Every single day in The Netherlands, Russia is in the news. Mass psychosis at this point. Even the AFD victory had more concerns for them being pro Russia instead of them being literal Nazi's.

Entering the world of blue collar workers is ripping me out of my left wing marxist bubble I had in Belgium. All of my coworkers claim to be right wing. At our friday afternoon drink today several of them voiced their support for AFD winning in Germany saying they are glad they won and that the people have had enough.

Now, at first you feel like you need to get out of the racist group. But marxist organising for years has prepared me for this. Deep down I believe people are left wing and that they are led on to become right wing by scapegoating of the oppressive bourgeoisie class. So, naturally, you try to engage in their visions and concerns. By asking them some simple questions I managed to get to the core of their problems which were almost all the same: cost of living increase, imaginary enemy created by the media, working too many hours for too long, etc.

I managed to make a start in poking holes in the fabricated narrative they have inside their head. Too easy for left wingers it is to stick their heads in the sand thinking they just know better than all those racist blue collar workers who mostly vote right wing in this country. Which is a shame, as our very beliefs were founded by these same workers many years ago. The left managed to abandon the working class here resulting in them turning to racist parties.

This will be a huge task to fullfill but I truly believe that by empathic towards their concerns and steering them in the right direction, I can get these people to change their views. Of course this is possible because of my privileged position of a white man. But someone has to turn the tide. A specter is haunting The Netherlands. It is me.

Just reread Against Liberalism.

No selfcrit is enough.

Today I learned that the Ukrainian alphabet was standardized in the Soviet Union during Ukrainisation. Another L for those who claim that Soviets oppressed Ukrainians

I'M FUCKING COOKED I'M FUCKING WASHED IT'S SO FUCKING OVER I WENT TO WORK ON LABOR DAY WHEN WORK IS CLOSED I SPENT $16 ON AN UBER FOR NOTHING AAAHHHHHH

Also: 🫵 You WILL have hope, comrade.

Have a great week, everyone! There's lots of work to be done for our movement, but we can't do it alone. Finding comrades in real life is immensely rewarding!

As always, communism will win.

I was at a pride march early sunmer and there was a "Iranian government protest" that I randomly came across. What made it clear for me that these 'protests' are influence campaigns by some other state were the music was pure AI (it sounded exactly like "we are charlie kirk"), a pride flag, a Israeli flag, and a Ukrainian flag. Waving a USA flag would have looked like it was in its natural habitat.

Seeing all the people holding lion and sun flags listening to an american AI song wailing about some bullshit and I don't know how anyone can believe these protests aren't orchestrated by some foreign government. There's nothing genuine about them!

Do you allow yourself to feel defeated from time to time? Like, "damn, being a communist is hard" or "this world sucks."

I have these moments, but I don't know if they are healthy or not.

(Thanks for the answers. I really appreciate them)

From Portugal! Festa Do Avante

I hope you all have a nice week :D

Gonna do some science as a vegan, sober person working a physical job. Trying to eat healthy and stuff. I wanna see how big you can get just by working and eating right. Aspiring to get a Soviet worker propaganda physique.

9/11 is the magical time of year I get to shake my ass at the yanks online who get pissy when the rest of the world anonymizes their lives like the do the rest of us 😜
Like... you've been killing this many people every 3rd week for 200 years bro idk what to tell you

The windows 10/11 comparison page is funny. They have a thing that compares features and one of the standout features they have for windows 11 compared to 10 is "Smart App Control provides a layer of security by only permitting apps with good reputations to be installed on your Windows 11 PC."

That is not a benefit unless I am, like... an elderly person whose mind is going and needs to be kept safe from myself. For most people, this is "you're too stupid to understand tech, we'll decide for you." It's infantilization at best, but more likely malicious matter of capitalist control. Fuck windows.

My mom's work friend is gay and Iranian and apparently he wants to go back to Iran cause he hates the states, I need to get this guy in contact with breakthrough news or something

The football team I support played Shaktar Donetsk tonight. It was surprising to see that they filled the entire 1600 persons away section despite their fans being either at war or scattered across Europe.

It was less surprising to see Azov banners.

I had a day out with my partner some days ago, it was nice. Although we're still figuring our relationship out, I can definitely say life feels a little more manageable since it started.

I dreamed someone was riding a log down a flooded river for fun with my kitten that was murdered, so that when the log rolled I lost her again. Very weird dream, but I had seen her pictures a day or so before and felt bittersweet, so I guess it makes sense.

I know this is an unpopular opinion, but i honestly hate the term "treats" and "treatlerite."

To preface, im not a fan of social democrats, especially in the global north.

But it just denigrates the actual analysis of why people align themselves with social democrats and why they might be popular in favor of this moralist caricature of "mwahaha i will vote for new hitler if hes offering me PS5's and chocolate" when in reality it's often more complex and conversely actually possible to do something. As with my criticisms of third worldism in general, it's only difference from orthodox marxism-leninism is that it gives up in the imperial core because of mechanical materialism. "Treats" and "treatlerite" is just adding a moralist tinge to it

So I just finished playing Baldurs gate 1 and 2.

Honestly i think if I played these games when they came out I wouldn't shut up about them. Like theyd be my Harry potter basically. Cause they still hold up [well about 90% of it does] decades later. I think id put them up with Deus Ex in terms of quality back then, although I think Deus Ex holds up a little better now.

I really like that the devs managed to pull off high level combat too. Even modern dnd struggles to deal with parties of level 20 players, and BG2 increases the level cap to 40. While some [like the imprisoned one and Abazigal] were a bit disappointing [not too much, just a bit short] because they were single targets [basically, if you have one big enemy, have your mages cast anti-defense spells like breach, ruby ray, spell strike, etc.], then a lot of their defenses go down and can be hit with melee and killed quickly. [Although I will note i got access to Carsomyr because i played a paladin, which made a lot of fights a lot easier because it dispels on hit]. Sendai and the final boss are honestly two of my favorite bosses in the entire saga.

I do have my criticisms [romances are the first time bioware ever did romances so theyre...okay, and annoyingly buggy. Like I legitimately had to access the console and change variables in order for Jaheira's to progress. BG1 makes you so squishy that I cannot see myself playing on higher difficulties, unlike bg2. Also I know this was due to a change in editions but I really appreciate cantrips making mages useful without their spell slots, since in bg1 a level 1 mage was basically dead weight. Lastly, i do wish they had the time to make Throne of Bhaal its own seperate game. Its actually baffling they were forced to rush that out as a dlc.]

Im gonna be moving on to BG3 now and, while it does mean im definitely late to the party there, I think having that connection to the first two games is definitely worth it

In the communist stage, how would inherently high demand but finite things be distributed? For instance, concert tickets for a popular music artist? Sure maybe fans arent so culty under communism than capitalism, but there will still probably be a higher demand for seats than there is supply. Would it just be first come first serve?

hunter biden dropping a memecoin is peak american politics

And I failed installing Linux. Won't boot past the Grub screen.

I'm so broke I had to cancel my gym membership, which is €45 a month. But tbf I never went although that was also because signing up for classes also cost money

God I fucking hate the refusal of some linux desktops (GNOME, Cosmic especially, I went from enjoying to absolutely loathing switching to it) to make it easy to make shortcuts for apps. Why the hell can't these people code an automated .desktop creator? Seriously.

Today was Brazil's independence day. I thought about being a little rebel and going to march into the parade but I really thought about how it isn't worth it to get shunned by my politics-averse cult. Maybe next year, if Brazil is still sovereign lol.

funniest meme to ever hit the internet is 3 days away from its first birthday. idk if anyone else will be celebrating but i will