what an exhausting meme.

comrades who have addressed it point by point: I admire your patience and generosity

the earth is HEALING

all color categories are made up

and the only ones whose corresponding wavelength ranges are directly detected by our eyes are ~red, ~green, and ~blue

take it from someone who this year failed a color vision test so spectacularly that the doctor asked him 'so do you just see in black and white?': let people like things

even fake as fuck shades of color that we KNOW THEY'RE JUST MAKING UP to mess with us

wait what

The reason it doesn't seem like I was arguing against your comment is that indeed, I wasn't trying to refute your comment. Reconsider your defensiveness. And bear in mind that not all critiques aim to establish a kind of propositional negation of what they address.

Cures for otherwise blinding conditions do exist (e.g., cataract removal, some gene therapies for retinal diseases) and they're good. I have a condition that will eventually render me blind and I would seek to be cured if a cure existed for it.

But pursuing/promoting cures for disabilities, including blindness, is not without problems. See, in the US for example, the politics of the National Federation of the Blind vs. the Foundation for Fighting Blindness. Cures also raise class issues and threaten to further marginalize people who won't or can't be cured, for whatever reason. In particular, imagining a world in which 'everyone' is cured is dangerous and even inherently harmful ideology.

Also, while I have some reservations about the rhetoric and what I think it likely really means, there are blind people out there who will tell you they don't want to be cured because it's part of who they are and they're getting along just fine. Such people do exist. A similar sentiment exists for some within the deaf community as well.

Gene therapies for other genetic conditions often do, but then those aren't neurodevelopmental.

I'm kinda fascinated by the question of how something like this would affect me. Like the way a psychedelic experience can teach us lessons we still retain (and want to hold onto), like the way formative experiences leave deep traces in us even when when we grow and change, what features of autism would always 'stay with me' on some level? If things changed perceptually for me, what old habits of mind would I retain? What would I miss most? What would I not miss?

In a lot of ways I think temporary windows into different neurotypes would be much more interesting than purported 'cures'. People don't usually want to undo their own personalities, including mental dimensions like neurotypes. But who wouldn't want to play with that a bit, if they knew it were safe?

I guess I still don't really see what your initial comment here is supposed to contribute in response to OP, which isn't really about being for or against child soldiers, or whether some child soldiers are good and others are bad.

OP isn't really even about child soldiers per se. It's about media narratives associated with images of children handling weapons in the contexts of two conflicts, one of the differences between which being that in only one case does the commentary on the image venture as to suggest that the child pictured has been conscripted as a soldier. It's also about, perhaps more crucially, how allegations of child soldierdom are being used to justify killing children generally, across a whole, captive, civilian population, and that, again, in only one of those two contexts.

(My question was searching for an interpretation that connects GGP back to either of those, which are what the OP is about.)

This kind of thing is really interesting for what it might teach us about autism and the human brain more generally, but when it comes to the practical applications I just don't see a future where it doesn't present a ton of problems. Even when you make it 'voluntary', eugenics is dangerous and closely allied with exterminationist sentiment, thinking, and practice.

And it seriously risks, at a minimum, deeply undermining struggles to accommodate rather than erase disabilities. Admittedly this is a step beyond the technical capability, but if a society develops an expectation that some major human variation (be that autism, deafness, blindness, or whatever) be cured rather than accommodated wherever it is a 'problem', where does that leave people (or parents) who refuse the cure for themselves (or for their children)? I can easily imagine arguments like 'if you don't want problems, just administer the cure! you're being selfish', 'this creates an unnecessary burden', etc.

Also, to be clear, there's no accepted notion of 'autism for mice' (or any other non-human animal), even if describing animals as autistic can sometimes be arguably useful. So 'works in mice' is a phrase that does a lot of work here.

It might do something in humans, but the idea that autism is reducible to genes— and a single gene, at that— strikes me as laughable on its face.

Meaning

Child soldiers are children as well as soldiers

?

This is similar to Marx's critique of freedom under liberalism as merely 'formal'. The problem is the gap between that can exist between a nominal right and practical exercise of that right.

This kind of problem is common with rights-based approaches to justice and can be witnessed with human rights broadly. Its identification isn't unique to Marxism, either; liberals sometimes get at it with the phrase 'equality of opportunity', for example. To say that opportunities can be unequal (and that this is a problem) is to admit that justice requires the guarantee of more than just formal rights. I'd say this a problem that has shaped liberal 'privilege' discourse as well: privilege is just such a kind of gap that allows (or constitutes?) the persistence of injustice in the face of nominal/formal/legal equality.

Like in other cases, I'd say that the four fundamental software freedoms get at something genuinely important, and that it's better to have them, even just formally, than not. But like with other freedoms and rights, it's easy to conceive of them too 'thinly'. They need to be fleshed out with a more general awareness of power relations and of the practicality of their own exercise.

To some extent, that awareness of software freedom as situated within power relations is actually already present in free software discourses, which talk often of things like subordination, domination, subjugation, etc., from the start. Unsurprisingly, that dimension is largely absent from the 'open-source' perspective.

This interview feels like it ends abruptly halfway through!

arm the moderate gays

Realistically, I'd be angry and frightened at being taken hostage no matter what the circumstances, even if I had some understanding of why it was done, and even if I were generally treated well during the whole thing.

But if my kidnappers allowed me to take my dog with me and/or made sure he was fed and healthy the whole time, I would be grateful for that for the rest of my life, despite whatever trauma. I don't imagine my own country's cops or soldiers would ever do the same.

I recently discovered (thanks to the recommendation the Jewish communist podcast The Minyan) this song from 1931 that perhaps captures some of the attitudes of the Yiddish-speaking community toward Zionism during that same period: https://youtu.be/tQMRwk8WDd4

I feel like the current Hamas charter, from 2017, makes it clear that their aims have changed and what their aims are, as do some statements in around 2005/2006 IIRC. Idk about them addressing 'allegations' per se.

I think editing the original artist's signature just like you edit the piece itself, could be a cool touch. That way you indirectly 'refer' to the original artist but also make it clear that you're not them. You can kinda play that artist's communist alter ego that way.

For the early Christian Zionists who drove the Balfour Declaration forward and repeatedly steered the British Mandate in Palestine back towards Zionism, part of it very seriously was

*Slaps Palestine*

"This bad boy can fit so many Jews I don't want in my own country in it"

It was a weird mix of yearning for and reaching towards the apocalypse (because many Protestants believe 'the Jewish people' must return to 'the land of Israel' in order for Christ to return and for the world to end) and at the same time thinking 'I'd rather not have that domestic Jewish population'.

In that way, Zionism and anti-semitism have really worked hand-in-hand from the very start of the Zionist project.

This is really worth emphasizing against the caricature that leftists support absolutely any party which could be construed as a counterhegemonic force.

The many differences between Hamas and ISIS really couldn't be clearer if you actually examine both groups. One problem is that the term 'terrorist', at least as commonly used, serves to conflate/equate them.

It's one of the limits of mainstream 'progressive' politics in imperial countries that support Israel.

In some ways I think the whole 'war on terror', despite the fact that the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are increasingly widely regarded as failures and crimes even in imperial countries, has been like a red scare against all kinds of guerilla/resistance fighters across the world (but especially Muslims).

The labels 'terrorist' and 'terrorism' have become tools for short-circuiting thought and discussion, and that's very deeply ingrained. The Israeli media strategy surrounding Operation Al-Aqsa Flood understands this well, and takes full advantage of the fact that mainstream journalists in the imperial core will never call Israel a terrorist state or the IDF a terrorist organization despite the fact that for many decades now, for multiple entire generations, their primary 'opponents' have been not the armies of other nations but civilian populations (sometimes in neighboring countries, like Lebanon, and sometimes in land that Israel claims for itself, like Gaza and the West Bank).

The goal is to paint 'Hamas' (really the al-Qassam Brigades, and practically speaking the whole armed resistance) as brutes with a monomaniacal obsession with their own brutality. That's what the equation to ISIS is trying to effect. And it has succeeded pretty well, imo. Liberals aren't condemning Hamas as an explicit scheme but because they feel like doing so is totally obligatory, even for those opposed to the horrors that we see now unfolding.

That's all speaking, of course of ordinary liberals. Liberal propaganda functionaries on TV, and elected officials are certainly sometimes more cynical or self-serving, more actively invested in the false equivalency. But whether they're speaking sincerely or cynically, when liberals condemn 'both sides' in Palestine, the 'terrorist' label is doing its job.

My father was recently diagnosed with a form of cancer that will probably kill him. For the past few weeks, pretty much the only things I've thought about have been my father's looming death, my virtual estrangement from him, the genocidal siege of Gaza, and the past hundred years or so of the history of Palestine. Needless to say, I couldn't keep that up. I had to make room for some lightness in my life and in my mind.

The past few days have been a relief.

I've reconciled with my father somewhat. He's still often stressful to be around, especially in his own house, but I feel better equipped to handle and pass over tense moments with him than I've ever been in the past. It's been good visiting him and my mom. I'm only now starting to look forward to going home.

I'm reading fiction again for the first time in a long time. I'd forgotten how easy it is compared to history or political theory; how effortless reading can be when you're not trying to take notes, when you're not stopping after nearly every sentence to make sure that you're paying attention and understand well. What I've been 'reading' is actually an audiobook. My mom and I have been cozying ourselves up next to a shared Bluetooth speaker, sometimes with a bowl of popcorn or candy like we would for a movie. It's been a delight! The novel itself has already been thrilling and intriguing for both of us, and we must only be like a third of the way through. (This October, my mom expressed interest in educating herself about what led up to current events, and so she agreed to read three books on the history of Palestine with me. We're still committed to that, but good God is this novel so much easier!)

I've been playing a relaxing, delightful, and sometimes very difficult videogame for at least a couple hours each day. A lot of my attention has gone to music, to the cool weather (which I love), and to the young puppy who moved in here recently (although my own dog, who is visiting along with me, kinda hates him).

It's good to have a break from all my ruminations, from current events, and from my job. I wish I could have another week off somehow, but this'll do.

I wonder what CPUSA's policies and statements/principles were back then, and whether they then held to the 'internal colony' line. I don't know the history well enough to place that, but maybe another comrade browsing does.

What year is that image from?

It's an annual harvest festival based on irregular, religious harvest festivals practiced often by the first English settlers of the United States.

Its commemoration, annualization, and celebration as a particular national holiday has played an important role in (and in maintaining) USian mythistory, mainly in falsely presenting early US settlers as peaceful, native-friendly religious refugees with no colonial aims or genocidal intent.

Leftists and indigenous Americans are critical not just of the ideological role of that national holiday as such, but are also attuned to how disgusting, callous, and hypocritical is the thought of celebrating one's 'good fortune' to 'find themselves' settling such a catastrophically, genocidally depopulated environment. The latter criticism arguably applies to all 'days of thanksgiving' celebrated in this tradition in what would become the United States and Canada, and not just the big national holiday.

In the contemporary context, Thanksgiving is one of a few national holidays for which most USians customarily get (or try their damnedest to take) a day off. (At my employer, it's the most 'generous' holiday aside from Christmas— we actually get not one but two days off. I think this reflects its cultural as status as a highly important holiday, to some extent.)

In the US, Thanksgiving is also the day on which, despite increasing familial atomization (a phenomenon that affects white families especially acutely), families are most likely to meet and feast together so that extended relatives actually see each other in person. This is where you get the talk of 'when you see your family at the Thanksgiving table this year', and so on.

Let him know that you think those anti-communist materials are wrong or misleading. Offer to explore some of these topics in depth with him in some format(s) that's agreeable to both of you (video, books, podcasts, whatever). Let him pick some sources, and you pick some sources, and then you both discuss them together.

Most people who are anti-communist are reflexively so, and have simply never heard a lot of key history. Just studying/exploring/discussing communism and its history can undo a lot of that.

As tempting as it might be, you don't have to go through everything in the propaganda they've sent you sentence by sentence and then debunk it. Just have a conversation with them about it and take a look at the real stuff together.

It's especially weird that they did so rather vaguely. It's not like they were like 'fascist figure X was right about historical fact Y in context Z, and here's why I think that matters'. They just favorably compare fascist 'geopolitical analysis' to your blog post, in general. That does seem like more or less just praising fascists to me.

Made curious by some of the other comments here connecting that Redditor's abusive language and refusal to really say anything of substance beyond 'I don't like this' and Maoism, I just spent kind of a long time looking back through that person's comments trying to figure out what about their thinking is particularly Maoist, especially in the context of that series of insults they wrote on your post, which don't, to me, reveal any particular way of thinking so much as a temperament.

I did eventually find some Maoist language across their comments. They probably do self-identify as a Maoist or Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, though I didn't see a comment to that effect.

But what I noticed more was that pretty much their only mode of discussion was verbal combat, and maybe in some cases declarations on certain questions or definitions of terms. There wasn't a lot I could recognize as instruction, exploration, or listening, although I imagine they'd consider some of their declarations educational.

I'm tired. I can't think. I don't have a thesis here. But OP, I'm sorry that someone took it upon themselves to shit on your work instead of offering you feedback or simply saying nothing.

I know someone who thinks "dialectics" pretty much just means talking.

Oh, yeah! I forgot to mention this, but this is close(r) to what dialectic is prior to Hegel. There are some disciplines/contexts where the term 'dialectic' is still used to describe a verbal process between human interlocutors, like dialectical methods in therapy or education. It's closely related to the Socratic notion of elenchus.

Your friend probably just has closer or more recent contact with one of those traditions than he does with Marxism or Hegel.

I think that usage comes from pre-capitalist religions, where 'materialism' is taken to embody a kind of desacralization of pre-capitalist spiritualities. So it's counterposed to supernaturalism rather than to philosophical idealism, and sort of synonymous with 'naturalism' as in 'methodological naturalism' in the sciences. Accumulation of wealth in such discourses is 'materialistic' in the sense of secular vanity. So it's anti-capitalist in a reactionary way, alluding vaguely to a call for a return to a tradition older than (and profaned by) capitalism.

That's how I think of it, anyway. :)

I often prefer to use a term in a way that's archaically broad or technically strict, if the contexts in which it is used have narrowed over time, and especially if some older or more specialized uses are retained in some tradition that I am/have engaged with.

Sometimes it even peeves me when people use a word that has a history or tradition associated with it, but in a way that reveals ignorance or disconnection from that tradition.

But the older I get, the easier I find it to keep in mind the fact that most words I experience this way are really, actually technical terms. Technical terms do have special, precise meanings, but only within the special, precise fields that define them. In ordinary language, terms aren't 'defined into existence' but are rather described, captured in snapshots from a messy, vague, ambiguous, and ever-evolving reality of human speech.

It's also good to have some humility and consider that when someone uses a word in a way that seems off to you, they may be doing so in continuity with another tradition that you're just not yet aware of. It's a bit embarrassing but there are times where I've mentally corrected people in my head, 'translating' their speech or writing to use different phrasing, only to realize later that they were speaking precisely and correctly in a way that I just didn't understand at the time.

You repeat the phrase 'in good faith' several times here but what you're describing is still just entryism

It's just another iteration of the Eternal September. Nothing too surprising imo

Yes! 😂

Apparently, by a series of accidents, she got into some kind of slapfight with Ben Shapiro over Palestine, and she did an 1.25 hour interview with Norman Finkelstein for The Daily Wire (which Shapiro founded and owns at least a chunk of) as part of it.

It's actually not a bad interview; she pretty much just lets him talk.

This is the closest thing the world needs to a Shapiro-Finkelstein debate imo. Exposes Finkelstein's knowledge to that audience (for whatever good it will or won't do), without subjecting him to interruption and bad faith maneuvering by Shapiro.

(Obviously, Candace Owens still sucks. Broken clock moment, blah blah blah)

The crackerverse would holler otherwise, but the crackerverse would holler anyway.

This is also true in Israel. Due to the current state of the West Bank, a two-state solution would essentially require partition all over again, an opening of a new instance of the same kind of wound as 1948 constituted.

When the Israeli Jewish settlements were removed from Gaza, there was a huge uproar inside Israel. If the Israeli government did that in the West Bank today, it'd be a huge reversal and they'd have to contend with a very vocal, very armed, right-wing religious extremist faction going absolutely nuts over it.

Alternatively, if the Israeli government proposed to do land swaps instead (which they'd probably want to do since the West Bank is of special religious and historical significance to Jews, much more so than most of the territory the state of Israel now claims for itself), that could mean further mass displacement for Palestinians living in the West Bank, plus the same kind of domestic problem for the Israeli government in whatever territory they would give over to the Palestinians in exchange.

There's no way to do a two-state solution that doesn't require mass displacement by force, possibly for both sides. I don't understand how that inflames things any less than decolonializatlon/reconstruction/reparations to transition to a single multinational state or a confederation with free movement across the whole territory or something like that.

Israeli Jews certainly cry out loudly today if anyone talks about a one state solution, but there would also be a massive outcry from them if steps were taken to actually realize a two-state solution, too.

(If, when they have a hand strong enough to actually meaningfully negotiate with Israel and hold them to account, Palestinians (including the Palestinian diaspora), should choose a 'two-state solution', you won't find me opposing that. But I really struggle to see how that's possible given current realities on the ground.)

In the 'international community' (i.e., among certain world leaders), this still seems to be the consensus. The idea is motivated not so much by a thought of what is most just, but what is (supposedly) most possible to get both parties to agree to. And China is here trying simply to echo that consensus.

I think at this point, though, it's hard not to see that this 'consensus' is a zombie, and the territorial and political viability of such a solution is visibly, obviously dead. That does make renewed endorsements of a 'two-state solution’ untimely and even uncanny things to see, imo.

I agree that a single state covering the whole of mandatory Palestine seems more just. Palestinians deserve the right of return, full freedom of movement, and all national and civic rights, across the entire territory. I don't see how a multi-state solution facilitates that.

I also don't really know how to 'help' as an outsider, with a two-state solution. For a one-state solution, we have a model in the original anti-apartheid movement and an existing international movement in BDS. What would helping Palestinians 'win' a partitioned state even look like at this point?

I agree. And his writing in that one letter is so brief that while it does portray what was maybe an important moment in the evolution of his views towards the USSR, it really doesn't give much insight into his political thinking overall.

I understand leaving behind something you were inculcated into growing up, especially the dominant culture wherever you are. We all pick things up as kids that we drop as soon as we really think them through.

But I really don't understand that kind of hard swing to the right later in life, especially for private citizens.

You can read McCarthy's notes from that visit here. He doesn't really write about the deaths but about daily life under occupation and what he sees as its counter-productive effects.

Reaction videos are the lowest form of content imo. Far lazier and far less interesting than speedrunning, coding streams, reading/discussion streams, etc. (Not that I find Twitch streams generally compelling, either.)

And payments to streamers aren't donations in the sense of charity and don't claim to be. They're tips paid to entertainers, like money tossed into the hat of a street musician. It's a different model than wage work but it's not like a scam or a trick or something.

Using those tips to employ the wage labor of others (e.g., video editors) is exploitation, though.