CommonTern

joined 9 months ago
[–] CommonTern@lemmygrad.ml 0 points 6 months ago

That's one I plan on reading, though I am working on finishing volume I of Capital first so I am focusing on shorter works for now.

 

Hello. I am trying to form a better understanding of the vanguard party and the party-form so I can learn why it is a good form of organization for the working class, how it compares to the alternatives, how it is internally organized, how it compares to bourgeois parties, and so on. Works with a broader scope are preferred. I have already read What is to Be Done? which is usually considered the main work on the party, so I will need other recommendations.

[–] CommonTern@lemmygrad.ml 0 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Does Marx say how they produce that ideology? Is it through, for example, academia? Do the bourgeoisie themselves produce it or do they employ laborers to do it?

 

"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it."

I know this quote is from The German Ideology, which I have not read yet because I haven't finished Capital yet. Does Marx explain what the means of mental production are somewhere in The German Ideology or anywhere else? If not, where can I find an explanation?

 

Thank you little friend

[–] CommonTern@lemmygrad.ml 0 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I was told recently by an anarchist that communists constantly call the police on anarchists and "peace police" their actions (i.e. redirect them towards nonviolence). What's the truth to that? Has anyone seen that happen? Is this story just something that gets spread around because it feels correct?

[–] CommonTern@lemmygrad.ml 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

So if I'm understanding correctly this is much broader than just tech companies? How is this related to the falling rate of profit? Has anyone written a detailed Marxist analysis of contemporary fascism?

[–] CommonTern@lemmygrad.ml 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

As Marxists, shouldn't we examine the economic base as the origin of things like "cultural factors," "ideas," and "narratives" instead of seeing them as the cause and capitalist crisis as an optional aggravating factor of fascism?

 

In particular, in what way and how much is the tech bubble contributing?

[–] CommonTern@lemmygrad.ml 0 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Does anyone else think the USA right wing appropriating rhetoric from the left is because we have a massive vanguard party-shaped void here? There is a greater demand than ever for a vanguard and we do not have one so the right is trying to use the opportunity to absorb parts of the loose coalition we have of anti-imperialists, socialists, and groups targeted by the administration who are looking for somewhere to direct their energy.

[–] CommonTern@lemmygrad.ml 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Now they’re comparing resisting ICE to Hong Kong protestors resisting the see see pee

[–] CommonTern@lemmygrad.ml 0 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Most of the anti-ICE organizers I know in my American city are anarchists who are opposed to anything that isn’t “spontaneous” or “autonomous” and try to discourage people from joining or allying with any parties or organizations that try to organize against ICE. They complain that any higher level of organization “co-opts” or “saps energy” from the movement and limits anti-ICE activity to peaceful protesting. If they made these criticisms and then did more themselves then I could get on board with it but when I sat with them during their attempt to blockade a garage that was being used by ICE vehicles I watched as they literally got up and moved the barriers out of the way every time a vehicle needed to pass through. They have bragged about supposedly getting into physical fights with cops during an anti-ICE protest but it seems like that didn’t ultimately make any difference for immigrants. The only other actions I see them encourage are small unaffiliated peaceful protests originating within immigrant communities or documenting and monitoring ICE. I never see them try to grow this baseline into anything that could effectively drive ICE from the city or stop the kidnappings. WTF do I do here. What Is to Be Done. I feel hopeless.

 

Can anyone recommend me some theory-oriented, Marxist writing describing how news media works? Especially regarding things like its relationship to the state or how private ownership influences it. I have already read Parenti. Thanks.

[–] CommonTern@lemmygrad.ml 0 points 8 months ago

They’re never getting those guys back from the space station

[–] CommonTern@lemmygrad.ml 0 points 9 months ago

Thanks. I think I read that Red Sails article a while ago but found it hard to understand. I will try to reread that section.

The confusion I have is about how this conspiratorial thinking needs to target a “marked” (for example, racialized) group of outsiders (as I understand it, this group doesn’t have to be Jewish people but often is). I think there is an elemental form of this reasoning you can see when defenders of capitalism blame “corporatism” or “crony capitalism” for capitalism's woes. For those to exist, “corporatists” and “crony capitalists” and perhaps “speculators” or “usurers” — as the Nazis liked to call them — also need to exist, but in this basic form it hasn’t crystallized into a defined group of people. How does that group of people end up being Jewish people?

When Marxists talk about other forms of discrimination we can always pinpoint an economic relation that generates it like colonialism or the gendered division of labor. What, then, is the material basis of 21st-century antisemitism? The destruction of Europe’s Jewish community and the creation of a Jewish settler colony seem to me like the main contributors today, but how specifically do they contribute? Is it that Israel helps reify Jews’ status as “non-European”?

The logic of antisemitism, far from being banished with the Nazis, became completely naturalized in the West. […] The tragic cycle begins to appear eternal: innocent, well-meaning, hard-working folks are, time and again, viciously tricked by the scapegoating of a new rogue in the gallery — Indigenous, Black, Spanish, Jewish, Soviet, Vietnamese, Cuban, Serbian, Muslim, Libyan, Syrian, Korean, Venezuelan, Russian, Chinese.

Is it correct to understand that antisemitism itself is one possible manifestation of the logic of antisemitism and the logic should not be viewed as exclusive to Jewish people?

 

Hello. I’m having trouble understanding several things related to antisemitism (such as anti-communism, Nazism, Zionism…) and it’s because I don’t actually understand how antisemitism itself functions. The explanations I can find online tend to be idealist.

[–] CommonTern@lemmygrad.ml 0 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Do you have a link?

 

I was told this is a good book to understand dialectics. Is it worth reading? If not, I’m sticking with Maurice Cornforth.

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