Ain’t that just the way

Removed by mod

I realize now my quote cutoff may have been misleading. I too found the burn on the NYT funny.

The Onion’s latest expansion into physical media had forced the company to reevaluate all parts of its business—from its glaringly inaccurate reporting, to its comparatively low circulation numbers, to its deeply unpopular brand, to its completely inept columnists.

Lmao

Those dresses would make repositioning difficult lmao

The only ones I’ve seen are from @yiffit.net and @pawb.social

NSFW: https://lemmy.smeargle.fans/c/yiff

I’d volunteer for this. Fuck those French knights

I’d call them more than irritating lmao.

Bro’s got an itchy ass. Let him be lmao

I love the Hillary and Norgay werewolves

It me

This is going to be how the zombie virus comes about. Someone ingests a million year old virus that becomes infectious and boom, we got new COVID.

I think comparing Venezuela to China is apt here. Both are “leftist” governments that the US is nominally opposed to, but we still allow trade with China despite growing tensions. Venezuela, and Cuba too, got embargoes from the US because of the idea of the Monroe doctrine and Roosevelt corollary (my neighborhood, my rules). The US can hurt them more for not falling in line.

I’d also argue the US is particularly mad at both nations because they escaped the cycle of the School of the Americas (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere_Institute_for_Security_Cooperation) tendency to create right-wing dictators from US trained army officers in left swinging South American states.

I guess my point is that it’s the US leveraging its power to get what it wants, and I’m biased but trying to look at it from a more objective perspective. The US does not act as a monolith, there are people who oppose bases / promote isolationism which complicates the matter.

As an American I’m personally pissed that we have to deal with the sins of our forefathers for being greedy and trying to rectify that is going to be a slow process.

We’ve kept our hands off Venezuela

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-68139518.amp

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10715

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gideon_(2020) - *US mercenaries

We haven’t pulled a Vietnam on Venezuela likely because of OPEC connections.

You cannot deny the influences of historical actions on modern politics. There’s a direct line of people who supported / enacted US power ambitions, that you’ve agreed with, to the modern day. Many of these people are either on their deathbed or 1-2 generations gone. Kissinger just died two months ago.

You’re justifying the power projection after the fact. The original question was why does the US have bases everywhere and they didn’t just appear one day. Many bases are in conquered countries from WW2 (Germany, Japan). There’s also history of the US placing troops with countries that nominally align with US interests, despite their despotic nature (S. Korean dictatorship, S. Vietnam, Cuban Bautista government etc.). US operations have also been implicated in overthrows of democracy (Iran shah reinstatement, Guatemala’s 1952 coup on Jacobo Arbenz) and the US has also supported deplorable governments like the Khmer Rouge (nominally communists but at odds with Vietnam in 1977) out of spite.

It’s all power projection, and one that primarily benefits the rich within the United States.

People need to understand that Iran is a direct result of the US and the UKs oil ambitions, because the unpopular reinstatement of the shah bred the environment for the Islamic Revolution to thrive, take power, and cause the problems we see today including the Houthis who clearly would have no love for the US because of its supply of armaments to the Saudis who have been bombing them.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'état

In 2023, the CIA admitted that the move to back up the coup was “undemocratic”.

Honestly one of the funniest things I’ve read on Wikipedia

Agreed that ISIS is a real threat and that it’s all incredibly complex and short responses on Lemmy won’t do the topic Justice.

I disagree with the statement:

We don’t really take power “just to take power”

as the history of US “Manifest Destiny” and colonialism were 100% about taking power. We also have the Monroe doctrine and Rosevelt corollary as examples of the US attempting to take power over an entire hemisphere.

The history of US power ambitions have essentially lead us to the modern day funding of bases across the world as we spend more on our military than the next ~10 nations combined. I’d argue that with two large oceans on either side and friendly nations north and south, that money is not for “defense” purposes.

Meh, the short answer is power projection.

Post WW2, the United States still had their industry intact whereas everywhere else was destroyed so they were the wealthiest nation, which has continued to this day, and leaders at the time wanted to keep it that way.

Interesting article about the wealth: https://medium.com/the-worlds-economy-and-the-economys-world/a-short-history-of-americas-economy-since-world-war-ii-37293cdb640#:~:text=At the end of World,net exporter of petroleum products.

Bases around the world let the US respond to basically any small threat it wants to, which helped keep its “most powerful nation” position.

It hasn’t always been successful and US power hegemony seems to be on the decline, but they still have bases everywhere even if they’re extremely unpopular like Okinawa.

The stream isn’t always consistent and I ain’t got the patience to clean that shit up. Sittings easier.

I haven’t heard this but that would be an interesting read

Some biosafety officers are scary man

This is some “I have to be here on the weekend and I’m gambling the biosafety officer won’t notice” kinda shit lmao