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submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[-] [email protected] 44 points 1 day ago

Can someone show me on a map where "the west" starts?

[-] [email protected] 10 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

Right in the middle of Berlin.

(This information may be 30 years out of date)

[-] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago

A western colony primarily made of western settlers and completely aligned with imperial core countries is western.

It's a political term rather than geographic. Same reason why Australia isn't part of the Global South despite being in the south, because it's controlled by colonizers.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Is it Israel that is completely aligned with these "core" countries because I see them as a terrorist state and I sit firmly in the west.

[-] [email protected] 5 points 23 hours ago

The most significant western governments still finance Israel's existence, that doesn't mean every single western person or even country gets along with Israel

[-] [email protected] 2 points 23 hours ago

Israel, along with most western countries, have been bombing (or building bombs) the Middle east and North Africa for decades now.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 20 hours ago

Ireland is in the west and has recognised Palestine and condemned Israeli actions.

[-] [email protected] -1 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

Ireland has some good foreign policy positions due to being a victim of british colonialism for hundreds of years, and feeling affinity with other victims of settler-colonialism, but after the civil war, they fully adopted the model of governance of their oppressors.

Ireland is now just like other western states, ruled by finance capital, and suffers all the same problems (a housing and rent crisis, production exported to low-wage countries, etc). A lot of US tech companies even use Ireland as an off-shore tax-haven.

BAE and Boeing (who manufacture weaponry used against Arab countries and in Palestine) have plants in Ireland. They also let the US use their bases in its war on Iraq, and had active troops in the war to break up Yugoslavia, and also had troops to fight against Syria.

Ireland is kind of a case-study in what not to do after an anti-colonialist revolution.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 17 hours ago

Is it fuck a case study of what not to do, in 100 years we went from not recognised as a state to the highest labour productivity in the world.

We absolutely did not allownfornour bases to be used by foreign military. We did however allow for refuelling by an ally. We also had caveats about what type of aircraft and cargo could land and refuel.

Oh yes we have heard the tax haven criticism before, butthurt people complaining about how we incentivise foreign investment. As a result ofnpolicies like these we created duty free and duty free industrial zones, which was the initial reason for the headquarters in Ireland given their logistical benefits from setting up here.

We also did not wholly adopt anything, we have a different type of government, we dont have a monarchy and our elections are not first past the post.

I would like to see some stats on the manufacturing being exported because we actually have a lot of foreign companies set up manufacturing here and have done for a long time.

Seems like you dont want us to be on the right side of this issue, for some unknown reason, so you threw out some nonsense.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 16 hours ago

Labor productivity is a neoliberal metric that uses GDP per capita, that in actuality measures value captured, not value added.. For example, the most "labor productive" countries in the world, are those tax havens in the caribbean. Considering the Irish economy's dominance by finance capital, that's completely unsurprising that it would rank so high:

The reason that these large companies utilize child labour and forced labour and labour under such conditions is simple; profits. This is where Ireland comes into play, in its role helping these large multinational corporations maximize the profit they gain from exploiting such labour conditions. Of the five companies named in the lawsuit, Apple, Dell, Google and Microsoft all have their European headquarters in Ireland. So, one would logically ask why this might be. Perhaps it is our highly skilled and trained population? Or maybe our location on the very western edge of the continent makes it more convenient for big-wig employees to fly to and from Ireland? Or could it possibly be that these companies are attracted by the striking beauty of our cities, towns and wild landscapes? Or, may I suggest, is it our friendly, open, hospitable and charmingly roguish nature that means companies cannot help but to set up their regional headquarters here? Or could it be that Ireland is essentially a tax haven that allows them to maximize their profits?(14) Ah, yes, I think we’ve found the solution to that riddle then. The study, authored by Thomas Wright and Gabriel Zucman, reveals that U.S. multinationals book roughly 18% of their foreign profits in Ireland, more than anywhere else in the world.(15) Ireland’s laws also help U.S. corporations to achieve a pre-tax profits-to-wages ratio of 800%.(16) In the end this amounts to Apple owing the Irish government €13 billion in back taxes, and a legal dispute with the European Union. In 2016 the European Commission ruled that Ireland had given unfair tax advantages to Apple to the sum of €13 billion, a decision which the Irish government itself appealed. Eventually the decision was overturned by the European General Court in July this year (2020), although further legal challenges to that decision may be forthcoming.(17) It is also important to note that the figure of €13 billion is only for the case of Apple and does not include how much taxes other multinational companies may owe, so the actual figure is so high it does not bear thinking about.

We also did not wholly adopt anything, we have a different type of government, we dont have a monarchy and our elections are not first past the post.

Ireland is a bourgeois democracy / capitalist dictatorship just like GB, and it doesn't matter what form your elections take. The important point is that capital (specifically finance-capital) stands above your political system. Australia also doesn't use FPTP, yet its able to use that voting system to continue its colonization and theft of aboriginal land. These alternative voting systems have proven to be no obstacles in the slightest for capitalists.

We absolutely did not allownfornour bases to be used by foreign military. We did however allow for refuelling by an ally. We also had caveats about what type of aircraft and cargo could land and refuel.

The US racial state, which built its wealth on the graves of its indigenous inhabitants, and enslaved millions of captured Africans, is not a good military ally to have. If Ireland were actually anti-imperialist, there would not even be a debate on allowing the US military to use its bases, especially given the context of its wars on Iraq.

Here's another good article on Ireland's role in imperialism and its internal crises.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 15 hours ago

Do you just hear what you want? We are not a dictatorship. We didnt let anyone use our bases for the war in Iraq. We didnt invade anyone or steal any land. In less than 100 years we revolutionised our economy and lifted the people out of poverty. We are not a utopia, you will claim not everyone is out of poverty but for the most part everyone is, and while more work is needed, there are continued efforts to improve and continue lifting people up.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 14 hours ago

We didnt let anyone use our bases for the war in Iraq.

From the source above:

There are also very obvious ways in which Ireland assists the U.S. empire, the foremost of these being the U.S. military’s use of Shannon Airport as a stopover sight. U.S. military planes have been using Shannon airport since the end of 2001, when the latest U.S. global ‘war on terror’ and the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan began. Much of what we know about the activities at Shannon has only come to light due to the dedicated work of the people at Shannonwatch who, as the name suggests, have attempted to expose the truth about U.S. activity in Shannon.(21) As such anyone looking for more detailed information should seek out their website. However, it is still necessary to highlight some of the key issues associated with the U.S. military and CIA’s use of Shannon airport here. Their work estimated that between 2002 and 2014 almost 2,500,000 U.S. troops had passed through the airport.(22) They have also estimated that roughly 20 known or suspected rendition planes have used the airport (a rendition flight is when the CIA kidnaps and tortures someone they suspect of being a terrorist, they are usually transported to Guantánamo Bay or other black sites).(23) This is all done despite Ireland following an official policy military neutrality. So, let us consider more closely what exactly this policy of ‘military neutrality’ means. Quite obviously, given the use of Shannon airport mentioned above, the phrase ‘military neutrality’ is totally vacuous. If the U.S. military is allowed to use Shannon airport to help perpetuate its global reign of terror then Ireland is not ‘militarily neutral’, it is actively supporting U.S. imperialism. There is no time here to detail the horrors the U.S. military has committed globally since they began using Shannon airport at the turn of the 21st Century. Needless to say, the death and destruction brought upon Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and Yemen, to name just a few, is almost incalculable.

We are not a dictatorship.

As is standard for uneducated neoliberals, you're equating dictatorship with autocracy, and not with what group of people dictates how your country functions.

and who's the one plugging their ears and ignoring the housing crisis and other systemic problems that comes when you let finance capital run the country?

[-] [email protected] 0 points 8 hours ago

Oh I see, you just make up shit to suit you... Shannon is a public airport not a military base.

Yes yes neoliberal this and that very good.

We are definitely not plugging our ears, it is a major issue over here. But whatever man, you are too hard up for misery and complaining to be bothered with. Walls of text do not make you correct.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Essentially every country settled primarily by Europeans or their descendants, except somehow Latin America, Russia and Belarus, and, debatable, a few other European countries :D And potentially including Israel

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

There was once a term used for this, first world (US and allies) second world (USSR and allies) and third world (neutral-ish nations)

[-] [email protected] 1 points 23 hours ago

The reason latin america is excluded from the west is because 1) they don't exploit other countries via finance capital, and 2) most of them preserve both their indigenous cultures and populations, in a way that would be intolerable to US or Israeli settlers.

[-] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago

It's less a geographical or hemispheric distinction, and more a political one.

This page on imperial core is good.

[-] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

Should Greece really be on that list? The only criterion where it's not grayed out is "Awarded Parts of China to Japan", which actually means "signed the Treaty of Versailles after WWI". And unlike many of the other countries that signed it, Greece did not get anything to itself from it.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 23 hours ago

Agree, especially considering how much the EU has screwed over Greece in recent years. Not really an exploiter of global south labor via finance capital, which the US, GB, France, Germany, and the Nordic countries, definitely are.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Technically, Australian's aren't colonisers; they're victims of British colonisation.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago
[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago
[-] [email protected] -1 points 1 day ago

I presume whenever u say american u always mean amerindians and never anglo-americans.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

You're not making the point you think you are.

I understand the implications of both.

I don't truly call Australian Aboriginals "Australians", I was being facetious.

Also, I call them "Native Americans".

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Anything NA and anything west of (including) Germany.
I dunno if I would consider CZ to the west.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 23 hours ago

Poland is definitely The West too, honestly more than Mexico. It's basically a code for white nations and the vassal states of white nations.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 22 hours ago

Feels more Slavic than anything Germany (except east germany), France, Austria etc.

But that could be just my personal observation.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 21 hours ago

In some cultural or ethnic sense, you're probably right (though there's the classic joke in Europe that the East starts one country to the east of theirs) but what I mean is that Poland operates as part of what you could call the North Atlanticist bloc.

[-] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago

It's the big blob of central capitalism from when colonialism started to now. It's where the genocidal whites live, hence why Israel plays in the European soccer league.

[-] [email protected] -3 points 1 day ago

I'm not feeling too genocidal at the moment and I'm not too sure what a big blob of capitalism looks like but it sounds like you are impugning me (int al) in some way.

If you are going to deliver a stinging attack on something you dislike, why not deploy an impassioned and pithy argument rather than ... that. You do at least manage to spell it's correctly, which is nice.

[-] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Next time you aren't sure whether someone is being hostile or mean to you, just hold back on what your hypothetical response would be until you're sure what the intent was.

In my case I was earnestly answering the question. "The West" describes that continuation of institutional power which I described as a blob.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

the west is not really a geographic term, and its not really well defined either it has 3 main uses:

most commonly: the west: as in western europe and their settlers colonial offshoots (excluding Spanish and Portuguese ones but including the Spanish and Portuguese themselves)

most uselessly and confusing: the west: as in the global north (also not geographic) in its entirety

and less commonly: the west: as in all european cultures or cultures derived from europe, so most of europe and all settler colonies

[-] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

Ok so which of these definitions describes Israel?

[-] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)
[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

excluding Spanish and Portuguese ones but including the Spanish and Portuguese themselves

What ?

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

excluding Spanish and Portuguese colonies but including the Spanish and Portuguese people themselves i guess i should have said Spain and Portugal instead of referring to their people.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

But why exclide them ? Is this an american thing ?

[-] [email protected] 2 points 13 hours ago

they are excluded because the term is descriptive, these countries are excluded by the west from many agreements and organizations, they are exploited by the west and its systems of imperialism. Culturally speaking they are similar but geopolitically speaking they have nothing in common.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

The idea is that Spain and Portugal are part of the "West", but not Spanish or Portuguese colonial offshoots, which are mostly South American and haven't fared as well as the colonial offshoots from other nations of western Europe.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Guess they meant "Spain and Portugal themselves"

[-] [email protected] -2 points 1 day ago

Apparently the middle west

this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2024
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