I think Malema was talking more in principle rather than in terms of practical need

That “bloated capitalist system” is making a mockery of NATO, they must succeed in this war

I think Malema was talking more in principle rather than in terms of practical need

We ain’t gonna get there by singing kumbaya

I’ve had a rough few weeks and a lot of self-reflection in that time. I’m not very good at certain aspects of my job and I feel that I’m just not up to task sometimes despite getting good feedback from my superiors. I’ve spent a lot of time analysing my own cycle of self-hatred and thinking about why I do it to myself. Recently I came across a page on Facebook where this guy makes webcomics talking about the experience of him and others with autism. I saw one comic and found it to be quite relatable which led me to check out more of what this guy was saying. I messaged him and explained my experiences to him throughout my life, he messaged back and we had a lot of discussion about a lot of different things. Suddenly I’m able to re-examine my whole life, all of my social mistakes, my inability to logically process instructions from others at times, the times when I get sensory overload, the way I employ masks in social situations to suit different people in order for me to be as socially acceptable as possible, it all made sense for the first time and I finally felt like I could stop blaming myself for the first time ever since I was like 7, I’m now almost 31. I always considered myself a neurotypical who just has something wrong with them but now I can understand and accept myself as someone who is neurodivergent. I’m a normal zebra and not a strange horse.

I think it’s going to be a long process for me to fully deal with all of this. I feel like right now I’m still letting go of all the negativity I’ve heaped into myself for so long, reliving all these memories and instead of mentally flagellating myself for every mistake I’ve made, I can now just accept that it wasn’t really my fault as it wasn’t fully under control. All the mental self-abuse I subjected myself to never worked anyway. What I think is going to be the next big hurdle is how to start thinking positively about myself. My self-esteem has never been good, I’ve never had an idea of my own self-worth beyond how much other people want me around for whatever reason, be it love, friendship or work. However, I also struggle to internalise positive remarks made about myself as there’s always a cynical voice in the back of my head telling me that people only say nice things to me just to be nice, it’s not sincere and sadly that voice has been proven right too many times in the past. I discuss my issues with my parents and they always try to reinforce to me all the positive aspects of myself that they like but I just can’t truly accept it in myself because in my head it’s like, of course they will say nice things about me because they’re my parents. It’s a real mental conundrum where I’m fully cognisant if a problem in my own head but still unable to fix it. Hopefully with time I’ll have the answers I need.

Understanding Marxism helped the world make sense to me. Understanding autism helped me make sense to me. I hope you’ve finally accepted yourself comrade.

bruh hear me out here, like, what if Jesus was the devil bro

like, he uses magic and shit to make people follow him and believe he’s the son of god but like, what if he was really just Satan because Satan can do all that shit too instead he just leads people away from god into a satanic cult that disguises itself as worshipping god when really they just worship Satan without realising

I used to be really into Harry Potter when I was a kid. I loved the books and the video games. Order of the Phoenix is what ruined it for me. I was so hyped for the new book, pre-ordered it and everything but when I actually read it I was met with some of the most boring storytelling I had ever sat through. It was just mindlessly dragging out the length of the story purely so the book could follow the trend of being bigger than the previous ones but the end result is that you get halfway through it and still nothing substantial had happened with the plot. So much of the story is just the characters going through daily life and wondering where the fuck Hagrid is and after 200 pages of that, I completely lost interest in the entire franchise, I never engaged with the series ever again after that aside from pirating the movies just to get the gist of the plot.

This is the kind of writing tactics I used to use in my English exams in high school to pad out my stories and hit the word count.

On a side note I also fucking loathe Lemony Snicket books for using word salad to pad out shitty uninteresting stories. I remember reading A Series of Unfortunate Events, I got about 20 pages in and realised this whole book was going to be using repetition of character speech and what should frankly be an illegal amount of adjectives just to make it look like an actual story is there.

How do you know it’s not GameShark?

Thanks for reminding me why I’m happy to be banned from Twitter

Stalin only did three things wrong:

1. Recriminalising homosexuality
2. Forcefully deporting ethnic minorities to far-flung reaches of the USSR due to some bat-brained belief that their ethnicities affected their loyalties
3. Not cleansing Baltic states of fascist sympathies

However, Stalin’s success in obliterating Nazis overshadow all of his mistakes and thus his legacy must be upheld.

As a PC gamer I do feel like consoles occupy a useful space for some gamers. I have my PC set up very much like a console but it takes more effort to make it like that. I had to plan the parts I wanted to purchase, make sure my PC had built-in wifi just like consoles do, put the whole system together, install the OS and then set up my OS to boot directly into Steam Big Picture with no login or anything else just so I can immediately interface with my system using my controller and not touching my keyboard or mouse. All of this comes as standard for consoles right out of the box, you just plug it in and you get all of that ease of use straightaway.

Granted PC has its benefits for me since I’m someone who really cares about being able to play older games so I need things like unrestricted emulation and backwards compatibility with older games, these are things I can’t really get on consoles without forking out to purchase games I already own or to play it over a cloud streaming service. However, most gamers aren’t like me in that sense and probably don’t care if their latest PlayStation or Xbox can play the full library of SNES games.

Graphics used to be a big factor in favour of PC gaming but in recent years consoles have really caught up to PCs in offering higher resolutions, smoother frame rates and even ray tracing. To even match latest console performance right now you need dual graphics cards and a liquid cooling system whereas back in the days you could match a console’s performance using a single GPU and stock CPU cooler. Before it was just like putting Lego together but now it’s a lot more complicated and potentially messy.

Consoles also have the benefit of game preservation in that console game discs contain the 1.0 versions of games that can be run off a console without any internet connection whereas you have to engage in piracy to achieve the same thing on PC.

Whilst PCs are definitely still the option of the power gamer, consoles do offer features that a lot of gamers want but would be turned off if they had to deal with the extra steps needed for a PC.

Honestly when you look at the specs of the PS5 you are actually getting a pretty solid general home gaming system for the official asking price. I looked at building an equivalent PC and the cost basically doubled. However this is nothing new, consoles are generally great value for money for their first few years until PC hardware gets cheaper, it’s generally towards the end of a console’s lifespan that PCs start blowing them out of the water in terms of value for money.

Granted the PS5 has basically no exclusives to speak of after almost three years on the market so if you already have a PC capable of playing all the latest multiplats then there’s no point in getting a PS5 but if you’re looking to upgrade your primary home gaming system right now then PS5 is a good deal.

I think at one point I had half of the whole site’s userbase under my “Dickhead” tag

Basically all of Reddit has gone to shit at this point, even SLS on there is modded by trots

I’d prefer they get help but at the same time I don’t trust liberals not to try and foster an environment of total tolerance towards paedos, some of them are already trying to do this with arguments in favour of drawn CP, referring to paedos as “MAPs” or pushing the agenda of “children’s autonomy”. For that reason, I’m happy to maintain paedo-bashing until we have a proletarian state that won’t tolerate liberal bs

Some ITT have suggested the death penalty, I’m personally against the death penalty for any crime purely because the potential for error exists. If you wrongfully imprison someone, you can’t give them back the time they lost but you can compensate them to the point that they can really enjoy what time they have left whereas if you wrongfully kill someone, there’s no way to fix that at all. Even for criminals who cannot be reformed, I think the very least that can be done is to put them to work for the betterment of society and at least have the state use the lives of these people to contribute some good to society.

I'm not that well educated on the DPRK system but I imagine it to be similar to the reason as to why Xi Jinping removed presidential term limits; there could be factionalist or potential fifth column threats within the WPK which necessitate the consistency of leadership and ideology from one to the next

I don't disagree with anything you've said here but I still have more on my mind.

I'll be honest, I've never liked "SJWs" (for lack of a better term). Maybe it's just me having been raised on 4chan during my teenage years but even now I still look at these kind of people with disdain. Whilst I'm fully on board with fighting for the rights of all kinds of minorities in society, I feel the approach taken by many "SJWs" is needlessly antagonistic towards the wrong people and is also completely devoid of class consciousness.

Reaction should not be tolerated, however this does not necessitate talking down spitefully to everyone who holds reactionary views. Many people are reactionaries not because they have a heart burning with hatred for minorities but because their minds have been twisted by bourgeois propaganda telling them that these people are a threat and can you really blame them? Can any of us here say with confidence that we have never been liberals or reactionaries or have never placed any trust in MSM narratives at any point in our lives? If you can then I commend you for having been raised and guided all throughout your life by such staunchly progressive revolutionaries but the reality for the vast majority of us in the imperial core is simply not like that at all.

Much of the proletariat has been pushed into the arms of the right since this culture wars bullshit began, you can see that reflected in how many "working class" (for lack of a better term, we cannot ignore class divisions) people support Trump whilst many of those people get roundly shat on by "SJWs" who, despite some having minority status themselves, are indeed economically privileged in comparison or "middle class" and I think it's undeniable that economic privilege trumps every other privilege as money can buy freedom, dignity and respect for any member of any minority group. I know many of us here recognise that "working class" and "middle class" are bourgeois concepts but that still doesn't dismiss the economic reality that people live under in that a few are at the top, some in the middle and everyone else is at the bottom. Those at the bottom can only look up in scorn. A wealthy trans person is more economically privileged than a poor cishet but would you really tell the cishet that they are the ones who need to "check their privilege" purely because they don't have a problem with the genitals they were born with?

I also strongly believe that whilst Marxists should always fight for the rights of all oppressed groups, the economic emancipation of the proletariat must absolutely come first and foremost in everything we do to push for change. If economic emancipation takes a backseat, we are no better than single-issue campaigners because we're just trying to affect change whilst remaining under a system that will continuously frustrate our efforts and create new conflicts and divisions. I also feel that progressive social change under a bourgeois dictatorship only serves to enhance the arguments in favour of bourgeois dictatorships which you see in many liberals. It's too easy to make shallow takes like "US legalised gay marriage but China still hasn't, therefore the US is overall more progressive than a socialist country." (Don't get me wrong here, as much as I hold disdain for "SJWs" I also hold the same disdain for reactionaries in socialist countries like China who are holding back social change due to "traditional family values" or other assorted piles of horse shit.)

Also, with the economic emancipation of the proletariat and the establishment of a strong proletarian state, this will destroy the structures behind, and effectiveness of, bourgeois propaganda as it will no longer be possible to paint certain groups of people as a threat to your livelihood when your livelihood is guaranteed by the state, bourgeois media orgs are banned and public education sets people on the right path. In such a way, much of the reactionary sentiment currently present in the proletariat should simply fade away into irrelevance.

So I guess my main point is simply that whilst we should not engage in class essentialism, we cannot deny economic reality as many do.

My biggest question is though, what happened to allow AFU to go on their, so far successful, counteroffensive? I initially heard it was all foreign mercenaries from pro-Russia sources and pro-West sources were telling me it was because of all the equipment they received from the West, but both of these were constant in the early days of the war when Russia was steamrolling everything in sight. Did Russia stretch their forces too thin or did the Ukrainians really come back swinging harder than expected?

No idea, change in moderation most likely, ultras might have done a silent coup?

Good work comrade, I wish my story was so interesting. I got banned after fighting liberals on /r/ShitLiberalsSay, the mods on that sub are little b*tches and went crying to Reddit admins after I called them libs in modmail lol

If you mean watching porn then you shouldn't do that at any time of the year. Masturbation though is entirely healthy and you should do that as much as you feel like.

He was also:

• educated in Eton
• a colonial policeman in British-occupied Myanmar (then "Burma")
• an anti-communist rat for the imperialist British state
• not even called George Orwell, his real name is Eric Arthur Blair

He was scum, pure and simple

I understand what you're saying and the way that you and your party feel about these matters is the same way that I feel. However, I'm willing to bet that you're speaking from the position of someone in a liberal Western country where society is not so reactionary/bigoted. In Russia and other countries, this kind of bigotry is a lot more normalised and also backed up fully by both state and private media, such that many in Russia consider the notion of "LGBT propaganda" to be factual.

Like imagine if you wanted to run a Marxist party in Saudi Arabia; assuming it wouldn't be outlawed immediately you'd have to go up against the entirety of Islamic culture regarding things like homophobia and patriarchy and I can't help but feel like if you rail against these ideas on Day One you'll probably never gain much ground, if any.

What I'm saying is that it might be possible or even easy to educate and not tolerate reaction in countries with a weaker reactionary base among the proletariat, but in societies where reaction and bigotry are simply the norm and have been for centuries now then is it not universalist abstraction to say that Marxists in these societies should expect the same success as Marxists in your society?

It's when stuff like this happens that I always question the possibility of Marxist unity. How could I call those "comrades" who wish to demonise and take away rights from marginalised groups even if we do ultimately agree on the same economic system?

At the same time though, I understand that it's almost impossible for Marxists to gain traction in a reactionary society if they rail against the reactionary zeitgeist too hard. Marxists need to be in tune with the proletariat but that's hard when the minds of the proletariat have been poisoned by reactionary propaganda such that the zeitgeist contradicts progressive values.

So what can be done? It's easy to say "We should educate people away from reaction" but actually doing that seems almost impossible, it's not as if you have legions of reactionaries who are completely open to changing their minds through reasoned and factual debate because if their critical thinking skills were up to par then they wouldn't be influenced by bourgeois media in the first place. Yes this task may not actually be impossible but only in the sense that it's technically not impossible for a Marxist party to win an election under FPTP, we still know it's realistically never going to happen so is it really worth banking our hopes and dreams for the future on succeeding in this way? Certainly we don't want to risk being viewed by the proletariat as a bunch of out-of-touch middle class bookworms, sitting on a high platform to lecture down to people about their "inferior morals and political education" but we also have to be mindful to not abandon our principles for the sake of populism.

So maybe there's an argument for tolerating some degree of reaction in society for the sake of a Marxist party making some kind of progress and gaining ground by appearing to be in tune with the proletariat, but then at what point does tolerance to reaction, or other deviations from ML principles, become liberalism? Mao Zedong needed the support of rural peasants to win the revolution in China but if you think these peasants were all well-educated Marxists then you'll be sorely disappointed as the vast majority of them were entirely illiterate and full of reactionary sentiments regarding things like patriarchy and superstition. Nobody (worth listening to) calls Mao a reactionary or a liberal, yet he had to rely on a base of non-Marxists to achieve a proletarian state.

However, you also get groups like patsocs in America who have been trying to align themselves with MAGA chauvinists and they've been roundly crapped on in ML circles for trying to appeal to this crowd. So I feel we really do need to answer the question of where we draw this line if we do want a grand revolutionary success. Yes these are very "online Marxist" problems but at the same time I think there's only so much work you can do at the grassroots community level before you and your party have to start thinking a bit more about the bigger picture.

Bash the state

Finger wag received

Twitter is still run by billionaires, I'm just hoping this billionaire unbans me

Update: He did not

The struggle never ends

Based comrade

Actually that famous "rope" quote is attributed to Lenin but there's no solid evidence that he ever actually said it. Still true as anything though

FYI you don't need to pay anything to read on Kindle, you can just directly upload PDFs to the device from a desktop computer using the official Amazon Send to Kindle app

I downloaded all my Marxist literature in PDFs and read from Kindle, there's a sweet irony to educating myself about Marxism using a device owned by one of America's richest men

"pls help me 2 understand ur views so I have an excuse to throw westoid propaganda around"

You're not the first person to believe in the fallacy of the "marketplace of ideas"

Because what a lot of gamers see is a correlation between improved representation of minorities in video games and also capitalism squeezing the fuck out of gamers and ruining countless loved franchises. Media is only too happy to jump on this

Edit: I want to expand on this further. I think the correlation is somewhat intentional. AAA developers know that, in order to maximise profits according to the wishes of stakeholders, they have to start doing things which will be unpopular like cutting out parts of the main game to repackage as DLC, loot boxes or other forms of gambling, battle passes, heavy focus on monetised cosmetics, outsourcing to low quality third party developers, cutting corners on live service with peer-to-peer matchmaking or shitty slow servers, raising game prices, etc.

All of these things will inspire a negative reaction from fans so they need to find a way to deflect it and appealing to the liberal "SJW" (for lack of a better term) crowd is exactly how they do that. When gamers turn around and call out developers for releasing a shitty new game, the devs can just cherry pick a few reactionary comments and attribute all the game's criticism to that whilst they can rely on a whole army of liberals to do the pushback for free, salvage their PR and then carry on being shitty.

We're now at a point where a lot of these shitty profit-pushing methods from AAA devs are completely normalised now and the only people left who remember how good we used to get it with video games are a bunch of guys from the 90s starting to show our age

Lol wild lib appearing on Lemmygrad? Fuck off back to reddit

gobi desert go bye bye lmaoo

nice

Did they forget who is currently in power?