Comradeship // Freechat rubpoll • Now • 100%

Come read about Loukanikos the Riot Dog

en.m.wikipedia.org

>Loukanikos (Greek: Λουκάνικος: "the sausage loukaniko"), initially named "Theodor", was a Greek riot dog that participated in almost every anti-austerity protest in Greece. He was commonly known for joining protests, barking at police, helping in street battles with the Greek police as well as participating in anarchist rallies and picket lines, at least since December 2008. Loukanikos had a reputation of being fearless, usually being in front of the protests and having tear gas thrown at him multiple times. He was active throughout all Greek protests and often leading the protesters towards the police. Initially a stray, he moved from building to building, but was said to have preferred to be on the streets. He was groomed and cared for by multiple left-wing organizations. Good Dog 

news rubpoll • Now • 100%

US TSMC plant faces calls to ban Taiwanese workers

9to5mac.com

The Taiwanese company is treating American workers they way they treat their Taiwanese workers (terribly), the company only wants to import Taiwanese construction workers because they don't trust the Americans, and now Arizona may ban TSMC from importing more workers because this whole thing was pitched as a jobs program. Some Arizonans who applied to work on this fab have indicated that TSMC is so distrustful of the local labor force that they are requiring some roles to relocate to Taiwan for 6-12 months for on the ground training, and offering below market rates for the privilege. TSMC is also very infamous for forcing all of their workers to work very long hours for low pay. They’ve convinced Taiwanese workers that working for TSMC is a national duty, so they’re able to pay their engineers far below market rate. They couldn't have picked a drier and cheaper state to set up shop in, and it was for the almost entirely un-unionized construction industry. And *still...*

chapotraphouse rubpoll • Now • 100%

The Antifada Episode 17: The Working Class Goes to Hell w/ Matt Christman and Virgil Texas

Posting this episode because the plot of "Gung Ho" (1986) [is basically happening all over again, with the US TSMC plant.](https://9to5mac.com/2023/08/07/us-tsmc-plant-petition/) The Taiwanese company is treating American workers they way they treat their Taiwanese workers (terribly), the company only wants to import Taiwanese construction workers because they don't trust the Americans, and now Arizona may ban TSMC from importing more workers because this whole thing was pitched as a jobs program. Some Arizonans who applied to work on this fab have indicated that TSMC is so distrustful of the local labor force that they are requiring some roles to relocate to Taiwan for 6-12 months for on the ground training, and offering below market rates for the privilege. So if you haven't heard it, here's The Antifada episode where  and  talk about Gung Ho. >In this very special Antifada offering, Andy, Jamie and Sean are joined by your favorite sons: Matt Christman and Virgil Texas of Chapo Trap House. >Gang begins by addressing the central questions of our hyper-digital age: what if God friended you on Facebook? Is QAnon just a benign hobby for bored Boomers? And, holy shit, what if GOD WAS QANON? >Matt, Virgil and Jamie reveal - for the very first time - their respective political tendencies. Everyone marvels at how high-T Jeb(!) managed to lose the primary despite the PR coup of offering a poorly branded guaca bowle. >Crew get knee-deep into Paul Schrader's 1978 classic "Blue Collar" starring Richard Pryor, Yaphet Kotto and Harvey Keitel's genitalia. How does this movie about struggling union autoworkers help us understand the 70s as more than just bad hair and bell bottoms? (C.f. Jefferson Cowie's "Stayin' Alive" and the upcoming "Chapo Guide to Revolution: A Manifesto Against Logic, Facts and Reason") >How did the "Golden Age" of US capitalism break down? How the hell did we end up in neoliberal hellworld when the 70s saw the most massive wildcat strike wave since the 30s? Why can't we return to decadent late social-democracy complete with coke benders, shag carpets to bang across, crushed velvet noodie posters and modernist chairs made to look like cocks'n'balls? Ugh. >After the depressing grind of Blue Collar, Matt suggests we lighten the mood with "Gung Ho" (1986) starring Michael Keaton. What's more uplifting after watching a film about declining racial solidarity among the US working class than one that uses stereotypes about the Japanese for cheap yuks? What's more laughable than watching a town full of autoworker rubes look to a washed up high school jock to solve their employment crisis? >In a startling twist, the entire crew turns on the American working class as the indolent, entitled chuds they are: you will all wear Ribbons of Shame in the highly disciplined and sadistic Japanese-dominated future! >Luckily, this week's viral wildcat video by a Hero of Socialist Labor saves us from going full MAGA. Spoiler: in the end our various tendencies are synthesized into Antoine Dangerfield Thought.

science rubpoll • Now • 100%

The ruling class isn't leaning into UFO nonsense for justifying military spending, they've realized we need a new opiate of the masses.

>The UAP phenomenon implies the existence of a superhuman authority that humans must submit to. By appealing to this authority, whether directly or by allowing the subject to suppose such an arrangement must exist, human power structures are able to reclaim the theological principle of a will and aims beyond human understanding. In doing so, all acts of inhumane violence, elite tomfoolery, and evidence for the invalidity of moral and ethical justifications for enshrining power in our existing institutions become handwaveable and invite the subject to these acts and arrangements to engage in the storytelling aspect of social mythmaking that is starkly lacking in the post modern global secular state order. - Any_Pilot6455 on the truanon sub. So, in regards to the explanation for this UFO shit being "the military wants more money", I kept going "but the military can get all the money it wants, without making up nonsense about aliens". ... but I didn't consider a nascent desire for the ruling class to bring back a hightened religious fervor, as an opiate for the masses. In this God is Dead world, where even the overtly religious don't sound convinced of their beliefs, the ruling class needs human beings to stop thinking that human beings are in charge of human beings. They need a new God to blame for everything. Capitalists would much rather we blame aliens for our miseries instead of capitalists. The ruling class would much rather have us believe they're just as powerless in the face of an omnipresent God-Thing / Alien-Thing, then to believe they - the wealthy and powerful humans - really are in charge, and that our miseries are the result of their choices and actions / inactions. So much of our government and economy revolves around offloading responsibility for bad things. One party can blame the other party, one branch of govt can blame another branch, the feds can blame the states, the states can blame the feds, ceo's can blame weak regulations, regulators can blame voters, voters can blame non voters. How nice it would be for the people in charge if we all just collectively blamed aliens, while simultaneously assuming there's nothing we can do about it.

marxism rubpoll • Now • 0%

Bill Burr explaining the Labor Theory of Value to Conan O'Brien

www.youtube.com

more or less

fitness rubpoll • Now • 100%

Body Feminizing Workouts for Trans Women and Femmes (Part 2) — WUSSY Mag

www.wussymag.com

Very helpful. 🍑 Link to part 1 is near the top.

earth rubpoll • Now • 0%

Derrick Jensen: “Civilization is Not—and Can Never Be—Sustainable”

dgrnewsservice.org

PREMISE ONE: Civilization is not and can never be sustainable. This is especially true for industrial civilization. PREMISE TWO: Traditional communities do not often voluntarily give up or sell the resources on which their communities are based until their communities have been destroyed. They also do not willingly allow their landbases to be damaged so that other resources—gold, oil, and so on—can be extracted. It follows that those who want the resources will do what they can to destroy traditional communities. PREMISE THREE: Our way of living—industrial civilization—is based on, requires, and would collapse very quickly without persistent and widespread violence. PREMISE FOUR: Civilization is based on a clearly defined and widely accepted yet often unarticulated hierarchy. Violence done by those higher on the hierarchy to those lower is nearly always invisible, that is, unnoticed. When it is noticed, it is fully rationalized. Violence done by those lower on the hierarchy to those higher is unthinkable, and when it does occur is regarded with shock, horror, and the fetishization of the victims. PREMISE FIVE: The property of those higher on the hierarchy is more valuable than the lives of those below. It is acceptable for those above to increase the amount of property they control—in everyday language, to make money—by destroying or taking the lives of those below. This is called production. If those below damage the property of those above, those above may kill or otherwise destroy the lives of those below. This is called justice. PREMISE SIX : Civilization is not redeemable. This culture will not undergo any sort of voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of living. If we do not put a halt to it, civilization will continue to immiserate the vast majority of humans and to degrade the planet until it (civilization, and probably the planet) collapses. The effects of this degradation will continue to harm humans and nonhumans for a very long time. PREMISE SEVEN: The longer we wait for civilization to crash—or the longer we wait before we ourselves bring it down—the messier the crash will be, and the worse things will be for those humans and nonhumans who live during it, and for those who come after. PREMISE EIGHT: The needs of the natural world are more important than the needs of the economic system. Another way to put Premise Eight: Any economic or social system that does not benefit the natural communities on which it is based is unsustainable, immoral, and stupid. Sustainability, morality, and intelligence (as well as justice) require the dismantling of any such economic or social system, or at the very least disallowing it from damaging your landbase. PREMISE NINE: Although there will clearly someday be far fewer humans than there are at present, there are many ways this reduction in population may occur (or be achieved, depending on the passivity or activity with which we choose to approach this transformation). Some will be characterized by extreme violence and privation: nuclear Armageddon, for example, would reduce both population and consumption, yet do so horrifically; the same would be true for a continuation of overshoot, followed by a crash. Other ways could be characterized by less violence. Given the current levels of violence by this culture against both humans and the natural world, however, it’s not possible to speak of reductions in population and consumption that do not involve violence and privation, not because the reductions themselves would necessarily involve violence, but because violence and privation have become the default of our culture. Yet some ways of reducing population and consumption, while still violent, would con- sist of decreasing the current levels of violence—required and caused by the (often forced) movement of resources from the poor to the rich—and would of course be marked by a reduction in current violence against the natural world. Personally and collectively we may be able to both reduce the amount and soften the character of violence that occurs during this ongoing and perhaps long- term shift. Or we may not. But this much is certain: if we do not approach it actively—if we do not talk about our predicament and what we are going to do about it—the violence will almost undoubtedly be far more severe, the privation more extreme. PREMISE TEN: The culture as a whole and most of its members are insane. The culture is driven by a death urge, an urge to destroy life. PREMISE ELEVEN: From the beginning, this culture—civilization—has been a culture of occupation. PREMISE TWELVE: There are no rich people in the world, and there are no poor people. There are just people. The rich may have lots of pieces of green paper that many pretend are worth something—or their presumed riches may be even more abstract: numbers on hard drives at banks—and the poor may not. These “rich” claim they own land, and the “poor” are often denied the right to make that same claim. A primary purpose of the police is to enforce the delusions of those with lots of pieces of green paper. Those without the green papers generally buy into these delusions almost as quickly and completely as those with. These delusions carry with them extreme consequences in the real world. PREMISE THIRTEEN: Those in power rule by force, and the sooner we break ourselves of illusions to the contrary, the sooner we can at least begin to make reasonable decisions about whether, when, and how we are going to resist. PREMISE FOURTEEN: From birth on—and probably from conception, but I’m not sure how I’d make the case—we are individually and collectively enculturated to hate life, hate the natural world, hate the wild, hate wild animals, hate women, hate children, hate our bodies, hate and fear our emotions, hate our- selves. If we did not hate the world, we could not allow it to be destroyed before our eyes. If we did not hate ourselves, we could not allow our homes—and our bodies—to be poisoned. PREMISE FIFTEEN: Love does not imply pacifism. PREMISE SIXTEEN: The material world is primary.This does not mean that the spirit does not exist, nor that the material world is all there is. It means that spirit mixes with flesh. It means also that real world actions have real world consequences. It means we cannot rely on Jesus, Santa Claus, the Great Mother, or even the Easter Bunny to get us out of this mess. It means this mess really is a mess, and not just the movement of God’s eyebrows. It means we have to face this mess ourselves. It means that for the time we are here on Earth—whether or not we end up somewhere else after we die, and whether we are condemned or privileged to live here—the Earth is the point. It is primary. It is our home. It is everything. It is silly to think or act or be as though this world is not real and primary. It is silly and pathetic to not live our lives as though our lives are real. PREMISE SEVENTEEN: It is a mistake (or more likely, denial) to base our decisions on whether actions arising from them will or won’t frighten fence-sitters, or the mass of Americans. PREMISE EIGHTEEN: Our current sense of self is no more sustainable than our current use of energy or technology. PREMISE NINETEEN: The culture’s problem lies above all in the belief that controlling and abusing the natural world is justifiable. PREMISE TWENTY: Within this culture, economics—not community well-being, not morals, not ethics, not justice, not life itself—drives social decisions. Modification of Premise Twenty: Social decisions are determined primarily (and often exclusively) on the basis of whether these decisions will increase the monetary fortunes of the decision-makers and those they serve. Re-modification of Premise Twenty: Social decisions are determined primarily (and often exclusively) on the basis of whether these decisions will increase the power of the decision-makers and those they serve. Re-modification of Premise Twenty: Social decisions are founded primarily (and often exclusively) on the almost entirely unexamined belief that the decision-makers and those they serve are entitled to magnify their power and/or financial fortunes at the expense of those below Re-modification of Premise Twenty: If you dig to the heart of it—if there is any heart left—you will find that social decisions are determined primarily on the basis of how well these decisions serve the ends of controlling or destroying wild nature.

North Koreans built this statue. Mansudae Overseas Projects is a construction company based in Jongphyong-dong, Phyongchon District, Pyongyang, North Korea. It is the international commercial division of the Mansudae Art Studio. As of August 2011, it had earned an estimated US$160 million overseas building monuments and memorials. As of 2015, Mansudae projects have been built in 17 countries: Angola, Algeria, Benin, Botswana, Cambodia, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Germany, Malaysia, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Senegal, Togo and Zimbabwe. The company uses North Korean artists, engineers, and construction workers rather than those of the local artists and workers. Sculptures, monuments, and buildings are in the style of North Korean socialist realism.