That interpretation sounds like a plausible socially progressive reading of the law, given that there’s a proviso to address cases where a person rapes a military spouse “by means of violence, coercion or other means” (it refers such cases to Article 236, which concerns cases of rape by violence or coercion in general). One could argue the addition of this proviso implies that the entire article is intended to be read as a law to protect the welfare of military spouses, addressing different ways a man could take advantage of a lonely military spouse, either by dishonest seduction (dishonest because conviction under the law requires proof of the man knowing that the woman is already married), or by force/abuse of position. The relevant clause of the Chinese criminal law code reads:

第二百五十九条　明知是现役军人的配偶而与之同居或者结婚的，处三年以下有期徒刑或者拘役。 利用职权、从属关系，以胁迫手段奸淫现役军人的妻子的，依照本法第二百三十六条的规定定罪处罚。

Article 259: Anyone who cohabits with or marries a spouse of an active-duty serviceman knowing that the spouse is the spouse of an active-duty serviceman shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention. Anyone who uses his power or subordinate relationship to coerce and rape the wife of an active serviceman shall be convicted and punished in accordance with the provisions of Article 236 of this Law.

Of course, the broad way that the law is phrased reveals big blindspot in the provision, as it kinda fails to consider or address a possibie situation where a military spouse could or would want to exercise agency by actively seeking out affairs while their spouse is deployed.

Edit: Actually, upon reading the criminal law code further I realise that it also contains a general criminalisation of bigamy in Article 258 (anyone “who has a spouse and commits bigamy, or who marries another person knowing that the other person has a spouse” can get up to two years imprisonment). So, I guess in cases where a military spouse actually remarries while the soldier is deployed, that would also open her (or him/them) up to some criminal liability. However, if she’s “merely” having an affair, or cohabiting, she’s technically not liable for any crime. Which means, on a structural level, the law is a little more lenient on the military spouse as compared to the jody. This further supports the argument that it’s more accurate to read Article 259, which addresses only the person seeking to marry or cohabit with the military spouse, as theoretically aimed at protecting military spouses from being taken advantage of while their husbands are deployed instead of it being a law meant to punish military spouse infidelity, since it distinctly doesn’t seek to punish the cheating military spouse like Article 258 does for general bigamy. If Article 259 was intended to punish all military spouse infidelity, it logically would need to treat both the military spouse and the person they cheated similarly.

Ah sorry didn’t mean to misgender them. Will edit accordingly.

Yeah. A Chinese court can probably easily differentiate between “recognising” a factual instance of bigamy (or in this case, lesbian cohabitation) while still treating it as an illegal act, and “decriminalising”/“legalising” a practice by court judgment. I would assume that any legal system would inherently need to be able to do the former without necessarily overreaching into the latter, because if that ability isn’t there then it may be theoretically possible to perversely argue that judges actually cannot impose derivative criminal libilities or pass sentences on convicted persons because courts should not recognise (i.e., legalise) a crime by doing so. In general, arguments along the pattern that a civil case cannot be won because a requirement of the relevant civil law concept is already criminal act are inherently silly, since nobody is going to argue that a civil case to get compensation for physical battery cannot be found because battery is also a criminal offence. It’s the literal/plain meaning rule being taken to the dumbest conclusion, i.e., the cases you teach in law school (if such cases exist) to show why concepts like the mischief rule/golden rule/purposive approach are necessary.

In fact, the current situation is probably a weaker case than the bigamy example that you provided, given that unlike bigamy, “cohabitation” (or infidelity) is not even a criminal act per se, just a criteria to tick so as to fulfil other legal liabilities. So, the court can easily just say "we recognise that people sometimes have gay/lesbian relationships outside marriage, and that for LGBTQ people such relationships fit under the definition of “living as if husband and wife” without seriously worrying that somehow according to some crazy literalist interpretation they’ve created gay marriage. Somehow I don’t think LGBTQ activists in China would view that as commendable and actual progress towards legalisation of gay marriage.

Hmm, the person tweeting this (as far as I can tell, they’re not living in China currently, and is some 1st gen Chinese Canadian YA author who writes Chinese history-inspired fantasy/SF) provided some “elaboration” on the alleged situation:-

The source is from a Chinese lawyer. The law about “ruining a military marriage” specifies committing bigamy or cohabitating with a military spouse, and cohabitation is currently defined as “living as if husband and wife”

If the court wants to charge these women they are then recognizing that two women can legally have a relationship as serious as that of a husband and wife

(responding question whether the cheating couple is being imprisoned) No the soldier is threatening to sue the women unless they give him 200k RMB (27k USD) but they are threatening to counter-sue him for extortion. So right now it’s just threats. Even the lawyer I saw this from doesn’t know how a court would rule in this case.

Not sure about the anonymous “Chinese lawyer” source that they’re relying on, and I can’t find a news source reporting on this case; elsewhere in the thread they posted an SCMP article, but it was about a “coventional” heterosexual jody case from earlier this year). Be that as it may, on first glance, the purpoted legal logic doesn’t seem to be completely without legs to me? If cohabitation is legally defined as “living as if husband and wife”, it seems at least arguable (not saying that it’s an argument that Chinese courts will definitely accept) that the court cannot legally recognise a “lesbian cohabitation” situation without first recognising the concept of a marriage/legally-recognised union between two women?

Article 150 covers bringing the party into disrepute by living too egregious of a conspicuous consumption hypebeast lifestyle. So it’s actually the “party members shouldn’t bring the party into disrepute by buying so many gold-plated Bugatti Veyrons that normal people are beginning to notice/complain” clause.

Technically the “don’t get caught at strip clubs” clause is Article 151. Actually, to be serious, it’s not even that as Article 151 is not really a generalised “party members can’t have extramarital sex ever” rule, but just a “don’t abuse your power to be a sex pest” clause. The real “don’t get caught in a strip club” provision is Article 153 (i.e. don’t “violate social public order and good morals”) and since the sex industry is, as far as I’m aware, still very illegal in China, a party member being caught in one is basically also a criminal matter as well as a party discipline matter.

It’s not just mistranslation of the phrase; the tweet deliberately excises context surrounding it, seemingly to imply that the CPC is trying to do some sort of crude artistic censorship, as if Xi is trying to prevent the Chinese from watching superhero slop movies, playing gacha games, or reading Ulysses because James Joyce included too many fart jokes in it, that it’s some sort of socialist-flavoured puritanical mass thought control project, rather than doing pragmatic and measured anti-corruption/anti-graft stuff among the elite to avoid inciting mass political dissatisfaction.

In full, Article 150 reads: “生活奢靡、铺张浪费、贪图享乐、追求低级趣味，造成不良影响的，给予警告或者严重警告处分；情节严重的，给予撤销党内职务处分。”, i.e., “Those who lead extravagant lives, waste money, pursue pleasure, and pursue vulgar interests, causing adverse effects, shall be given a warning or a serious warning; if the circumstances are serious, they shall be given a disciplinary sanction of removal from their party posts.” Based on the way the regulation is phrased, it’s clear that the core idea behind it is essentially that the personal lives of party officials shouldn’t cause detriment (造成不良影响) to the people and the Party by being wasteful or manifestly corrupt. It’s the consequence that’s the key ingredient, the wasteful and crude behaviours in of themselves are just the typical methods by which those bad consequence are arrived at. It’s not merely enjoying kitsch hobbies that fall outside reading theory and volunteering at the local soup kitchen (btw, do they even have those in China? What’s the homeless situation there? Is it a problem in the big cities? Is the CPC doing anything about it?) or spending money on stupid expensive things for personal enjoyment, but when that enjoyment is pursued to such an egregious extent/in such a way that causes material or measurable harm. A guideline published by the Guangdong Provincial Disciplinary Inspection Commission supports this interpretation, saying that “violation of this [Article 150] disciplinary regulation is based on “causing adverse effects” as a constituent element. On the one hand, the adverse effects should be comprehensively grasped from the living standards, consumption standards, customs and habits of the local people. On the other hand, it depends on whether it affects the masses’ recognition of party members’ practice of the core socialist values. If their extravagant life and other behaviors do not cause concentrated reflections from the masses, or the circumstances are minor and do not cause negative comments, and do not affect the masses’ recognition of party members and cadres’ practice of the core socialist values, it is generally not appropriate to identify them as violations of discipline.”. If I read all this correctly, it’s essentially just a rule against party members being involved in big flashy corruption scandals. You know, the ones that regular working folk don’t like, and that the US and the West likes to point out to lecture about how communism is actually authoritarian and doomed to fail.

If you’re interested, you can search online to see what weirdly specific examples/precedent cases the published guidelines cite in explaining what constitutes an offence, including a provincial party secretary being widely known to regularly (i.e., more than twice a month) drink expensive wine and dine on exotic endanged animals in high-end nighclubs (entirely on the nighclub owner’s expense, and in a nighclub deliberately designed by political flunkies to fit said party official’s tastes), or “spending several months’ salary to buy milk, scanning the QR code in the milk bottle cap to vote for an entertainment idol, and then pouring out the whole box of milk, arousing strong public condemnation”. Wild stuff.

Time for the IDF to call in the Shabbos Air Service

Incredible political schizoposting by some mainland Chinese “pro-establishment right-wing” Huey Longist (???) on twitter:

English translation:

Welcome to the show Mr. Pres-… Ginger Commander no!

After the revolution Macklemore gets to be appointed commisar for mini golf affairs, but only after he undergoes brief reeducation for his petit-bourgeois tendencies

I assume you’re talking about his time in the Spanish Civil War. But even then some of his contemporaries saw him as essentially an unserious war tourist who was in Catalonia just to collect juicy material for his writing.

Orwell had no understanding of the world-wide significance of the struggle in Spain, he knew little of the national efforts of the Popular Front government to achieve a united front against fascism, he had never seen the Republican flag, he did not agree with the actions of the POUM — he took a rifle in the role of an outsider, a journalist looking for experiences to figure in a future book.” — Bill Alexander, commander of the British Battalion of the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War, in George Orwell and Spain (1984), p. 94.

Not to mention his supposedly negative review of Mein Kampf. Yeah, he shit talks it super vaguely here and there (“Then suddenly it turned out that Hitler was not respectable after all.” I’ve heard of ironic understatement, but don’t you think you’re overdoing it just a little here George?), but then he somehow finds it possible to say that he doesn’t personally dislike a literal genocidaire and spends so much time talking about Hitler’s supposed supernatural “charisma”:

But Hitler could not have succeeded against his many rivals if it had not been for the attraction of his own personality, which one can feel even in the clumsy writing of Mein Kampf, and which is no doubt overwhelming when one hears his speeches. I should like to put it on record that I have never been able to dislike Hitler. Ever since he came to power—till then, like nearly everyone, I had been deceived into thinking that he did not matter—I have reflected that I would certainly kill him if I could get within reach of him, but that I could feel no personal animosity. The fact is that there is something deeply appealing about him. One feels it again when one sees his photographs—and I recommend especially the photograph at the beginning of Hurst and Blackett’s edition, which shows Hitler in his early Brownshirt days. It is a pathetic, dog-like face, the face of a man suffering under intolerable wrongs. In a rather more manly way it reproduces the expression of innumerable pictures of Christ crucified, and there is little doubt that that is how Hitler sees himself. The initial, personal cause of his grievance against the universe can only be guessed at; but at any rate the grievance is here. He is the martyr, the victim, Prometheus chained to the rock, the self-sacrificing hero who fights single-handed against impossible odds. If he were killing a mouse he would know how to make it seem like a dragon. One feels, as with Napoleon, that he is fighting against destiny, that he can’t win, and yet that he somehow deserves to. The attraction of such a pose is of course enormous; half the films that one sees turn upon some such theme.

(Side note: really suspicious that when I googled for Orwell’s review, the versions in the top results always seem cut out the part where Orwell says he never was able to dislike Hitler… )

And his ending paragraph, ostensibly meant as to criticise the fascist false promise of providing with meaningful struggle in a nihilistic world, actually spends more time puching at “hedonistic” Socialism (Socialists want peace and sustainable material improvements for the lives of the working class? Oh horror!) and while also doing false equivalency between Stalinism and Nazism:

Also he has grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life. Nearly all western thought since the last war, certainly all “progressive” thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security and avoidance of pain. In such a view of life there is no room, for instance, for patriotism and the military virtues. The Socialist who finds his children playing with soldiers is usually upset, but he is never able to think of a substitute for the tin soldiers; tin pacifists somehow won’t do. Hitler, because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don’t only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty-parades. However they may be as economic theories, Fascism and Nazism are psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life. The same is probably true of Stalin’s militarised version of Socialism. All three of the great dictators have enhanced their power by imposing intolerable burdens on their peoples. Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a more grudging way, have said to people “I offer you a good time,” Hitler has said to them “I offer you struggle, danger and death,” and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet. Perhaps later on they will get sick of it and change their minds, as at the end of the last war. After a few years of slaughter and starvation “Greatest happiness of the greatest number” is a good slogan, but at this moment “Better an end with horror than a horror without end” is a winner. Now that we are fighting against the man who coined it, we ought not to underrate its emotional appeal.

Orwell’s not a commited anti-fascist. His worst condemnation of fascism is merely of its aesthetics, and his tepid opposition to Nazi Germany is just another opportunity for him to posture and smear leftists that are more serious than he is in defeating fascism.

classic stories of the Wéstern tradition

What’s with the accent mark? Is this some sort of advanced esoteric racism that I’m too non-Amerikkkan to understand?

Ah I guess then it makes sense to me why they would publish Losurdo’s other works, but not his book about Stalin specifically. They’re big tent, with exceptions for anything too closely associated with or explicitly positive about big bad Joey Steel.

Checking the sources cited in the wikipedia page, it seems that there may be actual justification for not saying “second wealthiest”? The sentence in question specifically links to a 2015 Reserve Bank of India annual report about percentage of population below the poverty line, not state GDP. The other source, a UN/government think tank index of sustainable development goals, also says that as of 2020 Kerala places 2nd in terms of “No Poverty”. So, technically, the data being referred to in this specific case was in relation to poverty rates, not wealth.

However, the second source at the same time positions Kerala in 1st place overall among all other Indian states in terms of sustainable development goals generally. So yeah, someone should maybe go and fix the wikipedia page accordingly.

Bernie read Settlers

Oh hey

Apparently Sharts was an American socialist politician and a lawyer who defended in court?

Joseph William Sharts (September 14, 1875 – May 15, 1965) was an American attorney, political activist, newspaper editor, and novelist. Sharts is best remembered as a popular novelist of the first two decades of the 20th century and as a defense attorney in a number of high-profile political trials, including cases involving Socialist Party of America leader Eugene V. Debs, future Workers (Communist) Party leader C. E. Ruthenberg, and radical clergyman William Montgomery Brown. Sharts was a top leader of the Socialist Party of America, sitting on that group’s governing National Executive Committee from 1925 to 1932. He was three times the Socialist candidate for Governor of Ohio.

Wonder whether the book’s actually good. And whether there’s some specifically intended political meaning? The blurbs I could find online seems to say that it’s historical fiction about the Bar Kokhba revolt, but not sure what statements (if any?) about history/contemporary politics it’s trying to make.

Read a comment responding to the April Fools’ post saying that Verso is run by trotskyists (specifically their senior editor Sebastian Budgen). So is all this controversy basically part of some obscure ongoing infighting between trots and MLs within left-wing publishing/academia? Not very familiar with industry politics for niche left-wing publishing companies. Is there a particular ideological tendency in contemporary left-wing publishing? (I assume there’s a perception of trotskyist-aligned theory having some degree of outsized prominence, what with the memes about trots selling newspapers) Is everything published by Verso considered trotskyist or trotskyist-associated, or are they seen as generally non-sectarian?

Neat. Another book on my reading list…

Careful, Joanne might decide to say that actually golem legends are lies made up by rabbis to steal real wizard valour.

The Sun-Cross series is the one where a wizard has to escape the Nazis who reverse-isekaied him into our world, right? Was there jewish mysticism in the book? Haven’t read it myself but I literally just read a critic describing it as an interesting experiment with/subversion of the portal-quest fantasy subgenre (instead of being directly told about the true nature of the world by reliable wise sage figures (eg. Gandalf, Aslan), the protagonist has to actively question and interpret the world around him to find out the truth (ie. the holocaust)).