Comradeship // Freechat

Like, it is considered one of the AES but you virtually never hear anything about it. Last I checked they were busy industrialising the country but that was it.

Honestly I really appreciate having a throwaway account to ask these sort of personal questions to other comrades in a well-meaning community.

Here's my living situation, regardless of current disability (still not gone btw if anything it's morphed now lol)

I'm 31 and live "at home" in that the house is technically my parents'. However, they themselves work and live abroad, so it's just me and my 2 brothers living there for most of the year. Parents come back once in a while to see family and hang out.

When people ask I try to remember and say my brothers and I are housemates, basically. I feel the word housemate/roommate has a more 'serious' tone, like more grown up lol than saying "I live with my brothers".

-- Before proceeding, what are your thoughts on this so far? --

I ask because now at 30 I feel that I'm "stuck" there, still living with my parents, even though they only come back a few times a year. I feel like I should outgrow this at my age, do everything like an adult, so I'm wondering what the good people of lemmygrad think when they hear about this living situation. Is it off-putting, is it smart, or do you just not care?

I feel like I'm still living in my childhood home, in my childhood town, with my parents, even though as a kid I only lived in that house for like 3 years before we moved away for work lol. I came back in 2012 and have been living here non-stop since then, I have never rented my own place or tried moving out. I think some part of me is scared of doing it, but that's another topic lol.

I guess it's a source of shame in some aspects to still be in that living situation at my age. It feels like people my age are having their own families, have been living alone and working since their 20s, and I'm here not ready to take the plunge at 31.

Despite this I remind myself that I'm otherwise completely independent, aside from the rent situation. Well, I don't pay all the bills but people don't need to know that lol, and it wouldn't be a huge dent to split the internet bill three-way. But I pay my personal bills (groceries, phone, health insurance etc). I also get access to the car they leave here but I fill the gas. I guess that's another source of shame, when I drive and friends ask about the car and they learn it's my parents car lol. I'm not sure they even care, but I feel like I'm not performing up to expectations, you know? Like I'm seen as a kid, or someone who refuses to grow up and take responsibilities.

And I totally forgot. I literally woke up this morning confused as hell with all the texts I was getting from family, when I unlocked my phone I saw all the “Happy Birthday” messages and realized I am a year older today!

I know we aren’t supposed to reveal our ages but I will say that I am not yet 30 but it’ll be really cool once I get there.

My spring/summer semester is also over which means I am free until September so thats nice. My male dog also started on fluoxetine for his terrible anxiety, so hopefully he does well. Overall I am trying to stay chill and happy now that a new year has started for me, from today I will finally have time to start up on my Russian language lessons too.

I just got back from my most recent foot surgery (debridement for infected ulcers) and they couldn't do it all in one day. It's something that's going to need ongoing, repeated treatments until September. My next appointment is July and it's at the further away hospital. My landlady won't drive all that way, I need to book hospital transport, and I need to book it by Monday at the latest. It is £26, and I will need more bandages at £12 a pack, at least 2 more packs for now, more later.

If anyone can help with this my paypal is the_mighty_tabs@hotmail.co.uk

If I win my disability benefit appeal they will check my accounts. If you can help, please write in the message box that it's a gift (so when the DWP check my accounts they can see I am not earning money).

I spoke in my last food request post about the issues I have with my disability benefit appeal, having no money and the difficulties of accessing the food bank.

My disability benefit appeal, according to the last letter I received from them, is estimated to be heard in January. I need help to get through these next months.

My next foot surgery is today, I'll be unable to wear shoes for weeks, and will have to order groceries for delivery, which makes it more expensive. I also have to use these gift cards to buy other essentials like toilet paper. I've got no-one to ask for help in real life.

If anyone is able, please send a supermarket gift card to my email address, DisabledAceSocialist@hotmail.com

This one takes credit card, debit card and google pay:

https://www.sainsburysgiftcard.co.uk/

This one takes credit card, debit card, and paypal:

https://www.prezzee.uk/store/sainsburys-uk-gift-card/

This one takes crypto:

https://www.bitrefill.com/gb/en/gift-cards/sainsburys-in-store-digital-uk/

I'm really grateful for any help.

So I’ve had a rough last couple of years. Moved to California for a job that a friend offered me that didn’t end up working out well for me. Ended up in some pretty decent debt, destroyed my credit, I was smoking way too much as an escape and a ended up a bit depressed. Recently I’ve moved back home and I am living with my parents as a 30 something year old, got off the pot and back on the right kind of meds that work well for me. Right now I’m back working in the restaurant industry and not super happy with it, but it’s a decent place, the bosses are relatively chill and the pay is OK for where I’m living now.
What I’d like to do is any decent paying career that would let me do the majority of my work from home. Now that I’m in a stable situation and medicated I wouldn’t mind going back to school to accomplish this. My hometown has a pretty good/cheap community college that would be easy for me to enroll in.
So my question is, in this economy what should I look into? I thought about graphic design, but from what I’ve read the job market is flooded and it probably wouldn’t be that great of an idea for someone with next to zero experience. I have considered coding, but I’m worried that the market there is flooded as well and it probably won’t get any better with the rise of AI.
Anyone have a career they’re actually happy in? Any ideas at all would be great. Thank you in advance for your advice!

The lovely Eyup compiled this list that makes the intended function of the bill all the more glaringly obvious. https://xcancel.com/eyuplovely/status/1936788757727895645

i was checking a page for true communist recipes, and i found this...most of them looks pretty nice, but probably use too exotic ingredients, and my choson is pretty weak to understand what i have to do to cook some glutinated rice.

what do you think?

http://cooks.org.kp/en/index.php/first/books_magazine/2/79

Anyone have any good recommendations leftist Mastodon instances? I generally use Mastodon as a more relaxed backup account where I can blog about gardening, game dev, and media in general, but I do also talk about politics a fair bit. I'd been using gamedev.lgbt because the owner of it is pro-Palestine, but they're not fond of me using my Kamala edit as my pfp - which kind of sours the whole account gimmick - so I'm thinking of moving.

It's always a boost to see so many people coming together to strike and fight for their rights. Makes me feel not all hope is lost. It's the 7th consecutive monthly strike now.

We will have a break this summer and resume striking on October 14th for which the unions have called up everyone across all working fields.

1.The Jungle--Upton Sinclair 2An American Tragedy--Theodore Dreiser 3Martin Eden--Jack London 4Roots--Alex Haley 5The Grapes of Wrath--John Steinbeck ……

In public discourse, it is common for Western media and commentators to critique China for its treatment of people with mental illness. These critiques often portray Chinese policies as outdated, harsh, or authoritarian, citing practices such as institutionalization or lack of psychiatric reform. While some criticisms have merit, the repeated focus on China’s shortcomings in this domain serves a deeper, more uncomfortable function: deflection and projection. By highlighting another nation’s faults, Western societies avoid confronting the disturbing psychological consequences of their own cultural systems—particularly the emotional alienation, isolation, and judgment that shape the inner lives of their most vulnerable.

This dynamic is especially evident in the case of schizophrenia. A growing body of anthropological and psychiatric research reveals a stark difference in how schizophrenic individuals experience auditory hallucinations across cultures. In Western countries such as the United States, people with schizophrenia are more likely to hear negative, violent, or persecutory voices—voices that berate, insult, or threaten them. In contrast, studies conducted in countries like India and Ghana have shown that patients often hear voices that are more benign, playful, spiritual, or even helpful. These voices may come from deceased relatives, guiding spirits, or divine sources, and are often interpreted in a culturally integrated and meaningful way.

This contrast is not a trivial curiosity—it is a reflection of the emotional fabric of society. In Western cultures, especially in the United States, mental illness is heavily stigmatized. Hearing voices is medicalized as a pathological symptom, and those who experience it are quickly labeled as broken or dangerous. Western society’s deep emphasis on rationalism, productivity, and individual achievement leaves little room for vulnerability, and even less for inner chaos. When people internalize these values, the result is often a harsh internal critic that, in the context of schizophrenia, manifests as cruel and punishing hallucinations. The content of the voices becomes a mirror to the cultural psyche—lonely, anxious, hyper-critical, and unforgiving.

In many Eastern societies, by contrast, the experience of hearing voices is often interpreted through spiritual or relational frameworks. Whether it is the belief in ancestors communicating through the mind, or gods delivering moral correction, these interpretations reframe the experience as meaningful rather than pathological. While mental illness in Eastern societies is not free from stigma, the surrounding culture is generally more relational, collectivist, and spiritually integrative—qualities that may soften the intensity and content of psychotic experiences. The result is that hallucinations become less hostile, even in severe mental illness.

So when Westerners critique China—or any Eastern society—for being “harsh” on the mentally ill, what they often ignore is that Western culture is harsh within the mind. The cruelty is not just institutional; it is internalized. Western society breeds a kind of suffering that is invisible to the eye but excruciating to the psyche. And instead of reckoning with this, it becomes easier to point to other cultures and accuse them of being regressive. This is projection: attributing one’s own shadow to another.

Moreover, these criticisms are rarely rooted in a desire to understand or improve mental health across cultures. Instead, they serve to reinforce a narrative of Western moral superiority—a narrative that positions the West as the enlightened, humane force in a world of backward others. It is a story built not on truth, but on denial.

It is time to stop using China—or any other culture—as a mirror to flatter the Western ego. A society in which mentally ill individuals hear voices telling them to die, to kill, to give up, is not a society that should be boasting about its compassion. Instead, the West must turn inward and ask:

What kind of world have we built, if even our hallucinations hate us?

I've just received the date for my next foot surgery, it's this Friday. The only trouble is, it's not at my local hospital. Because the infection is spreading fast, I'm immunocompromised and they don't want it getting as bad as before, instead of making me wait on the waiting list for months, they've given me a much sooner appointment at a hospital further across the county. While pissed off about it, my landlady has agreed to drive me but I need to pay for the petrol and parking costs. Of course I can't pay this myself.

If anyone is able to contribute, my paypal is the_mighty_tabs@hotmail.co.uk For the sake of proving to the DWP that I'm not earning money, if you can help please write in the message box that it's a gift.

Sorry for asking for help multiple times this month but I've got no-one else to ask.

Last month when I made a request for food aid, I had someone tell me to try the food bank. I thought everyone here knew me by now but for those that don't, I was using the food bank before finding this site. The packages mostly just consisted of tea, coffee, milk, sugar, cookies and a small loaf of bread or small packet of pasta. And it takes ages to access, you have to get your GP or citizen's advice to refer you, and then wait for an appointment, I was going hungry all the time. So for anyone who hasn't seen my posts before, that's why I've been asking for help here.

Due to going through a disability benefit appeal I have to use these food vouchers for anything else I need too, toilet paper being the other main thing. I have another foot surgery coming up and will have to order groceries for delivery then as I won't be able to get out and get things myself, which makes it even more expensive. And of course prices have gone up.

Previous financial lifelines have also been withdrawn, for example the cancer charity Macmillan used to give cancer patients a grant every two years, but they've recently decided to stop giving grants. I was due to get a £300 grant this year but now I won't get that. My local council's household support fund also got diverted to old age pensioners. So the little amount of money I had expected to get this year while I wait for my appeal to be heard, I won't be getting. My appeal is estimated to be heard in January so I will need help for months yet.

If anyone is able to send a supermarket gift card for me to get food, please email to DisabledAceSocialist@hotmail.com

This site takes credit card, debit card and google pay:

https://www.sainsburysgiftcard.co.uk/

This site takes credit card, debit card and paypal:

https://www.prezzee.uk/store/sainsburys-uk-gift-card/

This site takes crypto:

https://www.bitrefill.com/gb/en/gift-cards/sainsburys-in-store-digital-uk/

I'm really grateful for any help. And happy summer solstice!

EDIT: I've been told the gift card links are being difficult. Someone wanted to help but was unable to. If anyone would like to help but can't get the gift card links to work, my paypal is the_mighty_tabs@hotmail.co.uk I'm totally out of sainsburys gift cards now so I will gladly accept help in any form. If anyone uses the paypal, would you write in the box that it's a gift so i can prove to the DWP I haven't been earning money? If I win my benefit appeal they will check my bank account and I must show I haven't been working.

The President, alas, sees monstrous deeds arise:
Wielding spears 'gainst his own house, in wrathful strife,
Fighting for the imperial seal, with furious cries.

Great strife brews chaos, small spurs a deadly knife;
Like dragging vines to hunt foes, the dragnet goes,
Arresting officers throughout the state's wide life.

When justice is done, injustice still prevails;
Where great gain lies, abuse finds its fertile ground.
After all, is the chosen worthy of the crown?
Does he truly deserve the noble throne he's found?

Could there be no party strife, no partisan sound,
We might dream again of peace on earth to be owned.

So admittedly i am not the most well read on Islam, but i am aware that generally the entire muslim world has a majority of the population despising the US/Isntreal at this point right?

So with everything going on i can't help but think there is a non-zero chance this could trigger a 2nd arab sping. If US Vassals in the region sit idly by while Iran, and its allies are in full blown war with the US/isntreal i can see it really fucking pissing off a lot of the population in the muslim world.

Am i reading this wrong, and there isn't really any proper organization in most of these countries to pull something off, or could we actually see some real popular pressure start to form against US-backed states/monarchies?

So some people in my friend group over here in Belgium decided to throw their birthday party. They are also Dutch so they invited their friends from a small Dutch village to come over. So we had is big city folks with our left wing ideas on the one hand, and the typical white Dutch friend group from a village, mostly right wing.

Eventually politics came up for some reason and they made it clear to be right wing. It appeared to stop there as nobody was interested in politics, except this one girl who ticks all the boxes of a stereotypical Republican view of the left: queer, dyed hair, etc.

Now, the discussion that followed, and the way she handled it, was simply said amazing. The patience she had, the seriousness with which she treated the guys' concerns, the arguments she used. I was amazed, truly. And it worked. The typical things came up: migration, housing shortage, inflation, Gaza even. And she handled it so perfectly that many of them started doubting being a right winger. They're not there yet of course but I just know they will remember this conversation for a long time.

So after that I thought: I need this person in our party. And I went over to talk to her and told her I was amazed by how she handled it. I invited her over to our action group and she is really interested.

So not only were some guys turned slightly more to the left today, we even gained a new member!

Makes me gain some hope.

So my grandmother is a zealot, black Christofascist who believes in the second-coming. For centuries they have been trying to "trick God" into triggering a second coming with the Muslim vs Christian wars and nothing happened. This time, my grandmother thinks it's serious. She thinks that there's going to be a New world order.

She has contradictions in her opinions. She believes that the bible says when Israel is surrounded by armies, something is about to happen. But she also believes Jesus will spawn in Israel and completely destroy it.

Anyway, the main point is that she believes the U.S will be defeated or weakened by Russia and China, and that the U.S will have to join the EU. She believes the U.S of America will become the U.S of Europe. So basically rename the U.S. She also claims that there's a big post office being built in Europe and that's where American mail will go through from then on.

I know her ideas seem crazy, but I want to know where they stem from. They stem from many places I can tell. She's super deluded on this idea.

Seen on reddit. Someone asked: "What happens after the welfare cuts? I feel this has not been thought through properly. There are currently over 1.6 million people actively looking for work, and around 736,000 jobs available."

Another redditor responded: "*I work in a job centre.

We are openly told by line managers there is no plan. The reforms will mean many people lose out directly (their PIP is cut), but also indirectly (carers of people with PIP are entitled to an additional rate on UC).

The main things we are being trained for is an increase in 6PP situations (suicidal claimants) and additional training on managing those with severe health conditions whilst on UC.

The Work Capability Assessment system is expected to totally collapse immediately after the reforms are implemented due to demand as people denied PIP scramble to get LCWRA classification.

Even the harshest people on my team see it as a disasterous act of cruelty, as someone put it "saying the quiet part out loud."*

What is the government hoping will happen? There aren't enough jobs already. Do they hope everyone just kills themselves? Or turns to crime like mugging and shoplifting?

No wonder the UK is the second most miserable country on earth: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/latest-updates/uk-is-officially-the-worlds-second-most-miserable-country-these-were-the-happiest-and-unhappiest-countries-of-2023/articleshow/108361220.cms?from=mdr

Hi, I'm looking for some children's books that teach marxist values or just any humanist values in general (age 2-4). preferably in german. thank you in advance :D I want to read them to my son

I found these books and they seem to be very critical of the united states, FBI, and the CIA.

I'm on episode 11 currently (if anyone posts spoilers I will send you to a Gulag) and it's good. I did think it was going to be a procedural but I forgot thats more of an American thing (no I don't want to discuss the cultural and historical reasons why America was the birthplace and is the home of the procedural TV show). I will say it was a little hard to keep track of who is who and what their positions were, both because I'm bad at remembering names and also because intially you're jumping between Beijing and Handong, but I'm getting the hang of it.

Interestingly, I only two gunshots (as a dispersal method which im pretty sure is portrayed as a bad thing by the show) has been fired (not including the flashback to the 2nd sino japanese war). As an American I had to remember that not everything ends in massive gun violence (/s). I will say I'm not...very versed with how the chinese government works so how promotion and transfers and certain other specifics relating to laws and such (i.e, I assumed incorrectly that the Procuratorate would have automatic jurisdiction over people suspected of corruption that municipal police couldn't just block, since in the USA usually the federal law enforcement like the FBI trumps local law fairly easily)

I do like it so far and do really appreciate that most characters do have a decent amount of depth to them, even the antagonists. I'll have an update once I'm further in but I did want to see if anyone else has opinions on the show. It's definitely nice that i can get my cop/detective show fix with no guilt as compared to watching American shows.

im looking for some good music

not an accelerationist or anything, but people here are so fucking stupid especially in germany. just a ragepost dont mind please

Obviously I am not saying I'm smart generally, or that some people are inherently mentally deficient. But i will say that to a certain extent I'm smarter than the people who I interact with and whom make up the government that governs me. Obviously not in all feilds (I trust I am a worse chef than those who are chefs and a worse physicist than those who are physicists and such), but in broader more systematic ways probably. And of course ideologically.

I mean, when you hear that Henry Ford couldn't remember basic American history, or you see tech entrepreneurs make stupid, stupid decisions, or when I hear Justice Scalie cite fictional character Jack Bauer to justify torture, or when you hear Richard Feymann say you shouldn't brush your teeth or that he would fool people into thinking he was speaking a "regional dialect" of their native tongue by speaking gibberish, or when you simply listen to George Bush or Ronald Reagan or Rishi Sunak or any number of officials speak. It makes me think "wow I am smarter than these people. I am ergo very smart and can teach others with decisive authority"

Azure Scapegoat (who is a fairly decent youtube channel [which is high praise from me]) talks about the exact feeling when you realize you aren't smart, it's just that society is stupid. That CPC youth league members are more intelligent than you, even in matters of ideology (Seen here:https://youtu.be/GoHxcRxX4L8).

Of course learning never ends but the absolute depth of the unknown is very demoralizing. I was thinking of making a substack and writing but I realized that all I would be doing would be just saying "listen to these people." That's not helpful, no? Especially when I lack the investigative ability to find new sources or to evaluate the efficacy of said sources. I am not like others who will proudly dictate knowledge while not having it, but humility does not create usefulness. I can say "oh no no I do not know that much." But that is not solving problems, it is preventing harm. Of course I do strive to learn and to improve myself, this is not me giving up, but simultaneously I do wish to discuss these emotions and thoughts i have.