#dollar imperialism

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"

just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible

[kagender]

normal people will never understand how valuable a dragon png can be

[cursed-40k-thoughts]

I think all of those posts, comics and "quotes with 40k characters" stuff portraying Malcador as the voice of reason amongst the cast are funny, but I mean, is he really?

the guy was the enabler to end all enablers

He was absolutely an enabler and an apologist, but he had more of a grasp of common sense than the Emperor, and knew how to (at least a little) argue with him when something needed doing. Granted, “more common sense than Nasty Neoth” is a low bar, but Malcador cleared it. Sometimes. Now and then. As a treat.

[swearingcactus]

*yells very loudly about club sandwiches and laundered shirts on a mound of garbage after a car explodes*

[barnbridges]

does anyone know any genuinely decent laptops preferably with a metal case but if not then with an ergonomic screen that run under 1000 euros lol

[merrymorningofmay]

the funniest thing is that ukrainians don't like biden that much either, like his policy on ukraine aid hasn't been y'know. ideal. but literally any other option on the table is Infinitely Worse so until november *blows sports cheering horn* go gramps go

[daeluin]

like in my lifetime (32 years) i saw the dollar-pesos argentinos exchange rate go from 1 to 1 in 2000 to 1 to 1000

that's a five digits devaluation. in less than 30 years..... like can you imagine what that does to any economy????

like can you even imagine what it's like living in this fucking graphic

[psi-spectacular]

can america stop trying to be the police of the world please and thank you

[welcometotheravenclawcommonroom]

Look y’all, I ain’t saying royal families of Europe aren’t busy. They’re clearly very busy. But they’re busy with nonsense that does nothing useful and THAT is kinda the point.

[jonmyblaze]

Imperial stormtrooper Captain Rex

Imperial Rex

(not my image )

After the battle of mandalore and the crowning of "Mand'olar the exiled" Rex had very little to actually do, the Republic military decided that mandalore was pacified

And the sent most of the troops back (after order 66),

and so he returned to find a broken man named Vader, and while Appo what's the one who informed Rex about the regime change, Rex quite frankly didn't see that much of a difference,

Other than aesthetics, still sending people to die on a whim it didn't matter, the only difference now is they're adding more and more humans. And creating their own army, and turning the newly minted Stormtroopers into it's on corp(the galactic Marines)

Rex remained loyal vader just as much if not more as his loyalty to Anakin, for while the latter was a train wreck, a hot bead of emotion and rage, Vader (Rex recognized) needed a friend more than anything else. not a genocidal monster who groomed him into a perfect pet, but a genuine friend that would stick with him even in tough times.

It was also a good chance for Rex to if not cause devastation then at least minimize it to the targets and not civilians. And for the first 5 years he remained doing quite that.

Until he met an an old friend.

and of course that day had to be Empire day

[maziodynez]

no fr like any neoliberal trying to speak to me this election cycle will get hit in the head with a brick. joe biden is expanding the border wall (he says "he has no choice" which is a bold statement from the president of the united states), he's sending $8 billion more dollars to israel to contribute more to the genocide of palestinians, and he's sending billions to ukraine for their military. but you guys were gonna push him left right?

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

By Gary Wilson

The U.S. blocked Russia’s access to over $300 billion in foreign reserves held in banks in the U.S., the European Union and Japan. This was part of the sanctions U.S. President Joe Biden announced as part of the U.S./NATO proxy war against Russia. China did not freeze Russian assets. China’s banking regulator said it would not participate in sanctions against Russia, adding that the sanctions “have no legal grounds.” Another way to put it is that the U.S. taking $300 billion in Russian assets is illegal – a robbery.

[workersolidarity]

Watch "Understanding money and the dollar system's contradictions with Radhika Desai & Michael Hudson" on YouTube

Understanding money and imperialism

[fluidstatick]

When I was little, my dad hired a Cambodian refugee called Jack to help him drywall a dining room ceiling. Jack spoke very little English; he'd recently gotten a part time job in a little Asian deli not far from our home and needed to pick up some extra work. He was very kind to six year old me and my exhausted mom; he brought us day old leftovers from the deli counter often, and liked to tuck the knuckle of his index finger into the dimple in my cheek whenever I smiled at him.

He soaked up construction skills and other information like a sponge, and by the time he left my dad's tiny construction company he'd gotten his GED, learned to drive, reunited with his sister and her family, and had begun remodeling a vacant business on the rich side of town into a Cambodian restaurant. He invited us to their grand opening on lunar new year, and I'll never forget when he gave me a red envelope with five dollars in it and told me, "tonight I am the luckiest man in the world, so this will bring you luck, too."

Years later, my dad told me that Jack had witnessed his parents' murder during the khmer rouge, and was immediately separated from his sister. He had to cross the killing fields at Choeung Ek alone, on foot, eating grass and insects to survive. He somehow made it to Cam Ranh on the coast of Vietnam, where a distant friend of his father's put him on a boat to Seattle. Jack was nine years old.

I tell this story because, even though I haven't seen Jack or any of his relatives in thirty years, I pray he's well and happy and eating like a king tonight with everyone he loves, celebrating the long overdue demise of the pestilential sonofabitch who tried to wipe them out.

Fuck Henry Kissinger's pathetic ghost, and fuck all those who praise him. Fuck Imperialism. Fuck the genocidal war machine. Drink deep for the freedom of all souls tonight, my friends. And tomorrow, keep fighting.

[mileenaxyz]

Protect Niger at all costs.

Side note: the US pays $63M in rental fees to Djibouti. That's just one country. We have over 800 bases worldwide and our taxes are paying for them.

[caeliflammae]

wild to me that "you should boycott things on the BDS list" and "you should refrain from business as usual transactions to shut down the economy supporting a genocide" are takes that are being pitted against each other.

specifically referring to Dune pt 2, i'm choosing not to go see it in theaters for a lot of reasons, the decisive reason being that Warner Bros CEO david zaslav is pro israel. even if there had been complete radio silence from every company working on that movie, i probably still wouldn't go see it, because the money i spend is stimulating the american economy. degrowth and refusing to participate in the economy is a form of protest, and one of the only ones i can meaningfully contribute to.

it's very bizarre seeing my lefty mutuals on other platforms saying that there is no problem going to see it. the problem is not the movie, the problem is the action of it. going to see a movie signals to the economy that things are fine, people are spending money on leisure activities, everything must be normal! but we know that NONE OF THIS IS NORMAL. this should not be seen as another part of daily life that we wake up and deal with. this should be changing the trajectory of all of our lives.

I will never be the person i was before oct 7, before watching the major world powers enact a genocide while the west sits back and nitpicks the actions of a colonized people. if i will never be the same, why would i live my life the same way? palestinians cannot choose to go to a movie and escape their reality for 2+ hours. they cannot choose which snacks to buy, whether to tweet a funny pic of their sandworm popcorn bucket. i dont want to tell people not to live or do things that make them happy. i do want to tell people to vote with their wallets, to shut down the economy, to not allow any business as usual to take place.