Bulletins and News Discussion from October 14th to October 20th, 2024 - Paper Tigers

Image is a frame taken from this video of Iranian missiles raining down on Israel without interception due to a weak and depleted air defense system after a year of war and genocide.

Mao, 1956:

Now U.S. imperialism is quite powerful, but in reality it isn't. It is very weak politically because it is divorced from the masses of the people and is disliked by everybody and by the American people too. In appearance it is very powerful but in reality it is nothing to be afraid of, it is a paper tiger. Outwardly a tiger, it is made of paper, unable to withstand the wind and the rain. I believe the United States is nothing but a paper tiger.

When we say U.S. imperialism is a paper tiger, we are speaking in terms of strategy. Regarding it as a whole, we must despise it. But regarding each part, we must take it seriously. It has claws and fangs. We have to destroy it piecemeal. For instance, if it has ten fangs, knock off one the first time, and there will be nine left, knock off another, and there will be eight left. When all the fangs are gone, it will still have claws. If we deal with it step by step and in earnest, we will certainly succeed in the end.

Strategically, we must utterly despise U.S. imperialism. Tactically, we must take it seriously. In struggling against it, we must take each battle, each encounter, seriously. At present, the United States is powerful, but when looked at in a broader perspective, as a whole and from a long-term viewpoint, it has no popular support, its policies are disliked by the people, because it oppresses and exploits them. For this reason, the tiger is doomed. Therefore, it is nothing to be afraid of and can be despised. But today the United States still has strength, turning out more than 100 million tons of steel a year and hitting out everywhere. That is why we must continue to wage struggles against it, fight it with all our might and wrest one position after another from it. And that takes time.

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1.9K comments

Wes Streeting has called to force people on the dole to take Ozempic.
This is what happens I suppose when you put someone who believes the NHS is a cult in charge of healthcare.
Mr ban puberty blockers, who once compared their usage to medical experimentation, now wants to carry out unethical medical experimentation on the unemployed.
- New weight-loss jabs could be given to unemployed people to help them get back into work, Wes Streeting has suggested.
  Yea that's why people aren't working, because they are fat. Not because of austerity.
  And wouldn't buying Ozempic at market rate blow up the budget "hole" even further?
  
  Wes Streeting works for medical insurance companies. Medical insurance companies love obesity being the cause of health and societal problems (rather than a symptom or contributing factour, which it often is) because they don't/won't have to pay out for it because it's the 'fault' of the person.
- someone owns novo nordisk stock
- Offering people struggling with obesity a medical treatment that improves their health and quality of life is certainly a good thing to do. Forcing people who are unable to decline because you hold the entire material basis of their life hostage to undergo a medical treatment because you are ideologically committed to see societal ills as individual fillings is a fucked up and evil thing to do.
  Also, how will the chuds react when they give the the scarce expensive drug that rich people buy on the grey/black market to the unemployed? Handouts for lazy, fat people who are undeserving of life itself and who should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps?

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