Don’t know if I’d call myself a furry, but I did go to a convention with some friends awhile back, for the experience.

My big takeaway can kinda be summed up with, “Punk’s not dead, they just all became furries”. It was a very radically inclusive space, there were tons of openly queer people, lots of very political accessories (Anarchy A or Hammer and Sickle patches, keffiyehs, one person had a hand painted tshirt that said “Death before Detransition”, etc.), and there was a very DIY, countercultural vibe to the whole thing. At one point I talked to a Skunk about his collection of old PC sound cards.

It was super cool! I’d go again

Zohran doing Maoist landlord purges to NYC’s cars

Yeah, I’m not reading all of that. Suck my girl dick

Lemmy:

Low engagement / kinda dead.

Waltz into any thread and say the word “Tankie”, and then come back and tell me if this is still true lmao

Again, thought terminating cliche. why do you believe that to be the case? Have you read its constitution? Engaged in good faith with Conflicting defector accounts? Looked at past electoral data? Or Studied the country’s history to conclude why North Korean politics has taken the shape that it has?

Or, have you simply swallowed an orientalized view of a country on the other side of the world, without really questioning it?

Let’s address the elephant in the room here. You and I probably agree that the cult of personality around the Kim family in the DPRK is not conducive to a healthy political culture,and I would consider it a failure within the DPRK’s political project. I don’t think there’s anything controversial about that.

Why is there a cult of personality to begin with? If we look at charts of electoral results immediately preceding and following the Korean War, we see North Korea go from an incredibly vibrant, multi party, Socialist Republic, to a system where the Workers Party heavily dominates the legislative process. So this centralization in North Korean politics has a clear material origin.

But did you know that, in contrast to this centralization, the Kims have all held different positions in government? Did you know that those positions, on paper at least, get progressively more diffuse and less centralized as time has gone on?

Those facts alone don’t tell us everything about the DPRK’s politics. But it does lead us to consider why these two concurrent trends, the cult of personality and the diffusal of power, have are happening. Perhaps it points to factional divisions.

What I’m getting at is not that China, or the DPRK, or any other country on earth for that matter, is not some secret, perfect, democratic utopia. But that these places have political cultures and institutions that arise from history, and we can analyze them to see how and why they work (or sometimes don’t work). And that making sweeping generalizations based on aesthetic vibes isn’t helpful. We have to strive to actually understand the world if we want to meaningfully discuss it

Lmao

I said there are elections. People go vote for their representatives. Whether that electoral process is effective, or those representatives truly representative of their constituents is a different question which we lack good information on. This isn’t hard to grasp

You give enough of a fuck to post this lame-ass comment

North Korea has a nominally more direct electoral system than China, though it’s equivalent to the Chinese President is the President of the State Affairs Commission, which Kim Jong-Un holds.

These are head of state positions which, while influential, are more insulated from the day-to-day operations of governance.

That said, we have a much better window into what Chinese political culture is like, as well as the robustness of its institutions, as compared to the DPRK. So it’s more difficult to say, one way or the other, what the DPRK’s politics are truly like.

That said, these thought terminating cliche’s don’t help you or anyone else. Its worthwhile to learn how these systems work.

Also, Indirect elections aren’t inherently bad. The prime minister of the UK is also indirectly elected, but that fact alone tells us very little about the UK’s political culture, institutional responsiveness to the popular will, or how able institutions of governance are able to weather crises

He definitely is elected, just not directly. The Chinese President is elected by The National People’s Congress. The Presidium, which is the body that presides over the NPC when the full body Is not in session, nominates one or more candidates, and then the whole NPC deliberates and votes

Buddy, that wasn’t a genuine response… I’m making fun of you

Mashallah, the yanks are already cooked

Then tell us how you think it’s used instead of saying “no” over and over like a toddler

No u

Xi is not directly elected

Why thank you! My shrug has an arm again lol

Dry goods. Bulk bags of dry rice, beans, lentils, corn grits. That stuff will last forever, and are healthy!

If you and some friends/family can pool your money together and afford it, buy a whole entire cow. Parcel out the meat, and freeze it. My family has been doing this for a long time now, and a whole cow, split between 3 households, lasts a little over a year.

Get into canning, pickling, etc. Don’t let the fresh produce you buy at the store, or grow in a garden, just flounder in your fridge, preserve it!

I can a lot of salsa over the summer. Its easy, and it’s easy to make in big batches that last awhile.

Suck my girldick fuckwad, lmao

to fight like Pokémon

HEXBEAR! I CHOOSE YOU!

USE PIGPOOPBALLS!!!

And I continue adding cool shit to my Jellyfin server ¯\(ツ)/¯