Well written post, comrade. I’ve recently been thinking a lot about this because I’ve lived the life of both an American conservative and American liberal.
Your assessment of Trump’s base is pretty accurate although I do there is a redpill component to it as well that has shepherded many young men to Trump who aren’t white. In the most recent cycle, his boom amongst Latino men was massive.
But again, the redpill community is hyper reactionary and sees female autonomy as a social ill
So many Americans are hopelessly nihilistic. I’m truly in awe of how many people I know who completely understand that they’re being robbed by the rich and that life under this system fucking sucks but won’t consider the possibility of changing it.
It’s fucking gross tbh. I want to grab all my fellow white Americans and shake them out of their fixation over all the ticky tack bullshit that keeps us placated.
Like there are millions of people being stomped on so we have grocery stores full of food that we can barely afford anyway. When in reality we produce more than enough food to feed the entire planet
I’m really glad to see people finally realizing that Trotsky and Khrushchev were both full of shit and that Stalin was indeed a great man. Not perfect by any means (he was incredibly homophobic for one thing). But a man who did more than most to advance the lives of working people and the pursuit of communism.
A big reason I think why the AES states struggle to produce food is that they have limited space for food production, especially since DPRK and Cuba have had to develop autarky, leaving even less available land for food production.
I’m not sure about DPRK because frankly, I have no idea where to look for reliable information about that country, but Cuba did shift to urban food production largely through the methods that you’ve outlined in your post and it seems as though it’s been modestly successful
I just don’t get how you can read the theory and then disparage China. These ultras and “Maoist” types are guilty of the same sort of idealistic crap that liberals and fascists build their worldviews on in my opinion, even if they are well meaning.
China isn’t perfect, but unlike so many other nations and political movements around the world, they know they aren’t perfect and are always improving.
Marxism-Leninism isn’t snap your fingers and make communism. It’s material analysis done by proletarian dictatorship.
We’re taught to ignore/fear the homeless. It’s not unlike the old Indian Caste System in that way. We look down upon them as if they are homeless because they’re addicted to drugs or because they’re lazy.
I’m an American and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the phrase “Don’t give money to the homeless, they’ll just use it to buy drugs”
My fear of death is mostly because I’m scared of leaving my wife and child in a desolate world where I can’t be there to support them, but at the same time, they are my biggest motivation for changing this world.
I don’t think you’re a coward, comrade. This is a very natural fear that we all carry with us at some point in our lives.
What helped me accept death is asking the question: “Would I really want to live forever?” Imagine immortality really. Watching everyone you know and care about die while you remain. Sounds like an awful existence to me.
Communism can only exist globally in a world without scarcity. So while I wholeheartedly accept socialism in one country, I think we have to acknowledge that China isn’t going to reach communism alone.
I do however think that Marxism is nothing if not constantly adapting or “reforming” to changing material conditions. So if the dictatorship of the proletariat remains, I think this is the only path towards developing socialism
Well Zhou meant that as an insult Khrushchev because Khrushchev was born a Russian peasant while Zhou was born into the Mandarin Chinese class which had considerably more social privilege than other Chinese ethnicities.
But I agree nonetheless! One cannot engage in material analysis and revolutionary politics without first coming to grips with material reality. What’s very important is that we remember the circumstances of our birth do not diminish our value as human beings (that notion is fundamentally idealistic and liberal). But it does change what our role is in revolutionary organization.
Thank you for articulating this point, comrade. I am certainly a part of the labor aristocracy myself and that white fragility has been very tough to overcome because no sensible person wants to think of themselves as an oppressor.
But finally I realized that no sensible person should want to be oppressed either. So how about I just do my part to bring down systems of oppression and use the privileges I have in the process to do so.
If Engels can do it, us western white folks can too.
I’m right there with you on Das Kapital. It’s basically an economics textbook and economic analysis on that level is really tough for me. I am resigned to the fact that it’s going to take awhile
Well written post, comrade. I’ve recently been thinking a lot about this because I’ve lived the life of both an American conservative and American liberal.
Your assessment of Trump’s base is pretty accurate although I do there is a redpill component to it as well that has shepherded many young men to Trump who aren’t white. In the most recent cycle, his boom amongst Latino men was massive.
But again, the redpill community is hyper reactionary and sees female autonomy as a social ill