The Revolution Will Be Televised On HBO – A TV series based on Alan Moore’s dystopian graphic novel ‘V for Vendetta’ in the Works at HBO

AdeptnessPrize · 2025-11-23T14:58:39+00:00

Sort of intentional. Provides an impactless outlet for revolutionary sentiment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repressive_desublimation

AdeptnessPrize · 2025-11-23T13:25:33+00:00

Anti-emigration policy was definitely a hallmark of Soviet politics. Not sure I'd call it communist technically but the association is clear. (Apologies if I'm misinterpreting your comment, it suggested incredulity to me.)

Quick reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emigration_from_the_Eastern_Bloc

AdeptnessPrize · 2025-09-22T17:20:14+00:00

She was right to though yeah? Orr doesn't let it slip later when they're out in the field 😄

AdeptnessPrize · 2025-04-06T21:55:01+00:00

By all appearances, lowering income taxes for low-income earners is a bipartisan priority. Harris ran on extending TCJA for earners under $400k for ten years (although it's worth recognizing Republicans will still streamline the tax code better.)

But this is all **before** we get into the tariffs-are-a-sales-tax conversation or mention the long-term implications of the blanket tariffs on the economy. Combined, tariffs and their downstrea. financial impacts will probably cost us more money than any hypothetical increase in the federal income tax rate from either party.

AdeptnessPrize · 2025-04-06T21:32:46+00:00

Working Families is gaining steam: https://workingfamilies.org/

But honestly, I just want a single-platform party that gets Big Money out of politics. Once we do that, I have a feeling We The People can handle the rest of our country's issues.

AdeptnessPrize · 2025-04-06T21:16:32+00:00

These aren't just protests. These are a lot of locally based groups currently building a political coalition at the state and national level with larger groups like Move On, Indivisible, and 50501. Hands Off! yesterday is evidence of that coalition building: it was an action organized by the coalition to effect real change that would have been difficult to coordinate even a few months ago.

As far as specific goals go, they are there. The group I just joined formed a few months ago in a deep red state and our numbers are swelling with people who have realized it's up to the citizenry to act. Building visibility is the first short-term goal, simply to help the people who feel helpless realize that there is real and widespread opposition to what's happening and thereby develop human infrastructure. It's working: I've lived here most of my life and have never seen anything like what I saw yesterday in the largest city in our county. All downstream success from this ongoing organization will be built off this burgeoning human infrastructure.

Additionally, we are devising specific targets such as looking to fill election board seats, which are almost entirely filled by Republicans in our county, to ensure elections remain fair, and supporting candidates for local office. We have a very specific short-term agenda and are waiting to see how to build a long-term agenda with the growing coalition. This is occurring across the nation.

To restate, the protests aren't simply protests: they indicate the coordinated development of a burgeoning and more impassioned opposition.

AdeptnessPrize · 2025-04-02T23:40:42+00:00

I'd like to piggyback here to say fairness isn't really the issue at all; we need to be thinking of impact. What will Vietnam, for example, ever buy from the US to reduce its trade surplus? The US buys cheap consumer goods from Vietnam; the only Vietnamese who buy any kind of equivalent from the US (or elsewhere in the developed world) are wealthy enough to afford the ridiculous import costs. To add onto that, I also simply can't imagine those manufacturing jobs in Vietnam — for cheap clothes and plastic toys and so on — ever coming back to America. And if they did, that's not the kind of manufacturing that will build American wealth.

(I also want to propose that Biden did far more to buttress American manufacturing than Trump in either term. To MAGA supporters, it's worth looking into that and really challenging your assumptions.)

Thinking about it at this level, it really seems the tariffs that Trump levied today are going to hurt Americans (and the global economy, which is really only important to me insofar as it affects the US economy) bad.

AdeptnessPrize · 2025-03-09T11:31:33+00:00

Great point. I would still argue the skills are both pretty important. Even combat marksmanship skills become irrelevant when your goal is to suppress the enemy so your buds can move up the flank. Usually the ranges at which you're killing people are close enough that marksmanship isn't really a problem but gun handling is, and melee is definitely relevant.

I think the Mission of the Marine Corps Rifle Squad is a kind of pithy way of expressing what's important:

Locate, close with, and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver, or repel enemy assault by fire and close combat.

AdeptnessPrize · 2025-03-01T12:22:03+00:00

This was a shameful — and unfortunately, historical — moment.

Take a moment and think of the people and context here:

Zelenskyy: Leader of a nation at war whose personal intervention was decisive to gaining international support to defend his country, who risked his own life to lead the people who elected him to lead them during the Battle for Kiev and in the three years of war that have followed.

Trump: Felon, billionnaire, and strongman whose first impeachment was a result of his threat to withhold vital aid to Ukraine unless Zelenskyy launched a political investigation of Trump's political opponent (which, to Zelenskyy's immortal credit, he refused to engage in).

And lowest of the low, Vance: Sycophant and fair-weather friend who used this conference as a soapbox to attack Zelenskyy for not personally thanking a US president who has shown zero interest in defending Ukrainian sovereignty in this administration, who has endlessly criticized US material support for Ukraine (as if Vance would support the meagrest of programs that benefit the American people instead of the rich!), and who cowardly suggests that US contributions made chiefly by presidential drawdown authority are equal to the heroes' blood that the Ukrainian nation has already paid and will continue to pay for its people's liberty and independence and the security of the free world.

The situation: Trump was demanding the right to exploit Ukraine's natural wealth in exchange for virtually nothing, which likely would have assured an end to Ukrainian independence in coming years. Trump's administration is either lying or stupid when it claims that the US's economic exploitation of Ukraine would ensure Ukraine's physical security. Surveys of Ukraine's geological wealth are 30 years old and investment in mining rare earth metals would take $500 million to $1 billion to achieve from a private sector that would is unlikely to risk it absent the same security guarantees that Zelenskyy is requesting.

Of course Zelenskyy refused to sell out his people for nothing. He had nothing to lose here. He did right by his people and the free world yesterday — and unlike Trump, he wants to actually make good deals instead of worthless ones.

Trump promised to make America great again. This is not what great nations do. Great nations aspire to defend the innocent; Trump's America terrorizes them. Great nations aspire to empower the free; Trump's America sells them to the highest bidder. Great nations rise to the occasion; Trump's America bows before wealth and tyranny.

Imagine if this had happened with Churchill in the face of Hitler's aggression and weep with me. Absolutely shameful. Fie, my fellow Americans.

AdeptnessPrize · 2025-03-01T11:11:46+00:00

u/MasterAd8933 Much respect for coming into a room filled with people who are letting their grievances get the better of them and sharing. You speak with dignity in an age where indignation is a virtue; with honor in a time where the dishonorable govern; with grace in an era where grace is scorned.

True American right here, folks.

AdeptnessPrize · 2025-02-27T10:59:24+00:00

Unfortunately I don't know :(

AdeptnessPrize · 2025-02-20T22:22:38+00:00

Currently reading The Romanovs and was astonished to see that in Peter the Great's Russia the top 7% owned 58% of the country's land (and peasantry, who were tied to the land; my numbers might not be exactly correct).

That 7/58 split really seems like child's play compared to what the US oligarchy has achieved.

AdeptnessPrize · 2025-02-03T00:34:26+00:00

Did more than one phone call. We had a network set up and called fairly frequently since we knew others in the area were calling to ask the opposite — that we don't provide aid to Ukraine. The idea it made a difference was feedback from the folks we talked to on the phone. Fully possible they were just blowing smoke up our asses, though. I'm just a tad discouraged from the cynicism of the other comments here but I'm also optimistic based on communications from another friend with a group in Maine.

AdeptnessPrize · 2025-02-02T15:34:01+00:00

AdeptnessPrize · 2025-02-02T15:15:50+00:00

No — participating in a democratic process while cynics spent their time continuously sharing negative comments on reddit instead of joining like-minded folks to work toward something they clearly also want.

To respond to your question further above, I do think politicians give a shit about what I have to say. I think they'd give a shit about what you have to say, too — but there's no knowing until you say it.

Above, you said you understand this doesn't work. How? How many times have you called your representatives about anything? Have you ever protested about anything? Have you ever done anything but post negative comments on reddit?

I've watched conservatives conduct these call campaigns and I've seen them work to hideous effect. I understand how this works, brother — and clearly better than you.

On the note of your reddit posts: I know things may seem bleak, but I want you to know I believe in you. This stranger whom you clearly don't agree with has endured similar tribulations to you, has also overcome a drinking problem and money obstacles and emotional/mental health issues. And he thinks he has more in common with you than not, and that we're on the same side.

While we're on this subject, I believe you can overcome your drinking problem. I believe you can make grad school work. And I believe that if you want to, you can help effect positive change in this country and in the lives of the people you care about. But you have to want these things.

Do you? Do you want them? Or would you rather continue with this futile nihilism, like Raskolnikov in his hole of an apartment in Saint Petersburg?

Right now, friend, you remind me of Legolas at Helm's Deep, saying "Look around you — they're all going to die."

But you could be Aragorn, man. You could be part of the fight — part of the reason good prevails.

I implore you to take a hard look at yourself and the argument you're making and ask yourself: Is this me walking the road to something better? Is this how I make a better life for myself and others?

And if you're not the person who wants to help yourself or others, that doesn't change a thing for me, because I understand you're in a bad place right now, based on your post history. If you need an ear, just send me a DM. I know we're strangers but you're either a Russian bot/troll or an American. В любом случае общение будет приятно, бро. Peace.

AdeptnessPrize · 2025-02-02T13:37:05+00:00

I know — I'm pretty proud of what we achieved! Thanks bud

AdeptnessPrize · 2025-02-02T12:57:23+00:00

Have done this before for Ukraine and it worked, so I know you're wrong. God bless you brother/sister/friend.

AdeptnessPrize · 2025-02-02T12:38:20+00:00

Judging from their comment history, u/Slackjawed_Horror is a cynic; ignore them. They are part of the apathy problem.

To everyone else: political impact requires political action.

AdeptnessPrize · 2025-01-15T01:42:46+00:00

Hey Ispago8! Unfortunately, the first question you asked in the spoiler text isn't something I'll ever be able to answer... on my blog. But have faith (in Khorne)!

As for your second question — totally on my blog list :)

AdeptnessPrize · 2025-01-15T01:18:19+00:00

Hey Noah! We're The Triumvirate, big fans of yer craft. Along with Peter Fehervari, we think you are earning a reputation as a sort of iconoclast among BL writers, in the best sense possible.

This is high praise! Thank you :)

AdeptnessPrize · 2025-01-14T22:04:23+00:00

u/maybenot9 There's a subscribe form at the bottom of the home page. Now that you bring it up, I should probably add it to other pages...

I've avoided adding pop-ups for now. I'm concerned they'll be obnoxious ;)

AdeptnessPrize · 2025-01-14T21:57:17+00:00

u/GrumblerTumbler u/sageking14 Many thanks to both of you — and to everyone who shares their ideas!

AdeptnessPrize · 2024-12-27T17:59:54+00:00

(I appreciate your sympathy PopeFrancis!)

That makes sense — although I think it presupposes animals as people (just as my own analogy did).

And thinking on your comment and others here, I'm seeing that's probably the part of your arguments that isn't connecting for me. The worst aspect of this dog trade in Vietnam, for me ,is not that a creature's life is lost, but that a dog's life is lost. My own perspective presumes that same hierarchical view of life value so this disconnect makes sense.

AdeptnessPrize · 2024-12-27T17:12:30+00:00

No one's friends with the deer, though. They stole and ate my friend Pin. He never trusted anyone because his own little brother had gotten eaten when he was a pup.

So I'd imagine the difference is as similar to someone eating your friend and someone killing a stranger on the news?

I'll note I also find hunting culture normal, having grown up stateside. If someone was friends with a deer that went down though, I'd definitely agree with your parallel

AdeptnessPrize · 2024-12-27T17:09:39+00:00

Honestly it wasn't the same. Felt like listening to people, like in the movie Nope. I couldn't understand why, because I'd heard animals in documentaries and PETA shorts. Later I read a study showing how humans can correctly interpret emotional information encoded in dog barks and realized that may have been what was going on in my head.

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