Tag: Marxism

Anti-Asian hate is a symptom of intensifying capitalist reaction

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Capital can be resilient. Far more resilient than many revolutionaries have anticipated. Marx predicted that communist revolutions would initially come in the countries where the productive forces are most developed. But save for the eastern part of Germany at the cost of a catastrophic war, none of the core imperialist countries have so far undergone such revolutions. In these places, capital has held on in the face of multiple world wars, depressions, and pandemics, allowing them to continue holding back revolutions in most other places through imperialist meddling.

Anti-Asian hate is a symptom of intensifying capitalist reaction

Black Box East: The role of “the East” in the West’s radical imagination

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Black Box East: The role of “the East” in the West’s radical imagination

Now, the third itinerary is one of romanticism. When the cultural revolution took place in China, European Marxists who felt that the Soviet Union was too boring or gray began to fantasize. You get all these books exaggerating what’s happening in China based on a very little understanding. There is a story from the late 1960s that Ho Chi Minh met an Italian Communist Party delegation. They’re sitting in his secret house, a very modest place; he’s sitting there, characteristically, with a cigarette in his hand and the Italians ask him how they can help Vietnam, a very honest and sincere question as there are American planes above bombing the crap out of Vietnam. But Ho Chi Minh doesn’t say: send us this or that; he says “go home and make a revolution.” He’s saying: sure, we need solidarity, we need tons of it, but we don’t need romanticism. We are making our revolution. We are going to die and sacrifice and yes, we need you out there fighting against the lies that they tell about us. But go home make your revolution. What’s the point of fantasizing about Cuba? Cuba of course needs solidarity today more than ever. Venezuela needs solidarity today more than ever. But go home and make your revolution.

Does Capitalism Make Us Crazy?

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

1 OCTOBER 2021 — SUSAN ROSENTHAL

DOES CAPITALISM MAKE US CRAZY? THE SHORT ANSWER IS YES!

Life under capitalist rule is perilous. We can’t survive on our own, and we can’t rely on society to support us. We live with perpetual uncertainty: Can I pay my bills? Will I lose my home, my job? What happens if I’m sick or injured? Add the constant threat of racism, war, and climate change disasters.

Does Capitalism Make Us Crazy?

Chris Hedges – Who is He, and What is His Purpose?

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Chomsky 2.0

Noam Chomsky is in his 90s. He is not going to live forever. He needs a replacement. That replacement is Chris Hedges. The fragmented and wayward American left needs its celebrity leftists to keep their heads in the clouds, with no clear understanding of a cohesive and liberatory political theory, and their minds away from a genuine strategy of organization and revolution.

Chris Hedges – Who is He, and What is His Purpose?

Marx on technology

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The longest chapter in Capital is the fifteenth, on “Machinery and Large-Scale Industry.” At almost 150-pages, it’s really a book in itself, a staggeringly dense and expansive discussion that could easily standalone—not only as a brilliant exegesis of capitalist machinery, but also as a sweeping social history of technology. At its broadest reach, the chapter is a vivid demonstration of historical materialism in action, of Marx’s method put through its dialectical paces. As ever with Marx, his footnotes aren’t to be passed over glibly: they’re worth studying, pondering over for the nuggets of insight they contain.

Marx on technology

Facebook’s suspension of Donald Trump is not a free speech issue

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Facebook’s suspension of Donald Trump is not a free speech issue

The fact is that social media censorship overwhelmingly targets the left, not the right. Last year, Google CEO Sundar Pichai admitted that the company censors the World Socialist Web Site, and the WSWS remains buried in search results for “socialism,” “socialist,” “Trotskyism,” and “class struggle,” despite being universally recognized as the most comprehensive authority on these issues.

For months, Facebook blocked the sharing of a WSWS article opposing the conspiracy theory that COVID-19 was a Chinese-made bioweapon, and anyone who attempted to share the article was either warned or suspended. Leading members of the WorldSocialist Web Site editorial board—including US managing editor Niles Niemuth—have been suspended from Facebook entirely without cause.

Greenwald and his co-thinkers, while condemning Facebook’s supposed violation of Trump’s free speech, have made no mention of the ongoing censorship of the World Socialist Web Site. In fact, in November, Chris Hedges bluntly refused, in response to an appeal by WSWS international editorial board Chairman David North, to make a statement opposing the suspension of the Twitter account of the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE), claiming he was too busy.

Too busy for a Tweet?! Glenn’s a lost cause, as far as I’m concerned (So is Jimmy).