Thank you, I appreciate the kind words. Tbh, in this case, writing out the analysis was also its own form of clarifying for myself; putting it into my own words made me think more deeply about what I’d read. But yeah, usually it’s shorter to find the stuff than to do a write-up on it. :)

Was curious because this sounds kinda weird out of context, especially with a Marx drawing that makes him look like he’s enjoying the idea of causing terror. Here’s what I found find from a brief search:

https://old.reddit.com/r/Marxism/comments/r0ecob/what_do_you_make_of_marxs_quote_when_our_turn/

OP of the reddit thread posting the full quote:

“We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror. But the royal terrorists, the terrorists by the grace of God and the law, are in practice brutal, disdainful, and mean, in theory cowardly, secretive, and deceitful, and in both respects disreputable.”

One of the replies:

The more context here is that Prussia had sent soldiers to shut down his newspaper and he was pissed off about it - this was published in the final issue (in red ink!). So the main point is that he’s condemning the State’s suppression of dissent through violence and throwing a threat in there. And it is certainly true, as in the Twain quote above (and more recently the argument is made in Zizek’s Violence) that the far greater terror of the capitalist state is ignored, treated as unremarkable and inevitable.

I think it is a mistake to take it as a core tenet of Marxist thought, it’s like the 1849 equivalent of him posting a guillotine meme. And in any case, it is wrong. The terror that comes with our turn is a disaster, and we should do everything we can to avoid/minimize it. Terror, no matter who it is directed against, is not an effective way to start a classless society.

Mexie has a great video addressing this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVQSKciU4uY along with the follow-up.

Then a slight disagreement replying to that:

I think the point here is that terror is inevitably required when it is “our turn”. The abolishment of capitalism and the revolution it heralds will undoubtedly be violent. Nonviolent action will not defeat the ruling class, as they will show no mercy in defending their existence. Of course the terror is bad, and of course it should be minimized. But Marx is saying that when it inevitably happens we shall not hide it or make excuses. We will own up to it, unlike the capitalists’ deceitful cover up of the terror they have invoked on the world for centuries.

Someone else also highlighted the Twain quote about “terror”:

There were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.” ― Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

So, as far as I can tell, the context is that Marx is speaking directly to the ruling classes who were in the middle of repressing him. And his point seems to be that in the act of deposing them from power, a class who relies on brutality to rule, he will have no compassion for them in that moment nor make excuses for what is necessary to depose them as they so often do for the brutality they exercise to stay in power.

In other words, he is not in it to repeat the deceitful patterns they do and be shy of required violence, but work to get the job done swiftly with honest intention, so that a new society can begin without their terroristic grip in charge.

I am open to disagreement on the interpretation, but I wanted to go over it because, as one of the reactionary replies on the thread I found exemplifies, some people would seize on this as an excuse to characterize marxism as wanting to cause terror in some general way, no matter who is terrorized. Which is quite a different thing from recognizing that violence is an inevitable part of deposing a power that has a monopoly on violence and violently represses those who oppose it. Or not having compassion for the rulers of colony and empire who order massacres and organize genocides.

Modern day siege. Imperialism is some sick shit.

They told the BBC: "I had a full day of joint surgery planned this week and patients were just told a few weeks before that their life-changing operations would not be taking place.

“Many of them had been waiting over 40 weeks for treatment. It’s devastating for them.”

That’s… 10 months, no? Nearly a year only to have it canceled.

Really goes to show the power of consequences. The working class can lose their livelihood if they don’t think about how they come across with care (and sometimes even if they do). A billionaire? No such thing.

Confederacy is an interesting choice. Probably more accurate than saying Nazi Germany, since it’s closer to already existing US characteristics/history. Though I have some misgivings about it because I could see liberals going “yeah, this is just the country being like the confederates, unlike us who would have been on the side of the union army,” while not understanding that the union army was still a settler colony army and far from a bastion of anti-racism and liberation; had it actually been such, it would have liquidated the racist elements of the US instead of allowing them to change form into a violent reaction to integration. I mean, it didn’t even truly wipe out slavery. It moved it to prisons.

I used to think Lincoln was such a cool guy. 😬 If he was alive today, I guess he’d be somewhere in the milquetoast reformist realm of Bernie Sanders. The broader world probably would have been better off if the US of the time had fragmented and stayed that way instead of holding together.

That’s totally fair. It is very trying times for a lot of people, more so I’m sure for the victims of imperialism. I try to hold onto hope about it and remember that we are part of what makes change happen, not just the inertia of things. But I am also personally just tired a lot and sometimes probably sound more hopeful in words than I actually feel. The pain of not growing up with much of a sense of community is something that drives me to try, but it also leaves me feeling more isolated and dismayed than I would probably otherwise be.

So yeah, I don’t know. I wish I could be like, “Look over here though, we’re getting wins” maybe just cause I wish I could be boosting moral or something idk.

May the blowback be qualitative in its scope.

I think your frustration with the US is very understandable. It’s been world terrorist organization since the end of WWII and was doing various kinds of horrible shit before then as well, going back to its roots of genocide. And then for people living there to be too often arrogant on top of that, as if they are superior and not the bombs the country uses, is galling.

That said, as a USian, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about the Epstein stuff. But I’m already of an ML mind, so although it’s uniquely shocking and horrifying, it doesn’t move the needle much on how I already understood the nature of the capitalist/imperialist class. I mean, the genocide perpetrated by israel, propped up by the US, that has been going on for a while. And it’s worse than this. Mass murder of kids, along with adults.

I’ve always cared about others, but society has never taught me how to stand up for them properly and I don’t expect it to do ever do so in its current form, knowing better now how it operates. The worsening contradictions and conditions, the increased internal repression, violence, and racial profiling from ICE, are forcing some people to learn though. Forcing them to learn the same kind of lesson that every other oppressed group in history has learned, that if they have arms and you don’t, you need arms or you aren’t going to last. When that’s going to reach a tipping point, if it does in time, I don’t know.

Just know there are people here who care. But I wouldn’t blame you for a second if you’re frustrated with their seeming inaction. Talk is cheap, as the saying goes. Except when you’re a multi-billion-dollar propaganda arm of a global empire, then I guess talk can get expensive, but that’s a whole other matter.

I think I’m just having a wishful thinking moment combined with wanting to emphasis the importance of armed struggle. It’s hard knowing that the forces of liberation aren’t organized for such, while genocide rages on.

But to answer the question literally, for it to make a big enough difference and not just be adventurism, it’d probably have to be from the same kind of places (like China) that are locked into a policy of non-interference and sovereignty in order to uphold the burgeoning multi-polar alternative to imperialism. So I don’t see how without triggering an actual WW3.

Yeah, that’s a fair point. I’m not sure of the exact wording, but hasn’t the US basically called israel its aircraft carrier in the middle east before? In that context, it shows how closely linked it is to imperial power there. If it wasn’t the state of israel, it would probably be NATO bases trying to occupy and genocide (though the difference doesn’t seem that distinct, just israel is entrenched in a way that military bases alone would have a hard time doing).

I wish they could be bringing a coordinated liberation response, but it’s nevertheless something what they are trying to do and it’s brave to be doing it in the face of such a violent settler entity. May their efforts help Palestine live on. 🙏

In a response letter attached to the lawsuit, the Chinese fund stated that Beijing classified “Israel” as a “high-risk zone” (red category) from the beginning of the war against the Gaza Strip, and imposed a ban on any new investment by the Asian country in the occupying entity, which makes it impossible to exercise this option.

I’m a bit unclear on the wording, tbh, even after trying to find other sources covering it. It reads to me like it was classified as high risk for a while, but the title of the article makes it sound like the ban part is new. But is the ban on new investments a recent thing or is it only now disseminating more broadly because of the situation with this specific company.

Note: machine translation of the article subtitle says, “Beijing classified “Israel” as a “high-risk zone” since the start of the war against the Gaza Strip in October 2023.” (Though I can’t vouch for this translation being reliable and this does not directly state the ban was since 2023.)

Very interesting, thanks for sharing.

Apparently it’s The Nation magazine trying to nominate them: https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/the-nation-nominates-minneapolis-for-the-nobel-peace-prize/ | https://archive.ph/i0fLm

People can read for themselves and judge, but to me it reads like liberal pacifism and a publicity stunt to corral perception and support for the resistance there into pacifism:

With their resistance to violent authoritarianism, the people of Minneapolis have renewed the spirit of Dr. King’s call for “the positive affirmation of peace.”

Through countless acts of courage and solidarity, the people of Minneapolis have challenged the culture of fear, hate, and brutality that has gripped the United States and too many other countries. Their nonviolent resistance has captured the imagination of the nation and the world. Renee Good’s widow has said, “They have guns; we have whistles.” Those whistles alert the residents of Minneapolis when they are threatened. But they have done more than that. They have awakened Americans to the threat of violence that extends from governments that unjustly and irresponsibly target their own people.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who served as The Nation’s civil rights correspondent from 1961 to 1966, said when he received the Peace Prize in 1964 that the award recognizes those who are “moving with determination and a majestic scorn for risk and danger to establish a reign of freedom and a rule of justice.” King believed that it is vital to illustrate “that nonviolence is not sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force which makes for social transformation.”

Okay, not “sterile passivity” but they promote a quote about whistles vs. guns? Come on…

And notice how they don’t name these “too many other countries.” Which are the other countries, The Nation? Which ones? I can’t trust western journalism to have reliable views there…

“If it expires, it expires,” Trump said of the 2010 New START accord in an interview he gave to the New York Times on Wednesday. “We’ll just do a better agreement.”

The art of the deal:

• Let current deal expire
• Demand a better one
• Get a worse one
• Bully whoever is nearby and is an easy target
• Demand nobel peace prize

In some cases, I’m sure it’s largely the fault of the post-WWII worldwide anti-communist campaign of wanton violence and the subsequent fall of the USSR. It undoubtedly (literally) killed a lot of rising communist/socialist elements in various countries that could have otherwise pushed hard in the kind of direction you describe. I mean, the western empire didn’t even just target communist elements. It also targeted, and continues to target, elements who wanted basic sovereignty/self-determination.

China is leading the rising alternative, but that doesn’t on its own bring back all the people murdered by imperialism, or on its own remove the imperialist tendrils in so many places.

the US: “We demand that you disarm yourselves.”

Country that is targeted for domination and exploitation: “Why?”

the US: “So there’s nothing in the way of us bombing you into oblivion. I mean, for peace or something.”

Country that is targeted for domination and exploitation: “And what if we don’t disarm?”

the US: “We will try to bomb you into oblivion anyway, but it might fuck us up.”

Country that is targeted for domination and exploitation: “Sounds like we should be even more armed than we are now.”

the US: “Terrorists!”

Assuming we even get to full fledged elections without things coming apart first, likelihood is they will run on decorum and following the constitution, without meaningfully challenging policy, and will faceplant as a result. It’ll probably go something like:

Dem candidate is asked “A lot of voters are concerned about ICE, do you oppose it?” “I support following the constitution that our founding fathers laid out-” “But do you oppose ICE?” “I think we should be following legal procedures and blah blah blah.”

So yeah, I expect nothing meaningful from them.

If it makes you feel any better, I was bamboozled at first too. I’m so used to how absurd the west is with its China fears, it didn’t even sound outlandish.