CleverOleg

joined 2 years ago
[–] CleverOleg@hexbear.net 10 points 1 week ago

The world is turning towards militarization as the global economic instability is amplified further under Trump’s erratic policies.

I suppose I will beat a dead horse with the point I feel I repeat too often… when I read Torkil Laussen state that the principal contradiction today is between neoliberalism and sovereignty, I was skeptical. I thought the global north/south divide was more critical. But I stand corrected, I think Laussen is correct. Neoliberalism may be the dominant side of that contradiction right now, but it seems that this contradiction is also resolving itself far quicker than I had expected. Neoliberalism is dead, it’s only a matter of time before it is replaced. At the moment, as you said, it seems like we’re going back to the 1930s and that style of inwardness. But the world is dialectical, and what emerges out of this contradiction will no doubt be something entirely different.

And it’s interesting to me with Trump’s tariffs, while it certainly appears to be the act of a singular person, I feel this actually is yet another example of “men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please”. I don’t think 20 or even 10 years ago, Trump would have been able to get away with it. But he can now, not necessarily because congress is weak, but because material conditions have eroded the neoliberal grip on the world. Throwing up tariffs is a natural result of neoliberalism weakening. If not Trump, some other president would be instituting some form of increased tariffs or other inward-facing measures.

[–] CleverOleg@hexbear.net 15 points 1 week ago

Many such cases.

[–] CleverOleg@hexbear.net 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I got my think pad from a state university surplus shop. Those are great for finding good stuff.

[–] CleverOleg@hexbear.net 7 points 1 week ago (2 children)

They actually had a falling out a few years ago, Yogi and Sean don’t speak anymore and it seemed kinda hostile. I know Sean is somewhat controversial but I’ve never actually looked at the criticism since I sorta dropped out of listening to that pod quite a while ago. Was one of the very early parts of my pipeline.

[–] CleverOleg@hexbear.net 14 points 1 week ago

Yeah, I mean, it’s nuanced. If Israel were to start collapsing, they offered a genuine 2 state solution, and (critically) it was something the Palestinian people themselves wanted? I feel like it would be chauvinistic to say they should turn that down. But the point is, I’m not out here saying the 2 state solution is what we should pursue now.

[–] CleverOleg@hexbear.net 9 points 1 week ago

Reminds of that great line from Once Upon a Time in the West:

How can you trust a man who wears both a belt and suspenders, a man who can't even trust his pants?

[–] CleverOleg@hexbear.net 20 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (5 children)

I saw a take on Reddit about her that I really liked, and it applies to so many others:

Leftish or socialist-lite people like Natalie do genuinely like the idea of a socialist or at least much more fair and just society. To them, it’s a very nice and pleasant thought. But that’s where it stops for them. They don’t want to think about what it takes to get there. They want to treat a potential better world like a Barbie Dream House; something that’s basically just escapism from the hell we live in now. This is especially easy for libs in the imperial core to do because while we are in hell, our hell is much more comfortable than that of say, the Palestinians or many other people in the periphery. It’s Utopianism, in other words.

And that’s why they hate tankies, because our focus is on how to actually get there. We support China or support Russia’s and Iran’s anti-imperialist actions because it moves the ball forward. They are concrete actions that are necessary to get to that better world. But focusing on the works involved spoils the happy little dream the libs have. Socialism is supposed to be something that will spontaneously appear without struggle or bloodshed. Being told otherwise spoils the dream for them.

[–] CleverOleg@hexbear.net 16 points 1 week ago

and the great march of return was an attempt at non-violent protest, and the Israeli response was to kill a couple hundred people and seriously injure thousands more.

[–] CleverOleg@hexbear.net 22 points 1 week ago (5 children)

The Grubstakers pod used to offer a $250,000 Patreon tier for billionaires, promising they would never do an episode on you if you joined that tier.

[–] CleverOleg@hexbear.net 20 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I am generally anti-slop but I think this is actually something we should be talking about. There are a lot of libs in the US who are angry, scared, and looking for answers. More than I’ve seen in maybe 15 years. Because the Democratic Party and their sycophantic influencers (like Natalie) sure af don’t have any answers for what’s happening all around us right now. Highlighting Natalie’s pettifoggery around a fucking genocide really does give the libs who are open to actual leftist thought something to think about.

[–] CleverOleg@hexbear.net 35 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Replies from her stans on Reddit are even worse, a whole lot of “you tankies would get a lot more people on the pro-Palestine side if you just toned it down and tried to focus appealing to people who just so happen to think precisely the same way I do”.

[–] CleverOleg@hexbear.net 27 points 1 week ago

I mean, if we’re being real here at day 1 Zionism had the support of many non-opportunist communists too, Stalin being the one who comes to mind. Not his best moment.

 

Reading through the replies to this and others, just incredible how many people ingest narratives about “terrorism” and how myths about Oct 7 still persist (or persist because people want them to be true).

 

I’d really like to know more about John Brown, but I just can’t get through biographical books, for anyone. Any good documentaries on the man, the myth, the legend?

 

Context: Twain wrote a satirical piece in 1905 written from the perspective of King Leopold II. The satire here is that Twain's Leopold is defending his actions in the Congo Free State. The whole thing is great and I encourage everyone to give it read as a biting critique of colonialism. But in this section, Leopold is blaming the Kodak company for exposing the horrors (instead of blaming himself for the horrors). I think the connection to Gaza is self-evident:

[Studies some photographs of mutilated negroes—throws them down. Sighs] The kodak has been a sore calamity to us. The most powerful enemy that has confronted us, indeed. In the early years we had no trouble in getting the press to “expose” the tales of the mutilations as slanders, lies, inventions of busy-body American missionaries and exasperated foreigners who had found the “open door” of the Berlin-Congo charter closed against them when they innocently went out there to trade; and by the press’s help we got the Christian nations everywhere to turn an irritated and unbelieving ear to those tales and say hard things about the tellers of them. Yes, all things went harmoniously and pleasantly in those good days, and I was looked up to as the benefactor of a down-trodden and friendless people. Then all of a sudden came the crash! That is to say, the incorruptible kodak—and all the harmony went to hell! The only witness I have encountered in my long experience that I couldn’t bribe. Every Yankee missionary and every interrupted trader sent home and got one; and now—oh, well, the pictures get sneaked around everywhere, in spite of all we can do to ferret them out and suppress them. Ten thousand pulpits and ten thousand presses are saying the good word for me all the time and placidly and convincingly denying the mutilations. Then that trivial little kodak, that a child can carry in its pocket, gets up, uttering never a word, and knocks them dumb!

 

With the anniversary of Oct 7 coming up, I suspect it will be a topic for some friends of mine. Due to some work I’ve done on them over the past year, I think they might actually be amenable to learning more about Palestine and everything that’s happened in the last 100+ years.

Problem is, these people really have no idea what’s going on or what happened. I don’t know if they could find Palestine on a map. They literally haven’t moved beyond “Jews and Arabs have an ancient grudge and this is just the continuation of that.

What are some basic - and I mean basic videos I could send to them. I think 1948 Creation & Catastrophe is amazing but its scope is a bit narrow. There’s also that many-hour video Hasan did with historian Zach Foster that’s very good but it’s more about debunking hasbara.

 

CW: suffering people

 

I know we have quite a few ukkk comrades here… so years ago, I learned about canal boats. The whole things seems really cool and cozy to me. However, I also get the impression that it’s generally considered very boring. Have you gone on a canal boat trip before? Did you enjoy it?

 

It’s amazing to me that libs have deified this woman, like she has proven to be the very model of smart leadership. That she was the most qualified, deserving person to ever run for president. A quick recap of how she got where she did.

She is famous for being married to Bill Clinton. That’s it, that’s her origin story. Married to a president. Just hitched her wagon to the right person. She tried to make a name for herself by making healthcare her issue, but she got criticized pretty hard in the media because spouses of the president are supposed to make some uncontroversial issue their cause (probably some degree of sexism there but then again I’m sure most people don’t want to hear from Kamala’s dopey ass husband).

From there she was able to leverage her fame to be anointed to one of NY’s senate seats. It wasn’t a challenging contest, the Clinton connections in the party is what got her the spot.

But senators don’t have to actually lead or do things, they just vote. So that’s all she did until she ran for president in 2008 and ate shit. She got to be SoS because Obama probably didn’t feel he had any choice. This was Clinton’s first job with real responsibility, and she fucked it royally (Libya was the big one but there were others I’m sure). Then she lost another election because who could know that swing states are important to win, and had been wandering around that woods in her neighborhood ever since. Except when she surfaces in order to go on TV and suggest that anyone who spreds “Russian disinformation” should be locked up.

This is not a person who has proven to be competent at anytjing. I firmly believe that no American president or presidential candidate from the last few decades who make it past like, local village leadership in the CPC. That’s a system where you actually do have to prove your capability and get things done.

I hope a thousand years from now, when people talk about the fall of the American empire like we talk about Rome, when they get to the chapter on incompetent leadership I do hope that Hillary Clinton gets a mention.

105
submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by CleverOleg@hexbear.net to c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net
 

The Popular Front that just got elected isn’t quite Neo-Trotskyite, but still.

Tbh the direction that we seem to be headed w/r/t homelessness in the US actually seems worse than the sanctuaries in 2024 Stark Trek San Francisco.

 

Belen Fernandez consistently has very good anti-imperialist takes.

 

I found this to be a good, short primer on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. It goes into detail on how the Soviets tried to pursue collective security with the British and French, only to have them both drag their heels until it was clear to the Soviets that they had no interest in actually agreeing to collective security. Even after the Soviets telegraphed that they would instead work with the Germans if the British and French didn’t get serious, they still wouldn’t.

view more: ‹ prev next ›