MarxMadness [comrade/them]

And again: what realistic end to the war are you suggesting they fight towards? Is there any realistic deal the U.S. and Israel would agree to that fully guarantees they won’t break it?

If we’re assuming Hezbollah was in on the negotiations, they’re not going to see Iran as a liar for participating in the negotiations, too.

How is any of this a win for Trump? He was losing an unpopular war. He kept declaring victory, or that some agreement had been reached, and the continuation of the war kept proving him wrong. Now he’s again said there’s an agreement, but the war still looks like it will continue. And it will continue because the U.S. and Israel are claiming they never agreed to what the third-party mediator (Pakistan) said they agreed to.

And again: what realistic end to the war are you suggesting they fight towards? Is there any realistic deal the U.S. and Israel would agree to that fully guarantees they won’t break it?

My point is that if Hezbollah was included – that is, Iran didn’t cut a separate deal and leave them hanging – then they knew and accepted the risk of the ceasefire being broken.

And again: what realistic end to the war are you suggesting they fight towards? Is there any realistic deal the U.S. and Israel would agree to that fully guarantees they won’t break it?

Do we know that Hezbollah wasn’t included in these negotiations? Seems like they were, as the ceasefire covered Lebanon and all other areas, too.

The ceasefire is falling apart less than 24 hours after it was announced. What has Iran lost here?

anybody on Earth who cares already knows

I disagree. We’re seeing stances change on the U.S. and Israel. This can only help that. And if it doesn’t, again, what has Iran lost here?

There’s also the question of how Iran is supposed to end this war. The U.S. isn’t just going to collapse, so there has to be some sort of negotiated end at some point.

Iran loses nothing if they’re seen as willing to negotiate and the Epstein Empire blatantly, immediately goes back on the deal.

It’s not a dilemma at all. If they do it, they’re either complicit or too cowardly to refuse an illegal order.

We’ll talk about material conditions until we’re blue in the face, and then when material conditions change it becomes “well people are only receptive to this because it’s hitting their wallets!”

No shit! That’s the whole leftist argument! Material conditions drive politics more than ideology!

The problem (one of them…) is that he loves to make shit up. Hard to parse out when he’s spilling the beans vs. bullshitting.

If magic is totally random or up to the whims of some obscure power, I’m with you. I’m envisioning something more like taming a wild animal. You can be more or less skilled at it, but there’s always some level of uncertainty and danger. There are parts of the interaction you don’t (and probably never will) fully understand. Results are never routine or guaranteed.

I’m slightly optimistic that this sort of blatant favoritism in an organization where you can get shit punishments for arbitrary reasons will rub a lot od troops the wrong way.

The consequences of hyping up the fantastical idea of Russia waking up one day and deciding to invade all of Europe

I think neocons will deploy this sort of argument now (when a president they don’t like is incompetently losing an unpopular war) solely to angle for post-Trump influence. The next time their guy is in power it’ll be right back to “they hate us for our freedoms.”

it’s the neoliberal rot that leads to any problem being solved by a ruleslawyering gotcha

This also reflects a deeper problem with how magic works in Harry Potter: by reducing it to rules you can learn, spells you can recite, and potions anyone can make if they just follow the instructions well enough, it ceases to be magical. It’s just another technology, albeit one you need a certain gene to able to fully use.

To be appropriately magical, magic should have large elements of the unknown (maybe even the unknowable!), and use should come with risks and uncertainties. You’re peeking behind the veil, you’re tapping powers you don’t fully understand. Make it too legible and it not only loses its luster, but invites the audience to endlessly ask “why didn’t they just _______?”

Wonder what the real death/casualty count is, and how long they can keep it under wraps.

Do you have a source saying they met in Israel?

I love how they know there were different methods of execution

Why are you making stuff up in this thread? Elsewhere you say the bullet “decapitated” Kirk, but we all saw the video. Now you’re claiming they met in Israel.

The couple went on their first date in New York City in September 2018, according to a post Erika Kirk shared on Instagram.

“5 years ago today, we sat inside Bills Burgers in NYC deep in conversation and banter over theology, philosophy, and politics and at the end, you paused, looked at me and said, ‘I’m going to date you,’” she wrote in a Sept. 5, 2023, post.

Following Charlie Kirk’s death, Erika Kirk shared a video on Instagram of Charlie Kirk telling the story of how they met to their daughter while sitting at a table at Bill’s Burgers in New York City.

https://abcnews.com/News/charlie-kirk-wife-erika-two-kids/story?id=125460687

But his defense attorneys now argue that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives ‘was unable to identify the bullet recovered at autopsy to the rifle allegedly tied to Mr Robinson.’

“Unable to identify” is quite a bit different from “does not match.” Think fingerprints: “we can’t make out what was recovered from the scene” is different from “we can make out what was recovered, and it isn’t the suspect’s fingerprint.”

There may also be different levels of certainly in these types of analyses, and this is just arguing that less than 100% certain means “unable to identify.”

But Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, has called for full transparency in coverage of the trial, saying: ‘We deserve to have cameras in there’.

Damn, she really does just want to maximize her TV time.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/parenti/2007/the-tibet-myth.htm

Many ordinary Tibetans want the Dalai Lama back in their country, but it appears that relatively few want a return to the social order he represented. A 1999 story in the Washington Post notes that the Dalai Lama continues to be revered in Tibet, but

. . . few Tibetans would welcome a return of the corrupt aristocratic clans that fled with him in 1959 and that comprise the bulk of his advisers. Many Tibetan farmers, for example, have no interest in surrendering the land they gained during China’s land reform to the clans. Tibet’s former slaves say they, too, don’t want their former masters to return to power. “I’ve already lived that life once before,” said Wangchuk, a 67-year-old former slave who was wearing his best clothes for his yearly pilgrimage to Shigatse, one of the holiest sites of Tibetan Buddhism. He said he worshipped the Dalai Lama, but added, “I may not be free under Chinese communism, but I am better off than when I was a slave.”