• MeowZedong@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    0·
    6 days ago

    I’ve had political campaign volunteers knocking on my door multiple times a day and calling me non-stop, mainly to try to get me to vote Democrat for the last week. The amount of political flyers they send to each house is obscene. I had a good sized pile of them I collect just from last week. Talking to the volunteers is ok. We’re always respectful with each other and I participate in their surveys, but their campaign has reached the levels of harassment, so in a moment of mischief, I acted out to entertain myself a bit.

    I’ve made my own version of the little free library, for all the political flyers I collected and posted it outside my home: Little propaganda library. Take a flyer, share a flyer.

    They’ve stopped knocking on my door.

  • DankZedong @lemmygrad.ml
    0·
    7 days ago

    It took me two months of working at one of my work’s ‘worst’ locations and I feel like I have lost all my patience with people lol. Like, manners don’t exist here. If you don’t act tough you won’t make it here. I feel like a monkey trying to fight other monkeys to stay on top of the monkey rock.

    • MeowZedong@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
      0·
      6 days ago

      Have you tried being a bit of an asshole back? I don’t mean just being rude, but familiar like in the way that their friends might give them grief in a joking way, without all the typical customer service framing.

      My work moved a store from a small city to a small town once and there was a bit of a cultural difference between the locations. I could swear at my clients and say things that would have gotten me complaints from in the city, but at the new location, everyone loved it. If I treated them with the typical sort of customer service the people in the city preferred, it came off as fake. They wanted “genuine” people (not actually genuine, just the appearance of feeling of it, which is why I say it was cultural). Most of our clients were long-haul truckers, ranchers/farmers, and mill workers.

      I don’t come off as a tough guy or particularly masculine at all, I just started responding to their crap with half-joking grief and eventually learned it was better to just dish some out from the beginning. Swearing also helped a lot.

      I don’t know the specifics of your work and it could be a completely different situation, but maybe there is something about this location that is different from the other stores and approaching your clients differently would help ease the pressure? Likewise, maybe they’re just assholes for some reason.

    • Magicicad@lemmygrad.ml
      0·
      7 days ago

      China invests in many African and Latin American countries and many (ultras and liberals, typically) label this investment as imperialism. I’m no expert in the intricacies of the situation, but I find that China’s investment isn’t nearly as destructive or exploitative as western investment.

      • MeowZedong@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
        0·
        6 days ago

        No, you got it exactly right with

        China invests in many African and Latin American countries

        Western countries don’t invest, they exploit. They can’t even conceive of working with other countries as equal partners. People who project the same intent on China’s Belt and Road projects do so out of either ignorance or ill intent.

        It’s quite clear that what China is doing is building up the industries and infrastructure of other countries under very favorable terms for their partners so as to build an international community that mutually benefits from trade. It just undermines US hegemony, by which I mean the insidious, parasitic stranglehold on global trade created by Western monopolies, cartels, and mob-like financial institutions intent on sabotaging the economies of most countries for US benefit.

        If Western European countries embraced the Belt and Road Initiative, they too could see a great benefit, but not nearly as great as what China and West Asia would see. This is part of why the US works so hard to destabilize West Asia through war: they know that the Silk Road was the greatest trade route in the world and the vast amount of wealth it created all along its length. This would be the Silk Road 2.0, resplendent with modern modes of transportation that would completely change how trade is done throughout Africa, Asia, and Europe, let alone the effects on other continents.

        Combine these efforts with BRICS leading to the decline of the petrodollar and you’ll see that the efforts of China to unite the world are about to kick the shit out of the sand castle that is the US’ dominance over the global economy. All of the nasty trucks they’ve used to devalue foreign currencies while artificially bolstering the dollar have become precarious. This is why the US is upping its aggression towards China despite having no chance of coming out ahead in a direct war with China. They see the writing on the wall and are desperate to prevent this. Maybe I’m overly optimistic, but with all the momentum behind BRICS and the extent to which their military might is overextended right now, I don’t see any way the US can prevent the erosion of their global economic power in the decades to come. I just hope we can prevent it from doing the damage they will try to inflict while fighting this downfall.

        I would bet that most countries only continue to put up with the fits the US throws out of a fear of military or economic retaliation and we already see the later eroding. Give it time and you’ll see them put up with less and less as alternative power structures begin to dominate.

        China is proving Mao right, that the US was a paper tiger all along.

        The United States has set up hundreds of military bases in many countries all over the world. China’s territory of Taiwan, Lebanon and all military bases of the United States on foreign soil are so many nooses round the neck of U.S. imperialism. The nooses have been fashioned by the Americans themselves and by nobody else, and it is they themselves who have put these nooses round their own necks, handing the ends of the ropes to the Chinese people, the peoples of the Arab countries and all the peoples of the world who love peace and oppose aggression. The longer the U.S. aggressors remain in those places, the tighter the nooses round their necks will become.

  • amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml
    0·
    8 days ago

    Silver lining to consider for those of you in the US: once the election is over and a new president is sworn in, you will either: 1) have fresh-faced liberals who are more willing to listen to you because they are terrified of Trump or 2) get a little more peace and quiet from the rabid liberals who have been browbeating about how you should vote.

    • trashxeos@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
      0·
      7 days ago

      Bought an ebike and started cycling to work. Plan is to get down to my target weight by the end of 2025, so I’m getting a head start before new years hits.

    • Makan@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
      0·
      8 days ago

      Job-hunting and, hopefully, the start of my career.

      I’m graduating in November. Well, the ceremony is in mid to late November.

      So that should be fun.

    • SpaceDogs@lemmygrad.ml
      0·
      8 days ago

      Last of year of undergrad and taking a language class. Also have to mentally prepare for the Canadian federal elections because I’m certain people are going to be totally normal during that time.

    • DankZedong @lemmygrad.ml
      0·
      7 days ago

      I might travel for a larger part of the year, not sure yet.

      I want to continue lifting and ideally running a marathon after getting injured this year.

      I also want to take the first step towards a career change. I want to become a gardener basically but for people who want to rewild their garden.

  • ☭CommieWolf☆@lemmygrad.ml
    0·
    8 days ago

    I’m back after a pretty long break. Got a nasty head injury and I’ve been out of it for the past few weeks. But I’m better now, and trying to get back into the swing of things.

  • Darkerseid@lemmygrad.ml
    0·
    8 days ago

    do you have list of countries that recognise houthis as terrorist organisation? i remember i saw the list before here