Like Ture said about Marx: when you look at the world honestly, you can only come to certain conclusions; you don't need to be told what they are and once you've seen them you cannot be persuaded to think otherwise. When you hear that someone else has discovered the same thing it resonates.
Thanks for writing this. I've reached similar conclusions. I'm feeling a lot of self loathing this week. My work had a big song and dance as soon as Russia invaded Ukraine. You could hear a pin drop at the moment; not a single fucking word about Palestine. I'm optimistic that Palestine will survive this. But it's getting hard to rationalise my own complicity in the whole thing.
It's crucial, I think. To fully understand the situation, we're going to have to understand all aspects of it. As anti-Semitism is disappointingly rife, we should not forget it. And it is imperative, I think we agree, to highlight the relationship between Zionism and antisemitism (including Zionism putting Jews in direct physical danger).
It comes through constantly. Yesterday, I saw a Finkelstein interview. The interviewer, Kay Burley, I think, said something about Israel being a safe haven for Jews and doesn't Finkelstein feel bad for challenging that.
Putting aside the point that Finkelstein is based, the implication is that wherever the interviewer is from (Britain?) is not safe, unwilling to become safe, or begrudgingly safe and the sooner all the Jews leave, the better. I don't want to say this is intentional. But it's implied every time the claim is made.
I don't want Jews to feel like they have to go to Israel to be safe; they should feel safe as my next-door neighbour. Highlighting stories about Jews caught in the cross fire in some way and being vocal about it could help create that atmosphere. Justice dies when good people remain silent, and all that. There may also be an argument that if we can make the west significantly less antisemitic, we might also encourage Israelis to leave Palestine. At the least it will make the choice easier.
[Edit: I just realised another implication of this—antisemites will have an incentive to ramp up antisemitism to make Israeli Jews feel as though they are safer fighting in Palestine than leaving. We should be on guard for this. It's another reason why being vocal about harm to Jews does not automatically mean ignoring Palestinians; it's part of the same struggle and could help Palestinians.]
Zionism gives antisemites an excuse: 'if you want to be safe, go to Israel (and disposses the Palestinians to secure it)'. The logic is premised on antisemitism and colonialism. The very people who make life unsafe and difficult for Jews and other oppressed people's essentially say, 'If you want freedom and security you can't have it here, you have to do the same thing that we did/do somewhere else'.
And as we know, some Jews will accept that logic, hence Zionism. But what will actually liberate Jews and other oppressed people's, including Palestinians, is abolishing class society. (If only someone had predicted this circa 1843–4.)
Then there's the problem of equating Zionism with Judaism. This is actively harmful to Jews. It's used as an excuse to oppress non-/anti-Zionist Jews. But as antisemites aren't overly interested in fine distinctions, they don't really care if any Jew suffers for it. If an antisemite targets a Jew for being anti-Zionist, they'll lose no sleep to later discover they were pro-Zionism.
The 'support' only extends to the settler colonial project; any benefit to Jewish people is incidental. It's a double win for racists who want Jews out of 'their country' and who are always looking for ways to oppress Arabs.
This is partly why I dislike the 'Israel lobby' rhetoric. Not only is it inherently antisemitic as it's based on a hive mind trope, but it also masks the motivations of racist imperialists. They don't need to be lobbied to support settler colonialism.
Just as I see e.g. Europe as an outpost of a single Anglo-European empire based in the US, I see Israel as an outpost, too. Not as a last stand hidden behind a circle of wagons that has to beg for aid. That model subverts history in so many ways.
The 'Israel lobby' rhetoric seems to be a front that diverts anger away e.g. from the US, British, etc, states – the international bourgeoisie – onto Israel, which has been framed as representing all Jews. Albeit, it's Zionists who make that equation and anti-Zionists who tend to say 'Israel lobby'. The effect is that anti-Zionists can fall into a trap created by structural antisemitism, normalising it for 'apolitical' 'bystanders'.
Another aspect is that while Israelis are settlers in Palestine, many would be refugees elsewhere (and likely mistreated in much of the rest of the 'international community'). This will become worse if there's a Jewish refugee crisis. The more the Zionist logic is pushed, the worse this will be.
I'm optimistic that a free Palestine would find a way to live in peace with Jews (and Christians and atheists) in a sovereign Palestine without expelling everyone. (No idea what that would look like in detail). It does seem to be a stated aim of Hamas, which seems clear that their enemy is Zionism, not Judaism. But that won't help Jews in the rest of the world, refugee from Israel or otherwise. I don't want any settlers settling Palestine or for Jews to be persecuted in the rest of the world (or for their Judaism in Palestine).
When Palestine is free, we will still have to find a way to tackle and end antisemitism. This war is going to make it worse and harder to fight. So keeping Judaism in mind throughout this war may help us to be prepared for what comes after. It doesn't diminish Palestinian suffering unless it's framed as a hierarchy. And ultimately, when Palestine wins, Palestinians will still have to fight, alongside Jews, against the same forces that lead to the oppression of both.
Glad you found it helpful. If some of these tricks don't work for you, that's fine, too, but I hope some of them do help.
PS I noticed some typos and fixed them in square brackets to make them easier to spot.
I'd keep them censored. They're openly speaking in public already but advertising their names on a platform they didn't choose to speak on will open them to vitriol from a wider audience than they might expect.
PatSoc seems to be an Anglo-European, mainly US phenomenon; it shouldn't be imposed on other societies as if it's a universal category.
Patriotism to a coloniser state means loyalty to it's colonising history and character. It's a call for redistributing the spoils of imperialism rather than ending imperialism, with some noises about ending imperialism at some unknown date in the future.
Kim Jong Un did speak about the need for patriotism. But the patriotism of a socialist state that has recently cut off colonial overlords has a different character to that of the patriotism of those ex-overlords. The one means patriotism for oppression , the other, as in the DPRK, is a call to be loyal to anti-imperialism.
This is a big can of worms. I'd caution against listening to anyone who calls the DPRK patsoc.
Current events provide another example: it would be bizarre to claim that a Palestinian Marxist is a PatSoc. Palestinian 'patriotism' (if that's the right word for it – I'm not entirely convinced) would look very different to Israeli patriotism.
Edit: this isn't a view steeped in literature; it's hard to divine what self-proclaimed patsocs themselves think because they're too tedious and wrong to engage with for prolonged periods. So treat this more as 'preliminary comments'.
That's the one lol. Definitely don't sort by all before bed or when you've got to get some work done.
Bear with me: stop trying!
Trying to become disciplined takes a lot of energy. There's an easier way. Create an environment in which reading theory is the easier option. Set things up so that reading theory is the easiest thing to do.
Do you prefer physical or digital or a mixture? [Store] reading materials close to the place where you're going to be able to pick them up and get stuck in with the time available and in that setting.
So you might have a physical copy of Capital in a quiet place with a chair but no TV and poor WiFi connection. Reading the book becomes the easier, preferable option to trying to browse the internet. If you can't do this, create it. Set your phone, if possible, to go on Aeroplane mode at a certain time of day. Or do it manually – you won't miss anything; it'll all be there when you log back on. Or leave your phone somewhere else, where you'd have to move to get it.
If you use a computer, save pdfs on your desktop. Save links to websites on your desktop. You could arrange them in columns, with short pieces on the left and long pieces on the right. Then if you have ten mins, open a source on the left. If you have more time, open one on the right.
Bookmark websites. Add them to your shortcut bar. 'Add to home screen' on your phone and move some of these around in your screen so it's as easy to click a work of theory on Prolewiki as it is to open your messages.
If you browse e.g. Marxists.org, you'll find loads of texts of different lengths. It's okay just to browse. Keep a note of shorter works and bookmark/save them as suggested above. You might read a short letter on the bus or the toilet or while waiting for the kettle to boil. You won't get through e.g. Capital in that time and you're likely to get frustrated if you try. Short works that are easy to read in chunks include letters, interviews, FAQ format.
Discipline is useful but it's overrated and we tend to see it upside down. Self-discipline comes from being disciplined practice. It's a lot harder to discipline ourselves in order to become disciplined. It also becomes a lot easier to be disciplined as you become more familiar with the subject. Familiar topics, even if technical, can be read as easily as fiction; it doesn't need discipline if you can find a way to make it so easy that you become increasingly familiar without letting yourself realise that you're 👻reading theory🎃.
Also, a leaf out of self-determination theory: you will grasp conceptual ideas a lot quicker and be far more motivated if you choose the material. There are reading lists. But if this feels like someone else is deciding what you're supposed to read, you probably won't do it if you struggle with paying attention as described, and it will be harder than it needs to be. So find out what you're interested in and read Marxist authors talking about that topic. Q: what are you interested in?
If something doesn't grab your attention, move on and come back to it later. The more familiar a topic is, the more motivated you'll be to engage with it. It's okay to read a little here and a little there. It's also okay to start anywhere in the book that looks interesting. One day you should finish the important texts. It doesn't have to be today or next week.
One trick is trying to read one word a day. It's a very low target. But you'll find that if you go to the effort of reading that one word, you'll read another and another. You might only read a paragraph in the end. But enough days like that and you've read what you set out to read. (This also works with writing, btw.)
I rarely: read cover-to-cover; start at the beginning; or finish one book before I start another. I start wherever looks most interesting or is most related to something that I know well. I have multiple texts on the go at once. If I get bored, I pick up something else. I often have a theme [in] mind and read the relevant parts in multiple texts about that theme and ignore the rest.
I can be 'disciplined' when I need to be, but if I don't need to be, I don't force it. The advantage is that because I read in the way that I do, I've often already dipped into a text before I sit down to finish it. This means I'm familiar with most of the major texts even if I haven't read them in full before. This makes things a lot easier when I need to finish a particular text.
I often find that [some] theory is too complicated or theoretical. It's hard to keep going when texts are difficult. If a text is particularly difficult: (1) skip that section until you come to an easier one – you can go back to the more difficult parts later, when you know more about what's being said; or (2) let your subconscious do the hard work for you – stop reading, leave it for an hour or a day or a week, etc, then read it again and you'll see that your mind had started to make sense of the text.
You could also focus on finishing chapters/sections rather than whole books, as a more realistic target to start with.
Essentially, the more you engage, the easier it all becomes. So the trick is to do anything that helps you to engage and keeps you engaged. If you need it, I'm giving you permission: make it easy, it doesn't have to be a chore.
This is what I do. You can read "all" in the morning if you're struggling to get out of bed.
Wouldn't be surprised if the US uses all this to block Chinese ships coming up the Red Sea, trying to weaken and provoke China before the BRI is quite ready to properly supplement the sea trade with overland trade. Then pincer Chinese sea trade via it's SEA vassals, hoping to deter Egypt and SA from following through with joining BRICS. Subtly and slyly, of course. The US already has a presence in the Med. I don't want to get carried away but this could be the spark for a rather large fire. Especially if there neighbours get involved.
Remember to be saving your receipts (screenshots, pdfs). There's going to be a lot of 'editing' as this goes on. Like we saw with Ukraine.
Not sure about that. The reference to Never Use Alone is part of an argument that's it's not as good as providing these safe consumption zones; it's a criticism of NUA.
Mayor Jim Kenney said he supports Safehouse and vetoed the bill, but the City Council overrode his veto 13-to-1. The passage of this bill banning safe consumption sites means many more people will die needlessly.
Safehouse — or any organization seeking to open a safe consumption site — can seek special permissions to open a site in their neighborhood after this bill is passed, but community organizations must approve it. Then the zoning board would take their vote into consideration. In typical political fashion, some of the people behind the bill claim it isn’t a ban but instead a “conversation starter” that would include the community.
Cheeky fucks. It's not usually a 'conversation starter' when these dickheads make rules; it's 'representative democracy' and if you don't like it 'vote harder next time'. Maybe we should start talking as if all anti-worker law, rules, and regs are merely 'conversation starters'.
The next person arrested with a few kilos of coke should try it: 'Sorry officer I thought the ban was a conversation starter and it turns out the Wall Street community would like to end the conversation with a witty one-liner. Snorted, not the funny kind.'
That critique is addressed in the article. This is a new idea to me so I'm not talking with any authority. But it seems that safe consumption sites provide a pipeline to recovery. At the very least, the stats show they save lives. Addicted users are going to use drugs whatever happens. A strict 'no enabling' policy doesn't seem to make much difference. If we can make the process a lot safer, I'll support it.
"enter your card details to allow the plane to burn enough fuel to get you all the way home"
Holy shit. That's it. They're looking at history and going in reverse chronological order. 🤯
6.4m refugees! I knew that number was large.
Thanks for the details.
Good points. The article gets better after that part, though. I wrote a very angry critique of the first bit, by the time I'd got to the same point, then tempered what I wrote after reading the rest of the article. Essentially the article finishes by arguing that Stalin was more responsible than Furr allows for but that was a good thing because he was a revolutionary and needed to be ruthless.
Could've been written by someone who stood by Stalin all those years even after their party fell apart on hearing Khrushchev's speech, and was a little bit pissed off that Furr was implying that such a decades-long defence was unnecessary because Stalin didn't actually do what he was accused of doing. Given that supporting Stalin after the Speech could've been an employment-ending take, I wouldn't be surprised that my hypothetical author is a little angry lol.
Decent article. The second half is stronger than the first. I'll make some comments about the first half.
Furr's book is strong because he sets out to examine the truth of Khrushchev's 'secret' speech and carefully disproves almost every claim in it. He does not set out to argue what Stalin did or who he was. That would be a huge biographical work, for which there would be a host of evidential problems.
There's no grandstanding. It's well written but it's not rhetorical. It's all very matter-of-fact. It straightforwardly shows that the popular myth of Stalin, a view based on Trotsky's work and Khrushchev's speech, is false.
In a field (world, rather) where the anti-Stalin paradigm is supreme, Furr's contribution is huge. And punchier for being careful and limited.
Half of the book is extracts of the sources. The reader can make up their own mind whether the sources support Furr's or Khrushchev's argument or something else. The author provides an alternative interpretation of some of those sources than Furr. You might want to check them and see what you think.
Other studies provided a more nuanced view of Stalin, who emerged as less powerful, more competent, more hands-on, and more seriously theoretical than the brutal tyrant drawn by the totalitarian paradigm.
Stalin was a fierce theoretician. The only reason why anyone would need this point reiterating is because the Stalin-as-totalitarian paradigm is so widespread. After the mid-1950s, the prime evidence for it was Khrushchev's speech.
In this context, disproving the contents of that speech is monumental. The critical article in question is correct that Furr does not go on to tell you what is true about Stalin. But here's the problem. Painting an accurate picture of Stalin after discrediting the 'secret' speech is only one task among many now the speech is discredited.
Knowing who Stalin was is kinda by-the-by. The article itself suggests that others have already done that work, too. Criticising Furr for not doing something similar takes a narrow view of the text and fails to grasp a significance of its contribution. 'Stalin' is a stand-in for 'Soviet' or 'Bolshevik'. When people attack Stalin they don't care about the man. They are attacking communism. The questions that now need answering to far beyond 'Who was Stalin?'
With the Speech discredited, we must re-evaluate the USSR under Stalin's leadership and afterwards. Key questions include: To what extent was Khrushev responsible for it's dissolution? Who else was involved? Why? Answers to these questions will help to avoid the dissolution of future attempts at socialist construction.
Arguing that Furr should have told us who Stalin was might treat Stalin as the most important character. He was surely crucial to the USSR and the fight against Nazism. His life is worth knowing. But only as one narrative among multiple. Furr sweeps away the personality cult. We should not bring it back by insisting that Stalin is the centre of all Soviet research.
It is this interpretation that leads me to reject one of the article's claims and recurring themes, that Furr tries to absolve Stalin of responsibility for everything that Khrushchev pins on him alone. I think my interpretation is supported by quotes from the book in the article, which acknowledge that some serious mistakes were made in the USSR.
It is not 'quibbl[ing] over minor points' to find out what didn't happen. Recognising who was wronged, and how, is necessary for justice. Accepting lies about crimes that didn't happen dilutes the loss of those who suffered and disguises the reasons for Stalin's actions.
The book’s problems start with its title and argument. To call every Khrushchev revelation a lie has dramatic appeal and a figurative truth, but no one in their right mind could buy this as literal truth, because no one in their right mind could imagine Khrushchev or anyone else speaking for hours before a congress of the Communist Party about revelations that contained nothing but falsehoods. Even Furr himself does not believe this.
Anti-communists treat the speech this way. It's those who hold power today and from under whom the rug must be pulled.
A reader, however, has to wait until page 142 to hear the author acknowledge that “it would, of course, be absurd to say that every one of Khrushchev’s statements is false.” Yet, by not admitting that Khrushchev’s “revelations” artfully mixed truths and lies, this absurdity is precisely what Furr is guilty of. Having staked this extreme claim, Furr makes no effort to sort out the truth and falsehood of Khrushchev’s speech, but proceeds to focus only on what in Khrushchev’s statements were dubious, even if it means lumping together the trivial, disputable and half lies with the significant, provable and total lies.
I disagree with this challenge. My understanding of Furr's claim was that he was unable to disprove (due to lack of evidence) some of the 'revelations' in the Speech. I did not interpret it to mean that Furr was unable to disprove (i.e. that he only partly disproved) the revelations that he claims to have disproved.
If the claim is true in the form in which it is presented, I'll suggest that Furr's point is to identify the lies, not the truths (maybe this is pedantic). Again, anti-communists swallow the speech whole. It is up to them to defend the speech, not Furr.
The idea that Furr should be giving a 'balanced', 'both sides' view, re-arming anti-communists, is a strange one coming from an ML who apparently ultimately agrees with Furr, for different reasons.
If a conclusion relies on several premises and any one of those is faulty, the conclusion is reductio as absurdum. If one's purpose is to challenge certain conclusions, it is unnecessary to remark on truthful premises. You only need to knock the foundations of just enough premises to shake their conclusions.
Furr is clear about his thesis: he is not attempting to give a balanced account of how dishonest Khrushchev was, only to prove that he was dishonest and to argue that we need a wholesale reassessment of what people believe because of the Speech.
Moreover, when the evidence to make his case is unavailable, Furr slips into the role of a dubious defense attorney who nitpicks the evidence, badgers witnesses and kicks up sand.
This is a strange criticism. It contradicts the above assertion that Furr ignores some 'truths' in the speech. The anti-Stalin paradigm is prevalent and practically unshakable. It even appears in the review article. Furr's thesis was to disprove the lies in the Speech.
It is hard if not impossible to prove a negative. While it may be possible to disprove some premises, it becomes difficult for Furr to prove that the opposite is true. Hence the carefulness of the overall thesis: Khrushchev lied, not Stalin XYZ'd.
Criticising Furr for not making an argument that he does not have the evidence to support is not a valid criticism. It is a praiseworthy finding. Stating that Furr should have argued something else and then showing that Furr did not provide evidence for the something else is not a valid criticism.
Where there is no evidence, an argument will have to suffice. This will involve highlighting logical inconsistencies and disproving the evidence that is available. I'm unsure why that's a criticism except as a rhetorical device. Marxists do love their polemics.
The writer clarifies (emphasis added):
Take Furr’s treatment of one of the most important episodes in Soviet history, the Kirov assassination. … Kirov was a supporter and friend of Stalin’s …. In the secret speech, Khrushchev implied that Stalin was behind Kirov’s murder.
Furr argues … the opposition leaders convicted were in fact part of a murder conspiracy. Furr … fails to prove th[is]. Moreover, his refutation is superficial and tendentious[,] takes up less than two pages and involves quotations from three historians, all of whom dispute Stalin’s involvement in Kirov’s murder.
One would never know from Furr’s account that Khrushchev’s implication became the conventional wisdom among such Cold War Sovietologists as Robert Conquest, The Great Terror… In other words, a serious rebuttal of what Khrushchev implied would involve acknowledging what the Cold Warriors have written in support Khrushchev’s view and then refuting or at least disputing it. … In other words, sometimes Furr has a stronger case than he bothers to make.
This implies the book is weak but that Furr is still right. Suggesting that Furr engage more with Conquest is hard to explain. He was an anti-Soviet who spent his life writing anti-communist literature, working for the British Foreign Office, I believe, and later advising Thatcher.
The question is not, 'Why didn't Furr engage with an author who lacks credibility?' but 'To what extent were Conquest's later claims about the USSR based on the Speech?' (Which falls outside the scope of the book.)
The first part of the article argues the Speech became key evidence for the 'conventional wisdom' about Stalin. Why would Furr give any credence to the people who believed the Speech and used the speech as evidence, when he's arguing that anything that treats the speech as fact is wrong?
If Furr is right, he doesn't have to unpick works that come later. He already reduced them to absurdity. It is on the anti-communists to demonstrate why their work is still accurate. (As it happens, Furr has unpicked major anti-communist works published since.)
The claims in the first half of the article are perhaps too strong. Furr could likely improve another edition by taking the article seriously. It seems well researched and has similar goals as Furr. I'd hazard a guess that it was written in good faith but it misses the mark by trying to be thoroughly critical in an 'academic' way.
I'm not sure if this makes anything clearer for you.
Wonder whether the Palestinian resistance and NATO losing in Ukraine are a coincidence? That loss has got to help Palestine. The US military is a big beast, but can it manage two (three if we include Taiwan/SEA) significant fronts at once?
The Palestine situation also reveals serious flaws in Western intelligence. Honestly didn't think it was possible to launch a surprise attack on such a scale nowadays. Also curious as to whether Russia has been telling Palestine what it's been learning about evading Western surveillance on the front.
It's going to be interesting to see what happens to the growing relationship between SA, Syria, and Iran. If SA backs Palestine or at least doesn't actively support Israel, some may suspect that China had a hand in facilitating the conditions for Palestine to free itself (i.e. by bringing SA/S/I back to talking).
I saw something about SA about to sign a telecoms and energy agreement or something with Israel and how those plans are now out the window. Thinking cynically, there's no reason why SA couldn't make the same deal with Palestine. It's not easy to predict who will align with who.
All this, alongside BRICS/BRI growth, African states breaking the colonial stranglehold, and Latin America swinging left (with Venezuela and China working more closely going forward, for example).
If we keep getting weeks where decades happen, it's going to feel like travelling through time.
Discursos de Fidel Castro (Speeches)
Discursos de Fidel Castro: Discurso pronunciado en el Parque Céspedes, de Santiago de Cuba, el 1 de enero de 1959, Discurso pronunciado el 4 de enero...
This site has a few Castro speeches and a letter (to Chávez). If you look through the site there are many other speeches, too (menu > proyectos > discursos). Could be a good way of getting some Spanish input.
(I can't guarantee the speeches are real ones!)
Hummus society
Looking back through my cursive handwritten notes, I noticed my past self was very concerned with hummus society. What could this mean?
Book list on colonialism and imperialism
It's not a Marxist list but that's perhaps to be expected from a list curated from other lists across the internet. I thought it was useful, still, as there are 200 entries, including lots of fiction, which could be a good way to engage with the topic or for recommendations to people who don't/won't read theory.
Complete Game Stories/Películas Completas de Juegos
Here's a playlist on YouTube that includes 'game movies'. Someone has taken all the story parts of games and edited them together into movies. The whole list is in Spanish but note that some only have Spanish subtitles whereas others have Spanish subtitles and Spanish audio.
Invidious link: https://yewtu.be/search?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fplaylist%3Flist%3DPLWxBoZFZCce1LUbtciI2xzDvcXiI8WXH5
Making Anki decks and vocab lists for spaced repition
Anki is spaced-repetition software. It works on the basis of the 'forgetting curve'. The idea is that new information is soon forgotten but if you remind yourself an hour later, you'll remember till the next day; and if you remind yourself the next day, you'll remember till next week; and if you remind yourself next week, you'll remember for a month, etc.
I've heard that one of the better ways to use Anki is creating your own decks. Personally, I find this to be a lot of effort. Too much for me to bother making individual cards.
I am experimenting with new ways to make cards. I'm no expert but here's what I have found.
The first way is to use Google sheets. In column 1, include a native language word or phrase. There's a formula to translate each of these into your target language using country codes.
For English to Spanish, click cell B1 and enter =GOOGLETRANSLATE(A1,"en","es"). Tap enter. Now click cell B1 then click and hold the 'drag button' in the bottom right of the cell and drag this down column B to the end of the list in column A. This should translate everything. English column A, Spanish column B.
Save the document as a csv file with text separated by tabs or semicolons. Open the Anki app, create a new deck, and import. Find the csv file, play with the settings. Voila.
One way of making lists of useful (to you) words is through Calibre. Put an ebook that you want to read into calibre. Find it in the list, right-click and press 'Edit book'. When the new window opens, click Tools > Reports > Words. Sort by 'Times used'. This arranges all the words in the book by frequency. You can copy this list into Google sheets, as above. If you're new to the language, sort by most frequent as you'll get a better payoff for the effort.
(Be warned that a lot of high frequency words are functional and/or have many, many meanings. If e.g. Spanish is a new language, one or two key definitions is fine to start with. You can add nuance later. You can also delete the proper nouns: e.g. you don't need a translation of 'Marx' if it's the same in both languages.)
If you have a better vocabulary, scroll down and grab the words that are used only e.g. 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3 times in the book. Getting Anki lists like this, you can front-load the vocabulary for a book that you want to read and memorise the relevant vocab on the bus or the toilet.
(What does Lenin's Imperialismo: fase superior del capitalismo look like word frequency-wise? The top 12 words are de, la, en, el, los, y, que, del, a, las, se, por. The most frequent substantive word, at number 13, used 369 times, is 'desconocido'. Later comes 'Capital' m, used 207 times. 'Imperialismo' 183. 'Bancos' 170. 'Millones' 155. 'Capitalismo' 131. …)
If you read the book at the same time, you'll recognise the vocab as you read. (It might take a long time to come across the less frequent words—one that's only used once might be on the last page.)
Another way of creating lists is using your favourite song lyrics. Get these from a search engine, search for 'song name+letra' then search for the 'song name+lyrics English' to see if there's a translation. If not you can decide how fun it will be for you to translate it yourself or you could use the Google sheets method. Then put one language in one column and the other in the next column. If you have a translation, you can probably use any spreadsheet software. But the cvs file needs to be in UTF-8, I believe.
Another method involves reading books on Kindle. Every time you don't know a word or sentence, click it and get the translation. Then either highlight that word or the whole sentence (for context). Once finished with the book (because it's too hard, boring, or you get to the end) the highlights ('notes') can be exported. (If you read through your notes to recap all the words/sentences that you struggled with, and do it again a week later, it's spaced repetition.)
There's also a way to transfer these notes into Anki cards. There are some scripts/programs in GitHub that could be useful for this. I've not played with it yet but VocabSieve should allow you to import Kindle lookups, translate them, and export this data as a file that can be imported to Anki.
With all these methods, you kind of have to trust the translation software. I've found it to be good enough for English to Spanish. The odd translation is obviously wrong but otherwise, it's fine.
Hopefully these help someone else to avoid the tedium of making Anki decks but in a way that ensures the vocab in your decks is relevant to you.
You can, of course, do things the not-so-old fashioned way. Rather than importing your vocab to Anki, use your spreadsheet. You'll just have to work out the timings for yourself. Then you could hide the first column, and type the translation of the word in the second column into the third column. The next day, hide the first two columns and type the translation of the words in the third column into the fourth column. You can change the colour of rows of words that become too easy and create a colour-coded system for reviewing these monthly, yearly, etc.
Videojuegos con audio o subtítulos españoles
Hola amigos,
Hay muchos videojuegos divertidos. Muchos menos con audio o subtítulos españoles. Pero hay algunos.
Skyrim y Fallout 4 continenen muchísimos textos y audios. También Batman: Arkham Knight, Dying Light, Civilisation VI y Dragon Age: Inquisition. Quizás Spiderman. Last of Us, Unchartered, tienen audios y textos pero no tanto cómo estos otros. Pienso FIFA también. (Ten cuidado con Batman y Spiderman porque es fácil que utilizo dinero real en los menus cuando el idioma está menos familiares. No caes en esa trampa.)
Divinity: Original Sin y Red Dead Redemption (y otros juegos rockstargames) tienen textos españoles al menos. Pensé que Divinity tiene audios pero parece que no.
Esto es un listo mas largo de R****t: >- Bethesda stuff (Elder Scrolls, Fallout) >- Blizzard stuff (Diablo, WoW) >- Cyberpunk >- Monster Hunter World >- Witcher 1 [Witcher 3 has Spanish menus, subtitles, etc, but not audio] >- Lost Ark >- Battle Chasers: Nightwar >- Bloodborne/Demon's Souls (maybe not enough voice acting) >- Fable series >- Neverwinter Nights 2 >- Lord of the Rings: War in the North >- Sudeki… >- Playstation Studios stuff (God of War, Horizon, Ghost of Tsushima, Last of Us, Uncharted, Spiderman, etc.) >- Assassin's Creed series >- Destiny games >- Borderlands series >- Darksiders series (Genesis is an ARPG) >- XCOM series (also Gears Tactics) >- Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor/War >- Bioshock series >- Guardians of the Galaxy >- Sekiro >- Death Stranding >- The newer Deus Ex games >- Ghostwire Tokyo >- Jedi Fallen Order >- Beyond Good and Evil >- Breath of the Wild (minimal voice acting) >- Child of Light (minimal voice acting?)
I'm unsure if all these have audio but they should have the text language in Spanish. Sometimes, on a console, you'll have to download a language pack. With some games the language can be changed at any time: it's either set by your console language or in the game settings. With e.g. [Assassin's Creed], I believe you get one chance to set the language at the start of the save file.
@[email protected] I found four text based games:
- Ord – this is very fun, very straightforward. Play it with a DeepL or Google translate window/app open on another device to look up words quickly.
- Darkside Detective (there's a sequel, too)
- A Place for the Unwilling (this is English-only audio but it looks mainly text-based so it might be possible to just mute the audio and play it as if it's solely text-based)
- Grim Fandango
There is also this list, but I am unsure how safe it is to buy from itch.io or to play the free games in your browser: https://itch.io/games/lang-es/tag-text-based (will you let me know if you have any luck/fun with any of these?)
Edit: forgot to add an example.
Is Monster Hunter: World good?
I like RPGs. Final Fantasy, Witcher 3, Fallout 3 and 4, Skyrim, Morrowind, Oblivion, etc.
Will I enjoy Monster Hunter: World? Is it good? Does it have a good story? Or is it (too) fetch-questy?
I'm looking at this one because it's available with Spanish audio and text whereas other Monster World games only have Spanish text, if that. So the others aren't an option, but feel free to compare this one to the others.
Dedicated GPU?
Hello Comrades,
Thanks for all your advice about setting up Linux. It was a success. The problem is that I’m now I’m intrigued and I’d like to play around a bit more.
I’m thinking of building a cheap-ish computer but I have a few questions. I’ll split them into separate posts to make things easier. Note: I won’t be installing anything that I can’t get to work on Linux.
Do I need a dedicated graphics card? I'd like to run an HD display as a minimum. (I don't have a 4k monitor at but I wouldn't mind upgrading later if I can save up for one.) Mostly, I'll be streaming or playing videos.
I wouldn't mind playing some games but is a dedicated GPU needed?
If I should look into a GPU (I can always add it in later), what should I look for? (I'm not really interested in the latest AAA games). I wouldn't mind playing HOI4 or Victoria 3 as I hear so much about them.
What are your thoughts on second-hand GPUs? This will obviously cut costs but is there anything to watch out for?
Prioritise RAM or processor?
Hello Comrades,
Thanks for all your advice about setting up Linux. It was a success. The problem is that I’m now I’m intrigued and I’d like to play around a bit more.
I’m thinking of building a cheap-ish computer but I have a few questions. I’ll split them into separate posts to make things easier. Note: I won’t be installing anything that I can’t get to work on Linux.
Should I prioritise RAM or the processor? My budget is limited so I will have to make a choice between RAM and the processor. Would it be better to go for e.g. 32GB RAM and a slower processor, or 8GB RAM and a faster processor? Or is balance better? Say, 16GB RAM and a 'medium' processor (that's 'medium' between the 'slower' and the 'faster' option within my budget, not 'medium' for the market).
Intel or AMD?
Swap memory: SSD or HDD?
Hello Comrades,
Thanks for all your advice about setting up Linux. It was a success. The problem is that I'm now I'm intrigued and I'd like to play around a bit more.
I'm thinking of building a cheap-ish computer but I have a few questions. I'll split them into separate posts to make things easier. Note: I won't be installing anything that I can't get to work on Linux.
Question about storage and swap memory.
I plan to install an SSD of maybe 128–256GB for the system files and a larger HDD for storage. I would partition the SSD so that I could install a few different distros without losing any installation. This way I can commit to some longer experiments before deciding which distro to use.
The question is: should I have the swap partition on the SSD (with the OS partition) or (separately) on the HDD?
And if I install multiple distros, do I need a different swap partition for each one? For example, if I install 16GB RAM, do I need a 16GB partition for, say, Mint, Debian, and Ubuntu? Or can I let them 'share' the swap partition?
Are there any additional security/privacy risks of installing more than one distro on the same SSD card?
Can increasing land taxes lead to wage increases?
This is a challenge to an argument that increasing taxes on landowners and property speculators would lower business costs, allowing wage increases.
(drop down) There are some good arguments for a wealth tax.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9l7AYl0jUE (and see his other videos)
- Gary Stevenson’s website: https://www.wealtheconomics.org
- https://patrioticmillionaires.org
- https://patrioticmillionaires.uk/the-problem
This is a promising idea, tried before e.g. under the label ‘Keynesianism’, after John Maynard Keynes. Ultimately, it will fail.
Class composition
‘Business owners’, ‘land owners’, and ‘land speculators’ must be put into the broader political economic context. Each group is a different segment of capital. The idea of taxing rentiers to encourage business to pay better wages assumes there is a real struggle between ‘business owners’, ‘land owners’, and ‘land speculators’. This assumption forgets monopoly finance capital – imperialists – which subjugates other capital.
There are further strata within the bourgeoisie. Within each segment, there are two main strata: the haute (big) bourgeoisie and the petite/petty (small) bourgeoisie. E.g. there are corporate landlords with thousands of properties and individual landlords with one or two rental properties.
There are struggles between the big and small bourgeois and between finance capital and the other segments of capital. Overwhelmingly, though, all are subordinated to haute bourgeois monopoly finance capital. This is imperialism.
As Marx and Engels wrote in the Manifesto of the Communist Party: >Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie … has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other — Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.
Conflicts between finance capital and industrial capital, agricultural capital, etc, can result in international war, where imperialists meet the resistance of other states that are e.g. industrial capitalist.
Lenin explains in ‘The three sources and three component parts of Marxism’: >By destroying small-scale production, capital leads to an increase in productivity of labor and to the creation of a monopoly position for the associations of big capitalists. Production itself becomes more and more social—hundreds of thousands and millions of workers become bound together in a regular economic organism—but the product of this collective labor is appropriated by a handful of capitalists. Anarchy of production, crises, the furious chase after markets and the insecurity of existence of the mass of the population are intensified.
Within the imperial core (mostly the Anglo-European states and Japan) and its peripheries (almost everywhere else), almost all capital is controlled by imperialists. These capitalists may go to war against each other, as in WWI and WWII, but they do not fight themselves.
Imperialist control
I’m not talking about inter-imperialist rivalry in this latter claim. What do I mean? As Lenin explains, imperialists use their finance to bankroll other ventures. This is the system of stocks and shares. With (at most) 50.1% of the shares in a company, the shareholder controls the company.
The imperialist buys half the share capital of a farm, a factory, a mine, etc. They buy a controlling share of a land and consumer-facing corporations. With that controlling share, they hike rent on land and force the business to suppress wages. This increases income and decreases outgoings. The landowner, speculator, and business owner are only competing on the surface. Behind the scenes, they are all on the same team, different capitals, bought by finance capital.
What about the small businesses?
One might contend, ‘But you’re only talking about the big chains and big speculators; most employers are small business owners.’ The small business owners and the landlords with a handful of properties get investment capital, loans, etc, from the banks – i.e. imperialists.
Landowners are required to raise rents and business owners are required to keep wages low because they are controlled by imperialists. This is true of the petit and the haute bourgeois. The petit bourgeois have much less choice in the matter; the haute bourgeois are complicit.
Lenin wrote about this problem, too:
(drop down) *Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism*
Chapter 1 (bold and numbers in square brackets added for emphasis and clarity): >Less than one-hundredth [1%] of the total number of enterprises utilise more than three-fourths [3/4] of the total amount of steam and electric power! Two million nine hundred and seventy thousand [2,970,000] small enterprises (employing up to five workers), constituting 91 per cent of the total, utilise only 7 per cent of the total amount of steam and electric power! Tens of thousands of huge enterprises are everything; millions of small ones are nothing.
>…As we shall see, money capital and the banks make this superiority of a handful of the largest enterprises still more overwhelming, in the most literal sense of the word, i.e., millions of small, medium and even some big “proprietors” are in fact in complete subjection to some hundreds of millionaire financiers.
>In another advanced country of modern capitalism, the United States of America, the growth of the concentration of production is still greater. … Almost half the total production of all the enterprises of the country was carried on by one-hundredth part [1%] of these enterprises! These 3,000 giant enterprises embrace 258 branches of industry. From this it can be seen that at a certain stage of its development concentration itself, as it were, leads straight to monopoly, for a score [i.e. 20] or so of giant enterprises can easily arrive at an agreement, and on the other hand, the hindrance to competition, the tendency towards monopoly, arises from the huge size of the enterprises. This transformation of competition into monopoly is one of the most important—if not the most important—phenomena of modern capitalist economy, and we must deal with it in greater detail. …
Breaking monopolies?
You might then retort, ‘Break the monopolies; reintroduce competition’. Except it’s been tried before and failed every time. Without abolishing capitalist social relations, we end up back where we started. Lenin:
(drop down) ‘The critique of imperialism’
Source >The questions as to whether it is possible to reform the basis of imperialism, whether to go forward to the further intensification and deepening of the antagonisms which it engenders, or backward, towards allaying these antagonisms, are fundamental questions in the critique of imperialism. Since the specific political features of imperialism are reaction everywhere and increased national oppression due to the oppression of the financial oligarchy and the elimination of free competition, a petty-bourgeois-democratic opposition to imperialism arose at the beginning of the twentieth century in nearly all imperialist countries. …
>In the United States, the imperialist war waged against Spain in 1898 stirred up the opposition of the “anti-imperialists,” … But as long as all this criticism shrank from recognising the inseverable bond between imperialism and the trusts, and, therefore, between imperialism and the foundations of capitalism, while it shrank from joining the forces engendered by large-scale capitalism and its development, it remained a “pious wish”.
>…The petty-bourgeois point of view in the critique of imperialism, the omnipotence of the banks, the financial oligarchy, etc., is adopted by [several] authors[,] … who make no claim to be Marxists, contrast imperialism with free competition and democracy … which is leading to conflicts and war, utter “pious wishes” for peace, etc. …
>“It is not the business of the proletariat,” writes Hilferding “to contrast the more progressive capitalist policy with that of the now bygone era of free trade and of hostility towards the state. The reply of the proletariat to the economic policy of finance capital, to imperialism, cannot be free trade, but socialism. The aim of proletarian policy cannot today be the ideal of restoring free competition—which has now become a reactionary ideal—but the complete elimination of competition by the abolition of capitalism.”
>…And monopolies have already arisen—precisely out of free competition!
Conclusion
Businesses, large and small, do not keep wages low because rents are too high. Rather, they do so partly because they are controlled by imperialists who insist that landowners increase rents and that employers keep wages as low as possible. If rents are ever capped or lowered, employers keep the extra as profit; they rarely pass it on (without a union fight). This is how imperialists control every facet of the consumer process to reap maximum profits.
Pictures, meta data, privacy
You may have noticed that I don't post pictures. If not, now you know.
One of the reasons is that I'm worried about sharing meta data.
Does anyone know:
- Does the Lemmy software strip / hide meta data from photos when they're uploaded?
- Is there a way of stripping meta data from photos?
- Does downloading an image from the internet and uploading it from my hard drive add any meta data?
- If I create a digital image, does it have meta data that could reveal my location, etc? (And then questions 1 and 2 for this option.)
- How should/could I keep my data/location safe if I choose to post either my photos, my scans, or pictures (either created by me or downloaded from the internet)?
Educational/theory posts?
Hello Comrades,
Where do you think is the best place to post educational/theory posts?
I've been writing some longer posts lately and posting them too [email protected] because the sidebar calls it, 'GenZedong’s educational hub'. Shall I keep doing that or is there a better community? e.g.:
- https://lemmygrad.ml/post/1022436 and
- https://lemmygrad.ml/post/1007901
I was going to use [email protected] but as I'm linking to my posts in the wider Lemmyverse, I didn't want libs coming over to an explicitly Marxists-only community.
One of the reasons for these longer posts is to provide an opportunity for us to talk about some issues and to answer questions that others ask in the wider Lemmyverse without (a) coming off as hostile/confrontational or (b) wasting hours writing things that people might not read or appreciate.
(No obligation for us to talk through my posts! But at least there's always a possibility of a constructive and critical discussion, which doesn't exist elsewhere.)
Edit: These aren't necessarily 101 questions, either, but I suppose they could go in [email protected], depending on what you all think.
US-Saddam Connections and First Gulf War
Content warning: chemical weapons use
I wrote this to challenge the idea that the US acted benevolently during the first gulf war, which has been presented as analogous to the Ukraine war.
Saddam invaded Kuwait. The US and its allies, supported by the UN, intervened. But the US cannot be seen as a benevolent actor. That war might have been avoided if not for US actions, just like the other wars and military operations that Saddam was involved in during those years.
There is some evidence that the US green lit Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait and the plan to annex the north. Part of the claim is that the US >instructed its ambassador to Baghdad to tell Saddam "in effect" that he could "take the northern part of Kuwait."
Why would Saddam look to the US for permission or support? They were previously allies. There is a similar accusation that the US green lit Saddam’s war against Iran, although it’s not clear-cut >records reveal that th[is] green light thesis has more basis in myth than in reality. Preoccupied with issues such as the Iran hostage crisis and the implications of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Carter administration officials neither expected nor welcomed Saddam's attack on Iran. The Iraqi dictator, for his part, believed that Washington would oppose rather than support his war.
Regardless, once the war began, the US supported it, by selling Saddam ‘dual use’ armaments—equipment that can be used by war but which the US could claim another intended purpose, such as helicopters. Other support included sharing aerial images and supplying Iraq with e.g. tanks through a swap deal with Egypt and the equipment and cultures needed to produce chemical weapons.
Foreign Policy broke a story that the US supported Saddam’s use of chemical weapons against Iran, 2, 3: >In 1988, during the waning days of Iraq’s war with Iran, the United States learned through satellite imagery that Iran was about to gain a major strategic advantage by exploiting a hole in Iraqi defenses. U.S. intelligence officials conveyed the location of the Iranian troops to Iraq, fully aware that Hussein’s military would attack with chemical weapons, including sarin, a lethal nerve agent.
Around the same time: >The March 1988 Iraqi attacks on the Kurdish town of Halabja--where Iraq government forces massacred upwards to 5,000 civilians by gassing them with chemical weapons--was downplayed by the Reagan administration, even to the point of leaking phony intelligence claiming that Iran, then the preferred American enemy, was actually responsible.
>Despite this, the United States increased its support for Saddam Hussein's regime during this period, providing agricultural subsidies and other economic aid as well as limited military assistance. American officials looked the other way as much of these funds were laundered by purchasing military equipment despite widespread knowledge that it was being deployed as part of Baghdad's genocidal war against the Kurds. The United States also sent an untold amount of indirect aid--largely through Kuwait and other Arab countries--which enabled Iraq to receive weapons and technology to increase its war-making capacity.
This ally ship between Saddam and the US began again after the US kicked out Saddam from Kuwait. There were uprisings throughout Iraq, with 15 out of 18 provinces breaking away from his regime. ‘[O]nce it [wa]s clear that the U.S. w[ould] not support the rebellion, Saddam's forces crush[ed] the revolt throughout Iraq.’
The US could have put a stop to Saddam in 1991 (ignoring for now that Saddam got a head start due to US support). The US was certainly not shy of intervening in the region, which raises questions as to why it did not support e.g. the Kurds in the north, whom the US had already supported and may have even tried to secure Kurdish independence. Instead, it stood by while Saddam used chemical weapons against Kurds—after inciting them to fight Saddam.
This was neither the first, second, nor the final time that NATO member states would betray the Kurds, 2, 3. They have bitterly learned that have ‘no friends but the mountains’, as they say. The French and British promised independence and autonomy to the Kurds at Sèvres, only to later give that land to others, at Lausanne, when Turkey resisted the earlier proposal.
Curiously, the plan to use chemical weapons against the Kurds was that of Winston Churchill: >I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against the uncivilized tribes… it would spread a lively terror.
Churchill, of course, being an earlier leader of another, later NATO member. He is well known for the deaths of millions of his other allies, 2 and less well-known for shipping and using 50,000 M Devices (chemical weapons) against Soviet Russia in 1919.
Not only did the US initially support Saddam in one way or another against Kuwait, in the same era it also supported Saddam’s attacks against Iran and Iraqi-Kurds. Crucially, it did not step in to curb heinous human rights violations, instead following a long trend of other western actors; which makes puts into question US motivations in helping to kick Saddam out of Kuwait.
With Kuwait, as in Ukraine, Iraq-Iran, Northern Iraq, and Syria, the US/NATO (or current NATO members before NATO existed), had an opportunity to prevent or minimise war but instead they fanned the flames. Because NATO is a warmonger alliance.
Of course, for a full perspective of the Ukraine war, Russia’s actions must also be analysed. But whatever the results of that analysis, it cannot dilute the fact that NATO and its members have always provoked conflict and acquiesced to the use of the most abhorrent weapons.
Due to the clear historical record, e.g. with the Kurds, there are no strong reasons to assume that the US/NATO will remain loyal to Ukraine after they have got whatever they want from the carnage. NATO’s motivations must be interrogated at every turn because if it is acting benevolently in Ukraine, this will be the first time in its history of such selflessness.
Protection of Journalists and Media Professionals in Time of Armed Conflict
Summary of the law from the ICRC text, Protection of Journalists and Media Professionals in Time of Armed Conflict (emphasis added):
Protection of journalists as civilians
>Without providing a precise definition of them, humanitarian law distinguishes between two categories of journalists working in conflict zones: war correspondents accredited to the armed forces and “independent” journalists. According to the Dictionnaire de droit international public, the former category comprises all “specialized journalists who, with the authorization and under the protection of a belligerent’s armed forces, are present on the theatre of operations with a view to providing information on events related to the hostilities.” This definition reflects a practice followed during the Second World War and the Korean War, when war correspondents wore uniforms, enjoyed officers’ privileges and were placed under the authority of the head of the military unit in which they were incorporated. As for the term “journalist,” it designates, according to a 1975 draft UN convention, “...any correspondent, reporter, photographer, and their technical film, radio and television assistants who are ordinarily engaged in any of these activities as their principal occupation...”
Protection of war correspondents
>War correspondents fall into the ill-defined category of “persons who accompany the armed forces without actually being members thereof.” Since they are not part of the armed forces, they enjoy civilian status and the protection derived from that status. Moreover, since they are, in a manner of speaking, associated with the war effort, they are entitled to prisoner-of-war status when they fall into the hands of the enemy, provided they have been duly authorized to accompany the armed forces. …
Protection of “embedded” journalists
> Some ambiguity surrounds the status of “embedded” journalists … who accompany military troops in wartime. Embedment is not a new phenomenon; what is new is the sheer scale on which it has been practiced since the 2003 conflict in Iraq. The fact that journalists were assigned to American and British combat units and agreed to conditions of incorporation that obliged them to stick with these units, which ensured their protection, would liken them to the war correspondents mentioned in the Third Geneva Convention. And indeed, the guidelines issued by the British Ministry of Defence regarding the media grant the status of prisoners of war to embedded journalists who are taken prisoner. According to unofficial sources, however, it would seem that the French military authorities consider “embeds” as “unilaterals” who are only entitled to civilian status, as stipulated in Article 79 of Protocol I. A clarification on this point would seem essential. [...]
>The way in which “unilateral” journalists surround themselves with armed bodyguards can have dangerous consequences for all journalists. On 13 April 2003, the private security escort of a CNN crew on its way to Tikrit (northern Iraq) responded with an automatic weapon after the convoy came under fire at the entrance to the town. Some journalists are concerned by this new type of behaviour, which is contrary to all the rules of the profession: “Such a practice sets a dangerous precedent that could jeopardise all other journalists covering this war as well as others in the future,” said Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert Ménard. “There is a real risk that combatants will henceforth assume that all press vehicles are armed. Journalists can and must try to protect themselves by such methods as travelling in bulletproof vehicles and wearing bulletproof vests, but employing private security firms that do not hesitate to use their firearms just increases the confusion between reporters and combatants.”
Loss of protection
>The fact that a journalist engages in propaganda cannot be considered as direct participation (see below). It is only when a journalist takes a direct part in the hostilities that he loses his immunity and becomes a legitimate target. …
Obligation to take precautionary measures when launching attacks that could affect journalists and news media
>The lawfulness of an attack depends not only on the nature of the target – which must be a military objective – but also on whether the required precautions have been taken, in particular as regards respect for the principle of proportionality and the obligation to give warning. In this regard, journalists and news media do not enjoy a particular status but benefit from the general protection against the effects of hostilities that Protocol I grants to civilians and civilian objects.
The principle of proportionality: a curb on immunity for journalists and media
>[…] It was only in 1977 that [the principle of proportionality] was enshrined in a convention, namely in Articles 51 (5) (b) and 57 (2) (a) (iii) of Protocol I. This principle represents an attempt to reduce as much as possible the “collateral damage” caused by military operations. It provides the criterion that makes it possible to determine to what degree such damage can be justified under international humanitarian law: there must be a reasonable correlation between legitimate destruction and undesirable collateral effects. According to the principle of proportionality as set out in the above-mentioned articles, the accidental collateral effects of the attack, that is to say the incidental harmful effects on protected persons and property, must not be excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage. [...]
Obligation to give advance warning of an attack
> Although NATO contended that it had “made every possible effort to avoid civilian casualties and collateral damage” when bombing the RTS building, doubts were expressed about whether it had met its obligation to warn the civilian population in advance of the attack, as provided for under Article 57 (2) (c) of Protocol I (“effective advance warning shall be given of attacks which may affect the civilian population, unless circumstances do not permit”). When the United States bombed the Baghdad offices of the Al-Jazeera and Abu Dhabi television networks on 8 April 2003, killing one journalist and wounding another, it would also seem that no advance warning of the attacks had been given to the journalists. [...]
Obligation to give “effective advance warning”
> Protocol I requires that “effective advance warning” be given. According to Doswald-Beck, “common sense must be used in deciding whether and how to give warning, and the safety of the attacker will inevitably be taken into account.” The rule set out in Article 57 (2) (c) most certainly does not require that warning be given to the authorities concerned; a direct warning to the population – by means of air-dropped leaflets, radio or loudspeaker messages, etc., requesting civilians to remain at home or stay away from certain military objectives – must be considered as sufficiently effective. [...]
> In 1987, lieutenant colonel Burrus M. Carnaham, of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff and Michael J. Matheson, deputy legal adviser to the US Department of State, expressed the opinion that the obligation to give warning was customary in character. This opinio juris is confirmed by the practice of a considerable number of States in international and internal armed conflicts. [...]
Conclusion
It follows from the above that journalists and their equipment enjoy immunity, the former as civilians, the latter as a result of the general protection that international humanitarian law grants to civilian objects. However, this immunity is not absolute. Journalists are protected only as long as they do not take a direct part in the hostilities. News media, even when used for propaganda purposes, enjoy immunity from attacks, except when they are used for military purposes or to incite war crimes, genocide or acts of violence. However, even when an attack on news media may be justified for such reasons, every feasible precaution must be taken to avoid, or at least limit, loss of human life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects. [...]
Racial voter suppression in the US
Content warning: institutional racism.
Recently, elsewhere, I commented that the US 'suppress[es] votes by criminalising being black and requiring voter ID'. I didn't think it was controversial to say the US is institutionally racist. An abhorrent fact, yes, but not controversial. Apparently it is. Which led me to think about what I meant. Comments/challenges welcome.
Part I
Voter suppression and the criminalisation of being black in the US. The problem is sometimes blamed on Republicans/Trump, but it is nothing new.
There is indirect discrimination at the ballot box. According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU): > Some states … discourag[e] voter participation by imposing arbitrary requirements and harsh penalties on voters and poll workers who violate these rules. In Georgia, lawmakers have made it a crime to provide food and water to voters standing in line at the polls — lines that are notoriously long in Georgia, especially for communities of color. In Texas, people have been arrested and given outrageous sentences for what amount at most to innocent mistakes made during the voting process. ACLU clients Crystal Mason and Hervis Rogers are examples [see below] ….
> Because of racism in law enforcement and the broader criminal legal system, criminalization of the ballot box disproportionately impacts people of color, who are more likely to be penalized. This method of voter suppression aims to instill fear in communities of color and suppress their voices in the democratic process.
Mason, above, ‘was criminally prosecuted and sentenced to five years in prison for allegedly casting a provisional ballot improperly.’ The case, appears to be awaiting appeal, several years later. This likely would not happen at all to a white voter: > … [A] case involving former Republican U.S. Congressperson Tom DeLay, DeLay v. State, in which the court of criminal appeals threw out his conviction on the basis that an individual must actually know that their conduct violates the election code.
In addition to being criminalised at the polling station, black people are more likely to be criminalised in general, which in some states means there is no point in going to vote at all. Disproportionate racial criminalisation is not new. The Growth, Scope, and Spatial Distribution of People With Felony Records in the United States, 1948–2010: > We estimate that 3 % of the total U.S. adult population and 15 % of the African American adult male population has ever been to prison; people with felony convictions account for 8 % of all adults and 33 % of the African American adult male population.…
> Contact with the criminal justice system incurs substantial social and demographic consequences, including restrictions … voting ….
> [A]lmost one-half of all black men will be arrested prior to the age of 23. … People with any kind of criminal history experience wide-ranging penalties and disruptions in their lives …. Nevertheless, people convicted of felonies face more substantial and frequently permanent consequences …. A felony is a broad categorization, encompassing everything from marijuana possession to homicide. …
> Recent estimates have shown that 30 % of black males have been arrested by age 18 (vs. 22 % for white males) …. This figure grows to 49 % by age 23, meaning that virtually one-half of all black men have been arrested at least once by the time they reach young adulthood (vs. approximately 38 % of white males) ….
> [A] dramatically higher percentage of African American adults in most states were under felony correctional supervision. … [B]y 2010, the rate exceeded 5 % of African American adults in 24 states, and no state had less than 2.5 % of its adult African American population under supervision for felony convictions. States such as Oregon, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin had rates exceeding 8 %.
The Hervis Rogers case, mentioned in the ACLU report, above, illustrates the problem: > … Rogers was arrested on charges that he voted in last year’s Democratic primary while on parole. Under Texas law, it is illegal for a felon to “knowingly” vote while still serving a sentence, including parole. Doing so is a second-degree felony, punishable with a minimum of two years and a maximum of 20 years in prison. In at least 20 states, Rogers’s alleged vote would not be a crime.
The label ‘felon’ can inaccurately invoke the image of a dangerous criminal: > “You know, this guy thought he could vote,” said state Sen. Borris Miles of Houston, who held up a printed photo of Rogers in a Senate committee hearing on the legislation. “He was under the belief in his mind that he really could. Served his time, got a nice job, nice family, now, thought he could vote, just thought he was doing his civic duty.”
The result is racial ‘felony disenfranchisement’: > A felony conviction can … includ[e] the loss of your right to vote. Some states ban voting only during incarceration, or while on probation or parole. And other states and jurisdictions, like Maine, Vermont, and Washington, D.C., don’t disenfranchise people with felony convictions at all. The fact that these laws vary so dramatically only adds to the overall confusion that voters face, which is a form of voter suppression in itself.
> … [F]elony disenfranchisement laws disproportionately affect Black and Brown people, who often face harsher sentences than white people for the same offenses. …
Part II
The ACLU’s evidence that black people are disproportionately criminalised comes from The Sentencing Project’s report to the UN, which also shows something that should be obvious: black people are more likely to face criminal charges not because of higher crime rates but due to higher policing rates: > In 2016, black Americans comprised 27% of all individuals arrested in the United States—double their share of the total population. Black youth accounted for 15% of all U.S. children yet made up 35% of juvenile arrests in that year. What might appear at first to be a linkage between race and crime is in large part a function of concentrated urban poverty.…
> The rise of mass incarceration begins with disproportionate levels of police contact with African Americans. This is striking in particular for drug offenses…. As black people are presumed to be more likely to have committed crimes than white people, police target black communities (a legacy of segregation): > [One] chief [said]: “Crime is often significantly higher in minority neighborhoods than elsewhere. And that is where we allocate our resources.” Dekmar’s view is not uncommon. … U.S. criminal justice policies have cast a dragnet targeting African Americans. The War on Drugs as well as policing policies … sanction higher levels of police contact with African Americans. This includes higher levels of police contact with innocent people and higher levels of arrests for drug crimes. Thus: > - More than one in four people arrested for drug law violations in 2015 was black …[.] [B]lacks were 3.7 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than whites in 2010, even though their rate of marijuana usage was comparable.
> - New York City … Between 2001 and 2013, 51% of the city’s population over age 16 was black or Hispanic. Yet during that period, 82% of those arrested for misdemeanors were black or Hispanic, as were 81% of those who received summonses for violations of the administrative code (including such behaviors as public consumption of alcohol, disorderly conduct, and bicycling on the sidewalk.). …
> In addition … policymakers and criminal justice leaders have been late to address discriminatory policies …—such as biased use of officer discretion …. Thus:
> - In recent years, black drivers have been somewhat more likely to be stopped than whites but have been far more likely to be searched and arrested. … [S]taggering racial disparities in rates of police stops persist in certain jurisdictions—pointing to unchecked racial bias …[. P]olice are more likely to stop black and Hispanic drivers for discretionary reasons—for “investigatory stops” (proactive stops used to investigate drivers deemed suspicious) rather than “traffic-safety stops” (reactive stops used to enforce traffic laws or vehicle codes). … Once pulled over, black and Hispanic drivers were three times as likely as whites to be searched (6% and 7% versus 2%) and blacks were twice as likely as whites to be arrested.
All this amounts to substantial voter disenfranchisement, 20% of black people are unable to vote in some states: > Disenfranchisement patterns have also reflected the dramatic growth and disproportionate impact of criminal convictions. A record 6.1 million Americans were forbidden from voting because of their felony record in 2016, rising from 1.2 million in 1976. Felony disenfranchisement rates for voting-age African Americans reached 7.4% in 2016—four times the rate of non-African Americans (1.8%). In three states, more than one in five voting-age African Americans is disenfranchised: Florida, Kentucky, and Tennessee.
This has little to do with actual criminality: > The majority of disenfranchised Americans are living in their communities, having fully completed their sentences or remaining supervised while on probation or parole.
There are further issues with the requirement for voter ID: > … strict ID laws are part of an ongoing strategy to suppress the vote. > Over 21 million U.S. citizens do not have qualifying government-issued photo identification, and these individuals are disproportionately voters of color. That’s because ID cards aren’t always accessible for everyone.
Overall: > - Across the country, 1 in 16 Black Americans cannot vote due to disenfranchisement laws. … > - 25 percent of voting-age Black Americans do not have a government-issued photo ID. …
When it comes to the other side of the vote, receiving enough votes to hold office, black mayors may be refused entry to the Town Hall by the white establishment.
For several other links on this subject, see: The Impact of Voter Suppression on Communities of Color
This seems to be quite clear evidence of racial voter suppression and that black people are disproportionately criminalised.
Parallel text experiment: Mao Tse-tung, 'Stalin: Amigo del pueblo chino'
This is a parallel text experiment. It's not a my translation. It's the text from the Spanish and English editions on Marxists.org. There are some differences. I won't indent – it's all quotes, from the title onwards. (Edit: footnotes removed.) I'll split it into this into a post and a comment. Hispanohablantes, feel free to point out and correct errors.
Spanish first, then the English, alternating paragraphs.
Déjame saber si este es útil.
Let me know if this is useful.
Pensé que el texto seleccionado es relativamente fácil entender.
I thought that the text selected is relatively easy to understand.
**Mao Tse-tung, 'Stalin: Amigo del pueblo chino'.
… 'Stalin: Friend of the Chinese people'**
Este veintiuno de diciembre, el camarada Stalin cumplirá sesenta[uno] años. Es fácil imaginar que su cumpleaños suscitará cálidas y afectuosas congratulaciones en los corazones de todos los revolucionarios del mundo que conocen esta fecha.
On the Twenty-first of December, Comrade Stalin will be sixty[one] years old. We can be sure that his birthday will evoke warm and affectionate congratulations from the hearts of all revolutionary people throughout the world who know of the occasion.
Felicitar a Stalin no es una formalidad. Felicitar a Stalin significa apoyarlo, apoyar su causa, la victoria del socialismo y el rumbo que él señala a la humanidad, significa apoyar a un amigo querido. Pues hoy la gran mayoría de la humanidad está sufriendo y sólo puede liberarse de sus sufrimientos siguiendo el rumbo señalado por Stalin y contando con su ayuda.
Congratulating Stalin is not a formality. Congratulating Stalin means supporting him and his cause, supporting the victory of socialism, and the way forward for mankind which he points out, it means supporting a dear friend. For the great majority of mankind today are suffering, and mankind can free itself from suffering only by the road pointed out by Stalin and with his help.
Nosotros, el pueblo chino, estamos atravesando el período de los más amargos sufrimientos de nuestra historia, un período en que necesitamos más que nunca de la ayuda de otros. Como dice el Libro de las odas, "El ave canta buscando el eco de sus amigos." Este es precisamente nuestro caso.
Living in a period of the bitterest suffering in our history, we Chinese people most urgently need help from others. The Book of Odes says, "A bird sings out to draw a friend's response." This aptly describes our present situation.
Pero ¿quienes son nuestros amigos?
But who are our friends?
Una clase de "amigos" son los que se adjudican ellos mismos el título de amigos del pueblo chino; algunos chinos, irreflexivamente, los llaman también amigos. Pero tales "amigos" no pertenecen sino a la categoría de Li Lin-fu, primer ministro de la dinastía Tang, que tenía fama de ser un hombre con "miel en los labios y ponzoña en el corazón". Son, en efecto, amigos de ese tipo. ¿De quiénes se trata? De lo imperialistas, que declaran tener simpatía por China.
There are so-called friends, self-styled friends of the Chinese people, whom even some Chinese unthinkingly accept as friends. But such friends can only be classed with Li Lin-fu, the prime minister in the Tang Dynasty who was notorious as a man with "honey on his lips and murder in his heart". They are indeed "friends" with "honey on their lips and murder in their hearts". Who are these people? They are the imperialists who profess sympathy with China.
En cambio, hay otra clase de amigos, los que sienten real simpatía por nosotros y nos tratan como hermanos. ¿Quiénes son? El pueblo soviético y Stalin.
However, there are friends of another kind, friends who have real sympathy with us and regard us as brothers. Who are they? They are the Soviet people and Stalin.
Ningún otro país ha renunciado a sus privilegios en China; únicamente la Unión Soviética lo ha hecho.
No other country has renounced its privileges in China; the Soviet Union alone has done so.
Durante nuestra Primera Gran Revolución, todos los imperialistas se opusieron a nosotros; únicamente la Unión Soviética nos ayudó.
All the imperialists opposed us during our First Great Revolution; the Soviet Union alone helped us.
Anti-racism reading list
cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/986807
> Here's a long list of texts about race and racism.
Anti-racism reading list
cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/986808
> cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/986807 > > > Here's a long list of texts about race and racism.