Lester_Peterson [he/him]

Given their practice of restrained and selective targeting away from civilians, and public commitment against further escalation, its nearly impossible for me to imagine Iran approving (even tacitly) of an untargetted mass shooting at a transit station in a neighbourhood that is 1/3rd Arab, as an element in Operation True Promise 2.

To me, this raises the question of how the attack then came to coincide nearly exactly with the operation. It seems extremely unlikely that it was a coincidence. Was Hamas informed of the operation in advance by Iran, and they then planned the shooting to coincide with it without telling?

Absolutely, and while manpower is something which could be remedied in the next few years by throwing money at the problem (which the U.S. has) the Navy’s rotted sealift supply capacity can not. The resources a fleet consumes during war are astronomical, and American currently could not supply most of its ships simultaneously if it wanted to right now, during a relative peace. The Navy has only 33 active duty auxiliary vessels, and the majority of civilian ships in the sea-lift reserve are not currently seaworthy.

The incomparable logistics advantage the PRC would have in the Taiwan strait (because their infrastructure and industrial base is right there instead of across an Ocean) is another reason why America would be virtually guaranteed to lose a protracted naval war there.

I’m usually one to err on the side of caution when it comes to estimating America’s strength, the PLA certainly isn’t relying on wishful thinking when they assess the strength of the U.S. military; so I won’t either. However, practically all signs point to U.S. shipbuilding being extremely cooked. The best comparison of the relative effectiveness of a country’s shipbuilding industrial capacity comes from their share of merchant tonnage. From that, the PRC produces half of global tonnage in civilian ships every year, while the U.S share is 0.2%.

American shipbuilders survive entirely due to military contracts, where their performance is characterized by cost overruns, poor workmanship, and constant delays. On the other hand, the luxury of choices offered to PLANF procurement means China can launch new naval vessels at a rate and price magnitudes better than the U.S. navy. Comparing the difference in production efficiency between the two countries, and it’s like how in WW2 the USSR spent one-one hundredth the man hours to build a single T-34 as the Nazis did for a Tiger tank (not an exaggeration, the costs were 3000 man hours for a T-34 and 300,000 per Tiger). And half the T-34s wouldn’t break down before arriving to the battlefield.

What lingering advantages the United States would have in a naval conflict come down to their inertia and (IMO) still superior air power. Both edges are fading fast, and 2027 may well be what the Pentagon has determined to be their “point of no return” after which PLA dominance in the Taiwan strait will be undisputed.

In other dying empire news, the US Navy’s recently released Navigation Plan has the primary goal of preparing the Navy for war with the PRC by 2027. The plan also reads like a hybrid between marketing speak and a r/worldnews comment

reminder that there’s no such thing as a Nobel prize in economics, and this guy won the “Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel”

Letting the Biden team schedule a debate before the DNC may become an all-time bag fumble

He allowed the Dems to replace the only person in America who was sure to lose against him

no term limits

no constitution, through Parliament the ruling regime can overrule the judiciary at will and ignore human rights treaties

antidemocratic electoral system where a party winning 1/3rd of the vote gets 2/3rds of seats

state media spewing hatred towards refugees and trans people, inciting violent riots

Chairman Xi, my people yearn for freedom

The clause that “the Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour” has been repeatedly interpreted to mean that all Federal Judges have lifetime tenure, provided they are not removed, and the current SCOTUS would absolutely support that interpretation if they got a chance to.

deleted by creator

In the final analysis, the state is an organ of class rule. But a class which must rely on the naked power of state coercion to rule in the first analysis as well, is one living in a state of siege, rebellion, war or revolution. As such, the State strives to rule through consent and neutralize the class conflict which would otherwise tear it apart, and does so by appearing to be a power standing above society, which mediates class conflicts and keeps them within the bounds of order.

However, as much as it is an institution for the enforcement of a Capitalist mode of production, the Liberal state cannot appear to be impartial and just, without in on occasion being just by checking the most blatant and hypocritical excesses of unrestrained Capitalists. This is discussed in part by E.P. Thompson:

If the law is evidently partial and unjust, then it will mask nothing, legitimize nothing, contribute nothing to any class’s hegemony. The essential precondition for the effectiveness of law, in its function as ideology, is that it shall display an independence from gross manipulation and shall seem to be just. It cannot seem to be so without upholding its own logic and criteria of equity; indeed, on occasion, by actually being just.

The rhetoric and the rules of a society are something a great deal more than sham. In the same moment they may modify, in profound ways, the behaviour of the powerful, and mystify the powerless. They may disguise the true realities of power, but, at the same time, they may curb that power and check its intrusions

As someone working in a free legal clinic serving low-income clients I see this daily. I fully appreciate the ways in which laws and state institutions -in my jurisdiction- provide real protections to workers against their bosses, tenants against landlords, and consumers against corporations. However, at the same time I cannot lose sight of the fact that in every excess of Capitalism that the state shields the working class from, the state enforces the class-domination from which it arises; class-domination whose other (legal) immiseration are protected by state power.

The process of legally converting a business to an employee-owned cooperative can vary significantly depending on what jurisdiction you’re in. There’s different criteria for creating one (some places might require more than 3 directors to create a Coop) and all sorts of statutory considerations unique to wherever you are.

If you’re serious about doing this, I would sincerely recommend reaching out for legal advice first. This is your livelihood, and you do not want to make a mistake that creates difficulty down the line. Depending on where you live, there may be a public interest organization, or business law clinic, that can provide some legal information for free. You could look up “(where you live) non profit legal assistance” and see if anything shows up.

Ukraine’s deindustrialization since the fall of communism is incredible.

In 1992 Ukraine was the industrial powerhouse of the USSR, with manufacturing holding a 45% share of GDP. By 2022 that share declined to just 8%, with Ukraine transformed into an outpost of American agri-business. One whose only remaining industrial policies were to sell off what was left of state enterprises while praying to become the cheap place for Western tech to outsource.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NV.IND.MANF.ZS?locations=UA

The artist plays both sides so she always stays on top