Welcome again to everybody. Make yourselves at home. In the time-honoured tradition of our group, here is the weekly discussion thread.
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I think the thing that really gets me is when you read on reddit or even talk to people in real life (break-room politics, the best) you realize that liberals really, really don’t give a shit that the war is happening. So many comments of “I can’t believe we’re losing to IRAN” and disbelief that we didn’t just bowl over a country twice the size of afghanistan with double the mountains. If this occurred under Harris; we might have a few discontent grumbles but “Finally, we’re doing something about one of the largest powers in the middle-east! Trust me, Iran is at fault for everything so it’ll totally work this time”
Even more disgustingly, I could see them co-opting Palestine entirely and saying “Oh, we need to get rid of Iran to help the security situation in Gaza!”. That was my prediction if she did win. Why so many seemingly left-leaning liberals were eager to jump and blame Hamas at every corner.
Shit is fucking disgusting.
I was in a class full of Liberals, they just talked about how bad Trump and the state government was the entire time. I never heard any of them mention Palestine once.
Do they only care about the symptoms and not the root source of the problem? Donald Trump and Nazi German are doing what the British diaspora and European empire did, except that they are subjugating the global empires to the same cruel treatment. The forced sterilization, concentration camps, and death camps originated from the European empires and the US. I could not understand why many Western people are complaining about tariff by Donald Trump when they said that tariff against socialist Venezuela is not bad until it progressed into full economic sanctions.
All they care about is the political theatre between open fascist Republicans and the crypto fascist Democrats. It is like if Nazi Germany had two parties they would be the more “left-wing” one that would care more about social programs than the other, but still wouldn’t stop the Jews from being sent to the gas chambers.
The forced sterilization, concentration camps, and death camps originated from the European empires and the US.
I’ve actually explained this to a few Americans before and the response I got back a few times we just sheer denial, showing them the literal camps being built in Virginia and Florida, “It’s just like a prison bro”. A prison without trial? Got it. You tell them that and they just shrug.
Or, they outright tell you to your face “Good, we have too many people here anyways.”
Americans!! Gotta love em!
Honestly as of this year I’ve gone very much from “my mom did her best” to “my mom could’ve done better” to “wait is x not normal” to “I hate my mom.”
I know I shouldn’t say that, we’re family and she was a single mom taking care of me in a dysfunctional family. But it’s the hypocrisy mostly, like how she constantly complained that everyone lacks empathy for her but never gave me any empathy for the things she did while drunk, or for emotionally abusing/exploiting me, or constantly guilt tripping me, or the fact that I said I was scared of her during one of her outbursts and she said she should be scared of me.
Gods, it’s just…I don’t like her. I honestly wish I could’ve had a normal person see the way she treated me behind closed doors.
It’s wierd because it got worse as I got older. Somehow the kid who was screaming and tantrumming was treated nicer than the one that was obedient, pliable, and an emotional punching bag.
9/11 is the magical time of year I get to shake my ass at the yanks online who get pissy when the rest of the world anonymizes their lives like the do the rest of us 😜
Like… you’ve been killing this many people every 3rd week for 200 years bro idk what to tell youHonestly, I thought people would have gotten over it by now, but there are a sizeable group of people here that haven’t, who get emotional every time it is September 11th. Although the majority of people here don’t really care about it.
Yeah, this 25th anniversary seemed lukewarm compared to the 10th anniversary lol
Psych is messing with my meds to try and help me and its yet another med switch that makes me feel worse.Depressionn sucks.
I was thinking recently, why didn’t the US use the name “Axis of Resistance” as a propaganda tool against its enemies? I dunno like framing the fight as the Axis vs the Allies yet again (I haven’t seen them doing that yet).
Aren’t Amerikkkans crazy nostalgic for WWII? So framing this as another fight against another Axis could be useful. Then again, they might be too sympathetic to the Nazis to ever do that.
You must be pretty young - “Axis of Resistance” was a response to GW Bush referring to Iran and DPR Korea and other anti-zionist forces as an “Axis of Evil” in his infamous speech. So it literally is American propaganda flipped on its head. Also, the term “Axis” in reference to the losing side of WWII is itself kind of a misnomer. Those powers referred to themselves as the “Anti-Comintern Pact”.
Yeah Axis and Allies wasn’t actually used in WW2.
It was Anti-Comintern Pact vs United Nations.
Very interesting. And yeah I am. I was 4 years old when Obama became president lol. Thanks for the info on the axis of evil.
No problem, sorry to rag on you for being young.
No offense taken. I didn’t take it as you ragging me.
The Nazis made the white colonizers suffer from their own twisted ideology and savage practices. Hating the Nazis does not mean that they are good people.
Happy 9/11.
The whole Dutch branch of the anti 15 minute city conspiracy is just so dumb. We already have that. I live in a city of 100k. I can be in the center within 15 minutes despite living at the edge. In the other direction I an be in an even bigger city withing 25 minutes. It’s been like that for decades now.
Nothing quite hits like american true crime documentaries, it is such an insane society. Just saw one where a girl stole a newborn baby ( and killed ) to pretend she gave birth(?) because she had built up an insane web of lies about being pregnant hiding that she had hysterectomy when she was younger 😂
Only the people who get caught end up in the subject-matter of an American true crime documentary.
Every single day in The Netherlands, Russia is in the news. Mass psychosis at this point. Even the AFD victory had more concerns for them being pro Russia instead of them being literal Nazi’s.
“These nazis don’t want to go to war with the Russians! They’re worse than the nazis!”
This is very funny.
“At least the OG Nazis killed some Orcs instead of cozying up with them!”
I wonder when this will be an unironic sentence you hear from them
Today I learned that the Ukrainian alphabet was standardized in the Soviet Union during Ukrainisation. Another L for those who claim that Soviets oppressed Ukrainians
Ukraine deserves to be an SSR.
The Ukrainian people deserve to have an SSR again and be free from Nazis and other fascists.
Just reread Against Liberalism.
No selfcrit is enough.
I had a bit of free time and decided to reread it. It is probably more my sheer burnout preventing me from taking action. But I feel at least somewhat more rested, or rather able to function, now. Like my revolutionary fire has been relit.
Entering the world of blue collar workers is ripping me out of my left wing marxist bubble I had in Belgium. All of my coworkers claim to be right wing. At our friday afternoon drink today several of them voiced their support for AFD winning in Germany saying they are glad they won and that the people have had enough.
Now, at first you feel like you need to get out of the racist group. But marxist organising for years has prepared me for this. Deep down I believe people are left wing and that they are led on to become right wing by scapegoating of the oppressive bourgeoisie class. So, naturally, you try to engage in their visions and concerns. By asking them some simple questions I managed to get to the core of their problems which were almost all the same: cost of living increase, imaginary enemy created by the media, working too many hours for too long, etc.
I managed to make a start in poking holes in the fabricated narrative they have inside their head. Too easy for left wingers it is to stick their heads in the sand thinking they just know better than all those racist blue collar workers who mostly vote right wing in this country. Which is a shame, as our very beliefs were founded by these same workers many years ago. The left managed to abandon the working class here resulting in them turning to racist parties.
This will be a huge task to fullfill but I truly believe that by empathic towards their concerns and steering them in the right direction, I can get these people to change their views. Of course this is possible because of my privileged position of a white man. But someone has to turn the tide. A specter is haunting The Netherlands. It is me.
This is 100% the right approach. I always tell my German comrades the same thing. Chastising workers who vote AfD will not do anything to bring them over to our side. The AfD managed to do what the left could not, which is validate their real material concerns and offer a solution, however false. We have to engage with them on their level and offer them more than liberal moralism.
I usually tell that the AFD will continue the same policies (see Meloni and immigration increasing under her) and that “reducing bureaucracy” is code for gutting welfare systems.
Besides that foreign policy is the partly the cause for mass-immigration, supporting Israhell, bombing the near east, exporting weaponry, economical exploitating Africa and systematically enforcing underdevelopment.
Since my family also votes that way I try to emphasize that they broke immigration law to get my stepmother (who is an immigrant) stay in the country, so literally aided in illegal immigration they hate so much.
I like to go off about how horrible immigration is… because western countries are stealing highly trained workers made by the global south to depress wages of western workers. “They out sourced education and having children to the 3rd world. I’d move if I thought I’d get a better life too. Can’t blame people for chasing that bag.”
Truly living up to the spirit of your avatar. :) Keep up the good work, comrade.
You are right comerade. Dismissing workers as “racist and uneducated” is for liberals. When “left” parties adhere to the smugness of liberals and the liberal policies which the workers know are failing them it is no wonder they will listen to the only (and often very well funded) people who claim to be able to help them. But ultimately the “right wing” parties offer no solutions, only more problems, and many I also believe would be open to another real alternative (which has the benefit of being right!). Even if not initially convinced a clear option, with open arms instead of smug elitism, lets them change their minds when they see what rightist policies do to their material conditions.
You can do it!
Have a great week, everyone! There’s lots of work to be done for our movement, but we can’t do it alone. Finding comrades in real life is immensely rewarding!
As always, communism will win.
I’M FUCKING COOKED I’M FUCKING WASHED IT’S SO FUCKING OVER I WENT TO WORK ON LABOR DAY WHEN WORK IS CLOSED I SPENT $16 ON AN UBER FOR NOTHING AAAHHHHHH
Also: 🫵 You WILL have hope, comrade.
tbf, it’s more likely for communists to fuck that up as we celebrate “labor day” on the correct date
I legit thought that Labor Day in the United States was Sept. 1 where as May Day around the world is, well, May 1st.
tbh i don’t remember the correct date for labor day either; i just have a shitty memory + nobody was talking about monday being labor day on friday so that didn’t help
“labor day”
Time to take advantage of the sales on AliExpress while I still can.
Also on a related note, Amazon sales are a scam; a sleeping earbud on AliExpress will be just $1.50 USD but on Amazon, the sleeping earbuds will be – what? – maybe $30 or even $40? Smdh… I am not even bothering to check the price for them now on Amazon, just saying.
a lot of stuff on amazon is available directly on aliexpress/temu for less than half the price
as in the exact same thing from the exact same brand
the one downside is the shipping takes longeran example: i very recently bought a thermal printer from temu, it cost me ~$30 equivalent
the literal exact same printer on amazon is currently at ~$70 equivalent
“The shipping takes longer”
I am aware of this already but, frankly, Amazon taking two days to ship you something sucks when it comes at the price of both exorbitant costs and even a lack of variety, tbh.
very true
Annoyingly Aliexpress now adds customs fees on to my orders automatically so the price is getting close to Amazon on some products. I have never needed to pay customs for an Aliexpress order until now, either via the seller up front or on delivery.
I don’t think I have this problem, or had it recently.
It could also be because I had a lot of coupon money saved last time.
I was in the United States when I last used it.
It was better than Amazon even then, but maybe things have changed recently.
No…
We WILL have hope (including YOU), comrade. 🫵
❤️
I think I sent a message to you earlier, follow up on that, comrade
Apologies, I’m back on intensive PT and home exercise daily, in addition to my normal responsibilities, I saw your cheerie “Hi” and hope you are well. Please feel free to write, but I will have to catch up as I can. xx❤️
I understand, will talk soon!
❤️
Do you allow yourself to feel defeated from time to time? Like, “damn, being a communist is hard” or “this world sucks.”
I have these moments, but I don’t know if they are healthy or not.
(Thanks for the answers. I really appreciate them)
To each their own but i think some struggle is definitely healthy, with some caveats of course, i.e. no one should work 3 turns to survive.
Almost every communist leader could’ve lived an easy life, as most were born in privilege and highly educated, yet they chose the hard route to make the world a better place.
Just like every revolution goes through periods of advancement and periods of retreat, so too do revolutionaries go though easy and difficult periods. It is important not to fear or deny that these periods are happening but to maintain our revolutionary discipline during them. To understand that defeat and temporary retreat are a fact of life but that this does not imply that we give up our goal or our hope.
“The proletarian revolutions maturing in all advanced countries of the world will be unable to solve their problems unless they combine the ability to fight heroically and to attack with the ability to retreat in good revolutionary order. The experience of the second period of our struggle, i.e., the experience of retreat, will in the future probably be just as useful to the workers of at least some countries, as the experience of the first period of our revolution, i.e., the experience of bold attack, will undoubtedly prove useful to the workers of all countries.” – V.I. Lenin
Everytime I read something from Lenin, his position as being as important as Marx and Engels is validated.
Like, he gets people (like me lol) going even after being dead for 100 years. He just has so many banger quotes.
thanks for this quote!
Highly recommend reading this entire speech at some point if you have the time. Despite dealing with pragmatic, practical issues of the time, it is imo still very much applicable to today, especially in regards to China and the ultra-left criticism of China’s path:
Retreat is a difficult matter, especially for revolutionaries who are accustomed to advance; especially when they have been accustomed to advance with enormous success for several years; especially if they are surrounded by revolutionaries in other countries who are longing for the time when they can launch an offensive. Seeing that we were retreating, several of them burst into tears in a disgraceful and childish manner, as was the case at the last extended Plenary Meeting of the Executive Committee of the Communist International. Moved by the best communist sentiments and communist aspirations, several of the comrades burst into tears because—oh horror!—the good Russian Communists were retreating. Perhaps it is now difficult for me to understand this West-European mentality, although I lived for quite a number of years in those marvellous democratic countries as an exile. Perhaps from their point of view this is such a difficult matter to understand that it is enough to make one weep. We, at any rate, have no time for sentiment. It was clear to us that because we had advanced so successfully for many years and had achieved so many extraordinary victories (and all this in a country that was in an appalling state of ruin and lacked the material resources!), to consolidate that advance, since we had-gained so much, it was absolutely essential for us to retreat. We could not hold all the positions we had captured in the first onslaught. On the other hand, it was because we had captured so much in the first onslaught, on the crest of the wave of enthusiasm displayed by the workers and peasants, that we had room enough to retreat a long distance, and can retreat still further now, without losing our main and fundamental positions. On the whole, the retreat was fairly orderly, although certain panic-stricken voices, among them that of the Workers’ Opposition (this was the tremendous harm it did!), caused losses in our ranks, caused a relaxation of discipline, and disturbed the proper order of retreat. The most dangerous thing during a retreat is panic. When a whole army (I speak in the figurative sense) is in retreat, it cannot have the same morale as when it is advancing. At every step you find a certain mood of depression. We even had poets who wrote that people were cold and starving in Moscow, that “everything before was bright and beautiful, but now trade and profiteering abound”. We have had quite a number of poetic effusions of this sort.
And this part was especially amusing to me:
The other day I read an article by Comrade Rakosi in No. 20 of The Communist International on a new book by Otto Bauer, from whom at one time we all learned, but who, like Kautsky, became a miserable petty bourgeois after the war. Bauer now writes: “There, they are now retreating to capitalism! We have always said that it was a bourgeois revolution.”
And the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, all of whom preach this sort of thing, are astonished when we declare that we shall shoot people for such things. They are amazed; but surely it is clear. When an army is in retreat a hundred times more discipline is required than when it is advancing, because during an advance everybody presses forward. If everybody started rushing back now, it would spell immediate and inevitable disaster.
The most important thing at such a moment is to retreat in good order, to fix the precise limits of the retreat, and not to give way to panic. And when a Menshevik says, “You are now retreating; I have been advocating retreat all the time, I agree with you, I am your man, let us retreat together,” we say in reply, “For the public manifestations of Menshevism our revolutionary courts must pass the death sentence, otherwise they are not our courts, but God knows what.”
He’s arguably the best of the “Five Heads” (I hate that we over-focus on just those five but whatever).
I think it’s pretty normal to not be in high spirits about it all the time. Where it would probably count as unhealthy is if it was an actual active belief like “there’s no way communism can win because xyz” kind of thing, or if it was general dooming like “we’re doomed because the species sucks” or something.
Personally, though I have low moments for sure, I don’t tend to feel that communism itself is in trouble because I’m confident that due to the way contradictions work, support for it will keep popping up and due to dialectical and historical materialism being a science, people would rediscover it even if it was majorly repressed. But also, China is right there and is doing quite well. The imperial core itself, I don’t know, it’s hard to be optimistic about it sometimes. But I think things are going to reach a point where that doesn’t matter very much for the rest of the world and they will be able look on the (one day former) empire regions with pity rather than fear.
Resistance is a process of going from defeat to defeat until victory.
Learn to enjoy the struggle.
❤️
I don’t trauma-dump.
I tell war stories.
It depends. It’s hard to achieve change, but it’s not that hard to work towards it (depending on situation). What I’ve “sacrificed” is spending some time reading and writing and trying to organize and talk to people. So the “sacrifice” is spending some of my time on learning, intellectual activity, being social, and political activity - all imporant parts of living a good human life IMO. I don’t really think I get to feel that it is so hard when I know that there are many people who have worked much harder and made actual sacrifices.
