• crime [she/her, any]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I guess the subjective metric "best" here means "what makes American leftists feel comfy cozy" rather than "most successful"

    • activated [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      If your goal is to bring down the actual imperial core, you would do well to look at what movements came closest to doing so. To bring up Debord again, he opposed strictly third-worldist revolution ("the revolutionary project must be realized in the industrially advanced countries") and was wise to do so imo. Some of the greatest AES projects have either been crushed (Sankara, Allende) or had to spend all of their energy on the defense rather than spreading their project (Cuba). No true progress can be made until the imperial machines are dismantled.

      • crime [she/her, any]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Okay, but saying "lmao you dipshits have to topple amerikkka obviously" and not making any progress towards doing that doesn't make him any kind of revolutionary, much less a better one than Sankara, Allende, etc.

        • activated [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          not making any progress towards doing

          France's government collapsed and it was only through maneuvering in partnership with both the right wing and the communist party of France (who opposed the student revolution) that France was able to avoid a full realization of a true revolutionary project.

          • GreenTeaRedFlag [any]
            ·
            3 years ago

            wowie, he almost achieved something but didn't! That's so much cooler than Mao achieving the most comprehensive land reform in history, smashing all opposition, and setting up a state that America can't invade.

            • activated [he/him]
              ·
              3 years ago

              ...and then just repeated bourgeois vicissitudes of every other country.

              • GreenTeaRedFlag [any]
                ·
                3 years ago

                You know, I've run into an ideological issue that I don't think anyone else on this site is willing to address. It's important and they just don't want to talk about it. Really, it's key to our work as effective socialists rather than just China shills. I think you're the right person to ask.

                What wine pairs best with state department lies?

                • activated [he/him]
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  3 years ago

                  Beaujolais, especially Cru Beaujolais will pair with just about anything in a pinch.

                  edit: I have a bit more time to respond here, so I'll augment it with:

                  Orange wine is a go to for pairing with Chinese stuff (doubt that was the state dept you were referring to). Most of the best orange wine is eastern European, and I promise that the Sino-Soviet split didn't ruin this great gastronomical pair at least.

                  Champagne also goes with just about anything, especially fried stuff, so maybe it's best for American state lies. You don't need actual champagne, you can get cremant from Burgundy for $10-20 a bottle. Cremant from Alsace is my favorite. Skip prosecco, as it has a lower value at lower price points (there is good prosecco out there, but with the cheap stuff you might as well be drinking PBR). I'd also say skip cava, but some people like the more petrol forward notes (always smells like those rubber sticky hands to me). British sparkling is great mostly thanks to climate change, but it's way too pricey. South Australian, especially Tasmanian sparkling, is some of the best value you can get right now.

                  Hope this helped you with your ideological issue.

                  • LeninWeave [none/use name]
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    3 years ago

                    Orange wine is a go to for pairing with Chinese stuff (doubt that was the state dept you were referring to). Most of the best orange wine is eastern European, and I promise that the Sino-Soviet split didn’t ruin this great gastronomical pair at least.

                    oh my god he's both-sidesing the :cia: :agony-limitless:

                    At least the joke itself is decently funny. :shrug-outta-hecks:

                    • activated [he/him]
                      ·
                      3 years ago

                      Well I did say that I wasn't assuming that an accusation against China was being made.

                  • GreenTeaRedFlag [any]
                    ·
                    3 years ago

                    forgot about my earlier comment and thought you were calling me a boring white person.

            • activated [he/him]
              ·
              3 years ago

              Wait until you find out that no existing society is communist.

              • LeninWeave [none/use name]
                ·
                3 years ago

                lol yeah, France after situationists, China after CPC, USSR after Bolsheviks. The French are definitely the ones that accomplished the most.

                • activated [he/him]
                  ·
                  3 years ago

                  From the perspective of carrying out Marx's dialectical movement towards a classless society? its_the_same_picture.jpg

              • crime [she/her, any]
                ·
                3 years ago

                And apparently none of AES is good enough to meet the standards of hex bear dot net user u/activated to qualify as socialist either, and we all know that's the necessary bar for socialist projects to clear.

                • LeninWeave [none/use name]
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  3 years ago

                  I'm not even really a third-worldist, but sometimes I wish this website made it mandatory to be one.

                • activated [he/him]
                  ·
                  3 years ago

                  I mean, I'm typing this from my neighborhood in which I and and everyone I know are priced out of ever affording a home because Chinese investors own a majority of the real estate. So yeah, AES is 0/3 in terms of the words that make it up.

                  Xi has all of my support in purging those piggies but until then it ain't actually existing.

                  • crime [she/her, any]
                    ·
                    3 years ago

                    As we all know, the second you press the communism button all capitalists cease to exist and stop doing porky activities instantaneously.

                    • activated [he/him]
                      ·
                      3 years ago

                      Given the original revolution + a cultural revolution booster shot + nearly century, "the second" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.

                      • crime [she/her, any]
                        ·
                        3 years ago

                        Im recovering from surgery and don't have the energy to argue with liberals about dengism today so im checking out of this thread

                      • Nagarjuna [he/him]
                        ·
                        3 years ago

                        You've got to take baby steps if you want to move people left. I try to argue for communization of the mop ala Venezuela, prison abolition, deliberate attempts to limit violence, the importance of dreaming grand dreams, of acting for today, for prefiguration. If they want to hold on to China as something to believe in, let them.

                        • activated [he/him]
                          ·
                          3 years ago

                          Yeah I have no real issue with China in general. I originally commented in here to make the point that it's 100% legitimate to be a genuine Marxist scholar who takes serious issue with major AES examples, and frankly, most of them in the 20th century did.

                          There's a tendency in newish (meaning within the past decade or so, basically after the left went dormant) to rally behind mythical figures and narratives, whether it be Marx himself, or countries like China. They cling to them as the position from which they fight their battles to the right.

                          But the 20th century WAS rich with people who viewed Marx's political project not as Foundation style psychohistory, but as another step in a political and philosophical tradition, and one which we need to mold to our conditions. Part of that meant, for them, accepting the truth when revolutions did not produce the kind of society they wished for. This was a REALLY hard step for Sartre in particular, and it cost him his friendship with Camus.