#8441
Post rating: ~
didnt this party become like a #beb demsoc party since the mertens soft coup? not that there are really any better orgs to speak of in belgium
#8442
Post rating: ~

lenochodek posted:

didnt this party become like a #beb demsoc party since the mertens soft coup? not that there are really any better orgs to speak of in belgium


lmao no

#8443
Post rating: +
none of the words you said are right except the ones about their being no better orgs in belgium
#8444
Post rating: +
Watch out for the Brabant Killers
#8445
Post rating: +
please do your best to get Marc Dutroux's membership revoked, he pays his dues but come on
#8446
Post rating: +
there's a weekly protest on sundays against the last pet store in the city. i didn't go last week because i was working on school but im definitely going to go this weekend
#8447
Black Belt
Post rating: ~
Been asked to contribute to organizing an at-large member program and hoo boy I'm super ready to bastardize Stafford Beer
#8448
Post rating: +

belgend posted:

none of the words you said are right except the ones about their being no better orgs in belgium



let's investigate the words of Peter Mertens, chairman of the Workers Party of Belgium:


"bernie sanders is everything that the self declared realists of europe are not. he kicks against the establishment, he criticizes the wall street money grabbing system and he formulates new problems outside of the status quo"

workers party of belgium website


"I have plenty of reservations about what is happening in Venezuela. It seems that the legacy of Hugo Chavez is being destroyed"

DS

Fuck North Korea

Peter Mertens fb profile

Mertens maintains that his party has been following a less dogmatic course since the so-called renewal congress of 2008. "The new party leadership has condemned the militaristic and dynastic dictatorship in Korea from the outset. Clear and unconditional. We have not signed the international statements of support to Korea for years. "

knack

"Our classical Marxist, purely socio-economic view and the accompanying language, we truly moved beyond that now."


apache.be

"stalinism" was wrong (3.54)

reyers laat



of course it must be noted that he makes these remarks only while in the crosshairs of bourgeois kkkingdom of belgium media asking bad faith questions, searching for gotchas, and mertens' candid opinions are hopefully more balanced. at the very least, even if he does not mean these remarks, this seems to be some type of deceptive electoral strategy, why else would he say one thing in public to his audience of voters and something else within the party structure? one might cite lenin's thoughts on parliamentary action as a part of legal struggle, but i don't think getting in there by pretending to have jacobin magazine politics is really a sustainable strategy, especially because at least anecdatally i have the notion that those who vote for pvda/ptb (a highly impressive 584.621 voters out of 6.782.146 legal votes in the 26 may federal elections) in fact vote for the program as it is publicly presented and not out of pragmatic and strategic considerations.

in case continuing this discussion or dismantling any misconceptions i have proves to be too sensitive for public debate, be welcome to pm me or close the discussion. i do admire much of the historal work this party and its predecessors accomplished.

#8449
Post rating: +
Stalin was right
#8450
Post rating: +
motion to replace b€lgium's national anthem w/ this


#8451
Post rating: +

lenochodek posted:

let's investigate the words of Peter Mertens, chairman of the Workers Party of Belgium:


"bernie sanders is everything that the self declared realists of europe are not. he kicks against the establishment, he criticizes the wall street money grabbing system and he formulates new problems outside of the status quo"



Two points on this

  • Yes, Bernie kicks against the establishment. As a Keynesian socialdemocrat in an agressively neoliberal US he promotes himself as anti-establishment, with demands that we have too in Belgium. A millionaire tax for example. It's tactically a good idea for our transitional demands that we can point to foreign examples.
  • We know Bernie does this from a social democratic point of view. We know he's not doing this from a communist viewpoint. I've talked about this before here iirc. Communists should learn from how the Bernie campaign is motivating young people (and young women in particular) to enrol actively in politics, we need to learn how to work with social media for as long as capital is giving us that tool to inform people how we want


"I have plenty of reservations about what is happening in Venezuela. It seems that the legacy of Hugo Chavez is being destroyed"

DS



This opinion was criticized in the party and we have since posted many articles supporting Venezuela

Fuck North Korea

Peter Mertens fb profile

I personally agree with this one wrt the Workers' Party of Korea, however:

Mertens maintains that his party has been following a less dogmatic course since the so-called renewal congress of 2008. "The new party leadership has condemned the militaristic and dynastic dictatorship in Korea from the outset. Clear and unconditional. We have not signed the international statements of support to Korea for years. "



This position (which is not true, we have signed resolutions supporting the DPRK against imperialist attacks since) was critised very heavily in the party

"Our classical Marxist, purely socio-economic view and the accompanying language, we truly moved beyond that now."



I can't see the full article, but this is a very libellous reading by either Apache or you of what Peter (and the party!) says about how we changed since 2008. It's not anti-Marxist, it's always anti-dogmatism

"stalinism" was wrong (3.54)

reyers laat

This position was criticized within the party


of course it must be noted that he makes these remarks only while in the crosshairs of bourgeois kkkingdom of belgium media asking bad faith questions, searching for gotchas, and mertens' candid opinions are hopefully more balanced. at the very least, even if he does not mean these remarks, this seems to be some type of deceptive electoral strategy, why else would he say one thing in public to his audience of voters and something else within the party structure? one might cite lenin's thoughts on parliamentary action as a part of legal struggle, but i don't think getting in there by pretending to have jacobin magazine politics is really a sustainable strategy, especially because at least anecdatally i have the notion that those who vote for pvda/ptb (a highly impressive 584.621 voters out of 6.782.146 legal votes in the 26 may federal elections) in fact vote for the program as it is publicly presented and not out of pragmatic and strategic considerations.



I think you - and everyone here in the Rhizzone - would be intellectually more honest if they judged the party on its own communication, not the communication as put forth by the bourgeois shites who want us to fail. https://international.ptb-pvda.be/documents that links to our two last congresses, and I'm very happy to defend the ideas put forward in those books. The rest of the site is a collection of the articles we think are most important for the international communist movement

Edited by belgend ()

#8452
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: +
#8453
[account deactivated]
#8454
Post rating: +
Jansenist_Drugstore_MD
#8455
Post rating: +++++
I ended up taking most of this year off study to focus on being a good dad and working on my mental health, which is really starting to pay off. Recently started volunteering for a small local organisation that I won't say much about for privacy reasons but they do great work in the community helping people escape DV situations and adjacent work with homeless and chronically mentally ill people. Feels good to be helping, yknow? I'm returning to study in a few months time but I'm going to keep up the volunteer work as well. Apart from this I am trying to keep up with all the good new music that is coming out all the time, watching football, and occasionally playing biedo gam.
#8456
Post rating: ~
Having a flare up in the middle of a t-break is annoying and counter productive. Someone nuke america and put me out of my misery.
#8457
Post rating: +

Populares posted:

Someone nuke america


A chance'd be a fine thing! A very fine thing indeed!!

#8458
Post rating: +
come on, you're management petrol, get it sorted
#8459
Post rating: +
I'm back in Paris, probably for good now.

Strikes are pretty ripping, though it still is possible to get around. I had a little money and a passport pickpocketed yesterday which was a surprise as that's never happened to me before. I canceled it and the embassy told me to file a police report, so I did go to the station but the one person there told me because all the police were going to crack skulls at the strike they wouldn't be able to file a report. Glad they have their priorities straight. Wasn't surprising or anything, just a good illustration.

Aside from that I'm glad to be back, it's a country I like. Walking earlier around the canal around Ourcq there was a random procession of people carrying poster boards with crudely drawn hammer & sickles.

I'm going to England Saturday to campaign for the Labour Party on doorsteps in the Midlands because as obviously not good as they are, the NHS really will be gone if Labour loses. Going to do some Real Politics I guess.

In the meantime, looking for a room or a studio and a job here.
#8460
[account deactivated]
#8461
Post rating: +
one of my coworkers has discovered memes for the first time so i'm getting to relive the last 20 years of "epic" imagery. wish me luck
#8462
Post rating: ~
time to goatse your coworker
#8463
[account deactivated]
#8464
Post rating: +
text it at 4.20 am
#8465
Post rating: +

jansenist_drugstore posted:

Parenti posted:


looking for a room


have you looked at saint-ouen?



I looked after you posted, looks like some good stuff, I'll check it out more when I'm back.

Where I was staying in a French suburb, there were these anarchist squatters who came from Montreal, and I had a fun conversation last night where I had to explain in detail, testing the limits of my fluency, why the "Nazi-Soviet Pact" wasn't an alliance, why Mahkno was bad, why the state is a necessary tool (to which the guy replied when I said well, what do you do about reaction? "Anarchocommunisme! You help me and I help you well yes no pasaran tattoo on your head but what do you do when they started machine gunning you in ditches? "Anarchocommunisme!"), why it's bad to be a nihilist who has no faith in the masses.

Then this morning getting a roundabout train to the airport I asked a guy if I was in the right place and he was telling me how he's from Algeria and has been here for three months, has two degrees but of course and obviously France is deeply racist so he has no work yet, and of course supports the strikes even though they have been making it very, very difficult to get around.

#8466
Post rating: +

Parenti posted:

there were these anarchist squatters who came from Montreal,


tbh i'm not convinced they ever come from anywhere else

#8467
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: ~
i wish!!
#8468
[account deactivated]
#8469
lies half the time
Post rating: +
working many 12 hr shifts, gonna get maybe five hours sleep between this & next shift. then maybe get a quick nap in before what will inevitably be an interminable budget-related meeting for worship w attn to business in whcih i play a leading role as only person who actually handles finances
#8470
Post rating: ~

shriekingviolet posted:

Parenti posted:


there were these anarchist squatters who came from Montreal,


tbh i'm not convinced they ever come from anywhere else




#8471
Post rating: ~
I'm going to see die hard the musical this Saturday at Ford's Theater
#8472
Post rating: ~
They just handed out Christmas candy at the Saint-Denis KFC. It brightened my day.
#8473
Post rating: ~
Die Hard The Musical was well received, hans grubber was portrayed by a woman. I give it 5 bags of popcorn.
#8474
lies half the time
Post rating: +
gas station w a flag pole flying a skull and crossbones beneath the confederate battle rag, LED text beneath the gas prices reads GOD BLESS AMERICA, NEVER IMPEACH TRUMP, WE WILL RESIST, WE WILL REVOLT!!! there's a cannon in the front lawn

there's a cat curled up in my lap; the cat is an asshole
#8475
[account deactivated]
#8476
[account deactivated]
#8477
Post rating: +++++
700 people turned out for the Minneapolis anti war march, there was the obligatory lonely trot with his table selling books and his newspaper

Some of the liberals in the crowd looked uncomfortable when the speakers were praising suleimani as the greatest strategist against imperialism in the middle east

Edited by pogfan1996 ()

#8478
Post rating: +
i was wondering why my life was so dull and boring and then i realised that custom colours were off
#8479
Post rating: +
back in the labour aristocracy again, on my own

i got a raise and in bitching about it got my co-worker a raise
#8480
lies half the time
Post rating: +

i happened to be looking at usgs soil survey documents for my area the other day and wasnt able to load current data because i more or less cut the brains out of my browser so i had to settle for a pdf of a report from the early 1980s. figured the dirt wouldn't have changed that much since then. the report was prefaced by among other things a climate summary. the last few years here have been such a departure from just 40 years ago its sorta stunning. one of the things i often wonder about when im doinh my weekly perambulations through the hills and hollers is how the flora and critters out here are holding up. we basically don't have winters anymore. forty years ago the seasonal average was a foot of snow. last year we got maybe two inches. year before that was p much the same. so far this year we got a bare dusting on one occasion, it was tshirt weather on christmas and today some folksll be running their ac. what do you make of that when you're used to hibernating or losing your leaves etc. you got all these habits about when to get horny or when to put out new shoots and now all the signs & signals you look out for are a fucking mess. some of these trees just won't fruit or flower if they don't have good weather. whose goin to be moving into the neighborhood soon as these oldtimers die off. i used to get pissy at the out-of-towners like armadillos, japanese honeysuckle and garlic mustard but im swinging around on that. if they can make living here work, ought to take what we can get. forest fixin to be a v different place in a little while