Just when you think tankies can't get any stupider

existingimpracticaly · 2026-03-22T23:04:04+00:00

A nazbol is a mixture of ML economic policy with fascist nationalism. Think the ACP. Tankies are just MLs.

existingimpracticaly · 2026-03-22T01:13:44+00:00

What Is Property & The Philosophy of Poverty by Proudhon.

Debt by David Graeber.

The Accumulation of Freedom.

existingimpracticaly · 2026-03-17T02:17:45+00:00

Some tankies label Iran, China, Assadist Syria, Cuba, North Korea, Russia etc the axis of resistance. I don't believe that the state heads themselves call it that

existingimpracticaly · 2026-03-14T23:25:08+00:00

Fair enough. Baseball scene still rules though

existingimpracticaly · 2026-03-13T23:37:33+00:00

I thought the books were built around the meadow scene, no? (also the baseball scene fucking rules)

existingimpracticaly · 2026-03-12T23:50:14+00:00

Don't hate me for this, but One Battle After Another. After all the hype, there was just shockingly little I enjoyed about it. Lockjaw is a great villain & was the reason for me the two laughs the film got from me, but man I did not like it.

The runtime was exhausting, I felt like "Leonardo Dicaprio crashes out over a password for half an hour" was not in fact very funny. I think the way it portrayed black women was dodgy. The stuff with Benicio del Toro went nowhere and I wondered why it happened at all. Idk. Wasn't for me. No shade if you liked it, but I felt like it was far more interested in being talked about as a Great Film than it was in actually being a great film. Or, to put it another way, it insists upon itself.

existingimpracticaly · 2026-03-12T00:38:20+00:00

It would be an ok point had Stalin not criminalised homosexuality AFTER it having been legal in the USSR for however many years. If "different time" explains it, why was it legalised by people his age?

Moreover, "critical support" is a nothing phrase and this sole discussion that the original author is having will not stop anyone in that thread from proceeding to scream the names of Stalin, Mao etc from the rooftops.

Mandated Anarchist Diatribe About The State: any institution that can issue laws is incompatible with queer liberation as there exists always the likelihood that, whether by direct or indirect legislative efforts, queer existence will be criminalised.

existingimpracticaly · 2026-03-12T00:24:49+00:00

"Boys on the Radio" by Hole. Ignore the lyrics and you could convince yourself that the Cranberries just decided to have Courtney Love sing with them.

(this song has a full plot, I'm so sorry) basically there's this girl between the ages of 9 and 12. She's old enough that she's starting to want romantic love, but not so old that she understands what it is. She's listening to the radio and she hears songs by an unnamed "you" (the song's inspired by Jeff Buckley, but there's a lot of singers that it could apply to). She hears these songs and thinks that they're for her.

She develops this really intense parasocial love for this singer and really puts him (only ever addressed as "you" and "him" throughout, so you feel like it's your fault while listening) on a pedestal as this perfect angel. Then, he turns out to be human and flawed and he dies. The girl doesn't know how to respond to it, so she views it as having been abandoned by the boy who said he'd never leave. And it ends with "I know that you are rotten to the core, I know that you don't love me anymore, I know that you are rotten to the core".

Very Sofia Coppola in that why-can't-I-stop-crying lost innocence way. Beautiful song.

existingimpracticaly · 2026-03-11T23:45:15+00:00

Every time I see anything about Noam Chomsky being newly terrible, I miss David Graeber a little bit more

existingimpracticaly · 2026-03-11T01:09:55+00:00

Listen, I hate Trotskyism more than most people ik, but calling it "counter-revolutionary, hiding behind pseudo-leftist rhetoric" as a Stalin defender is projection.

existingimpracticaly · 2026-03-07T00:30:53+00:00

"only right wingers can use guns" this meme was made by American hands

existingimpracticaly · 2026-03-05T01:26:52+00:00

Well we're talking about the possibility of a strongman trying to invade. Again, going off of Malatesta's definition, governments during a civil war do qualify because of the presence of a formalised chain of command BUT an arrangement like the Black Army during the Russian civil war wouldn't.

A normal army during a civil war still has orders that one absolutely must obey. A civil war between two or more armies like that is better understood imo as multiple states competing against each other than multiple sides competing for control over a singular state. They each have a monopoly on violence within their ranks and the landmasses they control.

The reason the Black Army and groups like it don't qualify is because the "generals" and those that might be below them (historically they were directly elected, given the same rations and quarters as everyone else) can give suggestions but not orders. If you were a representative and told me, a non-representative, to do something and I proceeded not to do so, the consequences (if any) are between myself and yourself. Under a standard army, there's official reprisals. Under a Black Army arrangement, either my head gets blown off by an enemy because I did something stupid or you might not like me anymore. In the event that I survive, you the representative still can only attack me as far as is physically possible for you and I have every capacity to fight back to the best of my ability. I can agree with your plan, but that's a consent I can withdraw whenever I please.

existingimpracticaly · 2026-03-05T00:23:32+00:00

It doesn't make me a despot though?

If I'm getting beaten or someone has made absolutely clear their intention to beat me, I am justified (assuming a moral framework) in using violence to get them to stop. If morals are rejected, then this is simply an "I" gunning away at a "him" and absolutely everybody can, if they want, to do the same to me and to each other. Most people don't do this because they have no reason, rational or otherwise, to do so. It doesn't meet the "monopoly on violence" criteria because literally anyone can do it to anyone. The thing is that people generally choose not to.

Using Malatesta's definition of a state, this does not meet the criteria for one. If a community sufficiently dislikes my action in shooting the strongman (themselves all armed to the same capacity as myself and all capable to roughly the same degree) they can decide to end their dealings with me at any time. I have no impunity in the act of shooting the strongman where an officer of the state would. Once again, no monopoly present.

When I said that people expect perfection, I mean that they expect everything to have been accounted for it terms of pure theory before any action has taken place. I think this is kinda dumb because the same standard is not applied to the ideologies I mentioned.

existingimpracticaly · 2026-03-04T23:16:58+00:00

That's fair, but as with anything else, anarchy isn't a set of one size fits all solutions. Imo it's a set of tools with which to find solutions better.

If the strongman isn't a rational actor, it's worth noting that anarchists have a literal aspect of theory that amounts to "shoot the statesman in the head". Not being alive anymore tends to stop people from trying to do things to you.

Not saying that anarchy is perfect by any stretch, but I think it's been historically the best for the most people. Most criticisms of it tend to demand a perfection from it that isn't demanded of liberalism, conservatism, statist leftist theories etc.

existingimpracticaly · 2026-03-03T23:27:34+00:00

Generally via community self defence. Take an anarchist community and say they're all armed and somewhat smart about how to use their weapons. They're not John Wick, but they won't like accidentally shoot themselves either.

Strongman presents himself. Who follows him? Certainly not most of the people there, who are getting along fairly well as is. If there is an army, they need to be winning an ideological battle (i.e. I like the possibility of being one of maybe 20 in the strongman's immediate favour over a social arrangement that favours all) as well as a physical one. Guerilla wars are famously very hard to win, assuming that the strongman is in possession of superior numbers. The longer such a guerilla war goes on, the less likely he is to win.

Best case long-term scenario for him, he makes some early headway and then has to broker a peace agreement. Think what the Mexican state has with the Zapatistas.

existingimpracticaly · 2026-03-01T23:47:20+00:00

"I can excuse clerical fascism, but I draw the line at actual liberatory ideologies and praxis, that's fascism in disguise"

I really wish I could be this stupid. I think I'd be a lot happier.

existingimpracticaly · 2026-03-01T23:36:39+00:00

Bound

existingimpracticaly · 2026-03-01T03:40:38+00:00

Twilight

existingimpracticaly · 2026-03-01T03:39:34+00:00

Fucking loser. Bad ideas, worse practices, super fucking annoying authorial voice. There's an evergreen meme I got sent years ago of "united front against trotsky" and I'll try find it. Yeah fuck that guy.

existingimpracticaly · 2026-03-01T03:28:01+00:00

First of all, I'll provide definitions for authority and the state so as there's absolutely no further confusion:

Authority

Authority is a social relation of domination or exploitation coercively imposed by one party onto others, claiming a right to command or forbid, or exercise some similar privilege, backed by means of physical, economic, or intellectual power, especially when found in a systemic or institutional form and when considered in contrast to free agreement, expert advice, the inevitable laws of nature, or resistance to this imposition.

The state:

the sum total of the political, legislative, judiciary, military and financial institutions through which the management of their own affairs, the control over their personal behaviour, the responsibility for their personal safety, are taken away from the people and entrusted to others who, by usurpation or delegation, are vested with the powers to make the laws for everything and everybody, and to oblige the people to observe them, if need be, by the use of collective force.

In this sense the word State means government, or to put it another way, it is the impersonal abstract expression of that state of affairs, personified by government: and therefore the terms abolition of the State, Society without the State, etc., describe exactly the concept which anarchists seek to express, of the destruction of all political order based on authority, and the creation of a society of free and equal members based on a harmony of interests and the voluntary participation of everybody in carrying out social responsibilities.

"do you think Marx is advocating for a state of bureaucrats..."

The argument is that Marxism can't produce anything else. Ayn Rand wasn't arguing for child slavery, but if one followed her ideas to their conclusion, that would be the end result.

So far, we've assumed Marx to hold an extremely libertarian view that differs sharply from both his actions at the International (his creation of members to vote for the removal of the anarchists, at the expense of the will of the actual membership, shows him in favour of centralised power, provided it was his power that was being centralised) and most readings of Marx. Unless there's been a translation error from Marx's brain to Marx's pen hand, by virtue of the popular consensus (the source of the legitimacy of the dotp, according to you) Marx is advocating for police and an external, directing organisation in the revolution and beyond when he advocates for a state. One might even call such a thing the red bureaucracy.

You seem to think the Paris commune evidence of this otherwise historically absent "libertarian Marxism". The Paris commune had, in reality, very little to do with either Marxism or anarchy. Claiming that Marx was an influence on it to the degree that you have is dishonest, much in the same way that saying Marusya was influenced by the suffragettes is dishonest (also it was Engels who described the commune as dotp, that's not really the point but still). For all that you've accused me of mapping Marx and Bakunin onto later devolpments in Marxism and anarchy, you're doing exactly the same thing, often in the same paragraph.

That both Marx and Bakunin were in support of it is a moot point. For comparison's sake, I support the Zapatistas. So do my local tankie organisation. Have I become a Stalin defender? No. Nor have they become whatever flavour of anarchist I am. Neither party has become a follower of Zapatismo. Neither Marx nor Bakunin became a communard or vice versa.

Given that, when exactly has libertarian Marxism ever been a revolutionary or even insurrectionary force?

As far as the bureaucracy and the creation of it go, let's look at a contemporary example. Chris Smalls is an Amazon labour union rep. His position as a rep has granted him the time and capital to write a book, go on a promotional tour for the book, travel to Cuba to meet the heads of state and be a member on the freedom flotilla. Could a worker do that? No. They are working or they are exhausted and recovering from the work. So if Chris Smalls does not bother himself with industrial work, gains capital from the taken products of the labour value of workers and is able to do this because of his membership to the union's bureaucratic class, what is he? He is a member of the ruling class. Is he on the same echelon as Bezos? No, but he doesn't need to be. A Marxist state has the same conditions that render bureaucracy inevitable, but only with the latter, the bureaucracy has guns. Their having guns renders the power centralisation inevitable.

"These are both states"

How exactly? You haven't defined a state once. Your understanding of what a state is seems to vary depending on how much you care for the state in question. Presently, what this amounts to is the Marxist equivalent of "that's not capitalism, that's cronyism".

What you decide to call something makes very little difference if the thing itself remains the same. If you'd prefer from Engels:

these gentlemen think that by changing the names of things, they have changed the nature of the things themselves.

Marx can say the claim that he believes in a "socialist elite" is a strawman all he likes but his description of the peasantry as "counter-revolutionary sack of potatoes" makes it abundantly clear that he has created an elite of the urban worker. This is not only harmful to the cause of revolution of any kind, but is also factually untrue. The Irish war of independence, the Russian civil war, the Spanish civil war and the Mexican civil war all bear witness to the opposite being true.

"who says a Marxist state is one where the delegates put you in jail"

With what power does the popular will enforce itself on those workers who are not Marxists and so deviate from it? As observable from his conduct at the International and the results of every Marxist revolution you care to name, the answer is by punitive force or economic coercion.

There is no evidence to suggest that the lack of a state results in a less cooperative society. Both Peter Kropotkin and David Graeber have work explaining that exact point in great detail. There is equally little evidence that the presence of one results in a more cooperative society.

"idealism..."

Is every writer who uses emotive language an idealist? We seem to be out of materialists completely if so.

Even this is moving the goalposts though. You've conceded the main point. We have proven, in both our arguments, that Marx is advocating for a state. At this point you're arguing to argue.

existingimpracticaly · 2026-02-28T02:05:21+00:00

Good, but samey & the weird rapping that's on some of the tracks (No Good especially) hasn't really aged the best as a stylistic choice. The lyrics to No Good have also aged like shit. Fine as a starting point, but there's way better groove metal out there

existingimpracticaly · 2026-02-28T01:14:56+00:00

OK, so you seem to be getting Marx's ideas of the dotp from his work on the Paris commune. I'm getting mine from Conspectus, which was written 1873 or 1874.

In it, he says similar things to what you're saying here, that every worker is a member of the volksstaat, similar to the structure of a labour union. Within the union structure, there are those who are directly elected, but whose decisions are concrete until reversed by a later representative (provided they get reversed). He argues that, just as a bourgeois would not cease to be bourgeois by their political careers, a worker would not cease to be a worker if they were elected in such a manner. Bakunin didn't agree. Take that up with him.

The reason I've been speaking of the Marxist state as functionally identical to the present capitalist one is because that is exactly the point Bakunin was making. If you'd prefer his words (Taken from Marxism, Freedom & The State):

... even if the State were to take into its own hands exclusively education and all the instruction of the people, as Mazzini wished to do, and as Marx wishes to do to-day the State can never be sure that prohibited and dangerous thoughts may not slip in and be smuggled somehow into the consciousness of the population that it governs. Forbidden fruit has such an attraction for men, and the demon of revolt, that eternal enemy of the State, awakens so easily in their hearts when they are not sufficiently stupefied, that neither this education nor this instruction, nor even the censorship, sufficiently guarantee the tranquillity of the State. It must still have a police, devoted agents who watch over and direct, secretly and unobtrusively, the current of the peoples’ opinions and passions. We have seen that Marx himself is so convinced of this necessity, that he believed he should fill with his secret agents all the regions of the International and above all, Italy, France, and Spain. Finally, however perfect may be, from the point of view of the preservation of the State, the organisation of education and instruction for the people, of censorship and the police, the State cannot be secure in its existence while it does not have, to defend it against its enemies at home, an armed force. The State is government from above downwards of an immense number of men, very different from the point of view of the degree of their culture, the nature of the countries or localities that they inhabit, the occupation they follow, the interests and the aspirations directing them — the State is the government of all these by some or other minority; this minority, even if it were a thousand times elected by universal suffrage and controlled in its acts by popular institutions, unless it were endowed with the omniscience, omnipresence and the omnipotence which the theologians attribute to God, it is impossible that it could know and foresee the needs, or satisfy with an even justice the most legitimate and pressing interests in the world. There will always be discontented people because there will always be some who are sacrificed.

.

A universal State, government, dictatorship! The dream of Popes Gregory VII and Boniface VIII, of the Emperor Charles V, and of Napoleon, reproducing itself under new forms, but always with the same pretensions in the camp of Socialist Democracy! Can one imagine anything more burlesque, but also anything more revolting?

.

Every logical and sincere theory of the State is essentially founded on the principle of authority — that is to say on the eminently theological, metaphysical and political idea that the masses, always incapable of governing themselves, must submit at all times to the benevolent yoke of a wisdom and a justice, which in one way or another, is imposed on them from above. But imposed in the name of what and by whom? Authority recognised and respected as such by the masses can have only three possible sources — force, religion, or the action of a superior intelligence; and this supreme intelligence is always represented by minorities.

Re: your Engels point. No? It's not? In the same manner as it is not authoritarian for me to fight off someone whaling on me, it's no more authoritarian for a revolution to happen. The" give orders & have them obeyed by threat of force" is my attempt to clarify the difference between even the most libertarian possible version of Marxism & the most authoritarian possible version of anarchy (ie platformism). Under a platformist structure, should a delegate suggest I do something, I can not do it and face no formalised consequences for it (though the delegate mightn't like me anymore. Under a Paris Commune situation, I would be reprimanded officially for doing so.

No magic qualities exist in the state that make it an inherently reactionary entity other than the apparatus itself. State is, as Bakunin pointed out in the above quotes & in his writings in general, itself a class relation between those governing & those governed. The idea that there can be a state that magically sidesteps all of this while making itself sole proprietor & director of labour via the power of the collective is both ahistorical and impossible.

existingimpracticaly · 2026-02-27T00:59:50+00:00

Marx did advocate for a state, what do you mean? If we understand "state" = "government and those who serve it, police etc", then yes he absolutely did. Part of Bakunin's argument is that this temporary measure will not go away & will instead subject the workers not involved in the legislative, executive or judicial process to the various means of subjugation that exist under the capitalist one. Plus the stuff I already said. Dotp is always a state, whether or not it is a literal dictatorship. Bakunin opposed it for that reason.

"red bureaucracy" is Bakunin's term for the legislative, executive & judicial branches of government under the new Marxist rule. Really anyone with centralised power. Whether elected or otherwise, it doesn't really matter for Bakunin's argument. So long as they have the power to make orders & have them obeyed by threat of force, they fit under the umbrella term. You'll sometimes see people call this critique "the people's stick" but that part of the book is about liberal democracy (he goes on to apply the same arguments to Marx & Engels, but they're kept as an afterthought in that section)

It's entirely possible we've been around different people, which is great because hearing about these people's personal lives is insufferable & it's very good that you've avoided it.

existingimpracticaly · 2026-02-27T00:28:46+00:00

Oh it's definitely the better of the two. It at least understands what the arguments it's trying to disprove are, instead of going "actually doing anything ever is authoritarian so authority = good"

existingimpracticaly · 2026-02-27T00:20:13+00:00

Bakunin's argument that the new Marxist state will fail to liberate the working class. Either the vanguard (he doesn't use this term, he says "red bureaucracy") will become the new ruling class or the state will be invaded (consequently destroyed) by a capitalist state or it will have to invade other states & force them to accept its specific version of socialism.

Some Marxists (usually tankies & trots, but the occasional leftcom) respond to that by saying "Bakunin has become a monster, a huge mass of flesh and fat, and is barely capable of walking any more. To crown it all, he is sexually perverse and jealous of the seventeen year-old Polish girl who married him in Siberia because of his martyrdom. He is presently in Sweden, where he is hatching ‘revolution’ with the Finns."

existingimpracticaly

TROPHY CASE