#I don't personally know where I stand on third party votes as a whole

[bethrnoora]

some of you need to make up your minds between "all leftists I personally disagree with very specifically and pointedly allowed this to happen" and "this country hates minorities, was founded on this hate and inherently continues to uphold those values through most of its structural elements" because im starting to get frustrated

[hussyknee]

The wild thing about the Vote Blue rhetoric is that according to them, Biden is an uwu helpless baby who's had no power to stop any of the shit that's gone down the last three years but if Trump comes to power he can end democracy as you (don't) know it. You just have to get through this election cycle because the GOP can't find its own ass with both hands and a mirror on a stick and they're breaking apart, but they're also about to transform into the Third Reich. If Biden gets a second term you can totally push him further left when he isn't even up for re-election, but not with half the country on the streets a year out from when he does still need their votes. Biden can't get Netanyahu to stop because he has no power over Israel, but Trump will be able to destabilize democracy all across the world. The enemy is either weak or strong, y'all can't have it both ways.

Also, "If democrats haven't earned your vote, what has the republicans done to earn your complicity"????? You think this is how democracy works??? But oh, that's right you don't have a democracy, you have Evil (genocide without personal enjoyment) and Super Evil (genocide with personal fun). But you need to Vote Blue to save the democracy you don't have. Which they've had three years and one more to get around to saving, just like they had two years to legislate Roe vs Wade and eight before that, but they need another four to do anything.

"We cannot afford to divide the left and alienate voters!" you yell, as you harrass people whose relatives are currently being starved and blown to pieces as the entire world watches, a full year before elections, proving you have no intention of holding the Dems accountable even for a literal genocide. Because your winning strategy here is to scream at people for having a moral compass and basic empathy for their fellow human. These are luxuries you cannot afford because the GOP doesn't have any either, but the two parties are different bro, I swear bro, pay no attention to Hakeem Jeffries standing next to Mike Johnson and Christian Zionists bro, don't look at how much AIPAC has bought and paid for the whole of Congress bro, don't look at the bipartisan support for sending billions to Zionists overseas while cutting funding for every public service bro, don't look at how much more land for fracking they've sold off than Trump ever did bro, don't look at cop city and the border wall and ICE crackdowns and kids still in cages three years later bro, Biden totally controlled COVID and saved millions of lives unlike Trump and the pandemic is definitely not still raging bro, queer and reproductive rights are definitely not flaking off piecemeal under the Dems right now bro, Project 2025 can definitely happen when Obama couldn't even push through Medicaid with a trifecta bro, bro where are you going bro—

[dreadfutures]

I do get very frustrated with the "how can you tell me to vote for x dem/leftist" and "I'm not going to vote for anyone" takes because like

demonstrably, one side at least entertains the possibility of governmental reform and freedom of speech and anti corruption laws and undoing gerrymandering and voter suppression. another side is adamantly against it and has spent countless millions to make an environment where violent racism and voter suppression and domestic terrorism against minorities is PROMOTED and UNPUNISHED.

during Trump's election I told all my friends after a certain point: "if you vote third party or for Bernie because of principle, knowing that they will not have a chance to become president, or if you sit out, you are saying to me that you are okay with what Trump is saying about Mexicans. You are going to have to look me in the face when the day after the election, a crowd walks through town and chants "go home" to every person who isn't white. You are saying you would rather give up and let it happen than accept that this is what we have to work with in our society as it stands. And if you decide to not vote because you want to keep your moral purity you better sign up immediately to go into policy and change our electoral college, and change how government officials are paid, and to work on anti corruption laws. You have to put in the work somehow to prove to me that you actually want the world to be better, because by putting trump in office you are making it HARDER and MORE DANGEROUS for me to do that activism."

and guess what fucking happened. the day after the election. in my town.

guess whose friends don't do anything but complain on the internet. Who don't call their politicians and who don't donate and who don't volunteer.

by sitting out and for voting against the nominee they said they would rather put trump in the office than to put a stop to white nationalism. they would rather put trump in the office than empower an administration that wouldnt gut the EPA (which by the way got investigated for misuse of funds and embezzlement under trump lmfao). they would rather put trump in office than empower an administration that probably would leave the majority of the state department alone to do effective work across the globe on most issues.

there is no moral choice except to keep that party out, and go leverage the tools we have to push the more malleable party to be better. And you know what, every us president is going to have blood on their hands until the day we dismantle the whole fucking military. None of us are going to live to see that day so we owe it to the future generations to set up a world where that WILL be possible.

WHO actually chased down the big banks? WHO actually chased down sketchy political donations? WHO actually enshrines laws that protect whistleblowers at least in name?

Getting big money out of politics, getting lobbyists out of politics, getting whistleblower protections and getting more independent-thinking government officials who are of minority backgrounds and empowering them to do the work they are experts in -- that is how we change the US society. And that will never happen under a conservative republican government.

Working for a government agency now I hear about how hard it was for good people to get good work and changes made in their jobs, even if it wasn't political at all! Because promoting better workplaces and a safer environment and green energy and food security and better infrastructure and better healthcare is all, apparently, Political. People were moved, fired, hushed up, and replaced with stooges during the last presidency. On the ground levels of government where people are really trying to make a difference.. And now they are ABLE to do the good work bc this administration is a) more inclined to want those things and b) is more inclined to keep its nose out of that, since they actually tend to respect the hierarchy of government.

If you DONT vote, or if you vote third party, the statistics and history show that we will end up with increasingly fascist and hostile government from top to bottom, that is NOT malleable to public opinion in any way shape or form.

We live in a terrible fucking world, alright? The rich protect their own interests and old white men protect the Norms and Biases that have kept them in power and kept the world quiet for so long. We don't have a lot to work with but the option to sit back is to allow another monster like Trump and Bush take over, who will UNDO many great improvements normal people have worked so hard to get implemented into policy, get rid of the people YOU WANT to be making policy on the ground, and IMPOSE WORSE POLICIES for everyone.

There is only so fucking much we can do with this fucking mess of a world where the figureheads are all rich buddies at the same country clubs and all of them laugh about arms deals like it's a trade on free and for sale, but like. Demonstrably. Demonstrably the only way to make sure the government gets incrementally better is to keep democrats in office.

And yes if you locally have a democrat up and comer who you like better than your old rep then yeah vote the old bastards out of office. But fucking hell literally when you are voting for a president you're voting for a whole administration and ideology about government. And sitting out IS LETTING SOMEONE ELSE'S VOTE FOR FASCISM COUNT MORE THAN YOURS!

Everyone has the potential to be a single issue voter. For a long time it was whether a politician was pro choice or not. Remember? But when the choice is between a Democrat who is prolife and a Republican who is pro life, you can't sit out. Because when the republican is in office, they are more likely to put in judges and officials and policies that will be incredibly restrictively prolife, and the dem is less likely to do that and more likely to leave it up to the states.

like god I hope we get an anti war presidential nominee, I hope we get a pro choice nominee, I hope we get a pro labor nominee, I hope we get someone willing to buck decades and decades of fundraising and lobbying and form their own moral stances but most of all I hope we don't end up with another round of hobbling government agencies, and silencing any and all dissenters and whistleblowers, and putting in even more conservative judges across the country and in the supreme court, and I hope we don't give a green light to fucking fascists everywhere to run rampant and hurt people and promote hatred because we're too busy eating each other alive about moral purity.

I hate the world we live in. I know the most important differences we can make are on the ground, volunteering with each other and doing actions in our communities. But it becomes infinitely harder to do that under certain administrations.

And if you still don't agree then you better fucking get out there on your hands and fucking knees to make the world better.

Yeah it's fucking unfair to ask minorities to do the work. But the other option is what?

Sitting in your internet armchair being angry at people and refusing to act because *they* should do it hasn't done fucking shit in your community. Yeah *they* should be better. That doesn't mean we get a free divine indulgence to let things get worse.

Take breaks? Sure. Tell people to do their own research and growth? Sure. But when it comes to bettering the world and there is a choice to potentially maybe make it better or definitely make it worse you have to act.

[justcourttee]

I love your sibling Jasonette so much!! If you don't mind, could you do Marinette's first meeting with the rest of the Batfam? Also, this is probably a stupid question but are the rest of the sibling Jasonette stories connected?

Not a stupid question at all! I wrote them so that if you read all of them, there are parallels so that they could be connected, but if people didn’t want to read all of them, they could also stand on their own :)

I also NEVER mind writing more sibling Jasonette ;) Hope you enjoy! @moonlitjiminie 

Family Game Night

“What if they don’t like me?”

Jason stopped in his tracks, shaking his head in disappointment.

“Is that even a real question that you’re asking me? I’m honestly offended right now that you would even think they had an option to not like you.”

He dramatically placed his hand over his heart as if her words had fatally wounded him earning a small giggle from the girl. Slinging his arm over her shoulder, she managed to breathe a small sigh of relief as they made their way up the long staircase.

Jason didn’t even bother knocking as he threw open the manor doors, effectively dragging her in with him.

“Master Jason, what a pleasure to see you attend family game night and with a guest in tow, how lovely.”

An older man stood in the foyer, his sly smile warming Marinette to the core instantly. Jason narrowed his eyes playfully at the man, a sly smile of his own tugging at his lips.

“Marinette, let me introduce you to the only sane person in this household. Mr. Alfred Pennyworth. He likes to pretend he’s just a humble butler, but we all know that he secretly runs the whole thing around here.”

Alfred bowed deeply to Marinette to which she could only curtsey in return.

“It’s a pleasure, sir. I am sorry for invading your family time. I was under the impression that my presence was a known factor tonight.” Her narrowed eyes shot to Jason who simply shrugged, his smirk as arrogant as ever.

“Nonsense, a friend of Master Jason is a friend to all. You are by far the most pleasant friend he has brought to this event.”

Marinette almost wanted to ask about the context of his remark, but something in her gut told her she really didn’t want to know.

“Please, follow me to the sitting room. The rest of the family has already arrived.”

They walked in a comfortable silence down the hall, Marinette nerves slightly frayed now knowing that nobody expected her appearance. Alfred pushed open two oak doors, revealing a brightly lit room filled with many laughing faces. When Jason said he had a lot of siblings, Marinette thought two or three. Nothing could have prepared her for this.

“Oh my god, Jason brought home a girl!”

Instantly all sounds in the room paused as many heads turned their attention to where Marinette stood in the doorway. Hesitantly, she raised her hand in greeting, a sheepish smile gracing her face.

“Everyone, this is Marinette, the legendary designer MDC, and my sister. She’s flown all the way from Paris to meet you losers for some reason so be nice.”

Marinette mumbled a quiet hello as a few smiles broke through the room welcoming her. Instantly, a blonde girl jumped up to drag her back to where she was previously sitting, ignoring Jason’s protests.

“You just have to play on my team tonight! Are you any good at Pictionary? I mean I’m not great, but I can say with utmost confidence that I can beat most of the people in this room.”

“That’s not true!” Marinette’s attention was split as one of the men started an argument with her as to who was the better pictionary-ist. She didn’t even notice when Jason had sat beside her, an amused smile tugging at his lips.

“The rude blonde is Stephanie Brown. She’s Timmy boys girlfriend, who would be the dead zombie looking kid over there.”

Marinette’s gaze followed to where Jason pointed, a small giggle escaping at his accurate description. The poor boy looked like he hasn’t gotten a good night's sleep a single day in his life. 

“The rude boy arguing with Stephanie would be Dick. He practically rivals your optimism except his happy go lucky actually disgusts me.”

The man paused from his argument, a horrified expression on his face.

“I like to think my optimism is a blessing.”

That earned a collective groan from the room to which he simply crossed his arms into a pout.

“Anyways, continuing, the redhead is Barbara Gordon-Grayson who unfortunately has trapped herself in the position of Dick’s wife. A tragedy really for such a beautiful woman, I mean she could’ve had me and instead she chose him? The world just isn’t right.”

Another protest came from Dick’s direction as he turned his pout into Barbara’s outstretched arms as her attempt to not laugh failed miserably.

“The one staring you down while trying to pretend he’s not interested at the same time would be your future husband Damian.”

Marinette felt her entire face flush red as she reached back slapping Jason in the stomach as hard as he could.

“Todd, I do not appreciate harassing this young woman. You are beneath her in status and beauty therefore you should not be allowed to get off with this insult to her self so easily.”

Damian stood from his spot, careful not to make eye contact with Marinette as he sped past her toward the room’s only exit. She wanted to call out and ask him to stay, but the pink on his cheeks caused her to pause. He probably was just as embarrassed as her and just needed some time to breathe.

“Jason, that was mean! Look at how flustered you made him!”

Jason simply laughed as he reached over to ruffle her hair.

“Trust me, he never gets ‘flustered’ that was all you.”

For the second time that night, Marinette felt her face flush.

“He’s right you know!” Her eyes turned back to the blonde from earlier who stared her down with a playful expression in her eyes. “Demon spawn definitely has a crush on you.”

The rest of the family took turns picking at her, taking jabs until she was sure there wasn’t one part of her that wasn’t bloodshot red.

“Alright, alright, give the girl some space. We want her to return eventually!”

Marinette smiled gratefully toward the dark-haired man.

“After all, I need to get to know my future daughter-in-law.”

She instantly regretted her friendly gesture as the room exploded once more, smiles and laughter filling the room. Why exactly had she let Jason talk her into this?

“Okay, okay, really though guys. It’s game night! Time to pick team captains.”

Stephanie’s devilish smile sent shivers through Marinette’s spine. It was purely chaotic, reminding her of another blonde that she had left behind.

“I vote Marinette and Jason, the ultimate sibling showdown!” Dick puffed out his chest as his voice mimicked what sounded suspiciously like a wrestling ref that her father loved to watch.

“I’m down, how about you princess?”

Marinette bit her lip as her eyes glanced around the room at their waiting faces. Her eyes caught sight of one brooding face that she couldn’t seem to pass by. He also seemed to be waiting, his eyes nervously glancing from her position to the door as if he might bolt at any moment.

“It’s game on Todd.”

They shook their hands defiantly, both wearing dangerous smirks. Maybe she could salvage her pride tonight; not just hers’ but Damian’s as well. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“Ladies first.”

Marinette and Jason stood on opposite sides of the room, both watching each other with an intense look that came from their competitive natures. She scanned the eager faces of his family thoughtfully. She had no idea what any of them were good at, but she wanted to maintain appearance for the psych of it.

“Damian.”

Everybody broke out into smirks as they shared knowing looks. She didn’t bother to pay them any mind as the pink-cheeked boy rose to stand with her.

“Wrong move princess, demon spawn hates game night more than he likes to win. My first choice? Stephanie.”

The girl pumped her fist in the air as she joined Jason on his side. Marinette leaned toward where Damian stood, hiding half her face behind her hand.

“Time to strategize, who is my best bet?”

Damian stared at her with a bewildered expression.

“C’mon beau garçon, I need your help if we’re gonna kick Jason’s ass.”

He nodded slowly as if that were a perfectly reasonable excuse to kick into gear.

“Grayson is the leading contender if you wish to win tonight.”

Marinette nodded as she motioned for Dick to join them as well. Jason raised an eyebrow at her as he called over Tim, challenging her to pick from the remaining two.

“Okay Damian, Barbara or Bruce.”

He didn't bother responding as he pointed at his father, leaving the redhead to Jason’s team.

It was five hours of intense games, Alfred keeping score as an unaffiliated third party,( after all, they had all agreed that he was the fairest way to keep the games moving.) They all sat in anticipation while he tallied the scores. She couldn’t seem to calm her nerves as she stared at Jason’s cocky smirk.

Marinette felt a warmth brush by her kneecap. Instantly her head snapped to where a hand rested before her gaze reached back up to his face, a light red dusting across her cheeks. Immediately his hand retracted.

“I’m sorry if that was inappropriate, your knee was just bouncing anxiously from the corner of my eye and it was a slight bother.”

Marinette muttered out a small sorry before they both broke their gaze, the blush evident on both of their cheeks.

“And with a final score of 5-4, the winning team is… Miss Marinette!”

Her whole team jumped from the couch in excitement. Without thinking, she threw her arms around Damian’s neck. Realization crossed her face as she quickly retracted her hug, her entire face as red as could be. God, she hadn’t been this much of a blushing mess since she was thirteen.

They all chatted idly for a few minutes before Jason finally intercepted, insisting he had to get her back to her apartment before it got too late. The whole family waved her goodbye, minus one red-faced teen who instead handed her a small piece of paper as discreetly as he could, ignoring the taunts from his family behind his back.

As they drove back to her apartment, Marinette couldn’t hold her excitement anymore.

“I don’t know why you were warning me so much, I think I’m in love with your family Jason.”

His familiar smirk sat on his face as he turned into the apartment’s lot.

“I told you they were going to love you, and what do you know? I didn’t even have to give Damian your number, you two worked it out on your own. I truly believe they are planning out your wedding right now.”

Marinette shook her head as she reached over the console to hug Jason tightly before stepping out of the car. She wanted to deny accusations of what happened tonight, but she knew it would just fuel his picking.

Besides, even she couldn’t deny that she was excited for the next family game night and if she saw a certain Wayne there, well, that really wouldn’t be so bad.

Permanent Tag List:

@damianette-is-life @ash-amg @rebecarojas07 @heaven428 @long-lost-peace @thequeenofpotatoeunicornss @moongoddesskiana @nach0ava

[widgenstain]

One quick question to Mr Sogunro: is Lebanon racist too for taking refugees from Syria but not from say, Eritrea? I'm not arguing that we're not racist, we fucking are, but this is the third time I've seen this tweet going round unchallenged today and I'm tired of how dismissive this is of shared history, shared culture, shared fears and yeah, a common enemy. It's almost as if Poland had a very real fear of them being next.

This is also so dismissive of the people who did help back in 2015 and still DO! Starting from private people (lovely older women in my circle), NGOs and leftist parties to actual governments. Do you guys not remember the amount of SHIT Merkel had to eat for saying "Wir schaffen das"? I helped too, I was at the train station where thousands of refugees camped out and yes, I could have done more, but I also remember not being too euphoric about it because I knew that we had problems before and was worried about how our right wing and populist parties would utilise this. AND GUESS WHAT HAPPENED! They did utilise it, oh boy did they ever, and they shot to the top by oh so easily stirring fear in the population and just spewing the most simplified bs (I was going to say something very controversial here) and then, in our case (Austria) we were stuck with one of our worst and most corrupt governments since 1945! Who FUNNILY enough, are the exact same people who sold us even deeper into the dependency on Putin, but I digress.

I'm tired of people pretending that we're standing here on our ivory tower cheering people drowning in the Mediterranean. Yes, there are people on twitter and facebook saying that, but they're the worst, most people, even the ones who voted for the populists are horrified by that. There are different ideas on how to solve it though, there are great approaches and there are less great ones and like it is common in democracies, the fight about which to use is slowing things down. Nevermind that conservative and neoliberal governments, of which there are enough, favour the cheapest solutions, which mostly are not the most humane ones. Yes, the refugee camps are an absolute disgrace, I'm so so deeply sorry for what is going on there, as are the treaties with countries like Turkey and Libya. But it's not like as if they aren't highly contested over here!

Google told me that Mr Sogunro should be very familiar with human rights and refugee laws, so he gotta know what a huge fricking behemoth of bureaucracy Europe and European asylum laws are. They're confusing and often a tragic issue, they're slow, so fucking slow and... complicated. I wanted to say unjust which is partially true but I feel like the laws aren't always the issue, the execution of them is. I've seen people despairing over them, I know people who have been swallowed by them and every time people have demanded an overhaul of the system. This has been a constant demand for YEARS now. And look, suddenly, driven by racism but also the things I've mentioned in my first paragraph and a ton of other reasons that don't fit quaintly into two tweets, the system gets a lot simpler.

I for one try not to be a cynic like the person who stole the caption from reddit (or posted it on reddit first), or an accusing shitbag. I try to be one of the people who perk up, because there apparently IS a way, the system is changing and we now need to see to it that stays that way. This is a precedent of epic proportions, there are people on it to use it, they have been fighting for it the whole time and we can support them! I can't link shit atm and my phone is crapping out, but you all have Google, find the NGOs who have supported overhauls of asylum laws in your country (ours are often affiliated with the Green party, but we at least had religious ones too, Caritas did a lot, fuck if I remember the name of the organisation my friend is translating for), find the people who are fighting the traffickers here and in the countries of origin and support them!

I know these times are scary af and there are more problems than anyone can absorb rn, but instead of spreading simplifying and dividing views on the internet and lamenting how no one does anything, how about you turn to the people who actually DO something and help?

Action is the antidote to despair, I'm out.

This too shall pass (x)

[gefiltefishwhereareweonthis]

Hi! I read your analysis of the political situation in Poland and I wanted to ask you: since Poland has lived under communism, could you maybe paint a picture of pros and cons of that for our Bernie-bros "friends"?! Because I don't think they ever read a description of an actual socialist or communist regime (not the manifesto, but an actual historical, real life representation). Thank you so much in advance and please take your time with the answer, doesn't have to be today, no rush

Pros… well they weren’t many, but cons were! this is gonna be a very long post. 

Pos…

1. Everybody had a job. Everybody. If you were an adult wandering down the streets during the work hours, the police had the right to stop you and ask why you aren’t at work. The fact that there was basically no unemployment, gave people the financial security they needed. The fact that due to the shortage of products people were unable to spend their money in a way they wanted is another story. 

2. Everything was state owned, (that actually also classifies as a con, but I’ll get to that later), so institutions like universities too. That implied that you didn’t have to pay to go to uni and actually that allowed to even out the chances for people from the rural areas to climb the social ladder. The motion that universities should be free of tuition fees prevailed to this day. Some time ago, the government was thinking about introducing tuition fees for the most popular and prestigious faculties, like law or medicine but the idea received so much backslash that the government retracted from introducing them, which is I think fair in a way, since I pay taxes that go to sustain roads and prisons, I don’t mind that some of the amount goes to unis. In fact, I’d pay even more if I knew that more of my tax money were allocated to unis. 

3. Things like universal health care were a given. Everybody had the access to a hospital or a doctor and that notion is very deeply rooted in the society to this day. The outcome is that today in Poland, nobody dies because they can’t afford health care or medicine. Some of the meds are even refunded by the state now. 

Cons. 

1. Everybody had a job. That means, that people were forcefully employed even if their job position was not necessarily lucrative or contributing to the finances of the company. So it resulted in people going to work and doing nothing for 8 hours, standing around the whole day, or drinking on the job. Yes. You didn’t have to have any qualifications to get a job, so when the system changed those unqualified people who were not able to land a job, because suddenly the state owned companies where they worked collapsed and they didn’t even have any real skills needed in a new economic system.

2. Everything was state owned. So, everything was either over-funded and they were wasting money or underfunded and they were not developing the branches that should be developed in order for the country to thrive. This brings us to the third point of the…

3. …centrally planned economy. And that implied a few things: First, the lack of the financial discipline within the companies - that negligence actually left us with huge debts. At some point, to give the economy a kick, we had to borrow money from the Western countries, which we didn’t pay off until 2012 (SIC!). What is more, people running the companies were thinking along the lines of “the state will give me money anyway, so why should I care about optimizing the production to save some, right?”. Then, a centrally planned economy makes the economic system not flexible and adaptable to the changing factors, but still we mostly exported to USSR, which was also a centrally planned economy back then, so those guys could work things out between themselves if the production levels needed to be adjusted. Another effect of this, was the fading away of entrepreneurship as people were actually unable to set up their own companies with their own capital, that’s why when we transitioned in 1989, some “businessmen” even when they set up their own companies, actually did a very poor job of managing their companies, because they were not used to functioning in an open market economy with the state that actually requires you to pay taxes. 

4. The lack of a sense of responsibility for a country as a shared good or value in its own right. It was always someone else’s responsibility, so I could vandalize the bus stop, because it didn’t belong to me. It was state owned. I didn’t  have to care about not throwing litter to the ground because why should I care about a space that I share with other citizens? For example, facilities like sewage plant didn’t even existed, the whole country was just dumping their waste into the rivers, because who would think about the environment??  This country was not ours anyway, so… That approach actually transposed to this day, and while there are more and more people who feel that shared responsibility, and we definitely have more sewage plants now, there are still many ,many people who think that they don’t have to care, because for many many years it was like that, and that left them with the sense of powerlessness that does not necessarily motivate them to do something for the community they live in and change their lives for the better. or idk, manifest their need for change by going to the polls for example? 

5. When we were under the communist rule, we were under the wings of USSR and while we did not succumb fully to them, still their presence in Poland was palpable. For example, most of the produced goods were exported to Russia so at some point the shops looked like that: 

and people were living off the food stamps, like these: 

These are the food stamps for meat. In the middle, you have the space to fill in your name and address, but that didn’t really mean that you’d get the meat if you went to the shop. Because it simply wasn’t delivered to the shop or if it was you had to queue for long hours with no guarantee that  they had enough and when you finally make it to the counter, you’d get your portion: 

This is actually a pic of a queue to the shop with alcoholic beverages, but it’s just to get you an idea of how long the queues were. Fun fact: people queued for days, for example my mum was taking shifts with her mum and her sister while my grandpa was at work. Sometimes people queued because the rumor had it that they would deliver “something” to the shop. Oftentimes, people didn’t know what that “something” was, but there was such a huge shortage of goods that they queued anyway because they could later sell it or exchange it for something else. 

Another mechanism of the same vain functioned:

Now, people working in the companies that were producing goods at some point started to create the second “black market” meaning that they would “bring” some of the goods produced in their companies home, to either exchange it for something else or sell it on the black market. A lot of luxury goods like meat for example or a tv set, were sold under the counter illegally. If you had an aunt who had her own farm in the countryside, you were able to make a lot of money on selling meat and eggs alone, as such basic products were on shortage. Same when you owned a shop. For example if you owned a shop, and let’s say 4 tv sets were delivered from the production line, you put 2 on the counter and 2 under the counter to sell it on the black market, for example to your aunt or a friend of a friend who “ordered” it from you.  These were very strange times, there was apparently a huge shortage of all the goods, and yet people had all the stuff they needed at home. Pretty neat, yeah? Well, apart from the toilet paper, but that was sometimes just not being produced. AT ALL. 

Everybody was doing it and everybody knew that everyone else were doing it. Tell me, how a system that allows stealing the state owned goods is good for a society as a whole and useful in building the sense of respect towards the state institutions? People back then were thinking “well, the government is screwing us over, so why should we feel bad about us screwing the government over, too?”. It is visible to this day, when you still hear people of the oldest generation whining about paying taxes and generally contributing to the society as a whole. They think that the government is crap, and nothing’s gonna change anyway, so why should they care, why should they go vote… They still have their heads in the 80ties. 

6. Lack of personal freedom, freedom of speech and well, being basically fed with propaganda from all places. We had Russian spies of KGB working in Poland, some people, in exchange of some goods or connections, colluded with the communist government and were spying on their neighbors and ratting on them to the government, if they thought that there was a chance that somebody could be a oppositionist.  That really helps to build social trusts, doesn’t it? You could be thrown in jail and beaten to death for thinking differently. Well, Orwell really did a great job at explaining the communist mechanisms in his book ‘1984′. Sure, he paints an exaggerated picture, but the whole notion of The Party being always right and being very vehement about people who dared to say no, while oppressing people in the name of a mission to fulfill, which was constantly fulled by propaganda, and painting the reality in bright colors though the reality was so much different, is right on point. To this day, people are really distrusting towards each other, especially people who grew up in the communist times. Sayings like “You can count? Count on yourself” are still prevalent in the public discourse. What is more, you could not leave a country without the government knowing about it. Your passport was closed in a drawer in the governmental office, so if you wanted to go abroad you’d have to ask to have it, and still you could only travel within the borders of the Eastern Block.Things like vacations in Paris? It was very hard to get a permission to leave just like that, so many people just stayed in their own country - that created the xenophobia - in order to discourage people from fleeing or going away (because they didn’t really want to see people realize how screwed they are), they fed people with propaganda saying that the other countries are bad and that communism is superior, but people knew how bad they have it and that everywhere else, especially in the western countries, people’s lives are better, so the government, in order to retain people  did everything possible to make people stay, ergo they made it extra hard for people to move around. At some point, they allowed people to go to Bulgaria on vacations and this was for many, the only chance to go abroad. (Bulgaria was a communist country, too back then). 

7. They were elections held, but the candidates were elected by the Party so, it didn’t matter on who you voted, things would not change anyway. Some people think it’s the same under democracy, so that’s why the turnout for the elections in Poland is so low. 

Pretty crazy, isn’t it? And it is just my common knowledge I acquired by talking to my parents and grandparents, and I’m pretty sure, it’s actually the tip of an iceberg and, have I investigated the matter further, I’d be able to give you even more crazy, inconceivable now for a citizen of a democratic country, details. Actually, I’ve recently bought a book entitled “Women, Communism and Industrialization in the post-war Poland” and once I’ve read it, I’ll probably add more to this post.