#feigned socialist

[cosmogenous]

oh and another thing

[eggsploded]

moar you say.. why then gregor and rodya of coarse....

where would i be without rodigor. where would WE be, without rodigor.

first impression: THE fuckin guy. this dude owns. (insert 50 invasive questions about cockroach anatomy and behavior) i was peeved his roach arm resembled more of a beetle horn than a arm

current impression: when chef greg dropped i got so horny i went to bed lightheaded i still love gregor dearly but my love for him has mellowed like the fondness for a favorite pasta dish.

favorite moment: literally every old fart moment he has. when he forgets names when he berated sinclair for not cleaning his plate when he goes uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh in his dialogue because he doesnt know where hes going with this

story idea: despite his deep frying and boiling during hells chicken i think the bus kinda Likes this guy. gregors a bit of a hot commodity. hes just a fella you can Jive with. a real Stand Up guy. now let him be loved, if obliviously through his own self consciousness. a friendly heathcliff rough slap on the back delays his depressive episode by 15 minutes

fav relationship: oh boy where to start!!!! rodigor. enough on that. meurgreg, not really romantic to me but i like the art of it that is. it revolves around a big fella carrying him under his arm so automatic slay. ive seen a little gregcliff action on the TL but its more of a 'work got me friends with people twice my age like whats uncle greg up to' ordeal to me. now lets get insane. gregsang is incredible to me because yi sang is the only mf on that bus EASIER than gregor. gregor got game? that hes aware of? while stuttering the whole journey? its kind of crazy. i dont actually have a reason why they would even like eachother yet but put rodya in there somewhere to toy with them if you want true crackshipping fun

fav headcanon: hes a little chunky

RODYA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! my favit

first impression: me furiously searching for her height on the wiki + nodding my head sagely deciding woman with sleepy eyes is peak character design (faust included). i trust her wholeheartedly even if she leads me hand in hand into a woodchipper

current impression: waiting for projmoon to drop more lore on her desperately because i know canto 2 wasnt everything. i feel a disconnect with the fanbase about her because i see rodya characterized sooooo differently than how i think of her. the gambling thing and her effortless confidence for example isnt really questioned like how it is with dons bravado. i see her gambling as an outlet for her complicated views on money. she feels as though being financially 'secure' as the lone survivor as a betrayal to all the deaths she caused. gambling not only aligns with her current im the hottest shit attitude but also is a way for her to not be responsible for money. the hoarding of wealth is what caused her community to starve, why would she want to do something that seems to harm others? shes very self destructive, and feigning as slots star is just one of the ways she forces herself to 'stay in the cold'. ummmmmmmmm anyway im really normal about rodya and think about her a normal amount also her love for decadant food really resonates with me as someone who was poor in childhood because the difference between eating to live and living to eat is Astronomical

favorite moment: shes started branching out and calling other people than greg pet names and it is so exciting. faust has now reached babe status!! good for her!!! also when she infantalizes sinclair its terrible for him but REALLY funny for me when he responds back and reminds her oh right this is a 22 year old man. also her random interjections that are socialist ideology are really funny because they always feel so fucking random and like projmoon is remembering why crime and punishment was written and going drop this bomb ass line itll go so hard guys

story idea: i want her to play poker against yi sang because hes weird and also his poker face is like. genuine and dear adoration for being able to play with his companions because deep in his soul is gardens and butterflies. she would be so freaked out not only because this guy agreed to playing poker but also because he is invasively (he didnt mean it) staring into her SOUL to find solutions

fav relationship: my thoughts are half the bus are in love with gregor and the other half with rodya with cases of overlap. rodya is so epic because shes seemingly got it together to the more deranged sinners but to anyone else its like oh my god this paper mache bitch the former being more faustish the latter being more ryoshuish. faustya is cute because faust initially wanted to absorb more Bad Bitch Strategems and then kinda got a crush and is hardcore malfunctioning also kurokumo ryodion got sumn GOING yall crazy love is love though

fav headcanon: shes actually really short for Lobotomy Corp Backstreets Russia and everyone there is just freakishly tall (see: sonya)

[megamacska]

When Kamala Harris wins reelection in 2028, I will love asking my RW friends how much suffering they've had to endure living in a *ist (Marxist, communist, socialist) country and feigning concern about whether they can endure the hell-on-earth of four more years.

At least they'll be able to afford their anxiety meds.

[mightyflamethrower]

Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election through a successful tripartite subterfuge.

One, Biden never really campaigned. His handlers rightly assumed that the more the public and the media saw a debilitated Biden in the flesh, the less they would want him as president.

So, the Biden campaign used the COVID lockdowns to ensure that Biden stayed safe in his basement office.

Biden strategically distanced himself from disinterested journalists, using COVID as an excuse to avoid public appearances. It allowed him to run a 19th-century, front-porch sort of virtual campaign.

In his place, the liberal media, Democratic grandees, and the billionaire donor class served as Biden campaign surrogates—vastly outspending, out-advertising, and out-lawyering the underfunded incumbent Trump.

Second, again using COVID as a pretext, well-funded Democratic legal teams altered the voting laws during early 2020 in key swing states to encourage non-Election Day voting.

For the first time, majorities in many key states voted by mail-in/absentee ballots and during weeks of early voting.

We now know why the left was so motivated to push through radical balloting changes that were otherwise impossible prior to 2020 but have been mostly institutionalized since.

Non-Election Day ballots outnumbered Election Day ballots. They were far more likely to be cast by Democrats. And as the number of such ballots soared, the traditional rejection rate of non-Election Day ballots prior to 2020 fell—even as registrars were swamped.

Once obscure terms such as ballot harvesting and ballot curing became mainstream.

Ballot deadlines were extended. There was lax enforcement of incorrect ballot names and addresses or auditing the registrars’ rolls.

Rich liberal entities, such as Mark Zuckerberg and his $419 million in 2020 cash infusions, sought to absorb the work of state registrars. His aim was to “improve” voter turnout through partisan “assistance”—from funding drop boxes to monitoring non-Election Day ballots.

Three, in 2020, the enervated left-wing Joe Biden was reconstructed as a vigorous moderate “ol’ Joe Biden from Scranton.”

Biden’s stealth script was to provide a temperate veneer to the new hard-left Democratic Party.

His 2020 campaign claimed Joe was for “unity” and “moderation”—even as it camouflaged an otherwise extremist neo-socialist agenda to be implemented after November.

Can the Democrats repeat that winning formula for Kamala Harris in 2024?

Only partly.

Even without the excuse of COVID, Harris certainly will not agree to unscripted, ad hoc interviews with non-partisan journalists.

She is unable to speak extemporaneously and off the teleprompter without appearing childish.

Her handlers will ensure few opportunities for Harris to burst into cackling or to stream her puerile musings about yellow school buses or kindergarten geography.

Yet the third element of Biden’s 2020 strategy will be difficult to replicate.

The Bay Area leftist Harris—unlike the Biden of the 1980s and 1990s—never had any reputation, feigned or not, of being a “centrist” or “moderate.”

Her entire political career was one of pandering either to leftist Democrat voters in 2020 or ultra-liberal Californians in her statewide races.

She is on record of opposing fracking and off-shore drilling, private health care, border enforcement, and the traditional close U.S. relationship with Israel.

She proudly promoted the radical new green deal, defunding police forces, mandatory buybacks of private guns, and mass amnesties.

She gratuitously championed the swindler Jussie Smollett and his fraudulent claims of being a victim of systemic racism.

During the horrendous riots of 2020, she sought to raise bail for violent rioters and looters that had been arrested.

On CBS, she egged on the 2020 protests that had already turned violent with deaths, law enforcement injuries, arson, and mass looting—despite the pathetic efforts of partisan fact-checkers to claim otherwise.

Harris gushed of the turmoil: “They’re not going to stop. This is a movement, I’m telling you. They’re not going to stop, and everyone beware, because they’re not going to stop. They’re not going to stop before Election Day in November and they’re not going to stop after Election Day. They’re not going to let up and they should not, and we should not.”

What did Harris mean by “beware?”

Was the BLM- and Antifa-led mayhem really just a “movement?”

Why boast that the turmoil might be endless—both before and after Election Day?

And why connect the massive disruptions to the upcoming Election Day—unless she believes that unrest in the streets could weaken the election chances of the then incumbent president?

In sum, Harris, like Biden, is certainly capable of running a remote stealth campaign.

She will surely take advantage of 2020’s revolution in non-Election Day balloting.

Yet, unlike Biden, Harris has no credible moderate veneer—only an unapologetic radical past and a corpus of hard-left boasts.

So, 2024 will hinge on whether Republicans will expose Harris’s lifelong, hard-left ideology and extremist agendas.

She is a poor substitute for the successful bait-and-switch 2020 con of “ol’ Joe Biden,” the fake moderate “uniter” from Scranton.

I'm hoping that she shows her TRUE colors sometime during the campaign

[dead-twink-storage]

Several generations of American capitalism making an entire segment of their young workforce so sheltered and work shy that they will cry and feign injury if they even have to considering lifting a 5 pound box is more a damning indictment of capitalism and modern American work culture than it is proof that socialists are all lazy.

[atomic-insomnia]

last line...snippet

seeing @dustylovelyrun post inspired me to put this up, plus I’ve gone so long without any progress on my WIPs this might kickstart me back into working:

“God, the stars are something else when it’s cold out,” Alfred said, folding his arms behind his head.  A lazy, detuned sort of smile stretched across his face as he stared into the dark sky.  “It’s like it clears everything else away.”

The cold and dark made Ivan think along different lines.  “…Alfred,” he said quietly, not even sure he wanted to ask but hit with curiosity, “When was the first time you died?”

Beside him Alfred shifted, wrapping his arms around himself instead.  “…I don’t remember.”

“Oh, no?”  Ivan kept his voice light.

“I really don’t,” Alfred said.  “I was…I was brand-new.  I think it was touch-and-go for a while with me.”

“What does that mean?”

“That, uh, that it could’ve gone either way.”  Alfred sighed slowly, sending up a cloud of breath.  “I could’ve failed to ever take hold.”

“Oh.  What a shame that would be.”  Cupping his hand to block the light, Ivan lit two cigarettes.  A sudden bright flash would’ve ruined the ability to see those stars for a few minutes.  The sharpness of tobacco smoke cut through the cold night air, not quite warm, but a little closer to it.  “Then you would never be here with me.”

“Aw, shut up,” said Alfred with a sharp smirk, “and I’d never have kicked Germany’s ass, or–or–”

“Or bankrupted the West.”

“I–well…”  Tucking his arms in tighter, Alfred sat up, his back against the building.  He didn’t look at Ivan.

Not until Ivan waved one of the cigarettes close enough to get his attention.  He double-took, glancing at Ivan’s face.

“…Spasibo.”

“Your accent is still terrible,” Ivan said.

“Back at’cha.”

“This is my country, I can speak however I like.”

“That’s not what I’ve heard.”

Ivan hissed a smoke cloud through his teeth.  “That is because you keep attempting to subvert and overthrow our socialist way of life.  You capitalist dog.”

Rather than answer him, Alfred took a long drag.  When he came up for air, he tilted his head back.

Watching from the corner of his eye, Ivan said, “…What are you doing?”

The first smoke ring he blew was only a ring because there was no other name for it.  The next two got steadily better.

Ivan knew exactly what the rude capitalist wanted him to say, and he clamped his jaw to stop himself.

The words broke out anyway.  “…Show me how to do that.”

Sure enough, Alfred grinned, all teeth.  Instead, after a slow and contemplative moment, he said, “I know it was in the winter.”

“What was?”

“The first time I died.”  Another drag, another infuriatingly slow smoke ring.  “I don’t actually know where I came from.  England claims he found me in the woods in Virginia, but Tsenacommacah–the Nation-spirit that lived there first–she always claimed the Europeans brought me.  I don’t know, I can’t remember more than little bits and pieces that far back.  I don’t remember Europe, if that’s true.  England tried to set up a colony, and…”

He paused again, but merely rolled the cigarette between his fingers.  “…And winters in Virginia are a lot colder than he was expecting.  I mean–”  And with a sheepish sort of grin he turned to Ivan, tipped his hat.  “Not like yours.”

“It is no insult to me.”  Remembering his own cigarette, Ivan feigned disinterest.  He’d never heard any of Alfred’s childhood; if anything, he’d only noticed the other when America threw off British rule.

“But still, more than he was expecting.  I remember…I remember frostbite, and…”  Alfred frowned down, drew his knees in.  “When I got here, not long after, you asked me if I ever starved to death.”

“…Ah.”

“It…it wasn’t quick.”

“It never is.”

Alfred gave a little laugh, bright and brittle.  “It happened a couple of times in the early years.  Maybe for a hundred years or so.”

“Touch-and-gone?”

“Touch-and-go.  On-and-off.  Yeah.”  He took another drag, although this one didn’t turn into a party trick.  “…I’ve starved more than just then–I guess that’s why I’m always hungry, haha.  A lot of times it happens as immigrants start getting close to shore; I’ll get dizzy, sometimes pass out.  Usually don’t actually die, anymore.  I guess I just pick up on their hunger, you know?”

Frowning, Ivan smoked in silence.  With how many immigrants he had, he’d never noticed–his hunger came about when the people already part of him fell to famine.  He’d certainly known his share of rough winters and failed crops, but…

“You sort of roll your tongue.”

<<What?>>

Hat tipped back, Alfred puffed on the cigarette and blew another smoke ring.  Best yet.  “You sort of keep the smoke in your throat, and tsk your tongue, but like, on the bottom of your mouth.”  He did it again.  A perfect circle.

Instead of trying the way he knew America wanted him to, Ivan slashed his hand through the ring.

Alfred only laughed.

An older scene from Brother, Can You Spare a Dime.  (For reference, this is the 1930′s Great Depression/American Immigrant/Early Soviet Union RusAme slow burn fic I talk about on a regular basis--historical AU but exploring the nations’ nation-weirdness enough that it technically counts as fantasy or magical realism) I’m serious when I say I can’t write attempted flirting without it turning to discussions of mortality.  I like this scene but most likely it’ll be cut or changed heavily to, you know, make something actually happen.  But still, call this proof I am still writing it.

if anyone wants to take this as a sign to post something from their WIP, consider this an open tag!

[rametarin]

On the subject of tankies and blind spots

Tankies often know their "blind spots." It's deliberate, and to really understand how and why they maintain this seeming glib double standard, you just have to observe "Pick Up Artist" culture. Because to be quite frank, tankies and most socialist philosophers just apply being a sex pest to how social activism should work.

The constant guerilla cultural warfare method that was sooooo prevalent in the late 80s and early 90s, when they would be tankies, but pretend not to be, just "start conversations around the water cooler" to spread propaganda or neg things or filibust productive discussions they took personal offense to (and DELIBERATELY disrupt them so conversation they didn't control or the outcome would be the opposite of their desired feelings and thoughts at the end)

With tankies, which in the modern day applies both to people deliberately stanning for Russia or China or insert-socialist-democratic-peoples-harmonious-jubilant-generous-republic here, they come in both the useful idiot form and the deliberately deceptive one. And they're loyal, because to them, the more important part is to destroy competition to their preferred ideology and worry about their preferred ideology after the competition is disqualified.

That's how they work.

To use an allegory of a bunch of men trying to woo a woman. Lets say a bunch of different social systems are would-be suitors for society. The game the way it's meant to be played is you come up, pitch who you are, what you're about, what you can give or offer the lady.

Flowers, chocolate, sweet nothings, dates. Thems the conventional rules of courtship and all that. That's not how tankies/socialists do it.

Oh no. The way they operate is more like predators. They study the book on human relationships, theories on it, how it's "supposed to work" like an alien dissecting the code of an animal, and then with cold hearted audacity, try to deconstruct it and hack it to work for them for their goals. Not to win a heart in a way that respects the recipient and everybody involved, but to win.

So they put on a genuine but phony friendly demeanor, as they're taught to wear as a mask, and rather than try to court who they're interested in, they instead try to be the girl's friend. Become a peer. Pretend and feign they aren't even in the running for courtship and leave things ambiguous and unstated. If accused of trying, they simply go "What? When did I say I wanted that? I'm just standing here." The, "I never said it and you can't prove it" playing coy, anything you can't prove is a baseless accusation game.

From that position, they start playing the role of consultant. Feeding them nice sounding maxims of things to look out for, warning signs, red flags, dire portents. All of them designed to play off key elements of their competition in a game they leave ambiguous if they're even in the running for and give indirect inferences that they aren't. All of them designed to give false positives or warning signs or bad behavior to affect the lady's behavior and make her see threats that aren't there, or assume negative things about a person's character to neutralize the threat of their would-be competition, if they were playing the game honestly.

One by one, competition starts looking worse. "This one looks like an alcoholic. I heard they had a temper, too. You saw the way they angrily responded to Jeffy making a benign statement!" (and now even the slightest bit of aggression from that man looks like the shadow of an angry drunk). "This one seems shifty. I heard he owes debts and is shameless about asking for money." (hard to prove and potentially a long term security risk if true- and so difficult to research and find out if you don't feel like it or don't want the drama.) "That one sleeps around a lot" (probably true in that individual's case. I mean, it's his own fault, but the Tankie Suitor is going to really beat that point like a drum for his own advantage.)

Just being a helpful supportive friend, Tankie Pick-Up-Artist starts giving her criteria all but designed to take their competition out of the running that coincidentally fits them like gloves, invents context by which to damn them in a game he invented with criteria for the rules he wholesale fabricated that he insists so generally are just basic rules and decency and reality that this gish gallup seems incredibly complicated to question or take apart, and having no reason to assume she's being ensnared in a logical trap because of the not-apparent danger or outcome.

And one by one, all the boys in the running are disqualified because she's using Tanke P.U.A's criteria of what a good boyfriend looks like.

All except him. Oh, wow! The precious prince was under her nose the whole time! What a hallmark romance moment! What a GOOD FRIEND. what a selfless, intelligent, totally unassuming good boy!

Tankies are like that, but for social/political systems. They have an idea of what they want and expect society to be by defining society and how it ought to interact with identity and economy, and then they grade systems that aren't their preferred standard by how well they conform to the platonic ideal of the one they ascribe to, faulting them subjectively.

If you tell them their subjective criteria are bullshit and pie in the sky, and they can't prove anything, they shake their jowels and insist upon the righteousness of morals and civil rights and "being a decent human being." And then go on to talk about how capitalism and not-socialism are all guilty of every premature death due to poverty and starvation solely by not being socialist, and that is "way worse than every death done under things that aren't even real socialism!"

Which as we all know, real socialism is when it works, and fake socialism is when not-socialism in the name of socialism doesn't work- then it's just capitalism's fault, either because it's state capitalism or no states around them will cooperate and spoon feed the socialist state by... giving them labor, industry and intelligence... to compete with capitalism.

So tankies will remove the context by which they neg figures in societies and cultures and economic systems they disagree with for moral and ideological reasons but pretend they're just "giving a critique" of them. You know. Through, "Critical Lenses." WHich if you aren't into the arcane of their mental gymnasium, are just the equivalent of a Christian judging everything using the language of Christianity and declaring things objectively evil because their religion says so. Dude, the stamp, "MY SUBJECTIVE RELIGION SAYS THIS" comes right with the holy book. It is the perspective of your ideology, a dogma borne of your arbitrary subjective beliefs, not facts. A glass house constructed of baseless moralism steered purely by preference. Your ideology is not the arbiter on what's right or not, and we will not treat or respect it as universally applicable, or the defacto logical standard. No matter how much you try to blackbox it and deny people access to touch it and be the rudder of conversation. The same way as Christian moralism doesn't get to be "our" moralism just because you enter the conversation talking like Christianity is baseline correct.

They know the sweatshop labor of China and other countries are wrong, but they insist "they're forced to do it to survive ideologically", because of "pressure from the west abusing and starving them." Whereas they maintain capitalism just does it out of greed for "the elite." And if you point out regulation and law exists specifically to prevent that, they argue, "capitalism rends all laws moot by corruption." Which, again, is prevalent in socialist systems as well by nature of authority dictating where resources go.

It's usually not a question of ignorance on the part of the tankie. Usually. Some don't know any better and only stand by it because it sounds right to them but they don't know. Others are college educated, aware of how the legal and economic systems function- or don't- and will still stan socialism and/or communism, because, "it's the moral thing we ought be doing."

And those ones absolutely will sit there trying to stir your passions by telling you half truths to shape your perceptions and hack your interpretation of how things work to get you on that wavelength, because to them and their psychology, the ends justify the means.

And it is that kind of sociopathy that is what dooms socialists and socialism not to work. Because that psychology becomes its own culture and fraternity. That psychology exists to exploit people for their labor in the short term until it's modus operandi of a structure that can FORCE people to continue participating until monopoly of force and monopoly of resources either deprives them from not participating, or corporeally punishes them for not participating- or delivering quota. Baking redistribution in, even just on principle, not on legitimate physical need, because, "it's the RIGHT thing to do." Even if it's wasteful, even if it results in ruin. But they still stan it, because the ideal reality of if it could just work and if only they could just somehow convince or compel people to participate in their fantasy, it could be MADE reality. If only everybody else donated their time and resources to it! They just need convincing.

It's all the bothersomeness of dealing with religious cult sermonizing and blindsiding/blitzing you with theological basis without fully disclosing their beliefs, without the specific church or specific religion. But insisting it's not a religion because, "it's the truth."

[odd-kid-42]

17 and 18 for the fic ask game 👀

17. What's something that you've learned about while doing research for a fic?

I think it is hard to beat when I asked a sociology friend what historical leftist group A Series of Unfortunate Events' VFD resembles and learned: 1) There was a group of socialists before the French Revolution whose contribution was gathering in intellectual parlors to discuss class reform and also to get smashed on absinthe and hallucinate. 2) Count Olaf's house strongly resembles the Notre Dame cathedral in design and its placement the middle of a major city, which maybe means nothing but also could mean a lot in adding context in ASOUE and background in a fic.

I still need to read the PDF my friend provided on the absinthe guys and finish the Behind the Bastards episodes on the Illuminati.

18. What's one of your favorite lines written in your fanfics?

If I can enjoy two of my favorite moments of horror and gentleness in Alternate World:

“Oh, Willy.” Pleasure and tension curled around Her voice at his small noises of panic. She licked Her lips and soothed, “Don’t make me too excited. I hate ending the chase early. Even now, little one, I want the final death of you to be good. I want it to be slow. I want you to be wracked with terror so far past comprehension,” His eyes had opened in panic despite his effort to mentally escape. He couldn't mentally escape this. A soft smile curled her lips as she finished in a whisper to him, “that you don’t recognize me. That you are relieved when I come for you. I want that, for you and for me.”

Holding The Doodler like a potato: I just think It as a malicious eldritch god of chaos is neat!

And:

Nick’s head was starting to slip a bit, so Glenn adjusted and found Nick older, heavier in his arms. Thirteen again.

Glenn kissed the side of their head, and Nick scoff-laughed quietly. “I’m too old to be carried, you know,” they murmured, forehead against his neck.

“Nah,” Glenn answered easily.

This was what he had been working towards back in prison: being around Nick again.

The "I never got to tuck you in one last time either. Wanted to do that too" and "I always thought Face/Off was a sad movie.” lines are favorites, but Glenn seamlessly transitioning through his memories of parenting Nick still gets me. Noticing that the next stage of parenting Nick has occurred and kissing their head in response, like a greeting or reassurance, Nick feigning insult at being treated like a younger kid but wanting the comfort, and the acknowledgement that this was Glenn's driver-- trying to get back to Nick-- is really simplistic as a sequence but I think I wrote it well.

[murdochccm]

The West’s Eleutheromania & How Its Governments [AKA Managerial Capitalists] Made Its Citizens Accessories to Economic Hegemony With No Holds Barred

Assignment Question: According to Hickel, what is the "myth" of development that began with Harry Truman? What makes this "myth" so compelling? What is wrong with this myth (i.e. the flawed assumptions)?

Truncated Answers -

According to Hickel, what is the "myth" of development that began with Harry Truman?

The myth of development that began with Harry Truman was a claim that without US industrial, and scientific techniques foreign “developing nations” were to suffer. The most insidious part of Harry Truman's myth about these “underdeveloped areas” was that their economic life was to be stagnant without US intervention. Thence this leads to a string of US inference into the foreign economic policy (interference meant to prop up an unbalanced free-market system tailored to fit US needs).

What makes this "myth" so compelling?

The myth is so compelling because it propagandistically reframes developing nations as nations desperately needing to imitate the systems of the West and the West should help in doing so.

What is wrong with this myth (i.e. the flawed assumptions)?

The flawed assumption is that free markets are the best solution for a struggling economy and that foreign intervention is necessary to create these free markets.

Attempt I

The myth of development that began with Harry Truman was a claim that without US industrial, and scientific techniques foreign “developing nations” were to suffer. The most insidious part of Harry Truman's myth about these “underdeveloped areas” was that their economic life was to be stagnant without US intervention. Thence this leads to a string of US inference into the foreign economic policy (interference meant to prop up an unbalanced free-market system tailored to fit US needs). The notable mental part of Harry Truman's “perception management” was how smug, trusting of their authority, or chock full of some sort of messiah complex the citizens of the United States of America must have been to have bought the idea; that inferring with foreign economic matters was noble. Without implying a negative value judgment, I suppose that this could’ve been the result of hyper-normalization where people didn’t know any alternative to the actions suggested by their government. Perhaps Americans were akin to “a frog gently placed into a pot of tepid water with the heat on low, floating quite placidly [i.e. Americans (?and the West?) were originally accustomed to mild economic interventionism with FDR]. As the water gradually heated up [with World War II Americans & the West became accustomed to fighting for freedom in foreign wars], the frog [the West] sank into a tranquil stupor, [were full-on hypernormalized], and before long, with a smile on its face, it will unresistingly allow itself to be boiled to death [Americans and the West began to blindly ride movements such as  the Red Scare].

With a historical precedent of colonialism, tribalism, and empires it seems Harry Truman was easily able to redirect the west’s former squabbles over resources [See: The US “invading and occupying states like Honduras, Cuba and the Domincian Republic] ; with seemingly eleemosynary [charitable] yet vague statements positioning the West as superior saviors.

What is wrong with this myth, well, without proof of deep-seated imperfection Harry Truman made claims that “developing nations” were in such an impoverished state based off of a seemingly unrelated comparison to the United States of America’s accolades. Justifying the US United States of America must intervene. Leaving how the United States of America should intervention with vague language. With this flexiloquent [pertaining to someone who speaks ambiguously] language, Harry Truman was able to continue his virtue signaling narrative that precluded much democratic oversight from the American people; whilst, maintaining glowing approval from the press.

Harry Truman claimed that half the people in the world are living in conditions approaching misery and with America’s significant scientific and technological advantages. The USA was in a responsible position and thus should act to development foreign nations so that to mirror the US’s success. His statement on global inequality based on a half-truth lead to the West’s battle on “developmental policies” that “were threatening their access to cheap labor, raw materials, and consumer markets across the South, eroding the foundations of the world system that they had come to rely on during the colonial era. Unwilling to let this continue, they intervened across the South to depose democratically elected leaders and replace them with regimes—generally dictatorships—that would be more amenable to Western interests. As Noel Maurer points out in The Empire Trap (Princeton, 2013), these interventions were typically triggered when Western assets were put at risk by land reform, nationalization, or capital controls. `` Thenceforth to maintain western interests and under the guise of liberal internationalism, the West would act as creditors; giving out loans with exorbitant interest rates thanks to their unequal bargaining power. This amid heaps of other reverse aid tomfooleries with the development of these developing countries leads to true stagnation in the development of these developing countries are in so much need of the West’s putative superiority.

The West with its conservatism that has a great desire to avoid risk when lending money in the hopes of making interest on such loans. Would fight folks policies not mirroring that of their own. Helping folks abroad is easy to sell to a populace, but regime change wars are not. Thus in a coded language, Harry Truman used diversionary tactics and whataboutism to avert his citizenry gaze from the true violence of America’s desire to access weaker nations’ resources ad libitum. I imagine that Harry Truman stipulated that his citizenry would refrain from questioning his policies on how to better these “developing nations” as long as it was benefiting them. Although, it may have been the case that all these altercations with opposing ideoogies where to avert people attention away from domestic problems (I’m not sure though, because I’m totally out of the loop when it comes to history).  This likely lead to the hyper-normalization of regime change wars under the guise to prevent the spread of communism and other putative dangerous ideologies. Methinks that even with western inventions becoming more and more excessive. As long as the government keeps the military voluntarily and there is little inflation of prices for example the people living in the country wouldn’t protest much. Making it easy for a government to continue it’s reverse aid whatnot. “Perhaps it is easier for folks to put up with the discomfort of others rather than their own.[Paraphrased Russell Brand Quote Thingo]”

I presume that the West was attempting a new form of colonialism where all nations would mirror each other economically. Perhaps forming some sort of worldly single-market economy. Where the West and its transnational super political organizations would foist economic conformity on these developing nations. Thus eschewing economic instability and maintaining the status quo; where they could easily dominate the world economy with their large market share. Market domination manifested with the West trying to prevent developing nations from obtaining relative autarky [economic independence or self-sufficiency] i.e. they did their best to thwart developing nations' attempts at import substitution [O’ my the horror a country trying to build their economy to tailor to their national good and not that of the West]. Besides to West facillating dependency whether intentional or not it may have been to prevent other nations from competing economically on a significant scale.

Mapping the predecessor and proliferation of Truman's Myth

The good-intentioned Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Quarantine Speech likely referring to putting economic pressure on the more patent bad news bears nations’ Empire of Japan, the Kingdom of Italy, and Nazi Germany; set the precedent that interventionism is the solution that will stabilize unstable regions.

[See: Long-term policy and metaphor from the Wikipedia Page “Truman Doctrine”] “Its sweeping rhetoric, promising that the United States should aid all 'free people' being subjugated, set the stage for innumerable later ventures that led to globalisatic commitments.”.

The disease rhetoric also comes out about now with the "quarantine the aggressor" perception management technique being employed to get away with more direct military intervention now.

[See: Long-term policy and metaphor from the Wikipedia Page “Truman Doctrine”]

“By framing ideological differences in life or death terms, Truman was able to garner support for this communism-containing policy.”

It seems over time this "quarantine the aggressor" rhetoric escalated and become more and more blown out of proportion.

Over time this became more and more normal. With the US expected to intervene in all skirmishes for freedom, free-markets, and the like. #hypernormalisation

Quotes -

“Capitalism is not an inherently evil thing it’s amoral” -- Adam Curtis

Untampered Quote -“If you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will of course frantically try to clamber out. But if you place it gently in a pot of tepid water and turn the heat on low, it will float there quite placidly. As the water gradually heats up, the frog will sink into a tranquil stupor, exactly like one of us in a hot bath, and before long, with a smile on its face, it will unresistingly allow itself to be boiled to death.” -- A version of the story from Daniel Quinn's The Story of B Digressional Opinion - I loved Daniel Quinn's Ishmael.

“One of the ways power conceals itself is by saying “This isn’t power at all, this is normal” “ -- Russell Brand

“The sign of a great ideology is something that doesn’t look like an ideology”

Wild Theories - The USA has a  Christian population. Christians have a history of Crusades in the hopes to spread Christendom whatnot. The USA has a free market ideology the USA hoops into regime-change wars in the hopes of spreading free markets. If the USA had to choose between a kleptocrat who liked free markets and a kleptocrat who liked  I don’t know a market economy thingo. The USA who help the kleptocrat who likes free markets.

Words For Ideas -  Impotence, Complicit, Rational Ignorance, Normal, No Alternative?, Avoid Risk, Lend Money, Mass Market Culture,

Phrases For Ideas - Capitalism = Save Yourself, ?Capitalism derived from Protestantism?,

The Chaff

to the luck and good circumstance deprived “developing countries”. Maybe the prior heroic action i.e. the United State’s involvement in World War II.

In other words, the West were either the benefactors of things such as Guns, Germs, and Steel.

Citations: Works Cited

Hickel, Jason, et al. “The Development Delusion: Foreign Aid and Inequality.” American Affairs Journal, 20 Aug. 2017, americanaffairsjournal.org/2017/08/development-delusion-foreign-aid-inequality/. This article originally appeared in American Affairs Volume I, Number 3 (Fall 2017): 160–73.

“Russell Brand & Adam Curtis - Do We Really Want Change? | Under The Skin #03.” Performance by Russell Brand, and Adam Curtis, YouTube, His Own "Rebirth Tour" so Russell Brand Sponsored Himself , 22 July 2017, youtu.be/xBy08P7tHPQ. Youtube Video Description - This week I speak with filmmaker Adam Curtis about the rise of individualism, where real power lies, and whether we really want change.

Short, John R. Human Geography: A Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2018.

Wikipedia contributors. "Quarantine Speech." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 21 Jul. 2018. Web. 2 Oct. 2019.

Wikipedia contributors, 'Liberal internationalism', Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 22 September 2019, 04:11 UTC, <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Liberal_internationalism&oldid=917075688> [accessed 2 October 2019]

[bustedbernie]

A cosplay socialist is someone from an affluent family who play-pretends to be a socialist for clout. The sad truth is that it is often fashionable in high society to feign concern for the poor, or adopt “radical” causes, to signal virtue and promote one’s own image.

Why else would the absurdist ideology of “luxury communism” be a genuine article of faith among so many on the contemporary left? The movement is full of people who are only down for the revolution, as long as it leaves their acquired privileges intact. Their leftism stems not from serious convictions, but from their distress at the state of the world and their feelings of shame regarding their own social class’s roles in it.

Today, I’ll be exposing two of Twitter’s most popular cosplay socialists for the phoneys that they are: Meagan Day and Walker Bragman. We know that these two, among many others, are pretending because they relentlessly downplay their obscenely privileged backgrounds in public, while privately enjoying the fruits of their pedigree.

I have the receipts.

Of course, you can’t blame people for the “sins of the father,” but it is fair to assume that Meagan and Walker have benefited handsomely from their parents’ money, and that they stand to inherit some of the family fortune in the future.

If they were truly committed to the cause of justice, they would be honest about the impact their wealth has had on them, and take a back seat to actual marginalized people, letting them lead the movement.

Instead, they maintain active presences among the leftist Twitterati, basking in their followers’ adulation as they slander actual Democrats like Joe Biden who are fighting for a diverse coalition of working-class folks, especially Black Americans — while at the same time boosting Bernie Sanders, who attracts overwhelmingly white, yuppie/gentrifier crowds even in highly-diverse cities.

. . . . . .

[greatworldwar2]

• 88th Division(National Revolutionary Army)

The 88th Division (simplified Chinese: 第八十八师) was a German-trained and reorganized division in the National Revolutionary Army.

In 1927 after the dissolution of the First United Front between the Nationalists and the Communists, the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) purged its leftist members and completely eliminated Soviet influence from its ranks. Chiang Kai-shek turned to Germany, historically a great military power, for assistance in the reorganization of the National Revolutionary Army. The Weimar Republic sent advisors to China, however due to restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, these advisors could not serve in military capacities. When Adolf Hitler became Chancellor in 1933 and disregarded the Treaty, the National Socialist Party and the KMT united by their shared anti-communist ideals began closely cooperating with Germany training Chinese troops and expanding Chinese infrastructure while China made its markets and natural resources available to Germany.

In 1934 General Hans von Seeckt, acting as advisor to Chiang, proposed a '60 Division Plan' for restructuring the Chinese Nationalist Army into 60 divisions of highly trained, well-equipped troops along German doctrines. The 88th Division was one of the first divisions to be reorganized and alongside the 36th Division and 87th Division became the cream of the crop of the National Revolutionary Army. The Japanese soon began a war with Nationalist China, thusly the newly trained divisions were mobilized. Due to its elite status, the 88th was deployed in the Battle of Shanghai in the summer and fall of 1937 against the Imperial Japanese Army in a decision by Chiang Kai-shek, agianst the advice of his chief German advisor, Alexander von Falkenhausen. Though still not completely trained and fully equipped with German weapons, the 88th Division under the command of Sun Yuanliang was rushed to the Second Battle of Shanghai alongside the other German-trained divisions. The elite, German-trained division performed admirably, pushing the Japanese marines back to the very shores of Shanghai.

While the Chinese Air Force provided much air-interdiction and close-air support early-on in the battle of Shanghai, pressing demands for air force units in the northern front at the Battle of Taiyuan and southern front at Guangzhou, plus heavy attrition in the Shanghai-Nanjing theater of operations eventually overwhelmed the Chinese Air Force units, the eventual absence of air and naval support, poor coordination between units, and the lack of defence in depth, resulted in the division suffering heavy casualties towards the end of the three-month battle. On December 25th, 1937, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek ordered the division withdrawn to join the ill-fated Battle of Nanjing.

This led to portions of the 524th Regiment remaining at the Sihang Warehouse for several days, where they successfully covered the retreat of the division while beating back numerous Japanese assaults on the warehouse. As the rest of the 88th retreated, 1st Battalion converged on Sihang warehouse, bolstered by additional volunteers and a machine gun company who provided their only heavy weapons, 4 Type-24 Maxim Guns (licensed copies of the German WWI MG 08). The 414 men tirelessly reinforced their fortifications, manufacturing sandbags with the warehouse’s grain sacks while burning down neighboring structures to create an open kill zone. These men were mostly raw recruits, having joined the NRA within the past three months in response to the Japanese invasion in July. The NRA command was evidently aware of their numerical and firepower inferiority – they deliberately continued to label 1st Battalion as ‘524th Regiment’ in all communications to feign strength that the men desperately needed. Clearly, the odds were stacked against them. Waves of Japanese attacks were fought off by the defenders, who held onto the warehouse’s high ground. The Japanese were restricted in their tactics – not yet prepared to fight the Western powers, the IJN dared not use mustard gas or aerial bombs so close to the foreign concessions. Rumors of the defense spread like a patriotic wildfire throughout China, spurring many civilians to line the foreign bank of the Suzhou River, just to cheer their soldiers on. More importantly, many more sent supplies through the Chamber of Commerce to aid 1st Battalion. It was then that the legend of ‘800 Heroes’ was born, etched into history by 414 soldiers.

After the Battle of Nanking, the 88th Division never recovered its former strength and was of limited significance later in the war. In 1938 the 88th Division participated in the Battle of Wuhan as part of the 71st Corps. In 1942 the 88th Division was again reorganized and redeployed into Burma as part of the Chinese Expeditionary Force (in Burma).

[mightyflamethrower]

Joe Biden won in 2020 on the premise that until the November election, he would pose as good ol’ Joe from Scranton and not scare voters.

So Biden talked about “unity” and “competency.” He erased his prior wild primary pandering to left-wing voters about shutting down fracking and opening the border.

But as soon as he was elected in 2020, Biden became the leftist veneer for a hyper-radical Obama third term.

Fooled and naïve voters were shocked that their supposedly moderate candidate turned into a veritable neo-socialist president.

In general, the left acknowledges that its spread-the-wealth, high taxes, big government, open borders, soft on crime, and woke DEI agendas don’t appeal to 51 percent of the people.

That reality requires disinformation for leftist policies to be implemented.

No one voted for the Biden-Harris ticket to borrow trillions sparking hyperinflation, to wage war on fossil fuels, to go woke, to welcome in 10 million illegal aliens, to abandon $50 billion in weapons to the terrorist Taliban, and to find America facing existential wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and soon perhaps over Taiwan.

But getting leftists elected requires fooling the American people into thinking their “moderate” campaign veneers will continue into their presidencies—even though they never do.

So, for now, Harris and her new vice presidential candidate, Tim Walz, will smother all their cherished left-wing positions—at least until November.

The two left-wing chameleons will assume the temporary identities and policies of “moderates.” That is a de facto admission that they know that the public does not want any of their true agendas.

The temporary metamorphosis means that the leftist nominees superficially feign agreement with what most Americans support—energy independence, low taxes, limited government, strong defense, deterrent foreign policy, secure borders, legal-only immigration, and assimilation rather than woke/DEI tribalism.

Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are the most brazen and extreme examples of left-wing flip-floppers in memory.

But for both, the cartwheeling will still be difficult.

Harris is utterly incapable of articulating a coherent thought without a teleprompter or a staged interview. Walz is a buffoon who, in his first speech as the nominee, screamed out the “couch” lie about J.D. Vance and then stupidly bragged of his falsehood.

Harris, until recently, was proud that she had been one of the most radical California politicians in memory. She ran such a hard-left, polarizing presidential bid against Biden in 2020 that she could not capture even a single Democrat delegate.

Now she has selected as her vice president pick the most left-wing governor in the nation. Walz, during the long 2020 summer of rioting, allowed BLM and Antifa to run amuck in Minnesota while his new partner Harris raised bail for those jailed for violence.

Walz, like Harris, has done his best to stop pipelines and curtail fossil fuels.

He once boasted that “Democrats go into depression” when they see electoral maps shaded in red, “but it’s mostly rocks and cows that are in that red area.”

Apparently, his advice for Democrats was just to win urban areas and don’t sweat alienating greater rural Minnesota regions where fewer voters live—a blueprint for their 2024 campaign.

That snark was an expansion of Barack Obama’s dismissal of rural Pennsylvanians as “clingers” and Hillary Clinton’s trashing of the rural working class as “deplorables.”

By selecting the hard-left Walz, Harris reminds the nation who runs the Democratic Party. It is preparing for a hard-left neo-socialist administration—while it seeks to deceive the public for the next 90 days that Harris-Walz are temporary moderates.

Like the cognitively challenged Joe Biden in 2020, word-salad Harris won’t be let out to campaign much by her wary handlers.

Instead, she will outraise Trump, count on non-Election Day balloting, pose as a centrist, and let her surrogates, like the blowhard Walz, brand Trump as a criminal extremist.

But if the current initial Harris-Walz flipping is embarrassing, their eventual post-November flopping back to the left will be shameless—and dangerous for the nation.

In 2025, under a Harris-Walz presidency, borders would again magically evaporate. Millions more illegal aliens would regroup and flood into the U.S.

Printing more trillions of dollars would spike more hyperinflation. Cutting defense would further encourage even more wars in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.

More woke and DEI mandates would ensure more tribal disunity.

Harris-Walz would try fulfilling earlier promises to ban fracking and horizontal drilling, render the U.S. vulnerable to hostile foreign oil producers, distance the U.S. from Israel, and out-appease Biden’s coddling of Iran.

They would continue the crazy left-wing war on the Supreme Court and implement Joe Biden’s plan to neuter it.

But for now?

The Harris-Walz message is clear: “In order to run your country for the next four years, we must lie and deceive you for the next three months.”

[thehalfwaypost]

Republicans are desperately hiding all evidence they're ruining the economy feigning nightmares of fictional socialist terrors if moderate Joe Biden wins, and our stock market is being gamed sociopathically to wring out every drop of petty wealth left in the American sponge. Yay.

https://halfwaypost.com

[arcticdementor]

Its an intellectual cowardice. The communists never shied away from admitting they wanted to violently impose their ideology the second they got hold of power, that they would use violence to achieve power, and they had an entire logic of what violence they would use to get power. “The revolution” or “the struggle” was explicitly the violent seizure of the means of governance through illegal and non-democratic violence. They’d debate which methods were warranted, or plausibly effective, but they all agreed violence (revolutionary, military, guerrilla, and insurgent) was an acceptable means to achieve the ends of overthrowing an illegitimate system of governance I would like the dissident right to adopt the same norms of discussion. Countless communists and sympathizers never participated in violence, but they all participated in a discourse of violence. Those who didn’t would be booted to the democratic socialists, and then purged by entryistd controlling the democratic socialists who had no patience for pacifism (though they would happily feign pacifism in press releases). I see a real limiting mental block on the right about even thinking, at the most theoretical level, of legitimate non-state violence, outside of some fantasy of SHTF, or an announced explicit national gun seizures, or The military launching a coup. They’ll talk tough but couch it in fantasies or conditions that would never allow them to make the first move and actually win any territory. The communists never had that problem and I want to steal their daring.

KulakRevolt

[stormsbourne]

modern journalists are incapable of doing their true jobs -- telling/revealing the truth to the masses -- in this day and age because the wider field of journalism, like any other in our modern society, is obsessed with capital and getting ever more of it. in journalism, a field that is dying more and more by the day in its “traditional” incarnations, it’s an especial problem because the capital they currently generate isn’t enough to maintain their businesses. regardless of this fact, capital demands “offending” as few people as necessary in order to earn more money from a wider spread of consumers. (fox news and outlets like it, such as br*etb*rt or inf*w*rs, don’t need to worry about this, as they have cultivated a very loud, very angry, very eager-to-spend-their-capital on dumb shit audience that they know how to keep engaged, which is easy to do when you peddle lies and propaganda.) 

this concept of “take fewer stands, offend fewer people, get more cash” is why you see so many AAA games and big-budget films that make weak stabs at progressivism only to never fully own said stabs, or to wind them back in some way. the feign at progressive politics attracts progressives, but the refusal to own it comforts conservatives. the principle is always to attain as much capital as possible, and that mission can never, never, never correspond with the original goal of journalists, which is to tell the truth no matter how ugly, offensive, or vile it might be, what people in power it might upset, or what retaliations you might face. in this essay, I will

sorry I’ve always known since I took my journo classes in school that modern journalism was broken but it took until I was a full socialist to understand why. also, I’m aware nobody but me fucking cares about this.

[rametarin]

Amusing interlude.

So an acquaintence of mine just experienced something I’d like to share with some of you as an educational experience.

This nameless person somewhere introduced a statement: “Which mental illness make you the most violent?”

So my acquaintence copy&pasted them something from ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

The person direct messaged them and said, “Go jack off to some dead deer, you boot licker.”

And I’m like... that’s hilarious. My acquaintence wasn’t really sure what happened here, but I recognized exactly what happened by previous patterns.

Okay so. What happened here was this person was trying to use this technique radical feminists and guerilla socialists would use to try and “start conversations” by the water cooler. Capitalizing on how most people aren’t walking encyclopedias of facts and information they can prove on the spot, they “start the conversation.”

Statements like that have no roots or origins or seeming ulterior motive in anything else, but they absolutely are when in the context of how this type of person uses them. But the ice breaker. “Which mental illnesses do you think make people the most violent?”

If you’d said schizophrenia, or bipolar, or borderline personality disorder, then their next step would’ve been to say, “And why do you think that?”

Do you see what has happened here? Unprovoked, without the other person making any proactive statements for or against anything, by querying and controlling the context of the discussion and the topic, they have forced and coerced the other person to proactively stand for something. They have forced the person to either admit they do not know, which itself will become clay the speaker will mold, or they’ve forced the person to prove their statement that they have voluntarily given and put forwards.

They have forced someone to make a claim and put them on the spot, disguising this provocateurizm as simple water cooler talk.

Radfems would do this shit of bad faith questioning when I was a kid, and next thing you knew you’d said something inflammatory, BECAUSE YOU’D BEEN SET UP TO DO SO by the topic of conversation and the direction, and then depending on how you respond, they try to use you.

If you admit you do not know, their next diatribe will be about how, “people who don’t know assume, and our culture vilifies the mentally ill.” They’re PROBING you. To see if you know, one way or the other. Because if you don’t, they’re going to claim they know.

And as they’ve pre-meditated this topic, they likely have some cherrypicked statistics or an academic and book that states something, one way or another. THEY’RE SO GLAD YOU ASKED.

If you make a declaration from a place of confidence, they’ll “kindly” ask that you prove it. And since this technique relies on the recipient and the group not being well read or career members of this field, capitalizing on how most people don’t know, aren’t in the circles to be informed about it, and are absent any sources to check for spur of the moment flareups of intellectual discussion and debate, most people cannot prove it.

In which case, the disingenuous conversation starter garrotes the person that cannot support their stance, which they will, regardless of whether or not it was made from a place of absolute confidence, treat as if they have. Treat the person and their ignorance like it’s only not malicious because the person, “didn’t know better,” and then talk about how perpetuating falsehoods is endemic of an “ablist society that hates the mentally ill for being different.”

That’s when they declare the person to be a victim of society demonizing the mentally ill, but not having any evidence to support the common consensus.

The person they just chose to make an effigy of societal wrongthink can then flounder and doubledown without proof and then be mocked and derided and patronized for “not knowing what they’re talking about, by their own admission. Do you HAVE any PROOF!? No? Then shut up.” while leftist-funny-man “laugh now” facing the peers and audience, just to let them know if they wrong-think in public the mocking mob will make them lose social standing, too.

By just asking loaded, probing questions that beg an answer, they give the illusion of empirically minded, scientific and scholarly. When the truth is they only know enough to use as a weapon in a game of social clout and perception, starting conversations by shitting all over someone else and making it look like a, “teachable moment.” By pausing to speak in the abstract, they basically get a free pass to call you a bigot by actions you’ve been tricked into taking and then spun to endorse.

They deliberately find groups of people that may not know the particulars of this topic specifically to have this “conversation.” Feigning being feely compassionate and how stereotypes are harmful. Then throwing out, “Actually, the mentally ill are much less violent than sane people! These stigmas against the mentally ill are largely just vilification and heroification of mentally well people.” As if a person that thinks they see ghosts and shadowmen is the same as a person that keeps picking fights with strangers compulsively.

When, no, statistically, those who tend to be insanely violent and instigate violence with strangers, tend to be insane in some form or fashion. Clinically diagnosed, or not.

But you see, this amazing interaction that capitalizes on peoples usual inability to breach the gap beyond their own station. With the help of a google search and resources from professionals and institutions with the empirical medical and scientific data to speak for them, this acquaintence of mine gave the disingenuous speaker nothing and no one to rail against. They were not given an individual’s subjective opinion with which to then accuse them of personal emotional and enlightenment failings. They were not given, “I don’t know,” and then the person that claims to be informed tries to lead them around with cherrypicked “facts” or subjective opinions or charitable interpretations that basically amount to, “my ideology is right and you wouldn’t know one way or another.”

No. All that was side stepped by removing the acquiantance from the equation. This Mr. Magoo of a person I know let them play chess with a robot.

So rather than continue down that line of conversation, this asshurt loser that now had nothing to work with basically called my acquaintence a redneck fascist and ran away, for seemingly no god damned reason.

Usually what happens when you do this, if you can play dumb for them until they feel confident enough that they might trust what you say as the truth on a subject you allegedly know nothing about, they count on there not being anybody coincidentally around that can disagree with prove them wrong. So they’ll take what is definitively said for granted and not question it. Sure, whatever, “The mentally ill are less likely than sane people to be violent.”

But if you reveal your powerlevel and reveal yourself to be an expert, especially in front of a group of people they were playing to, to sow doubt, and you undress their statements, and can then cite the exact books, chapters and lines as proof and may even have those definitive sources on you somehow, they look bad. Good ones try to suss out what the audience knows before pulling this shit stunt. Bad ones... heh.

If you then undress them publicly enough and force them to walk back their statements, they eventually resort to the tired, classic, “I was just twying to have a convuhsayshun about da mentawy iww.. uwu.” Pouting bottom lip and big dewey rose tinted lenses eyes.

Or they’ll just simply start walking away. Either trying to appear casual about it or stomping off outraged at you (generally the latter is socially acceptable, if female.) And if you try to pursue them to keep them in the discussion, they’ll SCREAM and make the immediate discussion the priority of you following them.

But. Really. The miraculous thing is how cell phones and ease of access to these sources have passively innoculated so many to this bad faith technique. It’s truly amazing. The contrast is like living in a world with syphilis and living in a world where it can be cured..