The Communist Bloc

[Salvarity]

"- We refuse to acknowledge a lowly backwater UCR as having any actual bearing on the global stage."

Does this clause apply to all UCRs or just as a jab against The Communist Bloc? Rather rude thing to say as a general statement in an official communique

I too would want further clarification on this statement.

[Fedele]

You should tell him that

[Ubertas]

WE'RE BACK!

Hello all,

My name is Nathaniel Penrose and I am the newly appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs for The Communist Bloc.

I am here to say that has come to our attention that we've been extremely lacking in the area of foreign interaction. As the largest pan-leftist UCR in the game, it reflects poorly on us that it has only taken us this long to figure it out. I am pleased to announce that under the new executive administration (and onwards) TCB's Ministry of Foreign Affairs will be reviving this thread and start posting daily news updates and information for our comrades around the world! The time has come for us to once again begin reaching out, reviving old ties, and creating new ones across the left. So please, do not hesitate to contact me (Ubertas) to do so.

Now onto the real stuff: what is it that we've been doing since you last heard from us?

For starters, we transferred forums, after our old one provided by Xenforo collapsed. We´ve also just come fresh out of our first dual election, in which the seats of General Secretary and the newly established Deputy General Secretary were up for grabs. The Bloc has also transitioned from two administrations since you´ve last heard from us, during the last of which we had some brief internal issues that have since been straightened out. But since then we`ve continued our progress and ever-upward advance! Our region has undergone a very large democratising libertarian socialist movement, in which the region has become semi-direct democracy, with the citizens gaining the rights to recall nearly all members of the government from Ministers to Central Committee Members and to repeal any legislation via referenda. Nonetheless, we still remain committed to welcoming far-leftists from all across the spectrum (excluding ideologies with intolerant views). For more info on our current government structure, please see the updated version of our Constitution.

Perhaps the biggest achievement, was the virtual end to the years-long party debate in our region, brought along by the Direct Action and Independent movement. For years our citizens squabled for years over the existence of one party, multiple parties, or none at all. FInally, we realized that attempting to force a system on each other through legislation and power-grabbing was not only undemocratic-- it was tearing the very fabric of our government. This led to nearly all of the major Bloc political figures resigning their party affiliations, and agreeing to work to allow the people to pick whatever system they want. From this sprung the Direct Action group, which espoused the idea that the citizens should have the ability to create and dissolve parties in whatever fashion they want, allowing them to merge into one central party, have multiple, or voluntarily choose to dissolve them all. Since then, we've had some smooth sailing, with many old faces returning (no, not Zenny), the revival of our CAH games, and a highly efficient CC which has passed a record number of bills!

I hope this will be the beginnings of a new and larger TCB presence in the world.

If you have any more questions or just want to see what's up, please check out our new forums or our discord!

Long Live the People!
Long Live the Revolution!
Long Live the People's Republic!

[Trabardia]

Transcripts of the the General Secretary and Deputy General Secretary debates, hosted by the Ministry of Information on the 12th of July, can be found here: https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1063037

[Ubertas]

Greetings comrades of the world! Welcome to the broadcast of The Communist Bloc's International Broadcasting Agency, written by the Ministry of Information and disseminated to the international community by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Executive Affairs

- Lil' Stapler has been elected General Secretary in a runoff with 24 votes to 18. Shortly after, he resigned from the Central Committee and the Communist Revolutionaries Party. In his victory speech, he his cabinet appointments and Line of Succession. Citizens may vote to confirm the cabinet and voice their concerns with it.
- The Office of the General Secretary has concluded a its discussion and poll on the concept of separation of powers and released an analysis of the forum poll and regional in-game poll.
- The Ministry of Information has released a full transcription with reactions of the General Secretary and Deputy General Secretary debates held last Thursday.
- The Minister of Foreign Affairs has released an opening statement outlining the goals of the Foreign Ministry this term.

Judicial Affairs

- Judicial elections for all 5 seats of the People's Tribunal have opened. Kirk Socramander, M.M., Vlad Schpilkes, Tarrin Kael, and Frits have registered so far. All five candidates have published their campaign in the electoral forum.

Roleplay

- Standing for the People's Roleplay Council elections is now open The PRC is the roleplay legislature of the Bloc, established by Executive Order #2. It and its organizations manage the various modes and networks of international cooperation in the Bloc. Five seats are up for election. So far, Lewis Flood, Tarrin Kael, and Pytor Petrovsky have registered. Only Tarrin Kael has published a campaign so far.

General

- Both a political compass/spekr thread and an 8values results thread have been created! Post the results of your political ideology tests!


Credits
Written by Minister Trabardia
Sent out internationally by Minister Penrose (Ubertas)

[Consular]

Why don't your headers have transparent backgrounds

[Malphe]

Why don't your headers have transparent backgrounds

We're tackling the real issues here.

[Ubertas]

Why don't your headers have transparent backgrounds

Cus I have a very limited skillset when it comes to such things lol. I'm working on fixing that.

Edit: also our off-site forums have a white backing so such a thing hasn't been relevant until now.

[Lord Dominator]

Yeah for more GP updates!

Why don't your headers have transparent backgrounds

We're tackling the real issues here.

This is what Gameplay is all about nods

[Ubertas]

Yeah for more GP updates!

We're tackling the real issues here.

This is what Gameplay is all about nods

Indeed

[Ubertas]

Good evening. Here are today's headlines.

Executive Affairs

Lil' Stapler has been elected General Secretary in a runoff with 24 votes to 18. Shortly after, he resigned from the Central Committee and the Communist Revolutionaries Party. In his victory speech, he proposed his cabinet appointments and Line of Succession. Citizens may vote to confirm the cabinet and voice their concerns with it.

Judicial Affairs

Judicial elections for all 5 seats of the People's Tribunal have opened. Kirk Socramander (I)*, M.M. (I), Vlad Schpilkes, Tarrin Kael, Frits, Thomas Calloway, Egaleca, and Gabriel Xavier have registered so far. Six candidates have published their campaign in the electoral forum.
*(I) = Incumbent justice

Roleplay

Standing for the People's Roleplay Council elections is now open! The PRC is the roleplay legislature of the Bloc, established by Executive Order #2. It and its organizations manage the various modes and networks of international cooperation in the Bloc. Five seats are up for election. So far, Lewis Flood, Tarrin Kael, Pytor Petrovsky, Egaleca, and Nathaniel Penrose have registered. Only Tarrin Kael and Chairman Chërmin have published campaigns, although Chërmin has not officially registered yet.

Party Affairs

Inside sources confirm that the Communist Revolutionairies Party (CRP) will soon merge with the People's Party (PP). The leadership of the PP has taken the initiative for the merge and the Constitution is now being written. The name of the new party is reported to be People's Revolutionary Party (PRP).


Credits:
Written by Minister of Information Trabardia
Distributed by Minister of Foreign Affairs Nathaniel Penrose (Ubertas)

[Consular]

Why don't your headers have transparent backgrounds

Cus I have a very limited skillset when it comes to such things lol. I'm working on fixing that.

Edit: also our off-site forums have a white backing so such a thing hasn't been relevant until now.

Use GIMP. It's pretty easy to do really.

Edit: I notice your latest one is transparent! Lovely

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

Cus I have a very limited skillset when it comes to such things lol. I'm working on fixing that.

Edit: also our off-site forums have a white backing so such a thing hasn't been relevant until now.

Use GIMP. It's pretty easy to do really.

Edit: I notice your latest one is transparent! Lovely

I liked the white better. Can't read black text on dark when it's transparent

[Lord Dominator]

Use GIMP. It's pretty easy to do really.

Edit: I notice your latest one is transparent! Lovely

I liked the white better. Can't read black text on dark when it's transparent

There's just no pleasing people

[Consular]

Use GIMP. It's pretty easy to do really.

Edit: I notice your latest one is transparent! Lovely

I liked the white better. Can't read black text on dark when it's transparent

Yes you can? It has a white outline

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

I liked the white better. Can't read black text on dark when it's transparent

Yes you can? It has a white outline

Difficult at best.



Using regular NS text for the center and floating the side images right and left allows a scalable image that has the right color text for either choice of forum settings

[Consular]

Hmm it looks fine for me. Are you using a tiny low res screen or something

[Trabardia]

Comrades,

The Ministry of Information has released the first-ever lengthy newspaper format version of the Daily News Saturday Edition.

Please take a look here: https://www.scribd.com/document/384392138/Saturday-Edition

Thank you!

Trabardia
Minister of Information, on behalf of the Lil' Stapler Administration

[Kurnugia]

Cus I have a very limited skillset when it comes to such things lol. I'm working on fixing that.

Edit: also our off-site forums have a white backing so such a thing hasn't been relevant until now.

Use GIMP. It's pretty easy to do really.

Edit: I notice your latest one is transparent! Lovely

Yup, I gave them the transparent with an explanation on how to do it

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

Hmm it looks fine for me. Are you using a tiny low res screen or something

27 inches of 2k, so no. Increasing font size, and border width of the outline a bit could help.

[Ubertas]

Hmm it looks fine for me. Are you using a tiny low res screen or something

27 inches of 2k, so no. Increasing font size, and border width of the outline a bit could help.

Aye noted

[Ubertas]

A Statement from the General Secretary and the Executive Cabinet of The Communist Bloc​

To our comrades from across the NationStates left-wing spectrum.

For years, The Communist Bloc has enjoyed it’s famous reputation as the largest leftist region in the game. However, we now acknowledge that this may not be everything that we are well known for. The Communist Bloc has long been infamous for having committed many belligerent acts upon members of the leftist community of NationStates, mainly because they were seen as more right wing or just for a blatant and obvious attempt at power by subjugation.


While we cannot speak for the past administrations of The Communist Bloc, we the members of the current administration would like acknowledge the fact that our great region has committed a great many many errors. It saddens us deeply that it has only taken this long for us to look back and realize the gravity of our past mistakes and the erroneous judgment of the past administrations.



Furthermore, we would like to extend a sincere and unconditional apology to the members of the leftist community, whether you be state socialist, social democratic, democratic socialist, or even anarchist. If you were violated or invaded or offended by our actions, we want you to know that we are aware of these unspeakable actions and that we would like to make amends if possible. We would also like to take the time to say that we now completely and wholly condemn these actions, and the persons in past administrations that were responsible for overseeing such decisions.



The Communist Bloc seeks to move past this dark and dubious time in our history and stand in solidarity with any and all those who call themselves leftist and anti-capitalist, even if we have ideological differences. Thank you to anyone who took the time to read this. And to those of the leftist community that we've offended in the past, we hope that you, our comrades and ideological allies, can find it in your hearts and minds to forgive us for these past actions.


In Leftist Solidarity,



Lil’Stapler of Rukiana
General Secretary and Commander-in Chief of The Communist Bloc



Nathaniel Penrose of Ubertas
Minister of Foreign Affairs of The Communist Bloc
Member of People’s Revolutionary Armed Forces (PRAF) Command

[Lord Dominator]

Woah, people apologizing, possibly without prompting!
It's a Christmas miracle!

[Caelapes]

Classy move by TCB.

In solidarity!

[Ubertas]

Classy move by TCB.

In solidarity!

Thank you! We hope this can be the beginning with more open and close relations between our regions and those of the left!