Russia will simply destabilize anything it can. They tried to get all of Africa, but it turns out they can see through their bullshit like everyone else, so they’ve decided to fuck with a handful of countries instead. These countries, by the way, are often responsible for vast diamond mining operations, with Russia being the number one country for both sourcing and laundering blood diamonds on the planet.

The people organizing this shit are the ones who are becoming African mining oligarchs. It’s essentially the same as Russia’s attempted playbook in Ukraine.

They will never collect. This is like busting a guy selling grams on the corner, releasing him the next day and claiming you’ve shut down the entire drug running operation.

These aren’t some rinky dink operations, these are huge shell companies housed in office buildings with cubicles employing hundreds of scammers. It’s part of an organized crime syndicate, and somewhere along the line there’s some near-billionaire and a number of politicians behind the entire scheme. That’s what they mean by the nebulous statement of it being “transnational.”

Awesome, hopefully they’ll do it to all the others. Maybe take a few oligarch yachts with them along for the ride to the briny deep.

What do you mean? I can’t think of anything more stable than a grown man burning children’s dolls on the internet after watching a movie based on a toy designed for 6-12 year old girls.

Christians are often times the least Christ-like people you’ll ever meet.

It didn’t “infect” anything. It was always here. I noticed it when I moved from Vancouver to Calgary as a kid. If you live in one of Canada’s three major cities, you just aren’t exposed to it, but the second you get into the suburbs or further, it’s on full display. There’s a reason we had Harper for an entire decade, gagging scientists, cutting corporate taxes, cuts to education and health care, and driving profits into the hands of the rich.

Latinos subscribe heavily to the machismo personality = good, and that any threat against it is a threat to their existence. They are raised religious with heavy incentive on strong family structures, something that conservatives use as a weapon to curry favor.

Asians tend to be extremely conservative, particularly Chinese immigrants. They grew up in an authoritarian world, and view the progressive policies of the West as antithetical to their own. They don’t care if Trump is a racist, or blames them for the Kung Flu, because he represents their views on what a government should be.

Stop calling them conservatives. This level of ultranationalism has fascist written all over it.

The both sides message is particularly insidious because it takes a real criticism and then equates it with something that is potentially much worse. It does nothing but limit options, and breeds nihilistic cynicism and nothing more. The worst part about it is that it is based on an absolute lie: the idea of both sides being the same doesn’t make any fucking sense, because in this world nothing is the same. If it was the same, it wouldn’t need to have a distinction. It’s an argument against progress, and therefore a wholly conservative viewpoint in that it states that rather than choosing the best of the two options to not bother at all. To stay the same, or even revert.

It’s totally dystopian and reminds me of Russian propaganda, which is designed to erode faith in everything, so that the people in power can make the decisions while the people feel helpless.

You could have Trump come out and say it to him directly and he wouldn’t believe it anyways. Your friend chooses to believe what they believe the way a fanatic believes in their delusions. It only serves to reaffirm their belief structure, and nothing else. If Trump pulled a 180 tomorrow, these people would simply claim that he has been brainwashed or that he’s a paid imposter, or anything else.

They are aggressively stupid. They would rather take the whole ship down with them, than admit they might be wrong.

It’s true, you get microtransactions for everything these days. I pay a fee (technically I don’t get a discount) because I told my cell phone provider to stop sending me spam multiple times a week. I’d rather pay the couple bucks per month extra then have to deal with that bullshit.

You just need to do more drugs

It worked against the Nazis. It worked against Americans in Vietnam. What exact scenario are you imagining where insurgency and sabotage doesn’t work against an occupying military?

I dunno about all that. He wasn’t exactly a beacon of intellectualism when he was young either.

uh… what?

The song was basically a diss track aimed at DMX among others. Not sure if you were being sarcastic and knew that, but just in case you didn’t. The previous section of the verse is “Motherfuck D, Motherfuck M”

Exactly. Peaceful protest only works against a civilized opponent.