Extracted from an essay published in April 1917 (in Hsin ching-nein). Mao Zedong.

"We can dress it up however we like, but the truth is that Mixtape is a vibes-driven experience riding high on some kind of media nostalgia. It is an on-rails narrative experience where you do some light exploration of a sleepy little woodland town among a group of three friends who are sitting on three different versions of the razor’s edge of adulthood, and the thing that pulls you through that narrative is a series of songs arranged into a mixtape that sets the mood for each scene in sequence. It has more in common with a set of narrative music videos like Dirty Computer than it does most other games that it sits on digital platforms with. I am sure there are people I am uninterested in engaging with who are mad about this."

Good piece by cmrn about Mixtape and late capitalism.

The creation and imperfect preservation of The Elder Scrolls' intentional incoherence.

Bank details, sex and naked people who seem unaware they are being recorded. Behind Meta’s new smart glasses lies a hidden workforce, uneasy about peering into the most intimate parts of other people’s lives.

The committee's own data shows that DSA's growth derives not from its sect-like internal processes but from its moments of class-like political action. The organization grows when it acts as a political force in the world, and withers when it retreats into self-administration.

I consider myself electorally-critical at best and thus I would argue with many of the points brought forth in this story, but I do think there's value in it overall. The nature of the DSA is that it tends to spike in population when it has something to rally around, and it withers when it does not. In this, at least, myself and the author are aligned. You must be a shark, always moving, never staying still. Grow the tendency, guide the tendency, shape it into a party, take control.

Three competing narratives of the second Trump administration.

Jon Ganz committed a terrible crime in his youth, but he survived prison, fell in love, and started over. His new life unraveled in a way nobody could have predicted.

The first version of this article was written after the first three months of being back in China after too long away. The version written then contained many immediate impressions and experiences, which I interpreted on the basis of extensive earlier research. There is an…

A pleasure to drive, Low-tech Magazine’s handcart demonstrates the advantages of slow, human-powered transportation.

[T]he working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.

• Marx

Michael is a bad movie. Let’s just get that out of the way now. It is a movie designed less to tell a story than to recreate moments, ones you are probably already familiar with. It is a movie designed to give you a karaoke experience in a theater setting with other like-minded Michael Jackson…

The way Iran has been able to stand up to the West has become a source of admiration across the formerly colonized world. Where does that confidence come from?

Most of what we hear about Tiananmen in 1989 focuses on student activists, since they dominated Tiananmen square itself and waved banners demanding “freedom and democracy.” However, the real history of the protests is a bit more complex.

A comprehensive guide and in-depth historical overview of vintage Levi's 501 jeans, one of the world's most recognizable, yet varying, clothing garments.

Three years ago I came across an interesting paper written up by a Microsoft employee, Kent Sullivan, on the process and findings of designing the new user interface for Windows 95. The web page has since been taken down - one reason why I'm a bit of a digital hoarder. It specified some of the…

Frustrated by your employer's generative AI policies? We're here to help you organize. We're uniting tech workers who recognize the consequences of employers rolling out AI policies without the input of their workers. Workers are not helpless in the face of these top-down initiatives — we have the tools to demand our seat at the table, and to have our say in how technology is implemented and deployed in our workplaces.

Review and analysis of DSA internal politics.

Enabling workers to fight back against AI and automation at work.

I hope we all now understand that forging strategic policy partnerships with fascists is like trying to develop an intimate relationship with a running chainsaw.

fairly milquetoast in the critique as would be expected from a liberal outlet but the reporting is solid.

Why hasn’t the so-called u.s. left, despite all of the efforts made over the last two years, been able to meaningfully intervene in a live-streamed genocide?

Joseph Stalin was a great man; few other men of the 20th century approach his stature. He was simple, calm and courageous. He seldom lost his poise; pondered his problems slowly, made his decisions clearly and firmly; never yielded to ostentation nor coyly refrained from holding…

I have seen this argument for at least half a decade now, its probably existed past that, but I want to add my bit to it, because, well, fuck this “bigtent” bullshit Idea. I have worked very hard and studied intensely for a very long time now and I refuse

The inter-generational struggle to find clothes that fit more than a tiny portion of women

The CPUSA, FRSO, PSL, and DSA are not identical, but all suffer from a palpable stagnancy.

Critics of crime fiction dismiss the genre as hopelessly reactionary, but its history tells a different story. From hard-boiled American detective novels to the explosion of Scandi-noir, crime fiction has been deeply influenced by socialist writers.

The following article is the result of a visit to the People’s Republic of China to participate in celebrating China’s 80th Anniversary of its victory over Japanese fascism. Dee Knight and DSA China Working Group coordinator Anlin Wang were part of a five-person self-organized delegation of DSA members.

It is an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of one’s acquaintances: to speculate who in a showdown would go Nazi. By now, I think I know. I have gone through the experience many times—in Germany, in Austria, and in France. I have come to know the types: the born Nazis, the Nazis whom democracy itself has created, the certain-to-be fellow-travelers. And I also know those who never, under any conceivable circumstances, would become Nazis.

In 1986, a corporation that made women's lingerie bought every backpack brand you've ever trusted.

Under the sterile blue lights of his studio, Fallon laughs endlessly at the same pseudo-jokes, rubs elbows with Trump and Sam Altman, and ushers in the death of culture.

After millions in NFT sales, the hyped “play to earn” game was effectively dead in weeks.

For Marx, theory was never separate from practice. This remains the key divide between Marxism-Leninism and Western Marxism, especially in debates over the People's Republic of China.

Abolitionists waged war on the two party oligarchy. Jenna Grove suggests we can learn from their forgotten triumph.

The Hungerford Building in Rochester, New York is a sprawling, four-story industrial center that overlooks a train yard. A hundred...

Japanese music of the 80s collection blog.

Abstract—The online-based group known as antis, which originated around 2016 in the United States, exhibit morality-based, cult-like behavior and perpetuate hate speech and censorship in online spaces. Anti ideology has encouraged harmful, obsessive, and dangerous behaviors among its members, specifically minors and young adults. An analysis of the antifandom movement through political, sociological, and behavioral lenses reveals its damaging effects on women, people of color, minors, and members of the LGBTQIA+ community.

Educational and inspirational resources to help us imagine the end of capitalism instead of the end of the world.

This looks like a great set of resources/links for folks interested in communist, socialist, or anarchist education.

I don’t like Mixtape (Beethoven and Dinosaur, 2026). I am going to be a hater in this review. If that’s not something you’re looking for, I have good news! Quite a few other criti…

An article dispelling myths about W Social, the new European platform that aims to rival X: it is a fork of Bluesky that shares many similarities with Eurosky and requires government ID to sign up.

I haven't followed any of this that closely because bluesky is still somewhat repellent to me, but this is an interesting analysis of how "WSocial" has grabbed the news cycle.

A spectre is haunting China—Mao Zedong. This is not the ossified image of the national founder found in official party histories, but a living, breathing idea rediscovered by the country’s youth. The evidence for this resurgence is both unexpected and unmistakable, and its most dramatic stage is China’s elite universities, where the country’s political, academic, and business leadership is cultivated.

All revolutionary and anti-imperialist organizations must struggle between one another for unity on this line, and where such organizations do not yet exist, they must be built.

A major theme in Bolshevik literature was the transmutation of flesh to metal. In the communist imagination, the fires of revolution could forge a metallized man. No one better personified this than Stalin, the “man of steel.” In my latest article, I explore the power of a name.

The Party will form the vanguard of the revolution only when the masses of the most oppressed internationally recognize it as their representative and their weapon in the class struggle, wielded by and in the interests of the international proletariat.

With Latin America in Trump’s cross-hairs, a report from Buenos Aires on the social stalemate that allowed far-right firebrand Javier Milei to impose the harshest shock therapy in Argentina’s history. Mosquera mobilizes the conceptual legacies of Gramsci, Trotsky, Otto Bauer and Angelo Tasca to identify the function of the region’s highly successful new rights.

There is a fundamental contradiction in many of the Marxist studies that are produced in the West. Every time that they speak of Marxism in Asia — in China, Korea or Vietnam — or when they speak of popular movements in Africa such as in Egypt or Libya, they highlight the…

This is a bit of a merger of two talks I recently gave about fascism and AI. One was in German at the Cables Of Resistance conference, one in English at the Milton Wolf Seminar on Media and Diplomacy. I added some shots of the slides I used as a structure for the text which might make it look a bit weird. You can just ignore the images if you want to. They are kinda like subchapter marks. The text is not exactly what I said but a longer version of my arguments that should be easier to read.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), darling DSA Socialist in Office (SIO), has received her fifth consecutive endorsement from NYC-DSA. She is sailing towards what is almost assuredly a safe re-election and will start her fifth term as a representative in Congress in 2027. NYC-DSA’s endorsement has opened the door to yet

On Marathon (2026).

Jake Paul’s ascent in boxing is a cultural symptom of an empire in decline. It reflects a country that now prefers empty spectacle over real strength, both in sports and on the world stage.

US Presidents historically reach their highest approval ratings due to war. George W. Bush reached an all-time-high of 90% in 2001 as the wrathful nation geared up to invade Afghanistan, and his father George H. W. Bush ranks second place with 89% in 1991, right as the US…

Originally anonymously published on Zuoyi23’s WeChat and Zhihu pages, this essay explores the rise and fall of the capitalist class in China. The author takes a critical look at how the relationship between the state and capital continues to shape the relationship between the capitalist and working classes in China—and how young workers are returning to Marxist critique to shape the future.

Appreciated this nuanced take from Qiao Collective on the current(-ish) situation with tech labor in China.