Welcome again to everybody! Make yourself at home, and help with the dishes. In the time-honoured tradition of our group, here is our weekly discussion thread.
🇵🇸From the River to the Sea Palestine Shall be Free!
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Today I kept thinking about the utter fucking waste the capitalist system is. In terms of natural resources but also in terms of human resources.
Like, tens of thousands of people are unemployed in this country and many of them can and will work in some form or another. They get harassed continually about finding a job and the have to fill their time doing shit temp jobs that pay very little, creating profit for someone else while barely getting by and falling into an endless cycle of unemployment.
And then there are millions of people in The West stuck in some shitty wage slave job just because it costs money to exist. And then I haven’t even started about actual slaves in the third world who get exploited to the max.
Imagine how much we could do if we could all get along and if money wasn’t the single most important thing in life.
For real, the world could be such a great place.
I often think that too, as well as the millions of people who are employed in valueless industries, sort of like David Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs thesis.
It’s not just the reserve army of labour that’s wasted potential, it’s the people in weapons manufacturing, corporate legal and finance, advertising, lobbying, etc. Many make very high salaries, and yet they produce nothing that an honest society would call valuable.
We could achieve so much if our priorities were set properly. People have achieved so much in AES states, past and present. That thought is what keeps me going.
I think about this constantly. The magnitude of societal progress hamstrung by placing the profit motive above all will only truly be understood once we transition toward an international socialism. The human potential that’s wasted away in finance, law and order, the military industrial complex, the gig economy, etc, etc. All of these industries are full of proletariat that could be pushing society forward.
The PRC is showing us that even when hindered by imperialist aggression, socialist production is far superior to capitalist production. This is why America is so afraid of China. They don’t have a counter because capitalism doesn’t offer one. They only have 1 button to push and that button is war.
Today is my birthday. Enjoy puppy.
ȟ̷̛͚̮͉̱̭͇̲̫̣͖̰̼͛̍͒ä̷̙͍͓́͑̓̏͊̊̏̐̿̂̈̆͑͐p̶̧̙̯͚̝̣̜͓̠̘̘̲̹̠̓̀́̓̾̓͌̾̏͝p̸̢̨̨̡̺̙̝̞̱͇̜̬̟̝͓̅͝͝y̶̧͓̟̖̳̿̿͛̏̄̑̀͘͝ ̸̧̛̣͐̇̿̆̏͌͗̋͆̒̎͐͘̚b̴̧̟̆̈̀̅͗́̇͘ì̵̧̲̮̜͍͖̘͎̘̫̙͈̫̯̯̒̐̄̎̇͌͑͑̊̕͝ŗ̶͕̘̪͍̝͙͎̦͇͈̗̺́̽̉̑͜t̸̝̟̗̖͓͍̗̩͓͉̝̼͙̺̔̔̔̓̑̂̕͠͝ḩ̴͎̺̻̒̆̚̚d̵͈̾̿̽͆͋͒̓̀͑͌̄́̕ȧ̴͇̞͍̲͎̯̯͉̮̬̙͇̩̝̓͗̍͐y̶̧̨̻̪̣̞͇̭̯̑͛̏̀͋̀͊̊͝͝
Happy birthday
Happy birthday, hope you can get some sleep~
Happy birthday comrade
Happy birthday homie.
Happy birthday comrade!
Lovely! Where is that?
International Grand bazaar of Urunqi , Xinjiang , PRC .
Thanks for sharing!
You welcome 😁👍🏼
I fucking hate just how desensitized I’ve become to videos of dying kids the past 3 weeks. It’s difficult trying to stay in the loop while also preserving sanity.
Yeah but do you condemn Hamas tho
no, I only condemn Hummus
It’s fucking awful.
I don’t share all the triggering material for the respect of my Palestinian friends who actually have family in Gaza. But god damn do I just want to rub everyone else’s face in it.
I have a lengthy rant prepared for the day after tomorrow.
Here is a hint: it has something to do with horseshoe theorism.
Why what’s happening
I can’t say yet!
The fact that anyone can still think the accusations about Xinjiang are real now that they’re seeing what a real genocide looks like - and how hard it is to keep a lid on solid evidence from escaping in this modern era - is wild to me.
The mental gymnastics liberals must engage are impressive.
I’m seeing lots of Arabs and Palestinians lump Xinjiang in the conversation about “liberation from occupation everywhere.”
Hopefully people continue to dissect the CIA origins of the Xinjiang accusations, but I’m not super optimistic.
I hope you all have a nice week :D
are you doing this just to flex on us that you’re admin twice in a single comment?
Are you SURE?
🛸 f=t +o
Utoo yeah you see I am smart uwu
Had one of the best interviews in my time as a wage slave last week and really felt like I hit it out of the park. They said I’d know on Friday. Well here it is Monday and still donno. Should I keep holding out or just blow my brains out now get it over with?
On a more cheerful note, I’m finally starting my dive into non-ML leftist theory and started Anarchy Works by peter Gelderloos and it’s been a pretty enjoyable read. The format is basically Idea, historical example, and synthesis of ideas with praxis for each chapter. But it’s clear and easy to digest. I’m 1/4 in and started Saturday and that with barely any time to read and I’m not a fast reader normally.
I’m pretty sure I’m definitely not an anarchist but I like that I am developing a fuller understanding of the concepts. I do like the idea of little pocket anarchist communities popping up all the time tho because even if they never last, it does show that humans can still be communal for at least a moment.
Might take a sidestreet after this book and read up on syndicalism since that’s also piqued my interest recently.
Heard back yet? Is it worth chasing up?
I have not. I just sent a follow up email but I’ve been at this for a while so can pretty much assume I didn’t get it.
Sorry to hear that. It’s shit going through the motions of job hunting.
It sucks. I ended up emailing him after I saw your comment and they did say that a few people had to reschedule so no decision yet.
Apparently my “anarchist” aunt likes to feel like a cop.
wym?
She seems to spend lots of time thinking about whether people are pedos or “dangerous people.” She reported her coworker and feels very happy likening it to how a cop feels arresting people. Her ideology is very contradictory. I’ve posted about her before.
Europeans on the DPRK: ‘lmao they are so brainwashed, how could they let that happen?’
Europeans in history class: ‘And then our brave adventurers set sail to the rest of the world, and DISCOVERED Asia, Africa and the Americas!’
Blows my mind how we keep telling ourselves that we discovered the world while people were already living there. Pure white supremacy.
Invented a tart recipe in my head a few weeks ago and just absolutely no-scoped the motherfucker tonight. It was a pear-frangipane tart with the tart crust flavored with herbal liquer, the frangipane flavored with orange blossom water, and the pears’ main flavor of ouzo.
It was my bf’s birthday dinner I made it for. He invited all of his lovers over and it gave me a bit of (maybe this is the word?) schaudenfreude that my dish was the best received of all of them.
Still not super into poly, but it has been a big learning experience.
I scored 9/11 at my workplace battery safety training course
Already working on my next epub (could be a few months before I’m done): This Soviet World by Anna Louise Strong.
How do you go about doing these? Do you convert the PDF with something like Calibre then read it through to fix the typos, etc, and add tags (html tags)?
In this case I used OCRMyPDF to get text out of the PDF (Calibre doesn’t do that), and then I’ll create an empty EPUB in Calibre and import the text slowly, going through it with the PDF open to ensure it is correct, then finally add tags.
단숨에
I can’t decide so I’m gonna ask you: External link (to marxists.org) inside the EPUB?
Hmm… I’d maybe include the URL but not make it a hyperlink? I’d be worried about the security if there were links in the text. I don’t know whether there is a security risk, but I’d want to play it safe.
That’s awesome. I enjoy doing this kind of stuff if you have a backlog and want someone to convert a few books I’m happy to help.
If you want to, do help, it’s a tiny project of mine, very… creatively… called “Comrades Library” and I’m just trying to create EPUBs of stuff, so there will always be something on the backlog. Maos Five Essays is currently the only one my list.
단숨에
I was looking through the flags of the SSRs. It’s a collection that spans from beautiful to horrendous, imo. Georgia is cool because it kind of hurts my eyes to look at, but in a good way, I think. Waves on flags looks pretty good. Some of my favourite are in the “other republics” section, Bhukharan and Transcaucasia.
edit: cw: eye strain
Georgia is my least favorate because it always hurts my eyes and gives me a headache
How careless of me. Added a cw. My bad.
Happy Halloween!
