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Cake day: March 24th, 2022

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  • Yes, the US is purposely starving the world.

    Yep. I doubt you’ll care to read the following but I’m putting it here for others to see.

    The United States is the world leader in imposing economic sanctions and supports sanctions regimes affecting nearly 200 million people. … Targeted countries experience economic contractions and, in many cases, are unable to import sufficient essential goods, including essential medicines, medical equipment, infrastructure necessary for clean water and for health care, and food. … While on paper most sanctions have some humanitarian exemptions for food, necessary medicines and medical supplies, in practice these exemptions are not sufficient to ensure access to these goods within the targeted country. (Center for Economic and Policy Research)

    It’s well known that sanctions are ineffective for pressuring governments, but very effective at waging siege warfare by starving and killing ordinary citizens by disease and infrastructural failures. Continuing to use sanctions in this way and to this extent, when this is well known, is definitely “purposely starving the world”. An independent expert appointed by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said in 2019 that US sanctions violate human rights and international code of conduct and can lead to starvation. Why does the US continue to be the world leader in imposing sanctions, increasing its use of sanctions by 933% over the last 20 years, when this is well known? It’s because they know the effect, and they’re doing it on purpose.

    We can also look at some US internal memorandums from before it was more politically incorrect to talk about starving people in other countries. In 1960, U.S. officials wrote that creating “disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship” through denying money and supplies to Cuba would be a method they should pursue in order to “bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government” in Cuba.

    In other countries, we see a pattern of US officials and US-backed institutions purposely denying aid and loans to governments they don’t approve of, and then suddenly approving aid and opening up loans when a coup brings a leader they’re happy with into power. When Ghana was requesting aid under an administration that the West’s bourgeoisie didn’t like, U.S. officials said this: “We and other Western countries (including France) have been helping to set up the situation by ignoring Nkrumah’s pleas for economic aid. The new OCAM (Francophone) group’s refusal to attend any OAU meeting in Accra (because of Nkrumah’s plotting) will further isolate him. All in all, looks good.” The “situation” they were helping to set up was a coup they knew was going to happen. After a US-friendly coup took place, suddenly it was time to give the “almost pathetically pro-Western” government a gift of “few thousand tons of surplus wheat or rice”, knowing that giving little gifts like this “whets their appetites” for further collaboration with the US. You will find the same song and dance in numerous other countries, Chile being a well-documented example, if you simply look for it.

    The US imposes starvation and depravation of other countries on purpose, using it as an economic wrecking ball, then pats itself on the back for giving “aid” to the countries which have been hollowed out by such tactics.

    The loans which magically become available to countries that meet the US approval standards are not so pretty either, as a former IMF senior economist said, he may only hope “to wash my hands of what in my mind’s eye is the blood of millions of poor and starving peoples”, there not being “enough soap in the world” to wash away what has been done to the global south through the calculated fraud of the IMF, whose tactics are designed to accomplish the same kind of goals as the sanctions are–to prevent the economic rise of any country but the US by wrecking its competitors economically, tearing apart their local manufacturing capacity and transforming them into mere resource extraction projects, redirecting their agricultural industries into exports to make sure they reach a level where they are more reliant on imports to feed themselves, and reliant on foreign aid which is ripped away whenever they do not do what the US approves of or make friends with who the US wants them to.

    I refer to #3, why don’t they just do it then?

    This is what secondary sanctions and the US’s various protection rackets have always been designed to prevent, which has definitely been a powerful tool for them, but it seems with the rise of the new non-aligned movement and de-dollarization its becoming a less successful one and we can see countries “just doing” what they want more and more while the US leadership waves around, as usual, more sanctions and military threats in response.


  • This is another one that I haven’t read before so I’m glad it’s the next one we’re covering. My weak point in understanding theory has also mainly been around the more detailed economic side. I often have some trouble understanding Marx’s writing style, but I think the introduction by Engels helped me better understand some of the things that I’ve felt my understanding was lacking in.

    In particular I found this passage helpful:

    In the present state of production, human labour-power not only produces in a day a greater value than it itself possesses and costs; but with each new scientific discovery, with each new technical invention, there also rises the surplus of its daily production over its daily cost, while as a consequence there diminishes that part of the working-day in which the labourer produces the equivalent of his day’s wages, and, on the other hand, lengthens that part of the working-day in which he must present labour gratis to the capitalist.

    In the next paragraph he states: “[the portion of value] which the capitalist class retains, and which it has to share, at most, only with the landlord class, is increasing with every new discovery and invention, while the share which falls to the working class (per capita) rises but little and very slowly, or not at all, and under certain conditions it may even fall”.

    Again, like one of the quotes that stuck out to me from our previous reading, I feel like it helped my understanding when the focus was put on the big picture. Sometimes the more detailed explanations about how value is generated get me thinking only about how this affects the worker in particular, and forgetting to think about how it affects the entire proletariat and bourgeoisie’s development as classes. Of course the details are necessary to understand the whole larger concept, but I think these quotes helped keep my understanding on track.

    I also appreciated these lines at the end of the introduction: “This condition becomes every day more absurd and more unnecessary. It must be gotten rid of; it can be gotten rid of. A new social order is possible […] there will be the means of life, of the enjoyment of life, and of the development and activity of all bodily and mental faculties, through the systematic use and further development of the enormous productive powers of society, which exists with us even now”.

    I don’t have more time today, so sorry if this post seems kind of disorganized, but those are my main thoughts. Looking forward to next week’s thread.


  • You might also be interested in this 2017 study, “Survey Report on the Survival of the Transgender Community in China” published by the Beijing LGBT Center and the Department of Sociology at Peking University: Brief, PDF. It surveys trans people about several things, including their methods of accessing hormones, how they feel out in public, rating different types of workplaces for how trans-friendly or unfriendly they feel, etc.

    As well as this one from 2018, “Legal Gender Recognition in China: A Legal and Policy Review” by UNDP and China Women’s University: Info and links to PDFs. This one is mainly a review that goes into detail about several laws that affect trans people and recommending specific improvements legislators, government ministries, businesses, NGOs, etc. can make. It also includes information from key informant interviews. (Article about the review)




  • Thanks for your reply!

    One suggestion I would make is when you make a new thread, post a link back to the previous week’s thread so people can easily click back through them like a chain. Personally I think the timing and formatting so far are good, but of course, there is no harm in experimenting to find improvements. Thanks again for hosting this study group!



  • The part of this section that stood out for me begins with section 17, “Will it be possible for private property to be abolished at one stroke?”, where Engels basically explains that there is no instant communism button:

    No, no more than existing forces of production can at one stroke be multiplied to the extent necessary for the creation of a communal society.

    In all probability, the proletarian revolution will transform existing society gradually and will be able to abolish private property only when the means of production are available in sufficient quantity.

    Very often, people ask, “What will XYZ be like under communism/‘after the revolution’?” asking about various laws, industries, work, housing, and ways of manufacturing and acquiring goods and services. I think in many cases, the answer to these questions is a lot more mundane than some people might initially imagine. We see in section 18 a series of ideas of what a proletarian-led society might democratically implement for itself at the start of proletarian leadership. And, as OP pointed out, we see many of these (or similar) measures underway in AES countries today, providing us real-life examples of the process that we can learn from as it develops.

    I think it’s worth noting that Engels points out that these would basically be democratic measures undertaken by the proletarian-led society to continually reduce the prevalence of private property, using various methods to increasingly concentrate “all capital, all agriculture, all transport, all trade” into the hands of the proletarian state, with the basic aim of ensuring the livelihood of the proletariat, and multiplying the society’s productive forces until “production will so expand and man so change that society will be able to slough off whatever of its old economic habits may remain.”

    As we can see from the real-life AES examples, this is a long process, with some changes being rapid and dramatic and easily intuitive to the average person, and others taking decades of time and having many possible approaches as well as many possible pitfalls, since longer term and larger scale generational changes like that are often harder for people to perceive and carry out from their individual position without learning more in depth about it. (Actually, on that point, I am glad that Engels specifically mentions education in section 18, as I believe it’s an important part in conveying the function of these longer generational processes to individuals in the society and strengthening their self-understanding of how they participate in building and directing their society.)

    I think sections 17-20 could be good to go over with people who seem unclear on how (or why) socialist construction would take place, and on the meaning of terms like socialist-oriented market economy, socialist market economy, etc., as well as going into the reasons why development of the means of production is important (and how and why imperialism purposely hinders and sabotages that development in certain places).

    Those are my thoughts, if anyone notices errors in my reasoning or understanding of the text, please point them out.

    Thanks for leading this study group, I’m looking forward to its continuation.



  • Some excerpts:

    The International Institute of Strategic Studies, in its latest journal, delivers this withering verdict in an authoritative study: “The armed forces in European NATO and European Union member states are hollowed out, plagued by unserviceable equipment and severely depleted ammunition stocks.”

    Few people understand the remarkably protracted lead times necessary to increase arms production. Two or three years between commitment and delivery of even some basic munitions and materials is standard. Those NATO nations still accustomed to fight at all — meaning mostly the US, UK and France — have focused upon relatively small outputs. The factories do not exist to provide long runs of — for instance — conventional artillery ammunition any time soon.

    Britain’s BAE Systems recently told the Pentagon it would require at least 30 months to restart production of M777 howitzers, among the most vital weapons in Ukraine’s defense; a new £190 million deal with the British government for 155mm shells will have a similarly lengthy timeline. Germany’s Rheinmetall quotes at least a year for renovation and modernization of battle tanks, given production times of specialized steel and electronic components.

    Prices for raw materials used in arms production but not mined in EU countries have risen astronomically. The French government recently asked MBDA Missile Systems to increase its production of Mistral air-defense systems from 20 units per month, and has been offered only an increase to perhaps 40 monthly by 2025.

    Moreover, all the big manufacturers are wary of funding expansion, only to find the Ukraine war suddenly ending or governments continuing to resist rearmament.

    During World War II, the US government owned almost 90% of the nation’s productive capacity of aircraft, ships, guns and ammunitions. Today, private industry accounts for nearly all new procurement. […] Moreover, many parts of key weapons systems are now produced abroad; the supply chain for the F-35 fighter, the most expensive military contract in history, included a magnet sourced from China.

    China is building major items of defense equipment five times faster than the US. Maintenance delays, especially in the Navy, are crippling combat readiness. Earlier this year, William LaPlante, the under secretary of defense for acquisition, told the New York Times that the US “really allowed production lines to go cold and watched as parts became obsolete.”

    In the early months of the war, Ukraine sometimes expended up to 500 Javelin anti-armor weapons in a single day — burning through a third of the US stockpile in the first weeks of the conflict. Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, which now jointly produce 2,100 Javelins a year, say they will double that figure — but not until 2025 at the earliest.

    Ukraine, to a considerable extent, depends on munitions shipped through third parties by South Korea, 56% of whose voters oppose direct military aid. Seoul is selling $13.7 billion worth of tanks, jet and other munitions to Poland. In 2023, it is shipping hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds, some of them to the US, enabling transfers to Ukraine.

    Russia faces not so much a shortage of tanks, weapons and military equipment generally, but is obliged to rely increasingly on older materiel as its most modern kit is destroyed. […] Yet Russia retains some advantages over the West: Because its economy and industries are subject to direct control from the Kremlin, Putin can focus his nation’s arms production on the munitions he needs most in Ukraine.

    Ukraine is a historic test of Western will and staying power. Not for the first time in history, the outcome of the struggle will be determined not only on battlefields, but also in the factories of the West.








  • Happy birthday, I’m glad you’re here. Thank you for always finding and posting interesting information, you do a lot of digging and I like that you provide a lot of quotations when you share information. I’ll definitely check that film out.

    Feel free to ask me anything

    Have you thought about writing articles about any of the topics you’ve done a lot of looking into?


  • Very good summary of the origin’s of Korea’s division and the Korean war.

    Some extra information to add on:

    A 1946 opinion poll appearing in Korea’s Dong-A Ilbo newspaper showed a majority of respondents favoring socialism as their preferred system, and less than 15% supporting capitalism. Together, socialism and communism received 77% support from survey respondents. (Source)

    In 1950, when the Korean People’s Army had taken control of Seoul, the CIA wrote that “over 50% of Seoul’s students are actively aiding the Communist invaders, with many voluntarily enlisting in the Northern Army” and that among Seoul’s population, “the working class generally supports the Northern Koreans” adding that the streets of Seoul were “crowded […] especially with youths engaging in Communist demonstrations.” (Source)

    Meanwhile, here is the person backed by the US to run the southern regime:

    Syngman Rhee who was the first president of the Republic of Korea, is responsible for the killing of 30,000 Jeju islanders between 1947 and 1954 (during the Jeju April 3rd Massacre). Secondly, he is responsible for the massacres of one million civilians during the Korean War (1950~1953), and finally, he illegally amended the Constitution in 1954, aiming for long-term seizure of power and initiated fraudulent election in 1960. (“Letter from 252 South Korean NGOs against Syngman Rhee Day”)

    A 1948 CIA report wrote regarding Rhee that “there is every prospect that Rhee’s accession to power will be followed by intra-party cleavages and by the ruthless suppression of all non-Rhee Rightist, Moderate, and Leftist opposition,” characterizing Rhee as an “imported expatriate politician” and “extreme rightist” and demagogue “bent on autocratic rule”, who would be an “unpopular” figure who would play into communist propaganda due to his extreme rightist orientation, and stating that the U.S. throwing their full support behind him could potentially be “a source of future embarrassment to US policy in the Far East.” (Source)


  • https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Hollywood

    The U.S. Department of Defense has access to the scripts of thousands of Hollywood films and modifies them to make them more favorable to U.S. militarism.[5] The government and military have complete editorial control over many of these films.[3] The government often censors movies that suggest U.S. military incompetence, war crimes, or involvement in torture or coups. Many movies that are critical of U.S. imperialism are never released at all.[5] Pro-imperialist films are allowed to use authentic military equipment and vehicles that the producers would not be able to afford otherwise.[1] Popular U.S. movies that have been influenced by the Pentagon or CIA include Apollo 13, James Bond, Jurassic Park, Godzilla, Transformers, and the Marvel movies. Pentagon contracts usually specify that the government’s role in the film must not be disclosed.[5]

    Kwame Nkrumah writing about this issue in 1965:

    Even the cinema stories of fabulous Hollywood are loaded. One has only to listen to the cheers of an African audience as Hollywood’s heroes slaughter red Indians or Asiatics to understand the effectiveness of this weapon. For, in the developing continents, where the colonialist heritage has left a vast majority still illiterate, even the smallest child gets the message contained in the blood and thunder stories emanating from California. And along with murder and the Wild West goes an incessant barrage of anti-socialist propaganda, in which the trade union man, the revolutionary, or the man of dark skin is generally cast as the villain, while the policeman, the gum-shoe, the Federal agent — in a word, the CIA — type spy is ever the hero. Here, truly, is the ideological under-belly of those political murders which so often use local people as their instruments.

    Sorry that I don’t have much to add personally aside from these quotes.




  • Jeju language is a Koreanic language, but it is a separate language from Korean. It was commonly called a dialect for a long time, but now it is acknowledged as a separate language. However, it has an endangered status, and not everyone in Jeju speaks it fluently. Instead people in Jeju usually speak Korean but with some influences of Jeju language.

    I don’t know a lot of information about Zainichi Koreans’ way of speaking but I have been listening to some information about Korean schools in Japan lately, so I will probably learn some more about it and hear it more as I listen to interviews of people.


  • Unfortunately I don’t have guides like that other than what I mentioned in my previous reply in this thread, but maybe someone else does.

    I want to mention, if your goal is mainly to be able to understand what people are saying and to be able to communicate (rather than to have the same accent and blend in perfectly), you don’t need to use only northern materials for study. There are different dialects all over Korea, but they are largely mutually intelligible. So it doesn’t really hurt to study with easy to find resources (which are usually southern sources about 표준어) while exposing yourself to vocabulary, pronunciation, and phrases from other dialects (for example by watching/reading media from there or meeting people from there) which may have less easy to find study materials. My apologies if this is not helpful to you but I wanted to mention it.