#How people are communists & marxists yet support it…I don’t understand

[narrowtriangle33-blog]

Please share this article, it important that you do so. These truths have to be told.

"Bethune’s name appeared in six reports in the House Committee on Un-American Activities and five times in Senate reports on people suspected of communist activity. While she was cleared of any involvement, the message was clear: Confronting racism and white supremacy is un-American."

"This is why white people are my bellwether."

"Whenever I am trying to decide whether or not a particular movement, policy or person benefits Black America, I wait and see what white people think. While that might sound racist, there has never been a movement, policy or person that benefitted Black America who was simultaneously embraced by white America. In this country, a stance against the trauma-inducing brickbat of whiteness is perceived as a stance against America. And anyone who disagrees can feel free to prove me wrong. Name one person who fought for Black liberation who white people agreed with."

"Whenever anyone does anything that includes the word “Black,” it immediately falls under the classification of Marxist and anti-whiteness. White people hate being left out, even though they are acutely aware that there is nothing more valuable in the known universe than a white life. White people will slit a Black baby’s neck for a white woman’s life."

"Let’s just say they will beat a Black baby to a bloody pulp, tie him to an industrial fan with barbed wire and toss his lifeless body off a bridge. Is that better?"

"But I understand why they vilify Black movements with Marxism."

"White people don’t know what Marxism is."

"According to a 1970 Harris Poll, 64 percent of Black Americans had a favorable view of the Panthers, while 92 percent of white Americans had a negative view. It’s probably because a lot of members of the Black Panther were Marxists, which is different from communism. Basically, Marxism is a way to examine history, economics and societies through the lens of class, while communism is actually Marx’s economic and political theory in which...wait. For a second I started to believe that there was some logic to white supremacy."

"White people hated the Panthers because they had guns and pushed for armed self-defense. For some reason, those America-hating negroes believed “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.”"

"I have no idea where they got that crazy idea from."

"Black people voting"

"Why white people don’t like it: States’ rights, something something, communism, something something it was a different time."

"When Black people marched on Selma for voting rights, they were called “communists.” The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was called “Un-American.” Of course, the 2020 election was about “socialism” because so many Black people voted."

"Southerners, conservatives and white people, in general, have never pushed for a single law to expand the electorate because they are the only true Americans."

"Critical Race Theory"

"Why white people didn’t like it: Because they don’t know what it is."

"This one is easy."

"The one thing that dumbfounds me about white supremacy is how much white people trust each other. They just trust the explanations for their fellow white people. In all this debate about CRT, I have yet to see one person who opposes CRT who can also explain what CRT is. And many of the legislators who are against funding K-12 teachers who absolutely do not teach CRT are already funding the leaders’ movement, such as Richard Delgado, the professor at state-supported Alabama Law School who wrote a little book called Critical Race Theory: An Introduction. "

"All they know is that it has the word “race” in it, so it must be bad."

"Legislators opposed the Civil Rights Act because it was “Marxist.” The House Committee on Un-American Activities investigated the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee for communism. The FBI did, too."

"In a 1964 New York Times survey, a majority of white people said that the “Negro civil rights movement had gone too far,” and a quarter of those people said their resentment was growing. They were right. Two years later, a 1966 Harris Survey, revealed that 85 percent of white respondents thought civil rights demonstrations “hurts the negro.”"

"Apparently, to white people, fighting racism is worse than racism."

"And if you think I’m kidding about white people not thinking Black people were smart, according to the National Opinion Research Center, it was not until 1963 that 50 percent of white people believed “Negroes” were born with the same intelligence as whites."

"History"

"Why white people don’t like it: Because white people might find out about some of the things white people did, which is racist."

"The fight against what politicians have deemed the Marxist, Un-American 1619 Project is actually a fight against teaching the history of slavery more accurately. And it is not new. White people said the same thing about teaching abolition. The United Daughters of the Confederacy said the same thing about the Civil War. White school districts in the North and South said the same thing about Jim Crow. And Black History Month."

"Plus if white kids learn about America’s racist past, they might start saying: “I’m not going to do that again,” and then, what will happen to white people?"

"Martin Luther King Jr."

"Why white people didn’t like him: He was a communist. He was anti-white. He was a Marxist."

"In 1966, a majority of white Americans had a negative opinion of King. When he died in 1968, 75 percent of Americans disapproved of him. Now they love him..."

"Because he’s dead."

"This is why we must never ignore white people."

"While we should never, ever do what white people collectively want, history has shown us that if something is good for Black people, white people will hate it. And if they vilify something as racist, communist or anti-white, you should take a second look because, nine times out of 10, it might be worth considering. When it comes to freedom and equality, the easiest thing to do is to see what white people have to say...

Then do the opposite."

I copied a lot of his article word for word those are Michael Harriot's words not my own.

The word's of people who commented.

"I was asking one of the few people on the Right side of politics I am still in touch with about why he hates CRT, and he sent me a link to a whole essay. It boiled down to a few leaps in logic:"

"1) the USSR used US race relations as a shield to deflect criticism of their own human rights record (“And in the USA, they hang n-words”)"

"2) therefore, any criticism of race relations was caused by Soviet propaganda (not, you know, by actually HANGING BLACK PEOPLE)"

"3) therefore any discussion of race relations was commie propaganda."

"4) therefore, any movement that calls attention to race is communist."

"It’s very similar to how the Communist League fired the original writer of The Communist Manifesto because he brought up ethnic minorities and racism and replaced him with Marx, outright rejecting any factor that so much as complicated their preconceived model. It also shares many of the issues raised in the “grievance studies” affair, being exegesis to elaborate and propound upon a founding scripture."

"That’s the most idiotic line of reasoning I ever heard. It’s so typical of white people as a group in this country that when someone points out some shit they did that’s fucked up that instead of you know, stopping the fucked up thing they basically say that the entity pointing out their fucked up shit is bad therefore bringing up solutions to the fucked up thing they did is wrong."

"Fuck the trolls, but if anyone is actually confused about the likelihood of any white person to trust any other white person over anyone at all who is even POSSIBLY not white, please refresh your memories regarding the multiple instances in the last several years of a Black person being anywhere near a house or building, then being approached by either a white guard, cop, or other self-important deputy of white fragility."

"In these instances, Black people are often believed to be up to no good even after they show ID proving they live in the building some white person has decided they don’t belong in. No amount of proof will have a fragile white self-deputy believing that even state-issued IDs are a real thing and this Black person lives in their own home."

"But when any white person walks by and says “Oh, this is _____, they live here”, immediately, that’s good enough to let this perceived criminal go into their home."

"Because any white stranger vouched in any sort of way."

"Literal evidence of address means nothing, but the word of ANY white person, with no proof of their authority, no hassle about “Well what are YOU doing here?!?”, just...instant belief of any white skin."

"Also, the main difference between Angela Davis and Assata Shakur is that Ms. Davis beat the system at its own game, the “proper” way. Racism couldn’t even beat her at their heavily-rigged game. Ms. Shakur ALSO beat the system, but because she didn’t get to win at a fully-rigged game, she found her own loophole and got out of this racist hellhole."

"Not that it matters, because they’re both the same to any racist. To me, they’re both brilliant heroes."

"If you asked these mouth breathers what they hate about CRT not only could they not tell you, they would call you “the real racist” for asking. There is no winning with these people because they refuse to see themselves as ANYTHING other than the good guys in any situation. It is fucking tiring to deal with this shit and yet they seem to not understand that we are more fucking tired than they are. With each comment, committee and talking point they pretty much prove that no white person could handle being anything other than well, white."

"To admit anything else would result in a reckoning. It will never happen and America will remain a racist society, with white culture pushing back and getting more extreme as each generation of BIPOC become more aware and angry over white supremacy. America will implode and whatever rises from the ashes will either be that reckoning with real change or a third world country."

Again I quoted these people

[arcticdementor]

When we hear the term “Deep State,” we tend to think of people staffing the federal bureaucracy. I want to suggest to you that that is an incomplete way to think about it. The Deep State in Western liberal democracies consist not only of government bureaucrats, but also of the leadership in major corporations, leading universities, top media, medicine and law, science, the military, and even sports. A more accurate way to think about what we are dealing with comes from the Neoreactionary term “the Cathedral,” which NRxers use in more or less the same way that 1950s Beats used the term “the Establishment.” I like the term “Cathedral” because it entails the religious commitment these elites have to their principles. You can no more debate these principles with them than you can debate with a religious fundamentalist. They adhere to them as if they were revealed truths.

Yet they still like to pretend that they are liberals — that they favor open, reasoned discourse. This is, in fact, a lie. It is a lie that they depend on to conceal the hegemonic intolerance that they wish to impose on everybody under their authority.

…

It is true that no society can tolerate everything. What the Cathedral is now doing is radically limiting discourse, and demonizing as heretics all those within its purview who dissent, no matter how reasonable their objections. (And now Facebook is incentivizing some of its users to report their friends as potential “extremists.” Please get off Facebook now!) The Cathedral seeks to make all of society over in the mold of a college campus. The Cathedral is growing ever more radical. In recent months, we have seen the US military embrace wokeness (to use the slang term for the most vibrant and activist form of the Cathedral’s religion). You would think that it makes no sense for the leadership of a racially diverse armed forces to embrace and indoctrinate its officers in a neo-Marxist theory that causes everyone to see everyone else primarily in hostile racial terms, but that is exactly what has happened. In time — and not much time, either — we are going to see young people who were once from families and social classes that once were the most stalwart supporters of the military declining to join the armed forces in which they are taught that they are guilty by virtue of their skin color.

…

That’s the Cathedral and its values. The Cathedral has also taken over corporate America, and the professions. I hardly need to elaborate on this further, not for regular readers of this blog. It was a hard knock this past week to see that the US Supreme Court, which some of us had thought would be the last line of defense for anybody traditional in this soft-totalitarian Cathedral theocracy, refused to take on the Gavin Grimm case, and the Barronelle Stutzman case. The Cathedral line in favor of privileging LGBTs over religious people and secular people who don’t accept the full LGBT gospel is hardening.

…

I realized over the weekend why I have been so affected by the experience of being here in Hungary these past three months. It has clarified for me the nature of this conflict. First, take a look at this powerful piece by Angela Nagle, writing about the views of Irish intellectual and cultural critic Desmond Fennell. 

…

What does this have to do with Hungary? Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his government have brought down the wrath of European Union leaders over Hungary’s recent law restricting sex education for children, and information about LGBT presented to children. The prime minister of the Netherlands, in extraordinarily bellicose language, threatened to “bring Hungary to its knees” over the law. I am reliably informed by an American source in a position to know that in Washington, even among conservative elites, Viktor Orban is seen as nothing but a fascist. I have been writing all summer about the radical disjunction between Hungary as it is, and Hungary as described by Western elite discourse (media and otherwise). This is by no means to say that Orban’s government is flawless — it certainly is not; corruption, for example, is a big deal here — but to say that there has to be some reason why Western elites of both the Left and the Right despise Hungary so intensely, and slander it so.

There’s a lesson in all this, I believe, for where conservatives and traditionalists in the West are, and where we are likely to go. I have come to believe that the standard left-liberal and right-liberal critiques of Orban — “Magyar Man Bad” — are just as shallow as the “Orange Man Bad” critique of Donald Trump. I say that as someone who was critical of Trump myself, though I credited him for smashing the complacent GOP establishment. I write this blog post in the spirit of Tucker Carlson’s excellent January 2016 Politico piece titled, “Donald Trump Is Shocking, Vulgar, and Right.”

I’ve been reading lately a 2019 book, The Light That Failed, by Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes. Both men are liberal scholars who undertake to explain why liberalism failed in Central Europe and Russia after the fall of the Cold War. It’s a remarkably insightful book, one that any conservative with an interest in the problem should read, even though its authors are liberal democrats. They write:

A refusal to genuflect before the liberal West has become the hallmark of the illiberal counter-revolution throughout the post-communist world and beyond. Such a reaction cannot be casually dismissed with the trite observation that “blaming the West” is a cheap way for non-Western leaders to avoid taking responsibility for their own failed policies. The story is much more convoluted and compelling than that. It is a story, among other things, of liberalism abandoning pluralism for hegemony. [Emphasis mine — RD]

You would have thought that in any reasonable pluralistic polity, a sovereign nation choosing to restrict what its children can learn about human sexuality would be of little interest to other nations within that polity. After all, Hungary is not France any more than Estonia is England. There is an immense amount of diversity in Europe. But see, the Cathedral’s liberalism — whether in America or in the EU — is not pluralistic, but hegemonic.

Krastev and Holmes (henceforth, “the authors”) point out that after 1989, the West expected Central European countries to imitate them in every way. The authors — who, remember, are liberals — write:

Without pressing the analogy too far, it’s interesting to observe that the style of regime imitation that took hold after 1989 bears an eerie resemblance to Soviet-era elections where voters, overseen by Party officials, pretended to “choose” the only candidates who were running for office.

…

The authors explain that the reforms demanded by the West weren’t like “grafting a few foreign elements onto indigenous traditions,” but rather “put inherited identity at risk” and stoked “fears of cultural erasure.” From my perspective, this is what you see when you get over here and start looking more closely at what George Soros and people like him, both within and outside of government, did, and seek to do. And so, as the authors put it:

[P]opulism’s political rise cannot be explained without taking account of widespread resentment at the way (imposed) no-alternative Soviet communism, after 1989, was replaced by (invited) no-alternative Western liberalism.

Here’s something I bet you didn’t know about Viktor Orban. After the 2008 crash, Western governments bailed out banks left and right. When Orban came to power in 2010, he chose not to do that, instead taking the side of hard-pressed Hungarian homeowners who had been allowed to take out home loans in Swiss francs. He and his party passed a law to protect homeowners at the expense of the banks.

…

Remember, they wrote this in 2019, but think of this principle applied to now. If you are Viktor Orban, and you look to the West in 2021, you see a United States that is destroying itself with Critical Race Theory wokeness, which is starting to come to Western Europe. You see the Left here in Hungary starting to embrace it (e.g., the Black Lives Matter statue the liberal Budapest city government erected earlier this year), and you know that it will be bad for your country if this poisonous ideology takes root. So you encourage Hungary’s national soccer team not to take the knee before matches.

…

And so, the disintegrating West, headed towards shipwreck, is going to bring Hungary to its knees for trying to protect itself.

…

The authors go on to say that what it means to be a good Western liberal is changing so fast that people in the East never know for sure what vision of society they are supposed to imitate. Think about what it was like for us Americans. I was born in 1967, and educated by schools, by the media, and by every aspect of culture to believe in Dr. Martin Luther King’s colorblind vision. I took it seriously, and I believed in it, and do believe in it. But now the same liberals who argued for that are now arguing that this vision was wrong — that to truly be against racism, you must train yourself to think in exactly the same categories that white segregationists used prior to the Civil Rights revolution. It makes no sense. You come to understand that you have been conned. Never, ever believe liberals: they will change the rules on you, and blame you for your own confusion.

The authors go on to say that sex education in the schools has been a huge flashpoint of conflict within Central and Eastern European societies. It has to do with parents losing the ability to transmit their values to their children. In the flush of post-1989 enthusiasm, young people didn’t so much rebel against their parents as to feel pity for them, and to stop listening to them. The young took their catechism from the Western cathedral. Sex ed was a neuralgic point of the overall struggle between Central European populists, who believed that the traditions and the national heritage of these countries were in danger of being wiped out by the West. Imagine, then, what Hungarian voters must think when they hear the Dutch prime minister threaten to bring their country to its knees because he knows better what they should be teaching their children than they do.

The authors tell a story about how Viktor Orban, at the time an up-and-coming liberal from the countryside, was publicly humiliated by a well-known liberal MP from Budapest’s urban intelligentsia, who adjusted Orban’s tie at a reception, as if doing a favor for a hick cousin.

They go on to explain Orban’s illiberalism by quoting his criticism that liberalism is “basically indifferent to the history and fate of the nation.” Liberal universalism “destroys solidarity,” Orban believes. (“If everybody is your brother, then you are an only child.”) Orban believes that liberal policies will lead to the dissolution of the Hungarian nation because liberals by nature think of the nation as an impediment to the realization of their ideals.

The authors go on to say that Orban has long campaigned on the abuse of the public patrimony by the regime that governed Hungary after 1989, when Communist insiders used their connections to plunder what was left of the public purse, and left the weak to fend for themselves. This attitude explains Orban’s hostility to the banks after the 2008 crash. “[I]n Central and Eastern Europe, defending private property and capitalism came to mean defending the privileges illicitly acquired by the old communist elites,” they write.

(Readers, did you know any of this context about Orban and other critics of liberalism from Central Europe? Doesn’t it make you wonder what more you’re not being told?)

…

What’s preposterous about it? I know these guys are liberals, but what Duda identifies is the difference between soft totalitarianism and hard totalitarianism. In both cases, the Poles don’t get to decide for themselves.

There’s more to the book, but I’ll stop here for today. You don’t have to believe that Viktor Orban or any of these other politicians are saints in order to understand why they believe what they believe — and why people vote for them. The Cathedral did the same thing to Trump and to Trump’s supporters. Yes, there were some Trump voters with disreputable motives, and in any case Trump was by and large not an effective president. But the anti-Trump opposition’s passionate belief in its own righteousness rendered it helpless to understand why so many people hated it, and do hate it still. Trump’s own incompetence made it harder to take that critique seriously.

Trump lost, and most everything he did was wiped away by his successor. Viktor Orban wins — and that is the unforgiveable sin in the eyes of the Cathedral.

Here is the radicalizing thing, though. As you will know if you’ve been reading this blog, Viktor Orban appears to be building a conservative deep state in Hungary. His government has transferred a fortune in public funds and authority over some universities to privately controlled institutions. It is difficult to accept this, at least for me. At the same time, it is impossible for me to look at what has happened in my own country, with the Cathedral now extending its control over every aspect of American life, and to criticize Orban for this. The alternative seems to be surrendering your country and its traditions to the Cathedral, which pretends to be liberal, but which is in fact growing even more authoritarian and intolerant than anything Orban and his party stand for.

It is becoming harder to think of liberalism in the sense we have known it as viable anymore. Me, I would actually prefer to live in a more or less liberal, pluralistic society, where California was free to be California, and Louisiana free to be Louisiana, and so forth. This is not the world we live in.

…

The controversy around Viktor Orban is not only about an obstreperous Hungarian politician who doesn’t play well with others. It’s about the future of the West.

UPDATE: To put it succinctly, we might need soft authoritarianism to save us from soft totalitarianism.

[madamlaydebug]



ES Ascension NewsJune 16th, 2020

 

Groupthink

Foreword: Before you attempt to digest this month’s challenging content, let it be said and known that the inverted systems and reversal networks in the planetary architecture, are systematically being dismantled and aligned to the Cosmic Sovereign Law of One. Corrections are being made to the ley lines for horizontal-vertical-diagonal alignments, activation of organic creator code and Krystic zero-point architecture are detoxifying and purging out death codes from every corner of our planet. A selection of demonic hierarchies, satanic-luciferian cult harvesting stations, negative alien AI tech and mind control weaponry, and an array of parasitical infestations of miasma, miscreants and bottom feeders are also being cleaned up and evicted. This is a massive ongoing project currently underway, which is being monitored by Cosmic Christos intelligences and cannot be stopped.

 The chess game strategy is on and those of us that are awakened and awakening through the dark night, must be brave and courageous so that we can begin to understand deeper truths and see clearly how the enemies of humanity have repeatedly tricked us into submission through mind control subversion. This will be the shocking realization of betrayal by those in authority that we trusted, and an emotional grieving process for humanity that will happen in stages of ongoing development for the purpose of integrating a great global spiritual healing.  Gradually, we will be taken down the rabbit hole of disclosure and through the many twists and turns to break free from the controlled narrative, and finally be guided to see the larger truth hidden behind these events. Then we will be supported to gain personal spiritual strength through neutrality, empathy and to compassionately integrate this extreme experience by learning from its higher knowledge, each at our own pace and consciousness level. Some will struggle with heavy trauma and dogmatic overlays, and thus choose to leave this timeline, and will be supported from another location in the field.

Currently, the Black Sun entities are clinging to the Dragon Moth Grid and its AI weaponry and from what I can tell, this is the last stand of the most powerful levels of psychotronic weaponry that they have control over as they take their final shot at regaining global control through a digital war. Many of the human Controllers seem to be confused as to why their methods are falling short, yet they press on with all the assets and resources they have which are being put into the final solution of rolling out their One World Order or Techno-Totalitarianism. If we pay attention to all of the props they are using for enforcing tyrannical control through psychological warfare; masks, personal protective equipment (PPE), the terrorism tactics of censorship, political correctness, groupthink thought police, funding anarchists, supporting lawlessness, Alice in Wonderland crazy making tactics, nanochip vaccinations, it’s all made visible for us to see. Naysayers with firing brain cells not linked into the hive net perpetuating the groupthink can no longer deny these events as fringe conspiracy theories, there is a spiritual war, a psychological war being waged against humanity and it is very visible now. To stop feeding into this digital warfare and anti-human system by believing staged events designed to co-create extreme pain and suffering, we must be educated to know how this was done, and how what we are actually observing happening now is the result of many years of methodical grooming and patient subversion to socially accept this anti-human agenda. Stay the course and know that although it appears to be dire, the God forces, Christos forces do not succumb to shortcuts outside of the Law. All of this reorganization to support planetary ascension must occur without superimposed force and within the natural cosmic order. It is Time! Time is on our side and the great awakening is happening now!

~Lisa Renee

Within all the heated controversy, the unveiling of the One World Order through the global implementation of an assortment of AI networks all for achieving complete Technocratic Totalitarianism by 2030 is underway. The agenda of full cognitive capture through digital means is escalating now. The answer to all of this insanity brewing is our full dedication to seeking truth, opening our heart and listening for the whispers of our next direction, taking steps to heal ourselves and increase coherence, which happens naturally when we put our relationship with God and inner spirit before anything else. On the awakening path to access greater levels of truth, our inner work is to recognize where our perception has been controlled through ego mechanisms that were filled with pain and delusion. The world needs emotional and spiritual adults that can speak the truth from their heart, without recrimination, blame or harming intentions. It appears the global awakening is here and although it may be a rough summer, it looks like major revelations are to be made towards the end of the year.

This is a very challenging time as the Controllers pull out every intelligence asset and psychological weapon that they have in their arsenal to demoralize and dehumanize the global population through sophisticated deception methods. This layer of pushing anti-human mind control methods include a long history of hidden subversion running in government, academia, religion and science, along with an eventual plan for radical revolution of the western value system made through intelligence operations and insurgency. The constitution which shapes the western value system in the United States, although severely corrupted by the moral failings of its governmental leaders, was originally designed around a living document that holds an energy signature aligned with truths found in the Natural Laws. This blueprint is the ideological thorn in the side of the NAA and other despots, who want to design nations of mind slaves and brain washed followers, not nations of free independent thinkers who value personal freedom and hold reverence for life. 

Thus, there are armies of funded activists and fake journalists from many interrelated organizations that are strategically working together with the deep pockets of globalist funding to destroy individual human freedoms within all democratic nations that use the template of this living document. This year they pulled the trigger on their long awaited and meticulous plan for activating a multipronged ideological subversion in the western nations, with millions of people being subjected to unprecedented restrictions on their personal freedoms, human rights and free speech, which has forced radical changes and limitations be made in their ability to freely carry out their personal and professional lives. Upon closer examination of the current crisis events and using some critical thinking, we can follow the money back to non-government organizations and globalist institutions who seem to have a penchant for False Flags and bad actors. Then we can ask who and what is actually benefiting from all of this orchestrated plandemic, economic terrorism, division and upheaval, subversion of western democracy while fanning the flames of anarchy in the streets? This is a well-orchestrated coup attempt happening on physical and metaphysical fronts, and the rabbit hole goes deeper than most people can digest.

The satanic cult running the mainstream and social media have been extremely prolific in lying to the masses all these years, repeating the key phrases over and over for shaping the narrative and cultivating the Groupthink towards the satanic ideology based upon collectivism. They were purposely dumbing down and then filling the minds of our youth with cultural Marxism and never-ending classification systems for the purpose of inciting outrage and the radical ideological revolution at the push of a button. Many Marxist-Communist groups believe that violent revolution is the only way to transform government and welcome mass destruction, as we can see the result of this belief system now. When people are extremely mentally and emotionally fragile, stressed out from survival and pushed beyond their limits, it is only a matter of time before the pent-up anger of destructive explosions show up as mass protests that escalate into violence.

Only come to find out that this was designed as a small stepping stone for generating useful pawns, willing to create mass chaos and distraction for the anti-human agendas, in order to progress the main goals of the NAA’s full spectrum dominance over humanity. The don’t look here, look over there distraction. Within all the heated controversy, the unveiling of the One World Order through the global implementation of an assortment of AI networks, quantum supercomputers, weaponized Skynet’s and hive nets, all for achieving complete Technocratic Totalitarianism by 2030 is underway. The plan for Agenda 2030 is hidden in plain sight and now many more of us on the earth need to be awakened to this so we are informed about consent and understand what these anti-human forces are doing in order to achieve these dystopian goals. They only have the power that we give them.

This is a heightened spiritual battle that is taking place on the ground in the west, and through the physical world there is also the visible battle occurring in plain sight to gain complete control over our minds, it is the battle for installing satanic ideology into the mainstream without any limits, into every day technology which strips individual human beings of their dignity, divinity and personal freedom. The battle is happening for laying the full infrastructure required for the Techno-Totalitarian world, which is essential for the next stages they plan to implement which are ongoing mandated nanochip infested vaccinations and plans for directed evolution, eugenics and finally, transhumanism. 

We must be willing to overcome fear and denial and to be potentially very uncomfortable when seeing the ugly truths staring us in the face, connecting the dots of the disinformation campaigns being deployed in order to see the accurate motivations hidden behind the weaponization of these narratives. The answer to all of this insanity brewing is our full dedication to seeking truth, opening our heart and listening for the whispers of our next direction, taking steps to heal ourselves and increase coherence, which happens naturally when we put our relationship with God and inner spirit, before anything else.

[umalik]

The Qadiyani debacle of Pakistan

Let me start off with saying that I have recently realized that I am a coward. I am quite privileged in what I have in my life, what I have been able to see, able to achieve and above all able to enjoy. I might not be in the top 5% but I am still probably in a high percentile of privileged people in my country, Pakistan. I do have my disadvantages, but overall they are not anywhere near my privileges and I should admit it. Am I ashamed to have them, not at all. Me and my elders worked hard and honest for it. Perhaps, they were catching up to the damage they received by their participation in the unsuccessful “War of Independence in 1857″ or as British Raj would call, “Indian Mutiny/Rebellion” where they were found guilty and as a collective banned from buying/acquiring more land (the most common way of increasing wealth or passing it on to the next generations) and from Government jobs until pretty much into late 1930s just before independence of Pakistan. Large part of my family was even able to avoid major bloodshed (not everyone was lucky though) of 1947 migration, and we somehow got progressive access to education, our passport to posterity and then rest is history. But with all that has gone well for me, I am still a coward. When I moved back to Pakistan I decided to teach a course of “Entrepreneurship for Engineers” for three semesters as a visiting Faculty member at a large University in Lahore. It was a pleasure sharing my ideas, my experiences (especially failures) with an average class of over 300 students. Most of these were very interactive and aimed at making them not Entrepreneurs (it is a shame how we think we can make everyone next Sir Richard Branson with some degree or course) but good analytical thinkers, problem solvers, rational managers and perhaps in the process some of them the next owner of a unicorn from Pakistan. In one of my first classes I challenged the stereotypes of my students by asking them how many of them know any Jew or Qadiyani in real-life, even through a second degree connection and how many of them distrust them? Surprisingly majority of the students not having ever shared 30 minutes one-to-one with either had a very negative view of them. Interestingly, out of if I taught 800 students I remember only one girl who raised hand for knowing a Jewish person, but that’s another story. So I questioned them how they can form an opinion about someone without even knowing them? But here is the most interesting part, just 15 minutes after I was done - I realized my mistake. This guy who had recently returned from Scotland, whose accent still had a hint of rolling-Rs, has just sympathized with Qadiyanis - apparently something more dangerous than sympathizing with Jews. I had to clarify myself what my personal beliefs are, and I didn’t have to, but I did! Because yeah, I am a coward even with all that privilege. 

So recently this is what has been happening in Pakistan which I would like to share in a manner of list:

Qadiyanis are non-Muslims as per Constitution of Pakistan since 1974 by a populist leader, and wait-for-it a Champion of Secular values, Mr Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.

Yet even after that official deceleration we do not afford them the rights of a common citizen.

Logically if they aren't Muslim the Majority faith in the country, then they ought to be a minority.

Since they are a minority then they can be part of the “Minority Commission”, a body which has no legal value except for making recommendations to the Government about state of affairs.

But now we want to say that they are not even a minority, then what are they??

Apparently to be accepted as a Minority they have admit officially that they are non-Muslim.

If we need their official deceleration, then why is our Constitution making one? Is their deceleration more powerful than our Constitution?

Our moderates, our even radicals, our Communist Awami National Party and radical Marxist (and quite supported by our friends in Kabul and their friends on our other side), PTM who all usually have nothing to do with religion are aligned against the Qadiyanis.

Apparently this whole show is being run by people who have turned Khatam-e-Nabuwat idea into a business from last two-three generations. This is the only way they have made money, name in politics and moved from not even have a bicycle to moving around in brand new 4x4 SUV which costs after taxes enough to buy a large family house in many metro areas of the country. This nation on other hand will be emotionally led into anything and everything! Just look at how many “conferences” are held under the title of “Khatam-e-nabuwat conference” in this country every month and how they are funded by getting donations from common people and virtually no accountability! 

Our nation apparently negates Quran openly, doesn't understand a word of Arabic and have no respect for the Islamic traditions including shared in Surah-e-Fiel (Chapter of Elephant) and learned by almost every young Muslim kid by heart. What did grandfather of Prophet Muhammad s.a.w.w. did when Abraha from Yemen attacked Macca? He locked the Kabaa, took his people and animal away and said - "Allah this is your house you can protect is the best". And here we are, trying to be executioner of things far above us! Don't we have any iman? Is our Aqeeda so weak that we cannot even save ourselves? Allah even promised protection of Quran in 15:9 but somehow we believe we can do it better.

Oh and why I am referring to them as Qadiyanis when they call themselves Ahmadia? Well for three things; that’s what my country’s constitution refers to them as, their movement arose from a place called Qadiyan in present India and finally didn’t I mention before, I am a coward?

p.s. if you are reading from India and smiling - we are doing all that what you are doing, just with slightly less everyday violence. Guess we still have common problems.

[badmousestuff-blog]

M’s Report

Why should Leftists Reject CPGB-ML’s transphobia:

“Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other — Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.”

This quote from the Manifesto demonstrates a trend that shows up time and again in Bourgeois society - the simplification and homogenization of social identities as a whole.  While communists primarily focus on the Class identities as described above, it would be foolish to avoid other identities.  Even Marx and Engels engaged in this, as Engels discussed the family and how it has changed over time.  Likewise in the Manifesto Marx says this:

“The bourgeoisie keeps more and more doing away with the scattered state of the population, of the means of production, and of property. It has agglomerated population, centralised the means of production, and has concentrated property in a few hands. The necessary consequence of this was political centralisation. Independent, or but loosely connected provinces, with separate interests, laws, governments, and systems of taxation, became lumped together into one nation, with one government, one code of laws, one national class-interest, one frontier, and one customs-tariff.”

Here Marx discusses how the bourgeoisie has centralized the state, considerably compared to old feudal Europe. The state itself has become simplified, as local provincial laws and systems of government are homogenized into one nation-state.

Just as bourgeoisie society homogenizes and simplifies class and the state, it can likewise be seen that bourgeoisie society homogenizes other areas of identity.  National Identity, Race, Gender, Sex, Ethnicity, and other identities are frequently scrubbed away into singular new identities, in order to categorize, control, influence, and antagonize the masses.  Just as the multitude of classes has been simplified into “Bourgeoisie and Proletariat”, other identities have been simplified.  

When national identities are simplified, it is called Cultural Homogenization, and ever since the French Revolution, Bourgeoisie nationalism has sought to eliminate the regional differences and diversity within the “nations” that nationalists claim to love so much.  Any deviation from the perceived norm or perceived national “culture” is punished, and cultural uniqueness from local religions, to language, and in some cases even cuisine, is homogenized.  Either destroyed or barely integrated, if tokenly, into the larger national culture. By homogenizing the national culture, the bourgeois gain a number of advantages.  First they build national solidarity, making it seem like there is a common national interest shared by the bourgeois and proletarians.  Second, it pits different nations against each other, this is partially a result of the previously described advantage. Proletarians are lead to believe that not only do they share a national interest with the bourgeoisie of their nation, but also that other nations are out to destroy their own nation.  By focusing the proletarians’ fear and hatred towards other nations, the bourgeois prevent the proletarians fear and hatred from being directed towards them.  Finally, by homogenizing and antagonizing groups that don’t fit into the perceived national identity or culture, the bourgeois create yet another group for the proletarians to direct their anger towards that is not the bourgeois.  While gender identity, sexuality, sex, and race can also be applied to the last category of “not fitting into perceived national identity”, the bourgeois frequently use these identities to create additional divides among the national proletariate.

One example of this is that under bourgoise society, sex has been equated to gender identity. This subsequently leads to the erasing intersex and transgender people.  In an attempt to categorize and simplify sex into a binary, and then subsequently equaiting one’s gender identity to their sex assigned at birth, bourgoise society has lead to the oppression of these nonconforming individuals.  When these individuals become impossible to classify or fit into their predetermined boxes, Bourgeois society demonizes them in an attempt to get them to conform. The bourgeois elites will convince the rest of the proletarians that these individuals are dangerous, weird, or abnormal, once again creating a new target and scapegoat for the proletarians’ outrage.  When these non conforming individuals fight back, and eventually win popular support and some rights however, the bourgeois only give token support.  The bourgeois attempt to once again assimilate, homogenize, and neuter the movement’s radical potential, while continuing to demonize the most radical or “different” members of the community.  The bourgeois will drape themselves in the colors of LGBT and show off wealthy, safe, and conforming members of the community, all the while ignoring or even continuing to demonize those that don’t fit into their “acceptable” minority. These patterns are seen in more than just the LGBT community however, and other minorities also face similar conditions.

There have been a number of Assigned Gender Non Conforming individuals throughout history.  However, the transgender and intersex identities were never formed until the height of Industrialization and Bourgoise society in the west.  In earlier times, it was often a lot easier to live as a gender non conforming individual, and many societies even included unique identities or a “third gender” for such individuals.  It is bourgeois society that seeks to destroy these unique identities in an attempt to maintain control over society.  These identities are less a modern creation by the bourgeoisie, and more a way to push back against the oppression caused by the Bourgeoisie.

The Bourgeois social project is not interested in diversity, it is interested in simplicity, control, and maintaining their power and wealth.  In short, all opression under bourgoise society is material.  By falling for their propaganda and bigotry by opposing not only Transgender individuals, but identity Politics wholesale; the CPGB-ML fails to recognize how the Bourgeois have maintained their control over society. It is not enough to say that “we are all proletarians” to build solidarity through that.  There are multiple identities that the bourgeoisie use to oppress others, and their concerns must be addressed by any party that believes themselves to be communist.  When a communist party cannot see how bourgeois homogenization, and oppression of minorities are all tied together into a greater picture that all materially benefits the bourgeois, reveal their true colors.  As of now, the CPGB-ML cannot recognize that it’s transphobia and rejection of idpol comes not from a marxist understanding and interpretation of history, society, and oppression, but instead comes from a bourgeois and liberal mindset.  If it continues down this material and ideological failing it will not only fail to become relevant, but it is likely that their ideology will continue to fester into something much worse.  Our job as communists must be to embrace and protect the diversity that bourgeois society so desperately wants to destroy.

(quotes from Communist Manifesto)

(some thoughts influenced by this article https://oxfordre.com/internationalstudies/abstract/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.001.0001/acrefore-9780190846626-e-139)

General Response/Thoughts/critiques on each of CPGB-ML’s articles:

While most of the articles aren't written super well (and I don’t have much room to complain about that, especially since a lot of their “articles” are just speech transcripts), and some do feel just super biter for no reason, the bigger issue comes down to what seems to be a sub par understanding of marxism.  They also frequently fall into the trap of class reductionism.

CPGB-ML’s Declaration of opposition to “Identity Politics”

●     Very little meat here, just a general declaration, however it should be noted that they fail to mention that they oppose discrimination on grounds of Gender Identity, ethnicity, nationality, disability, or other areas of potential discrimination.

●     Uses the right wing dog whistle of “LGBT Ideology”

●     Fails to distinguish Marxist Identity Politics from Liberal Identity Politics

Why gay rights is not a class issue

●     Fails to recognize the material benefit (and thus why LGBT issues are also class issues) the Ruling class gets from the oppression of LGBT individuals (as I tried to explain above)

●     Fails to show solidarity with LGBT individuals in their struggles and oppression, weekly says that “there is no need to persecute them”, as if that made the persecution under liberalism acceptable or at least not something to fight against

●     Again uses the right wing dog whistle of “LGBT Ideology”

●     Effectively claim that there is no persecution of LGBT individuals in the west today

●     Makes the absurd claim that “tomboys” or other Cis gender non conforming individuals are being pushed into being trans - another right wing dog whistle

●     Fails to recognize false consiousness and how Cis/Straight Working class individuals can be indocrinated into Bourgoise ideas and hatred of minorities by saying that this mindset “I’m sorry but a man’s a man and a woman’s a woman and you’re not going to be able to mess me around.” is one of the working class instead of being imposed on them by the bourgoise

●     This quote also equates gender to sex and is basically the CPGB-ML saying that they also equate gender to sex

●     Clear example “class reductionist” mindset, says that LGBT will benefit from the revolution but is unwilling to combat existing prejudice against LGBT individuals

●     “We can honestly say that under socialism there will be no ‘LGBT rights’ because everybody will have full rights; end of story.” - more class reductionism

●     Article literally states that “Silencing debate doesn’t vanquish existing prejudice, it simply creates fresh hostility” yet the entire article is trying to silence voices from marginalized folks (primarily LGBT) outside of just class analysis

●     Uses rightwing talking point/dog whistle of “everyone you disagree with is a fascist”

●     Paints the image of a “man that looks 100% like a man, but “identifies” as a woman” - a common right wing stereotype and bigotted view of transgender women, and follows this image up with further “transwomen are a danger to young cis women” transphobic nonsense. - This is also a modern continuation of the “Gay people are dangerous to children” right wing homophobic argument

The reactionary nightmare of ‘gender fluidity’

●     Marx didn’t discuss gender and LGBT issues, not because they did not exist as an issue, but because LGBT issues were not mainstream at all, it really wasn't until the 1900s where these issues came to light as much in culture, and even then more on the fringes.  You can’t really blame Marx for not discussing an issue that basically was unknown at the time

●     Again equates sex with gender identity literally says that they are synonyms

●     Attacking academics in the united states, a common right wing tactic

●     Author effectively does the right wing “why won’t you debate me” move, despite basically denying the existence of trans people

●     The idea that trans people don’t exist, and that sex and the gender binary are the complete truth is more “idealistic” and denying material reality.  There are Intersex people after all, and countless cultures throughout history have had more genders than the traditional two.

●     Still fails to show solidarity with oppressed individuals along lines other than “race, sex, or sexual proclivity”

●     No one is saying that trans issues are more important than other issues

●     Saying you’re against unjust discrimination for all workers is not actually being inclusive, its ignoring other ways that bourgoise society oppress individuals

●     Speech jumps around everywhere, has no cohesion, and just ends by saying that “we are not transphobic” but completely fails to prove that point.  Meanwhile the article frequently erase or claims that trans people don’t exist or that its not an issue.

●     Ignoring identity politics, and not engaging in intersectional politics with other oppressed groups is more divisive than engaging in idpol.  This mindset actively turns away potential allies and comrades.

The only thing that unites us is class

●     Oh this is the article where the writer is complaining about not being denied a PhD

●     Look, I don't know how it works in Britain.  But here in the conservative state of Utah, in the already very conservative and right wing USA, I NEVER got any shit or poor grades for focusing on or using marxist and materialist theories.  I suspect that the author was just flat out wrong, poorly supported their thoughts, or just didn’t defend their thesis well. Seriously, I HIGHLY doubt that any academic institution would deny someone a PhD for the sole reason of looking at disability through a marxist/class lense.  Marxism has been and always will be an important academic lense for many parts of academia.  I suspect that the author is just bitter and unable to self critique their own work and understanding of class, and is looking for someone to blame.

●     Also goes on to full on claim that trans rights and the trans movement is bourgeois and idealistic which is just so very wrong as explored in earlier sections.

●     Claims that they don’t patronize, yet patronizes transgender individuals by saying that what we feel and know about ourselves are “bourgeois illusions”

●     Over all super trash article that I really didn’t bother to re-read because it just comes across as super bitter and petty

Challenges facing communists in Britain today

●     More strawmanning of Identity Politics (even liberal Idpol tbh) through ridiculous equations.  No one is saying that “feeling disabled” actually makes someone disabled, stop strawmanning.

●     Once again, says but fails to support the idea that Identity Politics divides the working class

●     It is also telling that the CPGB-ML supported the right wing Brexit Party in the most recent elections, purely because they are pro brexit.  This reeks of Red-Brown “beefsteak” coalitions.

Letter: Identity politics v class politics

●     “Real oppression is homelessness, hunger, destitution, war, poverty, police brutality, anti-trade-union laws, etc. While we talk about identities, are we seriously challenging this oppression?” - If you weren't so busy strawmanning identity politics, you would realize that most marginalized identities face a lot of these same problems, and that their identities frequently make it worse.  Working class people of color frequently fight america’s imperialist wars (in addition to very poor whites) as a way to escape their current conditions.  LGBT people are frequently more likely to experience homelessness because of an unsupportive family situation.  Etc. While capitalism certainly makes these issues WORSE, providing a trans woman who was kicked out of their house by an unsupportive family a place to live, DOESN’T fix the underlying issue of an unsupportive family and a society that is inherently hostile to them.  This is why Identity politics is important

●     Identity politics, and especially intersectional politics, doesn’t divide the working class.  As I've said before.  Ignoring the very real issues faced by people who are marginalized along lines beyond just class alienates them from your movement, and divides the working class. A working class movement that wants the support of the ENTIRE working class, and not just the most privileged, MUST engage in intersectionality and devote some time and energy into fighting the injustices beyond that of the most privileged working class.  As was stated in this article, the bourgeois attempts to divide the working class.  This is why there are people who are oppressed beyond just their class, all oppression serves a material benefit to the bourgeoisie.  Failing to recognize this and saying we must only focus on class is playing right into their hands.

[tylerwritez]

Saturday, June 19 2021

I dont know how I feel about the day yet cos right now its only 10:13. I dont post these exactly on the days I write them, but I write them on these exact days nonetheless.

My throat still hurts, my ass hurts, oUch,.... I'm sure you know why. Like, when you suck dick, it takes throat strength to make sure you don't fucking vomit everywhere and like. I OBVIOUSLY dont have that strength since I had to wash vomit outta my hair this morning

Hes so hot tho oh. My god.

Whatever. New day. So we talk about new things.

Star seems kinda sad but I dont really know why? She said on her story that people dont really go outta their way to talk to her... idk. I shot a good morning dm and now I'm here. I made my bed. Packed up my shit. Every time we pack things up my parents rage cos they always find shit they dont want to see: monster cans, evidence of my self harm, etc.

We have 1 more week then school is OVER and I move outta this house cos of the divorce. Jay will be gone too... I still have his insta, but I might ask for his number... just in case. I always get weirdly attached to people I fuck even if there was never any romantic part of the relationship. We are just friends.

Apparently we are going to the pick n pack today with my friend let's call her Zara. It's notfar off from her real name but whatever. Basically pick n pack is where you go to a vegetable garden and pick vegetables

I have a test soon but idk if I'll study for it. I NEVER really put work into studying or pay attention in class and I'm holding an 82 average. I got a 39 once, so once I retake that quiz I might be in the 90s. Sorry Mr. Renal, I simply can't bring myself to care about your class 😢

I LOVE my art class tho. It's just doing ART!!!! ART TIME!!!! Art is the best and I would post some of mine but my irls would proabably find me then. Like my name isnt ACTUALLY Jude Shepard. I'm just using it as a penname and also cos that's what they called me in my dream. But other than that everything I tell y'all is real. I'm making buttered toast rn.

3:38 p.m.  sat june 19th

I've decided to include a song recommendation with every entry. Today's recommendation: A Match Into Water by Pierce The Veil

Okay so it turns out we didnt go to pick n pack with Zara. Instead we went to downtown... White Ave. It was sunny n we walked a bit, got lemonades and a bit of candy, went into stores, idk. BUT. The notable part of this is that next to the farmers market there were all the usual activist groups: falun gong, vegan, whatever... but one of them looked like it was a LEFTIST GROUP, possible marxist.

I wanted to talk to them so badly and wanted to see how I could help the cause. See, I'm a communist. AND IM NOT HERE TO DEBATE THAT. I'm here to talk about my days. Anwyays I wanted to talk to them sO BADLY. but my parents wouldn't leave me alone. And like. I hate political discussion with them. They just upset me and they get mad and I CANT AFFORD TO MAKE THEM MAD. I play everything that goes on with me on the Down Low, I dont talk about anything about myself because if I do, I get less freedom in my life. They have control in my life, so I have to appease them. Because of this, I unfortunately did not get to talk to the communists :(

Hopefully they're still there next time... I'm kinda mad >:(

Also Star replied to my good morning text... I told her to have fun shopping since that's what she told me she was gonna do... she just said "thanks" and I was concerned because THATS NOT HOW SHE TYPES? I feel like shes sad over something but i dont know what.

The day me and Jacob did stuff, I was supposed to walk her to her bus stop like I always do. But I didnt (duh) I took Jacob home.

But IT WAS ONE! DAY. And I told her my dad called me over so.... I apologized too and she seemed mad at herself, but in the way that's intended to make you feel bad.

I dont understand her sometimes. I LOVE HER. DON'T GET ME WRONG. I love her so so much shes such a great supportive funny attractive girl! But soemtimes she gets upset and I can never tell why: is it the depression? Is it me? Is it soemthing else entirely? And she'll never tell me.

Whatever, I'll ask her how she is tonight and maybe we can Talk :/

I might never tell her about Jay... :P I might never tell ANYONE about Jay. It's our little secret I guess >:))))))

Man see? I'm no saint. I guess that's what'll make this blog worth reading. I'm a bit conflicted about the whole thing cos I KNOW this is morally not right but. I'm doing it anyways. What can I say? I'm used to lying and hiding things for my benefit. I had to do it to survive and now? Now I do it for funsies.

I'm gonna pack some more stuff, TTYL ♡

UPDATE: we had to go look at houses for the move (since my parents r divorcing) and I didnt get to pack much of anything yet

I'm definently over my cal limit today...

        Cold sweet or carbonated drinks help with my throat pain so I'm downing them like they're NOTHING and since we have no zero  cal cold drinks I'm DEAD... and no, water does NOTHING.

Jeez, its raining out.

And FUCK JAY cos hes still on my mind.

Its 4:11 p.m. now.

Its now 7:56 p.m.

I kinda feel like an edgy main character in an edgy movie rolling up to the park and sitting #alone in the Treez like the emo band music video protagonist I am.

Sometimes its exhausting to talk to people I care about in a serious way or that I talk to in a more sincere manner like Star and Jay and others. Even if they're just friends. If our interactions are serious and not really casual and usually play out like long deep conversation, I feel like to respond to or even read their messages, I need to have like an hour allotted to conversation. Soemtimes I see the messages early and have to pretend I didnt see em cos I dont have internet to respond or time to respond its. Funny. Idk.

Anwyays I'm binging chocolate in a park alone and like. Rotting my fucking teeth OH WELL 🤷🏻‍♂️ whatcha gonna do.

Its 8 now so I should head home. I just biked to the s4ve 0ns to get my dad white choclate but. If I'm going to s4ve 0ns... YOU BET YOUR ASS IM GONNA STE4L SHIT. THAT PLACE IS EASY AS FUCKKK.

Also I'm kinda addicted to sh0pl1fting. The THRILL I get from it is so insane. It's fun! And you get free stuff! I know If i get caught I'm risking a lot. I'm aware. But I dont really care. Every step I take nowadays is risk taking. So why not take more?

I dont care about nonsense therapy. Fuck that.... actually I'll explain why i dont go to therapy for my shit:

1. I cant

2. I don't trust it

Anwyays yeah.

My throat still hurts. Idk, I just like to be in the sun and shit ALONE.

ALONE! It's so funny to me how now I like my time alone but as a kid I'd proabably kill for some positive attention. Well... it's more complex than that, but I wont go into it tonight.

Pls watch me die of diabetes soon from eating all this fucking chocolate.

My parents said to stop drinking monster and I wANT THEM TO TRUST ME so i can go out with my friends... but also I shoulda got monster outta spite. Heart palpitations my ASS.

Tonight I'll be talking to Jay AND Star. At the same time. Which is awkward... Which is MY OWN MESS TO CLEAN UP. I actually accept full responsibility. But also its awkward.

Whatever. I'll sort it out.

My parents arent being as complicated as usual. I guess they're tryna reverse all those years of... emotional neglect i guess? Something.

Something. Which isnt nothing.

But also I think they're guilty over the divorce. Like. Today my dad was like "do u ever feel sad? Blah blah blah... how do u feel rn" and I was like smiling tryna play off his question like it was absurd and I said "uhm idk... *fake laugh* normal?"

THE TRUTH WAS THAT I WAS A BIT CONFUDDLED ABOUT WHAT I WAS GONNA DO REGARDING. LITERALLY CHEATING. ON MY GF. WITH SOME DUDE IN MY ART CLASS. JUST FOR SEX.

But then he was like "this isnt normal." And he looked all sad.  But on my way to the park here, I thought about it a bit more. And actually... it IS normal. The divorce rate is smthn like 60 percent in the states and 40 percent in canada... which is where I live.

Yknow... if my irls find this,,, all I have to say is sorry. Be as mean as you want.

I've already accepted my fate as a degenerate scumbag anyways lol.

Actually... how DO I feel? Hmm... laying in this field.

Urgency.

I have a lot of stuff to do.

Physical pain, but that's not. A FEELING.

I guess anticipation to TALK TO PEOPLE.

Regret from my binge... I better get home.

You know what's so funny to me? I cant purge on my own... but dick makes me vomit. Like the one time I DONT want to throw up, I do. Damn okay.

Well its 8:18 so I'm going home maybe. Soon. For now, I think I'll stay a little longer.

Yknow one thing I didn't expect to be sore was my arms... which I used to prop myself up to... yknow, suck Jay...

I still remember he said: "you're trembling." And I was like FUCK because I thought the trembling was HIM... •_• it's okay though I'll learn to do better.

Idk tho... I feel comfortable with him. Even as nervous as I am and embarrassed to be. Naked. In front of soemone else. And such. He makes me feel comfortable. Look, I did my best, DUH of cOURSE I did my best, I'm the type who will work hard at stuff even if they're getting hurt. I didnt mind honeslty. My goal in that part was just to make him feel good. Equal exchange, yknow? He did the same thing to me.

But like, he can tell when I gag and he tells me not to hurt myself and of course I keep going, I'm not about to SToP. But. I dont kNOW. Him talking to me like that makes me feel a lot safer doing stuff like that you know?

I like when he starts kissing me and touching me like he cant contain himself its almost animalistic and VERY FUCKING HOT

I feel like I talk about him too much but you gotta realize that was my FIRST time

1. Sucking dick

2. having MY junk sucked

3. Having anything put. Inside me. (It was just his finger but stILL)

So yeaH. Of course I'm gonna talk about it. A lot.

He said I was adorable. He said he likes how, when he leans over me, I take in a breath... how he could make me flinch.

THATS HOT ISNT IT.

I feel like I'm getting lost in his charm when I shoULD be tryna fix shit with my girlfriend. She seems sad and I'm worried.

But there isnt much more to say until I DM her tonight...

I really fucked up, didn't I? I totally fucked up and now my brain is all confused. But I have to remember that Jay is only about sex. He would be nice to cuddle, since hes fucking HUGE and I'm kinda on the short side, but he doesnt talk to me out of love. He does it out of lust. And yeah... I really only want sex from him too. But like. Star and I are COMMITTED. We got our feelings wrapped up together. Emotionally and romantically.

So. I should proabably like... stop fucking with Jay. Tell Star what I did. And hope she forgives me. That's the morally correct thing to do.

But like... do I EVER make the morally correct decision? No. Not really. I'm a piece of shit. Whatever. Its highschool anwyays we arent mating for life. IM NOT SAYING WHAT I DID WASNT BAD. IT WAS. VERY BAD.

but I'm gonna keep making bad decisions.

I DO FEEL BAD.... but look. If we're being logical about this and tryna maximize my benefit here,, I should keep Star as my girlfriend and TREAT HER WELL... but with Jay as a fuckbuddy on the side. Hes leaving the school soon anwyays so then we'll hang out less...

That's my plan, anyways.

I KNOW I'm a bad person. I'm aware. But it's just a fact of life.

I'm cheating with my cards here in so many places: stealing, lying, cheating, disobeying my parents, not paying attention in class.. IM KIND OF AN ASSHOLE KID. Idk. It's kinda whatever to me. I'm fucking harry Houdini, okay? I can get out of anyhting. This isnt me being cocky... I have historically gotten out of MANY tight situations, even some that risked my life, and I'm still here. I think I'm a walking lucky charm or SOEMTHING

Welp, we know if gods real I'm going to hell.

I dont really care. Idk. I guess I'm just at that risk taking phase in.my life. That doesnt  justify anything... but it explains it. And it's possible to explain without justifying.

Man,,, I guarantee whoever reads this blog is gonna hate my guts.

Whatever. It's my fucking journal/diary lol.

I can sorta say whatever I'd like.

It's funny because I always thought I was trustworthy and had no commitment issues BUT HEY I GUESS NOT.

I keep telling myself, cut him off, YOU AVE A GIRLFRIEND, FESS UP AND APOLOGIZE... but then I picture his STUPID smirking face and I CANT.

Maybe I am in love double.

Doesnt matter if I am... i still did a bad thing.

DAMN.

Well... I'm headed back home now. 8:41. I'm gonna pack my shit, change, watch youtube,,,, I guess I should check my google classroom and like. do my fucking homework... cos I haven't done it yet.

Then I'll update yall.

11:51 p.m.

Hey guys I'm back with an update.

I talked with both of then... star doesnt seem interested in having an actual conversation,,, shes just talking  about  random bs. Which is fine but I dont rly get what shes saying half the time COS SHES NOT BLUNT ENOUGH. and then the other half shes going on about how much she hates life. Like.

I do love her. We've bonded. I AM concerned about her. But sometimes I feel like she doesn't really try. Like I can talk her down from suicide all I want but everything I say is wrong and cliched and based off my own experience with suicidal thoughts and like... my mentality has always been sorta toxicly masculine. Push through, and push through alone. I CANT ALWAYS HELP! And it makes me feel shitty. Idk. She'll be okay, I know so cos of her story posts and drawings.

I feel bad but I know I can't help much. We talked a little. Idk, we didnt get anywhere. I love her but shes acting in a way that tells me soemthing is wrong but I CANT FIX THAT THING. SO. yeah, theres not much to say. I wish I could take away all her pain but I can't.

I talked to Jay as well... I DONT KNOW WHATS HAPPENING BECAUSE I LIKE HIM SO SO MUCH. SO MUCH. HES LITERALLY PERFECT. sexy, kind and super considerate, he always makes sure I'm comfortable... I dont KNOW,,, hes sweet.

Hes not romantically interested in me. Which is a bit sad. Sometimes I want to tell him "I love you!!!" But then I remember that we are, in his words, friends with benefits. Fuck buddies. Two horny teenage boys who just wanna fuck... and be friends. That's all. That's us. We aren't romantically involved nor will we ever be. I hate how my brain gets so attached to anyone I fuck... especially since I kinda see Jay as an "older brother" figure, which makes no sense until you actually meet him and vibe with him... and like,,, I've always wanted that?

Tommorow I'm gonna ask for him to come over to watch a movie... but idk if I should actually ask because my parents kinda hate me now for fucking up so much. I'll do my homework and clean my room first... which will take up all my time proabably :( it's okay. Maybe some other time :(

I dont want him to lose interest in me though.

.... its 1:56 a.m.

Okay. Okay. I'll say it. I love him.

Goodnight, tumblr.

-Jude

[loudlytransparenttrash]

What were those classes like? What was the environment in the classroom and how did it make you feel?

It takes a particular kind of person to take these classes to begin with. If you’re a girl with no career prospects, you just want to do what your friends are doing, you want to feel good about yourself, feel enlightened and progressive then it’s the perfect major to take. All you have to do is show up, say you’re a feminist and pussies rock and you pass. You also have to understand everything you are taught is from one perspective, there is no age old virtues of impartial teaching, there’s no giving both sides of the argument, everything is from a feminist lens. 

If you look up any women’s or gender studies course, you will find feminist theory, which was created by radical communist feminists in the 60s and 70s, based exclusively on marxism and misandry. There’s no evidence or credibility to any part of feminist theory, it is ideological rather than academic. Yet this is the backbone of women’s studies and it can usually be broken into three main topics which will always relate back to what you are taught: the patriarchy, intersectional oppression, and social constructionism. Again, none of these contentions can be proven but if you want good grades then you better start believing quick smart. 

No theory is more fundamental to academic feminism than the theory of the patriarchy. Quite simply patriarchy is the theory that there is a regime of institutionalized male control over women. Men are born into a world of privilege, they join the patriarchal ranks from birth and breeze through life while women are born into a world of subservience. Male control, and its logical consequence, female oppression, is the foundational theory every class is structured on. But why just analyze oppression through the vectors of gender? 

Enter intersectional theory, better known as the oppression olympics. The message of intersectional oppression is clear: oppression is everywhere, if you don’t see it, that only means you aren’t looking hard enough. Perhaps you think this is an exaggeration. It’s not. Microaggressions, macroaggressions, even invisible aggression have become a thing to prove oppression is everywhere, even if you can’t see it. The biggest problem with finding oppression where it doesn’t exist is finding innocent people to blame for oppression that doesn’t exist. 

Then we have “social constructionism.” According to this theory, everything we can observe, such as gender differences, is all constructed by somebody else. Humans aren’t born as male or female, we all born identical, the differences only begin after the doctor assigns us our predetermined role in society, known as gender, and from then onwards every decision, every thought, belief, behavior, interest, job, relationship etc is all a construct which we have been brainwashed into conforming to. Anything we thought we knew about biology goes flying out the window. 

Our personal experiences also trump any kind of evidential and fact-based education in these classrooms. Students are told that they are never wrong, they are given soothing, affirming nods when explaining how difficult and scary their life is as a woman in the United States, the fact that they can’t safely walk home alone at night while drunk and naked is evidence the world is against women and class discussions often devolves into group therapy sessions where similar grievances are shared and accepted as evidence of oppression. 

This article encouraging young girls to major in women’s studies does a pretty good job at summing it up, ironically for all the wrong reasons. The author writes that before she went into it, she was happy, she felt safe, she didn’t know what rape culture was, she didn’t know women were being underpaid because they had vaginas, she started to come home angry at the world and angry that she was part of a class that was being kept down. She tells other young women to stop being so uneducated and become enlightened about their oppression.

She then boasts you will learn about so many things in women’s studies; politics, literature, history - great, right? Well she goes on to say you will only learn about these things so you can learn and understand how women have been portrayed, mistreated, underrepresented, objectified. A major perk she says of majoring in women’s studies is it will make you a better protester against “the War on Women and Planned Parenthood.” She says “you will be on the “right side of history” by taking this class. “When you choose this major, you become an agent, not a bystander. Women’s Studies explores why women are mistreated and then it shows you how to change that.” 

I mean, at least she’s honest. Women’s studies, gender studies, ethnic studies etc were only recently created for no other reason than to recruit empty young minds and convince them they’re on the right side of history by joining their left-wing, marxist professors and become activists against gender, white men, “heteronormativity,” social norms, patriarchy, history, patriotism, capitalism. Universities allow it and even support it because they know they can invest practically nothing into these ridiculous classes and still make a fortune from it. 

The author says it all herself, “Women’s Studies is not so much a career choice as it is a life choice, you’re adopting a new perspective that you’ll use in every relationship, every job, and every circumstance.” All I can say is that’s an expensive “life choice,” one where as long as you’re woke about all the oppression going on around you, who cares if you don’t have a real education or job. 

[thinktosee]

GLORY TO HONG KONG AND CHINA

Today is the 18th anniversary of the tragedy which we know as 911. We ask for blessings of Peace for all. 

A. OPENER

CHINA IS A TWO-PARTY SYSTEM - THE COMMUNIST PARTY, AND THE PEOPLE. WHOSE INTEREST THEN TAKES PRECEDENCE? (it may be interesting to note that singapore is a two-party system too).

This essay is a continuation of “IS HK REALLY CHINA?” dated Aug. 19, 2019. That essay is accessible herewith :

https://thinktosee.tumblr.com/post/187118822613/is-hong-kong-really-china

B. INTRODUCTION

Image courtesy bbc.com

For several months now, Hong Kong, that lovely island off the south coast of China, has been in political and social turmoil. Large street demonstrations are becoming a regular feature of public life. The issue, as we were given to understand was a bill tabled in the Legislature in February 2019 which if it became law would have allowed for the extradition of accused persons to China and to other jurisdictions. The bill was opposed by a large segment of the HK public. To calm their unease, the Chief Executive, Mrs. Carrie Lam suspended the bill. This apparently did not assuage the people, particularly as they expected the bill to be re-introduced once things settled down. So the demonstrations went on, some of which alarmed the authorities enough about public order and safety. The ensuing and scattered violent confrontation between police and demonstrators did not help either side to the debate. When folks are violently attacked, be they the demonstrators or the police, civil society is also a victim.

On Sep 4th, Mrs. Lam withdrew the bill (1). That settles it. Or does it? It seems the demonstrators’ demands have since escalated to cover the following (2):

1. Withdrawal of the extradition bill (withdrawn on Sep 4th).

2. Official and impartial investigation into alleged police brutality against the demonstrators.

3. Resignation of Ms Lam as CEO.

4. Release of detained protesters.

5. Political reforms. 

As HK’s legal system is generally transparent, with due process protections, numbers 2 and 4 should be resolved within the ambit of the law. Numbers 3 and 5 are more difficult to achieve, especially as there is no legal mechanism for this. It is a political issue which goes beyond HK.  

C. THE ACTORS in the Drama

In this HK drama, the apparent actors are  –

-         HK Government 

-         The youth, workers and other libertarian constituents who form the               bulk of the demonstrators, ie. the general public.  

-         The ruling Communist Party of China (CCP)

The less apparent actors are :

-         The oligarchs, who have enormous political and economic influence on the island. They are the ones who have the most to lose if the extradition bill had passed (3).

-         Foreign NGOs and governments who are either perceived to support the position of the demonstrators or that of the HK or Beijing Governments.

Mrs. Lam’s withdrawal of the bill may possibly set the stage for isolating the demonstrators. The key demand of the demonstrators and the HK public – the withdrawal of the bill, has been met. Back to school and work, folks. Or at least that’s what the rulers hope. 

D. WHAT REALLY IS GOING ON? 

Image courtesy 4 non blondes/youtube (4)

The basic issue in HK is the “One country, two systems” concept. That has to be addressed, either now or before 2047 when this benignly-named agreement expires in HK and the people of the island come under direct CCP rule. This includes the democratic and independent institutions in HK – the judiciary, free press, open economy and border, first class civil service, due process, etc.

As stated in the previous essay, HK is a creation of colonial Britain. The CCP has never directly ruled over HK. The HK public apparently has no interest in a rule by the CCP. The youth especially. How does one reconcile an ancient claim to the island and its people, with the reality on the ground? Some will no doubt suggest through the “rule of law.” Well, as I asked in a letter to the defence minister of singapore on May 14, 2017 :

“Whose rule and whose law?” We have seen what that is all about in singapore since 1959.

Similarly for the CCP, who came to power in 1949 (5). This is the party which gave the Chinese people the Hundred Flowers Campaign and the Cultural Revolution, both of which were tragic periods in modern Chinese history (6,7). Positive change only came after the passing of the dictator in 1976. However, the CCP continues to honour him and his legacy to this day. 

Image courtesy Cartoon Connections

Rule by one or a few unelected and undemocratic individuals over a country is never going to work out well. Some well-meaning citizens will go on deluding themselves about the glitter of an expanding economy, while others just never experienced anything else than a dictatorship, and hence don’t know better.

The issue between the two political systems – China’s and HK’s is fundamental. The first holds the people accountable to the party, while the second holds the government and party accountable. The first lies behind a veneer of nationalism, that is, hiding behind the masses, when there is a crisis (usually of their making), while in the second, the people take the lead to restore or preserve their future, which by the way, the demonstrators in HK seem to be doing. 

E. PROBABLE SOLUTIONS

Image courtesy gforcesigns.com

1. Maintain the status quo

This means the CCP takes over HK in 2047 as agreed. In the interim, as the social unrest in HK continues, the CCP may find it necessary to intervene directly. A Tiananmen Part 2? (8) This puts HK’s people and future at great risk. Ultimately, if the demonstrators refuse to end their civil disobedience campaign, the CCP will likely act. They cannot risk HK breaking away. Others will be tempted to do the same – Xinjiang, Tibet, etc. The CCP views its moral legitimacy as the unifier of China. To allow a breakup of China is also to see the dissolution of the basis for its very existence. 

2. Extend “one country two systems” indefinitely.

This preserves the autonomy of HK and its democratic institutions. Not a bad idea. It operates quite similarly to the understanding between the CCP and Taiwan, where the latter is for all intents and purposes, an independent country. Only Taiwan cannot officially declare it. And besides, Taiwan gets the best of both worlds – massive trade with China and good relations with the USA (9,10). Similarly for HK. Under this scenario, everyone gets what they want, it seems. 

3. The CCP elects for universal suffrage or democratic elections in China. 

Image courtesy slideshare.net

This suggests that China becomes more like HK or Taiwan, rather than the other way around. This way, the political interests between the two systems overlap rather than diverge. A very unlikely outcome since those who have wielded power undemocratically for a long time have become very comfortable and entrenched with their privileges and are not amenable to these being denied to them, or their children. 

F. CONCLUSION

Image courtesy emaze.com

The CCP is a misnomer. Communism, going by Marxist theory, never existed anywhere (11,12). What then is the CCP? Has Chinese political system really changed since time immemorial? The CCP is the latest in a long line of totalitarian political systems. Its founder was Mao. Since his passing in 1976, his successors have sought to open the country, especially to trade and education. This by most measurements has been very succesful. The political system however has yet to evolve with the rest.

The political turmoil in HK is a consequence of a lack of democratic and transparent political institutions in China. A neo-aristocratic order is self-serving, every time (some may refer to it as a meritocracy. I prefer the term neo-aristocracy). This answers the question in the opening statement of this essay – whose interest takes precedence?

The People of HK and China should be left to decide what is best for themselves. The only good solution is to empower them and to offer each a vote. Democracy is an imperfect form of government. It’s the only one which works, however. I can’t recall who first said that. But it ain’t me, for sure. 

I close with the anthem of the protesters of HK as reported via the link. These folks have a right…… to dream.

https://time.com/5672018/glory-to-hong-kong-protests-national-anthem/

David in HK, 2016

In the Spirit of David Cornelius Singh

David’s father

Email : davidnfather@gmail.com

https://thinktosee.tumblr.com/

Sources/References

1. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-49575381

2. https://edition.cnn.com/2019/08/13/asia/hong-kong-airport-protest-explained-hnk-intl/index.html

3. https://www.scmp.com/business/article/3025260/developers-cosy-ties-politics-may-explain-hong-kongs-biggest-woe-widening

4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NXnxTNIWkc

5. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Chinese-Communist-Party

6. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-silence-that-preceded-chinas-great-leap-into-famine-51898077/

7. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/15/world/asia/china-cultural-revolution-explainer.html

8. https://www.amnesty.org.uk/china-1989-tiananmen-square-protests-demonstration-massacre

9. http://www.worldstopexports.com/taiwans-top-import-partners/

10. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/07/taiwans-status-geopolitical-absurdity/593371/

11. https://www.bbc.com/news/election-2017-39837515

12. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/238953.Das_Kapital

[printemps1996]

Risk and Resistance: Baudrillard, Badiou, and Being an Activist

(On May 25, 2016, one month before graduation march, I turned in the last paper I wrote as a college student. A product of several nights of beer and staying out at a nearby bar, this paper was the final requirement for Philo 170 or Philosophy of Man. Please don’t ask me why I, a Journalism major, took this course as an elective in my do-or-die final semester. The important thing is: I passed the goddamn course!)

Western astrology says that I am a Taurus. I was born on April 24, a date which falls under the sign of the Bull. Based upon the Cretan Bull, the mythical animal that fathered the Minotaur, people with such a sign are said to be the most headstrong, determined, strong-willed, and therefore, stubborn. Such traits, as astrology claims, are embodied by the said creature’s horns.

The validity of Western astrology, and any other horoscopic astrology for that matter, is subject of another discussion. It is with no doubt that astrology is largely pseudoscientific, and the newspaper columns and booklets that, using its framework, are devoted to offering a foresight of the days, months, or years to come in one’s life only work because they easily affirm one’s confirmation bias. However, it is this exact reason that makes reading one’s horoscope interesting, to say the least. While it may be a stretch to say so, astrology is just one of the innumerable ways we have created to make sense of our surroundings and our lives.

There is one tidbit of information about Taureans that struck a chord in me. It says, “Taureans are not fond of change. In fact, if change is imminent, they get very nervous and worried. They do not like anything new because anything new is unknown, and Taureans fear the unknown.” Apparently, the consensus among such horoscopes is that we Taureans actively resist change, and prefer comfort and familiarity over risk and adventure.

Not to say that I subscribe to astrology to the point of contending these words, I am alarmed and appalled that there is such a notion. After all, I for one am currently a part of a youth organization with national-democratic ideals and a socialist perspective, and the national-democratic movement in the Philippines has pushed for genuine social change and persisted for more than five decades, yet to waver in the face of every imperialist attack on the Filipino people. Coming from this, there spring questions in my mind as to how I approach change and how I see myself in the said movement. Am I really resistant to change? Do I really fear taking risks?

However, it is more apt to ask is if there is, indeed, such a thing as “resistance to change”. The field of philosophy, one that concerns appropriate aspects to address this problem, is at a point in time in which there is a re-invigorated interest in the human individual as a subject. After German continental philosopher Georg Hegel’s propositions on objective truth, or more particularly the lack thereof, we move towards an assessment of the subject’s knowledge of the Real, one of the three registers of the mind permeating every mental act and influencing us in unique ways (the other two being the Imaginary and the Symbolic). Philosophy now asks how – or whether at all – the subject approaches objective reality. As Slovenian psychoanalytic philosopher Slavoj Žižek quipped, “Why is there nothing rather than something?”

These questions can then be answered parallel to the simplistic and overarching adage, “Change is the only constant in this world.” Given its nature as both a lack and an impossibility, that which “resists symbolization and cannot be known by language, mathematics, or social rules”, how do we approach the Real as subjects? To contextualize the question, how do we see reality in relation to the movements for radical change all over the world? How do we see reality in light of the long-running national-democratic movement in the Philippines, or for the members of its allied organizations who are subjects themselves? What is reality for someone devoted to and engaged in the longest and most comprehensive resistance in the country? Having established the Real as a hole that is both fixed and impossible to reach, we shall ask then: why are we activists?

Philosophy and radical change

“Philosophy no longer knows whether it has a suitable place,” wrote Alain Badiou of the field in the twenty-first century. This is a bold declaration on the field’s apparent softness in relation to the other sciences. Badiou supports his view with a division of philosophy into sutures (political-scientific, artistic, amorous) to re-assess its relevance and its significance at present.

Dermot Moran in 2008 wrote that given the political cataclysms of the 20th century, “it seems rather strange that political philosophy did not really develop as a subject until the latter part of the century.” Moran here pertains to the great events of the past hundred years, from the two World Wars, the Cold War, and the powerful yet sporadic revolts and uprisings in the midst of these. On the other hand, Peter Laslett famously said in 1956 (as quoted in Moran 2008) that political philosophy is dead “for the moment, anyway”. Both aiming to address the relevance of political philosophy at present, the two scaffold the argument excellently worded by Matt Matravers (as quoted in Moran 2008), that political philosophy must now look at things using the lens of justice. Matravers believes that political philosophy will “turn away from theorizing about the precise nature of justice” as it underlines global issues, and that it will foster “the application of philosophical ideas to political practice [as] a matter of the particular, local, and historically informed”. With the apparent failure of the movements for radical change – that is, to put an end to capitalism as a social order – the questions of political philosophy are at the limelight again.

Given these insights, it is imperative of philosophy to engage in the movement of the sciences not only to interpret the world, but more importantly, in the spirit of Karl Marx’s works, “to change it”. Philosophy must now commit itself to not only understanding why injustices exist – a task rooting back to the Greek times – but more importantly, to address such injustices, to put an end to inequality, and to introduce a new order where inequality ceases to exist. The field of philosophy during Marx’s time generally adhered to his presentation of such an order, long-term and on a global scale, in the form of communism, one that is founded upon the liberation of the workforce. However, the philosophers of present time have contested the power and even the possibility of communism and a proletarian revolution – a goal that is shared in principle by the Philippine national-democratic movement – in light of the failure of the communist experiments around the world which were fascist and totalitarian in nature. These regimes imposed a new order with little consideration of the objective condition. Moreover, these revisionist regimes entrusted radical change to the institutions; this defeated the objective of communism to abolish the state, which it deems on the whole as an apparatus of oppression in itself. To make use of psychoanalytic concepts, they simply forced the subjective conditions to fill in the void.

One of the said philosophers, who has written about the intrinsic incapacity of a revolution to be birthed from the womb of the present order, is French cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard. Born in 1929, Baudrillard is best known to the public as the sociologist behind hyperreality, a term that encompasses his views on the commodity as the organizing principle of society. According to the University of Paris alumnus, we have lost contact with the “real”, and what remains is a fascination with its abolishment by models “more real than the real”. Hereafter, Baudrillard has adapted a neo-Marxist position, contending the German’s views on production in the context of postmodernity.

In spite of his materialist and Marxist roots, Baudrillard is unpopular among the likes of the national-democrats in the Philippines, because of his views that, for instance, the Left anywhere is only “keeping capitalism alive with its moral critiques and its quests for meaning” (Robinson 2012) which merely push capitalism to “panic” in the face of its own arbitrariness and to rectify its “temporary correctable glitches” – which, on the other hand, expose its unjustifiability.

Baudrillard’s postmodernity

While his fellow Situationists retained hopes for liberation, Baudrillard radicalized their analyses and argued that even the fundamental assumptions of Marx – needs, labor, production – are mere signs, or “ideological concepts created by the system itself to insinuate its survival”. He noted that “any attempt to talk about emancipation or alienation will be futile, because the system itself is no longer grounded upon a ‘great signified’, a presence, or the real – emancipated from what?” (Baudrillard as quoted in Mendoza 2010), closing in on his radicalness as an analyst.

With society having transformed our relations into one based on what can be shown and with signs and images having reduced reality into appearance, everything is reduced to sign and everything is reproduced by the system as a sign. This is the point in which Baudrillard’s writing veers away the furthest from classical Marxism, with him declaring the “end of production” and that “there is nothing more coming to be”. Returning to hyperreality, even the Real is a sign for Baudrillard, and we are left with models that are more real than what we have come to know as real. To put it simply, we cannot contain the Real in a regime of signs. It is impossible to represent.

In a sprawling series of essays for British left-wing weekly Ceasefire, Andrew Robinson posits a tripartite view of the works of Baudrillard. The French’s writings can be divided into the domains of symbolic exchange, of simulation, and of resistance. Robinson discusses Baudrillard’s views on symbolic exchange, how our alienated life today is suffering from its abolishment, and how capitalism’s reproducibility has invoked a new type of alienation – simulation.

Symbolic exchange “allows things to ‘mean’” as it establishes a relationship between signs and reality. In the midst of the regime of manufactured scarcity, we yearn for “our lost continuity and interconnectedness” as we simulate our reality through signs in a way that is “intense, ignorant of fashion, and disregarding of others’ demands for particular meanings” (Robinson 2012). Therefore, a regime based on equivalence brought about by reproduction instead of on symbolic exchange wards off ambivalence through the simulation of need, which in turn drives us to live a life of consumption and to derive our meaning from it. Capitalism functions on social exchange, “reducing everything to a regime based on value and the production of value”.

As he posited, in a postmodern society, “the need to speak, even if one has nothing to say, becomes more pressing when one has nothing to say, just as the will to live becomes more urgent when life has lost its meaning” (Baudrillard 2012). Words like these challenge the ranks of the national-democratic movement in the Philippines which have been an agent of resistance in the country for more than 50 years and whose socialist ideals have mobilized the larger, disenfranchised fraction of the population to advance their rights and interests as citizens of a democracy. It is in this light that Baudrillard contends the impossibility of a revolution. As a society, we have foregone symbolic exchange. It can be argued that even resistance is a sign, since the institutions in place in our present condition, in exchange for the struggle for liberation, only give us images to consume, in the form of slight, sporadic, short-term reforms. As Johnson writes:

Liberation is thus nullified, and re-encoded as a role and as narcissism. Concrete gains for liberation movements are side-effects of this immense strategic operation to disempower oppressed groups through their reduction to function or role. We are drip-fed little bits of democracy and progress to ensure the system’s survival.

Nevertheless, Baudrillard wrote of resistance by positing strategies of subversion through which he sees alienation being overcome or collapsing. However, what must be understood here is how these add up to the subject’s knowledge of the Real, especially in this condition that seemingly escapes approaching it through representation and replacing it with hyperreality.

The possibility of a revolution

Speaking of Baudrillard’s writings on resistance vis-à-vis his view of reality, Robinson (2008) says that the loss of reality “might explain why hope for liberation seems so hard to come by, and why revolutionary movements now seem to lack a clear vision of transformation”. For one, his view that consumption is a socially imposed duty is an attempt to address “why workers and other oppressed groups fall for capitalist ruses and remain attached to the system”. Seeing the postmodern condition as unable to provide “anything referential or emotionally meaningful”, Baudrillard believes that radical change cannot be possible at all if we make use of the same ideas and institutions, if we decide to return to production or fixed meanings, and if we keep working under the same framework or system. It is therefore a risk we take if we embark upon the struggle.

In spite of the challenges of a postmodern condition, movements of resistance like the national-democratic movement in the Philippines continue to persist. Although the movement fields and actively campaigns for senatorial candidates and party-lists during general elections, for instance, its socialist perspective altogether rejects and counters the continuity of the current social order. In his work “Towards a Marxist Theory of Oppression” (2005), David McNally insists:

Capitalism could not continue to exist unless the majority of working class people believed in the system; unless they thought that in some sense the present system was the best possible and that all talk of a new and free society was “unrealistic”. In order to keep its hold, capitalism is not only based on a system of economic and political domination; it also requires a system of ideological domination, a system through which workers can be made to believe bourgeois ideas.

Baudrillard’s words on resistance might be the French cultural theorist at his most benevolent towards activism. As a Marxist, what he shares is an acknowledgment of the necessity for liberation and therefore radical change; his point of departure lies in the means of the struggle for such. Alluding to the end of production, Baudrillard also believes that “every option available to resisters has already been encoded, given a meaning and a response. This makes the system seem impossible to fight” (Robinson 2008). Albeit a little pessimistic, he welcomes some sort of a revolution, still. Probably for Baudrillard, we are not that powerful to enforce a change in the objective order. What his pessimism might suggest is the need for a change in our subjectivity.

Sharing similar points, Badiou in The Rebirth of History (2012) says that the movements of resistance across the world must consider the impossible which is the Real, and how the subject ought to approach it. He writes, “The rebirth of History must also be a rebirth of the Idea.” Badiou, born in 1937 in French Morocco, actively posits the resurrection of the idea of communism in his works on truth, the being, the event, and the subject. As he says in lecture “On Optimism” (2012), “Freedom has nothing to do with the capacities of an ordinary body under the law of some language. Freedom is: active participation to the consequences of a new body, which is always beyond our own body.” For Badiou, a radical change can only be achieved “by forcing the Real and by displacing the empty place, so as to make the impossible possible”. It can be said, then, that communism is the Real of politics, given its nature as a complete overturn of the subjective orders that have persisted in the past millennia and as an order that seeks to fill the gaps present in these.

According to Slovenian poststructuralist scholar Alenka Zupančič, the Real signifies the incompleteness of reality. It is horrifying because it is impossible, in that it taunts the subject and asks the subject to overturn the convention of the symbolic order. Also, it “cannot be effaced and escaped by the subject”; there will always be figments of our world that we cannot understand. In this light, Badiou says that there must be “a forceful transformation of the Real into a consistent truth”. The incompleteness of reality must be acknowledged, though not to the point that we as subjects become passive or even surrender to the objective order confronting us. We must work towards changing our current subjectivity in such a way that the fear of the unknown only challenges us to push further and to understand and eventually resolve what is unjust in society. Here, the role of the subject in relation to the Real is thus underlined. For Zupančič’s fellow Slovenian Žižek, the subject is “what endeavors to fill in the gap within the order of being”.

Go not gently and rage with me

It is in this light that Badiou truly promotes the idea of communism. As he writes in The Rebirth of History (2007):

The rebirth of History must also be a rebirth of the Idea. The sole Idea capable of challenging the corrupt, lifeless version of ‘democracy’, which has become the banner of the legionaries of Capital, as well as the racial and national prophecies of a petty fascism given its opportunity locally by the crisis, is the idea of Communism, revisited and nourished by what the spirited diversity of these riots, however fragile, teaches us.

With the popular election of Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte as the head of state and government of the Philippines, the national-democratic movement is given a limelight. With the president-elect’s declaration of the social and economic reforms his administration is to offer, the progressive character of the movement is featured. Duterte, whose campaign strategy employed the creation of the Filipino people’s need for a brash, no-holds-barred figure to be at the helm of social transformation, has promised large-scale reforms.

In line with this, he has offered four seats in his Cabinet to “the Left”. Apart from this, he is known to have close ties with the leaders and prominent figures of the national-democratic movement. In his youth, Duterte was a member of the banned, underground, national-democratic mass organization Kabataang Makabayan (KM). The Davao region, too, is a known bailiwick of the movement. Jose Maria Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and a chief consultant of the national-democrats, was even promised a safe trip home and a warm welcome after having been exiled to the Netherlands for decades.

The euphoria surrounding Duterte’s rise in power is double-edged at best. While Duterte’s relatively anti-imperialist and progressive stance may truly work in favor of the Filipino people, there remains the fact that radical change must come from below instead of the institutions that benefit in its repression. We cannot deem the image of a Philippines under Duterte as an unknown, since it was a given from the start, with his positioning as the most “different” and “progressive” candidate, and even with his outing as a “socialist” and his promise of federalism for the country, he shall remain a figurehead of the current socio-political order. To quote Daniel Bensaïd in his essay “Thirty Years After: A Critical Introduction to the Marxism of Ernest Mandel” (2007):

Far from being a mechanical consequence of capitalist development, the rallying of the forces of resistance and subversion of the order established by capital is an incessant task recommenced in daily struggles, and whose results are never definitive.

In its struggle for genuine social change, the national-democratic movement must remain firm in its position of mounting a new, stable, and just social order instead of merely reforming and therefore reinstating the one currently in place. Moreover, it must be able to do this with the conscious knowledge that the objective order can never be perfect.  

Having said all these, I begin to reaffirm my position in the national-democratic movement. Firstly, there is no such thing as “resistance to change”, more so when one is engaged in a movement of resistance against the current social order. There is only that social order in place which, given its scope in every aspect of life, makes it impossible to overcome. It is this position that promulgates our surrender to the current condition. There is only a fear of change, so to speak, since the Real remains an unknown and it is too horrifying to even approach.

However, as Badiou says, “Do not give up on that part of yourself that you do not know.” When I am faced with having to make a big decision, I either decide on what is more comfortable or familiar, or resolve to go with the flow and let the waves carry me. This is not simply being a Taurus, as I would defend before, but a manifestation of a code that is imposed upon each one of us as we are born to a system which promotes reproducibility over creativity and signs and images over reality. The system teaches us to fear radicalness and to lose hope that there can be a better world different from or outside the one we are living in.

Activism in its sole legitimate form – militant and uncompromising – is a resounding call waged upon us to acknowledge our subjectivity and to assert our significance in relation to our objective reality. As Friedrich Engels’ dialectical materialism puts it, “The alteration of nature by men, not solely by nature as such, is the most essential basis of human thought.” Philosophy must now veer towards the subject as an agent of radical change and the Real as an impossibility that a subject must nevertheless acknowledge. To be Icarus creating his own pair of wings and flying close to the sun – that is the great risk of our time.

References Badiou, Alain, The Rebirth of History (New York: Verso, 2012). Baudrillard, Jean, The Ecstasy of Communication (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2012). Bensaïd, Daniel, “Thirty Years After: A Critical Introduction to the Marxism of Ernest Mandel,” in International Viewpoint (2007). Diken, Bulent, Revolt, Revolution, Critique: The Paradox of Society (New York: Routledge, 2012). Johnston, Adrian, “The Quick and the Dead: Alain Badiou and the Split Speeds of Transformation,” in International Journal of Žižek Studies 1:2 (2007). McNally, David. “Towards a Marxist Theory of Oppression,” in Another World is Possible: Globalization and Anti-Capitalism (Winnipeg: ArbeiterRing Publishing, 2005) Moran, Dermot. The Routledge Companion to Twentieth Century Philosophy (New York: Routledge, 2008). Mendoza, Daryl Y., “Commodity, Sign, and Spectacle: Retracing Baudrillard’s Hyperreality,” in Kritike, 4:2 (December 2010). Robinson, Andrew, “Jean Baudrillard and Activism: A Critique,” in Ceasefire (February 7, 2013), <https://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/in-theory-baudrillard-14>. Robinson, Andrew, “Jean Baudrillard: From Production to Reproduction,” in Ceasefire (May 4, 2012), <https://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/in-theory-baudrillard-6>. Robinson, Andrew, “Jean Baudrillard: Marx and Alienation – Draft 2,” in Ceasefire (February 17, 2012), <https://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/in-theory-baudrillard-4>. Robinson, Andrew, “Jean Baudrillard: Symbolic Exchange,” in Ceasefire (February 17, 2012), <https://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/in-theory-baudrillard-1>. Robinson, Andrew, “Jean Baudrillard: The Rise of Capitalism & the Exclusion of Death,” in Ceasefire (March 30, 2012), <https://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/in-theory-baudrillard-2>.

[northcountryradical]

On Applying Radical Love To The Revolution

“The true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality.” - Ernesto “Che” Guevara

Preface

As a Christian leftist, an Anarcho-Communist in particular, most people on both sides of my chosen ideologies will not understand or even agree with my conclusions that follow. However, I feel that I must make known my convictions, if not for the sake of the people who strive for truth and justice, but for the very least, my own sanity and easement of my extreme disappointment at the current state of our world which I so dearly love. This is not meant to be an authority on political or religious orthodoxy, as I, a human am just as fallible in my thinking as anyone else. Rather this is meant to offer a point of discussion, in hopes that honest and meaningful dialogue can inspire change from the collective desire for unity and reconciliation in this broken world. For all who read this, I offer the humblest of thanks, and the greatest desire for peace and joy within your life.

The Beauty of the Resurection

The message of Christ is one of liberation. It is a message of redemption. It is a message of hope for all who suffer under the bondage of oppression and sin. The death and resurrection of Christ put an end to spiritual death, rescuing humanity from all forms of servitude to the forces of evil that held us in darkness. 1 Corinthians 13: 54-57 states, “When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Our hope resides in the sacrifice of Christ and his utter destruction of the bonds that held us in slavery to sin and oppression. Does this signify the end of all earthly hardship? Of course not! As we can all very well observe, corruption and hatred is rampant in our society today, as it has been for thousands of years. We must seek militant struggle to end these crimes, but we must also take heart in the fact that the ultimate victory has been won.

Our Struggle

This struggle against the evil of this world has been one that has raged since the beginning of time. Men and women of all generations have attempted to break the bondage of human suffering through revolutionary acts, often creating temporary pockets of freedom and progress. As history shows, this revolutionary growth, while often very gradual has been the overriding theme of humanity as it  has developed. What I seek to show is that biblical hope is not mutually exclusive to militant revolutionary tactics in developing a better world.

A constant notion that is thrown around is that of love. We often hear that “love trumps hate,” yet in a world where violence is the exclusive weapon perpetrated against the people by the state and other reactionary, fascist forces, it is often difficult to accept such a notion that love can defeat the behemoth of the capitalist, imperialist, state apparatus. And while no true revolution can ever succeed through peaceful intentions, as our own American Revolution has taught us (however pitiful its application has been), the necessity for a loving humanity remains immensely crucial for any success to be achieved. Therefore, I would like to posit a revolutionary theory based upon the biblical notion of love.

The following will be based upon 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. This is a passage that is typically reserved for weddings, in showing how one partner should love the other. Yet I find it no less applicable now than it is in the context of marriage.

Love is patient

Many revolutionaries idealistically seek an immediate change in societal thought and action. Both Marxists and Anarchists have fought for an immediate transfer of power, whether under a transitional proletarian state or a direct democracy coinciding with the abolition of the state completely, yet these endeavors have all but failed. Many contextual circumstances have factored into these failures, however I personally believe the overriding sentiment in derailing their success has been the impatience of the people and those revolutionaries who so desperately sought to end injustice and oppression. Love is patient.  Revolution takes time and it is our duty as participants to realize that people’s hearts are not going to be changed overnight. Coercion only takes things so far and ultimately results in the kind of oppression we are fighting in the first place.

Love is kind

While it may be easy and many times necessary to fight fire with fire, we must remember as revolutionaries that our duty is to the people. Kindness to those who we may disagree with is essential for our success and survival. This does not mean that we capitulate to opposing, reactionary ideas, rather that we come along side them and bring them toward a better understanding of a grand alternative. Self defense and militancy against our oppressors is a necessity, but for the masses, even those who oppose us, kindness and grace will ultimately bear more fruit than mindless repression. We must remember that the majority of the working class is working to survive and may not have the advantage of understanding the complexities of the political realm. A little grace goes a long way in convincing people of our cause.

It does not envy

For leftists of all ideologies, this should be a no brainer. Envy is one of the main tools of capitalism that divides us as the people. Love seeks to make sure everyone is provided for, no matter their social status, race, gender etc. When we strive to acquire what we cannot or don’t have, we fall into the trap of self serving exploitation, doing whatever is necessary to gain meaningless treasures, whether they be physical goods or accolades from our peers or anything else that seeks to promote ourselves above our fellow man.

It does not boast, it is not proud

While the temptation will always exist to seek affirmation for the success of revolutionary action, we must not let ourselves become so diluted in the thought that we are the sole saviors of the revolution. In the words of Emma Goldman, “Conceit, arrogance, and egotism are the essentials of patriotism…Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot, consider themselves better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot.” We must not fall into the arrogance of our privilege while neglecting the needs of those who struggle for survival every day. We must remember that it is ultimately the masses, the people, who take all the honor of carrying out the revolution.

It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking

This sentiment echoes the above statement in that by seeking reform and justice, we cannot dishonor the efforts and struggles of all people who fight for truth and integrity within the world. While there may be small, petty disagreements between revolutionaries, we are duty bound by love to hold our character intact when interacting with the people and our fellow comrades. Disunity is the knife in the back of any revolution. Self seeking behavior is counter-revolutionary and only leads to disruption and ego. This can be the difference between liberation and oppression in any struggle.

it is not easily angered

While righteous anger directed at injustice is acceptable and ultimately the backbone of any resistance movement, we must be careful to not let emotions get in the way of organized, effective action. Past actions by well intentioned revolutionaries have shown that poor tactics and planning based on emotional reactions have resulted in disastrous atrocities and unnecessary death and destruction. It is our duty to protect not only our own activists but the general population first and foremost. Misguided anger, especially within organized resistance movements can mean the difference between life and death.

it keeps no record of wrongs

This may be the most difficult concept of all to grasp as a revolutionary. As we look around the world, we can very easily see the massive amount of injustice that keeps the people in bondage. We must not ignore this! Our main duty as members of the resistance is to fight against this evil and serve the people as best we can. Yet as the masses turn from subjugation to liberation, we must look past any former indiscretions to build a better, more unified society. There will always be crimes that need to dealt with from the elites, the ruling class and counter-revolutionaries, but we must remember that ignorance is not a crime. Many of the people in this world are simply unaware of the general injustices that are holding them down. They cannot be held accountable for their blindness to the realities around them. It is our duty as revolutionaries to bring to light these crimes and take part in their suffering so that they may understand true freedom.

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth

“To tell the truth is revolutionary.” - Antonio Gramsci. For far too long, our understanding of the world outside the west has been tainted by xenophobic, racist, reactionary rhetoric that much of the general populace has eagerly adopted without so much as a second thought. Truth is a scarce commodity in our age. With the state seemingly extremely content with deceiving the public outright, our objective of justice and revolutionary change is threatened dramatically. We must not let the lies of the ruling class convince us of supporting evil under the guise of patriotism, safety or worse yet, unity. Truth is our most valuable weapon against the fascist goliath that faces us. Your ignorance is their power!

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres

Our main goal as revolutionaries, as members of this resistance is to protect those who are the most marginalized. This includes POC, LGBTQ, immigrants, the poor, refugees and anyone else who is systematically oppressed by capitalism. It is our greatest responsibility! We must always trust their needs and respond to them accordingly. It is out of love that we do this! It is out of a righteous indignation that we fight for what is right! We must stay strong and always hope for a better world. “The hopeless don’t revolt, because revolution is an act of hope.” - Peter Kropotkin. We must always persevere, no matter the cost. Hasta la victoria siempre! Until victory always!

The Victory In Revolutionary Love

“We know that the road to freedom has always been stalked by death.” - Angela Davis. As a Christian, I believe that Christ’s death provided the ultimate sacrifice for liberation. Yet our earthly job is far from finished. As long as revolutionaries and ordinary people seeking justice continue to love, resist and care for one another, I truly believe that another world is possible. Our victory is already here! We only need to reach out and grasp it. The fight goes on!

In Solidarity,

C. Becker

[maximuswolf]

Talking with my Chinese friend about her (and sometimes the greater Chinese public’s) view of CPC, socialism, communism, and capitalism via /r/communism

Talking with my Chinese friend about her (and sometimes the greater Chinese public’s) view of CPC, socialism, communism, and capitalism

These past few days I’ve finally realized I’m a lil newbie communist. I’ve noticed there’s some communists on reddit, particularly non-ML people, who are skeptical as to whether or not China is /really/ committed to communism. While my friend’s experiences are all anecdotal of course, I thought you might be interested in hearing the general (not rooted in any sort of theory) perspective of a recent high school graduate in China:

Disclaimer: I’ve been a lib up until very recently so pls excuse the basic ass topics we talked about. Also, my Chinese is not really fluent yet.

She vaguely knew what capitalism was. She says her knowledge of it is that it’s not bad, it’s just worse than socialism. She says one of the only things they learn about capitalism in school is 雇佣关系 (gùyōng guānxi) - the relationship that someone works for someone else and gets money in return. There must be more to this that I don’t understand b/c it’s so generic?? (edit: Also I just remembered that she said the word that comes to mind when she thinks of capitalism is 金融危机 - financial crisis. But we all knew that already >:D)

When she was a kid, she thought she liked capitalism because she saw capitalist countries as the places where rich people live.

She said she likes living in a socialist society, but she’s not sure if it’s just because a socialist country is all she’s ever known in her life.

She supports socialism but is not sure about communism. She doesn't call herself a communist because she didn’t think it’s possible for “everyone to be equal.” She thinks it’s human nature that people are “lazy” and “what will motivate people in a communist society?” “Not everyone can be equal!” I was kind of surprised by this since these are the exact anticommunist “lines of reasoning” I see in America all the time, but also it turns out she’s never read Marx or Engels - in China they dedicate the majority of their childhood preparing for 高考 (gǎokǎo), the gruelling college entrance exam. She said she would’ve had no time to read Marx or Engels. But, she said she has friends now reading Das Capital.

She will take Marxist classes every year of college. She said doing well in these classes is extremely important. After college, people generally support communism. She said they generally think little kids are too young to understand communism, and the kids/teens are busy with 高考, so they don’t make the Communist readings required until college.

I was saying something (perhaps lazily worded that) most people like Xi JinPing, and she made the correction to me that everyone in China supports Xi JinPing. She said there’s not really a reason to voice dissent with a government that’s clearly serving its people.

She said some people are die-hard Mao fans, some show milder support. When she was young, she didn’t understand why her grandmother praised him so much and my friend disliked him for no reason, but now she respects him.

She says in some ways there’s more freedom of speech than you’d think, but she’s concerned about some restrictions on freedom like professors speaking out against Chinese government - they will be banned and no one knows what happens to them. I asked about a hypothetical situation of what would happen to a professor who might be Westernized in some way and speaks out against the government - she said they would be banned, and Chinese people would definitely support and agree with that. She’s concerned about the term limits lifted from the presidency, but that’s the only area that troubles her about the way the government runs things.

She says in school they say 共产主义终会战胜资本主义 (Gòngchǎn zhǔyì zhōng huì zhànshèng zīběn zhǔyì) - Communism will eventually defeat capitalism.

She didn’t seem surprised that so many people are anticommunist in America, but her eyes did pop a bit when I told her how the general narrative we get is “Communism is a failure, communism is bad” from our history classes, our media, our government.

There’s a big state-wide news program that comes on everyday at 6pm - a lot of families watch it together. She said her grandparents hate Tsai Ing-Wen. She also said 大陆人可以认可台湾人，但是他们很讨厌要分裂的台湾人 - Mainland Chinese can recognize Taiwanese people, but they hate pro-independence Taiwanese.

The irony of all of this is I first met her years ago while I was in China participating in a language immersion program that was completely funded by the Department of State :0 Our program organizers at the time told us to not talk politics with our host families - now I know it discouraged us libs from understanding the specifics and politics as to why Chinese people love their government. Of course, we saw signs of this all the time - going to a restaurant with a huge portrait of Mao, watching a day-long military broadcast with most families glued to the TV sets, watching movies about the Communist Revolution where, when each historical figure was introduced on screen, the entire theatre erupted in applause, etc. At the time, these were all chilling signs of nationalism that us lib American high schoolers didn’t understand, but now I’m so proud to be learning Chinese and incredibly grateful to have a friend in China to talk about all of this.

My friend said she learned a lot from our call and I certainly learned a lot as well. She also expressed newfound excitement at the prospect of studying Marx in college and we’re excited to continue calling and help each other learn.

Submitted September 07, 2020 at 10:31PM by reversentropy via reddit https://ift.tt/3bzh6PN

[specialchan]

Talking with my Chinese friend about her (and sometimes the greater Chinese public’s) view of CPC, socialism, communism, and capitalism via /r/communism

Talking with my Chinese friend about her (and sometimes the greater Chinese public’s) view of CPC, socialism, communism, and capitalism

These past few days I’ve finally realized I’m a lil newbie communist. I’ve noticed there’s some communists on reddit, particularly non-ML people, who are skeptical as to whether or not China is /really/ committed to communism. While my friend’s experiences are all anecdotal of course, I thought you might be interested in hearing the general (not rooted in any sort of theory) perspective of a recent high school graduate in China:

Disclaimer: I’ve been a lib up until very recently so pls excuse the basic ass topics we talked about. Also, my Chinese is not really fluent yet.

She vaguely knew what capitalism was. She says her knowledge of it is that it’s not bad, it’s just worse than socialism. She says one of the only things they learn about capitalism in school is 雇佣关系 (gùyōng guānxi) - the relationship that someone works for someone else and gets money in return. There must be more to this that I don’t understand b/c it’s so generic?? (edit: Also I just remembered that she said the word that comes to mind when she thinks of capitalism is 金融危机 - financial crisis. But we all knew that already >:D)

When she was a kid, she thought she liked capitalism because she saw capitalist countries as the places where rich people live.

She said she likes living in a socialist society, but she’s not sure if it’s just because a socialist country is all she’s ever known in her life.

She supports socialism but is not sure about communism. She doesn't call herself a communist because she didn’t think it’s possible for “everyone to be equal.” She thinks it’s human nature that people are “lazy” and “what will motivate people in a communist society?” “Not everyone can be equal!” I was kind of surprised by this since these are the exact anticommunist “lines of reasoning” I see in America all the time, but also it turns out she’s never read Marx or Engels - in China they dedicate the majority of their childhood preparing for 高考 (gǎokǎo), the gruelling college entrance exam. She said she would’ve had no time to read Marx or Engels. But, she said she has friends now reading Das Capital.

She will take Marxist classes every year of college. She said doing well in these classes is extremely important. After college, people generally support communism. She said they generally think little kids are too young to understand communism, and the kids/teens are busy with 高考, so they don’t make the Communist readings required until college.

I was saying something (perhaps lazily worded that) most people like Xi JinPing, and she made the correction to me that everyone in China supports Xi JinPing. She said there’s not really a reason to voice dissent with a government that’s clearly serving its people.

She said some people are die-hard Mao fans, some show milder support. When she was young, she didn’t understand why her grandmother praised him so much and my friend disliked him for no reason, but now she respects him.

She says in some ways there’s more freedom of speech than you’d think, but she’s concerned about some restrictions on freedom like professors speaking out against Chinese government - they will be banned and no one knows what happens to them. I asked about a hypothetical situation of what would happen to a professor who might be Westernized in some way and speaks out against the government - she said they would be banned, and Chinese people would definitely support and agree with that. She’s concerned about the term limits lifted from the presidency, but that’s the only area that troubles her about the way the government runs things.

She says in school they say 共产主义终会战胜资本主义 (Gòngchǎn zhǔyì zhōng huì zhànshèng zīběn zhǔyì) - Communism will eventually defeat capitalism.

She didn’t seem surprised that so many people are anticommunist in America, but her eyes did pop a bit when I told her how the general narrative we get is “Communism is a failure, communism is bad” from our history classes, our media, our government.

There’s a big state-wide news program that comes on everyday at 6pm - a lot of families watch it together. She said her grandparents hate Tsai Ing-Wen. She also said 大陆人可以认可台湾人，但是他们很讨厌要分裂的台湾人 - Mainland Chinese can recognize Taiwanese people, but they hate pro-independence Taiwanese.

The irony of all of this is I first met her years ago while I was in China participating in a language immersion program that was completely funded by the Department of State :0 Our program organizers at the time told us to not talk politics with our host families - now I know it discouraged us libs from understanding the specifics and politics as to why Chinese people love their government. Of course, we saw signs of this all the time - going to a restaurant with a huge portrait of Mao, watching a day-long military broadcast with most families glued to the TV sets, watching movies about the Communist Revolution where, when each historical figure was introduced on screen, the entire theatre erupted in applause, etc. At the time, these were all chilling signs of nationalism that us lib American high schoolers didn’t understand, but now I’m so proud to be learning Chinese and incredibly grateful to have a friend in China to talk about all of this.

My friend said she learned a lot from our call and I certainly learned a lot as well. She also expressed newfound excitement at the prospect of studying Marx in college and we’re excited to continue calling and help each other learn.

Submitted September 07, 2020 at 10:31PM by reversentropy via reddit https://ift.tt/3bzh6PN

[joannealiciasd-blog]

Let’s talk about... series

Hi dollies!

This is my first entry here in a long, long time. I’m aware I don’t have many readers here, so I guess my words will dissipate into nowhere, but I thought by writing this, I could get my current thoughts and opinions down, reach a tiny audience, and come back in a few years to see how much I’ve changed, because I’m very sure I will. (I imagine I’ll also be cringing when reading this in future, but it’s okay, that happens when you learn. Hi, future Joanne! Hope you’re doing well!)

As a bit of context as to why I’m starting a series here, I still hold the role of Starblogger in the Stardoll community, and about a month ago, I released a post called “My Perspective” which received a lot of backlash. Basically, I shared my views on Marriage Equality as a conservative Christian during Pride Month, an unpopular opinion, and many users took issue with this opinion.

(Paragraph of rant, not necessary so feel free to skip, I just had to get it out) I honestly thought I shared it in the nicest, most respectful way possible. I wanted to bring attention to the fact that not everyone’s going to share the same opinions, that the world is made up of left and right wing people and that’s okay. Because although there may always be a power struggle in the politicians and media, we as citizens can open our perspectives to others and learn to respect other opinions. It’s no use living in an echo chamber if you want to develop a nuanced understanding of your opinions. And maybe my opinion was that offensive that my point of respect flew over many people’s heads because they proceeded to call me a number of bad names, insult me, label me as a homophobe when I have absolutely no issue with homosexuals as people. Don’t get me wrong, there were some religious or conservative users who were otherwise quiet during the Pride Month activities who actually stepped forward to stand up for me and some other people who disagreed with my conservative view but saw the point I was trying to make and tried to push the conversation forward by respectfully either asking why I believe the way I do or tell me that they still respect my viewpoint. But the other awful users, it really hurt me, which I knew full well I signed up for when I first released the post so I’m not blaming anyone, but I honestly hoped on a site like that, people wouldn’t be as ruthless as they were then. It’s scary what people can say when they hide behind a screen. At the same time, I try to find satire in it to soften the blow, you know, like it’s ironic that they would call me a close minded bigot when I’m trying to say that there exists many opinions. Frankly they’re the ones being close minded, even jumping on the people who are on their side but could see past this and asked them to respect me, also in a respectful way. When good users can see past our differences to prioritise actual transparent humanity, I’m very grateful for that and it really gives me hope that someday a compromise, or at the very least, a mutual agreement to disagree can be found.

Needless to say, I was quite disappointed about the good to bad ratio of responses, but throughout the course of the next few weeks, I was able to strike up some civil productive conversation that I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to and I was very grateful for those.

After all that drama. I’ve been growing more passionate about politics, initially just reading into the topics surrounding the LGBTQIA+ community but gradually expanding out into the other ‘hot topics’ of politics. I considered starting about a series ‘Let’s talk about… (insert topic)’ on Stardoll, but as much as I want my ideas to be heard, I’m not ready to go through that horrible cycle of hate. That’s why I decided, these posts are technically ‘not making the cut’ by me for my Starblog, so I’ll publish them here, since that’s what I promised when I was first granted my Starblogger role.

I’ll start with an introduction about me.

As you know, I’d consider myself a conservative. However, I see politics as a spectrum of left to right. with the far right being totalitarian/dictatorial and far left being Marxist/communist Some people sit near the extremes, more accomodating people closer to the centre. Talking about explicitly left or right is easy, but not accurate, because even within each of the sides, there are still many discrepancies. Right now I like to think I’m closer to the centre. I grew up in a Christian, conservative family with parents and relatives who were also heavily conservative having immigrated out of Maoist (communist) China after a long history of persecution as a result of their religion. Me being born in Australia, I was blissfully unaware and followed along blindly. My early diaries were extreme, following the likes of ‘gay people are bad, it is a sin and they need to repent’, shocking stuff like that but if it softens the blow, it was what I was taught ever since I was little and I didn’t know any better. I was essentially living in an echo chamber, which is exactly why I now strongly support free speech and sharing all views. We as a race aren’t going to get anywhere without listening to each other, the divides are only going to widen and we’re going to end up quarrelling about the tiniest of issues.

Back to me, you’ll be surprised to hear, I made a big jump across the spectrum. Yep, I became a lefty. I was in my pre-teen phase and was becoming a lot more involved on social media, watched a lot of Buzzfeed, and as a result, reread and was absolutely shocked at the contents of my old diaries. Finally, as a young teen, I promptly decided I was going to do an extreme 180 on my political views. This lasted about 3 years, I was very passionate, but when I sought out discussion in my attempts to persuade my family too, I soon realised I had nothing to base it on except a few outdated facts and my own emotional response alone. I started to think about why I believed the way I did because as important as emotions are, they’re not something to base all of your life off. I also sought out more liberal and conservative sources as well as consulting my church peers who would be more understanding of what I was going through since they could relate to me easier.

Now, I’m back to being conservative, but I hope with a more nuanced understanding of how each side works, having been on them both. There are still some topics in which I maintain a liberal view on, simply because nothing has persuaded me on those yet, but for the most part, I am conservative. The ideal would be to sit in the middle, but frankly, it’s such a fine line, it’s impossible to do that so I strive to be as understanding as I can.

The topics I want to address in this series (may add more)

Homosexuality

Marriage equality

Feminism

Gun-control

Abortion

Religious freedom

Racism

Hate speech

Body positivity

The victim complex

Gender

Finally, a big disclaimer 

I don’t claim to be an expert on any of these topics. I’m just a student who reads things in her spare time. If you read my words and find something you disagree with or even just see something that I missed, please tell me. This series is my thoughts at this moment in time. 

Like I said at the start, I’m very confident that I will change over time, not necessarily switching sides, but maybe just how strongly I believe things or the reasons why I believe things. I want to learn as much as I can. My only request is that we remember we are all humans with feelings, and although we can hide behind our screen names here, words still have big impacts on us, I know that too well. If you do decide to give me feedback, please respect me and I will respect you. With respect, we can be civil and push the conversation forward.

Take care,

♡ Joanne

(*For my future reference. I am currently 17 years old. I am midway through Year 12, Australia. Much of this is influenced by Extension English, see: Research Notes - Jane Austen and Worldviews doc)

edit: I’ve consolidated my political views and did the quiz on australia.isidewith.com. Lo and behold, I’m a centrist (though still slightly conservative and authoritarian), which I’m quite pleased with, since I do believe in keeping an open mind but maintaining some traditional values/morals, a compromise. And though politics is tricky and manipulative, our government isn’t out to ruin our lives... surprise surprise! I highly recommend doing that quiz, just pick your own country (the questions will vary). I guess sharing my personal results wouldn’t hurt, so if you want to explicitly see where I stand, here it is: https://australia.isidewith.com/results/3529756200  Also, I’ve graduated now. Woo hoo!