As much of a steaming heap of crap that movie was, there are worse movies.

I agree with some of what you said but mainly disagree with your analysis of poor libertarians. I will use the USA as a model for my post.

Historically we should expect to find more economic fluidity amongst white people, meaning they’d be able to move from worker to labour aristocracy/petty bourgeoisie. The classic example would be for a white worker to labour for a time at a decent paying job, save money, buy a house, and start a business.

So as we see, the class lines would be more blurred in the past because of the stronger wages and free time of labourers, and so there becomes no real need in the present to tie poorer libertarians historically to immaterial things since their interests in the past were absolutely material and aligned.

With the polarization of the economy the class lines become more defined. So then the poor libertarians, stuck without any mobility as workers, become very reactionary and oppose any groups that threaten their elevated or once elevated position. Those who are petit bourgeoisie themselves, even though they may not be poor, are threatened with becoming workers again.

This plays out nowadays as the libertarian to fascist pipeline, though American libertarianism is already inherently reactionary by being supported by colonialism and imperialism (as opposed to, for instance, a petit bourgeoisie in another country trying to rid itself of the shackles of colonialism).

In the American case libertarianism is a petit bourgeois (and white i.e. settler, very key here) ideology that fits very well with the standard Marxist model of the petit bourgeois being the source of fascism.

Whilst saying this cannot bring back everyone that has died, like a whiny athlete that doesn’t play fair, the empire lashes out the most when it knows it is going to lose.

Economically they are rent seeking. You pay a subscription to them for further access to their brand. They also fill the market niche created by alienation, serving a social and economic function here. They qualify as petit bourgeoisie I think.

If you love your family and they are good to you then I suggest not broaching this stuff with them very hard. Reality of the world vs the reality of being a social animal. Your relationships are still the most important thing even though we live in capitalism.

Work slowly on moving them over time. Make sure you’re not actually damaging your relationship to win an argument. You said you’ve only been doing this less than a year and that’s a crazy short amount of time to be engaging so actively with this stuff with your family.

I recommend starting with distrust and more neutrality (ex just say Russia is another country on the other side of the world defending itself, why are you scared? Or why is the US surrounding China if the US is defending itself?)

As for sources to back up this line of questioning, many people are distrustful of “breadtube” sources like secondthought because it’s a young white guy on YouTube so if they need a white guy with a PhD talking to them, I always recommend Jeffrey Sachs for things about China and Russia, Ukraine war etc. Guy was an advisor for Russian shock therapy in the 90s, PhD etc, so there is no possible way any liberal can dismiss his opinions if they’re engaging in good faith.

And don’t press all the time. You don’t want to make communists appear annoying. If you look at it from your family’s point of view, You’ve changed so radically and are always arguing for something so bizarre, of course they’d liken you to joining a cult!

You want to appear like what most people in the world want to do: just someone who wants enough money to put food on the table and relax at the end of the day. Couple that with being well informed and it’s a winning combination.

I don’t know if there is any important or necessary conservation of gorillas done by this zoo in particular, but it is as barbaric to have these animals in captivity for amusement as it is barbaric to kidnap people from far away lands and use them as entertainment.

And even if their goal is conservation, there is still a contradiction in having to display the gorillas for human entertainment to make money to support them.

Harambe is a victim of capitalism no matter which way you slice it.

Maybe have a look at Jeffrey Sachs interviews on Ukraine. Certainly, as far as I know, not a “leftist”, being the guy known for shock therapy economic doctrine, but that also means he’s had an intimate history with that area of the world and he presents the history of this conflict quite plainly for Americans to digest.

Personally speaking, and I have experience with this sort of thing, often times you just have to lay low as a Marxist. My job does not allow me to express my actual opinions and I am surrounded by non Marxist, politically active people.

There are things in the world that constantly bombard us at every second and it feels like you are under siege. It’s a valid feeling, but ultimately we have to learn that we cannot expand our emotional energy on everything that goes on - it’s just not possible. It might seem crass, and I’m really not trying to be, but you have to detach and observe the world and events in the third person, as if you were a scientist. Do that whilst staying in touch with your feelings of indignation.

This may well be something you’re willing to invest in and so that’s up to you. But for future conflicts you find yourself potentially a part of, you’ll need to consider if you want to shoulder it. You have to learn to observe things dispassionately, but it gets easier the more you do it, and you will find optimism in the scientific unfolding/direction of history.

Hate it. Pretty sure its why I dont like to be touched, or be physically close, hugs, etc., among other things I struggle with, like mental health.

yeah it seemed pretty pointless as i went through deleting stuff (anything containing key words related to geopolitics, like capitalism, etc. at least - i never talked too much about that stuff on reddit so others may find doing even this to be time consuming). rather, i edited them and replaced them with 1s and then deleted them. but it gave me more peace of mind and at the least perhaps made it a bit tougher for background check companies if their data gathering and capabilities advance to being able to piece stuff like that together.

Just went ahead and deleted my profile after searching for key words and deleting specific posts. Decided not to use an extension since it looked a bit dodgy. All manual and it took an hour, but I’m finally reddit free. Thanks for the encouragement.

Did you use anything to delete the messages on your account before actually deleting the account itself?

Been wanting to quit for a while.

Defeat liberalism with more liberalism

Streamers are useless people who contribute nothing.

Yeah it’s awful. Every time I hear coworker speak about “protecting democracy” I just laugh internally.

To be fair, listening is probably the most important part of learning a foreign language (for most learners) and perhaps requires the most time to develop. In every day life, listening and thus conversation/exchanges requires instant comprehension, and that’s also a huge part of how we form social connections/associations with each other. With reading you can generally take your time to digest things.

Just Capital right now. Finished the Roman portion of Hudson’s Antiquity - highly recommend this if you’re into pre-capitalist history or if you are interested in debt.

Just what I’m looking for to get started.thanks very much 🙏

All options are fine so long as there is reliable public transportation in the city, and it’s walkable. If not then I believe the village and rural options are superior on account of not having terrible traffic (in most cases). So really most American cities are pretty terrible places to live. The big American cities have firmly fallen behind contemporary places in Europe and Asia and imo it’s not even close. Hard to say the country is livable unless you’re labor aristocracy and above and that realization is really the only reason I’m coming around to going back to school.

Possibly, but then they will seek to destroy the revolution by using infiltration and fascism. The revolution is not just the fighting and seizing of the MOP - it is the continued subordination of the local bourgeoisie to the DOTP and the defense against imperialism/the international (lead by the American) bourgeoisie.

The fight is not fought and won in debates online, as much as liberals love to think that. It is a slow process that will take decades of real changing material conditions and we are in the second century of that struggle. But history is inexorably heading in the direction of a victory for comrades and liberals will go the way of the Roman slave owners or the feudal lords. Or I guess to be more accurate, they will go the way of the bootlickers of Roman aristocracy or the bootlickers of feud lords.