roman catholic church not collaborating with fascists challenge (impossible)

:jesus-christ: That’s like… 8% of the entire population?

Never heard of him/them https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marko_Perković

The book’s endorsements seem to show how small a world this is. I think Diesen has had all but two on his show.
https://benjaminabelow.com/

• Noam Chomsky
• Jack Matlock
• John Mearsheimer
• Chas Freeman
• Douglas Macgregor
• Gilbert Doctorow
• Krishen Mehta

.
ETA: Here’s the Feb. 2022 Politico Fiona Hill interview: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/28/world-war-iii-already-there-00012340

Reynolds: So Putin is being driven by emotion right now, not by some kind of logical plan?

Hill: I think there’s been a logical, methodical plan that goes back a very long way, at least to 2007 when he put the world, and certainly Europe, on notice that Moscow would not accept the further expansion of NATO. And then within a year in 2008 NATO gave an open door to Georgia and Ukraine. It absolutely goes back to that juncture.

Back then I was a national intelligence officer, and the National Intelligence Council was analyzing what Russia was likely to do in response to the NATO Open Door declaration. One of our assessments was that there was a real, genuine risk of some kind of preemptive Russian military action, not just confined to the annexation of Crimea, but some much larger action taken against Ukraine along with Georgia. And of course, four months after NATO’s Bucharest Summit, there was the invasion of Georgia. There wasn’t an invasion of Ukraine then because the Ukrainian government pulled back from seeking NATO membership. But we should have seriously addressed how we were going to deal with this potential outcome and our relations with Russia.

2008 Bucharest Memorandum

23. NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO. Both nations have made valuable contributions to Alliance operations. We welcome the democratic reforms in Ukraine and Georgia and look forward to free and fair parliamentary elections in Georgia in May. MAP is the next step for Ukraine and Georgia on their direct way to membership. Today we make clear that we support these countries’ applications for MAP. Therefore we will now begin a period of intensive engagement with both at a high political level to address the questions still outstanding pertaining to their MAP applications. We have asked Foreign Ministers to make a first assessment of progress at their December 2008 meeting. Foreign Ministers have the authority to decide on the MAP applications of Ukraine and Georgia.

I post this copypasta on the other instance pretty often:

Feb. 2022	President Biden on Nord Stream 2 Pipeline if Russia Invades Ukraine: “We will bring an end to it.”
Sep. 2022
Dec. 2022	U.S. LNG exports both a lifeline and a drain for Europe in 2023
Apr. 2025

I meant that I could really use someone else making one. I know very little and would love a tour of it all.

Anyone know of a good book? It seems like it would be challenging to tie all these links over 45 years of world history.

Tankies be trippin’, and I ain’t reading any of their receipts.

I could really use a corkboard for tracing all the Western-backed Salafi groups, going back to 1980’s Afghanistan.

That time the US & UK did one of their own Five Eyes partners, Australia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alleged_CIA_involvement_in_the_Whitlam_dismissal

Inshallah.

Paywall bypass: https://archive.today/3TO24

That’s my secret, Cap.: I’m always worried.

“To break wind” now has a transitive form: Belgium broke Dutch wind 💨

My eyes just rolled out of my head:

And finally, [1989] was also the year that Taiwan ceased to be a Leninist dictatorship and became a democracy.

Protected by GPS magic spells

Yes, but lemm.ee federates with virtually everyone out of principle, and no one is defederated from it. If you want access to everything, lemm.ee is a good choice. https://defed.xyz/check?software=lemmy&name=lemm.ee

We’re not the unwilling ones: https://defed.xyz/check?software=lemmy&name=lemmygrad.ml

For generations they’ve coasted on the rhetoric of moral superiority while riding the US’ imperial coattails. The EU as an institution was designed for and has always lived under this junior partner arrangement. I shouldn’t be surprised if they’ve lost the institutional knowledge for a broad swath of sovereign state skills. And the states are semi-devolved under a suprastate that itself was never designed to be a fully independent, sovereign player on the world stage.

Succdems seem to be enamored with the false image of a democratic EU, despite how it works both in theory and practice. Fazi in 2019: The European Union Is an Antidemocratic Disgrace

These are what I’ve tended to point to (largely thanks to Michael Hudson^[1]). Quoting from Fazi’s piece:

But the reality is that many of the EU’s fundamental problems do not arise from mere “policy missteps” or, even less so, from the bloc’s supposedly “incomplete” nature. Instead, these issues are deeply embedded in the EU’s supranational design. In other words, the only way to truly tackle the EU’s economic challenges is to recognise that the core issue is the EU itself.

One of the most significant — and frequently overlooked — constraints on the EU economy is the euro. The loss of monetary sovereignty entailed by the currency, coupled with the stringent deficit and debt rules enshrined in the EU treaties, remains one of the single greatest barriers to growth in Europe, hampering the ability of member states to stimulate their economies through public investment and active industrial policies.

Moreover, the EU has failed to offset this surrender of sovereignty with adequate European-level fiscal and investment tools, limiting itself to temporary measures such as the Covid-19 recovery fund. This structural limitation is a key reason why public sector investment in the EU has consistently lagged behind that of the United States and other advanced economies.

Besides, even if the EU were to succeed in expanding its “federal” fiscal and investment capacity, as envisioned by the Competitiveness Compass, this would only create more problems than it solves. Rather than addressing the EU’s structural issues, such a move would only further empower its supranational institutions, particularly the Commission, deepening the bloc’s technocratic and undemocratic governance.

Another issue is the EU’s historical bias against robust industrial policy. Since its inception, the EU has been deeply influenced by neoliberal economic doctrines that emphasise the supposedly “distortionary” nature of industrial policies. Stringent state aid rules broadly prohibit any support granted by member states that could favour certain companies or industries, unless explicitly allowed under specific exceptions. The idea is that allowing member states to support their domestic industries could lead to an uneven playing field, creating conditions where companies with state backing have an advantage over others. But this leaves Europe dramatically ill-prepared to compete with countries such as China and the US, which have relied heavily on state-led industrial policies — such as the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) — to achieve a competitive edge, especially in recent years.

deleting… deleting… deleting… 😂