I volunteered for his campaign and actually have a picture with the ghoul. I feel your pain.

I get that we gotta be tactful in the way we try to convince their sincerely-minded fans away from their grift, but at the end of the day in discussions among communists, they deserve nothing but venom.

They're sheepdogs. They could use their platforms to support revolutionary parties and figures. Instead they've individualized the US-Zionist sins to Trump/Netanyahu and offered Democratic politics as the only solution for naive young people once more. They had their uses years ago, but their current role is apparent. Fuck them and the immense damage they continue to do to the revolutionary left.

The amount of "BuT her EmAiLs" comments I've been hearing from shit-lib co-workers...

They care more about optics than the Yemeni cancer center that doesn't fucking exist anymore.

You engage them as human beings. Agree with them when you agree with them. Challenge them when they get reactionary. Be open about your politics but don't make your entire relationship with them about politics. This is how you build trust.

Their experience will inform their ideology. And if they trust you as a person, one day they may be curious about communist thought.

Developing consciousness is a long-term battle, not an overnight one.

Idk. Yes, not disagreeing with your take on liberals. But it still is pretty alarming what Musk is doing. Even if we know the US state operates on behalf of the ruling class, it's still unprecedented how one unelected billionaire is circumventing the modest levers of resistance the state apparatus has in order to slash public programs. In person, we shouldn't poo-poo on people's anxiety about it, but help them realize that this was always the end game of capitalism.

I'm so tired of working. 3 jobs and I'm still wondering if I can make my rent this month.

Ready to watch major sections of the Western left who have been calling out the media's dishonest coverage of Gaza once again take the media bait and damn Trump for assisting the end of the Ukraine War.

Not that he'd be pursuing it for anti-imperialist reasons, like Biden pulling troops out of Afghanistan. But a positive development is still a positive development. And the Western liberal left won't be able to recognize that.

Also seconding shrooms. It can be very effective in treating addictive habits and making you conscious of deeper motives in your behavior you may not be aware of.

Liberals have main character syndrome. and its fucking annoying.

Also, I got on Redbook recently to see what the hype is all about. It's been a really good, mostly wholesome experience. As a Westerner it's been cool to talk with people from China about daily life and run into the odd culture clash.

We can still enjoy things for what they are while acknowledging their ideological framing. Otherwise Marxists in the West wouldn't be able to engage with most anything that gets made here.

For example, Die Hard is the most conservative, patriarchal, cis-male power fantasy of a movie out there. Still fun to watch for the explosions.

You all see the video of Macron throwing a tantrum at Mayotte people?

What a piece of shit lololol

Gotta find balance comrade. Don't feel guilty for it. One person only has so much capacity for this work. Take breaks and try to find enjoyment in life where you can. We've all been there.

Moving back to the cities lol. Raising the rents and pricing poor, black, and brown people out of their homes. Replacing community structures with mixed-use developments full of corporate chains.

In a way, settlerism recycled.

Yeah, not impossible to analyze for sure. But also, the analysis like you pointed out is a lot more complex. But ultimately, people in the US are subjected to a lot of the harsher effects of capitalism than elsewhere in the Global North. There's no right to healthcare,, insane educational debt, waning home ownership and childbirth, little worker protections or benefits, mass shootings and executions by police just about every day, and we're all seeing our money being stolen in order to sponsor a genocidal apartheid state. There are a lot of things encouraging Americans to become class conscious, which can ultimately lead them to an awareness of their own settlerism if they follow that consciousness with theory.

Whereas in Israel, the populace is pretty overwhelmingly racist and genocidal and that doesn't look like it will change anytime soon. If ever.

How much choice does a chronically ill desk admin have when their healthcare is tied to their job at a financial firm? How much choice does an individual dock worker have when it comes to loading weapons onto cargo ship?

Yes, first world workers are complicit. That's just a fact. They benefit from exploitation of the global south in various ways (i.e. cheaper prices on imported goods). Many make their living through assisting imperialism. That doesn't mean that the first world working class isn't also exploited or coerced into complicity. It also doesn't mean that imperialism is in their interest. Obviously, socialism is in their interest. Multiple things can be true at once.

Yep. Honestly, there's a lot of reaction that's based more on emotion than fact coming from all sides of the left. It seems like the Pal resistance and Palestinians in general acknowledge Assad as an obstacle to Western imperialism but don't hold him in high regard as an ally. We're all aware of the who-must-go meme, but really this regime change felt like a matter of time given how persistent the West has been towards Syria, which has already been in a state of chaos for so long. It makes sense that the resistance isn't exactly supportive of him.

America is also heavily populated with those who were the descendents of enslaved people and those who were themselves the victims of US imperialism, whether indigenous or immigrant. While there is the US government and a dangerous faction of US white nationalists, the people themselves are a whole lot more complex than the Israeli populace. Time will tell when more things come to a head here, but there's more reason to be optimistic about the American working class than other countries in the Global North.

The important thing to keep in mind for anyone discouraged from this event is that this does not change the prognosis for the US. The empire is decline, no doubt about it. We all knew that it would be violently lashing out and causing more destruction and instability on its way out. But the US and Global North neoliberal governments in general simply cannot resolve the internal contradictions they have created.