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Cake day: June 9th, 2023

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  • Lenin ended any oppurtunity for none CPSU members to be elected to the Soviets and banned factions in the CPSU in 1921. He then eliminated opposition with the Cheka. Even before that the Communists acted under “war communism”, which meant killing anybody not 100% in line. That very much included Machnos work in setting up a Soviet Democracy in Ukraine, due to them being Anarchists. Stalin then abolished the Soviets in 1936.

    The Soviet Union had a bit of it, in the very beginning, but it failed and turned into a statist dictatorship. That is why Stalin ordered the Anarchists to be killed in Spain as well, the Prague Spring got crushed due to moving into a more democratic direction as well as many other movements of worker uprisings.











  • The SPD initially prefered to work with further left forces. They worked together on the Reich Congress of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils however the SPD wanted a parliamentary democracy and the USPD wanted a council republic, so when they realized the most of the councils were not in fact communist and actually supported the SPD, that caused uprisings against the interim SPD lead government, which the USPD left. The USPD was also unwilling to work with the SPD in the national assembly, which was the parliament they set up and they were sitting in. Intresstingly the Weimar constituion has a few points which could have been easily turned to accomadate workers councils. Hence the more centrist forces worked with them and the consitution was born.

    I really think the word you’re looking for here is “liberal”

    No it is democratic, which the KPD at this point was no longer. They were working on setting up a Stalinist dictatorship and no longer a council democracy.

    You’re making significant assumptions, such as any of the liberals actually being willing to work the with the Communists,

    I am looking at what we might want to learn from what happened back for the US election and other struggles against the far right. So pointing out that this was an option is imho extremely important. Obviously they did not do it, but that does not mean it is impossible to do it at least partly today, with different left wing groups considering different centrist groups not radical enough.


  • Hitler and Thälmann lost to the center right Hindenburg who was backed by the social democrats. Hindenburg was already president since 1925, so he was seen as no direct threat to democracy. Then Germany had parliamentary elections in July 1932. Those had a Nazi + Communist majority, so they repeated the election in November as they did not have a majority to form a government as both the Communist and the Nazis were against democracy. That however although slightly better did not solve that problem. So Hindenburg used decrees to work with the Nazis so they could form a government.

    So if the Communists and social democrats would have worked together and elected a left president. That might have been somebody from the social democrats or indeed Thälmann, then a minority centrist or left wing or a majority centrist and communist government would have been possible. The Communists however never tried to work with the democratic forces. The Nazis actually did exactly that, which they were able to use to gain total power.

    Point should be obvious.



  • That was going back much further. The Communists had tried to overthrow the Weimar Republic in the Hamburg Uprising a decade earlier. So the social democrats, who were a key supporter and really the creators of the Republic, saw them as an enemy. Thälmann was especially outspoken against the social democrats. Hence they saw supporting Thälmann as supporting an enemy of the Weimar Republic.

    However Jill Stein and co policies are mostly about as radical as the German social democrats back then. All of it could be done by reforming the US political system. At least near term.Also the German communists were much better organized then the US left. They were sitting in most parliaments of German states and cities. The US Green Party has no officeholders on a federal or even state level right now. Of the 8 state level officeholders they did have only 3 have run on a Green Party ticket, the rest was elected Democrat and switched to the Greens. That has to be changed first, before running for president. Seriously if you can not take state seats, then you can not win the presidency.


  • Just as a bit of context:

    • Willy Wimmer is a German former Bundestag member, who is massivly into conspiracy theories and at this point far right
    • Michael Flynn was one of the contacts between Trump and the Russian government. He plead guilty to that
    • Cyril Svoboda was one of the guys who gave Voices of Europe an interview in which he supported Russias position on Ukraine. Voices of Europes interviews were paid and used as a way to finance the far right in Europe using Russian money. It is currently under EU sanctions. His former party has distanced themself from him, due to his ties to Russia.
    • Emir Kusturica is a Serbia film director, who makes propaganda films and has far right pro Russian positions. His wife is well his wife.

    The rest are obviously all Russian politcal figures and well Jill Stein. The photo was also taken at a Russia Today celebration. Just saying.


  • Are you seriously suggesting that Gaza is the only problem the Democrats have?

    This is what you do, when you want to take votes from the Democrats. If you wanted to built up real power, to challenge the Democrats from the left, you have to win local smaller elections first. That means city council, house of representatives, state level politicians, school boards and so forth. You focus on the most left leaning regions, so you can actually go first past the post. The Greens do not do that. They run in FOUR elections in California this year. That is the largest blue state, with some very left leaning areas.

    Also once you sit in congress, councils or whatever, you need allies, unless they win a majority. So in most cases that would mean winning the furthest left seats and having to work with a more centrist party, to change things. In the US that would be the Democrats. In some countries there are deals made to not run candidates in certain districts, to make sure left parties win. That just happened in France for example. No reason those deals could not be made between the Democrats and the Greens.

    Also Gaza can only be solved by becoming president. Jill Stein is not going to win the election and everybody with half a brain should no that. So the goal of running, should be to show what the Green Party stands for in local elections. Nobody can solve Gaza when sitting on a city council in the US, however they can built bikelanes, promote renewables, improve public transit, cheap dense green housing and so forth. Jill Stein does not mention those at all. She should, to help out the local candidates, which they are not running. It also means less issues the Democrats might copy. After all who cares, if the Greens or the Democrats pass good laws, as long as they are passed.

    Attacking the Democrats from the left is just going to hurt the Democrats, which helps the Republicans. Instead the Green Party should either try to built an alternative or push them towards the left. Right now it is obvious that they just want to help the Republicans.




  • “I did encourage him to get this over with. You want to get it over with fast. Have victory, get your victory, and get it over with. It has to stop, the killing has to stop,” Trump said at a New Jersey press conference on Thursday, referring to their meeting at Mar-a-Lago last month. But he also criticized cease-fire demands.

    In other words Trump wants to have a quick genocide. That is the only way to stop the killing, without having a ceasefire. Even Biden was a hell of a lot better then this.



  • Look fab labs, hacker space, maker spaces or whatever it is named in your area. Those are not exactly everywhere, but common enough to have a look at. Another somewhat related space would be a repair cafe. That would give you not only access to a workshop, but also a bunch of folks for inspiration.

    Other then that look up Arduino and RaspberryPi solar projects. It is pretty easy to find some lists. 3d printers are pretty common, as are many other similar tools. Home automation can also be interesting, but that might not be that great of an option, if you rent. Micromobility can also be somewhat interesting(elector skateboards, self assembling a bicycle…). It is also rather easy to set up a solar system in a flat, as long as you can easily install it outside it on a balcony or whatever. There is also a pretty large diy loudpspeaker community, which apparently is pretty easy to built.

    Honestly there are lots of projects. Just think of something you would like to have and look up diy version of it. Seriously people built nearly everything at home. There even was a supersonic kit plane sold once, which apparently never managed to go supersonic and had a habit of killing its pilots, but you get my point.