#Hegemonic Control of History

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

SHOULD ANYONE WITH A PAST TO NAZI GERMANY REALLY BE TRUSTED IN THE AFFAIRS OF HUMANITY?

PIC INFO: Spotlight on World Economic Forum founder and driving force behind the so-called "Great Reset", Charles Schwab, mashed with the nefarious, unnamed alien species in John Carpenter's "They Live" (1988). Artwork by Hal Hefner, c. 2021.

"Is the real Klaus Schwab a kindly old uncle figure wishing to do good for humanity, or is he really the son of a Nazi collaborator who used slave labour and aided Nazi efforts to obtain the first atomic bomb? Johnny Vedmore investigates."

-- UNLIMITED HANGOUT, "Schwab Family Values," by Johnny Vedmore, published February 20, 2021

OVERVIEW: "On the morning of 11 September 2001, Klaus Schwab sat having breakfast in the Park East Synagogue in New York City with Rabbi Arthur Schneier, former Vice President for the World Jewish Congress and close associate of the Bronfman and Lauder families. Together, the two men watched one of the most impactful events of the next twenty years unfold as planes struck the World Trade Center buildings. Now, two decades on, Klaus Schwab again sits in a front row seat of yet another generation-defining moment in modern human history.

PART I: Always seeming to have a front row seat when tragedy approaches, Schwab’s proximity to world-altering events likely owes to his being one of the most well-connected men on Earth. As the driving force behind the World Economic Forum, “the international organization for public-private cooperation,” Schwab has courted heads of state, leading business executives, and the elite of academic and scientific circles into the Davos fold for over 50 years. More recently, he has also courted the ire of many due to his more recent role as the frontman of the Great Reset, a sweeping effort to remake civilization globally for the express benefit of the elite of the World Economic Forum and their allies.

PART II: Schwab, during the Forum’s annual meeting in January 2021, stressed that the building of trust would be integral to the success of the Great Reset, signalling a subsequent expansion of the initiative’s already massive public relations campaign. Though Schwab called for the building of trust through unspecified “progress,” trust is normally facilitated through transparency. Perhaps that is why so many have declined to trust Mr. Schwab and his motives, as so little is known about the man’s history and background prior to his founding of the World Economic Forum in the early 1970s.

PART III: Like many prominent frontmen for elite-sponsored agendas, the online record of Schwab has been well-sanitized, making it difficult to come across information on his early history as well as information on his family. Yet, having been born in Ravensburg, Germany in 1938, many have speculated in recent months that Schwab’s family may have had some tie to Axis war efforts, ties that, if exposed, could threaten the reputation of the World Economic Forum and bring unwanted scrutiny to its professed missions and motives."

-- UNLIMITED HANGOUT, "Schwab Family Values," c. February 2021

Source: www.simplelists.com/nfu/msg/16309232.

[mesetacadre]

Hello!

Firstly, Im USAmerican I’m not trying to be like “oh woe is me,” Im just trying my best to understand what would be the best option for everyone. I’ve heard so many varying things and this is my second time voting, so I just want wanted to know what other people think. This isn’t meant to be malicious or condescending in any way either! I know you can do multiple things at once it’s just that I worry that when I walk into that polling booth, that I’ll be putting more innocent people at stake.

I’ve seen people tell,call,email etc Kamala to say that she isn’t getting their vote unless she stops funding Israel and their assault on the Palestinian people. And I’ve seen some people say that there is literally no point in trying to reason/ransom with her and that she (like all other US presidents) is a monster no matter what.

I’ve seen some other people say that voting 3rd party or not voting at all is the only way to go. But I worry that a 3rd party candidate wouldn’t stand a chance so late in the game. And I also worry that not voting would be a waste of a privilege, especially since so many people don’t have the access to voting inside the US and out.

I’ve also seen people worrying about project 2025 being pushed into place and I’ve also seen other people say Americans are cowards for worrying about such a thing.

I know you don’t live in the US but I also know this election impacts people outside of the states so I just wanted to know your thoughts. I’ve asked this to another blog as well, so if any of your followers have thoughts Id like to hear them too! I just feel a little pulled in every direction and I figured asking around would be a good idea.

Thank you so much and have a nice day!

If I were in your position I would stop going back and forth about who to vote for and start organizing. Were social rights protected with Biden? Very clearly not, since people are already suffering from things that are in that think tank's document. Abortion is no longer protected, trans people are begin targeted across a good portion of the states, the border is going to keep getting bloodier regardless of who wins, etc. Sure, you might argue that these things are not in control of the president, like the Supreme Court or the individual states. So then, how are elections supposed to help? And this is just talking about domestic policy, but the imperialist cogs of the US hegemon will keep turning no matter who's in DC, and you really cannot fucking ignore the current genocide in Palestine, plus the US' entire history of foreign interventions and the suffering that has come from that. You all should really realize the scale of the situation and stop engaging with the US on its own terms. There are class interests to which every mechanism of liberal democracy are subordinated to.

It is extremely unique for you USAmericans to spend this much fucking time and energy on your elections, you can't overstate it. Practically every year is filled with election bullshit. Election periods in basically the rest of the world only last like a month at most, where I live it takes two weeks. Elections aren't even the only or most important way to participate in politics within the very basic framework of liberal democracy. But you're all constantly acting like it's a team sport, always with the election. Don't take this personally anon, I'm not annoyed at you specifically and I appreciate the effort in your ask, but it's so incredibly childish to every single time spend 2 years or more hueing and crying about the upcoming election. Do something about it then! stop hyperfocusing on a single day every 4 years! People were already talking about the 2020 election after Trump won in 2016, that's absurd!

Read Lenin and read decolonial theory, organize yourself and the working class, build political-revolutionary consciousness amongst your class, do whatever you can to strike at the stability of the empire which you live under without getting arrested or killed, and stop legitimizing this pantomime by making it the exclusive vehicle of your political thought. Voting is just a single day, and the run-up (not 3 years!) should be spent campaigning for your own interests, denouncing this bullshit system you all keep saying you also don't "like". "Surviving", which is what some left liberals keep saying they're trying to do (I know you did not say that, anon), looks like organizing yourself and everybody you can to stop relying on the scraps the managers of capitalism and imperialism sometimes throw at you.

Voting as an action and voting as a strategy are two different things. What you're worried about, as I understand it, is the action of going to a booth and putting your choice of ballot in the box. Voting as a strategy, is the decoration and structure so many people build around it. I can't recall exactly who I saw doing this, but a USAmerican mutual of mine who's also a communist got an ask about who they're voting for. This mutual laid out the options in their state, went over their policies, and explained why they'll vote for the candidate they disliked less (I think it was an independent but don't quote me on that). You know why none of us "election interfering foreign agents" jumped at them for this? because they understand the very limited potential for voting, spent a little bit of their time researching each candidate avaliable to them, and then spend the entire rest of their political energy focusing on other things outside electoralism.

Yeah, shit's fucked for social rights, so is basically anywhere else in the world right now. I also don't have good choices in my elections, half the parliament is talking about the islamization of Spain and plans to gut any public service, and the other actively anesthesizes and absorbs any social movement that could combat reactionarism. So I stop worrying too much about who I'm casting my ballot for and I dedicate all my political energy to militancy in my communist party, slowly creating class consciousness and setting up ways to eventually protect our own class from the inevitable strike. All of this while being the 12th economy in the world, and consequently, an integral part of the imperialist NATO and EU, facts that no sector of our liberal democracy even questions. And do you think our siblings in the countries victim of the imperialist doctrine of NATO have it any better? When entire elections and governments have been interfered with not by "social media bots", but by actual bloodshed and terror? They don't spend years yelling at each other about who to vote for, they also organize themselves and attempt to emancipate their own class

[fantasyinvader]

I think the translation was hiding the truth about Edelgard. You guys know me, how I've been trying to piece together what her character was supposed to be before the localization happened, where we have her coming off as harsher initially, downplaying her lying to and manipulating others as well as it could, before finally making her seem better in her ending. I mean, it does lead into a very questionable ends justify the means due to the translation trying to downplay Edelgard's oppression of the people and instead make her about freedom.

Looking at those changes, anything Edelgard says she's fighting for can be eliminated as in the Japanese script she outright confirms she was attempting to sway Byleth. Like when she says that this war is about restoring the Empire, yet she's defending Nemesis, making Wilhelm out to have betrayed humanity, and denounces the faith that helped found the Empire in the first place, Edelgard isn't restoring the Empire into what it once was. If anything, she's everything her ancestors fought against, which could explain her saying she didn't want to betray Rhea in the JPN as she knows Rhea is supposedly her ancestor. She says she'll fight for freedom yet subjugates and oppresses the masses, she's against corruption so she'll just eliminate every noble who refused to bow down to her while maintaining the positions of those who do, she's against the Goddess yet will make her own messages out to be the teachings of the Goddess, against the false history yet spreads lies and misinformation for her own benefit, for meritocracy yet steals credit for Byleth's leadership and assigns Caspar to controlling the military when he can't even keep the army under control as the Empire invades other nations, world for humanity yet turns herself into a monster, champion of the weak and silent yet only rewards the strong while silencing her critics... Edelgard says one thing, does another just like when she offers Rhea a chance to surrender publicly yet in private says she needs to be destroyed. And this came right after Arianrhod, where she lied and scapegoated the Church to her her entire army.

Taking that into consideration, it becomes clear that Edelgard isn't fighting for what she says she is. So what is this all about really? The answer is simple really, something that the translators changed. She wants POWER, uncontested power so that she can reshape Fodlan as she pleases. And this clicks well on so many thematic levels.

There's the whole Nirvana thing. While the BE route is meant to be Byleth's route, where the Flame of Attachment can cause them to go off script and lose access to Nirvana in the process. However, Attachment can also be seen as greed, and with Edelgard's true goal simply being to conquer Fodlan and install herself as a supreme, uncontested ruler, this can say it is ultimately her fatal flaw that prevents her from reaching her own form of enlightenment. Her ideals are simply a by-product of that greed, which in turn leads to her abandoning them when convenient despite her saying she started a war for them.

It would also contradict Byleth being reluctant to rule Fodlan but doing so out of necessity, Claude leaving Fodlan in Byleth or Dimitri's care, and how the people rally around Dimitri. Meanwhile, in addition to manipulating others into supporting her Edelgard also conscripts civilians to do so and when they resist they are executed. Rather than people supporting her and pushing her to the top like the others, she imposes her will upon them then blames the people for her actions against them.

Her turning herself into the Hegemon Husk, throwing away her humanity in exchange for power. This is after her parley with Dimitri, where she explained her ideals and was happy when Dimitri called her “strong.” Dimitri, like Byleth and Claude, his strength comes from people rallying around him. The people give Dimitri his strength, the same people Edelgard is willing to sacrifice to empower herself.

The whole “animal path” theme of her route does have a survival of the fittest aspect, where the strong prey upon the weak while the weak hate the strong. Her going after Rhea for being a Nabatean, a long-lived and powerful being, as well as saying she could never trust her hints to Edelgard acting on some level of fear to those she viewed as stronger than her. This would tie into the Hegemon Husk transformation, showing Edelgard's desperation in the face of a superior foe.

In Verdant Wind, Edelgard is said to be running amok much like Dimitri by Ferdinand. However, I think this ties into how she's been consumed by her desire for power. In the JPN version of Caspar's endings, it's stated that the Imperial army is conducting expeditions into other countries (where they are “often out of control”). This would point to Edelgard not being satisfied with just having power over Fodlan and sets her sights on the world afterwards. This would stand in contrast to Claude's character growth, how he wants to bring the world together but ends up rejecting forcing it upon the people and his own goal for this extends to the world. It would also link to Edelgard telling Claude during her final battle with him that she doesn't believe their ideals are the same. What's more, this also puts her closer to being like the Agarthans and how they pissed off Sothis with their warfare (Hell, Hubert even calls his forces Those Who Rule The Shadows, the cycle is continuing).

Then there's Rhea losing control of her power at the end of Silver Snow, becoming a threat that can't be talked down to by Byleth and must be defeated. Rhea becomes like an animal at that point, but is able to be saved thanks to Byleth's support allowing her to meet Sothis once again. Comparatively, we have Edelgard consumed by not just her power but her desire for it, can't be talked down, the whole animal path thing, and she doesn't get any salvation for this. Whereas Rhea lost herself due to protecting others, Edelgard lost herself and began sacrificing others.

According to the devs, Edelgard's depth came from her having two distinct sides to her. A surface level version of her we're introduced to, the noble girl, and the twist reveal that she's the game's red emperor. That once you looked path the former, you'd see that she was really the villain all along. The fact that Treehouse needed to essentially rewriter her character, to attempt to make her ends justify her means, it does show that the Western Edelgard and the Japanese version are essentially written as two different characters. It's the Marx/Xander dichotomy all over again.

I mean, I can understand why they'd probably want to change this. There was the whole MeToo movement going on, and having a story where the female lord is the villain lying to the players could attract controversy. That's exactly what happened with Rising of the Shield Hero at the time, people saying that it was an incel fantasy because the MC is falsely accused of rape at the start of the story and how wrong it is to release such a story at that time (meanwhile, there as no such controversy in Japan).

But at the same time, was it appropriate to try and justify human experiments, imperialism, lies, secret police, government censorship, genocide, oppression, and more? If anything, the translation has aged the game in a different manner that the memes of Awakening and Fates.

The truth about Edelgard is simply she's power hungry and is willing to do anything to feed that hunger.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Within the patriarchal, Christian, white supremacist structure that has perennially held power in the United States since colonial times, the issues that hold the highest sway among dominant group members in the 2024 election – even more than “it’s the economy stupid” – center on the so-called “cultural war” issues of God, Gays, Gates, and Guns (all connected to fears of invasion). [...] Male dominance is maintained by its relative invisibility (though for many of us, it stands as blatantly obvious), and with this relative invisibility, privilege and power escape analysis, scrutiny, interrogation, and confrontation by many. Cisgender, heterosexual, Christian, white male dominance is perceived as unremarkable or “normal,” and when anyone poses a challenge or attempts to reveal its true impact and significance, those in the dominant group brand them as “subversive” or even “accuse” them of “reverse discrimination.” White cisgender heterosexual Christians are claiming they are the objects of oppression, an argument used by members of the dominant class to reverse civil rights gains from past decades, including Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs in educational and business institutions.

Dr. Warren J. Blumenfield for LGBTQ Nation on Donald Trump using the 4Gs strategy to fuel right-wing culture war panic (04.28.2024).

Donald Trump is fueling a right-wing culture war using the 4Gs to get him back into the White House by stoking panic about God, Gays, Gates, and Guns.

God: Christians as “Innocent” and “Pure”

The increasing numbers of school districts clamping down on students’ access to books and other resources on sexuality, gender identity, race, and the “hard” history of the United States conforms directly with major foundational principles of patriarchal Christian white supremacy. [...]

Gays (Standing for all LGBTQ+ Folks)

What is patriarchy?

According to social scientist, Allan Johnson, “a society is patriarchal to the degree that it is male-dominated, male-identified, and male-centered. It also involves as one of its key aspects the oppression of women. Patriarchy is male-dominated in that positions of authority – political, economic, legal, religious, educational, military, domestic – are generally reserved for men.” Cisgender, white, heterosexual, Christian males grow up in the United States with the understanding – consciously or not – that they hold the power and that they are entitled to maintain and restrict this power from others. Atop this hierarchy we find the so-called “Alpha” male: the assumed “leader of the pack,” the dominant male, the independent self-sustaining male. Below the Alpha sits the “Beta” male, seen as weaker in courage and independence, unremarkable, and careful to avoid risk and confrontation. Beta males lack the physical presence, charisma, and confidence of the Alpha male. They are seen as the followers. “Omega” males are often loners who do not fit into the Alpha/Beta typology. They may be more introverted, shy, or socially uncomfortable. [...]

Gates: Closed to Immigrants

From the time he first descended the golden escalator in Trump Tower to announce his presidential run in 2015, Donald Trump continually demeaned, stereotyped, and scapegoated immigrants, especially Muslims and Latinx people. He initially stated: “The US has become a dumping ground for everyone else’s problems. [Mexico is] sending people that have lots of problems, and they are bringing those problems to us. They are bringing drugs, and bringing crime, and they’re rapists.” Not soon after his election, Trump ordered children of undocumented immigrants to be taken from their parents and placed into dehumanizing and horrifying cages. [...]

Guns

I understand why many people oppose and resist common sense firearms regulations. Regulations on firearms challenge the hegemonic promises of a patriarchal system based on notions of Alpha male hypermasculinity with the qualities taken to the extreme of control, domination over others and the environment, competitiveness, autonomy, rugged individualism, strength, toughness, forcefulness, and decisiveness, and, of course, never having to ask for help or assistance.

[fatehbaz]

The ordinary practitioners of the city live "down below," below the thresholds at which visibility begins. [...] [T]he everyday has a certain strangeness [...]. The city serves as a totalizing and almost mythical landmark for [modernist, imperialist] socioeconomic and political strategies [and ideologies] [...]. The Concept-city is decaying. [...] [But there remains] practices which [...] [this powerful] system was supposed to administer or suppress, but which have outlived [...]. Their story begins on ground level, with footsteps. [...] Their intertwined paths give their shape to places. They weave places together. [...] [T]he city itself [can seem to be] an immense social experience of lacking a place [...]. Numbered streets and street numbers (112th St., or 9 rue Saint-Charles) [...] orders of identities [...], constellations that hierarchize and semantically order the surface of the [landscape] [...]. [But] stories and legends [...] haunt urban space [...]. It is through [...] their capacity to create cellars and garrets everywhere, that local legends [...] permit exits, ways of going out and coming back in, and thus habitable spaces. [...] Stories about places are makeshift things. They are composed with the world’s debris. [...] [The hegemonic] order is everywhere punched and torn open by ellipses, drifts, and leaks of meaning [...]. [People, through stories and engagement with landscape, can] produce effects of dissimulation and escape [...]. Objects and words also have hollow places in which a past sleeps, as in the everyday acts of walking, eating, going to bed, in which ancient revolutions slumber. [...] “Memories tie us to that place. [...] [T]hat’s what gives a neighborhood its character.” There is no place that is not haunted by many different spirits hidden there in silence, spirits one can “invoke” or not. Haunted places are the only ones people can live in -- and this inverts the schema of the Panopticon.

Text by: Michel de Certeau. "Walking in the City". The Practice of Everyday Life. 1980. As translated by Steven Rendell, 1984.

---

[W]hat has to be forgotten to make things [legible to hegemonic systems] [...], the survivals of other ways of thinking that creep in as ‘lapses in the syntax created by the law [...]’ where ‘they symbolize a return of the repressed [...].’ [L]ook at the authority mechanisms through which speech is credentialised [...]. The propre creates objects through transforming the uncertainties of history into readable spaces [...]. These are the ruins of non-hegemonic systems [...]. Instead he seeks a mode of knowledge through travel to open space to difference [...]. Stories are not about movement, but make movements, not objects but effects, they transform [...]. [R]eading, narrating and speaking. Where ‘pedestrian utterances’ [engaging, commuting, interacting with the landscape] speak the city [...]. [S]pace is practised place. [...] The gaze of power transfixes objects but also thus becomes blind to a vast array of things that do not fit its categories. [...] Control of space is a matter of strategy which is orientated through the construction of proper knowledge. In contrast, there are tactics -- the arts of making do, like reading, or cooking --  which use what is there in multiple permutations. This practical knowledge of the city [or other types of places] transforms and crosses spaces, creates new links [...], comprising mobile geography of looks and glances. A crucial well spring is memory. [...] The alterity is that these memories contain not just events, but still carry the remains of different conceptual systems from whence they came. These then are the ghosts in the machine. Walking [moving, exploring, engaging] is to create [...] haunted geographies.

Text by: Mike Crang. “Relics, places and unwritten geographies in the work of Michel de Certeau (1925-86).” In: Thinking Space. 2000.

[asha-mage]

🌶️ whats the Hot Take on fire emblem or ffxiv!!

Oh boy. I'll go with Fire Emblem since I've played it more recently. Let me just put on this metaphorical beekeepers suit before I take a swing at this particular hornet's nest.

*zips*

Azure Moon is, inherently, a tragedy, and of the various endings, the one that is the bleakest for the over all future of Fodlan. On a smaller scale level, all the characters that we personally care about are going to be fine by the end of Azure Moon (presuming you where playing on casual and/or didn't let your favs die in the war). On a macro scale, none of the cycles that lead things to fall apart in the first place are fundamentally changed in any way. The systems that lead to the misery/issues of most of the cast are still in place.

Byleth has replaced Rhea as Archbishop, and thus as the semi-divine shadow ruler of Fodlan, and Dimitri has become Wilhelm 2.0- the mortal companion and figure head of said semi-divine shadow ruler, who unites all of Fodlan beneath the control of the Kingdom and Church. The Agarthans meanwhile remain unexposed and plotting in secret. Their's no hint that the Church is going to reform and stop it's policy of censoring and altering history to suit it's political agenda, or meddling in the affairs of the governments of Fodlan at whim or need. And their is really no reason to believe that in another few hundred years the cycle wont repeat itself as the pressure from all the cracks and flaws in the system once again becomes unbearable.

It's telling to me that Edelgard in Verdant Wind more or less accepts her fate when Claude and Byleth have her cornered. She tells them outright that the only way forward is to unite all of Fodlan and sieze the future, and they can only do that if they kill her. But in Azure Moon she resists past the point of all reason, becoming the Hegemon in her efforts to defeat Byleth and Dimitri, and using her last breath to try and cut Dimitri down with her dagger. And that's because deep down, she knows that Dimitri lacks the will and the courage to break the cycle. Claude, is a reformer, a visionary who wants a better future and wont stop until he has the truth. Dimitri even after everything he's been through is still a servant of the past, and still bound by it. So she refuses to yield to the bitter end, to give up her dream of a better future no matter what.

[luciaiscool7]

The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. - Superhero Roundtable

How do structural mythology, cultural studies, and cultural history reflect the series’ world and world-building around superheroes? 

The Disastrous Life of Saiki K centers on the titular character, Saiki K, a highschool student with Superman-esque levels of psychic power. He has trademark pink hair and must wear green glasses and antennae in order to limit his powers. Saiki, as one of the only actual psychic characters in the anime, actually doesn’t want to solve problems, or help anyone with his powers, and most of the show he uses his powers to minimize attention and keep to himself. His only really widespread use of power was changing everyone in the world’s hair color to also be colorful so that he doesn’t stand out as much. In direct opposition to Saiki’s nonexistent need for attention and immense psychic power, his classmate Kaidou, has no power whatever but claims to be The Jet-Black Wings, the only person standing against The Dark Reunion, an evil organization running the world behind the scenes. This is played for satire as Kaidou loudly brags about being the Jet-Black Wings and blames every mishap on the Dark Reunion, wears red bandages on his arms to “control his power,” and a dramatic action song “Judgement Knights of Thunder” plays everytime he does anything. 

Saiki K is a comedy anime satirizing the idea of a “superhero” through Saiki K, who kind of sucks and doesn’t care that much about other people, but even in using his powers selfishly, ultimately helps the people around him. This show challenges the idea that superheroes would necessarily swing to complete good or complete evil, and makes fun of those ideas in the example of satirizing binary thinking through Kaidou’s fake enemy, The Dark Reunion. Although the show begins with Saiki K doing everything he can to avoid attention and making friends, he warms up to his classmates over the show and uses his powers for their benefit, even as he convinces himself he’s just trying to help himself. 

The origination of manga in Japan was influenced by the globalization of American comics, including superhero comics, brought during WWII. Interestingly, as members of the Axis Powers, Japan and Japanese characters were featured in American superhero comics as enemies to the nation, often depicted as racist stereotypes for wartime propaganda. On an international scale, superheroes are associated with the US, as a national export and national representation of American might and power. This can be seen in superhero anime like My Hero Academia, where All Might represents the All-American superhero figure. Shows like Saiki K and Mob Psycho 100 have superhero-like characters and themes but distance themselves from calling them that, positioning themselves as psychics rather than superheroes.

In what ways are the superheroes and their abilities informed by their racial, gender, sexual, and cultural identities? 

Saiki K definitely participates in the de-racialization of characters as Will Bridges spoke to in “The Past Tense and the Future Perfect,” which we read for Cowboy Bebop. All of the characters are assumed to be Japanese, and are very homogeneous in appearance, save Nendo, whose butt-chin and weird mohawk are played for laughs. In many ways, Saiki represents the ultimate hegemonic male character who is conventionally attractive, cishet, middle class, and extremely able bodied. The only way that Saiki represents “other” could be through his lack of romantic or sexual interest in the show, much to the chagrin of Kokomi, the self proclaimed queen of the school, who appears with a halo of light around her at all times and has caused multiple stampedes of men chasing after her. The character Kaidou, who isn’t very popular with his classmates (somewhat because he always talks about the Dark Reunion), could be acting out social rejection through his fixation on being a superhero fighting evil, above the social dynamics of highschool.

In what ways do costumes and concealing identities further separate the superheroes from normal society? How necessary is it for the superheroes to hide their true identities to successfully achieve their goals? 

For Saiki, hiding his identity is his goal. To this end, he has changed everyone’s hair in the entire world to be colorful so that he doesn’t stand out. When the school has a sports test in gym class, Saiki has to tone down his supernatural speed and strength to blend in, including teleporting a ball back when he throws it so far that it can’t be seen, and squeezing a grip strength monitor so hard that that needle goes all the way around and it looks like he has an average score. For many superheroes, putting on a costume/disguise is necessary to carry out their goals, but for Saiki, his physical appearance is connected to his supernatural abilities, and the antennae and glasses he wears serve not to express his powers or his superhero role, but rather to minimize and control them.

How do the economic, political, and social events that occurred during the series’ creation and broadcast cultivate and inform the superheroes’ decisions and actions? 

The Disastrous Life of Saiki K first appeared as one-shot manga chapters published from 2012-2011, then serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump from 2012-2018. The anime based off of this manga was aired from 2016-2018. I think Saiki K intentionally builds off of the context of preexisting superhero media to satirize it, questioning the characterization of other characters with superpowers as good and selfless or evil and self-serving- Saiki is literally just some guy and he doesn’t feel any pressure to use his powers for anyone. The anime creates a depoliticized superhero- he isn’t connected to any hero organizations or governments, he doesn’t have any enemies. He is so depoliticized and inactive as a superhero figure that his morals swing all the way around into questionable because he is so powerful, and could solve so many problems, but only changed everyone’s hair.

How do the superheroes question themselves, each other, and their obligations and duties to the people around them? 

Saiki K as a show challenges the superhero trope of questioning their purpose, sense of self and obligation to others by making Saiki antisocial and feel pretty neutrally about everyone besides himself. He always ends up helping the people around him, even when he doesn’t mean to, often doing so because it’s the easiest way to avoid being exposed, or not taking action will negatively impact him in some way. In one episode, he watches a magician on TV being locked in a box, and when it seems like he won’t be able to escape in time, Saiki teleports onto the set to save him. He does this in order to save the magician from a deadly incident which could potentially delay the rest of the tv channel, including Saiki’s favorite mystery show that after the magic show. He does help people, but his obligation is (allegedly) to himself first.

@theuncannyprofessoro

[vague-humanoid]

How Twentieth-Century Technology Theft Built the National Security State | Katherine C. Epstein

At the beginning of the twentieth century, two British inventors, Arthur Pollen and Harold Isherwood, became fascinated by a major military question: how to aim the big guns of battleships. These warships—of enormous geopolitical import before the advent of intercontinental missiles or drones—had to shoot in poor light and choppy seas at distant moving targets, conditions that impeded accurate gunfire. Seeing the need to account for a plethora of variables, Pollen and Isherwood built an integrated system for gathering data, calculating predictions, and transmitting the results to the gunners. At the heart of their invention was the most advanced analog computer of the day, a technological breakthrough that anticipated the famous Norden bombsight of World War II, the inertial guidance systems of nuclear missiles, and the networked “smart” systems that dominate combat today. Recognizing the value of Pollen and Isherwood’s invention, the British Royal Navy and the United States Navy pirated it, one after the other. When the inventors sued, both the British and US governments invoked secrecy, citing national security concerns.

Drawing on a wealth of archival evidence, Analog Superpowers: How Twentieth-Century Technology Theft Built the National Security State (https://bookshop.org/a/12343/97802268...)  (University of Chicago Press, 2024) by Dr. Katherine C. Epstein analyzes these and related legal battles over naval technology, exploring how national defense tested the two countries’ commitment to individual rights and the free market. Dr. Epstein deftly sets out Pollen’s and Isherwood’s pioneering achievements, the patent questions raised, the geopolitical rivalry between Britain and the United States, and the legal precedents each country developed to control military tools built by private contractors.

Dr. Epstein’s account reveals that long before the US national security state sought to restrict information about atomic energy, it was already embroiled in another contest between innovation and secrecy. The America portrayed in this sweeping and accessible history isn’t yet a global hegemon but a rising superpower ready to acquire foreign technology by fair means or foul—much as it accuses China of doing today.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book (https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/securin...)  focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars

[ruffianbandwidth]

Greetings y'all! I know it's been a while, and I apologize for the lack of posts about music (check out Cameron Winter's new solo album "Heavy Metal" if you haven't already. He sounds like beautifully discordant and spastically sonorous Gen-z Bill Callahan). Life has a way of forcing you into adulthood, despite your best efforts to avoid it, and pretty soon you're left having to prioritize certain things over others (and sadly blogging about music for free was one of those things that had to fall to the wayside). However, if you enjoyed my posts, and dare I say my writings, then you might be happy to know that I wasn't just growing old and selling out. I was actually pursuing other creative pursuits all these years of absence - including writing. In fact, that's the reason I'm here posting, because I finally self-published one of the books I wrote a few years back (because unfortunately it is once again relevant). It is available as both an eBook and a paperback here and I would really appreciate your support!

Here's some more info on the book (in case the title is too off-putting lol):

Make Armstrong Great Again was originally written during 2017-2019, and was inspired by the fact that I was teaching high school at the time. Being part of a high school campus as an adult feels like you're an anthropologist doing field work. It is as joyous and beautiful, as it is terrifying and confusing. You can't help but marvel at the rawness of that age. The passion, emotion, apathy, and authenticity constantly churning throughout. It is a land of contradictions. All of it hanging together by a thread, or rather the thin facade of order, tradition, and consequence.

Post-2016, I saw and felt a lot of parallels between a high school campus and our political reality. Here was the US, the global hegemon, and purported democratic beacon and moral compass of the world, coming to terms with the fact that our political institutions were nothing but a facade based upon crumbling notions of propriety, fairness, and consequence. All of which was meant to cover, obscure, and mystify our underlying economic/social reality.

Now I'm not one to subscribe to the "Great Man" theory of history. I think everyone, regardless of the power they wield, is more or less a prisoner to our underlying social/economic systems, and therefore confined to a limited range of actions and possibilities. However, I do think that every now and then, certain historical figures happen to resonate with a moment, and therefore have a little more latitude in their ability to actually respond to systems and shape reality.

Sadly, I believe Trump is one of these figures. The combination of his wealth, social capital, and personality allowed him to embody the moment, which in turn led to him (consciously or unconsciously) recognizing and breaking through the thin facade of our political order. In doing so, he forced everyone else to recognize the facade and stare into the abyss, and ever since that realization we have all been collectively going insane, trying to channel or numb all of our anger, fear, and desperation.

Whether its class de-alignement, Qanon, cottage-core fantasies, Russia-gate, clinging to empty institutions, compensatory nationalism, opiate epidemics, pointless impeachments, our ever-expanding forms of spectacle and entertainment, the circular firing squads of the left, more and more blatant racism and anti-LGBTQI+ sentiment, or just a general sense of nihilistic doom, we have all been trying to come to terms with the fact that reality no longer has any safe guards or guarantees.

This is terrifying (but also potentially liberating), and since the levers of politics are completely controlled by moneyed interests (and therefore out of our reach), all of us are incredibly alienated and have no meaningful form of social organization, and we are up against the ticking clock of ecological destruction, we end up turning on each other and using the most vulnerable as scapegoats. We do this because it's easy, and because attacking and blaming symptoms seems like the only option available. We are all so busy, tired, atomized, and disempowered that we can barely imagine, let alone muster up the will, sacrifice, and wherewithal to do what is hard and organize so that we can actually struggle against the root material causes of our misery. And so instead, out of sheer desperation, we direct all of our energy, focus, and emotion into chasing the phantoms and ghosts of a culture war. Suffocating more and more in the process, and growing more insane all the while.

Anyway, all of this is to say, imagining our politics in the context of a high school was strangely illuminating. On the one hand, it is incredibly fitting. And yet, at the same time, it feels completely out of place and exaggerated even amongst oft lambasted and demonized hormone-addled teenagers. Situating our politics in the context of a high school somehow managed to highlight its absurdity all the more. The plot of this book seems fully fictional, and yet it's the context of our very real, and very adult, reality. In fact, much of the tweets and debate/speech dialogue used throughout are direct quotes from the 2016 campaign (with some necessary contextual changes). And of course, perhaps most absurd of all, the ultimate result of it all is the same.

That's the book. In all its entertaining, infuriating, and devastating glory. No one escapes unscathed. It's different from my usual style, but it was nice to take a break from my more "conceptual" work and practice writing in a different way (though for better or worse my verbose and overwrought philosophizing still finds its way into the novel). Anyway, if you want a copy, it is now available both as an ebook and a physical paperback via the link in my bio. Hopefully it provides some sort of catharsis as we buckle up for these next four years.

[darkmaga-returns]

By Finian Cunningham Strategic Culture

November 27, 2024

Now the Western media no longer have credibility or authority. The Western cesspool has a busted flush.

The war between the United States-led imperialist powers and Russia that is playing out in Ukraine is not merely a proxy conflict. It is an existential showdown for the U.S. hegemonic system, benignly known as the “West”.

The high stakes of this showdown explain why it has assumed such extreme geopolitical tension to the point where there are palpable fears that the conflict could escalate to a nuclear World War Three conflagration.

We have arrived at this abysmal danger in large part because the Western-controlled media have distorted and lied about the conflict to cover up the responsibility of the Western imperialist powers.

The Western media have performed as they have always done – to serve as a propaganda system to promote false claims and warped history in such a way as to enable the Western regimes to act criminally but with the cover of apparent virtue.

The United States and its imperialist partners in the NATO alliance claim that they are defending the sovereignty and democracy of Ukraine from “unprovoked aggression” by Russia. The Western media have indulged this narrative by repeating it incessantly, while strenuously omitting alternative perspectives.

Understanding the cause of the conflict is impossible if one were to rely solely on Western media for information. Because the “information” is essentially a propaganda narrative aimed at giving the U.S. and its NATO partners a license for what is otherwise their provocative military offensive on Russia’s borders. Russia’s deep-seated concerns about NATO’s relentless expansion since the end of the Cold War – despite assurances to the contrary from former U.S. leaders – are belittled by Western media.

The Western media will not tell its consumers about the CIA coup in Kiev in 2014 that overthrew an elected president to install a NeoNazi regime. The Western media called it a pro-democracy movement. The Western media will not tell its consumers about how the NATO powers weaponized the Kiev regime over the following decade to wage a low-intensity war of aggression against the Russian-speaking people of Ukraine, culminating in Russia’s military intervention in February 2022.

The Western media won’t tell its consumers that Ukraine has always been an object of intrigue for the U.S. and its NATO partners as a way to destabilize Russia and formerly the Soviet Union.

[lenaschin]

Critical Television Analysis: The Good Place

On the surface, The Good Place is well-loved, hilarious, and surrounds a diverse cast with characters that differ from identity-related stereotypes. The show surrounds Eleanor, who wakes up in heaven, referred to as the “Good Place,” alongside Tahani, Jason, and Chidi (who is labeled her soulmate). Michael is the supposed leader of the “Good Place,” but we later discover that–in alignment with Eleanor’s selfishness–he is actually a devil and this is the “Bad Place.” The characters’ out-of-placeness (except for Tahani and Chidi, who initially think they belong) is meant to be their eternal torture, but Eleanor’s repeated solving of this mystery results in endless reboots and failures. The series ends when the humans team up with Michael and they realize that the entire system is off, as everyone is being sent to the “Bad Place” based on its unattainable, binary measures of morality. They successfully reform the system, resulting in Michael’s transformation into a good being–and living out his fantasy of being a ‘human’ on Earth–and Eleanor, Chidi, and Jason transforming into blissful nothingness while Tahani helps to design a better afterlife. 

Photo: Michael and Eleanor.

Although we eventually learn that everyone is being sent to the “Bad Place,” the show’s group of focus is diverse (through their sexuality, gender, or race), generalizing “Bad” people to be those who defy hegemonic norms. This mirrors our current society, especially with those in control being white men (like Michael & the other Devils, and one white female judge) with outdated ideology–I explore this further in my video essay. While the final message of the show recognizes this point system as flawed, revealing the lack of a binary good/badness (the main point of my video essay), it doesn’t at all explore the sexual, gendered, and racial aspects of the characters’ intersectional experiences, making the show more hegemonic than not. I analyze the portrayal of specific characters and how these may be negatively interpreted by viewers despite this show’s positive overall message. 

Photo: Tahani, Jason, Eleanor, and Chidi as they stand before the judge and request the chance to 'start' life--and their "Good" vs "Bad" point count--from scratch.

I critique responses to The Good Place that commend its progressiveness based on the fact that its cast is racially diverse and they don’t align with traditional stereotypes, and instead suggest that in this case, “not all representation is good representation” (Hsu, 2021). The show fails to reconstruct intersectional identities in a positively ‘different’ way due to its “color-blind” approach, which disregards, rather than reconstructs, gendered and racialized oppression throughout history. The non-hegemonic aspects of characters’ racial or gender identities are dampened through their adoption of traits that reinforce hegemonic ideology; this is particularly prominent among the female characters, however I address the male characters prior to my conclusion. Primarily, each female character represents an atypical, but similarly problematic form of femininity that continues to reflect the male gaze; Eleanor’s narrative control as a woman is dampened through her alignment with hegemonic masculinity–this is heightened by Chidi’s femininity (perpetuating an innate gender binary), Janet’s non-binary identity is overridden by their similarity to the ideal, domesticated woman (reasserting heteronormativity as the norm), and Tahani’s Pakistani background is misportrayed through her assumption of a privileged white-washed identity (making racial histories invisible) (Kaplan, 2010). Kaplan, Shohat, and Diawari note that the significance of media’s portrayal of gender and race lies in its influence on the minds of its viewers; what media constructs is perpetuated and eventually, realized within our own reality, pointing to the significance of recognizing ideological media as such before its perpetuation. While the presence of three female characters in the show’s main ensemble provide us with the illusion of gender equality, upon closer analysis it is clear that each reinforces problematic stereotypes surrounding race and gender. 

Primarily, the protagonist is a white woman–the show opens with a shot of her face, bright and glowing, and follows her perspective throughout the narrative. Eleanor’s non-feminine, general indifference is framed as the essence of her personality, and resultantly, the reason behind her punishment. Kaplan notes that attempts to reconstruct female characters in defiance to gender norms can fail through their consistent creation of a male/female binary; “our culture is deeply committed to clearly demarcated sex differences.” Eleanor illustrates Kaplan’s point that emerging female “representation” remains binarized, as she adopts a specifically masculine position that is characterized by her lack of “traditionally feminine traits,” particularly, her “cold and manipulative” personality (Kaplan, 2010). Flashbacks of Eleanor’s life on Earth revealed that everyone hated her because of her manipulative ways and carelessness surrounding others’ feelings. On Earth, Eleanor used to get drunk before going out with her work colleagues on the night she was designated driver, just to joke that the only place she’d be driving was through the “loophole” she found in the system… When she’s (finally) forced to stay sober and drive, she pretends to be doing it out of care for her friends to get the bartender’s attention, and later chooses going home with him while stranding her drunk friends at the bar. Needless to say, Eleanor isn’t invited to go out with her colleagues again.

This careless emotionlessness is counteracted by Chidi’s “kindness, humaneness, and motherliness,” evident in the fact that his personality surrounds his nervous awkwardness and indecisiveness based on a desire to make the most moral, utilitarian decisions possible (Kaplan, 2010). Many viewers think Chidi illustrates “positive masculinity,” but his emotionality and indecisiveness–alongside a resulting inability to “take action” in the way Eleanor does–suggest he may align with the feminized role as described by Kaplan (Kaplan, 2010). Moreover, Chidi is used to counteract Eleanor’s masculinity and keep the gendered binary “structure intact” despite the supposed stray from hegemonic gender norms (Diawara 2014, Kaplan, 2010).  

The idea of Eleanor’s defiance of traditionally feminine gender norms is directly framed as related to her “badness” through her narrative arc, in which her transformation into a “good person” directly aligns with her acceptance of hegemonic femininity; she adopts “kindness, humaneness, and motherliness” and heteronormativity (Kaplan, 2010). When the humans are given the chance to live again and restart their point count, Eleanor struggles; as soon as Chidi kisses her and they recognize their feelings, she finally does better on Earth and becomes “good.” While one could argue the arc’s alignment with heteronormativity is purely coincidental, it contrasts with the show’s previous focus on Eleanor’s bisexuality, aka, its queerbaiting of Eleanor. Throughout early seasons, Eleanor frequently commented on Tahani’s attractiveness, and even came close to kissing Simone (Chidi’s gf at the time); the usage of her bisexuality is, in itself, framed inappropriately comically, and coincides with her previously “masculine” traits– carelessness, moral indifference, and lack of romantic interest in Chidi–suggesting non-heteronormativity to be similarly negative. Moreover, the fact that Eleanor is a woman does not necessarily mean she’s a progressive character, as is evident in her adoption of a non-feminine, but similarly binary form of masculinity, the presence of Chidi as a feminine counterpart , and the show’s aligning of her bisexuality with “badness.”

Photo: Eleanor and Tahani

Janet, a white character, is framed as the perfect woman, which is problematic due to their identification as non-binary, both because it is transphobic and frames servitude (her main purpose) as innately feminine. Primarily, I noticed that Janet mirrors our assignment of femininity to technological sources of servitude: Siri, Alexa, GPS navigation, “the number you have dialed is not in service…” Like these objects, Janet’s “servitude and obedience” are viewed as innately feminine, and are thus assigned a feminine identity (James, 2018). Despite Janet’s attempts to reclaim their lack of alignment with societal labeling norms through the consistent assertion that they are not female, but rather a vessel of knowledge (equating themself to AI), characters always call them a “girl.” Janet never argues with this misgendering, and instead responds with a smile and a kind, “Once again, I’m not a girl” (Beck, 2023). While Janet’s character could have been an opportunity to explore a non-hegemonic perspective, the show harms non-binary identities more than it supports them, by enabling characters to misgender Janet and using their feminine appearance (always fresh, made-up, and in a dress) and feminine subservience to justify this assumption as comically obvious and justifiable (Beck, 2023). The show actually perpetuates their femininity so much that their character is referred to as a girl both within and out of the narrative (among characters and audience members). In the end, Janet is framed as a woman in nature despite their assertion of being non-binary, both aligning femininity with object-ness and servitude and framing non-binary identities as lacking personhood. The show uses Janet as a diversity point without truly questioning binarized views of gender; Janet’s consistent positivity and agreeability disregard the harm of misgendering, and actually works to justify the characters who misgender her by framing Janet’s “femme” physicality and personality as evidence of their ‘obvious’ femininity (Beck, 2023). 

Just as Janet’s intersectionality is subdued through their over feminization, the only other intersectional identity (and the only non-white woman) of focus–Tahini–is made palatable through the show’s white-washing of her personality. While Tahani is a first generation Pakistani in the United Kingdom, her struggle-free experience in white-dominated high society disregards a perspective representative of non-white culture, and instead hides it with a British accent and Tahani’s infinite wealth. Tahani’s lack of race-related struggles are completely disregarded through her defining trait: selfishness. Even her greatest deeds, such as organizing charities on Earth, were all based on selfish intentions surrounding her parents’ validation. Her biggest struggle is framed as her sister’s fame, specifically, her parents’ heightened love of her sister, which aligns with Tahani’s inherent self-focused attitude. In this way, UK’s historical colonization of Pakistan and the current othering of British Pakistani are made invisible. (Aljazeera, 2023). As noted by Shohat, attempting to re-frame gendered and racial history (patriarchy and colonialism) is not always done in an “unproblematic” way, just as The good Place’s color-blindness to Tahani’s racial history actually perpetuates social ignorance of historical oppression. In alignment with Shohat’s explanation of the “mark of the plural,” in which any “negative behavior” (Tahani’s personality-defining selfishness) is viewed differently based on the characters’ race, Tahani’s characterization is more likely to be generalized to Pakistani people than Eleanor’s would be to white people (Shohat, 2014). Tahani’s obliviousness to her culture’s oppression projects a falsely generalized idea of this racialized history as insignificant among Pakistani despite its continued prevalence.

While I mainly focus on female identities (complicated by Janet), The Good Place frames the experiences of Jason, and Chidi (in addition to Tahani) as completely unaffected by their race. Jason’s ability to pass as a Taiwanese monk due to him being Asian–despite the fact that he’s from Florida and is not a monk–perpetuates essentialist ideology surrounding sameness based on race, and his heightened lack of intelligence is a poor choice for the only Asian representation throughout the show. Chidi’s violation of hegemonic masculinity (through his emotionality, indecisiveness, etc.) being framed as the reason he resides in the Bad place aligns with problematic characterizations of Black characters “playing by hegemonic rules and losing” (Diawara, 2014). More broadly, the fact that Chidi, Jason, and Tahani are supporting characters for a white woman–like many other characters of color–repaints white-washed film narratives in which POC don’t hesitate to “protect” the “same order that has punished and disciplined” them (Diawara, 2014).

The afterlife’s similarity to Earth suggests its culture as to be reminiscent of our own, however, the color-blind attitude of the main characters disregards the rampant racism that we still work to subdue. Unfortunately, The Good Place’s opportunity to explore an array of perspectives and lived experiences through characters’ diverse backgrounds is lost, even just based on the nature of their show; they do not take into account that the negative representations assigned to each of its characters have a different impact on their community. The fact that a white man created “The Good Place” isn’t surprising, and points to Shohat’s recognition of the necessity for “historically marginalized” groups to “control their own representation” to avoid reproducing something from a white audience’s lens of “pleasure” (Shohat, 2014).

Photo: Tahani and Jason.

Works Cited:

Beck. “‘I’m Not a Girl’: Janet, Nonbinary Representation and ‘The Good Place.’” The Spool. Accessed December 12, 2023. 

Diawara, Manthia. "13 Black Spectatorship: Problems of Identification and Resistance." Black American Cinema (2012).

Hsu, Leina, Ruchi Wankhede, Ayan Omar, and Jennifer Ammann. “No, the Good Place’s Jason Mendoza Does Not Defy Asian Stereotypes.” Women’s Republic, March 1, 2021. 

James, et al. “The Other Secret Twist: On the Political Philosophy of the Good Place.” Los Angeles Review of Books, October 13, 2018. 

Kaplan, E. Ann. "Is the gaze male?." (2010).

Shohat, Ella, and Robert Stam. Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the media. Routledge, 2014.

Staff, Al Jazeera. “Braverman Words on British Pakistani Men Discriminatory: Pakistan.” Al Jazeera, April 5, 2023.

@theuncannyprofessoro #oxyspeculativetv #speculativetvanalysis

[manorpunk]

Post-Bailout America

Right, I never told the second part of the story.

In case you’re just joining us, America has just spent the 2030s in the depths of the Polycrisis until China had to bail us out to keep the world economy from crashing yet again.

It would make for such a nice, clean dividing line between the generations - “America went crazy and ate itself, and then the Bailout happened and everything got better” - but it was a long, complicated, and violent process. It was also the origin of the Global Logistics Network.

There is an old saying that all empires are accidental. Such was the case of the GLN - China was so busy celebrating their victory in the Second Cold War that it took them a minute to realize America was now a massive bone in their throat. There had always been a master plan behind the Bailout: even with light controls over both ends of the Chinese-American market, China could manage their gradual transition to a service economy by fiddling with the levers whenever there was an imbalance between production and consumption. There were a couple problems though:

1. even with the modern internet and AI tech, this would require a mind-boggling amount of constant international coordination,

2. the enormous task of managing most of the world economy had been dropped into the lap of a couple of Qingdao-based construction firms,

3. insurrections were already brewing in America, but we’re gonna put a pin in that for a minute.

The GLN emerged as a hasty attempt to make the process easier, taking all of the shipping and production systems previously owned by major American corporations and just kinda duct-taping them together and hoping it would work. On paper it was under direct management of the CCP, which now stood for the Chinese China Party - winning the Second Cold War made China start to go a little crazy, with an immediate rise in nationalism and a lot of rhetoric to the effect of “now that the Century of Humiliation is over it’s time to reclaim our rightful status as the unquestionable global hegemon.” Party officials started competing with each other to see who could troll America the hardest.

wait what the hell was I talking about

right

on paper, the GLN was just another part of the Chinese government, akin to a second Belt and Road Initiative, but this was exposed as a polite fiction during the Sheriff Insurrections.

So remember that pin I mentioned a minute ago? Well, this is that. Sheriffs across America - ‘sheriff’ here is shorthand for local police officers, right-wing militias, modern rural gentry, doomsday preppers, and actual sheriffs (but I repeat myself) - Sheriffs across America launched rebellions attempting to ‘resist China and the GLN’ and ‘regain their local power.’ In reality most of these rebellions took place in rural areas that were far away from any GLN activities, and if you scratched the surface of their rhetoric they’d admit that it was because they just really hated Chinese people.

Still, as the violence and chaos from the Sheriff Insurrections spread from town to town, the GLN began independently hiring mercs military contractors to protect construction crews, and small skirmishes regularly broke out between the contractors and sheriffs.

This put the Chinese government in a bind: they could either let the GLN operate as an independent organization, which would destroy all those grand plans of economic control and unleash an unprecedented new psuedo-state upon the world, or they could continue claiming ownership of the GLN, which would mean that China was kinda sorta technically launching a ground invasion on foreign soil. The Chinese government blinked, and the rest is history.

Anyway, the sheriffs lost. Badly. As a brief aside, far be it from me to revel in punishment and violent revenge, but if one wishes to take a moment and imagine a montage of bloated, out-of-shape sheriffs fumbling with their tacticool handguns before getting vaporized by actual professionals, well, I wouldn’t judge.

And anyway, it’s nice to find a silver lining to things like that. Cause uh. Those goddamn sheriffs probably set us back another decade. The way that the rest of America was pretty cool with the GLN taking over makes a lot more sense when you remember the alternatives.

I mean, yeah, there were the economic impositions, gas and meat and plastic got a lot more expensive, but it was a small price to pay.

And yeah, there would occasionally be scandals, like when the GLN allegedly tried to break the remaining power of the conservative evangelicals by infiltrating religious cults and encouraging mass suicides, or the-

some nice men have politely informed me that I should immediately end this post. Bye everyone, see you next time!

[finelinens1994]

work at the library was slow tonight so i got to spend some time reading a journal about libraries and politics, and i found a really cool peer-reviewed article from this year called "the urge to censor" about the history of censorship in libraries and anti-intellectualism and it was awesome. one quote in particular really stood out to me, which was "the human instinct to censor thrives, as it always will, living in irrepressible conflict with the human instinct to speak." some other cool bits from the article to ponder:

"No matter how censorship is framed by its adherents, it is an act of unbridled hegemonic power. Regardless of whether the hegemon represents the majority of the population or a privileged few, the act of censoring is the intentional removal of the intellectual choice of others. It is a brutal and blunt method of attempting to control access literacy, and discourse, and by extension all other social interactions."

"Shannon Oltmann (2019) has brilliantly distilled the ideal stance of libraries toward intellectual freedom: “individuals can make their own choices, but cannot compel others to abide by those choices” (p. 113). The heart of censorship is always to remove the ability of others to make intellectual choices. In the current context, censorship also coexists with a great many other intrusions into the work of libraries. The acceleration of censorship efforts is part of a larger network of local, state, and government political and policy intrusions into libraries in the twenty-first century."

[fantasyinvader]

You know, that thought would just not leave my mind today. Even from the beginning, since the game's launch and people began connecting the dots people have been saying that Edelgard's path is a path of ignorance. That in ignorance she's the hero but with knowledge she's the villain. But the idea that Edelgard's ignorance, or possibly delusions or foolishness, ultimately traps her in contrast to Byleth, who isn't supposed to let the Flames/Poisons cloud their judgement and walks an enlightened path as a result… it just fits so well.

Dimitri's line in the Japanese version, calling Edelgard's path the animal path. The animal path is one based on the flame of ignorance, that because of that they made choices that gave them negative karma.

Ferdinand's line in VW following Gronder, where he says Edelgard is acting the same as Dimitri was. Dimitri, the boar prince/king of delusion. Pigs symbolize the flame of, you guessed it, ignorance.

Edelgard is acting based on information passed down to her by her father, informing her views on the world. However, in a story scene before that Hubert contradicted the backstory Edelgard has already told you while stating Ionius was a puppet of the Agarthans and that Edelgard should have told you this meaning she knows. This would also correlate to how Verdant Wind states that TWSTID manipulated Edelgard into starting the war despite Edelgard herself making it sound like it was her decision.

Symbolically, the above point ties into Edelgard's Crests. It was TWSITD who gave Edelgard her understanding of the world through the Crest of Flames (World Arcana), but in the end it was corrupt knowledge which had a detrimental effect on Edelgard owing to Aymr having the Crest of Maurice (Devil Arcana). As such, Edelgard's understanding of the world, her own knowledge though her Crest of Serios (Priestess Arcana), is flawed. Hopes even went as far as to use Aymr as a symbol of TWSITD making Edelgard their puppet in Azure Moon while the player can unlock it by completing the secret chapter (the supposed "good" route) in Scarlet Blaze.

Edelgard has scenes in White Clouds where she finds out information that conflicts with her own view, such as her talking with Thales and Thales revealing Nemesis was a bandit. Edelgard points out TWSITD were behind the experiments in such a scene, and in SB mentions she ignored how much influence they had over the nobility while she also revives the local Church branch under her control.

The devs themselves confirmed that the worldbuilding was done to support Silver Snow's story, and as a result Edelgard's claims are meant to be undermined as the players pay attention to the world around them. This mirrors Claude in VW, whose views change over the course of his route, yet Edelgard says that she can't allow Claude to run Fodlan because he doesn't know it's history. Ironically, Claude finds out the most lore of Fodlan by the end and it does undermine what Edelgard believes.

Edelgard is that character who thinks they know it all, ignorant of their own ignorance. Her ideals are based on her flawed knowledge, ideals she serves even at the cost of her own humanity. We get her becoming the Hegemon Husk, framed as the end point of those ideals in Azure Moon after Edelgard has the remnants of TWSITD turn her into it. In AG, instead we have Thales turn her into it and putting her under his control.

Tying this into Eastern beliefs, there's the whole empty thing.Emptiness is not a bad thing as it allows one to be filled. An empty bowl is far more useful than one that is stuffed to the brink and overflowing, and that's what's going on with Edelgard. She believes she has all the knowledge, that her bowl is full, and as a result when she's presented with new knowledge, knowledge that conflicts with her own, it spills out. She believes she's the one with all the answers, the one who should be the teacher rather than the student, the hand of benevolence that people should react out to. As such, she can not see the world for what it really is just what she thinks it is. The Flame of ignorance/delusion/foolishness includes false beliefs that one may cling to rather than discard, and this is what ultimately dooms Edelgard.

It's not like Dimitri's delusions, as despite them Dimitri is the Lord who actually sees things for how they are and it's his core belief that he needs to live to avenge those who died for him that's the problem. Even when Edelgard seems to have character growth in Flower, when she seems to understand that people each other allows them to accomplish great things… this development doesn't stick in the Japanese version. She still goes back to instituting reforms to push people to rely only on themselves. It's this belief she believes she needs to force on people, resulting in her taking more power for herself rather than giving it to the people and supporting freedom. It's why her title in the ending is Flame Emperor, Edelgard either didn't change or she regressed into that position.

I think we can even see this in her death in SS/VW. She talks about how she needs to die in order to stop the fighting, how it's Byleth's duty as the victor, and that in doing so they'll walk holding hands down Byleth path in the Japanese text. And while she's saying this, she's activating Aymr. It makes it look like she's having a moment of clarity, that as she's beaten she realizes just what she's become but also the hold her beliefs have on her. She can't walk away from them, and will go back to fighting if she is spared. So she tells Byleth to put her down, before she goes back to being the Flame Emperor. In a way, those are the only paths where she dies as a human in the Buddhist sense, acting on rational thought and humanity rather than instinct and impulse. She's too far gone in Moon, and reverts in Flower. Edelgard can only die as Edelgard by Byleth's hand, and in doing so her Japanese counterpart walks with them.

It makes her feel like the Death Knight, with the Japanese text making it implying Jeritza doesn't know what happens when he takes over. Emile became consumed by bloodlust after he killed his hated father to protect his mother and sister. Likewise, Hubert became who he was in order to serve the girl he loved which included killing his father. And Byleth can go against their entire character arc in order to support Edelgard. Those two are meant to be foils to the player, reasons why they need to walk the path of liberation rather than become like them.

I guess in the end, Edelgard believed she was doing the right thing but her time at Garreg Mach made her question her path according to the Japanese theme song. She was being presented with information or experiences that made her waiver, but she still decided to follow through with the war and in doing so lost control of herself. She became a slave to her own beliefs, losing herself to them. Even in Flower she ultimately continues to serve them. But even then, those beliefs ultimately came from those who wanted to use her and Edelgard seemingly had knowledge of this. In the end, Edelgard's unwillingness to reconsider her beliefs, to discard what she views as knowledge in the face of evidence, is why she ends up a villain. Even if she dies as herself in SS/VW, so long as Dedue lives her corpse will be dismembered in retribution for the suffering she has caused. At the end of the day, while Edelgard was a villain she was also another victim of the Agarthans and the game seems to be placing the actual blame for the war at their feet. If it wasn't for them and their influence, Edelgard would have been a completely different person, they're the one's responsible for her even if Edelgard's own weakness prevented her from changing the path they put her on.

Edelgard failed herself.

[thatstormygeek]

When we discuss state power and these things, we need to hold onto multiple ideas at once. Yes, we are discussing actions like Israel’s aggression in Gaza. Yes, we will discuss the United States, the global American Empire, and its allies and conspirators. It’s impossible to chart the history of these concepts and their consequences without relying on these specifics. But as we do so, we must also grasp that nation states are also representations of a larger process at play. The United States, for instance, has been the main front for global capitalism since it took over the responsibility from Great Britain following World War II. That union of capitalism and the nation state means that notions of “conventional politics,” or the belief that we are simply watching two parties “hash out their differences,” obfuscates what is often happening below the surface. Developments often feel bewildering because we’re part of a process that is intentionally mystified, leaving us wondering why principles and promises are so often jettisoned. Here this: the intertwining of capitalism and nation states means that our politics, our culture, and our institutions have been co-opted to carry out actions that are counter to the national interest, or at least the interest of us, the citizens, in favor of achieving goals that are beneficial to the interests of capital. An example: our military and intelligence agencies tirelessly cooperate with capitalist interests in arranging outcomes on the latter’s behalf, oftentimes hurting the nation state and its citizens while setting the table for the wealthy and powerful to become more wealthy and more powerful. In this way, a momentum has built that ensures, regardless of what happens politically, the process will continue. That process is aided by politics, aided by culture, and certainly aided by technology, including computing and now A.I.

Barack Obama, who promised Change in his transformative campaign, found himself, when in power, subject to forces he felt beyond his control. In that presidency, which was won in part with a promise to wind down George W. Bush’s war, Obama oversaw a wild expansion, including the usage of drone strikes that grew by nearly ten times under his watch. The usage of drones, and the growing list of targets Obama habitually signed off on, represented that momentum we have been discussing. Drones replaced troops, creating an operation we could actively ignore as Americans as long as our sons and daughters were kept out of harm’s way, laying a framework for a hegemonic oppression we would experience, if we experienced it at all, from a grand distance. The list and resulting killings was eventually reduced to bloody maintenance. Bruce Riedel, an analyst for the CIA and a counter-terrorism adviser to Obama, likened the operations to lawn maintenance, telling The Washington Post, “You’ve got to mow the lawn all the time. The minute you stop mowing, the grass is going to grow back.” Our War On Terror coincided with the final collapse of our social safety net. Hurricane Katrina and the Financial Collapse made it obvious that our government had no interest in meeting the needs of the people and had been reprogrammed to solely serve the needs of the wealthy. In the past this co-option had been hidden, marginally at least, behind economic growth and supposed progress, but the truth of neoliberalism was coming to bear. That which had been done to nations around the world in the name of American control had been done on behalf of neoliberal capitalism masquerading as the U.S. We had been promised never-ending progress, luxuries, and dominance. But, as it always does, the oppression boomeranged around and met its originator. It became obvious that American Empire had always been a front for something else.

Turning this ship around and getting past this crisis depends on a massive sea-change of philosophy, governance, and culture. Reining in Tech, taxing its benefactors, and reasserting government oversight of industry and decision-making processes is absolutely vital. The momentum has kept that from happening and brought us here. A.I. is simply a vehicle is accelerating to the next stage in this ugly evolution. As configured, there is no way that the state or any states will choose not to harness these technologies to these ends. It is too tempting. Too built into the system as it presently works. The nation state, even as it recognizes the co-option by neoliberal capitalism, has no choice but to trudge forward. It’s like an insect or an animal consumed by a parasitic disease. Still walking. Still trampling. Still serving. And the time is now also because, as previously mentioned, these things will be leveraged against us and against dissent. When that happens, the words “terrorist” and “insurgent” will be more than enough cover for whatever an algorithm needs to protect itself and the process it serves. Because opposing the momentum of the zombie state pits you directly on the other side of the gun. Of the drone. Of the robot dog.

[fatehbaz]

[T]he contemporary Western city [...] [is] the site of [...] regulatory regimes concerned with strategies of surveillance and aesthetic monitoring [...]. The modern city can never become a wholly Appollonian, seamlessly regulated realm for it continues to be haunted by the neglected, the disposed of, and the repressed [...]. Within the interstices of the city there are a host of other spaces, part of a “wild zone”, a “[…] site […] which avoids the objective processes of ordered territorialisation […]”. [T]he ‘spaces between buildings’, the unadorned backsides of the city, the alleys, [...] and other microspaces, along with wastelands [...]. Staged […] through the intensified mediatisation and commodification of popular sites, myths, and icons […], mediated imaginary geographies circulate through adverts, soap operas, ‘classic’ rock stations [...] typically drenched in […] ideologies. […] These exhibitions memorialise culture via ‘publicly sanctioned narratives’ and institutionalised rhetoric [...]. [I]n which people are encoded and contextualied, categorised and narrated. Accordingly, ruins are places from which other memories can be articulated, from which “the things and the people who are primarily unseen and banished to the periphery of our social graciousness” [...] may be encountered. [...] Along with other places on the margins of regulated space, industrial ruins are “points of transition, passages [...], moments of magic that exist at the interstices of modernity” […]. Modern attempts to cleanse, banish ambiguity, and order the memory of space are always disturbed [...] by the ghosts they contain, who refuse to rest quietly, [...] a “spectral [...] residue“ which haunts dominant ways of seeing and being [...]. In contradistinction to the fixed memories [...] and to the imaginary linearities proposed by hegemonic […] memories, these ghosts foreground ambiguity, polysemy, and multiplicity, enabling us to “disrupt the signifying chains of legitimacy [...].” Although it is often overcoded and regulated, the city nevertheless contains multitudinous scraps from which alternative stories might be assembled. […] In spaces such as industrial ruins, the excessive debris confronted constitutes material for multiple modes of narration about the past: “the debris of shipwrecked histories still today raise up the ruins of an unknown, strange city. They burst forth within the modernist, massive, homogenous city like slips of the tongue from an unknown, perhaps unconscious, language” (de Certeau and Giard, 1998) [...]. This kind of remembering implies an ethics about confronting and understanding otherness (here, the alterity of the past) which is tactile, imaginative […].

Text by: Tim Edensor. “The ghosts of industrial ruins: ordering and disordering memory in excessive space.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space volume 23. 2005.

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[W]hat has to be forgotten to make things [legible to hegemonic systems] [...], the survivals of other ways of thinking that creep in as ‘lapses in the syntax created by the law [...]’ where ‘they symbolize a return of the repressed [...].’ Their irreducible ‘thingness’ renders them resistant to representation. [...] [L]ook at the authority mechanisms through which speech is credentialised [...]. The propre creates objects through transforming the uncertainties of history into readable spaces [...]. These are the ruins of non-hegemonic systems [...]. Instead he seeks a mode of knowledge through travel to open space to difference [...]. Stories are not about movement, but make movements, not objects but effects, they transform [...]. [R]eading, narrating and speaking. Where ‘pedestrian utterances’ [engaging, commuting, interacting with the landscape] speak the city [...]. [S]pace is practised place. [...] The gaze of power transfixes objects but also thus becomes blind to a vast array of things that do not fit its categories. [...] Control of space is a matter of strategy which is orientated through the construction of proper knowledge. In contrast, there are tactics -- the arts of making do, like reading, or cooking --  which use what is there in multiple permutations. This practical knowledge of the city [or other types of places] transforms and crosses spaces, creates new links [...], comprising mobile geography of looks and glances. A crucial well spring is memory. [...] The alterity is that these memories contain not just events, but still carry the remains of different conceptual systems from whence they came. These then are the ghosts in the machine. Walking [traveling, moving, exploring] is to create [...] haunted geographies.

Text by: Mike Crang. “Relics, places and unwritten geographies in the work of Michel de Certeau (1925-86).” In: Thinking Space. 2000.