Yeah it also comes up during election cycles in the US. If you say you don’t want to vote Democrat, you might hear someone say that you shouldn’t focus on purity and vote pragmatically™.

Of course they are either unable to understand that there are different politcal aims at play, or they are trying to extort you.

When the “Republican friend” tries to suggest a moderate or alternative dem for “pragmatic purposes” it’s often taken in bad faith. RFK Jr is a decent example of this today, a lot of Dems hate him because he sucks and is an obvious grifter. But if a communist or some other ‘lefty’ doesn’t want to vote for Democrats, they are selling everyone out to Trump because of a dangerous lack of pragmatism.

The main problem that I see is that a lot of people on the left are rejecting effective methods for building a movement that have been proven in the past as being authoritarian.

Occupy Wall Street comes to mind. It’s like a natural demobilizing ideaolgy that grows in reaction to neoliberalism. People get focused on grassroots and bottom up approaches, which makes sense and is necessary. But then they get taken over by astroturfing because their leadership is basically unofficial and nothing more than a friend group that got their first. I’m looking at you David Graeber (RIP). And now the whole “99% vs 1%” rhetoric is all but entirely used by the right wing.

I think proletarian ethics is emergent from a combination of class interests and from revolutionary practice. OP can certainly disapprove, and even be repulsed by the actions of their family and their political interests can certainly be the foundations of this. Sure having petty bourgeoisie or wealthy parents doesn’t mean much in terms of being communist, and there is no need for OP to get lost in identity crisis over that but that doesn’t mean the situation can’t be degrees of troubling. If our family is contributing to the problems of the masses, then the last thing we should be doing is justifying it, or sterilizing it by needlessly making it all entirely about macro processes. I don’t see why family gets a special pass on these matters either.

Landlords may be determined by capitalist relations but the reality this produces is not merely academic and it is far from harmless. It is not amoral, it is directly antagonistic to a proletarian normativity. We can explain the act of stabbing someone to death in terms of the physiology of the killer, or the sociology, to better understand, but at the end of the day someone was killed.

I want to be clear that centering morality has major pitfalls, especially in our settler and/or bourgeoisie outrage cultures and the utility civil religion provides for bourgeoisie politics. Good and evil are usually liberal trademarks and so I do agree that this should not be our primary thought and oftentimes we should resist moralizing things until we have the means to do so properly. But I doubt denying it entirely will hold up forever, and it’s removal can’t be used to cover up crimes against working and subsisting people or to ease our minds illegitimately.

All in all this case is small time and OP probably has nothing to worry about other than contextualizing themselves within dynamic class structures. They are not alone in having pety bourgeoisie characteristics and not in bad company either.

I don’t understand how you can talk about race without talking about class. The claim that the left only cares about racism is explicitly racist and class reductionist. The NYT has got nothing to do with it. If these political spectrum discourses have any meaning or substance at all, the NYT is clearly right wing.

Eventually it worked

I play the shit out of this game but don’t really want to make a other lemmy account…

Edit: never mind I figured it out

A lot of people play it ironically. It’s certainly not explicitly pro soviet. But it is fun.

The only place for a mercenary is prison. We are now learning why this is the case.

I did not read the article but BlackRock only owns significant shares of most corps. They don’t own everything but they do get a massive say in the corporate world and have led the way in promoting stakeholder capitalism, geenwashing, etc.

Part of the consciousness around BlackRock is that they control the world and it is used to promote conspiracy theories full of half truths. Certain factions weaponize this to manipulate finance. Several state treasuries, for example, have divested from BlackRock to force finance to treat fossil fuels better and to challenge Fink’s vision with something more asthetically fascist, and more explicitly in favor of US nationalism and imperialism (especially in regards to oil investment which is reliant on stable, high oil prices to maintain US energy dominance, with more investment and support, exxon could have basically bought euro energy out). So it is not so simple that they control everything.

The truth is Fink and BlackRock are more like the traffic cops of the global economy or the glue that holds finance together as it is. Very powerful and influencial. Fink has less money than Musk but is arguably more influencial. But they are more like a major part of capitalisms infrastructure than they are its rulers, if that makes sense. Nobody likes having the whistle blown on you, being told to halt or that you won’t get investment you need. No one likes being told your business is untenable because of climate change. Imo this is more why Fink/BlackRock take heat than anything else, far more than concern over power that is more visible.

Fink is, for better or worse, a “true believer” imo, a white savior that keeps the death cult going despite taking heat from many factions. He is basically trying to bring about a communist utopia through finance capitalism lol, or so he tries to portray himself. He really thinks finance will solve all social problems through good corporate governance and so on.

He also has been instrumental in assisting the US government in managing financial disasters, so he is as much of an insider as it gets. There probably is collusion, corruption, and backroom deals, but the fixation on that kind of thing turns it all into a spectecle and turning it into a spectecle makes manipulating the infrastructure easier if you ask me.

I also see BlackRock as a kind of symbol of American/metropolitan core complicity. Everyone that is using their services to ensure their retirement and grow their wealth is complicit in BlackRock’s imperial structure and gives some fuel to every social problem it causes.

The occupation of Palestine is a problem on many levels. I’m not sure China has the ability to address all of them. My guess is they think if they can at least bring about an end to the violence that Southwest Asia will be better off and will steadily gravitate away from the west.

Im not sure it can work without addressing the nature of the occupation, which would potentially be an existential threat to all of the explicit settler colonial states, and even some post colonial states. Not to mention the political and military ties that make it such a dangerous issue.

It’s a can of worms that China likley feels compelled to address, but is not prepared for the consequences of letting all the worms loose. With new developments in the global human system we may see these things become either easier or harder to address. Let’s hope it gets easier. I know critics of the occupation seem more numerous than a decade ago so maybe that is a good sign. Hopefully when change does come, it is change for the better. I doubt a two state solution, or peace talks, will do any good by themselves but the fact that a leading nation wants to address the issue is certainly a better direction.

When I was young I had an opportunity to (in summary) go to DC and learn from Pentagon officials. They talked about their involvement in Hollywood and even mentioned movies they withdrew their support from (I remember Jarhead was on thr list, so if you want to see a war movie the Pentagon hates, Jarhead makes the cut).

Like you, I also assume it doesn’t stop with this. But they have to give an illusion that granddad DoD is just saluting that ole flag with the zeal and sincerity of a patriot, and not curating war culture or valorizing paternalism and sacrifice for imperial gains.

What the hell is a beehaw anyway? Sounds like a shitty corporate name for an app nobody needs.

Welcome. Glad to see things sort themselves out.

I feel like reddit moved in next door.

Go back to reddit

Oof…

I gotta say I’m glad this community exists and people can be critical of these takes because my day to day life is absolutely saturated with this kind of stuff.

At first I thought it was cool but now its clear lemmy will just be turned into reddit.

The problem was that people were taking the variation that was not specifically for humans.

Not sure how any of this written diarrhea helps frame Zelensky any better.

There have been many debates and discussions on this and in this case searching ‘Russia’ and reading through those discussions may help. Though do not read this as discouragement from asking questions. It is, understandably, a hot topic worthy of elaboration and there are plenty of people here that will be interested in answering.

Here is my take:

Russia as a nation has a class character that is more easily compared to that of developing countries than that of a core country.

The BRICS countries, especially recently, have gained steam due to the reelection of Lula in Brazil. But also because the war, and subsequent sanctions, many countries are compelled to build an alternative to the global finacial order, aka white supremacist or “western” imperialism, giving the BRICS more vigor and more direction. Russia’s role in this project is crucial. Russia may be viewed as the aggressor if you begin the story 1.5-2 years ago and ignore Donbas, but if you go back further it is not difficult to make the case this conflict began in 2014 during the coup.

The war is obviously disturbing, a major threat to global stability. It has been incredibly violent and destructive in many different ways. The war increases risk of nuclear attack, creates the surge of weapons into the region which is ending up with reactionaries committing atrocities in the Donbas region, to organized criminals and even to places much further away. Sanctions and other factors surrounding the war have caused rising energy prices and increased inflation that has hurt many countries in the global south. This is affecting people subsisting on the countryside already suffering from drought and people toiling in the metro. There is too much pressure on the masses. The war must end.

The problem is that Russia is not the only party involved and NATO will need to make concrete efforts to prove they will be able to build peace as much as Russia and Ukraine. Unfortunately, that has not played out and remains unlikely. So here we are.

I would like to add that the word “support” is commonly used in this discussion but it is not an especially useful word and by my observation is a huge source of confusion to the critics of my position and to our communities position. I do not send money to Russia. I do not send weapons or material aid. I am not a Russian citizen and thus have not voted for Putin and do not serve in the military or government. Nor have I contributed to government policy, war policy, or on the ground support as an independent contractor. Nor do I “root” for Russia as if it is a sports team or a dance contestant. Frankly, I don’t feel obligated to do so either. I have my own problems to attend to.

However, what I am in favor of is the greater project that Russia is part of which is creating a needed alternative for much of the world. I think the global masses will benifit from this process of history but will suffer if it is stopped. The threat of the this development to the imperial core is the primary reason Russia is demonized for its invasion. If they were concerned about the humanitarian crisis they would act differently and pull their weight in ending it, but they hardly even admit their role.