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Prepare for the 14year Olds on hexbear to come in and pretend that China has a great government
Yeah, the Chinese government is totally very democratic and is receptive to the criticism of its citizens! They never censor words and topics they don’t like on their social media platforms!
You know, that actually makes sense. 14-year-olds. It would explain a lot about hexbears.
Very interesting how all those “pretend socialists” only exist in the third world, and all the “real socialists” existin the west. Yet all the successful revolutions have been done in the third world by “pretend socialists”, and the so called “real socialists” in the west have accomplished nothing. Their biggest success of the “real socialists” in the west being capitalist welfare states or social democracies that rely on old school imperial relationships to fund their welfare in a select few areas.
No Eurocentrism present to this line of thought here at all…
What do you think of Nelson Mandela OP? He was a very good leader, right? You know that he considered Cuba an ally and supported their revolution as Cuba sent troops to fight against the apartheid government in the border wars, took inspiration from Mao and called the Chinese revolution a miracle, thanked the Soviets for giving unending support in the fight against apartheid while receiving the a Lenin Peace Prize? So is Nelson Mandela now a fascist according to your meme?
“Authoritarian” is completely drtetmined by
Westerners deciding who’s doing real socialism or not. Westerners expressing their most vile sentiment for foreign countries rather than their own imperialism. Westerners praising the words of their own imperialist intelligence agencies. Westerners unironically praising their own nations for civil liberties like the freedom of fascists to assemble, freedom of racists to express themselves, freedom of parents to own their children, and freedom of school districts to continue racial segregation. Westerners praising imperialist nations like Norway as socialist while using bold language like fascism to describe places under that same exact threat of imperialism, like Cuba and Vietnam.
Westerners claiming foreign governments are merely pretending to be socialist, while claiming unorganized misinformed chauvinistic westerners are the true heirs to socialism, despite all they do is post online and complain about foreign nations.
Westerners praising anarchist movements from 100 years ago despite having no common cause with those movements, no connection to the circumstances within them, and probably no actual admiration of them. Westerners praising a bastardized, sectarian, perverse form of anarchism rather than attempting unity with organizations in their areas. Westerners refusing to speak with actual anarchists in their area, who by and large don’t give a shit and just want to hand out food or help at shelters. If Buenaventura Durruti were alive today he’d be regarded with scorn by western chauvinists.
Westerners continuing to bring up Trotsky of all people, who wasn’t relevant to world affairs for the last 15 years of his life and certainly not the past 80 years. Westerners not reading a single word of Trotsky’s work, westerners focusing entirely on Trotsky’s feud with Stalin, westerners not knowing that Trotsky was a literal military commander. Westerners calling themselves Trotskyists in 2023 for some reason. Westerners deciding they have a feud with Joseph Stalin, a man who died in 1953.
Westerners attempting to praise their own socialist leadership, who happen to be a scattered group of imperialist-aligned social democrats, Twitch streamers, and actual antisemitic grifters such as in the case of Caleb Maupin.
Its hard to challenge your opinions when you gish gallup 500 talking points
You gish galloped, you ad homin-ed, you no true scotsman-ed, you one true scotsman-ed, and then you mot and bailey-ed.
Checkmate sir
Its ok to say you dont know what any of those mean. You dont have to make an ass out of yourself in the process
I believe you just engaged in a masked man fallacy taken to the ad absurdum.
Checkmate
I believe you just engaged in ligma balls fallacy with a terminally online spin.
Checkmate
Hey, that one was decent actually! Good job!
“I know why the Hexbear ppbs”
Someone learned something here!
What happened to PPB? I haven’t seen it in a while despite a ton of PPB worthy posts
500 talking points and you couldn’t find a single thing to call into question
Warning: this is a hexbear user
Warning: 🚨 ⚠️ Hexbearian detected! Everyone, into the posting bunkers!
I agree. Fascist countries like Denmark, Germany and Canada often get called “socialist” and they have been disastrous for the reputation of socialism.
Of course /s. Germany, with Fuhrer Schultz, Denmark with Grand Admiral Frederiksen (I had to look it up lmao), and Canada with Supreme Commander Trudeau. All of them are actively involved in passing legislation against socialists and Muslims. All of them are involved in gathering Muslims into re-education camps. When socialists protested their respective governments for starting to become capitalist, they were run over by tanks. Also, all of these governments prevent their citizens from accessing the internet outside their own countries. Agreed! Very fascist indeed!
Also, all of these governments prevent their citizens from accessing the internet outside their own countries
if this comment is anything to go by that’s just a massive W for them
Cuba is a beacon of progress and humanity in the Americas. Fidel Castro was a hero. Also a pro at dodging the CIA’s kill squads.
Cuba did some good things - in education, in medicine - but if it’s such a wonderful country, why is everything there a decaying flashback to the 1950s where everything is falling apart?
Lmao, that’s a testament to communist Cuba’s success. No other form of government could withstand a US embargo for a year and not collapse. Cuba has withstood for DECADES and has surpassed the US in life expectancy. The buildings are kinda shabby, but homelessness, infant mortality, illiteracy are all LOWER than the US, the richest country in the history of the world.
Because the US has been embargoing it for 50 years to prevent it from getting everything it needs.
The UN regularly votes on the US embargo of Cuba, and only the US and its lapdog Israel support it.
Nothing more ‘socialist’ than supporting the current world order but with some welfare
When you give everyone in your nation a house, food, and healthcare while protecting yourself from the West that’s actually fascism.
You have a lifetime of anti communist propaganda to overcome. You’re close, take the last step and realize you’ve been lied to about AES countries. No place is a utopia, but those countries are lights in the dark.
oh no the tankies be tanking
OP determining whether to believe the US about socialist movements
Also look up double genocide theory and stop trivializing the holocaust by calling communists fascists.
OP is not calling communists fascists. OP is calling the dictators pretending to be communist, fascists!
The initial meme included basically all communist countries, they mean communists.
Also which communist countries had dictators again?
The initial meme included basically all communist countries
This meme is against the initial meme.
Also which communist countries had dictators again?
China, North Korea
This meme is against the initial meme.
The initial meme made fun of being against those countries as a socialist. This meme is against that idea. Ergo…
China, North Korea
When?
When?
Always has been. Government taking control of every action of citizens is dictatorship. Theese people have total power of the country
…Ergo…
What??
Always has been. Government taking control of every action of citizens is dictatorship. Theese people have total power of the country
The DPRK and China both don’t have parties that are in any way capable of controlling every action of their citizenry. They both have massive grassroots democratic institutions. Hell, look up whole process peoples democracy and the taean work system.
what
The initial meme made fun of being against those countries as a socialist. This meme is against that idea. Ergo… the meme is against all those socialist countries.
no way you’re trying to pretend like dprk is a free country…
go ask some refugees what it’s like
Sorry, who were the communists during the holocaust?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_…
First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists And I did not speak out Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews And I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me And there was no one left To speak out for me
Do you mean the german ones thrown in the camps or the soviet leadership who were the last of the eventual allied powers to do any sort of appeasement with Hitler (after exhausting all attempts to form an alliance with Britain and France) because communism is less aligned with fascist goals than liberalism is aligned with fascist goals, massive underexageration mine? Do you mean the communist low level officials who helped in a massive ethnic relocation program to move vulnerable minorities out of the way of the eventual german invasion? Or do you mean the population of the only communist nation which lost 26 million people, around 1/6th of their population, stopping the holocaust?
Or were you referring to the joke about racism? If so, you gotta look up how the population of the USSR was not considered white at the time. Emma Goldman for example basically called Stalin a slanty eyed conniving Asian, for example. Nowadays slavs are still called orcs and shit by westerners.
The pure (libertarian) socialists’ ideological anticipations remain untainted by existing practice. They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be avoided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priorities set, and production and distribution conducted. Instead, they offer vague statements about how the workers themselves will directly own and control the means of production and will arrive at their own solutions through creative struggle. No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except the ones that succeed.
Look, I agree that it’s dumb to call yourself a socialist and have zero respect for most attempts at socialism, especially when your critique doesn’t come from anything serious but just parroting of cold war propaganda. I agree that these countries weren’t literally the devil, nor fascist, not “pretending”, that’s all fine.
But it’s still so dishonest of MLs to dig for quotes and smugly boastbout how “libertarians never succeed”. Even if we completely ignore all the very explicit and deliberate attempts at sabotage anarchists had to endure from their statist “comrades” (which we shouldn’t but we always casually seem to be forced to do in the name of “unity”), it doesn’t change the fact that vanguardist revolutions have all been incredibly flawed too.
You all are very often willing to recognize your failures, most of the people like you I have talked to seem to agree that at some point the revolution was “hijacked”, usurped, corrupted, lost aim, usually coinciding with a figure they don’t like taking over the revolutionary government and messing things up.
The supposed “strong state that crushes all opposition” being taken over by the reformist opposition and then the capitalist one in the case of the USSR and Leninists. The market reforms of Deng in the case of China and Maoists. But you all never seem to ask yourselves the question “Why was that allowed to happen?”. Why am I supposed to put my trust in some authoritarian bullshit solution specifically justified as a means to protect the revolution when it failed at doing so? Why do you have to be so smug and condescending at me for not trusting in things that didn’t work?
Why do you instead of learning from the mistakes in your methods that most of the time you yourself recognize and trying to come up with new ideas and systems for the current age, insist on still clinging to material analysis of the world of a hundred years ago as the gospel, the sole undying and absolute truth on how to Make Socialism, merely saying “it’ll totally work right this time” instead? Why do you insist on mocking and “”“dunking”“” on anyone who refuses to do that?
They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be avoided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priorities set, and production and distribution conducted.
This is all completely false. It genuinely is just lies. You can disagree with the explanations, but to claim there literally aren’t any is just ignorance and a complete lack of good faith. Look, if you’re a socialist in the internet, you probably have dealt with confidently incorrect liberals whining about strawmen that you don’t believe, because they haven’t read anything about it - and it’s probably been incredibly frustrating. So why do you never think twice before doing the same thing with anarchists?
I’m always told to read Lenin and a ton of authoritarian essays and I always do in good faith, but it’s extremely rare for me to ever be afforded the same honour, and then all the conversations I have end up with people telling me shit like this and me having to explain anarchism 101 to them because they genuinely don’t actually know anything.
No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except the ones that succeed.
I am also always told to be charitable and nuanced about the failures and mistakes of vanguardist revolutions, but no one ever has the same honour with anarchist ones.
I am quoting Parenti. You’ll need to read Blackshirts & Reds to get an answer – that’s where the quote is from – or one of his other books.
Thanks for ignoring everything I said.
Sorry to disappoint. I don’t have hard opinions about anarchists vs MLs. I generally think Engels was more convincing on authority, but I’m not well read enough to have a formed opinion on it and haven’t read anything from the last decade or so. I especially don’t think the things that you’re asking here because I didn’t write the statement, Parenti did, and he did so for rhetorical effect against western leftists putting ideology over AES. I’m happy to receive some recs I can follow up on.
I am sorry for being agressive. I mostly assumed you thought the same things as the person you were quoting. I appreciate that you at least admit you aren’t well read enough, that’s more than most people I talk to.
I’m happy to receive some recs I can follow up on.
I really appreciate this too. Thank you. I think as a direct expanding on what I’m talking about, this essay is very good:
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anark-the-state-is-counter-revolutionary
It’s available on video form too, but the video doesn’t have citations.
Here’s a good rebuttal of On Authority:
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/london-anarchist-federation-the-problems-with-on-authority
A modern and a classical reading on how anarchists view authority and power:
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anark-power
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/mikhail-bakunin-what-is-authority
Cheers pal, I’ve favorited this post to come back too. I’ve read Bakunin before, but I haven’t read the rebuttal on On Authority or the other essays you linked. Looking forward to it! Appreciate the time you put into this
Thank you for being willing to engage sanely in the first place. <3
What’s your opinion on Cuba OP?
Cuba is an interesting one.
The problems with Cuba are political prisoners and their handling of AIDS. And a huge chunk of issues intertwined with the trade embargo.
As with all nations, it could be better, but it’s far from the worst nation in the world.
Better than the US that’s for sure.
Each year around a 100,000 Cubans are willing to risk their lives for a chance to live in the US.
The US is far from perfect, but people don’t get on rafts hoping to make it to Cuba.
“Rich country good, poor country bad!”
Very astute political analysis there
Notice how when confronted with facts the hexbear has no real argument but assumes being obnoxious is the same as making a coherent argument.
Cuban refugees carry a higher level of risk than other countries, and yet they still come. Ignoring facts doesn’t make a country better. You wouldn’t let a fact like that slide from the US. Hexbears lack intellectual honesty.
So once again, your argument is “rich country good, poor country bad”
No, it’s that saying one place is worse doesn’t make it so.
Human development index and quality of life studies put the US ahead of Cuba. Cuba isn’t a hellhole that many people make it out to be, but that doesn’t automatically make it better than the US.
Cuba has better healthcare and lower cost of living, but Americans aren’t on rafts to Cuba.
One of the problems with enacting good and lasting change in the western world is that life is pretty darn good on the whole. It could be a lot better, but just shouting that the US is bad is mindless propagada. Be better than that.
Fidel Castro is morally superior to every US president.
Counterpoint: Fidel is the reason Trudeau exists
Jimmy Carter?
Carter also jumpstarted neoliberalism rot monetization and the drive to privatize. Willingly laid the foundation for Reagan.
Supplied arms to support genocide in Indonesia, among other crimes. Him building homes now is just some light penance before he’s shipped off to hell. https://fair.org/media-beat-column/jimmy-carter-and-human-rights-behind-the-media-myth/
Set up all the groundwork for funding the Mujahideen terrorists in Afghanistan, the funding of the dictatorship and death squads in El Salvadore, setting up the groundwork for the fuckery Reagan did with Iran-Contra.
Based
You forgot “I wonder why fuel prices are sky rocketing even though we voted a president that promised to fight fossil fuels for climate bullshit”
Enjoy! I’ll be here laughing.
