SweetLava Now • 100%
i recognized instantly because of sushi
SweetLava Now • 100%
we are constantly moving closer and further away from socialism, at least since the French Revolution (which we didn't get to see the full results and aftermath of until the Scramble for Africa and World War I, and the later post-WWII neocolonialism).
the conditions are already present, too, from Kenya and Swaziland, to Cuba and Mexico, to Palestine and Syria. I can't name any continent sans Antarctica that has failed to produce some resemblence of progression towards socialism, and i'd even say it has happened within every state on earth by this point.
it is both fortunate and unfortunate that it is an international phenomenon. success in one country could be disasterous failure in another and, ultimately, it is our responsibility to elevate class consciousness and oppose our national bourgeois classes. but a social-democratic reform somewhere means a nationalism somewhere else, one progressive and the other reactionary in no particular order.
we had progress toward socialism this week, reaction against it today; last week was reverse. and so on and so forth.
you could've asked this question regarding 60 months, 60 years, 60 decades, 60 centuries - my answer would've been the same.
like the Russian Revolution completed the French, I see another revolution completing the Chinese, from the oppressed people of America and the oppressed people of Africa
SweetLava Now • 100%
a friend of mine got a DEI the other day and was barely drunk, i think it's overexaggerated
SweetLava Now • 100%
just plain capitalism. it's a lot easier to see without all the Reaganite bullshit getting pushed next to a weakening USSR.
this is as raw as it gets in "peace times," peace in the Western definition where we aren't technically fighting Russia and we're just using a bunch of proxy forces and/or economic policy.
It's all uneven, too, so it would be bold to claim this is progressive or regressive or even neither. Some countries are on their way to knocking down capitalism, others are coming with a more Third World nationalist type of approach (think Non-Aligned Movement). Of course the liberals are dominant in the West, they aren't really doing much and their failures are openining up the gates of hell. Unfortunately some of the "socialist" movements we see are more of the socially conservative, or even National Bolshevik, types, so we have the international fascists alongside the national communists - don't ask me how that makes sense...
Yeah, just expect all those contradictions Marx warned about back in the 1800s, when all the middle classes of Europe were celebrating their new economic success after the brutality of the initial industrialization, to come back. Just like the end of the 1800s leading into the end of World War I.
We just have to remember the US invasion of Iraq (2003) and the Russian invasion of Ukraine (2022) are just the typical markers of something fucked up to come. A little bit of rivalry and jealousy among the different capitalists goes a long way.
For what people like us, Communists and other leftists of the more revolutionary edge, we just have to stay disciplined and get some work done while we're ahead. There could be a civil war in Germany tomorrow for all we know lol. It's just business as usual, no different from the 1840s, 1870s, 1910s, 1960s, etc
SweetLava Now • 100%
[allegedly] stating, “You guys want to criminalize us with metal detectors,” followed by, “We’ll see you at your house. We’ll murder you.”
you make a joke and the whole world is trying to cancel you. we used to laugh about Reagan getting stabbed and now talking during a convention gets you sent to jail?
what's next? i need a license to make toast in my own damn toaster?
SweetLava Now • 100%
or from the boondocks, the community's favorite show(i think it's just me) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipg4EL_JUyE
SweetLava Now • 100%
he called me a crab so i shot him in front of the douglas
SweetLava Now • 100%
he was a wannabe cult leader, in a cult already being led. he was disposed of, and now plays around with other side characters. There are so many allegations at this point against so many people that I highly doubt any accusations against Maupin in particular played a role in this. He's not built to be the grandiose vision he manufactured for himself in the reflection of Lyndon LaRouche
SweetLava Now • 71%
I can't speak on individual journalists here, but connections, no matter how loose, to Russia Today (RT) and Iranian news is nothing new. There is, undoubtedly, a connection to the respective governments. I don't think we can deny it outright and it's at least partially true - this is something I keep in mind any time I read a news source with a similar background, and I supply those articles with additional information anywhere else I can obtain it.
As far as what to make of it? Of course they have to add in extraneous bullshit, that goes along with our (the US') support for Ukraine and Israel at such uncertain times.
It'd be a shame to lose a site that does, at least occasionally, bring out excellence in journalism that can be hard to find (except 30+ years into the future when The New York Times decides it's acceptable, or when the CIA claims it is no longer a National Security threat to release).
We should still seriously examine such claims and bat a critical eye to the underlying bias, is what I'm saying. Some of these same outlets and foreign governments would, for example, gladly accept people like Jackson Hinkle to speak up and we certainly don't have to give any credit where it's not due... let's just say the US and UK left some dirty international connections in the USSR and Middle East that were left unattended post-Soviet collapse and they have some interesting ideas about how to use left-wing groups for a certain agenda. Now that blowback is slowly settling in, the US isn't so proud her old friends from the good days.
Keep reading, but always read a little more.
SweetLava Now • 50%
No.
I assume "tankie" is a roundabout way to lump revolutionary leftists with those fomenting red-brown alliances. That is, a "tankie" in the modern day is a way to describe someone as Strasserist, NazBol, LaRouchite, etc.
SweetLava Now • 100%
Quick to boredom. Varied interest in different subjects depending on time or day or context, with an inability to concentrate on those same interests to the point of carelessness or agitation outside of that time/day/context. Mood swings. Apathy in general. Slow burnout that rarely recovers itself in a "reasonable" amount of time. Able to feel close to unknown people, not able to feel much connection or interest in the long-term. Bouts of isolation and/or depression. Frequently unmotivated. Forgetful. Procrastination and giving up last minute to avoid the problem. Self-medication. No respect for random people trying to "help" since I like to handle problems on my own terms, choosing treatment on my own terms. And, again specifically for me to make a point, boredom - it only goes away temporarily.
This is ADHD I guess, you can try to look closer to see if there's anything interesting or if you can figure out another diagnosis of mine - but that would be a waste of time.
SweetLava Now • 100%
I didn't really get that out of it at all, but I developed a skill to see past a lot of the garbage. It was fear-mongering and overall just a scary way of saying China has reduced the use of death penalty, there are better mechanisms in place to prevent unlawful/unnecessary use of death penalty, and a drive to replace gunshot execution with lethal injection. The "victims" included are simply multi-million dollar fraud (essentially) and an abused kid that went on to (cw: violence) rape and kill.
You are right, in that there seems to be no widespread use of this van in the event that it is seriously used.
SweetLava Now • 100%
Since they are aware this is likely to fail, what's the long-term plan? I get the reasoning behind leaving parties like CPUSA, but I couldn't find any suggestions on alternative orgs.
All I can gather from these complaints, so far, is that we should be wary of any org willing to label itself with 'USA' or 'America,' unless actively agitating against incorrect party lines.
SweetLava Now • 50%
The chances of me not being Marxist is as high as the chance imperialism collapses.
The shelf for Kautsky, Dugin, and Keynes is further down. It should be easier for you to digest.
Moishe Postone might have something interesting for you, when you're ready to come back to earth to discover my support for North Korea and Palestine (clearly from what I wrote, if anyone spent the time to extrapolate and use some thinking skills) is not an anachist position, but is almost verbatim what Lenin and Stalin would argue.
SweetLava Now • 25%
That's fair, I can give finishing remarks as well - I'll make it even shorter.
I see where Marxism influenced you, but that doesn't make you a Marxist.
You don't know class struggle, you know struggle of civilizations and races.
SweetLava Now • 25%
That's exactly what it is - competition. They don't want to cooperate with China, they want to compete. I'm not talking about the domestic "free market," I'm talking about the world economy and power politics. If the US keeps pursuing this path of foreign policy and no longer wants to play friendly, then, yes, either China or Russia (or some other country) will have to step up and be the competing imperialist power. Either that, or they have to choose the submissive role, a puppet government. There's no way around this. We live in the era of imperialism and globalization - all countries have to be interconnected by some way and we can't backtrack. Something like BRICS is an alternative, not a revolutionary new thing, but just a plain alternative to what already exists. That's not inherently a good or bad thing. But when we have the US pushing countries into competiting spheres of influence, what happens in a system like this? The same that already happened before.
This isn't a moral concept, this isn't a voluntary thing. This is just what happens when you have a bunch of sufficiently developed capitalist countries. They will all demand imperialism at some point, that's their aspiration, and those competing interests will interfere in the peace of all other (both capitalist and socialist) countries. People will be forced to pick sides at some point, that's the competition.
SweetLava Now • 66%
It just sounds like a long way of saying that China and Russia should function as imperialist powers using some type of Keynesian economic policy or war economy boost. This is undeniably what the US is trying to do. They want to drive competition. Either China or Russia hardens their stance into an imperialist bloc, or the US destroys them. That's the goal. The US will not collapse nor will the imperialist system lead by the US. Weaken, lost influence, lose relevance or merit - yes. Collapse is still a resounding no. It's the reason China is so careful with the US, so willing to go the extra mile to satisfy, the reason China wants to cooperate in international politics as a neutral player. China has reiterated time and time again that they are against bloc formation. This is why: China doesn't want to be seen as an imperialist power or even a competing superpower. They want cooperation with all, whether that be Russia, the US, the Eurozone, or major countries in Africa and Latin America.
If the US keeps pushing power politics, China will be forced to push back, just as Russia was pushed to do in 2022. No one seriously wants that. It will be devastating. That's not progress, that's reaction. The DPRK has even admitted peaceful reunification isn't possible in relation to the South (RoK). Of course it's the truth, but peace is always what we demand first. That can't happen in a world dominated by capitalism, and capitalism has to be taken down consciously with great effort. Peace holds off struggle for another day, it buys time. But we can't fool ourselves. That peace is as much of a facade as American liberal democracy. It's stable and looks good, maybe feels good, but it's fake, another way of obstructing reality.
Though peace can't be shaken out of regular conflict to get rid of capitalism. It has to be liberation, the wars have to be revolutionary wars. Otherwise we're back to step one, always on the edge of a new imperialist competitor, the ultimate aspiration for all capitalist countries at sufficient level of development. At the moment, only Palestine and the DPRK are really capable of fighting those types of wars. Even if the US adopts an America First policy (we all know this is just coded fascism), we know they'll still perform covert operations illegally and against their supposed policy.
It's socialism or barbarism.
SweetLava Now • 50%
When you were a kid (if you ever grew out of being a kid, that is), did anyone tell you the story of the apples and oranges? Did you ever hear someone talking about comparing apples to bananas? Anything of that nature? You still can't explain why you specifically chose to compare Hitler and Bin Laden to Raisi.
Let me break it down for you slow, in hamburger American terms.
Say I want to talk about America. Should I compare America to McDonald's and apple pie? Or should I compare America to shrimp and gyros?
Fill in the blank: As American as _______.
Did you say "apple pie" or did you say "shrimp and gyros"? Why? Reflect on this in your own time.
SweetLava Now • 100%
You mean to tell me that Israel, with all those billions of dollars, couldn't see with their own eyes people flying in to their territory with guns? There is no convoluted middle east history, at least not any more than anywhere else on this planet. There is no excuse to kill anyone in violation of international law, especially when the politicians guiding that policy see the enemy as less than human and makes reference to genocidial intent in doing so. If you want to talk about history, the history that is so convoluted and confusing to you, just start in 1947-1948. That should make it a lot easier for you to understand.
Every event in 'Israeli' history can be checked. They never acted in genuine self-defense. They always had ulterior motives, to drive their force as an imperialist proxy with a massive budget, extremist ideology, and settler-colonialism. There is no blame game. Palestinians have fought against occupation. Israel is the one occupying. Now this rougue state is claiming, implicitly, that they lay claim to a Greater Israel project that threatened the entire Middle East and North Africa region. Rather than occupying territory in war, they occupy territory in aims of extermination of the native population. If they were an occupying force in war, they would be required to ensure every citizen has access to food, water, security, and other necessities of life. Instead, they occupy territories and kill or displace the population there. Either it's not a war or this rogue entity is incapable of conducting itself without constantly committing war crimes.
Marx states, [emphasis mine] >The character of creditor, or of debtor, results here from the simple circulation. The change in the form of that circulation stamps buyer and seller with this new die. At first, therefore, these new parts are just as transient and alternating as those of seller and buyer, and are in turns played by the same actors. But the opposition is not nearly so pleasant, and is far more capable of crystallisation. The same characters can, however, be assumed independently of the circulation of commodities. **The class-struggles of the ancient world took the form chiefly of a contest between debtors and creditors**, which in Rome ended in the ruin of the plebeian debtors. They were **displaced by slaves**. In the middle ages the contest ended with the ruin of the feudal debtors, who lost their political power together with the economic basis on which it was established. Nevertheless, the money relation of debtor and creditor that existed at these two periods reflected only the deeper-lying antagonism between the general economic conditions of existence of the classes in question. Does, then, this imply also a relationship in capitalist society where debt and finance play a role in the proletarianization of the so-called middle-class (or petty-bourgeois)? After all, you start a small business to jump into self-employment or to make others work for you, and when you inevitably endebt yourself (your business) to achieve success, are you not at risk of proletarianization if the business fails due to unpayable debt? Or is the force of the haute bourgeoisie a greater factor in proletarianization, thus making the difference of the petty-bourgeois business owner being in debt or not aside from Marx's argument? Surely Marx would've remarked, at some point or another in his writings, the relevance of this if it was actually central to capitalism.
tl;dr - I do NOT like Christian Zionists, give me the resouces to understand and address their bullshit The Christians followers of this have been talking about the "end times" with very little explanation. I tried looking into their most recent ranting and raving about the red heifer theory, but I was shocked to find that the most popular results were from people who genuinely believe that shit. I want an explanation for this insane theory. There's something deeply antisemitic about it and I want to get to the bottom of it. I don't want to criticize this belief by brushing it off as a bunch of loonies, dismissively pointing to the beliefs as not worth my time. I want to know exactly what it is so I can properly address it, at least mentally.
What does finance capitalism serve? When look at the progress of original capitalism, when compared to feudalism especially, there were some clear long term benefits. But what has the capitalism of the neoliberal era done? Doesn't the existance of the US and UK in the neoliberal era for so many years just mean that we found a way to be fascist while maintaining the liberal-democratic order and bourgeois freedoms? Or could a modern socialist state wield the teaching of financial capitalism in a progressive manner that can be seized for the benefit of the people without such a socialist state being imperialist or engaging in un-fair or un-equal exchange across borders?
socialistmag.us
To get straight to the point, I've been trying to move right back to reading from the original Marxists, esp. Marx and Engels themselves. I think the online left and people organizing in real life are not paying enough attention to the trends at hand. Some people we are calling comrades today are going to be fascists, and I believe as undisputed fact. People are making reference to an "industrial" versus "financial" capitalism, or reference to a so-called PMC class, or reference to a "critical support" of countries like Russia, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and many others. I see a lot of talk about multipolarity and geopolitics. At first glance, this doesn't look harmful, but if we go back in time and imagine similar debates as though it were still World War I? These would be the ones first to try to pull a Mussolini and jump from Communist and anti-Imperialist to writing fascist theory. As these perversions of Marx continue, I really do fear that a lot of middle-class (and those middle-class falling to proles) will see this and end up re-inventing fascism. There is far too much crude and vulgar anti-capitalism, anti-liberalism, anti-imperalism. It's a grave error. Liberalism is born out of the French Revolution and brought us progressively towards radical socialism and Communism. Capitalism, for all its faults, brought us progressively towards alternative structures and the ability for workers to seize mass production for their class. Anti-imperialism, for some of its faults, brought us the Russian, Chinese, Cuban, Vietnamese, and Korean revolutions, all but one with total victory. But I hear people calling themselves anti-capitalist, anti-liberal, anti-imperalist as if there was nothing more behind those words. We're in World War III it seems, but people who are clearly infiltrated and have a lack of understanding of serious conflicts are running left-wing parties. What are they doing? Who is there to critique them? Over the years we've had to deal with nonsense from the IMT, Midwestern Marx, the Black Hammer Party, PCUSA, and so on. There is no working class party with the tools and experience and support base to properly analyze and critique them. I think we need to request of working class parties a way to redefine the use of anti-imperialist forces and the idea of nationalism and ideas of "oppressed nations" and the way the Global North and Global South are organized. To be blunt, Palestine is one of the only places on this earth where a real national liberation would be legitimate. From so many years of a weakened leftist movement, it looks like decades of work are going to be put in to fix it. I get the idea that Cuba and North Korea are the last breath of Communism on this planet and, for how much of a fight they put up, they are still struggling. Hard. N. Korea is reliant on Russia. Cuba is facing so many leaving the country while their economy hasn't fully recovered, and they are turning to private sector to fix problems while still under a painful embargo. These are not pleasant places to live and I can't think of anyone in the real world that would see this socialism and decide it's the way to go. So much progress is squeezed into these tiny countries and there's nothing to show the world for it. On top of that, if Palestine doesn't get a real success in the near future, we are pushed even further back in terms of progess while the leftist movement is barely getting back to development. I am still Marxist-Leninist, but I hope people understand that the mistakes of leftist movements today are going to be the framework for fascists tomorrow. I won't lose hope, but a lot of people will. Who is going to be the one to transform the contradictions of today into the working class movements of tomorrow, speaking figuratively? Sorry to let down many on Lemmygrad and Hexbear with this statement, but neither the rise of China nor the fall of the US will be way to success. Those are just inevitabilities based on present conditions, but the events alone aren't going to do much. The fall of the US might even put hell on some of the most vulnerable people on earth. And the rise of China isn't going to inspire much except a vague sense of "economic stability and prosperity". At this point, my position is almost right in the middle, right between the average (in-practice) Marxist-Leninist and the average (in-practice) ML-Maoist. My views are starting to diverge a little too much from what I see online, but my views are still useful in real life situations and among the real world, which is a good sign, but it doesn't even look like half the people calling themselves some form of leftists are even trying to understand what they are doing. The world is moving too fast and too dangerously for so many people to make these deadly errors
socialistmag.us
As I talked about in one of my last posts, there was some concern that the modern leftist movements had infiltration issues with LaRouchites, Duginists, and other concerning viewpoints. These were my exact fears and this website has published an article recently that proves some of my fears as based in reality. Is anyone familiar with this magazine and its related party? They are not pro-NATO and also not on the side of Ukraine during this Russo-Ukraine War, and these points are valid. (Archive Link Below) https://web.archive.org/save/https%3A%2F%2Fsocialistmag.us%2F2024%2F02%2F18%2Fthe-fascist-mimicry-of-anti-imperialism%2F
As pointed out by Georgi Dimitrov, the Thirteenth Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International defined fascism to be "the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital". Yet, so many fascists claim that fascism and their movements are there to stop finance capital. One instance I would point out here is that Michael Hudson has done a lot of writing on finance capital. When these discussions come about, you can see fascists by the dozen coming to agreement with someone who almost talks like a Marxist. It goes without saying that Michael Hudson has been hosted, on Geopolitical Economy Report, with Pepe Escobar, a journalist who has made mention to philosophical discussions with people like Alexander Dugin. Interestingly enough, Pepe Escobar has specifically mentioned, in an interview relating to geopolitics (of the current Israeli situation), that he would suggest reading a text about Jewish people. This book was anti-semitic in ways I have never seen before. Relating back to Dugin, I'm at a point where I see "geopolitics" or "multipolar" and assume some relation to the man, so I was already highly suspicious anyway. So the question is: why do so many reactionaries and fascists try to claim the fight against finance capital is their fight? I haven't seen any evidence that fascists actually do anything to stop finance. It all gets blamed on immigrants or Jewish people or something else. ----------Unrelated Rant Starts Here---------- Additionally, what is the deal with all the attemps to form some type of red-brown alliance of sorts? Everything left-wing in nature always seems to hold mention, directly or indirectly, to something that comes out of the LaRouche or Dugin playbooks. These people aren't even Communists, they're just fascists. The worst part is that we know American fascism actually claims to be uniquely American and thus not fascist at all because American fascism just isn't European. Franklin D. Roosevelt was almost like a competent Mussolini, yet purely electoral and allowed Communists to exist (but under scrutiny and surveillance), and even had a real plot against him by real fascists. On the opposition, it looks like we even have people reading Marx and Engels and Lenin at length, but still co-opting the messaging to do some PatSoc/NazBol/Duginist/Strasserist/etc. adjacent work. If you sit in pro-China spaces too long, you find a bunch of fascists. If you sit in anti-China spaces too long, still fascists everywhere. If you speak up for Korea, same thing, attacked by anti-Communists on one end and your message is co-opted by neo-fascists claiming Korea is an ethnostate or a PatSoc state, and worthy of praise, on the other. These are the same tactics NazBols would use for recruiting back when Stalin was running the USSR, claiming Stalin as one of their own. Now we have more anarchists and other leftists attacking Communist spaces for holding a bunch of "tankies" and people like us are getting lumped in with Jackson Hinkle and Haz. If reading all the theory doesn't solidify our principles, if our organizations are still infiltrated heavily, if our message is dilluted by opportunists, and if we have people engaging in real-life praxis still falling victim to cult-like behavior and taking on fascist-adjacent viewpoints, then what do we have? and I won't ignore people trying to minimize this either. If you look at any left-wing organizations in the "West" (yet another euphemism I hate since it just sounds like right-wing garbage pitting East against West, or Atlanticist fascist against Eurasian fascist), we notice that there are no serious organizations like there used to be. Definitely nothing like the Black Panther Party is alive today. Then look at how quickly the fascists switch up and adhere to their new lines, like it was a script. From pro-Ukraine to pro-Russia; from pro-Israel to pro-Palestine; from anti-China to pro-China or vice versa. People who were screaming about Communists and (((globalists))) taking over the WEF and the global institutions are now celebrating Javier Milei's election in Argentina. When leftists bring up international orgs ran by the US? Well, the fascists already had their anti-WTO, anti-World Bank, anti-NED, anti-IMF lines ready to go, getting their voice out and their opinions boosted while the legitimate opposition was censored or removed. Sorry for the rant. I just need someone to make some sense out of all this. It feels like the internet has been stuck in psyop mode for so many years that every form of opposition left, right, and center, has been infiltrated to the point of never challenging anything. Weird times lie ahead.
When studying Marx and Marxist authors in isolation, there seems to be so many ideological struggles that one may take independently without critique from others. So, if socialism/communism is not completely inevitable, how do I form appropriate arguments for the use of Marxism to advance the cause of the proletariat against that of the ruling bourgeosie without falling to arguments about inevitability, "the greater good", the capitalists being "evil", et cetera? Are there any more advanced comrades here with experience showing the ideologically backwards, or even intermediate, the way of proper Marxist analysis?
It is almost impossible for me to find any comprehensive texts that would encourage the analysis of the states as a whole entity. Im interested since there are issues among Qatar, the UAE, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia that I would later like to take a look into. I don't have the background for this. Once gaining sufficient understanding, I'll look towards the Islamic world as a whole as well. PS: On that note, is it true that the Islamic Revolution of 1979 in Iran could've resulted in the overthrow of certain gulf state monarchies, even Marxist or at least socialist in nature? Edit: Bourgeois and pre-capitalist sources are acceptable here. I believe the way we analyze history is a separate concept and I'm not afraid of receiving some outdated information for the sake of seeing the greater picture.
I read someone online scoff - at least the digital version of scoffing - at Stalin for his Lassallean tendency. What does that mean? While reading Lenin, he quoted Lassalle to introduce his work *What is to be Done?*, so I figured there must be a connection with the early Bolsheviks and this socialist.
SweetLava [he/him]
SweetLava@ hexbear.netIn study.