Yeah honestly I totally agree.

The idea that religion would be on the side resisting oppression or against it inherently is flawed. We see religion used to justify just about anything. Even within the same system and same struggles. You could replace religion with just about any societal construct and the issue comes from the leaders of said constructs and their own struggles, to be opportunistic and aid imperialism or to fight for the workers, and the workers in their stringent trust in the leaders. Just the same issues different name.

But because dialectical materialism is exactly that, materialism, religion as a concept tends to be a kind of antithetical thought.

I’d be okay with that just to have as a placeholder for all future events like this.

what on earth could have possibly happened. I wish we could still see comments that resulted in the ban cuz im so curious how people go so far offtrack they can get banned for a comment.

Yeah opposition parties have been really rough. A vast majority of them are conservative with only 1-2 ones that could even be called reformist liberal. Japan has the oldest unmodified constitution in the world. It’s constitution was also modeled after America’s and it’s a prime example of why adding more parties doesn’t fix anything. It’s such a gridlock and even with the recent election getting a majority with one party, which has rarely happened, it’s unlikely to actually result in any meaningful change like constitutional amendments. Japan is really built for “status quo”

I live in an area where most of the population is religious including fellow comrades. The idealism portion might be a difficult hurdle to cross over for them. I’m not sure how I would address it honestly.

Pamphlets are mainly meant to educate and agitate those that are already willing so I really doubt this needs any changing. But may not be as useful within my area, but I’d still like to print and try. Thank you for creating this.

I wrote a guide for my community on how to build a movement and I had a section talking about prioritizing effort into those that would be easiest to convince over those that would resist. It’s better to recruit 10 willing comrades than save 1 nazi from their pit of hate.

Thank you a lot for this, you’re totally right. That’s how I’ve been handling it and I just started to kinda forget that. The way you described it is really nice I might screenshot it for others.

You’re totally right I think in my circumstances I’m predominantly encountering privileged class individuals. It does return the question to “how can you convince bourgeois to be a class traitor” to a degree.

When people are immediately inflamed by something I definitely step back on what I’m talking about. Especially with people outside the country I’m in I try to keep it more casual as I don’t have a big investment in discussing it with them. Totally agree with you’re suggestions. Thank you for the insight in your experiences with many difference people. It really helps me feel better about it. I think I’m speaking to a slightly privileged class most of the time and it created a kinda “survivorship bias” effect.

Honestly a lot of my Japanese friends are mostly just disengaged with politics. Its considered taboo to discuss with people so its hard to convert people among friends until you know they’re ok with it . Even when they want to talk about it, I have several friends who have told me its refreshing to be able to discuss Japanese politics with someone because it’s so …almost cringe to talk about it normally. Couple that with a government that seemingly never enacts meaningful change and participation and education is waaaaaay down.

I have a couple friends who voted for Takaiichi and all of them just gave superficial reasons like that shes “cool”. Online is different from reality always.

You’re correct in you’re total assessment but I wanted to expand the bombardment would have zero ideological effect. The US has constantly resorted to bombardment over ground invasion and the reality is that in every war it practiced this strategy it has not succeeded. Especially if we believe the emperor’s account that the USSR was cause for their eventual surrender.

The US is constantly bombarding civilian populations and failing to bring about victory and claiming it was because they hadn’t violated enough rules of war. That they hadn’t ye bombed enough hospitals, or children, or families, or historical sites. That if only they had been allowed to bomb a little more, they surely would have broken the spirit of the country. The reality is that none of these function as an extension of the military in any meaningful way. The targeting of the civilians is almost a punishment for a military that is able to secure themselves defensively. It can also result in the “Guerilla math” talked about in the Cuban, Vietnam, and Afghanistan conflict

A country with a fascist, liberal, or otherwise bourgeois controlled government in general will have little, if any impact from its proletariat dying in such numbers for a war. But the US’s really shows it’s severe weakness in these situations as a paper tiger. Huge displays of power that result in no meaningful progress towards their goals. Simply causing immense suffering.

IIRC the emperor at the time literally admitted as much in his diary. I’m having trouble finding a Japanese version of his diary online but ill amend this post to have it once I do.

https://apjjf.org/tsuyoshi-hasegawa/2501/article

I relate to this immensely, I just recently experienced a similar pain.

I recently have been trouble with intense pain in my abdomen slightly right of center and went to the ER multiple times thrashing from the pain, could even feel it through morphine. Cat scan showed nothing but my family history has gallstones so they scheduled a gastro doc.

I’m fuckin pissed at this guy, I was in so much pain I needed to be wheel chaired in because I couldn’t take painkillers before the tests that day and he came in asked me the problem I described it as “pain in my upper stomach area center right” and he tells me my stomach is on my left side and I clarify I meant the belly region below the ribs. He begins poking at several areas and when he hits my ribs i feel intense pain, I almost start crying instantly. He says this is simply a bruised rib, pokes my other organs again and the rib a fucking GAIN. I state the pain this time is too far to the right and before it was more center and he says “I don’t know what you tell you its simply your rib” pokes it twice more and then tells me to take advil and finish the tests scheduled(HIDA and Ultrasound. I mentioned I take oxy for the pain right now and he said “no don’t take painkillers just advil for anti inflammatory” as if it’s no big deal and as if advil is not a mild painkiller and left. When I’m in the HIDA scan they are unable to conduct the test because my gallbladder doesn’t fill (a sign of stones) and he cancels my ultrasound. Fucking for no reason

The next night I went to the ER and got an ultrasound and its fucking gallstones. fucking asshole is lucky my organ wasn’t infected and I wasn’t willing to listen to him. He could’ve gotten someone seriously injured or killed.

However doctors here often ignore women and believe they’re being hysterical. I’ve seen it most my life with all my family members.

I blame it on doctors predominantly being part of upper class families of petite or regular bourgeois and fall for the usual reactionary tendencies. Basically two different things make them think they’re better than you all the time. I trust experts but in this field, and in the imperial core, they’re too often refuse to listen to anything else. The best experts hone on the truth with discussion and collaboration.

you could read these anytime and im honestly shocked people thought japanese ppl were abnormal compared to the rest of the world.

I literally was seeing the view on the communist party and i saw a picture of a pamphlet i also recieved that said “The communist party is the enemy of japan” 「日本の共産党は日本の敵です」 (the pamphlet basically just had info on being anti war btw) the replies were full of crazy stuff like “its a crime we arent able to kill them in the streets”「街で殺すのが違法んですよ」 and “We should burn down kyoto, its where all the communists are”　「京都を焼き払う。そこで赤の元だ」

there shouldnt be any mystification of other people. Everyone is generally the same everywhere with the same values to different degree of intensity and different means to accomplish them.

Although you do have to like… beat them to capture them. So they have these abilities but you did defeat them in spite of it. Now if they could communicate with each other and work together that’s a different story

I think you may be focusing a bit too much on MAGA. Like yeah its a movement that is enacting change now but workers rights have been continuously stripped even before MAGA was even thought about. The reason why is because the workers have not organized a general strike for their own rights. (caused by a variety of factors; lack of support, distrust of others, union busting, union leaders betraying for capital interests, etc) but ultimately striking DOES hurt companies and demand better concessions within America. Many politicians are deeply invested in companies as well, take for example AI. If we had an organized general strike to prevent the use of AI in a majority of industries, we don’t even need the law to be passed to enforce it. This would tank investments in it and directly hurt capitalists. It would also empower workers to fight for more of their rights.

A disconnect you might be having is this idea that the majority of profit doesn’t come from the workers. While yes most capitalist wealth comes from speculative ventures and investments allowing them to use as collateral on loans. Those are primarily backed BY the excess value that is extracted from the labor force.

Capitalist forces workers to make chairs for 1$/chair and sells them for 10$. He uses another 1$ to pay for materials. He pockets 8$. (Lets assume he simply sells 1 a day for ease of math) An Investor buys a portion of his business for 10$, expecting the growth to pay off. So now the Capitalist, uses this as proof of growth and takes a loan for 18$ to buy more materials and pay for more workers. Now he has enough workers and materials to make 10 chairs a day. (10 workers make 1$/chair with 1$ cost to materials per day) Now the companies profits has grown and the Investor’s share, which previously was purchased for 10$ has now grown 10 times that and is worth 100$. Instead of selling, he stays invested and uses it as collateral to take out a 200$ loan.

By exploiting the workers of 90%~ of their true value, the company has enriched the Capitalist, and the Investor, despite them contributing nothing to the process. But has enriched the worker. The Capitalist could hire more workers to grow, or could pay the workers less, or use cheaper materials to make the chair, etc. But ultimately the WORKER is the sole source of value.

It doesn’t matter how complex the chain becomes, the workers are always the ones with all the power and value that is being taken from them. If the workers strike and stop producing chairs, the profit of the company drops, its value drops, the shares drop and the investor and capitalist are unable to pay back their loans.

This is the basic idea, in America there are tons of bail outs for corporations that use government funds to prevent companies from going under but the money used to do this is primarily taxed from people’s pay and spending within the country. It always affects them and the oppression is not just from MAGA but from the ruling bourgeoisie class as a whole. ICE existed way before trump and was STILL killing people in detention and putting families in camps.

Overly simplified and also sorry for using the chair example again i just really like it. Pls anyone send corrections if i got something wrong with the theory.

-edit: formatting issues

Occurs to me this is a buy European board…this is still decent advice for ppl but uh…yeah

IG we all jokin on american’s

Strange this hasn’t been suggested before, but seriously build relationships in your community to bring them closer to class consciousness and revolutionary ideas. Find a small group that you can REALLY REALLY REALLY trust as revolutionaries and do what you can.

Organize housing unions, workers unions, mutual aid, help people enroll in food or health programs that they are eligible for. Spend time in clubs and public areas, reach out to people and become a notable and well liked community member. (If publicity would prevent you from doing certain actions or make it too dangerous then avoid notoriety)Learn any skill someone is willing to teach you. And teach anyone who will listen your skills, and help each other. Find people who are more agreeable first, don’t go to the house with the fuckin nazi flag preaching about communism. People who are more likely to act, and more likely to be agreeable are often already acting in events with similar views. Like protests, garden groups, unions, etc.

Make Zines and posters of acute class contradictions in your area. My area has especially bad landlords with no union so I’m working to fix that and show people the issues with landlords owning everything. Repair stuff, wear slogan t-shirts and signs and pick up trash. Let these ideas be seen, as that’s one way we are kept suppressed.

You want to make connections with people actually in your area and find other revolutionaries. No matter where you are chances are there’s a good dozen who are also looking for someone to organize with. You personally do not need to convince every person in your area, find comrades. If you know some online find out what you can do together, visit each other, help organize, share knowledge, etc.

America suffers from the lack of a unifying leftist party. There are several groups people might be interested in but they’ve never even heard of. There are people in my area who haven’t even heard of the DSA. Often you’ll find there’s only like one branch of any given leftist group in your state. If the people are already uniting together with leftist ideals, they’re more likely to join a state wide or national movement. (If people are already helping each other with food stamps and medical aid, they’re more likely to join a DSA push for housing unions in your area etc.)

There is TONS to do comrade, look around. I understand the desire to be told what to do but you truly have the power to unite people with this knowledge.

TBH this should work for a lotta revolutionaries wondering what to do. This is how you build public support for revolution in your area.