I am hard pressed to think of any Americans older than twenty five that I have ever met IRL that was truly opposed to colonialism. High-schoolers and college students; sure. That’s about it though.

EDIT: To be clear, I am not defending colonialism. I just don’t think most Americans understand or think about its impact. Out of sight. Out of mind.

Jesus fucking christ. I watched this shit happen. I watched the uncut footage air. That man was fucking pissed. He kept blocking the tanks while absolutely losing his shit screaming at the tank. Neither of us was there so neither of us knows why or what he was screaming but it was most definitely a clear act of defiance. You cannot in any way say that he was asking them to “go back” and “stay involved”.

Here is the footage.

https://media.gettyimages.com/id/450068672/video/a-lone-man-stops-a-convoy-of-tanks-during-the-tiananmen-square-protests-in-beijing-1989.mp4?s=mp4-640x640-gi&k=20&c=CCERCYPtGDpeNsNsDmVMA5LAovD-byP0E_f4d1oHzgA%3D

Always has been?

Circle jerking about China is as ridiculous as circle jerking about the US. We’ve been here before with US vs USSR, but this time everyone has a megaphone and an IQ that can be measured with a ruler.

I got to ride with that guy back in ~2013. Rad dude. I completely forgot his name.

I live in a place that is full of billionaires and multimillionaires. It isn’t rare to find someone happily running a coffee shop or bakery or micro-brewery, artisan art gallery, etc because it was always their dream. A dream they could only pursue after they felt rich enough to know that they could do so without risking their well being. In its own way, it is very very sad. You have to buy the privilege to follow your dreams.

In the US, we do not have to worry about this because we outsourced our entire means of production. We are fully-dependent on slave labor, foreign and domestic, just like the founding fathers intended.

Here is the only issue I have with the pardon. Once Kamala lost, Biden should have started to go hog wild with last minute shenanigans in order to give Americans things they actually need. Instead he decided to pardon Hunter a full month before leaving office rather than helping us out and doing the pardon on the last day. Now, even if he does do things that will help Americans, nobody will notice because of the pardon.

Mastering the awkward silence is a very powerful tool. I am not kidding. If done right, people become uncomfortable and start to talk in order to fill the awkward silence. In those anxiety filled moments, people tend to overshare.

Long silence combined with providing minimal information is also an amazing negotiation tool. You’d be shocked how often and by how much people will give up ground when confronted with awkward silence.