Russia invading was really the best thing for hawks. It’s only gonna get harder to argue for anti-imperialism now, even smarter people I know see the USA as the lesser of two evils. It doesn’t help that a lot of the people opposed to the US right now are legit ghouls who there isn’t much nice to say about besides that they oppose to the US. No amount of nuance or intelligent arguing is gonna convince anyone now, the US were the good guys against the big evil Putin.
The US is getting more and more regressive on LGBT issues but on classic American style they’re doing it slowly and regionally enough that it doesn’t seem like a sudden regressive take over, so most LGBT people I know still see the USA as a generally progressive state with some regressive enclaves, unlike the “backwards” nations in the developing world.
The hope pilling about China is seeming more and more like cope to me. Even if they are really building socialism I think they maybe too late. Besides it seems to only be socialism for China, they’re not planning on exporting anything.
Anti-communist propaganda as worked. Failures of past socialist movements along with the almost scientific methods of modern propagandists means really only an aesthetic meme version of the idea is gaining any meaningful popularity.
Frankly I’m just fed up. I don’t think anyone else in the west can be talked into socialism at this point, the propagandists won. People say that we shouldn’t be doomer even if we are doomed, but NGL having hope just seems exhausting and obnoxious right now. It being over seems like the best fate because at least then we don’t have to deal with people telling us how wrong we were.
You are actively under the effect of the capitalist media ecosystem. Ukraine is being blurted across all channels 24/7 the feeling your feeling is exactly what those in power want you to feel.
The system is actively alienating you right now, just as it always has. It’s just egregious at the moment. Ground yourself in your community and the things you can control.
You need to contextualise your feelings too. There are struggles going on in places of the world that are much more bleak, there are generations of people who’ve been in this situation and reflected on this feeling since at least 1789, it may not be the people around you but it could help to read texts of people in the past reflecting on past failed revolutions.
At the end of the day this is an ongoing event and we are going to be able to properly understand it for months. Your first gut feelings are almost never the most correct ones, sometimes it’s best to just wait and see.
I refuse to give up hope. Leftists are spending too much time arguing about which side is worse or better, whether Putin is justified in invading a neighboring country or if NATO encroachment is not a big deal. I don’t give a fuck. The fact of the matter is the left has abandoned any agency, it has disappeared entirely on a global scale. The infrastructure to enact worldwide socialism is non-existant and time is running out. We need to mobilize right now and set ourselves up to take a hold of the power vacuum that is inevitably going to arise as these two sides bicker over nationalist bullshit. The west has spent almost a century fighting communism and Putin has aided and abetted that effort, spending time bickering with libs about Putin’s justified grievances against the west are fucking stupid.
:this:. Material reality is what matters, not the discourse about NATO or Russia that we’re currently surrounded by. Everybody on every side of this war will propagandize to their citizens that they have won and the enemy has lost. The left must rebuild itself. I won’t succumb to the easy path of doomerism and surrender my agency while there’s still work to be done.
There are reasons not to lose hope entirely:
- China might not be exporting revolution but they are doing their own thing and resisting US dominance, as well as developing their country. This alone is proof that a world outside the US exists.
- The war in Ukraine is horrible but the fact that it happened at all shows that we’re not living in the end of history any longer.
- In Latin America popular movements have managed to gain power, against the wishes of the US.
- Cuba and Venezuela still exists, despite being targets of US aggression for decades.
If history teaches us anything it is that America will destroy anyone who tries to move just a millimeter closer to socialism. The Great Satan is decaying and losing the ability to project power. This opens new possibilities, one of them being the construction of socialism outside of American reach. Many other and more sinister possibilities exists but for the first time in ages, an alternative is possible.
The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters.
- Antonio Gramsci.
Perhaps you’re right.
I made a recent post that gave me a little hope, apparently some Communist politicians in Russia are calling out the fact that Putin is opportunisticly using the violence in Donbas to justify invading all of Ukraine. I know the lathe almost never works for positive things but it would put some egg on western Libs face if Russian communists became the leading force in deescalating this conflict.
harder to argue for anti-imperialism
No amount of nuance or intelligent arguing is gonna convince anyone now,
we don’t have to deal with people telling us how wrong we were
Don’t waste your time getting into online debates with Liz Warren voting PMC, organize the working class instead
only an aesthetic meme version of the idea of socialism
Organize the working class (repeats 100x)
working class instead
I’m surrounded by labor aristocrats. Also most of the working class is pretty brain rotted by propaganda.
Everyone I’ve spoken to about it in my area is incredibly anti-war and once you shoot down the Putin memes they are fed and only lightly believe, they actually listen and understand that NATO created this situation.
No one I’ve spoken with wants war, no one even had strong feelings about who’s the “lesser evil”. Only psycho partisans have strong opinions, which is a huge minority of the working class.
Regardless of what is happening, the left are still in a better position then they were during the “end of history”.
America is in shambles, and change can happen in the blink of an eye. Police stations were blazing in the states not long ago, it can happen again.
Regardless of what is happening, the left are still in a better position then they were during the “end of history”.
why?
America is in shambles, and change can happen in the blink of an eye. Police stations were blazing in the states not long ago, it can happen again.
oh god yes. I was hoping we’d see more of it in 2021 but it seems things have gone back to sleep again…
