Welcome again to everybody. Make yourself at home. In the time-honoured tradition of our group, here is the weekly discussion thread.
☭ Matrix homeserver and space
☭ Theory discussion group on /c/theory@lemmygrad.ml
☭ Find theory on ProleWiki, marxists.org, Anna’s Archive, libgen
We’re living in a time when it seems people are identifying their own Sinophobia or anti-China programming, and of course there is something similar going on with the Zionist state.
What are productive ways to talk about North Korea if you must? Some ideas I have:
- ‘I like positive depictions of North Korean people/Korean culture’
- ‘Regardless of what you feel about any place’s government, it is always good to see an increase in standards of living’
- any remarks or analysis about sanctions, for example talking about how sanctions don’t actually accomplish the popularly ascribed goals, but instead directly target the most vulnerable people in a society (with the stated goal of “making the people dislike their government” as if that is not the most mask-off thing politicians say)
- maybe some framing of Korea as a land that has been under occupation for 75 years straight if that resonates
Thoughts???
From Chengdu, China:
Loved the greenery.
Russian children in an exchange program in the DPRK
I always wonder how wary they are against non Western non communist countries. Ultimately opening up to more countries and doing stuff like this seems like a good way to break the western hegemonic view of the country.
A wolf attacked a child in The Netherlands today. I’m curious to see how long they will last. Every square centimeter of ‘nature’ is managed there and you can’t have actual wildlife in the country because everybody and their mother sees ‘nature’ as a fun little hike with no problems at all. God forbid actual animals start living in the country. Or worse, that people have to watch out for something.
I can’t deal with pride being coopted by liberals. In our canal parade in Amsterdam there would have been a boat of a gym who was found treating their South East Asian employees as slaves. The organisation of the parade didn’t ban them from the parade, it’s only because the gym pulled back after criticism that they won’t be participating. Our pride is sponsored by Booking.com who are on the BDS list because they are listing accommodations in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. I also saw one of the drag queens I follow do an advertisement for Booking.com. There will be a police boat at pride, and a political boat with some parties who are pushing some anti-LGBT laws.
Furthermore, I was at another pride event today, and there was a cop handing out stickers of the police logo to little children.
This is what happens when most pride events are organised by the municipality.
I really hope more radical LGBT people like myself can help stop this, but it will require organising.
I was volunteering with the local LGBTQ+ org at a local music festival in June for the second time, and the hypocrisy going on behind the scenes is just midblowing. Like they’ve been branding themselves as “People’s Party” (or more like Humans’ Party) for some years now, but based on what I’ve seen and heard these two years it’s more like “Rich Peoples’ - who can pay for their goods and services - Party” because most people who work there to run the festival are unpaid, but instead volunteer to work for a three day pass, most of these being underage kids. Last year a friend of mine was in cocharge of those underage volunteers, and mentioned some huge oversights by the festival org on the safety and well-being of those kids.
I’ve also enjoyed seeing my face on their social media (usually belatedly because i myself don’t fuck with meta), because our rainbow org has held a pride march at the fest these past years I’ve been there also, and me with my brightly coloured hair holding a sign up defiantly with my head held high and proud is a bunch of great pr that they ain’t gotta pay shit for me, or anyone else who’s a part of this fucking propaganda machine. The festival org, who asked our rainbow folks to come in again “for exposure” i guess, deemed it befitting that each one of us was given one (1) food ticket to the fest cantina for the entirety of the three (3) day festival. Other food we had to supply or pay for ourselves. Or starve ig. This isn’t an issue only because of the absolute hypocrisy but also because everything you can buy on the festival area has to pay the festival for the privilige, and is thus expensive as shit.
Ugh, I feel tainted by this shit.
Same here. Companies like Total Energy, Deloitte, the cops, multiple right wing parties are joining. It’s just a corp and pink washing fest at this point.
Some left wing orgs organised an alternative pride some weeks ago with a decent turnout. Hopefully it gets some following here and inspires people abroad to do the same.
We had our own alternative pride event as well. Turn out was decent and there were some Palestinian flags and chants
we had nato at our pride too. their shirts just said “proud to be nato”… like wtf
My local pride had “out for Kamala” branding everywhere last year 🤢
WTF… We didn’t have NATO luckily, but we did have Democrats Abroad, who had the slogan “This is what democracy loves like”.
I think I want to get back into improv/theatre again. It’s been a couple of years and I’ve found out recently I miss it. I was too old for the improv class I was taking a couple years ago, since that one was mostly geared towards teenagers. But I found improv classes for adults so I’m thinking of doing that one.
From Mexico:
I do love how Mexicans are identifying that yes, although USAians are coming in droves, destroying the local economy and displacing people, the blame lies on the government not regulating the housing industry.
AirBnb is a leech to society. Anyone who thinks hosting on Airbnb is a full-time job deserves 🔻
That sign is fucking awesome.
“Erdoğan is an equal opportunity opportunist” -Graham Fuller
Saw a guy on Xitter compaining about the Japanese having low birthrates. He then threw a temper tantrum when he was informed that birthrates are down for every country all over the world, which is also why immigration has gotten such a big push lately. Fascists hate being told that their delusions have rational explanations.
I’m crashing out harder than I expected. On day three of staying at home right now thinking it was going to be a little break to prevent a further crashing but I’m starting to wonder if it isn’t too late already. I’m just really tired and emotional. Like, even standing up requires an unreasonable amount of effort. I have one task for the day of picking up a package for my partner and it’s stressing me out. But at the same time I don’t want to sleep or stay in the house for the entire day.
It’s a really strange experience to say the least. Looking back there were definitely some signs that I should slow down but honestly I expected a more gradual change in mental state. This just feels like hitting a wall that was suddenly there. Fuck this system man.
I can relate to that, most of my working life has been burnout after burnout. You ignore the signs for too long, then finally take a break when it’s too much, and then it all comes crashing down worse than you thought it would.
I hope you’re able to prolong your break somehow, I’ve found these things need a long time to go away. Although I know it’s rare privilege to be able to do that.
Tsunami warning on my island. I’m out of the evacuation zone, but still got me rattled. Likely not to have power tonight at the very least.
Tsunami was mid.
Seems Japan and Russia are more at risk. Sixth largest earthquake ever recorded btw.
That’s insane. Hope Russia didn’t get hit too hard, since it was right off the coast.
Thats good.
From Venezuela:
🇰🇵🇷🇺 The air route between Pyongyang and Moscow is now operational.
✈️ Regular flights between the two countries have resumed this week. Sharing this here in case anyone is interested in paying the DPRK a visit!
Would love to visit. A tour would be nice but ultimately I’d love to go and move freely if possible. Not yet though I think.
If you ever decide to go, don’t forget to take some pictures for Lemmygrad! If I had more money, convinced my lib wife, and was in peak condition, I will probably travel there for the marathon.
Like these people:
Apparently Chris Smalls, the Amazon union guy, who was also on the boat to Gaza, was abducted and severely beaten by Israeli forces.
What’s even more fucked up is that there is 0 news story about it, it seems.
I met Chris through our party and he is a really cool guy. I hope he manages to stay safe.
🇰🇵 Symbolic parade of the Korean People’s Army for the 72nd anniversary of the victory in the Fatherland Liberation War
