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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 17th, 2023

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  • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.catomemes@lemmy.worldWelcome ex-Redditors!
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    1 day ago

    Yes everyone is aware of this power so are using the word as a propaganda tool to further their causes. And everyone is aware that the word is being used as a propaganda tool.

    The scary part is that by watering down the meaning of the word, it’s made actual genocide more likely. If everyone is constantly being accused of genocide all of the time then no one will know when an actual genocide is happening.







  • The Constitution (Article I, Section 9) prohibits anyone in the US Government from receiving a personal gift from a foreign head of state

    I’ve added some bold to a word that’s relevant here.

    It’s actually commonplace for foreign leaders to give gifts to US Presidents. These gifts are not personal gifts and are actually owned by the US government. Some of these gifts wind up in a Presidential library.

    They can’t take this stuff home with them as that would be illegal. Of course Trump does take stuff home with him that belongs to the US government, but that’s the illegal part, not the accepting of the gift.

    Fun Fact: Justin Trudeau (really Canada’s ministry of foreign affairs) gave Trump a nicely framed photo of a hotel Trump’s grandfather owned in the Yukon. That hotel was actually a brothel. The Trump family… keeping it classy for generations.




  • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.catoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.worldUSAID is gone.
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    5 days ago

    Nah it’s mostly graft. A large amount of USAID’s budget goes to DC consulting firms, while claiming it goes to developing countries.

    But some of it did go to the developing world. Have to read through a lot of legalese to find the loopholes to avoid the money staying DC tho. I remember when I was doing work for NGOs in a developing country those computer cases with USAID stickers on them were kinda valuable for this reason. Getting money to buy a new computer was basically impossible, but you could get money from USAID to “upgrade” the computers with a new motherboard, CPU, RAM, hard drive, etc.

    But any chance they’d get, they’d direct them money to DC consulting firms which would do very little.



  • Except the money in the jar doesn’t belong to you, it goes to the government.

    The thing people struggle to understand about the economy (especially in individualist USA) is that you’re not the only one making these decisions.

    Imagine the government taxes some restaurants, but doesn’t tax others, what would you do? Go to the restaurant that’s not taxed because it’s cheaper, right? Problem is everyone else does the same thing. The restaurant is too full. Then what happens? That restaurant raises prices because it’s in higher demand for what they’re selling. Rules of supply and demand. So now you have some restaurants charging more because there’s been a tax slapped on them, and the ones that aren’t being taxed raising their prices because they can’t instantly expand the restaurant to meet the new demand for their products over their competitors.

    And will those restaurants expand? Only if they know the government won’t remove the tax on their competitors. But is anyone going to make significant investments trusting that impulsive Trump won’t change policies in the future? Nope.

    So everything is going to cost more. But US businesses will probably make record profits, and that’s what really matters, right?




  • Countries trade with the countries closest to them because the realities of logistics overpower politics or whatever ideals people might have. There are a few exceptions of course. Cuba doesn’t do a lot of trade with the countries closest to them. But they aren’t doing that well. The UK had an idea about diversifying their trade to be more about trade with non-european countries, but that didn’t go well either.

    Geography is a bitch. You can’t physically move a country to another part of the globe, you have to deal with the countries near to you whether you like it or not.


  • Yeah back in my smoking days I bought a unique looking lighter so I wouldn’t accidentally steal someone else’s. After a night of drinking, I noticed I somehow had two of them.

    Sorry! I tried my best not to steal your lighter, whoever was unfortunate enough to have one that looked like mine.


  • No, just the Iraq war was like that. And even then Saddam Hussein was actually an evil motherfucker and the US tried to claim it was a war about liberation. But we know oil was a significant consideration there.

    Afghanistan was about finding the terrorist that did 9/11. I’m Canadian so I have family that went over there and came back with PTSD. We were only over there because the US was our ally. Only war Canada has ever lost in it’s history and it was because the US fucked it all up by going on a side quest to Iraq.



  • Methinks you’re bitter the genocide you were certain to happen ended up not happening. Kinda gross how you’re rooting for genocide to happen and are upset that it didn’t. It was a war, and the war is over. But much like anti-vaxxers in the pandemic, you made it your identity and you can’t let it go.

    Social media made you angry over something, and you made bad decisions because of it. Now your poor choices have contributed to bad things happening now and you are looking to blame the people trying to prevent because you don’t want to admit you were scammed by social media.

    You’re wondering why Kamala Harris isn’t speaking out against Trump? It’s because the election campaign is over. You may wish you could have a do-over and have her still trying to convince you to vote for her. But the election is over and you can’t go back and do the right thing now. You let evil prevail and you gotta live with that. Stop blaming others for your inaction.