It’s not just the optics that are bad.

Azov battalion

What “communist dictator” are you talking about?

I’m hung up on them saying “full-scale” invasion two times. It makes me wonder what “half-scale” means?

He lost a bet

Lol. I knew what song it was gonna be.

I know an ethnic jew born in Kiev. She survived the holocaust, and from her telling lived a pretty good life and raised a family in the USSR. As the Soviet Union was collapsing and antisemitism was increasing she moved with her family to Chicago. She traveled back to Russia several times, but never returned to Ukraine, which I think about a lot. Who wants to survive the holocaust and then still have to live alongside these nationalist shitheads, just waiting for it to happen again.

Absolutely true. I’d still say going through this whole charade was immature and cowardly. They could just say that China poses a longterm threat to the American bourgeoisie, and if the American bourgeoisie suffer, no one can stop them from taking down a lot of American workers with them.

My president:

Yes. This alone should disqualify Biden from being president.

For me, the greater takeaway was that none of our political leadership had the maturity or courage to say “we’ve been operating with some bullshit narratives, some of that is our fault, I know the news loves to stir up a good frenzy but this is just a weather balloon.”

Instead, rather than challenge people to stop and think, they spent a week launching missiles at weather balloons. Truly jaw dropping (I’m desensitized to all of the violence they normally do). I’m a communist, so by definition I’m not one of the adults in the room, but at least I’m adult enough to tell the truth when I fuck up at work and just fix it.

It doesn’t matter. They’re old and whatever they think about something has no material impact. It’s just annoying when you have to have a conversation premised on a bunch of bullshit with no recognition of competing class interests. It’s the curse of being a communist. .

Maybe they’re motivated by money…

Who is they, and what do they want the money for? I wonder if in addition to making progress on an environmental issue they’re gaining revenue they can use towards their other goal of addressing uneven development in places like Xinjiang?

My parents are also absolutely certain that I’m the one lying to them.

“Access to infrastructure that allows the movement of critical goods” isn’t really captured by the phrase “land grab”

Ok. But if NATO is gonna continue to arm nazis in Ukraine I think the people of Russia can have a buffer between them.

Lol. I remember that conversation. I’m reaching Kruschev levels of revisionism now.

This is barely different than talking about communism with my boomer dad. If he doesn’t already know what you’re talking about he just assumes whatever you said is completely insane. In my dad’s defense, he’s never read anything about communism. I’m gonna hold Sims to a higher standard.

Edit: I thought you were serious when you said you liked his writing. Good god.