askchapo

I have some suspicions, but I’d like to learn a bit more about the actual process. When the US sends another x billion in military aid to Israel, how does that physically go down?

My guess is that money is magicked up into some account out of thin air, and then is sent to mostly US defense contractors to pay them welfare to ship weapons and munitions to Israel. Added to that would be DOD budgets for operations to support them in theatre, etc.

So basically my assumption is that the whole process is basically a giveaway to defense contractors, at the expense of the entire country, either by wasting tax dollars or creating more money supply which contributes to inflation and other fun things. I also keep seeing headlines about bills to stop “weapons sales to Israel” but it confuses me because my understanding is that most of it is being given to them and they’re not buying anything. (I guess we’re giving them money and they then buy from the defense contractors?)

Anyway, lots of vague speculations and assumptions, hoping someone knows better or has a good source for me to read to educate myself.

I have a passport, but aside from some half-remembered Spanish courses from high school, I'm completely monolingual.

Sadly, the US prohibits travel to Cuba for vacations, otherwise I'd gladly put some money into their economy.

It appears to me that the complete deindustrialization of the imperial core is a historical arc that, since 1973, has been more or less unstoppable. The question is, if a socialist world revolution were to happen in the near future, and they basically established JDPON, how would it be possible to reindustrialize the former imperialist nations without relying on exploiting the former periphery countries? The actual productive capacity has been decimated.

I've been wanting to build up a small library with the classics from Marx, Engels, Lenin, etc. and want to know which online bookstore y'all like the most for that, like which have the best translations, physical quality, etc. And, ideally, not too pricy so I can give them out and replace them if I think someone in my personal life might benefit from a particular work.

Extra unnecessary: Ideally they look nice on a shelf together too, but not super important lol

'Stalin killed 100 million people' is mine

It's been a couple of years since the last discussion on here. I'm trying to get more serious about it since I'm getting older, but there's a lot of information out there.

What's everyone using?

I constantly get comments about how fast I walk. Like, it’s not a run or a sprint—I walk kind of funny but other than that it’s a normal walking gait, just sped up. I walk so fast that when I have it in me, I can keep pace with my friends when they’re on their bikes.

I also like listening to metal or hard rock while I’m walking, and matching my pace to the drum beat or something. It makes me feel awesome.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/3919416

Serious question, I don't recall what exactly it was.

Sorry for this question. I am still learning.

Something that has always bothered me is how much u.s. politicians obsess over helping the middle class. Seems like the two major parties talk about it a lot. Why do they endlessly talk about helping the middle class, but never seem to acknowledge or focus on helping the (lower?) or poverty or proletariat class?

To me it sounds like the middle class by definition should be not be as in need as other classes that don't have as much? What's the purpose of this?

Edit: Thanks for all your responses. :)

So, in my recent transition from an ancient Windows OS to a Linux distribution I installed Transmission for torrenting. I had a decent experience as a user who isn't super nerdy about this stuff with the Windows version I was using.

Using it with Linux has been similarly easy but for one thing. When trying to seed torrents, after about 10ish minutes, the torrents in the list will turn red and with the word "Stalled". I can pause and restart the seeding and it clears the "Stalled" from the item on the list but it will come back after a short while.

This never happened when I was using the Windows version and I haven't been able to find an answer about what this is supposed to mean in this context online.

Anybody have any ideas what this means and what I should do to fix this if its a problem on my end?

Edit: NordVPN is blocking the ports. Weird thing is, earlier this year before switching this PC to Linux, my ancient Windows OS was running Transmission and leeching/seeding just fine through NordVPN.

How can one not love listening to some Einheitsfrontlied, Katyusha or literally any other Soviet song. God, how did they manage to produce such bangers? And why don't we have a 21st century Einheitsfrontlied? Imagine being a rotfront member in the early 30s, fucking up a bunch of Nazis while singing about the United Front

Working with a budget of 200$ max, could maybe go slightly over. Any suggestions? I've never used an ereader before, so no need for anything fancy

Gotta be the hamberder feast

After his TikTok account was deleted and his YouTube channel de-monetised, pro-Palestine content creator Rathbone migrated to right-wing Rumble. Seems like an odd choice based strictly on ideology, and I figure it's probably only a matter of time before Rumble kicks him too, simply on the Palestine question alone.

So that begs the question - how capable is Tankie Tube of absorbing a popular content creator? Assuming this is going to continue to happen more and more (Hasanabi seems like he's on the Twitch chopping block at this very moment).

Paging @TankieTanuki@hexbear.net

Not a lib.

Hello again, Auntie.

I wrote for advice some time ago [Confused in Claremont], and just getting the problem out there was so renewing, I felt the need to ask a follow-up question that has also been bothering me. You see, sometimes I disagree with the free-speech advocates, and that goes even worse!

For example, to the previously mentioned "sunlight is the best disinfectant" claim, I will just ask the question: "Isn't drowning in bleach actually the best disinfectant?" (The manufacturers always tout its efficacy and, as a believer in free markets, it's important to take every marketing claim at face value. And no one's selling sunlight, are they? So that must be useless.) But they don't like this either; I can't win! And when I also point out that drowning in bleach has the added benefit of wide applicability, the liberal objectors call me "murderously uncivil". But do you know what happens if you don't drown germs in bleach? You get a stinky toilet. And what's civil about that? Or cholera?

And as for the objectors who "lean right", well, they start to shriek in what sounds like German? This is America, buddy. Speak English. I think they call me a "radical extremist", but this is just plain wrong. Like them, I'm an apolitical centrist who just thinks it's important to hear out opposing voices and pave the way to a future in which all the people whose existence irks me have died gruesome, agonising deaths. Really, I'm exactly like them, which they keep saying is important, but when I try putting some contrarian viewpoints out there myself, it always goes badly. Clearly, I'm doing something wrong, but what?

I really do try to stick to the mantra of "facts don't care about your feelings" but these guys always seem really angry whenever I try to join in with any evidence of reality at all. I don't get it.

Yours as ever,
Perplexed in Peoria

Dear Aunt Chapo,

From time to time, I encounter self-described "free speech advocates", who make the claim that "sunlight is the best disinfectant". This is usually the most agreeable part of their claims, and so I will respond positively: "yes, the only truly effective treatment is exposure to lethal doses of radiation", but they always react as if that isn't what they meant.

This leaves me confused, because if what they actually meant was that the best way to deal with a dangerous pathogen is to internalise it and every poison it produces, surely at least one of them would have said "phagocytosis is the best disinfectant", but they never do. It's always "sunlight", and the mechanism of action there is definitely deadly radiation.

Now, they're obviously not saying that the appropriate response to an invasive organism set on hijacking the host's systems in order to reproduce itself unchecked with the ultimate result of killing the host is to suppress the immune system, sit back, and let it do whatever it wants, because that's insanely suicidal. Yet I often get the feeling that this is what the advocates do actually want. Like I say, I'm confused.

Are they actually saying that we should send nazis to tanning salons or off on a warm holiday for some UV exposure? They do tend to look pale, you know?

Anyway, I'm sure your advice will be as helpful as ever.

Yours,
Confused in Claremont

Edit: Thanks to all the folks taking the time to read through this and correct my thinking. I'm seeing how I wound myself up into a kinda toxic headspace and appreciate the hand out of it.

Context: I spent way too much time on Reddit this week getting into dustups with people blaming Dearborn, Michigan for everything that's wrong in the world. Turns out I'm too much of a pugilist to agitate correctly and I'm stuck unable to metabolize my disappointment that the libs are refusing to learn anything. I'll get through it. Anyway, one of the discussions centered around users giving up their organ donor status because they don't want their organs going to Trump voters.

My initial reaction was that it was spiteful and petty as fuck to rescind your organ donor status over an election not going your way*, and if I'd had more patience and less moral outrage I probably could've come up with some sort of clever observation that folks who were okay with waiting until after an election for meaningful action to be taken on a genocide were clearly okay with instrumentalizing the lives of others to achieve an outcome, so maybe they were throwing stones from inside a glass house. But, as I chewed on that argument a little more, I started to wonder. I didn't really reflect a whole lot on checking the organ donor box; as a materialist I'm assuming I'm not going to need my organs if I meet an untimely demise and it makes sense to let someone else have them if they can do some good; ethics committees exist to make sure they'll be put to good use. But , at the same time, an ethics committee signed off on a heart for Dick Cheney, a man so famously heartless he couldn't even be bothered to properly thank the family of the kid whose heart he received. If I could add a clause to my organ donor registry excluding Dick Cheney from my organ donation, I would, even if the odds of him continuing to power his unholy grasp on life with my kidneys are astronomically low. If there's anyone in this world who's less entitled to even the organs he grew himself, it's him.

And over the last year I've developed a pretty deep pessimism about Americans in general. I stupidly thought we'd learned as a country from the debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan and those of us who hadn't become irremediable chuds could be more thoughtful in the wake of October 7th, but nope, even the progressives bayed for more blood. If there's one thing I've seen in the wake of the election, it's that the people who care are an unwelcome minority.

I know it's not everyone and that I've probably done myself no favors with the amount of time I've spent online since COVID started, but I feel like I'm trapped in a death cult and it seems perverse to allow my body to continue it even after I've died. I'm considering withdrawing my organ donor registration and willing my body to science instead.

tl;dr: you can't have my lungs unless you can recite The Internationale

*Side note: one thing I've discovered is that libs who are loudly proclaiming that they're done helping anyone who didn't vote for Kamala Harris is to express the hope that they don't find themselves in need of help only to find it similarly conditioned. They all assume they're going to be fine and the one in position to lend support and to imply the possibility of the inverse can lead to some really, really angry reactions.

It would be Pentbear since Hexbear is Hex~~agon~~ + bear. Would it be the arch nemesis to the Hexbear?

What does this mean