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I'm so disappointed with the global status this shithole maintains. They are spending so much money on bots and propaganda that if you look at Twitter, Tiktok or Instagram it's full of organic spam and any comments calling out this disgusting place get removed or piled on.
Khashoghi died because he funded a campaign against the Saudi Twitter bot army.
How many PGA golfers lined up to join LIV golf sponsored by the Saudi regime? Last year this was Phil Mickelson simping for the Saudi government saying: “I certainly do not condone human rights violations. And addressing what happened to Jamal Khashoggi is awful. But I have seen the good that game of golf has done throughout history. And I really believe that LIV can be good for the game of golf as well.’’
Money trumps morals.
Same with soccer
Seeing footballers who've spent the last decade preaching to their domestic fans about progressive politics bugger of to Saudi Arabia as soon as the money was better was hilarious. There's montage that Al Ettifaq put out of Henderson when they brought him, where they went as far as censoring the LGBT armband he's worn in the Premier League and internationals.
I always find it funny how hung up the media class has been on Keshoggi. Its a fairly intense bit of class solidarity I suppose. Like in terms of pointless and evil acts of the Saudi Arabia state it doesn't even rank but its seemingly the only thing journalists remember
Meanwhile all those dead Yemenis don't even warrant a mention, especially since it might have poeple asking why we were over there helping kill them in the first place
I saw a single decent report on Yemen and it was on pbs in like 2014 or 2015 maybe. It showed how the Saudis are bombing the shit out of them with ordinance made in the USA and all the starving children dying because of the blockade on any asstancd getting to them.
I haven't seen any comparable coverage since.
See, Yemen is a bad place where bad things are allowed to happen. By Western logic stuff only becomes real if it enters our imaginary bubble of perpetual safety. That's also why 9/11 and the Ukraine invasion got such a big reaction.
To be clear, the bubble is not real, it can all happen here.
Probably because in a free from authoritarian government the free press is supposed to be the ultimate checks and balances on personal liberty. When you can't even write something negative about a leader without being dismembered in a hotel and disposed of in duffle bags like trash, that should be ringing alarms for anyone that isn't licking boots.
Saudi-led Opec Plus cartel decided to cut production by 2m barrels a day – the opposite of what Biden administration officials had pleaded with the Saudis to do. After the shock of that embarrassing announcement, which threatened to raise gas prices around the US midterm elections, Biden vowed: “There’s going to be some consequences for what they’ve done.”
I thought you liked the free market?
It's only free for American companies.
When Canadian companies like Bombardier try to get involved in the free market, they get blocked by the US DOJ until they run out of money.
Canadian private jet companies just can't catch a break^1^.
^1^ Unless its a federal election year, and Québec seats are up for grabs.
That classic free market system where a cartel has regular meetings to set production levels to maximise their profits.
cartels are a free market force. Cartelisation is a natural consequence of market logic
There is absolutely nothing inconsistent between free-markets and market concentration. If by a free-market, we use the standard neoclassical meaning of one where there is no/very little/minimal government or public regulation to influence demand or supply or the price mechanism, which in material terms implies that those are completely controlled by private capital and its owners, then there is nothing stopping this from being an oligopoly, a cartel or a monopoly. Actually lack of public regulation has generally lead to more concentration, not less.
I think you are confusing the neoclassical 'perfect competition' (which does not, and cannot, exist in the real world) and neoclassically defined 'free'-markets.
Please don't try drop econ-101 learns on Marxists if you don't know the definitions of free-market economics, perfect competition or oligopolies.
Yes, companies exist under capitalism.
A free market is a distinct concept from a perfect market. You're describing a perfect market operating under ideal conditions.
A free market with laissez-faire policies lends itself directly to cartels and monopolies because a perfect market cannot exist without government intervention. Maybe you should've paid attention in ECON 101.
welcome to monopoly capitalism, the inevitable end stage of free market systems
Lol no Saudi is weaker than it ever has been. The Saudis know their military is shit and their people won’t do anything to preserve their regime if the Iranians come after them. With the U.S. pulling out of the Middle East since Afghanistan they are flailing about seeking treaties with the Chinese and the Russians to guarantee their safety. However the Russian military and their equipment have proven to be very shit. The Chinese talk a good game but they don’t have the military to project power overseas and most of their equipment is based on Russian garbage.
The US doesn’t need their oil as we are a net exporter now. They’ve also cut oil exports in the last year to try and prop up prices. There is also a very good chance they have passed peak oil production and simply can not produce more.
So what does Saudi have left to offer? Peace with Israel and a conclusion to the Palestinian conflict… maybe. At least that is what they are offering Blinken for an Alliance during their latest visit.
Don’t let the article fool you the Saudis are weak and know they are in trouble without US guarantees of peace.
Do you really think the media would do that? Just outright lie to benefit their capitalist overlords?
yeah that's because the only reason anyone was angry about that was the lack of plausible deniability the saudi's gave
Intrigued Modi noises
That smug shit should be staked-out in the desert for a week.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Since then, Mohammed bin Salman – Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de facto ruler, who, according to US intelligence officials, approved Khashoggi’s assassination – has managed a near complete rehabilitation of his increasingly autocratic regime.
Prince Mohammed has met with Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron and other world leaders; he’s positioning Saudi Arabia as a global tourism destination; and he’s plowing ahead with plans to build Neom, his $500bn futuristic city in the desert.
Trump dropped the pretense that the US-Saudi alliance is anything more than a transactional arrangement based on keeping global oil prices stable, common security interests in the Middle East, and negotiating large weapons deals.
After Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022, disrupting global oil markets, the prince seized his opportunity to pressure Biden into becoming a supplicant seeking lower gasoline prices for American consumers.
Then last October, as the world braced for a surge in fuel prices due to the Ukraine war and sanctions against Russian oil, the Saudi-led Opec Plus cartel decided to cut production by 2m barrels a day – the opposite of what Biden administration officials had pleaded with the Saudis to do.
After the shock of that embarrassing announcement, which threatened to raise gas prices around the US midterm elections, Biden vowed: “There’s going to be some consequences for what they’ve done.” Yet, a few months later, the US administration quietly dropped any pretense of holding Prince Mohammed and his regime accountable.
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