#arms sale

[faultfalha]

The aircraft silently flew high in the night sky, a mysterious presence crossing the horizon, never before seen in this region. Letters of fire carved the darkness, stretching beyond the stars, travelling further than any thought possible. How did this come to be? China had made a move, this much was clear, but the why had yet to be answered. An arms sale, the US had declared, and now Taiwan awaited, heads bowed with questions they could not answer.

[demento-mori]

my one singular regret with isat is that i didnt get into the game earlier, whilst the siffrin plushies were still being sold,,,,

[crunchchute]

tumblr is being nice so here you can have a look at my cosplay wips :]

[captain-casual]

Better late than never. Let’s hope CERTAIN OTHER COUNTRIES follow suit.

[nando161mando]

British MP Zarah Sultana: “I call on Keir Starmer to suspend arms sales to Israel and end Britain’s complicity in the killing.”

[intotheelliwoods]

Seeming as I dont think that poll is swaying anytime soon- keychains have been ordered! And if you can afford the shipping, I can ship outside the USA! :)

[dreamings-free]

It's not just the Black Keys. Why are so many big tours selling poorly? Stereogum | June 11, 2024 | by Zach Schonfeld

long (and US focused) but still quite interesting article on the current state of concert touring, why tours are getting cancelled or downsized, and what's up with ticket pricing. (my selected excerpts/highlights under the cut)

[excerpt, all highlights mine]

[Eric Renner Brown, a senior editor at Billboard] adds, “I do think [The Black Keys] are an artist that can fill those rooms still. I think the demand is there in terms of people who want to see Black Keys. But perhaps at that price point, the demand was not there.”

Ostensibly, agents and promoters should have access to data that can give them a better sense of demand. But they often place outsized importance on raw streaming numbers.

“The data is very confusing,” says the anonymous booking agent. “There’s a lot of passive listeners for data. You can have millions upon millions of streams, but that doesn’t mean it’s gonna turn into tickets. The opposite is, there are some artists who don’t have many streams at all and they can sell like 2,000, 3,000 tickets.”

[..]

It’s worth noting that the Black Keys have released four albums since returning from hiatus in 2019, and toured arenas as recently as 2022. This may be a case of oversaturating the market.

The band’s 2019 and 2022 arena runs weren’t exactly sold out. In between, the band left their longtime manager in 2021, signing with Irving Azoff and Steve Moir at Full Stop Management. Some sources speculate that Azoff, a former CEO of Ticketmaster, may have encouraged ambitious touring plans. On Thursday, Billboard reported that the group has now parted ways with Azoff and Moir. (The management company did not respond to a request for comment.)

“Essentially, you have some very big managers that are out of touch with the granular finesse and nuance of ticketing,” says another anonymous booking agent. “And they have these large expectations and they tell their agents what they want. And the agents are probably texting each other on the side, going, ‘This man is out of his fucking mind.’ But they do it anyway because, in the case of Black Keys, they’re not gonna challenge Irving Azoff.”

[..]

One contributing factor to instability in the touring industry is the rising cost of… well, everything. It’s part of why ticket prices are so high; it’s also part of the reason some acts are backing out of touring commitments.

Bands at all levels have been sounding the alarm about this for years. In 2022, for instance, Animal Collective canceled European tour dates and explained, “We simply could not make a budget for this tour that did not lose money even if everything went as well as it could.”

Industry insiders say that’s not uncommon. “Everything is ridiculously expensive,” says a tour manager who works with major acts and asked not to be named. “There’s not enough gear for everyone to share, so the vendors are having to pay high amounts for equipment. A single bus for a six-week tour can cost $100,000. Multiple that by multiple buses, and then trucks, and then crews are at a minimum, so they’re getting top rate right now because there’s not enough crews.”

COVID, of course, exacerbated this crunch. “What happened after the pandemic is, everyone was ready to tour at once,” the tour manager says. “There’s not enough gear to cover all of that. A lot of bands have had to cancel tours because they don’t have gear or they couldn’t afford the gear,” the tour manager continued. “I was on a tour with somebody last year where we had to book a private jet because there were no buses available. For the first week of the tour, we had to charter planes.”

Acts are thus incentivized to book bigger venues to recoup the costs of touring. The catch-22 is that bigger venues necessitate more elaborate stage production, which makes for a more expensive tour.

“There’s the expectation to have that production,” says the tour manager. “If people went back to having just two trusses of lights and a P.A. and no frills, it was just about the music, they can afford to tour. But everyone wants to see those flashing lights. Everyone wants to see that video.”

“So much of the economics of these big tours is completely invisible to fans and consumers,” says Kevin Erickson, director of Future of Music Coalition, a nonprofit advocacy group. “You can sell out a tour and come back in the red if there was a cost overrun or a miscalculation.”

For mid-level acts with sizable followings, these frustrations are compounded by a lack of suitable mid-sized venues.

“For a band that maybe has assessed its demand in the market to be in the 8K range or something for capacity, where are they going to go if that sort of venue doesn’t exist?” says Brown. “And if, say, the local theater that seats 3K or 4K can’t accommodate two or three nights, it can only put them for one night on the tour routing. That’s a real concern.”

[..]

At the end of the day, it all comes back to price. The average ticket price for one of the top 100 tours rose from $91.86 to $122.84 between 2019 and 2023. Concerts are too damn expensive, and there’s a growing sense of consumer frustration with shows that cost as much as airline tickets.

-> read the full article here on Stereogum.com

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

By Lev Koufax

On Aug. 9, the Biden administration made official its decision to lift its ban on the sale of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia. 

Specifically, the U.S. State Department announced: “The department is lifting its suspension on certain transfers of air to ground munitions to Saudi Arabia. This suspension was imposed in early 2021 following the administration’s announcement that it was ending support for offensive operations in the conflict in Yemen, including relevant U.S. arms transfers  . . . Saudi Arabia has also been a key partner in seeking a durable resolution to the conflict in Yemen.”

Pay attention to that last sentence. In that last sentence, one can find the real intent behind this new rash of U.S. arms sales to the Saudi monarchy. The change in a three-year policy comes down to one word: Yemen. 

[bahoreal]

if yall dont know whats happening in British politics right now, the guy who is like 90% likely to become the next pm, who is the leader of the (previously) more left wing party labour has been systematically removing all the left-wing MPs (members of parliament) who are likely to get re-elected and telling them they cannot stand as a labour MP at the election in july. he has been replacing them with people who are more right wing, for example one of them has a day job as a ceo of a privatised healthcare company, and another is literally an israel lobbyist. labour is becoming a right wing, racist, and blatantly pro-israel party. if labour gets in, it will no longer be "ohhh we totally cant take a stand on israel :///" they are likely to become explicitly pro-israel. they have abandoned all their left wing policies. they will be the tories 2.0, but worse in many areas. it feels like this country is copying americas lead with one more """left wing""" party whos campaign line seems to be "we're not as bad as the other guys!" whos policies suck ass as they can freely become more right wing and not what the public wants because "there's no better option". it SUCKS. and its NOT TRUE.

if you're in the uk, please look at your constituency and try to vote green, or independent, or whoever isnt labour or tory. party politics are failing us, we are NOT a two party country, we can do better than labour.

[workersolidarity]

🇩🇪 🚨

GERMAN POLICE CONTINUE BIDDING OF THE ZIONIST ENTITY

📹 Scenes from Berlin, in the German capital, where Pro-Palestine protesters are assaulted and dragged by the German Police, who do the bidding of the Zionist entity.

The German government has consistently supported the Israeli entity's ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip, being the second largest provider of arms for the Israeli occupation army.

#source

#videosource

@WorkerSolidarityNews

[faultfalha]

China sends aircraft toward Taiwan days after US approves $500 mn arms sale. The decision by the United States to sell Taiwan $500 million in arms has drawn a swift response from Beijing. Military aircraft were seen flying over the Taiwan Strait on Monday, in what analysts say is a warning to Taipei.

[sockdreams]

got a sweet tooth? how about sweet feet?

Today thru Sunday (05/05) we're putting all of our Dessert Stripes on sale with code SWEETTREATS, good for 20% off these sweater knit thigh highs and warmers.

All of these styles are made in the USA on the same antique machine that knits our Long Cuffable Scrunchable Thigh Highs, and while these aren't as long as those, they've got the same thick, sweatery knit!

[larsnicklas]

𝗨𝗦𝗔 𝗛𝗢𝗖𝗞𝗘𝗬 𝗜𝗦 𝗗𝗢 𝗢𝗥 𝗗𝗜𝗘

[allthegeopolitics]

The largest civil rights organisation in the United States has issued a call for President Joe Biden's administration to suspend arms transfers to Israel over its conduct in the war on Gaza, a surprise move from the group that adds increased pressure for the US president as he tries to fortify his support among Black voters. The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) made the announcement on Thursday with a statement from its president, Derrick Johnson.

Continue Reading

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Adam Kredo

Less than a day before the Biden administration announced its intent to cut off U.S. arms sales to Israel, it issued a sanctions waiver to bypass congressional prohibitions on arms sales to a host of Arab nations that boycott the Jewish state, including Hamas ally Qatar and Iran-controlled Lebanon, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.FreeBeacon

On Tuesday—just a day before President Joe Biden threatened to withhold key weapons deliveries from Israel if the country moves forward with an incursion in the Gaza Strip's Rafah neighborhood—the State Department informed Congress that it intends to bypass laws that bar the United States from selling weapons to nations that boycott Israel, according to a copy of the notification obtained by the Free Beacon.

The Biden administration, which has waived these sanctions in the past, said in the notification that it intends to extend the waiver through April 30, 2025, allowing weapons to be sent to a host of nations that work closely with the Hamas terror group and other Iran-backed terror proxies.

While the administration determined that these countries engage in Israel boycotts, a condition that triggers American anti-boycott laws, bypassing these restrictions remains "in the U.S. national interest" to maintain regional stability, according to the waiver. But this justification is drawing scrutiny on Capitol Hill as the Biden administration threatens key arms shipments to Israel in a bid to force it into abandoning its campaign to eradicate Hamas.

"The Biden administration's policy toward Israel and around the world is to punish our allies and boost our enemies," Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told the Free Beacon after reviewing the sanctions waiver. "They have sanctioned Israel and imposed an arms embargo. Meanwhile they've spent hundreds of millions pouring aid into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, dismantled sanctions on Iran, and now are suspending congressional restrictions to send weapons to Israel's enemies such as Qatar and Lebanon."

A State Department spokesman told the Free Beacon that the department "remains committed to Israel's security and defense." While current law "prohibits leases and sales of defense articles to certain countries that maintain a boycott of Israel," the president reserves the right to waive these restrictions if it is "in the national security interest," the spokesman said.

"The United States has routinely exercised that waiver for years to permit continued security cooperation between the United States and regional partners and to enable U.S. officials to continue to work closely with those partners to eliminate further instances of boycott requests," the spokesman said.

In the section related to Lebanon, where the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group continues to attack Israel, the Biden administration admits the nation remains committed to a full-scale boycott of Israel.

[nando161mando]

British MP Ellie Chowns urges Foreign Secretary David Lammy to halt all arms sales to the Israeli occupation.