Australian Atheists Forum

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... es-leaders

Amazing events in Europe really. I've watched bits and pieces of Vance's conduct and read about others and i wonder if Nato might be about to end as an alliance. I've seen headlines that suggest Trump has 'capitulated' or 'surrendered' to Putin but i think it might be more a case of Trump simply switching alliances. And if that's not enough, Vance privately met the with the Musk funded AFD in Germany after his conference speech, he didn't privately meet any other party.

What a world without Nato looks like will be curious. It does open the possibilities for Putin to reanimate soviet colonialism, something he's into apparently. But some former Soviet regions, like Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are EU member states now so is that some kind of a potential flashpoint? Would Putin take on Europe if he knew the US would not support them, or may even support Russia?

Have we reached the one month point of maga governance yet? Ah, not quite. Does anyone still believe the 2028 election will be free and fair? I'm starting to feel just a tad wobbly about the mid-terms.

Oh surprise....did not see that coming, I fucking lied, I saw it coming, it just seems there are so many stupid people in the US who can't see what sort of person Trump is and know he will try and cheat you, what's the bet the entire group who said yes to the retirement option will eventually get shafted?

https://imgur.com/gallery/who-could-hav ... ng-ecFLQLJ

pipbarber wrote: ↑Sun Feb 16, 2025 8:43 am https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... es-leaders

Amazing events in Europe really. I've watched bits and pieces of Vance's conduct and read about others and i wonder if Nato might be about to end as an alliance. I've seen headlines that suggest Trump has 'capitulated' or 'surrendered' to Putin but i think it might be more a case of Trump simply switching alliances. And if that's not enough, Vance privately met the with the Musk funded AFD in Germany after his conference speech, he didn't privately meet any other party.

What a world without Nato looks like will be curious. It does open the possibilities for Putin to reanimate soviet colonialism, something he's into apparently. But some former Soviet regions, like Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are EU member states now so is that some kind of a potential flashpoint? Would Putin take on Europe if he knew the US would not support them, or may even support Russia?

Have we reached the one month point of maga governance yet? Ah, not quite. Does anyone still believe the 2028 election will be free and fair? I'm starting to feel just a tad wobbly about the mid-terms.

Yes, I just saw this post on Mastodon, also musing about the US-Europe split. Starmer took a breath before saying he'll attend Macron's Ukraine convention, but at least he's going. I wonder who else is clinging on to long-dead hopes of a return to normal.

I'm remembering the feeling I had when I watched insane people smash their way into the Capitol building on J6. That's the type of thing we need to stay focused on, where do they go from there. Nowhere good. When Trump won in 2016 I had my own little summary: "America is over". It might have seemed a bit premature back then to go so hard, so early, but it's looking pretty spot on at the moment.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... payer-data

Meanwhile, on the home front, maga want access to everyone's personal wealth records but don't worry! The 26 year old tasked with the mission is a cool dude called Gavin Kliger.

The memo said the agreement is for Kliger to keep any tax return information confidential, to keep it safe from unauthorized access and to delete it from his records after he finishes his term at the IRS

Feel safer now Americans? No need to worry, because as soon as Musk has access to every citizens tax records he's going to delete them, so again, nothing to see here, move along please.

For the benefit of having peace with Russia, surrendering a large part of their country and losing an enormous number of lives both civilian and military to a Russian invasion, Trumps peace deal between Ukraine and Russia involves the US raping Ukraine of it natural resources and being in debt forever into the future, sounds a good deal to me. I mean what a fucking idiot.

It would be far worse than the German reparation after WW2, and this is the country that was illegally invaded and attacked, not the attacking side, they apparently get off scot fucking free:

https://imgur.com/gallery/trump-demands ... ut-kfgwJfH

Hang on, this sounds like it's just the US and Russia agreeing to share control of Ukraine between themselves, yes essentially it is, they are splitting Ukraine up to essentially destroy it as a country.

That is horrific !! It seems that Trump will try to get his grubby hands on any piece of land that has wealth or worth developing. Fucking swine !!

I just can't shake the idea that the collective brains trust behind maga (just let it pass) are not that smart and that they don't understand what the US empire actually is. The US empire isn't a medieval empire, it is based on soft power (like USaid), economic power, cultural imperialism and of course behind it all is the threat of the most advanced military on the planet. If we talk about the American 'empire,' we're not talking about territorial occupation, it's empire is way more subtle, more insipid in many ways, but also more sophisticated. It didn't need to occupy land, it just needed an open market. 'Sell us your resources and we'll cover your defense needs (provided you don't elect a commie).' In so many ways it was pretty fucking vile, but as far as empires go...well, there were plenty worse.

I just don't think maga get it! These people just seem a bit uneducated. For them, 'empire' appears to mean what it meant in 1650. You take land, you occupy land and you expand your empire. Soft power mechanisms like US aid, trade deals and visa opportunities in relation to education and employment is how the US has spread its influence in the post war period but these people are very rapidly ending all of it and appear to be intent on replacing it with some 17th century geographic mercantilism fantasy world - it ain't going to work.

Even more bizarre is that the maga rank and file do not want foreign wars! They're opposed to them, openly.

It is far from inconceivable that Europe and America will have some level of military conflict over Ukraine. It is far from inconceivable that the US will have military conflict with Mexico, Panama, Denmark (Europe again) and the entire middle east over Gaza. This is the exact opposite of what the isolationist maga jack and jill voted for!

They're a bunch of moronic arseclowns. They have no fucking idea what they're doing and they're going to crash and burn the entire world and there is zero anyone can do about it. (Other than resist of course, and we turn our eyes to Europe).

Sorry, bit of rant*

pipbarber wrote: ↑Tue Feb 18, 2025 6:48 pmI just don't think maga get it! These people just seem a bit uneducated. For them, 'empire' appears to mean what it meant in 1650. You take land, you occupy land and you expand your empire.

It's exactly that. I have seen it said that Trump embodies the MAD theory of diplomacy, that he succeeds because no-one can predict what he will do, but that's just so much bullshit, at least the MAD theory of diplomacy is actually a form of diplomacy, the problem with Trump is, his addled head simply can't hold the very concept of diplomacy, and many of his followers, Hesgeth and Vance for instance, are the same.

The only way Trump measures the world is in who is the most powerful, and they should just get to tell the lesser countries what do do. This is the basis of all of this threats, and why strangely enough none of them seem to be carried through. He has threatened to bomb Iran back to the stone age, rain hellfire on Gaza, turn North Korea into a nuclear wasteland, they all basically said go and get fucked, and that's the end of it. As has been said, you pull a gun in a confrontation you better be prepared to shoot someone because if people get mad enough they will try and take it away and use it against you. That's Trump's only tactic, pull the gun, basically put all your cards on the table, like Hesgeth did in Europe, and expect everyone to just back down and do your bidding.

I mean he has that background, dealing with small contractors he would just refuse to pay them and tell them to take him to court, they can't of course because they would just go broke anyway, so it's always worked when he was dealing with the "little people." He's not dealing with the little people now, and I think his kowtowing to Putin is simply because he is scared of him. Putin has a big reputation for assassinating opponents in foreign countries, he has nukes, it's fear.

So basically Trump is operating in the world of gunboat diplomacy, you just threaten them, they back down, you get what you want. When they don't back down he just walks away nonplussed and gives excuses for why he didn't destroy them. He has no concept of diplomacy at all, can't hold it in his head, he has surrounded himself with people who are similarly impaired, it's a disaster of epic proportions, there are no adults in the room this time! Sooner or later he will pull that trigger, Panama? Greenland, Canada? Who knows!

Trump sent Cruz to talk to the ambassador of Greenland, it didn't go well......

Cory Doctorow summarises Piketty. Eventually the oligarchs and kleptocrats run out of things to steal. Trump is squeezing the last droplets out of the sponge as he accelerates "National Capitalism"..

National capitalism walls its oligarchs off from the possibility of draining the riches of other countries, limiting them to domestic looting. Eventually, all the wealth in the country is held by its looter class, and the only way they can grow is by attacking each other. No one has more direct, recent experience with this phenomenon than Europe, a wealthy trading bloc of 500m.

https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/18/pike ... cs-revenge