SoyViking

On pro-Russian Telegram they say Russia (successfully) targeted the central location of Kiev's air defenses and that the video of the missile striking the hospital, as well as the damage done is consistent with western anti-air missiles.

I have no way of assessing the truthfulness of these claims but they seem more plausible than the western "Evil Putler decided to do random war crimes with no strategic value just to remind NATO how evil he is"

Something I was going to post in the old thread before it got locked about libertarians being stuck in the "small government" mindset, citing this desire for "freedom and meritocracy":

Some thoughts on the concepts of freedom and meritocracy.

Freedom: When someone says freedom, you must always ask "Freedom for who?" and "Freedom to do what?". Real existing capitalism gives you a wide array of choices within a narrow band of consumerist gratification but is that the freedom you want and need? If you have the money you are free to buy any car offered for sale but the invisible habd of the market does not offer even the richest oligarch the possibility to ride on a well-integrated public transit system, only government decisions can give you that freedom.

The free market gives you the freedom to buy disposable plastic crap but it does patently not give you the freedom to live in a clean environment with a stable climate. The free market gives you the freedom to be unemployed, to be poor, to be ripped off by landlords and price gougers. Unless you belong to the gilded one percent, real existing capitalism gives you shitty freedoms that no sane person would want to have.

I get the notion of "I don't want the gubmint to tell me what to do!". I agree with it. I don't want the government to interfere in how people live their lives. I don't want them to legislate about what women can do with their bodies, or what consenting adults do together, or what music you listen to or what clothes you wear or what religion consenting adults practice together.

But here's the thing: The free market will only stay out of these things for as long as doing so is profitable. If it is deemed profitable to regulate your life, the free market will do so. During American apartheid, businesses were happy to exclude black people to get white customers to come. It is not that long ago that having visible tattoos would seriously impair you chances of getting a job and openly queer people face significant discrimination from the free market of real existing capitalism to this day.

There is no reason why a socialist system could not be set up to stay out of people's private business. In fact, a system controlled by the people in all of its colourful diversity is more likely to respect and protect that diversity than one controlled by a tiny bourgeoisie.

In fact socialism is going to set people free to pursue self-realisation by ensuring everyone has acces to essentials like food, housing, education and healthcare.

Meritocracy: The thing is literally a joke. The term was coined as a satire of the class-based British education system which claims to fill positions of power and status with the objectively most suitable people, but who always chooses the same well-connected posh boys from fancy boarding schools and influential families.

With that being said, nepotism is obviously bad for a society and people should be hired based on qualifications, not on who they know. This is not how things work today under real existing capitalism. Not only do you have all the more or less shady hires in the private and public sector alike, you also gatekeep the access to the qualifications, making it much harder for a kid from a poor family to realise their full potential than it is for one from a rich family.

Corporate influence over government also leads to non-meritocratic hires, in which corporate power is used to distort the stated purpose of public institutions, like we see it in regulatory capture.

The concept of meritocracy also leaves a big question to be asked: What about those without any merit? Human beings are not born alike and some of us does not have the talents or interest for acquiring skills considered meritorious. Some of us are born with disabilities, some of us grow up having shitty schools, some of us comes from families unable to support our development.

How is it fair that someone gets to live a life of luxury for being born with the talent and circumstances for having merit while those born without is condemned to poverty and despair?

Also, a lot of functions considered non-meritocrious and therefore undeserving of material comfort, are essential to the functioning of society. A society made up of just engineers and lawyers would collapse within weeks. Complex societies needs a host of different jobs being done, we need truck drivers, binmen, nurses, childcare workers, construction workers etc. Yet real existing capitalism does not provide them with material safety and comfort.

But that war ended a long, long time ago. And they kept building aircraft carriers. Why would Americans do this?

The priestly class would congregate in tall temple-towers where they would divine the will of the market by performing arcane rituals involving cultic items called "spreadsheets" that were considered very powerful but whose meaning has been lost to time.

The prophecies divined from the spreadsheets would be used to determine the food rations of commoners.

I hate to be a downer but... It is good and valuable that the fash didn't do as well as all the talking heads on TV predicted/hoped. It is also good that the centre-left coalition is the largest block, ahead of the various reactionary ones.

But... but... We are celebrating that the "left", and by left we include succdems and libs, got roughly a third of the seats in parliament. That the left, by the widest possible definition of the term, is a minority.

I don't know French politics but I know centrist liberals. They might be mad about the fash eating their lunch but ultimately they are going to follow the class interest they represent and side with the fash against the left, especially if the fash offers to support a liberal government in return for crackdowns on those deemed inferior.

Sweden used to be the prime example of "good liberals" with the succdems and the "respectable" right agreeing to keep the fascist SD party away from all influence. But in the end the temptation grew too big and now Sweden is ruled by a right-wing regime supported by the fash.

I will be surprised if the "respectable" French centre-right doesn't end up doing something similar in the end.

I can't imagine them being interesting to kids today, let alone adults

Weird how kids and adults alike keeps using fireworks then if it bores them so much.

New Hexbear struggle session: Outdoor cats vs. gammons with fireworks

Children are precious!

Precious you say? I know exactly what to do!

It seems like the faction of the bourgeoisie controlling the media has fallen out with the part of the bourgeoisie controlling the president. Is this just over Genocide Joe's obviously cognitive decline or is there some other conflict underneath this sudden abandonment?

I don't know who control Iranian elections so I can't tell how plausible your theory is.

One could also see the election as an example of how the social conservatism of the more anti imperialist part of the ruling class becomes a security threat to Iranian society as it pushes people into the arms of pro-western liberals who promises to relax the reactionary religious policies but also wants to hand the country over to western capital. Iranian antiimperialists needs to understand that the insistence on unpopular morality laws is opening them up to attack from the west.

always put the country first

This can mean literally anything to anybody. And that is the purpose of it. It means absolutely nothing and commits sir Keith to absolutely nothing, instead it is a blank slate that people will fill in with whatever their idea of a good selfless politician is.

I hate to think of it, but none of this is going to deter a single libertarian briefcase nerd 30 years from now from gaslighting people about how Mileil created "an economical miracle".