the burden-sharing thing was always about not wanting to support Ukraine, you could see this most clearly in the SignalGate leaks where JD Vance was grousing about strikes on the Houthis "bailing out" Europe (when obviously those were mostly "bailing out" the Saudis & Israelis not Euros)
It turns out the Russians aren’t exceptional, it just turns out that the average moron jingo in any developed society has the servility and lack of both self-respect and intelligence to buy into the concept of a Special Military Operation
The act of writing IS the act of thinking. It’s not some superfluous final step you use to get your genius idea out there. The masterpiece is always an expression firstly of medium.
“Late Imperial America spent years obsessed with Thucydides but were too bad at reading comprehension to grasp the actual point and ended up making the exact same mistakes while jerking off about how they Understood It” is admittedly a thing that would absolutely happen in Ancient Greek literature
Anyone want to remind these guys that the central point of Thucydides is “the Athenians destroyed a golden age because they abused their alliance network and went on stupid imperial expeditions instead of focusing on Sparta because they were taken advantage of by antidemocratic oligarchs”
The way in which the internet has warped some peoples’ brains so they can only really think in terms of simulacra of an imagined 19th century is worth studying — people whose conception of politics is built on a half-remembered masturbatory fantasy of Bismarck instead of like, the world they live in
This French racist can’t imagine seeing a black person as his equal and so projects that on to his political opponents. These people assume that every single person is secretly just as racist, bigoted, and insanely wrapped up in media simulacra of the 19th century society as they are
When the time comes to disarm ICE the Kapp Putsch will be like a happy memory
This is the beginning. It will get worse. More people will die. We need to get ready for things to get so much worse.
The Insurrection Act is literally one paragraph long you’d think that people could read it.
Unfortunately, Americans are willfully ignorant a large amount of the time
DC Natl Guard so sick of my shit they start to sigh when they see me because they know I’m about to start heckling
Even American members of the Nationalist International are all functionally cowards — they only support the use of force when it’s unlimited violence committed on populations which can’t really resist. Hence the complete backing-down from fighting China or Russia, they’re all fundamental cowards
I really think the Nationalist International’s constant cowardice needs to be studied in a lab
WH Auden, The Age of Anxiety (1944)
He is absolutely correct about the Biden Admin though. The degree to which that Admin was constantly jerking itself off while making endless piecemeal compromises that doomed and discredited its own (excellent!) starting principles is shocking. It’s a prime lesson in how not to do politics.
Tooze is one of those figures who’s agonizing to read and think about because he’s *so close*. He’s *so close* to being consistently correct that it’s genuinely disappointing when he starts to go wrong — as he constantly does
I would like to formally apologize to PTA for saying the Colonel Lockjaw was an unrealistic caricature
Basically my fear is that if the Dems retake Congress and vote to impeach or defund ICE we will have a Kapp Putsch on our hands basically immediately
Brecht was still comparing Hitler to a “gang leader” in 1940!
Not a particularly serious country
These are the people who designated a slang term for the Venezuelan brass as an FTO. We are not talking about smart or competent men.
If this happens it will destabilize the entire region and create a Syrian Civil War level crisis on our doorstep. The only way this does not happen is if the Venezuelan regime manages to hold it together and hit back. No good options.
This is what happens when “war crime” becomes shorthand for “thing that I think is dishonorable” and not a strict legal definition
Some of you would be clutching your pearls over the Italian Futurists in a way that is deeply embarrassing
This article and its response is bugging me because:
1. Yes, a genuinely new political vision on the left is necessary
2. No, it will not come from fucking Leninists
3. You cannot get especially made when a Leninist says Leninist things. The sky is blue. Water is wet.
No actual oligarch will get this — if there are Russian oligarchs who get this, when this is all over they will be subject to US legal jurisdiction
Ok but the financial times is the best mass-distribution newspaper in print
“The US attempt to create a postsoviet style right wing oligarchic system collapsed because Americans are addicted to scams and turned the U.S. economy into a bubble for chatbots” is too neat a narrative arc though so in reality whatever comes out of this collapsing is going to be 500,000,000x worse
Genuinely it rocks that a bunch of dudes whose sole media diet is action thrillers and who have never read an academic nonfiction book have convinced the investor class to bet the entire U.S. economy on a gamble that relies on an untested technology raising productivity more than electricity did
