AlbigensianGhoul

joined 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 0 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

German government coalition collapsed (because a third of the coalition wanted more austerity) and Scholz immediately went to call Putin, if you want more evidence of low discipline.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 17 hours ago

Moreno was a trot, he was part of the fourth international. They also call themselves Trotskyists. You were the one saying they were not trots.

Boulos was one of the leaders of the movement for freeing Lula. Other than that he's indeed a constitutional social-democrat who has finally given up the revolutionary aesthetic in this last election, an useful tactical ally at best. You mistake critical support on common goals for uncritical allyship when it comes to the other major Trotskyist parties.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

You don't need to look very far for evidence of Boulos being against the coup. I suppose you refer to this article referring to the movement against the world cup, due to the harm it caused to the working class that had to be displaced or explored for the creation of the stadiums to entertain a gringo audience. It was also during an ascension of the PSOL as the left opposition right after the Luciana Genro campaign. Boulos has now become an avid defender of the PT, which is an abandonment of whatever leftwing commitment he had back then.

That was not a pro-coup movement, and the fact that what was supposed to be a class conciliation government couldn't reconcile the tensions there is a failure of the PT. Claiming moral superiority by abstaining from another battleground for class struggle and letting it get taken over by the right is not a good look for the PCO.

Tendencies in the PSOL range from mildly pro imperialist to rabidly pro imperialist.

At least put an effort in your critique to discern how they are pro-imperialist. Most range from social-democratic to Trotskyist which, I agree, often side with imperialism.

A fair number are what patsocs would call "identitarian", which means that they focus on racial, gender, and ethnic class issues and oppressions. Some are even left-liberal with a focus on minority entrepreneurship. The first has revolutionary potential, the second indeed co-opt important struggles for the sake of maintaining imperialism.

pstu is not trotskyist, they are morenists

The only true Trotskyists are Trotsky himself and Mercader's ice axe. \s

I'm not going to defend Trotskyists again, with their obsession for splitting and calling themselves the only Marxists for "ideological purity", rather than doing any actual praxis in a revolutionary direction. That's just fighting over the title of "reactionary pseudo-revolutionaries with a newspaper", and if the PSTU and Moreno don't fit the bill, good for them. It is a confused and moribund dead-end ideology, and the fact that the PSTU often falls into a somewhat more effective anarcho-sindicalist strategy is good enough evidence for that.

As for the last point, both the Revolutions of 1905 and February 1917 had broad support from liberals, reformists, nationalists, Mensheviks, revisionists and even foreign bourgeois observers. It doesn't mean those weren't fights worth fighting for.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

PSOL has tendencies that range from social-liberal, to "orthodox" Marxist, to Trotskyist to Marxist-Leninist. They even have tendencies that are inspired by the "Arab Spring". It's not advisable to be reductionist against them, specially since their broad range of tendencies is usually why they excel electorally but have a hard time getting anything done. (As opposed to parties that follow democratic centralism). They did not side against Dilma in the coup, and in fact voted unanimously in her defense and were even more dedicated in the "Fora Temer" campaigns than the PT itself.

PSTU is Trotskyist so I won't defend them too much, they tend to fall into left-communism a lot, but they at least have a strong presence in workers unions and are usually the first on the ground for, for example, primary and secondary school teachers' strikes. They did go against Dilma, in their typical ultra left fashion, demanding that the entire government be toppled. Not that any Marxist should be surprised when bourgeois democracy is undemocratic, though.

I suppose it should go without saying on a primarily Marxist-Leninist instance that Trotskyist or Trotskyist-adjacent parties like these two or the PCO aren't going to receive much uncritical support, though at least they make themselves present and join forces in critical struggles like this one.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I didn't link to a Portuguese source because this thread was for the gringo friends, but this movement has been growing for too long for one to confuse their ignorance for it "coming out of the blue". Now let me attempt to correct the record in English for the sake of the internationals.

Here's a short article talking about the PCBR talking about the historical construction of this movement.

Summarising the history "shortly" in English, one of the strongest demands from both the PCB (pre-split Brazilian Communist Party, Marxist-Leninist) and the PSTU (United Socialist Worker's Party, Trotskyist) since at least the June Protests in 2013. Due to the first having some serious organisational problems with their leadership (which led to the split) and the second being fairly small (and Trotskyist, I guess), neither managed to fully oppose the government from the left and materialise this demand.

After the pandemic, with work/life balance dynamics being brought into question, given both the absurd rise of informal work (more than half the "employed" population is informal) and the indignation from workers in the "service" economy from bearing the brunt of the pandemic without any perspective of increase in quality of life from the new "leftist" government, wildcat labour movements started forming from the workers themselves. This includes the fight for better legislation regarding delivery and "rideshare" app workers' pay and benefits, and for the reduction of the maximum legal workweek.

For some context for the foreigners, the maximum legally allowed weekly workload is 44 hours in Brazil, which can be divided in 6 days of work with 1 mandatory rest day (hence, 6x1, usually split into five days of 8 work hours and one day of 4). We are paid monthly, not hourly, so an employer is legally allowed to demand all 44 hours paying only the minimum wage, though not allowed to pay less than the minimum wage for less hours.

This Rick Azevedo guy accidentally went viral on TikTok for criticising this horribly outdated work scheme and decided to create a single-issue movement ("Life Beyond Work", VAT) for an increase in mandatory rest days, which grew a lot organically with some support after the fact from leftist parties. The party linked above, PCBR, is what came out of the PCBR (Revolutionary PCB) split in strong support for this demand but is still in its restructuring phase.

Last election Rick ran with PSOL (Partido Socialismo e Liberdade, "multiple tendencies" leftist party) for a municipal legislature as a single-issue candidate and got elected with significant voteshare despite almost no party support. Considering the horrible defeat by the electoralist left (including Lula's party, the PT) this last election which abandoned labour issues in defense of an "united front against fascism" again, this was a major win for the movement.

Now, a federal deputy (as in congresswoman) who is also from the PSOL, Erika Hilton, wrote a constitutional amendment that would reduce the work week to 4 days with 3 mandatory rest days, and maximum of 36 weekly hours. (Yes, this doesn't make sense numerically and is probably so that parliamentary negotions they can back down to 5 work days and 2 rest days.)

After this was announced, both the VAT movement and the radical left parties coalesced around this amendment, calling for national protests, broad agitprop activities and naming and shaming deputies and parties who go against the proposal. Every radical left party with the bare minimum of material analysis is taking this as the pressure point to attack against the right in the government and for building broad support, but obviously each in their own framework for praxis.

And to finally respond to your comment, this is sadly a conquest by the working class despite the leftist organisations, who are mostly hopping in at the last second. There are right wingers being forced to support this because 1) there are lots of working class right wingers who are aware of their exploitation at some level, and 2) in order to mobilise the bases, rightwing politicians often co-op class struggles aesthetically (fascists in general, Bolsonaro as an example), and some leftist orgd are intentionally abusing this to force their hand into supporting the cause or risk being shown as a farce. The same applies for corporate media conglomerates. And of course, 3) it's an opportunity to weaken the Lula government if they don't also support the amendment, which is an okay sacrifice from the left as they intend to position themselves as left opposition.

So I wouldn't say this is strange, in fact it's been fairly predictable so far.

 

Couldn't find any good sources in English, but thought it might be interesting to let y'all know.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

I was also positively surprised how a lot of Reddit users on r/politics were way less deluded on election night and the day after, openly criticising the Dem party on class issues and Gaza.

It got back to "normal" now, but I think they might have a second "genzedong situation" in the near future with dissatisfied users, though now there's literal alternative websites like here and hexbear (and raddle I guess?) so they could just leave with greater ease.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 weeks ago

Adding to all other comments, a lot of the suspicious Bush administration's immediate reaction (i.e. PATRIOT act) can be understood as them being always ready for whatever calamity in order to justify either invasion or neoliberal "reforms".

Naomi Klein (liberal) goes into detail in her book (Shock Doctrine) about what she calls "Disaster Capitalism" and how a lot of effort is put into laying down the groundwork, both legally and ideologically, for whenever crises make them possible, besides constantly agitating for chaos which can lead to said crises.

She has a documentary which summarises her book, if you want a peek. You can easily draw parallels between the events she describes and what's happening now in Argentina, Ukraine and Ecuador, among others.

Now, with regards to what motivates this conspiracy theory: it's a patriotic distraction. As US citizen lives are treated by US society as inherently more important, portraying Bush as a traitor is an attractive pitfall to fall into, whitewashing the constant crimes of the US, internally and abroad, as the acts of "a bad president". Even if Bush had personally pushed a button to launch missiles at the WTC, it would not be even remotely close to the social murder caused by his administration, or any other admin before or after.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 weeks ago

meter aí

Tava chamando esse Meta AI de Merda AI até agora, mas Meta Aí parece uma boa alternativa kkkkkkkk

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

Whatsapp até alguns meses atrás ainda funcionava como um sistema de gente. Depois começaram a fazer uma remodelagem sem sentido e agora que realmente chutaram o pau da barraca com esse trem de IA.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Quando eu usava Signal ele era cheio de bugs e bem ruim de usar (também não considero "seguro" assim como os outros 2, mas isso é outro rolê). Mas a realidade é que eu não uso whatsapp pra conversar com amigos, uso pra trabalho que envolve estar disponível pra atender umas 900 pessoas em qualquer momento. Convencer esse tanto de gente pra mudar pra outra coisa seria um inferno, então telegram pelo menos tem o benéfico de já ter gente lá.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 weeks ago

It's been reverted now but, honestly, any sort of wiki citing another wiki as a source is bad. The "Trotskyites are considered reactionary" section is really good though and should stay.

 

Não consigo nem usar o whatsapp direito mais, toda hora travando. Antes já tinha que fechar o Instagram pra o celular não ficar lento, agora se abre os dois trava tudo de vez.

Vou ter que migrar pra outra desgraça do telegram porque não consigo convencer ninguém a usar xmpp ou Matrix >:(

 

I've been leading the effort for building up a local institution that has been in a "zombie" state of existence for a while.

It's a very small org, not necessarily communist, and even our political parties don't pay much attention to it. It's stressful and sometimes a thankless job. Since we're rebuilding it and have very few people, everything takes way more of my time than it should.

But it's damn satisfying to see how much can be done just by pooling together some working class people, and how much we help the lives of people affected by us, materially or socially. It's made it even more clear to me how mentally unsustainable society has become through individualism.

So this is your regular call to get organised.

You don't need to devote too much of your time to it, because every little bit helps a lot. You also don't need to build something from the ground up, you can join a bigger effort around you. It also doesn't need to be a party chapter (specially if you don't have one near you), it can be other necessary organisations like tenants'/trade/workers'/students' unions, animal rescue groups, homeless shelters, food banks and soup kitchens. Heck, even some churches can often have progressive projects that materially help the working class.

From a theorectical and material perspective, no revolution will come without organised and connected labour with practical experience. But from a personal and subjective view, building up those connections in service of your class and community is something you probably can do in your immediate surroundings and feel in concrete terms what Marxists mean by "organising" and how effective it can be. So it's a win-win scenario.

less motivational stuff

Eventually, without a party coordinating and leading the way, and under a capitalist regime, every organisation will reach their limits of what they can do alone. This is the moment where a proper party can combat opportunism and heighten class conflict.

But I assume most here are from countries where labour is so disorganised and disintegrated, to the point where those limits are so far away that they're invisible.

This post is not meant to dissuade from party work, but rather as a generalisation for eager comrades in situations where party work seems impossible. Eventually even soup kitchens and affordable TNR clinics will stumble into class conflict, which they can't win without a good Marxist party. But people won't even believe in a proletarian revolution as an alternative, and therefore won't agitate for one, without first hand experience with worker-led smaller projects such as those soup kitchens and affordable TNR clinics.

I could write some more on the nuances of local organising, but this was meant as a motivational post. For more theory, click every single link in the Black Panther MIA page.

 

Mainly meant for identifying if members of these corporations and organisations are part of boards and such.

 

A bit late but didn't see it mentioned here. Democracy is when wrong parties are forbidden from influencing politics.

 

Actually completely unrelated, but since this quote is really famous by itself without context here's the full paragraph, formatted for convenience. Every meme quotation is an opportunity to read theory.

Communists do not fight for personal military power (they must in no circumstances do that, and let no one ever again follow the example of Chang Kuo-tao), but they must fight for military power for the Party, for military power for the people.

As a national war of resistance is going on, we must also fight for military power for the nation. Where there is naivety on the question of military power, nothing whatsoever can be achieved. It is very difficult for the labouring people, who have been deceived and intimidated by the reactionary ruling classes for thousands of years, to awaken to the importance of having guns in their own hands.

Now that Japanese imperialist oppression and the nation-wide resistance to it have pushed our labouring people into the arena of war, Communists should prove themselves the most politically conscious leaders in this war. Every Communist must grasp the truth, "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."

Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party. Yet, having guns, we can create Party organizations, as witness the powerful Party organizations which the Eighth Route Army has created in northern China. We can also create cadres, create schools, create culture, create mass movements. Everything in Yenan has been created by having guns. All things grow out of the barrel of a gun.

According to the Marxist theory of the state, the army is the chief component of state power. Whoever wants to seize and retain state power must have a strong army. Some people ridicule us as advocates of the "omnipotence of war". Yes, we are advocates of the omnipotence of revolutionary war; that is good, not bad, it is Marxist. The guns of the Russian Communist Party created socialism. We shall create a democratic republic.

Experience in the class struggle in the era of imperialism teaches us that it is only by the power of the gun that the working class and the labouring masses can defeat the armed bourgeoisie and landlords; in this sense we may say that only with guns can the whole world be transformed. We are advocates of the abolition of war, we do not want war; but war can only be abolished through war, and in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to take up the gun.

Source is "Problems of War and Strategy", section II "The War and History of the Kuomintang".

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submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
 

mirror/skip paywall

Definitely worth a read now that even they admit it. It somehow tries to make the CIA the good guys that wanted to prevent it all, for some reason.

"An attack of this scale is a sufficient reason to trigger the collective defense clause of NATO, but our critical infrastructure was blown up by a country that we support with massive weapons shipments and billions in cash," said a senior German official familiar with the probe.

 

German investigators believe Volodymyr Z was a member of a team that in September 2022 planted explosive devices on the pipeline route carrying natural gas from Russia to Germany, German media reported on Wednesday. German law does not allow publication of the suspect’s surname.

The Polish prosecutor’s office confirmed on Wednesday that it had received a German arrest warrant for a Ukrainian man who is a suspect in the Nord Stream attack named “Volodymyr Z”.

This is just too funny of a coincidence.

 

You know the drill, first = tragedy, second = farse.

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