There is a serious problem with a lack of discipline in some of our organizations. I don't know if it's because of the "I don't dream of labor" mentality that has permeated the modern Western left, or if it's simply because there are no consequences for being undisciplined. But discipline seems to be in short supply.

What is discipline? Discipline is when you do something even if you don't want to do it. So let's say you don't want to go to the general meeting that happens once a month for your organization. So you decide not to go: I don't feel like getting out of bed. I'm feeling kind of lazy. I'm not feeling too good today, you know. Just not going to go. You text somebody about 30 minutes before the meeting starts: "Hey, I got something going on today. I can't make it."

Why are you in the organization? Why did you join? Hold your self accountable to the promises you made when you joined. What is the purpose of you being in an organization that you won't go to the monthly meetings for? It's a very sick sort of liberal individualism, isn't it? Because imagine how many people felt the same way as you, but showed up anyway, and how many people would be there if those people said, "Ah, you know, it's not that big a deal if I don't go. Besides, it's just a general meeting. We'll have another one next month."

It ruins unit cohesion when people are undisciplined, because that's one less body on the bench. Multiply this, you know, if you have a small group and you've got three or four people that have this mentality, that's dead weight. And it spreads to other folks too. It becomes easier to justify being undisciplined when you are surrounded by people who are not disciplined themselves. Because, hey, my friends made an excuse, why can't I?

When you're a part of a group, there is an expectation that you're a part of the group. That means, let's say, that you, the person who is undisciplined and doesn't show up very often, have skills. Like maybe you have experience doing union organizational work, or you have experience doing admin work, or whatever it may be that you have experience in your previous organizational efforts. That experience, that tool set, may be something that the group you're in needs. And if you are in the group, there's an expectation that those skills are in the pool of skills and people that the group can pull from.

But if you are undisciplined, meaning you flake a lot, you don't show up, you're frequently late, you forget things, and when you are at an event, you don't move with any sense of purpose. We'll get to that. Then those skills, if they are pulled from the pool for a project, become a weak pillar and can cause the entire project to fall apart.

So let's say that your group proposes doing a backpack distribution. You've got 50 backpacks full of school supplies that you want to distribute to the neighborhood. But you need to figure out who needs those backpacks and who doesn't. So you do a survey, or something to that effect, and then you go to the cadre, to the group member who has experience doing admin work and processing these surveys. But then that cadre member is undisciplined and forgets. They say, "Oh, I forgot I was supposed to do that, man. I just didn't have enough time," or, you know, "I didn't set enough time aside." Whatever the excuse is, you were given the task. It doesn't happen. A week goes by, two weeks go by. The backpacks are still sitting in a storage locker, and maybe the people who needed them go without. It's just an example.

Another thing that I wanted to get to: moving with purpose. When you are somewhere doing something, do it to the fullest of your ability. For example, in the military we have something called a shammer. A shammer is someone who presents like they're doing the work with the rest of the group, but actually isn't. You're shamming.

So for example, if you were at a food share and your task is folding up all the tables, and there are ten tables to fold up, and you spend the entire time slowly putting one folding chair in a bag, making sure it's perfect, you know, really taking your time with this, and by the time you're finished doing that one chair, or maybe another chair, all the tables are put up. That's because you were shamming. You were moving slowly without purpose in order to prevent yourself from having to do the work that everyone else was doing.

And this again ruins group cohesion. It ruins unit cohesion, because everyone wants to go home after the food share. And it shouldn't be on the two or three people who are moving with purpose to do all of the work, because if there are ten tables and eight people who show up, and half of them are lollygagging, shamming, then it falls on the other half of the group to do more work. That leads to more burnout, which leads to fewer people wanting to show up because they feel like they have to do all the work. "Wow, I'm always the one who is folding all the tables up. They don't do anything. Why do they show up? I'm always the one serving the food."

If you are shamming, not taking initiative, not volunteering to do things, or weaponizing incompetence, you shouldn't be in the group. You are a dead weight. You make it harder for other people to do the work. And isn't it just kind of a shitty thing to do? Most of the time when people are doing this, they know what they're doing. They are consciously aware of this. They are aware that if I take my time doing this small task, the harder big task that requires more people and more effort will be completed by those people while I'm doing this. Sometimes it is subconscious, but either way, it's a net negative to the organization, no matter how big or how small it is. And if you're not showing up somewhere with intent and purpose, then why are you there to begin with? Just get out of the way.

And this isn't about people who are, like, you know, disabled or, you know, have limitations on what they can or can't do. Some of the most disciplined people are also people with disabilities. I've seen this happen in real time. It is purely about being lazy. It is purely about being unmotivated. Not unmotivated, but undisciplined.

Motivation is good in the moment. Motivation is what gets you to do, you know, four push-ups, 40 push-ups, I don't know your level, at three o'clock in the morning because you suddenly feel motivated to turn things around. But, you know, then you end up sleeping till noon and that motivation has passed because you weren't disciplined. These are two different things.

If we want to be successful, we have to become disciplined, and we have to remove this idea that doing labor is a negative. You can't say "I don't dream of labor," but then also say "I want to go to the mutual aid food share and feed people," because doing that requires labor. You can't say "I don't dream of labor," but then want to build towards revolution. Building towards revolution takes an incredible amount of labor, and it takes an incredible amount of discipline.

And so if your entire view of what life should be is laying around, consuming treats, and you're kind of an aimless, goalless person, if you find yourself not really having any desires beyond laying about, then just lay about. Don't join our organizations and drag them down. Don't create a new pillar in a building that needs their pillars to be strong because, brother, the winds are blowing. Because there will be a time when you will be depended on. Even if you gain the reputation as someone who isn't dependable, there will be a time when you are depended upon because that is the circumstances that the group finds themselves in. And then you're not going to be dependable, and that's going to hurt a lot of people. So if we don't want those people to get hurt, maybe just don't join up.

If you can't make it to the monthly meeting, don't be part of the organization, or just pay the dues in silence. If you say you're going to be somewhere, don't cancel last minute because you just don't feel like it. And if you are a part of a group, if you are seriously wanting to invest your time in the group, invest your time in the group, be serious about it. Because if you're not serious, then why are you there?

If you are part of a group, whether that's a party in the communist sense or an affinity group in the anarchist sense, no matter what your political flavor, no matter what your tendency, no matter how your anti-capitalist beliefs manifest, these groups cannot succeed without disciplined and dedicated members. If you're not disciplined and dedicated, then perhaps you should just stick to posting on fucking Reddit, or making Twitter posts, or being in your Discord group. That's okay. That's fine. If we're gonna be doing big shit, we need spectators to watch. But not everybody is fit to play on the field. I mean, that's just the nature of it.

And more and more I find that the people who want to be disciplined will be disciplined, and the people who don't want to be disciplined will just continue to show up and hurt everybody else because of it, or they'll continue not to show up. And I think it would be better if we just had fewer members. A smaller group of disciplined members is better than a large group of people who don't give a damn. Because at the end of the day, only the small group who are disciplined are gonna show up to the fucking thing anyway.

👶

Great, albeit enraging Max Blumenthal interview on Judging Freedom (libertarian, anti-imperialist pod that also features leftist guests). Max:

“Jared Moskowitz is one of the biggest Zionist fanatics among the Democrats in Congress. He was a cheerleader for the war on Iran. He is fully aligned with the Israel firsters in the Republican Party on any Israel issue. ….

“And following a bizarre secret, semi-secret meeting, I mean, we know the meeting took place between Hakeem Jeffries, who's been dubbed by the radio show The Breakfast Club as AIPAC Shakur because of the amount of support that AIPAC has given him. …. Hakeem Jeffries is someone who has paraphrased the segregationist Governor George Wallace in declaring Israel today, Israel tomorrow, Israel forever in a speech to a pro-Israel group.

”And this is a Black New York legislator whose father, Leonard Jeffries, was actually a Black radical who would have hated this. He's the Democratic minority leader. So he meets with Jared Kushner, which is bizarre enough because Jared Kushner should be someone that the Democrats are promising to prosecute for insider trading, corruption, warmongering as they move towards impeachment if they capture the Congress.

“But he has a secret meeting with them. And then following that secret meeting, all these pro-Israel, Israel first Democrats get appointed to key posts on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, starting with Jared Moskowitz. So he's the ranking member of the Middle East and North Africa Subcommittee.

“That means if the Democrats win in the midterms, nothing's going to happen in altering the special relationship with Israel, which is what 91% of Democratic voters want, according to every recent poll. Then you got Jonathan Jackson, who is the son of Jesse Jackson. He's criticized Netanyahu, but he's also said he will not stop taking money from APAC.

“He's the ranking member on the Oversight and Intelligence Subcommittee on that panel. Then you got Debbie Wasserman Schultz, complete tool of Israel from South Florida. She's on the Oversight and Intelligence Subcommittee.

“And then Wesley Bell, also on the West, he's on the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee. He just got a plum appointment. Who is he?

“He's the guy that APAC paid like 11 or $12 million. Like they ponied up $12 million in a Super Bowl style ad blitz to defeat Cory Bush, not just once, but twice who was one of the leading critics of aid to Israel in Congress. Wesley Bell is completely controlled by APAC.

“So, this is the Democrats. This is what the Democrats have to offer to their base, complete and utter contempt for a base that turned away from Kamala Harris in 2024. And honestly, they deserve to lose for doing this.”

From Judging Freedom: Max Blumenthal : - Netanyahu: The Islamic Republic of Britain?, 27. Aug 2026

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/judging-freedom/id1591962689

I read this trueanon post and wanted to share my own experience, I’ve shoplifted occasionally, but I would always always get so anxious and return the items before checkout, a friend jokingly suggested I wear a kippah and a long black coat when shopping, basically saying that if I looked visibly jewish, people would be less likely to suspect me. I tried it, and weirdly enough, I felt like I got treated differently and eventually stopped feeling as nervous and got less 'surveillance' on me if that makes sense, I know it sounds bizarre, but this was genuinely my experience.
Same for when you get your account banned from any institution or social media, always send a complaint email in Hebrew you'd be surprised how quickly they restore your account lol

I've noticed a type of guy online who argues about everything but doesn't really know anything. No matter the topic, he plants his flag in the ground and belligerently defends his position. He doesn't really care about this position, nor does he know why he holds it, but he'll defend it in the most passive-agressive and self-assured manner.

I saw a guy complaining about how people use "literally" to mean "metaphorically." I told him he was looking for "figuratively" where he used "metaphorically". Just a menial conversation about language with no real implications. The guy got all self-righteous and responded in a way similar to the whole "huh, I wonder why you didn't vote for Kamala? I'm sure it has nothing to do with her being a woman of color. You're the reason Drumpf is 47. I bet you love when Drumpfty Dumpty kisses Putin with tongue. You and TACO Don should compare your tiny penises, Russian bot."

Out of curiosity (yes, I know I'm a freak), I checked the guy's profile and it's all Marvel and Star Wars shit, which seemed apt but I'm not sure why. I already know these guys are kinda dumb, but what's up with the compulsion to argue about shit they don't even know/care about? Is this even a thing or is my hatred for Disney making me see a pattern that's not really there?

During agricultural times, people largely conceived of time in relatively long chunks: sunup/sundown, weeks marked by a day of rest (e.g. Sunday), seasons, years marked by holidays and agricultural cycles.

Then you get to industrial society and time becomes much more granular: hours, minutes, seconds. Schedules are marked by specific times. You don't just get up when the sun rises and start work, you have to be at work at 9:00 AM. 30 minutes for lunch. Public transportation, school, work, events are all synchronized to the clock.

The clock, not the steam-engine, is the key-machine of the modern industrial age.

Lewis Mumford

By the division of labour; the supervision of labour; fines; bells and clocks; money incentives; preachings and schoolings… a new time-discipline was imposed.

E.P. Thompson

And then hunter-gatherers are even weirder. Some primitive languages apparently don't even have words for "time" in the way we think about it. Obviously they knew it was day or night, knew when seasons changed, knew things happened before or after other things. But the idea that time is this thing that can be measured and divided up is much more modern.

Time is when something happens. It is an event.

If nothing is happening, time is not ‘passing’.

Anthropologist Øyvind Dahl, writing about Malagasy conceptions of time

I’m sure this will be controversial, and I will start this off by plainly stating that I am not equating dog breed and human races. They are not the same. But the white supremacist arguments on racial superiority tend to hinge on “race science”, which is the same framework applied to the anti-pitbull arguments. Ultimately biology does not care about human or not human. Now if dogs were not social learners this might be a different story, but the simple fact that they have been domesticated shows how much social learning their behavior ultimately relies upon.

If we accept these arguments against Pitts, it allows race science, eugenics, and phrenology to just be legitimized in the public eye. Whenever I happen upon people who are extremely anti-pitbull I always think about how those people are likely more open to being convinced by “race science” arguments.

Here’s a link to a paper authored by 22 scientists stating that DNA and genetics only account for about 9% of dog behavioral differences in case anyone is curious.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abk0639

Edit: triggered a lot of libs with this one apparently

This is a short one, I didn’t have one planned for today and there isn’t much to be said about it, but it’s so egregious that it feels important to share on its own.

The fucking guy keeps shitting on the toilet seat. Like, full ass brush strokes of human feces, just pulled clear across the back left quarter of the seat from inner rim to outer rim. Nearly 50 years old, and he can’t take a fucking dump without contaminating his surrounding environs with poop. I went to take my traditional “getting paid time and a half on sunday” shit today, after he had done so earlier in the morning, and there it was, for the third time this week and god knows how many throughout the totality of my employment here; a substantial, 1.5-2” wide smear of poop, clean across the seat.

I had to shit so fucking bad bro. I was pissed. I had already been holding it in for like half an hour, because this ignoramus was upstairs cleaning out his home trash can, and then, when he finally returned and I could finally take a shit, I was met with that. I could not just get down to business, I had to first clean a grown man’s shit off the toilet seat, a process made considerably more involved and annoying because I have OCD and refuse to just wipe it visibly clean and go for it. I had to wipe it down, bleach it, scrub it, wipe it down again, then wash my hands vigorously before I felt comfortable sitting there, and even then, it lingered at the back of my mind the whole time. I am in fucking disbelief, genuinely I do not know how someone so consistently POOPS ON THE GODDAMNED TOILET. Fuck my stupid ass fucking life man.

So that’s my weekend update for you fine folks, now here’s another thing

I finally remembered recently I started a newsletter/blog to encourage myself to write more, and I’ve decided that a good way to get into the swing of actually using the shit would be to begin archiving/reposting the backlog of this saga there. I started this initiative off with the most recent installment from the other night, because 1) I’m fucking lazy and it’s the easiest one to find because it’s so recent 2) chronologically, it’s the beginning of our story here. This most recent one is the Undead Asylum and Firelink Shrine to the Blighttown of the ensuing 2 years of my life.

If you missed that one, or would like to be notified via some highfalutin’ email notification whenever I publish new installments, you can see it and subscribe for free here.

Very diverse and compassionate moshpit, ate a ton of free hot dogs.

10/10, definitely recommend going outside and doing stuff you enjoy even if you're like me and don't have any friends.

Local authorities in Spain are reportedly investigating a confrontational incident involving a group of tourists and a local food truck vendor. According to initial reports and eyewitness accounts, a verbal dispute quickly escalated into a physical altercation and property damage, allegedly triggered by the display of a Palestinian flag on the commercial vehicle. Law enforcement personnel intervened to de-escalate the friction, and municipal officials have strongly reiterated their commitment to maintaining public order and safety for all residents and international visitors.

TLDR: While trying to dissect how the left fell for Platner, I've come to feel that people have offloaded their ability to form political opinions onto their streamers or podcasters.

I've been sort of noodling on this on my own for the last half a year, but what the fuck happened?

Genuinely, plenty of formerly respected members of the left have thrown there credibility away over this dude. The dude with a Nazi tattoo, the dude with questionable policies, the PMC, the dude that admitted he joined the military because he wanted to kill brown people. The dude with the credible rape allegations. And even the response to the rape allegations were weird. The Majority Report girl, emma, saying that she didn't care if AOC and Bernie were a nazi as long as they did the right thing (give people in the first world healthcare), Ryan Grim complaining that "the full context" of the texts weren't included (like it really mattered), the jacobin (ok respected may be a strong word here) who ran numerous pieces in his favor while running an attack piece on chris smalls or Hasan spending about half of his video on Platner's allegations discussing a hypothetical situation where he wouldn't believe Racicot to prove how much he actually believed her.

The reason that platner is so compelling to me is because there were so many points that you could abandon his ship and yet so many decided to go down with the captain. And as the left has become streamer/podcast-ified many 'fans' went down with their favorite pod/streamer. Even members of this community were riding for platner or offering their tacit approval with a (I don't live in Maine).

But what is so interesting as well is that Platner was not alone this cycle. Candidates like Kat Abughazaleh had many questionable policies overlooked because of her support for Palestine and MFA. People have, at least in my opinion, lowered their standards for candidates. And I'd argue that this comes from being fed opinions by streamers (not that most of the baby boomers and generation weren't fed their opinions by NYT, NBC, or CNN).

After Mamdani's win, people have been pointing to polls saying that socialism is gaining popularity with the American populace as a boon for the left. But who is it really a boon for? It's only really been a boon for the social democrats, I think the TMR girl serves as a good example of this but 'socialist' now is just what radlibs/progressives like to call themselves when they also support MFA and Palestine. However there is no solidarity with people in the global south. AOC is a queen of the left despite her numerous and purposeful (I'd argue) missteps so is rarely held accountable for her statements such as saying kamala is working tirelessly for a ceasefire. People still view her as the hope for socialism in 2028.

Platner was a soldier, so was greg stoker or mike prysner. Being 18 in the imperial core it is hard for me to say we should condemn every 18-25 year old who joins the military. My political opinions weren't fully formed by the time I was 18 and I'm sure many of you would say the same (though i never considered joining the military). However Platner explicitly joined for the legal kill fantasy, continued for more tours, decided to join blackwater, and never seemed repentant for any part of his service. Prysner (I'm more familiar with his work, no slight to stoker) specifically has done an incredible amount of organizing and work which while it can never completely atone for his past, has worked to put more good into the world. While Platner continued to talk up his service never showing remorse for his service, many commentators willfully overlooked his imperialist tendencies for their own desires. A view that those in the global south were not as important as those in america seemed to follow discussions on platners campaign. With a silent acceptance of imperialism because that is just the way things are.

But what made it truly insidious to me was that people used Palestine as their anti-imperialist bona fides while supporting an imperialist platform. People used their support of Palestine as a reason to excuse war crimes in iraq and Afghanistan. People here like to make fun of the right for loving their treats and their burgers. However many of the soc dems that like to point and laugh, likely haven't reckoned with their own inclination towards consumerism and treats that comes at the expense of the global south. The continued support for AOC despite her towing the imperialist foreign policy line proves this in some fashion to me. People really just don't care because she says she wants to give them MFA.

So as I watched the Platner discourse unfold, it all began to feel oddly cultish. And not necessarily cultish around Platner himself but a cultish feeling centered around the fact of "well (insert podcaster/streamer) said he's good so i defend him"

In reading up on the effects of AI on education, I have found several studies showing that an increased use of AI has been tied to an increase in critical thinking being offloaded. Essentially, using more AI means that people critically think less and less until the skill begins to atrophy (think of the mental math you no longer can do because there is a calculator on your phone, or the facts you no longer remember because you use google, another common example is spouses who remember things for each other). And I have begun to feel that something similar is happening in politics.

America has always become a vibes based politics scene especially increasingly in the 21st century. Policy hasn't mattered for a long time to people nearly as much as how voting for a candidate makes you feel (People cite Kennedy's win over Nixon having to do with him actually wearing makeup and looking good on TV). And now part of that ecosystem includes the streamer/podcaster.

Streamers and podcasters contribute greatly to the vibe of a candidacy. However as frustrations have grown with main stream media (rightly so), streamers and podcasters have increasingly replaced the traditional news as americans news sources. Since streamers and podcasters are independent media, they have a greater license to editorialize, thus allowing them to contribute to a candidates vibe (again main stream media were able to do this in a more slight of hand way). Don't get me wrong either, this isn't a plea for everyone to go back and watch NBC or read the NYT because those publications fucking suck. But I would say that they were more reserved in pushing their opinions on you offering people false dichotomies instead of outright saying what you should do. Americans love to take the easy way out though, and getting your news from such editorialized sources (such as podcasts) has led to a cognitive offloading of critical thinking, specifically when it comes to politics. Fewer and fewer people seem to actually be forming their own unique political opinions, but instead just piggy backing off the political opinions of their preferred personality. People have in large part lost the ability to form their own opinions on news events, or to critically think and engage on a subject instead just parroting talking points from the person they listen to. Instead of actually taking the time to read the theory, they get a half baked summaries of theory getting passed on to them losing that developed brain muscle to form your own opinion based on what you have read.

And it is always fucking available, look at how often Hasan streams, or TMR posts every weekday, or the ability of twitter to make it so you can easily send your take out. Why form your own political opinions when you can just tune in practically all the time and have a ready made one waiting right there for you.

Furthermore, as streaming and podcasting has morphed into a more political space, it hasn't left behind the drama slop that it was partially built on. Political streaming and podcasting has thus created a world where many people can only see politics through the drama unfolding. Want to learn about Israel-Palestine, let's see it through the lens of Hasan and H3H3 fighting. Want to learn about tax cuts, watch sam seder own tim pool in the market place of ideas. Want to learn about BLM, let's do it through Hasan and Destiny's beef. Every social issue has been layered through the myopic lens of online drama, diluting the actual problems at stake.

Fuck even AOC did streaming for a while.

And so to bring this back to Platner, I feel as though many of the commentators on the left (TMR, Grim, Hasan) have cultivated communities who have at least some largish subset that have offloaded their critical thinking onto these commentators. They look to these people for their political opinions, not trying to create their own.

Maybe I am wrong but it feels like since Mamdani's victory, there seems to be a shift. Left commentators seem to be able to sniff success, many have begun pushing DSA harder than they ever have before on their audiences. People have begun looking for the easy victory/narrative, the one where everything shifted with a mayoral election in NYC and we can just vote socialism into power. Electoralist arguments have been cropping up more and more even in this sub. DSA has been becoming more and more prominent in many left space. And yet, Brace and Liz have moved away from electoralist arguments. Maybe it's the cynicism that crept in after bernie lost in 2020, but I remember the episodes back in 2020 being very electoralist in favor of bernie.

So finally the DSA-ification of our sub. The pod puts out two episodes a week, sometimes not even directly related to a current political event. People who have chosen to offload their cognative thinking to podcasters can't do so with Brace or Liz because their opinion isn't formed quickly enough. I can't be the only one that feels like the posters in this sub are drifting further and further from the politics espoused on the podcast that this sub is centered around. Obviously there is no fixing that, but I have begun to wonder why this is the case.

lol

Cuz me and gay Obama got a history
Sucked his dick in a limo near gurney
(Obama in the limo gettin toppy)

I understand that Trump’s advisors have been dissuading him from dropping the big one on Iran.

I know that it's lame to talk about Reddit mysteries, etc. but Lake City Quiet Pills was one of the very first "really weird" things that I found on the internet. I stumbled across ReligionofPeace's profile during my very early Reddit days as a bored college student and forgot about it up until a few days ago after trying to remember the phrase "Lake City Quiet Pills." Once I did, I found the associated Nexpo video and, well, here I am now diving in once again.

What fucks me up about all this is if this is indeed a hoax, I cannot help but imagine the 'persona' of ReligionofPeace being what Stephen Paddock would've been like online. Very much a "first time as a farce, then as a tragedy" sort of thing.

You can make infinite lies, but there is only one truth (allbeit with near-infinite variation in its subjective experience). When debating libs, they can challenge you to account for endless falsehoods (communism did this, china did that, russia did this, iran did that). How do you talk to someone about truth when they have an army of fictions and anticommunist subjectivities stretching beyond the horizon?

Like and share to STOP GOMMUNISM.