Chana [none/use name]

“Ceasefire now” was a milquetoast and easily appropriated demand and I pushed local groups (somewhat successfully) to demand something more clearly material and agitational, like ending weapons and money for “Israel”. It coalesced wuickly due to liberals embracing their default anti-warism, which they inevitably abandon and fight for with tactics that do nothing.

While the US would also balk at demands like no weapons or money, they raise facts that liberals like to ignore. About their neighbors, about themselves, about their country. “Ceasefire now” allows placement of focus on someone like Netanyahu, to scapegoat him, and for Biden to pretend he was fighting for a ceasefire while sending unlimited weapons and money to “Israel”. Demanding an end to weapons and money confronts one’s own role and also makes unions pick sides - many imperial core unions are “defense” contractors and many other unions try to have uncritical “solidarity” with those contractor unions.

Keep in mind that I’m emphasizing the impact this has in the imperial core, not on Palestine. That’s the main impact of any of this, as we are still far behind in capacity to coerce demands. But just think about how many liberals believed, wanted to believe, and still believe Biden et al wanted a ceasefire. How many are only expressing sympathy for Palestinians now that Trump is president. How they are manipulated by manufactured and misleading headlines like, “Hanas rejects ceasefire deal”. Liberals thrive on moving the goalposts away from the material when they want to get away with something. The idea that “Israel” should be cut off never enters their minds.

Left: Adam Right: Cool Adam

I’m sorry I know this reference.

Oh man, the pair of vindictive boss + senior cowirker hits too closs to home.

In my experience this is liberal careerists rationalizing reactionary approaches because it keeps their “connections” alive and avoids rocking the boat. Is that what was happening at your newspaper?

The most important part of dentistry is getting divorced during a midlife crisis and buying an expensive car and bicycle, FULL lycra mode.

In the first case it is generally charity bereft of political education or organizing their communities. They’re basically doing NGO charity work without the tax breaks and calling it radical. Membership is sporadic and mostly free of political education themselves, being mostly liberals dipping their toes in but arresting their own progress by spending 90% of their “free” time actually doing “mutual aid” (actually following a charity model). This is an easy thing to casually join and leave and is rarely more political than volunteering for any charity. There will be some members who are politically educated, but this is not something that typically occurs through the work itself and it is also in no way exclusive to anarchists, as mutual aid groups will also have MLs and Maoists.

The latter is a long-standing bias in the West, where Trots were the least-repressed communists because they were and are hypercritical of nearly every socialist project and do roundabout propaganda work fir empire. This also makes them appealing for liberals in the imperial core because they can still embrace their own chauvinism while changing their language and reasoning to feel like they are its antithesis. Trots also have their own canon, they read a carefully curated list of Trot works and actively avoid even reading Capital, in my experience, preferring Trotskyist summaries and oddly paternal (and rife for abuse) mentorship instead. I do not, honestly, see Trots doing much political education or agitation, mostly just attending actions (with their pamphlets) organized by others, taking credit for things they didn’t do, and doing a bad job at tabling. Trots are more about getting you to join and therefore start on a path to worthiness while paying a tithe.

There are several ML orgs in my area and those for which I have this kind of knowledge are growing rapidly. They do the work of organizing protests and rallies, hosting teach-ins, hosting political movie nights and discussions, gathering money for Palestine, etc etc. I think their historical paucity has more to do with needing a critical mass of people to have the capacity to do political work and they have been historically repressed. It is a full-time job to create and run an organized and you have to build enough capacity to rotate roles, otherwise it isn’t really organizing in the first place (organizing must build capacity!). I also think that pipelining is challenging for MLs due to the larger jump from liberalism a person must make. This is why groups like PSL have probation periods and FRSO has two tiers of membership. New members usually don’t know shit, they must be educated, and these are the people willing to join a communist org in the first place that runs counter to everything they have previously been taught. Feeder orgs (including fronts) have historically worked to address this but also require a critical mass of people to do the organizing work. And they are being actively targeted, e.g. principled pro-Palestine groups run by commies. Samidoun gets shut down but your local Trots are unscathed.

The ones depicting US soldiers / vehicles often have direct involvement of the US military about how they may be depicted. Just like in Hollywood. This ensures that the US is never shown to be the bas guys. And that the bad guys are always at least vaguely similar to the targets of US empire.

I think the US military tries to target fairly aimless young people. The point at which they are targeted is before the first recruiter talks to them, it is in media directed at kids and teenagers.

Thom Yorke (Radiohead guy) has put out a liberal Zionist statement that centers himself, chalks up the genocide in Gaza to Netanyahu and explicitly letting the genocidal “Israeli” public and other politicians off the hook, and criticizing those who say Free Palestine by talking about Hamas and hostages.

The only part that matters re: leftism is to think about how you want to handle crackdowns, which is less about which bank you choose and more about infosec. For example, don’t use your personal bank account for spicy business. Use cash if you can and some third party (even a company or non-profit) to shield your personal financea from governments freezing accounts. And if you develop savings, consider having an emergency fund with a different bank in a country that is unlikely to cooperate with freezing your assets.

I think they just want “plausible” deniability for the entity’s next planned/declared steps because the entity’s internal racist genocidal discourse is becoming increasingly external. It’s not like Europe is actually reversing course on “Israel” in any meaningful way.

I always get these guys confused with panic at the disco. Can’t even make my bad Buttigieg joke

The Belgians know how to hit the Dutch where it hurts: windmills

Not sure! He was initially interested in Red Star, a ML caucus, but they have rules requiring that you have done some organizing first so they asked him to reapply after getting experience.

This is why I write all software from scratch in assembly.

Making shit up instead of accepting criticism and dealing with it head on is perfectly on brand.

It’s kind of like exercising a muscle to listen to them. I just heard then interview a CEO about movie theaters. That CEO dropped a ton of cisnormativity, complained about COVID lockdowns and the writers’ strike, and talked about going to the movies with his wife as if he were a king being among commoners. The host praised him and provided zero pushback.

The premise of even having him on the air is its own media critical topic. With the option of talking about literally anything, they decided to do a puff piece on the “movie industry” by only talking to a CEO. Not even an industry rep, just some egotistical jackass. Several people sat down and planned this. Amazing.

Hi comrade! I’m vegan.

I do think that being vegan makes one a more coherent leftist. And I encounter more vegans in left spaces than other spaces, so anecdotally this makes sense.

I do think that most people on the left are not coherent and that’s something we just have to deal with, working to improve that state of things as we build for liberation and revolution. Every successful revolution has not been vegan, so I think it’s not necessary for doing the work and I don’t think there are new conditions that make veganism essential for doing our work here and now, objectively. I still wish everyone was, but I don’t think of it as a necessity.

I think there is a similar situation we can compare to, which is people being COVID cautious. It is about people and not human animals, trying to be consistent in one’s empathy despite social forces opposing this, it has niche communities, and it has both an individual action aspect as well as attpts at mass action. I think COVID cautious leftists are more coherent leftists as well. They have avoided one of the more obvious forms of liberal normalization, every leftist should’ve noticed and rejected that normalization, but most leftists are not that disciplined or coherent. Similarly, I don’t think COVID cautiousness is necessary for revolution, but it would probably help.

I think it really is just resistance to self-crit and inconvenience 95% of the time. Those are strong forces among the people we try to organize with. Many already have trauma and that makes those forces even stronger. Moving past those things is a long-term process and not really about veganism (or being COVID cautious) at all, it is a more fundamental barrier. And I would bet that you and I have some barriers like that, too.

I’ve had lots of luck on helping people who are “trying out” veganism stick with it by helping them find foods they like and can eat regularly. Convincing someone that isn’t already vegan, much less luck, though I wouldn’t necessarily know anyways. I’ve seen people around me go vegan and start agreeing with me on things I’ve said, they just don’t explicitly credit me. If there’s something I’m doing, it’s being someone people feel comfortable confiding in and looking to for help. Like various famous communists recommending that organizers be exemplary workers to gain the confidence of their coworkers, having social influence is also power to spread your own habots or ideas.

This is an MLM caucus. And allegedly Elias is a Maoist Third Worldist.

It’s all coming together.