#both nationally and internationally.

[deenbandhuchhoturamuniversity]

DEENBANDHU CHHOTU RAM UNIVERSITY (DCRUSM.ORG.IN) OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COURSE ADMISSIONS

The Deenbandhu Chhotu Ram University of Science & Technology is a renowned institution that is known for its excellence in the field of science and technology. With a strong emphasis on research and innovation, the university has been at the forefront of cutting-edge developments in various fields. Its state-of-the-art facilities and dedicated faculty provide students with a conducive environment for learning and growth. As a result, graduates from this institution have gone on to make significant contributions in their respective fields, both nationally and internationally.

Web Site:- www.dcrusm.org.in

[shatteredsnail]

so unfair of my body to give me intense anxiety over my final college decision coming today when it’s for a school i probably won’t even be able to afford

[txttletale]

I'm asking this genuinely, as a 19 yo with no education in economics and a pretty surface level understanding of socialism: can you explain the whole Bananas discourse in a way someone like me might understand? In my understanding it's just "This is just a product we can give up to create better worker conditions and that's fine" but apparently that's not the full picture?

alright so some pretty important background to all this is that we're all talking about the fact that bananas, grown in the global south, are available year-round at extremely low prices all around europe and the USA. it's not really about bananas per so--the banana in this discourse is a synechdoche for all the economic benefits of imperialism.

so how are cheap bananas a result of imperialism? first of all i want to tackle a common and v. silly counterargument: 'oh, these ridiculous communists think it's imperialist for produce to be shipped internationally'. nah. believing that this is the communist objection requires believing in a deeply naive view of international traide. this view goes something like 'well, if honduras has lots of bananas, and people in the usa want bananas and are willing to pay for them, surely everyone wins when the usa buys bananas!'.

there are of course two key errors here and they are both packed into 'honduras has lots of bananas'. for a start, although the bananas are grown in honduras, honduras doesn't really 'have' them, because the plantations are mostly owned by chiquita (formerly known as united fruit) dole, del monte, and other multinationals--when they're not, those multinationals will usually purchase the bananas from honduran growers and conduct the export themselves. and wouldn't you know it, it's those intervening middleman steps--export, import, and retail, where the vast majority of money is made off bananas! so in the process of a banana making its way from honduras to a 7/11, usamerican multinationals make money selling the bananas to usamerican importers who make money selling them to usamerican retailers who make money selling them to usamerican customers.

when chiquita sells a banana to be sold in walmart, a magic trick is being performed: a banana is disappearing from honduras, and yet somehow an american company is paying a second american company for it! this is economic imperialism, the usamerican multinational extracting resources from a nation while simultaneously pocketing the value of those resources.

why does the honduran government allow this? if selling bananas is such a bad deal for the nation, why do they continue to export millions of dollars of banans a year? well, obviously, there's the fact that if they didn't, they would face a coup. the united states is more than willing to intervene and cause mass death and war to protect the profits of its multinationals. but the second, more subtle thing keeping honduras bound to this ridiculously unbalanced relationship is the need for dollars. because the US dollar is the global reserve currency, and the de facto currency of international trade, exporting to the USA is a basic necessity for nations like honduras, guatemala, &c. why is the dollar the global reserve currency? because of usamerican military and economic hegemony, of course. imperialism built upon imperialism!

this is unequal exchange, the neoimperialist terms of international trade that make the 'global economy' a tool of siphoning value and resources from the global south to the imperial core. & this is the second flaw to unravel in 'honduras has a lot of bananas' -- honduras only 'has a lot of bananas' because this global economic hegemony has led to vast unsustainable monoculture banana plantations to dominate the agriculture of honduras. it's long-attested how monoculture growth is unsustainable because it destroys soil and leads to easily-wiped-out-by-infection plants.

so, bananas in the USA are cheap because:

the workers that grow them are barely paid, mistreated, prevented from unionizing, and sometimes murdered

the nations in which the bananas are grown accept brutally unfair trade and tariff terms with the USA because they desperately need a supply of US dollars and so have little position to negotiate

shipping is also much cheaper than it should be because sailors are chronically underpaid and often not paid at all or forced to pay to work (!)

bananas are cheap, in conclusion, because they're produced by underpaid and brutalized workers and then imported on extortionate and unfair terms.

so what, should we all give up bananas? no, and it's a sign of total lack of understanding of socialism as a global movement that all the pearl-clutching usamericans have latched onto the scary communists telling them to stop buying bananas. communism does not care about you as a consumer. individual consumptive choices are not a meaningful arena of political action. the socialist position is not "if there was a socialist reovlution in the usa, we would all stop eating bananas like good little boys", but rather, "if there's a socialist revolution in the countries where bananas are grown, then the availability of bananas in the usa is going to drop, and if you want to be an anti-imperialist in the imperial core you have to accept that".

(this is where the second argument i see about this, 'oh what are you catholic you want me to eat dirt like a monk?' reveals itself as a silly fucking solipsistic misunderstanding)

and again, let's note that the case of the banana can very easily be generalised out to coffee, chocolate, sugar, etc, and that it's not about individual consumptive habits, but about global economic systems. if you are donkey fucking kong and you eat 100 bananas a day i don't care and neither does anyone else. it's about trying to illustrate just one tiny mundane way in which economic imperialism makes the lives of people in the global north more convenient and simpler and so of course there is enormous pushback from people who attach moral value to this and therefore feel like the mean commies are personally calling them evil for eating a nutella or whatever which is frankly pretty tiring. Sad!

tldr: it is not imperialism when produce go on boat but it is imperialism when produce grown for dirt cheap by underpaid workers in a country with a devalued currency is then bought and exported and sold by usamerican companies creating huge amounts of economic value of which the nation in which the banana was grown, let alone the people who actually fucking grew it, don't see a cent -- and this is the engine behind the cheap, available-every-day-all-year-everywhere presence of bananas in the usa (and other places!)

[tamamita]

how is isis different from hamas?

Gonna make it easy and comprehensible:

ISIS or DA'ISH is a transnational terror organization consisting of Iraqi Baathists, former Syrian rebels or moderates, recruited fighters from all over the world, former US captives in Iraq, and oppressed and disenfranchised Sunnis. Wahhabi in nature, ISIS subscribes to the literalist tradition of Islam, based on a strict adherence to Tawhid (Islamic monotheism), rejecting the concept of intercession and saint venerations, seeing them as an act of idolatry. Their religious verdicts are based on the literal interpretation of the Qur'an and Sunnah, rejecting metaphorical exegesis. They aim to establish a global caliphate, seeking to eliminate anyone who opposses it regardless of religious or ideological differences. They see their cause as a hastening of various Islamic end time prophecies in their interpretation of Islamic eschatology. Like many Salafis, they reject Taqlid, which is to conform to one of the four schools of thought in Sunni Islam. On top of that, they reject religious innovations (Bid'ah), which is the idea that anything introduced to the religion without any religious basis is heresy. Whether it be practical or theological, they deem any Muslim who engage in Bid'ah to be an apostate or heretic. They are notorious for their intolerance of non-Muslims and application of Takfirism (excommunication) on Muslims, whether Sunni or Shi'a. Christians had to pay the Jizya (poll tax) in their territories, while in other cases, they were murdered, expelled and had their churches destroyed or converted. They have no tolerance for Shi'a Muslims and will kill them on the spot (see: Speicher Massacre), and have often targeted them with IEDs or suicide bombers. Non-Muslims, like the Ezidis or Ahlul Haqq, were often subjected to execution whereas their women and children were either married away, converted or used as sex slaves. DAESH is not interested in national liberation, seeing it as a blasphemous innovation. DAESH does not consider Hamas to be Muslims due to struggle for national liberation which is supported by Iran and various Shi'i proxies.

Hamas is a political and military resistance group that consists of Palestinians. After the failures of the Oslo accord, Hamas broke away from PLO and formed their own political party. They either subscribe to the Shafi'i school of thought or some form of Ikhwani Salafism (Salafism as envisioned by the Muslim Brotherhood). They're a semi-governmental power in Gaza and are responsible for upholding the social and civil institutions, such as hospitals, schools and etc. Hamas' specific aim is localized and seeks to destroy the Zionist entity in order to form a one-state solution under an Islamic emirate or Islamic democracy. Their only enemy is Israel and any of its allies. As of the Hamas charter of 2017, they do not have an intolerance for non-Muslims or people of different religious and ideological comportments, as seen by them holding ties with both Shi'a and Socialist militias, such as Hezbollah and the PFLP/DFLP. Hamas is concerned with the national liberation of Palestine and the Palestinians. Being an entirely localized resistance group, they do not engage in global jihadism like ISIS nor do they carry out attacks internationally.

[nyancrimew]

Do you think your race/nationality may influence on the consequences of hacking? Or like how far you can even get?

I'm asking because I very rarely see a "prominent" hackitvist that's not white European/USA

it is definitely a factor yes, especially with me, like the only reason im free rn is because switzerland doesn't extradite citizens. but another very big part of it is that to become a widely prominent hacktivist (and as with many other things) you either need to do things western media cares about or get in trouble with the law big time (in the west), which also usually implies being in a country that actively works together with primarily the US or other empires that actively and publicly work against hacking and hacktivists. there are lots of hacktivists in asia and latin america (specifically phineas fisher here also being a popular figure, who is believed to be in latam and has yet to be caught) as well especially (also elsewhere ofc but i dont know of as many), but they are either doing hacktivism within their communities which are usually not internationally that news worthy, or are out of reach enough for the US empire to never get unmasked.

in a lot of ways being a popular hacktivist as an individual is actually moreso a failing in staying safe from consequences by either you or people you work with (see in the history of lulzsec and most of the now well known anonymous figures in the US) or a conscious choice done out of the knowledge that you'll be relatively safe/recklessness. but i definitely feel like international (social) media bias towards western interests is also just a very big part of why you will mostly only ever hear of (assumed) white european/american hacktivists.

and also just as a quick closing note, i would not say that (even white) people in the US or the US sphere of influence are safe from consequences due to hacking in any way, the US is one of the strictest countries when it comes to persecuting hackers and goes to long ways to be as cruel as possible, and especially so with hacktivists. this goes so far that in the 2020 counterintel report the US government put hacktivists/leaktivists on the top 5 biggest threats to the US government, which is ofc both a honor (and shows it works and scares them) but is ofc also scary as fuck. it is this big spectacle they make out of persecuting hackers and making examples out of them that also leads to more of the very distorted prominence of western hackers.

[trans-axolotl]

today is international whores' day!

"On June 2nd, 1975, over 100 sex workers began an 8-day occupation at the Saint-Nizier Church in Lyon, France. They demanded the end of fines, stigma, police harassment, and the release of ten sex workers who had been imprisoned a few days earlier for soliciting. This occupation was initiated to call attention to the increasing violence against sex workers perpetrated by the French government. It was widely reported both nationally and internationally, receiving support from labor and feminist organizations alike. On June 10th, after 8 days of occupation, the police forcibly removed the women from the church, but their impact marked the start of an international movement." - History, IWD LA

today (and every day) is a good day to learn from sex workers about decriminalization, our activism, and how to support us.

check out the Sex Work Syllabus from the Support Ho(s)e Collective and donate to their ongoing mutual aid campaigns.

read Girls do what they have to do to survive by the Young Women's Empowerment Project.

Donate to SWOP Behind Bars to support incarcerated sex workers.

get involved in harm reduction and decrim activism in your local community.

support the sex workers in your life!!

[doyoulikethissong-poll]

Alcazar - Physical 2004

"Physical" was released in late 2004 by the Swedish nu-disco group Alcazar as part of the promotion of the Dancefloor Deluxe compilation. The song was based on a sample of Londonbeat's 1990 hit "I've Been Thinking About You". The song failed to chart Official Singles Chart in Sweden, but managed a #3 placing in Finland. The video was filmed in and around London's Soho area when the band were in the UK performing at G-A-Y Astoria.

Alcazar is one of Sweden's most successful music groups both nationally and internationally with a string of hits since their debut single in 1999. They had success globally in 2000 with their song "Crying at the Discoteque", having charted in USA, Brazil, Australia, Japan and most countries in Europe. Alcazar disbanded in August 2011 after a concert at Stockholm Pride. They reunited again in 2013 before disbanding again in 2018. They have since only reunited occasionally.

"Physical" received a total of 44,9% yes votes.

[psychotrenny]

It’s fucking insane to me how normal Yankee Liberals are about Hawaii. As in like the way they just treat it as an unremarkable fact that their nation controls the island. Like the annexation of Hawaii wasn’t just any old example of Settler-Colonialism, the subjugation of a decentralised non-urbanised people that could be just dismissed as mere “tribes” or what have you. Not to say that such forms of “typical” Settler Colonialism are any less abhorrent or disgusting, just easier to justify from a Liberal point of view. Easier to claim that they weren’t *really* using the land properly or that they were an hopelessly and eternally backwards who only really benefitted from their conquest or that they were doomed and dying anyway and their fate was a mere tragic inevitability not worth dwelling on or… Point is all these arguments are all wrong and stupid and cruel but they can serve well enough to downplay or justify such atrocities in the eyes of Imperial Core Liberals.

But like with Hawaii you don’t have that. The Kingdom of Hawai’i was a sovereign state that was internationally recognised as such by the Great Powers of Europe even at the very height of Western Imperialism. Literacy rates were high and compulsory education was introduced in 1841 (pre-dating the US by 77 years), healthcare was given to all Hawai’ian subjects free of charge, Christianity was dominant (so even the most ardent Imperialist couldn’t claim that the people were in the thrall of some “barbaric superstition” that necessitated the “civilising influence” of empire) and it had a well-developed Capitalist economy dominated by Sugar production.  Like even if we take the Western model of statehood as the be all end all of what separates the civilised from the savage (to be clear hear you really fucking shouldn’t, but many people do so for a second that’s the frame of reference we’ll employ) then Hawai’i was very much unambiguously the former.  But that didn’t stop the US from shamelessly interfering it’s politics Indeed those aformentioned markers of Western-Style “civilisation” and “development” came with the price of allow US missionaries and investors to settler in the islands and become very wealthy and influential. For decades the US used the threat of force to influence the policy decisions of the kingdom, going as far as to regularly send warships in a classic display of “gunboat diplomacy”. In 1887 a US settler militia called the First Honolulu Rifles staged a coup where they forced Kalākaua to accept a new Constitution that heavily favoured the interests of USamerican settlers who had grown very wealthy through their investment in sugar production on the island.  It stripped the Monarchy of much of its power and introducing requirements for voting that heavily favoured US settlers; re-introducing wealth/property requirements that were now higher than even, allowing resident aliens to vote and just outright banning any Asian immigrants from voting (which at that point had as much to do with plain racial hatred as it did to any acting threat they might have posed). This wasn’t enough for the Yanks and 6 years later a group of 13 US settlers known as the “Committee of Safety” outright overthrew the newly crowned Queen Liliʻuokalani when she refused to co-operate. It existed briefly as an “Independent” USamerican dominated republic before the US government decided to official annex it in 1898 (similar to what you saw with Texas or California).

While incredibly controversial at the time due to both strategic concerns with the annexation of ultramarine territories and some level of outrage at the shameless take-over of a sovereign nation (hence the time gap between the coup and the actual annexation), nowadays Yanks enjoy their control over the island without the slightest care in the world. They even turned it into a tourist destination, a heavily romanticised one that not only receives many millions of visitors every year but is constantly mentioned in the popular culture the US then proceeds to export all over the world, literally revelling in their land that is by literally any definition (even the most nakedly pro-imperialist) stolen. The land itself is severely exploited to the point of significant ecological damage, the indigenous peoples too are exploited as many of them live in poverty while US investors grow wealthy from their land and labour. Even their very culture is stolen and monetised, the most marketable parts bastardised into cheap kitsch and the rest of it left to rot, only kept alive through over a century of continued resistance from the indigenous peoples. It’s a very common story of course, but I think it stands out with how utterly ghoulish it is even under the most Liberal of consistently applied worldviews. It would be like if in say 2007 someone set up Disneyland in Bagdad. And yet by the vast majority of the US (and by extension the vassals states whose view of the situation is filtered through the lens of US media and propaganda) it isn’t seen that way. Hawaii is just the 50th state, the only state outside North America and in the tropics (hahaha ain’t that a neat little fact. Geography is so fun J), an island paradise perfect to visit with the whole family and yet still as American as Apple Pie. Even many self-described “progressives” talk about it in this way, at most mentioning the plight of the indigenous Hawaiians with minimal though as to how this situation came about. Like while the story of Hawaii is far from unique; even in terms of the US doing colonialism to Westernised peoples you examples such as the ethnic cleansing of the Five Civilised Tribes from the Eastern USA, it still stands out to me with the sheer level of international recognition and Western-style development that the Kingdom of Hawai’i possessed. Like it’s just such an obvious example of the naked greed at the heart of the USamerican empire, and how utterly bullshit talk of a “civilising mission” and “spreading democracy” is. No matter what they may claim, no matter what excuses they may trot out, Imperialist rapacity has no limits.

[determinate-negation]

we need a cultural revival of diaspora internationalism. zionism is a dying, violent vision, and one that purposefully swept away many remnants of diaspora european jewish culture right after hitler. but still there is an incredible jewish intellectual and political tradition of opposition to zionism, opposition to both nationalism and complete assimilation. its a tragedy that so many of its most radical and original and productive thinkers, politicians, artists were killed or had to flee, but to me its a greater tragedy to accept their murderers and persecutors verdict on history: that we are alien body in the places we live and antisemitism is an unchangeable fact. this is the premise of zionism however. but as many other central european jews have argued, the paradox of jewish history in all its complexity, assimilation along with the refusal to abandon jewishness, and the conditions of the diaspora in general, are precisely what connected jews to revolution and critique. with zionism weve become connected to nationalism and imperialism

[thesiltverses]

Out of curiosity, just how unstable/stable would the Peninsula be following the Glottage Incident? Not going to go into specifics about it to avoid spoilers. I'm working on a thing for the RPG set after it, and wanted to see what the showrunners thought would happen.

Oh, that sounds really cool!

Personally - although of course this is no more canonical than any other bozo's opinion - this is what I imagined would happen to the Peninsula after the events of the show (spoilers below the cut)

Assuming that there are no wild cards from the stuff we deliberately left open-ended (i.e. that the polluted winds aren't going to sweep east across the entire Peninsula and render it uninhabitable)...

With Carson and Val gone, a whole lot of load-bearing lies are likely to come crashing down very quickly. The remnants of the CLS government will be able to publicly declare that the Peninsula only won the war with the help of a highly illegal rhetorical god who murdered civilians, committed countless war crimes, and threatened to unravel reality. Likewise, the High Adjudicator's sex coma was already on the verge of being an open secret, and his private plane flying out of Glottage then crashing in the west is only going to lead to more searching scrutiny about just what the hell was going on there.

If the Peninsula was ending the war in a strong position, all of this might not matter - but with Glottage in tatters, a power vacuum, a decimated population, and the war's outcome looking less like a heroic victory and more like an internationally-condemned and chaotic embarrassment, I imagine the remaining Adjudicators would be pivoting frantically to become peace-loving, harmonious and sustainable-sacrifice types, with the condemnation for the war being unceremoniously heaped on Carson and the High Adjudicator's shoulders in their absence.

As a result, I can see Shrue (with their history of anti-war speeches) being quickly re-embraced and co-opted, maybe even actively canonised as a saintly figure by the newly-pacifistic political establishment - because after all, wasn't their speech really raging at the wastefulness, lies, and corruption of certain politicians? We should all have listened to them earlier.

I can't see the Parish being publicly acknowledged as the true perpetrators of the Glottage attack, however - it's far more politically useful to state that Val must have been responsible (because then the people of the Peninsula are also victims of Carson's lies and his horrific terrorist-saint run amok, we all suffered equally, and we can all just draw a line under this tragic affair.)

The lasting winners of the power vacuum are likely to be the major international faiths, which can quickly position themselves as neutral mediators and peacemakers between the leaderless CLS and Peninsula, while swooping in to play a more active role in both nations' governance.

All of that scandal and upheaval would also undoubtedly continue to energise the Woundtree / anti-sacrificial movement across the country which might even find a legitimate foothold in mainstream thought, but the ideological risks to that movement (being neutered or softened or co-opted) would be greater than ever.

So...definitely highly unstable, I'd imagine, but with no shortage of players rolling in from the wings, just as before, to try and transform all of this into a nice, simple, tutelary story of saints and scapegoats.

[ireadyabooks]

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[apas-95]

Couldnt it be argued that the US is still a slave republic? Domestically, there is slave labor through the prison system, human and labor trafficking, and only a few decades ago, if at that, systems such as convict leasing, share cropping, and debt peonage. Internationally, there is also the fact that for conflict minerals, coffee, chocolate, and other commodities, a portion if not the majority of it is sourced from slave labor.

The use of slavery in and of itself doesn't constitute the slave-society stage of production. Slavery continues to exist under feudalism and capitalism, but not as the driving force of society as in the ancient slave republics. Politically, in the modern USA, it is the bourgeoisie that are in power; and economically, it is the exploitation of waged labour (much of it overseas) that is the basis of production.

Further, slaves in the US are owned either by the state, in state prisons, and leased to private companies; or owned by large companies directly in private prisons. The individual or smallholder ownership of slaves was done away with in the USA's previous civil war: carried out between the industrial haute-bourgeois of the developed north, and the agricultural petty gentry of the southern hinterland. Slaves in the US today are the exclusive property of the bourgeoisie, through their corporations or bourgeois state.

While large amounts of raw materials are sourced through slave labour, as are agricultural goods, slave labour in the broadest sense is not applicable to industrial production of the type required by modern capitalism - if for nothing else than reasons of profitability. The slave labourer is effectively themselves human capital, part of the machinery bought wholesale - while they still effectively carry out labour, they fundamentally do not produce surplus value in the same manner as a wage-worker; it is necessary for their food and other reproductive labour to be given to them without cost, in the same way one carries out maintenance on equipment - whereas a wage-worker is only purchased and employed as capital for the duration of the workday, and then is responsible for their own food, housing, and reproductive labour. The principal exception to the use of slave labour in industrial production (which already has an exceedingly high fixed-capital cost compared to agriculture) is in the historical case of fascism, where primitive accumulation and war industry led to conditions favourable to industrial slave labour, which was carried out en-masse by e.g. German industrial syndicates using concentration camp labourers.

While the earlier USA, as a settler nation, made heavy use of both slavery and primitive accumulation, this was necessarily a historically-contingent process, one carried out by the European empires precisely because the Americas had not been 'brought up to' the level of social contradiction they had. Slavery's profitability necessarily fell as the USA industrialised, and remains now only in certain key industries like agriculture and military production. Historically, again, the movement to make slavery a profitable general venture in the era of capitalism is the fascist movement, which attempts generally to replace the proletariat at large by mobilising the higher strata upwards, into petty-bourgeois smallholders (e.g. wehrbauern), converting the middle strata into slaves, and exterminating the lower strata - a movement that fundamentally requires both large swathes of cleared land as well as mass depopulation, due to the lower population density such an essentially backwards mode of production can support. Ultimately, it is a project doomed to failure, due to the impossibility of turning back history - but one the bourgeoisie are inevitably driven to attempt when capitalism starts nearing the end of its profitability.

In the USA, historically, the exploitation of indigenous nations and external colonies has provided a source of profit and primitive accumulation that has rendered a genuine fascist movement effectively unnecessary, despite the middle-class yearning for it, but these systems are themselves drying up, and the US, while not a slave republic, will soon start attempting to fashion itself into one by carving up its population.

I hope this has answered your question, thank you for writing in!

[mesetacadre]

What might decolonization in the US after a successful socialist revolution look like? Would there be one big government still? A sort of union of socialist republics? Something else entirely? Honestly I don't know how to ask.

Post-revolutionary decolonization (and realistically, the only kind of meaningful decolonization that is ever happening) in the US is a complicated matter given the relative success of the USAmerican genocidal project. The native population is 1.1% of the total population as of the 2020 census, this means that unlike in other, incomplete, settler projects such as the Sahrawi Republic or Palestine, it isn't feasible to restore the relation of the native population to the totality of the country. Regardless of population proportions though, the main focus of socialist decolonization is the struggle against any conflict between nationalities by removing the economic basis of that antagonism, which would then allow to also begin to remove the cultural elements that reinforced that dynamic of oppression. The focus is not to create more landlords but native, it's to remove the structure around private property in general, and make sure every worker, native or otherwise, receives as is needed. Taking into account the already relative dispossession of native people even before a pre-revolution context, there will have to be a great effort to bring the conditions of native people at the same level of non-native people.

Regarding the form of the new state, this will evidently depend on the form of the US state as the revolution happens. In other countries this would not be such a pressing question, but given the role and strength of the USAmerican bourgeoisie, it's not hard to believe that for any revolution to take place, the US state would need to be considerably weakened. Keeping this in mind, the strategy followed by all hitherto socialist revolutions is to not further fragment the new state. Given the complexity of navigating the construction of the first elements of a socialist economy, with the simultaneous effort needed for security, it would be both counterproductive and hypocritical to explicitly seek the independence of a portion of the population, as a part of the political program, it would be taking two steps forward and one step back. The communist revolution is national in form, because it happens within the structure of the capitalist state, but it is also international in content, because it explicitly repudiates the division of the proletariat along national lines.

We must understand that nationality, as much as it is relevant today and as much as it influences the course of history, is a byproduct of the development of capitalism, and that since it arose from the infrastructure to justify and protect it, it will also have to seize to exist and be replaced with proletarian internationalism for the duration of the transition to socialism-communism. Keeping this in mind, it would be hypocritical and regressive to, after taking control of the state and beginning the transition away from capitalism, to then turn around and divide the working class of the new country into even more national categories than they already are divided into.

The early USSR is a good comparison because of the sheer quantity of national diversity contained within the bounds of the corpse of the Tsarist Empire. The policy of the bolsheviks was neither of Russian supremacy or of immediate splintering into hundreds of nation states. Even during the very complicated and desperate context of the civil war, Finland was allowed its independence without much fuss from the CC, even if they were immediately incorporated into the German sphere via Von Mannerheim. When the 1936 constitution was being discussed, it was Stalin himself who went against the wishes of many bolsheviks to prevent the republics from gaining independence if they wished. No republics requested this however, because the oppressive mechanisms of capitalism and feudalism that had kept them under the Tsar's thumb for centuries had been replaced with an economic system that assured the equal development of all peoples within the USSR. The USSR itself was also not absolutely centralist, and the many constituent republics had varying degrees of autonomy, reflecting in some aspects the structure of democratic centralism.

I don't think the answer is to replicate the USSR, of course. The context and general state of things are very different, but there are lessons to be learnt from this successful, albeit flawed, tackling of the national question. Again though, we can't really speculate on the way that the US will look right before a revolution, and consequently the structures and problems a revolutionary government will have to start from.

[mossadspypigeon]

As a late comer to some of the nonsense, can you explain or point to something explaining what watermelons have to do with Palestine? Asking google "what the fuck do watermelons have to do with Palestine" was not a productive search. Where did that come from?

hello anon! yes indeed i can. this is gonna be a long post, so buckle in lmao.

so the main and simplified reason the watermelon is used (and i'll get into some more complex stuff and context because both are important to understand with this) is because red/black/green represent the PLO flag, which is known as the "palestinian flag."

now, i don't know if you know who the PLO are, so:

(this notice to include secondary sources is so faulty btw. this is based on primary sources written BY the plo, which removes bias of interpretation)

i recommend reading this wiki page at least and clicking on the sources for more information. it isn't as bad as some wikipedia pages and it can provide a good introduction.

now, the PLO is an internationally recognized terrorist org. it split into numerous factions, including yasser arafat's "fatah." fatah controlled groups like black september, which committed the munich massacre and also murdered the king of jordan.

the PLO itself has committed numerous acts of terror, including the hijacking of the Achille Lauro. terrorists who hijacked this ship shot and tossed a disabled jewish man in a wheelchair named Leon Klinghoffer overboard, etc. so no, they are not a resistance group. this act was sponsored and supported by arafat.

if you want to know more about their bullfuckery, which i recommend, read their charter here.

okay, now moving on to the flag:

you've probably noticed that the red/black/green/white thing is a motif used by several countries. this is because of "pan arabism."

rootsmetals did some good posts on arabization:

the specific colors have meanings, and those meanings are either religious or secular. the religious and secular connect though. let's take a look. i'm going to use arab sources without commentary on any biases:

on the other hand:

so. we know about the flag's history and its meaning. we know what it represents. now, let's go into the whole "watermelon" thing:

the reason it's used depends on who you ask. if you ask the pro palestine crowd, the watermelon is used in place of the "palestine flag" due to "censoring" and "silencing."

this goes back to the propaganda that israel banned the palestinian flag. israel DID NOT ban this flag legally, but it did have it taken down because...guess why? why would israel want the flag of the plo not flown? it's like flying a kkk flag in the usa, that's why.

yes, you have freedom of speech in israel, but it has its limits. those limits are hate and incendiary speech. the plo flag is a symbol of hate based on the charter and acts of the plo itself. also, fatah/the palestinian authority, which currently governs the palestinian section of the west bank/judea samaria and east jerusalem still pays terrorists who murder jews and israelis and are imprisoned. sooooo you can guess why the flag was taken down, but here is some of the propaganda:

the lack of sources in this article lmao.

again, hilarious lack of sources.

if you ask the pro israel crowd, it's an appropriation of a very zionist crop and a symbol of decolonization.

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if i find more sources on this, i will do another post.

but yes, the watermelon emoji is used because "the internet silences palestine," which is hysterical, considering google favors palestinian sources and most major news networks employ either palestinians or palestinian allied supporters.

and of course, tiktok and the rest of social media won't remove antisemitism, but will constantly ban jews and israelis. hence why finding sources on the jewish history of the watermelon is difficult.

anyway. hope this helps. <3 if you're comfy, definitely dm me sometime if you want to discuss things and/or get sources.

@matan4il do you happen to have any sources on the israeli/jewish/zionist history of the watermelon? if you do, it would be so appreciated.

[daisydoesfanfics]

|Simple Things|

Neuvillette x fem!reader

Description: A domestic lifestyle is not something Neuvillette imagined himself to have, but he wouldn't trade it for anything.

Genre: Romance & fluff

Warnings: None (lowercase intended)

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the chief justice is a well-known figure, not only amongst those who live fontaine, but also internationally. he holds a reputation that he is quite proud of, especially since everyone sees him as an honest and reliable man. the name "neuvillette" never falls on deaf ears, instead turning heads rather quickly. neuvillette had always prioritized his job and his duty to protect his nation- nothing will change that. but that doesn't mean he does not have other desires or responsibilities.

because admist the quiet neighborhood, in the comfort of his home lives two people who hold a special place in the iudex's heart. his wife and his daughter, his two angels. he does everything in his power to come home at exactly 6:00 p.m. every night. the thought of seeing his beloved girls' smiles greeting him as he walks through the door is something he always looks forward to.

today is no different. he had finished his work early tonight and decided to surprise you and his daughter. he stopped by at the nearby cafe, picking up cinnamon rolls for you, a muffin for his little girl, and a slice of cake for himself. he pays for the sweets and bids the young girl at the counter a polite 'goodbye' as he exits the store and hurriedly walks home.

as he gets to the porch of your house, he reaches into his pocket, grabbing his keys and carefully unlocking the door. the moment he enters, the smell of dinner being made and the sound of laughter fills his senses. he smiles softly to himself as he hears his daughter's muffled voice. "honey, i'm home!" he calls out, walking over to the kitchen where he catches you singing a sweet tune to your daughter, her eyes sparkling up at you. neuvillette sneaks up behind you, his arms snaking around your waist as he presses a kiss on the side of your head. "hello, love." you turned to face him, wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling him in for a quick kiss. his smiles against your lips, his hands giving your waist a slight squeeze.

the moment was interrupted as your daughter lets out a loud sound of disgust, making the both of you laugh and pull away from each other. neuvillette lets go of his hold on you, walking over to the cheeky girl who sat on the kitchen counter. he effortlessly picked her up in his arms, giving her forehead a little peck. "fleur missed you a lot. she kept asking when you were coming home." you chuckled. "did she now?" he asked in a teasing tone. fleur nodded, giggling as she nuzzled her head into her father's chest. "i missed you too. both of you." neuvillette's voice was soft and tender, full of love. he turned to look at you, admiring the simple way you stirred the soup. something about the way you moved seemed so enchanting to him. you placed the ladle down, striding towards them. "i'm glad you're home." you whispered, staring into neuvillette's eyes. he moved fleur into his left arm, using his right to hold you by your shoulders, gently pulling you into an embrace.

no one saw this side of neuvillette. and he'd rather keep it that way. not because he was ashamed, but because only his family could make him feel this way. his life has been full of stress, hundreds of years of judgement. but when he's in your arms, everything seems to fade away. he never understood the way humans lived their lives. now he knows, and he also knows that there's no place he'd rather be than at home. he's aware of the fact that he'd outlive the both of you, eventually losing you both. so for now, as much as possible, he tries to live every minute to its fullest. and no matter how old he gets, his family will remain in his memories for eternity.

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A/N: Hi, yes I'm still alive and thriving. I have no idea why the end became slightly angsty tbh. And this is a bit short but I'm just indulging in my current Neuvillette fixation. This was also not proofread so sorry about that. I missed writing so much honestly. Quick side note, idk if dragons can have children with humans but let's just say they can☺️

[pixiesfz]

hey! could you maybe do a sam kerr x matildas!reader where sam and reader get into a huge fight before a game and refuse to talk to eachother, but then during the game reader gets hurt really badly and it absolutely terrifies sam causing her to just snap out of it and comfort the reader, feeling really guilty about their argument

when I saw this request I had just been dreaming of the best not cringe and actually like valid argument that doesn't put either reader or Sam in the right.

give up? s.k

plot: Though you and Sam play internationally together you play in Barcelona for the champions league but Sam casually brings up a contract for you in the WSL which leads into a fight and then a very messy game.

warning: angst, swearing, stubborn people, blood, injury, LONG

It was known that your contract with barca was coming to a close, many people thought you would stay and you would if it wasn't for girlfriend.

You're loving girlfriend Sam Kerr who isn't just your fiancé but also your national captain.

You grew up together as you were both called up to almost all ages of the Matilda's camps. "annoyingly slowly" Caitlin says you two realised your feelings for each other before you got your first signings out of Australia.

You were scared when she went to America that you would have to break up but somehow the two weeks of Australia camps every three months held you two threw it.

So Sam knew you were the one for her and you knew you could never imagine loving someone more than you loved Sam.

So last year when she flew up to Barcelona 'secretly' (mapi accidently told you) to propose you said yes immediately.

Jessie played in London and you in Spain it was an unspoken problem that the two of you rarely brought up but it hurt every time you had a bad game and couldn't crawl into Sam's arms.

A phone call wasn't enough.

So Sam started talking around to WSL leagues secretly and vouching for you, you didn't need vouching though managers would dream for a defender like you, you were clean and patient with Umpires.

You still gloated on how you had never received a red card ever.

You loved Barcelona and the girls that you played with you had many memories there, you helped Alexia with English sometimes in interviews when she was confused, she mainly picked you for partners when doing Media duties so you could help her with anything.

Mapi had even once convinced you to get a matching tattoo with her, just a small one under your boob of a cartoon like soccer ball with your number next to it.

Barca had been amazing for your career, you won a lot. Which you loved but you never had Sam to celebrate with as she was in London.

Moving to a different club would be a hard decision and Sam was at her high at Chelsea being one of the captains, you weren't a captain but you couldn't help the selfish intentions that came over you.

Sam had been having conversations with clubs such as Arsenal but also her own.

Emma didn't deny when Sam said you would be a great fit in the team and you and Millie defending together would practically be a brick wall.

But she didn't say anything until the first night of your last tillies camp of the year.

It was dinner and you were all sitting with the 'trio', Steph, Katrina, Hayley and her three children.

"What are you doing about your contract?" Mackenzie asked you as you looked down at your plate and played with your pasta "uhm-"

"Chelsea's keen on her" Sam piped up and you quickly turned your head to her, you went to say something but Steph beat her to it "I heard Jonas talking about how she's going to the WSL" she teased and you shot her a confused look which she didn't see.

Alanna made comments about man city as Mackenzie did West Ham but you looked down.

You hadn't made any choices.

You and Sam hadn't talked about it.

Did she expect you to just drop your career?

You were quiet for the rest of dinner before finishing quickly and going up to your shared room with Sam.

"Did I say anything bad?" Alanna asked as she was the last to speak "no" Sam said and looked at her food "I'll go check on her" she said before following after you.

You were in the shower when Sam came in, your thoughts were clouded by questions.

A knock sounded at the bathroom door when you got out "babe?" Sam called out "Can I come in?" she asked and you shook your head "no"

"why not?" she asked and you started to get changed "cause I'm naked"

"Oh c'mon I've seen you naked before"

"I'm not in the mood for jokes" you called before zipping your (sams) Jumper up and walking out, brushing past Sam's shoulder.

"Alanna thinks she said something, are you okay?" she asked and stepped forward to you.

"How did Jonas apparently know I was interested in the WSL if I haven't made any decisions yet?" you asked and Sam stopped walking "I- I don't know" she said and you rolled your eyes "you do know!"

Sam slumped "Okay I may have been telling teams in the WSL that-"

"That I what?, want to leave my team of seven years? Sam we haven't even talked about what I should do, this isn't something that you do alone" you said, using your hands dramatically, something Sam noticed you do when your serious.

"You never want to talk about it!" Sam shot back "every time I bring it up you talk about something else"

She was right but you were too angry to realize that at the moment.

"What so you go behind my back?" you scoffed "Sam this is my career do you expect me to drop it so I'm with you!" you yelled and Sam stood back "well do you not want to be with me?" she asked softly and you groaned "of course I want to be with you but you don't seem to mind the fact that this change will only effect my career"

"I'm sorry I actually want to be able to sleep in the same bed as my fiancé for more than two times a month!" Sam yelled and you shut your eyes before storming towards your bag.

"What are you doing?" Sam asked "Grabbing my stuff and going to Steph's room before I say something I'll regret" you say as you packed your bag.

"What like maybe how we shouldn't get married?" Sam said sternly as the tears that you had been holding rose to your eyes, you froze, your back towards Sam.

You zipped up your bag before you turned to Sam who look defeated.

"yeah" you sniffed "exactly that".

You didn't mean it and neither did Sam.

When you left the room and closed the door you sobbed, your brain screamed at you to go back and to kiss Sam as hard as you ever had before and apologies.

You would move to any club for her.

You would do anything for her.

When you reached Steph's room, she didn't question why you were crying, just held you as you cried into her arms.

In the morning of the game you woke up feeling like shit, your eyes were puffy and red and there was a note on the door from Steph saying she would bring up breakfast up for you.

You smiled at your friends kindness and got dressed into your kit before going into the bathroom and trying to get rid of any signs of the tears that melted your skin the night before.

You wondered if Sam felt the same way.

When Steph walked down stairs for breakfast Sam perked up from the corner of the room, expecting to see you but Steph shook her head at Sam and instead grabbed two of everything so she could bring it back up to you.

"You look shit skipper" was all Mackenzie said as she patted Sam's shoulder.

When you and Sam finally saw each other in the morning was when you were getting into the bus but luckily Katrina's eager toddler was adamant on sitting with you on the bus.

"Why have you been crying?" Harper asked you in a sweet tone as you sat at the back with her "I said something bad to someone I love" you admitted and Harper snuggled into you which you accepted.

You didn't see how Katrina and Sam were watching you together at the front of the bus.

"What did you do?" Katrina asked and Sam crossed her head "I can't talk about it right now"

You fell asleep with Harper cuddling you pretty quickly as you lacked sleep from how long you had been up crying.

Katrina was the one to wake you and Harper as Harper cried up to her mum "No matter how many times I cry to you mummy I still love you!" Harper yelled as she snuggled into her shoulder, Katrina looked at you, a knowing look in her eye.

"That's okay bubba. People say mean things when they're upset sometimes, even to people who they loved."

You sighed as you smiled at the older woman 'silently' thanking her.

You didn't talk to Sam before the game started, you knew she didn't like to have big chats before going on the field even if her mind was screaming to go up to you and apologies.

You felt off, you didn't feel the butterfly's that you felt in the tunnel as you usually did but instead you felt dread.

You tried breathing in and out but nothing was helping and Sam was at the front of the line so you couldn't see her.

You needed her to tell you it was okay.

You were playing Canada and they were out for revenge because of the World Cup, they wanted to send off their captain with a win.

It wasn't until the 45th minute until it happened.

The ball was in Canada's square and Cloe Lacasse had kicked the ball as hard as she called as Mackenzie ran up and blocked it but the ball went past her fingertips and almost into the goal until you ran and jumped, your foot in the air as you kicked it into the opposite direction.

Well at least you hoped it did, all you could see was black.

The stadium fell silent as they watched your head connect with the goal post, players near you hearing the smack that had sounded out when you collided.

Sam was on the other side of the field when it happened.

Her breath hitched as some players looked at her in sorrow as she watched her fiancé, the love her life, the called 'princess' of Australia bash her head against the metal post.

She'd never felt herself move so quick in her life as she ran towards you, any memory of last night gone as she saw your body on the floor.

You were stirring awake when Sam reached for you "baby?" she asked, grabbing onto your hand as the medics arrived, you didn't reply your head was stuck in the air as your eyes travelled around frantically, you heard your thoughts too loudly.

'tell her you're okay'

but you couldn't.

So when the medics brought out something to cover the bleeding on the side of your head, Sam let her tears drop out "I didn't mean what I said last night" she said in tears but you only squeezed her hand before the medics took you off.

It wasn't until after the game, Sam didn't congratulate any of the Canadians and didn't interact with any fans, she went straight into her car and drove to the hospital that you had been taken to.

She waited in the waitiing room for twenty minutes which felt like two hours until a nurse walked out.

"y/n y/l/n"