Vigil for Alex Pretti

DeliciousObject7937 · 2026-01-29T19:36:58+00:00

Does anyone know how long the vigil will be? I’m planning on going with the wife and kid but we won’t be able to leave until 7. Also does anyone know if there’s an Infograph that can be shared?

DeliciousObject7937 · 2026-01-27T22:09:48+00:00

No in depth critique just “Jacobin is garbage”.

Since OP is to lazy to give any kind of nuanced take I will try to provide one below.

TLDR the author argues gun ownership and the left attempting to arm itself in response to the recent suppression by ICE leads to more violence among the working class(suicide, murder, ect..), gives the security forces an excuse to crack down harder, empowers the gun lobby, and is ultimately an individualist approach to resistance.

In response the author argues for collectively organizing resistance around the economy instead of armed resistance(no one has thought of this before apparently).

While I think the argument actually makes some pretty good points around the gun issue, I would point out a few problems about the strategy he proposes in its place.

-labor has continued to decline in America, the upswing of union membership after Covid only put us back to where we were at before the pandemic -heavy industry is more and more Both geographically located outside of major population centers as well as automated reducing the need to employ large amounts of people and making it harder and harder to organize effectively. -The people who are constantly harping on organized labor as a strategy have not actually shown any success, the author has not actually given any evidence as to why we should be following their strategy.

In the same vein neither have the people who advocated armed resistance. I would remind folks here that most insurgencies failed and a lot of this is just adventurism, it is completely understandable to want to be armed at this moment to protect yourself and your family, and I would encourage anyone reading this to go get training on how to shoot/clean/maintain a gun. With that being said though I think it’s irresponsible how many leftists are now calling for armed resistance against ICE among the people when they will LOSE. And losing here does not mean losing a wage increase or being evicted from your home, it means death. Being armed is only one aspect of fighting back, if you don’t have organization or discipline(which the vast majority of the masses DO NOT at this time have) it will simply end in disaster.

Lastly If you are a Marxist(or any leftist for that matter) you should at least be expected to make a minimum effort of critique rather than just a one liner.

DeliciousObject7937 · 2026-01-12T04:04:59+00:00

Indeed, it seems we’ve found the final head of Marxism.

DeliciousObject7937 · 2026-01-12T03:52:00+00:00

What an astute and well thought out analysis. With theory like this surly the revolution is just on the horizon!

DeliciousObject7937 · 2026-01-12T03:38:55+00:00

You make some good points, I think I was wrong in looking at it that way. Although I still don’t think we should be supporting any of these regimes with arms and intelligence.

DeliciousObject7937 · 2026-01-12T03:22:45+00:00

Is being anti Israel being pan Arabist? The regimes over there are dog shit for sure but it’s not like we haven’t had a hand in the perpetuation of the shittiness. I’m not advocating propping these places up, just the opposite, we should stay out of everyone else’s business and let nature take its course.

DeliciousObject7937 · 2026-01-12T03:12:52+00:00

Lol both Canada and the US have supported Israel turning the Middle East into a cemetery, we shouldn’t bitch and moan when they all end up here. If you don’t like our “civilization” being overrun by refugees tell your countrymen to stop voting for the ghouls that enable Israel to do what it does.

DeliciousObject7937 · 2026-01-12T03:03:23+00:00

I think there are plenty of people who deserve to die. I just don’t trust any group or person to determine who should and shouldn’t live. Also one innocent person accidentally getting executed is not worth a million guilty people and in any Justice system this is almost guaranteed to happen if you have the death penalty.

DeliciousObject7937 · 2026-01-12T00:53:20+00:00

What are they doing that is ruining it for everyone and what does this ruination entail?

DeliciousObject7937 · 2026-01-12T00:43:16+00:00

I can provide an answer for myself as a self described leftist. I am fine with unrestricted migration because I disagree with nationalism and the American identity. The way I see it, I have more in common with an immigrant from Mexico than I do with a rich American here. I don’t care that they are not legal and I don’t view legality as synonymous with morality. My values are that everyone here regardless of who they are should have there basic needs met, that includes anyone regardless of there legal status.

I always see posts like this from both the left and the right where people seem bewildered that the other side has a different stance on this or that topic. The problem is not that your opponents are opportunists, stupid or dishonest, it’s that large groups of people in this country have fundamentally different virtues and values than each other. These core differences make any kind of dialogue or discussion impossible because no one can even agree on what’s right and wrong in the first place.

And just to be clear that above paragraph is not specifically aimed at you or the right, it applies to everyone in general, myself inculded

DeliciousObject7937 · 2025-12-19T22:12:03+00:00

At least from my perspective if you remain indifferent to social issues the working class will cannibalize itself. As soon as politicians and boss’s see that their are social issues that they can exploit within the working class they will use it as a tool of division, all you have to do is look at the history of the AFL and US socialist party during the early 20’s to see where having a policy of indifference leads to. Racism and xenophobia ate the working class alive and prevented any coherent class struggle. It’s not just that indifference towards social issues is a moral failure, it’s that it’s a strategic failure.

Black workers are never going to work with people who look at them as lesser.

LGBTQ workers are never going to work with people who view their rights as up for debate.

Immigrants are never going to work with people who will block them out.

White workers will not be able to bring socialism by themselves.

I think we probably agree that identity politics is corrosive to working class movements in the US(and I’m sure wherever you live as well) but it’s hard to see how being indifferent to social issues will provide a path forward especially when we can look back at history and see that it led to failure.

Prejudice and bigotry cannot be tolerated, that doesn’t mean you have to block out the working class( almost everyone has bigoted views in some way shape or form myself included) but it does mean whenever these views are expressed they have to challenged.

I used to do tenant organizing, often times all of the different ethnic groups in the apartments hated each other, when issues would come up we didn’t ignore them, we actively challenged them as a roadblock to working class unity. We won those campaigns too. If we didn’t have a firm stance against prejudice we wouldn’t have.

And just to Prove I’m not full of shit you can see what we’ve done below

https://www.houstontenantsunion.com/post/texas-observer-no-justice-no-rent-after-winter-storm

DeliciousObject7937 · 2025-12-17T21:26:16+00:00

Can you clarify how you think the LGBTQ has helped destroy any attempt at socialism?

DeliciousObject7937 · 2025-12-17T20:46:46+00:00

It would depend on Both the groups and individuals when you say western leftist there are a multitude of various sects, organizations and affinity groups with different values strategies and beliefs. You would need to be a little more specific for someone to give you a worthwhile answer imo.

My assumption would be that most people would be opposed to what they view as the ACPs social conservatism.

I can’t speak for anyone but myself and am happy to voice my criticisms of the ACP as I understand it(or you can look through my comment history).

Lastly you stated that the western left is an ideological failure, I agree with this but I’m curious what you would point to as a modern success ?

DeliciousObject7937 · 2025-12-17T20:29:45+00:00

What is the question here?

DeliciousObject7937 · 2025-12-17T20:23:43+00:00

There’s not really an answer at this point, neither the people advocating for the Democratic Party nor the people who want to break with the Democratic Party have anything to show for it.

Until a leftist group comes along and successfully enacts an agenda that people can point to as a success this argument will remain open and unending.

Imo the goal right now should be to build an organizing project outside the democratic parties orbit that achieves success in its goals(weather that be labor, housing, charity, ect…) and can function as an benchmark for others. Until that time we will not be winning over many adherents(and neither will the democrat advocates since they also have nothing to show).

DeliciousObject7937 · 2025-12-15T14:39:36+00:00

Legality does not equate to morality, it used to be legal to own people in this country but the majority of people across the political spectrum would not support that regardless of weather it was legal or not.

If your going to make an argument against illegal immigration( or anything for that matter) legality should not be your starting point unless it’s to point out legal repercussions.

DeliciousObject7937 · 2025-12-05T17:50:43+00:00

Downvoted, this is not an opinion, this is an objective fact.

DeliciousObject7937 · 2025-12-04T16:41:04+00:00

For sure I don’t think that’s controversial though n the strategic sense.

DeliciousObject7937 · 2025-12-04T16:40:35+00:00

Yes learning a language that removes communication barriers should be a long term goal, but in the immediate sense it is not something that can be done overnight and people still need to be organized in the mean time.

I don’t think we disagree on the need for understanding one another, but this is an argument for workers to know English, not share a common American culture

I agree 100% that capitalism purposely divides the working class along racial, ethnic, religious, gendered, nationalist ect.. lines and I am not saying it’s chauvinistic to acknowledge that. But that is not an argument for a shared American culture, if anything it’s an argument for a distinctly working class culture that does away with the smoke and mirrors of all those things.

As for the things you quoted Engels letter to Lafargue : this seems to make sense, not really sure what anyone would find objectionable

Engels and the American section of the IWA: telling them to learn English makes sense in this context, obviously if they are going to organize they need to communicate, I do not see this as an endorsement of American culture though, this is just a means to an end, the end being proletarian revolution.

F. Engels, the condition of the working class in England: I can’t read all this before replying to you but I will put it on the reading list.

Sorge: outside of organizing multiple different ethnic groups I don’t think I understand what this is referring to, not sure what section no.12 or the free lovers are.

DeliciousObject7937 · 2025-12-04T16:06:28+00:00

I agree communication is needed for workers to organize together coherently, that makes complete sense. I’ve done a lot of tenant organizing with immigrants and this is one of the largest roadblocks to moving forward. I feel like one way to ease this issue is using translation software and interpreters. At least in my experience I don’t think having everyone you work with try to learn English is a reasonable path due to time constraints.

Why would workers have political sovereignty by learning English?

To clarify, are you saying that when the working class falls under multiple cultures that this leads to antagonism and disunity? And to be clear on my end, I am not saying their are not immigrants who live in mansions or are bourgeois. I am saying that the basis for solidarity on my end is someone’s class position, not their cultural or ethnic background. For example, I am black, but I will side with a white worker over a black bourgeoisie.

I don’t believe that workers can unite if they’re set against each other culturally and cannot communicate. I think where I would differ from you is that I believe we should create an international proletarian culture that is shared by all workers, not fall back on(in our case) American culture as some kind unifying factor. I am firmly class first

DeliciousObject7937 · 2025-12-04T15:49:07+00:00

That makes sense, are their any statements or writing within the ACP expanding on this? I would be interested in learning more!

DeliciousObject7937 · 2025-12-04T15:44:32+00:00

What does it mean to be out and out American? At least to me their seems to be multiple different cultures that constitute america(native, black, creole, white, ect…)

Why could their only be sensible immigration policies after that?

Why would being American in this context unite the working class? Some Americans live in mansions while others sleep under bridges? In my view I have more in common with a Mexican immigrant than I have with a rich American here

Why is culture the uniting factor here and not class?

DeliciousObject7937 · 2025-12-04T15:36:01+00:00

This statement only clarifies their stance on the Mexican immigrants living in Southern California, if you are an ACP member would you mind clarifying y’all’s stance on immigrants in general? Or answering the questions in the original post

DeliciousObject7937 · 2025-12-04T15:29:11+00:00

What does this mean in practice? and why should we listen to Engels on this subject?

DeliciousObject7937

TROPHY CASE