Considering the NSF soldiers yell “Fascist!” when they see you, I’d wager that at least someone was thinking about politics.

I must admit I can’t give you the most concise analysis, but I do think the general outline is about right

It generally all starts with the ostracism of Yugoslavia from the rest of the socialist bloc, which is maybe even largely Stalin’s fault. Because of this situation, it forced Yugoslavia to turn west, much like the Sino-Soviet split did to China. With that came aid, membership in the IMF, but also immigration to the west and smuggling of western good such as clothing, cars etc. Then also came the other direction the economy turned to where it embraced market socialism instead of a centrally planned economy. Finally, the whole brotherhood and unity spiel was made to keep unity between the people, but instead divided them and created more statelets, while those same already existing states had some of their own dogs in the fight of WWII (chetniks for Serbia and ustashe for Croatia). These dogs nowadays give way to much of revisionist history.

In the end, when you combine all that, it makes for a deadly cocktail. Just one drop of reactionary ideology is enough to get it to explode.

Funnily enough, I believe there is a rumor that the Yugoslav People’s Army thought about overthrowing Milosevic, but you can already guess how enthusiastic they were about it considering it’s just a fucking rumor.

Literally every time you read about a debate between whichever centralist vs. autonomist, it’s always like “Tito agreed in principle with X centralist, but…” and that’s how Yugoslavia pretty much collapsed. After MASPOK in the early 1970’s, a liberal constitution was instituted which confirmed the autonomy of the republics, paving the way for their eventual independence. Croatia and Slovenia where always the loudest ones because they were disproportionately richer than the rest, so when hard times fell upon the country, they were more than happy to declare independence, seeking their own petty bourgeois interests. They just needed an excuse, and Milosevic and his nationalism was the perfect one.

Was the grandson cool or a lib?

Considering who announced his death, and the fact that he was an elected MP of theirs apparently, he was probably an opportunist. SPS, the “Socialists” of Serbia are nothing more than the opportunist wing of the “Progressive” party, who themselves are basically an organized crime syndicate, which mostly interests itself with staying in power by giving away everything to pretty much everyone. They are massively privatizing even the little public enterprise remaining from socialist times, whilst treating the rest like the mafia families in the Sopranos, giving away “no-show” and “no-work” jobs to their loyalists. On the whole they have sold all business to foreign capitalists, from the West to China & Russia alike. Rio Tinto which could destroy a significant portion of arable land is majority western owned, as well as Jared Kushner getting the former defense ministry building, aka the one those same fucking Americans bombed, just one of many national embarrassments. But also to China, as with Zijin getting gold and copper mines (whilst also scarcely following environmental regulations) and Gasprom with Russia. All the while Vucic constantly markets himself as some great fucking partiot, blasting propaganda through the channel of his friend Zeljko Mitrovic, whose ideal version of society probably looks like the Truman show with the channel constantly having the trashiest reality-tv shows you can possibly imagine, violence and debauchery included.

As pertaining to the socialists themselves, their leader Ivica Dacic, might as well be known here as “La cucaracha”. He always snakes his way into the coalition with the ruling party, although he’s been getting increasingly sidelined by Vucic as of late.

bump amber whataboutism volcel police

I have to give it to him, it never gets boring reading his batshit insane tirades.

Oh yes, absolutely

I think when comparing the situation from WWI Russia and this one the problem we run into is that the WWI scenario was on a much more even keel in terms of the relative power of the imperialist alliances than it is now. In WWI, if Germany or Russia lost, the balance of power was such that they could most certainly not be fully subjugated to the other side. In the modern day scenario however, they west would be more than capable of economically subjugating Russia.

That is the reason that revolutionary defeatism was the right strategy at the time. This time however, I think it would actually be best to instead take the complete opposite approach. It is now in fact paramount to take the materialistically correct position and instead acknowledge how the liberals in both Russia and Iran are effectively impeding the resistance against imperialism via their own personal interest of retaining power or the fact that even in foreign policy they are hedging their bets instead of uncompromisingly allying with China. In that respect, the communist parties should actively take the position that the only way of actually securing the country not just from outside but from the inside as well, is to socialize the means of production in the hands of the state, which will be the only entity capable of actually utilizing it to not only secure the positions of the working people, but of maximizing security by any means necessary.

Ellis sleeps with the fishes

It’s funny because if anything, this would benefit the industrial capitalist greatly. The merchant doesn’t get to sink his teeth into his rate of profit nearly as much, whilst the industrialist is able to realize more of his commodities.

“dear Donald”

HIS MAJESTY’S DINNER is even worse lmao

We were born too early to witness the sack of Rome, but we have been born just in time to witness the death of its farcical imitation.

I’m preemptively making a prediction to be wrong about

Well chaps, I want to wish you all good fucking luck in WW3

What does he say? I can’t be bothered to use tiktok.

On Zizek as a whole, I distinctly remember somebody asking him something about Kosovo, when there were talks that it was gonna be partitioned once and for all. He says that he supports it, in that Kosovo gives Serbia the obviously serbian parts, which is common sense. But then, for a guy living in the balkans, he says something unimaginably stupid and pretty much racist. He thinks that kosovo should get a part of Sandzak (which is a province of Serbia containing a majority Bosniak population), as if he cannot imagine that maybe Bosniaks are satisfied with the way things are right now, as opposed to living in a country where their language (and consequently the language of the majority of South Slavs) is actively being suppressed. As if that would be good thing simply pertaining to the fact that they share a religion with the Albanians of kosovo. Also the notion that Serbia should give something up to make it fair, as if simply recognizing the territory which was illegally taken from it isn’t enough. If this is how informed he is on the region he hails from, you can imagine the credibility of his opinions in regards to foreign policy in general.

I mean yeah, but let’s not kid ourselves on who the shot callers in the EU are. I guess I was wrong about the Germans, but I have no doubt that if the French and the British decided to go with America, they would as well (and the rest of the EU being hipnotized by russophobia, they would easily fall in line). Don’t forget, the number of US military bases in Germany.

Another thing that I forgot to mention is also obviously the fact that the europeans are bying american gas at much higher price than they used to buy russian. All because of their dumb little neoliberal ideology.

Europe, during that shift, will either join the US in failing or just easily slide over into more equal footing with the rest of the world.

I mean, will they? I don’t have the graph right now, but I’m pretty sure that the EU in the case of global redistribution, would literally be the only ones who would lose out. Even the US, with how unequal it is, would on average actually stand to gain

I think this is enticing, and could fit Laussen’s contradiction because Europeans are pretty self-righteous and maybe unwilling to fully subsumed themselves to US interests when against their own.

I mean, we literally had that in the Nixon shock, where they lost out on exchanging their dollars for gold, and they didn’t make too much of a fuss. Even before, the british in the form of debtors gave up their companies, liquid reserves, and the frozen account of 15b pound sterling with their colonies just to pay off lend-lease, only to then later on get fucked in the position of creditor themselves by the aforementioned Nixon shock. It’s just that in every situation they could have gotten out of being under the american yoke, they always proved subservient anyway, even when their own interest should’ve been paramount.

Besides, I agree with xiaohongsh@hexbear.net that China’s best bet is to lift the global south out of poverty by a new Marshall Plan, rather than to hedge their bets on the EU. They’re simply too unreliable, driven by a neoliberal ideology which mainly concerns itself with defending themselves from muh gommunism (now in the form of Russia and China).

I’ve had it for about a week now, I’ve kept the outbreak from getting too bad but it still itches so bad, and I have it EVERYWHERE. On my face and lips, I have a patch in my ear, on my dick, all over my hands and arms, everything is suffering. I already washed myself with dish soap so it’s not spreading anymore but goddamn if this isn’t hell

He must’ve made a recent visit to a nursing home and she got jealous. Only reason I can think of

If this causes a 30 years war in the US, but this time a Orthodox vs. Catholic vs. Protestant battle royale, I’m all for this.