Trump, I don't really like travelling to the US. It's a bit boring, but I confess that there are some commendable things. I like going to the Black neighborhoods of Washington, where I saw a fight in the US capital between Blacks and Latinos with barricades, which seemed like nonsense to me, because they should join together.

I confess that I like Walt Whitman and Paul Simon and Noam Chomsky and Miller.

I confess that Sacco and Vanzetti, who have my blood, are memorable in the history of the USA and I follow them. They were murdered by labor leaders in the electric chair, by the fascists who are within the USA as well as within my country.

I don't like your oil, Trump. It's going to wipe out the human species because of greed. Maybe one day, with a glass of whiskey that I accept, despite my gastritis, we can talk frankly about this, but it's difficult because you consider me part of an inferior race and I'm not, nor is any Colombian.

So, if you know someone who is stubborn, that's me, period. You can try to carry out a coup with your economic strength and your arrogance, like they did with Allende. But I will die true to my principles, I resisted torture and I resist you. I don't want slavers next in Colombia, we already had many and we freed ourselves. What I want next in Colombia are lovers of freedom. If you can't join me, I'll go elsewhere. Colombia is the heart of the world, and you didn't understand that, this is the land of the yellow butterflies, of the beauty of Remedios, but also of the colonels like Aureliano Buendía, of which I am one, perhaps the last.

You will kill me, but I will survive in my people, which lives, before yours, in the Americas. We are peoples of the winds, the mountains, the Caribbean Sea and of freedom.

You don't like our freedom, okay. I don't shake hands with White slavers. I shake hands with the White libertarian heirs of Lincoln and the Black and White farm boys of the USA, at whose graves I cried and prayed on a battlefield, which I reached after walking the mountains of Italian Tuscany and after being saved from Covid.

They are the United States, and before them I kneel, before no one else.

Overthrow me, Mr. President, and the Americas and humanity will respond.

Colombia now stops looking north, it looks at the world. Our blood comes from the blood of the Caliphate of Cordoba, the civilization of that time, of the Roman Latins of the Mediterranean, the civilization of that time, who founded the republic, democracy in Athens; our blood comes from the Black resistance fighters turned into slaves by you. Colombia is the first free territory of America, before Washington, [before] of all America, and I take refuge in its African songs.

My land is made up of goldsmiths who worked in the time of the Egyptian pharaohs and of the first artists in the world in Chiribiquete.

You will never rule us. You're opposed to the warrior who rode our lands, shouting freedom, whose name is (Simon) Bolívar.

Our people are somewhat fearful, somewhat timid, they are naive and kind, loving, but they will know how to win the Panama Canal, which you took from us with violence. Two hundred heroes from all of Latin America lie in Bocas del Toro, today's Panama, formerly Colombia, which you murdered.

I raise a flag and as (Jorge Eliecer) Gaitán said, even if it remains alone, it will continue to be raised with the Latin American dignity that is the dignity of America, which your great-grandfather did not know, and mine did, Mr. President, an immigrant in the USA.

Your blockade does not scare me, because Colombia, besides being the country of beauty, is the heart of the world. I know that you love beauty as I do, do not disrespect it and it will give its sweetness to you.

FROM TODAY ON, COLOMBIA IS OPEN TO THE ENTIRE WORLD, WITH OPEN ARMS, WE ARE BUILDERS OF FREEDOM, LIFE AND HUMANITY.

I am informed that you impose a 50% tariff on the fruits of our human labor to enter the United States, and I do the same.

Let our people plant corn that was discovered in Colombia and feed the world.

Tired of duckduckgo using MSN's amp thing for news or blocking some websites, and it's now adding shit AI too. Don't want to spend any money running a searxng instance for the time being and most public instances are too overwhelmed.

Any suggestions? Doesn't need to be perfect, just not too annoying.

The US sees the emergence of China and other Asian countries as a ‘fierce competition’. For the Global South, however, these developments bring new opportunities to pursue sovereign development.

The assassination of the arch-hangman Stolypin occurred at a time when a number of symptoms indicated that the first period in the history of the Russian counter-revolution was coming to an end. That is why the event of September 1, quite insignificant in itself, again raises the extremely important question of the content and meaning of the counter-revolution in Russia. One discerns notes of a really serious and principled attitude amid the chorus of reactionaries who are servilely singing the praises of Stolypin, or are rummaging in the history of the intrigues of the Black-Hundred gang which is lording it over Russia, and amid the chorus of the liberals who are shaking their heads over the “wild and insane” shot (it goes without saying that included among the liberals are the former Social-Democrats of Dyelo Zhizni who used the hackneyed expression quoted above). Attempts are being made to view “the Stolypin period” of Russian history as a definite entity.

So Musk did a gesture that was likely a Nazi salute. It could've also have just been some other type of salute from another country known for genocide. Much like Ukrainian soldiers have been spotted using "resignified" fascist symbols. And honestly, this is always the least damning and easier to backtrack evidence that somebody or some organisation might be similar to the fascists of the thirties.

It doesn't matter if billionaires or politicians maintain prisons for non-citizens on the border, employ immigrant-catching police, uphold laws for hyperexploitation of minority ethnicities at home or use military force to subordinate countries abroad, or even fund the fucking genocide of the Palestinian people.

The only smoking gun these "commentators" have on whether Trump or Musk (or even Bolsonaro or the Azov battalion) might be like the fascists of the 30's is if they replicate (consciously or not) their aesthetics with motorcades, rallies, salutes and swastikas. Otherwise, who can really know?

(Yes, I understand that using those symbols is making their ideological roots explicit, and giving cover and legimaticy to groups that never really went away. My point is not to minimise it, but that a billion articles will be written about "Did Musk do a Fascist Salue?" rather than the much more necessary "is Musk a fascist?")

Since Windows 11 has recently become borderline unusable in many old PCs, I'm trying to convince some people to try Linux. Problem is that I have spent the last few years with a custom built Archlinux and have no idea what is the recommended starter distro nowadays.

They're stubborn and not willing to learn how to use a terminal or anything of the sort, which clashes with my CS background experience too.

Any recommendations? DPKG distros are okay, but bonus points for rolling release ones.

Edit: thanks for the help y'all! I'll take a look on Mint and maybe Manjaro.

My bingo card currently has "Labour and Tories fighting over who hates immigrants the most", "Tories accidentally criticising support for Ukraine War", "really good socdem speech regarding the failure of both parties, but it's ignored because the English can't understand Scottish accents", "Corbyn getting attacked for no reason" and at least two MPs getting kicked out for annoying the Speaker.

(This is not serious, politics in the UK parliament is only a show, don't expect anything actually good to ever come out of it)

“The actions of the Kiev regime, supported by its Western handlers, will elicit retaliatory measures,” the military stressed.

Could we have another hypersonic missile demonstration soon?

Apparently the site hit on the first one was a missile and rocketry production complex called Yuzhmash. According to anonymous reports on Pravda (take with a grain of salt), the damage was so severe that the site was effectively deemed beyond repair, but the more damning fact is that the SBU put on an embargo on reporting of the site. Considering the sheer size of the complex, I believe the "it's all dust" to be hyperbole.

@SovietReporter asked a really good question on c/askLemmygrad, and later on I stumbled on a text by Huey Newton that synthesises well the need for a vanguard party, so I decided to share it here for more visibility.

Choice quote from the text:

The relationship between the vanguard party and the masses is a secondary relationship. The relationship between the members of the vanguard party is a primary relationship. It is important that the members of the vanguard group maintain a face-to-face relationship with each other. This is important if the party machinery is to be effective. It is impossible to put together functional party machinery or programs without this direct relationship. The members of the vanguard group should be tested revolutionaries. This will minimize the danger of Uncle Tom informers and opportunists.

The main purpose of a vanguard group should be to raise the consciousness of the masses through educational programs and certain physical activities the party will participate in. The sleeping masses must be bombarded with the correct approach to struggle through the activities of the vanguard party. Therefore, the masses must know that the party exists. The party must use all means available to get this information across to the masses. If the masses do not have knowledge of the party, it will be impossible for the masses to follow the program of the party.

Wherever you are, revolution will not come only from reading theory, sharing memes or consuming communist media. It'll be brought about by active party work.

So if you have the time and energy, consider joining whichever local communist organisation you have access to in your area, or even non-communist leftist organisations. Organise your individual anger into class anger.

Comrade workers! Let us then prepare with redoubled energy for the decisive battle that is at hand! Let the ranks of the [Revolutionary] Social-Democrat proletarians close ever firmer! Let their word spread ever farther afield! Let campaigning for the workers’ demands be carried on ever more boldly! Let the celebration of May Day win thousands of new fight ers to our cause and swell our forces in the great struggle for the freedom of all the people, for the liberation of all who toil from the yoke of capital!

Long live the eight-hour day!

Long live international revolutionary Social-Democracy!

Down with the criminal and plundering tsarist autocracy!

May Day, Lenin 1904

Very clear Marxist-Leninist language there comparing Viv Ansanm with the CPC/KMT alliance in occupied China. Kim Ives doesn't hold back in actual interviews.

But as usual, fantastic analysis on Haiti class dynamics.