Dustcat posted:

congrats to fyad for purging the communists. gentlemen, you have a reich... if you can keep it

Quotey posted:

It’s all very embarrassing.

John Charity Spring posted:

I liked Parenti's book on Caesar for the most part - especially when he's ripping the 'gentleman historians' to shreds - but I did think it was pretty sloppy of him to cite quotes from Mithridates and Calgacus as if they were genuine criticisms of Roman imperialism from its victims and not completely invented quotes from people who might be invented themselves (in the case of Calgacus) and whose words were Romans making political points from within the system, not without. I don't really understand why he presents it this way - that the criticism comes from Tacitus and not a Caledonian chief doesn't invalidate the criticism, and in fact adds weight to the idea that there was opposition to these policies within Rome. I'm not a classicist myself by any means but I spotted this and a couple other instances, like where he cites the words of a historian who lived centuries after Caesar to prove that Caesar said or did specific things that have no other source. I'm sure there are others throughout the book too, and it weakens his case even though it's a powerful argument he makes. He's really good when focusing on the actual material situation in Roman society and how the political factions faced each other though, I thought.

a Loving Dog posted:

ferrinus loves the mods and wants to kiss them, and he supports them unconditionally

quote:

“I must say in all conscience, comrades, that I do not deserve a good half of the flattering things that have been said here about me…”

(J. V. Stalin, Reply to the Greetings of the Workers of the Chief Railway Workshops in Tiflis)

quote:

“You speak of your devotion to me… I would advise you to discard the ‘principle’ of devotion to persons. It is not the Bolshevik way. Be devoted to the working class, its Party, its state. That is a fine and useful thing. But do not confuse it with devotion to persons, this vain and useless bauble of weak-minded intellectuals.”

(J. V. Stalin, Letter to Comrade Shatunovsky, August 1930)

quote:

“The times have passed when leaders were regarded as the only makers of history, while the workers and peasants were not taken into account. The destinies of nations and of states are now determined, not only by leaders, but primarily and mainly by the vast masses of the working people. The workers and the peasants, who without fuss and noise are building factories and mills, constructing mines and railways, building collective farms and state farms, creating all the values of life, feeding and clothing the whole worldt hey are the real heroes and the creators of the new life.”

(J.V. Stalin, Speech Delivered at the First All-Union Congress of Collective Farm Shock Brigadiers)

quote:

“I am absolutely against the publication of ‘Stories of the Childhood of Stalin’. The book abounds with a mass of inexactitudes of fact, of alterations, of exaggerations and off unmerited praise… the important thing resides it the fact that the book has a tendency to engrave on the minds of Soviet children (and people in general) the personality cult of leaders, of infallible heroes. This is dangerous and detrimental. The theory of ‘heroes’ and the ‘crowd’ is not a Bolshevik, but a Social-Revolutionary theory. I suggest we burn this book”.

(J. V. Stalin, Letter on Publications for Children Directed to the Central Committee of the All Union Communist Youth)

quote:

“the personality cult of leaders, of infallible heroes… is dangerous and detrimental. The theory of ‘heroes’ and the ‘crowd’ is not a Bolshevik, but a Social-Revolutionary theory.”

(J. V. Stalin, Letter on Publications for Children Directed to the Central Committee of the All Union Communist Youth)

Ferrinus posted:

this is a good example of why it's a good idea to just moderate language when asked to in a social space (especially an organizing space!!), either by an individual or general culture, rather than to immediately stand on principle and start playing devious logic games or whatever. somebody asking you to clap quietly or refrain from using a particular word understands that they're imposing on you and wouldn't do so unless the alternative felt even worse. these conflicts aren't actually about determining which words are innately evil (the idealist perspective), but rather a process of negotiation and contradiction that manifests as an ad hoc consensus about how we talk to each other (the dialectical perspective)

Ferrinus posted:

sorry, what does "even-handed" mean here w/r/t saying slurs? will there be times that someone calls someone else the r-world and the even-handed gradenko lets it slide, while the trigger-happy flavius punishes it?

Ferrinus posted:

what matters is moderation policy, not specific mods. that's why i don't personally believe you probating people for the same things is going to be received any better, whereas either you or the hated flavius just being cool and letting people say slurs will go down equally well

apropos to nothing posted:

lol this is it for me. idgaf about r word, from the start only complained cause of the arbitrary enforcement of rules which 100% were always meted out against posting enemies and ignored by others, applied to the whole "mods are pedophiles" thing too and basically everything in the history of the website. its totally absurd that words like "oval office" are banned in the joke politics forum on a website where 9/11 set to yakety sax was its most significant contribution to the world. i shant post in cspam again because the mods are idiots who punish people for saying oval office and it may be revealed at a later date that some of them have committed crimes of a sexual nature. i shall stick to the pink forum and laugh at you all assuming that i am not banned for this post given the ruling that it is illegal to laugh at the mods now. please organize people around you and at your workplace and dont post online all day about "leftist" politics because it will rot your brain and you will never change anything or organize anyone.

DirtyRobot posted:

Yeah, probably.

There are other podcasts that do overviews with framing themselves as a "companion" like the Harvey does:

The Fundamentals of Marxism: Intro to Political Economy

The Fundamentals of Marxism: Dialectics, Historical Materialism, and Class Struggle

e-dt posted:

Sara Roy's "Hamas and Civil Society in Gaza"

Raskolnikov38 posted:

when flavius gets demodded do they add his star to the wall in the lobby?

The Voice of Labor posted:

gently caress deng

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_War

Atrocious Joe posted:

the real r word is revisionism

dead gay comedy forums posted:

this reminds me how every now and then some economics grad who is too clever for their own good (especially if they have some knack with math) stumbles into solving some postulate of mainstream economics

one mathy guy back at my uni figured out in a "huh" moment that the pareto optimum (the closest to ideal degree of something) for the distribution of goods and services to a society is impossible through free markets, as monopolization sets price fixing to preserve profitability

then he went to figure out how to fix that (through a math model) and realized that market deviancies and failures are features not bugs because any and all solutions had to out the "free" from market

the department did not accept his paperwork and refused to renew his scholarship lmao

exmarx posted:

https://twitter.com/historic_ly/status/1396300314895163392?s=21

matty b destroyed

indigi posted:

who is Jussie Smollet

Raskolnikov38 posted:

aaaa god I’m losing my mind at half the threads I read flipping out over cena apologizing to China for calling Taiwan a country

comedyblissoption posted:

Raskolnikov38 posted:

lmao painframe and two day were the other two

StashAugustine posted:

I missed it, what happened to two-day?

Victory Position posted:

I'm sorry to do this, but I'm framing this post to "Fortunate Son" because it's appropriate

i say swears online posted:

what's the weed like in manila anyway

AnimeIsTrash posted:

I work with an "anarchist" who reads bellingcat and during the hong kong protests kept on sending me stuff that was sourced to Radio Free Asia.

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

Wasn't it only just recently translated into English?

Atrocious Joe posted:

https://twitter.com/Vicky_ACAB/status/1405194095887372290?s=20

"In Defense of Looting" the former USSR by western capitalists