RedWizard

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RedWizard [he/him, comrade/them] @hexbear.net 8h ago

Kobo's are very good. I have mine configured to redirect the Kobo store to my own Calibre-Web library, and pull all my books from there. I got my SO a Kobo, and configured her with an account on the same server, set her up the same way. It's very nice.

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RedWizard [he/him, comrade/them] @hexbear.net 8h ago

Gothamist really has it out for the guy aye?

RedWizard [he/him, comrade/them] @hexbear.net 13h ago

Lol yeah Ken is really feeling his oats with this one.

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RedWizard [he/him, comrade/them] @hexbear.net 13h ago

That sounds like an interesting read.

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RedWizard [he/him, comrade/them] @hexbear.net 20h ago

Given these recent developments I think it's important people read Paying for It - The municipal bond market strangles socialism from The Baffler, published in October of last year. They called this shot by a mile.

Its not enough that he is the Mayor of NYC. Since there are account managers with more power then the Mayor of NYC. He was never able to unilaterally implement a wealth tax, and with no new inflows of cash into the budget, his hands are tied.

The question becomes, how does he frame the issue? Will he identify the structures of the capitalist system that are holding back his project? Will he use this to agitate against capital? Unlikely. Since that bites the hand that feeds you, the bond market and it's dealers.

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RedWizard [he/him, comrade/them] @hexbear.net 21h ago

My middle school home room teacher had this as a poster in his room:

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RedWizard [he/him, comrade/them] @hexbear.net 1d ago

Oh geez they do sound so old.

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RedWizard [he/him, comrade/them] @hexbear.net 1d ago

The begging for likes on discord is just

. My guy, read the fucking room.

RedWizard [he/him, comrade/them] @hexbear.net 2d ago

Rimu is a real treat.

RedWizard [he/him, comrade/them] @hexbear.net 2d ago

At present, British Communists very often find it hard even to approach the masses, and even to get a hearing from them. If I come out as a Communist and call upon them to vote for Henderson and against Lloyd George, they will certainly give me a hearing. And I shall be able to explain in a popular manner, not only why the Soviets are better than a parliament and why the dictatorship of the proletariat is better than the dictatorship of Churchill (disguised with the signboard of bourgeois “democracy”), but also that, with my vote, I want to support Henderson in the same way as the rope supports a hanged man—that the impending establishment of a government of the Hendersons will prove that I am right, will bring the masses over to my side, and will hasten the political death of the Hendersons and the Snowdens just as was the case with their kindred spirits in Russia and Germany.

RedWizard [he/him, comrade/them] @hexbear.net 2d ago

Conspiracy is a legitimate concept in law: the collusion of two or more people pursuing illegal means to effect some illegal or immoral end. People go to jail for committing conspiratorial acts. Conspiracies are a matter of public record, and some are of real political significance. The Watergate break-in was a conspiracy, as was the Watergate cover-up, which led to Nixon’s downfall. Iran-contra was a conspiracy of immense scope, much of it still uncovered. The savings and loan scandal was described by the Justice Department as “a thousand conspiracies of fraud, theft, and bribery,” the greatest financial crime in history.
Often the term “conspiracy” is applied dismissively whenever one suggests that people who occupy positions of political and economic power are consciously dedicated to advancing their elite interests. Even when they openly profess their designs, there are those who deny that intent is involved. In 1994, the officers of the Federal Reserve announced they would pursue monetary policies designed to maintain a high level of unemployment in order to safeguard against “overheating” the economy. Like any creditor class, they preferred a deflationary course. When an acquaintance of mine mentioned this to friends, he was greeted skeptically, “Do you think the Fed bankers are deliberately trying to keep people unemployed?” In fact, not only did he think it, it was announced on the financial pages of the press. Still, his friends assumed he was imagining a conspiracy because he ascribed self-interested collusion to powerful people.
At a World Affairs Council meeting in San Francisco, I remarked to a participant that U.S. leaders were pushing hard for the reinstatement of capitalism in the former communist countries. He said, “Do you really think they carry it to that level of conscious intent?” I pointed out it was not a conjecture on my part. They have repeatedly announced their commitment to seeing that “free-market reforms” are introduced in Eastern Europe. Their economic aid is channeled almost exclusively into the private sector. The same policy holds for the monies intended for other countries. Thus, as of the end of 1995, “more than $4.5 million U.S. aid to Haiti has been put on hold because the Aristide government has failed to make progress on a program to privatize state-owned companies” (New York Times 11/25/95).
Those who suffer from conspiracy phobia are fond of saying: “Do you actually think there’s a group of people sitting around in a room plotting things?” For some reason that image is assumed to be so patently absurd as to invite only disclaimers. But where else would people of power get together – on park benches or carousels? Indeed, they meet in rooms: corporate boardrooms, Pentagon command rooms, at the Bohemian Grove, in the choice dining rooms at the best restaurants, resorts, hotels, and estates, in the many conference rooms at the White House, the NSA, the CIA, or wherever. And, yes, they consciously plot – though they call it “planning” and “strategizing” – and they do so in great secrecy, often resisting all efforts at public disclosure. No one confabulates and plans more than political and corporate elites and their hired specialists. To make the world safe for those who own it, politically active elements of the owning class have created a national security state that expends billions of dollars and enlists the efforts of vast numbers of people.