Hmmmmmmmmmmmm lemmy go study game theory for 20 years and get back to you on this one.

Thanks for asking lol. Overall I’m doing pretty well and going places I never imagined. Id say its hard to complain, but actually all I know is criticism and I’m haunted by burnout. You know how it is.

Yeah im always curious what they think my life is worth

Interesting, but unfortunately running for president is undignified if not downright damning IMO.

The problem was that people were taking the variation that was not specifically for humans.

Not sure how any of this written diarrhea helps frame Zelensky any better.

Its never, “Country how are you doing? How are you feeling? How 'bout them [insert sportsball team]?” Its always, “Mr. Breakfast are you a white dude, or no?”

Edit: survey complete!

There have been many debates and discussions on this and in this case searching ‘Russia’ and reading through those discussions may help. Though do not read this as discouragement from asking questions. It is, understandably, a hot topic worthy of elaboration and there are plenty of people here that will be interested in answering.

Here is my take:

Russia as a nation has a class character that is more easily compared to that of developing countries than that of a core country.

The BRICS countries, especially recently, have gained steam due to the reelection of Lula in Brazil. But also because the war, and subsequent sanctions, many countries are compelled to build an alternative to the global finacial order, aka white supremacist or “western” imperialism, giving the BRICS more vigor and more direction. Russia’s role in this project is crucial. Russia may be viewed as the aggressor if you begin the story 1.5-2 years ago and ignore Donbas, but if you go back further it is not difficult to make the case this conflict began in 2014 during the coup.

The war is obviously disturbing, a major threat to global stability. It has been incredibly violent and destructive in many different ways. The war increases risk of nuclear attack, creates the surge of weapons into the region which is ending up with reactionaries committing atrocities in the Donbas region, to organized criminals and even to places much further away. Sanctions and other factors surrounding the war have caused rising energy prices and increased inflation that has hurt many countries in the global south. This is affecting people subsisting on the countryside already suffering from drought and people toiling in the metro. There is too much pressure on the masses. The war must end.

The problem is that Russia is not the only party involved and NATO will need to make concrete efforts to prove they will be able to build peace as much as Russia and Ukraine. Unfortunately, that has not played out and remains unlikely. So here we are.

I would like to add that the word “support” is commonly used in this discussion but it is not an especially useful word and by my observation is a huge source of confusion to the critics of my position and to our communities position. I do not send money to Russia. I do not send weapons or material aid. I am not a Russian citizen and thus have not voted for Putin and do not serve in the military or government. Nor have I contributed to government policy, war policy, or on the ground support as an independent contractor. Nor do I “root” for Russia as if it is a sports team or a dance contestant. Frankly, I don’t feel obligated to do so either. I have my own problems to attend to.

However, what I am in favor of is the greater project that Russia is part of which is creating a needed alternative for much of the world. I think the global masses will benifit from this process of history but will suffer if it is stopped. The threat of the this development to the imperial core is the primary reason Russia is demonized for its invasion. If they were concerned about the humanitarian crisis they would act differently and pull their weight in ending it, but they hardly even admit their role.

Why is this IdPol?

What im seeing here is that a scholar is saying the Anglo Saxon identity is effectively a retroactive construction that serves a nationalist function.

This seems pretty intuitive to me. It’s hardly the first time history has shown us that ethnicity is a social, cultural construction just as race is.

Its so crazy to me what people think about all that. People genuinely think that people in China just aren’t allowed to talk about it or know about it and will treat you as a drooling knucklehead just for saying otherwise. They don’t even know the most basic facts, the lowest hanging fruit of the ordeal. Meanwhile Americans can barley stomach their own history and move on as if there is no continuity with the present or justify it as progress.

I can’t think of a better way to lead the conspiracy theorists by the mouth than have them defend DoD and ABC institutions they traditionally are skeptical of so they can cling to their fantasy.

Hopefully nowhere

One word: Dengism

Heavy breathing

Honestly I have no clue what API access is and I don’t want to know but a new influx of users is fun to see

Basically rhetoric doesn’t work in that it leaves everyone vulnerable to dogma, which in turn is easily weaponized. I agree with you that some people can be swayed. But being swayed is not the same as concrete enfranchisment into a socialist or anticolonial process of history.

This is why I stress the discursive nature of politics in the US and its ostensibly civil religious form. It functions to disrupt rhetoric and enfranchise it into it’s own colonial, capitalist project. There is no rhetorical way out of this and those of us who have been swayed are actually still quite vulnerable. There must be something concrete to attach it all to and unfortunately I’m afraid we do not have this in the US and we likley will not in the near future. This is why I say there is no social infrastructure to accomplish what we need, or hope to gain through rhetoric. Without such an infrastructure we may plant seeds that will be harvested by the empire.

Fascists have it incrediblely easy. Their rhetoric synergizes well with a nation of colonizers and an environment of perpetual outrage. The “rise” (is it rising or is it just status quo) of fascism is not entirely because of rhetoric but because of history. The same history that includes a range of communist action that ranges from semi-effective, ineffectual, and even outright colonial outcomes. Fascism is politically natural here. Communism or anticolonialism, on the other hand has little to cling to beyond it’s unity and struggle with capital. This makes our rhetoric potentially dangerous. I think of the Maoist community in my area and how absolutely out of touch they are. They uphold their favorite white saviors and intentionally neglect local Indigenous voices. It’s not unlike how communists of the 19th century were often guilty of exploiting free Black labor for organizing, only to occasionally leave them high and dry when threatened by bosses. Both of these parties are saturated in rhetoric and discourse (dogma really) but what have they achieved? Colonialism.

This is why I want to direct people to more concrete issues. I would expect that by addressing real community needs a number of advantages would emerge. First, building relationships and engaging with the community will illuminate a more concrete politic that can hopefully develop into a line that the community is on board with, and a line that doesn’t align with colonial discourse. Next, you have an emerging infrastructure of information that makes it easier for the politic to grow on it’d own terms, discover it’s own vulnerabilies and weaknesses. This can bring about more awareness of the dangers of American political discourse because there is a community that it’s own collective understanding of it’s needs and can compare it to popular discourse.

Of course none of this happen seamlessly or without setbacks. The union I am in, for example, never goes hard enough with our demands and is usually unable to realize it’s potential, and the real power it has. But if we were more forceful with our demands we could alienate current and prospective members which we cannot afford to do. If we let dogma get in the way we would rip ourselves apart. Sometimes you have to live with that kind of stuff because we can’t lose what we have built up.

As for hope, it’s a tough problem and be warned I am rather callous on this issue because I think it is easily problematized. IMO it is part of the corrosive discourse. Hope is not self evident, it is not to be found, it is made. If it is not made, and if it is not yours, it is capable of betraying you. Our problems are not all always death sentances, and not as dire as those abroad. Our problems should be seen as opportunities to assess the contradictions and move forward. Americans have had it pretty damn good for a long time, and regards of current difficulties this is largely still the case. If we chase hope for its own sake, or to keep us going, we will end up harvested by colonial discourse. Hope in the US has its own imperial affectation and we must be aware of this.

Ya know, in school the hope question comes up a lot. I will notice students are frustrated to learn things aren’t looking so good. I bring this up to the professor as the TA and it gets addressed in the most awful way with techno optimism, green (or stakeholder) capitalism, sustainablility etc. One section of students will buy it, the other will descend further into melancholy. Both sections further lost in the discourse. IMO hope chasing is dangerous. If we want help we have to do it ourselves. If people aren’t willing to build it, then truly our hopelessness is merely an imperial melancholy resulting from losing privilege and is a feature of colonial discourse.

Understand the difficulties of our time and focus on concrete problems that are recognized by your community. Don’t worry too much about what people think because it can’t be changed through rhetoric. Worry more about how to meet needs of your community and if you can, use the dialectic to navigate the unknown and to avoid falling into the traps.

Its not all on you. We will likely stand little chance without action from around the world, regardless of how well considered our approach is. So don’t pressure yourself too much and learn to appreciate the little progress that might be possible in spite of our challenges.

In the US, as far as information and communication goes, we live in a burning forest with no air to breath. Personally, I can’t get too invested in what other people think. I am more interested in understanding how discourse develops so I can survive this environment and live to contribute to whatever solutions. Convincing others of my so-believed “better” politics is secondary.

Most of the political discourse in the US is harvested from both the “left” and “right” to create outrage and to muddy the waters. If I get caught up in conversations about politics, I always resent the game that has to be played because I simply do not buy into the political spectrum/compass because it is either a failure of a model for understanding politics, or political discourse as we know it is itself actually the absence of political discourse, a simulation of political understanding that ultimately serves various Americanist/Euro, capitalist ventures, sensibilities, identities, and affectations. The left and right are merely a unity and struggle of opposites that develops colonial discourse. Rather than challenge it, the left actually is a feature of it and contributes massively to it.

Whether or not this is the best way to describe it (others might try to rescue the left and that is ok but Im not convinced this is the best understanding) remains to be seen. Of course, understanding dialectical development makes it a lot easier to understand the ideological twists and turns we see. But most people are not interested in that. They want the digestible civil religious enterprise because the dialectic does not provide a means for righteousness and outrage. This goes for everyone. Self-proclaimed Marxists are guilty of this as well, certainly those that can’t get past Vladimir Putin, or Islam in Iran, or market forces in the PRC etc.

I think that politics in the US is synonymous with civil religion. It is highly antagonistic and deeply moralized. IMO the opposite of how healthy, genuine “democratic” politics should be. This is why there is no ability to disagree with the one side without also agreeing with its counterpart. For example, if you talk shit about Biden, you might be called a MAGAt or something. It’s not just that there is no room for alternative discourses or better politics. It’s that “better” or relevant politics only drives the system to adapt. Politics is a moral, and not a practical enterprise in the US. I think this is simultaneously a natural development, and yet is also maintained by power.

The semi-recent migrant caravan for example was largely a spectacle that fueled both left and right wing sentiments. It was heavily covered by the media. Activists from both sides had major roles. BLM was largely coopted by Dems and used to rile up Republicans. Virtually every other headline functions in this way, and virtually every movement gets quickly enfranchised into civil religion. Not just because power demanded it and made it happen, but also because this is the most natural thing that could happen in the US’s political environment. It is also something that has been going on for centuries on this continent.

We don’t really need the CIA to fill us with sinophobic bullshit because we are structurally, materially, and historically, sinophobic already, but this in turn makes propaganda intuitive for US propagandists, activists, and laypersons. Further, we know that the left is heavily associated with state department connections. Activists also routinely seek the spotlight and switch to different causes based on the moral value that can be extracted. It should be no surprise with USAID or some equivalent is involved and it should be no surprise that so many are willing to play these games.

We also know that climate change is both a perilous issue, and a perfect problem to weaponize. Climate change concerns have been used to legitimize imperialist international institutions while also conveniently hindering development in the periphery, which is instrumental to capital, especially as wages rise in Asia. The rhetoric around climate change is used to legitimize jingoist russiaphobia and sinophobia, problematic population concerns, and as a major part of fueling moral outrage. This makes it difficult to be both anti-imperialist while staying oriented with popular discourse on climate change.

Apathy is difficult because it is actually a reasonable reaction, but it is also part of imperial melancholia. A lot of politics in the North is directly related to loss of privilege, loss of the golden years, and a nostalgia for the good old days combined with tireless bemoaning of structural problems, make the soil ripe for opportunists and propagandists to come along. These are not problems that can be solved with rhetoric alone.

I do not think rhetoric alone is able to deliver anyone from our situation, or from any one feature of it. I would ask nothing of you personally in terms of addressing pervasive civil righteousness, sophistry, outrage baiting, apathy etc., because it would be asking far, far too much of you. I do not mean to add to the difficulty of the matter, but I think in many ways we are trudging through a swamp. Just as we can’t easily go back to communal subsistence because of the apocalypse of modernity, we cannot assume we will make an impact on these problems by looking at past successes or without critical vigor of our approach. There is no social infrastructure that can enable what need to be done. In many ways we need help from the developing countries of the world, and we need the patience and courage to face the unknown head-on.

The saying in China used to be that they must cross the brook by feeling for the rocks, but nowadays the water is too deep to touch the bottom.

Like all of your comments on this matter, your incrediblely late reply speaks to absolutely nothing I or any of our other comrades of said. Further, you don’t really substantiate your claim that Russia has symmetrical goals with the US. You don’t even substantiate Russian imperialism, and absolutely you do not substatiate it within any Marxist terms. Anyone one of us could use the exact sophistry you use to make the outrageous claim the Dominican Republic is imperialist or South Africa is imperialist. But you very clearly do not understand the dialectic, you do not understand imperialisms of the last 100 years, you only understand ideology.

The DPRK is the Haiti of Asia. They are punished for winning their freedom and not apologizing.

The state is when no porn

I was groomed to be a military/state department professional from a young age. There is a long history of anti communism in my family. Not just in a propaganda obsessed kind of way. In a committing war crimes in countries with active communist revolutions sort of way. I always knew my calling was to serve the American project, and, of course, the Christ.

Anyways I slowly grew to hate the US and my family. I was an evangelist for some time and thought my family had a shallow, or otherwise incorrect understanding of Christianity. I started to become more anti war. In the pacifist sense but also structurally I knew there was more to war than religious differences or politics. I would have been a Ron Paul lib at this point. I had some good criticisms of the machine but was ostensibly racist as all fuck and was by no means a socialist.

Later I was exposed to more explicit socialism and Marxism after become interested in the Green Party and losing faith in libertarians and became more aware of what racism is and isn’t. I also burried Christ somewhere out back behind the shed and my old life began to really fade away.

My first thoughts about my experience with marxism is how refreshing it was to find the dialectic. Finally something that could cut through the discourse and understand a dynamic world instead of reducing everything to just ideology, intuition, “human nature,” or morality. Finally a better way to approach history and power.

Through this I was able to begin understanding America as a project and found myself studying more about the conditions that created and developed it into what it has become today, relying especially on Indigenous and Marxist perspectives. I am very interested in what socialism in this place means and what its prospects are. Now I am back in school hoping to see further beyond the veil, and not shying away from my former calling, though this time with new intentions 😈.

Pervasive racism, classism, queerphobia, chuavanism etc. The constant propaganda posts where we all get together to trash a poor person, Black person, or queer person for unsanctioned behavior.

Pervasive sophistry.

The pervasive allegiance to the political spetrum and to partisanship discourses. They police themselves to keep each other in line.

The pervasive scientism and technological optimism which is only countered by doomerism and dogma.

Honestly I just can’t stand the users.

This is why the dialectic is so important and criticism is a tireless, unending trial.

This was cathartic to read

Holy shit I hate the NYT more and more everyday.

The problem is that imperialism is in the material interest of Americans and as of now it’s not Americans dying in Ukraine which makes the pressure to let it go less pronounced than Vietnam.

Biden has pushed the whole democracy vs autocracy narrative and I struggle greatly in my day to day life to find anyone that doesn’t align with that narrative one way or another, regardless of partisanship, regardless of education level. This is ultimately nurturing fascism which will present itself as leftist. They are already refining their rhetoric in ways they haven’t dared in decades.

At the end of the day my perspective is tainted by being surrounded by dangerous people that aspire to have professional careers in imperialism, but ultimately I fear their sensibilities will win out and enough Americans will go along. History is just not as on our side as I would like. Not to be intentionally pessimistic but IMO we communists in the US are 100 years too late and $100B short, and meanwhile even the project in China may not be able to move fast enough to outrun history.

IMO the only guaranteed positive is that all paths forward for the US are frustrated by partisanship and ideological dogma. Each side will try to sabatoge the other, but if things grow dire then compromise will become more possible much like during the depression/FDR years.

They raised interest rates back in February-March and it caused all sorts of problems including bank failures. There are a lot of cracks and strains on the economy. Who knows what will happen but it’s certainly possible the US will be in a full blown depression in a few years. But even then, there is so much russiaphobia and resentment it is hard to imagine Europe or the US letting anything force them to back down. There is too much at stake for both sides.

Yes capitalist social relations are absolutely a cancer.

What we really need is a stakeholder cancer that is more sustainable /s

Hoping they get out of the ICC soon but idk

It makes me think of the efforts by the right to control finance in the US. These are mostly Republican state legislatures and treasuries that are divesting from BlackRock, Vanguard, Fidelity etc. By doing this they appeal to the general public by saying ‘green’ finance is harmful for Texans (or whomever), that finance should be supporting what America needs (more oil production apparently), and of course it is quite easy to rationalize any kind of campaign against capital, but especially when it is painted as ‘woke.’

I can definitely see this kind of situation as a ‘right wing’ reaction against monopoly finance capital. Finance is ostensibly the present mode of governance so it makes sense that if fascists struggle to control the heights of the bourgeois government, they will use the back door through finance. If they gain more control of the government, it will probably intensify their efforts to reign in ‘woke’ ‘green’ finance.

But where the current situation may differ from Sakai’s thoughts here is that, for one, these efforts are almost certainly driven by sections of industry! It may be easy to rile up the rabble with cynical anti-capitalism but it is hardly grassroots.

Secondly, (and this is just an observation on this specific issue) they have not yet been successful even though they are fairly organized. I have seen more finance led divestments from fossil fuels in the news over the last week and I’m curious to see if reaction intensifies globally or if this is a uniquely American sort of fascism. Anyway, its deeply strange to imagine climate change could be holding fascism back…

Part of what I think he is getting at is the right-wing resentment of cosmopolitanism and how it can, through propaganda and through class ontologies, get married to the capitalist system as a whole. I think of this dynamic among the classic contradictions of colonialism that drove many of the political debates of the 18th, 19th, 20th centuries. Ultimately these are existential questions for the empire that are answered differently by the different poles of the discourse. Clinton and Obama prize globalization (cosmopolitanism), while Bush and Trump prioritize American fascism.

I wouldn’t get my hopes up. Best to just try an understand the political environment and try to survive these perilous times.

I wish I knew anything at all about military logistics because I really just can’t contribute much to understanding it but I don’t think there is a magic bullet to ending the war. My guess is the war will drag on for some time.

All things considered, Ukraine has lost a lot. Millions have fled the country. It’s media is supresessed. Assets sold off to wall street. Lives lost to war and future generations lost to the confusion of history.

But yeah the fact that it just keeps going it’s disheartening

Anti imperialism goes beyond states and their present ruling parties. Getting caught up in the political spectrum will not make anti imperialist positions clearer, but actually muddier.

The classes that rule “problematic” states are susceptible to the global system. Anti imperialist politics is a necessity, regardless of the contradictions istcreates for these classes. The fallacy is to say it is entirely cynical because it is actually still threatening to them. It is perilous.

In Russia for example, Putin must both resist and protect neoliberalism, but this only fosters and enables more resistance to it because it both creates a path away from it while not taking it with satisfactory vigor. This is contradiction in action and it is dangerous to imperialism.

Anti imperialism isnt necessarily about being “based,” it’s about a process of history that is ultimately corrosive to the capitalist system. IMO getting caught up in “they are theocratic over there,” “they are nationalists over here,” “the rhetoric of these leaders is too problematic,” “these people here are not communists,” completely misses the forest for the trees. To me, when people distract themselves with holier than thou politics, it results in something quite similar to howpeople say China is strickly capitalist but then go and ignore or are ambivalent towards how lethal rising wages in China are to the capitalist system.

Encyclopedia CD ROM

Explore rice fields

CDs

Metal shows

More metal shows

meanwhile many traditional societies have way more than 2 genders

GLOBALIST AGENDA

In the state I lived previously I saw many nazi tattoos and people spoke rather openly about their fascist affiliations, or that of the people close to them. Also it was saturated with outrageous conspiracy theories and undying loyalty to Alex Jones and others.

Sounds about right.

I do hate the chat bots tho.