“Oh shit they’ve built a fence! Now we have to go the long way round if we wish to meddle in their elections!”

Sounds like a golden opportunity. MAGAs are usually so painfully close to class consciousness but the stupid political ecosystem you all have over there makes everything adversarial and so they dig in and cover their ears when they anticipate interacting with someone such as a communist. Being neighbours with one gives you the opportunity to build a rapport with them without them reactively closing their minds off and othering you. It’s a fantastic opportunity, so long as you haven’t already othered them first.

baristas […] unproductive labor

The coffee beans and hot water don’t turn into coffee without the barista’s labour.

The existence of instant coffee doesn’t make it unnecessary labour: in the case of instant coffee the work was done earlier.

The fact that I can brew my own coffee doesn’t make it unnecessary or unproductive labour either. It’s production whether I do it or pay a barista to do it.

And it’s not unskilled labour: if the coffee machines in any of the coffee shops I go to were self-service, they’d break down within hours from misuse. And when you have a really skilled barista, you can taste it.

You should tell your mutuals-with acquaintance that whoever’s insisting to them that baristas are unproductive ought to be chewing coffee instead of drinking it.

I think it’s just credit cards.

They definitey don’t to wechatpay or alipay.

But I bet there are other ways to get funds to African Stream if you contact them about it.

They’re on Patreon.

As soon as I found out they were susended I went over to support them

Not if you want leftists to think they’re labels that leftists came up with.

Maybe I’m paranoid. If it wasn’t for OP’s post history I’d be accusing, but as it is I’m just wanting people to consider who benefits from this kind of terminology being created.

“China campists” in one thread

“Beijingcap/Beijingfash” in this one

Trying to introduce language to conceptually ‘other’ China: cui bono?

What?

White people before they visit Tibet: “Oh, the government requires we have a guide with us? Ohoho, is that to stop us from seeing things we shouldn’t see? Is that to stop Tibetans from seeing how glorious and enlightened we are as we prance about with our unfettered freedom?”

White people coming back from Tibet: “It’s a good thing we had a guide with us. They don’t warn you about how thin the air is! [they do] We didn’t think we’d need any help with breathing [because we assume we’re better than everyone else]. Some of us would have literally died if our guide didn’t arrange for oxygen tanks for our hotel rooms.”

Yeah they did. Speculation: one of the videogame companies channeling funds into fusion reactor research may be the result of some bargaining over this.

Some of the sources I get news about China from are definitely not supporting China for any reason other than it’s not the US.

Is it that, or are they supporting China because it’s not the US and it’s playing an instrumental role in undermining US domination of global south countries?

What I mean to say is if those channels understand that the US is evil, then they have a commendable reason for supporting China.

Maybe, but there are better options now.

And if it was, it was framed as an example of how brainwashed we are.

When police do good cop/bad cop interrogations, they good cop and bad cop hang out together afterwards.

When governments manipulate you with a good party/bad party electoral circus, the good party and bad party also hang out with each other afterwards.

Of course they respect one another.

I’d suggest getting started by getting in touch with the prolewiki people. They might be able to help you get the ball rolling: they have established infrastructure, community and organisation.

One of them thinks the US’s Xinjiang propaganda is real, one of them doesn’t.

David Rovics

Song for the Houthi Army: https://youtu.be/GJugXEu-nQ0

St. Patrick Battalion: https://youtu.be/XQ9_y3tyeFI (lots of covers of this one out there)

Commandante Fidel Alejandro Castro-Ruz: https://youtu.be/blIj9oeS-m0

It just so happens that under Russian rule, Russian rulers will be making profit instead of Ukrainian rulers.

I think we’re missing a couple of nuances here, no? Although it’s a stretch to call them nuance. The way Ukrainian rulers have been making money has been through privatization. And because there’s so much privatization we need to look at who owns Ukraine’s economy. It’s only escalated since Russia invaded, with national assets being sold off to foreign private sectors so cheaply that one has to wonder why they did it when the gains are a drop in the bucket compared to the direct aid they’ve been getting from Western public sectors.

If Ukraine emerges from this conflict with its own sovereignty, it’ll be sovereignty over a flag, a presidential palace and a state framework that protects foreign companies’ investments from hungry Ukrainians.

Like Homelander