jp

Philosophy. Classicist. Bolshevik. Georgetown, NSSR grad student etc .

νῦν δ᾽ εὐτυχὴς γένοιτ᾽ ἀπαλλαγὴ πόνων,

[jp @__ffree]

Each of these claims is a gem, to say the least. Besides ignorance and Repetilov-like lying, however, all these gems contain a diplomacy that is perfectly sober and correct from the bourgeois point of view.

[jp @__ffree]

can you imagine a 60 mins episode with rogan on gobekli tepe?

[Austin Statesman @statesman]

Austin-based podcaster Joe Rogan reportedly being considered for 60 Minutes role. https://t.co/Q3SOtB6qra

[Ezra 红外战线🇨🇳🇺🇸 @Ezra_EX]

You’re an older man navigating a changing world, so I’ll try to be patient and straightforward. The portrayal of collaboration between Chinese textile workers and American shoplifters feels extremely naive at best (given that shoplifting in America is often mocked in China as a sign of decline and decadence) and at worst politically offensive, since everything in the film takes place without any connection to the Communist Party. It comes across as no different from various American-aligned “left-wing” NGOs that seem to exploit Chinese labor issues to meddle in China’s domestic political and social affairs and undermine the Party.The characters being "left-wing" activists influenced by Marxism do not make such meddling and intervention more acceptable, and if anything, that makes it far worse. I am not getting into the specific characterization and look of the Chinese characters that most mainland Chinese would find incredibly irritating, as these are comparatively minor issues.

The old narrative of American corporations exploiting Chinese workers while selling to American consumers feels outdated and tone-deaf in 2026. Most Chinese workers now work for domestic brands, from fashion giants like SHEIN to automakers like BYD, which are outperforming American companies thanks to cost-effectiveness, style, and a focus on the local market, making them less dependent on U.S. buyers. Accusations of IP theft, whether true or not, are largely aimed at Chinese firms, which tend to ignore Western IP restrictions, instead blending the best Western ideas with local innovations to create superior products. In real life the Demi Moore character is more Chinese than American, with the dynamic increasingly flipping so that Americans are the ones trying to steal from her.

The primary way China resists US financial and military hegemony is geopolitical, and the secondary way is cultural. Shared economic solidarity is just pure nonsense and fairy tale. China combats US hegemony by defending its sovereignty in Taiwan and South China Sea, as well as indirectly supporting other Eurasian powers (Russia, Iran, etc.) to force American influence to retreat back to the American continent. It secondarily defends its own cultural autonomy against liberal (and yes, leftist) American values that are alien to Chinese society. A politically respectable film that touches upon US-China relationship would at minimal need to acknowledge the nefarious attempt by the American ruling class to influence Chinese cultural society who wants to remain sovereign, and that the American working-class correspondingly must strive towards re-industrialization based on the national and social condition of America and make America itself a productive economy instead of mostly a nation of consumers. ILB touches on none of these dynamics and is just very dated ideal of Western Marxist framework about some form of "solidarity" that neither exists nor is desirable. Shoplifting, discount shops, and even strikes in retail stores are grossly inadequate if not irrelevant and contradictory. (Like honestly if this were real life, a sudden, drastic hike in Chinese wages as demanded by Chinese workers in the film would lead to a big hike in the price of the clothes, hurting the American characters and their demand for cheap consumer goods in the first place).

The actual point in 2026 is that Americans need to build their own domestic productive factories and revive its industries (and with them, dignified productive jobs) to serve its own people like China is doing, and stop vainly leveraging its financial power and the strength of the US dollar (enforced by the US military, though increasingly weakened these days) to obtain cheap foreign goods to feed its de-industrialized and disaffected masses. There is nothing remotely like that in ILB, in which the Americans are all purely parasitical of the produce of Chinese industries (whether they are the discount store, fashion designers, retail shops, or shoplifters), and that somehow greater pay of the former can lead to long term affordability for the latter. It is a one-sided consumerist film hiding behind its sentimentalism about “art” while affirming the structure of US hegemony but with the leftist fantasy that this is somehow sustainable just by demanding better benefits and cheaper stuff or something. American workers supporting protectionist tariffs in the hope of industrial revival is more subversive than this.

[jp @__ffree]

@MarkAmesExiled unfortunately they can't do much else aside from that; all the other downstream products, esp fertilizer and various medical products remain strangled

[jp @__ffree]

@wellstonism her early piece on queer tourism in latam really changed my early thinking on imperialism and its cultural strategy. i've given this book to so many friends

[jp @__ffree]

@CantEverDie https://t.co/ZZR2ysDFUP

[jp @__ffree]

okok i shouldn't put personal photos on the hitler app. thank you for your feedback

[jp @__ffree]

@romeramreem no, not at all. even someone as distant from this issue as ralph nader has spoken on this

[jp @__ffree]

@bossman2850 @hasanthehun is his audience so composed of liberal-interventionists that Mearsheimer's rather frank description of empire ...is taken as opposition to it? He is the furthest from an anti-imperialist, following the typical arithmetic of desiring competent hegemonic administration.

[jp @__ffree]

@JacktheFate I am often perplexed by the outside observer stating nyc as some changed oasis since the mayorship changed. but I guess the full time vlogger meta has worked.

[jp @__ffree]

@dannarebb @danceyrselfdean one among many tbh

[jp @__ffree]

@dannarebb @danceyrselfdean a matthew dear show in november of 2012 remains one of the best shows I've been to

[jp @__ffree]

@nimoytism Things past for ds9

[jp @__ffree]

@dreamsofbeing_

[jp @__ffree]

@fkaemu it's superb, especially the set design

[jp @__ffree]

the ai hype era is def nearing the end when Bloomberg is putting Ed on sympathetically

[JC Oviedo @JCOviedo6]

Worth a listen.

[jp @__ffree]

guy with a saratoga spring water and aviators sharing a bench with me. jfc

[jp @__ffree]

@TheRealVarnVlog ironically, everyone knows what this means as well. jamie talks about it everywhere he can - in the media, in his letters, internals. but its, as Chuck Prince said in 2007, you dance when the music plays.