I'll be honest what really gets me is that just a few years ago "The Afghanistan Papers" were made public for all to see. In them we saw state department officials essentially admitting what independent reporters had been saying for years: that the US was in Afghanistan blatantly supporting corrupt Northern Alliance warlords and as a result enjoyed little to no popular support among Afghans. This was all admitted not long ago at all and yet we are now seeing supposedly "informed" people dragging out dated canards that bear no relation to the reality that preceded the collapse of the US backed regime. Truly, I feel as though the US imperialist propaganda machine is so well lubricated that it recreates reality from moment to moment, if only there was a book describing how that happens ...

Eternal damnation unto the yankee empire, may its satanic hagiography be purged from the earth.

Dear fucking God just a culture of pure bootlickery, people who think socialism is in anyway going to come to america “peacefully” are beyond delusional, as evidenced by the complete failure of even the mildest social democratic reforms in that godforsaken land.

I agree with other commenters here, there are many among the liberal elite who would on some level accept the Marxist critique of capitalism. They do this insofar as the critique in questions stays focused on the evil character of a select few instead of the system itself. Where the "scratch a liberal fascist bleeds" truism begins to show is in the vehemence with which the liberals will balk or outright oppose any serious attempts to advocate for the overthrow of capitalism or the imperialism which upholds it (especially in the United States). On a side note, I'll admit I can't stomach anything that gives off "theatre kid" or "broadway musical" vibes, so Bo Burnham is generally gets a #yikes from me lol.

Freedom, to the American ideology, means today what it has meant since the days of the founders. Namely, the "freedom" of those who "own" property to exploit to the dispossessed to highest degree possible, even if that mean societal collapse.

Mashallah Brooke! I found Capital Vol. 1 strangely compelling, as, in later chapters, Marx rails like a Jeremiad against colonialism.

Thanks for bringing this up! I remember listening to this back in high school and thinking it sounded amazing, of course this was long before the advent of my communism. Looking back I think it was my deep wish to see a genuinely internationalist movement unify our beautiful planet that was the source of my move leftward.

TEKBIIIIIIR! Now we just have to get him to accept the wilayat of Imam Ali (A.S.) so he can be in Hezbollah with Felix.

Real Helder Camara hours.

fo-real I don't even know anymore

Great post comrade, I had to catch myself going on a diatribe against anarchism a few days ago because of anarchists in my own life lending their support to Jo Jorgensen. As I was typing I realized, much in the way you point out, that this co-opting is hardly specific to any sub-faction of the left.

Yeah, in hindsight this was an overly simplistic take from me. The same thing occurs with abuse of Lenin's rhetoric regarding electoralism and lesser evilism, justifying racism using the doctrine of "lumpenproletariat" etc. I suppose I was just frustrated because many of the anarchists in my onw life have an alarming tendency to get swindled by the likes of Jo Jorgensen who, to credit her rhetoric, criticize corporate power. Albeit she does this in a way which would only re-enforce capitalist hegemony if ever applied, and I think it is my anarchist friend's lack of theoretical basis which, again, is nothing unique to anarchism (citation: a billion "read theory" memes lol)

Anarchism in America is entirely too easy to co-opt.

O_O pure evil

TEKBIR!

dogs are reactionary and no I will not explain

The sword of Imam Ali (as)! The two pointed sword of he who opened the gates of Khaybar!

This is hilarious, my local Imam literally sounded like a white boomer a few Fridays ago. The entire Khutbah was "stay on your grind! There' are black business owners, so systemic racism isn't a thing! The police are mostly good, in fact, we need more Muslim police! Rioting is never justified, imagine if your dad's private medical practice got looted!" It's like, yeah imagine if the rioters had a totally different set of material conditions, then their actions would suddenly be illogical. He then had the audacity to quote Malcolm X. It's hilarious to see how Muslims are talked about in domestic US politics, as though they are not subject to the same sort of class oriented biases as literally any other group of people.

Depends lol, whilst our Qur'an is the same, the accepted corpus of hadiths differs. As a result, many Sunnis reject Shia hadeeth and vice versa. The reference to Ali as "Imam" could be problematic for some sunni brothers. Although there are sunnis (particularly sufis) who accept Ali as Imam, many sunnis I've met see the word and immediately dismiss anything attached as "Shia Kufr". Anyway, if he's your boy, I'd still say go for it.

Neera tanden out here tryna be Princess Mononoke