The top article on the left of the page is "A U.S. Attack on Iran Would Show the Limits of China’s Power" (NYT)
To me this is disgusting, exploring the potential benefits to harming another country by having a war with another country. It's disgusting.
I think I need to cancel my subscription.
"China has much to lose from a runaway conflict."
Um, the world, USA has too much to lose from conflict.
Iran presents itself as innocent, attacked for no reason.
Israel doesn't even care anymore what others think. Not even it's own people.
USA and Russia are corrupt and bankrupt, supporting this proxy war is the hight of their corruption and desire to distract.
Iran deserves nuclear weapons because they stop people from attacking a country. Who wouldn't want that? Iran is not righteous attacking Israel. Israel is not innocent or blameless.
Israel is involved in a long term racial, social, religious survival in hostile territory with lots of history, and many slights. How to make Israel safe?
The corrupt and incompetent regime in the USA is the opposite of helpful. Russia never pretended to be a helpful and unselfish nation.
And yet somehow we seem to be headed for war.
I can't help but think of the social media that got right wing people to think a vote for the left would inevitably lead to war. Another "I told you so," won't help.
My spirituality says you don't harm other, you don't kill others such that I aspire to a plant based diet. War is out of the question.
My brain can analyse the situation, see where Iran is coming from, Israel is coming from, the region is coming from, the "super powers" coming from. What is the most helpful perspective? Fight war with everything you've got, wage peace as a puny individual? The Buddha couldn't spread enlightenment to prevent war in his time. Is it selfish to just take care of yourself. We're interconnected, puny, but maybe peace ripples can grow.
Is it possible for Iran to point to Israel's wrong?
Is it possible for Israel to develop their own ideas of safety, and preservation?
Can't the USA inveneve as they see it in world affairs, even if we're currently under a corrupt regime?
Can't Russia pursue it's interests vigorously, according to their traditions?
Here's the playbook.
Step 1. Announce some horrific policy attacking vulnerable populations, like that Transgender have to give their sex of birth, not their identity. Then try to implement it--he and his regime are wildly inept at how government works and they see that as a strength.
Step 2: Get blocked by judges. He fights the block, a few steps perhaps or quits and gives up with the PR victory of terrorizing and imaging he's powerful.
Step 3: Move onto more successful gifts and terrorizing. The terrorizing proves he's powerful and scary and if there's a money tree to shake, he'll shake it. TV channels and government give him money for considerations and to be left alone in his protection rackets.
He's a sheep in wolves clothing, he's the emperor in no clothes, he's the little boy who can't persuade the military to like him.
In the tit for tat wars in the middle east, Israel struck at Iran yesterday, and today Iran is striking back at Israel.
I came across this: "According to Hamas’s plan, after its attack on Israel, the remaining components of Iran’s axis of evil — Hamas in the West Bank, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and the Shiite militias in Syria, Iraq and Iran — would join in a regional war with the ultimate goal of destroying the one and only Jewish state." (NY Times by Benny Gantz)
I've read that Russia and its allies just want to sew the seeds of disunity in countries that aren't ruled by strong men, ie functional western democracies. They don't have to win asymmetrical wars, they just cut into the unity of open democratic states, drain off some of their unity and power by sewing chaos. Iran agreed to join the battle once Hamas launched the missles.
"Iran’s religious leadership is devoted to exporting its fundamentalist ideology, driven by the pursuit of hegemony and captivated by the thought of its opponents’ violent subjugation." (op cit).
Every justification for war is flawed, because the outcome is mass death. Sometimes you have to fight back even if you don't want war, it takes more time to neutralize waring nations and undercut motivations for war. In a way war is the best problem solving given a situation, and you'd have to back thing up to different antecedents to create peace.
The waring narratives casts Iran as already planning something, but we honestly have to look at a nation and what they do. What are the circumstances that undercut and stop war, end ongoing wars.
You can see the waring building up (Current Affairs). The article in Current Affairs by Nathan J. Robinson goes into deeper context about the waring articles in the Times, and asks some questions those articles can't answer. It brings in international law, completely ignored in the waring articles. Everyone in the UN wants to relax the situation except Israel and the USA. This is not good. I fear we are heading towards something that will spiral out of control and have negative consequences for everyone.
It's really quite amazing to see the government carrying out illegal and unconstitutional actions of ICE, and the people are risking everything to fight back. This is government against the people in real time, played out in video after video on social media.
This is one of many sparks that started with protests that are ongoing, a chronic thorn in the side of the administration that is going to be toppled. Americans are rising up to fight this regime. This can only end bad for the regime.
It's happening in NYC too (source)!
6/13/25 Ongoing. It's totally manufactured by the unreasonable, unconstitutional ICE actions, and escalated by the current regime.
The regime has created this violence, but I like to see it out in the open, people were passively accepting the regime before. I don't think they've understood what they've started.
ICE isn't about immigration or justice, it's about terrorizing people. Going into graduations, like this post says, going into schools, and hospitals, often deporting citizens. They decided birth and citizenship isn't enough, they're just deporting people willy nilly. And detention centers are terrorizing children. It's an abomination. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is really the the special forces of the current regime's terrorizing the citizens.
The gestapo were the secret police under Nazism. The SS were special troops under Nazism. I'm not sure which ICE agents are more like.
One of the ways the far right is advancing in dismantling our government that we're about to see how it supports the life of others. They're OK with the death of others, it's a death cult, among other things like white supremacist. It's a death and hate cult. Death to others, because of their hate. Wrapped up in pretending to talk about truth.
Joni Ernst puts for the truth that we're all going to die, but what she's not saying is that we're OK with you dying if it means I get lower taxes. I would love to have a capitalist discussion on how the fact of death is hidden in our society and how that supports the illusion of infinite growth and the virtues of unfettered capitalism. That's not what she's doing, she's saying it's OK for the poor to die.
Sneaky political evil wrapped in a bacon surrounding truth. They're changing things, pulling the rug out. And this is just one more chip in the destruction of the facade of America the compassionate. It's America the death cult, not compassionate, hate, racism, sexism, classism.
This fits right in with the particular interpretation of the constitution, which they cherry pick, regarding guns.
Fits right in with the narrow concern for life that ends up killing the mothers of babies who were not going to live.
You know when I read about Freud's death instinct, I couldn't understand it. Now I can. People want to kill others. And it's sanctioned by the government.
I'd also say the so-called "pro-life" stance regarding abortion is both a manic reparation and about controlling women's bodies.
