lot of interesting stuff about cold war alliance juggling and the effects on relations between the US, russia, china, india and bangladesh with blunders that had massive consequences.
a few super intering bits i had no idea about and i'm just 40 mins in:
china and india couldve been enduring allies and been the opposing pole to the US today, fucked up by china surprise invading india for a small bit of disputed territory
india aligning with russia and distancing from the US due to the US ignoring pakistan's genocide in bangladesh (which was leading to millions of refugees to india), because nixon was using pakistan as a go between with china to get mao on side against russia. itself a realignment from russia and china seeing the US as a primary adversary after russia tries to get US permission to nuke china over border disputes.
the us pissing off pakistan by flipflopping on their agreements and withdrawing aid when pakistan tried to annex india controlled kashmir, (and them having allied in the first place pissing off india) leading eventually to US giving billions to pakistani intelligence which then funded insurgent in afghanistan against russia.
Awesome. 🎇 Proof anything can be made into a musical instrument when you know how. Music and all art comes from the same places, after all… the mind and the soul. The body merely performs tasks to make it tangible.
I'm sure I've made this point before, but there's a pervasive brand of internet lefty that can't seem to perceive art as anything other than propaganda, and if it doesn't register to them as propaganda that supports their politics, then it has to be propaganda against their politics.
Like when people argue whether warhammer 40k is fascist propaganda that says that fascism is good, or if it's actually a satire of fascist propaganda saying that fascism is bad. When it isn't really either of those things. That's not what it's going for and that's not what it's doing.
It's got satirical elements floating around in there in varying degrees depending on era and author, but the point of them isn't to instruct the audience whether fascism is bad - it's for drama, and mood, and weird interestingness, and humour, and all the other reasons why things are in art other than political and moral instruction. It portrays a bunch of fucked up stuff connected by in-setting circumstance and lets you make your own mind about it, or just let yourself think "damn that's fucked up" and leave it at that.
It's not even, like, complex, by almost any literary standard. It's the same thing with them being unable to understand marvel movies, literally the most accessible movies ever made, when they crack out the most basic #101 nuance for teenagers where a villain has a sympathetic motive or a hero makes a mistake, and they can't really understand it, thinking that because the villain has a sympathetic quality then the movie is trying to demonise that sympathetic quality, because they assume that the film is operating at the level of basic propaganda, when it's, like, even slightly above that.
And they talk so much about being Media Literate and the importance of Media Literacy, in a way that makes them vastly, vastly less capable of understanding media, crunching down all the myriad ways you can interpret things into the simplest and stupidest form of idea, which is so galling when you compare it to the *actual* form of Media Literacy, the beautiful gemstone with its thousand-and-one beautiful shimmering facets!
"That everyone has their perfectly fitting other? Like puzzle pieces?"
"No" I would sigh "We have many gloves that fit our hands perfectly, each different and special, none like the others"
"It's been years you see, that I've not been looking for girls, but for a woman. That I could listen to for hours. That I could understand with no effort. That I can count on like I count on my feet to carry me. That I could cherish and treasure better than I do myself. I am taking the bet that that's you, but even if it's not, this adventure is worth its while in present"
"So let us ride a thousand waves, face 2 dozen storms, fight 3 dragons and rest on our laurals as champions. With you, I believe we can"
"But isn't it okay if people are spreading conspiracy theories about data centers as long as it gets them fired up about billionaires or the environment? Can't you just let people enjoy harmless entertainment like astrology? Does it really matter if people are using homeopathy or chiropractors as long as they're happy? Isn't it rude to call out people whose religious beliefs are obviously disproved by science because it's their faith? What's the problem with people believing in ghosts and aliens even if they have no evidence?"
How many woo-woo-to-fascism pipelines do we have to create before we accept that any system in which we agree to prioritize what makes people feel good and comfortable over objective, observable reality is inherently prone to radicalization. How many times are we going to act shocked that people who refuse to accept scientific evidence in regards to crystal energy and repressed memories then move on to refusing to accept scientific evidence in regards to vaccines and chemotherapy. How many times are we going to hold people's hands and tell them of COURSE it's okay to believe things just because they Feel Right and not because you have even a shred of evidence and then act shocked when they start believing the people who tell them that all their problems are caused by minorities?
Everyone start developing basic epistemological consistency right fucking now, I am no longer asking
#i'm sorry to tell you this but if you live in america and have a job you are almost definitely part of the global 1% highest income group
See now that is going too far in the opposite direction.
Looking at this, to be in the global top 1% of income earners, you needed an annual PPP adjusted pre-tax, post-pension income of just over 250k Dollars in 2025:
A median full-time income in the US puts you just shy of the threshold for top 10%, but I think that is without pension scheme deductions, and also this means that about half of US full-time employees earn less actually, and not everyone does or can work full-time. If someone makes less than 30k per year, they are actually below the global average.
One could even argue that if you live in a big city, your dollars are actually worth less than PPP dollars. And we could go into how wealth inequality is actually worse than income inequality, and the top 1% of both don't necessarily overlap completely, because capital gains are usually not counted as income.
This is not just nitpicking, I think it's important to realize that poor Americans don't actually have much reason to feel personally invested in the current system. They are not wrong to feel left behind just because there are people in the world who are even worse off.
Hamas launched a brutal crackdown to prevent protests calling for an end to the terror group's rule across the Gaza Strip on Friday.
After demonstrations were planned in 18 locations across the Strip, the streets were unusually empty after organisers had called on Hamas to "disarm and to transfer civil administration of Gaza to a transitional-governing authority".
Hamas gunmen were seen patrolling the Strip after several days of crackdowns leading up to the day dubbed June 26 Revolution.
Multiple arrests, beatings and death threats for those suspected of inciting or participating in protests appeared to quell the unrest.
One Palestinian in Gaza told The Telegraph: "People are afraid and exhausted. Torn between the desire for change and the risk of being accused of plotting a coup or collaborating with Israel, any popular protest movement appears to have little chance of succeeding."
Streets in areas such as Khan Younis Port, Al Qarara and Al Nasr, were eerily quiet on Friday. "People are scared," another Palestinian told The Telegraph.
In advance of the protests, a fatwa was issued by the Association of Palestinian Scholars, an influential Palestinian group, warning that demonstrators would be accused of collaboration with Israel, a crime punishable by death under Hamas rule.
Another source on the ground in Gaza told The Telegraph anonymously on Friday morning that there were Hamas supporters and troops positioned at key intersections.
The source added: "However, they are clearly avoiding any overt or formal deployment for fear of being targeted by Israel.
"What Hamas appears to be most concerned about is the possibility that armed groups could exploit the protests to expand their control over additional areas of Gaza, or that Israeli forces could use the demonstrations as an opportunity to target Hamas operatives.
"In any case, according to activists, this is precisely what they hope to avoid. Any intervention by Israeli forces or armed militias would provide Hamas with a pretext to crack down on peaceful protesters."
According to Gaza-born Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a Palestinian humanitarian activist who lives in exile in the US, the Gaza hospital that became the focus of international condemnation after a deadly explosion early in the war is now being used by Hamas as a centre for interrogating, threatening and detaining opponents.
He claimed friends had been summoned to Al Ahli Arab Hospital, also known as the Baptist Hospital, where they were questioned by Hamas security officials about suspected involvement in the demonstrations.
"They were told explicitly by al-Qassam Brigades operatives, Hamas police, and internal security officers that if they post anything supportive of the protests on Facebook or offer any help to protesters, they will be executed under 'revolutionary conditions' and treated as collaborators with Israel; no trial, no process, just immediate death," he wrote on X this week.
He alleged that some were subsequently interrogated, threatened and placed under house arrest inside the hospital itself, "the same hospital that grabbed global headlines early in the war after a faulty Islamic Jihad rocket fell and caused an explosion which killed hundreds of people".
He said: "That hospital is now a central hub for Hamas's intelligence, militancy, and internal repression.”
On Friday morning, Mr Alkhatib also claimed Hamas had deployed security forces throughout Gaza to prevent any demonstrations.
"Right this moment, across the Gaza Strip, Hamas's police, intelligence units, and al-Qassam Brigade militias are fully deployed to crush the June 26 protests," he wrote.
Last year, protesters against Hamas took to the streets for several days in a row, with the Iran-backed terror group accused of beating a man to death and leaving him on his family's doorstep in a warning against any further protests against its rule in Gaza.
Uday Al Rabbay was kidnapped shortly after taking part in the protest. His body, covered in blood, was returned to his family's home days later.
Earlier this week, organisers appealed to governments, journalists and human rights organisations to monitor events closely, warning that participants had already become targets of intimidation.
"The right to peaceful assembly and political expression is a foundational civil liberty," they wrote. "The population of Gaza is entitled to exercise this right without fear of violent reprisal."
The movement accused Hamas of circulating threats through affiliated social media channels before the protests had even begun.
"These statements explicitly identify protesters and journalists as targets, indicating a coordinated effort to suppress dissent prior to its public expression," it said.
On Thursday, the Fatwa Committee of the Association of Palestinian Scholars, which operates across the Palestinian territories, sought to deter participation by issuing a religious ruling declaring the demonstrations forbidden.
The fatwa described the planned protests as "a criminal movement", accusing participants of assisting "the occupier" [Israel] and advancing objectives Israel had failed to achieve through military force.
Members of Hamas cracking down on Gazans. Photo: Screenshot from X account of Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib Armed Hamas operatives arrested …
I know it’s futile to say this, because I know the people who need to hear it never will, but everyone who’s openly supportive of Hamas, everyone who uses “Zionist” as a slur and a tool for demonization, everyone who accuses peace activists or others who speak out of being “collaborators with Israel,” is propping this tyranny up. they are helping this horror to continue, while patting themselves on the back for it as morally righteous. in doing so, they’re furthering extremism, and they’re certainly not helping to free anyone.
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