All good. I let out a little giggle at podium guy at first. It’s just natural.
I knew what you meant. Hard to tell these days what‘s bad and what’s just stupid and funny. The trump thing is this inseparable fusion of malign and dumb as shit
Glad to see a lot of love for pourover here, that‘s been my method of choice for like the past year. I’ve got a coffee roaster on the block who does some really good stuff, so I‘ll usually grab a latte when I’ve got a minute but it‘d been about a month since my last visit, thanks to COVID. The owner’s kind of a weird guy, though, more on the conservative side of things and very subtly disapproving of my left-wing supposed anarchist ways. Whenever I hear him talk to people re: politics, I get the feeling that he's one of those guys who is easily manipulated into being on the wrong side of history; the day after the dumbest and scariest of all insurrections, his response was pretty laid back.
"I've got friends who were watching both Fox News and MSNBC, and Fox News said the Capitol was secure fifteen minutes before MSNBC did. They kept rolling footage to sensationalize the event, and it wasn't even all that violent."
I pretended I was the beaten and broken me of the past four years and just laughed it off, but this is what a lot of people see when they think about politics in America. It's a case of who is sensationalizing the event more, and if there wasn't a mass murder it doesn't count. It doesn't matter if, say, the current party in power kicked up a massive shit over considerably less deaths, they're still The Other Side and thus any opinion they have, however radical, should be treated with equal respect and not at all measured against their past record. To quote myself:
“We need a far-right right wing so that people will see my right-of-center party as the left and we can keep our idea of centrism as a place where we meet actual fascists in the middle” -
MazoPanku, Twitter, Online, Earth
The Democrats need the Republican Party. We don‘t. I’ve always tried to be the weird cool anarchist, but I vote straight Democrat in every single election because I see that as the harm reduction option. When any other option in an election will lead to further and further restrictions on the rights of anyone who isn't white and cisgendered and deeply proud of these facts, what choice do you have besides harm reduction?
I‘ve been doing little but actively hating this for the past few days. I can barely sleep, which is why I made coffee at three AM. My roommate gave me a sampler of ground coffee from Costa Coffee in the UK, that came for free with something they ordered online. It’s a dark roast with a subtle but rich chocolate flavor to it that works well with my usual cup; half and half and roughly enough sugar to taste, though I screw this up often. It‘s been snowing heavily all day, so here’s hoping chilly weather will cool off that alt-white horde.
yes it‘s apparent that the media and both its conservative and liberal wings and the way they are positioned as THE two dialectical poles while freezing out both actual documentation and discussion of material concerns, and left explanations and answers to those concerns (and obvious crises) is a real “control mechanism,” and one that is harder to pin down than traditional controlling forces bc it’s both nice and good or cartoon evil and repulsive depending on your angle. I'll admit this idea is from deleuze unlike other podcasters of my age cohort lol who seem to be maybe accidentally pinching it.
Also re coffee the zapatista communities sell their coffee online. Roasted in traverse city MI so you can support two god's country's with your purchase (autonomous communities of the Lacondon jungle and the upper great lakes region)
Not in these terms, I don't think. Anecdotally (although I suppose I have at least a broad anecdote range to draw from having done sanders organizing stuff in 16 and 20) the sanders voters, sanders-curious, and sanders door knockers and phone bankers are ordinary working/lower middle class and those professionals who attend to and are often drawn from this group of people (nurses, elementary/HS teachers, social workers, etc). The college kids and grad students who have some kind of actual critical theory exposure are a very small segment. And apart from Sanders and AOC's personally declared alignment with "democratic socialism" there really isn't any runway for that line of ideological argument. It's enormously more fruitful to beat the drum re shitty jobs, healthcare, childcare, education, immigration than to go the ideological framework route. I personally see the logic in working to de-toxify lefty ideological words like communism and socialism (although honestly, in the USA I think we can forget about "communism" and "anarchism" being usable words at any point in the next multiple decades, "socialism" is the only one with any potential traction) but I think that continuing to press the case in material terms, and contrast austerity politics with a "we will give you money and healthcare" contrast is the most promising.
hey now, don't forget the UK and Frankfurt. This isn't all on us...
totally, and i wish we could all just agree on this and move forward. as ever the left is mired in inconsequential doctrinal disputes. like here in WA there were TWO socialist party candidates for president, i'm like ok maybe let's save the argument at least until there's a socialist candidate on the ballot in every state, thanks. in my mind the left here is just hopelessly fractured. there's the electoral politics faction and then a faction that's everything to the left of that, dozens of tiny cliques who call sanders supporters neolibs and centrists and are re-litigating the first international amongst each other. i'm actually like very uninterested in far left politics at this point. what's the point in calling oneself an anarchist in the US in this day and age? maybe this is reductive but i'm definitely not going to pick up a gun, and if i'm not going to do that then my energies have to go into electoral politics.
i did tons of bernie phonebanking last year and the only thing that got any traction for me, and actually it got a lot of traction, was to demonize the rich. everyone's very quick to say they don't want a handout. we're working against 30+ years of anti-collectivist brainwashing here. but most people will agree with the idea that the rich ARE getting handouts and if anyone's getting handouts, shouldn't it be ordinary working people? that's where the energy has to go i think
do you have a read on how Sawant was able to find success in Seattle being a harder left than Sanders person? And just as I suppose a piece of positive vibe trivia, among the bernie organizing group I helped out with on the west side of chgo was an extremely polite middle aged guy from liverpool who had been a Labour activist and also helped out on the Sawant campaign. He was just hopping around the USA knocking doors for whatever socialist he could find
yes part of my job involves helping people with different public aid programs, and the degree to which people who are in clear and desperate need of food stamps, disability checks, etc. resist seeking these out due to hand-out shame is unbelievable. Will say that one approach I've learned is to frame it as we all pay taxes, we all behave as good neighbors and citizens, and we deserve help when we need it kind - I think the sanders pitch works on a similarly logical, fair-minded, and community/collective impulse that every non sociopath has to some degree. So I agree that the most productive way to communicate left values in the USA in 2021 is try and unearth and dust off these capitalism-suppressed values.
i wasn't here at the time she was first elected but my take is simply that she represents district 3 which is dominated by capitol hill, historically the center of left politics and other countercultural forces in the city, like LGBTQ and grunge music. and even in one of the most far-left neighborhoods probably in the US, it's not like she's blowing out her opponents or anything. in the 2019 election she only won 52% of the vote. if you want a read on how hard it is to be elected as a socialist in this godforsaken country lol
another valid observation might be that the city is generally sympathetic to the left, probably because the population who votes is so highly educated. anecdotally, during the primaries when canvassing people were very open to bernie's ideas but were just sort of pragmatically like "well can he beat trump though??" and factually, polls showed that the general population supported allowing CHAZ to continue, probably the main reason it was allowed to continue haha
big respect to you dude and also to your liverpudlian acquaintance, your job has to be a regular reminder of how fucked we all are. i see no way out. i am only comforted by the truth that the trend of history is toward a more humane and equitable society won by the efforts of activists at the direct expense of the rich and powerful.
yes this was by far the #1 and totally unshakeable concern of anyone over 40 I engaged with re bernie in 2020
to be honest heading into covid in the spring and on the heels of bernie failing again, I was worried that this year would be my last as a "sane"" person. However, the generosity and willingness of people to jump into mutual aid and organizing around covid (our bernie group basically just flipped to mutual aid without missing a beat), and how incredibly hard and selfless everyone at my workplace (hospital) worked and continues to work - with absolutely 0 support from federal government, and minimal support from the state - has been energizing. So on the one hand, I'm more incredibly angry at "the system" than ever, but alternately more assured of the genuine goodness and potential of "the people." And I suppose it's better that we have a "system" problem than we do a "people" problem. I mean, it's not nothing that ordinary people have managed to stand up this heroic response to a world-historical disaster. And hopefully we'll come away less willing to be beaten down and fucked over by the system. Who knows how it will shake out but joe fuckin biden is publicly repudiating "austerity measures" lol
https://twitter.com/FishieFlopOog/status/1348430494845857798
https://twitter.com/FishieFlopOog/status/1348431194770309122
I am truly sorry if I bring anyone down with this but I had to share my feelings.
Sharing our feelings is one of the things that helps us get through trying times like these. 
@Geoff Thanks, it took me a while to reply to this thread and my first thoughts were eff this crap do not use Keurig coffee cups they are murder on the environment. I felt like I had no voice in this but my interactions with Shane and his tweet made me feel otherwise.
I want to be clear that our household uses these wire mesh reusable cups that work with Keurig coffee makers. The reason we had that pot at all is because it was a wedding gift. And now that infernal machine has met its retirement at its own hands.
I am in my mid/late 30s and have never drank coffee before lol.
On wednesday evening I wanted to go out game shopping again, but after the events of the day it just felt stupid to leave the house and go through with my agenda like everything was normal.
I don't get it, what exactly do Trump supporters want? What benefits are they receiving by his being in office, other than a continued maintenance and advancement of status quo that serves to hurt others that aren't them? Does helping others take away from their own privilege? No, it does not. So what argument can they provide that makes me feel like their desires are reasonable?
privilege inequality is one of my largest contempts in life. I hate it whenever I see a Fox News clip or Ted Cruz make its way into my twitter timeline, talking about the dumbest shit, calling out the deplorable left, and I think of how wealthy these guys are. How much happier they probably are compared to me, how much more opportunity they have in life, all while being extremely shit at their job. I'm working my butt off to somehow justify spending $100 on a copy of Def Jam Fight for NY, meanwhile Donald Trump's kids can wipe their ass with Border Down and still act like they have problems. Also my ass is on the line if I do a subpar job at my career, have little error to make mistakes, but these guys seem to be able to get away with anything!
Meanwhile AOC is out here tweeting like "hey yallz, it's a leap year! Make sure to get paid for your extra day" only to have her comments be like F**K YOU! We don't wanna get paid you liberal trash!!
oh yeah smash burgers are great!! Last week sucked, but I had a pound of ground beef and made myself a daily burger for four days! That definitely helps, but I will be eating a bit healthier this week lol.
this is the reason, abetted by the absence of a credible alternative
Heh, pardon my linguistic oversimplification, by American neoliberalism I mean to include the US and all of the oil rich postcolonial/neocolonial lapdog vassal states
Hot Beverage Update: I got some Ito En brand green tea at our local Uwajimaya (a regional Asian foods chain) and I‘m grumpy about it because I steep it like all get out and it’s still weak as hell. I got some matcha ice cream (ironically also Ito En) and it‘s got more tea flavor than the tea! What’s up with that?
that‘s a bummer, as I think I mentioned in this thread I’m having a heck of a bad time finding good tea at an ok price since the owners of my local ten ren retired.
I can vouch for this place https://todd-holland.com/ but it's not cheap. It's good enough quality that you can get 2-3 good steeps out of the same leaves so that makes it a little less painful
@antillese hmmmmmmmmmmmm…. pardon me since I don‘t really know much about tea, but maybe this brand requires different brewing conditions or for you to use more tea than whatever you’re used to?
Something someone said that stuck with me about tea is that if you're looking for a stronger flavor, steeping for longer has pronounced diminishing returns, using more tea is the easiest way to get a stronger cup. But then again, that was about black tea
Yup, this and Dalgona coffee might be the trendiest right now as I see fit in social media. I won't try it, but when I loved when they showed the whole process because I feel relaxed either when I cook or when some else does this to me or to another person.