Even if you don’t manage to learn that phrase, hands up with a white flag, no backpack, no trenchcoat or anything else that looks like you can be hiding something, etc., then they should follow international protocol and take you prisoner. They’ll get a translator for when they are ready to talk.
Though it will help if you can manage that phrase.
More multi-generational genocide for more people, cool. Fucking cool NATO. Every country we’ve been at war with since and including Vietnam not enough?
Actually saw this before hopping onto Lemmygrad today. Came on here to post this update to the war if someone else didn’t already beat me to it. But yeah, sick and fucking tired of NATO. The things I wish for those war criminals will get me in trouble even here if I posted it.
While it is technically true that only a small minority have any real power here, at least in the US (where I live, can’t speak for the rest of the West) a lot of the “powerless majority” still voice support for a lot of the horrific things we do. In my hometown there are plenty of people I hear vocalizing their desire to turn the lands of whoever the enemies are at the time “to glass” and other similar genocidal talk.
Fuck, even a survey by a bourgeois “neutral pollster with a great reputation” (Pew or Gallup, can’t remember which) found that one in three respondents who were Trump supporters during his first campaign in either North or South Carolina (can’t remember which) wanted the return of chattel slavery as it was before the US Civil War. So since about half the population wanted Trump, that means about one in six people you walk past in that state want to fully re-enslave minorities plantation style.
So even if the US was a “true democracy” and people’s votes and wishes did actually matter, the course would likely not be different and if so, could very possibly be even worse.
TikTok, like all those mind numbing social media sites, serves only to dull working class people to the realities of their material conditions. The only social media I use is Lemmygrad, which helps me fine tune my understanding of theory and the material conditions of comrades as well as my own. I have a LinkedIn but that is only for my plastic mask self to try to get and maintain okay jobs. I go there maybe once or twice a month for a few minutes then poof out.
Just look at Maoism/Mao Zedong Thought confusion.
That seems to stem from not understanding the difference between a “thought” and an ~ism, which I’ll admit in my previous post I inadvertently mixed the two interchangeably. Apologies comrades for that. This section from here (https://www.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/6dgngc/maoism_vs_maozedong_thought/) does a great job of explaining this, far better than I can at any rate:
A thought is more particular to a certain situation. For example, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism-"Gonzalo Thought" is particular to the people's war in Peru because of Comrade Abimael Guzman's contradictions in enriching Maoism to the particularities of the external conditions in Peru. You could say what Lenin applied is Marxism-"Lenin Thought" because his contributions put Marxism to the social conditions of Russia. However, you say Marxism-Lenin-ism because it would refer to the universality of his contradictions, the universality of imperialism, the universal urgency for the dictatorship of the proletariat, etc. It takes from the lessons of the Russian revolution and puts it higher. Similarly, Mao Zedong Thought is simply Marxism-Leninism in Chinese conditions. It doesn't talk about the universality of the cultural revolution, the universality of the people's war, the universality of contradictions. Maoism does that.
- Comrade "theredcebuano" of Reddit
Basically when helping to educate comrades we should try to spell out this difference in our lingo.
Yeah I’m referring to communists overall, not just MLs, when I say Putin is jailing communists. I don’t include Anarchists in that since part of Communism includes a recognition for the need for authority in Socialism, while Anarchists don’t, and I don’t include SocDems because… well many reasons… like that they are explicitly about limiting capitalism instead of eliminating it entirely.
While I have my own tendencies which are, as far as I can tell, closest to ML, I don’t feel like I can afford to discredit or discount any particular tendency. ML worked for establishing the USSR, MLM worked for China, Castroism for Cuba, Ho Chi Mihn thought for Vietnam, etc.
As a USian, I’m not convinced the ~ism which might one day bring a successful revolution here has even been conceived yet, and that ~ism will take from and invoke numerous aspects of numerous other ~isms in addition to adding its own unique contributions to Marxist thought.
I know I am starting to digress, but it just feels like we are doing ourselves a disservice when we intentionally “don’t invoke” certain Marxist thinkers or start to go down the rabbit hole about how such and such communist ~ism is wrong in some way, discount it completely, and thus place another brick in the wall preventing solidarity. Throwing out the baby with the bath water kind of thing.
Blissful ignorance?
Exactly, it prevents white people from having to reconcile the vile history of our ancestors and our personal contributions to that legacy.
What the hell even is “more socialist” lmao, wouldn’t “too much socialism” just be communism?
In their minds, yes. This is why they think the Nordic countries are still in the acceptable zone but start becoming like Vietnam or whatever and that’s “too much socialism”.
You forgot another thing: They don’t care about what happens to us Global Southerners, as long as they get to live “luxuriously”.
This is likely why they don’t know.
Do they?
Yup, the Nordic countries are just generally seen as ‘more socialist’.
if communism is bad then god i wanna be a bad girl
And who says you aren’t a bad girl?
I don’t know enough about CPRF and have only seen high level overviews of their platform, don’t know enough specifics to say they aren’t communist or whatever. Also am always hesitant to go around declaring “yes this is communist” and “no this isn’t communist” when referring to people and orgs self identifying as communist. Feels too “gatekeepy” or “no true Scotsman”-esque.
Also, not saying you are doing that since I don’t know what basis makes you hesitant to view CPRF as communist.
Most of those types of people don’t know what communism looks like. They think having affordable access to privatized healthcare (subsidized by the oppression of the global south abroad, though they don’t see or know about this part of the idea either) qualifies as communism. Many USians unironically believe Canada is socialist. It is the: “Communism = bad, and all bad things are communist so…” kinda brain
Best part, it probably only cost the Chinese only a number of thousands to make the balloon, but to shoot one down costs the US somewhere in the ballpark of $2m USD per balloon.
China should send a few thousand empty balloons over the US, since for every 500 China sends the US would blow $1b in defense budget if they shot them all down (this is a joke… kinda…).
Not just that many doctors won’t bother looking deeply into these sort of things, but they’ll charge enough to bankrupt most people as they do so. So much as look up hospitals on Google and you’ll be billed for it…
The costs of hospitalizations, some of which involuntary, from mental health breakdowns alone cost me about $15k USD/year for several years. Last time I rode in an ambulance, which was a simple 2 mile ride with one of those typical sodium whatever IVs cost $7k USD. The itemized bill charged less than $100 USD for the IV, which was the only resource other than time and 2 miles of fuel, that was consumed during that ride. Oh, and none of those take into consideration the cost of weekly or bi-weekly meetings with mental health professionals for counseling. All with (most of the time shitty) insurance.
If alternative medicine is a scam, at least it is a scam that is generally affordable for normal ass people and won’t likely bankrupt you. The US healthcare system is a scam that will bankrupt you for even letting your kids spell H-O-S-P-I-T-A-L in a school spelling bee. That’s another big reason alternative medicine gained so much traction, at least here in the US.
While I agree with you that our standard of living in the West is decreasing due to a number of factors, some of which you called out, the Western standard of living is still considerably higher than many living in numerous places due to the historical effects of colonialism and neocolonialism.
OP is referring to that, asking the question as to why it is higher in the West than in, say, Haiti, seeking the Marxist perspective on that question.
I mean, for me I am trying to build enough to maybe flee to safety if things become unsafe for communists in my country (US), like in the event of war with China or some such when they start accusing us all of being spies or something and Patriot Act us.
But like… long term super apocalypse type nonsense? Honestly if a nuclear apocalypse type of thing happens I don’t want to be a survivor. That sounds like a horrible existence, no thanks. Nukes start flying I’m going outside to watch the skies with enough booze to numb myself beforehand.
So yeah, I just restrict my efforts to having enough to get my family and self to a communist safe haven if I find myself in that situation. If I ever live in an area with frequent natural disasters I’ll extend it to be able to last a couple weeks in a storm shelter or shelter in place or whatever, and then spend extra energy outside of that to organize my neighbors so we can work together.
Eh, probably best to not worry too much about the one rando downvote here and there, especially when it isn’t accompanied by a dissenting comment. This is ultimately a political place, people will disagree, but if they don’t give context then you can’t engage with it. There will also be the occasional fed or other adversarial plant doing stuff to cause some disturbance.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Israel
I know it is Wikipedia, but feel free to look at the sources they cite here. Seems defense industry folks disagree with you though.
Yeah China has had plenty of stable elections and Xi’s replacement will likely come to power peacefully and do just fine. The CPC is pretty stable internally, more so than either mainstream US party internally, which are both experiencing a serious identity crisis.