Miscellaneous News

Heresy said:

Does ignoring him stop him from posting? Because that's really what is being asked for here.
The way I see it, there's only two ways to do it: The easy way and the hard way.
The easy way involves banning him. And when he pops up with another username, ban him again. The dude clearly isn't capable of alternating his posting pattern, so regardless of what IP he uses, it would be easy to identify him. And if the main forum mods don't want the work and the headache, I'm sure there are plenty of volunteers who would be happy to at least police this thread or any of the non-flagship threads.

The hard way involves inviting this guy for tea, and all the complicated logistics therein.

I'm honestly ok with either method. In a perfect world, I would much prefer the latter than the former. But we don't live in a perfect world, and as cathartic as it would be, he's not worth the effort of the latter.

Click to expand...

This is the equivalent of a forum on black rights allowing a KKK member that simps for Rhodesia and Apartheid South Africa to post.

Would even white members of that forum say "well we want to be tolerant to different viewpoints" or "a forum on black rights isn't necessarily a black people's forum"? Would they dare even suggest it?

If changing the wording of Chinese to black makes one feel uncomfortable then it is racism to use Chinese there too. Simple as that.

USAID signs $200 million grants deal with interim government of Bangladesh​

The US development agency, USAID, has signed a grant deal with the interim government of Bangladesh.

Under the agreement, USAID will provide $202.25 million grants for three sectors namely good governance; social, human and economic opportunity; and resilience.
The deal was signed at the state guesthouse Padma on Sunday after a meeting of the visiting US interagency delegation of Finance adviser Dr Salehuddin Ahmed and foreign adviser Md Touhid Hossain.

Brent Neiman, assistant secretary for International Finance at the Department of the Treasury, is leading the delegation that includes Assistant Secretary of State Donald Lu[1] and the USAID representatives.

The visit has been seen as a way to take forward the bilateral relations in a changed political situation. The Awami League government which was toppled on August 5 following students’ movement was at loggerheads with Washington.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Click to expand...

Like clockwork, once again, a color revolution coup leads to an USAID handshake.

It's par for the course, but I'm highlighting this particular report because a month ago, when the former Bangladeshi PM was ousted and some Bangladeshi member on here was mounting emotionally charged defenses of the new coup regime, I didn't want to state the obvious, that every single popular protest since the Arab Spring had been subverted to establish a new US-aligned comprador government or attempted to. Every movement had its legitimate grievances against a "corrupt government," every single one thought their protest was "pure" and "untainted" by foreign meddling. Even a soc-dem like Victor Bevins was able to recognize the harsh truth of the so-called 2010s "decade of protests" in his book "If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution", that any unorganized mass movement, leaderless and directionless, will be inevitably taking marching orders for those better organized, i.e. Washington.

I recall that member's impassioned arguments even won over plenty of people here towards the coup government's narrative of events and there was a sporadic debate for a while whether this would break the mold and was actually a popular coup that would maintain its national sovereignty. To be clear, it's not that their grievances aren't real and their desire for some kind of change is misplaced, that part is often genuine. No one wants to think their popular movement is a sucker and a chump, hand-crafted to be a pawn for US interests. However, when the dust settled, it was laughable that some freak who won the Nobel Peace Prize, the ultimate comprador badge of recognition, for establishing a concept that would make even IMF economists blush like "microcredit and microfinance" chosen as the new "interim government head" wouldn't end up as the poster boy image of a US toadie-in-waiting, just as he was long groomed to be when he was first given that "prize" back in 2006.

This should be a sobering lesson because subverting the energy of "student-led protest movements" into color revolutions has been the bread and butter of the US playbook. The hijacking of local grievances and the emotional appeals for sympathy with a moral cause are all features, not bugs, of this playbook.

[1] "The exclusive report in today’s Economic Times carrying Sheikh Hasina’s first remarks after her ouster from power [...] citing Awami League sources implied that the hatchet man of the colour revolution in Bangladesh is none other than Donald Lu, the incumbent Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian affairs who visited Dhaka in May. This is credible enough. A background check on Lu’s string of postings gives away the story. This Chinese -American ‘diplomat’ [...] played a similar proactive role during his past assignment in Kyrgyzstan (2003-2006) which culminated a colour revolution. Lu specialised in fuelling and masterminding colour revolutions, which led to regime changes in Albania, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan (ouster of Imran Khan)."

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

FairAndUnbiased said:

This is the equivalent of a forum on black rights allowing a KKK member that simps for Rhodesia and Apartheid South Africa to post.

Would even white members of that forum say "well we want to be tolerant to different viewpoints" or "a forum on black rights isn't necessarily a black people's forum"? Would they dare even suggest it?

If changing the wording of Chinese to black makes one feel uncomfortable then it is racism to use Chinese there too. Simple as that.

Click to expand...

Wonder does he have blackmail materials over the mods or something. Its not like there aren't tons of previous users banned for trolling here.

Randomuser said:

Wonder does he have blackmail materials over the mods or something. It’s not like there aren't tons of previous users banned for trolling here.

Click to expand...

Yes he has access to Deino’s Only Fans subscription list…

Of course not.

siegecrossbow said:

Position of strength is now banning successful foreign apps like authoritarian regimes… right.

Click to expand...

Well we can foresee the world economy biforate into two halves:
One half places importance on free trade, shared destiny and infrastructure development across the globe. As this group is centered on Beijing we shell call it "北约".
The other half places importance on building walls and trade barriers and internal witch hunts based on ideological purity. As this group is centered on Washington we shell call it "华约".
All of this has happened before, and will happen again.

Oh no not Tiktok!

Temstar said:

Well we can foresee the world economy biforate into two halves:
One half places importance on free trade, shared destiny and infrastructure development across the globe. As this group is centered on Beijing we shell call it "北约".
The other half places importance on building walls and trade barriers and internal witch hunts based on ideological purity. As this group is centered on Washington we shell call it "华约".
All of this has happened before, and will happen again.

Click to expand...

Does BeiTO divert 1.6 billion dollars of funding from poverty alleviation to talk smack about their chief geopolitical competitor? If they don’t they must be out of money or something. My money is literally on the WashPact that could afford this as well as billion dollar aids to both Ukraine and Israel.

AssassinsMace said:

China's tech lead is very thin also says the US tech lead when they have it is very thin. That's why the West has to make China think it's behind so therefore it must give up and surrender to the US and the West. How secure is it when they are the leader and they're worried about the guy in second place when they say it's over and China should give up.

Click to expand...

This is all quite easy to reconcile
1) China is leading in a select few number of fields, causing collective outrage in DC
2) China has fast technological catch-up compared to most other countries but accumulated U.S. advantages are large and durable and in many cases, self-reinforcing
3) and related to 1), American politics has always had a paranoid style -
4) foreign affairs are risk-free entertainment for the bored house guys of Fairfax county after they get bored playing risk - the large size and relative economic and geographic isolation of the U.S. means foreign affairs don’t matter to any domestic constituency that can deliver votes or money (outside of course, Cuban-Americans in the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area)

EU commissioner Thierry Breton got fired by the Governor General of EU Von Der Leyen. Good for VDL imo, EU was acting like it was a sovereign entity or something. Who does Europe think they are, being able to meddle with the US presidental election like that, Russia?

coolgod said:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1835565206639972734

View attachment 135916

EU commissioner Thierry Breton got fired by the Governor General of EU Von Der Leyen. Good for VDL imo, EU was acting like it was a sovereign entity or something. Who does Europe think they are, being able to meddle with the US presidental election like that, Russia?

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1823076043017630114

Click to expand...

It has become apparent that all the talks of free speech and civil liberties were nothing but a sham. Back when they had absolute dominance over media landscape they allowed for dissension, but now that their grasp is slipping they are clamping down hard. First Telegram and now X. Maybe they can pay Chinese engineers to build a digital Hadrian’s Wall for them?