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Cake day: June 14th, 2023

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  • It’s also worth noting that Mandela founded the ANC’s guerilla branch. Western media today portrays him as a purely non-violent, MLK-like figure, but in reality he was central to the ANC’s decision to begin an armed struggle against apartheid.

    It’s almost as if:

    During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it.



  • repairing harm through dialogue between victims, offenders, and community members

    What if the person who committed the crime doesn’t want to engage in this process? What if the victim of the crime doesn’t want to? What if a person accused of a crime maintains their innocence? There are plenty of cases where restorative justice can work, but many others where it won’t.

    addressing root causes like poverty, mental health issues, and substance abuse

    the goal is to create a society where crime is less likely to occur

    I think this is a much better framework to work with than prison abolition. Picking up the pieces after a crime has been committed is expensive and usually leaves you choosing from a range of bad options.


  • “The guy running over living people while he bulldozes their homes is also a victim” is, to put it kindly, a terrible take.

    The worst thing that would have happened to that guy had he refused to grind up living people under a bulldozer is he would have went to prison. I have zero sympathy for anyone who chooses genocide over going to prison. Even accounting for conscription, propaganda, economic reasons to be in the military, etc., there are a million offramps he could have taken before that point.

    People who do monstrous things will almost always try to excuse it or say their hand was forced. It’s OK to call bullshit on that.








  • Non-paywalled link: https://archive.is/G584y

    Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine

    It really is something how almost all English-langage media uses the phrase “full-scale invasion” in lockstep.

    From a strictly military perspective, restrictions never help.

    “From a strictly military perspective” is a nonsense framing, especially in a relatively limited war like this. Militaries are for (1) resolving political questions when peaceful attempts at resolution break down, and (2) deterring other countries from walking away from serious attempts at peaceful resolution. There is no world where you set aside the ultimate political goals; that’s the whole point!

    The modest seizure of Russian territory may strengthen Ukraine’s bargaining position in negotiations, ease Russian pressure on Ukrainian defenses in the Donbas, or weaken Russian President Vladimir Putin politically, but it is unlikely to change the military picture in a significant way.

    Should have dispensed with the saber-rattling and started here. This isn’t going to change the overall direction of the war; at most it will prolong the inevitable.

    These are the last days of WWI, where people keep dying despite everyone knowing that the war’s end is imminent.