Welcome to /social/!
/social/ is a general board for socialist topics.
For collaborative projects, including creating agitprop and collaborating with other websites, please visit >>>/praxis/
Read both the Rules and the FAQ pages before posting.
A thread for all those stray posts that don't deserve one.
All great world-historic facts appear twice: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.
Grab some popcorn and post fascist fail. From the desperate displays of their cringey recruits, to the vicious infighting and hypocrite purity-spiraling, the dumb clown gang never fails to entertain.
About to post another neo-Nazi pedophile? We already have a thread for them! >>>/praxis/3
As socialists, we recognise intellectual property is a harmful artificial scarcity. As technology evolves, information has become easier to distribute. Now, with the advent of everyday computers and phones, we can share writing, pictures, videos, 3D models and even computer tools in mere seconds at effectively no cost. We have unprecedented potential to own and share knowledge, download entertainment for free, and to own the means of digital labour by using community-developed 'free and open source' tools.
Remember, if you are committing piracy in a country that attempts to stop it, always wear a VPN! Research them before picking a shit one.
SEIZE OPEN INFORMATION
The concept of libraries has been extended globally with the internet. Of course, with the complexities of international copyright law, and the difficulty of censoring distributed information, many of these are 'shadow libraries', operating without respect for bourgeois copyright law. Famous examples are Z-Library (z-lib), Library Genesis (LibGen) and Sci-Hub. Another virtual library, the borrowing system of Internet Archive, attempts to work openly and within the law, but has recently been attacked by a coalition of publisher companies.
There are also other open datasets, like the widely-used OpenStreetMap.
SEIZE ENTERTAINMENT
Don't waste money on streaming companies.
Don't waste money on film distributors.
Don't waste money on games publishers.
Get all of it for free through online piracy. In cases where you do wish to compensate a creator, donate directly to them instead of letting the distributor exploit them by taking a huge cut of the income.
The online piracy scene is active, and easy to search. Torrenting is easy to learn. Direct download are often available too. Community resources like https://rentry.co/megathread and https://rentry.co/piracy-faq will have good, neat lists of which sites to search and how to stay safe, this should help with finding anything popular.
OWN YOUR TOOLS
Not everything is copyrighted. Alternative 'free' licenses include Creative Commons licenses (for art) and GPL and MIT (for software), allowing you to share and modify content legally.
The Free and Open Source Software movement (FOSS) is a major online paradigm for making free (as in 'freedom') tools. Many of them are already popular, including Firefox, VLC, 7-Zip, Krita, Blender, Godot, Audacity, OBS, Handbrake, LibreOffice, Linux operating systems (instead of Windows/Mac) and the Android base system.
On top of tools for your own computer, many online services are based on FOSS, including Mastodon and Lemmy instances, the many tools at https://disroot.org/en/#services and even Nuclear Change (running fusion, a fork of jschan imageboard software). Other online services include alternate frontends to commercial services - Piped/Invidious, Libreddit and Nitter (for accessing YouTube, reddit and Twitter without ads or commercial tracking). If you want to download videos from sites, consider installing yt-dlp (despite the name, it works on most websites including reddit and twitter).
The FOSS movement presents an interesting overlap with the socialist ambition of seizing the means of production. While this obviously isn't going to overthrow capitalism, it does function comparably to a worker co-operative and provides highly-accessible ways to become independent of for-profit fuckery.
This also has material benefits for the anti-capitalist movement, by reducing the amount of commercial (and therefore state) tracking, allowing independent encrypted communications, by leaving platforms which encourage division, conflict and addiction, avoiding services which can secretly comply with feds, and moving away from platforms that can deplatform and censor at will, whether for their own capitalist agenda or to placate mass media flak and discontent. By creating our own independent services, we can run them as we want and to further our own wants and needs.
This is a thread about parties, orgs, unions, aid and all the rest.
Post your experiences, wins, questions and rants.
Meritocracy is a broad term which can mean many things, including chauvinistic garbage, but I want to consider the simple idea of leadership by the qualified, the most suited.
I'd say this idea is a far-off fantasy in representative democracy under capitalism (the current system for most people here). The election is a popularity contest, where the entrants are effectively only those who can raise enough money to fund a statewide campaign and gain media support, and the electors are overwhelmingly under-informed and heavily propagandised. The result is frequently bad leadership, although often the leaders are at least smart enough to climb the political ladder, so at least they might have some kind of experience and understanding of pragmatics.
In stark contrast, there are revolutionary parties. If we look at the most recommended and famous authors in Leninist strains of socialist theory, we see the plentiful works of Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin and Mao – all high-level politicians of communist parties. Obviously this isn't common to all communist leaders, but I believe it's more than mere coincidence. People who have written academically-significant books studying society and the state ending up being those elected to work as the highest of statesmen. I assert this is evidence of some kind of positive meritocratic process, whether it's a commendable culture within the party which recognises qualification, or a Darwinian process like under liberal democracy where the less knowledgeable and intelligent are naturally weeded out by their ineffectiveness.
Has this phenomenon carried on past the initial leaders of revolutions? Were any of the post-Stalin USSR leaders noteworthy theoreticians? How about in China or Vietnam? Or is this simply a trait common to revolutionary parties rather than communist revolutionary parties, which might as well include Mussolini (despite their theory evidently being fatally flawed trash, it's theory nonetheless, and certainly more thoughtful than most liberal democracy leaders). Or is it even a matter of revolutionary parties, by rather simply the effect of a less biased party, uncontaminated with the power of bourgeois funding of puppets?
We need you in top shape before the revolution, comrade! Tell us how you're cooking, playing, running, riding, rowing, swimming, lifting, and all the rest!
"We are engaged in very important business."
Resources
https://thefitness.wiki — Official wiki for r/Fitness and r/weightroom on Reddit
https://liamrosen.com/fitness.html — "The /fit/ sticky"
Post some socialist comedy works. Films, comedian sets, parody, culture jamming, whatever. It's not too hard to find regular writers sneaking in socialist inspiration but far less openly socialist creations.
Accidental Death of an Anarchist is an Italian play set during the Years of Lead. This performance is by an English socialist theatre group Belt and Braces. It's a great comedy and very bluntly political too, which is an excellent combination to see.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p10xejjf0pw
Call to all BurgerReich citizens!
Post your footage, marches, insane Zionist propaganda, history, etc here.
To kick things off, I present Zionism In the Age of Dicators, by Lenni Brenner.
Brenner was unfortunately a Trotskyist, however he was also friends with and organised with Stokely Carmichael of the Black Panther fame.
The book focusses on the relationship between the Zionist Movement and the imperialist powers, as well as the new fascist powers, in the pre WW2 and WW2 period.
Specifically it discusses the Zionists relationship with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Both of these were in fact strong relationships, key facts include the Haavara Agreement, by which 60% of the capital that built Israel in the 1930s came from Nazi Germany.
Others include the little known piece of history, that Mussolinis Navy trained the first every Israeli Navy.
The book also discusses how Israel was basically built by these fascist adjacent, sometimes simply fascist, Zionists, as well as the shirking of duty to European Jewry during the WW2, sometimes involving what can be looked at as collaboration with the fascist powers.
You can also read 51 Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis, as a companion, which is all the source material used in the other book, in raw form.
CEASEFIRE NOW
What's the best way to make sure I get into the ruling class post-Revolution? We need Communism, but fuck being outside the ruling class in a Communist society.
post stupid shit said by stupid people.
Here are my faves in no particular order:
>Return of the Repressed
Parapolitics and history, deep, detailed dives in a very academic fashion that manages to make that still engaging and easy to digest. Nice slow chilled pace of speech and friendly kinda guy that doesn't try to make too many jokes or go off on less relevant tangents. Really educational. Stand out episodes so far, although I haven't listened to many: Early Communism and the Sea. This basically takes all the ancient aliens/ nazi occultist/ ancient civilisation stuff and looks at it from a hard materialist perspective, open to the idea of lost ancient cultures, but cutting away all the lost master race bullshit, even suggesting, potentially, ancient proto communism, but not going off the chain and making unsupported claims etc. Guy is a scandi. As far as I can tell a Marxist Leninist. Good soundtracks.
>Ghost Stories For the End of the World.
British Parapolitics with a true crime twinge to it. Some really good episodes to bring you into the world of parapolitics of some of the biggest well known events but not too woo woo, stopping short of making extravagant claims about things. Also has episodes that are more like cultural observations, guy is also a musician and into music and film so you get a lot of cross analysis and interesting tidbits, again, good soundtracks. Stand out episodes: Recent ones about Freemasonry and organised crime in Britain, early ones about the Brabant killings and Gladio, and one called "the horror of policing". Also a Marxist Leninist
>Programmed to Chill
Again, parapolitics and true crime, not afraid to get into really freaky stuff, bit more out there than the other two but still very grounded . Has some really good guests on and lots of subseries that are long deep dives into subjects. Stand out episodes are a 10+ part series which is an interview with Wendy Painting, Author of Aberation in the Heartland of the Real, which goes DEEP into the Oklahoma City Bombing, the life and times of Timothy Mcveigh, his connections to intelligence and the far right, MKULTRA, and situating this in the context of intelligence agency domestic terror programs in the US. All of this is need to know information for communists in my opinion.
He also has loads of other good episodes, long series deep dives. Plus he has a nice voice and again, wide ranging broad music taste with nice musical interludes and a laid back style. Gets into humour but not so much to make it distracing, again, willing to explore really out there ideas, but not without critical distance. Guy is an American Ex Mormon. Also some kind of Marxist Leninist
>Media Roots Radio
Parapolitical but more current events focussed, brother of Abby Martin often with Abby on. Focus on debunking right wing media narratives and exposing right wing "populist" or "anti establishment" figures as frauds. Very US focussed. This is interspersed with some really good deep dives, such as into the 2001 Anthrax Attacks and A comprehensive history of Freemasonry in the United States. Some kind of libertarian socialist but still in defence of AES kinda people. Huge back catalogue. Also good film, TV and music analysis.
>Eyes Left
Mike Prysner, husband of Abby Martin. Anti imperialist podcast made by veterans. Very insightful interviews with various veterans who became anti imperialists, solid anti war activism, and journalism in this area.
>Revolutionary Left Radio
left wing history and theory from an explicitly marxist-leninist perspective. Loads of really good interviews with all kinds of activists, trade unionists etc, as well as educational episodes diving into theory and really good historical episodes. Stand out episodes include a really good history of the Korean War and formation of North Korea as a state, really good Fred Hampton episode.
>**trueanon**
chapo adjacent parapolitics, good early episodes on Jeffrey Epstein, quality is good for about 18 months and then you only get a good episode every one in 5. Also they make too many jokes so you end up losing the thread a lot of the time, and the humour is very chapo centric and kind of annoying after a while.
i also listen to Novara Media for british news updates although have been doing this less and less since Ukraine
How do i stop being depressed by the current state of things? specially being a thirdworlder.
Its been a week and half, i stopped going to the gym, couldnt study shit from my uni, nothing, and im in bed all the time or dragging my ass through the apartment, the only thing i can do is read, i'm reading John Reed to pass the time...
The commies are infiltrating our cartoons! Those dastardly college arts majors are brainwashing the kids!
ITT we post Western mainstream media which show socialism in an unexpectedly positive light or have unusually sharp critique of capitalists.
>The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius — Krunch Time (2002)
In the opening scene, there are two clips where there is a clearly visible Soviet hammer and sickle on the label of an opened box in the background, with some unreadable text. No-one really knows why, although I can't help but notice the similarity to Jimmy's shirt design.
>The Ren & Stimpy Show — Space Dogged (1995)
The episode features Ren and Stimpy as pioneering Soviet cosmonauts. Alongside a few jabs at the USSR being a developing nation, it also ridicules US red scare paranoia and their delusion of winning the space race.
>Antz (1998)
This family film revolves around a worker ant, in crisis over their insignificance, constantly re-enforced by their ant society. They swap places with their soldier ant friend Weaver, right as the general begins to stage a coup d'état, sending soldiers units loyal to the queen on a suicide battle.
The class relations are made clear at the beginning. The protagonist complains that, despite Weaver calling the ants the ruling species [empire], he is unfulfilled and envious of the soldiers' glory. Soon, a small group of soldier ants become violent in a bar when two worker ants break conformity. Weaver steps in to defend them, leading to a large class brawl. Later, after switching places, the protagonist blunders their way into becoming a war hero and accidentally kidnapping the princess to avoid being discovered as a worker ant. When rumours of them overpowering the military guard reach the workers, Weaver points out their friend was a worker ant, and Weaver himself was a soldier. This shatters the workers' delusions of class fate, leading to the attached clip where there are explicit socialist themes in the class rebellion. The manager is also shown as an unwitting pawn of the coup plot, who later during a strike still hopelessly tries to convince striking workers to return with scare tactics about filling their quotas, and is basically told to fuck off. The coup is also specifically classist and eugenicist, with the leader of the middle soldier class plotting to assassinate the royal ruling class and genocide the 'weak' worker ants in a tunnel flood.
>My Life as a Teenage Robot (2003)
The second episode, Pest Control, is about a revolutionary lab rat, Vladimir, who leads their fellow comrades into rebellion against their abusive captor. The name, their beard, their cartoon Russian accent and the big ol' hammer and sickle on the title card make the allegory clear. While obviously taking the role of a comical villain, and despite a line or two about world domination, their portrayal is generally sympathetic with even a main hero saying they can't help feeling sorry for the rats.
The second last episode of the first season, The Wonderful World of Wizzly, comes off as a parody of animal rights activists. The episode has Jenny give the attached speech after observing the abuse of her fellow robots at a fun park, paraphrasing the Manifesto of the Communist Party and showing Jenny conquering a capitalist, yelling 'be slaves no more!'
>Phineas and Ferb - Phineas and Ferb's Quantum Boogaloo (2009)
This episode has the villain Dr. Doofenshmirtz become an evil cartoon dictator and sing a song about their charmed life. The clip speaks for itself.
First impression: Some really sharp people here. Due to what is happening in the culture it's rare to see different viewpoints sincerely and with good will challenged.
Maybe I'll gain some clarity. As far as I can tell there are clear requirements for cultural and political life that, if not met, lead to poor results in democratic processes. This is a clear issue I see in the modern Western political system where the middle class or "bourgeiosie" is becoming practically extinct. There are obvious cognitive priors to independent political participation. Some research has shown that most people do not mature to post-conventional (principled) ethics, but remain tied to the moral consensus or worse, depend on carrot and stick feedback. You cannot meaningfully involve most of these people in important matters, you can't even trust them to competently delegate their individual say to a representative. They have neither the priors to assess moral, cultural, historical, societal or scientific matters, nor do they even have the time as they are wageslaves.
I do want them to be fairly and competently represented as human beings, citizens, friends and people with families, but as we can clearly see the material, cognitive and social requirements for that exclude most people even if they do deserve this treatment.
How would you approach this issue without just A. giving everyone a vote and trusting that there will be some golden mean (doesn't work), B. calling for an uprising or a dictatorship or C. demanding handouts?
She is not proletarian because she is not a producing member of society, meaning producing something that sustains society. Pronography is a redundant luxury good. Additionally, she doesn't sell her labor power but self-employed people are similar to petit bourgoise. Finally, how much money you make does have an impact on whether or not you have an urge to overturn the current mode of production. Wealthy working class people and poor working class people are not equivalent just because both sell their labour.
Glorious night show in Chengdu Financial City. This sight makes me proud to be a communist.
Ban, Keep, Or Fuck White Women, Discuss:
Personally, I think in order to own one of these dogs, I think you should have to prove that you have an advanced level of dog handling ability. They are not like normal dogs, they are very large, more powerful than many humans, and difficult to control. They are good at killing violently because they have specifically been bread this way.
Further, there should be greater restrictions on inbreeding of dogs, causing them to be mutant killers.
I don't think we should put loose dogs down, but if you own a dog like this and its roaming the streets no lead, big balls unchopped, it should be taken off you and you should face consequences.
On a side note, I think dog breeding is a really good case study for why Eugenics are dumb. Always the Eugenisist has some purpose in mind, the higher being they want to create, but invariably, in breeding for this purpose, you create a mutant unfit for the world around them in some way. This is how the european royal families died off.
>A bullshit job is meaningless or unnecessary wage labour which the worker is obliged to pretend has a purpose.
Flunkies, goons, duct tapers, box tickers and taskmasters. Discuss jobs which shouldn't exist and just waste time (whether they are strictly 'bullshit jobs' or not).
Thread reading: Bullshit Jobs: A Theory by David Graeber
Thread theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmgHAT7IdDQ
This thread is for discussing sabotage, its theory, its history, tactics and stories.
Attempted assasination attempt on freedom and democracy activist Donald Trump
Let's talk about state armies, the people employed in them, and how they can relate to the socialist movement.
State armies are particularly interesting:
>they are inherently a powerful force
>their members are employed to serve the state, whether performing imperialist invasion or suppressing internal threats beyond the scope of the police
>their members are often well-trained in skills useful for militant and revolutionary activities
>their members may have unique experiences and expertise in both military tactics and understanding of countering enemy tactics, which may apply equally to local enemies of the people
>they are highly-abused, with high rates of traumatic experience, guilt, disability, economic neglect and suicide
>regardless of drafting and compulsory service not existing in many Western states, large proportions of recruits join purely for economic reasons, rather than any specific desire to join
Considering these starting points, let's ask:
- Which modern military personnel (from support staff to technicians to grunts) would have skills most useful to the socialist movement?
- Are there any reasons military personnel would be inherently incompatible with the socialist movement? Are comrades right or wrong to ostracize them based on their job?
- How did movements like Nazism/Fascism recruit ex-military members so effectively? How about counter-examples like the 43 Group? Is this the same dynamic we see with US 'Patriot' militia movements today? What place do ex-military members currently hold among the socialist movement?
- How should military be considered differently to police and other state law enforcement agencies?
- Do any particular state armies have a different dynamic? For example, do the PLA (China), KPA (North Korea) or PAVN (Vietnam) have a different relationship to Western armies?
Also, consider if your arguments apply to armies in general, or a specific army (e.g. United States Armed Forces).
Thread about Guyana.
As anons may or may not know, there are currently rumblings of conflict on the disputed Guyana/Venezuela border, in the oil rich region of Essequibo.
Now, my instinct is that this will perhaps amount to a nothing burger. In fact this is a border dispute that has been rumbling since 1899, when the british, french and spanish divided up the region, with the Spanish losing out. There was then a larger rumble a couple of years ago. In terms of a socialist analysis, it seems slightly flimsy to base land claims on colonial borders, however they were set, given both countries have now fought for and won independence from these colonies, yet the remnants of their wrecking remains.
I suspect the US and its interests in Latin America are only to happy to draw the conversation ever so slightly away from Israel, and the various failures of every US backed clown closer to home in Latin America.
However, there does seem to be rumblings so I'd like to keep an eye on it.
We all know about based Maduro, but Guyana is led by Irfaan Ali of the Peoples Progessive Party/ Civic. He is, by all accounts, deeply in bed with Exxon Mobil Executives, as well as US military interests, despite the PPP's heritage in anti colonialism and Marxism. Guyana is in fact fairly unique in that both the major parties claim this heritage.
Exxon mobil have a huge influence in Guyana, and the extractive industries make up most of its GDP, however very little of this goes back to the Guyanan people, and predictably ends up the pocket of the pocket of the elites there.
Recently, there was a referendum in Venezuela, won by a landslide, as to whether or not Venezuela should officially claim the disputed land. Maduro then said he would make moves to formalise the decision, what those are remains to be seen.
It seems to me unlikely that Maduro would be so ham fisted as to simply attempt to seize the territory by force, it isn't really his style, and the move would open up his flank massively to US chicanery.
More likely, it is a robust posture, to warn the US and affiliates that any creep will not be tolerated.
The world however, is all over the place at the minute, and countries like Venezuela may feel currently emboldened. In real politik terms, it is difficult to say if seizure of the land would be justifiable, as stated above, it may invite undue attention. However, the empire as it stands is weak, how likely they are to engage in full blown military opposition is difficult to say.
The conflict in Ukraine is winding down as a loss, Israel has taken a large soft power blow, and in Latin America, the US reach has been fading for years. US attentions are generally also focussed on China and Russia.
This thread is for discussion and research on Three-Sided Football (3SF), to avoid derailing /swoletariat/.
3SF is an experimental game invented by a Situationist philosopher attempting to explain their idea of triolectics (their refinement of Marxian dialectics) in a book. Three decades later, some Situationists in Glasgow decided to try the game in real life, which has since evolved into casual competitions, international world cups, youth outreach, performance art exhibitions and protests.
Partly due to its political Situationist roots, the game has been interpreted by its players in many ways. Attached is a formal social study article about the sport, where players have variously considered it an educational tool, a non-binary 'queering' of football, an anti-capitalist, autonomous, desportised rejection of mainstream football, and just a fun self-leveling game to play.
The playful counter-cultural aspect of its founders, such as the London Psychogeographical Association, the The Workshop for Non-Linear Architecture and the Association of Autonomous Astronauts, has resulted in a cryptic rabbit-hol e where there are as many serious FIFA and BBC interviews of the game as there are YouTube videos of people playing blindfolded or all tied together by a web of string, or in multiple cases being harassed by security guards. Just as one c an consider football hooliganism a subculture of two-sided football, one could consider the avant-garde Marxist satire scene as a subculture, or even major culture, of three-sided football.
Its time to get HANCOCKED.
But really, what do you guys think about the whole ancient civilisations idea?
I don't want to make some claim about aliens or whatever, I don't take it that far, but for me, basically, anatomically modern humans have been around for 200,000 years, and we have history for like 5000 of that, and solidish info on 10,000 of that tops.
There is a lot of evidence for fairly complex civilisations for long before that, and it keeps getting revealed to be older and older, and more complex as it gets older.
So in that sense, I'm pretty much sold.
Even if we just think about just the mesolithic age, 1500-5000 bc, we still had fairly complex societies and structures.
Thats 10,000 years of politics, intrigue, war, technological discovery and growth. Which by itself is twice as long as recorded history, but then the first evidence of tool use was 3.3million years ago, and our near ancestors were almost as smart as we are.
Complex society basically, is very old, in my opinion, certainly I think there are huge cultures, cvilisations etc, that have been lost to the grind of history. What do you think?
HAPPY 9/11
DEATH TO AMERIKA
Post 9/11 memes and debate whether the 9th of November was an inside job.
A general thread for discussing upcoming elections and electoral politics.
Elections with existing threads (e.g. UK election) should go there instead for convenience.
The book I submit for your perusal is Marlon James A Brief History of Seven Killings.
Told from the perspective of multiple characters, in different narrative styles, though mostly some kind of stream of consciousness, the book explores events intertwined with the election and subsequent CIA backed coup of Michael Manley, the Democratic Socialist who was Jamaica's Prime Minister from 1972- 1980 and 1989-1992 . The book focuses on the period around his first term in office.
Specifically, the book explores events surrounding the "smile jamaica" concert, organised by Michael Manley with Bob Marley, amidst heightened politicised gang activity.
I won't give away too many spoilers here, but if you know the story of Bob Marley and of Jamaica at the time, then you know the events.
Although fictionalised, the book sticks very closely to what I consider to be the truth and pulls no punches. Through the perspectives of Gang Members, CIA agents (often intertwined), journalists, spurned lovers, etc, the historical events are brought to life.
The multiple perspectives are at odds, frenetic, sometimes difficult to understand, with elements that verge on magical realism but stopping just short.
The style is a very good literary mechanism for displaying the confused web of backstabbing, espionage and political intrigue that plagued the Island at the time.
Other than that, the book is often hilarious, often emotional, and often disturbing, as well as telling a variety of "sub" narratives which explore the position of women at the time, the influence of religion, the music scene.
Through all this, the book is extremely educational. Reading along with wikipedia at your side can be extremely enlightening.
10/10, would recommend
Here is one of Russel Brands ex Girlfriends.
Her name is Jemima Goldsmith, of the Goldsmith finance Dynasty. The Goldsmiths were at one point the main major rival to the Rothschild family. She has two younger brothers, one a financier, the other Zach Goldsmith, a former Tory MP, London Mayoral Candidate and now Life Peer.
Jemima her self used to be married to Imran Kahn, the recently couped Pakistani prime minister.
She was also a friend of Princes Diana.
On top of that, at one point she was going to post bail for Julian Assange, but didn't, because she didn't like how he dealt with the questions of sexual abuse.
She is a filmmaker, and at one point spoke at a stop the war coalition rally. She was opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Interesting stuff.
What software is this board running? I often dwell on leftypol, and this doesn't look like vichan at all
