davel

joined 2 years ago
[–] davel@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 3 hours ago

I’ve never been to r/tankiejerk, but I assume it’s just libs circle ~~jerking~~virtue signaling their anticommunism. I think they’re the “Anti Kitten-Burning Coalition”: https://redsails.org/false-witnesses/

Every once in a while, I am sorry to say, some sick bastard sets fire to a kitten. This is something that happens. Like all crimes, it shouldn’t happen, but it does. And like most crimes, it makes the paper. The effects of this appalling cruelty are not far-reaching, but the incidents are reported in the papers because the cruelty is so flagrant and acute that it seems newsworthy.

The response to such reports is horror and indignation, which is both natural and appropriate. But the expression of that horror and indignation also produces something strange.

[O]ne also came away from reading that thread with the sense that people seemed to think this ultra-minimal moral stance made them exceptional and exceptionally righteous. Like the earlier editorial writers, they seemed to think they were exhibiting courage by taking a bold position on a matter of great controversy. Whatever comfort might be gleaned from the reaffirmation that most people were right about this non-issue issue was overshadowed by the discomfiting realization that so many people also seemed to want or need most others to be wrong.

The kitten-burners seem to fulfill some urgent need. They give us someone we can clearly and correctly say we’re better than. Their extravagant cruelty makes us feel better about ourselves because we know that we would never do what they have done. They thus function as signposts of depravity, reassuring the rest of us that we’re Not As Bad As them, and thus letting us tell ourselves that this is the same thing as us being good.

[I]f the kitten-burners didn’t already exist, we would have to invent them.

I don’t think they’re interested in understanding us, nor that any of it is in good faith. I think they’re interested in using us as a straw man that they can pin any cartoonish fear or moral depravity on, and then condemn us for those things, and then pat each other on the back for their righteousness and bravery. Same with c/tankiejerk and c/meanwhileongrad.

[–] davel@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

I mean, whatever was Stalin thinking, allying with Hitler’s enemies, or Mao allying with he KMT?

[–] davel@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

This episode was brought to you by NordVPN.

[–] davel@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 1 day ago

I don’t think I’m yet able to fully believe levels of haute bourgeois calcification & incompetence I think I’m seeing. It really is failsons all the way down, innit.

[–] davel@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 1 day ago

Whether or not the analogy is sound, it seems to be problematic pedagogically because of the easy conflation among the two distinct senses of power used. It also can cause confusion between constant capital, e.g. the cost of an engine, and variable capital, meaning labor power, measured in e.g. cost per worker-hour.

[–] davel@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

I can’t really speak to the tendency of the rate of profit to fall; it’s slightly above my pay grade. But that Marx quote shows that labor power isn’t power in the physics sense, because the worker using the new invention is spinning more cotton in a given unit of time without burning any more calories in his body. What increased productivity was the invention itself and the capital investment in manufacturing the invention for use by labor.

Edit to add: As to TRPF: It has to do with the increasing capital costs for labor-saving technology like the invention above. It increases capital (“constant”) costs in order to lower labor power (“variable”) costs per unit of product, and it decreases prices for the products. The capitalists, in price competition with each other, are compelled to continue repeating this cycle.

[–] davel@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (5 children)

That’s a bad analogy. Horsepower is a unit of power in the physics sense, just as the watt is. Labor power isn’t using “power” in that sense. In fact, the engine is what increased human labor power in the industrial revolution, because humans could use them for physical power instead of their own bodies or horses or windmills or water wheels.

[–] davel@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Never heard of it. Is it—or do they intend for it be—a hard fork or soft? I can only find one comment claiming soft.

[–] davel@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 1 day ago

In other words, for the British workers to liberate themselves, they must fight for the Irish workers and support them in both words and deeds.

Marx’s strategy for the 19^th^ century British Isles was never tested, so we’ll never know what would have happened. He also believed that socialism would begin in the most industrialized states, but it didn‘t. It started in a weakened, largely feudal, largely pre-industrial empire after the first inter-imperialist world war, through Lenin’s theory of revolutionary defeatism.

Marx advocated replacing the U.K. with a voluntary federation of nations, quite akin to the U.S.S.R.

I don’t know that anybody is arguing against such an outcome. The question is how to actually get there from here. You can’t have a voluntary federation of states until you have sovereign socialist states. For imperialized states, that means that they 1) have been freed from the imperial boot and become properly sovereign and then 2) have overthrown their bourgeoisie. For Imperialist states, they can’t realistically be overthrown until their empires collapse. It’s necessarily so that the intermediary stages between a unipolar, imperial hegemon world and a world federation of socialist nations would be multipolar ones.

[–] davel@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

I’ve never heard of Jason Unruhe. Apparently he’s a Maoist-Third Worldist, a tendency which almost never comes up on Lemmygrad.

“Premier Matthew” is claiming that the concept of a labor aristocracy dismisses the fundamental class relationship, but it doesn’t at all. The working class isn’t an undifferentiated horde, nor is the bourgeoisie, otherwise we wouldn’t distinguish between petite & haute. In Marx’s Capital volumes, he distinguished British proletariat who’d become “bourgeoisified.” Was Marx making a fundamental error as well? AFAIK, Lenin himself coined the term labor aristocracy, which Stalin quoted.

Maybe Maoist-Third Worldists make such a fundamental error; I wouldn‘t know.

[–] davel@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, while in practice there is.

It seems as though you’re taking communism 101 theory and insisting that it be followed universally and by the book, regardless of history and material conditions on the ground, as if no further investigation were needed. Maoists wouldn’t be Maoists if they took Mao’s Oppose Book Worship seriously.

People have suggested to you several works on anti-imperialism from a Marxist perspective. Another important one, especially for those who live in a settler-colonial state within the imperial core, is Settlers.

[–] davel@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

“My lord, when heaven gave the duke of Wu the grand opportunity for gaining power he did not take advantage of it and so he is a fugitive today.

Who is the duke of Wu? We were only introduced to the duke of Yue & the king of Wu. And what opportunity did he forego? Is there a piece of the story missing or am I stupid?

then all the years of hardships you have bourn will have been endured in vain.”

Okay… but that’s a sunk cost. Does it really factor in?

 

Marat Khairullin: THE LUGANSK PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC HAS BEEN LIBERATED FROM THE NAZI TROOPS OF THE ARMED FORCES OF UKRAINE

On June 30, 2025, LPR Head Leonid Pasechnik announced that the territory of the LPR had been completely liberated from the Nazi invaders of the AFU.

H/T to @tastemyglaive@lemmy.ml for https://lemmygrad.ml/post/8378787

 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/32470699

Today I’m talking to Joti Brar, one of the leaders of the Communist Party of Great Britain, the editor of the party’s publication, and the Spokesperson for the World Anti-Imerialist Platform.

Joti Brar of CPGB-ML is the daughter of the late Harpal Brar.

“Neutrality Studies” is some Swiss nonsense, but at least they’ll listen to communists and anti-imperialists.

What makes a man turn neutral? Lust for gold? Power?

 

https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/about/news/press-release/0071

Bringing together little-known archival footage and brand-new interviews, ***Playing for Power *** sheds light on the prominent and backroom players who brought Boris Yeltsin to power in 1991, but lost momentum during the implementation of democracy in Russia.

PBS broadcasted it only once. It has many interview clips of key US & Russian actors involved at the time.

I found it because [someone was looking for it on !helpmefind@lemmy.ml](https://lemmy.ml/post/32398901).

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submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by davel@lemmygrad.ml to c/prolewiki@lemmygrad.ml
 

Browse our publicly available repository of foreign government, U.S. government, and Pentagon contractor funding of the U.S.’s top 50 foreign policy think tanks going back to 2019.

 

How the US, transitioned Europe from coal to oil, in order to control Europe, to profit from it, and to crush European communist parties and labor unions’ political power.

I had legit never heard this before. It further deepens my understanding of just how fundamental oil has been to US global power for nearly a century.

 

Full text of paywalled article below.


This is a report on what is most likely to happen in Iran, as early as this weekend, according to Israeli insiders and American officials I’ve relied upon for decades. It will entail heavy American bombing. I have vetted this report with a longtime US official in Washington, who told me that all will be “under control” if Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei “departs.” Just how that might happen, short of his assassination, is not known. There has been a great deal of talk about American firepower and targets inside Iran, but little practical thinking, as far I can tell, about how to remove a revered religious leader with an enormous following.

I have reported from afar on the nuclear and foreign policy of Israel for decades. My 1991 book The Samson Option told the story of the making of the Israeli nuclear bomb and America’s willingness to keep the project secret. The most important unanswered question about the current situation will be the response of the world, including that of Vladimir Putin, the Russian president who has been an ally of Iran’s leaders.

The United States remains Israel’s most important ally, although many here and around the world abhor Israel’s continuing murderous war in Gaza. The Trump administration is in full support of Israel’s current plan to rid Iran of any trace of a nuclear weapons program while hoping the ayatollah-led government in Tehran will be overthrown.

I have been told that the White House has signed off on an all-out bombing campaign in Iran, but the ultimate targets, the centrifuges buried at least eighty meters below the surface at Fordow, will, as of this writing, not be struck until the weekend. The delay has come at Trump’s insistence because the president wants the shock of the bombing to be diminished as much as possible by the opening of Wall Street trading on Monday. (Trump took issue on social media this morning with a Wall Street Journal report that said he had decided on the attack on Iran, writing that he had yet to decide on a path forward.)

Fordow is home to the remaining majority of Iran’s most advanced centrifuges that have produced, according to recent reports of the International Atomic Energy Agency, to which Iran is a signatory, nine hundred pounds of uranium enriched to 60 percent, a short step from weapons-grade levels.

The most recent Israeli bombing attacks on Iran have made no attempts to destroy the centrifuges at Fordow, which are stored at least eighty meters underground. It has been agreed, as of Wednesday, that US bombers carrying bunker bombs capable of penetrating to that depth, will begin attacking the Fordow facility this weekend.

The delay will give US military assets throughout the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean—there are more than two dozen US Air Force bases and Navy ports in the region—a chance to prepare for possible Iranian retaliation. The assumption is that Iran still has some missile and air force capability that will be on US bombing lists. “This is a chance to do away with this regime once and for all,” an informed official told me today, “and so we might as well go big.” He said, however, “that it will not be carpet bombing.”

The planned weekend bombing will also have new targets: the bases of the Republican Guards, which have countered those campaigning against the revolutionary leadership since the violent overthrow of the shah of Iran in early 1979.

The Israeli leadership under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hopes that the bombings will provide “the means of creating an uprising” against Iran’s current regime, which has shown little tolerance for those who defy the religious leadership and its edicts. Iranian police stations will be struck. Government offices that house files on suspected dissenters in Iran will also be attacked.

The Israelis apparently also hope, so I gather, that Khamenei will flee the country and not make a stand until the end. I was told that his personal plane left Tehran airport headed for Oman early Wednesday morning, accompanied by two fighter planes, but it is not known whether he was aboard.

Only two thirds of Iran’s population of 90 million are Persians. The largest minority groups include Azeris, many of whom have long-standing covert ties to the Central Intelligence Agency, Kurds, Arabs, and Baluchis. Jews make up a small minority group there, too. (Azerbaijan is the site of a large secret CIA base for operations in Iran.)

Bringing back the shah’s son, now living in exile in near Washington, has never been considered by the American and Israeli planners, I was told. But there has been talk among the White House planning group that includes Vice President J.D. Vance, of installing a moderate religious leader to run the country if Khamenei is deposed. The Israelis bitterly objected to the idea. “They don’t give a shit on the religious issue, but demand a political puppet to control,” the longtime US official said. “We are split with the Izzies on this. Result would be permanent hostility and future conflict in perpetuity, Bibi desperately trying to draw US in as their ally against all things Muslim, using the plight of the citizens as propaganda bait.”

There is the hope in the American and Israeli intelligence communities, I was told, that elements of the Azeri community will join in a popular revolt against the ruling regime, should one develop during the continued Israeli bombing. There also is the thought that some members of the Revolutionary Guard would join in what I was told might be “a democratic uprising against the ayatollahs”—a long-held aspiration of the US government. The sudden and successful overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in Syria was cited as a potential model, although Assad’s demise came after a long civil war.

It is possible that the result of the massive Israeli and US bombing attack could leave Iran in a state of permanent failure, as happened after the Western intervention in Libya in 2011. That revolt resulted in the brutal murder of Muammar Gaddafi, who had kept the disparate tribes there under control. The futures of Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon, all victims of repeated outside attacks, are far from settled.

Donald Trump clearly wants an international win he can market. To accomplish that, he and Netanyahu are taking America to places it has never been.

 

Somewhat relatedly, I saw Sadat assassinated by his military parade live on TV back in the day.___

 
  • Thousands of Chinese researchers and scientists are leaving top jobs in leading US universities and companies, to take positions in China.
  • The Cambridge area of Massachusetts is home to Harvard, MIT, and scores of leading companies, and was the number one source of returning Chinese research and engineering talent.
  • In second place is the Palo Alto-Berkeley cluster, which includes Stanford, University of California, and Silicon Valley.
  • The migration of top scientific and engineering talent back to China is accelerating, but began nearly a decade ago. And while the political situation between China and the United States certainly is a major motivation for many scientists to return, more important is the quality of the education systems.
  • Chinese universities are now claiming the top spots across all the hard science disciplines, while American colleges are tumbling.

YouTube video.

 

Unfortunately the article has a hard paywall. Here’s an uploaded podcast interview.

 

Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass is struggling to control the LA protests. But she was previously a senior board member of the National Endowment for Democracy, the world's biggest instigator and financer of anti-government protests internationally – including in Hong Kong in 2019, as their own documents show.

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