

As long as I’m providing a little entertainment to folks online, I’m having a nice day!🙏
Cripple. History Major. Irritable and in constant pain. Vaguely Left-Wing.
As long as I’m providing a little entertainment to folks online, I’m having a nice day!🙏
Explanation: As the Cold War kicked into full swing, the USA developed a nasty habit of backing incredibly brutal dictators because they weren’t painted red.
As one might expect, the real losers in this ‘game’ of politiking was neither the USA nor USSR, but the people in developing countries who got to ‘enjoy’ the dictator tug-of-war between the superpowers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Arrows
The Three Arrows (German: Drei Pfeile) is a social democratic political symbol associated with the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), used in the late history of the Weimar Republic. First conceived for the SPD-dominated Iron Front as a symbol of the social democratic resistance against Nazism in 1932, it became an official symbol of the Party during the November 1932 German federal election, representing their opposition towards monarchism, Nazism, and communism.[1]
I like neither hot dogs nor root beer, and yet even I know this is a capital fucking offense
“NO, compromise is NOT acceptable, we MUST implement socialism NOW; otherwise you’re all fascists and completely identical” - Tankies when democracy
“Um, aktually, sweatie, materialist analysis DEMANDS we be capitalist first” - Tankies when no democracy
I would definitely say that they were good Emperors largely because they were adopted for the job, and Emperor Hadrian explicitly acknowledged the meritocratic implications, but the core reason why the adoptions happened were because the Emperors doing the adopting were childless gay guys (or, in Antoninus Pius’s case, a widower who only had daughters left).
“I, my friends, have not been permitted by nature to have a son, but you have made it possible by legal enactment. Now there is this difference between the two methods — that a begotten son turns out to be whatever sort of person Heaven pleases, whereas one that is adopted a man takes to himself as the result of a deliberate selection. 3 Thus by the process of nature a maimed and witless child is often given to a parent, but by process of selection one of sound body and sound mind is certain to be chosen. For this reason I formerly selected Lucius before all others — a person such as I could never have expected a child of my own to become. 4 But since Heaven has bereft us of them, I have found as emperor for you in his place the man whom I now give you, one who is noble, mild, tractable, prudent, neither young enough to do anything reckless nor old enough to neglect aught, one who has been brought up according to the laws and one who has exercised authority in accordance with our traditions, so that he is not ignorant of any matters pertaining to the imperial office, but could handle them all effectively. 5 I refer to our Antoninus here. Although I know him to be the least inclined of men to become involved in affairs and to be far from desiring any such power still I do not think that he will deliberately disregard either me or you, but will accept the office even against his will.”
Emperor Septimius Severus, the successor of the civil war after Aurelius’s dipshit son Commodus was overthrown, reportedly mocked Aurelius (in private, after Aurelius and Commodus were dead) for not killing Commodus in the metaphorical cradle for being a dipshit and saving the Empire at the expense of his nitwit son.
Of course, Severus had two nitwit sons that he didn’t ice and passed the Empire on to, so he was hypocritical as fuck, but the notion was there.
PECVNIA NON OLET!
There’s definite, if limited, evidence that Roman elite families of the Principate (ie what most people think of when they think ‘Roman Empire’) very often were small, even accounting for infant mortality - the ius trium also passed by Augustus only demanded three children to be born, not to survive to any age - and yet wealthy Roman citizens and couples constantly petitioned to get it for other reasons, because they didn’t want to pop out three kids.
When people have lots of kids, it’s either for reasons of resources (need labor on the farm), cultural values (God hates it when you pull out), or for lack of other options (if we don’t reproduce, the tribe will die out!). Romans, and especially Roman elites, didn’t have either of those problems - more kids would be a drain on resources, while population was not an actual concern to anyone except a handful of busybodies like Augustus. Rome was massive, the population wasn’t going to die off, and ‘new men’ from the lower (or at least middle) classes were always moving up to the big leagues due to how Roman society was structured. And if you really needed an heir but wasted your kid-making years, adoption was very widely accepted in Rome. So there wasn’t a whole lot of incentive for Roman elites during the height of the Empire to have a lot of kids.
There were still Roman elites who did have, or try to have, large families. Emperor Marcus Aurelius, for example, had thirteen kids, of whom only five survived him. He was certainly trying to provide an heir for the dynasty!
By contrast, the earlier Emperor Vespasian, more typically of his class, had only three kids (two sons and a daughter), all of whom survived him - but Vespasian’s babymaking days were over by the time he realized he was going to be Emperor, while Aurelius was always aware that having an heir could mean the difference between peace and war upon his death.
Funny enough, many of the people he most wanted to procreate were the wealthy elites, who were already living the good life, and would’ve had a household of slaves to take care of anything they could possibly need. Large families still simply were not appealing to most of them.
“Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt”
Explanation: Emperor Augustus, in order to provide a more ‘robust’ growth rate of the citizen population, restricted single citizens, male and female, of marriageable age from receiving any inheritances which might otherwise be left to them. Much like modern pro-natalist policies, its effect was… limited, at best. It’s hard to force people who don’t want to have kids to have them.
But Augustus had come down quite firmly on the side of Italian nativism during his rise to power, up to and including casting out the Romanized Gauls Julius Caesar had put into the Senate, and couldn’t countenance broadening the citizen body to furriners - so yelling at young folk to have kids it was!
Explanation: Emperor Augustus, in order to provide a more ‘robust’ growth rate of the citizen population, restricted single citizens, male and female, of marriageable age from receiving any inheritances which might otherwise be left to them. Much like modern pro-natalist policies, its effect was… limited, at best. It’s hard to force people who don’t want to have kids to have them.
But Augustus had come down quite firmly on the side of Italian nativism during his rise to power, up to and including casting out the Romanized Gauls Julius Caesar had put into the Senate, and couldn’t countenance broadening the citizen body to furriners - so yelling at young folk to have kids it was!
@[email protected], this looks like a bad call on the face of it. Have anything to add?
The link downloads a pdf, so be forewarned; sorry, couldn’t find a simple webpage with it. First paragraph in gives the 400 million number, but if you go further in it describes it piecemeal and in Swedish krona, if you’ve an interest in more precise figures.
This primarily pro-Soviet piece cites 16 million rubles by official figures; I missed further down where it cited an additional 36 million rubles in military aid, which would make the total 52 million rubles, which would total ~70 million USD by official Soviet exchange rates. Quadrupling that number to factor in the price of goods and miscellanea still yields 280 million to Sweden’s 400 million, however; and while Sweden was by far the largest Western backer of the ANC, it was far from the only one.
The Sovs sent 16 million rubles, or about $25 million, over the course of apartheid. Much of that was in material support, so let’s be generous and quadruple that, to account for the fact that Soviet goods would’ve been cheaper considering PPP, and put it at $100 million.
Sweden alone provided over $400 million.
‘The West’ is not just the US.
South Africa’s close relationship with Russia, for that matter, dates to the mid-2000s, not the immediate aftermath of apartheid. One might consider the immediate recipients of the success of that aid to be more grateful to their supposed benefactors in Russia than the next generation of politicians, but such is apparently not the case.
Either that, or the real reasons behind South Africa’s realignment to Russia are unrelated to support for the struggle against apartheid.
I don’t want to live through it.
Oh boy, do I have good news for you
In case anyone wonders why South Africa tends to side with countries like Russia, it’s because for all of the finger wagging and strongly worded letters that the Western world did about apartheid, nations like the Soviet Union were the only ones that actually bothered supporting the resistance in any meaningful way.
Who was the biggest funder of the ANC during the apartheid years, by the way?
Had no idea where else to put this, so you, c/JustPost, get to suffer my rambling.
For those who aren’t familiar with the speech from The Great Dictator:
I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an Emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible: Jew, Gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that.
We want to live by each other’s happiness, not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there’s room for everyone and the good earth is rich, and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.
Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much, and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities life will be violent, and all will be lost.
The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now, my voice is reaching millions throughout the world: millions of despairing men, women, and little children; victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me, I say “Do not despair."
The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.
Soldiers, don’t give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you, who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think, and what to feel, who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts. You are not machines, you are not cattle, you are men. You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don’t hate, only the unloved hate, the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers, don’t fight for slavery, fight for liberty.
In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written “The kingdom of God is within man.” Not one man, nor a group of men, but in all men. In you, you the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then, in the name of democracy, let us use that power. Let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work that will give youth a future and old age a security.
By the promise of these things brutes have risen to power, but they lie, they do not fulfill their promise. They never will. Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfill that promise. Let us fight to free the world. To do away with national barriers, to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.
Soldiers! In the name of democracy, let us all unite!
Look up! Look up! The clouds are lifting, the sun is breaking through. We are coming out of the darkness into the light. We are coming into a new world a kind new world where men will rise above their hate and brutality. The soul of man has been given wings, and at last, he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow, into the light of hope, into the future. That glorious future that belongs to you, to me and to all of us.
Look up! Look up.
Really just turning the clock back a hundred years on immigration policy.
It’s going to be a long… however long this is… to live through. For those of us who live through it, at least.
Home ownership was lower in the 1920s than today, and 80% of Americans had no savings.