Pity American firms in China

y tho

I hope he never has an unstressed day for the rest of his life. And I hope it’s a short life. Fascist fuck.

I can’t think of any realistic situation in which the fate of the rulers does not rely on the complicity of the masses short of full AI army shenanigans.

Joining the war on drugs, on the side of drugs

I think the decline of misogyny is the reason. As it’s not as normalized as it once was, yet still a very powerful lingering thread in our culture, men are seeking validation for it where they would have otherwise found validation for misogyny, unasked for and unconditionally, in their everyday social circles in previous eras.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chinkiang

Explanation: In the mid-19th century, the British addiction to the dangerous drug known as ‘tea’ created a massive trade imbalance with Qing China. No, really. British taste for tea (and porcelain, and silk) caused an immense amount of silver to flow into China. Like any good merchant, the British simply figured out what good Qing China desired in turn in order to rectify this trade imbalance! Unfortunately, China had little interest in allowing British consumer goods into their markets, and Chinese elites had little taste for British artisan goods.

Luckily, the British stumbled on opium as a desirable trade good! And with their control over India, the Brits set to growing opium in massive amounts and flooding China’s markets with it!

For obvious reasons, when it became apparent that Britain was becoming the trashiest world empire and basing their trade relations on drug dealing, Qing China was not pleased, and restricted imports to destroy the opium trade, the abundance of which had caused opium addiction to become widespread by the drastic drop in price by the increased supply.

Britain did not like this, and decided war was an acceptable solution to keep drug dealing to the Chinese. They won. Twice. And extorted some exorbitant concessions in addition to guarantees for their drug trade.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars

Always been a Clutch fan, but I’ve been listening to Three Golden Horns a lot the past few days.

Contrarianism. Being anti-“Popular Thing” just for the sake of being anti-“Popular Thing” marks you out as having no thoughts worth hearing out.

For an ENHANCED TV! It will always show you something beautiful 🙏

“Well, fascism was going to happen anyway because of The Material Conditions™, so it might as well happen as fast as possible”

The intense amount of propaganda in NK is necessary in order to maintain that control - and it is always a struggle between the public’s perception of reality and the ability of those in power to distort it. If there was no hope of the state being overthrown, there would be no need to struggle against the public’s perceptions of reality.

Authoritarian regimes are often enduring but brittle, like glass. They can last decades of storms and tempests without a single crack, but the right stress will shatter them in an instant.

A bit pricey if you aren’t paying USD

Wish I could claim credit for it, but I just stole it from much wittier folks.

… and what is the North Korean soldier pictured, instead?

It won’t mean anything. Whoever they pick will likewise be an incompetent fascist cretin, just like WhiskeyLeaks.

Welp, there goes my social credit. I guess it’s going to have an utterly idiotic name, though, like ‘PATRIOT POINTS’.

Probably. That kind of recycling/scavenging of building materials is very common practice before the modern day.

Even if cops were just a totally random selection of people from the general population, the fact that there is effectively little-to-no oversight, both in terms of law/institutions and in terms of social shame, means that anyone who isn’t a bastard before going in is extremely likely to become one, even absent all those other factors like cops becoming more insular and separated from the civilian population (“thin blue line”), the militarization of police (though no need for discipline, apparently), and sickened internal department policing cultures.

And cops are generally picked from a pool even less suitable than a totally random selection from the general population.

Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Frederick Douglas et al didn’t care; they were pragmatic.

“I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong,” - Frederick Douglass