• Dr. Moose@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I'm so disappointed with the global status this shithole maintains. They are spending so much money on bots and propaganda that if you look at Twitter, Tiktok or Instagram it's full of organic spam and any comments calling out this disgusting place get removed or piled on.

    • ours@lemmy.film
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      1 year ago

      Khashoghi died because he funded a campaign against the Saudi Twitter bot army.

    • TheDarkKnight@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      If it helps, that money is leaving their country which is funded by a natural resource that is losing its economic value and they have nothing economically beyond that, plus will get drilled by climate change which they are responsible for in a lot of ways!

      So, temporary problem :-)

  • UnpopularCrow@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    How many PGA golfers lined up to join LIV golf sponsored by the Saudi regime? Last year this was Phil Mickelson simping for the Saudi government saying: “I certainly do not condone human rights violations. And addressing what happened to Jamal Khashoggi is awful. But I have seen the good that game of golf has done throughout history. And I really believe that LIV can be good for the game of golf as well.’’

    Money trumps morals.

        • Syrc@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Millennial/Gen Z depending on definition here, I did not.

          And after watching it I’m still not convinced it wasn’t an impersonator sketch.

            • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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              1 year ago

              An idiot only getting the job because of Daddy's merits, and it making you realize it really is a club for the wealthy to fuck around in.

              And so far what has been our decision from this nightmare? "Yeah the children of the oligarchs do suck, best to just stick to the ancient old fuckers, cause the original is best!"

  • h3doublehockeysticks [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    I always find it funny how hung up the media class has been on Keshoggi. Its a fairly intense bit of class solidarity I suppose. Like in terms of pointless and evil acts of the Saudi Arabia state it doesn't even rank but its seemingly the only thing journalists remember

    • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Meanwhile all those dead Yemenis don't even warrant a mention, especially since it might have people asking why we were over there helping kill them in the first place

      • krolden@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        I saw a single decent report on Yemen and it was on pbs in like 2014 or 2015 maybe. It showed how the Saudis are bombing the shit out of them with ordinance made in the USA and all the starving children dying because of the blockade on any asstancd getting to them.

        I haven't seen any comparable coverage since.

        • TWeaK@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          The war in Yemen had very little coverage in the West. People are talking about all the drones being used in Ukraine, but they'd been using drones with similar devastating effecet in Yemen - the main difference being they tended to target people rather than tanks.

      • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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        1 year ago

        See, Yemen is a bad place where bad things are allowed to happen. By Western logic stuff only becomes real if it enters our imaginary bubble of perpetual safety. That's also why 9/11 and the Ukraine invasion got such a big reaction.

        To be clear, the bubble is not real, it can all happen here.

    • TimLovesTech@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Probably because in a free from authoritarian government the free press is supposed to be the ultimate checks and balances on personal liberty. When you can't even write something negative about a leader without being dismembered in a hotel and disposed of in duffle bags like trash, that should be ringing alarms for anyone that isn't licking boots.

      • OurToothbrush@lemmy.mlM
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        1 year ago

        free press is supposed to be the ultimate checks and balances on personal liberty.

        So what does it mean when "free" press is all just owned by rich chucklefucks who have a vested interest in making things as unfree for the working class as possible?

        • TimLovesTech@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          It means that the alarm bells went off and people paid more attention to capitalism, and voting in people that actively worked against them, because those elected officials treated people they disliked even worse. Then we got a wanna be dictator that went full "journalists are an enemy of the state" because they say mean (TRUE) things about him. Journalists now choose between being able to eat, or sounding the alarm that costs them a job (and falls on deaf ears).

    • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Journalists are extremely protective of their own, they really like to believe they are a separate class above the regular people. They go as far as releasing press freedom indexes that include feelings, and penalize not granting them additional rights.

  • Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    If you need help explaining just how fascist the west is to an average person, point out how they keep aligning themselves with some of the most savage murderous regimes in human history. There isn't a single answer that doesn't make them look like a complete monster.

    • Rinox@feddit.it
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      1 year ago

      If freedom of press is one of the ways you can assess how fascist a state is, which it is, then I wonder which countries you consider better than the west. China? Russia? North Korea? Yeah, all places renown for not silencing journalists, poisoning political opponents or ruling with an iron fist. All places where you can just criticize the government, publicly, on prime TV, in the journals, without repercussions.

      Also all places where they don't murder people for their political views, where they don't incarcerate them, torture them, send them to "re-education camps" or try to genocide entire ethnic groups in order to reduce dissent.

      At the end of the day, "the west" remains the only place where you can actually go on tv, in the squares and protest against the government decisions, criticize them and even vote for the government to leave power. Is it perfect? Hell no, it's a disgusting system rigged by the rich and powerful, but it's still miles ahead of any totalitarian, authoritarian dictatorship.

      Also it's not like China isn't buying lots of oil from Iran, a country which it's as much a savage murderous regime as Saudi Arabia, and from Russia, an imperialistic warmongering nation. And the reason it's clear, they need energy as much as the west needs energy. It's the reason why everyone puts up with those kinds of people.

      The sooner we, as a species, can move away from oil, coal, gas and the likes, the better it will be for everyone. No more energy wars and a cleaner planet overall.

      • zephyreks@lemmy.mlM
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        1 year ago

        How much good has your criticism of the government done?

        Do you have affordable housing? Are your healthcare needs covered? Is your taxpayer money going to help improve your life? Is the homeless issue solved? Has your government avoided going to war? Has your government fixed the rampant racial inequality in the prison system?

        I say this like it's to an American, but really it applies to most Western countries.

        • Rinox@feddit.it
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          1 year ago

          Well, some of those point have improved in some countries of the western block. Not everyone is American btw. And I'm not saying the west is perfect, but when making a statement like "this is why the west is the worst" you also need to tell me who is better.

          Lots of these issues are extremely present in other non-western countries as well and even more so. Or are you telling me that outside of western countries everyone else has affordable housing, free, good and available healthcare, a good and fair justice system, no racial inequality and no wars?

          • zephyreks@lemmy.mlM
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            1 year ago

            Sure, I'm not denying that conditions aren't perfect, but the argument being made is that having a democracy influences government policy to align with citizens' interests.

            Looking at per-capita wealth, the West should be doing much better on these key issues under the assumption that the government exists to make people's lives better.

      • Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        So it's OK to fund death squads and start war at every country that even remotely approaches socialism if you allow the illusion of freedom. Got it.

        • Rinox@feddit.it
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          1 year ago

          Russia does the same to countries in their sphere of influence who even think about approaching the west. I'm looking at Georgia, Moldavia and now Ukraine. Also they really like to meddle in Africa and the middle east through PMCs like Wagner, prop up local dictatorships and harvest labor and natural resources for themselves.

          China is also trying their hand at the imperialistic game, although they are newer at it. They are trying to enter many African countries and stationing there Private Security Companies (which are paramilitaries still controlled by the Chinese government, because of course they are). In Asia they are also trying to increase their influence. In the South China Sea they are trying to claim other nations exclusive economic zones as their own while in the Indian Ocean they are trying to secure military ports by forcing 99 years leases (similar to the British lease on the port of Hong Kong). I believe this plan is called the string of pearls and I also believe Indians consider it a way of encircling them (China-Pakistan corridor, China-Myanmar corridor and in the ocean ports in Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Djibouti and the Mauritius).

          Let's say that all major powers have tried and keep trying their hand at imperialism. The only difference is that the US has a much bigger economic power than Russia and has been playing the game for a lot longer than modern China

    • Gorilladrums@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      This is a brain dead take because it's just guilt by association. Having diplomatic relations with countries around the world doesn't mean that you endorse or support their government. A country that's ruled by a shitty ideology like Fascism or Marxism is something to be weary of, but these countries do in fact exist and they do play a role in global politics and economics. For example, the UAE and Israel normalizing relations doesn't mean that they support each other, but they recognize each other's influence and understand that diplomacy and cooperation is more beneficial and productive than shunning each other.

      I mean we tried to sanction, shun, and ignore authoritarian countries like Cuba and North Korea for decades… How has that worked out for us? My point is that we can't cut relations with every country we don't like. There are situations where that should be the case and there are definitely arguments for us to be more cautious when dealing with these types of regimes, but we can't cut ourselves off from the vast majority of the world (which is authoritarian) nor can we force countries to adopt our ways (we tried with Iraq and Afghanistan, it didn't work).

  • cloud@lazysoci.al
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    1 year ago

    Google the name of your favorite politician shaking hands with one of saudi arabia rulers

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Since then, Mohammed bin Salman – Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de facto ruler, who, according to US intelligence officials, approved Khashoggi’s assassination – has managed a near complete rehabilitation of his increasingly autocratic regime.

    Prince Mohammed has met with Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron and other world leaders; he’s positioning Saudi Arabia as a global tourism destination; and he’s plowing ahead with plans to build Neom, his $500bn futuristic city in the desert.

    Trump dropped the pretense that the US-Saudi alliance is anything more than a transactional arrangement based on keeping global oil prices stable, common security interests in the Middle East, and negotiating large weapons deals.

    After Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022, disrupting global oil markets, the prince seized his opportunity to pressure Biden into becoming a supplicant seeking lower gasoline prices for American consumers.

    Then last October, as the world braced for a surge in fuel prices due to the Ukraine war and sanctions against Russian oil, the Saudi-led Opec Plus cartel decided to cut production by 2m barrels a day – the opposite of what Biden administration officials had pleaded with the Saudis to do.

    After the shock of that embarrassing announcement, which threatened to raise gas prices around the US midterm elections, Biden vowed: “There’s going to be some consequences for what they’ve done.” Yet, a few months later, the US administration quietly dropped any pretense of holding Prince Mohammed and his regime accountable.


    The original article contains 1,260 words, the summary contains 240 words. Saved 81%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

  • Anonymous_TorPerson@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Just wondering what you think, didn't Jamal Khashoggi write articles defending Hisbullah and other terrorist orgs that Saudis didn't like? I am not justifying the actions of SA, but just wondering here.

    • topz@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      How is that even relevant? Is it ok to kill a person and just brush it off only because that person wrote articles?

  • dingleberry@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 year ago

    Putin taught Kim Jong, who taught MBS, who taught Modi. When one or two civilians lives are an acceptable compromise to retain a relationship with another country, you open up that route for all.

    Edit: The triggered tankies from Hexbear just soothe my soul. Cry more.

  • Ibex0@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    He'll be in charge for decades to come. It's time to move on from that assassination.