Welcome again to everybody. Thank you for joining us for the time-honored tradition of our group, here is the weekly discussion thread. Oh and by the way, please mind the rail crossing.
• Matrix homeserver and space
• Theory discussion group on /c/theory@lemmygrad.ml
• Find theory on ProleWiki, marxists.org, Anna’s Archive
Starting to notice that Sonic pfps on Twitter are consistently the most childish posters on that hellsite
Probably because the only reason anyone could still be a Sonic fan in 2026 is a childish inability to let go of nostalgia.
Don’t let hexbear hear you.
Pro: artist speaks up for Palestine
Con: it’s Macklemore so you still can’t listen to his music
If you want to listen to a good rapper who makes music about Palestine, you can listen to Lowkey
I just listen to his songs about Palestine like Hind’s Hall and ignore the others. :P But I also have never been one to faithfully listen to an artist’s music as a whole. I grab bag music and mainly orchestral.
I still have fond memories of “Thrift Shop” tbh. I have no standards when it comes to music though.
You’re not gonna pop some tags?
The Dutch budget will be more taxes for working people and less taxes for the rich and nobody is burning the country down. Bootlickers.
There was that group of farmers that sabotaged the train tracks and cancelled all trains for two days
Yeah but at this point that is just a regular Tuesday. They light something on fire every week now.
No word from any unions?
The governing parties don’t have a majority so they still need to beg with some parties to join them. The union is willing to talk but is holding their line, as they should. For the first time in decades they are at least showing some balls.
That’s good, at least.
Omg that’s me
Inshallah 🙏
🙏
Mariachis in China!
El grito se oye en todo el mundo. ¡Viva México!
That top image goes hard
The Dutch union has pulled their head out of their arse and is going on a PR tour. Fucking finally. They even went on a right wing talk show and imo served good points.
🫵 You WILL persist, comrade.
Part of me keeps wanting to mention that a family member has cancer, but it’s like… what do you say? It’s this agonizingly slow process relative to how awful the condition is (almost certainly made worse by how profit-driven the US healthcare system is). They are old enough and the stage of cancer bad enough that their chances don’t look great to me, but I feel like I’m supposed to stay optimistic anyway and the doctor(s) are trying to treat them with chemo, so that’s something. But it still isn’t clear what exactly the plan is in the long-term. From most recent information I have, they still don’t have full biopsy results; they had to send stuff out of state to get it fully analyzed, which is apparently not entirely abnormal, I guess if it’s not straightforward to analyze for one reason or another. And then there is the helping with caregiving part while things are ongoing, which puts into sharp relief every pre-existing disjointed family dynamic, is taxing in general, and is made harder by not knowing how long it’s going to go on and in what form. Meanwhile, the condition and/or medications can cause new complications, so there isn’t even a normal.
I’m being somewhat vague about how I describe it on purpose for better anonymity, but the gist is it sucks and nothing prepares you for it. It’s been one surreal day after another with no end in sight. And I have this recurring thought that is maybe a bit doomer but it goes something like, “This is just the beginning, isn’t it? We may actually be dealing with this during a better time than it could be. If things start going domino effect with fuel costs and so on, it could be way worse.” But it’s not like a “I’m grateful for what it is” thought, it’s more like, this feels like a preview of decline, not the real thing. They are at least getting care, but what if the healthcare system gets worse? The primary observation so far is just how understaffed / stretched thin places tend to be, how hard it is to reach people by phone that you’d want to be in communication with, and how unclear the plan is (unless I’m missing what it’s supposed to be). These are not entirely new observations about the healthcare system, but I’m noticing them more starkly and in more detail in this situation.
I walked out of my lecture today because my professor is just spewing a bunch of anti-migrant bullshit (on a topic regarding human rights and labours). There is a part of me that knows it’s wrong to do this. Not in the sense, anyone have to hear racist nonsense but because in part, because I feel like I am performing liberal moralism by turning away from how people like professor can end up influncing others rather than facing it head-on. Yet, I still feel weak and rather unprepared to tackle this.
In what way do you feel too weak to respond to or tackle it?
I lack the courage to stand up to it. Alot of it is because I fear it falls into deaf ears nor do I have the appropriate sources to bring up to challenge it.
Well, I guess you can keep growing, reading and learning so that you can speak more confidently in future.
But I think of it like this… morality is something you don’t necessarily need to study for. We should aim high for morality and how we live as a species. When people accept what they see as lesser evils to bring ‘order’ to this world, it’s because they have a weakness and the inability to imagine and fight for a just world without humans harming each other.
I’m in the UK and have a friend who has intellectually supported Trump over the years because “there’s nothing better and we need to sort this world out” etc. etc. You know, “he’s a little bit far out there but at least he will shake up the system” type stuff. But he’s also religious and looks up to saints of the past and I told him, why not have those standards, or at least standards where you’ll get behind merciful, kind people who want to share, etc.
So, its your professor’s weakness because he’s too scared to try to make a kind world. He’s unable to manage his fears over ‘foreigners’ and people who might have different viewpoints or interests. He wants to jump straight to attack. Tell him that he’s weak!
I feel like there’s an excellent masterpost somewhere here involving Tiananmen square sources and I’m in an annoying altercation with a liberal rn who’s getting on my ass but I can’t find it, does anybody have a link…?
This is exactly what I needed, thank you!! o7 (I sent them like 6 sources and they just said claiming the Tiananmen square “massacre” never happened is racist of me? 🙄 im gonna disengage lol its turning into idpol)
Where’d you get the image in the post? We hear so little about socialist Laos in Western media.
It reminds me, is there any news of high speed rail being built in North Korea? I can’t wait for the day North Korea gets HSR before the USA California HSR is finished.
One day we will be able to ride HSR from Vietnam and Laos through China into North Korea. The world’s best train trip of socialism.
I got it from an article on there national day parade last year
Trying out freewriting. It’s pretty useful for preparing to writing or to vent.
Freewriting?
Yeah. It basically goes like this: you take a piece of paper and a pen, then you just write nonstop until you hit a defined limit (I chose 1 page as my limit, but you can choose something else like writing for 20 minutes or smth). You write whatever comes to mind without ever stopping before you hit the limit, with no regard to grammar or how ideas connect. Just let the ideas flow.
Then you stop, take a break, and if you choose you can choose an idea that you wrote on the page of the first session and then expand it on the next session.
Huh. Seems interesting.
Seeing an anti-socialist popup table at my campus and having to repeat “don’t feed the trolls” in my head repeatedly
Last week, my father told me he knows I only go to church because of my mother. I never thought he would notice that.
It’s a bit of a relief for me.
