I say this with a degree of self-awareness, that I personally think that what Biden did in Afghanistan was utterly, utterly shameful, and that Trump's "peace deal" with the Taliban was almost equally pathetic, and worth less than the paper it was printed on. I say this also as someone who believes that Australia needs to stand up to China, and should, at present, have a functional navy, and defence force in general. However...
Yesterday, Australia announced that it intends to rip up a contract to build French, non-nuclear subs, and will instead (probably, at some point in the future, but we have to pay now, lol) build nuclear subs, based on a US or British design. This is an incredibly stupid, almost patently insane decision, that could well end up costing tens of billions more dollars than if we had just gone with the French, or with Japanese subs as THIS SAME GOVERNMENT proposed, under a different leader, less than a decade ago.
This also seems like a pretty absurd decision, politically. Nuclear doesn't fly, with people in Aus. My state literally will not allow these submarines to dock, if they ever get built. Nor will NZ. So... It seems like political suicide. The only "saving grace", and why this decision was probably actually made, is that they can be "built" in Adelaide, using parts made in the US (this won't actually happen, but bear with me), meaning ship-building "jobs" in a country that otherwise decimated that industry, and therefore, perhaps, some votes for these morons currently clinging to power...
Right, so all that aside, on to the disturbing bit: leftist cheerleaders, both in the media, and on Reddit, saying how "wonderful" this all is, and how it will allow us to "show it" to China, and, I dunno "scare" them, or some bullshit? These same fuckheads are cheering for the US to literally build more bases in Aus, and want us to become nuclear-armed. I'm not kidding. I saw that on r/Australia today.
I can't tell you how fucking bizarre that is. But it's not the first time I've seen this sentiment. These are the same people who cheered on the Libya debacle, and the same lot who wanted the Syrian and Iraqi war on ISIS/the rebels to drag on longer, to suit whatever agenda they may have had. That's without mentioning how they feel about the fucking Afghan debacle...
I just... Can't, with these people. Regardless of your view on subs, this whole thing stinks, and it is so very, very apparent that these people who claim to care so much about "human rights" or "the environment" only do so as long as the mainstream media (particularly their beloved guardian, and public broadcasters) tells them to feel that way, and will happily switch to promoting literal warmongers and statist tyrants, as soon as the wind blows that way...
Is this the same in the US and elsewhere, with your "leftists" or "liberals"..? Are they also good little bootlicking warmongers, when it suits them? Because even just a glimpse at Stupidpol or Breadtube would fucking suggest so, consequences be damned, and hypocrisy be damned. None of them EVER sign up to be the ones going off and fighting, though, I may add. They don't even fire the fucking missiles, or order the drone strike. But they'll happily cheer it on, until it becomes clear that civilians were the ones slaughtered, at which point the outrage and screaming becomes their default...
I mean, just look at how they turned on Assange, guys, as soon as he no longer suited their politics/aims. Even fucking AUSTRALIANS, the country where the guy is literally from!!!
I'm so done, peeps. Fuck leftists. Fuck "liberals", both small and large L, in Aus and Canada. Fuck statists. Fuck (increasingly petty) tyrants. Fuck warmongers. Fuck the military-industrial complex (Eisenhower was very, very right). And finally fuck this stupid, corrupt, pathetic country that I literally cannot leave. :-(
Oh I'm fully aware that the proposal is for nuclear propulsion, not for nuclear arms (though I'm sure they'll happily change that, a few years down the line, when it's politically expedient to do so). I don't agree that we should have that, either, though...
It's stupid, unnecessary tech that we do not need, will cost yet more billions of taxpayer dollars, won't generate jobs here, and, though I'm sure I'll get skewered by some here for saying it, will almost certainly be used as a backdoor to construction a nuclear power industry here, domestically, which I vehemently disagree with...
However, what I'm ranting about, here, and my main complaint, was the reaction in the fucking media, and on Reddit in particular...
"Fuck yeah war machines!" "This might mean the Americans base a sub fleet here, yayyy!!!" "Bring on the war with China - they're insane!" "This is such a worthwhile use of taxpayer dollars. Our security is the most important thing! Nothing matters more than that!" "Man, we really need this - might help us get nuclear power in Australia!!" "We have all that uranium - we should make our own nuclear weapons!"
Etc, etc, etc.
Some of those molten lava hot takes were from Australian media sources (both ABC and NewsCorp are rapid, on this, interestingly), and some, notably, are off fucking Reddit. Specifically, r/Australia, which wears its extreme leftist credentials very much on its sleeve, and bans anyone, me included, for even the slightest deviation into "wrongthink".
These people are certifiably insane. I'm sorry, but they are. Fuck the subs and fuck Scummo, but fuck the media and Reddit, perhaps even more (in this case)...