catonkatonk [none/use name]

I thought it was because videogames toned down the jiggle physics or whatever.

That’s a good question. You are right that if we wanted to see the extent of Anne’s vapidity we could just read her book. Speaking for myself, I was never going to do that. While I’m sure most here figured her out a long time ago, seeing her talk at length like this was eye-opening to me at least. And probably the same for a lot of people whose only exposure to her is from the odd piece in the FT or whatever. Honestly, if someone wanted a primer on how and why western hegemony is failing, I think an hour of Anne Applebaum discussing her honestly held views is as good an explanation as any. In this respect, I prefer a guest like Anne Applebaum over a Mehdi Hassan if only because the former embodies the actual values of the state rather than the professed values represented by the latter. It really is something to behold the emperor without any clothes.

But, if it’s telling you something you already know, it IS pointless and counter-productive. There are people who will watch it and think, “Gosh, she’s right, Poland DID do well in its transition to neoliberalism and therefore the system is sound and was implemented with good intentions and Russia is just innately full of bad people who can’t succeed”. Is it acceptable to allow obvious falsehoods like that to be stated without any pushback? Ehhhh…

Bastani never asks tough questions, he just lets his guests speak at length. That’s his style. Applebaum is hard to take at such concentrated doses, but I do think it is an insightful glimpse into the diseased and delusional mind of the imperial elites.

I don’t think he should care about people’s gut reactions. The genocide is actively harmful to America’s imperial interests and Biden’s own ambitions for the middle east (normalisation between Israel and Saudi Arabia for example). It’s harmful to most capitalists except for the weapons goons. I don’t think it’s accurate to say that what is happening is simply because of an inability to see Palestinians as human and thus not caring about their extermination because they stand in the way of some logical goal. That logical reason exists for the vassal state, of course, but many vassal states have desires that the Americans will not allow them to indulge.

We have no reluctance to look at many historical genocides and to determine that blood lust and racial animosity were primary drivers. Why should this one be different? We have, on record, some of the most bloodthirsty comments ever publicly made by government officials in Israel, we know that beyond the pragmatic desire to control greater territory, Israel is in the grip of a violent mania. Why should that not extend to the one essentially telling them to do it?

The later entries in the series from the looks of it lean heavy into the Shonen look with weeb fanservice.

Artstyle wise, maybe, especially 2. All three have a lot of Saturday Morning Cartoon nonsense going on, though. Silly schoolyard bully villains hamming it up, lots of “fights” that involve characters standing around and talking about their Special Power or whatever.

3 probably has the least of that, and of the “fanservice” of the type I think you mean, and is possibly the most like Xenogears. But still not the same thing (but maybe if Xenogears was made today it would be like Xenoblade anyway - maybe the real difference is in fidelity and amount of acting etc., I dunno! Some things that work when read don’t when heard…). Honestly, I think the biggest similarity between 3 and Gears is that the makers once again tried to do something immense and profound and kind of whiffed. But still totally worth experiencing even though it’s compromised. Pretty pro-communist as well. Amusingly so.

On , I saw people clutching their pearls at the chant and explaining that it is a terrorist rallying cry, and that even Wikipedia mentions the connection.

But also, what if he had been a Muslim immigrant? That obviously wouldn’t justify anything that had happened. And so the race, religion and nationality of the attacker are entirely irrelevant.

I wonder why the government is having a difficult time signalling to its population that collective punishment is unacceptable…

The British state-run media organisation has been egregiously bad. Look at this shit. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cervv8rz8mzo

An anti-immigration protest began peacefully outside Bolton Town Hall earlier, but within half an hour, about 300 people, who mostly had their faces covered with black face masks or balaclavas, charged towards the building. They began shouting “Allahu Akbar” - a phrase meaning God is greatest - as they arrived at one side of the town hall, where a separate group had gathered waving England flags.

Meanwhile, here is footage of that event https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3QDnJeoYJM&t

I think you’re thinking of the one in Rotherham, where the police formed a line in front of the wall of the Holiday Inn, while the fash smashed through the doors and entered it three metres away from them.

A lot of these disgusting gammon emigrate to other countries when they age. They then exist in Little England enclaves where they can eat the horrible British cardboard food and speak English in dimly lit “gastro pubs” for the rest of their lives. This, after lecturing other cultures to adopt “British values” the entire time. Some of them actually have the fucking gall to lecture minorities in the UK from afar.

https://x.com/xQuaintrellex/status/1820132985858842696

I dunno what gave you the idea that the UK was less racist than the USA or France. Race relations are… different here in the UK than in the states. British identity is coded exclusively white. There is an assumption that “British values” are a thing that exists, and that, for example, Islam is incompatible with them. In general, the conception of what makes someone British is very narrow, whereas US identity is necessarily broader. On the other hand, our cops don’t generally make exterminating non-white people their primary goal.

I distinctly remember a Labour MP - I think it might have been Yvette Cooper actually - going on BBC Newsnight… This was maybe ten years ago… And saying, point-blank, that multiculturalism had failed. This was in the context of David Cameron banging on about instilling British values in prospective immigrants and the need for “integration” (conformity) and the like. It was the moment Labour lost me and become a for-the-whites party. This was before Corbyn even. Labour saw their record on immigration as something to apologise for.

For the past five years, to distract from the terrible failures of neoliberalism and austerity, both main parties and our entire media establishment have laser-focused on the few thousand “small boat” refugees that arrive on our shores from countries we’ve bombed and sanctioned. It was, for some reason, the dominant issue of the election, and prior to this, the key benchmark on which the Conservative party was being judged was in their ability to enact a performatively cruel plan to deport refugees to Rwanda while their claim is being processed (keep in mind, for example, that some of these refugees will be turning up because they’re gay, and Rwanda does not enshrine their protection against discrimination and public attitudes towards homosexuality are negative). Both parties pledged to “stop the small boats”. Keep in mind, the spectacle of small boats only exists because the UK refuses to allow people to claim for asylum from afar. Anyway, on the first day of these riots, what were people chanting? “Stop the small boats”. The media’s response is to suggest that it’s all Russia’s fault.

But yes, also as Awoo says, there is a violent subculture that exists within British society that is always itching for a fight regardless, and that might be a key difference as well.

They can fulfil their fantasies of dying for the white empire by joining Azov. It’s beautiful. Someone with socmed should float this idea to them, they’ll voluntarily go.

Interesting. Is there any hard proof of Yaxley-Lennon’s connection to Israel?

Edit: Just came across this: https://www.meforum.org/7292/mef-organizes-25000-strong-protest-in-support Not a hard link to Israel directly, but definitely to American zionism at the very least.

But then they’ll have French people in their country.

The French.

Here is some footage from the incident:

(CW: Violence, blood)

https://www.reddit.com/r/GreenAndPleasant/comments/1eb3aqy/uk_police_officer_assaults_person_laying_on_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/GreenAndPleasant/comments/1ebdgm3/another_part_of_the_police_attack_in_manchester/ https://www.reddit.com/r/GreenAndPleasant/comments/1ebn34j/final_part_of_the_police_assault/

Significant possibility that race played a part in this event, and certainly has played a part in the reaction across politics and media. For example, the predictable reaction from the . Reform MPs claiming the footage is “reassuring”.

I think if I was ever in this situation, it would not end well for me.

The idea is that if you can receive live television, you have to pay it. The license funds the official state propaganda apparatus.

They like to make a lot of threatening noises about how they can detect that you’re viewing live TV or whatever, but it’s all nonsense. They send “officers” out to check (these are people most likely employed by firms like Crapita that magically receive all government contracts regardless of the nature of the work). People don’t have to let them in, although the officers like to pretend otherwise. In rare cases they can get a warrant to enter, in which case they are accompanied by pigs.

I believe we’re allowed to avoid paying even if we have a TV as long as the TV isn’t hooked up to a device that can receive live television. The existence of the internet makes this confusing.

I had 1% hope, and I still feel stupid for it.