In the US more people than any any other state in history (save for the worst period of Nazi Germany) are kept as basically slaves in jails and prisons on drug charges and they are loaned out to capitalists. A significant section of the underclass is held down by drug use where they are sedated both personally and politically, forced into the worst jobs, or the reserve army of labor.

This isn’t a conspiracy though. Like the prisons aren’t conspiring with the cartels. It’s all just capitalists trying to make money by screwing someone else over and seeing both extremely vulnerable drug producers and drug users and taking advantage of them. Capitalism rewards this so it’s reproduced until it isn’t possible to squeeze any more juice out of it.

Yeah it’s not required but the only self identified “Marxians” I’ve come across were raging liberals while I have met “Marxist” academics that were not liberal.

It’s an approach in economics that usually rejects Marx’s revolutionary politics but agrees with his critiques of capitalism. People like Richard Wolff identity as Marxian.

“We’re against the genocide candidate but if you vote for an anti-genocide candidate then you’re actually supporting the genocide” -smartest American liberal

At this point basically all most unions do is political work, mostly fighting right to work so that they can collect revenue without having to organize anyone.

When I heard that guy on Rev Left radio say that I nearly burst out laughing. The understanding most leftists have of the labor movement is pathetic.

I’m not a shoplifter but have worked in retail for a while. I would think the best thing to do would be assuming you will be noticed because between cameras, other customers, and employees you almost certainly will be seen. The question then boils down to if they can identify you and build a case against you. To avoid this, knowing company policies and applicable laws is key. How much do you have to lift before you’ll be hit with a felony charge? Can employees detain you or forcefully recover product? Are police on site? Are you a known entity to police or the stores you’re lifting from?

If you disperse your lifting over location, company, and time, don’t take anything too valuable, and make yourself hard to identify you’ll probably be fine. Also if you get caught immediately leave, don’t listen to store employees who have no legal authority over you and whatever you do never admit to knowingly stealing anything unless your lawyer instructs you to do so.

Idk all the anti-vaxxers where I live are insane wealthy white baptists that would have been in the klan a century ago (if they aren’t right now). The poorer people in town tend to get their shots.

Maybe we should differentiate colonized/imperialized peoples that are skeptical of Western medicine because they’ve been victims of it from those that are Nazis that hate everything modern or any expectations of them.

It’s a pretty nebulous term the roots of which are in Lenin’s Imperialism in which he describes a class of workers that sides with imperialists because they receive a portion of the superprofits of imperial exploration.

Historically it was used to describe business union leadership or union workers more broadly, especially those in the war industries. Further left tendencies tend to broaden the scope of who is a labor aristocrat including professional workers or even the whole of the white working class.

Personally I think as Marxists we need to reckon with the fact that many workers in the imperial core have petite-bourgeois brain worms precisely because their minds have been thoroughly rotted by debt and consumerism subsidized by the blood and sweat of the global periphery. That doesn’t mean we should eschew work among these workers but we should understand it’s limitations.

For instance there’s a massive naval shipyard near me that employs many people (mostly cis white dudes). They have a militant union and excellent pay and benefits. Unsurprisingly they’re all ridiculously conservative and nationalist and I’ve had multiple employees there tell me war would be good for them because it would mean more work and better compensation. Just because many of these workers are union proles does not mean that they will easily align with the interest of the global proletariat and if we are organizing or agitating them we need to understand that.

Check your local laws. In a lot of places infestations are the responsibility of the landlord and if you want it dealt with you might not be on the hook.

The enemy are cruel and unrepentant murderers and we must bring them down by any means because this is war but also it’s bad to kill them and if they are killed it signals a dark turn for the character.

In all reality it probably isn’t even true either. When Trump took office membership and activity of left wing organizations exploded. It was so much easier to organize people into a state of rebellion when they couldn’t pretend things were fine under Trump than it has been under Biden.

Funny, my Democratic governor has been the primary roadblock to indigenous sovereignty in my state and continues to fuck them over at every turn she gets. I’m sure they’re glad she’s there thinking of them though.

While I think the members of Red Star mean well and their faction generally has good positions, I’ve gotta push back on the idea that they’ve significantly pushed DSA’s international work broadly or their anti-zionist work specifically in a better direction. The recent gutting of the anti-zionist resolution by the NPC and the retraction of the statements on the Venezuelan election and the Israeli assassination in Iran show that at the highest level DSA is firmly in control of chauvinist social democrats on these issues (I had to scoff when I heard of the “left” NPC getting elected last year, as if Bread and Roses are left lol)

Furthermore, DSA’s position on the presidential election has always been firmly invested in working within the Democratic party as seen by their focus on the “uncommitted” movement and their recent statement about Harris picking Walz as her VP. They still hide in their dirty break/party surrogate position which functionally ends up the same as the CP’s line.

There are a lot of good people in DSA and I learned a lot when I was a member but the organization is fundamentally repelled by any sort of discipline and the social fascists on it’s right wing maintain their power through that disorder and have demonstated that they do not care if their opportunism harms the organization or anyone else for that matter. Changing it into something viable would take an immense amount of work that would be sabotaged by SMC/Groundwork/B&R every step of the way, or you could just join an actual Leninist org.

If she’s a real one she’ll run this fall anyways.

If you’re heavily involved join Red Star or MUG. If not at least reach out to them and ask how you can help their efforts.

Alternatively quit the org and join a better one.

I left the org because my chapter gutted this resolution and I seriously considered rejoining if this had passed as written but I guess that’s not happening.

Voters could elect a Trump administration that denies the climate crisis and whose policies are dictated by the fossil fuel industry.

Or a Kamala Harris administration that builds on climate-friendly policies, curbs the power of the fossil fuel industry, accelerates a clean energy revolution, adapts to climate change, and builds resilient communities and global solidarity.

From People’s World just the other day. Been kinda crazy to see them mobilize so quickly in support of her.

Also totally ignores that she’ll just continue Biden’s legacy of expanded Alaskan oil drilling and tariffs on green tech from China.

Smdh Joe-bros stealing votes trying to prevent our first female president #itsherturn

The trailer for the original said it was made by the creators of Jurassic park. First as a tragedy then as a farce