All current and historical AES states have had electoral systems that differs significantly from the systems known from bourgeois parliamentary systems. Candidates are selected either by the vanguard party or by a unity front dominated by the vanguard party. Voters can then view either for our against the one list of candidates.
To my my knowledge there are virtually no historical examples of voters rejecting the list and there are reports (in Western sources, so they should be taken with a grain of salt) of significant social pressure being levied on voters to vote yes for the list.
You don't get the election night dramas known from bourgeois systems where there can be genuine uncertainty as to whether ghoul A or ghoul B gets elected. In bourgeois states the function of elections seems to be to legitimise the system by giving voters a relatively free choice between a selection of candidates within the accepted spectrum of (liberal-conservative) opinion. In AES states, at the time of the election voters doesn't seem to have much influence and their participation seems to be ceremonial in nature.
This begs the question what the function of these elections are. The lazy liberal explanation is that the evil commies are hiding sham elections that they think people are too stupid to see through. However, AES states has been around for more than a century and almost all of them uses some version of this system so they clearly must have some function in legitimising the state and mobilising popular support.
I would love if someone with knowledge in the subject could elaborate on this.
Southern Jutland for the redneck backwardness and incest/zoophilia, the island of Lolland for the rural poverty and hopelessness.
Brussel sprouts. Lots of people hate them because they got them overcooked as children but they are so pretty and so delicious if prepared properly.
This has been tried many times and history shows that it's a really effective way of getting yourself couped and get a brutal reactionary regime put in your place. The bourgeoisie is not burdened by any high-minded liberal ideals when it comes to preserving their wealth and power, they are going to do whatever it takes.
Twitter's bread and butter was always that it was a platform that was attractive to celebrities and politicians and have them a direct line of communication to their fans. The celebrity accounts then drew in a large userbase.
If there's one thing famous people doesn't want it is to get an uncensored feed of what people think of them. They want to have the sort of engagements that promotes the kind of personal brand they are building for themselves. If you're a big pop star you don't want to have people posting creepy sex stuff at you, if you're a queer icon you don't want a deluge of homophobia and if you're building a brand as a very serious politician you don't want a feed full of people explaining why your bullshit doesn't add up. The block function is a core feature to keep Twitter's most business-critical users on the platform. Removing it will be idiotic from a business perspective.
Yes, I'm knowingly distributing Kremlin propaganda. In fact, let me use this opportunity to tell you how great having a Kremlin is. A fortified complex in the middle of the city? That's awesome! Every city should have its own Kremlin!
Death to America
One of the stories I read about it mentioned that training of Ukrainian ground personnel was a challenge as well as the western F-16 maintenance guys are all busy being retrained to service F-35's.
Woke cancel culture has gone too far when you can't even do high seas piracy without fearing retribution from the people you're robbing!
As well as the Netherlands, Denmark has received permission from their overlords in Washington to hand over F-16's to the Kiev government once the training of Ukrainian pilots is done. Surely this Wunderwaffe will turn the tide of the war and guarantee final Ukrainian victory.
When asked whether the permit means that Denmark is actually going to send the planes any time soon, Danish foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen says that the permit "means that a barrier to do that is no longer there. And together with our allies we are now discussing what the next step could be". Danish minister of defence Jakob Ellemann Jensen has commented that "the government has been saying several times that a donation is the next step after training. We discuss is with near allies and I expect that we can get more concrete about it soon"
The Danish government has cancelled promises to aid poor families with children, subjected higher education to an austerity regime and taken away a paid public holiday as the economy of the kingdom on the northern outskirts of Europe presumably is in dire straits.
That's old news
Nobody likes the reactionary, misogynistic and homophobic Taliban movement and I'm sure everybody here wish something much better for the Afghan people. However, we live in the real world and not in the fairytale world of nicely aligned black and white ideals. The alternative to the Taliban is not fully automated luxury gay space communism but an American puppet government of unfathomably corrup compradors.
The Taliban are horrible but they've done things that are objectively good, like bringing law and order, stopping the opium trade, reining the warlords in and ending the foreign occupation. All of these are things the US puppet government failed miserably at.
In a wider geopolitical context the Taliban victory over the US empire has weakened the imperialists and helped make more breathing space for the global south to seek independence. This too is an objectively good development as US imperialism remains one of the largest impediments to socialism and global development.
I'm not denying that these things comes with a heavy price that the Afghan people are paying. But even if you reckon that Taliban rule is as bad or worse than US rule, you have to assess reactions to the Taliban by their material consequences rather than by what feeling the abstract idealism of a reaction gives you in your tummy. The current western policy towards Afghanistan is outright criminal and borderline genocidal. Sanctions never ever work. They didn't work against Cuba, China, Korea, Vietnam, the USSR, Venezuela, Iraq, Afghanistan in the 1990's or Russia and they're not going to work now. What they are already doing to Afghanistan is creating famine and suffering for Afghan people whose only crime was being born in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Taliban might be the worst regime in the world but isolating them, stealing their money, blockading them and funding terrorist groups inside the country is only going to hurt the average Afghan even more.
They couldn't build a hypersonic missile so now they're trying to build a missile that can shoot down hypersonic missiles.
Good luck with that.
the "civilized" west
You don't even have to scratch the liberals anymore.
Tiocfaidh ár lá!
The crystal gardener who knew how to nurse the crystals quit his job so now Bob, the small business tyrant who owns Bob's Crystals, is standing next to the crystal field scratching his head while looking up "how to grow your own crystals" instructables.
take:
Much to his dismay the conservative Putin realises that he has to do a form of minimal viable socialism if Russia is to survive and neoliberals begin falling out of windows.
It's her turn!
The answer that'll really get you labelled as a Putin shill is that Russia shouldn't have stopped at Crimea back in 2014. Back then the Ukrainian state was much weaker than it is now and Russia could possibly have beat them a lot faster and consequently with a lot less lives lost compared to what's happening now.
I feel like this could be an example of external motivation being worse than internal motivation.
It could also be a testament to how late capitalist societies treats the elderly and other economically unviable demographics. The only meaningful existence and community we can imagine is that which is legitimised by being of service to The Line. If you a are not creating net value for capital there is no place for you to be a respected member of society.
I've noticed a slight shift in the reporting on Ukraine in Danish media. There's less of the "Our superior Wunderwaffen will crush Russia!" stuff and a lot more stuff about how challenging things are for the Ukrainian armed forces, some even go as far as saying that the counteroffensive has failed.
Theyre still campaigning to give Ukraine F-16's and seems to think that this time superior Aryan technology will change the tide of the war.
Something suggests that at least some of the sources that western media get their Ukraine content from is winding down their bellicose stance.
It's a red flag with a steam train on it. How cool is that?
The picture is from a recent visit to a railway museum where they had an exhibit about the cold war. Being written by western libs the text next to the flag talked about how civil defence at places like the railway workshops was complicated when "everybody didn't agree on who the enemy was" and called the communists a "fifth column". Apparently, as all workers had to take part in civil defence still and know about plans in case of war, authorities were worried that the large communist presence at the workshop meant that they would tell the USSR about the plans or use their knowledge to sabotage the railways in case of war.
