SenorSoSo [he/him]

Least counter revolutionary trots

There are right wing populists. Donald Trump is a classic populist. He aims to represent the zeitgeist of the “common man”, he’s a populist for the white majority and a populist for evangelicals and conservatives.

Left populism is more or less a tendency to socialism but not entirely. I could see many or even most Marxists being against UBI for example but I’d also consider UBI to be an example of leftist economic populism. So there’s an example, not all left populism is socialist.

Populism is more opposition to elites and the institutions the elites construct to structure and implement their rule. It means representing the relatively powerless who, being given a leader, become suddenly very powerful.

It’s not necessarily socialist and socialism wouldn’t automatically endorse left populist ideas. Populism can also be extremely conservative when the powerless group self define according to a specific identity, such as conservative evangelicals and their reactionary opposition to cultural modernity.

Just stay inside all winter, radicalize by spending too much time on far left extremist web forums, and get jacked by working out 6 hours a day screaming “a fascist worked out today, have you?” at yourself for warmth because the cost of heating is too high.

Death of Stalin, although sure secret speech is probably more accurate.

We are referring to the same shift.

1953

Wikipedia is like if the CIA world fact book didn’t have to pretend to be official and objective.

I prepared a summary of news from a random assortment of Spanish sources. I will seek to improve my methodology but at the moment I am grabbing from the major national news and some leftist news aggregators.

[Barcelona introduces the "Amazon tax", a tax on package deliveries to discourage online shopping] - El Pais

Barcelona city government is pursuing a plan for a sustainable & living city, and so they wish to discourage to-the-door deliveries from internet shopping.

Concern for the war in Ukraine is falling rapidly in Spain, far behind economic concerns focused on the cost of living and energy - El Pais

The cost of living is by far the greatest concern, ranked as "very high" by 70.7% of the population, with only 38.6% ranking the war in Ukraine as "very important", behind other economic concerns such as the cost of energy, poverty and inequality, or public welfare benefits. Spain has been relatively less affected by the war in Ukraine as it didn't import a large amount of Russian gas and inflation is only 7%, lower than other major economies in the EU.

European drug smuggling gangs are camouflaging drug shipments as humanitarian aid to Ukraine to ease distribution throughout Europe - El Pais

29 people have been arrested in a multinational drug smuggling gang, that included Ukrainian nationals, smuggling large quantities of marijuana disguised as humanitarian aid for Ukraine, reportedly able to more easily evade police and customs checks in this manner. It was being grown in Spain and then distributed throughout Europe disguised in this manner.

NATO considers anti-air defenses in the eastern frontier of NATO in response to "the missile that fell on Poland" - La Vanguardia

The language used in this article is hilarious. They are strenuously avoiding stating who fired the missile, only that this missile hit Poland, killed two people, and "for the first time brought to allied territory the direct impact of war" until eventually after a few paragraphs there is the indirect acknowledgement that the missile was fired by air defenses. They are discussing permanent air missions capable of striking and reconnaissance at all times, raising the number of troops near the border to 300,000.

Spain to build 5 warships for Saudi Arabia

Details of the agreement are secret and it is not legal to discuss or share details of the agreement under the law of official secrets which has been retained from the Franco era.

El Salvador surrounds the third most populous town in the country with 10,000 military and police in a major operation against gangs. - La Vanguardia

Constitutional protections have been suspended and the army has been deployed to assert control over the city in a major escalation of the Plan Control Territorial - which since 2019 has seen almost 60,000 "gang members" arrested. The plan involves a massive increase and militarization of police forces to combat gang violence with state violence and a blurring of purposes for both the police and military.

Workers for the largest mail delivery service in Spain are calling strike action over Cyber Monday & Christmas - Izquierda Diario

They haven't received a significant pay rise in over a decade resulting in 20-25% loss of real purchasing power over the past 11 years. La Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT - a major anarchosyndicalist workers union) point to the role of the socialists PSOE and Unidas Podemos in budget reductions for the service.

Italian syndicalists are protesting the Meloni government

Logistics and distribution unions are activating to protest the Meloni government, focusing on the cost of living, the on-going participation in the war, and in general protest against the far-right politics of Giorgia Meloni.

Cost of living protests seem to be entwined with protests against rearmament and combined with general anti-NATO and anti-war sentiment, at least within these syndicalist unions.

That cat gif intelslava just posted is some hilariously morbid stuff.

Seems even more in another wave

🇷🇺🇺🇦❗Ukrainians write that more than a hundred new missiles are now flying at them.

I guess Russia wasn’t that close to running out?

Just call it “anarcho-syndicalism with a transitionary government of workers councils”