3d ago

Former US general advises Switzerland to prepare for war.

www.swissinfo.ch Former US general advises Switzerland to prepare for war

According to former United States general Ben Hodges, the withdrawal of US troops from Europe is only a matter of time. He advises Switzerland to prepare for war.

According to former United States general Ben Hodges, the withdrawal of US troops from Europe is only a matter of time. In an interview with SonntagsBlick, he advises Switzerland to prepare for war.

World News @quokk.au

Mee @reddthat.com

3d ago

Former US general advises Switzerland to prepare for war.

www.swissinfo.ch /eng/foreign-affairs/former-us-general-advises-switzerland-to-prepare-for-war/89017259

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worldnews @sh.itjust.works

Mee @reddthat.com

3d ago

Former US general advises Switzerland to prepare for war.

www.swissinfo.ch /eng/foreign-affairs/former-us-general-advises-switzerland-to-prepare-for-war/89017259

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electoralism is not the root cause of this particular problem
- Ele... what? Phew, for a second there I thought I had accidentally posted on .ml again.
  
  electoralism. sorry for using hard words, didnt know you were a 'hurr ml' person.
  it means that fascism would get to power anyway, regardless of you scribbling on a paper in favour of diet fascism or not.
  
  So how do you decide who gets to govern, if not through elections? And yes, I am very much a "hurr ml" person. I've rarely seen such an accumulation of blockheads outside r/thedonald, back in the day.
  
  Elections don’t work when education has been systematically degraded. Elections don’t work when there are no restrictions on the amount of contributions that oligarchs can contribute to a political candidate. Elections don’t work when there is no safeguard against election tampering. Elections don’t work when oligarchs own the media.
  
  So what do you suggest?
  
  its not about deciding who to govern here. burgeois elections in a burgeois state will only elect people aligned with their agenda, which means you will keep walking towards fascism regardless of who wins an election, and none of the alternatives will actually enact your will, even when they have a majority. democrats and their warmongering are especially bad to us in the periphery of the planet
  as for solutions, join a leftist political organization or union. it will involve talking to people around you, striking, helping and building community and participating in direct action with systemic change in mind. the more people get involved, deeper gets the change we can enact. it doesn't have to involve capitalist institutions at all. in most socialist/anarchist systems they chose their leaders, yes, by debating and voting in a council but that assumes the system is not rigged against us, which pretty obviously is in capitalism for the reasons mentioned above and more.
  you think us as blockheads because you probably read no political theory beyond liberalism, if that. be more open minded towards leftists, and do a bit of studying and you will notice our ideals are close to the left-leaning liberals. we think you as blockheads because you keep trying to change things in a misguided or misinformed way that is pretty obviously not solving any problems.
  you can shake your fists all you want at the hefty percentage of people that recognize this (not only us leftists btw, which are a tiny minority in the US) and doesnt bother to vote, but you won't change anything because a compelling candidate for leadership is not viable in the current system. my country has mandatory voting and nothing changes either, electoralism is not the solution.
  
  So what is the solution? Violently overthrowing one bunch of bastards will only end up with another bunch of bastards. Completely smashing the system will lead straight to warlordism. Lasting positive change was only ever achieved at the ballot box. And if you despise democracy, I despise you as much as the fascists and I fail to see the difference.
  
  i mentioned the solution in my previous post:
  join a leftist political organization or union. it will involve talking to people around you, striking, helping and building community and participating in direct action with systemic change in mind. the more people get involved, deeper gets the change we can enact.
  i will be more succint: communism is the history proven way.
  also from your response it looks like you didnt even read what i'm bothering to type so ill be succint again before i leave: the capitalist electoral system is designed to look democratic but it is not at all.
  
  So personally, as a Scandinavian social-democrat and union member I would like to ask this question in response to “communism is the history proven way”: show me. What examples from history do you have?
  
  cuba, china, i really like the chilean attempt, the recent ones in africa, mexico has walked a few steps, vietnam.... theres plenty in the modern era. pick your poison, the third world is chock full of attempts to get rid of capitalism.
  scandinavians come to my country to extract pollute and colonize it. very easy to be comfortable in such circumstances. stop that and keep your comforts if you want it to be impressive.
  
  I am not sure what you are trying to say, and I am not sure why you are reacting as you are.
  My only point by mentioning Scandinavia was to say I believe in social benefits, unionization, and heavy market regulation by the state. That being said, I personally know of no successful communist state (successful in the eyes of the average proletariat) from history. I don’t believe it is intellectually honest to call Cuba and China successful examples.
  I do not see that getting rid of capitalism is a sensible or viable option (or that it has ever been done without famine or other such terrible side effects), but I never doubt that the invisible hand, is the invisible hand in my pocket - so it is our duty as voters to make sure that we regulate the hell out of everything and our government has the teeth to do so.
  I believe you mentioned above that you didn’t vote, but you are dissatisfied with foreign companies extracting resources (and presumably your government failing to sensibly tax and regulate the practice). I’m not sure you will be able to change that without either voting or taking part in revolution.
  
  assuming you are arguing in good faith you are, again, in a comfortable and privileged position to take when northern europe is pillaging the third world for our resources using capitalist imperialism. you don't represent the average proletariat, and thats peachy coming from the place that colonized us for centuries.
  china was the poorest hungriest planet in the world before the revolution and is now an industrial world power, cuba has achieved amazing things despite a brutal blockade by the most powerful empire in history, compare it to haiti. look up why some africans are having revolutions right now.
  beyond that i don't know what to tell you, you mention all the nice things you have because of the aforementioned imperialism like its a natural thing to have everywhere in the capitalist world.
  here is the problem: the rest of the world can't vote imperialism away. we get invaded and destroyed, look up what happened to the elected chilean socialist government i mentioned before if you want to get an idea of what i am talking about.
  I believe you mentioned above that you didn’t vote
  I definetly did not say that at all.
  
  I was going to ask the same thing.
  
  If we evict the socialist dictatures/guerillas led by marxist-leninist parties and other authoritarian flavors of communism, remains some attempts at libertarian communism, some surviving longer than other : Paris in 1871, Ukraine in 1917, Spain in 1936-1937 are short lived examples of past communist situations that brought social changes a century or half a century before they could be obtained again, for those we obtained back. Nowadays examples are Rojava and Zapatistad territoried in Chiapas, Mexico.
  
  Thank you for answering. I appreciate the efforts of your listed examples, especially considering their attempts at establishing human rights or dignities before it was even a thing. What I do feel is a counterpoint is how short lived they all were. I also feel for the Kurds (tough neighborhood) but I am not quite ready to move to Rojava, despite their developments I also fear that in time it may be added to your list of short lived examples. Do you feel that libertarian communism is the best theoretical alignment for a modern communist state?
  
  The whole world is a "tough neighborhood" for small states. Cuba has been remarkably successful given its adversaries.
  
  Thanks for your appreciation. We of course agree that they all are very very short lived. Sadly, the Kurds will effectively probably have a rough time in the near future. Zapatistas are quite an exception in here, they manage to stay steady for some years now, but of course their situation is quite unique (though in all examples I gave it was unique situations).
  The common point in all those cases are that the reason for their short durations are more or less authoritarians states, in its diverse forms (Republic in 1871, Fascists+Republic in 1936, Communists in 1917, Turkey for Rojava, etc.). So i feel like if every system that has been criticized as bad all fought against libertarian communism, maybe that's a hint about how good a system it is. I'm not sure if it's the best for modern communism, maybe nowadays situation requires something else, but thanks to its versatility, I think it could adapt. So yeah, I kinda feel that libertarian communism and its declinations are the best theoretical alignment for communism in general (though it's not necessarily a state, precisely).
  
  revolution itself is 'authoritarian', countries suffering violence can't save themselves with love.
  good on the countries in a better off position that can take that moral high ground.
  
  This reads like satire, a parody of tankies.
  
  its literally the basics. you heard it before.
  
  No, it's delusional bullshit. Copy-pasta for LARPers.
  
  doing nothing in the face of fascism is delusional bullshit.
  it takes a sheltered westerner to hate leftism that hard.
  
  I am not a "sheltered westerner".
  Your world salad about bourgeois elections leading to facaism is complete bullshit and clearly not true, be it in the west or anywhere in the world.
  Fascist/oligarch take over via democratic means is a lot more complex than that and has more to do with local social attitudes and certain qualities of a given political system.
  You have no clue what you are talking about.
  
  the very withdrawal of troops in the OP we are arguing under is caused by fascism. caused by burgeois elections failing to present any option that didnt point to it.
  oligarchs can take over whenever they want because in capitalism, they are the actual leaders over the puppetshow.
  we are literally witnessing it unfold in real time.
- I don't get what happened here. Did you really said "electoralism is not the root cause of fascism", meaning that power would end up corrupted no matter what, and people actually downvoted you on .world, meaning they would think that electoralism IS a problem ? That's not at all the cliché I have for either .ml and .world folks.
  Or, since your original comment was edited later than its reply, did you edit it to make it say something else ?
  
  I added the word root, because i recognize it bears some influence. im not a native english speaker so sometimes what i type diverges from what i mean.
  clarifying: i mean that elections have already been corrupted and just a show. as evidenced by the fact the "more reasonable party of moderates" enacts more and more right wing policies to the point they are actually just conservatives now. this is not just an US phenomenon either, i live the same dilemma.

144 comments