SN 5

Source of power

Knockout

With this episode I might have knocked myself out. There is a certain time for theory and another for practice. This episode completes the circle of theory and is a clear and present signal to act, to risk something, to enter the fray (sich ins Getümmel stürzen).
Today Chinese player Ding Liren won a confusing game against Russian Grand Master Ian Nepomniachi. Through this stunning win Ding equalized the score and there remain two games in the match.
In the faces of those player I perceive a certain brilliance, but also a beauty, something deep and well formed. Those eyes have seen every possible move of the chess pieces and behind their forehead they have imagined every possible constellation and strategy. After watching part of the match on live stream while working in the office today, I thought about the comment I made in this episode again, but from a different angle. Yes, most women wait for men to make the first steps in every social game, and by this they are putting themselves in an inferior position, like black in chess, because white is given the advantage of the first move. But that might not even be their biggest problem; the whole problem of still existing inequality and discrimination also in a highly developed and liberalized country as Germany against women lies in how they are educated, raised and told to be by society. Of course, girl-like behavior, manners or gestures can be something very erotic that drives me crazy in certain girls, this should not be eliminated completely at least for girls who feel drawn to be like this. But we need to look at social role models here and also establish a call and challange for women to act, this is the only way to achieve feminist progress.
A man is always confronted with this expectation to be a king, someone special, do something extraordinary. Therefore maybe men have also in chess a tendency to go beyond any limit in order to outact ones adversary and simply be the greatest guy in the room. They feel a need to show a singular performance in order for their lover to perceive and value them. Women are totally losing out this way, they are not asked to be transgressive, make a big fuzz even if it might be ridicoulus (like maybe the decisive mistake by Ian Nepomniachi today might look in the eyes of an experienced player), but simply create chaos and be that shining star worthy of the benevolent look of ones lover. It’s clearly not the inferior brain power of women that makes male chess players better, to the point where there is not a single woman at the stage of world class. In my view, this is uniquely due to social roles and the different way both genders, women and men, are raised. It is a long way to bring women into equal or maybe even superior power positions to men, but it definitely needs to be gone, also of course because this way love would be better.
Transgressive behavior is something dominated by masculinity or connoted with it, but the compulsive repetition of a beloved occupation like podcasting or playing chess creates the pressure that one needs desperately to achieve the greatest performances. As a result, women should also »man up« and take some of those transgressive, maybe even unhealthy, unbalanced choices, pathes or passions like men. I would certainly look at them astounded, grateful and overwhelmed for this.

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You deserve a brilliant future with a profession and a working place that suit you, with everything you need to fulfill your dreams and live up to your talents and needs. Sadly, that doesn’t look possible in capitalism, where the workers are oppressed and only granted some small liberties and access to goods, so they keep on working and don’t rebel against their masters. Please forgive me all the bluntness and my aggressive position on the war — I couldn’t tell you all this in the office because one always feels so inhibited and suppressed in these cold office halls. Also it was so exceptional to talk to you every time, I felt so comfortable with you that I couldn’t bring in those polemic topics into the discussion and risk upsetting you… Hopefully you can understand that now in the podcast I wanted to say it all and am also on some point critizing your political position because although you are very young yet, you already are a grown citizen of your country, as a voter you can decide about its future (supposedly, if one would take the fairy tales of »democracy« at its face value, those tales that only guard and hide the vulgar capitalist rule). Therefore I feel I don’t want to hold back and tell you all my thought, only last time of course it was such a high tension inside me that maybe I went too far, I wasn’t in control any more, my mind was shaken.

Imperialism is only the term created by Lenin in 1916 to describe the highest stage of capitalism, when it has developed to such heights that it turns violent against itself, provoking wars between competing nations such as France and Germany back then in World War 1.

Russian imperialism is totally a real thing. Just it is so much smaller than western imperialism. It may appear at first glance as if Russia was more brutal because in fact they invaded another country, Ukraine.
However, the western imperialism is covert, because it relies on the supreme financial power that is used as a lethal weapon and was gained by the murderous historical accumulation process through stages such as colonialism, fascism, neoliberalism. They are all different faces of the historical development of capitalism, which is ripe for revolution. The 20 million dying of undernutrition yearly, the millions driven into addictions to unhealthy products as Coca-Cola are part of the systematic plan to increase the profits of those softdrink sellers; the workers being so lazy and depressed after their work so they can’t lead a happy, active life and waste their scarce free time; and the dozens of millions of people without access to potable water are only some of the gazillions of ways and phenomenons in which we can see the brutality of the western dominated world order, the market of competing nations to which the most powerful nations have formed the bilateral and multilateral world set of relationships of power, commerce etc. The liberal ideology claims that all nations are competing under fair conditions, however the monopolistic enterprises in sectors as finance and heavy industry are concentrated in the western countries. By this unfair set of rules, those countries exploit, damage and betray the more powerless countries year after year. However, only because they are less powerful doesn’t mean those countries are more progressive, that is right and it might be right to call such in comparison to the west underdeveloped countries as Russia also imperialistic, because they are also part of the global capitalist system, which is really a globally integrated system with spawns all over the world. We have to make a different between a capitalist country like Russia is one since 1991, the fall of the soviet union, and socialist countries as China, North Korea or Cuba, that are upholding the socialist principles and the struggle to apply these in practice under immensely difficult world historical pre conditions. Such countries definitely are more progressive than Russia and the rest of the world.
Also to the Russians I would recommend to flee and not fight for their country, as to the Ukrainians, yet I think Russia has a more reasonable position in this war and its actions might not been justified, but understandable after the aggressive western diplomatic maneuver of pulling Ukraine towards them, creating a »revolution« on Maidan and provoking the civil war in the donbass provinces. The conflict cannot be solved by absolving one side and so I do not want to speak on behalf of Russia and only say that putting myself hypothetically into Ukraine and imagining I was living there, as a communist I would say this is the moment to attack our own government, ripping apart its legitimacy and hopefully grabbing power in a newly established workers state that suppresses the former oppressors, the bourgeois. We have to stop the war and even accept an unconditional surrender and losses of territories although it might be tough, but we have to stop the killing of our working class brothers and sisters.
In Russia the situation would not look that clear for me and I would not necessarily call for revolution and bringing down the government, because in such a historical moment with high tensions in international relationships, the western states trying to bring down the Putin government, the fall of his government might lead to even more unpleasant politicians than Putin, who is also deeply reactionary of course, as seen in his comments about homosexuals. So in Ukraine, simply there is nothing to lose, nothing to defend, only the lives of the soldiers who are fighting for a lost cause. In the end, Russia might keep the occupied territories and everything that western capitalism wanted to achieve in this sinister plot executed since 2014, was to drag on a war as many years as possible so that endless colones of military material could be traded and as a side effect, Russia could be weakened, isolated internationally, humiliated with sanctions and bans for sporting figures in the olympics, fostering the supreme hegemonic power of western capitalism.
Slowly the nations of the global south are recognizing that their only hope lies in China and an alliance with other poorly developed countries, guided by some intermediately developed countries such as Russia and China. But this goes way to slow and from first hand experience I know that the respect people from non-western states have for westerners, is still way too high and wholly unjustified and in order to change this depressing state of world affairs, it needs thousands of podcasts like mine more who are smearing and obsessing about the crimes, the inherent sluggish brutality of western rule and exposing it with a holy hate against the economic political structures that surround us.
To win and beat those sluggish structures, we can’t play fair, we have to fight back brutally, the same way capitalism inherently is a brutal fight against us, the workers or proletarians.

I could not tell you about the podcast earlier or about my political believes (but they are essentially the podcast, it’s my process of truth), because I wanted to be loved for what I really am, not for what I appear to be. The Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, whom I highly admire, (but whose position on Russia is just as delusional as required if you are part of the western inner circle and profit from its media industries, its no-one’s fault to follow the money, just the normal human sluggish behavior, the acceptance of the positive, the existing, that which is already there; instead we would need the imagination power to build the reality after our mental abilities), wrote that men are exactly like that, wanting to be loved for what they really are, whereas women know they wear a mask in social life and don’t want to be loved for what the are at their inner core, because they know that such a thing does not exist. I found this an entertaining and stunning theoretical hypothesis of Zizek, and it could partly also explain my own behavior.
In the podcast I appear strong, yet in reality I want to be weak — maybe simply to be lifted up by an imagined new love, that’s the problem with love, you always expect and imagine so much that it’s almost impossible to bear and feels like it can’t be done, the concept is too high, impossible to believe.
I don’t even know what my inner core would be, but there is some truth to Zizek’s theory that one is always searching for it as a man and craving for the recoginition by a woman, to be worthy in her eyes, to represent something adequate, satisfying and interesting for her. When you look at me, I got the feeling you see right through me, and that is so good, but also so frightening, because what will you see there, all the dirt and inappropriate thoughts and impulses that draw through me. On the other hand, I want exactly this, that you see and understand me and the only problem seems to be how to move forward, how to take the next steps to get to know each other, because this imaginary thing already feels so stunning and weighty, pulling me down and paralyzing my actions.
I am strong in a sense that I can always record a new podcast, almost always saying something more or less interesting when freely speaking my mind. The same occurs with writing, I feel so relaxed, at ease with the whole world when practicing it. But those talents dont mean I am able to lead a fulfilled and planned life, I am very chaotic, neurotic and a little addicted. The passions for producing podcasts and writings even makes it harder on one hand to handle everyday life, because the thought and words spoken or written haunt me and I feel I could never live up to them and be true to all my theories that shine so bright there in the sky of the clear discourse. On the other hand of course it is something magnificent, almost as magnificent as being with you. I would like you to make me forget for time periods about all the political, historical, philosophy and literature stuff, all the fights that ravel inside me, hurting and pleasing me at the same time, and be open only about us and your thoughts, wishes and feelings, listening to your stories. I know it can be whatever we want to be, that we have no limitations in any direction and I am so grateful to have met you, no matter what happens in the future, I feel so committed to you.
Only it is so hard to make the first step, isn’t it?