On Communists

okay I realize now that this is going to become the resource textdump page. because after I started reading communists, well, I haven't stopped. If not communists, then materialists - scientists, engineers, analysts of their crafts. Sure, maybe not everyone I link is a 'communist' technically. Definitely not the ones who are very rich and doing bad things around the globe (ie. bourgeoisie). But they have important perspectives to understand (ie. read what they're saying), and here I'll share some of the ones that have shaped my understanding of the world today.

also worth noting, I still love art. I enjoy engineering and I enjoy all sorts of fun activities. I still read fiction, I love books of all sorts. I love music and movies and the visual arts, I tried to make that clear in Philosophy I. But for serious reading, for where I'm focused, it's all the materialists of their various fields and fashions.

And actually, I'm going to break all of these sections down. Kinda geographically, kinda chronologically, kinda based on difficulty to read. I'm trying to keep things as organized as possible, for all our sake's.

Alright, the picture so far. So I know river is life, blah blah blah. Also I'm tryna be stoic about this whole affair we call life. Maybe both of those thoughts aren't full formed yet, but those were the current most prominent influences.

Then we get to 2020. It's a pandemic (ongoing, wear a mask - N95 or better). The George Floyd protests are ongoing, and I live right on the border of CHAZ, a block away from the police station. There was teargas coming in the windows, insane videos were being posted on twitter and reddit of footage from a block away.

I geared up, got protected, saw if I could help in any way possible. I handed out umbrellas I bought cheap, I kept em for the next day when they were left laying around. I held one myself while holding a protective line. Those experienced were (mostly) tired of the capsaicin burn that comes from pepper spray, the coconut oil getting on every surface of my apartment while I tried to heal the redness out; those who were new to the protests didn't seem particularly keen on finding out those intimacies firsthand.

I had batteries, helped keep the megaphones going. Spoke a bit, all voices were hoarse, but I try not to take up too much space - I just went with the usual chants, tried to keep energy and morale up.

I let people in to use the restroom or wash up. I was lucky, with an apartment so close, I tried to help those who needed protection. Especially when the chemical weapons came out.

The teargas. Man the fucking teargas. "There goes Aaron again, talking about the time he got teargassed" they say. Yeah! I'm not over all the fucking teargas. WHY, let's think for a minute, keep up with me, just for a second, WHY DO THE COPS HAVE SO MUCH FUCKING TEARGAS AND WHY ARE THEY DEPLOYING IT ON CIVILIANS? WHY ARE THEY PEPPER SPRAYING LITTLE CHILDREN? BLINDING PEOPLE WITH RUBBER BULLETS THAT ARE MEANT TO BE SHOT AT FEET? Unstopped, unchecked, much too often. Funded to the sky.

And people are starting to see the problem more clearly than ever before. The kids are, the ones on twitter and tiktok. They're making attempts to make change when they can.

TODO: link k-pop stan submission thing TODO: link big cop violence cop thread TODO: link reporters getting arrested

Okay, where were we, teargas. Yes. At the time, I was working and experiencing protest, power in the street, firsthand. I was experiencing the state repression against that protest at the same exact time. I was like Marx observing the Paris Commune, I was coming to the same natural understanding of history that he had. I was seeing the river and I was finding my place.

The first book that really kicked off this journey, during this era of aforementioned teargassing, on recommendation from another good friend, was Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins. That book got me thinking about my own role within society, about the parallels I could draw between my life and his explanations of history.

Quotes

This one is going here mostly because I don't know where else to put it right now and because I find it relevant to this discussion:

Is it not violent for a child to go to bed hungry in the richest country in the world? I think that is violent. But that type of violence is so institutionalized that it becomes a part of our way of life. Not only do we accept poverty, we even find it normal... -- Kwame Ture

Kwame Ture is able to, very succinctly, outline how some forms of violence are accepted as normal - commonplace and expected. Hunger is only one face of this type of perspective shift, but the general principle stands: we must look towards those who are struggling and we much build systems that serve them as well. We must look at the earth through the perspectives of the hungry children and the dying crabs, we must take the viewpoint of the burning forests and the depressed teens.

If things are bad for you, well, that's exactly what I'm getting at - let's work together to fix that. And if things are good for you, well, maybe try to do more for others. That's what I'm talking about when I say we need to organize and unite.

TODO: maybe link other parts of this site, as relevant. but, dear reader: it's most of this site, to be honest, I'm a communist through and through.

index tags: Philosophy, Communists, Reading List, Dialectics, CHAZ, CHOP, Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, Kim Jong-un, Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Zhou Enlai, Xi Jinping, Bhagat Singh, Nia Frome, Roderic Day, Aren LeBrun, IronProle, Tankiepilled, @TANKIEPILLED, Kwame Ture

category tags: Philosophy