Botond173
3mo ago
The NYT capitalizes “Black” but leaves “white” lowercase. Elon Musk pointed this out and it’s getting traction. This is a policy shift the NYT, AP, and others made in 2020 after George Floyd’s killing, with the reasoning that “Black” marks shared cultural identity, while capitalizing “White” risks feeding white-identity politics.
The enormous levels of bias, lying, context denial and manipulation on the part of the US mainstream media with regards to race relations was already clear as day back during the Trayvon Martin scandal 13 years ago.
Botond173
3mo ago
I dispute Mike Davis's 'Late Victorian Holocausts' thesis. Firstly, it's inappropriate to compare to a Holocaust since a famine isn't an organized mass killing so much as a mildly disorganized mass not-saving.
It's normally the publishers who decide on book titles and subtitles, not the authors, and it's their evident interest to grab the readers' attention. I imagine the author is probably not a Holocaust 'relativist' himself.
Secondly, much more severe famines were occurring right next door in China in this period.
From the same Wikipedia article:
This book explores the impact of colonialism and the introduction of capitalism during the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) related famines of 1876–1878, 1896–1897, and 1899–1902, in India, China, Brazil, Ethiopia, Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines and New Caledonia.
Likewise, it's hard to see how a few thousand British administrators running the whole country could cause famine actively, though they were not great at stopping famine.
From the same page:
Davis argues that "Millions died, not outside the 'modern world system', but in the very process of being forcibly incorporated into its economic and political structures. They died in the golden age of Liberal Capitalism; indeed, many were murdered ... by the theological application of the sacred principles of Smith, Bentham and Mill."
The book's main conclusion is that the deaths of 30–60 million people killed in famines all over the world during the later part of the 19th century were caused by laissez-faire and Malthusian economic ideology of the colonial governments.
From a different article:
The regular export of grain by the colonial government continued; during the famine, the viceroy, Lord Lytton, oversaw the export to England of a record 6.4 million hundredweight (320,000 tons) of wheat, which made the region more vulnerable. The cultivation of alternate cash crops, in addition to the commodification of grain, played a significant role in the events.[6][7]
The Mughals who previously ruled India fielded a huge army, it's hard to see how the relatively small British/Indian forces based in India, around 300,000, were unduly taxing the Indian economy. The Qing fielded a million men and embarked on their own expensive indigenous naval programs. If India weren't colonized by Britain, it would likely have undertaken similar expenditure and/or get invaded by someone, resulting in an increased fiscal burden. Russia for instance spent about 30% of its budget on the military around 1900.
Fair points. However, is the main standard argument for colonial rule not the idea that it results in a higher level of flourishing and prosperity for its subjects compared to the dictatorship of their native brutish elites?
Botond173
3mo ago
They actually paid money to the Raj government when deploying Indian troops for imperial operations that didn't have to do with the defence of India. The cost of war would be borne by the British treasury, not the Indian treasury.
I feel compelled to quote US historian Mike Davis, via Wikipedia:
"Between 1875–1900—a period that included the worst famines in Indian history—annual grain exports increased from 3 to 10 million tons", equivalent to the annual nutrition of 25m people. "Indeed, by the turn of the century, India was supplying nearly a fifth of Britain's wheat consumption at the cost of its own food security."[6] In addition,
Already saddled with a huge public debt that included reimbursing the stockholders of the East India Company and paying the costs of the 1857 revolt, India also had to finance British military supremacy in Asia. In addition to incessant proxy warfare with Russia on the Afghan frontier, the subcontinent's masses also subsidized such far-flung adventures of the Indian Army as the occupation of Egypt, the invasion of Ethiopia, and the conquest of the Sudan. As a result, military expenditures never comprised less than 25 percent (34 percent including police) of India's annual budget ...[7]
As an example of the effects of both this and of the restructuring of the local economy to suit imperial needs (in Victorian Berar, the acreage of cotton doubled 1875–1900),[8] Davis notes that "During the famine of 1899–1900, when 143,000 Beraris died directly from starvation, the province exported not only thousands of bales of cotton but an incredible 747,000 bushels of grain."
Botond173
3mo ago
Recently there was Sydney Sweeney, who somehow became a darling of the online right while being famous for getting naked and simulating sex on screen.
What I find most ironic about the whole "good jeans" controversy is that there's a strong possibility that she'll actually end up not passing on her genes i.e. she'll either remain childless or end up adopting.
Botond173
3mo ago
For instance, it would be appropriate for men to cheer, cry with joy, or hug each other if their sports team won the grand final, whereas stereotypically women might not react to that.
They might not do so, but is there really any social convention dictating that it's somehow unbecoming of them as women to do so?
Botond173
3mo ago
I wonder if it's common for Bulgarian Gypsies to carry Turkic names / be nominally of the Turkic/Muslim minority.
Botond173
3mo ago
Feminist accusations widely mocked by right-wingers online and reports of migrant/Muslim/black etc. underclass sexual violation of native teenage girls and young women tend to concern widely different forms of male behavior though.
Botond173
3mo ago
What is not real is this AI-generated image of a young girl emblazened with Scottish garb and Celtic war paint defending her home and honor with sabre and battleaxe.
At this point it's warranted to ask the tangentially related question as to why Scotland altogether is apparently not one bit less cucked than England.
They won't understand it, because they're convinced that this doesn't count as 'politics' but as the principle of basic human dignity, or some BS like that.
Botond173
3mo ago
On part of the Israeli guy, this seems a major failure of judgement. I mean, that guy was in fucking Vegas, and could not be arsed to hire a hooker who at least claimed to be 18?
It's probably simple arrogance.
Botond173
3mo ago
including romantically involved peers
If that includes people over the age of 18 then we're largely talking about the same thing. I imagine most of these people aren't pimps and they definitely don't think of themselves as sexual predators either way. If any stats are available about this general subject I'd be interested in them.
Botond173
3mo ago
Does the 16-year-old boyfriend count as a "stranger" in this context? Either way, whenever teenage girls or boys run away from home, I'm assuming it's usually done on the initiative and with the support of an older man who's usually interested in her sexually, who may or may not be a pimp in reality. In a small minority of cases they run away completely alone, and in another small minority of cases they do so with another teenage love interest. On the other hand, I'm not an expert.
Botond173
3mo ago
The Soviet Union had no western style prisons, only the work camps.
Can I ask where did you get such ideas from? The GULAG was founded in addition to prisons in order to fulfill a purely economic function.
There is, in fact, a rather mundane legislative reason for the phenomenon you’re describing, included at the beginning of the Wikipedia article you linked to:
Before it the prosecution for theft of state or cooperative property was formal and didn't exceed 2–5 years of prison or community work, which wasn't a barrier for mass thefts of foodstuff and property, especially in kolkhozes.
The Russian version of the same article goes into more detail on this:
Researcher of the criminal world of Russia and the USSR, Soviet dissident Valery Chalidze noted that even in tsarist times, Russians were characterized by “disregard for the right of ownership of the treasury,” and this tradition “remained significant in Soviet times. This tradition became unusually widespread… also due to the fact that now almost everything around is the property of the treasury or state property”.
After collectivization, a large mass of public property was formed in the villages, which the peasants perceived as alienated and did not consider it necessary to look after it. Petty thefts in the collective farms became a mass phenomenon, while industrialization required food resources. However, the punishment for theft of public property was so insignificant that it did not stop anyone.
A similarly mundane and succinct reasoning was actually provided by Stalin himself in private correspondence, quoted in the same article:
"Capitalism could not have smashed feudalism, it would not have developed and grown stronger, if it had not declared the principle of private property the basis of capitalist society, if it had not made private property sacred property, the violation of the interests of which is most severely punished and for the protection of which it created its own state. Socialism will not be able to finish off and bury the capitalist elements and the individual-grabbing habits, skills, traditions (which serve as the basis for theft), shaking the foundations of the new society, if it does not declare public property (cooperative, collective farm, state) sacred and inviolable."
Who knows, maybe if the so-called Law of Spikelets had been enforced with as much longevity, relentlessness and rigor as the Bloody Code in Britain, the peoples of the USSR would have gradually come to respect the concept of public property. Then again, I’m not a sociologist by profession. It should be noted for the sake of context that, according to the same article, a rough total of 182,000 people were sentenced according to this law in a span of 7 years in a country of almost 170 million, which was a scarce contribution to the spectacle of mass imprisonment, total terror, hellscape and whatnot, to the extent that it existed in reality (as opposed to the realm of sensationalist literature and yellow journalism).
With respect to the criminalization of being late for work, that is explained by the even more mundane fact that Russian peasants usually had zero concept of measuring time in hours and minutes; I imagine they’d have gradually acquired this trait in the span of decades after being turned into factory workers even without such harsh penalties, as it probably happened in Britain (although I imagine the difference in harshness was only limited in that respect); however, industrialization in the USSR was to be completed in a much more swift manner. This phenomenon is actually described in a rather succinct fashion in the novel Darkness at Noon by the character named Gletkin.
I find it rather curious that you but ‘the data’ in quotes when in fact yes, it’s factual truth that to the extent that any examination of the Gulag’s history discusses this subject (which I imagine is a touchy one for many), it mentions that the majority of inmates were not political prisoners but common criminals. See here and here, for example.
Botond173
4mo ago
children who have voluntarily run away with strangers
You have to wonder just what % of such strangers are not pederasts or pedos.
Botond173
4mo ago
Can I ask why you routinely resort to such snark? What he very obviously meant to say was that the majority of GULAG prisoners were common criminals as opposed to political prisoners i.e. thiefs, murderers, bandits, rapists, average thugs and bums etc., which was indeed the case if you look at the data.
Botond173
4mo ago
What else does it exactly mean then to you, to be "predisposed to noticing a particular type of bad thing in his life"? Assuming that one needs to be predisposed in such a way in order to notice being beaten up by moustachioed Mexicans in middle school or encountering drunk Mexicans in the middle of the road at night?
Botond173
4mo ago
Or maybe he is just predisposed to noticing a particular type of bad thing in his life.
In other words, he's a racist.
Botond173
4mo ago
What does it not convince you of, I might ask? (I know it's sort of a meaningless question as the original comment it is a reply to was moderated already, but still.) The necessity to control the borders?
Why are you assuming that had a uniquely bad experience? I'm not from the US but to me what he's describing seem to be the usual consequences of Mexican or Central American underclass immigrants forming criminal gangs in a town/city where their numbers reach a critical mass. I don't assume that is a unique development, especially not in Virginia which probably attracts a disproportionate number of immigrants due to the vicinity of the Beltway region.
Botond173
4mo ago
Franco, like Emperor Franz Joseph, committed the grace political mistake of living too long.
Botond173
4mo ago
What I saw of Vinland Saga suggested a show that takes historical setting seriously while using it to explore themes about violence, revenge, and the possibility of redemption.
It should be noted though that the title is rather misleading as the plot of season 1 has nothing to do with Vinland at all.
It's not like Ukraine or Eastern Europe in general is radically different from North Carolina in that regard though.
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