SeventyTwoTrillion

you tankies just don't understand: the best time to act against an empire baying for wars and genocides is after the fascist violence is already well underway, even mostly completed.

trying to stop Hitler and his regime in 1933 just wouldn't have been fair. similarly, we have to wait, do our electoral and democratic duty and elect a fascist who is explicitly campaigning on perpetuating imperialist violence around the world, let him start a couple wars, maybe let him finish a genocide, and then Hold Him Accountable by doing literally nothing. if we opposed the system before the wars and genocides, that just wouldn't make sense!

this is why Ansarallah and Hezbollah are just so delusional. Everybody knows that the order of events is to 1) let the US set up the casus belli for a war, 2) celebrate as they kill millions of people and impoverish tens of millions more while funnelling trillions of dollars into the accounts of approximately five people, 3) start being vaguely tired of it after a few years, 4) say to yourself "dang, I was so misled at the time! that war was such a bad idea!", and then and only then oppose the war and the person who did it. the Resistance is trying to bypass the natural order of things by trying to stop the killing of millions of people, and even beat the US, rather than just being sad about it 15 years later. like, what the fuck?! we have to support Biden now, we can oppose him when he dies of old age and no possible justice can be delivered to him!

#Tradle #779 4/6
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https://games.oec.world/en/tradle

I understand why it's probably a good idea to select your astronauts from those who do well at flying planes in difficult situations, but there's always been something bitter about how the people we select to become humanity's space explorers, and in a sense representatives, overlap so much with those who commit war crimes without even needing to feel that bad about it because you can't see your victims. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin fought in the Korean War for instance, as well as a couple of other US astronauts.

wrong megathread but hell yeah

I think a significant number of people don't answer these kinds of country location questions accurately on purpose, either because they think it's funny, they don't give a shit, or they don't know where the country is and don't want to look stupid by guessing the wrong country so knowingly give a ridiculous answer to cover for that gap in knowledge

The Weeks-Decade Convertinator 3000 cannot create decades out of nothing. To speed time up in one place, it requires a sacrifice of slowing down time somewhere else. To create the decades needed for October 7th and then the Iran-Israel back-and-forth, we've had to take them out of the Ukraine War, which is why it slowed down so much after the first few months. The Convertinator is being revved down so now time is gradually reverting to normal speed in the Ukraine War

the funniest possible version of events is that they're somebody who read about the Umayyad Caliphate taking over Spain but hasn't got to the Reconquista part of the book yet

The Country of the Week is the Democratic Republic of the Congo!

Feel free to post or recommend any books, essays, studies, articles, and even stories related to the Congo.

If you know a lot about the country and want to share your knowledge and opinions, here are some questions to get you started if you wish:

• What is the general ideology of the political elite? Do they tend to be protectionist nationalists, or are they more free trade globalists? Are they compradors put there by foreign powers? Are they socialists with wide support by the population?
• What are the most important domestic political issues that make the country different from other places in the region or world? Are there any peculiar problems that have continued existing despite years or decades with different parties?
• Is the country generally stable? Are there large daily protests or are things calm on average? Is the ruling party/coalition generally harmonious or are there frequent arguments or even threats?
• Is there a particular country to which this country has a very impactful relationship over the years, for good or bad reasons? Which one, and why?
• What are the political factions in the country? What are the major parties, and what segments of the country do they attract?
• Are there any smaller parties that nonetheless have had significant influence? Are there notable separatist movements?
• How socially progressive or conservative is the country generally? To what degree is there equality between men and women, as well as different races and ethnic groups? Are LGBTQIA+ rights protected?
• Give a basic overview of the last 50 or 100 years. What's the historical trend of politics, the economy, social issues, etc - rise or decline? Were they always independent or were they once occupied, and how have things been since independence if applicable?
• If you want, go even further back in history. Were there any kingdoms or empires that once governed the area?

For books on the Congo from our reading list:

These books focus on general DRC history:

• The Congo from Leopold to Kabila: A People's History by Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja (2002).

These books focus on the colonial period:

• Colonialism in the Congo Basin, 1880–1940 by Samuel H. Nelson (1994).
• King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild (1998).

These books focus on the post-independence period:

• Lumumba Speaks: Speeches and Writings, 1958-61 (1974).
• The African Dream: The Diaries of the Revolutionary War in the Congo by Ernesto Che Guevara (1997).
• The Assassination of Lumumba by Ludo De Witte (1999).
• Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa by Jason Stearns (2011).
• Disrupted Development in the Congo: The Fragile Foundations of the African Mining Consensus by Ben Radley (2023).

Next thread here.

between the bills to Ukraine, to Israel, mass surveillance laws, and general chumpfuckery, this has been a cromulent fuckcrustable of a day. 72 needy drinky.

dialectics

2024 headlines are a real doozy