I can second the kidney thieves recommendation.

True. But he’s far more Hollow with much less pith.

Damn Begley JR. There is a name I haven’t thought about in a hot minute. Which is sad. Though it’s also apropos. It’s the perfect season for one of my favorite movies he’s in. Co-starring with Jeff Goldblum Geena Davis Michael Richards and a number of others.

But between those three, alda, winkler, begly Jr. They are absolutely better than Maher in every aspect. Definitely with respect to acting. Maher’s biggest role was when he played himself in piranha women of the avocado jungle.

Winkler has always been a solidly stand up guy. They say to never meet your heroes. But coming from an area where Winkler has spent a decent amount of time. And talk to a number of people who have encountered him in the course of daily life. He’s probably one of the safe ones.

I’ll have to watch this when I get home later. But the Cody showdy is always on point. One of the first things I watched generally Wednesdays when I get home.

It’s all over. Not just there. But you aren’t wrong. In a lot of ways it’s very similar to the anti immigrant fervor on the right. Misguided to put it kindly. If anyone thinks targeted ai spam bots could divide the left more effectively than the left divides itself. Then they need to take a closer look.

The way I heard it explained that made the most sense is personal vs private property. If it’s something a person uses regularly. Personal property. Otherwise public property that can be leased short term for production and business use. But never owned by a large parasitic business/corporation that will horde resources and foul the land with no concern for others.

They’re laying around all over the place. The thing is none of them want to run right now.

I never said they didn’t. Marxist Leninism like capitalism helped everyone industrialize. It didn’t and will never help them achieve communism, much less stay socialist. It’s as flawed as capitalism.

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Russia would like to have a word, China too. Socialism is great. But not all socialism is created equal.

It’s both. Appeasement never works. And ideology over solidarity leads to no accomplishments.

Wow you guys are just as bad as the trumpers are with those illogical whacked out conspiracy theories. No the system isn’t working as designed. It’s been broken a long time and we all know this. The other thing we all should know however. Is that it’s infinitely harder to fix things than it is to break them or break them more.

The problem is it takes a solid unified front on our part to fix it. But they’ve found it so easy to break you all. To peel you off and turn you against anything like that. Solidarity is what will defeat them. They just laughed to themselves when they watch people like yourself attributing to them far more power than they’ve ever or will ever have. They don’t need absolute power they just need enough people like yourself who can be easily turned to fight against their own interests. While thinking they’re fighting for their interests.

It isn’t. Biden has done far too much, in the name of diplomacy to enable it. That’s true. But also different from cheering it on and wanting to accelerate it. I don’t want anyone to die anywhere prematurely. But if I attack everyone who can’t promise that. And refuse to work with those making smaller, more achievable progress. I’d be a part of the problem.

In the near future if more progressive people in Congress come up with sanctions against Likud and related groups in Israel that are causing the problem. Who’s desk would you want that to go to? Biden may or may not sign it. Trump would absolutely sic his fans against anyone that voted for it. One is better than the other. And over 2 centuries of data tells us it will be one of the two.

A few things here. You have consistently, in this conversation even, many times lumped together and conflated all capitalists as a monolithic group. Do you have a right to object when someone does similar back at you?

Second you aren’t “Marxist” or representative of all marxists. You are on a domain specifically dedicated to leninism. A specific sub branch of Marxism not representative of the group as a whole. Which also includes other groups like Marxist Libertarians and communists etc. Hi! While defending ML against Marxist and adjacent critiques. What are we supposed to think?

If anyone has put words in your mouth. Consider the fact that you’ve repeatedly deflected and ignored what was said. Leaving everyone to assumed your answers. Nothing was stopping you from being direct.

If everywhere that’s implemented capitalism largely becomes violently exploitative. (And they do) And everywhere that’s implemented governments based off ML ideology has always become violently oppressive. (And they have) Then neither is a flaw of their respective ideology, or they both are. And if an ideology is flawed, our allegiance should be to outcomes. Not the ideology. Herein lies the rub. And where the similarities in capitalism and Marxist-Leninism shine. And why the rest of the left dislikes both. Both have been tried and found lacking. We need to move beyond both at this point.

I agree. That’s not what I was talking about and you know that.

I didn’t ask you to apologize. I was simply explaining why a lot of countries are against Russia China Etc. That they much like the capitalist countries have given plenty of reason for people not to like or trust them. Which in many ways does a tie back directly to their mistreatment of their own citizens. Capitalists are no more anyone’s friend than ML are.

It’s almost like you’re engaging in bad faith. Which if I had to go by our history of interactions I would say is the most likely explanation.

When internal dissent was mentioned you automatically jumped to externalizing it and fighting it. Not addressing it. You say that you’re not against it. But you just said that you were against it.

You can play ignorant if you like. We aren’t obligated to believe such poor acting however. You know exactly what I’m referring to. They forceful annexation of much of Eastern Europe post World War II including the dividing up of germany. And more contemporary. China’s failure upon absorbing Hong kong. And saber a rattling regarding Taiwan.

Yes. External factors are one thing entirely. And completely unrelated to crushing dissent. Dissent is an internal thing. And if you automatically classify all the dissent as a product of external factors there by making it something to fight and crush. You may have just perfectly encapsulated the issues with your ideology.

Also while I agree capitalists are not really good friends. They used to be Allied with the Russians during World War II for example. It’s almost like something happened post World War II that was actually the problem. And not just that capitalists must be fought everywhere. Do you know what that might have been? It’s something China is currently dealing with and failing in their own way. And I’m not going to say that it’s not hypocritical for many Western countries to criticize this considering what they’ve done. But just because a criticism is hypocritical doesn’t mean it’s not valid.

Most Marxists just want a Worker-State and explicitly reject “Great Man Theory.” I agree that worshipping strong men is antithetical to the left, but I also see this in a very fringe minority

A minimal state. Representative of the people/proletariat. Not a brutal mono party that tries to crush all dissent.

And if strong man worship is so fringe and antithetical to ML. Why has it been a defining feature of every system of governance based on it? Stalin, Mao or Xi today, Castro, Kim Il Sung. Fringe is supposed to imply it’s not a core component of every single implementation and yet it is.

On the nose! Capitalism always devolves to authoritarian or fascistic systems when left to it’s own devices. Broken by anticompetitive behavior. And Leninism/Stalinism/Maoism start there. Going from one to the other is a lateral move. Their benefits and faults are oddly similar. Despite how vehemently they despise each other. The authoritarian nature is the fault. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.