this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2026
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The Deprogram
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"As revolutionaries, we don't have the right to say that we're tired of explaining. We must never stop explaining. We also know that when the people understand, they cannot but follow us. In any case, we, the people, have no enemies when it comes to peoples. Our only enemies are the imperialist regimes and organizations." Thomas Sankara, 1985
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I do want to point out that Iran also uses the term Epstein class. Not that that's right but just that people here seemed supportive of the term at the time
It's fine and useful when non-westerners use it. When westerners use it begs the question why the lack of mass revolt; clearly complicty includes the civil society.
-_- Of course...should've guessed that
Haha no worries. Westerners as a class agsinst the global south apparently is a step too far in this thread because I have to care about the feelings of poor whites while their imperialist state and civil society collaborate in crushing folks domestically and abroad while paying lip service against the Epstein files. In a ML space(!) Had to make a separate comment about Brown vs Board to make it extra clear that ain't just some tiny super rich elite that is the problem here. I took a break from lemmygrad because of white settler politics apologism here but I wonder if my development as an ML probably has outgrown this place.
Man, it's so wierd MLs think racism and such are caused by the ruling class.
I read a quote recently that was like,
"In the final analysis, national struggle is a matter of class struggle. Among the whites in the United States, it is only the reactionary ruling circles that oppress the black people. They can in no way represent the workers, farmers, revolutionary intellectuals and other enlightened persons who comprise the overwhelming majority of the white people." That must've come from like a eurocommunist or and FRSO member or something.
And before you accuse me of book worship, my point is that it's very presumptuous and arrogant to claim you're above a space when they're simply arguing a line that has been existent since Lenin, if not marx himself. Even if we are to presume you are right
I think in this case by "outgrow", they mean "shifted to something other than ML." Their takes in this thread, from what I can gather, represent a tunnel-visioning on the labor aristocracy view, to the point that it overshadows everything else. My main disagreement with them in this thread started from them writing off a billion people as comparable to documented ruling elite pedophiles: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/11901324/8319299
It has been a bizarre experience. They keep saying it's about the settler contradiction, but have yet to explain to me how exactly they think the contradiction needs to be confronted in a way that is different from what people are already trying and in a way that people can realistically taken action on. Like I'm well aware of the possibility of betrayal, that it has happened before, but the whole back and forth made more sense to me in the context of a quote I recently read about Bordiga: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/11887529/8317276
It is fine to be cautious or to be concerned, but we need to examine what the real, observable threats/deviations are. For example, the ACP. We can point at that and say, yeah, people should stay away from that and be wary of it. If we point at a billion people and say, people should stay away from that and be wary of it, that's unrealistic and impractical to say the least.
The whole thing feels reminiscent of ultra-like criticism of AES states, but applied to any attempt at all on the part of westerners to dismantle the horrific systems it has. There are of course valid criticisms of attempts made. Some attempts are far less effective and some are downright shitty, but they are not all the same across the board.
I have stuff going on and don't have the time and energy to get in the posting trenches but you are correct and I uncritically support your struggle to make westerners seriously analyze class relations in the global system of imperialism.
Should westerners revolt without a vanguard? We tried that one recent January.
No, you need vanguardism of scientific socialists. That science involves the analysis of bourgoisie society including the collaboration of classes to maintain the imperialist state, and how we are going to best the movements before that have failed.
People get upset at the suggestion that they feel because they feel the implication that they aren't "proleteriat enough" as an attack on their personal identity rather than invititation to betray their class.
Yeah proletarian is a class relation describtor not a moral judgement.
Marxist are not moralist. There is no inherent „goodness“ or virtue of being working class.
All that idealist religious baggage needs to go.
I'm so tired of people dismissing out of hand. It simply discusses making the twain one. We need the left and right brain. Imagination and practicality. Yeah being nt and nd present challenges. That's the cross, four pillars: left/right brain, animal instinct, divine. The story teller can carry an AK (assuming no physical disability), the guerilla can read, write, dream, paint. The shoemaker can play violin, the farmer can cast pottery.
All work no play makes a dullard.
Or race?
yep. the call is not 'give up', it is 'change your strategy'. ignoring reality for the sake of false unity can only lead to opportunist blundering.