#this is what america did in korea. this is what america did in vietnam. this is what america does in the caribbean.

[solipseismic]

"the dems are pro-genocide" "harris is just as supportive of genocide as biden" and what. do you think. the republicans think. of american imperialism and genocide? please. do let me know.

[txttletale]

i'll actually in a limited capacity defend the overwatch league's regional teams gimmick but the execution was bad. having regional teams could have been hype. like--during astralis' 2018-2019 csgo run, danish esports fans went fucking insane for them. and like of course they did. there's inherently something exciting about having a team you can in some way 'identify' with. and geography does create natural sports rivalries and pre-writes your stories.

there were two glaring bad problems in the dumb way blizzard did this though. one is forcing teams to come up with brand new branding. this was a horrible idea. it forced well-established esports organizations with strong fanbases across different games like cloud9 and optic to try and build new brands up from scratch. they realized this with their call of duty leage where they let teams play as 'atlanta faze' and 'optic texas' but yknow. kind of too little too late

the other one (and this is also the glaring fatal flaw in the overwatch league's entire silly, silly business plan) is the idea of a global league. now if you don't know much about esports you might think 'wait whats wrong with that. its gaming you can do it online players can be anywhere'. however that's not true! first of all, esports--well esports doesn't make money, esports when managed correctly is essentially a loss leader for the game it's an esport for--but esports makes a lot of its money on live events. yeah, people go to see esports games:

much more importantly, ping is a huge factor in esports. the higher the level you're playing at, especially in a game like overwatch that's full of twitchy hitscan aiming, the more a 10ms latency difference can make or break a game. you need to be running in-person events in order to have a competitive esports league and to make a good chunk of your revenue.

and that means that a global esports league runs into the exact same problem a global normal sports league would run into and the reason why that doesn't exist, which is travel logistics. the overwatch league has a london team, a san francisco team, and a chengdu team. these cities are very far away from each other [citation needed] and although overwatch league people will often blame covid for ruining their plans, i honestly think it actually saved them by preventing the horrible idea they had for how the league would work from actually happening. imagine all the problems that travel causes in a league like the NBA--jet lag, exhaustion, the obvious budgetary expenditure. now imagine that the travel itinerary also includes flights across the atlantic and/or pacific.

that's not even all! the thing about esports is that, because practicing for ten hours a day doesn't physically destroy your body like it would for regular sports, esports players and teams... do that. if you spend seventeen hours on a plane from paris to hangzhou for a match that's seventeen hours where you're not practicing. when you arrive, you can't just stay at a hotel--you need to be able to practice in the days leading up to the match too, especially because it's esports, which means the game can change. if you miss some practice as a sports team, you're gonna be rusty--if you miss some practice as an esports team, the rules of the game might have literally changed since your last practice session.

the result of this, by the way, is that the london and paris teams have never been actually based in europe--and that right now the dallas team is based in korea. it is very silly. every other multinational esport ever invented has created regional leagues--league of legends has a league for korea, china, europe, north america, pacific, vietnam, brazil, japan, and latin america. but blizzard entertainment are god's special little gamers and they weren't going to let something like 'the ocean' get in the way of their global league dream.

and ultimately this means that the entire local team concept was pointless. most of the teams aren't locally based. and even if they were -- the madcap way they play against each other mean that those city affiliations don't matter. when manchester united play liverpool f.c., even if you are not a big football fan, if you're from manchester you presumably have an opinion of liverpool and liverpudlians, and vice versa. there is an emotional hook to latch on to. if manchester united were to play khon khaen united, you would probably say 'where the fuck is khon khaen'. for the localisation to work, the overwatch league's london team needed a manchester or glasgow or dublin or amsterdam or brussels team (etc.) to play against. if you're invested in the esport itself and the players, you can get invested in a philadelphia-london or chengdu-houston rivalry--but the localisation aspect of it isn't doing the work it should there.

tldr: the overwatch league was a bad idea ever since the moment it was announced. people are too harsh on the team localization idea but the way it was executed was hot garbage and it's no wonder this entire venture failed badly

[jacksoldsideblog]

On the loss of the worker class and the lack of hypocrisy in Project Mayhem

"What," he says, "what will you wish you'd done before you died?"

...

My job, I say. I wish I'd quit my job.

...

The mechanic starts talking, and it's pure Tyler Durden. 

"I see the strongest and the smartest men who have ever lived," he says, his face outlined against the stars in the driver's window, "and these men are pumping gas and waiting tables." 

The drop of his forehead, his brow, the slope of his nose, his eyelashes and the curve of his eyes, the plastic profile of his mouth, talking, these are all outlined in black against the stars. 

"If we could put these men in training camps and finish raising them. 

"All a gun does is focus an explosion in one direction. 

"You have a class of young strong men and women, and they want to give their lives to something. Advertising has these people chasing cars and clothes they don't need. Generations have been working in jobs they hate, just so they can buy what they don't really need. 

"We don't have a great war in our generation, or a great depression, but we do, we have a great war of the spirit. We have a great revolution against the culture. The great depression is our lives. We have a spiritual depression. 

"We have to show these men and women freedom by enslaving them, and show them courage by frightening them. 

"Napoleon bragged that he could train men to sacrifice their lives for a scrap of ribbon. 

"Imagine, when we call a strike and everyone refuses to work until we redistribute the wealth of the world. 

"Imagine hunting elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center.

"What you said about your job," the mechanic says, "did you really mean it?"

.

Chapters 18-19, Fight Club.

Well known, probably, for the facetious nature of stating there’s no war in the generation in the 90s as having no war when the Gulf war ‘ended’ in ‘91, and in ‘03 we’d be back in Iraq. Also known well for its inclusion in the movie. 

But like, what’s actually being said there, when you get past that?

You have: The working class of America was emaciated as jobs flew overseas and were rerouted to prison ‘labor’, rapidly deindustrializing the country and leaving those left behind to be shoved into bullshit jobs to create a consumer managerial class, a fangless servile underclass without real power to affect the day to day of society, and a very, very small remaining working class. People who once would have been integral to the function of society are now further alienated and reduced to consumers in a deindustrialized feedlot. All that’s left is the hopelessness, which everyone can see is a cataclysmic disease. A problem that has to be solved. You have such a severe loss of power, such strong alienation that fight club develops as a way to grasp even a sense of control and purpose.

You have: Men especially have been promised war and hard times as the catalyst for their own purpose, but now this generation has seen war, has seen hard times, and none of those promises are stacking up. The poisoning and bombing of civilians in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, doesn’t quite match with the image of righteously dying to end nazism. There is no sudden government program buying up the labor of the beleaguered man down on his luck, to create massive publics works projects and revitalize the surrounding world and economy, a la the New Deal. The propagandized images of the past have been tarnished. There is an acute sense of lack of purpose, lack of value. There is an acute sense of something needing to shift, something massive.

You have: a manufactured rejection of the working class, a debridement of labor, a world in which salary has no relation to the importance or effort of the work you do; there is no value.

He says, imagine; the American people revitalized to the power and importance of before. Strong and undistracted, no longer pacified by petty admittance to jobs with no purpose, no longer accepting of their devaluation, no longer allowing their importance in the world the predicted value of their ad-influenceable leanings. 

Imagine; you’re afraid of history, you cannot imagine crafting a better world, anyone with a concrete plan has been gunned down and removed from power and all you’re left with is limpdicked fools who sit around waiting for a miracle to happen. Imagine you can only see destroying this one and hoping what rises from the ashes will be better as the answer. 

He's an accelerationist; make everything worse, so bad, hit bottom so all you can do is rise. 

So: accelerate. Take the average wage slave, already stripped of true individuality in favor of corporate signage, already stripped of power, and push them farther. Imagine, you think, only will everyone be strong if they finally accept that they are weak. Become the opposite of free. Join a cult. Become nothing and no one. Manifest the death cult already intrinsic in society. Become the nexus of all of society’s ills. Push people into such inhumanity that they will inevitably revolt against you and learn the true value of themselves in the world. 

And try to collapse society. Accelerate the fall of finance. Hasten the destruction of society so it can blossom again.

So yeah, it’s like… I think Project Mayhem’s hypocrisies are on purpose, really. Self improvement is masturbation if you’re never going to actually make a difference. Self destruction is the only thing that will allow you to reach even a moment of perfection. Destroy what you were, let go, fucking take action for once, unfreeze, DO something. Project Mayhem is an advanced version of fight club; it promises actualization through destruction. It isn’t like, some happenstance thing that results in Tyler making the space monkeys what they are. 

I think it’s moreso simply the manifestation of the accelerationist aspect of Tyler’s anarchist, nihilist ideals. And like those two, it’s also a criticism. The monkeys do not drag themselves free. They still await orders. It is a failed, ill planned philosophy of a rabid dog.

[mx-post-stuffs]

i keep seeing about atomic bomb that america did. What can i say is japan wasnt morally good(I mean, they did human experiment and colonialism.) but it don’t justify the atomic bomb. For those who wanna talk about innocent korean could die more if the amazing USA didnt do that. We korean did warcrimes in Vietnam war with USA. And before korean war...American military with Korean goverment started killing people in Jeju island at 1948! Cuz “Arrgh there can be communist spies!” So...I don’t think the heroic USA did that to free anyone to end the war for peace.

I know I spoke more about korean than japan but so many korean think they are always innocent victim when we aren’t really that great. What japan did back in the day was atrocious and the japan goverment should compensate and apology and thats not enough. The Comfort women shit was horrible. But I dont think korean can be forgiven for the crimes we did because someone else did it worse.

Also it’s kind of funny that when there is problem in south korea, america is always involved(and they are part of problem). So we should remove american military bases in south korea.

[universal-casey]

thank you for the confirmation, and again i apologise if the amount of questions i have is annoying, but i've been thinking about $wap au & $wap!sovime all day, lol. i also found the on-tumblr lore after sending the previous ask, so i am working with more material now! :D

is sovame (the ship) in any way canon to this au, or was mexico misreading what soviet & america were talking about? (https://www.tumblr.com/universal-casey/657186645842558976/speaking-of-the-wap-au-i-drew-mexico-i-didnt)

did the chernobyl incident happen in california? if so, was there specific reactions that were different to how europe reacted to normal chernobyl? (https://www.tumblr.com/universal-casey/707456447888474112/wait-whats-wap-ukraine-and-ussrs-relationship)

why does soviet become more reclusive after america's death/collapse?

does anything change within the countries made in the cold war (east & west germany, north & south korea, north & south vietnam)? are the countries that allied themselves with either side flipped as well, or do they keep their personalities/ideals?

since america is the USCA, is soviet's official name more similar to normal!america's name? and are their birthdays flipped, since their birth years are? is the russian empire dead, and the uk alive, or vice versa (or something else)?

why is soviet an archer?

who wins space race in the cold war, does the cuban missile crisis change at all?

we already know where soviet's nose scar comes from, but may we know where any of the others (for either of them) come from?

i'd love to ask more, but i feel like i'm overshooting with the amount here already? apologies again. feel free to take as long as you need/want to reply.

— 🎶 anon. (if i may claim a sign-off ^^).

Of course! *cracks knuckles* Time to get writing.

SovAme is canon in the $wap AU. $oviet's kids are actual children here, so no RusAme. Also, they have a fun dynamic together!

The Chernobyl incident did happen in California. Known as the Sacramento incident, as it happened in Sacramento (wow, really?). One big difference in the reactions is that $am was able to hide it way better since California isn't adjacent to any other countries. Though the incident was later discovered by the greater world as irradiated air traveled to Japan through the jet stream.

$ov becomes more reclusive because he's still processing $am's death. He's already lost his wife, and then lost his (unofficial) boyfriend. He's also grappling with the idea of his own hypocrisy.

The countries allied with either side are either flipped (North and South Korea, for example. South is now the absolute nutjob), or joined the opposite side (Cuba became allied with $am, rather than $oviet). Japan and the Philippines also fall under the latter category in terms of who they allied with. China is still pals with $oviet, but Mexico has now taken the modern China route.

$oviet's relationship to his countries is more akin to the EU of modern times, so his name is actually simply the "Soviet Union". Their birthdays are not flipped! $am's is still July 4th, and $ov's is still December 30th (man imagine your boyfriend dying a week before your birthday). Both the UK and the Russian Empire are actually dead, since Soviet could not exist without RE being out of the picture. He does wish that it didn't have to come to that, though.

He's a hunter! He likes to hunt with bows :)

The Space Race is entirely flipped. So $am made the most "firsts" (at the cost of a lot of lives due to carelessness), but $oviet ultimately won by getting to the moon first. Some UCSA apologists like to state that $am was the "true winner", but $oviet always reminds them that $am's casualties were in the hundreds. As for the Cuban Missile Crisis, I want to keep it relatively similar. Though I'm not sure where exactly $ov would put missiles for $am to respond to (since Cuba is aligned with $am in this AU)

A lot of $ov's scars are from hunting, though he's got quite a few from the scuffle with his father. And some from WWI and WWII. $am has a lot of scars, and I mean a lot. But he hides most of them (especially the ones on his face) with makeup. I don't think I ever posted $am's updated ref, so that might be the next post. He's got a cannonball wound that went clear through his left side from the final battle with the UK.

Also don't be afraid to ask more questions lol. I'm wanting to start to draw them again!!

[twig-tea]

A question for you because you seem like one of those people who has watched everything: how did you get started watching bl, and what are your ultimate favorite shows?

Double-barrelled! I'm honoured.

How did I get into BL?

The short answer is that ~2016 the YouTube algorithm served me up Lovesick and I immediately went EXCUSE ME WHAT IS THIS and looked up everything else available and watched literally everything I could get my hands on (which at the time was easy because there was only a handful compared to today, but it still felt like a wealth of content to enjoy).

The longer answer is that I used to be really involved in GL (I was the secretary at the first Yuricon in North America in 2002 or 2003) and then BL manga fandom (was in a scanlation group for awhile) through ~2006? so its extra hilarious that this wasn't my route in; I apparently took a break right before they started making live action versions in Japan. But when I got into Thai BL it was fun rediscovering these tropes in a new medium and through the lens of a new-to-me culture, noticing how they differed and how the genre had matured (and how it hadn't), and on catching up on the stuff out of Japan, seeing some of the manga I read over a decade ago come to life! So I mention this history because it's definitely a part of why I stayed (and probably why the algorithm found me relatively quickly).

I only started tracking things in a spreadsheet in 2020 (and it's not nearly as comprehensive or useful as @absolutebl 's), but I did try to backfill the highlights of what I've seen and I have over 550 rows on there, fwiw. I'm a completionist so I do try to watch everything, though that's getting more and more impossible these days.

Ultimate Favourite Shows

This question is so hard. I know you didn't even give me a limit but you have to understand @lurkingshan, I can't choose favourites, I have a draft top ten list that has been blank for 3 years because I can't commit. Okok. I'm just going to list shows as they come to me (not in any particular order):

Thailand: Until We Meet Again, He's Coming to Me, Diary of Tootsies, WhyRU, Ingredients, Not Me, Secret Crush on You, I Told Sunset About You & I Promised You the Moon, Triage, You're My Sky, Make it Right, La Pluie, My Ride, Bad Buddy, My School President, Laws of Attraction, Moonlight Chicken, Dear Dr I'm Coming for Soul, To Sir With Love/Khun Chai, The Eclipse, Midnight Museum, Lovely Writer... Grey Rainbow [ducks, hides, runs away]

Japan: Doushitemo Furetakunai (no touching at all), Kinou Nani Tabeta (What did you eat yesterday?), Our Dining Table, Takara-Kun and Amagi-Kun, Old Fashioned Cupcake, 7 Days (mon-thurs & fri-sun), His (miniseries & movie), I Want to See Only You, Kieta Hatsukoi/My love mix-up, the Cherry Magic Movie, Life~Senjou no bokura/Love on the Line, 180 Degrees Longitude Passes Through Us, Given (anime is my fave version), Tokyo in April Is..., Cornered Mouse Dreams of Cheese, Utsukushii Kare/My beautiful man

Korea: Our Dating Sim, Semantic Error, The Lover [BL side], Color Rush, Blueming, Cherry Blossoms After Winter, Love Class 2, Made on the Rooftop, Discipline Z, Light on Me, To My Star (yes both seasons), Strongberry (faves are Long Time No See, Confidential Coffee Break, and A First Love Story), Sing My Crush, Just Friends?

Vietnam: Goodbye Mother, Hey! First Love, Nation's Brother, You Are Ma Boy, Follow My Sunshine, FOOLs, Tien Bromance: My Small Family, Love Bill

Philippines: Gameboys, Gaya sa Pelikula, Boys Lockdown, Cheat [warning: horror], Your Home, Better Days

Taiwan: Be Loved in House, My DNA Says Love You, We Best Love (1 & 2), HIStory (Crossing the Line is my fave, and second fave is...Make Our Days Count [ducks, hides, burrows into ground]).

Other: Summerdaze (short from Singapore), Stay Still (Hong Kong), HeHe and He (Hong Kong, final season in progress but s1&2 are so funny) and the bromances/difficult to categorize: Scumbag System, Word of Honor, The Untamed, Guardian, Coffee Prince, Bromance (Taiwanese), Great Men Academy, Mr Queen, Sleuth of Ming Dynasty, SCI Mystery

*deep breath* ok I'm stopping lol narrowing it down any less than this gives me pain so I won't try. Also I'm sure I forgot something obvious (and Tumblr was eating drafts of this at various points). All I can say about this list is it's under 100 and that's the best I could do.

Thanks for the ask, and to anyone who made it this far thanks for reading!

[sataniccapitalist]

U.S. pundits are literally starting to say it out loud: for "good" to triumph, we must be evil.

"Good" of course here being defined as the preservation of the Rules-Based Order, aka U.S. hegemony.

That's literally the argument here, he writes "the only way to protect a world fit for freedom is to [...] engage in impure acts."

Such impure acts, he writes, as backing Israel: "Biden has rightly framed the Israel-Hamas war as a struggle between a flawed democracy and a tyrannical enemy seeking its destruction. There is strong justification, moral and strategic, for backing a U.S. ally against a vicious proxy of a U.S. enemy, Iran."

This is a sign we're going back to the very worst times of the cold war, which, contrary to popular belief, wasn't bloodless at all.

In fact anyone reading a honest account of the period - like @Vinncent's "The Jakarta Method" - will conclude that the side that prevailed, far from being the most moral one, was the one most willing to kill the greatest amount of people for that purpose. The book is called "The Jakarta Method" because of what the US-backed Suharto military dictatorship did by killing around 1 million communist sympathizers in the country. A method applied in countless other places: Chile, famously, but also Brazil, Malaysia, Argentina, Guatemala, Taiwan, etc. And I'm not even mentioning America's genocidal wars in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Korea, etc.

That's the article, don't read it if you've just eaten 🤢: foreignaffairs.com/united-states/…

[thaissa1918]

Dear Jeremy: For over six months now i Have some stalker hacking into and destroying everything I do on the computers. He also can shut off my two cell phones whenever he wants to and almost murdered me over this past weekend. He can hear very ell what I say. I was having chess pains from the stress this person is constantly terrorizing me daily He heard me say "I am having chest pains from his stress, and I need to call either an ambulance and/or doctor. When I went to pick up my phone to call my cardiologist the man shut off my cell phone service on both my phones and I had a heart attack right here in the apartment. Last week when I felt suicidal, I went to use my cell phone to call my psychologist. When I picked up the cell phone this bastard whomever he is stopped my cell phone service for over 8 hours to try to murder me by letting me have a heart attack and not being able to call anyone. I found him on my cell phone recording my voice to murder and having an album cover .He is trying to murder me using the same type of murder weapon's my father and the mafia uses as a regular hobby. He has all types of head and screen shots of me. He is putting in what he 2was in a file called my last words and DIE/ARY called "DIERY QUEEN<" he has recorded all the shit things I have said about the mafia and you and I being in danger from the mob etc etc and his album cover even has my photo a photo of my head. He calls it his furze "art work: He has files calling them "CL/ASS/WORK KILL ASSSASSINATION WORK. My father taught me the assassination contracting business since I was born and I have killed and assassinated everyo0ne from Africa President to being a child soldier in Africa and was also a soldier with Daddy in Vietnam etc.. so I know what I see and am saying is right. He plan's to murder you too #jeremypaxman Last night I threatened to take a hit out on him and I did with Al Qaeda. Then he started showing me unfinished album covers with your photos on it and songs with your voice on them meant that he was going to kill you too. Be careful AND IF YOU WANT TO TALK MORE JUST CALL ME love Jilly

PS: I am always on your side Paxo I WAS WRITING TO YOU MORE AND THE MAN SHUT OFF MY KEYBOARD PLEASE HELP ME JEREMY. JILLY He can stop my keyboard my cell phone and he plans t murder and I have no where to go and no help from law enforcement To hell with probation. I just want peace and the human right to life and in the USA I dont even have that right. Arnold A Stark told me and I used to have a recording of it saying "I have never seen more egregious human rights violations against any US citizen but you in America it is jus like you have been living for years in North Korea right here in Passaic County. TRUTH. I I took hits out everywhere

to remove as many La Cosa Nostra members as possible since i get mine for free they came to over 2000. Since my father is ready to drown all of Brooklyn with a 8,.0 Ramapo Fault line earthquake to "tie up all his loose ends (he kills all his contractors that is how he taught me he got to be the BIG SHOT HE IS by taking care of those old contractors before they get caught by the FBI and talk ," Now he is coming for all his old acquaintances in Brooklyn." How? He has two low grade atomic bombs in the Hudson River to go off and set off the Ramapo Fault Line which runs from NYC right down to nearly touching Langley and Fort Detrick biological Warfare base. When that goes off those two bomb's Irv Starr says "It will move the systematic plates of the Atlantic Ocean cause an 8.o earthquake (Ground Zero) United Nations NYC. He says every single President will drown on that day because all presidents will be in NYC at the UN for some special occasion on that particular day. I don't know the date and Irv Starr you can cook dinner and grind him to death, and he will never tell anyone that date no matter what torture anyone puts him through. I was little but I asked my father I asked "and we were standing in Bloomingdale NJ at the time. I said "Dad, how fast will the wave be when you make it?" Irv Starr said "It will be at least 5000 miles an hour and it will wipe out the entire Bloomingdale NJ Police Station...

I then asked Daddy," Daddy, how high will the waves be IM scared?" Dad replied "They will be as high as the lights by the Bloomingdale Police Station that light up at night." I then started shaking and said "DADDY! IF I AM STILL AROUNF BLOOMINDALE NJ AT THAT TIME HOW DO I KNOW WHEN IT IS TIME TO LEAVE?!" Daddy responded by saying this: "Jill when the first two systematic activities take place on the Ramapo Fault line one being a 3.2 and the other a 2.7 (to the best of my memory) run like hell away from Bloomingdale NJ and keep running from NYC all the way to Middletown NY where Aunt Joyce lives because that Tsunami is going to kill everyone in its path up to Middletown NY where your Aunt Joyce lives. ." I said "Why are you going to do that Daddy?" Irv Starr replied "Because I am retiring the richest man in the world Jill, and no one is going to have a chance to be arrested to start singing about me and the ICA and my contracting business to ruin that for me they all have to die and Treetop are where the majority of my contractors are in this area and the Tsunami will reach Nick and Dora Los Gatos in Syosset where the other majority of my contractors are Jill.," Then I have to take out Harry J Shortway from Nam (Vietnam) so the Tsunami has to take out Susses and it will end before my sister Joyces house in Middletown." Then I said What about Paxman are you going to kill him too?" Irv Starr said," He is one of the biggest lose ends I have besides you Jill. if I have to I will blow up all of Buckingham Palace, Mi6 and all the BBC just to murder Former Mi6 Director General Sir Howard Andrew Parker." We used to work at Babcock and Wilcox you remember him dont you Jill from there?" I had to tell him "Yes." It is true.

[a-tale-never-told]

Historical Events and Questions

//Greeting everyone, Mod Sam here. Today, I'm doing something different compared to my other methods. As you know, one of the main themes of this story blog is history and how it can significantly alter our modern world as we know it. Unfortunately, given the key factor that the majority of my audience doesn't know what history even is, I took it upon myself to fix that with some... unique solutions.

//First, I tried to make two Google Docs explaining the main topics about the Stasi and the Soviet Union, but since they did rather... poorly, I've felt as if I needed to stop focusing on the worldbuilding for now and channel the rest of the writing into the characterization and dialogue in order to improve the story, which is still my main objective. However, I wasn't just going to let the historical aspect disappear into irrelevancy, though it would be less focused on untill we get deep into the story.

//Then, one of the anons came to me and suggested that I do a similar strategy for worldbuilding by organizing it into a separate tab for each key piece of worldbuilding, which is ironically enough what I originally planned to do when I had time, but I didn't because since Nagito appeared, I got flooded with asks related to him, so I didn't have time to make it.

//But now, I'm ready to answer these important, vital questions that you all have honestly been waiting for since we started this story, so I'll be going into this in question format, answering the questions that are massively relevant to this blog and the plot as a whole. So, without further ado, let's begin.

'What is the Cold War? And how does it affect the story?'

//The Cold War was essentially a worldwide conflict fought between two superpowers. On one side, you had the United States of America, coming off of their absolute victory against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan after the Second World War, with them being the only nation that had their homeland basically unscathed or damaged during the conflict (Unless you count Pearl Harbor) and being the champions of democracy, and the other major superpower in this world was the Soviet Union, aka Russia, who pretty much suffered the absolute worst amount of damage and casualties of all countries that were involved in WW2, but had rapidly rebuild themselves to become on par with the US, in terms of military power and influence.

//The thing that made the Cold War unique was that both America and Soviet Russia never fought one another, instead deciding to channel their international, ideological influence through wars in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, supporting the participants on opposing sides, as well as a massive nuclear arms race, and what most people remember the most when it comes to the Cold War, espionage. If you have ever seen a James Bond film, you know what I'm talking about, except it was far more difficult and complex than Bond.

//The Cold War began shortly after the end of WW2 and lasted untill 1991, when the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc collapsed and formed the modern Russia we all know and love today, leaving the US and NATO as the sole victors of the conflict. Notable conflicts and events of the Cold War era include Korea, Vietnam, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Angola, the Arab-Israeli Wars, the Iran-Iraq War, and numerous more conflicts I can't even mention here. So in short, this conflict is a major part of the story and plot.

'What is the Soviet Union? And why do they matter?'

//The Soviet Union is a complicated topic to get in itself, as I did a whole Google Doc explaining why, but if you want a simplified short version of it, they were essentially a political entity formed out of what remained of the former Russian Empire (Yes, Russia was an empire back then.). But it wasn't just Russia, it was anywhere the Russian state shared a border with, with a few exceptions. Countries that joined the Soviet Union besides the Russians were Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, the Baltic States, and several others.

//By 1917, Russia was on the immediate verge of collapse, as constant losses to the Germans, abysmal tactical command, and incredibly poor supply issues both at the front and at home caused an immediate collapse of the country. Riots broke out over food shortages, police clashed with protesters, and even with military soldiers who had mutined and had now come to join their fellow civilians in the streets. Eventually, Nicholas II resigned as tsar (Or the king) of Russia, a temporary government made up of several Russian politicians, who came together to stabilize the situation and try to control the rampant amount of anarchy and chaos in the city.

//However, they weren't able to hold onto power for long. A Russian political communist by the name of Vladimir Lenin, a hardline Marxist, who also rocked the mother of all goatees, eventually led a revolution against the government, overthrowing them with relative ease and installing himself along with his political faction, the Bolsheviks, essentially a group of radicals that were tremendously just as bad, if not worse than Lenin.

//After a brief and particularly bloody civil war, and a period of state violence known as the Red Terror, Lenin passed away in 1924, giving the reigns of power to Joseph Stalin, who is basically history's version of Maverick Storm and Junko Enoshima combined, and would become one of the most tyrannical and monstrous dictators and men that ever lived. Stalin essentially transformed the Soviet Union down a different path, at the cost of millions of deaths in the span of decades, but that's a really lengthy story for another time.

'Explain the racist system of Apartheid. How does it affect the society of South Japan?'

//Apartheid South Africa is certainly a very interesting topic in history, as it is the absolute dark reality the American state could've been if just a few awful decisions had been taken. Considering that Apartheid is a really underrated villainous part of history that doesn't even get mentioned as much as other parts of racism and bigotry, I decided to use that as the basis of South Japan.

//Apartheid was an institutionalized version of racial segregation across South Africa when the minority white population enslaved the majority black, African population and segregated them in basically every part of society imaginable, as well as dominated the culture, society, and politics of South Africa from 1948 to the early 90s. For example, there was a law that forced black Africans to be removed from their homes and forced into segregated neighborhoods, and laws made it illegal for South Africans to pursue sexual relationships across racial lines.

//Imagine if Hitoshi and Kaori never married due to the existing legislation law banning relationships between racial boundaries or if the Owaris were evicted from their household due to being African-Japanese, so that's one of the numerous examples of Apartheid. Think of the American South in the 1960s with segregation, except abysmally worse. In fact, most of South Japan's policies when it comes to racism and sexism are based off of South Africa's. Apartheid officially ended in 1991, when the legislation was repealed and elections were held in 1994 that elected Nelson Mandela, a prominent opponent of apartheid, as the first black African president of South Africa.

//In short, Apartheid lives on throughout this alternate version of Japan, as you have all been shown with Hope's Peak.

'How is Japan divided in this AU? Explain.'

//Well, the division of Japan happened due to Operation Downfall, the planned, amphibious invasion of Japan during WW2. While in our timeline, the nuclear bombs prevented any such invasion from happening due to the American government not wanting to waste more lives to take the islands, in this AU, the invasion goes underway resulting in almost the entire Western and Southern portion of the nation taken by the Americans and British, and the Russians take the Northern side of it, and the island of Hokkaido as well. Naturally, it was divided along the same lines as Germany was, with Britain and the US getting the Southern portion, while the Russians gained the rest of the North to themselves.

//Naturally, to the Japanese public, this didn't particularly sit well, as they feared being occupied and seeing almost half their culture and national identity being stripped away by foreign powers, especially Russia. But in the end, the partition was signed and Japan was officially divided amongst the three powers.

//Fun fact, China was originally supposed to get a portion of the nation in the middle of the country, but due to the Chinese Civil War and China falling to communism in 1949, they were denied that position.

'What is the Stasi? How do they matter?'

//The Stasi are essentially the foreign and domestic intelligence network of East Germany, similar to the Kgb. Formed during the 1950s, and located in East Berlin, they served as one of the most effective spy agencies of the Cold War, and the most feared.

//If you were caught by the Stasi, you are significantly screwed, as they would psychologically manipulate their victims and literally make them go insane, all the while disguising their involvement in the manipulation themselves. Think of abuse stories, and child abuse, incredibly toxic relationships, and the Stasi would certainly use such tactics to their advantage. It is disgusting yet effective to them at the same time.

//They maintain their information through an extensive network of civilian informants, only extending their reach to unprecedented levels. About 1 of every 63 East Germans was a Stasi informant, and they possibly have agents in the millions in the state, and abroad. They also financed several Neo-Nazi groups to discredit the West and spread disinformation about HIV and AIDs that the US created the diseases, and even tried to assassinate the pope. In short, they are probably the most degenerate group of individuals that we have on this blog so far, and it's saying something when we have people like Junko Enoshima and Junya Utsugi, who are scumbags on their own.

//So, I'm going to stop here for now. I'll be sure to update it when I can since this post is taking an incredible amount of time to create and post, as well as the fact that I don't want to bore you all with this, as I just felt like these were the most important topics to address so far. Obviously, this is not the end of the lore tunnel, as I'm making sure to update the lore constantly whenever I'm not occupied with the story or as the plot and the story goes on, and I do intend to explain more, just in different areas that simple posts like these cannot explain.

//I seriously hope you enjoyed this lore post, and I will post a link to it in the tab, in the Lore/Worldbuilding section. Otherwise, I hope you all have a great day, and I'll see you shortly!^^.

[thebreakfastgenie]

"there's a war and america's laughing" shockingly, people do not think about disaster every second of every day. people are allowed to enjoy life even when bad things are happening because otherwise you'll go crazy. like it's a cool juxtaposition but it's not that deep fam

Not to be rude but WHERE did you get that from??

That post (which isn't even mine) is about season 4 episode 24 of M*A*S*H, a television show from the 1970s, that explicitly juxtaposed the characters treating a massive influx of casualties during a storm with news footage of things going on back in the States, including "funny" celebrity golf and ping-pong playing cats, and other generally trivial news.

The point the episode was making--about the Korean War and also about the Vietnam War which was very fresh in the original audience's minds--was that the war, which is all too real to the people living it, is not real to the people back in America. We don't think about disaster every second. The people in the war? Do, because the disaster is constantly happening to them. We get a choice, they don't.

It wasn't saying we should be thinking about disaster every second or that we're "not allowed" to enjoy life jesus christ what an interpretation. The point is that those things are still going on. Even when those of us fortunate enough to be removed from it are enjoying our lives. Do you think the people in Ukraine are thinking about disaster every day?

Additionally, the episode is, in my opinion, making a bit of a point about the media. It shows us the war, and it shows us the news media talking about celebrity golf. Remember, in the 50s (and the 70s), there were three networks, they all did the nightly news, and people took that seriously. The American relationship to and expectation of the news media was different in the Walter Cronkite era. And maybe those expectations were good, considering where we are now, but my point is more that covering celebrity golf and animal tricks during a war when you have a limited amount of airtime is a choice that might seem questionable. It's easy to say we can talk about more than one thing when we have the internet.

It's not "Americans should never think about anything else" it's "don't forget there's a war on." Which when you consider the public response to Korea and later Vietnam compared to WWII, makes sense.

And. You know. A lot of Americans could stand to spend more time reading or watching the news and less time watching tiktok. Isn't one of the major criticisms of us that we're not aware enough of the rest of the world? "We don't think about disaster every second of every day" can very quickly become an excuse for never thinking about any unpleasant realities. For god's sake, we have an election in a month.

[obmessed]

What do you think if Piri decided to ware his military uniform or general suit in one of world meeting what would the other think since he ware Most of the time a sailor suit.( Give me there reaction especially the country that with him when there was war)

Well that's gonna trigger the world, because they associated a military suited Piri with his 2p counterpart. Since Piri is a pacifistic guy , he refuses to have war as the answer but deep down he knows it can't be helped at times. He knows he has to go through all that suffering at one point, so he just switches with his 2p counterpart and have him fight in wars.

So the first time he walked in the meeting room, he got jumped on because everyone thought 2Piri replaced him again (it happened during Martial Law). It took some explaining that this is his new years resolution, where he promised himself that he's gonna try to take things more seriously and his first step is wearing his military uniform.

As for the nations he had past wars with, it depends on what kind of uniform he's wearing. Obviously he's wearing the modern version of his uniform so it barely gives anyone any bad memories. Plus he knows he can't wear his old uniforms, because 1. Their soo old fashioned and 2. he doesn't want resurface any bad memories.

I mean Alfred already can't watch Goyo without bleeding out, him wearing Heneral Luna's uniform would be like trying to squeeze the blood out of his lungs at that point.

And Kiku already refuses to take hikes with him in his mountains due to the trauma of being ambushed and raided by the ROTC guerillas. If he dressed like them again Japan would have a heart attack.

America is used to seeing him in that uniform because they have joint military exercises with one another, along with Japan sometimes.

But even with the modern uniform it does still trigger some nations, like China. He gets Korean war flashbacks, since during that time Piri most notably fought him the most. That time he soloed him when he tried to push the Western allies back for North Korea and manage to beat him despite his strength in numbers. Or that other time he ambushed him to take a strategic area away from him in order for the democratic allies to have it for themselves.

And speaking of cold wars, Vietnam! His fellow ASEAN member, first time he walked in with that uniform she was surprised by what he's wearing. During her war, she did saw him in that uniform, but the memory of him being a doctor for the South Vietnamese overpowers the memory of him being her dangerous enemy. Besides, she was more scared about the Koreans rather than the Filipinos.

But most of the time, the countries avoid him due to him now strikingly resembling his 2p counterpart. Needless to say he stopped wearing the uniform in the next meeting because people weren't willing to talk to him and actively avoiding him.

Germany: What happened to your military uniform?

Philippines: Everyone kept treating me like an outlaw, honestly screw you guys! I try to be a serious and formal country and this is what I get? Forget it then

Was this what it's like to be Russia? If so, then consider Piri having a new found respect for the nation. He doesn't approve of what he's doing now, but him being able to live through this treatment is respectable.

[thefallenangelsgang]

ahhh the Supreme Court

what a load of horse shit amiright? (dont cry dont cry dont cry dontcry dontcrydontcrydontcry)

Here's your local History Major who just took a course on the politics and workings of the Constitution coming at you with some takes on the Supreme Court that no one asked for or wanted:

(My certifications are I just sat through 6 weeks of torture debating what every word means in the fucking constitution. The air force is unconstitutional and we haven't been in a legal war since WWII. My brain WILL melt if I don't use this information)

SO the Supreme Court has to go right? Well, it can... But you are about to bring down the whole system of government with it. Which may be exciting for some but I raise you this:

The issues you have with the government have absolutely NOTHING to do with the government as laid out by the Constitution.

They more have to do with abuses of power taken by people in office that have created "norms" in our government.

Like i mentioned above we haven't been in a War since WWII. You want to know why? A President ages ago took a step too far in one direction and his successors have been pushing the limit ever since. In a simplified domino effect it looks kind of like this:

America announcing it will protect it's interests in the western hemisphere (The Monroe Doctrine) -> One of the fucks deciding that means Policing the Western Hemisphere (it was one of the ones before Teddy Roosevelt or Teddy himself) (Spanish American War) -> Teddy Roosevelt taking "Protecting America's interests" to mean show off the navy to the world (Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick) -> Needing to desperately take down communism in post-WWII because it impedes our "interests" (Red Scare/Cold War) -> General MacArthur wants to keep warmongering in the pacific post WWII (Korean War) -> Congress refuses to declare war formally and at some point signs off to allow the president to make war-like military actions without the need of congressional approval (I can't find the exact Law off the top of my head but this breaks the system of Checks and Balances in place to stop one branch from acting above it's station) Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan remain Military actions despite two of them being referred to as Wars and Vietnam utilizing the fucking DRAFT

Peachy, right?

The Supreme Court did the exact same thing except fucking immediately after our first justice was instated. John Jay (who famously wrote only 5 of the Federalist Papers and set a precedent for group projects that has outlived him) was our first chief justice and IMMEDIATELY just came up with Judicial Review during Marbury v. Madison (1803). SCOTUS's ability to just say shit is unconstitutional is made up.

THIS IS ALL OF SCOTUS's POWER IN THE ARTICLE 3 SECTION 2 OF THE CONSTITUTION:

"The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;—to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;—to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;—to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;—to Controversies between two or more States;—between a State and Citizens of another State,—between Citizens of different States,—between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects. In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make. The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed."

Judicial Review- the ability of the Court to declare a Legislative or Executive act in violation of the Constitution (from uscourts.gov) DOES NOT APPEAR IN THE CONSTITUTION

THE VERY ACT OF IT IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL!

anyways for those that have stuck around:

The Air Force is unconstitutional because the powers of Congress ONLY mention raising and maintaining an Army and Navy. The Air Force was under the Army but has become it's own branch now. Unfortunately the founding fathers didn't plan for us to launch each other in the air at mach jesus.

also unfortunately, an argument can be made that the raising and maintaining of an Air Force falls under the necessary and proper clause.

This has been History Facts with Jericho

Good Luck, Godspeed, Gangnam Style, and all that jazz

Punch a Fascist for me <3

(this took 2 hours to write)

[whatisonthemoon]

LA Times: Philippine Vigilantes Reflect U.S. Strategy for ‘Low-Intensity Conflict’ (1987)

by Peter Tarr October 11, 1987

NEW YORK —  Some weeks after retired Army Maj. Gen. John K. Singlaub told the Senate-House Iran- contra committees about his fund-raising activities on behalf of the Nicaraguan “freedom fighters,” I went to the Philippines to research that country’s communist insurgency.

My travels in the southern islands of Negros, Cebu and Mindanao turned up evidence that the counterinsurgency strategy advocated by Singlaub and other private American citizens on the far right for use in Central America now had taken firm root in the Philippines.

The tactics are used in what Pentagon strategists call “low-intensity conflict” or LIC. They emphasize an “integrated” approach in the fight against communism combining rural civic action and humanitarian aid programs with methods of “unconventional warfare” that Singlaub and others--including the U.S. government--have covertly employed in El Salvador and Nicaragua.

Singlaub’s credentials in “unconventional operations” are well known. A former chief of the Joint Unconventional Task Force in Vietnam, he participated in “Operation Phoenix,” the CIA’s notorious assassination program that resulted in the murder of an estimated 40,000 supposed Viet Cong sympathizers. More recently he served on President Reagan’s Special Warfare Advisory Group, to offer recommendations regarding LIC strategies.

There remains much speculation throughout the Philippines about the purpose of his several recent visits, spanning a period from July, 1986, to this past February. The former commander of U.S. forces in South Korea insists that he went to the Philippines to search for buried treasure. A number of his critics say the general’s real mission was to help organize civilian militias to be employed in the fight against guerrillas of the communist New People’s Army (NPA).

Many questions have yet to be answered, but one thing is certain: Vigilante justice has captured the imagination of the mass of Filipinos. It is a development that has disturbing implications.

In the theory of low-intensity warfare, the establishment of paramilitary groups is a key element in the battle for the sympathies of people living in rebel-contested areas. Their proliferation is thought to deprive communists of “mass-base” support, and thus contributes to a broader effort to isolate and demoralize insurgent forces.

Several commanders of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) assured me that most vigilante groups were unarmed. But at every turn I saw deadly weapons: M-16 automatic rifles, fragmentation grenades, homemade pistols and shotguns and a bewildering variety of machetes and bolo knives. And at every turn, the men, women and children who wielded these weapons were eager to tell me that they were “prepared to die” to defend themselves against communism, which many of them called “the godless ideology.”

On a street in downtown Davao, a sprawling city of 1.2 million on Mindanao’s southeast coast, the bolo-toting “Midnight Attack Commandos” of the “Far Eastern Democratic Restoration Bureau” boasted about dismembering captured communist guerrillas while one of their leaders supplied me with leaflets published by an evangelical ministry in Arkansas that posed these burning questions: “Are the IRS, FBI, U.S. Dept. of Labor, the Mafia and labor unions part of the Vatican? Is the Pope the superboss of all government agencies as well as the Vatican?”

How did this literature get to Davao, 10,000 miles from its point of origin in Alma, Arkansas? Did the vigilantes have American contacts? Were they acting in concert with the Philippine military, or on their own? Where did their weapons come from? What were their sources of financial support?

Lt. Col. Franco Calida, police chief of Davao and the acknowledged “godfather” of the first and most successful vigilante group, the Alsa Masa, insisted that his and other paramilitary groups had arisen spontaneously. Their popularity, he said, reflected widespread dissatisfaction with the communists’ urban terror campaign conducted in the city between 1981 and 1985. Indeed, Davao had been the “murder capital” of the Philippines in those years, a city where more than 5,000 people had met violent deaths. Many of the murders were “insurgency-related,” although the activities of criminal gangs also accounted for a good deal of the carnage.

Alsa Masa, which in the local dialect means “Masses Arise,” was organized by the leader of one of those gangs early in 1986. But the movement went nowhere until Calida assumed his Davao command in July, 1986. It was at that time that Calida received a visit from Singlaub. They “chitchatted,” Calida said, but did not discuss Alsa Masa. Nevertheless, in the months following Singlaub’s visit, Alsa Masa grew exponentially. It now claims 10,000 members. “The Alsa Masa was never a CIA project,” Calida told Filipino journalists several months ago. “It is the product of abuses of the communist New People’s Army. The people were left with no choice but to band together to protect themselves.”

In Davao, virulently anti-communist radio announcer Jun Porras Pala admitted that the vigilante groups lumped together all manner of riffraff, from members of criminal gangs to adherents of fanatical religious cult groups.

In Negros, Cebu and Mindanao there were ominous signs that anti-communist fanaticism was putting innocent people in danger. In Davao, the houses of people who did not join or make financial contributions to Alsa Masa (a practice one member called “extortion for democracy”) were marked with the letter X. Anti-communist broadcasters threatened supposed sympathizers over the airwaves.

In all three islands, liberal members of the Catholic Church had been threatened both by vigilantes and military officials. During my stay in Negros, 35 clerics and newsmen were accused of being NPA sympathizers by a local military commander, and had received death threats in the mail. A similar scenario was simultaneously unfolding in Cebu. And in Davao, the Redemptorist Church was strafed from a passing truck late one August night. Earlier, Catholic members of the congregation had been called “redemterrorists” by broadcaster Pala. Redemptorists in Cebu had been similarly branded.

Why did President Corazon Aquino, an uncommonly religious woman, agree to endorse the vigilante movement? The answer lies partly in a meaningless distinction she makes between armed and unarmed vigilante groups. Aquino favors the mobilization of unarmed citizen patrols, called Nakasaka, that warn the military of NPA activity. She favors these groups, but does not proscribe the activities of armed groups.

American officials may have influenced Aquino’s policy. On March 16, 1987, she ordered a government-trained militia, the Civilian Home Defense Force, “and all private armies and other armed groups” to disband. The CHDF, with 70,000 members nationwide, had been active since the 1970s in the fight against the NPA, but its ill-disciplined members had been blamed for many of the military abuses committed against civilians in counterinsurgency operations.

A phase-out of the CHDF was mandated in the new Philippine constitution, adopted in February. But soon after Aquino issued the order to disband paramilitary groups, she rescinded it. The Philippine military, led by Gen. Fidel Ramos, was lobbying hard for retention of the CHDF. So was Local Goverment Secretary Jamie Ferrer, slain in August. Aquino and her military had been repeatedly lectured, directly and indirectly, by high-ranking U.S. officials on how to fight the communists. One such lecture was delivered on March 19, 1987, by Richard L. Armitage, the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs. He offered a blunt critique of AFP tactics in testimony before the House subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs.

Armitage’s remarks clearly indicated American impatience with Aquino’s policy of reconciliation, in effect during her first 12 months in office. Even after the failure of peace talks with the radical left and the collapse of a cease-fire in the AFP-NPA war that had held for only 60 days, Aquino continued to offer an olive branch to the left. On Feb. 28, she proposed amnesty and rehabilitation for rebels who would lay down their arms, in the interests of “healing the wounds of our nation.”

On March 18, a time bomb exploded at the Philippine Military Academy. It was apparently intended to kill Aquino, who was to address the academy’s graduating class four days later. When commencement day arrived, the Philippine president unveiled a new strategy--one that might have gratified Singlaub himself. “The answer to terrorism of the left and the right is not social and economic reform, but police and military action,” she said, turning her back on a philosophy she had espoused since coming to power.

It was in this climate that Aquino rescinded her order to disband the paramilitary groups. In keeping with her new policy of “total war” against the communists, and in light of her growing reliance on Ramos, who repeatedly put down attempts by disgruntled AFP officers to take over her government, Aquino found herself, by the end of March, implementing the very counterinsurgency policies she had resisted for more than a year. She was now prepared to wage low-intensity warfare.

Her shift to a hard-line policy is likely to encourage a similarly militant response from the radical left. But even more important, the legitimation of vigilante “justice” will most likely serve to accentuate a culture of violence that has prevailed for decades in the Philippine countryside. At the core of the vigilante movement are incompetent CHDF commandos, religious cultists and members of private armies that flourished during the Marcos years.

The Philippines needs more than civic action and “humanitarian” aid programs carried out by civilian and military authorities waging low-intensity warfare. The country needs structural reforms, the most important of which is land reform. As Aquino often noted during her first year in office, the insurgency has economic and social roots. It will continue to flourish--no matter how many vigilantes are mobilized--unless the root causes are addressed.

Source: LA Times

Links and notes below

Moonies Support Vigilante Violence in the Philippines Around 1986/1987 - excerpts from Belina A. Aquino’s “The Philippines in 1987: Politics of Survival”

Marti found that the Reagan administration sought the help of CAUSA International to support US policy in Nicaragua. It might be mentioned that the Moonies and CAUSA have conducted expense-paid seminars and conferences in Washington, D.C.; Manila and other places, inviting well-known names in academic, religious and political circles. Among the CAUSA’s top brass are Cleon Skousen, a Mormon Church leader, Douglas MacArthur II, and Bo Hi Pak, the chairman who has acknowledged CIA funding. This is just another form of counter-insurgency, but it tries to minimize direct military intervention in favor of small “grassroots” efforts combining socio-economic, civic action, psychological & political objective.

In 1985 the Washington Times sponsored a fund for the Contras who committed atrocities, and trafficked drugs to the US The WACL and CAUSA’s Role in the Ruthless Violence of US-Philippines Counterinsurgency

CounterSpy: Moonies Move on Honduras (1983)

The UC should be held responsible for supplying weapons that killed young Filipino activists

How has the Moon network played a role in the post-9/11 U.S. Imperialist strategy?

The Unification Church and KCIA: Some Notes on Bud Han, Steve Kim, and Bo Hi Pak The Unification Church and the KCIA – ‘Privatizing’ covert action: the case of the UC The Broad Counterinsurgency Strategies of the US in the 80s, and a Glimpse into the UC’s Role

[universal-casey]

Hey! I wanted to say that I love your art, your style is beautiful, and your AU too, i have questions!

How are East Germany and West Germany doing? Was the Berlin Wall never broken? Did they unify? Same with South Korea and Vietnam? And how did America lose the cold war?

I'm so sorry, it's too many questions because I'm more curious about your wonderful AU!

Aww thank you!! And no worries! I’ll happily answer them!

Germany reunified, he’s now one person. The Berlin Wall fell just a year before America was taken over. It’s part of what spurred Soviet into action.

Korea in this au has not split apart yet. He does have his sons, North and South Korea, but they aren’t full countries yet.

Vietnam had unified in 1976, long before the main events of the Sovime AU even started. So he’s pretty solid with himself. He holds resentment toward America still.

America lost the Cold War through a series of assassinations that began in the 70s, whilst he was concerned with the Vietnam war he was rapidly losing. It all culminated into a final push through Washington DC with Soviet’s troops, where the president was killed and America was taken hostage.

I hope that answers everything! Lmao

[ramrodd]

The Strange Case of Balaam

COMMENTARY:

Trump has been on a losing streak since he reneged on a deal with Chairman Kim to shave his head and broker a peace treaty between the sovereign states of the Republic of Korea and Democratic Peoples Republic, Not shaving the head was the deal breaker, If he had shaved his head and promoted Melania's Be Best East Wing Legacy Project, he would be working on his acceptance speach for a Teddy Roosevelt Nobel Prize from the Resolute Desk and Melania Trump would have shared a Nobel Prize with Abdullah II for the completion of the Abraham Covenant, I mean, 2 impeachments and 34 gulty vericts later, his trajectory has been a swan dive into an empty pool .He was on a advertisement just before the featured video about the talking donkey, He looks like a deflating Macy Day baloon deflting, Bruce, here's the thing: right now, Christina Nationalism is being held together by the original sin of the PResbyterian Church USA, Wookrow Wilson slove owner Jim Crow bigotry, It's structural, going back to James Madison and Federalist 10, which is cribbed from John Knox's Book of Discipline to good the evver, the US Constitution to be precise. John Knox was not a white supremacist and James Madison was and that little twist of parochial interest to what is the structures of an infinite game,  rit I'm related to Woodrow Wilson, but I'm from the League of Nations BLM/Reparations/DEI side of the family, When I got back from Vietnam, there was no such thing as a DEI hire in corporate America, but the Democrats on Capitol Hill were totally DEI, I'm a hard-wired Eisenhower Republican and all Democrats make me crazy, but once upon a time, I did a geat deal of very creative and fun work with Democrts working with communities around affordable housing, For example, we scouted a number of properties for projects may have been at the leading edge of Habitat for Humanity, My point is that the Presbyterian Church USA needs to consciously, collectively and consensually repent of your racist core of rot. John Knox had been a slave on a French galleon before he composed the Book of Discipline, James Madison had a vested interest in sustaining the status quo, racially. This is what you get when you add Hegel back into Post Modern Historic Deconstruction, Hegel rejected Calvinism, which offends lawyers, The Westminister Confession is supposed to be a masterpiece of rational theology, but anything more complicated that the Apostle's Creed is, at best, redundant. Covinism violates Free Will, which is the essence of Luther: the Roman Inquistion violated Free Will and the TULIP docrine convey's that heresy into Protestantism,, Which is why George Washington was a Deist.

[southern-titan]

youve mentioned wills a military man what war did he fight in

>> America has been at war pretty much since it's inception, and trying to navigate those timelines as a non-American has proved to be quite the nightmare, since they all kinda start blending into each other after a while. He was too young for Korea, but probably fought in Vietnam. I'm pretty sure @daddieslittlescrewup had determined it was Vietnam.