It's not just that these TDS sufferers also suffer from inability to recall even recent history, they are also intensely parochial. They don't care that Iran just massacred several (tens of) thousand protestors. They don't care that Iran has been a destabilizing force all over the world. They don't care that the PRC has been relying on Iranian oil to build up stockpiles so that it can invade Taiwan.
And so on.
I don't say that the OrangeManBad is a master 5d chess strategist or that he's always right, but he's disrupting the plans and lives of many people who very definitely do not have America's interests at heart and he's remarkably clear in that he tells you he wants a deal, gives you a time line and then when you ignore him, he whacks you. This is welcome clarity compared to Obama's red lines and so on, but thanks to the US TDS sufferers the despotic part of the world seems to think he's not someone to deal with. More about the despots miscalculation here, BTW, https://ombreolivier.substack.com/p/the-great-miscalculation?r=7yrqz
People spouting administration talking points they've been reciting forever like they know these as facts. The same administration(s) that brought us Iraq, Russia bad, covid, Epstein is no big deal, etc. They've been lying to us for decades but THIS TIME they're telling the truth.
Always the shit MSM is careful to equivocate that Iran may have massacred up to 30,000. Iran admits to killing 3,000. Most of them executed.
I am trying to think of the last time Iran was a global destabilizing force. I do remember in 2001 when Iran helped facilitate our 20 year misadventure in Afghanistan.
China needs to build up a stockpile of oil to invade Taiwan? Taiwan is 300 miles away from the mainland and China doesn't need to invade Taiwan, China will blockade the rogue province until the rogue province capitulates, thus leaving the infrastructure mostly intact.
Official US foreign policy is that Taiwan is a part of China. Which brings a bit of a wrinkle to your thinking. How can China invade it's territory?
Trump is not contemplating some vague 'American military intervention in the Middle East”. After 47 years of kidnapping, terrorism, torture & murder of US military service members and US citizens, we’re fighting back against Iran’s war on US, ENDING FOREVER WARS popular w islamo/commies & decapitating power of CCP, dependent on Iranian oil, while we're at it.
It only takes one side to have a war. Fighting back isn’t what makes the war endless.
Refusing to fight back or to fight back effectively is what makes wars endless.
I am forever grateful for Trump's determination to END genocidal power of the Red / Green axis once and for all at incredible speed. Godspeed.
In Iran? After we murdered a bunch of little girls and we’re sloppy enough to grant Khamenei his wish of martyrdom? Nobody is dancing in Iran. Just like they didnt in Iraq.
I must ask how one can still fall for blatant propaganda from the mainstream media. What was so convincing about the articles drafted with the sole source of the Islamic Republic of Iran that you decided you would make them the center piece of your efforts to make a case against US military action?
Did it ever hit you that you spent three years listening to Adam Schiff on CNN saying that he had inside information, and Trump was hours away from being removed from office for Russian Collusion(tm)? Are you immune to the harm that the safe and effective vaccines that totally blocked infection and transmission have done to people in your life?
Do you ever have moments of cognitive dissonance when you wonder how you wound up cheering for mutilating and neutering children, dictators who kill protesters, clitorectomies, lockdowns, energy becoming a luxury good, and a command economy where people who still create value have to count their change while the government enriches the biggest crony class in history? Have you ever noticed that clean energy stops being considered clean as soon as it turns out to be cheap and abundant? That windmills and solar panels can devastate ecosystems as long as the rent seekers who lobbied for them are getting paid. What would it take for you to realize that you spend your time serving evil?
That’s not all…the growing density, the infiltration of high density housing, like multiple unit ADUs in single family residential neighborhoods, such as Clairemont where I live, and along the newly created ‘transportation corridors’! And the City Government…Mayor Todd Gloria and the Lefty City Council, has ruined “America’s Finest City”.
I was living in Pacific Beach, and crime was becoming pervasive. The police also seemed more interested in arresting and prosecuting landowners for defending themselves and their property than they were in arresting muggers and burglars. Bails were extremely high for crimes such as not letting three illegal twerps beat and rob you or stopping a smash and grab car robbery with a fist. Driving drunk without a license and causing a crash? No problemo Jose, here's your citation. I'll take your word for it that your address is 123 Main Street in TJ and see you in court! Homeowner parking in his own driveway with two tires in the dirt? Towed your car.
I am truly sorry for those people, however many there were. But--not so sorry that I am willing to send my child over there to fight and/or die. That's a problem for the people of Iran. (or was)
Virtually everything Trump does in the area of foreign policy has nothing to do with foreign policy. It has to do with dismantling the funding, the logistical support and sources of personnel for the American left.
Everything that Trump has done recently, Mexico, Venezuela, DOGE and USAID, and now Iran, is attempting to dismantle the international criminal syndicate that has as its political representation the Democrat Party here in the U.S. If the SAVE act ever gets passed, that will be the final nail in the coffin. Democrats can’t win a national election without artificially inflated voter roles and mass mail-in voting. It’s really a 60/40 country. The run up to the mid term elections will be one of the most fraught and unstable periods in American history since 1968. God chose us each to be here at this very moment, so don’t worry about it. We all know how this ends.
Indeed “God chose us each to be here at the very moment” (as we did when our soul came into a physical body this lifetime). Amen Brother William D! 🙏🏼🇺🇸💪🏼
In no position to offer a strategic take in terms of the Mideast theater, but I can see why this moment is in fact different.
Aside from the predictable Left noises, there’s a lot of stupidity on the Right in reaction . In two forms: 1) “He’s doing the same neocon thing we elected him not to!” 2) “He’s doing it ‘cuz Israel told him to. It’s the JOOOZ.”
I’ll argue that 1) is anachronistic and 2) isn’t adequate to the scale.
Trump is taking a huge risk, agreed. But four facts make this moment different from all the previous neocon BS pushes to take out the regime in Tehran.
1) Breaking the US dollar (esp. as petrodollar) is now a feasible goal for Team Xi. Not in the short term, but nonetheless in a timeframe (depending on exigencies) that’s too close for comfort. China’s positioning in Iran gives it a perverse sway over Gulf Arab states, a lever which would be key in any move to break the USD/oil link.
2) Iran now is much closer to having a dozen or so usable nukes than it’s ever been. (Yes, this may be hyped by analysts, but the basics make their reading plausible.)
3) Iran is more brittle now than it’s been for a long long time. Why not hit?
4) China is showing all signs of preparing a Taiwan move. This too is totally different from the glory days of John McCain.
All this is new. China’s sway in the Mideast is a serious problem for US force posture vis a vis China in the Western Pacific. China would need dirt cheap oil to maintain itself during any Pacific conflict. Note that Trump’s last move was also against a key oil asset in China’s portfolio: Venezuela.
Of course Israel is a factor, but just a factor. This is Trump’s board game.
Trump didn’t care about the Bolton neocon gang in 2018, and he still doesn’t.
Trump’s move is a matter of securing American viability and wealth. We can’t responsibly allow the BRICS to erode the dollar, and they’re inching closer to a feasible scenario where it could happen. More, if Taiwan Semiconductor is taken, the US economy will suffer a massive hit.
This is thus a global positioning gambit. It could go south in a big way. But Trump isn’t exactly shy. And if he didn’t move now, much could also easily go south. WAY south.
I took your advice, Chris. I've withheld personal opinion for a week or so. People are reacting in the extreme. Simmer down folks until the smoke clears.
It's fascinating that the opposition, so far, has been incapable of mounting any argument more substantial than Orange Man Bad.
'History started 4 minutes ago' is perfect. The corallary, of course is that 'US did bad things in staging a coup 50 years ago and then history stopped until 4 minutes ago'.
TDS doesn’t quite explain this. It isn’t an inability to recognize reality. It is a conscious, considered, organized commitment to pure propaganda. The infamous Hunter Biden laptop letter from 51 IC luminaries was pure election propaganda. The concept of true or false played no part in the exercise. It never came up. The letter had utility. Most here have probably seen this quote:
Quote
“Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to. ”
My thought exactly. I like listening to what my enemy actually says. They are usually quite straightforward about their intentions. A confrontation seemed inevitable. Might as well go ahead and strike now and leverage the great intel and the region’s apparent resolve.
The last time I checked my wristwatch, Iran has been waging near constant conflict worldwide since 1979. My fellow American air passengers were being blown out of the skies. The legs, arms and scrotums were removed from our military men by Iranian IEDs, and it includes the thirty thousand plus Iranians they recently murdered. The death toll gets pretty large after you start counting.
As others have pointed out, a dictatorial regime of eighth century, unreformed religious savages armed with nukes, what could possibly go wrong? This is one instance in which I am grateful for the existence of some atheism, in this case, in the persons of the Kim family of North Korea.
Iran, like immigration, is a huge mess, created and/or exacerbated by a decades-long void of leadership on the left (and some on the right). Cleaning up their shit is more than a full time job.
When it comes to our elected "leaders" and our media, EVERYTHING, is the history of now.
Why is it this way?
Regrettably as a populace, Americans seemingly want all of their news & information in small "fun sized" portions devoid of any context or actual history that may require them to actually think.
There's an insidious reason why public schools (my only frame of reference) rarely, if ever, teach civics or deeper level history or critical thinking skills anymore i.e. an unthinking populace is an easily manipulated populace.
Admittedly my knee jerk reaction was “Oh Fuck, here we go again!” But then I settled in and opened my mind. I’m going to give Trump a chance to prove me wrong. America’s lethality seems more intense. The coordination across the military more choreographed. The MSM is likely getting 50% at best on what is going on. The propaganda machine is running at full tilt. I’m just praying for our country and the citizens of Iran who want liberty and freedom. God’s will be done.
My friend lived in Iran 1979 , immigrated legally to USA . She’s glad the bad guys are gone but destruction of Iran upsets her . Most want to be westernized and live in a Democratic nation , the problem is Religion and what men have been doing to women for decades in the name of Allah.
It's not just that these TDS sufferers also suffer from inability to recall even recent history, they are also intensely parochial. They don't care that Iran just massacred several (tens of) thousand protestors. They don't care that Iran has been a destabilizing force all over the world. They don't care that the PRC has been relying on Iranian oil to build up stockpiles so that it can invade Taiwan.
And so on.
I don't say that the OrangeManBad is a master 5d chess strategist or that he's always right, but he's disrupting the plans and lives of many people who very definitely do not have America's interests at heart and he's remarkably clear in that he tells you he wants a deal, gives you a time line and then when you ignore him, he whacks you. This is welcome clarity compared to Obama's red lines and so on, but thanks to the US TDS sufferers the despotic part of the world seems to think he's not someone to deal with. More about the despots miscalculation here, BTW, https://ombreolivier.substack.com/p/the-great-miscalculation?r=7yrqz
Still would like the pallets of cash in the dead of night sent to Iran
Valerie Jarrett is sleeping on them
That was an excellent macro view of current events. Thank you.
Here’s my macro view. It’s clear that the global left is a worldwide death cult.
Their primary M.O. is that *they* get to pick who to kill.
The left is now mad we are eliminating the murderous mullahs simply because we are removing their leftist approved killers.
The good people of the world just want to be left alone and live in peace.
The left wants you to obey them, and if you don’t, they want to kill you.
This is the thread that runs through every leftist regime in history.
Debates” on false premises
Love it.
People spouting administration talking points they've been reciting forever like they know these as facts. The same administration(s) that brought us Iraq, Russia bad, covid, Epstein is no big deal, etc. They've been lying to us for decades but THIS TIME they're telling the truth.
It's all so silly.
Agreed. The framing is as false as the premise. I reject it entirely.
I'd like this twice if I could.
Always the shit MSM is careful to equivocate that Iran may have massacred up to 30,000. Iran admits to killing 3,000. Most of them executed.
I am trying to think of the last time Iran was a global destabilizing force. I do remember in 2001 when Iran helped facilitate our 20 year misadventure in Afghanistan.
China needs to build up a stockpile of oil to invade Taiwan? Taiwan is 300 miles away from the mainland and China doesn't need to invade Taiwan, China will blockade the rogue province until the rogue province capitulates, thus leaving the infrastructure mostly intact.
Official US foreign policy is that Taiwan is a part of China. Which brings a bit of a wrinkle to your thinking. How can China invade it's territory?
Trump is not contemplating some vague 'American military intervention in the Middle East”. After 47 years of kidnapping, terrorism, torture & murder of US military service members and US citizens, we’re fighting back against Iran’s war on US, ENDING FOREVER WARS popular w islamo/commies & decapitating power of CCP, dependent on Iranian oil, while we're at it.
It only takes one side to have a war. Fighting back isn’t what makes the war endless.
Refusing to fight back or to fight back effectively is what makes wars endless.
I am forever grateful for Trump's determination to END genocidal power of the Red / Green axis once and for all at incredible speed. Godspeed.
Yup. Ending forever wars means weakening MI6/CIA/NATO. It will not be clean and easy but it is necessary.
So how many Americans has Iran kidnapped, tortured and killed in the last 47 years. Try to be exact.
Hundreds if not thousands of Persians dancing in the streets, in cities around the world, joyous that Trump killed Khamenei.
That's rather informative.
In Iran? After we murdered a bunch of little girls and we’re sloppy enough to grant Khamenei his wish of martyrdom? Nobody is dancing in Iran. Just like they didnt in Iraq.
I must ask how one can still fall for blatant propaganda from the mainstream media. What was so convincing about the articles drafted with the sole source of the Islamic Republic of Iran that you decided you would make them the center piece of your efforts to make a case against US military action?
Did it ever hit you that you spent three years listening to Adam Schiff on CNN saying that he had inside information, and Trump was hours away from being removed from office for Russian Collusion(tm)? Are you immune to the harm that the safe and effective vaccines that totally blocked infection and transmission have done to people in your life?
Do you ever have moments of cognitive dissonance when you wonder how you wound up cheering for mutilating and neutering children, dictators who kill protesters, clitorectomies, lockdowns, energy becoming a luxury good, and a command economy where people who still create value have to count their change while the government enriches the biggest crony class in history? Have you ever noticed that clean energy stops being considered clean as soon as it turns out to be cheap and abundant? That windmills and solar panels can devastate ecosystems as long as the rent seekers who lobbied for them are getting paid. What would it take for you to realize that you spend your time serving evil?
Not to mention Biden was a genius at the top of his game
Can't like this enough, it amazes me that people just swallow whatever they are fed.
I can't understand why Ambrosia is even on here, why show up if you dont want to know anything?
When someone spends their time serving evil, there is only one logical conclusion.
Amen to All that!
Is the CJinSD referring to SD in SoCA or South Dakota? If SoCA we are fellow travelers in SD in SoCA! 😉🇺🇸💪🏼
I lived in San Diego for about a decade, but eventually I couldn't take watching the growing shanty towns.
That’s not all…the growing density, the infiltration of high density housing, like multiple unit ADUs in single family residential neighborhoods, such as Clairemont where I live, and along the newly created ‘transportation corridors’! And the City Government…Mayor Todd Gloria and the Lefty City Council, has ruined “America’s Finest City”.
I was living in Pacific Beach, and crime was becoming pervasive. The police also seemed more interested in arresting and prosecuting landowners for defending themselves and their property than they were in arresting muggers and burglars. Bails were extremely high for crimes such as not letting three illegal twerps beat and rob you or stopping a smash and grab car robbery with a fist. Driving drunk without a license and causing a crash? No problemo Jose, here's your citation. I'll take your word for it that your address is 123 Main Street in TJ and see you in court! Homeowner parking in his own driveway with two tires in the dirt? Towed your car.
Check your facts on that school. And remember that hospital in Gaza.
They sure couldn't dance in Tehran a few days ago.
But what about the 40,000 or so ‘protestors’ and people who “opposed the regime” in Iran that the regime has killed?
I am truly sorry for those people, however many there were. But--not so sorry that I am willing to send my child over there to fight and/or die. That's a problem for the people of Iran. (or was)
It was 4000000, actually
Virtually everything Trump does in the area of foreign policy has nothing to do with foreign policy. It has to do with dismantling the funding, the logistical support and sources of personnel for the American left.
Everything that Trump has done recently, Mexico, Venezuela, DOGE and USAID, and now Iran, is attempting to dismantle the international criminal syndicate that has as its political representation the Democrat Party here in the U.S. If the SAVE act ever gets passed, that will be the final nail in the coffin. Democrats can’t win a national election without artificially inflated voter roles and mass mail-in voting. It’s really a 60/40 country. The run up to the mid term elections will be one of the most fraught and unstable periods in American history since 1968. God chose us each to be here at this very moment, so don’t worry about it. We all know how this ends.
How does it end,? please tell,,,,,,,,and,,,,,Yes Save ACT must be law..and..They will cheat anyway
Indeed “God chose us each to be here at the very moment” (as we did when our soul came into a physical body this lifetime). Amen Brother William D! 🙏🏼🇺🇸💪🏼
In no position to offer a strategic take in terms of the Mideast theater, but I can see why this moment is in fact different.
Aside from the predictable Left noises, there’s a lot of stupidity on the Right in reaction . In two forms: 1) “He’s doing the same neocon thing we elected him not to!” 2) “He’s doing it ‘cuz Israel told him to. It’s the JOOOZ.”
I’ll argue that 1) is anachronistic and 2) isn’t adequate to the scale.
Trump is taking a huge risk, agreed. But four facts make this moment different from all the previous neocon BS pushes to take out the regime in Tehran.
1) Breaking the US dollar (esp. as petrodollar) is now a feasible goal for Team Xi. Not in the short term, but nonetheless in a timeframe (depending on exigencies) that’s too close for comfort. China’s positioning in Iran gives it a perverse sway over Gulf Arab states, a lever which would be key in any move to break the USD/oil link.
2) Iran now is much closer to having a dozen or so usable nukes than it’s ever been. (Yes, this may be hyped by analysts, but the basics make their reading plausible.)
3) Iran is more brittle now than it’s been for a long long time. Why not hit?
4) China is showing all signs of preparing a Taiwan move. This too is totally different from the glory days of John McCain.
All this is new. China’s sway in the Mideast is a serious problem for US force posture vis a vis China in the Western Pacific. China would need dirt cheap oil to maintain itself during any Pacific conflict. Note that Trump’s last move was also against a key oil asset in China’s portfolio: Venezuela.
Of course Israel is a factor, but just a factor. This is Trump’s board game.
Trump didn’t care about the Bolton neocon gang in 2018, and he still doesn’t.
Trump’s move is a matter of securing American viability and wealth. We can’t responsibly allow the BRICS to erode the dollar, and they’re inching closer to a feasible scenario where it could happen. More, if Taiwan Semiconductor is taken, the US economy will suffer a massive hit.
This is thus a global positioning gambit. It could go south in a big way. But Trump isn’t exactly shy. And if he didn’t move now, much could also easily go south. WAY south.
Thank you, Eric. I don't think I have ever seen anything of yours which failed to impress me with its citing of facts and its rationality.
Thanks for the kind word, Bobby. How’ve you been during these gyrating months?
Fascinated, but I am not sure about the living in interesting times idea. I need more tedium in the news. How about you?
Need more tedium. But I suspect it’s not to be had.
A nice boring day where nothing happens is a great day!
One of my mantras.
Need more tedium…stop watching the news, get outside in nature and ground yourself in the earth.
☝🏼this.
"We came, we saw, HE died," but the typo changes the meaning in an amusing way
Can a typo be Freudian? Asking for a friend.
The transcription error is eliding Hillary's uproarious Dr. Evil laugh
That wasn't a laugh, it was a cackle, like from a hyena.
I took your advice, Chris. I've withheld personal opinion for a week or so. People are reacting in the extreme. Simmer down folks until the smoke clears.
It's fascinating that the opposition, so far, has been incapable of mounting any argument more substantial than Orange Man Bad.
'History started 4 minutes ago' is perfect. The corallary, of course is that 'US did bad things in staging a coup 50 years ago and then history stopped until 4 minutes ago'.
Incapable of an argument against violating our First Amendment to play Netanyahu's enforcer? Are you sure? How widely do you think you read?
Is this an argument?
Not an argument, but it is a word salad.
I think if you'll examine my questions to you you'll discover an invitation to consider the points I raised and respond.
..but not the 2nd one.
So far not yet at least not directly, although special pleading for groups or for carry inviting lethal overreaction would have the same effect.
TDS doesn’t quite explain this. It isn’t an inability to recognize reality. It is a conscious, considered, organized commitment to pure propaganda. The infamous Hunter Biden laptop letter from 51 IC luminaries was pure election propaganda. The concept of true or false played no part in the exercise. It never came up. The letter had utility. Most here have probably seen this quote:
Quote
“Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to. ”
When “death to America” is your national slogan, it doesn’t leave much to the imagination what your intentions are.
My thought exactly. I like listening to what my enemy actually says. They are usually quite straightforward about their intentions. A confrontation seemed inevitable. Might as well go ahead and strike now and leverage the great intel and the region’s apparent resolve.
The last time I checked my wristwatch, Iran has been waging near constant conflict worldwide since 1979. My fellow American air passengers were being blown out of the skies. The legs, arms and scrotums were removed from our military men by Iranian IEDs, and it includes the thirty thousand plus Iranians they recently murdered. The death toll gets pretty large after you start counting.
Big mistake.
As others have pointed out, a dictatorial regime of eighth century, unreformed religious savages armed with nukes, what could possibly go wrong? This is one instance in which I am grateful for the existence of some atheism, in this case, in the persons of the Kim family of North Korea.
Iran, like immigration, is a huge mess, created and/or exacerbated by a decades-long void of leadership on the left (and some on the right). Cleaning up their shit is more than a full time job.
When it comes to our elected "leaders" and our media, EVERYTHING, is the history of now.
Why is it this way?
Regrettably as a populace, Americans seemingly want all of their news & information in small "fun sized" portions devoid of any context or actual history that may require them to actually think.
There's an insidious reason why public schools (my only frame of reference) rarely, if ever, teach civics or deeper level history or critical thinking skills anymore i.e. an unthinking populace is an easily manipulated populace.
Chris Van Hollen. DC's answer to David French.
Admittedly my knee jerk reaction was “Oh Fuck, here we go again!” But then I settled in and opened my mind. I’m going to give Trump a chance to prove me wrong. America’s lethality seems more intense. The coordination across the military more choreographed. The MSM is likely getting 50% at best on what is going on. The propaganda machine is running at full tilt. I’m just praying for our country and the citizens of Iran who want liberty and freedom. God’s will be done.
My friend lived in Iran 1979 , immigrated legally to USA . She’s glad the bad guys are gone but destruction of Iran upsets her . Most want to be westernized and live in a Democratic nation , the problem is Religion and what men have been doing to women for decades in the name of Allah.
Suggested edit: "men have been doing to women for centuries in the name of Allah."
True