Urumqi enters the chat

I appreciate your commitment to de-francasizing english.

I had to quit office work for this reason. Now I work in education and get to pace moderately or stand all day and its been a lot better for me energetically. Had that ‘Big dog in a little apartment’ feeling.

Oh whoops I didn’t see that the post was a link.

Petty bourgeoise people derive most of their income from their capital while not significantly controlling the economy or politics. There are two ways to look at the retirement account: 1) principally as interest-bearing capital, 2) as deferred compensation with more ideology.

I am somewhat inclined towards 2) since A) very few pensioners ever have enough capital available to start a business and become capitalists in earnest and B) the withdrawal rules make large investments very difficult. That said, someone with a juicy 401k or anxiety about getting their 401k juicy is being conditioned to care about the market whereas someone with a traditional pension has a layer of separation.

Do you have the link for the Haaretz article? I want to share it with members of my synagogue who are on the fence.

Eventually looks are going to be the least important component of attraction. It will continue to be about emotionality and familiarity. Young adults are going to feel less and less relatable and therefore less and less attractive.

Not that many shapes are easily fashioned for producing crude flags. The Chinese flag represents the party with the big star and the four revolutionary (in the semi-feudal period) classes of the peasantry, proletariat, petty and national bourgeoisies.

Yellow has been a common secondary color for communist iconography and the star was an important regimental symbol. The two overlapped over time.

If its subtitled, I’ll be okayish. I can partially read Spanish and French.

Merci beaucoup! Mes amis aiment les animations francaises, mais je ne trouvais pas les filmes interessantes sans leur assistance. Je suis vraiment excitee!

I love Eternal Sunshine! Thank you for the other recommendations, I am excited :3

Here is an essay I wrote on a similar theme. It compares the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising to the struggle of the Palestinian people.

https://hexbear.net/post/931350

If I like whimsical, visually-imaginative adventure films with lots of practical effects like ‘Baron Munchaesen’, ‘Brazil’, ‘Delicatassen’, and ‘City of Lost Children’, what other films might I like?

People generally tell me I smell good so I don’t worry too much about it. I sometimes wear perfume and I usually burn a lot of incense and scented candles at home so probably I have some passive aromatherapy on all my clothes.

I read this novel a while ago and also really liked it! It was mostly an aside, but a stand out moment comes when Bazarov and Arkady are cuddling in the grass in Bazarov’s father’s estate and his pops is just like ‘that’s nice :)’ For whatever reason, that was the moment I felt the most like ‘this is a different culture and era.’

They are golden chains if they withhold you from the ultimate actualization of your beliefs-self. Still gold is a much softer metal than iron.

I was being a little bit overwrought or silly here so take with as much salt as you please. But the core of Judaism is not ‘I believe in God who has features x y and z’. Rather it is ‘I am committed to living an ethical life’. Whereas you see in almost every Christian church a ‘statement of belief’ that has clear theological assertions which must be accepted to be in communion with that church. e.g. (making these up) ‘God is triune in the Father Son and Ghost, but also unitary’, ‘Jesus’ ring fingers was longer than his middle fingers’. Which is to say, in order to be Christian one must believe certain things and in order to be Jewish one must act in a certain way.

It’s a liminal stage, one I went through. Often, this is a plateau for petty bourgeoisie people who have accepted intellectually that proletarian revolution is morally correct and necessary, but who are unwilling to risk their position yet. A common justification is “I don’t know enough to take action.” (where does knowledge come from? social practice and lived experience.) or worse “The best thing I have to contribute is my intellectual/cultural labor.” (divorced from organization and direct struggle, this labor can have no outlet.)

As Liv Agar describes smoking: we have the contradictory desires to 1) quit smoking because we know intellectually it is bad for us and 2) continue smoking because it feels good. Often this is reconciled by justifying each cigarette.

‘Oh, I had a hard day at work and deserve a treat.’ ‘Oh, I am out dancing and you just can’t dance without smoking.’ ‘Oh, I’m going to quit soon but I’m not ready yet and so its not really bad to have this one since its practically my last cigarette.’

Of course, what’s really motivating this thinking is a chemical addiction to nicotine; the material conditions of your body are pushing you towards a decision and you are just rationalizing what you were going to do anyways.

Similarly, many posters and other armchair leftists are essentially motivated by their fear of losing their petty bourgeois positionality—which is to say their class interest—but are compelled to justify ~inaction to maintain psychological integrity.

Fundamentally, communism is Jewish and not Christian; it is about actions and not beliefs. It is good to have sympathies (even sympathies it is not safe or possible to act on, as @Leninismydad@lemmygrad.ml and @DankZedong@lemmygrad.ml point out below) but ultimately to be a communist is to be engaged in the class struggle for the working class and the abolition of Capitalism. As Marx puts it, “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.”

academics.

I switched to a $20 feature phone years ago and been so much happier healthier.