Frank Booths Riley

PhD-Philosophy
Communist writer & educator in normative political, posthuman, & labour theory, as well as film studies & economics.
They/Them
Fix your hearts.

[Frank Booths Riley @BoothsRiley]

Hey comrades! Today's popcorn classic is objectively one of the greatest films ever made, as it boasts a runtime of 422 minutes! It's Sergey Bondarchuk's legendary Mosfilm produced adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace!

[Frank Booths Riley @BoothsRiley]

https://t.co/uQMa24DAgB

[The Sameer Project @sameerproject]

The Sameer Project camps host around 117 families and one of them is the Batoul Camp that has around 27 vulnerable families. On June 15th, we distributed diapers and formula to those who need it for $217, including 11% commission. This included 6 packs of baby diapers and 5 adult diapers and 5 formula. Help here: https://t.co/dT6xhwzZFU

The Batoul Camp will soon be closed and the families will join our other camps. This is due to lack of funds as donations dropped a lot recently.

Even simple things like providing diapers and formula are not consistent due to the lack of support. Caring for 117 families with patients in a genocide is expensive and your contribution is needed.

Donate now to the Refaat Alareer Campaign to help our camps: https://t.co/dT6xhwzZFU

Other ways to donate include:
https://t.co/OmIU4SifDD (Paypal option, please make sure to add a message saying "Camp")
https://t.co/WNZu0ERJci (Venmo option, please make sure to add a message saying "Camp")

[Frank Booths Riley @BoothsRiley]

What's fascinating about this kind of idealist leftcom reading of theory and history is that it reads Marx's description of a failed revolution and then romanticizes the features that Marx himself diagnosed as the cause of the failure, making the thesis incoherent.

[Frank Booths Riley @BoothsRiley]

@yerw0_ It's even more cynical than that - Lincoln only pushed for emancipation to gain political power for the north to maintain national unity, unity of a nation that continues to oppress black people disproportionately to this day.

[Frank Booths Riley @BoothsRiley]

@ellievrc Whether you understand it or not your argument actually is just that ideas in the minds of workers determines their class.

What makes them reactionary is the same sort of intra-class contradiction that makes factory managers reactionary. Read Chapter 14 of Capital 1.

[Frank Booths Riley @BoothsRiley]

It's no more distinct than a factory floor supervisor is from a human relations manager - both ideologically reactionary proletarian.

Mao was trying to make sense of a messy political economy with a peculiar mix of landlords, peasants, and emerging capitalists under the KMT.

[eliza @ellievrc]

@BoothsRiley I think you are misreading me, ofc ideas alone don’t determine class, but the role within society that intellectuals play in mediating and reproducing social relations makes them distinct from the proletariat. Mao’s “Analysis of Classes in Chinese Society” demonstrates this view

[Frank Booths Riley @BoothsRiley]

@ellievrc So you see why this makes doctors and teachers who sell their labour for a wage/salary proletarian? Because otherwise your argument is that a truck driver or a factory worker are not part of the proletariat if they have incorrect ideas about their class in their heads.

[Frank Booths Riley @BoothsRiley]

@ellievrc Ask yourself: in what sense did Marx mean that the peasantry failed to constitute ITSELF as a class? Do you think he was saying there were no classes prior to capitalism?

Also, pay close attention to Marx's core concern in his Proudhon polemic. That should unlock a lot for you.

[Frank Booths Riley @BoothsRiley]

@ellievrc As you reread them, consider the difference between the political and the material/economic character of classes, and pay attention to how Marx and Lenin are ALWAYS talking about the political character extending from the material, not the other way around.

[Frank Booths Riley @BoothsRiley]

@dlhtks2 Yeah, they immediately block anybody who tries to help them correct one of their many misreadings of theory.

[Frank Booths Riley @BoothsRiley]

No, this is not Marxism - it is idealism that mystifies social relations. Alienation is not the 'source' of capitalism. Commodity production following the law of value leads to a specific historical mode of production and accumulation called capitalism. This ENTAILS alienation.

[Frank Booths Riley @BoothsRiley]

@BmoreOrganized Every political ideology other than Marxism-Leninism is predicated on straight-up fibs.

[Frank Booths Riley @BoothsRiley]

@RampageGio

[Frank Booths Riley @BoothsRiley]

@TKino99 @Michell6454304 I liked Romanek's adaptation of Never Let Me Go, though I didn't actually read that novel. It wasn't perfect but it felt distinct. He would probably be a better choice but also that guy rarely makes a movie and I would prefer he do something more interesting.

[Frank Booths Riley @BoothsRiley]

@TKino99 @Michell6454304 Ishiguro is certainly a better writer than Waititi is a filmmaker but I meant that it has a lot of properties that make him a fitting choice. I also don't mean to say that 'accessible' art is bad or not worthy - I just kind of personally hate these particular themes, lol.

[Frank Booths Riley @BoothsRiley]

@kaiyashunyata Horror films being largely ignored by studio marketing pageants significantly contributes to the preservation of their charm and aesthetic continuity (beyond what they suffer from commerce itself of course). We should keep this vacuous discourse away from any films we like.

[Frank Booths Riley @BoothsRiley]

@ygzgzot Aha, but you have pulled a classic boner here - the libertarian luminary has specified 'Marxist', and Marx was famously not a Marxist by his own admission! Try again!

[Frank Booths Riley @BoothsRiley]

@SwampCommunist You cannot be serious - you don't even have a blue check and you are doing rage-bait theory misreading.

[Frank Booths Riley @BoothsRiley]

This quote-mine literally explains the opposite position stated. Lenin is saying that relation to production determines how you use social wealth and the labour of others. This has to be a practical joke at this point. Don't misread theory on twitter - you'll be ignorant forever.

[📕 @SwampCommunist]

Now they are losing their mind because I use Lenin's definition of class

[Frank Booths Riley @BoothsRiley]

@TKino99 @Michell6454304 Whether we read the same book is a different kind of question, lol. It shouldn't be controversial that it was obviously written to be more accessible than TRotD, for example. Decent writer but thematic engagement was barely beyond a pixar movie. It's FINE but Taika 'makes sense'.