Ask Lemmygrad

Related, what if we protected the privacy of everyone by default (which is an absolute joke in bourgeois society at the moment), but reserved technological surveillance as a measure applied to violent offenders? I think it would enable us to be less punitive, rather than being moreso - offenders could be released sooner and with more confidence of collective wellbeing, if they could be "sentenced" to constant surveillance with your Militia or whatever ready to intervene in moments possibly before they even offend (eg., when a situation starts becoming very heated)

Dystopian maybe, but less so than caging and psychologically torturing a human, just less familiar...

I would like to learn in detail about how the People's Republic effectively countered the Western attempt to create an East Turkestan state and successfully re-educated the terroristic elements into productive members of their society. What English-language books, articles, and other sources can fill me in on how exactly they did this?

I thought the whole idea is that the state is also "owned" by those working in it, just as everything else. Isn't waiting for the perfect Utopia to sprout out of thin air and instead focusing on infighting kinda useless and beside the point? I'm confused whether it's me who doesn't understand or "them". So I wan't to ask a guestion here as I did there: how is any of this supposed to work if no state (no ruling authority) can exist? Say maintaining infrastructure in areas where no natural resources, industry for refining or skilled labor for extracting, refining and maintaining naturally exist? I don't believe that any human society can function without some level of authority (thinking legality in disputes and such) and in order to provide everything needed for infrastructure maintenance some authority must tell others where to go with everything.

Idk this guy but Yugopnik tweeted a post about him?

Because there’s this guy called Bonnie Prince Bob who called himself a socialist and openly and publicly advocates its use… despite the fact that “psychedelics” are drugs. Like cocaine is a drug.

I must disclose that this is not a common opinion. If I had a nickel for every time someone called Parenti a genocide denier I’d have two nickels, once on twitter and once on tumblr, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it’s happened twice.

I have a feeling this has something to do with his book To Kill a Nation but I have yet to read it so I have no idea.

Hey fam,

I've been having more and more discussions with comrades across different organizations, and I keep hitting this wall when it comes to AI and robotics.

Simply put, most people just don't understand the capitalist/imperial consequences let alone the communist opportunities that these innovations entail

Keeping in line with a Lenin-esque analysis of understanding the various material inputs (energy, agriculture, steel, etc), I'm hoping to begin brainstorming collective solutions that we can begin to circulate in our respective fields and orgs

Starting with some founding principles

1. Avoiding dependence on any foundational model given the ability to surveil users (but keeping their usage as an option because all current llms are known to have publicly available jailbreaking methods)
2. Targeting and elevating use cases which can be implemented with open source, local, and offline models to avoid surveillance, enhance portability, and also reduce the climate impacts of this tech
3. Using this tech to enhance sociality between people and the planet. None of the use cases should be to replace people/workers or reduce the reliance on our communities

I don't have much at this moment, but so far

• Real time, multilingual translation, we are increasingly organizing across different communities, and we don't always have translators available. Everyone should be included at the table, and this is one step to lowering that barrier of entry
• Using AI to vet protest plans, especially if you have access to your local police, national guard, etc. training and operating manuals. Obviously needs to be done offline, but a second pair of eyes goes a long way
• Contingency planning, especially in understanding how the police will react and mobilize force
• Learning how to make wireless jammers and tuning them to the spectrum used by police and military drones
• Coming back to the jailbreaking vulnerabilities of all current llms, you can use them for more "illegal" endeavors to pretty accurate ends. Not advocating for such, but it's an option
• Liberation companions, as we move more into agentic ai, finding ways to embody the knowledge of our liberatory elders to educate and reflect on current methodologies. Everything from a study companion/group to an llm tuned towards modernizing their perspectives to our modern context

None of this is meant to be prescriptive, but rather the beginning of an ongoing discussion

Also drop links to other discussions if this has already been addressed elsewhere

Do they really want to learn from China?

How exactly does Juche differ from other Marxist branches? What are the differences? Do Koreans in the DPRK really see the Kim family as "gods" like western documentaries tell? And can someone explain the laying down the flowers in front of the statue thing? I dont really understand it and want to learn about it. Also I learned that the DPRK was way richer than the south in the 70s, but why are people making fun of the nation now because it is alledgedly poorer and had a hunger crisis? I find it disturbing tbh to make fun of people starving.

What I concluded myself is that it has something to do with the war they are still in that has only a truce but never really ended.

I want to open my personal bank account, but I first wanted to know which types of banks I should look for, any tips?

It is becoming increasingly clear to me that I need to expand my social circle. Most people I'm in a position to see in real life regularly are filled with a lot of brainworms: owning property is seen as a goal that one would be crazy not to pursue, the police and military are seen as sacred institutions, and I even know a few trumpanzees. I need to make new connections, but I'm a weird suburbanite shut-in with a weird demeanor that is offputting to normal people, and I'm worried that trying to meet new friends through my existing friends will just further entrench me into the petite bourgeois crackershpere.

How do you meet based people when you're just far enough from the nearest city for regular travel back and forth to be inconvenient and are bad at making friends in the first place?

For my political science class I have to make a presentation analyzing an article. She gave us a set amount to present on, all related to university, but because of my issues she’s allowing me to present by myself and on a topic I am passionate about as long as it is related to the university. I chose imperialism and how universities can be a weapon for it.

The article I am analyzing is called “Militarizing Education: the Intelligence Community’s Spy Camps,” it’s a chapter from the book the Imperial University: Academic Repression and Scholarly Dissent. one of the chapters is actually written by Vijay Prashad but his felt a little less relevant to my project.

For the analysis part I had to find 5 scholarly sources, which you don’t have to worry about as I already found them. One of my sources is literally Lenin’s Imperialism the highest stage of capitalism. During my presentation I am going to talk about the School of Americas and I have some ideas on how to engage the class when that part comes, but at the end I have to do an “activity” with the class.

Previous presentations saw the class answer a series of questions, do group analysis on a few questions, and play a kahoot game. If it were up to me I’d just do my presentation and then sit my ass down. But I can’t do that so I’m asking for help from you.

Do you have any ideas on what I can do at the end of my presentation to fill out the “engagement” part of the grading rubric? I want to do well because I’ve been dying this semester.

Really in the mood for reading some logic and equations

There's a few courses about Marxism on here, has anyone seen these can attest to the quality?

Hi, There are many people I know and also many comment sections I see online that are just parroting Israeli and US state department propaganda and I feel like it is driving me insane. They seem to repeat arguments using almost every common propaganda technique available and it seems like the majority of people is just falling for it without any critical thinking and this is depressing as hell.

They are portraying fascism as the only solution to all problems and as a justified position but don't even want to name it as such, saying everyone else is the fascist.

I think I am going mad what should I do, I feel like arguing against it is like speaking to a wall most of the time.

Photo: Jerusalem Post

I been thinking lately about this. While Iran, an bourgeois state, can willingly choose not to trade with Israel, the PRC continues to trade with them. Why does this occur? Also, why did China recognize Israel in the first place?

I realize the title is confusing but I did not know what else to say.

A project for one of my semester 7 classes is requiring me to write a reflection paper on two conferences I attended. The problem? I have to have three academic sources to cite in this reflection, and the paper itself has to talk about “what impact the university has” based off these two conferences.

There were many conferences I could’ve chosen but I ended up choosing one that was about “multiculturalism, decolonization, and reconciliation through community” and the other was watching a documentary about Gay rights in Canada and then a panel was held with some of the makers of the movie.

The first conference made mentions about multiculturalism in Canada as a mere cover and not true justice, that they (the panelists, all radicalized women) were also being used in this way. One of the panelists even stated that decolonization requires a dismantling of the colonial system and a move away from capitalism, yet she did not state the alternative. When asked about China the woman, who is Taiwanese, stated that communism was a push against western imperialism but has its own form of imperialism. Another panelists talked about her experience with community gardens and how it connects people to the land and food production, this immediately reminded me of Marx’s alienation. This same panelist talked about how what they were talking about was risky as they could realistically be killed, but this was more in reference to her going back to, I believe, India.

So one of my sources is Marx’s Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts.

The second conference was difficult due to the fact that the bulk of it was a movie and I was unable to write any notes during the film, but it was about a man who was fired from his teaching job for being gay. This prompted him to go to the courts of Canada to fight against discrimination based on sexuality as it was not protected. That is inaccurate, it was protected in all provinces except one. First he went to the provincial court but the case was immediately dismissed with as much violent homophobia as you could think. Then it was brought to the Supreme Court where the case was won and sexuality was made a protected category under the Charter.

Anyway, the main important bits was that the people involved in the case were tacked ruthlessly with severe homophobia and that it took several years. One of the lawyers even invoked the memory of the Holocaust to make the case for protecting sexual minorities. During the panel everyone there agreed that, due to the current political climate, we could realistically see a sequel documentary based around trans rights. The director of the film also talked about the cuts to USAID being an issue for LGBT organization overseas, specifically in Poland.

I am sorry for the long explanations but I felt the need to provide this information as to give you all a better idea of what I am dealing with. My mind went to the “revolutionary academic” and how that is clearly not allowed, and thus I found a source kind of about that by Henry Etzkowitz called “The Second Academic Revolution.” I am mostly going to make my own point about how the revolutions described in that paper are not what I am talking about. I am having a hard time finding any pieces on academic revolutionaries, if thats even possible. I am also struggling with linking my second conference to the main point of the paper which, again, is about impact (whatever that means).

I apologize if this is too much to ask for, even steering me in the right direction would help, no need for actual sources if that is not possible or appropriate. I honestly have no one else to consult with on this.

If its any help I was also approved of using Lenin as a source for any of my projects, so nobody is off the table regardless of how “controversial” they are.

Thank you for any guidance you can give me.

If you're in the majority, you have the votes to be able to accomplish something with reform. It's not like we live in a monarchy, reform is possible under our system.

If reform isn't working to bring about your goals, either your goals aren't popular enough, or they are popular but the people lack the will and organization to vote for them.

If the people lack the will and organization to vote effectively, they certainly lack the will and organization to topple the government.

My area of expertise is managing complex systems and change implementation. I sincerely don't understand how revolution is supposed to work where reform doesn't. No one has been able to give me an answer that doesn't bill down to idealistic hope. How is this revolution supposed to be implemented, and why can't we build the foundation for revolution while simultaneously using the tools we have for reform? Wouldn't widespread support for reform be the best possible proof of consensus?

This is for the purpose of drawing comparisons between them and other MoP changes, like capitalism->socialism. This comparison could be useful for refuting the claim that the decades-long M-L state efforts to transition the MoP are a sign of failed revolution or capitalist corruption (e.g. "it's been [x] years and china hasn't established a worker's utopia yet!")[1].

This post will probably piss people (especially Americans) off. Here, I talk only about supporting socialist revolution in the USA, and do not care much for the morality or treatment of Americans in order to get there.

The US's position as the dominant capitalist power founded on settler colonialism means it will be the one of the last countries in the world to have a communist revolution. For the sake of all people of the world, it is also the most important country to have one in. The US would need to first lose its empire and have all Americans live as semi-feudal cyberpunk slaves before the possibility of communist revolution. Even then, Native Americans will probably still be treated like shit.

Because of this, revolutionary socialist parties have a difficult dilemma in the USA. They must fight for reforms that make life better for Americans in order to build public support, but because reforms are ultimately compromises by ruling capitalists, doing so makes US bourgeois 'democracy' appear responsive to worker demands and delays the future date of revolution.

Are there ways we can support revolution while circumventing this dilemma?

I think socialist-sympathetic petty bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie can fill such a role by playing the 'bad cop' to socialist parties' 'good cop' role.

In the USA, power as an individual depends almost solely on money. Thus the most effective way for any person to shape US policy is to found a startup to get rich, then use it to bribe politicians to do shit. Of course, this approach is fundamentally not socialist, and anyone who gets rich enough to do so probably won't hold socialist views anymore. For the sake of discussion, let's say one of us socialists founds a company and gets rich.

The more ruthless a capitalist you are, the more successful your business will be.^[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Fx5Q8xGU8k] Businesses run by 'softies' with morals always lose market share to (and are ultimately bought out by) competing businesses with none. This means there is a natural pressure under capitalism to make life worse. If a socialist starts a business with the goal of providing an alternative to this, they are fighting a losing battle which ensures future irrelevance.

In this US capitalist environment, should socialist-sympathetic businesses accelerate the revolution by instead deliberately making Americans' lives worse? Doing so would produce more profit, which would ensure their continued existence and allow them to expand market share to make even more Americans' lives worse, thereby accelerating the revolution further.

Of course, said businesses should also funnel a portion of profits to covertly supporting socialist parties. Alternatively, they could transfer money to China, thereby supporting the construction of global socialism.

Of course, this approach walks a fine line. Socialist founders must be vigilant that their business strategy ultimately helps revolution rather than just becoming another part of the capitalist system. Founders must also be extremely careful not to get found out, as that would jeopardise both their business's attractiveness to capitalist investors, and look very hypocritical to the public.

I recently came across the name of a Communist party I hadn't heard of before, simply called KP (Kommunistische Partei). Until now, I was only aware of the DKP and MLPD. I'm honestly just curious as to why the KP even exists?

If any of my German comrades have insights or information about this, I would greatly appreciate it.