Notice how they attribute all these deaths to “Communism” and “Islamism” but whenever a death occurs under Capitalism they make up every possible excuse to say it wasn’t Capitalism. Hell just look at how Hitler is defined as “Socialism” in that tweet. Also, none of these guys ever cite a death toll count for Capitalism because it would exceed every made up statistic for “victims” of Communism.

Very likely the Trump tariffs hurt the manufacturing costs of this thing more than Valve can tolerate. FYI the Steam Deck was reportedly sold at a loss too, but you gotta remember that Valve is releasing three hardware devices this time round.

I mean, it’s really only significant because the British colonizers introduced it. Beyond that it doesn’t actually have much importance in HK society. HK films only had it to appeal to Western audiences. This is a bit anecdotal but I come from a family of Hong Kong Chinese and I do not know anyone who ever engaged in Horse Racing while they lived there. If anything it was something almost exclusively enjoyed by White people until the late 20th century.

Furthermore, there are plenty of other sports that are played and enjoyed by many Hong Kongers that don’t involve animal abuse: Golf, Tennis/ Badminton, Football, hell even Pool are quite popular there. The HK government earlier this year finished building a huge shiny stadium in Kai Tak that was designed for all sorts of sporting events besides Horse Racing. It was also recently used for this year’s China National Games, which HK co-hosted alongside Macao and Guangzhou. Why didn’t Hasan show any of that off instead?

So, I think it’s a bit disingenuous to defer to “cultural significance” when criticizing an American-brained streamer for not being at least a bit sensitive to animal rights in a foreign country. I also don’t think OP was saying Panda diplomacy is wrong but is simply apprehensive to the idea of animals being caged in unnatural enclosures for entertainment. Yes zoos can abuse animals too and yes China has zoos, but so does every other country in the world.

It’s very likely using similar dubious metrics as statistics that claim China has a 20-30% homelessness rate because it counts all the migrant workers that don’t officially own a home in the cities they migrate to (they count rental properties under this FYI) as “homeless” even though they all technically have homes in their home towns already.

Also yeah, it’s pretty hilarious that Thailand has a ‘pale white’ slum category while all their neighbours are much higher in percentage when Thailand one of the most unequal countries in the world when it comes to wealth and living standards. I mean just go to downtown Bangkok and you will literally find slum-like habitations next to high rise condominiums lol.

Inb4 the German-Ukrainian partitioning of Poland happens.

Taiwan is like if Palestine managed to liberate itself from Israel completely, but then a civil war occurred between Fatah and the PFLP which the PFLP managed to win and establish a new Palestinian socialist state, but Fatah wasn’t completely defeated and retreated to Cyprus to continue their government for the next 70 odd years while claiming to be the “real” Palestine.

Oh and they also became a military dictatorship for 40 years in order to violently suppress any leftists on the island with America’s full backing, and more recently started to simp for their former Israeli occupiers as a role model to follow.

(this isn’t a completely accurate analogy as Cyprus was never a part of Palestine like Taiwan is for China, but it’s a general jist of Cross-Taiwan Strait history)

Ok and? People like Contrapoints turned me away from the reactionary culture war a decade ago too. Doesn’t change the fact that she like Hasan is a liberal whose only contributions irl are getting people to vote for the democrats and other bourgeois parties.

Online leftists really have to stop thinking parasocial relationships with streamers is somehow praxis and go outside (and also read theory).

Yes for the reasons stated in OP, but also because the actual subscriber count for both is abysmally low and merging would give more exposure.

And if merger occurs, there should be a clear rule that public figures must have their name mentioned in the post title to distinguish from anon posts.

Also just realized if the users per month of both comms were combined it would be the most viewed comm on Hexbear lol.

a college degree, a mild improvement in the boot’s conditions, escape from an abusive family, etc. are worth any amount of foreign lives to these people

The funny thing is Graham Platner isn’t even from a poor or abusive background, he comes from a multi-millionaire petite bourgeois family and went to private schools.

I know that even if he was poor, doing what he did in the US military is still wrong, but it’s just funny seeing American “leftists” trying to use this argument of “if you’re poor, being a jackboot soldier of the American Reich is fine!” for someone as privileged as Platner.

This whole Graham Platner saga has been such a good litmus test for the western left. The Russia/ Ukraine war was already a good one for 3 years, but that one was harder to use for westerners. This one though? Clear cut war criminal with blatant Nazi symbolism tattooed on his chest running on a social fascist platform, and the best defence these radlibs have is “but he said he was a communist on Le Wholesome Reddit!!!”.

I feel like this is a good analogy to how Israelis live off stolen land they thought to be inconsequential and harmless in doing.

Graham Platner is a lying, (likely) corrupt, overtly racist and greedy person who ALSO has a Nazi tattoo. The only reason this liberal is using a double standard is because he’s running under the Blue MAGA label.

Also, at age 23 I was still a liberal starting to learn and embrace socialist ideas more, but back then I at least knew having a Nazi tattoo on my body was bad idea. At 23, you are not a fucking child anymore and you have to accept consequences for your actions. Stop infantilizing a fucking 4-time Iraq war criminal you POS.

If Chinese animators were brave enough to write more stories set in the modern era (which is partially because they are afraid of triggering Chinese censors) it would not only be likely more popular with the rest of the world but can also be used to promote socialist ideas abroad.

All good comrade, it’s a reference to the most iconic scene in the OG Predator film which also has emojis on this site!

Yeah Stalin was a coward, for not executing this corn farmer

And how would an American soldier have the opportunity to do the same if they were not afforded the same opportunity?

I can literally cite two (recently) living examples of this: Mike Prysner and Aaron Bushnell.

One gave up a military career entirely after being deployed to Iraq once and dedicates his life to anti-war/ anti-imperialist activism to the point that he literally gatecrashes conventions that host his former commander-in-chief Bush Jr. to call him a mass murdering war criminal right in his face.

The other, was an active US soldier who became disillusioned with the Imperialist war machine after seeing the US help Israel carry out a livestreamed genocide for over a year, so much so that he wrote a manifesto disavowing his military associates and condemning the entire imperialist system and everyone that supports it, and shortly after decided to (regretfully) self-immolate in front of the Israeli embassy.

That in my opinion, should be the standard that all potential revolutionaries in the US military should follow. And DEFINITELY NOT someone like Graham Platner who hasn’t done a smidgen of what the former soldiers I just mentioned have done.

What’s the matter, the CIA got you pushing too many pencils?

Western/ Global North “leftists” try not to fall for another social fascist challenge (Impossible).

Even before this came out, the fact that this guy is an Iraq/ Afghan War vet who went there FOUR times, once as a BLACKWATER MERCENARY who is also proud of this fact and refuses to acknowledge what he did was wrong should have been a massive red flag. I know a lot of people here don’t like BadEmpanada, but he was 100% in the right to condemn Hasan and everyone else who supported this guy.

Being a minority at a mass protest already puts you in danger of being targeted by the state or a fascist gang, but there’s also the possibility of losing your job because you engaged anti-capitalist activities.

And that I think is the biggest fear that prevents most ordinary people from doing a general strike and actually coming together to form a proletarian movement: being singled out and getting reprisals from their employers which will lead to losing their incomes (which are already barely enough to live affordably for the majority), which will lead to them and their families potentially starving or going homeless. That’s something everyone can relate to regardless of their identity or background.

I know this isn’t theory or anything, but one of the things I liked about the Andor TV show is that it showed the very thing I’m talking about: people failing and leaving the cause because they were afraid of losing their livelihoods.

Calling people “ultras” in the real world isn’t going to convince them of anything. You have to put forward a persuasive argument that the revolution is worth the risk of losing everything and everyone you know.