The stupid manufactured outrage against Hasan that infected the entire internet makes me glad I left reddit for this place.
Based. Shame that Amerikkkan schools would throw whoever wrote this in a juvenile detention centre.
It's possible to already begin enrolling in the ESU program (Extended Security Update) for Win10 users, and even better, I believe there are still scripts that allow for an entirely free non-official approach - just for those who aren't yet interested in learning an entirely new system from scratch or switching to the nightmarish, AI-infested Windows 11. Personally thinking of switching to Linux tho, another middle finger to the imperialist surveillance of silicon valley
Facts, comrade. If we divert off-topic a little further and focus on anthropology, honestly, this comparison can be drawn in general between "superior whites" (Celto-Germanics) and the "non-whites" (including European Mediterraneans, at least historically). The ethno-nationalists claim to be so "superior" yet prefer the food of the "inferiors", appropriate the cultural traditions and teachings of the "inferiors", and even try to steal the history of the "inferiors", by claiming it as their own or by attempting to sever the continuity between ancient civilizations they find fascinating and the modern populations, which are their descendants, to paint those as "inferiors". This is a veeeery common trick in the playbook of aforementioned Anglo intellectuals, and the Fr*nch too.
This is partially how the entire myth of "Western civilization" emerged, which is little more than a Eurocentric term for what became the political imperialist bloc we know today, rooted in the same narratives that gave us "civilizing mission", "savages" and other nonsense - which are today recycled into the neocon language's "spreading democracy", "terrorists", etc.
Economic disparity in Italy following industrialization, between North and South, which continues to this day, undoubtedly could be a factor. Italy is also a very extroverted culture with a collectivist, outgoing tradition that even today opposes social atomization that capitalism creates (think of movements like Cittaslow and Slowfood), but this can be said about so many other cultures in just the Mediterranean basin alone - Italy has just been part of the imperial core, meaning higher literacy rates and thus "capacity" to produce such prominent Marxist thinkers. Italy also saw fascism, which perhaps could have made class consciousness amongst intellectuals skyrocket?
And confirmation bias? Maybe, but it's a fun thought experiment regardless because we as Marxists are materialists in the first place, so we know that this isn't just an "inherent genetic trait", or "random", as liberal idealism would propose.
Britain [although in the latter’s case, their intellectuals are so endlessly insufferable im genuinely considering calling for a ban on all publications from the god forsaken island]
not just their intellectuals are insufferable lmao, that's too generous when speaking of that "civilization"
They're going to give Benjamin Netanyahu one of these stupid prizes if he actually abides by the latest ceasefire I bet, oh and Zelensky of course - and why not Trump? This should be renamed the War Criminal & U.S. Lackey Prize. We need a prize that's actually given to people who are on the right side of history, of which there are plenty. From doctors in Gaza, to brave activists, and so, so many revolutionaries and heroes of the past who have been swept under by the same Western narrative which props up this disease of a "prize" in the first place. It's nothing but a symbol of how the imperialists control the narrative, even if that narrative is fading now. I hate it, i fucking hate it so much. We need to ignore it completely.
Fuck the Nobel Imperialist Prize. Henry KISSINGER received this shit. Shouldn't that tell you everything?
Nothing of value lost, fuck that illegal puppet state. Can it just collapse already?
Mutual dialogue! Two-state solution! Every opinion matters and is equal! Social Darwinism is a valid philosophy! We all need to work together as a nation! Freedom, democracy, civil society and human rights! We're helping all these poor people around the world! Unemployed people are just lazy and don't want to work and contribute to society! Capitalism offers wages as a rewards system, how motivating! We're spoiled rotten! Poverty is a personal responsibility that the individual must take action to combat!
Plus, their path towards total outsourcing of domestic industry and talent to the imperial periphery, as far as manual labour is concerned, all for the goal of profit maximization through cheap labour exploitation is backfiring massively - not just economically, but also on Western society. The Western labour aristocratic population is hopeless. Just look at how consumerism is eroding the "handyman" and driving its kind to extinction, with everyone instead buying new commodities at a higher rate than ever, creating unnecessary waste and dependence on monopolizing firms. "Unnecessary waste" being a highly ironic key phrase given all the stupid greenwashing propaganda we see nowadays - watch this get co-opted by ecofascists by mass exporting future e-waste to "green transition" the "untermenschen" of the Global South once it gets discarded.
In the West, people literally cry about e.g. a 20 year old car being "too expensive to maintain and not worth it!" (artificial scarcity is a thing, yes - but it can be overcome!), whereas in Cuba for example, they drive old Soviet cars and American classics from the Batista era maintained through sheer ingenuity and improvised, collective craftsmanship. It completely defies these consumerist myths of "obsolescence" realized under late stage capitalism. Classic example of Gramscian cultural hegemony. It has left them with a useless FIRE economy. Basically, even imperialism struggles to offset the contradictions of the plague that is capitalism at this point. The chain is no stronger than its weakest link.
Hope for Palestinians finally being able to go to sleep without having to worry about being massacred? Indispensable. But as many keep pointing out, neither rules nor international law mean anything to the Zionist entity, so there's no knowing if this will just turn out to be all smoke and mirrors.
...and this is not on Palestinian terms, but entirely on imperialist terms aimed at their advantage. Surprise surprise. The US, its lapdogs, the UK and regional comprador states (Egypt, Jordan, Gulf states), and the Zionist entity aim for it to be managed like a colonial territory where Palestinians are being managed akin to past Western colonized territories, and they'd love to turn Gaza into a tax haven and money-laundering hub for billionaire war profiteering capitalists. An Eastern Mediterranean Monaco, if you will.
Ahh.. good, old fashioned class collaborationism. Capitalism's final defense mechanism before turning to fascism.
The US aside, this'll certainly also deal a huge blow to Europe's military industrial complex in the making.
Late stage capitalism. Also, "people" here applies mostly to the working classes in Western countries, and to an extent, some in the Global South with more significant levels of urbanization. Alienation under late stage capitalism and the US-led neoliberal world order leads to ever increasing precarity and desperation amongst the working class all over the world, as we face crisis after crisis, which is now worse than ever (and nothing new, obviously). In the imperial core, or the Global North (Anglosphere, Western Europe, North America), the dynamic is largely different than it is in the Global South, because every single aspect of life in these countries has become almost completely commodified and controlled by capitalist monopolies or duopolies alongside the death of "localism", in simple terms, sucking the joy out of life through profit maximization more than ever before. As fewer and fewer people control more and more wealth, in addition to costs of living skyrocketing through inflation, austerity measures, economic warfare (only to be worsened as far as the US goes following the latest stupid tariffs), leading to even more price gouging, this means that people need to take up an increasing number of jobs, or simply begin working longer hours (in addition to pension and other social security vanishing), leading to prolonged burnout and severe mental health issues, which also negatively impacts social lives through atomizing social structures. There's no doubt that this results in these "mental illnesses", though I've kind of observed that this term is often used in a very bigoted and ableist fashion that lacks nuance.
In the Global South, on the other hand, these dynamics occur differently. Many of us here have only known colonialism, imperialist destabilization, and exploitation in our countries, meant to stifle our socioeconomic development for the benefit of the imperial core, the same countries now suffering this perceived "social decay" the question concerns. We aren't living through "decaying" labor aristocratic capitalism, unlike the imperial core which attained its "high standards of living" through imperialist superprofits and exploitation, meaning slight breadcrumbs could be distributed to the working class in these countries to placate them and prevent them from gaining class consciousness by offering them a nice, mortgaged house, jobs in the service sector, consumerism derived from overproduction, etc. — instead, we're living under neocolonialism. This has an adverse effect at the same time, with the primary dialectic here being that, despite us still living under capitalism and thus still being vulnerable to its internal contradictions, we still retain degrees of non-atomized social structures more "free" of alienation, as well of subsistence-based lifestyles based on cooperation — in my country, for example, the informal economy is pretty much omnipresent.
It's not a binary. It's proof that capitalism needs to go. Basically, to summarize the above: You either live in a "developed" society where you enjoy temporary privileges and economic prosperity attained through imperialist superprofits that ever so slightly trickle down to you — but capitalist decay and crisis is inevitable and will only worsen for the working class which has no material interest in this mode of production (Global North / imperial core)
..or you live in poverty, IMF-imposed SAP austerity measures meaning zero social services (privatised and sold to imperialist financial cartels), and the economic dependence of your country on imperial powers (France, US, broader West) caused by the same force that leads to the temporary material privileges of the working classes in the Global North, yet your social structures aren't atomized (meaning no or less significant emergence of hyper-individualism in society, as seen in the West), because you're literally forced to cooperate socially as opposed to engaging in competition or wage slavery in the typical sense (the norm under capitalism) not to build a better world but to merely subsist (Global South / imperial periphery).
In both scenarios, though, there are no people in power looking after you - and most importantly, your class is not in power of the state.
Also, a relevant video video came to mind about this
Every major Palestinian political figure part of the resistance will remain jailed as all of this is, as always, on imperialist terms. Even if Hamas will try to bring negotiations to their advantage as much as possible, it will mean no more than minuscule concessions. An "erasure of Palestinian politics", to paraphrase Vijay Prashad. Regardless, "ceasefire", because it really is no more than that when we're speaking of settler colonialism and genocide. The Oslo Accords were always a joke, as history teaches us that you don't "negotiate", or "engage in dialogue" with oppressors; you resist and crush them. Yet watch the "international community" rhetorically invoke the "two state solution" again in 3....
I didn't, really. Barely ever used Reddit to begin with. I just wanted a platform to chat and engage with every now and then, and this federated, decentralized alternative is principally superior and is a historical necessity. The reason you "struggle" is because Reddit wants to keep you trapped in its ecosystem and addicted by centralizing online communication spaces.
Already wrote this somewhere else, but might well share it here: Reddit is a cesspool US deep state cut-out propaganda and censorship platform like all of these US-based platforms are, they answer to the US state dept and empire and we all know it. Doesn’t matter if it’s META, X or Reddit (and fuck, Google and YouTube obviously) - they all follow the same line. They’ll crack down on leftist subs, even r/russia due to the official US position, yet keep racist Western subs around (like r/europe) and other liberal shitholes of all kinds I don’t give a shit to even name or remember, even fascist subs and of course the genocide apologists on r/“israel”.
Trump says Israel and Hamas have 'both signed off' in first phase of Gaza ceasefire plan
Trump says Israel and Hamas have 'both signed off' in first phase of Gaza ceasefire plan
If we do the math with the official death toll so far into this genocide, it amounts to one Palestinian killed by the Zionist entity roughly around this minute mark every hour. But I don't think there's any place for an "or" in this matter, as injury is, let's be real, pretty much constant with the relentless destruction and massacre that the settler colonial Zionist entity constantly engages in. It also doesn't even take into account gradual injury due to disease, starvation, and lack of healthcare.
This is an incredibly naïve understanding of how branding and human cognition work. To claim a corporate logo is a "neutral placeholder" is to ignore the entire multi-trillion dollar industry of marketing and the last century of psychological research.
A logo is not a "placeholder" but instead it's the visual distillation of a brand's entire propaganda campaign.
Every commercial, billboard, and sponsored post you've ever seen for that brand has worked to create a subconscious association between that symbol and a set of feelings, aspirations, or identities (Nike = "achievement", Coca Cola = "taste", Apple = "innovation/creativity", and whatever other crap). Seeing the logo fires that neural pathway without the "prerequisite" for a full ad. The commercial already happened in our heads, across years. And it still constantly does under capitalism, hence commodity fetishism is a thing.
The primary goal of all advertising is not to make you buy something right now, but to ensure their brand is the first one you think of when you have a need. A logo constantly flashing in your visual field does exactly that. It's a maintenance ad, whether deliberate or not, keeping the brand's presence active in your subconsciousness.
It is a territorial claim on mental space, and by arguing that their symbols have a right to exist in our public and digital spaces "just for identification," corporations are claiming a right to permanent, free real estate in our minds.
It's almost like calling a national flag of any country "just a piece of colored cloth" because it ignores the immense weight of symbolic meaning, cultural conditioning, and ideological power that whatever given symbol carries. In this case, it's a flag that flies not for a nation or people but for the empire of capital. Even if it was a defunct company, it still once served this purpose, even if now "retired."
And it appears that some people act like this foolish ultra is redeemed because he points out the obvious.
This all boils down to one thing, and that's the phenomenon of controlled "opposition".
"...reformism, even when quite sincere, in practice becomes a weapon by means of which the bourgeoisie corrupt and weaken the workers. The experience of all countries shows that the workers who put their trust in the reformists are always fooled."
-Lenin, Marxism and Reformism.
They never tell you who this "freedom" is intended for. They just isolate the word and dilute it of its meaning.
I don't watch that guy and I don't know that much about him, but this makes me so happy that I don't follow this entire internet drama scene lol. We don't need the opinions nor thoughts of all these liberals and other reactionaries nor their genocide apologia, they exist solely on the internet at this point or in Western family dinners. Ignorant parasites who know nothing about the world as they sit in the comfort of their Western suburban homes. They wouldn't know what genuine injustice meant if it sat on their faces.