Doctors are alerting to be on edge about possible polio cases in the near future. Polio has been eradicated since the 60s here due to it being the only mandatory vaccine given to children. We are truly evolving backwards I think.

Lumumba was a voice for an independent Africa, free of colonial oppression from the West. He was one of the leading figures in the movement that eventually freed Congo from Belgian occupation.

Lumumba was murdered in 1961 after he was transferred between prisons by rebel forces in the country during a civil war. Decades later, in 2000, the Belgian state admitted complicity to his murder.

If the topic is interesting to me then most of the time I do read them

This channel is about a guy who is into ecology but with a pretty decent anti capitalist view. In this video he wants to show some (mostly) native greenery but he also provides an insight in what it is to live in the Bay Area and how bad its homelessness situation is.

I do. Even made a post about it one day and was kind of corrected by the Grad about it not being useful. They are right. Don't get me wrong I still get these feelings though. The other day I was preparing my bike to ride home when a colleague saw me and wanted to stop next to me. Two fuckers on an electric razor scooter who were speeding nearly crashed into him and started giving him shit for something he wasn't even in the wrong about. Even asking him if he needed a slapping, to which I jumped up and stood right in their faces saying that they now either needed to be the tough guys they think they are and slap me or move on. They moved on.

Now, if they started a fight I could've gotten seriously injured or maybe even dead, which would not benefit me at all. There is no use in fighting. But something about what you call pure, selfish, unbridled pieces of fucking shit makes me full of rage and I do want to claw their eyes out with a spoon.

I think it's good to stand up for yourself and others. After all that's a part of why we have this ideology I guess. On the other hand you do need to be cautious as some things just aren't worth potentially dying for.

Tragedy occurred today as I very unexpectedly lost a family member. The day has been kind of a blur and of course I am in a state of grief.

Despite all this one of the things I keep thinking about is work tomorrow, wondering if it's deserved for me not to go. If anyone came to me and asked me a question if they were in a similar situation, I'd say of course you should stay at home. For myself it's often more difficult, I find.

I just hate this system in which a natural and human thing to do, grieving, becomes a questionable thing because god forbid you miss out on a day of work. Fuck this system.

Why do you guys have such oral fixations? Anytime someone says something you don't like they are supposedly sucking someone's dick. Putin's. Trump's. Whoever's.

Childish behavior. But then what do you expect with an ideology that is morally bankrupt.

I assume they have a PR team to discuss popularity of certain measures and with things like this I wonder how such a team can approve of gestures like this.

Like I feel it would be less insulting if he just gave some half ass apology on twitter. Maybe visit the area once or twice.

But 770 dollars? Once? Fuck me.

I'm not sure if I'd say I'm less communist but I do sometimes feel uninspired to do something. Which I guess is normal. I have a busy but steady and decent paying job. I am able bodied. I have a good group of friends, good family relations, a good relationship. I have fun hobbies I can do. I am moderately well liked by most people I meet. In general, my life can be pretty good with only a few challenges at times.

Basically, at my current situation, I live in a system that is designed for me to profit off. I'm not getting the largest piece of the cake but I'm not on the bottom of the societal ladder either.

What this causes is that for me, the path of the least resistance in life, is to accept the status quo and to live life according to said status quo. It might give me a slight discomfort from time to time but I will probably have a decent life. I think it is natural, from an instinctal point of view, to follow a path that gives you little to no stress in which you don't have to fight that hard. After all, would I rather stand on a cold market talking to half interested people about communism or would I be doing something I actually enjoy? I think many comrades with me, if they had to be honest, would choose the latter.

However, I have also become aware of the unequality of our system. I am aware how I am in a privileged position purely because I was spawned in a certain part of the world, with a certain gender and a certain skin color. And because I think that is bullshit, I want to do something about that.

Communist organising is difficult. It takes a lot of time and effort and you very rarely get great results in our current societies. This causes you to have an ideology which you cannot always bring into practice as our current society is the direct opposite of said ideology. I think this can cause some dissonance to occur in your brain, which at times can be hard to overcome.

It's okay to take some time once in a while to reflect on where you stand. It's a privilege a lot of people, especially in the western left, have. But that doesn't mean you can't use it. Despite my personal challenges to stay organised or to find motivation to go out for the umpteenth time without a guaranteed result, I still believe communism is the way forward for humanity and I try my best not to lose hope, however difficult that can be.

It's slightly less than the number of refugees Europe had to deal with in the last two decades. In total. All at once. There's no way the US will handle that well.

Jesus Christ that would be a gigantic operation

There's a massive general strike in Belgium today. 30k strikers are in Brussels right now, mainly people working in the public sector. The strike today is against retirement reforms among some other things.

It's part of an initiative of the unions to strike every 13th of the month from now on. I participated in last month's strike and I was a bit sceptical about today's turnout but it's great to see so many people on the streets today. I decided to sit this one out though. But I work at the union so I'm at least somewhat involved.

Congratulations 🎂

This is now a bird posting sub

B Robin

I guess focussing on building a movement and, in the case of gaining control, focussing on building as much useful assets as possible could be strategy. Developing your own industry, for example, can be useful if you decide to leave the EU. A country that can produce can manage to sustain themselves despite whatever isolationist policy the EU will impose after that.

I'm not sure either what the correct thing to do is right now. If I look at our own party work, as a party that has grown tremendously in the last few years, is to first build a movement within our own country and not focus on the EU too much for now. We do send politicians to the EU though, in an attempt to get our voice heard over there.

It would also be economic suicide for many countries to leave the EU and the blowback of such a thing would be shoved down the throats of the workers. It's a difficult situation.

Today was a good day for bird watching it seemed. And of course it happens on a day I didn't plan to do it. I went to see a Witch Hazel in a city park which is supposed to be blooming this time of the year (it was) and I found this Heron when I was walking through the bushes.

I also saw a Great Cormorant in the park. An Eurasian Jay is roaming around the gardens of my appartment building and today I saw it accompanied by another one. I guess it will be mating season soon for the little terrorist.

To top it off, a woodpecker also showed up in the gardens. I only need to see an owl today to make it perfect. But chances of winning the lottery are bigger than that.

The EU itself is an unreformable neoliberal institution and any slight socialist movement within its Member States would have a really hard time gaining success.

Leaving the EU could be a positive thing with regards to revolutionary potential. However, like you said, the only real push for such a thing come from right wing groups.

Personally I don't think far right groups within the Imperial core deserve critical support however destructive they are against US-EU hegemony. That doesn't mean that said groups don't give leftist movements an opportunity to exploit.

Went to deliver our party's seasonal newspaper through my neighborhood. While I was putting a paper in a mailbox a man came up to me asking what paper I was bringing around. I told him it was from our party and he got all excited, saying he is happy with a party like us and that he voted for us.

It's moments like these in which I remember that despite however exhausting all the organising can be, it is worth it.