Good point.

Also, they downed one and damaged another, why did they cross of three?

(See existing replies)

Good point, if they were already shot down then it’s possible.

I thought it was because he’s about to move to Mexico.

I’m clicking all the “read my other comment” links until I’ve basically read Capital Vol. 1 in its entirety through Lemmy posts.

There are at least six feuding Marxist orgs where I live, I don’t think this is a valid critique of anarchism.

The reddit thread proposes it could have been a lie for propaganda.

The mindset reminds me of their infamous wargame: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

I have a soft spot for new planes being shot down by “outdated” technologies.

[translations, copypasted, so you don’t have to visit the source on reddit]

Waterfox try to remove some blobs of Firefox out of the box, so it’s better for the normal user

How is removing blobs better for the normal user?

Did it show you a specific error/ban message?

That’s not the point. You can say the same about Blender, etc.

Yes it’s ToS, and also its structure - it’s basically a non-profit club rather than a for-profit business like GitHub (now owned by M$), which means it isn’t prone to enshittifying.

That spam was a troll who found a loophole in the notification system. It was obviously not a data breach. That’s clear to anyone who’s worked with software databases or web servers.

Glad I could help :) My curriculum was similar, mine didn’t really talk about communist countries at all, and since a lot of our media like movies come from the US during the Cold War, when their government’s biggest enemies were the Soviet Union and the worker labor movement fighting for more worker rights, those movies often chose communist countries or communists as an easy choice for villains, so there’s a shallow but very widespread and normal idea that those countries are just simply evil, and ours is good. On top of that, most newspapers and television channels are owned by the richest people (mega-millionaires and billionaires, not just middle-class money), rich enough to own or invest in them, and funded by large companies advertising, and usually the people with that much money love how capitalism is working and are threatened by socialism or communism, so they have a self-interest in highlighting all the mistakes of those countries and all the wins of their own. I was amazed that a few years before, the US government was putting out posters like these during World War II, where Russian and Chinese soldiers are celebrated as allies alongside Canadians and English!

On a related point, it’s also important to remember that many people instinctively compare these countries to rich, developed countries like Britain, the USA, and others, instead of comparing them to how they were before and after. I used to do this too, but countries are so different, with different histories, resources and neighbors that it’s usually unfair to simply compare them like that. This short 3 minute clip from a Michael Parenti lecture gives some good examples of this, focusing on their experience talking to Cubans.

Your post implied that all countries outside of the west sided with China when this is clearly not true.

I didn’t mean to imply all countries, and it’s my mistake for phrasing it like that, sorry.

Even in Africa there is a lot of pushback among the population (not necessarily the elites) against Chinese imperialism. Sri Lanka is another example where there is a measures of opposition to jingoistic Chinese meddling.

That’s true. It’s also important to note, at least with Africa, that there is also pushback against ongoing European imperialism, so when it comes to a “do you prefer US or China more” situation like OP, they might still pick one of them while also giving pushback.

please don’t shuffle blame away as if there was some giant institutional force preventing them from voting

My point isn’t that the giant institutional force prevented people from voting (although voter suppression is, incidentally, a huge issue too).

All the US federal elections are a popularity contest, where rich people have ludicrous amounts of power to determine which politicians even end up as viable options on the ballot, through tools such as lobbying parties, mass media ownership, flak and advertising [wikipedia: further reading] to influence the exposure and framing of candidates. How many candidates does the typical citizen even learn about from the news or pop culture? Probably a number between 1 and 4, and only two will be endorsed by the major parties and therefore viable options in practice. That’s the institutional power in action. One can’t look at Clinton, Biden and Trump in 2016 and 2020 and pretend any were the best (or even decent) choices for a country’s leader. These candidates rise to the top because of institutional pressures, hence, pay-to-win - the owning class decide on the options that citizens can vote on.

IIRC, Australia (I’m assuming you’re from there because of your instance?) has a voting system where at least the minor parties are a viable option and independent candidates have a real chance. That’s not the case in the US federal election. There’s no option but the big two, the parties beholden to billionaires and mega-millionaires through tools like lobbying and mass media needed to win the popularity contest.

Obviously the PRC also has major influence over which candidates citizens can vote for, and they don’t have direct federal elections for party leaders (they’re elected by the local members who are elected by citizens), but the main difference is that it’s not a popularity contest where celebrities like Trump, Reagan and Schwarzenegger end up as political decision makers partly due to name recognition rather than credentials and trust, or where money decides the available options.

Left wing voters didn’t show up

I find it hard to believe that Gaza protest votes were anywhere near enough to sway the election, we’re talking IIRC about a 15 million drop. The Democrats weren’t delivering. Voter turnout from both parties went down.

Many countries in Asia have suffered from invasions and conflicts with China.

Yes, that’s a reason why some don’t side with China.

Africa and the Middle East and South America and other Asian countries didn’t have conflicts with China (in fact, they’re typically invaded by European countries and/or the US) and so have tended to side with China.

I don’t see where we’re disagreeing or how what I said was any more simplistic than your reply.

The USSR (Soviet Union) and the PRC (China). The USSR is not Russia, and it doesn’t exist anymore.

And of course it’s fair, and in fact important to criticize them. We have the benefit of hindsight and can see how some of their decisions were serious mistakes. On the other hand, it’s also important to analyze what they did good and learn from that too. Neither was perfect, both were improvements, and the terrible fates of Russia and Ukraine after the fall of the Soviet Union is proof of how much good the SU was for its citizens.

which don’t respect the needs of there citizens.

They both inherited countries plagued with regular famine and have both eliminated it. In fact, in 1983 the CIA documented the SU as having a better typical diet than the USA. Clearly they respected the food security of their citizens.

The SU managed to rapidly build low-cost housing after repelling a HUGE invasion of extermination from Nazi Germany. The “commieblocks” were critical in housing people after war. China has also made huge strides in home ownership and elimination of poverty. Meanwhile, poverty and homelessness is increasing under capitalist countries, with them doing little to resolve their housing crises. Clearly they respected the need for shelter of their citizens.

Keep in mind, that both these countries were devastated by world wars and civil wars. Their countries started off in serious crisis and had already had revolutions. If they didn’t respect the needs of their citizens, they would have ended up failed states overthrown by their desperate population or quickly collapsing to invasions.

As for China, the government, despite censorship and political repression, still remains popular among its citizens, according to censorship-resistant US studies^[1]. It’s largely avoided war, hugely reduced poverty, and has become a world leader in technology.

There are many valid reasons to criticize these countries and it’s important we do that. But they clearly respected the needs of their citizens. There are few other countries which have done more to reduce poverty and homelessness than them.

On the other hand, this isn’t exactly news to them. Countries outside of the Western world and Asian neighbors have been siding with China over the US for a while now, probably due to all the invasions and coups.