Even the US state department doesn't recognize Taiwan as an independent country. Verify it if you don't believe me.
The official title of Taiwan is the Republic of China and it believes that mainland China and Taiwan are part of the same country. The People's Republic China believes the same.
The US wants to use Taiwan as a military base, similar to Imperial Japan prior to WW2.
There is no dispute between China and the US as to the territory, the US just doesn't like the PRC and would prefer the Chinese to be US puppets.
The US is blowing up Venezuelan boats, and according to Seymour Hersh, blew up Nord Stream. Why would a few cables be beyond US/NATO capabilities if it drums up popular support for US extra-judicial interdiction of other countries' maritime activity?
Do you understand that this has been going on for much longer than the US's Venezuelan murder spree, and longer than Trump has been president (this time around)?
Also, as I said, we have a crew of a Russian-operated ship on the record admitting to cutting a cable by dragging their anchor, and all the previous cases have also been traced to other Russian-operated ships (well, I think one was Chinese though) using AIS and radar data, and this has been done by OSINT folks in addition to the local authorities here around the Baltic. Are all of these people being controlled by NATO and the US?
Pro-Russian people like you assume that other countries will always just let the US or "NATO" do whatever they want and have absolutely zero autonomy at all, and you're absolute experts at ignoring everything that doesn't fit your insanely simplistic narrative that's predicated on the idea that Russia is just a perpetual victim and a spooky spooky NATO CIA USA cabal is actually doing everything bad that the Russians get up to.
Nowhere in this article does it say anything about Russians admitting to cutting the cable, let alone doing it on purpose with malicious intent, so you are just making things up now.
The list of US acts of terrorism goes beyond the Trump presidency; it's convenient for liberals to blame everything on Trump but the bombing of Nord Stream occurred under Biden; Obama was droning weddings while Hilary Clinton was setting fire to Libya (using NATO, the "defensive" alliance that strikes first!)
All the previous cases of cable cutting, alleged by Western news papers without any shred of evidence, is a good way of beating the war drums. The war propaganda and hysteria this time is more intense than the Iraq war, which I think you are too young to remember. It is unclear what material advantage Russia would get from cutting cables, but with hysteria, reason is not required.
"Pro-Russian people" like me .. well I'm pro-peace actually rather than pro-Russian and have seen that the Russians offered negotiations with the US and Europe multiple times that were rejected. Negotiations that might have averted bloodshed. It's interesting that a "non-binary" person like you (according to your Github) wants to view people in a binary category as pro/anti-Russian rather than perhaps having a different perspective.
As to the substance of your last point: I remember Europe actually arguing against the US during the 2003 invasion of Iraq and now seeing Europe being a bunch of kept poodles that would prefer to commit economic, moral and geopolitical suicide rather than stand up for themselves.
> The war propaganda and hysteria this time is more intense than the Iraq war, which I think you are too young to remember.
This feels like falling into a time warp back to February 2022 when the same sentiments were expressed vis-a-vis the imminent invasion. I see a lot of whataboutism, but not a whole lot of reasoning for why this isn't likely to be more of the same?
I doubt you can find any essay or such where he said anti-Western action was good on the sole grounds that it was anti-Western.
It's difficult to summarise so many years of writing in a few sentences but from my own reading, he pointed out
a) many things done by the US lead to death or destruction
b) many of these things are justified in the name of good that doesn't stand up to scrutiny
c) the US government is often hypocritical
d) US citizens are heavily propagandized both for foreign policy and domestic policy
e) as a US citizen, it his duty to try and oppose these actions and since he's not a citizen of Iran, he isn't in a position to do anything about Iran
f) a) through d) explain why he is often seen as an apologist, to use your word, for Iran; he tries to explain, from his point of view, why Iran etc. do the things they do
g) a strong support of freedom of speech and opposition to censorship, including what he regards as private censorship as opposed to merely government censorship.
That doesn't explain why he visited Hezbollah and showed overwhelming support, probably aware of the organization roots and past actions such as kidnapping journalists or killing politicians or its self professed goal of creating a theocracy in Lebanon.
He of course has very complex rationalizing but essentially he assumes the opposite of mainstream western opinion and then tries to build ideological structures upon that.
That creates a very simplified version of reality wrapped in a nice intellectual wrapping
Chomsky had been involved in linguistics and politics since the 60s, which is nearly six decades covering a multitude of events and issues. To simplify his work down to even a paragraph is an impossible task, let alone as you have done as simply saying "anti Western".
For example, during the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, Germany and France were opposed to the invasion, leading to "Freedom Fries" to insult French opposition to the war. The British public was also opposed to the war, although the the Blair government went along with it anyway. Australia had a similar position - public opposition but government went along with it anyway. Canada official refused entry into the Iraq war. Chomsky was also opposed to the Iraq war. Does this mean that France, Germany, Canada and the British and Australian general public are "anti-Western"? Since Chomsky agreed with these countries, does that make him anti-Western or pro-Western? Does it make the US anti-Western since they proceeded with a war despite formal or popular opposition in many Western countries?
I fear you have a certain definition of the "Western" that simply excludes Western opinions that don't fit your understanding.
As to who Chomsky met him; well as part of this Epstein story, Chomsky met with former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak. In your opinion, does this make him anti-Western?
Indeed, prior to his stroke Chomsky explained that this kind of meeting is why Chomsky associated with Epstein - for the contacts.
I suspect Chomsky is just generally interested in understanding an issues and not bothered by what it's seen as, seemingly to his detriment in this Epstein story.
Chomsky had a stroke a couple of years ago and isn't capable of speaking; the family is trying to maintain their privacy and so there isn't much public information about it but it came out that he can raise his arm when he sees something he dislikes and it doesn't look like much beyond that.
But there is no indication or even accusation that he was involved in any sexual activity, let alone anything inappropriate.
It's innuendo and guilt by association, mainly by his political opponents, both on the left and right, that are taking advantage of his inability to defend himself due to his stroke. I think many people are being _justly maligned_ by their association with Epstein, but in a way that distracts from the wider issue of what exactly does it mean when so many powerful and prominent people are found in compromising or potentially compromising situations and to what ends it served. It's US kompromat and the discussion is largely restricted to maligning people without discussing the significance of it.
In terms of Chomsky himself, given his career spanned both linguistics and politics, an honest critique would either deal with their disagreements with Chomsky like how Norvig did in this essay, or how Hitchens did over the Afghan and Iraq wars rather than saying "he had dinner with Epstein" or "he had dinner with Bannon".
In terms of the Epstein issue, the best criticism I can see is that his association with Epstein, Bannon etc. makes him a hypocrite although I don't find this personally convincing. Part of the problem for me here is that his present infirmities make it difficult for him to defend or explain himself and I find it poor form to kick the man when he's down, mainly by people who just didn't like that Chomsky didn't agree with them personally. Especially when he largely made a contribution to the debates even if one doesn't agree with him.
What percentage of immigrants coming from those regions would you consider to be skilled migrants?
Many parts of Africa have below 80% literacy rates[1] and that's in their respective language; coming to Europe would likely mean learning a new language as well as learning a completely foreign country. If we're speaking about Germany specifically, Germany didn't colonize as many places as the British, Dutch or French so they are unlikely to speak German.
If you want skilled workers, why not simply train those workers locally?
The large majority, since the requirements for non-refugees are basically to pay taxes and support themselves. Immigration is my job. If you want to be curious rather than judgemental we can talk about it.
It's not the average person that comes to Europe for work. The best educated, smartest people tend to come, because only they have the resources and capabilities to do so.
For example, from the very few people I have ever met that migrated from Syria (not as refugees, but regular migration), two of them were into classical music and play multiple instruments on a level that they sometimes play on public events (graduation celebration of college and alike). They also made a PhD here (engineering and medical). There's also a guy from Africa I know doing his PhD in chemistry here at the moment.
Those people are gravely missed in their home country. It's a big reason why such countries still struggle: Skilled people leave the country and migrate to Europe/US/Canada.
I'm just really isolated right now, I've been building solo for a long time. I don't have anyone to share my thoughts with, which is something I used to really value at Microsoft.
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