So, it is unlikely that I will win this campaign in terms of score, but it has been tremendously interesting. I began as a pacifist state, spawned next to hegemonic imperialists who, I suspect, were rolled with an advanced start. They conquered most of their neighbors, including us. A hundred years later, after using their protection to tech up and build a respectable navy, I led a war of independence against them and they have now lost all of their vassals, including us đđž
The talking point has just about outlived its rhetorical usefulness, morally and practically. Israel is not âdefending itself.â Using tanks, fighter jets, drones, and ships to kill children and destroy civilian homes, shops, hospitals, and places of refuge isnât self defense. Itâs collective punishment, ethnic cleansing. Because if your message is âthese places are all part of the group we are fighting,â that is an admission that your war is with an entire population, not a subset of people.
On the practical side, from a tactical and strategic standpoint, again, tanks, planes, and drones are good at destroying, at stopping normalcy, in a place, but they do not hold territory. They are not sorting tools between noncombatants and enemy forces. When Israelis finally step out of their war machines, they will face a different, more balanced combat situation, which is probably why they have been so hesitant to do so thus far. The kids are scared, the brass is scared, with good reason.
Because this is a genocidal campaign for land, and for political purposes, to keep an extremist, fascist faction in power within the Israeli government. Hence, tactical concerns are disregarded daily in favor of a kind of strategic fantasy: âwe will hurt enough people and then we will win.â War doesnât work that way. Counterinsurgency doesnât work that way. And the destruction of normalcy for people weighs against the aggressors, the occupiers, in that context.
Israel and the United States have no more right to determine the borders or governing structure of Gaza and the West Bank than Russia and Belarus have to determine the borders or governing structure of Ukraine. The racism and inclination toward colonial map artwork are evident even in the suggestion to the contrary. Itâs funny to me that no matter how many times empires try this and no matter how many times history demonstrates what a terrible idea it is, they still keep trying it.
Anyway, the United Nations has been neutered by Israeli interests, the United States has made it clear that it will practically support the genocide of Palestinians. Europe is making farm animal noises and doing nothing per usual. The rich Arab states are in the pockets of capitalists. The best hope I see for Gaza and the West bank is, ironically, probably for Iran to destabilize the region and escalate. If they ever wanted regional hegemony thereâs no better time than the present to try for it.
Israel (the vassal state of the US) will probably succeed in destroying the military capability of Hamas, in the short term (along with tens of thousands of innocent lives). Israel strong (with US backing, at least). What comes after Hamas, though? That will be something different. Israel and the US deserve what comes from that. What has been and what is being done have left a scar upon history. If the world will not stop genocidal fascists again, it deserves the consequences for that decision.
Apparently it’s a mood on every planet.
Anyways, here are the stars of the latest Stellaris campaign. I wanted to see if I could win it on higher difficulties with a pacifist group. So far, things are looking good ^^
The mandate of all state systems, once called âdivine right,â the right to elevate or punish, supposedly granted by God, derives, not from the people or from some perfect matrix of ideals, but rather from the permission of the thinnest social layer of the privileged, wrapped in promises of eternal comfort, safety, and hope for better, and certain of their inherent superiority to those who did not arrive at that place. Failing that, it comes from the prison cell and the gun. Thatâs all there is.
The problem with any system that humans create is that it will be run by humans. Humans care more about gratification, dogmas, or methods, depending on the individual, than they do about ensuring justice or sustainability. When we use the word âprogressâ we mean either a movement toward what is âbetterâ or what is âright.â No system will bring progress because the component parts, the people, arenât very different than they were at the start. That is unlikely to change. The future is medieval.
BREAKING: Stellaris campaign completed.
Had occasion, prior to the end of history, to pay a visit to the Fallen Empire that told us we didn’t have souls because we became robots. They were synth racists and racism never pays. Respect existence or expect resistance. Our Minister of Defense had that spray painted on his alloy carapace for Operation It Costs Nothing To Mind Your Own Space Business đ¤ ⥠đž
Here is the final score screen and galaxy map. Earned second in scoring in most categories. That federation to the east really got to federating hard, so there was no competing with that without going full warmonger, which I did not want to do for this campaign. Ended the campaign at peace with everyone, recovering from three simultaneous wars and a galaxy-wide crisis. Not a bad run ^^
The Palestinian ambassador to the UN is giving the kind of oration we don’t often hear these days. Powerful stuff. I hope people listen.
Republican, Democrat, neoliberal, neoconservative, fascist, the political inclination of the US government does not matter. The hundred-year pattern is the same. If thereâs an authoritarian regime, weâre propping it up with economics or weapons. If thereâs a genocide, weâre ignoring it or selling the weapons or providing the political support that facilitates it, as with Israel / Palestine. If thereâs a resolution for global reform or justice, we oppose it.
The only reason they helped Ukraine was to counter another rival power and because people hoped it might lead to some weapon sales. And because enough people of conscience made a whole lot of noise about it. America doesnât win wars. It fights wars, first-hand or by proxy, perpetually, because that is what the entire society is designed to do. Thatâs how our economics runs. Thatâs how our politics runs. America is Sparta, not Athens.
And here in the land so many people around the world have seen in Hollywoodâs film and TV, there are a million green zones and a million Gaza strips. When we finally managed to ban identity apartheid, they replaced it with economic apartheid. Those ideas that American politicians and security officials telegraph are not based in reality. Our only practiced value, here, is cannibalism, of each other, of the reformative state, and of anyone else in the world who isnât strong enough to resist it.
America doesnât bring law to the world to save it. The law is a weapon, here, of the oligarchy and of right-wing extremists, as it is in Israel, and the American international project is, and has always been, one of shaping the political and economic landscape to recreate that stasis of perpetual decay everywhere on Earth. Donât believe the hype. Weâre just Russia or China with a prettier coat of paint and sweeter rhetoric. America cannot be counted upon to solve this or any other crisis.
The core of the problem is the United States (as it has always been for anyone on Earth who was or is not white, wealthy, useful, and quietly complicit). Internationally, it operates like an organized criminal syndicate, relying on established channels of dependence-based influence, regional nodes of violent imperial control, and an extensive military / intelligence industrial complex that is seamlessly integrated with the state. It is nothing more than capitalismâs military and spy agency.
The US, as a state and economic entity, has no practical interest in stopping Israeli ethnic cleansing. Again, the maximum economic and diplomatic pressure must be applied to the US in order to halt the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. The world is facing a second holocaust at the hands of the Zionists, and the United States absolutely will allow that to happen in order to preserve its foothold, and its favorite henchman that does what it cannot be seen doing, in the Middle East.
