CleverOleg [he/him]

  • 4 Posts
  • 43 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: May 18th, 2023

help-circle



  • I have a “friend” from childhood. While his political and religious ideologies are 100% in opposition to mine (and yours), I’ve decided for now to keep this person as a friend (though at a distance) because a.) like most other Americans, he is ultimately an apolitical person, and b.) ever since we were kids and to today, 99.9% of what we talk about is shallow stuff about sports, movies, board games, TV shows, etc. News and politics never comes up.

    He has never brought up Israel / Gaza until this morning. He listens to Ben Shapiro so I assume he has the worst, ill-informed takes, but I don’t know because we’ve literally never talked about it. He says “Did you hear about these exploding pagers and walkie talkies in Lebanon?”

    My intentionally boring but uninteresting response, in the interests of maintaining a friendship for now, was “I really hope this doesn’t lead to a broader war”.

    I feel like that was an honest-enough answer. It doesn’t seem like he wants to pursue it any further. I do feel conflicted about how to respond, I’m generally of the opinion that you’re just wasting energy on American chuds who will almost certainly never come around. But I don’t know, I’m open to criticism on how I’m handling this situation.

    Edit: well apparently he doesn’t want to leave it there, called Hezbollah “terrorists”. Here’s to the probable end of a 25 year friendship today.





  • And is it just me who thinks it’s completely insane to see left wing publications regurgitating neoclassical myths like using monetary policy to control inflation

    While this isn’t an excuse, I think even on the left it’s hard to escape the underlying economic assumptions of society. While we should insist that leftists and leftists publications educate themselves and be better informed how the economy works… it’s not as simple as reading up on the first volume of Capital or even the third volume. Understanding the nuts and bolts of modern capitalism is hard. Of course it’s imperative the Marxists most of all understand it (again, not making excuses), but I think there’s just a dearth of resources out there to improve here.