It's actually two paragraphs.
Purging the Left of communists became a longstanding practice, having injurious effects on various progressive causes. For instance, in 1949 some twelve unions were ousted from the CIO because they had Reds in their leadership. The purge reduced CIO membership by some 1.7 million and seriously weakened its recruitment drives and political clout. In the late 10940s, to avoid being "smeared" as Reds, Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), a supposedly progressive group, became one of the most vocally anticommunist organizations.
The strategy did not work. ADA and others on the Left were still attacked for being communist or soft on communism by those on the Right. Then and now, many on the Left have failed to realize that those who fight for social change on behalf of the less-privilege elements of society will be Red-baited by conservative elites whether they are communists or not. For ruling interests, it makes little difference whether their wealth and power is challenged by "communist subversives" or "loyal American liberals." All are lumped together as more or less equally abhorrent.
umm no sweaty there's no way he'll beat democrat candidate richard spencer
The
foolsDemocrats will never learn, for it is in their interests not to.quote me on that
An important thought here is in understanding what many communists always called engaging in "struggle".
When Lenin says that communists should engage in "struggle" against x thing he is explicitly stating that communists should oppose that thing to the highest degree possible, and that means doing so to the most extreme of degrees.
The right understands this and it engages in "struggle" effectively. It is engaged in struggle against the left, the whole left, anything that is left of itself. It will do so to the most extreme of degree, if something benefits them, they will do it, as it is helping in their struggle.
Liberals do not engage in struggle. They make the error in assuming the right act in good faith, that they will not use any and everything they can to their advantage, that they will not call the liberals communists when they clearly are not. They ignorantly refuse to engage in rightwards struggle.
Ironically, they WILL engage in leftwards struggle. They know which side their bread is buttered on.
The left must engage in struggle. And here is a critical part -- the left must engage in struggle against EVERYTHING to its right, libs and socdems included (but I repeat myself).
But what if these institutions are all actually anti-communist to begin with...
Red baiting leftists contributed their share to the climate of hostility that has given U.S. leaders such a free hand in waging hot and cold wars against communist countries and which even today makes a progressive or even liberal agenda difficult to promote.
Spot on.
As for getting fellow leftists on board with not slandering socialist countries, I usually say they will be worse off in US influence, and domestically, you'll get called a Red no matter what, leadership wise, that's its own issue.
i've hesitated to post a screenshot of just the title of my post and the very first line on r/neoliberal, with the caption "commies lie as they breathe" to see their reaction but I didn't feel like making yet another reddit account lol
Red and Black. Dem and Repub. Fortnite and Pubg.
Have fun fighting class-blind identity politics. Politics is engaged in by HUMANS. Humans have names. Use the names of donors or you're not talking about politics. And put the name of the villain in the headline or it doesn't matter. John Malone stole america.
Politicians are pop culture. Donors are politics.
liberalism is just center-right economics and you've confused their marketing campaigns for their product. liberal politicians are just people adapting the language of leftists to disguise a center-right economic policies on behalf of the private equity companies that finance their campaigns. words are fun. good luck.
Imagine not having a systematic analysis or a materialist understanding of economics or politics, and still saying you aren't a liberal.
You think materialism means something other than "how it actually effects people". you're an academic. which is a just broke-ass liberal. You want theory to be real so you can ignore the actual humans. you wasted your parents money on a degree you can't use and you're mad on a forum about it instead of being made at it.
