Read.

Seriously, pick up a book and read it up until you start getting distracted by other things/thoughts. Incorporate that in your daily routine, even if it’s just for a few minutes. After a while, you’ll find out that reading becomes easier and faster for you, and you’ll want to spend more time with a book.

Things that can help:

• don’t set yourself up for failure. You might hear people saying they set a goal for reading 100 books in a year, or some other crazy milestone. You say, great, that’s what I’ll do too, then you realize it’s unachievable and quit. Instead set a goal to read for like 1 hour per week, or get through 1 chapter per day, or read 10 pages a day. You just need to be consistent, you don’t have to go in hard. Also, don’t make yourself reading lists or start with big book series. Just pick up something interesting, and when you are done (whenever that point comes), pick up something else that’s interesting, etc.

• don’t stick with reading a book to the end. If you don’t like a book, put it down and start reading something else. Don’t feel guilty about it, even if everyone else says it’s an amazing book. You can always come back to it some other time when you feel it.

• you can start with reading light and entertaining books, such as fiction, as that is generally easy to get into, particularly if the book is a short novel, or has a flowing and simple writing style. Short story collections can be even more convenient, as you can set yourself the goal of reading one per day, which is easily achievable and doesn’t require much time commitment. Sherlock Holmes compendiums are pretty good for this kind of reading.

• find ways to include books in your routine. Like reading for a few minutes before bed, or taking a book with you in the pooper. You can also listen to audiobooks while commuting to work or doing house chores.

• avoid going straight to the “classics” and instead read things you know you’ll like and be engrossed by.

• reading is like a muscle. It gets better with practice. It gets weaker with neglect. Working it is harder at first, then becomes easier with training.

Hey sorry, for the late reply. I think the other comments pretty much cover what I was going to suggest and more.

Are you interested in something in particular though? e.g. News analysis, casual discussions, in-depth discussions, theory?

He’s pretty good when it comes to spreading the message. I used to watch his monthly “economic updates” and he was well-informed, entertaining and a decent analyst. I think he can be very convincing to the average non-communist Westerner. He’s been pushing the idea of creating worker co-ops a lot, and his organization is pretty good at offering help to unionize as far as I can tell.

He gets criticism from communists because:

• One of his main talking points is that AES (Soviet Union, China, etc) are not really socialism/communism and are instead state capitalist. According to him, it wasn’t for lack of trying, but because their economic, political and diplomatic issues were so extreme after their revolutions, that they had to stop the transition to stabilize, but never restarted again. As far as I can tell, he still supports their existence, and maybe I can see his reasoning, but it’s a vast oversimplification and very close to revisionism (if not there already). His support for China has grown a lot in more recent years, as he sees that the their economic model is similar to the one he espouses.

• Similar to above, his books receive criticism that they misrepresent with multiple errors how AES economic systems worked/work. His own proposals, when written in detail and a more academic way, seem to rile people up about his perceived misunderstandings.

• His constant push for an anarchosyndicalist economic model might harm the perception of future Marxists towards ML.

I haven’t listened to him much in recent years, but I honestly find some of this criticism to be a bit harsh. I think at least to some degree it is a part of his strategy (as he occasionally brings up the point indirectly), in that he won’t be listened to by the average American/West European if he starts outright praising the Communist Manifesto, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, etc etc.

His important contribution is how many people he’s converted to leftists over the years. Whether they end up being anarchists, anarchosyndicalist, social democrats, democratic socialists, or whatever else is immaterial, as they usually trickle into Marxism-Leninism over time (at least judging from my experience lurking in online communities connected to him for a while, sometime ago). I consider him one of the currently best stepping stones towards Marxism.

Don’t forget articles citing each other as sources

Yet again Germany is stabbing France

In greek it’s pronounced Astee, Αστοί. Has nothing to do with burgers :P

I would recommend Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism by Lenin. It does a very good job in outlining the economic situation of Europe before the war, as well as the economics of colonialism.

A more focused (and easier to read) book is The Crimes of British Imperialism.

Critical question, how much are they into reading history? On a scale from Youtube video to academic essay?

There’s been a massive decades-long project by the Israeli state and education/science institutions to appropriate the bronze and iron age history of the area and call it “Ancient Israeli” history. The people who lived in that area had very little in common with the classical-era Kingdom of Judea, which was a client-state of the Romans.

They use the Torah (Old Testament) as a primary source to connect archaeological sites found in the area with a supposed unified Israel Kingdom that ruled the area and that was 100% Jewish. For example, they find Assyrian jewelry near Lebanon, they baptize the Assyrian script as “close to ancient Israeli language”, then they paint the map of their ancient Kingdom just a bit further north. They find Babylonian ruins. They claim it’s an Israeli trading outpost, then paint the map a bit further east. And so on.

There’s also a narrative being constructed that the Arabs were the ones to colonize this area after the fall of the Roman Empire and the protections it extended to the Kingdom of Judea.

In essence, Israelis are twisting history around to fit their own sinister narratives aimed at continuing Western support to Israel. It’s very weird to see a Zionist admit to this fact. But it all goes back to normal when they claim that pointing things like that out is antisemitic.

Like other countries in the area, relations eith the US are an ideological position probably.

North Macedonia aspires to join NATO and has a very right-wing and anti-communist government. They’ve been wanting to buy weapons from the US for some time now too. Small countries usually will take advantage of these votes to signal the US that they want to get closer relations. Essentially good ol’ boot licking

The 2 guys holding the rope at the front. There couldn’t be a better picture to describe hope, friendship and good times.

So it begins

[deleted]

Also the EU wants to force EU countries to buy all of Ukraine’s grain and other produce. Polish and Romanian farmers must be really glad to be part of the EU and supporting Ukraine to the death.

The way I understand it, the actual cost could be multiple times higher, as within just a couple years there’s massive maintenance costs to consider: replacing hardware due to continuous use, upgrading hardware to meet new technical demands, constant maintenance of infrastructure to ensure safe and continuous operation (air-conditioning and wiring being two big ones). Within 8 years, they’ll probably need to pay just as much to maintain the data centers built in the beginning.

I suspect the same

Greek society is highly polarized. It’s not uncommon to meet right-wingers who are outright fascist in all but name, for example. Unfortunately the left-wing Greek political poles are very fragmented, while the right-wing is very solidified. There’s a high degree of cynisism among the neutrals, to the extend where they hardly participate in any political process and just go with the flow.

To add some context, in the 20th century, Greece has been the target of some of the most oppressive anti-communist and anti-left action, both from within and without. The problem is that the Greek left has done very little to fight back against this in the current times, and instead gave space and opportunity to radical right-wingers to take over the minds of the working class and farmers. The left-wing is prominent in urban centers. But take a visit to the countryside, and you’ll be met by 1940s and 1950s conservatism. So the left-wing has a good chance of winning in Thesalloniki, Athens, Volos, and a few other big cities. But the agricultural districts in general always vote right-wing. Why? Politics inherited down the family, outright bribery and favours by politicians to local leaders, the power of the church, neglect by left-wing parties, purging of the left during 20th century dictatorships etc.

The current ruling party in Greece is mired in corruption scandals, cover-ups and administrative incompetence. Read a Greek newspaper and you’ll see 2-3 new scandals every week that would bring down any other government easily. You have certain ministers and MPs who say incredibly insulting and stupid shit constantly, and then they get away with it (e.g. Adonis Georgiades). It got so bad, that in the last elections everybody was expecting the government to be voted out of power completely. People were prematurely celebrating in the streets that Mitsotakis was going to be kicked out of office. Yet, they won, in one of the lowest turnouts in the last 20 years, by margins of 15% or more, because people outside the ruling party supporters didn’t really care enough to vote or didn’t feel that they had viable alternatives. To add insult to injury, the former Minister of Transport, clearly guilty of multiple crimes that led to the Tempi train crash (which is a very prominent topic against the government for the last 3 years and sparked protests and marches with record-breaking attendance), got re-elected to Parliament with more than double the votes to his runner-up in their district.

It saddens me to say this, but the Greek population has shamed themselves in the last elections and they are getting the consequences now. They got burned, robbed, cheated, beaten by police, flooded, crashed, practically enslaved, and abandoned, yet they still gave a supermajority to the government that has been literally fucking them openly. I don’t say this with glee. I’m saying there’s a lot of things that need to happen to fix what’s going on in Greece, and first and foremost on the list is a complete cultural shift. But that seems impossible right now.

Instead, the population re-elected them with a super majority in Parliament, allowing them to pass laws like these without needing to ask anybody’s help.

Redditors when they disagree with something:

“You have no proof! Citation needed! Due process!”

Redditors when they agree with something:

LOUD PIG NOISES