I was volunteering with the local LGBTQ+ org at a local music festival in June for the second time, and the hypocrisy going on behind the scenes is just midblowing. Like they’ve been branding themselves as “People’s Party” (or more like Humans’ Party) for some years now, but based on what I’ve seen and heard these two years it’s more like “Rich Peoples’ - who can pay for their goods and services - Party” because most people who work there to run the festival are unpaid, but instead volunteer to work for a three day pass, most of these being underage kids. Last year a friend of mine was in cocharge of those underage volunteers, and mentioned some huge oversights by the festival org on the safety and well-being of those kids.

I’ve also enjoyed seeing my face on their social media (usually belatedly because i myself don’t fuck with meta), because our rainbow org has held a pride march at the fest these past years I’ve been there also, and me with my brightly coloured hair holding a sign up defiantly with my head held high and proud is a bunch of great pr that they ain’t gotta pay shit for me, or anyone else who’s a part of this fucking propaganda machine. The festival org, who asked our rainbow folks to come in again “for exposure” i guess, deemed it befitting that each one of us was given one (1) food ticket to the fest cantina for the entirety of the three (3) day festival. Other food we had to supply or pay for ourselves. Or starve ig. This isn’t an issue only because of the absolute hypocrisy but also because everything you can buy on the festival area has to pay the festival for the privilige, and is thus expensive as shit.

Ugh, I feel tainted by this shit.

A friend told me that it’s a strange war movie in the sense that the initial boot camp sequence is better than the latter “actually in a war zone” part. (Fun fact: Kubrick hated traveling so much that he didn’t want to go to Vietnam to film the Vietnam parts of this movie, so they were filmed in eastern London with some palm trees flown in. I’m guessing eastern London in the 80s looked enough like a war-torn Vietnamese city). But that’s not to say to latter part of the movie is bad, it’s just different though it’s been a while since I’ve last seen this film so I can’t really describe it that well right now. In any case, it’s made by Kubrick and I feel as such stands shoulder to shoulder with his other acclaimed works.

Holy, like, shit; man, I, personally, hate his style – one might call it even Big Lebowski-esque – way of, like, articulating himself, with constant pauses – like this see? – while being just another US-based utterly racist fuck shilling for the televangelists.

Autonomous Stationary Stealth Drones, just add a useless AI in there and you’re set!

based

“Well, yeah using anti-personnel mines could be considered immoral and unethical, but only if you don’t consider the Russians as nonhumans!”

Also, all joking aside, I love living in a country with Alexander “I’d allow NATO nukes on Finnish soil” Stubb for president, that goddam warmongering idiot. I like to use a phrase to refer to him that I think is in one of our nation’s most beloved wartime novels: Saatanan sotahullu

Well put, I see much of my own thoughts in this. Especially regarding false dichotomies and practicality. Thank you for the thought-out reply.

Indeed. The original question wasn’t as coherent as this one so I edited it to maybe get ananswer, but as of yet there are no answers to my question. We’ll see what happens. Thank you for the reply though

This might actually be my personal blindness, as I’ve lived all my life in a country whose entire raison d’être is being anti-Russia and all my life I’ve been taught nothing else; like “evil imperial Russia took us from the loving embrace of our former slave masters, and subjugated us for a 100+ years, until we broke the chains of their imperialism to adhere to another kind of imperialism. Also communism is bad, remember 1939-45?” type of shit. So I’m kinda hesitant to trust Russia in order to fight America. Or at least I would be sure to be ready to fight Russians off as well later.

True, but the only way for this to happen is for Europe to work together economically against the US, and to my mind China is the only viable option to replace the US as a economic partner. Of course this is a scary proposition for most Europeans, as the US works more or less openly with the threat of Russian invasion while simultaneously working to empower the local far-right policians in Europe, which will result in either them succeeding and Europe gleefully goose-stepping its way into an open war for the Nazis again, or them not-succeeding and possibly causing Europe to rip itself apart in political strife, which in turn could open the way for Russian subjugation. So basic fascist tactics, forcing a problem to appear and presenting itself as the only solution. In both these cases capitalist imperialism seems to be the victor.

Just felt like popping in to say: same. Except for me the start of my questioning predates lurking here, but just barely. “Oddly enough”, it seems most of the lgbtq+ folks here are likeminded. Also lots of neurodivergents, hah.