Welcome again to everybody. Make yourself at home. In the time-honoured tradition of our group, here is the weekly discussion thread.
☭ Matrix homeserver and space
☭ Theory discussion group on /c/theory@lemmygrad.ml
☭ Find theory on ProleWiki, marxists.org, Anna’s Archive
Every once in a while, I have the thought of starting a substack. But I don’t know what I would put on it with any kind of consistency. My tendency in the past with blog-like things has been to make one, maybe publish one post, and then promptly forget about it.
Part of what holds me back these days is I don’t want to be a position where I feel like I’m forcing analysis that I can’t actually back up well. And part of it’s my longstanding tension between tendencies toward crafts that relate to having an audience and the immediate urge to pull back when I am actually seen. So I guess posting the occasional thread on the grad when I have the itch is a satisfying enough between place for now, since it’s more casual but I’m also not screaming into the void.
just start writing. it’s still great to put thoughts into words. later you can analyze and reflect.
Stay safe, keep your heads held high, and keep at it. Development happens in zig-zags, life doesn’t always progress the way we think it will.
As always, communism will win.
We really need to be prepared for when these events happen so we can seize the opportunity.
That’s why we organize! Or try to.
Forgive me if I write this here, since I need somewhere to put this. I just wanted to write somewhere about my dad dying since he’s been in the hospital now for a while.
cw: grief/death/alcoholism
My dad is dying due to his drinking. He had a fall last week in the shower. He has been in the hospital for a while now and he pretty much just dying. I really hate alcohol. I really hate how my parents didn’t try to take care of themselves more. Since it’s almost been three years now since my mom died, and now he’s dying too.
At least this time around, family and my friends are there for me unlike when my mom died. It’s also sad that my grandma going to outlive my dad. At least I got to say I love him when he was still mentally there, because the last visit, he’s just, not there. He has only been getting worse since he brought to the hospital, and there talk of him being brought to hospice.
I don’t know what I’m going to do, especially since I been living with him since I didn’t want to abandon him. Now he’s dying. Where do I even go after this?
I really need to get out of this place, but can’t do that since, on top of my dad not bothering to take better care of himself, had left a lot of things unfixed! For example, I can’t drive his car since it now has a flat fucking tire! He did warn me about this and mentioned this a few times in the last few months. He had some time to get it fixed, but didn’t… much like a few other things inside this place.
I just want to get outside, and just, get away from things for a moment. But can’t! All the while, relying on family to bring me to the hospital to see him, but I’m tired of going to that god damn fucking hospital. I hate going there, I hate going to the same floor where my mom died. I hate seeing him like this. I hate alcohol, and why couldn’t he just bother to get help instead of constantly refusing it.
That really sucks.
Try to focus on on problem at a time. Its good that you have family to help you. Ask them for help but keep it to one request at a time. You don’t want to flood them with all your problems or they will get overwhelmed and do nothing. I they can help you get the tire fixed that is going to relieve a lot of pressure and make it so you can manage a bunch of other problems on your own.
Hang in there we are all rooting for you.
I don’t use ai a lot, for basically anything, but honestly it’s a really great search tool. All the search engines nowadays are either filled with ads or kinds just suck, so being able to go to deepseek and be like “hey there was this game that had xyz what was that?” And get an answer is really nice.
Still doesn’t work all the time, had to ask around the internet to find Empire of the Fading Suns, but it’s still helpful
Yeah. It’s like a glorified search engine to me.
AI destroyed SEO so google is practically useless so now we go use AI to search for stuff.
Good thing anarchic-primitivists aren’t on the internet or they’d rub this shit in our faces.
I have had the opposite experience. Google’s shit ai fails to grab the basic queries i’m looking for. The only thing the AI has been successful at is finding very specific troubleshooting guides for very specific computer problems related to modding. That’s the one good use it has had for me so far.
Otherwise, I don’t have any uses for it. When I did more photo-editing; it was very good at cleaning up blending and lines on images I would make.
I wish you all a great week comrades!
Recently managed to introduce my queer-plat partner so theory! It was a great experience ^^
Keep your heads up high, don’t let despair take you. Communism will win
Fischia il vento for your ears’ pleasure
///<
Update on the r/TankieTheDeprogram drama: The ACP mods have been kicked out! Their offensive didn’t even last 24 hours against the Tankies. We are yet to hear from the head mod u/Alexitine about this failed infiltration attempt.
I barely interacted with the reddit, did something happen? All I know is 2 people were made mods as soon as they joined in
Holy terminally online ACP
Mashallah, the situations seems ok now. The traitor being the founder is a bad hit tho
It seems Alexitine has been inactive on reddit for the last 8 months. There is high chance of his account being compromised by a third party.
I have a friend that seems to be falling down this self help, business, start up world bullshit thinking that her company will be different than others. “I will create 1000s of jobs” she says, jesus… No amount of talking could get her away from the thinking “I want to have so much money no one tells me what to do”. Kind of just gave up and switched the conversation at that point.
Then on the other side I met someone who lives at home, doesn’t have a job and refuses to have one, yet has so many comments on how things should be run. Is there a definition for this type of person?
If news broke out that BenGvir indeed got got, that would be the best day in my last 3 years not even lying. I know it doesn’t change anything at all but there is hardly anyone i geniunely hate more than that freak and Bibi of course.
Is this more George Galloway/Scott Ritter news? Israeli sources (we never know why alternative media figures were led to believe their sources, by the way, they can lie to them! they can give CIA-sourced “insider info” to “prove” they are in the IRGC or whatever) would get an easy W by claiming this and walking it back. It’s the best they have other than claiming all videos of missiles hitting Israel are AI/misattributed.
yeah likely fake but let a man dream ok?
DID HE GET GOT
NOOOOOOOOOOOO
We need to be Trusting the Plan, not trusting Random Accounts That Use The Most Questionable Capitalization Possible.
again, not like i have a horse in the game but can someone in usa just tell me out of sheer interest what it’s like organizing? CPUSA, PSL, otherwise. i’m also interested if anyone knows anyone in WWP?
I have some experience with PSL, but it really depends on the place in the US. Mostly its mobilizing for protests, getting people into unions and doing smaller awareness raising events / campaigns.
Not a full member of an org yet (working on it), but from what I’ve heard from organizers it’s a lot like herding cats. It varies from org to org, but a lot of the time it’s trying to convince people to not just stay at home for a weekend and instead get out, regularly.
also finding out ACP was founded 2024. this is just an influencer project innit
Their main thing is aggressing on influencer social democrat projects (in a way I would argue is mutualistic) and baiting ESL speakers in the global south. You can tell they’re some kind of operation because the algorithm doesn’t just allow them, they get mentions in the New York Times.
I’m genuinely beginning to fear that the US and Israel choose the nuclear option to maintain their empire. I can’t think of anything rgat would stop them besides fear of Russian retaliation sparked from fear.
I really fukcing wish Iran developed a nuclear weapon like the DPRK, because I’m sick to my stomach worried about this.
Apparently amerikkka is sending a B-whatevernumber Mercury plane over there which is some special plane used to scope things out for nuclear strikes…
If they use nukes, the world is literally over lol. China and Russia would, rightly so, preemptively nuke the US afterwards and so on.
I’m not sure they would risk the end of the world for Iran…
I’m just paranoid about the nuclear option and how unhinged the empire is going to be in this dying war.
Also i don’t think they’d have Trump going “its the most succesful military operation ever” etc… They wouldve started preparing the public for the nuclear option since the beggining imo.
Trump recently said that the Iranian people are evil. To me that sounds like a departure from the regime change line that was being used up until now.
Hopefully this entire fiasco is enough to sway certain world leaders to develop nuclear deterrence arsenals of their own, but if I’m being honest, Libya should have been enough of a wake-up call so I highly doubt it.
What is the difference between dropping tens of thousands of conventional warheads vs dropping a few nukes?
The atom bomb is a paper tiger which the U.S. reactionaries use to scare people. It looks terrible, but in fact it isn’t. Of course, the atom bomb is a weapon of mass slaughter, but the outcome of a war is decided by the people, not by one or two new types of weapon. -Mao
A nuke or even ten cannot win the war. The missile launchers and depots are all over Iran and most of them are made to withstand penetration bombs and nukes don’t do penetration. All nukes would do is convince the world to destroy america before america destroys the world.
I think it’s also important to mention that Iran is trying to liberate Palestine. Dropping a nuke on the occupied territories would poison the land for decades or even a century. In this way, Iran’s possession of a nuclear deterrent is a paper tiger. I believe this is why they’ve committed themselves to building up their military capacity with conventional weapons instead.
It would kill millions of Iranians and irreversibly effect Iran on a ecological, societal, and economic level.
The rest of the world doesn’t yet have the capacity to destroy the US, so what exactly would they do in fear of a US weilding nuclear weapons?
Honestly I think I might develop a genuine irreconcilable hatred of the white race if the US nukes Iran. I don’t mean meme “unlimited genocide on the first world” I mean I will refuse to interact with white people at every opportunity and cuss them out if they try to be cordial.
I’m fucking terrified for my family’s life in the events of a nuclear strike.
It would kill millions of Iranians and irreversibly effect Iran on a ecological, societal, and economic level.
How is this any different than if they use conventional weapons?
The rest of the world doesn’t yet have the capacity to destroy the US,
They do in a nuclear war. This is the whole concept of M.A.D.
Like yes it would be horrible but only as horrible as what they already have done to Gaza.
How is this any different than if they use conventional weapons?
My fear is that if THE US runs out of conventional weapons or if they want to keep some stockpiled for a future altercation with China, a nuclear weapon would be the “solution” to that problem.
They do in a nuclear war. This is the whole concept of M.A.D.
Russia, and China have the capacity to bring about mad, the rest of the Global south has no defense against a atomically reckless US.
Like yes it would be horrible but only as horrible as what they already have done to Gaza.
I don’t want my family members to have to go through what Gaza has, nor do I want anywhere to be like Gaza again.
Russia, and China have the capacity to bring about mad, the rest of the Global south has no defense against a atomically reckless US.
Yes they do. Russia and China are the defense. A first strike is the only defense for Russia and China against a belligerent usa that is willing to use nukes. It forces their hand no matter who the target is because of the usa’s proven track record of antagonism against China and Russia.
If someone screams over and over that they are going to kill you but they don’t because you have a gun pointed at them and then you see them pull out a gun and shoot someone else are you going to wait for them to face you or shoot them right away?
You are dooming for no reason. The results of a nuclear strike are horrible for everyone but they are markedly worse for israel and usa. You are worrying about people doing something that would hurt themselves more than it would hurt anyone else. Even a psychopath wouldn’t do that. They do not believe the armageddon tripe that some jar heads are spouting. There is no up side to them and all they care about is the upside.
It is a waste of energy worrying about something that is very unlikely to happen especially when there is nothing you can do to stop it.
I hope you are correct. I just fear for my family’s safety. Without the nuclear option, I see the complete retreat of imperialism from West Asia, which I truly hope to see.
Mao made that quote in 1946 when nukes were much, much less powerful and numerous then the ones that exist today. What Mao said was true for back then and it’s possible using nukes might ultimately backfire on the US but I think it’s still important to keep sober with reality, nukes are serious business and every country that cares about sovereignty should be seeking them, immediately. If Cuba and Russia were smart Russia would be stationing nuclear missiles in Cuba RIGHT NOW before the fascists yet again take advantage of their opposition hesitating and vacillating against their aggression and fearing/seeking salvation from an international community that does not exist rather then taking concrete action.
Sanctions cause over 550k deaths every year. That’s as much as dropping the biggest nuke ever tested on a city.
True but having nukes or a nuclear weapons program isn’t the bar for having devasting sanctions placed on you by western nations these days, merely not being a vassal is. Cuba has no nuclear weapons program and has done absolutely nothing to the United States for decades and the US is still starving them anyway just for being communist.
Coasting through work on the bare minimal effort required to do so as I can’t be arsed to have even one cortisol spike during my last weeks. It feels good to be able to speak freely because what are they going to do? Fire me? Lol.
An attempt at a more dialectical (and somewhat cheeky) take on the saying “it is what it is”:
It is what it is, until what it is contradicts what it is to a qualitative degree, creating the conditions for what it is to become what it isn’t.
it is what it is, until it isn’t
💯
I hope you all have a nice week :D
You too!
You too!
You too, comrade!
How about a great week Comrade? 🫂
not to be like Dont organize w psl (also why would u listen to me about that) but is it true that they still maintain china is revisionist/capitalist? prolewiki says this view was reaffirmed in 2023 (among other information about PSL failures on ground with things like sexual abuses :/ ) i still have a primarily positive view of them and organizing with them, i’m simply curious
Main issue with orgs related to or following the same strategy as PSL is the form of their organizing, not necessarily the stances they take ideologically. They’re NGOs doing recruitment drives, not mass movements. There is a reason why they ultimately try to form a coalition with democrats! They’re rebranded progressives/US Green Partiers
I haven’t seen the PSL form a coalition with Democrats. Do you have references?
Two easy-to-explain crossovers here are the event where Jill Stein, Cornell West, and Claudia de la Riva all did a joint “vote out fascism” drive, and the No Kings rallies.
Another issue with PSL I neglected to mention is their social media focus. It’s a requirement to post like it’s your job and have zero opsec!
that is not correct. PSL maintains that China is socialist. I think the prolewiki article is a bit of a misrepresentation
that’s good!
