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I’ve willingly learned Calc (LibreOffice’s open-source spreadsheet tool) because I’ve made spreadsheets for my own needs. But to “become employable”? No way.

Our cogs do not feel amplified.

Since the micronation is unrecognized, within the territorial claim of the UK and easily within reach of their law enforcement, I wonder what the Principality of Sealand would have to do before the UK attempt to enforce their laws on them. Would the huge pressure of recording and film industries have enough power to compel them? Sealand have gotten into serious armed shenanigans before, which if one chooses not to interpret their governance as valid, would effectively be ransom.

Their wiki page mentions HavenCo, a data haven which apparently was operational for a few years.

Good example, with the caveat that one would still be subject to the intellectual property rights of Russians, and I’d assume of their allies. (I know I used Hollywood in my example, that’s on me)

Thanks for adding the source.

That’s not whataboutism at all, that’s extrapolating the logic of a claim to another case in order to test it.

Honestly I don’t expect someone to read DasKap before voicing objections or discussing. Well, unless you’re preparing for a high-profile debate about Marxism, then maybe go beyond the Party Manifesto.

Even Marx didn’t read Capital vol. II or III.

Judging by the two-party system and the past Democrat governments, I don’t think there’s a significant possibility of getting more than one those in the next decade. At least four of them run directly in contradiction to the groups with enough money to systematically sponsor and corrupt politicians (no matter which party), own mass media and control other relevant institutions.

These kind of things only happen when people have the power to pressure the government into supplying them.

Two things can be bad. These are not sports teams where one side wins and the other loses.

Yes. I completely agree. However, it’s important to dispel false equivalence. Every country spends money on military, that doesn’t imply they’re all bad or neglecting their citizens.

Why is the US spending so much on military? Why is China spending so much on military? Why does the US routinely invade countries in other regions? Why does China suppress Uyghur people in the Xinjiang conflict? Like you said, two things can be bad, but it’s also negligent to imply the two situations are comparable.

China is #2 in military spending after the USA.

I don’t believe they have another option, given the USA’s military and aggression.

It’s telling how limited their spending is - consider China’s disproportionate economy, size and population, and their borders. According to Wikipedia, they only spend 1.7% of their GDP on military - that’s alongside the Netherlands, Czechia, Italy and Spain.

Absolutely. This regime has shown how fragile the relationship is, and how untrustworthy the USA is as a partner.

once the democrats are back in power

This little phrase reminded me: I find it interesting how this is just assumed by many people as an eventuality when we’ve already seen a failed coup attempt last time an election ousted the Republican regime. There is this underlying faith in the liberal democracy of the US, since despite its huge flaws, it hasn’t failed in over a century. Similar with all the people who call for impeachment, police arresting ICE and other legal mechanisms.

It’s silly to trust government institutions to save one from an openly, brazenly malicious government.

Many years ago, I posted about how horribly written it was, and right on cue, a neo-Nazi pipes in asking which translation it was, because apparently all the faithful translations are a Jewish trick, or something…

No reply when I posted the introduction in original German, of course.

Christmas music

There are a couple of songs I like, but honestly a lot of it is junk, which wouldn’t be too bad if they hadn’t already been playing in stalls for half a month.

The Grinch wears a top hat.

Normal is crazy, so it could be either. My shock when 🏴‍☠️ I realized that TV show episodes (not streaming) are generally 22 minutes for a half-hour slot - almost a third of TV is ads.

Large corporate offices often run VPNs in a similar way, anyone with a work-from-home laptop or phone generally has to log into a VPN to get internet/network access.

Simple non-inflammatory option?

People who litter.

I can’t remember the last time I’ve been outside and not seen plastic, cartons and dumped household items that had been tossed aside. This includes hiking and other activities away from cities.

Electoral methods are important and FPTP is an atrociously bad method for a representative election, but the US is beyond that. You can’t vote away this level of corruption without first wielding real worker power outside of the electoral system. Reform is a last resort for the corrupt.

It echoes of China before their ~2011 anti-corruption campaign, they had a serious issue in previous decades where the CIA would basically pay-to-win, bribing officers to give promotions to their confederates. The point being, a corrupt system is easy to exploit, for any country that has some spare change to use.

Who is “we”? The corrupt government? The corrupt legal framework? The only way to fight a corrupt system like this is to develop political power outside of the system - we must all organize with fellow citizens to wield collective worker power.

After their downfall, we’ll have plenty of material to indict & ultimately lock them away with.

Who’s this “we”? You can’t use a corrupt system to solve the corrupt system, the corruption involves the legal system (remember who is designing and passing the laws!) and the law enforcement officers. So if you want to have the power to lock them away, you’re going to have to organize with fellow citizens to develop worker power outside of the state.