u/Thehealthygamer

>What is now happening to Marx’s theory has, in the course of history, happened repeatedly to the theories of revolutionary thinkers and leaders of oppressed classes fighting for emancipation. During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance**, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it. Today, the bourgeoisie and the opportunists within the labor movement concur in this doctoring of Marxism. They omit, obscure, or distort the revolutionary side of this theory, its revolutionary soul. They push to the foreground and extol what is or seems acceptable to the bourgeoisie.** All the social-chauvinists are now “Marxists” (don’t laugh!). And more and more frequently German bourgeois scholars, only yesterday specialists in the annihilation of Marxism, are speaking of the “national-German” Marx, who, they claim, educated the labor unions which are so splendidly organized for the purpose of waging a predatory war!
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch01.htm

I used to hold this naive belief that "of course people would rise up" if they understood how corrupt and bloodthirsty the system is, after all that's what all our guns are for! But the mask is off now. We see the genocide, corruption, and lawlessness out in the open and I see no real revolutionary fervor.

Sure, atomized individuals are angry, but that's about it. The idea of communism has been so delegitimized in the western mind that moderate social reform like medicare for all and a 5% tax on billionaires is the most revolutionary ideas that this society can entertain.

Labor power has been so thoroughly suppressed that people who want to organize literally don't even know where to start.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't see even an inkling of a vanguard party.

Thus my pessimism. I feel like just as people are using midterms as a comfort blanket we also use the idea that if things keep getting worse people will just overthrow the system as a comfort blanket.

I don't think we've ever seen a more atomized, propagandized, individualized, and divided society in history. I don't see how we pull together at the 11th hour if thus far people(I'm massively generalizing) are content to just watch genocides and corruption and lawlessness without lifting a finger.

I guess a counter-point that comes to mind as I write this is that the speed of information flow on the internet does allow populations to be radicalized much faster than any other time in history. It's surprised me how normalized the idea that "billionaires are the problem" has become, that wasn't the case even 5 years ago. And now more of those folks are recognizing the reality of the class war.

Still though I'm not seeing that discourse translate into real-life action. I think that's why platforms haven't been more heavily censored. If there was a real threat of revolutionary ideas breaking containment into real-world action they'd shut it down in a second. And so we spend our time online fighting shit-libs and arguing about the merits of anarchism vs communism all the while waiting and hoping for someone else to DO something(I include myself in this critique).

And another counter-point, Minnesota came together and organized when ICE came to their doorstep. I think their organization actually did scare the power structure. But the pressure valve was released and now Minnesota is trying to pass one of the most awful assault weapons bans, which allows LEO to conduct warrantless searches of your home.

And after natural disasters people have been great about coming together and sharing resources. So, maybe if push does come to shove people will just naturally organize together to fight the class war but I don't know I feel very pessimistic on that front. Seems much more likely some white supremacist ultra-nationalist would just use the existing white supremacist militias, ICE, LEO & military to seize power in that scenario.

Thread with this guy's tweet before he went and committed murder.

https://www.reddit.com/r/behindthebastards/comments/1tcoqn9/update_chud_the_attempted_murder_as_of_may_13_2026/

I was super addicted to MMOs growing up, and it's pretty clear now that I was using them as a way to find the community and connection that I was lacking in real life.

I still get that impulse to play MMOs when I have large blocks of free-time and don't know what to do with myself. It's preferable to just being bored inside my apartment, but reading Marx's theory of alienation it really strikes me how the solution of gaming I reach for is in answer to the problem of just being isolated from any real community.

And there's not a simple solution of "just hangout with people." One, everyone works and is busy. Two, the things that you do together almost always costs money, even transportation to get out. And there's the time element - we all live so far from each other that often I just don't have the energy to muster up a 45 minute bike-ride or sit on the U-Bahn for an hour to hang-out.

So then I reach for the easy comfort of gaming. It's there, it's relatively cheap, and it's convenient.

And it also strikes me as so dystopian that in games I'm simulating life... imagine if your character sat inside their house and stared at a screen all day lmao. Like the Spectacle Society.

I think I feel negatively towards gaming because for me, the impulse that drives me to game is the same impulse that drives me to eat junk food, or want to drink, or do some other activity to numb out. I've noticed a huge correlation with feeling a pang of emptiness/loneliness, and wanting to eat a big burger. Similarly that pang of boredom/loneliness/emptiness then pushes forward the desire to game.

I get called a communist Chinese spy a lot, cause my videos make MAGA mad. And more recently libs are getting mad at me, I take that as a sign I'm moving in the right direction.

What's so deeply ironic is that I learned nothing about communism in China, they don't teach that in grade school. My father was jailed after Tiananmen square because he gave talks in support of the protesters in Beijing, and my parents told me they were giving me away to protect me from the communist government. So I was very biased against communism growing up, obviously indoctrinated with U.S. culture(propaganda), joined the Army when I was 21, cause I wanted to have the skills to resist a tyrannical government, like communist China.

So what got a staunch anti-communist like me to read Marx's theory of alienation?

Because it reflects the reality of my experience living and working in the U.S.

The worker is alienated from the product of their labor and their work is experienced not as a fulfilling expression of creativity but as coerced, meaningless toil. -Every accounting job I've ever held.

The workers is alienated from their own human nature, conscious activity is reduced to a mere means for survival. -You work, and when you're not working you take care of all the things you didn't have time to do, so that you can be ready to go back to work on Monday.

The workers is alienated from other people, social relationships become transactional, leading to "tremendous loneliness." In the "war of all against all" of civil society, each person views others not as fellows but as rivals and adversaries. -Even with all my virtual followers, I feel more isolated than ever. MAGA cheers as immigrants are dragged away, because they view them as rivals and adversaries rather than members of their community.

Being born in China didn't make me a communist. Living in the U.S. for 30 years, witnessing the massive inequality, the erosion of human rights and civil liberties, the never-ending wars of aggression is what has me reading Marx. And today flock cameras on every corner, masked secret police disappearing people to concentration camps, Palantir siphoning up every piece of personal data, I'm pretty sure I'm on terrorism watch-lists cause my Global Entry got revoked last year with no explanation two weeks after I started speaking out against ICE.

The capitalist U.S. is everything that I was taught to fear about communist China.