CicadaSpectre

joined 2 years ago
[–] CicadaSpectre@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 1 day ago

Liberals would liken him to an "evil Chinese dictator" stereotype like they try to pretend him and Putin are "evil Stalin" stereotypes. Probably see memes of Trump as Mao, and a revival of anti-CPC discourse, but applied to Trump as "ruining America" or "selling us how to foreign powers" or "wanting to be authoritarian".

In all the ways that matter, nothing significant. He's a duplicitous bastard who can't be trusted, so he may talk nice about Xi for a week before going "he's not giving us Taiwan even though I asked nicely, what a tyrant" and going right back to anti-China warhawking. China certainly isn't going to do anything for him just because he showed up to a parade. No other country is going to change their views because of it. US rivals know the US is two-faced and vile, and Trump is the personification of it. US allies hate him for saying the quiet part out loud but jump when the US says "frog" anyway.

[–] CicadaSpectre@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

What is the name of the song?

[–] CicadaSpectre@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 2 weeks ago

I only have anecdotal evidence to support my views, but in short I don't believe most drugs are problematic in of themselves, especially if used moderately or for their intended purposes. Psilocybin, from my understanding, has a lot of medical potential, and I know several people who have used careful dosages for therapeutic and recreational purposes - and even the recreational case was more spiritual than just "let's get high". I know plenty of people who smoke weed responsibly, drink responsibly, use tobacco products responsibly. I, myself, drink very seldom, but over-consume soda, so I think there's something to say about different addictive substances having more weight with different people.

Now, all that said, I also personally know people who are too into drug culture, who try everything and anything and think there's no problem. I've argued with a stranger who said meth was the same thing as Adderall and should be legalized, that people only have problems with meth because they don't know how to use it responsibly. I've seen people act like Marijuana and Psilocybin are God's gift on Earth, the tools for enlightenment. I know people who got hooked on Marijuana, overindulging on it, and showing the same "I don't have a problem" attitudes and withdrawal symptoms of coffee addicts, or began showing other, more troubling symptoms.

So, to me, I think a large part of the problem is our culture, in several ways. Misinformation, criminalization, demonization, which leads to a reaction of more misinformation and glorification. Most of those people I know who had problems with drugs were suffering intense levels of social and financial stress, looking for a way out. The people I know who responsibly use drugs are in pretty stable situations, with family who can help them if things go poorly. From my perspective, capitalism makes drugs - like so many other things - more hazardous and problematic than they need to be.

But this is all anecdotal, as I said.

[–] CicadaSpectre@lemmygrad.ml 11 points 2 weeks ago

PSL says "anticommunism is the unofficial religion of America" and it's true. Both major parties claim the other is communist, because to many Americans, communism is just the equivalent of Satanic.

[–] CicadaSpectre@lemmygrad.ml 19 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

What annoys me is how blatantly constructed the narrative is to try and convince Americans that Trump is a foreign and unique threat, and only by continuing arming Israel and Ukraine can you truly show your opposition to Trump and other "tyrants".

I looked into 50501 to try and get a feel for their platform, since these protests were suspiciously well-advertised and didn't seem to say much beyond "Trump bad". All I can find are the usual Democrat talking points: vague promises of civil rights and justice, punctuated by an explicit promise to arm Ukraine and Israel and support them no matter what. Well, Ukraine is explicitly mentioned, Israel is implied.

I've also noticed the narrative keeps trying to focus on the imagery of a military parade as "authoritarian", when it's not inherently so. Media, influencers, and protesters keep comparing Trump to Mao and Stalin, and the whole of the Democrats' messaging has been giving very big "what are we, a bunch of Asians?" energy.

Protestors, thankfully, aren’t really out there for 50501's platform; they're there in solidarity for immigrants and Palestine as well as being anti-Trump.

But yeah, they have been more insufferable than ever lately. Tbh, I've talked to Trump supporters whose heads aren’t as far up their asses.

[–] CicadaSpectre@lemmygrad.ml 25 points 2 weeks ago

But saying "No Clowns" will alienate our allies like Ukraine 😔

[–] CicadaSpectre@lemmygrad.ml 15 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Okay, I'm glad I'm not the only person put off by this. 50501 and the "No Kings" movement has been rubbing me the wrong way, and being unable to quite describe why had me second guessing myself.

[–] CicadaSpectre@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 3 weeks ago

Western history for sure, but I imagine Russia, China, and most of the world will recognize the truth. It just sucks for us stuck living in the empire.

[–] CicadaSpectre@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 3 weeks ago

Iirc, didn't Hitler also say something to the effect that if Germans lost to the USSR, they deserved to be killed wholesale? Fash really do expect total annihilation for one side or the other, and seem to take peace as an opportunity only to try again later. It's disgusting.

[–] CicadaSpectre@lemmygrad.ml 14 points 3 weeks ago (6 children)

The objective, I believe, is just to make it as grizzly, bloody, and awful as possible, because they have the full backing of Western media. The history books (in the West, anyway) will blame all of it on Russian aggression, and this narrative will be driven into everyone who will listen, in every region they can get their slimy tentacles into.

It's been their game plan all along, as we all know. From the very beginning they intentionally put artillery next to active schools, hid their soldiers in school buses and ambulances, and did everything in their power to maximize their own civilian death tolls, knowing Western media and audiences would blame Russia for every death that could have been easily avoided. These people are fighting for control of the region to remake it as they see fit, and for all their talk of nationalism and the Ukrainian people, they will gladly sacrifice the entire population if it lets them rule what's left to be "pure".

[–] CicadaSpectre@lemmygrad.ml 19 points 1 month ago

I remember about 5 years ago I saw a book titled Stalin's War in Barnes & Noble here in the U.S. Until that point, I'd only ever heard the "Stalin and the USSR were actually responsible for WWII, Hitler was a natural reaction to Bolshevism" from neo-Nazis. Then, there it was, as pop history available in a very public format, presented as historical fact, with no competing narratives. Every other "history" text they had there about socialist countries was the usual "communism is when bad", but this was the first time I'd seen it taken further than horseshoe theory or lesser of two evils.

All this to say we're not arriving at a new step. It's just they're finally rewriting reality more Westerners might be familiar with. Right-wing fringe has steadily been integrated into the mainstream for awhile now. Maybe even longer than I've noticed.

[–] CicadaSpectre@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 1 month ago

That makes sense.

 

I'm an emergency certified teacher for geography in middle school in the US. Our textbooks are most odious propaganda I've ever had to witness, and I just can't deal with it. I managed to swing some alternative sources when we covered Eastern Europe and Western Russia, and when we covered China, but now we're going over Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Russia.

The textbook is just vile. Takes any opportunity to overrepresent every negative aspect of socialist countries in ways obvious to people like us, but innocuous to children. I've been struggling to balance my lessons in a way that teaches the regions, but isn't brainrot. Some of the stuff I can let slide and use the textbook for, but anything Soviet related is written in an insanely biased way.

We have to rush through the region to catch up to where other classes are, so I only need a few days' worth of material, but it's difficult to find things on YT that cover history of the region that's 1) easy for kids to understand, and 2) doesn't try and make the region out to be some kind of nightmare.

 

I'm painting a Stormcast army in an original color scheme, and I know so little about their organization. Do I need to invent a whole Stormhost for them, or can individual Chambers/Conclaves of a Stormhost have their own unique names, color schemes, etc.? I'm more familiar with 40K Astartes structures, or Chaos warbands. The military structure of the Stormcast sort of confuses me. I imagine Stormhosts are more like Astartes Legions, with individual Chambers varying in color schemes and character like the Astartes Chapters. Since AoS is very open to making your army your own.

I thought I saw something about a Chamber from one of the big Stormhosts that took on the symbols and colors of one of the Cities of Sigmar. I'd like to tie my Stormcast to my (hopefully) future Cities of Sigmar army, thematically and lorewise.

 

Last of the repaint 'Mechs I have so far, it's the Lyran Guards from the Lyran Commonwealth. A pretty popular color scheme and I can see why. The cyan and white really pop.

The Lyran Commonwealth is a German-coded faction with a heavy emphasis on mercantilism, to the point where their military suffers from "social officers" - officers who merely buy their ranks and positions, rather than based on their quality. At one point, the Lyran Commonwealth joins up with the Federated Suns to form the Federated Commonwealth, becoming the dominant power for awhile. War and internal divisions inevitably lead to them breaking apart, though.

I'm really happy with how these turned out, though. Very crisp. Some of my best work with any minis.

 

Second lance I repainted in canon colors: the Free Worlds Guards of the Free Worlds League. I went with which color schemes I liked best, not the best names.

The Free Worlds League is really more of a loose confederation of various duchies and individual worlds that united for mutual defense. They are, canonically, paralyzed by this lack of centralized leadership, with the various near-sovereign political bodies constantly bickering and countermanding each other. The only time the FWL can effectively unite is when House Marik, one of the setting's five Great Houses, takes over and forms a military junta. They're the most ethnically/religiously diverse of the Successor States, and are genuinely depicted as rather benign. Still ruled by nobility, and its constituent states range in practices and freedoms of its worlds.

Honestly know the least about this Great House/Successor State, and very little about this military unit. I just liked the color scheme.

 

Not Warhammer, but I'm hoping the community doesn't care. I didn't want to post to Lemmyworld, because BattleTech community is - like the Warhammer community - plagued with fans that can't see the issues with the franchise.

These are Death Commandos, an elite military unit that are loyal to the Chancellor of the Capellan Confederation. They are canonically very skilled and ruthless pilots, able to conduct secret missions and leave no survivors, be it as infantry or as MechWarriors.

I could (and probably will) make a post about everything I find wrong about the Capellan Confederation in due time, but to summarize: imagine if you combined every negative trait about Nazi Germany (but dial the racism back from "master race and genocide" to "our culture is dominant and people should look and act like us"), the military incompetence of fascist Italy, and the underhanded deception and sinister machinations of the US and UK (particularly the overreliance on deception, proxy wars, war crime-grade weapons, and subterfuge). Now, imagine if you coded the entire faction as Han Chinese/Russian. To top it all off, the leaders are genetically disposed to being insane, and incestuous, and they have a rigid caste system and a violent, evil Thugee cult (the cult the British made up to help justify brutalizing India; it's real in this setting, and members of the Capellan leadership follow it). And they call themselves socialist because centralized economy.

I could write a thesis paper about the Capellan Confederation and what it says about the creators, and the fanbase, but I'll save more ranting for another post. Suffice it to say, it's the biggest hurdle for leftists to enjoy the setting, and given the general libertarian bent of the fandom, that's not surprising. Would love it if more comrades could like it, too. Just like Warhammer: why should rightoids get all the fun?

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