#unions and strikes would fuck up the economy in korea So bad and i want it to happen now actually

[pointsfortrying]

Yeah you like kpop but also are you normal ab asian people and aware of the state of the entertainment industry in korea—

#rye rambles #rye rants #yes you can enjoy listening to it etc. but also haha heyyyy- #you dont babify korean people right? #you dont treat all asian ppl as if they're the same bc you cant tell them apart haha right? #you're at least vaguely aware that the entertainment industry is Incredibly predatory and idols are held to unhealthy standards right-? #<- again can enjoy it n be happy for people but also grits teeth #seeing ppl go one second 'i support unions n strikes' and next 'i dont think these idols should be allowed to quit' is. irritating #unions and strikes would fuck up the economy in korea So bad and i want it to happen now actually #the economy's already fucked up might as well try to make something out of it #i want. to live in a world where singers are allowed to be the humans they are #and i want to live in a world where saying that doesn't make Me the bad person #''cant you be happy for them they worked hard to get here'' my brother in arms that is a literal child #<- could rant even more ab. those battle royal idol shows for 15-18 years olds and how incredibly predatory they are but they wont for now #snifffs. #i feel v distant from my culture n how shit is currently but i have strong opinions and i won't apologize for this

[back-and-totheleft]

#Election2020

Why [the support for Trump], in your opinion? I was surprised that there was less support for the change than I expected. I expected the American people to be tired of Trump, tired of his misbehavior, but they’re not. Trump was openly outrageous in his latest speech when he said, "We won and we have to stop counting the votes because they’re stealing." It’s shameful that the President of the United States says they’re rigging the elections when they are still taking place. It is completely out of order. It's like he's pretending to be both the commentator and the protagonist in his own show. He abused his role and should be thrown out for that alone.

Was he kicked out with this election? No, it's not over. Trump will do whatever he can, he can't lose in his mind, he's what they call a bad loser. He’ll want every vote to be checked and will make everything as difficult as possible. He’ll fight tooth and nail until December 14th and something could go wrong. I hope not because I remember the Al Gore and George Bush election. The Democrats didn't expect the Republicans to play so dirty but now they’re better prepared. I would like to think that Trump is gone. The monster is gone, at least the biggest one of all, I hope. It’s like a horror movie. At the end of the movie you say, “Oh he's gone, the monster is dead,” but then there's a sequel and he comes back (laughs). Even if he admits defeat, I think Trump is crazy enough to run again in 2024.

Meanwhile? He'll be back out there in the world, and I hope they bring every lawsuit against him for all the shit he's done. He will sell the hotels or build them in the midwest, in all the red states, and find a way to turn them into a lower class money-making experiment.

Is the United States on the verge of a civil war? No, I don't see a civil war on the horizon. I think that fear is the result of media hysteria. There will be some confrontations. The point of these elections is that they’re now there for all to see, which makes it difficult for Republicans to declare them a scam. They’ve already repeated it so many times. Trump said it's a rigged election. But his words mean nothing. He’ll say other things, sure, but I don't think they will have the same impact as when he said them for the first time.

Many Western media do not seem to accept that Trump has all this popularity. Why? Trump is an embarrassment. He's the guy who goes to the party and says whatever he wants, says hurtful things. Many of the things that were happening in the government were covered up with polite speeches, while he was very blunt and pissed off a lot of people for his frankness. It ruined the show. He called Washington a swamp. He did the same thing Reagan did. He was right saying Washington was a swamp. It's a swamp but there's no way to fix it. America, like Italy, is stuck in the system.

And how does it get out of the swamp? We have to take money out of politics, which is not possible now because of the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United. It was an important decision that allowed corporate money to flow into the elections and now companies have the power. For much of the judiciary, corporations in the United States are treated as individuals. They have human rights.

Do you believe that Covid19 has shown the contradictions of our system? It showed that our healthcare system doesn't work nationwide. That’s very clear. Each state deals with it in its own way, and each hospital sets its own parameters. I'm by no means an expert on this, but it looks disorganized. In Europe, as you’re smaller countries, I think you’ve done a pretty good job.

What do you think of the protests in Italy against the lockdown? Personally, I'm afraid of this over-regulation where the government now has the power to shut down everything in a country whenever it wants. It is a form of control that I object to. I think a maturity is needed. The death rate from these infections has dropped significantly. I’m disoriented because Covid, to some extent for me, is a disease like others that have come into our life: SARS, MERS. There have been a number of diseases that are part of the planet, caused by climate change or whatever. We have to accept and absorb them without overreacting. Overdoing it is dangerous. Like America exaggerated in 2001 [after 9/11]. It was madness in this country. We passed the Patriot Act.

Could the pandemic threaten the political and civil foundations on which liberal democracies rest? In this period of my life, I’m giving a lot of importance to peace and war. I think it is a crucial issue. If there is peace and you can keep alliances and have no enemies - or you try to reduce enmity through diplomacy - we will have a much more fluid and harmonious world. This world is not facing a world war; it’s not facing what we have faced in the past. There are no diseases that are wiping out the human race. There are no survival problems. There has been an improvement in education and health around the world. In general, there are negative examples, but the emphasis has been on apocalyptic thinking, on doomsday thinking, and I think it’s important for everyone to realize that we are exaggerating. 

The media are trying to cause a stir. The media thrives on bad news. It’s always been like this, but it has gotten worse because there is more media than we’ve ever had. Bad news sells. And I think a lot of people have stopped following the media. This is what America did. Many Americans don't read and that's why they like Trump, because they don't want to know all the bullshit he does, like the fact that he doesn't pay taxes. So I think if we maintained a world-wide peace system, there is nothing we could not overcome, including climate change. I really believe that and I'm making a documentary about it. If we fight Russia and call them enemies and thugs, like Biden did the other night, and if we're saying more or less the same thing about China, there is no way out. We're spending a fortune on military spending. Trillions of dollars a year to prepare for war, which is not necessary.

What should we prepare for instead? The real war is the war against climate change. We know that perhaps it’s too late and frankly America is wasting time and wasting an enormous amount of money. So we have to transfer the economic resources. I'm worried about Biden because he said so many stupid things about Russia. The only problem I have with him is on foreign policy. I think his domestic policy is progressive, but his foreign policy… I don't know if he will worry immediately about that because he will have other problems on the national level, so it’s difficult to say where he will want to go, but you know what Obama did. Obama eventually invaded more Muslim countries than anyone else and started drone strikes. He overtook Bush with the bombing. And then Trump obviously tried to do more, but without going to [a ground] war. So people say Trump didn't take us to war. No, but it brought us to the brink of war with Korea. He has certainly brought us to the brink of war with Venezuela and now with Iran.

After the fall of the Berlin wall, have we stopped thinking that there is an alternative world? At the time, the West could destabilize the new Russian regime under Yeltsin and they weren't worried about China because it wasn't that powerful yet. We have increased the rivalry with Russia and China, not only because we’ve destabilized Ukraine but because we’ve kept our weapons, our airplanes and our military troops, NATO troops, at the borders of Russia, closer than ever. The medium-range missiles that are in Europe are very dangerous to the status quo in China. We have completely surrounded it and spent a fortune to potentially block it.

Are there no alternatives then? I don't think neoliberalism has worked. There is this idea in America that the American model is the peaceful way, but it’s not because we embargo countries that do not agree with us. Look at, for example, Cuba and Venezuela. It's horrible. You can't bring medicine to Cuba, it's very difficult. We have imposed sanctions on Russia and Iran, and now against China. 

America is not moving towards harmonious world cooperation. We want to be the dominant factor. We don't want to have partners. Bush made this clear in 2000 and it has now been reiterated with Trump. No partners. We only take hostages. Italy is a hostage, a great hostage, because of the huge naval bases we have there. Europe is a hostage. This is a fundamental problem that will grow in the future. It can’t be solved because countries have lost their sovereignty, at least some. Russia and China cannot be told that they must bow to the American model, and you can't tell Iran or North Korea anyway. I want these countries to defend their rights because it is crucial for the freedom of the world that there are alternative ways of living. I can assure you that they are truly sincere about their revolution in Cuba and, unfortunately, they have suffered a lot for that.

On the fake news and social media issue. What do you think of the censorship that some social platforms are implementing? There has been a lot of fake news in America since World War II. It could be said that the whole Cold War, in my opinion, was fake news because we wanted to strengthen the military after the war, so we portrayed the Soviet Union as a lot worse than it was and a lot more threatening. And we keep doing it by saying that the Russians will invade Europe. What the fuck would they want from Europe? They have no intention to do that and Russia is no longer the Soviet Union, it is a market economy. 

The concept of fake news is crazy. What is it? It has existed for centuries. When someone wants to find another enemy, fake news is created. They say who the bad guy is, who did this and did that. The Spartans did it with the Athenians. There’s always fake news, what's new? Now they’re blaming Facebook. It's ridiculous. Facebook should be a free and open source. People should go there and say what they want. I agree that hate speech is not a good thing and should be labeled or banned. But when you start playing with the nuances of censorship, it becomes very dangerous.

I am thinking for example of the case of the journalist Glenn Greenwald who left the newspaper he co-founded, The Intercept, because he was not allowed to publish an article on the alleged scandal involving the Biden family in China and Ukraine. I think Glenn Greenwald was right. I think the story was true. I don't want to say it was the biggest scandal, but it's still a scandal, and Trump had his scandals too and people ignored them, but they were reported in the press.

What do you think of the Assange trial? Obama brought forward the first charges against Assange and his rights were violated in every possible way. The Russiagate case is a fabrication. Assange got the information from an insider on the Democratic National Committee, and the FBI has never investigated. They accused Assange of passing the information to Russia but that's not true, technically it doesn't hold up. 

Trump wanted to pardon him if he came to testify as to who his source was against Hillary Clinton, but Assange didn't make that deal because he's an honest man and doesn't reveal his sources. Those were the WikiLeaks rules of engagement. Assange is hated by Hillary Clinton supporters for damaging her candidacy and her chance of being elected. At the same time, he is hated by Republicans because he was seen as a troublemaker to the military and the United States, a man who revealed secrets, like Snowden. Snowden and Assange are heroes to me because we need to know how our government operates. We need to know what they are doing on our behalf and they are not doing good things. The government is doing bad things, many bad things, which by the way cost us a fortune.

-Fabrizio Rostelli interviews Oliver Stone, translated from Italian, Fanpage Italy, Nov 8 2020 [x]

#oliver stone #election2020 #donald trump #joe biden #italy #covid19 #coronavirus