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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● Find theory on ProleWiki, marxists.org, Anna's Archive and libgen.
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Boss make a dollar
I make a dime
I scroll lemmygrad
On company time
Also NK already has anime. Squirrel and Hedgehog slaps and it's from the 80s. I'm also pretty sure NK must have furries as a result
I moved this weekend and I am sore as fuck now. Always a stressful thing, moving. But it was worth it I think. It's a nice new place. Life is sort of tiring at the moment and I hope things get better soon. At least it is supposed to be better weather soon. Can't wait to start my herb nursery on my new balcony.
I hope everyone has a nice week.
Now that you said "I hope everyone has a nice week" did you prepair the capybara video for @graineater
My capybara collection is still in a box somewhere. I have to unpack it still.
I just noticed the text in the post am I the weekly general thread? @graineater
Hey why is there a secret link in this post? For how long have you been doing this
Show
clearly you have hacked into the Lemmygrad server and manipulated the database
For any of you following the events at Columbia University:
- The NYPD (!) was asked for a statement by the NYT and could not find a justification for why they were asked to arrest the students at the encampment last Wednesday
- The genocidal (even for Zionist standards) maniac Shai Davidai had his ID deactivated but has not been fired: https://nitter.poast.org/probablyreadit/status/1782408919979045117#m
- CU allowed the tents to stay up this week: https://nitter.poast.org/CallaWalsh/status/1782227447447986347#m
- There is a pro-genocide demonstration happening across the street from campus featuring a flag which is half the flag of the US and half the flag of "Israel"
- Please boycott Columbia: (added later) https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1a1553nciP_A8yjQS7ZlddcwurshFB8Wuc6HzBLGSVyk/viewform?ts=66254440
I was going to say "should we ban poc from going to the bathroom because racists are scared of them" then I remembered they'll probably say yes
Major support if you grabbed the person making that "argument" and throw them in a toilet.
Got in a discussion on Reddit about sex work and the whole white, male 'WOMEN SEXUAL LIBERATION REEEE' crowd came crawling out of their basements to downvote. To them, sex work is this perverse fantasy of a white woman being empowered instead of the reality in which 99% are human trafficking victims in horrible conditions.
Obligatory recommendation of "prostitution and ways of fighting it" by alexandea Kollontai
I'm "softer" (lol) on sexwork than most marxists are, and I think it tends to be unfairly demonized, often into SWERF territory.
Of course it's not that simple or black and white, and nobody should be pressured or coerced into sex work, and it is a genuine horrific travesty that many women find themselves in because they need to make end's meet, and this is especially true among women and afab of color.
I've spoken to women who are prostitutes and who are also marxists and are genuinely empowered by their work, and have their own thoughts and perspectives that deserve respect and consideration, though since I do live in the global north/collective west, I can't even imagine how bad things are for women who are forced into it, even after reading about, especially in the global south, and the global north too.
Not that it particularly matters, nor is there likely anyway of measuring the statistics, but I'd be woeful of saying that 99 percent of sexworkers are trafficking victims.
But I don't mean to completely disagree with you, and the percentage is definitely way more than most expect.
99% was a bit of an exeggaration but over here in Belgium it is estimated that around 85% of the people in prostitution are actually trafficked into it. And then there are some people who fall into a grey area of being semi forced into it and then we have a tiny minority who do it out of empowerment.
I used to work with human trafficking victims and almost everyone of them used to be a sex worker. There seems to be this liberal fantasy in which sex work is one of the highest tiers of womens liberation but the reality is just so far removed from that, that we need to abolish this system entirely.
That being said, I am not going against sex workers who do speak up for better conditions and rights, etc. I support the sex workers struggle against the system of course. I have nothing against a free sexual spirit, I am all for it. I just do hope we, as a society, manage to move past viewing sex as labour in order to keep existing.
The lack of focus I was having last week is only getting worse, I sit down to work and I just...don't. And I'm having memory problems, last week was even more of a blur than the weeks before it. Going to see a doctor about this soon, hopefully it isn't anything too major.
Today marks the 50th anniversary of the carnation revolution in Portugal. Libs seem to have forgotten what the revolution supported.
It’s unfortunate how forgotten this piece of history is outside of Portugal. I also find it funny that I’m the only person in my family that “celebrates” this day.
Yep, April 25th marks the day when the Portuguese working class, with the MFA (movimento das forças armadas) took down fascism and almost made Portugal a socialist country.
And now they are talking about celebrating another date, 25th november, which marks the end of the revolution and the start of the turn towards capitalist western succdem government. Dudes really love discrediting actually liberating movements
Are conservatives actually also libs? They're also proponents of capitalism and are idealists, but are they really just conservative liberals? I can see how they would be, cons also believe in nebulous ideas like human rights, they just don't even pretend that they should be extended to the out-group.
yes, both "liberals" and "conservatives" in USian terminology are liberals
I don't mean Dem/Repub. I was more just curious if there was some philosophical backing, like a (even more) conservative Bentham. It didn't seem correct but I also didn't want to call a Republican a lib and have them somehow know that no no I'm wrong cus reasons. Idk
Roughly, a liberal is someone who believes in the right to private property and prioritizes individual rights over collective rights. I've never heard of a conservative (in the context of capitalist countries) who didn't fit this definition
I wouldn't worry about that. Most libs don't read theory and the ones who do openly admit to one label or another. Classical liberal, neoliberal, etc. Conservative liberals like to be specific about which one they are. 'Progressive' liberals are sometimes specific – that's mostly the politicians, the policymakers, etc.
The average voter, including the academic liberal, tends to be general and to use the word in this fluffy way that somehow means progress but without stopping global exploitation. These are the ones who can themselves liberal and think they know what it means but completely fail to understand the implications. They're at most danger of cognitive dissonance because there's no way to square the contradictions. That said, even 'conservative' liberals tend to dismiss accusations of their racism; there's almost always a 'but …'.
Neither the classical liberal nor the neoliberal nor the social democratic Keynesiam liberal care much about the out group, though. It's all there in the main works. They just don't like being called out on it. But you try to explain how all those cheap items end up in the western supermarket and reverb the most progressive liberal will start hand-winging.
maybe 9/11 was just a marketing ploy for general motors to increase white male anxiety and sell more big pickup trucks ten years later
