I’ve got no problem with the communists. I like having a part of the internet that isn’t completely commoditised and filled with ads and people trying to sell side hustles. I hate the search function.

Digimon.com Neopets.com Furrypets.com Furries.com Hotfurriesforum.com Deletemyhistory.com

The issue is when you refuse to engage in the legal process at all you lose the right to find compromise. It’s the same reason Alex Jones was defaulted.

It’s got good trains.

Maybe someone else would be a better judge on what the source is. I know the UK had a period of more entrenched socialist policies prior to Thatcher that may affect the general population’s perceptions of the movement. The poisonous Murdoch newspaper/media ecosystem can’t help either.

The allegations are that outlaw bikie gang members were acting as delegates and were involved in government-funded projects. It comes off the back of the Victorian branch’s leader John Setka being expelled from the ALP due to some ugly allegations of domestic abuse.

The difference between my experiences in the UK and Australia were… interesting. Being upfront, my time in the UK was extremely radicalisng.

In the UK there was a general distain from the media and most people I met for the labour movement. While at the time there was some real bright spots like seeing crowds singing The Internationale, it was mostly an extremely depressing environment. I think the number of people who are a part of their union is similar to Australia but there seems to be a more aggressive negative sentiment from non-members. But my experience was that there was some really strong displays of solidarity despite the outside attacks. But the level of wealth inequality was sickening and probably not helped by a cultural obsession with the monarchy.

Back in Australia you’d think there would be strong culture of working class solidarity, with the Australian Labor Party (ALP) being the first Labor party to have ever formed government in the world in 1904, but its been in steep decline here since the 80s with union membership down from nearly half of all workers to close to 10%. Despite that decline, the unions here still hold a lot of influence, being a key driver behind the general strike in 2005 where 1/2 million people marched against exploitative employment laws. The unions also control the majority of ‘superannuation’ funds which all employers make compulsory payments into on behalf of their workers, and the unions own some successful energy cooperatives, insurers and credit unions. However the movement is going through a particularly rough patch this last month with corruption allegations, and parliamentary interventions, some sketchy leadership issues and some sharp divisions appearing along gender lines, all while the ALP adopts increasingly neo-liberal policies.

June 2023, a picture of my daughter.

I have a $10/hour entertainment budget. If a movie ticket is $15 and I get 1.5 hours of entertainment then it was a good purchase. if I pick up a game for $60 then I expect to get at least 6 hours of fun from it.

Using this measure I’ve decided books provide some of the highest value entertainment and fancy restaurants some of the lowest value entertainment.

But that’s just me.

Fair call. I only just got the community update so I hadn’t seen it.

Democracy manifest!

No corporate control

My mother scream crying in front of all of us during dinner when she received another rejection from her latest job interview. We were having baked potatoes. Which was a special treat to us as kids, but years later she told me it was what we ate when she couldn’t afford to put a full meal on the table.

Shawn Fain is such a charismatic speaker, the contrast between Trump and Fain is night and day.

Goddam this one was heartbreaking

Turns out of you do this with a basic block of cheddar and cheap shaved ham, everyone still thinks you’re being fancy and compliments you on the cheese choice.

Thank god for the Furries.

You know it didn’t use to be this way? There was a time when you could be ‘A GE man’. You could work at a company for your whole life. You would not get laid off and rehired whenever it was convenient for the company, rather they’d show you some loyalty and you’d show them the same, this would be backed by employee profit sharing schemes, incentivising higher performance.

The heart of this deal between workers and management was ripped out when management chased higher share valuations, with stock bonuses for themselves instead of workers. It became cheaper to fire 1/80th of the workforce because you could break up unions that way, management could write off all those salaries to bump up the quarterly earnings, increasing the stock price and earning themselves bonuses at the expense of workers who as you said, just learn to get by.

Context is important here. The conversation here was about Australia’s nuclear capacity. A country where nuclear power is banned at both state and federal levels. Where the plan for it’s use is currently uncosted, the planned sites have been selected without environmental protection studies and several of which are supposed to be SMRs.

Would you build a bleeding edge nuclear reactor without a legal framework to govern its construction or operation? Without a workforce trained in its functions? Without considering the environmental factors of its geography? Without considering the cost?

Probably not. But that’s the current plan put forward by the reactionary right in Australia and this from a party who doesn’t believe in climate change, have no emissions targets, and whose whole plan is to continue to run and build coal power until whatever time they work out the details on nuclear.