as it should be, nobody likes proprietary vendor-locked formats that get shoved down your throat

👍

👋 bye, toxic and close-minded bad faith .world lib

apparently nuance is smth those ppl can’t fathom

deleted by creator

ping bc of the edit I made in my previous comment

1st of all, great whataboutism 👍

but I will indulge you:

Autocracy?! That’s not what that word means. Tsarism was autocracy, Chiang Kai-shek was basically an autocrat.

What you are talking about is a revisionist degenerated workers state (or bourgeois state of a new type in the case of contemporary China) in which the bureaucracy grew too strong to a quasi caste-like status above the rest of the population. There were attempts to correct this in both the USSR (workers/left/united opposition) and in the PRC (Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution) but both were crushed

So it’s definitely smth we should learn from, to not repeat those mistakes. But that does not mean turning to the snake oil that is social democracy/democratic socialism which believe that somehow we can magically convince the ruling classes of systemic change and that they will give up power voluntarily. (And even if you manage somehow to wrestle significant concessions, they will either be rolled back after 30yrs or you’ll get the bullet in a fascist coup)

EDIT: Even under bureaucratic state socialism, there still was collective rule. Yes cults of personality were established around key figures (e.g. Stalin and Mao) but you can look up CIA documents where they dismiss that Stalin had abolished collective leadership (though ofc he still was the figurehead of the bureaucracy and the dominant force). Mao had an even stronger cult of personality, but a far “weaker” position than Stalin and the leadership was far more collective (just an fyi: this is why Mao called for a cultural revolution, which was a grassroots movement btw. The capitalist roaders (party bureaucrats who wanted to get back to capitalism but keep their privileged party posts) where gaining more and more power and he was not in a dictatorial position to stop them at will. So he had to organize a mass students and youth movement. Ofc there were excesses and errors there as well)

And despite the corrupt character AES brought forth massive progress in all fields of society. Free education up to university for everyone who didn’t slack at school. Millions of emancipated people learned to read for the first time ever. Massive scientific progress. Access to culture for millions. Making things like theatre, operas, ballet, cinema and chess accessible (and affordable !) for the masses. Making sure everyone had a place to work, sleep, smth to eat and clean water. Giving women the right to work, vote, choose whom or even if to marry, to go through life unveiled and just generally choose their own lives.(but this is one of the errors again. Patriarchal social structures were still kept and social conservatism took hold, which is why women rarely if ever had the rly high positions and were barred from the military f.e.) Making sure every child had a place at a crib or kindergarten. Making good quality healthcare accessible to all free of charge. Including vaccinating even the furthest regions, that had never even seen a doctor before.

This might not seem all that impressive to the priviliged liberal, but you have to look at the state the regions where in before: semi-feudalism at best (and/or bombed into the 3rd world after WW2)

Ofc there were excesses and mistakes, as already stated. But that does not negate their achievements.

TL;DR: dismissing state socialism as “something that didn’t work for the people” is disingenuous and disregards the fact that it did work and that, despite its flaws, it worked for hundreds of millions of people. We should not demonize previous socialist experiments, neither should we glorify them, but constructively learn from their mistakes when striving for a class-, state-, and moneyless society (aka communism, which is materially possible in todays world and not an idealist utopia, but a historic necessity if humanity is to progress as a species and not devolve into barbarism/fascism)

good short clips of Parenti talking if anyone’s interested (he put it rly well imo)

https://youtu.be/JSpVB_XXXBQ?si=NdbBBRJfhglQo1ez

https://youtu.be/npkeecCErQc?si=oAh8jj_WYCAtoUKB

https://youtu.be/BeVs6t3vdjQ?si=1obub_-e-vLi9ubG

and also a rly good Parentiwave edit https://youtu.be/3-PHYj1vb-w?si=0WTNxg43xIAdnFck

just use Soulseek (through Nicotine+) and Torrents (through a free/libre client of your choice) and if you like some smaller artist buy their stuff on Bandcamp or even better Mirlo

you don’t get to communism through “social democracy” XD

any concessions given by the rich in bourgeois “democracies” are funded by outsourcing some of the exploitation to the imperial periphery/global south

exactly

it is the ironic subversion

hmm :/

was able to get this in the web client

mb additionally putting it in the post body would be a good idea for future posts?

I- what does this even mean? TwT

There is a distinct difference between progressive and reactionary violence

The rule of “law and order” takes constant systemic violence to upkeep, to protect the ruling class, their private (not personal!) property and interests.

This violence of the ruling classes is normalised, even legalized/codified in law. Standing up against it, however, and enacting systemic change is branded by their lackeys as “terrorism” or “violent chaos”.

Class struggle is a constant fight of one class to oppress another. Currently in most of the world, the exploitative classes oppress the exploited ones. For society to progress, the exploited must suppress the exploiters.
(Or for the expropriators to be expropriated as Marx put it. But that’s just the same in fancy)

After all

One person’s terrorist is another one’s partisan

Mao put it quite well, which is why all following quotes are from him
(btw jsyk: quoting someone on a specific issues doesn’t mean supporting their views in general/every other aspect)

“War is the continuation of politics.” In this sense, war is politics and war itself is a political action; since ancient times there has never been a war that did not have a political character… However, war has its own particular characteristics and in this sense, it cannot be equated with politics in general. “War is the continuation of politics by other . . . means.” When politics develops to a certain stage beyond which it cannot proceed by the usual means, war breaks out to sweep the obstacles from the way… When the obstacle is removed and our political aim attained the war will stop. Nevertheless, if the obstacle is not completely swept away, the war will have to continue until the aim is fully accomplished… It can therefore be said that politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed. - “On Protracted War” (May 1938), Selected Works, Vol. II, pp. 152-53 *

Revolutions and revolutionary wars are inevitable in class society, and without them it is impossible to accomplish any leap in social development and to overthrow the reactionary ruling classes and therefore impossible for the people to win political power. - “On Contradiction” (August1937), Selected Works, Vol. I, p. 344.*

War is the highest form of struggle for resolving contradictions, when they have developed to a certain stage, between classes, nations, states, or political groups, and it has existed ever since the emergence of private property and of classes. - “Problems of Strategy in China’s Revolutionary War” (December 1936), Selected Works, Vol. I, p. 180.

This is why only after the abolition of classes, private property and states (ie. communism), will the contradictions, which are the root cause of virtually all large scale violence, be resolved.

Which in turn is why:

We are advocates of the abolition of war, we do not want war; but war can only be abolished through war, and in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to take up the gun. - “Problems of War and Strategy” (November 6, 1938), Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 225.

relevant quote

The revolutionary struggle is the very antithesis of the parliamentary struggle. In Germany, for four decades we had nothing but parliamentary “victories.” We practically walked from victory to victory. And when faced with the great historical test of August 4, 1914, the result was the devastating political and moral defeat, an outrageous debacle and rot without parallel. To date, revolutions have given us nothing but defeats. Yet these unavoidable defeats pile up guarantee upon guarantee of the future final victory.

from “Order Prevails in Berlin” by Rosa Luxembourg

uuu you are in for an adventure with so much replayability

and as some other comment said: even “failed” checks lead to interesting outcomes

this kinda made my morning. Thx ^w^

just FYI: you can finish the game without ever as much as looking at the body, there even is an achievement for it!

understandable, have a nice day

The imaginary numbers demand sacrifice

def Disco Elysium

heed this warning though: after Disco, there is no going back; most storytelling might seem subpar or just of low quality afterwards

it’s also soul crushing, existentialist and doesn’t shy away from critiquing/ridiculing society and what it believes in (from a Marxist pov, though Communism itself isn’t spaired either in the game, with a harsh critique only communists could write), but it’s also one of the most hopeful games I’ve ever played at the same time

I would rly recommend a blind play through without cheating through quick saves! (aka. save scumming) A lot of decisions in the game succeed based on the probability of your stats accomplishing it. I made the mistake in my first play through and just forced everything I wanted by reloading over and over again -_-

most masculine Slovak