#all roads lead to putin

[originalleftist]

Orange Fuck has declared that if he wins reelection, he will lift sanctions on Russia and Iran.

This is what Putin is paying Republicans for.

Vote Blue!

[originalleftist]

I'm getting real sick of this "How dare you ever care about anything other than Gaza for one second ever" routine.

Of course Gaza's important. AND SO ARE LOTS OF OTHER THINGS. The rest of the world didn't suddenly cease on October 7th. And those other issues are actually interconnected to the war in Gaza, in ways most people likely aren't aware of. This line isn't showing support for Gaza. It's USING Gaza and Gazans as tools to suppress and harass other important causes and their supporters.

Whenever you see this kind of false binary, where someone goes "How dare you care about this thing instead of this other thing", when it is in fact perfectly possible to care about both, watch out- they're either trying to manipulate, gaslight, and coerce people into silence, or someone else is manipulating, gaslighting and coercing them and they're passing it on.

And in this case, I don't know this person, but I doubt it's a coincidence at all that there is HEAVY overlap between the "From the River to the Sea" wing of the Left and the "Putin apologist" wing of the Left (a common denominator seems to be a hostility towards the "Western establishment", combined with a very simplified, "Anyone who's against the West is therefore the Good Guys" view of the world). Nor do I think it is a coincidence that Vlad is an ally of Iran, is therefore AT LEAST indirectly culpable in the October 7th attack, and happily uses the war in Gaza TO DEFLECT ATTENTION FROM UKRAINE.

Meanwhile, his Republican fifth columnists in Congress also use aid to Israel as a pre-condition to... yup, you guessed it, block aid to Ukraine.

[liberalsarecool]

All GOP roads lead to Putin.

[thashining]

With Donald Trump all roads lead back to Vladimir Putin in his pursuit of Greenland and Canada!

[lizcameron]

Daddy's Little Girl

This one is a little off-brand. No smut, fluff, or angst. Just a little creativity exercise.

Request: “Would you write a dark fic with jj x sister!reader where she kills their dad with a knife after all he’s done to them. She gets arrested, of course.” - @tracymbcm

Word Count: 1501

Warning(s): MURDER, mentions of SA, domestic violence

Thank you @pankowperfection for passing along this request. I hope I did it justice! It’s not as dark as I anticipated; I couldn’t bring myself to make it premeditated.

You could hear shouting as you walked along the curve of the dirt road leading to your neglected house. Quarrels like this were not uncommon in the Maybank household. Your father was always coming home high on something heavy, his mood worsened by alcohol. Most of the time, he was bitter and spat harsh words at you and your brother. That was the easy end of the stick. When he got really drunk, he was a mean, violent man. He would do and say spiteful things out of resentment and self-pity. He blamed you and JJ for your mother’s sudden departure, having left when you were 5 and JJ was 6, though you believed she must have seen a ghost of what he would become and fled before things got really bad.

You sigh heavily, slowing your steps, hoping to wait out the argument until JJ and your dad inevitably shut themselves in their respective rooms. When you hear a crash and shattering, you sprint to the porch door on the side of the house, throwing it open to see that the two men must have been at it for a good while. The entire living room is in shambles, coffee table on its side, papers littered everywhere, and the couch shoved out of its typical place. The sheets that usually hang by nails to cover the windows are torn down, blinds behind bent and broken.

Your eyes scan the room, and you spot the pile of dishes shattered on the floor before landing on your brother, who has your father in a headlock. JJ is struggling, Luke being shorter than him but with the weight of muscle and a beer gut giving him an edge. Luke is clawing at JJ’s forearm over his airway, but JJ has his back braced against the kitchen counter and one leg pushing against the counter across from him, the support making up for Luke’s weight advantage.

“JJ, what the fuck,” you scream as you rush into the kitchen and try to move past Luke’s kicking legs. “Let him go!”

“No can do, little sis,” JJ strains. “‘M not lettin’ him get me back.”

You stare, aghast, eyes raking over your dad’s flailing body. You are severely out-gunned in the current situation. Not knowing what else to do, you shove at JJ, trying to loosen his grip on your father.

“Shit, Y/n!” JJ shouts. “Get outta the way before he gets you square in the nose. Just go to your room!”

“Enough, J! You’re gonna kill ‘im,” you wail.

JJ scoffs, but you can tell he’s beginning to weaken. “Just putin’ dear ol’ dad to bed. Don’t worry; he’ll be up by mornin’.”

You grit your teeth in frustration, widening your stance to steady yourself. You push against JJ’s shoulder again, this time not letting up until JJ loses his balance and tips over, back hitting the wall. Luke is on the ground with him, choking in air.

Before JJ can reach for him again, Luke scrambles to his feet, putting the length of the small kitchen between the two. Both men are heaving, trying to catch their breath from their struggle.

“Now what is this all about? Are you drunk, Dad?” you ask needlessly. You can smell the beer and cheap whiskey in the room, and it’s not coming from JJ.

Luke ignores your comments and locks eyes with JJ. “Big mistake, boy,” he rasps. “You shoulda gone home to yer boyfriend, Routledge, like ya always do.”

JJ grunts at that remark but doesn’t let it phase him.

“What’s a-matter, boy? Can’t finish the job? Gonna let your pretty little sister do it for you?” Luke drawls with a snicker.

You snap your eyes up to JJ’s and see the fire in his pupils. Nothing infuriated him more than when your dad spoke of you in that way. In the past few months, Luke had started commenting on your body and your “pretty little mouth,” little insinuations here and there when he was particularly too far gone. You insisted he didn’t mean it like that, but JJ knew where Luke’s thoughts leaned when he’d had so much to drink that even his murky boundaries muddied.

JJ roared as he charged across the room toward Luke, but your father was too quick, the coke in his systems making his senses a little sharper than JJ’s were through his cloud of rage. Luke dodged your brother, catching the collar of his shirt and dragging him down to where he pinned him to the floor. He straddled JJ with his hands around your brother’s throat.

It all happened so quickly. You hadn’t had any time to react, to stop JJ. Now he was jerking under your father, trying to get out of his hold, but it was no use. Without his legs under him, JJ couldn’t overpower Luke. You knew your father wouldn’t stop, not after JJ had put him in a similar position just moments earlier.

“Stop it, Dad! Get offa him,” you scream, moving to try to push him off of JJ, but Luke swats you away. You shove at him again, and his arm swings out and catches you in the cheek just under your eye. You ignore the wetness that drips down to your jaw as you can see your brother turning a sickening shade.

“Daddy, please! You’re hurting him,” you wail, violent sobs now shaking your body.

“He did this, Y/n! He asked for it,” Luke hollers back.

JJ’s movements begin to slow, and you panic, knowing you’ll surely lose your brother if you don’t get Luke off of him. You’re hyperventilating as you look through blurry eyes around the room for something to hit Luke hard enough to render him unconscious long enough for you and JJ to make your escape. Your hands clatter along the kitchen counter as you fumble blindly for anything to help you. Your fingers clasp around a handle over the stovetop and you raise it, not cognizant of its weight.

Blinking back your tears, you make your way over to the struggle by the kitchen table. You raise your arm, implement in hand, and bring it down swiftly to the side of your father’s head. You do not hear a resonating sound as you expected from a frying pan against your father’s head, but rather a sharp, wet sound. You blink several times around the confusion, clearing your eyes, and as the blur dissipates, your gaze lands upon Luke leaning lax over JJ with the sharp edge of a meat cleaver sunk just above his ear.

The house quiets as your sobs stop. The only sounds remaining are the harsh breaths both you and JJ drag in. JJ pushes out from under the weight, letting it fall with a dense thud.

“Y/n… Y/n,” he whispers, conscious not to startle you. He knows you could crumble at any moment, and you don’t have time for that.

JJ could hear the sirens in the distance. The neighbors must have called the cops because of all the screaming. You were in shock, though, and didn’t hear them.

“Y/n, you have to move. We don’t have time to run,” he says gently. When you don’t budge, he grabs you by the shoulders and begins guiding you. “You have to lie down. Lie down next to him.”

JJ menuevers you to the floor, laying you back beside the kitchen table. When your hand touches the growing puddle beneath you, the glaze over your eyes pulls back and your face contorts. You look over at your father’s lifeless body beside you, then bring your gaze to meet your brother’s.

JJ’s mind is a million miles ahead of yours already. “We’ll say he was trying to take advantage of you. Ya’ got the cut on your cheek to prove your struggle. I walked in and stopped the fucker with the first thing I could get my hands on. C’mon, lay down. We have to spread the blood so it looks like he was on top of you,” he rambles, motioning for you to comply.

Your grimace deepens, and you can feel your stomach starting to churn. “J, no, that’s- that’s not what happened. He was killing you,” you croak, throat tight.

JJ pulled his head back, looking at you incredulously. “Y/n, I’m not letting you go to jail for this. It was me. I did this. He was trying to hurt you,” your brother pleads. The look in JJ’s eyes is excruciating. “Please,” JJ whispers as you hear the screen door swing shut.

Shoupe takes a few steps in, hands poised on his hips. “Kids,” he begins. “What the hell happened here?”

[qqueenofhades]

and the thing is, they're not bluffing. that's the shit i saw so much of in the lead up to 2016, "trump's just bluffing" "he won't actually build the wall" "they can't actually do this"

they have demonstrated they have no regard for any kind of law, any kind of thing that tells them they can't do something. they want to do it and they will and they are literally telling us that. i know people like to make excuses to comfort themselves because this is some scary shit but..... this is their plan. anyone who refuses to take it seriously is just as bad as the people who've created it for me.

It truly, truly baffles me how anyone could look at what's happened (SCOTUS overturning Roe + all its other terrible decisions, an ATTEMPTED FUCKING COUP on January 6, Putin openly endorsing Trump, the literal Nazis picketing Disneyland in Florida, the attempts to making DRIVING ALONG A ROAD in Texas illegal if you might be taking a woman out of their fascist dystopia for essential reproductive care, all the onslaught of anti-trans legislation, etc) and still insist that they're "bluffing" or "they won't/can't actually do that." But that's what happens when you live in a hermetically online bubble where only the tiny abstracts of ever more distorted arguments about Moral Purity matter to you, and are a) never once applied to the real world, b) scoffed off or disregarded whenever someone attempts to do so, or c) somehow used to argue that the only political party and candidate capable of staving this off for the next electoral cycle (i.e. the Democrats and Biden) are "actually worse." I'm sick to the fucking back teeth of it. So. Yeah.

[darkmaga-returns]

by John Helmer, Moscow    @bears_with

When former president Dmitry Medvedev (leading image, left), deputy head of the Security Council; the Russian military bloggers; and the GRU’s favoured journalist are as silent on Russian military action in Syria as they are at the moment, the signal they are sending is unmistakeably loud. 

It is the sound of recriminations for President Vladimir Putin (centre); for the commanders of Russia’s forces in Syria;   for General Valery Gerasimov (right), head of the General Staff, the GRU, and the Defense Ministry – all for having failed to detect, warn, or act on the Turkish, Israeli and American preparation of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) forces for their drive to Damascus to replace Bashar al-Assad,  and allowing the Israeli Air Force (IAF) to stop Hezbollah from reinforcing its units in Syria from Lebanon, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps from flying reinforcements from Iran. 

“Yes,” says a well-informed Moscow source, “what we see in Syria is the sum of the worst misjudgements and mistakes the Russians made in the Ukraine. This is the Kremlin for one hundred percent. But in the Ukraine there has been learning from the mistakes and recovery. I don’t believe the defeat in Syria will lead to Putin making more concessions to Washington on Ukraine. On the contrary, I believe it hardens the positions on the Ukraine and releases the General Staff to wage strategic war with the US.”

There is a line of thinking in the General Staff, hinted in reporting by Russian military bloggers, which has proposed to preserve the bases at Tartus and Khmeimim, and establish a defence in depth between the north-south D35 road  and the sea. This territory is west of the M5 highway linking Aleppo, Hama, Homs and Damascus, all of which HTS have captured.  This roughly approximates the territory known in the Ottoman Empire until 1914 as the sanjak of Latakia. 

A reliable military source says “the Russians would need to hold the north-south M53, D35, and D34 highways. This would give [Syrian Special Forces Commander General Suhayl]  Hassan the capacity to maintain the defence all along this new border. This means retaking Masyaf, an important road junction west of Hama, and also Rabu.” 

Hassan was last reported to have been headed for Latakia; there is no sign that he and his forces are capable of fight.  

Assad and his family have arrived in Moscow with family members, the state news agency Tass has reported. Tass added the hint that negotiations are under way for evacuation of the bases. “Russian officials are in touch with representatives of armed Syrian opposition, whose leaders have guaranteed security of Russian military bases and diplomatic missions on the Syrian territory.”  

[highlights-of-the-lowlife]

okay i need to get this out because its consuming me. today’s attempted coup in russia was WILD. its truly unprecedented.

wagner has shot down at least 6 aircraft. 5 helicopters and a fucking airborne command unit. think a 737 full of expensive surveillance equipment and maybe some commanders. the death toll is possibly in the dozens. there’s no way this was a false flag or a psy op. wagner committed literal murder today.

and yet putin backed down. the roads to moscow were dug up and the bridges mined while he fled. at least according to the public facing agreement they have dropped all arrest records for wagner troops who i must emphasize marched on a russian city and killed russian solders. prigozhin has left? been sent to? exiled to? belarus of all places but is evading consequences publicly.

of all the things to happen i would not have picked that. putin just rolled over and took it. it can only lead me to believe that either russia had nothing to fend off the wagner convoy or the fight would have been too militarily disastrous for russia to continue the fight in ukraine. it wasn’t out of concern for civilians caught in the crossfire. russia has proven time and time again they don’t care about that even for optics. just look at their ‘counter-terrorist’ missions for proof.

behind the scenes who the fuck knows what is going on. prigozhin probably has a price on his head and so does putin. now they will become increasingly paranoid. wagner and russian forces camped near each other will spend more time monitoring for a backstab than monitoring ukraine. a failed assassination attempt will kick off the hostilities all over again and there will be attempts at some point because putin can’t leave priggy alive.

putin has ruined his hard man image which is vital to maintaining a dictatorship. if its proven that motivated people can move on the capital then nobody takes your shit anymore. it will embolden priggy because at least outwardly he’s gotten away with a coup. if you take one thing away from this its that this is chapter one. there will be another internal conflict in russia within 6 months.

as for the war effort in ukraine: six airframes down, probably a dozen pilots dead, internal reshuffling of wagner forces causing gaps on the frontline temporarily and possibly russian forces being permanently relocated to moscow in order to prevent another coup. we all hoped for a rip each other’s dick off situation but we will have to wait for that. not for long tho.

[contemplatingoutlander]

"With him, all roads lead to Putin."

--Nancy Pelosi, regarding Trump

When a "dean of world politics at Moscow State University" says on Russian television that he sees Trump as the "destroyer of America," what more evidence do we need that Trump is a witting or unwitting useful idiot for Putin?

Russian state media called out former President Donald Trump on Wednesday, saying that he is looked at as "the destroyer of America" amid discussions of the 2024 presidential election.

While speaking with Russian presenter Vladimir Solovyov about Trump, the pundits played a soundbite of the former president's interview with Fox host Sean Hannity. Trump can be heard saying, "Ukraine is being obliterated." The clip of the broadcast was shared on Twitter by Julia Davis, founder of the Russian Media Monitor watchdog group.

Soloyov responds, "And it will be destroyed. Who needs it? Who needs Ukraine where they don't respect Russians?"

Andrey Sidorov, deputy dean of world politics at Moscow State University, then responds, "Trump is coming. Think of him as you will, I always saw him and still see him as a destroyer of America."

[beardedmrbean]

“If the old parties had done their jobs properly then the AfD would not exist,” Ingolf complains, echoing a common sense that the rest of Germany looks down on so-called “Ossis” in the east.

Far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) have already won the most votes in regional elections this month in the eastern state of Thuringia. Now Germany’s bracing for a further political shockwave, as polls suggest the AfD could also take the most votes in Brandenburg state's election in a few weeks time.

Tucked away near the Polish border, in the two tiny villages of Jämlitz and Klein Düben, support for the far right has soared.

A former conservative (CDU) voter, Ingolf is frustrated about how successive governments have handled education, saying standards were better when he was a boy growing up in the communist German Democratic Republic.

He voices anxiety about Germany’s flatlining economy as well as immigration, comparing the far-right riots in England this summer to “civil war-like conditions”.

Disorder that, while nothing like a civil war, has stoked narratives about the potential for violent clashes within multicultural communities.

“That’s not what we want here in Germany,” he says.

In Jämlitz, most notable for a large goose farm, the idea of civil strife couldn’t feel further away.

Nor could the war raging in Ukraine. But the AfD’s call to stop sending weapons to Kyiv is also resonating strongly.

“The money for Ukraine is an issue,” says Yvonne, who sees all war as “senseless” as we chat to her just down the road.

“And this is our tax money that is sent abroad. We have enough things to fix in our own country.”

However, Yvonne is leaning towards another anti-establishment party launched only this year that also opposes supplying arms to Ukraine and which is a surging force in German politics: the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW).

Ms Wagenknecht’s personal brand of “left-wing conservatism” has already propelled her party this month into the potential role of kingmaker in Saxony and Thuringia.

However, for her critics, she has simply fashioned another unwelcome populist, pro-Putin movement that’s actively undermining central pillars of German foreign policy.

I challenge Yvonne about the idea of ending arms supplies to Ukraine, which could help Russia win a war it began, by invading its neighbour.

“I can understand both sides,” she says after a little hesitation.

This is the part of Germany where the older generation, from the GDR years, grew up learning Russian language and culture.

It’s also a country, scarred by two World Wars, that retains a strong pacifist streak fed by fears the existing conflict could escalate.

“Poland is not big,” Yvonne says, as she points out the Polish border is only a few miles away. “And we are then the first ones to go when the tanks come across.”

In these two villages, that have a population of under 500 people, 57.5% of voters backed the far-right party in a recent local council election, the largest proportion in Brandenburg.

Across the wider district, that number was 43.7%, also unusually high.

It comes ahead of a larger, state-parliament level vote on 22 September, where the AfD is leading the polls – after they already won the most votes in Thuringia and came a close second in Saxony on 1 September.

In Thuringia, the AfD attracted 36% of the under-30s vote, say election researchers.

Their relative strength in the east is despite the fact the party is viewed by many – and officially classed in three states – as right-wing extremist, a charge its supporters avidly reject.

Even if the AfD does well in Brandenburg it likely won’t take power because – as elsewhere – other parties refuse to work with it.

Not far away, I visit one of the beautiful lakes that have been transformed from their original purpose as open cast coal mines.

As I wander around asking people if they want to talk about German politics, most, perhaps unsurprisingly, are not all that tempted.

A woman called Katrin does agree to speak, although she doesn’t want her picture taken.

Ushering us away from a small crowd sunbathing on the grass and a little beach, she lights a cigarette and is watchful as we wait to hear what she has to say.

It feels like it’s going to be really controversial.

She doesn’t like the AfD – something that can feel like a rogue opinion around here.

“Half the people here didn’t vote for the AfD,” she reminds us, adding she is “devastated” by local levels of support for a far-right party.

But why are they so popular, I ask?

“That’s a good question,” says Katrin. “That’s what I ask myself all the time.”

“There is an old saying,” she recalls. “If a donkey is too comfortable it goes on black ice.”

Katrin is saying that she believes life, actually, is relatively good for people in the community, leading to a misguided “grass-is-greener” syndrome - whether that’s with an eye on the past or present.

Average wage levels and household wealth are lower in the east when compared to the west, although inequalities have narrowed through the years.

Overall, Katrin doesn’t understand it. “I’m still thinking myself, why, why, why?”

You get the feeling that mainstream parties, including those in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition government, are similarly unable to quite comprehend, or respond, to the success of either the AfD or BSW, parties polling nationally at about 18% and 8% respectively.

The traditional parties of power are casting a nervous eye to the east and the Germany’s reputation for relatively calm, consensus politics is under strain.

[originalleftist]

There are three kinds of Americans right now: Those who are voting for Kamala Harris. Those who can't vote. And treasonous fascists.

Sorry if you don't like it. I didn't create the situation. But a third party is not going to win, a lot of third party candidates are compromised as hell anyway, and the choices are Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, probably the most likeable and progressive Presidential ticket in American history... or the court-proven r*pist, fraud, and insurrectionist and 34 count convicted felon who kept a copy of Mein Kampf by his bedside, needed a Supreme Court intervention to keep his treasonous ass on the ballot, sacrificed hundreds of thousands of Americans to Covid, and wants to sacrifice all of Europe to Russia and the entire world to the fossil fuel industry. Who retweeted "the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat", now would have Presidential immunity, and has pledged to be "dictator on day one".

So if you can't muster the will to cast one little vote to stop him, then I hold you a full and willing accomplice.

And really, you shouldn't need fear of Trump to vote Blue, because we have a fucking awesome progressive ticket.

[mariacallous]

Political insiders like U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips have been expressing doubts about Joe Biden for years. Yet Biden just keeps winning. Voters have elected him to national office three times in four elections. Those voters also gave him the biggest midterm win for a Democratic president in 60 years. Biden has earned those votes by delivering the strongest domestic leadership since LBJ, and the strongest international leadership since JFK. He is the best candidate we have in 2024, and the only thing holding him back is the doubters in his own party.

The very fact that Biden was able to beat Donald Trump and be sworn into office in a peaceful transfer of power met an important test. Peaceful, you ask? Certainly former President Trump's actions, and those of his mob, were not peaceful. But Biden sailed through all of the calamity with apparent calm, acting as though there was never any question that the Constitution and the rule of law would prevail. He was always confident in us.

The immediate task of the new president was grappling with a nation divided over COVID and the need to provide economic support to families struggling through the pandemic. The American Rescue Plan put billions of dollars into the hands of working-class Americans. The economy boomed, driven by demand from workers and families spending money on necessities. Child poverty dropped by 40%, and American families have seen wages rise at levels not seen since the 1960s. Today, the strength of the American economy is pulling the rest of the world forward, despite the global struggle with inflation.

It is easy already to forget the size and scope of the Biden infrastructure bill, which will modernize American communities and our economy for a generation and more. Roads, bridges, transit, the electrical grid, water infrastructure, broadband — the whole platform for growth in the nation will be built out and create millions of American jobs.

Perhaps most significantly, Biden's so-called Inflation Reduction Act will transform our energy economy and enable America to meet its greenhouse gas reduction goals. This will put us in the driver's seat for pushing other nations to meet their goals. There is no larger threat to our nation and the global economy than rising global temperatures, increased severe weather and the loss of a precious ecological and cultural heritage. The pandemic was a light breeze compared to the impending storm of global climate destruction, and the Inflation Reduction Act was a strategic move to allow us to lead in stopping it.

The Inflation Reduction Act could also be called the Chinese Divestment Act. Not only does the energy policy address our need to transition to renewable energy, but it creates enormous incentives for companies to invest in technology and manufacturing in North America. No other president in our lifetime would offer an American working family $7,000 to buy an electric car made in America. The Inflation Reduction Act is exactly the industrial policy this country has needed for so long.

Just a few years ago, Chinese economic power coupled with Russian weapons of war appeared to be a genuine threat to the American-led international order. Autocrats were rising while traditional Western democratic institutions were in disarray. Some people were comparing America to Weimar Germany and seeing similarities to the weakness of democratic nations in the face of fascism.

Russia's illegal and inhumane invasion of Ukraine came at exactly the wrong time — for Russia and China. Putin threw down an enormous challenge in front of the American-led alliance. We advanced as one against him. Biden worked with Europe to accept major economic pain as a price of confronting Russian aggression. The Biden response to Russian aggression simultaneously revived the democracies' power in the world and reminded us that autocracies are always fundamentally weak.

In just three years, Joe Biden's leadership has revived democracy, defeated a pandemic, raised millions of Americans out of poverty, revitalized American infrastructure, addressed global warming and weakened authoritarian nations. He also keeps winning elections and confounding all his critics. Congressman Phillips: What more do you want?

Ryan Winkler, of Golden Valley, is the former DFL majority leader of the Minnesota House.

[bogans-are-my-anathema]

one possible future based on current american politics

this is one possible forecast based on what I (as a hyperfixated doomer non-american teenager) predict COULD happen in order of events

-Trump wins election

-Initiates project 2025 shifting america to a pseudo dictatorshp

-Possible rioting at this measure which justifies the reenforcement of the police state, safeguarding against further protests

-initiates the tarrif only tax solution he has been pushing for the last 2 years, sending the economy into decline

-further protesting -> reenforcement of the police state again into an edifice,

-market confidence greatly decreases as a consequence of both the tarrifs and the protests, leading to a full on recession

FLASHPOINT 1

-somewhere around this time a couple of things could happen that each change what the likely outcomes and scatter the future, those things are

trumps death (60% odds within 2 years of election based on some prediction), this would lead the martyrdom of trump and the cementing of his beliefs similar to what happened in china with Mao, his replacement, pushing their own more extreme beliefs, while not touching the policies he passed

the collapse of the russian regieme following the implosion of putins olegarks leading to a mutiny and a period of great flux similar to the dissilusion of the ussr, leading to a weakening of xi jing ping

the resolution of israel palestine in israels favour, leading the the beginning of another (*independant*) inshafada in now israel owned land

each of these events greatly skew the probable outcomes the reason these are flashpoints is that there are alternative outcomes for all of these that are singificantly better

trump stays alive however rapidly degenerates from frontal lobe dementia, making progressively worse policy decisions until he is overthrown, the replacement would be significantly more moderate in policy, younger and most importantly willing to change former trump policies,

putin gets overthrown in an orderly manner with minimal disruption, leading to a change in policy and a shift towards democracy for the russian people

the president of Israel (cant spell his name) is overthrown from within his own party, the replacement agrees to treat with HAMAS forces and comes to an israel favoured solution (due to the current state of the war) that does still leave space for the few palestinians that are still alive by that point, the next revolution is delayed by decades,

going from this point on we will be assuming, trumps death, and either for the other two as im not very good at predicting further outcomes from this point based on those two

-leading to the collapse of americas soft power, the next likely superpowers are china and germany

-a crisis in german leadership (theyre built on a crumbling edifice) leads to a collapse of respect for germany outside western europe, leaving asia and south america to look to china for support

-china finishes their belt and road project and gains control over a lot of the world, also annexes taiwan, now known as taipei without much resistance due to diminishing american support, putting pressure on australia and south-east asia which leads to china having massive influence over them (stronger than the influence america currently has over canada and mexico but not by much)

-europe merges into a governing body in a meaninful way, probably by the reenforcement of the un into a more efficient peacekeeping organisation, possibly absorbing some of russia into it through pseudo-democratic means (biased (not rigged) elections),

END OF FORECAST

I am not omniscient, please let me know what i should add to this/what you think i got wrong

[warningsine]

Mark Rutte, the outgoing Dutch prime minister, will be NATO’s next secretary-general, the alliance said Wednesday, at a critical point for transatlantic security as Russia wages war on Ukraine.

“It is a tremendous honour to be appointed Secretary-General of NATO. The Alliance is and will remain the cornerstone of our collective security,” Rutte said.

“Leading this organisation is a responsibility I do not take lightly. I’m grateful to all the Allies for placing their trust in me,” he added.

Rutte will take over NATO’s leadership on Oct. 1 at a crucial moment in the alliance’s history, in the face of Russian President Vladimir Putin's ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In November, the United States heads to the polls where former U.S. President Donald Trump, the Republican candidate, has pledged to reassess America’s key role in NATO and threatened to cut aid to Ukraine.

Outgoing NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg praised Rutte as a “true transatlanticist, a strong leader and a consensus-builder.”

“I wish him every success as we continue to strengthen NATO. I know I am leaving NATO in good hands,” he said.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Rutte’s “leadership and experience will be crucial for the Alliance during these challenging times.”

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he is confident Rutte will continue Stoltenberg’s “outstanding work in keeping NATO strong and united, as we work to strengthen our collective defence and support Ukraine’s fight for freedom.”

Rutte faced a rocky road to the military alliance’s top job.

He started campaigning last November and faced criticism from some of NATO’s easternmost members, including for supporting Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline project and failing to bring Dutch defense spending up to NATO standards.

Under his 14-year premiership, the Netherlands failed to meet NATO’s defense spending target of 2 percent of GDP, though it is expected to do so this year.

[quotesfrommyreading]

The relationship between genocidal language and genocidal behavior is not automatic or even predictable. Human beings can insult one another, demean one another, and verbally abuse one another without trying to kill one another. But while not every use of genocidal hate speech leads to genocide, all genocides have been preceded by genocidal hate speech. The modern Russian propaganda state turned out to be the ideal vehicle both for carrying out mass murder and for hiding it from the public. The gray apparatchiks, FSB operatives, and well-coiffed anchorwomen who organize and conduct the national conversation had for years been preparing their compatriots to feel no pity for Ukraine.

They succeeded. From the first days of the war, it was evident that the Russian military had planned in advance for many civilians, perhaps millions, to be killed, wounded, or displaced from their homes in Ukraine. Other assaults on cities throughout history—Dresden, Coventry, Hiroshima, Nagasaki—took place only after years of terrible conflict. By contrast, systematic bombardment of civilians in Ukraine began only days into an unprovoked invasion. In the first week of the war, Russian missiles and artillery targeted apartment blocks, hospitals, and schools. As Russians occupied Ukrainian cities and towns, they kidnapped or murdered mayors, local councilors, even a museum director from Melitopol, spraying bullets and terror randomly on everyone else. When the Ukrainian army recaptured Bucha, to the north of Kyiv, it found corpses with their arms tied behind their backs, lying in the road. When I was there in mid-April, I saw others that had been dumped into a mass grave. In the first three weeks of the war alone, Human Rights Watch documented cases of summary execution, rape, and the mass looting of civilian property.

Mariupol, a mostly Russian-speaking city the size of Miami, was subjected to almost total devastation. In a powerful interview in late March, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, noted that in previous European conflicts, occupiers hadn’t destroyed everything, because they themselves needed somewhere to cook, eat, wash; during the Nazi occupation, he said, “movie theaters were operating in France.” But Mariupol was different: “Everything is burned out.” Ninety percent of the buildings were destroyed within just a few weeks. A massive steelworks that many assumed the conquering army wanted to control was totally flattened. At the height of the fighting, civilians were still trapped inside the city, with no access to food, water, power, heat, or medicine. Men, women, and children died of starvation and dehydration. Those who tried to escape were fired upon. Outsiders who tried to bring in supplies were fired upon as well. The bodies of the dead, both Ukrainian civilians and Russian soldiers, lay in the street, unburied, for many days.

Yet even as these crimes were carried out, in full view of the world, the Russian state successfully hid this tragedy from its own people. As in the past, the use of jargon helped. This was not an invasion; it was a “special military operation.” This was not a mass murder of Ukrainians; it was “protection” for the inhabitants of the eastern-Ukrainian territories. This was not genocide; it was defense against “genocide perpetrated by the Kyiv regime.” The dehumanization of the Ukrainians was completed in early April, when RIA Novosti, a state-run website, published an article arguing that the “de-Nazification” of Ukraine would require the “liquidation” of the Ukrainian leadership, and even the erasure of the very name of Ukraine, because to be Ukrainian was to be a Nazi: “Ukrainianism is an artificial anti-Russian construct, which does not have any civilizational content of its own, and is a subordinate element of a foreign and alien civilization.” The existential threat was made clear on the eve of the war, when Putin reprised a decade’s worth of propaganda about the perfidious West, using language familiar to Russians: “They sought to destroy our traditional values and force on us their false values that would erode us, our people from within, the attitudes they have been aggressively imposing on their countries, attitudes that are directly leading to degradation and degeneration, because they are contrary to human nature.”

For anyone who might have accidentally seen photographs of Mariupol, explanations were provided. On March 23, Russian television did broadcast film of the city’s ruins—drone footage, possibly stolen from CNN. But rather than take responsibility, they blamed the Ukrainians. One television anchorwoman, sounding sad, described the scene as “a horrifying picture. [Ukrainian] nationalists, as they retreat, are trying to leave no stone unturned.” The Russian Defense Ministry actually accused the Azov battalion, a famously radical Ukrainian fighting force, of blowing up the Mariupol theater, where hundreds of families with children had been sheltering. Why would über-patriotic Ukrainian forces deliberately kill Ukrainian children? That wasn’t explained—but then, nothing is ever explained. And if nothing can be known for certain, then no one can be blamed. Maybe Ukrainian “nationalists” destroyed Mariupol. Maybe not. No clear conclusions can be drawn, and no one can be held accountable.

Few feel remorse. Published recordings of telephone calls between Russian soldiers and their families—they are using ordinary SIM cards, so it’s easy to listen to them—are full of contempt for Ukrainians. “I shot the car,” one soldier tells a woman, perhaps his wife or sister, in one of the calls. “Shoot the motherfuckers,” she responds, “as long as it’s not you. Fuck them. Fucking drug addicts and Nazis.” They talk about stealing television sets, drinking cognac, and shooting people in forests. They show no concern about casualties, not even their own. Radio communications between the Russian soldiers attacking civilians in Bucha were just as cold-blooded. Zelensky himself was horrified by the nonchalance with which the Russians proposed to send some trash bags for the Ukrainians to wrap the corpses of their soldiers: “Even when a dog or a cat dies, people don’t do this,” he told journalists.

All of this—the indifference to violence, the amoral nonchalance about mass murder, even the disdain for the lives of Russian soldiers—is familiar to anyone who knows Soviet history (or German history, for that matter). But Russian citizens and Russian soldiers either don’t know that history or don’t care about it. President Zelensky told me in April that, like “alcoholics [who] don’t admit that they are alcoholic,” these Russians “are afraid to admit guilt.” There was no reckoning after the Ukrainian famine, or the Gulag, or the Great Terror of 1937–38, no moment when the perpetrators expressed formal, institutional regret. Now we have the result. Aside from the Kravchenkos and Kopelevs, the liberal minority, most Russians have accepted the explanations the state handed them about the past and moved on. They’re not human beings; they’re kulak trash, they told themselves then. They’re not human beings; they’re Ukrainian Nazis, they tell themselves today.

  —  Ukraine and the Words That Lead to Mass Murder