Welcome again to everybody. Make yourselves at home. In the time-honoured tradition of our group, here is the weekly discussion thread.
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Started college again this week. I’m a bit older than the other first years. Someone asked me about a class today thinking I was a teacher lmao. I’m not THAT old.
We also had a protest this weekend at a local town where a refugee center will be located. A Dutch far right leader came to speech and there was a counter protest. We turned up with like five times as many people. It was great.
First day at my new blue collar job. Time to slowly spread some Marxism-Leninism among the workers.
Good luck!
Have a great week everyone! Make sure you take care of yourselves and those you care about.
As always, communism will win.
It’s been nearly a decade since my last physical labor job and I kinda forgot the shit diet people have. Especially now because I want to eat healthy myself. Like we are out cutting trees, lifting heavy and whatnot and these people get by on some simple sandwich with a slice of salami or an egg. And lots of cigarettes and coffee.
Meanwhile I am here with my wraps with tofu, avocado and vegetables lol. These people are either scrawny as hell or overweight but all of them are tough as a nail. I’m covered in scratches and dirt myself but at the end of the day it feels very rewarding being out there doing all this. Much more than staring at a screen all day in my opinion.
What is this paradise
Dragon Bridge, Han River, Da Nang, Vietnam.
Interesting!
I am a European citizen now so I should use a visa and go.
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Surreal scenes on a Dutch talkshow where a scientist was sounding the alarm on climate change followed by a guy who was praising China’s efforts on combating climate change saying their models might be the way forward. What is happening?
Decades happening in a few weeks, I suppose.
History
The actions of the US over the last few years have been so blatant, both in rhetoric and execution, that I thought for sure this would be a radicalising moment for the majority of people to realise that the country, or at least it’s ruling class, is inherently malicious and dangerous.
Unfortunately this isn’t the case, US propaganda is so effective that most people in the West who do have negative opinions of their country’s actions, simply chalk it all up to Donald Trump. Is that really the best they can do? Turbo Trump derangement syndrome instead of some genuine awareness? Fuck these people just as much as those who enthusiastically support the imperialism, their ignorance and lack of investigation is yet another pillar on which the Empire can stand.
These things don’t happen all at once, or all organically. The conditions make it easier to get through to people on a point like this, but they will still benefit greatly from guiding voices. The media apparatus is practiced at redirecting people’s ire in various wrong directions, so part of our task is getting past that to make sure people are not being led astray.
The other thing to keep in perspective is that “the majority” is a lot of people. It would be unreasonable to expect that outcome in any country, while the various state apparatuses and inertia are in place. What is most needed as a foundation is people who can build an alternative. It’s not as though western countries are going to pass a threshold of disliking the government and then automatically press the revolution button. Probably what would happen if the majority saw it as fundamentally awful, is the exploiting classes would sell them on the idea of reformists in office and some people would fold on their views if/when they see the system reforming at all.
Point being, popularity/unpopularity only goes so far. Organizing and tactics are what turn potential into substantial change.
I think it makes a lot more sense when considering that they are just labour aristocrats justifying themselves. But it is still a opportunity to help people recognize reality I think
You are in the belly of the beast as it is filling up with poison but it just wont vomit.
Agitprop is a material condition. Your voice can be a quantitative change that pushes the qualitative change. I believe in you.
No, no I am not. It is not my responsibiilty to get US libs to gain class consciousness. My priorities are to myself, my community, and at the very most my own country’s politics. All I can do is say what I see when it comes to the US, to make a change happen is primarily on the shoulders of socialists and communists in the US, however many there are. I can’t go organizing on the ground in the US, only they can, and they have my respect, but sadly, not my confidence.
Is that really the best they can do? Turbo Trump derangement syndrome instead of some genuine awareness? Fuck these people just as much as those who enthusiastically support the imperialism, their ignorance and lack of investigation is yet another pillar on which the Empire can stand.
Settlers talks a bit about this. It’s why I’ve given a chuckle when the people on here are like “Just go out and talk to people!” when most Americans don’t give a shit about politics or economy; at least not enough to actually get up and do anything about it or actually want to see you dead for even suggesting the idea that their distant family relative who’s the only successful one in the family has to change his ways. God forbid.
One of the reasons I ended up moving out of the last state I was in was because I “talked to people” and ended up getting some pretty actionable threats while I was there. These days, I care about my partner and those whom the threats were directed at as it is an “interracial marriage”. How am I supposed to have compassion for a genocidal, imperialist country built quite literally on the bones of entire civilizations or for the people in it that love it so much? Now the same things are beginning to repeat here as I participate in my local IWW branch.
I still encourage people to go out and talk to Americans. I just don’t think there is gonna be any of that rosy, working-class rabble-rousing that most people on the board seemingly have at least once a year. The experience I got was reaching through a few people who are lower-class, working proles who have absolutely no power or will/freedom to actually participate in organizing. The rest are frothing fascists; most don’t even realize they are.
I’ve been more successful in “recruiting” and organizing from different countries than I ever had with Americans; and I live in America.
Tried to talk to the statesian partner of one of my friends (she called herself a leftist). Said I had something for her to read and immediately got shot down when she told me no matter how short it wqs she wasn’t gonna read it cause she just doesn’t read. Gave up.
For the record they’re both mildly well intentioned libs. (Very mildly, they are so fucking apolitical it makes me mad).
A lot of the people on here seem to have more experience and deal with liberals and left-leaning folk far more. In my case, I tend to try to recruit from the apolitical “right” that has been in there sphere of influence for right-wing politics from family or friends. Best way I can describe it is people who have grown up in that propaganda their entire life and are just starting to question it.
Otherwise, I have had far more receptive people from Eastern Europe and Turkey for example than any “fellow” Americans.
The average American has far more amenities than the average European, and the latter is already an extremely wealthy and privileged population compared to the rest of the world. Many Americans don’t want to realize that but it’s true.
People will change into the direction you want once their material conditions are in the right place for that to happen- And you need to be there to show them the right way forward.
Ehhhhhhhhh
I am in Europe and the average European clearly lives better than the average American in every metric possible.
I lived in a very noisy Latino/a neighborhood in Virginia.
It was terrible.
No walkability.
No basic services (or they were so obscure or obtuse and not readily available that people didn’t know about them).
Racism, sexism, transphobia, etc.
Nobody knew their neighbor or recognized anyone.
Just… insufferable.
Everybody was pissed off or mentally ill (I hate the term “mentally ill,” but they were very depressed and had a lot of, I would argue, “psychological damage,” never mind the trauma, which I would argue is somewhat separate).
I am in Spain, which is technically better than most European countries, but of course, has multiple problems, true enough.
But truth be told: I cannot fathom Virginia or even the wider United States being better than Spain by any metric whatsoever.
Idk. Maybe a mental block for me at this point.
To be fair, a good Greek comrade once told me that “Greece is America in 5 years.”
I do get the sense that Europe is headed that way.
But honestly, for the time being, in most places, it seemed better than the United States, imho
I have entered the secret world of tradesmen. Multiple workers in their vans have waved at me or let me pass on my bike ride to work. I have received multiple sympathetic nods from fellow workers on the way home after a day of working your ass off.
It is tiring and energizing at the same time to dig a trench for 8 hours a day. At least I now know how to efficiently dig a trench.
Trades are lit
I know that leftists, especially in America, seem to look askance at them, partly because the trade unions can be very conservative.
But a lot of some great and very radical friends of mine are in the trades labor unions.
I want to go into them myself now that I am in Europe.
Also, in America, there are a lot of very radical trans organizers making big wins in the trades.
People will be on Twitter all day and then wonder why they hate everyone and have no hope.
The mainstream western platforms have so much brain poison. Which I say with some reservation because Twitter did help me reach ML at some point in time, so not like it’s all bad, but that was also pre-Musk-takeover. After him, it seemed to slowly deteriorate into little more than bots and neo-nazis with leftish twitter more marginalized.
And I mean, even back then, it had plenty of brain poison and false paths to get lost going down. I do not miss the cortisol spikes (not sure if I’m being figurative or literal) from reading the latest Twitter beef and being very careful not to get involved, so as not to suddenly have ire turned on me over a phrasing misunderstanding in my notifications. I never liked how it had this embedded status-based dynamic, where small accounts basically had to ingratiate themselves to the ones with lots of followers, or else risk getting quote tweeted and bombarded because they said something that set the person off. I found that a lot of mid-sized accounts (decent number of followers, but not like in the tens of thousands or something) would have a tendency to act like you were in their house invading their personal space when replying to them, instead of it being a public forum, which only made the angst worse over minor misunderstandings and confrontations. And to some extent, I couldn’t blame them for acting that way about it because it wasn’t like they were necessarily wanting to be a minor e-celeb. They may have more so stumbled it because they were witty, or because they happened to exist as a girl on the internet with a conventionally attractive pfp pic and so were getting guys chasing them, or sometimes a combination of the two.
In retrospect though, it’s not at all surprising that a society like the west’s would produce such an unhealthy and stratified-feeling “social media” platform like Twitter.
I keep getting suggestive or brainrot content on Instagram.
Ugh, sounds painful.
The medium is the message.
Twitter was designed to destroy good communication, imho
🫵 You WILL have hope, comrade.
No
YOU will have hope. 🫵
People too online are whining about Magneto potentially being rewritten as a victim of ICE and not a holocaust survivor - As if he was not changed from romani to jewish in the 80s.
I used to read Wikipedia and watch “left” YouTubers a lot in the past. I read a lot of smear against China but that changed really quick after reading about it.
In retrospect, I think the main reason for this quick change was that I wasn’t emotionally invested in it. Like, the Wikipedia page for the Uyghur “genocide” doesn’t have any images of a malnourished person like the page for the Holocaust has. There wasn’t any punch to my gut, so to speak.
People who still think the Uyghur genocide or the Ukrainian genocide by Russia is real after living through the current Palestinian genocide are beyond daft - like you saw plenty of visual evidence of it happening done by a government shielded by the west with a lot of very powerful people censoring it- And you think somehow the United States who controls the skies and spies on nearly every single grain of sand would not blast visuals of the supposed genocides of their political rivals everywhere??
Imma be honest. It’s pretty easy to be insulated into an echo chamber when you really want to. Speaking from personal experience.
Like, from 2023 to 2025, I straight up didn’t know about the Palestine genocide. Most of my contact with the topic was through my parents watching MSM, which obviously didn’t depict Hamas or Russia in a good light. I didn’t know why there were hostages and stuff.
The reason was that I was an “apolitical” chud (because of religion, but that’s another topic) and avoided news like the plague, and the social media algorithms really didn’t recommend them to me.
I really think that I would’ve benefited from someone pushing me to confront my biases. I was a good kid but extremely ignorant and conflict-averse.
My point being that if Russia or China did genocides even you back then would have seen visual evidence of it- the algorithms and MSM would have shown it throughly.
You can live in certain echo chambers in the west, yes, no doubt about that, but only certain topics can be avoided with such ease and its the topics that make the west look bad, not the other way around.
Agreed.
Yeah
But keep in mind:
“Genocide denial” is anathema to moral and civil discourse and general society.
Not without reason or merit, mind you, I would argue.
But
It is an example of corporate news, governments, letter agencies, etc. trying to use people’s emotions and values and morals to get them to support their side, their capitalist dominant narrative.
Honestly, pointing out that there is ample evidence for the ongoing Palestian genocide right now (never mind the wider Nakba that’s still going on as well) and showing how little evidence of, say, the Uyghur genocide there is (some vague satellite images, that picture of an Indonesian prison that gets floated around, etc.) is not a bad tactic.
I’m sure that conservatives and liberals will continue to argue on and on and on, though I think many will be on worse footing (if you’re trying to convince others; try not to get into Internet arguments willy-nilly, just pick your battles wisely for the sake of your time).
Ah
I guess you became an ML around the time of what I call the “2020 - 2021 wave” of new MLs.
(before that, there was the “2016 wave,” the “2008 - 2009 wave” with the recession, etc.)
Honestly, I think we are sort-of going through a “new wave” (in particular, 2025 - 2026).
Anyway, honestly?
Don’t sweat it. I was radicalized around the year 2010 (I believe this was in the lead-up to the War on Libya) but that doesn’t make me superior to you (or anyone else that was radicalized beforehand way before, FYI).
What matters it that you’re here. Kick ass and all that. But try not to fall into dark spirals and dark rumination spirals or thought-loops.
I learned that the hard way.
Be optimistic, even just remind yourself of the good things (liberals will tell you to “gratitude journal” or whatever, but I’m telling you, as an ML, to be positive (if you can in the moment, that is; don’t force it) and think of all the opportunities and victories yet to come, never mind the opportunities and victories popping up now.
Cheers!
o7
Thanks!
(Also, I was radicalized at 2025, but that makes your point)
Yeah, my apologies, thanks for clarifying, maybe I misread what you said intially.
I can see that you are just starting your journey in a way.
Yeah, and I’m enjoying the journey thus far lol. Also, enjoy your trip in Spain. I hope I will visit Spain in the future.
Thanks. I am actually moving here. Just trying to get things set up.
Business as a school subject. I cannot express in amy way gow much I hate it. Liberal economics combined with bourgeois ideology. I have a difficult time even listening due to the sheer amount of horse shit said. Again, how the fuck do people honestly belive this?
I was lucky that my business classes happened in a very left-leaning school.
One time I had a class on stocks. Of course there was the “this can make you rich!” talk, but my teacher also talked about the pandemic and stuff, like “this is why the richer get richer and the poor poorer” and “rich people like crisis”.
But yeah, other than that, serious petit bourgeois brainworms.
Maybe think of them like studying the enemy. It might help.
I had business as a high school major (or whatever the american equivalent would be), and it was the simplest math and like insurance law “put a x on answer a, b or c” stuff - which is practically non-existent in exams where I am from.
This is extremely low on the pecking order, but I like watching Minecraft survival videos & other cool mods. Im watching a recreation of WW2 edition of Minecraft, and the video creator somehow managed to force in 2 “soviets had no supplies & food” jokes into a span of like 2 minutes lol. Just let me enjoy my slop without the incessant anti-communism.
For real, I hate seeing anticommunism in videos that have nothing to do with communism. You literally can’t escape the brainrot.
Oh yeah, Minecraft with mods is awesome, especially industrial mods.
I should just play Minecraft.
I have never once played Minecraft, to be clear.
But honestly, I need to relax now that I can actually, well, relax now lol
Should try looking for a group soon, ig
I hope you all have a nice week :D
You too, Oppo!
You too Oppo!
Tu también, camarada. 🫡
Very cute ☺️
You too, Oppo! ฅ •ﻌ•♡
You too, Oppo! ❤️
You too, Oppo :3
