We all wish we were as based as the Chinese, alas 😔. One more rec for the road for a perspective on Canada, Prison of Grass: Canada from the Native Point of View. Okay I’m done lol best of luck! Hope you enjoy and are able to spread this consciousness around as if you were karl ilyich zedong himself 🫡
Basically he believes China is revisionist and capitalist, and the failures of socialism thus far have been through revisionism (the failure to adhere to core marxist principles). He also doesn’t cover many liberation movements that don’t fully fit the communist/marxist ideal he supports.
IMO this view obfuscates some of the more material sources for why movements fail, most notably in his viewing the failure of the CPUSA not through its history of settler communism/labor zionism but its failure to adhere to marxist tenets leading up to the open revisionism of CPUSA’s Eric Browder, without seeing why his revisionism was so accepted and popular. This leaves praxis to adhering to a closer marxist orthodoxy that’s quite dogmatist instead of using the dialectical materialist analysis to see that the material basis for a revolution in the USA would be the superexploited native and black peoples that aren’t represented in the CPUSA or even most other communist groups.
I remember him receiving a question on a stream once about covering the black panthers and he said he preferred not to because he didn’t like the kind of work they did or something to that effect, so he’s kinda got a big blindspot there and I would suggest you try and find some audiobooks of Gerald Horne and Frantz Fanon’s works, would also suggest Assata’s autobiography, Revolutionary Suicide, Kwame Ture’s Black Power, Red Nation Rising just to name a few. Also educating yourself on China through a seperate source I’d recommends Roland Boer’s “Socialism With Chinese Characteristics: A Guide for Foreigners” if you can find an audiobook “The East is Still Red” is also good, or even just reading the works of Deng/Xi Jinping for yourself, unfortunately a lot of the history and study here is in Chinese lol but I’d avoid S4A’s content on the topic personally.
Socialism 4 All does audiobooks on youtube https://youtube.com/@socialismforall I download these and listen to them in the car pretty often, including Capital
It lays out the argument that primitive accumulation is moreso an ongoing process of the restructuring of society and the book shows how the colonized received the brunt of this in a way one could hardly call progressive or done with as Marx/Engels would sometimes make a case for. Eurocentric probably isn’t the best word in this context (Think I used the word cause I’m reading a book atm that’s critical of some of these writings in similar ways from the lens of their eurocentrism) cause you’re right the book is literally eurocentric in its framing but I’m more so refering to their views on primitive accumulation and the progressive nature of capitalism/‘proletariatization’ which are eurocentric in nature.
Silvia Federici’s works are great and combats some of Marx/Engel’s eurocentric and patriarchal beliefs regarding the progressive nature of capitalism esp in regards to the colonial question (really suggest Caliban & The Witch) but that’s already on the reading list here
Honestly there’s so many better works regarding the topic that while in some respects it’s worth recommending for its impact, the influence of Lewis Morgan and his anthropology as well as the other racist pseudo-science he uses to make the argument makes it not worth recommending without a ton of asterisks attached
I guess my main point is a western made video that seems to think china abandoned 5 year plans and believes conspiracies like Xi actually has a ton of secret financial assets, as well as not properly historically contextualizing the reform and opening up but opting for the ideological purism that Roland describes that westerners tend to have re:china I don’t think the video offers much expert insight beyond peddling some myths and “viewing china with western eyes” as he says. Deng def made rightist mistakes and hurt class struggle on the global front (Vietnam and such) but the reform and opening up era was certainly a good move for China and kept them on the road to socialism, a step made necessary by their “chinese characteristics” and not really comparable to Khrushchev’s declaration of the end of class struggle
I really suggest "Socialism With Chinese Characteristics a Guide for Foreigners " on this, the author was the first non-chinese employee at the school for marxism and knows Chinese and has read marx and lenin in their original languages and has a wide knowledge of Chinese socialism. Goes over a lot of the myths this guy seems to be falling for, namely the idea that Deng abandoned class struggle and purposefully took the capitalist road, ruining the project forever. Paired with its historical materialist analysis of China and deep knowledge of party history it offers so much more than any westerner that’s never been to China could offer. I have yet to learn the opinion of maoists in the third world (something that I’d like to learn a lot more about ) but this video was pretty ahistorical and western brained tbh
honestly… psl fails the national question in their socialist reconstruction plan and has had quite a many blunders like that anti-mask video they deleted a while back. reminds me of the “ML” socialist democrat party in sri lanka that just got elected but supports the tamil genocide, in the impossible instance they gained power i worry theyd just paint the settler colonial state red by not having that indigenous vanguard or at least stressing their autonomy and choice to not play a role and still have mass amounts of land back. post stalin USSR had some of these problems too but because they basically function as social democrats i think current day colombia or sri lanka is the better analogy. for the purpose of disrupting the duopoly i think the green party is the best bet at least imo no hate to my good friends in psl mostly just not a becker or claudia fan
You couldn’t possibly be weird for such a thing, there’s no “normal” to begin with aside from the exploitative and patriarchal relationships encouraged by capital. Feel yourself, enjoy yourself, don’t worry about labels and being a “real asexual”, whatever that means. You valid! These labels are here to find community with people with similar experiences and often include a wide variety of ppl with seperate interpretations of what it means to be asexual, trans, queer or otherwise, sometimes in contradiction with each other. But they’re just words to describe ourselves, when the only truth is the experiences you’ve had that have led you to describe yourself as such and the usefulness you find within.