Listening to the cushvlog is not theory it’s the ramblings of a stoner lol. Don’t let him make you into a doomer.
how though he unironically has an astute historical knowledge of eurpoean political economy and a profound philosophical analysis of christianity's development as the primary social control mechanism in neoliberal societies, for all the shabby presentation, internet memes, and weird cult-like spirituality theres really something there
I don't know, all the leftists around here have had good takes and I've even heard libs (irl) say that it is NATOs fault. The big orgs are all shit of course, but the small local ones teend to be better, as well as a lot of people, more than I thought.
Yeah the internet has been totally astroturfed about this. Yes, I've heard more than enough shittakes irl, and the majority of people I've talked to are towing the NATO line. But it's not the plurality you would expect. I've also spoken to a lot of people from the mid-east and South Asia, and almost all of them have expressed the same sentiments as us. They and their neighbors have been brutalised for decades and no one cared. No matter how good the propaganda, they will not forget.
Yeah it's kind of hard to forget NATO countries assisting in the arrest of revolutionaries. And giving the oppressive regime in your country weapons (including nukes) used to fight a 25+ year border war against "communism" though proxy Israel.
and I’ve even heard libs (irl) say that it is NATOs fault.
I don't believe this. What kind of regular ol' lib thinks that?
It was the same with 2014, people here have a good amount of anti-americanism and anti-war believes in them. People still remember the second world war here. It's not everyone of course, but some.
Basically on a global scale, the only way to cope is to assume China is actually doing third world Maoism born from dengism, whereby China having the means of production in their country, after the west gave it to them under Deng, will allow them to indirectly redistribute wealth from the west to China. And China will share this wealth through the belt and road initiative.
And that this indirect wealth distribution from the core to the global south will allow China and the global south to build their own wealth to the point where the west no longer has leverage, or conditions deteriorate in the west to that point, or both. Then leftist thought might be viable as a mainstream position in the west, as the workers will no longer enjoy the same advantage over the rest of the world as they did before.
That's not to say working conditions aren't fucked in the west, they certainly are, but treats seem to be enough to keep the lid on the pot for now.
Yeah, it's pretty much a form of coping in a way. I think I edited my initial reply to your post with a much longer explanation of this. But it's the only way I can see communism going further than a few AES states, a minimisation or solving of the contradiction in terms of global wealth distribution.
i honestly think said collapse may be faster than most historical ones thanks to mass dementia from covid combined with mass starvation from climate famines and flooding, we will absolutely see it in our lifetimes but it will be horrifying.
if by "socialist rebuid" you mean complete control over the entire planet, yeah, but if by "socialist rebuild" you mean socialist societies existing in the United States it could be as soon as 20 years if balkanizing is the future in store for us
it's not optimistic to say people might build communes of 20 farmers in a place after a collapsed state. it would be optimistic to say they would live a happy life free of conflict with the forces of capital though
spoiler for disco elysium but i found this really profound :lt-dbyf-dubois:
Rhetoric: The question you mean to ask is both very complicated and incredibly simple...
Endurance: Take a deep breath. Best to go one piece at a time.
You: If communism keeps failing every time we try it...
Steban: (he waits patiently for you to finish)
You: ...And the rest of the world keep killing us for our beliefs...
Steban: Yes?
Volition: Say it.
You: ...What's the point?
Steban: (he considers your words for a minute)
Composure: You're witnessing his ironic armour melt before you. This is his true self you're seeing now.
Empathy: He's thinking about someone...
You: Wait, who is he thinking about?
Empathy: Hard to say. Someone dear to him.
Visual Calculus: Track his gaze. He's looking out past the broken wall, toward the opposite side of the Bay...
You: Toward the skyscrapers of La Delta.
Visual Calculus: They rise like electric obelisks in the night.
Steban: The theorists Puncher and Wattmann — not infra-materialists, but theorists nonetheless — say that communism is a secular version of Perikarnassian theology, that it replaces faith in the divine with faith in humanity's future... I have to say, I've never entirely understood what they mean, but I think maybe the answer is in there, somewhere.
You: Wait, you're saying communism is some kind of religion?
Steban: Only in this very specific sense. Communism doesn't dangle any promises of eternal bliss or reward. The only promise it offers is that the future can be better than the past, if we're willing to work and fight and die for it.
You: But what if humanity keeps letting us down?
Steban: Nobody said fulfilling the proletariat's historic role would be easy. (he smiles a tight smile) It demands great faith with no promise of tangible reward. But that doesn't mean we can simply give up.
You: Even when they ignore us?
Steban: Even then.
Ulixes: Mazov says it's the arrogance of capital that will be its ultimate undoing. It does not believe it can fail, which is why it must fail.
Volition: So young. So unbearably young...
Half Light: Why do you see the two of them with their backs against a bullet-pocked wall, all of a sudden?
Inland Empire: Their faces, blurred yet frozen as though in ambrotype. You were never that young, were you?
Steban: I guess you could say we believe it because it's impossible. (he looks at the scattered matchboxes on the ground) It's our way of saying we refuse to accept that the world has to remain... like this...
Yeah, I've pretty much resigned myself to communism being an utter failure. I've gotten to the point that I just genuinely despise my fellow man and don't want a better world for them. I fantasize about the entire city I live in being raised in nuclear hellfire because I'm just so fed up with these listless, foolish, maladjusted, sad people. I don't buy that this is purely material conditions anymore, pretty sure even under communism most of these people would suck shit and I honestly don't want a better world for them.
Those people in turn are but products of their time. They are sad and angry and maladjusted because they grew up in a human fleshgrinder called Capitalism.
Again I don’t totally buy it. I have a hard time imagining most of these people being better even under FALGSC. I think maybe the cranky internet cynics are right, humans just suck.
I assume you think of yourself as a good person. If you came to exist, there is surely a way to replicate that path for others.
I simply cannot imagine remaining a leftist while thinking humanity is doomed to be horrible. It seems pointless.
I assume you think of yourself as a good person.
Not really. I mean I’m better now but I used to be a real drunk idiot. The only reason I am better now is largely that I’ve isolated myself more.
it seems pointless
It is.
The world is a depressing shithole, but it HAS gotten better.
Like the other poster said
Living as a wage slave is probably the best many slaves have had it, but it is still slavery.
Capitalism sucks, but if we were truly fallen we would still be running around dying of cholera every five minutes and bonking each other on the heads non stop. Civilization would have never have gotten off the ground if there wasn't an innate drive towards cooperation in human beings.
I have very little hope for a revolution in the west, but the decline of US hegemony will see China cement itself as a global leader and could mean more socialist revolutions in the global south.
I'm too tired to write an effortpost but I think the doomerism in here is excessive.
Americans aren't all white, and they aren't all PMC. The George Floyd protests were tamed by an enormous COIN operation, but just because capital managed to stem the tide in that instance doesn't mean the anger went away. Reddit had to kill CTH because it was exploding in size. Antiwork is a huge subreddit. The Democratic Party had to rig the primary to prevent Bernie Sanders from winning. Yes, the state is powerful, and it works overdrive to keep a lid on the enormous unrest under its feet. But that unrest is there. As soon as the state's methods of control falter, that unrest will come surging to the surface.
there first has to be a severe decline in their power
that's what i'm saying, i think there will be. internationally, the rest of the world is developing and american influence is waning. domestically, quality of life in america is deteriorating. as soon as renewable energy becomes cheaper than fossil fuel, there goes the petrodollar, america can no longer write infinite IOUs. i have no idea what will happen when climate change starts to hit hard, but until then a lot of trends are pointing towards a decline in american power.
also, if you're anything like me, you might have a bias toward seeing the bad in people, and covid isolation can make that shit worse. i think the world is full of good people living quiet lives, loving their family members, caring for their children. there are reactionaries and abusers too, and i admit i tend to pay more attention to them because of my shitty amygdala or whatever, and sometimes my blood fucking boils at the shit i read and see and hear, but i think a lot of the good in the world is hidden from me. i'm not seeing it online, or in the news, because it's in people's everyday lives.
:this: is the materialist analysis needed to fight off the doomer mindset
The problem I see is that while it foretells good news for the rest of the world (whom I orient my analysis of "is this good or bad?" towards), I fail to see how this can result in better conditions for the American working class.
It seems like the result is going to be the imperialist machine turning inwards and going to increasingly extreme lengths to exploit the American proletariat to make up for falling rates of profit accelerating as the imperialism of other nations becomes less effective. Fascism seems to be the inevitable reaction to a failing labor aristocracy.
I have yet to see a materialist explanation of how the American propaganda machine is defeated at home. Sure, the material conditions will get worse in the US and lead many to check out socialist ideas, but given:
- virtually all American media being largely consolidated in the hands of capitalists
- social media being completely astroturfed to push revisionism, reactionary thought, & liberal hope/cope
- our education system rapidly deteriorating as public schools are hollowed out in favor of private schools
- the population at large carrying decades of prior indoctrination against anything deemed socialist
how do we even get to a point where a mass socialist movement in the US is even imaginable, let alone plausible? It's nice to know the United States' grip on the rest of the world is weakening, but we ourselves will have to suffer the consequences of a removed labor aristocracy running out of imperial fuel.
What can be done to prevent widespread suffering of our proletarians without prolonging the suffering of the victims of our imperialism? Do we as socialists in the imperial core have to accept that we must watch our conditions collapse entirely before we can even hope to build power?
Is there any theory on this?
As soon as the state’s methods of control falter
but Mr. Ass, they got hella cops
look at this nightstick
holds up baton menacingly
People don't like to hear it but from my perspective, especially knowing communists in other, much poorer countries, there is no base for socialism in the west and there won't be until things get much worse. Even most western radicals would change course if their material comfort was threatened, which revolution most certainly would do.
There was a great chart showing how the standards of living would change if wealth was evenly distributed across the world and I think Canada was the only one angalo nation which saw a neutral outcome.
I agree. I think if it was anyone it would be the national bourgeoisie. Right now there is a conflict between the national bourgeoisie and the international bourgeoisie. The international bourgeoisie has more money but the national bourgeoisie has more hard power. I think at some point the national bourgeoisie will overthrow the international bourgeoisie and we will see a period of fascism. That's when revolution will be viable. The state will lose its international funding and the "anti-state" natbourg will erode state power until it is a reasonable challenge for the working class. I could be horribly wrong though
Im curious, what do yall do organizing wise? What do you feel the main impediments are that youve noticed in your organizing work?
It depends. Not American, so my answers are probably going to be different.
Among wealthier people, definitely the ingrained propaganda and culture. Stuff like the red scare is definitely real among these people. Anti union propaganda as well, thinking that they can be friends with the boss and management and get a better deal, etc. To be "fair", it's probably "worked" for them for most of their lives, and they don't want to lose their first class seat on a crashing aeroplane.
Among poorer people, definitely the threat of direct violence being taken against them if they strike or speak out. Rubber bullets from the police at protests, political assassinations, industry stuff ("mafia" is probably the closest thing to an American version of what I'm describing), etc. The struggle is still very violent in that regard. Marikana massacre wasn't that long ago.
What do you think is the best option organizing wise that's to be done about that then?
There's not much you can do against mafia like organisations in the informal sector to be honest.
Otherwise, you've got to focus on the battles you can win. No matter how small. Even if it's just getting someone to join a union. Or to attend a strike. Or just even providing food and water to striking workers. I'm definitely not a huge activist or anything, so I'm probably not the best person to ask.
Inconsistency in attendance. Our core always-there people are relatively few in number, but our meetings can sometimes triple that number, which can make planning the agenda difficult. So we keep getting waves of people interested, but our retention is garbage
why do you think some people end up participating consistently and others not ever managing to get really engaged that way with organizing? idk if its just that some have more time than others
I’m sure a certain amount of it is some having more time than others. It may also be that we already dedicate a fair amount of work to the project and taking the extra time to recruit and making our process more friendly to newcomers has proved intensive work.
A lot of groups I’ve been a part of, not just leftist ones, have a core group of doers who simultaneously enjoy the work but are also only engaging in it because they know the project would fail without them. A kind of “no one else will do it” attitude. They’ll complain about the burden but then opt to take time away from other things even when it’s not strictly necessary they’re there. I’m not sure if it’s a healthy dynamic for leadership, but it seems common
yes this sounds familiar to me too, both w others ive seen in leadership positions and my own work as well. a lot of people tend to shy away from wanting to do stuff like take on leadership responsibilities though I wonder how to work to encourage people to do that? we also tend to have a problem with people not engaging in any substantive self crit either, so sometimes when people do things wrong they arent too eager I think to learn and reflect on it maybe to improve work? maybe lots of little cultural problems in regards to just even how we just relate to one another
Of course the people who condemn "tankies" are the same ones who support violence when it's against someone they don't like.
If you're a westerner all you can do is give power to the third world. I don't care how good of a person you think you are; as soon as the material conditions hit you personally, you're going to join the :amerikkka:
Third worldists right yet again...
A "dictatorship of the proletariat" of the global south is desperately needed. The contradiction here is that due to the massive accumulation of wealth in the core imperialist countries, workers are unlikely to revolt against the sophisticated propaganda machine in the imperial core, as they're still relatively comfortable compared to the global south. As conditions worsen though, that could change, but by the time conditions are that bad in the core, the global south will be in even worse shape unless some DOTP of global south nations is formed.
Communism also inherently cannot be built on this, it will create social imprealism/fascism. So that contradiction needs to be resolved. I see China attempting to resolve this contradiction by effectively taking the means of production away from the west and into their own country, to create their own wealth, and have the west by their throats. Thus eventually the west will be bled dry, paying China to manufacture everything, thus indirectly redistributing the wealth towards China and other nations.
Maybe only after 30 or so years of this indirect wealth redistribution will imperial core countries be at the point of leftism being viable on a large scale. And the contradiction being minimised as the wealth disparity is not so great anymore between the core and global south. Either through the global south creating their own wealth though this, conditions in the core further deteriorating, or a combination of both. In this case China is basically the lead force in the DOTP for the global south, it's putting a lot of faith in China though.
This is just 2am ramblings from an idiot trying to see something somewhere.
In the worst case scenario (collapse w/ no class consciousness) we can at least work to build dual power structures and mutual aid connections so it isn’t as bad for us.
If fascism happens then we fight it as partisans or die in camps. And when that period of fascism is over, the new generations will be in the power to build socialism, just like last time. Marxism will never die.
🤷♂️
the bourgoeisie are actually funneling all their Peter Thiel CIA pedophile warlord drug money into a machine that can make ideas tangible, they're going to get all the communist in the world in a China Uighur style focus camp and scrape their brains for revolutionary spirit, make the Spectre corporeal and then get a giant cop to finally kill Marksism
I don’t know what the fuck the solution here is. I think it’s probably hopeless. Especially in this technological milieu, leftists in the US and Europe will always be flaky and run back to being libs at a moment’s notice- unless their material conditions are already severely affected, and even then they’re likely to misattribute blame according to the wishes of propaganda
In 4 weeks this is going to be one of the only funny things on this website.
You're deciding that because the media and internet, both completely astroturfed to convince you to not even fucking bother, are totally in lock step with this stupid war means that people will turn into nazis because CNN told them too. There isn't going to be some cataclysmic decline into fascism for the US, the Nazi's won WW2 and you already live in the 4th Reich and going further not only draws the ire of porky but everyone that's not a white suburban. I agree (blech) to a very limited extent that there's not much you can do for the time being, but that's because the only thing that would actually improve our lives (you know what it is, and why we can't post it on here) would be met with death. It doesn't make sense that a declining empire, that couldn't even hold onto Bolivia, is going to have that monopoly on violence forever, or even for the next decade.
It also doesn't make sense that the fash, who haven't garnered any good will towards any working class group, who are totally dependent on the state, who were outnumbered and outgunned at every demonstration for half a decade, and who are actively waring against themselves right now are somehow gonna pull off the day of the rope. Most importantly, this is a fash country. What they want is basically just this, and in the event of collapse, betting on "this" over a left that didn't have its leadership constantly murdered by the panopticon isn't a position I even kinda respect. It requires totally dismissing the history of the far right in burgerland in the last five years and a pessimism that doesn't line up with what actual people are saying.
We will win. Log off.
You’re deciding that because the media and internet, both completely astroturfed to convince you to not even fucking bother
:this:
The most compelling antidote to doomerism I've seen is that, to be cliche, that's what they want you to think. If things were truly hopeless, and the world was truly locked in and all possible futures led to a monumental collapse of any class warfare of proletarians vs bourgeoisie, and we were doomed to a thousand years of fascist misery, then there would be no reason to keep this level of propaganda up. The media, as a totality, doesn't make that much money compared to other capitalist ventures and so its main purpose isn't to generate profit (paywalls and buying newspapers aside) but to control the narrative to ensure people don't rebel, and so would be culled by the very algorithm of capitalism that got us here if it was deemed unnecessary.
The point of propaganda warfare is to both convince the average person that things are good and fine (AKA :pinker:), and to convince those who may want to change things that change is impossible, that people are selfish, that revolution and class warfare are things of the past, and all-around not worth the effort. The second part is what fuels almost all the doomerism people have, as far as I can tell. You're smart enough to know that capitalism is a massively detrimental economic structure for billions of people and that communism is an inspiring alternative that will end widespread suffering, and smart enough to know that things are not fine, but then arbitrarily stop your counter-analysis when the media says "and it's impossible to change the way things are, so don't bother trying".
Capitalism and fascism are unstable systems that require an immense and constant amount of force, violence, and money to maintain. If there is deterioration of the kind that we're seeing right now as the West decays, and therefore a substantial weakening of the propaganda, then we won't go from an unstable system to another unstable system, at least not on any large scale either spatially or temporarily, we'd go to a more stable system; i.e. socialism and communism. Besides, as you say, the US did not even remotely cull the Nazis. They were propelled into all sorts of powerful positions. We're already in a quasi-fascistic regime, they've just realized that you can't do the whole death camp thing until it's strictly necessary and so held off on the worst parts while maintaining many of the Nazi's strategies. Where would we go from here - an explicitly even more fascist system that will collapse even faster as the contradictions accelerate? Rock bottom isn't much deeper; we have a lot we can win.
So really for euro-americans the only true hope is for a collapse to barbarism and for everyone we know and love to die
I vascilate pretty often between :doomer: and :bloomer: , which maybe I should take as a criticism that my worldview/analysis is inconsistent.
But having read this, I'll offer a thought that's kept me going:
Every moment is equally real. Even if communism is never realized on a global scale, even if we experience massive collapse that sees millions dead and millions more starving and brutalized, all those moments you spent fighting and organizing will still exist.
Does the fact that there may never be a grand revolution mean that every person you educated or community you helped was a wasted effort?
I don't know I've even been able to convince some of my local libs that war is in fact bad. It helps that the church's official position has been to not kill everyone for legitimising the anti kill em all stance
Then again, I also buy Matt’s position saying basically that we’re very unlikely to end up with a proletarian revolution if there’s a real crisis of capital, since there is no class consciousness among the workers; we’ll divide along culture war lines instead, hand in hand with capital. So really for euro-americans the only true hope is for a collapse to barbarism and for everyone we know and love to die so that the third world can thrive.
Sounds like the most likely scenario.
