They do have a tourism industry, composed of ideological “true believers” (not that big of a group), tourists wanting to experience the unique culture out of curiosity (or - in the more recent years - also to produce social media content), and tourists interested in the unique architecture.

In the overwhelming amount of cases, it also goes well enough, because it is a welcome avenue to get foreign currency for them, and despite what some may believe, the state is still fully within the dynamics of capital accumulation. (Other examples are: contractors in construction, where they have unique know-how in monumental constructions, which is also one of the places where the exploitation of their populace as wage labourers can become visible to the outside world - and selling stamps and other collectibles in demand for being “exotic” as they are from NK.)

But then, every now and again, you have cases like Otto Warmbier.

“To my friends, everything; to my enemies, the law.”

Not just him, but others in different ways. The German car manufacturing lobby, for example, has also slept on their market control and oligopoly, missed important developments, and is now complaining that the “Chinese are not playing fair”, after they lobbied politics and manipulated data to stifle the move to EVs (e.g. the big VW diesel emissions fraud scandal as probably the biggest story there).

Are the Chinese “playing fair”? Well, they are not playing more crooked than what we already had, at least. And they provide something necessary (affordable EVs) for the current transition, and that transition was already direly needed yesterday. (Although of course, more broadly, favouring transit and reducing car-centered infrastructure is even more important, EVs are still a part of the equation.)

As per the article: Oleksandr Merezhko. Without knowing more about him, he does seem genuinely far from being on Russia’s payroll or part of the proto-fascist elements (beyond potentially the usual accidentally being a useful idiot like many centrist liberals end up being, sadly). Seems more like an old school centrist out of his depth, but with genuine convictions for liberalism, for what it’s worth.

My guess is that he either completely misestimated what Trump really is about - or maybe put forth the nomination to bait his narcissist side into doing more, with the prize serving as a carrot on a stick. Either way, he was quite wrong in hoping for Trump doing much to end the war.

It’s a little weird to have an AR-15 at a peaceful protest.

That was throwing me off, too, but at least anecdotally from within the article and other times I have heard it online, that seems to be not all that uncommon in the US in “open carry law” states. Weirds me out, too, but you would expect that people hired ‘based on their “military, first responder and other relevant de-escalation experience.”’ as per the statement of the organisers, should have de-escalatory tools for precisely open-carry situations before, well, shooting.

he ran away into the crowd while lifting his rifle into firing position.

So, I haven’t followed or heard of this story before, and I cannot say what happened before and after the video in the article, and what info is available outside of this article - but at the moment of the first shot, this clearly was not the case. The video shows him in all black and walking, not running, with his rifle in front, but not raised. The shooter already is in an aiming position at this point, there is nothing audible and no one around the happenings acts like there were instructions or warnings being shouted.

I will give them, that it may have been still a hard to decipher situation, and I cannot say anything about the other claims (preparing the rifle behind a wall) - but at least the whole “running at them with rifle in firing position” was either happening at another time, with them not shooting, or not happening in the way described at all.

So, yeah, their story does not check out as told, could be a whole slew of reasons, but this does not feel like an easy “it was his own fault” situation.

EDIT: Note that the second video in the article (the dashcam one) won’t load for me, so I can’t comment on that one

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It’s of course impossible to know if it was intentional, but lets not forget - platforming the dumb drives engagement, one of the reasons our view of the world is distorted towards thinking people are worse than they are. (Don’t get me wrong, people aren’t great on average, and broadly follow the lowest common denominator trends - but especially with terminally online people, there is a huge problem with paranoia and defeatism thanks to that dynamic).

For an adversarial relationship, as the one between EU and China, it was still one overall based on understanding and a degree of predictability. That just ends up being more attractive than an ally turning into a rabid dog and stabbing you in the back.

I think no one should be surprised by this.

Yeah, but here is the tragedy to all that: It is still also deciding, which things get the capital investments necessary to exist, and the livelihood of people has been entangled with that shitshow to an absurd degree.

Sometimes I almost love that I am already at subsistence level disability payments (in a European Welfare state, so thankfully, not in danger of starvation or anything) without any real wealth beyond day-to-day living expenses, there’s not that much for me to lose every time this shit happens.

At this point, I am convinced it’s a pump and dump scheme, still ongoing, too. It only takes a few people in the know of when and where the news break about the tariff supsension, to seriously make a killing on the market, on the backs of others. Trumpists can now also (for a while) feel like their God has saved them again and never steered them wrong, or curse their momemts of doubt, when they did not buy yesterday, as their prophet called for.

It is a mixture of incompetence, impulsivity, but I am certain at this point, a huge chunk of it is outright corruption and cult tactics.

Which is why, generally, taxing wealth and having the state invest it in supportive infrastructure and subsidising is the preferred option for developed economies that want manufacturing (back).

Sweeping, protectionist tariffs are usually a painful measure of necessity, if you have an economy without any developed industrial or service sectors, where initial investments are basically impossible due there being no taxable wealth and no market incentives, because of global players always being more profitable and cheaper, than any beginning industry that has to go through growth processes and learning experiences. (More selective tariffs or outright import/export bans of course also have their place for a multitude of political reasons, e.g. the EU not wanting a lot of artificially cheap and lower-health-standards US meat)

Yupp, seems that they quickly changed it back, too, lol.

the bears and shorts all entered this morning with their trades queued up from the weekend.

Yupp, that’s why it would be very fitting as a proper dead cat bounce from just the massive amount of shorting that had already been happening.

But you are also right - no one has a crystal ball here. Who knows where the volatile ride will stop.

They are doing their best with the framing, but I do get the feeling - considering how futures had been trading before - this is going to be a dead cat bounce.

I’m gonna be real here, just Realpolitik-wise from the perspective of “the West” sans the USA - China is currently proving that they are simply more reliable in geopolitics and even economically, and that is just damn important, even in an adversarial relationship. It isn’t even because they are a de-facto dictatorship, Russia is one too, and Russia is a mad dog. They just managed to keep their shit mostly together so far, still riding out their massive growth spurt. Even human rights abuses outside of Realpolitik don’t seem as the argument they were: internationally, the US has always had a more greyish record anyhow. But now, considering the US is quickly doing its best to catch up in domestic tyranny, that argument seems to be going fast, too.

Sadly, I don’t have huge hopes for China to be a proper “better” hegemon globally, if that should be what ultimately happens - they are facing crises of their own, and have been dabbling in their own brands of economic imperialism, and at least the way their military is gearing up contains a lot of stuff usually used for military imperialism as well.

I think the sad reality is: Criticism of the Soviets by now has been reduced to just a surface level “feeling” of their tyranny. Basically a thought of what made it tyrannical was the lip services to communism and the red flags - not understanding the actual problems underneath. In the worst case, some people even openly say, that it’s just that they put the wrong people into the Gulag, to then post memes about throwing lefties out of helicopters.

I think history has shown by now, both the Soviets’ criticism of US imperialism, and the West’s criticism of Soviet human rights abuses has always had huge hypocrisies within, both systems very much capable of the crimes of the other. We need another international class based movement, that doesn’t get caught up in national interest like that.

“I don’t want to have to worry that everyone is constantly changing my financial reality,” said Alison Carey, 64, of Oregon, a freelancer in the theater industry. “Let the economy do its machinations, but don’t put me in the gears.”

Sorry you had to learn it this way, Alison, but “the economy” has always been grinding people up in its gears. The main difference is, that it is now reaching you, personally.

It’s a repost of a meme, but damn, there’s so many great opportunities for this one:

I know what you are getting at - but, have there really been accounts of cannibalism among the Sentinelese? I only know of their habits of killing strangers, often in mocking and ridiculing ways.

Also - as an aside - beyond protecting dumbass tourists from themselves - it’s also there to protect an island population like this from any new pathogens that may be spread inadvertently. So it’s not just him being a dumbass concerning his own safety, he was also a dumbass where it concerns their safety, too.