Ask Comrades

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/3358546

Had someone mention this to me in conversation this weekend. Not something I knew, but honestly, not something I really cared about either. I just said a lot of Chinese nationals attend American university. A large part of the student population in the university/town I live in is Chinese. They followed up with "Sure, a specific class of Chinese though right?". My response being ,"Yeah wealthy business owners send their kids here." They said "I was just surprised, wouldn't he worry about her getting indoctrinated?" I said they get taught Marxism from like kindergarten, so no, probably not.

It really felt like a strange thing to bring up. I forget the context it came up in. This wasn't presented as some counter argument to anything, bit I do wonder where this little factoid comes from.

I see that RFA reported on her being outed as going to Harvard and the person getting jail time for it (for what its worth). Other then that, nothing substantial really.

So what's up with this? Is this some kind of lingering gotcha fed to libs to regurgitate when the topic is right?

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/2409929

Everytime I here individualism brought up by someone from Hexbear or Lemmygrad, it gets talked about as if it's categorically bad and wrong. Why is that?

This goes against everything I've learned in the states, where we consider individualism a necessary part of being a responsible and moral person, whereas collectivism strips us of our humanity and turns us into subhuman insectoid creatures incapable of thought.

Had a discussion with a friend today where this came up. I've seen links here before about how Chinese people know about it, and can search for information online, but it just isn't internally viewed in the propagandistic terms used in the imperial core. Anyone have some sources handy?

Hello comrades! I am in the position now that I can start helping out with some organizing and I'm looking for some tips.

First, a general question. Can anyone provide some resources for protesting tips? Anything from safety, legality, and how to be successful? I have come across very sparse help in the past, but I'm sure there's some resources out there that people have written down.

Second, a more specific question. Does anybody have a good recommendation for a sound amplifying machine? Something bigger and more boisterous than a simple loudspeaker. Price is reasonably flexible. I have some money set aside I can spend on this in the hundreds of dollars.

It's probably necessary to know that I live in the United States in the Pacific Northwest, but I won't get any more specific than that. Point me in the right direction and I can figure it on my own. I'm just looking for places to get started. Also, I am not alone in my organizing, so I don't plan on doing anything without referencing the more experienced people around me.

Thank you for everyones help and recommendation, comrades.

I had a discussion the other day with people about being non binary. Just for the record: none of us are actually non binary so I think that would explain the upcoming question.

The discussion was about gender norms and how they need to be abolished. We all agreed on that. The people I was talking to didn't understand why then there would be a need to declare yourself non binary. Their reasoning was that if all gender norms were abolished, and 'man' or 'woman' would no longer carry stereotypical behaviors and expectations, why would there be a need for people to declare themselves non binary.

To make it more clear, their question was: What is difference between being non binary and between having no gender norms tied to being a man/woman? Where does abolshing gender norms end and being non binary start?

I couldn't really answer this question because I am not non binary myself and therefore do not consider myself to be an expert on the topic. Now, I don't ask of you to validate being non binary to me. That, of course, is unnecessary as non binary people are perfectly valid in their existence. I was just wondering how a non binary person would respond to a question like this.

Hello comrades. To preface my question, first let me give some brief context as to what led me here. I have been doing lots of reading of newer and older texts ranging from classic theory, history, civil rights, etc etc, in preparation for a book I intend to write in the future. However, as I have grown a bit tired of blowing through dense economic texts and academic material, I decided to try and find some communist newspapers to subscribe to and receive and read in the mail as a more of a literary appetizer and to see what said organizations have to say about modern happenings. I have become aware of Peace Land and Bread by Iskra(https://www.peacelandbread.org/journal), but the only other ones I see that aren't digital only are two sources. That being Socialist Revolution (https://socialistrevolution.org/) and The Militant (https://themilitant.com/) However I have noticed something worrying about The Militant. I did some light googling, found they have been around a long time, and are a Trotskyist paper. While I myself am not a Trotskyist, I still value other opinions from comrades and wanted to receive as wide of range of leftist reporting as possible. However I noticed their newest publications seem VERY pro Isreal and anti Palestinian liberation. This is confusing to me for what I think are obvious reasons. However I did some googling to see what their views were when you turn back the clock. This is a source from their page published in Oct 30th, 2000. (https://www.themilitant.com/2000/6441/index.shtml) Here, they are talking about the Palestinian struggle in a way that is a stark difference from their new stuff that seems aggressively pro Isreal. My question has two parts. 1. What happened to the militant between 2000 and 2023? 2. What in the hell makes a COMMUNIST NEWSPAPER PRO ISREAL? Is there some sect of socialist thought I am unaware of that is somehow pro isreal? If so, why? What is going through their heads? What's the thought process? I know many westerners struggle separating anti-Zionism with antisemitism in their heads, (which is a whole other mind numbing conversation) but I was under the OBVIOUSLY mistaken impression that Marxist are generally able to comprehend these kinds of socioeconomic nuances. I'm not sure how well known these papers are in the modern era, but that's why I am reaching out and posting this as many places of relevance I can. Somewhere, is some nerd that knows much, much more about socialist print history, the people behind them, and that whole specific 'scene' that just hasn't come up yet in my current state of research/education. So, if that fellow nerd is out there, I would love some in-depth explanations on this phenomenon. As for everyone else, I ask everyone to see what we can find about the MODERN people currently running the Militant, as that information is surprisingly hard to come by. I may be bad at 'googling,' but this seems very evasive which tends to raise my brow. I feel this could be an important problem for us to pay attention to as communist, for if this is a recent trend, or imperial propaganda is out right taking over socialist and communist outlets, which given the history of The Militant, makes me worry. They have been historically targeted by COINTELPRO and harassed, infiltrated, and so on and so on, the things we all know happened in that era. It could just be a stray string of renegade marxism, or, if it IS an intelligence operation, we need to know. With the rise of anti-isreal sentiment in America, the rise of leftism as well, it seems like something certain 3 letter agencies would be motivated to squash. I should also mention, I am not a 'conspiratorial' person, I find the trend of conspiracy in America to be dangerous and actively undermining our 'democracy.' This change in rhetoric is proof of nothing more than something, sometime, changed. It is up to us marxist to find out what, and how this happened. Thank you for your time comrades.

Not much to say here to add more context. I have been suspicious about the grown-ass men with backpacks stopping off next door, for only a few minutes, multiple times a day.

Today one of them busted into their yard at a full sprint, with a taped up bag of what I can charitably describe as, "powdered sugar."

My big problem is: I don't want to call Angry Men With Guns to my home.

They've got a lovely track record of shooting dogs and crybullying us about how sad it made them. To put it in perspective, they tried putting up NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH COPS signs, and they got vandalized. The signs are 5m up in the air—somebody needed to set up a ladder to make that happen!

Honestly: what do I do here? Cops aren't an option and I don't want to be dead.

Respected Comrades,

I want to know more about the atrocities commited by the Japanese empire during their colonial rule in Asia. Specially around the time of ww2. Are there any documentaries that you can recommend?

When I try to browse it from lemmygrad, the newest post is a 10 month old post. But when I view on hexbear, it has recent posts. Is this a bug or intentional?

EDIT: If this is the wrong place to ask, could someone please direct me to the appropriate place?

this new community could use your love

I'm sketching out an idea for a readability assessment program. It will report the education level required to comfortably read a body of text using formulas, Dale-Chall being the most significant, that count length of sentences, what level of vocab a word is considered to be, etc. I was inspired by the word counter website I always paste my essays into. When it's done, I would like to plug it into APIs for it to be used on Lemmy, Mastodon, and Discord.

So, where I live there is basically 0 news coming from the Stan countries and frankly I often forget they exist lol

I don't know why but I suddenly thought about them today, and I wondered how life has been there since the fall of the Soviet Union and how life is like over there right now. Did market reforms hit them heavy as well? Did neoliberalism find its way into the countries? Did they manage to block foreign influence to a certain extent?

Any comrade who can help me out with this?

If not, I think we need one. I want to start postering again but I haven't had the motivation to make the posters myself, in part because I want them to be really good. Also of course historical agit prop is OK if it is still applicable which much of it, but not all, is.

Guess who's back...

Guess who's back...

Guess who's back...

Oh yeah, and AMA.

What fun adventures have I been up to?

And won't anyone think of the damn children?

Dear comrades, I had a family BBQ yesterday and my beloved uncle is under the Impression that all Muslim extremists (Al Qaeda, Isis and such) are Iran's fault and that they are the making of Shia Islam. That the Sunni are western Muslims oppressed by Iran.

Are there any documentaries or articles I could use to inform him?

I tried explaining operation Cyclone and timber sycamore but Wikipedia usually isn't that convincing in his circle (he has a PhD in engineering and used to work for a western oil company in the middle east)

Today, I just got news that our company is mandating that everyone installs spy software on their computers. As I am not going to install such software on my computer, it has been said to me that if we don't find some solution, I will get fired.

To be honest, I was thinking about changing jobs anyway, so I don't mind that much, but I am not sure what to do now.

I work in IT, so I have quite a lot of job opportunities, but most of them are something that is mostly harmful to society.

So I am considering two options: Try to find some meaningful job in IT (which is likely to be very hard).

Find some nice good paying job where I can work, ideally part-time, and focus on working on open source software in my free time.

Not really sure what to do, does anyone have any experience with similar situation?

title, unsure of placement 😵

A while ago Ibrahim Traoré took over and images of Russian flag waving people went around the world. They also made some anti colonial statements IIRC. But it's been quiet for a while now. Any idea what happened?

Has anyone in history made some valid criticism against Marxist ideology? And I'm not talking about the CIA propaganda no iPhone vuvuzela shit. But like, someone must've made some good point somewhere along the line?

I don't want this to be a bash marxism thread. Just curious. Debates with people usually tend to incorporate the usual stuff that can be debunked easily.

I've said it before but I'm tasked with setting up a youth movement for our party. One of the key things to do is, of course, appeal to the youth in order for them to join us. I've had a few meetings with our group now and while I will not claim I know better than the party, the course we're taking is a bit of the same of our regular action groups. And I can see how that doesn't work, especially for younger people.

So I'm looking for examples in literature on how to effectively reach out to the masses, with a focus on non-leftist or 'regular' people. One of the historical examples for this that I came up with is the Black Panther Movement. A young, radical movement. I was wondering if any of you guys know of literature written about their organizing power. You know, to use as a starting point for my journey.

That's not DuoLingo, as I find it too simple/slow.

Half the country speaks French and since I only learned Dutch, basic French and good German in high school I am now looking to get my French up to date.

DuoLingo is too basic right now, so I'm wondering if there are any sites that are more advanced for learning language.

Is "my friend" horrible for liking, sometimes too much cocaine. He goes to work every day, etc...he also takes days off from substance whence tired. But he also may be sick of attempting treatment whence getting treated like a worthless person. Again... Just asking for a comrade :)

What is the difference between conservative and reactionary or how you would describe and distinguish them?

In Portuguese language I see them as similar but with a significant difference. I suppose they may have the same meaning as in Portuguese and I would like to see how many socialists see these both words.