On this day in 1952, Fulgencio Batista led a military coup against outgoing Cuban president Carlos Prío Socarrás, canceling the elections three months before they were scheduled to take place. Batista himself was a candidate in the elections, but was not leading in the polls.
Claiming his actions were necessary to "save the Republic from chaos", Batista, with the backing of the army, stormed the presidential palace, with squads of troops and police surrounding the building. President Prío had left the area 30 minutes before however, and the palace was seized without violence.
The United States recognized his government on March 27th, and Batista allowed U.S. financial interests to dominate Cuba's economy. By the late 1950s, U.S. financial interests owned 90% of Cuban mines, 80% of its public utilities, 50% of its railways, 40% of its sugar production and 25% of its bank deposits, approximately $1 billion in total assets.
When asked to analyze Batista's government, historian Arthur Schlesinger wrote "The corruption of the Government, the brutality of the police, the government's indifference to the needs of the people for education, medical care, housing, for social justice and economic justice...is an open invitation to revolution."
Accordingly, Batista's reign ended on January 1st, 1959 when he was ousted from power by communist revolutionaries. Early that morning, Batista fled with an estimated personal fortune of $300 million to the Dominican Republic, where strongman and previous military ally Rafael Trujillo held power. Batista eventually found political asylum in Oliveira Salazar's Portugal and Francisco Franco's Spain, dying in the latter in 1973.
Hola Camaradas :fidel-salute-big: , Our Comrades In Texas are currently passing Through some Hard times :amerikkka: so if you had some Leftover Change or are a bourgeoisie Class Traitor here are some Mutual Aid programs that you could donate to :left-unity-3:
The State and Revolution :flag-su:
:lenin-shining: :unity: :kropotkin-shining:
Remember, sort by new you :LIB:
Yesterday’s megathread :sad-boi:
Follow the ChapoChat twitter account :comrade-birdie:
THEORY; it’s good for what ails you (all kinds of tendencies inside!) :RIchard-D-Wolff:
COMMUNITY CALENDAR - AN EXPERIMENT IN PROMOTING USER ORGANIZING EFFORTS :af:
Join the fresh and beautiful batch of new comms:
!genzedong@hexbear.net :deng-salute:
!agitprop@hexbear.net :allende-rhetoric:
!paganism@hexbear.net :anarchist-occult:
!neurodiverse@hexbear.net :Care-Comrade:
I feel like if no admins/mods come out with a post delineating anti-indigenous trolling and reiteration of guidelines for respectful interaction, I will leave the site.
Yeah I know big whoop and who cares and whatever, even I find farewell threads to be stupid(which is why this is as close as I get by burying it in a megathread as a post), but I raise this only because of the specific form of repeatedly bigoted behaviour is something all leftists must grapple with if they are to defeat the remnants of their own paternalistic attitudes towards listening to indigenous peoples, let alone considering their views. There is a reason why more indigenous people messaged me their support than posted it publicly: because people do not feel comfortable expressing that part of them due to the impacts colonialism and the sheer hostility or indifference from many others with no similar frame of reference. That is a problem.
I feel like "hey this is unintentionally racist" should be enough to get alleged 'comrades' to reflect, listen and hopefully pause their behaviour, but instead I had to repeatedly highlight how I agree with the thrust of the shittily-executed satire and was still treated as a 'troll' by the OP. I was a 'troll' to them and their friends because people can't even conceive of indigenous people posting on here. And after the OP finally realised they were tripling/quadrupling/hexabering down on their racism(making themselves look bad) and gave a half-hearted apology, their sidekick came in and started shit going anew and accused me of being some kind of badfaith idpol wrecker or whatever.
Throughout the long-lasting series of posts, mods and admins were entirely silent and first began by removing posts calling the perpetrators out or extending their logic to contexts that clearly demonstrate how fucked up they were being if it involved other marginalised groups, rather than addressing any of the root causes that led to escalation.
I work for an organisation paid for by the sacrifice of my people, this site is bad for my productivity, and the total silence and inaction from anyone who knew-but-chose-not-to-step-in is very disheartening and makes me question what is the point of wasting my time in a place that allows for all that bullshit. Ideally, not wasting time on here is better for my people and clearly, it is only up to us to take care of ourselves as there is still a long way to go until non-indigenous people can be counted on to do something themselves when they see it.
Like, at least give us back downvotes and outline some guides on how this site will deal with indigenous people being sidelined as a novelty/a troll (oh geez, I'd hate to derail the refined discussion of the 4th low-tier troll post of the day ported over from reddit ! that's important stuff to keep on track, shoo indigenous people with your rigtful criticisms, we're all riffing :stav-laugh:! ). That post was already against the rules of the comm and should have been removed from the start. It wasn't. It festered and got worse. While getting worse, the first actions of the mods etc were mostly directed at removing those calling the bad-faith vegans out.
If there's no real response to bullshit like that, there is no reason for me to come on here and waste my time and my peoples money, given that since the migration to this site there is a tremendous lack of useful effortposts or discussion of obscure leftist knowhow like there was on the old sub to balance out the garbage like today's.
I will definitely stop coming on here as much, I will definitely stop posting on here as much, and I am considering just stopping entirely because I don't see many reasons why I should continue to bother with all this. We constantly discuss and stay vigilant for every way we can make the site more inclusive for every group under the sun but when active bullshit is going on against indigenous leftists all the most important figures to step in and regulate debates were entirely absent. That's not good folks.
:evo:
Twitter libs talking about "non violent revolutions" :doomer:
I had a date where I said there's no such thing as a non-violent revolution.
I talk alot about politics when I was dating, nothing but libs all around me.
But i remember she said something about when some country voted AWAY the communist rule, like it's a good thing.
I hate Brooklyn sometimes.
Did these fuckers sleep through the entirety of last year?
Full support for your Lizardification quest o7 :grumpy-lizard:
(Thanks to @Jadzia_Dax for inspiring this! It's been a long while since I was able to pour out an effort post and it feels so good to write one again :) I'm gonna post it as its own proper post tomorrow, but off to sleep for now 💤)
How to Radicalize your social circles in 5 simple steps! [Left Unity Edition]
Spoiler Alert!
None of these steps are in any way simple, easy, or even necessarily likely. It's important to remember that even minor victories should be celebrated as it's never one thing that accomplishes anything, but the sum total of your efforts which compound over time!
1.) What?
Radicalize people (If you can)!
- Whatever your tendency, you may have opportunities to radicalize people in your everyday life. Certainly not all of us, many of us are isolated or for whatever reason don't have much of a social circle, and that's okay, this isn't a demand that you have to do this or aren't a good leftist, just an attempt at generating some resources from what I've learned over the past year.
2.) When?
Now and always, comrades
- We have a world to win! :left-unity-3: :anarchy: :pika-pickaxe: :hammer-sickle: :left-unity-2:
3.) Who?
People who you can interact with or work alongside as equals
- Be it at your job with your circle of co-workers, the other residents of your apartment building, your libby friend group, hell- even your church if applicable. Any situations like these where you interact with or, even better, work alongside others, are potential opportunities for radicalization. These are contexts in which people are (usually) more inclined to think of each other as equals in a social circle. Of course, material conditions in your area and the particulars of your life and these social circles, your results may hugely vary, but if you can find something like this situation, it's definitely worth a try. Even if it goes poorly, you'll learn a lot that will make the next try much more likely to succeed.
4.) How?
Don't 'hide your power level' but also don't go full [insert tendency here] on the first date either
- You might be concerned about going all in or failing to "hide your power-level", but I'm here to tell you that 'hiding your power level' is libshit (and cringe ngl). That's what opportunists do to grift, not something revolutionary leftists should ever abide. That is not to say go right into "how great it is that mao killed all the landlords and hey what if we got some guns and paid our landlord a visit 😎" I agree that'd be cool, but also would scare off most people you're likely to meet.
Introduce concepts slowly and naturally
- Like I said, you shouldn't go full [insert your tendency here] right away, you have to escalate to that slowly (slowly could be pretty quick depending on what's happening, as usual material conditions comin in clutch, if you lived a block down from the MPD station that was burned down things are naturally gonna move faster). Again, I don’t mean to water down your politics, but to introduce them slowly and without explicitly labeling them as radical politics. You gotta trick em into eating their vegetables since they’re convinced they don’t like them. Start building from basic concrete perspectives on stuff, describe current conditions with terminology that will be useful later so they’ll be familiar and it won’t feel like they’re being sold to.
Borrow from the Bolsheviks
- You may not agree with how Marxism-Leninism does things, but this isn't about the ideology, it's simply excellent practice for winning people over and influencing them. I’d highly recommend that you consider borrowing from the Bolshevik playbook and be an exemplary factory worker who earns the admiration of their fellow workers, or in this case… whatever is appropriate for your context! Sorry, but this guide has homework and you gotta figure that part out yourself. By doing this, you’ll have earned their trust and be looked up to, and if in doubt they’ll be far more willing to take your word for things, or be more inclined to listen to your perspective and less likely to become defensive and retreat to thought terminators. When you're more respected, so are the things you say.
5.) Concrete Example
Genericized example based on my irl interactions
-
For example, as a marxist, I'd use dialectical materialist terms and analysis when shooting the shit with coworkers, but I wouldn't just start spouting about it, I'd prompt the basic discussion and guide it towards a topic I knew I could drop some good concepts about, and get them to engage and want to know more.
-
I could bring up a headline I read about BLM and discussion would then inevitably turn to the violence, and then I could naturally bring the conversation to discussion of the systemic factors that inherently lead to ACAB, without ever saying All Cops Are Bastards, as that would throw up their firewall and make them defensive. I also try to avoid directly (over)explaining too much myself, ideally you don't want to be talking more than them because then it starts feeling like a lecture not an exchange of ideas (even though it's secretly been a lecture the whole time). Just steer the conversation as best you can while citing examples and pointing out contradictions. Over time, you can really do a lot for someone's political development/ education without them really noticing just by shifting the framing of the discussion and the terminology used, and before you know it you're making jokes about what you hypothetically wish you could do to Jeff Bezos and talking openly about the various ways capitalism is fucking everyone, or how
the boss is doing the same.
5.) The most important bit
This is the actual last step: Go out and try to radicalize people! Do it now if you can, do it next time there's an explosive mass movement that polarizes and highlights contradictions, whatever. Get your hands dirty and start earning some cold hard praxis experience!
Then, when you can, pass on the knowledge you've gained and use it motivate and teach others to do the same! Pay it forwards, that's the last step, that's how we contribute to the grand and proud tradition of common folks fighting for a better world, that's how we win!
P.S. please pitch me more strategies from other tendencies would be useful to toss in here like I did with the Bolshevik bit, as I think we can all agree every tendency has at least a few great ideas, they're not included right now only due to the limits of my own political education
P.P.S. I used spoilers to condense stuff and make it more digestible/ better to look at. If I actually made it worse and ugly, let me know and I'll edit it o7
Very good post, looking forward to the dedicated one tomorrow!
I posted it a bit ago actually! Thought it's just this same text but in it's own post
Ah my bad, been multitasking so mostly just been on the megathread, good stuff!
Psaki says Biden's pet cat "will break the internet" when it arrives to the White House as planned
:doomjak: Oh my god shut the fuck up
when your effort post gets 20 times less engagement than your shitpost about milkmen :deeper-sadness:
There's another stupid western civilisation sub on reddit. Time to start posting there again telling them how gay the romans were
They’re quick, but not as quick
as the romans were
(at sucking dick)
god trads are so cringe. these morons will see a painting of a dream of the middle ages by a guy in 1900 and think "this is what we could have had instead of freaking tinder!"
They can still dress up in fancy outfits and fuck around in the woods. Nothing stopping them. Except the inexorable march of industrialization and environmental destruction.
They know something's wrong. Maybe they'll become anarchists in a few years.
"oh we need to return to traditional Catholicism" okay bitch start by banning the charging of interest
All you colonizer fucks can eat my redacted
:malcolm-checks:
My living family members were survivors of genocides, weaponized rapes and forced relocations, and maybe sometimes people should reflect and apologize when their privilege is pointed out.
You sound like liberals who are sad to lose the moral high ground to leftists, so you just double down on the worst parts of yourselves.
Read the thread. Batista blatantly stole $300 million from the cuban people goddamn.
Edit: just did the math and when adjusted for inflation, Batista stole $2.7 billion dollars. Holy shit.
Absolutely. I'd never say they deserve to be homeless, because they don't, but you have to admit there is a great deal of irony to the situation.
Oh it’s ironic and poetic justice for sure. They would have happily ruled as dictators if the people of Cuba hadn’t reclaimed their country.
Despite his brutal rule, Carmela Batista still defends her father's legacy.
"He was a strong man, but he was, like I said, a friend," she said, adding that although he had eight other children, he visited her regularly, and shared his fortunes. "He was like my best friend."
Nah she deserves it.
She has zero power. Homeless people with moronic reactionary beliefs still deserve homes.
I wonder if Cuba would take them back and make them citizens? Send a message to all of the gusano kids who don't like America that there is an alternative.
All dictators/ corrupt presidents that got away in latam always stole millions from the country they ruled, from pinochet who had a bunch of bank accounts in the US to Salinas that stole a bunch from public funds and then founden a company with that money
Yeah, you’re totally right. I know that on a basic level and also what the hell, that is so much money.
Bautista had a relationship with the italian mobs who own many casinos in the island and gave him bribes to let them be in the island
I just realized that in socialism, you would be able to play any game on any console. Feel like shit, just want full communism so I can play breath of the wild on pc. :sadness:
I have covid and a severe kidney issue and I just wanna state for the record that having to rely on a wheelchair to go literally any distance at all without collapsing unable to breathe makes me so fucking miserable I cannot fucking begin to describe it.
On he plus side the male nurse is letting me quietly use Lyft nicotine pouches provided I don't tell the other staff, so I no longer want a cigarette 24/7.
