wtf is retrograde anyway.
Have you ever been on a bike (usual analogy is a car, but fuck that) traveling along at a pretty good clip, and you come upon another bike ahead of you that's moving in the same direction as you but going slower?
They look like they're moving forward against the background scenery at first, no surprise there. But as you're passing them, they look like they're moving backwards against the background hills. Then once you're a ways ahead of them, they look like they're moving forward normally again. Ever notice that? If not, try it sometime. The other bike was never actually moving backwards, but since they are going forward more slowly than you, relative to the background, it does look briefly like they are going backward.
Same thing happens with slower planets further from the sun than we are - as earth passes them, it looks for a period like they're going backwards against the background stars from our perspective. That is retrograde motion. The planets don't actually stop in their orbits, move backward for a bit, stop again and then move forward, but it looks like they do because of our relative motion around the sun.
Now, if you're from a time before it was well known that Earth is in orbit around the sun same as those other planets (and not the center of the solar system and universe), then it would mean those planets were moving backwards. And if you also think of the sky as literally the heavens which determine the fate of people on Earth, this backward motion is going to seem extremely significant (even if it's in reality basically just an optical illusion).
but how can they literally not see this?! Its been repeated over and over in history! How many times do they have to be wrong? How many times do they find out they were deceived on every level?! They know their politicians lie, at least they say they do, but they never once question them! Its so fucking tiring to watch it happen every single fucking time! They never learn! Ever!
It's because they know, if even on an instinctual level, that their material interests are fundamentally aligned with the empire. Every time they're lied to, they can easily say "it's different this time" simply because it broadly serves them better to believe those lies.
Most of the propaganda isn't there to "trick" or "fool" them into believing the lie, it's there to provide them with the justification, the excuse that they long for, that they need in order to maintain their view of themselves as good and right and smart. It's not that they're incapable of learning, it's that they have no material incentive to learn and plenty of incentive not to, since doing so would challenge their identity, their firmly-held beliefs that all their privilege and treats are earned and that they have a legitimate and moral right to them. Which of course they don't. Of course they're going to believe the lies over and over and over.
I think I understand better what you meant now that I've read the other thread. Yeah, I'm in full agreement with you. My support is with whatever the Palestinian freedom fighters and the Palestinian people support. Those (here of all places) who are saying that cheering for what's happening is "cheering for blood" need to get the fuck over themselves. Can't help but wonder what other revolutionary action they'd concern-troll. (Not that any of what we cheer or what others pearl-clutch about makes any material difference in the liberation efforts happening right now).
It's absolutely true that as westerners it would be supremely arrogant to think we know better than the Palestinians about what's going on. Still, I think it's fair and justified to be worried about the well-being of the Palestinian people as this continues to develop and the extreme reaction and terror that Isn'treal is capable of. Regardless: Full and uncritical support to Palestine and their resistance to the genocidal ethnostate.
I know it was deployed against Iraqis during the first Gulf War, with Hillary Clinton claiming Saddam was issuing his troops with Viagra specifically so they could [redacted] more.
I don't doubt r**e was a claim made against Iraqis too, but it's the absurd claim about soldiers taking babies from incubators that most sticks out in my memory when it comes to Iraq and the first Gulf War. However, Hilary Clinton talking about soldiers being given viagra was definitely about Gaddafi. Keep in mind who was in power when those respective conflicts were happening.
I don't mean to refute that but they do have somewhat strict laws around nazi apoligia.
Yeah, about that...
Mostly it was about fooling you into thinking that, as a worker, you have even an iota of power within that company.
You: "The owners deserve all the value that results from owning the company and not the workers because the owners own the company, duh." Reread what you said and note the ridiculous circular logic.
The company would continue to function perfectly fine without the owner(s), yet would immediately cease to function or even exist without the workers. The only role the owner plays in the company (that the workers operate), is to siphon the value away from the workers who made it and unto themselves.
Alright, like I said, maybe I need to learn more about MMT, but as I've understood it so far, it's a way of understanding the nuts and bolts of what's actually going on with things like inflation, dollar hegemony, etc. It's not contradicting Marxism at all, just delving into the ridiculous cult-religion of neoliberal economics and attempting to materially explain all those things that are taboo to classic western economists. It's not a refutation of a Marxist concept of economy and it's not advocating for social democracy. Do you think Michael Hudson is lying or do you think he's confused, or is what he talks about not actual MMT?
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