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#Inktober day 10: On this day in 1928, Chiang Kai-shek became Chairman of the Nationalist Government of China.

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Minimalist, subway-style map of Vvardenfell. 

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'Dazed and Confused' on 4th of July. [x]

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Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happy meals. -marantos

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That time Napoleon said “Oh hey everyone! Look over there! The pyramids!”

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#endthetrend [x]

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Tony Benn. 1925 - 2014. “He encouraged us”.

This is probably the wrong place to put this, but I was wondering if you could post this today. The most principled man in British Politics died today, at the age of 88. He was a socialist who, over time, moved more and more towards the left.

He fought tirelessly against war, poverty, and for better conditions for working people. He spoke passionately and articulately on behalf of workers in struggle. He marched on the streets with the people against Poll Tax and in support of the Miners Strikes, which very few MPs, even Labour MPs, refused to do. He fought for the NHS, "If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people". Check out what he said on Michael Moore’s “Sicko” for more on that. He was far more eloquent than I could dream to be.

He spent 50 years in Parliament, elected again and again. Apart from a few years when he had to sit in the House of Peers when he inherited the title of Viscount Stansgate. Even then he fought, he fought for the right to renounce his hereditary peerage, and instead return to the ‘Commons (his constiuency had voted for him even though he wasn’t allowed to sit). He achieved this in 1963, saying "The House of Lords is the British Outer Mongolia for retired politicians".

He opposed war after war, pointing out the double standards and hypocrisy of nations like the US and the UK. When talking about the Gulf War in the ’90s, he asked why do we support Saudi Arabia and then denounce Iraq for being undemocratic? It’s because "The Americans want to protect their oil supplies". It’s weird watching videos of him speaking on foreign policy in the early ’90s, because he could be talking today - nothing has changed. "Are we to live in a world where the sum of morality is a product of Parliamentary majority?" Well, evidently so. Just in the 21st century, he opposed the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, describing them as imperialistic, and even travelled to Baghdad to interview Saddam Hussein (which is on Youtube). He became the president of the Stop the War Coalition, and compared the insurgents to his own role in ‘Dad’s Army’ in WW2, saying "If you are invaded you have a right to self defence, and this idea that people in Iraq and Afghanistan who are resisting the invasion are militant Muslim extremists is a complete bloody lie. I joined Dad’s Army when I was sixteen, and if the Germans had arrived, I tell you, I could use a bayonet, a rifle, a revolver, and if I’d seen a German officer having a meal I’d have tossed a grenade through the window. Would I have been a freedom fighter or a terrorist?". When the BBC refused to air the contact details for charities to aid Palestine when it kicked off between Israel and Palestine, he did it himself.

A great man died today. He should be remembered, because “he encouraged us”.

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Not cool. [via]

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Well that’s just fucking horrifying.

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I think my local Target is trying to tell me something. [x]

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By George Galloway

Crow was a virtually daily reminder in the media that the working class is not dead; that all around us are things made by workers, and services provided by them. And that those workers don’t have to settle for zero-hours servitude. That they can organise, strengthen themselves, stand up to exploitative employers. That community is not a vanished phenomenon to be glimpsed behind a glass case in a museum of working-class life, but can come alive again and be made real.

He proved that workers can win if they are organised, determined and well led. That without workers, society cannot operate, and that a train driver can keep his job, be safe in the workplace and take home wages once only earned by people with white collars. For anyone serious about beating insecurity, inequality and the race to the bottom, those are lessons that need to be learned across the workforce.

Crow proved that workers in militant unions don’t have to be sectional and that they must know that the world is international and interdependent. He supported the nurses, followed events in Latin America closely and maintained a political fund freed from official Labour party constraints which could be used creatively in the wider interests of his membership. 

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Comrade Bob Crow (1961-2014), leader of the RMT union in Britain. Rest in power.

Does he still think of himself as a communist? ‘Oh yeah. Absolutely, yeah. Communist stroke socialist, yeah.’

How would he define that? ‘I’d say it was based on a society of people’s needs. For example, I still can’t understand how in a world that produces enough food to feed the world twice over every day, a third of the world is going to bed hungry every night. How can capitalism be working? I can’t accept that 50% of the world are working for $2 a day and I can’t accept that 10% of workers are working for a dollar a day.’

Would it scare his members to know their leader was a communist. ‘Nah,’ he says with utter certainty. ‘If I were a worker and my trade union leader was a communist and he was getting me good pay rises, bring on more communists.’

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Mariupol, Ukraine: Anti-fascist demonstration in support of the Crimea referendum, against the junta in Kiev and for an end to interference by the U.S. and EU, March 8, 2014.

Via Antiimperialistische Aktion

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The real terrorist

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This laffy taffy is getting deep.

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Imperialism world domination tour 2011-2014

Via Antiimperialistische Aktion