Nostr notes by ROZALIA SOFIA

but how is voting for liberal oppressors going to help build such ...

2026-05-26T18:25:53+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…9pja
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but how is voting for liberal oppressors going to help build such a movement? this point, i have heard before but never heard explained well.

no amount of pushing the existing political system ...

2026-04-28T18:55:41+02:00

no amount of pushing the existing political system "leftward" is congruent with the aim of a social revolution for which communists such as myself advocate. in fact, the existence of a legal left no longer even rests on a mass-organized working class like the old social democracy did a century ago. in the absence of such a level of organization, the modern legal left is nothing more than a tool of class pacification that offers peanuts to working-class voters in exchange for shutting up and leaving politics to the politicians.

communists do not eschew all participation in politics out of some all-encompassing "anti-politics" stance. nor do we advocate abstention for voting in all cases—although in many cases it is a perfectly appropriate choice. in canada today, the only so-called "communists" ever on ballots are entryist trots in the ndp and the stalinoid groups called cpc and cpc-ml, and i am not impressed by these consistent losers at all so i abstain from voting. if a genuine communist party were to make a bid for a seat in parliament, i would be all for it, but that is hardly the most effective course of action for communists at the present.

rather, it is the mass organization of the working class that we need to work on, in part because without it we are not likely to win elections, but mostly because winning an election has almost nothing to do with proletarian revolution.

what is so peaceful about a general strike and seizing the means ...

2026-04-26T21:46:20+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…9ms4
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what is so peaceful about a general strike and seizing the means of production? although it obviously is political

i am doubtful that "epstein class" is as useful a phrase ...

2026-03-23T20:58:27+01:00

In reply to nevent1q…w8sg
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i am doubtful that "epstein class" is as useful a phrase as you say. it doesnt make sense to me to describe it as a class, for example; a group of people who share an interest is not always a class, or else we would use the word to describe political parties. churches, etc. but i am curious what that messaging would look like, at its best. how do you use "epstein class" to get people to listen to a systemic critique of capitalism?

yes, contradictions of class society such as patriarchy precede the rise of capitalism and are not reducible to it. i contend differently with colonialism though, as the rise of capitalism and the spread of colonialism are connected in history very closely (and although you might label pre-capitalist empires as "colonial", the form that this took was considerably different from post-1492 colonialism). but we remain in agreement that the critique must be structural.

thanks, this advice is much appreciated.

2026-03-23T19:08:53+01:00

In reply to nevent1q…89rh
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thanks, this advice is much appreciated.

im all with you there. but incidentally, do you think there is a ...

2026-03-23T19:05:25+01:00

In reply to nevent1q…dsqd
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im all with you there. but incidentally, do you think there is a better way of wording my critique so that people are more receptive to it?

we have to say "youre wrong" when people are wrong. ...

2026-03-23T18:52:32+01:00

In reply to nevent1q…eldz
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we have to say "youre wrong" when people are wrong. something has to be done to prevent people from getting stuck in ruts of fascism or social reformism. the tool of choice is critique.

communist theory is already out there and available to whoever wishes to read it, but most people will never even think of looking for it unless they start by questioning the truth of their present worldview. critique is only one part of that, but it is an indispensable part.

that is just my contention: a political stance which blames some ...

2026-03-23T18:17:09+01:00

In reply to nevent1q…vl0c
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that is just my contention: a political stance which blames some elite group for the faults of capitalism is not a revolutionary framework and cannot be one. fascism, nazism, but also social democracy in its own way. a revolutionary political doctrine cannot blame elites, it must critique society itself.

by blaming elites but making no analysis of capitalism, people tend toward the idea that our current situation is bad only because society has been "ruined", because the law has been broken, because rules of decorum have been flouted, and that the solution to all of this would be to restore "justice" and the rule of law, going back to the way things were before the elite ruined society.

but society isnt "ruined"! it is INHERENTLY, structurally, exploitative. it has been so ever since the rise of private property and the state. it will be so until those things cease to exist. the horrors of society are not weird errors but normal working parts. one can only be revolutionary by rejecting the task of "saving society", by committing to its overthrowal.

you say that people just mean "capitalists" when they say ...

2026-03-23T17:57:18+01:00

In reply to nevent1q…k4nq
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you say that people just mean "capitalists" when they say those things, but i wont leave that up to chance. i think it is very important to emphasize that the critique of capitalism must be systemic.

far too many times in history, the use of slogans against "elites" and "super-riches" has no real socialist content at all, but is used to push conspiracy narratives and class collaborationism. fascism, nazism, et cetera.

blaming the consequences of capitalism on "billionaires", ...

2026-03-23T05:23:12+01:00

blaming the consequences of capitalism on "billionaires", "elites", "the super-rich", "the 0.1%" is actually counterrevolutionary, didnt you know?

even worse is "the epstein class", frankly, and not just because it completely misuses the word "class".

it isnt even exactly accurate to say that capitalists are at fault for the existence of capitalism, because capitalism is an entire mode of production and not just a class of people. but at least capitalists are an actual class.

by dividing the capitalist class into the big bad guys and ...

2026-03-23T05:23:12+01:00

In reply to nevent1q…l3p5
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by dividing the capitalist class into the big bad guys and everyone else you falsely imply that the badness of the big guys is somehow special, somehow weird and unusual and wrong, and not just the extreme end of the normal workings of the capitalist system.

you also give wayy too much slack to the "small biznis owners", who are just as much responsible for reproducing capitalist exploitation at a small scale as corporations are at a large scale.

capitalism is the whole problem!

if i understand correctly, your distinction between value and ...

2026-02-24T00:03:14+01:00

In reply to nevent1q…0hrc
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if i understand correctly, your distinction between value and price corresponds to marxs distinction between use value and exchange value. while a things use value is just a consequence of it being used in some way, exchange value is a feature of something specific: not just any thing, but a commodity, and not in just any society, but in a particular form of society, capitalism.

marx did not assume that things simply have prices, as a natural thing inherent to them like their mass or their chemical composition. his project in "capital" was to describe how capital functions, and more importantly how it destroys its own basis for existence. he didnt just criticize capitalism for empowering a small class of owners, but for the very way that things become commodities and are used to make more commodities, made into capital.

marx conceived of communism as a society in which the "law of value" would be abolished, in which commodity production and the system of wage labor would be just as outdated as slavery and serfdom. in other words, all those things that are now commodities and capital would cease to have their price and return to being mere things.

without a state to beat them, a capitalist to starve them, or a landlord to rob them blind, every person is free to engage in labor to the best of their ability, and free to engage in rest to the extent of their need—and then some more, since the end of the profit motive would make a lot of labor completely pointless. one thing that would likely take up more time is collective decision-making.

if a bunch of people think that building a railroad would be a useful thing to do, theyre probably going to try to do it. if this comes into conflict with several sunny spot enjoyers who object to the plan as presented, thats a problem. in capitalism, this could be a legal battle between local private property interests and some corporation formed by the state to build a railroad. in communism, this is a deliberation between groups of people, not divided by lines of class or birth nor by offices of power, arguing with the aim of reaching consensus.

attendance at these deliberations would be voluntary, so there would absolutely be a bias in favor of people with more energy, patience, confidence, communication skill, and persuasiveness. this is hard to compensate for, but i think there should be an emphasis on accomodating for the needs of disabled people, children, and elderly people, to make their voices heard.

the kind of coordination and planning necessary to have an industrialized society is pretty huge. indeed, it didnt exist until capitalism did. that is why marx understood capitalism as a progressive step compared to feudalism, in that it set up the conditions that make communism possible. among these conditions are what he called the "socialization of labor".

whereas on a family farm or in domestic manufacturing, the peasants of old europe only ever worked in family-size groups more or less, capitalism brought with it mass manufacture, and then mass industry, and created structures through which decisions were being made collectively on the level of hundreds or even thousands of workers all at once. it isnt the capitalists who busy themselves with the nitty gritty of operating a business, they leave that to their managers, their foremen, and ultimately to the workers themselves.

marx reasoned that if thousands of workers could act together on the orders of bosses, they could organize and learn to act together of their own collective will. when capitalism created the modern working class, it created something that is capable of everything capitalism has done and better, and doesnt need capitalists to do anything. this is why marx thought that industrial production wasnt just compatible with communism, but that it made communism possible.

at this point we are no longer able to entirely prevent the collapse of the biosphere. we may be able to mitigate its effects and minimize the number of lives lost, and the biggest obstacle is getting rid of capitalism, the system that caused this mess. as i see it, there is no force on earth which is capable of accomplishing this except a self-organized mass of people that spans every continent. that kind of connection and coordination is a product of the capitalist world just as much as the crisis itself is, and will certainly require industrial technology.

it is all very well for you to come to terms with your inevitably ...

2026-02-23T09:50:36+01:00

In reply to nevent1q…5jxy
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it is all very well for you to come to terms with your inevitably shorter life in a world where modern industrial medical technology has been abandoned, but i dont think you can speak on anyones behalf to say, i think people ought to be free rather than to live.

i want to be free, too. i understand that under some conditions, it is righteous to say "liberty or death!" and die for your principles. but i would much rather have liberty and life than just throw my hands up in acceptance of my death or the deaths of maybe billions more (specifically: all the chronically ill and disabled people first, followed by an increasing proportion of mothers and infants dying in childbirth)

i think it is possible, with the abolition of capitalism and private property, with the rational and coordinated action of people around the world, that we can still extract resources and have industrial production, in good working conditions and no exploitation.

i dont really see why the existence of industrial production, mris, high-speed trains, universities, or the very possibility of a stable and prosperous society are inexorably linked to massive oppression and inequality. cant groups of people in a classless society figure out ways of making these things? what is it about these things that make them impossible, whereas of course in a classless society people can still hunt and fish and farm on a small scale because those things are pre-industrial?

today over eight billion people live on earth. the iterative ...

2026-02-22T21:54:44+01:00

In reply to nevent1q…nvar
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today over eight billion people live on earth. the iterative industrial revolutions of the modern age are what made this growth in population possible, and a regression from those industrial technologies (particularly those used in agriculture, food preservation and refrigeration, medicine, etc.) would mean mass die-offs.

to be absolutely fair, even before llms became popular, our industrialized capitalist society was already creating the very conditions that are leading to billions of people and billions of other organisms dying off in a total climate collapse. so it obviously isnt all good stuff.

those two facts present us with a dilemma: how do we stop die-offs from happening either way?

i think we must improve on our current society by massively changing how we use industrial technology. this includes entirely ceasing the use of technologies which are detrimental to the flourishing of earthly life.

but if i understand your argument in this thread correctly, it is industry itself, and all its technologies, which must cease to exist. i completely disagree with that, although i think i may have done your argument a disservice and would like to address it at its strongest.

indeed, there is no cause to support the danish claim on your ...

2026-01-23T23:02:16+01:00

In reply to nevent1q…rqrr
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indeed, there is no cause to support the danish claim on your part or anyones. greenland is already a part of denmark, and presumably denmark and its nato allies will defend this status quo until they no longer can.

rightfully, greenland ought to be run by the working-class people of greenland itself, independent of anyone of the ruling class. for that to happen, there must be an international revolutionary movement, one in which greenlandic, danish, and american workers all struggle together to overthrow the powers that be.

red is my favorite color precisely because of its boldness, its ...

2026-01-14T20:03:39+01:00

In reply to nevent1q…ucz9
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red is my favorite color precisely because of its boldness, its pride, its fury, and of course its historical working-class revolutionary connotations. to me, no color better suits a movement dedicated to the overthrow of this whole exploitative society, and the worldwide unity of the dispossessed class.

as inspiration for the bold high-contrast use of red, i am very fond of the poster art of the russian constructivists, such as rodchenko, who made the poster i have in my account banner.

zionism too, although im sure this is not news to you. i have ...

2026-01-12T06:37:08+01:00

In reply to nevent1q…u637
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zionism too, although im sure this is not news to you. i have heard zionist family members, jews themselves, regurgitate conspiracy theories with george soros as the main character to explain pro-palestine protestors.

class war is not a metaphor. it is a violent political struggle ...

2025-11-19T20:01:26+01:00

class war is not a metaphor. it is a violent political struggle between classes, one (the bourgeoisie) fighting to preserve its existence and domination of society, and the other (the proletariat) fighting to abolish class society and domination entirely. thus each of the contending classes fights as a matter of life and death.

whoever advocates that the struggling proletariat should obey the law, remain nonviolent, or avoid any confrontation which gives "bad optics" is, knowingly or not, betraying the proletariat to the bourgeoisie. for their part, the bourgeoisie do not need to worry about the law which they themselves wrote, violence which they always employ, nor "optics" in news and social media which they completely own.

it is not enough to advocate violence, either. the proletariat must be able to win, too. this requires self-organization, communication, coordination, and decisive action.

only the ruling class has an interest in a third world war, but ...

2025-06-13T17:31:08+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…wvuf
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only the ruling class has an interest in a third world war,

but only the working class is capable of fighting and dying in such a war.

to make it happen, the rulers have to threaten us and lie to us. let us REFUSE!

refuse the draft, refuse the law, refuse the war. at all turns, ...

2025-06-13T07:28:44+02:00

refuse the draft, refuse the law, refuse the war. at all turns, REFUSE the demands which capital places on you. in every possible way, REFUSE cooperation with the class enemy.

gather together, organize, strategize, struggle, and seize power. the ruling class will not stop the slaughter until it is stopped by force.

i do fear that the law is dealing with trump slowly, as a lot of ...

2025-04-28T19:54:52+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…4fjs
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i do fear that the law is dealing with trump slowly, as a lot of people have been murdered and can be murdered by his government in that time. but it is not the sole thing i fear.

i fear that the court likes him, and is on his side, because he appointed several of the judges and they form a solid conservative majority. i fear that the law enforcement agencies are fully on trumps side, which they prove by happily carrying out his orders.

i fear that there is no legal power that can kick trump out of office. as you said, that is the law. in my opinion, he must be kicked out of office quite promptly before more people are murdered. additionally, he is not the first u.s. president to do wildly illegal things while in office and easily get away with them. in fact, most of them do.

finally, i fear that the law itself is wrong. it was made by protocol, but the protocol as well as the law were made by generations of powerful, wealthy people who all wanted to protect their power and wealth. this is a big part of why it was possible for trump to win and do what he did in the first place. trump is not an american anomaly. he is the culmination of deep-rooted problems in the american system that have existed since day one.

even if your prediction that the law will defeat trump comes true, exactly the way you said, i fear that the president who follows him will continue to get away with atrocities. perhaps even more easily, if they are smarter than trump.

the declaration of independence read, "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." it went on, "A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people."

if mister trump is nothing more than a despot, a tyrant, and a dictator, and if he acts and speaks with no regard to law, then it does not suffice to sit and wait for the courts to tell him off. is it not in fact the duty of people who want to be free, to throw off such a government? and would not that throwing-off be a revolution, akin to the revolution which once overthrew the british dominion over the american colonists?

i apologize that my message was insensitive, i do not wish to ...

2025-04-28T19:23:54+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…44zd
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i apologize that my message was insensitive, i do not wish to antagonize you.

i want to point out that we are speaking of "the law" as two different things.

you mean to say that the law, as written down in the book, is the real law. where the present government violates the law, the law is right and the government is wrong, and the government must face the repercussion of the law. indeed, if this was actually happening, i would support it. but it is not happening.

when i say that "the law is simply whatever is being enforced", what i mean is that in spite of the law written down in the book, the only way that laws can be made manifest in the real world is by enforcing them. the officers of ice, dhs, and the police departments are right now enforcing the decrees of mister trump, not the law by the book. the supreme court is still letting them get away with it.

thus, until someone actually goes and enforces the law by arresting trump and all those who are carrying out trumps orders, the fact that these orders are illegal will not make much difference.

i would like to believe that the american system of justice will stop trump. but why have they failed to do so? because the supposed enforcers of the law are doing what trump says.

if an ice agent comes to your house to take you away, would you quote the law book at them? or would you resist arrest?

@npub1ke2…meew what is the law? the law is simply whatever is ...

2025-04-28T19:02:53+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…l5c7
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Peter Gleick (npub1ke2…meew)
what is the law?

the law is simply whatever is being enforced.

when the president of the united states says, "we will arrest and deport whoever we want", and the supreme court is oddly silent in the face of this, the law is whatever the president says, not the court.

as more and more people get dragged away in the middle of the night, jailed or killed in secret, will you keep saying, "excellent. they are going too fast. the law is going to stand"? when does that happen?

one day you will be called upon by circumstance to make a choice: break the law and fight the fascists, or obey the law and keep your head down. this is because the law is not whatever you think it ought to be. the law is simply whatever is being enforced.