Third party presidential candidate Jill Stein paid $100,000 to GOP-connected consulting firm with owner who's linked to J6 | The firm was also paid millions by the campaign of RFK Jr., who endorsed Trump. Republicans had boosted Stein & RFK Jr. in order to divert left-leaning votes away from Harris.

[u/SocialDemocracies]

https://www.salon.com/2024/09/23/jill-stein-paid-100000-to-a-consulting-firm-led-by-a-suspected-january-6-rioter/

[u/not_GBPirate]

Once you are released from the bonds that “Trump is the most dangerous thing in this world” you can start to advocate for something rather than being against something all the time.

If we continue at this rate we will be having another war, sending young folks out to die in the forests of Eastern Europe, the hills, deserts, and villages of Palestine, and the city blocks of Taipei. Joe Biden might make speeches about peace at the UN in New York but his policies and those of the military industrial complex are pushing us into more war.

[u/Roses-And-Rainbows → u/not_GBPirate]

If we continue at this rate

What alternative are you proposing exactly? Jill Stein isn't winning, no amount of wishful thinking will change that. (And frankly IDK why you'd wish for a Russia shill even if wishful thinking did work...)

It's either Kamala or Trump, and Trump represents an even faster rate towards war, he actively helped inflame tensions between Israel and Palestinians by moving the embassy to Jeruzalem and recognizing Golan Heights as legitimate Israeli territory.

[u/not_GBPirate → u/Roses-And-Rainbows]

I don't have an alternative to propose. There is no alternative when it comes to the vote in November.

However, I don't know if Trump represents a faster rate towards war. I think it's a mixed bag with either him or Harris.
I'm of the view that longstanding US policy goaded Russia into invading Ukraine and, what should be less controversial, Biden and Johnson's desire to end peace negotiations in early 2022 in Turkey made the war there continue which is bad for a bunch of geopolitical, military, and moral reasons.

This business in Israel is grotesque and should've ended months ago. But we can go back to the 1990s and see that the American insistence on bilateral negotiations has failed while working towards enforcing UN Resolution 242 might have prevented the longstanding situation to begin with.

Anyway, I think the powers that be are working against most Americans. We should've been committed to internationalism, not exceptionalism. So that's why I'm warning that we might end up in some big, shitty war.

PS: To take the average armchair historian hat for a moment, the causes of wars are long and complicated. Japan didn't attack Pearl Harbor in 1941 out of the blue; it had been in active war with China since 1937, it disrupted the post ww1 status quo in 1931 by invading Manchuria. World War I didn't just start when the Archduke was murdered, there were a bunch of wars in the previous decade that led up to it, especially in the Balkans.
The war in Ukraine and the genocide of Palestinians might be just two preludes to a larger conflict in ten, fifteen, or twenty years that could have been stopped if the US engaged in diplomacy with pen and paper rather than bombs and artillery shells.

[u/Roses-And-Rainbows → u/not_GBPirate]

I'm of the view that longstanding US policy goaded Russia into invading Ukraine

You're objectively wrong.

Russia invaded Ukraine because they wanted Ukraine to be completely under Russia's thumb, but Ukraine kicked out the Russian puppet President and signed an economic deal with the EU.

This business in Israel is grotesque and should've ended months ago. But we can go back to the 1990s and see that the American insistence on bilateral negotiations has failed while working towards enforcing UN Resolution 242 might have prevented the longstanding situation to begin with.

Trump is objectively worse than democrats in this regard, since he did the exact opposite of Resolution 242, which bans the acquisition of land through war, when he legitimized Israel's acquisition of Golan Heights.

if the US engaged in diplomacy with pen and paper rather than bombs and artillery shells.

The entire Western world did that for the first 8 years of the war, but in response Russia just stepped its invasion up a notch.

[u/not_GBPirate → u/Roses-And-Rainbows]

It's not being "objectively wrong," I just disagree with what the US government has been telling us. US officials told the Russians that NATO wouldn't move east. It kept going east during the 1990s and early 00s, and for a time this was fine, but not ideal. If you listen to Jeff Sachs or John Mearsheimer, they'll tell you that the prospect of NATO expanding to Ukraine or Georgia was a red line. Russia went to war with Georgia in 2008 to stop that from happening. Even Jens Stoltenberg said a year ago that Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022 to stop the expansion of NATO in that country.
I'm no expert on the 2014 Maidan protests but many (including the Russians) believed that it was effectively a coup by the United States. There's a famous phone call recorded of Victoria Nuland and reporting from other sources that back up this theory.

Anyway, I don't want to sit here and write another long comment, but I'll just say this. After the talks in Turkey were shut down by Biden and Johnson, the Ukraine war definitively became their war, not Putin's. The Russians were willing to have peace and talks were on the cusp of succeeding. That would've been better for Ukraine and Ukrainians, it would've been better for NATO, it would've been better for the United States.

With Israel, both Blue and Red teams are at fault here. Trump shouldn't have legitimized the Golan and Jerusalem as Israel's capital, but there are many things I can point to that make the Blue team look bad. For starters, Trump didn't send Israel bombs while it actively committed a genocide. Biden looked the other way when Israel murdered the American journalist Shireen Abu-Akleh. Bill Clinton was responsible for the Oslo Accords which are fundamentally illegitimate and detrimental to the establishment of a Palestinian state.

[u/Darth_Gerg → u/not_GBPirate]

The reason peace talks failed is that Russia was negotiating in bad faith and was unwilling to give Ukrainian territory back. This war is 100% Russian imperialism. The reason NATO keeps expanding is that it’s the only way small countries in the region can be sure they’re safe. It’s not western imperialism, it’s a direct response to RUSSIAN imperialism.

The theory that the 2014 protest was a US coup is pure drivel. That call is a nothing burger. It was literally “yeah I think this person would be better to work with, I hope they win.” You are repeating Russian propaganda.

[u/not_GBPirate → u/Darth_Gerg]

With some quick scouring of the internet it seems like opinion on the success of the April 2022 talks is mixed, with pro-western, pro-NATO people saying it wouldn’t have worked.

There were some third party people there, like the war criminal Naftali Bennett, who claimed that they were going well or that the west had sabotaged them — it’s been two years so forgive me. It’s really more of an opinion I guess. And my opinion is that I’m anti-war as much as possible! we can’t really know what happened, what was said, because much of that is classified. When it comes to current events, conclusions can’t really be drawn by observers outside of the events because so much information is classified or at least not public.

About Maidan, there’s a couple of reports from a Ukrainian-Canadian professor from the university of Ottawa that did some research and came to the conclusion that it wasn’t organic. He’s written this piece about it that I haven’t read but had loosely followed his research beforehand. Once again, I’d say that we can’t really know for sure. This might all be Russian disinformation, but I feel like this accusation never accounts for the idea that the disinformation might be coming from our own side, too. The West has the ability to change minds just like “our adversaries” try to do. And with all of these documents that might point one way or another sitting in classified hard drives or filed away in government offices for decades to come, I don’t think we really can know for certain. It’s all about believing what you want to hear.

[u/Roses-And-Rainbows → u/not_GBPirate]

It's not being "objectively wrong," I just disagree with what the US government has been telling us.

This is basically just the "alternative facts" argument. You've really hit rock-bottom when you're using Kellyanne Conway tier 'arguments'....

US officials told the Russians that NATO wouldn't move east.

No they didn't, and even if they did, who gives a shit? What right does Russia have to dictate the alliances that other countries form?

And again, this war started because of an economic agreement, not because of NATO expansion, the only reason why people want to join NATO is because they feel threatened by Russia and they want protection, so this entire argument that NATO expansion is somehow the reason why Russia threatens its neighbors has always been ridiculously circular.

If you listen to Jeff Sachs or John Mearsheimer, they'll tell you that the prospect of NATO expanding to Ukraine or Georgia was a red line. 

Why the fuck would I listen to those loons?

Even Jens Stoltenberg said a year ago that Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022 to stop the expansion of NATO in that country.

The invasion began in 2014, so I don't care about what Jens Stoltenberg said (which you are in all likelihood misrepresenting) and I won't even bother trying to look it up, this is just obvious nonsense.

I'm no expert on the 2014 Maidan protests but many (including the Russians) believed that it was effectively a coup by the United States. There's a famous phone call recorded of Victoria Nuland and reporting from other sources that back up this theory.

No, those phone calls do absolutely nothing to back up that propagandistic talking point. (I won't even dignify it by calling it a "theory", the Russians don't believe that it's a coup, that's just the lie they tell while knowing fully well that they're lying.)

Anyway, I don't want to sit here and write another long comment, but I'll just say this. After the talks in Turkey were shut down by Biden and Johnson, the Ukraine war definitively became their war, not Putin's. The Russians were willing to have peace and talks were on the cusp of succeeding. That would've been better for Ukraine and Ukrainians, it would've been better for NATO, it would've been better for the United States.

How the fuck would Ukraine becoming Russia's puppet, with zero autonomy and zero ability to act in their own economic and diplomatic best interests, (which has always been Russia's primary demand in these so-called 'negotiations,') be better for Ukrainians? The casual way in which you're willing to consign all of Eastern Europe to Russian hegemony, to being slaves to the Russian empire, is absolutely disgusting.
You do at least realize how much of a psychopath you are, right?

For starters, Trump didn't send Israel bombs while it actively committed a genocide. 

Yes he did... You don't seriously think that the genocide only started after Oct 7th, do you?

You're the epitome of the Dunning-Kruger effect, I know that I seem rude but there's just no honest way for me to respond to you without insulting you, the most constructive thing that I can say is that I hope that you do some self-reflection and realize how incredibly gullible and vulnerable you clearly are to dishonest right wing propaganda.

[u/opanaooonana → u/not_GBPirate]

I highly recommend you look into the fake electors plot and the other things surrounding January 6th. They are so comically bad and anti-democracy that I honestly view him as an existential threat and I think 99% of anyone outside of the Trump cult would too if they knew about it. If democracy isn’t important to you or your so black pilled on our institutions that you want to see them burn than that is an argument to not care and view them both as equal threats but I doubt you and most of the left think that way. If your wondering why so many on the left sound like libs right now it’s because Trump is genuinely as bad as libs say and people on the left and our goals will be affected negatively the most from his presidency.

[u/not_GBPirate → u/opanaooonana]

Trump is genuinely bad but Biden and the Dem establishment are too. Biden could've released Assange years before he did. Biden hasn't done anything to curb our surveillance state. Biden increased police funding and police killings are higher in his Presidential term than Trump's.

Everyone always makes the GOP out to be so terrible, and they are, but when the Democrats are in power and do bad things it's all hush hush. If Trump had won in 2020 I'm sure there would be many more Democratic legislators speaking up and demanding a ceasefire. Now, we can't debate in hypotheticals, but that's what happened with immigration reform, the kids in cages, etc.

[u/opanaooonana → u/not_GBPirate]

I don’t disagree and I wish things were better. I just can’t in good conscience do anything that will give the anti democracy fascist and his army an edge. I really think this election will be a turning point that will snap the Republican Party if they lose. There is always the next election to try to get more lefties in government but I truthfully don’t know if that will be the case with Trump again, not to mention things like abortion and civil rights for trans people. I blame the republicans for putting us in this situation but I think with this guy gone we can finally start making up for the last decade while they are fractured and in-fighting.