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Cake day: July 9th, 2023

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  • Ultimately, it’s hard to be generous to a film that doesn’t feel empathy at all to the matters being covered. Because in its conception, “Russians at War” is incredibly ill-advised. By being so consciously murky in its actual intent, and obscuring the most critical aspect of the narrative — the Ukrainian perspective on the war — all the possible ways you could forgive this film evaporate. As a result, the way Trofimova inserts herself in the film feels manipulative at best, and evil at worst. By blurring the boundaries between the capturing of reality at the front and constructing a narrative at this very same site of conflict, the film becomes an extension of the war apparatus it pretends to examine. As such, it’s an extremely upsetting and dangerous film, especially when it’s presented in the context of film festivals as a way to engage with “the other side” of the story of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

    From the “we asked 7 people who saw the film what they thought” article linked in the OP article



  • Hey what are you guys doing this weekend? . . uh huh . . cool! cool, yeah that sounds real good . . . uh . . no, nothing here, just. y’know. Sittin around, not uh, not doing anything. Really.

    You . . say pizza and a Dr K? Rad. Cool, well uh yeah have a good time then um. I’ll be around, y’know, if y’all wanna y’know hangout or whatever. *cough*

















  • in the 50 years that it was in effect the Democrats had the power necessary to put up a legislative firewall (see, e.g. Obamacare)

    I don’t think the Democrats had the uncontested power to put up an amendment or any other pro-women’s-health legislation very often in those 50 years. The one time I can think of is the one you mentioned, and they decided to use that power to pass the ACA instead. They had lost the supermajority by the time that was done.

    All that “chipping away” wouldn’t have made much of a difference if the SCOTUS hadn’t been obscenely hijacked and thrown to the Federalist nazis. And all of that was because the republiQans never wavered, never changed their commitment to depriving women of their rights.

    In the case of Starmer vis-a-vis EU, I obviously don’t know the details very well, but I would think they’re not going to be able to have any kind of public discussion about rejoining anytime in the next 5-10 years at the earliest. I would expect there to be some backchannel discussion, but I can’t see any real headway being made. Certainly if I was the EU, I wouldn’t be interested in talking about it at all. I would think Labour would have enough on their plate just beginning to stem some of the damage that’s already been caused.


  • It’s not really a question of democracy as such, it’s a question of media literacy and policy.

    Kids under 16 should not be on social media. Social Media should be required to expunge all their data every 30 days. Influence campaigns that we know russia and China run should be illegal, and punishable.

    That’s for starters. Media theory for everyone. Explain how television works on television. Limit advertising. Limit demographic data for private interests, not much more for government interests.

    The hole that we’re in isn’t because people have racist views (though they do) , or that the mechanisms of democracy are under attack (though they are) - it’s that we all stare at lighted rectangles all day. And what those rectangles are doing is grinding everyone’s discourse into mush.