Hallwagg

[Jörg @kachelmann anderswo: @realkachelmann @Kachelmann]

Um zu verstehen, warum ein am Arbeitsplatz mit Einverständnis des Arbeitgebers aufgestellter und privat bezahlter Strandkorb (inkl. Transport und Gedöns) aus der Heimat des Teufels sein sollte, muss man wahrscheinlich Deutscher sein.

Die denken, dass aus einem vertikal undurchlässigen Land mit Ausbeutungshintergrund ein besseres wird, sobald alle Leute vortäuschen, dass sie keine Kohle hätten und dadurch dann die, die sich sowas nicht leisten können, die Illusion haben, dass alle es so scheiße hätten wie sie selbst.

Das ist nicht der Weg. Sie sollten überlegen, ob es eine gute Idee war, zu einem Niedriglohn- und Hochsteuerland zu werden, in dem der soziale Friede aufrecht erhalten wird, dass das erquälte Nackensteak fast nichts kostet, dumme Männer auf der Autobahn 200 fahren dürfen und man am Ballermann und Oktoberfest ganz viel saufen kann.

Dadurch würde niemand wie in Spanien für eine alte Frau demonstrieren, die aus der Wohnung geworfen würde. Es gibt keine Solidarität mit niemandem, dafür survival of the ekelhaftest, wie jeden Tag auf der Autobahn gelehrt.

Aber es hilft nicht, die grundsätzlichen Probleme zu lösen. Bildung, die den Namen verdient. Integration, die den Namen verdient. Infrastruktur, die den Namen verdient. Angemessene Bezahlung für soziale und Pflegeberufe, an der Kasse, in der Kita.

Dann kommt man in ein Land, in der man sich mit #Amthor freuen könnte, dass er einen Strandkorb hat und nicht über den kleinen schmutzigen Neiderfolg, dass er ihn nun zurückschicken muss. Denn das deutsche Kollektiv steht nicht gegen das große Unrecht auf, nicht gegen Ausbeutung, nicht gegen Rechtsextremismus.

Das Mütchen für die Revolution reicht leider nur für den Strandkorb eines Politikers aus Vorpommern.

[Aleksandar Djokic (Александар Джокич) @polidemitolog]

Russia's retaliation against Ukraine's Just Stop Oil drone campaign consisted of ineffective strikes on gas stations within its reach and terror bombing Ukrainian cities, an unsuccessful response. By contrast, Russia's attacks on Odesa's shipping infrastructure in response to Ukraine's anti-tanker campaign in the Sea of Azov proved substantially more effective.

[Devana 🇺🇦 ↑ @DevanaUkraine]

An ancient rite on Malanka in Lviv, celebrated in some regions on New Year's Day, and in some on Epiphany.

[Peter W. Kruger @pwk]

My dear American friends, let me give you the clear picture of what’s really going on with Europe now.

For the last 80 years, Western European public opinion was essentially split in two. On one side, about half of us truly hated you: the hard Marxist-lefties, who, living in the Soviet paradise delusion, viewed you as the embodiment of imperialist capitalism; the extreme-right who resented you for defeating them and for kicking them out of power back in 1945.

But, on the other side, mostly in the center (but not only), you had the rest of Western European public opinion that was enormously grateful for what you had done during World War 2 and after: for freeing Europe of nazi-fascist oppression, and even more for protecting us against the Soviet threat.

I was part of the latter group and, boy, did we love you. We loved your pop culture, your consumer products, your innovation, the spirit of freedom, originality, and optimism that came from America. We defended you against our own cynics. And guess what? We were also among the loudest critics of Europe, accusing it of being too complacent, reliant on others, bogged down by bureaucracy, and failing to ensure its own security and freedoms. (Not that your protection didn’t come with massive returns for you in terms of market-access and the trillions of US treasuries that we bought to prop up your ridiculously gigantic public debt...).

Here is the problem now. Over the past few years, and especially since you brought Mr Brain-Rot MAGA Uber-Moron in Command back to the White House, not to mention the whole gang of globally corrupt and Russian-fed tech-broligarcs from Silicon Valley, you’ve managed to really hard piss off even that part of Western public opinion that loved you and respected you.

Yeah, you may think that now you’ve made new friends in Europe. But don’t be fooled by the apparent Euro ultra-right enthusiasm for Trump, from the likes of Orban, Fico, Salvini etc.. They see you as instrumental in tearing down the EU edifice, but deep down, believe me, they hate you more than even the most radical euro-communist. Their ideology is pure "Blood and Soil." They will never forgive you for what you did to them 80 years ago (just as Putin will never forgive you for what you did to the Soviet Union 40 years ago). Plus, as true suprematist-racists, they believe that no society is more culturally and racially corrupt than the USA with all its racial and ethnic diversity. You’re the epitome of rot to them. They are using you to dismantle the European Union. Once that is done, you will find that their nationalism excludes you just as fiercely as it excludes everyone else. And good luck with selling them your junk food and products (you have no freaking idea how protectionist, conservative, and reactionary they are). You’ll discover it soon.

And don’t get me even started with Central-Eastern Europeans. Everyone loved you in Poland, Romania, the Baltics, etc. (even the communists, though they could never say so publicly). They know the cost of occupation. But they also know all too well the price of Western backstabbing (as when they were abandoned to Stalin by Roosevelt & co.). Now that you’ve decided to leave them totally exposed to resurgent Russian genocidal imperialism, you are converting their love into a profound sense of betrayal.

Though, be reassured. No matter how difficult the situation may be for us, Europe is going nowhere. We’ve been here for the last 5000 years, since the first Indo-European nomads started roaming west from the steppe plains (yes, modern day Ukraine…). We survived multiple civilization collapses, plagues, invasions, religious civil wars, the wildest revolutions, an almost continuous state of war, including inflicting on ourselves the most devastating World Wars of all time. There's absolutely no place on earth that has gone through so much history as Europe has (forget the Sumerians and Egyptian pyramids). And yet, we’re still here. Going nowhere. It may take time (and a lot of suffering), but we’ll adapt also to your betrayal.

In the meantime, good luck dealing with the New Imperial Global Multipolar Order that your current leadership is so enthusiastically willing to negotiate with the Putins, Modis, and Xi Jinpings of the world (on the spoils of “weak” Europe). You have no idea. As a society, you are even more fractured, polarized and weaker than Europe is. Putin, Modi, and Xi Jinping are just going to eat you up for breakfast.

Oh, yeah. In the darkest moments, don’t come whining over the Atlantic. No matter what, no one trusts you anymore here. We may still help you, but it won't come free ad it will require a lot of forgiveness. After all, that’s the fate reserved to all traitors.

[Mushtaq Bilal, PhD @MushtaqBilalPhD]

Tech Bro's Sense of Smell: A Short Story in Three Acts

Act I

A woman posts a photo holding her English PhD thesis on the politics of smell (or the relationship between smell and power).

Tech bros left, right, and center troll her, trash her. Thousands of hateful, sexist comments.

This is a complete and utter waste of time and effort and money; literary studies is a fake academic field, they say.

Who even needs yet another PhD in English, they ask.

Act II

A white tech bro sees a photo of a hackathon with a bunch of young Indian men in the foreground.

"imagine the smell," he comments.

Indian tech bros criticize him. This is racist, they say.

We wash ourselves with water after pooping unlike you folks who use dry toilet paper. It's you who smells, they say.

They ask the white tech bro to apologize.

White tech bro says, this is a harmless joke, all hackathons smell. He says, he will not apologize, and asks others to be charitable with him.

Indian tech bros start leaving 1 star reviews for the app the company the white tech bro works at.

Act III

The white tech bros' boss is an Indian tech bro.

The Indian boss fires the white tech bro.

Epilogue

Now do you see how complex the relationship between smell and power is. That's why smart folks at top universities spend years trying to understand and explain this relationship.

[Im Po Sand @SnafuPvt]

@djpr Die Privathaushalte sollen die Mehrkosten bei Gas und Öl bezahlen, damit die Industrie diese Energieträger günstiger beziehen kann, darum MÜSSEN Privathaushalte mit Gas und Öl weiterheizen.

[Hallwagg @hallwagg]

@lionel_trolling For nongerman it reads like a real german word with this "ö". But it is Volk not Völk

[Hallwagg @hallwagg]

@AJamesMcCarthy Thank you!🤩

[Yishan @yishan]

The original architects of American global power did something very clever that no other empire had ever done before: they deliberately hid the instruments of their power.

Specifically, they institutionalized the hard power of the post-WW2 American military into a "rules-based international order" and the organizations needed to run it.

These include the UN, IMF, World Bank, NATO, and numerous philanthropic NGOs like (as has been in the news recently) USAID.

The reason they did this is because repeated use of hard military power is fragile and self-defeating: it engenders resentment and breeds defiance. The British learned this and used prototypical methods of institutionalization in the declining years of their empire, but their American successors perfected it.

(If you don't understand how this works, I will link a post in the replies explaining how one example works - NATO)

The more sophisticated rivals of the US obviously know what's up, so they try to oppose or circumvent these institutions, but obviously the institutions are backed by hard power in the end. It sounds fair enough to say "if you don't abide by the 'rules,' we will invade you." It works well enough because it it sounds more fair to say that than "if you don't do what we tell you, we will invade you." Rival governments aren't fooled, but a lot of their ordinary citizens are, and combined with media dominance and control of the reserve currency (economic dominance), it's enough to keep everyone in line.

An unanticipated problem seems to have arisen:

It turns out that if you hide the levers of power, your own successors may have trouble understanding them. Especially if you failed to educate them, or let various cultural forces undermine the indoctrination of your elites.

With that happening, once the new generation of elites gains power, they don't recognize that the complicated weird control panel you built that doesn't seem to do anything but costs $10 billion a year to maintain is actually how you're controlling everything around the world and they take it down to save money. All because you did too good a job hiding the levers of power.

Soft power isn't "soft." It's real power. It's just soft because it's hidden.

I don't know how to solve this problem because I think hidden levers of power are definitely better, but you have to train a priesthood generation after generation to understand them, and that kind of thing corrupts itself too. Open power is much more honest, but no one likes it and it's hard to hold on to.

[Türkiye in Ukraine @TCKievBE]

Our Embassy’s message on the 11th anniversary of the occupation of Crimea #CrimeaIsUkraine

[Aleksandar Djokic (Александар Джокич) @polidemitolog]

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called discussions about deploying peacekeeping forces in Ukraine "empty talk" and ruled out freezing the conflict along the line of contact.

"Some say there were ideas to leave the line of contact as it is – this part Russian, that part Ukrainian. First of all, that won’t happen; we have a Constitution based on the will of the people. And secondly, what remains of Ukraine must also be freed from racist laws. There are people there too who find it more comfortable to speak Russian, who want to preserve the traditions of their ancestors."

From this statement we can deduce that the ceasefire Trump is after won't come as fast as he is pushing for. Russia demands Ukrainian territory it doesn't control ceded to her and changes in Ukrainian political system for enabling influence later on.

[Littlewisehen @littlewisehen]

Die AfD in Thüringen verhindert weiter die Berufung neuer Richter und Staatsanwälte. Sie will die Blockade erst dann auflösen, wenn sie in wichtigen Gremien sitzen und Einfluss auf die Verfassungsschutzkontrolle nehmen darf. https://t.co/XDmzh1Jli6

[Congressman Greg Casar @RepCasar]

Donald Trump’s State Department tried to funnel $400 million to Elon Musk’s Tesla.

They got caught. Then they lied about it.

This isn't efficiency -- it's corruption.

https://t.co/LsXf3GyPFb

[Aussichten 🌱💚 @Futur_1st]

Was bekommt ein:e Abgeordnete:r in Bundestag?

Diät: 11.227 € monatlich
Kostenpauschale: 5.349 € monatlich
Büroausstattung: 12.000 € im Jahr
Mitarbeiterpauschale: 25.874 € monatlich
Reisekosten: Alles
Übergangsgeld: 11.227 € monatlich
Altersversorgung: bis 7.298 € monatlich

[Hallwagg @hallwagg]

@Oksii33 It's a fake account

[Hallwagg @hallwagg]

@IAPonomarenko It's a fake account

[Jonathan Pie @JonathanPieNews]

My thoughts on Farage.

Full version here: https://t.co/oqNph7S0Ru

[Maksym Borodin @adnashmyash]

This speech by @marcorubio opens a Pandora's box for all the world's dictators with nuclear weapons. Because if Russia can seize 20% of a neighboring country's territory and redraw its legal borders with impunity, then the same can be done by China or any other country with nuclear weapons...

[Dieter Schnaas @dieterschnaas]

Deutschland hat übrigens Glück, dass Alice Weidel nicht annähernd über so viel Talent und Gespür verfügt wie Giorgia Meloni oder Marine LePen.

[ChrisO_wiki @ChrisO_wiki]

1/ Russian sources are reporting a mass deactivation of Starlink terminals along the length of the front line in Ukraine. They speculate that it has been ordered by Elon Musk and/or Donald Trump. It's not clear whether the Ukrainians are also affected. ⬇️