Every single “failure” of “socialism” to which its opponents point came to be specifically when, and because, people in positions of influence and power turned their backs on their claimed principles and chose instead to live lives of wealth and privilege.

None.

I think that the exact measure of whether or not a war is justified is whether or not people are willing to fight it.

It’s very rare for a war to be a direct threat to the people. That’s generally only the case in a situation like Gaza, in which the invaders explicitly intend to not only take control of the land, but to kill or drive off the current inhabitants.

As a general rule, the goal is simply to assume control over the government, as is the case in Ukraine.

So the war is generally not fought to protect and/or serve the interests of the people directly, but to protect and/or serve the interests of the ruling class. And rather obviously, the ruling class has a vested interest in the people fighting to protect them and/or serve their interests. But the thing is that the people do not necessarily share that interest.

And that, IMO, is exactly why conscription is always wrong. If the people do not feel a need to protect and/or serve the interests of the rulers, then that’s just the way it is. That choice rightly belongs to the people - not to the rulers.

I’m fully aware that the DNC is under no legal mandate to operate legitimately or honestly.

And that’s rather obviously entirely irrelevant.

In point of fact, if the legal standing of their actions is the only thing that matters, as you imply, then the entire notion that Russia willfully acted to harm them collapses. How could Russia harm them by leaking details of things that are not illegal and therefore (purportedly) entirely acceptable?

If, on the other hand, we stick with the way that things have been presented by the DNC itself - that Russia willfully acted to bring them harm - then rather obviously even they are taking the position that the legal status of their actions is irrelevant.

Go ahead and pick either one - I don’t care. Either there was nothing wrong with their actions, in which case they could not be harmed by having the details of their actions leaked, or they were harmed by the the leak of the details of their actions, in which case their actions were self-evidently judged to be wrong, and the legal standing of them is irrelevant.

Already did, though instead of the bot, I blocked the entire instance.

That’s pretty much what it seems to amount to.

All of the focus has been astroturfed onto the fact that the leaks came from Russian sources, and away from the content of the leaks. The clear (though of course unstated) implication is that the wrong isn’t the DNC’s corruption, but Russia’s self-serving exposure of that corruption.

I’ve never bought this spin.

Certainly Russia had a hand in getting the leaks to Wikileaks, and certainly because they had an obvious vested interest in the US electing Putin’s sycophant Trump.

But I’ve never seen or heard of any specific evidence that any of it was “disinformation” - just the repeated unsubstantiated claim that it was. It appears to be exactly what it looks like - a detailed record of the DNC’s overtly fraudulent maneuvering to torpedo the Sanders campaign in order to ensure the nomination of Clinton, or more precisely, to torpedo the campaign of a sincere progressive who would likely threaten the ongoing flow of big donor soft money in order to ensure the nomination of a transparently corrupt neo-lib who could be counted upon to serve establishment interests and keep the soft money flowing. And notably, early on that was how the DNC treated it themselves, even going so far as to issue a public apology to the Sanders campaign “for the inexcusable remarks made over email” that did not reflect the DNC’s “steadfast commitment to neutrality during the nominating process.”

So what it actually all boils down to was that the DNC really was acting in a manner contrary to the public good, driven by their own greed and corruption, and the fact that Russia had a hand in exposing that in order to serve their own interests doesn’t alter that fact.

No matter how one slices it, the bulk of the blame for the whole thing rests squarely on the DNC. Yes - it served Russian interests to reveal the information, but had the DNC simply been operating in a legitimate, honest and neutral way, instead of self-servingly and dishonestly, there would’ve been nothing to reveal.

And just the other day, the Israelis were wringing their hands over the fact that 11 Israeli soldiers died in one day, but here they are, right back to killing Palestinian civilians at many times that rate, pretty much every single day.

It’s as if they’ve made sociopathy official policy.

Trump is owned by Russia.

It really is just that simple - Putin and his oligarch cronies have bought and paid for him.

The system as a whole.

How thoroughly bizarre.

Does this guy actually live in a fantasy world in which, to him, the US supplying arms to Ukraine to aid Ukraine in fighting a defensive war in response to a Russian invasion of their country equals American aggression? How does that even work?

Russia invaded Ukraine.

It’s just that simple. That’s not an interpretation or an opinion - it’s an undeniable fact.

Russia invaded Ukraine.

That’s a clear, obvious, blatant act of aggression. In fact, it could likely be said that, internationally, there is no single thing that’s more clearly an act of aggression than one country invading another one. The exact thing that Russia did.

So how on Earth does this guy spin that into US aggression?

Quite seriously, I can only conclude from this that this guy, and whoever else is behind this, is literally insane. That must be the case pretty much no matter what. Either he’s so insane that he genuinely believes that defending a country against a foreign power’s invasion is “aggression,” or he’s so insane that he’ll brazenly (and at great length) lie and claim that that’s what he believes.

How did it come to this? How is it even possible for literal insanity to be presented as valid political opinion?

It’s just so… bizarre.

Seriously - how can any person be so brazenly and thoroughly warped?

I can only assume that, like so many of the fabulously wealthy, she’s profoundly mentally ill, such that she really can’t grasp the enormous human cost that fulfilling her petty, selfish and ultimately pointless desires would entail. It can only be the case that she genuinely can’t grasp the fact that the millions of people who would be made to suffer or die for this are actual people - actual beings with lives and loved ones who are every bit as important to them as hers are to her.

It’s either that or she’s genuinely evil, in the purest sense of the word, and on a scale the world has rarely seen.

So which is it Ms. Adelson? Are you insane or simply evil? There’s absolutely no doubt - none at all - that it’s one or the other.