Delusional is the word, but he’s probably a Chinese agent. I’ve seen multiple people who seem to be Chinese-aligned posting right-wing views, and I myself am not taking a hard support position for LGBTQIA+ (i.e, willing to critically support CPRF, which aligns with mainstream Russian homophobia).
Mao, in talks with Nixon, admitted he loved rightists, in part because they have the perfect cover to cooperate with China or even support socialism (which is what this Christian fundamentalist is doing).
Maybe the correct term for ICB is, not a Marxist, but a fellow traveler. And we are likely to get more of these than actual MLs simply because they’ll be supported more aggressively by anti-imperialist nations.
Yeah, sorry, but I know there are many LGBTQIA+ people here for which LGBTQIA+ issues are often existential (i.e, murder by bigots).
But we do have to acknowledge that Western bourgeois democracies are more progressive on LGBTQIA+ issues and that this will become a splintering line by bourgeois establishments, and this has to be brought into discussion.
Western communist parties generally are pro-LGBTQIA+, but communist parties in the Global South are often more regressive (Laos, for instance, limits LGBTQIA+ discussions online, but culturally tolerates transgenderism). I can put out my critical support line, but it’s not a strong position to hold.
Fact of the matter is, most of BRICS and AES are more retrograde on LGBTQIA+ than Western nations, and China has shown backsliding, with the Global Times editor-in-chief being censored for plugging a transgender talkshow host on his Weibo.
It is a perfectly valid position to take a pro-Western bourgeois democracy stance if you make LGBTQIA+ the core of your politics, but if you don’t, you accept critical support as your main line.
Stalin had a purge of Jewish functionaries late into his rule.
About 90% of Russians oppose gay marriage, and the CPRF has chosen not to be the vanguard party on LGBTQIA+ issues. Given that they control about 11% of the Duma, and have two governorships in Russia, their strategy seems to be working out well. Moreover, it smooths relations with United Russia given that UR controls nationalism in Russia and CPRF is also effectively nationalist in wishing to restore the Soviet Union.
The best possible outcome for Russia is still CPRF gradually taking the helm away from UR, and pushing hard on LGBTQIA+ makes this more difficult, if not impossible.
Slavic culture is relatively homophobic, including during the Soviet era. I’d see this as Socialism with Russian characteristics and not ask Russians to hold a Western attitude toward LGBTQIA+ unless they are in the West.
Campist is a difficult word, given its association with board collapse on Leftypol.
Moreover, you make it difficult for me to try to argue for a more balanced and critical take on China (i.e, avoiding over-idealization that will lead to disapointment on encountering realities), because this aligns with the general Western anti-China take too much.
I support a common-sense level of paranoia. As long as you don’t do something illegal or too threatening, you’re fine.
I don’t think people here are on the verge of crossing the line, whereas on Leftypol you had former posts discussing guns, as well as NAFO glowtrap posts discussing drone terrorism.
TBH, I just think it’s best to assume everything is a glowop and try to focus on useful praxis and useful theory. Even if things aren’t glowops now, if you get enough visibility, security agencies will come after you.
It’s three fabs. Intel, meanwhile, is falling apart.
The important thing, imo, is that the US doesn’t achieve full chip independence before 2030, which allows a peaceful resolution of the Taiwan issue (i.e, Chinese customs blockade redirecting Taiwanese shipping and passenger traffic to China). I don’t see American reshoring settling the issue early, even though Intel is likely to get automated fabs up by 2028.
I’m probably going to repost a finished version soon, but I’ll leave this comment.
I’m basically trying to import/export socialism with Chinese characteristics to Western contexts.
The only real difference is that we generally do not have control, and are insurgents until we control enough of the economy. And adventurism around the 33% scale becomes viable: i.e, aggressive means to destabilize competitors, like forced unionization, industrial espionage, and financial warfare (hope you liked your CDS in 2008!)
I’ve never said anything about having the right people in charge; this post is about a change in strategy and methods.
I also don’t think I’ve jettisoned the idea of class struggle because the idea of using industrial cooperatives that are also party-owned means that such enterprises are essentially proletarian and proletarian controlled in character, but it moves class struggle from the social and political environment to the economic marketplace.
Destroy Porky’s market share. Kill bourgeois profits. Different mindset, different mechanisms.
I’d like to put out a fuller response, but I’d rather have fully posted the OP.
I think Hazan put out a similar idea for how he’d want to build the ACP, but I think he’s oversimplified things and hasn’t identified the flaws, even at a minimum stage. I think the ACP, in general, is not qualified for his business plan of having party cells operate as enterprises, and it’ll rapidly go down the sink for that reason.
As for your criticism concerning capitalist opposition, the simple way to do it is simply to publicly list the POE / industrial cooperatives (but not the party itself) once the business is viable, taking care to maintain worker / party control, but allow the bourgeoisie to buy stakes.
It’s Dengist insofar as that’s how Deng and China succeeded; capitalists will sell you the rope that will hang them, if they think it’ll make them a quick buck. If, say, Blackrock and/or Goldman own a 30% stake, you essentially have cover from elements of the capitalist system, because they want to protect their investment.
As an addendum, part of the idea is simply to have a lopsided incentives structure (in at least some of the firms within Red Zaibatsu) such that the business HAS to be Marxist in order to function. To cut to the chase, the level of labor discipline and pay is such that you won’t work at a Red Zaibatsu-held firm unless you were ideologically committed, and if these firms somehow lose their Marxist character, it simply no longer makes sense to work at such a company.
It’s what I’d bring up as to how Huawei works (Huawei is abusive insofar as its prospective long-term employees are expected to sign a strivers’ contract pledging dedication to the firm, which includes being assignable across the planet as the company sees fit, and working extremely long hours. Note that Huawei is still a worker’s cooperative with profit sharing).
The ideological commitment to socialism, in my view, is the competitive advantage that allows “vanguard-type” (not all Party-held firms are vanguard-type) firms to defeat their capitalist competitors, and if you destroy the system of worker and party ownership while capitalists are invested, well, you just forced Goldman / Blackrock to take a huge haircut on their investment, because the company is no longer competitive. That protects the Party-owned economy from the wider capitalist system.
Sounds like they got kicked out and decided to write a kvetch column. Beijing seems more interested in using social media to present a view to the world, instead of a hostile Western press.
Solar + batt in China is currently cheaper than coal and natgas.
Solar is a 100% mature technology that promises to provide further cost savings over existing technologies, and has reasonable odds of reaching the 1 cent per watt point, where solar is competitive with fusion.
Fission can’t scale to that point; the main point of fission is that it can produce reactors for warships and submarines, as well as uranium for fission, boosted fission, and thermonuclear weapons.
That’s one state, which only legalized same sex marriage in 2022. If you bring out Cuba, I can bring up Iceland.
The rest of the block contains North Korea, China, Laos, and Vietnam.
LGBTQIA+ is essentially orthogonal to Marxism, but it’s a key lever of idpol in the bourgeois West.
Non-Marxist anti-imperialist states are usually quite traditional, and this brings out the neo-conservative challenge.
https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/2024-04-03/ty-article-magazine/.premium/hamas-files-found-by-israel-in-gaza-detail-execution-of-senior-member-accused-of-being-gay/0000018e-9e6d-d64e-afce-fffd62370000
Maybe we should go over this bag of worms later.