Hi Fester,

I think you are wrong in saying 20% of Iranians are Muslim, more like 95% identify as Muslim. Another example of what happens when extreme religious ideology is allowed to run the secular state. We keep the separation of religion from the state for very good reasons. As for these catastrophic failed states, religious and others finding true stability within, not likely without a seismic shift in the general social and economic conditions within the society. The rise of extremists regimes is not by accident, its the result of dysfunctional human conditions existing within the state, or its the replacement of one radical regime with another, without fundamental social and economic change occurring.

Give you two examples, both subjected to the pain of catastrophic war. One Czarist Russia 1917, a radical change occurred within the state without fundamental social and economic change, inequality and oppression continued for another 80 years. Two Japan 1945, the downfall of the Imperial regime, but with social and economic reform Japan is now a successful modern state.

Hi Fester,

Do you think that looking at what the vassal states are like might give you some insight into what the ruling country is like?

Whether some are better than others or not, I'm not sure there's any escape from it.

We escape relative scrutiny from it all because we're english-speaking and a part of 5-eyes.

The democratic regime change playbook is hard to beat...

Traditionally, they'd shut you out of SWIFT
Sanction you, and set their 5th columns in to stir up civil discontent
Give you IMF loans but only if you allow a western central bank
That you can't pay when they ensure your currency tanks
Make you sell your telecommunications, so they can spy on you
Buy out your ports, your industries...
Leave you're people starting
Fighting amongst hemselves

And there's no negotiating.
Once they sanction you, they've already decided they want you gone.
How do you resist?
They want someone subservient to US interests.

And they'll make money while they drown you.
Threats, Blackmail, Regime Change, Military Intervention.

Take everything and leave your people nothing but debt.
'If only you'd chosen democracy sooner!'

Taking over industries that the people will protest and object to,
Or sanctioning you and making money shorting your currency as it nose-dives
Buying up even more profitable national assets on the cheap that stand to make huge windfalls when sanctions are lifted
Making money selling your neighbours military assets when you start acting out and they can say you represent a threat
Profiting on war market volitality, and propping up their own economy selling war.
All you have to do is sell all your assets for US dollar.
- And make sure you keep a heap in reserve.

The worlds a dirty game.

They say BRICS is anti-America, but it's not.
These countries just want economic soverignty rather than US boots on their neck.
An opportunity to trade with their own currencies and not submit to US playing in a manner they cannot refuse.

"Funny thing is though that many people enraged by colonialism never seem to have Iran on the list."

I suppose in some ways....

Even though I wouldn't necessarily want to live in Iran
Or support their theocratic government and ways
(Not that it's for me to say)

I see them as being a potentially significant part of defeating the empire
...If I really think about it and you really want to know.
Russia, China, Iran as a trading and friendly-towards-each-other block, in which India will join.

I don't seek conflict, but I seek an end to it.

This business of empires making the rules is no good.
I seek an end to it.

A new era where all nations get a say in what's in their own interests
National interests, security interests, an era where we don't spend trillions on wars

And I may not support communism, but the Chinese have efficiency
We have no-direction and wasteful democratic infighting that achieves nothing and takes us backwards

America see everything as a zero sum game.
It doesn't see win-win, like the Chinese are now doing.

The west exploited third world countries to extract the most profits they could.
China wants to lift these nations out of poverty, so their middle class has more money to spend on cheap chinese shite..

I don't like this greedy American-Zionist-control-the-whole-fecking-world world.

We're supposed to evolve, become better, reach the stars
I'm tired of this stale greedy, bs US con-job.
They're empire is going to die anyway.

As for the BRICS block
Sanctioned nations, What were they to do?
It's not anti-American.
It was the U.S. that shut them out of the international trading system
The empires become overstretched militarily and economically
It sanctioned a third of the planet and those nations teamed up looking for an alternative system to keep moving forward.

AC,

Re the Russian language thing....Are you forgetful or just dishonest.

Lavrov said one of the justification for the Russian invasion of Ukraine was that the Ukrainians were trying to stop the use of the Russian language in Ukraine. As usual you fell for that.

I proved to you that:

* in 2014 they had made such an attempt.
* by 2019 they realised that was either wrong or a failure. For whatever reason they rescinded the law.
* by the time the Russians invaded there was no law stopping the use of Russian in Ukraine. Indeed the law specifically allowed it.

You dispute that because Lavrov said otherwise and, in an amazing display of gullibility, you informed me that Lavrov would never lie. So I found the actual Ukrainian legislation in the original Ukrainian, ran it through a translator and showed you the actual clauses where Russian was specifically allowed. You then whimpered away.... yet again. But of course you learned nothing and continued to assert that everything Lavrov said was the truth.

So rather than me just "makes his arguments and then proclaims victory" I spent a good deal of time trying to educate you. If I was dealing with a more honest man I'd ask for an apology or at least an acknowledgment, but alas....

JD,

You started off telling me Thukydides had an agenda.... "Thucydides wasn't endorsing Athenian logic, he was documenting imperial arrogance on the road to ruin. It's a warning, not a defence."

Its taken you this long to finally work out that that is rubbish, that Thukydides had no agenda. So of course, rather than admit it, you try to pretend you never said what you said.

I know you like to play these games.... when I said 'X', I really meant 'Y' and how dare you suggest I didn't know all along that the answer was 'Z'.

Not playing.