She especially knows this because libs on Reddit get furious every time she shows up
Yup, every time I post one of her videos, I get so many "Why are you posting her?", "I am unsubscribing from this sub" and blah blah 🤣
I feel like I'm going crazy when I comment on those posts trying my best to be open for newbies but harsh enough that my point isn't diluted.
Like the DPRK video got me so close to relapsing on a very bad habit of mine I've curbed in online discussion. Let's just say I got banned on LSC before and unmanned on the condition I didn't tell anyone to "walk into traffic for the benifet of humanity" again.
She literally was just reading the government setup of the DPRK, she barely even commented on it. It was purely to dispell misinformation about Kim Jung Un's role in government. Yet even that level of mild pushback on the narrative surrounding the DPRK causes libs to go rabid. It would be like me crashing out over someone correcting me after I insisted that Pete Hegseth was the leader of the US.
I genuinely think it's because Madeline appears to look like a stereotypical liberal college student (though their like almost twice my age I believe, seriously they've aged gracefully) and pure unfiltered chauvinism against the DPRK. Libs for some reason turn their brains off completely when it comes to that country. I've had more success convincing people about basically every other aspect of socialism but getting them to rethink anything about "North Korea" is a challenge beyond all others. I'm still developing strategies on how to go about it.
Libs seriously believe people in North Korea are all paid actors/have a gun strapped to their head/believe in UNICORNS. Its just orientialism and 77+ years of dehumanization of korean communists. Like the United States has been the main killer of koreans since 1945, even the nuclear bombings targeted 70k+ korean slave laborers- whose victimhoods are erased to this day.
The DPRK truly is the final frontier of deprogramming libs.
Everytime I vow to stay away from online debates, a shitlib or an anarchist shows up with state-approved CIA propaganda.
An """"anarchist"""" who probably loves Vaush and thinks all shoplifters should face solitary confinement.
Personally I've find you have to do this stuff gradually.
If you start off coming to bat for Stalin, the DPRK, etc. they'll just plug their ears so you gotta start small and ease them into it. First by sowing doubt in capitalism/liberalism, then by exposure to socialist theory, then by exposure to how reactionaries control the narrative & debunking their propaganda methods & tactics, and finally my talking about the "controversial" stuff like the Holodomor, the KGB, the Stasi, the Cultural Revolution, Tiananmen Square, Hong Kong, and other things libs have kneejerk responses to.
This is basically how I was converted. In less than 3 years I went from hoping Kim Jong-Un was overthrown to hoping I live long enough to see the end of the US occupation of the Korean peninsula.
The irony is to good…
The reaction won't like you. The marginalized peoples who you are standing up for, if/when they are aware of your existence, will probably like you, or at least feel ambivalent about you. When a leader of a socialist state is widely liked, it's because they headed up efforts that did good things for their people; the being liked is a side effect of making a real difference in millions of lives. People who are still in process of protesting the status quo but have not yet accomplished meaningful change that translates to material benefit are going to be more widely disliked because at a glance it just looks like they're being disruptive. Organizational efforts should be doing both; challenging the status quo, but also helping out and building ties even in early stages of capability. Not only because it's the right thing to do, but also because it builds popular support for an alternative. Which should translate to getting liked some of the time if you're doing it effectively, even if being liked is not what doing it is about.
Its the same with the civil rights & palestine movements. In the end libs and their lib grandchildren will always claim they were on your side.
Same with the white south Africans who always claim that they were all against apartheid
This one cuts deep. Its how I feel every day.
Yep. I was loudly antiwar under W, and still way more liberal minded and at the time, one parent agreed with me.
Edit bc my device is dodgy.
That same parent was adamant that Venezuelan fishermen were in the drug cartels, but now that's falling apart. I think on some deep, instinctive level, if not a conscious one, people realize it's safer materially and socially to toe the popular narrative. Even if not financially well off, having a community around you can provide a meal, a sofa or floor with a roof for shelter, etc. Being communist or even left -leaning liberal ostracizes you, and that meal or shelter is harder to attain.
Fully agree. The big contradiction here is that communists should at all times be ready to share or ask for food, shelter, money, etc with comrades. But most people in the west are petty bourgois (who have time to run around at least) and will not understand this and wont be reliable either. This is the biggest issue i face as of today as it makes organizing incredibly hard and ultimately pointless.
This leads to the idea that as a communist you must cut all ties with people who are not in the party and org and must enforce mutual aid from day one, so to speak. Otherwise youre left in the cold.
But most people in the west are petty bourgois (who have time to run around at least) and will not understand this and wont be reliable either. This is the biggest issue i face as of today as it makes organizing incredibly hard and ultimately pointless.
Sometimes we just need to meet people where they are, yes hard, pointless no. I'm extremely frustrated with a soon to be ex neighbor who is also tired of the landlords' mess, and started a small business with a lot of research and ideas from me, but is so busy chasing the buck, they keep missing appointments with me to discuss actually cutting me in. It's complicated, I'll try to make a post in the cat thread to talk about the work I'm doing with myself to cope with that, more details about the landlord couple and some bizarre experiences this current person has had with the landlord that's freaked them out. But I've a lot going on so it will mean taking the time to organize my thoughts better, to hopefully express in a cogent manner on a device that's really just screaming for retirement. I suspect all these bulky bloat ware updates contribute to that, as well as having been dropped several times. 🙃
Ohh this edit is on me and not my device.
This leads to the idea that as a communist you must cut all ties with people who are not in the party and org and must enforce mutual aid from day one, so to speak. Otherwise youre left in the cold.
If I did that, I'd be even more isolated, although being left in the cold can easily be the outcome, either way. I'm navigating an extremely precarious path as best I can so yeah, it kind of messes with me sometimes.
Same here. I came from the bottom of the proletariat and had considerable challenges to my mere survival.
This leads to me getting triggered by privilege blindness. I have cut all ties to my past a long time ago and only have one person i depend on atm which of course is not a healthy situation in the long run.
That is why i am actively seeking contact to my comrades locally and will try and establish mutual aid with them. But I'm seeing how a lot of people are scared to let go and depend on themselves for some time to allow their life to drain of good weather friends.
I have been a business owner myself and have actually created several successful businesses. The important part is to recognize opportunists which ultimately cost me my lifes work. This is also why i'm such a hardliner on enforcing mutual aid and purging opportunism from oneselves personality and close circle.
To be aware of your own opportunism - especially if you grew up under threat of death or poverty - is a tough task because in bourgois society we are supposed to be ashamed all the time.
Not being ashamed to having used opportunism in the past when survival was threatened, being aware that it might become necessary again to survive in the future, but ultimately being transparent and honest to yourself and others and only allowing such transparency inside your trusted circle is absolutely necessary imho.
Feel free to disagree. :)
Not being ashamed to having used opportunism in the past when survival was threatened, being aware that it might become necessary again to survive in the future, but ultimately being transparent and honest to yourself and others and only allowing such transparency inside your trusted circle is absolutely necessary imho.
Yep, how can I possibly disagree?! It sounds like we've had similar experiences, a pity we're half a world separated. I get triggered too, but that's what they want, it shows where we are unhealed. The trick is getting to where we can notice and address them, while not giving the bourgeois and instinctively opportunists something else to use against us. We aren't responsible for our wounds, we are responsible for healing them as best we can. And sometimes that looks like using tools developed by those we may find morally reprehensible. Like I wouldn't turn down a cornea from a dead Nazi. 😬
Exactly.
I think bourgois psychology is strongly designed to pathologize people who survived intense situations.
Especially interesting is the fact that autism is popping up like crazy atm as people are coming under intense pressure and are starting to struggle and seek diagnosis of their issues in an effort to understand and explain why they apparently are not enough for the "good society".
As some reactionary politicians have already called for the incarceration and eradication of autistic people, we know what the future under bourgois rule will hold.
The issue of complex traumatization is also very badly explored and professionals only suggedt shock therapy or lsd atm.
The mere idea that our intrinsically unempathetic system destroys those with too much or too hard to manage empathy or otherwise " different" folks.
I recently heard on proles pod about radical psychology and I'm gonna try and read the sources of that soon as they seem to have alternatives to common bougois psychological themes.
I think we need a better model which does not do mental gymnastics to somehow not criticise our cruel system.
I think bourgois psychology is strongly designed to pathologize people who survived intense situations. Especially interesting is the fact that autism is popping up like crazy atm as people are coming under intense pressure and are starting to struggle and seek diagnosis of their issues in an effort to understand and explain why they apparently are not enough for the “good society”.
I stopped using "autistic," because c-PTSD and autism have a lot of symptom overlap, as do personality disorders and c-PTSD, although absolutely I think personality disorders, pernicious and persistent, absolutely can be the end result of untreated, unhealed trauma, especially in brains that have that part "born different," anyway (this is years of personal research so I don't have anything saved, but it's well -documented, if you want to go down that rabbit hole, as well as complications of adverse childhood experiences). And states know this, and deliberately choose the schismed personalities for reasons you already know. Anyway, after having seen the "Divergent" movies it clicked for me so that I stopped using the term, but can switch between the two because people deep in denial about ACEs aren't ready for that conversation.
And that's why mental health in liberal society can only get us so far. And why there are no quick fixes. And why it seems to me that Jung's shadow work is working for me, having been reared by a deeply psychologically abusive evangelical, with the other parent absentee. But I stumbled upon it after losing access to one of the best low cost therapists I ever had, who was ironically an evangelical Christian who had no hesitation, when I asked her, "if believing in pagan deities is magical thinking, why isn't believing in Jesus?” to reply, "it is!” Anyway the guy, real or not, had a decent message, lived by it and died for it, and had no qualms being financed by the money of wealthy women's access to money, through their husbands or otherwise, whether fictional or not. And did breath work which is central to Merkavah meditation and actually has proven benefits.
Thats some intense facts right there.
Sorry you have all this to carry around with you.
The only thing I can say is if you want to hang out and just talk from one survivor to the other, hit me up.
I might do that sometime, I'm constrained by this device which has issues you've seen me moaning about repeatedly, and a windows laptop I've delayed wiping and installing and relearning Linux basics, partly because of eye issues, partly because the occasional hustle uses software that requires Windows, and partly because I do "real job" searches and don't want to lose functionality while relearning, plus the dreaded hunt for drivers and everything else that makes "an hour install process" take days. And I won't access Lemmy from there because of windows intrusiveness. So while I'm standoffish, it's for those reasons, but my reticence to share is a Google device that I can't risk bricking to root it, even if I did take the time to figure out what I need to do to gain privacy and clean out bloatware. It's not y'all, it's me, my devices, and weird people on Lemmy who may or not be the same few, who seem to either have serious mh issues, be employed by alpha agencies, or both (so probably some hypervigilance there, too). But I genuinely feel affection for you all!
Thank you for your compassion, my friend, I do appreciate it. And that ain't all! While it's not a contest of who had it worse or better, I'm in a lot better way than many of our siblings here, and remain mindful, and grateful for how much worse it isn't! I just feel badly I can't do anything to alleviate our siblings' suffering, I'm pretty sure you can relate.
Totally understand. Its nuts out there.
One quick fix if you have 100 quid: 50 bucks for a oneplus 6t and an x230 laptop, both easily converted to linux is what i use currently. Btw with mint i have never seen anyone need longer than an hour no matter the device, so far.
Let me know if you need any help.
Thanks I Lemmy saved this post, but right now my situation is precarious af and I've lost work, so it will wait. But if I hit you up months or a year from now, I'll have this post saved to remind you you said you'll help!
I bet if you need help with money we will be able to somehow make that work too. Are you able to work atm? What kind of job would you need and where (roughly) if its not wfh?
You know, we all should pool our skills and help each other out. I did a lot of things in my life, one was hiring so I know how to get people into jobs.
What bothers me in the communist community so far is that we are quite low functional as a whole as we dont discuss a lot (thank god for the theory section at least) and we leave basic community building aside and this way lose comrades to outside activities. Imho we should have weekly voicecalls to help people move closer and we should start linking up at least mentally by building small work groups, etc. This way we could tackle things like funding for projects, building of an "online party" so to speak. I feel like this is easily doable, we just need to agree on something.
And that would enable us to help out comrades with for example a cheap laptop and a phone or to help them build a local community project, etc.
Maybe i'm missing something here but i think its easy to help comrades as we already know what the other person, at leas politically, is going through.
Maybe. I feel like with undefined eye issues, those items would be better spent on someone who will be able to see in a few years. I'm pushing 60, no insurance, and cataract surgery is currently 7-10k per eye. I am not sure if the current issues are related, but I do know that light sensitivity can be related, not sleeping well or enough exacerbates the burning and watering.
Community building sounds great. Support and workable ideas, especially being forced to work with libs who firmly support the two party system and think capitalism is the bees knees would be beneficial. A headset so nosy neighbors and paper thin walls wouldn't be so concerning. These are items that can probably be sourced by local donations, because people always want the latest outdated and overpriced thing on the market.
Don't believe the donation boxes. My ex's ex works for a company that puts clothing donation boxes in parking lots of supermarkets and shopping plazas so they can collect and shred the gently used, branded items, so brands won't be prepped by the "wrong types of people."
I suspect eyeglass and phone donations probably work the same way, only phones being sourced for gold and other usable internals. Probably being ghosted for valuable tidbits of information or infotainment. I hate being so cynical, and it's just what it is right now. I generally strive for the right blend of cynical optimism, so looking too long at one or the other throws me off kilter.
I had been doing elder sitting, maybe light work like sweeping or vacuuming up, meal prep, ambulatory assistance, driving them around, helping with shopping, etc. I've also done mowing (their machines), hedge trimming, etc.
Basic clerical work, proofreading. Took a medical billing class and aced it and my parent ditched on the ride to the exam, flippantly saying I wouldn't have liked it anyway.
They're right, but it would have provided steady income and insurance... It's like they want me to work, but only doing menial but punishing labor...or marry a rich person...
Thats a pretty fucked up situation, if i may say so. I sympathize a lot.
The medical situation would be much easier solved in china or even europe (dont quote me on the latter, not sure how hostile they are to outsiders in europe atm when it comes to medical treatment. China would probs be a slam dunk.
In any case, we should probably do this then. You're not on genzedong or? Otherwise we could start a weekly voicechat to help each other through the winter since thats a harsh time for depressed folks. We could even watch movies or sing soviet songs together, just to keep each other going.
The donation thing is cruel, yeah. I run donation events in my neighborhood which does work pretty well. But i'll keep in mind that one should donate only where they know the people behind it.
The proofreading thing is pretty great. A friend does this and earns some money on the side. Feel free to dm me about this. I dont think the details are necessarily for the public.
And your parent sounds like my parents and a lot of parents of people i know. Sometimes i ask myself where there mfs come from. In a country i head, these people would probably removed.
I mean go to the cat thread. My parent had a pretty horrific upbringing and wants me to exhibit the same grit and gumption. But I'm a terrible actor, without reefer or alcohol, they were decent enough to get by until they found a resolution they can tolerate.
I'm on the genzdong magazine. No matrix, xmpp (which is what bugs me, I'd like to chat with some of you). And I'm thinking about the phone hard, I'd love it. I'd probably like the laptop too, and it's not that I feel unworthy, but that there are just as many worthy who may get longer use. But since I wrote my last post, maybe there are open source accessibility options. Sometimes I get so used to dead ends, I forget how to even think anymore.
Some good news! I spoke with someone today and hope I have a job lead for regular, plannable hours.
I cross my fingers for you. Having a tough day myself today.
Thanks so much! If you're comfortable sharing, what's up?
These things I mention are just every day annoyances. I shouldn't grumble when there is so much good going on. I'm fed, under a roof, clothed, and have enough living neighbors who seem willing to speak well of me. Small villages are weird, you'll be an interloper for a quarter century, then suddenly everyone "always knew you're a real one." No seriously, an elderly neighbor up the street said that to me yesterday, I almost fainted!
I appreciate you listening to me banging on, but now it's your turn -- if you feel like it.
Thanks again, for putting up with my 🐂 💩
I don't think most people here are petite (not petty btw) bourgeoisie.
Are you thinking of the "middle class" (higher earners) and their false consciousness maybe?
It depends on your definition. I personally have let go of the idea that someone in the west who owns considerable sums is a proletarian.
Most people who have a bachelors degree and upwards are much less dependent on their income as they think/let on.
Especially those whose boomer parents have paid houses and cars and can easily leave a sum of 100k plus have considerable loss to be feared if capitalism is ever to fall.
I absolutely despise the term middle class as it is a reactionary term used to divide the working class.
For me, working class is someone who has to work every day, take their 20 days vacation and otherwise will starve/freeze to death soon.
The ones who have stock, private healthcare, private pensions, yada yada are not strictly working class. Their reactionary potential is huge and they will fall for opportunism more often than not.
Being of a working class background, I know the cruel differences and privilege blindness of the petty bourgois people. They think everyone can have a univerdity degree or just open up a company but thats bullshit. And to make them understand that is a huge task.
Proletarian is a relation to labor not entirely about how much money you make at the end of the month, otherwise Doctors & Lawyers would be "the same" as Small Bussiness tyrants. It also depends on the county, Education in Germany is heavily class segregated, social sciences for example are completely unavailable to most proletarians, as are law & medicine for example. This is different in other countries, like america where most of the people who have a bachelor or even a master, work dead-end service jobs.
Higher educated proles & union leaderships/bureaucrats are the classical labor aristocracy, and their tie to the system (They have something to loose) breeds opportunism. They are still proletarians, as are high-earning doctors, despite it all. Though I am of the opinion that the overemphasis on the treatler discourse often veers into leftcom territory and often seems to me like an intellectualized excuse to "do nothing" by local leftists. Mao even stated that downwards trending intellectuals/labor aristocrats are prime material for radicalization.
Who is and who is not proletarian is not mystical and ought to be not so hard to decipher, and if it is, then maybe one has went down the wrong road, on a theory basis.
I get your points i think.
But you do realize that you're contradicting yourself kind of.
Doctors and lawyers are, by their system designed high income and status, labour aristocracy and work against the proletariat.
Yes, they are technically workers but they do not understand the first thing about bring a prole.
Most leftists I met who think it is important if you technically are wage dependant are of that kind themselves and try to apologize their own privilege instead of facing it.
I do not view people with capital as proles. Feel free to cite theory to convince me otherwise but so far i'm quite convinced that a prole does not own shit.
NGL, seeing the libopedia entry on he bear of various state PTO laws broke me.
Feel free to link it. I havent seen that one yet I think.
I guess it depends how on one classes "self-employed" - still wouldn't be the majority but it could be potentially 15% of the population.
(Petty is just the anglicised form. I have no loyalty to the French)
The better heuristic is to consider the revolutionary potential; how much value is given to private property and how much one benefits from the fall of the US empire. It cuts like a knife through warm butter and better illuminates which parts of the labour aristocrats, western proleteriat and the petite borugoisie to target.
(Petty is just the anglicised form. I have no loyalty to the French)
Haha fair. Never seen someone use "petty" over "small"
The better heuristic is to consider the revolutionary potential; how much value is given to private property and how much one benefits from the fall of the US empire. It cuts like a knife through warm butter and better illuminates which parts of the labour aristocrats, proleteriat in the west and the petite borugoisie to target.
Agreed. Also, nice, another one for my reading list
I think there's a misunderstanding in the use of the word. Petite, petty mean the same thing, "small, not having great significance." So "petty officer," is of small significance to an officer, "petty cash" is for small cost purchases, where an order of significance needs to be placed with approved suppliers through appropriate established vendors, "petty grudge/behavior" (aka microaggressions) while exhausting, take emotional energy better spent elsewhere, like focusing on self care and the task at hand, rather than feeding the beast that will simply and calmly DARVO us, causing lost income for survival, friends via abuse by proxy, etc.
The problem is Western institutions dumbing us down and emotionally ramping us up so that the hunger games odds are even more ever not in our favor.
Huh, i learned something new. I thought petty really was only ever used as in "petty squabbling" and that it had no other meaning outside of that. It makes sense with your explanation.
Thank you!
🫡
Being hated for revolutionary materialism is the dialectics of real love being practised.
Idk, I'm openly a communist in my large social circle of mostly libs and people love me (only begrudgingly engaging with my communist politics, but still engaging in good faith none the less)! The internet is actually more anti-communist than reality, I do fear.
No this is very rare, you might get more farther with pro-feminist & anti-racist takes but if you include actual communist & proactive anti-imperialist even the "woke" people turn on you.
Agreed, once I usually start talking about policies that affect their material interests it turns ugly fast. Or if I stand up for working class “too much” or minorities “too much” then it brings the reactionaries out.
Broad takes will illicit support without criticism usually, the more specific, the worse it gets it seems.
I am talking about anti-imperialist politics here. I have found libs really do give me the time of day if I approach the subject like a teacher, asking probing questions and being well versed on the histories of the countries/regions in question and educating more than lecturing or debating. Talking to somebody who already likes you as a person is also very important for gaining the time of day for them to take you seriously. It's a lot of work, but I have gotten many of my lib friends and acquaintances much more informed and less rabidly in support of the US's imperial project through this approach.
Maybe it's locationally dependent.
I hate being treated like this but sadly that’s just how it is.
It’s a vicious cycle, the more I’m disrespected, the more I get radicalized, I’m learning that doing the right thing often means making your peace with looking like the devil
Trvth nvke so large it made the Tsar Bomba look like a pebble dropped in a puddle.
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