June "No Kings" saw the largest single day protests in US history. This is a healthy response by the population. We do absolutely need to move beyond the limits of street protests, and onto the development of a mass strike movement; however, the fact that masses of people are willing to go out and protest on a largely spontaneous basis is significant. What is needed is clear revolutionary political perspective. When this understanding grips the masses, particularly the working class, the movement will take on an explosivly historic significance.

Music is far and away the more worthy subject.

Lemmy is the only decent alternative I've seen, besides the other ActivityPub federators. There was literally nothing else besides Mastadon (I had heard of this before and considered it) and kbin (only know about this since I joined lemmy.) Lemmy had the right combination of features, and a cuter name, so it won the most of us (I believe that's a big part of the reason.)

Every other alternative to the big social media is too niche, and often dominated by a particular world view or specific community grievance. Lemmy picked up a broad sample of users that reddit just suddenly and indiscriminately cut off without a moment for second thoughts. We're not a monoculture the only thing we have in common is we used alternative apps for reddit and we were too stubborn to move to the official app. That gives us a lot of diversity in the community and an edge on passionate eccentricity.

Now is the time for world socialist revolution. The time for a Labor Party was 60 years ago. Instead, the leadership of the trade union movement subordinated itself to the Democratic Party and imperialism. This process has been replicated worldwide in the various Social Democratic and Labor parties in support of capitalist exploitation and imperialist war. The entire system is in a state of advanced decay and historical bankruptcy with no possibility of meaningful reform.

This seems like the first thing with enough critical mass to get going, what with reddit and twitter sulimultaneously imploding faster than a poorly constructed submersible craft. It's not driven by political outrage so much as the old platforms making themselves unusable and forcing healthy users off their platforms.

Education at all levels should be freely available to everyone who wants it. While billionaire oligarchs hoard unfathomable sums of our social wealth, they limit and ration our opportunities for education on certain arbitrary bases. Expropriate capital and make the former capitalist live at an equal level to the rest of society.

I agree that "DA says..." is equal to "alleged," but you lost the thread with "it's clear he shot the guy."

Incoming user from reddit! My app got shut down. I was salty about it so I decided that I was going to find an alternative, rather than use the official app, and I found lemmy! I like the community vibe so far. I'm still figuring out how different communities and instances work together with federating. I was always more of a lurker on reddit, but I might try to become a more active commenter (for community engagement!)

These "humanitarian pauses" merely serve to provide the barest cover for the deliberate mass starvation of the Palestinian people. The images of emaciated skeletal figures have aggravated the mass revulsion and anger felt among the populations of Israel's imperialist allies, and increasingly among the Israeli population itself. Such "pauses" in the livestreamed genocide are intended to provide the governments of the respective countries with sufficient justification to continue arming Israel and supporting the slaughter.

I think this sort of pessimism is hopelessly self defeating. People are looking for meaningful ways to fight back. What they lack is organization and leadership. What are you doing to develop this?

I think it would be nice to expect to see user's full addresses in ui. You can tap around and find it in the options but that takes an active input. If someone is trying to spoof a well known user it should be readily apparent by their @instance registration.

Eighty years since the first Moscow Trial

When the first Moscow Trial began, Trotsky was under virtual house arrest in Norway. Under pressure from the Soviet Union, the Norwegian Labor Party was attempting to muzzle Trotsky and prevent him from answering the slanders of the trial. A new voice soon emerged, however; Lev Sedov, Trotsky’s son, published in the Bulletin of the Opposition what was to become The Red Book on the Moscow Trial. Sedov meticulously examined the details of the trial and exposed them as a fraudulent attack on genuine revolutionaries.

By April 1937, Trotsky had organized a counter-trial in the form of the Dewey Commission in Mexico, where Trotsky was now located after expulsion from Norway. The voluminous refutation of the first two Moscow show trials (a second occurred in January 1937) is presented in the book Not Guilty. The two concluding points state: (22) “We therefore find the Moscow trials to be frame-ups. (23) We therefore find Trotsky and Sedov not guilty.”

In carrying out these trials, Joseph Stalin was launching an assault on the legacy and the actual leaders of the first successful socialist revolution. As the Bonapartist leader of an increasingly counterrevolutionary social layer, the Soviet bureaucracy, it was not enough for Stalin to expel these Old Bolsheviks from the party and persecute them with exile or imprisonment.

This made me spit lmao

The protests by themselves are certainly inadequate, despite the impressive turnout. What makes the difference is what we do with them. Last time I went out, I distributed statements, made contacts and even received some donations. People are seeking out fighting perspectives. They need organization and leadership.

Mangione has not admitted to the act nor has he been convicted. He has a right to the presumption of innocence. The state must prove his guilt. Trial by public opinion in the media is not a replacement for a jury of his peers. That is an elementary democratic principle, not a conspiracy theory.

You must be some kind of troll. Music literally transforms the structure of your brain, strengthens neural connections, and makes you smarter in every way. If you knew anything about either music or mathematics, you would know the two are fundamentally linked. There are many problems with our society, but too much access to arts and culture definitely is not one of them. Do they even teach music in schools anymore? States have been cutting the curricula to the bone, and the arts have suffered the most.

It's me! I'm one of the new joiners! I've been enjoying the content and discussion here in the last day since I created my profile here. I have noticed a bit of lag and issues with things loading. I know there was a software update and obviously a sudden influx of new users. As frustrating as it was to have to move apps and communitie and despite the obvious growing pains, I have been happy to find a new community that is friendly and vibrant as this one!

It's been just a few months since I quit weed, but it feels like a completely different life. I had quit drinking a few months prior because of the obvious harms it was causing me, but I kept using weed. The harm with weed was not so obvious as with alcohol, but I wasn't living up to my idea of what I wanted from myself.

I think with alcohol it beats you up and knocks you down hard. With weed, it's more subtle. The harm is slower and more accumulated. It keeps you down, makes you slower, less ambitious, comfortable in your position, whatever that is. Even when I quit drinking I was still stuck in a pit and I didn't notice—or didnt care—that the walls were slowly getting higher and the bottom deeper.

I was a heavy user going through some 3–4 cartridges a week plus some joints on top of that. I was constantly stoned from morning to night, at work, at home, while driving, just always. My attention and memory were shot. I finally had enough. I picked a date and quit. Easy. I had one more occasion to use after that which I already planned. That one day turned into several before I got the wherewithal to quit again. The experience sealed it for me and I've been clean since!

Life is not perfect. I quit my job without a backup and I've been kind of stuck jobless. I've been living on a friend's couch since leaving an unhealthy domestic situation. The relationship didn't survive sobriety when our mutual drug use seemed to be the only significant connection between us. I'm grateful for my friend, who appreciates the homecooked meals I make (I'm paying my way with the money he's saving not ordering delivery! lol) I've been reading a lot more now that I have the attention span to do so, and I have progressed much faster in learning how to play music.

It gets easier. Good luck to you on your journey!

I play a mandolin. It's neat that it is tuned the same as a violin, because that makes the very expansive repertoire music arranged for that instrument available to me as well. I've been learning mainly folk music, but I may dabble in classical more as I continue.

I lurk because I'm afraid of being stupid and annoying when I comment on posts 😬