I’m probably going to buy it
Agreed, it will take a bit to convince people that it’s fine, but also plenty of people already eat food grown in sewage like the traditional fish ponds in places like Vietnam and India (there’s a great piece in low tech magazine on it, im sure people like the great people working on that will have a large place in dealing with environment and how we live after the revolution)
They never suggested we reduce the population, we can sustain what we already have easily with a rational planned economy, however we couldn’t have a significant increase, say 20 billion or something. Also, we probably won’t exceed 10 billion by much anyway since people have fewer children when their material conditions improve.
They probably haven’t heard about Lemmygrad. It’s rather difficult to post invitations to this site and get anyone to see it. I guess a lot of people didn’t see the original gzd post recommending places for refugees to go. Last I tried I got maybe one in a r/thedeprogram post while the rest stayed at neutral in karma. Maybe we should collectively reach out, collectively promote a single call to join so it looks more organic?
I agree, Clinton not only destroyed Serbia, opened Mexico and the Balkans up to neoliberalism, destroyed welfare, and gave a boost to the prison industrial complex, but he also was also a “skillful” groomer, using his authority over Monica Lewinsky to pressure her into an affair, and also being besties with Jeffrey Epstein. Also, I wouldn’t say there’ve been no good presidents, for example, Marx’s penpal Lincoln ended slavery.
Information about Nicaragua is rather hard to find on English internet, all I’ve been able to find on nationalization is that they expropriated the Somoza dictatorship and land held by the contras. Then they did land reform, encouraging people to make cooperatives. By 1991 40% of their GDP was from nationalized industry. Then the neoliberals took power for a few years and tried to privatize some things. After that the Sandinistas regained power, and apparently all we know about the last twenty years is “ebil commies rigging elections.” Im not sure where I found the solid half figure. I swear I found it in my research a couple months ago.
Are there any good books on the DPRK? I’m currently trying to convince someone that they’re good, but with any short article or video I send they just say “I get they were crushed by American imperialism, but how do I know the stuff about them doing relatively well now isn’t just propaganda?” I’ve tried sending documentaries like Loyal Citizens of Pyongyang In Seol, but they don’t like watching things, and would rather read. So, what are some good sources?
Agreed, don’t try to convince the most hardcore reactionaries or those who act in bad faith, just expose their flaws to the undecided. Here’s a relevant Sarte quote: “ Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
The probably cancelled podcast is probably the most “conspiracy theory” prone Marxist podcast I listen to, but this is a little far. Their claims are the following:
-bill gates’ bunk science “philanthropy” is a front for ibm (who have historically been involved in eugenics) to depopulate the third world (which I believe)
-Fauci doesn’t know anything about the science that would be relevant to fighting pandemics, he was involved in trying to stop good hiv treatment from becoming accessible
-the Covid pandemic may have been planned, suspiciously similar to simulations, intentionally planned to be used for suppressing lefty information (said watch event 201)
-ventilators are difficult to operate, and most people that were being put on them died, so it’s sus they were calling for more
-the common medication used in the US is bad,
-hospitals have monetary incentives to attribute hospitalizations to Covid
-ivermectin is effective at treating Covid, demonized as “horse paste” when it’s actually often used on humans, (which I’m sympathetic to, as it was commonly used in Latin America)
-hydroxychloriquin treats Covid, tests saying otherwise were using intentionally bad methodology
-according to VERS a lot of people are being harmed by Covid vaccines (which I’m very suspicious of, as correlation doesn’t equal causation with vers, but many I listen to too many libs)
-masks are making people sick (which I’m very suspicious of, bc I’ve gotten sick wayyy less since I’ve been wearing a mask daily)
-boosters are a scheme to make more money bc with actual vaccines it’s supposed to develope anti-bodies once and you’ll be fine
-the vaccine causes blood clots etc, (which I’m very suspicious of, but maybe lib debunkings are wrong?)
I would like to know what you, comrades think of these claims.
https://www.sm28.org/articles/j11-the-return-of-the-cuban-proletariat/
I’m wondering your thoughts on this.
I think they are ancoms and/or leftcoms, so obviously I took everything with a grain of salt. They have both been to Cuba in the last few years, and talked to people there. I’m pretty sure they are talking about “#soscuba.”
This is what they claim:
-the Cuban people have become disillusioned with communism
-since the economy is mostly based on tourism the state puts a lot of money into resorts for foreigners instead of caring for their people, Cuba therefore basically already has capitalism, especially because most of their economy relies on exports and trading with companies like nestle
-the people were originally supportive of the revolution, but since Fidel died stuff has gotten worse
-Cuba really peaked in the 90s when people took care of each other and there were cool farming programs and stuff
-since, the farming stuff has ceased and most people are food insecure
-the government is bureaucratic and is very strict not wanting people to do anything they don’t directly approve of
-at this point the Cuban people don’t even care about political ideology, they just want an end to it
-one claimed most people on the street will express disapproval of the gov, while the other claimed most people say they want capitalism
-they say Cuba has a very small amount of crime and then claim that they have a high incarceration which is mostly political prisoners
-the Cuban anarchist they interview claims there was no cia involvement, but if there were they would have welcomed it
My assumption was that the sanctions on Cuba are what is causing most of these problems, but they deny it as the underlying problem. They acknowledge the “Stalinist” talking points that Batista was worse, etc and say they’re right, but that doesn’t mean Cuba’s gov isn’t bad. Then they say something about Communism naturally coming to be hated by people in places like Cuba and the USSR, (of course they think their own specific brand of communism would be better), and this rubs me the wrong way, as the people of the USSR didn’t want it to end, in fact they almost voted the communist party back into power after the undemocratic dissillusion.
So, what do you think? Is the US’ strategy of sanctioning countries til their people get desperate working? Is cuba a degenerated workers state?
I have an “left unity” an-com comrade, and I’m looking for resources for moving them more “auth-ward.” Should I just send on authority and state and revolution? Any suggestions?
What’s wrong with syndicalism? I was watching Thomas Sankara: the upright man, and he specifically said down with anarcho-syndicalism. They seem to be one of the more decent strains of anarchism, the USSR supported them in Catalonia, maybe it’s my bias as someone who was introduced to Marxism through syndicalism, but I can’t see much wrong with them. Is it a lack of materialist analysis?
If propaganda is just the the propagation of ideas whether factual or not, should we cease to use it as a derogatory term for misinformation/disinformation and instead just call it such?
So, I just watched it, and it was funny, of course, and I didn’t take notes or anything, but I noticed a couple of things, so here goes.
1. The Grizwolds as the average family.
Clearly, the family the movie centers on is meant to be perceived as your regular, relatable, American family. In 1989 (when the movie came out) the median family income for the US was 40k (adjusted to 2022, 95k) and the protagonist, Clark Griswold felt entitled to 7.5k (adjusted, 17k) for his Christmas bonus, therefore, if he were “average” he would be expecting almost 1/5 of his yearly salary as a bonus for a fricken in-ground Pool. I’m sure at the time there was some section of the “upper-middle class” (labor aristocracy) that could relate to such a thing, but around the world most people couldn’t dream of having a personal in ground pool, as all they could think about was the exploitation they were going through that allowed imperialists to give their pets such scraps (note a quick search couldn’t give me world stats on median income, just US). Even in the US, today the vast majority of USians wouldn’t dream of buying a whole in-ground Pool from a “Christmas bonus,” partially because inflation has shrunk salaries so much.
Later, when Clark finds that the boss hadn’t given him a bonus, and he was skrewed, he was understandably upset, deprived of money he was counting on, just so the capitalist, who sat on his ass could make a bit more of a profit. And I saw a shred of class consciousness in him. But, of course when the boss is kidnapped and brought to the house, he’s nice after all and gives him extra on to the money he was already expecting, making his bonus at least 9k (adjusting to over 21k today). Obviously, Clark is no average worker.
2. Cousin Eddy and classism
Clark’s cousin Eddy is clearly a classic stereotype of a poor white person, or “white trash.” He lives in a crappy RV, wears tacky clothes, has sick kids and pets, will eat nearly anything (but, not a squirrel because of the high cholesterol), and, of course, hasn’t worked in seven years, by choice or stupidity, in other words, a lazy bum (poor by choice). He’s also the butt of many jokes, as he plays the comedic relief so the audience can say “ha! Look how stupid and trashy he is.”
One thing I did kind of like was Eddy’s daughter saying how she didn’t believe in Santa, because he hadn’t come the last few years (because her parents are broke), pointing out how only more wealthy families can afford to give their kids tons of crap and get them to believe in a being that gives them gifts because they’ve been “good” during the year.
So, yeah, that’s my thoughts on national lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, funny movie, but don’t think about it too hard.
I was making this and my friend asked what it was and I said “the emblem of the Communist Party of China.”
And he said “Aren’t communists bad?-like Nazis or something?”
I said “No, Communists are people who want a stateless and classless society, where everyone’s needs are met. And they have always been strongly opposed to fascists. In fact Stalin wanted to go war with the Nazis years before WWII started.”
He said “you clearly know a lot about this.”
I said “I read and listen to a lot about such things.”
It’s really nice when people whose default is anticommunist admit they don’t know anything about it.
I noticed one of the communities I’m missing from Reddit is r/thedeprogram. I miss seeing the podcast specific memes. Is it a good idea to try to replicate it on here? I think there’s a half decent amount of people on here who are regular listeners. People who haven’t left yet can cross post things from Reddit, and people can post original stuff on here too. So should I create it?
Basically, people who invite ye onto their shows have trouble pushing back on his mask off fascism, and Alex Jones went crying to Crowder over his interview not going well, leading to Nick Fuentes denouncing Alex for being a grifter and for not openly supporting Hitler and accepting their fully overt fascism.
I tried emailing them a while ago and they never got back to me. I think I live in a decent enough sized city, maybe(a few 100k). Does anyone who has done it successfully have advice?
I’m “debating” a Liberal who thinks “Marx had some valid critiques of capitalism” and “the US has done some bad things” but isn’t great on AES. I sent them the recent post showing that China doesn’t block western media, and they said that it only shows one computer and smart people can get around blocked stuff, and I explained what it actually shows before they said “China is still more authoritarian than the US and my personal freedoms aren’t stopped by my government” (note: all of these are paraphrases, but I don’t think I’ve strawmanned anything). So, what are some solid examples of the average citizens in socialist countries having more “freedom” than in capitalist countries?
Edit: Thanks for all the great responses!
When the revolution happens do you think it will Marxist-Leninist, because it will have become more popular as it can prescribe a new socialism for our material conditions, or more Anarchistic in character, because of the individualistic ideology of the west?
Edit: thanks everyone for your responses, answering my questions and more.
I was researching Nicaragua and he noticed Daniel Ortega on my screen and said “when I lived in Nicaragua we weren’t allowed to talk about him” I said “he’s done good stuff for Nicaragua and he said “he’s corrupt and pays people to run against him and lose,” “he supports Russia pillaging Ukraine” “my American family member had more freedom than us, so we moved to the here,” then I annoyedly did a bunch of research to prove him wrong (and Wikipedia is a terrible source on it) then I didn’t have any time to tell him anything more. (Btw of course he’s white, white people only make up 17% of the Nicaraguan population) IDK if gusanos can be non-Cuban, but if they can then that he is.
Proceeds to complain about high food prices there.
I didn’t really get any good dark pictures
The claim is from some anarchist podcast I was listening to. They also claimed he’d give, people small concessions to people on the condition they’d keep him in power. (They’ve plugged Robert Evans a couple of times which makes me suspicious)
According to anarchists they sound pretty based, but I haven’t heard any Marxists talk about it.
I’ve got a few gift cards and I want to get some books. I already have imperialism by Lenin and capital volume one. I don’t wanna get anything I can read for free on marxists.com.
I know they tried to destroy Cuba etc, but they were also inconvenient enough to capital to be assassinated by intelligence.
I was recently listening to the probably canceled podcast and I came across Jimmy fulan gong in the episode about the porno mafia. I thought he seemed interesting and well researched, so I listened to a few episodes on the occult etc and came across William Ramsey whom I looked into and found that he was anti vax anti communist. I’m not sure if this belongs here, but what is
your opinion on jimmy?
This is the website of one of William’s guests Btw: https://www.dhaugh.com/2022/09/11/should-you-fear-our-military/
I was recently listening to the probably canceled podcast and I came across Jimmy fulan gong in the episode about the porno mafia. I thought he seemed interesting and well researched, so I listened to a few episodes on the occult etc and came across William Ramsey whom I looked into and found that he was anti vax anti communist. I’m not sure if this belongs here, but what is your opinion on jimmy?
Both podcasts spend a lot of time talking about the far right and history, and have some descent content in my opinion. However, btb is anarchist and often accuses the ussr of genocide, and is very much anti Russia and Scott ritter. Knowledge fight covers Alex Jones and obviously he is pro-Russian for very wrong reasons, and they often talk about that. I listen to both podcasts and enjoy their content, but am annoyed when they randomly bring in anticommunism. Opinion?
cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/258745
> There are a lot of self proclaimed ML’s online who have mostly agreeable politics but are also very socially reactionary. They often post something decent like ‘NATO provoked the conflict in Ukraine’ and at the end randomly say ‘this is similar to when liberals pretend trans identities are valid’ they talk about trans identities as part of western societal decay etc. (One thing I have noticed is that they praise tomboys but condemn trans women or even cis men in dresses). How does one expose their lack of materialism around this issue? I honestly think some could be swayed.
I’m gonna share this on quora and see how much they cope/overlook it.