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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   996 thread views

Transnational Thursday for May 29, 2025

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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I was thinking about hunger strikes recently. And I figured out there are two things to be done - either force feeding them, or locking them in a room to make sure they won't cheat for at least 60 days.

Hunger strikes are a stupid strategy outside of prison. When the hunger striker is in prison, the authorities have to pick one of the two terrible optics choices of either force feeding them or letting them starve to death. Margaret Thatcher had to make that choice once regarding an imprisoned Member of Parliament, chose wrong, and the ensuing hullabaloo singlehandedly reignited the Troubles for another next fifteen years. If some rando civilian who’s loose and free and on the street decides to give themselves an eating disorder, and no one really has a responsibility to do anything about it, that doesn’t really reflect badly on anyone but the person themselves.

two terrible optics choices of either force feeding them or letting them starve to death

This only works if the prison guards are the good guys or at least try very hard to pretend to be ones. Otherwise neither of those options are a big problem for them. Case in point: Putin murdered Navalny in prison (not by hunger but same point stands) and what happened? Absolutely nothing.

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