Bad ideology when person whose aesthetic I don’t like happily reads to kids. Good ideology when person whose aesthetic I do like waves to crowd. I am strongman, hear me roar, pound chest. Me like chest pound aesthetic, make brain feel good. Me tough guy, tougher than those weirdos who use bright colors in things. Me only like sepia tone or grayscale, must look aged and old like socrates. New things bad, old good, but only if old comes from right color scheme and quote vibes. This how product work, color and packing I like taste better, so must be same with ideology, right?

I don’t know how I got here as satire, exactly, but I am tired…

Meanwhile how israel actually feels about Lebanon: https://x.com/BTnewsroom/status/1839771677519163565 (tweets by BreakThrough News, using quotes from top israel figures)

Israeli officials have repeatedly threatened to destroy all of Lebanon since October.

Here are just a few examples:

“There is no difference between Hezbollah and Lebanon. Lebanon will be annihilated. It will cease to exist.”

— Yoav Kisch, Israel’s Minister of Education

“Beirut must burn. I’m not saying this because I am a war monger”

— Yoaz Hendel, Former minister, media person, Lt. Col. (Res.)

“For the deaths of little children, [Hezbollah chief Hassan] Nasrallah should pay with his head,” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich tweeted,” asserting that it was “time for action” and that “Lebanon as a whole has to pay the price.”

"Every person in Lebanon can take the map, the aerial photograph of Gaza, place it on an aerial photograph of Beirut, and ask themselves if this is what they want to happen there.”

— Yoav Gallant, Israeli Defense Minister

“The time has come for the price to be paid in military targets and Lebanese infrastructure, of which Hezbollah is a part.”

— Benny Gantz, Retired MK Lt. General & Minister without portfolio

“Lebanon is a dysfunctional state incapable of enforcing UN resolution 1701 which forbids presence of Hezbollah in South Lebanon… So Israel has no option but to evacuate villages in South Lebanon and establish a buffer zone there.”

—Amichai Chikli, Israel Minister of Diaspora

Where have we heard this talking point before? Oh right, every single time israel mass murders civilians, they claim it was a military target and that the military target is terrorists. Before it was Hamas, Hamas, Hamas, now it’s Hezbollah, Hezbollah, Hezbollah.

it eats at me when I have to see the results of the “unjust peace” (not that what’s going on in the world or even within the cores can be remotely described as “peace”) and live in it, particularly with the Sinophobic sword of Damocles hanging over my head (ethnic Chinese myself), or with literal industrial genocide going on and the west goosestepping towards WW3 and open fascism.

I can’t pretend to understand the part about being ethnically Chinese in the imperial core, as I definitely qualify as “white” myself, but the part about “unjust peace” resonates with me in some way. I don’t know if my mind is going to quite the same places, but there’s something about the normalcy of things in the US that def eats at me. One expression of this where I notice it is, of all places, dating apps. I don’t know what it is about it, but seeing profile after profile that has all this individualistic language about a personal lifestyle, while perhaps the most documented-in-real-time and widely publicized genocide in history is being funded and enabled by the US, is such a disorienting feeling. There’s the odd profile here and there that mentions it, maybe some of it’s my locale, but it’s like overall, this juxtaposition of liberal individualism against the realities of what is happening in the world. Like the implied assumption is that the current system works and will keep working and everybody will sort of get to do their own thing if they try hard enough for it, and it’s like, are many of these people putting on a face but don’t believe the system is going to last, or are they sleepwalking through it in a political education sense of things.

And I’ll be honest, I don’t think I’m doing the best I could be doing in my own case, with regards to these things. I might be doing the best I can manage right now, but I can probably work to do better going forward. And I think that’s part of the disorienting feeling for me too. Like having one feet in and one foot out. But I can never unsee everything I’ve seen and I can’t ever feel normal going back what it felt like before I was more aware of what’s going on in the world beyond the imperialist bubble of propaganda. And the fact that I can’t means it’s all the harder to relate to a lot of people. So I can put on a face and do the individualist lifestyle dance to a point, but sometimes it feels like putting on a brave face for a kid. I know that would probably sound demeaning to people and places it applies to, but it’s the best analogy I can think of at the moment. It’s like this thing of pretending things are normal when they aren’t because it’s too upsetting to others if you don’t at least try to, to a degree. That doesn’t mean I never bring up the issues I care about, but it’s like, trying to find the right balance of being able to meet people where they are at in order to have any chance of moving the needle and taking a principled stand. That is hard, when the default position for so many in the US is confident spew that contains various levels of barely-contained vile; and I’m not even talking about people who are openly fascist or whatever. More just the stomach-turning nature of liberalism.

You aren’t a liberal for being human. It is something to remember that some of us are not the best “people person” types and either need to work on that more, or need to find others who can better do those roles. Using myself as an example, I’m good at being diplomatic, but chatting up strangers has never been one of my strengths; it’s possible I could make it one with enough time and motivation, but right now, it’s not. Not having that strength will cut off capabilities for me that people who can do that, have. I also have an easier time getting into meta, deep concepts than some, but it does little if I can’t present it to others in a way that communicates its value effectively and contributes to the advancement of liberation and the advancement of more compassionate and stable conditions for people.

We have different strengths, in other words, and no matter what an individual works on, they will still lack in some areas. That’s one of the reasons organizing together and complementing each other, in both strengths and struggles, is so important.

Well said. I think I’m of a similar mind about it, but I feel like you worded it better than I did.

In general, this sounds like it could lead to sort of “gatekeeping” what counts as “praxis”, depending on how it’s answered. But I want to say, it kind of depends on how you go about it and why. First, I would say, anything can be a help if it’s persuasive in an anti-imperialist and/or communist direction. The less rabid imperialists and fascists, the less for those efforts to recruit from. In that sense, it obviously matters somehow, provided you’re reaching actual real people and not just arguing with astroturf bots or something.

But, there are probably ways that are more effective than others. For example, are you assessing and re-assessing your approach as you go, based on what you can glean about its effectiveness and what it does toward your goals. Or are you just doing what I might call “reaction-posting”, where it’s more about venting among people who feel similarly w/ regards to whatever the latest thing is; which is a valid thing to do, but may not be persuading anyone about these things.

Anything organized is probably way more effective than random attempts, but it can be hard to do that on the internet. I would compare a lot of the more random internet stuff as being similar to, if you’re talking in a group at a party and someone says something super racist and nobody is calling it out, which sends the message that it’s okay for that person to be racist. Whereas if you do call it out and you make it clear it’s not okay, you are at the very least challenging the narrative on what is considered normal and acceptable to say in public. This is not in itself eradicating racism, but if the person didn’t mean to be racist or is more likely to lean into it from peer support, that rejection might cause them to reflect on their views.

So is it gonna do a revolution without grass-touching? No. But can it have an impact of a kind, along with other forms of effort in-person? For sure. Otherwise, imperialists and their ilk wouldn’t do astroturfing to manipulate social media. Like what happened in Myanmar, I think it was, with Facebook manipulation (don’t quote me on that, may be recalling the names incorrectly somehow).

I’m gonna hope that Cunningham’s law gets a better answer/correction if this one is in any way off:

• Things exist as opposites (hot/cold, night/day, etc.)

• There’s a push and pull between these opposites and they can be said to exist in contradiction with each other

• Things go through states of change (night turns to day, day turns to night)

• Resolving these sort of contradictions in social systems (rich/poor, etc.) can involve sort of “leveling them out” through a process of enforced change; the worker, who may be separated out from the “intellectual” in the prior system, becomes educated and the “intellectual” becomes a laborer (the gap between the two becomes narrower); the community leader who was before divorced from the political process becomes a representative not through campaigning but because their community selects them out and wants them to represent them; the worker who before had to rent (at best) access to the means of production (land, factories) gets shared, collective ownership of it.

• There must be a developed process of change: For example, if China were to today declare that it is now a stateless, classless, moneyless society and dissolve the state, what is likely to happen? The inertia and state apparatuses and social systems in place would likely continue as they are and replace the leadership who said such with new leadership who adheres to the current system. Were they to declare this and try to enforce it, such as by punishing people for exchanging goods and services via money, they would be contradicting the stateless part and generally losing sight of process in favor of blind adherence to a vague concept. Without a process of change to develop toward things, it’s little more than an aspirational declaration of intent. Like Michael Scott from The Office “declaring bankruptcy”; filing for bankruptcy is an enforced and designed process that functions a certain way in the context of a specific society. Declaring it literally doesn’t get you anywhere.

• Other example: You are in a dark room, so you flip the light switch. The switch is connected to wires, which (through complex processes I don’t understand well enough to explain) electricity gets created and a light bulb is powered. But, the light doesn’t turn on. This can mean a number of things: the power as a whole is out; something is wrong with the wiring (in which case, you need an electrician); or the more common, the bulb doesn’t work anymore. You turn the light switch off so you don’t get zapped while replacing the bulb, remove the old one, and try putting the new one in. You flip the light switch on. Light floods the room. This enables you to see in the dark, so now you can study for that exam you have even though it’s 2am. Where before you were limited to studying with the sun, you can now do it at night. This expands the range of things you can do, regardless of time of day, but also can mess with your circadian rhythms, making your sleep worse. The more you drill this stuff down, the more you get into how things push and pull with each other, and how humans and communities and societies effect change and are affected by change.

(This ended up being a big thing when I meant for it to be a small summary, but I’m gonna roll with it and hope it helps for discussion, if nothing else lol.)

People tried to, to an extent, in 2020. Against police brutality. And they were brutalized for it and cop cities started getting built. Called rioters when most of them were nothing more than civil disobedience and police were the ones primarily rioting, being violent against them for daring to express any opposition to the state’s wanton violence.

Mind you, I don’t say this to be reductionist or dismissive with the “why” which is an important question to contend with. But the point is, it’s not as though everyone is sitting around doing nothing. And revolutions, as we know from history, do not happen (or maybe, more precisely, do not succeed) from spontaneous anger alone, but from organized, disciplined force and intention. Stuff like cointelpro and the vilification and violence against the Black Panther Party, or going further back than that, the imprisonment of Eugene Debs or the Battle of Blair Mountain, shows that there are elements of the US who do fight back and face state violence every time. Or a more recent example, the student protests against genocide; maybe that doesn’t qualify as “revolting” to you, but it is a kind of resistance against imperialism and carries with it risk of violence from the state as a consequence.

Why it’s not more than that, is maybe a more important question to ask. And some of the answer to that, I think is found in the systematized racial hierarchy. To a racist enough person, the systemic violence against black people, for example, is virtually invisible to them as an issue, if they would even deem it as one in the first place. Then there are those liberals who view themselves as anti-racist, but obviously aren’t in substantive action, and that’s a whole can of worms in itself.

Part of the gut punch of this is the grassroots efforts to stop it that were basically ignored. Don’t let anyone tell you the US is anything remotely resembling a system “by/for the people.” One of the fakest slogans in modern history. The US is “by/for white supremacy, colonialism, and imperialism,” and they have clung to that general makeup through the will of a violent and organized power elite—along with the weaponization of a racist class of “white people” under that—throughout the entire country’s history. On paper, being post woman’s suffrage movement, post civil rights movement, it is perhaps as democratic a system as it has ever been in the country’s history, which in practice is saying… almost nothing, considering outcomes like this. The US seems clearly to be a country that runs on the aesthetics of democracy over any actual democratic process. I find it’s the same way liberals tend to think about fascism in the US, as some kind of aesthetic that you will “know when you see it.” But the substance of fascism is already there (IIRC, George Jackson talks about this in Blood in My Eye, though I don’t remember the specifics atm).

What is a vote worth if it ignores the will of the people? This is the reality liberal “democracy” shows over and over (another notable example recently, what happened with the French “elections”). “What can we do to give the illusion of choice without actual people power that could challenge the hegemonic goal of imperial expansion, and global domination and humiliation of entire peoples?” The answers to that question brought into being by the organized colonizers is what we’re dealing with in places like the US. Honestly, even using words like “domination” doesn’t feel strong enough. The degree of systematic violence that colonialism does is obsessed with torture, maiming, and inflicting terror, not just in control alone. It is not enough for them to kill a person; they want the victim and anyone who supports them to feel helpless and dispirited too. To be broken by it, until you are numb.

Under any other circumstance, I might say I’m being dramatic, but this is a graphically violent system of power we’re talking about, colonialism, with a hundreds of years legacy to it. It can shock the system to internalize how grotesque and systematized it is, in its violence.

You can never win with the propaganda of the capitalists. They will twist anything and everything. If you are frugal and save, then “the economy is struggling because people aren’t spending enough on businesses.” If you spend on so-called ‘luxuries’ (like spending on anything other than bare minimum sustenance, how luxurious!), then “your poor spending habits are what’s causing you to be poor and not the fact that federally mandated minimum wages have been stagnant while living costs rise and the one tepid reformist candidate who cared about it got treated as an extremist.”

She said a relationship with money is like a relationship with people: it starts during childhood and sees people form different types of attachments.

“If you feel like you have a secure attachment with money, you can make a sound evaluation of something. You gather knowledge and you can evaluate [it] … But if you are insecure, or if you’re avoidant, then you’re more likely to get lured into this unhealthy spending behavior.”

Okay, I almost missed this part. I want to unread it so bad. How do I make my brain forget that someone compared spending habits to attachment styles to avoid ever making capitalism responsible for anything. 😑 Deep breaths. Okay.

I have definitely been plagued by the “hobby must be productive” mentality. For example, in the context of a video game, framing it around what I’m “accomplishing” within the game, since the game itself is not producing anything. Or in the context of language learning, viewing it as something that needs to show results for it to be worth doing.

I think it ties into a sort of perfectionism for me. But anyway, I agree with you that a hobby does not need to “qualify” as a hobby, for lack of a better word. It can just be a thing that you do. Now as for applying that to my own mind in practice, that’s a whole other question. 😅

I’ve worn a mask the entire time and self-isolated a lot. My whole approach to this topic from the start was in good faith, to better understand where people are at with it and if possible, to reinforce my own reasons for wearing a mask.

I’m sorry but fuck off with this.

I can empathize with how bad you have it, though I can’t pretend to say I understand it, as I’m not immunocompromised. But I’m not going to go along with a tone that implies real struggles people are dealing with aren’t real because someone else has it worse. My whole household got sick with covid at one point, after a long period of managing to avoid it, because one person was being a socialite and not masking. Thankfully we’d been able to vaccinate before that happened and there was no (known) long-term damage, but by god did it get to me after how hard I tried to manage the risk. That is real and demoralizing. I can’t even imagine how bad it is not having the vaccine as an option, but you are effectively taking shots at the messenger here. I’m trying to understand and describe a problem and what its challenges are, not make excuses for people having such a systemic lack of any sense of social responsibility.

Don’t confuse me for someone who wants to compromise on important issues because they don’t want to make waves. The problem is the practicality of it. I can’t give people more willpower to stand up on this. And sure I can go on with guilting myself or telling myself I’m doing some small amount of % harm reduction or telling myself I’m being principled, but it’s not helping me persuade anyone else or explain well to them why I’m doing it. Like what am I supposed to tell people? I’m seriously asking here. I don’t know and I don’t expect you to know either, but I really don’t know what to say to people about any of it. People are insistent on treating it as a thing you just sort of “move on from” at some point and I don’t know how to counter that. Should I yell at them about immunocompromised people? I’ve never tried that one. I honestly don’t know if it would move anyone.

People get heated sometimes, but I see a lot of compassion and thoughtfulness on Lemmygrad overall. I can see the effort you put into being thoughtful in your posts in this thread and I appreciate it. Whether you go more to hexbear or continue here, I wish you well.

I mostly recall posts qualifying as “anti-mask” coming across as a defeated, beaten down attitude about it, like “I give up”, not something anti-science or the like. I understand some stuff got heated and removed though, so if there were posts going into detailed anti-mask stuff, I don’t think I saw it. A lot of what I was there for to reply to people (that I can recall) was trying to commiserate and relate to people on reasoning they’re dealing with and how hard it is dealing with the pressures of other people and the system as a whole, trying to be conscientious in spite of that. Some of us dealt with, or still deal with, family members who refuse to take it seriously now, or for some people, family members who never took it seriously. On top of living in places where virtually nobody else is doing it anymore, which can attract strange looks or worse, depending on the place. Which can be very isolating, trying to somehow overcome that and be principled while people are getting sick in spite of what we do. It can make a person feel helpless and demoralized. That was one of the sentiments I saw there and I know it well in certain forms myself.

Fair point to make.

I started noticing it more via twitter after the October 7th thing happened and all the zionists coming out of the woodwork there, who would use the same general talking points, be accounts who were inorganic in their origins, posting history, username, etc.

And I agree, it seems heavily a part of reddit as well; it’s just harder to spot at a glance on reddit because the accounts are more anonymized, as is the voting. But the tonality of it (for lack of a better word) is distinctly there. Although it’s certainly believable, like you say, that there are fanatics out there, the numbers don’t make sense. Many regular people are plain busy and do not have the time to be posting foaming at the mouth imperialism on the internet, even if they wanted to; and if they did, they would articulate it in varied ways based on their levels of ignorance regarding imperialism and conflict and so on, not this stuff where suddenly everybody has more or less the same talking point.

I like the idea of a bot for it, for certain domains maybe? That seems feasible, at least for some of it. For youtube links, it might get hairy, since they don’t necessarily have channel information in the name (unless there’s a way a bot can extract some kind of metadata from where the link leads?). Don’t know if the admins would go for it or not though, either way, or who to ask about that kind of thing. But I like the idea.

To be honest, I don’t understand how some people are arriving at the conclusions they are in this thread. I’d think a warning is a very low bar to ask for w/ regards to the way you’re presenting it. Like, “Hey, this is from a source that I find trustworthy on X narrow subject, but on Y, I do not advise listening to them.” Then there is at least a baseline established on the why. Because: 1) It is foolish to not guide people at all on what is and isn’t trustworthy and 2) It becomes hard to distinguish who is and isn’t laundering anti-communist politics if they can post just anything as long as it’s agreeable to communism and anti-imperialism some of the time.

In particular, w/ regards to this part:

Cutting off an information stream due to ideology harms, rather than benefits, the ability of Marxist’s to analyze what’s going on in the world.

I can guess what the intent is here, but it can’t be approached blindly as an individualist problem of discernment. For this to work, it requires an organized and disciplined approach to information. You wouldn’t tell a communist to listen to Fox News for 4 hours each day because they might “miss out on information streams” if they don’t. Cutting off information or not requires processing it with care. China didn’t cut themselves off from information about the world as a whole, but they did develop their own social media and messaging platforms, making it much harder for the west to come in and astroturf on them and their people.

It’s not liberalism to recognize that managing information and how people engage with it is a critical part of developing towards socialism and communism and their goals. We are supposed to approach it from the standpoint of actual truth, not manipulation for selfish gain, but that doesn’t mean you let just anything in because it contains a nugget of truth in it. You must have some boundaries, it’s just a question of what and when.

My thoughts are so

free.

Where do they come

from?

Do they come from

me?

I cannot understand where their origins

be.

So I wrote a poem about how they make me

feel.

Their originality makes me feel

unique.

I never check the comments because

I

Might find one of the other fifty million

people,

Who have writ the

same.