A slowly metastasizing sense of guilt for what we’ve done, helplessness about what to do, dread for what’s likely to come, and jealousy for others who inhabit societies that don’t actively hate their members

Same thing that was happening before I was conceived.

I don’t really know anything about this situation. Should I just assume that the CIA is CIAing?

I have found that children don’t need lies to comfort them. By nature, children are curious and crave understanding. It’s important for parents to respect that and equip them both with what we already know, and the skills to keep exploring. Engage with them, help them understand the questions, feed their innate sense of wonder. Eventually they’ll teach you a thing or two.

I find no comfort in implausible lies, and I feel a need to help my kids avoid that discomfort. I also want them to have agency in life, so they need to understand how such lies are used by society to try and control them.

Good.

I really really hope that Iran will use a little of this money to develop nukes. Then, maybe, we can achieve a little more stability in the region.

Meta deserves all the scrutiny and scorn it is getting for this terrible project. You know who else deserves scorn? Ray-ban. They hitched their brand to this bullshit and should be held just as accountable.

To the extent that those nations participate in the hegemony that I’m referring to, you bet your deluded ass they’re militaristic and exploitative.

In the context I am discussing (economic servitude, human and natural exploitation, and outrageous militarism), they are one and the same.

The point I was trying to make originally was that bad is bad, and the badness of your opponent doesn’t make you less bad. I will add that claiming that everyone is bad doesn’t excuse badness.

NATO is trash.

What the German or French people believe is largely irrelevant to the force those nations wield. Most Americans distrust the US also. Doesn’t stop any of these partners from their shared project of hegemonic dominance and economic subjugation over vast parts of the world. I suspect that the shared cultural and historical root that you’re referring to is the belief that we somehow deserve to exploit, without consequence, people and resources everywhere.

I just love the team-sport moralizing that’s apparently the norm in this community. Y’all seem to think that being critical of ‘the west’ is somehow the same as cheerleading Russia. As if Russia’s awfulness has any bearing at all on the US’s awfulness.

I have ZERO confidence in NATO as an actual defensive force. It’s an organization run by a corrupt, collapsing paper tiger, and its assortment of cowardly European client states.

So, is the ceasefire over, or are we just doing an Israel-style ceasefire?

People need to start physically intervening in the operation of these things. I think I saw a report once about a group in the UK that would attack cameras. I think they called themselves Bladerunners.

C’mon people. If you’re going to do it, actually do it.

I can’t wait until all the people outraged about this find out what Israeli soldiers have been doing to actual people.

“Look people, this incredibly bad, self-destructive, unpopular, and poorly planned operation was all my own creation. Don’t you dare hang any responsibility for this disaster on anyone else but me.”

Heathers

Based on the belligerence and untrustworthiness of the global hegemon (the US) and its client state (Israel), getting nukes is the only rational move for smaller countries like Iran. That is the environment that we have cultivated.

Given how outrageously aggressive Israel is in this region, another nuclear power would be an effective check and probably usher in a new era of peace in the region.