Hi, Eastern European here. We begged to join NATO. We kicked and screamed, wheeled and dealed, anything we could to get that coveted NATO membership.

You know why? Because we’ve been dealing with expansionist Russian imperialism for our entire histories. Different coats of paint in different time periods, but it’s all the same shit. The US is an empire, but at least here it’s preferable to Russia’s imperial ambitions.

This reminds me of a story from “They thought they were free”. A Jew was accused of raping a woman. The judge heard the case and determined he was innocent. However, the gestapo were waiting outside the court to nab the accused as soon as the trial ended.

The judge decided to stick to his verdict instead of ruling guilty to put him in a normal prison instead of a concentration camp. After all, how could he justify ruling an innocent man guilty, even if that was objectively a better result for the man?

Downvoted for complaining about downvotes. The internet points do nothing. Everyone please downvote me so I can demonstrate how little it matters.

If you’re interested, the short version is that instances (A.K.A servers) are run by different people in different places. A reason to move instances might be:

1. My admin, the owner of the instance, has been doing things I heavily disagree with (bans, blocks, etc)

2. I don’t agree with the rules on my instance.

3. The instance is run in a country which criminalizes something that I care about, and so has to ban discussion of that thing (piracy, porn, etc).

4. I want to run a community on a specific instance for whatever reason, and so need an account there

This is what underfunding education for decades and TikTok does to a country. Romania has the highest number of TikTok users per capita in Europe.

To me, “guys” has been a gender-neutral term for a while now. At least that’s how it’s used here in my little bubble in Europe.

There’s also the issue that the US needs to sell bonds at higher and higher yields just to convince them it’s worth the risk.

As far as I understand it (not an economist), that might lead to a debt spiral.

Switzerland or Finland?

is it called Jewish or Jews in this case?

Jews. A thing can be Jewish, a group of people can be Jews. Another rule of thumb you can use is adjective vs noun.

There are plenty of anti-Israeli Jews. Don’t paint us all with the same brush.

Please don’t lump trademarks with the rest. Makers have stamped their goods with their mark since ancient times, both as advertising and to signify quality products (and not knockoffs). Swords were especially commonly marked with the smith’s trademark.

It was illegal to sell bread in ancient Rome without a trademark, for example. The punishments for doing so were harsh, as they wanted to be able to track down the baker if someone sold tainted bread.

In modern days, they’re useful for customers to know what company they’re buying from.

I think for name recognition and not scaring off Americans who run in fear from the s word, maybe it should be called the Progressive Party?

This is a time of crisis, and both the Squad specifically and the American progressive movement in general are letting a good crisis good to waste

What would you recommend they do? And how would they go about doing that within the strictures of a two-party system where one is fascist and the other is captured?

Messaging is important. While the Republicans are saying “There’s some temporary pain, but it’ll all sort itself out in the end. We just need to get through this transition, and the tarrifs and deportations will MAGA”, there needs to be a counter-argument.

They’re (thankfully) not preaching to the choir. They’re going to Republicans and independents and explaining in these rallies that there’s an oligarchy that has taken control, made them poorer, and it will get worse.

If they can convince enough people of the real causes, they have a broader base, and potentially even some new progressives.

I know someone who got had by a spearfishing call. They knew all the details about his phone contract, sounded 100% legit. The scammer got thousands of dollars in prepaid SIM cards from his account.

After the police investigation, turned out that the scammer was actually a former employee of the phone company who downloaded a copy of the customer list when he got fired.

There is strong legal backing to this. Romania bars anyone with ties to or rhetoric similar to the Iron Guard (Romanian fascists) from running. Georgescu has strong ties to them, and he’s not even the only politician barred from running due to this for this election (Sosoaca).

Oh, they absolutely do. As far as I’m aware though, the people Ukraine got out ASAP to any country that would have them were women whose husbands were conscripted and were the caretakers for multiple children.

As we all know, women are incapable of fighting. When we fire a gun the recoil breaks all our bones!

I know, military service is the final boss of sexism, but that’s still how it is in Ukraine. There’s some murmuring they may be expanding their conscription to women of fighting age without children, but it is still the case that women are exempt from mandatory military service.

Not really. These are refugees. Women, children, and disabled people primarily I’d imagine. What’s actually going to happen is that after arrival in Ukraine, they’ll be moved to Poland/Romania/etc to keep them out of the line of fire again.

The only thing this does is disrupt their lives again for no reason.

Don’t worry, we know. We wouldn’t be re-arming like crazy if we didn’t. The general vibe here in eastern Europe is one of worried, resigned determination. I’ve never seen pro-EU rhetoric this popular before in my life.