#as any latin american leftist would

[fipindustries]

another "fun" conversation i had with my roomate:

her: i was reading this really interesting idea about the line between experience and improvisation, how, yeah there are a bunch of techniques and rules you learn to become an expert at something but once you build enough experience on something you can start going off on intuition

me: right, for example?

her: like doctors, right? you may go to the doctor and say "i have a pain in my knee and when i turn my head it hurts and i have this rash" and then the doctor might say...

me: ... you need to loose weight

her: sure, like that

me: no, i was making a joke about how, no matter what symptoms you have, doctors will always insist you have to loose weight

her: ah really? is that a thing that happens?

me: well, is something i hear people on tumblr complain a lot about

her: well yeah, theyre yankis, maybe that has something to do with that

me: OH WOW

her: oh, come on, maybe if they could keep their obessity epidemic under control then doctors wouldnt be insisting on losing weight all the time, you know what is the first prescriptions doctor are infamous for always suggesting no matter what here in argentina?

me: what?

her: to take paracetamol

[qqueenofhades]

Man, the Russia/Ukraine war has led to a lot of terrible takes from far leftists. I have a mutual from Brazil, a self identified socialist, who is convinced that Ukraine is full of nazis. While they don't support Russia, they questioned why they have to be "pro-Ukraine" or "pro-Russia". They call Ukraine a "nazi hole" but call Russia merely "fascist". Am I wrong in thinking that they've been influenced by Russian propaganda? I know Ukraine does have a nazi/far right problem, but so does the US? And most European countries? idk they strongly hate the US/US government too, and it seems to create some kind of brainrot. at least they don't blindly support China or Russia like tankies do (nor identify with them), but it's still frustrating to take a neutral position on a pretty black and white situation.

I don't want to confront them 1) cause I'm not the type to argue over serious things like this and this may break our long friendship and 2) I'm not super educated on the nazi situation in Ukraine.

Anyway thank you for letting me rant in your inbox.

Yes, Russia has specifically focused its propaganda efforts on Latin America, Africa, and other regions that HAVE suffered from Western/European/American imperialism and are thus predisposed to take the worst view of them/believe that this situation is their fault somehow. This is similar to what the USSR did in newly postcolonial Africa in the 1960s and 1970s, positing themselves as offering the shared hand of communist brotherhood from Western oppressors. Because of more recent events like the invasion of Iraq, which was fully as unjustified as the invasion of Ukraine, Russian propagandists and their eager tankie/leftist foot soldiers have also got a lot of mileage out of "whataboutism." This is likewise an old Soviet propaganda technique designed to deflect any criticism of the actual situation by disingenuously asking "what about this other one!!!"

Likewise, the idea that Ukraine has a "Nazi problem" is itself propaganda. In the last election, far-right/Nazi-identified parties won barely 2% of the vote and AFAIK, no seats at all in the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament). This is far lower than the nearly half of the USA voting for the far-right/Nazi-sympathetic Republican Party, and as noted, the far right elements in the UK and Europe. The idea that Ukraine is "full of Nazis" (with a Jewish president who just celebrated iftar with the Ukrainian Muslims/Crimean Tatars during Ramadan and instituted observance of Muslim holidays nationwide, very Nazi of him) is a line used by Russian propagandists to "justify" their attack and appeal to national memories of the Great Patriotic War (World War II) and the struggle against the Nazis, which is the central cultural grievance/memory in modern Russia. The Putin regime has referred to anyone they don't like, but especially the Ukrainians, as "Nazis" for a long time now, so it's supposedly their holy duty to kill them/commit ethnic cleansing/forcibly reunite the "fraternal" people of "Little Russia," as Ukraine has been called since the 17th century, with "Great Russia." And yeah, no.

Because the West and Europe has been pretty solidly on Ukraine's side, Russia has therefore cultivated countries like China, India, Brazil, etc, who have all suffered from Western interference and are looking to move into the first rank of global superpowers. This is, as noted, similar to the competing systems of influence built during the Cold War, but it also relies on much deeper Russian grievances that go back to the medieval era. Anybody who knows a thing about actual Russian history would therefore know that every single word it says about the Ukraine situation is a lie, but because that lie is useful for many other countries and fits into their own understanding of themselves, it is easy to repeat and act like it's a so-called superior moral position. This is also why US/American tankies so eagerly lap up Russian propaganda, because it plays into their moral sense of themselves as far better than the rest of the West and "righteously" discovering that the West is responsible for all the evil in the world etc etc. While non-Westerners are just helpless misunderstood puppets with no real agency or ability to make complex choices. This totally makes sense!!!

[xicanaroja]

Absolutely baffles me that the libs out here are whining, crying, and shaming anyone who doesn't want to vote for EITHER genocidal freak. Their justification seems to be either "harm reduction" or "loyalty to the real America". I get it, many of you will be voting for the blue genocide because some of her policies will protect you and your interests, and yall take any opposition to your chosen corrupt political party as a personal attack on yourself and people like you. You're allowed to think and feel that way, but understand this: I, and a lot of other leftists and anti-genocide folks, are doing the same thing. My life is a small price to pay for the safety and lives of the collective majority. I would rather die at the hands of the fascist state, then vote for someone who may even make my life more comfortable, at the price of millions of deaths in the Global South. My loyalty is to MY people, to other Latin, brown, and indigenous peoples, then to the countries and peoples who are being brutalized by the West's imperialism (including within the imperial core, i.e. black Americans and any and all immigrants to the US regardless of origin), and primarily to my community, many if not most of which are immigrants. I will not be voting for someone who will make immigration harder and more deadly, I will not be voting for someone who will continue to support, aid in, and fund genocides in Palestine, Sudan, Congo, Syria, and other places around the world, and I will not vote for someone who supports the continued inflation of the US millitary industrial complex.

My family has been in the US since the 50s; my abuelos were undocumented pickers being paid CENTS on the bushel, and they had to bring my dad and his siblings to pick with them before school because they needed to make enough money to feed their kids, and more hands meant more bushels meant more food. My dad was an unpaid child laborer, a slave to US consumption if you would. My dad grew up during segregation, and as a Mexican in South Texas, was subject to the same segregation laws that affected black and indigenous people as well. I may have been born an American with all the privileges and comforts that brings, but before they were Americans, my family were indigenous, Mexican, immigrants, pickers, unpaid laborers, brown. I can trace lines of my family back to Otomí and Chichimec people, and from them, to time immemorial on this continent. Why the hell would I throw all that away to protect the interest and desires of the descendants of the people who colonized, segregated, enslaved, exploited, and deported members of my family? Fuck you and fuck that.

[beardedmrbean]

A top American diplomat who used to be the US ambassador to Bolivia has been arrested for allegedly secretly working as a Cuban spy.

Manuel Rocha, 73, was taken into custody in Miami on Friday in what marked the culmination of a long-running FBI counterintelligence investigation, according to the Associated Press.

Two sources told the agency that Mr Rocha is accused of secretly working to promote the Cuban government’s interests.

Investigators allege that this is a violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act – a law which requires any individual lobbying and doing the political bidding of a foreign government on US soil to register with the Justice Department.

Further details about the 73-year-old’s alleged work as a Cuban government agent are expected to be revealed on Monday when he appears in federal court.

Neither the DOJ or Mr Rocha has yet publicly commented on his arrest.

Mr Rocha’s wife Karla Wittkop Rocha refused to comment and hung up the phone when reached for comment by the AP.

The bombshell arrest comes after Mr Rocha has spent 25 years working as a top US diplomat in several Latin American countries.

His diplomatic postings included a stint at the US Interests Section in Cuba during a time when the US lacked full diplomatic relations with Fidel Castro’s communist government.

Born in Colombia, Mr Rocha was raised in a working-class home in New York City and went on to obtain a succession of liberal arts degrees from Yale, Harvard and Georgetown before joining the foreign service in 1981.

He was the top US diplomat in Argentina between 1997 and 2000 as a decade-long currency stabilisation program backed by Washington was unraveling under the weight of huge foreign debt and stagnant growth, triggering a political crisis that would see the South American country cycle through five presidents in two weeks.

At his next post as ambassador to Bolivia, he intervened directly into the 2002 presidential race, warning weeks ahead of the vote that the US would cut off assistance to the poor South American country if it were to elect former coca grower Evo Morales.

“I want to remind the Bolivian electorate that if they vote for those who want Bolivia to return to exporting cocaine, that will seriously jeopardise any future aid to Bolivia from the United States,” Mr Rocha said in a speech that was widely interpreted as a an attempt to sustain US dominance in the region.

The gambit worked but three years later Bolivians elected Morales anyway and the leftist leader would expel Rocha’s successor as chief of the diplomatic mission for inciting “civil war”.

Mr Rocha also served in Italy, Honduras, Mexico and the Dominican Republic, and worked as a Latin America expert for the National Security Council.

Following his retirement from the State Department, Mr Rocha began a second career in business, serving as the president of a gold mine in the Dominican Republic partly owned by Canada’s Barrick Gold.

More recently, he’s held senior roles at XCoal, a Pennsylvania-based coal exporter; Clover Leaf Capital, a company formed to facilitate mergers in the cannabis industry; law firm Foley & Lardner and Spanish public relations firm Llorente & Cuenca.

[torgophylum]

FAR CRY 6: IT IS USELESS TO RESIST

This essay contains spoilers for Far Cry 6 For all of its bombastic flair, confident swagger, and funhouse style mad-cappery, Far Cry 6 is an anxious game. It is a game which highlights the problems inherent to trying to say something in a mass media format intended to appeal to all audiences. But, when it does decide that it is time to say something real, Far Cry 6 cannot decide what side it is on except for a deeply cynical core belief: Revolutions will never end, because revolutions are pointless. No one who seeks power can be trusted, and those who would depose someone in power are similarly suspect. The only thing which can be trusted in Far Cry 6 is violence, and violence will never let you down. 

At times both leftist and wildly conservative, Far Cry avoids coming to direct, didactic conclusions about the future of its fictional Latin American island nation, Yara, preferring instead to sit in its profound anxiety regarding the nature of revolution and revolutionary figures. Far Cry 6 offers often contradictory messaging and a bleak, nearly hopeless vision of the future of revolution. This collection of conflicting ideas is most apparent in the game’s cast of characters, many of whom primarily express a desire to fight above all other causes. 

Dani Rojas:

The game’s protagonist does much to focus the games themes primarily around what it means to be a revolutionary figure. Far Cry 6 is a bombastic, tonally diverse, game full of chaotic energy and hardline idealogues. It often comes as a surprise therefore, that its main character Dani Rojas, flits about her allegiances and beliefs throughout the narrative, resolving her (the game allows you to play a male or female version of the character, but I played through as female) story with little more than a shrug regarding what they thinks should happen next, and a commitment only to continuing to inflict guerrilla style violence regardless of who is in charge. Dani begins her narrative as a typical reluctant hero. Though they are no stranger to violence, having served for a short time in the hyper-oppressive Yaran military, Dani dreams only of leaving the island as soon as they can with her friend to open a mechanic shop in the US. It is only after her friends are slaughtered in front of her by the nation’s brutal dictator, Anton Castillo, that Dani begins to consider a life as the muscle behind the revolutionary Clara Garcia and her ragtag resistance, Libertad.

Dani is a different style of character than the franchise’s previous entry, Far Cry 5, in which the player embodies a nameless deputy with no discernable personality beyond what the player imbues themselves. Dani, by contrast is given miles of script, painting a picture of an often standoffish, serious, foul mouthed, and mistrustful individual who becomes a loving, compassionate, and devoted friend when the ice has been broken through. Critically, Dani never offers any beliefs beyond what is immediately in front of her. Dani does not believe in Libertad’s political goals, hell, they are barely even aware of those goals might be. But Dani does believe in Clara Garcia, and in her journey, believes in the strength of several other characters they recruit to the cause. 

Dani’s allegiance to Clara also hinges on Clara’s own ambivalence about revolution. Clara has many ideas about how things should be run - her propaganda regarding her plans and her grievances with Anton are surprisingly detailed and can be gathered in pamphlets throughout Yara, the game’s form of environmental storytelling. However, Clara tells Dani that she believes she will likely die before the fight is over, that she will never see the future that she is hoping to create. Dani is swayed ultimately by this promise, “fight for me because I do not want power, because I am honest about not knowing what happens after.” 

There are some ways in which Dani is still ultimately a product of how the player would like to embody her. In what is considered a joke ending by many, at any time beyond the game’s introductory tutorial Island, Dani is free to leave Yara by hopping in any boat or plane and flying beyond the country’s borders. Doing so will trigger a scene in which Dani is enjoying a cocktail on the beach in Florida, while listening to a news report about the death of Clara Garcia and the end of Libertad. In the open world genre, which emphasizes choice, it is interesting that this game includes the choice to leave the conflict as an explicit win condition for Dani. But it also, potentially reflects Dani’s ongoing ambivalence. Dani’s commitment to Libertad is only as strong as the players. 

The gameplay is familiar to the Far Cry franchise. Armed with that belief and an assortment of comically violent animals, and an absurdly large arsenal of mega weapons known as Supremos provided by Dani’s mentor and foil, Juan Cortez, Dani begins her rampage across Yara. Framed as recruitment efforts of Yara’s most influential potential rebels to join the cause of Libertad, Dani is enlisted to kill hundreds, possibly thousands of Yaran soldiers, clearing checkpoints and capturing military bases. These actions, in conjunction with missions specific to each region, endear several important groups to join Libertad and march on Anton Castillo’s stronghold of Esperanza. They also usually result in the death of Anton’s most trusted generals, which Dani carries out specifically with the goal of revenge for atrocities inflicted on Yarans generally as well as her friends. These victories come at cost, however. By the end of the game, Libertad has won, but Clara Garcia is dead, and Dani’s extensive contributions to Libertad make herthe necessary leader. While Dani has been very successful at recruitment for Libertad, Dani has not actually picked up any significant convictions or beliefs about what should happen next, and abdicates power immediately after winning their revolution. “They will never hold free elections”, Juan Cortez remarks to Dani after they leave control of the country up to her revolutionary allies, a sentiment that Dani readily agrees with. 

Cortez himself is a deeply ambivalent character, who fully confesses that his only interest is in violence and fighting. Cortez warns Dani constantly that she will end up just like him eventually - a premonition that will indeed come to past although she protests. Cortez and Dani take on some of the dirty work needed for the revolution so their leader, Clara, can keep her hands clean. This includes working with the CIA to overthrow Castillo; a realistic but also shocking acceptance of imperialist help that not even Anton Castillo, the game’s protagonist, would have stooped to. In the end, Cortez only finds himself at odds with Dani over one issue, namely whether or not Anton’s son, Diego, should be kept alive. Even this is not enough to permanently come between them, however. 

Dani’s journey represents a strongly held ambivalence that there will ever be a meaningful end to violence. As the game’s resident poet remarks, “Revolution is over when we all are free.” Such an end will not come at the end of this game, and following its logic, should never have been expected. Dani believes in people, but not people in power - a wholly contradictory stance to take from one who takes power through such profound amounts of force. Dani is a defacto anarchist in many senses, but professes no allegiance to that as a philosophy. Dani has no ideas about what should happen next, and is annoyed with people who do. In the end, all Dani wants to do is keep fighting. 

Dani’s arc, the change she progresses through the story, is not to come to any sense of beliefs about the future, but rather to become an almost mythic legend of the Yaran people. Far Cry 6 is as much about the invention and concept of folk heroes as it is about revolution - Dani taking on the mantle of another mentor, El Tigre, a “Legend of 67’” that takes her under his wing. To emphasize this point, through a long but easily achievable quest that connects Dani directly to the indigenous peoples and religions of Yara, Dani is eventually blessed by the gods of Yara and given a panther guardian and the ability to shoot through walls. Compared with Far Cry 5’s Junior Deputy, Dani is essentially a demi-god of death by the game’s conclusion, her exploits wholly unbelievable except that you have lived through them. 

Dani allowing herself to take on and love the mantle of folk hero, revolutionary, guerilla, “the lucky one”, is the emotional journey they complete by the game’s end. But what does that have to do with Yara? Does it even matter, ultimately, what they fight for? 

Of course, Far Cry’s themes are often not present in the protagonist, but in the antagonists, who after all, tend to take up the majority of space on the cover art. So, let us examine Anton. 

Anton Castillo

Anton, played by the excellent Giancarlo Esposito, who was featured heavily in the advertising for the game, is the president of Yara and the son of its previous dictator who was killed by revolutionaries in 1967. That revolution resulted in a short lived democracy. Anton won his election by all accounts honestly, through his wealthy connections of interests, and through his close involvement in the discovery of “Viviro”, a cancer killing chemical that grows naturally in Yaran tobacco leaves, and can be enhanced greatly by the use of a chemical fertilizer that is deeply, immediately poisonous to everyone who handles it. Both Clara Garcia and Dani Rojas say they voted for him, and another revolutionary group, La Moral, is lead by someone who used to work directly with Anton to develop his technological dominance over communications throughout Yara.

After cementing his power, Anton quickly upscaled production of Viviro, which required hard and dangerous labor that would quickly kill anyone who performed it. This required the use of forced labor, which Anton employed extensively throughout Yara. Anton justifies this action by a familiar tactic of strongmen autocrats: he divides his population into true Yarans, who support him and look forward to a modern Yara with power on the world stage, and fake Yarans who seek only animalistic depravity and destruction. Anyone who Anton decides to use as forced labor is of course, retroactively a Fake Yaran who needs to be punished. 

As mentioned previously, one of the longest quests in the game is also one which seems designed to rebuke Anton’s “true yaran” claim by accepting it; becoming an even truer Yaran. Through the exploration of various caves, Dani helps return three artifacts related to the local gods of native Yaran’s - by doing so Dani unlocks two weapons to their arsenal which transform the games challenges into a breezy jaunt. The gods first bless Dani with a Supremo (super weapons normally made by Juan Cortez), that allows her to shoot through walls with a one shot killing sniper rifle for around 20 seconds a pop, more than enough time to clear an entire army base. Secondly, the gods provide Dani with a phantom panther, a powerful cat that will often clear the base for you before you even get going. By showing deep respect to the cultures and customs of the land, Dani becomes essentially a folk hero demigod; the truest Yaran there could be. 

While this is an obvious tactic to divide his populace, reinforcing his power, Anton soes in fact divide the world into two types of people. Anton considers himself and his lineage to have a pre-ordained right to rule; in one of his longest speeches to his son, Diego, Anton reveals that he believes his family to be “lions” among the “sheep” of Yara. It is this binary by which Anton is easily able to justify his decisions to enact modern slavery and widespread death on his island in the name of progress. Anton views the people of Yara as he does Viviro - resources to build the future. 

Further informing Anton’s actions is his deep resentment of colonialism - a concept that the game in particular is very concerned with. The first shot of the intro sequence is of a menacing crocodile eyeing the arrival of spanish conquistadors, deftly introducing the games major concept that Yara is a place of endless, centuries long conflict between oppressors and the oppressed. As in Far Cry 5, what we are presented with is a funhouse mirror version of  reality. There, it was a distortion of the populism of Trump, the growth of the evangelical right, and the opioid Epidemic, a stew resulting in a dangerous and mystical cult. Here, the funhouse mirror is turned on Latin American revolutionaries and dictators in Cuba and Venezuela. 

 

Anton, like all Yarans, seeks to end this conflict permanently on the side of the oppressor; creating a state of such wealth and prosperity that not even invaders and imperialists will ever threaten it again, let alone revolutionaries from within. In particular, Anton makes it a point to not provide Viviro to Americans, and taunts journalists who question this move by pointing out the inherent hypocrisy of Americans who question his use of slaves. America built its wealth and prosperity on the blood of slaves and conflict, and continues to do so throughout the world; to Anton, this is simply how prosperity is accomplished. Why should Yara be held to higher moral standards? The lions would agree, it is the only the sheep who would have a real problem with this, and who cares about the sheep? 

One might notice a distinct similarity between Dani and Anton from this description; neither has any real political beliefs or convictions beyond the belief that through violence is the path forward. Like Dani, Anton Castillo is a contradictory figure. Deeply egotistical and self interested, and at the same time, deeply and seemingly selflessly concerned with the fate of Yara as a prosperous, independent nation. He is a student of history and intensely interested in revolution, but convinced that he will never be overthrown after committing countless atrocities throughout the nation. Often, Anton’s characterization seems overstuffed; a mish mash of every popular conception and angle on Fidel Castro. Anton does not represent what such people are really like or what their goals might be; rather, he is the amalgamation of every American idea of what such a person is like, informed by America’s own insecurities about themselves and who they are. Why does Anton seek power? Because he believes it is who he *is*. There is no reason beyond that which seems very interesting to him. 

One of the tragic failures of Far Cry 6 is that the imperialist phone call is coming from inside the house; this is not a story about Latin America. Ultimately this is an expression of US anxieties about itself, transposed on a fictional island where the characters all speak spanish for flavor, and english to be understood. 

Diego Castillo

Diego is the son of Anton, first introduced in the game’s introduction as the direct cause of the very slaughter which inspired Dani to join Libertad. With the help of a servant, Diego begins the game attempting to flee Yara. It is not revealed exactly what spurred his escape, but through his reactions to his father’s various atrocities, it is clear that he feels a moral disgust with the happenings in Yara under his father’s rule, and a basic unwillingness to continue his father’s work. 

There is some ambiguity to this however. Through various cut scenes, we see Anton begin to have more influence over his son’s worldview, coaxing him to become more comfortable with murder and applying a sense of entitlement to his position. How much of this success is a true transformation of Diego, and how much of this is a survival tactic is left deliberately uncertain. What is clear by the end of the game, however, is that Anton considers Diego’s life to only be worthy if Diego can be formed in Anton. This is a fact that Diego is distinctly aware of. 

Diego’s mother is a white woman who is the media face of Anton’s propaganda arm. While their relationship continues behind the scenes, the public only has rumors to substantiate Diego’s parenthood. Why Anton chooses to lie about Diego’s mother is not spelled out, but it would expose some hypocrisy to Anton’s supposed righteous anger towards the white imperialist world. When she is killed on live television (The result of Dani’s handiwork), Anton and Diego grieve in solemn and angry silence. 

Dani remains an influence on Diego as well. During a failed assassination attempt on Anton, Dani stumbles across Diego, whom she unthinkingly spares; he in turn helps her escape capture by directing her towards Anton’s garage. A bond is immediately formed between the pair - one which is challenged by all of Dani’s compatriots, who urge her to kill Diego whenever she may next get the chance. This bond is further strengthened when Dani is captured and tortured, and is once again saved by Diego’s intervention. 

Dani’s attempts to protect Diego can most effectively be read as one in which she is keeping the last vestiges of her humanity. By not seeing a “Castillo” in the place of a confused child attempting to survive a dark world, Dani’s soul remains committed to the idea of a better future, though she is unclear about what that might look like. This is contrasted, it must be reiterated, against Dani’s otherwise extremely judicious use of violence throughout the rest of the game. 

And so it is set up for the perfect catharsis: Two opposing forces, both committed to the use of extreme and unrepentant violence to achieve their ends, attempting to win the heart of a powerful young boy who detests violence and only seeks escape. Who Diego eventually sides with will ultimately decide who will take on the future of Yara. 

Except, that’s not what happens. In the last moments before his death, Anton senses that Dani will never be able to protect Diego from her bloodthirsty compatriots, and kills him himself. Diego refers to Dani as “the lucky one”, and passes away in her arms, echoing the last words of her friend, who also died by Anton’s hand. Dani’s extreme efforts to save Diego’s life despite the total indifference of everyone she is fighting with, suggests that it is his death which radicalizes her to believe that fighting and revolution, as well as her part in it as a guerilla, will never end.

Further details also point to the pointlessness of the Libertad revolution; In a late game revelation, it is revealed that Anton was likely one of the first patients to be treated with Viviro, to treat his leukemia. The treatment, however, has ceased to work, creating a few implications about what might have happened in Yara had Dani and Libertad not intervened at all. Viviro eventually would have been revealed as not the miraculous cure it was purported to be, drastically changing Yara’s potential importance on the world stage as well as the value of Anton’s moral compromises. Anton would have died regardless, leaving Diego in charge. 

While it is left intentionally ambiguous as to what kind of leader Diego would have been as a 14 year old presidente, the glimpses we get were provided with suggesting a strong handed but compassionate dictator, with a great deal more internal conflict and moral consideration than his father had. But we will never know; a person like Diego was never going to survive long enough in this world to make it into a better one. 

Pointless Revolution: 

For a game that does not wish to take strong political and moral stances, Far Cry 6 occasionally takes for granted several rather conservative ideas. In a late section of the game, Dani encounters a mobster priest named Bebo, who puzzlingly tries to make a distinction between what Dani does and what he does, remarking to Dani, “you may have killed, but you are not a killer”, when he is threatened by her. 

One must laugh at the absurdity of this attempted distinction; it is likely that just on the drive over to this mission, the player as Dani has casually flicked a knife out of her window while driving into the brain of a soldier on the side of the road. Dani does not just kill at a distance or in unscripted “non-canon” ways - the first kill they make in this game is with a machete, straight through the gushing throat of a soldado. In the sense that Dani is willing and able to kill at a moment’s notice, never expresses remorse and the killing they are required to perform, often participates in drunken celebrations after significant killing, and ends the story with the commitment to continue killing far into the future, Dani is indeed a profoundly adept and uncompromising killer. 

So what is meant to be taken from this? In one sense, this is the instinct of the writer to keep a positive spin on the central protagonist, who is on the face, an affable enough person. For example, Dani is also very good with animals and has several animal sidekicks with varying levels of adorableness and ferocity, a classic signal of inherent goodness. A killer? Would a killer have a daschund in a wheelchair named Chorizo?

A Killer might own Chicharron however

The rights of people to commit acts based on “who they are inside” is the essence of conservative thinking. We see it portrayed, and indeed critiqued by the game’s perspective, in Anton, who justifies his right to kill on his status as a Lion among Sheep. Dani, likewise, is given free moral reign to kill thousands in the name of Clara Garcia because she is a Guerilla at worst, and “not a killer” at best. A true Yaran can do no wrong, a fake Yaran can only do wrong. A crime is not something which is against the law: A crime is something that a criminal does. Similarly, a war crime is something a war criminal does. Dani is not a war criminal, and therefore, slaughtering thousands of people is not a war crime. Bebo is of course, not to be taken at his word (he’s a criminal, dangit!!), and his observation is in direct opposition to the game’s central anxiety. What if there are no good people? What if there are no good systems? What if all revolutions are simply the oppressed trading places with the oppressors in an endless cycle? How does one be moral in such a scenario, except to be a victim of it? Once war and imperialism is brought to your shores, can it ever be fixed - or does the history simply live on, as indigenous to the land as the crocodile? Dani’s brand of anarchism is an expression of this exact hopelessness: My fight will never end. 

Log on with your friends for the next season of the FoREveR WaR

A bit of optimism. A bit. 

  The 2021 film “One Night in Miami” explores similar anxieties about revolution, in a much more powerful and thoughtful way than is achieved by Far Cry 6. Malcolm X, Mohammed Ali, Sam Cooke, and Jim Brown share a hotel on the night of Ali’s first heavyweight title victory. The night evolves quickly into impassioned arguments between Malcolm and Cooke about the right way to achieve justice and equality for Black people in America, either through militant revolution or through the systems already in place. 

  Furious with Malcolm after constant belittling, Cooke leaves the hotel room with Ali. Drinking in their car, Ali tries to explain the value of power to Sam. “Power just means a world where we’re safe to be ourselves. To look like we want. Think like we want. Without having to answer to anybody for it. After all we put in, don’t black folks deserve that much?” Here Ali explores a different version of power than one which is defined by compelling others; he speaks of power as a sense of security in one’s place in the world. 

This version of power is a starkly different version than the one which is explored throughout much of Far Cry 6. However, there is one character present which is of interest. Paolo de la Vega, a trans man who DJ’s for the musical duo “Maximas Matanzas” with his girlfriend, Talia, is the most reluctant member of Clara Garcia’s revolution. Like Dani, when we meet Paolo, he has a foot already off the island; he is working off a debt to Bebo for a safe trip out for he and his girlfriend. Unlike Dani, he is not so easily swayed by unclear visions of a brighter future.

After helping Paolo pay off his debts to Bebo, he is still unwilling to join Libertad - this is despite Talia’s insistence that they use their music (and their guns!) to bring down the Castillo’s which have tortured them both. Paolo’s resistance is based on a simple fact: He does not believe that Yara will ever be accepting to trans people, regardless of who is in charge. Paolo never comes around to fully trusting Libertad; it is only his devotion to Talia which keeps him involved through to the end. It is Talia’s belief that with the power of their music and through revolution that people like Talia and Paolo may have a future on Yara, and Paolo resigns himself to have faith in her. 

Ultimately, Paolo and Talia understand about power the same thing that Ali does in “One Night in Miami”. Power is about being allowed to be who you are. It is the closest Far Cry 6 will ever come to a real reason to fight, or optimism that things can change for the better. 

Some have written about Far Cry 6’s lack of a revolutionary purpose as a frustrating mistake, but I do not believe that this is the case. Far Cry is a series about revolutions, shifts of power driven by enigmatic, larger than life leaders who seek to radically rebel. Far Cry 5’s spin on this was counter-revolutionary: the protagonist’s aim is to put down a dangerous and deadly cult whose religious leader has accurately prophesied the coming nuclear war, in favor of the status quo which will cause it. Far Cry 4’s examination was about the method’s of revolution, and if meaningful steps can be taken to be compassionate and humanitarian amidst the violence necessary to overthrow an oppressive force. 

Here in 6 however, we see a different kind of anxiety being expressed. Namely: What is the point, of all of this? What good can ever come out of violence? And what kind of “good people” could ever commit such violence in the first place? Far Cry 6 does not ultimately see a purpose in violent revolution, regardless of how heinous the powers that be are. It also doesn’t offer any better ideas. 

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Brazil and Uruguay Vow to Modernize Mercosur, Pursue Trade Deals With EU, China

Members of the customs union Mercosur pledge to ease internal trade and explore new deals abroad.

Trade was high on the agenda of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s first overseas trip of his term to Argentina and Uruguay this week. The former jaunt included Tuesday’s summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in Buenos Aires.

During Lula’s visit to Argentina on Monday, Brazilian Finance Minister Fernando Haddad announced that a government-owned bank would issue new credit lines for Brazilian companies to export goods to Argentina, and Lula and Argentine President Alberto Fernández announced that the two countries would study a financial mechanism to conduct bilateral trade without converting transactions to U.S. dollars, which Argentina sorely lacks.

While Lula and Fernández referred to this mechanism as a “common currency” in an op-ed last weekend, Haddad has since clarified that the leaders are considering a common unit of account for trade operations rather than a currency that would replace the Brazilian real and Argentine peso.

Then, at the CELAC summit the next day, leaders from center-right Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle Pou to leftist Colombian President Gustavo Petro called for Latin America to trade more internally.

And on Wednesday, during meetings in Uruguay’s capital of Montevideo, Lula proposed talks on “modernizing” the Mercosur customs union, an “urgent” approval to its draft trade deal with the European Union, and subsequent exploration a free trade agreement with China. Mercosur’s rules prohibit any one of its members—Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay (Venezuela is suspended)—from making trade agreements without the others’ consent, but Lacalle Pou has been studying the possibility of an independent bilateral trade deal between Montevideo and Beijing.

Continue reading.

[krool-gwooptsoov]

Leftist Tumblr keeps serving up the most absolutely retarded takes

First of all, how do you define indigenous? Is it people who have lived on the land for generations? Cool, plenty of white people are indigenous under that definition

Is it "the first inhabitants on a piece of land"? Cool, no one has any land then because the natives killed, conquered, genocides, and assimilated the previous inhabitants much as the Europeans did. Most native tribes have origin myths I valving this conquering and displacing too. Even tribes commonly thought of as peaceful, like the Lenape, have myths and history involving them comiting acts of great brutality (the Lenape and Iroquois share an origin myth where both tribes teamed up to take down the Mississippi mound maker peoples as they were migrating east)

Is it "people that don't look white"? Well you just excluded the members of native tribes who have European heritage. And also are just being plainly racist.

And the logistics of something as major of that would be insane. "White people don't have to leave the land, they just have to pay taxes to the natives who will own it again"

Why? In what world does that make sense? How far detached from reality, and how privileged do you have to be, to think that taking normal folks homes from them, saying someone else owns it now, and that they're only renting or visiting and can be kicked out on the whim of the "native owners" make any lick of sense whatsoever?

Plus, how do you decide which tribe owns the land when multiple tribes have competing claims?

Or when white people owned the land longer than the tribes did? There's a big hullabaloo about "returning the black hills to the sioux" and things like that, but the US government has owned the black hills longer than the Sioux ever did (the Sioux conquered it from another tribe, who took it from another tribe before them, etc.). How is giving it back to the Sioux more just than leaving it in its current ownership, when the current owners have owned it for longer, and it is just as, if not more, important to the current owners than the previous owners?

Also, does this apply to all colonial settlements in history? Should we find the Native Hispanians and return Spain to them from the Latin colonizers?

What about the Middle East? Its Native people were subjugated, massacred, and forcibly converted and culturally genocided by the Arabs during the Islamic conquests. Should all of the Arabs who now call the Middle East outside of Arabia home now be forced to pay taxes to the Native inhabitants or be forced to leave? Even the ones whose families have called the place home for generations? Or are we being racist again and only considering European colonization even though other peoples have done basically the exact same thing cpuntless times throughout history. Frankly, why should the Native Americans even get the land? Humans are native to Africa, give the Americas back to the indigenous fauna.

And what about mixed people? People who are both Native and European? Do they have to pay for the sins of their ancestors too, or do they get the privilege of identifying as Native? Do they have to pay taxes to themselves?

Does this apply to Europe too? Should all of the non-native non white people in Europe be subject to harsh taxation or removal, regardless of if they feel like Europe is their home?

It's just absolutely insane that anyone can seriously think this is a serious idea

And that's not even getting into the fact that people won't like their land being taken from them. If white people don't give up their homes, will you be the one marching in with a gun to kill them if they resist? Good luck with that, you control freak tyrants.

Go touch some grass

happy PRIDE i’m here i’m queer and i believe the land should be given back to the proper indigenous stewards.

[darkmaga-returns]

At the Capitol Building, standing behind this monument to the hero of the American Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant, Congress will hold a joint session on Jan. 6 to count the Electoral College votes, marking the official certification of President-elect Donald Trump’s victory and formalizing his return to the White House for a second term. This constitutionally mandated process, conducted every four years, ensures the peaceful transfer or continuation of power. An alleged quote from Jamie Raskin was circulating about not certifying Trump, which he denied, and USA Today, the Leftist Mouthpiece, claimed to do a fact check and attributed it to right-wing conspiracies. It said:

‘Let folks cast their votes for Trump if that’s their choice. But mark my words, we won’t be certifying the election. He might win, but we’ll ensure he doesn’t step foot in the Oval Office,'”

Raskin letter to Trump

What this stems from was a letter Raskin sent to Trump claiming he had failed to sign documents to become a candidate, implying that somehow he was then not qualified. Raskin is such a leftist that it begs the question of whether Maryland should not just secede from the United States since they seem to prefer to dictate how everyone else MUST comply with their ideals. It’s a shame we cannot carve it off and attach it to California along with New York. Then perhaps one big earthquake will split them off into their Communist island where they can all run around and change the sex on a 3-year-old boy because he played with his sister’s dolls and tax each other into poverty like in Latin America.

Some Democrats even shake their head at Raskin, who is known for his antiTrump rhetoric and hatred of middle-of-the-road agendas. There were even whispers that dared to claim that Pence was wrong and that he should not have certified the 2020 election, so Kamala need not certify Trump’s victory, claiming that the 14th Amendment prohibits him from becoming president without ever having a trial. They would be tearing down Grant’s statue on January 6th in such a stupid move.

After the question of Pence having the authority to deny the count, Congress passed the Electoral Count Act, revised in 2022, clarifying the vice president’s role as strictly ceremonial, removing any ambiguity about their authority to certify the count. The updated law ensures the vice president cannot alter or determine the results during the certification process. Therefore, Kamala has no such power, for this has subsequently become a purely ceremonial event. Congress opens sealed certificates from each state documenting their electoral votes. Delivered in special mahogany boxes reserved for the occasion, these certificates are read aloud by bipartisan “tellers” from both chambers. The vice president acts purely as president of the Senate, presiding over the session and announcing the results. The 2020 Count was rigged by Pelosi, who prevented any challenge to any state vote that would have required a full debate, but she also passed a COVID rule prohibiting more than 53 people on the floor at a time. There were 7 states to be challenged, and one would have blocked Biden from the presidency.

[enterprisewired]

Gustavo Gutiérrez: The Icon of Latin American Liberation Theology Passes at 96

Source: cruxnow.com

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Gustavo Gutiérrez, a towering figure in Latin American Catholicism, passed away on October 22 at the age of 96, leaving behind a legacy that shaped the spiritual and social landscape of the region. Often regarded as the father of Liberation Theology, Gutiérrez’s work both inspired and polarized the Catholic Church. His groundbreaking ideas advocating for the poor became a defining force in post-Vatican II Latin America, marking a sharp division between supporters and critics.

Just days before his death, Cardinal-elect Carlos Gustavo Castillo Mattasoglio of Lima underscored the enduring tensions surrounding Gutiérrez’s theology. In a public statement, Castillo criticized the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, a lay group in Peru, accusing them of unjustly persecuting Gutiérrez. “They considered him a leftist,” Castillo wrote, while defending Gutiérrez as someone who merely sought to renew faith in a way that resonated with Latin America’s poor and deeply religious population.

The Birth of Liberation Theology

Gustavo Gutiérrez’s journey toward theological prominence began in 1968, when he served as an advisor to the Latin American bishops at the Medellín conference. Out of this experience, he developed a book that would forever change the course of Latin American Catholicism. Initially intended to be titled Towards a Theology of Development, the book was eventually published in 1971 as Toward a Theology of Liberation. This work laid the foundation for Liberation Theology, which sought to interpret the Christian Gospel through the lens of social justice and the struggles of the poor.

However, Gustavo Gutiérrez’s ideas sparked controversy, especially during the 1980s. In 1983, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) asked Peruvian bishops to investigate Gutiérrez’s theology, accusing it of promoting a Marxist interpretation of history and focusing excessively on material redemption. The investigation deeply divided the bishops, with some preparing to issue a negative judgment. Yet, a last-minute intervention from the esteemed Jesuit theologian, Father Karl Rahner, prevented such a conclusion. Rahner passionately defended Gutiérrez, asserting that his theology was orthodox and cautioning against any attempt to suppress the pluralism of theological schools.

Though no official sanctions were imposed, Gutiérrez continued to face resistance from conservative elements within the church. Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne of Lima, a notable critic, accused Gutiérrez’s theology of undermining the church’s authority, fostering political activism among priests, and creating a “parallel magisterium.”

A Legacy that Transcends Theology

Despite the opposition, Gustavo Gutiérrez’s influence extended far beyond the confines of theological debates. His commitment to the poor and marginalized earned him international recognition, including nearly 20 honorary degrees and the prestigious French Legion of Honor in 1993 for his work in promoting human dignity. In addition to his academic contributions, he founded the Bartolomé de Las Casas Institute in Lima and held professorships at the University of Notre Dame and other institutions.

Those who encountered Gutiérrez were often struck by his diminutive stature, which belied the profound impact of his intellect. Comparisons to the wise Yoda from Star Wars were not uncommon, but Gutiérrez’s influence on the global Catholic Church was anything but small. His ideas about social justice, the role of faith in political activism, and the rights of the poor left an indelible mark on the 20th-century church.

As the Catholic world reflects on his life, there is little doubt that Gustavo Gutiérrez’s work mattered. His absence will be felt not only in theological circles but also in the broader conversation about faith, justice, and the future of the church in Latin America.

[qqueenofhades]

there definitely is the lack sympathy and solidarity between the oppressed groups of people around the world.

ethnic russians have been colonizing the central asia, the western asia, the caucasus, the eastern europe and oppressing the natives of these lands for CENTURIES!

russia has established the hegemony of the ethnic russians and hierarchy where the people of the caucasus and central asia are not considered as white thus are discriminated against. even other slavs like ukrainians and poles (who are indeed seen as white in the russian power sphere) are percieved as lesser disposables.

if the westerner leftists understood that the social constructs and power dynamics around the world are constantly changing, have changed throughout history and are different depending on the region and depending on which country/people are the global powerhouses in said region, the discourse would be much easier and more productive.

i'm west asian myself who used to be naively optimistic about the us anti-imperialist leftists, but ever since the war in ukraine, my delusions have shattered beyond repair... the us americans live in their own bubble and want to see the world through that usa-centric bubble's lenses. you see someone try to educate them about the situation and realities of other place and people and said usa americans will accuse those people of horrible stuff bc usa americans hate it when their simplistic worldview ideologically rooted in puritanism is being challenged.

a good example is how the middle easterners are either talked about as "white" or "poc" depending on whether or not the us americans want to sympathize with them and admit that the middle easterners are the victims of oppression/imperialism.

i can't blame the people of africa, latin americans and other people who suffered bc of europe and the us for falling for russian propaganda, but seeing ourselves as the only katniss everdeens of the world won't solve anything.

I mean... yeah. As I've written about a lot, the perspectives of so-called "anti-imperialist" American leftists, both in regard to the Russia-Ukraine war and overall, are generally absolutely fucking dismal. Both because they lack any sense of historicity, nuance, or attempt to deal with complex issues, and also because they are, as you note here, still myopically fixated on the US as the center of the world, the only agent of actual change, and the cause of everything bad ever. They are good at weaponizing the language of social justice and accusing everyone and everything of racism, but they rarely seem to have a sense of what that actually means outside the American context, and frankly for that matter, inside it.

A lot of "anti-imperialist" leftists are only opposed to American empire, which they think is the only empire to ever exist (as if European colonialism and empire didn't create America; as if the Roman Empire didn't create Europe, etc. etc.) Because the Republican right opposed the Soviets during the Cold War, plenty of modern leftists have now decided that that means the USSR/Putinist Russia is actually good after all!!! It's a meme ideology with absolutely no substance or internal coherence, because it's completely based on shallow and distorted mirror-images that they adopted solely out of contrarianism. They borrow the language and symbols of Marxism-Leninism in their fantasy online lives, they decide that this makes them Communist Visionaries, and they trade purposefully-misinterpreted jargon in their Twitter echo chambers without ever attempting to consider either what it really means or how these extremely fraught symbols were interpreted and used in the real world. They want to proclaim that Communism Good!!!, so they do that, and any and all nuance or actual example to the contrary is just Neoliberal Corporate Bootlicking. Or something like that.

What's funny, of course, is that the "anti-imperialist" leftists are still relying completely on a sense of Western exceptionalism and intellectual imperialism, wherein their own interpretations are always to be preferred over anything that the Savages might be saying; the Misguided Natives just need the Wise Western Man to correct them and show them why Tankie Communism is Good! Which, of course, is the exact vernacular of European Christian white-supremacist colonialism from the 16th to 19th centuries, and seriously calls into question any remotely accurate claim to being "anti-imperialist." Like, do you know what those words even MEAN? Or like, ANY words?

As I have said in earlier posts: yes, it's understandable, if disappointing, that people from Africa/India/Latin America, all of which HAVE suffered extensively from actual Western imperialism, have proven susceptible to Russian propaganda about how the current conflict is all the Evil West's Fault. But it's even more disappointing that presumably educated and "enlightened" Western leftists who trumpet their anti-imperialism have become such cheerleaders for a genocidal fascist imperial regime, simply because they think that anything America opposes is morally and/or structurally good. Which is just so facile and stupid on so many levels, not to mention ignores the reality of the Ukrainian war and its root causes on pretty much every front, but for them, that's basically par for the course.

[chekovsphaser]

Man, even if you look at the literary traditions of the "West" this isn't true. People in the notes have already rightfully mentioned 20th century classics like Things Fall Apart (Achebe) and The Color Purple (Walker), not to mention older classics like the works of the inimitable Alexandre Dumas, or Machado de Assis (though I will say maybe I am biased there because he was Brazilian)

I understand where this take is coming from - its undeniable that there is a lot of racism covert and overt in a lot of "Western" literary classics. But it also feels like a particularly leftist version of anti-intellectualism. Of course the classics and canonization of works and academia are not above reproach and not above criticism. Of course they have significant problems with gatekeeping and the centralization of white "Western" narratives. But to write off the entire thing as unworthy of consideration of lacking any import because of that shows a staggering lack of critical thought. Because I would wager that everyone who says this lives in a primarily or exclusively "Western" cultural paradigm. Which literature, and what is considered a classic, has both shaped and been shaped by.

Also I don't know if it is the Norm but as far as I recall there were several books in my school curricula (and I attended over 10 different schools in British, American, and Canadian systems) that weren't even "Western", much less "White". Kite Runner (Hosseini) comes to mind, as well as The God of Small Things (Roy). And any decent scholar of literary classics will be familiar with the first novel ever written - The Tale of Genji (Murasaki). Because that, too, is part of our literary tradition, in that it's existence marked a turning point in the way stories were told and recorded. The Latin American tradition of Magical Realism also has massively shaped the modern "Western" literary traditions, and involves authors who by American standards are not "White" (Gabriel Garcia Marques, Isabel Allende), and some who are by no standards white (Toni Morrisson)

That's not even getting into what is "white". Was Homer white? Was Salinger? Was Borges? Dostoyevsky?

Sorry for the long rant I just really like literature and history.

kills me that "every single classic out there is written by white people" is such a common take. are the literary traditions of other countries a fucking joke to you? come on. go read the journey to the west or something I beg

[cryingoflot49]

Book Review

Eurock: European Rock & the Second Culture

edited by Archie Patterson

By 1970, psychedelic music had begun to fade in popularity in America and the U.K. At the same time, there was a small scene of musicians in Germany that began experimenting with rock styles that started where psychedelia and acid rock left off. The British press condescendingly labeled this scene “krautrock”. The influence of bands like Tangerine Dream, Can, Amon Duul II, Kraftwerk, Neu, Faust, and others spread throughout continental Europe and soon bands like Magma and Heldon formed in France. Krautrock would later merge with progressive or prog rock, space rock, cosmic music, fusion, and a whole bunch of other genres. Little of this music was known in America, but one man named Archie Patterson fell deeply in love with it and so formed a fanzine named Eurock to promote it in the underground American music market. His attempt at bringing this wide-ranging music to the narrow minds of American people largely failed and yet his journal lasted until 2002. In Eurock: European Rock and the Second Culture, Patterson provides us with articles from the thirty year lifespan of his underground music journalism. It is a treasure trove of archival information for people who either love this kind of rock or for people who are familiar with it but want to explore it on a wider and deeper level.

The initial articles are not easy to read. Patterson and others attempt to put into words what they hear on some of the pioneering krautrock records. The descriptiveness is neither clear nor accurate. If you read one of these essays and then listen to the music being described it is difficult to find any connection between the two. It is possible to write prose or poetry that sounds musical, just try James Joyce or Jack Kerouac as examples, but using words to described music is entirely impossible. Frank Zappa famously said about rock journalists, “You can’t write about music for the same reason you can’t dance about architecture.” Had Patterson and crew continued on in this vein, I would have given up on this book half way through or maybe even sooner.

The writers at Eurock saw the light though. They ditched their futile attempts at achieving the impossible and took the fanzine in another direction. From then on, their articles consisted of band biographies, scene reports, interviews, and essays on music theory. The scope also expands to a more global perspective. From Germany and France, they begin covering bands from all across Europe and eventually touching on musical projects out of Japan and Latin America. Many of these bands are included in the Nurse With Wound List; if you don’t know what that is, look it up. While the intended purpose of Eurock is to bring international underground music to the attention of American listeners, some American and British bands do get attention when they are radical or experimental enough. Brief articles on bands like Chrome, the Legendary Pink Dots, Lemon Kittens, and Nocturnal Emissions are included although the harsher sounds of post punk and industrial music are only mentioned briefly. Some interesting reoccurring themes are the ongoing struggles of the legally persecuted Plastic People Of the Universe in communist Czechoslovakia, the Rock in Opposition movement and festivals, the Leftist /utopian political visions of the musicians, the way in which the introduction of cassette tapes made it possible for non-commercial musicians to record and distribute their works, and ways in which changing technology affected the production of underground music particularly in relation to synthesizer and moog oriented electronic music.

This anthology also gives a broad overview of the trajectory of this kind of music. By the 1980s, krautrock and prog rock had reached their peak and these journalists struggle to find new bands and scenes to report on. There are a lot more interviews with old guard musicians like Klaus Schulze and Richard Pinhas. Some of them go quite in depth and retrospectively reveal a lot about the history of their careers. On the downside, more and more articles are included about new age musicians which tend to be just as bland and vapid as the music that these artists made. In the chapters from the mid-1980s and 1990s, you begin to see that Patterson’s vision of futuristic and creative rock music has become less and less relevant in the horrid Reagan/Thatcher era. However, in terms of interviews and writing, the passages from 2000 to 2002 are some of the most well-written ones in the whole book.

Not all of the bands covered in Eurock are good. Some have definitely not stood the test of time. The articles also vary in quality, ranging from creative and mind-expanding to vague, confusing, and sometimes shallow. But this big long book stays interesting most of the time. Some of the best writing comes from interviews with musicians I have never heard of who inspired me to go out and look up their music. The best articles have also done a lot to enhance my understanding of the underground music scene in Europe and the importance of non-commercial music in a world dominated by excessive media coercion and corporate control over art and entertainment. Some of us are just hungry for alternative visions of the world when the society of consumerism and mass-conformity have us surrounded on all sides. These experimental musicians are like islands of sanity in a world gone to hell, where most people insist on marching in lockstep with all the others on the road to brain death. These musicians are saying, “Look, there are other possibilities, other modes of existence that may be more meaningful and exciting so try it out and see what it’s like.”

As a document and archive, Eurock is an outstanding book that provides a detailed overview of a musical scene that is destined for obscurity. It is niche literature for one of the most specific niches you can imagine. Not all of the writing is great, but most of it is good enough and when the writing is strong it really shines. The honesty and dedication of Archie Patterson’s lifelong project ring true loud and clear. If Patterson and the bands represented in this volume never get inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, at least we have Eurock to remind us what cross-current and counter-cultural possibilities lie outside the mainstream.

[newstfionline]

Thursday, January 12, 2023

US to max out on debt soon, setting up political fight (AP) The federal government is on track to max out on its $31.4 trillion borrowing authority as soon as this month, starting the clock on an expected standoff between President Joe Biden and the new House Republican majority that will test both parties’ ability to navigate a divided Washington, with the fragile global economy at stake. Once the government bumps up against the cap—it could happen any time in the next few weeks or longer—the Treasury Department will be unable to issue new debt without congressional action. The department plans to deploy what are known as “extraordinary measures” to keep the government operating. But once those measures run out, probably mid-summer, the government could be at risk of defaulting unless lawmakers and the president agree to lift the limit on the U.S. government’s ability to borrow. The White House has insisted that it won’t allow the nation’s credit to be held captive to the demands of newly empowered GOP lawmakers.

Soaked and Battered by Repeating Rainstorms, California Girds for More (NYT) An unrelenting series of pounding storms over at least 11 days has left no part of California untouched—flooding towns from north to south, loading inland mountains with snow and transforming the often dry Los Angeles River into a raging channel. At least 17 people have died in the downpours, which started in late December and stretched into the new year. And more rain is expected. As of Tuesday morning, amid the latest round of rain, nearly 100,000 residents were under evacuation orders or warnings, state officials said, and about 220,000 utility customers were without power. More than 400 public and charter schools were closed. Hail pelted San Francisco, which was under a flood warning. In Central California, rescuers searched for a 5-year-old boy who was swept out of his mother’s arms as their car was swamped by fast-rising floodwaters on the way to school. Extreme weather has plagued many parts of the country this fall and winter—deep freezes, hurricane-like blizzards, tornadoes, drastic temperature swings. But few places have been as savaged by the changing climate these last weeks as California.

Air travel across US thrown into chaos after computer outage (AP) Thousands of flights across the U.S. were canceled or delayed Wednesday after a government system that offers safety and other information to pilots broke down, stranding some planes on the ground for hours. The breakdown showed how much American air travel depends on an antiquated computer system that generates alerts called NOTAMs—or Notice to Air Missions—to pilots and others. Before a flight takes off, pilots and airline dispatchers must review the notices, which include details about weather, runway closures or construction and other information that could affect the flight. The system was once telephone-based, with pilots calling dedicated flight service stations for the information, but it has moved online. The NOTAM system broke down late Tuesday and was not fixed until midmorning Wednesday, leading to more than 1,200 flight cancellations and more than 8,500 delays by early afternoon on the East Coast, according to flight-tracking website FlightAware.

Bolsonaro eyes return to Brazil as US stay pressures Biden (AP) The Biden administration is under growing pressure from leftists in Latin America as well as U.S. lawmakers to expel Jair Bolsonaro from a post-presidential retreat in Florida following his supporters’ brazen attack on Brazil’s capital over the weekend. But the far-right ex-president may pre-empt any plans for such a stinging rebuke. On Tuesday, he told a Brazilian media outlet that he would push up his return home, originally scheduled for late January, after being hospitalized with abdominal pains stemming from a 2018 stabbing. Bolsonaro arrived in Florida in late December, skipping the Jan. 1 swearing-in of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who became the first elected Brazilian president not to receive the presidential sash from his predecessor since democracy was restored in the 1980s.

Political vacuum in Haiti deepens as senators’ terms expire (AP) Haiti awoke Tuesday stripped of its last democratically elected institution—this time, its Senate—an alarming development that solidifies what some call a de facto dictatorship nominally in charge of a country wracked by gang violence. While only 10 senators had been symbolically representing the nation’s 11 million people in recent years because Haiti had failed to hold legislative elections since October 2019, their terms expired overnight, leaving Haiti without a single lawmaker in its House or Senate amid a spiraling political crisis. Organized crime groups have been running virtually unchecked since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, who himself had been ruling by decree. “It’s a very grim situation,” said Alex Dupuy, a Haitian-born sociologist at Wesleyan University, “one of the worst crises that Haiti has had since the Duvalier dictatorship.”

Death Toll in Peru Rises to 47 Amid Extraordinary Violence (NYT) A young medical student in his work uniform, desperate, his family said, to help injured protesters. A 22-year old man who had finally saved up enough to study mechanics. An ice cream vendor returning home after a long day of work. None took part in the demonstrations that have consumed Peru for a month. But all were killed in southern Peru on Monday, casualties in what became the deadliest day of clashes between protesters and government forces since the country erupted in violence last month. In a matter of hours, at least 17 civilians and one police officer were killed in the chaos of demonstrations, according to the country’s ombudsman office, an extraordinary spasm of violence that complicated the new president’s attempt to stabilize the country. The killings, in the city of Juliaca, near the border with Bolivia, drew widespread condemnation of Peruvian security forces, which appear to be responsible for most of the deaths, and have been accused by protesters and human rights groups of using lethal force indiscriminately against civilians.

6 stabbed in Paris train station, attacker shot by police (AP) An attacker wounded six people in an unprovoked blade attack in Paris’ busy Gare du Nord train station Wednesday morning before being shot and wounded by police, France’s interior minister said, praising the swift intervention of police for helping prevent any fatalities. The suspect attacked several people, including a police officer, with a “bladed weapon” during the morning rush hour, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told reporters at the scene, flanked by Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo. He said the unnamed assailant was currently “between life and death” in hospital after being shot in the chest, according to French media. Darmanin said the suspect was reported not to have said anything during the assault and that investigators have not discovered any extremist links.

U.S. involvement in Ukraine war deepens, with troops to train in Oklahoma (Washington Post) The Pentagon is planning to bring Ukrainian troops to the United States for training on the Patriot missile defense system, U.S. officials said Tuesday, signaling the Biden administration’s latest test of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threshold for Western intervention in the conflict. The training will occur at Fort Sill, an expansive facility covering roughly 145 square miles southwest of Oklahoma City, and could begin as soon as next week. The base is home to the U.S. military’s basic Patriot missile defense training program and another curriculum designed to teach American personnel field artillery maneuvers. The move follows President Biden’s decision last month approving the transfer of a Patriot system to Ukraine, which for weeks has endured blistering Russian missile attacks on its energy grid and other vital infrastructure. Germany last week announced that it, too, would send a Patriot battery to bolster Ukraine’s air defenses as millions face repeated blackouts that have cut heat, light and internet access for large portions of the country.

‘What madness looks like’ (AP) Russian forces are escalating their onslaught against Ukrainian positions around the wrecked city of Bakhmut, Ukrainian officials said, bringing new levels of death and devastation in the grinding, months-long battle for control of eastern Ukraine that is part of Moscow’s wider war. “Everything is completely destroyed. There is almost no life left,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said late Monday of the scene around Bakhmut and the nearby Donetsk province city of Soledar, known for salt mining and processing. “The whole land near Soledar is covered with the corpses of the occupiers and scars from the strikes,” Zelenskyy said. “This is what madness looks like.”

Giant budget deficit shows fallout of Russia’s war (Washington Post) Russia ended 2022 with a deficit of 3.3 trillion rubles, or $47.3 billion, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov announced Tuesday—one of the worst financial years in the country’s history, as Russia’s economy bore the brunt of the high costs of its war in Ukraine and the pain of Western economic sanctions. The $47.3 billion deficit contrasted sharply with a budget surplus of $6.7 billion in 2021. The only year Russia experienced a larger deficit was in 2020 during the covid pandemic, when it hit 4.1 trillion rubles, or $55 billion at the time. The figures provide Russia’s own sobering measure of the economic costs of President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine, which the Kremlin has sought to minimize. The costs, in blood and gold, are mounting, and are expected to rise even further in 2023.

U.S., Japan set to announce shake-up of Marine Corps units to deter China (Washington Post) Japan, already Washington’s most important ally in the Indo-Pacific, is deepening its strategic partnership with the United States in an effort to counter China—a development that will be showcased this week with a shake-up of U.S. Marine Corps units in Okinawa and a White House embrace of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. “This is about Japan essentially aligning with the United States, in many ways like a NATO ally,” said a senior administration official. This week, the two allies will announce the repurposing of a Marine Corps regiment based in Okinawa to be able by 2025 to rapidly disperse to fight in austere, remote islands, according to several U.S. officials. The Marine Corps plans to equip the regiment with advanced capabilities, such as anti-ship missiles that could be fired at Chinese ships in the event of a Taiwan conflict. In the past, the administration official said, Japan would have resorted to “a kind of checkbook diplomacy, and basically asked the United States to take care of” security in the region. “What they’re doing now is something quite different and quite substantial, which is essentially to say, ‘Count us in.’ And that’s a big deal.”

Ethiopia’s Tigray forces say they hand over heavy weapons (AP) The spokesman for Tigray forces in Ethiopia says they have handed over heavy weapons as a key part of the agreement signed with Ethiopia’s government late last year to end a two-year conflict. Getachew Reda tweeted early Wednesday that an African Union monitoring team confirmed the handover. He expressed hope it would “go a long way in expediting the full implementation of the agreement.” The Tigray forces especially seek the withdrawal of troops from neighboring Eritrea, which has fought alongside Ethiopian forces but was not a party to the agreement. Witnesses have told The Associated Press that Eritrean fighters remain in some communities. The United States and United Nations, citing the work of academics, have estimated that hundreds of thousands of people died in the conflict in Africa’s second most populous country.

[rametarin]

The people that self-identify as leftists but reject actual liberalism, tend to phrase it in the form of, "defending the at-risk indigenous people," but in reality the position is one purely to spread the idea of oppressor majority vs. oppressed persecuted minority.

They then have lesser-orderlies to add their own histrionics to it and use historical examples of injustices, such as Manifest Destiny and white supremacist movements as entirely slanted, unjust taking over of land. People that try to play social advocates and may not have 100% the party line idea, but they give an unofficial, informal, more liberal seeming explanation that isn't actually official policy to explain it, as if that's the real motivation.

They try to defend opponents of whom they consider their enemy powers. IF they directed their ideology in full against all their enemies equally, they'd consider the Hispanic community to actually be colonizers and imperialists and racists in Latin America; And, lo and behold, if you look close to the grains in discourse about Latin America, they're starting to do that internally, domestically, but doing that whole, "we don't air our dirty laundry out around enemies." But they very much will defend any Mexican violating American borders and national sovereignty in the US, while floating and suggesting maybe the Afro-Latins and Indigenous Latins are oppressed by the European mixed/"white passing" Hispanics from Mexico on down.

They encourage these beliefs that say whites (The Oppressor) could never understand the wisdom and legitimacy of the indigenous (The Oppressed) because blahblah imperialism + no culture.

They rub shoulders with the ethnosupremacists and even monarchists and people that, if they were white, would be considered hate militia groups and ethnoseparatists, but they refuse to define them that when they see them as a valuable regional tool against the dominant power structure.

It's why they've also been focusing on shittalking Hawaii as an American state and trying to focus on "indigenous sovereignty" for the last few decades, as well. They don't care about the indigenous people, they see opportunities to encourage the native people to "carve out their own destiny," and then be taken advantage of by nations such as Russia and China.

also. hate discourse around indigenous knowledge because it's like Yes the indigenous people have knowledge based on historical uses that should be adopted into the mainstream. But then somewhere down the line it becomes "white people can NEVER truly understand indigenous lands, their ancestors came from EUROPE" and its like ok that is anti-immigration & blood quantum rhetoric. people's knowledge do not come from their genetics Nor do they come from ancestor spirits. Why is this a left position

Oh yeah supposedly-left people on tumblr are fucking weird about bloodlines and heritage. I genuinely can't stand it.

In this case it's perpetuating Noble Savage stereotypes about how indigenous people are inherently good and pure and magically connected to the land, instead of literally just being regular people.

A lot of times people insist you need to Find Your Heritage in order to "heal yourself spiritually", which I think is insulting nonsense. And as a mutt with no real intention of finding out my family history, it's really disconcerting to be told that I can't ever really love or understand the place I live, because my great-great grandparents didn't live here. It's extremely anti-immigrant, it reeks of blood and soil nationalism, and I will be ranting against it until the day this website dies.

[darkmaga-returns]

By Monica Showalter

During his first term, President Trump got along fine with Mexico's previous president, socialist Andrés Manuel López Obrador. They enacted the 'remain in Mexico' agreement to deter those seeking to cross into the U.S. illegally to file for asylum, and illegal migration from the south fell sharply lower.

That doesn't seem to be the case with Mexico's current socialist president, Claudia Sheinbaum, a Stanford-educated leftist.

There's been talk like this going around:

I couldn't find any proof she actually said she would deport Americans if Trump sends back illegally present Mexicans, but a statement like that is pretty redolent of 1960s third world nationalism, particularly in Latin America. Reciprocation on everything since we're all equals, the logic goes. Sheinbaum comes from a family of leftists steeped in those traditions, so it's possible that's her thinking. I can certainly see AMLO thinking such things.

If true, the logic is idiotic. Mexico has thousands U.S. expatriates legally living in its territory, and by Mexican law, they cannot buy land, but they can lease, which is why some parts of Mexico, such as Lake Chapala, San Felipe and Rosarita Beach, have whole communities of U.S. expats. They are all legal residents and unlike the Mexican expats here illegally who consume U.S. services, they contribute greatly to the Mexican economy by spending cash there -- on homes, health care, recreation and living costs. So if Sheinbaum were to deport those Americans in retaliation for Trump's deportation of Mexicans illegally present in the U.S. it wouldn't exactly be an even exchange -- Mexico would be hurting its own economy twofold.

Fact is, it's not out there that she said this so far as I could find. That she sought to reassure people that all is normal might mean she said it earlier and was backtracking now. But again, I don't see any real evidence she said it, just swirling tweets with no sourcing.

[silvermoon424]

Why would any minority support Trump? Like... in the slightest.

It's baffling, isn't it? I think a lot of Trump-supporting minorities have a case of "it can't happen to me" or "I'm one of the good ones."

Like, for example, a most (if not all) Latino Trump supporters have either been in the United States for at least a couple of generations or are first-generation legal immigrants. They like Trump because he was hard on illegal immigration and wanted to build that stupid fucking wall. They thought "Well, I/my ancestors immigrated here legally and fairly, why should other people come here illegally and get the same benefits I do?" and "I'm tired of being lumped in with these illegal immigrants just because we share a race, if Trump makes it harder for illegals to get in maybe that will make it easier for me."

That second one is especially sad, instead of getting angry at racist people they'd rather take out their frustration on the desperate people who feel as though they have no choice but to immigrate. Also, for the record I'm not even one of those "abolish borders" leftists and I do think it's important to have an immigration system, but I also acknowledge that- in the case of the United States and Latin America- we majorly fucked up and continue to fuck up many of those countries. It just seems like a huge dick move to be like "fuck off, we're closed" after benefiting from the poverty and destabilization of these countries for decades.

Anyway, the Latin American Trump supporter is probably the best example I can think of. I have no clue why in the year of our Lord 2022 (or 2016, for that matter) a queer person would support Trump. Literally the one and only example people hold up for Trump being LGBTQ+ friendly is when he held a pride flag onstage. That's it. Aside from that the Trump Administration was provably anti-queer.