One of my favourite things about lemmygrad is seeing informed comrades accurately predicting the near future through careful study. None of this "constant bewildered redditor" nonsense. I don't remember all the users predicting this, but well done y'all.

You see, Russia is invading for economic reasons, specifically those minerals, and not anything else, because they're imperialist. So all support should be given to Ukraine, in their anti-imperialist war, so they can retain sovereignty over their resources and economy. \s

That is not even including all the debt.

Lots of comments saying that there's a "perception of a strong left" but I think that's also missing the point, alongside Finkelstein. I'm responding to them rather than Finkelstein because I don't even see an argument worth considering in what he's saying.

There's no relevant organised opposition to capital at this moment in the US, but the contradictions of capitalism are intensifying even in the core of the core.

People are struggling to make ends meet and taking 2 or 3 jobs, going bankrupt, saddled with debt. Students are occupying universities against Israel and Black Lives Matter does the occasional protest that is significantly large. Last years had the most labour strikes in a while. A guy shot down a healthcare CEO and is being unanimously praised as a hero.

And outside the core, the US is quickly losing its economic and cultural hegemony, which will require disciplined military action to maintain or regain.

So yes, there's a messy and disorganised opposition internally. It's angry and desperate but doesn't know how to put that hate into practice. And internationally there's a hell of a lot of opposition that'll require "order at home" to defeat. And fascism is useful for those things, though in the US case I believe fascism will win due to that lack of organisation.

The popularity of the party is not dependent on it having large ranks, but from its effective party work in critical sectors.

Lenin and the Bolsheviks argued for a professionalised vanguard party of dedicated individuals, so not only do they have advanced class consciousness but they dedicate their lives to bringing about revolution. So support for the party from outside should come from the effectiveness of this strategy, though it's crucial to note that the active agent here is the party for the workers and the support will materialise itself simply as a natural reaction to correct and effective party actions. This is true for communist parties both inside and outside power.

On the other hand the Mensheviks (and later the Trotskyists) argued for mass participation, which is also common in social-democractic parties today. This dillutes the quality of the party work, as militants will not be normally expected the level of commitment from a vanguard party, which among other things leads to a less effective party (and therefore less interest from outside). Other than that, another key point is that it also harms party discipline and theoretical consistency, leading to all sorts of sectarian and revisionist infighting that the principle democratic centralism is meant to prevent.

I was also positively surprised how a lot of Reddit users on r/politics were way less deluded on election night and the day after, openly criticising the Dem party on class issues and Gaza.

It got back to "normal" now, but I think they might have a second "genzedong situation" in the near future with dissatisfied users, though now there's literal alternative websites like here and hexbear (and raddle I guess?) so they could just leave with greater ease.

The other, called Wagemole, sees threat actors pretend to be jobseekers as part of a ruse aimed at both financial gain and espionage.

That's just called an "internship".

Move fast and break ribs.

It's unfair to even call them "dating apps" as if a majority of the people in those apps even get to go on dates regularly with them. They're basically cassino slot machines, but with faces instead of symbols, and affection instead of money. Their entire business model is based around either keeping people scrolling or fooling people into paying thinking it'll help them find somebody. It won't, not only does it make people look extra desperate, it also creates a negative incentive to helping them find somebody.

I argue with conservatives.

how horseshit political thought is outside of social liberal circles

Do we tell them, or let them figure out at the Biden booth?

Would be cool if they put disclaimers like that for known outlets for corporations too.

"YouTube is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. which is headquartered in the United States, and is funded in whole or in part through profiteering off of misinformation campaigns and ad scams. Propublica"

Wait isn't it imperialistic to impose a foreign language on your population and administration under marshal law?

I mean, programmers are also the most uplifted profession by capitalism nowadays, that often does so little and have a lot of their work discarded. Their bosses also love promising "futurist" hopes that they'll rule the world. They're basically the digital world version of corporate lawyers, and its within their interests (or at least, the interest of those who rise to become capitalists) to be obsessed with liberalising everything.

Also, y'know, the whole process of defunding social studies worldwide in favour of STEM fields does wonders to a techkid brain.