Sadly anti-roma sentiment is so normalized in europe that people like this face little to no consequences. In this instance it was just an edgy 20-something reddit type trying to impress with his hot sociopolitical opinions and not a politically active individual with an actual plan and conviction to put it in practice, but it shows how deep the dehumanization runs when people just casually bring up this stuff.
An ex coworker who styled himself as the woke progressive of his friend group once explained to me his plan for “fixing” the Romani and it was forcefully taking children from their parents at birth and assigning them to “civilized” families for “proper social integration”. He also said that it’s okay for him to use the slur because a pickme on reddit made a thread about it once and said they didn’t mind it.
It’s not just Croatia either. The history of the past century taught all over eastern europe and the baltics is a ghoulish fanfiction based on anti-communism, anti-semitism, russophobia and the double genocide theory.
It’s bleak. This utterly cringe continent feels like it’s dead set on suicide charging into Russia again. White Tiger was a documentary.
I understand the feeling, I’ve lost people to far right radicalization too, including one I had previously considered a comrade. He was also a decent person who went through a lot of shit and was genuinely anti-capitalist and supported the anti-imperialist struggle but they got to him with homophobia, transphobia and unhealthy ideals of masculinity. I would spend hours patiently explaining things to him and he would snap out of it for a day or two, then get back to ranting about how they are coming to trans our innocent children and indoctrinate them with gender ideology. It’s terrifying how you can spend so much effort, patience and goodwill only for it to be undone over and over again by sensationalist fascist scare propaganda.
While it can be genuinely hard and painful to do so, please prioritize your own mental health and wellbeing and don’t feel guilty about reducing contact if it gets too bad. You are doing your best as a friend and communist, but it’s material conditions and class intrerest that have the greatest pull on what each person chooses to believe and if you find yourself in an unfavorable engagement it’s fine to pull back from a losing battle.
Hugs and solidarity to you, I hope the dude snaps out of it, but if he doesn’t remember it’s not your fault.
Good morning, friend. Israel will perish.
It’s extra funny because these are the types of people who were smuglording whenever any sort of high value Russian asset got hit by Ukrainian drones or missiles far behind the frontline. Whoooops, turns out this kind of threat is genuinely difficult to defend against and it’s not just an issue with the inadequacy of the orcish brainpan, who would have thought.
Lmao based, I hope this is real. Infinite trolling upon the western world.
From my ttrpg experience, you can deromanticize aristocrats to the point where damn near every one of them enthusiastically shows off his prized PeasantGrinder9001 with live serfs thrown in for extra effect and people will still act as if they are ultimately well intentioned, legitimate leaders who are just a little out of touch maybe and they just need some gentle persuasion to do better for their subjects that they obviously care about. Monarchybrain runs deep.
Aside from the very cool stuff already posted, the Mansu Hill Grand Monument in the DPRK is amazing. It’s so huge it’s hard to do it justice with photos. Fitting for one of the greatest acts of resistance in human history.
I also really like the style of Vietnamese posters. They look so happy and hopeful.
Every single day I am on the brink of ragequitting my job but the absolute state of the world makes me stay because I can’t afford the instability aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh
Those postcards are amazing. I’ve always loved the artworks that cherish the Soviet Union’s cultural diversity.
Okay, so let’s talk about practicality, class consciousness, and dealing with the enfocers of empire as a citizen of the imperial core.
The reason why class consciousness is low in the US is because the material conditions are stacked against you successfully radicalizing large numbers of people. You, OP and others vaguely point at these conditions but I feel that you fail to actually grapple with them.
I believe a serious analysis would center the fact that American imperialism is the primary contradiction in the world, that citizens in the imperial core are net beneficiaries of imperialism and they have an interest in keeping the exploitation going. This obviously includes troops. American citizens sign up with the armed forces because being a stormtrooper for the empire is currently a lucrative deal overall. As long as the deal stays lucrative they will keep signing up and your efforts at centering their humanity and potential to become reformed and principled revolutionaries are unserious at best and a tone deaf insult towards the global south at worst. Troops aren’t tainted by evil they are bribed with superprofits and you will have an extremely hard time presenting them with a persuasive argument for world commiunism for as long as these superprofits exist.
Obviously as Marxists we believe that the only constant is change and that the material conditions that make citizens of the imperial core much more likely to fall in line and do their part in subjgating the rest of the planet are not eternal. However, the driving force behind these changes is not going to be the western left refining its strategy and sharpening its arguments, it will be the neocolonies violently routing the US war machine, one by one, until the superprofits dry up and the privileged labor aristocracy can no longer be maintained.
Once the chain of imperialism starts breaking from its weakest links the conditions will become more favorable for agitating in the core. However, the US government is not incompetent. It has waged class war against communists for more than a century and will most probably not sit by as contradictions sharpen and simply let you have a revolution. History has plenty of examples to learn from. They will come for the communists before conditions change too much in your favor. They will outlaw your parties and imprison or execute your leaders. You need to seriously consider the fact that the overwhelming majority of enforcers will turn the colonial policing tactics they are currently sharpening on the global south inwards and violently purge you instead of joining the revolution to “teach commies to shoot guns build tunnels and avoid being seen by drones” and develop your strategy accordingly.
Saying that troops are human and can be reformed is a useless platitude that prevents you from forming a useful strategy informed by a correct analysis of class struggle and contradictions. You need to engage with material reality and correctly identify which groups have revolutionary potential and which are likely to be your enemies. I think focusing your efforts on the internal colonies and marginalized people in your country is superior to wasting your time on troops, and this is due to the practical reasons detailed above, not a misplaced sense of moralism or belief in some supernatural evil. I also think that if you are a serious communist, your main concern regarding troops should be protecting yourself from them not protecting them from being unfairly demonized and your preoccupation with the latter makes you seem off in la la land.
As a non westerner whose main concern regarding American troops is getting them out of my country and not being bombed by them if we step out of line, I actually prefer hearing infinite death upon amerikkkan stormtroopers rather than yanksplaining how they didn’t realize they were going to kill children when they signed up. From my perspective, a westerner saying fuck’em is not dehumanizing the troops but recognizing the humanity of their victims and engaging in the most basic display of revolutionary defeatism available. I would obviously prefer solidarity in deeds but I understand that the material conditions inside the core do not favor the left and I don’t demand that you put yourself in danger on a futile quest to materially sabotage your military.
Considering this, I think you should focus on unlearning chauvinism, american exceptionalism and western-centric thought. Much like Nazi Germany was not defeated by German communists who were taught military tactics by disillusioned SS deserters, the war against US imperialism will not be decided by American communists convincing jarheads to defect. I am sorry if this sounds harsh and I would like to be proven wrong because that would make our shared struggle easier but you and the other Americans in this thread are not making a convincing argument.
I rewatched Stalker with my partner recently. Absolute masterpiece from the cinematography to the acting to the themes. The kind of movie that leaves you excitedly discussing it instead of going to sleep afterwards like responsible adults who need to work in the morning.
Ivan’s Childhood is another good one by Tarkovsky. Not as high on my banger list as Stalker but stuck with me all the same.
Also urging everyone to not sleep on The Ascent. It’s less of a war movie and more of a psychological drama and biblical parable set during the fascist occupation of the Byelorussian Soviet Republic. Director Larisa Shepitko was married to Elem Klimov who later went on to make the more famous Come and See and the influence is palpable. Her death in a car accident while scouting out sites for her next movie was a tragedy and a great loss for Soviet cinema.
Exactly this. I don’t remember seeing threads about reforming ICE agents when they were executing American citizens in America. Nobody was concern trolling about moralism and demonization when American citizens were rightfully enraged at being murdered in the street by voluntary paramilitary death squads. Why is it that when American troops are engaged in an active mass murder campaign across West Asia the attitude suddenly changes? Do Americans realize how dehumanizing and alienating this is for everyone else?
Come and See and it’s sibling The Ascent. Tough to watch but essential.
The White Tiger. It’s a weirder and mostly metaphorical WW2 movie about the incomplete defeat of fascism and how it’s bound to return. Hits harder and harder every year that goes by. ;_;
Stalker and Solaris by Tarkovsky.
Apocalypse Now
Scarface
Animated stuff: The End of Evangelion, Ghost in the Shell, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Akira
Not an American and I feel like the past few weeks have been an absurd fever dream with the constant imperial troop apologia going on around here.
Yes everyone can be theoretically reformed given enough time and resources. Even the einsatzkommandos who were burning soviet villages to the ground in 1942 were probably reformable but focusing on that while they were in the middle of enacting a genocide would be obviously extremely dehumanizing towards their victims. Puyi was reformed after he was put on trial for war crimes and was no longer a threat to anyone else. We can focus on reforming imperial troops after they have been disarmed and routed and are not an active threat to the majority of the world. Western leftists need to take a break and ask themselves why out of all possible battles they are picking this particular one at this time and consider how tone deaf it feels to everyone else.
Yes, people sign up due to their material conditions not out of some moral inadequacy. The material conditions in this case are the superprofits the imperial core sucks out of the rest of the world and the fact that they have enjoyed several decades of unrivaled military hegemony. Yes some imperial troops do get got but for most of them war has been a fun human safari where they get to call overwhelming firepower on poor brown people. And yes, troops are still net beneficiaries of imperial explioitation, I can’t believe we are actually debating this. The imperial war machine being defeated and driven out of its neocolonies and made unable to outsource the worst of the suffering required to keep capitalism running to the global south will change those material conditions so your support is better directed towards the axis of resistance.
I am begging americans to stop, take a deep breath, then make a serious effort at considering the perspective and struggles of the global south that is actively being bombed, starved and terrorized. Ask yourselves if writing paragraphs upon paragraphs about reforming the people actively engaged in dropping bombs is really the best you can do right now as communists who believe in international solidarity.
I wish yanks would just shut up. Shutting up when you can’t do anything better is praxis. The burgerreich is participating in a genocide, kidnapping heads of state and pushing us closer and closer to WW3 just as my life was somewhat stabilizing for the first time in years and I’m not even allowed a little Death to Amerikkka as a treat without getting scolded by some western “leftist”.
Happy International Women’s Day, comrades. We hold up half the sky.
In my city there is at least one org that I know of that offers social services for queer youths, including therapy, career counseling, support groups and funding for professional training. Are there any similar services in your area that you can access?
Solidarity to you, wish I had more useful input because I’ve been trapped in a similar situation in my teens and early 20s and I know how much it sucks, but the economy wasn’t such a hellscape back then and I don’t want to sound condescending and out of touch.