Both. Some are just in denial, others genuinely think the US empire is the “lesser evil”.

MTG is a nutcase but at least with her you know where she stands. She’s a true believer chud. It’s Zohran who you shouldn’t trust. Like all libs he will 100% betray you and stab you in the back.

Thank you for the updates! o7

An insult to Juche. Juche actually works.

Lol. Mamdani is not cool enough to go for that.

Just buy Russian instead. Russia scrupulously abides by their contracts, to an absolutely unreasonable degree if you ask me, even with countries that are for all intents and purposes at war with them.

Ok, fair point, except that for regular people it still all just tastes like wine.

Great clip, very well explained. Ben is such a great communicator.

This is just the modern version of the “How Not To Be Seen” Monty Python skit.

Art appreciation has always been a class signifier, a way for rich snobs to show to other rich snobs that, unlike the unwashed masses, they “get it”. It reinforces class boundaries on the cultural level. And the educated middle class apes this behavior in an attempt to signal higher social status. That’s why so much of art criticism is entirely ad hoc nonsense, pseudo-objective rationalization for an entirely subjective assessment. It’s as pretentious as when you hear a wine snob talk about “notes of X, Y or Z” when there is zero of that ingredient actually in the wine or any of the manufacturing process (the foodie equivalent of homeopathy).

When things like that happen the governments of those states don’t genuinely believe it was Iran. They know it was the US/Zionists but they go along with blaming Iran because it’s currently more convenient to use it as a pretext to agitate against Iran and gain “good boy points” with the US. Some of the population may be fooled by the media but the governments have enough intelligence capabilities to recognize false flags.

If they genuinely want to get out from under the US thumb and establish a mutual understanding with Iran for regional stability and security then they will have to start calling out the real culprits.

That is how you will know if the agreement was signed in good faith or not. Whether the Saudis are willing to engage in good faith that i don’t know.

What can Saudi do or provide that US and Israel don’t already have in spades?

Basing locations. Geographical limitations are a reality. If you cannot launch attacks from close by your options will be much more limited. If only a few of the Gulf state comprador regimes remain available to them in that region, that significantly reduces their tactical flexibility and shrinks the area to disperse/hide their assets over.

Taking Saudi Arabia out of the equation is a net advantage for Iran. There are still plenty of targets in the region without them.

A non-aggression pact with Iran is incredibly simple: don’t want your shit blown up, just stop letting the US or the Zionist entity use your territory and airspace to attack Iran or its allies.

Before the Soviet period Central Asia was practically completely undeveloped. The Soviets invested huge efforts and resources into developing the poorest and most peripheral Republics, and often did so at a loss.

Central Asia had very little modern agriculture before the Soviets built a massive irrigation system. It is easy to criticize in hindsight because of its environmental impacts, but development always comes with a cost. Afterward it could sustain a large scale agricultural sector which allowed it to finance other development such as infrastructure. Were they supposed to remain in permanent under-developement? What would have been the main driver of development for these regions if not agriculture?

Before the Soviet Period most of the region still lived semi-nomadically, with only a handful of historic cities (Tashkent, Bukhara, Samarkand, Khiva, Kokand) along the Silk Road, but these had seen very little development in the modern era (like most of the Asian side of the Russian empire) The Soviets introduced modern infrastructure, education, literacy, housing, healthcare, etc. Even some industry.

Decisions about the economic direction of the Republics were also not necessarily made all in Moscow. The local leadership of the Republics themselves had a lot of say. People like to forget that each Soviet Republic (except for Russia) had its own communist party.

And no, the Soviets were not at all anti-Muslim, just like China isn’t anti-Muslim. The state was simply officially atheist. It is not oppression to suppress reactionary clericalism. This channel has several videos on topics relating to Muslims and Islam in the Soviet Union:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=rv46HzNvG3I

I’ve also yet to see any anti-LGBTQ insults from any of these channels

Right? It’s been really nice actually. Makes me even more annoyed when Russia does it. You have Medvedev write a real banger harshly criticizing the West, and you agree with him 99% in terms of geopolitical analysis, but then for some unfathomable reason he goes and adds some stupid quip about LGBT people which is totally uncalled for and unrelated to what the piece was about. Why? Why, Russia, do you have to be so cringe sometimes? Just be more like Iran or China please!

Culver helpfully adds that China “deploys enough ships every year to replicate the entire French navy” - which, as a Frenchman, hurts a little, but at least we’ll always have the cheese (I hope).

Lol. I guess you have to take your wins where you can.

Not quite the same as a bus though is it? It’s much slower and also probably the operating costs are lower, i would assume. (Actually that sort of sounds like a high school physics homework problem: what is the electricity consumption of twenty escalators compared to an electric bus? Hahaha.)

When i was very young i also thought this is how it works, because that’s what my grandparents told me happened. The destruction of socialism in Eastern Europe robbed all of us of our future.

Ive heard theres a lot of bigotry in ml spaces, particularly against women and lgbtq+.

You shouldn’t believe everything you hear. I have not seen any of that here, and in general i find communist spaces are some of the most progressive spaces that exist, especially IRL. Of course people with reactionary views on some issues still exist because these views exist in any society and will be reflected to some degree in any group that arises out of that society, but as a percentage they are much, much less prevalent in communist spaces than they are pretty much anywhere else.

The notion that MLs in particular are somehow uniquely bigoted against this or that group is a pure propaganda narrative spread by the ideological enemies of communism and you shouldn’t fall for such cheap tricks.

Marxist-Leninists believe in the fundamental equality of all humans regardless of race, gender or sexual orientation, and the liberation and dignity of all oppressed people.

This is excellent. I need to read more Losurdo.