SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]

Reminds me of this quote:

We should also wonder how our appreciation of the sophistication and totality of the propaganda apparatus and its ongoing repression squares with the peculiar kind of “critical” media that does make it to wide circulation, usually to universal praise from both the mainstream and the counter-cultural “left.” […] Disaster movies insist that the end of the world is inevitable, that we are all complicit in ecological devastation for not doing our part recycling cans — this is environmental critique. Triumphant, handsome, charismatic, “alpha” men climb to the top of their respective empires of crime in highest-budget four-season shows and are awarded the highest accolades in their profession — this passes for an indictment of capitalism. Eileen Jones insightfully observes, about David Fincher’s Gone Girl:

Even as I watched it and shuddered with revulsion, I had to admit it — Fincher’s got our number. He’s figured out how to regularly wow contemporary audiences, to present us with the appalling truth of how despicable we are in a way that never really strikes home, by alternating coldly disapproving, feel-bad effects with conspiratorial smirking ones that remove any real sting. He so often uses the trappings of film noir to showcase our “badness,” but since we’re all perverts together, it’s just the “badness” of S&M sex-play, so who cares?

To the point that there is a lot of footage of the people of Iran cheering in the streets.

we’re really doing this propaganda again? can we please get more interesting stuff than the “my people yearn for freedom from this tyrant”?

There haven’t really been that many famines throughout history (at the very least in the last few centuries) that have been caused by there not being enough food to eat per se. Most of them are caused by food being distributed away (either directly via railroads or “indirectly” by market forces and speculation) towards places that already have enough food.

Key Events in the timeline of X Bad Communist Country:

• Previous government which had some issues but could have been worked out through dialogue, debate, and reforms, is brutally overthrown by violent ideological communist terrorists
• Those terrorists evilly steal and pillage the institutions of that previous government and brutally loot the businesses of hard-working citizens, giving them to the lazy, inferior, unwashed masses
• As a consequence of this, the country falls into abject poverty, with breadlines and freedom of speech brutally repressed for decades.
• We put sanctions on them AFTER this. ABSOLUTELY 100% AFTER. I cannot stress enough that the sanctions did NOT cause the former thing to happen, it was only AFTERWARDS. But it’s also fine if they did cause suffering because those people are bad and inferior anyway.
• Protests from people yearning for freedom in this brutal communist regime occur and are brutally crushed, brutally. Thousan-- tens of tho-- HUNDREDS of thousands of people are murdered by state forces and their bodies washed into sewers so there’s no evidence of this happening, but it did definitely occur. Five million people are killed in this genocide, which claimed twenty million lives over a 20 year period; this truly awful crime of humanity killed fifty million people, and-- ah, this just in, that genocide actually killed seventy million, more than previous estimates from seven seconds ago, and-- did I hear eighty million from the gentleman in the back? 85 mil-- 90 million! Going, going-- a HUNDRED MILLION, to the fine person in row 5, going, going, and… SOLD!
• Eventually, the communist regime collapses due to corruption, mismanagement, and a lack of respect for basic human nature. We help them institute democracy in the aftermath and restore those hard-working businessowners to their rightful position above the masses who destroyed their country out of lack of work ethic / This communist country is a mere 5 days from complete collapse because none of the people in charge have any knowledge of even Economics 101, and are too stupid to figure out how to save their economies via privatization.