Cartoonist. Billy Hatcher speedrunner. 🇵🇸 🚩Art account: @TyllPeters
Joined August 2012
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Tyll🍉🇨🇺 retweeted
There's a saying that history is written by the victors, but this is also true of the present story. Those who are winning the capitalism game get to set the narrative about what is currently happening in our world.
If you succeed in dominating the humans you share a planet with using our current socioeconomic systems of labor exploitation and resource extraction, then you get to buy up politicians, media outlets, online platforms and influence operations which allow you to determine the mainstream narratives about what's going on in our world, in the same way the victorious armies of the past often had the power to shape the historical record in their favor.
The present is therefore written by the victors.
Those who've landed at the top of the heap have the power to circulate narratives which normalize the abusive system they benefit from, and to scare the public away from seeking to implement other systems of power distribution and resource allocation.
They have the power to shape public perception of world events, to reverse victim and perpetrator in their narratives about international conflicts, and to frame the western empire as a passive witness to the terrible things that are happening around the world rather than the primary driver of those horrors.
They have the power to determine which protest movements, mass atrocities and scandals receive widespread attention in our society, and which get conveniently overlooked.
They have the power to determine which political parties are taken seriously, and which parties are considered unrealistic vanity projects which steal votes from the viable candidates.
They have the power to make or break careers in media or politics, to choose which figures are elevated to celebrity status or marginalized to the fringes, and to fabricate antisemitism scandals out of thin air.
Power is the ability to control what happens. Absolute power is the ability to control what people THINK about what happens. Those who are winning the capitalism game are able to exert absolute power over our society.
The real source of power in our world is not money, nor resources, nor armies, nor weapons. The real source of power in our world is narrative, and the ability to control it.
Narrative is the only thing that determines what governments look like, how power works, how money operates, what laws there are, and why nations operate the way they do. They're all completely made-up guidelines made of words which we have all collectively agreed to pretend are true. The only reason anything works the way it works is because enough of us believe the shared narratives saying it is so. It is our collective belief which gives those narratives their power.
That's why our rulers pour so much energy into controlling the narrative. That's what you're seeing with all the news media consolidation, the centralization of internet activity into a handful of trillionaire apps, the aggressive artificial intelligence push, and the efforts to stomp out dissident speech throughout the western world. It's because the powerful understand something most of us do not: that their power comes entirely from narrative.
They know that as soon as enough of us stop believing their narratives, we are free. We can decide to re-write the made-up rules of society whenever we choose to, and change everything about states, authority, money and labor which have allowed the plutocrats to live like kings at the expense of everyone else. We can stop playing the capitalism game they've been winning at any time, because the rules are completely made up, and we can just make up a different game.
As soon as enough people stop believing the stories of the dominant storytellers, we can use the power of our numbers to force the creation of a healthy world.
Tyll🍉🇨🇺 retweeted
gaza is flooding and drowning and all you care about is some stupid liberal zionists winning elections
Tyll🍉🇨🇺 retweeted
Ein Bruchteil der Empörung über die Palästinensische Flagge auf dem Reichstag für 74.000 Tote, darunter 20.000 Kinder, das wäre mal was. Stattdessen weitere Unterstützung für Genozid und Apartheid und Repression gegen alle, die das anprangern. Deutschland ist einfach schäbig.
Tyll🍉🇨🇺 retweeted
The breakneck race to destroy *any* connection to a shared or objective reality is one of the most repulsive things going on right now in tech
You WILL be alienated from every other human on earth. You WILL be embalmed in your own delusions, and you’ll pay us $20/month for it
Microsoft has filed a patent for an AI system that could rewrite what people say during livestreams in real time. It could change words depending on who's watching, taking into account their age, location, and language.
The idea is to clean up broadcasts by removing filler words, censoring swearing, or even replacing certain words.
The AI could also adjust the speaker's lip movements so viewers wouldn't notice anything had been changed.
Tyll🍉🇨🇺 retweeted
The future is so bleak oh my god
Microsoft has filed a patent for an AI system that could rewrite what people say during livestreams in real time. It could change words depending on who's watching, taking into account their age, location, and language.
The idea is to clean up broadcasts by removing filler words, censoring swearing, or even replacing certain words.
The AI could also adjust the speaker's lip movements so viewers wouldn't notice anything had been changed.
Tyll🍉🇨🇺 retweeted
He’s got it backwards and that’s exactly the problem.
Germany doesn’t want to accept its responsibility for killing millions of Jews, and instead is making Palestinians become responsible for the crimes of Germans.
If Germans wanted to atone for their crimes, they should have given their own lands to the Jews they persecuted and their descendants, not gift Palestinian lands.
Tyll🍉🇨🇺 retweeted
The Soviet Union dragged a feudal backwater into the industrial age, crushed fascism, and gave millions rights the West still treats as privileges. You call that a murder machine because your history books start the body count the day the working class took power.
Tyll🍉🇨🇺 retweeted
I admit that I completely broke down today. I cried uncontrollably. I couldn’t hold myself together after witnessing what I saw with my own eyes.
Today, we went to film a journalistic report inside the displacement tents along the seashore. I swear, what we witnessed was beyond what any human being should have to endure.
I saw men crying bitterly. Men I had never seen cry when they lost their children or when their homes were destroyed. Today, I saw them crying because they were powerless to do the simplest thing: protect their children from the water and the cold.
We spoke to families who told us they had spent the entire night carrying their children in their arms after floodwater covered the floors of their tents and soaked their mattresses. They couldn’t find a single dry place to put their children. They couldn’t even give them a few hours of sleep.
I saw children no older than five, without proper clothes to protect them from the cold, without heating, and without a dry place to sleep. Children shivering inside tents that cannot keep out the rain, protect them from the wind, or provide even the most basic sense of safety.
What more must happen for this world to act? How much more suffering must people endure before someone remembers that they are human beings?
I am sick of this world. I am sick of its hypocrisy and empty slogans. To hell with a world that talks endlessly about human rights while leaving children to drown inside their tents. To hell with everyone who has witnessed this suffering and chosen silence, and to hell with the governments and institutions that have the power to act but continue to turn their backs on us.
Tyll🍉🇨🇺 retweeted
If you want to understand why Washington is conducting Ukraine peace negotiations without the EU at the table, listen to Kaja Kallas's speech today.
She insists that Brussels must be involved in negotiations over Europe's future security, while simultaneously claiming that the continent already has an established security architecture based on NATO and the EU, into which Ukraine should simply be integrated.
But that's precisely the problem, because Russia, Europe's largest country and biggest nuclear power, is outside those institutions. And as Washington appears increasingly willing to acknowledge, any lasting settlement must address the security relationship between Russia and the rest of Europe.
Not to mention that if the existing arrangements were functioning adequately, Europe would hardly be experiencing its biggest war in generations (a child could see this, for crying out loud).
Nobody is suggesting that Moscow should have a complete veto over NATO (except maybe some very hardline fringe nationalists). but it's difficult to see how a lasting continental security settlement can be achieved without addressing the relationship between Russia and the blocs members, including the security concerns of both sides.
Kallas is perfectly entitled to demand a seat at the negotiating table (as are the British and the Turkish, for that matter), but insisting that the existing architecture is sufficient, without explaining how relations with Russia can be managed within it, doesn't seem a particularly constructive starting point.
The whole purpose of the negotiations is to establish a settlement that prevents another war, but simply defending the arrangements under which this one occurred will hardly do that?
Putin does not have a veto over European security.
Any agreement to end the war must prevent Russia from re-arming and re-attacking.
This is why earlier this year, I put forward a paper with core demands towards Moscow, which was discussed by EU Foreign Ministers. This should be the basis for any negotiations.
Concessions should be on the aggressor, not on the victim.
My press remarks in Warsaw alongside @sikorskiradek and @andrii_sybiha ↓
Tyll🍉🇨🇺 retweeted
For those of us who live under the bombs, American elections are hardly the political spectacle we are expected to celebrate.
We couldn't give two hoots about which party wins an election in a system that has perfected the art of manufacturing the illusion of choice while keeping the machinery of imperialism firmly intact.
Choosing between two horse manures with the same smell is not democracy. And expecting us to applaud because one smells marginally less offensive is frankly insulting.
The people casting ballots are told they are deciding their country's future, while the machinery that determines whose lives are expendable, whose countries get bombed, whose land gets occupied and whose suffering gets funded by American taxpayers operates well beyond their reach.
And spare us the excitement over the Democrats. Was Obama not bombing weddings in Yemen? Did Biden not arm and shield the genocide in Gaza while Israel carried out its ethnic cleansing campaign in Lebanon?
Apparently, we are supposed to develop selective amnesia every four years, pick our favourite shade of American imperialism and celebrate when the supposedly lesser evil wins.
Forgive us if we aren't emotionally invested.
When your foreign policy is someone's funeral, your democracy is someone else's nightmare.
We are for sure not obliged to celebrate the electoral choices of an empire that keeps choosing us as its targets.
طوشتونا عاد.
Tyll🍉🇨🇺 retweeted
I have a small request to make from the whole world, regarding language:
Let's stop using the term 'South Lebanon' or 'Southern Lebanon' when talking about Israel's actions and demands. There is no such thing. There is only Lebanon.
Talking about South Lebanon is a huge Zionist win in political language: it creates the notion Israel is not attacking and occupying Lebanon, only 'South Lebanon', a cute little place that is not even a real part of actual Lebanon. Just a cute little bite.
They are now doing 'Southern Syria' instead of Syria, for precisely the same purpose: to make it sound like this is not invasion and occupation, only a minor bureaucratic move.
There is no south Lebanon and there is no West Bank or Gaza either. There is Palestine, which Israel is occupying in full.
We need to de-Zionize language. Let's start with Lebanon. All of it deserves to be free, and none of it is free till all of it is free. Same as Palestine, and Syria.
Tyll🍉🇨🇺 retweeted
So, Israel (a nuclear-armed state) is pushing the U.S. (a nuclear-armed state) to nuke Iran (not a nuclear-armed state) because Iran is a “nuclear threat.”
It’s the same logic that tells you genocide is “self-defense.”
Under pressure from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Trump administration may be within days of launching a nuclear strike on Iran. The target would be Pickax Mountain in central Iran, where Israeli intelligence claims the Iranian government has restarted its nuclear enrichment program. No conventional weapon in the American arsenal can penetrate 300 feet of solid granite to destroy the tunnels where enrichment is supposedly taking place. The only military option is a nuclear strike. Netanyahu has been pushing hard for one. “Bibi calls Trump about it every day,” says an informed observer.
Netanyahu is cornered and desperate. After last week’s election results, he can’t form a government unless Trump intervenes directly in Israeli politics and brokers a deal with other parties that gives Netanyahu 61 seats in the Knesset. Otherwise, he is out as prime minister and on his way to ignominy, investigations and possibly jail. Netanyahu must stay close to Trump. He needs this war.
To that end, he’s applied maximum pressure to his closest allies in the administration, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and CENTCOM commander Brad Cooper. Both oppose a negotiated settlement to the war they’ve so grievously mismanaged; both are pushing to restart major combat operations. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA director John Ratcliffe are also following Netanyahu’s lead, as are leaders of the Democratic Party. In a recent meeting on the subject, former president Barack Obama said he opposes the current Iran peace deal being drafted in Doha.
The rest of America’s longtime allies in the Middle East are terrified by the prospect of more war. On September 27th, Netanyahu flew secretly to Abu Dhabi to enlist the UAE in his lobbying effort for a final attack on Iran. The Emiratis refused. After eight months of conflict, Gulf economies are teetering. So are global energy and fertilizer markets. They won’t recover soon. Globally, there are a total of about 850 supertankers used to transport oil from producers to the rest of the world. In October alone, 11 of them were badly damaged in Hormuz. At this pace, a global depression is imminent. A nuclear strike would radically accelerate the destruction. Fallout from a ground explosion at Pickax Mountain would contaminate the Persian Gulf, poisoning the water supply for 100 million people.
And those are just some of the immediate consequences for the region. The rest of the world is every bit as exposed. No country other than the United States has ever used a nuclear weapon in war. Some would like to. An American nuclear attack on Iran would set a new precedent. The Russians have already told at least two other governments that an American nuclear strike on Iran would free them to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine. Pakistan and India would be tempted to do the same against each other, as would North Korea against Seoul. After the first nuclear strike, World War Three is inevitable. That war would be short and final.
We’ve been sleepwalking toward this moment for months. Since February, the administration has quietly rewritten America’s nuclear doctrine to make first use of so-called “battlefield nukes” easier and therefore more likely. No one in Washington in either party seems bothered by this. Now we’re on the brink of it.
Close observers say Trump is likely to decide by next weekend whether or not to use nuclear weapons. That would be November 7, six days from now. To his credit, he’s hesitating. At the moment, Trump is listening to his vice president, JD Vance, and to his envoy and friend Steve Witkoff, both of whom argue a deal with Iran can be made.
They’re right, though it won’t be simple. The Iranians are famously frustrating to negotiate with under any circumstances, and elements of that government have become more radical since Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his family were killed in February. After decades of isolation, even relatively moderate Iranian leaders seem confused by how decisions are made in the West. (There is a widespread belief in Tehran, for example, that the United States government controls Israel.) But overall, people who have spoken to decision-makers in Iran say there is consensus there that more war is bad for everyone and a deal is worth making.
One group that hasn’t been consulted so far is the global population — the hundreds of millions of people who will be killed along with their children if Trump is pushed by Netanyahu into launching a nuclear strike next week. Now would be the time for them to speak up.
Tyll🍉🇨🇺 retweeted
The most significant political reality in the world is also the most under-discussed political reality in the world, and it can be summed up as follows:
There are a whole lot more of us than there are of them, and we can force revolutionary change whenever we want.
That's it. There are a whole lot more ordinary people suffering under the status quo system of capitalism, imperialism, militarism and authoritarianism than there are people benefiting from it, and we can use the power of our numbers to overthrow that system whenever we decide to.
It's self-evident, and so simple that you can sum it up in a single sentence. But because our society is so deeply indoctrinated and mind-controlled, it simply doesn't show up in the normal every day conversations people have about politics and the problems we face as a society today.
We are encouraged to discuss elections and party politics with great vigor. We are rewarded with amplification on large plutocrat-owned platforms if we fan the flames of divisive culture war wedge issues or mainstream partisan punditry. But what we are absolutely never rewarded for and never encouraged to discuss is the fact that the oligarchs and empire managers who rule our society would be completely powerless to stop a people's revolution of sufficient scale.
We could all stop working and paying for things. We could barricade all the roads, railroads and infrastructure. We could demolish every bank, police station and government building. We could literally eat all the billionaires. Just, you know, hypothetically. We could do anything we wanted to do. No one could stop us.
All mainstream politics, media, and schooling is designed to direct our attention away from this political reality, while the people who rule over us never stop thinking about it. It haunts them. It consumes them. It keeps them up at night. They obsess over it.
That's why they're rushing to implement militarized robots, autonomous drones, and AI-driven mass surveillance.
That's why they're pushing for easily controlled digital currencies and digital IDs.
That's why they're working to re-centralize control of information to reverse the large-scale decentralization brought on by the internet.
That's why they've been hammering us with mass media propaganda for generations, and have been developing increasingly sophisticated mass-scale psyops in the age of AI and smartphones.
That's why we are actively herded into two mainstream political parties deadlocked in a perpetual tug-of-war to give us the illusion that we are engaging in meaningful political action.
That's why we are trained from when we are schoolchildren to believe we live in free democracies where people control the actions of their government using their votes.
It's because the rich and powerful are at all times acutely aware that the masses could turn on them at any instant, and must be kept in a perpetual state of manipulation and distraction in order to prevent this from happening.
I dunno, man. Sounds kinda unsustainable if you ask me. Especially given how discontented people are becoming as the capitalist empire stumbles over its own contradictions and runs out of arguments for its continued existence.
We're standing in a cage that isn't even locked. The door's not even closed. The only thing keeping us here is the recorded voice of the prison warden telling us "THERE IS NO ESCAPE" over and over again on repeat.
One day our gaze is going to turn to that door. And we will step out of it. And we will be free.
Tyll🍉🇨🇺 retweeted
Gaza City is literally living through its final days, and every passing day makes life here more difficult and unbearable.
We are losing what little remains of our resources and capabilities, with no alternatives available. Dozens of essential goods and raw materials are still prohibited from entering. Every basic necessity of life is gradually disappearing from the city. I am not exaggerating; this is the reality we are living. Things you take for granted in your everyday lives, things you barely think twice about, are simply unavailable here.
It has reached the point where even lighters are no longer available. Wood, iron, cement, and all other construction materials are prohibited from entering. Bakeries, water stations, and shops are shutting down one after another because of shortages of fuel, oils, and raw materials. Even the agricultural sector has been almost entirely destroyed after approximately 70% of agricultural land was seized.
We are not simply facing a shortage of goods. We are gradually losing everything that allows a city to function, survive, and sustain life.
What is happening is pushing Gaza City towards complete dependence on external aid, rather than allowing it to produce its own necessities and provide for its people.
Write, share, and speak about what is happening. Do not stop amplifying our voices.
Tyll🍉🇨🇺 retweeted
I don’t even know how to react to this. This is the same person who was practically dancing on the street when the war started. Unserious does not capture it
Germany's Chancellor Merz on Iran War:
We now have costs exceeding €100 billion for Europe alone over the last eight months, solely because of the increase in energy prices caused by this conflict.
More than €100 billion extra has been paid by businesses and consumers in Europe because energy has become more expensive as a result of this conflict.
We have an economic interest in bringing this conflict to an end as quickly as possible.
Tyll🍉🇨🇺 retweeted
Kaja Kallas speaks of “Russia’s war in Ukraine” but “the crisis in the Middle East.”
Why not “the crisis in Eastern Europe” and “America and Israel’s war on Iran”?
Apparently, some wars have perpetrators, but others simply occur naturally.
Russia’s war in Ukraine and the crisis in the Middle East pose major threats to energy and food supplies, trade and freedom of navigation.
Maritime routes are global lifelines.
At the G20 Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Atlanta, I called for a Black Sea freedom of navigation arrangement and reaffirmed the EU’s opposition to tolls and fees on international shipping routes.
Energy security and supply chain resilience are vital for global economic stability.
