Support NeoGAF

[sphagnum]

stop lying that the Soviets invaded Poland guys

For some reason I thought this would be about the other time they invaded Poland.

 

[Slayven]

Are benji and Chichikov teaming up here

educating the masses.

Soon the proletariat will own the means of production

 

[whyamihere]

https://twitter.com/randyludlow/status/771737108461588480

@RandyLudlow: Green Party's Jill Stein will be 2 hours.late speaking at Capital University. It seems she accidentally flew to Cincinnati. #beginswithaC

 

[TestOfTide]

Been thinking about this. Say Trump did win, and he goes through with his plan to build an actual full-length border wall. Is there any way he does not get caught out influencing the awarding of contracts to businesses friendly with him or outright connected to his own enterprises?

I mean, you can see that scandal coming a mile away.

Could we stop pretending that it's possible to build a wall on the part of the border I canoed on?

 

[nature boy]

Buttocks grabbed

IDB/TIPP

Clinton 44 (-2 from previous)
Trump 43 (+4 from previous)

Clinton 39 (-)
Trump 39 (+4)
Johnson 12 (-)
Stein 3 (-2)

LV samples. Their previous poll was an RV live phone poll immediately following the DNC.

Only hopium polls are allowed. Prepare for the shitposting.

 

[Slayven]

https://twitter.com/randyludlow/status/771737108461588480

Hahahahahahaha

There needs be a sitcom based on her

 

[Retromelon]

Vladimir Putin arrested at Florida supermarket

Vladimir Putin has been arrested at a Florida supermarket.

Police said Putin was screaming at employees and refused to leave the store.

Records with the Palm Beach County sheriff’s office show he was charged with trespassing and resisting an officer without violence.

Reports said Putin initially refused to give police his name.

Putin appeared in court Monday morning and was released. He is due back in court in September.

This is a real story btw

 

[TestOfTide]

Buttocks grabbed

IDB/TIPP

Clinton 44 (-2 from previous)
Trump 43 (+4 from previous)

Clinton 39 (-)
Trump 39 (+4)
Johnson 12 (-)
Stein 3 (-2)

LV samples. Their previous poll was an RV live phone poll immediately following the DNC.

I'm not worried about Clinton's numbers going down.

However I am definitely worried to see Trump's numbers go up. It's one thing to have people go from certain Hillary voters to undecided (but probably still leaning Clinton). It's another for undecided (and possibly a tiny amount of Clinton supporters) to start favoring Trump.

 

[benjipwns]

A man of the people and a man of science!

As Bob Avakian has put it:

Let's not mystify science. Science means that you probe and investigate reality, by carrying out experiments, by accumulating data, and so on; and then, proceeding from that reality and applying the methods and logic of rational thought, you struggle to identify the patterns in the data, etc. you've gathered about reality. If you're approaching it correctly, you're struggling to arrive at a correct synthesis of the reality you've investigated. And then you measure your conclusions against objective reality to determine if they are in correspondence with it, if what they sum up and predict about reality is confirmed in reality. That's the way breakthroughs in science have been made—whether it's in the realm of biology, like the understanding of evolution, or whether it's things about the origins of the universe (or the known universe), like the Big Bang Theory, or whatever. That's the process that goes on, and the question is: is it scientific? That is, does it, in its main and essential lines, correspond to reality?
—From What Humanity Needs: Revolution, and the New Synthesis of Communism, An Interview with Bob Avakian by A. Brooks

http://thisiscommunism.org/ThisIsCommunism/Home.html

Do you agonize over the state of the world and worry about the future of the planet?

Are you looking for alternatives to capitalism?

Are critical thinking and learning about the first attempts to build socialist societies important to you?

Have you wanted to hear fact-based and substantive responses to the charges routinely leveled against communism?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you have come to the right place. This website will give you the tools to challenge the paralyzing conventional wisdom about communism that has seeped so deeply into popular understanding.

Set the Record Straight
Mission Statement

From a thousand different directions, we are bombarded with the message that communism was a “nightmare” and “failure.” Go into a bookstore and look at the current titles on Mao, the Cultural Revolution, or socialism in the Soviet Union. Take a listen when commentators on TV and radio say something about communism. Leaf through a standard textbook on political theory or modern history. There’s a highly distorted narrative of socialism in the 20th century, and it goes largely unanswered.

The truth is that the first socialist revolutions—in the Soviet Union from 1917 until the defeat of that revolution in 1956, and in China from 1949 until the defeat of socialism in 1976—marked a break-through for humanity. These were the first attempts in modern history to build societies free from exploitation and oppression. And they accomplished extraordinary things against enormous obstacles.

The mission of Set the Record Straight is to factually refute the lies spread in the media, mass-market books, and mainstream scholarship about the Soviet and Chinese revolutions, and to bring to light the overwhelming achievements of these revolutions as well as their real problems and shortcomings. Our mission is to reveal the actual history and experience of these revolutions, to open up a two-sided debate about socialism and communism, and to promote a conversation about why a radically different and liberating world is possible.

In all of this, we are bringing forward Bob Avakian’s exciting vision of a vibrant communism for the 21st century.

•See how Bob Avakian’s new synthesis of communism is being applied towards more deeply understanding and evaluating the rich and complex experience of the first wave of socialist revolutions.

http://www.revcom.us/Manifesto/Manifesto.html

In a time of great disorientation, demoralization, and disarray in the ranks of the “Maoists” around the world, this work of Avakian’s played a crucial role in establishing the ideological and political basis for the regrouping of the remaining communists after the loss of China and the devastating effects of this on the revolutionary and communist movement throughout the world.

But even greater needs now presented themselves. While providing overall leadership to our Party, Bob Avakian has, over the past 30 years, continued to deepen a scientific analysis of the experience of the international communist movement and the strategic approach to communist revolution. The result of this work has been the emergence of a new synthesis, a further development of the theoretical framework for carrying forward this revolution.

While there are no socialist states in the world, there is the experience of socialist revolutions and there is the rich body of revolutionary, scientific theory that developed through the first wave of socialist revolutions to build on. But the theory and practice of communist revolution requires advances to meet the challenges of this situation—to scientifically address, and draw the necessary lessons from, the overall experience of this first wave of socialist revolution and the strategic implications of the vast changes taking place in the world.

Bob Avakian has taken on this responsibility, and has developed a communist body of work and method and approach that responds to these great needs and challenges.

In this body of work and method and approach, in the new synthesis brought forward by Bob Avakian, there is an analogy to what was done by Marx at the beginning of the communist movement—establishing in the new conditions that exist, after the end of the first stage of the communist revolution, a theoretical framework for the renewed advance of that revolution. But today, and with this new synthesis, it is most emphatically not a matter of “back to the drawing board,” as if what is called for is throwing out both the historical experience of the communist movement and the socialist societies it brought into being and “the rich body of revolutionary scientific theory” that developed through this first wave. That would represent an unscientific, and in fact a reactionary, approach. Rather, what is required—and what Avakian has undertaken—is building on all that has gone before, theoretically and practically, drawing the positive and the negative lessons from this, and raising this to a new, higher level of synthesis.

In terms of philosophy and method, this new synthesis is, in a meaningful sense, regrounding Marxism more fully in its scientific roots.

This new synthesis also involves a greater appreciation of the important role of intellectuals and artists in this whole process, both pursuing their own visions and contributing their ideas to this broader ferment—all, again, necessary to get a much richer process going....

In short, in this new synthesis as developed by Bob Avakian, there must be a solid core, with a lot of elasticity. This is, first of all, a method and approach that applies in a very broad way.... A clear grasp of both aspects of this [both solid core and elasticity], and their inter-relation, is necessary in understanding and transforming reality, in all its spheres, and is crucial to making revolutionary transformations in human society....
Applied to socialist society, this approach of solid core with a lot of elasticity includes the need for a leading, and expanding, core that is clear on the need for the dictatorship of the proletariat and the aim of continuing socialist revolution as part of the world struggle for communism, and is determined to continue carrying forward this struggle, through all the twists and turns. At the same time, there will necessarily be many different people and trends in socialist society pulling in many different directions—and all of this can ultimately contribute to the process of getting at the truth and getting to communism. This will be intense at times, and the difficulty of embracing all this—while still leading the whole process broadly in the direction of communism—will be something like going, as Avakian has put it, to the brink of being drawn and quartered—and repeatedly. All this is difficult, but necessary and a process to welcome.

t is very important not to underestimate the significance and potential positive force of this new synthesis: criticizing and rupturing with significant errors and shortcomings while bringing forward and recasting what has been positive from the historical experience of the international communist movements and the socialist countries that have so far existed; in a real sense reviving—on a new, more advanced basis—the viability and, yes, the desirability of a whole new and radically different world, and placing this on an ever firmer foundation of materialism and dialectics....

So, we should not underestimate the potential of this as a source of hope and of daring on a solid scientific foundation

 

[thebloo]

Benji should make his own thread. With education and fine brandy.

HOWEVER. Hot take. People that have not lived through communism or seen the fallout should mainly stfu.

 

[cartoon_soldier]

Buttocks grabbed

IDB/TIPP

Clinton 44 (-2 from previous)
Trump 43 (+4 from previous)

Clinton 39 (-)
Trump 39 (+4)
Johnson 12 (-)
Stein 3 (-2)

LV samples. Their previous poll was an RV live phone poll immediately following the DNC.

Clinton's absence from the trail is very puzzling.

 

[benjipwns]

Clinton's absence from the trail is very puzzling.

Her health won't allow it.

Source: Dr. Rudolph Giuliani

 

[Crayons]

I sincerely believe that socialism is the future.

I just don't trust people enough in order to give them that sort of power. That's why I want a computer controlled socialist state

 

[benjipwns]

I sincerely believe that socialism is the future.

I just don't trust people enough in order to give them that sort of power. That's why I want a computer controlled socialist state

ALLENDE DID IT:

 

[Retromelon]

I sincerely believe that socialism is the future.

I just don't trust people enough in order to give them that sort of power. That's why I want a computer controlled socialist state

Your problem is you think computers are more trustworthy than people.
Play against the ai in mario kart 64 and see if you retain your trust

 

[TestOfTide]

Your problem is you think computers are more trustworthy than people.
Play against the ai in mario kart 64 and see if you retain your trust

Clean energy in the form of rubber banding.

 

[Crayons]

ALLENDE DID IT:

I don't get it?

 

[sc0la]

benji is my alt.

The alt-wrong

 

[benjipwns]

I don't get it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn

 

[Iolo]

Clinton's absence from the trail is very puzzling.

she raised $143 million in one month, doesn't sound puzzling to me

 

[pigeon]

I sincerely believe that socialism is the future.

I just don't trust people enough in order to give them that sort of power. That's why I want a computer controlled socialist state

You know that computers are programmed by people right

 

[Crayons]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn

Oh cool. This is very interesting. I'll have to read more on this and socialism in Chile.

Did the computer thing work?

 

[sphagnum]

Oh cool. This is very interesting. I'll have to read more on this and socialism in Chile.

Did the computer thing work?

Didn't have enough time to test it enough but it probably would've been too primitive. Good starting concept though.

 

[IggyChooChoo]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn

This is amazing. How is this not more famous?

 

[benjipwns]

Oh cool. This is very interesting. I'll have to read more on this and socialism in Chile.

Did the computer thing work?

No, it didn't stop him from shooting himself during the military coup.

 

[B-Dubs]

This is amazing. How is this not more famous?

Well, it didn't last very long and it ended in a military coup. I imagine that's why.

 

[IggyChooChoo]

Well, it didn't last very long and it ended in a military coup. I imagine that's why.

I took a lot of Latin American gov classes in college and somehow I missed this. That picture is incredible.

 

[B-Dubs]

I took a lot of Latin American gov classes in college and somehow I missed this. That picture is incredible.

It lasted like 2 years, I can't imagine it being much more than a footnote.

 

[Plinko]

she raised $143 million in one month, doesn't sound puzzling to me

She also lost a few points.

I just wonder at what point people on here will actually start questioning her campaign strategy. This "run out the clock August" hasn't helped her at all. Perhaps she is so confident in the ground game and debates that it will be fine, but I wonder if there is a bit of complacency that could be dangerous as time goes on.

 

[MHWilliams]

Empty podium at Capital U as Green Party's Jill Stein mistakenly flies to Cincy rather than Columbus.

 

[Plinko]

LOLOLOL

 

[benjipwns]

This is amazing. How is this not more famous?

It probably would be incredibly famous had it been put into extended operation for a decade or so for the entire nation. A real world database of the socialist calculation problem. Assuming the data could be trusted unlike everything out of the Soviet Union.

Spoiler

teehee

 

[Bam Bam Baklava]

I see Emerson is continuing the landline only polls that are weighted by 2012.

 

[Sagroth]

"My culture is a very dominant culture, and it's imposing — and it's causing problems," Marco Gutierrez of Latinos for Trump told Joy Ann Reid. "If you don't do something about it, you're going to have taco trucks on every corner."

Not going to lie the bolded part of the comment is WAY worse than the taco truck part.I wish someone had asked "can you be more specific about what you mean by "my culture is a very dominant culture"? That line only has one purpose-to make white people scared.

You're exactly right. The bolded is essentially a nationalist/white supremacist argument: that immigrant culture is invasive, aggressive, and will dismantle preexisting "white/American" culture. If the spokesman who said this really meant it, there's certainly a lot of self hate going on under the surface then. Even if he didn't, it's still an extremely racist argument. I get why everyone is making fun of it, but I'd like to see more direct acknowledgement of how awful a statement it truly is.

 

[nature boy]

Larry Sabato
‏@LarrySabato
Exceptionally well-done survey of 3,729 Latinos by America's Voice/Latino Decisions, just released: Clinton 70%,Trump 19%,Others 4%. 1/2

.

 

[Maledict]

She also lost a few points.

I just wonder at what point people on here will actually start questioning her campaign strategy. This "run out the clock August" hasn't helped her at all. Perhaps she is so confident in the ground game and debates that it will be fine, but I wonder if there is a bit of complacency that could be dangerous as time goes on.

I don't think that's her strategy. She's been campaigning heavil all of August, including several big policy launches. The thing is, unless she's directly attacking Donald Trump personally she gets no airtime. The press don't care about policy or substance.

 

[Bam Bam Baklava]

.

This is what interests me. Every survey or poll done specifically targeting a certain group shows different results than what you see in the crosstabs of a general poll. I don't get it.

 

[Fragamemnon]

Andrew Gillum, the Democratic mayor of Tallahassee, FL (the city hardest hit so far by the storm) has been fantastic in preparing and responding to the hurricane. He was up all night tweeting to the city (the best way to get the message out given the massive power outages) and had the city emergency services back out and running a couple hours of the center of the storm passing over.

Pretty sure he could run for Gov. in 2018 if he wanted and make a good shot vs. the open seat Rick Fucking Scott is leaving behind.

 

[benjipwns]

Andrew Gillum, the Democratic mayor of Tallahassee, FL (the city hardest hit so far by the storm) has been fantastic in preparing and responding to the hurricane. He was up all night tweeting to the city (the best way to get the message out given the massive power outages) and had the city emergency services back out and running a couple hours of the center of the storm passing over.

Pretty sure he could run for Gov. in 2018 if he wanted and make a good shot vs. the open seat Rick Fucking Scott is leaving behind.

Charlie Crist will allow that?

 

[Chichikov]

Oh cool. This is very interesting. I'll have to read more on this and socialism in Chile.

Did the computer thing work?

Nah, they got them Chicago boys instead.
You know who we can thank for that, right?
Of course you do.

 

[Plinko]

I don't think that's her strategy. She's been campaigning heavil all of August, including several big policy launches. The thing is, unless she's directly attacking Donald Trump personally she gets no airtime. The press don't care about policy or substance.

Then if I am her campaign manager, I say you need to start attacking him directly. Again, it might be that is what all of the September/October ad buys are for.

 

[Fragamemnon]

Charlie Crist will allow that?

He might be able to beat Crist in a primary, especially if Crist loses his congressional race he's in right now.

 

[Crayons]

Nah, they got them Chicago boys instead.
You know who we can thank for that, right?
Of course you do.

Not even surprised

 

[kess]

I propose taco and BBQ trucks on every corner

 

[whyamihere]

.

That would be devastating for the Trump campaign, but we knew that.

 

[pigeon]

She also lost a few points.

I just wonder at what point people on here will actually start questioning her campaign strategy.

Probably when I suffer CTE and start thinking I know better than the people who actually spend 60 hours a week working on her campaign and have access to all their internal data and sources.

 

[Debirudog]

Probably when I suffer CTE and start thinking I know better than the people who actually spend 60 hours a week working on her campaign and have access to all their internal data and sources.

.

 

[User 463088]

Probably when I suffer CTE and start thinking I know better than the people who actually spend 60 hours a week working on her campaign and have access to all their internal data and sources.

This is t.

And, also, those Latino numbers hahahaha. Good luck in Florida, Trump.

 

[Fenderputty]

All this talk of tacos

Pastor, carnitas and papas

 

[Chichikov]

By the way, I'm going to admit, I did not know about Project Cybersyn, but I have just bought a book about it.
It's called Cybernetic Revolutionaries so of course I did.

Are you ready to get bored by pointless trivia about telex machines and 70s Chile?
Thank benji for that.