GenZedong CountryBreakfast • 4 months ago • 92%

Project 2025 is being used to legitimize the genocidal Democratic Party by threatening voters with the republican party. I remember reading somewhere that Project 2025 is sponsored in part by Democrat friendly donors. Am I making this up? I can't find this information again and it is disappointing now that the pressure on people to vote for genocidal candidates seems to be escalating. I though of it as similar to how in 2016 Trump and Ted Cruz were "elevated" in the media at the behest of the Hillary campaign, believing it would make Hillary look good. I have met blue dogs that admit this and stand by it as a good strategy, so the idea that democrats are also sponsoring Project 2025 seems very believable to me. Does anyone else remember reading that Dems are also sponsoring Project 2025 in some capacity? Edit: this article speaks a bit to what I'm talking about https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/project-2025-liberal-donors/

Comradeship // Freechat CountryBreakfast • 10 months ago • 95%

Peace and solidarity with the United American Indians of New England, and to all of the sovereign Tribes accross the continent as we all observe the National Day of Mourning. The multicentury assault on the Indigenous world cannot claim victory, genocide is not the end of the story, but we must remember those who have been lost to settler invasion. Today is a time to reject settler myths that distort history, to reflect on our social positioning and relationships with the many peoples of this land, and to imagine brighter futures without the destructive structures of settler-colonialism and capitalist accumulation. This leaves no room whatsoever for giving thanks to the alter of death which birthed an abomination that has plagued the earth for far too long. Solidarity and reciprocity with the hundreds of millions of Indigenous peoples accross the world is of critical importance for building the coalitions we need to survive and thrive in a post apocalyptic world.

Comradeship // Freechat CountryBreakfast • 10 months ago • 93%

No clue how some of you try to track the events of major conflicts. It just all seems like a stew of piss and vomit designed to spread disease. I can hardly read the NYT, guardian, wapost, etc. at all, much less read their war coverage. War itself is bad enough but adding in the perspectives of western analysts is just masochistic. I never want to hear a liberal of any kind mention hamas ever again. Im so sick of the measured intellectuals and their gratuitous condemnations of #violence ever again.

GenZedong CountryBreakfast • 1 year ago • 100%

And before someone thinks I shouldn't hate people, I think Kyle Kulinski and his associates aren't persons so much as they are a media business brand enabled by other corporate brands like youtube and the Democratic Party. It pains me greatly that people consume these brands and turn into consumers of what I see as American apologetics. Anyway that's all. I hate the prison of American political discourse and its prison guards like Kyle.

Comradeship // Freechat CountryBreakfast • 1 year ago • 84%

Im not going to pull punches on this rant. I am so exhausted by this rhetoric and unfortunately it is pervasive in my personal life and online. I spend most of my productive time reviewing literature on various global issues. Namely land grab discourse, genocide studies, conservation efforts, state development policy, IFI reports etc etc. Let me tell you something about the lives of rural and Indigenous people in the global south. They get their homes burned down and murdered in their sleep. Their lands are stolen from them with techniques perfected by colonial powers, especially from US settler colonialism. The state will steal their lands and "preserve it" for use of private capital, for white settlers, or to create a national park or preserves that wealthy foriegners can hunt game and so they can parade to the world how "modern" they are becoming. If they cannot steal land outright they will use other more complicated manners to incentivise rural people to be tied into market relations, such as dependence on ecotourism or even biochar and other technologies presented as liberatory or as needed due to damages colonialism has done. "A bit of colonialism will help your colonialism problem," if you will. These relations will contradict and then corrode their lifeways and distracted from effective traditional methods because white tourists don't want to see the cattle of pastoralists when on vacation. They are also shamed by the excess wealth of tourists, and the settlers that facilitate tourism, encouraging them to become more enfranchised into modernity so their lands will either become vulnerable to direct theft or the market relations will mold them into what settlers want them to do for the benifit of their estates. These extreme minority settlers often own like half of an entire county, while the county next door is over half conservation area. This means fewer lands for grazing and fewer water sources available for rural people. It leads to starvation and death, especially during dry periods such as the current drought in east Africa, all while the state concern trolls about food security and executes the development dance to attract aid and FDI. It also means that lands are degraded by over use because these people are being choked out of their ancestral lands. The state and white settlers then blame the pastoralists and forest dwellers and weaponize Human Rights against them, saying the rural peoples are preventing the states quest for water security as they redirect all waters to metro areas and settler estates. All of this is the genocidal process of primative accumulation or accumulation by dispossession. It is a privilege I am able to research these situations. It is a privilege that I am able to work with organizations that work with local Tribes on the issues they are concerned about. It is a privilege I am a grad student that is paid to do this, although our union has to fight the university for a fraction of a living wage. I am not privileged to not vote Blue. It is more like a curse of understanding. Who do you think backs these violent efforts of dispossession? USAID is never far away. The EU is never far away. The IFI are always right there. Conservation as we know it was created in North America to conquer the continent and take the land from Indigenous peoples and it has exported these methods abroad. All of this is supported by institutions and policies that democrats and republicans alike believe in and enable globally. It is supported by finance capital which is the foundation of the present democratic party Let me tell you what people who vote blue do about this. Kenya or some other post colonial state will massacre people and burn down their homes and create a national park. Netflix will then hire Obama to narrate a docuseriese on the glorious national parks of the world. Blue voters will then consume the erasure and genocide of rural people as feel-good, green(TM) content with satisfaction that the world is becoming a better place. That's it. Then they go vote blue. Anyone who says I am privileged to not vote blue has no clue or no care regarding how the world works and is a combination being hopelessly US centric, too focused on bourgeoisie partisanship and embarrassingly naive about the world. Voting blue is the opposite of solidarity. The people who say they are not privileged enough to not vote Blue fail to see their own privilege of living in the Disney land of the global north. What ever gains they think Democrats will give them will either never happen or will be cut from the flesh of people they are happy to sacrifice. I will not be extorted by bourgeoisie partisans. My moral worth and political identify is mine to create, not theirs to demand. My concern is with the fundamental machinations of capital and the devestating impact it has on people while it reproduces itself, and it is most destructive in places far from the minds of democrats regardless of issues in the US. I'm not going to be tricked into supporting a party that enables the process of accumulation by dispossession, and that stands on a foundation of genocide. They only have moral arguments but they do not have moral standing.

Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic CountryBreakfast • 1 year ago • 100%

The complex has about 6000 jobs when including the neighboring waste complex (not pictured) and the food factory. The pollution is off the charts. There is no pollution in town but the fact that people go here to work meant I had to double my clinics to keep heath over 90% and life expectancy over 85 years.  But there is so much productivity. Although almost all gets exported. I have no industry that requires plastic yet. I would like to add fertilizer and explosives but my subway system would likley need to be restructured to accommodate more workers, among other things.  Port for exporting fuel, bitumen, plastic, and chemicals.  Pipelines to both borders. It's a lonely vibe.

Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic CountryBreakfast • 1 year ago • 100%

I want to see a "green city" that works. Maybe try to find some optimal templates. We don't have to call it that. But I would like to see more attempts at a few things I have yet to see players acheive: Urban farming - a city that grows a lot of crops and has its own food factory. I have a template I am experimenting on for this but it is hard to keep everyone's needs in walking distance. I don't think it all needs to be grow in the city but the more the better. I currently am experimenting with small fields in residential areas to boost crop production. IMO if there is one industry that should be somewhat decentralized it is food. Greenhouse mods are acceptable although they are not up to date. Cleaner(er) energy - making a power grid work with only renewables will be a huge challenge that I would love to see. Maybe there can be a limit for one nuclear power plant and bonus points if it's a single reactor, that way there is baseline power but I think you must have your own waste facility. Waste obviously - recycle as much waste as possible. Incinerator power plants can be acceptable as a 'necessary evil' because, although they are big polluters, you still need a ton of trash for it to run at baseline and it would be irresponsible to export waste and make someone else deal with your trash. Other than those 3 perameters it is up to the player what goes on in this green city, but the more self sufficient the better. Please add any suggestions to this idyllic city challenge. I will work on my experiment as I have time and post about it when something is working.

Comradeship // Freechat CountryBreakfast • 1 year ago • 97%

I only care about lemmygrad.ml which as far as I know is where the comrades are. Yall are great. I came here to spew word vomit in consentrated bursts to get 3 up votes at a time. I am blissfully ignorant of technology issues or whatever the hell people are on about with reddit nowadays. I would like to avoid the normcore libs and porn distributors that are flooding the site. I use reddit for cyber bullying those types but here is like a sort of home base. How do I keep these worlds from colliding?

GenZedong CountryBreakfast • 1 year ago • 100%

I was a captive audience to someone talking about how some countries only had access to China's vaccine. They said the vaccine was terrible and people took it and still got COVID. But like.... I took American vaccines and still got COVID... ...and over a million people in the US died of COVID, some of whom where vaccinated with US subsidized, corporate vaccines. It was brought up because others were talking about global inequality during the pandemic. So having to take the subpar sinovac was apparently all part of global inequalities. I hate talking about COVID and I feel like it's so distracting and people try to make everything about COVID because it's so easy to do. Maybe that is just a hot take but this argument that sinovac sucks because people still contracted COVID is at best a really lazy way to try to say US vaccines are better. Also the same person implied masking prevents people from contracting the virus... instead of preventing you from spreading it to others like was repeated ad nasium by medical representatives for 2 years straight.

Probably one of the most complex builder games out there

GenZedong CountryBreakfast • 1 year ago • 100%

youtu.be

Not sure if this has been posted on lemmy yet but I was so excited to see Roland on Ben Norton's podcast yesterday. His work has been instrumental to how I see the PRC. If you can get ahold of his book I would highly recommend.

World News CountryBreakfast • 1 year ago • 100%

oilprice.com

Basically US oil and gas is becoming more associated with Europe

World News CountryBreakfast • 1 year ago • 100%

oilprice.com

Sorry Exxon!

Not only did it take me back to the Star Wars in my head that existed before the prequels existed but it was the most sobering depiction of struggle that Star Wars has ever achieved on screen. The prison episodes were especially moving. What do yall think about the show?

Materialism and Atheism CountryBreakfast • 1 year ago • 100%

Penrose is a physicist that has worked on the great mysteries like cosmology and consciousness. For Penrose, he reluctantly calls himself a materialist because he admits he doesn't know what matter really is even tho he ostensibly is a materialist in practice. What do you make of this? In light of the recent "religion" decree on lemmy, how does Penrose's reluctance interact with notions of religon? If there is a non-physical world that interacts with the physical world, then is the non-physical world somehow immaterial? Or could it be material? Can the material be subdivided into "alternative materials" with seperate functions, similar to how structural forces give rise to attitudes, and attitudes give direction to maintain or change structures? Sometimes ideas become so entrenched that they become structural and affect matter beyond what happens in the brain. Similarly, material forces that are not present still affect us (and then those affects re affect us as we contextualize things), for example the actions of our ancestors or the past itself. Furthermore, with any amount of predictive ability, the looming, foreseen future affects the present even though it has not materialized. Oftentimes we may be off put by a seperation between material and spiritual or non physical, but what if they are still basically the same thing and the distinction is a red herring.

GenZedong CountryBreakfast • 1 year ago • 100%

www.france24.com

Bourgeoisie freaks can run but can't hide.

Fuck the Colonists CountryBreakfast • 2 years ago • 83%

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/516254 Over the last several years I have, in song with others, pushed for priorities to be directed toward a “socialism with American characteristics.” The discourse that the quest has generated has often been a disaster. The obvious worst of this being the “patsoc” thinking that has thankfully quieted for the most part. In order to better advance this cause of creating a revolutionary theory, and to combat my personal angst which arises in the face of Maoists trying to force me to read about the Philippines instead of something that could be even more relevant for North America, I believe it would be generative to show an example of how Marxist theory has been used by Dene scholar Glen Sean Coulthard. Not entirely unlike how Mao and the communists of China facilitated a “sinophication” of Marxism, some scholars and activists are arguably indigenizing Marxism, or making it “transformed in conversation with critical thought and practices of Indigenous peoples” to make it compatible for North American realities (p. 9). In his book, Red Skin, White Masks, Coulthard explores the subjectivity that is enforced on Indigenous people by colonialism and the complications that arise. Coulthard may not be an explicit Marxist, he probably does not go around claiming to be ML, his aim is more to mold Marxism into a weapon for Indigenous people and not the other way around. Personally, I find this to be a worthy cause that more should be aware of. I can’t do justice to a full summary at this time, but to partially summarize the book I will focus primarily on the context shift toward colonialism that Coulthard uses alongside his views on primitive accumulation. Most of this will be from just the introduction. I’ve chosen this because I believe this text provides a bridge between Indigenous thinkers and Marxist thinkers and can be a kind of gateway for a complex topic. Hopefully, this can expose comrades here to Indigenous thinking that can help us understand what is to be done. Subheading: Into the Weeds This context shift is a move toward a context of colonial instead of just capital relations by way of primitive accumulation. He defines colonialism as structured dispossession and utilizes chapters 26-32 of Capital vol I to stand on this. He writes (p.7): In Capital these formative acts of violent dispossession set the stage for the emergence of capitalist accumulation and the reproduction of capitalist relations of production by tearing Indigenous societies, peasants and other small-scale, self-sufficient agricultural producers from the source of their livelihood—the land. Many are already familiar with Primitive Accumulation, but I will attempt to flesh it out regardless. Primitive accumulation often seen as a temporary state of brutality were it forcefully opens up “what were once collectively held territories and resources to privatization” which inevitably leads to proletarianization. It is this violent transformation of non-capitalist relations into capitalist, market relations that constitutes primitive accumulation. Before continuing on to how Coulthard would like to recontextualize primitive accumulation he briefly touches on the fact that Indigenous thinking and Marxist thinking are oftentimes at odds. Part of his goal is to rescue both Indigenous people from the oftentimes racist, chauvinist, reactionary attitudes that Marxists often deploy and rescue Marxism from a “premature rejection” by Indigenous thinkers (p. 8). By doing so (he holds that feminist, queer, anarchist, and post-colonial thinking will be helpful) he believes more light can be shed on colonial domination and resistance. Transforming Primitive Accumulation In order to transform Marx’s primitive accumulation, he addresses three problematic features, and several important insights about these features. Some of these criticisms you may already be familiar with. The first feature is “Marx’s rigidly temporal framing of the phenomenon” (p9). The idea here is that PA (primitive accumulation) is confined to a specific phase in time. For example, in England PA has passed and completed but in the colonies PA is present. Along with many other Marxian thinkers (like Harvey et al), a persistent role of PA is what we should see, and certainly with neoliberal hegemony. “[U]nconcealed, violent dispossession continues to play in the reproduction of colonial and capitalist social relations in both the domestic and global contexts” (p9). The second feature is normative developmentalism. This is basically what was especially present in early Marx, a modernist view of history. This leads some of Marx’s work to portray PA as a historical inevitability that is apart of a historical metanarrative. Coulthard seeks to rescue Marx from this fallacy by shifting emphasis from capital relations to colonial relations. Marx sees PA as a process of dispossession that leads to proletarianization. His concern was with understanding capital as a social relation dependent on the separation of workers from the means of production. Thus Marx was not nearly as preoccupied with dispossession as he was with arriving at proletarianization as a focus (p11). He writes (p11): By repositioning the colonial frame as our overarching lens of analysis it becomes far more difficult to justify in antiquated developmental terms (from either the right or left) the assimilation of non-capitalist, non-Western, Indigenous modes of life based on the racist assumption that this assimilation will somehow magically redeem itself by bringing the fruits of capitalist modernity into the supposedly ‘backward’ world of the colonized. This is something late Marx was more comfortable with. However, his point is well taken. I personally have seen “patsocs” of the last few years attempt to say what happened to Indigenous people was merely them being added to the work force. Proletarianization, but ignoring the colonial relations in order to assert this was a natural and inevitable event, even a desirable one. Also, I find that within the academy, Marx is often taught as a snapshot of his early self, so this criticism is good for those who have been confined to early Marx (Tangentially I think the academy misrepresents Marx’s totality regularly so its good to have criticisms that are not based in liberal chauvinisms.) It is evident that “egalitarian” voices will use modernist fallacies to reproduce dispossession. For example, advocates who seek a return of the commons fail to understand that there are no “commons” in Canada or the US. There is only the land of the First Peoples. He writes (pg12) By ignoring or downplaying the injustice of colonial dispossession, critical theory and left political strategy not only risks becoming complicit in the very structures and processes of domination that it out to oppose, but it also risks overlooking what could probe to be invaluable glimpses into the ethical practices and preconditions required for the construction of a more just and sustainable world order. Further insight into this critique regards the role of Indigenous labor. As industrial capitalism matured in North America, Indigenous labor was rendered increasingly (though not entirely) superfluous. This helps us furthure understand why the context of colonial relations and the emphasis on dispossession can illuminate more than the normative developmentalist views that prioritize proletarianization can. Forgive my metaphor, but in many ways the civilization policies that were levied against Indigenous peoples were the John the Baptist that preceded the Christ of industrialism. This is seen in how slavery was spread through Henry Knox’s civilization policy, something I’d be happy to post about separately another time. As Canada’s commissioner of Indian Affairs wrote in 1890, “The work of sub-dividing reserves has begun in earnest. The policy of destroying the tribal or communist system is assailed in every possible way and every effort has been made to implant a spirit of individual responsibility instead.” (Note the red scare language. This is something that is present throughout the history of Indigenous resistance to colonialism.) However, you could point to proletarianization as a distraction, usually it is said dispossession was meant to facilitate proletarianization, but for Indigenous people dispossession was meant to acquire land and resources for capital. Dispossession is the “dominant background structure” and “continues to inform the dominant modes of Indigenous resistance (p13).” He writes further: (p13) The theory and practice of Indigenous anticolonialism, including Indigenous anticapitalism, is best understood as a struggle primarily inspired by and oriented around the question of land—a struggle not only for land in the material sense, but also deeply informed by what the land as a system of reciprocal relations and obligations can teach us about living our lives in relation to one another and the natural world in nondomination and nonexploitative terms—and less around our emergent status as ‘rightless proletarians.” Grounded normativity cannot be stressed enough as a key for understanding pan-Indigenous philosophies and how they can interact with Marxism. For Indigenous philosophers, ethics cannot be simply separated from cosmology, or from anything, certainly not from land. The universe itself has a moral character that is revealed by co-relationality. I would recommend works by Vine Deloria Jr and Richard Atleo to have a better feel for how this works although Coulthard himself gives good insights himself later in the book. For now, grounded normativity can by defined as “the modalities of Indigenous land-connected practices and longstanding experiential knowledge that inform and structure our ethical engagements with the world and our relationships with human and nonhuman others over time” (p13). I will focus on this more in later posts if I can. Another insight into normative developmentalism that is briefly mentioned, is that it doesn’t always see the land itself as exploitable, people are. There is a tendency to deploy poor understandings of the environment and a presumption that Marxism is designed to ignore ecocriticism. I did not go into detail about grounded normativity, but we can already see that if we see Land as a system of relations then this anti-environmental tendency is problematic for Indigenous thinking in unique ways even when it is routinely levied by ecological thinkers. A final insight into normative developmentalism is economic reductionism. I’ll let quotes take this one as other authors tackle this regularly and I’d rather his voice shine for this article. He writes: (pg 14-15) …the colonial relation should not be understood as a primary locus or base from which these other forms of oppression flow, but rather as the inherited background field within which market, racist, patriarchal, and stat relations converge to facilitate a certain power effect—in our case, the reproduction of hierarchical social relations that facilitate the dispossession of our lands and self-determining capacities. Like capital, colonialism, as a structure of domination predicated on dispossession, is not ‘a thing,’ but rather the sum effect of the diversity of inter locking oppressive social relations that constitute it.” Basically, shifting toward colonial relations doesn’t “displace” class struggle, but “situates these questions more firmly alongside and in relation to the other sites and relations of power that inform our settler-colonial present.” OK so now on to the 3rd and final problematic feature. Which is more of a question on governmentality. This one is interesting because I think his peers have pushed against this. Basically, he believes that because the liberal Canadian state is developing less overtly brutal methods of subjugation it differs from the explicitly and incredible violence that Marx asserts goes hand in hand with primitive accumulation—as Marx says, “dripping from head to toe, from every pore, in blood and dirt.” He asks readers: (p15) What are we to make of contexts where state violence no longer constitutes the regulative norm governing the process of colonial dispossession, as appears to be the case in ostensibly tolerant, multinational, liberal settler polities such as Canada? Stated in Marx’s own terms, if neither ‘blood and fire’ nor the ‘silent compulsion’ of capitalist economics can adequately account for the reproduction of colonial hierarchies in liberal democratic contexts, what can? I take this as more of a question of understanding what the state is up to than a statement that violence has lost its place in primitive accumulation. Much of the book is about “recognition” and how relying on state recognition is bunk, so in that light, it makes sense to me to ask these questions in hopes of understanding the role that pursuing state recognition plays in primitive accumulation. But clearly violence is still the status quo for Indigenous people, thus I find this to be his weakest but most intriguing point. Conclusion So, I have laid out Coulthard’s initial points on primitive accumulation. In the future I hope to make a post on more parts of this book, and maybe others as well. I especially intend to flesh out grounded normativity and recognition, which the book is mostly about in the first place as I think these can be helpful concepts for comrades.

GenZhou CountryBreakfast • 2 years ago • 100%

Over the last several years I have, in song with others, pushed for priorities to be directed toward a “socialism with American characteristics.” The discourse that the quest has generated has often been a disaster. The obvious worst of this being the “patsoc” thinking that has thankfully quieted for the most part. In order to better advance this cause of creating a revolutionary theory, and to combat my personal angst which arises in the face of Maoists trying to force me to read about the Philippines instead of something that could be even more relevant for North America, I believe it would be generative to show an example of how Marxist theory has been used by Dene scholar Glen Sean Coulthard. Not entirely unlike how Mao and the communists of China facilitated a “sinophication” of Marxism, some scholars and activists are arguably indigenizing Marxism, or making it “transformed in conversation with critical thought and practices of Indigenous peoples” to make it compatible for North American realities (p. 9). In his book, Red Skin, White Masks, Coulthard explores the subjectivity that is enforced on Indigenous people by colonialism and the complications that arise. Coulthard may not be an explicit Marxist, he probably does not go around claiming to be ML, his aim is more to mold Marxism into a weapon for Indigenous people and not the other way around. Personally, I find this to be a worthy cause that more should be aware of. I can’t do justice to a full summary at this time, but to partially summarize the book I will focus primarily on the context shift toward colonialism that Coulthard uses alongside his views on primitive accumulation. Most of this will be from just the introduction. I’ve chosen this because I believe this text provides a bridge between Indigenous thinkers and Marxist thinkers and can be a kind of gateway for a complex topic. Hopefully, this can expose comrades here to Indigenous thinking that can help us understand what is to be done. Subheading: Into the Weeds This context shift is a move toward a context of colonial instead of just capital relations by way of primitive accumulation. He defines colonialism as structured dispossession and utilizes chapters 26-32 of Capital vol I to stand on this. He writes (p.7): In Capital these formative acts of violent dispossession set the stage for the emergence of capitalist accumulation and the reproduction of capitalist relations of production by tearing Indigenous societies, peasants and other small-scale, self-sufficient agricultural producers from the source of their livelihood—the land. Many are already familiar with Primitive Accumulation, but I will attempt to flesh it out regardless. Primitive accumulation often seen as a temporary state of brutality were it forcefully opens up “what were once collectively held territories and resources to privatization” which inevitably leads to proletarianization. It is this violent transformation of non-capitalist relations into capitalist, market relations that constitutes primitive accumulation. Before continuing on to how Coulthard would like to recontextualize primitive accumulation he briefly touches on the fact that Indigenous thinking and Marxist thinking are oftentimes at odds. Part of his goal is to rescue both Indigenous people from the oftentimes racist, chauvinist, reactionary attitudes that Marxists often deploy and rescue Marxism from a “premature rejection” by Indigenous thinkers (p. 8). By doing so (he holds that feminist, queer, anarchist, and post-colonial thinking will be helpful) he believes more light can be shed on colonial domination and resistance. Transforming Primitive Accumulation In order to transform Marx’s primitive accumulation, he addresses three problematic features, and several important insights about these features. Some of these criticisms you may already be familiar with. 1) The first feature is “Marx’s rigidly temporal framing of the phenomenon” (p9). The idea here is that PA (primitive accumulation) is confined to a specific phase in time. For example, in England PA has passed and completed but in the colonies PA is present. Along with many other Marxian thinkers (like Harvey et al), a persistent role of PA is what we should see, and certainly with neoliberal hegemony. “[U]nconcealed, violent dispossession continues to play in the reproduction of colonial and capitalist social relations in both the domestic and global contexts” (p9). 2) The second feature is normative developmentalism. This is basically what was especially present in early Marx, a modernist view of history. This leads some of Marx’s work to portray PA as a historical inevitability that is apart of a historical metanarrative. Coulthard seeks to rescue Marx from this fallacy by shifting emphasis from capital relations to colonial relations. Marx sees PA as a process of dispossession that leads to proletarianization. His concern was with understanding capital as a social relation dependent on the separation of workers from the means of production. Thus Marx was not nearly as preoccupied with dispossession as he was with arriving at proletarianization as a focus (p11). He writes (p11): By repositioning the colonial frame as our overarching lens of analysis it becomes far more difficult to justify in antiquated developmental terms (from either the right or left) the assimilation of non-capitalist, non-Western, Indigenous modes of life based on the racist assumption that this assimilation will somehow magically redeem itself by bringing the fruits of capitalist modernity into the supposedly ‘backward’ world of the colonized. This is something late Marx was more comfortable with. However, his point is well taken. I personally have seen “patsocs” of the last few years attempt to say what happened to Indigenous people was merely them being added to the work force. Proletarianization, but ignoring the colonial relations in order to assert this was a natural and inevitable event, even a desirable one. Also, I find that within the academy, Marx is often taught as a snapshot of his early self, so this criticism is good for those who have been confined to early Marx (Tangentially I think the academy misrepresents Marx’s totality regularly so its good to have criticisms that are not based in liberal chauvinisms.) It is evident that “egalitarian” voices will use modernist fallacies to reproduce dispossession. For example, advocates who seek a return of the commons fail to understand that there are no “commons” in Canada or the US. There is only the land of the First Peoples. He writes (pg12) By ignoring or downplaying the injustice of colonial dispossession, critical theory and left political strategy not only risks becoming complicit in the very structures and processes of domination that it out to oppose, but it also risks overlooking what could probe to be invaluable glimpses into the ethical practices and preconditions required for the construction of a more just and sustainable world order. Further insight into this critique regards the role of Indigenous labor. As industrial capitalism matured in North America, Indigenous labor was rendered increasingly (though not entirely) superfluous. This helps us furthure understand why the context of colonial relations and the emphasis on dispossession can illuminate more than the normative developmentalist views that prioritize proletarianization can. Forgive my metaphor, but in many ways the civilization policies that were levied against Indigenous peoples were the John the Baptist that preceded the Christ of industrialism. This is seen in how slavery was spread through Henry Knox's civilization policy, something I'd be happy to post about separately another time. As Canada’s commissioner of Indian Affairs wrote in 1890, “The work of sub-dividing reserves has begun in earnest. The policy of destroying the tribal or communist system is assailed in every possible way and every effort has been made to implant a spirit of individual responsibility instead.” (Note the red scare language. This is something that is present throughout the history of Indigenous resistance to colonialism.) However, you could point to proletarianization as a distraction, usually it is said dispossession was meant to facilitate proletarianization, but for Indigenous people dispossession was meant to acquire land and resources for capital. Dispossession is the “dominant background structure” and “continues to inform the dominant modes of Indigenous resistance (p13).” He writes further: (p13) The theory and practice of Indigenous anticolonialism, including Indigenous anticapitalism, is best understood as a struggle primarily inspired by and oriented around the question of land—a struggle not only for land in the material sense, but also deeply informed by what the land as a system of reciprocal relations and obligations can teach us about living our lives in relation to one another and the natural world in nondomination and nonexploitative terms—and less around our emergent status as ‘rightless proletarians.” Grounded normativity cannot be stressed enough as a key for understanding pan-Indigenous philosophies and how they can interact with Marxism. For Indigenous philosophers, ethics cannot be simply separated from cosmology, or from anything, certainly not from land. The universe itself has a moral character that is revealed by co-relationality. I would recommend works by Vine Deloria Jr and Richard Atleo to have a better feel for how this works although Coulthard himself gives good insights himself later in the book. For now, grounded normativity can by defined as “the modalities of Indigenous land-connected practices and longstanding experiential knowledge that inform and structure our ethical engagements with the world and our relationships with human and nonhuman others over time” (p13). I will focus on this more in later posts if I can. Another insight into normative developmentalism that is briefly mentioned, is that it doesn’t always see the land itself as exploitable, people are. There is a tendency to deploy poor understandings of the environment and a presumption that Marxism is designed to ignore ecocriticism. I did not go into detail about grounded normativity, but we can already see that if we see Land as a system of relations then this anti-environmental tendency is problematic for Indigenous thinking in unique ways even when it is routinely levied by ecological thinkers. A final insight into normative developmentalism is economic reductionism. I’ll let quotes take this one as other authors tackle this regularly and I’d rather his voice shine for this article. He writes: (pg 14-15) …the colonial relation should not be understood as a primary locus or base from which these other forms of oppression flow, but rather as the inherited background field within which market, racist, patriarchal, and state relations converge to facilitate a certain power effect—in our case, the reproduction of hierarchical social relations that facilitate the dispossession of our lands and self-determining capacities. Like capital, colonialism, as a structure of domination predicated on dispossession, is not ‘a thing,’ but rather the sum effect of the diversity of inter locking oppressive social relations that constitute it.” Basically, shifting toward colonial relations doesn’t “displace” class struggle, but “situates these questions more firmly alongside and in relation to the other sites and relations of power that inform our settler-colonial present.” 3) OK so now on to the 3rd and final problematic feature. Which is more of a question on governmentality. This one is interesting because I think his peers have pushed against this. Basically, he believes that because the liberal Canadian state is developing less overtly brutal methods of subjugation it differs from the explicit and incredible violence that Marx asserts goes hand in hand with primitive accumulation—as Marx says, “dripping from head to toe, from every pore, in blood and dirt.” He asks readers: (p15) What are we to make of contexts where state violence no longer constitutes the regulative norm governing the process of colonial dispossession, as appears to be the case in ostensibly tolerant, multinational, liberal settler polities such as Canada? Stated in Marx’s own terms, if neither ‘blood and fire’ nor the ‘silent compulsion’ of capitalist economics can adequately account for the reproduction of colonial hierarchies in liberal democratic contexts, what can? I take this as more of a question of understanding what the state is up to than a statement that violence has lost its place in primitive accumulation. Much of the book is about "recognition" and how relying on state recognition is bunk, so in that light, it makes sense to me to ask these questions in hopes of understanding the role that pursuing state recognition plays in primitive accumulation. But clearly violence is still the status quo for Indigenous people, thus I find this to be his weakest but most intriguing point. Conclusion So, I have laid out Coulthard’s initial points on primitive accumulation. In the future I hope to make a post on more parts of this book, and maybe others as well. I especially intend to flesh out grounded normativity and recognition, which the book is mostly about in the first place as I think these can be helpful concepts for comrades.

Always the Same Map CountryBreakfast • 2 years ago • 98%

Edit: [this](https://vizthis.wordpress.com/2017/02/21/i-want-to-believe-ufo-sightings-around-the-world/) article is the source

GenZedong CountryBreakfast • 2 years ago • 100%

Seems like the narative around demand from China has changed every few hours for like a year. Either too many covid restrictions or too much covid. Either opening up will drive prices up or opening up is underwhelming but still driving prices up? It's hard to follow I swear the last year or so China narratives are just market manipulation tactics

GenZedong CountryBreakfast • 2 years ago • 100%

Honestly I wish the political compass was actually useful. It would be a nice heuristic if it had any basis in reality. Instead it is a red herring, or worse. Many know this already. However because I am forced against my will (authority 🤬) to engage with it, I will now talk shit about the fucking cumpiss here. The sin of the cumpiss: The greatest flaw in the political compass is without a doubt the fact that half of the compass relies on the Authoritarian vs Libertarian binary. This binary is more than foolishness. I would argue that it is a component of neoliberalism and its ability to produce de-mobilizing ideologies which actually reinforce and reproduce neoliberalism. Leading up to the neoliberal era imperialists relied on the devolpment theories of modernization. You gotta maintain labor discipline, you gotta get your technology up, promote individualism, be western, accumulate capital (you need IMF loans so be sure to get into debt please), and get those liberal institutions that Jesus loves so much up and running. Importantly, use the state to do this, but within reason, you still gotta be libs of course, but the state is a great tool for this. All of this is connected, so if you start on one place (promote individualism for example) then it will intuitively and naturally spread into another aspect (forming liberal institutions). In effect, this model just fucking steamrolls over the peoples and cultures of the world and drew them into dependency and exploitation. Neocolonialism basically enforced by your own government. Now this next part important. After the west corrupted the "post colonial" governments and left the people justifiably pissed at their governments, they pivoted. Neoliberalism is like a response to the reactions against the post WW2 modernization theory. Oh so you don't like the government now?? Well how about yall just privatize and deregulate?? Who needs the government anyway? It must be part of the problem! There is a lot more to the rise of neoliberalism that I am ignoring but it's quite possible to just see it as a weaponized distrust of government that came from imperialists enforcing liberal development models accross the word. The point is that general "anti-government" sensibilities (libertarianism) are, in part, more popular as a result of bourgeoisie development models. It's why anarchism is not only underwhelming as a path to revolution, but arguably part of the problem. It is a perfect de-mobilizing ideology because it lauds libertarian (cough liberal cough) ideals while attempting to resist capitalism and thus the authoritarianism it opposes. Back to the cumpiss: western "analysis" (deragotry) Neoliberalism is usually placed in the authoritarian right. But we can see how libertarianism, the bottom half of the cumpiss, is actually part of neoliberalism as a demobilizing ideology that helps perpetrate the totality. Neoliberalism of requires both authoritarianism and libertarianism to function! How can a fucking 4 quadrant cumpiss ever fucking show this?!?!? It cant! If this is true then how can neoliberalism exist as both authoritarian and libertarian? But in fact, this contradiction is evident in how neoliberalism is enforced. Labor discipline (read class warfare) is still a mjaor point in neoliberal models, but this can't really be enforced without the state. So the same state that neoliberalism seeks to undermine because government is the problem, is actually still needed. So some hypocrisy is actually encouraged and built in. (it's a grift) So in order to use the political cumpiss you have to begin by saying that development models, ideologies, and the actual practices differ wildly and actually demand hypocrisy. Otherwise none of it makes any sense. How is this acceptable??? The answer is "analysis." It is baked into western thought to dissect, seperate, and categorize things. This is "analysis." By removing the context, the relationships, connections, and contradictions between everything, analysis will create ideology that does not line up with practice. Yet this is how western epistemology believes is the best way to understand the world. "Analysis" (derogatory) is what leads us to want the political cumpiss in the first place. It's why, deep down, I wish that it was a heuristic that actually helped us understand politics. Luckily Marxism is more able to take a totalistic view that can see things in context, relation, contradiction etc, than other western views might and so it is more intuitive for the marxist (or non liberal) to be put off by the cumpiss, even before reading On Authority or getting into more explicit politics and class analysis (not deragotry 😜). The needless and unhelpful seperation and isolation of things and ideas is what I believe drives people to treat ideology as they would candy in a candy shop. Believing somehow that through the sheer magic of their objectivity and "analysis" the liberal can merely decide the candy that looks most appealing (like the nazi in The Last Crusade) without the context and relations that are just as crucial to understanding nature as are its divisible parts. Ultimately we can't do this if we want to understand the world and craft useful models that can explain it.

GenZedong CountryBreakfast • 2 years ago • 100%

My relationship with balloon is over. Airship is now my best friend.

GenZedong CountryBreakfast • 2 years ago • 100%

oilprice.com

It will probably continue to outlive its welcome, but the storyline regarding Saudi Arabia and the seemingly terminally ill petrodollar gives us hope that US hegemony cannot last forever. It's fun that the Mises Institute is concerned lol

GenZedong CountryBreakfast • 2 years ago • 100%

oilprice.com

While it's not clear US energy is interested in acquiring European oil assets, apparently they are in a position to do so because of the polycrisis. Chevron recently spent many billions on stock buy backs so maybe it won't happen. Many of us have predicted this situation would arise so im curious how it will pan out.

GenZedong CountryBreakfast • 2 years ago • 100%

finance.yahoo.com

IMO the politics around the war in Ukraine among other things has emboldened oil nerds in a profoundly dangerous way.

GenZedong CountryBreakfast • 2 years ago • 100%

So I discovered that there are trotskyists in my circle of acquaintances. I typically only meet Maoists and Anarchists, so this is a change. It's weird that it is so easy to find all these communists without finding any ML types. Anyways.... Im curious about the so called trot to imperialist pipeline that I have heard people talk about. My only point of reference is Christopher Hitchens, who iirc went from criticizing Kissenger from a leftist point of view to the face of liberal imperialism and atheist Islamophobia. Edit: I also think it is interesting that Michael Hudson seems to have avoided this. Idk that he calls himself a trot anymore, but he was DEEP in the trotskyist scene as he grew up. His contributions have been very important and he hasn't fallen down the imperialist slide the way Hitchens did.

GenZedong CountryBreakfast • 2 years ago • 100%

www.google.com

Basically Oil/Gas is using state legislatures to strong arm and punish shadow banks for not investing *enough* into oil/gas. They use a mix of "its a woke corporate agenda" and raw sinophobia to accuse these major investors of basically working against the American people. Reactionaries are welding the state to bring the capitalist class in line with the imperialist interests of the US. This is an era of oil wars and oil/gas is working to become the leading force in American politics. Soon these accusations will be made in the US Congress. The article: The Texas Legislature subpoenaed BlackRock on Wednesday over its ESG investment practices, accusing the Wall Street firm of refusing to turn over previously requested documents about how the company’s environmental, social and governance policies affect its handling of the state’s public pensions. The chairman of the Texas Senate Committee of State Affairs, state Sen. Bryan Hughes, demanded information from BlackRock and three other major investment firms in August about how its stances on left-leaning priorities like climate change and social issues influence its investing practices while operating in the energy-rich state. Mr. Hughes, a Republican, said that while BlackRock and the other financial institutions produced at least some documents, BlackRock “refused to provide documents it considers internal or confidential.” “The committee needs these documents to uncover the extent to which these firms have been playing politics using Texans’ hard-earned money,” Mr. Hughes said. “We will not allow these firms to continue to use Texans’ money to force a narrow political agenda. They have a legal duty to put their investors’ interests first, and we intend to make sure they do.” The subpoena demands that further information be delivered in person. In addition, Mr. Hughes requested that BlackRock and the three other firms that his committee has received documents from — State Street Global Advisors, Vanguard Group and investment advisory group Institutional Shareholder Services — voluntarily testify before his panel on Dec. 15 during a hearing on the effects of ESG on state pensions. In a statement, BlackRock did not address the accusations or its future plans regarding additional documents and testimony. “We look forward to continuing our engagement with the committee to share BlackRock’s work on behalf of millions of investors,” a spokesperson said. The action taken by the Texas committee marked an escalation in the GOP’s fight against financial institutions that’ve gone woke for ESG, policies that Republicans say are anti-fossil fuel because firms consider issues like climate change rather than focus solely on maximizing returns. Red states, especially those whose economies are reliant on oil and natural gas production, have put firms like BlackRock on notice. BlackRock is one of the world’s largest asset managers with roughly $10 trillion under its control. But even as Republican officials in several states have cumulatively divested more than $1 billion in public retirement funds, BlackRock has largely avoided facing public questions about its ESG policies. That could change if Texas is successful in getting the company and others to testify. BlackRock has previously pushed back on the notion that it’s “boycotting” fossil fuels, noting that it has invested tens of billions of dollars in public energy companies. Still, GOP officials have refused to let up, with Republicans like West Virginia Treasurer Riley Moore seeking to take the anti-ESG fight to Congress. “We are witnessing a reckoning for these asset management firms that have until recently thought they could take hardworking Americans’ money and use it to drive their progressive agenda, and in some cases send those dollars to the Chinese Communist Party, with no consequence for their malfeasance,” said Will Hild, executive director of Consumers’ Research. The conservative nonprofit advocacy group launched a multimillion-dollar campaign against BlackRock and CEO Larry Fink in August for “weaponizing” retirement funds. “Now you can’t turn on the TV or read the news without BlackRock claiming to be a good steward of the assets they’re mismanaging via their ESG charade,” Mr. Hild said.

GenZedong CountryBreakfast • 2 years ago • 100%

Happy Pearl Harbor Day comrades. On that day US president FDR forced it upon himself the impossible task of telling Americans to care about a place that some still don't even see as legitimately part the US even today due to their racist, colonial understandings of themselves and the world. Americans (especially in the military) definitely did not care about the millions of Filipino people, and other pacific peoples, that both Japanese and American imperialists would kill in their war for dominance over the Pacific Ocean, its nations of both people and more than human, and their resources. Few Americans know the incredible death toll inflicted on the people of the Philippines and much less the death toll the US military inflicted during "liberation," particularly in Manila. None of these deaths were seen as an American death, none of the US soldiers believed they were liberating US territory or American people. To this day many believe that the US has not been invaded for centuries, forgetting that the Philippines was legally a US territory and that Philipino people were part of the US Empire. This common and inaccurate view of history is the child of racism, colonialism, and the incredible privilege and arrogance it takes to forget you used to litterally own another nation not even a century ago. This apathy, this callous colonial mindset, enabled imperialists to view colonized people as a burden on the metropole leading up to WW2, and after. This drove American "post-colonial" history toward privatizing much of its empire, including the Philippines, with neocolonial policies that synergized with the post war world. It is also seen in the coinciding Termination era that destroyed many Native institutions in the US mainland for timber capital, leading to a new era of settler-colonial genocide after the wars end. Today we can still see this mindset in plain view with strangleholds on remaining US territories such as Puerto Rico, yet too few understand that these places exist and are part of the the US Empire. Glory to the Nations of the Pacific, glory to the PLA, the Soviet Red Army, the Korean People's Revolutionary Army, and the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army (and all I am ignorant of) for driving Japanese imperialism off of the Asian mainland and securing a future with many possibilities. May the Pacific Ocean one day be liberated from its imperialist occupation that was reinforced by the devestating war waged between Japanese Empire and the US Empire and may solidarity between the Pacific Nations and North American Indigenous Nations and their accomplices grow stronger with international kinship. (Sources: https://youtu.be/ZaKOOqXDnqA)

World News CountryBreakfast • 2 years ago • 100%

They are abolishing the "morality police" and discussing more issues as well. It sounds positive, though I doubt this addresses all concerns. The title links to the article. I saw a comment on reddit saying in the news tomorrow they will have made an "ethics police." Very funny lib. The news tomorrow will probably be warmongering because the state department can't control protests any more.

World News CountryBreakfast • 2 years ago • 100%

www.irishtimes.com

The article: Investment in German and EU industrial projects such as battery-cell factories will be unfeasible if the region’s policymakers fail to control ballooning energy prices in the long-term, the head of Volkswagen’s namesake brand said. “Unless we manage to reduce energy prices in Germany and Europe quickly and reliably, investments in energy-intensive production or new battery-cell factories in Germany and the EU will be practically unviable,” VW brand chief executive Thomas Schaefer wrote Monday on LinkedIn. “The value creation in this area will take place elsewhere.” An outline for industrial-policy co-operation hatched by the French and German economy ministers last week “falls short in crucial areas, and does not address the envisaged priorities”, Schaefer said. Europe’s energy crisis is compounding pressure on how to respond to the US’s Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s climate and tax law that aims to boost domestic production of electric cars and reduce reliance on China for battery components and materials. EU officials have said the subsidy programme violates World Trade Organisation rules and discriminates against non-US companies. Schaefer said the EU’s programmes don’t focus enough on “the short-term ramp-up, scaling and industrialisation of production” , criticising what he called “outdated and bureaucratic state-aid rules”. Volkswagen plans to have six battery factories in full operation across Europe by 2030 under its battery company PowerCo, which broke ground on its lead plant in Germany in July of this year and signed a €3 billion joint venture with Umicore in September for cathode material production. – Bloomberg

GenZedong CountryBreakfast • 2 years ago • 100%

oilprice.com

My suspicion has been that the narrative around China's covid protests and restrictions, has functioned to manipulate markets and investors by illustrating a collapse in demand in China. Many are championing gas prices in the US because they are going down (which could save Biden's upcoming presidential bid), but this may not stand as things develop because the situation in China has been misrepresented by the media.

GenZedong CountryBreakfast • 2 years ago • 100%

en.m.wikipedia.org

So this is something that gets brought up at school, usually in lectures about corruption. The narrative goes that corruption becomes more likely every time a leader is elected and so long tenured leaders are prone to corruption. So an African billionaire (they don't mention he has British citizenship in my experience) set up a $5M prize to give to African leaders for being good. It has been highlighted that this is a major anti corruption initiative because it encourages leaders to not stay too long in office and thus limit corruption. However to me this smells like a sham. A billionaire rewarding people for a lack of corruption and promoting good governance sounds like corruption. It sounds like interference with government, with the democratic process that libs tirelessly espouse, as well as a healthy side of reputation laundering. There is never much discussion on if this has been found to actually help at all but there is definitely no discussion on if this is actually part of the problem, or if $5M is even enough to insentivise anti corruption, nor is there much nuance when it comes to the whole "long term leaders are corrupt" narrative.

GenZedong CountryBreakfast • 2 years ago • 100%

www.newyorker.com

That is all.