#western bloc

[gingerswagfreckles]

Not really loving how my post about the left's love affair with eugenics and blood and soil ideology framed as "decolonization" got coopted into another "wait it's all Christianity??" "It always has been" post." Y'all are sticking your heads in the sand if you think this is a problem with "cultural Christianity." This is the exact same pattern we saw play out in the 1979 Iranian revolution and much of this ideology was coopted from the Nazis by the Soviets and reframed as progressive. This is not an issue with Western "cultural Christianity" and it would be great if Jumblr could stop engaging in the same "there's actually one secret root cause of every problem in the world and if we get rid of it we will have utopia" thing that antisemites have been using against Jews for 2000 years.

[leeenuu]

well well well, look how the tables have turned

[fotos-art]

Ghost forest, Nienhagen, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany

© mauritius images GmbH

Alamy

[springsteens]

if you have never been afraid that the leader of your country’s government opposition might get assassinated, then you’re privileged and I don’t even want to discuss any politics with you

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Although some countries had embraced lobotomy earlier, it was only after World War II that psychosurgery made a global breakthrough and spread across Africa, Asia, Oceania, North and South America. In Europe, this post-war surge in its use was not always welcomed with unadulterated enthusiasm. Greece introduced lobotomy in 1947 but the number of referrals was limited. Indeed, most Greek hospitals stopped performing lobotomies in 1951 “because of reports on the dangers of the operation and its unpredictable outcome for the patients.” The last of around 300 operations in the country was carried out in 1955. Psychosurgery was not widespread in neighbouring Turkey either. Approximately, 400 operations on psychiatric patients were performed there— the first in 1950, the last before the end of the decade.

Attitudes were mixed in several Eastern European countries, too. In Russia (the USSR), journals published articles on lobotomy in 1936, and followed up three years later with reviews of Freeman and Watts’s early works. Soviet reviewers were disturbed by the serious complications and high mortality rates reported by Freeman and Watts and concluded that there were “insurmountable obstacles” to recommending the use of lobotomy. None were attempted in the Soviet Union prior to 1944. Although psychosurgery was performed on patients after the war, it was only on a small scale. The precise number is unclear, but according to historian Benjamin Zajcek, a rough estimate based on available documentation suggests 5–600. Soviet psychiatrists did not all agree about lobotomy. Some viewed it as a treatment of “last resort,” and justified its use on the grounds that it helped make patients more manageable in hospitals and allowed some to return to work. Others questioned its efficacy and the theory behind it. During the late 1940s, these debates within Soviet psychiatry became politicised. In 1950, the Soviet Minister of Health signed a decree banning lobotomy. The decree stated that the treatment did not meet the standards of Soviet medical practice, because it was “theoretically unjustified” and “contradicts the fundamental principles of I. P. Pavlov’s physiological theory."

The picture was similar in other Eastern Bloc countries. Poland stopped the operation in 1951 (although it was not banned outright). The Polish critique of psychosurgery was based more on studies of Polish patients, who had derived little benefit from the operations, than on theoretical principles. As Kinga Jeczminska notes in her detailed study of the history of lobotomy in Poland: “the most important factor influencing the attitude of researchers to this method was the analysis of clinical psychiatric symptoms rather than theoretical orientation.” In total, just over 170 patients were lobotomised in Poland.

Psychosurgery seems to have been more widespread in Hungary, where the first operations were performed in Budapest in 1946. Two years later, 173 operations were conducted at six clinics and hospitals around the country. However, Hungarian psychiatrists remained somewhat reticent about the procedure. One article stated, “Prefrontal lobotomy is a method of last resort, and should be performed only after failure of other well-known treatments and prolonged illness."

In Spain, lobotomy was introduced at the National Asylum of Leganes in 1944, and well-known Spanish psychiatrists such as Juan José López Ibor promoted the surgical method. In 1948, Ibor reported on 60 lobotomies on inmates from his neuropsychiatric clinic in Madrid, including patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

The idea of psychosurgery as a last resort also permeated articles from German- and French-speaking countries. In Austria, the first lobotomies were performed in Vienna in 1947. The total number is unknown, but historian Marietta Meier estimates around 500. In Switzerland, more than 1,200 operations were carried out between 1946 and 1971. 

Far more operations were performed in France where there were close ties between neurosurgeons and psychiatrists. Many of the early French neurosurgery pioneers like Pierre Puech, Marcel David, Jean Talairach and Jacques le Beau took up lobotomy and experimented with new techniques too. Historical works on French psychosurgery are lacking, but evidence suggests a high level of activity in France. According to a recent study on the history of psychosurgery in Paris, approximately 20,000 operations were performed in France in the period 1946 to 1976.

Like their French peers, British psychiatrists were enthusiastic about lobotomy. A major report on psychosurgical interventions in England and Wales concluded that more than 12,000 such operations were performed in the years 1942–1954. From 1948 onwards, the number exceeded 1,000 per annum. The report examined data on 10,365 patients. The authors concluded that “up to 1955 leucotomy was for most patients the last therapeutic resort beyond which lay a future with almost no hope of recovery and with considerable suffering,” and that “the survey shows that there was greater improvement than would have been expected without surgery.”

In some European countries, psychiatrists often claimed that they placed stricter requirements on indications than in England and the United States. Articles by Belgian, German, Austrian and Swiss doctors emphasised that psychosurgery should be a last resort, reserved for patients who had spent prolonged periods in hospital, and for whom all other treatments had failed. They also noted that their colleagues in England and the United States did not share this belief, as in these countries there was a more “indiscriminate use of the treatment.”"

- Jesper Vaczy Kragh, Lobotomy Nation: The History of Psychosurgery and Psychiatry in Denmark (Springer: 2021) p. 219-222.

[eccentrickleptomaniac]

ok fuck a lore post what if ostpolitik never happened and the eastern and western blocs never stopped existing because the berlin wall never fell

[szczekaczz]

i'm glad i decided to take this class on masculinity in ruslit because 1) i never perceived masculinity in any positive light nor thought about it deeply in general and being open to new concepts is the most important thing in life 2) the professor talks about the theory of literature in a really interesting way + i'm always hyped for comparing things from the "first" and the "second" world

[xtruss]

Fyodor Lukyanov: Contrary To Western Claims, The BRICS Has An Ideology And Here’s What It Is

The South Africa summit showed how the non-Western bloc will evolve over the coming years

— By Fyodor Lukyanov, the Editor-in-Chief of Russia in Global Affairs, Chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, and research Director of the Valdai International Discussion Club | RT | August 30, 2023

A banner depicting the logo of BRICS is seen during the 15th BRICS Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa © Sputnik International

Speaking at the end of the BRICS summit in Johannesburg, last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reassured those wondering what the acronym would sound like after the addition of six new letters: "Everyone is in favour of keeping the name the same, it has already become a brand". Whether he knew it or not, the diplomat had made an important point. The brand has taken on a life of its own, even though as an entity it no longer exists.

has given way to a new form. Continuing the metaphorical theme, we can say that the BRICS of the original model have transferred the franchise to another creation.

Until this month, BRICS was a group with the possibility of transforming itself into either a more or less structured organization or instead becoming a free-form community. The second option was chosen.

BRICS enlargement has been talked about for a long time. But discussions seemed pointless because there were no criteria for it to happen. The structure is deliberately informal, with no charter, procedures or coordinating bodies. Thus, classic diplomacy has been at work – with direct negotiations, without the involvement of international institutions – to reconcile national interests. The only platform where decisions are taken is at meetings of the leaders of the member states, and if they agree amicably it works. This is how the new states were invited — it was discussed and decided.

Of course, the selection caused confusion — why them, what is the logic? But there was none, it was just agreed.

This is a momentous event. It is not about the number and quality of the host powers, but about the choice of development model. Until now, BRICS has been a compact group whose members, for all their differences, have been united by their ability and willingness to chart an independent course, free from external constraints. There are few states in the world that can boast of this — some lack sufficient military and economic potential, and others already have commitments to other partners. But the five more or less fit the bill. For this reason, BRICS was seen as a prototype of a structure that would be a counterweight to the G7 (behind which there is a rigid Atlantic unity). Hence the expectation that BRICS would deepen and institutionalize interaction by creating common structures and gradually become a unified force on the world stage.

But such calculations were unfounded. Not so much because of the differences between the countries, but because of their size, which does not imply self-restraint for the sake of anyone, including like-minded people. The idea of giving BRICS a clear anti-Western bias was also incorrect – with the exception of Russia, no member now intends to pursue antagonism with the West. All in all, the BRICS-5 would have remained a promising and very symbolic prototype without the prospect of becoming a working model.

The forthcoming BRICS-11 – and beyond – is a different approach. Enlargement is hardly compatible with full-fledged institutionalization, because it would be too complicated. But there is no need for that; the expansion of the community's borders is now self-evident. Criteria are not essential. So what if Argentina or Ethiopia are in debt and have almost none of the things that were originally considered to be the hallmarks of the BRICS? But they, and probably some other candidates in the next wave, are expanding the sphere of non-Western interaction.

The other parameters are conditional.

China is the main proponent of enlargement. The new configuration is convenient for a power that promotes the slogan of an unspecified "common destiny" without commitments. The BRICS franchise is more in line with global trends than the previous type of BRICS. A rigid framework is unpopular; most countries in the world want a flexible relationship with maximum scope so as not to miss opportunities.

This new approach is acceptable to Russia. It is unrealistic to turn BRICS into a battering ram against Western hegemony. But it is in Russia's interest to expand the sphere of interaction by bypassing the West and gradually creating appropriate tools and mechanisms. In fact, it is in everyone's interest, because hegemony no longer warms anyone's heart, it only limits opportunities.

Success is not guaranteed; enlargement may lead to the automatic addition of new countries on a formal principle. But in general, the soft separation of the West and the non-West is an objective process for the coming years.

Thus, the popularity of the BRICS franchise will grow.

[mesetacadre]

As someone from an ex-socialist state [Yugoslavia/Serbia] I've been wondering, how come class consciousness is arguably as weak as in western states? The generation that built communism has perished, "boomers" vote for the current neoliberal bloc, while generation X was mostly anti communist, and now anti government. Was 45 years too short of a time to create strong foundations? Were the attacks of capitalism, and the "failures" and collapse of communism just that effective that people gave up?

You have to keep in mind that an important part of the process of the destruction of socialism in Europe was a massive operation by NATO to fund fascists, reactionaries, and to introduce an image of capitalism which revolved around limitless consumption. In many ways, the citizens of the socialist states helped to bring about that destruction because their only image of capitalism had been restricted to what the defensive intelligence efforts of the socialist states and this propaganda work from the capitalists allowed. Only once their entire countries were sold off, their schools and jobs closed, and a greater economic shock to that of the fascist invasion of the USSR was imposed (and a destructive and genocidal war forced on Yugoslavia), did people really see what capitalism is, too late. But the narrative created around this shock was completely spun around by the capitalists who controlled what was left or the socialist education systems and media, and placed the blame of this collapse on socialism. This is how it is Stil taught in capitalist schools, that it was somehow the fault of socialism for the effects of its destruction. That, and a simultaneous diminishment and normalization of the misery that fell on ex-socialist Europe. The slav is naturally poor, prone to prostitution and depressed, you see?

But what little mass consciousness could be built in 45 years (in the scale of societies, this is very little time) was confused from all angles. The new governments also played a role, positioning themselves as the opposition to the west, when all of them originated from the conspiracy that created the very same misery they now so graciously saved their citizens from, as well as leaning very hardly on narratives of the liberation of their nation and culture. Keep in mind that it has now been 33 years since 1991, and 35 since 1989. It is a comparable amount of time to the existence of socialism in most places in Europe.

Iirc, The Triumph of Evil mentions how the socialist peoples of Europe were lied to about capitalism. I haven't read it yet but I think Socialism Betrayed will also have some of the answers you're looking for, same with The Shock Doctrine

[gardengnosticator]

i love when western think tanks try to tackle the concept of socialist nostalgia in ex-socialist/eastern bloc nations and they go "oh well a majority of this is ironic because everyone KNOWS society is better off now" and just blatantly avoiding the fact that life for the majority was better and most people are just missing like... healthcare and a solid education system

[thenewsthaturdead]

friendly reminder that if ur a communist get off my blog or i will block u <3

didn't want to reblog it directly since I don't wanna start drama but

[reasonsforhope]

Also, content-lock-free link. [Technically it's not a paywall but it is annoying]

Keep pressuring Western governments. This is proof that it can work.

--

"Canada will halt future arms sales to Israel following a non-binding vote in the house of commons. The foreign affairs minister, Mélanie Joly, told the Toronto Star her government would halt future arms shipments. “It is a real thing,” she said on Tuesday [March 19].

The decision follows a parliamentary motion, introduced by the New Democratic party (NDP), that called on the governing Liberals to halt future arms exports to Israel. The New Democrats, who are supporting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s minority government, have expressed frustration with what they see as his failure to do enough to protect civilians in Gaza.

The motion – which passed 204-117 with the support of Liberals, Bloc Québécois and the Green party – also called on Canada to work “towards the establishment of the state of Palestine.""

-via The Guardian, March 19, 2024

[mariacallous]

The spectacularly rapid fall of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and his regime is the Middle East’s 1989. Like the fall of the Berlin Wall, this weekend’s end of 54 years of Assad family rule signals an earthquake in the regional order—with tremors that will be felt for decades to come. Just as 1989 was marked by a series of falling dominoes in Poland, Hungary, East Germany, and elsewhere, the collapse of the Syrian regime is part of a chain of events, including Israel’s decimation of Hezbollah, Iran’s loss of its most potent proxy forces, and the weakening of Russia due to the war it started in Ukraine.

And just as 1989 marked the end of communism in Europe, Assad’s flight to Moscow signals the demise of the ideology of anti-Western, anti-Israel resistance in the Middle East. For more than half a century, the Assad family was the backbone for a political order in the Middle East in which a bloc of states styled themselves as the resistance to what they labeled Western imperialism and Zionism. The appropriation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict proved to be a powerful tool to mobilize the masses across the region who wanted justice for Palestinians—sentiments that the Syrian regime and its allies instrumentalized to distract from their domestic failures, oppress their own people, and extend their regimes’ regional influence. In reality, these regimes cared little about the Palestinians.

Within this bloc, Syria and Iran believed they had entered a mutually beneficial and durable alliance—and each thought it had the upper hand. Syria was crucial for Iran because it was the heart of the land bridge between Iran and its most valuable proxy, Hezbollah in Lebanon, while Syria saw alignment with Iran as increasing its own stature against Israel and bolstering its influence over Lebanon.

For Iran, the ideology of resistance was an indispensable tool to rally support from Arabs and Sunnis as Tehran vied for dominance in the Middle East. As the leaders of a self-styled Axis of Resistance, the clerics in Tehran were able to supplant the old ideology of pan-Arab nationalism, as espoused by the Syrian Baath Party and others, and ultimately dominate several Arab countries through well-armed proxies. The Assad regime ignored this challenge even as Iran manipulated the Baath Party to serve Tehran’s own objective of achieving regional dominance. For example, Iran presented Hezbollah to Syria as an ally when Hezbollah’s primary purpose was to support exporting the Islamic revolution.

The Syrian uprising of 2011 and the war that followed shifted the balance of power toward Iran, which intervened to prop up the Assad regime. Most consequentially, Tehran summoned Hezbollah to support the Assad regime against the Syrian rebels.

In the course of the Syrian war, the country moved from being a partner to a client of Iran. A much-diminished Assad regime was now dependent for its survival on Iran and its proxies, including Hezbollah and Tehran-controlled militias from various countries. In other Middle Eastern states, including Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen, Iran’s proxies consolidated their status as dominant political and military actors. Iran increased its investment in them as its outer lines of defense and tools of geopolitical influence.

Iran’s rise and dominance as a regional power came to define an entire era of Middle Eastern politics. Across the region, most countries either were under direct Iranian influence via the country’s proxies or were forced to configure their foreign policies around the threats posed by Iran. The Gulf Arab states, for example, ended up pursuing de-escalation with Iran to stave off the instability caused by its activities.

The United States, other Western countries, and Israel did not like this Iran-dominated order, but they tolerated it. They saw it as lower risk compared with the unknown forces that sudden political change in Iran or Syria could unleash. This Cold War-like arrangement with a confrontational status quo made Damascus and Tehran feel confident in their power vis-à-vis the West and its allies.

U.S. disengagement from the Middle East under the Obama administration paved the way for Russia to insert itself into the regional order. When Iran and its proxies showed themselves unable to prop up the Assad regime on their own, Moscow saw the Syrian war as a low-cost opportunity to reclaim its status as a global power and arbiter of the region. Russia’s substantial naval and air bases in Syria also served as critical logistical centers for Moscow’s expanding military operations in Africa.

For almost a decade, Russia thus became a major actor in the Middle Eastern cold war. Russia, Iran, and the rest of the Axis of Resistance appeared to form one bloc, while Western allies such as Israel and the Gulf Arab countries formed another. But Russian support for Assad was little more than a transactional partnership, and Russian-Iranian relations were never frictionless. From the beginning of Russia’s military intervention in Syria, it sought to undermine Iran’s influence in the country so that Russia remained the dominant actor.

The Iranian regime, in turn, was concerned about the challenge that Russia presented to its influence in Syria. Yet Tehran had no choice but to remain in Moscow’s orbit, regarding its influence over Syria as a small price to pay in return for gaining a powerful backer for its Axis of Resistance.

Tehran presented Hezbollah and the Assad regime to the Iranian people as a worthy investment: the front line of resistance to Israel and the crown jewels of Iran’s regional clout. Tehran needed to reassure Iranians that the economic sacrifices and political isolation that its support for Hezbollah and Assad generated were not in vain. Otherwise, Tehran argued, Iran would be under threat of erasure by Israel and the United States.

The collapse of the Assad regime has jolted this dynamic to an abrupt stop. Russia’s abandonment of Assad—and by extension, Iran’s project in Syria—creates additional rifts in Iran’s already shrinking network of proxies. The Iranian leadership will struggle to justify to its people decades of investment in Syria that have gone down the drain in a matter of days.

Standing alone without Syria and Russia in the face of a still-strong Western-backed bloc, the regime in Tehran will be revealed to its people as having imposed a futile sacrifice that not even its nuclear program can redeem. This poses a serious risk to the survival of the Islamic Republic—potentially the biggest fallout of last week’s events.

The repercussions of Assad’s collapse will also ripple across Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen as Iran’s proxies find themselves without an important lifeline. In Lebanon, in particular, the political dynamics set off by Israel’s decimation of Hezbollah are likely to accelerate with the loss of the all-important land bridge for weapons supplies from Iran. The sudden vulnerability of an already weakened Iran also means that Tehran’s remaining proxies may doubt the reliability of their patron.

The domino effect of the collapse of the Assad regime will inevitably mean the end of the Iran-dominated regional order. Replacing it will be a regional order dominated by Israel and its partners. Israel has shifted its perspective from an uneasy tolerance of Iran’s influence in the Middle East to actively seeking an end to this status quo and has succeeded in practically neutralizing the biggest threat to its security, Iran. Israel will move from being a state surrounded by adversaries and clawing at regional legitimacy to becoming the Middle East’s agenda-setter. Enjoying good relations with both the United States and Russia also makes Israel a key player in ending the cold war in the Middle East.

For the Gulf Arab countries, Iran’s degradation as a destabilizing actor also bolsters the implementation of their economic visions. The defeat of Iran’s revolutionary project will pave the way for widening the scope of normalization between Arab countries and Israel on the basis of shared business, political, and security interests. This recalibration will likely push Turkey to act more pragmatically in the way it engages with the region.

The anti-Western ideology nurtured by the Syrian Baath Party for 54 years and successfully appropriated by Iran blossomed for decades but is rapidly withering. Just as the Cold War ended with the defeat of communism, decades of confrontation in the Middle East will end with the defeat of the resistance ideology.

[3liza]

I'm glad western streamers have been gettinto indie games from Russia and Asia, especially horror games since horror is such a communicative genre and says so much about cultural mores, but I wish these cavalier white dudes would have a little more curiosity about the foundations of the imagery and neuroses the games are communicating with. whenever I see or play games from outside my home culture I'm always desperately curious about what I'm MISSING as a white American and it's always so satisfying and educational when I am able to have it explained to me or if I can look it up, even though I know I can only perceive it as an outsider. just stuff I'm ignorant about, like for some recent examples I can remember, stuff like Buddhist funeral objects or symbolism, Japanese vowel order, Russian Orthodox convent history, apartment layouts and community organization in Soviet housing blocs, uhhh let's see what else. candle and food symbolism around death and traditional forms of ghosts in the Philippines. customs and uses of, and gender issues around, communal bath houses in rural Japan. that kind of thing. i really really miss the few years where you really could type any of those topics into the Google search bar and usually get some kind of factual information written by humans. it's not impossible to look stuff up anymore but I can't express how easy it used to be.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Androgen levels and chromosomal make-up have been among the markers that sporting bodies have used to ensure ‘fair competition’ in the female division. There is a long history of ‘gender testing’ in sport. From 1958 to 1992, all women Olympic athletes (except for Princess Anne, who was granted an exemption when she competed in 1976) were required to have their gender ‘verified’ by a chromosomal evaluation. Blanket tests have since been discontinued, but the IOC may still require athletes competing in the women’s division to undergo assessment if they are suspected to have an ‘unfair and disproportionate’ advantage over their competitors. It is no surprise, and certainly not a coincidence, that non-Western athletes have been unfairly and disproportionately targeted by eligibility rules. Compulsory gender testing was instituted as a result of Western European and US athletes being outperformed by their Eastern bloc competitors during the Cold War. Western media accused Eastern athletes of not being true women and threatening the integrity of their sports. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, all the athletes who have been banned or restricted from competing internationally as women (that we know about; it’s supposed to be confidential) have been from the Global South.

[...]

Those of us who are concerned about the reactionary weaponisation of gender might do better to rethink rather than cement our commitment to the category of womanhood. We should ask what being a woman means, how womanhood is defined, and against what (and whom) womanhood is ‘defended’. Instead of insisting that Khelif is a ‘real’ woman, we should ask how dichotomous ideas of gender have been solidified in the discourse that is being mobilised against her. We should interrogate the colonial roots of medical accounts of female and male embodiment, and the construction of femininity through (and conflation with) whiteness. We should listen to athletes whose womanhood is doubted not only because of their outstanding athletic performance, but because their bodies are at odds with Western notions of femininity. In 2009, when Semenya was banned from competing for eleven months after winning the 800m at the World Championships in Berlin, the head of South African athletics asked: ‘Who are white people to question the make-up of an African girl?’

14 August 2024

[read-marx-and-lenin]

Hiii how would you respond to the ""argument"" that some people make that: when the Berlin Wall fell, which way did people go? impling that those on the communist side were eager to go over to the capitalist one. Thx

West Germany had been bribing people with gifts and money to cross even before the Wall fell. The first impressions of West Germany were very good indeed, but by the time you were able to see past them, it was much more difficult to go back if you were a member of the majority of people who didn't find success and wealth on the other side. And once the Wall fell, the path back was cut off permanently. The capitalists made sure to excise every remnant of socialism with top-down neoliberal economic reforms while people were still high from the end of travel restrictions and an influx of shiny consumer goods. The people were told they'd be given democracy and they thought that meant they would get the chance to reform socialism, but instead the West pumped their billions into the pro-Western "Alliance for Germany" led by the CDU, organizing under the banner of "nie wieder Sozialismus", and the communists were suppressed in Germany once again, with the major leaders of the SED imprisoned. Poverty, unemployment, homelessness, depression and suicide all rose in East Germany just like in every case of Eastern Bloc countries subject to "economic shock therapy", and it was never the result of popular democratic decision-making. German reunification was a case of the Western capitalists seizing control of the East for their own profit at the expense of the people's wellbeing. They were effectively punishing the East for daring to have been socialist in the first place, to the point where East Germany is still poorer than West Germany despite reunification.

That's why people might have felt the desire to move west, but most people stayed in their hometowns for the same reasons anyone would. The majority of the older generations in the East still have a positive view of the Communist period (dubbed "Ostalgie" by the West, to imply that it's all just nostalgia and never a sober comparison), and Die Linke, the direct descendant of the SED, still gets a bigger share of the votes in the East than in the West. If we're supposed to believe that people who lived through this period all know better than to support socialism and that only privileged Westerners who were never there could ever think communism is a good thing, then surely the opposite should be true and Die Linke should be more popular in the big Western cities full of liberal arts majors and transgender baristas, right?