and you can learn a lot from being a member of the global proletariat.
seriously, it's not that big of a deal. the people of Gaza are standing up cuz they have the shared experience of being oppressed by settler colonialism, those who benefit from colonization have zero incentive to oppose it.
This reminds me of that classic communist slogan, "Workers of the world, divide yourselves up according to who lives in a colonial vs non colonial nation!"
No, I'm saying that China, despite being a "Third World" country, doesn't see things this way.
Also, I misread the initial comment but still somewhat disagree; there is a growth of sentiment among the people within the Imperial Core that there must be solidarity with people overseas, hence the huge pro-Palestine movement taking place right now.
Okay, I don't speak Chinese or have ever been to China, so idk what the general sentiment is there. I have met people from the undeveloped world and most of them have the impression that even working class Americans are privileged chauvinists, and I live in the US and I generally agree.
hence the huge pro-Palestine movement taking place right now.
Most Americans are still solidly pro-Israel, there's been an upswell of pro-Palestinian zoomers thanks to Tik Tok memes, which is good I guess but i don't see it evolving into anything besides protests.
That's not the impression I get from people in "underdeveloped nations" that I've spoken to.
It's already evolved past protests into a stronger divestment campaign, more new communists, and the blocking of road shipments and arms shipments meant for Israel.
It's already evolved past protests into a stronger divestment campaign, more new communists, and the blocking of road shipments and arms shipments meant for Israel.
Once the Houthis start making their lattes more expensive they'll be right back to being NATO Anarchists calling for war, just like they did after 9/11.
lol The USA is the most militarized country in the Earth. You can't do nothing without people policing you so I'm not surprised that it mostly doesn't spill over into using force because we're clearly not at this stage.
USA has been beating down its own proletariat through COINTELPRO and now a replacement to COINTELPRO to not give people like, say, Latin American immigrants a fighting chance.
This kind of shit has always existed yet proletariat movements still managed to rise above it. The fact none in the US have is because there isn't demand for one in the US.
Yes and they rose up in far far more repressive conditions that what dorks in the US trying to form DSA branches have to deal with.
And yet, there are only 5 AES countries among the "Third World."
Meaning that most of 'em are still dealing with capitalism.
I'm not saying that American citizens don't have it easier, but the conditions for a proletarian movement and one that achieves revolution is still there.
NOTE: reading this after writing it i notice it seems parochial and patronizing, like 'i know better, look at me!', i apologize for that sentiment and i think i'll still keep it up because i feel some of the points are conducive to more productive cooperation (as opposed to being antagonistic or trivializing)
i think in a case such as this (regarding support, through protests, organizing, etc.) it would be prudent to defer strict judgment until sufficient data or evidence is available.
really for any if the claims you or the folks who engaged with you made, their 'flimsy'; i.e. with a new report (trustworthy ofc) the claims you folks make could be shown to be reasonably inaccurate.
i think it makes more sense to take the claims and platitudes made as what they are in order to appreciate it in a dialectical material way, that is, as conjecture and provisional.
in such cases i don't think there would need be to such commitment to one's own ideas about how things are going, and they are ideas as to me there is not nearly enough evidence for the apparent degree of confidence exhumed
to say something of substance, there is material risk for the younger folks protesting which doesn't take away treats directly, the 'latte' you mentioned, does indicate a commitment to receiving harassment (i mean with IOF bullying) or an ignorance towards it (which i find less than credible, i'd presume the protestors and folks who organize for Palestinians would have it as one of the many bits of info in their back pocket they can pull out to argue for their cause, among the atrocities they seem to very directly be committed against).
in the event that some of what is true, do you still think it makes sense to have what i and i think others see as a negative sentiment towards folks in the imperial core who protest for Palestinians?
argument against protestors in the imperial core/periphery
my sense is still that as they are residents of imperial core/periphery nations, their material needs and wants will still be mostly fulfilled in the short to moderate term, they'll have food, some kind of shelter, they'll likely not die within the next few years in a way related to their support for Palestine, though they may have their work or career impacted, the most to expect is worse pay and working conditions and temporary displeasure, nothing permanent so to speak
I always knew Karl Marx and Freddy Pringles were fake communists.
well, their brains don't work how adult ones do. we could medicalize them instead.
9 year old on nootropics smart drugs? Where have I heard that before
the great purge is going to be a lot more work than i thought
i know this is mostly just memeing on the 'go outside' post, but the ideology evidenced in this post leads to the movement lacking any funding or professionally developed skills (i.e. a lack of class traitors), it lets comfortable leftists 'off the hook' for organizing, education, or other revolutionary work or training, because they aren't the 'right' socio-economic class to be a 'real' communist. we need class traitors, and we need books to spread the insights that those class traitors can learn from the experiences of the working class. we need books for the members of the proletariat who are insulated from the worst of our society. books are good, spreading well-assembled useful information is a good thing.
Thank you 2 month old account for posting something that could only ever lead to unproductive arguing because it criticizes people for something they did not choose and something they are not in direct control of
It's not even the two months old account thing, it's another 'no materialism' baby leftist trying to dictate what is and is not communism from vibes-based exploitation analysis from GLID, which continues to be a common thread. They're literally getting worse over time.
Thank you 2 month old account
The length of time needed for an account to be considered "legit" keeps getting longer and longer
Love how right under this you told somebody they clung onto the wrong part of your post while you're doing the exact same thing to mine
being a communist
that's a tautology, "people need to struggle alongside workers to struggle alongside workers"
not all knowledge comes from books and articles
if you aren't writing down your eternally valid truths on paper, what are you doing??
I'm going to bow out of this discussion because I feel like this will just devolve into drama given that it's a complicated and high-drama topic to begin with.
Regardless, I think it's best not to make America come off as some sort of "utopia," which in my neighborhood, it isn't.
Never said it was a utopia, just that it's kush enough for enough people to make socialism a hard sell
If you're living in an American prison (the prison rate in this country, percentage-wise, is higher than any other country) then you are definitely exploited.
America has a big lumpen population for a developed nation thanks to late capitalism yes.
It also has a massive PMC class that acts as a buffer to any radical activity. And even the actual workers still get a lot of nice treats to keep them pacified thanks to imperialism.
There is no such thing as "late capitalism." There is capitalism through various stages.
The way the economy has changed since the 1980s? Everyone is poor and lives in dirt.
"PMC"
Just say petit-bourgeous or whatever; getting stuff from the New Left movements is kinda useless and redundant.
" And even the actual workers still get a lot of nice treats to keep them pacified thanks to imperialism."
So do Indian workers compared to the ones in the countryside.
There is no such thing as "late capitalism." There is capitalism through various stages.
"Joe Biden isn't old, he's just human" good luck with that argument lol
"PMC" Just say petit-bourgeous or whatever;
Liz Warren voters have nice cars in the suburbs, but they don't really have any control over the means of production like a car dealership owner Trump voter
So do Indian workers compared to the ones in the countryside.
the imperial core/periphery exists both internationally and intranationally within a nation
I didn't say that it didn't.
Liz Warren voters are mostly BIPOC people, but why are we talking about the electorate? Trump voters are petit-bourgeous, for example.
Most Americans do not vote.
So do Indian workers compared to the ones in the countryside.
Not enough that a redistribution of wealth wouldn't benefit them, unlike US PMCs
Most wealth isn't redistributed among the poor, including the USA; most of USA is dirt-poor, especially if you go into rural countryside where the undocumented immigrants and field-hands are.
Don't be fooled by "pristine suburbs" either; they're filled with debt servants.
The dirt poor in the US still have access to far better infrastructure than the rest of the world, public schools, paved roads, clean running water. Some of its starting to crumble, some of it costs more than it should, but its there. It's nothing like living in a fucking favela. You may go into horrible debt going there but most Americans do have a hospital within driving distance. Austerity is happening but it could be far far worth and part of the reason it isn't is cuz the capitalists are making such fat stacks off neocolonialism they don't mind throwing a couple bones to the PMC spawns.
The average income in the US is about 57k, if all wealth in the world was divided equally everyone would make about 35-40k. So for many many Americans socialism would be a downgrade.
"but most Americans do have a hospital within driving distance"
They do not
"Pew Research Center"
I don't know about using them as a source considering how they do their studies.
Anyway, keep in mind that the hospitals in rural America are of poor quality and are virtually denied to many undocumented immigrant communities.
The linear distance calculation between respondents and the list of hospitals is processed by using the Distance function from Django’s gis library. The Distance function takes the coordinates of each respondent’s address and the addresses of hospitals and returns distances that take into account the curvature of Earth. Researchers then select the hospital with the shortest linear distance to the respondent and use the Google Maps API to estimate driving time and driving distance and better reflect local travel patterns.
It looks like the methodology didn't ask respondents, "When you need to go to the emergency room at a hospital, where would you go?" and "How long would it take for you to drive there yourself?" The study took a respondent's address, the address of the closest hospital by straight line distance and then tried to figure out the drive time from there. Good thing insurance companies don't have "out of network" contingencies in their policies.
that average income figure is misleading. BLS is choosy about who does and doesn't count for the purposes of that, it doesn't include people who made $0, disabled people, kids, etc etc. But I'm assuming the 35-40k figure does include everyone
" Some of its starting to crumble"
Even in the suburbs, a lot of it is crumbling.
They do not; most don't have Internet access in the rural areas and especially if you're a prisoner.
And this is the Imperial core we're talking about; of course, it's going to be wealthier overall, but fact is, most wealth doesn't trickle down.
Trickle-down economics don't work.
92% of Americans have regular internet access
It's not trickle down economics, it's that the comprador bourgeois like having their backyards be somewhat stable and developed, which is good for the proles who happen to live there.
In the rural areas of Virginia, what counts as regular Internet access is different compared to suburbanites.
And to add insult to injury, there's still chunks of places in the USA where cell service doesn't reach.
I don't get the utility in this kind of essentialism
Material interests are a strong indicator for ideology and action. That makes them an incredibly useful variable for a class analysis.
The on-the-ground reality is always much more complex, though, and other variables cannot be ignored. Every successful revolution has some segment of class traitors among the petty bourgeois, as well as a large number of people in liminal economic or social spaces that defy simplistic categorization.
Read Mao's analysis of the classes in China, The Russian Revolution by Fitzpatrick, and The Bourgeois Revolution in France by Heller for examples of detailed class analyses.
If you are homeless, then you have certainly suffered from exploitation, and still are in America.
America has a big lumpen population for a developed nation thanks to late capitalism yes.
It also has a massive PMC class that acts as a buffer to any radical activity. And even the actual workers still get a lot of nice treats to keep them pacified thanks to imperialism.
Err, a lot of Latin American countries especially have what you describe.
If you're a BIPOC person like I am, you are definitely being exploited, at least compared to your white counterparts (I'm not even getting started on Indigenous peoples).
You know what I mean. I mean, specifically, they're on a whole 'nother level when it comes to oppression, I think.
You have to watch the original version of Star Wars to be a communist, none of that George Lucas special cut crap
posting
