https://vimeo.com/849363043

We can still make them go away right?

What irritates me with the echo chamber accusation is that it's impossible to be in a communist echo chamber if you're an anglophone. Liberal values and tropes are so baked into every aspect of Western society that it's impossible to interact with English-speaking societies without being constantly bombarded by their horseshit and the harmful effects of it.

Communities like this one are less echo chamber and more like a sound-proofed booth to get some respite from the constant torrent of brain shitfuckery that comes with existing as an anglophone.

ok but what are we not supposed to forget?

The border and migration controls are something socialist states do to protect workers and their economies. The "your family will starve if you fuck up" or "our laws are inhumane and we don't care; if you care you're fired" are absolutely propaganda.

And it's not just the constant itching and irritation. Ask if they'd feel the same way if their extended family's risk of contracting Dengue Fever was >0 and their access to treatment for it <0. Amazingly, your attitude to mosquitoes changes when you have friends and family that are dead because of them.

How much is the rent?

It's amazing Xi and Putin even let us talk to each other. Hey, I'll DM you a site where you can watch clips of Winnie The Pooh and Dobby. But make sure nobody catches you watching them! I feel so sad thinking about how impoverished my life is being unable to talk about these Western cultural treasures openly at work.

I've seen Moscow on the internet! Everything is tinted grey, it's always cold, and there's a Red Army choir constantly singing in a minor key (usually the Volga Boatmen song). Nobody ever smiles and there's no vegetation, just concrete and vodka-drunk veterans. If you sit down on a public bench (look near the Kremlin - every single bench has a view of the Kremlin) for more than 5 minutes someone in a long coat will come and sit down next to you, their breath misting in the air as they heave a heavy sigh, offer you a cigarette before lighting one for themselves, and then hand you an unmarked brown envelope from their coat. They rarely speak, unless they need to give you a terse update about what The Americans are doing.

If I'm an asshole for telling people to educate themselves on a subject before making wildly inaccurate pronouncements about it, I'm an asshole.

A combination of

1. Don't tell people to read theory, you have to explain things in simple terms.

2. Marxist-Leninist ideas of revolution won't work with today's technology and economy.

How to tell someone you haven't even tried to read theory, and then criticise theory based on what you think the theory is, and encourage everyone around you to adopt the same choice of ignorance.

Probably just a peaceful exile.

Just looking at the sequence of events, it really looks like he seriously overestimated how much support he'd have. No one outside Wagner supported him, but once you cross the Rubicon there's no going back. His choices were surrender and get hanged for treason, or die fighting - he knew he was fucked but had no exit.

Putin didn't have any options either except to respond with zero tolerance for treason - any other response massively undermines his legitimacy. He couldn't be the one to tell Prig that he could leave with his life if he stopped, but Lukashenko could 'broker' that kind of agreement without making the Russian government look weak. So Putin makes that call to Minsk and then suddenly Lukashenko's offering that way out.

And thing is, it's probably fine to leave Prigoshin alone. The man shot his shot and left with his tail between his legs. He's lost all credibility with his power base, broke the trust of the Wagner mercs that were loyal to Russia and failed the ones that were loyal to him.

This is uplifting to read

allowing members of the bourgeoisie to hold political power is pretty much the definition of revisionism.

Here's one of the holes.

Being a member of the CPC doesn't grant you political power any more than being a registered Democrat or Republican does. You get a vote in party matters just like Pubs and Dems get a vote in closed caucuses or primaries, and that's the extent of 'power' you get it at basic membership.

Being a wealthy party member gets you less advantage in the CPC because of the strict regulations on how money can be used in politics, i.e. you can't influence through donation. You also get excluded from considerstion for promotion. You get the same voice as every other member, and put on committees that match your area of expertise, but you're not on the promotion track toward the Central Committee if you're a billionaire.

Jack Ma built up Ant Group in the private sector and got rich but not promoted, Jiang Zemin built up First Auto Works in the state-owned sector and got promoted but not rich. They are not the same.

Yeah the unsinkable thing is a big part of the mythos. The wreck of the Titanic stands as a testament to humanity's hubris; its creators were so arrogantly confident in the technology they were using that they cut back on basic safety features and precautions. It's also what makes the Titan stand as a testament to humanity's ability to repeat the mistakes of the past even when the consequences of the past are staring you in the face.

Yeah same. I was there, and seeing what was happening and what was being reported was a huge WTF experience

When the Titanic went down 100 years ago the bourgeoisie leveraged their privilege to escape on lifeboats while the working class were locked in the ship to die as it sank to the bottom of the ocean.

Now the bourgeoisie leverage their privilege to lock themselves in a tube and sink to the bottom of the same spot of the ocean, and die there.

Can't make this shit up.

I wonder if there's going to be some sort of culture crisis across The West when reality hits, or if Western media is strong enough to distract everyone with something new like they did with Afghanistan.

the ultimate destination of neoliberal thought, where every employer is an unregulated sovereign into themselves.

Refined it for ya, comrade

I have this instinctive distrust of skincare products. On the one hand I can see that they make a difference, but on the other it all feels so marketed and I have difficulty trusting the companies that sell them. Like I sometimes wonder if some of those products are very simple, very accessible chemicals that are cheap to get/make, but with extra smells and a price hike slapped on.

That said, used coffee grounds as a facial scrub <3