If you can't explain what's happening in the world, then someone else will explain it for you, and they're not going to do it in your interest.

A lot of people feel overwhelmed right now with Trump publicly threatening the destruction of an entire civilization and watching racism, repression, and fear grow more open, and you can at least feel that something is deeply wrong. But most people don't know how to talk about it. They just say, "This is crazy. It's scary. It feels wrong." That gap between what you feel and what you can explain is where our power is lost.

So, let's talk about step one. which is not memorizing theory. Step one is building the language to describe your reality. Without the right language, your thoughts stay trapped as emotion.

Emotion isn't bad. You need to feel. You should feel. But without structure for that emotion, it can be redirected, manipulated, or silenced, forced back down. Marx wrote that we have to start from real conditions, not ideas or abstractions, but what's actually happening here in our material life.

So our question for ourselves is, can you describe what you're witnessing clearly? Here's how you do that.

Name what you see. Name the actions and the consequences. Displacement, bombing, occupation, censorship, policing. Train your eyes to see these patterns beyond just the initial moments. Then you need to learn the words that match that reality. Words like imperialism, exploitation, colonialism, alienation, class.

These aren't necessarily big theory words, although there's theory and concepts behind them. They are tools of your vocabulary. They help you describe the system that this has all been allowed under rather than just isolated events that are so crazy for happening out of nowhere.

Then you need to place yourself inside of it so it can become real to you. Where do you stand in this system? Are you a worker? Are you someone affected by the rising costs? Are you someone witnessing the violence funded by your government?

Marxists know this as understanding your relation to production and society. And lastly is to connect your feeling to the structure. Your anger, your grief, they're a response to real conditions. Connecting your emotions to those conditions and causes will help you move on from feeling just lost and helpless. It gives you an understanding of why.

There's a genuine cost here linguistically. People are taught to describe a horrific genocide as just conflict. Not thinking further. How am I involved in this? What does that mean? So we ask ourselves, what am I seeing? What is the system behind it? And where do I exist within that system?

This is a skill that follows into your personal life as well. If you can't name what's wrong with the world, you also struggle to name what's wrong in your own life, why you're feeling disconnected, why something feels off in a relationship. The same skill applies.

Being able to recognize and name what you're experiencing, what's causing it, and what you actually need. When you learn to articulate reality, you start to understand yourself. And once you understand yourself, you can fully decide what you want to change for you, for your neighbors, for the world.

Don't threaten me with a good time!

Sharp guy.

[2026-04-10] @magnxsium: On opinions and armchair analysis... Imam Khomeini's advice to the masses during Saddam's 8-year imposed war against the Islamic Republic

[Eng sub]

[2] on the channel: https://t.me/magnxsium_archive/77

“The premises from which we begin are not arbitrary ones, not dogmas, but real premises from which abstraction can only be made in the imagination. They are the real individuals, their activity, and the material conditions of their life, both those which they find already existing and those produced by their activity.”

- Karl Marx, The German Ideology (1845-46)

Marx’s dialectic is misinterpreted, twisted, and vulgarized to this day, 180 years after he first expounded on his method. Marx’s dialectical method has been persistently misunderstood, often through its assimilation to either economic determinism or Hegelian idealism. The passage quoted above establishes the epistemological starting point of the Marxist dialectical method and plainly states its break from the metaphysical method explicated by earlier social science.

From the beginning Marx has made it very clear that he firmly breaks from the interpretivists of the German Philosophical Tradition. Marx says the premises that form the basis of his critique are “the real individuals, their activity, and the material conditions of their life,” yet, critics will still say that Marx was bogged by an incorrect focus on moral abstractions and empty phrase-mongering about “human nature”.

It is important to note that Marx explicitly emphasizes that abstraction is secondary, i.e., it is derived from reality, not imposed upon it. This is a direct inversion of Hegel’s idealism, and it is crucial to understanding dialectical materialism because Marx is often misread and misinterpreted as a reduction of dialectics to Hegel’s thesis-antithesis-synthesis. To quote Engels on this topic: “The mistake lies in the fact that these laws are foisted on nature and history as laws of thought, and not deduced from them.”

Taking material reality as the premises of his critique, Marx’s investigation into social formations led him to conclude that modern (capitalist/bourgeois) society is based on relations of production that arose from earlier societies.

“The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness.”

- Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859), Preface

Here we can see that Marx is not offering a rigid mechanical formula of society based on base/superstructure; he is insisting that social phenomena are relational and must be understood as such, are internal products of dialecticism, and develop historically. Consciousness, politics, economics, and legal systems cannot be explained satisfactorily as autonomous domains and have to be understood as components of a whole.

The dialectical method of Marx is a systematic analysis and critique that rejects isolated explanations. Marx’s method thus avoids both economism and the reductionism characteristic of much pre-Marxian social science.

“Dialectics, so-called objective dialectics, prevails throughout nature, and so-called subjective dialectics, dialectical thinking, is merely the reflection of the motion through contradictions which asserts itself in nature.”

- Friedrich Engels, Anti-Dühring (1877)

Dialectics is not about inventing anything, rather it is about understanding real movement, how change is not accidental, but the natural outcome of internal contradictions. Dialectics, says Engels, can be seen in the natural world. For example, through the process of bacterial resistance to antibiotics. This example is not meant to reduce social development to biological processes, but to illustrate the general dialectical principle of contradiction-driven transformation.

A bacterial population is not a static or homogeneous whole, but contains internal differences that become decisive when material conditions change. The introduction of antibiotics creates a contradiction within the population between susceptible and resistant bacteria. As exposure continues, small quantitative differences in survival and reproduction accumulate until the population undergoes a qualitative transformation: resistance becomes the dominant form and the antibiotic loses its effectiveness. This outcome is not planned or directed, but emerges necessarily from the struggle between opposing tendencies within the system, demonstrating how material contradictions drive development through irreversible qualitative change.

“My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, the life-process of the human brain… is the creator of the real world. With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind.”

- Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I (1867), Afterword to the Second German Edition

There cannot be a more definitive line drawn between Marx’s and Hegel’s dialectical methods than for Marx to elucidate the inversion of idealist metaphysics into materialist critique. Few passages more clearly articulate the distinction between Marx’s materialist dialectic and Hegel’s idealism than this one.

Marx was always grounded in reality, in real social relations. He was not interested in condemning bourgeois society from a standpoint of morality, but from one of analysis of real movement through history. Marx did not begin with his critique of capitalism, but arrived at it through the application of his dialectical method to existing relations of production as the basis for all others, which just so happened to be capitalist and riddled with internal contradictions.

If Marx’s dialectical method begins from real material premises and proceeds through the analysis of social totality, its defining feature is its capacity to grasp historical movement. Marxism does not treat society as a static arrangement of institutions or norms, but as a developing process structured by internal contradictions. Social formations change not through moral awakening or individual intent, but through tensions that arise necessarily from their material organization.

For Marx, a mode of production generates social relations that initially facilitate its development but eventually come into conflict with the further expansion of productive forces. These contradictions are not imposed from outside the system; they emerge from its normal operation. Dialectical analysis therefore seeks the inner antagonisms of a social order rather than its surface appearances. What appears stable or natural is revealed, through dialectical inquiry, as historically contingent and internally unstable.

This method stands in contrast to empiricist and moralistic explanations of social change. Empiricism fragments social reality into discrete facts without grasping their interrelation, while moralism explains historical development through ethical failure or subjective intent. Both approaches obscure the material sources of social transformation. Dialectical materialism, by contrast, treats contradiction as the motor of development rather than an anomaly to be explained away.

Marx’s analysis of capitalism exemplifies this method. Capitalism is defined not merely by markets or private property, but by a specific social relation between capital and labor. This relation contains a fundamental contradiction: capital depends upon labor as the source of value while simultaneously seeking to reduce labor to a cost. The drive to increase productivity intensifies this contradiction, as the expansion of productive forces undermines the conditions of value production itself. These tensions are not external to capitalism; they arise from its internal logic.

Historical development, in this framework, does not proceed linearly or smoothly. Quantitative changes accumulate unevenly until they produce qualitative transformations in social relations. Crises, ruptures, and reorganizations are therefore not aberrations, but expressions of underlying contradictions reaching their limits. Each social formation must be understood as historically specific, governed by its own internal dynamics and bounded by determinate conditions of existence.

Crucially, Marxist contradiction is not a logical abstraction but a material and social reality. It refers to real antagonisms embedded in relations of production and class structure. Consciousness, ideology, and politics emerge from these contradictions and may act back upon them, but they do not constitute their origin. Dialectical materialism thus grounds historical change in objective social relations while accounting for the mediated role of human activity within them.

Marx’s dialectical method is neither an abstract philosophy nor a moral doctrine. It is a scientific approach that begins from material premises, apprehends society as a structured totality, and explains historical development through internal contradiction. By rejecting both idealist metaphysics and mechanical materialism, Marx establishes a method capable of grasping social reality as a dynamic and historically specific process.

This method grounds Marx’s critique of capitalism. Capitalism is not condemned from an external ethical standpoint, but analyzed immanently according to its own laws of motion. The antagonism between capital and labor, the compulsion to expand productivity at the expense of value production, and the recurrence of crisis are not accidental distortions but necessary expressions of capitalist social relations. Dialectical critique thus reveals capitalism as historically limited and internally unstable, rather than morally deficient.

Historical necessity, in this framework, does not imply inevitability. It names the constraints imposed by material conditions on social development and the tendencies that arise from them. Capitalism generates contradictions that undermine its own reproduction, but their resolution depends on concrete struggle rather than automatic progression. Necessity operates through contradiction, and contradiction unfolds through human activity within determinate social relations.

Taken together, Marx’s dialectical method unifies analysis, critique, and historical development without collapsing into determinism or voluntarism. It demonstrates that social formations are neither eternal nor accidental, but historically produced and internally conditioned. In doing so, dialectical materialism provides not a prophecy of the future, but a rigorous framework for understanding the real movement of history and the limits of existing social orders.

One of the best historical materialist analyses I've ever heard about the birth of American empire. There is also an explanation about how conservation serves capital, as in, setting aside lands in Africa for example.

I really encourage everyone to take the time and listen.

نُشر تبادليًا من: https://hexbear.net/post/8193829

نُشر تبادليًا من: https://hexbear.net/post/8193091

We are not asking for the impossible… we are simply trying to survive.

Eight children waiting for a meal to ease their hunger, and a mother standing helpless before their growing needs, while everything around us becomes harder… food, fuel, the most basic necessities of life.

The support we receive is the only hope keeping us going and standing.

Every contribution, no matter how small, makes a real difference in my children’s lives. It means a meal, warmth, a moment of relief in the midst of this constant struggle.

Thank you from the heart to everyone who has stood by us… you are the reason we are still holding on.

Our need has not ended… it is only growing.

Support link: https://gofund.me/1d3ea05b6

#Gaza #SaveGazaChildren #HumanitarianAid

IRGC video if that wasn't obvious (also the lighting in this is cool, actually everything about it is so cool)

https://xcancel.com/Boudicca61AD/status/2040818895104213431#m

https://wplace.live/?lat=34.6&lng=68.5&zoom=12.5

Make sure to defend China as well.

Some kinds of identity sort of happen to you. You "end up with" them. Other kinds of identity are created by you. You forge them out of a need for some kind of change. These two types are neither good nor bad inherently. They can take on different facets: An identity that keeps you safe or an identity that imprisons you. Communism seeks to build the kinds that keep you safe and unlearn the kinds that imprison you. What precise form this takes may vary some by society and culture, but the repeating theme will be development toward frameworks that drive social good and social support, and unlearning of frameworks that drive conquering and exploitation.

What should officials be rewarded for-new landmarks, or quieter improvements people feel every day? In China today, this question is being redefined from the highest level.

In late February, the CPC Central Committee initiated a Party-wide study campaign with a single core focus: to rethink what political achievement or correct understanding of governance really means.

Running through July, the campaign aims to correct misconceptions in governance that often breed vanity projects, hidden risks, heavy burdens on local communities, and public discontent.

A few years ago, I came across several stories about Xi Jinping's early career in the 1980s, when he was working at the grassroots level too.

Looking back, I begin to see that this understanding of political achievement did not emerge overnight. It was planted much earlier.

From 1982 to 1985, Xi served first as deputy secretary and then as Party secretary of Zhengding County (正定) in Hebei Province of northern China. He worked closely with local residents and now call the place his second hometown. The young Xi never chased superficial "achievement," he cut the state grain procurement quotas that had earned the area a reputation as a "high-yield county," after learning that some farmers didn't have enough to eat. His conclusion was clear: no achievement is meaningful if it comes at the expense of people's well-being.

The photo in the top left shows him distributing questionnaires in the county town, inviting the public to share their feedback on the previous year's work, what they were satisfied and what they felt unhappy with.

Zhengding is an ancient city with over 2,000 years of history, home to numerous historic buildings dating back hundreds, even nearly a thousand years. At the time, however, many of them were in poor condition.

China then did not yet have the level of awareness or commitment to heritage preservation that it has today. At the time, the prevailing mindset was simple: tear down the old, build something new.

But in Zhengding, Xi chose the opposite.

He wrote articles to promote the historical value of these buildings, while actively securing funding for their restoration. In doing so, these cultural treasures were not only preserved, but also gradually transformed into valuable tourism resources.

Tourism has since become one of Zhengding's key economic pillars. I have visited the county three times, two for leisure, and one for business. It's always full of visitors (top right). In 2024, the county hosted 57.9 million visitors. By 2025, its tourism revenue had exceeded 30 billion yuan (about 4.36 billion USD).

In China, there is a well-known household skincare brand called Dabao (大宝). Its founder, Wu Baoxin (武宝信), was originally an engineer at the Shijiazhuang Machine Tool Accessories Factory. In his spare time, he devoted himself to invention and innovation, and some of his skincare products had already become popular nationwide. However, his supervisors believed he was neglecting his primary duties, undoubtedly limiting his potential.

After learning that Zhengding County placed great importance on talent, Wu sent word through an intermediary expressing his willingness to work there. His fate changed.

In early 1983, when the weather was still bitterly cold, Xi learned of Wu's interest and was unwilling to delay even for a moment. He immediately set out with the county magistrate and deputy magistrate to look for Wu at his residential compound in the city of Shijiazhuang, dozens of kilometers away.

Back in the 1980s, there were no phones. No exact address.

Xi searched several buildings and asked many residents, but no one knew where Wu was. So after this unsuccessful search, Xi did something unusual.

He stood beneath the apartment blocks, and called out Wu Baoxin's name, loudly, again and again.

Eventually, Wu heard, and they met.

Wu later recalled that when they shook hands, Xi's hands were icy cold-he had clearly been searching outside for a long time. The two talked from 10 pm until dawn. Wu agreed on the spot to accept Xi's invitation, bringing his self-developed cosmetics project to Zhengding. Within a year, the project generated more than 300,000 yuan in profit for the county, a remarkable sum at a time when a monthly salary of 300 yuan was already considered substantial in China.

In 1985, after Xi took up a post in Fujian Province in eastern China, Wu moved to Beijing, where he went on to establish a brand that became widely known across the country.

This stories illustrates that true political achievements are not only about what has been built, but also about who and what have been retained; not only about projects completed, but also about people empowered and developed.

From June 1988 to June 1990, Xi served as Party secretary of Ningde Prefecture (宁德) in Fujian. Fujian consists of nine prefecture-level cities, and Ningde was the poorest among them, stably ranking last in the province in terms of economic performance, year after year. In line with his senior's expectation that he would help transform the region, Xi left the prosperous city of Xiamen (厦门) to take up this challenging post. This in itself meant a tougher task, a weaker foundation, and slower results.

According to his colleagues in Ningde, after assuming office, Xi spent a full month in the sweltering summer visiting every county. He also traveled to nearby Wenzhou (温州) in Zhejiang Province to find out why its economy had developed so much more rapidly.

Only after conducting thorough research, Xi presented a development plan for Ningde. Recognizing that geographic isolation was constraining growth, he prioritized improving the investment environment by initiating the construction of bridges and roads. He promoted the development of the hydropower station, port, and water supply facility tailored to local strengths.

In one township of Ningde, bamboo steamers had been produced since 1097 AD, a cultural heritage spanning more than 900 years. However, production remained on a very small scale. Xi believed this time-honored craft should be expanded into a larger industry. To achieve this, the first priority was ensuring a stable supply of raw materials-bamboo, the main material used for the steamers. This led to efforts in afforestation and bamboo cultivation. Soon, the raw material shortage was resolved, production expanded significantly, and the bamboo steamers are now sold worldwide.

Today, Ningde is one of the country's main tea-producing regions. However, at the time, tea was grown only sporadically. The region's climate is also well suited for fruit cultivation, and Xi guided local farmers to plant tea, peaches, tangerines, citrus fruits, and grapes. Ningde's tea and a wide variety of fruits has moved on to enjoy a strong national reputation.

In 2023, I traveled to Ningde on a business trip. By then, it had long shed its poverty and developed into a thriving city, with clusters of high-rises and a pleasant green environment (bottom left). It is also one of China's most important production bases for electric vehicle batteries.

Xi told local officials that ensuring access to everyday necessities for people living in remote areas, even items as basic as light bulbs and soap, was also a measure of good governance.

From conversations with local residents, I learned that they hold deep affection for Xi, believing that he brought real, tangible improvements to their lives. The apartment where he lived during his time there has been preserved to honor him. On the evening before I left Ningde, I made time to visit it. The exterior and interior of the building have been renovated, and all the apartments have new windows-except for the one Xi once lived in, carefully kept by locals (bottom right).

Good governance is not a photo op, not looking impressive in the short term, but delivering lasting value, and improving the lives of ordinary people.

It is an ancient city that becomes a top tourist destination, a job that lets talent stay, a bridge that shortens a mountain road, and a supply chain that keeps a craft alive.

And it generates changes that people still remember decades later.

source: https://xcancel.com/ZhaiXiang5/status/2040427032375349488#m

[Emphasis mine]

I'm not sure if this will be consistently uploaded weekly, however I felt like checking in on everyone again. What are you up to? How are you feeling?

I'm existing, I guess. I recently bought a pair of wooden swords so now I have an excuse to hit my friend with a fancy stick.

I'm not sure if this will be consistently uploaded weekly, however I felt like checking in on everyone again. What are you up to? How are you feeling?

I'm existing, I guess. I recently bought a pair of wooden swords so now I have an excuse to hit my friend with a fancy stick.

The national payment service provider NAPAS, in collaboration with Ant International and Vietcombank, has announced the launch of cross-border QR code payment services between Viet Nam and China.

Under the arrangement, Chinese tourists can use the Alipay e-wallet, an Ant International product, to scan VIETQRGlobal codes and make direct payments at merchants within NAPAS’s network in Viet Nam.

Bilateral QR code payment transactions are processed via the connectivity infrastructure between NAPAS and Ant International, supported by Vietcombank’s clearing and settlement system, enabling direct transactions in both local currencies.

The rollout comes as China continues to be one of Viet Nam’s largest source markets for international tourists.

Cross-border QR payments enhance the visitor experience by offering a familiar payment method, while also enabling businesses in retail, services, and tourism to better tap into international customer flows.

Speaking at the event, Nguyen Quang Minh, Chief Executive Officer of NAPAS, said the connection allows Chinese tourists to enjoy a familiar, convenient, and secure QR code payment experience, just as they do at home, while also creating additional growth opportunities for Vietnamese businesses.

Douglas Feagin, President of Ant International, noted that expanding cross-border payments not only serves tourists but also creates further opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises to reach international customers.

According to NAPAS, in the near future the parties will complete the rollout of outbound payments from Viet Nam to China, allowing Vietnamese users to scan Alipay QR codes using local banking apps.

Once the two-way connection is fully established, the service is expected to significantly boost tourism and trade between the two countries.

Besides China, NAPAS has completed bilateral QR payment connectivity with Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia, and continues to expand into other markets across the region.

Excellent interview with Iranian scholar Helyeh Doutaghi