My name is Inigo Montoya

Might as well be. Their goals have not changed. Now they are openly admitting it.

Leftists have this really weird tendency sometimes of accusing some of their best allies of being secret feds or cryptofascists. I understand where this paranoia comes from but it’s not healthy and it’s not helpful.

I have no experience with game development so i can’t speak on what that takes, but the difficulty of modding very much depends on the game. Paradox games for instance are generally extremely easy to mod, pretty much anyone can learn to do it, though the skill ceiling can be quite high depending on how deep you want to get into more complicated scripting and/or 3D modeling new assets.

Whether or not these skills translate to making your own game i don’t know. But if you are interested in giving that a try that i think the place to start is perhaps a tutorial for one of the more commonly used engines like Unity.

They are not a threat. At most they are a mild nuisance. Like Trotskyists, their main function is as a tool for preventing the formation of real and effective revolutionary movements.

I usually try to keep file sizes of uploads under 1MB and then i have no issues.

There was a post recently also about how Pamphlets was being cringe and was saying some really weird things. I take the same view on them as i do on Redstream: yes they have some bad takes every now and then, and no they are not completely aligned with our views, but they are nonetheless useful as a source of agitprop content. We can take what’s good and discard/criticize the bad.

I think you’re exactly right, this is the proper dialectical way of viewing things, as a process.

the question is which will be the big qualitative leap

I would argue that February 2022 was that qualitative leap. But maybe i’m too optimistic, idk.

Everything you say is correct. I’m just looking at this from a more global perspective.

I don’t think it’s all that relevant how the people in the imperial core viewed those events, but all across the global south 2016 and 2020 were undoubtedly perceived as major indicators of the decline/dysfunction of western “liberal democracies”.

I do think much of their illusion, or their myth or whatever you want to call it, was shattered then. They were mask-off moments. But as i said, i don’t necessarily view those as true inflection points, rather just as further data points indicating a world in transition.

Nominal yes, PPP no. Comparing nominal GDP doesn’t mean much because it’s an apples to oranges comparison. It only matters for foreign trade. And China’s economy is actually bigger than official stats suggest: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/4853219

Here’s some further reading for you on this topic: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/strong-anna-louise/1959/tibet/index.htm

It’s a book written by an American journalist who visited Tibet just as it was in the process of abolishing serfdom, and got to witness it in person and talk to the people there who told their stories about what life was like before.

Highly, highly recommend every communist to read this at least once.

I think we’re already there. Multipolarity doesn’t necessarily mean total cutoff from all dependencies (after all, the US is dependent on China in a lot more ways than vice versa), or that the US empire is completely defeated yet. It just means that they are no longer the only game in town, it means that countries have alternatives and the West is no longer able to completely dominate the rest and tell them what to do. It means that the West have lost their monopoly on technological advancement, on financial systems, on use of military force, their undisputed control over the global narrative, etc. In short, they are no longer global hegemons now that alternative centers of power have emerged.

What i am not yet sure about is when exactly this transition occured. One could argue it started as far back as 2008 with the global crisis of capitalism which China had to bail the West out of…or was it perhaps in 2013 when China launched its Belt and Road Initiative megaproject for economic integration outside of Western dominated institutions?

Was it maybe in 2014/2015 when Russia dared to defy the US by foiling their plans for Crimea and Syria, or in 2016 when it became suddenly clear that much of America and parts of Europe were no longer buying the liberal establishment’s bullshit…or was it in 2020 with Covid which exposed western governments as morally bankrupt and woefully incompetent compared to China’s?

Personally i don’t know that i could pinpoint exactly when the transition started but i do know that Russia’s intervention in Ukraine in 2022 was a watershed moment, and their subsequent weathering of the storm of the entire collective West’s economic and diplomatic onslaught showed that we were now clearly living in a new world. One in which it is now possible to stand up to the collective West’s bullying, to defy their tyrannical “rules based order” and not only survive but win and thrive. And the global south noticed this, hence all of the other sudden big events we have seen take place around the world since then:

France getting kicked out of West Africa, the Palestinian resistance entering into a qualitatively new phase of struggle, rapid expansion of BRICS, reconciliation between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the Yemeni blockade of the Red Sea, Iran striking a direct blow to the Zionist entity, Russia breaking the western sanctions regime on the DPRK, China becoming bolder in defending its own interests and no longer mincing words when it comes to the US’s belligerent actions directed at them, the list goes on. None of this could have happened under US unipolarity.

Still less surveillance than if you use western tech infested with CIA backdoors and western platforms that are in bed with the national security state.

So in your theory, the opposition parties are committing a color revolution

They certainly tried. What else would you call it when western backed NGOs organize astroturfed protests and violent riots aimed at toppling the elected government because the government is trying to pass a law that would expose foreign funding of said NGOs? When western politicians shamelessly go to Georgia to participate in and support the protests, just like they did in Ukraine on the Maidan in 2014?

It doesn’t get much more transparent. Next you will claim that the Maidan coup was just a “peaceful revolution”, or that the violent western-funded mob in Hong Kong were just “pro-democracy activists”?

only one nation is actually on someone else’s sovereign territory.

NATO has been in Ukraine since 2014 and Ukrainian troops have been on Russian territory since 2022 when the new oblasts voted in a referendum to join Russia. And is a country really sovereign if their government is a puppet for foreign powers?

you don’t think the people ordering bombs being dropped on civilians may have something to do with Ukrainian’s detriment?

I do think that, which is why i said that the Nazi Kiev regime that was put in place by a western orchestrated coup is harming Ukraine.

They are the ones who have been dropping bombs on civilians in Donetsk and Lugansk since 2014. Them doing so forced Russia to intervene to protect those people and as a result there is now a larger conflict in Ukraine.

Next you’re going to claim that Palestine engineered their own genocide

Comparing Palestinians with Nazis who want to commit ethnic cleansing is grotesque genocide apologetics and literally a Zionist talking point. This shows to me that you are not engaging in good faith. Good bye.

The communist party is a small part of the coalition of parties attempting to block the Georgian dream party.

So if it’s acceptable for those “communists” to join forces with western backed color revolution agents, then surely it is not a big deal for other communists to critically support the Georgian government in its suppressing of said color revolutionists and reconciliation with Russia. Since we have abandoned any pretense of moral purity anyway…

I’d hardly call countries defending against an invasion the “warmongers” of the situation.

If that’s what you think is happening you haven’t been paying attention. You’re just regurgitating the western mainstream media’s propaganda narrative, which as usual is the exact opposite of reality.

Yes they are the warmongers, they are the ones who purposely engineered the conflict and who continue to needlessly prolong it to Ukraine’s detriment, all while their reckless and desperate escalations risk widening the conflict and put us all in danger.

They are not defending anything, they are merely using Ukraine to try and harm Russia. When just like Georgia, Ukraine’s interests would be best served by refusing to continue to be a western puppet and mending ties with Russia instead, that’s just a fact.

Have they really stopped anything, has this benefited Russia or the people of Hungary in any meaningful way?

So far they’ve prevented Hungary being drawn into to the conflict. Hungary has wisely refused to send weapons to the conflict zone, recognizing that by doing so it only prolongs the conflict and gets more Ukrainians and Russians killed.

Of course it has benefited the people of Hungary. While other NATO and EU countries ruin their economies and impoverish their people with anti-Russian sanctions and billions flushed down the toilet in the corrupt black hole that is Ukraine, Hungary has looked out for its own people’s interest and kept energy prices and inflation low.

When other NATO countries send their soldiers to die in Ukraine, Hungarian soldiers will still be safe in their own country. And when Russia strikes back at other NATO countries that have made the mistake of making themselves a co-belligerent in the conflict, Hungary will remain untouched.

Turns out having good relations with and refusing to be drawn into conflict against a nearby major power is good for your people. I know, what a shocker!

Which imperialist camp?

There is only one imperialist camp

His troops are in Russia. The new regions are now a part of Russia and it is Ukraine that is occupying them. Giving them up is surrender. Allowing NATO to take Ukraine is surrender.

I ask you again: what do you think would happen to the people living there if Russia stopped defending them and let them be overrun by Nazis who hate them and consider them subhuman?

The peace offers were the best deal Ukraine was ever going to get. Every time they refuse, the outcome gets worse for them. At some point you have to acknowledge reality.

Yeah, I’m not big on the term “left unity” unless it is specified exactly what is meant by “left”. It makes absolutely no sense for instance to lump Marxists together with what is considered “the left” in the mainstream of bourgeois democracy. That would be a complete absurdity, we have next to nothing in common.

What is the “centre” to you?

I guess “center” for me would be that position which at any given time reflects the broadest possible consensus position within a group.

Putin didn’t start the war, NATO did in 2014 when they toppled an elected government and put their Nazi puppets in charge who went on to start a war against their own people.

If by “Putin could end the war” you mean he could surrender, sure. So can Zelensky. Why doesn’t he? Russia has placed a peace offer on the table. Repeatedly in fact. In 2014 and 2015. In 2021 and 2022. And again just a week or so ago. Zelensky and his western handlers could end the war they started at any moment.

Sure, Putin could surrender, just like i could jump off of a balcony, but why would or should he? He’s winning. He has huge popular support. This conflict is viewed in Russia as vital to Russia’s national interests. Nothing has changed about the reasons why Russia made the decision to intervene in 2022. If anything they have only become more convinced of the correctness and the necessity of their decision.

If Putin tried to unilaterally make a decision that would so clearly compromise Russia’s vital interests nearly the entire Russian state apparatus and much of society would view him as a traitor, and rightfully so. He would most likely be ousted and replaced by a hardliner who was more willing to finish the job.

Same reason in fact why Zelensky can’t surrender, by the way, only in his case he won’t just get ousted, the Nazis will probably kill him. Like they did to their own negotiator who was trying to work out a deal with the Russians in Istanbul.

And why is it that you never stop to think about what would happen next if Russia suddenly pulled out of territories that are now constitutionally a part of Russia and where millions of people live who consider themselves Russian and have taken Russian citizenship? Do you know what Ukrainian Nazis do to those people who they see as traitors? Do you know what their plan is for the ethnic Russian population of Donbass which dared to rebel and fight back against the Maidan regime for eight years?

Have you seen what happened last year when Armenia stopped being willing or able to defend Nagorno Karabakh? Why would any leader (at least one who isn’t on the payroll of the West) allow that to happen to their people?

And do you think Nazi Ukraine would stop at 2022 borders? Or do you think they would be emboldened and press further to take Crimea as well and whatever other Russian territory their deranged revisionist “history” tells them ought to be theirs?

Why should Russia roll over and allow itself to be dismantled? Why should they let NATO take over Crimea and zone them out of the Black Sea? You’d have to be monumentally stupid or a traitor to allow that, and any country in the same position would go to whatever lengths necessary to ensure that didn’t happen.

I don’t follow this sort of drama and i am perfectly happy that way. But when I hear about this sort of stuff i do wonder how it is that i have never heard of these sorts of problems in or around Lemmygrad. It’s not as if we all agree on everything, i know there are definitely some ideological as well as tactical disagreements now and then, but for some reason it never devolves into this kind of sectarian drama.

I’m not an economist, I can’t really tell you why that’s what they do

I’m not an economist either but this one isn’t that hard to figure out. A socialist state won’t require all its SOEs to operate that way but it also obviously won’t object if some of them do make a profit, since that can be used to offset some of the losses of the unprofitable SOEs.

This has always been a part of how socialist economies work. Even the USSR had some form of this iirc. The idea was that consumer goods industries were more “naturally” profitable and could be used to prop up the essential but less profitable heavy industries. (I’m simplifying here as i don’t necessarily want to get into a whole discussion about the Kosygin reforms.)

This is a core idea of economic planning, that one part of the economy can balance and support another for the good of society rather than forcing every element of the economy to function as its own isolated entity competing against all others.

This is one of the features that distinguish economic planning from liberal market economies which require each individual enterprise to turn a profit (and ideally more so than it’s competitors if it wants to survive long term).