Iran’s central military command on Saturday rejected U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to destroy the country’s vital infrastructure if it does not accept a peace deal within 48 hours.

Archived version: https://archive.is/newest/https://today.lorientlejour.com/article/1502244/iran-command-rejects-trumps-helpless-nervous-ultimatum.html


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  • nymnympseudonym@piefed.social
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    8 days ago

    Yes there was. Even if partially only in aspiration. But for the better part of half a century the USA was slowly transforming into a society less accepting of racism, homophobia, and religion in the public sphere.

    I am almost 60, I remember whites-only drinking fountains. I remember the casualness with which “God hates fags” was a reason to physically brutalize people. I remember the KKK being a real political force.

    Don’t tell me for a second USA and Democratic civil society in general was not improving and substantially, in part because that was the rhetoric and example being set by the adults in charge (even when duplicitously so)

    Now there is no pretense at morality or higher goals. That does not bode well.

    • mrdown@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      I thought you was talking strictly about foreign policies, imperialism and war crimes rather than domestic issues

    • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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      8 days ago

      Uh… Okay? I could argue with a lot of what you just said, but on a more fundamental level, so what? We don’t judge Nazi Germany based on how nice it was to ethnic Germans, nor the British Empire based on how nice it was to British citizens; we judge them for their treatment of Jews and Indians. In a similar vein, I honestly don’t give a shit how nice America is within its own borders when, during the period of “morality and higher goals” you’re talking about, it perpetuated atrocities and mass murder from Argentina to Indonesia and from South Africa to Iraq. All the improvements you listed only apply in America itself, not to the hundreds of millions subjugated by the wider American Empire; if you include the latter Russia can’t even begin to compare to the scale of evil America has been perpetuating for generations. You might not notice this, but your argument boils down to “the evil empire was nice to me for a bit which made it good.”

      TL;DR: The people being brutally murdered don’t care about their murderers’ morality and aspirations.

      • Jaderick@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        The people being brutally murdered don’t care about their murderers’ morality and aspirations

        This really is a meaningless statement without perspective. A Mauretanien slaver killed at the hands of their slaves doesn’t care about the morality of the murder, even if it’s justified.

        You might not notice this, but your argument boils down to “the evil empire was nice to me for a bit which made it good.”

        Considering Russia’s continued stance on LGBTQ, and to a lesser extent China’s (though I believe this is improving), I’ll take the US’s evil empire hegemonic influence over the latter in that matter.

        EU’s the best power but the weakest of the big 4 and fairly young / recent.

        No one should be justifying the imperialist actions of any hegemony, but hating on the US because it’s the hegemony on the decline, ignoring the actions of the other imperialist nations, is a weak take.

        • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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          8 days ago

          Considering Russia’s continued stance on LGBTQ, and to a lesser extent China’s (though I believe this is improving), I’ll take the US’s evil empire hegemonic influence over the latter in that matter.

          America killed nearly five million people and displaced forty million in the War on Terror alone but I guess that’s better than the evil homophobic Chinese. Relevant.

          ignoring the actions of the other imperialist nations, is a weak take.

          I’m not ignoring them; they just (despite also being evil as fuck) don’t come close to the sheer magnitude of atrocities inflicted by the US in recent history.

    • A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip
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      8 days ago

      But so was Russia. The USSR was better than what they have today. Not Stalinism, of course, but that was condemned even officially later.

      This backsliding is a bit of a global phenomenon it seems. Right-wing populism on the rise etc.