Meet other marxists by any means neccesary.
Mine is full of maoists and folks whose red line is democratic party entryism. Give them a shot, you might be pleasantly surprised. Get into a reading group. Its better than nothing (unless they're doing democratic party opportunism then it might be worse than finding something else but at least find some other marxists to talk to).
Its such a good fucking book, as well as his next book on Make Believe Media as a snapshot of a kind of socialist media criticism in the early 90s that's a dazzling work of materialist analysis.
I know a lot of people that poopoo Parenti but I think his books are fucking excellent.
Quoting actual proverbs in this context is condescending in the same way the prosperity gospel is. I believe it is akin to "good things come to those who wait." Materially, much like how the USA played an enormous hand in the "transformation" of the USSR, it is indeed possible for the CPC to hypothetically influence the fates of other nations too, especially given their power and capacity.
What is it about a commenter being from the global north that makes it thermodynamically impossible for China to, for example, send rifles and small arms ammunition to revolutions in the majority world like the USSR did?
It is indeed true that the revolution will need to come from Americans in america, but the full extent of support for said movements in america, to my limited understanding, is that organizations like the PSL receive funding from overseas sometimes.
In my opinion, socialist states issuing any kind of material influence whatsoever isn't actually in contradiction with the fact that Americans need to actually do things.
I recall an important note from the first paragraph of Reform or Revolution by Rosa Luxembourg.
In it, she states clearly that reforms are not fundamentally in opposition to revolution. This is something a lot of people mistake or forget. The key is whether the reforms are the goal in and of themselves, A La Bernstein, or if the reforms are a means towards revolution.
I'm not sure to what end a wealth tax or a tax which attempts to convert more companies into so called nonprofits would forward either to be honest, but I feel like these could very easily be mistaken as ends rather than means. I don't see how either of these directly meets a concrete need for working class people (who live in the Untied Snakes of Amerikkka of course) or make a dent in imperialism or unequal exchange. From an ecosocialist point of view, I think rapidly shifting the housing stock and transportation/energy infrastructure to being less capital intensive is an incredibly important step which can happen now, because as the rate of profit falls, it will become increasingly impossible to house and transport people, which are some very useful forms of propaganda as they address concrete problems with concrete solutions.
I think it's worth watching just for S4As responses. It really is a good way to see how someone who has read an insane amount of theory interrogates something like this. Namely how an anarchist can agree with the thing they're trying to criticize but feel like they're critiquing it.
Totally. There's a billion ways to dunk on PSL but coining the concept of "Losurdoism" is definitely one of them.