Welcome one and all to the weekly discussion thread, the time tested and honored tradition of our group. I am sorry however due to renovations on the GZD cabin, we must hold this discussion thread outside, I sincerely hope this does not cause anyone an inconvenience
• Matrix homeserver and space
◦ Theory discussion group on Matrix
• Find theory on ProleWiki, marxists.org, Anna’s Archive, libgen
I’m feeling upset by how few people care about what’s happening in Lebanon
Take a look at my babies:
I love them
deleted by creator
I am contemplating publishing more articles about Finland during the Fascist era. I think that we get really annoyed when generic antisocialists suddenly suspend their ‘antifascist’ pretensions to defend Finland’s negotiations and collaborations with Europe’s Fascist empires, and seeing what it is that they’re unintentionally(?) defending should be pretty embarrassing for them.
deleted by creator
There’s some sort of constant anger caused by turning communist that I can’t really seem to deal with. I feel like I can’t always channel it into positive energy for organizing and it sometimes burns me out.
Municipality elections will be in three weeks and we have a good chance of winning in my city. Polls have us at 25% of the votes. So even though organizing feels painfully slow, we do have the figures to show us it is working.
I’m also worried about winning the election and getting in a possible position of power.
My main reason is that we will never get >50% and we will have to form a coalition with socdems, greens and possibly christian democrats at best. I’ve voiced my concerns about this on several occasions but I never got a clear answer for the tactics behind a coalition like that. I’m all for building a party and I understand that in this system we need to make concessions. But it’s another thing to ask your marxist members to defend electoral politics and possible bad takes you will have when governing. The point I’m trying to make is that I’m not wanting to become the thing we are currently fighting against. And the party’s vagueness isn’t helping with that.
Another thing I’m concerned about is the naivety when it comes to defending yourself against counter attacks from the neolibs and the far right. And I don’t mean just through the media either. We are talking about the second largest city in the country which is the home to the second largest port in Europe and the second largest port for petrochemical production/transportation in the world. It is an absolutely crucial city in terms of global supply chains. There is no way in hell our capitalist class and those of other countries are going to let a marxist party govern a city like that. And while I’m sure we can put up a good fight against media campaigns against us, I’m still a bit worried things might get out of hand, possibly even physical seeing how the far right already has militias ready to go.
What about “parallel” organizing? There are other means of building political power the party could focus on or support. Union organizing, tenants unions, strikes, protests, etc. Building power outside the government could help create the pressure needed to push changes within it.
Indeed, I think a party should have both a parliamentary and an extraparliamentary wing that can strengthen and control eachother. As long as the party is involved in the streets revisionism at the parliamentary level is less likely. Just look at Graz in Austria, where the communist party is governing together with Greens and SocDems and they still have a lot of support and still stay true to their ideals.
Sure, and I hope a thing like that will happen. I guess every communist party at one point has to ask themselves these questions when they have a chance of getting in power. But at the same time being pragmatic should only go to a certain length before you start dropping your ideals and I hope we can prevent that.
There’s a book I just learned of from the Rev Left podcast called: “Lenin’s Electoral Strategy from Marx and Engels through the Revolution of 1905: The Ballot, the Streets - or Both” by August Nimtz, that you might be interested in. It discusses Lenin’s feelings on parlimentarianism, I haven’t got a chance to read through it yet, but it sounds like it addresses the same concerns you’re stating.
Here’s the preface: http://www2.hhh.umn.edu/uthinkcache/gpa/globalnotes/Nimtz - Lenin-Preface Vol. 1.pdf
And here’s a link to the book itself:https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1385-the-ballot-the-streets-or-both
I don’t know the policy here on ‘high seas’ material, but I can PM you a link to a digital copy if you want ;)
That’s awesome, I hadn’t heard of Graz before.
Inside-outside strategy always works, imho
You need to fire on all cylinders.
Support your candidate, but also, help unions and the needy.
Yeah, being prepared for a position of power is… something.
“we have a good chance of winning in my city.”
That’s great! And yeah, organizing is always painfully slow, in my book.
Anger burns you out.
Every. Time.
It doesn’t drive you; it does the opposite. It’s not a drive, but a bumper.
There’s a rumour at my place of work about a coworker getting on the list for our party for the upcoming municipality elections, which is a touchy subject for my place of work.
Thing is, I know every party member, both out AND undercover, working at my place and nobody seems to know who it would be. I even scanned our list of reps to see if I recognize anyone but nope. It’s probably a big nothing burger but it’s funny to hear.
playing among us irl
due to my circunstamces ive met many petit bourgeois and a few very wealthy people, and i am glad to say that they are completely stupid 😅
You know the Statesian tennis player (Emma Navarro) who threw a tantrum after losing to a Chinese player (Zheng Qinwen) at the Olympics? Well, at the Beijing Open yesterday, she lost to another Chinese player (Zhang Shuai), in the second round. One who had the longest losing streak in history recently.
I’m in Guatemala.
Cool
Even if they manage to destroy the airforce (something Russia didn’t do to Ukraine) the U.S. will just lend them or bomb by themselves
That will force the US to engage in a way they did not want to, right now they are able to have the lease plausable of plausable denyabilities, once they engage all of that is out of the window, and they cannot claim the defender roll
Ugh. Definitely possible, although that would be a change from the current US position of pretending it’s restraining “israel” to being directly involved.
this just lmfao.
why do people go on ideological debate between ukraine and russia even the popular leftist circles, saying that both sides bad?
the main reason people don’t acknowledge is a geopolitical one and is definitively NATO eastward expansion. every country requires a buffer zone for historical reasons. china, india, russia and of course usa, if you encroach on that countries take drastic measures like starting a war or in this case the so called unprovoked war. (the fact that they mention unprovoked means that its provoked, but that’s another discussion)
It’s ultra rhetoric that reduces “imperialism” to whenever a country invades another (they don’t understand what imperialism is). Russia is definitively not apart of the imperial core, is not imposing an imperial mode of production, and is merely acting/reacting nationalistically.
A lot of the myth of Russian “imperialism” is due to Dugin, who is a complete idiot and nobody in the Russian gov’t cares about him. Russia doesn’t have the population nor military capacity to become global hegemons, its simply not going to happen.
are you sure there are no imperial tendencies at all in the Russian establishment? This seems unlikely, even if one does not read present policy as imperialist
Putin had obvious legal justification for the humanitarian intervention. Putin had been using peace negotiation to stop the massacre of ethnic minority in Ukraine under the unelected dictator from the Euromaiden coup and later under Zelensky’s rule for 8 years. Putin has the legal right for military intervention and the result of the military intervention achieved the stated goal of protection of ethnic minority and of rebelling states contrary to the claim by Pax Americana about takeover of Ukraine.
Anyone else rapidly approaching 30 and have no clue what to do with their life cause they didn’t think they’d make it this far ? Absolutely no clue what I should do career wise, never have had less of an idea. If any comrades have some worldly insight it would go a long way for me right now
I mean I thought I would make it this far… but I thought things would make more sense and I would understand what to do when I made it to here, I do not
I floated around several different jobs. Never found anything I liked so I decided to move back in with my parents so I can do the last few things I need to change careers/apply for physical therapy school, and I’m older than you.
I don’t know if there’s any otherworldly insight to it other than I just really love exercise and training.
When I was working other jobs, I felt like two different people. I had my job that I honestly didn’t give a flying fuck about, had no motivation, made me depressed and just couldn’t force myself to be interested in. I had to pretend to care while surrounded by people who did care.
And when I was doing my physical training for the sports I love I was/am a completely different person- much happier and learning new things because I care.
On mental health: I think not being in a career adjacent to my passions really, really hurt me. It’s not like I’ve solved my depression but I can wake up now with something to look forward to, a path that I actually want to walk on.
It was passion that I had to build on but there was always an interest in exercise even before I can say I developed it into a passion. I was previously going to college for physical therapy, changed direction, but built my passion and now coming back to it, it all seems to make sense. Maybe there is something you have enjoyed in that past that you can return to build on?
And the big thing I can say is try not to get too down. This isn’t uncommon nowadays for people around our ages.
Don’t think of these years as wasted years, but learning years. I always felt like I was spinning my wheels and there’s a lot of truth in that. My parents always wondering what I was doing etc., is a terrible burden. But maybe in a way, I wasnt ready to go down that road since I hadn’t the passion for it yet, and the world didn’t make sense to my neurodivergent brain because I hadn’t learned Marxism yet, either.
And I suppose while we’re at it (to use Marxist terms), my experiences and internal contradictions weren’t strong enough yet that they’d need to resolve themselves by producing a new decision to go back to school.
I kinda fell into IT. You can get decent salary and benefits for work that’s at least intellectually stimulating. And there are a number of nontechnical roles if programming isn’t your thing.
Right now, I’d say the biggest beneficial thing you can do is just experiment. Pick a few things that look interesting and find some beginner resources to dip your toes in. It’s important not to over-analyze and be too critical of these new pursuits in the beginning. My problem was, quite frequently, I’d talk myself out of something before I really explored it to even decide with confidence if it really was for me or not.
Allow yourself to just go with an idea without judgement. Reserve your criticism for later when you have enough information to make a informed decision on if it is for you. Although, be aware that there are times when you can intuit your interest and desire based off of how it makes you feel early on, just don’t be so quick to pivor away because sometimes it’s just the learning curve of trying something new, and when you power through the initial discomfirt you find that you DO like whatever it is.
Bottom line: don’t feel as if you need to rush. With some exploring and experimentation you’ll find something that really resonates with you. For me that was writing and it’s been incredibly refreshing.
Good luck, comrade ;)
deleted by creator
High Atlas Mountains , Marrakesh , Morocco .
Is there some way to just subscribe to all the communities (or see the posts as such) from another instance? I want to move my acc to Hexbear for the better emojis (and seeing things as local, tbh it’d be really nice if one could set more than one instance as viewed in locals, idk)
Yea, I also moved to Hexbear to view everything on local, and the emojies. I don’t really use Lemmygrad anymore.
Is there some way to just subscribe to all the communities
There might be.
long technical explanation
If you export your settings, edit the file such that “followed_communities” has all communities you want to be subscribed to, then (wait so it doesn’t give you an error, then) import the edited file, it should have you subscribed to all the communities you added.
To get all communities I’d use the api, i.e. https://hexbear.net/api/v3/community/list?type_=Local&limit=50&page=1, then copy the raw text into https://regexr.com/, make the regex
"actor_id":"(.*?)"and use the List tool with"$1",(see screenshot), copy the output into a text file, open the next page on the api and go on like that until the api returns blank.screenshot
Thanks, I’ll try that later!
Patrick Lancaster could have more views and change more minds if he was better at editing his videos
