“Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the strength of the enemy.” —Umberto Eco, Ur-Fascism
And yet fascist governments routinely arise. It’s not one size fits all. Although they may not be technically fascists I really don’t think either Russia or China are incapable of objectively evaluating the strength of the enemy. That is not the same thing as making errors. Everyone makes errors.
That type of situation rises when narcissists with bone spurs military attempt to come up with a coherent strategy.
The ones eternally condemned to lose every single time are the so-called collateral damage.
That's because Facists also don't read history (or aren't literate enough to understand it) - they are incapable of learning lessons from the past, and so they repeat them.
The largest US military build-up in the Persian Gulf in decades was sold in Washington as proof that empire still works on command. From late January 2026, the Trump administration deployed carrier strike groups, advanced fighters, and missile defenses into the region, insisting that sheer firepower could coerce Tehran into accepting a “better deal” on its nuclear and missile programs while taming Iran’s regional networks.
The central reality that has since emerged is brutally simple: The United States overestimated its own military power and brutally underestimated Iran.
I'm guessing that Bibi and Trump wasn't really expecting that the Iranians will accept a deal. On the contrary, I think their demands was made so they have an opportunity to implement a regime change. Iran's acceptance was a surprise hence plan B was to just go and do a regime change anyway.
Well trump is a de facto Russian agent so... Clearly he doesn't believe that but the agent doesn't necessarily have to believe or know that he/she is an agent of the Kremlin. They have their ways...
The US had zero intention of making a deal. The negotiations were just a bad-faith diversion meant to create a better opportunity to kill their leadership and strike them harder by surprise. Now, of course, Iran refuses any diplomatic resolution, because they assume it would probably just be more trickery, just another dishonest maneuver. The US has reached a point where its word and credibility are worth less than those of an autocratic, terrorist-supporting regime of tyrants.
I think it's rather than the United States systemically is an amazing contraption in it's way, much like any other nation state; France, Germany, England etc.
The United States has all the resources, talent and technological accumulation to be a great power and provide stable and efficient systems across the board for all of it's citizens and provide safety and stability for the world's commercial and industrial efforts.
But the current leadership does not feel this is anything they should do - and they're only too happy to to burn the whole thing down to avoid prison or even the thought of things they don't like.
Th death of Donald Trump will signal the second time the United States elected a dementia patient to the office of the President, and catered to the defective leadership of septuagenarians controlled by fascists or white supremacists.
50 years ago the United States was healthy enough as a nation and society to dabble in such foolishness , now we most definitely are not.
Which were precisely the lessons that we should have learned from Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. Ordinary people do not like having their countries bombed and will react by defending themselves. It is not such a hard concept, unless you are a Republican President of the United States. (Yes, I know that two Democrats got us entangled in Vietnam, but it seems that later Democrats actually did learn the lessons.)
This isn’t a good comparison. The US is not engaged on the ground in Iran and are not fighting ordinary people. They’re not really fighting anybody. It’s all airstrikes and ballistic missile exchanges. It’s mostly a war on buildings.
This is a very different thing than previous wars. A primarily strategic conflict where one side is apparently just moving pieces randomly.
If we do not engage with boots on the ground, we will leave Iran with several hundred kilos of 60% enriched uranium, which has no use other than in a dirty bomb or to enrich further into a true fission bomb. We will also leave Iran with the ability to rebuild its missile capabilities and to constrain world-wide oil and gas supplies, which will harm the US domestic economy and the world-wide economy.
The point of comparing the current situation in the Gulf to Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq is to avoid a repetition of the mistakes of the past. It is true that we have not yet made ALL of those past mistakes in Iran. Do you want to wait until we do?
I agree it’s hard to see how this resolves without a dramatically worse new status quo than the old one without a ground invasion. Not sure if that’s arguing for or against.
The mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan were not misestimations of military power, they were in taking on an overly broad agenda to shape democracy in incoherent countries they didn’t understand for no real strategic purpose. It was open ended with no definable definition of victory. I don’t think anybody sees Iran as a democracy project.
In all honesty, that assumes a ground invasion would provide a benefit in the first place.
An unsuccessful ground invasion would be orders of magnitude worse than the current situation, just as things are worse now than they were 6 months ago. Wishful thinking got us here. It’s not gonna get is out.
While I still think that the US military is an incredibly effective tool it’s only going to perform well in the hands of the right people. This administration is most decidedly the wrong people. Their inability to plan their way out of a paper bag is a serious red flag for any further military action.
“no one knew they would block the strait”
ran headlong into the conflict without any functional minesweepers in the area (they literally decommissioned one earlier this year)
uses almost all of our strategic interceptors on drones
got an f-35 hit because it was doing a mission it probably shouldn’t have done.
These guys have shown an outright need to put American soldiers’ lives on the line to salvage the administrations’ face. Consequences are a foreign concept to these people and everyone knows it. That’s not the kind of administration you want running a ground invasion. That’s the kind of administration that says “we will take Kiev in 3 days”.
Ought implies can, we don’t have a moral obligation to do something we cannot do. This government has not demonstrated capability. They’ve demonstrated showmanship, this conflict is highlighting the fact that these things are not the same
The idea that you can cast 'airstrikes and ballistic missles exchanges' on urban populations and major assets as 'not fighting anybody' is both a) ludicrosy inhuman and also b) completely incorrect.
> The US is not engaged on the ground in Iran and are not fighting ordinary people.
While the strait is closed, the US couldn't be more engaged. They have you by the balls, and what keeps the strait closed cannot be interdicted from above without boots on the ground.
I think your idea of being "not engaged" is that you're going to bomb them a little, and then ask them nicely to please let go of my balls now, effendi, and they'll do it, out of respect.
Iran has apparently just made "major concessions" the day before the bombing started, so you could argue it did work as intended. It may not anymore though, now that everyone sees how ineffective it is in use.
Okay now you just have to go back in time and equip all the Gulf US allies with large stocks of them to protect all the oil and base infrastructure that was hit.
Probably what someone who was competently planning a war should have done.
>The United States overestimated its own military power and brutally underestimated Iran.
i think you mean the Trump admin. For years the experts have said Iran is no Iraq.
Trump just believes in the crazy asshole means to negotiation. That if you sound like you are willing to blow up the negotiation even to your own detriment that he gets better deals. leads him to getting better deals against smaller rivals in business.
and he was goaded into war not by experts in the military or IC, but by lindsey graham
Shit. I've said it for years, Iran is not to be fucked with. Not for the media driven narritives they set about Iranians being terrorists and they start sending nukes, but for the truth that operate at a high level methodically. They are on a different level. Don't let the household media set your perception on Iran strictly to this point.
For the past 50 years, the US military has acted as the world's ultimate 'Deterrent Force' all actors knew that if they did something stupid, there was a very real threat that the US would hit them back. We basically transformed our military from a War Fighting machine into a Police unit. This was good for the world, great even!! The problem with a police force is that it only works when EVERYONE largely agrees to follow the rules all of the time. There is plenty of slack to go after one or two rule breakers at a time but if everyone (including the police) decides to quit following the rules, then everything goes to hell.
Trump's USA (aka World Police) decided that they were going to quit following the rules. That gives everyone in the world permission to quit following the rules. We are in uncharted, bad-times territory right now!!! We will see that the US military is no longer that well equipped to sustain a serious war effort. Another thing to note that one thing any successful war effort needs is a supportive, productive, and engaged citizenry. Any army needs a whole community to support it. The American people are not in support of this war and if they institute higher taxes and a draft, just to bury the Epstein files, this citizenry will absolutely lose its shit. All Hell will break loose. (You could argue that all Hell has already broken loose).
Johann De Haas deconstructs the latest foreign policy blunders by the US empire, and foregrounds the racist echo chamber that dominates US foreign policy: Iran is perceived as an irrational and fanatical actor rather than as a legitimate and coherent political and social force.
> Work on American cinematic representations of Iran likewise shows a steady pattern of depicting the country as backward, violent, and hostile to human rights, narratives that are easily instrumentalized by foreign‑policy elites. When such racialized and Orientalist imaginaries saturate the political culture, it becomes easier for decision‑makers to believe that Iran will simply fold under pressure, that its leaders are too “irrational” or too terrified by US might to play the long game.
Now I agree that Iran is a serious nation with actual strategic thought behind its actions, but it absoutely is “ backward, violent, and hostile to human rights”.
I'd argue that 2008 (and everything after) was on-brand given how the Reclamation era went. It's been rich guys watching out for rich guys for at least 150 years here.
The US was founded so white, land-owning men could escape religious obligations. That’s it. Everything else has been a long bloody fight against the powers that be.
Its interesting how everyone collectively forgets how outrageous ot was that the US invaded Iraq and pretty much everything that followed was a consequence.
The US worked alright till early 2001. Perhaps till 2000 in Florida. Nothing has been alright since.
I don't think anyone in the US thinks it's outrageous, it's pretty hard to be outraged when the US has literally invaded and bombed the Middle East for a better part of 30 years.
It is too simplistic to point a finger at any one situation historically and say I found it. Something can be a trigger without being all of the ammunition built up.
You need to get some different sources if you think the press has been passive. Their job is to report the news. The job of receipients is to take that information and make sound decisions and actions.
Many people confuse news content with an owner. In most cases, not the same thing.
As an example, the Washington Post is owned by Jeff Bezos not someone professionally trained. He can dictate what is put on the opinions page, but not the news. They are separate departments and most often on separate floors or even separate buildings.
Right, and I’m sure a critical examination of headlines wouldn’t reveal any sort of policy shift after ownership changed. The idea that ownership doesn’t influence the stance of the outlet was valid when the fairness doctrine was in place. That idea is not at all accurate anymore.
Most people are not very quotable irl tbh. Paraphrasing is a mercy for the reader as well as to stay within word counts/column inches.
As for Trump, he has broken a lot of norms because it doesn’t occur to him that they apply to him as well. Some people and entities react quickly to change. Others not so much.
Although if at this point anyone who thinks journalists are holding back might want reconsider their reading or viewing habits. Obviously it’s available if people who were not actually present for something know about it.
The Post has some very good professionals as do many publications. An echo chamber is not automatically equivalent to good journalism.
If you are not satisfied with some reporting keep scrolling.
I’m not a fan of false equivalency, but I don’t mistake good journalism for that unlike many. Too many people latch onto buzzwords in any situation without truly understanding the nuances and then spread their misuse.
> Most people are not very quotable irl tbh. Paraphrasing is a mercy for the reader as well as to stay within word counts/column inches.
Even when it changes the meaning?
> Some people and entities react quickly to change. Others not so much.
It's been ten years.
> If you are not satisfied with some reporting keep scrolling.
When institutions fail people "just keep scrolling" is childish. Insisting that people who come to different conclusions than you simply have poisoned media diets or are too stupid to understand nuance is metacommentary that fails to actually engage with the situation facing us.
No one thought Iran would respond. If Iran does not lose its sovereignty in this war, then no one will ever attack Iran in the future. The war will cost too much for all countries
Financial chaos from blocking the Strait. What if it was all planned? For the purposes of the ultimate takeover. New world order. Very interesting point of view.
https://youtu.be/hzI70WY3rm8?si=80ecpRmal11wQMFm
Unique view. Food for thought.
It’s accelerationism for sure. Destabilizing the hegemony in order to magnify the power of smaller actors by degrading business as usual into pure corruption.
Successful_Gas_5122 | 12 hours ago
“Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the strength of the enemy.” —Umberto Eco, Ur-Fascism
72414dreams | 3 hours ago
Accurate.
horseradishstalker | 8 hours ago
And yet fascist governments routinely arise. It’s not one size fits all. Although they may not be technically fascists I really don’t think either Russia or China are incapable of objectively evaluating the strength of the enemy. That is not the same thing as making errors. Everyone makes errors.
That type of situation rises when narcissists with bone spurs military attempt to come up with a coherent strategy.
The ones eternally condemned to lose every single time are the so-called collateral damage.
Zetesofos | 4 hours ago
That's because Facists also don't read history (or aren't literate enough to understand it) - they are incapable of learning lessons from the past, and so they repeat them.
horseradishstalker | 4 hours ago
You basically just described all human beings. If all human beings actually learned lessons from the past there wouldn’t be any more wars.
Studies actually show that when everyone in a generation who experienced a significant upheaval dies the cycle starts up again.
UncleMeat11 | 3 hours ago
Can you cite some of these studies?
Every single historian I know would be absolutely baffled by this claim.
[OP] Vengeful_Pathogen | 14 hours ago
The largest US military build-up in the Persian Gulf in decades was sold in Washington as proof that empire still works on command. From late January 2026, the Trump administration deployed carrier strike groups, advanced fighters, and missile defenses into the region, insisting that sheer firepower could coerce Tehran into accepting a “better deal” on its nuclear and missile programs while taming Iran’s regional networks.
The central reality that has since emerged is brutally simple: The United States overestimated its own military power and brutally underestimated Iran.
caffeine_withdrawal | 12 hours ago
To be fair, all indications are that it was working and they would accept a deal. Then they got bombed and the US killed their leader anyway.
royal_dansk | 10 hours ago
I'm guessing that Bibi and Trump wasn't really expecting that the Iranians will accept a deal. On the contrary, I think their demands was made so they have an opportunity to implement a regime change. Iran's acceptance was a surprise hence plan B was to just go and do a regime change anyway.
Aureliamnissan | 7 hours ago
That’s just the epitome of negotiating in bad faith. That’s the kind of behavior we expect from the Russians.
nondescriptzombie | 4 hours ago
Hey, whoa, that's the kind of behavior we expect from the KGB.
Most Russians are just regular people trying to live in a shit society.
72414dreams | 3 hours ago
True, good point. The behavior from our executive branch is consistent with that of a kgb asset.
wh0_RU | 4 hours ago
Well trump is a de facto Russian agent so... Clearly he doesn't believe that but the agent doesn't necessarily have to believe or know that he/she is an agent of the Kremlin. They have their ways...
No-Manufacturer2984 | 4 hours ago
...or the Nazis
SailBeneficialicly | 7 hours ago
They canceled the nuclear deal Obama made as an excuse to start the war. They planned this.
shinenspreadlight | 5 hours ago
This is so true
ArcticCelt | 5 hours ago
The US had zero intention of making a deal. The negotiations were just a bad-faith diversion meant to create a better opportunity to kill their leadership and strike them harder by surprise. Now, of course, Iran refuses any diplomatic resolution, because they assume it would probably just be more trickery, just another dishonest maneuver. The US has reached a point where its word and credibility are worth less than those of an autocratic, terrorist-supporting regime of tyrants.
cleverkid | 6 hours ago
Just HAD to have that Purim massacre.
Zetesofos | 5 hours ago
What indications were these exactly?
72414dreams | 3 hours ago
The Obama nuclear deal might be evidence on the side of the idea that the regime was willing to negotiate.
Zetesofos | 3 hours ago
Ah, yes - I misunderstood what you put before. I would agree whole-heartedly.
markth_wi | 7 hours ago
I think it's rather than the United States systemically is an amazing contraption in it's way, much like any other nation state; France, Germany, England etc.
The United States has all the resources, talent and technological accumulation to be a great power and provide stable and efficient systems across the board for all of it's citizens and provide safety and stability for the world's commercial and industrial efforts.
But the current leadership does not feel this is anything they should do - and they're only too happy to to burn the whole thing down to avoid prison or even the thought of things they don't like.
Th death of Donald Trump will signal the second time the United States elected a dementia patient to the office of the President, and catered to the defective leadership of septuagenarians controlled by fascists or white supremacists.
50 years ago the United States was healthy enough as a nation and society to dabble in such foolishness , now we most definitely are not.
ChebyshevsBeard | 3 hours ago
It's not just Trump though. Our entire society is increasingly built around rent-seeking and the pursuit of short term profit.
jpmeyer12751 | 9 hours ago
Which were precisely the lessons that we should have learned from Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. Ordinary people do not like having their countries bombed and will react by defending themselves. It is not such a hard concept, unless you are a Republican President of the United States. (Yes, I know that two Democrats got us entangled in Vietnam, but it seems that later Democrats actually did learn the lessons.)
betadonkey | 8 hours ago
This isn’t a good comparison. The US is not engaged on the ground in Iran and are not fighting ordinary people. They’re not really fighting anybody. It’s all airstrikes and ballistic missile exchanges. It’s mostly a war on buildings.
This is a very different thing than previous wars. A primarily strategic conflict where one side is apparently just moving pieces randomly.
No_Philosophy4337 | 7 hours ago
Bombing for peace is like fucking for virginity.
Jock-Tamson | 7 hours ago
Buildings contain people.
jpmeyer12751 | 8 hours ago
We are not YET engaged on the ground in Iran.
If we do not engage with boots on the ground, we will leave Iran with several hundred kilos of 60% enriched uranium, which has no use other than in a dirty bomb or to enrich further into a true fission bomb. We will also leave Iran with the ability to rebuild its missile capabilities and to constrain world-wide oil and gas supplies, which will harm the US domestic economy and the world-wide economy.
The point of comparing the current situation in the Gulf to Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq is to avoid a repetition of the mistakes of the past. It is true that we have not yet made ALL of those past mistakes in Iran. Do you want to wait until we do?
Shuino7 | 7 hours ago
"Past mistakes" like the US hasn't literally bombed the middle east for the last 30 years.
I can't think of a president in my lifetime who hasn't bombed the middle east and I'm almost 40...
betadonkey | 7 hours ago
I agree it’s hard to see how this resolves without a dramatically worse new status quo than the old one without a ground invasion. Not sure if that’s arguing for or against.
The mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan were not misestimations of military power, they were in taking on an overly broad agenda to shape democracy in incoherent countries they didn’t understand for no real strategic purpose. It was open ended with no definable definition of victory. I don’t think anybody sees Iran as a democracy project.
Aureliamnissan | 7 hours ago
In all honesty, that assumes a ground invasion would provide a benefit in the first place.
An unsuccessful ground invasion would be orders of magnitude worse than the current situation, just as things are worse now than they were 6 months ago. Wishful thinking got us here. It’s not gonna get is out.
While I still think that the US military is an incredibly effective tool it’s only going to perform well in the hands of the right people. This administration is most decidedly the wrong people. Their inability to plan their way out of a paper bag is a serious red flag for any further military action.
“no one knew they would block the strait”
ran headlong into the conflict without any functional minesweepers in the area (they literally decommissioned one earlier this year)
uses almost all of our strategic interceptors on drones
got an f-35 hit because it was doing a mission it probably shouldn’t have done.
These guys have shown an outright need to put American soldiers’ lives on the line to salvage the administrations’ face. Consequences are a foreign concept to these people and everyone knows it. That’s not the kind of administration you want running a ground invasion. That’s the kind of administration that says “we will take Kiev in 3 days”.
Ought implies can, we don’t have a moral obligation to do something we cannot do. This government has not demonstrated capability. They’ve demonstrated showmanship, this conflict is highlighting the fact that these things are not the same
72414dreams | 3 hours ago
I agree with this statement, but these differences do not mean that the lessons of overreaching don’t apply.
Zetesofos | 5 hours ago
...one of the most inhuman innane responses.
"Its a war on buildings" - an utter joke.
betadonkey | 3 hours ago
Disagree with factual claims otherwise fuck off. Nobody is moralizing here.
Zetesofos | 3 hours ago
The idea that you can cast 'airstrikes and ballistic missles exchanges' on urban populations and major assets as 'not fighting anybody' is both a) ludicrosy inhuman and also b) completely incorrect.
3000+ people are already dead.
72414dreams | 3 hours ago
Speak for yourself.
pocket_eggs | 6 hours ago
> The US is not engaged on the ground in Iran and are not fighting ordinary people.
While the strait is closed, the US couldn't be more engaged. They have you by the balls, and what keeps the strait closed cannot be interdicted from above without boots on the ground.
I think your idea of being "not engaged" is that you're going to bomb them a little, and then ask them nicely to please let go of my balls now, effendi, and they'll do it, out of respect.
betadonkey | 5 hours ago
“On the ground in Iran”. Is water the ground?
72414dreams | 3 hours ago
Sure, no boots on the ground, but the meddling in not our business is the salient point. The comparison stands.
betadonkey | an hour ago
Iran has made a pretty sustained habit of making their business everybody else’s business over the last 40 years. Don’t really agree with that at all.
72414dreams | an hour ago
Please clarify: you don’t agree with what?
twelve_goldpieces | 11 hours ago
The us didnt overestimate their power. They are powerful. They didnt have clear goals. And their closest ally just wants war and blood.
keepitfriend | 6 hours ago
No they definitely overestimated their own power, or they would have enough missiles right now.
Unfortunately it takes months to years to build up to the kind of war you just kicked off
shinenspreadlight | 5 hours ago
Absolutely I couldn’t agree more
DrPsyz9 | 6 hours ago
Iran has apparently just made "major concessions" the day before the bombing started, so you could argue it did work as intended. It may not anymore though, now that everyone sees how ineffective it is in use.
Local_Beautiful_5812 | 6 hours ago
How is underestimating simple math? 1 Iranian drone = 30.000-50.000$ 1 USA missle to stop the drome = 1.000.000 $. Like who advises this guy?
Yo boss, we fo sooore can take them out!
1 moment later -1 trilion $ in USA funds
pocket_eggs | 5 hours ago
Unfortunately for moped drone users, APKWS and similar systems exist in mass right now.
Kom34 | 4 hours ago
Okay now you just have to go back in time and equip all the Gulf US allies with large stocks of them to protect all the oil and base infrastructure that was hit.
Probably what someone who was competently planning a war should have done.
powercow | 4 hours ago
>The United States overestimated its own military power and brutally underestimated Iran.
i think you mean the Trump admin. For years the experts have said Iran is no Iraq.
Trump just believes in the crazy asshole means to negotiation. That if you sound like you are willing to blow up the negotiation even to your own detriment that he gets better deals. leads him to getting better deals against smaller rivals in business.
and he was goaded into war not by experts in the military or IC, but by lindsey graham
[OP] Vengeful_Pathogen | 3 hours ago
Shit. I've said it for years, Iran is not to be fucked with. Not for the media driven narritives they set about Iranians being terrorists and they start sending nukes, but for the truth that operate at a high level methodically. They are on a different level. Don't let the household media set your perception on Iran strictly to this point.
unbreakablekango | 6 hours ago
For the past 50 years, the US military has acted as the world's ultimate 'Deterrent Force' all actors knew that if they did something stupid, there was a very real threat that the US would hit them back. We basically transformed our military from a War Fighting machine into a Police unit. This was good for the world, great even!! The problem with a police force is that it only works when EVERYONE largely agrees to follow the rules all of the time. There is plenty of slack to go after one or two rule breakers at a time but if everyone (including the police) decides to quit following the rules, then everything goes to hell.
Trump's USA (aka World Police) decided that they were going to quit following the rules. That gives everyone in the world permission to quit following the rules. We are in uncharted, bad-times territory right now!!! We will see that the US military is no longer that well equipped to sustain a serious war effort. Another thing to note that one thing any successful war effort needs is a supportive, productive, and engaged citizenry. Any army needs a whole community to support it. The American people are not in support of this war and if they institute higher taxes and a draft, just to bury the Epstein files, this citizenry will absolutely lose its shit. All Hell will break loose. (You could argue that all Hell has already broken loose).
Sweet_Mechanic_9902 | 12 hours ago
interesting choice of ties by both leaders
GovernmentBig2749 | 13 hours ago
Ir maybe they (the Persians) are prepared for it? Just a wild guess?
[OP] Vengeful_Pathogen | 14 hours ago
Johann De Haas deconstructs the latest foreign policy blunders by the US empire, and foregrounds the racist echo chamber that dominates US foreign policy: Iran is perceived as an irrational and fanatical actor rather than as a legitimate and coherent political and social force.
Cap_Burrito | 6 hours ago
I've spent my entire adult life learning that the "jokes" I was making with my peers in my adolescence were only jokes to me.
The unbeatable US military, crazy Ayatollahs, race mattering an iota... These are all theses that are familiar from humor spaces as a kid.
shinenspreadlight | 5 hours ago
True
unkz | 6 hours ago
This article gets a lot right except this
> Work on American cinematic representations of Iran likewise shows a steady pattern of depicting the country as backward, violent, and hostile to human rights, narratives that are easily instrumentalized by foreign‑policy elites. When such racialized and Orientalist imaginaries saturate the political culture, it becomes easier for decision‑makers to believe that Iran will simply fold under pressure, that its leaders are too “irrational” or too terrified by US might to play the long game.
Now I agree that Iran is a serious nation with actual strategic thought behind its actions, but it absoutely is “ backward, violent, and hostile to human rights”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_Islamic_Republic_of_Iran
Iran regularly beats, rapes, tortures, and executes its own citizens on a massive scale. It’s not “imaginary”.
letemfight | 4 hours ago
Oh shit, really? Well we'd better bomb another girl's school at the order of the child rapist then.
unkz | 3 hours ago
I don’t know how any reasonable person could get that interpretation from what I just said.
72414dreams | 3 hours ago
Nuance exists. The regime is and has been repressive. That doesn’t mitigate the inhumanity of our actions.
SurinamPam | 13 hours ago
The US worked alright until one political party controlled all 3 branches of its government.
Auggernaut88 | 11 hours ago
Nobody saw jail time for the 2008 global financial crisis. We’ve been good and fucked for a long time.
DrButtgerms | 9 hours ago
I'd argue that 2008 (and everything after) was on-brand given how the Reclamation era went. It's been rich guys watching out for rich guys for at least 150 years here.
byingling | 6 hours ago
I'd say it's been a bit longer than 150 years. George Washington was, arguably, the richest man in North America. Before and after 1776.
Hard to say for sure, but there were very few, if any, with more wealth.
JohnTDouche | 5 hours ago
Dude had slaves and complained about taxes. Doesn't seem like the kinda guy that's concerned about the little people.
Auggernaut88 | 4 hours ago
The US was founded so white, land-owning men could escape religious obligations. That’s it. Everything else has been a long bloody fight against the powers that be.
JohnTDouche | 3 hours ago
I don't get that last sentence. What's the bloody fight? Who's fighting? And who are the powers that be in this scenario?
mamaBiskothu | 9 hours ago
Its interesting how everyone collectively forgets how outrageous ot was that the US invaded Iraq and pretty much everything that followed was a consequence.
The US worked alright till early 2001. Perhaps till 2000 in Florida. Nothing has been alright since.
Shuino7 | 7 hours ago
I don't think anyone in the US thinks it's outrageous, it's pretty hard to be outraged when the US has literally invaded and bombed the Middle East for a better part of 30 years.
This has been par for the course...
SurinamPam | 4 hours ago
The protests at that time indicate that there was outrage.
mamaBiskothu | 3 hours ago
I meant how we have forgotten, that aspect is outrageous
72414dreams | 3 hours ago
You weren’t paying attention in the early 2000s if you think nobody was outraged at the invasion of Iraq.
72414dreams | 3 hours ago
Agreed, the court intervention and installation of its selected candidate was historically significant and the course of history shows this.
Mattimvs | 12 hours ago
Naw. It hasn't in awhile. Trump just sped it's decline up by a couple of decades
aeric67 | 9 hours ago
To be fair, when that’s not the case it’s stalemates on everything. Guess that speaks to the broken system still.
SurinamPam | 4 hours ago
That’s probably by design. Let national level actions only happen when there is national level agreement.
Otherwise let the states do it.
Efficient_Resist_287 | 11 hours ago
It is the electorate precisely White America which elected and gave MAGA absolute power. We must precise this fact.
PuzzleheadedBasis760 | 9 hours ago
Not factual and not the start of our decline both parties work for lobbies not us
horseradishstalker | 7 hours ago
It is too simplistic to point a finger at any one situation historically and say I found it. Something can be a trigger without being all of the ammunition built up.
MAGA didn’t just magically emerge fully formed.
Efficient_Resist_287 | 7 hours ago
No it did not, but the Obama election and re-election certainly gave it the combustible it needed. Add a passive media and the rise of tech oligarchy.
72414dreams | 3 hours ago
Repeal of the fairness doctrine and glass steagall sure helped the disinformation and corruption.
horseradishstalker | 6 hours ago
“ a passive media”
You need to get some different sources if you think the press has been passive. Their job is to report the news. The job of receipients is to take that information and make sound decisions and actions.
Efficient_Resist_287 | 6 hours ago
US media is highly propagandized and passive to power. U may have a few players here and there, but never forget who controls the strings.
72414dreams | 3 hours ago
Fairness doctrine comes into play preventing this, until repealed.
horseradishstalker | 6 hours ago
I can tell you have no idea how journalism works.
Many people confuse news content with an owner. In most cases, not the same thing.
As an example, the Washington Post is owned by Jeff Bezos not someone professionally trained. He can dictate what is put on the opinions page, but not the news. They are separate departments and most often on separate floors or even separate buildings.
Efficient_Resist_287 | 6 hours ago
Thank for your precision, however I do know how journalism works.
I do appreciate your explanation and viewpoints.
72414dreams | 3 hours ago
Right, and I’m sure a critical examination of headlines wouldn’t reveal any sort of policy shift after ownership changed. The idea that ownership doesn’t influence the stance of the outlet was valid when the fairness doctrine was in place. That idea is not at all accurate anymore.
UncleMeat11 | 3 hours ago
And yet the post regularly reframes or summarizes Trump's words to make them seem less batshit in their reporting.
horseradishstalker | 3 hours ago
Most people are not very quotable irl tbh. Paraphrasing is a mercy for the reader as well as to stay within word counts/column inches.
As for Trump, he has broken a lot of norms because it doesn’t occur to him that they apply to him as well. Some people and entities react quickly to change. Others not so much.
Although if at this point anyone who thinks journalists are holding back might want reconsider their reading or viewing habits. Obviously it’s available if people who were not actually present for something know about it.
The Post has some very good professionals as do many publications. An echo chamber is not automatically equivalent to good journalism.
If you are not satisfied with some reporting keep scrolling.
I’m not a fan of false equivalency, but I don’t mistake good journalism for that unlike many. Too many people latch onto buzzwords in any situation without truly understanding the nuances and then spread their misuse.
UncleMeat11 | 2 hours ago
> Most people are not very quotable irl tbh. Paraphrasing is a mercy for the reader as well as to stay within word counts/column inches.
Even when it changes the meaning?
> Some people and entities react quickly to change. Others not so much.
It's been ten years.
> If you are not satisfied with some reporting keep scrolling.
When institutions fail people "just keep scrolling" is childish. Insisting that people who come to different conclusions than you simply have poisoned media diets or are too stupid to understand nuance is metacommentary that fails to actually engage with the situation facing us.
TheCharalampos | 13 hours ago
Alright? Man the standards are low.
SurinamPam | 4 hours ago
Well it is a human institution. Alright may be all we can expect.
What standard would you set?
72414dreams | 3 hours ago
So, until 2000.
Accurate-Meet-8816 | 12 hours ago
not sure i agree with the last part
Past-Sheepherder6206 | 13 hours ago
No one thought Iran would respond. If Iran does not lose its sovereignty in this war, then no one will ever attack Iran in the future. The war will cost too much for all countries
Visstah | 7 hours ago
Oooh reddit will eat this up!
Spirited-plume | 4 hours ago
Financial chaos from blocking the Strait. What if it was all planned? For the purposes of the ultimate takeover. New world order. Very interesting point of view. https://youtu.be/hzI70WY3rm8?si=80ecpRmal11wQMFm Unique view. Food for thought.
72414dreams | 3 hours ago
It’s accelerationism for sure. Destabilizing the hegemony in order to magnify the power of smaller actors by degrading business as usual into pure corruption.