I’d also like to add on that what they meant by “landlords” in China was basically akin to feudal land owners, not today’s more common concept of a landlord being somebody renting out property. As a result, their renters were treated essentially as “subordinates” and practically at the whim of the landlord who could kill them, beat them, enslave their children, and sexually abuse female relatives.

Turkey had a similar situation for a good part of the 20th century before the practice diminished, in the form of an “aga” who was essentially the owner of the village. The village would have it’s own elected government official in charge like any other municipality but the aga owned the farmland, the streets, the houses, even the villagers(who relied entirely on the aga for their money and homes and in many cases even had their travel restricted. There are stories of villagers who weren’t even allowed to marry without the aga’s permission).

These days in capitalist societies, that sort of control is mostly split and limited between property renting landlords and business executives who control parts of your life(in regards to relying on being employed with the company to receive access to health insurance). So the landlords who were killed were killed because they were generally terrible people who abused and humiliated people because they “owned” them(albeit not like a serf in bondage).

Reminds me of this academic who wrote a book about how there was many troops who returned from the Vietnam War and were part of the new foundation of white supremacism that’s seen today, basically the “new generation” after the KKK’s heyday. She was also interviewed by NPR recently, though she wrote her book in 2018: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2021/01/15/957421470/when-white-extremism-seeps-into-the-mainstream

Basically a “reap what you sow” situation where the US considers military intervention a valid form of regime change and method to force it’s ideology on countries, and the troops who are actually inspired by this(rather then disgusted, considering the few veterans who’ve become anti-imperialists/anti-war) proceed to try practicing it domestically. A considerably ironic situation, albeit also unfortunate for those who are at risk of becoming targets if these reactionaries one day manage to make headway, because they’re definitely going to keep persisting as long as the libs turn a blind eye to it and continue to feed the machine that produces these extremists.

Considering that private investigation is an industry where almost all the income comes from corporations and wealthy individuals who want help harassing journalists, whistleblowers, or just people that the client has a petty issue with, it’s unlikely anybody who joins it to do anything good is going to find much paying work. At best, the most “neutral” aspect usually revolves around either due diligence matters for corporate acquisitions(basically researching if a company being bought is hiding bad news that’d affect their sale price) or dealing with familial matters(helping spouses who can afford a PI collect incriminating evidence for divorce proceedings and stuff like that).

And while you’ve got Musk up for recent matters, the Koch Brothers were infamous for using PIs to harass journalists who investigated their dark money activities. The PIs sometimes weren’t even meant to find dirt or anything, just follow the person around and essentially spook them with the whole “you’re being watched” stuff.

Since my youth I was always able to spot bullshit from a mile away. This undoubtedly meant that as I grew up, the flaws of the hyper-capitalist system here in America became more and more evident. In a search for answers I undoubtedly ran into Marx. I was an ancomm for a while as a result of the propaganda I’d received about the USSR, PRC, DPRK etc.

Once I discovered the truth about them however, I made a full shift into ML communism.

Don’t forget the Naxalites. They’re keeping up the fight in India.

And I’m hoping the Kashmir sees some communist activity with their occupation by the Indian military.

That’s the advantage of having a stable and competent party who can plan for the long term while actually enacting policies that can be steadily continued in that direction.

As if the pawn of capitalists would actually pass money down to his own pawns instead of using the funds to live in luxury. Maybe they should’ve thought a bit harder about defecting to an ineffectual puppet of the imperialists before doing so.

The BRDM-2 as an armored vehicle(in the literal sense considering it’s status as an armored scout car). Mostly because when I see it, all I think about is the glory of the USSR packaged into an iconic vehicle(albeit the tanks are much more iconic by virtue of their robust design and far more recognizable)

Or your entire department gets outsourced to another country whose labor they can exploit far more cheaply. Then you’re back to fighting for one job, but now it’s 2x more people and 2x less pay and you’re expected to adopt the corporate lifestyle as your own because it’s actually a capitalist cult of greed and exploitation that you need to fit with.

Maybe the fall of the West will also give an opening to communists who are tired of the reformists and socdems and liberals who occupy the mainstream along with their right-wing brethern. It may also encourage other organizations to move away from such lame stances(the fall of the USSR caused many of the organizations that’d once been supported by the USSR to abandon the Marxist tradition to avoid antagonizing the Western hegemony and continue operating).

Perhaps the PRC taking the lead will help revive Marxism and remove the shackles.

I joined but it’ll be a few hours before I can put in answers via desktop since I can’t respond in length via mobile. Look forward to it though.

Great post. As somebody who loves to read about armaments as a hobby, this is definitely a great primer for others just as interested.