I think heads of state should be prosecuted more often

I mean, I think the problem is that they’re doing crimes more than their frequency of prosecution.

I’d like to believe “more prosecutions will discourage politicians from doing crimes”. But there’s a gap in enforcement, wherein you can get all the way up to the PM/Presidency by committing crimes with impunity. And then you only get caught when you finally lose an election.

It truly is crazy to see the South Korean government go through these spasms of corporate consolidation, fascist media turns, and repeated threats of military dictatorship, while liberals scream “Whataboutism!” whenever it makes news.

Did you know the last six South Korean presidents have been prosecuted either during or immediately following their terms in office? And that we’re supposed to believe this is a sign of a healthy and functioning democracy?

“What if we organized as members of the general public and directly opposed the corrupt actions of state officials?”

“Shut up, Tankie.”

Who has that high of a K:D ratio and still be at 0% wins?

Gotta ask what “winning” is, exactly.

Presidents tend to win reelection during war time. And there’s a ton of money to be made. Meanwhile, the market loves a war and rewards shareholders handsomely.

So who is actually losing?

Okay but also you need to make sure the sun comes up

Well, good news for the American Pledge of Allegiance.

they made you swear fealty to a piece of cloth

They made you say fealty to the administration and it’s lackeys

The cloth wasn’t going to write you up for suspension.

I thought it was to sell shitty flags in bulk

She argued people died for this country

More often killed for it than died for it.

Under socialism, you will live next to a first generation immigrant from a country full of brown people, you will eat their food, experience their culture, and work side by side in pursuit of a better life.

And you will like it.

Panama makes some sense, because of the loch system.

It helps to know the history of Panama. Namely, how it exists because an independence group was sponsored by the US to break away from Honduras, because that group would then give the US better terms for using the soon-to-be-constructed canal.

Each ship that passes takes a lot of their drinking water, and they don’t need to bomb ships to stop them passing.

Ask Noriega about that.

It’s crazy how Iran deciding to start taking fees for shipping is a blockade, when the entire national business models of Singapore and Panama hinge on their ability to do exactly this.

If you believe in democracy, personal rights, and capitalism

🎼 One of these things 🎶 Is not like the other 🎶

🎼 One of these things 🎶 Is not like its brother 🎶

given how much modern ‘conservatives’ hate democracy and personal rights

“This far and no further” politics is a pox on conservatives and liberals alike. This is one of the reasons you see Gavin Newsom fucking around with TERFs in the name of fairness in college athletics. Its one of the reasons why so many people soured on Barack Obama inside his first term.

“Personal Rights” always seem to terminate at the edge of popular consensus.

teaches you to take pride in shit you’ve never done

The better outcome.

I’m more disgusted by the fuckers who go out and do the war crimes, then come home and demand everyone else say “Thank You For Your Service”.

Ideas have a material and historical basis and must be acknowledged within that context or the deeper meanings are lost. Tying the art to the artist isn’t enough on it’s face. You must preserve author’s socio-economic position at the time of writing, the historical moment at which the piece was produced, and the publication through which the material was conveyed.

Whether you’re reading Das Kapital or Debt: The First 5000 Years or the “I Have A Dream” speech or Ender’s Game, you need more than just the name and demographics of the writer. You need the whole context behind the work as it is being produced. Reading Marx without knowing about the American Civil War or the Taiping Rebellion introduces you to ideas that are being espoused in the middle of a long-running conversation. Picking up “Debt” without knowing about the 2008 financial crash leaves you puzzling over Graeber’s sudden concern with the subject matter. You can’t talk about MLK’s most famous speech without knowing the conditions of the African-American working class in the 1960s. Neither can you seriously discuss Ender’s Game without knowing about the wars in Vietnam or Korea, or the various special ops programs and advances in military technology that birthed the combined fascination and horror that Orsen Scott Card sought to conceptualize.

Copywrite binds the material to the publisher more than it binds the ideas of the material to the author. The real sin of modern capitalist mass production is the disjointing of written works from the period they were produced. Making an Ender’s Game movie fully divorced from the historical context in which it was written is a crime.

When he’s not that into you

It’s very funny to see Japan, Vietnam, and the Philippines complain about China, given that China’s not the one that had a boot on their necks for the last 80 years.