Five minutes into this call, and people are still schmoozing about non-work-related stuff. Kill me now.
I've created a secondary Twitter account that only follows local emergency scanner accounts, police, fire, and the like. It's…refreshing.
@matigo A word of caution here: "socialism" is a word that gets thrown around pretty carelessly, often as a scare tactic. What is being referred to as "socialism" in the North American context includes things like Medicare, Social Security, a living minimum wage, and anything else that the far right wing doesn't like. For example, Japan's National Health Insurance system would qualify as "socialist" by the definition of the Right.
Socialism does not equal reparations for slavery, identity politics, restrictions on free speech, and various notions of privilege, any of which may or may not be valid and true, but are not in any sense "socialist."
Also, socialism of any stripe does not equal Soviet- or Chinese-style communism, which is what the Right often wants to portray it as. Yes, the Eastern Bloc talked a lot about socialism, but what they were talking about was Marxism-Leninism. Again, in the North American context, what is referred to as "socialism", by both its detractors and advocates, is more akin to social democracy as practiced in Western Europe, New Zealand, and much of the developed world. Take it from someone who lives here: we're in a much greater danger of ending up in an authoritarian right-wing state than we are of living under communism.
Now, if you want to advocate for laissez-faire capitalism and libertarianism, that's your choice, and AFAIK Japan is a free country and you have the right to do so. But please, let's be a bit more accurate with the descriptors, particularly when they are charged terms, and when so much of the postwar democratic order is under siege. As someone living in one of the last remaining islands of sanity in the United States, I, for one, would appreciate it.
Thank you!
// @variablepulserate
@variablepulserate Yes, Japanese law requires you to renounce your birth citizenship when you naturalize. There's an excellent blog in English about becoming Japanese at https://www.turning-japanese.info.
// @matigo
Bonne Fête nationale à mes amis français et francophones !
🎶 Allons, enfants de la patrie,
Le jour de gloire est arrivé ! 🎶
🇫🇷🎆🇪🇺
#le14juillet #BastilleDay #FêteNationale
@peemee @peemee If she comes to visit, stock up on water and canned goods, and tie everything down.
@nitinkhanna Don't worry, we can fix that:
Just sit right back, and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip, that started from this tropic port, aboard this tiny ship…