Malazan Empire: Cause - Viewing Profile - Malazan Empire

Something Tiste said on this forum maybe 2 decades ago has stuck with me ever since. At the time I thought he was partly crazy but I have to come to realize he was spot on, only what he said was very difficult. It’s been years so I have to paraphrase:

“It’s an officers duty to uphold the law even at the cost of his life, better they get shot than break the law” I think where Americas police and federal agencies have lost the plot is they train as if the public is the enemy, as if they are an outside force apart from the community they protect. They are trained to think could be killed in the line of duty at any moment. The stats show it isn’t true even though the risk is perhaps high with Americas love of firearms. The result is that officers are aggressive, take defensive and hostile postures and reach for weapons too quickly. It’s too easy to find videos of officers squaring up and escalating against citizens in America.

Throw in that ICE agents are being thrown into the streets woth little training and an amped up atmosphere and it’s no surprise this happens. They raid illegal workers at Home Depot the same way they might raid illegal immigrants distributing cocaine.

The American police force is too militarized. I recently reached ‘hot fuzz’ (great movie) and there’s a line where the character who is a police officer who is too perfect and has a stick up his bum always points out it’s the police service and not police force according to official vocab guidelines because force is too hostile. America leans into the force part! They like to recruit former soldiers but except for both jobs having uniforms and requiring discipline there is actually little overlap other than guns.

My Life for Princess Donut.

I assumed that Dungeon Crawler Carl would be some incredibly stupid story but based on this forums recommendation and that it was more of a comedy I gave it a chance. Loving book 1. Perfect popcorn fiction.

It’s easy to be happy when your oppressor falls. That doesn’t mean that it will benefit you long term. So far it’s business as usual in Venezuela and Trumps track record suggests this operation was done on a whim rather than with a long term strategic plan. Marco Rubio in interviews can’t answer questions about the legal justification for the attack or what tomorrow will even look like never mind next year.

It’s an opportunity for Venezuela but whether for it to fall further or to rise we have no means to tell.

In the meantime trump is the American president and he is also one who shows no indication of altruism for other countries. So his motives are suspect. It is another data point that suggests presidents use wars to distract from domestic policy problems. More oil won’t reduce prices. Threatening Cuba and Greenland just make him seem unhinged rather than political savvy. This is not a win for America. This won’t reduce fentanyl deaths.

The justification Venezuela gave that those other countries didn’t was being weak. It helps that Trump knew the American military could walk in any time they wanted.

Is this unprecedented? Has a country ever kidnapped another head of state like this?

Also an occupation? Was this an invasion or a surgical strike?

If he thinks will get him a bump I suspect it will get him the exact opposite. Although also don’t think the Venezuelan people will be launching a guerilla war against the USA. At least not to start. They are probably hopeful this could turns thing around for them but I suspect it will just be a mess.