isn’t this the same group that went to Cuba and snubbed Diaz-Canal, met with “dissidents” and then wrote a lengthy article about how Cuba was bad and won’t listen to other voices on “the left?”

I keep seeing articles saying that Russia has told the US it will retaliate against the US. So like, are we all going to get irradiated or worse because Biden’s worm-filled brain is stuck inside the end-of-history? Is Russia in a position to end the war in Ukraine? I remember reading a lot in the news mega about the lines finally moving appreciably… but did that stop happening or is Russia advancing still? I feel like that might be the only way to actually stop the escalation. Other nations are starting to call the US’s bluff, but it seems like the US regime just pretends they weren’t bluffing and it keeps doing the dumbest shit imaginable and choosing mass death over a wounded ego. I just don’t want everyone to die because an Alzheimers patient wound up in the US presidency in a sick combination of elder abuse, class warfare, and neoliberal hubris.

The US has showed absolutely no signs of lessening the sanctions against Cuba. If anything deepening their relationship with Russia could ease a lot of their economic problems, as Russia has created parallel trade systems that avoid sanctions and the dollar. Russia actually began to cut Cuba off and abandon them before the overthrow of the soviet union, as an attempt at appeasing and winning the approval of the empire. Now that Russia has cast off any illusion of US support or cooperation, building a relationship to Cuba is desirable again. Cuba loses nothing, but stands to gain a lot

idk how anyone could allow something like that to be tabled in good conscience

lmao, i take back anything i have ever said about them that had any nuance. imperialist running-dogs.

Sad!

Given the timing of this, I wonder if the US’s “red line” on Rafah was actually something Egypt told the US was a red line for them. The fact that “israel” rejected the (i think) US-Egyptian-Quatari ceasefire proposal that the resistance had accepted, and then entered Rafah the same day. … maybe the US was really only worried about having two client states at odds with each other and trying to have it both ways

In their mind, there is no reason to test for anything if they aren’t going to do anything with the results. They won’t do anything because the CDC has already lost so much credibility any guidance they give will cause half of the population to do the opposite thing. If pundits and officials were honest with the public, they would just explain that the CDC has become a defunct entity, and that it has failed at its only purpose: public health. They can’t do anyt meaningful public health work without public trust or the will to wield any kind of authority (which they don’t have). They won’t say any of that, so instead any charitable reading by liberals seems inexplicable instead of malicious and irresponsible.

Yeah, this just seems divorced from reality and idealist in itself. A communist party is shaped by its membership, for sure, some of its original members had been a part of a party led by Sam Marcy, and had found their way to Marxism-Leninism that way, but the party has grown dramatically and that historical footnote has become more and more of just that, a footnote. People are joining the party identifying as Marxist Leninist… Sam Marcy’s contribution is sort of a footnote outside of those who left SWP, as the Global Class War Thesis was basically a class analysis of the Cold War during the Korean War identifying Imperialism as the primary contradiction(not exactly mind blowing these days). What is more, the PSL deviates significantly from your definition of Marcyism because they look to AES as socialist in character, and support them, with their own contradictions that leftists in the imperial core aren’t in a position to judge.

It is sort of idealist to always constantly view struggle through the lens of abstract tendencies and thoughts without giving consideration to the actual concrete reality at work and the people doing social practice. You are labeling a party because 70 years ago some guy led a different party? It is sort of meaningless. They identify themselves as an independent communist party, Marxist-Leninist and antifactionalist. Nobody is joining because of Sam Marcy. Education materials don’t typically mention him all that frequently, if they do at all. If anything all of this minutia about what constitutes a tendency is super alienating to working class people and often irrelevant today, because what other communists were struggling over internally in a different historical context, although important to study and learn from, isn’t really going to provide perfect answers to the material reality of organizing today, here, in a different context. We are so far from achieving what we need to do to build a revolutionary party, constantly splitting hairs without grounding it in practice isn’t really productive

not my experience. most branches had a connection/organizing relationship to sjp and other Palestinian organizations from well before October of 23. When we mobilized in October in most parts of the country worked in concert with them, with the guidance to take Palestinian organizer’s lead. Many, but not all, of the student organizers likely have already been working with psl before the encampments. When the students started to form them, in my experience a lot of student organizers reach out to whoever has worked with them in the past for support. it is a mass movement, but one that psl has been incorporated into, in part because we have had longstanding relationships with Palestinian organizers… psl runs pretty openly these days too, and outside of answer and people’s forum, there isn’t really much of a proxy or trojan horse situation going on these days in most parts of the country, because the prevailing thought is that the country is more open to socialism than had been historically the case

nobody in the PSL identifies as Marcyite, its not really a thing. I don’t think he really deserves that kind of recognition. Most people in the PSL identify as ML, and the party is more open about describing itself t way than it might have been

I agree completely. The DSA has been an anti-communist project from its conception. This person claims to be giving a “marxist critique” though, and that is what I was addressing. The unfortunate reality is that many people with revolutionary aspirations end up being siphoned into DSA and believe that they are communists. But in reality, most people who join the DSA are exposed to these garbage takes, the incessant factionalism, and ineffectual action, and think that that is what socialist organizing is. They become disaffected and it drives people away from communist parties and organizing in general when the goal should be to bring people in and change their understanding of democracy into a participatory, socialist one. Most DSA members are just members on paper because of this.

Her criticisms come from an incredibly idealist perspective and are divorced from any understanding of power or how a communist party functions. Even lauding Fidel, but ignoring him: “within the revolution, everything; against the revolution, nothing”. introducing “alternative leftist voices” for its own sake accomplishes nothing but sating the unending liberal tendency to act indecisively and fight amongst each other, even when facing an existential threat. Constantly railing against the “bureaucracy” and constantly trying to create a distinction between the communist party from the masses, from the perspective of an outsider… from the imperial core… from the US no less, the primary enemy of the Cuban revolution… It is incredibly telling that that is what she spends her time on. If she is such an incredible organizer and ardent communist then she should focus on revolution within the US

I agree. The US government has levied untold suffering onto the Cuban people and the Cuban President was still willing to sit down with them. The US is Cuba’s oppressor and despite that there are people in the DSA who would like to waste their breath pretending that they have a principled Marxist critique rather than combat their own governments cruelty. Imperial Chauvinism. I am sure that Maria thinks that she has a better understanding of Cuba’s conditions than Cubans themselves, but she is just wasting people’s time and hurting the movement she pretends to espouse.

Cool, why skip out on a meeting with the President of Cuba’s government to discuss it in a constructive way then?

“To indulge in irresponsible criticism in private instead of actively putting forward one’s suggestions to the organization. To say nothing to people to their faces but to gossip behind their backs, or to say nothing at a meeting but to gossip afterwards. To show no regard at all for the principles of collective life but to follow one’s own inclination. This is a second type.”

Maria has been working non stop for as long as I’ve known her. She’s one of the best comrades I’ve had the pleasure of working with. She is a machine that turns liberals into communists. She has tirelessly organized for trans rights in Florida of all places. She is an anti-imperialist through and through.

“To regard oneself as having rendered great service to the revolution, to pride oneself on being a veteran, to disdain minor assignments while being quite unequal to major tasks, to be slipshod in work and slack in study. This is a tenth type.”

I think the NUG has many elements within it that are from the former, US-captured, National League for Democracy, and its formation was a coalition aimed at bringing on board the various oppressed nations that have been struggling for independence for decades, the political elements of the former government, generally representing pro-western liberals and national bourgeoisie types, were essentially left leaderless, because the Aung San Suu Kyi clique had become centered around her personality and almost directly administered by her associates who often times were foreigners or outside of Myanmar until the so-called democratic reforms had come about.

That being said, it is unclear to me, from anything I have read, where leadership truly lies within that coalition. Most of the principle armed groups with experience were from the Shan, Karen, Kachin, Mon and other nations who have been fighting for decades for self-determination, often with a long history of very radical social platforms. The Burmese Communist Party has even re-entered the country from Yunnan and are allegedly fighting in the south, I believe they were armed and trained by the Kachin Independence Army… they are in an area this map labels as the PDF and are often labeled as allies of the PDF… Are they also working at the behest of the CIA? It’s not impossible but seems unlikely…. It also sounds like China’s stance of non-interference, that is often thought of as pro-junta, is sort of out the window. They have likely been arming and providing support to some of the groups on their border, like the Shan, in exchange for combatting illegal human trafficking schemes that have direct toes to the junta. At least that is what we know publicly. I would imagine that there is more going on than China will ever admit to, but this seems to be a signal that China is unhappy with the junta and that China mostly desires a stable political situation across its border.

China has been put in a difficult position by the coup in 2021, which I think was an opportunistic play by the military. They saw the new cold war between the US and China, while also seeing their prospects for their own political leadership dimming, so they took advantage of the moment and seized control. Neither side can play too direct a role in the conflict without risk of it blowing up in their face, although the US does have an advantage because an unstable Myanmar on China’s border is something the US might desire. But the junta is essentially pro western/neoliberal, with almost identical politics as the Aung San Suu Kyi led NLD. It really is difficult to say what the character of the civil war is, in part because there are contradictory elements within it. I agree though, anyone calling for the “international community to step up” which is a phrase i keep hearing verbatim, seems sus. Many of the more left-wing elements in this civil war should be fighting for total victory over the tatmadaw, but a UN brokered agreement would likely just mean restoring the old system or liberal democracy without any promise of political autonomy or national liberation being addressed

I think you should consider what you mean by the worth of the stock market as a whole. Do you mean value, or the money-price? Under bourgeois economics, there is no contradiction there because they believe that the medium of exchange creates new value in-itself. Even if it doesn’t make sense, that is the assumption 90% of economists are working under. Marxist economics would look at it differently… simply because the exchange-value of the overall stock market (reflected in its monetary prices) has grown outsized does not mean that it is reflective of its actual value. Exchange does not actually create value in-itself, value is created by socially-necissary-labor-time. Exchange-value is easily quantifiable, but it is not always reflective of the value embodied within an object itself. The exchange-value of the market reflected in price can be affected by fictitious capital and financial “innovations” that conceal growing levels of exploitation and usury.

Monetary supply is not the sole cause of inflation either, in fact inflation is often caused by an increase in prices itself. It sounds like maybe the contradiction that is bugging you is that the monetary supply has grown almost exponentially and this has caused inflation in assets, but only in the last few years has there been an increase in consumer prices that people commonly would describe as inflation. I think part of the disconnect that might be revealing is that part of the inflation we have experienced has been reflected disproportionately in the money-price of homes, but people who own homes have seen the increase in housing prices as “appreciation” of their home value and assets, not as inflation. So that is written off as an achievement for most individuals, while ignoring the social crisis it has caused for anyone who was born too late. Homes aren’t inherently worth more than they were 30 years ago, but the price of a home has grown much

Capital isn’t really allocated rationally under a capitalist system, outside of the logic of increasing profit. It is also best to remember that capital and profit, by their nature, are always expected to transfer wealth from workers to shareholders. Otherwise, they would be failing at their purpose. I think what you are rightly pointing out is that we are living in one of the greatest asset-bubbles of all time, and there are a number of reasons for this.

imo, I think a big one is “quantitative easing,” which was the “solution” to the financial crisis of 08. Once the state realized that they could print money infinitely while adopting a 0% interest rate (largely because of the petro-dollar) the federal reserve printed out trillions of dollars in stimulus that was confined largely to finance capital. This became a big draw to investors to pour even more capital into stocks and other assets as everything was growing because of large cash infusions. Stock buy-backs and fund-managers buying residential real estate with this additional cash grew the bubble even further, while additional piles of money went to increasingly speculative venture capital firms. Venture capital firms, flush with cash, began pouring money into “tech,” allowing for large companies to operate at a net-loss while adopting an increasingly financialized, or rent-seeking model. You see the consequences of this over time, people often refer to it as “enshittification” but the strategy is to use large “capital runways” to corner a particular part of the market (“disruption”) and then when they run out of cheap money either turn to the market based on its “potential” or create an even more expensive, often subscription based, model to continue to dictate the terms of the market.

The US tech industry is a vacuous industry, as many have pointed out, where tens, or even hundreds, of thousands of over-educated workers in the imperial core draw large salaries in unprofitable businesses set up for the distinct purpose of being bought by a larger competitor or venture firm. This also has a contradictory effect of taking other jobs, outside of software development and computer infrastructure, and lowering the pay of work that traditionally was able to support social reproduction… But US tech appears to be a giant rube-gold berg device to obfuscate and mystify the increasing exploitation and predatory rent-seeking behavior of US capital. The mystique of defining it as “tech” appears to be a superstructural development, where people are fed a vision of a better world through technological development, but where they have actually entered into an economic arrangement that seems to have more characteristics of peonage than a reproletarianization of the imperial core. I think this is what some people are trying to call “neo-feudalism” but idk if I would support the claim that this is a economic system that is distinct enough to break from what we would describe as capitalism/imperialism. (and I am not sure that that is what all proponents of “neofeudalism” are really getting at either).

anyway, this is my take on the asset bubble, but idk if I am an expert really, and I would love to be corrected and learn more

Yeah, I think this just also misunderstands the definition (or popular definition) of a ceasefire as a stoppage of hostilities by both sides in a conflict. So it wouldn’t make sense for that to be the outcome of Israel being found guilty of genocide, as Palestinian resistance is legal under international law. I know Palestine isn’t a recognized party to the conflict, but the popular slogan for a ceasefire is being used here by imperialist narratives to make it seem like the ICJ ruled in Israel’s favor by not demanding one… whereas it isn’t clear that that would be the outcome (according to popular understanding of what a ceasefire means) if Israel were found guilty of the crime. The court asked Israel that they should stop committing a genocide, but instead the press is reporting that the court “stopped short of calling for a ceasefire” and to “prevent a genocide” instead of stopping their actions (even though the court literally did say that afaik)

One thing that the ICJ ruling (and the subsequent response to it) is making me think about, is the logic of calling for a ceasefire is now beginning to impede on the logical conclusion of the iCJ’s ruling. We have heard a refrain for a ceasefire, but if Israel is guilty of committing genocide, then under no pretext should the Palestinian resistance stop fighting, if anything, the moral response would be for other countries to invade or provide material support for the Palestinian resistance and for Israel to unconditionally surrender. Is it still a ceasefire if only one side stops?