If you aren't vegan:

Make kheer (Pakistani/Indian rice pudding): https://foodnetwork.co.uk/recipes/indian-rice-pudding/?utm_source=foodnetwork.com&utm_medium=domestic

if you don't make your own ice cream, you can melt some simple vanilla ice cream, add a little rose water and refreeze.

good with just sparkling water as a refreshing afternoon drink

add a little to a cup of black tea for a different kind of flavor

Not that I'm aware of - most of them chose high paying academic positions in the US and have been pacified. There were a few budding ones in India, but they were murdered early on for taking activist roles. Perhaps in Latin America there are some who have translated it into a more critical perspective, but I'm unaware.

In general there has been a rise of critical decolonization theory which takes on a more anti-civ perspective, but it seems mostly piecemeal...

Reminds me of the Bus Boys song - There goes the neighborhood

"The whites are moving in; they'll bring their next of kin; there goes the neighborhood"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLtbLw3viO0

Sartre - takes you in circles

Bourdieu - ultimately just bourgeois leftism

Habermas - same - bourgeois leftism

I don't regret engaging the subaltern school, but it got stuck in the colonial critique and never really matured

Of course, this is only true in some countries. In most of Europe to get a shopping cart you have to insert a Euro which you get back once you return it and reconnect the chain that is connected to the cart in front of it...

Very disturbing and glad you were able to escape his abuse. A couple of thoughts: if you try to expose him anonymously, I am going to guess he is going to be able to know who the source is. Are you sufficiently protected against him if he does find out? If not, you have to think very carefully what/how to proceed.

Are you part of any support groups? sharing with others can be very cathartic and through their support and suggestions you may find ways of protecting others from his abuse.

Sorry I don't have more concrete suggestions.

Power to you!

academia...

I do not know the IT field at all, but if you can go to school for free, I'd opt for the B.S. degree - more possibilities down the road to diversify your career path.

I've been working remotely the past year and a half - it has made a world of difference in my general well being. While there are some sacrifices (like sociality) they are made up in other areas. I have much more time and energy to focus on home projects, my own interests and hobbies, and am even more productive with my work.

Avocado is another go to - slice it in half, take out the pit and fill the center with soy sauce or lemon, salt, and pepper

dates or other dried fruits and nuts

falafels and hummus - in pita with cut veggies

dolma - stuffed grape leaves (I buy them from a Middle Eastern store)

toasted Greek pita with a little olive oil rubbed on the top, zaatar spice, and pomegranate molasses (you can make any kind of quick pizza-like thing using flat bread/pita with your favorite toppings)

green smoothie (with ginger and mint)

brutal imperialist nation-states are brutal imperialist nation-states no matter what color their flag or what manufactured tropes they use to justify their oppression. Recognizing an industry of hate behind the imagining of others is very real; particularly given how easy it is to reproduce tired Orientalist tropes, many that have long histories. But that recognition doesn't erase the brutality and imperialist nature of China. To be apologetic to any nation-state just because of western Orientalist imaginings of them is a complete and total intellectual morass...

Anti-Semitism is very real, but that doesn't mean we give Israel a pass on its treatment of Palestinians and non-white Jews. Islamophobia is very real, but that doesn't mean we can't critique the violent oppression of ruling regimes in various Muslim-majority countries. Racism against blacks is very real, but that doesn't mean we can't critique the brutality of some leaders of countries in Africa or minimize the inhumane violence being perpetrated in places like the Congo.

There are two different issues at play - the politics of representation and the politics of nation-states. ALL nation-states regardless of how the west imagines them are predicated on intellectual delusions; ALL countries in the world today are illegitimate. Period.

Nothing about pre-packaged, hyper-processed foods is healthy, whether it has msg or not...

Mangos, fresh figs, raspberries

Thanks for this argument - I fully agree. I was somehow imagining "personal choices" outside of consumeristic capitalism and that was the wrong path to go down...

It seems the issue isn't so much money, defined broadly, but the alienation of value under capitalism and the fetishization of money that drive the profit idea of getting more and more money just for the sake of having more and more money - both for corporations but also individuals.

The question is how do we redefine money, value, and exchange that equates it with labor and social goods rather than a "free market" of supply and demand?

Guess it depends on how you define money, but few societies actually did, they had something of value used to exchange for other things - be it gold, beads, cowrie shells. Many of those societies also operated in more informal barter trade systems, but barter was rarely the sole form of exchange. If I remember correctly, and it has been many years, but Polanyi suggested even barter was predicated on monetary values...

I read a book (well part of one if I'm honest!)...

Are they that distinct from one another? Aren't our personal choices connected to our social relationships and the kind of values that define our relationships with others?

I'm going to guess that the clothes you wear don't exactly come from non-capitalist sources? Or the housing you reside in? or the education you received? or the books you read (though hopefully many of those actually do!)?

Our total consumption patterns have to change, but to some how take a high-road of contributing to the end of capitalism, saving humanity, whatever it is that you are aspiring for, by only focusing on one aspect of our consumption doesn't really solve much.

It has to change, we should move towards becoming vegan, but it isn't going to happen overnight - conversion/change is a process, not an event...

First, you are obviously not the first to experience such misery, such dread, such negativity, there are many others like you. You have the capacity to connect with them, to help them channel their misery into something productive, creative, anti-capitalist.

Second, given your engagement with this community, you obviously are reflective, engaged, committed. Drawing upon the destructive forces of capitalism that you are witnessing and experiencing, you can creatively through writing or art or whatever share those insights to help others see how horrid capitalism is.

Just some thoughts off the top of my head...

By doing so you let capitalism win and define/determine your life. You seem to have particular insights from your experiences, from the misery you are experiencing, that are powerful tools to counter the negative impact of capitalism on other people's lives, if you choose to channel them...

Interestingly the militant right extremists use the same term, well at least "reset", to cleanse America of liberalism/liberals and the deep state and to return the US to its original constitutional foundation (according to their interpretation). They've been talking about it for several years now...

Miles Davis - 'Round About Midnight

Sachal Jazz Orchestra's rendition of Brubeck's Take Five

Very true! To say it has been stolen or hijacked does in fact ignore the history of "democracy" in the US. I would add that the whole idea of democracy is also corrupt not just from the point of protecting the interests of the elite, but for its utter unethical nature. It is predicated on competition and thus deepens conflicts of interests. Winner takes all, out of touch representatives, and manipulation of policies and rhetoric merely to gain votes is utterly dysfunctional too.

Consensus? Inclusion? Assembly? not part of the "democratic" idea...