522: the real Bitcoin Beach, Salvadorian 80s rock, and Asian futures without Asians
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Hola from ‘Surf City El Salvador’, the government’s name for the string of surfing tourist beaches to the west of La Libertad, most prominently El Zonte and El Tunco.
El Salvador is not a country I would have expected visiting, but as related in Coreyspondence a few monthly previously, the latest president Nayib Bukele has drastically reduced gang violence in the area, at the cost of arresting many innocents, as well as declaring Bitcoin legal currency and pulling dictator moves on the legislature.
I can’t figure out how to feel given the media on him, neither from the guardedly positive or the more negative who point out poverty is worse than ever.
On the ground, I can tell you this - the locals we speak to are grateful not to have to pay hundreds in extortion fees to gangs every month, and the tourist industry is clearly burgeoning in this area, although other than a few Bitcoin ATMs, ‘bitcoin beach’ isn’t much more than a few bougie cafes and a surf break.
I’ll relay more as I learn. The area we are in seems quite safe, although there is lots of barbed wire and walled compounds around. Locals are friendly and not aggressive.
Technology
Fourthwall supplies ‘ecommerce in a box’ for content creators, handling the website and shipping and sourcing and all that for a percentage. Makes a lot of sense when the creators are not ecommerce Shopify people to do it for them.
Ideologies
I’ve been learning more about the Salvadorian Civil War of course, which is yet another Cold proxy War with the US funding repressive deadly governments merely because they are anti communist. El Salvador was noteworthy even within Central America for having exterminated almost their entire indigenous population under anticommie pretenses, and illegalizing Afro-carribbean immigration. :(
The civil war caused many Salvadorians to flee to the US and made them one of the largest sources of foreign immigration for a time. The US detained many immigrant criminals in US jails before deporting them back to El Salvador, where they brought back US gang culture. (the largest gang here was founded in Los Angeles for example)
Sad. It also notably inspired two of the 80s’ greatest rock songs - All She Wants to Do is Dance by Eagle Don Henley, and Bullet the Blue Sky by U2. It’s wild to discover the real life events beyond vague ‘war is bad!’ political rocker lyrics.
Memes
The Internet reading a Dutch right wing politician’s fearmongering tweet about immigration in Jar Jar Binks’ voice is definitely my favorite meme of the week.
Although I did dip back into Bo Burnham’s INSIDE outtakes and can again recommend the Drake parody Five Years and hip hop parody Microwave Popcorn.
Asian Futures without Asians highlights all the Asian future aesthetics that the West has taken and then put only white characters into. Afrofutures does the same with a different continent.