Baubles and Scrooge Discussion from December 25th to December 31st, 2023 - The War on Christmas: Counteroffensive - COTW: Finland

Image: one of our POW camps filled with captured soldiers of the Christmas regime.

Season's greetings, fellow godless communists. I'm here to disseminate orders from our Supreme Communist Dictator as we once again find ourselves fighting against the very concept of Christmas. As a reminder, by the end of our five-year plan, we plan to be in a position to attack and dethrone God, but this intermediate step is required to fulfil this directive. Our forces in the field have made significant, if gradual, progress since you received your mission update last year. It has been difficult, but we have developed a series of defensive lines to prepare for a counteroffensive out of Lapland that will try and reach the Gulf of Bothnia in an attempt to cut the land bridge that we have set up across Scandinavia.

Currently, we foresee a few major threats. General Santa Clauswitz has been developing many tools in his workshop, including artillery-launched snowballs, barbed tinsel, and reinforced gingerbread armor plating for his tanks and infantry carriers. President Frostyy has made the following public statement: "The socialists who wish to destroy us have no idea what their defenses are about to face. Democracy will always defeat autocracy. Christmas will always triumph over X-mas. The leaders of the axis facing us are all on the naughty list and will be tried for crimes against festivity once this war is over."

Delusional as this may be, the next couple days will be the most dangerous as they stage their counteroffensive, and we need everybody to pitch in and get into defensive positions. We expect this to be the last major push that they will make before collapse. Please report any Christmas trees, mistletoe, or general symbology of the Christmas regime to your superiors.

Over and out.

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947 comments

I don't know if anyone's interested, I've been reading about Iran's economy and didn't even know a lot of this stuff. Iran has:
near-universal health care
free university
sick leave
52 days PTO (30 days of PTO with 22 public holidays on top of that)
3 months maternity leave
pensions that cover 75%+ of the employed, indexed to minimum wage/inflation/COL such that they retain their real value and are never lower than the minimum wage
(among?) the lowest retirement age in the world
a direct monthly cash payment to citizens
subsidization of energy costs
the single biggest problem seems to be the criminal sanctions and lack of economic opportunity/growth. so much interesting stuff going on otherwise.
- Very similar to Libya under Gaddafi. Actually quite interesting because the sanctions on Libya in the 1990s caused the country to decline, and the social programs broke down a fair amount and the social breakdown, plus Gaddafi's support of anti-imperialist foreign groups, ultimately led to its depiction as an authoritarian terrorist state in time for Obama and Hillary to deal the finishing blow in 2011. Whereas Iran is coping much better with the sanctions regime on them. Far from perfectly of course, but they haven't collapsed yet and don't seem to be particularly close to doing so, no matter how many protests and color revolutions the US and Israel try to incite.
  Of course, Libya was extremely dependent on oil revenues to fuel its public programs so it had that critical weakness of "if the oil markets go to shit, then you're fucked no matter whether you have good or bad intentions as a party/leader" whereas Iran is much more diversified in its economy, and also of course has greater proximity to China and so can't be as easily isolated.
  
  as opposed to the social programs breaking down, I think the government realizes that the social programs are extremely important and actually propping up the economy. this is one of the conclusions of the report:
  The poverty-alleviating effects of Iran’s social protection program are a testament to their effectiveness as a cushion against economic fluctuations but could be made more progressive.
  it really sucks that the sanctions basically don't allow Iran to diversify. some ~55% of its exports are oil, they're not really allowed to export other goods. the sanctions even make its other trading partners like China hesitant to invest in the country. I think despite that huge deal Iran signed with China, China has invested very little in Iran. they do more business with Isntreal.
  
  I would imagine Russian trade with Iran having increased significantly after the Ukraine war.
  
  It seems to be increasing a lot relative to what it was before. Around 2 billion in 2019 according to the OEC, and some international news sources put the 2021-2022 increase from 4 to 5 billion or so. It seems the russians want to reach 7.5 billion bilateral trade with Iran. But, really, Iran has a lot of potential in human and natural resources and it's forced to play with both hands behind its back due to the lasting effects of the sanctions regime.
  I think the big challenge at the moment is modernizing the iranians transport infrastructure, as historically the country developed on the east-west direction, and now there's some tentative incentives (like the NTSC) to develop through the mountains, north-south.
- That is why they really hate Iran. They use their resources to fund societal investments rather than give away to Wall Street and the City of London profiteers. To them it's lost "potential" profits. And how
  if anyone in the west sees any example of that, especially under siege and bkockade by the west. It is why they had to destroy Europe. Can't have Americans seeing smaller democracies do it and then question why they don't have it. That's dangerous!
  
  it's really wild that the US won't give its citizens 1/10th of the social safety net that Iran, a sanctioned to death and isolated country, has
  
  I'm looking forward to finding out the DPRK has paid maternity leave and pensions.
- If they had better women and queer rights (not a far possibility since Iran allows trans surgeries) do you think westerners will go balls over it like they do with scandanvian countries? or are they not white enough?
  
  oh absolutely. back during the Shah, Westerners loved Iran and it was a major hotspot for tourism - plenty would go there for travel, elites owned property in Tehran, etc. I know you don't think this, but a lot of people in the West now have this bizarre idea that Iran is all desert? they have no idea that Tehran is surrounded by mountains and forests, no idea that places like Mazandaran and Gilan exist. it's a thousands of years old country with so much history, incredible food, lots of diversity geographically and ethnically, the friendliest people on the planet, etc. it's a great country.
  but yeah, I think what stops people from traveling there or having a high opinion of it is the theocracy (and the fact that it's a 'state-designated enemy'). women aren't treated fully equally. there's silly stuff like even men can't wear shorts outside, you can't sing or dance outside, alcohol is technically illegal, all that stuff would have to go. if you tried to point out any of these social safety nets to someone now, they just go "but what about women's rights?"

947 comments