uninterrupted posted:

libgen.is

Nix Panicus posted:

Where do I pirate a niche academic book?

comedyblissoption posted:

Marjorie Taylor Greene has introduced an amendment to a foreign aid bill to require members of Congress who vote in favor of providing aid to Ukraine to join the country's military.
https://twitter.com/Newsweek/status/1780854622992671066

super sweet best pal posted:

We need a version of with the worst person you know guy.

Cerebral Bore posted:

like, correct me if I'm wrong here if you're a classicist, but wasn't the proximate cause for why the western roman empire fell that they relied almost exclusively on the goths to fill their armies, and then the goths asked for roman citizenship in return and the emperor and senators just went "nah, we don't really want you" and then the goths just took over by force

DJJIB-DJDCT posted:

Democracy as an abstract ritual, not collective decision making over the allocation of resources in a society. We can't vote about going to war, or ending a war, but we're supposed to fight in it because...? We like this system where we have no say so much?

Muammar Gaddafi, The Green Book posted:

If parliament is formed from one party as a result of its winning an election, it becomes a parliament of the winning party and not of the people. It represents the party and not the people, and the executive power of the parliament becomes that of the victorious party and not of the people. The same is true of the parliament of proportional representation in which each party holds a number of seats proportional to their success in the popular vote. The members of the parliament represent their respective parties and not the people, and the power established by such a coalition is the power of the combined parties and not that of the people. Under such systems, the people are the victims whose votes are vied for by exploitative competing factions who dupe the people into political circuses that are outwardly noisy and frantic, but inwardly powerless and irrelevant. Alternatively, the people are seduced into standing in long, apathetic, silent queues to cast their ballots in the same way that they throw waste paper into dustbins. This is the traditional democracy prevalent in the whole world, whether it is represented by a one-party, two-party, multiparty or non-party system. Thus it is clear that representation is a fraud.

bedpan posted:

aristocracy brain plus "there is no society" liberalism plus "Homo economicus"

DJJIB-DJDCT posted:

They also had a Goth Army in the Balkans, where during a period where Goth's families were starving they were forced to buy grain at insanely inflated prices from the local Romans, even selling their children to Romans.

Then they killed the emperor.

V. Illych L. posted:

nah our ruling class believes that there is such a thing as an objective meritocracy and that they are it. they rule, effectively, by the grace of god and need no commoner to interfere

DJJIB-DJDCT posted:

Minus all of the things you are supposed to do in thanks of the grace of God, to demonstrate Christian merit etc etc.

It's like the worst traits of every previous mode of production with none of the positive elements that made them stable until a new one emerged. A state of Gramscian crisis.

Let's talk about the interregnum: Gramsci and the crisis of the liberal world order

V. Illych L. posted:

charity is a private affair, and also one best handled by technical specialists. these technical specialists go on to form the political cadres of the "progressive" movements, under the fundamental assumption that everything would be good so long as people embody enough private charity.

V. Illych L. posted:

really the point is that a shocking amount of people have abandoned interests as a legitimate point of mobilisation and gone all-in on idealism as the only valid position. so everything has to be framed in terms of these weird abstractions like "justice" - when norwegian farmers are pissed that the party they use as their parliamentarian instrument makes a deal behind their back they phrase their complaint as "that's not fair!", which is of course nonsense. what's fair or not is a function of power, and the reason that they're so pissed off now is because they know that "their" party is fundamentally beholden to them and are asserting that they need to represent their interests, but that they respect the fundamental institutions in place.

Nix Panicus posted:

Have you checked in on Vince McMahon lately?

Nix Panicus posted:

Wanting material benefits is crass, and promising material benefits is dreaded populism at best and bribery at worse.

Pistol_Pete posted:

I have a collected volume of Punch from 1913! It's quite poignant to browse through, particularly their articles and cartoons on foreign affairs, because the whole volume adopts this light, careless tone about everything and it's striking how oblivious they were to what was hurtling towards them the following year.

There's even some cartoons with Winston Churchill in (he was considered to be a bit of a clown by most people back then), funny to see he was already a public figure back then, when he's associated with WWII in the popular imagination.

DeimosRising posted:

V. Illych L. posted:

imo ukraine should reach a negotiated peace under the best realistically possible terms for them and the west should back such an effort including offering a reintegration of russia into the european economy to some extent and a reconfigured security order in the continent

V. Illych L. posted:

imo ukraine should reach a negotiated peace under the best realistically possible terms for them and the west should back such an effort including offering a reintegration of russia into the european economy to some extent and a reconfigured security order in the continent

FirstnameLastname posted:

i had a sharp realization the other night that practices of pimping are absolutely loving identical to the rules of american electoral politics distilled to their purest form

pimps have all the cosmetics of an attractive bachelor, while possessing none of the actual qualities
they economically have to in order to exist in such a repulsive line of work, they have no choice in order to compete at all the entire competition is which pimps pimpest
their social currency is entirely charisma, they don't generate loyalty
but pimps are in a relationship with the women working for them they have to generate something to keep people earning for em

it's a terrible transactional relationship but how does a pimp get hos they mack they spit the game at the ladies dressed like peacocks showing off the diamonds and flexin, telling them they care, telling them they'll make em rich
squaring off over territory & whose hos are earning for who. Ho start to act up they smooth talk em off the ledge or scare or smack them off it

they have no choice, just business. gotta do it all to do any of it
they have to because a pimp is entirely perception
theyre magicians if they release their influence over one and it gets around they'll lose their whole stable

they can't clamp chains on someone and trick them out on the corner, no system exists that'll protect that

they have to get their hos to trick for them, and hand them the money, day after day

the language of pimping is partially to charm and impress, and partially to protect the pimp emotionally from what he's doing
pimps up hos down, no love for em, don't be capn saveaho, ho ain't a housewife, "gently caress em n dress em but i don't fuckin feed em" etc no emotional attachment they are property
pimps separate prostitutes off to a separate form of personhood like a caste system - hos dont get to talk back, they don't get respect, another pimp respecting hos is a sign of weakness , sympathy for them etc
pimps will go after another pimp for stuff like that because it fucks up the game for all of them, they'll kill them over it

in a way the ho is the enemy of the pimp, they have to be kept in submission and collectively treated adversarially to be exploited
a ho and a Lady however are entirely separate things that receive entirely different treatment - hos are exploited, ladies are acceptable business partners and collaborators

same as how politicians see their voter base vs their financial supporters, $xxx a plate fundraisers

even when it moves off the corner and into professional escorts the business becomes gentler because its product is gentler higher class workers who can afford to walk sooner basically, but the the exploitation is through the facilitation of their own earning and they don't personally have the same pimp -ho relationship with their employer -because- the women under them do: those women being worked lowers their attractiveness fucks em up mentally physically emotionally, so they serve the lower market, allowing a higher market to exist


more hos means more earnings but can't maintain infinite relationships, they know even if they could another pimp'll come poach their stable so they try to get the most out of each they pace em

they know there's that sweet spot in lifetime earnings, thats a workload beyond what any given ho is gonna be even interested in entertaining personally but won't physically or emotionally break em
that's where they try to keep all of them and rob every cent they can get a hand on
their real job is shaking their stable down & keeping watch making sure nobody's hiding earnings or slacking off but they have to convince them to play along

when they get to a point where hos start to want to work less or be compensated more, better quality of life then they reach a point where they have to break their minds
they have to make them believe they're not entitled to more or that the natural order of life places them under the pimp and the pimp above them and that its where both belong, either through psychological manipulation, physical coercion, chemical dependency, etc.

outside of all this though, they aren't the thing keeping the women they victimize down, the things that'll kill most prostitutes or destroy their lives aren't their pimps directly, pimps are barely even around except to pick up money, they're too busy collecting from other hos, only an unsuccessful pimp has the time to personally keep people in line

the thing that directly keeps most hos down is the other hos reinforcing the status quo, particularly the appointed bottom bitch, usually the highest earning vet "favorite" ho who enjoys privileged status above the others, basically kapos, middle managers, but they aren't causing it either, they're all manifestations of a system around all of them that allows such an obviously dishonest and abusive practice to exist at all
it's all identical lol

DaysBefore posted:

Foreign Affairs article was fun. Very cool that one of the big sticking points for Ukraine was that the Russians demanded a ban on fascism. Lol at them denying that Western powers forced Ukraine to back away from peace only to immediately quote Boris Johnson telling Zelensky 'yeah don't ever sign a deal with Russia'. Or how every Russian concession was actually a dastardly trick from the Butchers of Bucha who were only doing so because they were scared at how much they were getting pwned. Oh well, a fantastic opportunity for peace and normalisation lost to NATO and the MIC. Ukraine should have surrendered then and they should surrender now

DJJIB-DJDCT posted:

Boris Johnson has so much blood on his hands it's pretty incredible. Why would anyone trust or listen to him?

Getting Zelensky in office was either a stroke of genius or a very lucky break.

StashAugustine posted:

I go back and forth on how deliberate it was but having the antiwar candidate be an easily manipulated actor was a pretty big deal

Nix Panicus posted:

This would be an unironic win for the west if this happened

V. Illych L. posted:

i don't think the americans would be too pleased

DaysBefore posted:

Yeah lol his whole campaign was based on peacefully ending the Donbass War wasn't it. But you get enough western leaders calling you up and saying 'you can beat them, we'll send you ten billion shells and every tank west of Warsaw and also a really really big burlap sack with a dollar sign on it' and suddenly you're dreaming of raising the OUN flag over the Kremlin

FirstnameLastname posted:

i had a sharp realization the other night that practices of pimping are absolutely loving identical to the rules of american electoral politics distilled to their purest form

DaysBefore posted:

Yeah lol his whole campaign was based on peacefully ending the Donbass War wasn't it. But you get enough western leaders calling you up and saying 'you can beat them, we'll send you ten billion shells and every tank west of Warsaw and also a really really big burlap sack with a dollar sign on it' and suddenly you're dreaming of raising the OUN flag over the Kremlin

V. Illych L. posted:

it'd be a win for europe, i don't think the americans would be too pleased

StashAugustine posted:

I can get third worldist if drunk or angry enough, but I genuinely don't see what the American people benefit from poking Russia. Like obviously it's important to the elites that actually make policy, there's plenty of awful poo poo that benefits us to some degree, and you can like maybe argue there's some benefit to the Rules Based International Order, but the active antagonism thrown at Russia over the past 30 years has just been obviously counter productive for the American people

DJJIB-DJDCT posted:

Aristocracy brain is paternalism/condescension/admiration/homoeroticism towards the Sepoy/Gurkha/Askari and the social prestige from being a (white) officer in the Indian Army/Brigade of Gurkhas/King's African Rifles. Showing that you understood the language and customs, could "handle", what's a good euphemism... foreign recruited soldiers... was a point of pride.

Famously, and with pretty dire consequences Tankbuster could elaborate on, the British Indian Army invented, codified, standardized and disseminated, the traditions and customs of "How to Be Sikh", and as so many Sikhs passed through "the School of the Nation", shaped Sikh culture in India. Pakistan is the product of soldiers of the British Indian Army who were instructed in the Martial Races, taught how to command their respect and scorn their (racial) inferiors, and then were let loose on Bangladesh. 90% of what people think Scottish tradition is, was the product of the Highland Regiments of the British Army. That's even more true in Canada, Australia and South Africa. Though, as we've seen, South Africa is really cool about this, so big props to them for being able to identify good from bad.

This isn't Etonians trying to be good Sahibs to Sepoys recruited from the CW, because the British Army in India saw part of their reform (slash racial makeover) of India as instructing them in being proper Indians (darker, inferior, Englishmen) by building houses and schools for wives and dependant children. They took a lot of pride in that sort of thing, though on top of social engineering and race science, also it was common sense in preventing another Mutiny. A District Officer used to customarily visit the homes of veterans when touring the district, making sure they had been provided with the right standard of housing and their pensions were paid, though yes this was in large part making sure the British reproduced a sort of traditional military pretty aristocracy, which was loyal. Tankbuster could explain better with the Farmer protests, but in areas where the Army recruited heavily it left deep marks on Indian society, not just socially and culturally, but in terms of patterns of land ownership, who was placed where in military institutions at Partition and after.

All of this to say, this is not cricket.

V. Illych L. posted:

imo ukraine should reach a negotiated peace under the best realistically possible terms for them and the west should back such an effort including offering a reintegration of russia into the european economy to some extent and a reconfigured security order in the continent