When it comes to settler-colonialism — it literally is black and white. Both in the “epidermalization” of colonial dehumanization unfolding in history as white supremacy vs black and brown inferiority; but also in the fabric of colonialism and colonial relations in general. The colonizer makes the colonized into the embodiment of all evil, so the colonizer can be the embodiment of all good in oppressing them. “Civilization vs barbarity” as espoused by all European colonialists and likewise espoused by the earliest (explicitly settler-colonial) Zionists like Theodor Herzl, who wrote in such terms to arch-racist and settler-colonial genocidaire Cecil Rhodes asking for support; as well as stated explicitly now by Netanyahu in public international forums and to US congress.

Those “civilized” colonialists engage in worse barbarism than any of their victims could have imagined; and need necessarily for their victims to be made into an effigy of irredeemable unsolvable-but-through-violence evil to escape the dissonance and contradiction. And this contradiction between the inherent inner-demand of the colonized to embrace, embody, and express their humanity against the inherent and inherently violent colonial dehumanization perpetrated and perpetuated against them by the colonizer sharpens itself, by the resistance of the colonized producing fear and anger in the colonizer, and indignation that the “civilized good” would be challenged and assailed by the “barbarous bad,” and as such this is taken as PROOF of the inhumanity and savagery of the colonial subject; and so reprisals are carried out to reestablish the existing exploitation and dehumanization and further deepen and entrench it. And in doing so, the colonialist becomes more the embodiment and executor of the ‘barbarism and inhumanity’ that they project onto the colonized, which then spurs more resistance in the colonized against their own dehumanization.

In this way colonialism and the colonial relationship dehumanizes both the colonized and the colonizer, in very black and white ways. The colonized only regain their humanity by realizing and embracing the truth of their own humanity in defiance to the colonizer’s violence-backed assertions (in word and deed) of the inhumanity of the colonized. And in doing so, the colonized realizes that it is infact the colonizer who lacks humanity, by engaging in violently stripping and denying the humanity of the colonized for their own gain; and it is the colonizer who is the embodiment of the evil that is projected onto the victim; and hating them is righteous because to embrace and assert the colonized subject’s own humanity is to accept and express-in-full the total intolerability and grotesque violent reality of the colonial relationship. And the full expression of this acceptance means the full-frontal challenge and assault upon the very core structures of colonialism and the colonizers in the only language it and they understand — which is violence. The colonized is only able to embody and express their full humanity when they cease to be colonized; which means the ceasing, through any means necessary, of the colonizer and the colonial relationship. Which is and has always been maintained through extreme violence; and as such can only be overcome by more extreme and greater violence which is sufficiently organized and strategically, tactically, and politically educated and disciplined to overcome the immense power imbalance arrayed against them. This is a material reality, and a historically borne-out reality.

The colonizer likewise can only regain their humanity through being destroyed as colonizer. Whether that is through:

• destruction of the individual (in which they bleed and die like any other human being, they regain their connection to humanity, and to their own humanity; death being the great equalizer)
• or through surrender to the terms of the colonized and abolishment of the colonial relationship which means abolishment of the pre-existing power dynamic and total unequivocal submission to the new rule of the previously-subjugated, in which by accepting surrendering of any and all special privileges over another human being, they become equal to other humans, reconnected to humanity and to their own humanity
• or otherwise fleeing or being expelled in sufficient numbers that the colonial regime collapses, in which the previous-colonizers, in their new places of refuge, will not and can not maintain the same differential of violence and power that they had left behind over the local population, their new neighbors. The local population, established and entrenched with sovereign governance, would not tolerate those welcomed in to wage a violent colonial dehumanization campaign for exploitation, and the previous-colonizer, understanding this, accepts their new station as equal to other human beings, and so the previous-colonizer, is a *previous-*colonizer ie not any longer a colonizer, and as such regains their connection to humanity and to their own humanity.

As the colonizer, benefiting immensely in material terms from being the colonizer in the colonial relationship, is loathe to give it up, this can only ever be done through organized violence against them, combined with sufficient threat of its expansion and continuation out-competing and out-stripping the total capability for the colonial military, police, and settler-militias to continue on in the way they had previously, and out-stripping the ability for the colonizer’s foreign sponsors to maintain or justify domestically maintaining the colonial project which itself necessarily requires wildly disproportionate and extreme violence, oppression and repressions, in order to enforce the implicit understanding of “the proper place” of the colonized, and make the colonizer and the colonial relationship seem to the colonized as unassailable and eternal as if it were a fundamental law of nature.

This is also why historically, in independence and decolonization struggles and uprisings, for every 10 colonizers killed, 400 colonized are killed and entire villages burned or bulldozed in reprisal, and their bodies made symbols of “what might happen to you if you raise your head like they did.” It is a deliberate reassertion of the colonial relationship of the superior vs the inferior, the human vs the inhuman, the powerful vs the weak. But the reality of this relationship is ineffable, can not be spoken of in these clear (real) terms, because the implication of its naked reality inherently proves the inhumanity of the colonizer and undermines their basis of being the ‘eternal good against the eternal bad;’ but and even more urgently, this real reality of the colonial relationship being known is damning for the colonizer, as it proves the necessity on the part of the colonized to engage in violent armed struggle with extreme severity against the colonizer to win the humanity that is denied them, and which will otherwise never be won. In all of this, it is very black and white.

I highly recommend reading Frantz Fanon for more understanding of colonialism and settler-colonialism in these ways; and the dialectical nature of the relationships and psychologies between the colonizer and colonized. Right now resources are up on the Internet Archive. The Wretched of the Earth (which should be required reading for anyone in the west to be honest); and Black Skin, White Masks are essential to speak with knowledge on these relationships if you’re not subject to them, and so live the experiences; though the texts can give language and concrete materialist analysis to those lived experiences and so are valuable regardless. Fanon was writing about the Algerian independence struggle but the concepts are as universal as European colonialism is. It has inspired many anti-colonial revolutionary struggles since his time, including as a core inspiration for the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army. It is necessary to engage with these works to understand colonialism.

If you then feel inclined to broaden understanding of the material interests of organized society and build out understanding of the underlying economic systems and frameworks behind the evolution of these colonial and imperial states coming into being into a ‘wider picture,’ Marx and Lenin can help; but I don’t think they are at all necessary precursors, as Fanon does an immense deal of his own unique legwork to illustrate everything cohesively without need for external resource; and does an excellent job of encapsulating and expressing his own analyses in a concrete historical and dialectical materialist methodological framework himself without additional work of the reader, and simply “stretching” Marxist conceptions where it didn’t reach far enough or grip the road enough in order to encompass colonialism and independence struggles in its actual internal relationships-between-peoples — as Marx mostly spoke of colonialism in broad terms of how it served the primitive accumulation of capital on which the industrial revolution was built and so followed the division of society into bourgeoisie and proletariat classes; and that the self-liberation of proletariat could only happen through first the liberation of slaves, as a necessity of historical evolution of societal social relations. Lenin wrote about nations’ right to self-determination and the capitalist evolution into capitalist-imperialism; though with a more external and structural perspective in broad political conceptions relevant to the revolutions in Europe and Eurasia during his time. Exceedingly incisive and still-valuable information, but is less focused and relevant to the topic of the relationships themselves. But if you struggle with Fanon, some basic Marx and Lenin might help lay a foundation.

What does that have to do with the internal collapse of the USSR?

you’ve still not made any actual assertions. “The internal collapse of the USSR” makes it seem like you’re gesturing toward having some actual knowledge, which you’re refusing to disclose, instead making smug assertions that this hidden vague knowledge that you refuse to declare means you’re right. So, what does “the internal collapse of the USSR” actually mean to you? What are you imagining (the pictures and words in your brain) when you say “the internal collapse of the USSR,” and what were the causes in your opinion for whatever you’re imagining?

It doesn’t seem like you actually know what you’re talking about, because you’re desperately avoiding making real substantive statements in any of these comments, instead throwing tantrums when pressed on what you actually think. Tell us your actual positions, without petulant ‘McCarthy-if-he-was-a-redditor’ tantrums, or otherwise stop pretending to have any.

But we both know that’s not why it collapsed.

okay, then tell us why you think it collapsed? These vague insinuations and gesturing don’t prove your point, they make it seem like you’re unsure of the basis of your own assertions.

Edit: And for the record, the first ever experiment of a modern socialist country in history, with no earlier examples to work off of, succumbing to a series of both external and internal contradictions doesn’t say anything concretely about the viability of socialism as a whole. In fact, their massively successful strides toward constructing new relations of society, and the betterment of living standards for the vast masses of its people, and the provided security of housing, employment, nutrition, community, and healthcare which was established after fully collectivizing and industrializing (industrializing in 1/10 of the time it took the west to industrialize, without the fundamental basis of primitive accumulation through global colonialism, settler-colonialism, genocide, chattel slavery, child labor, aggressive wars, and malthusian sanitation practices that under-girded the western industrial revolution; and doing so after suffering such destruction in WWI and the civil and counter-revolutionary-interventionist war no less) proves there are extremely strong cases for it being a model of success to learn from and build off of, while learning from its shortcomings and mistakes.

As far as I know it’s because both sides had pretty banal low-level and straightforward stated goals that were all “met” so there wasn’t a clear “winner” and a “loser” in those strategic goals. It was really more of a 3 week skirmish than a full war. Vietnam obviously wanted to force China out of their country, and China said they wanted to bat Vietnam on the nose and force them to pull out of and not occupy Cambodia, or Laos or Thailand.

Which China left meaning Vietnamese succeeded in their strategic goals, and the Vietnamese diverted major resources and pulled out of Cambodia and didn’t occupy Thailand and Laos meaning the Chinese succeeded. There weren’t really any major strategic goals that were stated by either side that showed blatant failure; like China never said they intended to fully occupy Hanoi and create a Chinese puppet state and failed. Vietnam as far as I know never said they intended to continue occupying Cambodia or occupy Thailand and then failed to. So in a way they both got what they wanted and it was a status quo antebellum situation. Thus indecisive in the context of if it weren’t ‘indecisive’ there would have been a winner or loser.

Thailand and Laos were under multi-factional civil wars whose royal governments were also US proxies; so the Vietnamese were also involved there (and involved with their local communist parties), prompting Sino-Soviet-split-related concerns with China since even though both China and USSR provided support to Vietnamese communists; the USSR became the dominant supporter and ally of Vietnam and continued to be. China also had an alliance with Cambodia dating before Khmer Rouge even; which was in part because Cambodia wanted assurance against the larger Vietnam and Thailand. The split in the Chinese Cultural Revolution era between the ultra-lefts and others had half of the CPC supporting the Prince and half of it supporting the Khmer Rouge against the prince. North Vietnam and Khmer Rouge provided support for each other for a while too. The politics were a mess. No idea what other involvements China had with Thailand and Laos other than Sino-Soviet fears.

People overstate the significance of Chinese casualties as meaning a loss when that’s not how war works. Strategic objectives are all that matter. The losses (if you average the wildly disproportionate claims from all sides; impossible to actually know when you look at it) were more even than something like The Winter War between USSR-Finland; and though that war had the Soviets suffer disproportionate losses, it was still a complete strategic victory for the Soviets; they got everything they were after which had refused by Finland in previous requested land-swaps, namely gaining the Karelia buffer region.

Cases in point:

• These NATO Generals Had Unusual Backgrounds: They Served in the Third Reich
• When the CIA Bankrolled a Nazi Spy Chief
• (Said spy chief and his organization)
• Documents: CIA concealed Nazi war criminals
• Revealed: How the CIA protected Nazi murderers
• How [CIA-hired] Nazi butcher Klaus Barbie helped kill Che Guevara and unleash global cocaine scourge
• CIA ORGANIZED SECRET ARMY IN WESTERN EUROPE
• How Nazi Billionaires Thrived in Postwar Germany
• Loyal to their Class, Unhinged from Democracy [US political economic elite connections with German Industrialists & Nazis]
• Revealed: How Israel Turned Nazi War Criminals Into Mossad Agents

There’s a long and ongoing history of this; for the US, UK, and Israel.

• [DECLASSIFIED] - CIA INVOLVEMENT IN UKRAINIAN NATIONALISM
• {2014: Ukraine crisis: Transcript of leaked Nuland-Pyatt call [where they hand-picked new regime; Oleh Tyahnybok is Nazi leader of Svoboda party]
• [2014:] How the far-right took top posts in Ukraine’s power vacuum
• [2014:] TORCH-LIT MARCH IN KIEV BY UKRAINE’S RIGHT-WING SVOBODA PARTY - BBC NEWS
• [2016:] Congress Has Removed a Ban on Funding Neo-Nazis From Its Year-End Spending Bill
• [2018:] Israel is arming neo-Nazis in Ukraine
• [2018:] Ukrainian neo-Nazi C14, known for racist and homophobic attacks, gets public funding for ‘patriotic education’
• [2018:] Ukrainian Militia Behind Brutal Romany Attacks [Nazi group ‘C-14’] Getting State Funds
• [2019:] The Russians and Ukrainians [operating out of Ukraine] Translating the Christchurch Shooter’s Manifesto
• [2019:] How to Mainstream Neo-Nazis: A Lesson from Ukraine’s New Government
• [2019:] MASS Neo-Nazi Marches in Ukraine today to honour Stepan Bandera
• [2020:] Nationalist marchers [including Tyahnybok’s Svoboda] in Kyiv say Ukraine is under ‘occupation’ by ‘Jewish clan’
• [2021:] Like, Share, Recruit: How a White-Supremacist Militia Uses Facebook to Radicalize and Train New Members

And just for fun, and just in case

• Ukraine Channel 24 – Host Calls for Genocide Against Russians! (16.3.2022)
  here’s [PROOF from their own source’s “apology” lol]
• “To fight, kill, fulfill the tasks of the West” - “Bandera Readings” in Kiev, Ukraine [by C-14 leader Yehvan Karas]

The “middle class” never existed. The “middle class” is an invented wedge to split the working class and try to turn segments of itself, against itself. It has no material basis. It is the ‘myth of upward mobility under capitalism’ distilled into a propaganda phrase to obscure the dualistic and antagonistic class relations in capitalist society between the PROPERTIED and UNPROPERTIED (those who own capital and those who do not), and the contradictions and conflicts therein.

It is false consciousness; personified by and in the ‘middle manager’ who is PROPERTYLESS (proletarian), but paid more and promised the “opportunity of more to come” to align themselves with the interests of the PROPERTIED, and take on the role of a low-level overseer – to function as both a compliance enforcer and a mediative focus-dulling pain-sponge standing in the middle of, and soaking up the conflict between, the ONLY REAL TWO CLASSES IN CAPITALIST SOCIETY: The Worker, and the Capitalist.

“Middle class” is liberal sleight-of-hand in its core and conception, and a term to be derided and discarded in all use, except as a magnifying glass to show the ways capitalism distorts and deceives about the real nature of its own properties and relations; and how the ruling class generates and contributes to the development of false consciousness through their reframing of production’s own characteristics, in order to reify into political “identities” to be captured and capitalized upon those roles which naturally manifest out of the laws of functional industrial-productive logistics, ie. the need for ‘managers’ to administrate complex or large-scale productive and distributive tasks. This serves double roles in the laws of colonial and imperial relations in places like the USA, as this distinction is also in practice highly racialized and rooted in the ongoing historical unfolding of these basal-and-superstructural systems of exploitation.

Make note of the conspicuous absences and obfuscations when duopolist-exploiter X or Y says they “fight for the middle class;” that they are not fighting for you or me in the working class, but pandering to those “temporarily embarrassed millionaires” that they’ve bought off enough or otherwise tricked into this false consciousness, to give them their ever-shrinking electoral margins they require and fight each other over so they don’t have to pay any mind to the working class masses who make up the majority; because they in reality work for the big bourgeois, the capitalists, and the petty-bourgeois “small business tyrants” who think of themselves as capitalists — all at the expense of the working class domestically and abroad.

literally the house burning dog meme

America can’t stop tons of drugs and weapons getting delivered into America every day

who is it that you think built and began that whole project?

God idk what version I’m even using. I never update programs like this unless I have to. From breaking things, to confusing my workflow and moving things around; I’ve always been more frustrated than thankful. I haven’t updated Reaper in ages too and I’m certain they’re better about keeping continuity than anyone.

Edit: lol people are mad about my own software updating habits? why and how are .worlders this way? I can’t imagine the realities they live in, and am glad so

C A P I T A L I S T I N N O V A T I O N

It’s very weird having scrolled in my feed toward the world stuff. It almost seems artificial, like the redditors all collected here with all the hivemind weirdness and astroturfing.

and yeah, Democrats would rather send their dark-money and ‘venture-capitalist’-funded PAC lawyers to purge 3rd parties from ballots (really democratic, Democrat party; I’m writing in PSL regardless if they can’t get back on and telling everyone I know to) than make themselves appealing at all to the people abandoning their moribund and redundant party ‘like rats from a sinking ship’.

They would rather fight with the Republicans over the (shrinking) voter base of rich and upper ‘middle class’ petty bourgeois rightwingers, and alienate all of their leftwing base, and continue abandoning the 35-50% that straight up don’t vote for either of these duopoly-of-exploiters in this fascist-and-vampire show, than reorient toward positions of “not genocide” or “not nuclear-brinksmanship forever-war proxy-wars” or “not-constantly bipartisanly increasing and expanding the US military and neo-colonial racketeer system which is incidentally one of the leading contributors to climate change.”

or “not continuing filling the world with CIA torture camps” or "not being just as or in some ways more right wing than trump on immigration somehow

It’s telling that they refuse to do any of these things a large portion of the population wants; to the point where Muslim groups are advocating voting for 3rd parties who aren’t for drinking the blood of Palestinians (apparently a tall order for US politicians), and instead would rather put so much effort into demonizing and crushing 3rd parties who do advocate against these things.

I don’t even know if they’re capable of not flying to the right and pandering to right wingers more and more due to their donor base. Their structure is inherently based on funding and campaigning and working for the worst billionaire imperialists and arms-dealer death-merchants in the world and AIPAC and tech monopolies etc. If we all pushed up the PSL to hold their working class margins hostage that they (unlike republicans) actually rely on and take for granted, they might break in half trying to reorient. Maybe they’d float a reformist party to prevent everyone going socialist against the open-fanged republicans who nobody ever had any illusions about and half the dems who are basically republicans will join them, and the other half will flee to the new reformist party (probably alienating their “left wing” into more radical politics because that party would become democrat-ified)

People just want to be lied to about the Democrats that they’re different and ‘acting resistance’ at all to the republicans, when they’re really not that different — and where they (barely) are different, they just capitulate and help the Republicans do whatever they were going to do, in the name of “bipartisanship” and “reaching across the aisle”. Like when Obama had both houses of congress and refused to enshrine women’s bodily autonomy and LGBTQ civil rights into law. And then gave away a free Supreme Court seat in capitulation. Then Biden denounces the idea of pushing to expand and pack the court because it’ll “politicize the court” as if that ship isn’t gone past the horizon forever, while doing nothing as women’s and LGBTQ rights are torn down throughout the country, even with a Democrat president. It’s almost like they don’t actually care, or even like when women’s rights and LGBTQ rights are under attack because they can drum up fear about the republicans and look ‘better’ by comparison after creating the problem in the first place, and keep the vampire-and-fascist (dog-and-pony) show going, and get all the gullible liberal votes that “they’ll vote for us anyway — we’re not the republicans” Which circles back to why they’re so scared of and pushing demonization and repression of 3rd parties I guess. That’s a pretty sweet cruise-control-deal they have hoodwinking the populace in a sort of face/heel drama for their ‘audience’

As in from Republican voters? Who cares? If from politicians, then there might be some weird political games with that candidate.

But besides, that’s really your concern? Democrats get funding from billionaire imperialists and arms-dealing weapons-manufacturer death-mechants. Which have successfully lobbied for the expansion of militarism for decades which has proven incredibly profitable and is also destroying the planet faster than almost anything

Both duopoly parties get funding from the worst racketeers, liars, and murderers of the world; the richest most monstrous exploiters that exist. I’m not voting Green, I’m voting for Claudia De La Cruz for PSL — but taking swings against the greens who are one of the few taking anti-war stances vs these duopoly-of-imperialists who are unified in genocide and always have been unified in genocide, and are continuing to be unified in all of the worst policies including now Biden doing Trump’s border shutdown after deregulating and privatizing some of the concentration camps (a very Republican thing to do), just makes no sense.

The people who need this consent-manufacturing level of criticism of OP and a lot of comments are not the Greens or other 3rd parties; the people who are ruining the world and the country are not the Greens and other 3rd parties. Muslims have been coming out in support of the 3rd parties because the Greens and PSL and West’s party are the only ones not being actively evil. Democrats have no reason to not be actively evil and keep flying to the right if everyone’s going to vote for them no matter what because they’re "((barely) not the republicans).

and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gehlen_Organization
and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sunrise_(World_War_II)
and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip
and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio
and https://www.historynet.com/these-nato-generals-had-unusual-backgrounds-they-served-in-the-third-reich/
and https://www.redstreetjournal.com/p/cia1
and… yknow i’d be easier to name the nazis that the US intelligence and military didn’t hire. which some were instead by MI6 and Mossad, like the pioneer of the gas vans Walter Rauff [Archived]
And for good measure: just a few of the industrialists and political elite of the US capitalist class who financed and were deeply connected with the Nazis and the German capitalist class for whom fascism were the anti-communist market-seizing attack dogs. (“first they came for the communists…”)

How have I known about Varoufakis for years as a serious political economist and speaker-on-the-topic, and never heard he was a Valve employee with a catalogue of ‘gaming-economics’ blogs in the early 2010s? LMFAO what a world

That article is literally just reporting what the president did. How does that mean they’re “pro-gun control?” Do you not even read the articles and just seethe and shit yourself about what you think about the wording of headlines? You are such a raging rightist ideologue you have been blinded to all reality and don’t even understand the things that you are mad at. Is this satire? Are you a real person who engages in media and politics like this or have I been trolled?

If you’re serious, the US must have gasoline in the water or something (but ah that would be COMMUNIST to regulate that; or even report on it!)

“typical Hamas press”

CNN

deeply unserious individual

No, neolibs have figured out how to placate segments of the (ever-shrinking) petty bourgeois and defeatist windbags (like you’ve allowed yourself to become in saying these things, but can still self-criticize and grow from), who lack or otherwise benefit from not having an active dialectical consideration of the circumstances before us — in the bare-faced exposure of the sharpened contradictions between mass political movements in society; here between the reactionary bourgeois establishment and its allies, and the advancing of progressive segments and theirs; which itself in the arena of parliamentary and protest politics, and how the media reports on it, are significant representations of wider political trends.

And by not thinking before speaking, and engaging in this liberal and reactionary rhetoric you actively stand in the way of building communism and working class momentum more than Macron does, and you are perpetrating the same “keeping people unaware” that you say the media is. I don’t think you should trust what it “sounds like” to you, because I don’t think you’ve given serious thought to any of this. How does the media “keep the majority unaware” when we’re, all of us even outside of France, hearing about and talking about it?

And “Things aren’t bad enough” for what? For an immediate revolution and dragging Macron to the guillotine right here and now, like we’re remotely in a stage of things in material reality where that’s what you think “building the communist movement” is? In what way is that, to you, a reasonable framework to analyze the current material conditions and consequences for communists and how to orient within them? And how is it not just unthoughtful and inattentive idealist tripe completely disconnected from the material reality and trajectories that currently exist, and which only serves to justify sitting on your hands and telling others to sit on their hands because you’re waiting for… What, exactly? Some utopian revolutionary miracle to pop into existence on its own out of thin air and awake the placated masses (of which surely you’re not a part?)? Revolution is built; and its building takes dedicated and active long-term political engagement among the progressive elements of society with communists, even if not yet in the position to dominate its most visible “official” leadership channels, still always at the forefront of the struggle as members of the most politically advanced segment of the working class.

How do you expect to create revolutionaries before having them even come to recognize revolution as, not only an option, but a necessity; which can only be done through these kinds of lived political experiences highlighting and vindicating through agitation and propaganda the correct analyses of the communists, that bourgeois parliament will not and can not be the instrument to achieve their aims?

You’re contributing to and advocating placation. Your “it’s hopeless why bother” attitude is the “copium” (internet-poisoned term), which serves nothing but to take (and worse, try to further in others’ minds) a lazy capitulation into your own placation. Comrade it is not only wrong, but it is intolerable opportunism. It is a reactionary and defeatist attitude, and is not in any way a cogent recognition of the reality — which is that the amount of rage and disaffection over this in the masses of the working class left-wing (and even just ‘not right-wing’) populace of France, which were able to mobilize as they did to get such results to compel these self-exposing acts in the ruling class, spills visibly through even the bourgeois-media articles about it. You have to close your eyes and plug your ears to not hear mention of the anger, frustration, exasperation, and that’s just what they do mention. I guarantee they couldn’t and wouldn’t be scratching the surface of those masses that aren’t being interviewed who harbor more severe sentiments or would, with proper political education, having experienced this. Many of even the petty-bourgeois reformist leaders of these parties are calling for obstruction and protest as less motivated, more opportunist, and bourgeois-aligned representatives of their much-more pissed off bases who carry much greater potential.

I’ve worked with and organized alongside US communists that became communists out of their experiences and disaffection over how the DNC and Democrat Clinton campaign undermined and slandered Bernie Sanders and his supporters in that grassroots groundswell. And Bernie and that whole experience was milquetoast and petty compared to this, and had more comprehensive targeted propaganda. And still it made many communists, some of whom have contributed more as more capable Marxists than even I had managed at the time, to elevating the consciousness of the working class and movement-building in their communities, instilling communist political understandings, analytical methodologies of theory and practice, and organizational principles in action around peoples lived material realities and experiences at the hands of the system.

People are pissed, and more than you allow yourself to recognize have, by the reality of the situation and living this political experience, come to or are primed but haven’t-yet-been politically educated to understand and advocate, some of the first and most important recognitions, conclusions, and emotions toward bourgeois politicians and their system, and of its bourgeois class character, inherent and unchangeable without smashing it and putting in its place a proletarian dictatorship to maintain power against the these-and-worse bourgeois machinations and reactions.

Just because the masses aren’t immediately fulfilling your idealist projections of what you unrealistically ‘require’ of them to “prove” to you personally that this is a progressive development for the communists (which is opportunist — rather than trying to engage actively as the most politically advanced segment of the working class to make and lead people to the proper conclusions, you are tailing behind mass movements among and as a member of the least advanced, soaking blankets to throw on the advancing segments in the most critically significant and educational moments); like they’re not immediately revolting and dragging Macron to the guillotine over this when that’s not the phase that things are in doesn’t mean that this is not a progressive development for the communists. I strongly suggest you consider all of this and correct these opportunist and defeatist attitudes, which are misaligned with reality and run counter to progress.

because nothing seems to be working.

This is an inspiring sign for communists. No reason for pessimism. A large mobilization of masses of engaged politically active workers in a state where the masses still largely believe in parliamentarism; who formed sprawling coalitions into a large left national upswelling that also made international headlines, now have themselves and onlookers been shown, better than any propaganda alone ever could, why bourgeois liberal democracy is an impediment to progress rather than a channel for it; and that the Liberals will side with the fascists to keep the left from getting an inch. This has made more communists than you probably realize. Especially if your communists have been reading their Lenin and agitating on this point, which probably a lot of workers didn’t even need much agitation to expect this because of the state of things and how just… unbearably awful Macron is in every way

…
It is a good day friend. Communism will win, and these liberal politicians are helping it do so. Don’t let the systems and their media and propaganda make you believe otherwise in their lies. They’re trying to convince you of your own defeat because of the implications if you don’t believe you have been, and instead realize they’re selling you the rope they will be hanged with; and you push harder in smarter ways that they can’t keep up with, using connections built in these mass movements and coalitions which invariably have radical new elements that just need drawn together.

You’re ahead of them in this. They’ve, in a very real dialectical way, undermined liberal democracy and created more enemies to the capitalist systems and institutions than they made allies, by their own blunders in being incapable of conceding anything to intelligently reify socialists back into feckless parliamentary legitimization of bourgeois democracy, and their failures to navigate contradictions in ways that aren’t so short-sighted to look absolutely villainous to huge swathes of the population (and internationally, because this was a large enough movement to make headlines around the world; with a knock-on effect for the international proles who see parallels). Macron’s so scared of radical politics he’s making them everywhere he steps.

I’m hoping the Communists in France have been reading their Lenin. I can’t think of a better gift Macron could have given the communists. “Left-Wing” Communism, an Infantile Disorder

…
This has stripped more and more active and engaged and hopeful people of their illusions about bourgeois democracy than even bernie-clinton 2016 nonsense. Which even that created a lot of communists; and that was relatively milquetoast compared to this huge national mobilization and upswell and coalition movement which was big enough to make international headlines no less. If the French communists have been reading their Lenin and agitating on this stuff even before it happened (as you said, very predictable) then the communist movement has gained 10x more than any eurosocialist thinks “the left” lost.