghanistan, a home they will likely never have the chance to ever visit again.

don't see how this is laid on Biden since Trump agreed to the withdrawal and timeline

Trump made the original withdrawal date and Biden arbitrarily stuck to it when he came into office.

He was under no real obligation to stick to the timeline and it was a betrayal to every Afghan citizen that worked with us. I don't really care what Republicans bitch and moan about.

Yeah, not really comparable when it comes to war crimes. If someone wanted to conflate a topic that makes both countries look similarly bad in an honest light, it would be the treatment of ethnic minorities.