The answer, my friend
Is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.
Wait. Sorry. The article’s author thinks Gaddafi was a good guy?
On the one hand I see the point. On the other hand, this is the nonsensical “geopolitics as sports teams” trope.
People who hardline their beliefs with zero compromise a) rarely get listened to on a broad enough stage to make a difference and b) usually turn out to be hypocrites. A better headline might be, “Guardian Journalist Shocked to Discover How Politics and Diplomacy Work”.
Even Ghandi was nice to English people when he talked to them. And it totally helped the cause of Indian independence to be so.
It’s entirely possible to think that:
- Gaddafi was a horrible person and a corrupt leader
- He didn’t deserve to get sodomized by a sword
- The American intervention left Libya in a worse state than when Gaddafi was in power.
- Cheering for #2 is tasteless and barbaric.
All of the above can be true.
I didn’t get that she thought he was a good guy, I got that she felt revulsion at the shitshow of a liberation, using “sodomized by a sword” for that purpose. Who knows her perspective, her family is another level of privileged crazy. Maybe that’s why she focuses on the specific murder details; she’s seen so many.
When the people cannot put their rich people in check, the rich try to check each other. Sometimes to tragic effect, sometimes comic.
One part of the answer to the question of “What’s wrong with all these shithole countries” is “Donald Trump and worse of his ilk fund and arm the killers who keep this kind of downward spiral going for hundreds of years”.
For totalitarian empires, the last refuge from embarrassing reality is a scapegoat in custody.
The other NRA fighting for the right to hurt and even kill people.¹
¹ Poverty kills, especially in a country where medical care is available only if you have the money to pay for it. Poverty is just less obvious than a bullet.
I wonder how this dumbasses’ empire is faring now that we’re always at war with Eastasia now.
Thread:
https://twitter.com/helaineolen/status/1073257402131193856
Financial success largely depends on two factors: how wealthy your immediate family is, and whether or not someone bigger than you has decided to screw you over (it doesn’t even need to be personal).
I can pick careers, can’t I! In fact here’s me, picking a career path…
Look at me go!
I have to avoid self-checkout due to the flashing lights and animation. But ideally, if it were accessible, and if there were ubi, it would avoid the whole bags issue.
The rich rule markets through magic bullshit marketing and rewriting history generations later.
https://thebaffler.com/latest/not-how-the-internet-happened-babendir
Mostly trying to figure out what they’re doing. Experimenting, seeing what they can do with the tools they have. Finding gaps in their knowledge and the tools and trying to fill them. Trying to figure out if they’re solving the right problems and if not, what those are and whether what they’ve built might be useful for something else. Realizing that some of the decisions/assumptions they made when they started were wrong, and now they need to re-architect/rework/refactor or start over. Discovering that the thing they built works great under certain circumstances, but terribly or not at all under others and having to find ways to address those at the last minute.
Programming is a lot of trial and error. It’s having a clear vision of what you need to do and how to do it, and then finding out afterward both were wrong. It’s setting schedules and deadlines based on those initial plans and visions, and then cramming all night to try to still meet the deadline in the face of the unexpected problems that actual implementation and testing reveal.
Sounds like you should write a book.