14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

I was there a few hours ago. It was a class struggle, but it was bound to be spun up as "kids don't get facebook and throw tantrum".

Years later the fixer was finally jailed for gold smuggling. https://english.khabarhub.com/2022/16/232667/

Edit: add link

Low-level 3rd world officials love showing off whatever they're doing to whoever will listen. They usually don't have much else to do. It is best to accept their offer and drink the tea with them or whatever, get on their good side and talk about how modern their little village is, and get on their good graces.

[1] https://mytravel.state.gov/s/step

I don't know much about Agriculture Engineering but there were a bunch of big milk vats, a couple electricians, and then a bunch of officials sitting around drinking the cold Yerba Matte stuff.

I assume they brought me because they heard I was an electrical engineer and I saw they were wiring the place up.

I got stuck in the city for two or three days waiting for my flight, under the supervision of the team's local fixer. This guy had his finger in every pie: tourism, automobile importing, etc. I wound up at lunch with him because his assistant wasn't available to play tour guide.

Edit: I'll add that I got lucky getting sick. Shortly after my flight out a large earthquake struck, stranding the rest of the group in the Khumbu for nearly a week.

You managed to make melting ice sound exciting.

Even the Armed Forces(pro-India) and the Armed Police Force (pro-China) are at each others throats.

Whenever India feels Nepal is getting too close to China, a crisis happens. When China feels Nepal is getting to close to India, a crisis happens as well.

It's like how Iraqi and Lebanese politics is always meddled in by Saudi and Iran.

Also, the social media ban is extremely damaging.

Most students use Google and YouTube to study, and WhatsApp is heavily used by Nepalis both domestically and abroad (a large portion of Nepalis work abroad in India, the Gulf, Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia, and Japan as migrant workers) so people are cut off from communicating with each other and getting job offers.

I was flying from Kathmandu to Bangkok in 2000 and I couldn't book a ticket on the plane until the day it flew as 'half the plane' was reserved for 'Government Officials' 'just in case'. Amusingly they were all on one side of the plane too, the side that can see Mount Everest during the flight.

Then, Bangladesh,

Now, Nepal.

An unstable Nepal allows the destabilization of two critical states in India.

Regime change in India is the big prize.

--

China and India do meddle.

But a classic color revolution, such as this one, is the signature of you-know-who.

In Nepali politics, Sher Bahadur Deuba is pro-India and Prachanda is pro-Prachanda (will back India some years, other years will back China).

The whole Indian internet conspiracy of "CIA ki saazish" is ridiculous when the US has barely 20 India scholars at all. There is 0 domain experience in India studies in the US, and that reflects in America's South Asia strategy (there is none).

[0] - https://kathmandupost.com/columns/2025/09/07/oli-s-diplomati...

I literally don’t.

if you look at their comment history, you’ll notice how many of their comments have the It’s not X but Y concluding sentence pattern that is a GPT dead-ringer. Seeing people try to pass off comments like this is not just frustrating—it's insulting.

For instance check this https://www.wsj.com/finance/currencies/trump-family-amasses-...

- positive affirmation - thing is not just one thing - thing is something else

Things don’t feel like how anybody would speak.

Looking at the account I see all comments appear to be AI generated but it makes me wonder if it’s actually just AI translating from another language or something. Which is kind of a fair enough reason to use AI, in low-stakes comment setting like this.

The recent appearance of William van Wagenen on the Scott Horton Show was rather eye opening to me on some matters, even though I have been very well aware of these types of operations for many years now. For example, the "Arab Spring" that most people at the time thought was an organic citizen protest/uprising, but was clearly a clown cabal operation, has even deeper roots with position papers for many years prior clearly outlining the exact progression for how things would end up unfolding during the "Arab Spring".

It's definitely worth a listen, even if it may sound bewildering to people who have no real context for that world outside of the mainstream.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJa1sbAqylE

This further explains corruption within socialist systems where everyone is effectively "equal" but some people are still looking out for themselves over everyone else.

> The end of communism in China and the Soviet Union was a major factor in the 42 percent reduction of hunger between 1990 and 2017.

https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/is-capitalism-to-blame-for-hu...

People need to start learning XMPP, cutting off of centralized services is only going to get worse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...

Just take a look at the whole Epstein files situation. Not to be too acute about it, but how is it wild to you that plotting would happen in the "third world" when it happens right in your face in the heart of the world empire, openly defying all of the most core Constitutionally enshrined principles, and even daring you to do something about it and also proving how powerless you/everyone is to even look the cabal that control the world in the eyes, let alone depose them.

As George Washington said in Hamilton: "Ah, winning was easy, young man. Governing's harder."

It was amazing how many people who were not usually politically active joined the protests, and that they attracted support across racial divisions.

I think one of the problem with outside experts is that they try to reframe it in terms of the issues in their countries. For example, I have read articles trying to use Sri Lanka's excessive borrowing as a warning against modern monetary theory, which is either dishonest or incompetent - and I very much doubt the govt were even thinking in terms of MMT.

BTW I have probably met you at some point. I know Gehan from when i worked at Millennium (I was only there about an year).

The tribalism of two party politics blurs those lines and replaces them with arbitrary forms of tribal allegiance. i.e. under a freer political system with a vibrant set of political parties that actually matched peoples political interests you might find former democrats and republicans voting together for the same party. Its my belief that the political divide in US mostly comes down to what TV channel your parents had on.

But, even if it was GPT: If a non-native-English-speaker wants to post here, and wants to use GPT to smooth out their bad English, is that terrible? In this case I would say no - they actually had something to say, on topic, that sounded like a reasonable perspective, perhaps even one with some inside knowledge.

Without evidence, yes, it should be. Just as it should be dismissed, if proposed without evidence, that this was the product of Indian, Chinese or Iranian meddling. Particularly when we have credible evidence going the other way of legitimate reasons a population would flip out.

Shame, it’s one place I really want to visit, but it seems like it will be a bit of a challenge (well, at least not Iran-level challenge, which is another place I want to visit someday and has different but even bigger problems).

No need to go far, just look at the result of lobbying in the USA.

Btw, while there are many famines caused by despots (Stalin's, Mao's, Red Khmer's), there is also Bengal's famine of 1943.

One must also point out that China in the last 40 years have done perhaps more regarding the poverty mitigation than anybody else in the human history (capitalism, especially the wild one, has actually quite patchy record...)

In reality, it may be more complicated than that though. Most people don't see themselves as destructive, they just have a very different view of what the right rules are and what ought to be done to progress things. That can appear destructive from the outside.

If they are very good socialists they will redistribute it all. If they are not-very-good socialists they will redistribute some of it and reserve some to support a nice lifestyle for themselves and their families. They won’t personally “own” mansions, airplanes, factories, etc. like capitalists do, but they still control them legally so the practical effect is very similar.

A lot of authoritarians just like to blame their self grown domestic problems on the CIA. China having another stock market crash? The CIA must have done it.

Its not just about the rules and if you follow them or not, its about the belief in turn-taking, in other people having the same rights as you, a belief that in society; everyone is important, everyone is mostly equal and that the society should be fair. Perhaps my phrasing could be improved? For the most part I am simply trying to define the difference between people being selfish and not.

Michael Shellenberger's site was blocked in Europe by the European Parliament after posting information for "The Twitter Files - France" which he's schedule to be testifying about to the House Foreign Affairs committee tomorrow.

https://x.com/shellenberger/status/1963951509928079384

That's just one channel. There's more -

1. As of September 2025, Donald and Melania Trump have launched several crypto-related ventures, including meme coins named $TRUMP and $MELANIA and digital asset firms.

2. He's a majority shareholder in Trump Media n Tech Co. Many have bought shares in that co just to please him https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/DJT/

3. The Trump family has launched several cryptocurrency ventures. An investment fund backed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has made a $2 billion investment in a stablecoin issued by the Trump family's World Liberty Financial. This investment is estimated to generate about $80 million in annual interest for the Trumps.

4. Trump-branded properties are in development across the Middle East, including a golf resort in Qatar and residential towers in Dubai and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. DAMAC Properties, a Dubai-based developer and long-time Trump business partner, also has ties to Trump-affiliated golf courses in Dubai and has announced major U.S. investments. Those deals were made during this year's trip.

Yeah, that adds up. Small cities in South America usually have difficulty attracting qualified people to work there. It's a bit better now than it was 10 years ago, though.

If you believe in tax cuts as a principle (i.e. 0% is a goal), then generally its hard to support government spending, which means its hard to support solving problems within your society, because doing so makes it harder to cut taxes. So with that in mind, I personally think people who believe in the Von Mises model of taxation (i.e. "all taxation is theft") are ideologically incompatible with any sort of society that tries to solve its own problems.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'%C3%A9ta...

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion

[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27%C3%A9...

perhaps "rules" was a poor choice of word. What I meant was more a belief in society in general, a belief in the nation, in fairness. I guess in one-word: selfishness. I believe the _real_ political divide is between those who are selfish and those who are not.

I live in New York (Long Island). People are constantly telling me that I should be having jobs thrown at my feet, considering my skills and track record.

That was not the case, which is why I'm retired.

If I were an inexperienced young buck, living in Brooklyn, that might be the case, but not for an old expert, out on The Island.

It's likely that it's difficult to get capital in East Africa. I knew many very smart, educated people, when I lived there.

On Long Island, it's easy to get capital for non-tech stuff, but tecchies are kind of ghetto, out here.

It was written in the early 1900s.

This makes GP even more correct. One can believe (and like) part of the society one lives in but not like other parts, or plainly think they are wrong and should be changed at all costs.

Does location matter as much in 2025 when there are oodles of remote first companies out there?

How about people who genuinely believe in a minimal state? They often believe in charitable giving and local community organization, in my experience. Maximal civil society vs maximal government. A good example of this type is people who believe in the ideas laid out in Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Even the more hard line Von Mises types are close to this. There are disgruntled people who are just asocial in that camp, like any other, but they are over emphasized by opponents just like every political group.

It would be very hard to argue that Nozick wasn't someone concerned with advancing society. The difference for that type is just a strong disagreement about how to do so. Painting them as first-order opponents is a mistake, I think.

http://codingforafrica.at/about.html (no HTTPS option)

I sincerely wish them luck.

You just gave a definition of "democracy". Thank you. /s

How on earth you call that "corruption"?

Are you even aware of what the word means?

You are giving an example of a position and later on discussing the people who have this position as their first and main principle. Seems like a valid example to me, but perhaps people can explain why not.

What did Nepal fail to do for America that supposedly caused this?

Bay of Pigs wasn't a revolution, it was a failed invasion. The others, however, absolutely were instigated by the CIA.

You can compile similar lists for Iran, Russia, France and India. Reflexively dismissing every coup, much less protest, as the product of foreign involvement without evidence isn't thoughtful.

I agree that its technically a position but while that venn diagram may well include people who believe in charitable giving and local community organization its those who do not believe in those things (which I would argue constitute the majority of that position) who are the problem here. Even so, the idea that everyone gets to choose themselves what the issues are, belies a lack of unity and community that is close to what I'm trying to define. To respect society, one must give up an aspect of control.

Again, its not about tax in general, its the desire to get to 0% that is indicative of the sort of selfishness that defines the line I'm trying to draw.

> Painting them as first-order opponents is a mistake, I think.

You might be right. I think the bigger problem definitely are those who think stealing public money is ok to do.

> One can believe (and like) part of the society one lives in but not like other parts, or plainly think they are wrong and should be changed at all costs.

Sure but I mean in terms of the abstract. The idea that those most successful may have to pay more in taxation, the idea that justice should be blind and that everyone deserves a trial. I guess the tipping point is when your belief in the part of society that are wrong are so extreme that you think its ok to undermine society (e.g. steal public money, push infront of queues, etc) in order to combat that "wrong".

Most people probably universally agree on the topic of corruption, unlike economics or social policy. But it requires a well designed political system and a strong culture, which is difficult to do retroactively.

I agree with your broader point. A hair to split is that I tend to see those "you leave me alone, I leave you alone" types as sort of side-line sitters. They're a neutral party who genuinely want to mostly opt out for one reason or another. I don't think that taking a stance of them either being with us or against us is healthy when there are so many genuinely destructive people.

> Even so, the idea that everyone gets to choose themselves what the issues are, belies a lack of unity and community that is close to what I'm trying to define. To respect society, one must give up an aspect of control.

Interesting. I'm curious what you mean here, as this could point a lot of different directions. Are you saying that you don't think individualism is healthy in general?

Do you mean that broad disunity and lack of alignment on societal values is dangerous? If so, I totally agree with that and wonder how it can be squared with modern multi-cultural pluralistic society. I don't, personally, believe in enforcing ideological conformity, but struggle to see how a society that doesn't believe in shared underlying mores can coordinate itself and have shared purpose.

> I think the bigger problem definitely are those who think stealing public money is ok to do.

No disagreement, and I think that's a good starting point. Those plundering the commons for personal gain are pretty clearly first-order opponents.

The dude wouldn't even divest himself of his businesses, nor would he reveal his tax returns, both items which would go a significant way toward easing everyone's concerns. (well, maybe actually looking at the tax returns would make everyone a lot more concerned...)

> Brigade 2506 (Brigada Asalto 2506) was a CIA-sponsored group of Cuban exiles formed in 1960 to attempt the military overthrow of the Cuban government headed by Fidel Castro. It carried out the abortive Bay of Pigs Invasion landings in Cuba on 17 April 1961.

I agree in principle, although there is a slight harmful component to it that I think is best described in defence (now WAR) spending. This is perhaps an element of taxation that most people do not see a direct benefit from, but in the scenario where they do suddenly need it, but don't have it, they lose absolutely everything. Its almost akin to the parental demand that a child eat its vegetables where the child doesn't see the point.

> Interesting. I'm curious what you mean here, as this could point a lot of different directions. Are you saying that you don't think individualism is healthy in general?

No, I think it is healthy but we also have to accept that we live in a society so that individualism must be tempered with a modicum of respect for others. We take much of this for granted, such as not murdering each other. Thankfully we are beyond the point where somebody takes to the air to decry their inability to arbitrary kill other people as some sort of government oppression.

I feel like part of the abstract of a more model citizen is accepting that sometimes society will do things that you don't necessarily agree with. For me there has to be some level of acceptance of this with arguments about ratios being entirely acceptable. I'm content for people to make that argument that tax cuts to 0.1% are okay if they result in the sort of growth where that 0.1% can actually cover the problem solving fund, but you have to accept that to some extent.

For example I live on the ground floor of an apartment block and would be insane for me to lobby our management firm to defund the elevator, which I partly pay for, despite never needing it. I accept that the elevator is part of my society of appartment block, despite it not directly benefitting me in the slightest.

I do agree that preppers/anarchists/von-mises are hardly the most destructive people out there, however their entirely individualistic attitudes do hold a parallel with those who think robbing the commons is ok. Especially since the whole "taxation is theft" idea creates a imbalance where robbing the commons is just redressing that balance. But I agree that we might be too zoomed in here to have the sort of impact we might hope for.

And maybe on balance hunger went down, but in particular for a whole lot of those Soviet states, the transitions from the failing "communist" state and the market-based alternatives was incredibly harsh and involved a whole lot of starving as the prices of food and other critical goods soared out of reach of Soviet citizens, not even going into the psychological effects.

Also also, insofar as "communism" "failed" (the USSR was incredibly authoritarian and corrupt, many communists and socialists take big issues with them or China for that matter being called communist but I digress), it "failed" alongside a host of economic sanctions brought upon it by it's Capitalist neighbors, utterly terrified at it's very existence. I mean Christ calling someone communist is still an insult in the United States, and an attack on a politician here too, decades after the Red Scare supposedly ended.

IMO, the only American program that has a good program in Contemporary Indian politics and foreign policy is Stanford, as Sumit Ganguly acts as the primary linkage between American and Indian policymakers, and the FSI and Hoover Institution tends to host Indian policymakers and career bureaucrats as affiliates and fellows. For example, during the US-India trade negotiations, the only public visit Nirmala Sitharaman and her staffers had was at the Hoover Institution [0]. Even the USIBC is hosted at Stanford, and that event has a lot of Indian and American dignitaries and policymakers coming.

Other than Christine Fair and a couple Pakistani fellows at HKS, I can't think of a similar domain experts on Pakistan either in the US.

If you want to study contemporary Indian foreign policy outside of India, your only options are NUS, ANU, Stanford, LSE, and maybe Oxford.

It's the same reason why the best China, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea scholars tend to be clustered at Harvard and Stanford.

[0] - https://www.hoover.org/events/laying-foundations-developed-i...

I think there is broad consensus that too much poverty is a problem, and (perhaps somewhat less broad) that therefore too much wealth inequality is a problem. I think there's fairly broad consensus that college costs are a problem, that healthcare costs and access are a problem. I think there's a fair consensus that fixing these things would make the nation better.

Then you get to "how do we fix them?" and all consensus disappears.

As for the rules, it seems pretty clear to me that "the rules" are the Constitution and the existing law, plus the rules on how to pass or repeal laws.

But this framing also misses one category: Those who think that they should break the rules to make the nation better. I think that they are misguided at best and lying (either to others or to themselves) at worst.

Why misguided? Because preserving the rule of law is a really big deal. Even if they have the best of intentions, once they knock the law down flat and pave a road over it, they won't be the only one to drive on it. Tyrants try to build that road; if it's already there, the tyrant's job becomes much easier and much harder to stop.

So I oppose such tactics. It doesn't matter whether they are well-meaning or not. Even if the person doing them will never be a tyrant, the next person who wants to be a tyrant will find the door wide open.

This sounds like a complete BS. There were no starving people in the Soviet Union and its satellites after a brief post-war period. They had no luxuries all year round like exotic fruits, but the basics were covered. They had also vastly more educated population than the US. Just their governance and understanding of economics didn't consider the innate selfishness of humans and the need to dominate and outdo others so supply-demand laws didn't work well. China fixed that part later by allowing private corporate ownership and throwing its population into a Darwinian environment while keeping minimal social standards for the unlucky ones. North Korea, Cambodia and Laos would be the only "communist" countries where famines were still present.

But you cannot ignore that aspect - addicts do get aggressive, even violent, when they don't get their fix. So they are indeed vulnerable and politically susceptible.

Colonialism is a form of centralized planning, which catastrophically fails for the same reasons that it does in communist regimes.

China is evidence of capitalism's incredibly successful record of poverty mitigation. They've retained some communist style central planning, but the "bad" part of capitalism is unlimited accumulation of wealth, as mentioned upthread, which China allows just like any capitalist country.

> I was flying from Kathmandu to Bangkok in 2000 and I couldn't book a ticket on the plane until the day it flew as 'half the plane' was reserved for 'Government Officials' 'just in case'.

The "just in case" sounds like speculation to me so all it sounds like is the flight they were on was reserved.

The longer term is literal desolation. People simply do not start business as time goes on so there is nothing to exploit as time passes. Business that exist simply don't operate in that country anymore so there is not even anything to buy if you have money. Then the violence and enslavement starts.

And I agree with them - the ongoing protests are a result of anger against the political establishment's corruption - while thousands of Nepalis go abroad to work in the Gulf and India as menial labor, the political establishment's kids go abroad to America, Canada, and Australia to study, party, and live their best life.

My point was orthogonal to that - I'm saying that Chinese and Indian influence on the political establishment has been strongly entrenched.

Even Nepali media calls out Sharma's pro-China leanings and Deuba's pro-India leanings, and Prachanda's "paltu Ram" antics.

The desperation from the youth is so heart breaking when there is no jobs creation, no industry. Depending on their ability they go and work in middle east doing all those dangerous work in the desert heat. The country is empty of youth. If you go to the airport you will see thousands leaving the country each day. Coffins of workers who died in middle east.

The political parties? They are profiting for everything. In the last 10-15 years there were basically 3 guys who would become the prime minister in round robin always blame opposition when in government and always blame government when in opposition. Its like 1984 but without the surveillience but that also caught up with the ban of social media.

This is by design( divide and rule...). And it works as intended.

A favorite tactic of authoritarian regimes and the tankies that love them.

These are pseudo journalists running cover for their billionaire benefactors.

Those are the same thing.

> The problem with highly centralized economies is that as an economy grows beyond a trivial size it's impossible for the centralized system to manage the flow of information from the edges. It doesn't scale.

That was true a few decades ago. Now with everyone having a smartphone in their pockets at all times and the amount of computing power we have it should be doable. Still not easy for sure, but not impossible.

> Also, honest competition is good for optimizing your resource allocation

Think about how much non-productive work has to be done just to enable competition. Instead of one organization per industry we need multiple, all with their own overhead costs. Every company has to do their branding, HR, marketing, etc. The whole advertising industry pretty much exists only because companies try to get an edge with propaganda instead of improving their product. Wasted work.

Competition also forces companies to do unethical things. Say one company starts cutting down rainforests to get an edge over the competition. Now they're cheaper than other businesses, and every business that wants to survive has to start cutting down rainforest. One country gets rid of worker rights -> businesses move there and other countries must follow suit. Same with taxes.

They could have just bumped anyone when they needed a ticket.

Every country has problems that atleast look worthy of an uprising. CIA has both the means and the track record of messing with countries, so its natural to be suspicious.

If Russia had control of social media narrative in US and wanted to cause trouble, nobody would know for sure if an uprising was due to their meddling or due to current political climate.

Lack of evidence doesn't prove or disprove anything.

These entities are in the business—by their very nature—to lie and hide their activities as much as possible.[1] To dismiss speculation out-of-hand because it has no evidence is ludicrous.

[1] Not only that but to actively push counter-narratives.

Yes, certainly. Security is actually the point "minimal state" (Nozick) crowd agree we need, which is why I pointed to them as opposed to the Von Mises hard liners. I see your point about the argument against this being harmful.

> I do agree that preppers are hardly the most destructive people out there, however their entirely individualistic attitudes do hold a parallel with those who think robbing the commons is ok.

Sure, I think I see the point you're making. I disagree with it partly, but it's a quibble and not really the point we're discussing, I think.

> I feel like part of the abstract of a more model citizen is accepting that sometimes society will do things that you don't necessarily agree with.

Yes, this is the heart of Social Contract theory. We agree we're going to give up some amount of control of our own lives and freedom in exchange for greater security and prosperity. Maybe that's a good lens to look at the original delineation we painted through. First-order opponents are violating that core Social Contract agreement by looting the commons. Second-order opponents adhere to the SC, but disagree with how we proceed within the agreement.

It also failed in many ways, but overall influence is highly positive, the results speak for themselves.

Failing to see that is a sign of ideological blindness.

It doesn't sound like the parent commenter was having lunch with the president. Just some random bureaucrats overseeing a construction project.

Telling the poor/weak to use the tools designed for rich/powerful is just obscuring the reality.

The reality being that the system is designed by rich, for rich, to maintain and improve their position.

"People willingly choose to exacerbate the social divide" What do you mean by that? People willing choose to be poor and powerless?

"Colonialism is a form of centralized planning" - no, colonialism (and neocolonialism) is a form of institutionalized looting, historically highly successful (see the graph of the GDP (as a percentage of the whole world GDP) of Great Britain vs India for a nice example)

No, the worst part of capitalism is unlimited accumulation of power, by the way of wealth buying/subverting the state. I suspect one of the reasons China was able to maintain its upward trajectory was their ability to separate the political power from the wealth (see the case of Jack Ma what happens if the wealth starts to impinge on political power in China). From the point of view of West, they did some highly questionable decisions that costed them trillions (squashing the blockchain miners, bursting property bubble, going hard after excessive gaming and internet time by kids) and would not be conceivable in the west, but overall might be net positive for the society at all.

The collective wealth is in the functioning education & health system, social support net, working public transport and such. Not a type of wealth that the government can usurp for themselves, to the detriment/exclusion of the remainder of the society.

Too much ideological argumentation here...

still, ideological zealots really unselfishly believe in their case, whether that is fundamental christianity/islam/communism/capitalism (ok, maybe capitalism not, almost by definition, capitalism is about greed) and are willing to inflict unbelievable horrors in the name of their ideology

one should also not forget that there exist deep cultural differences and what is considered 'fair' and 'belief in society' is quite different e.g. between the western judo-christianism and eastern societies

But run the experiment the other way. A friend of mine once said that if a light bulb burns out on Tierra Del Fuego, somebody claims that it's a CIA conspiracy. Of all the public claims (gated by some level of seriousness or authority) of CIA involvement, what fraction turned out to be true?

Centralized government is the big distinction here. Libertarian socialism of a decentralized government.

True, if the goal of the CIA is to provide quality intelligence to the elected US government. That's a pretty big assumption, though.

While I'm sure the connection to technology and the Internet as a whole plays a role, but much more-so the gross and clearly corrupt government is the reason why they demonstrated.

No one is willing to die so they can just post on social media.

You people aren't real, I am convinced; no human being is this foolish if left to themselves.

Lobbying is not a tool designed for the rich/powerful. It is literally just communicating with to politicians your interests. Corporations spend a lot on lobbying, but that's because they have to pay "corporate rates". Grass-roots organizations only need to pay for the basic expenses of their lobbyists. The NAACP successfully lobbied for multiple Civil Rights Acts with a much smaller budget than nonprofit organizations today.

> What do you mean by that? People willing choose to be poor and powerless?

Yes. People's reactions to corporations getting better at lobbying was to act like it's something only evil people do, so that they could feel better about themselves. As a result, grassroots lobbying has declined and knowledge of how to do so has been lost [1]. This is a gift to billionaires that they never could have dreamed of.

> institutionalized looting

Sure, but that is a central plan.

> No, the worst part of capitalism is unlimited accumulation of power

The CCP has unlimited power, which was why they could arbitrarily silence Jack Ma, without even formally accusing him of anything.

> by the way of wealth buying/subverting the state

This is a way bigger problem in China than the US. China does not collect enough tax revenue to fund its local governments, so many departments are essentially funded by corruption.

[1] https://apnews.com/article/nonprofits-lobbying-less-survey-1...

The fact that Western countries aren't investing in Sri Lanka is always conveniently ignored. The CCP aren't geniuses they just fill a vacuum.

Pakistan/Bangladesh is another manner. The way Imran Khan was ousted...

On the other hand, if a foreign country really wanted to destabilize you, can they do anything better than to exploit real grievances of the local population?

I think that's partly true. e.g. pro life vs pro choice I can see both sides pushing for what they think is right.

Some people though do bad things, knowing those things are bad. But they do it anyways because it benefits them. So maybe it's not seeing themselves as being "destructive" per se, but at least not caring about the negative consequences to others.

I would suggest that the context of government is superior than the context of the individual or localised groups in solving issues in a fair and just manner, as long as its institutions are well balanced. That's because it has a national perspective as opposed to a localised one. In practice there is a balance at play that is necessary, I think there is arguably a tyranny in only one of these two choices. The principal issue with giving up on the federal level is that minorities will be disadvantaged.

Is that really what passes for a "You can't blame capitalism" source on this damn site?

My point, which I think you misunderstood, was that making generalization will find you in bed with racists and pedophiles.

But historically there are definitely examples of the CIA achieving this. Iran's 1953 coup was overwhelmingly successful and a joint operation between MI6 and CIA. The consequences irrevocably tipped the balance of power away from Pan-Arabism and towards a globalist, American-driven order.

You can accuse him of beign inmoral, but “corruption” has a very specific meaning.

Nope. The myth of parachuting into a country and overthrowing a government is just that.

It didn't prove any of the conclusions they had clearly already decided were true.

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/4536394-twitter-files-jou...

There are just as many examples of national identity being forged in war than there are it being removed.

For example, Russian-speaking Ukrainians in eastern Ukraine had no affinity for Kyiv and didn't think of themselves as Ukrainian before Russia invaded. Now they do.

I'm not trying to be snarky here, just curious and seriously trying to understand the thought process. Not sure if I'll get a response here, but if we just take one example of trump coin and dinner invite for those bought a lot of it. How do you justify that? And if Biden or Obama did the same thing, launch their coin which they have control over while being president. Invite people that they can directly benefit or harm with their position to buy and hosts a person dinner for those that bought a lot of it, would you be as forgiving?

Corporations are centralized entities that have access to a lot of money and (also through money) to lobbying specialists with know-how hot to push their interests.

Normal citizens face and uphill struggle in every step - they have to get organized, get money, get specialists. This is not a level playing field, and the argumentation that it is, is exactly what those with an advantage engage in.

Shouldn't voting for the people who represent your interests be actually enough? What the lobbying does is that whoever you vote-in, if not already corrupted, will be corrupted by the lobbyists. So democracy (will of the people) is just a theory, wool over your eyes, similarly as communism was, the practice is totally different. People are waking up to that, and that's the reason for the rise of all anti-system parties all over the west.

2.) more grass-roots involvement: yes. Thinking that that is enough: hell no, people did that, got disillusioned when that repeatedly yields minimal results

3.) Colonisation of North America was not a central plan. You repeatedly bringing central plan just points to your ideological blinders.

4.) Ultimately, it is not about who has the power and where does the legitimacy of power come from, but how is that power wielded. Wield it to improve the lives of your citizens, you gain legitimacy even if you got the power in an illegitimate way. Wield it to enrich a narrow elite, at the expense of everybody else, and you will start to lose the legitimacy, even if you originally got it fairly. Nothing new there.

What is new is that the elites in China managed the country in a way that significantly improved the lives of its citizens, while the elites in the west managed their way into dystopian future ruled by mega-corporations, with melting middle class and unsustainable levels of debt.

This goes against the prevailing wisdom in the west that liberal democracies are the only ones capable of taking care of their citizens, while the authoritarian rest is just a cesspool of corruption and inept governance.

Other examples of authoritarian countries reaching (or at least starting in a significant way their path to) prosperity are Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan... (all of them were authoritarian at the time their economic boom started and progressed).

Generalizing that Nazis are bad is based on my morals not on an idea.

Just an add to what has been said. This might be because they heard you are an electrical engineer. I really don't know your qualifications, but here (in Paraguay), electrical engineering is a different degree than electronical engineering.

You might be versed in electronics as your primary field, but since they heard you are an electrical engineer, they thought you could check out the facility's electrical wiring setup.

Thus, if you do mainly electronics, you might want to present yourself here (in Paraguay) as an electronics/electronical engineer.

Also pretty big language barrier because my Spanish is pretty bad. And Guarani, forget it.

I could probably "fake" it enough to do it now, but not back then.

They were extremely nice though and it was cool to check out a farming project. I would have liked to see some of the more remote farms but never got around to it.

Paraguay felt very much to me like the midwest / "Iowa/Ohio" of South America. Extremely practical hidden gem that is easily overlooked, but makes you feel right at home. Even in Asuncion I felt quite safe. Seems like the country is very active in fostering getting agricultural investment and development.

Earlier...

> I can make a generalization that Nazis are bad.

To quote you:

> What a weird thing to say.

Funny that you say that. I am by no means a countryside person, I'm as urbanite as any other. But while I never was in Iowa or Ohio (save for a short layover), I lived in West Michigan, and therefore in the Midwest, for some time; and yes, despite the climate being quite different, things seemed somewhat familiar to me in many aspects.

Sorry, but you have no idea what you're talking about. Every democratic country has professional lobbyists.

> Corporations are centralized entities that have access to a lot of money and (also through money) to lobbying specialists

Indeed the purpose of money is to purchase goods and services. That doesn't contradict anything that I said. My point is that you don't need a lot of money to lobby. There are plenty of people who are willing to lobby for just causes for their bare minimum expenses. Nowadays, people have forgotten it is even an option.

> Normal citizens face and uphill struggle in every step - they have to get organized, get money, get specialists.

Achieving goals requires investment and effort. Boo hoo. The demographic that frequents HN absolutely has the time and money to make meaningful changes in the world that they complain about, yet they act like they're helpless victims.

> Shouldn't voting for the people who represent your interests be actually enough?

For one, voters only care about vibes. They don't give a shit about policy. Mitch McConnell reassured fellow Republicans that voters would "get over" the Medicaid cuts. He may be evil, but he is good at what he does and is 100% correct here. This attitude goes across the political spectrum. The most popular politicians on the left (e.g. AOC and Sanders) have some of the weakest

Even in a best case scenario of an informed voter base, voting still isn't enough. Politicians and their dozen or so staffers can't be experts in every aspect of society.

> Colonisation of North America was not a central plan.

It's almost as if you brought up a famine in a different continent. Colonization of land and resources is different from the colonization of a people, which is central planning.

> Ultimately, it is not about who has the power and where does the legitimacy of power come from, but how is that power wielded.

I don't really disagree with anything below.

Neither China nor India have so far meddled in this. It came as as surprise to both nations.

Also, neither China nor India control Nepal's social media. You would have to look at the yanks for that.

This is Nepal's self owned problem. Corruption has got entrenched into the system and you need fresh blood and a large number of hard-working politicians to fix these issues and make the government accountable.

We had many extensive corruption protests in India before the national BJP took over 15 years ago and Modi made bureaucrats accountable. Sadly, there has been some slacking after the initial years.

Grand parent, the person you were responding to

> Sure but I mean in terms of the abstract. The idea that those most successful may have to pay more in taxation, the idea that justice should be blind and that everyone deserves a trial. I guess the tipping point is when your belief in the part of society that are wrong are so extreme that you think its ok to undermine society (e.g. steal public money, push infront of queues, etc) in order to combat that "wrong".

There are much more nuances and rules in (today's?) society. Just a quick examples of things that can be considered good but are actually controversial if you stir it a bit: there are concepts considered "rights" almost everywhere, yet you have to pay money to actually enjoy them, and if you don't have money, you lose the "right" (i.e. home). You can be in favor of the right but not of the implementation.