291st trimester, still a baby.
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I just realized I never got back to you!!!
Just that the adoption of American pop culture isnāt just taking it wholesale, blindly. You can especially see this in punk/postpunk and hip hop cultures, where very local variants have popped up (in Europe and elsewhere).
Welp, thatās fucking scary! If it can cropped up in Germany, where there has been such a strong focus on excising such thing from the public discourse, then weāre all pretty doomed.
Thanks for the link!
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(Video is cued.)
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In the present climate, there is no downside for getting caught. Some upsides, in fact.
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āThis administration is very regressive,ā said Robert Alvarez, who helped draft the legislation that created the board in the 1980s as a senate staff expert for Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, and subsequently served as senior policy adviser for former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson. āWe shouldnāt have to wait for something to blow up or catch fire in order to pay attention to a safety problem.ā (emphasis mine)
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True. I was pretty amazed about the Indonesian metal scene (got a friend who worked there), and when I read about some West African Goth subcultures I was really amazed (never came into contact with anything but the Ivory-Coast electronic influences, which became annoying very fast, since there was little variation at all).
However, I would think that while eclecticism and adaptions and mutations in some branches of pop culture really do create something unique locally, the overall cultural influence of US American culture in central and western Europe is very strong. We tend to take only bits and pieces of the details, but look at the overall picture. Compared to, e.g., Asian cultures or even eastern Europe, the US are by far the most influential. Films, TV series and talk shows are staples. Most internet-related stuff - fads, viral content, but also services, software, and of course the hardware come (errrrmmā¦, in a way, at least) from the US.
As a biologist, I could compare this to speciation processes, but the comparison falls short, of course. Anyways, cultural influence are really hard to do proper phylogenetic analysis with.
Anyways, at least from my POV, the influence from the US is massive.
I am at a loss myself to integrate this into my reality.
(Iām compartimentising strongly ever since I woke up to the results of the Brexit referendum, which was really inconceivable before for me. )
I can still try to think this is an online thing, and that real life works differently. But Iām getting a bit itchy. Not alarmists, but still, nervous.
Also, Iām a bit worried about the next regional elections.
This might give you an idea why.
(The last lines are so crass, I would probably punch a person saying this to my face. Never experienced anything like this.)
Also, this:
https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/paul-knott-yesterday-s-woman-how-europe-left-merkel-behind-1-5614781
(Disclaimer: I donāt agree with several of his points, and wording like āobscure lines of the German constitutionā shows a gross misunderstanding how a written constitution and political process within its boundaries work. But the overall problem is clearly put: what follows when Merkelās current gouvernment breaks apart, maybe after the regional elections this or next year?)
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I think youāll find this interesting, too:
Talks about both Germany and the US.
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Yeah, yet again. And General Ilisiomo Donnie Darko is still dead.
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More tapes:
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Interesting piece. Thanks for the link. Especially the musings about overly simplistic national narrative of the US resonate with me. Interestingly, I read the authors description of German Erinnerungskultur and national identity as an broad oversimplification. Still, itās worth considering what some reflection on history does to the own "nationalā narrative.
Just FTR, as reminder of the much-needed resistance:
yesterday, 25-50k people (the numbers are, as usual, a bit contentious) were on the streets of Munich to protest against the current Rechtsruck (right turn) in German politics. It was raining quite a bit, so the turnout was expected to be rather smaller than expected. (The organisers first planned for about 5k, then for 10k.)
This is pretty significant, but the campaign from the CSU to brand the protest as support of radical antifa are already in full swing. Itās embarrassing, to say the least.
This, and a demonstration against the new police law (Polizeiaufgabengesetz), were the largest demonstrations in Bavaria for at least two decades.
There is a broad movement against the right-wing bullshit, even if this is the only unifying element. Not all hope is lost.
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My favorite part of that Vox article:
Pompeo went, in part, because North Korea promised him a meeting with Kim. But Kim never showed ā and opted to visit a potato farm instead.
And from the linked story about the potato farm:
The reports go into great detail about Kimās visit to Samjiyon county, which included a stop at a potato farm and a factory where processed potato products are produced. Among other things, Kim told the farmers how important good-tasting potatoes are and counted the big trucks on the farm.
Kim looks almost as happy inspecting spuds as Trump does when he gets to sit in a truck.
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Is this starting to feel like tape worms for the sitting president already?
Well, some Arschkriecher must get out of there, at some point, right?
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Todayās big article blasting Floridaās stand your ground law is fromā¦
wtf
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David French was critical of George Zimmerman too, but I donāt think he went to bat against the laws back then.
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They had to go and spoil it with this dumb-ass bit:
Americaās armed citizens should be the most vigilant about enforcing not just the law but also the norms and values of gun ownership.
No, they shouldnāt be enforcing the law at all. āLaw Enforcementā, itās a bit of a clue. (And if someone is mall-copping his way through life, take away their gun and give them a tactical flashlight.)
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$200 million? I guess he was able to arrange a new line of credit in Helsinki.
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