There is a dialectic between theory (or head knowledge) and practice. To be a Marxist is to do both things, working through that dialectic to evolve yourself as a practicianer. Additionally, to be a Marxist in practice necessitates interaction with an organized group of other Marxists. This interaction will challenge you to resolve conflicts between ideas, theories, strategies and so forth and develop a practical version of democratic centralism for your organization.

Those who think that Marxism is just learning theory aren’t actually practicing Marxism. They become purists and commit the error of dogmatism. Many Trotskyists fall into this camp (I won’t say all Trotskyists, but I’m still looking for counter-examples). It’s why a Trotskyists probably knows Marxist theory better than I do but is also the most useless leftist on the planet (and can often even become useful to the bourgeoisie!).

If you only ever read theory and do not put it into practice, you are simply doing so for some personal reasons, like to feel smarter than others because you have an insecurity. This is not just useless but dangerous because people like this can sound really smart and like they know what they’re talking about for new leftists. But because they offer no real solution to the material problems of those around them nor any practical avenues for the proletariat to direct their anger and pain from capitalism towards revolutionary action, it drains the energy away from more serious praxis.

Praxis is the hard part. It’s why many don’t do it. But it’s what actually makes any of this make sense.

“The philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.” — Karl Marx

It also depends on what “two state solution” actually means. Traditionally, Israel has made such solutions impossible. The “you go your way, we’ll go ours” has been off the table because Israel doesn’t want that, they want the entire land and the expulsion of Palestine entirely.

A two-state solution, where there’s a kind of federation between them might actually work. The federation would have to abide by international committees and violations by either state would be subject to some kind of punishment (be it trade deals or even military action in severe cases).

The first problem, though, is the weapons supply and military training from the West. If that were cut off, it would take maybe a year of bloody gorilla fighting, but the playing field would be relatively equal at that point and then it’d be anybody’s guess who’d win out. Getting the USA to slowly wean away support would mean negotiating partially on their terms.

In other words, Xi could just be giving the USA a peaceful “out” here, if they take it. The USA can save face and support a ramp down of the situation instead of escalation. I don’t see that happening near-term, but lots can change in the next few years and this play by China might just be the thing that allows a better situation to happen here.

Jokes on you, bot, I live in America, I don’t have privacy!

He’s a gaffe machine.

Tanks. Lots and lots of T-34s.

A rehash of “the devil made me do it” trope.

Why not ask the Chinese government?

To be clear, capital - the value produced from society that is cycled back into society to develop further surplus - isn’t the problem, it’s capital within capitalism. Capital doesn’t have the “insatiable appetite” but rather capitalists, who control most of the capital, do. How we handle capital is a large part of what defines the system.

❤️

“What? Me? On equal ground with the dirty commoner? Good heavens, no!” - bourgeoisie

Don’t assume the readers/hearers of the propaganda all believe it. The military must maintain recruitment numbers and they’ll spend a lot of money to do so. So we’ll hear a lot about how great they are. The DOD even spends a lot of time and money providing props and such for Hollywood movies. They even help edit the scripts to ensure the US military isn’t put in a bad light.

It’s not that the brainrot runs deep. It’s more that the propaganda does. Don’t blame the people for the stuff they didn’t consent to.

The communism my mother warned me about!

Haha. Stalin’s got a way with words for sure. But you are probably right about anarchists not reading him.

That’s kind of what I was afraid of. I’m genuinely interested in a compelling critique. Like I mentioned, I haven’t seen one. I still sympathize with anarchists but I truly don’t understand how we do the switch-a-roo to communism with a snap. Like, nothing in history has worked that way, let alone, it would seem, a transition from class society to classless, arguably the greatest achievement of all time when it’s done.

But, yeah, this is probably wrong place to ask. I’ll seek out another Lemmy I guess.

Human psychology suggests that major life changes require a lot of time to process the internalization we have while going through them. We have to unpack things and question our own assumptions and be honest with ourselves on things we thought we’d never have to be honest with ourselves about.

I think that most people becoming socialists are coming from the toxic ideology of liberalism. Liberalism is a mental cage, designed to keep people captive in the predominant mode, all while thinking they’re actually free! When becoming a socialist, it’s a real struggled to free oneself from the shackles of liberal thought. It’s really, really tough. And it takes a lot of time, just like any change.

During a transition period from liberalism to socialism (technically, Marxism), people go through large periods of doubt and frustration and pessimism. But don’t let that get you off track. It’s natural and normal. You’re just starting to see the world for what it is, rather than what the powerful want you to believe it is. And the world is confusing and wild and lots of ugly. So it’s alarming.

Keep the course. Stay steady on. You’ll get out of the murky waters eventually. Once you can use material dialectics to analyze news and current events and history and movies and … then you’ll start realizing that the world was always this way and there’s no real sense in getting down about it. Live your life, do your part and push things a little further along.

None of the timings of things are up to us. It’s only on us to be ready for when the moment’s right. And to be humble enough to also be ready for that moment to be after we’re gone. Regardless of the circumstances, a socialist’s job is always the same: educate, agitate and organize.

However, we must remember these people are people

Correction: these people are proletariat. We have the same enemy. Mostly, the only difference between us and them is that we’re a little better at identifying the enemy than they are.

And those bears ain’t even hexed!

I have two dogs (a big one and a little one) and some training from a dog trainer. There’s no “getting even” with dogs. If you pee on their bed, they won’t care. They’ll smell it, and because their sense of smell is drastically more evolved than ours, they’ll figure out what you ate a couple of meals ago and what you’re current mood is. They will not interpret your pee as an act of vengeance.

There’s no punishment you can give. Instead, you need to hack dogs’ psychology (which is easy, actually) and train them to pee outdoors only. The way you do this is to by POSITIVE motivation. Each time they pee outdoors, give them a treat. You have about ~2 seconds to give them that treat though, so keep treats in your pocket at all times. Treats you know they like.

What will happen is that they’ll pee exactly where you want them to pee to get the treat. It takes multiple times, but they’ll make the connection. They just want the treat. Only after they’ve made the appropriate connection between peeing where you want and getting a reward can you begin then to not always give them the treat. Instead, affirm with a simple “good boy” and maybe a pet. Slowly (over weeks) retreat the reward until you’re just giving a verbal “good boy”. And maybe not even every time.

What they will do is just pee outside because “that’s the way they always do it”. That’s it. That’s all their brains will tell them. And they might bark or ask to go outside even when they need to go because, in their heads, it’s “weird” to go inside. It’s not what they did the last 20 times so they don’t want to.

Anyway. Take it from a random person on the Internet: punishment won’t be effective. Just hack your dog’s love of food and love of routine. Keep it positive and you’ll, eventually, receive the fruits of your labor.

[giggles]