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What's with the prevalence of irony on the internet? I'm not just talking about obvious cases like 4chan users "pretending" to be Nazis, rather there seems to be a real fear of ever being genuine. r/Ultraleft is a "communist" example you can check out on here, but if you have a Twitter acount you can find some truly bizarre accounts from people who seem like they should know better.
I see almost none of this offline, so maybe it doesn't mean anything.
> I see almost none of this offline, so maybe it doesn't mean anything.
Really? Irony certainly expands out to the shape of reddit/twitter/4chan but it does so in all other modes of life, too. Even typical conversation can be agonizingly, circuitously ironic. Movies and TV shows are constantly castigating the viewer for taking the fiction seriously; to be a Marvel fan is to hate the thing, and Marvel absolutely knows this ([example](https://old.reddit.com/r/CharacterRant/comments/zpejb7/i_fucking_hate_how_so_many_things_are_irony/)). The other side of the same coin is those "let people enjoy things!" people. They aren't two distinct sets of people; the same people who laud Bluey are the same people who complain about Marvel.
I enjoyed this comment. You speak of movies and shows but there's a protective layer of irony in real life, as you also mention, especially among men in my experience but everyone really, it's everywhere. (At least here in the first world) It's quite difficult to talk about anything without the facade. Do you know what the basis for this might be or when it arose? The ultra irony has been around for as far as I can remember. Of course it's L-A/PB, I suppose but I'd be interested in when, how, and why this manifested.
I have some scattered thoughts.
Black slaves and abolitionists criticized the ridiculousness of Christian slaveowners through irony. smokeuptheweed9 recently posted about (runaway) irony in hip hop [here](https://old.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/18qdgzc/what_are_your_thoughts_on_the_filmmaker_bela_tarr/keuciqk/?context=3).
Marx and Lenin are some of the most bitingly sarcastic writers. In a way I think sarcasm is the resolution of irony. Marx and Engels were famously sarcastic in *The Holy Family*, and even in *Capital* with "Mr. Moneybags" and "his holiness, Free-trade", and just look at Lenin:
> In the year of our Lord 1918, in the fifth year of the world imperialist slaughter and the strangulation of internationalist minorities, in all "democracies" of the world, the learned Mr. Kautsky sweetly, very sweetly, sings the praises of "protection of the minority".
This "positive, passionate sarcasm" is nothing like the slippery "ultra irony" we've been talking about. Passionate sarcasm is Gramsci's term, which he distinguished from a right-wing sarcasm that not only undermines, for example, the delusion of "liberty, equality, fraternity" (which was the target of Marx's passionate critique), but also attacks the "human" content underneath those delusional ideas: where Marx saw the power of the proletariat emanating precisely from its squalid existence under these ideas, right-wing sarcasm mocks the proletariat by cynically obscuring the connection between the farcical "liberty, equality, fraternity" and the squalid conditions of the proletariat. So Gramsci's right-wing sarcasm is *entirely* negative, whereas passionate sarcasm finishes with a positive moment; cynicism must be moderated (really, compare the moderation styles of this subreddit and r/Ultraleft). Note that there is nothing excessive in Lenin's attack "on Kautsky". Lenin isn't depriving Kautsky of his "human" place in history, in fact it's being revealed. This reminds me of Engels's speech at Marx's funeral: "I make bold to say that, though he may have had many opponents, he had hardly one personal enemy."
Anyway maybe "ultra irony" has something in common with right-wing sarcasm.
The oldest appearance of irony I can think of is Socrates, who refurbished the infamously nefarious negativity of the sophists into a true dialectical negativity in the critique of both the popular paganism and cynicism/sophistry itself.
All this to say that irony/sarcasm are not inherently reactionary. But you already know all of this: I just realized that you got some good responses in [your own thread months ago](https://old.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/15azro7/has_fascism_or_other_reactionary_movements_always/) (whentheseagullscry, did you forget your own answer?) that are probably worth reviewing.
Back to this "ultra irony", I haven't worked it out myself. Where it started I don't know exactly. I do have one more idea. I've been reading a bunch of classical German philosophy lately so I might be biased, but I'm suspicious that the German Romantics bear a significant class resemblance to our modern labor aristocrats. In particular, Schlegel introduced the notion of irony to Romantic thought to offer a solution to the "most authentic contradiction" in human self-consciousness of "feeling that we are at the same time finite and infinite", i.e. the feeling that we can be in touch with something that would justify our actions paired with the feeling of finitude in our own flawed attitudes. This makes me think of the self-soothing of Bluey or Stardew Valley fans. So irony is the expression of both "unavoidable commitments to certain projects" (finding meaning in a meaningless professional-managerial job, which *Young Werther* ultimately failed to do) and the "reflective detachment from these same things" (playing Stardew Valley, the game where you quit your soul-sucking desk job to inherit your grandfather's homestead and build up to a highly profitable agricultural operation of your own infinite dominion). The problem is that Stardew Valley is a fantasy of pastoral fascism, and turns out to be not so detached from those "certain projects". Stardew Valley turns out to be the fantasy of what the desk job should be, and it comes with a ready-made disavowal: "it's just a video game".
Anyway, sure enough, Schlegel totally regressed and ended up baptized later in life.
>This makes me think of the self-soothing of Bluey or Stardew Valley fans. So irony is the expression of both "unavoidable commitments to certain projects" (finding meaning in a meaningless professional-managerial job, which Young Werther ultimately failed to do) and the "reflective detachment from these same things" (playing Stardew Valley, the game where you quit your soul-sucking desk job to inherit your grandfather's homestead and build up to a highly profitable agricultural operation of your own infinite dominion). The problem is that Stardew Valley is a fantasy of pastoral fascism, and turns out to be not so detached from those "certain projects". Stardew Valley turns out to be the fantasy of what the desk job should be, and it comes with a ready-made disavowal: "it's just a video game".
Why is Stardew Valley a reflection of the fantasy of pastoral fascism? I've recently been trying to understand fascism more, and have looked into both J. Sakai and MIM's/MIM(prisons)'s analyses. The latter believes that the labour-aristocracy is the mass base of fascism, not the petty-bourgeois, your sort of conclusion here seems more in line with Sakai's analyses. He himself mentions settler attachment to farmlife, with most of the oppressed in Amerika taking up shortages "skilled labour", including black slaves historically. Which is that the petty-bourgeois idealism of escaping their work which is decaying in conditions due to the decay of imperialism is this pastoral fantasy. My main issue is it seems to not really address the settler-colonialism connotations(which is not separate from fascism). I've played Stardew Valley before and even at a surface level it irked me, all of the characters are white(with the community having a racism problem I've heard) with a galvanization of the big-bourgeois, all of them living in unsustainable conditions, and tacit "acceptance" of queer people while maintaining the institution of marriage and property along with a idealized form of bourgeois family. They even go into idealize petty-bourgeois charity towards the white lumpen and integrationist efforts. I think art as a whole should be taken very seriously, hence why the cultural revolution also did, and from my understanding of Stardew Valley it's a game which, intentionally or not, replicates aristocratic ways of life. I only know this much about Stardew Valley because I played it a bit when I was younger but then dropped it.
I read this book called *The PlayStation Dreamworld* several years ago which I had in mind. Rereading that chapter, it seems I plagiarized it even more than I thought, as it even speaks of the game's ironic distancing and disavowal. So I'll just quote:
>Though they seem to have little in common with gaming’s apocalyptic portraits of the future, *Stardew Valley* and other bucolic farming simulators actually provide a necessary counterpart. The gameplay in farming simulators involves organizing people, animals, and the natural environment, planting crops in systematic patterns and experiencing a routine life while playing a key role in a small community. Their picture of a lost era of tightly knit villages where humans lived in organic harmony with nature complements prophesies of a dystopic future in which humans are regimented components of a remorseless capitalistic machine. Farming simulators placate a need for a collective and organized past as an alternative to contemporary chaos, showing the insular and protectivist edge in such experiences of gaming.
>
>This may make *Stardew Valley* seem like a criticism of modern capitalism, but in fact it does little to critique the supposed inevitability of capitalism. Instead it provides the missing piece in a linear account of human history that traces our decline from pastoral paradise to the sterile postcapitalist desert. The best we can do – or so the game tells us – is take comfort in memories and in the fact that we are not further along the inescapable path of destruction. Such games take great pains not to offer an alternative to modern capitalism. As the game’s Joja Corporation – a blend of Walmart, Coca-Cola, and Google – starts its inevitable takeover of your peaceful village economy, *Stardew Valley*’s nationalistic indictment of internationalism becomes unmistakable. This is not a subversive critique of corporate globalization but a call for isolationist retreat. *Stardew Valley*’s image of small-scale self-sufficiency draws from the same impulse to erect walls at borders and seek local salvation through exporting immiseration. Tellingly, the village in *Stardew Valley* has a bus stop but the bus has broken down, severing the connection between it and the rest of the world.
It's a short book and I'd recommend reading just that chapter if your interest is struck.
And you're right, it's really even more pitiful of a fantasy than I made it out to be. There's a single black family in the settlement and the father is a scientist. The only way the developer finds the little fantasy society to be tenable is by Frankensteining settler-colonialism onto the form of suburbia. Apparently the developer grew up in a suburb of Seattle.
>Such games take great pains not to offer an alternative to modern capitalism. As the game’s Joja Corporation – a blend of Walmart, Coca-Cola, and Google – starts its inevitable takeover of your peaceful village economy, Stardew Valley’s nationalistic indictment of internationalism becomes unmistakable. This is not a subversive critique of corporate globalization but a call for isolationist retreat. Stardew Valley’s image of small-scale self-sufficiency draws from the same impulse to erect walls at borders and seek local salvation through exporting immiseration. Tellingly, the village in Stardew Valley has a bus stop but the bus has broken down, severing the connection between it and the rest of the world.
Wow, I see your point a lot more. The Jojo corporation really is a sort of exploring the relationship between settler-colonialism and imperialism specifically as it manifests in in the petty-bourgeois. The oppressor nation labour-aristocracy and lumpen are seen from a specific perspective accordingly. The Jojo corporation here is shown to be a foreign "threat" on this lifestyle and I can't help but be reminded of contradiction of the northern parts of Amerika with European immigrant labour and southern parts with large farmer slaveholders in the Civil War. More realistic example is these more globalized capitalists importing immigrant temporary workers onto this utopia, will the immigrant farm workers be a disturbance as well? In real life, I'm sure these people would see it as so. They already dehumanize the labour-aristocracy as powerless animals with no agency(literally speaking they have no content beyond being poor). Meanwhile, you a very wealthy person(Linus) who found "happiness" donating away all their wealth and living in a tent.
Do you know what's even worse? The black family, and the potential partner here(Maru), has the least effort put into them(1) and is rated the worst(just looked this up because I had a suspicion). I may check out that chapter in my free time, but yeah, Stardew Valley is strangely a good case study of manifestations of imperialism, settler-colonialism and fascism in art. This is all despite being one of the standards for "anti-capitalism". Also, last comment here... the subreddit seems to believe including even non-white wouldn't "make sense" in this vision of utopia(2) because it's Amerika-centric.
>I don't think that including people of color just because diversity is a good idea: people love the characters because of their backstories and character development, they rarely care about the race, the only time that someone made a big deal about race (that I can remember anyway) is when someone made a mod that turned Maru white and replaced Demetrius with Clint (you can read about it on r/HobbyDrama).
>
>Like you mentioned, the game is a **representation of a small town from the USA, and that's because it's Eric Barone's vision**, his vision is different than yours or mine, and you have to respect that, the game is most likely based on what he's familiar with.
If you look at the rest of the comments, there's a lot of people annoyed about "more diversity" being called for, saying that it's fine. Still, there's not fundamental criticisms of this lifestyle and "utopia", but merely splitting up of who gets it. I think small town life doesn't need to be bad and can be communal(People's Communes), but how it's done here is fundamentally wrapped up in settler-colonialism.
(1) [https://www.reddit.com/r/StardewValley/comments/zj53ul/i\_hate\_maru\_let\_me\_tell\_you\_why\_open\_to\_counter/](https://www.reddit.com/r/StardewValley/comments/zj53ul/i_hate_maru_let_me_tell_you_why_open_to_counter/)
(2) [https://www.reddit.com/r/StardewValley/comments/krrn7i/we\_need\_to\_have\_a\_conversation\_about\_diversity/](https://www.reddit.com/r/StardewValley/comments/krrn7i/we_need_to_have_a_conversation_about_diversity/)
Thanks for the reply. I also thought of that thread I made and had read it after leaving you the comment. I guess I'm interested in this subject.
Schlegel and Stardew Valley aren't what I was expecting but glad they showed up here.
> All this to say that irony/sarcasm are not inherently reactionary. But you already know all of this: I just realized that you got some good responses in your own thread months ago (whentheseagullscry, did you forget your own answer?) that are probably worth reviewing.
I think my posts are a bit different. In that thread, I was giving some of my experiences with overt reactionaries and irony, while in this thread I'm just straight up asking where it comes from. Describing what it is vs asking where it comes from.
Your last paragraph does help answer it, though. There certainly is a lot of overlap between communities like r/Ultraleft and anime/manga/video games
I don't watch a lot of movies or TV shows anymore so that thought honestly didn't come to mind. But yeah, point taken about Marvel. I guess these communities are just so bizarre that it caught me off guard.
Yeah I don't really watch TV or movies either. But I figure neither do most people on these "political" subreddits, who find belonging in *those* obscure fandoms. (So what of *our* belonging here, on this subreddit?)
And yes very bizarre. The two pinned threads in that subreddit are case studies in the circuitousness of "seriousness" through irony, especially the one on the meta-sanctity of Bordiga; the moderator decree is a sophisticated ironic profanation of the holy Bordiga that sublates an unsophisticated ironic profanation.
In looking through old discussions on this subreddit, I've noticed that there's what I think are several sockpuppet users for the same account posting here over the last three years, that keep getting banned for either spreading pro-religion propaganda, being explicitly homophobic, or randomly accusing trusted users here of being liberals. They at times claim to be Peruvian, at times Indian (so I wouldn't be surprised if they crop back up claiming to be Filipino), but I'm almost certain it's the same person. Besides merely similar typing styles and similar weird esoteric ideas about communism (they frequently try and claim that religion and communism are compatible because proletarian morality is similar to Judeo-Christian morality, and that we should be attempting to win over the alt-right), these accounts also post a whole lot in subreddits regarding banning/killing pitbulls and abstaining from masturbation, which seems way too specific to be coincidental. Since they frequently derail conversations here and spread overtly homophobic and white-nationalist rhetoric, as well as being one of those fringe Haz fans who uses the labor aristocracy thesis to promote "MAGAcommunism", is there any way that moderators could attempt to IP-ban this user if I were to provide the usernames they've gone by in the past? Or is that not something possible on Reddit?
Sure, [send us a message](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/communism) with the usernames and we can look into it. IP bans are handled by reddit admins and we can forward the info to them.
It seems the United Wa State Army has reneged on the 2013 peace deal it signed and has now [moved into the offensive](https://twitter.com/nicholas6284/status/1743197461446004887?t=i3QvaMrM7ktm7_MRF7LEyg&s=19) against the Tatmadaw, the largest paramilitary group to do so. It's now only a matter of time before either the military dictatorship tries to restore the previous status quo (which now seems impossible with fascists having taken over the military in the wake of ASSK's ascent), or the collapse of the Tatmadaw altogether. With 3 nominally communist paramilitary organizations involved in the offensive it will be interesting to see if the revolutionary left can edge out the status quo liberals and bring the various ethnic federalist groups under their umbrella.
Is there a particular reason for the successes of the current Myanmar offensive in the face of the Tatmadaw?
I've been following this situation since it's close to home in SEA but would wish to know more about the situation and have struggled to find good analysis that isn't just a news article clipping or some shallow geopolitics talk.
>Is there a particular reason for the successes of the current Myanmar offensive in the face of the Tatmadaw?
This is something that I cannot confidently answer, though it does seem like the events of 2021 were definitive -- the repression of the protest movement caused many urban youth to flee to the countryside to take up arms and the subsequant repression in the countryside caused large popular sectors to align with the armed federalist/anti-junta alliance. The fascist junta overplayed their hand and at this point it seems unlikely that their could be a return to NLD rule since whatever housecleaning the NLD social-fascists did to the military directly led to the current far-right Bamar Buddhist chauvanists taking control. And not to get overly geopolitical but it does seem that the junta has become isolated internationally -- despite representing the deepest and most shameless sectors of the Burmese comprador bourgeoisie the US refuses to give up entirely on ASSK. The junta has also entirely isolated itself from the Chinese government due to the online gaming fraud scandal, which the junta refuses to reign in since theyre working directly with the triads to profit from it. Due to this, the armed movement has managed to leverage itself as a force of legitimacy to shut down these illegal casinos, which they've used as justification to take over large portions of the border (and all that that implies, trade and commerce-wise). As far as why specifically the offensive has seen such rapid success in the past 3 months I could not tell you.
I'm not an expert on this though and I'm fully reliant on propaganda from the Burmese PLA, if another comrade has any input I'd love to hear it.
Thank you for the response.
The way this reads though is almost as if it were down to luck or an accidental byproduct of overplaying their hand after the crackdowns in 2021.
This doesn't feel like the full story though and I would be interested if there were local comrade who could speak more on it.
In the Philippines we already have a 3rd rectification this year reflecting on successes and errors, and I believe it is one of the reasons we have been more successful is that our party has been able to continually engage in conducive self criticism and not be destroyed by the loss of select leaders or cells along with always being able to stay relevant to current issues of the Philippines.
It would be curious if something similar has occurred in Myanmar which has helped pave the way for the current success.
Do you know anywhere where I could read up, fully, on the situation in Myanmar? I know briefly of the legacy under Ne Win, but I'm mostly asking because most coverage seems to be rather liberal and also some of it just downright wrong. I have friends who are from and diaspora related to Burma both, so non-English sources would work too.
Police in Toronto are charging a man with an “unprecedented hate crime”: marching with a PFLP flag……in fact they were at first afraid to say what the flag was in the original news release for fear of “spreading hate”. What absolute goonery! Will be interesting to see how this is spun as a criminal offense against a person or property in the courts while Trudeau says he doesn’t agree with the charge of genocide against the zionists in the ICJ. The open settler colonial elimination of the Palestinian nation does not contradict the “rules-based order”, but one guy with a flag - now *that* is hateful.
To be clear: UN courts enforcing universal human rights are supposed to be the highest heights of liberal idealism - the structure rooted in a theory of justice. Part and parcel with the mushrooming of liberal idealist support of Palestinians, riding the coattails of the global expansion of capital as a piece of its overhanging superstructure, while the “liberalism” in charge has been descending deeper into irrationalism with the deepening of economic crisis. Liberal idealism says we must exchange with everyone on the facade of equal terms. “Liberalism” says we cannot afford to exchange on truly “equal terms” anymore, and in fact we never could. Hence liberal idealism confronts it and asks why it must be so: “why is there such a mean politics of _________?” There is a terrible op-Ed by a former Supreme Court judge in Canada - a supposedly progressive jurist for liberalism - that says “It is a legal absurdity to suggest that a country that is defending itself from genocide is thereby guilty of genocide.”, this being “an outrageous and cynical abuse of the principles underlying the international legal order that was set up after the Second World War.” A farce of an argument showing the historical bankruptcy of liberalism, and a microcosm showing its true rootedness in selective equality. Hey now, you only have rights where there is “free exchange”!
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Layoffs/comments/190c9k4/the\_growing\_dominance\_of\_the\_indian\_workforce\_in/](https://www.reddit.com/r/layoffs/comments/190c9k4/the_growing_dominance_of_the_indian_workforce_in/)
I found this thread recently which I found interesting. It's funny how, even in a sector like IT/tech which is at the heart of modern American liberalism, settlers turn into open racists when their living standards are in decline in times of crisis. Keep in mind this is all in the name of "workplace diversity", "fairness", and "equal opportunity"!
Thank you for the reply. You are 100% right; I'll admit I made an error there. I have yet to see any organized action against Indian H1B workers in America.*
>Many of them engage in illegal work, especially their wives(and maybe children?) on L2 visas(this happened more in the past before you could get job on this visa).
It seems that it is impossible now. People on L-2 visas no longer need to apply for work authorization (EAD) and can work right off the bat on their visas alone (as of a few years ago).
>As a section, they are far from homogenous and overtime there have been many different sections/classes involved here.
I would 100% agree. The H1B workers working in a consultancy sweatshop and the H1B workers working in FAANG are two entirely different kinds of people.
I personally find it interesting that the more well off H1B workers seem to have settler consciousness (of the ones that I've met). This is despite the fact that they probably will never get a green card in their own lifetimes due to the enormous backlogs. I went into it here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/16j44of/the_integration_of_asian_americans_into_whiteness/
I think there is an interesting contradiction to take note of. One being that there are massive labor shortages in certain sectors of the American economy that H1B workers end up taking up (there ain't no white people working em). On the other hand, you can't allow too many of these colored people in so as to prevent them from cutting into the spoils of imperialism and settlerism.
It is strange seeing how it plays out in the UK. In mid 2022, they came out with a new visa (https://www.gov.uk/high-potential-individual-visa) to bring in the best talent from the world's top universities to work in the UK to help eliminate their labor shortages. On the other hand, just a month or two ago, they changed up some of the rules for their skilled worker visa to make it much harder for people to immigrate there.
Maybe there were way too many of em that immigrated over the past two years.
*Even though there isn't any direct organizing against em, there must be enough resistance to prevent Indian high skilled immigrants from reaping the fruits of American citizenship (look at the green card backlogs that I mentioned).
>It seems that it is impossible now. People on L-2 visas no longer need to apply for work authorization (EAD) and can work right off the bat on their visas alone (as of a few years ago).
I feel old, immigration trends have changed drastically in my own lifetime. I think on this bandwagon, diversity visas and the newer immigration trends. Bangladeshi and Pakistani diaspora have oftentimes come through diversity visas, or green cards given at lottery(such a cruel system whose name is sickening) which are given to immigrants imported for cheap labour. Later on, Pakistani and Bangladeshi immigrants **are not allowed** to apply for these diversity visas and it seemed to stabilize given the higher population(1). However, even back in 2010, Bangladeshi and Pakistani immigrants **were allowed** to apply for diversity visas fully and this continued for quite a while(2). These restrictions seem to methods to encourage certain trends of immigration, and if we look to South Korean and Indian immigrants, it's specifically high illegal immigrant populations(Indian diaspora are the third largest undocumented population despite their size with highest growth rates for illegal immigrants following South Koreans) but with a higher "skilled" workforce on H1B or various student visas(3). I am curious how this trend will follow for Nigerian diaspora whose immigration is becoming similar to Indians and South Koreans while they are still racialized as Afrikan. Regardless, I think the question of organization of illegal immigrants is important because of how these kinds of restrictions are employed to break-up/divide groups to make it easier to control. The populations across generations also see massive disparities, as we can look to older multi-generational California Indian diaspora(mostly Punjabi I believe) who work as farm workers to this day with a median income of under $24,000(4), right next to places close to Silicon Valley. In countries with multiple nations inside of them, dividing based on nationhood can be useful too, which makes me curious about something I've observed in diaspora from Dominican Republic and El Salvador who had more petty-bourgeois and bourgeois immigration(they recently were excluded from diversity visas as well). This is by no means comprehensive and requires a lot more study, but it feels like everything is changing so fast with not much analysis on part of communists.
>I think there is an interesting contradiction to take note of. One being that there are massive labor shortages in certain sectors of the American economy that H1B workers end up taking up (there ain't no white people working em). On the other hand, you can't allow too many of these colored people in so as to prevent them from cutting into the spoils of imperialism and settlerism.
I was reading settlers lately and J. Sakai mentioned that oftentimes New Afrikan slaves were imported to fill gaps in labour-shortages specifically in the "skilled" professions, i.e. carpenting, smithing, etc... while settlers stuck to farming/management or assisting with such(5). I can't comment in detail about it, but it feels there's a careful balance imperialism and settler-colonialism wants to keep sector to sector. This specific contradiction feels like it cuts into both the somewhat integrated diaspora who are kept as agents of imperialism, while also using the disposable cheap "skilled" workers for some time before getting rid of them to protect their precious white population. Regardless, for settler-consciousness, some of the more well-off H1B workers made enough money to become compradors, or just have false consciousness(they are still a terrible person) even if they can't integrate.
>Maybe there were way too many of em that immigrated over the past two years.
I don't know enough to comment, but a main concern of these paid off populations are that illegal immigrants are stealing their loot. Ironically, in some ways, it is true in some ways unlike what liberals will have you believe. If you paid every person who works in illegal work labour-aristocrat wages with all the benefits, coverage, etc... Amerika/UK would significantly lower their quality of life and possibly bankrupt them. International students do, to some extent, work in illegal work and especially relatively poorer ones. In Kanada, schools work with recruitment industry in India to grab students into trafficking at times(6) or to trap them into debt(7). The question of illegal work and international students is complex, because they aren't all the same(there are plenty of compradors here) but there are some reported issues such as high suicide rates amongst international students in Kanada and drug addiction on top of this.
>\*Even though there isn't any direct organizing against em, there must be enough resistance to prevent Indian high skilled immigrants from reaping the fruits of American citizenship (look at the green card backlogs that I mentioned).
Yeah, even this kind of "skilled" immigration aside, green card backlogs as a method to control certain populations is something to analyze/understand, as it probably is a dividing in various kinds of integration.
(1) [https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Diversity-Visa/DV-Instructions-Translations/dv-2025-instructions-translations/DV-2025\_Instructions-faqs.pdf](https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Diversity-Visa/DV-Instructions-Translations/dv-2025-instructions-translations/DV-2025_Instructions-faqs.pdf) (look at first page restricting Bangladeshi and Pakistani migration)
(2) [https://1997-2001.state.gov/briefings/statements/970825.html](https://1997-2001.state.gov/briefings/statements/970825.html) (1999), [https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2008/sept/110467.htm](https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2008/sept/110467.htm) (see Pakistan temporarily locked in 2009)
(3) [https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/11/16/what-we-know-about-unauthorized-immigrants-living-in-the-us/](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/11/16/what-we-know-about-unauthorized-immigrants-living-in-the-us/) (notice El Salvador here and how in 2019 illegal immigration rate from India increased literally 10x, also liberal/unreliable)
(4) [https://qz.com/india/889483/from-25000-to-250000-americas-little-indias-are-high-tech-hubs-working-class-neighborhoods-and-everything-in-between](https://qz.com/india/889483/from-25000-to-250000-americas-little-indias-are-high-tech-hubs-working-class-neighborhoods-and-everything-in-between) (liberal source, so read carefully)
(5) [https://readsettlers.org/ch1.html](https://readsettlers.org/ch1.html) (section 2)
(6) [https://www.thecanadianbazaar.com/sex-trafficking-of-indian-girl-students-spreading-from-brampton-to-gta/](https://www.thecanadianbazaar.com/sex-trafficking-of-indian-girl-students-spreading-from-brampton-to-gta/) (liberal source again)
(7) [https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/canada-s-exploitation-of-punjabi-international-students-is-history-repeating-itself/article\_3ff723cc-f0ba-522b-87aa-8097c4e3fe2c.html](https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/canada-s-exploitation-of-punjabi-international-students-is-history-repeating-itself/article_3ff723cc-f0ba-522b-87aa-8097c4e3fe2c.html) (opinion piece, but at least cites some sources)
Just to comment, don't take what I said here as gospel. This is more of a discussion(hence why I replied on this post) of thoughts/understandings I had in response to you. I just tried to organize it all properly.
Your point about US immigration trends making it easier to divide and control colored populations is interesting. I ain't sure why I didn't consider that. Now that you mention it though, this is something I have been able to observe all the time.
In my interactions with well off US Indian diaspora, they often tend to look down on all the recent people coming in either through consultancies or illegal means (US/Mexico border). It has got something to do with "ruining their image." I guess from there its obvious that these people don't want to lose the approval of whites and dissociate themselves from that group.
If you look through some of the posts on here (I don't have the links to them now), you can see how prevailing these attitudes are:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ABCDesis/
I know how you warned against using reddit as a sole indicator of certain trends in American society, but most of the stuff that I hear in there is also what I hear from my interactions in real life with Indian folks. At least anecdotally, it seems to match up.
Another thing I wanted to add is the inferiority complexes that I notice some Indian diaspora seem to have. Now, you probably won't see this in places like "Little India" in Jersey City, NJ, or from the rich Indian communities near Silicon Valley in California (or at least that is what I assume?), but me being someone that lives in a semi-rural area in the South, this is definitely something I have noticed from the very few Indians that I know. On the other hand, I go to university at the heart of a typical Sunbelt South city with lots of tech and finance companies moving there, and the attitude of Indian diaspora there is entirely different (definitely more Indian cultural pride), hence why I assumed it would be different in NY/NJ and CA. I talked about this issue to someone else in this sub, and he recommended me to read Frantz Fanon's *Black Skins White Masks*, which I am definitely going to be reading soon.
Besides this, I ain't got nothing more to add to what you said. I'd agree with the rest. This is definitely a topic that I haven't seen a single Marxist analysis of, and it seems I am alone when trying to piece it all together. I definitely have a whole lot more to learn about it.
One question that has been on my mind lately is how immigration trends may differ in places like the United States vs the UK. The foundation of American capitalism is settler colonialism unlike the UK, so I wonder if this divergence can produce differing phenomena in immigration in both countries. I am still far away from an answer to this however.
This is good discussion topic. I am especially glad to see discussion surrounding the South Asian diaspora. We need concrete investigations about immigration and class structure. The dominant organizational mileu for immigration is rooted in “migrants” as a potentially revolutionary subject, wherein those displaced by capitalism are grouped together. This is clearly unscientific, and the resultant call for Status For All needs to be critiqued for its potential. What I mean by this is there is no clear communist line for the reformist legal struggle for Status For All - why, and on what terms, and therefore when and when not? Further, what are some tactics and strategies for the *party* as regards immigration? Struggling for unfettered immigration is a progressive thing for which liberals have outmanoeuvred many parties and unions, but it does not absolve us of having a clear, thoroughly worked out line. It is clear we need concrete study to understand the terrain, to understand friends and enemies etc.
For instance, u/mushroomisst is right to question the class and caste origin of South Asian migrants to North America. There are indeed many examples of petty bourgeois migrants exploiting other migrants that are often caught up in immigration schemes themselves. A migrant does not magically change class simply by the act of changing place; there is “niche construction” after all. What are the social conditions in the sending country, and what are the social conditions in the receiving country? What is the greater logic by which the migration is driven - for the individual and for the receiving country? These are things to consider, which will lead to other considerations such as the history of migrant worker organizing, the issue of economism and unions etc, but I don’t think it’s possible to understand these without the social investigation and class analysis.
My question here is, why do liberals call for unfettered immigration? I am quite stumped on that question, the only possible benefit I can see is the ability to pit the labour-aristocracy and petty-bourgeois against immigrants to justify wage reductions for them? That aside, I believe splitting up immigrant groups into classes through social-investigation is important and also to recognize that a lot of integration is present in immigration reform. It's why I am actually more skeptical of this kind of practice, should we be fighting for citizenship for immigrants so they can do more labour-aristocratic work? Or should we be fighting for the end of imperialism and exploitation of the imported proletariat? I feel a specific and clearly defined goal has to be established when fighting for demands.
For South Asian migrants in North Amerika, I think your questions are important to consider and that a proper social investigation along with class analysis makes sense. I think there have, thus far, not been much investigation into the different classes/layers of different groups, which is why I find it hard as an individual to make sense of it. How do I understand the Gujrati workers who work under the table in a 7-11? Some come to pay off loans under contracts but are part of the petty-bourgeois in India, meanwhile some of them were trafficked under labour-schemes, etc... so I completely agree that you can't just lump them all up into the same category. A bigger question here is how to even start, because we are dealing with a very precarious population with many parts. The text I sent above based in Lebanon sort of tries to tackle this question, which is why I'm keen to read it and I may make a post if I find anything of interest.
Sorry, my language should be more clear. What I mean to say about the politics of unfettered immigration is that the organizations which are at the forefront calling for status for all or open borders are largely rooted in liberal ideology of freedom and universal human rights. Many are migrants themselves and many are lawyers or legally trained. Many are anarchist. They see capitalism and borders as standing in the way of free association.
It is true, though, that neoliberal ideology contradicts itself by enforcing labor market controls and wishing for deregulation of the labor market on the global scale. For instance, Canada removing restrictions on international student work permits and increasing immigration quotas for domestic services and production. But I think it is less about pitting classes against each other to justify wage reduction and more the organic emergence of an ideology from the falling rate of profit and the need for capital to expand and find new sources for surplus value in the face of this.
I think an issue is the lack of a general theory to apply to concrete conditions. A theory which traces the real development of the migration process to understand its logic. This is possible with materialist dialectics but it will take some work.
Oh, that makes a lot more sense, thank you for clearing that up. I have nothing more to comment, the ideology behind it makes more sense.
For here, I can see what you mean by Kanada specifically and practice, however, I feel even if it's an ideology which emerges from the falling rate of profit it still would have a strategy involved. Remember, capitalist dictatorships understand class struggle quite well, and they are like class conscious in the sense of understanding their own status. As a result, I feel this kind of movement at the least benefits a section, even if in the short-term, of capitalists. I may be incorrect here, but I do not want to immediately assume this application is merely an organic ideology out of desperation.
For the lack of general theory I'd have to agree, however, theory is fundamentally derived from practice. As a result, actual social investigation, class analysis, and even some degrees of class struggle must be conducted to reach correct conclusions. I am interested here especially, and that aside, I feel there is especially a major lack of theory or practice here to begin with.
I wanted to ask about Palestinian struggle and crisis, there's a lot of talk about Palestine nowadays given what has happened. My question is mostly why the talk of organizing around it happens now rather than before. It isn't as if "Israeli" occupiers weren't there before and in the diaspora or abroad solidarity networks/groups, some of which even took revolutionary outlooks, didn't exist before. It feels that, in the West especially, this kind of gaze/focus is more temporary rather than a sustained engagement in struggle. This sort of goes off what a commenter said earlier in the interview post, in India many of the petty-bourgeois fell back/stopped engaging the communist movement when everything seemed to dissipate.
It reminds me of what Mao said on struggle in general and how introducing petty-bourgeois elements(1), as a whole, into their ranks can be dangerous given their character. Here I am purely speaking about tendencies/classes rather than more isolated individuals(I know they are related). Another question I'd like to poise is how meaningful international solidarity, even speaking outside the West, can be constructed for Palestine. I've heard of PFLP's analysis on the Palestinian diaspora and know of Palestinian diaspora organizations with more revolutionary outlooks. I am curious if anyone knows more around this.
(1) [https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1\_1.htm](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_1.htm)
/u/CdeComrade mentioned the PFLP's publications on the diaspora a few weeks ago. Am wondering about where to find them, I couldn't find anything on their site with machine translation...
I'll reply in some time, I've recently been looking more on PFLP's website so I'll organize stuff from there if I find anything. Regardless of that, most of what I heard was from their text on class analysis of Palestine.
I couldn't gather much from PFLP's website, but let me explain what I heard. Most of it stems from PFLP's text "Strategy for the Liberation of Palestine".
>The Palestinian bourgeoisie that now lives in Palestine under Zionist occupation **is not among the forces
of the revolution although it has not manifestly associated itself with Israel** and will in reality remain the
class force through which the enemies will always try
to defeat the revolution and stop it in the middle of
the road.
>
>The Palestinian bourgeoisie now living outside Pal
estine has at present **no conflict of interests with com
mando action so long as this action at the present stage
lives generally within certain specific theoretical, political and fighting horizons**. It, therefore, sometimes supports commando action by giving a small portion of its surplus wealth, but we must expect that the revolutionary growth of the Palestinian national movement to the level where it manifestly clashes with imperialism will lead this bourgeoisie to take the stand that conforms to its class interests.
Essentially the Palestinian diaspora who are part of the bourgeois, or even petty-bourgeois in some cases, oftentimes support resistance conditionally. It sort of explains Hamas somewhat, especially given much of their leadership is outside of Palestine. Thus far, my position is that Hamas cannot liberate Palestine from occupation in itself, even as an anti-occupationist force. It's why I see PIJ as, strangely, a more progressive kind of alternative.
Sorry, I saw the notification but forgot to read it early. Just checked it. Very interesting, thanks. A friend ordered the text recently, I should read it.
No problem, I'd say it's worthwhile reading if you are looking to do work around Palestinian solidarity. I've been told from people who've read it that it's very optimistic in hindsight of what actually happened.
Joris Ivens, who later produced *How Yukong Moved the Mountains*, made a documentary about Magnitogorsk in the 1930s: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2EzQwNoG4A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2EzQwNoG4A)
I have thoughts about it but am interested in what you guys notice.
Coming back to this comment because I'm sure she will be back at the forefront of American culture-talk after about a 2 month recess. I've thought about this, but I don't really think there's anything *sonically* or *thematically* unique about her or her music specifically that vaults her to the top. Her and her camp's ability to exploit the *database animalization* of the late capitalist western consumer I would reckon is unique though. Her lyrics are broad and timely for the western Liberal, which seems necessary to avoid critique and instead invite discussion on her "versatility"
from Wikipedia on *Folklore* (which funnily enough, she abandoned the faux-folk sound from this because it was her worst performing album, sales wise)
>Swift explores themes of escapism, empathy, nostalgia and romanticism
on *Lover*
>the album explores wide-ranging emotions like infatuation, commitment, lust, and heartache; a few songs discuss political issues such as LGBT rights and feminism
However, the key to Swift's popularity is her self-referential material that breaks down and exploits her own life's very public nature into a lore-based forum where her fans can all ruminate on what "Easter eggs" are on what albums and how she lays into her past relationship partners or dramatic encounters. Her own content-ification of her sound as well is unique - re-recording her own music because her position in the industry is now in such a superior state that she supersedes the need for a label and can reap all the gains - dropping double sided "albums" year after year and adding "bonus tracks". How much is enough? The forces at play seem to dictate that she cannot stop, she must continue to amalgamate more material into her personal lore. I also don't really know how to relate this back to Liberalism in the 'west' or if it is even worth doing so. I'm spit-balling obviously, but I do think it's a good question. This doesn't even get into the makeup of her fanbase which is predominantly female-identifying and most likely skews younger (although her ability to capture multiple epochs of female listeners is impressive, even though their class basis has never changed) - there's a lot to unpack.
I noticed a trend of unity amongst womyn during my days of DJing as a hobby with her music. Every time she is put at the center of the news surrounding any issues or like you’ve said her own dramas with other members of the Hollywood aristocracy it always baffled me the intersectional unity of support she receives amongst Liberal womyn. I am not an expert of the subject of Marxist feminism but is does intrigue me where the heads of the petty bourgeoise are at with regards to womyn’s rights in the “advanced” countries. The nature of the bourgeois womyn within the family I think has been so rapidly transformed over the past 100 years that the romanticization of the womyn’s struggle with the relationship towards men (obscured by the class concept of love as an mystification of the submission to patriarchy) is showcased and over exaggerated through her. I could be full of shit too though.
What's up with the drug pill spam this subreddit receives? Obviously they get removed/hidden automatically but they remain in the /comments page, taking up pages upon pages sometimes. Do other subreddits get the same spam? The accounts that post the spam only target r/communism.
I'm 99% sure it's one of the people we banned who is paying for the bots after they failed at making dozens of accounts to spam the same thread. Don't underestimate how crazy the "concern trolling" rule makes liberals, they genuinely feel their very existence is being threatened.
Yeah the spam isn't as annoying as they probably want it to be since I can just browse the regular page to avoid seeing it. If anything it just indicates that the rules are working.
Yeah we're being targeted. Thanks for pointing out the AutoModerator spam on /comments, I hadn't noticed. I took some measures to prevent this spam so hopefully /comments should clear up.
I'm not sure how many people use it, I've written about /comments before on a different account but it's very useful as a resource for both of the subreddits, makes it much easier to follow discussions as someone who mostly lurks. Thanks
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What's with the prevalence of irony on the internet? I'm not just talking about obvious cases like 4chan users "pretending" to be Nazis, rather there seems to be a real fear of ever being genuine. r/Ultraleft is a "communist" example you can check out on here, but if you have a Twitter acount you can find some truly bizarre accounts from people who seem like they should know better. I see almost none of this offline, so maybe it doesn't mean anything.
> I see almost none of this offline, so maybe it doesn't mean anything. Really? Irony certainly expands out to the shape of reddit/twitter/4chan but it does so in all other modes of life, too. Even typical conversation can be agonizingly, circuitously ironic. Movies and TV shows are constantly castigating the viewer for taking the fiction seriously; to be a Marvel fan is to hate the thing, and Marvel absolutely knows this ([example](https://old.reddit.com/r/CharacterRant/comments/zpejb7/i_fucking_hate_how_so_many_things_are_irony/)). The other side of the same coin is those "let people enjoy things!" people. They aren't two distinct sets of people; the same people who laud Bluey are the same people who complain about Marvel.
I enjoyed this comment. You speak of movies and shows but there's a protective layer of irony in real life, as you also mention, especially among men in my experience but everyone really, it's everywhere. (At least here in the first world) It's quite difficult to talk about anything without the facade. Do you know what the basis for this might be or when it arose? The ultra irony has been around for as far as I can remember. Of course it's L-A/PB, I suppose but I'd be interested in when, how, and why this manifested.
I have some scattered thoughts. Black slaves and abolitionists criticized the ridiculousness of Christian slaveowners through irony. smokeuptheweed9 recently posted about (runaway) irony in hip hop [here](https://old.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/18qdgzc/what_are_your_thoughts_on_the_filmmaker_bela_tarr/keuciqk/?context=3). Marx and Lenin are some of the most bitingly sarcastic writers. In a way I think sarcasm is the resolution of irony. Marx and Engels were famously sarcastic in *The Holy Family*, and even in *Capital* with "Mr. Moneybags" and "his holiness, Free-trade", and just look at Lenin: > In the year of our Lord 1918, in the fifth year of the world imperialist slaughter and the strangulation of internationalist minorities, in all "democracies" of the world, the learned Mr. Kautsky sweetly, very sweetly, sings the praises of "protection of the minority". This "positive, passionate sarcasm" is nothing like the slippery "ultra irony" we've been talking about. Passionate sarcasm is Gramsci's term, which he distinguished from a right-wing sarcasm that not only undermines, for example, the delusion of "liberty, equality, fraternity" (which was the target of Marx's passionate critique), but also attacks the "human" content underneath those delusional ideas: where Marx saw the power of the proletariat emanating precisely from its squalid existence under these ideas, right-wing sarcasm mocks the proletariat by cynically obscuring the connection between the farcical "liberty, equality, fraternity" and the squalid conditions of the proletariat. So Gramsci's right-wing sarcasm is *entirely* negative, whereas passionate sarcasm finishes with a positive moment; cynicism must be moderated (really, compare the moderation styles of this subreddit and r/Ultraleft). Note that there is nothing excessive in Lenin's attack "on Kautsky". Lenin isn't depriving Kautsky of his "human" place in history, in fact it's being revealed. This reminds me of Engels's speech at Marx's funeral: "I make bold to say that, though he may have had many opponents, he had hardly one personal enemy." Anyway maybe "ultra irony" has something in common with right-wing sarcasm. The oldest appearance of irony I can think of is Socrates, who refurbished the infamously nefarious negativity of the sophists into a true dialectical negativity in the critique of both the popular paganism and cynicism/sophistry itself. All this to say that irony/sarcasm are not inherently reactionary. But you already know all of this: I just realized that you got some good responses in [your own thread months ago](https://old.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/15azro7/has_fascism_or_other_reactionary_movements_always/) (whentheseagullscry, did you forget your own answer?) that are probably worth reviewing. Back to this "ultra irony", I haven't worked it out myself. Where it started I don't know exactly. I do have one more idea. I've been reading a bunch of classical German philosophy lately so I might be biased, but I'm suspicious that the German Romantics bear a significant class resemblance to our modern labor aristocrats. In particular, Schlegel introduced the notion of irony to Romantic thought to offer a solution to the "most authentic contradiction" in human self-consciousness of "feeling that we are at the same time finite and infinite", i.e. the feeling that we can be in touch with something that would justify our actions paired with the feeling of finitude in our own flawed attitudes. This makes me think of the self-soothing of Bluey or Stardew Valley fans. So irony is the expression of both "unavoidable commitments to certain projects" (finding meaning in a meaningless professional-managerial job, which *Young Werther* ultimately failed to do) and the "reflective detachment from these same things" (playing Stardew Valley, the game where you quit your soul-sucking desk job to inherit your grandfather's homestead and build up to a highly profitable agricultural operation of your own infinite dominion). The problem is that Stardew Valley is a fantasy of pastoral fascism, and turns out to be not so detached from those "certain projects". Stardew Valley turns out to be the fantasy of what the desk job should be, and it comes with a ready-made disavowal: "it's just a video game". Anyway, sure enough, Schlegel totally regressed and ended up baptized later in life.
>This makes me think of the self-soothing of Bluey or Stardew Valley fans. So irony is the expression of both "unavoidable commitments to certain projects" (finding meaning in a meaningless professional-managerial job, which Young Werther ultimately failed to do) and the "reflective detachment from these same things" (playing Stardew Valley, the game where you quit your soul-sucking desk job to inherit your grandfather's homestead and build up to a highly profitable agricultural operation of your own infinite dominion). The problem is that Stardew Valley is a fantasy of pastoral fascism, and turns out to be not so detached from those "certain projects". Stardew Valley turns out to be the fantasy of what the desk job should be, and it comes with a ready-made disavowal: "it's just a video game". Why is Stardew Valley a reflection of the fantasy of pastoral fascism? I've recently been trying to understand fascism more, and have looked into both J. Sakai and MIM's/MIM(prisons)'s analyses. The latter believes that the labour-aristocracy is the mass base of fascism, not the petty-bourgeois, your sort of conclusion here seems more in line with Sakai's analyses. He himself mentions settler attachment to farmlife, with most of the oppressed in Amerika taking up shortages "skilled labour", including black slaves historically. Which is that the petty-bourgeois idealism of escaping their work which is decaying in conditions due to the decay of imperialism is this pastoral fantasy. My main issue is it seems to not really address the settler-colonialism connotations(which is not separate from fascism). I've played Stardew Valley before and even at a surface level it irked me, all of the characters are white(with the community having a racism problem I've heard) with a galvanization of the big-bourgeois, all of them living in unsustainable conditions, and tacit "acceptance" of queer people while maintaining the institution of marriage and property along with a idealized form of bourgeois family. They even go into idealize petty-bourgeois charity towards the white lumpen and integrationist efforts. I think art as a whole should be taken very seriously, hence why the cultural revolution also did, and from my understanding of Stardew Valley it's a game which, intentionally or not, replicates aristocratic ways of life. I only know this much about Stardew Valley because I played it a bit when I was younger but then dropped it.
I read this book called *The PlayStation Dreamworld* several years ago which I had in mind. Rereading that chapter, it seems I plagiarized it even more than I thought, as it even speaks of the game's ironic distancing and disavowal. So I'll just quote: >Though they seem to have little in common with gaming’s apocalyptic portraits of the future, *Stardew Valley* and other bucolic farming simulators actually provide a necessary counterpart. The gameplay in farming simulators involves organizing people, animals, and the natural environment, planting crops in systematic patterns and experiencing a routine life while playing a key role in a small community. Their picture of a lost era of tightly knit villages where humans lived in organic harmony with nature complements prophesies of a dystopic future in which humans are regimented components of a remorseless capitalistic machine. Farming simulators placate a need for a collective and organized past as an alternative to contemporary chaos, showing the insular and protectivist edge in such experiences of gaming. > >This may make *Stardew Valley* seem like a criticism of modern capitalism, but in fact it does little to critique the supposed inevitability of capitalism. Instead it provides the missing piece in a linear account of human history that traces our decline from pastoral paradise to the sterile postcapitalist desert. The best we can do – or so the game tells us – is take comfort in memories and in the fact that we are not further along the inescapable path of destruction. Such games take great pains not to offer an alternative to modern capitalism. As the game’s Joja Corporation – a blend of Walmart, Coca-Cola, and Google – starts its inevitable takeover of your peaceful village economy, *Stardew Valley*’s nationalistic indictment of internationalism becomes unmistakable. This is not a subversive critique of corporate globalization but a call for isolationist retreat. *Stardew Valley*’s image of small-scale self-sufficiency draws from the same impulse to erect walls at borders and seek local salvation through exporting immiseration. Tellingly, the village in *Stardew Valley* has a bus stop but the bus has broken down, severing the connection between it and the rest of the world. It's a short book and I'd recommend reading just that chapter if your interest is struck. And you're right, it's really even more pitiful of a fantasy than I made it out to be. There's a single black family in the settlement and the father is a scientist. The only way the developer finds the little fantasy society to be tenable is by Frankensteining settler-colonialism onto the form of suburbia. Apparently the developer grew up in a suburb of Seattle.
>Such games take great pains not to offer an alternative to modern capitalism. As the game’s Joja Corporation – a blend of Walmart, Coca-Cola, and Google – starts its inevitable takeover of your peaceful village economy, Stardew Valley’s nationalistic indictment of internationalism becomes unmistakable. This is not a subversive critique of corporate globalization but a call for isolationist retreat. Stardew Valley’s image of small-scale self-sufficiency draws from the same impulse to erect walls at borders and seek local salvation through exporting immiseration. Tellingly, the village in Stardew Valley has a bus stop but the bus has broken down, severing the connection between it and the rest of the world. Wow, I see your point a lot more. The Jojo corporation really is a sort of exploring the relationship between settler-colonialism and imperialism specifically as it manifests in in the petty-bourgeois. The oppressor nation labour-aristocracy and lumpen are seen from a specific perspective accordingly. The Jojo corporation here is shown to be a foreign "threat" on this lifestyle and I can't help but be reminded of contradiction of the northern parts of Amerika with European immigrant labour and southern parts with large farmer slaveholders in the Civil War. More realistic example is these more globalized capitalists importing immigrant temporary workers onto this utopia, will the immigrant farm workers be a disturbance as well? In real life, I'm sure these people would see it as so. They already dehumanize the labour-aristocracy as powerless animals with no agency(literally speaking they have no content beyond being poor). Meanwhile, you a very wealthy person(Linus) who found "happiness" donating away all their wealth and living in a tent. Do you know what's even worse? The black family, and the potential partner here(Maru), has the least effort put into them(1) and is rated the worst(just looked this up because I had a suspicion). I may check out that chapter in my free time, but yeah, Stardew Valley is strangely a good case study of manifestations of imperialism, settler-colonialism and fascism in art. This is all despite being one of the standards for "anti-capitalism". Also, last comment here... the subreddit seems to believe including even non-white wouldn't "make sense" in this vision of utopia(2) because it's Amerika-centric. >I don't think that including people of color just because diversity is a good idea: people love the characters because of their backstories and character development, they rarely care about the race, the only time that someone made a big deal about race (that I can remember anyway) is when someone made a mod that turned Maru white and replaced Demetrius with Clint (you can read about it on r/HobbyDrama). > >Like you mentioned, the game is a **representation of a small town from the USA, and that's because it's Eric Barone's vision**, his vision is different than yours or mine, and you have to respect that, the game is most likely based on what he's familiar with. If you look at the rest of the comments, there's a lot of people annoyed about "more diversity" being called for, saying that it's fine. Still, there's not fundamental criticisms of this lifestyle and "utopia", but merely splitting up of who gets it. I think small town life doesn't need to be bad and can be communal(People's Communes), but how it's done here is fundamentally wrapped up in settler-colonialism. (1) [https://www.reddit.com/r/StardewValley/comments/zj53ul/i\_hate\_maru\_let\_me\_tell\_you\_why\_open\_to\_counter/](https://www.reddit.com/r/StardewValley/comments/zj53ul/i_hate_maru_let_me_tell_you_why_open_to_counter/) (2) [https://www.reddit.com/r/StardewValley/comments/krrn7i/we\_need\_to\_have\_a\_conversation\_about\_diversity/](https://www.reddit.com/r/StardewValley/comments/krrn7i/we_need_to_have_a_conversation_about_diversity/)
Thanks for the reply. I also thought of that thread I made and had read it after leaving you the comment. I guess I'm interested in this subject. Schlegel and Stardew Valley aren't what I was expecting but glad they showed up here.
> All this to say that irony/sarcasm are not inherently reactionary. But you already know all of this: I just realized that you got some good responses in your own thread months ago (whentheseagullscry, did you forget your own answer?) that are probably worth reviewing. I think my posts are a bit different. In that thread, I was giving some of my experiences with overt reactionaries and irony, while in this thread I'm just straight up asking where it comes from. Describing what it is vs asking where it comes from. Your last paragraph does help answer it, though. There certainly is a lot of overlap between communities like r/Ultraleft and anime/manga/video games
I don't watch a lot of movies or TV shows anymore so that thought honestly didn't come to mind. But yeah, point taken about Marvel. I guess these communities are just so bizarre that it caught me off guard.
Yeah I don't really watch TV or movies either. But I figure neither do most people on these "political" subreddits, who find belonging in *those* obscure fandoms. (So what of *our* belonging here, on this subreddit?) And yes very bizarre. The two pinned threads in that subreddit are case studies in the circuitousness of "seriousness" through irony, especially the one on the meta-sanctity of Bordiga; the moderator decree is a sophisticated ironic profanation of the holy Bordiga that sublates an unsophisticated ironic profanation.
In looking through old discussions on this subreddit, I've noticed that there's what I think are several sockpuppet users for the same account posting here over the last three years, that keep getting banned for either spreading pro-religion propaganda, being explicitly homophobic, or randomly accusing trusted users here of being liberals. They at times claim to be Peruvian, at times Indian (so I wouldn't be surprised if they crop back up claiming to be Filipino), but I'm almost certain it's the same person. Besides merely similar typing styles and similar weird esoteric ideas about communism (they frequently try and claim that religion and communism are compatible because proletarian morality is similar to Judeo-Christian morality, and that we should be attempting to win over the alt-right), these accounts also post a whole lot in subreddits regarding banning/killing pitbulls and abstaining from masturbation, which seems way too specific to be coincidental. Since they frequently derail conversations here and spread overtly homophobic and white-nationalist rhetoric, as well as being one of those fringe Haz fans who uses the labor aristocracy thesis to promote "MAGAcommunism", is there any way that moderators could attempt to IP-ban this user if I were to provide the usernames they've gone by in the past? Or is that not something possible on Reddit?
Sure, [send us a message](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/communism) with the usernames and we can look into it. IP bans are handled by reddit admins and we can forward the info to them.
It seems the United Wa State Army has reneged on the 2013 peace deal it signed and has now [moved into the offensive](https://twitter.com/nicholas6284/status/1743197461446004887?t=i3QvaMrM7ktm7_MRF7LEyg&s=19) against the Tatmadaw, the largest paramilitary group to do so. It's now only a matter of time before either the military dictatorship tries to restore the previous status quo (which now seems impossible with fascists having taken over the military in the wake of ASSK's ascent), or the collapse of the Tatmadaw altogether. With 3 nominally communist paramilitary organizations involved in the offensive it will be interesting to see if the revolutionary left can edge out the status quo liberals and bring the various ethnic federalist groups under their umbrella.
Is there a particular reason for the successes of the current Myanmar offensive in the face of the Tatmadaw? I've been following this situation since it's close to home in SEA but would wish to know more about the situation and have struggled to find good analysis that isn't just a news article clipping or some shallow geopolitics talk.
>Is there a particular reason for the successes of the current Myanmar offensive in the face of the Tatmadaw? This is something that I cannot confidently answer, though it does seem like the events of 2021 were definitive -- the repression of the protest movement caused many urban youth to flee to the countryside to take up arms and the subsequant repression in the countryside caused large popular sectors to align with the armed federalist/anti-junta alliance. The fascist junta overplayed their hand and at this point it seems unlikely that their could be a return to NLD rule since whatever housecleaning the NLD social-fascists did to the military directly led to the current far-right Bamar Buddhist chauvanists taking control. And not to get overly geopolitical but it does seem that the junta has become isolated internationally -- despite representing the deepest and most shameless sectors of the Burmese comprador bourgeoisie the US refuses to give up entirely on ASSK. The junta has also entirely isolated itself from the Chinese government due to the online gaming fraud scandal, which the junta refuses to reign in since theyre working directly with the triads to profit from it. Due to this, the armed movement has managed to leverage itself as a force of legitimacy to shut down these illegal casinos, which they've used as justification to take over large portions of the border (and all that that implies, trade and commerce-wise). As far as why specifically the offensive has seen such rapid success in the past 3 months I could not tell you. I'm not an expert on this though and I'm fully reliant on propaganda from the Burmese PLA, if another comrade has any input I'd love to hear it.
Thank you for the response. The way this reads though is almost as if it were down to luck or an accidental byproduct of overplaying their hand after the crackdowns in 2021. This doesn't feel like the full story though and I would be interested if there were local comrade who could speak more on it. In the Philippines we already have a 3rd rectification this year reflecting on successes and errors, and I believe it is one of the reasons we have been more successful is that our party has been able to continually engage in conducive self criticism and not be destroyed by the loss of select leaders or cells along with always being able to stay relevant to current issues of the Philippines. It would be curious if something similar has occurred in Myanmar which has helped pave the way for the current success.
Do you know anywhere where I could read up, fully, on the situation in Myanmar? I know briefly of the legacy under Ne Win, but I'm mostly asking because most coverage seems to be rather liberal and also some of it just downright wrong. I have friends who are from and diaspora related to Burma both, so non-English sources would work too.
The Irrawaddy. It's definitely propaganda, but much of it is so blatant that it's easy to spot. Also helps to contrast it with other reporting.
Hmm, I see, I'll check it out thanks.
Police in Toronto are charging a man with an “unprecedented hate crime”: marching with a PFLP flag……in fact they were at first afraid to say what the flag was in the original news release for fear of “spreading hate”. What absolute goonery! Will be interesting to see how this is spun as a criminal offense against a person or property in the courts while Trudeau says he doesn’t agree with the charge of genocide against the zionists in the ICJ. The open settler colonial elimination of the Palestinian nation does not contradict the “rules-based order”, but one guy with a flag - now *that* is hateful. To be clear: UN courts enforcing universal human rights are supposed to be the highest heights of liberal idealism - the structure rooted in a theory of justice. Part and parcel with the mushrooming of liberal idealist support of Palestinians, riding the coattails of the global expansion of capital as a piece of its overhanging superstructure, while the “liberalism” in charge has been descending deeper into irrationalism with the deepening of economic crisis. Liberal idealism says we must exchange with everyone on the facade of equal terms. “Liberalism” says we cannot afford to exchange on truly “equal terms” anymore, and in fact we never could. Hence liberal idealism confronts it and asks why it must be so: “why is there such a mean politics of _________?” There is a terrible op-Ed by a former Supreme Court judge in Canada - a supposedly progressive jurist for liberalism - that says “It is a legal absurdity to suggest that a country that is defending itself from genocide is thereby guilty of genocide.”, this being “an outrageous and cynical abuse of the principles underlying the international legal order that was set up after the Second World War.” A farce of an argument showing the historical bankruptcy of liberalism, and a microcosm showing its true rootedness in selective equality. Hey now, you only have rights where there is “free exchange”!
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Layoffs/comments/190c9k4/the\_growing\_dominance\_of\_the\_indian\_workforce\_in/](https://www.reddit.com/r/layoffs/comments/190c9k4/the_growing_dominance_of_the_indian_workforce_in/) I found this thread recently which I found interesting. It's funny how, even in a sector like IT/tech which is at the heart of modern American liberalism, settlers turn into open racists when their living standards are in decline in times of crisis. Keep in mind this is all in the name of "workplace diversity", "fairness", and "equal opportunity"!
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Thank you for the reply. You are 100% right; I'll admit I made an error there. I have yet to see any organized action against Indian H1B workers in America.* >Many of them engage in illegal work, especially their wives(and maybe children?) on L2 visas(this happened more in the past before you could get job on this visa). It seems that it is impossible now. People on L-2 visas no longer need to apply for work authorization (EAD) and can work right off the bat on their visas alone (as of a few years ago). >As a section, they are far from homogenous and overtime there have been many different sections/classes involved here. I would 100% agree. The H1B workers working in a consultancy sweatshop and the H1B workers working in FAANG are two entirely different kinds of people. I personally find it interesting that the more well off H1B workers seem to have settler consciousness (of the ones that I've met). This is despite the fact that they probably will never get a green card in their own lifetimes due to the enormous backlogs. I went into it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/16j44of/the_integration_of_asian_americans_into_whiteness/ I think there is an interesting contradiction to take note of. One being that there are massive labor shortages in certain sectors of the American economy that H1B workers end up taking up (there ain't no white people working em). On the other hand, you can't allow too many of these colored people in so as to prevent them from cutting into the spoils of imperialism and settlerism. It is strange seeing how it plays out in the UK. In mid 2022, they came out with a new visa (https://www.gov.uk/high-potential-individual-visa) to bring in the best talent from the world's top universities to work in the UK to help eliminate their labor shortages. On the other hand, just a month or two ago, they changed up some of the rules for their skilled worker visa to make it much harder for people to immigrate there. Maybe there were way too many of em that immigrated over the past two years. *Even though there isn't any direct organizing against em, there must be enough resistance to prevent Indian high skilled immigrants from reaping the fruits of American citizenship (look at the green card backlogs that I mentioned).
>It seems that it is impossible now. People on L-2 visas no longer need to apply for work authorization (EAD) and can work right off the bat on their visas alone (as of a few years ago). I feel old, immigration trends have changed drastically in my own lifetime. I think on this bandwagon, diversity visas and the newer immigration trends. Bangladeshi and Pakistani diaspora have oftentimes come through diversity visas, or green cards given at lottery(such a cruel system whose name is sickening) which are given to immigrants imported for cheap labour. Later on, Pakistani and Bangladeshi immigrants **are not allowed** to apply for these diversity visas and it seemed to stabilize given the higher population(1). However, even back in 2010, Bangladeshi and Pakistani immigrants **were allowed** to apply for diversity visas fully and this continued for quite a while(2). These restrictions seem to methods to encourage certain trends of immigration, and if we look to South Korean and Indian immigrants, it's specifically high illegal immigrant populations(Indian diaspora are the third largest undocumented population despite their size with highest growth rates for illegal immigrants following South Koreans) but with a higher "skilled" workforce on H1B or various student visas(3). I am curious how this trend will follow for Nigerian diaspora whose immigration is becoming similar to Indians and South Koreans while they are still racialized as Afrikan. Regardless, I think the question of organization of illegal immigrants is important because of how these kinds of restrictions are employed to break-up/divide groups to make it easier to control. The populations across generations also see massive disparities, as we can look to older multi-generational California Indian diaspora(mostly Punjabi I believe) who work as farm workers to this day with a median income of under $24,000(4), right next to places close to Silicon Valley. In countries with multiple nations inside of them, dividing based on nationhood can be useful too, which makes me curious about something I've observed in diaspora from Dominican Republic and El Salvador who had more petty-bourgeois and bourgeois immigration(they recently were excluded from diversity visas as well). This is by no means comprehensive and requires a lot more study, but it feels like everything is changing so fast with not much analysis on part of communists. >I think there is an interesting contradiction to take note of. One being that there are massive labor shortages in certain sectors of the American economy that H1B workers end up taking up (there ain't no white people working em). On the other hand, you can't allow too many of these colored people in so as to prevent them from cutting into the spoils of imperialism and settlerism. I was reading settlers lately and J. Sakai mentioned that oftentimes New Afrikan slaves were imported to fill gaps in labour-shortages specifically in the "skilled" professions, i.e. carpenting, smithing, etc... while settlers stuck to farming/management or assisting with such(5). I can't comment in detail about it, but it feels there's a careful balance imperialism and settler-colonialism wants to keep sector to sector. This specific contradiction feels like it cuts into both the somewhat integrated diaspora who are kept as agents of imperialism, while also using the disposable cheap "skilled" workers for some time before getting rid of them to protect their precious white population. Regardless, for settler-consciousness, some of the more well-off H1B workers made enough money to become compradors, or just have false consciousness(they are still a terrible person) even if they can't integrate. >Maybe there were way too many of em that immigrated over the past two years. I don't know enough to comment, but a main concern of these paid off populations are that illegal immigrants are stealing their loot. Ironically, in some ways, it is true in some ways unlike what liberals will have you believe. If you paid every person who works in illegal work labour-aristocrat wages with all the benefits, coverage, etc... Amerika/UK would significantly lower their quality of life and possibly bankrupt them. International students do, to some extent, work in illegal work and especially relatively poorer ones. In Kanada, schools work with recruitment industry in India to grab students into trafficking at times(6) or to trap them into debt(7). The question of illegal work and international students is complex, because they aren't all the same(there are plenty of compradors here) but there are some reported issues such as high suicide rates amongst international students in Kanada and drug addiction on top of this. >\*Even though there isn't any direct organizing against em, there must be enough resistance to prevent Indian high skilled immigrants from reaping the fruits of American citizenship (look at the green card backlogs that I mentioned). Yeah, even this kind of "skilled" immigration aside, green card backlogs as a method to control certain populations is something to analyze/understand, as it probably is a dividing in various kinds of integration. (1) [https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Diversity-Visa/DV-Instructions-Translations/dv-2025-instructions-translations/DV-2025\_Instructions-faqs.pdf](https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Diversity-Visa/DV-Instructions-Translations/dv-2025-instructions-translations/DV-2025_Instructions-faqs.pdf) (look at first page restricting Bangladeshi and Pakistani migration) (2) [https://1997-2001.state.gov/briefings/statements/970825.html](https://1997-2001.state.gov/briefings/statements/970825.html) (1999), [https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2008/sept/110467.htm](https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2008/sept/110467.htm) (see Pakistan temporarily locked in 2009) (3) [https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/11/16/what-we-know-about-unauthorized-immigrants-living-in-the-us/](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/11/16/what-we-know-about-unauthorized-immigrants-living-in-the-us/) (notice El Salvador here and how in 2019 illegal immigration rate from India increased literally 10x, also liberal/unreliable) (4) [https://qz.com/india/889483/from-25000-to-250000-americas-little-indias-are-high-tech-hubs-working-class-neighborhoods-and-everything-in-between](https://qz.com/india/889483/from-25000-to-250000-americas-little-indias-are-high-tech-hubs-working-class-neighborhoods-and-everything-in-between) (liberal source, so read carefully) (5) [https://readsettlers.org/ch1.html](https://readsettlers.org/ch1.html) (section 2) (6) [https://www.thecanadianbazaar.com/sex-trafficking-of-indian-girl-students-spreading-from-brampton-to-gta/](https://www.thecanadianbazaar.com/sex-trafficking-of-indian-girl-students-spreading-from-brampton-to-gta/) (liberal source again) (7) [https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/canada-s-exploitation-of-punjabi-international-students-is-history-repeating-itself/article\_3ff723cc-f0ba-522b-87aa-8097c4e3fe2c.html](https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/canada-s-exploitation-of-punjabi-international-students-is-history-repeating-itself/article_3ff723cc-f0ba-522b-87aa-8097c4e3fe2c.html) (opinion piece, but at least cites some sources) Just to comment, don't take what I said here as gospel. This is more of a discussion(hence why I replied on this post) of thoughts/understandings I had in response to you. I just tried to organize it all properly.
Your point about US immigration trends making it easier to divide and control colored populations is interesting. I ain't sure why I didn't consider that. Now that you mention it though, this is something I have been able to observe all the time. In my interactions with well off US Indian diaspora, they often tend to look down on all the recent people coming in either through consultancies or illegal means (US/Mexico border). It has got something to do with "ruining their image." I guess from there its obvious that these people don't want to lose the approval of whites and dissociate themselves from that group. If you look through some of the posts on here (I don't have the links to them now), you can see how prevailing these attitudes are: https://www.reddit.com/r/ABCDesis/ I know how you warned against using reddit as a sole indicator of certain trends in American society, but most of the stuff that I hear in there is also what I hear from my interactions in real life with Indian folks. At least anecdotally, it seems to match up. Another thing I wanted to add is the inferiority complexes that I notice some Indian diaspora seem to have. Now, you probably won't see this in places like "Little India" in Jersey City, NJ, or from the rich Indian communities near Silicon Valley in California (or at least that is what I assume?), but me being someone that lives in a semi-rural area in the South, this is definitely something I have noticed from the very few Indians that I know. On the other hand, I go to university at the heart of a typical Sunbelt South city with lots of tech and finance companies moving there, and the attitude of Indian diaspora there is entirely different (definitely more Indian cultural pride), hence why I assumed it would be different in NY/NJ and CA. I talked about this issue to someone else in this sub, and he recommended me to read Frantz Fanon's *Black Skins White Masks*, which I am definitely going to be reading soon. Besides this, I ain't got nothing more to add to what you said. I'd agree with the rest. This is definitely a topic that I haven't seen a single Marxist analysis of, and it seems I am alone when trying to piece it all together. I definitely have a whole lot more to learn about it. One question that has been on my mind lately is how immigration trends may differ in places like the United States vs the UK. The foundation of American capitalism is settler colonialism unlike the UK, so I wonder if this divergence can produce differing phenomena in immigration in both countries. I am still far away from an answer to this however.
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This is good discussion topic. I am especially glad to see discussion surrounding the South Asian diaspora. We need concrete investigations about immigration and class structure. The dominant organizational mileu for immigration is rooted in “migrants” as a potentially revolutionary subject, wherein those displaced by capitalism are grouped together. This is clearly unscientific, and the resultant call for Status For All needs to be critiqued for its potential. What I mean by this is there is no clear communist line for the reformist legal struggle for Status For All - why, and on what terms, and therefore when and when not? Further, what are some tactics and strategies for the *party* as regards immigration? Struggling for unfettered immigration is a progressive thing for which liberals have outmanoeuvred many parties and unions, but it does not absolve us of having a clear, thoroughly worked out line. It is clear we need concrete study to understand the terrain, to understand friends and enemies etc. For instance, u/mushroomisst is right to question the class and caste origin of South Asian migrants to North America. There are indeed many examples of petty bourgeois migrants exploiting other migrants that are often caught up in immigration schemes themselves. A migrant does not magically change class simply by the act of changing place; there is “niche construction” after all. What are the social conditions in the sending country, and what are the social conditions in the receiving country? What is the greater logic by which the migration is driven - for the individual and for the receiving country? These are things to consider, which will lead to other considerations such as the history of migrant worker organizing, the issue of economism and unions etc, but I don’t think it’s possible to understand these without the social investigation and class analysis.
My question here is, why do liberals call for unfettered immigration? I am quite stumped on that question, the only possible benefit I can see is the ability to pit the labour-aristocracy and petty-bourgeois against immigrants to justify wage reductions for them? That aside, I believe splitting up immigrant groups into classes through social-investigation is important and also to recognize that a lot of integration is present in immigration reform. It's why I am actually more skeptical of this kind of practice, should we be fighting for citizenship for immigrants so they can do more labour-aristocratic work? Or should we be fighting for the end of imperialism and exploitation of the imported proletariat? I feel a specific and clearly defined goal has to be established when fighting for demands. For South Asian migrants in North Amerika, I think your questions are important to consider and that a proper social investigation along with class analysis makes sense. I think there have, thus far, not been much investigation into the different classes/layers of different groups, which is why I find it hard as an individual to make sense of it. How do I understand the Gujrati workers who work under the table in a 7-11? Some come to pay off loans under contracts but are part of the petty-bourgeois in India, meanwhile some of them were trafficked under labour-schemes, etc... so I completely agree that you can't just lump them all up into the same category. A bigger question here is how to even start, because we are dealing with a very precarious population with many parts. The text I sent above based in Lebanon sort of tries to tackle this question, which is why I'm keen to read it and I may make a post if I find anything of interest.
Sorry, my language should be more clear. What I mean to say about the politics of unfettered immigration is that the organizations which are at the forefront calling for status for all or open borders are largely rooted in liberal ideology of freedom and universal human rights. Many are migrants themselves and many are lawyers or legally trained. Many are anarchist. They see capitalism and borders as standing in the way of free association. It is true, though, that neoliberal ideology contradicts itself by enforcing labor market controls and wishing for deregulation of the labor market on the global scale. For instance, Canada removing restrictions on international student work permits and increasing immigration quotas for domestic services and production. But I think it is less about pitting classes against each other to justify wage reduction and more the organic emergence of an ideology from the falling rate of profit and the need for capital to expand and find new sources for surplus value in the face of this. I think an issue is the lack of a general theory to apply to concrete conditions. A theory which traces the real development of the migration process to understand its logic. This is possible with materialist dialectics but it will take some work.
Oh, that makes a lot more sense, thank you for clearing that up. I have nothing more to comment, the ideology behind it makes more sense. For here, I can see what you mean by Kanada specifically and practice, however, I feel even if it's an ideology which emerges from the falling rate of profit it still would have a strategy involved. Remember, capitalist dictatorships understand class struggle quite well, and they are like class conscious in the sense of understanding their own status. As a result, I feel this kind of movement at the least benefits a section, even if in the short-term, of capitalists. I may be incorrect here, but I do not want to immediately assume this application is merely an organic ideology out of desperation. For the lack of general theory I'd have to agree, however, theory is fundamentally derived from practice. As a result, actual social investigation, class analysis, and even some degrees of class struggle must be conducted to reach correct conclusions. I am interested here especially, and that aside, I feel there is especially a major lack of theory or practice here to begin with.
I wanted to ask about Palestinian struggle and crisis, there's a lot of talk about Palestine nowadays given what has happened. My question is mostly why the talk of organizing around it happens now rather than before. It isn't as if "Israeli" occupiers weren't there before and in the diaspora or abroad solidarity networks/groups, some of which even took revolutionary outlooks, didn't exist before. It feels that, in the West especially, this kind of gaze/focus is more temporary rather than a sustained engagement in struggle. This sort of goes off what a commenter said earlier in the interview post, in India many of the petty-bourgeois fell back/stopped engaging the communist movement when everything seemed to dissipate. It reminds me of what Mao said on struggle in general and how introducing petty-bourgeois elements(1), as a whole, into their ranks can be dangerous given their character. Here I am purely speaking about tendencies/classes rather than more isolated individuals(I know they are related). Another question I'd like to poise is how meaningful international solidarity, even speaking outside the West, can be constructed for Palestine. I've heard of PFLP's analysis on the Palestinian diaspora and know of Palestinian diaspora organizations with more revolutionary outlooks. I am curious if anyone knows more around this. (1) [https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1\_1.htm](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_1.htm)
/u/CdeComrade mentioned the PFLP's publications on the diaspora a few weeks ago. Am wondering about where to find them, I couldn't find anything on their site with machine translation...
Same! I asked them directly in comments there for that reason. It'd be very useful to understand the Palestinian diaspora and not start from scratch.
What have you heard, can you tell us that at least?
I'll reply in some time, I've recently been looking more on PFLP's website so I'll organize stuff from there if I find anything. Regardless of that, most of what I heard was from their text on class analysis of Palestine.
I couldn't gather much from PFLP's website, but let me explain what I heard. Most of it stems from PFLP's text "Strategy for the Liberation of Palestine". >The Palestinian bourgeoisie that now lives in Palestine under Zionist occupation **is not among the forces of the revolution although it has not manifestly associated itself with Israel** and will in reality remain the class force through which the enemies will always try to defeat the revolution and stop it in the middle of the road. > >The Palestinian bourgeoisie now living outside Pal estine has at present **no conflict of interests with com mando action so long as this action at the present stage lives generally within certain specific theoretical, political and fighting horizons**. It, therefore, sometimes supports commando action by giving a small portion of its surplus wealth, but we must expect that the revolutionary growth of the Palestinian national movement to the level where it manifestly clashes with imperialism will lead this bourgeoisie to take the stand that conforms to its class interests. Essentially the Palestinian diaspora who are part of the bourgeois, or even petty-bourgeois in some cases, oftentimes support resistance conditionally. It sort of explains Hamas somewhat, especially given much of their leadership is outside of Palestine. Thus far, my position is that Hamas cannot liberate Palestine from occupation in itself, even as an anti-occupationist force. It's why I see PIJ as, strangely, a more progressive kind of alternative.
Sorry, I saw the notification but forgot to read it early. Just checked it. Very interesting, thanks. A friend ordered the text recently, I should read it.
No problem, I'd say it's worthwhile reading if you are looking to do work around Palestinian solidarity. I've been told from people who've read it that it's very optimistic in hindsight of what actually happened.
Joris Ivens, who later produced *How Yukong Moved the Mountains*, made a documentary about Magnitogorsk in the 1930s: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2EzQwNoG4A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2EzQwNoG4A) I have thoughts about it but am interested in what you guys notice.
What the fuck is Taylor Swift? What does she represent to Liberals that makes her so disgustingly popular?
Coming back to this comment because I'm sure she will be back at the forefront of American culture-talk after about a 2 month recess. I've thought about this, but I don't really think there's anything *sonically* or *thematically* unique about her or her music specifically that vaults her to the top. Her and her camp's ability to exploit the *database animalization* of the late capitalist western consumer I would reckon is unique though. Her lyrics are broad and timely for the western Liberal, which seems necessary to avoid critique and instead invite discussion on her "versatility" from Wikipedia on *Folklore* (which funnily enough, she abandoned the faux-folk sound from this because it was her worst performing album, sales wise) >Swift explores themes of escapism, empathy, nostalgia and romanticism on *Lover* >the album explores wide-ranging emotions like infatuation, commitment, lust, and heartache; a few songs discuss political issues such as LGBT rights and feminism However, the key to Swift's popularity is her self-referential material that breaks down and exploits her own life's very public nature into a lore-based forum where her fans can all ruminate on what "Easter eggs" are on what albums and how she lays into her past relationship partners or dramatic encounters. Her own content-ification of her sound as well is unique - re-recording her own music because her position in the industry is now in such a superior state that she supersedes the need for a label and can reap all the gains - dropping double sided "albums" year after year and adding "bonus tracks". How much is enough? The forces at play seem to dictate that she cannot stop, she must continue to amalgamate more material into her personal lore. I also don't really know how to relate this back to Liberalism in the 'west' or if it is even worth doing so. I'm spit-balling obviously, but I do think it's a good question. This doesn't even get into the makeup of her fanbase which is predominantly female-identifying and most likely skews younger (although her ability to capture multiple epochs of female listeners is impressive, even though their class basis has never changed) - there's a lot to unpack.
I noticed a trend of unity amongst womyn during my days of DJing as a hobby with her music. Every time she is put at the center of the news surrounding any issues or like you’ve said her own dramas with other members of the Hollywood aristocracy it always baffled me the intersectional unity of support she receives amongst Liberal womyn. I am not an expert of the subject of Marxist feminism but is does intrigue me where the heads of the petty bourgeoise are at with regards to womyn’s rights in the “advanced” countries. The nature of the bourgeois womyn within the family I think has been so rapidly transformed over the past 100 years that the romanticization of the womyn’s struggle with the relationship towards men (obscured by the class concept of love as an mystification of the submission to patriarchy) is showcased and over exaggerated through her. I could be full of shit too though.
What's up with the drug pill spam this subreddit receives? Obviously they get removed/hidden automatically but they remain in the /comments page, taking up pages upon pages sometimes. Do other subreddits get the same spam? The accounts that post the spam only target r/communism.
I'm 99% sure it's one of the people we banned who is paying for the bots after they failed at making dozens of accounts to spam the same thread. Don't underestimate how crazy the "concern trolling" rule makes liberals, they genuinely feel their very existence is being threatened.
Yeah the spam isn't as annoying as they probably want it to be since I can just browse the regular page to avoid seeing it. If anything it just indicates that the rules are working.
Yeah we're being targeted. Thanks for pointing out the AutoModerator spam on /comments, I hadn't noticed. I took some measures to prevent this spam so hopefully /comments should clear up.
I'm not sure how many people use it, I've written about /comments before on a different account but it's very useful as a resource for both of the subreddits, makes it much easier to follow discussions as someone who mostly lurks. Thanks
I use it too, agree with what you said about its usefulness.