Okay, I'm glad I'm not the only person put off by this. 50501 and the "No Kings" movement has been rubbing me the wrong way, and being unable to quite describe why had me second guessing myself.
Don't forget the old chestnut about how nuking Japan saved more lives than it took, and we had to do it/didn't know better. I still remember that one. I think some teachers still teach that.
I've been under the impression that the game plan was to use Ukraine as a quagmire to tie up Russia, test new technologies, force the EU into an even more subservient, buffer state role, and use Ukraine as a martyr to rally Russophobic Western sentiments and manufacture consent for new "security" measures in the West that would further silence opposition. I feel the ultimate goal was really China - using the martyred Ukraine as a call to arms to "save Taiwan", as it were (the news painting Russia as villainous made a big deal of effort trying to tie China to everything Russia did in the war, and comparing the situation in Ukraine to the situation with Taiwan).
It's the only thing I could think of that made any kind of sense. The only alternative is that they genuinely believed Ukraine could have beaten Russia with only military aid. I don't doubt some people in positions of power could be convinced of that, but at the highest levels I have to believe this was just another attempt by the US to keep Russia off-balance enough that the US could try and cut China down.
The wildest thing about libs is that they love the novel 1984, and love to project this idea onto the USSR, China, and North Korea. It's wild to me because of the emphasis on information control, censorship, propaganda, etc. that they love to go on about regarding AES countries, but then they do the same thing without a single iota of self-awareness.
When I was a kid, my peers had largely lost faith in our democratic system because it didn't seem like it mattered who we voted for: the conservative elements in society always triumphed, even when they lost. Obama winning didn't change shit, the Forever War continued. No local elections mattered because the state I live in is so thoroughly Republican, it was like pissing in the wind. Yet, we were always told to have faith and vote.
Fast forward to now, and the reason people are losing faith in our democracy is because they think foreigners are manipulating everything to make the other side win. I should have guessed some insane, xenophobic conspiracy theory was the only way for people to question our system.
In the US, there's a pretty sizable percentage who refuse to admit we lost Vietnam. I don't know any dumb enough to say we won it, but I feel the mentality is similar: "I didn't lose the fight; I just felt bored after getting my nose smashed in and losing most of my blood."
I could write a damn thesis on everything wrong with the ATLA comics and LOTR. Lake Laogai aside, the original series was pretty good, though. Except the "we shouldn't kill fascists" stuff at the end 🙄
I think the idea behind the series was that since nobody knows anything about Spartacus, it's just as likely he was motivated by vengeance rather than altruism. Americans love their anti-heroes, because we're taught to distrust anything good.
Having seen the TV series, I can verify it's mostly just about revenge. There's some stuff in the later seasons about liberation and whatnot, but it's kinda got this weird "we're stronger than they are" undertones rather than any kind of humanism. It is oversexualized and full of gratuitous violence. I can't remember much else beyond that, but Spartacus developing into a rebel with any higher motivation than revenge takes a long time. They also reference the "I'm Spartacus!" thing, but in the series it's a tactic to sow confusion during the rebellion: he and the other gladiator rebels perform raids in different areas, proclaiming themselves Spartacus so the Romans aren't sure where the leader of the uprising really is.
It's really tragic comparing the two side by side. I think the series is fine enough for what it is, or a guilty pleasure, but it definitely doesn't do justice to the film or the man.
It might help to use examples of some of what Zionists have done to Jewish people in order to demonstrate that it's not Jewish people that are the issue - it's a white settler state that happens to be majority European-Jewish trying to justify its colony while serving the interests of the US and Europe in the region. Anarcho-Bolshevik recently posted something about the Iron Dome misfire that has links to a number of shit Israel's done that's been harmful to Jewish people.
And if they somehow take that as a justification to hate Jewish people because a handful are exploiting their own people, then they're probably dumb (can't see that's what happens all across the world, throughout history, and isn't a racial or culturally exclusive thing), or just looking for something to justify their hate. In either case, it's probably a wasted effort to convince them, but by pointing out their flawed logic, you might convince others who are listening to the convo.
If we're timestamping WWIII based on current events, where the US isn't even at war with rival superpowers but simply ravaging the world through proxy wars, attacks on smaller countries, and coups, then we might as well say WWIII started during the Cold War when the US began doing all this in the first place. It's really all just been one long war of the US trying to maintain the European hegemony it took over after the other "World Wars". Of course, the definition of World War has always been kinda odd, anyway, lol.
It's honestly astounding how subconsciously the selective nature of liberal thinking is. They don't even seem to be aware that they're dismissing and accepting narratives when presented with evidence vs. anecdote. What do videos of Israel flattening Gaza matter compared to some Israelis saying they saw Hamas kill babies? I'm honestly not even surprised liberals and Western "leftists" take the stances they do, anymore: they'll always act in the interest of Western capitalists and just cherry pick narratives to justify it, morally.
Okay, I'm glad I'm not the only person put off by this. 50501 and the "No Kings" movement has been rubbing me the wrong way, and being unable to quite describe why had me second guessing myself.