part of why THE ACOLYTE is so damn good is that it's basically the first star wars property to realize that the noir and horror genres are actually great ways of telling sith stories
"yeah totally we're abolishing the house, not the senate. just imagine it: a unicameral legislature with six year terms, proportional representation, and decisions made by simple majority. you can accept that--right, senator?"
this is one of those charts where after you see and understand it you go "oh." this chart is a way of defining /whatever it is that we talk about when we talk about modernity./
I’m just really over this nonsense where you’re not allowed to look at what is objectively the richest big society in history and say “hey this seems pretty decent in terms of material conditions for most”
I saw somebody the other day say “protest isn’t about winning hearts and minds, it’s about wearing down the targeted establishment to action,” and I mean, I think the way you said the same exact thing is shorter and clearer.
if, like me, you understand both that the right are the enemies of all humanity, and the left are too often the useful idiots of the former, then consider embracing mere liberalism. human rights, human equality, common prosperity, and reason over populism.
as usual, looking to the actual tactics of the civil rights movements is a useful exercise: they were very much aware of the need to persuade by fitting their actions to a narrative of injustice and oppression precisely *because* they understood their situation to be deeply unfair and unjust.
contrast this with just stop oil's tactics. graffiting stonehenge. blocking the tube. throwing soup at paintings. these are actions that do not fit into a story that is compelling to people. rather, the tactics are purely postmodern, intended to generate attention from pure spectacle.
actually while we're talking about political tactics i want to dwell on the abe assassination because it's instructive. it reveals that in many cases, political violence is not about coercion or intimidation but *persuasion.*
violence can be a rhetorical and a narrative tool.
the core thing about the abe assassination is that the killer's act fit very cleanly into a certain narrative. his elderly family had been scammed out of their life's savings by the moonies. abe had protected and mainstreamed the moonies for years. there was a *story* about *justice* being told.
