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Lumpenproletariat does deserve a refreshed analysis in the modern context, but what Marxists observed in the past is still observable. There are still criminals and thieves and so on. I’m not sure what difference education makes when most jobs that demand some type of education want a secondary degree.
Naturally, when we talk about classes, we are not talking about strictly defined groups where everyone has a class passport and can only be identified with that class. You will have people who fit the description of lumpen join the fold of a revolutionary movement. That’s inevitable. Hard to deny it happened in history.
But this is different from organizing lumpen AS lumpen. We’re talking about replacing “dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry” with “dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry AND the lumpenproletariat” That kind of thinking is the beginning of fascism.
At the very least, it’s counterproductive. The ruling class has a budget of trillions on standby to squash any movement that poses them a threat, not to mention standing armies. On the communist side, resources are slim and so is manpower. It is critical to focus energy on rallying the right people. This is not a “why not both?” situation. You have to make a choice. Are you going to go to the farmers or go to the meth heads? Will the meth heads pay their party dues? Will they assist in organizing others? Or will they be a liability?
Lumpen being able to “circumvent state control” is worthless if they are incapable of developing class consciousness.
“Generally unemployable people who make no positive contribution to an economy. Sometimes described as the bottom layer of a capitalist society. May include criminal and mentally unstable people. Some activists consider them “most radical” because they are “most exploited,” but they are un-organizable and more likely to act as paid agents than to have any progressive role in class struggle.”
What Marx said in the Communist Manifesto:
The “dangerous class”, [lumpenproletariat] the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of the old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue.
And this observation was visionary as proven decades later by fascism.
If you want to organize lumpen, you are not a Marxist, you are a fascist.
I’ve taken cold showers almost every day for the past 3 and a half years. I highly recommend if you can get into the habit. When you get out, it feels like when you come in from cold rain and put on dry clothes that have been on the heater. And it’s sort of like a factory reset on your body; I feel all the lethargy and aches go away.
It’s hard to convince yourself to go in, but when you do it a few times, your body kind of figures out it’s a good thing and it’s not as difficult. These days, I can get in and immediately turn the cold water on myself, and it’s always a little shocking, but not too bad. I usually don’t need to ease myself into it. I do live in a subtropical climate though.
Wim Hof has some pretty impressive feats when it comes to handling cold weather. I don’t really follow him, but if he can handle extremely cold temperatures, he probably has interesting things to say. I like his breathing technique, but I don’t use it all that often. It feels like meditation for me in the sense that it has great benefits for me, but I don’t need to do it often.
Edit: Cold temperature, like exercise, releases endorphins which are a natural pain reliever. Hot temperature suppresses endorphins. But your body can get acclimated to some level of endorphins so it’s actually not a bad thing to take a hot shower every once in a while.
It’s crazy how liberals think China is authoritarian because the Dalai Lama has to live in exile. He took CIA money to train insurrectionists against China. Any country would have a big problem with someone who was working with foreign agents to topple their government. Then they try to imprison Trump for “working with Russia” based on a conspiracy theory. It’s complete hypocrisy.
I think it’s more the way the youtube algorithm works. It sorts “top comments” by default, seemingly even removing comments if they don’t get enough likes to reach a threshold. I’ve had an issue before where a video shows no comments even when it says there are 3 comments. I switch to “new” and the three comments show up
Edit: But I see what you are saying, the algorithm definitely plays into that attention seeking mentality
The frontline there has hardly moved since before the SMO. Novobakhmutovka sits between Avdiivka and Toretsk-Niu York, both of which are major strongholds with rail lines safely hidden behind the rear. Very unlikely Russian forces will have any success in storming these positions head on. It will be more productive to slowly encircle similar to what is happening in Bakhmut, which as we know, can take months.
Novobakhmutovka opens up a kit of possibilities towards Toretsk. It is next door to the highest points in the area around Oleksandropil. Taking these positions, it will be possible to follow the highway north and encircle Toretsk on the west side; cauldron is already developing in the east due to Bakhmut offensive. I think this where Russia will apply more pressure, not in Avdiivka yet.
But the new offensive could change everything, it’s hard to tell.
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