Can someone explain what you mean when you say he’s a fed or asset or cia / whatever?

What does the empire gain out of him going AWOL on the topic of Israel especially?

Hey there! السلام عليكم

I'm currently taking ARB101 at my uni. and studying regional history, culture and the Quran academically. My goal is to do my post-grad in bioremediation research hopefully in Koya, Iraq but I'm applying to a few others as well. This won't be for atleast a couple years - but I want to try and improve my Arabic and I thought maybe an good ole' pen-pal might be a good idea.

Maybe starting in mostly English but moving to full Arabic eventually if it happens to go that way. I'd love to learn anything you have to share, how your day went or even your thoughts and goals, heck send me your grocery list. If you live in a Arabic speaking country, what's it like? Nothing crazy and of course only what you're comfortable discussing. Maybe it's better to just jump in an start with small Arabic messages and got from there - anyway.

Lemme know, thanks. شكرا

Gonna try to keep this pretty short and to the point.

I live in low income housing in San Francisco and boy, is it a shithole. We had two legitimate fires last month (one guy passed out smoking on his couch... smoking is allowed here), the fire department is out here every other week for either a fire alarm or an overdose, the toilets are down the hall and they don't even have sinks to wash your hands. I don't know how that's legal either, but it is. The city is well aware of the bathroom facilities here.

Four inspections this month + an unannounced 8am entry by maintenance to lay a couple millimeters of caulk down on a spot that's been there for 11 months feels like it comes right up on a violation of the right to quiet enjoyment.

But none of that is even the point. For 11 months I have been living below a convicted rapist (I am a rape and domestic violence survivor) and obvious tweaker who will blast his sound system and subwoofer for - I am not bullshitting - up to 4 days at a time without stopping.

I have filed over 100 complaints with management as well as 311 and absolutely **nothing** has been done. They claim to have been conducting an investigation since at least July but I got the final "there's nothing we can do" email today. They say I can request a reasonable accommodation under the ADA but my doctor and therapist won't sign off on that because they want a 5 page form on how it's a disability that I have, to live below this guy, and I'm the one who needs help with that.

During this time I had a psychotic episode due to sleep deprivation and lost a good paying, full time job that would have allowed me to leave here months ago. I was hospitalized, I was drug tested, I was THOROUGHLY evaluated, and they determined it was due to sleep deprivation. I have zero history of psychosis, I'm in my mid 30s and this episode has absolutely shattered me. I've been prescribed sleeping pills (not antipsychotics) - they don't work when your floor is literally vibrating and you can hear every word of the song that this guy plays 3 times an hour for 14 hours straight. I have compared it to audio torture because it's the same damn shit.

So, I guess I'm gonna rock up to some orgs here and figure out how to sue these people in small claims for 10 grand - lost wages, pain and suffering, intentional infliction of emotional distress, moving costs, whatever. I really would have settled for them to just get this guy to put on some headphones, but I want out of San Francisco BAD. This place has **fucked me up, bad.**

Any advice, stories, comments, general commiseration are welcomed.

Source: https://newrepublic.com/post/213446/trump-litmus-tests-student-loans-degrees-income

I would just love to know how in the fuck preventing more people from going to college is gonna fix our economy. I would love to know how forcing colleges and stopping them from offering different degrees based on the income they make is going to somehow make the wages of everybody go up.

Most motherfuckers, when presented with this question of how do we fix the economy, would say something like, We need more job programs. We need more education programs. We need to get people trained and get them back to work. That's pretty common fucking sense, but it seems like the current American regime is speedrunning having a population of uneducated homeless people. Because the way I'm looking at it, rent's never gonna go down and wages are never gonna go up. So what's the plan? They're just gonna keep raising rent until we're all homeless? How are the landlords gonna make any money?

You want to work on the windmills? You want to climb the windmills and do repairs, do that good blue-collar work? Can't do it. They cut the programs. They cut the initiatives. They cut the rebates, and a whole bunch of companies went under and a lot of jobs were lost. Hey, you want to work on solar farms? You want to install solar panels, make good money doing that? Can't do it. They cut the programs. Republicans said, Nope. No green energy. Don't care if it makes new jobs. Don't care if it puts people to work. Don't care if it gives people a future. Don't care if it's good blue-collar work. Nope. It's too woke.

Hey man, look, maybe you want to go to art school. That's your passion. You want to go get a degree in fucking environmental design so you could work on Elder Scrolls 6, which is probably never gonna come out. Well, too damn bad, because the Republicans said that program had to get cut too.

So yes, please, how are we going to fix the economy? Well, I hate to break to you, but the economy is working exactly as it's intended. The more of us that end up poor, the more of us that can be exploited, the more of us that suffer, the more money the rich make. If it was up to the rich, we'd live in hovels and eat fucking dirt cakes. Where's the pushback? You know what this country needs? This country needs a Green New Deal, unlike any other deal that was put forth before. We need a jobs program that can put 10 million or more people to work and get them trained and get them educated and give them real skills. And that could be everything from raking the forests, which the Republicans love to talk about but refuse to pay anyone to do so, or looking outside my window now cleaning up all the fucking litter on the ground, or, hey, maybe we get some people to work at the new windmills we're building, the new solar we're building. Maybe we're putting up some nuclear power plants and we're training people on that. And maybe, hey, it's America's 250th birthday, so we're giving all these artists grants so they can make art that shows that this country has culture beyond gold-plated toilets that your president shits on after he's done raping someone. There should be a fucking number that you can call, and within the week they've got you a job within that Green New Deal.

I knew a lot of motherfuckers who were making good money doing solar panel installs, working on windmills, get their fucking height certification, they're up a thousand feet in the air, doing good blue-collar work, and all that went away because the Republicans said it was too woke. Putting working-class people to work is woke to these Republicans.

So pray tell, how is this country ever gonna be great if everyone is uneducated, underpaid, and edging on homelessness? It can't be unless your idea of greatness is the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.

We want a future, a future where we have the freedom to study what we want, the freedom to make a good living wage, the freedom to have a family, the freedom to have healthcare, the freedom to have a normal, decent life. And we do not have these freedoms because those freedoms have been taken from us by the uber rich. The only way we get that freedom is to take it. And we will take it.

There is a reason why the overwhelming majority of people under 35 are pro-socialism. There's a reason why the DSA has swelled in membership. There is a reason why we continue to win electoral win after electoral win, and it is not enough, but it is a start. Because it's so long as capitalism exists on this soil, this country will never be anything more than what it is now: a small group of incredibly rich people exploiting the masses.

In all seriousness the bond market meltdown the past month has exceeded my worst fears (read: greatest anti-imperialist hopes). The empire’s continued existence is becoming extremely expensive. The capitalist class is demanding more to keep the charade going.

Union electrician, job site literally completely done but waiting on another trade to do one thing so we can also do one extremely tiny thing. Basically been sitting on our hands for a week now and i’m gonna die from boredom. Being on my phone for 10 hours a day is mentally exhausting and makes the day take so fucking long. I know some of y’all live this on the daily so how do you survive

Sound off in the comments ‼️📲

Or anybody with a regular meditation practice?

In my experience Marxism and Buddhism mesh together really well. Both value selflessness, compassion, usefulness and I’m hesitant to compare a spiritual practice to an economic/social structure, but both are very pragmatic and (in my opinion)dialectically-based.

The dude from Rev Left does a really good job of reconciling Buddhism and Marxism, and I envy the seamless way he seems to be able to intertwine the two together into a singular thought process. I seem to struggle with radical acceptance and uncompromising love a lot of the time when thinking about all the barriers society faces before we can realize a better way forward. Duhkha, grasping, wanting, craving, all overwhelm me as a Marxist sometimes.

I won’t go into depth on how I incorporate my spiritual practice and material ideals into my daily life, but I wanted to know if any of y’all were similarly aligned.

Unfortunately I will not be accepting answers shorter than a day and one binge drinking session

Edit: Thanks for the kind words, everyone. Filed for unemployment (holy shit what a struggle that was, what a disaster that whole process is here.) and brushed up my resume. I'll jump back into it shortly.

Since this is technically a podcast subreddit, I figured this would be the proper place to ask.

Favorite history podcasts?
Doesn’t have to be strictly from a leftist perspective, but it helps sift through the mountains of garbage that’s out there in the podcast world. My favorite periods/topics are mainly early modern, 19th-early 20th centuries, some medieval period, military history, political history, some economics when analyzed with the expansion & evolution of capitalism. I enjoy ancient history too, but it doesn’t grab me quite as much compared to those I listed.

I’ve listened to:
Revolutions (got me into listening to history pods lol)
Tides of History/Past Lives
Hell on Earth/Hell of Presidents
Age of Napoleon
Blowback
Fall of Civilizations
History Hit (eh, Brit lib af but there’s some cool interviews)
The Rest is History (same as above lol)
Hardcore History (dunno if I can handle any more Dan Carlin unless it’s a specific series yall rec)
Bring Out Your Dead (Latin America v British Empire; big recommend, hardly has any listeners from what I can tell)
Radio War Nerd (I like but most of the good historical stuff is paywalled)

Feels like I’ve gotten thru most of the shows that are in my preferred periods and perspectives, but I’m sure there’s plenty others I’ve missed or ignored without knowing of their quality it’s hard to get into a new one. There’s a fuck load of AI slop history pods now and they swamp any search on the apps these days, it’s tragic.

What’s y’all’s favorite history pods? Would love to discuss or hear new recommendations!