GenZedong @lemmygrad.ml ☭ 𝗚𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗘𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿 ☭ @lemmygrad.ml 2y ago

General Discussion Thread - Juche 112, Week 29

Welcome again to everybody! Make yourself at house. In the time-honoured tradition of our group, here is our weekly discussion thread!

We have a Matrix homeserver at genzedong.xyz. See this thread for information about our Matrix space.

Short reading list for new MLs here. To find theory, try marxists.org, Anna's Archive, libgen, or Sci-Hub (for scientific articles). If an article is unavailable, try the Wayback Machine.

93 comments

I think we should be cautious about something now that the fediverse is rapidly growing.

We should be careful not to get drawn into wrecker tactics. If you search the fediverse for lemmygrad, you'll see quite a bit of trouble kicking off in other instances. I came across this when looking for news about lemmygrad being down on the weekend. I wouldn't ordinarily search to see what others are saying about us because I don't care for the drama. And if If liberals avoid this place, I'll be happy.

But there's a problem. People are posting lies about us and warning others not to come here. But that's not the worst of it. Now, I don't want to see monsters where there aren't any. But it seems to me that the structure and form of these posts and comments are dangerous. The way they're framed will lead others to (a) put words in our mouths and (b) question us in a particular format.

We've seen this already on posts on lemmygrad, and some of you may have seen it in comments here and on other instances. It goes, roughly, like this: 'I've heard that you eat babies. Why do you eat babies?' Or: 'Why do you love Putin/genocide/etc?' Or: 'Don't worry about those people on LG, they're all young, and don't know why better.' Or: 'Don't worry about [redtea], he's a champagne socialist from New York.'

These comments are infuriating. And they will lead you to slip up if you're not careful. Because, when faced with an accusation, the temptation is to defend yourself. But how do you do that? You might reply that you only eat babies on Fridays, or that you love Putin for XYZ, or that you're not young, you're 45, or that you're not from NY, you're from a small village outside Memphis, population 10. If you reply to these provocateurs with the wrong response, you may allow people to build up a profile about IRL-you, attached to statements that could get you in trouble. Don't fall for it!

Is this a psy-op? All those agents paid to astro turf the narrative on Reddit and Twitter will be looking for other work. So I wouldn't discount it. Ultimately, it doesn't matter. The effect is the same whether it's isolated or orchestrated. People are being riled up to come at us with their pitchforks, here and on other instances. Be careful, and don't fall for their tricks. Don't dox yourself. Don't be trapped into saying something illegal.

I'm posting this so that we can talk about how to spot these traps and how to avoid them. Everyone on LG is concerned with making the world a better place, with ending oppression, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, exploitation, climate catastrophe, etc. We have vitriolic enemies because of it. Don't let them define what we stand for—choose your words carefully.
- very good points -- on a related topic, I think it's best to follow @yogthos's example and avoid being needlessly hostile on other instances, since it's likely to just reinforce their assumptions about us and "tankies" in general
  
  Agree. It can be difficult, still. Not just avoiding the temptation to dunk (forget imperialism, the key contradiction of our times is whether to dunk or educate). But because the other person might never have been challenged from an ML perspective before. If they have, they might not be used to it; sometimes it seems that they simply cannot get their head around what's being said.
  
  For instance, challenging one point is interpreted as meaning support for the only contrary point they've ever heard (e.g. challenging the narrative that Russian invaded 'unprovoked' is taken as support for Putin because they're the only two options that are ever presented in the (western) public discourse.
  
  Being polite is only half the battle when trying not to be hostile. Even the mere pointing at counter-evidence, or asking questions for clarity, are taken as hostility.
  
  Feel free to point it out if you think I am ever needlessly hostile. I'll try to correct it.
  
  Yeah, let's not become r/communism
- I started reading this comment and thought it was going to be about people making deliberately inflammatory comments (of which I'm the worst offender) that would play into the userbase being evil. But yeah, doxing is an even more real concern.
  
  It's difficult, especially online. IRL, I can be deliberately inflammatory and with a disarming smile and a wink, the conversation stays friendly. That's not so easy online. Where, to make it more complicated, you and the other person are practically anonymous. And we're constantly faced with trolls, so the temptation is to shut them down and have fun doing so. We probably could be better at not being deliberately inflammatory but I'm in no place to judge. It's worth us discussing that, too, though, so that we only do it on appropriate occasions and when we intend to.
- I mean...welcome to being a communist on the internet?
  
  Anti-coms know that what communists say is reasonable. Which is why they just lie about us, because if people gave us a chance, they would realise we aren't hateful monsters, but human beings with reasonable points that we are actually willing to discuss and debate (so long as the debate isn't just "million-gorillion dead" over and over)
  
  So the only option is to dehumanise us. Treat us as something to be dismissed out of hand, not ever listened to, because if they did, they'd realise that we seem to be actually trying to understand things and not just spouting meaningless buzzwords. Which in turn might make them question why their liberal friends don't seem to be interested in that, and prefer the buzzwords. Self-reflection is anathema to the liberal worldview, so naturally this can't be allowed.
  
  Anti-coms know that what communists say is reasonable
  
  That's not always true. Some (I would guess most) liberals have no idea what communism actually is; their anticommunism is based entirely on bourgeois propaganda ("news", "history" books written by both deliberate liars and useful idiots, works of fiction like Gulag Archipelago and 1984, etc.), and I'm convinced that a lot of these people can be convinced. Unfortunately, social media sites like R*ddit are infested with various three-letter agencies, and I'm sure at least some of them have branched out to the more popular Lemmy instances :|
The byline on the left ("Will Deng's heirs turn Beijing into a superpower the world can love?") seems to have more or less come true. Just not in a way Time can admit to.
- Incredible. Where's this one from?
- Nice! Fortresses are my jam. Where's this?
  
  it seems to be somewhere in Yemen _@redtea
YouTube blocking adblockers might be a blessing, i finally have a reason to stop using it.
- there are many good anti-imperialist YouTube channels that don't have backups on other platforms, but anyone who wants to use YouTube should access it through something like invidio.us while it's still possible
We're expecting to have a few meetings on history of colonialism in our little study group. Anyone got interesting resources? Particularly interested in colonization of India, due to some disagreements with the team
- Specifically about India:
  
  Shashi Tharoor, Inglorious Empire: What the British did to India, or
  
  Priyamvada Gopal, Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent, chapters 1, 4, and/or 5.
  
  There's a 'great' short book about British colonialism: Peter Fryer, Black People in the British Empire. I say 'great' because it's informative. It's not for the faint hearted. The surprising thing is how many brutal crimes it's possible to catalogue in less than 130 pages. Pages 17–24 and 107–17 focus on India.
  
  If you want to look at the connection between law, property, and colonialism, try Brenna Bhandar, Colonial Lives of Property: Law, Land, and Racial Regimes of Ownership.
  
  Kwame Nkrumah's Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism is relevant, but it may be more helpful to establish the facts of what happened before the time that he is talking about, depending on your group.
  
  Depending on the politics and how 'academic' your group is, a book like Alice Procter's The Whole Picture: The Colonial Story of the Art in our Museums & Why we Need to Talk about it could be a good place to start.
  
  Thank you very much!
What is the end goal of capitalism?

For communism we know that the end goal is a classless society but, unironically, what the hell is the end goal of capitalism? Rich society by achieving trickle down economics?
- the workers who defend capitalism do so because they have bourgeois aspirations or just can't imagine anything different, and I don't think the capitalists think hundreds of years ahead 💀
  
  capitalism is even lame on paper.
- It doesn't have one. It is a cancer. It will consume and consume and consume until it kills the host (the planet).
  
  it's so lame
- Materially and historically, the goal is socialism. In terms of the conscious intent of those who promote it, the goal is nothing.
- Schizophrenia? (Basically ripping all things from their place and context in the service of capital, they haven’t read the book, I just watched this)
The borderline fascist government of Italy, which party has direct ties to the national fascist party just approved gender neutral bathrooms and alias careers for students and professors (basically trans students and professors will be allowed to change names at school, even without legally change name) let's just say I'm surprised.
I hope you all have a nice week :D
Lol after reading the john perkins book about being an economic hitman, its kinda ridiculous how incompetent and lazy were the global south boggie class (vendepatrias).

They hire american consultories to make the economic projections for them (which they intentionally overproject growth) so they can ask american banks for credits to pay american construction companies to make the infrastructure. Credit goes from american bank to american companies then the country has to pay the bank the credit with interests, and since the growth projections were overblown, they end up becoming debt slaves. What a business.
- Credit goes from american bank to american companies then the country has to pay the bank the credit with interests
  
  And the comprador gets a cut. That's what it's all about.
- Easy money for some.
  
  Is the book worth a read? It sounds like a different argument but I enjoyed The Death of Homo Economicus by Peter Flemming. https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745399409/the-death-of-homo-economicus/
  
  Yea its a good read, its easily consumable since its written like a novel. Ty for the recommendation btw.
The EU-CEPAL summit is starting today, probably some fun headlines about the Third World being "unreasonable" to the North inbound.
https://gsis.scholasticahq.com/article/74177-failures-and-future-strategies-in-the-war-on-terrorism/attachment/155792.pdf

I enjoyed this paper, and the author makes some good points. Nevertheless, I have to be honest and say that his needless willingness to assume good faith on part of the U.S. government gives his thesis an almost childlike sense of innocence.
Lol its so funny how masked off a sub becomes when you mention something about China.

My country sub (mexico) is really quiet until boom someone posts about the uyghurs 😂 then it becomes full on fascist.
- Why would Mexicans care about Uyghurs? Surely the looming invasion from USA is a bigger concern?
  
  Beats me lol, but they are suddenly very concerned about the uyghurs 😂
I did a praxis for the first time today.
Reddit recommended me a "science" subreddit https://www.reddit.com/r/ScienceUncensored/comments/13xv2xa/top_chinese_scientist_concedes_that_coronavirus
- Ah yes, top Chinese scientist. The most famous Chinese scientist of them all. Another article shared in that subreddit says a "top adviser" said it instead. Sure is definitely a real story when they can't even figure out who their made up source is supposed to be.
  
  I don't want to depress myself by looking, but I'm guessing that subreddit has a lot of articles talking about how "gender is biological" and "some races are smarter than others, says scientist."
- “Uncensored” in the name of an internet community is usually a bad sign.
Today mexican ex-president Vicente Fox posted an image on twitter "accusing" presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum of being a "bulgarian jew" with a very suspicious looking eagle at the bottom right corner. So this is the state of the "moderate" right wing in Mexico now.
- Lmao
why the fk am I seeing oppenheimer everywhere on the internet? why are western idiots celebrating making a nuke?
- Cuz a movie idealizing him just came out.
  
  I mean we'll see, I learned that apparently Oppenheimer was a communist?
I’m going home from my 10 day vacation in Elsass/Alsace, Fr*nce tomorrow
- Has it been fun?
  
  I can't give a definitive yes/no answer to that. On the one hand, it's much hotter in Elsass then back in Denmark. On the other hand, I've been to some interesting places such as Hohkönigsburg and Der Lingekopf
  
  I also went to the Natzweiler KZ
There are still people on this day and age that think foreign private investment is good 😐 these ppl live under a rock or what
- I dunno, comrade, that's usually one of the reasons I'm given for why Deng's reforms were necessary. To attract investment and build up
  
  China is an exception since they do have a ML party with a long term project and certain conditions for foreign investment. They are not just accepting foreign investment hoping something trickles down.
Dune references ah yes
- Where's this from?
  
  danganronpa fanfic.
the fk is this?
I could have sworn that several weeks ago I found a book on libgen or Google Books explicitly describing itself with something like ‘While not denying Soviet brutality, the author concludes that that the Red Army did a good job protecting Jews’ (maybe specifically in Moldovia or Bessarabia or something—I can’t remember). I think that the cover featured a monochrome photo over a red background.

Man, was I bonehead, because I glossed over that book when I spotted it and now I can’t find it anywhere! My thought process must have been, ‘Well, I’m sure that anticommunists will deny/trivialize/ignore the positive findings anyway, so there’s no point in reading.’ So I didn’t make note of it. ~~Feck, now I’ll probably never find it again.~~

ETA: here it is!
- how did you find it?
  
  I think that originally I found it while I was doing research on Romanian fascism. When I tried to recover it I looked on Research Gate and spotted this article, which looked similar, then I looked through the citations section and that’s how I recovered the book.
the era of fascism is already upon us. this is in response to amazon shutting down a customers smart home. this is really funny.
One performs a smidgen of trolláge.
I simply don’t get why Xi would entertain talking with Kissinger. He is the most evil man alive and yet they had a red carpet welcome to such human (compared to other US officials)
what do you think of this website? https://www.peoplesworld.org/
- based on the articles on the front page, it's clearly pro-electoralism; even worse, it seems to advocate for working within the Democratic Party
  
  i found this from the list of left websites in that tankies research paper. 🤣
How do you explain to people that consumerism =/= materialism?
- "Words can have multiple definitions, and 'materialism' had a definition long before capitalism existed"
The Grad ate my comment. I made a nice, almost long comment, with links and all, but after I clicked "post", it just disappeared. And didn't show up after refreshing the page. Anyone have the same issue?
- it happens consistently when I do something like upvote a comment while writing, but I don't think it's disappeared after posting 🪦
  
  a workaround is to save long comments to the clipboard, or just copy it from another text editor
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36825664

Can someone nuke this website?

93 comments