Ask Lemmygrad

People keep saying “organize, organize” but what does “organizing” mean exactly?

Ok, so I was reading about solarpunk and circular economy and such, and came across this. Seems pretty reasonable, but also very vaguely worded, both by Wikipedia and the Capital Institute. I don't yet understand what they actually advocate for in terms of economic power dynamics, and I was wondering if any of you have heard of this concept before and think it's worth reading more into it.

Ps. if you think it's some sort of lunatic pseudo-science please let me know, that can help me keep myself safe.

Hello, i will be passing out of school in a few months and i want to do my honours in either pol sci or economics. I have no idea of how colleges are like in here so ill appreciate if u have any suggestions ^^

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/2058303

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/2058302

You are the only instance that is this hard to connect to lol!!! Actually I just checked and Lemmygrad is also not processing follow requests

I went to the trouble of swapping my Misskey instance to one on your Allowed list... it still isn't accepting my invite! That's the only way I can get your posts to appear on the instance...

P.S. Re: my username: I forgot which account I was going to give dental advice. Actually, I just remembered. Someone who mentioned braces. I was going to tell them to get Super Floss which is at big box stores and stuff. It's so awesome, obliterates braces gunk (this saved my life in high school, wish my orthodontist told me, screw orthodontists, they are all demons)

Notes: Besides the gaokao prep starting from middle school, and taking at least 12-14 hours a hour to prep for it each day and it being mentally strenuous and seemingly decisive to your career,

the narrator talks about how the Gaokao varies per province and apparently

depending on how high your city/province's GDP is, it may be easier compared to other provinces

Other than that, though, he talks more about societal issues rather than political ones, so I think he's at worst, a good-faith Chinese lib, even considering his reddit account, which has little political activity...

Also, I've heard there are other comparable hard exams which are not necessarily hard as the Gaokao, in the comments, such as Brazil and India, thoughts on that as well

To any libs around here: If you lemmy libs want to wander on here, I'll politely tell you which instance you're in and tell you to go back your mother's skirts....

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/2037384

A social democrat friend who knows basically nothing about socialism and was a berniecrat is looking for book recommendations, what is a good book to recommend to him?

I sort of dived in the deep end when I first started (perhaps unproductively ) and I they're the type of person who would probably benefit a lot from nice prose and nothing SUPER heavy, but I also know a lot of intro books are full of BS that needs to be deprogrammed later(especially stuff that includes left-anticommunism) so I'm being cautious.

What would you recommend?

Hey comrades, I had someone ask me my opinion on the Sino-Vietnamese war and I realized I didn't really know anything about it. Does anyone have resources they may be able to share so I can acquire some knowledge about the conflict?

I feel like i have a decent understanding of slavery in slave society like Roman times. I also feel like i understand mercantile/capitalist chattel slavery pretty well too. But, what did slavery look like under feudal times? Of course the socio-economic classes turned from slave/master to landlord/serf, but did slavery under feudalism look more like chattel slavery or roman slavery?

As title says. I'm looking for good (preferably fiction) movies of or from the Soviet Union I can relax to. Any recommendations?

Edit: Book recommendations welcome as well

Dear comrades,

I remember reading that after the Liberation of China by the communist party, the main cities had a problem with dead bodies in the streets due to opium overdoses. That every morning they had to clean an enormous amount of dead bodies.

However I can't find anything on it anymore. Can someone help a comrade out?

~semi-~ Serious question, Idon’t get it. Most of us get why the hegemonic gender system is stupid, why subscribe to the binary role you were assigned? Also, why do straight people exist? Maybe it’s just me but I like to look and feel like my own perception of what is attractive.

Are they responsible for the conditions there?

Of course all of the other "China is imperialist" claims are bullshit but it seems like this is true and could potentially lead to valid accusations of imperialism or at least bad regulations.

What's the reason for what's going on in the Congo, I guess? What is happening on a detailed level? I can't find many resources outside of blatantly western shit.

I know what's going on and like the bad things but I'm asking why basically. Is it China?

I thought I was an Auth-Left, but turns out I'm a Lib Left? Am I allowed here in lemmygrad.ml? And what idealogical learning, unlearning and changes I should make to myself?

I am in higher level education in the public university system. I used to view academia as a source of hope in society, and perhaps a progressive institution in someways, or some kind of source of hope with their supposed focus on science and research. After some years here, this "image" I had of academia has been shattered.

What are your perceptions of academia and research institutions, as Marxists?

I was investigating way more about Cuban economy. However, there are way too many anti communist sources appearing while googling this. Wanted to check with you all if you have better sources than this ones: https://www.cubastandard.com/not-afraid-of-the-market-enterprise-reform-cuba/

I do not know that much about the Cold War in regards to the Middle East, but most Marxists of whatever variety hold very positive opinions on Nasserism, Pan-Arabism during the Cold War or even Ba'athism. While Nasser didn't align too closely with the Soviet Union, whether due to ideological disagreements or simple pragmatism / necessity, he was still a socialist, even if not a Marxist one.

So I have been wondering in particular since a lot of communists see Nasser and other pan-arabian or "arab-socialist" leaders like Gaddafi positively, why did the North and South Yemen split remain throughout the cold war? As far as I'm aware South Yemen was at least nominally a marxist-leninist state while North Yemen initially was a monarchy, but was then overthrowing by a pan-arabist pro-Nasser movement, ending up socialist in some way. Was there not enough common ground found for Arab communists to fully integrate themselves within Nasser's pan-arabism?

Likewise Syria "left" the United Arab Republic following a coup by disgruntled Syrian military leaders, but interestingly enough the communist party of Syria seems to have supported this coup and secession from the UAR. I cannot find much on the reason however. Could someone explain this?

The only info I am getting is that an African Diplomat said it but nothing else. I want to use it for the Xi Jingping section of my research paper for Political Science, I think it would add a nice bit of “flavour” for introducing the topic of Chinese relations with African states.