Jabril

If access to a thing enables, in whole or in part, someone to be okay with maintaining the status quo, I would say it is operating as a treat for them, particularly if that thing is not necessary for immediate survival. Treats are inherently things we do just for the sake of themselves being enjoyable, and not because we need them to survive. Things that are survival needs can be turned into treats, like how we all need food to survive but we don't need to eat out at restaurants, we all need housing but we don't need mansions, some people need life saving medicine because of a tragic illness and others because their BBL didn't go as planned.

Again, I think for some people it is and for some it isn't, everyone has different things that turn them on. I am sure there are a lot of people in the US who 100% think their access to healthcare is worth keeping this system going, even when so many other people here don't have access.

As far as directly speaking to the phenomena of the labor aristocracy and comprador classes I would say Lenin's Imperialism, and Fanon's Wretched of the Earth, but in general applying dialectical materialist reasoning to our material conditions will simply result in these conclusions. If you have earnestly studied the work of our revolutionary predecessors and tried to organize in the US yourself, this perspective becomes self-evident.

Honestly, the system is so elaborate and complex that I would hold that each person has their own niche combo of "treats" which allows them to have some elements go away and not be up in arms about it because the other elements remain and keep them yoked. There are many different forms of treats: material luxury treats that you mentioned, like coffee and video games and tv; there are social group things like sports, religion, bar culture, comedy, games, cars, etc which are things people identify as which also extends into brand culture in general, things that unite people around a company or as a marketing demographic but otherwise have no real solidarity with each other and often people enjoy these things alone despite identifying with the greater culture; ideological treats like racism, sexism, transmisogyny , etc which allow people to feel superior and harbor a twisted joy in the destruction of the people who's labor they benefit from; there is time itself as a treat and being able to have time to enjoy treats in the first place. I could go on, but the main point is that it is a multifaceted treat-ment which means that you could look something terrible that you hate in the eye such as your example of an ill loved one not getting healthcare access and still find ways to cope.

Importantly, there are also people who DO resist as much as they can as individuals and their loved one dies anyway and then their life goes on, often with way more debt and bills. When you are juggling debt and loved ones having severe medical issues, even if you are totally sober in your understanding of how flawed the system is, overthrowing it isn't really one of the options on the table with the few hours you have to do anything in a week. Fighting with insurance and lawyers and administrative bureaucracy and depression and debt collectors and your boss is multiple full time jobs.

I don't know what that means

you are doing well and your energy and spirit is in the right place, keep it up!

"comfortable class"

I think the already established term is "labor aristocracy"

Life may be somewhat comfortable, but it is not good. It's not good for anyone. Maybe I'm just projecting here, but I don't see anyone around me that's actually happy.

Comforts allotted through super exploitation are enough of an incentive to passively or actively keep capitalism going, even without happiness. these people certainly won't be any happier without their comforts, and in order to overthrow capitalism we would also end imperialism, and thus those comforts. This contradiction is pretty glaring, and leaves everyone who would fall under the labor aristocracy or who would hope to enter that sub-class as necessarily enabling capitalism. Even if there is a part of them that would want the type of better world that is only achievable by socialism, these types of people will not do the work required to actually understand and internalize that reality, instead resigning to the mantra that "we can't change anything" and thus ensuring that at least their comforts remain. These are the "settlers" mentioned so often in our circles, not only because they are settlers in the sense of Sakai, but also because they have totally settled on doing nothing for anyone but themselves!

I agree with you that it is random circumstance that creates a leftist in the imperial core. It is some combination of factors out of someone's control that brings them that way: being queer, being abused, being from certain national backgrounds or disabled or in some other marginalized group; some combination of these things forces the people who experience them to recognize that the indoctrination that works on most people isn't enough for them to explain their lived experience. Unfortunately this is not an easily replicable experience, and the only thing we can do as already "funneled" communists is keep being visible and extending the reach of our practice and perspectives through public work, education, and relationship building. Even still, people have been doing this for a long time here, and it has proven that it is not enough to truly awaken the class consciousness of people in the imperial core.

I think your analysis is lacking the primary contradiction in the American context, that of settler colonialism. The people most primed to be radicalized are not the labor aristocracy - even if some from that group will be radicalized because of their aforementioned randomly generated circumstances. The people who need to be prioritized in outreach are colonized people, people with national interest that are inherently at odds with the colonial project, New Afrikans, Indigenous peoples, diaspora communities, trans people, sex workers, prisoners; the groups of people who have not and will not ever have real access to the levers of power; the human sacrifices at the altar of capital.

The reality is that the only way to be a socialist is to organize in the world you live in. It takes work and sacrifice. It is not easy. It was not easy for anyone we look to for guidance on how to actually do it, and it is not easy now. The people who are willing to do that are the ones who "have nothing to lose but their chains," and in the US that isn't as many people as most here seem to think. People have a lot of comfort to lose, a lot of treats, and a lot of self-identity. Spending whatever free time people have on doing anything beyond the level of a hobbyist is unlikely until being a hobbyist of any kind is unaffordable. There is a reason no one in the imperial core has ever managed to be successful at organizing revolution despite dozens of groups outside the core being able to do so, and it is not because the propaganda wasn't good enough, or the marketing funnel wasn't lubed enough.

I recommend to you We Are Our Own Liberators by Jalil Muntaqim, which contains the "FROLINAN Handbook," a guide for revolutionary nationalist cadre organizations. I know, more reading. Comrade Muntaqim offers a great distillation of the US specific revolutionary theoretical tradition, and how we can apply what has been learned through the last century of practice, today. This is the work that we must undertake now instead of doing what liberals do and resigning the work for the future. It is both true that most people in the US will not do shit until the material conditions get worse and communists must get organized now before that happens to be ready to integrate those people into our formations when that time comes. Again, it will most likely not be middle class people, suburbanites, or whoever watches Hasan that are first in line, it will be undocumented monolingual Spanish speaking Indigenous peoples, colonized and diaspora groups who are not "upwardly mobile," queer and disabled people who live in poverty, etc. These are the communities we must build relationships with now and support now so that when things get worse, they will know that we are already trustworthy, well organized, and sincere.

There are tons of short pamphlets and accessible materials for newer leftists that span the gap between Hasan and Grundrisse, hundreds surely. You could compile all these and make new ones and spread them around but it is not a lack of propaganda which keeps people who benefit from imperialism from developing politically.

take it to a tire shop and put a patch on the tire for $15-30 and keep up with regular maintenance on it! drive safe

"Those hootis must be working with aliens!"

There argument is really, that 2000 years ago, they were the majority in the region, therefore everyone calling themselves a Jew today, is considered "native" to Palestine.

and also that they were forced out of that place by Arabs, so their return and destruction of those Arabs is poetic justice. This is often the response when pointing out that Jewish people lived there in such numbers so long ago, that it is only the case because of evil Arabs.

Here's a really good video that discusses the subject amongst several other things: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7hK5_Rj--8

I hope this guys finds the DPRK soldiers people have been rumoring about, would love to have interviews of DPRK citizens that aren't filmed in DPRK since people always use that as an excuse to say they are fake.