It has been over half my lifetime since I read an in depth history of the Spanish civil war.

Anyway, some anarchists I used to roll with criticized Stalin for turning against the Spanish Anarchists during the Spanish Civil War, killing some and abandoning the othera. I thought at the time, "what the hell? Why would the Communists betray those who were fighting against their common enemy? I see some of the historical basis for fighting the Anarchists within the USSR, but why in Spain, when the fascists were by far the biggest problem? It can't have just been " Stalin was a bad dude", that's not how it works. So what were the material and political reasons for that betrayal? Was it even a betrayal? (I am looking for the ML perspective on this more than the anarchist perspective because I've heard plenty of the Anarchist side and not the "tankie" side)

Since we're having a Posadist revival

I've been into a few bookstores while wandering around and have seen exciting novel interesting books in the genres of horror, sci fi, and even fantasy (a genre I thought had been self preferentially done to death). And it's cool! I want to read these! But I am no longer a crippled child with ample time to read, so if I'm going to spend money on books and then spend a bunch of time reading I damn well want it to be worthwhile. This has led to me snapping pics of books so that I can download them instead later and give them the old up-to-3-chapters-to-hook-me try, and then at that point if I like it I may as well just read the eBook and not buy the book at all. Not a terrible way to do it tbh! But there's still the time investment problem and there's still the problem of the books or plots getting terrible later as the author injects more of their terrible worldview into the mix.

My issue is that when I'm reading a blurb on a book from an author I don't already know is good, I have no way to know if it's going to be interesting, innovative, and good, or if it's going to be mediocre slop. I have no idea if it's going to be full of shitlib tokenism and selective peace-policing. I have no idea if it's full of anticommunist brainworms or not. I have no idea if this is a tropy snorefest.

Googling for reviews online is surprisingly not as helpful as I'd have expected! I suppose I could turn to social media to see what people in general think, but the credibility is immediately undermined by how vapid and superficial BookTok's taste is (does it tokenize minorities? Then it MUST be good even if everything else about the book is dogshit!) or by how much Reddit loves Brandon Sanderson (have you ever heard of Mistborn it's the best series ever). I can't take these sources seriously for recommendations anymore because they've burned me.

I actually flinched when I saw her face, the face of smug chastisement for caring about people's lives, the face of terror.  I flinched, and then had to make art to cope with the fear she struck in my three hearts

Fuck the so-called "Weϟϟt", and marg bar amriKKKa

Album description:

On September 22, 1980, the Iraqi military under the command of Saddam Hussein, unprovoked, supported and heavily armed by the Western and Arab worlds, invaded an economically devastated and militarily weakened Iran following the events of the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Through a brutal campaign of violence, terror, and the illicit use of chemical weapons against civilian populations, the Ba'athist dictator sought to quickly conquer his oil-rich neighbor in order to fulfill his nationalist fantasy of becoming the region’s dominant power. Despite facing crippling economic sanctions, a substantial lack of proper military equipment and training, and the world's major powers collaborating against them, the Iranian people retaliated and held their ground throughout one of the bloodiest conflicts in modern history and prevented Hussein from taking even one inch of their land.

This album is dedicated to the myriad Iranian soldiers (many of whom were young volunteers) and civilians who lost their lives as a result of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, as well as the countless Kurdish victims of the Al-Anfal genocide. May they rest in peace and remain forever free from the failures of mankind.

Notes:

The title of this release is derived from the moniker used by Iranian forces in reference to the first battle that took place in the city of Khorramshahr / خرمشهر‎. Due to the heavy loss of life sustained by the extreme and brutal violence carried out by the Iraqi army against both Iranian soldiers and civilians alike, the city which was once home to many of Iran's upper class families became known as خونین شهر (transliteration: Khooninshahr), the City of Blood.

In Narrow Graves - The title of this track references a line from the poem " A Poem for War / شعری برای جنگ" by the acclaimed contemporary Iranian poet Qeysar Aminpour / قیصر امین‌پور, whose work is renowned worldwide for its innovative prose and compelling anti-war themes.

Halabja - As implied by its title, this track was inspired by the horrific events that took place on March 16, 1988 in the Kurdish city of Halabja, Iraq during the final days of the Iran-Iraq war. The opening lyrics, "come and see", allude to director Elem Klimov's eponymous masterpiece, which captures the horrors of war with an unsettling and harrowing realism very few filmmakers have been able to achieve.The lyrics "a silent city" are a nod to the stunningly beautiful collaboration album by the legendary Kayhan Kalhor and Brooklyn Rider, whose title track also serves as a requiem for the events that took place on that dark day in Halabja.  

Song Lyrics: Beyond the filter Of this stifling mask Through the noxious fog Of mustard gas Past the barbed terrain Mined and vast Lies the playground Of blood and ash Where Saddam's dogs Shall breathe their last As we advance And push The bastards back Like choking rats In an iron grasp Their weakened battalions Succumb to Our violent wrath

Bullets burrow through Flesh, skulls, and jaws On gushing wounds Death tears and gnaws Men's intestines suspend From barbed wire Caustic sprays of Machine gun fire We wade through A mire Of guts and limbs In a void absent Virtue or sin Where Western arms And an upper hand Prove futile against A child who would Die for his land

For the innocent Lives consumed By the jaws Of Sarin's fumes With malice We incinerate The cowards and Their puppet state

For our children Burned alive While aboard IR655 Slaughtered by The U.S of lies We send their pawns To their grim demise

Every corpse Adorned with lead Every sundered bone And severed head Every drop of blood That is shed Paves the path to Avenge our dead

Blood demands blood

Alone, against the world We stand And vanquish all Who invade our land

Through a hail Of grenades and scuds We reclaim The City of Blood

The West And their puppet Saddam Are no match For Mother Iran

By the blood of پارس خلیج فارس Forever ours  

Two movies tonight!  Returning to John Carpenter land with The Fog (1980), followed by dark comedy / milfs ¿rock? film Death Becomes Her (1992)!  We will will start P R O M P T L Y at 4:30PM Eastern US time.

A note: timezones hard, feel free to use https://www.worldtimebuddy.com/ or something similar to do timezone conversions to your local time

We will be using Blorptube tonight: https://blorp.bot.nu/o/visual_cuisine. IMPORTANT NOTE: please use a good VPN whenever visiting Blorptube due to how peering works.

The Fog (1980)

A small town in California experiences strange happenings as a terrifying fog rolls in from the sea. 90 minutes long.

Content Warnings for The Fog (1980)*

Violence and gore: moderate

• There are stabbings, impalings, mangled skin, maggot-filled wounds, and decapitation

Sexual violence: None

• Domestic violence between partners, attempted murder, but it is cartoonish and mild.

Other: mild

• alcoholism
• A bunch of body image issues, dysmorphia, grappling with beauty standards and aging, fatness and an eating disorder feature briefly

Doesthedogdie: https://www.doesthedogdie.com/media/31058

UnconsentingMedia: https://www.unconsentingmedia.org/items/7366

IMDB Parental Guide: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080749/parentalguide/

TankieTube link to movie: https://tankie.tube/w/bPPNtfHMzgesRP53WA3AhD

Death Becomes Her (1992)

Bruce Willis is not an action hero and is inexplicably irresistibly sexy to Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn.  Also featuring Isabella Rossellini being confusingly enchanting. The former 2 fight over him and in their fight seek immortal youth and beauty.  The perils of immortality and the pursuit of eternal beauty/youth will be on full display, as well as universally important philosophical questions such as "If I have to be the personal attendant and sex toy of 2 banging undead milfs forever, is eternal life even worth living?" 104 minutes

Content Warnings for Death Becomes Her (1992)*

Violence and gore: mild

• Some limbs fall off and there’s a bit of body horror but it is cartoonish, mild, and played for laughs
• Decapitation, amputation, breaking of necks. And yet it’s all mild!

Sexual violence: Mild

• Domestic violence between partners, attempted murder, but it is cartoonish and mild.

Other:

• alcoholism
• A bunch of body image issues, dysmorphia, grappling with beauty standards and aging, fatness and an eating disorder feature briefly

Doesthedogdie: https://www.doesthedogdie.com/media/16708

UnconsentingMedia: https://www.unconsentingmedia.org/items/3839

IMDB Parental Guide: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104070/parentalguide/

TankieTube link to movie: https://tankie.tube/w/oHq4CxBHzbznx8Ut5t5Xms

Just one movie tonight as I have become a busy busy bee!  Returning to John Carpenter land with Village of the Damned (1995)!  We will will start P R O M P T L Y at 6:00PM Eastern US time.

A note: timezones hard, feel free to use https://www.worldtimebuddy.com/ or something similar to do timezone conversions to your local time

We will be using Blorptube tonight: https://blorp.bot.nu/o/visual_cuisine. IMPORTANT NOTE: please use a good VPN whenever visiting Blorptube due to how peering works.

Village of the Damned (1995)

A story about a bunch of strange children being born in a village and then doing terrible things to everyone with their supernatural powers.  “It is based on the 1957 novel The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham. The 1995 version is set in Northern California, whereas the book and original film are both set in England. The 1995 film was marketed with the tagline, "Beware the Children".

The film received negative reviews from critics and failed at the box office upon release. This was Reeve's last theatrically released film before he was paralyzed in an equestrian accident in May 1995.”

Content Warnings for Village of the Damned (1995)*

Violence and gore: Moderate

• Lots of injuries, burning, disfigurement, but somehow IMDB still calls it “moderate” so it must not be that bad right?

Sexual violence: Mild

• The most nonconsensuality of it is that the premise is a bunch of women wake up and find that they are mysteriously pregnant, so, about as violent as the biblical story about Jesus’s conception

Other:

• Stillbirth

Doesthedogdie: https://www.doesthedogdie.com/media/12513

UnconsentingMedia: https://www.unconsentingmedia.org/items/9621

IMDB Parental Guide: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114852/parentalguide/

TankieTube link to movie: https://tankie.tube/w/mzdteCUtE5UhqpqoQc6UsW

Cud & Tith’s Death and Dismemberment Thursday Movie: Surreal nightmarish silent film Begotten (1989) at 6:30PM Eastern US Time

Just one movie tonight as I have become a busy busy bee!  It’s only 72 minutes long.  We will will start P R O M P T L Y at 6:30PM Eastern US time.

A note: timezones hard, feel free to use https://www.worldtimebuddy.com/ or something similar to do timezone conversions to your local time

We will be using Blorptube tonight: https://blorp.bot.nu/o/visual_cuisine. IMPORTANT NOTE: please use a good VPN whenever visiting Blorptube due to how peering works.

 Begotten (1989)

“Begotten is an experimental 1989 American film written and directed by E. Elias Merhige. It stars the largely unknown actors Brian Salzburg, Donna Dempsey, Stephen Charles Barry and members of Merhige's theatre company Theatreofmaterial. Its unconventional narrative depicts the suicide of a godlike figure and the births of Mother Earth and the Son of Earth, who undertake a journey across a dying world. Merhige directed two short film sequels: 2006's Din of Celestial Birds and 2022's Polia & Blastema: A Cosmic Opera.

Merhige conceived the film as a dance piece for experimental theatre. Inspired by documentary footage of the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima, he decided on a full-length film. Begotten has a gritty visual style, intended to give the impression of damaged film stock which has been degraded through time and wear. As with the Hiroshima footage, Begotten is silent. After completion, Merhige spent two years trying to find a distributor. It debuted at the Montreal World Film Festival and later screened at the San Francisco International Film Festival, with the film critics Tom Luddy and Peter Scarlet in attendance. The two brought it to the attention of the critic Susan Sontag, whose enthusiastic praise was instrumental to its eventual release. It was ignored by most mainstream critics and the few reviews were polarized.

Begotten is infused with multiple mystic and religious themes. Critics have debated if it reflects popular attitudes towards the origins of life and religion at the time of its production and portrays creation through the mythic and religious traditions. Some writers have interpreted the film as an examination of the cycle of life and mankind's relationship with nature. Other themes include the Nietzschean view of order and chaos, societal norms and the perception of reality.

I couldn’t find the sequels so while they are short, we won’t be watching them.

More from Wikipedia: “Begotten is shot in a dark, grungy and visceral style. Distorted perspectives and degraded image quality were used to evoke an ancient and otherworldly atmosphere.[38][39] The film has been described as "a cinematic Rorschach test of grotesque, imagery" and "a feature-length fever dream".[40][41] Merhige was interested in crafting imagery through analog format[14] and sought a decayed look that the footage had been damaged through time and wear.[42] He said:

   I wanted Begotten to look, not as if it were from the twenties, not even as if it were from the nineteenth century, but as if it were from the time of Christ, as if it were a cinematic Dead Sea Scroll that had been buried in the sands, a remnant of a culture with customs and rites that no longer apply to this culture, yet are somewhere underneath it, under the surface of what we call "reality."[43][44]”

Tith mentioned this one looks like the synthesis of both our Death and Dismemberment styles — Gory (me) and spiritually unsettling (her).  I think (hope) we’re in for a treat, and my apologies in advance if the film fails to deliver and double apologies if it does!

The imagery looked spooky and haunting which is what got my attention.  The images looked very unsettling, frightening, and disturbing to behold.  I’m expecting this one to be gnarly.

Content Warnings for Begotten (1989)

Violence and gore: Severe

• Graphic suicide on screen at the beginning.
• Disembowelment
• Gore
• Torture

Sexual violence: Severe

-removed on screen. The filter is going to remove that so that should be interpreted as “sexual assault on screen”

Other:

• "Extremely disturbing visuals and subject matter”

Doesthedogdie: https://www.doesthedogdie.com/media/15807

UnconsentingMedia: https://www.unconsentingmedia.org/items/2058

IMDB Parental Guide: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101420/parentalguide/

TankieTube link to movie:  https://tankie.tube/w/28Bvg91dmbPh4BXK1httxB

This is from Smiling Friends S01E01. I think the character's name is Allan. I think this would go well with beanis-on-the-cross.

CW for show if you are curious

Major CWs for suicidality if you do watch it. Someone recommended it to me without any CWs and I was a little shook but also it was a funny episode.

Cud & Tith’s Death and Dismemberment Thursday Movie: Halloween Counteroffensive against Christmas Edition, at 4PM Eastern US Time  (Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness)

The timeline is going to be very tight so in order to not cut into the evening time I will try to be actually very punctual and regimented.  We’ll only have time for Erika’s brilliant pee break song (https://tankie.tube/w/1GEpTVKWpxrzsmpui2pXEg) in between the movies

A note: timezones hard, feel free to use https://www.worldtimebuddy.com/ or something similar to do timezone conversions to your local time

We will be using Blorptube tonight: https://blorp.bot.nu/o/visual_cuisine. IMPORTANT NOTE: please use a good VPN whenever visiting Blorptube due to how peering works.

That’s right, we’re doing horror comedy instead of Christmas, because I can’t show my favorite Christmas movie (In Bruges) again so soon.

First up is Evil Dead II (1987) at 4:00PM Eastern Standard US Time.  It is a remake of Evil Dead and is considered much better.  It is 1h24m minutes long.  I have been assured this is a comedy, which is cool because I find the poster for it very unsettling and creepy.

Second will be the sequel, Army of Darkness (1992) at about 5:48PM Eastern US Time.  This is the director’s cut, and is 1h36m long. This gives us a total of 3 hours and 5 minutes (the 5 minutes for piss break), ending at 8:05PM Eastern US Time.

 Evil Dead II (1987)

“A man vacations with his girlfriend to a remote cabin in the woods. He discovers an audio tape of recitations from a book of ancient texts, and when the recording is played, it unleashes a number of demons which possess and torment him. “

Content Warnings for Evil Dead II (1987)

Violence and gore: Severe

• Very over the top gory, but it is all slapstick

sexual violence: Severe

• Attemptedremoved: trees grab someone, tear off her clothes, and attempt to penetrate her.

Other:

• “There is an entire scene where extremely loud sounds play such as ghostly screaming and moaning.” — unfortunately, no timestamp was provided with this so basically be prepared to rapidly lower the volume.

• brutalization of women

Doesthedogdie: https://www.doesthedogdie.com/media/9524

UnconsentingMedia: https://www.unconsentingmedia.org/items/4168

IMDB Parental Guide: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092991/parentalguide/

TankieTube link to movie: https://tankie.tube/w/6ametnVrS2SXbqLpa3y1Sk

Army of Darkness (1922)

The sequel to Evil Dead II: “it follows Ash Williams (Campbell) as he is trapped in the Middle Ages and battles the undead in his quest to return to the present.”

Content Warnings for Army of Darkness (1922)

Violence and gore: Moderate

• action film violence, much less gory than Evil Dead II

sexual violence: Moderate

• "Towards the end of the film, all the women of a village get captured by an army of skeletons. Several of them are shown with their trops ripped off: their kidnappers forcefully kiss them. It is implied that they areremovedd and transformed into demons. “ — Unconsenting Media
• A woman's dress is ripped off by a character, then said woman is forcibly kissed by the same character a few seconds later.” — DTDD

Doesthedogdie: https://www.doesthedogdie.com/media/14542

UnconsentingMedia: https://www.unconsentingmedia.org/items/1335

IMDB Parental Guide: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106308/parentalguide/

TankieTube link to movie:  https://tankie.tube/w/wS5KE9zPhR81sfksmPm3qA

New feature to these posts: sneak preview of 2 weeks hence:

Either Kwaidan (Japanese art horror film that looks amazing) or some wintery Toei Studio movies (Swan Lake and The Wild Swans) depending on how I feel.

These fuckers brutally abducted some dude who was just going out to get food, wouldn't even let him show his ID proving he was a citizen til after they'd taken him in for processing, and then when he asked for a ride home because they were the ones who'd fucked up, they told him to walk home in the snow.

Guy's been in the US since he was 1 year old.

ICE needs to burn -- not melt, burn -- in Hell or something.

https://sahanjournal.com/immigration/ice-arrest-cedar-riverside-minneapolis-somali-man/

Soy hates my intestines, gluten as well, but I saw some new meat alternatives at a fancy grocery store so I am once again attempting to wean down from animals.

I found some pumpkin seed tofu and some fava bean tofu at the fancy grocery store. Cooking experiment, procedure done with both kinds of tofu:

Tofus were frozen, but I thawed them in the fridge for a day before cooking. Cut them into bite sized cubes

Put pan on stove with spices and oil. Turn burner on to mid heat. When hot, put tofu in. Wait a while. Take tongs and use them to flip the tofu cubes..

The pumpkin tofu cooked fine. Stayed intact, got to a food safe internal temp. In contrast, the fava bean tofu kept sticking to the pan and leaving a layer behind when I flipped it, and that layer burned. Meanwhile, it never reached 165 degrees F. I think it was wetter as the pumpkin tofu was prepressed

Eventually in frustration I just macerated the fava bean tofu into crumbles, left it on high and covered for a bit to make sure it hit the food safe temp, called it done and scraped what wasn't ash out of the pan. I've been adding the crumbs to daal to make them palatable/tolerable. Based on this experience I think I should stick with pumpkin, but I need as much variety as I can get in my already limited diet so I'd like to make the fava bean tofu work too. It also did not seem to really take the spices I put in as well and was overall more bland.

This has to just be a skill issue. What did I do wrong? I was basically trying to cook these as if they were meat; was that conceptually the wrong approach? Seems to have been because they're more delicate.

Neither of these tofus have tried to claw their way out from inside my body, so at least if I can figure out how to cook them they could be viable.