They are literally not the same. Lobbying is when you try to convince someone and influence their voting/law making etc. Bribing is paying to set the prioritising and define what is important. However, bribing may also be done for noble causes, prohibiting bribes is limiting the opportunity for all kinds of actors to ensure their cause isn’t deprioritized in a harmful way.
They’re literally the same, we just legalized using money to set the agenda and made a new word for it.
Unless you think about it of course, then you realize in reality actually only one country and its client-state currently goes around bombing other countries it doesn’t even border and slaughtering civilians while celebrating it as “national security”, and that’s the US (and Israel, literal Jewish ISIS).
You disagree with the current war, the entire world is on fire because of US imperialism and colonization, and you can’t distance yourself from all the benefits and pride you get from the “good side” of America.
Just like you can’t separate America from it’s history of being built on the backs of slaves and the institutional oppression that still comes from that, you can’t separate your current comforts as an American from their direct causes: oppression and stealing the resources of other nations and using all your “most deadly military’s” best stealth bombers and biggest bombs to bully the world through threats of regime change and economic sanctions. Trump isn’t what’s bad about America, he’s just an accelerated conclusion to neo-liberal politics, this is Bill Clinton’s America!
I was curious, and this is what I found.
As of January 2024, there were 132 operating oil refineries in the United States with an atmospheric crude oil distillation capacity of 18,374,628 barrels per calendar day according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).[94]
buying dumped goods only makes the situation worse as it means those players and playing on an uneven playing field
So let me get this straight, instead of buying a $20k Chinese EV to meet a necessity of modern life, you should pay $60k for a worse car where all the money goes to shareholders and dealership markups so you can be on an even playing field?
We’re not talking about buying the cheap throw away Chinese product instead of the built for life one, we’re not talking about consumerism at all. We’re talking about taking a 5+ year loan for something society forces you to own in most cities around the world, and making Elon rich isn’t a better alternative than having $40k in your savings account.
No they didn’t. Iran didn’t bomb every hospital and clinic in Israel repeatedly, Iran didn’t bomb Israel fertility centers, Iran didn’t ambush and shoot doctors and bury their bodies, Iran didn’t drone strike ambulances AFTER coordinating their movement. Iran didn’t bulldoze graves of all the people it slaughtered to invade a hospital and destroy its water lines, Iran didn’t evacuate hospitals at gun point and leave infants to starve to death alone in hospital beds. Iran didn’t do any of that.
Israel did all that, and more, and they bragged about it very loudly and posted all the evidence themselves.
You’re halfway there. Now ask yourself why a civilian has a distinction in their language when they’re describing world leaders? Why is Iran ruled by a “regime” and any is Israel seeking “regime” change? Why are Western countries not ruled by “regimes”?
Wow, you really should be disgusted with yourself right now. Go take a shower, Jesus Christ.
You were satisfied seeing someone “flee for her life” because you interpreted her foreign language and hand gestures as “she was self-righteously wagging the finger”, and that was enough to make a journalist fleeing for her life because a fascist genocidal state bombed her TV station “felt good”.
🤮🤮🤮
You’re doing it again, Nazi sympathizer. Iran is being bombed by fascist baby murderers, but you really want people to just be aware that Iran is the bad guy.
As the victim. Iran is the topic as the victim of an unprovoked attack by a Jewish supremacist rogue state actively committing genocide.
And your contribution was to highlight “the victim does this other unrelated thing”.
I’ve spelled it out to you, and I didn’t need to insult your mental capacity to do it.
You’re engaging in manufacturing consent for the unprovoked attack by bringing up an unrelated grievance with the victim, as if it justified or makes it more acceptable.
This, among other things happening in the would (not the least of which the whole world making deals with China and leaving the US behind) is why Israel is done.
I give it 3 years before they publically admit 10/7 and the unfolding genocide was their biggest defeat, and by then the rest of the world will have moved on too.
No trade deals, no foreign economy, no sugar daddy US, no more infinite supply of 2,000 lbs bombs to drop on civilians and no more immunity as they shoot pregnant women in the belly and children in the knees for sport. Jewish ISIS will only have their nukes left.
Israel. Israel has killed 178 journalists in the last two years in its ongoing US funded genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
Stop engaging in stupid whataboutism then. Getting a few Internet points isn’t worth diverting the conversation from the genocidal entity. You’re the one that brought up Iran, friendo.
Because what are you gonna do? Not fly?
what about x?
You’re right, Iran is a religious ethno state and you’re smart enough to recognize that as a bad thing, but when it comes to literal Jewish ISIS (Israel), you have to make an exception.
Don’t bring up other countries I didn’t defend, I’m simply asking you to make a case for Israel to be built as a Jewish supremacist state on land already lived on by a majority non Jewish native population, forcing the ethnostate to genocide them just to exist.
Make a case for Israel that isn’t “Europeans felt guilty for the Holocaust so they declared Jews are allowed to Holocaust anyone and gave them Palestine”
That is not a conclusion that can be reached from: Israel government almost devolves but is saved by a vote to bomb a foreign nation explicitly to piss off Trump and detail his negotiations with Iran?
Israeli society is sick and genocidal, “Bibi” (why are you using the fascist’s favorite pet name btw? Leave they for the fascists) is not the sole problem.
What case can you make for a religious supremacist ethnostate where they shoot children in the knees for sport?
Israel is done. It’ll take a few years more, but Trump abandoned Israel and the world is turning its back. Palestine will be free, and only then you also will be free.
Until then, you’ll keep bouncing back between openly fascist and polite fascist like the good little wage slave that you are.
This was Biden’s genocide, you can never take that away from him.
You smelled the propaganda, bravo!
And in North Korea, only one haircut style is allowed! Those weird oppressive governments do the weirdest things, so wacky what they’re concerned about, thank God we have our FREEDOMS!
You’ll notice there are zero citations to backup any of the claims, they reference one newspaper but if you try to find that article all you’ll find is the guardian claiming it exists. It also references 75 lawmakers from 2021, and the only reference I could find for that is this uncited quote: "According to media reports, 75 MPs, or one quarter of parliamentarians, recently signed a text entitled “Support for the rights of the population in relation to harmful and dangerous animals”.
This comes from theinsightinternational.com, an English only online publication claiming to deliver “unbiased reporting on events and developments in the Middle East and the Kurdistan Region”. Who needs sources!? 75 MPs said this on social media, trust.
Don’t get me wrong, Islamic fundamentalism and aversion to dogs is real, Iran’s Islamic laws are suppressive and awful, but before you start worrying about what local laws they may or may not be discussing on social media, do a quick Google maps search for pet store and you try to figure out how many people have dogs as pets in Tehran… Then remember two reporters were shot by rubber bullets last night in LA.
Does that propaganda line make sense if you think about it deeply? Stop repeating it!
Let me explain. The whole idea that North Korea “threatens the world to extract aid” is pure Western propaganda. It completely ignores history and the actual situation on the ground.
First off, the Korean War never officially ended. They signed an armistice in 1953, not a peace treaty. So North Korea has been living under constant military threat from the US and its allies for over 70 years. That includes nukes pointed at them and massive military exercises happening right near their borders.
Second, North Korea is one of the most heavily sanctioned countries on the planet. Those sanctions, pushed by the US, have crippled their economy and blocked access to food, medicine, and basic resources. When they try to negotiate for food or economic assistance, it gets framed as extortion, but the reality is they are trying to survive in a system designed to isolate and starve them.
Their missile tests and military displays are not random threats. They are a form of deterrence. Even mainstream scholars like John Mearsheimer recognize that smaller, isolated states under constant threat will use military posturing to prevent invasion.
On top of that, the history of negotiations shows it is often the US that breaks agreements. Look at the 1994 Agreed Framework. It collapsed largely because the US failed to follow through, not because North Korea suddenly decided to flip the table.
Leftist voices like Noam Chomsky have been saying for decades that the outrage over North Korean weapons is pure hypocrisy. The US has the biggest nuclear arsenal in the world and uses its military power to bully smaller nations constantly.
Bottom line, the “they threaten to get aid” narrative strips away all context. It is designed to justify aggression and keep dehumanizing them. It ignores that North Korea’s actions are shaped by decades of sanctions, military threats, and isolation.