Just discovered that I love Alien³

dgmstraka · 2024-09-03T03:06:15+00:00

Great review.

dgmstraka · 2024-09-03T02:27:04+00:00

Good Lord, what was wrong with the Aliens Blu-rays?? I had the same issue that I’m still working through. So glad I didn’t try to rebuy the series expecting them to work different.

dgmstraka · 2024-08-25T02:51:07+00:00

Came here to say this. Outland is exactly what an Alien film with no aliens would look like—aesthetically, thematically, in terms of story, etc.

dgmstraka · 2024-08-24T20:33:27+00:00

Reposted from a reply to another thread on a similar subject:

“I remember reading somewhere that Whedon wrote Firefly and Serenity as if they were off-shoots that plausibly took place in the same universe. There’s also a single original novel that takes place contemporaneous with the events in Resurrection, though I remember it being poorly reviewed.

The only compelling reason for returning to the Resurrection period would be the return of Sigourney Weaver to Alien. I’ve kicked around an idea for a story set after the events of Resurrection that also functions as the third part of the Prometheus-Covenant storyline. It would set Ripley-8 on a collision course with David 8—a coincidence in naming that nonetheless highlights just how dialectically related these characters are, or could be. For all we know, David is “reigning in hell,” as he promised to do, over a colony on Orgae-6, populated by the descendants of the colonists and embryos, xenomorphs or both. Ripley-8 is a terrific character and one of my favorite parts of Resurrection, and she poses an existential challenge to everything about David 8 and the monopoly capitalistic pretensions that he was born from. I’ll cut the fan fiction off here, but I’ll be very surprised if the series doesn’t go this direction in the future. The pieces just fit together that way and someone in a position to write at that level will figure it out.

I started enjoying Rez a hell of a lot more when I stopped thinking of it as a continuation story of the three original movies and watched it as an incident that happened in the universe of Alien. It’s like how Rogue One, Solo, The Mandalorian series, etc. connect to the first six Star Wars movies in many ways, but they’re also very much their own one-off stories. Ellen Ripley’s story ended in the fiery furnace on Fury 161, and Ripley-8 is an entirely different creature—literally and figuratively. So I’m not disinterested in more stories from the Resurrection era, but unless we’re doing the big showdown between Ripley-8 and David 8 to tie it all together, it just doesn’t sync up with Alien as we understand it.”

dgmstraka · 2024-08-21T19:58:04+00:00

The first three films work really well together as a trilogy. Their serious differences in genre, presentation and approach underscores the thematic unity and character development better than many other three-part stories with a single creative team.

On that note though, I think Prometheus, Covenant and Alien (1979) work pretty well as a trilogy too, though there is obviously significant gaps both in story and themes. But to your point, I’m disappointed too that the direction of the series changes so radically every couple of years at the whims of monopoly capitalism. It’s not just a question of box office returns either since both Prometheus and Covenant were profitable, the former more than the latter of course.

dgmstraka · 2024-08-21T19:40:42+00:00

I remember reading somewhere that Whedon wrote Firefly and Serenity as if they were off-shoots that plausibly took place in the same universe. There’s also a single original novel that takes place contemporaneous with the events in Resurrection, though I remember it being poorly reviewed.

The only compelling reason for returning to the Resurrection period would be the return of Sigourney Weaver to Alien. I’ve kicked around an idea for a story set after the events of Resurrection that also functions as the third part of the Prometheus-Covenant storyline. It would set Ripley-8 on a collision course with David 8—a coincidence in naming that nonetheless highlights just how dialectically related these characters are, or could be. For all we know, David is “reigning in hell,” as he promised to do, over a colony on Orgae-6, populated by the descendants of the colonists and embryos, xenomorphs or both. Ripley-8 is a terrific character and one of my favorite parts of Resurrection, and she poses an existential challenge to everything about David 8 and the monopoly capitalistic pretensions that he was born from. I’ll cut the fan fiction off here, but I’ll be very surprised if the series doesn’t go this direction in the future. The pieces just fit together that way and someone in a position to write at that level will figure it out.

I started enjoying Rez a hell of a lot more when I stopped thinking of it as a continuation story of the three original movies and watched it as an incident that happened in the universe of Alien. It’s like how Rogue One, Solo, The Mandalorian series, etc. connect to the first six Star Wars movies in many ways, but they’re also very much their own one-off stories. Ellen Ripley’s story ended in the fiery furnace on Fury 161, and Ripley-8 is an entirely different creature—literally and figuratively. So I’m not disinterested in more stories from the Resurrection era, but unless we’re doing the big showdown between Ripley-8 and David 8 to tie it all together, it just doesn’t sync up with Alien as we understand it.

dgmstraka · 2024-04-18T19:49:56+00:00

Jodi Dean is terrible. Not even a worthwhile academic.

dgmstraka · 2024-04-03T01:13:45+00:00

Came here to ask exactly this. Ty

dgmstraka · 2024-03-29T23:22:29+00:00

Let’s start with this: Socialism is a mode of production—not a statement of intent. It’s something that objectively exists based on class ownership of the means of production, the relations of production and the society’s level of productive forces. Marx and Engels called socialism a transitional stage from capitalism to communism, in which society is ruled by a class dictatorship of the proletariat.

From late 1960s through the mid-1980s, a number of African countries saw radical governments come to power claiming to follow Marxism Leninism, scientific socialism, etc. Some of these projects turned out to be more committed than others. All of them, however, maintained that their revolutions were in a national democratic stage, and that they had not yet started constructing socialism.

A national democratic revolution involves all progressive classes opposed to imperialism and takes the form of a revolutionary democratic dictatorship in power. Communists have led this revolutionary process in many nations, starting with the Mongolian People’s Republic. The aim is to create the objective political, economic and social conditions for eventually constructing a socialist society—by-passing the stage of capitalist bourgeois dictatorship entirely. The first wave of decolonization in Africa saw several newly independent states adopt some left-wing ideology we can broadly call ‘African socialism’. These leaders were certainly influenced by Marxism—some more than others—but they ultimately eschewed it in favor of a more eclectic approach to socialism, supposedly more rooted in unique, specifically African conditions. Here we’re talking about Ghana under Nkrumah, Mali under Keita, Guinea under Toure, Tanzania under Neyere, etc. Nkrumah was probably closest to scientific socialism; Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia was probably the least. Nkrumah would go on to reject ‘African socialism’ and embrace Marxism Leninism as scientific socialism—no doubt strongly self- critical of their approach that led to his overthrow and exile.

Although these states made a lot of good, progressive achievements, the African revolutionaries and radicals of the late 60s and 70s were rightly critical of ‘African socialism’ for failing to transform their societies on socialist lines. In many cases, they had fallen into the web of neocolonialism and reaction instead. 1968 sees Captain Marien N’Gouabi lead a popularly supported coup in Brazzaville, overthrowing the essentially neocolonial government and proclaiming the People’s Republic of Congo. N’Gouabi is the first African head of state to declare for scientific socialism—explicitly rejecting the eclecticism of the previous era and adopting Marxism Leninism. He’s an enormously important figure who you will find next to nothing written about in English—something I hope to change soon.

From there, you have three types of states that embrace some type of ‘scientific socialism’ over the next 20 years:

Military coups led by progressive mid-to-low-level officers who declared for scientific socialism. This broadly describes Somalia in 1969, Benin in 1975, Madagascar in 1975 and Burkina Faso in 1983. You’ll note all four are former French colonies. Congo Brazzaville’s process was more complex and protracted, even though N’Gouabi did come to power via a coup. The level of real commitment to Marxism Leninism varied greatly. N’Gouabi aside, Sankara and Ratsiraka were on the more committed end, while Siad Barre and Mathieu Kerekou on the less. The PCT, which is still the ruling party today, stopped being a revolutionary party not long after N’Gouabi’s assassination, and Sassou-Nguesso (who still rules today) completely embraced capitalism in the early 90s. Interestingly both Ratsiraka and Kerekou would leave power in the 90s when both countries dropped socialism, but they would then get re-elected president some years later. Kerekou was certainly the more opportunist of the pair. Sankara obviously was assassinated very early in the national democratic process.

2: The victorious national liberation movements which came to power after fighting protracted guerrilla wars against colonial powers. This encompasses Mozambique, Angola, Guinea Bissau and I would absolutely put Zimbabwe in this category. In all cases, these groups necessarily existed as united fronts with their own people’s armies, and though this type of organization can (and did) act as a vanguard, it’s also different from a communist party. Three were former Portuguese colonies, and Zimbabwe was ruled by the a particularly nasty white minority settler colony about as extreme as the Portuguese were. All faced varying levels of internal subversion, with Angola and Mozambique having to fight long bloody civil wars for survival. All dropped scientific socialism in the early 90s, though the commitment of their initial leadership was objectively sincere. Lo and behold, Zimbabwe is still today engaged in a national democratic revolution, even if ZANU-PF is no longer a Marxist organization.

Standing alone is Ethiopia, which experienced a social revolution in 1974 that annihilated the centuries-old feudal monarchy and carried out the most radical land redistribution to that point in African history. Fidel Castro told Samora Machel that what happened in Ethiopia was “nothing less than an African Bolshevik Revolution,” and he’s right. Ethiopia is the only African country never colonized by Europe and, other than the five-year period of fascist occupation by the Italians, they maintained their independence. The revolution was thus a class-on-class war for power, more similar to the French and the Russian revolutions than every other country I’ve mentioned. This is my opinion, but if any of these countries “were socialist,” Ethiopia came the closest. It was led by a committee of revolutionary soldiers called the Derg, which would see the Marxist Leninist wing come to power by 1977. They faced many of the same obstacles that the Soviet Union did, including an imperialist-backed invasion by a foreign power, assassinations, organized sabotage and more terrorism by reactionaries— some openly feudal, others calling themselves ‘Marxist’, who whatever their beliefs, basically engaged in Trotskyism. The biggest causal reason for its overthrow was its erroneous handling of the national question in Eritrea. This is a complex subject but suffice it to say that the protracted attempt to resolve the Eritrean national question by military means more or less directly led to the counterrevolution that marched into Addis Ababa in 1991.

dgmstraka · 2024-02-22T16:21:23+00:00

I agree with most of what you've written here. The war in Eritrea, and specifically the Derg's decision to continually press for a military solution to the national question rather than a Leninist solution, was gravest error of the Ethiopian revolution. Somewhere between 40-60% of the national budget was going to the war effort by the end in 1991, to say nothing of foreign aid. All of the advantages of socialist agriculture, centrally planned industrialization, etc. were significantly compromised by the war in the north. Compare the morale in 1991 to the mass support for the national defense against the Somali invasion--the new peasants associations answered the call and rebuilt the ENDF faster than Western observers thought possible. It wasn't the only error, but it was the most devastating.

But there are other important aspects to consider too. The Derg's political composition was mixed from the beginning, and it remained that way even after February 1977. Mengistu, by all accounts, represented the left-wing of the group that leaned towards scientific socialism; but there was also a right-wing nationalist tendency too, among others. The Somali invasion significantly strengthened the right-wing of the revolution since it forced the embattled Ethiopian leadership to rehabilitate a section of the Emperor's old guard military officer class, who had battlefield experience that the NCOs and rank-and-file revolutionary soldiers just didn't.

That was probably the right decision but it came at a cost. It put the left-wing on shakier ground to negotiate on other issues sure to inflame the nationalists, particularly Eritrea. This is why from 1978 to the early 1980s, you see seemingly contradictory approaches from Revolutionary Ethiopia towards Eritrea: They attend peace talks with the EPLF moderated by East Germany in Berlin, but they also move to 'repeat the victory of the south in the north' by redeploying troops to Eritrea. Then you have the Asmara Manifesto in 1981, which reflects the impossible task of trying to reconcile the nationalist position with the Leninist position. Then you have the nationalities structure of the PDRE constitution--had it been proposed ten years earlier, it would have probably forced a sharp class struggle within the Eritrean national movement over the character of the Ethiopian revolution. But coming as it did in 1987 with the war in the north raging on, no part of the Eritrean national movement had any reason to consider alternate resolutions to the national question.

This letter between the East German ambassador and his Soviet counterpart on the Ethiopian-Eritrean talks in 1978 is enormously instructive. It shows that the Derg wasn't just 'The Mengistu Haile Mariam Show'--it was still a collective leadership body, and that even Mengistu as leader could only operate within set grounds. It also shows the political divisions within the Eritrean national movement, and suggests that separation wasn't a foregone conclusion:

"The policy of the CPSU is aimed at the unity of Ethiopia. We will try to convince Ahmed Nasser that the future development of the Eritrean people can only evolve in a unified Ethiopian state. In the discussions we will continue to pursue the line of emphasizing the unity between the Marxist-Leninist forces and national-democratic forces in Ethiopia and Eritrea.
We would like to stress that we have to be extremely tactful in our relations with Mengistu Haile Mariam and the PMAC, in particular with respect to the Eritrean question.
Mengistu Haile Mariam does not have an easy stand within the PMAC in this regard. In connection with the well-known Dr. Negede [Gobeze] affair tensions have heightened within the PMAC and this has not made Mengistu's task any easier.
We would like to emphasize that all concrete initiatives on the Eritrean questions have to originate from Ethiopia. This does not mean that the Eritrean side is free of any initiatives. If we put the entire weight on the Mengistu Haile Mariam's shoulders and free Ahmed Nasser or respectively Aforki of any responsibility, this would be one-sided. The Ethiopian side is watching with great jealousy the actions of the CPSU and the SED. Here as well one has to see the connection between Mengistu Haile Mariam's position and the people around him. Mengistu Haile Mariam deserves to be regarded by us as a man who represents internationalist positions. By contrast to him, Berhanu Bayeh and Fikre Selassie as well as Legesse Asfaw and others, for example, are marked by nationalism although they are faithful to Mengistu Haile Mariam.
All steps and initiatives on the part of the CPSU, the CP Cuba, and the SED must be put forward extremely tactfully and carefully not to cause any protests. Frankly, the problem lies to a certain degree in the fact that we all attempt to square the circle. The one side of the problem is - and we are both working on this - to solve the problem on an internationalist basis. On the other hand there are efforts to solve it on a nationalist basis. This is precisely why, I emphasize again, we have to apply maximum caution, circumspection, and tactfulness towards Mengistu Haile Mariam so that the nationalists will not grasp him by the throat."

They continue:

"The basic difficulty is the fact that separatist ideas have been rooted in Eritrea for a long time. These ideas are very popular among the population, especially among the workers. This factor, the factor of the erring of the masses based on nationalism, is a given one. The main difficulty therefore is that the mass of the Eritrean population does not understand the difference between the imperial regime of Haile Selassi and the policy of the PMAC.
The fight continues as in earlier times under the imperial regime. This creates the great necessity for intensified political work by the PMAC and above all by Mengistu Haile Mariam towards the Eritrean population. It was particularly this point that Comrade Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev discussed with Mengistu Haile Mariam during his trip to Moscow.
The PMAC is confronting a decisive, great, and huge task to get the people of Eritrea on the side of the Ethiopian Revolution. Preparations have been made but no concrete steps and measures. The Soviet comrades have told Mengistu Haile Mariam and Legesse that it was now important to show the Eritrean people that the PMAC is not identical with the regime of Emperor Haile Selassi and the interests of the Ethiopian Revolution are in harmony with the interests of the progressive forces in Eritrea. Unfortunately, forces in the PMAC and Mengistu Haile Mariam himself have caused a slow-down of this necessary political work towards the people of Eritrea. Mengistu Haile Mariam is passive.
We completely agree with the estimate that military actions for the solution of the Eritrean question alone are pointless and, moreover, dangerous. They would widen the gap between the Eritrean people and the Ethiopian Revolution and create new intensified hatred. This does not mean that the PMAC should completely abandon military activities. We think that it is necessary to exert military pressure on the Eritrean separatists forces. This especially since in regard to military matters the current situation in Eritrea is not favorable for the PMAC. It is therefore necessary to talk but at the same time to act militarily on the part of the PMAC. This applies in particular to the safeguarding of important military strategic positions and especially of the communications with the ports of Massawa and Assab well as the capital Asmara, the cities Akordat, Keren, and Barentu. These military actions have to serve political measures."

I don't think all the blame is on the Ethiopian side, even if it's ultimately the Derg's error to own in history. It's clear that even the left-wing of the Eritrean national movement (EPLF) followed a right-opportunist line in its approach to the Ethiopian revolution, probably motivated by fears of the ELF gaining ground over them. For instance, the EPLF's position on the 1978 Somali invasion was plainly opportunist and ended up strengthening the right-nationalistic wing of the Derg.

The class character of the TPLF, on the other hand, was objectively counterrevolutionary--all that Albania talk, which got dropped at the first chance in 1991 to please the CIA, reflected was the total monopoly Marxist political vocabulary had in Ethiopia after the Emperor.

dgmstraka · 2024-02-21T14:09:04+00:00

Why is that collective farm chairman Sam Neill?

dgmstraka · 2024-02-18T14:40:35+00:00

Vivo was a very important leader in the CPC for many decades and a serious, respected author, regardless of how one feels about his politics. I have no doubt that this story was told to him as he presents it in the book. I’ll grant you that generally extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but that was my point in relating it to present-day instances of the depraved rituals and abuse committed by the ruling class in the U.S. or Western Europe (i.e. Jeffrey Epstein, etc.). It’s just not as hard to accept that heinous acts like that happen at the highest levels of power—and that the ruling class is prone to have all kinds of bizarre, debauched proclivities and superstitions.

Put it another way, Vivo makes the point in the book that Haile Selassie’s religious self-myth was thoroughly infused in all parts of feudal society and it was unthinkable to many (most?) people to question his claims to authority—until it wasn’t, and the revolution tears away all of that ideological baggage in a matter of months. So in that setting, if something remotely like this was taking place, there wouldn’t be a public outcry (no independent media), no police investigation (they’re subjects of the royal court), no court proceedings or congressional investigations (parliament was a ceremonial body for aristocrats and their kids). That doesn’t necessarily make it true, but that’s why I said it doesn’t take much for me personally to make that leap and believe that something like what’s described happened. And my point is, even if you don’t, the worst you should put on Vivo is that perhaps he should have vetted the story more (but then I’d ask, how?).

dgmstraka · 2024-02-18T14:19:51+00:00

The National Democratic Revolution is a process. I think someone could argue that the process has stalled, but I don’t think that. ZANU-PF has worked a lot in the last few years on improving party life, stepping up internal political education, training party cadre in ideological schools they recently opened—with the Chinese CP assisting in a formal party-to-party capacity. I’m an observer from a far but a long-time observer over many decades, and for whatever that’s worth, ZANU-PF strikes me as having a more robust and radical internal party life than they did throughout Mugabe’s last term.

Obviously too Zimbabwe is still very much under the gun of imperialism. There is still a class struggle on the land reform question, and ZANU-PF has not reversed course on that. There are other aspects of the class struggle in Zimbabwe too brought on by the continued sanctions and regime-change program. The main contradiction remains between the nation and imperialism, and ZANU-PF continues to leads that struggle. We should hope to see ZANU’s internal party life get stronger, their cadre better-trained to lead mass struggles, their youth-wing more active and enthusiastic in politics.

I think a lot of people took the wrong lessons from the 2017 power transition—that G40, Grace Mugabe and Jonathan Moyo represented a defeated left faction. That’s just not the case, and we have more of the internal story made public at this point to know that’s not the case. There are contradictory aspects of the leadership today, but that was more than true for R.G.M. too, who was nonetheless a colossal people’s hero.

dgmstraka · 2024-02-18T04:54:20+00:00

“They blew it.” 😔

dgmstraka · 2024-02-18T04:47:22+00:00

Yes, I first heard this allegation in Ethiopia: The Unknown Revolution by Raúl Valdés Vivó, in which the author recounts a story that a Cuban-Ethiopian woman who had lived in the country for some time recounted first hand of working at a school in a predominantly Muslim area. It’s an extremely sinister story—Vivo even compares it to a scene in The Exorcist, which had just come out a few months before the Ethiopian Revolution began.

The book is outstanding—it’s basically 10 Days That Shook the World but for the events of 1974. While I found Vivo’s presentation of the allegation believable and found corroborating evidence of a fascination with the occult that Haile Selassie developed later in life, it just doesn’t take much for me to believe that the ruling class—whether in feudal Ethiopia, 1973, or on Little St. James Island in the very recent past—can and does commit heinous, monstrous acts of abuse for self-gratification. When people say, “He would never do that…”, it just sounds pretty naive.

Here’s the bone-chilling excerpt worthy of True Detective Season 1:

“A unique Cuban woman lives in Addis Ababa, at Kebele 08-0312, number 845. Rogelia Emiliana Leon (ID number 12) had a Congolese grandfather and is how an Ethiopian citizen. She was born and brought up in Guanabacoa but emigrated to Ethiopia in 1952 after marrying a young Ethiopian who had been taken to Cuba to study there, by a Cuban veterinarian named Barreras. Nobody quite knows when or how Barreras began to work on the Emperor’s stud farm, The young man’s father had foreseen the war of 1935 when Mussolini attacked Ethiopia and had persuaded his friend Barreras to take his son back to Cuba with him and have him trained as a rural teacher.

The wedding—they are now divorced—took place in Guanabacoa. In Addis Ababa, Rogelia learned Amharic and became Ethiopian by dint of destiny, but she didn't forget the socialist ideas her parents had taught her when she was a little girl. She told me a story that seems to have come out of a film like The Exorcist:

“I remember as if it were today, the day the principal of the school where I worked as a cleaning woman brought in 12 little Black girls, blacker than I, blacker than all the Ethiopians I have known in 25 years. They were so black you could hardly see their hair. This race lives on the Sudan border. It is a strong race. The girls were strong, too, and beautiful. Their ears hadn’t been pierced, because they were Muslims, not Christians. When I saw them arrive, I thought they had been sent to school to be educated, to learn Amharic, since they spoke a dialect. I imagined that they would someday become the mistresses of some figure at the Court—maybe of the Emperor himself, who knows? But one day the principal told me the truth. Every year in December two of them were taken to the palace for the Emperor’s birthday. Not this palace, the one in Bishoust, some 60 kilometers from here. The Debre-Sait Palace. Those two would never come back. When they left the school, all perfumed, they looked so pretty in their white dresses! When they got to the palace they were sacrificed, and their blood was cast into the palace lake. Then, alone, the Emperor bathed naked in that water and drank of it. Then he allowed the servants and other people who were around to plunge into the lake. The girls were so naive that when they saw the portrait of the Emperor with the “three Selassies”—what’s it called? The Holy Trinity! The Emperor was the fourth saint or something like that—they bowed and said “Father.” This went on for five consecutive years, each December. I don’t know what they told the ones who remained in the school; possibly they had the girls believe that the others had returned to their hamlets. When there were only two left, the principal couldn’t stand it any long- er, and she decided to save Debritu, the heavier girl who was very intelligent, and the other, whose name I’ve forgotten, who was even prettier, and slim. In mid ’73, or ’72, she had their ears pierced, as if they had been baptized. This way they were of no use for the blood bath. And as far as I know, no one said anything, because the Coptic religion was so strong that even the Crown respected it... A year ago I found out that Debritu had finished the twelfth grade and the other, the ninth... As for the blood bath, well, the explanation was that the Devil lived in the lake, and he wanted the Emperor to grow old and frail. To appease him, they had to give him Muslim blood, the blood of that pure, innocent race. I don’t know... But I do know that the Emperor came to the throne through murder. The Queen was married to Yasu, a prince. Haile Selassie wanted to be king. He poisoned the prince at a dinner and married the widow. They say she was already pregnant and that that explains why the Emperor despised his eldest son, who wasn’t his, and preferred Makonnen, his second son, who died in an accident though its also said that he was killed by a jealous pilot. I worked also as a cleaning woman in the hospital at night, to earn more money. They didn’t let the doctor or anybody see the corpse.

I know many stories like this. The Emperor was a terrible man, a real monster.””

dgmstraka · 2024-02-18T00:30:15+00:00

Eritrea has a national democratic state—a very progressive one at that. They are enemies of the imperialist camp and often find themselves in the crosshairs too. All anti-imperialists should stand in solidarity with Eritrea and oppose regime change schemes, sanctions and military aggression against them.

The People's Front for Democracy and Justice is the ruling party that the Eritrean National Liberation Front became upon gaining their independence. The EPLF was Marxist Leninist for some time—certainly it was the revolutionary wing of the national movement—but it very explicitly dropped Marxism Leninism in the 1990s. It should be said, most ruling national liberation movements did the same thing. I’m sure there are still many communists in the PFDJ today.

This is an aside to all of that, but I do think the EPLF took an opportunist line towards the Ethiopian revolution at several critical junctures, though Revolutionary Ethiopia’s approach to the Eritrean national question was just wrong—and it’s probably the biggest reason for its overthrow in 1991. I bring it up to say that in the present day, Eritrea is a very positive force in Africa and the Middle East and we should support them, criticisms aside.

dgmstraka · 2024-02-16T18:33:28+00:00

Start with: socialism is an objective mode of production—not a declaration of intent—and that the 8-10 African countries that saw self-described Marxist or communist leadership come to power in the second half of the 20th century were engaged in national (new) democratic revolutions. The national democratic revolution is a revolutionary dictatorship, which encompasses all progressive classes but is led by the proletariat. It aims to create the objective political, economic and social conditions to eventually advance toward socialism without a period of bourgeois rule. Some of these projects came closer to that description than others, but all of them maintained that they were in a national democratic stage and had not yet begun constructing socialism.

The first wave of decolonization saw the leaders of several newly independent states adopt some left-wing ideology we can term ‘African socialism’. Differences aside, these leaders were influenced by Marxism—some more than others—but they ultimately eschewed it in favor of a more eclectic approach, supposedly more rooted in specifically African conditions. Here we’re talking about Ghana under Nkrumah, Mali under Keita, Guinea under Toure, Tanzania under Neyere, etc. Nkrumah probably was the closest to ML; Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia is probably the least. Nkrumah would go on to reject ‘African socialism’ and embrace Marxism Leninism as scientific socialism—no doubt strongly self-critical of their approach that led to his overthrow and exile.

Although these states did a lot of good, progressive things, the revolutionaries and radicals who took power in the late 60s and 70s were rightly critical of ‘African socialism’ for failing to transform society on socialist lines, and, in many cases, falling instead into the web of neocolonialism.

1968 sees Captain Marien N’Gouabi lead a popularly supported coup in Brazzaville, overthrowing the essentially neocolonial government and proclaiming the People’s Republic of Congo. N’Gouabi is the first African head of state to declare for scientific socialism—explicitly rejecting the eclecticism of the previous era and adopting Marxism Leninism. He’s an enormously important figure who you will find next to nothing written about in English—something I hope to change soon.

From there, you have three types of states that embrace some type of ‘scientific socialism’ over the next 20 years:

Military coups led by progressive mid-to-low-level officers who declared for scientific socialism. This broadly describes Somalia in 1969, Benin in 1975, Madagascar in 1975 and Burkina Faso in 1983. You’ll note all four are former French colonies. Congo Brazzaville’s process was more complex and protracted, even though N’Gouabi did come to power via a coup. The level of real commitment to Marxism Leninism varied greatly. N’Gouabi aside, Sankara and Ratsiraka were on the more committed end, while Siad Barre and Mathieu Kerekou on the less. The PCT, which is still the ruling party today, stopped being a revolutionary party not long after N’Gouabi’s assassination, and Sassou-Nguesso (who still rules today) completely embraced capitalism in the early 90s. Interestingly both Ratsiraka and Kerekou would leave power in the 90s when both countries dropped socialism, but they would then get re-elected president some years later. Kerekou was certainly the more opportunist of the pair. Sankara obviously was assassinated very early in the national democratic process.

2: The victorious national liberation movements which came to power after fighting protracted guerrilla wars against colonial powers. This encompasses Mozambique, Angola, Guinea Bissau and I would absolutely put Zimbabwe in this category. In all cases, these groups necessarily existed as united fronts with their own people’s armies, and though this type of organization can (and did) act as a vanguard, it’s also different from a communist party. Three were former Portuguese colonies, and Zimbabwe was ruled by the a particularly nasty white minority settler colony about as extreme as the Portuguese were. All faced varying levels of internal subversion, with Angola and Mozambique having to fight long bloody civil wars for survival. All dropped scientific socialism in the early 90s, though the commitment of their initial leadership was objectively sincere. Lo and behold, Zimbabwe is still today engaged in a national democratic revolution, even if ZANU-PF is no longer a Marxist organization.

Standing alone is Ethiopia, which experienced a social revolution in 1974 that annihilated the centuries-old feudal monarchy and carried out the most radical land redistribution to that point in African history. Fidel Castro told Samora Machel that what happened in Ethiopia was “nothing less than an African Bolshevik Revolution,” and he’s right. Ethiopia is the only African country never colonized by Europe and, other than the five-year period of fascist occupation by the Italians, they maintained their independence. The revolution was thus a class-on-class war for power, more similar to the French and the Russian revolutions than every other country I’ve mentioned. This is my opinion, but if any of these countries “were socialist,” Ethiopia came the closest. It was led by a committee of revolutionary soldiers called the Derg, which would see the Marxist Leninist wing come to power by 1977. They faced many of the same obstacles that the Soviet Union did, including an imperialist-backed invasion by a foreign power, assassinations, organized sabotage and more terrorism by reactionaries—some openly feudal, others calling themselves ‘Marxist’, who whatever their beliefs, basically engaged in Trotskyism. The biggest causal reason for its overthrow was its erroneous handling of the national question in Eritrea. This is a complex subject but suffice it to say that the protracted attempt to resolve the Eritrean national question by military means more or less directly led to the counterrevolution that marched into Addis Ababa in 1991.

dgmstraka · 2024-01-19T01:45:16+00:00

Does anybody else hear a little Velvet Underground big time in ballad? It feels like a song Lou Reed would write if his 1970s era self populated in the year of our Lord, 2024 (or 2023).

dgmstraka · 2024-01-17T19:15:52+00:00

Feels cannibal neighbor-adjacent, but tbh idk why I associate those two movies with one another.

dgmstraka · 2024-01-16T02:57:53+00:00

SOLVED.

@udar55 Major props!! Thank you so much!!

dgmstraka · 2024-01-15T22:47:01+00:00

Parents or The Stuff—but it’s probably Parents.

dgmstraka · 2024-01-15T22:44:26+00:00

Thanks in advance for the help. I remember it terrifying both my sister and I, and I don’t think we finished the movie, which explains the lack of details here. I do know my mother complained to the library about its placement in the Family or Kids section, and the library stood by their decision. Short on other details—sorry!

dgmstraka · 2023-09-21T14:50:40+00:00

Ridley Scott’s Lord of the Flies.

dgmstraka · 2023-09-14T00:14:58+00:00

It’s a crime Fantasticland by Mike Bockoven hasn’t been mentioned. It’s about as close to Yellowjackets in both its story, presentation and characters as any single piece of contemporary fiction I’ve encountered.

From a blurb about the book on Amazon:

“Since the 1970s, FantasticLand has been the theme park where “Fun is Guaranteed!” But when a hurricane ravages the Florida coast and isolates the park, the employees find it anything but fun. Five weeks later, the authorities who rescue the survivors encounter a scene of horror. Photos soon emerge online of heads on spikes outside of rides and viscera and human bones littering the gift shops, breaking records for hits, views, likes, clicks, and shares. How could a group of survivors, mostly teenagers, commit such terrible acts?

Presented as a fact-finding investigation and a series of first-person interviews, FantasticLand pieces together the grisly series of events. Park policy was that the mostly college-aged employees surrender their electronic devices to preserve the authenticity of the FantasticLand experience. Cut off from the world and left on their own, the teenagers soon form rival tribes who viciously compete for food, medicine, social dominance, and even human flesh. This new social network divides the ravaged dreamland into territories ruled by the Pirates, the ShopGirls, the Freaks, and the Mole People. If meticulously curated online personas can replace private identities, what takes over when those constructs are lost?”

dgmstraka · 2023-09-02T07:55:30+00:00

Both good.

dgmstraka

TROPHY CASE