No worries! Yea it has humorous undertones, and to communists it might get a chuckle but not really a laugh.

Makes sense!

Yep, still settler-colonial, but in a manner that preserves much of indigenous culture and ties to the land. The US and Canada are much closer to Israel in how settlers colonialism is handled, past and present.

It sparks conversations. Plus, this is a community run by communists, so the target audience is communists.

Mostly agreed, though I think south Korea/Corea and north Korea/Corea are valid terms (specifically keeping the cardinal directions lowercase). Capitalizing the direction reinforces the idea that these are separate peoples, but frequently the distinction is necessary when discussing this or that subject, such as the fact that taxation has been abolished in northern Corea. I even more strongly prefer “northern” and “southern” as signifiers.

The problem with using DPRK and ROK alone arises when we are discussing region, not state. The illegitimacy of the ROK as a colonial state set up by the US Empire does not really help us linguistically. The Corean people are one nation, divided. Essentially, I use DPRK/ROK the vast majority of the time, and “northern/southern Korea/Corea” when discussing relational, geographic matters. When discussing the people, I do not distinguish, they are simply “Korean/Corean.”

Regarding Japan, it’s less a colony and more a vassal state like western Europe. The ROK is more of a direct colony. Japan benefits more directly from imperialism, whereas the ROK is a neocolonial forward operating base for the US to keep China in check.

A bit more gray area. The answer is yes, but the fundamental process of settler-colonialism in Mexico led to the majority of the population becoming mixed. Indigenous groups like in Chiapas still fight for sovereignty, but it isn’t the same as the US and Canada, where indigenous peoples were shut out, killed, and stripped from their land the same way.

Ultimately, it’s a topic I have not studied enough to have a definitive answer to, like the US and Canada. The process of decolonization in Mexico will look pretty different from the US and Canada.

While Obama and Trump do have policy differences, their primary role is as facilitators of imperialism and maintenance of settler-colonialism. In that sense, that crucial, principal sense, both are deeply aligned, and as this is principal, it is the driving factor.

Trotsky lived in LATAM during exile. As such, Trots exist in LATAM more frequently than in other global south regions.

Turtle Island should be decolonized.

Why not decolonize Turtle Island? Canada is also a settler-colony.

I don’t think analyzing the world in terms of “good guys” and “bad guys” is particularly useful. I’m working class, and I support the working class, so therefore I support communists, generally. I’m a communist.

I don’t think it’s a secret at this point that communists use Lemmy.ml’s meme community to try to spark conversations that can make those willing to engage with the subject more sympathetic to communism. There’s also the self-serving meme factor too, of course.

I think it’s worth separating your ideal of a borderless world from the actual struggle of Koreans today to establish sovereignty. The age of a borderless world can only be achieved after indigenous sovereignty around the world.

The United States occupied the south under pretenses of facilitating an end to Japanese colonialism, as the soviets were doing in the north. The major difference is that in the south, General MacArthur declared himself dictator:

[Article I] All powers of Government over the territory of Korea south of 38 degrees north latitude and the people thereof will be for the present exercised under my authority . . . [Article III] All persons will obey promptly all my orders and orders issued under my authority.

While the colonial government was being eradicated in the north, and land redistributed to Koreans, General MacArthur asked that the former Japanese colonial government and the compradors remain. While the Soviet Union was leaving the north to Koreans, the US declared the government being set up across Korea, the People’s Republic of Korea, illegal. This formalized the 38th parallel not just as a military zone, but an actual administrative division, which it was never meant to be.

The United States installed a puppet dictator, Syngman Rhee, who then murdered hundreds of thousands of Koreans south of the 38th parallel. Before the division, there were actually more communists in the south than the north. Communists were either killed by Rhee Syngman, like in the Jeju Island massacre, or fled to the north. The strong sympathies for the north also explained why it only took the KPA 3 months to get to Daegu, before the US fully invaded Korea and turned the Korean Civil War into an international war.

To this day, the US has control over the ROK’s millitary, and has a seat at any table where leaders of the north and south speak. The US has colonized the ROK, and therefore the demand of progressive southern Koreans is for the US to leave the peninsula, so that reunification can happen peacefully and Korean sovereignty be restored.

I haven’t read Ilyenkov, do you have any specific recommendations? Currently I have Maurice Cornforth’s work on dialectical materialism to establish a firm base, but I would love alternatives to explore and refine the list!

Marxists are revolutionary, I encourage people to get organized. This is the Marxist position, so if you’re opposed to revolutionary tactics, then you’re also by extension opposed to Marxism.

Organizing doesn’t spark revolution. Crisis happens regularly in capitalism (George Floyd, October 7th, ICE attacks, data center advancement, the AI bubble), and this mobilizes the masses into action. What the masses actually do while mobilized, however, is limited by their class consciousness and the presence or lack thereof of organized leadership with a coherent plan.

The task right now is to, as I have said, educate (both yourself and the rest of the working classes), agitate (in favor of socialism and revolution), and organize (a disciplined cadre of professional revolutionaries that struggles alongside the rest of the masses). I’m dead serious about this, this is basic Leninist revolutionary theory, and it works.

I don’t support the Republicans or Democrats, I support the working classes organizing their own political party and movement for revolution. I never once said I support the Republican party, it isn’t a binary choice no matter how much you seem to want it to be. I choose neither.

The fact is, the Democrats are more effective imperialists, and therefore they aid more effectively in accelerating the concentration of capital, and therefore crisis. This is the accelerationist position, which I disagree with. We cannot wait for this process, we must actively organize to overthrow the system rather than try to expedite its collapse.

I don’t see how standard revolutionary Marxism is “failure of pure theory.” The practical option is to get organized, something the CIA desparately does not want to happen. Fedjacketing me for being a consistent Marxist is unacceptable behavior for anyone that legitimately wants a better world.

Quarantine Marxism?

Why express that this community should move to Lemmy.ml if your issue is with it “sucking?” It seems more than anything that your problem is the consistent anti-capitalism and pro-Marxism, which it shares in common with many Lemmy.ml communities.