That math doesn’t math. He was directly responsible for 2/3s of it, and the other third he plowed over.
Rian’s script was a genuinely excellent anarchist critique of space opera. Whether or not that belongs in a numbered Star Wars movie is debatable. But the real disconnect with the audience is the edit. The film we got is not excellent. The film we got is not exactly good. And yet - all popular criticism is this same irrelevant fluff.
Luke being a hermit was JJ’s fault. It was immutable, when Rian began. Rian’s explanation was fine. Jesus Christ, his description of the Force is incredible. People keep shitting on his opinion of the Jedi as if the Jedi way didn’t fail the Republic, fail his parents, and fail his mentors, all two of whom kept playing mind games even after death. Some girl shows up expecting How To Hero 101 and of course he says no.
I ask you - as opposed to what?
Sketch it out for me. What does Luke’s motivation look like, when a Force-sensitive rando shows up on his extremely private retreat, offering a tool he built from scratch and obviously abandoned? The man knows smugglers, bounty hunters, militants, and diplomats. He’s attuned to a psychic power that permeates all life and matter. Some glorified barkeep having his backup glowstick in her basement would not stop him from getting it, if he set aside a month and gave half a shit. Tell me what it would look like, if it looked like that Luke Skywalker was well-written, in your eyes.
Me, personally? I’m quite happy with him kicking Rey straight down the only-what-you-take-with-you hole. He doesn’t toy with her except to show her she doesn’t need training and shouldn’t want training. Yoda played some Mister Miyagi shit while he was looking for a level-up before 1v1-ing the scariest motherfucker in the universe. “Ben” was a dutch uncle his whole life and never mentioned he had space-wizard bona fides, nevermind that his dad was alive and well and the scariest motherfucker in the universe. Jedi hermit Luke points out: the fact this trilogy exists means that what Luke did did not work. Of course he tells her not to repeat his mistakes. His ambition did not solve the problem.
Setting aside the fact this is obviously wrong as there were 5 members of the central committee, all with equal powers… 4 times Stalin attempted to resign. The party consistently voted against his resignation and would not allow it. Even Trotsky rejected his first attempt in May 1924 to resign from his positions at the 13th party congress.
1927 speech referencing it:
It is said that in that “will” Comrade Lenin suggested to the congress that in view of Stalin’s “rudeness” it should consider the question of putting another comrade in Stalin’s place as General Secretary. That is quite true.
Yes, comrades, I am rude to those who grossly and perfidiously wreck and split the Party. I have never concealed this and do not conceal it now. Perhaps some mildness is needed in the treatment of splitters, but I am a bad hand at that.
At the very first meeting of the plenum of the Central Committee after the Thirteenth Congress I asked the plenum of the Central Committee to release me from my duties as General Secretary. The congress itself discussed this question. It was discussed by each delegation separately, and all the delegations unanimously, including Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev, obliged Stalin to remain at his post.
What could I do? Desert my post? That is not in my nature; I have never deserted any post, and I have no right to do so, for that would be desertion. As I have already said before, I am not a free agent, and when the Party imposes an obligation upon me, I must obey.
A year later I again put in a request to the plenum to release me, but I was again obliged to remain at my post. What else could I do?
Here is his second attempt August 19, 1924 (Grover Furr, Khrushchev Lied, p. 244):
To the Plenum of the CC [Central Committee] RCP [Russian Communist Party]
One and a half years of working in the Politburo with comrades Zinoviev and Kamanev after the retirement and then the death of Lenin have made perfectly clear to me the impossibility of honest, sincere political work with these comrades within the framework of one small collective. In view of which, I request to be considered as having resigned from the Pol[itcal] Buro of the CC.
I request a medical leave for about two months.
At the expiration of this period I request to be sent to Turukhansk region or to the Iakutsk oblast’, or to somewhere abroad in any kind of work that will attract little attention.
I would ask the Plenum to decide all these questions in my absence and without explanations from my side, because I consider it harmful for our work to give explanations aside from those remarks that I have already made in the first paragraph of this letter.
I would ask comrade Kuibyshev to distribute copies of this letter to the members of the CC.
With com[munist] greet[ings], J. Stalin.
Third attempt December 27, 1926 (Grover Furr, Khrushchev Lied, p. 244):
To the Plenum of the CC [Central Committee] (to comrade Rykov). I ask that I be relieved of the post of GenSec [General Secretary] of the CC. I declare that I can work no longer in this position, I do not have the strength to work any more in this position. J. Stalin.
In his fourth attempt, upon rejection of the resignation by the party he attempts instead to abolish the role of General Secretary of the party altogether:
Stalin: Comrades! For three years [Suggesting there could be more resignation attempts unbeknownst to me - ZB] I have been asking the CC [Central Committee] to free me from the obligations of General Secretary of the CC. Each time the Plenum has refused me. I admit that until recently conditions did not exist such that the Party had need of me in this post as a person more or less severe, one who acted as a certain kind of antidote to the dangers posed by the Opposition. I admit that this necessity existed, despite comrade Lenin’s well-known letter [Lenin’s Testament - ZB], to keep me at the post of General Secretary. But these conditions exist no longer. They have vanished, since the Opposition is now smashed. It seems that the Opposition has never before suffered such a defeat since they have not only been smashed, but have been expelled from the Party. It follows that now no bases exist any longer that could be considered correct when the Plenum refused to honor my request and free me of the duties of General Secretary. Meanwhile you have comrade Lenin’s directive which we are obliged to consider and which, in my opinion, it is necessary to put into effect. I admit that the Party was compelled to disregard this directive until recently, compelled by well-known conditions of inter-Party development. But I repeat that these conditions have now vanished and it is time, in my view, to take comrade Lenin’s directive to the leadership. Therefore I request the Plenum to free me of the post of General Secretary of the Central Committee. I assure you, comrades, that the Party can only gain from doing this.
Dogadov: Vote without discussion.
Vorshilov: I propose we reject the announcement we just heard.
Rykov: We will vote without discsussion…We vote now on Stalin’s proposal that he be freed from the General Secretaryship. Who is for this proposal? Who is against? Who abstains? One.
The proposal of comrade Stalin is rejected with one abstention.
Stalin: Then I introduce another proposal. Perhaps the CC [Central Committee] will consider it expedient to abolish the position of General Secretary. In our Party’s history there have been times when no such post existed.
Voroshilov: We had Lenin with us then.
Stalin: We had no post of General Secretary before the 10th Congress.
Voice: Until the 11th Congress.
Stalin: Yes, it seems that until the 11th Congress we did not have this position. That was before Lenin stopped working. If Lenin concluded that it was necessary to put forward the question of founding the position of General Secretary, then I assume he was prompted by the special circumstances that appeared with us before the 10th Congress, when a more or less strong, well-organized Opposition within the Party was founded. But now we proceed to the abolition of this position. Many people associate a conception of some kind of special rights of the General Secretary with this position. I must say from my experience, and comrades will confirm this, that there ought not to be any special rights distinguishing the General Secretary from the rights of other members of the Secretariat.
Voice: And the duties?
Stalin: And there are no more duties than other members of the Secretariat have. I see it this way; There’s the Politburo, the highest organ of the CC; there’s the Secretariat, the executive organ consisting of five persons, and all these five members of the Secretariat are equal. That’s the way the work has been carried out in practice, and the General Secretary has not had any special rights or obligations. The result, therefore, is that the position of General Secretary, in the sense of special rights, has never existed with us in practice, there has been only a collegium called the Secretariat of the CC. I do not know why we need to keep this dead position any longer. I don’t even mention the fact that this position, called General Secretary, has occasioned in some places a series of distortions. At the same time that at the top no special rights or duties are associated with the position of General Secretary, in some places there have been some distortions, and in all the oblasts there is now a struggle over that position among comrades who call themselves secretaries, for example, in the national CCs. Quite a few General Secretaries have developed, and with them in the localities special rights have been associated. Why is this necessary?
Shmidt: We can dismiss them in the localities.
Stalin: I think the Party would benefit if we did away with the post of General Secretary, and that would give me the chance to be free from this post. This would be all the easier to do since according to the Party’s constitution there is no post of General Secretary.
Rykov: I propose not to give comrade Stalin the possibility of being free from this position. As concerns the General Secretaries in the oblast and local organs, that should be changed, but without changing the situation in the CC. The position of General Secretary was created by the proposal of Vladimir Il’ich. In all the time since, during Vladimir Il’ich’s life and since, this position has justified itself politically and completely in both the organizational and political sense. In the creation of this organ and in naming comrade Stalin to the post of General Secretary the whole Opposition also took part, all those whom we have now expelled from the Party. That is how completely without doubt it was for everyone in the Party (whether the position of General Secretary was needed and who should be the General Secretary). By which has been exhausted, in my opinion, both the question of the “testament” (for that point has been decided) and exhausted by the Opposition at the same time just as it has been decided by us as well. The whole Party knows this. What has changed now after the 15th Congress and why is it necessary to set aside the position of General Secretary.
Stalin: The Opposition has been smashed.
(A long discussion followed, after which:)
Voices: Correct! Vote!
Rykov: There is a proposal to vote.
Voices: Yes, yes!
Rykov: We are voting. Who is for comrade Stalin’s proposal to abolish the post of General Secretary? Who is opposed? Who abstains? Noone.
Setting aside the fact this is obviously wrong as there were 5 members of the central committee, all with equal powers… 4 times Stalin attempted to resign. The party consistently voted against his resignation and would not allow it. Even Trotsky rejected his first attempt in May 1924 to resign from his positions at the 13th party congress.
1927 speech referencing it:
It is said that in that “will” Comrade Lenin suggested to the congress that in view of Stalin’s “rudeness” it should consider the question of putting another comrade in Stalin’s place as General Secretary. That is quite true.
Yes, comrades, I am rude to those who grossly and perfidiously wreck and split the Party. I have never concealed this and do not conceal it now. Perhaps some mildness is needed in the treatment of splitters, but I am a bad hand at that.
At the very first meeting of the plenum of the Central Committee after the Thirteenth Congress I asked the plenum of the Central Committee to release me from my duties as General Secretary. The congress itself discussed this question. It was discussed by each delegation separately, and all the delegations unanimously, including Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev, obliged Stalin to remain at his post.
What could I do? Desert my post? That is not in my nature; I have never deserted any post, and I have no right to do so, for that would be desertion. As I have already said before, I am not a free agent, and when the Party imposes an obligation upon me, I must obey.
A year later I again put in a request to the plenum to release me, but I was again obliged to remain at my post. What else could I do?
Here is his second attempt August 19, 1924 (Grover Furr, Khrushchev Lied, p. 244):
To the Plenum of the CC [Central Committee] RCP [Russian Communist Party]
One and a half years of working in the Politburo with comrades Zinoviev and Kamanev after the retirement and then the death of Lenin have made perfectly clear to me the impossibility of honest, sincere political work with these comrades within the framework of one small collective. In view of which, I request to be considered as having resigned from the Pol[itcal] Buro of the CC.
I request a medical leave for about two months.
At the expiration of this period I request to be sent to Turukhansk region or to the Iakutsk oblast’, or to somewhere abroad in any kind of work that will attract little attention.
I would ask the Plenum to decide all these questions in my absence and without explanations from my side, because I consider it harmful for our work to give explanations aside from those remarks that I have already made in the first paragraph of this letter.
I would ask comrade Kuibyshev to distribute copies of this letter to the members of the CC.
With com[munist] greet[ings], J. Stalin.
Third attempt December 27, 1926 (Grover Furr, Khrushchev Lied, p. 244):
To the Plenum of the CC [Central Committee] (to comrade Rykov). I ask that I be relieved of the post of GenSec [General Secretary] of the CC. I declare that I can work no longer in this position, I do not have the strength to work any more in this position. J. Stalin.
In his fourth attempt, upon rejection of the resignation by the party he attempts instead to abolish the role of General Secretary of the party altogether:
Stalin: Comrades! For three years [Suggesting there could be more resignation attempts unbeknownst to me - ZB] I have been asking the CC [Central Committee] to free me from the obligations of General Secretary of the CC. Each time the Plenum has refused me. I admit that until recently conditions did not exist such that the Party had need of me in this post as a person more or less severe, one who acted as a certain kind of antidote to the dangers posed by the Opposition. I admit that this necessity existed, despite comrade Lenin’s well-known letter [Lenin’s Testament - ZB], to keep me at the post of General Secretary. But these conditions exist no longer. They have vanished, since the Opposition is now smashed. It seems that the Opposition has never before suffered such a defeat since they have not only been smashed, but have been expelled from the Party. It follows that now no bases exist any longer that could be considered correct when the Plenum refused to honor my request and free me of the duties of General Secretary. Meanwhile you have comrade Lenin’s directive which we are obliged to consider and which, in my opinion, it is necessary to put into effect. I admit that the Party was compelled to disregard this directive until recently, compelled by well-known conditions of inter-Party development. But I repeat that these conditions have now vanished and it is time, in my view, to take comrade Lenin’s directive to the leadership. Therefore I request the Plenum to free me of the post of General Secretary of the Central Committee. I assure you, comrades, that the Party can only gain from doing this.
Dogadov: Vote without discussion.
Vorshilov: I propose we reject the announcement we just heard.
Rykov: We will vote without discsussion…We vote now on Stalin’s proposal that he be freed from the General Secretaryship. Who is for this proposal? Who is against? Who abstains? One.
The proposal of comrade Stalin is rejected with one abstention.
Stalin: Then I introduce another proposal. Perhaps the CC [Central Committee] will consider it expedient to abolish the position of General Secretary. In our Party’s history there have been times when no such post existed.
Voroshilov: We had Lenin with us then.
Stalin: We had no post of General Secretary before the 10th Congress.
Voice: Until the 11th Congress.
Stalin: Yes, it seems that until the 11th Congress we did not have this position. That was before Lenin stopped working. If Lenin concluded that it was necessary to put forward the question of founding the position of General Secretary, then I assume he was prompted by the special circumstances that appeared with us before the 10th Congress, when a more or less strong, well-organized Opposition within the Party was founded. But now we proceed to the abolition of this position. Many people associate a conception of some kind of special rights of the General Secretary with this position. I must say from my experience, and comrades will confirm this, that there ought not to be any special rights distinguishing the General Secretary from the rights of other members of the Secretariat.
Voice: And the duties?
Stalin: And there are no more duties than other members of the Secretariat have. I see it this way; There’s the Politburo, the highest organ of the CC; there’s the Secretariat, the executive organ consisting of five persons, and all these five members of the Secretariat are equal. That’s the way the work has been carried out in practice, and the General Secretary has not had any special rights or obligations. The result, therefore, is that the position of General Secretary, in the sense of special rights, has never existed with us in practice, there has been only a collegium called the Secretariat of the CC. I do not know why we need to keep this dead position any longer. I don’t even mention the fact that this position, called General Secretary, has occasioned in some places a series of distortions. At the same time that at the top no special rights or duties are associated with the position of General Secretary, in some places there have been some distortions, and in all the oblasts there is now a struggle over that position among comrades who call themselves secretaries, for example, in the national CCs. Quite a few General Secretaries have developed, and with them in the localities special rights have been associated. Why is this necessary?
Shmidt: We can dismiss them in the localities.
Stalin: I think the Party would benefit if we did away with the post of General Secretary, and that would give me the chance to be free from this post. This would be all the easier to do since according to the Party’s constitution there is no post of General Secretary.
Rykov: I propose not to give comrade Stalin the possibility of being free from this position. As concerns the General Secretaries in the oblast and local organs, that should be changed, but without changing the situation in the CC. The position of General Secretary was created by the proposal of Vladimir Il’ich. In all the time since, during Vladimir Il’ich’s life and since, this position has justified itself politically and completely in both the organizational and political sense. In the creation of this organ and in naming comrade Stalin to the post of General Secretary the whole Opposition also took part, all those whom we have now expelled from the Party. That is how completely without doubt it was for everyone in the Party (whether the position of General Secretary was needed and who should be the General Secretary). By which has been exhausted, in my opinion, both the question of the “testament” (for that point has been decided) and exhausted by the Opposition at the same time just as it has been decided by us as well. The whole Party knows this. What has changed now after the 15th Congress and why is it necessary to set aside the position of General Secretary.
Stalin: The Opposition has been smashed.
(A long discussion followed, after which:)
Voices: Correct! Vote!
Rykov: There is a proposal to vote.
Voices: Yes, yes!
Rykov: We are voting. Who is for comrade Stalin’s proposal to abolish the post of General Secretary? Who is opposed? Who abstains? Noone.
Honestly, those people, or rather their opinions, can all go to hell.
A new star trek series then or now won’t take away, alter or affect in any way TOS and their ability to enjoy it. Not to mention how incredibly un-Trek like it is to literally avoid “explore[ing] strange new worlds” like the plague.
I get that Trek is comfort food for many of us, and that probably creates a strong form of protective nostalgia, but staying in the past to the exclusion of the future is just awful (not to mention that I’m personally bothered at the extent to which this has happened with modern Trek and it’s proclivity for reboots and prequels, SNW becoming increasingly both).
Also, is that picture of Stewart from Dune (1984)?!
the proposed Union Treaty wasn’t a continuation of the USSR any more than the EU is analogous to the Roman Empire, even if we close our eyes and pretend that the vote didn’t have issues and wasn’t boycotted by six “republics”
I knew you’d fly into whataboutism, that’s why I mentioned invading another country for territorial conquest, so you can just shove the dishonest reeeee’ing where the sun doesn’t shine
I don’t need US government sources to know that murderous dictators are evil
Taiwan’s vice president has declared that the self-governed island will not back down in the face of authoritarian threats after China pledged to take “forceful and resolute measures” following his stopover in the United States....
Clickbait headline. It doesn’t mention who they mean when they say “China”. Is it a high ranking official? Some nobody entrepreneur? It also doesn’t say anything about why they might be “court[ing]” the AfD. It’s really more about populists doing what populists do and aligning along nationalist lines to the benefit of the national bourgeoisie and the detriment of the American empire. They’re right that disintegration with China would be a disaster.
No, I don’t approve of irreversible medical surgeries on people under age of 16, but that’s not a thing in any case.
That thing that never happens yet still happens isn’t actually happening? lol Also why did you choose 16 as your cutoff? They’re still legally, physically, and mentally a child at 16.
in which case it is temporary, reversible, and typically starts at 8 (10+ for boys).
Not fully reversible, and the sooner your “side” acknowledges this the better. Governments all over the world are recognising this now and are removing all mentions of “fully reversible” from their documents and legislation, and many are now outlawing it altogether because there are literally no long term studies done to prove that they are reversible. The difference between 3 and 8 or 10 is completely irrelevant. A 8 year old has no better understanding of gender identity than a 3 year old, they lack the mental capacity for understanding this and they absolutely cannot understand the life long repercussions.
My child is sick, feeling depressed, I go to the doctor, they discuss possible issues, and through preset, clinical guidelines, they decide that treatment for gender dysmorphia is an option.
Sick? Gender dysphoria/dysmorphia doesn’t make anyone “sick”. You’re also overlooking all of the places that hand out diagnoses and scripts for drugs after a literal 10 minute phone call, intentionally so most likely.
I’m not even talking about transgender surgeries, which happens at 18+ of age.
Apart from when they don’t, like how you yourself even said in this same post that you’re ok with it at 16 years of age. What is it, 18 or 16?
If one wants another to call them by another thing, who are we to dispute that?
Again, this is the problem - you can call yourself whatever you want. I. Don’t. Care. Simply calling yourself a woman however should not mean that you now have access to women’s sports and women only safe spaces like gyms and doctors etc.
There have been exactly 0 assaults by transgender women entering a public bathroom.
Come on mate, you don’t even believe these lies.
And your concerns about a troll entering sports competition is going to out-weight all of the self-harm and suicides committed by people suffering from unaddressed gender identity issues?
The fact that even post gender affirming surgery the suicide rate doesn’t decrease among transgender people says all that needs to be said. You’re basically saying “let womens sports be taken over by biological males because if you don’t the transgender people will kill themselves”. I believe this is what you guys call “gaslighting”?
Show me one time where that has happened and it has harmed someone else by doing it.
I literally just did with the weightlifting example. A woman lost out on a prize because a man chose to be a woman so he could enter the competition. Self ID lets that happen. He did it to stop another self ID’ing transgender person from winning, to show how stupid the rule is. If you want other examples just look at the women that get raped in bloody rape crisis centres and even prisons by self id’ing males.
And again, if they want to change their gender a thousand times, how is it any of your business? Besides sports competitions and bathrooms.
Sports competitions and bathrooms etc in this situation are the only thing I am against. I don’t care if you want to change your gender 1000000 times a day. It doesn’t affect me. I don’t care. As I’ve said many times, I care when it affects other people, such as in sporting competitions and bathrooms (and children of course).
Look, I understand that if I call someone that looks and talk like a women a she, but wants to be called a man, there’s going to be a confusion. But what do I lose out of my day if they simply said “sorry, I’m actually a he” and I respect that moving forward?
You’re not going to get any disagreement from me though, this is what I keep saying. I have nothing against transgender people. Everyone can live their life identifying as whatever the hell they want, I don’t care. I care about fairness, safety, and scientific facts though, so when you identifying as something else encroaches on any of that, that’s when we have a problem.
Lemmy has no support for following individuals as far as I know. As others have mentioned, Mastodon users can post to Lemmy by @-ing a community, and Lemmy users can interact with that post normally, and with any replies in it (or other replies made by Mastodon users).
It’s possible Lemmy users could directly @ Mastodon users, though I don’t have Mastodon, so I’m not sure.
If you want to be able to follow both communities and individuals, then that is basically the selling point of Kbin, though Kbin isn’t for me so I don’t know exactly how it works and where in your feeds posts by individuals you follow shows up.
Neocities (mentioned in the article) is a pretty cool throwback site for making your own simple webpages. I used it for a coding exercise to make my own personal version of a Linktree thing.
Bear blog (link) is also simple and neat for simple un-corporate internet-ing.
I’m looking to replace the log book at work. I thought somebody must have made a simple docker container that allows someone to put in entries into a database for things like daily activities, guest logs, maybe even tracking fuel deliveries. Is there anything out there or and I going to need to remember how to make websites?...
When I mentioned this on Discord to the devs, they didn’t seem to find the idea of SSH-ing into wherever Memos is served much of an issue. I ran it in a Docker container on a Synology NAS and lack the skill (or confidence) of poking around too much in parts of the NAS that aren’t readily accessible.
Then why would did the Democrats not use their brief supermajority to codify protections for abortion, for trans people, etc? Could it be that they don't actually care about you at all and just need a narrative in order to hold up a sign that says "If you don't vote for me, look what will happen!"
They're playing their role in the Ratchet Effect, and Republicans are playing theirs. All to benefit the same people.
Also worth mentioning that more people died of COVID during Biden's administration and police killed more people in 2022 than any other year. While Biden insists we need to "fund the police" and Democrats champion Cop City - are those not just components of a decentralized, country-wide "death camp"?
It's not "both sides-ing", it's insisting that they are the same side. One actor playing two roles in the same movie.
What's something that you were surprised to find out a lot of people hate?
“But… But… Stalin loved to starve people” (lemmygrad.ml)
cross-posted from: lemmygrad.ml/post/1759250...
Liberals hatred of Stalin is unreal (lemmygrad.ml)
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Fans reacting to the announcement of Star Trek: The Next Generation (lemmy.world)
It’s so bizarre to read this in the present, knowing how incredible TNG was, but I get it - the original crew WAS Star Trek to them....
Lemmy since the reddit collapse (lemmy.ml)
Taiwan will not back down in face of threats, William Lai says on US trip (www.aljazeera.com)
Taiwan’s vice president has declared that the self-governed island will not back down in the face of authoritarian threats after China pledged to take “forceful and resolute measures” following his stopover in the United States....
China courts Germany's far-right populist AfD (www.dw.com)
Squabbles, another recent reddit alternative, seems to be taking the doomed "free speech" path (i.imgur.com)
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The internet has become soulless and i hate it (tim.kicker.dev)
Self hosted daily activity log?
I’m looking to replace the log book at work. I thought somebody must have made a simple docker container that allows someone to put in entries into a database for things like daily activities, guest logs, maybe even tracking fuel deliveries. Is there anything out there or and I going to need to remember how to make websites?...
In Nazi diatribe, Trump calls for mass deportations of socialists and communists (www.wsws.org)