They act like the ideology is static and everyone agrees with each other and how things were in the past.
They act as if liberals and conservatives weren't lynching minorities a few decades ago, then spend millions of dollars trying to court them to their side today. They act as if they weren't sterilizing you for being disabled or gay for centuries, then spend millions encouraging corporations to throw parades for them. American liberals act as if their best selling broadway show isn't about pro-American POC playing as historical figures who would've put a chain around all of their necks and sent to the fields.
I don't mention these things to defend socialist countries that had the same or similar policies towards minorities. But it's fucking annoying to see that the sentiment that only capitalists are allowed to evolve and change their stances on things. "Stop crying about slavery, that was hundreds of years ago. But every sin under communism must be scrutinized because everyone today still supports the same exact beliefs a hundred years ago."
because it's an easy own and neither liberals nor fash understand politics or ideologies in the slightest so they have no real comprehension of communism beyond gulag, charge they phone, mass death and lie.
I once had a lib tell me that slavery never happened under capitalism because "capitalism is based on free association, so if there's slavery, then by definition it isn't capitalism." I asked him, if that wasn't capitalism, what was. He pointed to places like western Europe and the Nordic countries. I told him that those places still use African slave labor for things like rare earth metals and chocolate, and explained how the western economic bloc uses coups, regime changes, and war to keep the Global South poor and exploited. He told me "No, you need to study economics. Capitalism doesn't benefit from keeping anyone poor."
I'm amazed that anyone ever becomes communist, because trying to get a lib to understand any of this shit is like talking to a fucking wall.
“No, you need to study economics. Capitalism doesn’t benefit from keeping anyone poor.”
:lenin-rage:
“No, you need to study economics. Capitalism doesn’t benefit from keeping anyone poor.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGyu6uNFtxw
Because rising production costs and lower return on investment are things capitalists love, of course.
“No, you need to study economics. Capitalism doesn’t benefit from keeping anyone poor.”
What is the reserve army of labor, or to use capitalist words, why is 95% employment "full employment?" Why are we currently trying to "cool the labor market?"
No, you need to study economics
What is it with liberals and acting like they arrived at their political positions by actively studying economics / history, instead of just marinating in society's anti-communism sauce. Worst part is how condescending they are about it, like "ever heard of gulags? maybe look that up, kiddo :maybe-later-honey:"
None of these people are going to read anything. Hell, if you look at the stats of Amerikkkans who read anything past their school years it's horrible. Being a Marxist requires some level of reading/learning that's just not compatible with folks lives and the only other way they're going to learn about the history of communism is through their highschool history teacher telling them bullshit about how Stalin loved Hitler and famously "said" "no man no problem"
It would be nice if we learned anything about the command economies of AES countries, much less about anything Stalin had written (especially the stuff from his private book collection) but that's never going to happen
This ties back to a general bourgeois trend in comparing capitalism and communism.
For them, everything communism does wrong is the fault of the communists. After all, communism has taken control of everything.
Conversely, for them, everything bad that happens in a capitalist state isn't the state's fault. It's just natural. At worst, a tragic accident.
:parenti:
Even worse, it is the states fault - if government does things it's communism. If something good happens it's because of free markets and capitalists.
The proximal reason is because their approach to communism is thought-terminating clichés. It's not coming from a place of understanding or curiosity, it's just regurgitated propaganda that villifies every communist leader and state as a bloodthirsty authoritarian that rules by subjugation and forced uniformity. They tell and retell that story.
The real reason has to do with why they want a thought-terminating cliché. Usually it's just because they're losing an argument. Sometimes it's because anticommunism is useful for left-punching in general, just like villifying the word "socialism". The fundamental goal is to make communism socially unacceptable and police each others' behaviors towards it, which is a legacy of the Red Scare.
Don’t forget, the US overturned roe vs wade and specifically cited China and North Korea’s abortion politics are too liberal and how we shouldn’t become like them.
Why do reactionaries and liberals
Answered your own question
My political ideology has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my political ideology.
No communist ever called me a slur
Unless white boy is a slur, then yeah
Yeah, college was a weird time for me
I was literally one of ten Latino kids that went to my school during the
foursix year period I earned my degree inNever faced anywhere near as much racism until I moved out of the Midwest and into the Northeast
So basically only people like me can be communist. That's not good, I hate people like me.
"idk, how can you support the supply side death cult as a resident of planet earth?"
The fucking UK has a pro-monarchy British Indian PM. But yeah, no. Communism isn't allowed to change.
because they believe communism is a moment in history, not a political idea
I think that there are many probable reasons. Partly, I think they need a way of feeling virtuous about benefiting from and supporting a system that is obviously monstrous (i.e. liberal capitalism). The nagging question, 'why are you not a radical?' becomes far easier to answer if you can say, 'despite the appearance that capitalist exploitation ruins countless people's lives and perpetuates the worst hatreds and divisions in society, getting rid of that exploitation would actually lead to something worse'.
But I'd also argue that a big one is probably just the effect of ideology - the fact that the system that people live in conditions their experience and sense of reality. People's experience of the world within capitalist societies is of exploitation and discrimination as the basis for social organisation, I think this just inevitably leads them to project these forms as an essential truth of human societies and makes it difficult for them to imagine that communism could exist.
Ultimately though, I think /u/AHopeOnceMore is correct to say that it's largely the result of 100 years plus of anti-communist propaganda making anti-communism a reflex response for liberals
