Hexbear

5 points

4 years ago

Yeah who cares about innocent people caught in the crossfire. Fuck them, right?

If they’re democrats or republicans why do I care?

They’ve cheered for the slaughter of peoples across the entire globe and in the case of Dems wouldn’t even promise to give people healthcare during a pandemic

Fuck them, right?

Yes.

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17 points

4 years ago

Edgy.

If they’re democrats or republicans why do I care?

150 million people voted for either the Dems or Republicans in the last election. A majority of the adult population of the United States. If you want to be a communist in any sense other than internet posturing, a big chunk of that number is the working class you need to engage with politically.

The Democratic and Republican parties, as state-aligned political vehicles, are not interchangeable with the millions of people who vote for them because they are effectively the only two options available in bourgeois elections in the US. They aren’t even parties in the sense that membership is available, and it’s not like voters’ preferences actually determine the vast majority of what those parties do when in power (case in point: healthcare).

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2 points

4 years ago

150 million people voted for either the Dems or Republicans in the last election. A majority of the adult population of the United States. If you want to be a communist in any sense other than internet posturing, a big chunk of that number is the working class you need to engage with politically.

150 million members of the labour aristocracy that have long ago decided that their material wealth is tied to US imperialism which manifests (far outside the realm of political parties) in putting dead animals on the porch of the soldier that stopped My Lai massacre in the Vietnam invasion (while decorating the soldiers that did it) right up to telling half the population their “unamerican” for protesting the Empires Wars

Edgy.

You can call it edgy all you like but if you ever pointed out to the majority of Americans how the US has turned the rest of the world into a slave labour camp to satisfy they’re endless material greed they’re general sentiment is “sucks to be them”.

If you or me were ever to point out to the average American that 12 million Russians died during the 1990s of capitalist restoration helped on by the US - do you think the average American would respond with empathy?

Or do you think they’d respond with “sucks to suck”

No, then why should I?

Do I think the US empire can ever decline in such a nature to avoid a catastrophe like what the Russians went through?

No - then, sucks to suck

If you want to be a communist in any sense other than internet posturing, a big chunk of that number is the working class you need to engage with politically.

Not american so sucks to suck. And even if I was I’d accept that my role as a communist in America is to bring the Empire to its knees - not organise for higher wages on the Death Star

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8 points

4 years ago

To bring the empire to its knees is going to require a massive organized force, like say the US working class organized in its own class interest.

Your analysis of imperialism and labor aristocracy is absolute trash. Is the astronomical wealth generated by US capitalism flowing into the hands of the more than 40% of Americans who can’t afford a $400 emergency expense? Does it lie with the 1/4 American households that have faced food insecurity in 2020? The objective majority of American workers who live paycheck to paycheck?

Or has it been reaped by the capitalists, the class whose interests give rise to imperialism and who own the apparatuses of imperialism and who pocket the profits of international capitalist exploitation?

You bullshit your way into the idea of a 150 million person “labor aristocracy,” obscuring class divisions during what is probably the most intense period of class differentiation in US history: the period after the postwar boom where living standards for the US working class is declining, while the capitalists hoard wealth in historic quantities.

Are you so terminally online and disconnected that you think most working class Americans celebrate the My Lai massacre, or even know what that was?

If you or me were ever to point out to the average American that 12 million Russians died during the 1990s of capitalist restoration helped on by the US - do you think the average American would respond with empathy?

Yea I’m pretty sure I could get quite a few empathetic responses from pointing that out. I’m a trot, so I literally and routinely have friendly conversations about socialism with strangers on the street and at protests, and it helps that more than 50% of people under the age of 30 in the US are sympathetic to socialism. Being that you’re not from the US, did you miss that 25 million people protested against racism and police brutality in the US this summer? Quite a few of those people are looking for a way out of a racist capitalist status quo.

You on the other hand, hold American workers responsible for the crimes of their ruling class in a way that 1) is bullshit, not grounded in conditions or consciousness as they actually exist, and 2) isn’t going to win anyone to your position. So I can see how you might struggle to build a connection.

not organise for higher wages on the Death Star

Yikes. In retrospect, I’d actually like to see you explain to folks who are legitimately struggling to provide a comfortable life for themselves and their families that, by virtue of being born in the US, they work on a project equivalent to the death star and do not deserve basic improvements to their quality of life.

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Nuttula [comrade/them]@hexbear.net

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10 points

4 years ago

You bullshit your way into the idea of a 150 million person “labor aristocracy,” obscuring class divisions during what is probably the most intense period of class differentiation in US history: the period after the postwar boom where living standards for the US working class is declining, while the capitalists hoard wealth in historic quantities.

Your argument here is not an answer both things are true from a Marxist perspective.

There is a labor aristocracy in the west compared to the rest of the world, while simultaneously it doesn’t mean the person lining up to get their food stamps are part of the PMC or aren’t exploited workers. Yes America is a heavily class divided country, but on a relative analysis America is also the imperial core profiting heavily from it. Nobody is “obscuring” anything by pointing out exactly who and where the imperial core is. At the same time nobody(at least nobody arguing in good faith) is “blaming” the American worker for simply being born there and benefiting from it. Yet it seems pointing this out is an incredible offense…

In general Americans do enjoy benefits from imperialism and this is a very important part to understanding their material interests, Sanders voters want healthcare but you aren’t going to convince them we should be building hospitals in Africa first, Sanders himself is a disgraced imperialist and that is the farthest left you got for over 50 years or whatever, the most you’ll get is some non-answer like "we can do both(just don’t ask with what money and who is going there). In general the American “left” just wants to redistribute the share of the spoils of imperialism, which to them is just reduced to something something big corporations and billionaires blah blah. There is no understanding that the majority of these profits come from direct foreign operations or rely heavily upon it.

You on the other hand, hold American workers responsible for the crimes of their ruling class in a way that 1) is bullshit, not grounded in conditions or consciousness as they actually exist, and 2) isn’t going to win anyone to your position. So I can see how you might struggle to build a connection.

The thing is people on this community don’t always want to hear the hard truths about what a revolution means, I am not American so my view is certainly biased, however from a global perspective we shouldn’t blame ourselves or our ideology for the results of the absolute destructive mentality of capitalism. The harsh response to his point of view is proof of this. Everyone here memes about revolution and change and death to Amerikka and all that but the moment someone seriously defends civil war or balkanization regardless of the consequences then he is being petty or cruel.

Alas just arguing that there will be innocents who suffer is a meaningless construct, who is innocent, from what perspective and based on what metric? A revolution is an explicit statement of the end justify the means and if you don’t accept this premise then you are not realy ready to fight for it, or any sort of meaningful change realy. You’ll always be at the mercy of the fascists who threaten you with killing innocent children or woman or worse, “Capitalism/America is too big to fail”.

Ultimately if there is Balkanization or anything like it will be because at every single step of the way, both the American population and the capitalist ruling class have taken steps(sometimes very wrong steps) towards it. It is not the socialists/communists fault for realizing this and planning for this and ultimately unironically supporting it.

Our task is to use the opportunity towards our own goals not to be a nanny of the fascist capitalist state trying to stop it from destroying itself. Our duty is to the masses and ensuring we can make the least amount of people suffer while working towards our goal. If at some point you replace the goal with just being scared of the consequences then you already lost.

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-7 points

4 years ago

New account, first post halfway down a thread–forget to sign out of your alt?

Nobody is “obscuring” anything by pointing out exactly who and where the imperial core is

In general Americans do enjoy benefits from imperialism and this is a very important part to understanding their material interests

^^ This is obscuring class divisions in a blatant and obvious way. Obviously there is no “in general” with respect to the spoils of imperialism. The profits of capital investment go to the capitalists doing the investing, everything else is just table scraps.

Sure, many american workers enjoy a relatively higher quality of life than they would if they lived on the receiving end of imperialism, by virtue of higher levels of development and higher profits for american capitalists. Turns out that’s not actually enough of a lift to provide an adequate quality of life for a large percentage of the US working class, especially as wages have been stagnant for 40 years while the costs of housing, transportation, education, and other fundamentals, continue to rise. It is not an exaggeration that more than 25% of US households with children have faced food insecurity in the past year.

(And since you lot always bring up healthcare paid by the spoils of imperialism–did those voters actually get health care? Or any other meaningful reform? Or is there still austerity for US workers and unfathomable wealth for US capitalists? )

On the flip side, because the level of development of the productive forces is relatively higher in the US, American workers stand to gain considerably more in the event of working class ownership and control of production. This is the class interest of the US working class, and just like in every other nation, the class interest of the working class is fundamentally opposed to that of the exploiting class. The workers of the US objectively stand to gain in overthrowing US capitalism, and to pretend that the material interest of american workers is aligned with continued imperialism, is to pretend that our class interest is identical to the capitalists who draw profits from the exploitation of workers domestically and abroad.

The thing is people on this community don’t always want to hear the hard truths about what a revolution means

From your analysis, I’d say you know basically nothing about revolution is, and even less about the material conditions for workers in the United States. If you think balkanization of the US, along the lines of sectionalism pushed by the ruling class, is progressive, you don’t have a Marxist understanding of historical development, much less revolution. That process, which is not even likely to happen, is not revolutionary; there is no change to the productive or social relations.

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4 points

4 years ago

Your analysis of imperialism and labor aristocracy is absolute trash.

No it’s not. Even the least class conscious American understands at a material level (though they may not be able to put it into marxist terminology) that they benefit from US imperialism and extending US tentacles worldwide. It’s why when US goes to war it does so with an outright majority (50%+) against whatever country the US declares the new enemy.

Yea I’m pretty sure I could get quite a few empathetic responses from pointing that out. I’m a trot, so I literally and routinely have friendly conversations about socialism with strangers on the street and at protests, and it helps that more than 50% of people under the age of 30 in the US are sympathetic to socialism. Being that you’re not from the US, did you miss that 25 million people protested against racism and police brutality in the US this summer? Quite a few of those people are looking for a way out of a racist capitalist status quo.

The BLM movement represents Social fascism as outlined by Stalin - ie. Social-democracy as the twin pillar of fascism. The BLM movement under this context is an oppressed group seeking to enter the Labour Aristocracy. There is zero internationalism in this movement

Firstly, it is not true that fascism is only the fighting organisation of the bourgeoisie. Fascism is not only a military-technical category. Fascism is the bourgeoisie’s fighting organisation that relies on the active support of Social-Democracy. Social-Democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism. There is no ground for assuming that the fighting organisation of the bourgeoisie can achieve decisive successes in battles, or in governing the country, without the active support of Social-Democracy. There is just as little ground for thinking that Social-Democracy can achieve decisive successes in battles, or in governing the country, without the active support of the fighting organisation of the bourgeoisie. These organisations do not negate, but supplement each other. They are not antipodes, they are twins. Fascism is an informal political bloc of these two chief organisations; a bloc, which arose in the circumstances of the post-war crisis of imperialism, and which is intended for combating the proletarian revolution. The bourgeoisie cannot retain power without such a bloc. It would therefore be a mistake to think that “pacifism” signifies the liquidation of fascism. In the present situation, “pacifism” is the strengthening of fascism with its moderate, Social-Democratic wing pushed into the forefront. - Stalin, https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1924/09/20.htm

Black Lives Matter indeed but nothing is said about the 27 million Yemenese that are starving due to US blockade or the slave markets in Libya due to US foreign policy. Ad inifiitum for the entire continent of Africa. BLM is not a revolutionary movement but a liberal movement seeking a greater share of the imperial pie

Are you so terminally online and disconnected that you think most working class Americans celebrate the My Lai massacre, or even know what that was?

I gave one example of how the American public treats both war criminals and those who stop war crimes.

I can name a million others though…How about Chris Kyle celebrated in American Sniper?

I’m a trot

So we don’t have to worry about socialist revolution anytime soon then eh? (Just kidding!)

Yikes. In retrospect, I’d actually like to see you explain to folks who are legitimately struggling to provide a comfortable life for themselves and their families that, by virtue of being born in the US, they work on a project equivalent to the death star and do not deserve basic improvements to their quality of life.

People say abolish the police because the US police is very similar (though not on scale) as the SS. You can’t work in the SS and make the SS more of a “public good”. It needed to be abolished.

US needs to be abolished. I didn’t even think this was that controversial a point on this site.

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0 points

4 years ago

“The BLM movement represents social fascism as outlined by Stalin,” is hands down the worst take I’ve read on this website, and in and of itself demonstrates that you are literally incapable of applying Marxist analysis to a concrete social movement, an expression of rage and discontent shared by millions.

The protests this summer were largely spontaneous mass protests against police brutality and racism that involved tens of millions of working class people. Because it did not spontaneously generate flawless class consciousness among its participants, which is literally never something that happens with mass movements of any sort, you rush to categorize it as “social fascism.”

If mass movements spontaneously generated internationalist, Marxist perspectives, there would be no need for communists, as any effort would be redundant. But because that literally never happens, we use Marxism to analyze these movements, not for the purpose of categorization, which is what you’re doing, but for the purpose of comprehending and intervening in those movements to bring a Marxist perspective.

“an oppressed group seeking to enter the Labour Aristocracy”

That’s your explanation of the struggle against racism in the US? Lol.

Social fascism was a trash theory in the 20th century and is a dumpster fire of an approach when you retrofit it to “explain” a large protest movement against racism.

You’re honestly one of the least competent, “Marxists” I’ve ever come across.

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https://old.reddit.com/r/EuropeanSocialists/comments/jmzsjm/on_the_us_elections/?sort=top

7 points

4 years ago

Aight

Let’s see what a subreddit of actual well-read communists think on the US situation

Versus someone that’s been suckered into trotskyism - an opportunist trend in Marxism that hasn’t produced a revolution in it’s entire existence

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JuneFall [none/use name]@hexbear.net

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4 points

4 years ago

I would like to add that labour aristocracy (“Arbeiter_innenaristokrat_innen”) is a term that has plenty of history. It got a tradition before Lenin’s Imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism, it got a new finding of the term in it (which if you read it reduced, is every core worker benefits from imperialism - even in a sloppy reading as every single individual worker, instead of structurally by higher wages, hegemony etc.). After Lenin’s establishment of the term there was also an evolution of the term in parallel paths which are not integratable (one is the Stalinist tradition of it used internally in the Soviet Union).

The reading of the term here is in my opinion a sloppy populist variation of a mix of a close readin gof Lenin’s term with a lot of Stalinist sloppyness in it.

The other general thing I would like to add is that while I support longer analysis the transfer of theoretical frameworks to specific historical settings, events and groups is often not as easy as one thinks and without lot of data might lead to misunderstandings. In this situation the view of BLM is skewed since theoretical means are stretched beyond their usefulness and there is not even a goal to separate what exactly is going on.

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JuneFall [none/use name]@hexbear.net

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3 points

4 years ago

In case of reductionist to useless class analysis of Steel you are also right, however in the way you present the way I would disagree.

Capitalism will always lead to shitty situations in the US, the problem is not the disparity in wealth in the US, the problem is capitalism, which naturally has become global.

Steel’s position amounts to: Nothing in the US is good, since nothing in a core can be good, so no group that does anything there can be good and any group that is there is labour aristocracy which means that they can’t be good and do no good. Which is kind of a silly position, but it is fair to be a Third World Revolutionist. There is no law anymore against that.

In my opinion it is a bad take partially cause the US will have productive forces and wealth and power and all that including well established military that might side with the Counterrevolution and Reaction aka the Fascists when push comes to shove.

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DasKarlBarx [he/him,comrade/them]@hexbear.net

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17 points

4 years ago

You realize it’s going to be more than just Democrats and Republicans who get caught up in this, right? This isn’t a movie where only those involved in the storyline get hurt.

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7 points

4 years ago

And do you realise when we post a flag of US on fire its not to be an edgelord?

I wish balkanisation process could be peaceful (which is more than what USians gave Yugoslavia, iraq syria libya)

Unfortunately it could never be peaceful - doesnt mean i dont still want US to balkanise