I largely agree.

We have a non-existent level of class consciousness in the west and as people wake due to collapsing material conditions, the already conscious elements must focus on education and using palatable rhetoric to excite workers toward movements that evolve the atomized Canadian position. Establishing simple mutual aid networks could be an easy entry point (especially as the cost of living skyrockets) as could a Competitor Party, we just need class-conscious folks organizing ASAP and interconnecting to ensure best practices are shared and evolved.

To that effect, we do eventually need a clear vanguard strategically seeding a variety of movements to ensure we’re expediting the evolution of each iteration of “spontaneous” movement and this will ensure an easier process of merging revolutionary momentum when we finally find the chord that excites the public into mass action. Unity – Criticism – Unity is most effective inside a single party committed to a mass line.

Movement is evolutionary when the progressive elements spontaneously continue their daily activities and introduce minor, quantitative changes into the old order.

Movement is revolutionary when the same elements combine, become imbued with a single idea and sweep down upon the enemy camp with the object of uprooting the old order and of introducing qualitative changes in life, of establishing a new order.

Evolution prepares for revolution and creates the ground for it; revolution consummates the process of evolution and facilitates its further activity.

Stalin, Anarchism or Socialism

Thank you familia!

I had to cut so many examples of the NDP’s betrayals that this coulda been a book lol.

Happy to expand on any point that could be of use to your audience 🫡

Another Yogthos masterpiece and best position I’ve read yet on AI. Does anyone else have any bangers or good historical quotes on this moment?

If Lenin thought “a large scale machine industry that is also capable of reorganizing agriculture is the only material basis that is possible for socialism”, I’m thinking the same is true to reorganize industry itself to create the possibility for communism.

I’m seeing massive AI-driven changes across all the sectors my industry touches, and regressive attempts to erase this momentum rather than seize it for liberation astound me.

There’s good insight here, but friendly warning

Sad, but this is what we get for losing a revolutionary labour movement.

All these old agreements are going to be stretched as thin as possible until we can boot the old labour aristocrats and inject class consciousness into a larger movement that excites the masses.

Inspired by John Steinbeck’s, “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires”

Wikipedia disputes the quote saying:

the remark is very likely a paraphrase from Steinbeck’s article “A Primer on the '30s.” Esquire (June 1960), p. 85-93:

"Except for the field organizers of strikes, who were pretty tough monkeys and devoted, most of the so-called Communists I met were middle-class, middle-aged people playing a game of dreams. I remember a woman in easy circumstances saying to another even more affluent: ‘After the revolution even we will have more, won’t we, dear?’ Then there was another lover of proletarians who used to raise hell with Sunday picknickers on her property. “I guess the trouble was that we didn’t have any self-admitted proletarians. Everyone was a temporarily embarrassed capitalist.”

Another masterpiece! Thank you comrade, excellent material to meditate on, as always.

Now I have to research Glasnost and Perestroika. I do not have the fortitude to add Yeltsin (spit) or Gorbi (triple spit) to my reading list just yet.

Edit: I understand there was an insurrectionary effort against Yeltsin that was squashed, I wonder if there’s USSR parallels there with Trump’s increased measures and rhetoric against “organized crime”.

Love this.

I think all markers are that the west isn’t just risking sliding into obsolescence, but it is on the fast track to do so without any notable worker effort to organize or slow the collapse.

Trump’s efforts are dramatic, but my bet is they’re far too late to have the desired affect, so at what point will the proletariat take note of their trajectory and can China’s rise offer as motivating a factor for class consciousness as the USSR did?

He’s trying to break Canada and Mexico before going after the rest of the world with tariffs while also locking down common investment in the American security complex.

If global powers united for tariffs on the US to prevent further crackdown then he just gets another failed Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot–Hawley_Tariff_Act)

You can read and infer his strategy from Stephen Marin’s paper on remaking the global trade system here:https://www.hudsonbaycapital.com/documents/FG/hudsonbay/research/638199_A_Users_Guide_to_Restructuring_the_Global_Trading_System.pdf

Reddit (and other mainstream spaces) seems to have banned a ton over Gaza and Luigi, will be interesting to see where folks end up.

Bluesky seems to be gaining traction, but doubt they will permit much.

I’d disagree that this is a redeemable quality and just pure denial (of Canadians in general, no shade at you comrade). Canada has helped finance and run cover for every American military action while directly providing the raw resources at a massive discount which fuels the hegemony, we’re beyond complicit.

Even Jean Chretien, in his memoir, publicly bragged about bragging that Canada already does more for the States than it could ever do as a 51st state.

Canada actually spends less on social services than the states and the decline of our medical system could reach an exponential pace while provinces like Alberta are already pushing workers to private care. If you compare our healthcare to any developed country but the US, we’re an embarassment on effective care and timeliness of care.

I have no doubt politicians will take advantage of this situation to ramp up nationalist rhetoric, but would any assessment of the situation find actual material efforts to support Canadians? There’s neoliberal conversations about rolling back regulations to allow for more interprovincial trade, but these are led by reactionary think tanks financed by established corporations looking to further consolidate rather than return meaningful results to Canadians - and no Canadian institution is taking the lead on assessing the situation from a proletariat position so of course Doug Ford gets namedropped as a positive force for good. A few of my lib friends have tried to buy his stupid hat because all that matters is aesthetic here, and that’s why we’ve already lost.

Hell yeah. I cannot believe it’s 2025 and I, a Canadian, still live in a monarchy. Clown world.

Do you have a read on the viability of this?

I’d see it as a plausible effort to extend American influence if it was done at the end of Trumps first term, but the failed proxy war has blessed western powers with a trove of debts and embarrassments amid already active de-industrialization across the the EU. I can’t imagine it’ll be simple to reunite hungry, embarassed people behind such an extreme neoliberal scheme while BRICS is visibly prospering next door.

In North America, Canada has been a vassal state for decades, and while Mexico has built internal capacity and infrastructure that may grant some degree of independence, Canada seems to be in a hopeless position. Canadian politicians are blustering about cutting off trade or power to the States, but if this is just phase 1 of a multi pronged strategy, one would expect Trump to respond with much higher and widespread tariffs to ensure compliance in future phases (from all future parties). Nevermind that the American market would be forced to react to denied imports by building capacity to finance permanent alternatives which is what Trump wants in the first place.

Canada painted itself into a corner. Internal trade is intentionally obstructed by oligopolies in each province, and we don’t have the economic complexity to finance qualitative improvement to infrastructure because all we have are primary commodities - which will be affected by the volatility caused by tarrifs. We might delay the crunch by simply appeasing Trump for now, but ultimately everyone needs a basic mutual aid strategy for bank runs and layoffs - and the only long-term solution is a thorough reconsideration of how to light the coming swell of revolutionary potential our aristocratic unions and parties sure won’t.

I think he’s simply following the plan his new bfff Stephen Miran laid out in A User’s Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System (pdf: https://www.hudsonbaycapital.com/documents/FG/hudsonbay/research/638199_A_Users_Guide_to_Restructuring_the_Global_Trading_System.pdf)

tldr: use tariffs to cause allies to fall in line and further entwine economies with the American security apparatus, then copy paste to the broader globe with tariffs on everything. effectively using inflation to consolidate capital further and pull as much manufacturing “home” as possible.

Starting with North America kills the chicken to tame the monkey (whip major world powers by bloodying minor ones) and puts him in ideal place to milk what little surplus value the bourgeoisie doesn’t have obvious access to. Implementation relies heavily on American military might and a productive capacity that existed in prior decades; it’s unclear whether that terrain matches the map anymore.

Trump is inconsistent and surrounded by the dipshit peons of a crumbling empire so who knows what actually happens, but I believe the intent is clear.

The US wouldn’t let cali go so easy, but the way things are unfolding I wouldn’t be surprised to see this gain traction in tandem with other exit movements across North America - like a new Cascadia movement (British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and Northern California).

In a socialist world maybe these could be specialist economic zones for collaborative development. In reality, it’ll maybe be a fun video game setting.

Amazing work as always and so important as we westies are thick in the romantic/ideological cycle of decline. Only vibes based discussion allowed.

I’m not a commie because it’s moral alone, but because it’s the scientific advancement of effective tools for serving the many. Also really appreciate how your work doesn’t have an ideological tone so I can just copy and paste to whomever. 12/10 comrade.

spent embarrassingly long trying to figure out if can post multiple pics to one post.

Sorry for the dump comrades and please let me know if there’s a better way to post a few pics all together.

So appreciate everyone’s feedback and I think this (and variations of this) is what I’ll go with. Thank you!

thanks fam! that’s what works best overall so far. “sweetie pie socialist” worked well in 2020 and quickly got ppl talking without some hesitancy from folks who want to know where you stand on things before saying too much. Not as efficient now so I hope there’s a 2024 term ppl have found which indicates “this conversation is a wholesome space, go off”.