That remains to be seen. I personally think one side or the other must win out, and that will be when the opportunity presents itself, because they both need to exist for the empire to continue running. If one side wins, it will destabilize the entire project, and that is where opportunity lies.
It's not the in-fighting that benefits us, it is the assumed total victory against their greatest challenger that will leave them open.
Yeah I had many similar experiences when some o my acquaintances in high school started an 'atheist club' and asked me to join because I was one of the more vocal non-believers in school (in that I would actively discuss and push back against faith-based narratives in class, but just within what was being discussed) but was still friendly with the more liberal evangelicals. I think I attended two meetings before I realized that most of them were just "Science as the superior faith" people and not really all that interested in the philosophy of knowledge or how to know things. It was a really eye opening moment for me that there needs to be more to this whole skeptic thing than just contrarianism, and felt that it was doomed to online obscurity.
I don't think much has changed, if anything there are more conservative Dennis's than there ever were before.
I'm not even sure Stalin has anything to do with the specific borders being drawn, he likely would have just reviewed and approved what was written up before it was sent to the general assembly of Soviets. But he was also abit of a notorious micro-manager, so it is possible that he would have been leading the meetings where it was discussed, but so would have multiple representatives from the Ukrainian nationalists and other affected Ukrianian and Russian speaking Soviets.
Hell part of my understanding was that part of the reason the USR got Russian speaking lands was as a form of reparations for treatment under the Russian empire, though it has since been portrayed as Stalin forcing Russian speaking people onto the USR in order to control it politically. This, of course, makes no sense since the RSR already was in control of the land politically and allied with the nascent Ukrianian nationalists, and that until recently, most Ukrainians and Russians understood themselves to be 'brother-people' which has a specific word in Russian and Ukrianian. Basically, it would have required Stalin to not only understand and plan for post-Cold War Russian politics, it also would have had him understand and plan for post-WWII Soviet politics, and been explicitly against the brand of socialism that he was the leader of the faction of.
Damn, can't believe God was the Politburo's nationalism committee headed by Stalin.
A good rule of thumb is to assume that your average American is Mac from It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, in that the fact that science makes you look like a bitch sometimes is evidence that it doesn't actually know things. Or they are Dennis in that they assume that the science is right because that makes them feel superior to others, not because they are actually interested in the truth-value, or why and how we understand the science.
As I have said before, the service and finance sector are growing worried by the incoherence and audacious nature of the military industrial complex. We will see much more of this in the future as the waning geopolitical might of the U.S. is eroded.
My view of it is that news media isn't interactive enough for them anymore, especially since Jan 6th, they want to be part of the participatory television. It's not that they want or hope for real change, they just want to be part of the spectacle, not just observe it.
It would be virtue-signalling for them to stop trading with Israel, of which my understanding is that many government owned entities have already as Israel is seen as a risky investment (which yeah). Sanctions would not deter anything that is going on in Palestine, as they have been completely ineffective elsewhere, and particularly ineffective with the U.S.'s full backing. They will make hay while the sun shines.
China is literally in range of Iran's missiles who, while on friendly terms, is not, unlike Pakistan, an official ally of China, in relation to their permanent conflict with China's major local geopolitical rival, India. In the same way, the less data that the U.S. has on any of the performance specs of Chinese anti-air capabilities, the better. The rewards simply do not outweigh the risks.
Capital investments and technology transfers are painstaking processes can take years to implement effectively, which by now would likely be too little, too late. If Iran is able to stand on it's own through this I can see China seeking to strengthen their relationship, but it was unlikely before.
What would you have China do? March out to another country to assist them, because that went swimmingly for the USSR? Profusely arm them with the latest and greatest despite them having no other common cause than some replaceable trading relationships and a common enemy?
There was already massive amounts of internal fighting going on in DC when just the rare earths ban was threatened. It literally was enough to bring Trump back, tail between his legs, to the negotiating table.
It does not require a third party. It requires the interests of the massive lobbyists in the retail service and finance sectors to be at odds with the interests of the massive lobbyists in the manufacturing and military-industrial complex. One of them is in control of the vast majority of the U.S. economy, and it's not the manufacturing and military-industrial complex. If the military industrial complex chooses to pursue this, it would be a lobbying coup that would permanently wreck the U.S. domestic economy, destroy the remainder of their financial imperialism, and they would still lose to China. A war with China would cause the leadership in this country to eat itself alive, and the leadership knows this, otherwise they already would have done it. They have been deterred, and the longer they are deterred, the stronger China becomes.
It may be inevitable that the mad man pursues mad action, but they aren't mad enough to do so yet, and there no reason to force them towards that when you are getting stronger and they are getting sicker.
Exactly. For the vast majority of these protestors, the police will not brutalize them, because they pose no actual threat to their operations. For these liberals, the narrative that it is only violent protestors who get the boot will be entrenched.
They will say to themselves and other, 'I went to the No Kings protests and was perfectly fine, I even shook hands with the police, those BLM protestors and (insert group of the year) must have been doing something dangerous and illegal!'
The masses in most of these cities aren't even angry though. They are mildly annoyed that the man on the TV isn't the correct looking man on the TV.
Yeah, it's totally better when you have completely paid actors in your advertising. Not even kidding, I watched many commercials be filmed in the retail store I worked at because it was right next to the corporate office, and they never once had an actual retail employee on film.
Or when you have a social media person whose whole job is to gussy up basic things like being able to take breaks and talk to your co-workers as being a 'fun work family'. Nope no advertising or influencing happening here.