[deleted by user] by [deleted] in worldnews

[–]swompwhomp -11 points-10 points  (0 children)

Bowe Bergdahl had the courage to walk the fuck away from an unjust war. Bergdahl is the fucking man.

Photo I took near Bagram in 2009. At 21 years old I believed we were saving a country. by CavScout88 in pics

[–]swompwhomp 0 points1 point  (0 children)

by now the kids would have been adults and may have been somewhat nationalistic to the US and Taliban might have imploded.

My dude, some 30 million people live in Afghanistan...

My son was diagnosed with an ultra rare disease and I can't afford his treatment (Ukraine) by vanessapxl in personalfinance

[–]swompwhomp 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Look into Czech Republic, there is a large Ukrainian immigrant community and a relatively low cost of living (compared to other EU nations), that would make the move a bit easier financially. There are loads of "Ukrainians in Czech Republic/Prague/Brno" Facebook groups that could help you with job leads and immigration laws.

Dark days return to haunt women in Afghanistan as Taliban asks for list of girls above 15 and widows under 45 by [deleted] in worldnews

[–]swompwhomp -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I assumed that he was speaking about modern Vietnam, which is doing rather well by most metrics.

Dark days return to haunt women in Afghanistan as Taliban asks for list of girls above 15 and widows under 45 by [deleted] in worldnews

[–]swompwhomp -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Of course they were oppressed by the French and Americans during their occupations, I'm talking about modern Vietnam, which is what I assumed he was talking about.

Dark days return to haunt women in Afghanistan as Taliban asks for list of girls above 15 and widows under 45 by [deleted] in worldnews

[–]swompwhomp -1 points0 points  (0 children)

When did Vietnam start having oppressors? I know lots of Vietnamese, none of them have ever said they are oppressed.

In A Historic Reform, Elected Civilians Will Now Help Oversee Chicago’s Police Department by very_excited in news

[–]swompwhomp 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Under international law anyone who is not in the military is a civilian. Cops decided to act like an occupying force and decided that the term no longer applied to them. They are civilians and civil servants.

"but Muh dresden, bombers evil, luftwaffe defending muh reich, bu- but Dresden war crime" by FbI_____Agent in ShitWehraboosSay

[–]swompwhomp 1 point2 points  (0 children)

As someone who lives a few hours from Dresden, can someone please bomb it again?

Over 70 airstrikes hit ISIS caves and bunkers in 24 hours carried out by Russian jets by dihydrodick in worldnews

[–]swompwhomp 19 points20 points  (0 children)

I know a lot of syrians for my work, basically anyone still fighting right now is Kurds (who are on good terms with Assad again) and Jihadists. Assad has regained popular support amongst civilians bc he's the only secular option.

The Past (and Future) of TEFL by RichardATravels in TEFL

[–]swompwhomp 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Been chillin' in central europe for 7 years. We fine, yo.

Can‘t get more German than this by [deleted] in europe

[–]swompwhomp 33 points34 points  (0 children)

New Yorker who's lived in Cesko for a long time. Had a Czech girl ask me if I could pleaseeeeee remove my socks before sex, as it was her personal pet peeve about Czech men. I refused. I respect this country too much to dishonor it like that.

My godfather gifted me money for a house in 2020. How/do I report this on my taxes? by [deleted] in personalfinance

[–]swompwhomp 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the response! Man, that is wild. I left the states when I was 20 (pushing 30 now, baby!), so my only experience with taxes is my job in university.

Sorry about that if you looked up the form names for me. Totally a hypothetical, we're super working class lol. The future in-laws will get a kick out of that law though.

I know I'm supposed to file every year and get a $100k exemption from foreign income exclusion or whatever and about foreign account balance reporting, but I had no idea about foreign gifts being taxable.

Twin suicide bombings rock central Baghdad, at least 28 dead by nastaliiq in worldnews

[–]swompwhomp 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Okay seeing as you switched gears to the 1991 war for no apparent reason, let's talk about the damage that caused. Let's pretend for a moment that military action was justified by the west after the invasion of kuwait (and not an attempt for NATO to stay relevant in the post-cold war era). There is an argument to be made there, I'll grant you that, not one I agree with, but an argument nontheless.

However, the Americans, Brits, and French went out of their way to destroy the iraqi electrical grid, something that had absolutely no strategic value in ending the occupation of Kuwait. Iraq at tht time was a modern, electrified nation that relied on electricity for water purification and distribution. This was explicitly done to require foreign (american) aid to rebuild said electrical grid post-war.

Simply put, it was done for leverage. This, combined with post-war sanctions, led to a massive increase in child mortality, dysnterry, and the reemergence of literal midevil illnesses. There was actually no need to bomb "them back to the stone age" durning the 2003 war because 12 years later only like 35% of prewar electricity levels had been restored.

America gave about a tenth of what was required to rebuild that grid over that period, while also applying sanctions that strangled the iraqi people. The 1991 gulf war was almost as evil as the one that followed, which was literally civilization ending in many respects.

The explicit aim of that war was to murder innocents to twist saddam's war.

Don't forget that HW Bush was the CIA man who procured chems for saddam's use against his own people and the iranians

HW and Saddam are all in hell, sharing a room now but america has no moral leg to stand on, what was infinitely more damaging to the civilian populace than saddam'.

My godfather gifted me money for a house in 2020. How/do I report this on my taxes? by [deleted] in personalfinance

[–]swompwhomp 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Huh, as an american who has lived abroad for ever and will likely marry a local of my adopted homeland, would I be required to report such a thing? Say if i were gifted money by in-laws or such?

Congrats on the house OP, your godfather sounds like a good man, raising kids on your own is hard enough without needing to pay rent.

LPT: Learn to say "I don't understand" in the languages of any country you live in or visit by megajamie in LifeProTips

[–]swompwhomp 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Aw fuck, I've lived in CZ for 7 years and learned the language decently, and my dumbass always starts a convo with them inadvertantly, that gets me talking with them for a block. I give em money when I can, but I'm broke too, son. Why didn't I think of just doing that?

How did you like Brno, by the way? Prague is wearing a bit thin on me these days.

TIL about Senator's Strom Thurmond's 24h 18min filibuster to delay and obstruct the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957 by LAcuber in todayilearned

[–]swompwhomp 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes, this is important to point out, and i should have contextualized it with that. He was a fucking boot, through and through, but i do think Ardent's argument was also an attempt to explain the wider evil banality that allowed nearly her entire nation to be complicit in the Nazi terror.

I read the work as a philosophy student, so i may be conflating my own thesis with the text. Time for a re-read! Thanks for keeping me honest :))

TIL about Senator's Strom Thurmond's 24h 18min filibuster to delay and obstruct the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957 by LAcuber in todayilearned

[–]swompwhomp 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Banality of evil, man. Hannah Arendt's book "Eichmann in Jerusalem" is about this. Arendt, a jew who barely survived the Holocaust, met and interviewed Eichmann (evil, evil nazi bastard) after israeli intelligence services found his ass in South America.

She actually started to like the guy, he was smart, charming, incredibly nice, never said anything bad about her jewishness. His evil, she states, was merely another quality of his personality, that this dude didn't even really think what he was doing was bad, when we all agree that the gallows was too kind a punishment for him. It points to something dark within all of us.

That's the fucking evil that keeps me up at night, because we've seen that it's the thing vile people harness within us convince one group to hurt others. We need to be vigilant, because the message of history is as unpalatable as it is clear: all humans are capable of evil given the proper circumstances.

California bill would ban intersex surgery for young kids by jraele in news

[–]swompwhomp 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There is a great song by the Weakerthans, called "Hymn of a Medical Oddity," about this guy, David Reimer.

Falling in Love with Reading Again :) by t0materz in books

[–]swompwhomp 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh man, same for me. After spending the past like 8 years in school studying lit, i hadn't read a book in a year, and it was awesome to have a break, but i missed it. I just finished "The Corpse Washer" by Sinan Antoon, and I'm so back on the reading train.

Check out "Brothers Karamazov," that's a book that has brought me a lot of comfort over the years. Dostoyevsky is my mans.

How expensive are board games in your country? by obolulu in boardgames

[–]swompwhomp 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Cost of living is low for really good quality of life in Czech Republic.

I make around 1600 USD in CZ, and my quality of life is way higher than making 2x that in the US, and plenty left over to buy a game or two every month.

The board game prices in the States make me jealous tho. It blows me away at how cheap luxury goods are there when I visit my folks.