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.

Fair enough. I have been sober for half a year now and it can be a hard thing to do. I had several attempts in the past.

Recreational usage should be fine as a goal. Not everyone wants to stop forever and if they can control their drinking why should they?

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.

Do online communities count as support groups? I hope so, especially for trans people who are often shunned by their direct surroundings.

Proper marvel brain liberalism

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.

Noice

No not yet :(

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 ✊🏼

I saw an ice cream brand called Oppo the other day

Create decades worth of inequality among migrants, causing them to live in poverty 9 times out of 10

Have one of the biggest ports in Europe in your country

Do absolutely nothing about said inequality

Have your population do copious amounts of drugs themselves

Be mad at migrants when eventually crime explodes

There have been shootings from AK wielding dudes over here for four days in a row now and the only thing people talk about in this situation is the color of their skin. Not drugs. Not poverty resulting in crime. Nope.

I actually had something like this happen with my gf when I first started organising. I was super passionate about being a communist and I was constantly mad about things that happened around me and in the world. My gf got mad at me because ´communism won´t fix things, it´s scary!!!’ and she felt sort of intimidated to talk to me about politics because she just wasn’t as involved as I was. At first I was mad too but eventually I figured I had to do something to change this argument between us. Because I still liked her very much as a person and I wanted to be with her.

I just started focussing on party work and wanted to lead by example. Communism is still a scary ideolog for many and many people are still brainwashed by decades of propaganda. But it is hard to see the bad sides if you and your party actually achieve postive things. Maintaining a bus line in your city is not scary. Making sure a local park isn’t taken over by some private owner who wants to make a rich people’s resort of it is not scary.

Eventually by doing all this stuff she saw what exactly I was trying to fight for and she turned around. She even goes to party stuff with me now sometimes.

My point is: I think a lot of communists sometimes have this aura of ‘I know how things work so if you just listen to me and let me explain it, then maybe you’ll understand too’ which is no different from the smug liberals we criticize. We are at a disadvantage after decades of anti communist propaganda and we need to be aware that convincing people of communism sometimes takes a very gentle and time consuming approach, and being mad at these people isn’t helping.

In the gym, headphones on, playing Irish rebel songs 💪🏼

Your last part reminds me of my childhood friend where my group of friends and I used to high out at in high school. He lives in a ridiculously large villa in a post neighborhood. We were outside playing some soccer and we had the cops called on us lol. Someone reported a disturbance in the neighbourhood.

I tell you what, the cops never showed up when dealers and crack heads terrorized my hood lol.

Be outside. It is good for you and your family.

There’s this Dutch internet marxist called Left Laser who visited a podcast made by some douchy right wing news outlet and he got ambushed about October 7th but still managed to come out on top. He’s now doing a reaction type of stream on youtube about it.

Sometimes leftist activism feels so terminally online lol. Like, I always imagine myself trying to show it to my dad who has been working in a warehouse for 30 years and I just know he wouldn’t even care about it in the slightest. Like how are obscure internet beefs going to build class consciousness.

That’s a rough situation to be in. It’s the same in our healthcare system which people often brag about being cheap as well. Yes, it might be cheap and a lot of things are free. But they are so overworked and understaffed due to years of budget cuts and lay offs that they can’t function properly anymore, thus creating situations like yours.

Everyday I see people who have ‘fallen down’ the ladder of society who are now in a position in which they have to beg for a respectful existence. It makes me angry.

Take care, comrade. I wish you all the best in recovery and I hope better days are coming soon.

Our party leader gave a webinar today about the new government’s plans and what they will mean for the population. I thought it was very informative and I admired how he gave it himself. Imagine Joe fucking Biden giving a webinar to Democrat members himself. On a Tuesday evening.

The new government has been formed and the plans are coming out slowly. The unions have already called for a big general strike soon, so fun times ahead.

The year has started off both good and bad. Family tragedy happened and my mental health seems to have taken a hit. At the same time I’m staying really disciplined when it comes to my workout regime. I am also nearing half a year sober. At least for the last few days the sun has been out instead of the constant grey sky that has been here for months.

The new Belgian defense minister is a notorious drunk who frequently visits clubs despite being 50 something I guess, who has been caught for public urination, who couldn’t prevent scandals from happening at previous functions. The ideal man to have walking around responsible for national security, in the spy capital of Europe.