#i already know all the us states and the political system and the civil war etc

[yuneu]

im... realizing that i dont like english as a degree i just like linguistics and textual/literary analysis...

[leportraitducadavre]

My interpretation of Itachi's character is fairly contrasting with yours. I pose my arguments against your analysis. I hope I would get a lead unto having an unbiased opinion.

Itachi's position in here between was a rock and a hard place. Having witnessed horrors of wars he chose to the stop war. It wasn't the best decision but even still he accomplished many things.

A new Forth Great Ninja war was prevented. Uchihas plan wasn't to reform the government it was to take control of them. Their desires were clearly reflected in their demands. While half of them was about freedom, the rest was only to control village. This, along with Obito's plan for revenge and war, will definitely start a war.

Madara, with the pact, was foiled for more than seven years long enough for the strong Shinobis like Naruto and Sasuke to grow up and defeat him.

Sasuke's life was saved. Itachi would go at all lengths to protect his brother. Afterall, its only obvious he would be over-protective of Sasuke since both loved each other a lot(as siblings).

The Uchiha's reputation were saved. Imagine what would have happened to the Uchihas after the war. The people were already suspicious of the Uchihas and now we will have never ending persecution and would be branded as traitors, doesn't matter if the coup won or lost. The coup wasn't about reforming anyway.

People in the village got to be safe too.

And despite all these he still regretted a lot enough that he wanted the person he adored the most to kill him. Also, no one here is trying to justify his action. A justification and a reason has a clear distinction. Just because there was a reason it doesn't make the acts were justified. He himself acknowledged that. The writer didn't try to justify nor did Itachi himself. People like, Hashirama and Naruto, appreciated the role he played and praised him as a Shinobi.(being seen as a villan while protecting the people isn't easy, btw). They weren't justifying or glorifying his actions in any instance.

He wasn't an absolute nationalist. He he was an idealist. His motivations most cases(especially while making big decisions)were to 'not beget war' and 'maintain peace'. Doesn't matter if Uchihas managed to control the village it still starts war, death, destruction and countless losses which is exactly what Itachi hated from when he was 4. He also wanted to reform the village by becoming a Hokage. He wanted to wiped out the entire ninja system since ninjas were the ones who were used as a weapon for the Diamoyo start constant wars. The Leaf was sort of obnoxious in the time of Tobirama and Hiruzen's regime. But even still, the Hokages were good and passionate and also the people were innocent.

A new Forth Great Ninja war was prevented. Uchihas plan wasn't to reform the government it was to take control of them. Their desires were clearly reflected in their demands. While half of them was about freedom, the rest was only to control village. This, along with Obito's plan for revenge and war, will definitely start a war.

How do you even know it was prevented? Shisui stating that hidden villages will take advantage of Konoha’s civil war to invade was just a fear that was actually constantly proven wrong throughout the series; when Suna invaded and Konoha was destroyed (forcing it to send their most powerful shinobi out of the village to collect money) no other village took advantage of the situation, not even Kumo or Iwa, two of the big five that were not struggling politically or militarily as Suna, Kiri and Konoha were. Kumogakure even tried to kidnap Hinata while in the middle of signing a peace treaty, yet they did nothing against the Hyüga clan nor the village during one of their most vulnerable state.

Furthermore, you mean to tell me that a civil war (I am using that notion generously because Konoha is a military state with a non-civilian population, specifically trained for combat) destabilizes the military and economic power of a city, yet the complete disappearance overnight of one of the village's founding and most powerful clans does nothing to its structure? Other villages wouldn’t see the absence of Sharingan-wielders as an enticing opportunity to strike? Do you mean to tell me that a village was left without police to control it overnight (and their job is considered super important by detractors), yet the city did not succumb to chaos?

Their desires were clearly reflected in their demands.

What were their demands? Enlighten me.

While half of them was about freedom, the rest was only to control village.

Where do you get this information from? There’s nothing of the sort stated in the manga.

This, along with Obito's plan for revenge and war, will definitely start a war.

Obito’s plan needed the annihilation of the Sharingan-wielders as he didn’t want anyone capable of obtaining the Mangekyou to jeopardize his plan to control the ten-tails, Itachi killing the Uchiha literally allowed Obito to start the war!! 

Madara, with the pact, was foiled for more than seven years long enough for the strong Shinobis like Naruto and Sasuke to grow up and defeat him.

… what? This doesn’t make any sense and has nothing to do with Itachi… you mean to tell me that Itachi killing his clan made Sasuke as powerful as he is? Because Sasuke has always been powerful and has always been Indra’s transmigrant, and as I’ve said, Obito wouldn’t have been able to initiate the war (or at least would’ve been incredibly difficult for him) with the Uchiha clan still alive!

Sasuke's life was saved. Itachi would go at all lengths to protect his brother. Afterall, its only obvious he would be over-protective of Sasuke since both loved each other a lot(as siblings).

An eight-year-old was tortured mentally by his brother through Tsukuyomi by watching his clan and parents get killed over and over again, was left to live alone in a compound destroyed by his brother’s actions, having to clean his parents’ own blood and fend for himself –but at least he’s alive… the circumstances and solitude in which he grew is abysmal, traumatic, negligent and inhumane, but we don’t care as much about children’s safety as we do children being just alive.

There were other children in that compound, children that knew nothing of and participated not in the coup to which Itachi didn’t extend the same kindness he did his brother.

The Uchiha's reputation were saved. Imagine what would have happened to the Uchihas after the war. The people were already suspicious of the Uchihas and now we will have never ending persecution and would be branded as traitors, doesn't matter if the coup won or lost. The coup wasn't about reforming anyway.

What “reputation”? The Uchiha were always constructed under a negative light within Tobirama’s system, you lot keep saying they were saved from being seen as detractors when there’s not a single panel that states they were planning to change the system as a whole (rather take down the current government, which is not the same).

Furthermore, to think that they cared about the rest of the population's mindset regarding them is so incredibly simplistic I have to laugh at it –they’re the strongest clan in the village, without Uchiha, there’d have been no village in the first place, and they were already aware of the unfavorable perspective in which they were regarded by others, nothing in itself would’ve changed.

The Uchiha being seen as loyal to the village helped no one but the current system as it is, as they’re seen as a government without opposition, it wasn’t about maintaining the Uchiha’s honor, but keeping the fragile credit of the structure and those in power -if Uchiha died in their own terms, then other clans will know about the clan’s discomfort with the current mindset, and those that feel uncomfortable with it might find a group that validates such sentiments:

Kakashi admits to being uncomfortable with the way he's viewed by the system, he even uses plural when referring to ninja ("we ninja") -meaning there's a communal uneasiness with the whole situation.

The fact that the government silenced detractors (Uchiha) by killing them will only deepen further the general shinobi population's discomfort, which is why is imperative to silence the truth.

[On another note, why do you keep using "honor" as an excuse to execute an entire compound of people? The entire clan was decimated and the whole "honor" of the family rested as another responsibility Sasuke had to endure all by himself thanks to "Itachi's love" -they were left with no honor as Sasuke was forced to restore it! Furthermore, they're all dead! What is "honor" gonna do for them? For the massacred innocents at least? They did nothing wrong and were killed regardless, their honorable nature wasn't even being questioned!]

People in the village got to be safe too.

Safe of what? When was it stated they were going to fight against those who weren’t in power? The problem is they rebelling against those they deem their oppressors but not the government refusing to renounce their power in order to keep the “population they hold so dear” safe? They are both willing to kill innocents (so I guess some people in the village weren’t safe, but in your book, they don’t matter as much), and use the rest of the military population to strike against Uchiha (which is also, never actually stated!). The idea of a “within war” was never confirmed as the Uchiha had no chance to strike, no one is to say they weren’t trying to take power through force yet quietly, no one is to know what was their actual plan as that was never brought to light!

The Uchiha are wrong for wanting to take the power but the government isn't wrong for wanting to keep it, the Uchiha are wrong for their methods to seek authority but not the government for defending the status quo. Uchiha having power would mean annihilation, somehow, despite them being against just their oppressors, not Konoha as a whole; while the government seeks to protect the village despite massacring an entire and most important portion of their militia and one of the founders' clans.

And despite all these he still regretted a lot enough that he wanted the person he adored the most to kill him. 

He regretted nothing, he wanted Sasuke to kill him in order to both give him an objective and to distract him from finding out Konoha’s involvement in the Uchiha Massacre, shouldering the entire responsibility of their demisse.

Also, no one here is trying to justify his action. 

But you are, you wrote point after point why he had to kill his clan.

A justification and a reason has a clear distinction.

What distinction? You need to expand on the notions you think are relevant to you own argument. 

Just because there was a reason it doesn't make the acts were justified. He himself acknowledged that. The writer didn't try to justify nor did Itachi himself. People like, Hashirama and Naruto, appreciated the role he played and praised him as a Shinobi.(being seen as a villan while protecting the people isn't easy, btw). They weren't justifying or glorifying his actions in any instance.

What are you even writing? I’m being honest with that question, claiming to have a reason to kill his clan is used as a justification for his actions! I can’t believe I have to explain that to you. He never said he had no justification (their coup was treated as such over and over, everyone took advantage of them wanting to coup in order to both order the massacre and carry it out!!).

How on earth can you write “People like Hashirama and Naruto appreciated the role he played and praised him as a shinobi but they never justified him”, so are they praising him or not? Them positively reinforcing Itachi and praising him for “his sacrifice” (you see, not only he is perceived as a villain, he is a villain, he killed an entire kin -again, innocents included, in order to maintain specific people in power) is justifying his actions under the notion of the “greater good for the village”. 

He wasn't an absolute nationalist.

He did everything for Konoha! He even claimed himself to be “Itachi of the Leaf!” What are you even talking about?

He he was an idealist. His motivations most cases(especially while making big decisions)were to 'not beget war' and 'maintain peace'. 

Yet his actions concluded in Obito being able to control the Ten Tails with almost no real opposition as the only other Sharingan-wielder was Sasuke.

Doesn't matter if Uchihas managed to control the village it still starts war, death, destruction and countless losses which is exactly what Itachi hated from when he was 4. 

How do you know? Do you have an entirely new manga written by Kishimoto about what would’ve happened had the Uchiha taken over the village? Itachi hated Uchiha since he was four because they brought “war, death and destruction” but not Konoha that actually provoked such wars, deaths, and destruction, what an intelligent boy! 

You have to be a troll because, man, “unbiased opinion” my ass. Also, did you just come to my blog with arguments coming from Itachi Shinden? The story not written by Kishimoto?

He also wanted to reform the village by becoming a Hokage. He wanted to wiped out the entire ninja system since ninjas were the ones who were used as a weapon for the Diamoyo start constant wars. 

Funny, under Hiruzen’s regime he would’ve never become Hokage, furthermore, when did he even hinted to want to become Hokage?? Never in the entire manga. Also, the Daimyo did little to nothing when it came to wars, those were all the Kage’s responsibilities! Dear Lord, did you at least read Team 10’s Arc? Asuma’s background literally explains how the Shugonin Jūnishi fought each other because six of them wanted the entire military power of the Land of Fire to be managed by the Daimyo alone while the rest, Asuma included, defended the Hokage’s existence. 

The Leaf was sort of obnoxious in the time of Tobirama and Hiruzen's regime. But even still, the Hokages were good and passionate and also the people were innocent.

Which people were innocent? The children and non-Sharingan wielders that knew nothing of the coup and were massacred regardless? How can you write “the Hokages were good” while they literally ordered the mass killing of people they swore to protect? How can you use “obnoxious” and “good” to describe the same two people?!

Gosh, the fact that you lot (Itachi stans) don’t comprehend that his involvement in the massacre of his own people alongside the protagonist’s endorsement of state-sanctioned genocide, makes the annihilation of an entire portion of a village a plausible option to handle internal disagreements is disastrous.

Committing genocide against the village’s own people sets a dangerous precedent where future governments can see and use such slaughter as a conceivable, even necessary, tool at their disposal whenever they feel threatened, making any clan vulnerable to the decisions of its government and guaranteeing the silence of possible detractors or even the censorship of constructive criticism of the political, military, economic and cultural system.

Jesus.

[biot08]

I remember a common enough thought exercise when I was in school, was what would I do, in America, if Nazis took over like they did in Germany.

Who would stand where? What would we do? Of course none of us would tolerate the situation. We would all speak out, we would all fight.

The question seems to be being asked right now.

The answer is pretty simple, it turns out.

Vote. Meaningfully. It's not enough to not vote for Trump or the Republicans who back him. Vote for the greatest chance for victory.

Blue, all the way down the ticket. It's not progressives versus authoritarianism. It's about realising that too many tried to 'send a message' already in 2016, and we know how that turned out. We know the rules of the system. They are not unchangeable, but if you want them to change, you need to preserve democracy.

This time, we vote Kamala/Walz. In a landslide. Even if you are in a 'safe' district. Even if you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that your state will go full blue at the electoral college level. Make the American people's voice obvious. Drown out the man who wants to be Hitler. Make it -obvious- that this is a losing political strategy.

Trump did a lot of damage in 2016. That was with an unprepared GOP. This time, they are prepared, and they are ready. If they take power this time, they may not ever give it back without the use of violence. And that violence will absolutely be disproportionate, mostly against people you care about.

There is no scenario here where a third party candidate wins. And there is no scenario where the system, resilient enough to survive a civil war, can be accelerated into collapsing for your glorious revolution or whatever it is some people seem to be hoping will happen if Trump wins.

We got this. The Electoral College is absolute garbage, but we got Biden in 2020 despite the January 6th attempted coup and other extremely hostile actions from people who were supposed to uphold the system and instead tried to betray it. They will be trying again.

But if we get out the vote, we get out the numbers, we can make victory inevitable and obvious to anyone and everyone who is watching, and drown them out.

We can establish a foundation with which to build the progressive future we really want.

We can move the window to the left. We can make sure laws get passed to enshrine queer rights. We can make sure immigrants are protected and get to live lives with dignity. We can improve our lives, and the lives of those we care about!

But we need foundation, first.

Blue, at every federal level. Give America a president and a congress that is actually interested in governing.

[misfitwashere]

Safe Skies for Ukraine

Let's do what our elected officials are failing to do

TIMOTHY SNYDER

JAN 26

It's a frustrating time for Americans who support Ukraine.  Congressional Republicans said that they support Ukraine, but want to connect it to the border.  Then, when given the chance to address the border, they decline.

During these gaslit shenanigans, good people who are fighting a defensive war of tremendous historic significance are being killed when they might have lived.

It is sad to recite all the ways that Ukrainian resistance serves US interests. Sad because not enough people in Congress care about US interests.  And sad because one shouldn't even have to refer to them.  

It is rare to have a chance to halt a war of aggression and prevent a genocidal occupation at zero risk and with the loss of zero soldiers.  That level of moral clarity, available once in any political lifetime, ought to be reason enough to act.

Even if they do not care for others, Americans ought to at least care for themselves.  

They should care that they do well from an international order in which it is not normal for countries to invade one another.  Ukrainians defend that.  Americans should care that the risk of nuclear war has been reduced.  Ukrainians achieve that by resisting Putin's nuclear blackmail.  Americans should care that the chance of war in Europe has been drastically reduced.  Ukraine is fulfilling by itself the entire NATO mission, absorbing and blunting a Russian attack.  Americans should care that China is being deterred.  So long as Ukraine resists, it is much less likely that Taiwan will be threatened and America will be drawn into a war in the Pacific. 

The money in question has not been significant.  It is a nickel on the defense department dollar.  Much of that nickel remains in the United States.  The weapons we send have been used extraordinarily efficiently.  The Ukrainians, with symbolic numbers of American weapons, have used them withe extraordinary skill and to great effect. 

We can hope that these arguments will matter at some point!  And perhaps they will. 

In the meantime, we can at least act as civil society. Please help me finish my Safe Skies project.  It funds a passive drone detection system, one that is already protecting four Ukrainian regions and is now being extended to another four.  It allows Ukrainians to find Iranian-made or -modelled drones and shoot them down before they cause harm. It also works on cruise missiles. I have seen the system’s components when I was in Ukraine, and I know how it works. Like so much that the Ukrainians do, the system is very cost effective.  $1.8 million was the total amount to be raised, and we are about 90% there. 

Amidst all the ill will, it would be good to have something to celebrate.  Thanks to all of you who have contributed.  Most drone attacks are now halted, and in this way critical infrastructure is protected and people are kept alive. 

America as a country can do much more, and should.  But as Americans this is one thing we can achieve now. We are almost there.

PS: In saying all this, I don't at all want to leave out all of you from beyond the United States, and it is a very significant number, who have contributed to this campaign!  Thank you. This is just a particular moment when Americans might want to take the matter in hand.

[heathersdesk]

THIRD PARTIES IN AMERICAN POLITICS ARE POINTLESS AT THE FEDERAL LEVEL AND IF YOU VOTE FOR THEM IN 2024, YOU'RE A CLOWN

All right. Civics for Dummies from the American History nerd. Sit down. If any of you suggests voting third party anywhere near me between now and November, I'm going to throw chalk at you. And we're going to talk about why right now, so there's no more confusion.

The Electoral College makes voting third party the stupidest, most unproductive thing you can be advocating for right now.

To become president under the system we have now, you need to reach 270 electoral votes. It is physically impossible for a third party candidate to do that with two other parties at the table. It's not that it won't happen. It's that it CAN'T happen.

As long as we have the Electoral College, voting for third parties for president is a waste of a vote. You might as well stand outside of your polling place and piss on a wall, for all the good it does anyone.

There are two ways forward if you're tired of the way things are. You're not going to like either one of them because they're both hard.

1. Get rid of the Electoral College

2. Get rid of both of the parties we have and replace them with different ones who will do what we want instead of engorging themselves on our money like the corrupt, bloated ticks they all are.

Get rid of the electoral college?

You need a Constitutional amendment to do that. You need 2/3 of the states to hold a Constitutional Convention, then 3/4 of either the Conventions or the state legislatures to ratify and pass it.

Make the list right now. Go ahead. Find me 38 states that would pass an amendment to get rid of the electoral college, so you can vote for whichever socialist is promising you they can somehow get people in red states to listen to them without starting a civil war.

Go ahead. I'll wait.

Y'all can't even agree on which socialist without a snowball's chance in hell of winning you expect people to vote for instead of Joe Biden in November!

You've had since October 7th of last year to come up with one and you haven't done it! It's over! Pack it up and call it a day! We don't have time for this! Start picking who you want to replace Biden in 2028, if we're not in the middle of a civil war by then.

Why do I keep saying that? Because I went through a Civil War phase and we've been checking the boxes off one by one for years now in how that war started. Down to states trying to remove the opposition candidate from the ballot in an election year.

Anyway, Constitutional amendment sounds too hard? We're going with the party dunk tank approach?

Cool. This is the one I actually think we could achieve in the next 20 years.

Before you can get a third party candidate to win, you need a party that has mass appeal that people would actually want to join, then have it usurp and replace an existing party. Then that party runs a candidate that could win in a national election. But at that point, they're not a third party candidate anymore.

Ever heard of a Whig? Seen one on a ballot? Exactly. We have a history in the US of ditching parties that have outlived their usefulness. It's been a few centuries, but at least there's a precedent for it.

I don't know if y'all recognize what you're looking at, but this is already happening within the Republican party. They've been infiltrated by fascists and foreign agents, and any Republicans who aren't down with their corruption are currently getting tossed out of the cuckoos nest. Republicans can't win elections through democracy anymore, so they're just going to get rid of democracy now.

WHEN THE LDS CHURCH STARTS TELLING YOU IT'S OKAY NOT TO VOTE FOR REPUBLICANS, Y'ALL NEED TO WAKE TF UP AND REALIZE THAT PARTY IS GONE NOW, AND IT'S NEVER COMING BACK.

So the Democratic Party is what we have left now, and they suck. We know they suck. They've sucked since Jimmie Carter, and even then the poor guy was in over his head. Their leadership is full of hypocrites and liars who are too busy taking Israeli PAC money, putting kids in cages at the border, letting Facebook engage in genocides across the globe, and banning TikTok to have a conscience. They squander every opportunity they have to truly fight back effectively against anything, and they're never going to change. I've lost all respect for Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. If they won't let go of power, it's time to take it from them. I agree with that sentiment 100%. I mean, I think it's better to primary the old guard, but y'all want radical change! So let's talk about it!

You want to usurp the Democratic party with another party? You need a well-funded coalition of people in every state, fully mobilized with quality candidates they can run locally, to get the ball rolling. That needs to go on for many years. It needs to be a party that attracts the disaffected from the left and right, and has a platform they all can agree on. What Republicans and Democrats won't do, this party would need to do. It would need celebrity endorsements. It would need to be something that the vast majority of Americans would pull out their wallet right now and give money to because they believe it's capable of change that will actually help them.

You want to replace the Democrat and Republican establishment with something better? You put it together correctly and it can be done. Like I said, I think y'all could get that done in the next 20 years.

You don't have 20 years?

Exactly! You're not getting any of that done before November! I don't care how hard you try.

Fastest amendment to ever be ratified was the repeal of Prohibition. 3 months and 10 days. This ain't that. No one wants to vote for your inexperienced socialist candidates as badly as they wanted to drink during the Great Depression. To give you some perspective, it took 41 years to pass the women's suffrage amendment. THAT'S a more realistic timeline.

As for forming a party... why do you think the opposition is doing a hostile takeover of the Republican party instead of forming their own and starting from zero?

Because it's easier and faster!

People on the left who are still talking about third parties in this country will literally do anything but build a coalition with those they consider morally inferior to themselves. But the problem is, they can't do anything with the microscopic group of people they consider to be morally acceptable. They can't pass an amendment to get rid of the Electoral College. They can't form an alternate party to replace the Democrats. They can't do a hostile takeover of the Democrats. They can't unite behind a single candidate and get them funded to win campaigns except in the bluest districts of blue states. And they're totally unprepared to take any idea they have on the road to the Midwest or the South where they'd truly have to deal with people who don't trust them.

All y'all have to offer is the same dysfunctionalism we already have.

There's no way forward into the future where you get the kind of policies you want AND to opt out of being in community with people you don't like. You have to pick a struggle. If you don't have the skill set and temperament to work with Democrats, you don't have what it takes to replace them either. You just don't. Not in this economy. Not in any economy. Not on this timeline or any other.

I don't care how much you don't like Joe Biden. That's who we're voting for in November because there's no one else. Y'all waited until Gaza was on fire for the umpteenth time to become a single issue voter, and you want all of us to jump off the cliff of the moral high ground with you?

Nah. I've decided I'm going to live through this.

I'm strategizing what to do if Biden dies in office and how to primary Kamala Harris as a potential incumbent in 2028. And if (God forbid) Trump wins, I'm picking out people at church who would hide me in their basement when the round ups start. Because I live in the purple section of Boise, surrounded by nothing but Klan members and neo-Nazis in the middle of the desert. It's nothing but Confederate wannabees for hundreds of miles in every direction.

When you're ready to get serious, you're welcome to join.

[communistkenobi]

Hello Mr. Kenobi, I love your Star Wars takes, especially the political ones, you pick up so many things that I miss in my own analysis.

I write and read a lot of Star Wars fanfiction, and something I find fascinating are the situations where Luke and Vader are forced to work together, and then they contemplate continuing their tenuous alliance to take out the Emperor. However, they disagree on what political system to set up afterward - Luke usually wants to reinstate the Republic, and Vader wants to continue the Empire’s dictatorship and tells Luke he wasn’t alive to witness the failings of the Old Republic, and he won’t let them happen again.

This hypothetical ‘impasse’ got me researching other political systems, and it got me learning about things like socialism, communism etc, the origins of capitalism and its link to colonisation and the wide variety of ways humanity has organised itself around the world, as well as trying to wrap my head around what fascism was and how it springs up.

So my question is: Imagine if you were in the Rebellion just after the Battle of Endor, and they decided to consult with you on what the best political system to install to replace the Empire and add safeguards to prevent the failings of the Old Republic (at least from turning into another Empire)?

How would planets have a say in the affairs of the galaxy (if the galaxy is still organised at a planet level)? Would planets that have a tiny outpost have the same say as planets teeming with billions of people? What about planets that produce an overwhelming portion of the Galaxy’s food, or planets that house an overwhelming portion of the Galaxy’s population? What about planets currently being stripped bare of resources to create hyperfuel and starships, and planets like Coruscant that cannot exist without a vast network of starships using hyperfuel to bring them food? Planets with a large military and planets with none?

How would this new galactic body deal with star systems under Hutt or Imperial Remnant control? Neutral systems (like Mandalore was)? How would it deal with tension brewing between two planets within it? How would Luke’s new Jedi temple function? What power would it have and where would it get its funding?

I know that’s probably a lot, so feel free to just answer one or two if you prefer. Also let me know if you give out any ideas you’d prefer I didn’t steal be influenced by in my own writing.

I’m very flattered, thank you! I don’t know how much help I’ll be to you on these fronts lol. Each of these topics (foreign policy, labour, transportation, economic policy, the role of religion in state management, etc) you can go into a crazy amount of detail with, none of which I know a lot about. “How to run a government after a successful revolution” is sort of the eternal question! It depends a lot on historical and geographic context. With Star Wars, you’re dealing with a very large, very scattered system of planets that can only be travelled between via one mode of transportation (hyperspace lanes). Who controls them and how they’re managed is therefore probably very important. You’re also dealing with a galaxy that is freshly coming off an imperial (fascist) government. Figuring out what parts of the government to scrap and what to keep is a huge question. For example, the Bolsheviks directly after the russian civil war debated whether or not to do away with law entirely and just manage the state by party policy (which they later decided against). Again you can kind of go into a rabbit hole with any one of these topics, and I’m stretching the extent of knowledge already.

Borrowing from a friend here, but one general thing to keep in mind is that 1) everyone needs to eat, 2) that food needs to be produced somehow, 3) production creates social relations, as in, the production of all the “stuff” society needs to function creates structural social relationships between groups (classes) of people. That can be food, clothing, housing, fuel, etc. In feudalism I believe this was codified into law, as in, serfs were a legally defined class with legally mandated obligations to the lords whose land they lived on. In capitalism, being working class or ruling class is not a legal definition but rather describes a class’s relationship to private property and modes of production (do you own the factory or do you work in it, to use a very basic example), so that gets expressed and arranged in slightly different ways. Again this is like surface level knowledge for me, I’m not an expert at all lol. If you’re interested in learning about post-revolutionary governments, the Cuban, Haitian (Black Jacobins is a good book for this, you can find a pdf of it online fairly easily), and Russian Revolutions are all good places to start. The French Revolution is another one that is massively historically important, although I know very little about it.

I don’t think this is a very helpful answer sorry lol but these are all very big questions that don’t have any easy answers to them (which I’m not criticising you for - these are all things that are huge subjects of historical and political debate). I think dealing with the material stuff that makes up the setting you’re writing in will help answer some of these questions by narrowing your focus. I know I keep bringing up Andor, but I think it acts as a good sweet spot in terms of level of focus - it doesn’t present a comprehensive vision of the state, but it deals with the problems that arise from basic things like the kinds of technology that are available, and the problems presented by geography. Decentralised Imperial surveillance produces problems in a sprawling galaxy where rebel cells can attack Imperial bases/strongholds that are physically far apart from one another, making attack patterns difficult to spot, because the level of surveillance is too local. Centralising that surveillance system means straining the current technology the Empire has on hand, which produces other problems (like querying a database for a ship ID hundreds of times across space is going to put a strain on the database). etc. the management of resources, and the methods/tools you use to manage those resources, is going to inform a lot of how a state functions. Laws and policies are made in response to historical circumstances like access to resources, workers, geographic constraints, etc. Star Wars is a mix of capitalism and feudalism so you can kind go crazy with it

[kaurwreck]

Only because I haven't seen this mentioned yet (although I'm sure it has been), in addition to Rafah, Israel closed another crucial southern crossing over the weekend, Karem Abu Salem (which is called Kerem Shalom by Israel and Western news outlets). Rafah and the Karem Abu Salem crossing are important because they are the access points for international aid into Gaza from Egypt.

Although Israel stated it reopened the Karem Abu Salem crossing two days ago, and has shared images and video purporting to show aid entering, according to the UN, no humanitarian aid has yet entered and there is no one to receive it on the Palestinian side after workers fled during Israel’s military incursion in the area.

On Friday, May 10, Voice of America, which is state-owned by the US but rated as generally reliable by media watchdogs (with notable exceptions, including while overseen and gutted by Michael Pack during Donald Trump's presidency) reported:

“For five days, no fuel and virtually no humanitarian aid entered the Gaza Strip, and we are scraping the bottom of the barrel,” Hamish Young, UNICEF’s senior emergency coordinator in the Gaza Strip said Friday.

Speaking from Rafah, Young told journalists in Geneva that “This is already a huge issue for the population and for all humanitarian actors but in a matter of days, if not corrected, the lack of fuel could grind humanitarian operations to a halt.”

The UNICEF official said that he has been working on large-scale humanitarian emergencies for the last 30 years but that he has “never been involved in a situation as devastating, complex or erratic as this.”

This is much more violent than if Israel had launched a full-scale invasion of Rafah as threatened. This is a slow, tortuous suffocation of Gaza.

According to the UN, within the next 24 hours, numerous health facilities will run out of fuel. Among those affected are five Ministry of Health-run hospitals, 28 ambulances, 17 primary health care centers, five field hospitals and 10 mobile clinics “which provide immunizations, trauma care and malnutrition services.”

The situation is so immediately dire that World Health Organization missions have been suspended in the north to provide as much fuel as possible in the south.

The sum of all of this is not that the matter is hopeless, but that international support of Palestine has been so effective that Israel recognizes the existential threat aid poses to its genocide.

International support is re-equipping hospitals and bringing back life-saving functionality. The Naser Medical Complex is accepting dialysis patients, and the laboratories are able to perform some blood tests, despite having been severely damaged by Israeli forces. International support is successfully pressuring Israel's allies, including the US, into making politically unprecedented shifts away from Israel, as evidenced by the first-of-its-kind assessment by the US of Israel's use of US aid. It is because international support has made a profound impact that Israel is now seeking to cut access to Gaza.

I do not think posting on Tumblr is indicative of one's investment or engagement with the current crisis. I think it's responsible to be thoughtful about disseminating and absorbing information in a conflict as historically fraught and unevenly reported as this one. But, just in case your attention has faltered amid the ongoing and sustained violence in Palestine, now is the time to shed your lethargy. It is not too late to participate in international resistance against violence and genocide.

There is too much for any individual to address, not just in this genocide, but in the other genocides, civil wars, and systemic acts of violence occurring globally. But, you don't need to impact international or even national conflict as an individual; you are a member of a community. So, do what you can for your community and know that your community is capable of navigating even dire straits.

[kathleenkatmary]

My Top 30 Movies of 2024 (as of 12/31/24)

Disclaimer: This is by no means my 'completed' list. There are still a lot of movie I want to see that I won't have access to for awhile yet. I don't usually 'close out' - though I never really 'close out' my yearly lists - until around Oscar time. But I always like to take stock of what my list looks like at the actual end of the year. So here that is. I'll have more complete version around the end of February/beginning of March. Also, I tend to do go by non-festival domestic (US) release dates to determine the year of a movie's release, roughly going by Academy Awards eligibility. But I am kind of loose with that if a movie becomes widely available, even if only on the high seas, before it gets a non-festival US release.

30. A Different Man

A Different Man is the year's most effective exploration of identity and loneliness. It's hardly the first story or movie to look at the idea that changing the physical things that you don't like about yourself won't necessarily make you feel less lonely or more equipped to connect with other people, but it does it in such an interesting way. It's equal parts sad and anxiety inducing.

29. Blood for Dust

This is definitely one of the most underrated movies of the year. It seems that the perception of this is that it's just another low-grade suspense/thriller, but it's actually a really dark look at what modern poverty looks like for so many people, the desperate state the broken system we live in leaves people in, and the lengths people are willing to go to in an attempt to escape it. Every moment is infused with a feeling of dread, but even then it's so easy to relate to Scoot McNairy's character and his choices because of the situation he's in.

28. Civil War

I wouldn't say that Civil War is an apolitical movie, but it's completely uninterested in the one side versus the other side politics that led to the titular war. Instead, it explores the politics of journalism during such a time, the role journalism plays in such a world, and what existing in that line of work does to a person. Through a character like Kirsten Dunst's Lee it shows war as a fact of every day life, and it looks at the United States would look like in that kind of situation.

27. Caddo Lake

Caddo Lake is probably the biggest surprise of the year for me. I went into it knowing pretty much nothing, and what I got was a deeply melancholy time travel tale that used it's sci-fi storyline to dig into ideas of how we're tied to the generations of our family that came before us and how those connections and the things that happened to the people who came before us echo through the generations and continue to impact us. It's such an incredibly effective use of time travel to tell a very human story.

26. The Substance

I doubt I have much to say about The Substance that others haven't already said. Is it subtle? Of course not, but I don't think it needs to be. The over the top atmosphere and slightly bizarro world it sets up feels like the perfect fit for the story it's telling. It's not saying anything that plenty of other pieces of media haven't said, but I do think it captures that feeling of living in a femme body in this culture better than most other movies of this type.

25. Alien: Romulus

I've been a fan of the Alien franchise since I was a kid in the 90s, but it's been in a weird place for a long time. Alien: Romulus feels like a return to form, prioritizing the horror over the sci-fi much of the time and not getting to bogged down with lore and backstory. Most of the characters do feel kind of like stock characters, but the movie does a good job of giving them all solid motivation for their actions and behaviors. And Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson give such great performances, providing the movie with its emotional core.

24. Wicked Little Letters

Wicked Little Letters is a fun movie that unapologetically places women of all kinds at its center. Yes, it's a movie about a feud between two women, but at its core its a movie about the way society pits women against each other, and how we'll always be stronger together. It's also got one of the best ensemble casts of the year, lots of women with amazing chemistry and perfect comic timing.

23. Between the Temples

Definitely the most anxiety inducing moviegoing experience of the year. But it's also one of the sweetest. It's another exploration of loneliness - a theme that's been popular and will probably continue to be - but this one is quite hopeful about finding connection in unexpected places. At its heart it's a love story, but not in the traditional way.

22. Nosferatu

The 1922 original is one of my all time favorite movies, so I was both excited for and a bit skeptical about Robert Eggers's remake. While I don't think it ever reaches the heights of FW Murnau's original or Werner Herzog's version from the 1970s, and while some of the performances could be better in spots, Eggers has such a feel for the dark atmosphere of the story and such an interesting take on the titular vampire. And I think he went in a really interesting route by putting the ideas of grooming and sexual assault that are just sort of naturally an aspect of this story at the forefront.

21. Witches

Looking at the witch hunts and trials of the 1500s and 1600s in Europe and North America through the lens of mental illness isn't really anything new, but the documentary Witches looks at it through a very specific lens: that of post partum depression and psychosis, the continued lack of systemic and cultural support for people suffering from such things, and the way cultural expectations of gender norms surrounding motherhood put people in a position of feeling isolated and even unsafe in seeking help. It's a fascinating way to look at witch hunts, but more than anything it's a deeply personal and cathartic look at experiencing post natal mental health crises in our current world.

20. La Chimera

La Chimera is the most magical feeling movie of 2024, while still feeling very firmly set in the real world. I love that, because it allows for that feeling of magic in our ordinary world. The Italian setting now doubt contributes to that feeling, and the way it's filmed is full of so much whimsy and freedom of spirit that it only enhances the mystical, magical tone that encompasses the story.

19. His Three Daughters

One of 2024's great films about grief. But it's not just about grief. It's about that uniquely agonizing experience of waiting for someone to die, of grieving before the death has actually happened, of being unable to escape that feeling of just wanting it to happen already so that you can get back to your life and all of the guilt that comes with that. Take all that an mix in the complex relationships and rifts between the three sisters at the film's center, and His Three Daughters is one of the best explorations of family dynamics and the impact that a major death can have on them in years.

18. Things Will Be Different

I knew almost nothing about Things Will Be Different going into it, and was very pleasantly surprised to find a quiet little sci-fi story that inserts its genre elements in really clever ways that allow for the low budget. It uses time travel to explore that feeling of the way we can sometimes commit the same mistakes with the people we love over and over and over even when we try to do thing differently, and it ends up packing in incredible emotional punch as a result.

17. I Used to Be Funny

From what I've seen, most of the very few movies out there that focus on the aftermath of sexual assault are very revenge-based. So it's nice to see something like I Used to Be Funny, which has no interest in ideas of revenge and is far more interested in really exploring the long term impacts such a thing can have on a person, on their ability to live life day to day, their relationships, the things they can't get back and the things they can. It's refreshing to see a movie like this that, for the most part, is pretty uninterested in the perpetrator himself, focusing more on the trauma they caused to the people around them, and the way those people find their way to healing.

16. The Last Stop in Yuma County

This is probably the most tense I was watching a 2024 movie (so far, anyway). From pretty much the very start, the tension just keeps building and building and building, at such a steady and methodical pace as more information is revealed, more characters are introduced, and things become more chaotic. The tension then breaks in one of the best end-of-second-act turns I thing I've ever seen. It then goes on to build a completely different kind of tension through its final act. The Last Stop in Yuma County really is a masterclass in tension building. I'm not kidding, this should be studied in schools.

15. The Dead Don't Hurt

The Western has, historically, been a pretty male-centric genre. And while we have seen more westerns focused, at least in part, on women in recent years, The Dead Don't Hurt is the first one I've seen that's really focused on what the experience of a woman really would have been like when the man in her life went off to have the kind of western adventure they usually make movies about. This is very, very much a love story, but what it's about above all is about what a woman alone in that kind of world would go through. It's rough and horrific at times, but in a way that never feels fetishistic or voyeuristic.

14. Dune: Part 2

Villaneuve's Dune movies are stunning achievements not just because they're adaptation of a difficult-to-adapt work that feels complete and true to the source, but also because of how effectively they explore the novel's themes, themes that are still startlingly relevant today, and because of how fantastically it sets up the universe the story takes place in, laying the groundwork for future entries into the franchise.

13. Small Things Like These

I feel like a lot of people might not like Small Things Like These because "nothing really happens", but I feel like it's all right there in the title. This isn't a movie about some grand heroic act where some everyman hero saves a huge amount of people or exposes some major organization. It's about the small things we can do, that a completely ordinary person like Cillian Murphy's character can do to help. It's about the value of every person, every life, and the tremendous, life saving impact even one normal person choosing to do the right thing can have. It's a small, quiet movie. But it's a tremendously powerful one.

12. Late Night with the Devil

I'm not sure I can explain exactly what it is about Late Night with the Devil that captivated me so much. I'm not generally a horror fan. Not because I think the genre is somehow 'lesser', I just don't enjoy being scared. If I love a horror movie, that means there was something in it that I loved so much it overrode how much I don't enjoy being scared. I think this movie really excelled with its main character, exploring him from a really interesting angle and creating a lot of depth with a pretty simple central conceit.

11. Lies We Tell

I'm not 100% sure if this is actually a 2024 film or a 2023 film, but it looks like it was released in he US in 2024, and I didn't have any way to view it until 2024, so I'm counting it as 2024. Lies We Tell is an adaptation of the gothic novel Uncle Silas, and it manages to be even darker than its source material. I think above all this is, obviously, a very woman-centric story, exploring they ways society, especially at the time the story takes place, can leave a woman completely powerless even in her own home. But it's also a very interesting look at family secrets, at the horror of learning that what we thought about the people we loved isn't true, and the ways that those truths being kept from us can put us in danger.

10. I Saw the TV Glow

Again, I doubt I can say anything about I Saw the TV Glow that anyone else hasn't already said. It works most obviously and clearly as a story about the trans experience, but I think it's something that anyone who struggles with their identity, who feels like society or the world they live in keeps them held back from being who they really are, can connect with. And it does that in an incredibly powerful way by focusing really hard on the nostalgia we feel for our youth and the way that, as we grow up, we're constantly looking back to what we remember as 'simpler times' for comfort, even if those times weren't all that simple.

09. Late Bloomers

I'd probably say that Late Bloomers is the most underrated movie of 2024, as I don't think I've seen anyone else talking about it. It's a simple, quiet movie that I found so easy to relate on such a deep level. While, obviously, people in situations more similar to what the characters are going through will find it easy to relate, I do feel like a lot of the ideas being explored here - difficulty connecting to other people, feeling like you're failing or that you haven't done enough or the right things with your life, being selfish at times that you shouldn't be, and at times that you should be, etc. - are probably relatable to most people.

08. Love Lies Bleeding

What a weird little movie Love Lies Bleeding. Most of it has the tone and feeling of a gritty crime movie, but there are strong elements of magic and spirituality. Honestly, in that way it kind of reminds me of a Frank Borzage movie. Borzage never really veered into actual fantasy, but his films were very much about the healing, purifying, spiritual power of love and all of the unlikely and seemingly impossible things it can cause to happen, especially within harsh and unforgiving environments. That's Love Lies Bleeding all over, it just leans a little bit further into the fantastical at points.

07. Woman of the Hour

The true crime genre has been experiencing something of a reckoning lately (and rightly so) for multiple reasons, not least of which is the way victims - especially women victims - are so often loss in the stories of their own deaths, with most of the focus being places on the men who killed them, and with so much attention paid to the gruesome violence of their murders. Woman of the Hour comes out of that reckoning, seeking to tell a story that's usually told because of the murderous man at its center, particularly because he appeared on The Dating Game while he was actively murdering women, in a way that centers his victims, and that doesn't linger on the violence committed against them. It's an incredibly effective film that manages to be quite scary at times and capture the genuine menace of its murderer while still feeling like it's actually honoring the stories of the women he killed.

06. Mother, Couch!

Mother, Couch! did not do well with critics. Most labeled it incomprehensible. Clearly, I disagree. Yes, it's surreal as hell, but I think it all makes sense as a deeply felt exploration of the grief you experience when your relationship with the person you've lost or are losing is messy and complicated and there are more negative feelings than positive ones. It's a look at the very sad reality some people live in where sometimes when someone close to you dies, your life is better for it. Those are some complex and deeply unpretty things to explore, and Mother, Couch! does an incredible job of it, unfolding the relationships between Ewan McGregor's character and his family through a series of confrontations set in a surrealist furniture shop. And it has what I think is the best performance McGregor has ever given.

05. Saturday Night

This felt like the quickest moviegoing experience of the year. It's not the shortest movie from 2024 that I saw, but it was so perfectly paces that it felt like the shortest. The movie is just near-constant action, breaking only occasional to give is a more slowed-down moment between characters. And in that it really captures the frantic feeling Lorne Michaels, played fantastically by Gabrielle LaBelle, is experiencing in trying to get the first episode of Saturday Night Live on the air. It's also got an incredible ensemble cast who do a great job of embodying the real people they're playing.

04. Anora

I think Sean Baker deserves a lot of respect for the work he's done to destigmatize sex work in his films, but what I really want to focus on with Anora is how much it feels like a screwball comedy from the 1940s. Sure, on the surface you wouldn't think it, considering it's about a sex worker and there's a lot of nudity and sex. But when you zoom out and really look at it, from the setup of a quickie green card marriage, to the heroine struggling to survive and hopefully finding a way to do that through marriage, to the fast paced dialogue and physical comedy, this thing is a classic screwball comedy from top to bottom, and I love it.

03. Challengers

Challengers just crackles with energy from beginning to end. Writer Justin Kuritzkes and director Luca Guadignino take tennis being a metaphor for the relationships between the characters and makes almost every scene about that thing, with almost every conversation and argument that happens feeling like a tennis match where everyone is trying to win, trying to exploit each other's weaknesses, seeking that win without thinking much about what happens after they get it. I also think it's a really interesting looks at relationships and how they operate - or don't operate - when one or both parties in a relationship love something - in this case tennis - more than they love the other person.

02. The Beast

The Beast is a twisty, Lynchian adaptation of Henry James's The Beast in the Jungle, taking the general idea and themes of the story and adapting it in three different time periods - the past, the present - and the future - all of which are connected as a presentation of the characters' past lives. It explores feelings of isolation and loneliness, and the way the society and culture we live in specifically puts is in a position to feel those things, in the way the stories connect to each other. With the way this story is told, it's able to be so many different things: tense and scary, achingly romantic, strange and alienating, and always heartbreaking.

01. Conclave

Conclave really was a big surprise for me. I knew almost nothing about it, but my mom wanted to see it so I went with her for her birthday, and I'm so glad I did. I love watching political process in media. Lincoln is my favorite Spielberg movie, The West Wing is one of my all time favorite shows. So Conclave, a movie about the college of Cardinals trying to elect the new Pope and all the political jockeying and intrigue that goes on while that's happening, is so up my aisle. And as someone who was raised Catholic but always struggled with doubts (and who is now no longer religious), the fact that one of the major themes of this movie is doubt, and how doubt is a necessary part of faith, really spoke to me. It's also just amazing looking. Really, a movie about priests should not be this exciting and fun.

[fullmetal-scar-simping]

Do you remember that bit from Mangahood where we have the extended Ishvalan genocide flashback, and we see Scar being horrified when he sees some of his colleagues endorse his brother’s use of alchemy and how they’re becoming “just as bad” as the oppressors. And him eventually doing the same is a downfall for Scar?

Teen me didn’t fully realize the issues with Mangahood but Jesus even I knew that scene was stupid as fuck. “Kill them before they kill us” US IS ALREADY BEING KILLED THE FUCK YOU MEAN-

Ughhhh, yeah. I saw those pages awhile back and just sat there, dumbfounded. On the one hand I can see this being Scar's outrage at Ishvalans forsaking the taboo of alchemy in order to fight "like Amestrians". But once again, when we step past the view of the characters themselves and look at the whole, at the messages being communicated by the larger narrative, it reeks of "The folly of humanity, that the oppressed and their oppressors are ultimately alike." And just. Without a historical lens that contextualizes these tools, the economic, ideological, and imperial/political frameworks that give rise to alchemy as a military weapon, it sure looks like the Ishvalans are no less "led astray from a path of peace (passivity) by the promise of power".

However that's not what's happening! They have been occupied for likely decades, perhaps longer (unsure if the manga or side materials make any statements on how long the occupation has lasted)! They have suffered under the Amestrian boot for too long, with the violence escalating to full on war. Knowing what weaponry your invaders are bringing to your land (alchemy), why wouldn't some Ishvalans choose to wield the same in order to improve their odds of survival? Scar being bullheaded about that is one thing (it can be seen like him not wanting to use a weapon of mass destruction, as ridiculous as it is given the context of Ishvalan self-defense), but to treat him as equal to his oppressors because he "falls from grace" and wields alchemy to murder state alchemists is mad annoying. All a part of that pesky "continuing cycle of violence" that mangahood is locked onto.

Y'know, Scar learning to embrace reconstruction as an equal part of alchemy, and dissolving Father's philosopher stone's monopoly on alchemy in Amestris could be seen as him learning that alchemy can be a force reclaimed. That it isn't wrong on its own, but rather how its used and for what purpose. Which is solid in theory, if alchemy is read as a mechanism of the world despoiled as opposed to a system, institution, and ideology that reimburses class and racial hierarchies (this is how 03 handles alchemy, which I vastly prefer).

However, given that this is in service of aiding Amestris by maintaining its military governance under different leadership, and soft-colonizing Ishval, it feels more like "civilizing" the Native into using your method of societal power in a lousy facsimile of quid pro quo. Which can be summarized as: Scar was wrong until finally he embraced an ideology that serves the Amestrians. Barf.

[qedmirage]

As most of my international followers know here in the US we're having a presidential election this year. Well, that means each major party has to select their candidate, and the process for that has been going on for a while now. See, in the US, state-level parties have a lot of say in how they select candidates, so they randomly jockey for more important slots than each other, and this is why the party elections for their candidate take months and not, like, a week. Well for the past several months, in the lead up to actual voting, we've been obligated to pretend that several people with a snowball's chance in hell were serious candidates to control the world's [EDIT: second-] largest nuclear arsenal. I want to briefly commemorate/memorialize one of those candidacies, that of Ron DeSantis of florida.

See just a few days ago we had the iowa caucuses, a silly way to select presidential candidates that is ALSO unrepresentative of who the final nominee will be, as the winner secures an objectively tiny amount of points (called 'delegates') towards gaining a party's nomination and the system is designed to make it impossible for introverts to participate. You get like a tiny sliver of a party's membership voting in caucuses and it's weighted to favor the freaks and fanatics. And yet that simple, first contest, was enough to cause all but two of the field of GOP candidates to give up and go home. Because throughout the pre-pre-election season they would give fawning, obsequious praise to Donald Trump - the best president since Washington, possibly even better - and then be asked: "Isn't he also running for president? Why should people vote for you over him, if they like Trump?" to which the answer would be some vague mumbling about his legal challenges or age or how statistically most of the country wants to murder him with knives. (The notable exception here is wannabee mafioso Chris Christie, who at least does not forgive trying to kill him). Anyways, in final results Trump got 20 points, Ron DeSantis got 9, Nikki Haley got 8, and 4chan shitposter Vivek Ramaswamy got 3. Of those, only Trump and Nikki Haley didn't immediately give up. So anyways. Ron DeSantis. Actually presently a governor of a major state, and Florida at that - one which has shifted from 'swing' to 'republican' over his tenure. You could be forgiven for thinking he's a skilled politician. And yet. He repeatedly promised that his first day in office would start with war with mexico, which he never described in those terms. Rather he'd just

blockade mexican ports

shoot mexican nationals on the southern border without a trial ('people who have backpacks', apparently)

Send US military forces into mexico to kill more mexican citizens without trial

Cool. Normal. We're allies with that country, you know? He'd say such policies were informed by his military service as a lawyer in Iraq and then (he does not mention this part) Guantanomo Bay. Yeah, I bet they are. Though, for some reason, he always leaves off the "as a lawyer" part. DeSantis's team also produced some of the most deranged and openly fascist ads of a major candidate. See, the DeSantis campaign was oriented around "the war on woke", his efforts to use state power to roll back civil rights in general, progressives existing in government, and the rights of LGBT people in particular. Already cloaked in the language of online reactionaries it was always gonna attract freaks, and as a result, the ads made by younger staffers (released, not by the official campaign, but to pro-DeSantis meme accounts secretly run by his staffers) are totally deranged. Here's one of them; I'm going to warn you, it's intensely homophobic, to the point that a republican presidential candidate had to apologize for the homophobia.:

crazy ass moments in american politics on X: "The Ron DeSantis campaign team post a Trump attack ad feat. phonk. (2023) https://t.co/cwaWnZInG7" / X (twitter.com)

For those who don't wish to watch such things, the core thesis of the ad is that the republican party under Trump was captured by and coddled LGBT people, and DeSantis will restore strong masculinity and crush LGBT americans. DeSantis is paralleled to noted straight Achilles, those sigma chad memes, and fictional murderer Patrick Bateman, all while heavy bass music plays. My personal favorite stills:

Again, these are from an ad for a guy who quit after literally the first contest. Truly a fighter.

But even that pales in comparison to the "running up that hill" ad. That one is one of the most straightforwardly fascist pieces of advertising a modern american politician has made. While perhaps less directly offensive, viewer be warned, this is nazi shit: Luke Thompson on X: "The @desantiscams account just deleted this video after at least one campaign staffer RT'd it. I wonder if this was also made in-house. https://t.co/JA1D9qqONF" / X (twitter.com) (It was, in fact, made in-house).

The esoteric nazi symbolism did not go unnoticed. Nor the fact that it ends on DeSantis's paramilitary "florida guard" (not the national guard!) marching forward into a bright dawn while he looks down approvingly. The aide who made that video was fired, but it's no wonder he felt at home; DeSantis's whole appeal is about threatening to use extralegal power against conservatism's enemies. He tried to revoke Disney's special tax statuses based purely on an extremely beige statement in support of LGBT rights they issued, and again, established a paramilitary force under his command. There are far more examples than those two. Not a 'normal' politician. Aside from setting millions of dollars of republican donor money on fire, DeSantis's campaign leaves behind a legacy of the various 'posting is life' type laws he enacted in Florida to raise his public profile. These include a raft of laws that target and victimize LGBT americans: [Thread of several such stories, reported in major outlets]

And he was also a noted figure in the conservative turn against COVID precautions, defenses, and vaccinations. While we'll never know such things to precision, Florida's COVID deaths record was considerably worse than many other states, despite its wealth and good climate. They chose not to pursue safer methods so as to buoy DeSantis's future presidential ambitions, now dead in the street. Like most failed presidential primary candidates he will probably not have a long future in national politics; DeSantis is a weirdo who eats pudding with his bare fingers, he's profoundly uncharismatic, and he's fought against his team's de facto leader. But before it's all consigned to dust of history, I'd just like to take a moment to remember all the real people who have suffered for his campaign, and for what? So he can make a 72 second ad with him shooting lightning from his eyes, get 21% of the vote in Iowa, and give up after 8 days.

A statesman for the ages, truly.

[mr-clow]

Ensemble 2: Greed and Politics. Part 2:

Six months had passed since the initial attack. Quatl was now on the podium, informing the other delegates that had joined the war the current situation.

Quatl - My speech has been sent previously to your translation units, any doubts please wait until the report is finished.

Quatl scanned the ample room that was barely occupied by fifteen different creatures. Al waiting to hear has been fished out of the war on humanity only for them to start arguing who would keep what.

Quatl - The war has progressed a lot faster than expected and with minimal losses. The first five standard rotations (Ten human days for the reader) were the cruellest, where we had the 90% of the total deaths and all the ships lost were during that period. After that, during the following 30 rotations, humanity retreated to the inner section of their system, fleeting with nothing more than what they could carry with their hands. As stated before, the humans cannot be trusted, so we established a barrier around the system, only stopping the ships that were trying to leave the system. No human ship tried to leave and we assume that at the moment more than 89.000.000.000.000 humans are enclosed in that area. Sanarin and KalHal governments had been sending food to support their allies and we cannot stop them by the same council rules that we established to protect ourselves. As for now, nothing more than food has been taken inside the system, so there is nothing to worry about.

Quatl watched as several symbols of approval crossed through the different species. They all chipped in prepared for war with one of the most vicious species on the galaxy and suddenly this overgrown monkeys had shown their cowardly side, nothing could have been better.

Quatl – Now, we know that humanity faced a civil war, the actual ruler is a female without any experience in combat and deemed mentally unstable. Their industry resources are lacking, they are short on fuel, and as a civilization right now they cannot distinguish top from bottom. We will have an additional meeting to speak about the profits of this war, but I assure you, the bounty is plentiful. I would prefer if we coordinate said meeting before the replacement delegate of the Spin’d arrives, as the latter abandoned her post.

Quatl went down of the podium as voices of approval follow him. After reviewing a couple of documents with the rest of the present members, he went to Kiltnik office, as he had some doubts that the smart Rajne might solve. He went in and clashed on the resting surface that was set up against the wall. Kiltnik looked at him and sat on the other side of the desk.

Kiltnik – I am really impressed, we made out with 37 worlds, five of them already terraformed, a few others habitable and all the rest are full of resources.

Quatl – Yes, humanity have a superb sense for valuables. Now that we have taken all of their colonies, the commerce inside the council will reach levels never seen before.

Kiltnik – The most important question still remains unanswered, though.

Quatl – Don’t worry, I have a plan to convince those brutes that the planets we are going to give them are worth more than all our share together.

Kiltnik – I don’t have any doubts about that. I am wondering what will we do with humanity.

Quatl – That will be easy, but we need time. Eventually the other species will stop sending aid and humanity will have to perish or drag to our feet. They already ran like scared prey to they own system and we blockaded them. Maybe the civil war will make the job for us and humanity will kill itself.

Kiltnik – That is a good prediction. Sadly we can not stop the Sanarin and KalHal from sending them aid, but maybe shall we convince them in other way?

Quatl – When they see the share they missed, they will start doubting. Meanwhile, they are not bothering us with other things, so let’s wait a bit more.

Kiltnik – That means that you are not here to talk about humans, nor the share, what do you need to know?

Quatl – You should learn to do some small talk, ease those around you to be more receptive.

Kiltnik – You know that is not the way of my people.

Quatl – Well, well, alright. Do you know what happened with Gnacht? The Spin’d wouldn’t change their delegate just because.

Kiltnik – As you might expect, their central government got an anonymous word of the opportunity they lost because of her decision. It was an obvious response. They should have been on our side, now she will pay for it.

Quatl – I enjoy easing people to submission as much as you enjoy destroying their careers. We make an excellent team. I hope we stay on the same side for the rotations to come.

Kiltnik – That word is empty, make sure I’ll be on your side and I’ll do the same.

Quatl – And you should work on your ability to read between lines, but yes, the same as I said. I have to leave, remember to hand me your selection for the loot.

Kiltnik made a gesture to leave Quatl at ease as he reached for the door. Quatl happily walk to his room, he would leave an absence note to dismiss every appointment that required his presence, and he would bury himself to enjoy a long-lasting and well-earned meal.

[gavisuntiedboot]

I'm the anon that u called Islamophobic. I think I didn't get my point across. Mena is notorious for having no democracy or electing fundamentalist gov. This isn't being Islamophobic this is a fact. I don't think Palestinians will want to live in peace after what israel put them through especially kids from Gaza.

Creation of Israel was to make it a Jewish state not a secular state. Makes no sense for them to change law of return. Especially with Netanyahu n abbas to find a middle ground

Its naive of u to think that it won't start a Civil War like in Lebanon. They don't like each other. Either way there will be genocide of Either group. Forcing a one state solution is not feasible,unless u want a blood bath. Ut will be 1947 all over.

I'm not Islamophobic like u make me out to be. I live in a country that feeds the same kind of propaganda. What israel is doing in wrong. They shouldn't have been making a state there. Things happened has happened.

Both of the leadership in very corrupt. This is the reason I support 2 state solution so that they don't kill each other. Or otherwise jews just go back where they come from Europe or Mena wherever.

Also river to sea is a call for genocide. It was used by Israeli gov and also Palestinians. U want to mean it something but it isn't.

I hope there will be peace someday without a genocide

Anon, read these words carefully: you ARE being Islamophobic and racist when you say these things.

MENA is notorious for actually having their governments collapsed by the West and then benefiting from the chaos. That's what happened in Egypt and Kuwait and Lebanon. They never let elections stand as the people want them. You are saying that "MENA people don't know how to pick governments or they pick a Muslim one." Like dude. There is currently no fundamentally Islamic government anywhere in the world. It doesn't exist. Like who are you referring to when you make this statement? If I say "Ukrainian people don't know how to elect a good government, so Russia should have Ukraine" it would be an ASS BACKWARDS STATEMENT. YOU, non-MENA individual, think we don't know how to pick or elect a government. So what if it's an Islamic government? IF THAT'S WHAT THE PEOPLE CHOOSE FOR THEMSELVES WHAT IS THE ISSUE? You're Islamophobic and racist because you believe that people in the MENA region are not capable of making decisions for themselves or capable of being civilized.

"Well I don't think that Palestinians will want x..." Respectfully, what you think means ABSOLUTELY FUCK ALL IN THIS SITUATION. You are not Palestinian, you don't talk to Palestinian or even Middle Eastern people apparently, and your response is "Well they already took the land so let them keep it." No. Fuck you. It's our land and we want it back. Because by your logic "well Franc took Algeria so they should just be fine with it". Like you fundamentally do not believe brown people have the right to their own land and to self determination. If Russia took a portion of Ukraine, you would never say "oh just let Russia keep it what happened already happened" because they're white.

The West fucks up the MENA region and then tells brown people to deal with it. Lebanon was created to make an Arab state for Christians so they would leave Syria. Then the same Western countries put a Muslim government in place TO MAKE SURE THE MIDDLE EAST WASN'T AT REST. THE WHITE WORLD BENEFITS FROM THE DESTABILIZATION OF THE MIDDLE EAST. SO THEY CASUE IT THEMSELVES.

Israel shouldn't exist. And God willing within our lifetimes it will cease to exist. And I mean that in the same way the Soviet Union ceases to exist. Not as a call for killing, but the dismantlement of an oppressive political system of ruling. I want the state of Israel to disappear, not Jewish people.

And finally, from the river to the sea was a slogan made by Palestinians. Israelis stole it, like they stole everything else. Palestinians say it with one meaning, and your refusal to accept the meaning from the creators of the phrase speaks to the internalized bigotry within you. When people say "Black Lives Matter" do you feel threatened? Do you think it is a call to end white lives? Do you burn with the need to say "well ALL lives matter"?

Your argument is based in the fact that you see brown people as incapable of self governance, that because they were massacred in '48 they don't deserve their own land, that everyone is bad so Palestinians should shut up and be happy with a two state solution and that's the best we can do. You are a racist and you are Islamophobic, and I will not be responding to any of your further attempts at a rebuttal until you can sit with yourself and realize that. You think you're free from propaganda? The propaganda has worked extra hard on you, because you still believe that we are not civilized people.

I hope you have the day you deserve.

[8-evil-annoying-catboys]

don’t fucking spread misinformation. lincoln was elected in march of 1861, and didn’t start a draft of the emancipation proclamation until july 13, 1862. that’s over a full year later.

and, by the way, the emancipation proclamation did NOT end slavery altogether in the US. it said that slavery was not recognized as legal by the US in states that were rebelling against the US. meaning that slaves from confederate states would not be punished by the US if they ran away and made it to a state that wasn’t rebelling. chattel slavery was still legal in union states after the emancipation proclamation until the 13th amendment was passed in december of 1865, 3 and a half years after the emancipation proclamation was first drafted, and more than 6 months after the civil war ended.

furthermore, bringing up obama isn’t very relevant, seeing as gay marriage was legalized throughout the US by the supreme court decision in obergefell v hodges, NOT by the president. yeah, yeah, the president appoints the supreme court justices, so obama did influence this decision by appointing two justices earlier in his career… but it’s not accurate to imply that he clearly intended to legalize gay marriage during his presidency while campaigning in 2008, when gay marriage was not legalized until 2015, and he didn’t directly have anything to do with the decision.

in both the case of lincoln and the case of obama, i would take them at their word for what they said during their campaigns as quoted in this post.

lincoln didn’t intend to abolish slavery, he wanted to avoid civil war! when civil war happened anyway, it seems to me that the emancipation proclamation was more of a strategic economic decision and/or political theatre than an expression of lincoln’s opinions on slavery/abolition… the southern, and by extension the confederate economy before and during the civil war was only as prosperous as it was because of slavery. allowing confederate state’s slaves to run away to the union and be free and protected if and when they arrived would significantly affect the confederacy’s workforce and their economy, while also boosting morale in the war by publicly siding with abolitionists.

obama didn’t intend to legalize gay marriage, and he DIDN’T. he appointed two justices to the supreme court within the first 2 years of his first term, who would then go on to both be part of the majority of 5 justices who decided in a landmark case that gay marriage should be legal in all 50 states, like 5 years after he appointed them. he did not pick these justices in the first half of his first term with the intention of influencing the legality of gay marriage in his penultimate year as president. be serious.

all of this information is so fucking easy to find and debunk.

also.. i’m personally still on the fence about voting democrat this election—i’m feeling disillusioned both about the possibility of pressuring kamala to stop the genocide, AND the possibility of my preferred candidate (jill stein) actually winning. but it is my duty, as someone who cares about the victims of genocide, to at LEAST threaten kamala that i won’t vote for her if she and biden don’t do everything in their power to put a stop to this atrocity. holding votes hostage is THE VERY LEAST we can do. vote for whoever you think you should—as much as i wish i could vote my conscience without worrying that i’m “throwing away” my vote, the system isn’t set up to allow me to do that… yet. we’ll see how the tides look in october when the election is on the horizon, and that will decide where my vote lands. but it’s OK to threaten a candidate that you won’t vote for them if they don’t do something you want, even if you already know you’re lying. lying to politicians isn’t just ok, it’s morally correct, and it’s also only fair—they lie to you every fucking day!! in case you didn’t check those last two links, i’ll spell it out for you, HERE is where you can hold your vote hostage today, whether you’re bluffing or not—if every single person who reads this does that, maybe we won’t have to choose between voting for a genocide supporter and betting on a losing horse.

altho, again. my ideal situation is for jill stein to win, institute ranked choice voting, stop selling arms to israel and align with the rest of the world in opposition to the genocide, and start the gears turning for a better world without having to oil them with the blood of rebels and the most vulnerable citizens who will die in a revolution whether they fight or not. sorry if that sounds dumb to you, op, but you sound really stupid to me, spreading misinformation like this just because you can’t find any better way to tell people to shut up about genocide already and hand over their vote, like it’s owed to someone else and doesn’t belong to them. lol. lmao even.

This is genuinely what some of you sound like. Remember, Lincoln FAMOUSLY campaigned on the promise that he was not a threat to the institution of slavery. There were tons of people who were FURIOUS that he wasn't doing enough.

But he realized that he was trying to appeal to a voterbase of WHITE SUPREMACISTS and PEOPLE WHO EXCLUSIVELY BENIFITTED AND PROFITED FROM THE INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY.

If he was honest about his intentions to abolish slavery, he wouldn't have gotten elected to ANYTHING.

At one point, he even said something along the lines of "I have no intention to threaten the institution of slavery. My soul purpose is to save the union." Meanwhile, he already had a draft of the emancipation proclaimation largely ready to go. Obama is another example. He famously promised often and loudly that he "in no way supported gay marriage". Which ALSO made lots of liberals angry. It is extremely frustrating watching people who don't understand how politics work try to play politics.

[river-from-alderaan]

The Rebellion makes no sense: a very unserious essay

Alright, the fight against the Empire goes on for years, which is not unusual for a civil war. But am I the only one who thinks that despite the individual arcs, it doesn't ever feel like the characters are doing anything other than... being at war??

I think what happens is I automatically compare the Empire times to the Clone Wars. Being that in addition to the PT we have CW as a show -a type of media where the story is much more stretched out- "the war" feels to me more like a general state rather than an event.

Additionally, both the prequels and the CW show take us to more places in comparison to the OT. Hell, the Jedi temple alone is huge and diverse. The Rebel bases feel incredibly small, so there's little to do apart from, Idk, tracing battle plans.

Talking Hoth specifically: the place looks intended strictly as a workspace, not a living space. Like, genuinely, it's tiny. It's a new base too, built little before ESB. This is not directly stated, but I feel if it was an old base that was either being reused or simply hosting more people now, they'd probably say it. The way the new location is introduced in the opening text makes me believe that's not the case.

What is directly told to us is that the Rebels are on the run. In between Yavin and Hoth, there's been either another base or a period where the Rebels had to just use their fleet. If the Hoth base was a last minute pull for the Alliance, then I'd assume then yes, it's probably small and not all that well equiped in comparison to Yavin or Dantooine.

So my guess is that the Rebels (uh, sorry, one question - how do they afford a living if they're constantly busy with their job of being a Rebel, which is very time consuming yet unpaid?) don't live there. But then how do they manage to be there? Hoth is implied to be a pretty isolated planet, hence why the choice to hide there. Does every single Rebel own a ship to travel from their own home planets every other day?? Do they sleep inside their fighters??

I'm not sure of what "being a Rebel" even entails. What type of job to they do when they're not actively in battle? Most importantly, why aren't there political stances ever mentioned, unlike in the prequels? Surely that means that they're a military organization only?

But then isn't that a disservice to what they're trying to accomplish? The Empire, while also quite unclear in wether it is a dictatorship or simply a corrupt ruling system, is esentially the government. Wouldn't it take more than a civil war to take something like that down? Like, social rioting or something? Dear Rebel leaders, Leia is literally a member of the Senate, aren't y'all using that for nothing?

Speaking of Leia, if not at the base, where do her and Luke live? You know, being that neither of them has families, homes or nearly any belongings at all??

They had a 3 year time skip already! They could've used that to come up with a random explanation without having to actually waste too much screentime - introducing a new status quo is much quicker than actually walking the audience through events. It could've been done in a single throwaway line. Sure it would've been kinda lazy, but it just seems like they completely forgot about it.

[thatstormygeek]

In a society that functioned, Trump would have dropped out of the 2020 Presidential Election and the Republican Party would be scurrying to replace him. Possibly begging Nikki Haley to stop scrawling encouragement for war crimes on the side of bombs long enough to get a team together. Instead, the crazy train continues rolling on. ... Rather than wrestle with the implication of supporting a convicted felon, Republicans and Right Wing influencers have completely ignored the facts of the case and doubled and tripled-down on painting the legal system as a weapon of the “Deep State” and advocating for violent reprisals, including the jailing of political enemies and, in some cases, pushing for outright conflict.

In my research into the Far Right (as I detailed on last night’s live reaction to the convictions on The Muckrake Podcast), I’ve seen them openly plot terroristic actions that could capitalize on the outrage and, hopefully, plunge the country into a full-blown civil war that could benefit white supremacists. Since, I’ve talked with a handful of Democratic strategists and have heard the same thing over and over. President Joe Biden and his campaign, along with the majority of the Democratic Party, feel it’s unnecessary to engage with the fact that the leader of the Republican Party is now a convicted felon and will let it “speak for itself.” This, of course, is the same tact they’ve chosen with the corrupt Supreme Court stripping women of their reproductive rights. It’s wrongheaded, politically stupid, and just adds to the overall worsening of conditions. This survey speaks volumes. Trump’s political career should be done. Over. Kaput. And the decision handed down by those twelve brave jurors should have been the obituary of this moment. That it wasn’t, that it doesn’t even approach that reality, tells us everything we need to know. ... Any of the decorum we believed existed before - and which was upheld by politicians reacting to scandal or censure by respectably retreating from the public eye or giving up their ambitions - has been shattered. Trump didn’t create this, he simply served as the sensible and logical evolution of what was already happening. American politicians had either survived scandals or wrongdoing in the past because these things were kept under wraps. They were “open secrets.” Their peers and journalists knew about them, but didn’t care to report them. The legal system largely didn’t prosecute them because the business of the American system has never been dragging powerful, white men into a courtroom and airing their sins. On the same day Trump was convicted a story was published in Slate that detailed what former Apprentice producer Bill Pruitt had seen and heard while in Trump’s proximity. He confirmed a long-held rumor that Trump was heard by several people on the show using the n-word during discussions about the show’s finale. This “rumor” had existed well before Trump ever won the election. Back then it was believed that if this was confirmed he would never gain power. Well, it’s confirmed now, and it simply joins the confession of sexual assault. Only, it’s not even being discussed in 2024. Because the environment has so radically changed it doesn’t even matter anymore. The Right does not care about any of this. Why? Because it’s inconsequential. The “principles” we’ve been told they carry - small government, fiscal and personal responsibility, traditional values - were never real to begin with. They were cudgels that could be used against their enemies in the pursuit of power. That pursuit of power is all that matters to The Right, because power represents the ability to oppress others to further your own ends.

[camomillerat]

goodbye 2023 welcome 2001

i cry for argentina

we are currently at the beginning of a new government who has augmented prices from 40-100% in less than a month, fired a lot of workers from many industries (by email), has allowed again former (former?) colonizers to buy more than the 15% land limit they now have, liberated importations which we can’t fight with in production levels, took subsidies from public transport and vital services such as electricity, water and gas, is planning on selling 41 State companies (and, ironically, nationalized private debt), liberated healthcare systems prices up to whatever they want—leading to a 40% increase and another 28% expected this month, while salaries stay the same, or worst, decrease; derogated rent laws and liberated its market, monopolized the food market even more and is openly letting us know that we’ll have to suffer this for at least two more years in order to reorganize the economy—how? we don’t know yet, president and team are keeping it a secret.

this is not new to us, not even to the region. liberalism, how we know it, which is conservatism dressed up as freedom has already been in power years ago, in 2001. (there’s a great movie I always recommend, Pino Solana’s “Memory of the Plunder”)

it led to a civil war between people and the police who were defending the government, while it was giving national broadcasts from inside the government house, still defending the measures, when hungry young boys and old ladies were putting their chests out confronting police horses and lead bullets.

international IMF and World Bank debts turn us more and more poor and steal our soveireignity. yet, not having class consciousness keeps making us democratically vote for groups who choose this model to continue to sell it all and leave us with nothing.

memory is a gem. anyone who doesn’t know their history is condemned to repeat it. i also remember who took us out of that crisis and how we recovered our life quality, and it was, by chance, a completely opposite political idea. but that’s a whole other story.