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The Union Tribune Newsletter - September 2022 Edition

The Union Tribune Newsletter
The Official News Source of the Social Liberal Union


Jumpup, Novalita, Arnarak, Bla, Republic azores, Tasbeustan, North kansass, An-astral, Licena, Sosialist peoples republic of yetria, Poliya, Stanestan, Guariland, Obomnimal, Vaticancityland, Cheria boveriontastan, Mancha, Nespel, Iphoron cupsombe, Persee, Yoonlsland, Mancoo, Central south texas, Theepubbor, Baffin island epire, Adoriata, Rio-platense, Icelander Peoples, The western reserve, Lemduri, Serisiae, Malayustan, Inabline, Tatranian, Zareim, The free commonwealth of geonvia, New ariesian, Atlaspera, Grandton, Connorlan, Srealand, Of blossom, and Anelyn in slu.

Enjoy your time in the SLU, and be sure to read our getting started guide!

General News

Regional News

Other News

  • Interested in writing for the Union Tribune? Contact Erynia and Draconia (qibli77#6967 on discord) if interested. We are looking for more writers and editors to bring something new to the newsletter.

  • Join our Linkdiscord server, where most of our community's activity is, read our region's "getting started guide" if you are new, and join our Linkoffsite forum.

An Introduction to SLU Roleplay


Miyana is where all our roleplay takes place. A vast planet with six times the land surface area and a different composition to our Earth (meaning the gravity at the surface of both worlds are equal), Miyana has a year of approximately 400 days around the star in the Vaeva System. Two moons orbit our home, one a gray rock pockmarked with craters and seas, the other – further out – appears as a small, sandy-coloured dot in the sky. Maps and an international calendar have been created by our community to fit this planet into terms we can use in our roleplay.

Ocean and air currents, topography and vast expanses of water all go to affect the climate of our planet, with multiple areas available for each kind of climate that a member nation state desires for their country. In our world, there has been sufficient action to halt man-made climate change, so global temperature rises have been limited.

The current setting is a real-time, modern one, with the same range of technologies that you see in our world. Near future technologies have started to make their way into the setting as well, for example, nanobots and certain biological vessels are present. There is huge potential in creating different technology, flora and fauna, and materials to fit the character of your nation, some of which can be entirely different to ours here on Earth. Provided the realism of the setting is not broken; the setting made unbalanced; or one nation made too powerful to be fun for others, we will try to find a way to incorporate any ideas you have. Keep in mind that not only do you share this world with other players, but also NPC nations, too. These can be used by the region in a huge variety of ways, and exist to enrich the setting and provide a focus for most of our scenarios.

It can be daunting to enter a world so detailed and pre-formed, but there is huge flexibility in our approach. When world-building your nation, every scenario and interaction with your fellows is a chance to learn about and invent characteristics for your state. Having a vision the kind of thing you might want your nation to be, or be like, is always best when starting out, even if it’s the most vague of ideas, or limited purely to what you inputted into Nation States to create your nation. Regarding building your own nation, the rules for the preservation of the setting are more flexible, but always try to work with it. The main rule of all our roleplay is consent. Sharing your ideas with the region is a great way of not only having other people know more about you nation, but also in receiving other ideas and suggestions.

The most recent events in our roleplay – driven by Council of Leaders’ scenarios – have left certain parts of Miyana scarred and weary. Some nations are on the verge of collapse. Think: how will your nation interact with and thrive in such a world?

Op-ed: A Note on "Gender Idealism"

by An-astral

There is an unfortunate trend of Marxist parties, organizations, and intellectuals who, neglecting the tremendous duties of any Marxist in our current age to unite with all progressive-minded struggles against oppression, decided to make a struggle against what they deem “gender idealism.” Oftentimes these groups and individuals have been, rightly, decried as transphobic, yet little effort has been made to meet them on their own ground—on that of Marxist philosophy. For the term that they cry so loudly, “gender idealism,” begs the existence of a “gender materialism.” But what would this materialism entail? Certainly not what these individuals think.

First, we must devote some time to understanding what these critics think is meant by “gender” and by “idealism.” A typical example is found in the journal Towards Marxist-Leninist Unity, run by the anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninist George Gruenthal (who I was quite dismayed to learn was caught up in such nonsense; I have spoken to him through email as well as ordered books from him in the past). Volume 3, no. 3 of this journal carries the short article “Further Idealism on the Question of Gender,” issuing a short criticism of the article “Free Abortion on Demand for All Genders” which appeared in Workers World. The critic from TMLU says this: “Although the right to an abortion concerns everyone, men and women, it is ridiculous to demand it for ‘people of all genders.’ Such a demand is an insult to biological women…it should be clear to all that the right to an abortion only applies to biological women. Men cannot get pregnant!”

It is clear where the confusion of these “Marxists” lies: biological sex is equated with gender, and therefore anything demanding equality based upon individuals outside of the gender binary is an attack upon the material existence of biological sex. This is nothing less than what Lenin termed “vulgar materialism,” indeed meeting all three of his qualifications: 1) “predominantly mechanical,” focusing solely upon biology; 2) “non-historical and non-dialectical;” 3) regarding humans in the “abstract” separate from their social relations. [1] As I am sure those who hold this viewpoints would immediately raise their hands in protest, I will explain.

The first point, being “predominantly mechanical,” should be blatantly obvious. The concept of gender is not being considered from its origins as a form of social relation, but instead is equated completely to biological sex. Of course, there is overlap between the two in terms of how these social relations developed and play out, but they cannot be conflated. The second is the same—the understanding of gender as a social relation has proven the fluidity of gender itself, its essentially dialectical nature. Transgender individuals can identify with a gender, a social understanding of themselves, without it affecting whatever their biological sex may be. The third point is covered by the previous two—these supposed “gender materialists” regard gender as a biological entity separate from its social development in the process of human relations. As far back as Mesopotamian society, there have been individuals recognized as outside of the gender binary. Yet these “gender materialists,” in an almost Hegelian idealist obsession with their understanding of Western-Christian civilization, cannot see nor accept this.

What then, if these “gender materialists” are not truly materialists, would a genuine “gender materialism” entail? It would, first, of course, be dialectical in the sense that it recognize social development and the inherent difference between biological sex and social gender, the development and understanding of gender altering greatly as society develops. Neither can we reject, as these transphobes do, these developments as “bourgeois degeneracy,” for several reasons. As noted before, the existence of genders outside the binary has a history back to the very foundation of mankind’s history itself, and has continued throughout history within certain cultures and civilizations—it is hardly a “bourgeois” phenomenon. Second, as Marx and Engels noted in the most classic document of Marxist history, “the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things.” [2] The movement for gender equality for transgender individuals is just as bound up with the movement against the social order of things as any other movement for equality. It is the duty of any and all Marxists not only to support them, but to call out and criticize those who would side with the bourgeois social order in demanding they keep silent or be erased.

[1] V. I. Lenin, “Karl Marx: A Brief Biographical Sketch with an Exposition of Marxism,” in Lenin Collected Works, Vol. 21 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1974), 52-53.
[2] Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto, in Marx/Engels Selected Works, Vol. 1 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1969), 137.



Thank you for reading the Union Tribune's March & April Newsletter edition! If you liked it, give it an upvote. This edition contains an informative article by Harndon and an opinion article by An-astral. We are always looking for new writers and editors, so if you would like to join the Union Tribune team, please DM qibli77#6967 on discord or telegram Erynia and Draconia.

The Union Tribune Newsletter is a subsidiary of Union mass media, which is managed by the LinkMinistry of Domestic Affairs. Please contact Minister of Domestic Affairs Masdobo or delegate Erynia and Draconia with any questions, comments, or suggestions for improvement.

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