#but will spend billions and billions and billions on a genocide that the majority is against. the system isn't going to begin collapsing

[poisonousquinzel]

"a dude in Texas legally changed his name to "Literally Anyone Else" and he's attempting to run for President against Biden & Trump" [source]

okay, but putting aside the comedic aspect of this, it is concerning the amount of people who are prompted to vote for candidates just because it's funny. I'm not the biggest fan of how his policy about the boarder sounds [Site], but I do implore anyone who is able to vote in the 2024 US election to please research other candidates.

The media is only going to continue pushing the idea it's inevitably going to be Trump vs Biden 2.0 and we have no other options, that we have to vote for Biden again because of Project 2025. Is that whole thing terrifying?

Yeah, fucking absolutely.

But voting for Biden will not solidify our safety from that. Biden is exactly like the rest of them. He always has been. You can't make the lesser of two evils argument when they're both just plain evil.

You cannot say that Biden is even mildly a better choice than Trump when he is currently directly involved in a genocide. That is not some little fucking thing. That in and of itself disqualifies him as a lesser evil. Biden is just as bad as him and he will not save us because he doesn't fucking care.

Cornel West [Site] is an Independent candidate running for President in the 2024 Election. [Policies]

Claudia De la Cruz and Karina Garcia [Site] are running for President and Vice-President as the candidates of the Party for Socialism and Liberation in the 2024 Election. [Policies]

There are options.

There are people trying to change the corrupt foundation our system is built on, but we have to help amplify them because the mainstream media will not.

[decolonize-the-left]

DIVEST FROM BANKS FOR PALESTINE

.....Correct me if I'm wrong but allies to Israel would have no money to move around and spend if we and banks have no money to move around for them right?

Even the US treasury needs a way to offer collateral for the billions they give to countries like Israel. Do you know what that collateral has been thus far? Your paycheck. The future paychecks of babies that can't even talk yet. That's how they'll pay all this off.

The government has been giving us the biggest fuck you that they could. Let's return the favor.

"yeah but the banks-"

Have been bailed out every time they've asked for it since I've been alive. They love debt when they aren't the ones paying it. They'll know how heavy the weight of their arms dealing is. There's a reason they have been phasing out paper checks and money- they can't move money they don't have and digital bank accounts can't see the paper money in your drawer ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So yes absolutely keep boycotting.

And we should pull all our money out of Major Banks.

It's incredibly accessible for most people who already have a bank account, even if you can't protest or strike. And you don't have to miss any work.

So let's hit em where it hurts.

Banks (from this list of Banks that heavily fw Israel)

Citibank

Bank Julius Baer & Co

Bank Lombard Odier & Co

Banque Pictet & Cia SA

BNP Paribas Israel

CBH Compagnie Bancaire Helvetique S.A.

Dreyfus Sons & Co.

Hyposwiss Private Bank Geneve SA

JP Morgan Chase Bank N.A.

Silicon Valley Bank

Union Bancaire Privee

HSBC

Barclays

BNP Paribas Israel

State Bank of India

Other banks that have supported the genocide

Goldman Sachs

Bank of America

Wells Fargo

Blackrock

AXA

Capital One

RBS

Marks & Spencer

Tesco

Scotia Bank

Bank of Montreal

No, you don't have to cancel your direct deposits (most places in the USA won't even pay you without an account anyway). But you should drain your account ASAP. Don't let the money sit in your bank. Pull it out and use cash for everything you can. Don't put money in the bank unless you need to.

The point is just to keep as much money as you can out of banks for as long as you can.

Yeah it's gonna be harder to order online which may be inconvenient until we readjust but thats good.

It'll be a natural way for the boycotts to evolve.

A lot of fighting in the Red Sea is being done because of how much money the USA, UK, etc have to lose if they can't get their products on time. The Houthis turning ships away cost these countries millions every time. If there are less ships to turn away cuz people aren't ordering stuff from overseas then Good.

Yeah we could have an organized day to do this but...why??? It's accessible, it's free, and the people across the globe experiencing a genocide right now, from north America to Africa to Palestine don't have the luxury of waiting a few months for us to spread the word and organize.

If you see this share it. Copy/paste, repost, retweet, idc. Spread like wildfire pls

[dominateeye]

On March 22, 2024, Congress passed a $1.2 spending bill meant to fund the essential functions of our federal government. Hidden in the bill were multiple irrelevant measures including an extended ban on funding for UNRWA (the Palestinian Refugee relief agency), sanctioning the United Nations if they investigate Israeli war crimes, and most troubling – authorizing another $3.8 billion in funding and military aid for Israel despite their government openly flouting U.S. and international human rights law.

This bill was bipartisan, passing with broad support from members of both major parties, making our political duopoly fully complicit in the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

All people of conscience should be appalled that our lawmakers, without hesitation, sacrificed the humanity and self-determination of Palestinian people as a condition for funding the normal functions of our federal government.

The far-right government of Israel has repeatedly stated their intent to exterminate and permanently expel Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank. Now the American public is directly funding that extermination through the actions of our elected officials.

Benjamin Netanyahu has been exposed on the world stage as a flagrant war criminal, and he deserves to be investigated and prosecuted. But Netanyahu could not conduct his crimes without the substantial and ongoing financial and military support of the United States government.

As such, we demand an independent investigation by the International Criminal Court to determine if charges of war crimes are appropriate for any elected U.S. official providing material support for Israel’s ongoing genocide.

If criminal charges are found to be warranted, we support a prosecution by the International Criminal Court. Add your name if you agree.

[razzmatazz-2994]

Just saw the most HORRIBLY inaccurate dissection of Zeke’s character and absolutely had to weigh in to defend my favorite monstrosity monkey. AoT SPOILERS AHEAD.

(Pictured above: me coming to explain my favorite fictional character.)

SO, let’s start with Zeke’s backstory, which seems to be a point of some contention. The post in question accused Zeke of fabricating the narrative of being a victim and callously killing his parents. There are many reasons this ISN’T the case.

For one, Zeke was a child, both a member of a marginalized group in an oppressed society and the victim of an abusive household. Perhaps not traditionally, physically, abusive. But Grisha and Dina forced this child to join the MILITARY. Not only that, they hoped he would become a Warrior (which means becoming a Titan and REDUCING HIS LIFESPAN TO A MEASLY THIRTEEN YEARS) all in the hopes of reclaiming the Founding Titan.

They attempted to quite literally sacrifice the life of their only child for a mission, forcing him into a role he didn’t ask for, pressuring him with the FATE OF THE WORLD. OF ALL ELDIANS. You cannot tell me this wouldn’t affect a child.

This person also claimed Zeke never asked Grisha to play catch, but got mad when he didn’t. The only reason this is even technically “correct” is because the one time he tried to ask, Grisha interrupted him so he could spend more time devoting himself to his righteous mission.

What’s more, it wasn’t even Zeke’s idea to give up his restorationist parents to Marley. By the time Zeke tells on them, they had ALREADY been found out — he overheard a Marleyan confirm as much during his warrior training. He went to Mr. Ksaver, the closest thing he had to a parent, to say goodbye — to meet his fate and become a Titan with the rest of his family as punishment. He was going to die.

The ONLY way he could’ve saved himself and his grandparents was to give up his mom and dad. He never wanted to do it. And even if you wouldn’t do the same in this situation, you have to understand the monumental weight of the choices thrust upon him. The lives of his family and people he cared about, even those that mistreated him. A mere child was expected to make such a gut-wrenchingly horrible choice.

Now, for his motivations. Zeke, who has persecuted and abused his entire life for being Eldian, chooses to outwit the Marleyan government, befriend the Founding Titan and, with his royal blood, prevent Eldians from reproducing.

It sounds horrible. It is. And though it sounds contrarian, I think it’s purely the most empathetic course of action from his point of view. He knows better than anyone the persecution the Eldians face, the hate and superstition the rest of the world feels that would simply be impossible to overcome. He cannot change the world’s hateful perception of his people. So he chooses the greatest mercy he can think of. He will peacefully eradicate the Eldians and the power of the Titans, not through bloodshed, but by allowing the final generations to live out their lives in peace. It would also spare them persecution and the world the threat of the Titans.

Now, obviously, his plan is still pretty despicable. His worldview is twisted, to the point where he considers killing to be a mercy — that it would be better for no one to have ever been born. And though he tries to resolve the Eldian problem as peacefully as possible, he still kills thousands of people, if not dozens of thousands. There’s no arguing that he’s a just and moral person — it’s part of the reason he’s the antagonist — but consider the alternatives.

Eren’s plan is genocide. Instead of allowing the persecuted minority to die out, Eren chose to kill billions of people — to try to kill the VAST majority of the world’s population. And though the Marleyan government is pure evil, most of these victims are innocent. Completely undeserving of the cruel fate they would face. As horrible as Zeke’s plan and methods are, it’s hard to say that Eren’s is any better. If anything, the sheer number of people killed makes it even more appalling to me. After all, Eren becomes an antagonist, too. They are both flawed, traumatized men with the weight of the world on their shoulders and unimaginable power in their hands.

The most reasonable plan, of course, is Armin’s. To unleash a small-scale version of the rumbling and destroy Marley’s fleets in order to buy Paradis the time needed to negotiate. But his plan, too, has one huge flaw.

The Founding Titan needs royal blood to be unlocked — something only Zeke and Historia possess. And by Season 4, Zeke has less than a year left to live, and Eren only has about four. It’s not enough time to negotiate, to change the world’s hateful perception of the Eldians. And this time pressure is exactly what pushes Zeke and Eren to take such drastic measures.

Eren would never allow Historia to become a Titan. He wouldn’t stand to see her used and controlled the way her father manipulated her, nor would he allow his friends to live their lives struggling to survive against an ignorant world. His obsession with freedom was too much. It practically controlled him — it, or the will of the Attack Titan. He had to ally himself with Zeke. To him, there was no other choice.

As I said, Zeke knows better than anyone the pain and persecution that comes with being Eldian in this world. He could have passed his blood and Titan to another, but that would bring its own kind of pain, one he knew intimately. He knew what it was like to have a role forced upon him as a child, to be controlled and used and sacrificed for his father’s ambitions. Why would he ever inflict that pain upon someone else? To him, there was no other choice.

We may never know who was right — or if anyone was — and I can’t blame anyone for despising Zeke after all the killing he’s done. But it’s also why he realizes he’s wrong and sacrifices himself to stop the rumbling. He realizes life is beautiful even in the small moments, and that despite the pain, whether someone dies is not his choice to make. Once again, he gives his life for a goal. But this time, it’s not the lesser of two evils or even a misguided man’s vision of mercy. It’s pure selflessness. After a long, miserable life, he has finally realized the beauty in the world — and willingly, he gives it all away.

Zeke Yeager. The wonderboy.

[libertariantaoist]

News Roundup 12/8/2023 | The Libertarian Institute

Here is your daily roundup of today's news:

News Roundup 12/8/2023

by Kyle Anzalone

Venezuela

The US military said Thursday that it would conduct flight operations in Guyana amid tensions between the Caribbean nation and its neighbor Venezuela over the disputed Guayana Esequiba region. AWC

Russia

Ukrainian and Eastern European Officials Travel to Lobby Congress for More Military. The HillAWC

White House Announces New $175 Million Weapons Package for Ukraine. Press ReleaseAWC

The US and Sweden have signed a Defense Cooperation Agreement (DCA) that will grant the US military access to bases across the Nordic country as Stockholm has abandoned its centuries-old policy of neutrality. AWC

Senate Republicans blocked a motion to advance a massive $111 billion spending package that includes military aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan over a partisan dispute on border issues. AWC

Israel

Top UN Chief Says Gaza Situation “Apocalyptic.” Guardian

US Officials Say Israel Will Continue Major Military Operations in Gaza into 2024. CNN

White House Interns Pen Letter Demanding Gaza Ceasefire and Call Israeli Actions Against Palestinians a “Genocide.” MEE

Despite the soaring civilian deaths in Gaza, the Biden administration is not considering using any of the leverage it has over Israel to get the Israeli military to change its tactics, Reuters reported on Tuesday. AWC

The UN Security Council is expected to meet on Friday to discuss the Israeli onslaught in Gaza after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres invoked Article 99 of the UN Charter for the first time during his tenure, which started in 2017. AWC

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Wednesday that Hezbollah must be pushed back from the Israeli border, and if it’s not achieved through diplomatic means, Israel will take military action. AWC

Joint Investigation Finds Israeli Tank Shell Killed Journalist in Lebanon. WashPoThe Institute

Egypt Warns Israel Driving Palestinians Into Sinai Will “Rupture” Ties. Axios

US Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer said Thursday that the Biden administration has not set a deadline on Israel’s war in Gaza and reiterated US opposition to a ceasefire. AWC

Yemen

US Navy Claims to Shoot Down Another Houthi Drone. VOA

Saudi Arabia Is Requesting the US Show Restraint Responding to Houthi Attacks in Red Sea. Jerusalem Post

US Places Sanctions on Houthis in Response to Attacks in Red Sea. VOA

Israel Claims to Shoot Down Yemeni Ballistic Missile. Haaretz

The Biden administration has asked Israel not to respond to recent attacks by Yemen’s Houthis, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. AWC

Read More

[theivorybilledwoodpecker]

Just had a person send me an ask where all it was was a pic of the Israeli flag. Went on their page and it was all about how they lived in Israel, how people clearly wanted to see all Jewish people killed, how this fight is about future generations of Jewish people, saying "Never Again!"

And if anyone sends me something like that, I'm going to do what I did to them: Block them without any reply.

Because I know that nothing I can say will convince you, but no, this isn't about Israelis being Jewish. This is about the Israeli government stealing Palestinian land, spending decades colonizing and murdering Palestinians, and currently carpet bombing Gaza.

I'm not denying there are some people who are using this as an opportunity to spread antisemitism, but the vast majority of people are simply saying "Stop committing genocide!"

I'm sorry for the people who killed or were taken captive by Hamas. I don't think they deserved it. Nor do I think Hamas is a hero. Yeah, I blame Israel for Hamas forming; what did they think would happen when they spent decades commiting genocide?

But Hamas knew Israel would respond this way and decided each and every person in Gaza was an acceptable sacrifice.

But civilians are not Hamas. And Hamas' decision to put civilians at risk does not justify Israel's decision to murder almost 10,000 people.

If you are not Palestinian, are in Israel, and are not protesting against Benjamin Netanyahu, you are not fighting for your life. You are sitting behind the Iron Shield, guarded by a sophisticated army, with over $14 billion in aid being sent to you by the US alone.

Any loss you may have experienced is not a justification to murder almost 10,000 people.

[mariacallous]

When the U.S. Congress frantically passed an eleventh-hour deal to avert a government shutdown, it did so at the expense of one of President Joe Biden’s top foreign-policy priorities: U.S. aid for Ukraine.

The stopgap deal to keep funding the U.S. government for six weeks came only after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy jettisoned $6 billion in additional aid for Ukraine—aid the far-right minority of House Republicans opposed—to push the deal through.

Congress is slated to hash out new negotiations on a separate funding package for Ukraine in the future, and a large majority of both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill still support sending more U.S. aid to Ukraine.

Yet there’s a growing sense of unease settling into the national security establishment in Washington as well as Kyiv over the saga. Many officials on both sides of the Atlantic view the U.S. government shutdown saga as a sign of the United States’ fading resolve to back Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s full-scale and genocidal invasion.

“We cannot, under any circumstances, allow American support for Ukraine to be interrupted,” Biden said ahead of the deal to avert the government shutdown.

How the political battles in Washington shake out could have existential consequences for Ukraine, which has received around $44 billion in U.S. military aid, according to data from the State Department—more than seven times Kyiv’s prewar defense budget—since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, its second invasion of the country in the last decade.

The highly anticipated Ukrainian spring counteroffensive has largely bogged down in a thicket of dense Russian defensive lines, with limited breakthroughs that preview a long war ahead. Russia is ramping up its production of artillery and other munitions, while Ukraine needs more firepower from the West, particularly the United States, as European defense industries lag behind in coming online after decades of sluggish defense spending.

All the while, Ukrainian officials watch nervously from afar as high-stakes political dealmaking in Washington on aid to Kyiv makes or breaks their ability to wage war.

“We feel hostage to the internal political struggle in the United States,” said Yehor Cherniev, a Ukrainian lawmaker who serves on the country’s National Security Committee. “[I]f assistance is delayed, this will mean a sharp drop in our firepower and an increase in casualties.”

Ukraine’s supporters say the skepticism taking root in some wings of the Republican Party plays into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hands and will ultimately undercut Ukraine’s ability to defend itself and lead to more instability in Europe. They argue that for a pittance—a tiny fraction of the annual U.S. defense budget and with zero Americans put in harm’s way—Ukraine is helping to decimate the military of one of the United States’ top geopolitical rivals.

“We are worried about general fatigue on some allied countries, including Hungary and the latest elections in Slovakia,” said Artis Pabriks, a former Latvian defense minister. “Latvia strongly believes that support to Ukraine against totalitarian invasion cannot be used and misused in national politics.

“Russians see that hoping for favorable election results next year, and it makes them continue war, at least until elections. If, on the top of that, there is still weakness of support, it encourages them to continue war and endanger the whole West.”

Russia has suffered an estimated 300,000 casualties and lost more than 6,700 tanks and 180 fighter jets and helicopters in the 20 months since it launched its so-called “special military operation” to topple the government in Kyiv, an operation that planners in the Kremlin expected to take just a matter of days. Since then, the war has bogged down into a grueling war of attrition. While Ukraine has more effective military capabilities and massive tranches of Western military aid on its side, Russia has power in mass and numbers. Ukraine has an estimated 500,000 total military personnel, including active soldiers and reserve forces, compared with Russia’s 1.3 million, according to analysts.

Opponents of further aid argue that the United States has already given billions of dollars in economic assistance and weapons to Ukraine and say it is time to reallocate government resources to problems closer to home, such as the southern border and gearing up for a new geopolitical showdown against China.

And that argument has picked up as political gravity has begun to weigh on Ukraine’s campaign to beat back Russia’s full-scale invasion, leaving European officials privately worried that the beginning of the 2024 election season is going to be an inflection point for the historic levels of U.S. military aid to Kyiv.

“‘As long as it takes’ as the correct and consistent approach was clearly questioned by the Republicans,” said a German official, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk candidly about another country’s internal political deliberations. “This certainly casts down on our collective Western resolve.”

With its power over government funding, Congress can make or break the future of U.S. aid to Ukraine, seen as one of the most critical parts of Ukraine’s strategy to defeat the Russian invasion. Beyond the historic levels of military aid to Ukraine, the United States is currently spending nearly $3 billion to prop up Ukraine’s defense industry and helping to bridge its budget shortfall while providing humanitarian and energy aid.

“There is still a broad bipartisan consensus around continued support for Ukraine, but the skeptical voices on Capitol Hill are loud,” said Rachel Rizzo, an expert on defense issues at the Atlantic Council. “The recent infighting within the Republican Party shows that a small but boisterous coterie of detractors can really stymie progress.”

McCarthy has said he supports increasing U.S. funding for Ukraine but has to listen to the demands of his caucus to first secure funding for the southern border with Mexico. Ukraine retains broad bipartisan support in both chambers of Congress, including from powerful Republican lawmakers such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Rep. Michael McCaul, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. But those trend lines are shifting.

“An up or down vote would overwhelmingly pass, but within the GOP caucus there is a split,” said Peter Rough, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. “The stakes are high, though. Europeans insist that the U.S. is the essential member of the coalition for Ukraine. So any sign that security assistance might not be forthcoming from Washington does raise alarm bells.”

Experts and analysts believe the fight over Ukraine aid, led by skeptics such as Republican Reps. Matt Gaetz and Andy Biggs, is gaining traction as U.S. public opinion polls show voters’ enthusiasm for supporting Ukraine slowly waning over time.

“Putin is getting under the Americans’ skin,” said a Lithuanian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to offer criticism of internal U.S. politics. “It’s very sad to see some U.S. politicians so shortsighted waiting for the next Pearl Harbor to happen in Europe or the Indo-Pacific.”

One bellwether of this trend is how failed efforts in the House to cut Ukraine aid have slowly gained supporters over time. When Gaetz introduced a measure in July to cut aid to Ukraine, he netted just 70 votes in support. When he introduced a similar measure during the height of the government shutdown debate last week, 93 Republican lawmakers supported it—though 126 Republicans and all 213 Democrats voted against it.

Since the war began, the United States has pledged about $75 billion in aid to Ukraine, of which around $44 billion is military aid. The military aid constitutes around 3.4 percent of U.S. spending on the Pentagon.

In another possible sign of weakening Western resolve for Ukraine, a populist party headed by a politician seen as pro-Russia won the most votes in national elections in Slovakia on Sunday. Robert Fico, a former Slovakian prime minister, has been asked to form a new coalition government, beating out the pro-Western and liberal Progressive Slovakia party in an election that could further undermine European Union and NATO resolve for Ukraine on the other side of the Atlantic. Neighboring EU and NATO member Hungary, led by Russia-friendly leader Viktor Orban, has stymied progress on expanding EU sanctions on Russia and starting talks to bring Ukraine into the EU.

Back in Washington, multiple congressional aides said McCarthy now has more room for maneuver after surviving the shutdown threat. Some downplayed the lingering threat to U.S. aid to Ukraine from the small faction of Republican lawmakers who led the charge against it.

“[M]ost of their members care way more about the border and spending cuts than about cutting Ukraine aid,” one congressional aide said, on condition of anonymity to talk candidly about the internal negotiations. “[A]ll they ‘got’ in the [continuing resolution] was no Ukraine spending, which everyone knows will likely be passed anyway.” The logic from pro-Ukraine members of Congress and their staff is that enough political will exists for a separate aid bill.

“We have a procedural problem, not a vote count problem,” the aide added.

The Biden administration can still pull about $5 billion in weapons off Pentagon shelves from the so-called presidential drawdown authority previously approved by Congress, and Ukraine is still waiting for billions of dollars in pre-announced deliveries from the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, the U.S. fund that can source weapons orders for Kyiv from U.S. defense contractors.

Ukrainian officials and experts have sought to couch Congress’s move as a blip, not a systemic change. But the frustration from Kyiv was palpable.

“I can tell you what my reaction is,” said Daria Kaleniuk, a co-founder and the executive director of the Anti-Corruption Action Center in Kyiv. “A mix of betrayal and disappointment.”

[iconicme]

The Tipping Point:

There are now 8.1 billion persons on earth; many of which live in China, Africa and India.  With the world population growing at a rate of 140 million persons per year, 97% are born in the third world.  America has come to a tipping-point, at which we must rethink our priorities. The financial reality is, we can no be ourbrother's keeper.  At stake is our economy, American identity and judo-christian culture.

The United States is the most generous nation on earth, providing food, financial and military support, to the majority of 193 nations.  Averaging approximately $50 billion per year; however in the past 2 years the Biden administration has poured $75 billion into Ukraine; with no end is sight.  Ukraine is a European problem, and no ally of America. And what is the upside to the billions we spend to Israel.

Half of those living in America were never born here.  Illegal aliens, foreign workers and students, all receive financial assistance, subsidies, education and healthcare, paid entirely by American taxpayers.  Lest we forget government produces nothing but debt. And when there are more people in the wagon, than people pulling the wagon this economy will collapse.

The Foreign Assistance Act, aka the Marshall Plan, was launched in 1949, by the Truman administration. Its original intent was to help European nations rebuild, following the Second World War; and halt the expansion of Communist.  Its long-term goal was to lift poor nations out of poverty and help them build viable economies.  During the pst 70 years, the U.S. has poured trillions of taxpayers dollars, down this rabbit hole, while attempting to eradicate poverty and disease. Yet the poor are getting poorer and disease is now rampant, while millions of third-wold aliens serge cross our border spreading deadly diseases. 

The disastrous effects of foreign aid can be seen on the African continent.  An alphabet-soup of nation-states, from Angola to Zimbabwe.  Although rich in natural resources, they remain some of the poorest, nations on earth.  Some African nations, have no formal governments at all, ruled by brutal warlords, where rape, civil war and genocide are the primary occupations.   U.S. foreign aid is used to buy the weapons by which callous leaders remain in power.

Most of the third-world lives in abject poverty, and depraved indifference of corrupt regimes.  Foreign aid, is the problem, not the solution.  In reality, sending money to ruthless dictators is the main cause of civil wars, as roving militias fight over food and money, meant to help the poor.   

Attempting to save the world from its self, is a fools errand; and poses a huge financial burned on the American economy.  Corrupt politicians that care only about accumulating power, enriching themselves, families and friends; have created an unsustainable amount of debt.  The interest alone on our national debt is now $1 trillion dollars.

[opedguy]

Biden Doubles Down on Ukraine

LOS ANGELES (OnlineColumnist.com), April 28, 2022.--President Joe Biden, 79, threw down the gauntlet, telling 69-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin that “he will never dominate Ukraine.”  What kind of madness has Biden endorsed adopting Ukraine as a kind of 51st State.?  Whatever the problems Ukraine has with Russia or vice versa, why has the United States funded a proxy war spending precious U.S. tax dollars on a war that his no consequences to U.S. national security.  Biden thought so little of Ukraine that he said he would not commit no U.S. troops or set up a no-fly-zone to protect Ukraine from the Russian assault.  Biden now wants $33 billion more for military and humanitarian funding, talking like he’s willing to start WW III to protect Ukrainian interests.  What about the interests of the 27-European Union states that want no part of Biden’s war on the European Continent?  Biden seeks to topple Putin;s Kremlin rule.    Biden declared today that “aggression will not win.  Threats will not win,” dismissing recent warnings by Putin and his 72-year-old Foreign Minister that the Ukraine War could easily spin into WW III.  Where’s the common sense on both sides of the aisle, with both sides joining hands in their hatred of Putin.  Whatever the dispute Putin has with Ukraine, it’s now related to the fact that Biden supplies unlimited amounts of cash-and-arms to Ukraine.  U.S. press seems 100% behind the prospect of WW III, watching the European Content set ablaze because Biden has adopted Ukraine as a 51st state.  Biden lets Ukraine’s 44-year-old President Volodymyr Zelensky sell the U.S. and the world on taking on the Russian Federation.  Zelensky has accused Putin of genocide, taking over all of Europe, using chemical, biologic and nuclear weapons, trying to destroy democracy around the planet.    Zelensky with Biden’s help makes the case for war with the Russian Federation.  When it comes to the White House committing billions to Ukraine, it’s 100% clear to the Kremlin that the Ukraine war is a U.S. proxy war against the Russian Federation.  When are cooler heads going to prevail, telling Biden to stop waging war against the Russian Federation.?  Biden’s 68-year-old Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin admitted in Ramstein, Germany April 26 that the U.S. mission is to stop Russia’s war machine.  All sounds good, except it’s a declaration of war against the Russian Federation.  Former NATO Supreme Commander Richard Sherriff said today that NATO should prepare for war.  Well, if that’s what NATO wants then there’s little that can be done to stop the madness that has the U.S., EU and NATO on the brink of WW II.  All because Biden adopted Ukraine as his pet project.    No one with any serious understanding of foreign policy sees the U.S. national security significance in the U.S. going to war against the Russian Federation.  Well that’s exactly what’s happened.  Ukraine provides the ground troops today bit probably not tomorrow.  Zelensky has lambasted the West for what he sees as a tepid response to protect Ukraine. All the armaments, all the cash, all the trainings mean nothing to Zelensky, who believes that Ukraine should not be the only country wrecked by the Russian Federation.  From Day 1 of the Feb. 24 invasion, Zelesnsky has been asking for more U.S., EU and NATO troops and weapons. In case the media checked, Ukraine’s major cities and towns are in ruins with more to come.  More fighting guaranteed by Biden’s cash-and-arms assures that Ukraine will be laid to waste in short order, not beat the Russian Federation.    Biden has reduced the Ukraine war to clichés and slogans, not realizing the destruction that he’s causing to Ukraine and next to Europe.  “The cost of this fight is not cheap,” Biden said.  “But caving to aggression is going to be more costly, if we allow it to happen,” repeating the kind to twisted logic that makes zero sense.  So, the U.S. is now supposed to topple the Russian Federation because it doesn’t like a border dispute between neighbors.  Biden won’t admit that the U.S. arming Ukraine to the teeth has created a dilemma for the Russian Federation.  Putin asks what is the U.S. and NATO’s stake in Ukraine?  Putin told Biden Dec. 24, 2021 that if the U.S. or NATO couldn’t renegotiate security arrangement in Ukraine and Eastern Europe, he would have to take “military-technical measures” to safeguard Russian national security.  Biden rejected all of Putin’s requests for months before the invasion.    So where it stands now Biden is pulling the U.S., EU and NATO into WW III, even far worse, a possible nuclear exchange.  You will never succeed in dominating Ukraine,” Biden said, sounding insane.  Does Biden think he should go to war with Communist China because he feels sorry for Taiwan.  Would Biden commut U.S. troops to defending Taiwan in the event of a Beijing invasion?  Biden’s beyond the pale in his twisted logic, saying the goal of the U.S. military to stop Russia from dominating Ukraine or any other country.  Whatever dangers existed in 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the prospects for WW III or nuclear war are far greater today.  Funding a proxy war in Ukraine to topple Putin is the most dangerous gambit of any president in U.S. history.  One mistake, one mishap, one miscalculation can set Europe and the world ablaze all because Biden won’t let Putin dominate Ukraine. About the Author John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

[theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin]

After that gorgeous sequel rant, would you be willing to share your thoughts on reylo?

Ugh.

Once again, that is the most succinct, easiest, answer I can supply. But it's so short, and that just won't do.

I mentioned in a recent post that Dramione comes in a myriad of disguises. Every fandom usually has at least one Dramione ship, you can usually guess which characters the ship will consist of, and while you might not be able to articulate exactly what about it makes it so damn similar to Dramione you will recognize it on sight.

Usually, to me, a Dramione ship features a strong, independent, female lead who may be varying levels of sexually empowered, varying levels of intelligent (Hermione loves to tell us how smart she is but it's not the heart of the ship), is strong, courageous, and noble who depending on the story du jour might slide into depravity.  The real give away is her love interest, always a man, usually a young man of comparable age, who has the bad boy appeal that's not too bad boy where he often is redeemed to the good side for 'reasons' in the course of the story.

Reylo is such a Dramione pairing.

You don't believe me? Look at the authors who write it, I haven't done this too often myself, but I guarantee you that a not small majority of them will either write Draco/Hermione or will have it all over their favorites and bookmarks. It's the same damn pairing.

But worse.

Because Kylo-Ren and Rey aren't really characters.

"Whoa, hold up!", you say, "That's just slander and uncalled for!" Well, change my mind. Rey Palpatine and Kylo-Ren are a series of character tropes and archetypes thrown to us by Disney screaming "LOVE MY CHARACTERS".

Rey is our noble, very Luke like, hero who is a scrappy desert rat with overwhelming mystical powers only acknowledged when the movies feel like acknowledging them (guys, admit Rey kicked Kylo-Ren's ass every time they fought with 0 training, come on, it's not hard).

However, there is nothing underneath her surface. Her hero worship of the resistance feels dull and given to her because it's expected. Of course Rey likes the resistance! The resistance is great! Sign her up! Rey has been living in the desert at the edge of nowhere for presumably 15 years, I'm shocked she's even heard of the new republic let alone the resistance. Despite essentially starving and only having a home that's a broken down old fighter, Rey saves a random droid. We're not really given a compelling reason of why she would do this, that she has a deep respect for droids/is horrified by their use, really really really hates the random trader she sells things to, or really really really hates the empire (if she even realizes it's them behind the bounty). She does it just so that a) the plot keeps moving b) to show Rey is... noble... I guess?

Remember that even Luke (who I have some problems with as a character) started his journey with more backstory and personality than this. Luke loved the empire and desperately wanted to become a pilot. He was very put out that his aunt and uncle kept saying, "Uh, no, bad idea." Luke was ready to skip town and sign on up for flight academy, he just got distracted by pretty women, er, his sister.

So, Rey is never given a compelling reason to do any of the things she does in the series. Just vague feelings of hero worship. And, of course, the drama over her parents. Just... I feel like Disney took out a hat, put a bunch of pieces of paper with words on them, and drew out the one that said "orphan angst about parents" and said "See, now she's conflicted! What a character!"

So yeah, Rey is your cardboard generic hero who is so generic she's not even a person. She has no hopes, no dreams, no fears, just these vague things we're told as an audience she cares about but never shown in any legitimate manner. Rey likes the resistance and rando droids, Rey imprints on Han Solo as the father she never had, Rey has this thing about her parents, Rey is attracted to Kylo Ren.

And that last one, oh boy that last one. It sold me less on the attraction to Kylo Ren than... oh... I don't know... Palpatine's secret Sith planet of doom. I mean, we all saw it coming, The Last Jedi it was very clear where that was going and then Abrams went for it even harder. But what we had was a series of skype conversations where Rey went from "Gr, you killed my pseudo father!" and Kylo-Ren responding, "Yeah, well he was my real father AND HE WAS SO MEAN" to "Oh Ben, I will fly to you through space and we shall save the galaxy together!"

I am given no reason to believe Rey's change of heart. Han Solo's death just suddenly... doesn't really mean much to her anymore (the man was murdered by his son in cold blood so that his son could feel better about himself). She believes Ben Solo is good now because Luke is a dick (never mind that, no matter what a dick Luke is, Ben Solo still murdered dozens of children and then went on to gleefully massacre his way through the galaxy). We're told there's a Force Dyad, which is um... not this thing the writer's made up because they were too lazy to convince me that Kylo-Ren and Rey would end up together in any organic way.

So, yeah, why does Rey like Kylo-Ren? Because the Force told her too? Because it was somehow all Snoke's fault in a way that's never properly described? (Indeed despite us spending quite a bit of time on Kylo-Ren's decision to remain Kylo-Ren being a very internalized thing) Because we saw him shirtless in yoga pants this one time?

It's bad when that last is actually the most legitimate reason I can think of out of the whole lot.

Now let's go to Kylo-Ren. If Rey is boring and nonsensical then Kylo-Ren is a dumpster fire and non-sensical. The guy reminds me a lot of Commodus from the film "Gladiator", the man is cowardly, vile, and murders his father in despair that his father never will be capable of loving him/passes him over for the throne. Kylo-Ren's murder of Han Solo is extremely similar to the murder of Marcus Aurelius in "Gladiator". Han Solo is a flawed father, trying to make his peace with his son, who approaches him unarmed and Kylo-Ren decides to murder him in order to solidify his place in the dark side.

Only, the films never acknowledge that every action Kylo-Ren takes is horrifying.

We're told "oh, Kylo-Ren exists because evil Snoke corrupted him" but also shown repeatedly that Kylo-Ren chooses the darkest path again and again and again. He "struggles with the light" but I don't see it. His opening scene, he has massacred a village and is torturing a man for information (this is presumably a daily routine for him). In the same film he later tortures Rey for information. He serves on a Death Star which wipes out billions in an instant. He murders his father to feel good about himself. He dresses as a man who was reviled and feared throughout the galaxy, a man who murdered countless children, and a man who dressed the way he did because he was barely hanging onto life, because Kylo-Ren thinks it makes him look like a badass. Think about it, this is like if a fully abled Kylo-Ren is wheeling around in a wheel chair, perfectly capable of walking, because he thinks that Professor X is so cool. Now, replace Professor X with Hitler, this is what the movies gave us.

Yet, the films seem to take it for granted that Kylo-Ren is a redeemable character. He's just lost and misguided, he's really struggling with the light and dark side! They don't just tell us this over and over again (which they do) but also just assume we know it.

And base the entire Reylo pairing off of it. Reylo believed Kylo-Ren could be redeemed, they battle Snoke together, then Kylo-Ren stabs her in the back and continues the assault on the Resistance and asks her to be his Dark Queen (TM). Reylo is shocked and appalled, I'm just wondering what movie she thought she was watching, because that was coming a mile away.

Later, when Kylo-Ren is redeemed, we're never given a reason why it happens. Leia just gives him a nagging, one word, phone call and then Han Solo shows up to go, "Ben, are you going to do the right thing?" and Ben goes, "Mumble, grumble, fine" because there's only an hour left in the last film.

Kylo-Ren, like Rey, is the writers' desperate attempt to create a compelling anti-hero with all the anti-hero sauce we love. They just won't admit they made an overgrown genocidal toddler.

Wow, this turned into why I hate both Rey and Kylo Ren, but, uh, back to the ship. Basically, the films give me 0 reason to ever believe it, and even if I wanted to, even if I said "Alright brain, let's make these characters real people for once", I still wouldn't like it. Because the ship itself is just as flat as the characters. It's spicy but not too spicy bad boy gets together with strong female lead.

I know a lot of people enjoy this, and I won't say it's any less legitimate than any of the weirdness I ship, but I'm not one of them. And the whole thing just makes me go "ugh".

[aunti-christ-ine]

The War in Afghanistan killed more than 241,000 people and cost the United States $2 trillion. What was the point? Why did we spend so much time and so many resources on a war that was doomed to fail? 

As you might expect, big money played a major role. 

How Private Contractors Fueled 20 Years of Military Policy 

War has overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress. It’s why more than half of our nation’s discretionary spending goes towards the Defense Department each year, and why this budget increases without regard to which party is in power. 

This isn’t a coincidence. Nearly every state plays a role in outfitting the military with weapons, machinery, and more, with massive investments from private defense contractors that translate to thousands of jobs. 

Meanwhile, five of the nation’s largest defense contractors have collectively spent over $2.5 billion lobbying the federal government in the past two decades. Nearly three-quarters of these lobbyists are former federal employees and Capitol Hill staffers, giving them an advantage as they work the system. These “investments” in lobbying benefit these corporations countless times over in arms sales, forcing the cycle of war to continue. 

What can we learn from all of this?

Even if we successfully withdraw all of our remaining troops from Afghanistan, military spending and defense lobbying aren’t going away. The United States remains the world’s largest arms dealer, outfitting allies and adversaries alike. We continue to support Saudi Arabia in its genocide against Yemeni civilians, in a conflict they have already lost. And Space Force continues to grow, with officials preparing for actual extraterrestrial combat. 

When all is said and done, the end of the Afghanistan War does not mean an end to endless war. As long as defense contractors can spend unlimited sums on lobbying, Washington will find ways to invest further in the war machine. In order to pursue peace, we must STAMP BIG MONEY OUT OF POLITICS! 

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Who owns the covid vaccines?

A key idea from sf is “all laws are local, and no law knows how local it is.” Prisoners of our own time and place, it’s hard not to feel like we’re living in the only possible world, is if everything around us is inevitable and natural — and any change is “unnatural.”

But anyone who’s ever dabbled in multi-agent modeling (sims where “individuals” each have their own goals and aversions) knows there are lots of stable configurations that a big, complex system can fall into, and re-rerunning the same sim produces wildly different outcomes.

14 months ago, we hit STOP on our big, complex system and now the US is about to hit START again. It will not be a return to “normalcy,” because the old normal wasn’t inevitable. There are lots of other ways we could get along. And frankly, the old normal sucked.

A key way in which Old Normal sucked was the way that monopolists were able to style themselves as heroic entrepreneurs whose great rewards were commensurate with their great risks — when in reality, the risks were always socialized and only the gains were privatized.

That’s an area where a new normal is long overdue, and that new normal is being born in the controversy over public access to covid vaccines.

Helping the poor world manufacture its own vaccines is the obvious right thing to do.

Not just because vaccine apartheid is slow genocide, but also because the longer billions of people are infected, the greater the chance that one of them will incubate a vaccine-resistant, even more deadly mutation.

MRNA vaccines are wild: compared to conventional vaccines, they can be manufactured with 99.7% less capital and 99.9% less physical plant, and mRNA production facilities can retool to make new vaccines 1,000% faster.

https://coronavirus.medium.com/manufacturing-mrna-vaccines-is-surprisingly-straightforward-despite-what-bill-gates-thinks-222cffb686ee

Moderna’s own assessment is that new mRNA facilities can be built in 3–4 months. There’s no good scientific or humanitarian reason to object to patent- and know-how transfer to the Global South, where vaccination is currently projected for 2023/4 (!).

https://apnews.com/article/drug-companies-called-share-vaccine-info-22d92afbc3ea9ed519be007f8887bcf6

We’ve just experienced the collapse of the racist lie — peddled by Big Pharma, Bill Gates, Howard Dean and other vaccine apartheid apologists — that poor brown people are too primitive to make vaccines.

The new talking point? “CHINA! CHINA! CHINA!”

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/15/how-to-rob-a-bank/#roll-the-dice

Whether it’s racist lies about the Global South or New Cold War hysteria, the underlying ideological story is the same: exclusive patent rights and the (spectacular) profits they yield are the foundation of lifesaving medical innovation.

That is, fate has placed among us a tiny cohort of collosi, endowed with the superpower of inventing the future. But for all their creative might, these saviors-in-potentia have the fragile temperaments of toddlers, and if they’re denied their due, they’ll abandon us to die.

“Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.” The true mRNA vaccines theft isn’t entrepreneur-inventors who face robbery by the public sector — rather, those “entrepreneurs” have enjoyed billions in public subsidies, and now insist they owe nothing in return.

So much public investment went into the covid vaccines that it’s hard to account for it all. The GAO thinks that Uncle Sam coughed up $18–23b in direct subsidies. BARDA pumped in $19.3b.

https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hblog20210512.191448/full/

The USG picked up the tab for non-clinical studies of new covid vaccines ($900m), and also shelled out for Phase III trials ($2.7b).

Moderna got $53m for production capacity, part of $100m in direct capacity contracts to pharma, backed with $2.7b for contract manufacturers.

J&J got a $1b pre-order from the USG; Moderna got $4.95b, Pfizer (which touts its lack of public subsidy!) got a $5.97b guaranteed order.

That’s just the latest round of investment. BARDA has been backing mRNA vaccine research for years, pumping billions into the project.

Pharma’s claim that it doesn’t owe us anything in return makes no sense, even by the companies’ own logic. They say that markets produce wonders because they reward canny risk-taking with vast fortunes.

By that logic, the public — who assumed the majority of the risk in developing vaccines — are the angel investors in this high-tech unicorn, and the pharma companies are the VCs who came in with some late capital to help scale up a sure thing.

It’s neither good business — nor legal — for early minority investors get squeezed out by latecomers.

But, of course, the government isn’t a business. Our democratic institutions direct our national productive capacity to R&D in service to human thriving, not profit.

Public investment in R&D isn’t a business in the same way that having kids isn’t a retirement plan: we have kids because we love them and want them to thrive. If they care for us in our dotage, that’s great, but if you treat your kid as an ambulatory 401k, you’re a monster.

I first encountered these ideas when serving as an NGO rep at WIPO alongside Jamie Love and Knowledge Ecology International. Love helped create the Access to Medicines Treaty and has been fighting the pharma industry’s self-serving story of fragile genius for decades.

In an interview with Janine Jackson at FAIR, Love lays out the plain case for an IP-waiver to enable poor countries to make their own vaccines, like the undeniable truth that this would “definitely expand the production and supply of vaccines.”

https://fair.org/home/government-money-thats-gone-into-vaccine-development-is-being-privatized-by-a-handful-of-companies/

Love also recounts the kind of public subsidy that went into covid vaccine production (for example, Pfizer’s boasts of free enterprise entrepreneurship omits the €400m from Germany and €100m from the rest of the EU).

Pharma’s claims of philanthropic largesse are wildly overblown. Pfizer told its shareholders it expects $26b from covid vaccines in 2021; Moderna’s projecting $20b (Moderna’s CEO’s personal net worth just hit $5b).

All that before pharma companies jack up the prices for “their” vaccines, in the years to come when we all need annual boosters, when the price will go from $10 to $175/dose, for a vaccine that costs $0.10/dose to manufacture.

The case for public access to vaccines and the case against pharma as a necessary or even laudable force for good is so thin, it’s remarkable that it’s persisted this long.

But as Love points out, the ideology that knowledge-monopolies are moral has some powerful backers.

Bill Gates is a prime example. Gates has been committed to enclosing commonly created knowledge and turning it into a monopoly — in service to coaxing our toddler-genius-collosi into action — since he was a teenager, writing petulant letters to computer hobbyists.

Today, Gates — a convicted monopolist — directs one of the world’s great fortunes (“behind every great fortune…”), and he mobilizes his capital to prop up the story of necessary and benevolent profiteering.

The Gates Foundation, for example, donates millions to “independent” media outlets (as well as partnering with public media like the BBC), and as Love describes, this has a chilling effect on negative reporting on Gates, the Foundation, and its ideology.

Like the time Love got a Washington Monthly reporter interested in a critical story about how the Gates Foundation’s grants influence its media coverage — only to have the reporter’s editor kill the story because they’d just applied for one of those grants (!).

Gates is a true ideologue, a relentless campaigner against any public access to public goods, in every domain, not just software. He’s been at it a long time, leading the charge against Nelson Mandela’s demand that South Africa be allowed to manufacture its own AIDS drugs.

Love: “Gates is a smart guy; he’s not the only smart guy around or smart woman around. I think people need to listen to other views. And, actually, Gates has sort of a mental block about these issues, and so some of his arguments just don’t add up.”

But all laws are local, and multi-agent systems have many stable configurations. On Friday, the New York Times editorial board — long a voice for strong corporate power — published an editorial and accompanying package strongly endorsing vaccine waivers.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/14/opinion/biden-covid-vaccines-world-india.html

The Times notes that the global economy is losing trillions due to lockdown, and that these loses will mount for so long as vaccines aren’t universally available.

But it also makes an ethical case, calling vaccine apartheid a “moral failure.”

It warns of political instability and the potential for states to topple if something isn’t done, pointing to the pitched battles in Colombia (in which death squads are now murdering leftists with impunity and posting snuff videos to social media as a boast — and a warning).

Beyond advocating for vaccine waivers, the Times backs Public Citizen’s plan to spend $25b ramping up domestic, publicly owned vaccine production facilities to make vaccines to be given away free or at cost to poor countries.

https://www.citizen.org/article/25-billion-to-vaccinate-the-world/

That effort will produce 8b vaccine doses, “enough to vaccinate half the planet.” And it will provide booster shots and new anti-variant vaccines into the future.

The future is coming. Lockdowns are lifting. The rich world is inching toward an emergence from emergency. But normalcy isn’t returning — thank goodness. The whole world deserves (and requires) so much better than normal.

Image: Quapan (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/hinkelstone/49920420853

CC BY https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[ogradyfilm]

Eternals: The Burden of Purpose

[The following essay contains MAJOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!]

I am Loki of Asgard, and I am burdened with glorious purpose.

Oft-quoted and frequently meme’d, this line of dialogue from Joss Whedon’s The Avengers has become undeniably iconic amongst fans of superhero cinema. It evokes imagery of a villain on a mission of conquest that is both wondrous and terrible—the pursuit of a “necessary evil” that is simultaneously a privilege and a curse.

In retrospect, however, this interpretation doesn’t quite fit the God of Mischief’s established personality (indeed, the character’s spinoff series on Disney+ attempts to re-contextualize the statement's deeper subtext). Ironically, the sentiment was expressed with greater clarity and emotional impact by Marvel’s rival studio, in Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel:

I exist only to protect Krypton. That is the sole purpose for which I was born. And every action I take, no matter how violent or how cruel, is for the greater good of my people. And now... I have no people. My soul, that is what you have taken from me!

Even here, the theme is slightly diminished by the fact that the conflict emerges only after General Zod has been deprived of his “glorious purpose.” He is otherwise convinced of the righteousness of his cause, secure in the knowledge that his violent and cruel actions serve a “greater good.”

Unfortunately, Ikaris—the unlikely antagonist of Chloé Zhao’s Eternals—can’t claim to enjoy the same luxury. The most powerful and pious of the eponymous team of immortal spacefarers, he spends millennia dutifully obeying the commands of his deity, Arishem. After learning the awful truth behind his origins—that he and his comrades are artificial constructs, mere cogs in the Celestial lifecycle, which utilizes the sentient life that they protect and nurture as fuel for the “birthing” process—Ikaris’ faith is shaken, but his loyalty to his master never wavers. After all, he reasons, such genocide is an inherent part of the “natural order” of the universe; the loss of billions of human lives may be horrifying in the short term, but the planets and galaxies that will eventually be created by the new Celestial that emerges from Earth’s destruction will make the sacrifice worthwhile.

But unlike Zod, Ikaris is not a prideful zealot; he takes absolutely no pleasure in enacting his “glorious purpose.” With every step of his journey—when he murders his beloved leader, Ajak, to stop her from betraying Arishem; when his manipulation and subterfuge result in the unintended death of Gilgamesh; when he reveals the full extent of his treachery to his friends—the weight of his guilty conscience becomes increasingly unbearable. The heavy burden of his self-doubt ultimately prevents him from actually following through on his threat to kill his former allies (especially his wife, Sersi) during the final battle; instead, he chooses to aid them in their efforts to halt “The Emergence”—a decision that directly contradicts his own principles.

His soul split in two, adrift in a world that can no longer support his inflexible values, Ikaris takes a page from Les Misérables and retreats into oblivion, stoically committing suicide by flying into the sun—reducing his obsolete “purpose” to cosmic dust.

[malachi-walker]

Catra’s Combat Style

You know, I’ve seen some people say that Catra has plot armor and shouldn’t have been able to win that fight against Hordak when he had a gun that leveled buildings and she was on the defensive before that amazing suckerpunch, but Catra has never been a powerhouse of raw destructive power.

The reason why she is such a dangerous combatant, the reason why she wins or least fights to a draw people like She-ra and Hordak who are way stronger than her is because she is insanely agile, can take a beating (remember when Adora slammed her into a mountain so hard it cracked and she was bouncing around again two seconds later) but above all else… She’s smart. Cunning, even.

She knows better than to go head to head with someone like Hordak, particularly when he’s firing off his gun all over the place. Instead she waits until the right moment, when there’s a break in his concentration, and then she closes the distance and goes right for the thing that’ll do the most damage in the least amount of time: his power supply. After making sure she destroyed the weapon that was his major advantage.

That’s not plot armor, guys: that’s just good tactics. The same quality that had the Horde winning under Catra’s command until her guilt/sanity slippage lead to spreading their forces too thin. And although that was a giant fuck up on her part, all of history’s best tacticians have had some screw ups, sometimes spectacular career-ending screw ups, but it still doesn’t change the fact that they were otherwise damn good at what they did. (For examples, just look at the absolute clusterfuck that was the Battle of Teutoburg Forest or the Battle of Cannae, both of which involved smaller or less well trained forces absolutely curb stomping the Romans at the height of military power, because they were lead by generals who knew how to combat the Roman battle strategies and use them to their own advantage.)

Catra’s a good tactician. She knows how to play to her own strengths, and more importantly, she knows how to neutralize her opponent’s. That’s why she wins against severely overpowered enemies. And that makes perfect sense considering she’s been spending her entire life fighting back against people who were either bigger or more powerful than her.

That’s not plot armor. That’s consistent storytelling.

Personal Hordak opinions under the cut. Please don’t click if you know you’ll get mad.

And if I’m being perfectly honest? I don’t care that Hordak got humiliated. I don’t care that he lost out on a chance to maim or murder a young woman that his corrupt dictatorial system chewed up and spat out as a better fighter than he is. In fact, I find that kind of poetic.

Frankly I have seen nothing up to this point that indicates that Hordak was ever a good general or strategist. Despite having numerous technical advantages, he was stalled against the Rebellion for nearly two decades and didn’t even get much done when the alliance dissolved. Yes, he’s got a big fancy gun that can do a lot of damage and he’s got armor that lets him tank a building falling on him. But that’s it. And without access to his tech or an army of clone brothers to throw into a meat grinder he doesn’t know what to do. Once you take away his toys, he’s screwed, because that’s what happens when you pool all your resources into one skill.

And last but not least: he has committed multiple planetary genocides in a fully sane state of mind and had continued to show pride for it, even in his “humanizing” moments. Catra attempted to destroy the world after a three season suicidal breakdown and she’s unforgivable. Meanwhile, Hordak has been responsible for wiping out billions if not trillions of lives as part of his day job, but people still try to woobify and forgive him for that because of one relationship (note: this is not me calling anyone who likes Entrapdak wrong or bad. I’m just pointing out that the cuteness of their relationship doesn’t absolve Hordak of his many sins any more than her relationship with Adora absolves Catra) and a sob story.

So no, I’m not sorry that Hordak didn’t get a chance to play the big badass serious villain. Far as I’m concerned, he’s a bad general and he’s skating by on a freudian excuse of a sob story (though I still think his character has potential), and after everything he’s done he deserved to have it finally bite him in the ass, especially at the hands of someone who ranks among those who suffered most as a result of his actions and his decision to replicate the cycle of abuse.

I could watch this all day.

Shout out to @cactihaveflowerstoo​​ for letting me use their gifs. They had no input on the content of this post and are a lovely person overall. Go check them out for more awesome gifs.

[irandrura]

Terra Ignota

Over the last few weeks, I read Terra Ignota. I read all of the three published books so far: Too Like the Lightning, Seven Surrenders, and The Will to Battle.

Every review of Terra Ignota I have ever read is wrong. Or rather, every review of Terra Ignota I have ever read takes an extremely different perspective to my own, to the extent that I genuinely don’t understand how the author could have concluded that.

So as not to keep anyone in suspense, my perspective on Terra Ignota is that they are surprisingly trashy books, in a world that doesn’t make very much sense, but that doesn’t matter because the heart and soul of these texts is over-the-top soap opera drama. I think they are probably bad, and they outright offended me at several points, but nonetheless they drew me in enough that I wanted to keep reading. There is merit in that.

 If you’re the sort of person who cares about spoilers, this is your only warning.

As I said, I don’t understand most of the reviews I have read of these books. I simply don’t.

 I don’t understand the view that the writing itself is poetic and beautiful. Palmer has some good phrases from time to time, but overall I don’t find the prose particularly amazing. This is a very subjective point, so I won’t belabour it.

 I don’t understand the view that the books are a masterful triumph of worldbuilding. From my perspective, the worldbuilding is actually kind of half-assed, and more importantly, Palmer does not seem to actually care about worldbuilding that much. It isn’t her priority. Reading the books I found myself constantly asking “How does X actually work?” or “Y sounds totally insane, could you explain how it makes sense to me?” or “Z seems like it clashes with X, please resolve this contradiction for me?”, and Palmer never answers those questions for you. If I want some more explanation for why, say, a global transportation system serving billions of people is run without oversight, from a single private residence, looked after by a man well-known to be suicidally depressed… nope, I’m not getting that. If I want some context for how hive-switching works, or how it interacts with crime, not happening. Even minor questions: in The Will to Battle, our heroes talk to a band of criminals involved in human trafficking, and I immediately wanted to know what human trafficking means in a world where borders have been abolished, geographic nations have been abolished, and every place on Earth is just a short taxi ride from every other place. This is the sort of question Palmer does not answer or even acknowledge.

 And I don’t actually buy that she’s interested in the questions that I see raised when the books are spruiked to me. Are you intrigued by the question of what the world would look like if every individual could choose their own government, their own law code, unconstrained by geography? I’m intrigued by that. It sounds interesting. But this is not a question that Terra Ignota is actually interested in. It seems like it should be interested in it, and I read enough breathless expositions of how cool the hive system is that I expected Terra Ignota to be interested in it… but it’s not. If you’re interested in, say, the question of whether a permanent exit option would make absolute dictatorship more humane, as in the Masons, then I agree that’s interesting – but it is not a question that the text of Terra Ignota takes any interest in. The big worldbuilding questions raised by the hives are all window dressing.

 I don’t understand the idea that Terra Ignota is a brilliant depiction of utopia. I want to acknowledge straight off the bat that I may have a bias here, because Terra Ignota’s world is premised on the, well, genocide of people like me, or at least the forcible suppression and exile of people like me, but I don’t think it’s only the fact that I’m openly in defiance of the First Black Law. Rather, I note two things here. Firstly, it’s hard to see whether Terra Ignota’s society is actually utopian because we spend so little time in it. We do not see how ordinary people live in this world, or what makes it wonderful. What Terra Ignota spends most of its time on is the scheming and backstabbing of the dozen most powerful people in the world, and everyone outside that little circle barely exists in the text. (Abigail Nussbaum noted in her review that Terra Ignota’s world never really feels like it has more than a few hundred people in it, and I agree.) It’s hard to convincingly argue Terra Ignota is a utopia or a dystopia, because we never meet the whole population. We meet a small handful of amoral nobility as they play out a space opera Game of Thrones. That’s certainly entertaining, and I give Palmer credit for making it fun to read, but it’s not really an investigation of utopia. Secondly, where we do see glimpses of the world outside the parlours of the ruthless rich, it…honestly seems rather conventional, and rather like the 21st century. People work fewer hours a week, taxis are much more efficient, movies have smelltracks as well as soundtracks, they go to the Olympics, apparently the Oscars endured the collapse of all nations and religions… but there is little in this world that seems radically different to our own. It’s all minor, incremental bits of technological progress. They’ve eliminated poverty, which is good, but I usually expect something more radical from utopia than that. What do people actually do in Terra Ignota that’s different to what any upper-middle class American might do today? Other, of course, than not go to church, call everyone singular they, and wear tracking devices.

 I don’t understand the idea that these books deal with deep philosophical or theological themes. Like the hives themselves, it’s all window dressing. The narrator Mycroft is obsessed with the 18th century, and so is a bizarre anachronistic brothel that somehow every major world leader attends (cf. worldbuilding being weak, the world only feeling like it has a few hundred people in it), but they don’t do very much with this. Mycroft imagines Thomas Hobbes occasionally butting in, but his imaginary Hobbes has little to say beyond "Hi, I’m the guy who wrote Leviathan!” The characters reference Diderot and de Sade and Voltaire, but usually only on the surface level, and when they do try to go deeper, they often get the references wrong. The same for the theology. My point is not that Terra Ignota is bad: just that it isn’t really that interested in the political philosophy or the theology. It uses 18th century thought as an aesthetic. Deism, miracles, proof of God’s existence, how gods might communicate, etc., are not the questions that occupy the text. Ada Palmer is not a theologian.

 But all that said, I enjoyed Terra Ignota.

 I want to emphasise that. I enjoyed Terra Ignota! I am not saying that it’s bad! I’m just saying that it was not what everyone told me it would be.

 Terra Ignota is a book about a bunch of very powerful, very horrible people, who all apparently go to the same brothel and are interested in the same wacky theories about human nature and God and so on, lying to and betraying each other. I think Palmer is really interested in the characters. Mycroft, our pretentious narrator who by the end of book three is genuinely losing his grip on reality and writing hallucinations. Jedd Mason, the madman who believes he’s God, but is probably just the delusional product of a radical set-set experiment. Caesar, the iron-proud absolute dictator seeking to do his duty by his ambitious, power-obsessed hive. Dominic, the sadistic sexual predator who nonetheless worships Jedd with fanatical devotion. Carlyle, the kind and compassionate philosopher-in-residence who inevitably gets tortured and abused. Ojiro Sniper, the freaky sex doll who nonetheless seeks to become the Brutus to Jedd’s Caesar. Apollo Mojave, the dead-but-still-influential space wizard who sought to cause a world war for stupid reasons. And so on. The characters are generally well-drawn and interesting enough that I want to see what happens to them.

 I should emphasise Palmer’s achievement in making me want to know what happens to these people, especially because they’re all so unsympathetic. Carlyle and Bridger stand out as the most truly sympathetic characters in the novels, but by book three, the former has been captured, tortured, and now limps along, dead-eyed and broken-spirited, in the train of one of the resident sadists, and the latter has quite reasonably gone “Screw this” and used his immense psychic powers to delete himself from the book. But most of the core characters in this drama – Mycroft, Saladin, Jedd, Sniper, Ganymede and Danae, Madame d’Arouet, etc. – are mad, evil, both, or otherwise extremely unsympathetic. It is to Palmer’s credit that I want to know what happens in the war anyway. The most sympathetic of the political leaders in the text, Vivien Ancelet and Bryar Kosala, spend most of their time fruitlessly begging for peace. While they, perhaps alone of the leaders, have genuinely laudable intentions, it has been clear from the first book that neither will be permitted to achieve anything notable. The only people to barrack for, in Terra Ignota, are those noble if compromised few who seek to avoid a war – and who we all know will fail.

 Book four, it seems, will finally be about the war that the first three books have been setting up, and even though I frankly want all three sides to lose – the Jedd faction, the Sniper faction, and Utopia are all deeply unpleasant, albeit in different ways – I am sure I will find it extremely entertaining to see how this all collapses.

 Do I recommend Terra Ignota? I don’t know. If you want detailed, thorough worldbuilding, sincere contemplation of deep philosophical questions about theodicy, politics, and human nature, or a stirring vision of a possible utopia… no. Do not read it for those things. It does not have those things in it.

 But it does have a scene where the prime minister of Europe body-tackles the Olympic president through a plate glass window and they land in a pile of people having sex mid-orgy, while the media broadcasts it worldwide.

 And that’s excellent.