“paid to lose” is a good racket, while it lasts

Truly an historic emoji

Truly a sisyphean task, you know, you just gotta keep working hard at it like Sisyphus.

Vibe organizing

But Iran has also shown they can easily block it again. US won’t try anything until reserves are back up again, which will take months. Much longer than 60 days.

Apparently PSL leadership wrote a response, which the reddit thread mentioned was publicly available, but didn’t link. Is that available somewhere?

I don’t have much direct knowledge about PSL, but in the spirit of this more general discussion: I think of “leninism” as a series of relativity simple theories that originate directly from Marxism, and that synthesize some historical lessons of that era. It’s all very basic, very sound, no real credible counter- arguments in my opinion. And yet, the “Leninist” model of party-building we’ve been using in the west for a century has been an indisputable failure.

I was hoping, based on their relative success, that PSL had at least partially overcome some of the problems of this model of organizing. I’ll be following this topic carefully to find out. But based on how familiar this sounds, I’m concerned it’s the same pattern.

So, back to the more general discussion, what have we (as western “Leninists”) been getting wrong all this time? Basically, what is to be done?

I spent all this money on the biggest TV I could afford, because it was supposed to be a good investment, but since then TVs have only gotten cheaper! What the hell?! Now all I’m left with is this useless TV I bought at market rate, used for many years, and intend to keep using!

All those years I spent at the TV factory, where I personally made the TVs cheaper and better, and for a good income, and this is what I have to show for it?!

Finally! We’ve returned to my preferred aesthetic! Surely now things will improve!

Anecdotal, but I’ve been in or around a lot of different radical orgs over the years, and the core members tend to be over-educated downwardly-mobile, semi-proletarianized, precarious semi-professionals. Like adjunct professors or lab techs or anything-medical-tech or semi-permanent substitute teachers or etc. All these positions that either didn’t exist, or used to be much better, before neoliberalism. Just existing in that social layer really makes you deeply hostile to the entire system.

So yeah I guess my advice to young people is go ahead and get that PhD in environmental science you’re considering, and then work at the local water department for a few years until they sell the whole thing to Nestle or whatever, and then just see where your politics land.

Isn’t Iran asking that the UNSC ratify this agreement? Wouldn’t that give some permanence to their control of the strait? My understanding is that it’s not well supported under current treaties

Iran’s increasing strength means the gulf states need the US more, but the US is also less capable and less reliable than ever. So how do they navigate that? Do they hedge their bets somehow? But how? Or do they just double down and hope if they bet wrong they at least get a nice retirement in Miami or whatever?

There was already a moment iirc where Iran fired strikes at the entity after their bombings in Lebanon, and the US did not respond or provide active defense.

The early reporting (a week ago?) was that the US did not help intercept missiles. Later reporting says they did help intercept. I suspect they did assist but honestly who fucking knows at this point.

What’s that quote? About the compulsion to genuflect before anticommunism to prove you’re not outside the acceptable bounds of liberal discourse? I think it was from Parenti or something but now I can’t find it.

Anyway assuming I’m remembering it correctly just imagine I replied with that instead of with this.

Yep, seniority def has flaws, but it sure beats the alternative system of “let the boss decide everything unilaterally”

Wow. He doesn’t look a day past 85

In case anyone else was wondering: this process uses the flue gas, presumably after heavy metals and whatnot have been filtered, meaning this can (I think?) be applied to food crops safely. Not at all an expert, but that’s my understanding.

Interesting psychology to spend trillions on creating supposed AGI to replace all workers, and then have immediate debilitating paranoia that now the computer will overthrow you instead. It’s like they know they’re parasites that deserve the people’s wrath even if they would never admit it to themselves.

I mean that sounds like enough