For instance, I have an aunt who is definitely MAGA, and is flirting with Q-Anon ideas. However, she has pretty good views on the environment and animal rights. For instance, after travelling to Ecuador, she donates to some Ecuadorian land trust run by locals. However, if you start talking to her about the border or gender, she goes full Orbán.
I've got family members who think consumers drive demand and don't believe that capital both restricts and drives consumer "choice"
This is very common sadly, especially from people who have been fed modern econ theory that tries to convince you that the market is some autonomous mechanism that we can all control to the same degree and that it's not controllable by the bourgeois class according to their interests.
marketing.
the naïve view is of course that the best product will "win" in a market, but you don't need to be good to sell. you just have to sell to sell. Who has money to pay for advertising? who determines what products are on the market and how long the warranty lasts?
Yeah, definitely my mother. She calls herself a "pagan socialist" but she's also into Trump. She's a virulent racist who mainly hates Latino people and the Spanish language. She's really bad. She'll scream at people to speak English if she hears any Spanish in her vicinity. She'll confront people minding their own business and will tell them to go back to Mexico, even if they're not Mexican. She's told a person from Pakistan to go back to Mexico.
She believes in a complex, bizarre religion that's a combination of Norse and Irish mythology she claims was eliminated by Christianity, which she says is the most destructive force on Earth. Most of her understanding of Norse mythology comes from the History Channel show "Vikings." Her understanding of Irish mythology seems to be more influenced by Game of Thrones than anything else. She doesn't read books, since she considers them "the words of another" and believes reading can only serve to pollute her pure mind.
She's a vocal Irish nationalist despite being American, but get this, she believes the British monarchy is the greatest force for good in the world. She wants a reunited Ireland, but under the UK because she says Britain rightfully owns Ireland. She's an American born in Chicago, by the way, and our family is descendant from Poland as far as I know.
My mother is strangely positive and understanding on LGBTQ rights. She's one of the only members of my family to support me being non-binary, for instance. And she's very positive about it and has a very firm grasp on gender and identity. I have no idea how though or where she learned any of it.
Also despite calling herself a socialist (she actually does know somewhat what a socialist is) she's deeply into Elon Musk and thinks he should be president after Trump dies. I really don't know what to call my mother other than a reactionary idiot.
She doesn't read books, since she considers them "the words of another" and believes reading can only serve to pollute her pure mind.
Your mom is bugfuck nuts. That sounds really entertaining in a profoundly stressful way.
Ron Paul Libertarian Aunt who works at national parks so she can be closer to the leylines.
she doesn’t watch television. It’s extremely odd because for a libertarian she makes extensive use of the library system and supports NPR.
Not very politically coherent, but I guess that’s par for the course given her penchant for casting spells in her free time.
My uncle still hates Deng for ruining communism and regrets the sino-Albanian split.
He also dislikes the PC police for erasing the fact that Mao smoked cigarettes and complains that portrayals of Mao these days doesn't include him with cigarette in hand anymore.
He's certain Maoists could have led another protracted People's war against Dengists and believes Shanghai and Shenzhen and that are capitalist hellscapes. Xi has been the only secretary of the CPC he has liked in decades. And even then it's critical support.
Spring Festival every fucking year he has a hot take about X host or comedian or actor in the Gala looks gay. He also chain smokes indoors while drinking 二锅头 and it makes the room smell like rubbing alcohol poured into an ashtray.
I mean at least his brain worms are mostly better than western brainworms (obviously aside from the homophobia and some racism towards south Asians), it's just that he's more critical of AES nowadays in a boomer way than he is critical of western imperialism (which he definitely is against, but when he complains it's about like how North Korea has strayed from Leninism or how breakfast 馒头 costs too much these days 80% of the time and America bad 20%). He's also critical of China's reluctance to intervene in global politics, if it were up to him, the People's Liberation Army should have been deployed to defend the revolution in Burkina Faso or Argentina like how Mao sent troops to defend the DPRK against the 美国鬼子. I keep saying "hey look maybe not getting involved in foreign conflicts like the late USSR is a good thing" but he still thinks the Soviets, for all their faults, could have won Afghanistan if they tried harder.
Also he forgets to vote for the People's Congress then complains how liberal the local People's Congress are. Like uncle Chen, you actively forget or are too hung over to vote in municipal elections, that's part of the reason Maoists aren't getting elected as much as centrists. You refuse to buy groceries made by private companies if there is a state owned alternative every time you go shopping but you won't even vote? You're a fucking CPC member, it's like registering to vote then choosing not to.
I would love more Uncle Chen stories.
I feel the way towards him as I do towards a lot of leftcoms: I don’t agree but I respect where they’re coming from. I don’t disagree with the principles but rather just the pragmatism (like you said, dude probably would have started WW3 if he was in charge).
He would bathe twice a week until like 2005 because he thought domestic hot water was decadent and should sparsely be used. For most of his life, communal bathhouses were the norm in our part of China, so he'd go there every other day and just use cold water and soap if he couldn't be bothered. I have vague memories of some of the last ones in Wuhan being phased out in the late 90's so there was a few years there where my aunt would have to put up with terrible odour from the chain-smoking alcoholic, esp since how humid Wuhan is in the summer. Also it turns out lye soaps aren't too good for the skin after prolonged use, he had dry ass skin until my cousin swapped him over to some softer soaps.
His hardline anti Coca-Cola stance (that the version sold in China has been altered and is an American ploy to sterilize the Chinese people to maintain hegemony, the version Americans drink and appear in film is to lure us into thinking it's safe) is actually so absurd it's kinda funny. Like none of the scientists and doctors in China has noticed this massive conspiracy, it's just his gut feeling. He's let go of that theory in recent years but still maintains it's bad for you (which is true, but for a chain smoker who drinks 65% ABV grain alcohol, is kind of a moot point).
He does have a soft spot for Pizza Hut. I don't know why, but he likes 洋饼子 (literally "foreign pancakes"). He has that in common with Gorbachev but he didn't like it when I pointed it out.
I guess people of a certain age turn into conspiracy nuts or become a crank to internally justify why things are different and scary in [current year], but a fundamental understanding of the immortal science of Marxist-Leninism inoculates you against the worse, liberal strains of brainworms. He's out here rocking moderate cowpox while American boomers have full blown smallpox.
You're trying to turn me on your uncle, but he just sounds so fun.
idk, your uncle sounds like he has contradictory beliefs for sure... but other than the standard boomer shit that sucks, like homophobia and racism, he sounds way cooler than like 90% of the people I know in the imperial core.
the coca-cola conspiracy shit is awesome. its like a communist version of fluoride conspiracy theories in the US that cause dental carries, except the end result is dissuading people from drinking shit that is actually horrendously bad for their health anyway. Your uncle is fighting type two diabetes and an American symbol of consumerism all at once. o7 o7
but he still thinks the Soviets, for all their faults, could have won Afghanistan if they tried harder.
This is also the position of the book Socialism Betrayed, which is about the collapse of the USSR. Their main arguments are that analysts predicted that the Soviets would win soon and are not in a stalemate, but Gorbachev abandoned Afghanistan in order to get better relations with the West, without getting something in return. I don't know about the first part or the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan in general, but the second one is a massive goof so it wouldn't surprise me if the USSR could win after all.
I think that if Russia had never stopped supporting the DRA and if Dostum hadn't been a traitor, they would have ended up entering into a peace process with most of the Mujahideen and then we would never have had a Taliban takeover. If you look at the Battle of Jalalabad, the Afghan army really seemed capable of continuing to fight and defending the major cities from the Mujahideen. I think India could have supported the DRA better, since they had the same enemy, Pakistan.
I can fix him, he sounds pretty cool ngl, just a little bit too ultra and gotta bully the social tailism out of him.
He probably would have sparked WW3 by immediately launching a full scale invasion of Taiwan immediately after Korea and giving the Naxalites in India an atomic bomb. Potentially would have sent troops to Peru to support Shining Path (I actually don't know his position on Peruvian revolutionaries, but as far as I know, he isn't too versed on Gonzalo thought).
He likely has concerning thoughts on Pol Pot and Vietnam which I am afraid to know.
I actually don't know his thoughts on Cambodia, I'll see if it comes up next time I go back to China
People's Liberation Army should have been deployed to defend the revolution in Burkina Faso or Argentina
While I would like to see the timeline where China deploys 1,000,000 personnel to avenge Sankara, I don't think it's pragmatic in ours.
Honestly remove the regressiveness on race and sexuality and this very well could be me in 25 years
I mean the interventionist takes are kinda insane, you can't just give a nuke to the Maoist guerrillas in India and not have international repercussions that may or may not lead to WW3.
Also China not rapidly building up market forces in the late 20th century and early 21st to become too powerful to be checked by the west is in retrospect a good thing, as it has allowed us to lift millions out of poverty. Especially post USSR, our economic entanglement with the west stopped them from trying any drastic colour revolutions else their own shareholders lose value from their investments in the emerging Chinese markets. I can see China chugging along without Dengism, like Cuba has up until now, but I also see the massive improvements to rail, healthcare, spaceflight, computing and defense that may not have been possible without market reforms.
Ultimately, my uncle is a man of many contrasts.
Compared to my much more liberal cousin (which in China isn't THAT liberal, she just has a small business importing western products for 富二代 in China), he's pretty good, it's just kind of off beat considering he gets dragged into ridiculous conspiracy theories, is homophobic and has some "well back in my day" moments like your usual chud western uncle, and then in a separate breath would drop incredible insight like "If America stops funding the Hong Kong riots, it'd die out within a week" (in like July 2019, he called it) or "Argentina's problem is they tried to play nice with liberals instead of having a Vanguard party" re: Pinochet. His takes are either incredibly correct, incredibly interventionist, or incredibly not even close to based in reality.
I say this as someone who is becoming progressively more Maoist in my thinking, that is seems very on point for Maoism. Getting a bit caught up in what is or is not reactionary thought or capitalist influence to the point of getting lost in the weeds. You either end up like that, or like the CPP (Philippines) super LGBTQ inclusive
That's not what imperialism is. And the "communists" already think of the USSR as an imperialist betrayal of the working class anyway.
The USSR may have survived for longer if it were more agressive, but it would be remembered for its imperialism and fairly regarded as a betrayal of what it stood for, not just by western propaganda but by communists too.
I'm sorry but this is absolute nonsense to me. Even today you have people already purposedly misusing the interpretation of Imperialism to claim Russia and even China are imperialist countries.
By this same logic nobody would ever claim China is imperialist and guess what? There is a non-negligable amount of "weak"(in terms of theory understanding) Marxists at best and just straight up western "socialists" at worst claiming this.
And in their mind it makes no difference whether its China, Russia or even Iran. Heck I've seen some even claim Brazil. Claiming the USSR shouldn't have done something because of modern reputation only makes sense if you ignore the actual reality of today, and that reality? Imperialism is already reaching woke status among libs, it lost its meaning and it just represents "when countries go to war or act on their self-interest".
Pretty sure my uncle is a Nazbol. Used to be very active in the largest leftist party and then left over "wokeism." He wanted to purge the trans members and not focus as much on indigenous issues. The end result was him getting booted and moving to the far-right.
Now he advocates for universal healthcare, free public college, paid family leave, environmental protections, erasure of lgbt, indigenous that have been "westernized" losing their rights and status, as well as women not being allowed to divorce.
Now he advocates for universal healthcare, free public college, paid family leave, environmental protections, erasure of lgbt, indigenous that have been "westernized" losing their rights and status, as well as women not being allowed to divorce.
Sounds like he likes all the social programs that will benefit him, but not the ones that won’t.
Pretty much. It's resonated with enough like-minded right-wingers to give him a seat in congress.
lmfao no but "Uncle Bernie" is actually the nickname that our President-elect has
indigenous that have been "westernized" losing their rights and status
wait what?
like if an indigenous person is deemed too "western" they will lose their status as indigenous?
It means they've fully converted to Christianity. In his mind it means that they've fully submitted to Western culture and therefore should no longer be considered indigenous. The idea is to integrate them through religion but it's obviously a loose excuse to allow pencil genocide.
They probably mean losing their identity and forgetting their cultural roots
Absolutely.
One that believes all kinds of alien and AI conspiracies. The alien ones are fun, the AI ones make me want to tear my hair out because they "know for certain" that AI is totally sentient and will take over the world. They're genuinely worried about this and it makes me feel bad. They're kinda doomer and nihilistic and it worries me. Wish I could cheer them up about the future.
The other is an alt-right wanker that believes in anti-woke shit.
Both listen to the Joe Rogan and Russel Brand podcast...
Both listen to the Joe Rogan and Russel Brand podcast..
No suprise there
Both listen to the Joe Rogan and Russel Brand podcast…
Well there's your problem!
I was talking to my Dad’s wife about the way capitalism controls us, including be media we consume, how all politicians are in the pocket of the capitalist overlords, and she was all in agreement, and yet she is a staunch Trump supporter. But she’s no stranger to hypocrisy, she also thinks that we should cut social spending while living off disability. It’s a real “rules for thee and not me” dichotomy. I do think she’d be a great ally in the revolution in a general sense tho.
Talking to some Trump supporters, I really think a good number believe that the things about him being racist and misogynist and such is just liberal media propaganda, and they don't actually care much about many political topics but just know there is something wrong with the system. With slightly different conditions or experiences I could see a lot of them being comrades. There are definitely a number of dedicated white nationalist Trump supporters though.
I think you've got it. I don't think many conservatives actually care enough to be coherent. They know something's wrong, but all they've ever known is whiteness, apple pie, patriotism, that whole slurry of stuff. The last time they thought about civics was elementary school where they got the racist hagiography of George Washington. So that's where they start as their framework.
Especially with older relatives, they also have years and years of capitalist propaganda, furthering division and blurring the lines between “good guys” and “bad guys”.
I agree with this. However, I do believe a lot of them are racist in the way that the system guides them to be. I grew up right by a major hub of black poverty, where there was a lot of violence, drugs, theft, etc., and that is what was reported to us on the nightly news. This idea that black people are inherently bad and dangerous is what people grew up with and, for people like her who never get out of their little bubble and meet people different from her, that is the image they are stuck with. The same has happened with hispanic people recently, but she had met enough of them to see that they are “not all bad” (her words).
There’s this subset of mildly racist middle class white people who just don’t care enough to know better.
it's insane that the strategy of both of the major parties in the US is to obscure their agenda and provide just enough of a narrative framework to allow the average insane USian to project whatever platform they want onto them.
My dad once told me that Ghadaffi was masterminding the Muslim conspiracy to do great replacement in Europe by outbreeding white people. He is also really scared about China. When the Al-Aqsa Flood happened and zionist atrocities exploded, he justified the carpet bombing of Gaza by claiming that Hamas rockets "could just as well have killed as many people".
He is angry at reactionary politicians for doing austerity and being corrupt but he won't vote for anyone on the left because they're woke. Last election he voted for the succdems, hoping to get racism and non-woke welfare and then was shocked and disappointed when they did what they had spent the entire campaign saying they wanted to and formed a government with other reactionary parties to do racism and austerity instead.
My older brothers are zen fascists in denial. Both are well off Xennials whose struggle with white fragility which inspires the most kneejerk reactionary takes. They literally just argue however they need to in the moment and have zero coherent views. They are terrible at sources, they will cherry pick whatever article agrees with them especially if it's a 'local' news outlet. There takes are so clearly self centered that I often just argue that really most Americans are selfish assholes just like them. Therefore they shouldn't be surprised they're unhappy because that's the logical outcome of the bucket crab mentality.
Anticommunist woo woo crystals lover that also desperately wants everything socialism stands for.
Parents and one sibling believes that American healthcare is trash because it prioritizes profit over health, American culture is trash because they overwork you to death and everything is far away, Americans are trash because all they do is kill, but they are staunch Trump supporters because they don’t want democrats ushering in communism.
My other sibling believes that American healthcare is trash, but only because it has too many regulations.
This sounds like communism=neoliberalism brainworms you see often in conservatives. Maybe they need to know that leftists hate Dems too.
Not family really, they're mostly just lib or con (though I guess one guy is like a "moderate" lib but clearly understands the world and capital better than the others, but chooses to be a class traitor and make $$$ rather than being left-wing much at all) but I have run into a lot of, shall we say, idiosyncratic views at the local worker co-op coffee shop.... you'd expect decent politics from people there, some of whom founded the worker co-op, but its really all over the place there:
1 with major terf-brain, one with almost-great politics but a closet misogynist, 1 regular who seems like a bernie type guy on the surface, but over time I've heard him multiple times discussing the republican primary candidates and seems to really like Vivek lmao, etc
I can't believe that Vehk decided to run for office in America after ditching Morrowwind.
but good actually
