I can’t speak on individual journalists here, but connections, no matter how loose, to Russia Today (RT) and Iranian news is nothing new. There is, undoubtedly, a connection to the respective governments. I don’t think we can deny it outright and it’s at least partially true - this is something I keep in mind any time I read a news source with a similar background, and I supply those articles with additional information anywhere else I can obtain it.

As far as what to make of it? Of course they have to add in extraneous bullshit, that goes along with our (the US’) support for Ukraine and Israel at such uncertain times.

It’d be a shame to lose a site that does, at least occasionally, bring out excellence in journalism that can be hard to find (except 30+ years into the future when The New York Times decides it’s acceptable, or when the CIA claims it is no longer a National Security threat to release).

We should still seriously examine such claims and bat a critical eye to the underlying bias, is what I’m saying. Some of these same outlets and foreign governments would, for example, gladly accept people like Jackson Hinkle to speak up and we certainly don’t have to give any credit where it’s not due… let’s just say the US and UK left some dirty international connections in the USSR and Middle East that were left unattended post-Soviet collapse and they have some interesting ideas about how to use left-wing groups for a certain agenda. Now that blowback is slowly settling in, the US isn’t so proud her old friends from the good days.

Keep reading, but always read a little more.

No.

I assume “tankie” is a roundabout way to lump revolutionary leftists with those fomenting red-brown alliances. That is, a “tankie” in the modern day is a way to describe someone as Strasserist, NazBol, LaRouchite, etc.

Quick to boredom. Varied interest in different subjects depending on time or day or context, with an inability to concentrate on those same interests to the point of carelessness or agitation outside of that time/day/context. Mood swings. Apathy in general. Slow burnout that rarely recovers itself in a “reasonable” amount of time. Able to feel close to unknown people, not able to feel much connection or interest in the long-term. Bouts of isolation and/or depression. Frequently unmotivated. Forgetful. Procrastination and giving up last minute to avoid the problem. Self-medication. No respect for random people trying to “help” since I like to handle problems on my own terms, choosing treatment on my own terms. And, again specifically for me to make a point, boredom - it only goes away temporarily.

This is ADHD I guess, you can try to look closer to see if there’s anything interesting or if you can figure out another diagnosis of mine - but that would be a waste of time.

I didn’t really get that out of it at all, but I developed a skill to see past a lot of the garbage. It was fear-mongering and overall just a scary way of saying China has reduced the use of death penalty, there are better mechanisms in place to prevent unlawful/unnecessary use of death penalty, and a drive to replace gunshot execution with lethal injection. The “victims” included are simply multi-million dollar fraud (essentially) and an abused kid that went on to (cw: violence) rape and kill.

You are right, in that there seems to be no widespread use of this van in the event that it is seriously used.

Since they are aware this is likely to fail, what’s the long-term plan? I get the reasoning behind leaving parties like CPUSA, but I couldn’t find any suggestions on alternative orgs.

All I can gather from these complaints, so far, is that we should be wary of any org willing to label itself with ‘USA’ or ‘America,’ unless actively agitating against incorrect party lines.

The chances of me not being Marxist is as high as the chance imperialism collapses.

The shelf for Kautsky, Dugin, and Keynes is further down. It should be easier for you to digest.

Moishe Postone might have something interesting for you, when you’re ready to come back to earth to discover my support for North Korea and Palestine (clearly from what I wrote, if anyone spent the time to extrapolate and use some thinking skills) is not an anachist position, but is almost verbatim what Lenin and Stalin would argue.

That’s fair, I can give finishing remarks as well - I’ll make it even shorter.

I see where Marxism influenced you, but that doesn’t make you a Marxist.

You don’t know class struggle, you know struggle of civilizations and races.

That’s exactly what it is - competition. They don’t want to cooperate with China, they want to compete. I’m not talking about the domestic “free market,” I’m talking about the world economy and power politics. If the US keeps pursuing this path of foreign policy and no longer wants to play friendly, then, yes, either China or Russia (or some other country) will have to step up and be the competing imperialist power. Either that, or they have to choose the submissive role, a puppet government. There’s no way around this. We live in the era of imperialism and globalization - all countries have to be interconnected by some way and we can’t backtrack. Something like BRICS is an alternative, not a revolutionary new thing, but just a plain alternative to what already exists. That’s not inherently a good or bad thing. But when we have the US pushing countries into competiting spheres of influence, what happens in a system like this? The same that already happened before.

This isn’t a moral concept, this isn’t a voluntary thing. This is just what happens when you have a bunch of sufficiently developed capitalist countries. They will all demand imperialism at some point, that’s their aspiration, and those competing interests will interfere in the peace of all other (both capitalist and socialist) countries. People will be forced to pick sides at some point, that’s the competition.

It just sounds like a long way of saying that China and Russia should function as imperialist powers using some type of Keynesian economic policy or war economy boost. This is undeniably what the US is trying to do. They want to drive competition. Either China or Russia hardens their stance into an imperialist bloc, or the US destroys them. That’s the goal. The US will not collapse nor will the imperialist system lead by the US. Weaken, lost influence, lose relevance or merit - yes. Collapse is still a resounding no. It’s the reason China is so careful with the US, so willing to go the extra mile to satisfy, the reason China wants to cooperate in international politics as a neutral player. China has reiterated time and time again that they are against bloc formation. This is why: China doesn’t want to be seen as an imperialist power or even a competing superpower. They want cooperation with all, whether that be Russia, the US, the Eurozone, or major countries in Africa and Latin America.

If the US keeps pushing power politics, China will be forced to push back, just as Russia was pushed to do in 2022. No one seriously wants that. It will be devastating. That’s not progress, that’s reaction. The DPRK has even admitted peaceful reunification isn’t possible in relation to the South (RoK). Of course it’s the truth, but peace is always what we demand first. That can’t happen in a world dominated by capitalism, and capitalism has to be taken down consciously with great effort. Peace holds off struggle for another day, it buys time. But we can’t fool ourselves. That peace is as much of a facade as American liberal democracy. It’s stable and looks good, maybe feels good, but it’s fake, another way of obstructing reality.

Though peace can’t be shaken out of regular conflict to get rid of capitalism. It has to be liberation, the wars have to be revolutionary wars. Otherwise we’re back to step one, always on the edge of a new imperialist competitor, the ultimate aspiration for all capitalist countries at sufficient level of development. At the moment, only Palestine and the DPRK are really capable of fighting those types of wars. Even if the US adopts an America First policy (we all know this is just coded fascism), we know they’ll still perform covert operations illegally and against their supposed policy.

It’s socialism or barbarism.

When you were a kid (if you ever grew out of being a kid, that is), did anyone tell you the story of the apples and oranges? Did you ever hear someone talking about comparing apples to bananas? Anything of that nature? You still can’t explain why you specifically chose to compare Hitler and Bin Laden to Raisi.

Let me break it down for you slow, in hamburger American terms.

Say I want to talk about America. Should I compare America to McDonald’s and apple pie? Or should I compare America to shrimp and gyros?

Fill in the blank: As American as _______.

Did you say “apple pie” or did you say “shrimp and gyros”? Why? Reflect on this in your own time.

You mean to tell me that Israel, with all those billions of dollars, couldn’t see with their own eyes people flying in to their territory with guns? There is no convoluted middle east history, at least not any more than anywhere else on this planet. There is no excuse to kill anyone in violation of international law, especially when the politicians guiding that policy see the enemy as less than human and makes reference to genocidial intent in doing so. If you want to talk about history, the history that is so convoluted and confusing to you, just start in 1947-1948. That should make it a lot easier for you to understand.

Every event in ‘Israeli’ history can be checked. They never acted in genuine self-defense. They always had ulterior motives, to drive their force as an imperialist proxy with a massive budget, extremist ideology, and settler-colonialism. There is no blame game. Palestinians have fought against occupation. Israel is the one occupying. Now this rougue state is claiming, implicitly, that they lay claim to a Greater Israel project that threatened the entire Middle East and North Africa region. Rather than occupying territory in war, they occupy territory in aims of extermination of the native population. If they were an occupying force in war, they would be required to ensure every citizen has access to food, water, security, and other necessities of life. Instead, they occupy territories and kill or displace the population there. Either it’s not a war or this rogue entity is incapable of conducting itself without constantly committing war crimes.

I have to be honest. The only thing that will happen is either 1.) The US goes full mask-off fascism; or 2.) militant union organizing and popularization of left-wing, even explicitly Communist, ideas. Yes it’s true that imperialism is broken, it’s also true that the US is running out of force abroad. It’s still an economic power house with a functioning (albiet backsliding) liberal democracy. No one really likes the government, but you can tell at least 30-40% of the population is on board 100% with pushing desired candidates and they believe the US has a chance in electoralism.

If you want to know the truth, we are essentially going to have to repeat the work of SDS, the Black Panthers, and all the other post-Civil Rights activisist left-wing movements. Now, instead of the Russian Empire going down as an imperialist force in favor of the Communists, we will have to organize to make that happen in the US or the UK.

As much as we clown on the Democrats and their supporters, it’s true that if the Democrats fail we will not have a liberal democracy. Fascism is weak and fragile, but it gets the job done for whoever needs that job done. Bullets are cheap. Prison labor is already raking in plenty of cash and the US doesn’t care about overcapacity in the cells or abuse of solitary confinement. Biden himself is already sliding away from the liberal democratic facade that at least Obama was able to keep up. Trump did real damage and pushed us away from keeping up our image, but, yes, there were real conditions behind it (namely between 1980 and 2009).

A collapse is still a pipe dream, either way. Even when the feudal order was weakened and unable to sustain itself, we still had many bloody conflicts and revolutions to push through. The monarchs didn’t care, they fled or escaped along with the aristocrats and landowners and landlords. Even some decades after the French Revolution, people were lamenting the death of the old order. To this day we have anti-revolution propaganda from monarchs.

In all honesty, we can exploit external conditions but we still have to realize those conditions alone are not revolutionary or even necessarily progressive. What the US is doing right now is exactly what we expect in a weakened state that used to be so powerful. But this exact policy is also going to force China and Russia to be more agggressive, more competitive, and even form alliances and tighten up on separating their sphere of influence from that of “the West” or the US. This is very bad. This will push China to align more with the right-wing of the CPC. We don’t want that. Thankfully we have Xi Jingping as prevention, but I don’t trust whoever is going to succeed. It’s too shakey, too unpredictable.

I still follow in my belief that we need fresh revolution. If Americans or the British can’t do it, there’s going to be some serious issues. It will be the equivalent of the German Revolution failing. The US wants China and Russia to get into the politcs of bloc-formation, while the US is also pushing to allow Western Europe to go fascist. Then we have Nigeria playing too neutral. The US has Argentina, Peru, Ecuador in their pockets as well. The Sahel is too weak at the moment.

I won’t entertain an idea of collapse for these reasons alone. It’s too dangerous to spread that idea. We have decades to keep pushing.

Just admit you make awful comparisons and fail to make analogies work.

Hitler, for one, had a specific fascist ideology comparable to Mussolini. I’d feel comfortable comparing the two. Not only based on their alliance and ideology alone, but also their actions taken.

When we compare people to Hitler, we generally make the assumption that we are talking about genocide, fascism, and an extreme passion for exterminating and villifying the “other” (whether that be Jews or Muslims or Slavs or something else). I wouldn’t even make a comparison between Hitler and Netanyahu if I had to be professional and make time for an appropriate comparison.

On to Bin Laden, now. Why isn’t he similar to Hitler? Back in the day, the US had a strategic alliance with Saudi Arabia. Backing the dollar with gold wasn’t the best plan for us, we didn’t gain a strong advantage doing so. Saudi Arabia was happy to help us with new US policy abroad. We went above and beyond to treat Saudi monarchs to the best life available, all at our expense. We even ignored the Saudis backing of people like Bin Laden back when we first knew of his type, all the way in the 1970s. We even used his allies and people with the Mujahideen that fought against the Soviets in the 1980s. Long story short, we had a blowback incident. 9/11 came around to hit us, likely with Saudis allowing it to happen while US intelligence was too incompetent or bogged down to act effectively (or maybe we knew and couldn’t or wouldn’t do anything). We went to war with Iraq and Afghanistan - not Saudi Arabia. Afghanistan was a failure the US contributed to actively for about 20 years, not including the interference from years prior. The Taliban is still governing Afghanistan today in fact. It wasn’t anything like Hitler, except for the brutal anti-Communism. It certainly wasn’t like Raisi either, considering that Iran and Afghanistan’s Taliban aren’t on the best terms.

I would compare Raisi to General Torrijos. Why is that? Because they were both nationalists, both concerned with sovereignty and not bending the will of their country to the US, yet each of them were not inherently accepting of either far-right extemist ideology or Communism (or other explictly left-wing political movements or ideologies). In spite of ideological differences, they both had a desire to stay neutral, choose key allies, and were rather accepting of liberation movements. People didn’t really celebrate the death of Torrijos, at least in Panama. I wouldn’t say people were exceptionally happy in Iran about the death of Raisi either. They weren’t good leaders per se, but they stood on principles. I don’t care for either figure myself, but I recognize who they were and what they fought for as humans.

Again, I know what an analogy is. We already established that. So, that means I do know Hitler is not just a nom de plum or alias for Raisi, or vice versa.

It’s just not a good analogy. Look at the names I wrote and think about it for a second.

Why do I think comparing Hitler to Bin Laden is not a good comparison? Why do I believe comparing General Torrijos to Raisi is a good comparison?

Then, back to you. “[Celebrating] the death of horrific people is not necessarily a bad thing.” You didn’t even clarify what made Raisi a horrific person comparable to Hitler. You sound like everyone else in that Reddit-esque circlejerk.

If you read closely, you can see I don’t really mind the act of celebration itself. My problem is that there is no acceptable reason to compare Raisi and Hitler, first of all; and, secondly, the people celebrating don’t even know who Raisi is. Your comparison alone tells me you’re in that group, the people who are celebrating without even knowing.

I can celebrate the deaths of Hitler, Mussolini, Kissinger, Pinochet, Reagan, and so on. That’s because I actually know who they were and what they did.

idk about that. For instance, a lot of users like the concept of the “PMC” (Professional Managerial Class) that many well-read Marxists would scoff at. I just like Lemmygrad because I know the communities better. Hexbear feels more like shitposts.

I understand what an analogy is. But you know (and I know) that we don’t make analogies at random. There’s a specific reason you chose Bin Laden and Hitler to make the analogy. Even comparing Bin Laden and Hitler is dishonest and lacks appropriate context.

I’d say Raisi’s death celebration is more akin to celebrating the death of someone like Omar Torrijos (Panama), and I’m not speaking of similarity of death itself or the conditons that created the death. I’m talking about their respective policies.

Death happens everyday and you chose to make the specific comparisons you did. It wasn’t an accident, no one forced it into your brain. You did that.

tl;dr - There is no better or worse when discussing American policy on Israel. We will head on the same trajectory regardless. No need to give Trump nor Biden any credit.

Likely worse. His team is fully of anti-China, anti-Iran warhawks. I don’t think he’d approve of getting or keeping Americans away from Syria, Iran, Palestine and occupied Palestine, Taiwan, Japan, the Phillipines, etc.

We all know the story. Yes, Democrats and bad. Yes, Republicans are undeniably worse in every way at every level.

His team this time around will also be more competent. Maybe he will pivot to an “America First” agenda… then what? The open NED-type operations will be less noticable, others will be taken up by partners of the EU and other NATO members besides the US. Covert operations and the other dark, buried, illegal shit will boost exponentially.

But look. Biden has his support base, he has his voters secured. So does Trump. They’re both Americans and both have already been president for 4 years each. We already know what has been happening and we know what is happening. The US will continue doing what its government and key capitalists already have been planning to do.

If anyone wants their prediction to be true, let us pick the most liberal of choices, say this can happen by 2050. Then, expect to be actively organizing regulary starting today (if not ten years earlier) and continuing until the 2050s. That’s about three or more whole decades, not including a success story where you’d have to also manage the governing body and/or manage civil war and/or manage post-revolution struggle.

It’s not going to collapse. It’s more likely that we’ll have a full-scale inter-imperialist conflict before anything resembling a collapse would occur, and I still don’t think it’ll be a collapse, for any participants.

You would need revolution, requiring revolutionary conditions. Like the ruling capitalist class of the United States turning to a situation where capitalism just can’t function anymore. We know, based on the 20th Century, that these conditions haven’t really occurred in “the West”, except temorarily and only causing at best what amounted to general strike, increased union activity, or spontaneous riot/uprising. Maybe we can give credit to the failed revolutions of Germany (Sparticist) and France (Paris Commune).

Aside from that, they turn their inability to rule into an irrationalist or even illiberal form of government. They strip away the facade and turn to fascism. That’s how they save themselves from crisis, that paired with the ability to extract resources a la carte from the countries oppressed by the imperialist/neo-colonial relationship. If they don’t bend to the will, we can crush their economies or incite political crisis. On top of that, the US is the most highly advanced and most stable liberal democracy in the history of democracy as we know it. They’re doing just fine and a general crisis of capitalism can be managed to benefit exactly who needs to benefit and hurt exactly who they need to hurt.

If anything does happen, however, that creates revolutionary conditions, we have to remember that there is no economic determinism, no inevitable crisis/crash/collapse, no guarantee of choosing socialism over barbarism. China isn’t going to save us. The deep global recession won’t save us. Accelerationism isn’t going to work.

It’s simple. If you want revolution, you need to make it happen. There is no other solution, no easy way around it, no shortcuts.

If you think Iranian leaders are equivalent to Biden Laden and Hitler, you still have a few years (or decades) of brain development left. Please at least make an attempt to sound educated when making comparisons. This place is going to be more embarrassing than Reddit soon…