Knowing the real history of American radical left-wing groups, this film is far too generous about their capabilities. In reality, they wouldn’t have killed any political figure higher than a superintendent, would likely have set off a bomb that killed a good portion of their members or been shot dead and arrested if they actually tried fighting against an armed resistance.
122 posts and 17 image replies omitted.>>2551061>You're all genuinely kind of 'weird' and off-putting to a lot of peopleno idea what kind of leftist exactly you met or how many, but this seem like a pretty retarded generalization. I've met plenty of "normal" people in the radical left
>>2551061>>2551131It's probably a lot of it that a lot of people interested in socialism in the imperial core are just really bitter and angry people. I'm definitely one of the dysfunctional types. I'm a little self-aware of it and try not to make it other people's problems but it's definitely true that normal people aren't so involved in real leftism in the imperial core.
This website is definitely going to disproportionately feature the bitter and angry sorts though.
>>2551061Weirdo suburbanites being part of the left isn't anything new
>>2551262I think that's a good first step. But again, all of us in the Third World who are serious about politics self‑censor. For example, I know a lot of people who are likely atheists and they know I'm likely a atheist, but we will never bring up the idea of dismissing religion, we know what will happen if we do. It's not the same as some conservative writing an opinion piece; we would be murdered by a mob for it. This extends to a lot of other issues, if you insult even a local politician, he'll send men to beat and kill you and your loved ones. So the only way to survive is to be in the good graces of another corrupt politician who will only aid you for ethno‑supremacist reasons. These factors almost create an evolutionarily pressure for us to establish an environment that is alter and favors normality
>>2551367See the problem with "Why can't Western Marxists just be normal?" is that historically it hasn't worked.
I don't know what's wrong with the West. Shit's fucked. But being normal in the West just gets shit watered down and incredibly chauvinist. The dogmatism and revisionism and just general assholery hasn't emerged from nowhere. There has to be a better way to deal with these issues than being a cultist or a crackpot definitely.
>>2551367Nah this is retarded, at the end of this path lies the USSR's end where no one actually believes in anything resembling Marxism and it's in their material interest to sabotage and dismantle the state to sell out to foreigners. No Marxist should fetishize proletarianization or careerism, the "norm" of capitalism is one of slavery, bending to it puts you under it's spell and allows it to subsume you entirely. Then your entire worldview becomes self-reproducing because you can just boil any princpled stance against capitalism to someone being "weird" and "not normal". Stop peddling bourgeois captialism normalization, I think people in the first world absolutely have massive fundamental issues but this ain't one of them chief. The revolution will only spring from the nations most advanced in capitalism and the patriarchical communal structures that exist in the third world will eventually be broken down by capitalism like it has in the first world. It is an inevitable end, so instead of trying to normalize such behavior accept that what is progressive for thirdies and firsties is entirely different owing to the different stages of development. Your advice on this matter is not needed nor is it useful.
>>2552021I mean I think "be normal" is bad for the imperial core but I think the USSR was historically progressive in the main. If "be normal" works for Eastern Marxism then it works. But it really just tends to lead to social fascism to in the West.
>>2551983>>2552021>>2552041Do you all hear yourselves? This is exactly what I was talking about. You will not appeal to anyone outside a small handful of educated leftists with this rhetoric. Outside the West, Communist and Leftists faced/face actual political repression that has resulted in death and imprisonment (not just a bunch of Hollywood writers losing their jobs), we’ve learned to be pragmatic. Our political views aren’t driven by what's trending or what we feel is more revolutionary or debate which is more progressive. they’re shaped by what has allowed us to survive, what has kept us from being murdered, jailed, or having our families threatened. This doesn’t apply to all Third World socialist parties, but it does for most, We work with ethno-supremacist parties who are moderately socialist (we know these parties are corrupt and violent). We are 'China shills,'(e know that China isn’t fully communist) and yet we do it to further our aims. So, seeing Western leftists face none of our constraints and still fail time and time again due to your own neurotic nature offends us. It offends us that you’re so politically useless and naive, retreating into academia and then LARPing like you’re fighting some kind of war.
>>2552204And I'm telling you that being pragmatic and compromising with social Democrats has led to fuck all time and time again.
Your main problem is being shot. Our main problem is chauvinism. It's a very different situation. I wish I knew a strategy that would work in the West. But "just be normal" isn't it.
>>2552204>So, seeing Western leftists face none of our constraints and still fail time and time again due to your own neurotic nature offends us.My dude you're retarded.
I dont know why it has to be either/or. CPC and Bolshevik parties both won with less than 1% of the population actually being party members. You dont have to water down your own party to be in a coalition with others
>>2552366We work with ethno-supremacist, corrupt racists who have taken part in ethnic cleansings and probably read their kids the elders of zion. If we can do that, you can comprise as well.
>>2552548The Bolsheviks won 23% in the first Russian elections. More importantly, they had established a popular base within the Tsarist Army, recruiting soldiers, low-ranking officers and then later forcefully conscripting higher-ranking Tsarist Generals. Without these decisions, they would have lost the war and been crushed, a footnote in history. A Western leftist party is nowhere near that popular, and the idea of them having support in their nation's military is as unrealistic as monkeys flying. The CCP started out really small and would have been irrelevant as well, but by that time the Soviet Union had established itself and was willing to aid the Nationalists if they formed a union with the Communists. During this period, they would proselytize soldiers and peasants alike, creating an entire left-wing faction within the KMT, numbering in the hundreds of thousands from virtually nothing. This left-wing would become the basis of Mao's CCP. All of this was the result of pragmatism and political common sense.
>>2552204>We are 'China shills,'(e know that China isn’t fully communist) If you know this, why do you use this tactic? I can understand using "Mao Zedong Thought" as a basis with the intent to pivot towards a more effective socialist strategy later on, but holding up China instead of charting your own course seems self-defeating.
>>2552598>work with>won 23% yes but were they party members?
you say to be normal i think that is good. you say to self-censor. so you dont talk about religion on specific politicians.
this is fine. when people bring up religion ambiguously refer to religious values that align with your politics and say something about regular peoples material needs. you dont need to say hail satan 666 tip your fedora and say god is dead. if people bring up a politician dont criticize him, offer a positive example of something you would like to see. people dont want to see a raging troll say fuck that guy he is a capitalist pig bring on the guillotine etc and if they do want to see that they wont respect it.
>>2551983>watered down and incredibly chauvinistwhy does it have to be this way? being normal doesn't mean agree with reactionaries.
>>2552021>No Marxist should fetishize proletarianization or careerismYou cant find comradeship and pride in doing a good job and helping build a society together? You can't commiserate with colleges pushing papers that you wish your work was meaningful and helped people?
>It is an inevitable end, so instead of trying to normalize such behavior accept that what is progressive for thirdies and firsties is entirely different owing to the different stages of development. What makes you think they are saying something else?
>>2552204>You will not appeal to anyone outside a small handful of educated leftists with this rhetoric. Well they wont anyway because theyre being defeatist and dont go outside. But inside /leftypol/ or in party recruiting you arent really trying to appeal to the masses. It seems like your advice is for individuals, not parties, and I would say that that sort of rhetoric probably wouldn't be in a party platform. But thats sort of what I mean, their outward facing posture should be like you say, normal. They should follow democratic centralism and propagandize according to the consensus and not inject their weird internet hyperfixations into public facing discourse.
>yet we do it to further our aimsYeah that is what progressive is, well depending on your aims. Some people who are liberal think progressive means having the correct social ideas. I think it means bringing us closer to communism which is done through building productive forces and working class organizing. So working with people who want to build infrastructure is progressive, because it gets infrastructure built, even if the people doing it are corrupt. Your goal isn't getting the corrupt politician into the party, its getting schools or hospitals or whatever. Starting a union and bringing workers together to demonstrate collective power is progressive, even if the workers are backwards and reactionary. The goal isn't the workers joining the party, its creating a collective body that can exercise working class power.
>>2552366>being pragmatic and compromising with social Democratscompromising to complete an objective with a coalition group is not the same thing as compromising your principles or changing the party platform to get votes
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch06.htmhttps://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch08.htm >>2552600Like I’ve explained throughout this thread, politics in modern corrupt countries is a web of maneuvering and political tactics that can be literal life and death. Although these countries hold elections, they aren’t true democracies in any simple sense. Right now my country is governed by an alliance of two entrenched corrupt parties and a military junta. You can’t meaningfully campaign against them or even publish criticism, people who speak out will have thugs show up at their homes to beat them and their families, while the police look the other way. That has happened in the past and it’s happening now. And I know some will call for armed resistance, but that’s far more difficult and dangerous than many outsiders realize. This is my biggest issue Western leftists, you misunderstand war and conflict on comical levels, they assume the Cuban model (or similar conflicts) can be reproduced by adopting the “right” politics, as if there were a universal key. In reality, any semi-competent military can crush most insurgencies unless the insurgents are exceptionally capable and the state is deeply incompetent and or already collapsing from other problems.
As for our relationship with China, we understand its current complexity. Regardless of what we believe to be the best path(whether it’s Maoism, Marxism-Leninism, or some form of folk socialism unique to a particular party) we all support China. Their acknowledgment of us is the only reason we’ve survived this long. The CCP itself was a minor party in the beginning, but it became the official Communist Party of China at a time when the Soviet Union was a major power, and the Soviets forced the inclusion of communists within the KMT ranks. From there, they proselytized among soldiers, peasants, and bureaucrats, hundreds of thousands of men and women. This leftist faction of the KMT later became the foundation of the CCP. Regardless of what happened afterward, the CCP grew into a major political power within China, and that’s our aim as well.
>>2551061>>2551113>>2551262>>2551983>>2552204I think being "normal" is mostly about having your own house in order (the problem is that this can be very difficult for a lot of people for reasons outside of their control, especially when things are becoming more expensive), and also having a life outside of politics to some extent. Like, I need politics to take care of things that I need, but I don't need politics to be my identity or personality so much. You need to be able to relate to your own context and environment. Like just being a worker among working people, not one of these kids fucking around on Discord on his phone.
A lot of leftists in my experience that you'll encounter online anyways here in my country tend to treat leftism like it's a music subculture, like being a punk or goth or something. There's a certain "fuck these normies" attitude with some of these people. But in fact the dominant ideology is all about acting like an edgelord, look at Elon Musk. He's the richest man in the world and acts like an edgy teenager.
>>2553058>And I know some will call for armed resistance, but that’s far more difficult and dangerous than many outsiders realize. This is my biggest issue Western leftists, you misunderstand war and conflict on comical levels, they assume the Cuban model (or similar conflicts) can be reproduced by adopting the “right” politics, as if there were a universal key. In reality, any semi-competent military can crush most insurgencies unless the insurgents are exceptionally capable and the state is deeply incompetent and or already collapsing from other problems.True!
>>2553058I will admit this though, our pragmatism and more importantly China’s pragmatism, often leads us to ally with or even empower far-right, third-positionist, and Fascist movements. It 's possible that in this century, the first truly popular Fascist parties could emerge with support from China, Russia, and Iran.
>>2552598>>2552612I support the compromises you need to make for your situation. I agree that some people are very weird and that much of it is counterproductive. People way overcorrect for this. But it doesn't entirely come from nowhere given the history of the imperial core and the consistent chauvinism and opportunism of its organizations. It's just a strange situation I don't know how to fully explain.
>>2553272It is also true though that most Western activists are LARPers or social rejects.
>>2553274Like Christ, we have a common problem with dickass capitalists exploiting us, can't we just solve the problem without being weird about it?
>>2550192How could you claim to be from the Third World but still post fucking worthless Standpoint Epistemology dogshit that was created on American college campuses? Because you act like you’re from Cambodia or something but talk like you’re a graduate of (insert american university); like “I am X identity so understand Y” is what college radlibs believe, not Marxists
>>2553272From my own readings, post-WWII you guys (especially in America and the UK) seem to be the exact opposite of chauvinistic and for some reason, you consistently support the least popular and most irrelevant third-world leftist movements rather than the actual popular ones.
>>2553498I come from a family of dirt peasants not too long ago. My grandfather joined the Army as a young man for career purposes, which got his family access to housing and education. He later helped his sons join the Army as well, but this time as officers. I grew up in a military middle-class household. When I was a teenager, my dad got a well-paying job through someone he knew and suddenly our family became upper-middle class. (and I’m not blind to the fact that I’m incredibly privileged in my country.)
During my time at university, I was deeply involved in activism(and that's where I met many Americans) I had a lot of naive ideas (though perhaps not as naive as some of the Americans) that were eroded through the reality of politics in my country.
Now, I work in a field unrelated to professional activism, but I still keep in touch with my old colleagues. Their cynicism seems to grow by the day, yet they continue the fight, and I have tremendous respect for them.
>>2553552Then your reading is very wrong. Or we are talking past each other here.
As the other guy mentioned, it's not something that is quite explainable in the abstract.
One of the pastimes I engage in from time to time is look at how much more Trump is tethered to reality than most westoids. And he is of course famously chauvinistic.
>>2553584I was talking about specifically Leftists, obviously I wasn't referring to the RW
>>2553587My point, such as it is, being that it almost doesn't matter. There is a nominal left wing and a nominal right wing here. The basic assumptions don't differ enough to make a difference to me.
The higher-order principle ordering their thinking is the same.
>Paul Thomas Anderson is less revolutionary than Paul WS Anderson who has made countless Resident Evil movies about the evil of mega-corporations like Amazon that are destroying the world. His hot wife Milla Jovovich doing karate kicks to fight mutant dogs is true world-historic proletarian culture(Infrared Haz) "facts"
>>2539943>Pynchon's book Vineland is way harsher in his critique of the New Left>>2544451>The thesis of this thread [is that western left are decadent for some unexplained reason]Marxism 101: our material conditions determine consciousness.
The post-WWII imperialist privilege of these "labor aristocrat" baby boomer workers turned them into complacent liberals who were the vanguard of the neoliberal counter-revolution cheering individualism rather than collective struggle:
https://gnosticpulp.substack.com/p/we-are-pynchons-fail-sons-and-thot<While there were real revolutionary actions occurring in the sixties, such as the anti-Vietnam War effort and the black liberation movement, a fictional contingent of which (Black Afro-American Division (or BAAD)) visits the hippie counter culture who is occupying a campus where they have formed a sort of temporary autonomous zone known as The People’s Republic of Rock and Roll. PR3, in its search for allies, reaches out to BAAD who sends a small party to the seaside campus. BAAD’s arrival cuts a stark difference between themselves and the hippie students. Their discipline and commitment to the movement is immediately evident, for they arrive wearing matching uniforms of “Shiny black Vietnam boots, black-on-black camo fatigues, and velvet-black berets with off-black wide-point stars on them” (230).<BAAD enters into a long debate with the students, who they brush off as “children of the surfing class” (230), that is to say, unserious. The New Deal, one suspects, was quite purposefully not for everyone. It successfully played on race divisions, a favorite move by the good ol’ US of A, by elevating the white working class to a new level of comfort and security, while leaving everyone else to fend for themselves.<BAAD sees the students as cos-players rather than revolutionaries. They laugh off the idea that they are on the same side, saying “The Man’s gun don’t have no blond option on it” (231), and in the end they leave with the keys to a Porsche 911, given over by Rex, one of the most outspoken members of PR3, in a desperate effort to prove his radicality.>>2545100>please ignore the fascist regimes killing everyone left of liberals and the decades of infiltration and propaganda from state actorsthat's literally what Pynchon's book is about!
>>2540430>Uwe Bollevery Hollywood gore and violence-normalization psyop creator like Quentin Tarantino and Sam Raimi is a Zionist or funded by Zionists. These degenerates are GLEEFUL at the idea of (sexual) violence and broadcast it on all forms of media to indoctrinate young people.
Please stop normalizing fascist culture and start rejecting Zionist psyops
>>2539992>de omnibus dubitandum (Marx’s credo)Apparently Finkelstein never stopped being an idealist pseudo-intellectual radlib? He still is a lecturing pseud who rejects historical materialism for his preferred PMC gibberish that is laughably out of touch with the proletariat. Imagine being such a shithead that you feel betrayed that Chinese people want clean water and hospitals more than some childish utopianism about doing "friendly sports" and not having to lock things up lmao
>>2553559>Privileged upper middle class academic former liberal activist whose family rose up by directly aiming their guns at the proletariat shilling for nationalism and telling you how heckin privileged you are as a poor person tens of thousands in debt because you live in the West (POV: the person your arguing with literally grew up rich and is still rich)Funny as fuck to confirm you are a liberal after that gay standpoint shit
>>2553552There's some very weird overcompensation for the historical chauvinism here. In particular, you have the whole Settlers and Maoist Third-Worldist stuff which paints every (white?) worker in the imperial core as an exploiter. Settler-colonialism and imperial spoils are real but the whole history of whiteness and the labor aristocracy as a structure is something that has a history and whiteness is very temporary and fragile. So specifically in the USA, you have settler land-grabs, then you have imperial spoils and the New Deal and it is really around the 1970s and neoliberalism that the whole structure really starts to breakdown as jobs are outsourced. The trouble is that some people think we're still in the 1950s and drastically overcompensate.
>>2547759Jesus. Yeah I've seen some weirdos in the org but its my first time hearing about that.
>>2553718A Western leftist calling anyone a 'liberal' is funny, throughout my posts when did I ever advocate for liberal democracy and capitalism? we don't advocate for democracy, we know it doesn't exist here and is more of a concept. If we were naive idiots like a certain demographic, we would make a big show about how we're going to tear the system down and get arrested, tortured, and killed while our loved ones are buried in ditches. We build real political power, as small as it can be in the most difficult positions.
But I will make one thing clear, when liberal democracy does fall and the world is ruled by strongman caudillos, China will work with them, even if those government are basically Fascist and are openly removing an ethnic group or two and we have learned to accept living under that. It's not easy, but when true violence happens you will become like us, whether you like it or not.
>>2553718like intersectionality, standpoint theory is a recuperation of marxism. marxism is standpoint theory from the perspective of the universal class in capitalism, the proletariat. and intersectionality was originally that identity is reflected through the prism of class. you are the liberal for ceding ground to them
>>2554099So you want people to be 'pragmatic' i.e., opportunistic third-positionists with broad ideologies that are just some mix of socialism and nationalism?
>>2554099>>2555505In inter-imperialist war and politics, communists should fight for revolutionary defeatism. The urban workers should fight against the Democrats and the rural workers should fight against the Republicans.
>>2553552>seem to be the exact opposite of chauvinistici wish they were, but this has never applied to them from what i've seen. whether it's supporting an irrelevant "pure theory" movement of 3,5 people that has existed for 2 weeks best or supporting popular reactionaries, leftcom style "long live the butcher hitler" done unironically they were/are chauvinists through and through
>>2544451>>2545051>>2551061>>2550192For whatever weird reasons, communism tends to appeal to social outcasts in the West. It's simply the reality that communism is popular among the weirdos and not popular among normal people. It's sort of like lumpenprole and lumpenbourg but not in an organised crime sense. Anyhow the reality is that the lumpen left must engage in class suicide. It's no different than how the petty-bourgeoisie in the periphery must commit to class suicide. To an extent, it's the opposite of the Amilcar Cabral stuff.
>>2557084This is just a consequence of western culture’s violent hatred of the proletariat; most of the “weird commie outcasts” are actually just poor
>>2557118>most of the “weird commie outcasts” are actually just poorMy friend, the new left has been dominating academia since the 1970s. I'm pretty sure the problem isn't that Western communists are "poor"
>>2557710I didn’t say anything false, New Left political ideologies and third-worldism have dominated Western social sciences, and they’ve produced exactly the kind of neurotic men those ideologies would be expected to produce
>>2567634>A protest of 7 million wine moms…100% true. Making it a meme doesn't make it wrong.
>>2567634>Did you hear that speech from Jill Stein? Me neither.what dat mean
>>2540833truth nuke
>>2541117not an argument
yes people need to listen to michael s judge deaths corner.
there was a really nice academic looking breakdown of i think gravitys rainbow but i cant find it among all the bs literary "themes" analysis
It's a good movie, their anarchist org kinda sucks
The should have included Greenwich Village townhouse explosion
>The Weather Underground had been formed from the remnants of Students for a Democratic Society in June 1969, by about a hundred activists who had come to believe that armed struggle was necessary to reform American society. At that meeting, the Weathermen, who had taken their original name from the line "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows" in Bob Dylan's 1965 song "Subterranean Homesick Blues" had discussed what actions they might take, and against what targets. The consensus was that the police and the military were legitimate targets, representing the urban racism that their allies the Black Panthers most strongly opposed, and the Vietnam War. Members present recall that while the topic of whether their actions would necessarily involve taking life was largely avoided, beyond general agreement that they should not do so indiscriminately, their actions would likely kill police officers and military personnel.
>The Weathermen purchased a large quantity of dynamite and a number of electric fuses for $60 ($500 in 2024) in New Hampshire in early March. After a meeting they designated three targets, including a noncommissioned officers' dance at Fort Dix, which was due to take place on March 6. It was reported that "arguments went on day and night" in the townhouse, with Kathy Boudin advocating that they kill as many people as possible with anti-personnel bombs. Diana Oughton reportedly had misgivings, although others present say she never showed them. Wilkerson wrote later that she felt powerless to stop what was going on in her father's house. Theodore Gold threatened to kill one close friend after he had a breakdown over the plan at one gathering.
>None of the Weathermen had experience with explosives, and Robbins and Wilkerson did not even understand the basics of electricity. They worked up a simple timer and trigger device that lacked any safety features, and packed the dynamite with sharp roofing nails. Robbins was unwilling to deviate from the way he had been told to build the bomb, and unwilling to listen to suggestions from anyone else.
>Robbins had chosen the dance at Fort Dix as their target; other reports indicate that only some were intended for the dance, with the rest to be detonated inside the administration building at Columbia University. The morning of March 6, he and Oughton were making final preparations in the same subbasement where James Wilkerson restored furniture, while Boudin and Wilkerson, both of whom were due to appear in court in Chicago a few days later over assault charges against them from the Days of Rage, were upstairs cleaning the house in preparation for Wilkerson's parents' return that evening. Other members were preparing their disguises for that night.
>Shortly before noon, Gold left to get some cotton balls Robbins needed, according to Wilkerson. She began ironing a sheet and heard Boudin beginning to shower upstairs. A few minutes later, she heard a dull roar from the basement and watched as the carpeted floor broke in several places beneath her, letting through a red glow as shards of broken wood and plaster erupted from it. After a second explosion, the floor collapsed and Wilkerson recalls nothing for a while afterwards.
>Oughton and Robbins were killed by the blast. Gold was returning to the townhouse and was crushed by the collapsing facade. Wilkerson regained awareness and heard Boudin nearby on the edge of what was now a crater in the basement; the two were able to link hands and escape just as a fire built up behind them. Just after they got out, the fire built up into another explosion, blowing out the wall of Hoffman's house and knocking his desk into the crater.
>The Weather Underground's total membership declined by two-thirds in the aftermath of the explosion and it lost much of its support. In May, after the remaining members gathered in San Francisco to confer, Bernadine Dohrn issued a statement in the name of the group declaring war on America, warning that they would "attack a symbol or institution of American injustice" within the next two weeks, and confirming that Gold, Oughton and Robbins had been among its membership. The statement named Robbins as the third body and described Gold, Oughton, and Robbins as revolutionaries "no longer on the move".
>>2539918the black woman power thing has also been super cringe as black nationalism hasnt been progressive or relevant for 50 years.
Unique IPs: 40