ComradeRat

Yeah, from what I understand Hitler was viewed similarly on his rise to power (as a fool and a buffoon)

I'm very curious how Engler's leadership bid will go. I've read a lot of his books and the dude is constantly tearing Canada's wholesome mask off. If he's selling out I'd genuinely be devestated, I really hope he speaks as strongly against imperialism in this capacity as he does as an author. And that he doesnt get assassinated

From Class Struggles in France, it rly is spot on as a description of trump

“To the proletariat, the election of Napoleon meant the deposition of Cavaignac, the overthrow of the Constituent Assembly, the dismissal of bourgeois republicanism, the cessation of the June victory. To the petty bourgeoisie, Napoleon meant the rule of the debtor over the creditor. For the majority of the big bourgeoisie, the election of Napoleon meant an open breach with the faction of which it had had to make use, for a moment, against the revolution, but which became intolerable to it as soon as this faction sought to consolidate the position of the moment into a constitutional position. Napoleon in place of Cavaignac meant to this majority the monarch, in place of the republic, the beginning of the royalist restoration, a sly hint at Orléans, the fleur-de-lis hidden beneath the violets.[87] Lastly, the army voted for Napoleon against the Mobile Guard, against the peace idyll, for war.

Thus it happened, as the Neue Rheinische Zeitung stated, that the most simple-minded man in France acquired the most multifarious significance. Just because he was nothing, he could signify everything save himself.”

During the 1984-5 UK miners strike when Thatchers govt froze the unions accounts they had to run the whole thing in cash ($1 million of which was donated by Soviet miners unions and had to be smuggled in). They kept the cash in a big pile on a kitchen table

"Behold my works ye mighty and despair"

-guy who never lifted even one brick in his life

i find it hard to justify life being qualitatively 'better' for a commoner in sub-roman societies losing access to clean water, stone buildings with tiled roofs, roads, quality ceramics, utinsils, etc.

The big thing to remember is: those werent things owned by the slaves within the empire or the subjugated tribal peoples within and on the empire's borders. Those were the things the slaves were exploited and the natives dispossesed for Roman citizens to enjoy.

For the people who are not the beneficiaries of urbanism (the rural masses, the poorest strata of urbanites who are legally not allowed to leave their work) they do not notice e.g. the quality ceramics disappear bc they never had them (and in fact, they may now work less bc either their master is dead, lost their legal control or simply can no longer access the fine goods he was forcing them to work for anymore).

A very important thing to remember wrt roman britain is also that the roman part was the most settler-colonial of all rome's settlercolonies. The collapse of roman britain so rapidly is in large part bc of wealthy romans fleeing the sinking ship as their supply networks of wine and olive oil and the like dried up. Wrt big stone buildings, the fact of the matter is people dont tend to want massive dwellings if a) they spend most of their time outside anyway and b) have to clean and maintain it themselves instead of having servants.

Wrt sanitation especially, it must be pointed out that sanitation only becomes an issue if you have massively concentrated populations (i.e. cities). That is what creates the massive pollution and extraordinary demands for food and water that require complex infrastructure.

We should be very wary of taking "decreasing material sophistication" for "decreasing quality of life for the workers producing the sophisticated materials (and the workers supplying them with food). Usually in empires and class societies generally "labour produces wonderful things for the rich—but for the worker it produces privation. It produces palaces—but for the worker, hovels."

Even earlier than this, we should look at the communist manifesto and the activities/hopes of the Communist League in Germany. In 1848, Germany was a semiperipheral state which had yet to have a bourgeois revolution. The communist league policy with regards to German socialist revolution is remarkably similar to the bolshevik stance on Russian socialist revolution, i.e. only completeable if a core power (France in this case) also has a socialist revolution

Subreddit was banned June 29th/30th of 2020 iirc. December 2019 might have been when we were quarantined

Jesus would join Hamas

real bastille storming hours

Same here in Canada re: military budget and military recruitment ads (targeted too e.g. at natives)

This but unironically