askchapo

If someone shoplifts something on the BDS list, does that still qualify as boycotting the brand? Is this a stupid question?

This question has been steeping in my mind in the years since a conversation with an ex-friend of mine (libertarian baby-fascist) regarding his self-identification as a "Nationalist" and his point that he thinks "The 'socialism' of Scandinavian countries would be okay here (United States) if it were only for the American citizens".

It didn't occur to me then to ask him if that made him a National Socialist and if he had any familiarity with that term, but... Now I don't talk to that baby-fasc at all.

So anyway, the question that I have now is "Why Did The Nazis Call Their Party 'Socialist'?" I understand they definitely weren't socialist, they were extremely capitalist with private interests using the power of the state to plunder the networth of "undesirables".

So why did they call themselves socialist? Was there a pretense that the state would build a socialist support network after it established itself as an imperial entity? (But) The Night of Long Knives was them scouring the party of any left-leaning members, right?

Did they call themselves socialist just as branding?

Also we were told by the organizers to get our student id book things (idk what they're called in English) so we can avoid being infiltrated by the ruling party, which we are opposing, members causing havoc. Not sure If that's a problem.

Big number of examples with timestamps - A Collection of Sea Shanties (vocal only) - YouTube

I don't lead one, but I know someone who does.

I hope Snake Eater was on it. Feels fitting.

Also for all you opsec nerds: It was playing from an old Ipod shuffle his aunt found 13 years ago in a dumpster in Zambia. He loaded all the songs onto a blank cd in a music store in Peru and then went to a public library in Helsinki where he loaded the songs onto the MP3 device. And he did this behind 7 vpns

Need to update my subscriptions

Recently I posted a pretty harmless meme in my DSA chapter's Discord (see image). It was in response to South Korea's recent spate of Fascism.

In response I had comrades jump down my throat, attacking me for critical support of AES states like DPRK and China. According to these comrades "there is no real Socialist nation."

As tempting as it is to quit DSA I think I should stay and try to educate.

Comrades also jumped on me for a comment I made months ago in response to some right wing BS where I said "maybe Democracy isn't always a great idea". The point I was trying to make was that Trans rights and other basic freedoms should never be put up to a popularity contest... I'm ok with a state that defends these rights and doesn't allow a reactionary majority to vote them away!

During this thread, people brought up multiple times that DPRK isn't Democratic because the Kim's have always been the figurehead, China isn't Democratic because "reasons" (racism), China lies about their suicide rates to WHO, etc.

Frustrating. I'll post more details in the comments.

My question: What constitutes a "real" Democracy? Is it leadership changing hands every few years? We don't have that in the U.S. Is it secret ballots? All the nationa above have that. Is it that the people's votes and voices actually change the government actions? We saw this in China unfortunately when people demanded ending the COVID lock downs early. It was the wrong thing to do but done for the right reason.

And is there any hope for these people in my chapter? One of them was basically racist against Chinese people and they seem very set in this "not real Socialism" mindset.

Are the libs right when they call Russia an authoritarian dictatorship? I know there have been political assassinations and other such things, but that's not special to Russia. Are the libs just overreacting or am i overcorrecting myself?

So, back when I was "still cis tho", there were a lot of aspects of male gender norms that bothered me deeply and of course I totally understand why now. Even though these days I obviously have a clear reason for feeling that way, I'm still curious if cishet men also have issues with how norms or expectations around gender and sexuality impact them in a negative way.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on how those norms impact you, whether good or bad.

Also, I should mention that since this is a bit of a sensitive subject we're talking about here, please be thoughtful and sensitive when discussing with others in this thread. Thanks! <3

EDIT: Much thanks for all the great responses here! I know it's a difficult topic of course, so I appreciate you sharing your thoughts/feelings like this.

Speaking of which... I just looked at /c/menby and some of the posts on the front page there are over 2 years old. I see a lot of the discussion here centered around not being able to share feelings and/or not having the spaces or support to do that in. /c/menby seems like the perfect place for that, just sayin'.

Or, more likely, a bit of both?

What sites could I use? Torrenting not ideal. I'm not even sure what a torrent is.

The Freedom Road Socialist Organization recently put out this article, arguing that the United States isn't a settler-colony and it's rubbing me the wrong way.

The article makes some assertions and assumptions that I have some thoughts about, and I'd love to hear y'alls as well.

[Proponents of the US Settler colony theory say that] The United States remains today a settler-colonial state. People of European descent, regardless of their actual class position, are settlers, and are seen as continuing to benefit from and perpetuate a colonial system. In other words, the people of the United States are divided into two camps, with the colonized in one camp, and the settlers in the other. Some even go so far as to say that this makes up the principal contradiction in the U.S. This is furthermore viewed as a fundamentally antagonistic contradiction

I don't know if this is an accurate description of the US Settler-colony theory. All settler and colonized populations, be they in Israel, Canada, South Africa, etc. Have class distinctions within them that ought to be considered. Saying there's a settler population isn't mutually exclusive with class analysis.

This ought to be contrasted with the Marxist-Leninist view, which sees the United States as an advanced imperialist country. Again, we see a division of U.S. society into two camps. On the one hand there is the camp of the capitalists, and on the other the oppressed and exploited masses of workers and oppressed nationalities. The principal contradiction is therefore between the capitalist class on the one hand, and the multinational working class and its allies on the other, particularly the oppressed nations. 

OK? I don't necessarily disagree, but how does this contradict the notion that the US is a settler-colony? It contradicts the version of that idea given earlier, but I think that's a strawman. Or at least a case of a narrow representation of a wider trend.

The article goes on to describe American history, talks at some length about the class makeup of the settlers. The implication seems to be that this varied class makeup makes them not a single class of "Settlers™". But then goes on to say that the early US was characterized by a:

transitional settler-colonial period

But that this period ended... At some point.

The article also seems to conflate the concept of a Settler-colony and colonies written large.

The United States is the greatest imperialist power in the world. It isn’t a colony. Like Tsarist Russia prior to the Bolshevik Revolution, it is a “prison house of nations.”

Within the borders of the U.S. there are oppressed nations. What is an oppressed nation? As Stalin defines it in Marxism and the National Question, “A nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture.” These oppressed nations are nations without states. They don’t govern themselves. The oppressed nations in the U.S. are the African American nation, with its homeland in the Black Belt South, the Chicano nation in the Southwest, and the Hawaiian nation.

So we've finally named some oppressed nations. I don't know why Hawaii is here, but otherwise this is fine. It's how the other colonized/oppressed people's in the US are handled that confuses me

To be perfectly clear, it is important to note that oppressed nations are not the same thing as colonies. The correct demand for a colony is immediate independence. This is the demand we must put forward regarding Puerto Rico and other colonies, where basic democratic rights are denied and which are merely objects of plunder.

The argument about a colony requiring independence is compelling. But why is Hawaii not included with Puerto Rico? Why does one island nation stolen by the US empire get independence, and the other doesn't? There's no fleshed out analysis on that.

Also, an overseas colony and a settler-colony are different.

The demands of indigenous peoples deserve special consideration and are distinct: full sovereignty and national development of indigenous peoples, and the protection of their cultures, languages and traditions.

I think this is the first mention of indigenous peoples, and we're 2/3 of the way through the article.

WHY ARE THEY DISTINCT? HM? COULD IT BE THAT THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO THE PROCESS OF SETTLER COLONIALISM MEDIATES THEIR INTERACTIONS WITH THE BOURGEOIS STATE?

The U.S. isn’t an apartheid system, like “Israel” or “Rhodesia” for example. The horrific system of Jim Crow segregation that followed the betrayal of Reconstruction was itself uprooted by the Black liberation movement. While national oppression remains, de jure segregation no longer exists. The working class, as a result of its historical development, is therefore multinational in character.

.... So you know we shoved indigenous people onto reservations and continue to systematically exclude them from modern American life. South Africa was pushing Africans onto reservations, and Israel is de-facto doing the same thing to Palestinians.... Because they're replacing the native population with a settler one...

De Jure Segregation being over means nothing in terms of the actual material conditions of oppressed nations in the US.

I could go on. But the article just seems poorly thought out. Despite supposedly refuting the idea that the US is a settler-colony, it spends so little time actually talking about indigenous peoples.

Am I onto something? Is the analysis of this article missing the mark? Or am I a petty-bourgeois radical, like the article suggests?

I'm honestly a little bit hesitant to ask this because don't wanna seem like I'm stepping on toes.

So I've been doing some thinking stuff over the last few weeks/months and am starting to question shit.

I've always been cis male presenting and for the most part it's all I've really known, but I'm not in the least bit masculine. Back in the early 00s, the term metro-sexual was a thing and I sort of identified with that but like, meh? Idk. Now that just feels chauvinistic for some reason.

Recently I've been thinking about my own gender identity and although I present as a male, I honestly don't really care. I also have that autism(or is it just ND?) thing where I feel like a being or entity in a human suit basically. Like my inner self is controlling the body that people see me as, which is, of course male presenting.

I've been looking a bit into agender and demigender and hit some of the checkboxes but not really all, but I also don't really know another term for essentially "male body but don't care". A reddit search brought up "gender apathy" and that's a kind of maybe I guess.

The only other conclusion is that I am just cis, but fully aware of it maybe? Like I have a way wider understanding of gender and even sexuality than I did a decade ago so maybe I'm just cis and just not toxic about it? I'm just "woke" maybe?

I guess call this a journal-post but def open for discussion. I'm just going through some heavy mental exploration. I'm not sure if there is even a question here. Just me being confused.

I guess a question could be: how do you know? How do you know where you land on the gender spectrum? Or am I just making a mountain out of a molehill?

I am a climate scientist and geologist and think that climate, geology, and geography are incredibly interesting fields that people deserve to know more about. If you have any questions that you’ve sat with for a while, are just curious, want to know more about future or past scenarios, or even have worldbuilding questions, feel free to ask!

The other day my phone wasn't charging for some reason and I had it off all day. I felt better and got more done and spent time with my family. No joke.

All I use it for is scrolling reddit, scrolling hexbear, listening to podcasts, and occasionally getting a text or phone call. Scrolling reddit in partucular is bad because i pretty much hate everything i see there, I dont know whats wrong with me. I can't just get rid of it because I like podcasts and need to get phone calls.

What do?

It's at Soundcloud and it happens when you click the waveform at the top.

https://soundcloud.com/chapo-trap-house/episode-69-angela-strawberry-feat-james-adomian-1217

I've been sorta addicted to Hexbear and want to cut down but idk if I can find a decent alternative to the news updates I get here. What can I do?