PbSO4 [comrade/them]

Buzzbollah

Are_Euclidding_Me hit the nail on the head, many of the critiques of the harshness and centralized control fail to appreciate the siege that the USSR was under. Had they had the luxury of being able to pursue a gentler, more liberal path, there is every reason to believe they would have. That was not their circumstance however, and they correctly deduced that rapid industrialization and upheaval of life was going to be necessary to fight for their survival.

On top of that though, there are unforced errors as well in Soviet society, some of which are cultural holdovers from a conservative populace and leaders, and some of which are mistakes of their very own. Parenti isn’t a hagiographer, he discusses very real problems so that they can be considered and avoided by future generations. “Stalin Bad” is a manta for liberals, “how did Stalin err and why, and how might we learn from it” is the question for comrades. Correctly filing historical figures under the “good” or “bad” heading is not a useful pursuit

Keep reading! It’s in good faith. There were real economic problems from perverse incentives that should be reckoned with in future socialist programs. Like, yeah, making bread cheaper than animal feed is going to lead to some farmers feeding their animals bread. Abundance of some products is going to make people less careful with these (I believe he discusses running the heat on maximum with the windows open and throwing out slightly broken stuff to get a new cheap one). Subsidizing low productivity factories and increasing the quotas on productive ones is going to make people upset and resentful.

Over this chapter and subsequent ones, he makes two excellent points: 1. they still largely managed to meet and exceed human needs even with these inefficiencies and problems, and 2. these problems are nothing compared to what came after the collapse of the USSR.

The Big Beautiful Bonus Army has begun its march on Washington DC

Oh that? It means AIAI, I believe so much in the power of AI to transform our future I got it twice!

Got a few people mad about a local issue they didn’t show up mad about. It’s not global revolution now, but it was better than sitting on my ass

Homeopaths are claiming their cures gather into one place a large number of people dissatisfied with the state of the world but perhaps lacking the language, theory, or organization to conceptualize or do anything about it, therefore it is the duty of principled MLs to get among this gathering and begin to provide these things, as appropriate to their audience?

But sarcasm aside, these no kings protests are ripe for agitating about local, national, and global issues with people who may just know they’re unhappy. “This is much more than Trump exceeding authority, they want to send your children to go kill Venezuelans’ children, and we’re all letting them! What is to be done?”

I don’t want to go all “reclaim”, but the problem as stated seems to be its use as slang for vaginas, not its use for the cowardly

Doesn’t the use of pussy as “cowardly”, “shrinking”, or “harmless”, derive from “pussycat”, referring to the animal’s propensity to flee danger? I was under the impression that its use for genitals was a parallel construction.

That’s just a blurry mirror selfie

“We communists disdain to conceal our views and aims - this date carries romantic intent”

Yup, pretty sure it was

The most useful thing any of her characters ever said was simply “Have you read Marx?” because it got my liberal ass to go “well, no, actually” and fix that

I know there’s been a lot of “orc” discourse the past 3 years, but that bottom picture looks like he’s trying to evoke a Peter Jackson Uruk

It took me multiple confusing paragraphs to stop thinking “Tangled” where you had clearly written “Taken”.