redtea

Short video about current floods in Libya and how they are so much worse due to the deliberate sabotage of the NATO campaign.

Just came across this channel. Looks like one to keep an eye on for African news.

They insist on controlling the media, the publishing, the schools, the teachers, the curriculum, the judiciary, the museums, and the curators. But they only use their power for good. They hold themselves to the highest standards in the search of the truth and the presentation of the truth. Honest! Their independent watchdogs confirmed it. And why would they lie, anyway?

It's not a Marxist list but that's perhaps to be expected from a list curated from other lists across the internet. I thought it was useful, still, as there are 200 entries, including lots of fiction, which could be a good way to engage with the topic or for recommendations to people who don't/won't read theory.

In 2018, Delta airlines unveiled new uniforms made of a synthetic-blend fabric. Soon after, flight attendants began to get sick. Alden Wicker explains how toxic chemicals get in clothes in To Dye For.

Employers caring more about image that health. Iconic duo.

Hello Comrades,

Thanks for all your advice about setting up Linux. It was a success. The problem is that I’m now I’m intrigued and I’d like to play around a bit more.

I’m thinking of building a cheap-ish computer but I have a few questions. I’ll split them into separate posts to make things easier. Note: I won’t be installing anything that I can’t get to work on Linux.

Do I need a dedicated graphics card? I'd like to run an HD display as a minimum. (I don't have a 4k monitor at but I wouldn't mind upgrading later if I can save up for one.) Mostly, I'll be streaming or playing videos.

I wouldn't mind playing some games but is a dedicated GPU needed?

If I should look into a GPU (I can always add it in later), what should I look for? (I'm not really interested in the latest AAA games). I wouldn't mind playing HOI4 or Victoria 3 as I hear so much about them.

What are your thoughts on second-hand GPUs? This will obviously cut costs but is there anything to watch out for?

Hello Comrades,

Thanks for all your advice about setting up Linux. It was a success. The problem is that I’m now I’m intrigued and I’d like to play around a bit more.

I’m thinking of building a cheap-ish computer but I have a few questions. I’ll split them into separate posts to make things easier. Note: I won’t be installing anything that I can’t get to work on Linux.

Should I prioritise RAM or the processor? My budget is limited so I will have to make a choice between RAM and the processor. Would it be better to go for e.g. 32GB RAM and a slower processor, or 8GB RAM and a faster processor? Or is balance better? Say, 16GB RAM and a 'medium' processor (that's 'medium' between the 'slower' and the 'faster' option within my budget, not 'medium' for the market).

Intel or AMD?

Hello Comrades,

Thanks for all your advice about setting up Linux. It was a success. The problem is that I'm now I'm intrigued and I'd like to play around a bit more.

I'm thinking of building a cheap-ish computer but I have a few questions. I'll split them into separate posts to make things easier. Note: I won't be installing anything that I can't get to work on Linux.

Question about storage and swap memory.

I plan to install an SSD of maybe 128–256GB for the system files and a larger HDD for storage. I would partition the SSD so that I could install a few different distros without losing any installation. This way I can commit to some longer experiments before deciding which distro to use.

The question is: should I have the swap partition on the SSD (with the OS partition) or (separately) on the HDD?

And if I install multiple distros, do I need a different swap partition for each one? For example, if I install 16GB RAM, do I need a 16GB partition for, say, Mint, Debian, and Ubuntu? Or can I let them 'share' the swap partition?

Are there any additional security/privacy risks of installing more than one distro on the same SSD card?

You may have noticed that I don't post pictures. If not, now you know.

One of the reasons is that I'm worried about sharing meta data.

Does anyone know:

1. Does the Lemmy software strip / hide meta data from photos when they're uploaded?
2. Is there a way of stripping meta data from photos?
3. Does downloading an image from the internet and uploading it from my hard drive add any meta data?
4. If I create a digital image, does it have meta data that could reveal my location, etc? (And then questions 1 and 2 for this option.)
5. How should/could I keep my data/location safe if I choose to post either my photos, my scans, or pictures (either created by me or downloaded from the internet)?

Hello Comrades,

Where do you think is the best place to post educational/theory posts?

I've been writing some longer posts lately and posting them too !genzhou@lemmygrad.ml because the sidebar calls it, 'GenZedong’s educational hub'. Shall I keep doing that or is there a better community? e.g.:

• https://lemmygrad.ml/post/1022436 and
• https://lemmygrad.ml/post/1007901

I was going to use !communism@lemmygrad.ml but as I'm linking to my posts in the wider Lemmyverse, I didn't want libs coming over to an explicitly Marxists-only community.

One of the reasons for these longer posts is to provide an opportunity for us to talk about some issues and to answer questions that others ask in the wider Lemmyverse without (a) coming off as hostile/confrontational or (b) wasting hours writing things that people might not read or appreciate.

(No obligation for us to talk through my posts! But at least there's always a possibility of a constructive and critical discussion, which doesn't exist elsewhere.)

Edit: These aren't necessarily 101 questions, either, but I suppose they could go in !communism101@lemmygrad.ml, depending on what you all think.

I won't hold my breath for more but it's good to see Marxist ideas appearing in the mainstream press:

Liberal antiracists have succeeded over the last half-century in reducing racial prejudices in interpersonal relationships. And they have transformed popular culture: people of colour are now represented in Hollywood movies at levels proportionate to their presence in the US population. But advances in reducing prejudice and improving representation have not lessened the racism that exists in law, policy and broader economic and institutional practices.

Take, for instance, the expulsion of more than a million, mainly Mexican, people from the US in 2021. This policy behind this is driven by the need to maintain a worldwide racial division of labour. It makes no difference if the immigration officer who carries it out and the employer who profits from it have worked really hard at their diversity awareness training. And it is at the structural level where, since the 1970s, racism has reproduced itself, as ruling classes in the US and Europe mobilised a neoliberal conception of market forces to defeat mass movements for the redistribution of wealth. With those defeats, new ways of dominating Black people and the global south became possible.

It was not simply that racism became more subtle or unconscious after its overt forms had been defeated. It was more that there was no longer a need to routinely make explicit assertions of racial superiority. Racial inequalities were reproduced through market systems, alongside newly intensifying infrastructures of governmental violence, carried out in the name of seemingly race-neutral concerns about crime, migration and terrorism. …

The many millions of people around the world judged surplus to the requirements of neoliberal capitalism, and framed as bearers of cultural values antagonistic to market systems, are the targets of this form of violence. …

Liberal antiracists are powerless against this new structural racism. They demand we use the correct racial vocabulary, shaming Conservative MPs or sports commentators when they use derogatory terms; but abolishing a word does not abolish the social forces it expresses. They implement diversity training programmes, but these fail, owing to the mistaken premise that racism now resides primarily in the unconscious mind. … By relocating racism to the unconscious mind, to the use of inappropriate words and to the extremist fringes, liberal antiracists end up absolving the institutions most responsible for racist practices. They are effective at getting more people of colour into senior jobs in police forces, border agencies and the military, but unable to get fewer people of colour killed by those same agencies.

For these reasons, to look to liberal antiracism as the solution – with whatever good intentions – is to help sustain structural racism. White liberals can heroically confront their own unconscious biases all they want, yet these structures will remain. To be antiracist today means working collectively with organisations to dismantle racist border, policing, carceral and military infrastructures. It means organising in the community to get the police out of our schools; taking direct action against deportations; and confronting corporations that trade in violence. It means understanding that the poor of the global south are as equally entitled to the world’s resources as the wealthy residents of the north. In the end, it requires us to build an economy of care, not killing – uplifting all working classes of whatever colour. The radical tradition, with its anticapitalist impetus, might once have seemed impractical. Now it is the only viable antiracist politics.

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/986807

Here's a long list of texts about race and racism.