Welcome again to everybody. Make yourself at home. In the time-honoured tradition of our group, here is the weekly discussion thread.
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I really needed this. Here’s Gazans celebrating the ceasefire: https://t.me/PalestineResist/82561
I am glad for them. I am sad it took this long. And I am sad Israel still exists.
Same on all counts.
Work is going to put me in an insane asylum at this rate. This is the worst job I’ve ever had, easily.
In France, the prime minister has handed in his resignation something like 12 hours after nominating the new government.
There have now been four prime ministers (Attal, Barnier, Bayrou, Lecornu) since Macron refused to recognize the result of the parliamentary snap election he called in summer 2024. Macron has stayed true to his original motto since 2017, which is not to compromise on anything ever, even with potential allies.
Polls in France systematically disadvantage the main left-wing party LFI and its probable presidential candidate for 2027, Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Even so, he is currently polling at 15%, indicating that the coming presidential election will very likely be a contest between the left and the far right.
Has it even been a month since the last one lmao Could you elaborate on the “systematic disadvantage”?
Back in 2022 before the first round the highest LFI got in the polls was 18.6%, and they got 21.95% in the actual election, so that’s an underestimate by at least 3%. First round was April 10th, and before April, most polls were giving LFI around 14-15%. Only one pollster (Cluster 17) had given LFI 16% once (so it seemed plausible that this was just an outlier on the high side of things). Have a look for yourself, and look at the numbers at the end of March: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_de_sondages_sur_l’élection_présidentielle_française_de_2022
Pollsters want to demoralize us. It would be foolish of us to believe them.
The last week of news has made me so angry. The UK going even more authoritarian on the right to protest, the treatment of the activists Israel illegally detained, the brownshirts of America waging war against civilians.
I wish I could do more but I am also really struggling to find a group in the UK with their shit together.
It has really been infuriating to witness and feel so powerless!
My local radio guy last night offered a “tribute to Lennon” saying that “He was a man who wanted to see peace in the world, but the world didn’t wanna hear it” and then started playing 38 Special - Hold On Loosely. Didn’t expect that.
Insane that people still romanticize that guy.
Adulterer, wife beater, egotist, fake hippie, etc.
Dude was just a fraud. Worst Beatle by far and as a musician he was just ‘meh’ at best.
Got some new insights in the planned reform in our unemployment benefit system that will be implemented soon and it is shit. It is truly made by people who have no clue whatsoever of how it works. But in the end thousands of people will lose benefits and that’s what counts to them. Keeping us under their thumb.
What surprises me more is how little resistance it gets. Same with retirement funds reform. Like, wake up guys. This is affecting YOU. YOU are closer to unemployment than you think. And then it’s too late. YOUR retirement money is being taken away as we speak. YOU have to work longer. All the while billions will go to the defence industry annually.
The passiveness of it all is infuriating.
It’s sad, but the same thing happened in Brazil. What made the retirement reform win there was basically the lack of resistance of the organized left (since Dilma had been ousted and Lula was in prison), lack of politization of this matter by the same organized left, and the big politization on the right side of the politics (austerity and free market discourse was in a height).
I think the (actual) left needs to do a better job in doing agitprop work in social networks (including places like Lemmy), to improve politization in the matter, and then turning that politization into mobilization. It’s hard to move around when you feel that you are alone, and you feel that the minimal thing you still have (your job) can be taken from you.
I swear dealing with technology at work turns me into Kaczynski
Okay look, I stand in solidarity with protesters of all stripes but please stop going to serious protests wearing funny little costumes. Like that person in a frog suit who got gassed, this isn’t a game.
I absolutely understand where you’re coming from, but one upside to it is it makes it harder for the right to frame these protests as “look at these ruthless, aggressive leftists!” when there’s a dude dressed like a frog frolicking about.
On the other hand it does undermine the seriousness of the protest too so it’s a double edged sword.
We’re currently at the “Dancing in front of ICE is owning Trump” stage of liberal slacktivism.
Yeah for some people this stuff seems like a fun day out rather than actually standing for something
“But how am I supposed to stand out from the other protestors? If nobody uploads videos of me at a protest how can I use it to get laid?”
Got left in charge of making protest signs for the upcoming strike on the 14th in Brussels. Did it together with my other young colleagues. Most of us are communist or anarchist so I think the signs became a bit more radical than they wanted.
Calling our prime minister a genocidal fuck, lots of anti NATO signs, destroy billionaires, etc. It’s going to be fun handing them over to the old heads at work lmao.
There is a real lesson here. “If you have to collaborate with libs at a protest be sure you are the one making the signs”
And it works, kinda. Because the NATO signs sparked some discussion with some other colleagues and I got to explain to them how NATO bad basically.
Slay, Guevara
A new world is slowly appearing. A world full of solidarity among the oppressed and hope for a brighter future
die zeitgeist verändert sich
i hope so
Does anyone ever wonder the variety of research chemicals that Shulgin discovered that could have potential psychiatric or therapeutic uses that have yet to be properly and rigorously studied due to federal regulations on psychedelics? With the miracles that psilocin, ergot alkaloids and other similar compounds can do on mental health, we have so many that have yet to be discovered. I use some for health reasons already.
For some non-political non-fiction that’s interesting, “Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved”/PiHKAL is a good read. TiHKAL is good too. I enjoy his commentary.
Good books and good stuff.
ergotamines are so cool to me, they have so many unique uses for migraines and blood pressure issues. Completely banned in some states though!
Does anyone else think the USA right wing appropriating rhetoric from the left is because we have a massive vanguard party-shaped void here? There is a greater demand than ever for a vanguard and we do not have one so the right is trying to use the opportunity to absorb parts of the loose coalition we have of anti-imperialists, socialists, and groups targeted by the administration who are looking for somewhere to direct their energy.
I think you are getting cause and effect jumbled. The right wing have created a vanguard party shaped void so they can better appropriate leftist rhetoric and terminology because they know it mobilizes the masses. hitler said a lot of psuedo-socialist stuff hell he rebranded the party as “national socialists.”
This happens even more so in Europe, because we no longer have an anti-EU, anti-NATO left. The entire mainstream left has capitulated to Brussels and jumped on the Ukraine war bandwagon. So the right wing has stepped in to fill that void with anti-EU rhetoric, anti-war rhetoric and opposition to conscription, which is making them very popular.
Hey now, we exist. And the funny thing is, none of our right wing parties can fill the anti nato, anti defense spending, anti conscription void anymore.
I’m talking mainly about Germany. Die Linke really fucked up on all of this. Not only are they still way too pro-EU, haven’t done or said anything about the obvious electoral rigging that the EU has been involved in in Romania and Moldova, or how the EU sabotages and plots against European governments that oppose the EU’s drive to war with Russia, but they themselves have also gone along with the disgusting demonization of Russia.
They consistently vote along with the establishment parties for sanctions on Russia and sending money to the Kiev regime. How are people supposed to believe them when they say that they want to protect social programs and welfare in Germany when they are literally helping to sabotage Germany’s economy by going along with the self-harming sanctions, ignoring the act of war against the German economy that was the destruction of the Nordstream pipelines, and sending German taxpayer money to the most corrupt regime in Europe?
Their behavior reminds me of the WWI social democrats who voted along with the bourgeois parties for war funds. They may nominally oppose sending weapons to Ukraine but all their rhetoric legitimizes the weapons deliveries by pretending like Russia is somehow the bad guy there and not NATO who started the proxy war. Their official party “NGO” (actually government funded) “Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung” has also been involved with pro-imperialist forces in Latin America and Ukraine. They are very much a pro-imperialist left.
Almost nobody in Germany likes them anymore. Right wingers think they are too “woke” while most people who might be inclined to support a populist leftist platform think they are sellouts.
And BSW who are more anti-imperialist, more anti-war and more EU-critical (though they have their own huge problems on other subjects) did not make it past the 5% hurdle last elections. There are good indications that they probably got cheated out of a lot of votes and they are involved in lawsuits right now to recount, but for the time being they are out of the equation, and the media has tried very hard to sweep them under the rug and not give them publicity except when they compare them with the AfD.
I’m not talking about niche voices and parties. Yes, we do have the DKP who are all around pretty good, probably a lot like your party except not as successful. But the point is that the only voice you are likely to hear on mainstream TV rallying against the conscription proposal and against involvement in the Ukraine war is the AfD. That is the only one that the “normies”, the average people who watch TV and listen to the radio are likely to hear. And that is a disaster.
Is there even a difference between so called social liberalism and social democracy anymore? Seems like almost all socdem parties in Europe can call themselves social liberal as well
No. Different names, same bs.
There is a terrorism investigation in a street in my city rn but cops won’t release info on what it’s about until later this evening.
Thing is, we have some holdouts in the street lol. I doubt it’s us but ehhhh
Well it turns out some islamist group in the street was planning to drone strike the prime minister lmao
Gotta love how people in Belgium react shocked but people from my city are like 🤷🏼🤷🏼🤷🏼🤷🏼🤷🏼 ‘ehh’
One of our party members, Hanne Bosselaers, a doctor, has been illegally kidnapped from international waters by Israel
