Let me see if I can get the structure of her argument right.
If we all act like good human beings.
If most of us act like good human beings.
If some of us act like good human beings, most of the time.
We can - yeah, I dont know what. Make it harder for autocracies to launder money? Promote Democracy better? Act like the bible told us to? Live lives without sin? Make the global financial system work as intended (homo oeconomicus)? Become the defacto rulers of the world again?
And for that we only need:
- More Democracy promotion - lets talk about this more in our universities that mirror Facebook most likes gets the job echo chambers.
- More action from Europe and Japan.
- The promotion of our liberal world order, which doesnt exist anymore. (see: Eric Gujer)
For this to make any sense structurally - Ann Applebaum only needed to cherrypick that russia is banning ukrainian songs, but not that ukraine banned russian songs in june of 2022, so she could string together her construct of what dictators do.
For that structuraly to make sense she just needed to tell that yes - much of that money laundering is done in Delaware and other US districts, but hey - currently we have Trump, so if just the Europeans could be a bit more forward, and cut their financial ties with China, not just Russia, that would be so proactively activistic, … Thank you!
What are we trying to do here?
- Oh “all money transactions should be able to be looked at by the US, because the only people that dont want that are people that have something to hide”…
Let me tell you once more, what happened, when that story got linked to an actual path of action on behalf of the Biden administration. So - we need to live like good value based democracies, so we can attain the real benefit of driving out those horrible chinese slave handlers out of chinese cobalt mines in Africa, because then we can build democracy there, and attain key resources and promote that good local growth.
European students, originating from the global south, started to laugh. Then started to curse. Then left the room.
Das IWMVienna gibt noch mal bekannt wo es ideologisch steht
Follow up:
This is what happens if you dont have any rational, never mind critical thinking at universities anymore.
“We all be good some, I mean most of the time - and that will change the world, because if europe and the US and Japan just band together enough for as long as the US doenst want isolationism, and ramp up their own economy with whatever developmental gap is left between us an Mexico -- we can sell that as the good world, vs the evil world!”
Wait, where have I seen the “If we only be good most of the time, we can change the world” concept the last time - oh yeah, climate change. Keeping the most affected countries away from 3/4ths of the money that should be allocated to them according to the good math we did. Letting “green oil” back in at the climate summits in Saudi Arabia and Baku.
Fuck it, let Ann Applebaum cancel capitalism while shes at it, because it harnesses the drive of people to lie and cheat for their own benefit.
Now all you need is a Book Price from the Deutsche Buchhandel in the Paulskirche, and an audience of 80 year olds scratching at heavens door -- and for Trump not to be president, and for the brazilian student not leaving the room laughing, and for no one to point out that your throughline was cherrypicked, and your allegories fall apart, as soon as someone says, wait a minute, US outlets picked up the russian propaganda story as well! So do you know why chinese media carried it at first, or did you just have an idea, that fit with your previous idea? And then you told everyone they did that because it allowed them to make the Ukraine war less good vs evil, and stay more ambiguous.
We would never do that in a Democracy. We pronounced Putin Hitler exactly on May the 10th 2022 in the following Standard Commentary by Anton Pelinka:
https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000135567819/putin-und-der-pazifismus-katholisches-wunschdenken
Were we called Pacifism shit, and ignored the “Pelinka zieht falsche historische Vergleiche” in the Comments to underline how wonderfully wonderful western Democracies are. Before Israel went genocidal in Palestine.
Wie man bei einem solchen Dreck klatschen kann, wissen auch nur über 80 Jährige Boomer, die besser in die Pauklskirche gewackelt wären, um noch ein funktionierendes gesellschaftliches Sozialgefüge zu faken.
An Gottes katholischem Wesen, soll die Welt genesen. Danke Ann Applebaum, für deinen Input durch cherrypicking. Deine Uni hats dir nachgesehen. Deine Studenten haben ihr Maul gehalten. Ein paar 80 Jährige Schweizer haben geklatscht, was will man mehr im Leben.
Fuck off.
Lass dich noch ein wenig von Polen für deinen politischen Einfluss in den US ausnutzen, aber bitte erspar uns den Rest.
edit: Yes, yes - but when confronted with the facts, let me, Anne Applebaum just state that Olaf Scholzes speech on the Zeitenwende was a very good speech, in which he understood the profound change and -- if we could just do what I’m promoting, the gates of heaven will be open to all of us!
Fuck off.
