Yeah… there’s always just enough self-awareness in their words that I have to wonder if they’re poor liars, or suffering some kind of ingrained mental block that keeps them from finishing the line of logic.

I love this game. I did well on my first playthrough, but of course I managed to get the two characters I wanted to save most killed :(

Did people even ask the easy questions (without being banned and censored)? Y’know… questions that would have been answered by looking at the photos of the Ukrainian soldiers and the symbols they wore? Or the posts and comments they frequently made? I’m actually curious what the “hard” questions could be, when a lot of the answers were pretty apparent.

And here I thought California would at least be a little better about maskers.

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I had forgotten about that.

I’ve been noticing the articles are saying he was a chaotic mess, a hindrance to the war in Ukraine, and acted like he was the personal representative of all American volunteers there. Not sure if any of that is true or if they’re just trying to distance themselves from him, but I could see it being true.

Doesn’t change the fact he’s a pro-Ukrainian who tried to assassinate Trump, and failed miserably. Kind of makes me wonder if the first assassin was also pro-Ukraine.

What’s funny is that I remember the original conspiracy they’re referring to. It was told to me as a funny story, about how a doctor found the best way to convince anti-vaxxers to get vaccinated was by telling an even more ridiculous conspiracy theory.

And then this dipshit immediately admits they’d believe the conspiracy theory, then proceeds to edit it with a dozen other conspiracy theories to justify sinophobia. The lack of self-awareness is astounding.

My understanding is they edited the guy out because he was responsible for excesses driven by personal prejudices, and then he was arrested and executed. That’s correct, isn’t it? Please excuse my ignorance.

True, but my experience is limited to the US. I’m assuming it’s more or less “always the same map”.

Ah, so you saw the article, too. Yeah, I have no idea how much that person got paid to write that article, but it was too much.

I saw an article about how the photo doesn’t matter anymore and everything has changed, and I thought people somehow finally realized the picture is taken out of context to prop up a conspiracy theory, but… no. It was an article about AI editing and how people can “erase history” and remove “Tank Man” from the photo and people can be “tricked” into thinking it never happened.

Which is stupid as fuck. The pic happened. The video happened. Ironically, they do more to disprove the massacre narrative than support it. The massacre didn’t happen, and editing a picture isn’t going to erase that myth from a country obsessed with believing it.

I was wondering when they’d try bringing the Uyghur thing back to the foreground. With the ongoing Palestinian genocide, I wasn’t sure if they were trying to avoid it so Americans don’t oppose Israel more, or if they were eventually going to bring it out to try and project onto China - again. Seems they might be trying the latter.

Omg, that analogy is perfect. I think I’ll start using it.

I almost prefer this propaganda to the clearly staged animal wholesomeness ones. I keep seeing posts get circulated of wholesome animal moments “with the army”, and immediately recognize them as Ukrainian posts. People share them without even realizing it, and it’s very disheartening.

It’s not about what power the president has. The president exists for manufactured consent. If Biden gets in and commits genocide and fails to do anything progressive, it’s proof “socialism” can’t work, that we consented to genocide, and that democracy works because he didn’t overstep his authority. But if Trump gets in and ignores his opponents, does whatever he wants, etc., then we consented to that and are fine with the erosion of democracy if it means more fascism.

It’s a farce, and personally I think we’re being guided towards a fully fascist transition in the figure of Trump. Not because he, as a person, is anything. He’s a moron. But because he’s the kind of bigot chud that half the country idolizes, and through them the illusion of democracy can be shed and capitalists can take full power. After all, if more than half the voters support a fascist takeover, then isn’t that more or less how our failed model of democracy works?

One of the crew were nice and answered my question. Idk what factors are important, but the white security guy sitting down at the terminal refused to even listen to me as I tried to ask my question, demanding I keep moving. The Hispanic man working on some security railings smiled and kindly explained that the US wasn’t doing any COVID stuff when I asked him.

On that note, it was surreal coming back from China during COVID. The absolute shutdown Beijing was in as I left. Like, a week straight of near-empty metro, temperature checks, etc. Then get to the US, and they were like “Flight from China? Nah, you guys just come on in.” It was also jarring to see the narrative change from “China is super evil for locking down Wuhan” to “China is evil for letting COVID spread all over the world”. Honestly, coming back from China did more for my political development than any other single factor.

First thing I experienced coming back to the US was rudeness from airport security when I was trying to see where I needed to be screened for COVID, then finding out the US wasn’t doing shit about it (this was February 2020, mind you). Second thing I experienced was racism as white Americans loudly complained about the POC airport employees with accents.

I regret coming back a lot, lol.

God I miss China. I got to live there for 5 months while teaching English, and the only thing I hated was my job and the other Americans. Insufferable libs to a man. Not being able to speak or understand Mandarin, I couldn’t make friends with the locals, sadly. There was this place I’d always eat. 14 yuan for a massive bowl of pork, peppers, and noodles. I think that’s, like… $2.

If I could go back and do a job I’d like, I’d take it in a heartbeat. Thank you for sharing your experience. It brings back good memories.

It’s been wild to me how Ukrainian military and government officials have just blatantly said the quiet part out loud, then tried to pretend they never did when it turned out the majority of people didn’t like it. This, and the fact they were pumping out psychotic lies as fast as newspapers could print them (which were all exposed as lies within a week)… I’m just surprised anybody gives them legitimacy or benefit of the doubt anymore.

Perfect example: remember when soldiers were boasting about putting lard on bullets to kill Chechnyans because they were Muslim? And they had to be told by Western supporters that statements like that would hurt their image? Baffling how anyone could think that state is even halfway decent under its current regime.