This political model depends upon them never being satisfied.
Resident of the Laniakea supercluster
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This political model depends upon them never being satisfied.
I can only speak for me. To the extent I am aware, conscious, present and mindful, I believe I am "good." To the extent those states are diminished or missing in me, I am "bad."
He's decomposing right in front of us.
I let the algorithms do their thing and I always find something new and interesting to enjoy. There is a massive world of amazing content that flies under everyone’s radar.
Man that really hits
Of course we’re back to the three card Monte game: if it looks nice then it must be bourgeois decadence. If it looks bad then it’s ugly commie crap.
This is “communism”
I wonder if we marketed lead paint as "anti-woke serum - drink some today before THEY ban it" and put it in 12 oz bottles if they would drink it.
Right wingers are all like ‘I just want sh*tty sliced white bread and full-fat beef milk and spam and asbestos and measles and poverty and then I’ll finally live in a world reminiscent of the yesteryear I’ve evoked in my imagination where everyone is white and hummus is illegal and I am king’.
Sounds like a call for mass murder. Machine gun civilians into a ditch like the Nazis.
I’m very far left in terms of what kind of society I want to see and what kind of ideas I think are good. When it comes to electoral politics, I’m just an anti-fascist.
At this point we are manifesting it.
Frankly I think we'll be in a civil war within the next couple of years. Now isn't the time for unilateral disarmament. If we can build a second republic, on democratic socialist principles, with the fanatics defeated and broken, then sure. Then we can finally have sane gun policies.
We can't get healthcare, quality schools, student loan forgiveness, affordable housing - there's no way we're paying for hundreds of millions of guns. The worst assholes wouldn't participate voluntarily. We're still talking confiscation, which means bloodshed. This is a nation of savages.
There are 400,000,000 guns in the US. I really don't think it can be done without civil unrest and hundreds, if not thousands of fatalities.
Please stop insulting North Korea by comparing it to Trump's sad and flaccid DC. I mean if I'm going to live under a family dynasty cult, I'd at least like it to be creative and pretty. What do we get here, a cheap wrinkled banner?
At least it looks impressive when they do it. This is a tacky knock-off with negative rizz.
Little fascist redoubts all over the country. As their communities grow more hysterical in their calls for mass deportation and genocide of the untermenschen, they want to prepare for retaliation.
When the last billionaire rocket to an orbital space habitat is leaving Earth as drought and blight consume the last of the crops, maybe then
Jesus Christ man, you have 1.4 million followers on here. That's like having 20 million followers on X. You can't expect all of them to be what you want.
The deliberate infliction of pain and suffering for personal amusement is psychopathic sadism. The people who do it should be removed from society until or unless they can be reformed. They are filth, far below any animal in dignity and morality. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
I hate giving this guy any oxygen, but this is a common right-wing belief. My parents have been right-wing all my life. 100% MAGA now. Religious conservatives. I'm a non-religious socialist. The point is, people like my parents and Kirk drive their kids away from them in all ways.
Daily Wire Bro: "Look how the party elites live compared to the peasants" ::raises eyebrow:: Communists: "Okay, we'll make them all exactly the same." Daily Wire Bro: "Ugh, look how I'd have to live, like a peasant, under this system."
Think about, perhaps, the fact that we can't sustain 8-10 billion people consuming meat at the level people in developed countries do now. Think about, perhaps, how we need a food system that works for everyone and the planet. The one we have right now is ecocidal, apart from the ocean of torture.
I don't even say "go vegan" anymore. Vegans are among the most despised people in the world, and we brought some of it on ourselves. Just think about reducing not only your carbon footprint, but your torture footprint as well. You love these animals. Contribute less to their suffering. That's all.
If they love those things, imagine how much they hate the things being done to them because you like the taste of their flesh, the horrific torture involved. Just think about it for like two minutes and think about maybe consuming less of it. That’s all I ask anymore.
What, and stop what will soon be a thriving free market in kidneys and other organs? I foresee no unintended negative consequences from these policies.
MAGA: the silliest, most easily manipulated rubes and marks on planet Earth. www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPKL...
I'm not anti-capitalist because I think socialism will solve all of the world's problems. I'm anti-capitalist because I'd like to actually have a shot at solving the world's most pressing problems, which capitalism denies us for many reasons, in many ways.
She said: "Someone quoted the first post to say that Marxist analysis explains why capitalism is the root of all problems and guys I could not detach my post fast enough" Who knows what "someone" really said. I think it is at the root of why we cannot solve many problems though!
Why does it even need people?
Replies turned off, but this is referring to leftists who (allegedly) view capitalism as the cause of ALL the world's evils. Of course no one should do this. However: I may have 99 problems, but the boot on my neck is the most immediate one and none of the rest will be resolved until that one is.
Also I'd love to answer the question of the person he's responding to, but of course replies and quote replies are OFF. Ah well.
"Why didn't you create a paradise under conditions of world war, embargo, sanctions, and imperialist military encirclement?" Is the question they are really asking every time.
This is a five alarm fire. There was a time when some right wing nutjob on Twitter saying something insanely fascist wasn't really something to cause immediate concern. But Trump loves these people, like Laura Loomer. What is being proposed here today could be happening as early as tomorrow.
What's insane is that we know what the other end of this looks like. Guilt-ridden people 10 or 20 years from now asking why they didn't defend their immigrant or trans neighbors from persecution, deportation and extermination when the fascists showed up to take them away.
Marxism in two documents. www.marxists.org/archive/marx... www.marxists.org/archive/marx...
Hooray for me, smoked for 25 years, still vape.
"At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production"
Its amazing the things you can think about Marx when you've never read Marx. Socialism is only possible because of the way in which capitalism develops the productive forces. It becomes necessary because that development comes into conflict with private ownership, as we see all around us today.
Only in our case, the screaming is because he's lurching towards you in a tiny corridor and no one changed his depends
I don’t think this is ever gonna happen here though I really wish it would.
I don’t think we’re ready for what’s going to come out of this. It’s as if Newsmax designed a mass shooter to titillate their audience - allegedly left-wing, anti-Zionist and of course, trans. Also, the most explicitly insane mass shooter yet. This is really bad. nypost.com/2025/08/27/u...
Most people have not read the Federalist Papers. But then again, I think many students in red states are taught nothing about slavery either. The founders/framers are regarded as divinely inspired prophets.
My fascist Lebanese relatives voted for this garbage. "Insult us more, daddy!"
Remember, only white male property owners could vote in most places. He didn't have to give a fuck about a mass audience. He was talking to and for the only people who mattered politically.
Why? I think he was pretty serious about establishing a state to protect his property in both land and humans. Like he wasn't going to add on "and that's bad." He's fine with it. He wants to keep it that way.
I went numb. Just turned off the TV at a certain point and sat there. Went for a long drive. Bought a pack of cigarettes.
Yeah.... What?
These people presume to rule us. Carrying on a long tradition as well of integrating fascist politics with Catholic theology. “The common good.” “Cosmos”. “Civilization.” Beneath it all the most violent and depraved forms of imperialism, class rule and racist terrorism.
We're never getting rid of those guns. There are too many of them held by too many fanatics who would spill blood to keep them. We won't even get to that stage because the GOP/SCOTUS won't let it. This is just the dark reality we live in, until we're ready for a real revolution.
Annnnnyway its been fun but its time for bed. You have a good night!
Yes, Trump the man is an opportunist who saw his moment for personal glory and seized it. He did not create that moment. Decades of worsening inequality and failed imperialist wars created that moment. Did you read Michael Moore's essay predicting Trump's win?
I don't deny these factors but Obama did not resolve the crises of capitalism. Hillary Clinton ran a terrible campaign and lost the Rust Belt, she lost two-time Obama voters to Trump. Racism cannot explain why those people flipped and denied her the presidency.
I understand that their rhetoric is absurdly conspiratorial, because they have no analytical tools at all. But they're acutely aware of how much they have and how much everyone else lacks. That is the background hum behind all of this.
There's a reason we weren't on the verge of a fascist dictatorship in the 20th century and why we are basically in one now. The crises of capitalism have driven inequality to a breaking point. The ruling class is unable and unwilling to make concessions. Brute force is all that is left. Fascism.
I mean this isn't an either/or, but if you listen to them they absolutely hate leftism, are terrified of communism, and want to preserve class rule at all costs. Is it always this explicitly understood, especially by the useful idiots at the bottom? No. But that is still the driving force.
JD Vance gave a hysterical speech denouncing Mamdani as a communist radical. They're all terrified of him. He's not even a communist, but he represents the slightest pushback against the uncontested rule of billionaires. This they will mobilize to destroy.
There doesn't have to be a flashing sign called "material reasons" in the mind to explain why an idea arises at a certain time in history and why people pursue it. Material conditions set the stage for our thinking. They are not the only factor but yes, the decisive one.
Your class is not your "job". Its your relationship to the means of production, the wealth of society. Do you earn a wage, or can you collect rents and dividends? Do you own, rent or sleep on the street? Private or public school? These are central aspects to human life.
Fascism was first and foremost a reaction to Marxism, to radical socialist and communist movements seeking to overthrow capitalism. It remains so today, if you listen to Trump, Stephen Miller, JD and the rest. It is an attempt to preserve class rule with overwhelming force.
Of course you can trace how ideologies form, that's the whole point here. The soil in which they grow are the material conditions in which people find themselves, the struggle between classes being the primary (but not only) driving force of those material conditions.
That's true. People betray their own class all the time. They lick the boots of their masters. Or, like Engels, they support a revolution that would undermine their own wealth and privilege. I would not argue otherwise. But again, we don't need everyone.
We don't need all of the people everywhere for this to happen. A significant and determined minority supported or at least unopposed by the majority is sufficient.
You're the one whose arguments suggest that it all just happens sometimes! We can either find the reasons for things in the inner movements and tensions of material reality, or in the nebulous fog of human ideas. You could say I have "faith" that the former is more reliable, yes.
Apart from the fact that there was no mass starvation in post-war USSR or China today, these are questions best left to the democratic process when public ownership is secured. Again, the wealth of Western capitalism cannot be compared to pre-war Russia and China. Two different universes.
They will obviously resort to it if they think it necessary. Fascism is capitalism cannibalizing itself. You don't want to eat your own arm, or perhaps another person's arm, but you will if you think you have no other choice. The levels of inequality we have now can't be peacefully sustained.
If anything is "faith-based", it is the faith that the working masses of the world will actually rise up and take for themselves what they need to thrive, the way the bourgeoisie took it all from the kings and aristocrats hundreds of years back.
There's no faith involved. Capitalism, by its very nature, consolidates, centralizes and coordinates production on a global scale. It creates the conditions for everyone, everywhere, to have a basic dignified standard of living. But it can't happen until ownership changes hands.
But all of these developments are still in private hands. To keep it that way, the private owners want fascism and war. The rest of us can stop it if we take away the source of their power, which is their wealth, which is their ownership of the means of production. Socialism. It is a choice, yes
Capitalism is already a mostly global system. The means of production/finance are highly consolidated and subject to a great deal of planning. Money is no longer a commodity but a book-keeping device. These are precisely the conditions for global socialism.
I mean, the conditions are as inevitable as steam when you boil water. But what are you going to do with it? That's up to you.
What did I say was inevitable though? That the conditions for a socialist transformation are created. The actual establishment of socialism requires our conscious agency. The alternative this time around is probably nuclear war and ecocide.
Everything else aside, this is such a terrible platform/medium for discussions like this.
But those days are over. Capitalism has no more concessions to give. That is why we are faced with a fascist dictatorship. They cannot give up wealth, property, power - nor can they maintain it without brute force. They could destroy everything before we get to socialism, though.
Marx did not opine on "human nature." Marx revealed the contradictions at the heart of the capitalist system which inevitably create the conditions for a socialist transformation. He was ahead of the curve and underestimated the concessions capital would make to stave of revolution 100 years ago.
No, it is nothing like that - you're conflating economic development with political ideology. The material simply was not there for communism, and everyone knew it. You can have a million labels, ideas, and good intentions and it means nothing without the material foundations.
China still has state ownership and economic planning. It is still an aspirational communist society in its basic economic character. They engaged with the global market in ways the USSR/Eastern Bloc could not.
Theories explain reality. They're not blueprints. Purely nationalist forces could have won in Russia and China and they would have been faced with the same problems (and were in many other countries that got rolled by imperialism). Throughout this you are conflating economics and politics.
Oh brother! I am not white. You're just going to have to try something else.
Their "communism" could only be aspirational, while in practice they had the task before them of massively building up the productive forces, something capitalism did over hundreds of years. China seems to be well on the way. But even they haven't achieved it yet.
Marx developed a theory of how socialism and later communism arise from the highest levels of capitalist development, which were then and still are now (along with a few other places) in the Western world. The Eastern revolutionaries understood they did not have those foundations.
Assuming by "gringo" you mean "white guy", try again.
The word "communism" was aspirational for the USSR and its satellites. They said this over and over. We do not have true communism. They thought they were working towards it. What they had established was arguably state capitalism, arguably a form of socialism, either way encircled by imperialism.
No, it isn't teleological, any more than evolution is teleological. But it doesn't have to be *teleological* to simply be logical. There hasn't been a rush anywhere to return to the economic system of feudalism and serfdom, even as fascists romanticize the aesthetics of the past.
If socialism is established on the basis of the productive forces built up by Western capitalism, it would be as great of an advance and no one would want to go back. To address your later point: people did not vote to end communism, which did not exist. What it really was is open to some debate.
I wasn't saying it was like capitalism. Capitalism (even Marx knew this) is comparatively more progressive than slavery or feudalism. So I would agree with you. Even so, the point is, you can't opt to go back in time economically without a major catastrophe. Like Pol Pot's "Year Zero" campaign.
The people who are mad about that are fine with the rest because it is targeting people they regard as subhuman.
Wait what? lol Doesn't that pretty much undo, by a very large amount, the deportations to date? I mean on the one hand, he often doesn't do what he says. On the other, if he did, I don't know when I'd stop laughing.
"But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society." Not Karl Marx. James Madison.
"Human nature" is often what you'll get. I feel like at least in the USA, the anti-capitalist left needs to constantly rebut James Madison's Federalist #10, which establishes the US as an explicitly bourgeois republic based upon "natural differences" in "the faculties of men"
I think it is going to take a cancelled election for most people to finally get it.
People, what are we doing? When do we decide that "the Constitution", this thing that we've accepted tells us what we can and can't do for all of our lives, is finished? We didn't kill it, he did. But it is dead. Blue govs can proceed as if we will have elections, but must prepare for much worse.
I honestly don't know what this means. Would slavery not be an example of going backwards in an egregious way?
The thing is, he's right. The other two branches have surrendered their power. There's no one left to even advise caution in his own branch. Blue state governors? Maybe, but lots of talk right now. We the people? Not quite yet. He stands virtually unopposed, and we wait for his arteries to rupture.
He wasted our fucking water and we couldn't do anything to stop him? Seriously what's the plan the next time this lunatic tries to waste CA's water on his demented nonsense?
"Charlie Kirk says -" I'm gonna stop you right there.
We are just about.... here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_Aga...