discipline posted:

anyone want to catch me up to speed on what's been going on?

everything has been terrible, i have contributed to the harm. reform this ungood place

discipline posted:

anyone want to catch me up to speed on what's been going on?

http://www.stereogum.com/1598561/toto-agree-cbs-was-dumb-to-soundtrack-mandela-memorial-with-africa/video/

MadMedico posted:

http://www.stereogum.com/1598561/toto-agree-cbs-was-dumb-to-soundtrack-mandela-memorial-with-africa/video/

They should have played more traditional native South African music like this

littlegreenpills posted:

i went to tennessee and got back together with my wife

discipline posted:

here's my latest post I've been working on

To tally up the dead of the United States is an exercise in madness. In the 20th century, it's hard to count America's slain. A college professor who tried to qualify it after September 11th, 2001 was exorcised from the academy. Does this example terrify us? Sometimes it seems so. That must be the only reason why criticisms on the left, no matter how loudly they're broadcast, are almost always broadcast without a strong line on anti-imperialism. For those who call me shallow, consider the Native Americans. Consider the 50 million kidnapped from Africa. Consider the millions upon millions of Soviet dead. Have you seen photos of children from Vietnam whose mothers were exposed to Agent Orange? Have you read the miscarriage rates for the women of Fallujah? When I splutter reading about "narcotic earnestness" it's because I don't think someone who derides that understands how many people have died because of American imperialism.

It's the most taboo of all subjects to the mainstream American left. From moderate liberals to radical activists, the only ones who seem able to comment on American imperialism seem to be those on the right wing, who reminds the United States in a steady stream of propaganda, that our influence abroad is a good thing. And it's such a given. From the cradle, I have been exposed to lies about American imperialism. My earliest political memory is standing in day care looking at a map, and my teacher pointing at the Soviet Union and explaining how they are America's Sworn Enemy, and how We Will Prevail. All this eulogizing about Nelson Mandela's death leaves out two very important facts: he thought Ghadaffi was a good man, and American leaders helped put him in prison. The only two countries that recognized apartheid South Africa utterly and without hesitation were the United States and Israel. Is it no surprise to note here that all three nations are bound by white settlerism. And yet this is something that is suspiciously absent from the writings I see nowadays enjoying wide audiences on the American left. There's a blind spot, and while we might channel some of that anguish into fully supporting the Palestinian people, which we should undoubtably as part of our line, we should realize that a main focus is the American war machine.

I've had friends ask me why I can't live in D.C. The answer is pretty clear to me. I can't be in the physical proximity of these organs of war and feel sane. Just standing on the street near the mall, sitting on the metro in Pentagon station, all of it feels so surreal and terrifying, as if I'm in a horror movie. Like Tel Aviv, I feel the prisons, bombs and poverty radiating outward from D.C. in an almost physical sense, as if there were tiny streams of it. I understand the theory of the international capitalist class. I understand that the United States is not always the focus. But the guns come from here. The depleted uranium, the white phosphorus. The crippling debt programs, the structural adjustment policies hand-drafted by trade lobbyists on K Street. There is a lot of work to be done in this country. I do not condemn the American people to damnation. But it should be noted: there is no country that can so loudly knock the United States. We see ourselves as unchallenged. It's a taboo subject, but one that is often not even thought of. Every American leftist should have anti-imperialism as their first political gut reaction. When we think about the horrors of capitalism, American imperialism must be at the forefront of those horrors. This is one of those life-and-death things I was talking about in the last article I wrote. If you can look upon the history of the United States without feeling the hands creep around your neck, then you are one of those without narcotic earnestness.