pretty funny that the media has obviously known this for years but has waited until the last month of his presidency to finally say it
there does seem to be a difference in scale between SK and the rest of east asia as far as this stuff goes though right? 
did it because of cult ties but i don't think that abe was actually a member of the moonies. 2 of the last 3 presidents being directly influenced by mystics isn't the kind of thing that you hear about coming from other countries in the region
https://xcancel.com/koryodynasty/status/1870470848571965927#m
South Korean media reporting growing concerns about the extent of alleged shamanistic and fortune-telling influences within President Yoon's administration, with multiple spiritual advisers allegedly operating at different levels of power.
Korea's martial law probe has uncovered extraordinary meetings at a burger joint involving a former military commander who, after being dishonourably discharged, was found to be living in a fortune-telling shop where he allegedly practiced divination alongside other shamans.
what is it that makes south korea such fertile ground for shamans and mystics?
he also commuted the sentence of a city comptroller in IL who embezzled $53 million so she could buy horses. lol
biden commuted the sentence of a judge who went to jail for getting money to give kids lengthy sentences in for-profit juvenile prisons
with how easily digital records decay i've seen it argued that this could be the case
i just watched the movie deja vu, in which the govt has developed technology that allows them to look back in time 4 days 6 hours. thompson was killed about 5 days ago...
at first when i read about how much evidence he had on him when they picked him up i figured it had to be a total stitch-up but after learning about the guy it does seem like it's probably him. i have to imagine he just didn't want to be looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life. otherwise i don't know why he wouldn't have just disappeared to some non-extradition country and worked at a hostel or whatever forever, especially knowing that he seems to have come from enough money for that to be a possibility.
knowing what we know about him makes all those takes about how it had to be a hitman or at least some ex special forces guy even funnier. turns out it's actually not that hard to kill someone with a gun
pretty minor but i've had bad luck/no game when it comes to romance and i feel like i have to be very careful in when and how i talk to people about it for fear that the other person will see me in the best case as a loser or less of a man or worst case as some secret incel misogynist. as a result i basically never bring it up and usually lie by omission/half truth when the topic does come up
very cool, i'm due for a reread, thanks for sharing!
if you're looking for something book length, patrick seale's book Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East is a really fantastic biography of Hafez al-Assad, Bashar's dad, and it covers the levant from roughly the 30s up until the book was written in the late 80s/early 90s. it talks a lot about the early history of the baath movement, pan-arabism, the wars with israel etc. highly recommended
some thoughts on adventurism after today's news:
spoiler
seeing nearly everyone, even chuds, celebrate the killing of the ceo makes me wonder if our anti-adventurism belief isn't at least a little bit too hardline. it's true that adventurist killings of monarchs and presidents by anarchists and socialists in the 19th/early 20th c didn't lead directly to any revolutions, but did they prime the pump for 1917? adventurism shows people that these assholes who make their lives worse every day are flesh and blood just like the rest of us, that they can be made to feel fear, that change is possible. being able to say "we, as a movement, support the guy who iced that prick that everyone hates" could be good propaganda when even the supposedly left-of-center establishment politicians are giving thoughts and prayers, like tim walz is doing now. it could be a foot in the door to getting people to hear you out because it could show that communists are actually serious about our beliefs and are willing to walk the walk.
i think the most important thing would be target choice. people are celebrating this prick's death because most people didn't know who he was beforehand, he was just "health insurance CEO;" the main problem with going after politicians is that people already have opinions on them and don't see them as abstract symbols, so it's very hard to find a politician whose death would be as roundly celebrated as this CEO's.
the argument that i hear all the time against adventurism is that it can give the state more of a justification to go after left-wing groups/activists, but they do that already (cops regularly infiltrate or keep tabs on groups that have like 5 members, the FBI had "ecoterrorists" as the number one threat to the country for a while, trump straight up had Michael Reinoehl killed, and that's not even talking about any of the shit that happened in the 60s/70s), and a seriously revolutionary movement needs to expect anything and everything from the state anyways - a revolution is not a dinner party. i'm also not saying that PSL or any org for that matter should be ordering hits or coordinating acts of sabotage or whatever at this point.
it's just kind of funny that something like this happens and everyone celebrates it here, we even have emojis for 
etc but whenever adventurism comes up in the abstract everyone trips over themselves to denounce it and call it counterproductive.
anyways it's something i've been thinking about for a while and then this happened lmao. just curious to hear some thoughts or counterarguments.
the biden admin is withholding grant funding that was promised to a climate org after they spoke up for a ceasefire in gaza
around a dozen inmates have set themselves on fire over the last year or so to try to get transferred out of virginia's supermax Red Onion prison after facing horrific racism and violence. three men interviewed intentionally set their legs or feet on fire knowing that there aren't any burn centers in that part of the state and they would have to be sent to Richmond for treatment
thank you for the info! i'll check out the wiki page
everyone remembers that despite the nuclear brinksmanship between lincoln and davis the war managed to end without turning either half of the country into radioactive ash
apparently while he was in power bolsonaro and his cronies were cooking up plans to kill lula and other high ranking PT politicians and they were discovered by the federal police. anyone have a source that goes into more depth about this? https://xcancel.com/binraccooon/status/1858979139874943075#m
user squarecoats1 on twitter has made a map with all of the contractors and subcontractors in the US involved in many of the weapons and materiel being used in the genocide, including hellfire missiles and F35s. there's a lot of nitty gritty details in here, nearly 700 locations on the map, tracking who makes even the smallest parts of some of this stuff. they have also included a spreadsheet with the raw data that users can pore through since the site where they uploaded the map only allows 1000 visitors per month. pretty interesting