MolotovHalfEmpty

joined 4 years ago

No. This is primarily the state desperately playing whac-a-mole against majority public sentiment. There's basically a club of like 300-500 people in media/politics with a constituency of online racists who also hate their guts who support this stuff and just scream showers of shite about it 24/7.

[–] MolotovHalfEmpty@hexbear.net 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I wrote something that was entirely too revalealing and justifying but...

That boat has already sailed, been hit by drones by the IDF, and sank.

I absolutely don't mean that there's been an increase in antisemitism (if anything more people are interested in the difference) but Israel has increasing fucked it in my experience.

The kneejerk reaction to "antisemitism" now in my experience is a jagoff whether on a small or a serious level. And while it's problematic it's also... Correct

It's not gone down well. They've locked everything. But old contacts from music mag stuff who are turbo-libs have been in touch going "they should sell it now" before they devalue the brand too much but also because they think they've tanked the outsider status even if Glasto will obviously keep being hugely popular and popular.

[–] MolotovHalfEmpty@hexbear.net 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

It's not though. The first two paragraphs are exactly what Id expect. The deliberate (but deliberately written by lawyers to avoid libel countersuits) conflation of antisemitism & hate speech (terms that from an institution can be used against them in court) is extremely deliberate.

Emily Eavis is sat on a £250m+ brand..

If she has to kill some of that credibility, even saw off some cultural importance, she can bail and make absurd amounts of money.

It's not empty. It's a confession for the future.

[–] MolotovHalfEmpty@hexbear.net 68 points 2 days ago

God, was it only five years ago. I feel like I've been here foreverchomsky-yes-honey

Yeah, I just meant part of the reason I haven't checked out the new ones is I keep just being satisfied dipping into the originals.

[–] MolotovHalfEmpty@hexbear.net 19 points 2 days ago

I really don't think most people appreciate just how deep and insidious the tentacles of Palantir (as the forward troops for technofascism) are.

[–] MolotovHalfEmpty@hexbear.net 23 points 3 days ago (1 children)

You should. I've been saying they're one of the best and most based bands for years. The tabloid press are gonna shit when they start digging into their catalogue.

I had a similar experience and even at the end I love the fact that you can just go back to the 'point of no return' so easily and make different decisions to play them out.

[–] MolotovHalfEmpty@hexbear.net 39 points 3 days ago

Police are already investigating them and Kneecap on the (Israeli) government's demand.

The state is gonna double down on the crackdowns and hope the lack of a venue for expression on this scale will help -- (they're already writing the Palestine Action proscription to be a backdoor for banning any pro-Palestinian imagery or speech if they want) -- but anti-Israel sentiment has broken containment from just lefties and critical news watchers. I had older relatives message me this weekend saying that Israel "needs to stay out of our fucking business" and that if the government has a problem with people "saying stuff like this maybe they should just stop helping kill innocent people".

Bob Vylan have always been top drawer so this was the least surprising thing ever, but very cool to see them getting the attention they deserve from music fans.

[–] MolotovHalfEmpty@hexbear.net 2 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I haven't to be honest. I came to Monster Train kind of late and find myself going back to Steamworld Heist every year or so and it still feeling satisfying and fresh so when I've had time I've experimented with the other Steamworld games. Haven't found one that's stuck for me like heist though.

I love all things mushrooms so once I've (finally) had my full of the first one I'll check it out.

 

They're based in Georgia and do other stuff too, but I just thought these were neat.

 

Since according to Bill Ackman the presence of a place you can buy eggs without a 100% markup is going to plunge NYC instantly into a Mad Max / Escape from New York style hellscape, what gangs are we all joining?

Personally I'm thinking the one of slightly sexy cultists who worship bodega cats.

How about you comrades?

 

One of the actionists who shut down and Israeli arms supplier has written an article that's at once a defense of their actions and a call to action.

It's a good read and comes as the government is trying to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist group, which would allow the state to imprison people for up to 14 years for supporting the group.

 

A silly (but biting) sketch for a dark time.

Also, Hexbears have taken the Amerikkkan moonbase:

 

Hexbear salutes our bee comrades for their praxis and sacrifice!

rat-salute kim-salute chavez-salute deng-salute sankara-salute fidel-salute-big fidel-salute maduro-salute rosa-salute rat-salute-2

 

There's an enormous media and social media push at the moment to lionize the two Israeli embassy 'diplomats' killed. Everything from tearjerking jagoff stories about how he'd just proposed to the more prominent and seemingly constructed narrative that he was at this event trying to 'help' the situation in Gaza and 'talk about how to get aid to Palestinians'.

That's a fucking lie. He was exactly the sort of fucking ghoul you'd expect. And we can tell this in part because they haven't scrubbed his Twitter or all of his articles yet (although Google results state that a number of results for him have been removed under the EU 'right to be forgotten' law, so no doubt it's underway).

First of all, he was a German-Israeli citizen who volunteered who seems to have volunteered for the IDF.

Secondly, according to people he'd worked with and studied under, he was a Christian Zionist with a rabid love for the Israeli political project in particular.

His views were as you'd expect. A vile, smug, hasbara operative who spent both his personal and professional time spreading genocide apologia, barefaced Israeli lies, conspiracy theories about the UN, attacked & vilified aid organisations before & after Israel killed their workers, and rejected international law when the ICC & ICJ didn't tow the line.

Right up to the final hours before he was killed, he was retweeting statements denying starvation Gaza and calling it 'blood libel'.

Was he fuck working on aid solutions. He was an ideological Zionist fascist and a genocidal freak who had fun helping to perpetuate it. He should be remembered as such.

 

Wait, we are?

Looks at my Friday (almost) clocking-off time bottle of 0% alcohol beer, uncooly.

columbo-donk

 

I have no idea why this tweet appeared at the top of my feed today, but since it did I thought I'd share.

(CW! Ableism/R-slur in Tweet)

Angelica Oung is a Taiwanese neoliberal "China Watcher" online who churns out anti-China content and was apparently embarrassingly starstruck by the Halo mask YouTube guy. Only she (and others judging by the responses) are now saddened by the fact that Noah Smith has turned out just to be a racist idiot who publicly accuses them of having been turned by Chinese spies if they suggest a source that has anything to do with China, even on other subjects, and who'd get mad and bullying if they didn't support his completely made up conclusions.

Full tweet below:

SMH, Noah, I thought we were friends.

Let’s rewind: the year was 2020 and I was a little no-name business reporter from the Taipei Times tweeting out my articles and takes. Noah Smith reached out on DMs to chat. Followed me a retweeted a few times. I was star struck! Wow! Noah Smith noticed lil ol me! I just about doubled my follower count!

My friends in LA were so excited I was noticed by public intellectual Noah Smith. Wow, Angelica! You really made it! Do you think you’ll get to meet him? Oh sure, I replied. He’s very interested in Taiwan. When he comes to visit and I think he will, I’ll be his one-woman welcoming committee.

Noah did reach out frequently to ask questions on Taiwan, but increasingly it seemed to me that he was asking for confirmations for his pet theories and would be vaguely annoyed if I don’t affirm them. Importing massive quantities of Vietnamese mercenaries to defend Taiwan? I dunno Noah. Are Vietnamese mercenaries a thing? What about the language barrier?

There’s a Peter Zeihan-like quality about Noah. He seems really smart on things I knew nothing about and gradually became more ignorant as he approaches my area of expertise (Taiwan and energy). Still…I was astonished that he blocked me when I pushed back in public on the idea that all you need for a modern grid is solar and batteries.

That’s fine. At some point he unblocked me cuz we were invited to the same conference. And I was always careful not to get blocked again until he was asking for good sources on India/Pakistan last week and I said a lot of the sinosphere accounts have been good and early.

His responded with “I’m going to go back through your tweets to find out exactly when you got turned.” And then I got blocked…again.

I’m sure Noah wasn’t the only one who blocked me or I lost credibility with because I’ve compromised my integrity by passing on “Chinese propaganda.” I don’t know to what extent I’m cancelled, but I do notice a very different lineup of regular commenters under my post these days. And that makes me sad.

Because the people who used to follow me and boost me when I was enthusiastically participating in Taiwan’s vapid COVID-era aura farming online are the ones who needs to read me now the most, or they’ll keep getting China wrong. But they won’t.

Hey! Peter Zeihan and Gordon Chang are still at it so I’m sure being chronically wrong on China won’t hurt Noah’s career either!

In a way, they’re more pathetic than grifters because at least grifters have agency. These guys don’t even know that they’re wrong…I think. Their natural removedation just so happens to fill the spiritual need of an anxious and arrogant west as they look to China’s rise.

 

Former guerrilla, teacher, philosopher, and President of Uruguay José ‘Pepe’ Mujica, has died aged 89. In musical memorium, here's 13 minutes of afrobeat featuring one of his speeches (excuse the automated translation):

We promise a life of waste and waste. Deep down, it is a countdown to nature and humanity. Civilization against simplicity, against sobriety, against all natural cycles, against all natural cycles

But worse

"civilization" against the freedom of having time to live from human relations the only thing transcendent: love, friendship, adventure, solidarity, family...

Today is the time to start fighting to prepare a world without borders

The globalized economy has no other drive than the private interest of very few

The great task for our peoples, in our humble way of seeing... is the whole

It would be imperative to achieve planetary consensus

To unleash solidarity towards the most oppressed

Tax-catching waste

And the speculation

Mobilize the great savings

Not to create disposable

With calculated obsoleence

But useful goods, no frivolities

To help lift the world's poorest

Yes, the high politics intertwined with wisdom

Our time is potentiously revolutionary

As you have not known the history of humanity

But he has no conscious driving.

Or less driving simply instinctive

Much less still

Organized political driving

Because we haven't even had precursor philosophies

We need to govern ourselves, or we succumb

This is our dilemma

Let's think about the underlying causes.

In the civilization of waste

In the civilization of insisting that what you are throwing away is time for wasted human life

Squandering on useless issues

Think of human life as a miracle

That we are alive by miracle

And nothing is worth more than life

And that it is our biological duty, and above all things

Respect life and drive it."

He certainly did.

 

Solidarity in finality that has lived in my head since their first record.

(Grumble: what is the point of prioritising yewtube if any yewtube URL gets flagged as invalid and unpostable by Hexbear?)

 

I did a silly thing while stuck on hold for over an hour at work.

 

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