Welcome again to everybody! Make yourself at home. In the time-honoured tradition of our sect, here is the weekly discussion thread.
● Matrix homeserver and space
● Theory discussion group on Matrix
● Find theory on ProleWiki, marxists.org, Anna’s Archive and libgen.
● Audio versions by Socialism For All (just keep in mind that he’s an ultraleftist)
Got banned on reddit again for wishing an American soldier gets cheated on by his wife and his knees to be blown up by an IED
Liberal snowflakes can’t take a joke (not joke) these days smh
Sexing with soldiers wives/husbands is praxis
Saw someone from my school earlier who was pro-palestine post something about the Xinjiang Genocide on her instagram story. It was pretty much just an afterthought in a list of modern genocides (most of which I presume were real), but still.
I hate the west for poisoning the youth.
One battle won, one battle to win I guess
We even have people like that in our party. As long as they can be right on a lot of thing then there is room for them to have the occasional wrong take. The Western propaganda machine is enormous after all, and we need to keep educating.
:( unfortunately the “uyghur genocide” narrative seems to be more ingrained into people’s minds because of how anti-china the west is and because there’s hardly any widely known accurate information about it
In the Palestine group chat for the local Uni protest I once saw some person saying that they didn’t want to buy a keffiyeh made in China because of the Uyghurs.
Yesterday, my daughter was born healthy folks! I feel blessed!
Congrats!
Congrats, comrade!
Congratz
Congratulations
Congrats! Wish you and your beautiful daughter the best! ❤️
Congratulations comrade!
I wore a union sweater to work today as it is comfy and warm and someone in the bus greeted me very kindly because of it
So the DPRK’s football team qualified for the second round of World Cup qualifiers for Asia after finishing second in their group. Japan finished 1st, DPRK 2nd, Syria 3rd and Myanmar 4th. It would be really cool if they managed to reach the world cup.
Palestine also finished second in their group so they also progresses to the next round
It’s the spectre of communism! The ghosts of the DDR team which triumphed over their Western brethren in 1974 giving their combined strength to the DPRK.
DPRK has actually done quite well historically in the world cup right? Correct me if I’m wrong but both Koreas have actually made it all the way to the quarter finals at some point if I remember correctly.
Last decent result was a QF in 1966. Last participation in a tournament was 2010 in South Africa. Other than that they never really achieved something sadly, apart from Asian Cup participation.
they were last in the World Cup as recently as 2010 in South Africa. My primary memory of them in that tournament is Emmanuel Eboué trying to listen into their team huddle as if he spoke Korean, good bit guy was a mediocre right back but was definitely funny dude
DPRK won it once, I believe.
I do not think that’s true
Romania beat israel to advance is the world cup qualifiers
I was awakened by a loud bang today. I figured it was probably some random drug war in which a grenade was thrown, as that happens often around here so I went back to sleep.
Apparently a building several kilometers away in the city exploded. So far 1 person is dead and several people are heavily injured. A freak incident, you would say, if it weren’t the fifth or so place that randomly exploded in the few years that I have lived here. This is a city that is notorious for the bad upkeep of buildings, so I wonder how many mine fields our citizens are living in.
if it weren’t the fifth or so place that randomly exploded in the few years
That’s really troubling. Are most of these from failing gas infrastructure or similar? The only buildings that have blown up where I’ve lived were meth labs.
The last few incidents were from gas leaks yes. This one probably too though there is no confirmation yet. They called in the governments special explosive forces halfway through the rescue operation but there’s not further news about them.
A second dead person has been recovered now. It apparently is the sixth explosion in which people die in six years in this city.
Three died so far. Absolute tragedy.
Never understood people’s obsession with cars being freedom. I take the bus to work sometimes. I get on the bus which stops nearly at my front door, sit down and look outside, and get off in front of my work. Zero effort required from my part. Investing in public transport is investing in freedom.
It’s a myopic view that is held mostly by people living in areas where public transportation is non existent and cars are the only means to get around. Either that or a city bloke who is rich and doesn’t want to mingle with the rabble.
You don’t live in a society where you are physically incapable of doing absolutely anything without a car.
That’s your answer. A winter coat is impractical to someone in the Sahara, but that person works appreciate it a lot of the eh got thrown into Alaska.
I know, my rant was more city specific I guess
I suppose it depends on how good your public transport is. I wasn’t quite so lucky when I had long commutes a few years back. 15 minute bus, 10 minute walk, 30 minute train, 15 minute walk, and the same thing in reverse getting home. Usually in the mornings without any space to actually sit at any point in the trip. Sure did wish I had a car at the time, lmao.
Bikes are true freedom. Commuting takes roughly the same amount of time because I don’t have to take the same crappy routes as with a car.
cars are the opposite of freedom in my opinion. I grew up/live in a city where there is fortunately rudimentary public transit but a lot of shit is highly inaccessible without a car. Especially in the winters here having to rely on the bus to get to work was absolute hell, but even then having a car is such a massive chore. Outside of rent it is my biggest expense in a month and driving is highly dangerous despite the fact that id consider myself quite good at it. Id much rather be able to just rely on public transport and not have to deal with the cost and stress of driving on a daily basis, would feel much more free id say. And thats not even considering the social aspects of not having a car here and how that can limit you, wish it were just typical (and practical) for most people to take transit
Is your city under the management of Capitalists who only implement architectures that benefits the rich people, raise cost of living, and creates an environment where environmentally destructive investment is the best choice for personal finance?
im anxious around people and feel constantly on edge or potentially threatened even when others are kind and flash a smile.
having a space where i can be certain things are where i expect them and when im looking for stuff i dont need to keep up appearances…
If there’s no peace talks yet, I hope Russia advances quickly. I’m kinda frustrated with the slow speed of their advances. I just feel like there’s not much time left before the west will escalate even further, and it would be good if Russia gained more ground so they can protect themselves better
You may need to brace yourself for disappointment. Peace talks are not happening and i see nothing that would indicate that Russia views this the way that you do. They seem to regard territorial gains as an afterthought to their strategy of attrition at the moment. Nothing about this has changed for well over a year now and i don’t expect any big surprises. Just more of the same slow and steady grinding.
I think that Russia considers that time is on its side and that it is in no hurry whatsoever as far as Ukraine is concerned. Putin basically said as much in a recent conversation with international reporters at the St Petersburg Economic Forum. I don’t have the exact quote on hand, but paraphrasing it was something like “yes we could go faster but at the cost of greater losses which we do not want”.
They have also consistently maintained that no additional mobilization will occur, which means that the pace of advance will continue to be limited by the rather modest (compared to what Russia could deploy if it wanted to) size of the force they have dedicated to this conflict. Furthermore, the appointment of a civilian economic administrator to the post of defense minister indicates that they want to prioritize a healthy civilian economy that is not overly skewed toward the military side.
All of these are indications that they are pursuing a strategy not centered around immediate military gains but around long term economic and social stability, even at the cost of a slower resolution to the Ukraine conflict, particularly since they seem convinced that the longer it goes on the weaker the West gets and the worse the global crisis of the US empire will become.
Edit: I have to add a caveat which is that of course all of what i said is contingent on there being no sudden, unexpected developments on the Ukrainian side such as a major political crisis in the Kiev junta or a sudden collapse of the front due to attrition of trained manpower, equipment shortages, demoralization, etc.
All you said was true, I know this is a war on attrition, but I also want the Donbas to be fully liberated so they are not on the direct frontline if shit really hits the fan
3 body problem netflix adaptation boils down to “the West saves earth from the consequences of chinese communism”.
From what ive read online, the story in the books mainly happens in China (in the adaptation the good stuff happens in terf island, except for the bad stuff which is left as it happens in the books, in China of course), and China and the west join forces to fight the turncoats. In the netflix adaptation, the chinese turncoat defects to the UK and its some english aristocrat ghoul bossing everyone to fight her society.
Which leads me to ask, if you’re moving the story from China to terf island, why keep the cultural revolution stuff? Its such a shameless anti-china propaganda lmao
Terf island sounds like what a really successful cultural revolution would look like, so it kinda fits.
As I get older and older, I get unfathomably uncomfortable seeing kids and teenagers online. Just a moment ago I discovered a whole section of DeviantArt where 13-14 year olds post their names, faces, and houses all voer their accounts with no thought to cyber safety. First of all, I’m shocked people still use that site and in that manner and secondly none of these kids seem to grasp the amount of danger they put themselves in.
As a former kid, kids are idiots. They do their best of course but with the lack of life experience, and floods of hormones, decision making isn’t really easy to do. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of kids have really good ideas, and great takes on things, but making decisions? It’s just hard to make good ones.
Can you do an AMA as a former kid?
Let me check with my parents
I sometimes imagine what life would be like after the end of capitalism and what the future would look like.
Probably a few good years of prosperity and peace until some mad lad digs up Stalin’s spoon. Then it’s a toss-up. We may be sharing toothbrushes or we may be progressing as a society. Preferably both if I’m being honest. I wouldn’t mind a more intimate relationship with my neighbors.
I bet that war in Ukraine is secretly a struggle for control over the spoon…
In all seriousness though, I do the same thing. I wonder how different my life would be or my life so far would have been in such circumstances.
This election two of the youngest members of parliament got elected.
One is for the socdem party, the other one is for our party.
Members of parliament can get up to 11k a month over here, and the local newspaper (they’re both from Antwerp) asked them how they handled that much money at such a young age. (the socdem is 25 years old, our elected official Amina is 22 years old).
The socdem reply is something along the line of: yeah it’s a lot but I didn’t go into politics for the money blah blah blah
Amina gives most of it away to the party to keep an average Belgian wage as to not lose touch with the people
I think that highlights an important difference between socdems and us
you love to see it folks, one of the people representing the people
I hope you all have a nice week :D and a absolutely milquetoast and bland week to the person that requested it
Thank you for wishing me a bland week, it means alot
Have a nice week, tovarish!
It’s a wittle baby one!
Have a nice week comrade Oppo 🫡
🦨🥹
for anyone wondering why this thread is still pinned, it’s a new
featurebug