• SlayGuevara@lemmygrad.ml
    5·
    10 hours ago

    Just came back from the protest. Several parties involved say there were 100k people, though police says 60k. The truth must be somewhere in between.

    As for the protest itself:

    For reasons that are still unclear to me I decided to take the offer of an edible made by one of my coworkers. I am no stranger to edibles but this thing just slapped me in the face right at the beginning of the protest. Life started to move in slow motions, everything felt kinda warm and I was really feeling the vibe. It was cool to see so many people come together against the government. I think it is the biggest protest I ever attended.

    For a large part I was walking behind a female antifa block which looked very cool. They were chanting and singing and it was rad. They look rad too, like they could kick my ass any moment.

    Somewhere during the protest we stopped at the office of one of the government parties and people started throwing eggs and stuff at the windows. Police got involved and some tear gas was dispersed but no serious injuries it seems. I was hanging around the action at the time lol.

    Then: In Brussels you have this street full of embassies. Most of them are just a six story building with a fence and a flag. Not the US Embassy my friends. It was made up out of several building, with a fence with spikes, a heavily guarded personal road and another fence at the normal street level, equipped with dozens of camera’s. I thought that was really funning and telling of the state of this world. Like, not even the Russian embassy was that heavily secured.

    All in all I had a great time and the vibe was amazing. And we are not done yet as another general strike is coming up in a few weeks.

  • albigu@lemmygrad.ml
    5·
    15 hours ago

    To arrogantly claim to be the more well read and smarter communist, but refuse to take part in any action or party work for judging it beneath oneself. This is a twelfth type [of liberalism].

  • SlayGuevara@lemmygrad.ml
    8·
    18 hours ago

    Today is the day of the big strike in Belgium. We are expecting tens of thousands of workers in Brussels and it should be massive.

  • 小莱卡@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    3·
    24 hours ago

    Honda-Nissan merger fell apart allegedly. Prob propaganda but apparently Nissan didn’t agree with the rhe terms about “reducing costs” aka shutting down factories.

    Honda pressured Nissan to make deeper cuts to its workforce and factory capacity, but Nissan was unwilling to consider politically sensitive factory closures, three of the sources said. They said they were left with the impression Nissan felt it could recover on its own, despite its mounting difficulties. That intransigence, combined with what Honda management saw as Nissan’s slow decision-making, helped torpedo a deal that would have created one of the world’s largest automakers, three people said.

    https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/inside-collapse-nissan-hondas-60-billion-mega-deal-2025-02-12/

    Might be a L for China here.

  • -6-6-6-@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    11·
    2 days ago

    Back from a (near) month long hiatus doing some stuff. Working with people is tiring and that is all I have to say to that. Hexbear is down and apparently, if what I’m hearing correctly, the owner of the domain disappeared a while back and for some reason the admins didn’t drop everything they can to get it back even with a month-long extension. Neat.

    That is a shame as I was fond of the news mega-thread. Will that be continuing here or some other instance? Also glad to see a boost to one of my favorite online communities as well, not at the expense of another one, though. Looks like all those struggle threads and fighting really worked out in the end, eh?

    Anyways, with what is around me it’s hard to build a “community”. Half of these people are completely clueless and have zero interest in anything political despite having obvious biases, chauvinist, etc and other brain-wormed takes they inherited from family, television or wherever else. Another quarter (possibly more) is completely racist, with another quarter being red and blue libs that I can more or less get along with depending on how many worms occupy the space where their grey matter is supposed to be.

    It may feel like I’m purposefully trying to come off misanthropic; but I don’t hate them or despise them (maybe the racists) just really frustrating trying to connect with people close to you about these things and have them completely gloss over the fact that we are facing barbarism. We certainly have some work to do and I think it becomes a lot more comprehensible when you aren’t on shit like X or other platforms. When you surround yourself with insanity it starts to look like a mad-house. Unrelated, but good song by Anthrax too.

    Also P.B.R tastes like fucking piss.

  • SlayGuevara@lemmygrad.ml
    20·
    2 days ago

    I currently work at a union and it is the most mentally taxing job I ever had. The pressure is insane. The managers are insane. I have never seen so many coworkers crying, on the brink of a burnout. It is absolutely mental working here.

    I don’t want to discredit the good work out union does but on the inside it is fucking vile and I am honestly considering quitting.

  • amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml
    13·
    2 days ago

    Someone (who is kinda liberal) suggested I watch the superbowl halftime show, in part cause of its politics is the impression I got from them, so I watched a recording of it and I didn’t understand it. Some of the lyrics I was not even catching or seemed like the typical self-talking-up of rap and the whole bit with Sam Jackson being Uncle Sam was like ??? what message are they going for here. The best part I could find on it was the unplanned part with the person who waved the Palestinian/Sudanese flag, but I didn’t even see that in the video itself that I watched. Am I just not the target audience or needed captions? My instincts say “it’s resistance liberal politics”, but maybe I’m being unfair and I need to look more closely at the lyrics.

    • 矛⋅盾@lemmygrad.ml
      9·
      2 days ago

      in essence I agree it’s resistance liberal politics

      so, with the whole drake thing, it’s larger and not specific to drake himself but what he “symbolizes” which is why the line "you’re not a colleague you’re a colonizer“ comes into play regarding black culture/outsiders who would discard the people of the culture he used and wrung out like a wet rag once he’s ready to move onto the next thing/larger more mainstream stage

      edit: I guess my thesis here is, people are lauding kendrick for championing black culture, for defending rap and black culture from select so-called colonizers but I question what that means when kendrick lamar is put on the superbowl stage

      and idk if I “get” to say anything on the matter since I’m not black, and also only have surface familiarity with lamar’s work (of which I thought replacing the white with black in the US flags in squabble up music video was 💯). Original intentions when running drake-as-“colonizer”-phenomenon through the gamut of the rap scene is one thing, but it feels past expiry and possibly into hypocrite territory when kendrick himself is platformed up to the superbowl stage: the Peak Echelon of music celebrity in the US of A. Yes, twist the knife on the drakes (who just happens to be canadian and biracial) out there, but no hate for beyonce (or colin powell or kamala harris. obama even) you know what I mean?

      like, that’s what the whole US-flag imagery during the half-time show reads to me, it just folds back into american chauvinism, a reminder to the audience that black american culture is an american culture first and foremost, “america was built on the backs of black people” but that means black people deserve to be the bannermen and flagbearers, a righteous and honorable position in the empire citizenry (my understanding of liberals’ position is, get rid of racism and cops killing black people and problem solved, more black people in power means problem solved, the whole idpol representation thing, a very idealistic conception of “how to dismantle the empire” etc), black exceptionalism as aspirational when it’s done by the right type of black person in the right way, etc

      / I think the whole superbowl thing makes it feel more assimilationist and unchallenging rather than liberatory or empowering. im not sure if kendrick was fully ironic or what when incorporating “the revolution will not be televised” while he’s being played on America’s most watched televised event.

      maybe im too harsh. maybe im importing too much frustration from assimilationist tendencies from my own background (chinese americans/canadians) into this situation (wherein a certain YA novel author is my own “drake”). idk

      • 矛⋅盾@lemmygrad.ml
        10·
        2 days ago

        fuller nuance (love to see libs beat the shit out of that word) perspective from someone who is black and of black culture who i think has better angles on all points than I could - tumblr post. excerpts:

        The Super Bowl will always be a bread and circus event that lines the pockets of white shareholders. The fact that they allowed Black people to perform is simply to give the appearance of empowerment and progress, thus assuaging our appetite for real revolution by letting spectators woop and cheer and have the feeling that something happened.

        context: US flag and americana imagery:

        At the end of the above, all African Americans should be wary of narratives that corral them securely within the frame of the United States. This is an intentional set of blinders that keeps you seeing yourself as belonging to this outsized plantation. We made connection to this land, but we were brought here in chains.

  • loathsome dongeater@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    8·
    3 days ago

    But as Lamar raps at one point, “this is bigger than the music,” and as he closes the set with “TV Off”, an entreaty to turn off the Trumpian news chaos and focus on the more vital matters of unity, purpose and survival, tonight will undoubtedly go down as one of the most important halftime shows in the history of the event, if not the most significant mass-televised rap performance of all time. The Drake-baiting was a smokescreen; what really happened was a righteous nation showed up and bared its teeth. The great American game has only just begun. Go Eagles.

    What the hell is this guy talking about towards the end?

  • SlayGuevara@lemmygrad.ml
    23·
    3 days ago

    Major strike coming up this Thursday which I will join. Together with the other tankies at work we managed to convince the entire department to join us ✊🏼

    • Commiejones@lemmygrad.ml
      9·
      3 days ago

      Is this like the thing that happened after the ohio train disaster, The thing where the crashes happen at the same rate but the media just talks about every single one for a while?

  • o_d [he/him]@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    11·
    3 days ago

    There’s beginning to be a sliver of light when I wake up in the morning. I really don’t enjoy getting up when it’s still pitch black outside. Uncritical support to the sun in its struggle to rise at an earlier time. o7

      • o_d [he/him]@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
        3·
        3 days ago

        Same. I was just thinking about the morning, because I had just got up not too long before. The days are getting longer and I’m here for it!

    • Commiejones@lemmygrad.ml
      2·
      3 days ago

      That’s where the sun has been sneaking off to every evening? It been spending less and less time with me lately and I’m afraid one day it just wont come back!