This is a good joke, but it's also true that the whole charade of trying to look "institutional" and "fact-based" was a pretty decent way to go about pursuing the US agenda. "Hey we are the good guys, we show you real numbers" was a good line to push, and it could often show up the opposition as cranks and liars.
Nowadays, nobody even pretends to not be a liar, from any side. There is no debate that even attempts to look at the facts - it's vibes all the way down and fuck you if you don't agree, only money and guns matter. In the long run, this can't hold.
That's exactly how I used to work about 15 years ago, but I found that the Apple trackpad killed my wrists. These days I just have a regular mouse, and simply try to do as much as I can from the keyboard.
I agree trackpad is not RSI-proof by any means, but for me mousing is worse. With the trackpad in the middle I can use either hand to scroll or click etc. I also keep that minimal and instead rely on keyboard tools like Vimium, and scroll kb shortcuts
> Another chilling effect is caused by the tariffs
Maybe that's why prices in Europe seem to have gone down significantly. It used to be very expensive to get anything over here (UK), but now we're almost spoilt for choice.
> aren’t car bombs and public shootouts between different crime groups an unavoidable by product of existing organized crime?
Check out the Japanese Yakuza. Yes, they are in decline, but even at the peak of their powers they didn't really do that sort of thing. Gangsters can be pretty private.
Besides, gangsters are not stupid. By now, Hollywood has produced tons of material about the rise and fall of criminals, with increasing realism; effectively, they educated the newer generations into not being as stupid as Tony Montana.
This is an unrealistic argumentation, usually deployed to paint contemporaries in a bad light by comparing them to "saints" who are, conveniently, always dead. And it's particularly funny that Borsellino is now in the "saints" category, when he was explicitly namechecked by Sciascia himself in the newspaper column that originated the term "anti-mafia professional". Falcone also got extremely close to becoming the national anti-mafia czar, because his career had been defined by that very subject. Both were killed precisely because they specialised in this area and refused to move elsewhere.
Sciascia was 67 when he wrote that column, and was likely just aggrieved by the fact that national response to the mafia was escalating to levels before unseen (for a number of reasons). He might have had a point about another name-checked personality, the politician Leoluca Orlando, who survived those terrible times and ended up ruling Palermo for more than 20 years - something a lot of people see as realistically incompatible with actually being the anti-mafia hardliner he is supposed to be.
Saviano, however, is just a specialized journalist.
> And it's particularly funny that Borsellino is now in the "saints" category, when he was explicitly namechecked by Sciascia himself in the newspaper column that originated the term "anti-mafia professional".
If you read the original article from Sciascia [1], you can understand that he was complaining about the risk of judge appointments drived by anti-mafia positions, more than competence.
> Saviano, however, is just a specialized journalist.
If Saviano is only a specialized journalist, why is invited in many public talk-show where the topic is different from Mafia?
Because that's just how media works. It's like asking why sportsmen and scientists are invited to Big Brother VIP.
> ou can understand that he was complaining about the risk of judge appointments drived by anti-mafia positions
But if you read it all, you can clearly see that he was mostly pissed off at the risk of identifying the entirety of his beloved Sicily with the mafia; and in this context, that everything about the island would be judged in relation to that phenomenon. In addition, he was worried at the fact that many in the ruling political party had started using antimafia as a shield; that's a veiled reference to Giulio Andreotti, who around that time shifted his positions and passed antimafia laws to shore up his support in the party (which is why the mafia moved their votes to the Socialist Party in '87).
People obviously misread that column (willingly or otherwise) and proceeded to use it as a bat to beat any specialized anti-mafia figure, starting from the very person mentioned in it, Borsellino, who would end up isolated and assassinated by the mafiosi.
Carabinieri have been involved with (and occasionally fighting) the mafia since late 1800s. That's got nothing to do with how we got to the current situation of relative tranquility.
What happened between the end of the 1980s and the 1990s was that, because of continuous feuds among mafiosi that produced too many civilian victims, political connections broke down, particularly with a few especially vicious bosses. Laws were passed to isolate the worst offenders, new connections were brokered with more moderate mafia leaders, and eventually the "bad" bosses were magically found, hiding more or less in plain sight.
And when you get to the top, you actually experience how the shoe is on the other foot. One should get out early, not waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Your guy has armed goons with "absolute immunity" literally executing people in the streets, after threatening to invade neighbours and allies, appointing shockingly-unqualified loyalists at the very top of national institutions, and generally gutting the rule of law. It's a bit past "tolerating political disagreement", man.
Glad to hear a British viewpoint now and then, but of course any problems stateside will be handled and voted on by Americans rather than Brits. Unless possibly you have dual citizenship (Brit & USA) perhaps?
FWIW Britain has plenty of history of what you term
"armed goons with "absolute immunity" literally executing people in the streets, after threatening to invade neighbours and allies, appointing shockingly-unqualified loyalists at the very top of national institutions, and generally gutting the rule of law."
You Brits almost have a monopoly on tyranny of various forms, having gone through most of them in bloody civil wars yourself. Hardly a model to follow, n'est-ce pa?
> but of course any problems stateside will be handled and voted on by Americans rather than Brits
Sure. That doesn't mean that an external viewpoint is any less valid. It's like saying "of course any problems in Teheran will be handled by Iranians" or "any problems in Venezuela will be handled by Venezuelans", when someone points out the issues in those regimes. You also assume you will get another meaningful vote, something that does not seem so assured when the supposed head of internal law enforcement starts asking for lists of voters.
The world is watching you, and it sees something really sinister happening. I would suggest to be humble and take stock - when innocent lives are lost to political fevers, you are in a very dark place, and whoever led you there should be suspected.
For the record, although I do live in England, I'm actually Italian; my great-grandfather lived under fascism, and I grew up in places deeply scarred by those times - as well as from the Cold War. That doesn't mean I'm innocent, just that I know a thing or two about what a regime looks like.
toyg says "Sure. That doesn't mean that an external viewpoint is any less valid."
Sure, but it is unwelcome and likely invalid.
toyg says "The world is watching you, and it sees something really sinister happening...innocent lives....you are in a very dark place..."
Woooo! I'm scared now!8-0
1. The world is always watching us! Y'all should take a break sometime. The world is big and there are lots of other things to see. Too much watching Minneapolis, right now one of the iceholes of the world, indicates poor judgement regarding one's use of time (indeed most anytime, unless you live there, which is another problem).
2. I count one possibly innocent life lost so far. That's very good given the circumstances. Renee Nicole Good drove an SUV toward an LEO officer on an icy road, possible attempted manslaughter. Alex Pretti OTOH was probably only foolish and I do believe it likely ICE will be charged with crimes associated with his death.
We would gladly do if only you renounced your world-ending weapons, in the same way as we would be more than happy to stop bothering with Russia, China, Pakistan, India, Israel, France, and Iran. Until then, unfortunately, we are kinda forced to pay attention, in the not-so-remote chance that some insane "representative" pulls that trigger. It also does not help that your shenanigans have a penchant for overflowing, invading countries closer to us than to you and maintaining military bases all over the world; stop doing that, and we'll happily leave you alone.
> I count one possibly innocent life lost so far.
One, two, or two hundred, it's still too many - and accounting for them like you do is simply callous.
I note you've not actually countered any point, just went "you're rubber, I am glue, nah-nah-nah". Which is sadly indicative of online discourse these days, even here.
Art in general is this way. It's no wonder the more we abstract away our lives and society (through screens, deliveries, etc) the more abstract art feels more relevant to our experience.
* The revolution won't be televised because we don't watch TV anymore (and are fragmented and increasingly don't even have those common touch points anymore).
Nowadays, nobody even pretends to not be a liar, from any side. There is no debate that even attempts to look at the facts - it's vibes all the way down and fuck you if you don't agree, only money and guns matter. In the long run, this can't hold.
reply