#Tragedy

[elierlick]

In 1988, ACT UP protested the FDA withholding HIV treatment due to requiring unethical double-blind studies of medication they already knew worked.

In 2024, trans activists protested promoters of an NHS-funded report requiring unethical double-blind studies of medication they already knew worked.

[xtruss]

US Clinging To Cold War Delusions: The First Time a Tragedy, The Second a Farce

— John Pang, Former Malaysian Government Official | September 03, 2023

Illustration:Xia Qing/Global Times

Editor's Note:

The China-US bilateral relationship is one of the most important in the world. The trajectory of this relationship has attracted international attention. Still, the US is stepping up its efforts to suppress China on various fronts such as politics and diplomacy, economy, trade, technology, and military security, showing the true meaning of a cold war. The Global Times invites Chinese and foreign experts to expose the US' manipulation of the new cold war and reveal the damage it may potentially cause to the world.

US President Joe Biden felt it necessary to deny that the US was waging a cold war against China at his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Bali last year. Despite this, US actions against China, in the form of strategic encirclement, military escalation, propaganda and economic warfare, and its trespass of every red line of China over the island of Taiwan, show the US is intent on a new cold war.

The historical Cold War was fought between the US and the USSR from the end of World War II to 1991. It was "cold" because its principal antagonists did not fight each other directly, not because it was not violent. Millions died in its proxy wars, coups and purges in Latin America, Africa and Asia. "Cold War" was the umbrella concept for a bipolar struggle against an ideological, political and economic enemy. While the USSR was the ultimate adversary, the Cold War was in reality waged against peoples of the Global South fighting for independence and decolonization. The Cold War turned the world, especially the developing world, into a battleground.

Is the "Cold War" a useful analogy for what is happening today? Yes and no. There is the same mobilization, the same aggressive ambition; only this time it is attended by a delusional quality, an unmistakable air of unreality. History appears, said Karl Marx, "the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."

The Cold War is back, above all, as the ritual re-enactment of the American Empire's foundational myth of heroic victory over Hitler and Communism. A gerontocratic US political class, some of whom are actually left over from the first Cold War, imagines itself in yet another apocalyptic struggle. Recycling Cold War tropes, reviving McCarthyism at home, and fighting Hitler once again, they have discovered in China a totalitarian octopus that must be defeated before it swallows Freedom and advanced semiconductors. The US has saturated the cultural space of the West with a propaganda campaign so relentless and malign that it has cretinized its pundit class. It has hammered its vassals into a set of NATO-like alliances, such as the Quad and AUKUS, in preparation for war on China. It is attempting a technological blockade to cripple China's development.

Yet this is Not the Postwar World, China is Not the USSR, and the US is Not What It Once Was.

The US economy was way larger than the Soviet economy all through the Cold War. Against China, the disparity in economic and industrial capacity that won the Cold War runs in the other direction. Indeed it is China's increasing technological prowess that the US means to knee-cap. This time the US is making an enemy of a nation with an economy that is in PPP terms larger than its own, with an industrial capacity greater than of the US, EU and Japan combined.

The US and USSR led separate economic blocs. China and the US participate in one integrated global economy. They are so interdependent that some commentators dismiss the Cold War analogy, likening the relationship instead to a bad marriage. Meanwhile, China is not carving out a separate economic sphere. It is transforming the present one by bringing development and the common good to the center of the global agenda. To "Contain China," the US is hacking at the sinews of a new globalization for all humankind. In doing so it is also attacking the developing world, impoverishing its allies and hurting itself. What it cannot do is isolate a global economic presence larger and more dynamic than its own. Not everyone in the US is excited about Washington's efforts. US CEOs have lined up to speak against the suicidal ideas of decoupling from China.

The Cold War involved an ideological conflict between rival universalisms. This time all the fanatical universalism is on one side. In a sort of dumbed-down Manichaeism, the struggle is now between "democracies and autocracies." The rest of the world asks only that different paths be respected. In President Xi's words, at the BRICS Summit in Johannesburg: "There are many civilizations and development paths in the world, and this is how the world should be. Human history will not end with a particular civilization or system."

The Cold War was fought to re-impose Western supremacy after WWII. The order it imposed continued to subjugate the nations of the developing world after they had won nominal independence. Today world order is again at stake, except these nations have risen and are acting upon their sovereignty. The world is already multipolar, post-American and post-Western.

BRICS, overshadowing the G7, has just been enlarged. A long list of countries waits to join. The US is fighting a war it has already lost. Clinging to Cold War delusions amid its collapsing domestic order, the US is pitting itself not just against China but against a second era of decolonization, with declarations of independence ringing out from Niger to Argentina to Saudi Arabia.

This Time It's Farce.

— The Author is a Former Malaysian Government Official and a Senior Research Fellow at Perak Academy, Malaysia.

[foetalspicesyndrome]

if there is another american civil war the beaners crossing the border are going to get conscripted straight into the federal army just like the irish and the union army aren't they

[bklynmusicnerd]

I am kind of fascinated with Quinn as a tragic BB figure though. His childhood dream ended up being a series of embarrassing and public failures in rapid succession. Honestly, I'm amazed he hasn't cried more this season.

[botanycrewmember]

About Shen Qiao's Final Confrontation with Chen Gong (heavy spoilers)

I'm often haunted by Shen Qiao and Chen Gong's last meeting. The way the narrative sets them up as foils for each other makes it even more gut-wrenching to see that there would never be reconciliation for them: both of them are people who have been subjected to the lowest form of humanity, both are talented martial artists with a thirst for learning, and yet one of them claws his way up by refusing to play by society's cruel rules, while the other survives by excelling at them.

That said, no matter what you think about Chen Gong and his fate in Qian Qiu, I think it's worth noting that the very last time he sees Shen Qiao, the latter is in full drag and sporting a makeup that would probably look like this given the time period:

The style of makeup is called 額黃 (literally: forehead yellow), which was popularized in the Southern-Northern Dynasty period (where Qian Qiu takes place). Women in that time were inspired by the gold-foiled Buddhist statues and painted their forehead (sometimes also nose) yellow-gold to imitate the statues' appearances.

Can you imagine: you're 23 and the life you carved out through blood and sweat is once again crumbling around you and you want Out, and the man who's been giving you existential crises for years shows up in a dress that suits him and a face so caked in makeup you can barely see his original skin color. He tells you that you've done fucked up; his makeup is running a little from all the running and fighting.

I would have died choking on blood from laughing at the absurdity of the situation, no stabbing from an entitled brat needed. RIP Chen Gong you are a stronger soul than 99% of the people in this novel just for not commenting on anything at all.

[yes7erdays-a1]

@xiidoctor ( continued from here )

the humph he receives in response is rather unladylike, teetering on the edge of being described as a snort, nose scrunching up unconsciously as she narrowed her eyes at him.

❛⠀⠀i think this is the part when i realize you have two left-feet.⠀ ❜⠀ she retorts, shooting a final glance over her shoulder at the crowd, worry brewing inside her chest. her final hour. the clock is going to strike twelve, and she'll... she'll die. she'll die, again.

her thoughts wander back to his explanation. the words she'd chased out of him, the pain that he could barely enunciate. in one hour, he was going through that all over again; time might think it's kind, to allow her a reprieve, to forget her own death, but it didn't matter she couldn't remember, she knew his face, had mapped it with her eyes, with her hand, and the story was clearly written there.

❛⠀⠀no. wait! silly me, this is the time you tell me that fred astaire taught you how to dance.⠀ ❜⠀

[saphira-approves]

SOOOOO HAPPY but also so so sad because nasuada is mortal 😭😭😭

Listen. LISTEN. IT’S OKAY. IT DOESN’T MATTER. WHAT MATTERS IS THAT THE LOVE IS THERE OKAY. LIFE MAY BE FLEETING BUT LOVE IS ETERNAL AND MURTAGH IS LOVED BY SO MANY OF THE DEAD ALREADY WHAT’S ONE MORE.

[palatinewolfsblog]

A Labyrinth of passing minutes.

Days like a maze. Often just deja vu. A “Been here before!” A “No, not again!” But again and again it's just another story that shows history is repeating itself. Tragedy and Farce, you know. And be sure lots of clowns getting ready for their performance. Taking the stage. Stealing the show. But sometimes sometimes I see something else like a dream like a vision. Not by Minos but from Chartres. If you know what I mean. A long and winding path, yes - but you know it leads to the middle and then out. A real point of view. A change of perspective. All it takes is time - and trust. It's possible. You can keep moving.

[catie-does-things]

Thinking about how the moral of Holy Musical B@man was the Batman is lonely and needs friends and the moral of Batman v Superman was...also that Batman is lonely and needs friends.

[bretwalda-lamnguin]

I want to compile all the quotes of Saruman failing miserably and making terrible choices. Tolkien's writing is littered with failed Machiavellians and political schemers, but none are nearly so pathetic as him. He mistakes his own intelligence for understanding and competence and we need to mock him more for it.

[babydillpickle]

they're absolutely beyond satire you almost have to admire it

[elierlick]

I will never forget this survey from a few years ago in which 87% of Republicans and 58% of Democrats supported or were unsure about bombing a fictional city because it sounded Arabic.

[conspiracyofequals]

and it's making things awkward because i'm actually becoming close friends with them! we went clubbing! i got invited to a new year's party! except her birthday is on new year's eve so i'm guessing she'll be organizing something. and i don't want the high school friend group to feel like i'm abandoning them (we had someone do that before, within the exact same friend groups)

[thatscarletflycatcher]

Still thinking about that caustic quote about Louis Napoleon III by Marx -who is in turn paraphrasing Hegel's 'everything in History happens twice'-, that 'everything in History happens twice, the first time as tragedy, and the second time as farce". I'm not as interested in it as a key to read History as much as its potential in storytelling.

My thoughts on the subject aren't fully cooked at all, but I'm rotating it in my mind, be assured.

[queensboro]

“Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honored disguise and borrowed language”

he was talking about Succession here

[bearkunin]

In 1648, a group of Russian townsmen intercepted Tsar Alexei during his return from pilgrimage to Trinity-St Sergei Monastery. They wished to provide him a petition, bringing attention to the "powerful people" who "by their destructiveness and greed are formenting trouble between You, the sovereign, and the whole land." Tsar Alexei had them arrested.

"The Tsar is good but his boyars are bad" is a Russian proverb with a long history, going back to at least Ivan the Terrible. The 1905 Revolution was precipitated by Father Gapon leading a march of petitioners, adorned with Orthodox icons and portraits of the Tsar, to deliver a list of asks to Tsar Nicholas II. They were fired upon by the Imperial Guard, well over a hundred killed and a thousand injured. Father Gapon was heard to exclaim:

There is no God any longer. There is no Tsar.

The tradition continued in Soviet times, with millions of letters being penned to Stalin in a desperate attempt to bring his attention to the abuses by commissars and communist officials. Stalin happily leaned into the idea of a "Good Tsar", and in his article Dizzy with Success he blamed issues of collectivisation on "overzealous" "comrades" and "socialisers." Shortly afterwards, Stalin doubled down on forcible collectivisation leading to millions of deaths.

Now we come to Putin, also cultivating an image of himself as the Good Tsar. Letter petitions updated for the 21st century. As the situation on the front deteriorates, and Russian insurgents wreak havoc in Belgorod, Viktor Kalugon, 65, wonders:

“I hope our forces will not allow the Fascists to enter here. As long as we have Putin, nobody will be able to take Russia. If only he could deal with the generals.”