SweetLava [he/him]

In study.

  • 4 Posts
  • 32 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: September 24th, 2022

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  • we are constantly moving closer and further away from socialism, at least since the French Revolution (which we didn’t get to see the full results and aftermath of until the Scramble for Africa and World War I, and the later post-WWII neocolonialism).

    the conditions are already present, too, from Kenya and Swaziland, to Cuba and Mexico, to Palestine and Syria. I can’t name any continent sans Antarctica that has failed to produce some resemblence of progression towards socialism, and i’d even say it has happened within every state on earth by this point.

    it is both fortunate and unfortunate that it is an international phenomenon. success in one country could be disasterous failure in another and, ultimately, it is our responsibility to elevate class consciousness and oppose our national bourgeois classes. but a social-democratic reform somewhere means a nationalism somewhere else, one progressive and the other reactionary in no particular order.

    we had progress toward socialism this week, reaction against it today; last week was reverse. and so on and so forth.

    you could’ve asked this question regarding 60 months, 60 years, 60 decades, 60 centuries - my answer would’ve been the same.

    like the Russian Revolution completed the French, I see another revolution completing the Chinese, from the oppressed people of America and the oppressed people of Africa







  • I can’t speak on individual journalists here, but connections, no matter how loose, to Russia Today (RT) and Iranian news is nothing new. There is, undoubtedly, a connection to the respective governments. I don’t think we can deny it outright and it’s at least partially true - this is something I keep in mind any time I read a news source with a similar background, and I supply those articles with additional information anywhere else I can obtain it.

    As far as what to make of it? Of course they have to add in extraneous bullshit, that goes along with our (the US’) support for Ukraine and Israel at such uncertain times.

    It’d be a shame to lose a site that does, at least occasionally, bring out excellence in journalism that can be hard to find (except 30+ years into the future when The New York Times decides it’s acceptable, or when the CIA claims it is no longer a National Security threat to release).

    We should still seriously examine such claims and bat a critical eye to the underlying bias, is what I’m saying. Some of these same outlets and foreign governments would, for example, gladly accept people like Jackson Hinkle to speak up and we certainly don’t have to give any credit where it’s not due… let’s just say the US and UK left some dirty international connections in the USSR and Middle East that were left unattended post-Soviet collapse and they have some interesting ideas about how to use left-wing groups for a certain agenda. Now that blowback is slowly settling in, the US isn’t so proud her old friends from the good days.

    Keep reading, but always read a little more.



  • Quick to boredom. Varied interest in different subjects depending on time or day or context, with an inability to concentrate on those same interests to the point of carelessness or agitation outside of that time/day/context. Mood swings. Apathy in general. Slow burnout that rarely recovers itself in a “reasonable” amount of time. Able to feel close to unknown people, not able to feel much connection or interest in the long-term. Bouts of isolation and/or depression. Frequently unmotivated. Forgetful. Procrastination and giving up last minute to avoid the problem. Self-medication. No respect for random people trying to “help” since I like to handle problems on my own terms, choosing treatment on my own terms. And, again specifically for me to make a point, boredom - it only goes away temporarily.

    This is ADHD I guess, you can try to look closer to see if there’s anything interesting or if you can figure out another diagnosis of mine - but that would be a waste of time.


  • I didn’t really get that out of it at all, but I developed a skill to see past a lot of the garbage. It was fear-mongering and overall just a scary way of saying China has reduced the use of death penalty, there are better mechanisms in place to prevent unlawful/unnecessary use of death penalty, and a drive to replace gunshot execution with lethal injection. The “victims” included are simply multi-million dollar fraud (essentially) and an abused kid that went on to (cw: violence) rape and kill.

    You are right, in that there seems to be no widespread use of this van in the event that it is seriously used.



  • When you were a kid (if you ever grew out of being a kid, that is), did anyone tell you the story of the apples and oranges? Did you ever hear someone talking about comparing apples to bananas? Anything of that nature? You still can’t explain why you specifically chose to compare Hitler and Bin Laden to Raisi.

    Let me break it down for you slow, in hamburger American terms.

    Say I want to talk about America. Should I compare America to McDonald’s and apple pie? Or should I compare America to shrimp and gyros?

    Fill in the blank: As American as _______.

    Did you say “apple pie” or did you say “shrimp and gyros”? Why? Reflect on this in your own time.


  • You mean to tell me that Israel, with all those billions of dollars, couldn’t see with their own eyes people flying in to their territory with guns? There is no convoluted middle east history, at least not any more than anywhere else on this planet. There is no excuse to kill anyone in violation of international law, especially when the politicians guiding that policy see the enemy as less than human and makes reference to genocidial intent in doing so. If you want to talk about history, the history that is so convoluted and confusing to you, just start in 1947-1948. That should make it a lot easier for you to understand.

    Every event in ‘Israeli’ history can be checked. They never acted in genuine self-defense. They always had ulterior motives, to drive their force as an imperialist proxy with a massive budget, extremist ideology, and settler-colonialism. There is no blame game. Palestinians have fought against occupation. Israel is the one occupying. Now this rougue state is claiming, implicitly, that they lay claim to a Greater Israel project that threatened the entire Middle East and North Africa region. Rather than occupying territory in war, they occupy territory in aims of extermination of the native population. If they were an occupying force in war, they would be required to ensure every citizen has access to food, water, security, and other necessities of life. Instead, they occupy territories and kill or displace the population there. Either it’s not a war or this rogue entity is incapable of conducting itself without constantly committing war crimes.


  • Just admit you make awful comparisons and fail to make analogies work.

    Hitler, for one, had a specific fascist ideology comparable to Mussolini. I’d feel comfortable comparing the two. Not only based on their alliance and ideology alone, but also their actions taken.

    When we compare people to Hitler, we generally make the assumption that we are talking about genocide, fascism, and an extreme passion for exterminating and villifying the “other” (whether that be Jews or Muslims or Slavs or something else). I wouldn’t even make a comparison between Hitler and Netanyahu if I had to be professional and make time for an appropriate comparison.

    On to Bin Laden, now. Why isn’t he similar to Hitler? Back in the day, the US had a strategic alliance with Saudi Arabia. Backing the dollar with gold wasn’t the best plan for us, we didn’t gain a strong advantage doing so. Saudi Arabia was happy to help us with new US policy abroad. We went above and beyond to treat Saudi monarchs to the best life available, all at our expense. We even ignored the Saudis backing of people like Bin Laden back when we first knew of his type, all the way in the 1970s. We even used his allies and people with the Mujahideen that fought against the Soviets in the 1980s. Long story short, we had a blowback incident. 9/11 came around to hit us, likely with Saudis allowing it to happen while US intelligence was too incompetent or bogged down to act effectively (or maybe we knew and couldn’t or wouldn’t do anything). We went to war with Iraq and Afghanistan - not Saudi Arabia. Afghanistan was a failure the US contributed to actively for about 20 years, not including the interference from years prior. The Taliban is still governing Afghanistan today in fact. It wasn’t anything like Hitler, except for the brutal anti-Communism. It certainly wasn’t like Raisi either, considering that Iran and Afghanistan’s Taliban aren’t on the best terms.

    I would compare Raisi to General Torrijos. Why is that? Because they were both nationalists, both concerned with sovereignty and not bending the will of their country to the US, yet each of them were not inherently accepting of either far-right extemist ideology or Communism (or other explictly left-wing political movements or ideologies). In spite of ideological differences, they both had a desire to stay neutral, choose key allies, and were rather accepting of liberation movements. People didn’t really celebrate the death of Torrijos, at least in Panama. I wouldn’t say people were exceptionally happy in Iran about the death of Raisi either. They weren’t good leaders per se, but they stood on principles. I don’t care for either figure myself, but I recognize who they were and what they fought for as humans.


  • Again, I know what an analogy is. We already established that. So, that means I do know Hitler is not just a nom de plum or alias for Raisi, or vice versa.

    It’s just not a good analogy. Look at the names I wrote and think about it for a second.

    Why do I think comparing Hitler to Bin Laden is not a good comparison? Why do I believe comparing General Torrijos to Raisi is a good comparison?

    Then, back to you. “[Celebrating] the death of horrific people is not necessarily a bad thing.” You didn’t even clarify what made Raisi a horrific person comparable to Hitler. You sound like everyone else in that Reddit-esque circlejerk.

    If you read closely, you can see I don’t really mind the act of celebration itself. My problem is that there is no acceptable reason to compare Raisi and Hitler, first of all; and, secondly, the people celebrating don’t even know who Raisi is. Your comparison alone tells me you’re in that group, the people who are celebrating without even knowing.

    I can celebrate the deaths of Hitler, Mussolini, Kissinger, Pinochet, Reagan, and so on. That’s because I actually know who they were and what they did.


  • I understand what an analogy is. But you know (and I know) that we don’t make analogies at random. There’s a specific reason you chose Bin Laden and Hitler to make the analogy. Even comparing Bin Laden and Hitler is dishonest and lacks appropriate context.

    I’d say Raisi’s death celebration is more akin to celebrating the death of someone like Omar Torrijos (Panama), and I’m not speaking of similarity of death itself or the conditons that created the death. I’m talking about their respective policies.

    Death happens everyday and you chose to make the specific comparisons you did. It wasn’t an accident, no one forced it into your brain. You did that.