• eatCasserole@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Mostly this, although Vietnam is doing quite well, especially considering their circumstances.

    Cuba is also really interesting…not thriving, to be sure, but you have to end the US blockade before you blame them for their own hardships. And in spite of everything, they have democracy like we’ve never seen in the west.

    Edit: also what beejboytyson said about Cuba.

    • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      The US dropped more napalm, and bombs, and agent orange on vietnam (a comparatively small country) than it did during all of WW2. Lots of its people are still suffering from this atrocity.

      • eatCasserole@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Sadly true. And most people aren’t aware that they did pretty much the same thing to Laos, who they weren’t even at war with. They just carpet bombed the whole country, “just in case.”

        Fuck the USA. They’re literally the evil empire from star wars.

        • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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          2 months ago

          It’s so funny that george lucas was like: “the rebels are the vietnamese communists, and the empire is the USA (its soldiers the storm troopers)” and somehow a lot of modern star wars fans are extremely pro-US, and never connect the dots.

          IMO the biggest critique of star wars, its that lucas didn’t focus at all on the lives of the stormtruppen, and force its audience in the imperial core to look in the mirror, at their values, their chauvinist culture, their pro-war ideology and news media.

          Still gotta keep blaming the rebels for all the world’s problems.

          • eatCasserole@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            That’s true, the storm troopers and stuff are basically presented as automatons. I guess some audiences like not having to think, but it would have been much more impactful to show them as people with their own beliefs and motivations and stuff.

            • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
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              2 months ago

              There’s a lot of short stories about that in various books, though they tend to overuse both the tropes of banality of evil and the cackling evil maniacs.

              • eatCasserole@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                Oh interesting, I’ve never really delved past the movies.

                They did also choose to humanize a storm trooper with Finn in the new films, but I don’t remember him going through any “deprogramming” or anything, he just kinda realizes he’s a nice guy one day.

                It would have been much more interesting to see him struggle with his changing worldview.