came_apart_at_Kmart [he/him, comrade/them]

the only people who know how to torrent are the ones that want to learn. the learning curve is gentler than a walk-in shower. I’ve shown people of all ages and all tech backgrounds, though recommending VPN connections and getting that going does throw a few.

anyway, it’s so easy, it’s crazy compared to the old days of usenet, ZIP disks, ftp sites, .is files, and sequenced RAR files. this is the golden age of piracy and I love it.

he’s a real VIKING of following the rules written by rich people!

no, this is what happens monetary policy is the only tool in the neoliberal toolbox, corporate profiteering is unchecked, and 2 million workers die off to keep the rent checks coming.

imo, the dishonesty is less about the size and more about how all the toppings look fresh on the menu, while in person they look like aged out grocery store culls and the burger always looks like someone put it between their ass cheeks and then watched a Peter Jackson movie before serving it.

i don’t really really get how one articulates that in a lawsuit.

i never really noticed it besides the hack bit in Falling Down until i went to a mcdonalds in japan. every item on the menu came out like a goddamn prop for a promotional photo. surreal. kinda made me realize that unless you’re willing to fork over a day’s median wage or more in the US for a prepared meal or go to some mom and pop place that gives a shit, you’re gonna get fuck you food from someone being paid a poverty wage to slop together utility-tier ingredients because screwing over the customer and the worker is what makes rich people more money.

weird how “gay panic” is a defense allowed by the courts, but an appeal to jury nullification is not.

that post was maybe 1500 words to summarize 100+ years of regional conflict with special attention on the last 10 years written in plain language. no special jargon or references to theoretical concepts. if that’s a “novel” for you, it definitely explains your grasp of this situation and affirms the critique that you are willfully ignorant and incapable of analysis beyond “russia bad.” and this is why people make fun of libs like you. many libs smugly dismiss conservatives as having “simple/childlike” worldviews and value systems. then they promptly adopt their own perfectly mirrored positions and petulantly stick their fingers in their ears like you’re doing here.

i think one of the aspects of fascism that really freaks out liberals is that fascism is the return of the policies they (casually or explicitly) support overseas to their homes and applied to them and their neighbors. i was reading that post-colonial analysis excerpt about how hitler did to the core what “heroic” churchill and his predecessors had been doing to india and other peoples/nations for decades. libs avoid any material analysis of the core/periphery or fascism because the connections make it obvious libs have no trouble enjoying the fruits of evil done elsewhere to secure markets, but bringing those same methods of repression and control home is the unspeakably evil act of a madman.

the idea that their poorly-interrogated political project creates and necessitates the very monster they fear is too much to grapple with for some.

maybe the only pays for the initial derailing post attempt, not the followup quarter-assed defense of “international rules-based order” that exposes the ignorance and unfamiliarity with material reality.

the word you are striving not to say is capitalism. capitalists did this to russians, using the playbook developed and advocated for by western institutions.

imagine ignoring the absolutely ruthless, western led cannibalization of the former soviet union and pretending history’s baseline started AFTER the largest decline of living standards in global history.

human trafficking, prostitution, alcoholism, food/energy insecurity, diseases of despair all exploded when the west forced capitalism and privatization onto the former soviet union in the immediate aftermath. Gorbachev thought he was going to get some easy-going nordic social democracy, but instead the west carved up their public sector like a christmas ham. maybe you were too young, but in the 1980s the propaganda portrait the west had of russian women were all heavy-set, ugly babushkas. suddenly, after 1989, the mail order beautiful russian bride phenomenon exploded. they were fleeing the gutting of the public sector and the shattering of the social safety net, which made it near impossible to raise a family in the eastern bloc without becoming a sex worker.

the west sponsored every retrograde nationalist reactionary psycho to undermine any hint of democratic resistance to economic liberalization schemes and bombed the shit out of infrastructure (Yugoslavia) whenever they could get away with it. the west has the most blood on its hands for the aftermath of the USSR, but people like you want to ignore those early days and then claim credit for the “winners” the west propped up in the aftermath of all that chaos. like a killer who torched a town but kidnapped a few kids and now touts his heroic rescue of them. the most ignorant and disgusting take.

the average manager/boss is so inculcated with “job creator” brain worms in the US, they believe they, as benevolent nobles, are the ones generating value in the organization while their underlings extract value as salary/wages. it leads to shit like this where bosses are baffled they can’t actually get everything they want by snapping their fingers, even though they control the immediate material access to housing, healthcare, etc.

as it turns out, workers are the critical resource because they make it all go. the execs are the ones extracting massive value as salary/benefits or stock manipulation, while realistically only going to meetings to strategize ways to get more value out of workers without sharing any increases. workers are paying managers to boss them around all day and act important.

i joined chacha as a lifeboat years ago when the CTH reddit got banned and stayed as it became Ursus hexagonalis. the lack of ads, the memes, irreverence for institutions combined with respect for humans, and the absolute god-tier emoji selection is what keeps me here.

also, the megathread topics are very interesting/informative as a People’s History, since many of the stories come from the “periphery” for all my world systems nerds out there. living in the imperial core, the constant cacophony of cultural outputs and hegemonic discourses, i appreciate any channel that connects me with post-colonial narratives, critical theory, etc.