Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting!
NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.
On April 09 2026 21:47 KwarK wrote: If only there had been some other way of keeping military spending high in the west after 1945. But the reality is that there were no outstanding geopolitical questions left unresolved after WW2, no ideological divides, no real threats. That’s why they were forced to create conflict in the Middle East to justify military spending.
The real question here is: why would you want to keep military spending high? It's all money that's not going back into the economy. Sure, you do pay the factory workers, steel producers etc. but all you do is produce stuff that's being put on the shelf to go boom later with 0 return on the investment 99% of the time.
If anything we should move towards a world where high military spending is not necessary.
It maybe made sense back in the day when the rate of iteration in the military wasn't that high but it's been accelerating and you don't do stuff that'll serve you for decades but things that are quite often obsolete the moment they leave the assembly line.
On April 09 2026 20:29 LightSpectra wrote: Number of immigrants coming to Canada is just right/too few/too many:
November 2024 - 34%/7%/54% December 2012 - 53%/11%/27%
The number of immigrants didn't vastly change.
To be fair you need to keep in mind it might be a cumulative effect and also changing demographics of who exactly is coming to Canada.
I don't know all the details about immigration issues in Canada but I read it has fewer and fewer immigrants from Europe and US, and more and more immigrants from Asia and Africa compared to 15-20 years ago. So maybe locals are more ok with one source than the other because level of integration can be different between different groups?
And of course it also always depends on other factors - e.g. different situation in economy, house market, healthcare and education can affect whether locals are ok with more people coming or not. So maybe Canada's situation is different with house market or healthcare state or overall economy now compared to 2012?
That’s probably a factor aye, but the general topic seems to be a growing source of anger almost everywhere I’m familiar with.
There seems a lot of bleed through dissatisfaction not just within regions in a country that may have very different migration demographics, but across countries too.
Northern Ireland doesn’t have a massive amount of immigration to begin with, less still non-European/ANZAC, and less again outside the capital of Belfast. Nonetheless it’s still an issue that consistently polls highly in both importance and dissatisfaction.
I mean it’s long been a cause celebre for traditional media of a certain leaning, but social media has amplified that yet further by blurring or removing those international borders rather ironically.
It just feels an increasingly abstracted and basically ragebait topic in certain corners of the internet, and general attitudes may perhaps have somewhat shifted with that.
If Trump really felt trapped by the imminent expiration of his arbitrary deadline for the strait to be reopened then why would he not simply remain in the trap and be humiliated by everyone? What possible reason could he have for extending the deadline after his threats failed?
Do you know what the conclusion of the argument is?
On April 09 2026 22:20 LightSpectra wrote: I don't know about Facebook, but Twitter is designed to make people angry. The dumbest tweets get the most engagement and you get paid for high engagement.
On April 09 2026 20:29 LightSpectra wrote: Number of immigrants coming to Canada is just right/too few/too many:
November 2024 - 34%/7%/54% December 2012 - 53%/11%/27%
The number of immigrants didn't vastly change.
To be fair you need to keep in mind it might be a cumulative effect and also changing demographics of who exactly is coming to Canada.
I don't know all the details about immigration issues in Canada but I read it has fewer and fewer immigrants from Europe and US, and more and more immigrants from Asia and Africa compared to 15-20 years ago. So maybe locals are more ok with one source than the other because level of integration can be different between different groups?
And of course it also always depends on other factors - e.g. different situation in economy, house market, healthcare and education can affect whether locals are ok with more people coming or not. So maybe Canada's situation is different with house market or healthcare state or overall economy now compared to 2012?
Those are all valid points, but I'd say people getting more unhappy with immigrants as wealth inequality spirals is precisely the point. Why is taxing the rich still considered so radical but kicking out immigrants is mainstream, even though it's an overwhelming majority opinion from economists that immigrants are a net economic gain? It's because right-wing media sets the agenda, and there's a lot more of that than left-wing media.
Damn, how much money have I left on the table posting here and not on twitter.
On April 09 2026 22:20 LightSpectra wrote: I don't know about Facebook, but Twitter is designed to make people angry. The dumbest tweets get the most engagement and you get paid for high engagement.
On April 09 2026 21:59 ZeroByte13 wrote:
On April 09 2026 20:29 LightSpectra wrote: Number of immigrants coming to Canada is just right/too few/too many:
November 2024 - 34%/7%/54% December 2012 - 53%/11%/27%
The number of immigrants didn't vastly change.
To be fair you need to keep in mind it might be a cumulative effect and also changing demographics of who exactly is coming to Canada.
I don't know all the details about immigration issues in Canada but I read it has fewer and fewer immigrants from Europe and US, and more and more immigrants from Asia and Africa compared to 15-20 years ago. So maybe locals are more ok with one source than the other because level of integration can be different between different groups?
And of course it also always depends on other factors - e.g. different situation in economy, house market, healthcare and education can affect whether locals are ok with more people coming or not. So maybe Canada's situation is different with house market or healthcare state or overall economy now compared to 2012?
Those are all valid points, but I'd say people getting more unhappy with immigrants as wealth inequality spirals is precisely the point. Why is taxing the rich still considered so radical but kicking out immigrants is mainstream, even though it's an overwhelming majority opinion from economists that immigrants are a net economic gain? It's because right-wing media sets the agenda, and there's a lot more of that than left-wing media.
Damn, how much money have I left on the table posting here and not on twitter.
Considering its reach and involved risks, it's kinda off limits if you don't post there for business and with proper insurances. I don't see why anyone would go there otherwise if not to make money off misinformation or sensationalism.
On April 09 2026 16:57 oBlade wrote: Yes if you add "(and Israel)" to "Trump" then your claim that "Trump" broke a ceasefire by Israel bombing Hezbollah could start to be an accurate description of reality. Very bad thing that the US/Israel (meaning Israel) would break a ceasefire like that.
I was correct in thinking that you'd attempt a silly semantics approach. From my very first post that you replied to, I've said the continued bombing has been done by Israel. Trump has provided cover for that, as both Trump and Israel have attempted to retcon/betray this part of the ceasefire by saying that it's okay to attack Lebanon. This is from the mediator of the peace talks, as I cited earlier, not just from me speculating. Trump's (third, apparently) violation isn't because he's personally doing the bombing; it's because he's saying that his ally's continued bombing of another country is acceptable during this ceasefire. Again: This is bad faith on the side of Trump and Netanyahu. Trump could come out against Israel's continued bombing if he wanted to, but he currently isn't doing so and is in fact approving of it. For that reason, I blame both Netanyahu and Trump for that particular violation.
Yes my mistake for taking a "semantic" approach. I thought when you said Trump broke the ceasefire, it would mean that you thought Trump broke the ceasefire. Not that Israel broke the ceasefire and Trump failed to unbomb Hezbollah. That was the first violation. Not the third. The third violation Ghalibaf mentioned that you ate up was... someone said Iran can't enrich uranium.
That's fair. I used "third" as a nod to the fact that it was one of three violations, but I should have written "one of three" instead. In order of appearance on the list, you're right that it's the first violation mentioned that's related to Trump, not the third violation.
And loyal old Iran has stuck to the ceasefire right? Yes, their bombing of the UAE is clearly just retaliation against Israel.
Like if Jerome punches Tim, Tim's friend Bill should punch a random Sunni Muslim just to get even.
No? Why do you think this? Iran has been far from perfect, and they're attacking off-limits areas too. They clearly seem to be in violation of the mediation too, just like how Trump and Israel are blatantly disregarding the mediation.
On April 09 2026 17:17 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Also, I don't know why you think repeatedly name-dropping Hezbollah somehow provides an exemption from the mediation of "an immediate ceasefire everywhere, including Lebanon and other regions, effective immediately", but it doesn't.
You don't know what name-dropping means either? This is pretty bad. Just naming the group that got bombed is called "naming."
I'm just going to interpret this dodge as a clear concession on your part. "But but but it's Hezbollah!!!!11" doesn't create a special exemption from the mediation.
Name dropping is when you mention a name to make you look better than you are. Not when you know the difference between Iran and Hezbollah.
I'm glad you supposedly know the difference between Iran and Hezbollah, but you've been conflating Lebanon with Hezbollah. The mediator said Lebanon (and all other nearby regions) would be left alone, yet Israel and Trump have changed their minds on Lebanon, and you've been saying it's fine to violate the ceasefire because Hezbollah is being attacked. You even mentioning Hezbollah in the first place was an attempt at name-dropping an evil entity in order to justify the violation of the ceasefire, but my original point was that the ceasefire had been violated in the first place.
Iranian propaganda proves it!
You really need to provide a source for your assertion that the mediation team is in Iran's pocket, because I'm getting tired of you ignoring the fact that a seemingly neutral party is disagreeing with Trump and Israel's retcon. Why do you think that the Pakistani prime minister's statement is an example of "Iranian propaganda"? Just because it's corroborating Iran's statement that the ceasefire would include not bombing Lebanon anymore?
--->> Hezbollah is in Lebanon. <<---
You brought this information to me like I'm supposed to use it to send Blumpf to the principal's office.
I don't know what you mean by bringing Trump to the principal's office. This chronology is what I'm referring to:
First, the mediator of the ceasefire (neutral third party) announced that Lebanon wasn't to be attacked, and that both sides agreed. Iran corroborated this.
Second, Trump and Israel both later stated that actually attacking Lebanon was going to be fair game, not off limits.
Third, I then said that this was an example of Trump violating the original terms of the ceasefire. (It's obviously an example of Israel violating the terms too, but the overall post was about Trump.)
Fourth, you said the terms weren't really violated by Trump because this is all Iranian propaganda and/or that Trump retconning the terms isn't a violation - and that it's okay because it's not as bad as what Israel is doing, which is actually bombing Lebanon - and the only reason I'm trusting these statements is because they disagree with Trump.
Fifth, you said that attacking Hezbollah is actually fine, so therefore attacking Lebanon is fine. If you want to argue that Trump and Israel really have the moral high ground in the grand scheme of things, because Hezbollah is more evil or whatever, that's your prerogative. But that doesn't refute the original point that the terms had been violated by Trump (and Israel). You may say "yes they've been violated, but for good reasons", and that's fine, but that's very different than saying "no they weren't ever violated".
By all accounts this was an 11th hour ceasefire agreement. As such I find it more than plausible for there to be misunderstandings and miscommunications. Pakistani PM may believe he's right, but someone along the line said something wrong, lied, or optimistically fibbed. "So the US and Israel agreed to cease fire?" "Yes" "Everywhere, right?" "Uhh.. Yes"
This is a remarkable walk back that I honestly wasn't expecting. Has your stance really changed again, this time to the thought that everyone is equally wrong and who is to say what truly happened? That's pretty convenient to suggest when the mediator is saying that Trump and Israel are in the wrong. I guess you couldn't find evidence that the Pakistani prime minister was influenced by "Iranian propaganda" after all.
If Trump started an illegal war by bombing Iran in the end of February, why would he need to make a ceasefire only to violate it immediately to allow Israel to fight Hezbollah? Why not just... not make a ceasefire, and continue the illegal war? (This simplified question again assumes Israel is Trump which is not a starting axiom I agree with)
Are you asking me to rationalize Donald Trump's intentions and thought process? The guy whose words, behaviors, and actions are more volatile and ignorant than anyone else's? No thanks. Also, Israel is not Trump lol.
This is why you mentioning Hezbollah is interesting
I didn't. You did. Go back and reread our conversation if you've forgotten already.
I think our dialogue on this topic has run its course. Believe whatever you want, ignore whatever you want, reply with whatever you want, and have a wonderful day.
On April 09 2026 22:20 LightSpectra wrote: I don't know about Facebook, but Twitter is designed to make people angry. The dumbest tweets get the most engagement and you get paid for high engagement.
On April 09 2026 21:59 ZeroByte13 wrote:
On April 09 2026 20:29 LightSpectra wrote: Number of immigrants coming to Canada is just right/too few/too many:
November 2024 - 34%/7%/54% December 2012 - 53%/11%/27%
The number of immigrants didn't vastly change.
To be fair you need to keep in mind it might be a cumulative effect and also changing demographics of who exactly is coming to Canada.
I don't know all the details about immigration issues in Canada but I read it has fewer and fewer immigrants from Europe and US, and more and more immigrants from Asia and Africa compared to 15-20 years ago. So maybe locals are more ok with one source than the other because level of integration can be different between different groups?
And of course it also always depends on other factors - e.g. different situation in economy, house market, healthcare and education can affect whether locals are ok with more people coming or not. So maybe Canada's situation is different with house market or healthcare state or overall economy now compared to 2012?
Those are all valid points, but I'd say people getting more unhappy with immigrants as wealth inequality spirals is precisely the point. Why is taxing the rich still considered so radical but kicking out immigrants is mainstream, even though it's an overwhelming majority opinion from economists that immigrants are a net economic gain? It's because right-wing media sets the agenda, and there's a lot more of that than left-wing media.
Damn, how much money have I left on the table posting here and not on twitter.
Nah, nothing here would do numbers. You need to go into real brain damage territory like Jewish space lasers.
On April 09 2026 22:20 LightSpectra wrote: I don't know about Facebook, but Twitter is designed to make people angry. The dumbest tweets get the most engagement and you get paid for high engagement.
On April 09 2026 21:59 ZeroByte13 wrote:
On April 09 2026 20:29 LightSpectra wrote: Number of immigrants coming to Canada is just right/too few/too many:
November 2024 - 34%/7%/54% December 2012 - 53%/11%/27%
The number of immigrants didn't vastly change.
To be fair you need to keep in mind it might be a cumulative effect and also changing demographics of who exactly is coming to Canada.
I don't know all the details about immigration issues in Canada but I read it has fewer and fewer immigrants from Europe and US, and more and more immigrants from Asia and Africa compared to 15-20 years ago. So maybe locals are more ok with one source than the other because level of integration can be different between different groups?
And of course it also always depends on other factors - e.g. different situation in economy, house market, healthcare and education can affect whether locals are ok with more people coming or not. So maybe Canada's situation is different with house market or healthcare state or overall economy now compared to 2012?
Those are all valid points, but I'd say people getting more unhappy with immigrants as wealth inequality spirals is precisely the point. Why is taxing the rich still considered so radical but kicking out immigrants is mainstream, even though it's an overwhelming majority opinion from economists that immigrants are a net economic gain? It's because right-wing media sets the agenda, and there's a lot more of that than left-wing media.
Damn, how much money have I left on the table posting here and not on twitter.
Nah, nothing here would do numbers. You need to go into real brain damage territory like Jewish space lasers.
The Yeetanyahu weapon system. Ready to shlomogrify the enemies of the state.
I like to see the juxtaposition of stuff like this. The leader of the Democrat party and "Iran" both taking swings at undermining Trump's "aura" as the kids say.
According to this guy the war on Iran is nothing more than a pump & dump scheme gone bad for insider trading that will leave the world in a state where covid lockdowns were a picnic in comparison.
This guy is not a serious economist. I had a long email exchange with him after I found a serious error in one of his books. It was clear he doesn't understand the fundamentals of mainstream economics.
Trump has been rather obviously looking for an off ramp so that doesn't surprise me. Probably also why he was so quick to accept the ceasefire on the basis of a completely ridiculous set of demands from Iran. (I wonder how surprised Iran was when Trump replied 'yes' to what is essentially a full US surrender)
There is no way Netanyahu lets the US just walk away from this tho, they will do whatever they can to keep this going as cover for their actions against Lebanon.
On April 09 2026 04:45 LightSpectra wrote: [quote]
It's a starting point for an administration to pursue from the moment they're in power.
[quote]
Depends on what Congress looks like in this hypothetical scenario.
[quote]
I am aware that Britain was a colonial empire at the time. I am assuming you aware that Attlee was the one who began the decolonization process. So what are you implying here? Nationalizing healthcare, steel, etc. would have failed if there wasn't a colonial empire underpinning it? Or perhaps, there's no point in pursuing socialism because some people somewhere in the global economy will still be exploited?
Do you mean their voters could start demanding it of them (despite them not campaigning on doing that. And/or explicitly campaigning against doing that) after they win?
That also depends on the circumstance of this hypothetical.
I'm saying it's quite well known/documented that the anti-communist "Malayan Emergency" was central even from a strictly financial perspective in what you've described as your Atlee inspired "model for domestic policy".
So I don't believe it is honest to say "without major societal disruptions or violence" unless one is cruelly disregarding a LOT of human beings.
Give me a full, logical argument here. Like, "universal healthcare doesn't work unless some Malayans are being slaughtered because (X) reasons". Because right now all you're saying is "Attlee's government did something bad unrelated to democratic-socialism, what do you have to say about that?"
I'm saying (and the overwhelming historical consensus is) that without the super-exploitation of the people like those during the "Malayan Emergency" Atlee's government (and Britain generally) couldn't close the dollar gap and would have been forced into severe austerity instead developing as a welfare state. So it demonstrably isn't accurate for you to say "without major societal disruptions or violence" using this example.
This is the same sort of phenomena that is demonstrated repeatedly in "How Europe Underdeveloped Africa" where the "development" of European countries is inextricably entangled with the super-exploitation of the people of the colonies.
You're referring to exports to the US to make payments on the vast war debts owed to the US. None of this funded the NHS.
Correct hence why I previously said:
On April 09 2026 05:47 GreenHorizons wrote:
On April 09 2026 05:16 KwarK wrote:
On April 09 2026 05:04 LightSpectra wrote: What's the implication? Nationalization only works if there's a labor shortage? I'm not going to spend time replying to an argument you're only insinuating.
To you, the economy was already state run. People were already getting government issued food rations, a large share of the national product was seized by the government for collective use, a large part of the workforce was already directly or indirectly employed by the state including millions of men in uniform. When compared to the starting point Attlee moved the UK economy away from state control. But even if we ignore that, the Attlee model is inseparable from the cultural context, you can’t meaningfully imagine it outside of a national calamity on the scale of WW2.
And also to GH who seems to want to make this about imperial exploitation, 1945 wasn’t a great time for the British Empire. Colonial treasure wasn’t pouring in to subsidize British socialist programs.
You understand accounting nuances better than I do, so you know that while the Malayan Emergency didn’t directly fund the NHS, it was a vital economic pillar for the British Treasury and the welfare state being developed concurrently.
That much is not really something I know people to dispute?
AND
I'm saying (and the overwhelming historical consensus is) that without the super-exploitation of the people like those during the "Malayan Emergency", Atlee's government (and Britain generally) couldn't close the dollar gap and would have been forced into severe austerity instead developing the NHS in the first place.
The rubber went to America and the money from the rubber stayed in America. + Show Spoiler +
The NHS was a domestic project using domestic resources (mostly labour). The argument that British doctors couldn’t see British patients unless Malayan rubber went to America just doesn’t work. Previously Brits had gone to doctors and paid for them directly. Subsequently they paid taxes and those taxes were used to pay the doctors. American rubber consumption isn’t involved in this transaction.
The two are simply unrelated.
But let’s go down this dumb tangent. Let’s imagine Britain didn’t get involved in global affairs and have all these colonies etc. No rubber revenues, but also no WW2 debt to the US. They can still switch from paying doctors directly in pounds to paying them indirectly in pounds.
The idea that two people living in Britain can’t exchange services with each other unless America gets Malayan rubber is absurd. Healthcare isn’t a precious metal, you don’t export it to balance a trade deficit.
Yeah there was a lot of things involved but this isn't controversial and you're just being pedantic at this point.
Malaya was described by one British Lord in 1952 as the “greatest material prize in South-East Asia”, mainly due to its rubber and tin. These resources were “very fortunate” for Britain, another Lord declared, since “they have very largely supported the standard of living of the people of this country and the sterling area ever since the war ended”.
He added: “What we should do without Malaya, and its earnings in tin and rubber, I do not know”.
The insurgency threatened control over this “material prize”. The Colonial Secretary in Britain’s Labour government, Arthur Creech-Jones, remarked in 1948 that “it would gravely worsen the whole dollar balance of the Sterling Area if there were serious interference with Malayan exports”.
The Labour government of Clement Attlee dispatched the British military to the territory in 1948 in a classic imperial role, largely to protect those commercial interests.
“In its narrower context”, the Foreign Office observed in a secret file, the “war against bandits is very much a war in defence of [the] rubber industry”.
There’s a huge difference between your sources which argue that Malaya was very important for servicing British war debts and your claim which is that British doctors who were seeing British patients privately in 1947 would have been unable to do so in 1948 without Malaya. It’s not pedantry.
While I don't necessarily agree with GH's actual contention, I think his argument boils down to money is fungible. Britain couldn't have had the NHS by the same logic of 'you can't have healthcare because we need to periodically bomb the ME'.
The funds to run the NHS has to come from somewhere, whether it's taxation or some other windfall (eg malayan rubber). And while they obviously could collect the money to support the NHS, they also had other costs that need to come out of the same pool of funds. Paying off war debts would have would have taken priority over socialised medicine (at least that's my interpretation of his argument).
In the same sense that the US has probably more than enough doctors/medical staff, hospitals, medicine and medical equipment to support universal healthcare (especially if so many of the medical admin staff didn't have full time jobs specifically to deny people actual healthcare). But as stupid as the system is, you do live in a system where those funds are coming from the same place as other things the US wants to do as a country, and sometimes those take priority.
If I were to steelman what I read as his argument. Everything a wealthy country does, it can do because they don't need to do something else with that wealth. Many wealthy countries, but certainly true for Britain at the time, has much of it's wealth directly as a result of exploitation of the global south (whether actual colonialism, or more modern resources exploitation). Since all these things they do with that wealth (wherever NHS is down on their list of priorities), it depends on everything else above that priority being supported by this same pool of wealth.
Yeah, close enough. Some details are off, but that looks like a relatively good-faith effort to understand despite not agreeing.
On April 09 2026 03:24 GreenHorizons wrote: Are you saying you want to see the next Democratic nominee run on that platform,
Ideally yes, although I don't think that's a realistic expectation for 2028.
that it's basically what you see as the end goal of democratic socialism,
It's the best possible starting point for further collectivization. The end goal is a Star Trek future.
or perhaps you see it (British society under Attlee's premiership) as reflective of what a society on a path to replacing capitalism (which you support) and embracing democratic socialism might look like within our lifetimes?
I don't want to imply that all sorts of problems that existed in the UK circa 1945-1951 (e.g. colonialism, conservative Christian mores about single motherhood and homosexuality, etc.) are negligible, so I wouldn't word it like this. Only that on a purely economic level, it's feasible to nationalize 20% of the economy within six years without major societal disruptions or violence.
Would it be fair to think of it as something other than a "starting point" if it's not something you believe can even be on the only viable party platform years from now?
It's a starting point for an administration to pursue from the moment they're in power.
Nevermind what it would actually take to get through Congress?
Depends on what Congress looks like in this hypothetical scenario.
I'm sure others will touch on this (Walter Rodney does in How Europe Underdeveloped Africa), but I don't believe you can honestly say "without major societal disruptions or violence" unless you just don't count a lot of humans that endured major societal disruptions and violence as part of facilitating the British economy generally.
I am aware that Britain was a colonial empire at the time. I am assuming you aware that Attlee was the one who began the decolonization process. So what are you implying here? Nationalizing healthcare, steel, etc. would have failed if there wasn't a colonial empire underpinning it? Or perhaps, there's no point in pursuing socialism because some people somewhere in the global economy will still be exploited?
That doesn't sound like a "Starting point"? Do you mean their voters could start demanding it of them (despite them not campaigning on doing that. And/or explicitly campaigning against doing that) after they win?
I'm saying it's quite well known/documented that the anti-communist "Malayan Emergency" was central even from a strictly financial perspective in what you've described as your Atlee inspired "model for domestic policy".
So I don't believe it is honest to say "without major societal disruptions or violence" unless one is cruelly disregarding a LOT of human beings.
Wasn't really specifically a point about NHS as a concept (like nationalized healthcare generally) but the well developed analysis of Walter Rodney and many others about general European domestic policy that required the super-exploitation of others to develop it, and specifically at that moment, stabilize their currency by exploiting the "sterling area".
In that, there is also a political component about what it takes to actually pass the kind of legislation that would be required for an "Atlee inspired" government and how allowing the capitalists to maintain/increase the super-exploitation of people outside the country to alleviate the pain of anything they conceded to their domestic workers is also critical.
Trump has been rather obviously looking for an off ramp so that doesn't surprise me. Probably also why he was so quick to accept the ceasefire on the basis of a completely ridiculous set of demands from Iran. (I wonder how surprised Iran was when Trump replied 'yes' to what is essentially a full US surrender)
There is no way Netanyahu lets the US just walk away from this tho, they will do whatever they can to keep this going as cover for their actions against Lebanon.
What do you mean cover? Are they not being extremely open about their goals of removing Hezbollah from Lebanon? They are even openly talking about increasing the buffer zone.
The “cover” for attacking Iranian targets in Lebanon was Hezbollah sending rockets into Israel when Israel attacked Iran.
Trump has been rather obviously looking for an off ramp so that doesn't surprise me. Probably also why he was so quick to accept the ceasefire on the basis of a completely ridiculous set of demands from Iran. (I wonder how surprised Iran was when Trump replied 'yes' to what is essentially a full US surrender)
There is no way Netanyahu lets the US just walk away from this tho, they will do whatever they can to keep this going as cover for their actions against Lebanon.
What do you mean cover? Are they not being extremely open about their goals of removing Hezbollah from Lebanon? They are even openly talking about increasing the buffer zone.
The “cover” for attacking Iranian targets in Lebanon was Hezbollah sending rockets into Israel when Israel attacked Iran.
There is limited time in most peoples lives for news, and 'America sends world economy into chaos, oil is running out' is bigger news then 'Israel is still killing their neighbours'. Without the war in Iran I believe there would be a more global pressure against Israel's actions.
On April 09 2026 23:25 Introvert wrote: Immigration is a particularly poor example for social media exacerbation. Multiple times in US history, and I'm pretty sure in Europe, immigration and the treatment of immigrants has been contentious. Newspapers have been contributing to that throughout the last few hundred years. Social media might alter the exact dynamics oe form but trying to pin it as a cause is lazy and overly dismissive of what people are actually arguing about.
I’d argue it is probably the biggest example of social media exacerbation, at least that I’ve encountered on me travels.
Agreed 100% with the rest of your post. I mean I don’t think you’ll have arguments in here that fears or dislike of some outgroup moving in is anything new.
It simply wasn’t feasible for most folks to spend possibly cumulative hours a day reading negative stories on immigration from all over the globe, or discuss them with others from all over the globe prior to the social media error. Especially folks who don’t consider themselves that politically minded. It’s gotta have some effect.
Add to that well, despite being imperfect institutions, ye olde traditional media has tended to operate under both certain restraints, as well as its own ethical code to some degree. They (generally) can’t or won’t just outright fabricate things, boundaries that may, but frequently don’t exist in the social media sphere.
It ends up being pretty damn poisonous to any kind of sensible discourse on the topic.
I mean, what one does about it is another question, it’s hard to argue that certain parts of the United States don’t have huge numbers of illegal migrants floating around.
What I tend to observe these days is people will transplant something that is a pertinent factor elsewhere, to their own locale where it perhaps is not remotely pertinent. Which was much less of a thing with traditional media that tends to be nationally focused by virtue of their commercial models.
It probably comes as no surprise that I don’t view this development in a particularly positive light. It is quite counter-intuitive but from where I’m sitting internationalisation of discourse has bred a more entrenched anti-immigrant attitude more broadly.
Trump has been rather obviously looking for an off ramp so that doesn't surprise me. Probably also why he was so quick to accept the ceasefire on the basis of a completely ridiculous set of demands from Iran. (I wonder how surprised Iran was when Trump replied 'yes' to what is essentially a full US surrender)
There is no way Netanyahu lets the US just walk away from this tho, they will do whatever they can to keep this going as cover for their actions against Lebanon.
What do you mean cover? Are they not being extremely open about their goals of removing Hezbollah from Lebanon? They are even openly talking about increasing the buffer zone.
The “cover” for attacking Iranian targets in Lebanon was Hezbollah sending rockets into Israel when Israel attacked Iran.
There is limited time in most peoples lives for news, and 'America sends world economy into chaos, oil is running out' is bigger news then 'Israel is still killing their neighbours'. Without the war in Iran I believe there would be a more global pressure against Israel's actions.
Maybe, but Hezbollah is also really bad for Lebanon, their prime minister has instructed their security forces to clear the capital of “non-state arms”, which basically means Hezbollah.
Iran needs to stop having their armies in different countries destabilizing the region and providing cover for Iran to start and keep wars going. And until recently they could do so without it impacting Iran.
Shitting on Israel is obviously deserved in a lot of cases, because they have done and do a lot of bad shit. But I’m not sure that attacking Hezbollah or even Iran is one of them. And unlike Trumps ego driven, no plan, bombing frenzy. Israel has a plan, real goals, and they are not all evil.
As Kwark has articulated, ending the Iranian would be a huge win for Iran and the whole region. Done properly this could have been a win for a lot of people (as much as war can be.)
Number of immigrants coming to Canada is just right/too few/too many:
November 2024 - 34%/7%/54% December 2012 - 53%/11%/27%
The number of immigrants didn't vastly change. Consider also that even people against immigration don't always consider it an urgent issue, so that 27% from 2012 is an even smaller number when campaign season is on and your party has to decide on what to campaign and how.
Now, those people are perhaps justified in being mad about being ignored, but 1 person being mad remains 1 person. How did that anger spread to other people who went on to claim "we are the majority and we were ignored"?
Even for myself. I am supportive of reasonably high immigration to overcome our low birth rates. I'm glad that we were sponsoring Syrian refugees, etc, etc. And had I been polled in 2024, I would also have said we were bringing in too many too fast.
Furthermore, there was some shenanigans in how many students we were bringing in with recruiters misleading students (huge financial incentives for the colleges). CBC's The Fifth Estate exposed some of this. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/intl-student-program-1.7095990
And rightly, the Carney government has tightened up on the international student program. He has also scaled down immigration from Trudeau's highs.
Sure a lot of the college diploma mill stuff was spread on social media, but there were real abuses of the system and the increase in immigration numbers were real and substantial. I wouldn't blame social media for this one except as a catalyst.
On April 10 2026 01:57 Vivax wrote: The general strategy seems to be to shoot first and negotiate later. Seems familiar. Exemplary statesmanship.
By Hezbollah or Israel? Because Israel didn’t attack in Lebanon until Hezbollah fired at them. Iran proper is the opposite of course.
Lebanon’s leadership seems really tired of getting pulled into Irans war with Israel and sees the weakening of Hezbollah as a chance to finally be rid of them. It has been an awkward dance for a long time to have the most powerful army in Lebanon (or at least equal) not being the Lebanese army.
EPT
