Total historical revisionism. It’s frustrating as all hell. I’ve got a friend who grew up in Ukraine this decade under fascist education and they insist that Lenin and Stalin banned the Ukrainian language.
Nevermind that in actuality Ukrainian culture flourished under Stalin and Russian chauvanism was actively combatted through government policies. Nevermind that more art and books in the Ukrainian language were created than ever before. Nah. They’re rewriting history because of feels.
“The main danger, Great-Russian chauvinism, should be kept in check by the Russians themselves, for the sake of the larger goal of building socialism. Within the (minority) nationality areas new institutions should be organized giving the state a national (minority) character everywhere, built on the use of the nationality languages in government and education, and on the recruitment and promotion of leaders from the ranks of minority groups. On the central level the nationalities should be represented in the Soviet of Nationalities.” - Stalin
The whole concept of whiteness is the destruction of unique cultural traditions in favor of class collaboration. There is Irish, Italian, Spanish, Germanic culture, etc. But they all get enveloped in the cultural cemetery that is “whiteness,” at least that’s the case in the US. You can see the same process starting within sects of the Latin American community as well.
IMO we really ought to be encouraging white people to decolonize and re-engage with their ancestry in a way that reveals and teaches them how their cultures were devoured in service of the ruling class. Because the fascists are doing just that, but misleading them along the way (which is one reason I think there is such a heavy emphasis on Norse mythology in a lot of white nationalist symbology; white people are ignorantly reclaiming lost culture in service of capitalism rather than opposition to it).
Especially if you’re part of the broke working class and can only afford piece of shit cars that need constant repairs. You end up spending way more money on said piece of shit car than something more reliable that you can’t get approved for. I’m finally out of that cycle now but lived that life for way too long and it was always a major stress in the back of my mind. When is this piece of shit gonna break down next and take all my year’s savings with it?
There are people out there who are suffering from such immense pain or have such a lack of dignity in their end stage of life that they’d rather go out on their own terms. The conversation is worth having. But currently, yes, assisted suicide in most cases is very much a bandaid solution as long a capitalism is what drives people to develop extreme disease, dementia, mental illness etc.
This maybe a vulgar idealist take, but I really do think that gen z has the correct instincts for guiding us into the future. Yes there is a lot of obstacles. Yes there is the opportunity for immense tragedies, some which will be inevitible like climate catastrophe. But ultimately they have the temperament and sensitivity for others that will influence the generation after them.
As a Millennial, the same thing can’t really be said for the way we grew up and were raised.
Seriously. You can say some of the tankiest shit to these people and they’ll nod along up until the point where you ask them to sympathize with AES. And then it’s like a switch gets flipped and they revert back to liberal insanity. How in the world do they expect to challenge capitalism in their first world home countries, which is centered around US empire, without supporting the nations that are resisting said empire?
Hell, we don’t need them to even “like” or be knowledgeable about socialism in other countries. We just need them to recognize the enormous fucking primary contradiction that is US imperialism and divert their energy towards challenging that. If they can’t even do that, they’ll never get their wish for whatever utopia they have in their heads.
I got in the most frustrating conversation with another “communist” about the DPRK. I didn’t even attempt to say their government was “good” or anything. Just dispelled US talking points and encouraged them to look at things from the perspective of a highly sanctioned country that has a history of being genocided by yankees. Like, that’s a pretty mild statement and even then the hairs were raised on the back of their neck from me even asking them to try and sympathize.
Just was nothing but moving goal posts and being painted as crazy for… you know… actually having a memory of history and a clue about what I was talking about.
The propaganda is strong.
Might earn me some downvotes saying this, but the Western Left needs to stop looking at their veterans as enemies and more as opportunities. A revolution simply won’t be successful without significant factions of the military on the communist side – and that includes veterans. Plenty didn’t jump into the military to kill people; they were just dumb kids without class consciousness who didn’t know shit about politics and were promised a stable financial future.
There is a difference between learning to forgive veterans/raising their consciousness though and condoning pro-imperialist veteran culture. We very much need to encourage the former. Luckily, there are many veterans from US wars that are actively involved in the anti-imperialist and communist struggle.
He is but he’s pretty critical of Israel as a totalitarian police/surveillance state. Probably a believer in a two-state solution, which to be honest there are Palestinians that support that too.
Either way, he’s got a point about mythmaking. All of recorded history is essentially storytelling – narration of varying degrees of unreliability. History is propaganda, and whatever class controls the narrative of history at any given point in time, also controls the advancement of their struggle and the sustaining of their rule.
In Marxist terms, it’s just one way the superstructure can influence the base. So it’s not he’s particularly advancing anything new, just articulating the same notion from a different angle with different phrasing.