why isn’t/can’t the opposition in France block this?

i think you’re imprinting much more of the present on the past than identifying antecedents that lead to the present.

many, many, many, governments and people have evoked symbolism and rhetoric from rome and other ‘classical’ canons. but we don’t have to be credulous about those premises. in Roman and early medieval times, many chroniclers fabricated stories that x group of people were descended from a character in the Trojan War, or a tribe of israel from the first testament. we do not take these seriously, though some people surely earnestly subscribed to them.

same goes for claiming to be heir to Rome’s Empire. its suitable for identifying an ambition, but unhelpful for analyzing whether a state developed from roman institutions or utilized roman political forms. eg: Holy Roman Empire–its in the name, yes. but absolutely no trace of roman political forms. romans did not have kings. Holy Roman Emperors could only rarely exercise authority over the bishops.

another: USA, has a “senate” named like romans… but what is this house of representatives? who are the nobles? the fuck is a federalism? much todo was made of cloaking all these innovations in Aquilae and phrygian caps, but damn, even the Church Of Rome had almost no purchase in the US at founding

tl;dr devil’s in the details, aesthetic refrains to romanism are not the same as concrete relationships to the roman past

i think the premise you’re working from is bizarre: what is a “spirit of empire”? imperialism is a political economy, not a mystic titulature that gets passed around.

even if we insist on analysis of roman empire with modern antiimperialist lenses, for what reason are you assuming there would be an ‘heir’ between that empire & the modern ones?

NHS is so doomed

urging the french people not to be ‘cowardly’

im still not getting in a helicopter just cause its electric

Israel became the first non-European nation to compete in Eurovision in 1973

huh theres another petrol derivative called naphtha in english lol, shared etymology for related substances

why cant they build a suitable airfield in ukraine?

where does it say that? Putin saying they’ll shoot down f16s outside Ukraine could just be in Russia’s territory or if they fly over a neighboring country like Belarus

NAFTA?? who’s she?

this statement is in compliance with international law and not much of an escalation, because Ukraine was already doing that. nato press avoids talking about how many ukrainian attacks on Russia have basically been terrorism, but they’re definitely allowed to attack military targets on paper, or else Russian would have to limit their air attacks to the contested oblasts, which they also do not

i don’t think the Mexican military is the kind of organization you want to pump full of guns if you want to avoid a right wing coup lol

you’re just asserting direct contradictions. UAF not destroyed—but they’re spent, more military–demilitarization. but i’m really not interested in the layers upon layers you need to understand Russia’s 20-year-plan that totally exists and guides every cautious or backward step the Russian army seems to make.

if the Russians don’t want to destroy the UAF and continue the war in perpetuity, then the retreat at Adiivka (the event this comment thread is about) does not then herald a collapse of the Ukrainian position & the war will probably continue. which is what i was concluding, granted from different premises

why would not pressing an advantage against a NATO proxy in any way be conducive to that

sticking to slow and steady when the enemy is running away is prolonging a conflict by giving them an opportunity to regroup later. now it’s possible the UAF really are in crisis, but if Russia doesn’t exploit that with big moves that’s as good as the Ukainians not collapsing in terms of how long it will take for the war to end

the only way to demilitarize a state that is unwilling to do it is to destroy their army and their ability to fight

all the more reason for Russia to move aggressively to envelop and destroy elements of the UAF like those ‘routing’ from these front line positions—if this is still too dangerous for Russia, the UAF must not be in that bad of a spot

yeah but catching libs in a bind about it when 60% of their ideology is malding at hypocrisy is kinda funny

like i don’t give a shit about tuck but in what reality is simply talking to the “enemy” some kind of punishable offense. y’all supposed to be all about free press, are they not free to speak to bad people?

no. greek people have existed, a greek state was a new creation specifically in the mould of 19th century european nationalism. the only thing they’d actually be guilty of on this chart is the internal genocide of minorities that is part-and-parcel to the national project.

in any case there’s no political lineage and barely even a linguistic relationship from what i’m assuming your ancient events are, and the modern state. transcontinental african slave trade =/= someone being in a state of slavery on the african continent at any time in the past.

sorry to be a pedant but the “slavery was in africa before” is a popular mystification from racists trying to equivocate the modern european crimes.