[base-and-superstructure]

about 💫

My name's Tal. Marxist. Anti-zionist atheist Jew. Living in the UK. They/them.

Header image is 'Lenin as a beekeeper' by Ürjingiin Yadamsüren, 1970; profile pic is a dusky seaside sparrow.

This blog is a mix: some politics, some theory, mixed in generally with other stuff relating to my interests.

Brief tag guide:

💫 #chatter original posts and thoughts. This tag used to mean something, now it's pretty much anything that isn't a reblog.

💫 #nature - some images of the "natural" world that I enjoyed.

💫 #art / #films / #music I generally tag individual artists/films/musicians etc too.

💫 #j and #religion relevant for the few people who follow me here who know me from Jewish spaces lol

💫 here are some posts where I'm tracking stuff about this year <- start of April edit: LOL I did not keep up with this

Other stuff:

If you need something tagged, let me know.

My asks are pretty much always open and I'm happy to discuss things. And if we're mutuals, feel free to get in touch via DM to say hi.

Feel free to like if you got this far or whatever so I know to appreciate you extra. Thanks for reading <3

Prev URLs:

duskysparrow

watermelonisms

[northstareclipse]

There's a recurring online tendency to aestheticize consensus itself. The imagined future village is full of emotionally compatible people who enjoy communal gardening, conflict resolution circles, acoustic folk music, mutual aid potlucks, and repairing bicycles together at sunset. Which is nice for the people who genuinely enjoy that lifestyle. But plenty of humans are solitary, prickly, obsessive, urban, nocturnal, sensory-seeking, technologically attached, contrarian, novelty-seeking, private, or just plain difficult. Those people do not evaporate after the revolution. They do not get Left Behind while you are Raptured into the Utopia. They become your neighbors.

[anxeious]

[guerillas-of-history]

The Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN)

Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN)

During the 1979 Nicaraguan Revolution, women comprised approximately 30% of Sandinista forces.

[base-and-superstructure]

The comparison some libs make of marxism to a moral-religious code does really annoy me BUT I wish it was true because I would totally be a priest or a monk in this situation. I <3 capital reading group so much. Obvs for the useful knowledge but I also just enjoy studying capital lol

[parkchanwoohoo]

I'm really trying hard to be a "It's everyone's first time learning something everyday" kind of guy but also if you don't know shit and you know you're, for whatever reason, a person who doesn't have context about something, why fucking talk. Like why are you talking. If you know you don't know what's being discussed why are you opining about it and getting confused when everyone is like, shut your empty headed mouth for the love of god? Are you ALSO learning for the first time that this is insufferable?? As though half the time these people aren't also insufferable pedants who'd blow a gasket if someone started talking about their loser hobbies wrong

[parkchanwoohoo]

"Here are my thoughts on this topic"

"You are completely off, you have gotten multiple basic facts wrong, you also lack x and y context"

"Well I didn't know that because I don't really involve myself in this topic" THEN SHUT UPPPPPPP OH MY GODDDDDDD

[ellipsus-writes]

Pope Leo XIV wrote 42.3K words on human dignity in the age of AI. (But Ellipsus has written over 65K words on the topic since 2023. 💪)

Solidarity is a weird thing… all of a sudden you’re seeing the Pope on your dash and the tea is… piping hot? (To offset the Vatican.va link, here's a tl;dr from The Onion.) ... Look at him go!

(Disagreements with his Holiness aside, it’s great to see a powerful figure power taking the side of the people.) ... EDIT: Wake up babe, a new Inquisition just dropped - apparently, not even the Pope can escape being wrongly accused by AI "verifiers."

[fus-mar-hoz]

the catholic church covers up child sexual abuse, lobbies for clemency toward abusive priests, bans gender-affirming care in its hospitals, blocks divorce access across entire countries, and tightens its position on abortion while hundreds of thousands of people are affected by those positions in ways that are immediate and material. these translate into denied healthcare, into legal systems shaped by ecclesiastical lobbying, into abuse survivors who were systematically failed and then watched their institution ask for mercy on behalf of the people who harmed them.

filing all of that under mere "disagreements" signals how unprincipled this reaction you perform is. this framing only holds if you've already decided that opposition to AI is the only relevant axis, and the actual politics, the actual institutional record, the actual people on the receiving end of church policy, gets brushed aside because it's inconvenient to the posts you want to make.

a position that evaluates institutions by whether they've said something useful about your issue, and brackets everything else as secondary, has no mechanism for discerning if praising what is among the most reactionary institution of our time making one statement that aligns with your interests while continuing to cause serious harm in every direction its power reaches is a good choice. the reflex of single-issue politics ends up celebrating an institution with a documented record of what it does with the dignity of people actually vulnerable to it, on the basis that it produced however many words useful to the discourse.

the only progressive thing a pope can do is resign, and that holds regardless of who occupies the position, because the institution is what causes the harm. no encyclical changes what the institution does with its hospitals, its political influence, or its internal handling of abuse. celebrating it because it produced 42,000 words that give the anti-AI discourse more ammunition treats the people harmed by church policy as acceptable collateral in a masturbatory culture war about technology.

[partisan1943]

Soviet soldiers dressed with early Bolshevik uniforms during the parade commemorating the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution, 1967.

[lindleland]

happy pride month!!

[lindleland]

why did i say that

[krasnoarmeyets]

happy pride month

[base-and-superstructure]

happy pride month

[base-and-superstructure]

That's Not Imperialism Because The Impacts Are Culturally Good, Actually

[hagiomoto]

Dezionism is going to be a huge project and I'm sure difficult once Israel collapse and we would need to support anti-zionist Jews in doing so. Only they would know how to do this. It would be similar to how we Muslims handle religious extremism in our own communities. I think.

[hagiomoto]

There are tons of zionists on this post but I already blocked them all. They shouldn't show up on the notes anymore but it is hilarious that theyre so angry at the idea of trying to end religious extremism among Jews

[ultramanzer0]

is prev a warrior of light or an agent of darkness

warrior of light

agent of darkness

Remaining time: 10 hours 40 minutes

[aelwydyddsrevenge]

Help Us Disabled trans girls make rent?

Hi, my wife and are currently in a bind, she's out of work and my grants have run dry for spring, and we're going to be about $300 usd shy of making rent, which is due in 6 days on the 5th, after which they start making threats about eviction. It's getting really hot out and we're getting tired. Please help us out if you can spare $10 or so? It really adds up. Thank you so much

Venmo: @aelwyd

Cashapp: $quicksilvermoonlight

Paypal: www.paypal.me/aelwydydd

[aelwydyddsrevenge]

$ 90 / 300

[memories]

Pour one out for #soviet union.

[despazito]

I really really don't like this veneration of convents as "autism heaven"

[despazito]

💀

[dajo42]

it’s been ten years

[geniusoflove]

its been 12 years

[shivshivshivvyyy]

13 years

[pinkthinkspalistineshouldbefree]

14 years

[momperlman-deactivated20251022]

15 years

[dammmithardison]

16 years

[fruitsfag]

17 years

[airinyourtires]

loss is an adult today. happy birthday loss.

[themoonandmyman]

I haven’t said anything interesting in a long while. this will continue

[boccher]

why does the US have a theme park ride thats just presidential speeches. who would want to visit that. that sounds like something yeonmi park would make up about north korea