Journal Raffle For Wafaa's Children And Grandchildren!

Walter have you made a shield yet? You're gonna wanna make a shield before you go into that cave Walter. Those skeletons are going make easy pickings of you without a shield I've seen it time and time again

I apologize for calling Macklemore cringe

Help me and my family please 🙏

gofundme.com

Donate to Help a family from Gaza, organized by Yaser Matar

Hello, I am Ibtisam Al-Habil. My suffering began in 2014 when my husband was martyred, and I was … Yaser Matar needs your support for Help

@el-shab-hussein @ibtisams-blog @northgazaupdates @northgazaupdates2 @90-ghost

One thing I would really like to see socialists abandon is the line on capitalism (the system of social production) | the bourgeoisie (the class) | liberalism (the ideological structure) being a “progressive” force, in a positive sense of that term. I recall a pretty irritating conversation with a right-libertarian who asked me “how can capitalism be exploitation, according to Marx, when it’s raised living standards around the globe?” 

Now, I think there’s a lot of ways to respond to that:

1) calling the claim itself into doubt statistically [most of the recent trend in poverty downturn is just China urbanizing; many other places are stagnating if not getting worse]. 2) calling the claim into doubt historically [does the boost in living standards for China and the Soviet Union, from urbanization and industrialization, mean that “actually existing socialism” is immune to critique? I would hope not.] 3) noting that exploitation as Marx used it was primarily a technical and non-moral term [his fundamental ethical worry, as I have argued elsewhere, was domination]. 4) digging into the weeds of the theory of exploitation to show that an increased standard of living and increased exploitation (as Marx understood that term) are not mutually exclusive, on his exact terms.

But the most common one is to concede that yes, capitalist mechanisms have massively expanded the powers of the human body. This is, after all, part of Marx’s interest in capitalism in the first place, its “revolutionizing” powers and ability to break down barriers to expansion or absorb preexisting practices and patterns into its mechanisms. So there’s this sense in which ground is ceded to the liberal view of history as progress, in which capitalism is superior by some metric(s) when compared to other modes of production. Communists are therefore in the position of having to assert that in spite of this, capitalism should still be abolished.

But I think that’s not actually ground that it’s necessary to concede, at least not in any meaningful sense.

I think there are a few good reasons for giving up this claim. One is that it’s in many ways not true, and we should throw out the Whig historiography and stagist theorizing that has seeped into socialist thought and action by way of The German Ideology and other underdeveloped sources. For instance, the bourgeoisie as a class had to be dragged kicking and screaming into revolution by subaltern forces. Although many of the “bourgeois revolutions” unfolded or “resolved” in accordance with bourgeois desires and interests, they were not motivated by them. The bourgeoisie, no matter where they are, are pretty reliably conservative in their general disposition.

Another is that “progress” should not be a communist virtue or metric by which to judge the world; it is rooted in a thoroughly liberal philosophy of history. As Marx says - and didn’t always express adequately - “it is far too easy to be liberal at the expense of the Middle Ages.” I imagine that I would not like to live in a feudal, despotic, or tributary society - this much should be obvious. But the notion that capitalism is therefore superior, more tolerable, because its central form of domination is impersonal (setting aside, for the moment, all the forms of unfreedom and interpersonal domination that capitalism relies upon, which fall particularly hard upon certain demographics and geographical areas), doesn’t follow from that. There’s nothing noble about the fact that capitalists seized upon destruction and dispossession unleashed by the feudal state. Primitive accumulation - whether viewed as a historical juncture or an ongoing process vital to capitalism to this day - is not a redemptive force. Yes, capitalism managed to expand the powers of the body - at the expense of many.

For me the question is not “is capitalism better than the social forms it replaced?”, because I don’t think that question is either particularly helpful or terribly interesting. It’s as silly as asking if feudalism is better than a slave society - partly because it presumes this linear, stagist narrative of history that is false, and partly because it asks us to pick between horrors. Rather, the question is, “was all the suffering worth it?” And for me the answer is no. 

Could we have gotten something better? Can we still?

gofundme.com

Donate to Help Abood From the War, organized by Andy S

Hello, my name is Andy. I live in Ohio, but I am organizing this fundraiser for Abood and his wife who … Andy S needs your support for Help

Abood @abood-gaza2 and his pregnant wife NEED you to save them. Proof they are vetted here. It costs ~$8000 to evacuate to Egypt and that number is increasing all the time due to sick people trying to capitalise on misfortune and chaos.

"I studied accounting, graduated with a high average, and worked in a chain of clothing stores that my father owned. But due to the unjust aggression, all our shops were destroyed, and we lost our source of livelihood and work completely. I was displaced from my home more than 10 times, each time trying to find a safe place, but there really is no safety here. Here we live death, fear, and loss at every moment. We love life and we always have ambitions and dreams that we hope to achieve and we are determined to achieve them as well."

Please help this beautiful family who are currently living in tents and facing a harsh and dangerous winter coming up evacuate as soon as they can for the sake of their unborn son as well as their own sakes, and read their story. They're 1/4 of a way to their goal. Get them closer, every little bit counts.

Enrico Benaglia — The Four Seasons  (oil on canvas, 2006)

love the world bc like, we have less than 20 years before climate change completely starts destroying society and people are like “lets vote in democrats!! remember to vote!! Maybe we can convince the corporations to stop being so mean and destroying the planet!! stop using disposable straws!!”

Palestinian activists get their message across on Londons iconic Tower Bridge landmark- one of the cities most historic buildings. We need a ceasefire now.

These two kids are Hamza (the oldest) and Qusai (the youngest).

Their mother shares this video and bids them goodbye. They were both killed by Israeli bombardment 5 days ago. She says:

[Two days before Hamza and Qusai were killed, hamza asked me: "mom, when we die, where will I go?" And I told him: "you will be a bird in heaven, my love." He said: "and Qusai?" "Just like you inshallah."

And indeed, two days later, he left and took his brother with him. It's like he was preparing me for saying goodbye to both of them. Heaven is more beautiful than any place on this Earth, habibi. We will meet and be reunited one day, me, your dad and you two].

Our kids don't deserve to die already thinking about what will happen to them, they don't deserve to die already terrified, anticipating their death because the world failed them and decided their lives mean nothing. We are not numbers. Remember their names and their stories.