#1321
The first season was an ok story about the robot proletariat gaining class consciousness. But like all American media, once that happens they either have to change the theme into why revolution is bad and both sides should strive for a peaceful solution or that a conspiracy is controlling both sides and they should unite to defeat the jewish conspiracy. They've got a bit of both this season with the robots being portrayed as ruthless muderers of innocents and being controlled by a "bad" capitalist who's fooling the good park workers and robots into his personal quest for immortality and selling your data. This makes the story meandering and incoherent, as cheap gimmicks replace thematic continuity or a feeling of narrative progression. The latest ep is well suited for nerds who love to be immersed in the technical aspects of production to hide from ideology.

Also John Oliver Stewart has a new piece slandering Venezuela just in time for the elections. I didn't watch it but I do wonder how much investment there is in these late night comedy shows by imperialism. Apparently democratic socialism is saved from Venezuela though, also just in time for Bernie Sanders to defend John McCain as a "war hero."

E: watching TV snype
#1322
It's spring, and even though in her late stage dementia my Nana doesn't know what day it is or where she is or who she's with, she does know it's spring. She's preoccupied with thoughts about the "new babies," living back in the times when she used to have new foster kittens on a yearly basis. So I found this to ease her anxiety about how the babies are doing (she keeps trying to check on them)



It's pretty soothing to me, too.
#1323
Speaking of people with garbage racist takes on Venezuela, Fred Armisen admire bill Hader’s documentary now parody of Vice News, DRONEZ, was pretty spot on, even if Armisen and Hader probably missed their own joke at the conclusion.
#1324
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#1325
I've been meaning to watch Ladoni (palms) (1994) for a couple weeks so maybe posting about it will actually get me to do it. It's hard to find any information about it, but my friend who recommended it describes it as a quasi-documentary about a small moldovan town immediately after the collapse of the soviet union. he said it was the most sickening thing he's ever watched, anyone seen it?
#1326
its also the source of the footage in this yegor letov video, which is probably how he found out about it

#1327

babyhueypnewton posted:

Also John Oliver Stewart has a new piece slandering Venezuela just in time for the elections. I didn't watch it but I do wonder how much investment there is in these late night comedy shows by imperialism. Apparently democratic socialism is saved from Venezuela though, also just in time for Bernie Sanders to defend John McCain as a "war hero."


friendly forums tv masochist checking in to confirm how bad this piece really was

the story they're pushing is pretty standard but as you heard its been massaged for a young audience that leans bernie - socialism is stuff like universal healthcare, which is good, and venezuela isnt socialist, it is bad. they use figures from atlantic council and imf reports and even a clip of a yale professor saying to the camera with a smirk "thats not how money works" to describe how the economy is fucked and how its because of maduro doubling down on the worst of chavez' policies. they go on to play a bunch of out of context clips of maduro ostensibly saying or doing insensitive stuff in front of his starving nation and cutting back to john in the studio going HOLY SHIT! WHAT KIND OF MONSTER DOES THIS!!

my favourite part though is where they address claims that the US might have something to do with the recent protest movement. first they frame this as crazy talk by showing a clip of maduro himself making the claim in interview. then they admit that ok, yeah, the US has done a bunch of bad stuff in the region, but this isn't one of them. then instead of explaining why it isn't, they deflect with one of their patented family guy style jokes about how its like accusing oj simpson of murdering princess di. and the audience hoots and applauds.

#1328
i remember when someone posted a comment i reposted here about how Venezuela's problem is that it "tried Chavezian socialism", which "didn't work", unlike "Sandersian socialism", which "works", and i was like, buddy,
#1329
is there a one stop-primer that i can point to about currency manipulation, food hoarding, and overall State Dept tomfoolery going on in Venezuela? used to be you could just google search "venezuela currency manipulation" and get some decent stuff, but now it's all Forbes articles about "Maduro claims Western Interference over food shortages. Here's why the math doesn't add up"
#1330
have you peeked at The Visible Hand of the Market: Economic Warfare in Venezuela? it's a recent book by a Venezuelan economist. i haven't given it more than a skim but it definitely has stuff on exchange rate manip

it has jacket praise from maduro -- surely a very high form of praise, considering his love of jackets

edit: i seem to recall Mark Weisbrot of CEPR is pretty good on this stuff, too; wikipedia editors have ballooned the detail that he "has been described as supporting Hugo Chávez and the Venezuelan government" into a quarter of CEPR's wiki page, so that's promising

Edited by Constantignoble ()

#1331

shapes posted:

is there a one stop-primer that i can point to about currency manipulation, food hoarding, and overall State Dept tomfoolery going on in Venezuela? used to be you could just google search "venezuela currency manipulation" and get some decent stuff, but now it's all Forbes articles about "Maduro claims Western Interference over food shortages. Here's why the math doesn't add up"


this is not very helpful exactly but next time you or someone else is like "huh this google search is not working the way i thought it would, this is all mainstream american media narrative reinforcing shit" try something else like duckduckgo, it isn't magic but it helps.

#1332
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#1333
#1334
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#1335

Constantignoble posted:

have you peeked at The Visible Hand of the Market: Economic Warfare in Venezuela? it's a recent book by a Venezuelan economist. i haven't given it more than a skim but it definitely has stuff on exchange rate manip



wow, i didn't realize this was a direct link to the PDF. i clicked it on my phone, and when i got off the subway there were feds waiting at the stop to seize it. you owe me a new SSN, goonsire.

#1336


me when the Quantico PDF squad finally catches up
#1337
watched "the foreigner", a joyless knock-off of taken where jackie chan spends almost the whole movie stalking and harassing sinn fein's gerry adams, played by pierce brosnan. there are maybe four minutes of enjoyable fight scenes across its two hour run time. it has the nakedly fascist politics you would expect from a film like cobra with none of its life or colour. all-in-all a great way to celebrate the royal wedding
#1338
i drank while watching the wedding and slagging it off. it was fun
#1339
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#1340
it was on literally every channel here in Straya too. le commonwealth face
#1341
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#1342
West Brits were out in full force here for the Royal Wedding, paying to see it in theatres and shit.


Anyway, been watching The Expanse and enjoying it. Unusual in terms of scifi in that actually it actually portrays class instead of merely masking it with metaphor. Earth and Mars are imperial powers both of whom keep their citizens complacent by exploiting people who live in the asteroids and Jupiter's moons in dangerous conditions, and the two powers constantly threaten to annihilate each other. The asteroids have a national liberation group called the OPA that everyone accuses of being terrorists. Since this is still Yank television of course there is a conspiracy pushing things to the brink being uncovered, because it couldn't be enough to have a story about the oppressed. The asteroid Nationalist played by Jared Harris comes across as the sanest man in the show, though of course it's implied he is merely an opportunist. Though merely presenting his point of view as somewhat legitimate places it above most Amerikan telivision in terms of politics. Of course, our primary heroes are a bourgeois politican, a straight white male liberal paragon, and a corrupt cop. All the interesting perspectives are on the margins. And there's where it gets into similar territory as what BHPN was pointing out with Westworld: Yes Earth and Mars are Imperialist monsters whose citizens live a parasitic lifestyle off the lives of the oppressed in the asteroids, but this conspiracy is the REAL problem, and violence and taking sides is bad mmkay?

Still, badass space ships. Recommend.
#1343
hours and hours of watching some knucklehead cop, but its in space...where do people find time for this?
#1344
the pleasures of unemployment.
#1345
i have lost track of the numnber of times some commie bro has asked me if ive watched "the expanse" the space cop show that commie bros love to talk about, but its about 50 times more than i have been asked about my thoughts on the cultural revolution and how i will personally destroy every copy in existence of "the expanse"
#1346
Oh dear, I didn't realise I was embodying a type. Well thankfully it's been cancelled so you won't have to hear about it for very much longer. Then again, people never shut the fuck up about Firefly so who knows.
#1347
The type of people who obsess over scifi shows never shut up about it because they have nothing else going on in their lives. Meanwhile, Twin Peaks tragics like myself mostly kept to ourselves and then got a new season after 25 years. Take a page out of our book: just shut up and hope for the best.
#1348
if anyone still watching westworld, they did a 'shogun world' episode and boy, the orientalism
#1349
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#1350
i gave up on westworld after 1 episode. straight up trash
#1351

Petrol posted:

i gave up on westworld after 1 episode. straight up trash


Didn’t u watch a whole series about cops and intelligence services trying to stop 9/11

#1352
a whole tv show about a bunch of fascist nerds with billion dollar budgets trying really hard but failing to stop 9/11, an anti-american masterpiece
#1353
I’m just jokin, I watched the pilot and it seemed interesting
#1354


This dude is running for governor in my state
#1355
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#1356
imagine a boot yelling "ARE YOU TRIGGERED" into a human face, forever
#1357
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#1358

Kiyomonster posted:

if anyone still watching westworld, they did a 'shogun world' episode and boy, the orientalism

it was depicting a theme park made by a (rushed) asshole for (rich) assholes, it would be weird if it wasn't orientalist

#1359

88888 posted:

watched "the foreigner", a joyless knock-off of taken where jackie chan spends almost the whole movie stalking and harassing sinn fein's gerry adams, played by pierce brosnan. there are maybe four minutes of enjoyable fight scenes across its two hour run time. it has the nakedly fascist politics you would expect from a film like cobra with none of its life or colour. all-in-all a great way to celebrate the royal wedding


its funny how jackie chan is a tory

#1360

Dimashq posted:

Petrol posted:

i gave up on westworld after 1 episode. straight up trash

Didn’t u watch a whole series about cops and intelligence services trying to stop 9/11


it was fucken funny mate