Ah yes capitalism, famously devoid of corporations
Rotting Point USA
Hm. When my dad was in the Air Force, he got a confederate flag tattoo. According to legend, he fell in with a group of southern guys who told him it would make him "one of them." Years later, he did get it covered, before getting a job where he worried it would be inappropriate. I think he had mixed feelings about it, but also he never like denounced racism either. In his old age, he def got hooked on Fox news for a while. I grew up in a place where racism doesn't get challenged, where peoples experiences dont help them to grow beyond backwardness.
I love my dad. He's not a bad person, and he is a really good person in many ways. He could be a better person, but there are def structural obstacles, like I said. He's not a virulent, hateful racist, but he is kinda backward in many many ways.
I think when I heard of Platner's tattoo, I sort of understood it the same way I understood this contradiction with my own father. I mean, Platner is younger than me, it wasn't a fatherly identification (I think), but I could imagine my dad as a younger man when he still had the tattoo. Granted, dad never ran as a US Senator, but there was sort of learned blindness around it that got transferred to Platner. Dad never really denounced or regretted his time in the military, but he also never talked about it. I got the impression he had some trauma from it.
I think your points are really good here. Like being able to denounce the IDF as an "other" while being soft on American military probably has to do with either personal experiences like mine, or structural opportunism (let's face it, they're one in the same via hegemony). I think your question about "does he regret his service" is a really revealing insight and a good approach. It gives him a chance to be real about it, to "set the record straight" on a personal level. I think I also didn't really make a distinction between his Blackwater work and his US military work. All of my friends who are veterans will denounce the US Military. My brother will tell anyone he hated his time in the military. Its not a huge ask for a leftist, or a moderate with progressive attitudes. I know so many people, and yeah veterans can just straight up become anti-imperialists. They do not have to become PMCs and work for companies that had to rebrand because of extensive war crimes. And they do not have to be okay with that years later, once they've "changed."
I wish I had discussed this with local comrades earlier. When we were talking about Platner last night, one of my comrades brought up their experience with 2020 protests, and the boogaloo boys. They said that when the Boogs hit the scene there was a lot of controversy around their participation in protests, and many of them had "tattoos" that were red flags. Still, many people defended their participation, at the time. Years later, we know they were just Nazis doing like "activist left-moderate cosplay," the evidence is overwhelming. My comrade just put it plain: people with Nazi tattoos have never been our allies, and they never will be.
I'm def reflecting on how twisted up and contradictory these conditions are. How my personal experiences were basically used against me. How I wasn't concrete about what kind of things are forgiveable, and in what context. The structural contradiction around the US military led me to be less concrete about the facts, to just let myself be confused by very straightforward facts, and how it led to being wishy washy about the senate run of a rapist fascist, which led to me actually defending him when facing principles opposition.
But this is why I engage in debate. Not because I want to win or dominate in the marketplace of ideas, but because it is a form of self education. Anyway, I appreciate you engaging with my wrongheadedness. I know from experience it doesn't always change peoples minds, but that's why it was worth letting you know that in this case, I remember our discussion and recognize just how fucked up my position ended up being: not just that I was defending him but how I ended up defending him when I never had any intention of doing so.
This quote has been all but completely buried, or usually emphasizes the how he thanked the crew, and said the movie's success would create new opportunities for creative workers. I'm sure he's a perfectly nice dude. But where it concerns "financial risk" takers, he knows where the bread gets buttered.
This movie was made for so little money that it’s typical that the only people who [directly] benefit from its financial success are the people who took on some sort of risk
Thinking about this discussion a lot the last few days. Talked about it broadly in cadre discussions too, as part of a larger discussion. I think your stance was more principled than mine, which had the effect of moving me away from sort of a fence sitting position toward a rightist, opportunist one. Should have been asking more questions if I wasn't committed or as of yet unsure. Your opposition pushed me right where I belonged, which ultimately was indefensible. So, I'll take it as a serious lesson. Thanks for standing firm, at least one of us wasn't rationalizing them self into a fucking gutter
Right, same with streaming services, shorter seasons, etc., all ways of damaging the unions and squeezing more profits out of creatives. Now there's this hunt for YouTube stories/shorts to base new productions on. Cheaper, non union pre production and marketing, lower production budgets which skirt union contracts, and now the addition of teaming up with distribution outside the reach of unions.
I read a blog post from IATSE about paying closer attention to indie productions for this reason, but I think that might run against capacity and bureaucracy limits of the unions. Time will tell.
Okay you were absolutely right.
The middle class has always been systematically crushed under capitalism, which has been a primary project and function of the state. This pressure is felt by the middle class and forms the human basis for fascism.
This is why fascism is an intrinsic part of capitalist social relations. As long as there is a middle class to squeeze, there will be the structural basis to blame someone other than those responsible.
I'd be careful to say that the middle class is being turned into peasants. Its not completely wrong, but its a rhetorical statement (peasant bad, middle class good) rather than a materialist statement based on understanding social forces. I'm unconvinced that by destroying the material basis for the middle class, the capitalists are creating a whole new class, or reproducing older ones. If anything, destroying the middle only brings more attention to the central feature of capitalism that creates two diametrically opposed classes rather than many differing castes or classes, which stabilized previous modes of production. Capitalism creates capitalists and workers. Everything else is unstable or illusory.
The crew was actively discouraged against working with IATSE, and lower budget productions aren't really tracked by the union. There are like formal and informal rules that create loopholes for indie films in the labor laws. Then, the producers sold the movie to Focus Features, a Canadian distributor outside of US union reach and influence, for $13M, stirring up controversy avout, among other things, the visual effects coordinator was paid $200 per diem on a production that took like 3 weeks or something. Unlike the Markiplier movie, profits weren't shared, and that's why there needs to be union rep.
Combined with the general trend of basically all new entertainment business models of the last decade going toward busting unions and paying actors and writers less, especially as labor movements kick off in these industries, and you can see how the success of this movie is being goosed by how much profit it generates outside of union contract agreements.
Wasn't Cenk vocally "concerned" about trans athletes? I'm not really a sports guy, and haven't watched even an instant of these Olympics, but any consideration on his opinion re: unfair advantages in sports begins and ends with his shit views of trans athletes.
The other day a mod on Hexbear told me that "now is the time for monsters" referred to "what we must become during the revolution." I was like no, its about old people
300+ hours in Nightreign, prob 200+ on one character: Executor. Generally, the worst character in the game. Low HP, low damage resistance, low damage except for status procs. If you go in unga bunga you will die, you will suck. Has a special ability called suncatcher that looks very flashy but itself does almost little damage.
So let's focus on his most important feature, arguably the most important gameplay mechanic in any soulsborne:
looks very flashy
Suncatcher is basically Sekiro playstyle. He has a cursed sword that can deflect all damage, with a satisfying clang and bright sparks, if timed near-perfectly. After 5 deflections, it lights up, and lets you do a golden sweep attack. Deflecting with Suncatcher builds up some stance damage, but the weapon itself did minimal damage on its own, even the flashy golden sweep.
His ultimate was a free heal that does a little damage but ever dark bosses and Deep of Night games would kill you easily despite being a giant horned beast. His ult has some utility, like healing other players when roaring with a certain relic. Synergies were found when using the seppuku skill with his special ability, but sacrificing a huge chunk of your health pool for a brief damage buff took a lot of situational awareness to make sure I didn't get ganked mid-buff, and it still happened frequently.
A lot of players use his high Arcane stat to proc statuses but dont really even use suncatcher. I myself became obsessed with it. Eventually I developed a "stance/status/tank" playstyle: after practicing with suncatcher for a long time I got pretty good at deflecting enemy attacks, and could hold off most bosses by myself while teammates did damage, or if one team member needed to go revive another. I learned that Executor's charge attacks are best after ive procced status a couple times. I could carry teams through the base bosses as long as both players weren't completely worthless.
But ultimately, the character had a high skill floor in order to become like a medium value character. It could be argued that his sekiro-deflect is too powerful, it has a generous "perfect" window, more than we got from Sekiro, but other characters were straight easy-mode. Raider has great damage resistance, a huge health pool, incredible DPS, and the ability to nullify attacks with his special poise-counter.
But last week, they buffed Executor. They buffed suncatcher immensely. It does more stance damage, it does significantly more damage, blocking uses less stamina, can't be stance broken with perfect deflects, and many atack up relics now apply to suncatcher. This character gained immense value. I was absolutely stuck in the new Deep of Night hard mode, I struggled to make any progress in depth 2, and while ive only played a single DoN match since the buff, we easily cleared it.
With a few relics, suncatcher can be made to be significantly stronger than even a legendary Katana, available at level 1. His HP and damage negation are still low, but he can't be stance broken on perfect deflects anymore, making him much more reliable and dependent on skillful deflecting rather than the enemy's attack spam.
I have become so powerful, it is intoxicating. Absolute incredible week for Executor mains
Part of a response I received in a thread on .ml
Can we discuss this? I don't believe that Marx's definition of communism is a form of society that comes after socialism. I think communism exists now within the working class. Its the real struggle against capitalist class owned private property and capitalist directed production and distribution of the historic means of production.
I actually really don't like the definition of communism as something strictly "out there". Communism exists just as sure as capitalism exists. Socialism can become communist, but communism goes away when capitalism goes away. Communism is the negation of "bourgeois" private property. The left is already too idealist and prefigurative, and Marx was really against that.
If you ask me, the idea of socialism as the achievement of minimum demands, that leads to communism as the realization of maximum demands, is not a Marxist communist theory of change, it is a social democratic one.