This is such awful history; of course it works because it serves the US, but it does blow me away that otherwise well-meaning people continue to parrot it. You don’t have to be a “tankie” to stop spouting this nonsense.

You’re referring to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. That was a non-aggression treaty, not an “alliance.” The soviets would be pretty foolish to make an alliance with a country whose fascist genocidal leader, hitler, made clear the inescapable need to invade the soviet union in mein kampf.

You know who else had already made non-aggression pacts with the Nazis before that? The UK, France, Italy, Poland, Denmark, Estonia, and Latvia. You think they were “allied” with the Nazis?

Hell the Spanish civil war was a proxy war that the soviets had to pull out of to get ready for invasion (much to the ire of western anarchists forever).

No, man. The soviet position was pretty damned clear: they needed time to mobilize. You think they were mobilizing to deal with…what, Poland? Everyone knew what was happening between the Nazis and the soviets. They still weren’t ready, and got slaughtered.

Dislike the Soviet Union for other reasons. There are plenty of good ones. This is nonsense.

Lovely! The hobby aspect definitely appeals, though so does the idea of getting everything running well! Have you heard anything about Manjaro as a user-friendly version of arch? I guess it may cut against the arch ethos of “precisely what you choose to install and nothing more,” but I feel like if it’s any good I could get the sort of ease-of-use that I have with mint while having the option to dabble and experiment more with the guidance of the arch wiki available?

I am very happy with mint. I can imagine making arch more of a project and having a lot of fun with it, and as I said, the wiki really seems like a big draw! I probably wouldn’t swap my daily driver from mint for a while, but I’m gonna put together a desktop to maybe run 24/7 and run a little plex server or whatever. I am interested in the possibility of even running it headless…maybe even streaming games from it to a laptop (I don’t have a very good space for a desktop set up in my home right now…too snug!).

Anyway thanks for your thoughts. Arch does seem really cool but maybe I should stick with something a bit more beginner friendly for a little longer, and come to arch when I’m more “ready,” or when my new little obsession with linux has solidified into a habit or whatever!

e: anyone have experience with manjaro as a user-friendly version of arch?

I’m a newbie, just put Mint on an old laptop and I’m blown away; it really does just work!

I have been thinking about trying Arch next because it’s so well documented. I don’t know maybe put together a little home server or something.

Do you think it’s appropriate for a relative newcomer? I’m excited by the documentation but also a little intimidated by it! I suspect I’ll need to ask for help but would worry about not having read everything there is to read first.

What’s amazing to me is that regular Canadians are agreeing with this bizarre US policy of trying to get their “allied” countries’ to spend more on their militaries.

First, that’s ludicrous because the US is the empire, (when they’re not doing the plundering themselves) they garner the vast majority of the benefit of stability and an absence of piracy. Of course they, who reap the benefit, should have to pay the cost. Or don’t, you know, I’m not even convinced that Russia or China have the intention or wherewithal to start invading other countries via the arctic. Maybe they want to claim territory that doesn’t currently belong to anyone, I don’t know. But like…I don’t think either of them is interested in marching an army into Whitehorse.

Second, what are we gonna do to increase spending? Could it be that we’ll be paying US companies for these weapons? When the gun merchant says “buy guns or else” I don’t think it’s very insightful to do mental gymnastics to justify why “maybe it really would be better for us.”

Don’t get me wrong, there may be good things too, especially if we focus on domestic manufacturers, and on weapons of defense and resistance (i.e. large quantities of small arms to make occupation by anyone difficult - like the Finns!).

Instead I’m sure we’re gonna see us buying overpriced U.S. military hardware that will only really be useful helping the US do imperialism (fancy jets and the like).

I don’t think we bear the brunt of it lol, in fact we’re a willing participant when it suits us. Today it’s Cuba bearing the brunt.

Canada keeps surprising me with how much it’s willing to strain against the imperial leash. I hope the decent people of the world can come together to help Cuba.