overview for LeninsRage

The part of the TLOU episode that didn't make sense in c/[email protected]

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

This plus characters calling FEDRA "fascists" are the most political statements the show has made. Even with the KC revolutionaries they kept their ideology deliberately vague beyond labels on their trucks of "WE THE PEOPLE" which gave me the distinct vibe they were incoherently populist or even CHUDs.

What's a dead meme that you're glad is dead, or at least mostly dead? in c/[email protected]

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

:alex-aware:

Now that I've finished Disco Elysium, here are my parting thoughts (spoilers, of course). in c/[email protected]

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

It's very strange, you can tell the writing for this game is all-timer level great because people can have wildly divergent interpretations of the game's ultimate tone. It's either one of the most depressing and defeatist games ever made, or one of the most optimistic and hopeful. And both interpretations are equally valid.

(I'm more in the optimism camp, for the record).

finally got around to playing cyberpunk. pretty good game. gotta talk about the funniest ending tho in c/[email protected]

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Thats kind of the point, they're so (deliberately) underfunded they have to farm out jobs to subcontractors which boil down to "vigilante goes to place, murders a bunch of people".

This has to be among the best endings in the game [Suzerain] in c/[email protected]

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Yeah my first run (Reformist but lost the war) I funded Health and Education thinking I would get prompted for a new budget annually and initial investments there would pay off Keynesian-style.

But funding Law Enforcement is actually extremely important if you intend to

spoiler

root out the Sollist deep state root and branch.

Which I did to a maximalist extent in my second, successful run.

Confession: I have only recently been finally playing Disco Elysium. (CW: possible early/mid spoilers with some SV discussion, and a little ranting) in c/[email protected]

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

spoiler

You: I know I can get history back on the right track.

René: The "right track"? This is the right track! The only track. (he gets visibly annoyed) This is the world we shaped, a reflection of what we are: cowardly, ugly, and numb. And there are no second chances. We don't deserve them! You just can't go back and restart — that would make everything MEANINGLESS! (a shadow of pain comes over his face)

Empathy: There's something substantial moving in him, trying to get out.

Volition: He would sooner die than let it surface.

You: What is it?

Empathy: Regret.

You: Regret about what?

Pain Threshold: (as the camera zooms in on Gaston) Him.

You: Him?

Pain Threshold: There's tenderness in the carabineer's look. Tenderness that's curdled into pain or something darker.

You: Ex-love, ex-tenderness...

Pain Threshold: Even worse, a love aborted and smothered, stamped beneath his brilliant boot heel.

René: (you catch the old carabineer's gaze slowly leaving his opponent's wrinkled face as his dark eyes meet yours — whatever turmoil raged in him a moment ago is quelled for now)

Conceptualization: Like the last rays of the evening sun gently kissing the day goodbye, before giving way to unfathomable darkness.

Volition: Willed back into the darkest unexplored depths of his mind — never meant to be shared, seen or confronted.

Composure: A true master of his emotions.

Inland Empire: Hopelessly alone behind the unbreakable walls he spent a lifetime erecting. No one will ever know him.

Confession: I have only recently been finally playing Disco Elysium. (CW: possible early/mid spoilers with some SV discussion, and a little ranting) in c/[email protected]

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

No details but

spoiler

it's incredibly depressing. Because that's all it could ever really hope to be.

However it does genuinely have one of my favorite moments in the entire game.

Confession: I have only recently been finally playing Disco Elysium. (CW: possible early/mid spoilers with some SV discussion, and a little ranting) in c/[email protected]

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (4 children)

It isn’t that nuanced in its portrayal of fascism (or for that matter hustlegrind Ultra mindset or pretentious ironic detachment cynicism for that matter) but in my personal subjective opinion that’s fairly accurate because those lines of thinking don’t require much thinking to maintain and analysis of those beliefs threatens them fundamentally, so it’s rarely done.

If you pursue the fascist path in dedicated fashion it actually does get quite nuanced. I won't elaborate more on what I mean by any of that.

As far as I know though Ultraliberal is only ever a caricature because that's exactly what it is and what it deserves.

This has to be among the best endings in the game [Suzerain] in c/[email protected]

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

Lmao you went Dictator, defunded the military, joined CSP, didnt promote Lucian, and didn't form the Anti-Corruption Police, didn't you?

I'm pretty sure thats the route you have to take to alienate literally everyone in the cabinet and have every possible bid to overthrow you go off.

Kafka, but they make police procedurals about it. in c/[email protected]

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

You mean the police procedural, right?

Because classic mystery stories focus way more on what actually solves murders - detective grunt work like alibis, motives, timelines, etc

⛏️👷 in c/[email protected]

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Picture after this was told to the Coal Mining Enjoyer:gigachad:

CW: Homophobia. Putin compares European use of alternative (non-traditional) energy sources to their acceptance of LGBTQ+ ("non-traditional") relationships in c/[email protected]

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Literally no one here is arguing that Ukraine is good, but the actual leftists (as opposed to national chauvinists) here are arguing that this is unmistakably an inter-imperialist war and not some convoluted "the invasion of Ukraine is anti-imperialist because Russia is on the imperial periphery of a super-imperialist bloc" bullshit argument.

I'm someone who can absolutely advance arguments that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was caused by outside imperialist circumstances. But now that it has happened, and is actual fact? There is zero "critical support" of Russian aggression here. The only legitimate communist position in this scenario is for Ukrainian and Russian soldiers alike to turn their guns on their own generals. Will that happen? No. But that's the fucking position the Bolsheviks themselves took from the start, not some ridiculous stance about how actually the Kaiser was right to resist all along and criticizing the German war effort is bad.

3

RUMSFELD IS DEAD PARTY [Substitute Megathread?] (hexbear.net)

submitted 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

0 comments fedilink

:sicko-crab: :crab-party: :party-sicko:

1

The conditions for the emergence of a genuine American fascism are now in sight (hexbear.net)

submitted 4 years ago* (last edited 4 years ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

14 comments fedilink

This following on reflections today I've been thinking/posting about all day. With the in-progress major realignment of the Democrats and Republicans the conditions for the emergence of a genuine American fascism are now possible save for the existence of an organized left. Arguably, this can be taken up by the existence of a "phantom" organized left in the form of AntiFa and Soros type conspiracy theorizing and scaremongering.

Essentially, the Republicans, as representing the factional interest of the provincial "national bourgeoisie" are, by some nightmarish convergence of factors, becoming the primary voice for genuine working-class interests. They are achieving this through appeals to several sentiments:

Anti-Intellectualism
Performative Anti-Elitism
Anti-Cosmopolitanism
Anti-Free Trade Protectionism and Autarky
Single-Issue Cultural Grievances
Ultra-nationalistic patriotism
Appeal to "traditional values"
The accelerating spread of conspiratorial thinking

Trump overperformed in non-white demographics. Arguably the single most important takeaway from this election is that identity is no longer a highly deterministic factor in partisan affiliation and voting behavior. Already-incoherent political beliefs of the average American is making individual non-white voters fixate on single issues and emotional impulses, and in the absence of a heavily class-based economic appeal to the working class (which the Democrats have now definitively and explicitly rejected to exploit), this is causing the non-college-educated to respond favorably to the sentimental appeals of the Republicans. Trump overperformed with African-Americans and Latinos by between 3-5 points. His share of the LGBT vote doubled from 2016. Clearly, these people care about something more than him being an obvious and overt racist and bigot. Clearly, they are gravitating to him because he is voicing their legitimate grievances that no other politician has been.

Trump's proto-fascism actually holds back the emergence of a genuine American fascism in two key aspects. Firstly, despite being a demagogue Trump is personally ideologically incoherent. He most just says what immediately comes to his mind or thinks will play well to the crowd. You can't imagine Trump writing a manifesto like Gentile or Hitler. Secondly, Trump's nativist populism is overly inward-looking. It is about closing off the frontier from invaders, not expanding them indefinitely. It lacks the inherent fascist drive toward self-annihilation.

But what does embody the fascist drive toward self-annihilation within the Republican Party? Bush-era neoconservatism, and the ideological paradigm that led us to invade Iraq. Trump's administration in practice degenerated into a bog-standard neoconservative administration, but without the overt drive to outright invade other countries and "spread democracy". He has largely continued to rely on Obama-style tactics centering air power, covert operations, and backing color revolutionaries. Again, this is in large part due to the personality of Trump himself. He is averse to actually starting wars he could possibly lose. He is anti-imperialist, at least purely at the rhetorical level. He is ideologically incoherent. His foreign policy has actually weakened empire abroad, despite laying the foundations for a new cold war with China, and the Democrats have laid the foundations to include Russia in that cold war.

The stage is now set for some post-Trump figure to emerge. Someone who synthesizes the populist appeals outlined above that derive from Trump, with Bush-era neoconservative ideology and foreign policy. Because the Republicans, in this realignment, are becoming an otherwise incoherent coalition of big business interests (chiefly in the fossil fuel and defense manufacturing sectors), petty bourgeoisie, rural reactionaries, and genuine working-class people who have had their lives destroyed by neoliberal free trade and are now turning to Trump and what he represents if they are not retreating from politics altogether. They are becoming a party of the class-collaborationism that is inherent to fascisms.