Elysium

I appreciate the incredibly pedant hair-splitting over the difference between a suffix and a word, but my point was this suffix is real and shouldn't be underlined as if it's misspelled.

Thus, Tim Apple must still stand trial for his crime.

I mean, as a Burger, I had someone from Sarajevo basically tell me she hates all Americans and especially anyone who was ever in the US military. I wasn't fully aware of US/western intervention and influence in the Balkans back then, so I didn't understand the resentment. I asked her and she told me about growing up seeing her country destroyed. All you can really say to something like that is "Oh... I understand then."

We actually became friends after that. She was a bio student like me at the time and knew a lot of interesting stuff from the Soviet times. I would ask her to tell me more about her country, and she would ask me about...guns. Valuable cultural exchange?

This is more than likely some sort of clickbait based on how irrationally annoyed I feel (my internal "Am I being fucked up?" meter), but no one should be doing "To catch a predator"-"esque" sting operations. Esque (not a real word according to Apple. Thanks, Tim (it is)) in quotes because calling it such sort of implies a similar dynamic of "adult seeking obvious child" for sexual reasons. Or other inappropriate relations... which is basically any relations between some stranger and a child. Two adults meeting is not "to catch a predator" unless the 18 year old was pretending (as they did on the original show) to be underage. Like 14 or something. Then, ok. But that's not represented here.

Beyond that, random, private citizens have absolutely no business doing this type of stuff. It's debatable if even the fucking cops/FBI, in cooperation with skilled professionals, should even be doing this stuff. Certainly not for anyone's "entertainment." If there is a legitimate predator problem amongst the general population that justifies stings like this, then the appropriate law enforcement agencies can/should handle it. They can announce the stats from the stings afterwards. We don't need some Chris Hansen type lecturing a creepy 42 year old munching on pizza who thought he was going to meet a 14 year old girl from AOL instant messenger. I understand it's "funny" or mostly just shocking to see such footage, but still, some things just shouldn't be made.

Also, most sexual assault of children is done by people they trust. Family members or close family friends. It's not common that a stranger from the internet is the perpetrator. Also, cops are a huge percentage of abusers. If these types of "pedo stings" (which this doesn't appear to be... given only this headline) wanted to be effective they'd just wait for cops to arrive and search the cops' shit. Statistically, that would turn up more evidence of wrongdoing than luring random dumbasses (who are gross, for the record. Doesn't need to be stated...)

Anyway, all that said, the media tying this to a TikTok trend which I've heard of exactly twice makes me think this was a tiny, isolated, still very stupid and bad, incident. So, in short... I got clickbaited

Images, I'm unsure of. There are possibly a few examples out there.

As far as words go, or direction given to the propagandists by the head propagandist (Goebbels of course), there's a lot of scholarship on the direction of the Nazi propaganda, specifically anti-USSR propaganda, after the Germans were defeated at Stalingrad. In one of the orders or whatever "Bolshevist hordes" are mentioned as a subject to focus on. Also "Asiatic hordes." Asiatic being the term the Nazis liked to use for Russians

(Speculation) I feel like creating images of giant, "Bolshevist hordes" might have been problematic in the wake of the war-changing loss. If you're the Nazi artists you wanna depict the Germans as having the overwhelming odds in battle. Not like "smol bean" Nazi divisions getting stomped by "hordes" of Soviets. Even if your intent is to say "look at the vast mindless army!" you're still crediting your enemy with having a vast army. That's my only thought as to why there aren't that many images and the rhetoric seems to been on paper. Although I don't have a mental encyclopedia of Nazi propaganda posters... it's very possible someone did draw something depicting basically zombies wandering towards Germany or something with Stalin in the back mind controlling them (or whatever the "infinite depths" of Nazi imaginations could come up with)

Sure would be a shame if China started making Cuba-USSR style pacts with South American countries. Not necessarily nuclear exchange (although... ) but agreements to send carriers and stuff to just kinda chill in the Caribbean or whichever ocean is convenient depending on country

America is constantly claiming the right to meddle in the pacific, South East Asia generally, and even in Central Asia with Pakistan and such. Taste of their own medicine if someone meddles in the Caribbean Sea

Or derogatory towards their "superiors"?

I'm not entirely familiar with the internal hierarchy of ROTC, but I have gotten the impression that people take their roles... a bit too seriously at times. Like they think they're in the real military and not just a college kid LARPing (essentially)

I could imagine a "less committed" member. Perhaps someone whose dad is paying tuition and was a military officer tells their kid to be in ROTC to have that door open for them. The kid is just there so Dad keeps paying the bills, and they hate the upperclassmen who walk around telling the junior members to, whatever, shave their face or stop skipping PT... whatever ROTC kids yell at each other about. So they call them "raht-see naht-sees."

Some people even pronounce it like "rot-see" (more commonly just the letters are said)

There are no coincidences 🤔 except when there are 🤔

Honestly haven't looked into it that far. I agree with you though

It's absolutely wild that the DNC emails which proved internal corruption at the DNC between the top democrats and the media... are considered more important to the US than trying to forcefully suppress the videos of mass murders happening by US military.

Also kind of expected since liberals will tell you, straight faced, that the video of them killing the Reuters reporters and the other people "wasn't a war crime." "... uh, how isn't it?" Would be the first question from basically everyone with a brain. "Because the US said they were terrorists." Oh. Ok.

So, it just seems to me that those in charge view the war crimes videos as "settled" and not negative for the US. While they see the email stuff as an ongoing, never ending source of annoyance for the DNC/Hillary/MSM and so it needs to stomped down. Obviously the emails are already out for years now and not much they can do about that, but it does say and show so much of what is wrong with these people's brains. They'd rather some video of Hillary personally executing a Libyan child came out and be subsequently explained away by the CIA as justified than ever have to talk about how the media fed her questions before debates ever again. Just totally twisted people. That's how I read it anyway.

Analyzing right/left dynamics in this way seriously requires a full and total ignorance or misunderstanding of everything. Willful, purposeful, ideologically driven ignorance I'd argue (in most cases).

It also totally deletes discussion of class (this is why I said it's done purposely- of course capitalists want to delete that discussion altogether). It boils everything down to "Is the state exerting power somewhere?" "Is that force justified?" This effectively equates suppressing capitalist/liberal ideas like private property ownership being sacred and actually where value flows from (business owners- which hurts my brain even typing bc it's so dumb, but moving on) to, I dunno, police coming and killing striking workers because a private owner demanded the strike end. Both of these are examples of authoritarianism, the state exerting force on individuals to force an outcome, but one is in the interest of workers/society as a whole, and the other is in the interest of a handful of owners. Under the bullshit definition some want to push, the class aspect doesn't matter, all that matters is someone was forced.

When neoliberals know they've got no answer to questions around class and legitimacy of private property, they just change the definitions to fit whatever they need. Convenient and not unexpected

This is bad obviously because some random peace kid is gonna go their life fucked

However, this also means that (probably) the protests are putting a shitload of pressure on these Nazi ghouls to drop Zionism. If it wasn't working, if it was easily ignored or whatever, they wouldn't even acknowledge the protests. As they've done for almost 4 months now.

Gotta pump those protest numbers. Time to look into the next DC mass protest.

Being a landlord is just about the last accessible route available to people to move from worker to capitalist. It’s being squeezed though by the bigger capitalist and soon, probably, it’ll be totally just like all other commodities and exist only within the realm of giant corporations, hedge funds and such.

Not that this justifies being a landlord. Just an observation of why they all lose their absolute shit when called out on their parasitic behavior (which they often project onto their victims).

Also, as one of those lucky, privileged few who are under 40 and own a house (“own” feels weird because there’s a loan involved, but, that’s the word!) I can’t help but chime in on this topic since I actually know they’re full of shit.

Everyone loves real numbers, so, here’s some real numbers. I’ll round just for readability.

My monthly mortgage which includes my home loan, home insurance, and property taxes is $900. Sewer/trash, which SOME landlords pay (probably only because the city/townships would eat their asses if they didn’t pay somehow so they make sure it gets handled), adds another $67-ish a month.

“BUT THE DISASTERS AND IMPROVEMENTS!” I can hear the landlords crying from far off.

I’ve had two of the “worst”, I suppose, replacement scenarios already come my way. Had to install a new HVAC system and a new sewer line. Oh the joys of learning that, somehow, the pipe that flows your shit out is your problem when it stops flowing so good.

Long story short, the HVAC full install and all the stuff was about $14K. The sewer (which involved a lot of digging! Which isn’t cheap apparently) was like $20K all said. These two projects of necessity were done within months of each other. I was very sad. But you handle this shit pretty easily in the US… just take more debt!

It’s worth noting HVAC systems generally are expected to last minimum of 10 years but not much more than 15 and MAYBE 20 if you get lucky + take care of all of it perfectly. So I expect that $10K to pay for 15 years in my mind. Sewer lines can vary depending on type of construction and unforeseen events (no trees near my line though so roots won’t get me). I had a technique called “pipe bursting” done where, tdlr, new pipe is quite literally forced via high pressure inside the old pipe underground causing the old pipe to basically “burst” around it and you end up with new pipe without digging nearly as much. It’s pretty cool. The dudes doing the work, who I trust more than salesman and owners, said it’s supposed to last like 50 years same as the old stuff. So I mentally drag that massive expense over a time probably longer than my life will be.

So adding those massive but rare things to my payments and factoring in how long they’ll last, etc. I’d say the HVAC is about an extra $100/month and sewer line is about $40.

And of course there will be things like the roof needing replaced, appliances, etc. I’m around $1200 in “real costs” calculations but I could have fun and lump on more. Make it $2000 a month which is, coincidentally, approximately the cost to rent a house like mine near me. Note: it does not cost me that much! I just added $800 of hypothetical but not real bullshit. Some of it could be legit, but $800/month worth? No.

Oh, also, two more things. Inflation generally benefits homeowners. My mortgage will always have the same payment based on the principle + interest. Taxes go up, insurance goes up. But those two are insignificant in relation to the loan and interest payments. So, over time, especially when talking about decades and eventually outright owning the home(!) it gets CHEAPER, relatively, to own the house! Something landlords often neglect to mention.

Just to explain this with numbers:

My approximate “full cost” per month is $1200. From year 2000 until now (23.5 years approximately) that inflation has been 77.5%. Which means, doodoodoo compute the figures… $1200 in 2000 is equivalent to $2130 now. Hmm. And inflation has been a predictable factor over the last century or so. Will it continue to make owning so appealing? Maybe. Maybe not. It kinda has to though if the capitalists expect to keep this system going. It’s baked into the equation.

I don’t remember my other point, but, here’s a different one. Homeownership allows communities to exist. Real ones. Renting destroys in the same way. Intended or not, and I’d personally say it was unintentional but highly beneficial for capitalists, it results in more alienation from one another as humans, degradation of all social interactions, and thus the cycle feeds itself as communities don’t exist to fight capital. People only live somewhere for a year or two- what do they care about a nearby river? Liberals would love to lay blame on renters: “JUST BUY A HOUSE!” Without accepting the reality that people simply can’t.

I rented for 15 years. It fucking sucks. It SUCKS. All I wanted for the last 1/3 or so of that 15 was to not owe money monthly to my asshole landlord and his wife who would both come over every month to “catch up on things.” But really he just wanted to make sure I wasn’t smearing shit on his precious white walls. It wasn’t such a big deal, but as a full-ass grown-ass man, having another grown-ass adult come make sure I made my bed and didn’t take an axe to the bathroom (yet) was an untenable (un-tenantable? Heh) situation and not the first one I had been in.

So, alllllllll that shit said, my only remaining points are: fuck landlords, get real jobs. And also, we should have publicly available, adequate to the population, free, high quality housing. Literally just build and give people houses. Not me. I don’t expect a free fucking house. I already have one! It’s absurdly gross to me to see the wastefulness of this country and the GREED from people. People would rather send bombs to other countries than build free houses to ensure their neighbors have security in their lives. I don’t want to live in a world where homelessness is “a necessity.” I don’t even want to live in a world where landlords are allowed to exist. I just fucking hate these parasites so much and how much they have to explain and explain and explain to justify in their minds their continued existence. There is no justification, and if there is any divine retribution in another life or world, these people will find plenty coming their way. I’d also gladly like to see that retribution received in this life as well.