Welcome to this week's edition of the Geopolitics Thread, the place where we discuss events from all over the world. News and discussion do not have to be related to India. Please share interesting stories in the comments. Here are a few to get the discussion started:
Top Stories
Ending over two years of instability, Israel's Parliament (the Knesset) voted to support a new coalition government led by right wing businessman Naftali Bennett, whose party won 6 seats in the last elections. The coalition has a slender margin of 60-59 in the 120 member house (one seat is vacant), including hard right parties as well as a large Arab party (20% of Israel's citizens are Arab Muslims who have the most democratic rights of any Muslims in the Middle East). The coalition ends the 12 year run of Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been clinging on to power through four inconclusive elections in the last 2 years. As per the deal, Bennett will be replaced by coalition partner Yair Lapid in 2023 in a rotating PM arrangement. Netanyahu has vowed to topple the government within a year and return as PM, if he isn't found guilty of corruption first.
The US President and Russian President held their first meeting since Biden was elected to the position, in a high-level summit in Geneva following a NATO summit. The meeting was tense after Biden called Putin a 'killer' in a TV interview, but seems to have made some progress on calming relations between the two. After Donald Trump's victory in 2016, the Democrats made an anti-Russian foreign policy a signature issue, including by sanctioning countries that purchase significant military hardware from it. But with Biden's victory, the countries have agreed to exchange ambassadors after a pause of three months. In separate press conferences, both leaders described the talks as successful.
The contagious Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, which was first detected in India and possibly caused the devastating second wave, is now spreading in over 100 countries. The UK saw a spike is cases despite over 60% of the populat
... keep reading on reddit ➡
I don't feel like I can intelligently discuss Dubček in a historical context. I'd like a "fair view" of him and his destalinization efforts and liberalization of Czechoslovakia.
Was he entirely off-base? Reasonable but misguided? Or, er, heroically, uh, justified or whatever?
Basically I know nothing and it's hard for me to find a non-westernized romantic's view of him, and I don't know how to contextualize that view.
He seemed like a hero to me. Wanting to have the best of both worlds. Shame what happened.
Today, under the executive order of Consul Daniel, Alexander Dubček, a Slovak, is being posthumously awarded the title and highest honor of Czecho-Slovakia, "A Hero of Czecho-Slovakia," colloquially known as, "A Hero of The Confederation," which is also a newly created award. It supersedes all others in ranking and prestige. Alexander Dubček was a man who may have been a socialist, but he was also a man who was a free thinker. He was a man who believed in his two peoples, and their right God-given right to freedom of speech. Which was suppressed of course by the Soviet Union. He led former Czechoslovakia into the Prague Spring, supporting reforms stopping the communist censorship of news, radio and thought. He had support from a wide range of Czechs and Slovaks. He is someone we should all learn from, and when the Soviets crossed the border with over 200,000 men and 2,000 tanks he urged his people to non-violently resist. And they did. Instead of quickly seizing full control of the country in the 4 days that were predicted; it took them 8 full months. All while Czechoslovak forces were confined to their barracks. In 1992, he even supported a federal "Czecho-Slovak state," though the eventual Slovak Republic was formed. But now look where we are.
He is a man for all of us to follow, look up to, and learn. He put a human face on socialism, opposed to the violence we all heard of during the rise of the Mekong Union. He made reforms, removing censorship, unlike China. And finally, even Miloslav Hruška—a man wanting nothing to do with socialism had said—"He is A Hero of Czecho-Slovakia."
##Dude, Who Stole My Stalinism?
Prague, Czechoslovakia
Over the course of the last decade, nations across the Salonika Pact and throughout the extended communist world have almost universally undergone a period of reforms following the death of Stalin, especially so as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics has taken its hands off of Eastern Europe to some extent allowing for greater autonomy in the superpower’s immediate sphere with hardline communist elements being swept under the rug. In nations such as Romania and Poland, reformist thought has penetrated deep into the national consciousness, with many seeing the failures of Stalinism and the overall shortcomings of hardline communism in general. With the success of the previously war-torn German state in mind as a direct result of market capitalism, many have even begun leaving their homelands in search for a better future in the west where one won’t have to wait years for a car or see their family taken away by members of secret police organizations such as the StB.
Throughout Eastern Europe, the winds of change are flowing, yet here in Czechoslovakia, little reforms have really been seen at all with hardliner Novotný keeping a firm hand on the scale to avoid it all. Within his own party however, reformist elements have begun to spring as members like Alexander Dubček, Ota Šik, or Ludvík Svoboda have been putting exercising an increasing amount of pressure within the Central Committee of the Komunistická strana Československa, the single-party ruler of Czechoslovakia. Rumors have even begun to float within the higher echelons of the party that First Secretary Novtoný may lose his position in the very near future as a result of the growing strength of the reformist movement. This isn’t helped in the slightest by reports of growing disloyalty among party members who have stopped attending low-level party functions or flying the flag of the party. For the hardliners of Czechoslovakia, it seems their position will be untenable by the next meeting of the Central Committee.
Additionally, an educated reader could even see changes in the writings of the party newspaper Red Justice shifting away from praise of figures like Stalin and more of Zhukov or even Tito. While still remaining loyal to the party’s desire to not stray too far from support of the CPSU in Moscow, the presence of foreign figures not supportive of the Stalinist wing in the pape
... keep reading on reddit ➡I don't want to step on anybody's toes here, but the amount of non-dad jokes here in this subreddit really annoys me. First of all, dad jokes CAN be NSFW, it clearly says so in the sub rules. Secondly, it doesn't automatically make it a dad joke if it's from a conversation between you and your child. Most importantly, the jokes that your CHILDREN tell YOU are not dad jokes. The point of a dad joke is that it's so cheesy only a dad who's trying to be funny would make such a joke. That's it. They are stupid plays on words, lame puns and so on. There has to be a clever pun or wordplay for it to be considered a dad joke.
Again, to all the fellow dads, I apologise if I'm sounding too harsh. But I just needed to get it off my chest.
Do your worst!
#Shirley Temple, The Littlest Spook
Bear with me, I hope my TrueAnon and Cumtown crew will understand where I’m coming from.
The Google Doodle today is Shirley Temple, which I realized by the tap dancing child at centre - pretty iconic image.
I didn’t know much about Shirley Temple besides her being the highest grossing American actor of the 30’s, the namesake of a cocktail, and I vaguely remembered she married a GI during WW2 and stopped acting. I had written off a child being Hollywood’s biggest star for a decade because I figured the Depression was pretty grim, and people were a few years removed from diving out of their seats when a train drove towards the screen, so it didn’t seem as strange as a child actor today - which would set off Dan Schneider alarm bells, for obvious reasons .
It looks like she was, or at least was married to, an Intelligence Officer of some kind.
##Shirley Temple’s Career
It never occurred to me to look up what she did after 1950. It’s almost a crack-ping :
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Became a major figure in the California Republican Party
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US Delegate to The United Nations General Assembly 1969
-
What was going on in Ghana during that time?
> The army troops and officers upon whom Busia relied for support were themselves affected, both in their personal lives and in the tightening of the defense budget, by these same austerity measures.As the leader of the anti-Busia coup declared on January 13th, 1972, even those amenities enjoyed by the army during the Nkrumah regime were no longer available. Knowing that austerity had alienated the officers, the Busia government began to change the leadership of the army's combat elements.This, however, was the last straw. Lieutenant Colonel Ignatius Kutu Acheampong, temporarily commanding the First Brigade around Accra, led a bloodless coup that ended the Second Republic.
> Acheampong's National Redemption Council (NRC) claimed that it had to act to remove the ill effects of the currency devaluation of the previous government and thereb
... keep reading on reddit ➡I'm surprised it hasn't decade.
For context I'm a Refuse Driver (Garbage man) & today I was on food waste. After I'd tipped I was checking the wagon for any defects when I spotted a lone pea balanced on the lifts.
I said "hey look, an escaPEA"
No one near me but it didn't half make me laugh for a good hour or so!
Edit: I can't believe how much this has blown up. Thank you everyone I've had a blast reading through the replies 😂
It really does, I swear!
Because she wanted to see the task manager.
Heard they've been doing some shady business.
They’re on standbi
but then I remembered it was ground this morning.
Edit: Thank you guys for the awards, they're much nicer than the cardboard sleeve I've been using and reassures me that my jokes aren't stale
Edit 2: I have already been made aware that Men In Black 3 has told a version of this joke before. If the joke is not new to you, please enjoy any of the single origin puns in the comments
Pilot on me!!
Nothing, he was gladiator.
#Shirley Temple, The Littlest Spook
Bear with me, I hope my TrueAnon and Cumtown crew will understand where I’m coming from.
The Google Doodle today is Shirley Temple, which I realized by the tap dancing child at centre - pretty iconic image.
I didn’t know much about Shirley Temple besides her being the highest grossing American actor of the 30’s, the namesake of a cocktail, and I vaguely remembered she married a GI during WW2 and stopped acting. I had written off a child being Hollywood’s biggest star for a decade because I figured the Depression was pretty grim, and people were a few years removed from diving out of their seats when a train drove towards the screen, so it didn’t seem as strange as a child actor today - which would set off Dan Schneider alarm bells, for obvious reasons .
It looks like she was, or at least was married to, an Intelligence Officer of some kind.
##Shirley Temple’s Career
It never occurred to me to look up what she did after 1950. It’s almost a crack-ping :
-
Became a major figure in the California Republican Party
-
US Delegate to The United Nations General Assembly 1969
-
What was going on in Ghana during that time?
> The army troops and officers upon whom Busia relied for support were themselves affected, both in their personal lives and in the tightening of the defense budget, by these same austerity measures.As the leader of the anti-Busia coup declared on January 13th, 1972, even those amenities enjoyed by the army during the Nkrumah regime were no longer available. Knowing that austerity had alienated the officers, the Busia government began to change the leadership of the army's combat elements.This, however, was the last straw. Lieutenant Colonel Ignatius Kutu Acheampong, temporarily commanding the First Brigade around Accra, led a bloodless coup that ended the Second Republic.
> Acheampong's National Redemption Council (NRC) claimed that it had to act to remove the ill effects of the currency devaluation of the previous government and thereb
... keep reading on reddit ➡