• RustyWizard@programming.dev
      511·
      7 months ago

      Isn’t that sort of an absurd claim? The USA, the largest crude oil producer, steals paltry amounts of oil from Syria, one oil tanker at a time? Same for wheat. The U.S. exports 50% of its wheat, but loots Syrian wheat?

    • firefly@neon.nightbulb.net
      28·
      7 months ago

      Yes the USA loots its own citizens as a matter of constant policy. Even though USA produces so much oil it would have no problem looting a few buckets if the rich who own the politicians would benefit from it. Perhaps an example is in order.

      A certain ice cream plant produces ice cream in upstate New York.

      The ice cream is shipped to Phoenix, Arizona. They load 44,000 lbs. of the ice cream on a freezer truck. The freezer truck drives 2,200 miles from Jamestown, NY to Phoenix, AZ and delivers the ice cream, which is then distributed to supermarkets in the Phoenix area.

      The same freezer truck then drives about 5 miles across Phoenix, to an ice cream plant. The ice cream plant loads the truck with 44,000 lbs. of ice cream. Then the semi hauls the ice cream 2150 miles to Erie, PA, just 50 miles away from Jamestown, NY, where it started.

      So over 4000 miles worth of diesel fuel was burned, to move ice cream 50 miles en toto.

      Why?

      Because the ultra rich aristocrats own all the companies. They own the ice cream plants, and they own the trucking company, and they own the oil company that produces the diesel to run the truck and refrigerated trailer.

      Since they are all in cahoots, they rig the prices of everything. They also rig the tax rates since they own the politicians, in such a way that the tax system crushes the smaller competitors and keeps them in control of markets and production. This is the real purpose of the progressive income tax on wages and small businesses, to crush them and funnel their capital into the hands of the fat cats on Wall Street and the corporate sector. Such taxes have virtually no effect on these giant conglomerates, who pass the cost of tax off onto the investor, taxpayer, and small businesses that can manage to hang on in such a market.

      And this is why USA would invade another country over oil or any other resource. To crush and control competition so that prices for everything may be kept artificially inflated for maximum profit, and so that the means of production remains under their control.

      In order to stay on top, they move endless hordes of trucks 4000+ miles in order to have a net movement of ice cream 50 miles. This only makes economic sense when the scheme is devised to cut out all potential non-aristocratic competition.

      This is what socialism is really about. And this is why the rich fund socialist revolution at every turn. And this is why the rich pay their parrots to squawk about capitalism, when we don’t even have capitalism. We have a centrally-managed, socialist economy–capitalism for the poor, who have no capital, and socialism for the rich, who have all the capital.

      Thus the capital of the poor continues to flow one direction, to the rich, and if the rich get into trouble, the government takes more capital from the poor to bail out the rich. That is socialism, not capitalism.

      Real capitalism doesn’t have bailouts and central management and endless regulatory red tape that favors the rich corporate bosses. Real capitialism is everyone fighting like cats and dogs to provide the best product at the lowest prices, which has not been happening in America since the days before Rockefeller and Standard Oil. So when political weenies gripe about ‘capitalism’ they don’t realize what they are saying, because we live under a hardline socialist regime in the USA. People are decieved by word games into not even understanding their own reality.

      So when another country’s resource exports would threaten the aristocracy’s control of prices and supply in the international market, the US regime sends them democracy bombs.

      @yogthos@lemmy.ml

      @RustyWizard@programming.dev

      • brain_in_a_box@lemmy.ml
        8·
        7 months ago

        we live under a hardline socialist regime in the USA. People are decieved by word games into not even understanding their own reality.

        Incredible. The pure concentrate of no self-awareness, distilled into two sentences.

      • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
        8·
        7 months ago

        This is what socialism is really about. And this is why the rich fund socialist revolution at every turn. And this is why the rich pay their parrots to squawk about capitalism, when we don’t even have capitalism. We have a centrally-managed, socialist economy–capitalism for the poor, who have no capital, and socialism for the rich, who have all the capital.

        the capital of the poor

        the government takes more capital from the poor to bail out the rich. That is socialism, not capitalism.

        Real capitalism doesn’t have bailouts and central management and endless regulatory red tape that favors the rich corporate bosses. Real capitialism is everyone fighting like cats and dogs to provide the best product at the lowest prices

        we live under a hardline socialist regime in the USA

        I won’t even ask “are you unwell” because the answer is obvious

      • davel [he/him]@lemmy.mlEnglish
        3·
        7 months ago

        Real capitalism doesn’t have bailouts and central management and endless regulatory red tape that favors the rich corporate bosses.

        That’s still just capitalism. The state has been captured by the bourgeoisie since its birth in the 1776 bourgeois revolution. The Founding Fathers formed a bourgeois democracy, otherwise known as a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The state has never represented the proletariat, and it was never supposed to.

        Real capitialism is everyone fighting like cats and dogs to provide the best product at the lowest prices, which has not been happening in America since the days before Rockefeller and Standard Oil.

        Firstly that is also just capitalism, and secondly, by the time Rockefeller became a robber baron it was already no longer that type of capitalism, but monopoly capitalism, which we still have today. This type of capitalism had been predicted by Marx and described in great detail by Lenin in Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism.

        we live under a hardline socialist regime in the USA

        So you don’t have even a basic understanding of capitalism or of socialism. Even Wikipedia isn’t this wrong.

        Thus the capital of the poor continues to flow one direction, to the rich, and if the rich get into trouble, the government takes more capital from the poor to bail out the rich. That is socialism, not capitalism.

        As long as the state serves the bourgeoisie, it is a capitalist state. A socialist state is when the state serves the proletariat. Communism is when it is a classless society. And sovereign fiat money doesn’t work that way. The government doesn’t get its money from the poor or from anyone else: it just creates it out of thin air. Why The Government Has Infinite Money

        • firefly@neon.nightbulb.net
          1·
          7 months ago

          “So you don’t have even a basic understanding of capitalism or of socialism. Even Wikipedia isn’t this wrong.”

          You are wrongly defining capitalism according to Marxist word play games.

          Capitalism was the revolt against feudalism during the Crisis of the High Middle Ages. What you define as, ‘monopoly capitalism’ is in fact, ‘soviet socialism’. It is what it is, not what ideologues say it is.

          Capitalism is the idea of private property as opposed to the feudalist idea of aristocratic-owned property, or legalized theft and peonage slavery. In feudalism (and socialism) the state owns all the property and determines its disposition. In capitalism the person who creates the property owns it, and determines its disposition in a competitive free market. Tyrants, grifters, thieves, slavers and other kinds of socialists or feudalists hate competition and private property. They want to use the deadly force of the state to take other people’s property and do what they themselves like with the property. They are thieves and robbers, liars and swindlers, all of them. Socialism is a criminal racket and armed robbery sanctioned by state armies and deadly force. If you are a socialist you are threatening to imprison or kill your neighbor if he doesn’t hand over his wealth or property for your benefit. Just because you get someone else (the police) to do the cutting for you, doesn’t make you any less the robber.

          Robber barons were not capitalist. They were socialist robbers using state power to protect their rackets and squeeze out competition, the very opposite of the idea of capitalism. Marxists have muddied the water by introducing new, flexible, essentially meaningless terms like, ‘monopoly capitalism’ to distract from the monopoly nature of socialism.

          America is not, ‘monopoly capitalist’. Monopoly is what feudalism maintained. Original capitalism was a revolt against the monopoly power of the state. Socialism is a return to feudalism, disguised as liberation theology by the use of clever word games and propaganda. Instead of the king granting the letters patent to secure monopolies, a cabal of legislators serve the same purpose through legislation and regulation. It is much more difficult to take down 535 sockpuppet dictators than it is one monarch. But it is still the same system owned by the same aristocratic families.

          Socialism mass murdered dozens of millions of people in the last century. Socialism was patterned on the USA model of Bellamy federalism, which is feudalism. A rose by any other name is a rose just the same. The appearance of the whole scam is ‘democracy’ when the substance is the same as it ever was–a racist aristocracy that considers itself descended from a divine bloodline, ruling over the mass of people that they consider racially inferior to themselves. Or did you forget the doctrine of the ‘divine right of kings’ was a racial doctrine?

          Your rulers consider themselves racially superior to you and me. They are descended from the royal and aristocratic bloodlines of the ancient world. They are taught from childhood that they are blessed with ‘divine lineage’ and by ‘divine right’ have the right to rule over the rabble by any means and deception necessary. This is their occult religion and that is why you see their occult symbols everywhere in their government logos and flags.

          The US flag is one example. The red and white stripes are from the ancient Egyptian and Babylonian aristocracy and royalty. They wore capes with red and white stripes. The blue field with stars was an ancient Egyptian banner of the nobility of Egypt. The fake pablum meaning of the flag is the deceptive explanation that they give to the ‘profane’.

          The US seal is another example. The eye of Horus atop the pyramid is from the same Pharonic nobility. It signifies their control over the people through a network of spies, symbolized by the pyriamid. Their spies consist of numerous intelligence agencies, government departments, police, courts, secret societies and even hidden societies, all which report ‘upward’ in the pyramid structure. To the uninitiated they all seem disconnected. To those who understand they can see that all of these organs serve one head honcho, whether wittingly or unwittingly. In order to confuse and divide people, the spies promote ridiculous conspiracy theories so that people don’t realize much of the spying is done by the government, and instead focus their onus on one group, such as freemasons. In reality, most government agents are generating data that is collected by the hidden rulers through various channels and many government agents don’t even realize what they are participating in.

          The world is ruled by racist religious zealots and such has been the case for many centuries. These zealots are descended from ancient Mesopotamian nobility in Babylon and Egypt. They consider their noble bloodlines of ‘superior stock’ and ‘noble breeding.’

          They give you ‘anti-racist’ action as a go-nowhere ‘rebellion’ that will never overthrow them. This is why they use Jew-baiting to use the Jews as a scapegoat to distract from the real racism regime. This is why right now there is a war in Gaza–to distract from the joint Putin and Zelinski regime killing and oppressing Christians in Ukraine. Both Putin and Zelinski are part of the same aristocracy, and they are working together, while pretending to be enemies. In the same way Churchill, Hitler, Stalin, and FDR were working together to scapegoat Jews and Christians in Germany. This is the false feud scam. And the aristocracy have employed this brainwashing tactic for centuries to keep their serfs loyal by colluding in false conflict with other rulers. This exploits the self-preservation instinct of the serfs on both sides, to galvanize their loyalty to the rulers that are exploiting them.

          The Republican vs Democrat dog and pony show is a long-running false feud scam. Other false feud scams include Catholic vs Protestant, Left vs Right. There is no real conflict between these groups because they all promote the same systemic structure with mere cosmetic differences that bedazzle and captivate the victims of the scam. No matter which side ‘wins’ in the struggle, the chieftains who created the sides remain in hidden control over them.

          Until people learn that their neighbor is their neighbor and should always come first before any loyalty to an identity or party, this will never change. The rulers exploit this weakness of the human psyche to, ‘divide and rule’ by creating the identities and parties to divide the people against each other.

          “The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.” ~ Vladimir Lenin

          In the end it all boils down to religion and religious war. The rulers are a religious cult that believes they are descended from ancient ‘gods’ with ‘superior blood’ or ‘better breeding’. The rulers believe that the rest of us are racially inferior and by this eugenics mentality that we should be subject to their capricious and arbitrary will. So they construct numerous adverse parties, ideologies, religions, sects, schools, and systems to keep the rest of us fighting with each other while they exploit our labor. Original capitalism was a rebellion against this economic religion of the aristocracy. Socialism is a return to this racialist religion of deception and hate. The rulers have declared racial holy war against the rest of us, and by means of deception and brainwashing they have waged their holy war upon us for centuries.

          • davel [he/him]@lemmy.mlEnglish
            1·
            7 months ago

            Because this post is already three days old, nobody is going to notice—never mind read—your wall of text, so why did you take the time to write it? To convince me personally?

            You are wrongly defining capitalism according to Marxist word play games.

            Marx didn’t write thick volumes on capital—building on Smith’s & Ricardo’s & etc’s works (while discarding their errors)—just to play word games, nor did/do the Marxian economists who have continued its development.

            Both Putin and Zelinski are part of the same aristocracy, and they are working together, while pretending to be enemies.

            Both Zelensky & Putin are the figureheads of capitalist states, but your gross oversimplifications bring you to utterly absurd, fact-free flights of fancy like this.

            The Republican vs Democrat dog and pony show is a long-running false feud scam.

            As any Marxist would tell you.

            Original capitalism was a rebellion against this economic religion of the aristocracy.

            Yes, it was a long bourgeois revolution against aristocracies. And liberalism is its ideology, replacing the divine rights of kings and to some extent religion itself. But it was very much not a proletarian revolution. The Founding Fathers intentionally formed a state that represents the capitalist class at the expense of the working class, and they succeeded spectacularly.

            .

            In the end it all boils down to religion and religious war. […] Socialism is a return to this racialist religion of deception and hate.

            🤦

            It sounds like you’ve got libertarian and/or anarcho-capitalist brain worms, where every person should just be their own individual petit bourgeois sovereign citizen shopkeeper.

            • firefly@neon.nightbulb.net
              1·
              7 months ago

              You are trying to make it about me, and assassinate my character with baseless insult and non-sequitur twaddle. In doing so you put your own character on display.

              You actually haven’t even understood a word I wrote. The truth is not in you. It is your nature to use words to lie and obfuscate and conceal your true intentions. That is the dark heart of socialism.

              • davel [he/him]@lemmy.mlEnglish
                1·
                7 months ago

                🚨 Everyone, please see my true, dark-hearted intentions on display, as revealed by firefly ☝ My mask of lies, obfuscations, and concealments has been peeled away 🚨

                Unfortunately virtually no one is going to see this. Feel free to @ people to bring this revelation to their attention.

                This is starting to sound like persecutory delusion.

                • firefly@neon.nightbulb.net
                  1·
                  7 months ago

                  “Unfortunately virtually no one is going to see this.”

                  That’s what you think. But others are reading, and taking note, and amusing themselves.

                  Pray tell, what does your clairvoyant knowledge of the readership have to do with the facts at hand or subject of discussion?

                  And this is yet another bully tactic of trying to convince the target that he is ‘alone and isolated’ in his view. Your tactics are transparent. You just ‘intuit’ what you want to be true and then declare it to be so. Your socialist forefathers did the same, and they managed to murder millions of victims in the process of their incompetence and arrogance. You’re on the wrong side of history.

                  “This is starting to sound like persecutory delusion.”

                  This is more evidence of your tendency to ad hominem bile.

                  Since you are such an eminent psychologist, should I shudder before your most highly supernatural powers of psychoanalysis? Pray tell, where did you get your license to practice remote psychiatry? I sure would like to know the rocket scientry behind how that works!

    • Fixbeat@lemmy.ml
      111·
      7 months ago

      We’re bringing “freedom” to ourselves like we’ve done to so many other countries.

  • Hugh_Jeggs@lemm.ee
    242·
    7 months ago

    If the USA invaded the USA they’d probably just lose again. I’m not sure that’s even technically possible but their past track record shows it’s inevitable 😂

    • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
      6·
      7 months ago

      Well the war in the USA would be so unpopular with the USA they’d be pressured to withdraw from the USA…but they’d stick around for another decade because defense contractors’ stonks were still doing great.

  • NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone
    16·
    7 months ago

    Only so it could destroy all your critical infrastructure and then charge you to rebuild it all using US contractors.

  • darkpanda@lemmy.ca
    13·
    7 months ago

    The USA doesn’t do what the USA does for the USA, the USA does what the USA does because the USA is the USA.

  • REEEEvolution@lemmygrad.ml
    8·
    7 months ago

    The USA would, however, also see that the USA is thoroughly anti-communist and corrupt as hell, so the USA would just the buy out the politcal leadership of the USA to turn the USA a disposable puppet state

  • Zerush@lemmy.ml
    81·
    7 months ago

    Pacience. History always repeats itself, if you don’t learn from it, and imperialism always has its days numbered.

  • 1984@lemmy.today
    725·
    7 months ago

    True but without the US, western Europe would belong to Russia or China… That arguably a lot worse.

    It’s the lesser of all evils.

    • davel [he/him]@lemmy.mlEnglish
      252·
      7 months ago

      first-time

      • 1984@lemmy.today
        18·
        7 months ago

        Disagree on that they are the most evil, but yes they are also evil. China, Russia, US… They are all evil. But the US seems like the lesser evil to me.

        • brain_in_a_box@lemmy.ml
          12·
          7 months ago

          But the US seems like the lesser evil to me.

          Of course it does, because the USA is white, and you’re a racist.

        • Kras Mazov@lemmygrad.ml
          9·
          7 months ago

          Fucking hell. This isn’t an opinion, it’s a fact that the US is the enemy of the world. The US funds coups, destabilize, install military dictatorships, invades and bombs countries and it’s the only country in the world to drop a nuclear bomb on people, and THEY DID IT TWICE.

          Stop making “wHaT iFs” in your head and actually look at the reality of what China does. It’s not even comparable.

          • 1984@lemmy.today
            23·
            7 months ago

            You are not wrong. I agree they do all these things. And I don’t know what China does. I live outside of a China naturally, and I don’t know anything about what’s going on inside. We hear scary stories of course, and the leader of the country seems insane by western standards at least. I don’t think China cares about human rights very much. And I would not be surprised if people gets killed and made to disappear if they are inconvenient.

            But honestly, I don’t know anything. I’m not there. I haven’t seen with my own eyes anything.

            • Kras Mazov@lemmygrad.ml
              4·
              7 months ago

              That’s the thing, you identified an issue, we constantly hear bad and scary stuff about China all the time, that’s western propaganda trying to turn China into the enemy so whatever the west, mainly the US, wants to do, becomes justifiable.

              You don’t need to live there to know, at least partiatly, the reality of what goes on in the country nor it’s international relations. I’m not from the US, but I do know all those things I just cited in my last comment. All you need are good sources. You can start by studying how China handles its international relations. You’ll quickly realize that China doesn’t threat, embargo or invade other countries.

              If you are genuinely interested you can learn a lot by visiting Lemmygrad and Hexbear, there are communities there to ask for information, and as long as you’re wanting to learn, you will be welcomed.

              Also, Xi Jinping is not insane at all like the media likes to portray him. The statement is too broad for me to tackle any specific thing, tho.

              I don’t think China cares about human rights very much. And I would not be surprised if people gets killed and made to disappear if they are inconvenient.

              Again, very broad statement, what human rights and what you mean by this? This probably comes from more propaganda led disinformation.

              Also, China is a massive country with 1.4 billion people. Do you really think we wouldn’t have proof of people being repressed, killed and disappearing? The people there aren’t isolated from the internet, they can access beyond the restrictions easily with VPNs which are common, it would be easy to show this stuff to the rest of the world.

              Protests happen all the time in China and people critique the government, just like basically any other country.

              If you want the perspective of a foreigner living there, I recommend the youtube channel Felipe Durante, he speaks Portuguese but the auto translate on youtube should be good enough, at least for english.

              • 1984@lemmy.today
                3·
                7 months ago

                Thanks for the long post. I realize there is a lot of propaganda to try and decipher. We live in a world of public appearances and PR. :)

            • BurgerPunk [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
              3·
              7 months ago

              I don’t know what China does

              Admitting that is good. If all you’ve heard about China is the kind of propaganda you hear in the West, then you’re going to have a distorted view and think the kind of things you do. But that’s not an informed opinion, that’s just repeating the anti-China messaging from Western countries.

    • REEEEvolution@lemmygrad.ml
      4·
      7 months ago

      Nah it would be better.

      Of course you are operating under the childish assumption that either of them would act like the USA, which is nonsense. Neither ever did so in their history. Russia was always happy to stay to itself and be secure, that meant you had a great neighbour and trade partner if you did not fuck with it. China could have conquered most of its neighbours multiple times it its history, but rarely ventured out of what are now the chinese borders, historically extremely defensive and trade oriented.

      meanwhile the USA has been at peace for less than 15 years during its entire history. Of all those wars, almost all were ones of aggression.

      You compare two sane people to a frothing berserker yelling “MAIM! KILL! BURN! LOOT!” ad infinitum.