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darkcalling [comrade/them, she/her]

@ darkcalling @hexbear.net

Posts
2
Comments
594
Joined
6 yr. ago

  • LOL Pyfedi has Hexbear and Lemmygrad as default blocked instances.

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  • Piefed only took off because people were furious at communists running lemmy. That's why I downvote all piefed shills (and there are a lot of them and it's obvious astroturfed, artificial and boosted by people pushing it for ideological reasons). For example there's a movies community on lemmy.world, someone has been spamming every post on there with "post this on and join the piefed version instead, there are more people" which doesn't make sense given its newer.

    I never liked them or the kbin/mbin people. I just don't think there's enough room in this "reddit-like" discussion fediverse site space for multiple contenders and I want lemmy to win, not per se because the founders are of a similar ideology but because they don't censor ours. If lemmy's devs were libs but absolutely deranged genuine free speech types who didn't want to defederate from communists I'd be fine with people like that as well. But not corporate backed shills, not people who weep and sob about "Russian disinformation psyops" despite Russiagate being blown open as we speak as a partisan hitjob. And not people who want to wall off anyone with another opinion on China. So in that vein I feel any competitors are sucking limited oxygen including donation funds out of the space. The fediverse may be diverse with things like mastodon being a twitter-clone but there needs to be some centralization to get a stable version of each type of fediverse thing including I think of the discussion-board type, reddit/digg type site.

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    Bulletins and News Discussion from August 11th to August 17th, 2025 - Putin's World Tour

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  • Both Ukraine and Russia could recognise territory that they legally claim but do not control as "temporarily occupied" to make a deal go through, similar to how Germany was split after WW2.

    Russia legally claims the four oblasts though no? After the referendum they were legally added to Russian territory by the Duma (parliament) and such measures signed by Putin. They are legally (in Russia's eyes) part of Russia. Russian spox have repeatedly underlined this fact for years now in various press statements. Those people in those territories have political rights including voting in Russia now AFAIK.

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    Bulletins and News Discussion from August 11th to August 17th, 2025 - Putin's World Tour

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  • The DC sandwich guy has been charged with felony assault for shouting at a CBP officer, throwing a sub into his chest, and then running off.

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  • If you told a chud this story but instead the person the sandwich was thrown against was a "woke activist college student" and the thrower was some middling reactionary like Bill Maher they'd be aghast at the abuse of law and make fun of them for being so thin-skinned as to feel feloniously assaulted by a sandwich. They'd go on a long rant about how back in their day fighting, punches, people were tougher, yada, yada.

  • Truckers sometimes park to sleep on the beltway median in my city. Saw a flatbed tonight with three armored hummers on it.

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  • Stuff is probably low-jacked anyways for tracking so probably for the best.

  • Supreme Court formally asked to overturn landmark same-sex marriage ruling

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  • Supreme Court formally asked to overturn landmark same-sex marriage ruling

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  • I don't disagree but frankly there's no way to isolate reactionaries from one another. Re-education camps? The detainees are going to talk and are not isolated from each other and will draw on each others strength to form cliques who resist probably centered around Christian faith and such and trying to lean into the feeling of being persecuted. The only way would be putting them all in isolated holding jail cells and that wouldn't make productive members of society but broken, angry, and mentally unstable people. You can try to control it somewhat in camps by instituting no talking in certain areas and monitoring others as best you can but it won't be foolproof.

    I think there needs to be a limit on how much time people are subjected to re-education before we decide they're not taking it seriously and take other steps for such deeply unserious reactionary clowns. Some amount just by being sent to the country-side and deprived of Fox News and internet reactionary brain worms will probably see reason within a year or so. Those who do need to be separated quickly from the others to prevent them from reverting and placed in their own camps to advance along those lines.

    Your post revolution society would need more than just internet monitoring or censorship. For one thing 9/10 churches would become and arguably already are reactionary cells, a third place for breeding reaction, stewing in it, etc.

  • Was the Iraq War a Success?

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  • It was a success for the empire.

    Not a total success at least yet but the government is unwilling to wage war to throw them out. They have basically permanent occupation status in a key area in the crossroads of humanity they are determined to control to block the path of China, Russia, Iran from trading, projecting power through the region, etc.

    In the same way Syria is a success in that they have destabilized it, have a comprador government in place, etc.

    In terms of grand geopolitical strategy it is a win for the US. Not a total win, not an all conditions sought by them satisfied win. In terms of what the neo-cons may have had fever dreams of it didn't go that far but they're entrenched and along with their gulf puppets (Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, etc) basically have locked down the region with Syria's fall only adding to that and them opening up a desire to occupy a stretch of Armenia on the border of Iran only solidifying it as a key area for their interests and control going forward.

    They haven't lost spectacularly like in Vietnam where they were thrown out and chased out on the last helicopter from their embassy, it wasn't a partial loss like Korea where they had to sign an armistice and take only half of what they wanted. They effectively won and operate as they like from there subject to some appeasement and wrangling with the needs for appearances being kept up for their comprador/impotent installed government.

    I'll bang on again about "The Grand Chessboard" by Brzezinski, a top empire ghoul which was published in the aftermath of the cold war at the end of last century. There's a passage in there about a triangle of control, a region that must be controlled, denied to other powers, destabilized, etc in order to prevent European, Asian (Chinese), Russian, and African land power and trade from uniting and locking the US out an ocean away. It's still an imperative for the US and they've played their chessboard pretty well so far. China has no meaningful inroads because compradors obey their masters regardless of trade or actual interests of their people and nation. Russia has lost influence because of the same compradors, EU propaganda pushes, color revolutions in central Asia, back-door plotting in central Asia and the open move to depose Assad which took a decade but paid off. Iran is the final impediment and slated for destabilization or at least crippling isolation (the zionists want to install a puppet regime, the US is more dubious of the advisability of that compared to simply plunging the country into internal strife like Syria before getting some compradors who while not exactly rabid zionists would be pliant enough).

  • Rare L from our favorite savory pastry

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  • Common L more like.

    He practices neither Washington nor Moscow CIA ideological lines. He profits off the spectacle of revolutionary language from the safe place of being against Washington but not for any of their strong enemies which means consumers can consume his content without challenging and thoroughly dismantling the western propaganda they've been indoctrinated with.

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    Bulletins and News Discussion from August 4th to August 10th, 2025 - The Siege of Al-Fashir

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  • Yeah it's not that China is going to be destroyed just that our hopes for the fall of US/NATO hegemony in our time are not looking to bear fruit. Best case scenario even 5 years ago was multi-polarity is established, the US stumbles its way through it happening and basically is locked into losing power but their level of planning, coordination and frankly setting the chess board has been unnerving to watch.

    It's not that I thought the US wouldn't resist, it's that I hoped China and many other actors would move more strongly to counter these chessboard setting moves and that they'd be less successful than the first cold war but the fact is it seems the same old tactics with minor updates yield fruit. I mean Ukraine over the course of 18 years and with an 8 year intensification phase being turned into a bloodied battering ram against Russia and a factory for churning out west loving Nazis and mercenaries was not really in my sights or on my bingo cards in say 2016 though the signs were obvious, it just wasn't something I as a westerner was aware of. Just as most of us aren't aware of the details of US influence operations in central Asia that are bearing fruit, there were definitely likely signs.

    It's hard not to doom a little (pessimism of that intellect hits hard) given climate change is coming and when that hits many of the over-exploited areas are not going to have the same options for throwing off their chains and developing independently.

    That and the whole nuclear war thing. I can't help but think part of what informs China's decisions is the likelihood of a US in free-fall nuking them regardless of the danger of being nuked back and that they feel until they can neutralize that threat (not likely in the next few decades with any tech on the horizon) they and the rest of the world are held hostage by a "mad-man" with a loaded nuclear gun who doesn't care about dying and may be willing to do a suicide run on the earth merely if they lose their hegemony. And in light of that there's a desire to placate or at least not rock the boat too much in hopes there can be a reasonably slow loss of power that won't cause the US to lash out. But that slow-down means the US can fight at full speed and full force while their adversaries hold an arm behind their back and hesitate.

    Nuclear weapons I think are the worst thing to ever be invented. Without them the world would have turned against, and destroyed the US and other European powers last century in protracted conventional wars or at least dethroned them and forced them to draw inwards and lick their wounds from the blood-letting the USSR and friends would have inflicted. We'd be well on the way to world socialism. But because of nukes China didn't take the south of Korea, because of nukes the USSR hesitated at many turns when it came to confronting the US, because of nukes the voices of weakness and compromise within the party seemed reasonable and were elevated. It all comes down to that. If I had a time machine I'd murder every member of the Manhattan project and convince Einstein not to write his letter. Yes they would have been invented eventually but without the war-time impetus for an all-in project it might have taken another decade and a half and there might have been more organized scientific opposition to the creation of such a weapon. Without them Japan would have perhaps been subject to some soviet input in capitulation terms and perhaps their fascists would have been executed instead of put in government all at once. It does seem like the invention and use of nuclear weapons was a negative hinge point in history from the viewpoint of the struggle for liberation.

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    Bulletins and News Discussion from August 4th to August 10th, 2025 - The Siege of Al-Fashir

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  • I think he thinks that we can just send soldiers in, kill people, blow stuff up, etc and Mexico will refuse to go to war with the US because that would be very very bad and the calculated if cowardly thing to do is to lie down and let them slap you a bit.

    Mexico cannot fight the US and win. The US would demolish them. Now people might bring up Mexicans in the US and terrorist attacks or resistance but it's not a matter of that because the state would be overthrown by this and a lot of Mexicans would die so the government wants to avoid this because they're not run by Maoist revolutionaries who grin at death.

    So it's not necessarily a bad call given how most countries have backed down in the face of US threats, the EU is prostrating themselves while whipping their back before the US, and China has not been able to marshal any grand coalition of open resistance.

    Most likely it would go his way. It would breed more anti-Americanism but that's a down the road problem and the US seems to be in full secure as much as it can and deal with the consequences after their rivals have been subdued or destroyed.

    I mean looked at it another way the US has gotten away with all but openly attacking another nuclear power (Russia), trying to destabilize them, killing their civilians in terror attacks and nothing has happened to the US itself. Looked at that way as another country what chance do you logically think you have against that kind of mindset and willingness to go to the brink?

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    Bulletins and News Discussion from August 4th to August 10th, 2025 - The Siege of Al-Fashir

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  • Yeah people here for some reason consistently and severely underestimate the US and overestimate China and the wisdom and long-term intelligence, empathy, and self-interest (in a civilizational sense) of many of these "partners" China has been counting on.

    Now with this in place the US needs only slap down the island chain of steel deep sea embargo and blockade on China and choke them out. That and they need to get India on their side or at least to sit on the side-lines which shouldn't be hard. US has many island chains, massive naval dominance, hundreds of NATO bases including those with air assets and can very effectively shut down China's naval BRI efforts and the only option for China will be a direct and painful war on the high seas far from the SCS (think Diego Garcia, the shores of Japan) against an entrenched, established hegemon. Even if they eventually smash the western navies and the west can't replace them quickly enough and smash their air forces and island chains and deal with the drone swarms unleashed on them they'll still be in an incredibly not great position.

    They've already locked down Europe whose fealty and submission to the US has been proven to be absolute by Ukraine. They're pivoting to Africa and as we have seen have made fairly quick moves to secure and divide and conquer central Asia which puts them in a position to maximally pressure Russia and China via land insurgencies and/or wars. Flows of weapons to separatist groups, etc. Ukraine was just the start. Moldova is already being weaponized, I realized when the Armenian/Azerbaijan war popped off and Russia was criticized for not doing something (busy as it was in Ukraine) that it was orchestrated by the west to further their goals. If Iran falls and that is one of the goals or at least totally isolating and encircling and separating it to crack separately from Russia/China which will also be set up for cracking that's another big dent.

    Things look bleak. We could very easily end up in a repeat of the first cold war where the USSR was isolated with the same happening to China. I'm not confident Russia will stick it out with them long-term if they have other options and India is a real problem. Climate change is going to hit India hard which will tempt them to do things to better or solidify their position and they may war with China over their border disputes which would be a drain and a welcome sight to the west.

  • AI industry horrified to face largest copyright class action ever certified

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  • Ownership of the labor replacement mcguffin is hereby transferred from the upstart techno-capitalists to the old industrial-entertainment-finance bourgeoisie that own Hollywood, book publishing, music, etc on the basis of copyright infringement.

    New owners: Right so we're going to run AI fairly. Which means paying creators (ourselves obviously) and don't think we'll forget artists either, they'll get literal pennies on their lifetime of work for its use in the labor replacement ahaha I mean cough slop machine since we own their work and machine.

    There is no AI going away because of this I think. It's either seized outright by old interests who rob the new with glee or the new interests are forced to give a huge amount, maybe the lion's share even of the money to the old interests. Sure the whole thing could be torpedoed for a bit and government would panic and dump money on the old interests and now owners and gate-keepers of AI to get them to start it up again. Might be too late for NVIDIA's stock price and the stock market overall but I don't think the US is just going to let its AI industry collapse and let China walk away with it. I mean sure they could go with the "China steals everything, they stole our stuff" racism they've been pushing forever but that's only good for propaganda to the rubes, it doesn't stop China from advancing and the Pentagon from shitting its pants.

    Quite possible all this does is take down all public-facing models. Both open and free and paid. And what remains are privately contracted models negotiated and used mostly in secret for the US intelligence-military-police state to use all sold by companies with the names of villains or villainous things from fiction run by Thiel and friends which could be seen as acceptable though I think a lot of porkies would be really, really upset at their magic labor replacement machine, their great dream being snatched away from them and wouldn't go so quietly.

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    Bulletins and News Discussion from August 4th to August 10th, 2025 - The Siege of Al-Fashir

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  • The possibility of a world dominated by capitalist powers instead of a socialist one? Definitely very attractive to the Russian capitalists who kept getting owned again and again with western duplicity ever since the 90s. Their greed and their youthful naivete (these are people who as a class did not exist in this area for a couple generations effectively)? As well as their foolish beliefs they can make in-roads with and control parts of Europe to get their own sphere of influence that will make them a great power again (they are right now a medium power at best with a lot of nuclear weapons and a lot of inherited knowledge).

    Admittedly at this point I am somewhat doubtful that Russia won't try to hedge its bets if the west does make peace with it and try to straddle the US and China and manage both sides for their own benefit. But I'm worried the west might be able to slowly peel them from China. They'll slap on sanctions after sanctions. Russians will balk at the first one, protest but say to themselves hey not worth ruining all our western economic ties for just one sanction and we all bought new mansions in the west so don't want to risk losing those again! And then comes another and because they didn't react to and accepted the first one it would be silly to now escalate and ruin ties for the second. And on and on with each one given time to adjust as they salami-slice their way to Russia participating in sanctions on China.

    China after all has not really fully supported Russia in the Ukraine conflict. They've probably helped them some but US/NATO spying visibility to supply chains is so great they didn't want to risk sending them a lot of stuff and getting heavily sanctioned. But Russia will remember that when the time comes for the US to attack China and may choose to do the same type of strategic compliance for their own sake.

    It depends on a lot of things. The west instead of trying to appease India to use against China is trying the beating stick approach and if India bows down for them in terms of the Russia sanctions on top of any asks regarding China then we're in a worse place. Right now the west's strategy is divide and conquer. Keep countries self-interested in not getting hit with maximum sanctions and economic pain so unwilling to stand up for each other even as they all get hit with beatings because the bully threatens to hit hard anyone who intervenes or stands up for another.

    I mean it's of course true from a rational standpoint it would be foolish for Russia to side with the west against China but capitalists are foolish. They might think for instance the US can be "tamed" by weakening it and that it and China will counter-balance each other to Russia's benefit.

  • Title

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  • When do we get treaty cities? I want to move to one.

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    Bulletins and News Discussion from August 4th to August 10th, 2025 - The Siege of Al-Fashir

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  • At least as things are now, YOU can boycott Israel as an individual citizen. You can organize a boycott to get a group of people to boycott Israel. The furthest any law could TRY to go

    Just not true. In Texas government employees. All government employees have to sign a pledge in their employment contract that says they won't boycott the zionist entity. I seem to vaguely recall a teacher or someone getting fired for it but I'm not positive it happened, just that it absolutely could today right now and all it would take is a photo of you present at a BDS, pro-Palestine rally or a post on social media saying people should boycott the entity. This is 100% legal and fine by the SCOTUS because you can just like choose not to be employed, choose to not use your teaching credential, choose to get another job because as we know good paying jobs are everywhere these days.

  • Let them fight.

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  • "Fight"

    Read: Offer bonuses for retention. Just cut library and school funding a bit more to give them the money they need to afford this.

  • I'm reading the Princeton version of Capital, and I've got to say, the Editor's Introduction by Paul North is priceless

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  • "untrue" maybe? Would be nice if they clarified.

  • Liberals being shocked

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  • that they only do it to be "anti-american"

    Not even a valid argument. If it were true I'd still support them for that as in general that is the right position to take. Very few times will it place you on the wrong side, especially with the US entirely gutting its few mildly benevolent manipulation programs like medical and food aid to the rest of the world you don't even have to contend with "b-buuut USAID gives starving people food, even if it is a front of the CIA and has had campaigns trying to overthrow the Cuban government". Because well now they don't. They've even gutted the few public goods they founded for their own imperial core citizens like PBS, very limited public healthcare/medicare, homeless assistance, etc.

    And really why might the DPRK be anti-American? Anyone? Anyone? Yes it's because of the genocidal attack of the US against them in the 50s Korean war. Its because the west installed and propped up a dictatorship in the south and separated families for decades. It's because the US regularly conducts military "defensive drills" simulating an attack against a state they nearly destroyed but for the help of its neighbor that still has trauma from that and does not want the experience of fighting the Americans again. Meanwhile the north conducts no such drills. It's because they have been heavily sanctioned by the US and the UN at the urging of the US for decades. It's because they never got a formal peace treaty and are still technically at war with the country occupying their south.

  • The Corporation for Public Broadcasting says it is shutting down due to Trump cuts.

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  • Fucking grim. This is kind of the final fall of any concessions the capitalists made to the proletariat in the face of the existence of the USSR and the threat of socialism at home. They've decided we're not a threat and there's no need to placate us. This isn't even a case necessarily of making the line go up by stripping the copper out of the walls as most people with money will subscribe to a streaming service or cable anyways, as it's free. It's paid for with unlimited US dollars which can be expended at no meaningful cost. Next up libraries I'm sure. We're going back to workhouses. And I can't help but feel some of this is part of a push to have an uneducated, indoctrinated, poor, desperate population that can be pressed without much resistance into signing up for war with China as a soldier as a chance to escape the spiral of poverty and pain. And as I've said I don't think the war with China will be anything but a world war. It won't be US troops marching into China. It will be US troops attacking the Sahel states and toppling them to install a comprador loyal to western capital. It will be them doing piracy on the high seas against Chinese shipping under an "embargo" and fighting the PLA there if they resist. It will be a wide-ranging conflict that could be low or high intensity.