When it comes to settler-colonialism --- it literally is black and white. Both in the "epidermalization" of colonial dehumanization unfolding in history as white supremacy vs black and brown inferiority; but also in the fabric of colonialism and colonial relations in general. The colonizer makes the colonized into the embodiment of all evil, so the colonizer can be the embodiment of all good in oppressing them. "Civilization vs barbarity" as espoused by all European colonialists and likewise espoused by the earliest (explicitly settler-colonial) Zionists like Theodor Herzl, who wrote in such terms to arch-racist and settler-colonial genocidaire Cecil Rhodes asking for support; as well as stated explicitly now by Netanyahu in public international forums and to US congress.

Those "civilized" colonialists engage in worse barbarism than any of their victims could have imagined; and need necessarily for their victims to be made into an effigy of irredeemable unsolvable-but-through-violence evil to escape the dissonance and contradiction. And this contradiction between the inherent inner-demand of the colonized to embrace, embody, and express their humanity against the inherent and inherently violent colonial dehumanization perpetrated and perpetuated against them by the colonizer sharpens itself, by the resistance of the colonized producing fear and anger in the colonizer, and indignation that the "civilized good" would be challenged and assailed by the "barbarous bad," and as such this is taken as PROOF of the inhumanity and savagery of the colonial subject; and so reprisals are carried out to reestablish the existing exploitation and dehumanization and further deepen and entrench it. And in doing so, the colonialist becomes more the embodiment and executor of the 'barbarism and inhumanity' that they project onto the colonized, which then spurs more resistance in the colonized against their own dehumanization.

In this way colonialism and the colonial relationship dehumanizes both the colonized and the colonizer, in very black and white ways. The colonized only regain their humanity by realizing and embracing the truth of their own humanity in defiance to the colonizer's violence-backed assertions (in word and deed) of the inhumanity of the colonized. And in doing so, the colonized realizes that it is infact the colonizer who lacks humanity, by engaging in violently stripping and denying the humanity of the colonized for their own gain; and it is the colonizer who is the embodiment of the evil that is projected onto the victim; and hating them is righteous because to embrace and assert the colonized subject's own humanity is to accept and express-in-full the total intolerability and grotesque violent reality of the colonial relationship. And the full expression of this acceptance means the full-frontal challenge and assault upon the very core structures of colonialism and the colonizers in the only language it and they understand --- which is violence. The colonized is only able to embody and express their full humanity when they cease to be colonized; which means the ceasing, through any means necessary, of the colonizer and the colonial relationship. Which is and has always been maintained through extreme violence; and as such can only be overcome by more extreme and greater violence which is sufficiently organized and strategically, tactically, and politically educated and disciplined to overcome the immense power imbalance arrayed against them. This is a material reality, and a historically borne-out reality.

The colonizer likewise can only regain their humanity through being destroyed as colonizer. Whether that is through:

• destruction of the individual (in which they bleed and die like any other human being, they regain their connection to humanity, and to their own humanity; death being the great equalizer)
• or through surrender to the terms of the colonized and abolishment of the colonial relationship which means abolishment of the pre-existing power dynamic and total unequivocal submission to the new rule of the previously-subjugated, in which by accepting surrendering of any and all special privileges over another human being, they become equal to other humans, reconnected to humanity and to their own humanity
• or otherwise fleeing or being expelled in sufficient numbers that the colonial regime collapses, in which the previous-colonizers, in their new places of refuge, will not and can not maintain the same differential of violence and power that they had left behind over the local population, their new neighbors. The local population, established and entrenched with sovereign governance, would not tolerate those welcomed in to wage a violent colonial dehumanization campaign for exploitation, and the previous-colonizer, understanding this, accepts their new station as equal to other human beings, and so the previous-colonizer, is a *previous-*colonizer ie not any longer a colonizer, and as such regains their connection to humanity and to their own humanity.

As the colonizer, benefiting immensely in material terms from being the colonizer in the colonial relationship, is loathe to give it up, this can only ever be done through organized violence against them, combined with sufficient threat of its expansion and continuation out-competing and out-stripping the total capability for the colonial military, police, and settler-militias to continue on in the way they had previously, and out-stripping the ability for the colonizer's foreign sponsors to maintain or justify domestically maintaining the colonial project which itself necessarily requires wildly disproportionate and extreme violence, oppression and repressions, in order to enforce the implicit understanding of "the proper place" of the colonized, and make the colonizer and the colonial relationship seem to the colonized as unassailable and eternal as if it were a fundamental law of nature.

This is also why historically, in independence and decolonization struggles and uprisings, for every 10 colonizers killed, 400 colonized are killed and entire villages burned or bulldozed in reprisal, and their bodies made symbols of "what might happen to you if you raise your head like they did." It is a deliberate reassertion of the colonial relationship of the superior vs the inferior, the human vs the inhuman, the powerful vs the weak. But the reality of this relationship is ineffable, can not be spoken of in these clear (real) terms, because the implication of its naked reality inherently proves the inhumanity of the colonizer and undermines their basis of being the 'eternal good against the eternal bad;' but and even more urgently, this real reality of the colonial relationship being known is damning for the colonizer, as it proves the necessity on the part of the colonized to engage in violent armed struggle with extreme severity against the colonizer to win the humanity that is denied them, and which will otherwise never be won. In all of this, it is very black and white.

I highly recommend reading Frantz Fanon for more understanding of colonialism and settler-colonialism in these ways; and the dialectical nature of the relationships and psychologies between the colonizer and colonized. Right now resources are up on the Internet Archive. The Wretched of the Earth (which should be required reading for anyone in the west to be honest); and Black Skin, White Masks are essential to speak with knowledge on these relationships if you're not subject to them, and so live the experiences; though the texts can give language and concrete materialist analysis to those lived experiences and so are valuable regardless. Fanon was writing about the Algerian independence struggle but the concepts are as universal as European colonialism is. It has inspired many anti-colonial revolutionary struggles since his time, including as a core inspiration for the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army. It is necessary to engage with these works to understand colonialism.

If you then feel inclined to broaden understanding of the material interests of organized society and build out understanding of the underlying economic systems and frameworks behind the evolution of these colonial and imperial states coming into being into a 'wider picture,' Marx and Lenin can help; but I don't think they are at all necessary precursors, as Fanon does an immense deal of his own unique legwork to illustrate everything cohesively without need for external resource; and does an excellent job of encapsulating and expressing his own analyses in a concrete historical and dialectical materialist methodological framework himself without additional work of the reader, and simply "stretching" Marxist conceptions where it didn't reach far enough or grip the road enough in order to encompass colonialism and independence struggles in its actual internal relationships-between-peoples --- as Marx mostly spoke of colonialism in broad terms of how it served the primitive accumulation of capital on which the industrial revolution was built and so followed the division of society into bourgeoisie and proletariat classes; and that the self-liberation of proletariat could only happen through first the liberation of slaves, as a necessity of historical evolution of societal social relations. Lenin wrote about nations' right to self-determination and the capitalist evolution into capitalist-imperialism; though with a more external and structural perspective in broad political conceptions relevant to the revolutions in Europe and Eurasia during his time. Exceedingly incisive and still-valuable information, but is less focused and relevant to the topic of the relationships themselves. But if you struggle with Fanon, some basic Marx and Lenin might help lay a foundation.

What does that have to do with the internal collapse of the USSR?

you've still not made any actual assertions. "The internal collapse of the USSR" makes it seem like you're gesturing toward having some actual knowledge, which you're refusing to disclose, instead making smug assertions that this hidden vague knowledge that you refuse to declare means you're right. So, what does "the internal collapse of the USSR" actually mean to you? What are you imagining (the pictures and words in your brain) when you say "the internal collapse of the USSR," and what were the causes in your opinion for whatever you're imagining?

It doesn't seem like you actually know what you're talking about, because you're desperately avoiding making real substantive statements in any of these comments, instead throwing tantrums when pressed on what you actually think. Tell us your actual positions, without petulant 'McCarthy-if-he-was-a-redditor' tantrums, or otherwise stop pretending to have any.

But we both know that’s not why it collapsed.

okay, then tell us why you think it collapsed? These vague insinuations and gesturing don't prove your point, they make it seem like you're unsure of the basis of your own assertions.

Edit: And for the record, the first ever experiment of a modern socialist country in history, with no earlier examples to work off of, succumbing to a series of both external and internal contradictions doesn't say anything concretely about the viability of socialism as a whole. In fact, their massively successful strides toward constructing new relations of society, and the betterment of living standards for the vast masses of its people, and the provided security of housing, employment, nutrition, community, and healthcare which was established after fully collectivizing and industrializing (industrializing in 1/10 of the time it took the west to industrialize, without the fundamental basis of primitive accumulation through global colonialism, settler-colonialism, genocide, chattel slavery, child labor, aggressive wars, and malthusian sanitation practices that under-girded the western industrial revolution; and doing so after suffering such destruction in WWI and the civil and counter-revolutionary-interventionist war no less) proves there are extremely strong cases for it being a model of success to learn from and build off of, while learning from its shortcomings and mistakes.

Cases in point:

• These NATO Generals Had Unusual Backgrounds: They Served in the Third Reich
• When the CIA Bankrolled a Nazi Spy Chief
• (Said spy chief and his organization)
• Documents: CIA concealed Nazi war criminals
• Revealed: How the CIA protected Nazi murderers
• How [CIA-hired] Nazi butcher Klaus Barbie helped kill Che Guevara and unleash global cocaine scourge
• CIA ORGANIZED SECRET ARMY IN WESTERN EUROPE
• How Nazi Billionaires Thrived in Postwar Germany
• Loyal to their Class, Unhinged from Democracy [US political economic elite connections with German Industrialists & Nazis]
• Revealed: How Israel Turned Nazi War Criminals Into Mossad Agents

---

There's a long and ongoing history of this; for the US, UK, and Israel.

• [DECLASSIFIED] - CIA INVOLVEMENT IN UKRAINIAN NATIONALISM
• {2014: Ukraine crisis: Transcript of leaked Nuland-Pyatt call [where they hand-picked new regime; Oleh Tyahnybok is Nazi leader of Svoboda party]
• [2014:] How the far-right took top posts in Ukraine’s power vacuum
• [2014:] TORCH-LIT MARCH IN KIEV BY UKRAINE'S RIGHT-WING SVOBODA PARTY - BBC NEWS
• [2016:] Congress Has Removed a Ban on Funding Neo-Nazis From Its Year-End Spending Bill
• [2018:] Israel is arming neo-Nazis in Ukraine
• [2018:] Ukrainian neo-Nazi C14, known for racist and homophobic attacks, gets public funding for ‘patriotic education’
• [2018:] Ukrainian Militia Behind Brutal Romany Attacks [Nazi group 'C-14'] Getting State Funds
• [2019:] The Russians and Ukrainians [operating out of Ukraine] Translating the Christchurch Shooter’s Manifesto
• [2019:] How to Mainstream Neo-Nazis: A Lesson from Ukraine’s New Government
• [2019:] MASS Neo-Nazi Marches in Ukraine today to honour Stepan Bandera
• [2020:] Nationalist marchers [including Tyahnybok's Svoboda] in Kyiv say Ukraine is under ‘occupation’ by ‘Jewish clan’
• [2021:] Like, Share, Recruit: How a White-Supremacist Militia Uses Facebook to Radicalize and Train New Members

And just for fun, and just in case

• Ukraine Channel 24 – Host Calls for Genocide Against Russians! (16.3.2022)
  here's [PROOF from their own source's "apology" lol]
• "To fight, kill, fulfill the tasks of the West" - "Bandera Readings" in Kiev, Ukraine [by C-14 leader Yehvan Karas]

The "middle class" never existed. The "middle class" is an invented wedge to split the working class and try to turn segments of itself, against itself. It has no material basis. It is the 'myth of upward mobility under capitalism' distilled into a propaganda phrase to obscure the dualistic and antagonistic class relations in capitalist society between the PROPERTIED and UNPROPERTIED (those who own capital and those who do not), and the contradictions and conflicts therein.

It is false consciousness; personified by and in the 'middle manager' who is PROPERTYLESS (proletarian), but paid more and promised the "opportunity of more to come" to align themselves with the interests of the PROPERTIED, and take on the role of a low-level overseer -- to function as both a compliance enforcer and a mediative focus-dulling pain-sponge standing in the middle of, and soaking up the conflict between, the ONLY REAL TWO CLASSES IN CAPITALIST SOCIETY: The Worker, and the Capitalist.

"Middle class" is liberal sleight-of-hand in its core and conception, and a term to be derided and discarded in all use, except as a magnifying glass to show the ways capitalism distorts and deceives about the real nature of its own properties and relations; and how the ruling class generates and contributes to the development of false consciousness through their reframing of production's own characteristics, in order to reify into political "identities" to be captured and capitalized upon those roles which naturally manifest out of the laws of functional industrial-productive logistics, ie. the need for 'managers' to administrate complex or large-scale productive and distributive tasks. This serves double roles in the laws of colonial and imperial relations in places like the USA, as this distinction is also in practice highly racialized and rooted in the ongoing historical unfolding of these basal-and-superstructural systems of exploitation.

Make note of the conspicuous absences and obfuscations when duopolist-exploiter X or Y says they "fight for the middle class;" that they are not fighting for you or me in the working class, but pandering to those "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" that they've bought off enough or otherwise tricked into this false consciousness, to give them their ever-shrinking electoral margins they require and fight each other over so they don't have to pay any mind to the working class masses who make up the majority; because they in reality work for the big bourgeois, the capitalists, and the petty-bourgeois "small business tyrants" who think of themselves as capitalists --- all at the expense of the working class domestically and abroad.

literally the house burning dog meme

I’ve come to realize that a significant portion of people just think other people should die and that’s fair and they’re OK with being the ones to do it.

It has always been this way. Particularly because there are people and groups who actively materially benefit from the enforced poverty/slavery and oppression of other people and groups within the social organization of our societies. The enforced poverty/slavery will never stop without sufficient and sufficiently organized, centralized, disciplined violence to overcome those who actively benefit from the enforced poverty/slavery by means of the same; and then maintaining that authority over the exploiters until their interest and strength are no more.

It's the same reason why there's never been a "peaceful bloodless decolonization." Why would the colonizer ever willingly permit that? They would be, from a standpoint of their own material interest as a societal class, complete morons to do so and make such a willing choice. Which is why (and this is historically borne out) they must be not given a choice by an organized militant anti-colonial resistance. This is also why the "authoritarianism" criticism of the doctrine and practice of revolutionary groups like Castro's revolutionaries or Lenin's Bolsheviks is laughable; the liberal peanut gallery can only have that criticism because they succeeded and survived to be criticized; having overcome the oppressors who, in the event of the revolutionaries' failure (historically borne out in how every failed revolution played out including the previous ones in those countries); would show the truth of themselves as 1000x more vicious, having honed that capability for 100x longer.

Look up any countries' "Red Terror" in history, then look up their corresponding "White Terror." You will see [wiki:NSFW images if you click on them]. Or read about any decolonization struggle. Like in Algeria, where every uprising that killed 10 Frenchmen resulted in a colonial reprisal with hundreds of butchered Algerians.

We live in a material reality with material interests which are enforced by people who will use your pacifism as a means to exploit you easier, and kill you easier if you even are seen as inconvenient or 'in the way' of those interests, let alone if you resist and struggle against them. And that argument has been happening since Marx and Engels' time in the framework of materialism; and was exactly the realm of rationale behind the policy of terror with the Jacobins before that in the French Revolution; from which many later revolutionaries took lessons and learned from the mistakes and refined within their contemporary material conditions and circumstances.

I’d rather be dead

hey cool, then you can request the judge for the death penalty instead of life (people have done that before). But you don't get to make that decision for other people. And to do it over your tax money? (which by the way, is a fraction that your employer steals from the value you produce for them every day)? it's a misanthropic and myopic selfish callousness; whether or not you have struggled it is a sign of insularity to ascribe your experiences to others and how it "should be", and to do it in such a transactional way is even more disturbing.

I’d like to know how much you can cope with...

unclench your jaw and breathe friend, this is unreasonable

Stop acting like liberal Trumpers and the name wouldn't mean anything. "Blue MAGA" didn't come from nowhere. The "agenda" you're speaking of is holding up a mirror to you and the near-entirety of your party and its hypocrisy and dishonesty, and its corporate arms-dealer backers in the Miliary-Industrial-Media-complex, and uncritical upscale-college-liberal footsoldiers and the tantrums you throw to avoid confronting uncomfortable realities

You don't seem to allow yourself to be a very deep thinker when it comes to your electoral "team." Have you considered maybe that communists are anti-genocide and anti-fascist? Are anti-colonialism? Are anti-imperialism and anti-death-merchantry from these private arms manufacturers? All of which happens with open handshakes and benefits and with the eager help of the majority of establishment Democrats? That communists criticize the Democrats who participate in these things, for their active participation in these things?

Unlike Liberals who can only think in abstract ideals and empty rhetoric to then be indignant and status-quo defending at being confronted with reality, or can only see things in terms of individual identity politics instead of material class relations and material historical context, Marxists have a scientific methodology for approaching politics, events, information, etc. which is rooted in class interest and material conditions. These are criticisms based on their material actions, and when a politician's material actions are good --- are against these bad things; when their actions are anti-genocide, anti-imperialism, anti-war, anti-arming extremists in proxy wars, anti-nuclear brinksmanship etc. (Almost as rare for Democrats as it is for Republicans), then those actions are said to be good, but there are held no other illusions or delusions or weird idealist or identity fixations like Liberals have --- like you clearly have.

Communists are against these bad things --- are against genocide, imperialism, colonialism, exploitation, war and proxy war, etc.; but and also realize that all of these things are inherently and inexorably linked to the growth of the capitalist system and the interests and needs of its ruling class for defending markets and cheap sources of labor and resources for capitalists to exploit, and control and crush competition or resistance to that expansion and theft; and that these things arise due to the inherent and irreconcilable contradictions of the capitalist system (which the bourgeois politicians depend and defend and are agents of; and whose police and army are the enforcers of) and the capitalist social relations; such as the need for constant growth to stave off crises and collapse even if all markets are saturated by capitalists; the need for profits necessarily maximized and costs necessarily forced (often through direct or indirect socio-economic systemic violence) to minimum in order that the capitalist can extract as much surplus value to make active as capital as possible in order to reproduce capital and expand their capital and markets in order to not "lose" in competition and be cannibalized by other capitalists; that this capital which is inherently concentrating in the hands of the few and the most vicious and the most cost-suppressing due to the private extraction of the surplus value provided by socialized labor and the 'jungle-law' of capitalist competition.

Communists have also been vehemently anti-Obama and anti-Clinton and anti-Kerry, not because they "are Democrat" but because they, as Democrats, used their mandate to for instance utterly destroy Libya --- previously the richest country in Africa, instigating multiple ethnic cleansing campaigns and turning it into an open air-slave market; and trying to do the same in Syria, even allowing ISIS to take root and grow and capture cities to use as proxy warriors and turning both of these regions into an Al Qaeda and ISIS playground which was supplied by US weapons rubber-stamped by the Democrat president and most Democrats in congress.

Communists have hated Obama and Trump both for being nearly indistinguishable in their barbarity toward immigrants, just as communists see as an enemy Biden for continuing to do the same and worse. Communists also hate Obama and Trump for their indistinguishable bipartisan also-genocidal arming and funding and participating in slowly genociding Yemenis for a decade, one hospital, wedding, and schoolbus full of children at a time.

Communists pointed out that Obama's cabinet was hand-picked by Citigroup and his bailing out the banks was not an anomoly, not because "Democrat," but because of the material interests that, in material reality, Obama shamelessly represented and furthered; regardless of any advertising rhetoric out of his and his supporters' mouths -- it was and is his actions that matter. Same when communists point out that Biden brought into his administration a bunch of the most bloodthirsty neo-cons he could find like Nuland and Blinken; and that he reappointed a Trump-admin judge who was Chevron lawyer who defended destroying the Amazon and poisoning Indigenous people and jailing their most prominent vocal opponent. Same when communists point out that Biden went around congress twice to ship guns and bombs to the Zionist occupation faster than even they were already bipartisanly moving toward hoping they'd would wipe Gaza's inhabitants off the map before election time so they wouldn't face such ongoing political consequences and the mass-defections from their party and mass protests demanding an end to this genocidal atrocity they support.

I've seen many of your comments, and you're remarkably bad-faith when it comes to politics. It often comes across as petulant. And it is very telling and indicative of where your values and interests actually lie that you spend more time and energy lashing out at those who criticize the Democrats for their participation in genocide, neo-colonialism, imperialist nuclear brinksmanship sponsored by arms-manufacturers, and far right and mass-murderous economic and immigration polices, and who advocate for starving them of the working class margins that they take for granted and rely on for a mandate; than you ever spend advocating for the sufficiently-near-unanimous-to-just-say-Democrats Democrats to stop this genocide which they could with a phone call.

Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib are anomolies, exceptions to the rule in these kinds of cases, and communists support their (and any) action against exploitation, imperialism, genocide, colonialism, war, etc. But they stand and have stood alone in a party of vampires, and for taking these stands they've faced endless persecution and betrayal and slander and maligning and sidelining by 'their own' party, including even their former allies of the "Progressives" (don't laugh!) of "the squad."

When a 3rd party rises, with my and others' support, Ilhan and Tlaib would probably abandon the Democrats like 'rats from a sinking ship,' along with every other progressive-minded individual communist-or-not who haven't already (which many have over the years, me included, and will continue to). Stop lashing out at the 3rd party voters and critics who have a conscience, and a material understanding, and a memory longer than that of a goldfish; and instead force your own 'team' to reckon with what they are and became; or otherwise admit you're a nationalist that likes these terrible things being this way because you benefit; or otherwise admit that the critics are right and join them.

Makes one think who all has been benefiting from the expansion of militarism and conflict, doesn't it? But no need for us to worry, because I'm certain the peace-loving Democrats, who I'm assured by very democracy-valuing liberals, are despite all appearances definitely not nearly-indistinguishable from the open-fanged right-wing Republicans, and will stop this US militarism which is destroying the planet faster than anyone.

Pay no attention to the 3rd parties who actually come out against militarism; If we just give the wing of the bipartisan-imperialists who actually rely on working class margins whatever votes they want regardless of their actions forever, then surely because of how appreciative they are of us that they will gift to us some result that's remotely different than all of exactly this and exactly what brought us here... right?

God idk what version I'm even using. I never update programs like this unless I have to. From breaking things, to confusing my workflow and moving things around; I've always been more frustrated than thankful. I haven't updated Reaper in ages too and I'm certain they're better about keeping continuity than anyone.

Edit: lol people are mad about my own software updating habits? why and how are .worlders this way? I can't imagine the realities they live in, and am glad so

It's very weird having scrolled in my feed toward the world stuff. It almost seems artificial, like the redditors all collected here with all the hivemind weirdness and astroturfing.

and yeah, Democrats would rather send their dark-money and 'venture-capitalist'-funded PAC lawyers to purge 3rd parties from ballots (really democratic, Democrat party; I'm writing in PSL regardless if they can't get back on and telling everyone I know to) than make themselves appealing at all to the people abandoning their moribund and redundant party 'like rats from a sinking ship'.

They would rather fight with the Republicans over the (shrinking) voter base of rich and upper 'middle class' petty bourgeois rightwingers, and alienate all of their leftwing base, and continue abandoning the 35-50% that straight up don't vote for either of these duopoly-of-exploiters in this fascist-and-vampire show, than reorient toward positions of "not genocide" or "not nuclear-brinksmanship forever-war proxy-wars" or "not-constantly bipartisanly increasing and expanding the US military and neo-colonial racketeer system which is incidentally one of the leading contributors to climate change."

or "not continuing filling the world with CIA torture camps" or "not being just as or in some ways more right wing than trump on immigration somehow

It's telling that they refuse to do any of these things a large portion of the population wants; to the point where Muslim groups are advocating voting for 3rd parties who aren't for drinking the blood of Palestinians (apparently a tall order for US politicians), and instead would rather put so much effort into demonizing and crushing 3rd parties who do advocate against these things.

I don't even know if they're capable of not flying to the right and pandering to right wingers more and more due to their donor base. Their structure is inherently based on funding and campaigning and working for the worst billionaire imperialists and arms-dealer death-merchants in the world and AIPAC and tech monopolies etc. If we all pushed up the PSL to hold their working class margins hostage that they (unlike republicans) actually rely on and take for granted, they might break in half trying to reorient. Maybe they'd float a reformist party to prevent everyone going socialist against the open-fanged republicans who nobody ever had any illusions about and half the dems who are basically republicans will join them, and the other half will flee to the new reformist party (probably alienating their "left wing" into more radical politics because that party would become democrat-ified)

People just want to be lied to about the Democrats that they're different and 'acting resistance' at all to the republicans, when they're really not that different --- and where they (barely) are different, they just capitulate and help the Republicans do whatever they were going to do, in the name of "bipartisanship" and "reaching across the aisle". Like when Obama had both houses of congress and refused to enshrine women's bodily autonomy and LGBTQ civil rights into law. And then gave away a free Supreme Court seat in capitulation. Then Biden denounces the idea of pushing to expand and pack the court because it'll "politicize the court" as if that ship isn't gone past the horizon forever, while doing nothing as women's and LGBTQ rights are torn down throughout the country, even with a Democrat president. It's almost like they don't actually care, or even like when women's rights and LGBTQ rights are under attack because they can drum up fear about the republicans and look 'better' by comparison after creating the problem in the first place, and keep the vampire-and-fascist (dog-and-pony) show going, and get all the gullible liberal votes that "they'll vote for us anyway --- we're not the republicans" Which circles back to why they're so scared of and pushing demonization and repression of 3rd parties I guess. That's a pretty sweet cruise-control-deal they have hoodwinking the populace in a sort of face/heel drama for their 'audience'

As in from Republican voters? Who cares? If from politicians, then there might be some weird political games with that candidate.

But besides, that's really your concern? Democrats get funding from billionaire imperialists and arms-dealing weapons-manufacturer death-mechants. Which have successfully lobbied for the expansion of militarism for decades which has proven incredibly profitable and is also destroying the planet faster than almost anything

Both duopoly parties get funding from the worst racketeers, liars, and murderers of the world; the richest most monstrous exploiters that exist. I'm not voting Green, I'm voting for Claudia De La Cruz for PSL --- but taking swings against the greens who are one of the few taking anti-war stances vs these duopoly-of-imperialists who are unified in genocide and always have been unified in genocide, and are continuing to be unified in all of the worst policies including now Biden doing Trump's border shutdown after deregulating and privatizing some of the concentration camps (a very Republican thing to do), just makes no sense.

The people who need this consent-manufacturing level of criticism of OP and a lot of comments are not the Greens or other 3rd parties; the people who are ruining the world and the country are not the Greens and other 3rd parties. Muslims have been coming out in support of the 3rd parties because the Greens and PSL and West's party are the only ones not being actively evil. Democrats have no reason to not be actively evil and keep flying to the right if everyone's going to vote for them no matter what because they're "((barely) not the republicans).

No, I’m saying make noises in rooms where you can be heard.

I agree. And if you seriously wish this then you will agree with us that we must all vote PSL, (or Green if you're a liberal, and your state is strong for it) to visibly starve the democrats of the working class margins that they actually rely on (unlike the Republicans) --- that they have forsaken; instead choosing to fight over the (shrinking) bourgeois and petty-bourgeois voter-base on the right with the Republicans and accepting for granted the working class margin they NEED for a mandate.

The way to be heard by the Democrats is to starve the Democrats of the votes they rely on, and instead giving them to organizations which deserve them; while and in doing so visibly elevating and joining with the socialists and throwing our weight behind them and continuing to throw our weight behind them; so that if the Democrats ever want power again, they are FORCED to reorient; and if they don't (and they might break in half if they tried --- a good thing for democracy and workers, breaking the duopoly from the ground up in light of a rising Socialist party), the masses who never held any illusions about the Republicans in the first place will become increasingly radical; and the PSL elevated by us will be there to brief them and into the wings bring them, and the revolutionary moment comes all the sooner. And the further-elevated a real left party is, that both is elevated in elections and on-the-ground with our help organizing working people around material issues like the PSL does; the more those 35-50%, who have stopped voting entirely because of how betrayed and disaffected and abandoned they've been by the vampire-and-fascist show of the single-party-with-two-faces-duopoly, will be reactivated; and reactivated with purpose and direction under a banner of Socialism and Liberation. If you're actually interested in building revolution, and/or you're actually interested in "making noises in rooms where you can be heard" and/or you're actually interested in taking the most intelligent decisive steps toward breaking up the dupoly and progressing the standing of the socialist movement and the working classes of the world and alleviating suffering of those under imperialism; this is not only the best option --- it is the only option.

Because right now, the democrats have ZERO reason to not totally disregard any and all of these demands or desires or criticisms (as they have been doing) because "they'll vote for us anyway --- we're not the Republicans!" and you are standing as an active agent to defend that and further that for them so they can continue all of this with your mandate and all those you mislead. Which is exactly how and why things got to this point and the Democrat party has become so right wing. As it stands The Dems are sending PAC-lawyers to purge 3rd parties from ballots because they're scared. And we have watched them utterly disregarding and talking down to and violently repressing large portions of their own constituency on the left making demands on them, such as to end the murderous nuclear-brinksmanship and arms-dealer and billionaire-imperialist financed proxy wars, and to STOP THIS GENOCIDE; and the same bad-faith slanders are used to malign them.

The genocide that Biden sidestepped around congress twice to shovel guns and bombs to execute faster than even the imperialists and zionists in Congress could — who were already themselves bi-partisanly moving to do the same; meanwhile the Dems and their obedient college-liberal footsoldiers are browbeating Palestinian rights groups and leftists and people who are sick of facilitating this crap by shaming them for wanting to vote their conscience or politics, through pretending Trump is worse rather than the same, and we need to vote for Democrats "for the Palestinians" who themselves have told us that both parties are the same to them and whose biggest representative base in the US are, as per the article in the OP, TELLING US NOT TO VOTE FOR THE DEMOCRATS; And how is Trump worse for Palestinians one might ask them? Only because Trump is telling the TRUTH about what he wants. He's OPEN about it. The "harm reduction" they're advocating --- you're advocating --- is doing the same harm as, while somehow managing to be more duplicitous and dishonest about it than Donald Trump. That's the state of things, that the "lesser evil" is lying more than Trump about Palestine.

Biden wanted Gazans wiped off the face of the earth before the elections hit because he wanted to avoid exactly this; and now they haven't; and to not push for there be electoral consequences is a shameless opportunist dereliction of democratic duty. It would be too a callous disregard for the suffering of those Palestinians if we allow this cynical ploy to work and let their martyrdom be in vain, that we do not allow it to help us break apart the bipartisan genocide machine step-by-step in the most effective ways we can. The Palestinians have said that there is no difference between the duopoly candidates for them, and Muslims in the US are also saying this as linked above. The Democrat wing of the ruling class NEED TO BE REMINDED of who gives them their mandate; by punishing them for actively continuing this and stating in published statements it's going to continue and nothing policy-wise will change while at the same time lying to our faces in vague gestures during speeches about how 'we need a ceasefire in gaza!' when they could pick up the phone and make that happen, and don't and we know they won't.

This exact delusion that you hold regarding the duopoly-of-exploiters (many of whom donate to the Democrats and then vote republican, and win either way) is exactly how the Democrats have flown rightward for decades, because "they'll vote for us anyway." Without any actual reason to fear being starved of their working class margin, they can continue to have outright anti-human policies and become more and more indistinguishable from the Republicans, and where they are still vaguely distinguishable constantly capitulate in the name of "reaching across the aisle" to the Republicans anyway, furthering all of the same policies.

They can continue to be no different than the Republicans on increasing the funding and expanding the planet-destroying global-militarism. No different on financing, growing, and supporting the fascistic and bipartisanly-militarized police state. No different on increasing the funding and power of surveillance, intelligence, and gestapo agencies in the US and using them to COINTELPRO anyone who challenges them; including Black radicals who've been in the struggle for decades with more bad faith slanders, and the old "outside agitators" schtick and dogwhistle (just like Walz used when sending in an army to repress an uprising in Minneapolis) while pretending to be a friend to any minority. No different on the global racketeering of neo-colonialism and using asset theft and sanctions as a genocidal weapon to mass-murder children.

They can keep doing this because they have no reason to stop, they get in power anyway because of this mindset they've conditioned in you. They can work to continue to outflank the Republicans on the right on immigration like they've been doing, continuing the rightward-slide legacy of Obama the "Deporter-in-Chief" and his border cages and draconian policies ---where Biden not only didn't close the concentration camps he said he was going to, but actually deregulated them and opened them up for (and advertised for) private subcontracting of the border concentration camps for profit. Which is somehow worse than Trump was. And he even did things like an executive order to totally shut down the border, a far right action that was blocked by the courts when Trump tried the same thing.

How have I known about Varoufakis for years as a serious political economist and speaker-on-the-topic, and never heard he was a Valve employee with a catalogue of 'gaming-economics' blogs in the early 2010s? LMFAO what a world

That article is literally just reporting what the president did. How does that mean they're "pro-gun control?" Do you not even read the articles and just seethe and shit yourself about what you think about the wording of headlines? You are such a raging rightist ideologue you have been blinded to all reality and don't even understand the things that you are mad at. Is this satire? Are you a real person who engages in media and politics like this or have I been trolled?

If you're serious, the US must have gasoline in the water or something (but ah that would be COMMUNIST to regulate that; or even report on it!)

"typical Hamas press"

CNN

deeply unserious individual

No, neolibs have figured out how to placate segments of the (ever-shrinking) petty bourgeois and defeatist windbags (like you've allowed yourself to become in saying these things, but can still self-criticize and grow from), who lack or otherwise benefit from not having an active dialectical consideration of the circumstances before us --- in the bare-faced exposure of the sharpened contradictions between mass political movements in society; here between the reactionary bourgeois establishment and its allies, and the advancing of progressive segments and theirs; which itself in the arena of parliamentary and protest politics, and how the media reports on it, are significant representations of wider political trends.

And by not thinking before speaking, and engaging in this liberal and reactionary rhetoric you actively stand in the way of building communism and working class momentum more than Macron does, and you are perpetrating the same "keeping people unaware" that you say the media is. I don't think you should trust what it "sounds like" to you, because I don't think you've given serious thought to any of this. How does the media "keep the majority unaware" when we're, all of us even outside of France, hearing about and talking about it?

And "Things aren't bad enough" for what? For an immediate revolution and dragging Macron to the guillotine right here and now, like we're remotely in a stage of things in material reality where that's what you think "building the communist movement" is? In what way is that, to you, a reasonable framework to analyze the current material conditions and consequences for communists and how to orient within them? And how is it not just unthoughtful and inattentive idealist tripe completely disconnected from the material reality and trajectories that currently exist, and which only serves to justify sitting on your hands and telling others to sit on their hands because you're waiting for... What, exactly? Some utopian revolutionary miracle to pop into existence on its own out of thin air and awake the placated masses (of which surely you're not a part?)? Revolution is built; and its building takes dedicated and active long-term political engagement among the progressive elements of society with communists, even if not yet in the position to dominate its most visible "official" leadership channels, still always at the forefront of the struggle as members of the most politically advanced segment of the working class.

How do you expect to create revolutionaries before having them even come to recognize revolution as, not only an option, but a necessity; which can only be done through these kinds of lived political experiences highlighting and vindicating through agitation and propaganda the correct analyses of the communists, that bourgeois parliament will not and can not be the instrument to achieve their aims?

You're contributing to and advocating placation. Your "it's hopeless why bother" attitude is the "copium" (internet-poisoned term), which serves nothing but to take (and worse, try to further in others' minds) a lazy capitulation into your own placation. Comrade it is not only wrong, but it is intolerable opportunism. It is a reactionary and defeatist attitude, and is not in any way a cogent recognition of the reality --- which is that the amount of rage and disaffection over this in the masses of the working class left-wing (and even just 'not right-wing') populace of France, which were able to mobilize as they did to get such results to compel these self-exposing acts in the ruling class, spills visibly through even the bourgeois-media articles about it. You have to close your eyes and plug your ears to not hear mention of the anger, frustration, exasperation, and that's just what they do mention. I guarantee they couldn't and wouldn't be scratching the surface of those masses that aren't being interviewed who harbor more severe sentiments or would, with proper political education, having experienced this. Many of even the petty-bourgeois reformist leaders of these parties are calling for obstruction and protest as less motivated, more opportunist, and bourgeois-aligned representatives of their much-more pissed off bases who carry much greater potential.

I've worked with and organized alongside US communists that became communists out of their experiences and disaffection over how the DNC and Democrat Clinton campaign undermined and slandered Bernie Sanders and his supporters in that grassroots groundswell. And Bernie and that whole experience was milquetoast and petty compared to this, and had more comprehensive targeted propaganda. And still it made many communists, some of whom have contributed more as more capable Marxists than even I had managed at the time, to elevating the consciousness of the working class and movement-building in their communities, instilling communist political understandings, analytical methodologies of theory and practice, and organizational principles in action around peoples lived material realities and experiences at the hands of the system.

People are pissed, and more than you allow yourself to recognize have, by the reality of the situation and living this political experience, come to or are primed but haven't-yet-been politically educated to understand and advocate, some of the first and most important recognitions, conclusions, and emotions toward bourgeois politicians and their system, and of its bourgeois class character, inherent and unchangeable without smashing it and putting in its place a proletarian dictatorship to maintain power against the these-and-worse bourgeois machinations and reactions.

Just because the masses aren't immediately fulfilling your idealist projections of what you unrealistically 'require' of them to "prove" to you personally that this is a progressive development for the communists (which is opportunist --- rather than trying to engage actively as the most politically advanced segment of the working class to make and lead people to the proper conclusions, you are tailing behind mass movements among and as a member of the least advanced, soaking blankets to throw on the advancing segments in the most critically significant and educational moments); like they're not immediately revolting and dragging Macron to the guillotine over this when that's not the phase that things are in doesn't mean that this is not a progressive development for the communists. I strongly suggest you consider all of this and correct these opportunist and defeatist attitudes, which are misaligned with reality and run counter to progress.

because nothing seems to be working.

This is an inspiring sign for communists. No reason for pessimism. A large mobilization of masses of engaged politically active workers in a state where the masses still largely believe in parliamentarism; who formed sprawling coalitions into a large left national upswelling that also made international headlines, now have themselves and onlookers been shown, better than any propaganda alone ever could, why bourgeois liberal democracy is an impediment to progress rather than a channel for it; and that the Liberals will side with the fascists to keep the left from getting an inch. This has made more communists than you probably realize. Especially if your communists have been reading their Lenin and agitating on this point, which probably a lot of workers didn't even need much agitation to expect this because of the state of things and how just... unbearably awful Macron is in every way

VI Lenin: LWC **Chapter 9: “Left-Wing” Communism in Great Britian**

Lloyd George Macron entered into a polemic... with those Liberals who want, not a coalition with the Conservatives, but closer relations with the Labour Party New Popular Front (NPF)... Lloyd George Macron argued that a coalition—and a close coalition at that—between the Liberals and the Conservatives was essential, otherwise there might be a victory for the Labour Party NPF which Lloyd George Macron prefers to call “Socialist” ... "In Germany it was called socialism, and in Russia it is called Bolshevism," he went on to say. To Liberals this is unacceptable on principle, Lloyd George Macron explained, because they stand in principle for private property. “Civilisation is in jeopardy,” the speaker declared, and consequently Liberals and Conservatives must unite. . . .

... Thus the liberal bourgeoisie are abandoning the historical system of “two parties” (of exploiters), which has been hallowed by centuries of experience and has been extremely advantageous to the exploiters, and consider it necessary for these two parties to join forces against the Labour Party NPF.

...
At present, British French Communists very often find it hard even to approach the masses, and even to get a hearing from them. If I come out as a Communist and call upon them to vote for Henderson Castets and Mélenchon and against Lloyd George Macron and Le Pen they will certainly give me a hearing. And I shall be able to explain in a popular manner, not only why the Soviets are better than a parliament and why the dictatorship of the proletariat is better than the dictatorship of Churchill Barnier and Le Pen (disguised with the signboard of bourgeois “democracy”), but also that, with my vote, I want to support Henderson Castets and the NPF in the same way as the rope supports a hanged man—that the impending establishment of a government of the Hendersons Castets will prove that I am right, will bring the masses over to my side, and will hasten the political death of the Hendersons Castetses and the Snowdens Mélenchons just as was the case with their kindred spirits in Russia and Germany.

...
It is a good day friend. Communism will win, and these liberal politicians are helping it do so. Don't let the systems and their media and propaganda make you believe otherwise in their lies. They're trying to convince you of your own defeat because of the implications if you don't believe you have been, and instead realize they're selling you the rope they will be hanged with; and you push harder in smarter ways that they can't keep up with, using connections built in these mass movements and coalitions which invariably have radical new elements that just need drawn together.

You're ahead of them in this. They've, in a very real dialectical way, undermined liberal democracy and created more enemies to the capitalist systems and institutions than they made allies, by their own blunders in being incapable of conceding anything to intelligently reify socialists back into feckless parliamentary legitimization of bourgeois democracy, and their failures to navigate contradictions in ways that aren't so short-sighted to look absolutely villainous to huge swathes of the population (and internationally, because this was a large enough movement to make headlines around the world; with a knock-on effect for the international proles who see parallels). Macron's so scared of radical politics he's making them everywhere he steps.