(Thread IKs:
Josherino)
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Happy Thanksgooning, everyone. Remember: even if the foundation of the holiday is genocidal bullshit, even if it's physically painful to deal with family members, there's absolutely zero things wrong with taking today to be thankful anyway. And today I realized I'm thankful I'm still here. Now imma eat pie 
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Nov 29, 2019 04:13
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| # ? May 27, 2024 19:00 |
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Thankful for cspam
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Nov 29, 2019 04:44
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PsychedelicWarlord posted:Thankful for cspam 
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Nov 29, 2019 05:26
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PsychedelicWarlord posted:Thankful for cspam
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Nov 29, 2019 07:21
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SunAndSpring posted:I just feel so utterly pessimistic about this leftist solidarity bullshit. A good chunk of people here are actively lovely to me for some stupid loving reason because I dont get some crucial talking point known only to people who actually like Stalin or whatever, and the amount of material support is negligible. I think I can count on one hand the times anyone here actually offered something useful other than just words. I cant do this on my own but no one wants to help in a meaningful way and every leftist I see says that even electing Bernie wont change my life for the better because they know hell get nothing done. What hope is there? SunAndSpring posted:It feels less like banter and more like people legitimately hating my rear end because I disagree with them about Stalin and all that poo poo that right wingers with a red coat of paint like. Like gently caress, one rear end in a top hat on here already dug through this thread to gently caress with me, one guy who keeps getting banned for telling people to kill themselves is convinced Im a neo-nazi because I talked about my upbringing in which I was raised by white nationalists and how I was only able to get away from those views when I moved out to go to college, and all these other encounters that drive me nuts because it seems like these people are more interested in running up a score of their own rather than doing anything useful. Hey -- I was raised by neo-nazis and went through the process of (more or less) self-deprogramming along the same timeline. I was having doubts that were obvious in retrospect by my senior year of high school (I remember asking a close friend if I were a monster without specifying exactly what I was talking about) but which I wasn't entirely conscious of, and I didn't actually have my moment of awakening until I was 20 years old, someone handed me an event pamphlet for an anti-racist event, and I was bewildered to realize that I was okay with everything I was reading instead of instantly contemptuous. I'm now a raging commie and that's largely a result of two things: knowing leftists who are also genuinely good people, and posting on SA. Here's what I think about the problem you're describing, with the proviso that it's not a solution to your problem per se and definitely not a substitute for finding the right people, just a perspective I hope will be helpful: All worthwhile leftism is built on awareness of shared vulnerabilities, and hope for the future. People who are deathly afraid of ever making a mistake or showing weakness are not better or more authentically committed to their politics than you are, in fact it's likely the exact opposite. Solidarity and compassion can take the form of taking someone to task or even directly opposing them, but an essential component of this is giving them a way out. Even a loving nazi has the option of not being a nazi any more, and while it's absolutely important to constantly examine your own beliefs, especially if you come from a background like ours, it sounds like these people are more interested in punishing you than correcting you. You don't owe them that. Now don't get me wrong, introspection is really important, and if you're concerned about how you can ever trust your own judgement again after coming from such a dark place (as I was for many years), I think that once you find people with good politics and a strong moral compass who actually care about you, the difference between them and the assholes will be unmistakable, and a tremendous help. As for Bernie Sanders -- well, look at it this way. I've practiced landlord/tenant law as an intern, and I hope to return to it as a career in the not-too-distant future. Under the right circumstances, I as a barely-competent student, with a folder full of notes written by an actual attorney, working for a well-meaning but still functionally-liberal non-profit firm, have been the difference between someone being out on the street or not. I'm not saying this to brag, and I'm not even really saying it out of total confidence in the career I've picked or organization I worked for -- I genuinely worry whether the help I was (sometimes) able to provide outweighed legitimizing a system that mostly serves to rubber-stamp evictions. I've had really painful conversations with clients where I openly acknowledged that what was being done to them wasn't fair, and the best I can do is just to blunt the impact, and I don't know if saying that as a disclaimer was enough on my part or just an excuse. Rather, my point is that as lovely as liberals are, the leftist critique of liberalism is that it's insufficient, and will never be able to achieve its aspirational goals in the long term due to the corrosive influence of capitalism, not that the goal of materially improving people's lives is counter-revolutionary or some equally dumb bullshit. Electing Bernie Sanders isn't enough -- there are dozens of legitimate criticisms that can be leveled at his policy, his rhetoric, etc, and socialism isn't a top-down project anyways -- but frankly? Of course electing the closest-to-left-wing President in the history of our country will help people. Much more than that is necessary, and much more than that is justified, but that doesn't devalue the impact that a higher minimum wage, universal healthcare, or student debt forgiveness would have on people's actual lives. Anyways, if you're not sure what builds left solidarity, I can tell you: it's telling people you're on the same side, that you can help each other, and that you're willing to help first -- and then following through. Theory is important so you can strategize and not waste your efforts or be co-opted by other interests, but anyone who dismisses material support and mutual aid as "too small to matter" doesn't know what it's like to be poor. Tuxedo Catfish has issued a correction as of 09:26 on Nov 29, 2019 |
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Nov 29, 2019 09:22
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Ive posted about this all over the forums. I went to Foster care to get deprogrammed after living with Nazis for 10+ years, and I agree with catfish tuxedo. It's about what you do now and who you help. Making connections is hard but you can do it.
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Nov 29, 2019 09:38
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:[good post] Thanks for this. Im not really in a state of mind to add anything of meaning to it, but its been really helpful for me to copy posts like this and other bits of wisdom I find online into a text file that I make myself read whenever anger clouds my judgement and makes me want to scream at people instead of doing something constructive.
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Nov 29, 2019 10:55
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Thankful for my postin pals
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Nov 29, 2019 13:25
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Today has been the first day in several weeks where I woke up and didn't immediately want to crawl back under the covers and be sad. Good times. Annoyingly my referral to the public health care center was rejected, so I'm gonna have to talk with my GP next Friday to flesh out the details of why I'm applying and try again, I guess. Not gonna let this ruin my day, I've got the company Christmas party to get ready for.
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Nov 29, 2019 15:10
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This is my first day without taking/being addicted to benzos in 22 years. Wish me luck - spent the last several months tapering with therapist assistance. Last time I stopped taking them (ran out during a trip to Seattle) I had to leave work immediately and almost collapsed on the street trying to get to the clinic. That would've been bad news in a typical west coast city where people are passed out on every block from various drug related issues.
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Nov 29, 2019 16:09
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UnfortunateSexFart posted:This is my first day without taking/being addicted to benzos in 22 years. Wish me luck - spent the last several months tapering with therapist assistance. You got this
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Nov 29, 2019 16:10
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UnfortunateSexFart posted:This is my first day without taking/being addicted to benzos in 22 years. Wish me luck - spent the last several months tapering with therapist assistance. For me, the hardest part of dealing with addiction was convincing myself that I could live a fulfilling life again without the substance. When addiction rewired my reward pathways, it made it nearly impossible to remember how life worked without my drug of choice. I didnt enjoy it anymore by that point, but imagining life without it was like imagining life without an arm or a sense of smell. I knew on an intellectual level that that was nonsense, but my lizard midbrain had me convinced that I needed it to survive. The longer I went without the drug, the more I was able to realize that life was possible (and actually much better) without it. Its hard, but it does get easier. You can do this. Good luck to you.
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Nov 29, 2019 20:27
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mekyabetsu posted:For me, the hardest part of dealing with addiction was convincing myself that I could live a fulfilling life again without the substance. When addiction rewired my reward pathways, it made it nearly impossible to remember how life worked without my drug of choice. I didn’t enjoy it anymore by that point, but imagining life without it was like imagining life without an arm or a sense of smell. I knew on an intellectual level that that was nonsense, but my lizard midbrain had me convinced that I needed it to survive. The longer I went without the drug, the more I was able to realize that life was possible (and actually much better) without it. It’s hard, but it does get easier. Ativan did nothing for me except knock me out at night and keep me addicted so I hope I don't have that problem.
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Nov 30, 2019 04:56
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ugh i have way way too much poo poo to do by the end of the semester and im basically finding it impossible to start any of it
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Dec 1, 2019 20:26
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feeling run-down and unkind to myself
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Dec 1, 2019 21:40
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Day 3 without benzos - no side effects. This is almost too easy.
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Dec 2, 2019 09:30
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UnfortunateSexFart posted:Day 3 without benzos - no side effects. /animevoice
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Dec 2, 2019 20:46
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I want to cry. Why do I want to cry? I think it's politics. Politics and life. Life (as separate from politics, which is ghastly, as you know) isn't doing anything that bad right now, just getting anxious and embarrassed over missed calls regarding an appointment I needed to arrange. I will call them tomorrow, but for some reason I'm still anxious about it. This is why I don't phone much.
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Dec 2, 2019 22:59
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i like crying, it means you care.
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Dec 3, 2019 09:04
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Just need to resign myself to having a cold all winter. I want to sit in the shower until I dissolve.
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Dec 3, 2019 23:26
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Lavamae.org has a pop-up care village at Frank Ogawa Plaza in downtown Oakland today. https://lavamae.org/pop-up-care-villages/ If you know someone in need, please pass on this information.
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Dec 4, 2019 18:48
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I made a big dish of lasagna (what's it called when you dont use lasagna noodles? i made that) for my struggling friend. felt good man. 
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Dec 5, 2019 01:09
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eric ciaramella posted:I made a big dish of lasagna (what's it called when you dont use lasagna noodles? i made that) for my struggling friend. felt good man. 
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Dec 5, 2019 01:25
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eric ciaramella posted:I made a big dish of lasagna (what's it called when you dont use lasagna noodles? i made that) for my struggling friend. felt good man. I have no idea... but I'll sometimes do sort of the opposite... I'll throw a bunch of tomato sauce and veggies between layers of lasagna noodles, add a shitton of cheese, and call it lasaga. What actually makes a lasagna a lasagna?
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Dec 5, 2019 02:03
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im_sorry posted:I have no idea... but I'll sometimes do sort of the opposite... I'll throw a bunch of tomato sauce and veggies between layers of lasagna noodles, add a shitton of cheese, and call it lasaga. a miserable little of ricotta. but enough of that, have at you!!
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Dec 5, 2019 06:32
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One of my friends is trying to convince me that getting a programming job will make me a pmc and ruin my connection to the proletariat. He is a grad student. Can you still be a good communist and also have a job.
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Dec 5, 2019 09:07
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Impermanent posted:One of my friends is trying to convince me that getting a programming job will make me a pmc and ruin my connection to the proletariat. He is a grad student. Can you still be a good communist and also have a job. historically, good communists have been people with jobs. unless there's something specific about your programming job that makes it ideologically objectionable, and you yourself find that to be the case, i wouldn't let what he's said factor into your decision. despite being a grad student, he has an extremely reductive idea of how a person's social location (in this case, their job) is related to their political consciousness and interests, or how political coalitions work, etc. it's just a form of vulgar marxism
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Dec 5, 2019 10:32
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Impermanent posted:One of my friends is trying to convince me that getting a programming job will make me a pmc and ruin my connection to the proletariat. He is a grad student. Can you still be a good communist and also have a job. tell him to work harder in grad school because he's missing a lot of stuff right now. lmfao at the notion that getting a job means you're disconnected from the working class. i have an MA and make $26k after taxes in a "white collar" job (also an illusion leveraged by Liberals to maintain social hierarchies) and working with a computer all day has not meaningfully reduced my "connection to the proletariat" because woops, turns out a huge portion of modern proles spend all day on computers like if you were getting hired as a provost or programming administrator over a team of code monkeys then you would perhaps be a member of the professional-managerial class but the popularization of that term has led to significant overuse and misapplication of something that was originally used to describe a class of technically minded liberal intermediaries responsible for perpetuating capitalist discourses without an immediate physical investment in bourgeois ownership themselves. it doesn't just mean dude with a desk job or a couple employees, both of which Marxist analysis gives people the tools to effectively understand and categorize as not professional-managerial anything about computer touchers making $60k out of college and thus being the enemy is a reactionary sentiment designed to obfuscate real wealth and is constantly used to undermine solidarity among technical workers tell your friend to suck one
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Dec 5, 2019 16:16
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Impermanent posted:One of my friends is trying to convince me that getting a programming job will make me a pmc and ruin my connection to the proletariat. He is a grad student. Can you still be a good communist and also have a job. two angles you can take here one, work solidarity. tech is necessary in the modern age and every worker has something to contribute, to denigrate one over the other is to further class wars which is the ultimate betrayal of marxism imo two, you need to eat and your friend is a dick, tell them to gently caress off
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Dec 5, 2019 16:44
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Impermanent posted:One of my friends is trying to convince me that getting a programming job will make me a pmc and ruin my connection to the proletariat. He is a grad student. Can you still be a good communist and also have a job. If he's a grad student in the humanities, he's 100% an aspiring propagandist for the system and himself the worst sort of bourgeoisie. He's projecting, and also probably incredibly jealous. Also 100% a parlor pink. The rule of thumb is that if the general reaction to their participation in a general strike is "hooray!" and not "oh poo poo", you don't have to listen to anything they say about class dynamics. You can basically determine someone's actual class, not the class they are LARPing as, just by using that thought experiment.
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Dec 5, 2019 18:59
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There's nothing inherently noble in proletariat work that connects you to the class except insofar as it gives you an appreciation for the people doing that job. You don't stop appreciating it just because you're working a better job unless you're the kind of rear end in a top hat who lacked actual solidarity in the first place
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Dec 5, 2019 19:15
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Ditched my therapist after 2-3 months of biweekly sessions. I sensed a bit of counter transference but I just assumed it was me being hyper-critical to try and find a reason to stop going so I powered through. There were a few other tiny issues and I was fine with that since all therapists are people and can make tiny mistakes and most mistakes you won't notice unless you're in the field or adjacent to it. The straw that broke the camels back though was that she'd have her phone in front of her and would check it when it would buzz from a text. Pretty loving distracting when I'm crying etc. The last sessions she checked it 5 times and I decided that was enough for me. A shame because she was pretty adept in other important ways. Anyway my point is if you aren't jiving with your person it's time to move on. The thread title, again, is all I can think of.
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Dec 5, 2019 19:51
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HELLO LADIES posted:If he's a grad student in the humanities, he's 100% an aspiring propagandist for the system and himself the worst sort of bourgeoisie. He's projecting, and also probably incredibly jealous. Also 100% a parlor pink. this is loving stupid too. you can study in the humanities at a graduate level and not be an "aspiring propagandist" or "parlor pink". people aren't categorically excluded from leftism by an education in the humanities (that's transparently idiotic), a decent job, or any other characteristic outside of "has an adversarial relationship with labor or is literally an owner of private property". like how do you think a large proportion of people learn theory? how do you think more theory is produced and discussed by Marxist intellectuals? academics with a post-graduate education in the humanities who spend time trying to advance the intellectual cause of Marxist theory working hard to propagate those ideas. I know Wolff and Zizek aren't the most popular figures in c-spam but they're both examples of people who have done a great deal of important propagandizing of actual Marxist thought-patterns precisely because of their educations and positions within the humanities gently caress, this makes me mad. i have a graduate degree in the humanities. i'm poor as gently caress. i spent two years making $10k a year so i could write a thesis on late-20th century Marxist philosophy. gently caress off Frog Act has issued a correction as of 22:07 on Dec 5, 2019 |
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Dec 5, 2019 22:04
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Lets put aside our differences and unite against the business majors
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Dec 5, 2019 22:05
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the humanities are awesome and underappreciated in every setting. still, i don't think that was the bit to take away from the post.
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Dec 5, 2019 22:06
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Impermanent posted:One of my friends is trying to convince me that getting a programming job will make me a pmc and ruin my connection to the proletariat. He is a grad student. Can you still be a good communist and also have a job. I think that has been answered pretty sufficiently, but as a full time computer toucher/programmer myself, I think I can say pretty authoritatively there's nothing fundamental about this kind of work that will do what your friend is suggesting. Sure, if you go to work as a coder at a high frequency trading place on Wall Street, you're probably going to suck and even get worse over time, but to be honest you probably wouldn't go there unless you sucked in the first place. As for myself, I've definitely gotten significantly more radical over the course of my programming years. I think most of that is attributable to completely non-work-related things, although I do think that having "a good job" and still constantly feeling the incredible precariousness of my currently fortunate situation does have something to do with my politics. Two other small things: I'm pretty sure programmers have donated overwhelming to Bernie in 2019*, and there is growing union sentiment among American programmers (including at Google, the final boss of succ). Of course I've run into shitheads at my jobs, too -- the techbro lolbertarian age-of-consent pedophile is definitely a thing -- but your friend's concerns are pretty much bullshit. edit: *According to this analysis of ActBlue donations, programmers have donated ~35% to Sanders and ~16% to Warren. Soap Scum has issued a correction as of 22:15 on Dec 5, 2019 |
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Dec 5, 2019 22:07
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oh hey i met a poet doing their MFA in $50k debt and with no stipend to live off, they must be a parlor pinko bourgeois scumbag!!!
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Dec 5, 2019 22:07
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bwee oh bwee oh thread police  I know I contributed with an offhanded comment but lets nip the No True Marxist stuff in the bud as its starting to slide sideways and mudslinging at each other is absolutely not what were doing in here and I dont want it to get to that. if you want to call someone a gd idiot theres the rest of cspam where you cannot throw a rock without hitting a gd idiot especially if you throw it at me but this is thread Switzerland thx for reading~
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Dec 6, 2019 00:22
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https://twitter.com/KamenRiderUno/status/1202726377457369094?s=19
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Dec 6, 2019 00:38
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Working at a business graduate school and a casino helped turn me into a socialist. I quit both as soon as I could then helped spread awareness about how casino money laundering was destroying my home town. The casino is now losing $100 million per year after the new left leaning government cracked down on laundering. They even denied Drake from playing cuz he didn't bring proof of income - even though he was staying at the hotel for his concert tour. Oh and 7 days without benzos with no side effects. I think I'm clean dudes
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Dec 6, 2019 07:20
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