Only Cuba is socialist. The other three are capitalist. Considering that Cuba suffers from sanctions, like Haiti, it is impressive how they managed to achieve an HDI almost as high as the DR, a value considerably higher than the average in the Caribbean.
Sure, starting a prolonged war, having the Strait of Hormuz closed and its military bases destroyed while having the largest aircraft carrier forced to retreat, is all part of a larger plan. Everything going as predicted.
If you look at what has been achieved versus what was achieved in the same time period in the previous Gulf wars (which had much more buildup), the military strategy so far is going better than history would have indicated and is probably way ahead of what was planned.
GWB’s Gulf “war”, one of the biggest modern blunders this country has made, being a measuring stick for the new foray in killing civilians in the Middle East, is not a great starting point for any “actually we’re doing well” narratives.
None of that changes that militarily the start of that war was considered extremely militarily successful, and this one is off to an even more successful start.
And your original response to me had nothing, at all, to do with what I originally wrote, hence me expanding on what I wrote that you responded to, not your new tangent.
Military/tactical success does not mean strategic victory, but understanding the current reality of both is worthwhile. There is plenty of other discussion here on strategic victory for you to comment on/add your insight.
So I guess we are both just talking past each other.
My man, you said "If you look at what has been achieved versus what was achieved in the same time period in the previous Gulf wars ... " - I responded directly to that, saying it was a stupid measuring stick.
If you wanted to say different things, you should have said them. What you said was bizarre and silly. Come on, now.
During the first 2 weeks of the Gulf War we lost 12 aircraft to enemy fire. 8 to Iraqi SAMs, 3 Iraqi AAA, and 1 lost in air combat (an F/A-18C Hornet shot down by an Iraqi MiG-25). Losses resulted in 19 deaths and 10 POWs. We had a 70% interception rate on Iraq's ballistic missiles versus 90% on Iran's. We were not able to find/stop Iraq's launchers during the entire war, meanwhile we have footage of eliminating some of Iran's.
We now have drones allowing us to do lots of recon without risk to our planes. Last I know we've lost 14 drones. In Iraq that would have been 14 piloted jets. This allows us to do more/more risky recon, and at a higher operational tempo as they can be in the air longer, don't have pilot fatigue, etc.
We have removed the top government officials, and continue to remove high value targets. Today Ali Larijani, one of the orchestrators for the mass killing of Iranian protestors, was killed along with Basij cheif Gholamreza Soleimani who bragged about personally beating protestors and whose forces use rape against women routinely, along with Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.
Militarily we have been extremely successful in our objectives. How that translates politically in Iran is unknown. But militarily it can't be denied. The start of the Iraq war is unilaterally considered militarily successful, and this war so far is wildly more successful than that was.
You are talking about political success, and we won't know how that goes until the final outcome, but if we are successful we may never know (if we stopped a nuclear program that would have happened, how do we know we did?).
Currently we can look at military success, and it's pretty easy to see militarily we are meeting our goals.
It reads like military analysis of a military action. Strategic and tactical/military success are not the same thing, but both are worthwhile discussions to understand events. You seem to want to comingle the two but it'd probably be more productive for you to discuss your proffered topic of strategic success in one of the many threads here related to that.
How so, will Iran be less likely to send rockets and drones at their enemies? Or will they ramp up as soon as they are able? They might be okay with it taking days, weeks, months or even years to rebuild and redeploy their munitions. Has the oppressive regime changed over, or are they more angry than ever for yet another violation of their sovereignty? Iran contains one of the longest running civilizations on earth, you seem to be assuming a lot after ~3 weeks, especially since the U.S. and Israeli sides are dishonest in their proclamations of accomplishment.
Thinking about it from a first principles pov, the regime lost many of its key people, officers, and a lot of infrastructure and resources.
This 100% had some effect on its ability to function. The question is what effect.
Since it is a religious ideological movement, it has very strong cohesion, so its not going to break apart, demoralize or change its core principles.
It will also maintain the support of the highly religious Shias, however,while millions, they are a minority in Iran.
What its probably going to lose is its logistical capabilities, and its ability to exercise power and to make decisions in the periphery.
So it might still hold Tehran and places where it is strong, but Iran is a huge country, with an enormous population and mountainous geography. Places farther from the center might slip out of the regime's control. And it will need to work much harder to maintain the same level of control that it had before the war in Tehran and large cities.
This means that when the dust settles it will be either challenged by oppositional forces, or be forced to make concessions to gain back authority.
If it will try to massacre itself back to power, there will be a civil war.
You are forgetting the criminal economic and trade embargo against Cuba. With what money would they buy these Chinese solar panels? How exactly would they obtain the dollars? What economic activity do you propose for them to industrialize and become internationally competitive, given that they are an island with very few natural resources and, thanks to the embargo, have to pay much more for any resource compared to any other country?
I'm not - clearly going against a superpower hell bent on destroying you and making you a colony hasn't exactly worked for them. I'm just pointing reality as it is - you can't force the US to change - it will remain imperialist.
economic activity - export labor to China, Africa they've already been doing that already.
they still receive money from other countries not just the US.
I have lived under a US sanctioned country - blaming the US doesn't help - most of the fault lies in administration of said country - the effects of sanctions is less than say the effect of an incompetent administration
Yes, they are already doing that. Tourism, exporting skilled workers (doctors), exporting rum and cigars. Exactly the economic activities that do not require external raw materials. And with that, they have achieved social indicators vastly better than all their neighbors. So I don't really see the basis for your accusation of incompetence: Cuba does well what it can.
But what it can do is fragile. Without industrialization, there is no way to have stable wealth. China and Vietnam themselves only industrialized and followed that path after trade blockades were lifted. Without that, the Chinese reform and its opening to the market would have come to nothing.
Moreover, it is strange to defend a crime by naturalizing the idea that the criminal will always act that way. That may well be the case. In that case, it is morally necessary to turn against him and stop him.
No, the private ownership of the means of production needs to be created and maintained by a state. There is nothing natural about it; if you see it as natural, it is because you naturalize the society you live in. First of all, like any type of property, it is a social construct that must be upheld by laws and instruments of coercion. And speaking of the means of production, to ensure wage labor, a process or arrangement is needed that guarantees one group of people holds ownership while others do not. In the case of land, for example, this requires enclosure, the destruction of the concept of land as something communal.
I don't think the American people can change their country's policy oriented toward a constant state of war, aggression, and invasions of other countries under the current system. This is a constant state policy, regardless of the party or the president. So it can be said that the United States is not a democracy. Money and capital rule, not the people.This can only be changed by a fundamental shift that empowers people over capital.
Of course, I agree that Trump is worse because, by removing the mask of civility and attacking others without first bothering to create propaganda and a narrative about how it is for the greater good and justice, he made the plundering and crimes faster and more efficient.
> don't think the American people can change their country's policy oriented toward a constant state of war, aggression, and invasions of other countries under the current system
Of course we can. People disagreeing with you doesn't mean they don't exist.
These are the Senate seats in play this cycle [1]. How many of those do you think would be flipped based on any foreign policy item?
If you're on this thread you pay attention to foreign policy. The notion that someone doesn't–not isn't informed, but literally doesn't to any degree–is almost more foreign than the strangest countries we read about. But the truth is most Americans have never ranked any foreign policy item as being in their top three issues since the Vietnam War.
We could change it if we wanted to. We don't because it's not personally pertinent or worse, it's boring. (And, I'd argue, because a lot of foreign-policy oriented activists are preaching for the choir versus trying to actually effect change.)
Americans ranked foreign policy as the third most relevant issue for them in 2016, tied with immigration. [1] It's disingenuous to ignore that both parties have traditionally had mostly the same foreign policy stance. So you're voting for forever war, or forever war. How can it be a deciding factor for voters in this context?
But 2016 was different because Trump was the first candidate in some time to run on something even vaguely flirting with being anti-war, as he actively called out the endless wars of the political establishment, and argued that America first should not involve us wasting our money bombing countries half-way around the world. It was a relatively weak position but even that was enough to get 13% of voters to declare foreign policy as their key issue, tied with immigration. And Trump ended up winning their vote by an 18 point margin.
Anti-war is one of the relatively large number of issues that Americans largely agree on, but the political establishment makes it impossible to vote for, because you'll never find a mainstream candidate running on a platform that aligns with public interest. So for instance 84% of Americans think that "the American military should be used only as a last resort", that Congressional approval should be required for military action, and so on. [2]
> 84% of Americans think that "the American military should be used only as a last resort", that Congressional approval should be required for military action, and so on
In general, yes. What fraction of Trump voters do you think would agree that Trump should face any consequences for bypassing the Congress?
Or Obama's, or Bush's, or Clinton's? By the time somebody is in office and engaging in a pro-war platform, his supporters will look the other way. Even moreso in modern American politics where people are often no longer even voting for people they like, but for people they loathe less than the alternative. It's why electoral choice, which is largely absent in America, is so critical for the functioning of a healthy system.
That's assuming the people don't vote for this because they want this.
Many Americans have a hero complex. Their national mythology post World War II includes them being the "good guys" against the "bad guys." That mythology needs a bad guy.
Trump ran on "no wars" because he was going to spend all his focus on America instead of burning taxpayer money dropping bombs overseas. I'm sure some people voted for him at least in part for that reason. You can argue that they should have known he was liar, but there is support for it. Also, with the new concentration camps, the soldiers in our streets, and the nazi salutes I'm not sure the whole "good guys" against the "bad guys" narrative is something trump voters care about at all. They seem pretty comfortable playing the "bad guys" part anyway.
We let the market dictate how society's resources are allocated. And we see, as a result, how the market is actually not at all interested in the satisfaction and well-being of the people in society.
I always wonder if people do not look for external reasons to avoid doing work or taking decisions themselves.
Most of the people I know do not spend their free time doing research into the satisfaction of society, and do not donate (even what they could!) to great causes. It is not the "market dictates" is "most of people dictate".
And still. I am writing this in an open-source browser, on an open-source operating system. The existence of this tools helps society no matter how you put it. So in fact, if you think of it, there are many people that do not "obey" the market. And this is only one way, there are others.
So maybe rather than "blame the market" be positive and tell us what way did you find to make a difference.
These people, who make purchasing decisons, also make them on behalf of someone's preferences, mixed with their own, to the extent they have a say. Like the market, government represents certain weighted subset of people. With the market, the people in the government are under influence just as much as anybody else. You can't really say that preferences flow a certain way, from government to business.
"Market" is a proxy for other things, and different people mean different things when they say it. So when we talk about the "market" wanting or doing something, we aren't always talking about the same thing. This is important to realize, so that we don't conflate separate concepts and talk past each other.
I wasn't really sure how to respond, it seemed obvious to me, so I put your question with the two comments into Claude. I genuinely think it gave a great response. I encourage you (or anybody) to try yourself next time, but here it is:
The second person was essentially unpacking the phrase "the market" to reveal who it actually represents. Here are the top 3 interpretations of their point:
1. The market isn't a neutral arbiter — it's a voting system where money is the vote. When we say "the market decides," we're really saying that people with more money have more say. A billionaire's preference for a luxury yacht counts for vastly more than a poor person's need for affordable housing. So "market outcomes" aren't some objective measure of what society wants — they reflect what wealthy people want.
2. The first person's critique is correct, but misdirected. By saying "the market" is indifferent to people's well-being, the first commenter was almost treating the market like an external, autonomous force. The second person is saying: it's not some mysterious system — it's just rich people's preferences given structural power. The problem isn't the abstraction called "the market"; the problem is inequality in who gets to participate meaningfully in it.
3. The language of "the market" obscures a political reality. Calling something a "market outcome" makes it sound natural, inevitable, and impersonal. But framing it as "rich people's preferences dominate resource allocation" makes it sound like what it actually is — a political and social choice about whose interests get prioritized. The second person is essentially calling out the ideological function of the word "market" as a way to launder what is really a power structure.
The three interpretations overlap, but they emphasize different things: the mechanics of how markets work, the validity of the first person's critique, and the rhetorical/political role of market language respectively.
Yes, it was clear that you wanted to refocus this as a moral problem of people. But that's irrelevant. The point of the guy above is that there is a system (the market) that creates certain incentives, and as a result, we have what we have. That's why I ask: what's your point? We still have all these problems.
So are you asking how to change it? I think that's pretty obvious once people understand it's a collective social choice - organize to change it. The point is "the market" is not some mysterious unreachable force.
For example, this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47181837 is wrong; even if you had large amount of people acting like that person does, you would still likely have a system that doesn't work in the interest of society.
I'm no asking how to change it. And I don't think anyone has suggested that the market is some mysterious unreachable force. To be honest, at this point it's clear that you're being condescending and assuming people believe something foolish instead of trying to understand what they're actually saying.
There was a huge inflection point in basically everything around 1971. [1] That was US pulled out of Bretton Woods and the USD became completely unbacked by anything, enabling the government to 'print' infinite money. How can market forces be the one deciding anything when literally trillions of imaginary dollars keeps being dumped into it, in a highly prejudiced fashion, by the government and their preferred institutions?
At that point the historical correlations between money and basically everything, which had sustained for centuries - even though the industrial revolution, began completely breaking down, and infinitely began skyrocketing to levels never seen before, in the US at least.
>the market is actually not at all interested in the satisfaction and well-being of the people in society.
The biochem industry is extremely bad at creating things that increase the satisfaction and well-being of society; the vast majority of products are failures with few users. The reason tech companies make money is because they make things people actually want to use.
>The biochem industry is extremely bad at creating things that increase the satisfaction and well-being of society
I'd argue the "satisfaction" of society has been hijacked. We cannot even, as a society, understand the impact on medicine, nutrition, agriculture and the well-being we could harness from focusing on the long term, rather than seeking dopamine hits through screens.
That was the policy that allowed him to build a social welfare state for people tired of being exploited. Famine decreased, life expectancy increased, and the HDI became high. Unfortunately, this ended when the country was sanctioned and embargoed.
Why do these strong, socialist countries anyways need US trade to function?
The Venezuelan economy was dying before the sanctions.
Burning the economy to hand out free money isn't good for the people.
Maduro and Chavez fixed the exchange rate, imposed price controls, printed money and did a wave of nationalisation (not the oil infrastructure that was in the 70s). USA isn't to blame for Venezuelan dysfunction.
> socialist countries anyways need US trade to function
Sanctions go way beyond just direct trade with the US; they attempt to prevent all countries on earth from trading with the sanctioned entity, by force of the USD settling system, or as the past week has shown - the US Navy. So it reduces the number of potential trading partners from hundreds to a handful with (near) reserve currencies, and a navy that's not a pushover.
Now I hate your typical south american dictator just like the next guy and know a thing or two from the ground about what sort of instability and crime wave his regime caused across much of South America, but some reality check - if US blocks you from selling oil and you are a regular country and not a china/russia, you practically can't sell oil, not in stable big numbers that can contribute to economy. Yes bits here and there on black market for much lower price, but thats it. And all oil is sold in USD, hence the popular 'petrodolar' expression, and US will fight till its last soldier and missile to keep that status.
Also tells you how serious US is with sanctioning russia and its army of oil&gas resellers btw, which is the primary cash flow financing russian war in Ukraine.
They just do not want colonizers to steal their country and interfere in their internal decisions. Unfortunately, this is the story with every First World colonizer: they do not agree with that.
They want to have their cake and eat it too. Here, the Venezuelan government invited western oil companies to develop its oil fields. Then they broke the deal and stole the infrastructure the western countries had built.
That’s very different from actual colonization, where countries showed up and expropriated resources the natives were already developing.
Oil companies were apparently compensated, but also allegedly not enough. Companies were awarded further compensation in international arbitration, but Venezuela has avoided fully paying up.
If that's all accurate there are numbers out there for what they owe, and it shouldn't be whatever the POTUS decides.
These countries are also mad at Britain and the Netherlands. In a few decades they’ll be mad at the Chinese too.
If these countries had been smarter they would have negotiated better deals and solicited competition from international companies to get the best terms. But that’s their own fault.
The Human Development Index:
Dominican Republic: 0,776 Cuba: 0,762 Jamaica: 0,720 Haiti: 0,554
Only Cuba is socialist. The other three are capitalist. Considering that Cuba suffers from sanctions, like Haiti, it is impressive how they managed to achieve an HDI almost as high as the DR, a value considerably higher than the average in the Caribbean.
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