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Robert R. Raymond@robpertray.bsky.social |
946 followers 167 following 1064 posts
founding co-producer: @upstreampodcast currently reading "Fossil Capital" by Andreas Malm + "The Russian Revolution: A View from the Third World" by Walter Rodney
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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"Where there is greater inequality, community life is weaker and levels of interpersonal trust decline almost certainly because the stress of status insecurity makes people withdraw from social engagement."
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upstream
@upstreampodcast.bsky.social
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OUT TODAY! 🎧 we spoke w/ Dr. Cornel West about the role that righteous indignation and love play in his politics, what it means to dismantle the U.S. empire, and why he's running for president
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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most liberals in leadership positions have gotten where they are because they wore nice suits, spoke with a certain bourgeois politeness, and generally behaved very professionally—so it's understandable that they'd think that's how the world actually works
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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I don't know what you ever expected of liberals—this is *their* system. they theorized and mobilized and overthrew literal monarchies to enact this system. they may not have known the consequences but they are certainly not abandoning their system now that the results are apparent
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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the rest of the century will be marked by the supreme court stripping away every right one by one while a liberal court justice shouts "I dissent!" and liberals respond in monotone unison "YAS QUEEN. SLAY!" from inside our work camps
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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our liberal rulers will roll their eyes and mock Marx's teachings on historical materialism as being mechanically deterministic, and then turn around and repeat this quote from behind a lectern to a crowd of thousands
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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the first quote can be used to imply that progress happens naturally—that it's inevitable. it rules out the need for individual agency and class struggle. the second quote puts you right in the center. it's understandable that our rulers did not want to underscore that part
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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the arc of history does not bend towards justice—at least not on its own. it's quite telling that this quote is a favorite of the liberal ruling class. I much prefer this quote by che guevara: "The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall."
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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as it continues to grow irrelevant, we'll continue to see it collapse in on itself and devolve into nothing more than internal squabbles for power between different factions. we'll continue to see it lurch to the right like a barnacle on the great capitalist steamliner barreling into the void
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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the Democratic party has always been a bourgeois party pretending to represent the mass of people. however, we've reached a point in US history where there is no longer a need for that pretense—capital has reached a level of totalized dominance that has rendered the Democratic party obsolete
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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republicans have spent the last several months meticulously consolidating power on all levels. democrats have spent the last several months squabbling over whether or not they should run a corpse for president. I'm not going to say you gotta hand it to them, but republicans definitely want it more
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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the real battle is not republican versus democrat, but fascism versus communism. always has been
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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it still blows my mind that a very significant amount of the online discussion after Aaron Bushnell's self-immolation was actually whether or not it's ok to use the phrase "RIP" to acknowledge his death. unbelievable
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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our actions and behaviors impact others, if we even consider it in the first place. the result is not just a society with a million preventable COVID deaths, but a society that is collapsing in on itself under the weight of each individual's obsession with the self
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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their COVID response, led by the state and adopted by the mass of people, demonstrates that the average Chinese person considers the well-being of others, if even on an unconscious level, to a degree that is unimaginable here in the United States. we are hostile to the very thought that...
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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the resistance to public masking—especially and significantly if one has COVID or has been exposed—is a testament to how capitalism rots a society from the inside out. people talk a lot about how China isn't communist, but it's important to consider things beyond political economy too
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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the United States is the most evil and destructive entity that has ever existed on the face of the planet. don't like hearing that? feel free to move to another country
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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and my god, the most important part: it's GREAT television. is there anything more american? crack that beer open, turn up the volume, tune out, and just immerse yourself in it. it changes absolutely nothing. the empire is on course, barreling towards the cliff. no president will change that
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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it's also a beautiful act of cosmic justice that the racist, zionist, murderous piece of shit Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.'s cognitive decline is on display for the entire world to watch and mock. this will be his legacy, what others suffer in privacy he must endure as a public spectacle. beautiful
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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I don't know man I think that this is the perfect presidential debate for the moment. it's an unimaginably apt encapsulation of the united states, the precise point that this country has been barreling towards since before 1776. it's exactly what this nation state project deserves
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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next week :)
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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“...Marxism is not a finished & complete product contained in a given number of texts written by Marx & Engels. Marxism is a method and a world view. Neither Marx nor Engels believed their interpretations were unassailable given the limited amount of scientific & accurate data available to them..."
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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“...Marxism is not a finished & complete product contained in a given number of texts written by Marx & Engels. Marxism is a method and a world view. Neither Marx nor Engels believed their interpretations were unassailable given the limited amount of scientific & accurate data available to them..."
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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it's truly representative on so many fronts: ecologically destructive, noise pollution, technologically unnecessary, disproportionately harmful to the labor class hired to use it (immigrants) by affluent suburbanites, fossil fuel dependent, mindlessly adopted and used en masse
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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our society is perhaps one of the most fucked up societies in world history and this is true on so many levels but I think one of the most representative and multifaceted aspects is the leaf blower. only a sick and spiritually bankrupt society could invent something so rotten
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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the thing is, Israel doesn't need the lobby to get the US state on board with its genocide—the US is already on board. the united states is already zionist, the lobby only tinkers around on the edges. do you think it's any particular industry lobby that keeps the US capitalist? no? exactly
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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it's arguably already too late to stop but we could stop it from getting even worse but even that feels like, idk, the time scale it would take to end capitalism?
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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I imagine most of India & west Asia will be uninhabitable by mid century. the american southwest too. all those people will become climate refugees. crops won't grow. there'll be new diseases. it's hard to even think about how fucked up it'll be, which is probably why most of us don't really
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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I know there are lots of simpsons memes about it but like, this is literally the coldest it'll be for the rest of your life. 1300 people just died in Saudi Arabia from the heat. across the world where I live it's been consistently in the 90s—a decade ago that would be unbelievable. we're so fucked
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upstream
@upstreampodcast.bsky.social
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"The U.S. has always accepted killing children. People... know about the settler-colonial history, they know about Vietnam. But I sometimes think that people haven't fully internalized that the fuel of this machine is dead children."
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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the US is literally built on the bones of murdered children. the bones of Indigenous people and enslaved Africans and their ancestors and the bones of millions of Iraqi children, vietnamese children, latin american children—the list goes on and on
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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the US tried to put Julian Assange in prison for 175 years simply for revealing their war crimes—including publishing an infamous video of an Apache helicopter murdering 12 civilians in Baghdad in cold blood. and some of you think that the US actually cares about dead Palestinian civilians?
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upstream
@upstreampodcast.bsky.social
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OUT NOW on PATREON!
an incredibly important and jaw-dropping analysis of how Israel functions as a client state to U.S. empire. Max is always such a powerful and mesmerizing guest—couldn't be more excited to share this one with you✨
patreon.com/upstreampodcast
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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this kind of opportunism is, of course, not limited to anarchism. but in this context, these individuals are attracted to horizontal organizations because it allows them to bypass formal structures and gain influence through manipulation, splitting, subtle aggression, and other abusive tactics
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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Red Flag Alert!🚨 I want to preface this by saying that there are a lot of principled & incredibly intelligent anarchists out there. there are also a number of individuals who are attracted to the ideology because it allows them to practice hyper-individuality wrapped up in a cloak of radical leftism
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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Walter Rodney: "The welfare of capitalism in America, Britain, Japan and so forth is incompatible with the development of colonized areas even along capitalist lines, because that development would mean the end of the parasitic relationship that is the essence of imperialism.”
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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it's pretty telling that marxist-leninist organizations devote precisely zero percent of their time and resources to attacking anarchists whereas anarchist networks seem to spend a great deal of time engaged in this kind of divisive behavior
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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because they benefit from the system more than any other group but also want more than anything else to see themselves as upright, moral people. this tension is too much for them to bear and is why the liberal mind is one of the most spectacularly delusional and tortured minds to ever exist en masse
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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what defines the US liberal perhaps most fundamentally is a deep guilt coupled with a refusal to act. they are racked with the guilt of understanding their central role in the maintaining the system while ultimately refusing to meaningfully challenge it. it creates a deep tear in their psyche
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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heyyyyy (with the intention of joining a revolutionary vanguard party to overthrow the bourgeoisie capitalist state and replace it with a moneyless classless stateless society)
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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we're all communists yes but Marx was famously in favor of utilizing the state during the transition to communism and he was anarchism's single most ardent critic
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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one of the funniest developments of the 21st century individualistic left tendencies in the US is anarchists trying to claim Marx as theirs
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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actually when it crashes it somehow also helps those same 30 people
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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the vote blue liberals found me. rip my replies
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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that's a compelling argument I'm really grateful you posted it and that I had to see it on my notifications lol
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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I don't give a shit if they *could* lmao the point is that's how it's communicated and it's deceptive and it's very likely intentional much of the time
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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that would be "rate of inflation." it's deceptive to suggest that inflation is down, to the lay person it sounds like prices are down
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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just to be clear, inflation isn't "down" — it's just growing at a slower pace than it was a couple years ago. prices are still inflated. economists are full of shit—take care when listening to their propaganda
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Robert R. Raymond
@robpertray.bsky.social
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an IDF spokesperson recently admitted that Israel's stated goal of eradicating Hamas is impossible because Hamas is an ideology. and he's right—liberation struggles cannot and will not ever be defeated. love live the resistance ✊
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upstream
@upstreampodcast.bsky.social
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out now! we spoke with ex-IDF soldier and ex-Israeli Meital Yaniv about Zionist indoctrination, Israeli apartheid, Palestinian liberation, and how to heal from zionism
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