redtea

A parasitic mosquito that thought it was a falcon.

I'm afraid I don't know what the legion of doom is. To me it looks like a child horse being harassed by an old man horse, with the kind of age gap that appeals to libertarians.

Two questions:

One, what is the mechanism by which the US ruling class owns all its means of production?

Two, how do MAGA 'communists' hope to seize the means of production without a socialist workers' state that has ignored its settler characteristics?

Answering these questions will not automatically tell you what the primary contradiction is in the US but it will demonstrate the severe flaws in the MAGA's 'reasoning'.

As for that primary contradiction, the US sits at the top of a global empire. The ruling class gets it's power from exploiting the whole world, not just the US. The means of production that it owns are not just those of settler-yanks. Fighting for control over those means of production as a kind of benevolent act of self-appointed righteousness to seize world power while ignoring the importance of settler colonialism is problematic at best.

Whatever way you slice it, it isn't communist. The only way I can make it make sense is if I see it as a kind of vanguardism. But a vanguard of and for the petty bourgeois elements of the existing ruling class to re-divide the spoils among itself? That's exactly what we already have but with some minor reconfiguration of which portion of the ruling class holds power. It's another route to choosing reform over revolution with communist aesthetics. We've seen what that looks like before.

A key indicator that settler colonialism is the primary contradiction (rather than a self-serving version of imperialism that can be separated from settler colonialism) is that settler colonialists fight hard to hide that they are or want to be (the) settler colonialists at the top of the class structure. Why should indigenous people (and all colonised and exploited people around the world) have to wait patiently for MAGA types to get theirs first?

And what level of arrogance makes these settlers think that everyone else will wait patiently and potentially even support their 'revolution'? The MAGA type might be convinced that the contradiction that appears most important to them in their class position is the primary contradiction but that's a one sided view.

It's not like in China, where the CPC could work with the KMT to kick out the Japanese because in the US, the 'Japanese' and the 'KMT' are the same people, a US-JKMT, if you will. Maybe actual communists could work with segments of the ruling class to topple the US-JKMT but that doesn't work at all if it really means selecting 'communists' from and creating a communist party within this US-JKMT.

It would be like asking the CPC to wait for Japanese and KMT officials to seize power from the Japanese emperor on the promise that the very people who have carried out the emperor's wishes would later use their power to save Chinese peasants. It's fantasy.

It is hard to articulate a response. Partly because MAGA types do a lot of gish galloping. It's hard even to parse the argument, nevermind counter it. I'm not sure I've achieved either in this comment! I'm sure a MAGA type could argue they I've misunderstood their viewpoint.

I think it's a reference to the history of the US. It did not properly go through feudalism. There was a period of primitive accumulation (genocide, slavery), followed by a brief revolutionary civil war. Kind of feudal, I suppose. But it was kind of capitalist from the beginning. At least in terms of forming the US state(s) and in terms of capitalism emerging at about the same time as the Europeans landing on Turtle Island. There wasn't ever really a European US without capitalism.

The US bourgeoisie, e.g. didn't have to fight it's own feudal relations as they weren't well established. Possibly because there was too much land to keep feudal working class labour on the land and working to a corvee system. In France, if the peasant hated the landlord, tough; the next bit of land also has a lord. In the US, the farmer just went further west and did a bit of their own settlor colonialism.

It's also not a bad idea to start developing alternatives to fossil and nuclear backups for otherwise-green grids. It could be a good gap filler for countries whose people have been propagandised against nuclear, for instance.

And it doesn't hurt to see where certain tech will take you. Once you get some engineers together to build and run this thing, you never know what other applications will come to them and other observers. If all you have is coal plants, it's hard not to look at them and think, 'maybe we could burn something else instead' in terms of innovation. I hope that makes sense.

Yes, I'm questioning my status as hater.

This didn't work for everyone. Mine means 'gullible sheep' and I'm not sure what 1234 translates as – am I supposed to look at the original Arabic numerals?

The UK is an abomination jfc. A predictable abomination but an abomination, nonetheless.

~~A courting libertarian~~

Sorry, you said wrong answers only, didn't you.

I hear you about the schedules. I lost so many friends when I started working in kitchens. It's a sociable job, so I made some new ones. But different ones in each kitchen/bar. And it's hard to keep on touch when they need to be asleep by 10 pm to get up at 6 am and you don't finish till 10 pm and have to work Thurs/Fri/Sat night. Damn, I should try to get in touch with any of them and see how they're doing.

It's the most arrogant move, as if they want you to smirk with them in deviance of authority. There is no authority, mf, the person wanting you to wear your mask properly is me because I don't want your spray in my face.

Would be great to see another piece of the puzzle put on the jigsaw in that part of the world. I'm hoping that when it happens, a few states participate so they can protect each other against the US.