CountryBreakfast

joined 3 years ago
[–] CountryBreakfast@lemmygrad.ml 22 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Indeed it's quite relavant. It's interesting when it happens (selling communism or revolution) and they don't paint the characters as evil. Like in The Expanse they depict resistance to the inners as justified but then have that resistance largely coming from genocidal maniacs or "backwards," resentful belters. Andor doesn't do this to that extent, but it does try to paint the rebellion as a bit more "gray" than good. And there are characters like, Saw, who is radical but is seen as unhinged, problematic, and is hated by the most privileged, liberal coded parts of the rebellion. Further, the SW rebellion is meant to restore the republic--the failed government that basically was fertile ground for fascism. It's already flawed.

Still, resistance itself is preserved and even if Saw is depicted as problematic he still has a role in making resistance possible.

Basically, Disney feels safe allowing us to imagine resistance right now because we feel scared and are vulnerable to big feels about these things. And it has some extra safety markers just to be sure. It's predatory, but also we are not powerless to define it for ourselves to the extent we can, and to the extent that it serves us to do so. Capital does not control the world totally or have a cultural monopoly. It must negotiate power and discourse just as labor or anyone does.

[–] CountryBreakfast@lemmygrad.ml 18 points 1 month ago

The lowest hanging fruit is the easiest to reach.

[–] CountryBreakfast@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Maybe I should treat survivers as damaged people who can't cope with the realities of empire. Perhaps that will show how ethical and measured of a person I am for making trauma the essential variable that determines your value. Afterall it's all make believe. It's just a commodity. You don't exist and neither do I. Why should I care how imperialism is depicted?

[–] CountryBreakfast@lemmygrad.ml 22 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Sometimes capitalists are so desperate they will sell you an experience that can help you recontextualize how atrocities are committed and how empires are made in ways that are relevant to our contemporary moment. Should we take it as a sign of hope? A turn in certain western minds? Or of crushing cynicism? Another future of revolution bought and sold? I guess it's up to all of us to make something out of these times if we can.

[–] CountryBreakfast@lemmygrad.ml 46 points 1 month ago (10 children)

It's interesting that liberals and fascists have also not liked this part specifically. Somehow depicting the empire as more than a force that makes trains run on time has had an impact on cultural discourses and ruffled feathers across political and ideological lines. And since the assailant is killed and the crime is violently refused by a lone woman, it is difficult to invent a victim narrative or a savior narrative to relieve the tension of depicting imperialism in this way.

Furthermore, I think the idea that Andor works to make the empire seem gritty misses how mundane the empire is shown. The show isn't trying to get gritty. It's saying that SV is a mundane and obvious part of empire building. Leaving it out carries its own risks, just as depicting it carries other risks.

Thank you for saying this! This is the bridge building that can make a future worth living

[–] CountryBreakfast@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

IMO it goes further than this. It's not just poor wording. It is actually implying toxicity is the solution to patriarchy. Allow me to explain if I can.

We know that men benifit most from patriarchy. We know that saying "not all men" is often used to silence women and remove culpability from men that maintain toxic cultures but are not themselves explicitly and aggressively predatory. Especially when there is an established context of addressing rape, sexual assualt, violence, mysonginy etc.

However, this doesn't foreclose the fact that "men" can be reduced down to a convenient punching bag instead of "predators and enablers" which is more specific even if the vast majority are men. When this happens, and someone brings it up (in good faith or otherwise), the reactions are predictably dismissive and essentialist.

By dismissing these concerns I believe there is a lot of troubling discourse at play. First, as a man, I read it as a signal for me to intensify certain masculine traits--stocism, raitionalism, and self discipline. I feel I am forced to accept that the complex nuances of the world are far too much for some to bare and that I must generously sacrifice my sense of identify, safety, and self worth. I feel asked to give myself up in order to not complicate the oversimplified narrative.

Secondly, this implies a question that must be answered, and is likely to be answered toxically. Why must I make this kind of sacrifice? One answer could be because there is a threat of character assassination for failing to stoically accept that your identity does not fit in the puzzle.

However, I am most troubled by another answer to the question: that the feable, hysterical, ungrounded feminine people in my life can't function (emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, and physically) as they need to without masculine sacfrice to constitute and legitimize the project of detoxifying masculinity.

What am saying? Ultimately, how we react to the "not all men" bit can indirectly enforce toxic masculinity even as it works to ostensibly address it directly. It also reinforces antifeminist stereotypes of non-men and privileges masculine qualities that will likley trend toward self flagulating. Thus toxic masculinity is allowed space to reproduce.

Why am I saying this? I want to be A man or "masculine," and I want to be a feminist, and to be part of a healthy flourishing community to the extend that I am capable. I don't know how to do this when I feel I am asked to embody what I feel are toxic, mysonginist, self destructive qualities that will supposedly make people safer because they won't have to consider their ideology and my place in it. If I have to poison myself to make people feel comfortable as feminists, we have a problem.

What am I not saying? I'm not saying this phenomenon is all that common or that men should not be held accountable or babied. The discursive elements at play are certainly present in rage bait paltering and among certain toxic individuals and their spaces I have encountered. But I imagine subtle forms of this discourse are still at play on all scales.

I want to feel bad about what I do when I harm the community so that I want to do better for us all. But I don't want to feel bad about what I am or whole parts of my identity because that will just harm me and still do nothing for anyone else.

Only a nation to the extent pirates are traders, or the extent to which wearing someone else's clothes makes you someone else.

[–] CountryBreakfast@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

It's true. But I am sick to my stomach listening to conservatives taking the high road and feeling sorry for him. Why don't people want to destroy their enemies suddenly? It's like they loved him the whole time and all their death threats were just in good partisan fun. I don't want the left to end up in such a humiliating position that we can't wish harm and pain on this man. Not because it is salvation but because dignity is at stake and I want revenge for his life of crimes of I can't get justice.

[–] CountryBreakfast@lemmygrad.ml 28 points 1 month ago

I hear them all repeated by professionals and academics constantly. It's so exhausting.

Someone smiling at me while giving me the most dehumanizing, dismissive advice imaginable... I bet this person uses the term "nuerospicy" but refrains from saying the r-word.

Joe's pain is necessary and meaningful.

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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by CountryBreakfast@lemmygrad.ml to c/genzedong@lemmygrad.ml
 

Project 2025 is being used to legitimize the genocidal Democratic Party by threatening voters with the republican party.

I remember reading somewhere that Project 2025 is sponsored in part by Democrat friendly donors. Am I making this up? I can't find this information again and it is disappointing now that the pressure on people to vote for genocidal candidates seems to be escalating.

I though of it as similar to how in 2016 Trump and Ted Cruz were "elevated" in the media at the behest of the Hillary campaign, believing it would make Hillary look good. I have met blue dogs that admit this and stand by it as a good strategy, so the idea that democrats are also sponsoring Project 2025 seems very believable to me.

Does anyone else remember reading that Dems are also sponsoring Project 2025 in some capacity?

Edit: this article speaks a bit to what I'm talking about

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/project-2025-liberal-donors/

 

Peace and solidarity with the United American Indians of New England, and to all of the sovereign Tribes accross the continent as we all observe the National Day of Mourning. The multicentury assault on the Indigenous world cannot claim victory, genocide is not the end of the story, but we must remember those who have been lost to settler invasion. Today is a time to reject settler myths that distort history, to reflect on our social positioning and relationships with the many peoples of this land, and to imagine brighter futures without the destructive structures of settler-colonialism and capitalist accumulation. This leaves no room whatsoever for giving thanks to the alter of death which birthed an abomination that has plagued the earth for far too long. Solidarity and reciprocity with the hundreds of millions of Indigenous peoples accross the world is of critical importance for building the coalitions we need to survive and thrive in a post apocalyptic world.

 

No clue how some of you try to track the events of major conflicts. It just all seems like a stew of piss and vomit designed to spread disease. I can hardly read the NYT, guardian, wapost, etc. at all, much less read their war coverage. War itself is bad enough but adding in the perspectives of western analysts is just masochistic. I never want to hear a liberal of any kind mention hamas ever again. Im so sick of the measured intellectuals and their gratuitous condemnations of #violence ever again.

 
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submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by CountryBreakfast@lemmygrad.ml to c/genzedong@lemmygrad.ml
 

And before someone thinks I shouldn't hate people, I think Kyle Kulinski and his associates aren't persons so much as they are a media business brand enabled by other corporate brands like youtube and the Democratic Party. It pains me greatly that people consume these brands and turn into consumers of what I see as American apologetics.

Anyway that's all. I hate the prison of American political discourse and its prison guards like Kyle.

 

Im not going to pull punches on this rant. I am so exhausted by this rhetoric and unfortunately it is pervasive in my personal life and online. I spend most of my productive time reviewing literature on various global issues. Namely land grab discourse, genocide studies, conservation efforts, state development policy, IFI reports etc etc.

Let me tell you something about the lives of rural and Indigenous people in the global south. They get their homes burned down and murdered in their sleep. Their lands are stolen from them with techniques perfected by colonial powers, especially from US settler colonialism.

The state will steal their lands and "preserve it" for use of private capital, for white settlers, or to create a national park or preserves that wealthy foriegners can hunt game and so they can parade to the world how "modern" they are becoming.

If they cannot steal land outright they will use other more complicated manners to incentivise rural people to be tied into market relations, such as dependence on ecotourism or even biochar and other technologies presented as liberatory or as needed due to damages colonialism has done. "A bit of colonialism will help your colonialism problem," if you will.

These relations will contradict and then corrode their lifeways and distracted from effective traditional methods because white tourists don't want to see the cattle of pastoralists when on vacation. They are also shamed by the excess wealth of tourists, and the settlers that facilitate tourism, encouraging them to become more enfranchised into modernity so their lands will either become vulnerable to direct theft or the market relations will mold them into what settlers want them to do for the benifit of their estates.

These extreme minority settlers often own like half of an entire county, while the county next door is over half conservation area. This means fewer lands for grazing and fewer water sources available for rural people. It leads to starvation and death, especially during dry periods such as the current drought in east Africa, all while the state concern trolls about food security and executes the development dance to attract aid and FDI. It also means that lands are degraded by over use because these people are being choked out of their ancestral lands. The state and white settlers then blame the pastoralists and forest dwellers and weaponize Human Rights against them, saying the rural peoples are preventing the states quest for water security as they redirect all waters to metro areas and settler estates.

All of this is the genocidal process of primative accumulation or accumulation by dispossession. It is a privilege I am able to research these situations. It is a privilege that I am able to work with organizations that work with local Tribes on the issues they are concerned about. It is a privilege I am a grad student that is paid to do this, although our union has to fight the university for a fraction of a living wage.

I am not privileged to not vote Blue. It is more like a curse of understanding. Who do you think backs these violent efforts of dispossession? USAID is never far away. The EU is never far away. The IFI are always right there. Conservation as we know it was created in North America to conquer the continent and take the land from Indigenous peoples and it has exported these methods abroad. All of this is supported by institutions and policies that democrats and republicans alike believe in and enable globally. It is supported by finance capital which is the foundation of the present democratic party

Let me tell you what people who vote blue do about this. Kenya or some other post colonial state will massacre people and burn down their homes and create a national park. Netflix will then hire Obama to narrate a docuseriese on the glorious national parks of the world. Blue voters will then consume the erasure and genocide of rural people as feel-good, green(TM) content with satisfaction that the world is becoming a better place. That's it. Then they go vote blue.

Anyone who says I am privileged to not vote blue has no clue or no care regarding how the world works and is a combination being hopelessly US centric, too focused on bourgeoisie partisanship and embarrassingly naive about the world. Voting blue is the opposite of solidarity. The people who say they are not privileged enough to not vote Blue fail to see their own privilege of living in the Disney land of the global north. What ever gains they think Democrats will give them will either never happen or will be cut from the flesh of people they are happy to sacrifice.

I will not be extorted by bourgeoisie partisans. My moral worth and political identify is mine to create, not theirs to demand. My concern is with the fundamental machinations of capital and the devestating impact it has on people while it reproduces itself, and it is most destructive in places far from the minds of democrats regardless of issues in the US. I'm not going to be tricked into supporting a party that enables the process of accumulation by dispossession, and that stands on a foundation of genocide. They only have moral arguments but they do not have moral standing.

 

I only care about lemmygrad.ml which as far as I know is where the comrades are. Yall are great. I came here to spew word vomit in consentrated bursts to get 3 up votes at a time. I am blissfully ignorant of technology issues or whatever the hell people are on about with reddit nowadays. I would like to avoid the normcore libs and porn distributors that are flooding the site. I use reddit for cyber bullying those types but here is like a sort of home base.

How do I keep these worlds from colliding?

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submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by CountryBreakfast@lemmygrad.ml to c/genzedong@lemmygrad.ml
 

I was a captive audience to someone talking about how some countries only had access to China's vaccine. They said the vaccine was terrible and people took it and still got COVID.

But like.... I took American vaccines and still got COVID...

...and over a million people in the US died of COVID, some of whom where vaccinated with US subsidized, corporate vaccines.

It was brought up because others were talking about global inequality during the pandemic. So having to take the subpar sinovac was apparently all part of global inequalities.

I hate talking about COVID and I feel like it's so distracting and people try to make everything about COVID because it's so easy to do. Maybe that is just a hot take but this argument that sinovac sucks because people still contracted COVID is at best a really lazy way to try to say US vaccines are better.

Also the same person implied masking prevents people from contracting the virus... instead of preventing you from spreading it to others like was repeated ad nasium by medical representatives for 2 years straight.

 

Probably one of the most complex builder games out there

 

Not sure if this has been posted on lemmy yet but I was so excited to see Roland on Ben Norton's podcast yesterday. His work has been instrumental to how I see the PRC. If you can get ahold of his book I would highly recommend.

 

Basically US oil and gas is becoming more associated with Europe

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