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Has anyone seen Oliver Stone's Untold History of the US? A friend is talking about it on FB and it seems like it's the first time he's come across a coherent argument that the US wasn't the clear good guy in the Cold War, and he's asking for thoughts on it. I get the impression Stone's really sloppy with his sources and occasionally gets a little too 'JFK' but I'm not sure what a good source that's more reliable- also since this guy is basically raised conservative but not super political probably something not too aggressive? I've basically put together that view from a variety of little sources looking at US history in Latin America and Southeast Asia both pre and post WW2 but it's too dispersed
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Jun 27, 2020 23:54
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Sarrisan posted:Does anyone have a good source on learning about Peronism, both the ideology and history of the movement? radio war nerd ep 185 seemed like a good primer when I listened to it rwn 185 show notes posted:Guest: Pablo Ben, associate professor Recorded: June 13, 2019 "Peronismo" has dominated Argentina's politics for nearly 8 decades now. But who was Juan Perón? Was he a fascist, according to popular received ideas in the US and elsewhere? Pablo Ben, a Buenos Aires native and associate professor of history at San Diego State U., goes deep into 20th century Argentine politics to help us make sense of Perón and peronismo, and what we get wrong. First 38 minutes: World of Wars, starting with a War Nerd gloat over correctly predicting the Houthi rebels' next hit on Saudi Arabia . . . At 41:00 our discussion on Perón with Pablo Ben begins . . .
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Jun 28, 2020 00:23
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I have a question too. How do anarchists or semi-anarchists at their most effective organize? I have heard of working groups, platformism, syndicalism, cooperatives, consensus democracy, semi-anarchist semi-maoist party+army structures, autonomous zones, libertarian municipalism etc. but mostly lack an understanding of what goes together and how, and how one has been used to build up another until a whole self-sustaining network of organizations exists. Can a sequence of stages be conceived where each has its own focus on what would be built up next? I'm interested in how specific movements have worked around their given limitations in situations rather than how things would go for an imaginary movement in some ideal situation.
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Jun 28, 2020 11:45
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uncop posted:I have a question too. How do anarchists or semi-anarchists at their most effective organize? I have heard of working groups, platformism, syndicalism, cooperatives, consensus democracy, semi-anarchist semi-maoist party+army structures, autonomous zones, libertarian municipalism etc. but mostly lack an understanding of what goes together and how, and how one has been used to build up another until a whole self-sustaining network of organizations exists. Can a sequence of stages be conceived where each has its own focus on what would be built up next? So EZLN started by Marcos and others organising together a revolutionary org after the previous org was defeated in a confrontation with the Mexican government. They slowly and patiently infiltrated existing orgs like the Catholic church and others to leverage their structure and wide representation of the populace to spread the idea. Then, when significant in numbers, they did a Revolution in their local places and after the period of struggle, when they took over a decent chunk of land, they simply instituted communes and coops in a federation. From then on, their growth is educating people nearby and when they're ready allowing them to join if they accept the confederated structure. In many countries, anarchists organise by making local organisations and coops and then, if expansion is on the cards, joining a country-wide federation so they can consolidate. The idea is quite similar, have members everywhere you can so you can use existing hierarchy to topple it - but there the focus is definitely on local, direct action and less on revolution. These worlds actually collide: for their external network that distributes coffee exports Chiapas leverages a network of federated organisations outside Chiapas. Essentially, a small org sympathetic to the zapatista struggle joins the organisation and once every so often gets to help make decisions how to organise the distribution. In return for providing this service, a part of the profit is fed to the org so it can continue functioning. The reason you hear all this stuff at the same time is that anarchism, from it's conception, is a 'flow like water' ideology. Socialism is the driving idea and lack of rulers the way of defeating oppression, but when you organise horizontally an academic collective is different than a farmer commune is different than a factory coop - because it is the workers that make it what it is. And since due to effective neoliberal propaganda numbers aren't on socialism's side at all, the idea is also to turn the small numbers into an advantage. The effectiveness of antifa or squatter movements at their goals, which are structured in the second way most often is hard to debate, for instance. Also some anarchist efforts are just spontaneous efforts in a power vacuum and they usually are the ones to spurt out, in contrast to ones that have patience and perseverance; you gotta keep that in mind too. dex_sda has issued a correction as of 12:25 on Jun 28, 2020 |
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Jun 28, 2020 12:20
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emTme3 has issued a correction as of 04:08 on Mar 31, 2022 |
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Jun 28, 2020 12:23
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dex_sda posted:These worlds actually collide: for their external network that distributes coffee exports Chiapas leverages a network of federated organisations outside Chiapas. Essentially, a small org sympathetic to the zapatista struggle joins the organisation and once every so often gets to help make decisions how to organise the distribution. In return for providing this service, a part of the profit is fed to the org so it can continue functioning. Let me indulge in a bit of politics as a consumer and ask, how can I buy coffee from the Zapatistas that isn't just a branded look-alike?
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Jun 28, 2020 16:10
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PhilippAchtel posted:Let me indulge in a bit of politics as a consumer and ask, how can I buy coffee from the Zapatistas that isn't just a branded look-alike? in europe you'd check for one of the orgs that is part of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapatista_coffee_cooperatives#Distribution_network_in_Europe and buy from them directly, ideally one in your home country. I don't know about America sorry. I think Schools for Chiapas used to sell that stuff in the US but I'm not certain My country's feminist coop that handles the distribution has a complete breakdown of what your purchase pays for so you know how much money goes where, I suspect all of them do dex_sda has issued a correction as of 19:37 on Jun 28, 2020 |
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Jun 28, 2020 19:32
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Coffee actually raises an interesting point I've been rattling around in my brain, that of localized specialist economies. Due to an unequal distribution of natural resources around the world, plus the fact that certain crops only grow in certain climates, a truly localized commune would be forced to accept a decrease in luxury access compared to the present, even if they otherwise reorganized to perform as much agriculture and industry locally as possible. Of course the key phrase there is "truly localized". Is there any theory (or better yet, empirical examples) of how worldwide trade might look in a world without money? Obviously it's not like goods are equitably distributed today, but the whole point is to do better than today. Breadbook envisions a world where people will trade their labor to a group of luxury-producers in exchange for some of their finished product but I'm honestly fairly skeptical of that. At the very least, it can't work when the product you desire is made/grown halfway across the world, and in the modern era I suspect there's a number of industries that I would be incapable of providing helpful labor towards even if they're local, just because they require specialized knowledge I don't have.
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Jun 28, 2020 20:46
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cheetah7071 posted:Coffee actually raises an interesting point I've been rattling around in my brain, that of localized specialist economies. Due to an unequal distribution of natural resources around the world, plus the fact that certain crops only grow in certain climates, a truly localized commune would be forced to accept a decrease in luxury access compared to the present, even if they otherwise reorganized to perform as much agriculture and industry locally as possible. Of course the key phrase there is "truly localized". Is there any theory (or better yet, empirical examples) of how worldwide trade might look in a world without money? Obviously it's not like goods are equitably distributed today, but the whole point is to do better than today. I actually will say that for sustainability reasons the luxuries from the other side of the world would disappear, and that's good. However in a world where sustainability is not a concern you would probably - as part of your network - have things to facilitate travel of luxury goods, and adopt a cooperative economy approach to produce a surplus that can be distributed. e; don't get me wrong, until more basic things would be provided the luxuries would not flow as readily as they do in capitalism. But again, That's Actually Good dex_sda has issued a correction as of 21:21 on Jun 28, 2020 |
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Jun 28, 2020 21:16
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I'm a bit more optimistic on low-emissions international shipping being possible in a world where the cheapest option isn't always the one chosen, at least. If nothing else, telling people the revolution means they have to give up coffee and computers feels like a sure fire way to never recruit anybody
cheetah7071 has issued a correction as of 21:39 on Jun 28, 2020 |
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Jun 28, 2020 21:23
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cheetah7071 posted:I'm a but more optimistic on low-emissions international shipping being possible in a world where the cheapest option isn't always the one chosen, at least. If nothing else, telling people the revolution means they have to give up coffee and computers feels like a sure fire way to never recruit anybody Sea trade is pretty easy to go zero carbon if you don't have to chase that last tenth of a cent profit.
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Jun 28, 2020 21:36
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cheetah7071 posted:I'm a bit more optimistic on low-emissions international shipping being possible in a world where the cheapest option isn't always the one chosen, at least. If nothing else, telling people the revolution means they have to give up coffee and computers feels like a sure fire way to never recruit anybody what shovelbum said + I meant insane stuff. coffee, electronics etc. are in huge demand and the second is not a luxury anymore.
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Jun 28, 2020 21:51
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dex_sda posted:what shovelbum said + I meant insane stuff. coffee, electronics etc. are in huge demand and the second is not a luxury anymore. I see, so you meant like, international shipping of anime figures should disappear. Not international shipping of coffee. That makes a lot more sense. We were just working under different definitions of luxuries and I got confused.
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Jun 28, 2020 21:53
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cheetah7071 posted:I see, so you meant like, international shipping of anime figures should disappear. Not international shipping of coffee. That makes a lot more sense. We were just working under different definitions of luxuries and I got confused. It's no more insane than anything else once you've decarbonized, there's a stigma but a lot of it comes from labor/globalization concerns and just plain ignorance honestly, no one thinks we shouldn't transport stuff around by rail and they're generally quite equivalent.
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Jun 28, 2020 22:03
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cheetah7071 posted:I see, so you meant like, international shipping of anime figures should disappear. Not international shipping of coffee. That makes a lot more sense. We were just working under different definitions of luxuries and I got confused. Yeah, the non-decarbonized and low-demand stuff goes first. Coffee is a thing literal billions use. Decarbonised anime figures though, all other basic needs being met, would have their place of course
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Jun 28, 2020 22:49
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https://twitter.com/BlackSocialists/status/1099319764378439680 https://twitter.com/BlackSocialists/status/1099321158279852032 This account is a pro follow, by the way. I found that last quote intriguing. We need to push back hard against this mistaken idea that socialism is a dead, white man's philosophy.
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Jun 29, 2020 13:16
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PhilippAchtel posted:https://twitter.com/BlackSocialists/status/1099319764378439680 It's always worth pointing out to people that the majority of socialists and communists worldwide are non-white, and almost all existing communist power structures are designed and led by non-white people. It's alive and embraced widely but no power structure in the white west wants to engage with it as a current alternative, so dismissing it as a historical relic written by out of touch white men it is. You'll notice that one thing that is noticably absent from these discussions are the actual PoC leftists, because the bougies believe they are to be spoken FOR, not TO
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Jun 29, 2020 13:26
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PhilippAchtel posted:We need to push back hard against this mistaken idea that socialism is a dead, white man's philosophy. I didn't know this was a problem. Stringent has issued a correction as of 14:20 on Jun 29, 2020 |
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Jun 29, 2020 14:10
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dex_sda posted:So EZLN started by Marcos and others organising together a revolutionary org after the previous org was defeated in a confrontation with the Mexican government. They slowly and patiently infiltrated existing orgs like the Catholic church and others to leverage their structure and wide representation of the populace to spread the idea. Then, when significant in numbers, they did a Revolution in their local places and after the period of struggle, when they took over a decent chunk of land, they simply instituted communes and coops in a federation. From then on, their growth is educating people nearby and when they're ready allowing them to join if they accept the confederated structure. What's the Zapatista's relation to the Catholic church, btw?
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Jun 29, 2020 16:41
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Stringent posted:I didn't know this was a problem. Yes, definitely lately. Some of it is bad-faith use of idpol by liberals to discredit solidarity between the white working class and Black and Brown working class people. You can almost feel the offence at what they perceive as leftists invading their "turf". There's also good-natured responses by some Black activists that resent their struggle being roped into a euro-centric framework, which I understand, but I think should be handled with care. Finding the balance between promoting cross-racial solidarity without presenting anti-imperial struggles as another chapter in "The Story of White People" can be tricky. As EHF says, there's no shortage of Black and Brown voices to draw from. In a big way, the story of socialism for the last sixty years has been their story. But if a quote from, say, Marx or Lenin speaks to the current Black Lives Matter movement, I think it'd be a mistake to dismiss it out of an over-correction against euro-centrism. It's mostly okay, but just something you need to watch your wording on?
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Jun 29, 2020 20:46
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https://twitter.com/StarbucksSolid1/status/1277701643660910601 This was retweeted to me by @iww, so I assume it's legitimate. Please pass this along to anyone you know who works at Starbucks. PhilippAchtel has issued a correction as of 22:16 on Jun 29, 2020 |
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Jun 29, 2020 22:11
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Hello Socialist Education Thread. I finally got around to taking that leftist value quiz to see where I actually fit in, and apparently I'm somewhere between a Centrist Marxist and a Council Communist. Where do I start to dive into those?
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Jul 5, 2020 01:17
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Combatace posted:Hello Socialist Education Thread. I finally got around to taking that leftist value quiz to see where I actually fit in, and apparently I'm somewhere between a Centrist Marxist and a Council Communist. first disregard any sort of quiz categories lol any major branch of socialist thought should serve more to help you articulate stuff in a way that feels more intuitive to your worldview: anarchists and communists ultimately are in for the same goal, after all specifics of literature should be a worry later on for theoretical refinement, like, if you plan on articulating a new intellectual development because you realized a One Weird Trick about workers' councils that nobody has, etc
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Jul 12, 2020 03:25
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also apologies for thread abandonment, I have been dealing with some personal matters which kinda impacted me in ideological terms in an unexpected way, so I have been (and still am) reevaluating a lot of stuff
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Jul 12, 2020 03:27
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dead gay comedy forums posted:also apologies for thread abandonment, I have been dealing with some personal matters which kinda impacted me in ideological terms in an unexpected way, so I have been (and still am) reevaluating a lot of stuff are u a capitalist now?
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Jul 12, 2020 03:48
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Centrist Committee posted:are u a capitalist now? lmao never just adjustments that I feel for the moment hinder me in bringing a good game to answer stuff here
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Jul 12, 2020 04:06
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is there any research/game theory out there of power structures? Like analytically trying to model relationships to determine what might be optimal in certain ways like diluting power/influence within systems ? EDIT: I should say I realize this exists via google but specific to socialism is what im aiming for Sylink has issued a correction as of 15:19 on Jul 17, 2020 |
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Jul 17, 2020 15:06
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Sylink posted:is there any research/game theory out there of power structures? Like analytically trying to model relationships to determine what might be optimal in certain ways like diluting power/influence within systems ? Like, as formal mathematics, or more of a sociological study? The closest thing I can recall of interest considering your terms are some mathematicians proving that several market economy axioms to truly work require socialism and some even requiring the closest to perfect distribution as possible to really be viable
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Jul 17, 2020 18:29
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He means social choice theory. I did that on my comp toucher studies. Most of that field is focused on voting methods and voting in a framework of representative democracy, I'm not aware of socialist analyses. But then I haven't checked very closely. Game theory approaches are way more abstract except for neoliberal economics, where they are a joke full of assumptions lol.
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Jul 17, 2020 18:39
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Sarrisan posted:Does anyone have a good source on learning about Peronism, both the ideology and history of the movement? sorry for tackling this one so late but honestly it ain't much as a movement or ideology Perón, like Vargas in Brazil, came from the tradition of the South American "positivist officer" in those militaries, middle-class gentry who had a small but effective military career but were also invested in intellectual formation. "Peronism", like "Varguism", are not ideologies or movements, but rather political methods that came from their execution of positivist socialism, which requires a substantial degree of authoritarianism to be carried out, that being preferable to being subject to actual revolution. Which, given how communism was starting to get popular as gently caress in Latin America, started to seem like a very good deal. Perón remains popular as gently caress today in Argentina because warts and all it was the government that most developed the material conditions of the country through a strong state capitalist apparatus, while also boosting several other conditions such as education, which it and Uruguay score the highest in Latin America. But in terms of particularities of thought, there is very little of a true socialist endeavor there.
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Jul 17, 2020 18:45
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what’s the Marxist take on free will
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Jul 23, 2020 21:18
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Who is Will?
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Jul 24, 2020 01:13
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indigi posted:what’s the Marxist take on free will personally this is a hard one, so I am going to do quote some paragraphs from a relevant text (I think this is a good place to start) before hitting some of my own takes Charles Gagnon, "For a scientific vision of the world: Determinism or free will?" posted:The question of the extent to which men are masters of their existence, the extent to which they can make real choices as individuals or social communities, is nearly as old as man himself. [...] https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ca.secondwave/is-free-will.htm
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Jul 24, 2020 02:07
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Since Marxism is an active, propositional philosophy in how it deals with capital-h History, imho it locks horns with scientific determinism in rather interesting ways and sorta subverts it "free will" in the traditional philosophical sense is kinda out of place because it is an useless question regarding whether one can be a historical subject or not, which is the main concern of Marxism in a personal level. From there, comes the counter-riposte from contemporary communist thought against scientific determinism - which, in a way, is profoundly reactionary in its social consequences - and postmodern "lol nothing matters" thinking that was anchored by it. the way I see it, it works more or less like this: from its bases on the material forces, social laws emerge that shape ourselves and condition our lives, yet the social laws themselves, as if by paradox or contradiction, by subjecting their peculiar forces into ourselves, changes our way in which we interact with the material world and as such those social laws, while not material, have a definite material end effect. Like, scientific materialism/determinism under neoliberal capitalism is very convenient as it fosters a narrative of fatalism and "what's the point" in culture, which in a very material way ends up being major factors in creating, for all practical purposes, a determinist history, and in a determinist history, there is no class struggle, no social strife and ultimately no space for the individual consciousness to situate itself in terms of place and time: they have no history. In a very funny way, this is Marxist thought going full circle: starting with its full rejection of 18th century German idealism, it transforms itself at the end through its full internalization by the mid-to-late 20th century. As such, historical materialism can be considered a "new modern"/neomodern idealist school of philosophy, as weird as it might sound. And its through that conclusion that the most powerful weapon in the side of contemporary communist thinking is: I do not know. It is an appeal to human reason outside our current discourse, an "unreasonable" reason, so to speak, and bypass the entire problem altogether. Predestination or not, what must truly matter for the revolutionary mind is, as always, what is to be done?
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Jul 24, 2020 02:46
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I’ve heard the term “weak determinism” used to acknowledge the apparent existence of deterministic laws of nature while also acknowledging they are incomplete as far as our understanding, thus allows for a degree of agency, but I’m a just a simple country shitposter so who knows
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Jul 24, 2020 03:02
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Marxism doesn't counterpose freedom and determinism, that kind of thing is purely an influence from mainstream academic philosophy. Late Marx and Engels were very "structuralist" in the sense that they thought human will, like everything else in the world, was a quite deterministic product of scientific laws. People just had a special natural power to change the logic of their wills in accordance with any such laws by changing their material life. The less people understand about themselves and the world, the less able they're to become who they want to be: they're enslaved to their pre-existing urges and external impulses until they learn how to free themselves from each set of shackles. As history progresses, they gain more and more power to change their lives by learning the deterministic logic behind how various things work and using that knowledge to actually get done stuff that used to be long-standing empty wishes. The highest level of freedom would basically be that people understand the web of relations they exist in so well that when they want something, they can easily get or do it, without disrupting the relations that allow their state of freedom to persist (hurting people, robbing nature....) and stealing from their futures. Of course, that also requires that humanity manipulates human will itself, because obviously people can never be free to e.g. murder other people as they will: the only resolution for the issue is for no one to want to. However, the Marx before marxism was a product of academic philosophy and romanticism rather than class struggle, and held onto a concept of an independent will for quite a while. The western marxist intellectual current (not all westerners, but all counterposing themselves to an "eastern" marxism) typically tried to escape back there to differentiate themselves from the imaginary of the bad eastern marxism that subordinates the individual to some totality. In actuality they are neo-marxists, which is a separate and incompatible tendency that stands on its own. The reason I mention them is because they might actually be who you're asking about, I can't know: just like neoclassical economics claimed to simply be classical economics, neo-marxists tend to claim to be simply marxists revealing how people like Engels (who pulled Marx over to the "no dude, it's all scientific and material" side) didn't really get it. Anyway, they tend to hold a more two-pole view where although the will and material life do work on each other, but the will has a sort of inherent freedom that could not have been produced by a deterministic reality, and it's more like it's violated by reality imposing itself on it.
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Jul 26, 2020 08:47
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thanks for the thoughtful answers
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Jul 26, 2020 16:37
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actually on a related note: when i was a conservative kid, "moral relativism" was a boogeyman that was assigned to basically everyone on the left. now that i actually know anything about the actual critiques being made, i'm left wondering- is "moral relativism" an actual belief system existing beyond stoned undergrads
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Aug 2, 2020 17:12
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StashAugustine posted:actually on a related note: when i was a conservative kid, "moral relativism" was a boogeyman that was assigned to basically everyone on the left. now that i actually know anything about the actual critiques being made, i'm left wondering- is "moral relativism" an actual belief system existing beyond stoned undergrads So you believe in moral absolutism?
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Aug 2, 2020 17:25
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I feel like the moral relativism thing was a part of their counter-backlash as conservative moral stances began to be largely seen as like, charitably outdated and at worst actively monstrous, by growing numbers of americans? Like they've spent 40 years now sorta just declaring the existence of this great war for the culture of America and it was entirely because not everyone thought they were cool for hating minorities and wanting to impose their arcane puritain derived morality on people, anymore
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Aug 2, 2020 17:28
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