/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

Despite WSJ Reporting, Julian Assange Lawyer Says 'No Indication' of Plea Deal
Assange attorney Barry Pollack said in a statement Wednesday that "it is inappropriate for Mr. Assange's lawyers to comment while his case is before the U.K. High Court other than to say we have been given no indication that the Department of Justice intends to resolve the case and the United States is continuing with as much determination as ever to seek his extradition on all 18 charges, exposing him to 175 years in prison."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/assange-plea-deal

Chevron agrees to pay more than $13 million in fines for California oil spills
The California-based energy giant agreed to pay a $5.6 million fine associated with a 2019 oil spill in Kern County. The company has already paid to clean up that spill. This money will instead go toward the state Department of Conservation’s work of plugging old and orphaned wells.
https://apnews.com/article/california-oil-spills-chevron-fines-a59e507f817ec8714a4d719af273ea42

California tribe becomes the first to manage land with National Park Service
The Yurok will be the first Native people to manage tribal land with the National Park Service under a historic memorandum of understanding signed on Tuesday by the tribe, Redwood national and state parks and the non-profit Save the Redwoods League.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/20/yurok-tribe-land-gold-rush-redwoods-national-park-service

California voters pass proposition requiring counties to spend on programs to tackle homelessness
The measure gives the state greater control over a voter-approved tax enacted in 2004 on millionaires for mental health services that gave counties wide latitude in how to spend it. Counties will now be required to spend about two-thirds of the money on housing and programs for homeless people with serious mental illnesses or substance abuse problems.
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The Lie Banks Use To Protect Their Late-Fee Profits
Much of modern economics borrows from physics. Some of these appropriations, like how the scientific concept of maximum energy has influenced the study of consumer behavior, proved immensely valuable. But somewhere along the way, neoliberals and economic pundits misappropriated a physics concept — the conservation of energy — to fend off any attack on hidden fees or ill-gotten profits. Physics holds that energy is neither created nor destroyed but merely changes form. When interpreted through economics, this new conservation theory implies that any attempt to tamp down on profits from one illicit activity will automatically lead to a newfound source of profits elsewhere. Under this highly convenient theory for monopolists and their hangers-on, profits are like the air in a balloon; squeeze one side and the balloon expands on the other. I have named this theory the “Conservation of Ill-Gotten Profits” fallacy, admittedly a mouthful. Duncan Bowen Black, an economist who blogs under the pseudonym Atrios, has named it the “Lump of Profits” fallacy, inspired by the more common “Lump of Labor” fallacy in economics.
https://www.levernews.com/the-lie-banks-use-to-protect-their-late-fee-profits/

Readers recommend: ‘Dune, part 2’
Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part 2 is a cinematic masterpiece, showing the brutal reality of imperialism, and offering insight into the struggles that can take place within liberation movements. The film is an adaptation of Frank Herbert’s 1965 epic sci-fi novel. The plot follows Paul Atreides on the desert planet Arrakis, the source of the valuable commodity ‘spice’. Control of this resource is used by various galactic ruling factions to maintain power, including the capacity for interplanetary travel. At the end of part one, we saw Paul ally with the colonised Arrakis natives, the Fremen, to wage war against their brutal, spice-hungry oppressors, the Harkonnens. The Harkonnens refer to Fremen as ‘rats’. Their aim is to exterminate this entire race from the planet, in order to secure spice supplies and crush their competitors. Dune: Part 2 does not hold back from setting the scene with its depiction of Harkonnen brutality towards the Fremen. One harrowing scene, for example, shows the devPost too long. Click here to view the full text.

Thanks News Anon

TYBNA

>>1801298
>not going to watch a 30 minutes video. you made a thread in the main board, at least have the decency of writing a tldr

I skipped through it so anons dont have to:
Mentally ill American fbi.gov user mad at Mentally ill nazi fbi.gov user because of their shared interest in some autistic video game stuff.
>>1801308
<t. OP

>>1801314
I'm not op I just wanna be a part of something

>>1801316
join the ranks of the recently deceased

>>1801316
>I'm not op I just wanna be a part of something
You will never find that on the Internet, only an empty facsimile.

>>1800955
Wittgensteinian pseud.

>>1801186
carcinization is absolutely a real phenomena

>>1801184
There's really not much reason to think that the conditions that allowed humans to evolve intelligence must have taken as long to arise as they did. Those conditions (as far as we understand them) seem to be pretty arbitrary. They just as well could have arisen 100 million years ago or 100 million years from now, and some other species could have evolved intelligence like us. It may even have happened already, but for whatever reason we haven't seen evidence for it (maybe they never got past the stone age equivalent or maybe anything they would have left behind couldn't survive tens of millions of years).

>>1801199
>Carcinisation (American English: carcinization) is a form of convergent evolution in which non-crab crustaceans evolve a crab-like body plan.
<crab-like
C.f.
>>1800853
>>>crabs, for example, have independently evolved multiple times
Literal lie. "X-like" evolution does not = X.

>>1801203
>There's really not much reason to think that the conditions that allowed humans to evolve intelligence must have taken as long to arise as they did.
I think that if you take into consideration the Marxiat law of quantity turning into quality then it's a reasonable assumption.

>>1799893
>The Roman empire never died. It just moved to America.
<just glossing over centuries of British colonialism
anglo spotted

>>1799893
>The empire never fell. You were lied to

Unironically this https://libking.ru/books/religion-/religion-rel/68734-nikolay-morozov-hristos.html

Judeo-christian-roman-greco-egypto-eastern theocratic empire never fell and continues to this day

>>1800293
Well ackshually those were the Etruscans 🤓

>>1800456
Do you know how many states claimed to be the "spiritual successor" of Rome?

>>1801081
I want all those sweet first world snowflakes in the trenches, droned to enlightenment.

>>1801099
I mean we are pretty much. It used to be a lot worse in the 2000s, like 10 years ago someone tried to bomb a furry convention with chlorine

>>1801125
That's not what a minority group is anon. What do you think a minority group is?

>>1801101
We're probably going to be going against each other before too long here

>>1797879
We're all wrong about something, you too.

>>1797832
Japan after WW2 is the bulwark of reaction. They entrapped the Philippines in particular and the SEA in general as their peripheral economic zone through the various loans given to US-backed dictators like Marcos, they propped up Taiwan AND South Korea (even if inadvertently), they facilitated the spread of various CIA-backed rightist cults, etc
These are things that did not happen under Imperial Japan, which, reactionary as it was, played a historically progressive role against Western Colonialism not unlike Russia today. Japan after WW2 played a simply reactionary role both in-itself and in motion.
>>1797838
What this anon said too. Japan did not have a Labour party-like formation that helped deccelerate the march of capitalism and provided a temporary salve to neoliberalism. As such the contradictions between the advancement of technology and the capitalist status quo is intensified to an extreme degree, resulting in a hyperreal and schizoid world not unlike what's happening in other US client states like Pakistan for example

>>1797811
>This is the kind of inconsistency that made the Japanese model unworkable. It was imperialist anti-imperalism.
It's not that strange tbqh. Europeans cited all kinds of "progressive" sounding justifications for their own imperialism such as abolishing slavery.

>>1797901
you know anon, ive spent some time thinking about this and well…I disagree
national rebirth:
This did happen in france, early germany and britain
primarcy of the military:
This did happen in france and early germany
Colonial expiremental states:
british india and etc

but what I cant find is
"anti-capitalism" :
In showa japan, there were movements against the evils of zaibatsu capitalism. This hatred and disgust of it was shared by the imperial way and control factions. And both wanted to replace the zaibatsu capitalist system with something they considered different.
The thing is I cant really find anything really comparable to that in the other empires. The british empire was the embodiment of capitalism. Prussia and the early german empire wanted to copy the british empire, including their capitalist system. The french empire wasn't also against capitalism either.
And while you can point to elements in them, that were, those were mostly associated with socialist and communist elements. Not the full on, "far-right" groups that were the imperial way and control factions. Which often shared elements closer to….fascist movements in italy and germany (though of course with differences)
Which leads to another thing, the context of these movements. The movements in showa japan reacted against what they find to be imported liberal western values. They reacted against what they found to be liberal individual, or other "western values". And they also reacted against what they percieved to be the encroaching "liberal capitalism" that started appearing during the meiji era.
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>>1798010
>These are things that did not happen under Imperial Japan, which, reactionary as it was, played a historically progressive role against Western Colonialism not unlike Russia today.
I wish all of you uyghurs were this honest.

>>1800501
The Chinese Dream is Real and Communist.

>>1800503
Communism exists in China

>>1800489
>All you tor users are the worst
Old and beaten enough to know how retarded you cunts are. Shock doctrine is the best you deserve.

>>1800547
>>1800548
A classless and stateless world somehow has been achieved in a single bourgeois nation-state. Incredible!

>>1800515
>trying to become petit-bourgeois is petit-bourgeois mentality
Literally what the posts above have said. You're one of those libshit retards who think class positions are a matter of morality, lmfao.

>>1799372
This is a leftist forum go back grilling until mate.rial reality forces you to take a stand on any issue

>>1799372
I wonder how tabloids still make money now that all news has just turned into embarrassing drama

>>1799372
It is genuinely insane that he became president. The US will never live down such embarrassment

>>1799398
I miss Jensen.

It's completely unrelated and excuse my rant, but fuck drugs, fuck tolerance toward drugs, fuck the promotion of drugs as some kind of experience you need to have, fuck all "content" making the use of drugs look cool, fuck all that shit.
Also, polite sage.

>>1799757
>"In view of this common characteristic of the members of such an organization, all distinctions as between workers and intellectuals, not to speak of distinctions of trade and profession, in both categories, must be effaced."
>"It is immaterial whether a student or a worker is capable of becoming a professional revolutionary."
- Woke PMC Barrister's Assistant, from "What is to be done?".

>>1799490
>>1799476
It depends upon what the 'home' in question is and the scope of its usage as a reserve asset beyond the purpose of mere shelter. Owning a simple small flat is quite different from, say, a suburban house that allows the possibility of equity and rent.

Even in cases of decent-built homes, if the mortgage for example is too high it may disqualify the house from serving as a reserve in an emergency crisis. Plus there are multiple other factors to consider alongside, eg other kinds of potential reserves (stocks etc) alongside it.

Most homeowners in the case of America, for example, don't just own a home - they also have stuff like stocks, mutual funds, pensions and other kinds of savings alongside. All these are cumulative in their consideration as reserves.

There's no reason to believe tenant unions do not also benefit the petit bourgeoisie.

>>1799823
They clearly benefit the poor more than they benefit the petit bourgeois, so it's a moot point.

>>1799829
The whole point of the argument is that they benefit both. A communist shouldn't waste their time or all of the proletariat's time pushing for interclassist reforms when there's bigger fish to fry.

Groups Slam Billionaire Jeffrey Yass for Trying to Oust Pennsylvania Progressive
Yass—who is Pennsylvania's wealthiest person—is a GOP megadonor with a history of funding political action committees (PACs) and other groups opposed to LGBTQ+ rights, abortion, unions, minimum wage increases, public schools, and raising taxes on the rich. He also has dodged $1 billion in taxes, according to a ProPublica investigation, and is reportedly on Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump's shortlist for treasury secretary.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/jeffrey-yass

US Kleenex plant contaminated drinking water with PFAS, lawsuit says
Toxic PFAS “forever chemical” pollution from a Connecticut Kleenex plant has contaminated nearby drinking water, put residents’ health at risk and destroyed their property value, a new federal class-action lawsuit alleges.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/19/kleenex-plant-pfas-toxic-chemicals-lawsuit-connecticut

Mississippi 'Goon Squad' ex-deputy gets 20-year sentence in racist torture of 2 Black men
A former Mississippi sheriff’s deputy who was part of a self-described "Goon Squad" was sentenced Tuesday to about 20 years in prison for his part in torturing two Black men last year, after a neighbor complained that the men were staying in a home with a white woman.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mississippi-goon-squad-ex-deputy-gets-20-year-sentence-racist-torture-rcna144104

Tyson Foods to close Iowa pork plant with 1,200 workers
The pork plant employed about 1,200 people in Perry, which has about 8,200 residents and is located near the state capital Des Moines, Mayor Dirk Cavanaugh said. "It's a big blow to the community," he said by phone. "It's our largest employer in the area. It's going to be tough to figure out what to do without them."
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CP of Venezuela, Manuel Isidro Molina will be the PCV's candidate for the presidential elections
"This candidacy is not only to participate in the electoral process, but it is a proposal to advance in the process of accumulation of forces and impulse of the struggles of the workers, peasants, communities and indigenous peoples, of the popular movement in general; of women, youth and students; of the intelligentsia capable of identifying itself with a popular democratic solution to the national catastrophe for which both the bourgeois fraction that leads the country from Miraflores and the bourgeois fractions that from the opposition have promoted lines of intervention and foreign aggression against the country are responsible", explained Figuera. The leader of the PCV, described the proposal as "a candidacy to renew the confidence in the own forces of the working class and the Venezuelan people; to raise and recover the dignity of our people against those who attack us daily and try to lead us to situations of violence, abstention, fragmentation of the popular forces to continue reigning and continue taking advantage of the spaces of power and government for their enrichment".
http://www.solidnet.org/article/CP-of-Venezuela-Manuel-Isidro-Molina-will-be-the-PCVs-candidate-for-the-presidential-elections/

Don’t blame migrants for the housing crisis
Want to buy a typically-priced house in Gadigal/Sydney? As of December, the cost of that median residence was $1,595,310, up 10.6% from 2022. Across all Australian capitals, the price rise in 2023 was 7.8%. For perspective, that put the ratio of housing prices to household income in Sydney at 13.3 times, making the city the second most unaffordable in the world after Hong Kong. A median-priced house in Naarm/Melbourne last year would set you back 9.9 times annual household earnings, not far behind San Francisco. Even Adelaide, at 8.2 times, was similar to Miami. For rents, the story has been similar, with prices spiralling far beyond pay rises and the broader inflation rate. In the 12 months to December, Australian rents rose nationally by 9.1% cent for houses, and by 13.1% for units. The median rent for all housing reached $580, or 44.6% of median weekly earnings ofPost too long. Click here to view the full text.

TYBNA