MarlKarx

I have been looking up some more politics of my land of origin (Portugal Caralho) and learned some more about Otelo. He was a socialist and leader of the portuguese uprising against the fascist regime. He at one point held most power in the country and envisioned to "turn portugal in europe's cuba". As you can maybe tell he was a fan of Fidel Castro and wanted to be "europe's Castro" as he allegedly wrote in his diary but at the end did not arm the working class to lead a revolution against the bourgeois but ran for presidency in which he lost. He was also accused of being involved in the FP25 (Força Popular) which were a left-wing terrorist organisation who killed civillians...(idk about this its hard to get non-pro-capitalist information on them) and was sentenced to jail for 15 years but got out after 5 years. He is now dead, he died at the age of 84

Im aware that he is not a socialist by any means but i watched some interviews of him and he does have some good takes on US imperialism and the Western Hegemony but i also recall hearing that he did some pretty shady stuff but i cant remember any specifics....Im generally supportive of leaders who try to free their countries of the boots of the US even when they're not socialist per se but this Assad guy seems a little off

I think i understand the basics. For example, a capitalist buys wood for 20 (money) to make a chair, he employs someone else to make the chair which adds value to the wood...lets just say the value added through the labour is 20 (money) the chairs cost therefore is 40 (money) but the capitalist steas some of the added value to make a profit and now the chair is only worth 30 (money). The worker has therefore worked a significant amount of time for free because the value added does not correspond to what the chair is sold for. Thats already what i understand but how exactly does the capitalist turn this into profit? Yes he has gained some money but he still has 30 dollars in debt due to the production costs and the labours costs...and it would not change in the future as the debt just like the value he steals from the workers grows. Can someone pls explian?

I had some pretty brutal discussions with my dad who is a hardcore liberal of the "the answer lies somewhere between the middle of left and right" type. He agrees with a lot of socialist stances and class war but refuses to acknowledge that a revolution is needed to achieve socialism, that killing people wouldn't make us better than the owning class and that violence is bad and that we should try to change the system by voting that voting will bring lasting change and not a revolution....all this kind of crap. He thinks that i got too "radicalized" and that im stuck in a bubble of propaganda and now he wants to have more control of the media i consume and that when he sees me watching or reading an article that i show him the sources of these articles. He really wants me to "keep an open-mind" which to him literally just means returning to being a liberal. The more of these discussions i have with my father the more i feel a distance between us and i would love if we just ignored our political opinions and kept living our lives how we always did but he insists that i am being groomed by some megalomaniac organization or a goofy ah evil person to join some kind of leftist jihad: "Yes you are entitled to have your opinion but you should also keep an open mind but the problem is that your opinion is not correct" that all i hear from him.

Im 15 so my parents were concerned about me going to the capital city of my country alone to ""watch a protest"" as i told them but i reassured them and went on. I am so glad i finally got to meet up with comrades from the communist party! It was a protest concerning the rising housing prices and the communist party and various other parties like the democratic socialists etc. marched along the streets chanting "bella ciao" and other things. I even made a board on which i wrote "housing is a human right". I talked to many people, mostly demsocs and communists. Im just so happy to finally have done something real and not just read theory and talk online. I know it isnt much this littly protest and the communist party was the smallest faction of the movements who were present there....but its something.

I know that here in the global North, it will still take time for the material conditions to worsen in a way that the working class will finally realise and revolt against their oppressors....but when could these conditions be met? Because eventhough we still live high life qualities, they are still increasingly worsening with the system failing to provide its people with housing and employment.

So, today i had my first "economy lesson" in school and dont get how people can study economics and admit that the system is shit to the point where they teach students like me the inequalities and gruesomeness of the system...and still go: "b-bud id is best we got!". Anyways, that what i told my friend and we got into discussion where i tried to explain that capitalism sucks and that the only reason it "seems to work" in our country (we live in a succdem EU country) is that we benefit of the work of others in the global south, that instead of companies treating us like shit (to avoid a discontent mass) they exploit people in global south countries. I gave him few examples of companies using child labour in lithium mines and so on but my friend just replied "Nuh uh, the EU wouldnt let that happen" to basically everything i said which really rubbed me. Can you give me more accurate examples on how the EU reinforces Neo-colonialist relations and how countires benefit from it....more specifically, how the wealth generated by companies that exploit the south is linked to the countries wealth or ""well-being""? Thank you so much in advance

After the carnation revolution when the people where fed up with the colonial wars portugal went through the "PREC" (Processo Revolucionário Em Curso) which was a short era of societal reform that included nationalization of companies, the collectivization of farmland and the general growing of popularity of various worker-movements/ parties like the PCP (MLs) the PCTP (Maoists) and others like the UDP and some trots but nobody really gave a shit about them. It was a period of unlimited potential for a revolution and yet it failed to establish socialism in the country. From what i can tell, the main problems were disorganization within the parties themselves (especially the PCP which was the largest communist party and could've done much better than this) and the restraint to overthrow the state by violence. The PCP, one of, if not the, leading leftist party of this period refused to establish dominance by violent means...they know that the only way to establish a socialist government is with a revolution yet they seemed so paralysed during this time. On the 25 November of 1975, communits and socialists unsatisfied with the more "soccdem" way Portugal would take, decided to start a coup but failed as armed "moderates" stopped the attempt before it having any effect. Since then Portugal is just another european "soccdem (nuts)" country with a Neo-liberal government. The PCP still has seat in the portuguese parlament but is loosing relevance more and more while the "CHEGA" (a quasi fascist party with anti-immigration plans and tax cuts for rich and whatnot) party is gaining more popularity. Portugal could've become "europe's cuba" as Otelo Saraiva, a portuguese revolutionary put it. But at the end, fell victim to your average reddit-style "enlightened centrist" who wants a welfare system while conserving the neo-liberal mechanis.

that's it, i just wanted to say that it is a beautiful country with nice people and good food. I visited Oujda and went to one of these big markets filled with stuff of all kind, fish, sweets, spices, clothing etc. it was very crowded but an interesting experience. Our tour guide was a very interesting and educated woman. She explained to us (westerners) the neo-colonial grip and its effects on the ""francophone africa""" france still has and how french companies are still robbing Morocco of its resources making the country poorer than it actually is...that morocco is in fact not poor but over exploited (yes Parenti reference) even after their "independence". Sadly my family didnt take her seriously and shook it off by saying "uhh she is just blaming france for every problem country has...its all just the fault of moroccan corrupt politicians". Western education has failed us on purpouse by not educating us on the long lasting effects of colonialism and neo-colonial relationships of western countries with the global south. I wish Moroccans all the best, it was an honour visiting your land and i hope you will free yourselves of your chains in the near future.

This is a very sensitive topic as i am not cuban and therefore have no first-hand experience of the situation there. I was watching a video on cuban democracy by comrade azureScapegoat and it was good, good video but then i watched the comments and while many of them were supportive and complementing cubas democratic system, there were some self-proclaimed "born and raised in cuba" cubans who would tell stuff like the "the municipal assemblies has no political power, its all in the hands of the communist party" and "not true, i am born and raised cuban and can confirm that this is not true, cuba is one-party and therefore totalitarian" the "one party= totalitarian" is bullshit but i can understand why struggling cubans would fall into the myth of totalitarianism where basically anything that does not have atleast two neo-liberal parties is considered Nazi-soviet-Reich-empire 2.0. Its just sad to be honest, i understand why cubans might give their government the fault regarding the misery the US puts them in and i just hope they wont loose their revolutionary spirit. America will torture and haunt cuba until eternity until the people's revolutionary spirit is broken and they will return to being a casino and brothel dominated sugar colony. I hate the US with every cell in my body for spending so much of its valuable resources and money into worsening people's conditions and life quality from countries who do not obey its order. Im sick of it and the cubans and every country trapped under the boot of this lump of corporate oligarchy hidden behind a thin veil of governance deserves better. The day will come where the american empire will be served justice and the world will be free from its chains. I can just wish the cubans to stay strong and to keep conscious about the US' role in modern geo-politics and how it keeps poor countries poor so they obey their master. Same goes to people in every socialist country and more generally the global south.