Mao Zedong: Stalin is the leader of the world revolution. This is of paramount importance. It is a great event that mankind is blessed with Stalin. Since we have him, things can go well. As you all know, Marx is dead and so are Engels and Lenin. Had there been no Stalin, who would there be to give directions? But having him - this is really a blessing. Now there exists in the world a Soviet Union, a Communist Party and also a Stalin. Thus the affairs of the world can go well. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Lenin: We have a marvelous Georgian who has sat down to write a big article for Prosveshcheniye, for which he has collected all the Austrian and other materials. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Martin Gilens: Analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. ... When the preferences of economic elites and organized interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy. ... Our analyses suggest that majorities of the American public actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts. Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance, such as regular elections, freedom of speech and association, and a widespread (if still contested) franchise. But we believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organizations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America's claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Ravi Batra: American government is corrupt. Those who have enough money can almost get anything they want from our government, whether it is tax breaks, or subsidies, or policies and laws changed, removed, or added. ... Money controls U.S. politics as never before. As a result, the tax burden has gradually shifted from the wealthy onto the backs of the poor and the middle class. From 1950 to 1980, the top-bracket income tax rate ranged from 70 to 90 percent, while the Social Security tax imposed on lower incomes varied from 4 to 9 percent. By 2005 the top income tax rate was down to 35 percent, but the Social Security tax had jumped to 15.3 percent. Such are the tangible benefits that moneyed donors receive from politicians. ... Today CEOs and wealthy businessmen are the ruling elite in the Western world, especially the United States. Their donations finance elections and even education, which they are constantly saying has to adapt itself to the needs of the market (that is, be molded to inculcate their views. It should come as no surprise therefore that the theories offered by economists rationalize the self-interest of big business and the wealthy. Overtly, of course, such theories claim to benefit society and the public's well-being. But covertly, they do just the opposite: they make the great mass of people poorer while making the rich fabulously richer. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
William F. Pepper: The Defense Authorization Act (2007) gives the Executive the power to move National Guard units anywhere in the country, without regard for the wishes of the state governors, and to declare martial law. This declaration would authorize the detention of dissenting citizens who could then be picked up and held incommunicado for an indefinite period, without access to counsel or the courts. This is nothing short of a militarization of the Republic. Enabled by the Defense Authorization Act, the president can now declare martial law, transfer military technology to militarized domestic police forces, and detain dissenting citizens virtually at will. These detainees could be held in camps that are now being constructed and refurbished by Kellogg Brown and Root, ostensibly for illegal immigrants. ... The unitary presidency has been granted the authority to order kidnapping, detention, and torture abroad under the Military Commissions Act of 2006. This act authorizes extraordinary rendition, which inevitably means foreign detention and torture of anyone the President determines to be an unlawful combatant. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
F. William Engdahl: There has been a silent coup d'etat of the monied class, an American oligarchy. Names such as Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, David Rockefeller, Sheldon Adelson, the Koch Brothers, George H.W. Bush and family. The top 1% have reshaped the fundamentals of American life, culture and above all politics. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Simon Heffer: This is, in theory, still a free country, but our politically correct, censorious times are such that many of us tremble to give vent to perfectly acceptable views for fear of condemnation. Freedom of speech is thereby imperiled, big questions go un-debated, and great lies become accepted, unequivocally as great truths. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Peter Dale Scott: American electoral politics had become a caricature of its former vital self: a process in which money (mostly corporate) first bought both political parties and then graciously allowed the public to choose between them. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Chris Hedges: Political leaders, who use the tools of mass propaganda to create a sense of faux intimacy with citizens, no longer need to be competent, sincere, or honest. They need only to appear to have these qualities. Most of all they need a story, a personal narrative. The reality of the narrative is irrelevant. It can be completely at odds with the facts. The consistency and emotional appeal of the story are paramount. Those who are best at deception succeed. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Andrew Gavin Marshall: If you are not willing to lie, cheat, manipulate, steal and kill to get ahead, you are never going to be the president of the United States. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Lenin: Of course, most of the Labour Party's members are workingmen. However, whether or not a party is really a political party of the workers does not depend solely upon a membership of workers but also upon the men that lead it, and the content of its actions and its political tactics. Only this latter determines whether we really have before us a political party of the proletariat. Regarded from this, the only correct, point of view, the Labour Party is a thoroughly bourgeois party, because, although made up of workers, it is led by reactionaries, and the worst kind of reactionaries at that, who act quite in the spirit of the bourgeoisie. It is an organisation of the bourgeoisie, which exists to systematically dupe the workers with the aid of the British Noskes and Scheidemanns. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Georgi Dimitrov: Fascism aims at the most unbridled exploitation of the masses, but it approaches them with the most artful anti-capitalist demagogy, taking advantage of the deep hatred of the working people against the plundering bourgeoisie, the banks, trusts and financial magnates, and advancing those slogans which at the given moment are most alluring to the politically immature masses. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
I was reading a Bluesky post by Roxane Gay about how Rx drug commercials are weirdly upbeat and that unearthed the memory of this haunting commercial for heart failure meds that used old folks singing "Tomorrow" from Annie and that activates my fight-or-flight response to this day.
R. Palme Dutt: This systematic organisation of a terrorized, over-worked and mentally starved slave society, directed to the supreme aim of war, is the most modern development of monopoly capitalism under conditions of extreme crisis. It is known as fascism. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Lenin: The revisionists regard as phrase-mongering all arguments about "leaps" and about the working-class movement being antagonistic in principle to the whole of the old society. They regard reforms as a partial realisation of socialism. The anarcho-syndicalists reject "petty work", especially the utilisation of the parliamentary platform. In practice, the latter tactics amount to waiting for "great days" along with an inability to muster the forces which create great events. Both of them hinder the thing that is most important and most urgent, namely, to unite the workers in big, powerful and properly functioning organisations, capable of functioning well under all circumstances, permeated with the spirit of the class, struggle, clearly realising their aims and trained in the true Marxist world outlook. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Glenn Greenwald: What you have now are the leading journalists of America working for the largest corporations. They're incredibly well-paid. They are essentially not really journalists but media stars or celebrities. They are admitted into the highest levels of powerful. They're part of it. Socioeconomically, they have much more in common with the powerful political people they're supposed to be covering, then they do what the ordinary Americans for whom they are supposed to be speaking. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Edward Dowling: The two greatest obstacles to democracy in the United States are, first, the widespread delusion among the poor that we have a democracy, and second, the chronic terror among the rich, lest we get it. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Always be on the alert against Trotskyism, reformism and revisionism / Soyez toujours en alerte contre le trotskysme, le réformisme et le révisionnisme / Seid immer wachsam gegen Trotzkismus, Reformismus und Revisionismus
Andrew Gavin Marshall: American democracy serves the interests of the United States ruling elite - stability and prosperity. Stability means control of the population. The West is stable because the population is under control by the social engineering process that came with the development of our modern democracy - the propaganda system, the public relations system, the education system, and the consumer society. The consumer society is a system of social engineering. In a consumer society, people are concerned not about the world, not about life, not about freedom and democracy. They are concerned about buying things. So, that keeps them distracted, and it ultimately keeps them stupid, and essentially useless, except for serving the function of continuing to consume until they die. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Paul Craig Roberts: The United States has entered the ranks of the failed states. One of the most remarkable manifestations of a failed state is that the criminals are all inside the government operating against the people, whereas in a normal state, the criminals are on the outside of the government, operating against it. So, we now have every manifestation of being a failed state, with the government in the hands of a few Wall Street gangsters. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
William Cormier: The American public cannot make informed decisions and evaluate whether or not our economy is actually improving if we do not have all of the facts, not those that our MSM (Mainstream Media) deems acceptable for the public to read. Our Mainstream News Media presents the clearest danger to our Liberty and Freedom, and if they don't start reporting the news, not propaganda, the ability of the American public to remain an "informed public" is in danger of falling into the pitfalls that are usually associated when a communist/authoritarian/fascist government controls the news media. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Glenn Greenwald: If you were to say to normal Americans that members of Congress leave office and make millions of dollars doing nothing other than essentially peddling influence to wealthy individuals who can have their way with Congress, most people would consider that to be corruption. Yet, to members of the media, who have spent their lives in Washington, who are friends and colleagues of the people who are engorging themselves on this corrupt system that is just a way of life. It's like breathing air or drinking water. It's not anything that's noteworthy, let alone controversial. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Evan Thomas: Establishments believe in propping up the existing order. Members of the ruling class have a vested interest in keeping things pretty much the way they are. Safeguarding the status quo and protecting traditional institutions can be stabilizing and reassuring. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
You know what's great to learn at 38, right before bedtime one night, after a whole life time of struggle...
That your mother traumatized you with ADHD to the point where actually pushing myself against ADHD is a trigger... making it so no amount of coping skills can help me push myself for any real length of time...
I'd try and do something that requires a push, even a little one... and be crying... and I thought it was just the feeling of hitting my dopamine... but nooooo... now I'm unpacking that it was me getting triggered at the feeling of pushing my reserves at all...
That explains so damn much and makes me feel so damn hurt and angry...
I was forced to push myself so far so often as a kid and she didn't ever relent when I was critically over-extended on dopamine... usually around cleaning. I'm remembering so many times crying and sobbing on the floor because she demanded I clean to an extreme standard and I wasn't allowed to do anything else until I met her approval...
And I've been running my whole life fucking kneecapped by this... I thought I just had it worse than most (with ADHD) on my ability to push myself on tasks... but no... it's because I realize now I can't fucking push myself at all because my fucking brain just jumps straight to that extreme pain and trauma right away...
Now I'm fucking crying when I should be trying to sleep...
i spent a sizeable portion of my childhood shut in my room with "you're not coming out until it's clean!" And without guidance on how to clean it.
I push through hard things like this as an adult with the mantra "something is better than nothing" and just chip away at things.
And I sit with my kids when cleaning their room, talk through my process and coach them. That's been really healing, coaching my kids and also my ADHD friends; it's like re-parenting myself!
@contradogma friendica definitely follows more of the facebook format style, one of the reasons I chose it for this instance. That and the fact that it is basically the swiss army knife of social, attempting to support everything it possibly can.
Biggest downside is the poor UI and that's the entire reason it's not my default recommendation for the fediverse.
@contradogma it's mostly things being in weird places, easy to get lost... if you're even a little bit of a tinkerer it's no big, but for the casual computer user it gets really frustrating really fast.
ie. try and find where to go to change your profile picture.
Eric Zuesse: John Bolton represents America's billionaires , and the US Government does, too. It doesn't represent America's public; it represents only the individuals who overwhelmingly finance America's politicians; and those politicians, in turn, represent the 585 US billionaires' interests, and not the interests of the American public. The public are merely to be manipulated, not represented. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Duck Marshall 🚲
in reply to Shiri Bailem • • •i spent a sizeable portion of my childhood shut in my room with "you're not coming out until it's clean!" And without guidance on how to clean it.
I push through hard things like this as an adult with the mantra "something is better than nothing" and just chip away at things.
And I sit with my kids when cleaning their room, talk through my process and coach them. That's been really healing, coaching my kids and also my ADHD friends; it's like re-parenting myself!
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