#Gaddafi family

[kirstythejetblackgoldfish]

Aisha posted these photos of her son, Muammar, and Grandad Muammar, sharing a watermelon, and says she wishes she could turn back time 🥺🍉🟩

[dr-drea]

just found out I once did a presentation with the current Miss Libya during my exchange semester. Wtf is my life even??!

[dandelionh3art]

Real Reasons why Gaddafi was killed

1. Libya had no electricity bills, electricity came free of charge to all citizens.

2. There were no interest rates on loans, the banks were state-owned, the loan of citizens by law 0%.

3. Gaddafi promised not to buy a house for his parents until everyone in Libya owns a home.

4. All newlywed couples in Libya received 60,000 dinars from the government & because of that they bought their own apartments & started their families.

5. Education & medical treatment in Libya are free. Before Gaddafi there were only 25% readers, 83% during his reign

6. If Libyans wanted to live on a farm, they received free household appliances, seeds and livestock.

7. If they cannot receive treatment in Libya, the state would fund them $2300+ accommodation & travel for treatment abroad.

8. If you bought a car, the government finances 50% of the price.

9. The price of gasoline became $ 0.14 per liter.

10. Libya had no external debt, and reserves were $150 Billion (now frozen worldwide)

11. Since some Libyans can't find jobs after school, the government will pay the average salary when they can't find a job.

12. Part of oil sales in Libya are directly linked to the bank accounts of all citizens.

13. The mother who gave birth to the child will receive $5000

14. 40 loaves of bread cost $0.15.

15. Gaddafi has implemented the world's biggest irrigation project known as the "BIG MAN PROJECT" to ensure water availability in the desert.

Your comments on this ...

[abla-soso]

I've said before and I'll keep saying it: Palestine exposed Western liberals and Syria exposed Western leftists.

Their unchecked racism and ideological blind spots are just as nasty as liberals..

You can easily figure out how much these Leftist Western experts on Syria don't actually know a goddamn damn thing about Syria when you ask them a simple question.

Don't ask them if they can understand Arabic, or if they have ever spoken to actual Syrians who lived through Assad's brutal regime, and how long ago they figured out where Syria is located on the map.

Don't ask why the vast majority of Palestinians are staunch supporters of the Syrian revolution. Don't ask them why Hamas has always supported Syrian rebels.

No.

Just ask them about the Assad family's very long and loving relationship with America.

Just ask them about the Assad Family's very friendly and servile relationship with Israel from the late 60's onwards. Ask them why Syria was such a good neighbor to Israel all these many decades.

Then ask them how exactly Bashir differed from his family regarding his policy towards Israel, enough for Israel to waste resources on toppling him. Bashir is still every bit an Assadist royal as his father before him.

Temporarily allying himself with Hezbollah to save his own ass (because he could no longer trust America to not replace him with another Assadist royal), doesn't fucking mean he has suddenly become anti-Israel or anti-American imperialism.

This is an utterly deranged, completely laughable "analysis" that can't be uttered by anyone familiar with the history of the Assad royal family and its loving relationship with America and Israel.

Asssad is not and has never been against America, but his main concern - after the Arab Spring - is keeping himself in power, and if that necessitated Russian and Iranian propaganda portray him as a revolutionary leader fighting against American imperialism, he'd gladly take it.

You might be ignorant enough or dumb enough to believe Russian and Iranian propaganda, but America isn't.

America knows Assad is a cowardly rat who would crawl back - after crushing the rebellion - to the biggest superpower that can secure his power. That's America and Israel.

This is why America and Israel never bothered to topple Assad the same way they toppled their other puppets in the Middle East. That is why they've only sent their terrorist mercenaries to fight off Hezbollah and Syrian rebels but never targeted Assad's forces. I was there in 2011. I saw countless videos of these US-backed terrorists fighting and slaughtering the Syrian rebels while not harming a single fucking Assad-backed fighter.

They want Assad weakened enough to crawl back to them and only rely on them for protection, but they don't want his regime or his royal family gone. They're their biggest fucking allies in the Middle East, for fuck's sake! They might get rid of Assad in the future if he proved to be too concerned with his own survival (like Gaddafi did), but they won't ever get rid of the Assad Family.

[probablyasocialecologist]

The charge that the United Nations is failing to listen to Israeli women elides the fact that, to date, no women have testified publicly about experiencing sexual violence. As Israeli advocates have correctly insisted, this doesn’t mean sexual violence did not occur. Many of the victims of violence on October 7 are dead and will never be able to tell their stories in their own voices, and others may not speak publicly for years, if ever. However, we do not honor the voices of those who may have experienced sexual violence by ventriloquizing them or claiming to speak on their behalf. This is especially true in a context where independent investigations are being intentionally frustrated, and where it is not at all obvious that victims of violence on Oct 7 desire a war of vengeance. As Israeli hostages being held in Gaza continue to die from violence there, many of their families are calling for a ceasefire.

Historically, women have not only been silenced or disbelieved about sexual violence. They have also been spoken for and instrumentalized, particularly in conflict situations. For example, in 2011, claims that Viagra had been distributed to Mohammar Gaddafi’s soldiers to encourage mass rape were widely circulated, including by the then-United States Ambassador to the United Nations and ICC Prosecutor, despite an acknowledged lack of victim testimony verifying the claims. These rumours provided essential context within which Security Council support for military intervention was generated. They were subsequently debunked, with an International Commission of Inquiry finding claims of an overall policy of sexual violence against civilians unsubstantiated, but only after the war was complete.

‘Believe Women’ does not, and cannot, mean ‘Believe the IDF’, the Israeli police or security force, or even those who claim to be feminist advocates. As Judith Levine has suggested, the actual victims of violence on October 7 ‘are disappearing into propaganda, becoming talking points to legitimize the pain of other women, children, and men in the killing field on the other side of the fence.’ The dangers of propaganda are particularly pressing in a conflict that has already seen eyewitness testimony of atrocities, such as the beheading of over forty babies, being withdrawn only after being widely circulated and even repeated by United States President Joe Biden.

In contrast to calls for swift condemnation and authoritative statements of what happened, proper investigations that allow victims time and space to speak with adequate material support and protections take time and are almost impossible in conditions of active conflict. In the former Yugoslavia, for instance, the investigation conducted by a Commission of Experts took years and could only begin once peace was established. By refusing to cease hostilities and allow an independent investigation conducted in accordance with international standards of fairness, Israel is prioritising shielding itself from accountability for its own actions in Gaza. As a result, Israel is deferring and potentially denying its opportunity for justice and accountability as well as the opportunity for victims’ voices to be heard on the international stage.

[thelostdreamsthings]

‼️Real Reasons why Gaddafi was killed

1. Libya had no electricity bills, electricity came free of charge to all citizens.

2. There were no interest rates on loans, the banks were state-owned, the loan of citizens by law 0%.

3. Gaddafi promised not to buy a house for his parents until everyone in Libya owns a home.

4. All newlywed couples in Libya received 60,000 dinars from the government & because of that they bought their own apartments & started their families.

5. Education & medical treatment in Libya are free. Before Gaddafi there were only 25% readers, 83% during his reign

6. If Libyans wanted to live on a farm, they received free household appliances, seeds and livestock.

7. If they cannot receive treatment in Libya, the state would fund them $2300+ accommodation & travel for treatment abroad.

8. If you bought a car, the government finances 50% of the price.

9. The price of gasoline became $ 0.14 per liter.

10. Libya had no external debt, and reserves were $150 Billion (now frozen worldwide)

11. Since some Libyans can't find jobs after school, the government will pay the average salary when they can't find a job.

12. Part of oil sales in Libya are directly linked to the bank accounts of all citizens.

13. The mother who gave birth to the child will receive $5000

14. 40 loaves of bread cost $0.15.

15. Gaddafi has implemented the world's biggest irrigation project known as the "BIG MAN PROJECT" to ensure water availability in the desert.

16. ‼️Libya used to be one of few countries with sovereign central banks. Muammar Qaddafi, President of the African Union at that time, was planning to issue gold denominated African dinar to replace Francs in Francophone Africa, to help his African brothers from centuries of economic plunder.

[ramon-tikaram-love]

Ramon Tikaram is a British actor and singer of Indo-Fijian and Malaysian descent, born in 1967.

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[beardedmrbean]

Four members of the UK's richest family are on trial in Switzerland amid allegations they spent more money caring for their dog than their servants.

The Hinduja family, worth an estimated £37bn ($47bn), is accused of exploitation and human trafficking.

The family own a villa in Geneva’s wealthy neighbourhood of Cologny, and the charges against them all relate to their practice of importing servants from India to look after their children and household.

It’s alleged that Prakash and Kamal Hinduja, together with their son Ajay and his wife Namrata, confiscated staff passports, paid them as little as $8 (£7) for 18-hour days, and allowed them little freedom to leave the house.

Although a financial settlement over exploitation was reached last week, the Hindujas remain on trial for trafficking, which is a serious criminal offence in Switzerland. They deny the charges.

This week in court, one of Geneva’s most famous prosecutors, Yves Bertossa, compared the almost $10,000 a year he claimed the family had spent on their dog, to the daily amount they were allegedly paying their servants.

The Hinduja family's lawyers did not specifically deny the allegations of low wages, but said they must be viewed in context - noting that the staff were also receiving accommodation and food.

The charge of long hours was also disputed, with one defence lawyer arguing that watching a film with the Hinduja children could not really be classed as work.

Some former servants testified for the Hindujas, describing them as a friendly family who treated their servants with dignity.

But the allegations that servants’ passports were confiscated, and that they could not even leave the house without permission, are serious, because they could be judged as human trafficking.

Mr Bertossa is calling for prison terms, and millions of dollars in compensation as well as legal fees.

Dark side of Geneva

It is not the first time that Geneva, a hub for international organisations as well as the world’s wealthy, has been in the spotlight over the alleged mistreatment of servants.

In 2008, Hannibal Gaddafi, son of Libya’s former dictator Muammar Gaddafi, was arrested in his five star Geneva hotel by police acting on information that he and his wife had been beating their servants, including with a coat hanger. The case was later dropped.

But it caused a huge diplomatic row between Switzerland and Libya, with two Swiss citizens arrested in Tripoli as a retaliatory measure.

Just last year, four domestic workers from the Philippines launched a case against one of Geneva’s diplomatic missions to the United Nations, claiming they had not been paid for years.

The Hinduja's ongoing, high profile case will draw attention, once again, to the darker, uglier side of the city that likes to call itself "the city of peace".

[terrasu]

Forever stuck on the fact my maternal grandmother:

Born 1920

Moved south when her dad was looking for work

Lived through the great depression and the dust bowl

Wanted to study journalism, but was too poor for college

Idk what she did during WWII

Married, had a son, divorced/widowed (?), met my grandfather

Knew him for 6 weeks before marrying him

Moved to South America (Venezuela and Columbia) where my grandfather worked as an oil engineer and survived an extremely Catholic government that limited her body choices

Learned Spanish (living in Texas RGV probably helped)

Had five kids total

Survived the tail end of La Violencia (maybe close to a decade) and the start of the Columbian Internal Armed Conflict

Moved to Libya while it was a monarchy

Learned Arabic (to some degree)

Survived at least one distillery/moonshine explosion + worked to smuggle goods/treif* into Libya

Survived Gaddafi's coup + rule until 1974 when the family fled to Indonesia

Which was under the rule of Sudharto

Learned Indonesian (to some degree)

And smuggled treif into Indonesia

...and I never got to talk to her bc she passed just after I was born in '97

*Trief means "strangled" directly. Non kosher food. You get the point.

[kirstythejetblackgoldfish]

The former coordinator of Libyan-Egyptian relations, Ahmed Qaddaf Al-Dam, explained in an interview on the Saudi Al-Arabiya channel that the issue of Hannibal Muammar Gaddafi is a humanitarian and moral issue, adding that Lebanon has become like Libya and we are all striving, along with the charities in Lebanon, to get Hannibal out, continuing, “We hope he will forgive.” "It is for those who imprisoned him and those who abused him."

[bloodmaarked]

my friends // hisham matar

first published: 2024 read: 22 december 2024 - 31 december 2024 pages: 458 format: paperback

genres: fiction; literary fiction; historical fiction; african literature (libya) favourite character(s): rana least favourite character(s): didn't have one

rating: 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗 thoughts: what a wonderful book to end 2024 on. i feel like i went into my friends pretty much blind, having bought it on a whim to join a book club discussion taking place with the author in january. i frankly had no idea if i would enjoy this, but the positive reviews were reassuring and i can confirm they weren't wrong at all. my friends is beautifully written, thoughtful, and moving.

from the first page i was taken in by hisham matar's writing. it's the kind of writing that can very easily err on the side of ostentation and obnoxiousness, but somehow i connected with it immediately and i melted into the prose. i think the writing kept me sustained through some of the slower moments towards the middle/end of the book.

i love the exploration of key themes like relationships, identity, and the connection to one's country. it was bittersweet to see the formation and decay of friendships and how it was true to life; often they didn't end in a moment of contention, but they simply faded over time. for a moment at the end of the book i wondered what had happened to rana, for example, especially given her storyline. but the more i thought about it, the more i realised her friendship with khaled was a reflection of true life, and sometimes relationships disappear into the background despite the things you might go through together. i also felt the depiction of khaled's relationship with his family was very touching, as well as the inner turmoil over the split between his home and his family left behind in libya and the life he carves out for himself in london over several decades.

given the background of the author - that he lived in libya during gaddafi's regime, that his father was exiled due to being an outspoken dissident, how the author himself spent his time being educated and living in london - i'm not surprised that he wrote this particular story with such impact. tangentially, it got me thinking about the discussion of which authors can write about which topics, should you write about an experience that isn't yours, etc. in light of the story i thought of it in the sense that, there's nothing wrong with writing about an experience that isn't your own, but i don't think an author without hisham matar's experience could've written this book in the way that he did - and perhaps couldn't have done it justice at all. only he could've crafted this story in the way that he did. and even more tangentially, it got me thinking about how you inadvertently put a part of yourself into anything that you create, and another person could craft the exact same thing as you and never do it in the unique way that only you could. which is kind of wonderful (though i digress).

i can't wait to hear the author talk about this book in his own words at the book club, and i highly recommend my friends. i almost couldn't have asked for a better close to my 2024 reading journey, and i'm so excited for what's to come in 2025!

[mightyflamethrower]

At the nexus of most of America’s current crises, the diversity/equity/inclusion dogma can be found.

The southern border has been destroyed because the Democratic Party wanted the poor of the southern hemisphere to be counted in the census, to vote if possible in poorly audited mail-in elections, and to build upon constituencies that demand government help. Opposition to such cynicism and the de facto destruction of enforcement of U.S. immigration law is written off as “racism,” “nativism,” and “xenophobia.”

The military is short more than 40,000 soldiers. The Pentagon may fault youth gangs, drug use, or a tight labor market. But the real shortfall is mostly due inordinately to reluctant white males who have been smeared by some of the military elite as suspected “white supremacists,” despite dying at twice their demographics in Iraq and Afghanistan. And they are now passing on joining up despite their families’ often multigenerational combat service.

The nexus between critical race theory and critical legal theory has been, inter alia, defunding the police, Soros-funded district attorneys exempting criminals from punishment, the legitimization of mass looting, squatters’ rights, and general lawlessness across big-city America.

The recent epidemic of anti-Semitism was in part birthed by woke/DEI faculty and students on elite campuses, who declared Hamas a victim of “white settler” victimizing Israel and thus contextualized their Jewish hatred by claiming that as “victims,” they cannot be bigots.

There is a historic, malevolent role of states adjudicating political purity, substituting racial, sex, class, and tribal criteria for meritocracy. They define success or failure not based on actual outcomes but on the degree of orthodox zealotry. Once governments enter that realm of the surreal, the result is always an utter disaster.

After a series of disastrous military catastrophes in 1941 and 1942, Soviet strongman and arch-communist Joseph Stalin ended the Soviet commissar system in October 1942. He reversed course to give absolute tactical authority to his ground commanders rather than to the communist overseers, as was customary.

Stalin really had no choice since Marxist-Leninist ideology overriding military logic and efficacy had ensured that the Soviet Union was surprised by a massive Nazi invasion in June 1941. The Russians in the first 12 months of war subsequently lost nearly 5 million in vast encirclements—largely because foolhardy, ideologically driven directives curtailed the generals’ operational control of the army. After the commissars were disbanded and commanders given greater autonomy, the landmark victory at Stalingrad followed, and with it, the rebound of the Red Army.

One reason why the dictator Napoleon ran wild in Europe for nearly 18 years was that his marshals of France were neither selected only by the old Bourbon standards of aristocratic birth and wealth nor by new ideological revolutionary criteria, but by more meritocratic means than those of his rival nations.

Mao’s decade-long cultural revolution (1966–76) ruined China. It was predicated on Maoist revolutionary dogma overruling economic, social, cultural, and military realities. An entire meritocracy was deemed corrupted by the West and reactionary—and thus either liquidated or rendered inert.

In their place, incompetent zealots competed to destroy all prior standards as “bourgeois” and “counter-revolutionary.” It is no surprise that the current “people’s liberation army,” for all its talk of communist dogma, does not function entirely on Mao’s principles.

Muammar Gaddafi wrecked Libya by reordering an once oil-rich nation on Gaddafi’s crackpot rules of his “Green Book.” At times, the unhinged ideologue, in lunatic fashion, required all Libyans to raise chickens or to destroy all the violins in the nation. I once asked a Libyan why the oil-rich country appeared to me utterly wrecked, and he answered, “We first hire our first cousins—and usually the worst.”

There were many reasons why the King-Cotton, slave-owning Old South lagged far behind the North in population, productivity, and infrastructure. But the chief factor was the capital and effort invested in the amoral as well as uneconomic institution of slavery.

After the Civil War, persistent segregationist ideology demanded vast amounts of time, labor, and money in defining race down to the “one drop” rule—while establishing a labyrinth of segregation laws and refusing to draw on the talents of millions of black citizens.

Yet here we are in 2024, ignoring the baleful past as the woke diversity/equity/inclusion commissars war on merit. Institutions from United Airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration to the Pentagon and elite universities have been reformulated in the post-George Floyd woke hysteria. And to the delight of competitors and enemies abroad, they are now using criteria other than merit to hire, promote, evaluate, and retain.

The greatest problem historically with hiring and promoting based on DEI-like dogma is that anti-meritocratic criteria mark the beginning, not the end, of eroding vital standards. If one does not qualify for a position or slot by accepted standards, then a series of further remedial interventions are needed to sustain the woke project, from providing exceptions and exemptions, changing rules and requirements, and misleading the nation that a more “diverse” math, or more “inclusive” engineering, or more “equity” in chemistry can supplant mastery of critical knowledge that transcends gender, race, or ideology.

But planes either fly or crash due to proper operation, not the appearance or politics of the operator. All soldiers either hit or miss targets, and engineers either make bridges that stand or collapse on the basis of mastering ancient scientific canons and acquired skills, training, and aptitude that have nothing to do with superficial appearance, or tribal affinities, or religion, or doctrine.

The common denominator of critical theories, from critical legal theory to critical social theory, is toxic nihilism, which claims there are no absolute standards, only arbitrary rules and regulations set up by a privileged, powerful class to exploit “the other.” Yet, not punishing looting has nothing to do with race or class, but everything with corroding timeless deterrence that always has and always will prevent the bullying strong from preying on the weak and vulnerable.

Defunding the police sent a message to any criminally minded that in a cost-to-benefit risk assessment, the odds were now on the side of the criminal not being caught for his crimes—and so crime soared and the vulnerable of the inner city became easy prey.

Another danger of DEI is the subordination of the individual to the collective. We are currently witnessing an epidemic of DEI racism in which commissars talk nonstop of white supremacy/rage/privilege without any notion of enormous differences among 230 million individual Polish-, Greek-, Dutch-, Basque-, or Armenian-Americans, or the class, political, and cultural abyss that separates those in Martha’s Vineyard from their antitheses in East Palestine, Ohio.

Moreover, what is “whiteness” in an increasingly intermarried and multiracial society? Oddly, something akin to the old one-drop rules of the South is now updated to determine victims and victimizers—to the point of absurdity. Who is white—someone one half-Irish, one half Mexican—who is black—someone one quarter Jamaican, three-quarters German? To find answers, DEI czars must look to paradigms of the racist past for answers.

Moreover, once any group is exempted and not held to collective standards by virtue of its superficial appearance, then the nation naturally witnesses an increase in racism and bigotry—on the theory that it is not racist to racially stigmatize a supposedly “racist” collective. And we are already seeing an uptake in racially motivated interracial violence as criminals interpret the trickle-down theory of reparatory justice as providing exemption for opportunistic violence.

Throughout history, it has always been the most mediocre and opportunistic would-be commissars that appear to come forth when meritocracy vanishes. If there was not a Harvard President and plagiarist like Claudine Gay to trumpet and leverage her DEI credentials, she would have to be invented. If there was not a brilliant, non-DEI economist like Roland Fryer to be hounded and punished by her, he would have to be invented.

The DEI conglomerate has little idea of the landmines it is planting daily by reducing differences in talent, character, and morality into a boring blueprint of racial stereotypes. Punctuality is now “white time” and supposedly pernicious. The SAT, designed to give the less privileged a meritocratic pathway to college admissions, is deemed racist and either discarded or warped.

In its absence, universities are quietly now “reimaging” their curriculum to make it more “relevant to today’s students” and, of course, “more inclusive and more diverse.” Translated from the language of Oceania, that means after admitting tens of thousands to the nation’s elite schools who did not meet the universities’ own prior standards that they themselves once established and apprehensive about terminating such students, higher education is now euphemistically lowering the work load in classes, introducing new less rigorous classes, and inflating grades. In their virtue-signaling, they have little clue that inevitably their once prized and supposedly prestigious degrees will be rendered less valued as employers discover a Harvard, Stanford, or Princeton BA or BS is not a guarantee of academic excellence or mastery of vital skill sets.

Toxic tribalism is also, unfortunately, like nuclear proliferation. Once one group goes full tribal, others may as well, if for no reason than their own self-survival in a balkanized, Hobbesian world of bellum omnium contra omnes. If our popular culture is to be defined by the racist hosts of The View, or the racist anchorwoman Joy Reid, or members of the Congressman “Squad,” or entire studies departments in our universities that constantly bleat out the racialist mantra, then logically one of two developments will follow.

One, so-called whites in minority-majority states like California will copy the tribal affinities of others that transcend their class and cultural differences, again in response to other blocs that do the same for careerist advantage and perceived survival. Or two, racism will be redefined empirically so that any careerist elites who espouse ad nauseam racial chauvinism—on the assurance they cannot be deemed racists—will be discredited and exposed for what they’ve become, and thus the content of our character will triumph over the color of our skin.

Finally, do we ever ask how a country of immigrants like the United States—vastly smaller than India and China, less materially rich than the vast expanse of Russia, without the strategic geography of the Middle East, or without the long investment and infrastructure of Europe—emerged out of nowhere to dominate the world economically, financially, militarily, and educationally for nearly two centuries?

The answer is easy: it was the most meritocratic land of opportunity in the world, where millions emigrated (legally) on the assurance that their class, politics, religion, ethnicity, and yes, race, would be far less a drawback than anywhere else in the world.

The degree to which the U.S. survives DEI depends on either how quickly it is discarded or whether America’s existential enemies in the Middle East, China, Russia, and Iran have even worse DEI-anti-meritocratic criteria of their own in hiring, promotion, and admissions—whether defined by institutionalized hatred of the West, or loyalty oaths to the communist party, or demonstrable obsequiousness to the Putin regime, or lethal religious intolerance.

Unfortunately, our illiberal enemies, China especially, at least in matters of money and arms, are now emulating the meritocracy of the old America. Meanwhile, we are hellbent on following their former destructive habits of using politics instead of merit to staff our universities, government, corporations, and military.

Our future hinges on how quickly we discard DEI orthodoxy and simply make empirical decisions to stop printing money, deter enemies abroad, enforce our laws, punish criminals, secure the border, reboot the military, regain energy independence, and judge citizens on their character and talent and not their appearance and politics—at least if it is not already too late.

[christmasintheloonybin]

it is interesting in America how the most pro-social people (bourgeois liberals) are uncomfortable with the idea of American patriotism and will only invoke it in very safe ways despite holding values which are most in line with the evil empire and benefiting the most from said empire. the people who gain almost nothing are the ones who are the most aggressively patriotic, lower class rural white people, and often hold values which are anti-social or against the at-home interests of the empire and sometimes at odds with foreign interests (America first types). the best part is that they couldn't exist without each other and most of their viewpoints directly involve some stupid strawman depiction of the other side. they fill in the gaps needed to have a functional society. the people cheering for veterans are people who get nothing from American imperialism apart from dead family members and the people who protest are usually college educated LGBT types, who would not exist without US exploitation. someone like Hilary Clinton laughing at the video of Gaddafi being humiliated and murdered are the same people who will talk about pronouns and toxic masculinity.

[tilbageidanmark]

Movies I watched this Week # 151 (Year 3/Week 47):

4 by terrific documentarian Lauren Greenfield:

🍿 “…If I could have anything I want for Christmas, I would say $300 million to take care of what we have in Vegas…”

The Queen of Versailles - Wow! A surprising story of grotesque, vacuous, monstrous 1% couple, who are still relatable like "normal" people. A 70-year-old Florida billionaire and his trophy wife set up to build the largest home in America just just before the 2008 crash, then get caught up in the unfortunate downturn of the economy. (It reminded me of myself!). The excess accumulation of the very rich, an unspoken indictment of American capitalism - A fascinating Reality Television. Ostentatious, gaudy and revoltingly overdone, it's hard to stop watching. 8/10.

🍿 Lauren Greenfield has made a whole career of observing decadent rich people. Her Generation Wealth was more autobiographical, detailing her personal story and how she came to focus on documenting obscene consumption, excessive wealth, and indulgent greed. Traveling all over the globe, visiting the hot spots of materialistic affluence and corrupt obsessions. It was negatively reviewed, but I loved it. 8/10. (Photo Above).

🍿 Magic city was a 20 minutes stand-along short about the legendary Atlanta strip club, where (mostly) black patrons shower the naked dancers with so many dollar bills, that they have to collect it in garbage bags. Expanded from her 'Generation Wealth'.

🍿 Her latest was The Kingmaker, about super-corrupt dictator-wife Imelda Marcos (Still alive today at 94). An international power-player, friend and alley to all the evil figures of the second half of the 20th century: From Nixon and Mao, Reagan and Castro, to Sadam and Gaddafi, Kissinger and Duterte, a who's who gallery of plunderers, mass killers and unindicted world class criminals. She had access to the Marcos family, and showed how hopeless "democracy" plays in third countries like The Philippines - The same as first countries like The USA and Israel. 8/10.

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Another insightful documentary: “Today I learned” about Norman Finkelstein, a controversial holocaust scholar and polemic activist, whose support for the oppressed Palestinian people made him a pariah in traditional political circles. American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein follows his travails. Born to parents who both survived the Warsaw uprising, as well as the concentration camps, he developed a deep, unhealthy opposition to fascism, and especially when practiced by Jews. His lifelong campaign against the Israeli Apartheid made him an enemy of all mainstream opinion holders, and marginalized his efforts for last 40 years. Absolutely worth a watch - 7/10.

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My 3rd by Kelly Reichardt, the revisionist western Meek's Cutoff. Based on a real incident that happened during the Oregon Trail of 1845, when a bigoted, racist frontier guide led a wagon train into the wilderness. Formatted in the old Academy ratio, like the Westerns of old. Realistically dour, unromantically dirty, it's a slow nightmare into a lost place.

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3 by French director Justine Triet, two with Sandra Hüller:

🍿 I've seen 2 movies with Sandra Hüller before, 'Toni 'Erdmann' and 'I'm your man'. And of course she plays Rudolf Höss's wife in my most anticipated film of the year, Jonathan Glazer's 'The Zone of interest'. In the intriguing Anatomy of a fall she plays a calculated widow who's accused of murdering her husband. It's obvious that she's guilty, but it is never specified. A granular, subtle exposition told via the usually-stale genre of courtroom drama. It's not a murder mystery but an analysis of a failing marriage and a mother-child relationship.

🍿 "My life is a fiction. I can re-write it as I will"...

I loved her previous drama, Sybil, even more. The magnificient Virginie Efira is a complex, vaping shrink, quitting her career to return to her first passion of writing. But she's taking on a desperate Adèle Exarchopoulos as one more patient, and gets obsessively involved in her life until reality and perception collide. Similar in some themes to 'Anatomy of a Fall', it too deals with intellectuals who steal from the reality around them. Even the names are the same, the child is called Daniel, and the lover 'Malesky'. It's smart, tense, messy and sensual. 9/10.

🍿 Two ships, was an early 30 minutes short of hers, about a quick hook up between two broke characters. Not too pretty, or sympathetic.

I planned on also seeing her 'In bed with Victoria', but didn't have the time this week. I'll watch it tomorrow.

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The Satyr (1907), one of the earliest surviving pornographic films, supposedly from Argentina. An explicit hard core short, about a horn-wearing, horny devil who fucks a naked nymph good. “Close ups of genitals”.

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Rhinoceros, based on Eugène Ionesco avant-garde play. A lame theatrical comedy with Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel, trying to recreate their frantic interactions from 'The Producers'. The whole town is inexplicably turning into rhinoceros, like a bad version of 'The invasion of the body snatchers'. But the original absurd play explored conformity and mob mentality when fascism rises, and the American movie was a dated thin-soup farce, with no charm or heart.

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The kill room, a silly, new dark-comedy thriller with gallery owner Uma Thurman joining eccentric bialy baker Samuel Jackson to launder money through art. But like 'The Producers' above, the scheme gets complicated when the worthless painting become hot commodities. Too bad that the third actor, the supposed cold-heart killer 'Bagman', gave a specially atrocious performance. 6/10.

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2 cliche-ridden atrocities I couldn’t finish, both featuring British-American love affairs:

🍿 Another with Uma Thurman, who plays the first female POTUS [How many actresses played that role, but no real women ever achived it!?] I read a positive review of Red, White & Royal Blue, the LGBT fantasy romcom between the son of the American president, and a British prince "Harry". It didn't sound like it was made for me, but I thought I'll give it a try and see how long I can last. The answer was 1 hour. It was a blatant Royalty-Porn, Ultra-Wealth-Porn, Glamour-Porn, a make wish fairy tale for 16 year old gay boys. But it was made so badly. Even a Rachel Maddow cameo couldn't save it.

🍿 Another cheesy, saccharine "romantic comedy", Love, actually, that is usually mentioned positively. But I could barely stand 20 painful minutes before having to turn it off: Superficial, trite, overly-sentimental, awful piece of shit.

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(My complete movie list is here)

[northwest-by-a-train]

Anyhow. The ANC killed mostly civilians, killed a disproportionate amount of black south Africans, had factional infighting leading to intra-org armed feuds, got weapons from unsavoury characters & orgs such as Mugabe, Gaddafi, Castro, and the IRA. Similarly, the IRA itself got weapons from African dictators, American crime families, killed mostly civilians and killed among "its own people" as the saying goes. As did most successful anticolonial orgs.

Both of these organisations were supported by, and support to this day, Hamas.

At the end of the day, no one would think to send back to back the undemocratic apartheid regime and the ANC. No one on the left would send back to back the undemocratic Stormont government & neo-colonial Thatcher administration and the IRA & Sinn Féin. I would not think of it. There's no "objective neutrality", there's no "violence on both sides", no "grey areas". There are no grey areas to apartheid, no grey areas to denial of democracy, no grey areas to settler colonialism. There's no supporting "innocent Palestinians" with one hand while condemning "Hamas violence" with the other. You either support the flawed people using flawed means to end colonial oppression, or you're ready to wait until some principled flaw-free nonviolent saint comes to end it nonviolently. And some of you seem ready to wait for an awfully long time.

[kaapstadmk]

Not gonna lie, I'm a little in the doom and gloom camp, having watched populist leaders and dictators make power plays on a regular basis.

I saw Zuma kneecap Mbeki and a host of other populist hopefuls trying to ride his coattails and milk the system. Thankfully, he was finally deposed, but only after 9 years of undoing strategic international marketing and business agreements.

I watched Mugabe keep a death grip on power

I watched nepotism and cabinet incompetence

I remember watching the ANC creep closer and closer to a 2/3 parliamentary majority and all the constitutional fear-mongering that went along with it

I remember watching Gaddafi endlessly try to prop himself up as leader of the AU.

I remember seeing refugees from the DRC and Rwanda, members of my church, and hearing their stories of why they left, their journeys, and their worries over family left behind

I hope you understand that, for some of us, this feels all too familiar, and not in a good way. To add to that, some of us are, or have family members who are racial, sexual, or gender minorities. You can't tell us not to be worried about the well-being of our families

I understand many Americans are still hopeful things will turn around, and I genuinely hope their hope and optimism isn't misplaced. Just, please, don't write off all us skeptics as gloomy naysayers and contrarians. Many of us have seen some shit; for some, it may have even been traumatic. Regardless, our experiences have left us very sensitive to the degree of potential badness that may arise, and, while taking individual, local action can be satisfying, it doesn't calm the national fear roiling underneath the surface.

So, yes, by all means, push for local change and take an active part in local non-profits and midterm elections, but also don't look down on those who may be going through a fear response while you're at it.

Kthxbai

Hey

Hey Americans.

The federal government is about to get useless for at least a bit. This is a GREAT time to get involved in state level environmental orgs. That's where you're gonna be able to do the most for the next few years. Even a bit of casual volunteering can make a big difference.

I've done this off and on for years and when we go local we WIN. And friends winning feels good. This is how a lot of progressive agendas have won in this country. The whole US isn't out of this. People ARE still fighting climate change all around you.

You could be one of those people, in community with other people who are doing something.

doom and gloom "oooh everything is pointless oooh I'm so deep and edgy because I love trying to be the death of hope" people will just get blocked. I'm not talking to your crab-bucket ass.