Petrified of someone else going up there to have a look and seeing a multi-billion dollar Potemkin space force with empty satellites in the shape of pyramids.

Not like that, Putin!

It goes both ways. The communist world will have birthmarks from capitalism. And the post-Soviet world will have birthmarks from socialism. Russian diplomats, no need to wonder: this urge for historical context is a legacy of a greater time.

Trying to get foreign diplomats out of their bourgeois metaphysics is going to to be an uphill battle. Not least because it’s not just intellectual obstinance but also a fistful of intellectual dishonesty; a concerted effort by the greatest propaganda machine in history to descontextualise the relations. Best of luck to them.

I hope that in their efforts, they are forced to continue the same process at home and notice that the only way to greatness and happiness is along a familiar path.

It does, that. 😞

The official mainstream narrative throughout the western world is that Putin invaded Ukraine solely because he is evil and hates freedom. That’s the actual, literal belief about this war that the western political/media class works to instill in the western public. Anyone who counters this self-evidently ridiculous assessment with facts and evidence gets branded a Russian agent and swarmed with pro-US trolls on social media, and loses all hope of securing a major platform in any mass media.

It’s funny, too, how those libs who jump down your throat for pointing out things that are admitted by liberals and in liberal media all think they possess the world’s greatest independent, critical thinking engine in their own head. I’m a pendulum that swings between pity and derision.

Thanks for these!

Any good sources on this that you could recommend?

‘secret’

The only secret trade routes will be the ones where western corporations are still selling to and buying from Russia. But even these are only opaque in the same sense as security glass i.e. wholly transparent from the other side.

We live distinctly under capitalism. No need for any other names that obscure that relation.

They want you to feel satisfied about doing your part in a way that earns them revenue, instead of focusing your energy on things that will cost the energy lobby money but actually have an effect.

What a perfect way to phrase it.

I see what you mean about those gas guzzlers. While they do make me irrationally upset, a much bigger problem is forcing millions upon millions of workers on daily commutes. This isn’t just about WFH, which would be a solution, but also of insisting on putting almost all employment opportunities at the end of the same clogged roads miles away from where anyone lives.

I think you’re right to point out that the argument against individualising the problem/solution should be applied evenly. It’s easy to individualise the problem when someone seems to be doing the exact opposite of helping.

That said, I’ve one challenge, which is about insulating your home. I’ve heard that a good air source heat pump will save more emissions than insulation (some leaky homes might be the exception) and at much lower overall cost to the consumer. They have to be set up right, though. Maybe it depends on building materials? It might be different for timber framed houses that have some insulation built in, anyway. Makes sense to put in better stuff during ordinary construction and maintenance of those.

It’s quite short. He did a TED talk, too, which presents a condensed version. The talk is also a bit liberalised to appeal to a wider, Canadian audience, but it’s an interesting listen nonetheless. (Interesting to note that he was attacked near his home today/yesterday by someone shouting his name. Looks like a political attack against a journalist. If it was, the forces of reaction are getting bolder again.)

I might disagree about the planet’s capacity. It may have one but we’re not close to it yet. The idea that it’s over populated is Malthusian and doesn’t lead to great conclusions. I don’t entirely disagree with you though, with your qualification:

…can no longer survive at the rate of current land/water use, not for long that is.

Destroying livable habitats so that Vegas and other dessert towns can can have water is a terrible project, for example. The problem is not the population but the political economy. The peoples indigenous to Turtle Island had a far more sustainable model than the current set of governors. The Red Nation’s manifiesto, The Red Deal, makes some powerful arguments. If you’re in the US, you might prefer starting with this than Bastani. (There’s a reasonably priced book and a pdf version on their site – the pdf is actually three pdfs but it’s the same content, if in a slightly different order to the book.)

I hope you enjoy either/both works.

Most likely the poster deleted the comment. The replies still exist in the lemmyverse but you need a direct link. If a mod deletes a post or comment, you’ll see it in the modlog (but you won’t be able to click through).

Real shame about the civilians. I can understand the will not to leave one’s home. But imagine just waiting on the edge of a battle not knowing whether the next missile will accidentally land in your flat. Traumatic. I wonder if people’s mind’s protect them by just zoning out the reality of it all.

Strange that the Ukrainians would only have one line. To my knowledge the Soviets learned this tactic fighting the Nazis. I’d have thought the Ukrainian military would not make the same mistakes as the early WWII Soviet army. If they do only have one line, it suggests that resources and reserves are in a dire condition. If Ukraine can only manage one line of defence, it would suggest that the war can’t last much longer, though—and it will be ‘easy’ for Russia to isolate troops and starve them out; and the sooner this shit ends, the better.

Thanks for the update. Do you know if civilians are still living in these areas? Or have they been evacuated in advance?

The problem is that phones are intentionally made to be addictive. There isn’t always a responsible way to use them at all if you have any apps other than ‘calls’.

Tackling the manufacturers and software designers would be more useful for everyone than an outright ban for children. Banning manufacturers and carriers from preloading and bloating phones with social media apps and any games would be a start. Platforms actually stopping (young) children from signing up might also help.

Or some of these things are made up?

What are the factors in the grain deal going wrong?

Homer was right –https://abcnews.go.com/US/us-heat-wave-latest-forecast/story?id=101598235 – it’s the hottest 21 days/3 weeks now. 🥵

I don’t agree with everything in it but you might want to read Aaron Bastani’s Fully Automated Luxury Communism. You’ll find that Marxists aren’t infatuated with growth for growth’s sake, nor with growth at the expense of the environment.

Well put. I think David Harvey explains this kind of thing in more depth in Rebel Cities. I’ll explain his work not as a correction, as I agree with you, but to add to what you said as a different summary might help you people who haven’t heard this before.

There’s a chapter on the ‘surplus capital absorption problem’. The successful capitalist ends every day with more money than they began with. What do they do with the extra, the surplus?

They can spend some, sure. But there are only so many things to buy. And if they don’t invest, inflation will make them poorer and their competition will become more competitive, stealing their resources, labour, and customers. Part of the surplus, then, must be invested.

But what in? Everything is already owned by someone. So that leaves new industries, and the destruction of other things that already exist.

New industries implies that it’s possible to keep building and building forever, leading always to use more and more scarce and harmful resources.

And destroying things only to re-build them isn’t always very nice for the people who live in and use those things. Destructive wars, and consumer goods that break every three years and can’t be replaced, are terrible for the environment.

But all this is the essence of capitalism. A system where commodities are produced for their exchange value, not their use value. This the ‘commodity form’. It’s the exchange of commodities for money that creates the opportunity to profit. It’s this profit that allows the successful capitalist to end every day with more money than which they began. The problem of climate change cannot be solved within this capitalist logic.

The essence of Marxism, one might say, is the critique of the ‘commodity form’ and everything that flows from it. (This is what Marx works out in Capital, Volume I.)

The essence of socialism is the attempt to dissolve the commodity form, to produce things for their use value, not their exchange value. When society makes things on the basis of need and use, several things can happen: no more war; we can make consumer items that last and that can be repaired; we can build habitable, green homes for people to live in, not for property developers to speculate; etc, etc.

The essence of communism is the society that comes after socialists have fully taken us beyond the commodity.

Hence the argument: socialism or extinction.