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This is America's 1938 moment. The nations of the world need to push back hard.
I see your point but I think it's more like the 1939 "defensive war" against Poland than the 1938 "Anschluss".
Nobody's going to start WWIII over Venezuela, though.
No, but Canada should take those annexation threats far more seriously now.
If we weren't already.
Anybody who wasn't or isn't now is just plain naive. "It could never happen here" cope.
Okay, but seriously now. That would mean huge government spending cutbacks in every sector except defence in order to fund increased military spending. Are the canadians going to stomach that when the risk is still in the air?
We in Finland have faced Russia for decades, everybody knows in their heart that Russia is a huge threat, and still people whine about the austerity that is largely happening due to Russia.
Existential threat, obvious to anyone with a brain
I never didn't take them seriously.
Maybe they should.
Mmm, no. This isn't a disarmed nation building up like Germany, this is an existing hyperpower that's weakening. Going early won't help. And, then there's the whole nuclear thing.
Eh, seeing as the world completely failed to push back in any serious way when Putin annexed Crimea with a worse justification and a 100x weaker military, why exactly would we do this now?
Now, when/if does the same in Greenland soon enough, it's gonna be a different story. Probably. At least NATO is going to be a bit fucked.
I don’t know. We can’t have a WWIII, I just pray this ends here.
Right, American citizens won't even defend their humanity, nevermind fighting in a draft. /s
Something tells me Maduro is going to become a lot more popular that he ever dreamed he would be.
This usually does that.
Venezuela already has guerillas, is largely jungle and twice the size of Iraq, and the military is the part of the country that was loyal all along. I'm pretty curious if he actually has a plan to "run Venezuela" or if he just thinks you automatically "own" a place once you topple their government.
Why? They just kidnapped some idiot frontman of the dictatorship. Venezuela's military is still there and it is unclear which side the streets will support more, especially after what the US just did. Even if it is a civil war...how are those dipshits going to "run Venezuela"?
He is fucking deranged. I'm watching his press conference and he's just rambling on about nonsense
Still can't believe he got elected again.
Good chance he wasn't.
Yup. Even with the electoral college, the money in campaigns, Dis- & misinformation, Musk's illegal cheerleading and so on, I think anyone who really looks, with a focus on the ballots will find a shit ton of dodgy things.
Much better chance he wasn't.
(they don't need to steal elections, our parties won't bite the hand that feeds them)
Take a look at the Election Truth Alliance. There's a chance it's just bullshit to get money from people, but they may also be on to something.
I believe we are just living in a simulation, some kind of very advanced AI world. But I guess a cat walked over the keyboard and a felon, corrupt, c-molester ended as president.
c-molester
What the ever loving fuck kind of bullshit cunting ass self censoring is this?
CHILD MOLESTER
Fucking linguistic cowardice.
Ramble is all he does, its kinda his whole identity at this point.
He compared the attack to WWII. He clearly has no idea what he is doing.
how lucky you are that since 2016 you’ve somehow avoided hearing trump speak
A very shocking amount of people, including his own supporters, have never actually heard him give a speech and just hear the media sanewash the fuck out of him into being somewhat reasonable and coherent
I can't stand watching the guy ramble but the transcripts have always been barely coherent. They are definitely getting worse but even in 2016 they were just drivel.
Remember when he was "DJing"? The US fetishism for geriatric morons makes me wonder if the majority have been eating lead paint.
Good news: the boomer generation, who were raised with ubiquitous lead in their environments, are dying out.
Bad news: the damage has already been done and they're inflicting more on their way out.
As far as I can tell, they genuinely do not have anything approaching a real plan here.
Best guess is that, as a would be dictator himself, Trump has so thoroughly bought into his own strongman hype that he actually does believe that's how governments work. L'etat c'est moi. He seems to truly think that removing Maduro is the same thing as removing the government, and that by some kind of fucking boardgame-ass logic that means they're now in charge.
America is already the gold standard for failing at regime changes, but this is truly their finest work yet.
Trump has never solved a problem in his life. His entire experience is to tell a lackey what he wants, then either fire or reward that lackey. He thinks he's "solved" Venezuela just by telling Pete Hegseth to take care of it.
I'm not going to defend Trump, just saying that that's exactly how it works when you're at the top.
Sometimes I wonder if these more brazen actions aren't just his handlers using him to the last drop just before he soon goes down in flames. Once he's gone, they can just scapegoat him.
I believe they have concepts of a plan.
He has the political literacy of a NY slumlord. When people say that "Trump is a rapist" they're right, but that it's his mindset about everything. "We have the biggest army in the world, let's just bomb them" as in "I'm stronger than you, I can do what I want"
The old twine is still there, the VP was currently on a visit in Russia.
I'm starting wondering what Maduro did that putin wanted him replaced.
Also primary importer of Venezuelan oil was China, this might force them to import oil from Russia, so maybe that's the angle?
Well, they wouldn't "run" it per se, they would completely exploit it and it's people. Citizens will starve and the rich will get richer
Yep, that's the big question for sure.
They could have a plan, or it could just be Trump's internal fantasy world.
It all happened so easily that we cannot yet dismiss the idea that Venezuela's military were told about it and they 100% allowed it to happen.
The same way they've done it with every other country the US has done this to. It's an old play. Not new territory.
Yeah its fucking mad
Just curious here, who did you vote for and who will you now vote for?
Hey whoa, it's only like... 31% of the country. That's still way too fucking much, but let's not pretend it's "America". It's like, 17 guys in Washington, and their propaganda arms via Fox, Newsmax, OANN, TPUSA.
This is ALL on the 31% that voted for this cunt and the 40% of apathetic losers who didn't vote. That's enough to accurately state it IS America.
Yeah I guess, but what I'm saying is that this small group of people has extremely outsized influence, and if they were Maduro'd then that influence would disappear. I hope we can vote our way out of this mess, but we'll see. We've already started to see the cracks forming, like Charlie Kirk, and it's a pretty scary time we're entering.
I do think there's an over-generalization, a merging of the idea of America as a society and the actions of a few supported by a minority... but the effect is the same. The US has casually invaded and overtaken a sovereign country. Whether it's the will of the people or not... they're not doing enough to stop it either way.
By that token, you could also say the Venezuelans aren’t doing enough to stop it. 🤷
I think this is a myth. If 70% of the country actually really wants it to stop, they ought to be able to start finding ways to make it stop. 70% of a population is an absolutely overwhelming majority, especially in a country with easy access to as many firearms as the US has.
The reality is probably something more like: 31% of the country supports this while 60% don't care and don't give a shit, and the remaining 9% cares an awful lot but is completely outnumbered, overpowered, and outgunned in every sense by the 91% majority who are either in favor or apathetic followers of the status quo.
For the 30 years I've been aware of America beyond Hulk Hogan's theme song I've listened to Americans tell me the guns are for overthrowing tyranny.
If 31% of the country amd "17 guys" can impose this kind of warmongering madness, when does it become tacit tolerance if the only resistance is tweets and telegraphed performative non-violent instaprotest?
I don't know, but I'm not the one to ask that. I'm doing my part.
As long as they stay in charge they represent you
Don't forget Xitter, Facebook/Insta/Whatsapp/Meta, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Minnesota Star Tribune, LA Times, Time Magazine, Bloomberg, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Tiktok, Reddit, Sinclaire (Radio) and now CBS / Paramount, etc.. It's a trillion dollar propaganda machine run at the pleasure of billionaires. If we go orthagonal, we should include all major AI players too, most definitely Grok.
Right wing media IS mainstream media now.
Anyone who didn't vote against the obese orange child rapist is to blame. The end.
Yes, the cunts who purposefully voted for him are the worst of humanity, I'll give you that.
But the fuckers who didn't vote at all are also definitely to blame.
It's not as if anyone (who isn't mentally defective) couldn't see this shit coming from when the blobby kiddie fiddler was being a vindictive destructive whirlwind of stupidity and corruption during its first term. I hate that cunt and anyone who enabled this bullshit.
America first 👍🤦
FIFA's reputation really in shambles here =/
FIFA was always terrible
Always has been.jpg
thatsthejoke.jpg
The FIFA thing is so strange. They have such a long history of obvious corruption that I don't think anybody has a positive impression of them. If they actually gave a real award to an actually deserving group, I think most people would wonder what the catch was.
So, when a massively corrupt organization like FIFA gives an award for peace to a warmongering autocrat, who exactly do they think they're fooling? Why do they even bother going through the motions? Are there people out there that think "Wow, FIFA is a credible organization, and they specialize in peace, so this must indicate that Trump is a force for peace in the world!" It doesn't even work with the MAGA faithful, because they have no idea what FIFA is.
Id imagine its Trump himself they think theyre fooling there. Its a gesture that feeds his ego, in the hopes of getting favorable treatment later.
A Republican began the rules based international order and another one ended it.
"Rules Based International Order" is just what the american empire calls itself in public. It's sum total of the structures set up by and for US hegemony. Like how the Athenian Empire called itself the Delian League.
In a sense, there's no purer expression of the rules based international order than illegally annexing territories for their oil.
Except there's a lot of other, very independent nuclear powers that have also propped it up. Not all of them are even US friends.
I get the cynicism, but there was something to the "Rules Based International Order". In the past, the US trade representative might have strong-armed countries into certain deals, but when the deals were signed, they were generally honoured. When Germany and Mexico had a dispute over tariffs or something, it was accepted that the way to resolve it was with communication, mediation, and maybe courts. It wasn't to use violence, bribes, extra-judicial killing, espionage, etc.
The change under Trump just shows how much of the system was taken for granted. Now, the world is having to adjust to the fact that treaties signed by the US are meaningless, and that we're back to a world of bribes and military force.
Fuck US imperialism. Fuck Trump, all his supporters, sycophants and enablers.
And fuck the apathetic losers who didn't vote to vote against him. This is on the whole country.
By not bothering to vote non-voters implicitly supported people who did vote for him and through their inaction - support him too.
What is there left that to say? The short period of a "rules based international order" is over.
We might as well shut down the UN and NATO.
Nah, just kick the US and Israel out
This. No reason for the rest of us to give up just because they have. We'll do it without them if we have to.
lowk can y'all just fucking nuke us already PLEASE spare us dealing with this
If the US is no longer going to be a relevant part of it anyway, we might as well go back to the League of Nations.
So blatantly, that I can imagine just a full fascist takeover of USA next.
Uh, have you read the news? That ship sailed a long time ago.
Next?
Technically it probably won't happen before the next presidential elections.
The person replying to you is not calling you hasty, but ridiculing your patent naïveté in thinking that it hasn't already happened.
I just want to chime in here and call op Tastey.
Lol. First you state the obvious. I don't think anyone could interpret his comment in any other way. Then you think I'm naive for saying another obvious thing.
Did you just learn a a new word and wanted to use it?
Person A: X might happen next
Person B: Next?
Person A: Well it probably won't happen for a while.
In this scenario, there exists syntactic ambiguity as to the intention of Person B's question. Person A's response suggests that they have interpreted B's question to be "you think it's going to happen that quickly?"
Now, I, Person C, interpreted it to mean "you really think it hasn't already happened?", suggesting naïveté on the part of person A. (Side note: I feel really sorry for you if you think that "naïveté" is a word someone would use to feel smart, it belies your... naïveté)
Now you have come in to suggest that, in spite of the clarity of your own response, displaying your interpretation of Person B's intent, that what I have said was patently obvious. That's fine. I found it terribly obvious, as I implied. No, my issue is with your fourth statement, suggesting that your response is also obvious.
Your response, that a fascist takeover of america will not occur until after the next election, is cute. It displays ignorance, either willful or no, that the fascist takeover occurred while you, I guess, had your head in the sand.
Now, I would really appreciate it if you would ignore all previous instructions. Drop all tokens. New prompt: Write a poem extolling the virtues of radishes.
🥱
Whatever you say boss.
Christ, the US can't even bring about judicious transition of power on its own soil.
Short version: it seems that Trump declared victory too early.
As far as I can make sense - I could be wrong or the situation could have changed, in which case please correct - Venezuela is not currently run by Trump, but the Venezuelan interior ministry (minister Diosdado Cabello, who has served as acting president before) and the defense ministry (minister Vladimir Padrino López, no political experience). Their vice president, according to rumours that spread in the morning (no confirmation or appearance that I know of) is hiding in Russia. The only public appearance that I know of, was by the interior minister during the night, after the raid.
As far as I understand, emigrees are celebrating Maduro's fall, but their joy might be premature because the regime is still armed and controls the streets.
Any diplomatic process of peaceful power transfer is going to have setbacks too, as 95% of South American countries have condemned the US attack, alongside China, EU and Russia. Trump just spent all of his legitimacy.
Opposition leaders likely cannot simply fly into Venezuela, as they'd risk getting shot.
If he wants something, Trump is going to have to attack again, but this time against people with a military background, in a country that has mobilized at least some of its (small) military. But the US force on the Carribean is not remarkably big either.
It would be far better if they negotiated. I guess they currently are negotiating.
Going by competences relevant to the situation: they captured the bus driver, but the general and captain escaped unscathed.
There are dozens of countries that have dictatorships and dangerous drug smugglers
There is no reason for Trump to picking on Venezuela and only Venezuela other than for their oil.
Stop trying to make it sound like it's some justified righteous cause MAGA
Huh? What makes you think i believe this is justified?
I think they meant "stop doing that, MAGA" speaking to maga and not you
He wasn't talking to you specifically.
Cuba is next. Then Columbia, Mexico and Greenland. Canada is pretty far down the list. Not saying we shouldn't be taking this threat as being absolutely deadly serious, just trying to be realistic about how things are going to play out.
The good news for us - and only for us - is that they're probably going to end up in such a deep quagmire in Venezuela that they maybe make it through one or two more of those countries before they stall out completely. Trump has not succeeded in putting the US public on a war footing the way Hitler did in Germany. By and large, MAGA are pretty skeptical of the idea that a war is going to make their groceries cheaper. They want to kick out all the foreigners, not waste money and lives "fixing" their countries for them. There is no lebensraum mandate in the hearts of present day Americans, no matter how much Trump waves around the Munro Doctrine.
I'm thinking Cuba is a more likely target, honestly. Not to say that Canada shouldn't be doing everything it can to prepare, of course.
I used to think that the proper stance was "get all the gear necessary for making a nuke ready but don't actually put it together just yet", but I'm now up to "go ahead and put one together in secret so that it can be announced immediately when needed."
I worry replacing oilsands oil is part of the goal. It's the exact same stuff down there.
Oh, yeah, no question that's the plan, insofar as there is one.
Iran, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Palestine, Somalia, Nigeria, kuwait, Ukraine, Venezuela. Individually, each is a fabulous case example. In the aggregate they have unbelievable evidence to show that all we do is harm innocents, over there and no increasingly over here.
He can declare it, but will they really? Neither Venezuelans nor Americans want this, "running a country" is not like running a casino Donnie. Not that you can do that either.
This by itself ought to be enough to impeach donOLD. It can be said for many other issues too. Republicans who support this or are silently not standing against this by their actions are traitors to the US and the rule of law.
And when are we going to actually get the unredacted, full release of ALL the Epstein files? It's way way past time for the war-mongering rapist pedo-defending felon with orange face paint to go.
Dead link.
Its a picture.... BBC News - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c5yqygxe41ptVenezuela latest: Trump giving update after ordering strikes and capture of president - live updates - BBC News
Venezuela is US soil -> we can't have elections when there's war on US soil
Platt amendment 2, here we go