A cartoon by Ron Cobb (1975), showing a shadow of US B-52 bomber above cratered landscape. Two people who look like Vietnamese peasants look up; one says “they’re having problems with their economy again.”
This is from 1975.
we have Schindler elevators in our apartment building, and this joke has gone through my head every day for years
The ruling class is in a permanent tax revolt, but not because its members fear higher taxes. They successfully evade taxes set at any level. What worries them is the proliferation of public goods, which tends to enhance the independence of the working classes.
I have never met anyone who is more adept at tracking every last cent they have than people who live or have lived in poverty
it is a skill developed out of necessity and it never leaves you
I was born in an Iranian prison. My parents were held in their jails. My uncles lie in their mass graves. Nothing you can tell me about the crimes of the Iranian regime that I haven't lived in blood and bone. That doesn't mean I want my people bombed, maimed, killed, their homes in ruins. If your vision of liberation comes only through the destruction of innocent lives, then it's not freedom you're after. Sahar Delijani, Iranian author
I am pro Iranian people. I stand with them against their own government’s repression AND against the imperial violence in the form of bombs dropped from the sky from Israel & the US who have already killed hundreds.
I support neither imperialism or dictatorship.
Sahar Delijani said it best:
So anyway I guess this is what it feels like to be one of the tiny humans running through the streets while the giant supervillain monsters are fighting by throwing passengers trains and apartment buildings at each other
Two photos. The first shows Catturd tweeting: Name one US inspired regime change that hasn't ended in absolute disaster The next tweet shows him posting an AI illustration of Khamenei turned into a pile of dust. It says "I'm eliminated."
Two tweets. The first shows Laura Loomer promoting her show, where she says "A message has been sent that we are not interested in going back to the way politics were prior to Donald Trump, prior to 2016. We don't want warhawks. We don't want any more Neocons. We want American First. Period. End of discussion." The next tweet says: Today is a great day. Our military is amazing. @PeteHegseth is an absolute killer. Now you see why the Deep State worked so hard against him. It’s great having a Sec War who has Infidel literally tattooed on his body. He actually gets it. God bless him.
Two tweets. The first shows Will Chamberlain tweeting: The Republican Party is no longer the party of regime change and endless wars. If you want to be its standard-bearer that is a non-negotiable position. The next tweet shows him posting "Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is dead." The tweet has a USA flag attached.
Two tweets. The first shows Gunther Eagleman tweeting: "Warmonger Lindsey Graham just rushed to Fox to advocate for U.S. involvement as soon as he could. He is also pushing for a US-backed regime change in Iran. I would like to renominate Graham to get a one-way ticket to the frontlines of every war he wants America involved in." There's an attached video of Graham speaking. The next shows Eagleman tweeting: UST IN! President Trump is HARD AT WORK all weekend after the massive strikes on Iran! He’s already on the phone with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte! Trump is a machine!" There's an attached video of a news segment about the war in Iran.
manufacturing consent through lowly paid influencers
Holds up
Arguably the hallmark of this stage of Trumpian fascist strategy is this assumption that they can implement fascist end tactics without ever really bothering to do the work of marketing them in a way that sells them as believable solutions to existing popular anxiety/anger.
the term “regime change” gives up the lie
the goal is the replacement of a hostile regime with a friendly one. they still want a regime in charge, still want an authoritarian government running things, they just want one that aligns with their interests
human lives are never part of the equation
so with the Paramount fascist failson buying up Warner Brothers + CNN etc, they’re also gonna own DC Comics and everything that entails
expect a Superman comic reboot next year in which Lex Luthor is a jewish billionaire behind the Great Replacement
what the hell did I just read
I was recently reminded of a Suzy Izzard routine which can be summarized as "Hitler spent his honeymoon in a ditch and on fire"
and I feel like I want to have that as a calligraphy print on the wall or something as a reminder
I am an anticapitalist and as such I struggle daily with the soft warm glow I feel towards Costco as a corporate institution
Fond memories of working at NTL, woman rang up screaming at me. Her husband in background shouts at her, “don’t talk to them like that. They’re on fuck all”
Then he takes phone off her, and gives me a line which I have used myself since
“Do you have a manager you dislike intensely I can speak to?”
fascists believe in nothing but the accumulation of power. what was said yesterday is forgotten the moment is it inconvenient for today
to the unbroken soul, this looks like hypocrisy. but for a fascist mind, this behavior is as natural and instinctive and genuine as an ant following a scent trail
Once again, the correct and obvious answer to "Will you vote for Gavin Newsom for president in November 2028?" is as follows:
"I will not, because he will not be the Democratic nominee."
It never ceases to confound me just how many folks think the point of essays is to provide teachers with essays. That teachers just like, collect them, or need them for sustenance or something. Rather than the point of them being the *actual fucking act of learning how to think about shit*
cohost was the most relevant website to ever exist. that's why it couldn't last
if IRC gets properly modernized because of the incompetence of Discord et al, holy shit
The AI bros (who clearly don't understand AI) in the comments are hilarious. "ask stupid questions, get stupid answers". LLMs have no concept of how intelligent a question is, and they certainly were not designed to deliberately give stupid responses if they deem your question too stupid. 1/?
watching videos of older video games where you need to rescue the president's daughter, these all sure hit different now
People glaze over the whole “Peter Thiel and his friends literally believe poor people should be turned into biodiesel” thing WAY too often.
the hardware in a Lat 5420 should still be well-supported. I've got Debian running on a handful of systems going back as far as 4th gen Intel and everything works
supporting a Debian-based distro was literally my job for a while, so if you run into problems, feel free to tag or DM me or whatever
as others have said, Debian Stable (aka "Trixie") is a good choice here if stability is the goal. you might not get the _most_ modern software, but it has recent desktop environments, Firefox ESR, etc. it still uses apt+deb for system packages and can be easily set up to use Flatpak on top of it
ever since the 90s my answering machine/voicemail message has been “hey, this is [meatname], you know what to do”
and I just now realized that we no longer live in a world where I can assume that’s true
Capitalists dont get excited about technology they are excited about the profits that technology brings. The main group of people that are truly excited about the advancement technology can bring human well being and its capacity to remove or reduce certain difficult tasks are socialists
