• CyborgMarx [any, any]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Shit like these convinces me it's all bots and interns at Think Tank 6666

      Does anyone have that old study that showed the most active reddit user hotspot was some US military base

      • Commiejones [comrade/them, he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        https://www.reddit.com/r/Blackout2015/comments/4ylml3/reddit_has_removed_their_blog_post_identifying/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

      • BeamBrain [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Shit like these convinces me it’s all bots and interns at Think Tank 6666

        Your garden variety westoid can be plenty racist and colonialist on their own though

        • Frogmanfromlake [none/use name]
          ·
          2 years ago

          tbf that's a pretty small thread, but unsurprising. WorldNews has been hard-right for as long as I can remember. They hate anything that's not white, christian, and European.

          • CTHlurker [he/him]
            ·
            2 years ago

            Worldnews kind of oscilates between hard right (whenever middle easterners / africans are involved) and annoying center-right / neoliberal whenever it's about countries where they can't just be racist. In a way they actually function as a pretty good indicator for Americans, since they view themselves as staunch moderates, due to their one or two progressive viewpoints, while also having some far far right opinion on immigration especially.

            • Frogmanfromlake [none/use name]
              ·
              2 years ago

              Idk their threads on anything involving Latin America usually involve the same far-right talking points about race, lack of civility, and drugs.

              • CTHlurker [he/him]
                ·
                2 years ago

                Sometimes you get a few people who chalk things up to American imperalism in the region, and the brutal dictatorships most of South America had during the later parts of the Cold War, but those voices are quickly met with "well that was under Regan / Nixon / Republicans, and now we don't do that anymore, so whats their excuse"

  • ThomasMuentzner [he/him, comrade/them]
    hexagon
    ·
    2 years ago

    Damn Imagine all the "Human Rights Abuses" your lib friends gonne hear about soon ... Mexico ... India ... Solomon Islands .... Mali .... better give them a head up ...

  • krammaskin [none/use name]
    ·
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    Currently, Mexico contains the world’s largest lithium deposit in the Sonora region, where over 243 million tons of this metal are located. Lithium was traded for ($62,833 to $67,545) per tonne on February 10.

    ~243 x 65 billion. That's about $16 trillion or $125000 per Mexican if you'd like.

  • NomadicWarMachine [any]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Sweet, maybe they can sell it all to China to make sick solar batteries, that they can sell back to Latin America so they can make their infrastructure sustainable, then America gets pissed and tries to invade the whole continent but is such a fucking dysfunctional shit show that they fail miserably and Balkanize as a result of the unpopular war.

    Idk, maybe over doing it on the infra-materialism here :lt-dbyf-dubois:

    • blobjim [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I think Bolivia is teying to build some factories themselves.

        • star_wraith [he/him]
          ·
          edit-2
          2 years ago

          IIRC those phosphate reserves are mostly in Western Sahara, where Morocco is an occupying colonial power every bit as bad as the US or Israel.

          • CTHlurker [he/him]
            ·
            2 years ago

            More accurately, the phosphate is in the seabed a few miles from Western Sahara. Now I may be biased, since I know a lot of moroccans and have heard very few Sarawi / West Saharans give their take, but the claim that Morocco makes is that the area is empty desert now, but it used to be a part of the Greater Morocco and Morocco only really lost control of it due to colonialism by Spain and France, since they were the ones partioning the inhabited part of morocco from Western Sahara.

            • star_wraith [he/him]
              ·
              2 years ago

              A recent episode of Cosmopod has a great interview with a Sarawi activist. The area is not an empty desert though obviously it's got a low population density. The connections to Morocco seem to be based more on like "some king in the 18th century pledged loyalty to the Moroccan royalty" or whatever and not at all based on what the Sarawi people wanted, which is unequivocally to be independent of Morocco. Morocco has also engaged in settler colonialism and has been moving Moroccans into the area for decades. Not that the UN is all that good but they've been firmly on the side of the Sawari people for a long time, as has most of the international community (the actual international community, not just the "international community = NATO" jokes we make here).

              That said, similar to other colonial holdings it's the Moroccan royalty and the capitalists that benefit, not the Moroccan people.

              • CTHlurker [he/him]
                ·
                2 years ago

                I don't really understand your final point. Morocco is a monarchy with a quasi-constitionunal government. Obviously most things in the country benefits the royals and their cronies, since that is literally the point of feudal hierachies. A lot of Moroccans do seem to be under the impression that if the demand for the phosphate rose as predicted, then the entire nation is going to be better off. And to his credit, the king does seem less shortsighted than many of the Arab royal-houses, since he alledgedly got scared during the Arab spring and started building a shitload of public housing / infrastructure in the poor parts of the country.

                • star_wraith [he/him]
                  ·
                  2 years ago

                  Regarding that last point I made... go back to 19th century England. The colonial empire Britain had meant tons of raw materials could be manufactured cheaply in British factories. This brought immense wealth to the British capitalists. And yes, a not insignificant amount of that wealth did eventually reach the hands of British workers. With the colonial profits pouring in, they were able to push for higher wages. And higher tax revenues to the government did allow for better public works, etc. But it came at the cost exploiting the colonized and their resources. No different from modern-day US. Workers here benefit significantly from US imperialism, especially with cheap goods lowering the real wage. The US capitalists benefit the most from imperialism, but US workers benefit as well. At the cost of the working class in the global south.

                  To be blunt, I don't care if the king uses some of the phosphate money to pay off the Moroccan working class. It is not their phosphate, period. The Sarawi people do not want to be a part of Morocco. This is just straight up colonial exploitation. Spain, as the former colonizer, did have obligations they ignored; there is plenty of blood on their hands. The decolonization process is supposed to allow the former colonized to stand on their own feet. Instead they just up and left one day, which left the Sarawi completely helpless against a Moroccan invasion.

                  Idk, it seems pretty straightforward to me. The Sarawi people were colonized by Spain against their will. They wanted freedom from colonial rule and self a determination as is the right of all formerly colonized people and instead they just got re-colonized by a neighbor thanks to Spain's indifference.

    • AcidSmiley [she/her]
      ·
      2 years ago

      how is that type of guy any different from other random 4chan-damaged gulag candidates? he even has a guy fawkes mask as his pfp, doesn't get more old school cringe than that.

      • Nakoichi [they/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Yeah but those types aren't usually the ones to reference Harry Potter, although it would make sense that chuds would pick it up now that Rowling is such a well known reactionary.

        • AcidSmiley [she/her]
          ·
          2 years ago

          yeah, the muggle reference is even more cringe than the usual NPC memes, i hope this loser gets clowned on hard

  • DragonNest_Aidit [they/them,use name]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Why is there no western opposition to this? Are they so thoroughly distracted by Ukraine that they legitimately let all of these things going against their interest flew past? I mean there's also the thing with the Solomon islands forming defensive pact with China.

      • ThomasMuentzner [he/him, comrade/them]
        hexagon
        ·
        edit-2
        2 years ago

        :lets-fucking-go:

        Cover Your heavens, Zeus

        With cloud vapor

        And try Your strike, as a boy

        Beheading thistles,

        Against oaken trees and mountain heights;

        You still must leave me

        My Earth standing

        And my hut ,which You did not build,

        And my hearth, home's glowing

        My Fire that You begrudge me!

        I know of nothing poorer

        Under the sun than You gods!

        Indigently You feed

        Your majesty

        On proffered sacrifice

        And breathfuls of prayer.

        You would starve to naught

        If not children and beggars

        your hopeless fools

        When I was a child

        That knew not its way in the world.

        I would lift my deluded eyes

        To the sun as though out beyond it

        There were an ear to hear my complaints

        A heart like mine

        That would take pity on my oppression.

        Who came to my aid

        Against the Titans' and their insolent rage?

        Who delivered me from death,

        From slavery?

        Was it not you, sacred heart ablaze,

        Who achieved it all?

        And, swindled in your youth and good will,

        Did you not glow, with thanks fit for a Savior,

        Against that mere Sleeper on high?

        I should honor You?

        For what?

        Did You ever gentle

        The ache of my burden?

        Did You ever dry

        The tears of tribulation?

        Was I not forged to manhood

        By Time Almighty

        And Eternal Destiny,

        My masters and Yours?

        Perhaps You believed

        I should find life hateful,

        And flee to the wilderness

        Because not all my blossom-dreams

        Reached ripeness?

        Behold

        Here I will sit, fashioning men

        In my own image,

        A race after my likeness,

        A race that will suffer and weep,

        A Race to Despise You! , as i do !

        And rejoice and delight with heads held high

        And heed Your will no more

        Than I!

      • Commander_Data [she/her]
        ·
        2 years ago

        I really hope yesterday's news that Mexico had ended its co-operation with US three letter agencies and rescinded immunity for foreign agents is a pro-active measure against typical US destabilization tactics.

      • Bloobish [comrade/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        This most likely, no ghoul CIA wonk will want an actual war on the border unless its the only option available. I expect if it gets bad enough you will have a random cartel gain access to military grade weaponry to assassinate AMLO out of the blue.

        • jack [he/him, comrade/them]
          ·
          2 years ago

          There is essentially no scenario at all under which the US would actually do a war with Mexico. It would simply never happen. Proximity is why Cuba's been protected against proper US invasion.

          • Bloobish [comrade/them]
            ·
            2 years ago

            I could see it occurring only in the event of a near collapsed US with the most batshit of ghouls and zealots in control. It would not work and very quickly backfire but I could def see it happening once the country is fully backed into the corner with death on the horizon and under christofascist control.

          • bigboopballs [he/him]
            ·
            2 years ago

            There is essentially no scenario at all under which the US would actually do a war with Mexico.

            why not?

        • LoudMuffin [he/him]
          ·
          2 years ago

          I expect if it gets bad enough you will have a random cartel gain access to military grade weaponry to assassinate AMLO out of the blue.

          They've had the kind of weaponry to outright engage with the military for ages. I think all they are missing is anti air capabilities.

    • mittens [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      There is! They did manage to successfully block the energy reform, which was plenty more important than the lithium nationalization. Also pretty much every press outlet, every news TV show, every political radio show has been running pro-privatization narratives, even the ones that are purportedly "progressive", things are pretty zany if you peer into the abyss of corporate news outlets. US ambassador in Mexico Ken Salazar has been very vocal about US opposition and congressmen outside Morena's party have been mailing Biden and Salazar expressing their "concern" over growing threats of "authoritarianism". Ken Salazar also claims this violates USMCA, so I expect court proceedings in the near future. There's also a tangible fear that Morena will reach qualified majority on the next term and eventually pass the energy reform which would be a bigger blow but without AMLO, everything's up in the air.

  • Diogenes_Barrel [love/loves]
    ·
    2 years ago

    :yes-hahaha-yes-l:

    :ranmao:

    they'll probably get away with it too, if the US isn't phenomenally stupid.