The tears aren’t coming…the tears just aren’t coming

Absolutely. Patriots are in control, plans are in motion.

When your waiting for the Valium to kick in

I know that’s what Kruschev tried to do, but he went about it in the worst possible way, so I don’t think his failure is proof that the aim was wrong. What would you say the alternative was?

And wasn’t the bloated conventional military one of the primary reasons for the economic stagnation of the 70s? Most of those forces were just standing around waiting for an invasion that never came, and it never came because of the nuclear deterrent. Even in Afghanistan the USSR didn’t really utilize its professional forces, they used conscripts instead - let alone in the various proxy wars

Yes there probably needs to be some kind of political class purge, but the general population was exhausted from purges, rapid industrialisation, and then WW2. The USSR needed to stop trying to match the US militarily and rely on nukes for defence rather than an insanely big and expensive conventional force. Invest those resources into culture and raising living standards instead.

That’s good. The fact that people can see what’s happening there due to videos and images from Palestinians is having a huge effect in overcoming the pro-Israel media narratives in the West. Incidentally I saw Israel claim the other day that they bombed a hospital because Hamas was ‘using it for internet access’ which is so absurd even by their standards.

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How accessible is the internet in Gaza?

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How tf did Alien Romulus get good reviews? I couldn’t even make it to the end. 100% pure slop. It’s even worse than the shit Ridley was making.

A shithole country exporting crime and fascism to Europe and forgotten by the wider world, once in a while they might be in the news for doing a pogrom or something

Not that new but there’s a weird French sci fi starring Lea Seydoux called The Beast that was released last year which is pretty good. In an AI controlled future it’s discovered that karma/re-incarnation is basically real and you can experience your past lives and thus free yourself of present trauma, but the ‘operation’ results in people that are rebotic and emotionless themselves. It’s a kind of strange love story.

“This is completely the opposite of what she is supposed to say”

Yeah that can happen sometimes on benzos

It’s a long time since I read it, but I think the idea is to suggest dehumanization and artificiality in people who totally subsume themselves to political identity. Which I think is how Orwell basically saw supporters of Stalin, as mindless political fanatics

If anyones looking into a new ereader I’d suggest you look at Onyx Boox, a Chinese company who e-readers run Android so you don’t need to jailbreak them or even use calibre/have access to a laptop, you can just download all pdfs or ebook files straight to the reader off the internet

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All the people you mention as being against drug use make their money/employment from prohibition.

The public generally opposes legalisation because they rightly see that drug addiction causes enormous harms, and they want to keep that away from their children and communities. But there is a kind of vicious circle here in that the harms of addiction, and indeed addiction itself, is largely driven by prohibition. Example: compare legal methadone with illegal heroin (the former is not culturally desirable, and those who adhere to a methadone program are often healthy enough and successfully quit using, etc. Likewise the methadone program is not a driver of organised and petty crime).
‘Lighter’ drugs like LSD are victims of cultural puritanism and decades of drug war propaganda. A hangover of Victorian era morality.

To some extent the drug war was designed to criminalise minorities and the counter culture. In any case, drug prohibition was allowed to expand whereas other prohibitions (gambling, alcohol, sex etc) were wound back because it primarily affected those outside mainstream white culture. Of course that’s no longer the case, which is probably why it’s slowly starting to be wound back now.

There is also less political will behind drug legalisation because there is no power behind it - drug addicts can’t organise, and any kind of drug legalisation that aimed to minimise harm would have to forego a profit motive. So it just lingers on as a problem whereas other social issues that don’t directly antagonise capitalist economics make progress.

‘I am large, I contain multitudes’

• moo deng

the loony lefties strike again

I use an e-reader at home with an electronic pen and its cool to be able to underline and make notes with the ability to erase it. Also piracy is cool, I’ve been able to access so many obscure books that I would never have been able to get otherwise. I think those sites are probably the most important thing on the internet really. I read physical books when I’m on the bus or whatever because my ereader was expensive and I’m scared of breaking it.