If you are in the US, if you contact PSL, they can help you start a pre-branch or inform you of one forming in your area that you are not aware of. The latter happened to me.
I have carbonated various other things before, including lemongrass I grew in my garden to make lemongrass soda, but it was too sickly sweet and the recipe needed to be tweaked. I bought a grape-like concentrate from a local African store that I didn't care for too much. I bought syrups from a local Bosnian store that were decent. I have used Mexican drink mix powder. Crystal Light packets were pretty good. I have also just drank carbonated water alone, and my wife mainly makes carbonated water.
There's probably more I have experimented than I have mentioned. G-Fuel powder tastes really good when carbonated, but I may not recommend G-Fuel as they are not really an ethical company, and their powder has a weird composition that doesn't really do a good job for energy and concentration. You can be very creative with your carbonated drinks, and you are not limited to the syrups that are typically sold for the sole purpose of being used with SodaStream bottles.
Also, I would love to figure out how to grow and use miracle berries as a sweetener than sugar or a carcinogenic compound to make sweet and healthier carbonated drinks.
I knew SodaStream was an Israeli company, which is why I stopped paying for replacement tanks and bought a CO2 tank from eBay to refill at some local shop and an adapter kit from AliExpress (recommended guide for SodaStream tank and flavor alternatives), which saves a lot of money anyway.
I’m still learning, and I believe new people that come here will likely ask similar repeated questions. We’re all at different stages. I appreciate everyone’s perspective from this post, and I believe we have had some really good discussions and points that has already helped me grow.
I made this post so I could get some feedback and a better understanding of the situation. A lot of people here gave some very thoughtful input.
Before I made this post, I suspected the Xi's response was pragmatic, but I wasn't quite sure how and if it was a good decision.
Learning Marxist-Leninism is quite the rabbit hole, and there's so much I am trying to wrap my head around. Please forgive me if I make poor assumptions or expectations; I am only wanting to learn and get input from others here.
I believe most people here have made valid points, even those that are contradictory to others. My hope is for the most pragmatic solution for the Palestinian people that leads to the least deaths and the most justice, but there's also the major issue of bloodthirsty Zionists regardless if a one or two state solution is achieved (from my understanding of everyone's feedback), and there's many factors that would need to be considered to make either solution actually succeed long term. The need for the US to stop funding Israel is a major one, for example.
I also understand that China being a socialist country in a capitalist dominated world means they have to be careful for their own survival as well as the survival of other countries they are trying to help, which I respect.
I'm still learning, and I believe new people that come here will likely ask similar repeated questions. We're all at different stages. I appreciate everyone's perspective from this post, and I believe we have had some really good discussions and points that has already helped me grow.
I appreciate your response. Restoring 1968 borders still doesn't feel just, in my opinion, considering this gives Israel the majority of the land. At least 50/50 would be more acceptable to me, or even swap lands so that Palestine has the majority as they deserve, but I don't know if that would logistically make sense.
I appreciate your response. I had feeling there was some long-term strategy at play in Xi's response. I also was going to compare this to America, but what you said makes sense. I just hope for the best for the Palestinians, whichever solution that can stop the needless killing as much as possible, and whichever solution that in the end gives justice to the Palestinians and their stolen lands, even if it is not immediate (the sooner the better). The same can be said for Native Americans and other indigenous populations.
This is called the “carrot and the stick.” At one moment, the U.S. extends a carrot to a country, the next moment they will use the stick, the club.
This is the same government that continues to finance the terrorist organizations trying to overthrow the Syrian government, armed the opposition in Libya and then just bombed Libya to smithereens.
And it is the same U.S. government that is backing the fascist-dominated government in Ukraine, and then tried to set up a false hacking accusation against North Korea, another socialist country the U.S. wants to overthrow. Now new sanctions have been imposed on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The U.S. politicians in Congress and the President, the establishment, have had fierce debates about what tactics to use, but the objective is the same: Expand Imperialism’s reach and power around the globe. If you are failing with one tactic, use another.
scrolls up to the top of the article
Jan 6, 2015
We were well aware of the US backing the Nazi government of Ukraine as their puppet for so long, and it's surreal looking at an old article affirming this before the Ukraine war happened.
On Reddit, you could be restricted from posting on subreddits if you don't have enough karma. I want to encourage Lemmy to not adopt this feature because I enjoy being able to be honest and not worry about being downvoted to oblivion for mentioning anything from a Marxist perspective, especially where Russophobic libs are abundant in the fediverse.
I'm sorry, but I believe I am in agreement with you. I am disgusted by the hijacking of the Cultural Revolution and the attempted assassination of Mao by his own close comrade. I am also open to different perspectives and want to improve my own to help humanity reach its best possible future. I intend to be a dialectical materialist and not an idealist. If my message came across as otherwise, I apologize. I am also still learning, and I only mean well. I appreciate your response as it helps me improve my understanding of China's history. I am an American, so please forgive me if I make a bad take and/or miss important context regarding different countries' histories. My goal is to avoid misinforming people.
Just finished my meeting with PSL last week over this article, and I thought this could help with context of Deng (I am not a fan of him in regards to how his wing overthrew the other wing and enacted their own reforms at the cost of millions of poorer, rural workers forced to work for the capitalist enterprises without the safety net and protections offered by state jobs):
Note: Take this article with a grain of salt. This is an older article (2007-05-31) from the PSL that paints the Cultural Revolution in an overly positive light while omitting the corruption that occurred from Mao's wing. I apologize for my ignorance on this topic. Thank you, @muad_dibber and @qwename, for enlightening me.
At the same time I am disgusted by this event, I also wonder if it was unfortunately necessary to help China reach to its current state today. If events had played in a different way where Mao's wing would have been dominant over Liu and Deng's, could China have suffered the same fate as the USSR? In the end, the West is responsible for creating a divide between the USSR and China, hurting their relations so the West could use one enemy against the other to their advantage.
If you are in the US, if you contact PSL, they can help you start a pre-branch or inform you of one forming in your area that you are not aware of. The latter happened to me.