TAVAR

Emacs keybinds are fine, used them for some years. But once I tried modal bindings I never wanted to go back, "key-chords" just add strain.

Fortunately emacs has many options for modal keybindings, I prefer meow over vim personally

Dreaming of a job, of creating surplus for your capitalist and thanking him for that opportunity, is shit.

Dreaming of labour however? Imagine you work in a Socialist society, whatever that means to you. However you imagine trustworthy Socialist leadership/guidance to look like, imagine it exists, you experiencing it, maybe you are a part of it.

Now ofc society still faces challenges, not everything is bliss. But people feel hopeful, encouraged by the changes they see happening around them. Changes, in fact, that they bring about with their labour. Housing being built, and populated. People being lifted out of poverty.

Maybe people come together in socialist meetings eager to engage, they feel their voices being heard, their needs being met. Maye they just want to connect. Without the alienating forces of capitalism people open up to one another, creating understanding among each other.

Renewable energy and public transportation advances. Maybe new means of production are envisioned. Reaction is on the backfoot. People unlearn the concept of externality, realizing we, workers on this planet, are all in this together and that that is the only way to progress. It sets in: We can't create prosperity through externalization, not through slavery, not by exploiting an externalized global south, not by dumping trash in an "infinite" ocean, not by pumping CO2 into an "infinite" atmosphere, not by pushing the burden onto a gender, race or religion.

As all externality vanishes even the backwards start to wonder why that is not a problem? There is no need for squeezing the life out of someone "other" and isolating ourselves with the fruits of their labour. With modern forces of production our labour creates plenty. Nothing is siphoned off by the ruling class, the ruling class are the workers, it flows to where people need it most according to a Marxist analysis.

Whatever you imagine your labour is directly contributing. Maybe you're a scientist and work on cold fusion or you optimize new ways to grow crop, without straining the environment through monocultures etc. Or you try to cure rare but harsh diseases whatever the case your funding isn't cancelled bc you are not making anyone any money.

Or you are a teacher or construction worker, only you earn a lot and you know you help give to the people what they desperately need, whats more the people know it too, they even build you statues and of course you, like everyone else can rest peacefully knowing they have their health covered by the labour of other people.

You are a gear in a machine, but not in an imperial war machine, but in a cooperative machine that cures cancer, educates, struggles against oppression and aims to liberate every single person to allow them to live their life summoning their creative, mental, physical potential.

I would love to work and work and work in such a world. Unfortunately we have to work towards such a world and that means working in a hostile environment which turns the work into struggle, which makes it so much harder.

But dreaming of labour I can understand

I mean, If I can hope for the KMT to win against the DPP in Taiwan for strategic reasons, in this case I could bury the hatch with the SPD just deep enough to accept a strategic benefit would there be one.

But there isn't: The defining difference seems to be that BSW will obstruct US-led Western Imperialism through rapprochement with RU and CN and will not give weapons to IL while the SPD will do the opposite of all that

It seems a little ultra to say they are between Strasserism and Nazbol.

IMO they are classic "Christdemokraten" minus the religious invocation, their policy is exactly that of Helmut Kohl in nearly every regard.

What is different is the media and societal context they are embedded in. Large parts of society are reactionary about immigration and the media love themselves a "red/brown" alliance, creating a feedback loop. And that they broke from the left created mechanisms of its own that play a role.

Its still concerning, but remember sending military to Mali and creating Frontex is well within the realm of socdem anti-immigration action.

I am concerned about what they say and some of the support they draw but so far their rhetoric has been qualitatively significantly different to the likes of the AfD (I think?) in that its not ethno-popular/"völkisch"

IMO what they say is well within what socdems say/do. But its not my rabbit hole, if you can educate me otherwise I definitely would want to know (German texts are fine too)

I hope with you, and I am trying to do my part here (so that hopefully you guys don't have to do all the work again...).

Off topic but while I have the chance: thank you comrade for your tremendous work here. But also in FP and Clojure. It was a fun realization that you are the same person;)

Tried calling Putin, he didn't answer. Its almost as if I have zero influence on him

After Stoltenberg and David Arakhamia admitted it, everybody has realized by now that Nato membership always was at the core of this conflict.

So, no, there is not only one person who can end this war. Not even liberals should be dumb enough to believe that line to begin with.

Assuming you don't live in a dream world: What exactly is the realistic goal you have that more bloodshed will achieve?

If my fellow Western idiots had listened to us, Ukraine would have 20% more land and hundreds of thousands more people would be alive and Germanys tanking economy with military keynesianism knocking wouldn't be at risk of turning the 30s of the 21st century into the 30s of the 20th century

You're playing a little game that you pretend is fueled by care for Ukrainians (- those in Donbas and leftists), whose country you could not point to on a map 3 years ago, but is actually fueled by a media-induced need to see Putin humiliated.

This is the fucking real world where people aren't just flag-emojis and nuclear weapons aren't a boardgame that you can smugly flip over and where the "bad guys" aren't cackling in secret about doing evil but where real contexts are distorted for propagandistic purposes.

Snap the fuck out of your infantile world view and start trying to understand war in order to prevent it or take the blue pill and accept that politics just isn't your cup of tea.

There is too much at stake. We can never stop explaining but we can't parent people either

Good question, I remember being a bit insecure writing that sentence. Please don't put too much trust in that comment of mine as I still have had little praxis to challenge my analysis. Anyways, my thoughts there were a bit convoluted, not sure if it came across correctly.

What I was thinking about when I wrote it was "you can't have a traditional socialist party that successful", where I meant only electoral success and only in the short-term. Yeah I'd make out mostly political climate as the cause for that.

I didn't want to say that the pursuit of a Socialist party is not worthwhile, I think it is. Although I wonder if an obvious socialist party will be able to get off the ground or whether a "Black Panthers" approach (in terms of being not-too-obviously socialist) would be more promising.

Such estimates are always speculative without praxis to probe ones conceptions though.

There are two parties in Germany that bear the label ML (DKP and MLPD), both have next to zero visibility and are under the observation of the intelligence services. They are considered to be enemies of the German constitution (not surprisingly since that grants the right to private property). I believe they are only not banned bc their influence it negligible and a legal pursuit would bind resources and give them previously unknown visibility.

I would see both as some evidence for my claims but I have to say I am not speaking from personal experience I've had no interaction with either party (I wonder if I would admit to that online).

But yeah I personally know way more foreigners here who are Socialist than Germans. In France and Italy Socialism is way more present as a concept. We have no clue what the word means. For most of us it means nothing. And for the rest its what the the dusty, old men from the "Unrechtsstaat" GDR talked about when they wanted to steal from and control the people. its a failure of the past, not a success of the future. and speaking of it is dangerous, the economy is bad as it is.

We've had the "Radikalenerlasse", the congress for cultural freedom, the CIA building up our media and intelligence services all purging Socialist knowledge from public consciousness while at the same time our "big brother" helped us to become the so-called richest nation in Europe. The material conditions have been comparably fine for us under liberalism, people fear falling back into the GDR trap.

Germany, having been in the center of US Crosshairs of cold-war efforts has left a nasty scar on us, it will take some time and probably a worsening of the economic conditions but most of all a big educational effort from us comrades to get back.

The way I see it, the next years will both make that a necessity as it was never before but also provide previously unseen opportunities for it.

Thats kinda how I see it. Sorry for digressing comrade

Thank you for your assessment, yogthos. For what its worth, I think you are spot on.

In Germany huge discussions have erupted on how to cut back on social spending at every corner. How to exert more pressure on the unemployed and force workers to accept less.

As Luxemburg said we'll see the capitalist class rolling back concessions, with all the consequences you laid out. And not only is Germany decoupling from Russia, but also "de-risking" from China

And the left is vastly unprepared/nonexistent, while the right is getting more and more organized.

One more concern to add: while economic opportunities are closed left and right currently I see only one being actively opened which is weapons production.

Should Germany become dependent on wartime-like production than wartime will be certain be it near or far and with US imperialists being as desperate as they are I see little resistance from them. And liberals who have gotten used to justifying wars might be tempted twice bc weapons production might keep the worst economic consequences and hence the AfD at bay

If the Left cannot find answers, there are more ways than one that lead to barbarism

A more recent poll (from 2 days ago) finds that 21% stated they would either definitely (4%) or probably (17%) vote for BSW.

It is definitely one of the most interesting developments in German politics and I think it will have a net benefit, if only bc of its authentic opposition to warhorny transatlanticism that otherwise owns German politics and media.

However I can't read this party yet honestly, the sentiment towards it in Germany is a remarkable ball of contradictions. My two cents as a German, when I read the (understandable) hopes that it could be a socialist party.

Although the central founder (SW) was a socialist in her youth, I can definitely not call it a socialist party, they themselves don't. And in the recent press conference regarding their founding they also explained why, while many members come from a leftist tradition, they don't call themselves "leftist" (its important to not that left/right have different connotations in every country), their explanation was along the lines that these words have lost their meaning to the German people.

They gathered some of the best politicians you can get from the German left, their recent recruitment of Fabio De Masi is something hopeful, whose stance against finance capital is one of the staunchest (he is a union/reform-socialist, I guess that's the best you can get in Germany..)

However in their public communication there is nothing Marxist. They carry bourgeoise ideals on their banner. Since the established parties currently increasingly turn towards authoritarian measures and crackdowns against leftist groups there might be a strategic benefit in it for leftist groups though.

Their perception is dominated by other factors since the media exclusively focusses on them:

In Germany the "culture war" is a bit different than in the US, however here their position is not super appealing. They call out a lack of legislation focussing on material conditions of workers, but they draw from the culture war that this necessitates opposition to socially progressive topics and adopt somewhat of a reactionary position in some of these regards. IIRC SW called herself socially conservative.

This is one of the reasons why the parts receives more hostility from the liberals that consider themselves of the left, the other is their stance on refugee policy. While some of their members have in the past advocated for open borders it is their official position that "the numbers need to be lower", their argument is not the ethnic-popular one that the media tries to put in their mouth but that integration-efforts are past its limits to which there is probably some truth to.

Their championing of bourgeoise values and the parts of their position to gender politics that are reactionary as well as their refugee policy seems to be much of the reason for their popularity. Partly bc the media focusses on these things exclusively (and on unfounded speculations they might be "in the Kremlins pocket"). But also no other German party wants peace in Ukraine and the Palestine and that appeals to people as well. They have some credibility bc they address truisms that are swept under the rug, like that the Nordstream bombing was facilitated by the US. The husband of the central founder was literally the only politician who would talk openly and frequently about the influence of US intelligence agencies.

All this will lead to a lot of member-applications from problematic corners os German society. They have announced that they will be careful with their admissions, and I see potential for growth in a "good" direction (probably not socialist tho).

While I see that they do and say some things bc it is necessary in our political landscape and having a traditional socialist party is impossible in Germany, I can't bring myself to see them as Socialists with a practical strategy, but they are also not Nazbols. Currently (I didn't dive into it) I believe they represent a true demsoc approach and flirt with that part of the national bourgeoisie that stands to lose a lot from transatlanticism, like companies who deal with Russia and China.

I believe strategic support is the right way currently, but I doubt they can be swayed towards a Socialist evolution. How they develop will be greatly influenced by how they will deal with the incentives they operate in, like capital interests and the media stirred excitement of reactionary elements for them.

Didn't wanna cloud anyone's enthusiasm, they are good news, especially with the AfD turning more and more radical on the right AND having more and more success in the polls.

6 weeks? They held the trifecta for 2 years! From 01/09 to 01/11.

If you give the Dems a supermajority even more Senators will have "health problems" for way longer

Look, I know my instance gives it away, but from Marxist to self proclaimed angry commie: You are dead wrong comrade.

Dems under Obama didn't not do anything bc of "enough Senators with health problems" but because they are beholden to their bourgeoise donors. In essence they are a party representing the bourgeoisie who only occasionally throw you a bone when they are pressured to do so

And you pressure them not by voting harder for them but by doing political work outside of both parties.

The harder you vote blue, the less they'll do for you!

A bit oversimplified but I like the ring of it so I'll run with it.

True for all the lisps without explicit false (in the others its more or less a technicality)

Gotta love though that when lisp is concise it does so without overloading syntax

Knifes, forks, a spoon...

Seems like Stalin made the west shit itself with the whole arsenal of a typical kitchen shelf