#regime change policy

[narrative-theory]

Iran's Reformist President – Scott Ritter

[deadpresidents]

Today is a good day to remember Salvador Allende, the democratically-elected President of Chile, who died in September 1973. Allende most likely shot himself in the La Moneda Presidential Palace in Santiago when he could no longer fight off the forces of General Augusto Pinochet as they executed a violent coup heavily supported by the United States and Henry Kissinger. Pinochet then ruled Chile as an American-supported "anti-communist" military dictator for nearly two decades in which tens of thousands of Chileans were killed, jailed, or simply disappeared.

Allende, a socialist, was popularly elected as Chile's President with promises to strengthen democracy in Latin America and institute significant economic, education, and health reforms in order to dramatically improve the social welfare of the Chilean people. Some American leaders, like Henry Kissinger, saw him as a potential threat -- a South American version of Fidel Castro -- and the CIA begin laying the groundwork for eventual regime change.

The biggest problem with Allende, in Kissinger's mind, was the very fact that he was freely and democratically elected. In a memo to President Nixon that is still somewhat shocking to read, Kissinger wrote that "Allende was elected legally...He has legitimacy in the eyes of Chileans and most of the world; there is nothing we can do to deny him that legitimacy or claim he does not have it." Kissinger then reminds Nixon that "We are strongly on record in support of self-determination and respect for free election; you are firmly on record for non-intervention in the internal affairs of this hemisphere and of accepting nations 'as they are.'" Then he spends several pages outlining ways in which to undermine, delegitimize, and potentially eliminate "the Problem." After all, as Kissinger wrote shortly before Allende was elected, "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves."

[quixoticanarchy]

i am reverting to my high school self so hard lately... back in the phil ochs spiral, trying to radicalize my friends, read 4 foreign policy related books in the last 3 days, etc. this may not quite be good for me but man the shell game of the self sure can contain so many other buried selves within it

[alanshemper]

[hisradiantfire]

Personal Integrity

In this thought-provoking episode of Radiant Fire Radio, Christopher delves into the significance of personal integrity in today's world. As exposure reveals true character, Christopher encourages listeners to walk in honesty and purity, emphasizing that integrity ultimately leads to a life free from shame and guilt. This episode serves as a powerful reminder that the little guy, the person doing the right thing, always wins in the end. Tune in to explore the freedom that comes from living a guilt-free life and the rewards of staying true to oneself. Listen as Christopher shares.

Here is the latest from Radiant Fire Radio...

[imogren]

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[alanfromrochester]

a couple memes on the subject - though you could also say the KGB was trying to do the reverse of the CIA shit

This is one of those true, declassified government things that always sounds made up but one of the things Henry Kissinger did with his career was use the CIA to help turn small, prosperous socialist nations into fascist dictatorships just to keep those nations powerless and possibly to keep socialist systems *looking* doomed and futile to the American public, like maybe just to scare Americans out of demanding better infrastructure or universal income. Yes it sounds like an insane conspiracy theory a maniac would invent. It also happened multiple times and several generations of people around the world are still living in misery because of it.

[psychotrenny]

Imperialism is the single greatest contradiction of contemporary global society, and one of the most visible ways this manifests is the treatment of Nationalist Bourgeoisie in the third world. It doesn't matter how "moderate" such personalities or regimes are, how few concessions they give to the local working class or even how willing they are to make measured compromises with the Imperial Core. For daring to stand up against Imperialism, to offer the slightest resistance against the wholesale looting of their nation, any sort of Bourgeoisie Nationalism will earn the hostility of Imperialist Nations.

During the Cold War this hostility was somewhat muted due to fears over the greater threat of Communism, with Imperialists displaying tolerance towards or even co-operation with various anti-communist Third Way regimes that weren't seen as too threatening. But with the fall of the USSR and apogee of US Imperial Hegemony, this tolerance largely vanished. Just look at how Saddam Hussein went from a US ally to enemy #1 in the span of a few years, not because of any substantial change in policy or orientation but simply because he outlived his usefulness. Now as US power continues to wane while that of the anti-Imperialist camp waxes this attitude may change, but based on their current actions most US and their allied policy makers are still stuck in this turn-of-the-millennium mindset of total US superiority.

It's also a very bad practice to evaluate things in terms of their metaphysical "goodness" or "badness"; you're much better looking at the context it occupies and how it interacts with those conditions. Which is why you generally shouldn't celebrate the destruction of a genuine anti-Imperialist project regardless of its other contradictions. Whatever exploitation was occurring nationally, things will only get worse when that exploitation is taken to an international level

[reasonsforhope]

"A first-of-its-kind report has discovered that altering the ingredients list or manufacturing methods of widely used medication can really cut back on carbon emissions.

They found a reduction of 26 million tons, enough to cancel out the whole carbon footprint of the city of Geneva for a decade. Best of all, it’s already happening, and in fact, is almost done—those emissions were already saved.

The lifesaving HIV treatment dolutegravir (DTG) is used by 24 million people worldwide.

Today, over 110 low and middle-income countries have adopted DTG as the preferred treatment option. Rapid voluntary licensing of the medicine, including its pediatric version, to over a dozen generic manufacturers, significantly drove down prices, and it’s estimated that 1.1 million lives will be saved from HIV/AIDS-related deaths by 2027.

Its predecessor, efavirenz, contained 1200 milligrams of active ingredient across the three active compounds present, while DTG contains 650 milligrams of just one compound. This small difference—literally measurable in single digits of paper clips by weight—was enough to change the carbon emissions footprint of the medication by a factor of 2.6.

The incredible discovery was made in a recent report by Unitaid, a global public-private partnership that invests in new health products and solutions for low and middle-income countries, called Milligrams to Megatons, and is the first published research to compare carbon footprints between commonly used medications.

“This magnitude of carbon footprint reduction surpasses many hard-won achievements of climate mitigation in health and other sectors,” the authors of the report write.

At the rate at which DTG is produced, since it entered into production and treatment regime in 2017, 2.6 million fewer tons of CO2 have entered the atmosphere every year than if efavirenz was still the standard treatment option.

Health Policy Watch reports that the global medical sector’s carbon emissions stand at roughly 5% of the global carbon emissions and are larger than the emissions of many big countries, and 2.5 times as much as aviation.

“This report demonstrates that we can achieve significant health improvements while also making strides in reducing carbon emissions. By adopting innovative practices and prioritizing sustainability, we can ensure that medicines like DTG are not only effective but also environmentally responsible,” Vincent Bretin, Director of Unitaid’s Results and Climate Team told Health Policy Watch."

-via Good News Network, July 17, 2024

[ot3]

there are no amount of domestic policy gains you can cite that will make people change their mind about voting for biden. it's not like the people refusing to vote for him are too uninformed to understand that biden has provided significantly more domestic protections for LGBT people than trump will, but some people are simply willing to risk their own political standing to avoid legitimizing genocidal regime. i dont think anyone in the world is operating the impression that trump would provide less funding and arms to israel but i also don't think it's a stretch to say that there are huge swathes of center-lib shitfucks who will suddenly change their mind about carpet bombing civilians when it's The Friggen Cheeto Man doing it instead of their favorite blue ghoul.

[zvaigzdelasas]

[H]undreds of legal experts and groups on Monday urged the global community—and the United States government in particular—"to comply with international law by ending the use of broad, unilateral coercive measures that extensively harm civilian populations."

In a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden, the jurists and legal groups wrote that "75 years ago, in the aftermath of one of the most destructive conflicts in human history, nations of the world came together in Geneva, Switzerland to establish clear legal limits on the treatment of noncombatants in times of war."

"One key provision... is the prohibition of collective punishment, which is considered a war crime," the letter continues. "We consider the unilateral application of certain economic sanctions to constitute collective punishment."

Suzanne Adely, president of the National Lawyers Guild—one of the letter's signatories—said in a statement that "economic sanctions cause direct material harm not only to the people living on the receiving end of these policies, but to those who rely on trade and economic relations with sanctioned countries."

"The legal community needs to push back against the narrative that sanctions are nonviolent alternatives to warfare and hold the U.S. Government accountable for violating international law every time it wields these coercive measures," she added.[...]

"Hundreds of millions of people currently live under such broad U.S. economic sanctions in some form, including in notable cases such as Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and Venezuela," the letter notes. "The evidence that these measures can cause severe, widespread civilian harm, including death, is overwhelming. Broad economic sanctions can spark and prolong economic crises, hinder access to essential goods like food, fuel, and medicine, and increase poverty, hunger, disease, and even death rates, especially among children. Such conditions in turn often drive mass migration, as in the recent cases of Cuba and Venezuela."

For more than 64 years, the U.S. has imposed a crippling economic embargo on Cuba that had adversely affected all sectors of the socialist island's economy and severely limited Cubans' access to basic necessities including food, fuel, and medicines. The Cuban government claims the blockade cost the country's economy nearly $5 billion in just one 11-month period in 2022-23 alone. For the past 32 years, United Nations member states have voted overwhelmingly against the U.S. embargo on Cuba. Last year's vote was 187-2, with the U.S. and Israel as the only dissenters.

According to a 2019 report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a progressive think tank based in Washington, D.C., as many as 40,000 Venezuelans died from 2017-18 to U.S. sanctions, which have made it much more difficult for millions of people to obtain food, medicine, and other necessities.

"Civilian suffering is not merely an incidental cost of these policies, but often their very intent," the new letter asserts. "A 1960 State Department memo on the embargo of Cuba suggested 'denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation, and overthrow of government.'"

"Asked whether the Trump administration's sanctions on Iran were working as intended, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo responded that 'things are much worse for the Iranian people, and we're convinced that will lead the Iranian people to rise up and change the behavior of the regime,'" the signers added.

12 Aug 24

[hoosbandewan]

No matter who someone votes for does not make them a bad person. If someone votes differently than you and you find that as a reason to not support them then you are part of the problem. I'm thankfully open-minded and glad I can have Democrat and Republican friends and we can all still be friends even with different beliefs and opinions. I don't understand how anyone can have that mindset.... You want Peace and love but are the first ones to throw someone under the bus if they think differently than you do.

And using Ewan to push your thoughts is shameful

Having friends on both sides of the aisle is fine. Having a difference in opinions is fine. I think it can be incredibly damaging for people to get caught in an echo chamber and be surrounded only by people who share their same viewpoint. And the fact that we can all have our own thoughts and opinions is what makes a free country like the U.S. so wonderful.

I even know a good number of Republicans and conservative-leaning people who didn't and wouldn't vote for Trump. And, you see, that's the difference.

Voting for Trump.

You cannot, in good conscience, look me in the eye and tell me that casting a vote for Donald Trump makes you a good person. I could have forgiven a Trump vote in 2016, but not in 2020 and certainly not in 2024.

Trump attempted to overturn a democratic election and was indicted for it. And on that day, he voiced support for the Capitol rioters who wanted to hang his vice president for failing to reject the electoral votes that proved Biden's win.

Trump nominated Supreme Court justices to overturn Roe v. Wade, a move that has already killed women and will continue killing people. In Texas alone, the maternal death rate rose by 56% between 2019 and 2022, the year that Roe was overturned. Since the reversal, the infant mortality rate has risen by 7% nationally - and by 13% in Texas alone.

Trump is unapologetically and unabashedly racist, displaying repeated and disturbing rhetoric aimed at immigrants, Mexicans, black Americans, Haitians, Muslims, and more. In his first term, he instituted new procedural barriers to prevent immigrants from seeking asylum in America. He put migrant children in cages. He has unjustly called for the death penalty for numerous people of color - remember the Central Park 5?

Trump has threatened to deploy the military and law enforcement to target his political opponents and left-leaning Americans.

Trump rolled back almost 100 policies focused on clean air, water, wildlife, and toxic chemicals in an era when mitigating climate change is more important than ever. And he plans on gutting even more.

Trump is a convicted felon with 34 felony counts under his belt.

Trump has shown time and time again that his views and policies align with fascist ideals. He wants very, very badly to turn the U.S. democracy into an authoritarian regime.

And if this isn't enough, Trump has been endorsed by the KKK since his 2016 campaign. He's the golden child of white supremacists and white nationalists everywhere.

So, yeah. If this is your guy, I don't want fucking anything to do with you.

I am so sick and tired of Trump supporters crying about peace and love and civility and "oh, but where are the tolerant left?" when they turn right around and vote for Donald Trump.

You don’t get to hold abhorrent views and beliefs and then be friends with us. You don’t get to be friendly to our faces all while supporting a man who wants us dead or oppressed. You can't profess to love your fellow Americans if you are condemning them.

I don't want to hang out with racists and fascists. Because if you choose to support and vote for a racist, fascist, misogynistic, dangerous person, then that makes you one, too.

[taliabhattwrites]

Less Fearmongering about Testosterone, Please, Or: There is no "Boy HRT"/"Girl HRT" Dichotomy

Hello folks, I'm a trans woman and I'm on testosterone gel.

As an immigrant to a regime that is currently setting trans standards of care on fire, there is no way I can acquire any of the drugs I need to put in my body through the official channels. I've been on E monotherapy (weekly injections, no T-blocker, works out really cheap and I have a few years' worth stockpiled) for a while now, and started T-gel about a year ago.

We initially grabbed it because my wife was interested in microdosing and I decided to do so with her (though she's on injections now). Most feminizing HRT regimes nuke our T levels to lower than the healthy range for cis women, and that frankly isn't good and can lead to various health issues. T is, ultimately, just a hormone, and even if I had too much of it in the past, I still need some of it to be healthy. One noticeable effect for me is that it's helped a lot with my energy levels.

In terms of acquisition, T is actually relatively abundant compared to E because a lot of cis men buy and take steroids, while most cis women who need E are just getting it prescribed by their doctors without much fuss. Our community is the only one that really has a need for E-compounders, while the population of people who consume steroids is way higher.

Funnily, our biggest challenge in acquiring the gel was just finding a forum that would point us to a gel supplier instead of just insisting that "Gel doesn't lead to enough gains, bro! Here just buy these injections." All very well-intentioned advice, of course, but that was very much not my goal and not what I needed.

Where I am, it's legal to purchase and own T, just not to sell it. T possession is not particularly harshly cracked down upon, given that its use amongst a certain crowd is basically an open secret. Gauge your level of risk but ultimately, the official policy on trans existence is discouraging transition and making it harder for us to be able to change our sex. A friend from Germany showed me this extract that explicitly advocates for therapy to dissuade bodily transition:

It's from the guidelines for transition-related care by the association of German health insurances!

If you can get it from a doctor, good. Do that and don't forget you'll constantly have to advocate for yourself. Even if you can, however, you should frankly have your back-up options sorted out, because we live in times increasingly hostile to transitional care, and we all need to have fallbacks.

Maybe the world will eventually become less trans-eliminationist, but in the meantime, transition is always going to carry with it a certain level of risk. All I can really advise is to take charge of your own bodily autonomy, to decide how you want to shape your sex, and if you feel like you can't currently do that, to start making plans for when you eventually can. That kept me going for five years in the closet, and eventually paid off.

Good luck, and death before detransition.

[komsomolka]

The Ukrainian state is US/Western controlled and, in its alliance and arming, is effectively NATO-like. Washington, according to coup-happy Victoria Nuland in 2014, pumped some $5 billion into Ukraine since the Western-intelligence induced “Orange” revolution in 2004; an additional $15-$18 billion in arms, loans, and grants (from the US and EU) were poured into Ukraine since the 2013-2014 CIA-backed, far-right enforced regime change of the democratically elected Ukrainian government and until before the war began.

With on-the-ground CIA direction, power in Ukraine was consolidated among a small sociopolitical base of venal Russophobes, political pluralism representing genuinely alternative visions to the essentially nationalist, ultranationalist, pro-NATO parties disbanded. The Ukraine army, neo-fascist death squads, and small, Nazi-throwback extreme right-wing parties, celebrated by the new leaders and incorporated into the Ukrainian state, went on a repression spree, a terror campaign, to crush protests and dissent against those who were unhappy with what transpired and to erase all things Russian, including an eight-year shelling and sniping war on civilians designed to create terror and ethnic cleansing in eastern Donbass. This was not a democracy but a monopoly on power to consolidate a vociferously, fanatically anti-Russian state.

Ukraine is (or now, was) merely a platform for a Western proxy war against Russia, a forward operations base, a front line state, its “foreign policy” directed by the American proconsul, its institutions “advised” by American/Western intelligence functionaries and embassy officials, whose job since 2014 was to ensure continuing aggravation and antagonism in Donbass to elicit, in fact, a Russian response justifying long-prepared sanctions, escalation and pretext for “confronting” Russia. [...]

The Russian offensive, therefore, occurred for a much more ominous reason than the Ukrainian state terrorism visited upon eastern Donbass: the US/West’s wordless wish is no less than demoralizing, weakening, bankrupting, and territorially fragmenting the Russian Federation, controlling its markets and resources, indebting its people and rendering them dependent on US-dominated financial institutions, and bringing Russia under American dependency.

A pivotal principle of American hegemony is to obstruct and destroy friendly, normal ties, much less integration, between Russia and Europe, Germany being the fulcrum.

More simply, the strategic US/CIA goal is to ensnare Russia in a protracted war, deplete it, damage it, regime-change it, install a supine leader—all as a prelude to the big fantasy: bringing down China.

The multifaceted war on Russia has been ongoing since at least the late 1990s, but really, it never stopped with the Soviet state’s disappearance. This veiled hostility and aggression certainly existed when Boris Yeltsin was in power (a good vassal according to Washington, this silly and funny man that made Bill Clinton laugh) but took off around 2005, after Washington understood that Vladimir Putin was putting Russia on an independent course, reversing the conditions overseen under the preceding, deplorable Yeltsin era, including steep economic, social, military, and developmental decline and the immiseration of the vast majority of the population, looting oligarchs, and economic “liberalization” designed in Washington. [...]

Russia has literally allowed itself to be cornered since 2014, though it needed time to achieve a conventional and nuclear deterrent. It’s not hard to see reality: Russia is given no quarter, no voice, its real concerns and grievances dismissed, its leader demonized, its marginalization doggedly pursued at every level of international and bilateral social and cultural interactions. No appeal to reason, to international law, to security, to evidence will do for the West, no amount of patient legal argument, explanation of Russian concerns, appeals, professional warnings, consummate diplomacy and transparency of Russian interests made an impression. Instead, the Western response was and is always to double down. [...]

Finance capitalism, the system of speculative bubbles, derivatives, debt, declining standards of living, and hyperinflation, is ruining Western economies, states and societies, destroying the middle classes. The US cannot tolerate Eurasian integration and China’s Belt and Road Initiative, determined to stop any alternative development model to hyper-capitalism enriching the few, cannibalizing the many; that reduces the US to one of a handful of important multipolar players.

Washington’s grave mismanagement of international relations, its self-defeating policies, has actually weakened genuine American interests and national security and the well-being and safety of the American people, a phenomenon that cannot be naively attributed to Democrats or Republicans, this or that president. Instead, the war-state is deeply embedded in the American political economy, in factions such as the “intelligence community,” the military-industrial complex, influential establishment neo-cons, and liberal interventionists, all living in a world of yesterday.

We are rushing headlong into extremely dangerous times in which facts are a threat to the state narrative and any dissent or differing opinion is treachery. Fascism does not come from below, always from the top.

[djuvlipen]

Femicide rates in Iran up by 60% in two years, report says

A new report has highlighted an alarming trend of increasing femicide cases amid an ongoing pattern of violence against women and girls in Iran.

According to the report by Etemad Daily, in the first three months of the Iranian calendar in 2024 alone (March 20 to June 21), at least 35 women and girls were murdered by their close male relatives, particularly their husbands.

The number is a 25 percent increase from the 28 recorded during the same period in 2023 and a 59% rise from the 22 deaths in 2022.

A massive 85 percent of the murders were committed by the victims' husbands and cases were spread across the country. In 2022, 16 women were killed by their husbands, followed by 15 in 2023, with a sharp increase to 27 in 2024 amid the climate of state crackdowns on women and girls.

Rights activists point to Iran’s laws and patriarchal society based on Islamic law as the primary cause of femicide which has worsened since 2022.

Conditions for women have become so bad that the United Nations branded Iran's policy as "gender apartheid" as state policy legitimizes violence against women.

Honor killings can be carried out for as little as not wearing the mandatory hijab, bringing shame on the family.

UN Women says these gender-related killings are the “most brutal and extreme manifestation of violence against women and girls. According to the latest UN Women report, globally on average, more than 133 women or girls are killed every day by someone in their own family.

Speaking to Iran International, Iranian feminist and human rights activist, Mina Khani, highlighted the lack of accurate statistics in Iran amid heavy censorship and corruption, and the state's own involvement in committing femicide.

Official figures suggest numbers even lower than Germany, she said, with massive discrepancies in both the reporting and recording of such crimes.

"In this context, human rights statistics are crucial," she said. "Organizations like Hengaw report femicide statistics in Iran based on the cases they document, as there is no official statistical reference for human rights organizations to rely on,” Khani stated.

Norway-based rights organization, Hengaw, identified that "at least 50 cases of femicide have been recorded in various cities of Iran since the beginning of 2024.

Khani noted "the state's failure to take legal measures to protect women from domestic violence".

She said, "Instead, the regime has legalized violence attributed to honor and gender-based violence against women, and it also engages in state-sponsored femicides".

High profile cases such as Mahsa Amini and Armita Geravand, who both died in morality police custody, exemplify the role of the state, she said, which "has never been held accountable".

Soraya Fallah, an Iranian researcher and women’s rights activist touched on the surge and prevalence of femicide in Iran adding that the situation highlights an “urgent need for serious measures to change laws and address cultural issues in Iran.”

Fallah echoed Khani’s statements, blaming Iran's discriminatory laws for fueling the femicide crisis.

“The Islamic government of Iran has institutionalized unequal laws and their implementation, enabling crimes like honor killings. These laws, such as Article 630, provide legal grounds for such acts, fueling patriarchal violence," she said.

Article 630 of the Islamic Penal Code allows a man to kill his wife and her partner if he catches them in the act of consensual adultery, without facing any punishment. This law exclusively targets women. Additionally, a father or paternal grandfather who kills their child is exempt from the retribution sentence, known as Qesas.

"The Islamic Republic uses these laws to maintain power and perpetuate these issues within society. Comprehensive legal and cultural changes are crucial to address these deep-rooted problems and protect women's rights in Iran," she added.

The state’s crackdown on charities dedicated to supporting women experiencing domestic violence further add to the crisis with the UN calling for legal reform to empower women in Iran.

Amnesty International last year said, "The Iranian authorities’ oppressive methods of policing women and girls and punishes those who dare to stand up for their rights".

"To this day, not a single Iranian official has been held accountable for ordering, planning and committing widespread and systematic human rights violations against women and girls through the implementation of compulsory veiling," it added.

[hisradiantfire]

Lean in to Him!

Christopher shares personal experiences and spiritual insights to encourage listeners to lean into faith during life's challenges. God will reveal Himself to you when you absolutely need it. Learn to trust in God's unwavering support. Look for the small ways that He brings joy to your heart. Be inspired to find peace and confidence in knowing you are loved and cared for, regardless of your circumstances. Listen as Christopher shares

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