Not an American (although I have lived there for several years and travelled extensively), it doesn’t matter if the Democrats win.

I say this as someone who always votes and has done tactical voting many times.

The US centre right is incapable of addressing corruption and criminality, not only because the party apparatus is itself corrupt, but because most Americans centre right voters are simply too well off to risk rocking the boat. They’ll keep trying to avoid addressing corruption until it’s too late.

The corruption of the centre right is a symptom, with the cause being American society (specifically a large portion of centre right voters).

This is not doomerism in the least. In any country/context, the first step to overcoming immense odds is recognizing what the problem is. If you don’t take the first step, you’ll definitely never get to your goal.

It is not my intention to be petty and have a laugh. Until centre right public totally rejects comical American-style polemics about alleged commitment to “free speech” and “free markets”, they will never address corruption and debasement of their institutions.

And yet Obama and other senior centre right figures are still parroting the same shallow, tedious copytext that they’ve been pitching for the last years.

I think you’re correct at a high level, but there is also the medium-term and long-term impact of not honouring treaties which is less predictable and makes the calculation around not honouring a treaty less straightforward (even if in the immediate sense the drawbacks are minimal).

WW1/WW2 also had their fair of treaty violations. Sudetenland annexation is an early example. Nazi Germany breaking the Molotov–Ribbentrop to split up Europe with the russians is perhaps a better known example. Italy was also supposed to join the central power in WW1 as per their treaty examples.

While long term impacts are always difficult to quantify by definition, they do have impact on how people think (especially people in power).

This is to be expected, Venezuela is not a strategic priority for either russia or China.

Not to mention that a US invasion of Venezuela would provide a good propaganda win for Russia and China particularly in the “global south” where at least the leadership of countries like Brazil and South Africa are openly supportive of russian genocidal imperialism.

This is a shitpost.

If a commoner got caught money laundering, they would get fucked.

I actually had my bank accounts frozen because I miscalculated a quarterly tax payment by 2 dollars equivalent in local currency. Had to ask my family members to pay because all my money was frozen.

I will add that corruption isn’t unique to the US of course. I am from Ukraine and it’s actually what I hate most about my country, how people don’t pay taxes and come up with dumb excuses like “well the oligarchs are stealing, we should start at the top first”. That being said, at least people here recognize that corruption is wrong and that there is no real way forward without addressing it.

Considering that this fellow was reinstated by the Democrats, it means they don’t really feel any pressure from the public.

This is not a recent thing either. I was living in the US int he late 2000s and I thought interesting how Obama decided to simply not prosecute the financial services oligarchs gang after the great recession. One would think this is a historical opportunity to make them take responsibility for their actions.

Cuellar was charged in 2024 for allegedly accepting $600,000 in bribes from two foreign entities, according to an indictment released by the Justice Department. The indictment accused Cuellar of accepting payments from Azerbaijan’s state-run oil-and-gas company after they had been laundered through shell companies owned by his wife.

America is so corrupt. And so many people there have the gall talk about other countries.

Not an expert, but this seems relatively reasonable. If anything one would think Roblox will eventually fall under this process, that being said, I am just thinking out loud, I could be wrong.

It should be challenged by Australians. An American oligarchic organziation by definition shouldn’t be able to have any influence on national policies. If the Americans ever clean up their act, which is unlikely, then one should at least consider whether they should be allowed to file such challenges.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Roblox gets blocked too. Although this is complete speculation on my part.

Is there anything specific around why Roblox would not be banned?

This is all good and all, but ask Kara-Murza about russian attitudes towards genocidal imperialism and you’ll hear some BS about “everyone is afraid” and it’s only putin fault.

The russian opposition will always be a failure until they recognize that putin is a mere symptom and the cause is russian society.

Tankie source!

The scum that operates that website needs to be deported to russia (after having their citizenship cancelled).

I agree on all counts.

I am just pointing out that working for Press TV is just as bad what Google does.

While I wouldn’t trust Google on anything, the “journalist” cited in this article worked for Iranian foreign propaganda outlet Press TV. Even though what Google did was wrong, that’s a massive red flag. Working for Press TV is no different than Google working for the American far right oligarch regime.

US legislative authorities and US society cannot be trusted.

It’s like dealing with criminals. Not all of US society of course, but support for criminality is not limited to the far right, a significant portion of US nihilists and centre right also support corruption and believe crime is good.

And before you accuse me of being uncharitable, consider the following:

Mark Zuckerburg and Meta were found to promote fraud and criminality on their platform to net $16 B for them in 2024 alone. Note that Meta’s own PR goons didn’t really deny this.

Will the majority of US centre right voters put pressure on their party to address this criminality (arrests, full asset seizure, winding down of criminal organizations)?

Or will they continue to enable such behaviour?

We all know what the answer is. :)

Tankie / red fash source!

If workers went on strike in China, Russia or Venezuela they would be calling it a CIA op!

EU seems to have realized this, but there is no followup action (military modernization programs, increased military aid to Ukraine, review of all russian citizens in EU, subterfuge and counter-terrorism programs against the russians).

Funny, to see a member of the corrupt US oligarchy talk about corruption in other countries.

When nations trade oil, food or technology, they settle in dollars — not because they have to, but because they believe in the stability, transparency and independence of the American system.

I would argue this isn’t really true any more. It’s more inertia and practical considerations, the trust trust and belief in stability and independence is already gone, very likely permanently.

Even if say the centre-right wins both legislative and executive elections, there is no reason to trust such an administratoration as any agreements will be overturned following the next election.

It seems that American society more broadly has embraced corruption and “bread crircus” (or should I say Big Mac and iPhone) type politics.

Click the “Anti-Imperialism” section.

Note the “US-NATO Conflict with Russia over Ukraine” subheading and the type of “articles” that are posted there.

One example:

Eighty years after the unprecedented crimes of the Wehrmacht and Hitlerite fascism, the ruling class is once again pursuing a massive rearmament program that breaks with all post-war restrictions and is systematically preparing Germany for a third world war—with Russia as its main target.

Note how there is zero real criticism of russia or China.

WSWS is a tankie / red fash shithole.

Don’t promote tankie sources, they don’t really care about the working class. Notice how the article excludes China (or say Cuba or Venezuela).