I don’t understand how socialists and communists can still believe they can build a mass movement in the imperial core? What gives you this much hope? Cause in my experience these people want me dead and if they have to be killed for a socialist future then let it happen
Edit: im not saying this out of Condescension im speaking out of curiosity and frustration
The fact is, in the U.S especially- you are either a reactionary or you’re left adjacent and too comfortable with your imperialism dividends to make the required sacrifices needed for a mass movement.
I think this is why even some self described MLs advocate for electoral solutions, it’s the easy way out.
Fascism must be allowed to rise and fall in the, U.S americans must go through a revolutionary crisis- it’s the only needle that can penetrate the balloon of american hubris. The last century has proven this, yet we’re told to prolong the inevitable and necessary with soc dem elections / dead-end - non-militant organizing.
Trump, his cronies, and the tech twats have done more to put the U.S and much of the left into a positive position than many of the civil-centric organizing left adjacent people have ever done. People want to talk about material interests driving class consciousness and political fervor- well those are the people driving the needed material conditions.
The question is not what is wrong with the imperial core but what is wrong with the left of the imperial core. Reactionary societies are the result of a weak, opportunist-riddled and idealistic left.
Good ass book and I’m surprised people sleep on Losurdo considering he’s a Parenti type figure in western academia with lots of quirky opinions. I gues antiimperialism is a deal breaker for them
just because it hasn’t been done it doesn’t mean it can’t be done. i hate western leftists as much as the next guy but it’s worse to completely disregard anyone from the imperial core.
The United States is a prison house of nations. There in lies the potential for a revolutionary alliance between the multinational working class and the oppressed nationalities (black and brown people across class).
The Anglo petite bourgeoisie (small capitalists + intelligentsia) due to their class position are never going to be able to lead the movement and take it where it needs to go.
I have more faith in the Anglo working class and the black and brown petite bourgeoisie, these people feel the hot coals on their feet and have a material stake in ending all exploitation.
Honestly? Some of us were unfortunate enough to be born in the core (though I’m from what If consider a vassal state), so the hoping for and working towards a mass movement is the best we can do. Even if it’s unrealistic, we have to work towards something. The alternative is to succumb to defeatism, and just wait for the inevitable fall. So we work towards a better tomorrow, because the alternative isn’t viable.
At least that’s how I see it, and I’m mostly using your post to try and figure out my own stance on this. So take my blurb for what it is, a nonsensical flow of thoughts.
I really can’t understand where this concept comes from because I’ve been up and down the East coast of the US and I’ve talked with a lot of different communities. I’ve found more listening ears and sympathetic people in the hoods, rural communities, impoverished suburbs, etc.
Is there reactionaries? Yes, of course, but the amount who actually want to harm people vs the amount who are relatively good, have no idea about politics, or are willing to hear out your side is vastly stark. Arguably 30/70, or even 50/50 if we are being vague. It also depends on where you go, I’ve found far more enemies in the gentrified downtowns of blue states than I have heavily mixed rural southern towns. Same with the mostly liberal colleges vs the impoverished suburbs.
The big thing is so many get caught up in the frequency illusion, especially with social media. The loudest and most annoying reactionaries online say the most insane shit because they feel untouchable and like they can get away with it, but that doesn’t automatically translate to irl daily life. Those loud mfs are loud for a reason, they compensate for their lack by functioning off bias & anger and only invite the unhinged like them. Most people are not that invested, often because they have too much going on in their own lives or rely on establishment beliefs, or even no beliefs because they’re disillusioned by the system and checked out of it all (which is a large chunk of the US rn).
America may have its higher than usual amount of reactionaries, but that’s because we are a safe haven for them. At the end of the day there is far more potential allies than there is enemies and giving into the political nihilism and doomerism that “everyone is bad” is simply suicidal and unrealistic.
Ok, now try a Midwestern state. Texas, Tennessee, Indiana, etc. try living in a state where every neighbor thinks killing immigrants should be a legal past time and have a blue line or similar fascist flag on their truck, garage, etc. The opinion that there is no hope for this country in going socialist doesn’t just shit out of our brains because we want to be doomers. It comes from a place of experience. Congrats on have good ones. Lots of us live in areas where our neighbors fornicate to the idea of murdering us.
Lots of us live in areas where our neighbors fornicate to the idea of murdering us.
Not to sound like your typical centrist dipshit, but I see merit in both sides. I think people are downvoting you unjustly. I’ve been along the coast like the other user said; but I’ve also lived in places like Florida where, yes, the “neighbors” fornicate to the idea of murdering anyone left of John Kerry.
I think simply a different approach is needed depending on where you are. Along the more “blue” states and even some red states along the coast, you absolutely can speak to people, participate in socialist organization or at the very least participate in community aid/mutual aid. When I was in Florida, where I was specifically, there was none of that. But there was a few like-minded leftists who hid their power level and were willing to train and organize in smaller cells, which is just as good.
It’s really not as hard as some users make it out to probe the ideologues of a given person. If you’re neurodivergent, then I totally understand the difficulty. 80 percent of the time, they will gladly tell you or loudly dogwhistle at you with certain phrases. In the other way, you just have to figure out how to ask them questions that aren’t necessarily political. “Aren’t you sick of having to work every single day for nothing?” is a bit of a extreme one but was a good one to filter out people who are responsive to the “message”. It’s just better to take the angle of “disgruntled blue-collar/white-collar person” rather than go right into preaching liberation till you find out who you’re talking to.
I think that despite where you live, you still have to try. But also, I don’t think some of the people who are simply telling you “nah it aint like that” actually have had multiple death-threats and rape-threats towards their closed loved ones or family. If they have, then they are unrealistic in what they expect of the average person to burden.
In terms of wider politics, I do genuinely think that any form of liberation in the core is impossible until the U.S loses more of the global economic grip that it has. Until the global extraction and resource extraction of the global south is hampered (as it is currently and we are seeing the U.S absolutely thrash the fuck out in it’s dying days) the U.S will lose more and more grip and it’s international ruling class will be weakened. It will be forced to turn towards domestic needs and by then, it will be either too late or they’ll take the approach of barbarism; thus sounds the knell. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be preparing, though, or that you can sit back and wait.
Who is this nebulous “average person” that you speak of? Is it the worker who harbours racist opinions of his non white co workers and dreams of dialling ICE to kick them out of the country? Is it the store owner who criminally underpays his non white employees or is it the CEO who supports immigration as long as it leads to cheaper labour
Who is this nebulous “average person” that you speak of?
I’m talking about, lined out explicitly in the rest of what I said, the person who would be engaging politically with others for the purpose of organizing or finding like-minded people. People like us. I don’t think the average person can withstand constant threats or the usual rhetoric thrown at someone who is participating in socialist politics. I know I’ve had a lot. I don’t expect the average comrade to be able to handle all of that without significant anxiety or without support.
But also, I don’t think some of the people who are simply telling you “nah it aint like that” actually have had multiple death-threats and rape-threats towards their closed loved ones or family. If they have, then they are unrealistic in what they expect of the average person to burden.
I’m not exactly sure where you got what you said from what I said above. The user I was replying to was talking about how a good chunk of this country have some brain-worms and those can be quite violent and/or dangerous towards leftists and even lib-shits and I was saying that anyone who doesn’t think they can be that violent/dangerous towards leftists are wrong and the ones who can handle it shouldn’t expect other leftists to handle it emotionally or mentally without support.
Are you talking about something else I said? That is where “average person” is quoted. Sorry if I am misunderstanding you.
Texas is literally a state where a massive amount of people are political marginalized and voiceless. Similar in Tennessee where the Appalachian regions and those historically black are excellent hotbeds for revolutionary activity. You just need to know where to look, those states rejected by “culturally democrat” leftists are often in the greatest need of their intervention.
POC are willing to listen but the whites man…… they will never get out of their petit bourgeois mindset till they suffer such an utter defeat that their whole world view comes crashing down
I think we have to recognize that classes like petit bourgeois and big bourgeois exist just like the proletariat in the US. They can have conflicting interests . Revolutionaries need to understand how to treat each class differently so they can unite to end imperialism and the state can evolve into socialism.
Private businesses can build the productive forces of society IF it is directed towards actually productive activity.
One of the four stars on the Chinese flag represents the petit bourgeois. Changing people’s minds and dragging them away from reactionary movements was part of the Chinese Communist Revolution.
Texas exists in the heartland of the Chicano nation. We’re not all bad. Many of us are progressives and are working hard to raise the level of struggle and consciousness in our activism.
Chicano nationalism is growing like wildfire among the intelligentsia in states like Texas in response to the sharpening of national oppression. These nationalists consider themselves progressives and will not bow down to state terror.
I grew up in the countryside with a very socially conservative background. Chicano nationalism binds me to the progressive movement and if it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone.
The work is hard and the stress high, but revolution is very much possible in the United States. I think it will happen within the next 25 years.
No mass movement will happen until these people take accountability for their actions and the actions of their nation their tax payers and money have helped fund genocides, massacres, wars and imperialism through out the globe, I don’t care how much indoctrination these low lives have gone through in their lives blood is on their hands as much as it’s on the hands of their government they need to pay
Your question was about the feisability of mass moments. Mass movements coalesce due to material interests, are made possible through class consciousness, and are fueled by the blood and sweat of the people willing to put in the work to fight for unity.
I don’t know if “these people” you speak of are the reactionaries or absolutely everyone in the Imperial Core, but idealist notions of “paying for your sins” aren’t what make these movements happen.
Well I guess this a new level of “I don’t see color” wholly denying the fact that non white people live in the imperial core. Or a new level of illiteracy reading “Black or brown” as white.
I still don’t understand how that revenge is supposed to be executed? Like waiting for china to invade and occupy all of the global north and kill/imprison everyone?
Because otherwise these bombastic notions of revenge seem more like passive acts of feeling you accomplished something as a revolutionary when a middle manager father of three has to sell his family’s second car because he got fired.
I don’t mean “idealist” as an arbitrary pejorative. I’m talking about idealism vs materialism as a way of understanding and changing the world. I’m not sure how far along you are in your journey as a Marxist - are you familiar with historical and dialectical materialism?
I don’t understand how socialists and communists can still believe they can build a mass movement in the imperial core? What gives you this much hope? Cause in my experience these people want me dead and if they have to be killed for a socialist future then let it happen
Edit: im not saying this out of Condescension im speaking out of curiosity and frustration
I align with your pessimism.
The fact is, in the U.S especially- you are either a reactionary or you’re left adjacent and too comfortable with your imperialism dividends to make the required sacrifices needed for a mass movement.
I think this is why even some self described MLs advocate for electoral solutions, it’s the easy way out.
Fascism must be allowed to rise and fall in the, U.S americans must go through a revolutionary crisis- it’s the only needle that can penetrate the balloon of american hubris. The last century has proven this, yet we’re told to prolong the inevitable and necessary with soc dem elections / dead-end - non-militant organizing.
Trump, his cronies, and the tech twats have done more to put the U.S and much of the left into a positive position than many of the civil-centric organizing left adjacent people have ever done. People want to talk about material interests driving class consciousness and political fervor- well those are the people driving the needed material conditions.
The question is not what is wrong with the imperial core but what is wrong with the left of the imperial core. Reactionary societies are the result of a weak, opportunist-riddled and idealistic left.
Domenico Losurdo answered to that question very well in his book Western Marxism: https://mronline.org/2025/01/11/domenico-losurdo-western-marxism-how-it-was-born-how-it-died-how-it-can-be-reborn/
Good ass book and I’m surprised people sleep on Losurdo considering he’s a Parenti type figure in western academia with lots of quirky opinions. I gues antiimperialism is a deal breaker for them
just because it hasn’t been done it doesn’t mean it can’t be done. i hate western leftists as much as the next guy but it’s worse to completely disregard anyone from the imperial core.
The United States is a prison house of nations. There in lies the potential for a revolutionary alliance between the multinational working class and the oppressed nationalities (black and brown people across class).
The Anglo petite bourgeoisie (small capitalists + intelligentsia) due to their class position are never going to be able to lead the movement and take it where it needs to go.
I have more faith in the Anglo working class and the black and brown petite bourgeoisie, these people feel the hot coals on their feet and have a material stake in ending all exploitation.
Honestly? Some of us were unfortunate enough to be born in the core (though I’m from what If consider a vassal state), so the hoping for and working towards a mass movement is the best we can do. Even if it’s unrealistic, we have to work towards something. The alternative is to succumb to defeatism, and just wait for the inevitable fall. So we work towards a better tomorrow, because the alternative isn’t viable.
At least that’s how I see it, and I’m mostly using your post to try and figure out my own stance on this. So take my blurb for what it is, a nonsensical flow of thoughts.
I really can’t understand where this concept comes from because I’ve been up and down the East coast of the US and I’ve talked with a lot of different communities. I’ve found more listening ears and sympathetic people in the hoods, rural communities, impoverished suburbs, etc.
Is there reactionaries? Yes, of course, but the amount who actually want to harm people vs the amount who are relatively good, have no idea about politics, or are willing to hear out your side is vastly stark. Arguably 30/70, or even 50/50 if we are being vague. It also depends on where you go, I’ve found far more enemies in the gentrified downtowns of blue states than I have heavily mixed rural southern towns. Same with the mostly liberal colleges vs the impoverished suburbs.
The big thing is so many get caught up in the frequency illusion, especially with social media. The loudest and most annoying reactionaries online say the most insane shit because they feel untouchable and like they can get away with it, but that doesn’t automatically translate to irl daily life. Those loud mfs are loud for a reason, they compensate for their lack by functioning off bias & anger and only invite the unhinged like them. Most people are not that invested, often because they have too much going on in their own lives or rely on establishment beliefs, or even no beliefs because they’re disillusioned by the system and checked out of it all (which is a large chunk of the US rn).
America may have its higher than usual amount of reactionaries, but that’s because we are a safe haven for them. At the end of the day there is far more potential allies than there is enemies and giving into the political nihilism and doomerism that “everyone is bad” is simply suicidal and unrealistic.
“Up and down the East Coast.”
Ok, now try a Midwestern state. Texas, Tennessee, Indiana, etc. try living in a state where every neighbor thinks killing immigrants should be a legal past time and have a blue line or similar fascist flag on their truck, garage, etc. The opinion that there is no hope for this country in going socialist doesn’t just shit out of our brains because we want to be doomers. It comes from a place of experience. Congrats on have good ones. Lots of us live in areas where our neighbors fornicate to the idea of murdering us.
Not to sound like your typical centrist dipshit, but I see merit in both sides. I think people are downvoting you unjustly. I’ve been along the coast like the other user said; but I’ve also lived in places like Florida where, yes, the “neighbors” fornicate to the idea of murdering anyone left of John Kerry.
I think simply a different approach is needed depending on where you are. Along the more “blue” states and even some red states along the coast, you absolutely can speak to people, participate in socialist organization or at the very least participate in community aid/mutual aid. When I was in Florida, where I was specifically, there was none of that. But there was a few like-minded leftists who hid their power level and were willing to train and organize in smaller cells, which is just as good.
It’s really not as hard as some users make it out to probe the ideologues of a given person. If you’re neurodivergent, then I totally understand the difficulty. 80 percent of the time, they will gladly tell you or loudly dogwhistle at you with certain phrases. In the other way, you just have to figure out how to ask them questions that aren’t necessarily political. “Aren’t you sick of having to work every single day for nothing?” is a bit of a extreme one but was a good one to filter out people who are responsive to the “message”. It’s just better to take the angle of “disgruntled blue-collar/white-collar person” rather than go right into preaching liberation till you find out who you’re talking to.
I think that despite where you live, you still have to try. But also, I don’t think some of the people who are simply telling you “nah it aint like that” actually have had multiple death-threats and rape-threats towards their closed loved ones or family. If they have, then they are unrealistic in what they expect of the average person to burden.
In terms of wider politics, I do genuinely think that any form of liberation in the core is impossible until the U.S loses more of the global economic grip that it has. Until the global extraction and resource extraction of the global south is hampered (as it is currently and we are seeing the U.S absolutely thrash the fuck out in it’s dying days) the U.S will lose more and more grip and it’s international ruling class will be weakened. It will be forced to turn towards domestic needs and by then, it will be either too late or they’ll take the approach of barbarism; thus sounds the knell. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be preparing, though, or that you can sit back and wait.
Who is this nebulous “average person” that you speak of? Is it the worker who harbours racist opinions of his non white co workers and dreams of dialling ICE to kick them out of the country? Is it the store owner who criminally underpays his non white employees or is it the CEO who supports immigration as long as it leads to cheaper labour
I’m talking about, lined out explicitly in the rest of what I said, the person who would be engaging politically with others for the purpose of organizing or finding like-minded people. People like us. I don’t think the average person can withstand constant threats or the usual rhetoric thrown at someone who is participating in socialist politics. I know I’ve had a lot. I don’t expect the average comrade to be able to handle all of that without significant anxiety or without support.
I’m not exactly sure where you got what you said from what I said above. The user I was replying to was talking about how a good chunk of this country have some brain-worms and those can be quite violent and/or dangerous towards leftists and even lib-shits and I was saying that anyone who doesn’t think they can be that violent/dangerous towards leftists are wrong and the ones who can handle it shouldn’t expect other leftists to handle it emotionally or mentally without support.
Are you talking about something else I said? That is where “average person” is quoted. Sorry if I am misunderstanding you.
Texas is literally a state where a massive amount of people are political marginalized and voiceless. Similar in Tennessee where the Appalachian regions and those historically black are excellent hotbeds for revolutionary activity. You just need to know where to look, those states rejected by “culturally democrat” leftists are often in the greatest need of their intervention.
POC are willing to listen but the whites man…… they will never get out of their petit bourgeois mindset till they suffer such an utter defeat that their whole world view comes crashing down
I think we have to recognize that classes like petit bourgeois and big bourgeois exist just like the proletariat in the US. They can have conflicting interests . Revolutionaries need to understand how to treat each class differently so they can unite to end imperialism and the state can evolve into socialism.
Private businesses can build the productive forces of society IF it is directed towards actually productive activity.
Again petit bourgeois mindset
One of the four stars on the Chinese flag represents the petit bourgeois. Changing people’s minds and dragging them away from reactionary movements was part of the Chinese Communist Revolution.
Texas exists in the heartland of the Chicano nation. We’re not all bad. Many of us are progressives and are working hard to raise the level of struggle and consciousness in our activism.
Chicano nationalism is growing like wildfire among the intelligentsia in states like Texas in response to the sharpening of national oppression. These nationalists consider themselves progressives and will not bow down to state terror.
I grew up in the countryside with a very socially conservative background. Chicano nationalism binds me to the progressive movement and if it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone.
The work is hard and the stress high, but revolution is very much possible in the United States. I think it will happen within the next 25 years.
When you say Chicano nationalism is rising are you referring to people of Central American descent?
Primarily people of Mexican and Central American descent.
Also stop celebrating the “good ones” for being decent human beings and not vermin
No mass movement will happen until these people take accountability for their actions and the actions of their nation their tax payers and money have helped fund genocides, massacres, wars and imperialism through out the globe, I don’t care how much indoctrination these low lives have gone through in their lives blood is on their hands as much as it’s on the hands of their government they need to pay
Your question was about the feisability of mass moments. Mass movements coalesce due to material interests, are made possible through class consciousness, and are fueled by the blood and sweat of the people willing to put in the work to fight for unity.
I don’t know if “these people” you speak of are the reactionaries or absolutely everyone in the Imperial Core, but idealist notions of “paying for your sins” aren’t what make these movements happen.
Everyone in the imperial core,
call it idealist notion I call it equal distribution of justice
Okay, so do we start with the Blacks and browns like usual when we seek retribution or we going for something more modern with the gays?
Why are you so adamant on defending the reactionary whites of the imperial core?
Damn, didn’t realize I was white. I’ll go apologize for the blackface.
Need to find who keeps perming my hair in my sleep though, shits weird and I want my luscious 2C white blonde Aryan hair back since we’re all white!
Well I guess this a new level of “I don’t see color” wholly denying the fact that non white people live in the imperial core. Or a new level of illiteracy reading “Black or brown” as white.
Are you physically white, or just spiritually?
Im not talking about the non whites theyre just as oppressed as the rest of the colonizer world im asking why you are defending reactionary whites
I still don’t understand how that revenge is supposed to be executed? Like waiting for china to invade and occupy all of the global north and kill/imprison everyone?
Because otherwise these bombastic notions of revenge seem more like passive acts of feeling you accomplished something as a revolutionary when a middle manager father of three has to sell his family’s second car because he got fired.
You ain’t ever hear of Original Sin theology?
Do you live in the Imperial Core? I know you have “commie” in your username - do you consider yourself a Marxist?
Yes
I don’t mean “idealist” as an arbitrary pejorative. I’m talking about idealism vs materialism as a way of understanding and changing the world. I’m not sure how far along you are in your journey as a Marxist - are you familiar with historical and dialectical materialism?
Yeah I know what they are