“History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.”

  • DragonBallZinn [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    Yeah who am I kidding? There is no revolutionary potential in the imperial core, my Maoist-third-worldist sympathies strengthen again.

    Western leftists really have their work cut out for them, and I encourage us all to read Newton.

    EDIT: removed doomerism.

    • sweatersocialist [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      2 months ago

      pretty much, and the worst part is, it’s literally fueled almost entirely by race antagonism. the reason white westerners hate socialism and love capitalism is because they’re afraid of non-white non-westerners. that’s essentially what it really boils down to at the end of the day. aside from western far leftists when white people talk about ‘socialist’ policies or forms of perspective western socialism it’s always built on the presupposition that nonwhites will still be an underclass, and likely be segregated to the other side of the planet ‘where they belong’

      not to say this is some inherent or biological flaw in western white people, it’s constructed entirely by capitalists to keep them mad about that so they don’t notice whose hands are REALLY in their pocket

          • Sausage [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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            2 months ago

            What left?

            Edit: there are leftists but idk if there is a cohesive left here. The last person I met who called herself a leftist called me bourgeois for going to evening school 🤷‍♂️ this place is a fucking joke and always has been.

            • DavidGarcia@feddit.nl
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              2 months ago

              I always felt that among the population it is quite cohesive, but I gotta admit I live in a bit of a bubble. There is this obnoxious culture of tactical voting, so the parties never accurately represent the views of the people in my view.

          • DragonBallZinn [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            2 months ago

            Yeah, sorry this took a bit.

            The first thing I would recommend is Huey Newton’s autobiography Revolutionary Suicide. It goes into detail about how marginalized people in the US can make their own communities, and have the most revolutionary potential. The second book written by Newton himself would be Insights and Poems.

            Just for fun, the Huey P. Newton reader is a good read that further talks about forming these coalitions (and why tailism is stupid). The Black Panther Party: Service to the People program does point out that a good way to get concessions is to play along with the CHUD advice of “pull yourself up by your bootstraps”, but collectively and under the leftist name.

    • frauddogg [they/them, null/void]@hexbear.net
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      2 months ago

      There is no revolutionary potential in the imperial core, my Maoist-third-worldist sympathies strengthen again.

      Where I’m at. I love my org to death; but I’m under no illusions: my people are barely more than 10 percent of the population (12.6% as of 2022, I think), and more than half of them are brainwormed with the same settler-capital bullshit the crackers feed us all day in and day out. Settlers still murder us in the streets every other week; sometimes even walking up into our bedrooms to chalk us out!

      But I’m supposed to want to open myself to organizing with more than just Black nationalist formations, in spite of that fact? You may as well ask a woman whether she’d rather be in the woods with a bear or a man again.

  • SoyViking [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    When was the last time an election in the west produced a remotely “good” result?

    The recent French election gave the right a two-thirds majority. Yet many on the left, grasping for straws and desperate to feel any sense of success made themselves believe it was a victory because the fash won less and the centre-left lost less than expected

    The last thing I can think of is when Syriza won in Greece. And look where that got them.

    Bourgeois electoralism seems to be one of the cases where the master’s tools will never destroy the master’s house.

    • grandepequeno [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      2 months ago

      The NFP getting first place was “good”, just not the outright win that people starved for good news and temperamentally excitable leftists were claiming it was, and it’s probably still too soon to tell whether it was worth bundling the left with the socialist party like that in the first place.

      Still, electoralism and good municipal governance got the KPO a base in the city of Graz and seems to have turned their 0.7% in the last elections to a 2-3%, if they keep it up they might have better luck next time

  • Mardoniush [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    Yet again reminded that the “Hero” of Sound of Music is actually a right wing fascist who only opposes the Nazis because he thinks Prussians are Sub-human.

  • grandepequeno [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    From the latest Michael Roberts on Austria

    The rise of the FPO is not new. The FPO was junior partner to the OVP in the government of the 2010s. But this fell apart when both parties were involved in a corruption scandal that brought down the government and its FPO chancellor in 2019.

    Austria has only 9 million people, but over the past decade the country has taken in more refugees per capita than any other EU country, fueling the FPÖ’s resurgence. The FPO has now evolved into a kind of anti-migrant, anti-Islam ‘populist’ party, as seen elsewhere in Europe. The FPO wants to end immigration and ‘remigrate’ immigrants to their ‘home’ countries. “Remigration is long overdue!” proclaims Kickl. The FPO also hints at leaving the EU, or “Öxit,” an Austrian-style Brexit.

    But as elsewhere in Europe, the rising support for hard right anti-immigration parties is as much to do with the stagnation in the major economies and high inflation eating into living standards. It can be said that if Germany has a cold, Austria will get the flu. And Germany is suffering from a very heavy cold for its economy right now. As a result, the spillover to Austria is heavy.

    Austria’s real GDP growth is stagnating at best. Indeed, ironically, if it were not immigration (+6.3% in 2011-2020), real GDP would have fallen sharply, as the domestic population is shrinking and ageing. Austria will have the third highest old-age related costs in the European Union as a percentage of GDP by 2030.

    Moreover, Austria is still experiencing high inflation, averaging 4.2% over the past 12 months, surpassing the EU average. Inflation remains high because Austria has been forced to reduce its imports of cheap Russian gas as part of EU sanctions against Russia over Ukraine. Austria is caught in the middle over trade with Russia and with Western Europe.

    The economy was in outright recession in 2023. The Austrian central bank, the OeNB, now expects the economy to ‘stabilise’ this year, with real GDP up by just 0.3. Even that looks optimistic. Austria’s GDP fell 0.6% Q2 2024, following a downwardly revised 1% contraction in the previous Q1. Recession continues.