There was one weird agreement. During WW1, the Pope declared that a Christmas ceasefire should happen. Obviously, the Pope has no such power in these matters and the diplomats around the world failed to turn the Popes wish into any real ceasefire.

But then, a bit of Christmas magic happened. It turns out that WW1 soldier conditions were so shit, that many soldiers wanted to go against orders and proceed with the Christmas ceasefire anyway (as an act of rebellion against their commanders).

Legend has it that soldiers picked Still Nacht (aka: Silent Night), it being one of the few bilingual Christmas Carols. If both sides in the trenches started to sing the song, you knew it was safe to partake in the ceasefire, allegedly with another confirmation of Oh Come All Ye Faithful (another Christmas carol).

This all proves one thing. It’s not the leaders or diplomats that really matter per se with ceasefires. It’s the soldiers at the bottom. If they refuse to shoot, then the ceasefire will happen. With orders, or (in the Christmas miracle…) sometimes AGAINST orders.

It’s not a complete miracle, as some reports of fight / killing still happened during the Christmas Ceasefire. But there are reports of hundreds of thousands of French, British, and German soldiers exchanging Christmas gifts (coffee and other trinkets), playing soccer and more. So it largely was a success.

We are on the 25th month?

Thanks for the clarification.

It could be 10+ years of me misremembering the explanation. The person who told me this was Korean, so it seems more likely that I misremembered than them explaining it wrong.

Someone told me that Oppa means ‘Uncle’, but in the particular district of Gangnam the word Oppa/Uncle also means Pimp.

So it’s basically a song based on a pretty bad pun. I’ll protect you like an uncle, and by Uncle I mean Pimp.

EDIT: English speakers likely would do better with the translation as 'Ill be like a Father to you, a real Las Vegas Pimp Daddy (where Daddy is a word that means Father but has more Pimp connotations, and Las Vegas being famous for legalized prostitution).

It’s definitely debauchery. But we likely have memorials to Austin Powers and other such pop culture icons, so it’s understandable.

Discover seems to be the best bet to me so far.

Discover is on the JCB, UnionPay, Troy and RuPay. (japan, China, turkey, and India respectively). Probably many more.

Similarly, a JCB card should work wherever Discover is. It’s a billateral alliance.

Oh, and all Discover cards work on Diners Club International because those two networks completely merged.

Alliance members are not 100% acceptance. It seems like 95%+ acceptance though (most JCB will accept most Discover cards and vice versa, though you will get confused looks from the locals). It sounds like there’s a lot of old equipment around the countries that break compatibility but cities and other urban areas with new equipment shouldn’t have any problems.

I’ll probably get a Discover card and start testing this out. I already have Visa and Mastercard but this new censorship issue seems serious enough to make me start supporting a 3rd place competitor.

Between Discover vs AmEx, it seems like AmEx is about elite club / customer service / returns etc. etc. nice features but I’m not sure if it’s worth the price.

Discover is free of annual fees, reasonable cash back, mediocre costs for the merchants (better than AmEx anyway and comparable vs Visa) and a surprisingly huge offering of international compatibility (RuPay, JCB, UnionPay, etc Etc). It seems like the winner to me as a 3rd card to experiment with.

What’s wrong with Capital One? I feel like Discover/Capital One / Diner’s Club network is a good thing for Discover customers.

Discover and Diners Club merged a few years ago btw. Discover also has an alliance with JCB.

So Discover network is actually really, really big.

Discover has an alliance with JCB. So that’s just Discover in the USA.

Real question: if we just parked our cars in the streets during these events and blocked the road, what could they do about it?

Yes I get that my license plate is on there and that maybe I’ll get a ticket. But think about how many of those people actually have options beyond recording on their phones that is also nonviolent.

Don’t drive aggressively into their cars or whatever but it shouldn’t be too hard to organize a blockade down the road a bit.

One car is a hassle and needs a towing. 20 cars would be very difficult to remove. Of course it depends on territory (they might just drive off road and around) but consider your local geography and with some planning surely there’s a bottleneck that can be a real headache to them.

I feel like there isn’t an assertion that the police would act out from ignorance of the law, but just how they operate. If anything the enhanced legal awareness may embolden them to know how far they can push the line and get away with it.

More importantly, their enhanced legal training means that in say, 80% of cases, I’d expect an Officer to win in most legal fights vs a typical layperson (ex: typical protesters).

Yes we have some incredible abuses out there and it’s important to bring up Police Abuse to raise awareness. But there’s also the pragmatic truth that we cannot expect for protesters to truly match up well in a legal fight vs Officers.

There’s some dumbass advice out there about knowing your rights and asking the officers badge number and stuff. I think for most laypeople, this is bad advice because the typical protesters or layperson will mess up in the interaction. The proper recommendation when dealing with officers is to remain quiet and call your lawyer, and then have your lawyer always speak for you.

Policemen have more experience with the law than you.

It is a liberal fantasy to think that spouting a few words here and there could pin these guys in an ethical or legal dilemma. The officer has likely heard the argument before whatever you think you are pinning them on.

I’m not saying that means Officers are ethical people. But I’m trying to make sure everyone understands the threat here.

The protesters will fuck up first. We need to be ready for this. It only takes one protester to step out of line while the officers here are politically savvy and know what they can (and do) get away with.

The smart aren’t planning for how to escalate these protests. The smart are planning for the inevitable crackdown after a building is looted and the arson starts, and the police use that as an excuse to crack skulls with legal backing.

Our move after that, I dunno. But that’s happened in 2018, 2019, even 2012 with Occupy Wall Street. Building our coalition vs Trump will be harder but I get it, protesters need to strike back in anger after aggressions at this level. Just know we are getting actively outplayed by Trump as these predictable events happen.

You will be unfairly demonized. Republicans will get law and order propaganda on Fox News. Your Boomer grandparents will fall for the propaganda.

But where’s the silver lining here? What can we do to turn the tide in our favor despite this? I think we can start pointing out the overreach of the President here taking over States authority. We can use January 6th and Trump’s pardons against him. We need to start preparing these arguments moving forward.

The soldier vs officer discussion is important because I do think the soldiers are more ignorant of these matters, in a good way. Soldiers didn’t sign up to be riot squad or crack down on protesters. The National Guard do want to save the country from Wildfires and Floods (under normal circumstances).

Police easily will side with ICE. National Guard probably sides but there is a Hail Mary argument we can make to them (National Guard shouldn’t be riot squad) that could get them to flip.

I expect that if National Guard has a higher chance of fucking up and shooting a protester than a Police Officer. They know this however, but that’s the fear we can actually take as an argument point.

The idea that conservatives are unthinking dumbasses or ignorant people who can be convinced of a greater truth is a horrible, horrible liberal lie. Conservatives think deeply about these things and have already preplanned how they should act and react to various news. You liberals need to start thinking at least as deeply as they do on these subjects if you hope to win this coming political battle.

Doomerism on the correct contexts is correct.

We shouldn’t expect a military coup on this issue. The vast majority of soldiers will take the side of Police and ICE on this issue and proudly stand by them.

Doomerism here allows us to focus our efforts elsewhere, where it’d be more fruitful to strike back vs Trump.

I’m not saying it’s what we want them to receive.

But Police are constantly surrounded by lawyers, criminologists and judges. You ain’t convincing them of anything, they have higher trusted authorities on the issue of law and a single officer likely have stood inside of courtrooms longer than you and me and everyone else in this thread combined. (Unless we have a lawyer in the peanut gallery??)

So this idea that you can just call them ignorant of law (and consequently, capable of learning or changing their opinions on these issues give. Am online debate) is… grossly optimistic.

You have to see them as legal professionals. Not necessarily legal authorities (like a judge or lawyer). But as a legal professional, cops almost certainly know more about law then the typical person. Enough to be dangerous.

Trained enough to be stubborn.

We convince officers and other respected leaders to coup at the right time at the right signal.

But we also accept that the Grunts and dumbasses are gonna dumbass. Maybe you can get like an E-8 or E-9 on our side but don’t give much effort to E-3 or E-5.

But sitting around hoping that the military just magically appears on our side (that leans hard into Libertarianism at best and outright far right hooo rah at worst) is dumb.

You may laugh but it’s the reality.

Soldiers don’t have legal training, riot training, or any other legal maneuver. Meanwhile, Police and Police investigators need to actually win court cases if they want their charges to stick.

Police know what they can get away with given the local judges and politicians.

This liberal fantasy where your enemies can just be ‘taught’ habeus corpus and suddenly agree with you is just fucking fantasy. Maybe the dumbass soldiers might learn that but Police absolutely already have legal training and experience in legal matters. They won’t listen to your lectures on legality.

The benefit to soldiers is that they often know they don’t know legal matters and know their ignorance on riot training. But otherwise you have to treat typical soldiers as ignorant. Police on the other hand are pretending to be dumb, they have far more legal experience than typical citizens.

That doesn’t make Police correct mind you. It just makes them more legally experienced.

You can’t even consistently convince liberals that Kamala is better than this shit. And you think adding a bunch of conservatives will help?

Lulz. The bulk of the military is 18Y old chumps.

I have trust in the generals, but they keep getting fired by this administration. The enlisted mooks will brainlessly shoot at civilians and call themselves heroes if given the chance.

The grunts and mooks aren’t professional at all. That’s the fucking point.

Police are those who actually study the law. Soldiers at best know they haven’t studied the law. It’s always the generals and officers who step in and protect us from the dumbasses, but the brains of the military are actively being drained right now.

Resignations are only useful in the short term.

In the long term, Resignations provide new opportunities for the loyal to gain power and recruit.

Watch Elon Musk of 2012 vs 2025.

Long term drug use clearly destroyed his brain. He never was very smart but 2012 Musk is a fucking genius in comparison

Fascists are building the camps right now and you’re mad that people are shouting outside of the q&a portion of a town hall.

Yes. Because this proves you don’t got my back in 2026.

If you can’t prove you’re going to be useful to me in stopping Trump next time, then I don’t give a shit about anything else you say.

And sitting here talking about how Biden was a genocide supporter and Kamala deserved to lose is just that. Fucking propaganda designed to stop our best chance at ending Trump last election or this next election.

You fucking get on board for 2026. None of this bullshit about fucking AOC up in her next speech.

I’m here to support the people who are doing things. Not to pull Jill Stein bullshit or whatever you think you are doing.

Get your head out your ass. Fucking up the Democrats won’t help you vs Trump in 2 years or 4 years.