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Cedoria wrote:Clearly the furore over this is a lesson in allowing issues to stagnate too long. Our Embassy Policy is old, out-of-date and has been inconsistent in its enforcement in the past. This has caused many of the issues we're seeing today, and it's a reminder to ourselves and future governments not to neglect these issues for too long. This is an area that has been neglected, not intentionally, but causing issues nonetheless. It will take time to set things back on an even footing, but we intend to do so in this GA.

No, the furore over this is a lesson in having halfway-decent diplomatic skills when dealing with allies who you share a common bond with ideologically and, if legalism is so important to you, through treaty ties.

Caelapes wrote:Not yet.

Boy, if this isn't the most tone-deaf statement I've ever seen on this website.

Is smashing embassies without notice because of legalistic technicalities showing respect to comrades in NK or FAC? Because I don't know if you've read the NK RMB, but I wouldn't exactly characterize their feeling over this slap in the face as "understanding your position."

I don't believe NK or FAC need you to speak for them, thanks. It's arrogant and presumptuous.

I hope our comrades WILL understand this decision has no reflection on them as a region, and that will fully intend to offer a full re-establishment of Embassies ASAP. We hope that offer will be accepted, blowing this situation up serves nobody, and attacking us over it when you are not relevant to the issue at hand isn't helping us do it any faster. So kindly stop doing it.

Caelapes wrote:No, the furore over this is a lesson in having halfway-decent diplomatic skills when dealing with allies who you share a common bond with ideologically and, if legalism is so important to you, through treaty ties.

Alright. You're trying my patience so I won't respond any further here in case I lose my temper. Kindly avoid continuing to argue this on RMB, thanks. The situation is being resolved as we speak and I'd like to focus on ensuring that happens.

This is a pretty ridiculous response to what is ultimately just a mark of relations being removed due to bureaucracy that the government is looking to change. Kinda cements my point that many members of the other nsleft regions don't respect us like I said earlier.

Cedoria and Llorens

Cedoria wrote:Yes, that is what I would consider. Our regions are allies, partners, equals, but they are not the same community. There also seems to be a somewhat disturbing presumption on your part that we can or should be dictated to in matters that are purely our own. Let me reiterate, I hope to re-establish Embassies in the near future, but it is a decision for this region alone.

I apologize if my wording made you think that I believe that my region has the right to overlord you, I was only trying to bring attention to the fact that we are one community, and even if we do have different regions we shouldn't talk about comrades like their some "other" whose voice doesn't matter

I would also agree with Caelapes makes a good point on how it doesn't exactly show solidarity when you shut down embassies based on a legalistic technicality without notice, we are comrades and as you said, respect is a two-way street, I hope the shutting down of the embassies doesn't affect our relationship

Che triumphant wrote:I apologize if my wording made you think that I believe that my region has the right to overlord you, I was only trying to bring attention to the fact that we are one community, and even if we do have different regions we shouldn't talk about comrades like their some "other" whose voice doesn't matter

I would also agree with Caelapes makes a good point on how it doesn't exactly show solidarity when you shut down embassies based on a legalistic technicality without notice, we are comrades and as you said, respect is a two-way street, I hope the shutting down of the embassies doesn't affect our relationship

With the speed at which the GA is working, I am happy to inform you that this situation will almost certainly be resolved before the Embassies close. We are close to a resolution:)

Llorens, Che triumphant, Hecknamistan, and Morvan

And right on cue...

The General Assembly has made the judgement to change the Embassy Policy of TLA to apply to regions only with ten ACTIVE members, rather than ten WA members. This is to ensure flexibility in meeting our obligations while maintaining the standards of the Embassy Policy. This means the closure of the embassies of NK, FAC and SSP can be cancelled forthwith.

Llorens, South Miruva, Hecknamistan, and Morvan

Atealia wrote:This is a pretty ridiculous response to what is ultimately just a mark of relations being removed due to bureaucracy that the government is looking to change. Kinda cements my point that many members of the other nsleft regions don't respect us like I said earlier.

Like I said earlier, respect is a two-way street, and maybe I'm just as guilty of being too upset over legalistic technicalities as some others by caring so much about an embassy, a legal representation of "we are in this together", but that being said, respect from North Korea and I wish all the best for your region, solidarity comrades

THE DEFENDER ALLIANCE, Caelapes, and Hecknamistan

Che triumphant wrote:Like I said earlier, respect is a two-way street, and maybe I'm just as guilty of being too upset over legalistic technicalities as some others by caring so much about an embassy, a legal representation of "we are in this together", but that being said, respect from North Korea and I wish all the best for your region, solidarity comrades

I am pleased we were able to resolve the situation without needing to complete the closure of Embassies comrade. I'm glad this situation did not degenerate further and hope that this marks a new era of cooperation between us now the situation is over.

The changes agreed in the Embassy Policy are now available for viewing.

Halfblakistan, Llorens, Che triumphant, South Miruva, and 2 othersHecknamistan, and Morvan

Atealia

Che triumphant wrote:Like I said earlier, respect is a two-way street, and maybe I'm just as guilty of being too upset over legalistic technicalities as some others by caring so much about an embassy, a legal representation of "we are in this together", but that being said, respect from North Korea and I wish all the best for your region, solidarity comrades

You're taking this far too seriously. Embassies are not that meaningful. TLA has too much bureaucracy as I said before but NK was the first to begin insilting us on their rmb and questioning our region's integrity over something so meaningless.

Greetings Comrades

Llorens and South Miruva

Zerelin wrote:Greetings Comrades

Greetings, Comrade, and welcome to TLA. If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

Zerelin wrote:Greetings Comrades

We are very glad to have you comrade! Welcome to The Leftist Assembly. We are an open and friendly community that enjoys new faces getting involved, so please don't hesitate to do so:)

Atealia wrote:You're taking this far too seriously. Embassies are not that meaningful. TLA has too much bureaucracy as I said before but NK was the first to begin insilting us on their rmb and questioning our region's integrity over something so meaningless.

It's also kind of just a nuisance, with an embassy I can talk with you like this without moving, if you removed our embassy I would either have to move back and forth or make a whole new nation

In other news, Atealia leaving us has meant the need for an update to the Founder account, so it is by law to be controlled by three currently active nations in the region. When we became aware of Atealia's impending departure, myself and British accia cast around for a suitable candidate to fulfil the role of third controller of the Founder.

Many nations were considered, and the position of joint controller of the Founder is one of utmost trust and accountability. Myself, Accia and Atealia eventually came to a consensus, and I am please to announce that comrade Llorens will now possess joint Founder control with myself and Accia.

This won't affect the daily life of the region really at all, but given it's immense importance, I felt it was something you should all be aware of.

Caelapes, Atealia, The final horseman, Nottinhaps, and 5 othersLlorens, South Miruva, Hecknamistan, Kavagrad, and Morvan

I feel this averted crisis deserves some drinks yarr

I hope the lot of ye have a wonderful night.

If you're of legal drinking age in your country, remember to drink responsibly, and try not to accidentally drunk text that one special person.

Cedoria and The final horseman

Hecknamistan wrote:I feel this averted crisis deserves some drinks yarr

I hope the lot of ye have a wonderful night.

If you're of legal drinking age in your country, remember to drink responsibly, and try not to accidentally drunk text that one special person.

I feel like there's a story behind that last warning...

South Miruva and Hecknamistan

Che triumphant wrote:It's also kind of just a nuisance, with an embassy I can talk with you like this without moving, if you removed our embassy I would either have to move back and forth or make a whole new nation

I agree there too much bureaucracy. Didn't justify people in NK questioning our integrity over it and insulting us.

If you will allow me a moment of your time.

I will avoid weighing in on the question of whether it was right or wrong for The Leftist Assembly to cut ties with two NSLeft allies, as I feel tensions are high and people are getting frustrated.

I think that this mini 'diplomatic crisis' has exposed a certain disparity in how each of our regions understand the relationship between us, and I think that if we are to continue a meaningful relationship as the NSLeft, or alternatively, if we are to part ways graciously, we ought to have a serious conversation to bring about a more solid understanding.

Communication is key to avoiding unnecessary conflict. This was clearly demonstrated today with the absence of communication regarding the cutting of ties.

Here are some key points I can identify from the exchange above:

*Is the embassy important? What role does it play?
*To what extent are our ties based on shared values, or on practical benefit?
*What role do demographic criteria play in including or excluding allies?
*How do we balance self-determination with expected shared standards and principled solidarity?
*Is the NSLeft simply a diplomatic formality and mutual-defence pact, or is it an affirmation of the principle of solidarity, and thereby the creation of a community?
*Do the member regions of the NSLeft have enough in common to make the alliance substantial?

These questions are not directed accusingly towards The Leftist Assembly, but openly to the NSLeft. For example, myself and many anarchists in the FAC are somewhat conflicted over how close we want to become with statists. For another example, the Democratic Socialist Assembly has much more extreme criteria regarding embassies than those in this region that sparked this issue. And clearly there is discomfort in this region with interventions from NSLeft allies in this region's discord, for example. There seems to be a major misunderstanding between some comrades who see the NSLeft as one community (kind of like working-class internationalism) and others who see our regions as sovereign entities with purely political ties and nothing more.

Speaking for myself, I don't know how comfortable I am with maintaining embassies with The Leftist Assembly, or maintaining our region's commitment to the NSLeft, unless we can resolve some of these questions.

Thank you.

Halfblakistan, Llorens, South Miruva, and Communistico

I am very pleased to announce my nominations for the position of Justices of The Leftist Assembly.

Rathfarnham South Miruva and Communistico are the nominees put forth by the GA and regional leadership for this term. All three comrades have shown either a long history of experience and judgement, or great enthusiasm and willingness to get involved in the life of the region and this community. A Google Form allowing for a Confidence vote on each Justice will be coming forthwith to enable the region to confirm the nominations of these three excellent candidates. Personally, I will of course strongly recommend a vote 'For' all three of them:)

Long Live TLA!

Llorens, Rathfarnham, and Communistico

Atealia wrote:I agree there too much bureaucracy. Didn't justify people in NK questioning our integrity over it and insulting us.

We were doing neither of those things, we were attacking an action that even you seem to agree was a mistake, something that separates the left, or at least something that should separate the left, is the ability to look at things critically, including themselves and to be open to criticism. If you North Korea doing something that would be harmful to the NSLeft or harmful in some other way I would be much more offended if you didn't call us out then if you did

Kassimo wrote:If you will allow me a moment of your time.

I will avoid weighing in on the question of whether it was right or wrong for The Leftist Assembly to cut ties with two NSLeft allies, as I feel tensions are high and people are getting frustrated.

I think that this mini 'diplomatic crisis' has exposed a certain disparity in how each of our regions understand the relationship between us, and I think that if we are to continue a meaningful relationship as the NSLeft, or alternatively, if we are to part ways graciously, we ought to have a serious conversation to bring about a more solid understanding.

Communication is key to avoiding unnecessary conflict. This was clearly demonstrated today with the absence of communication regarding the cutting of ties.

Here are some key points I can identify from the exchange above:

*Is the embassy important? What role does it play?
*To what extent are our ties based on shared values, or on practical benefit?
*What role do demographic criteria play in including or excluding allies?
*How do we balance self-determination with expected shared standards and principled solidarity?
*Is the NSLeft simply a diplomatic formality and mutual-defence pact, or is it an affirmation of the principle of solidarity, and thereby the creation of a community?
*Do the member regions of the NSLeft have enough in common to make the alliance substantial?

These questions are not directed accusingly towards The Leftist Assembly, but openly to the NSLeft. For example, myself and many anarchists in the FAC are somewhat conflicted over how close we want to become with statists. For another example, the Democratic Socialist Assembly has much more extreme criteria regarding embassies than those in this region that sparked this issue. And clearly there is discomfort in this region with interventions from NSLeft allies in this region's discord, for example. There seems to be a major misunderstanding between some comrades who see the NSLeft as one community (kind of like working-class internationalism) and others who see our regions as sovereign entities with purely political ties and nothing more.

Speaking for myself, I don't know how comfortable I am with maintaining embassies with The Leftist Assembly, or maintaining our region's commitment to the NSLeft, unless we can resolve some of these questions.

Thank you.

Look, to be honest, the issue our GA was having per the discussions last night is not so much with NSLeft, but the way it is presently structured and put together. This is not a comment that relates to your region specifically, so don't take it as such, but in general we feel NSLeft to not be a very egalitarian vehicle, and often other region's members come into things like Discord to issue demands or make aggressive statements on things that, frankly, this community best feels is handled internally. We ourselves understand why this is done, and we certainly don't object to interregional integration to an extent, but the way in which these interventions are done is frequently brusque, to the point of being quite rude. Again, this is not a statement direct to FAC in particular, but it's a general problem we have in NSLeft. Even when I agree with the sentiments expressed, which I do in some cases, the way in which they are often presented is unnecessarily hostile behavior for those who claim to be comrades.

Secondly, at present the GA has been having discussions about whether NSLeft really offers that much, aside from the aforementioned Discord exchanges (some of which are highly unpleasant interactions with certain people who seem to think that aggression towards this community and its members is a sign of 'diplomacy' or 'respect. The people who do this know who they are), we don't feel we gain much from it. We'd like to suggest a method of reorganising NSLeft to allow for more say from individual regions on these matters, and perhaps some methods of increasing activities between the regions. Things like a sports roleplay, run jointly by one member from each participating region, is something that I believe was suggested. We feel these sorts of activities are not done and they could be, which reduces NSLeft's effectiveness at building interregional ties.

These are some things to consider which I hope NSLeft's leadership will take into account. We certainly feel improvements can be made but we've also felt the leadership of NSLeft has not been inclined to listen to us in the past, more interested in pushing it's own wheelbarrow to some extent. Hence some of the problems.

For my part, I personally think Federation of Anarchist Communes is a region that really isn't relevant to any of the above problems, at least I've never experienced them, but if you want a general discussion re: our present feelings on NSLeft, this is some of the things the GA has been discussing.

Halfblakistan and Llorens

Cedoria wrote:We'd like to suggest a method of reorganising NSLeft to allow for more say from individual regions on these matters, and perhaps some methods of increasing activities between the regions. Things like a sports roleplay, run jointly by one member from each participating region, is something that I believe was suggested. We feel these sorts of activities are not done and they could be, which reduces NSLeft's effectiveness at building interregional ties.

Autonomous Masses and Zenganopoli have organized two rounds of NSLeft Olympics:

https://theredand.black/forums/topic/688-nsleft-olympic-games/
https://theredand.black/forums/topic/766-roleplay-thread-of-the-2nd-edition-of-the-olympic-games-of-nsleft/

The NSLeft solidarity pact is structured so that anyone can propose and hold events for the entire NSLeft. We have a shared Discord server and entire website to bring comrades together for those kinds of events, and for comrades from different regions to discuss and jointly plan and execute these events. If comrades from here in the TLA want to take point on organizing more events like that, then I'm sure that would be welcomed.

Che triumphant wrote:We were doing neither of those things, we were attacking an action that even you seem to agree was a mistake, something that separates the left, or at least something that should separate the left, is the ability to look at things critically, including themselves and to be open to criticism. If you North Korea doing something that would be harmful to the NSLeft or harmful in some other way I would be much more offended if you didn't call us out then if you did

Look, I appreciate you are frustrated by that, but the issue has now been resolved and I think it's time to move beyond it. There WERE people who were saying things on your RMB about us, but frankly it's not worth fighting over now and as far as I'm concerned the issue with the Embassies is resolved at present. Any discussions over NSLeft needs to take place over a longer time, given the myriad issues involved.

We do, obviously, hope that your region and ours maintain friendly ties, but someof the things that are occasionally said to us by those who claim to be comrades in NSLeft more broadly leave some people here wondering how much of the rhetoric about solidarity and comradeship is true and how much is a smokescreen. Surely you can understand that, as we understand your own frustration? (although I acquit you yourself of behaving in an aggressive manner towards us, especially on our own RMB).

Really though, the matter with the Embassies is done for now and if any region wants to pursue further discussion, probably best to keep it at a government to government level, either myself or Prime Minister Kavagrad or Foreign Minister Halfblakistan.

Atealia

Caelapes wrote:Autonomous Masses and Zenganopoli have organized two rounds of NSLeft Olympics:

https://theredand.black/forums/topic/688-nsleft-olympic-games/
https://theredand.black/forums/topic/766-roleplay-thread-of-the-2nd-edition-of-the-olympic-games-of-nsleft/

The NSLeft solidarity pact is structured so that anyone can propose and hold events for the entire NSLeft. We have a shared Discord server and entire website to bring comrades together for those kinds of events, and for comrades from different regions to discuss and jointly plan and execute these events. If comrades from here in the TLA want to take point on organizing more events like that, then I'm sure that would be welcomed.

I certainly hope so, and I encourage all members who are interested to begin making more use of the resources Caelapes has linked on the subject.

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