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Cake day: November 14th, 2023

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  • You may be confusing me wthe other person. I just piggybacked onto the discussion.

    But yeah, my read was that settler colonial projects either manage to “complete” their genocide or end in liberation. But maybe there is an argument to be made that one shouldn’t view any settler colonial project as “finished” until it is liberated, that thought peaked my curiosity and prompted my question.

    At the same time it still seems to me that a part of the analysis must be, that the US/Canada/Australia/… are more stable settler colonies than Israel.

    Is your argument with the nuclear reactors about the stability? Or did I misinterpret that?


  • This is borderline patsoc talking point btw.

    Can you elaborate? This got me thinking…

    Is it bc patsocs use fatalism regarding the struggle of indigenous nations as an “argument” to oppose it? Or is it that its reproducing fatalism regarding a just struggle that needs our solidarity and “pessimism” isn’t helping?

    (I hope I am not being insensitive. Pardon me if I don’t have the best read on this. I am not a USian and not super exposed to this and I know far too little about the topic)

    I obviously agree that its important to stand in solidarity with the struggle of indigenous nations in the land under US occupation! But I too would think that the Zionist regime would be happy to have their settler colony achieve US levels of “completion” of their genocide (which I also don’t see happening, but that’s besides the point)

    I don’t see a contradiction between both. It would simply mean that one deems the struggle against the US settler colony, the struggle for liberation, harder as of yet. Which seems to be an unfortunate but fair analysis or not?



  • Seems like one moral of the story, is that eclecticism is a problem. Never confuse a bunch of quotes with understanding theory.

    Yes, the anti imperial struggle in the periphery can utilize nationalism to a revolutionary end.

    And no you can’t compare your conditions in the US to those of Ho Chi Minh and Mao.

    We are not liberals anymore where an action is judged outside of its material conditions.

    Not the most knowledgeable on the topic, it might be fair to demand a more complete / consistent theory of nationalism in Marxism, but Lenin’s distinction between revolutionary and reactionary national movements is still pretty clear in this case



  • communism is not merely “good”, it is a necessity. But to get an understanding of what that means one has to make themselves familiar with the contradictions inherent to capitalism and understanding that capitalism is fundamentally incapable of overcoming them.

    To give an example: Crippling economic crises arise within capitalism periodically because it is incapable of overcoming the contradiction between the “organization of production” in one company and the “anarchy of production” (unguided production) within all of society.

    Capitalism can’t overcome this contradiction because the underlying reason for it is the contradiction between a socialized production and a private appropriation. This contradiction is the defining characteristic of capitalism however, so it can’t ever be resolved without abolishing the system. And we see this prediction of Marx play out time and time again.

    Now you may think periodic crises are acceptable (why you would think that is beyond me as they are really truly not necessary). However there are many other realities that contradict capitalism like limited resources, limited capacity of our planet to absorb emissions, the inevitability of the global south’s independence and self-determination (very incomplete list)

    Whatever type of capitalism you support, it requires some kind of externality that just isn’t real: infinite natural resources, an ocean that doesn’t care how much is dumped into it, an atmosphere that absorbs all emissions, a domestic working class that accepts exploitation, colonies / the global south to outsource exploitation to, etc. all of those things run out. This kind of “externality” is exposed as an illusion of bourgeois thought.

    These contradictions (and more) are creating tensions like tectonic plates during a tectonic shift and we will surely see some more earthquakes. Possibilities include:

    • Not being able to safe large parts of the planetary ecosystem.
    • Countries falling into fascism to guarantee their national capitalists their profit rate as their main profit guarantor, the US, looses its imperial grip on the planet.
    • More imperial wars

    The alternative is: The abolition of the capitalist system, hence I spoke of necessity.

    Or in Rosa Luxemburg’s words: “[It’s] Socialism or Barbarism”







  • That is incorrect. Stages of grief do not only apply to terminal conditions where acceptance is fatalistic.

    Say you suffer the loss of a loved one. Accepting that they are gone holds within itself the key to continue your live. Acceptance, plain and simple, is a necessity to deal with reality.

    Similarly the acceptance that the capitalist system is inherently “broken” enables us to figure out how to deal with that reality, how to overcome its contradictions.

    Denying that many of humanities problems are rooted in capitalism does not. The comparison is valid


  • TΛVΛR@lemmygrad.mltoMemes@lemmygrad.mlStages of Grief
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    3 months ago

    I totally get your perspective too: you could swap acceptance and denial. Capitalists accept the justification of the status quo while MLs deny it.

    In the context of grieve I think Yogthos’ perspective is more fitting: “Denial” is the denial that anything is wrong with the system and “Acceptance” of both facts, that the system is fundamentally flawed and that a pursuit of any idealistic one doesn’t bear fruit is the necessary precursor for conducting a sober analysis




  • Just to be clear: You can reject both, but compared to the invasion of Iraq the justification for the invasion of Ukraine is sound.

    If @xkyfal18 justifies the invasion of Ukraine but does not justify the invasion of Iraq that is a consistent position, your trying to isolate the regime change aspect amongst all justifications is a fallacy typical for the metaphysical thinking of a liberal. By adding that constraint you’re ridiculing your own question

    Also nearly everybody would support regime-changing hitler, does that mean everybody supported the invasion of Iraq bc they support regime change in one instance? Ofc not. I hope even you can see the idiocy of that argument.

    Now back to the premise: Even if you ignore the worst US lies, both invasions are ultimately justified with “national security” (the purpose of a military after all)

    Well one (the invasion of Ukraine) is the response to a hostile superpower inciting a nazi-powered coup + civil war on your border with the aim of eventually regime changing you.

    And the other one (the invasion of Iraq) is you being the hegemonic superpower devastating a country on the other side of the planet without any threat at all, on a whim (well imperialism actually)

    Ofc both amounted to one country imposing their interests over another, but whose were more justified? What threatens “national security” more? A civil war on the border or peace in some far-away country?

    Like I said: Oppose both: ok. But it needs pointing out, that people who justify the invasion of Iraq are categorically monstrous

    Ofc I realize you didn’t justify the invasion of Iraq. But you also alluded to the US as a protective power while calling out Russia as belligerent, implying Russia would be more warlike than the West, the most murderous power structure humanity was ever doomed with.

    The metaphysical need to atomize and isolate things (like the aspect of regime-change in Ukraine/Iraq) isn’t practical in discussions about geopolitics.

    It only leads to ridiculously irrelevant comparisons, as evidenced…

    You will probably not take it as honest advice atp, but I mean it: Liberalism implicitly teaches us Metaphysics and it sucks hard. It does not give us the tools for a proper analysis, it gives only an approximation of reality that is practical when its error is tolerable, but it is often not. looking into dialectics is imperative.



  • This was my last, longer comment about her (party).

    While it would be absurd for a Socialist to mistake her for a comrade, your scepticism towards her “problematization” (especially by liberals) is very warranted.

    It depends on who you compare her to. 30 years ago, she was a Socialist, compared to that modern day Wagenknecht is very bad.

    However if you compare her party to the German Bundestag, then 99+/-1% are more “problematic”. As an example: for the longest time her new party stood alone in the parliament in opposing weapons exports that facilitate an active genocide (her old left party recently managed to overcome internal resistance and silently join her in that conclusion, though I wonder if its members know).

    I share and understand the frustration comrades have with some of her stances / rhetoric, but if you view imperialism or more specifically hyper-imperialism (as tricontinental calls it) as the main contradiction of our time - which I do - then both become clear: why she is in no way among the most “problematic” and also why she is constantly made out to be by the transatlantic media

    So yeah a comrades criticism of her is very valid (as I guess they don’t support any other party in the parliament either), a liberals is - as always - massively hypocritical


  • I feel like whats desperately missing is a proper critique of capital.

    If you reject it (bc “commies / tankies / Nth iteration of red-scare”) you simply won’t be able to understand the world, period.

    Instead what you end up with invariably will be an “explanation” rooted in grave error, blaming an ethnic group, “globalists”,…

    Ofc by suppressing Marxist lessons the ruling ideology incentivizes this reaction (as does liberalism being rooted in metaphysics even)