Elysium [he/him, any]

Seize all of Musk’s assets, deport him- immediately defund and imprison everyone in ICE

This is what I will be wishing for over the next week.

I’m going with this. Also a bit of “why not both?” US/EU can both be basically equal. I don’t see a point in distinguishing beyond wanting to get into the details (which is fine, whatever)

As far as the most Americans not being part of it, I think that’s a yes and no situation.

Yes in that most Americans don’t benefit in a really meaningful way from being in the imperial core. And the few benefits which used to exist are quickly eroding to nothing.

I’d say no because, for now anyway, there does remain the benefit of like “not being drone striked randomly” that all the direct targets of US imperialism must contend with every day of their lives. That’s a pretty substantial benefit to living in the core. Or has been at least. For the most part. Of course that outward display of violence is also quickly falling back in and worsening within the US on basically a day to day basis. Instead of guys with “US Army or Marines” printed on their camo suits being the ones illegally snatching people up, shooting them, etc. it’s masked hoglets in civilian clothing or maybe police-esque uniforms with kevlar vests saying “POLICE ICE.” Same end result.

I think there’s a psychological argument to be made as well along the lines of “because they believe it’s true, it becomes true.” I guess meaning that even if the majority of Americans no longer benefit from living in the imperial core, if they still believe they benefit due to conditioning, propaganda, etc. then it kinda doesn’t matter. They position themselves against the rest of the world and willingly submit to a mindset that allows imperialism to continue. Sort of like the mythos of the core and what it provides is more important than reality.

That feels really weird in my mind, maybe someone else has explained it better. But much like a lot of stuff we take for granted, such as the entire global financial system, I can entertain an idea that the imperial core need not benefit the majority of citizens in it to be the imperial core. All it requires is the power projection through military and economic means. If the average citizens of the core are complacent through propaganda or through actual substantial material gains, it doesn’t really matter in the end. Wealth extraction is still happening regardless of how that wealth is spread back at home. The western EU currently spreads it more equally in comparison to the US, but that doesn’t really matter.

(Sorry for rambling and long reply. Was sort of working out why I agree with this sentiment and just kept typing. Oh well)

“Built on genocide, still doing genocide”

That’s my quickest most reductive but still accurate description of why America sucks (and always will until it is fundamentally destroyed and something totally different replaces it)

That’s ok. Nothing will uncreate my favorite new anti-Israel chant.

Look at the map, squeeze your eyes, that q can turn into an n. Squint at a calendar and it can look like 2005

Things were getting way too woke already! Sure it was only like a decade after the Holocaust, but wtf, can’t they handle some politically incorrect heated language?!

That has been the default response basically by war hawks going back to the Korean War. During the Korean War, somewhat famously(?) MacArthur was practically on his knees begging Truman to let him drop something like 50 nukes on the border of Korea/China to, I dunno, “warn” the Chinese(?). It didn’t happen, but not for a lack of desire from those in high command. Bunch of absolutely unhinged psychos

“Have you heard a little guy named Job? That’s right. God tests us sometimes.”

God said so. The Brits were only guided by God.

(Monarchist “logic,” probably. Monarchs rule by “divine mandate” or whatever, usually. Admitting that their grandpa was just the most evil asshole in a particular situation to grab power doesn’t instill as much faith as saying “nah, God did that. God loves my family.”)

Oh Christ, shut the fuck up. Someone roll out the goddamn French chopping device.

If we end up in the worst of all universes where that dumb fuck is “restored” to his throne then I’m immediately swapping stances. Sign me up to liberate Iran from monarchy. Let’s go liberate the UK too. Drop some bunker busters on whatever that stupid castle is called where the KWEEN MUM lived and sausage fingers Charles currently resides.

Ah, my fellow “checking every 5 minutes” brethren

This reads like a Monty Python bit

I don’t know why but I’m reminded of that “lady of the lake” thing

This quote specifically (I went and found it to see why it tickled my brain)

Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

Here’s an example from The Deprogram

https://rsshub.app/kemono/patreon/64759894

Note: If I use a VPN (as I usually do) the kemono API fails. It’s possible that’s an issue for you

Kemono is pretty good, although the episodes are often delayed with no “ETA” (no, this isn’t me complaining about not getting my pirated podcasts immediately. Jumbled just had me spoiled)

If people use kemono, and want to have rss feeds, https://rsshub.app/ (free and open source) offers ways to either use their domain or selfhost, if you want, to periodically check for and grab new uploads. Just read their documentation for kemono and put the rss feeds into a podcast app. Pretty easy.

I appreciate the incredibly pedant hair-splitting over the difference between a suffix and a word, but my point was this suffix is real and shouldn’t be underlined as if it’s misspelled.

Thus, Tim Apple must still stand trial for his crime.

I mean, as a Burger, I had someone from Sarajevo basically tell me she hates all Americans and especially anyone who was ever in the US military. I wasn’t fully aware of US/western intervention and influence in the Balkans back then, so I didn’t understand the resentment. I asked her and she told me about growing up seeing her country destroyed. All you can really say to something like that is “Oh… I understand then.”

We actually became friends after that. She was a bio student like me at the time and knew a lot of interesting stuff from the Soviet times. I would ask her to tell me more about her country, and she would ask me about…guns. Valuable cultural exchange?

This is more than likely some sort of clickbait based on how irrationally annoyed I feel (my internal “Am I being fucked up?” meter), but no one should be doing “To catch a predator”-“esque” sting operations. Esque (not a real word according to Apple. Thanks, Tim (it is)) in quotes because calling it such sort of implies a similar dynamic of “adult seeking obvious child” for sexual reasons. Or other inappropriate relations… which is basically any relations between some stranger and a child. Two adults meeting is not “to catch a predator” unless the 18 year old was pretending (as they did on the original show) to be underage. Like 14 or something. Then, ok. But that’s not represented here.

Beyond that, random, private citizens have absolutely no business doing this type of stuff. It’s debatable if even the fucking cops/FBI, in cooperation with skilled professionals, should even be doing this stuff. Certainly not for anyone’s “entertainment.” If there is a legitimate predator problem amongst the general population that justifies stings like this, then the appropriate law enforcement agencies can/should handle it. They can announce the stats from the stings afterwards. We don’t need some Chris Hansen type lecturing a creepy 42 year old munching on pizza who thought he was going to meet a 14 year old girl from AOL instant messenger. I understand it’s “funny” or mostly just shocking to see such footage, but still, some things just shouldn’t be made.

Also, most sexual assault of children is done by people they trust. Family members or close family friends. It’s not common that a stranger from the internet is the perpetrator. Also, cops are a huge percentage of abusers. If these types of “pedo stings” (which this doesn’t appear to be… given only this headline) wanted to be effective they’d just wait for cops to arrive and search the cops’ shit. Statistically, that would turn up more evidence of wrongdoing than luring random dumbasses (who are gross, for the record. Doesn’t need to be stated…)

Anyway, all that said, the media tying this to a TikTok trend which I’ve heard of exactly twice makes me think this was a tiny, isolated, still very stupid and bad, incident. So, in short… I got clickbaited

Images, I’m unsure of. There are possibly a few examples out there.

As far as words go, or direction given to the propagandists by the head propagandist (Goebbels of course), there’s a lot of scholarship on the direction of the Nazi propaganda, specifically anti-USSR propaganda, after the Germans were defeated at Stalingrad. In one of the orders or whatever “Bolshevist hordes” are mentioned as a subject to focus on. Also “Asiatic hordes.” Asiatic being the term the Nazis liked to use for Russians

(Speculation) I feel like creating images of giant, “Bolshevist hordes” might have been problematic in the wake of the war-changing loss. If you’re the Nazi artists you wanna depict the Germans as having the overwhelming odds in battle. Not like “smol bean” Nazi divisions getting stomped by “hordes” of Soviets. Even if your intent is to say “look at the vast mindless army!” you’re still crediting your enemy with having a vast army. That’s my only thought as to why there aren’t that many images and the rhetoric seems to been on paper. Although I don’t have a mental encyclopedia of Nazi propaganda posters… it’s very possible someone did draw something depicting basically zombies wandering towards Germany or something with Stalin in the back mind controlling them (or whatever the “infinite depths” of Nazi imaginations could come up with)

Sure would be a shame if China started making Cuba-USSR style pacts with South American countries. Not necessarily nuclear exchange (although… ) but agreements to send carriers and stuff to just kinda chill in the Caribbean or whichever ocean is convenient depending on country

America is constantly claiming the right to meddle in the pacific, South East Asia generally, and even in Central Asia with Pakistan and such. Taste of their own medicine if someone meddles in the Caribbean Sea

Or derogatory towards their “superiors”?

I’m not entirely familiar with the internal hierarchy of ROTC, but I have gotten the impression that people take their roles… a bit too seriously at times. Like they think they’re in the real military and not just a college kid LARPing (essentially)

I could imagine a “less committed” member. Perhaps someone whose dad is paying tuition and was a military officer tells their kid to be in ROTC to have that door open for them. The kid is just there so Dad keeps paying the bills, and they hate the upperclassmen who walk around telling the junior members to, whatever, shave their face or stop skipping PT… whatever ROTC kids yell at each other about. So they call them “raht-see naht-sees.”