Unity of the left is a double edged sword. Sure it means increased bargaining power for change. Also, it usually deteriorates into a hostage situation where the most centrist “left” party in the coalition says they will cooperate with the fascists, if the other left parties do not reduce their call for change to just symbolic issues.

An age of rising fascism…

I would just like to digress by pointing out that I found your discussion interesting and that .world defederating .ml would kill potential future ones like it. It also seems to me that rejecting ML impulses, say by disassociating the .ml and .world users, would not contribute to organising society in a way that would allow for the revolution you speak of.

MLs do not go away by ignoring them. One of their main tenets, which they are to be admired for, is precisely their obstinancy to making themselves heard. If I understood you correctly as a proponent of a solution that is yet to be evolved, why reject the input of MLs? I am personally curious about learning more about anarchism, that is if the theory is not so weak it would but all be destroyed by the breath of a ML.

I had to do a double take because this sentiment is prevalent throughout lemmy.world and other instances.

In much of Europe the left have been victims of former success. Many of the (former) leftist political parties and their constituents have foregone leftist policies because said policies gave them the social mobility to move into a higher strata of society.

In effect it is successful class war waged by the capitalist class, who have dismantled their greatest political opposition and employed a tactic of divide and conquer for the lump sum of petty cash.

Note, I do not say that having a fair and egalitarian society isn’t a part of socialist ideology, but focusing on cultural symbolics instead of improving material conditions is just bourgeoisie propaganda.

Identity politics surely is to blame for the rise of fascism. Just like the last time in the years 1915-1945.

You are almost quoting the fascist playbook line of “look what you made me do”.

Look! We gutted the public system. Clearly the privatized alternative must be the solution. We support privatization btw, so you need to vote for us!

More worried about this triggering an ice age and subsequent global failure of what crops remain.

Everyone in Europe knows really well that there is a reactionary wind blowing through the lands. Historically, this has been conducive to conflict and war. The conditions are different right now than then, but I fear not enough.

I would love a different world order based on international cooperation in lieu of exploitation, but I do not see this as a probable outcome of tensions rising and reactionaries taking power.

It is definitely worth keeping an eye on the protofascist and overtly fascist movements gaining traction, since they pretty much tell us exactly how they are going to fuck things up.

Yes. Germany and many other European countries had little to none political support for investing in their militaries. Now they do, and it is going to be a problem later on. Capitalists want return on their investments, after all.

The EU is very much on the top of the global neocolonial food chain, but they were mostly (looking at you France) not doing like super a lot (looking at you UK and US) of “interventions” to secure their interests all over the world.*

* Most Western powers are part of NATO, which is its own can of worms. Still, Russia invading Ukraine has made support for NATO much more popular (see Sweden and Finland as case studies), and now the bloc is more consolidated than ever. The timing could not be worse with respect to the overtly fascist leaders gaining traction in the very same countries.

The European countries bordering Russia, i.e. the Baltics, Nordics and Eastern Europe, contribute a far bigger percentage of their GDP to aid Ukraine than the others (if you ignore the new policies of Slovakia and Hungary). The US and UK gives/sells the most weapons, but Ukraine is pretty much bankrolled by the EU/EEA.

The point is that the EU has sustained big economic losses from cutting ties with Russia, leading to movement of industry and production away from Europe and over to the other biggest economies.

People forgot quickly how hesitant the European countries were, and still are, to send equipment to Ukraine. Germany didn’t send anything but helmets for a long while. They also cancelled North Stream, leading to increased inflation and lessened economic competitive viability. If anything, the proxy war is exhausting both Russian and European economies, with the US and China ready to scoop up the scraps in preparation for their intensifying trade war.

Well, no one is saying cars are worse for all purposes. If you want to take your family and dogs to a cabin in the mountains while also shopping for food along the way, it is probably going to be your best bet. Still, that is not what is pictured in the post. These are commuters that are probably moving from work to home (or vice versa), where cars really are the worst of most options. If the bus takes longer, it is probably an issue of allocation of funds for a shorter route and exclusive lanes for it.

Sure! Both speed and distance matters a lot for throughput. The advantage of pedestrian traffic is that designing for it reduces the distance people have to travel and that it combines very well in conjunction with public transport, unlike cars. Also, the speed of mixed traffic is inverse correlated to the number of vehicles, hence is a special case in this regard where throughput may decrease as the volume per lane increases. The overall point however is that a single train can substitute a staggering amount of private vehicles (and who doesn’t love leaning back, listening to music and reading the news while commuting?).

Just going to leave this one here:

Can we get tags on Lemmy so I can save you as “That annoying emoji user”?

18 days for this comeback was worse.

The question was specific with regards to a “private city”, thus you can infer from context that the totality of “total” is limited to cities. This is also the reason I abstracted and specified it to mean population centres, because bringing guns to festivals is just as stupid and illegal most places.

I get the urge to be pedantic, but why be so after someone else has already pointed it out and I have answered them?

Sure, not total in the sense that gun ownership is illegal, but you if you take a fucking gun to a city you will have your license revoked and probably go to prison. That is unless the gun was kept locked down, dismantled and securely separate from the ammunition in your trunk.

The point is to remove guns from people and places where they can do the most harm, like in a population centre. They have no reason to be there, and most of the world recognizes this.

Love Washington crying over the beautiful sight!