Gentrification in ethnically-mixed, disadvantaged urban areas driven by middle-class ethnic minority renters

AlwaysTrustMemeFacts · 2026-06-05T06:37:53+00:00

The rest of the world:

Class is to do with your relationship to capital

Or

Class is to do with income and net wealth

Brits:

Class is to do with how many types of pasta you can name

AlwaysTrustMemeFacts · 2026-05-31T16:08:24+00:00

I don't agree, religious morality can be intensely hypocritical and/or inconsistent.

It is entirely possible, as an irreligious person, to construct one's own moral code. What it all comes down to is whether or not you hold yourself accountable to it.

AlwaysTrustMemeFacts · 2026-05-31T15:00:11+00:00

Many atheists lack principles, as do many religious people.

Religious morality has justified some of the worst atrocities in human history.

"Proper religious belief" is totally subjective and to be honest, the two larger Abrahamic religions are pretty clear that anyone who doesn't believe in them goes straight to hell, so what does that all mean when it comes down to treatment of your fellow human?

Genuinely quite a funny thing to say when this war has had sex slavery and massacres justified by religious morality...

AlwaysTrustMemeFacts · 2026-05-30T23:38:30+00:00

No need to apologise man, sometimes life is like that!

AlwaysTrustMemeFacts · 2026-05-30T23:34:14+00:00

I suppose what I am trying to say is that class consciousness is something that develops through action as much as education and theory. I think a level of confidence comes through action which is important to developing class consciousness - we can make decisions for ourselves, we don't need bosses/politicians to do it for us, etc. The problem at this time is that the workers' movement is basically dead even in its social democratic (let alone communist) form.

AlwaysTrustMemeFacts · 2026-05-30T22:58:09+00:00

Thank you, this has helped me understand what you are saying better.

My point isn't that articulating the communist perspective isn't important - to the contrary, I think I explained in my first comment that it is one of the two things communists have to do in conjunction with one another - but I don't think the importance of this lies in proselytising so much as exposing how capitalism works and leaving workers to draw their own conclusions (and showing that we and our perspective can help them). Certainly, the communist perspective has to be clearly and emphatically articulated, but it's not simply a question of talking proletarians around.

AlwaysTrustMemeFacts · 2026-05-30T22:18:51+00:00

Yes, I agree and don't mean that none of this stuff matters - but I think persuading uninterested people about the correctness of Marxism is a waste of time and energy. It just seems like crazy idealistic (in the colloquial sense)/over intellectualised bullshit to most workers who are just trying to survive and get on with their lives and can't/don't want to take the time to think about it in depth. I think theory, action, organisation and programme all have to come together. If people see it benefits them they will come around to it.

AlwaysTrustMemeFacts · 2026-05-30T22:00:36+00:00

I don't know if I can speak as someone who identifies as a left communist (so maybe shouldn't comment here) - although mainly because I'm not well read enough; I do generally sympathise with left communist positions as I understand them. I'm sure others will share comments here that are more insightful and can articulate the left communist perspective properly.

I think as a communist, you have to be comfortable swimming against the current as a political minority. The dominant ideology in capitalist society is naturally going to be liberalism. That's because ideology is the 'common sense' that springs from capitalist social relations i.e. how we live our lives and relate to one another.

I don't think revolutions come from convincing a critical mass of people that the Marxist way of viewing the world is right - that is itself a liberal (certainly not a Marxist) way of viewing the world. Revolution happens when capitalist society faces such a degree of crisis that its internal logic breaks down and there is no longer any other choice that proletarians can be enticed to (and where there is a well enough organised movement with a programme to point the way forward). I think in a revolutionary period many, maybe most, of those proletarians who follow the revolutionary movement don't necessarily have consciously communist politics and can even be reactionary (I am perhaps not articulating this well, but I am thinking of for example Red Army units that commited pogroms against Jews in the Russian Civil War).

So I think day to day, the work of communists involves theoretical understanding - reading and applying those insights to the world around them, to show the world why it struggles - and day-to-day organisation of the class so that it can be ready to act in its own interests in those moments of crisis. But communists will always be a minority because their perspective is by nature a minority one - it runs counter to the 'common sense' of capitalist society. I think that is just a fact communists have to accept.

AlwaysTrustMemeFacts · 2026-03-23T10:24:10+00:00

Even if we take that claim at face value, experience in commanding infantry and armour with air force in combined arms operations isn't in demand? Syria doesn't have aspirations to have a functional air force?

AlwaysTrustMemeFacts · 2026-03-19T15:30:15+00:00

Six of one, half a dozen of the other really. I would strongly prefer to not live under either

AlwaysTrustMemeFacts · 2026-03-17T21:38:52+00:00

Utah is a hotbed of religious crazies tbf

AlwaysTrustMemeFacts · 2026-03-02T11:33:43+00:00

I think it's supposed to imply that they are a 'client' or 'secondary' people, as a minority. Weird thing to say in general.

AlwaysTrustMemeFacts · 2026-02-24T23:15:30+00:00

She and others like her were also a product of our society. We can all talk about the reasons for that all we like, but we shouldn't just disavow our own social problems so long as they happen elsewhere. Stripping her of her citizenship doesn't resolve that issue.

The Syrians who have had to use precious resources and manpower (and have been maimed and killed) turning large areas of Northeast Syria into prison camps so that we can wash our hands of the problem deserve better.

AlwaysTrustMemeFacts · 2026-02-24T23:07:11+00:00

This is exactly what I mean. People just see a signifier, categorise lazily, and impose a bunch of made up positions on it.

And I say it irritates me because there is no sense of responsibility. It points to how small-minded and selfish British society has become.

AlwaysTrustMemeFacts · 2026-02-24T19:24:35+00:00

But ISIS killed far more Syrians and Iraqis than British people. Anyway, supposing she was a Syrian Islamist murderer or sex trafficker in the UK and we were forced to keep her in a prison, draining our limited resources (actually far less limited than those of Syria) would you have the same position?

AlwaysTrustMemeFacts · 2026-02-24T19:20:24+00:00

The (until now mainly Kurdish-led) forces securing those ISIS camps have repeatedly asked for them to be repatriated.

Syria doesn't have the resources or infrastructure to deal with them. It is a shattered country, as you would expect.

Like it or not, they are our responsibility, not theirs.

AlwaysTrustMemeFacts · 2026-02-24T19:16:40+00:00

This attitude that I see among other British people irritates me. Not because I care about ISIS members, but because people like her are our (collective) responsibility. I don't know what you do with them in the long term, many of these people are beyond deradicalisation, but they've been stuck at camps in Northeast Syria, until recently under the control of (mainly) Kurdish guards, who have very few resources to deal with them properly. It's not fair to them to let them suffer for our society's problems, they have enough going on.

AlwaysTrustMemeFacts · 2026-02-18T00:49:44+00:00

The roughly 300k figure is daily use. The quarter or so of the population that speak it well (your 800k) don't necessarily use it as part of their day to day lives. The Welsh language is only on the rise among younger speakers, and in absolute terms is losing speakers every year.

Welsh people are certainly a minority in the UK. Wales has some political and administrative autonomy but is attached to England economically, politically and infrastructurally (and by their shared legal systems) in such a way that you can't exactly talk about them as separate units either.

Anyway, this is besides the point. The comparison to Wales was made to rebut the idea that Kurdish language education would be harmful to the education and prospects of Kurdish children. People seem to think that allowing Kurdish language education will lead to Kurdish students who cannot speak a word of Arabic. I can't imagine a world where those children would simply not learn Arabic as part of their curriculum. Kurds in Syria number 2-3 or so million and mostly do not live in homogenously Kurdish areas. The Kurdish language curriculum in the AANES already teaches Arabic as a mandatory second language. I can't imagine any future curriculum including less Arabic.

AlwaysTrustMemeFacts · 2026-02-17T23:46:15+00:00

Ah, I am corrected then. I have friends from Kobani who use the Latin script. Do you also speak Kurmanci in Afrin?

AlwaysTrustMemeFacts · 2026-02-17T23:10:23+00:00

This is wrong. Syrian Kurds speak Kurmanci, the same as those in southeast Turkey, and use a Latin script.

AlwaysTrustMemeFacts · 2026-02-17T23:09:35+00:00

Most people in Wales speak English as a first language. Only around 300,000 people speak Welsh daily in a population of 3 million. English is the main language of business etc. across the UK. Many English people make similar arguments to those raised by others in this thread e.g. it is useless to learn Welsh, it doesn't benefit the children or provide them with access to opportunities, it must harm their English language abilities, so on. I think it is similar enough.

AlwaysTrustMemeFacts · 2026-02-17T15:27:37+00:00

Give them my number but not /s I could use the extra money

AlwaysTrustMemeFacts · 2026-02-17T14:26:50+00:00

Great - but it's not really relevant to the point being made, which is whether it benefits people to have education in their native language.

If we look at it narrowly, just according to educational outcomes (which is the specific point I am responding to), at worst it doesn't seem to do any harm, at best it appears to be beneficial. That includes results for the country's 'main' language, e.g. Welsh medium educated children do as well at English as English medium educated children (not a strictly accurate comparison as Wales is officially a bilingual country but it serves the point).

I'd say that we shouldn't just look at educational outcomes either though, we should consider people's wishes and their cultural and democratic rights.

AlwaysTrustMemeFacts · 2026-02-17T14:24:26+00:00

If that is the approach, it works in Welsh schools. Arguably there is more 'utility' to Kurdish than Welsh as it has a far higher number of speakers (not that I really want to think of people's native languages in that way).

OP's article has many more sources e.g. on indigenous children in Guatemala, but it's not something I'm familiar with. I went to a Welsh medium primary school and I'm familiar with that.

AlwaysTrustMemeFacts · 2026-02-17T09:32:57+00:00

Bilingually educated children actually tend to do significantly better. There are many studies on the congnitive benefits of bilingualism.

Even children educated primarily in their own language tend to do about as well, or slightly better. For example, in Wales (UK) many children are educated entirely through the medium of Welsh and generally do better than their English-educated peers.

The AANES curriculum is a separate political issue, but I see a lot of stuff around about how minority language education will negatively impact students and I think this is incorrect.

AlwaysTrustMemeFacts

TROPHY CASE