Westerners are willingly complicit in crimes because they instinctively and correctly understand that they benefit as a class (as a global bourgeois proletariat) from the exploitation enabled by their military and their propaganda — organs of coercion and consent.
TRUEEEEEE
At least for all of history up until now.
I don’t yet personally know any liberals who support the illegal invasion of Venezuela, even some of the most turbo-lib places on reddit are anti-invasion, probably because they are realizing that they will continue to pay the costs while receiving none of the benefits.
US global petty bourgeois is slowly collapsing into the rest of the global proletariat. So, they are taking the right position, even if for the wrong reasons.
But I do know some neo-cons and reactionaries who changed their minds overnight: they’re thrilled. I figure because they think they’re gonma get cheap oil at no personal cost, and because libs and leftists are mad and that’s the only thing that gets them off now.
i fundamentally disagree with the notion that westerners understand anything about macroeconomics and geopolitics. at the population level we are not educated we are not literate.
Westerners understand extreme basics, which does distort the bigger picture. It’s really easy to understand a war for oil, it’s a little more complicated to understand war as an economic engine for the military-industrial complex, but you’ll start losing them when it gets more complicated: domino theory and Monroe doctrine and underdevelopment and imperialism etc etc.
Ask any Global North person who doesn’t regularly engage in politics if they would risk a reduction in their material comfort if it meant we left other nations alone. See them change their tune.
Capitalism requires their material comforts reduce, regardless of them leaving other nations alone or not.
A lot of them actually see the invasion as the reason their material comforts are being reduced - they pay the cost of invasion and get none of the benefits.
The truth is that invasion is simply an independent variable, the bourgeoise will continue to suck up all wealth and resources, from Latin Americans, from USians, indiscriminately.
You have way more faith on the average global north person than I do. I am from the Global South and have lived in the GN for years. They have repeatedly shown me that they have principles until gas prices or treats are threatened. I don’t blame them for it, it is what it is, and being a beneficiary of empire shapes your priorities like that, but i’m also keenly aware that, as a class, they’ll turn on us faster than they’ll turn on their masters. I don’t expect anything other than performative solidarity from the GN working class. That’s why I only ask them to leave us the fuck alone.
Oh no, I agree with you. GN will reject all principles for cheaper gas and better material comforts. They are losing their material comforts anyway so they might accidentally hold the right position on basis of losing their material comforts.
That’s the part where I disagree with you. I think that, if given the choice, they’d choose 1000 venezuelans to die than having one oil CEO get Luigi’d, if the first option had a slightly better outcome for them. That’s what I meant that the GN working class would turn on us faster than they would turn on their masters.
probably because they are realizing that they will continue to pay the costs while receiving none of the benefits.
What do you mean? “Protecting our freedoms” is definitely a benefit that definitely is a real, tangible thing for the average American’s living standards
Look, I’m gonna be real with you, I’ve yet to be able to get through the entirety of this thing because every time I push past something I find silly I eventually go back to it and find something else that makes me throw my hands up in the air and the cycle repeats. Maybe they land on a correct assumption at the end, but I wouldn’t know because as far as I’ve gotten it reads like someone that just can’t imagine that their logical well thought arguments aren’t taken seriously by people who have no reason to consider them an authority on anything.🤷
We already have a science dedicated to the manipulation and persuasion of people, it’s called marketing. If you want to know why people believe what they believe and how to manipulate them go read some of the sociopathic studies out there that are literally monitoring biological feedback like brainwaves and pupil dilation.
Anyone who is talking about “choices” as if they are something that is controllable and made in the moment has no business talking about why people believe things. We are children of inertia, there is no homonculus sitting in your head pulling levers like a Pixar movie. The expectation you’re gonna brake that lifelong inertia with a simple logical argument when everything else in the world is telling them otherwise, isn’t just naive, it’s conceited as hell.
And you might be thinking, wow Joebyethen, that’s quite the thing to say after writing all that. Who are you expecting to convince? Not a soul. Lol. This is just the vent I’ve been wanting to make for the past, what? 3 years I keep seeing the damn article passed around.
I’m done now.
The expectation you’re gonna brake that lifelong inertia with a simple logical argument when everything else in the world is telling them otherwise, isn’t just naive, it’s conceited as hell.
I don’t think the author has that expectation. Do you believe that people don’t make choices? Do you not make choices? Why do people break out of inertias then?
I’m really just venting. Rather not get into a big defense of why I don’t believe in Free Will tonight, if it’s all the same to you.
As for why… I would say a competing set of beliefs and behaviors that grow over time, or trauma. I’m not saying people can’t change but if it’s happening from some debate bro situation, that’s more likely right place right time than anything else.
Fair
Are you forgetting that a worker must first earn a salary in order to consume? Who is really pulling the strings? The marketer? Are they the ones shaping our society? Does the marketer have any say in what they will market? No they do not.
What good has marketing done for Socialism? Nothing. There’s hardly any material basis for it in the West. And look how useful Trots have been, that bunch practically eats sleeps and breathes marketing and they accomplish nothing. (besides taking care of their own material needs, almost like you could look at their organizational structure and it’d end up looking like a pyramid, interesting.)
Almost like it always always always boils down to material interests. Which is the point of the article. No matter how irrational it may seem it always, without fail, boils down to material interests. Where are the alternative structures for workers to secure their material needs?
“I want liberals to provide you with your material needs, but you should join our org, if I market it real good you’re gonna do it.” That’s Western Marxism in a nutshell.
The expectation you’re gonna brake that lifelong inertia with a simple logical argument when everything else in the world is telling them otherwise, isn’t just naive, it’s conceited as hell.
This is literally a huge portion of the author’s point. Also, consider that this seems to be in contradiction with the insinuation of:
it reads like someone that just can’t imagine that their logical well thought arguments aren’t taken seriously
Because right there you explain why a logical argument (or evidence, etc.) might not be taken seriously.
The point of the article, I think, isn’t that people are not propagandized, it’s that part of the reason they don’t reject that propaganda is that they recognize on some level that it benefits them.
I understand that, but I was considering the propaganda to be under the umbrella of the maintenance of the aforementioned “lifelong inertia”.
To clarify, I was agreeing with you. Sorry, I realize that wasn’t clear in my reply.
- Another KKKommuniKKKation KKKlarified, unlimited clear and deliberate discourse on the Hex Bear.
This is literally a huge portion of the author’s point
Well that’s great, but I wouldn’t know, I can’t get through it!
tbh, it’s like I’m reading a complaint by this guy. 
My opinion of it is also not helped that it seems like it often gets shared as a reason why convincing people can’t ever be done in the imperial core and thus no other tactic should be tried. But that’s not the authors fault I know, just my impression.🤷 It’s never here’s what we should try instead, it’s always brainwashing isn’t real, here’s a link.
Well that’s great, but I wouldn’t know, I can’t get through it!
If you want to speak in terms of a text you’re probably more familiar with, what does “no investigation” entail?
My opinion of it is also not helped that it seems like it often gets shared as a reason why convincing people can’t ever be done in the imperial core and thus no other tactic should be tried
I’m easily one of the biggest proponents of the essay, but my point in discussing it most of the time is to fight against misanthropic ideas about the people being “sheeple” or whatever that are fundamentally sub-rational, and instead that we simply need to engage on a more empathetic basis, trying to understand why people believe what they do in order to find more constructive ways of engaging with them.
If you want to speak in terms of a text you’re probably more familiar with, what does “no investigation” entail?
Yeah no shit. As I’ve said I’ve attempted reading this multiple times.
I’m easily one of the biggest proponents of the essay, but my point in discussing it most of the time is to fight against misanthropic ideas about the people being “sheeple” or whatever that are fundamentally sub-rational, and instead that we simply need to engage on a more empathetic basis, trying to understand why people believe what they do in order to find more constructive ways of engaging with them.
And that sounds like a better discussion that puts it in a better light, but I’ve never seen it happen.🤷 Matter of fact, I would say the opposite typically happens and the argument instead becomes something closer the hopelessness of reaching labor aristocracy or some shit.
And that sounds like a better discussion that puts it in a better light, but I’ve never seen it happen.🤷 Matter of fact, I would say the opposite typically happens and the argument instead becomes something closer the hopelessness of reaching labor aristocracy or some shit.
The issue is that not having empathy and trying to go about these discussions in an overly “academic” manner is usually pretty worthless outside of niche cases where you’ve basically just gotten lucky because the other person was in a place to have that kind of discussion. Obviously there are some doomer third worldists on the board, but I’ve never agreed with them and if you read even 8 - 9 paragraphs into the essay, the author explicitly does not either.
Heard. I’ll try to keep that in mind on my next attempt. Whenever the hell that is. Lol. thanks.
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where are these libs? the closest to that i’ve seen is democratic party bigwigs crying about rules and decorum
I recommend reading this, even if it is to discover your own contradictions
eh i haven’t been surprised by “dems” bloodthirst since i found myself here… learning to stop distinguishing them from Republicans at all was the easiest most provable lesson y’all taught me lol…
i will read this. i just had a terrible, endless fever-dream (literally, I’m sick) where i could feel my brainworms but wasunable to find and kill them.
