Virtually any situation ever could be worse. That doesn't mean it makes sense to support something horrific just cause it's possible it could be worse if you don't. That kind of mindset will have you throwing your full support behind literal genocide, instead of putting your foot down.

And quite frankly, if you are incapable of putting your foot down for something like genocide, that implies you don't view it as a problem in the first place and are only concern trolling when it comes to harm reduction.

I don't understand how you come to the conclusion that such a read of it is disingenuous. It's a publication called Business Insider from the western empire, an empire that has a history of war profiteering and putting short term thinking over long term. I could see a point that it's foolish to think nobody in the western empire is trying to think strategically in the long term, but I would figure those are more the people in think tanks and backrooms, not writing pieces for a publication that sound like a pitch to investors.

If there is a part of the article you think especially demonstrates sincere long term thinking, feel free to quote it and I will look at it. Calling a read of this that syncs right up with the chronic observable tendencies of the western empire "disingenuous" is odd to me, to say the least. Reductive, maybe, but disingenuous?

I'd never read in detail on him before, so this was insightful. I feel like I understand better what he was doing and why the approach made sense, with the conditions China was in. Figuring out how to rapidly develop the previously-subjugated productive forces at the scale of China, while dealing with imperialism, attempts at color revolution, etc., was no small thing to work out. It's humbling to think about the degree of collective experimentation, learning, and labor they had to do to get to where they are now.

Bronk said that "it's so much cheaper and easier" to invest now in the capabilities to deter Russia than it is "to actually invest in the forces capable of fighting an extended war for six months, a year, two years."

This is the important part, isn't it. "Invest more money, but don't worry about the long term, just hand over the cash, the short term is what matters here."

Ask him if he'd find it badass if a group of people targeted your family, enslaved them, humiliated them, maimed or murdered anyone in your family who opposed them, created entire media apparatus to convince anyone beyond them and your family that your family is a bunch of savages who need domination in order to "civilize" you, recruited members from your family who were desperate for a way out to work against your family and for them in order to further embed the control over you, slowly eliminate your family to replace them with outsiders and/or force your family to adopt the group's language and culture through threat of violence. And to top it off, do this over the course of entire generations of your family and take credit for anything your family produced as the product of the group's "great men" geniuses.

First, I want to say, well written.

Second, to this thought:

I have no idea why the liberals are wasting saliva defending the actions of this man or trying to garner him any sympathy.

I think it goes back to what Kwame Ture points out in The Pitfalls of Liberalism: https://redsails.org/the-pitfalls-of-liberalism/

Most societies in the West are not opposed to violence. The oppressor is only opposed to violence when the oppressed talks about using violence against the oppressor. Then the question of violence is raised as the incorrect means to attain one’s ends. Witness, for example, that Britain, France, and the United States have time and time again armed black people to fight their enemies for them. France armed Senegalese in World War II, Britain of course armed Africa and the West Indies, and the United States always armed the Africans living in the United States. But that is only to fight against their enemy, and the question of violence is never raised. The only time the United States or England or France will become concerned about the question of violence is when the people whom they armed to kill their enemies will pick up those arms against them.

"Bully returns home, tells mom it was traumatizing when victim fought back."

Friendly reminder that even the CIA thought Stalin wasn't a dictator: https://archive.org/details/cia-rdp-80-00810-a-006000360009-0_202404/mode/2up

Even in Stalin's time there was collective leadership. The Western idea of a dictator within the Communist setup is exaggerated. Misunderstandings on that subject are caused by lack of comprehension of the real nature and organization of the Communist power structure. Stalin, although holding wide powers, was merely the captain of a team and it seems obvious that Khrushchev will be the new captain.

When I wrote the other comment, I did not have any info on collateral damage and the reactions of the crowd in the clip I saw didn't seem to suggest evidence of any. If there is indeed a death as a result, then certainly that point doesn't hold.

I don't know, to some extent this take on it sounds like victim-blaming to me. Not that I'm saying you intend it that way, but like... "best possible outcome of this [because...] the fascist bandit armies would come out in droves [if he died]" seems like kind of a lose-lose situation for people to be in. If Trump is alive and kicking, he can win the presidency and continue to foment stochastic terrorism by riling up his base with more and more violent rhetoric, while also potentially instituting policies meant to harm his political faction opponents. If he's not, they commit terrorism on his behalf.

I know it doesn't all start and end with Trump (far from it and there's plenty to be said about how fascist and imperialist the US already is under Biden and previous presidents before him and Trump) but from the standpoint of the kind of base Trump is the center of gravity for, him further riling it up or being a martyr both seem like bad outcomes to me in different ways. The "far-right" doesn't need an excuse to do violence and already has been (I mean, the Jan 6 thing happened long before this). What they do need is power to be able to carry out what they want to do as more than random acts of terror and Trump represents a means of them getting that in some way. Though he is of course far from the only one in their circles willing to go there. He's just currently the most charismatic and the center of gravity for pushing it.

I'll try to remember to if I can find it. Web searching has indeed become a pain. I tried to do some just now, but didn't have much luck. Through a link in one article, I came upon one source that is vaguely related to what we're talking about, but not really on the point of specifically combining product and community. It's also sort of a shallow summary and may be stuff you've already heard of: https://www.businessinsider.com/birth-of-consumer-culture-2013-2

These quotes from it specifically stand out to me:

"We must shift America from a needs, to a desires culture," wrote Paul Mazur of Lehman Brothers. "People must be trained to desire, to want new things even before the old had been entirely consumed. We must shape a new mentality in America. Man's desires must overshadow his needs."

Bernays shattered the taboo against women smoking by persuading a group of debutantes to light up at a parade — an event he leaked to the media ahead of time with the phrase "Torches Of Freedom" — thereby linking smoking with challenging male authority.

But, this isn't really the specificity of intent I thought I had found something on before. Maybe I confused someone extrapolating intent from outcomes in the past, or it's just out there in the mass of the internet somewhere and is hard to find.

I'm wondering about the 'staged' explanation too. Points in favor of that I've come across from others or can think of:

• Who insists on stopping to do a fist pump to the crowd after being shot at? Yeah, he's a narcissist, but still, wouldn't fight or flight kick in and he'd want to get out of there?

• He has some history with fake wrestling, right? I'm not sure to what extent off-hand, but the fact he does means he's not a stranger to "faking" things.

• The seeming lack of collateral damage if it was a real shooter. That someone would have the discipline of aim to only graze him, but not cause any other damage to anyone. I'm not sure on the logistics of this myself, but it's something I heard that I'm paraphrasing from someone else.