> Otherwise anything one could trade could count as money.
But that's correct and often occurs on black markets for all kinds of reasons, for example coffee and cigarettes in Germany after WW2 and Hungarian salami and tires in the GDR. There are no alternative currencies because they are strictly prohibited by penal law, otherwise they would occur in all kinds of areas. Governments only allow highly regulated alternative currencies, and even then only under very rare circumstances. Crypto coins weren't an exception to this, they only emerged a bit faster than how legislation could be updated.
Do you argue that Trump was elected because the media supported him more than Harris? Although Fox News and X are fully pro-Trump, of course, my impression is that the majority of media did not support Trump. So, I find that media control thesis hard to believe.
Given how often the media would uncritically repeat upside-down nonsense like "Trump supporters say they're concerned with inflation" without any kind of analysis, yes, the overall media did tacitly support Trump.
I've no idea whether this was from the ownership class pulling strings to cut any real objective criticism of ZIRP corporate welfare, democrats uninterested in economics being blind to the fact that inflation actually has concrete causes, or from the writers having their brains steeped in things like racism-everywhere orthodoxy and thinking that referencing those narratives makes for a neutral objective article. But regardless of why, with friends like those...
The policies were laid out in Project 2025. Of course, Trump didn't endorse it. But they have the power now and that's the blueprint they're going to follow. They have said they will destroy democracy in the US and they will do it.
That's just my personal opinion and prediction. I hope I'm wrong but in any case it makes no sense to discuss it now. We'll have to wait 2 years or so and see.
Right, maybe we should all just take your word for it and believe you know Brazil's constitution better than the majority of Brazilian Supreme Court judges.
These judge-kings are only humans. They are no doubt prone to corruption, to incompetence, to power trips. These are supposedly impartial judges... Who go to lunches with the ruling party and make fun of the people protesting them.
Normal judges in Brazil are selected by competition. Lawyers compete with each other for the position by taking standardized tests. The smartest ones are supposed to become judges.
These supreme court judges have not been so selected. They were all put there by political appointment. One of them is literally the lawyer who defended the current president against corruption claims. Another is a communist who the president appointed to the supreme court precisely because he needed somebody to advance his socialist agenda.
So whenever you read "brazilian supreme court", remember that they aren't really authorities. It's entirely possible that these "lesser" judges have a better understanding of brazilian law than these supreme court judges. It's even possible that "mere" lawyers, and even ordinary citizens have better understanding of the law than they do. The only reason they are there is political appointment.
Even normal people, who still have their sanities intact, are capable of recognizing this absurd situation. They even have a popular saying for it: "here in Brazil, the utility pole pees on the dog". Everything's backwards here. The less qualified judges are above the more qualified judges.
These judges are after Bolsonaro and his supporters for the political speech they engaged in. All this Twitter business happened because the judges wanted account of his supporters censored for "fake news".
Blatant political censorship. Which is unconstitutional.
The constitution literally contains the words:
> Any and all censorship of political and artistic nature is prohibited
It's not that hard to understand. Any citizen can understand this. It's just that it doesn't matter what the law says. Because there's no court above them, the law becomes whatever they say it is. These unelected judges make the laws, and their pens send police to our homes. This is a judiciary dictatorship. Our elected repesentatives do not matter.
Forget the idea that they are "authorities" and start looking at what they are doing, why they are doing it and the arguments they use. You'll see there's plenty wrong with all of it.
It all began in 2019 when a brazilian magazine ran some kind of article on one of these judges. They created a "fake news" inquisition and appointed this Alexandre de Moraes guy the head of it. An inquisition where the supreme court is the victim and simultaneously investigates, prosecutes, judges and sentences crimes against itself. First thing he did is censor the magazine. The "fake news" nonsense is still active to this day, and it's because of it that Twitter was banned in our country. A completely illegal and unconstitutional investigation whose result was an expansion of the supreme court's powers to the point I believe this country is no longer a democracy but a dictatorship of the judiciary.
You don't even have to take my word for it. Other HN users have written about their abuses before:
I'm terribly sorry but nothing in your lengthy reply convinces me that you know more about Brazilian constitutional law than the Brazilian Supreme Court judges. You seem to have some kind of political agenda, the topic is clearly moving you personally, and this is all very fine, but all you present in terms of knowledge of Brazilian constitutional law are other HN comments and unsupported claims that I'm supposed to take for granted.
Unsupported? We literally cited the words from the constitution...
Your comment is further proof that this country doesn't have actual laws. Whatever this judge decides is law. Because he's the ultimate dictator, the ultimate authority. Doesn't matter how much I write, doesn't matter what references I cite, it won't convince you because I'm not a judge. Doesn't matter what the literal words written onto the constitution say, he gets to "selectively and creatively" interpret them and nobody questions it because he's a judge.
I'll cite the judges themselves then. Just yesterday one of then made news when he spoke of "recivilizing the country" and "ending the fake news inquiry headed by Moraes" which led to Twitter's ban. This is the same supposedly impartial judge who went to public events to showboat about having personally defeated an entire political party.
Interesting choice of words. The judge thinks this country is not civilized. Just like me.
The problem is that civilizing it requires their resignation and the passage of laws severely limiting their powers. That's the most peaceful path to civilization. We can't go back to the way things were: citizens blissfully unaware of the fact that the judiciary could instantly usurp all power in a second if they wanted to.
A Supreme Court is a political organ that delivers the final legally binding interpretation of a country's constitution. It's an integral part of the power division needed to keep a democracy working. Just disagreeing with a Supreme Court ruling is pretty much meaningless, people disagree with court rulings all the time. There is no problem with that at all.
People sometimes erroneously believe that Supreme Courts primarily have a legal function. That's not true, that's the purpose of the highest instances of ordinary courts. A Supreme Court is called when there are doubts if the highest legal instance has judged according to the constitution. That's why they are political organs and Supreme Court judges are appointed by a political process.
AFAIK, Twitter/X was shut down in Brazil for refusing to declare a legal representative in the country which is a basic requirement for any company operating in Brazil.
On a side note, the contents an international corporation publishes can violate the law of a country even when they are not posted by citizens of that country. When they do so, and don't take down the content, they will be shut down. It works like that in every country, including the US. It pains me having to point that out since it's so obvious.
And have they been shut down? Blocking access to a service through the regular channels doesn't shut it down.
For instance before the internet a Saudi dissident based in the UK used to send faxes to phones in Saudi Arabia that were critical of the Govt. I don't think the Saudi govt blocked access to phone calls from the UK on account of that.
If Brazilian enterprises are not allowed by law to trade with Twitter that does not amount to shutting it down. All you've done is block the usage of a service by most law abiding citizens which many of them probably rely on for all or a part of their living.
Twitter is operating under US law and Brazilian law only applies to their Brazilian subsidiary. If their Brazilian subsidiary has been has closed down because their parent company is not complying with Brazilian law then Brazilians are free to deal directly with the parent company under US law and jurisdiction.
> Twitter/X was shut down in Brazil for refusing to declare a legal representative in the country which is a basic requirement for any company operating in Brazil.
Which is a pretty stretch from an older law, that was made to companies operating "phisically", opening offices, having workers and etc.
Twitter closed their offices in Brazil, so they don't need to do it anymore.
If we take the interpretation this judge is using with Twitter to everything, 99% of the internet will need to be blocked in Brazil.
It is ilegal to be a criminal and those senators you are talking about? They will go to jail :) together with Bolsonaro. Fighting the legal system is the last strategy of convicted criminals
Yes, it is. There's nothing in our laws that backs the judge ruling. And in Brazil, judges can ONLY DO what the law says, not what they think it's fair or what they want.
Gaza has fairly low civilian:combatant death ratios, lower than in most comparable urban wars. It's not hard to calculate them, the information is partly public (published by Hamas and IDF). However, many people chose to believe whatever they want to believe instead of going for the facts, I've seen some people come up with numbers ad hoc that are ten times than what Hamas reports, or they claim IDF has basically not killed any Hamas combatants at all.
This might be true but would be an easier argument to make persuasively if Israel had backed off after it more or less roflstomped the Al Qassam order of battle and virtually the entire Hamas command staff.
I see no reason for Israel to "back off" before the hostages are returned and Hamas surrenders. Like all wars, it will probably end when one of the combatants surrenders. Hopefully this will happen soon.
But if you look at it in terms of civilian casualties, they've gone down massively since the start of the war. Israel "has" backed off in many senses of the word.
The problem is that Israel hasn't left Gaza, because despite your statement that the entire Hamas command staff is dead, it seems very likely that the minute Israel leaves, Hamas regains control of Gaza and starts building up strike capability again. So we're in a semi-holding pattern.
Now, there are good questions about why we're in this holding pattern. Many people (including me) think that it's because Netanyahu isn't trying to actually "win" the war, but prolong it, so this situation is good for him. Hence no steps to leave and set up a Hamas alternative, but also no move to more decisively finish the war either. A holding pattern suits Netanyahu just fine, at the expense first and foremost of the Gazan population, but also of the Israeli population (and also the Israeli economy, reputation, etc).
To clarify, I'm not trying to make any persuasive arguments about this. This is based on my own calculations, and there is generally not enough publicly available information to come to a fully informed verdict. For example, if you take all figures by Hamas, including some of the low number of deaths of their own fighters they reported, the ratio climbs up to 4:1 or more. I doubt anyone can say with certainty what the right figures are (well, perhaps some can provide good estimates, but not publicly).
I'd be interested in knowing how the IDF mandate to destroy Hamas is defined concretely in terms of KIA of enemy combatants but perhaps that hasn't even been decided yet.
You could listen to testimony from those within the IDF:
"the IDF judged it permissible to kill more than 100 civilians in attacks on a top-ranking Hamas officials" ... "We’ve killed people with collateral damage in the high double digits, if not low triple digits" ... "they were authorised to kill up to “20 uninvolved civilians” for a single operative, regardless of their rank, military importance, or age" ... "It’s much easier to bomb a family’s home"
When looking at this we have assess both the theoretical rules of combat and the actual implementation of those and compare them to an ally nation in other active combat zones like the US, UK, NATO forces in various places. No army is good at being ethical, foir want of a better word, but the Israelli government and the IDF seem to fail much more at holding to what most people would consider acceptable standards of behaviour.
I always try to base my judgments on the actual numbers rather than qualitative anecdotal evidence since the latter is relatively worthless (for statistical reasons alone). The problem is also that you can always find some people who support some narrative. Often these people don't know the numbers themselves.
A problem with numbers is that they are very prone to manipulation. Who gets to decide who is a combatant and who is a civilian? The IDF's computer algorithms like Lavender system categorise large numbers of people as enemy combatants without any evidence or visible reasoning. Who's numbers do you use? Do you include indirect deaths as a result of of IDF action? And on and on. Lies damn lies and statistics.
Regardless of number I think people can be judged on their intent, actions & policies they put in place and enforce. That's what we judge people on in courts of law.
