I don't think this is intentional, I think they wanted the diagonal corridors that lead straight onto the state in that way. However, it is still a problem even if it is not intentional because it means that they don't care enough to not correct themselves when they end up doing Nazi symbolism, which means at least a tolerating attitude towards it.

Hey thanks so much for your response, sorry it took me so long to get back to you, I have had a very busy week and a half with university starting up again.

That's an interesting perspective you give on different people's bodies having different standards of health. For me, at least the health of my partner would be important to me, I would not want someone I care about to contract illnesses or have problems with their body because they are overweight. Also their ability to do certain things. I like walking, for example, I would not want to date someone who would struggle to walk for more than 30 minutes for example.

I see your point entirely with regards to fetishisation. A while back I looked up stories on google of people in relationships where one partner had a fat fetish, all of the ones I could find were negative. Mostly because the fat partner felt objectified. Needless to say, I didn't feel very good about my sexuality afterwards.

I tend to feel as though I am objectifying women and being kinda misogynist when I feel attracted to their overweight bodies, and I feel uncomfortable talking about this preference with anyone because of this reason. I also feel kinda weird about it when it comes to dating preferences, someone's personality, values, interests etc are very important to me when deciding if I want to date someone. Having physical preferences seems to me to feel like it shouldn't mean very much in comparison to these things, and yet it kinda does for some reason.

What do you think? Do you mind going a bit more in detail about the kind of research that you did?

Tacos are a symbol of bourgeois white european settler colonial decadence and thus they will be banned after the revolution and anyone found making or distributing tacos will be deported to the Florida gulag.

We shouldn't be using that kind of language anyway, it's dehumanising as fuck

Its because the wording literally describes you as a body, not a human, a body. Its objectifying to its core

What do you think about people who have a sexual preference for fat people? I myself have a strong preference for fat women, and fatphobia made me feel for years, especially in my teens, that I was disgusting and weird for having such a preference. I actually participated in fatphobic bullying at school in 6th grade and 7th grade. In the first instance, it was against a girl in my class who everyone picked on for being fat so I joined in because I wanted to fit in despite that I found her attractive. In 7th grade, I picked on a guy in my class who all my friends also bullied for being fat, again to fit in. As I went to high school and developed more crushes on girls I would try to avoid becoming attracted to the ones who were overweight because I felt sickened at being attracted to them. I'm a bit older now and I don't feel shame as much, mostly from learning about sex positivity, but now I worry instead that I am attracted to something that is unhealthy. I don't really want to be attracted to bodies that aren't good for the people who inhabit them. It again makes me not want to date anyone who is overweight. Thoughts?

AOC posed for a photo with members from the Bolivian coup government and expressed support for it.

She can get fucked.

If you live in Auckland or Wellington you have a couple of options, Organise Aotearoa, which is a multi-tendency org who did good work with the Ihumātao campaign. Or there is the Communist Party of Aotearoa, which is a strictly Marxist-Leninist party that supports China which has done some stuff with tenants unions and has connections with Cuba and Vietnam through the embassies.

Outside of that, there isn't that much. Both OA and the CPA have members in Hamilton, Christchurch, Dunedin, Whangārei, Rotorua and Tauranga so joining those orgs if you live in those places won't be a waste of time. Both of them are looking to expand to other areas but suffer from the issue that there aren't enough people there to make branches.

In Christchurch there is the Canterbury Socialist Society, however, it is more like a social group than an actual org.

There is also the ISO but they arent that big and afaik they don't do very much. They also, being Trots, ask that you commit time to sell newspapers as a part of being a member.

To answer this question you need to ask why did Gorbachev come to power in the first place? It is obvious to everyone that he is not a communist and that he probably never was.

• He came to power because by the 1980s the USSR had lost its way so much that it was struggling to justify its existence. The mindset of 'outcompeting' the west has its roots in the 1920s but really became front and centre of the Soviet mindset in the 1950s after Khruschev became leader. This meant that the Soviet government instead of focusing on revolution and anti-imperialism, instead started focusing almost purely on economic growth and geopolitical dominance.

• Due to the underdeveloped nature of the country, bad economic reforms, and just poor management of the economy in general, the Soviet economy was never able to surpass that of the US despite indications that it would be able to do so. The lack of other major allies and the decline in global popularity of Marxism-Leninism in from the mid-1970s onwards damaged its ability to project power and the country became increasingly weak.

• When you define success as being more powerful in a bourgeois imperialist sense than the capitalist west and then fail at that goal, it is no surprise then that people start looking at adopting their systems and ways of thinking in order to achieve that goal, this is where Gorbachev comes in. When he opened up the channels of communication to everyone people began communicating their long-suppressed views. Views that namely were, questioning the existence of such a political Union, with an extensive apparatus of repression and rigid economic and political thinking. For many of these people, these institutions had not delivered on their promises of improving the lives of people and keeping them safe.

• The USSR was never meant to be a socialist equivalent of the Russian Empire, however that is what it pretty much ended up becoming. The emblem has a globe on it for a reason, it was supposed to be like the EU, a union of socialist nations that was constantly expanding and did not favour any one nation, granting autonomy to all. Instead because of the way it was constructed, especially after world war 2, it was pretty much defined as Greater Russia and Russians were increasingly given a privelaged position. This caused the alienation of other nations, especially the Baltic states, which had strong national identities and were absorbed into the union through a dubious referendum which no one believes represented the true views of the peoples it polled.

• In terms of social progress, there was not much after the 1930s. Women's rights were better than the west, true, but they did not keep progressing, and most of the visions of the revolution were forgotten about. Men continued to dominate most higher-level positions and women continued to be relegated to domestic work on top of their careers. Homosexuality was illegal from 1931 onwards and afaik no attempts were made to decriminalise it until after the USSR fell. In terms of the economy, the advance towards communism stopped after the 1940s, every economic reform after that was a regression into more capitalist relations.

• There were also few efforts to reform the prison and repression systems, despite the fact that they were deeply loathed by the population and were moreso run to protect the state from unrest rather than to suppress class enemies and resolve contradictions. The fact that in the 1960s and 1970s you could find circles of Marxist Leninists at universities being persecuted for arguing that the government was not fulfilling Lenin's ideals set out in State and revolution tells you all you need to know. A punitive rather than transformational approach to justice was taken, and this imo was one of the biggest flaws of the Soviet Union, it created a lot of unnecessary suffering and prevented the society from moving towards more progressive social forms.

Ultimately when you have a bunch of problems, remove/suppress the revolutionary mindset to dealing with them, and promote the liberal mindset instead, you end up with Gorbachev.

Are you a member of a leftist org? Fellow Kiwi here I can point you in the right direction if you want. Being in an org helps give me some purpose for sure.

You don't have to be, illegalising porn does nothing to solve its problems. It will still be there and will only make life harder for those who are forced to produce it.

Your argument is correct but it's not an excuse to be racist on an individual level. Racist porn videos should be taken off the internet, just like other types of racist videos.

As a New Zealander these are all basically the same person to me

Yes it is.

That trash has haunted me for the last 10 years of my life. I have dropped out of university, lost I don't know how many friendships and relationships due to social anxiety, spent years being chronically depressed and anxious. I have erectile dysfunction now, and my only sexual experiences are those from behind a screen looking at people I don't know. I honestly have no real idea what real sex in a relationship is actually like.

You stay in your lane when talking about how porn affects the people who use it, I will stay in mine when it comes to rights for sex workers.

JR group companies are heavily involved in real estate both in station shopping centers/services and easement lands. Construction is rapid and relatively easy in Japan, so they have an interest in areas where people might be moving to and providing affordable transportation in and out.

The UK’s incentive structure means there’s no real reason for operators to invest in providing good service. They don’t own the tracks (Network Rail does) and their franchise might simply not be renewed. They’re really just in it to make a buck, while JR companies are more interested in developing areas around their lines for people to live in.

This is the problem with railways and capitalism, they cost too much to be profitable from fares alone, but the additional economic benefits are enormous. As a result of most railway companies either don't own the infrastructure and the government has to pay out or they do what is described above and become landlords. When this doesn't happen as is the case where I live, the government just underfunds the railways and as a result, we end up with the most cars per capita of any country in the world.

I wonder if this is a psyop to try to get qanon to accept the new administration

Its wasn't bungling, everyone in the US government knows how bad coronavirus is, they just didn't care enough to protect against if it means shutting down the economy.

Bush is worse but not by huge amounts, Remember Trump has concentration camps for immigrants, 400k covid deaths, attempted coups in Venezuela & Bolivia, and greatly contributed to the rise of far-right ideology both in the US and across the world.

I mean 400k covid deaths in a single year really gives it a run for its money

This person does have an econ degree apparently so it makes sense