The United States on September 13 said the Russian news outlet RT is taking orders directly from the Kremlin and working with Russian military intelligence to spread disinformation around the world to undermine democracies.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States has gathered new evidence that exposes cooperation between RT and four other subsidiaries of the Rossia Segodnya media group, and it intends to warn other countries of the threat of the disinformation.
In addition to RT, Rossia Segodnya operates RIA Novosti, TV-Novosti, Ruptly, and Sputnik, but the announcement on September 13 focused largely on RT. The outlet, formerly known as Russia Today, has previously been sanctioned for its work to allegedly spread Kremlin propaganda and disinformation.
I’m not too worried, I seldom pay too much attention to small vote tallies, especially in long back-and-forths. Longform discussions of political nuance are also minefields, especially during an election year. lol
Yeah, the tariffs irritate me a good bit. I suspect that foreign policy is largely what is driving them, but that makes me fear that more China-hawkish types are being a little too successful in pushing their opinions. I’m pretty sure they’re just a geopolitical weapon though, as opposed to domestic protection. Trump wanted a trade war, he was seeking to punish China for intellectual property theft, currency manipulation, etc. Not that shit wasn’t happening, but I don’t think trade war was a good answer, nor do I think it’s too late to reverse course instead of doubling down. Global economics aren’t really my strong suit though, so I do have to admit I could be mistaken on something. Still though, I do believe that trade helps secure peace, and peace is the preferable state of affairs. So trade should be encouraged on that alone, not discouraged.
Not just minor differences, higher vs lower taxes is pretty huge. So is business regulation in this era. I have no interest in living in an actual oligarchy, by some actual council of billionaires. What the communists like to claim, but literal and overt, instead of billionaires merely having an outsized degree of influence due to the power of mass media technologies and how money can influence mass perceptions. The perceptions are still what directly controls our government, the necessary middleman between billionaires and govt that prevents them from getting everything they want. At a sufficient degree of wealth and power, they can get rid of that middle man via a transition to a different form of government, which I have no interest in seeing. Reducing their wealth is becoming a necessary precaution, we’ve reached a point on par with the Gilded Age, and we need to deal with our robber barons. Fortunately, we do have candidates and politicians desiring to do this. An unrealized capital gains tax would be a very heavy blow to capital. Biden pushes 35%, Harris is a little weaker at 28%. Both could be higher, but these are significantly better than our current 0%.
It’s funny you mention small business too, Harris just recently started running on a 50k tax credit for new small businesses. Which I think is fair, so long as other taxes can be implemented to cover the shortfall. Really it’s higher taxes that I’m most in favor of though, personally. I dislike how strong the business sector has become in American life, and taxes are a good way to attack that.
And election reform, but that’s the hardest thing to do, since you require a filibuster-proof majority to get even one step anywhere. Probably the only thing harder than fixing immigration. When we have one party driven primarily by slowly vanishing demographics like religious affiliation, they’ve realized democracy is no longer a viable path for them. Consistently losing the popular vote each election is a pretty clear harbinger of things to come, yet they can’t switch their policies because those are core and faith-based, soooo… we’re in deep shit. lol
You bring up a great point. I do wonder about Kamala’s small business exemption. I do hope that passes, but I’d bet money it’ll go the way of Obama’s healthcare plan. Which is it’ll pass in a horrible form that won’t help anyone. Oh god, just remembering that makes me upset. The Republicans claimed that they wanted to protect the free market healthcare system and the ONLY THING they removed was the free market part of Obama’s plan. That still gets under my skin.
I realize, you have the same opinions as I do, except you don’t seem to be as terrified of the outcomes as I am. AND I’ll say, perhaps you’re right. And even if you’re not, perhaps I need to stop fretting about it as a whole, not exactly much that I can do.
So a bit of my own background. I’m Taiwanese American. This China hawk stuff scares the ever loving shit out of me. For reasons that has nothing to do with China. I fear the racism that this can create or has already created. The average American doesn’t know the difference between Taiwan and China and the hate just spreads from there. Don’t forget, Chinese people used to have to wear shirts in California that said don’t spit on me I’m Chinese.
Ultimately, I as many Taiwanese people agree believe that USA needs to stay the fuck out of it. They create issues and problems that they do not understand. The Taiwanese vote actually shows that, though you’ll never see it reported in a US newspaper. Taiwan voted in a Pro-US president and a Pro-China congress. We want stability and standing in the middle we believe is our best bet. But it would be super nice if USA stopped focusing on us. ESPECIALLY because the US politicians mostly just use it to enrich themselves rather than actually helping us.
Yeah, I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Harris has been fairly successful with small dollar fundraising, so she’s a little more insulated from having to rely on big doner money as a typical politician. She does have room to pivot on Gaza and implement a few tough policies if she can wrangle the legislature. That’s the steepest hurdle though, and she doesn’t have Biden’s half century of experience and saved-up political capital in the Senate. She’ll need to be bolder, I think, but the Byzantine nature of legislative wrangling is getting a bit outside my ken.
I think people tend to misunderstand East Asian cultures in general. There’s a patience present in most of them, that I know anything about anyway, that is less present in West European cultures. Xi seems to exemplify this, and has seemed to be in no rush to make bold moves when they’re unnecessary and carry a significant degree of uncertainty. Where a westerner sees the naval buildup and might be inclined to see it as a massive red flag, I see a man keeping his options open. Having a tool is one thing, it allows flexibility. Using that tool puts you on a course from which you cannot return. I suspect he understands this, so I don’t foresee any immanent attacks on Taiwan. Especially given the rugged Taiwanese geography and having their fabs in such an easy-to-destroy state.
Hawks gonna hawk though. While our MIC isn’t the major power it was in the Cold War era, it does still carry some influence. Though personally I’d be happier if we simply built our own navy up, perhaps in partnership with S Korean industry to help keep costs down, and otherwise adopted Teddy Roosevelts philosophy of “walk softly and carry a big stick”. If a country wishes to partner with us, like the Philippines for instance, that’s one thing, but we don’t need to posture and message so aggressively. Green Berets on Taiwan was a miscalculation, for instance, even if invited imo. Taiwanese soldiers could come here for specialized training if they wished, we didn’t need to deploy there.
And yeah, we’re mostly all different shades of left and/or progressive on here. lol Personally I’m a progressive, and while I tend to take a detail-oriented view instead of trying to keep things exclusively at the much more accessible broad-strokes level, I think the majority of Lemmings all want the same general direction for the world. With some disagreement on how to get there. That’s healthy though.
edit: Oh, and on the racism note … yeah. ~sigh
I consider myself center right actually. I’m sure you’ve noticed I’m very pro-business. Though socially far left as I think people should have the freedom to express themselves however they choose, that’s really none of my business. But perhaps that’s why you’re not as freaked out as I am. Because the reason I think I’m center left is because I’m pro-business. Watching the supposedly pro-business party light itself on fire and commit to incredibly un-business friendly decisions, especially based on personal feelings and worse anti-LGBTQ reasons it has put me into despair. Who’s here to protect businesses and make sure that the government doesn’t overreach? Our deficit spending is already almost 1 trillion dollars in payments a year, that’s insane. Cooler heads need to prevail and we need to get our economy back to normal. And part of to normal means normal trade with everyone. But who knows, like I said, maybe I’m over thinking it.
China will never attack Taiwan. I don’t know why people think they would since they keep telegraphing what they’ll do if push comes to shove. In the event that Taiwan declared independence and only in that situation (and Taiwan wouldn’t, they just passed a law that states the president can’t make that declaration alone) would China blockade Taiwan. They would try to starve Taiwan out and they could because as an island nation it’s entirely dependent on imports. The question people actually need to ask is who would be willing to go to a hot war for that? Especially since China would make exemptions to let trade through anyway, that they would only have this blockade here until Taiwan submits. And then you’ll have another frozen stand off like the one you have now. Because that’s what China really wants. They don’t want change they want stability. As you’ve so aptly pointed out, they are a patient people who are in no hurry for things to change. And you know what’s really really sad? How the west had twisted Xi’s words to make it out that he wanted to declare war. When Xi said the Taiwan situation will be resolved in this decade, what he was saying is he thought the relationship was going so well that Taiwan would wish to return to China willingly. You see at that time trade between the two was at a high point. People from Taiwan were going to China to get educated and find jobs there. Then the US started saying those were fighting words and that it meant China was going to attack to reunify within the decade. That China was only building up it’s military to do this, the attack would come before 2027. I think you know what happens next.
USA’s MIC is terrifying. They create scenarios and publish them and the news media gets ahold of them and suddenly fear is created everywhere. It just starts off as scenarios, they see one country has an advantage and then a torrent of articles will come out about it. Suddenly, now you have a new enemy. All China was doing was building up because as you said they’re building up because they’re wise. Well actually for sales, they really really want to be big in the arms market but that’s another thing entirely. And now we have what we have. This awkward stand off where there are no winners. And it’s all very sad really.
