Everyone will not agree.

Westerners aren’t helpless innocents whose minds are injected with atrocity propaganda, science fiction-style; they’re generally smug bourgeois proletarians who intelligently seek out as much racist propaganda as they can get their hands on. This is because it fundamentally makes them feel better about who they are and how they live. The psychic and material costs are rationally worth the benefits. As for those anti-imperialists who don’t participate in this festival of xenophobia — and here I include myself — we have our own elitist consolation: we accept the tragedy of masses of gullible sheeple falling for cunning propaganda because having overcome it flatters our own intelligence. The more we condemn society’s stupidity, the smarter we feel in comparison.

https://redsails.org/masses-elites-and-rebels/

Their backwardness reveal their true character while they purport to defend civility - their barbarism.

Reactionary tears are a source of important nourishment; we are at war.

Kwame Ture:

https://youtube.com/shorts/stNSnhzHSvY

Their accusations are confessions.

For all their bleating they would rather Trump win than stop the genocide.

If you would like some optimism: it appears the global south is slowly turning off that tap of superexploitation from the west and their vassal satellites; subsequently these outdated neoliberal economies are imploding from within as they increasingly do not have that subsidy of surplus value.

And yet too many people still believe that inflation is primarily due to “too much money chasing too few goods” (and therefore need to stiff the working classes of their income some more).

Harris’ personal problem: the internalisation of white supremacist imperialist politics.

In an alternative timeline she would have been better off internalising Frantz Fanon’s “Black Skin, White Masks” instead.

/edit: clarity

Sounds as suspiciously sourced as the Statistics School of Stéphane Courtois

Good. Now implement democratic centralism to expedite economic development and keep the snakes at bay.

Fascism at the service of the American Empire.

Democrats are more keen on being complicit in a genocide than beating Trump. Bourgois electoralism at its finest.

My whole life, I’ve only had one client: the people.

Which people?

If the take in this video (YourCommieDad) is true then this is so much more worse than just tailism (ie they are American Strasserites): https://youtu.be/7S6zqrQ2vbI

Addendum: At this stage Liger and Garrido are not Strasserites but they need to be careful who they associate with and they should condemn the impression of tailism, and furthermore educate themselves about accomodating the reactionary (and ridding themselves of any reaction). One can become the company one keeps.

Gramsci cautions against workerism especially catering the reactionary in order to gain appeal; here he is criticising the Socialist Party of his time:

“The Socialist Party claims to be the champion of Marxist doctrines. One would therefore expect the Party to possess in these doctrines, a compass to steer it through the confusion of events. One would expect it to have that capacity for historical foresight that characterizes the intelligent followers of Marxist dialect. One would expect it to possess a general plan of action, based on this historical foresight and to be in a position to issue clear and precise orders to the working class, engaged in its struggle. But instead, the Socialist Party, the champion of Marxism in Italy — just like the Partito Popolare, the party which represents the most backward classes in the Italian population — is exposed to all the pressures of the masses and it shifts and alters its position following the shifts and alterations of the masses. This Socialist Party, which proclaims itself to be the guide and educator of the masses, is in fact nothing more than a wretched clerk, recording the way in which the masses are operating of their own accord. This poor Socialist Party, which proclaims itself to be at the head of the working class, is nothing more than the baggage-train of the proletarian army.”

TLDR: the importance of leadership and vanguardism (especially as opposed to tailism).

Via Roderic Day: https://redsails.org/the-communist-party/

It appears this ACP is led by pat-socs and tailists masking class lines accomodating reaction with their blend of producerism ultimately bowing down to capital (they clearly lean towards a false distinction between finance and industrial capital).

/edits for clarity

Silver lining if they can siphon both democrat and republican votes utlitising better geopolitics.

However, they are giving an awful impression of right wing tailism, and if this is that then history suggests that it will end badly.

(And I need to read Losurdo’s Class Struggle.)

“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” - LBJ

I feel the above has been universalised to some of the colonised.

And your penultimate statement reminded me of another book to add to my reading list: The Mahatma and the Ism by EMS

Hindutva could be framed as an inferiority complex towards white people turned inwards and against minorities to feel more superior, backed by an economic system justifying fascism. With so much to be proud of from India it is telling of a person’s lack of inner strength to prostrate before such a failure of an ideology.

Maybe have Vijay Prashad play on the TV (or loudspeaker!) in the background? :)

/edits for clarity and levity

It sounds like as if he has an inferiority complex; his esteem is based on the supposed achievements of others. He is wilfully uneducated and proud of his pseudo-science.

If he is genuinely interested in further reading there is a whole host of books he can be introduced to (How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, A People’s History, The Jakarta Method, Darker Nations or more liberal books such as Inglorious Empire, Confessions of an Economic Hitman or 23 Things You Didn’t know About Capitalism to name a few). You could even potentially start with the fact that you are not a liberal?

However, you are up against an onslaught of propaganda to justify white supremacism. Relatively recent developments suggest that rest of the world may be slowly turning off that tap of superexploitation so expect to see a lot of coping and seething.

If he has made statements which have frustrated you because you instinctively knew were wrong but could not provide an immediate retort then take it as an oppurtunity for further reading and exploration.

Please take care of your mental health. In practice it will be challenging to persuade him off his delusions so you may want to invest emotionally and in time elsewhere.

/edits for clarity

Addendum - a word about privilege - one cannot choose one’s ancestors (biological or cultural) but one can choose not to defend their barbarism, and instead sincerely attempt to understand the world as it is to better it; guilt leading to empty nihilism is useless.

It’s almost as if the economic “science” for the justification of neoliberalism is ad-hoc.

Thanks (again)! (Never thought about telegram subscriptions as a resource for news aggregate)

Thanks for sharing these stories from the global south.

Can I ask what news aggregate source you use if any? There are sites I frequent but the only “aggregate” resource I know is MR Online.

1. It may be that faced with overwhelming bourgois societal pressures including the culture of personal capital accumultation and a liberal/fascist education system both formal (schooling) and informal (media; news and entertainment) bends one’s personal worldviews towards a certain arc. Personal material wealth can of course be a factor here but one only needs to look in the west the perspective of some older poor folks and how reactionary they can be despite their experiences. Their experiences are real but they fail to understand the contradictions of their environment.

2. However, it is objectively not universally true especially when you consider the bulk of MLs in the west and global south come from backgrounds of bourgois indoctrination.

3. I suspect a significant amount of us MLs are labour aristocrats.

4. There are many older folks who are leftist educators including more famous ones whose books and articles we have read / reading, whose interviews and videos we listen and watch (I am going to include non-ML here as well because the perspective was people become more conservative as they grow older, this proves that it is certainly not the case)

5. “You can’t resist for very long a truth you discover for yourself.” ― Nikolai Chernyshevsky (via Roderic Day)

/edits for clarity