Me personally, I find the EZLN fascinating. (if there is anything bad about them, let me know because I do not know much bad things about them)
They are one of the few movements that anarchists praise that I actually think are based, although the Zapatistas have told westerners to stop calling them anarchists, communists, or anything else.
They also fight against drug cartels and seem to have created one of the most stable territories in the Chiapas region.
However, they are too small to do anything big like overthrowing the Mexican government. They would be crushed quickly.
Give me your thoughts on the EZLN and/or, as the title suggests, any non-ML movements that you support.
US abolitionist movement
Did someone legitimately downvote the abolishment movement???
Dang didn’t know Lemmygrad was pro-slavery /s
I blame Wisconcom
Wisconcom?
Do a search of top rated local posts with wisconcom as the query. The posts about him will explain it better than any comment.
Thank you
New Florida education policy about slavery already making waves
Probably one of those wandering libs.
Or mistook it for the anti-alcohol one. I know I did, until I read your comment
If I remember right prohibition was actually pretty based. Alcohol was a tool of oppression whether in sedating factory proletarians or getting indigenous people drunk to make it easier to steal their land.
Manhattan for example means “the place where we all became intoxicated.”Source I vaguely remember:
Yeah, but prohibition was absolute garbage since everyone was STILL drunk, just now the alcohol supply was owned by the Mob.
Per one journalist’s study, it took a maximum of 10 minutes for a “tourist” “out of towner” in any city in the US to find alcohol. The record was a 30 seconds when the cab driver of one city immediately pulled out beer from a compartment in the cab when asked where to get alcohol.
Sure, alcohol wasn’t eliminated, but it was progress. Back before prohibition people drank alcohol like water, and the fact that most don’t anymore is good (not that there aren’t widespread substance abuse problems of other types). I suggest you listen to the Gastropod episode.
I have before, but the reduction in alcohol drinking primarily came from the restriction, rationing, and lack of ingredients during WW1 and WW2 as opposed to Prohibition. It had a worse inverse effect, all it did was force drinking underground and made it a taboo topic to discuss.
Prohibition increased alcohol stockpiling which allowed most people to “ride out” the initial wave, and by the time many stockpiles ran dry, the mob and local moonshiners has established a strong enough network to maintain supply.
Funnily enough, one bar stockpiled so much alcohol prior to prohibition, that they were able to legally sell and advertise their alcohol for the entire prohibition since it was legal to sell Pre-Prohibiton alcohol.
I guess prohibition didn’t really succeed, but it doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth supporting.
Doesn’t Manhattan mean “The place where we get our bows from” in Munsee? I don’t know if your meaning is correct
That’s weird, I swear I heard that in the podcast. Shoulda checked.
Same with coca in the Latin American gold mines in the 16th and 17th centuries
Prohibition definitely is something I would support overall though I think the specifics of the way it was done in the US needed work even if it were positive overall
Prohibition never worked and never will work. You just incentivize a black market and criminal element.
Look at the war on drugs, which is essentially drug prohibition. It’s a complete and abject failure, and now you have many extremely powerful and dangerous gangs, syndicates, organizations, and cartels raking in billions of dollars a year.
It’s a questionable claim to say prohibition didn’t work. It reduced consumption and reduced hospital visits related to alcohol. Same thing with drugs. Many countries have taken a hard line stance against drugs and have made them harder to get and less used (China for instance in relation to many types of drugs). The increase in crime can’t just be noted for alcohol. There were also major economic issues during that time. Plus it would reduce it anyway as the vast majority of people are not so addicted to alcohol they would risk jail time for it but it would reduce “incidental” drunk driving
It reduced consumptions and reduced hospital visits because who is going to admit to breaking the law? Fun fact, criminals usually don’t go to the hospital for injuries sustained from their crimes, or report their crimes to the authorities.
Further the major economic issues came after the prohibition. The Great Depression started in 1929 and prohibition started in 1919.
Also banning alcohol absolutely did not reduce crime. Alcohol sales increased by several thousand percent before prohibition was enacted as people stocked up. Moonshining was a massive career and pastime. The mafia was making a killing off of created, moving, and selling alcohol, speakeasies we’re extremely common and everywhere.
Also again; who would report their illegal drug usage to the authorities??? Of course consumption would “decrease”. And if the police does not hunt down or prosecute drug users, then of course the “crime rate would decrease”, in the example of China. Do you think Chinese police are scouring the lower levels of Shanghai and Nanking and doing massive drug sweeps every Tuesday?
Banning things has never, and will never be an effective solution. This has been shown time and time throughout history.
maybe we could be very very generous and assume someone downvoted it for the slight typo
it was probably some chud though
Well, there were some problematic abolitionists. Some only wanted slavery gone because they were scared if there were too many slaves they would rise up and threaten the whole settler project.
True, but those are usually left in the dustbin of the movement.
When you think of abolishonist, you think of Fredrick Douglass, John Brown, William Garrison, and Harriet Tubman, etc.
I mean, abolition wouldn’t have happened without a full blown revolution if not for some bourgeois interest in it, and these people certainly had a decent amount of influence to be able to do things like colonize Liberia, but no that is not who we remember fondly or even at all often.
Also forgot the one that virtually all of us support: the Palestine liberation movement. Much more people have heard of it and thus support it.
Complete, uncritical support to the people of Palestine against the Zionist regime.
Gaddafi and Irish republicanism.
I have strong but critical support for the Scientist Rebellion, which is campaigning through civil disobedience for serious action against climate change and treating it like the existential threat it is. They’re definitely getting attention and traction, and it’s pissing off the Western powers beautifully.
Also, Libre software and hardware and the abolishment of copyright and patents in general.
Same here with libre software and hardware and other technological freedom struggles. Becoming politically conscious in the technology sector was the spark (especially when Trump repealed net neutrality) that led me to Marxism-Leninism today.
Hezbollah and other Palestinian liberation groups
I don’t support Hamas or Hezbollah. I only support PFLP.
Figures, you’ve never really given any thought to critical support.
Hamas is literally working to overthrow a fascist, colonial group trying to commit genocide against their people FFS. There’s such a thing as critical support with Hamas very clearly being preferable in every single way to the Zionists
I’m not very knowledgable about the occupation of Palestine, but isn’t a large reason that Hamas is one of the primary fighters of zionism today due to the zionist state undermining the more radical and left leaning Palestinian liberation groups and/or propping up Hamas? I recall hearing something to that effect but forget the details.
Thankfully the vanguard forces of anti-imperialist revolution in Palestine and Lebanon do not depend on support from imperial left.
Just came back from a holiday there: Basque independence movement. The Basque have their own language, culture, socio-economic vision so I see no reason why I shouldn’t support them wanting to become independent from Spain and France.
Just curious, what are your thoughts on Catalonia independence?
I’m not who you are replying to, but here’s a fun fact: years ago I did some research on the International Brigades that required pulling out documents from the SOVDOC.
One of these was the record of a political discussion in 1936-37 between members of a communist unit that included Catalonian independentists, about the question of self-determination for Spain’s various nationalities. The meeting ended with a recommendation of Stalin’s Marxism and the National Question as a read for the unit’s members and the decision that the text’s conclusions was the way of thought to follow.
To this day, I still recommend that one text to anyone who wishes to know how to proceed ideologically in regards to any movement for national independence, including Catalonia’s.
Thanks for the reading recommendation – I was just wondering if there’s some good theory on essentially what degree of local control is best/what type of independence or autonomy should be supported.
Yeah same. I was wary of mentioning it because it’s like what the ukrainian workers and people are defending right now and that’s not viewed in a good light here.
The American Indian movement
You should not call yourself a communist if you’re an American and do not know about AIM and their struggle imo.
However, they are too small to do anything big like overthrowing the Mexican government. They would be crushed quickly.
I do not think the EZLN has the wish to do so anyway. Staying relatively under the radar is the main reason why they have survived until now like they have.
Gotta be all Palestinian liberation movements for me
I’m not well-informed enough on any particular organization to say I “strongly support” them, but I’m for any anti-colonial struggle
It needs to be said that 1916 Ireland and the Starry Plough represented what Lenin called “The First Red Army in Europe”
Was that in a speech or a book? Would love to get the full context.
I was hoping I could find it but I can’t, I’d check Marxist Paul’s vid on the Irish Citizen Army, I believe that’s where I first heard Lenin’s saying about the ICA
Cool, I’ll check it out. I think he can be hit or miss, especially when it comes to ‘hard theory’ videos, but I’m none the less interested.
Lula’s worker’s party in Brazil, they’ve done incredible work helping the most impoverished people of the country, and are the most progressive in South America in my book.
As a Brazilian organized communist,
Just no. Especially his latest moves. In fact last night he just pushed a provisional measure (a law that can take effect now, go to congress later) to legalize cassinos and other gambling establishments. Effective immediately too
He’s not done any actual reforms, just means tested welfare programs. In fact he privatized a bunch of stuff in his first tenure. He also signed the drug laws that shot incarceration rates sky high (in fact a comrade was arrested for possesing weed and not released for over a year despite not being sentenced).
His job is making things seem “not all that bad” and keeping the forces of reaction well fed.
I’m not mad at you for not knowing, but as a Brazilian Communist I am extremely angry at the fact they misled you
Edit: I can go on and on and if y’all actually want me to. Don’t “support” this enemy of our class in front of me again.
And yes, he’s better than the “electorally viable” alternatives, but we have second rounds for election so we vote communist!
is he at least actually an anti imperialist? that’s been my impression anyways
Not anti-imperialist given domestix policy (aforementioned privatizations, etc). Just not an imperialist running dog like Boric
No, the majority of brazillian left thinks imperialism isn’t real, just wild conspiracy theories. buuuuut, our diplomacy has always been independent, meaning we held talks with everyone, including libia, drpk, iraq, cuba and so on. then the 2016 coup came and we became usa lapdog, then in 2023 our diplomacy is back.
lately my impression was that after lula’s visit to china, he came back with his eyes focused on the global south, so the brics is back, we are talking with everyone again, he even jump the gun to respond when someone talk shit about venezuela, denouncing dollar hegemony on g20 and g7, ignoring zelensky, refusing to send weapons to ukraine and talking about peace, talking about historical debt that central capitalists countries have with former colonies, their responsibility with environment issues and etc.
as the comrade said earlier, internally he is severely lacking, making deals with the worst and most reactionary people there is, putting the same elbow grease to revert privatizations, making very very shy reforms that changes basically nothing, treating supporters as mere voters instead of actual political subjects immobilizing the working class.
so yeah, a figure with a lot of contradictions, don’t misread me i voted for him, in front of reactionaries and common neoliberals i will defend him with tooth and nail, in front of comrade i gladly debate his limitations and mistakes
His job is making things seem “not all that bad” and keeping the forces of reaction well fed.
I suppose he’s like the Biden to Bolsanaro’s Trump, in that now that the obviously shit guy is out of office, a bunch of people who were mobilized go back to brunch while nothing fundamentally changes?
That was his job from the moment he was elected in 2002, he famously signed a letter promising ot to rip any national or international contracts during his tenure (and so he did) https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carta_ao_povo_brasileiro
Right now it’s worse than before because the “normal” has shifted a fuckton to the right (thanks to his inaction and often funding of enemies). He’s just continuing that shift right, his liberal economy ministry pushed for a budget reform that will gut public funding even more starting next year but his gov will just play dumb
Let this comment be your excuse to go on and on about this
Overall I would say I have critical support for them but certainly disagree with the position that they are the most progressive in South America
Yeah, they are mostly just yet another successful socdem anti-imperialist-ish party. They usually don’t do much overwhelmingly great, but at least prevent it all going to shit with liberal electoralism and put some effort into building local industry and infrastructure. They have also put a lot of interest into international multipolar goals such as cooperation with Cuba and China so even if I disagree a lot with the “most progressive” label, they are definitely one of the most impactful groups just due to the sheer size of the party and country. Almost makes you believe that social-democracy is effective.
even more than the PSUV? Also, what’s the beef between the PSUV and the PCV about?
Something Something, Socdem PSUV gives an inch to the U.S, and the PCV is mad at that… https://www.blackagendareport.com/fight-between-psuv-and-pcv-unnecessary-untimely-and-alien
The PSUV does unfortunately take influence from Trotsky, but its explained they take more influence from Venezuelan culture and history, and they limit their use of violence if they deem it unecessary.
I’ve also spent an hour reading PCV’s accusations and their history, and I’m extremely skeptical of them. They seem to be annoying contrarian naive tools for U.S. imperialism.
PSUV is not a force for socialism, and as such they seek to destroy those who actually fight for it. In fact the PSUV is actively trying to dismantle the PCV https://pcb.org.br/portal2/30320
I’m extremely skeptical of the PCV’s accusations. After doing like an hour’s worth of reading, they seem to likely be a lapdog and trojan horse for CIA regime change, while they accuse the PSUV of being traitors despite the PSUV having little options.
i think i read an article on UZ about the DKP siding with the PCV
Do you have a link?
I am skeptical of the PSUV’s version of events as well as the CPV’s, but the CPV doesn’t present any concrete solutions to Venezuela’s problems. Despite their rhetoric and that they claim the government is unfairly targeting them, they play right into the hands of the imperialists that wanted to sanction, slander, balkanize and invade Venezuela. They call an end to sanctions yet are ambivalent about a potential overthrow of Maduro and his cabinet, but they provide no concrete plan for addressing Venezuela’s precarious economic sabotage or fighting against the cartels and CIA agents or multinational billion-dollar corporations that all have a stranglehold on the Bolivarian republic, beyond just concepts and ideas, that will occur if the PSUV is dismantled.
The PSUV literally wants to either outright prohibit or coopt the PCV. Can’t believe people here are defending the PSUV. https://youtu.be/BMpyyxo6gMA
Lukashenko’s administration is pretty good imo, even though it’s not a party or organization.
From a Belarussian person, Lukashenko’s administration has been a disaster for the people of Belarus.
His only saving grace is preventing Belarus from becoming a US vassal state like Ukraine or Poland. Other then that I’m very certain that a chimpanzee could run Belarus better then Lukashenko.
He’s basically a if you tried to copy Kim Ill Sung and horrifically failed and copied the inverse of all of Kim’s traits. Lukashenko is extremely reactionary, capitalist, and just a terrible leader.
Kim Il Sung was based tho
Worded myself poorly, sorry
Kim Il Sung wasn’t a reactionary capitalist like Lukashenko.
Sorry I worded that poorly. I agree with Kim, I’m saying that Lukashenko is like someone tried to copy Kim, but failed horrifically and copied the inverse of all of Kim’s traits.
Oh okay. I agree with you then
I get that you are not anti Kim Ill Sung, but what comparison do you see between the two, just in general? Not sure i follow.
Attempted centralization of state, self reliance policy, allying to the larger power (China in the case of Korea and Russia for Belarus), nationalization of industry, etc.
Belarus did all of that, in the absolute most corrupt, capitalist, and reactionary way possible.
I hope I don’t come off as stupid and naive, but I support the antiwork/workreform movements on Reddit. Yes, most of them are American redditor neoliberal reactionaries, however as a whole I think they have some small material effect on destabilizing the system. America is like a collapsing building with a few crumbly pillars holding the whole thing up and antiwork/workreform types are at least wacking at those pillars and I feel like a ton of them are voicing M and ML ideals without knowing it. I think a ton of them could eventually be brought to the left with some guidance.
The IRA for one.
