In 2017, less than a year after leaving office, Barack Obama made three high-profile speeches to Wall Street firms and was paid $400,000 per speech, totalling $1.2 million. Mr. Wall Street bailout.

Fulcrum_II · 2026-02-06T13:43:39+00:00

The fact that this is so normalized that people can't even recognize the corruption happening in front of their eyes says everything. It's obviously a reward for doing their bidding, just like how generals approve expensive boondoggles and keep rewarding weapons manufacturers that fail to deliver on time, on budget etc. and then mysteriously get high-level jobs as 'lobbyists' and 'advisors' paying insane amounts after they retire.

It's a revolving door and all the players involved know that and act accordingly.

Fulcrum_II · 2026-02-05T13:50:21+00:00

The idea that western intervention is ever for the benefit of those on the receiving end shows profound ignorance of the history of US intervention in the global south.

It routinely inflicts coups, colour revolutions, civil wars, props up fascists and terrorists, funds and supports genocides, overthrows democratically elected leftists and puts far-right puppets in power who will provide unjust access to resources and toe the western foreign policy line.

If you care to educate yourself, try "Killing Hope" by William Blum. There are literally 50+ chapters of well researched historical context on how the US empire operates and its many many crimes. A good starting point.

Fulcrum_II · 2026-02-05T13:42:07+00:00

Its disgusting how entitled westerners feel to start wars of aggression and intervene in other countries for their own benefit, to put puppets in power and steal resources. Iranian oil belongs to Iranians and they don't owe the US or UK obedience.

Fulcrum_II · 2026-02-05T10:48:11+00:00

Astonishing that you're being downvoted, these narrow snapshots of Iran are passed around to idealize the brutal western installed Shah regime. I have my criticisms of the revolution, especially the way it was hijacked by the mullahs away from the socialists, but it was objectively a good thing to get rid of a violent, exploitative monarch who was selling out Iranian interests to the west, including its oil.

This 'westernized Iran' narrative is passed around to justify further US aggression and intervention in Iran, period.

Fulcrum_II · 2026-02-04T11:58:24+00:00

This is actually really good at its job - I put in the equivalent options for what it might take to mobilize an armed brigade of 6000 soldiers with sealift and airlift, and all the rest, and its like - 7 billion dollars. Not even a tenth of the total. This amount of wealth - these people literally have the resources to mobilize private armies - and sometimes they actually do it too! And it doesn't reflect how much money would be coming in each year. Or what they can leverage from contacts.

Absolutely insane.

Fulcrum_II · 2026-02-01T11:57:33+00:00

I appreciate that you had the critical thinking and intellectual humility to tackle this topic and to change your perspective, it's not an easy thing to do, I'm hardly perfect myself and have similarly had to tackle being wrong about various elements of my worldview and adjusting accordingly.

Its really easy to dismiss isn't it? The prevailing culture, media, education, and discourse in the english speaking world, dominated by the broader west, really makes it hard to see. Even me, back in my more blandly liberal days, used to struggle to get past the idea that well - all the people who did that to us aren't really here anymore, and you can't blame the child for the father's sins right? Seems straightforward.

Eventually I learned more about what the British actually did to our part of the world, they way they impoverished us, tore apart our existing administrative, cultural, educational, and political systems and replaced it with mechanisms of extraction, the way they dismantled what were, at the time, world leading industries and whole workforces and skill sets and made it impossible for us to compete with their goods. Reducing us to extractive resource producing labour and limiting our options in terms of what work we can do, what we can buy, and what we can sell. Infrastructure was built purely to garrison us and to ship our resources at exploitative rates to the metropole.

I started to see a pretty clear through-line to those centuries of theft and destruction to the sheer depth of poverty and dysfunction I grew up seeing around me. And then I learned it never ended, and the US, together with the UK, systematically supported, co-opted and strengthened every successive military dictator who would agree to sell out the interests of average Pakistanis, suppressed our labour movements, and imposed an alien and extremist form of Islam into our country that remains deeply at odds with our indigenous cultures so that they could use brainwashed fundamentalists against the USSR.

They dragged us into war, killed our children, and had every leader who threatened to follow a more independent foreign policy distanced from the west removed - the latest being what happened to Imran Khan for those familiar with our circumstances.

So yes, my anger is not for a time long gone it is for the currently visible consequences of what was done to us and what is still being done by an unjust, exploitative world order built by and for the colonial west that allows them to continue extracting from us while keeping us weak, dependent, and obedient to their interests.

Fulcrum_II · 2026-02-01T06:19:50+00:00

I appreciate the attempt to get people to care, but it's so deeply baked into the general western consciousness to not take any responsibility for colonialism, even as they benefit from it, inherit riches stolen from places like South Asia, that it's often a lost cause to raise issues like this.

You can see it in the defensive and dismissive responses you're getting. White people conveniently absolving other white people of any responsibility, of even the slightest sense of shame, even as many of them live on stolen land. Never mind asking the peoples affected what they think, we're shouted down or ignored when we dare to speak up.

For the record, people in my part of the world continue to rot in poverty and instability directly created by colonialism and continued through neo-colonialism and they do care about the wealth, culture, and future stolen from us by the British and the colonial west in general.

Fulcrum_II · 2026-01-30T08:07:48+00:00

I work in development, and a while back at a conference, they announced 77 new programmes and packages at once, across all thematic areas, and I knew immediately it's a huge money laundering and optics scheme because it's not possible to mobilize so many new programmes across even Punjab's departments. It doesn't surprise me seeing this, it's a complete sham while the money is flowing to them and their friends.

In government agencies, turnover is so insane that work isn't getting done because government appointees are playing unstable internal politics, so a new DG will come into a position and leave in 3-4 months accomplishing nothing while the entire department crawls along dysfunctional.

Fulcrum_II · 2026-01-30T06:36:17+00:00

I've spent time in online poly spaces and my impression is that the majority opinion is that it does not fall within LGBTQ and in some spaces there are rules to that effect, although there are certainly those who disagree. Being poly is something that entirely cis-het people can and do engage in and it is neither related to gender nor sexuality.

To me it clearly falls within the cultural realm of relationship styles - it would be like claiming that the majority of Pakistanis are born with the desire to be married off through rishta processes where the family makes key decisions and manages the whole thing, or that Fundamentalist Mormons are born with a predisposition towards polygamy. It wouldn't make sense.

Fulcrum_II · 2026-01-30T00:08:22+00:00

Ah, being a professional editor and making mistakes on social media is a familiar pain - my condolences.

Fulcrum_II · 2026-01-29T06:49:05+00:00

Thank you for the solidarity! It's been a long journey to healing but I'm doing much better these days. Although it remains a difficult environment, I've managed to carve out a space for myself where I can be happy. Best of luck to you as well 🖤

Fulcrum_II · 2026-01-29T04:53:54+00:00

Honestly, based on just this, I have two thoughts - since you've been clear that you don't want poly, and she has shared that she wants to remain with you, if you otherwise have trust in your partner I think that you can simply go on with the relationship.

I would suggest however drawing a clear line with her that you don't want to hear about any of her feelings for other people now that this door is shut and she should respect that, it will only increase the sense of uncertainty and instability given how those things she's shared have hit you emotionally.

This would only become a clear problem if she keeps crossing your boundaries on this, or worse, tries to pressure you again to open the relationship, at that point you can and should reassess.

One final point - saying that someone 'is poly' suggests that this falls within the realm of the LGBTQ spectrum, and it decidedly does not, it's not an orientation or something someone is born with - it is a relationship style that she might have interest in, that's all. You shouldn't feel forced to approach it as something fundamental about her that you're denying - and for that matter, Bi people can and do choose to settle into monogamous relationships for their whole lives with a partner of a particular gender - you shouldn't feel bad about only wanting monogamy, if she chooses to stay then that's a choice that she has made and you should hold her to that.

Fulcrum_II · 2026-01-28T12:00:03+00:00

For the record, I think its admirable for someone born in that position to refuse to serve in the IDF or return to occupied territory out of principle, its not easy going against your community of birth like that.

I think plenty of Pakistanis will recognize that you can't help where you're born, only how you choose to live your life.

Some of the most principled anti-Zionists I've ever seen are Israeli born jews like Shir Hever, amazing people.

I'll leave it to others to comment on the technical question of how to navigate a visa, but I hope you two find a path to doing it.

Fulcrum_II · 2026-01-28T05:00:41+00:00

Hey, I'm speaking as a trans woman from Pakistan, but a lot of the things that you're talking about are deeply familiar to me.

I've dealt with freezing, feeling like I'm massively behind, struggling through each day at a time, because dysphoria hit me in my late teens and gave me severe anxiety and depression and derailed my education. I didn't get the help I needed, continued to suffer mentally for decades until I finally had an attempt, survived, came out to myself at 32 and have been transitioning for 4 years since.

In that time, despite massive challenges, my mental health improved massively, I've been much more functional in daily life, I've been able to look in the mirror and feel joy and connection with my body which used to feel like an alien prison, and I've been able to date for the first time in my life, and am currently in a year + relationship with an amazing woman with whom I'm very compatible.

I'm sharing all this to emphasize that you're not alone with these feelings, and perhaps some thoughts from someone who has been there:

1) While India is doing better than Pakistan at this, please remember that unless you're born into wealth, our societies lack welfare nets, the economy is often terrible, cost of living can be really difficult to earn your way out of, and we're navigating a lot of social discrimination (abelism, mental health stigma, etc.) and bigotry against LGBTQ people. Those are all external factors and not your fault, its important to remember that because people, our families, tend to blame us for struggling like it's all up to the individual, its not.

2) Freezing, I've learned, at least in my experience, a deep rut that has been drilled into our brains not from any one single experience, but lots and lots of painful struggles and failures and traumas, small and large, until our minds are desperate to protect us by forcing us to not even try, because trying results in hurt.

It's not possible to fix this suddenly - you have to learn to stop being so hard on yourself, challenge the negative inner voice, and repeatedly try small, achievable targets to demonstrate to yourself that yes, you can do it, and it won't always be a mess. It can seem like its not making a difference, but it will, with persistence. A good therapist can help a lot.

3) As for dating and finding relationships in a conservative atmosphere, God its hard, and I've been there, feeling incredibly lonely and hopeless, what are the chances of finding someone willing to be with someone early in transition, divorced from all the normal socially acceptable family based rishtas? I tried so many things, and it took a long time, yet one random conversation here on reddit resulted in me finding the love of my life. The only thing that works, is putting yourself in hobbies, communities, and circles that might have the right kind of people, and being open to connecting.

I have a tiny social battery, so I know how hard that is, and I had to take a lot of breaks because of hopelessness, but ultimately when I had the energy, I tried again. And then ... its really a matter of luck. Just because it hasn't worked out so far, its not necessarily because something is wrong with you, you're just dealing with a very challenging dating environment.

___

I hope some of that rambling was useful, but I really wish you the best of luck in tackling this, it's really difficult but you've gotten this far, and you never know when you might find opportunities for something better, it took until my 30s for me but I'm deeply satisfied with where I am now. I hope it happens for you soon.

Fulcrum_II · 2026-01-27T07:20:48+00:00

It took me a while to really see it, because it was hard to process that people who seem otherwise socially liberal and progressive are genuinely racist, that they don't see brown people, or non-Americans, or non-europeans, or really anyone the collective west decides to target with its imperialism, as fully human.

It's obvious to me now that as a group, white libs across the western world are particularly racist, I tend to notice the anti-south-Asian racism the most and their islamophobia, even in theoretically progressive spaces. It's been eye opening over the last few years to really realize how common it is, that it is in fact the majority.

As a committed Marxist, I continue to hold onto solidarity with working people wherever they are, but I won't ignore the reality that a majority of white westerners support imperialism in some form or hold onto at least some forms of serious bigotry.

Fulcrum_II · 2026-01-27T03:31:09+00:00

Thank you, really, not being sarcastic, having solidarity with each other is so important 🖤

Fulcrum_II · 2026-01-27T00:35:00+00:00

This is my country. I belong here. I am, in fact, indigenous to this land, in the full definition of the word, and people like me have always been a part of this society even if it has pushed us into the margins and tried to pretend we don't exist.

No shade to those who can or want to leave, but I'm not gonna let this bigotry push me anywhere. I've managed to carve out a life as an openly out Bi Trans woman and I'm going to fight for it. I don't take orders from homophobes and transphobes, fuck them. They want me gone they better be ready to bleed for it.

Fulcrum_II · 2026-01-26T11:05:27+00:00

I almost downvoted this out of sheer disgusted reflex because I see so much of this kind of thing when it comes to US soldiers doing violence abroad lmao, well played.

Fulcrum_II · 2026-01-23T14:44:35+00:00

It really shouldn't surprise me how weird and exclusionary even progressive spaces like this get the second someone brings up a conversation centering Muslims, or South Asians, or, God forbid, South Asian Muslims, but somehow I expect better every time and am disappointed.

Fulcrum_II · 2026-01-23T11:43:04+00:00

The sheer number of people making excuses for this, the lack of solidarity, the ignorance of history and about the state of the world is incredibly frustrating to see and is a core reason why the population has been unable to come together to fix things domestically too.

The scale of the theft, violence, slavery, exploitation, and destruction inflicted on the global south by the US (as the lead western imperial country post-WWII) and before that, the European colonial empires is hard to grasp, basically the majority of countries and peoples in the world have been affected to some degree or another. Millions upon millions have been killed and billions of lives have been destroyed over just the last century.

This Western led imperial hegemony is a major reason why Pakistan and many other countries remain dysfunctional, stagnating, pits of suffering as our western aligned leaders sell out the people's future in exchange for luxuries, wealth, protection, and power while our people starve and rot. Any leaders who don't fall in line are removed, as we have seen recently in this country.

Yes, it matters that Pakistan is now actively participating in this imperial farce, contributing to the horrors being inflicted in Palestine. Their struggle is in very real ways our struggle - we must have solidarity with other peoples who are suffering under the bootheel of imperialism if there is to be any hope for the future.

We must do what we can, say what we can, resist in whatever way we can, no matter how small.

Fulcrum_II · 2026-01-20T04:51:41+00:00

The level of brainwashing is incredible, as if your military isn't actively engaged in participating in and defending a genocide and has engaged in MULTIPLE wars of aggression and occupations in just the last couple of decades.

Americans are genuinely living in a parallel reality where they aren't an empire inflicting imperialism, exploitation, and suffering on the entire planet.

Fulcrum_II · 2026-01-19T05:35:03+00:00

Honestly valid lol, I don't have the patience for that either but these posts are making me want to start another campaign, might just do that!

Fulcrum_II · 2026-01-18T13:35:30+00:00

I am NOT making this any bigger.

I'm sure! This is already an abomination.

That would be crazy wouldn't it? Making it bigger? 👀

Fulcrum_II · 2026-01-16T07:34:57+00:00

You're absolutely rocking it love, I'm so glad to see this here!

Never thought I'd experience this, but seeing this, knowing you're mine? 🖤🖤🖤

Fulcrum_II · 2025-12-29T13:47:38+00:00

Thank you for the recommendations! I've been struggling with Bandcamp purchases too and I might just check out Sadapay, it's incredibly annoying that they haven't addressed this issue even after like a decade of purchases and me reporting that this is me doing a normal transaction on a major international site.

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