It’s pretty clear he’s not willing to actually punish them for anything. Sending ordinary American troops into a ground war for them is another thing entirely, though. Nobody’s forgotten how the last ones went, and American democracy is already teetering on the brink.

Hamas’ known deal breaker that IDF troops would remain afterwards

And, y’know, that’s not a ceasefire. Just thought I’d point that out.

My god, would he? Even if that meant tanking the election? (If it’s in the lame duck period after Nov. 5 that seems less crazy, I guess)

I can’t see the Democrats considering another unpopular war right now. Trump might, but I can only imagine what craziness that would look like. There’s a non-zero chance he would ignore Israel and move assets to the Gulf states because they gargled his balls just right, or something. Or maybe he decides to do nukes.

Corrupt wealth extraction from Africa is real, and significant on their end (but not ours, we do it for cents off each dollar).

A lot of African economies are managing to grow explosively anyway, though, as anyone who pays attention to the continent can tell you.

They might not even be in the top 5 Middle Eastern states for bad treatment of women. American ally Saudi has got to be 1, and most of the Gulf is next.

I mean, they’re theocratic authoritarian shitbirds, don’t get me wrong, but the main reason they’re singled out has nothing to do with that.

I mean, it hasn’t worked yet, it just hasn’t fully failed.

Pretty much. And then once you unfuck the language what he’s actually saying is pretty underwhelming. Hours I’ll never get back…

My god, last time the fact I’ve actually read Das Kapital came up, they pretty much just went for “no you didn’t”. Yes I did, and I didn’t even get a T-shirt for the densely-written pain.

As per the gay thing, it was part of the blanket repeal of Tsarist laws, and didn’t get put back in until Stalin was on the scene. In the meanwhile advocacy groups sprang up and were tolerated, so that tells you it wasn’t just on paper. I have no idea if anyone has gone deeper into the historical sources for our benefit. (Preferably in English, because my Russian is кое-как)

Fun fact, as of last I checked the Russian interest rate was 19% and rising. This will not help.

Indeed. The Israeli right is theocratic, semi-openly genocidal and headed by a guy with corruption cases waiting for him as soon as he’s not Prime Minister anymore (which he’s solving with forever war). Liberal right my ass.

The really early USSR was socially progressive, including legal tolerance of homosexuality. Stalin absolutely shut that down.

Me too. And hopefully they can enjoy that freedom without getting bombed, trapped or starved.

So what’s this banking package thing he’s talking about?

You know, if you look at actual subsistence farmers, I never get a cottagecore vibe. They can and do use modern bits and pieces to make their work a little less back-breaking, as they can scavenge or occasionally buy them. A pole lathe is less aesthetic when it’s powered by a cut-off bungie cord.

And also just buy things that are nice for ordinary people. In the West we don’t feel it, but in a place like Africa the inability to produce anything high-tech themselves hurts.

The first part is projection, the second part is ethnically misaimed, considering who I am.

Well that makes all the other stuff okay then. The Foreign Ministry has me convinced. /s

I can only imagine how fucked gender relations would have to already be for this to be a normal thing to consider doing publicly.

And people were dumb enough to let them believe that until they had made a huge, huge mess already. I see some of the same shit today, just more domestically.

Someone’s fishing for a promotion.