this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2023
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NonCredibleDefense
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It's been bizarre some of my interactions with group A and B. I've been active in leftist circles for most of my time on the internet. I definitely get and agree with a lot of the criticisms with the US, NATO, and the EU, but I don't get how so many people think the Russian or Chinese government are any more righteous, especially considering the human rights violations and encroachments on sovereignty we've seen from both countries. Not just in their past either, but within the last decade!
The situation kinda feels like how Japan justified its imperialism to the outside world during the Invasion of China, South Asia, and the Pacific. Their official stance was they were aiming to rid Asia of Western imperialism and replace it with a sphere of co-prosperity, Despite this message however, they were absolutely brutal to the lands they occupied. The murdered and raped indiscriminately, and those they kept alive they enslaved and worked to death in brutal conditions. No sane person today who knows the extent of their harm would ever defend them as a power, even if their supposed message was "anti-imperialism."
You can oppose western imperialism, US hegemony, and capitalism without siding with other imperialists, fascists, and psuedo-communists. The actions of a country should speak for them, not the messages their propaganda tries to make you believe. Considering what I know from Russia's Soviet legacy with Eastern Europe, the actions they took against Chechnya and Georgia, their local treatment of dissidents, the brutal persecution of queer people that makes Florida look tame, the war crimes and human rights violations committed in Syria and Africa by Wagner, and the bombing, killing, raping, and kidnapping of civilians in Ukraine. I don't see how anyone could defend them or their actions. I know the US is guilty most of it through out its history too, but you shouldn't oppose a monster by supporting another monster.
I tried explaining this to some tankies but instead I got banned from the community before I could finish my point.
Because they only exist to push the putin agenda. They're the Jordan Peterson of the left, but I wouldn't even call them leftists. They're red fascists.
The red-brown alliance lives on in a way....
I think they make a cream for that
I posted on lemmy.ml calling out tankies as terrible human beings. Pointed out the term was coined by communists disgusted at their fellows cheering on the Soviet's brutal oppression of other communists. Said tankies don't deserve the title of "communist", because at its core the ideals of communism are equity and human dignity. Called Marx "flawed and written for a world that existed 175 years ago".
They did not like that at all.
I mean, Marx never claimed to have all the answers. His whole schtick was that society was progressing to a new and fairer stage of human civilization and economic organization, not that he knew the smoothest way to get there.
I always think of Marx as a brilliant economist, because he identified a lot of real issues with capitalism as industrialization was in full swing.
He really sucked on the political side of things though. "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" will always result in an Animal Farm situation. Just human nature.
I think communists fell into the trap of thinking that because a dude is right about a lot of things it means he's right about everything. It's kinda like a cult in that way.
As Marx once said, "If one thing is certain, it is that I am not a Marxist."
That being said, 'Dictatorship of the Proletariat' is very widely misunderstood, in no small part due to Marxist-Leninists using it as cover for their vanguard bullshit.
Every time I read someone expressing this view, I feel like encouraging to read something from Graeber, for example "Debt". Not for the discussion on debt itself, but mostly for the different ways societies were organized over millennia.
Ok.
I encourage you to read Animal Farm, it's probably a lot less boring than this Graeber guy.
Orwell wrote a critique of modern society, soviet Stalinist society in particular, in animal farm. It's not an anthropology book, it's political satire that came from a socialist (!). I am not sure your induction that it applies to all humans under every circumstance was therefore intended by the author (lord of the flies might be a much better example in this case).
Graeber is actually far for boring, and as an anthropologist his writing tend to be a bit more general.
Either way, of course I've read Animal Farm.
Assuming someone hasn't read already Animal Farm is like assuming they haven't ever read a book.
Ideally. In reality marx was a couch potato who lived off his parents wealth. An armchair socialist like most tankies today.
Capital is crap.
But Communist Manifesto was the cliff's notes for the 20th century and the best psychological description of capitalism that I've read.
I think that at least some of it is a knee-jerk reaction to the narrative that is pushed. There is no analysis, no debate, at the moment NATO is sold like some kind of NGO, countries that until yesterday were bombing others with zero concerns today are standing in (justified) horrors for the Russian war crimes, like if we discovered war in 2022. For some, this narrative is simply unacceptable, even if it ends up in the right place (i.e., supporting Ukraine in defending itself from an imperialist nation). The problem comes with the NAFO-fellows and the likes, where immediately as soon as you say anything to bring up these very contradictions, you are a genocide denier/enabler/supporter.
I am sure that for others is a matter of countering the US, or the mainstream media or whatever, though.