Welcome again to everybody. Make yourself at home. In the time-honoured tradition of our group, here is the weekly discussion thread.
On Sunday last week, Damascus fell to Salafi terrorists and other imperialist-aligned forces. Regardless of the flaws of the ousted government, this is a horrible situation for the Syrian proletariat as well as for the people of Palestine, Lebanon and others. We can only hope for the perseverance of the Syrian workers and the remaining anti-colonial resistance.
☭ Matrix homeserver and space
☭ Theory reading group on hiatus, will move to Lemmygrad next year
☭ Find theory on ProleWiki, marxists.org, Anna’s Archive, libgen
(rabm) is red anarchist black metal. shitheads don’t know what red means there lmfao.
“Authoritarianism”, god I hate that word. Gotta be one of the top most reductionist, misused words there is. I’m not gonna say everybody who uses it as a negative also supports some kind of imperialist/fascist/colonizer project, but it sure is common. And among those who view it as a purity thing, that opposing it is some kind of freedom from the confines of overreach in authority, they miss that there’s no human society without forms of authority and that the countries they usually think “were supposed to be liberating communist projects and aren’t” actually are democratic. One of those symptoms of when somebody realizes the imperialist country they live in is shit, but they still believe its propaganda about other countries.
“Anarchists” who never read a book on anarchism. “They don’t want to control power, they want to critique power”
what is palestinian authority function in this crisis?
Imagine Vichy France but they are also running death squads that kill partisans.
What does Juche 113 mean and why is it used here? Thanks
It is referencing the Juche calendar which beings with Juche 1 in 1912, Juche being essentially Marxism-Leninism with Korean characteristics, an application of Marxism specific to the Korean condition from my understanding but maybe someone more knowledgeable can chime in I’m not well versed there.
It’s a tradition to refer to the date in the Juche calendar from the old reddit r/GenZedong weekly discussion sticky that carried over to here as far as I am aware
📢 Today is the 35th birthday of the Hungarian Workers’ Party. Happy birthday and keep going! 🇭🇺
protest in ROK today
Love this tiny bit of theory from an old Soviet film about the revolution, between Tanya the nurse and the political comissar Ignatyich:
Tanya: Listen, Ignatyich… Why isn’t there Soviet power abroad? Are they stupid?
Ignatyich: Go to sleep.
Tanya: But how come, Ignatyich?
Ignatyich: Seems they don’t have the strength for it. And they live better than we do. They’re not desperate enough, haven’t ripened for it yet.
It’s a great film, shame there doesn’t seem to be a version with English subtitles on YT.
muric*nts do anything to spread propaganda
I have a very, very, very strong feeling that the complaints about how Gen Alpha is “ruined by screens, entitlement, permissive parenting” is nothing but nonsense that is not very different at all from how previous generations were complained about. They even complained about “today’s youth” in ancient Greece, Egypt, and Sumer!
It’s an outdated mindset that I sadly see all around me, even among many progressives.
Remember when when everyone said T.V. would rot kids brains? All the people who grew up watching T.V. are now saying Phones will rot kids brains. Either they have brain rot or they are making shit up just like their parents and grandparents did.
Idk I guess you could make a point about screens. I read the other day about how there is an increase of children with eyesight problems probably caused by sitting too close to a screen from a young age. Also, some of the content for kids is literal brainrot lol.
But I guess that then just boils down to what content they consume and not just screens in general.
I hate how many Arabs are celebrating what’s happening in Syria, and I’m not even talking about just Moroccans. This makes it hard to not want to just give up on them. It’s like they haven’t got a single clue, they just gobble up everything they’re being told by media just like before. The Arabs are so weak that a completely different culture in Iran are spearheading their own resistance.
At the end of the day they are not that different from westerners. People everywhere regardless of their religion, nationality or ethnicity are susceptible to being propagandized by their media and their ruling class establishment institutions. All that differs is the material circumstances, and these compel more people in the global south than in the imperial core to wake up and actually realize what is happening.
a ton of people just live in autopilot and parrot whatever they hear on media, i kid you not ive had mexicans tell me about “china does child labour” while there are kids working in the background.
Many Arabs are not celebrating, I can attest to this.
Well, I’m Turk, so maybe it’s just only what I see.
Unfortunately, as a Syrian vehemently against what is happening, most Syrians are celebrating.
Some of them are Syrians I spoke to a week before the regime fell and they held a position similar to mine.
I suppose for some it is fear of persecution from new regime, or a cope given that we’ve reached a point of no return. But it still terrifies me. Have we accepted Al-Qaeda rule of our country?
Is it true that people are forced to wear hijab again?
Not exactly forced, but there are people (often in camouflage uniform) in the streets calling (sometimes on megaphone) for women to cover their heads, and calling for men and women to stand separately in separate spaces rather than mix. Sometimes they give out scarves while asking them to cover their hair. However I haven’t seen or heard of any violence or forcing on this matter (though Idk if anyone tried to disobey either).
This is likely individuals doing it and not a state policy thing yet.
It’s a cool experience to see so many union members dressed in red going to Brussels today. A big wave of red just cramming into a train, proper working class people✊🏼
never underestimate labor unions
Too much of the left does.
In What is to be Done Lenin warned about overestimating the revolutionary potential of labor unions.
Labor unions are a great staging ground for agitation and radicalization but they are not revolutionary by nature.
I’m already aware.
Anyone know how I can find my own DMs on here?
Edit: Found them— bell icon, messages, all.
Tonight I received a fortune that says, ‘YOUR SENSE OF HUMOR IS A JOY TO ALL.’
My fortune cookie from a week ago was “Laugh at yourself, it feels good sometimes.”
Tomorrow I will join a general strike in Brussels against the government. Excited to see what will happen. Might be a good networking opportunity.
any thoughts?
I mean it’s hard to disagree. There are very few working class (read: poor) people who not only manage to have enough free time to write but to have the network to get published too.
I recently read a book on poverty written by a man who has gone through poverty himself. He only managed to get such a book published because he managed to get a university degree and a government job. He could be just a talented writer while working in a factory but he would have a much harder time getting published without the network he build over time.
