Around the same time GLP-1s entered the scene. Could be a coincidence, but it seems to me that people in general (including people who are themselves obese) are less accepting of bodies now that GLP-1s are available.
In my experience with “smart” people from former Eastern Bloc countries now living in the West, what they “suffered” from was the idea that they didn’t get to live a life of significantly higher material comforts than “normal” workers in their country, similar to how things were in the West.
I’m not trying to have a go at you personally, but this is something I see from anti-communists and it drives me up a wall. The way it’s just casually handwaved away that former socialist countries had significantly better rights for one half of the entire population, and it gets relegated to a footnote. It shows just how more work still needs to be done to respect women’s rights. Even if these counties accomplished nothing else, the fact that they actually successfully addressed the needs and rights of HALF the population is a monumental achievement. In the GDR a woman could divorce her husband on her initiative while at the same time in the FRG a woman needed her husband’s permission to work outside the home. This should not be waived off as “yeah yeah I guess women had rights but you couldn’t find a good pair of blue jeans”.
I highly recommend the recent Deprogram podcast (ep #248) where they go into a discussion of the daily life experiences of people in socialist countries. Hakim’s father lived in the USSR and Yugo, living in a the former Yugoslavia, has a ton of anecdotal experiences from family and friends.
It’s not crazy, you just have to examine who is telling you it’s crazy.
Just this morning, I took my kids to a restaurant and was seated near someone who I know for a fact has a net worth well into 8 figures - a bourgeois business owner who sold his business for a fortune (it’s a small town). He was complaining to his friend about how Mamdani was about to “ruin NYC” and how the DSA wants to “indoctrinate kids” into socialism. Most of what he said was just boring Fox News talking points. But really what struck me (and I thought this before I saw this thread) was just how completely shocked he was over the idea that anyone was even considering socialism. It’s like, the fact that right here in capitalist America where “anyone” (i.e him, because these people don’t care about anyone but themselves and maybe their family) can get filthy rich, to advocate for socialism is like saying there’s cheese on the moon, in the bourgeois mind.
If you’re one of the few winners at capitalism, then socialism really does seem crazy. Not only do you have riches beyond what most humans have ever dreamed of thanks to capitalism, but you have likely insulated yourself in a bubble that reinforces the idea this is the best system - the only economic system possible is the one that has enriched me. These capitalists (and maybe some of their acolytes) are the only ones who really think socialism is “crazy”. Seeing socialism as the rational way forward is understood by those who actually examine the economic systems we live under, or those who experience its cruelty.
Don’t let them make you think YOU are the crazy one. The only ones who think capitalism is a good and sane system are the capitalists themselves.
I literally explained how I was taking issue with the use of the word “imperialism” and not commenting the morality of the action. But maybe reading comprehension is hard for you? It so I’m sorry for your affliction.
As someone who is also middle aged, I’d say some of this is very possibly looking at the past through rose-colored glasses. Personally I don’t think my life say 15 years ago was significantly less competitive, stessful, etc.
What is different though… I make over double what I made 15 years ago. I’ve had steady progression in my career from 15 years ago. But financially I am not better off than I was then (in terms of how much I have left at the end of the month). Which makes sense, in that while my salary has gone up say 5% per annum, the real cost of living has exceeded that rate.
By this definition though, literally all wars of conquest (i.e. most of them) are “imperialism”.
I am a tankie so while I lean on Lenin’s definition of imperialism, let’s put that aside for a moment. “Imperialism” cannot be simple conquest. Because when we think of “imperialism” without tying it to a specific example, I think we all broadly get the same picture. Something like an octopus, extending its reach out far and wide an establishing control over places, in service of enriching the metropole. Conquest can be one initial stage of imperial control, or imperialism doesn’t even need military conquest. It’s why I would say the United States in 2026 is unequivocally imperialist. So were the pre-WW1 Western European nations.
I’m not making any sort of judgement on the rightness or wrongness of Russia’s actions. It’s just that I get a bee in bonnet when liberals try and downplay the true imperialism of present day US and Europe by saying “bbbbut Russia is imperialist too!!!” when they don’t even have any understanding of the word.
This will only make actual antisemitism (the kind you describe) worse. The authors of this letter are telling Jewish voters to abandon any principles they have regarding their own country - it doesn’t matter if you support abortion rights, believe in funding public education and social welfare, or just oppose the Trump / fascist agenda. None of that matters compared to supporting Israel. It’s the antisemitic “dual loyalty” trope come to life.
The ADL and other Zionists groups consider someone saying “Free Palestine” to be an anti-semitic slur. Meanwhile Daily Wire / Ben Shapiro is releasing a movie that would be considered openly Islamophobic even back in 2002 (Run Hide Fight: Infidels). The movie’s premise is that a group of “Radical Islamic Fundamentalists” deceive a college campus pro-Palestine group and then impose Sharia or whatever on them. This comes from the hasbara talking point about how we protest for the liberation of Palestine, but (according to Israel) these Palestinians would immediately impose harsh Islamic rule on us if they were given the chance. The fact that this movie was made much less allowed to be shown, when we all know a similar movie made about Israelis instead would never see the light of day, is just one example of how Islamophobia is a much more serious problem right now than antisemitism.
The other one I like to compare is: in the decades that the Berlin Wall - the ultimate symbol of eeeevil gommunist authoritian totalitarianism - existed, fewer people were killed attempting to cross the wall than were murdered by a single US bomb that landed on a girls’ school in Iran in a single day.
I do not know the number of Palestinians that have been murdered by the IOF just for approaching the intentionally vague “yellow line” since the “ceasefire” months ago, but I’m certain it’s higher than the Berlin Wall fatalities.
I don’t remember what it’s called, but in Japan there is a tendency to repair things rather than replace them; and further than that, a repair made properly can be see as enhancing the beauty of an object. I like that.
There are well-evidenced problems, sure. But what these governments think are the well-evidenced “problems” versus what you think they are, are two very different things.
I would go with NYC, LA, San Francisco, and Miami. Those are the four cities that, internationally, everyone knows and wants to go see.
Chicago isn’t an international city like the other 4 here. It’s just… very large. And in that sense it’s like Houston, Detroit or Atlanta. Large, important cities in the US but not particularly relevant on the world stage.
(And yes I know I’m gonna get angry Chicagoans responding, I’m kinda shitposting a bit here)
I’ve been reading Gerald Horne’s The Counter-Revolution of 1776, and honestly just summarizing the main points from that book would blow a lot of peoples’ minds.
I used to work at a department store in the late 90s, and there were employees there who worked full time and either owned a very modest house or at least a decent apartment and lived somewhat comfortably.
(So no, maybe not THAT specific house but the point stands, try and make even a livable wage selling shoes in 2026)
Then I think that group should be condemned and not supported, but I would have said that just based on them picking Fetterman alone before anything with Platner.
Obama’s mom was CIA.
Around the same time GLP-1s entered the scene. Could be a coincidence, but it seems to me that people in general (including people who are themselves obese) are less accepting of bodies now that GLP-1s are available.
In my experience with “smart” people from former Eastern Bloc countries now living in the West, what they “suffered” from was the idea that they didn’t get to live a life of significantly higher material comforts than “normal” workers in their country, similar to how things were in the West.
I’m not trying to have a go at you personally, but this is something I see from anti-communists and it drives me up a wall. The way it’s just casually handwaved away that former socialist countries had significantly better rights for one half of the entire population, and it gets relegated to a footnote. It shows just how more work still needs to be done to respect women’s rights. Even if these counties accomplished nothing else, the fact that they actually successfully addressed the needs and rights of HALF the population is a monumental achievement. In the GDR a woman could divorce her husband on her initiative while at the same time in the FRG a woman needed her husband’s permission to work outside the home. This should not be waived off as “yeah yeah I guess women had rights but you couldn’t find a good pair of blue jeans”.
I highly recommend the recent Deprogram podcast (ep #248) where they go into a discussion of the daily life experiences of people in socialist countries. Hakim’s father lived in the USSR and Yugo, living in a the former Yugoslavia, has a ton of anecdotal experiences from family and friends.
Had me in the first half…
It’s not crazy, you just have to examine who is telling you it’s crazy.
Just this morning, I took my kids to a restaurant and was seated near someone who I know for a fact has a net worth well into 8 figures - a bourgeois business owner who sold his business for a fortune (it’s a small town). He was complaining to his friend about how Mamdani was about to “ruin NYC” and how the DSA wants to “indoctrinate kids” into socialism. Most of what he said was just boring Fox News talking points. But really what struck me (and I thought this before I saw this thread) was just how completely shocked he was over the idea that anyone was even considering socialism. It’s like, the fact that right here in capitalist America where “anyone” (i.e him, because these people don’t care about anyone but themselves and maybe their family) can get filthy rich, to advocate for socialism is like saying there’s cheese on the moon, in the bourgeois mind.
If you’re one of the few winners at capitalism, then socialism really does seem crazy. Not only do you have riches beyond what most humans have ever dreamed of thanks to capitalism, but you have likely insulated yourself in a bubble that reinforces the idea this is the best system - the only economic system possible is the one that has enriched me. These capitalists (and maybe some of their acolytes) are the only ones who really think socialism is “crazy”. Seeing socialism as the rational way forward is understood by those who actually examine the economic systems we live under, or those who experience its cruelty.
Don’t let them make you think YOU are the crazy one. The only ones who think capitalism is a good and sane system are the capitalists themselves.
I literally explained how I was taking issue with the use of the word “imperialism” and not commenting the morality of the action. But maybe reading comprehension is hard for you? It so I’m sorry for your affliction.
As someone who is also middle aged, I’d say some of this is very possibly looking at the past through rose-colored glasses. Personally I don’t think my life say 15 years ago was significantly less competitive, stessful, etc.
What is different though… I make over double what I made 15 years ago. I’ve had steady progression in my career from 15 years ago. But financially I am not better off than I was then (in terms of how much I have left at the end of the month). Which makes sense, in that while my salary has gone up say 5% per annum, the real cost of living has exceeded that rate.
By this definition though, literally all wars of conquest (i.e. most of them) are “imperialism”.
I am a tankie so while I lean on Lenin’s definition of imperialism, let’s put that aside for a moment. “Imperialism” cannot be simple conquest. Because when we think of “imperialism” without tying it to a specific example, I think we all broadly get the same picture. Something like an octopus, extending its reach out far and wide an establishing control over places, in service of enriching the metropole. Conquest can be one initial stage of imperial control, or imperialism doesn’t even need military conquest. It’s why I would say the United States in 2026 is unequivocally imperialist. So were the pre-WW1 Western European nations.
I’m not making any sort of judgement on the rightness or wrongness of Russia’s actions. It’s just that I get a bee in bonnet when liberals try and downplay the true imperialism of present day US and Europe by saying “bbbbut Russia is imperialist too!!!” when they don’t even have any understanding of the word.
This will only make actual antisemitism (the kind you describe) worse. The authors of this letter are telling Jewish voters to abandon any principles they have regarding their own country - it doesn’t matter if you support abortion rights, believe in funding public education and social welfare, or just oppose the Trump / fascist agenda. None of that matters compared to supporting Israel. It’s the antisemitic “dual loyalty” trope come to life.
The ADL and other Zionists groups consider someone saying “Free Palestine” to be an anti-semitic slur. Meanwhile Daily Wire / Ben Shapiro is releasing a movie that would be considered openly Islamophobic even back in 2002 (Run Hide Fight: Infidels). The movie’s premise is that a group of “Radical Islamic Fundamentalists” deceive a college campus pro-Palestine group and then impose Sharia or whatever on them. This comes from the hasbara talking point about how we protest for the liberation of Palestine, but (according to Israel) these Palestinians would immediately impose harsh Islamic rule on us if they were given the chance. The fact that this movie was made much less allowed to be shown, when we all know a similar movie made about Israelis instead would never see the light of day, is just one example of how Islamophobia is a much more serious problem right now than antisemitism.
The other one I like to compare is: in the decades that the Berlin Wall - the ultimate symbol of eeeevil gommunist authoritian totalitarianism - existed, fewer people were killed attempting to cross the wall than were murdered by a single US bomb that landed on a girls’ school in Iran in a single day.
I do not know the number of Palestinians that have been murdered by the IOF just for approaching the intentionally vague “yellow line” since the “ceasefire” months ago, but I’m certain it’s higher than the Berlin Wall fatalities.
I don’t remember what it’s called, but in Japan there is a tendency to repair things rather than replace them; and further than that, a repair made properly can be see as enhancing the beauty of an object. I like that.
There are well-evidenced problems, sure. But what these governments think are the well-evidenced “problems” versus what you think they are, are two very different things.
I would go with NYC, LA, San Francisco, and Miami. Those are the four cities that, internationally, everyone knows and wants to go see.
Chicago isn’t an international city like the other 4 here. It’s just… very large. And in that sense it’s like Houston, Detroit or Atlanta. Large, important cities in the US but not particularly relevant on the world stage.
(And yes I know I’m gonna get angry Chicagoans responding, I’m kinda shitposting a bit here)
I’ve been reading Gerald Horne’s The Counter-Revolution of 1776, and honestly just summarizing the main points from that book would blow a lot of peoples’ minds.
I used to work at a department store in the late 90s, and there were employees there who worked full time and either owned a very modest house or at least a decent apartment and lived somewhat comfortably.
(So no, maybe not THAT specific house but the point stands, try and make even a livable wage selling shoes in 2026)
English translation: “For services in Song Mi”
Then I think that group should be condemned and not supported, but I would have said that just based on them picking Fetterman alone before anything with Platner.