Just passing through.
I don’t think it’s selfish. At all.
If you let him know you’ll be there for him whenever he decides to leave the cult, you’re pretty much being generous. You don’t owe him forgiveness, but offering it up front might also make it easier for him to one day get out. And it might make it easier on you as well.
For those on supported platforms who want to stay informed: Anne Applebaum is also active over at @anneapplebaum@journa.host. :)
Sorry - that was me writing too quick. For all intents and purposes the drone strike was the end of him, but you’re right he was not killed by it though its purpose and function was clearly to eliminate him, and it did so successfully.
I changed “by” to “via” for accuracy.
He escaped his palace in a convoy, the leading car of which was bombed by a US drone. He then tried to escape on foot and hide, the mob/resistance caught up with him, and had him executed.
So basically it was a NATO mission, just with extra steps so that we can claim not to be directly responsible.
Just yesterday I watched the BBC documentary HyperNormalisation from 2016, and it has completely changed the way I understand disinformation. I would recommend it to everyone.
The term hypernormalisation comes from a Soviet author, who used it to describe the sense in the late stage soviet union that nothing was real, nothing mattered, and nothing could ever change. When you know everything you’re told is a lie and everything you do is effectively part of the lie, it becomes incredibly hard to create an effective opposition; everything exists within the framework of lies.
Putin perfected this political theatre in Russia, and Trump has taken Putin’s strategies to the US. But the documentary argues that the west has been creating a “fake world” for much longer; a useful apolitical landscape where friends and enemies are clearly defined, and the complexity of the real world are conveniently left out. The overarching goal was the stability of the system; specifically, the balance of power between the US and the Soviets, and Kissinger’s fucked up vision for international politics.
It explains, among other things, how Gaddafi could be our greatest enemy one day, BFF with Bush and Blair the next, and killed via an American drone strike the day after, all while western media expects us to completely accept the narrative.
It also talks about the development of cyberspace, the different visions for it, and how eventually it turned into algorithms feeding us distorted reflections of ourselves to the interest of anonymous third parties.
It’s a long documentary, but I strongly recommend it. I think it captures some of the underlying problems that brought us to where we are today, and it gives a more honest description than pretending like everything was fine until Trump came along.
Watch it on archive.org or on Peertube (the instance seems somewhat unstable). Here’s the Wikipedia article.
If this is serious, you consider these people friends, and you honestly don’t see the problem with your communication here, you have two options when you receive a text message:
Leaving voice messages is a potential third option, if you’re capable of expressing yourself like that.
It seems people are interested in talking to you, but you are clearly not cut for written communication. With responses like this they might not be interested in talking to you in person after either.
If you don’t feel like talking due to depression, consider telling them about this. Probably in person. Like “Hey, I’m a bit depressed, so when we meet up and hang out it takes a lot of effort from me and the stars pretty much need to align. I’m super happy to do it, but I can’t always gather the strength to. So when I’m pretty shit at texting it’s because I struggle to gather that kind of energy out of nowhere. It’s nothing personal.”
How trained are US military in the notion of unlawful orders?
We would no longer be trusted
I’m afraid that damage has already been done, though we’re trying to pretend like things are cool so that you won’t bomb us or something.
Some Americans in this thread seems to think this will all blow past while they sit comfortably in their homes.
It won’t. Your passivity is exactly what the Republicans depend on. Posting online won’t save you. You need to take your actions out in the real world.
There’s not one correct course of action, but don’t get fooled into inaction. Whether you’re a peaceful protester, run for local office, or do a Luigi I won’t get myself involved with. Just don’t mistake online activity for activism. And don’t think you’re powerless, that’s how they win.
“Yeah, sure my friend here is a nazi sympathiser, but he respects me”
It’s important to be tolerant and to respect other people even if we disagree on things. But there are limits to that.