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I don't like our fetish for violence. The rhetoric here scares me quite a bit. Death and destruction shouldn't be objects of admiration and desire. Having a good faith discussion about when violence is justified is very different than gleefully reveling in the suffering of others.
There was a post the other day, I don't remember by who, talking about leftist unity that had a tankie and an anarchist in a tank together purging reactionaries. It made me sad. It was like the only mode that we could imagine leftist unity through was a shared impulse to kill.
I don’t think most good faith leftists have a “fetish for violence” I think it’s mostly memeing.
On the other hand, at some point you have to face the reality that the powers that be aren’t just going to roll over and pass power to the workers. “A revolution is not a dinner party” and all that.
I'm worried that memeing will invite a lot of reactionarises who take this sort of thing seriously and then we'll be no different than the chuds
paulo freire would be shaking his head at us tbh (and he would be right)
I just want to congratulate you on having the best fucking username on this website.
Yes, there were some really creepy posts recently, like the one asking for footage of cops getting killed or hurt, with people posting some really hard to watch and scary shit.
I haven't seen that post but I can understand why people would feel that way after seeing so many videos of cops murdering and brutalizing people and getting away with it.
I understand someone who wants to see a cop being punched and humiliated etc. But it's not very healthy at all to watch creepy ass videos of some nutjob gunning down cops who were scared shitless over some license plate ticket or whatever, complete with horrific death sounds, for enjoyment. Some people in that thread creeped me out.
Having a good faith discussion about when violence is justified is very different than gleefully reveling in the suffering of others.
That is fair, but IMO people who don't have the stomach for violence will never be part of a revolution and may as well stop pretending like they support one. If your stomach turns because of the Romanovs then your stomach will turn when Bezos and co decides their bank accounts are worth more than their life, and they may have children and spouses and it will be up to them to decide if their life is worth more than their bank accounts.
For what is worth I think there is a fundamental difference between outright fetishization and "preparation". You can be ready and understand the true cruelties of our society without making a post every 5 minutes whish for a guillotine, nobody needs to see or be reminded of this constantly.
At the same time, we should accept the world is cruel and justice is relative, remember Marx's quote
We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror.
I will always reject that quote from Marx as being bad and wrong. Someone who makes no excuses for their terror is a monster, not a revolutionary.
Killing the Romanov children was an abominable, cruel, and disgusting act. Shooting their family in front of them was an abominable, cruel, and disgusting act. Attempting to do something similar to another contemporary family would be wrong.
This is not the popular opinion on this board, but it remains my firm conviction.
Tbf Marx has other quotes praising the Paris commune for abstaining from unnecessary violence, "unlike bourgeois 'revolutions'". To understand that other quote, you have to first understand that terror didn't really mean the same thing it does now, and also he wrote it as a response to some monarch or whatever he was who shut down the newspaper the communists were publishing and prosecuted them, so it was more like a threat than a general rule.
these seems to be an opportune moment to determine whether chapochat is a fan of pineapple on pizza
pineapple is delicious on pizza
Wishing to preserve some anti-fruit sanctity of pizza is bourgeois.
It's almost as criminal as excluding raisins from potato salad.
Nice try fed, you can’t get us to infight that easi- HEY IS THAT A LEFTCOM
The CCP leadership is now made up of revisionists more interested in maintaining their networks of power than instituting a dictatorship of the proletariat.
It’s also institutionalized pretty racist views and treats the “minzu “ like Americans treat(Ed) Native Americans - projects to be civilized.
If you stripped away the aesthetics of communism and replaced it with a generic political party instead, you'd realize China isn't a marxist country. The true power of the country is held by a small bureaucratic class, not the working class.
I'm still convinced tankies support Xi just because they like the aesthetics of communism, rather than actual power to the working class.
China uses almost no "aesthetics of communism" so it would be a pretty weird project for someone to like because of the aesthetics.
The true power of the country is held by a small bureaucratic class, not the working class.
Communist Partys arent meant to represent the working class. Their meant to represent the most theoretically advanced part of the working class to advance the working classes interest
Given the wage rise in China and standard of living increase since 1980s sub suharan African conditions id say they do that quite well
The Communist Party has 90 million members with voting rights and as Chapos fave SuccDem, Varoufakis, has pointed out there is now a "thriving grassroots democracy taking place at the local level in China"
Good God im not even a dengist and I know that
The greatest poverty reduction in human history happened in China under the CPC
true power of the country is held by a small bureaucratic class, not the working class.
And how exactly would you organize society/government such that power is in fact held by the working class?
Some type of democracy? or what?
That infiltration doesn't work. Yes, trying to change the military or police from the inside is likely doomed and even just trying likely means you cover your hands in the blood of more comrades than you could save, but infiltrating any or every other state apparatus would be useful.
If the klan can insert themselves into the FBI and police everywhere to ensure their own safety I feel as leftists we could find things like firefighting or paramedic/ambulance or nursing that can absolutely shut down the state by refusing to assist reactionaries when the time comes.
Imagine the cops not getting flaming precincts or city halls put out, or hospitals refusing to tell police if a patient was involved in protests. I feel like that stance would actually shift public opinion to realising those who want to save lives are with one side and those who want to kill and imprison are on the other.
While elements of the Uyghur Camps in China are likely exaggerated in American media, mostly by far right wing psychos, that does not mean that there is nothing real fucked up going on. Even if you just consider evidence from the CCP and first-hand testimonies, there is bad shit happening and leftist shouldn't just blanket deny it as capitalist propaganda.
Agreed. However, the best thing the US could do is get out of Afghanistan (many militants use this to get into Xinjiang) and stop funding Islamic orgs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twPrtoyckuc
this guy's taxi driver seems to talk about how a lot of the issues seemed to arise in 1975 but obviously thats anecdotal. thats around the time the US started proxy wars in the region
China is likely doing some really shitty stuff around the Uyghurs. I'm guessing it could include genocide even, but more on the level of forced sterilization and cultural destruction. I would guess that the most likely comparison would be to the Native American school systems in North America. Pretty fucking bad, but not ten million billion Uyghurs like Zenz claims.
I’m guessing it could include genocide even, but more on the level of forced sterilization and cultural destruction.
You really, really can't just "guess" something like this.
i remember watching a video of a guy visiting xinjiang and he interviewed people on the matter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twPrtoyckuc
he's obviously from a prochina viewpoint but i do think its interesting to watch.
What they seem to be doing is eliminating the rebellious elements of culture, which probably has lead to false arrests.
Agreed. Relying only on Chinese data the birthrates of Uyghurs in Xinjiang has had a noticeable decline since 2017 after remaining incredibly stable for something like a decade prior.
this happens naturally from industrialization tbf. theres also a weakening taboo around contraceptives based on contraceptive sales stats.
While true, the decline in the Uyghur population specifically is greater than that of the Chinese population in general.
I mean without evidence it's just kind of conjecture to claim that, especially when there is very credible evidence of forced sterilization of the same ethnic group in that very region. Like what, the ethnic group who are being sent to forced labor camps just all happened to start using contraceptives in the same year? Come on.
Except this is entirely determined by you believing western propaganda. So you're back to step one of "China bad".
first-hand testimonies
This is literally a type of propaganda. These testimonies are often entirely made up.
You're essentially saying that you "have a hunch", which is really just chauvinism.
I have a hunch that the CCP has admitted that they are sending 'criminals' of a specific ethnicity from a specific region to forced 're-education' camps where credible accounts of forced sterilization has occurred corroborated by CCP data on a decline in birthrates greater than that of any other ethnic group in China? What the fuck are you on about?
credible accounts of forced sterilization
Where are you getting this from?
Look, you can't just call every testimonial propaganda. Sure, the first-hand accounts getting lots of play in the western media are probably sus, but there are dozens of these, many that are obscure and not spread across western media, where people give accounts of forced sterilization. So let's take that with a grain of salt and look at the other evidence. And by other evidence I mean only information from the Chinese government. The governor of Xinjiang gave an interview two years ago where they acknowledge that there are camps, do not deny that Uyghur Muslims are being forced into them, but frame them as a 're-education'. They say that some Uyghurs are radicals who join ISIS and are prone to commit acts of terrorism and extremism and that's why this 're-education' is occurring (does this terrorist fear-mongering sound familiar?). http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/16/c_137535821.htm So now we have two pieces of evidence, the Chinese government admitting that people are being forced into camps, and dozens of first-hand accounts of people being in those camps with some talking about forced sterilization. Well lets look at birthrates in the Xinjiang region, from Chinese government statistics. Here is the data from 2017 - http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/ndsj/2018/indexeh.htm and here is the data from 2018 - http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/ndsj/2019/indexeh.htm Navigate on the sidebar to section 2.8. You'll notice in 2017 Xinjiang had a birthrate of 15.88% and in the year after the camps, that China admits are fucking real, the birthrate drops to 10.69%. This is after years of the birthrate in the region hovering around 14%-15%. So no, you absolute fucking clown, it is not a hunch that forced sterilizations are occurring. Uyghurs are telling us they are being sent to camps, and the Chinese fucking admit that. While the Chinese don't admit that forced sterilizations are occurring, the Uyghurs are telling us they are, and the fucking birthrate statistics compiled by the Chinese government corroborate this claim. Do you think this is fucking western propaganda too, ya fucking dullard?
The governor of Xinjiang gave an interview two years ago where they acknowledge that there are camps, do not deny that Uyghur Muslims are being forced into them, but frame them as a ‘re-education’. They say that some Uyghurs are radicals who join ISIS and are prone to commit acts of terrorism and extremism and that’s why this ‘re-education’ is occurring (does this terrorist fear-mongering sound familiar?).
That is literally what is happening. Why does there have to be some secret evil supervillian plot behind it? It's literally a restorative justice program. Would you have them literally drone-striking people instead?
You’ll notice in 2017 Xinjiang had a birthrate of 15.88% and in the year after the camps, that China admits are fucking real, the birthrate drops to 10.69%. This is after years of the birthrate in the region hovering around 14%-15%. So no, you absolute fucking clown, it is not a hunch that forced sterilizations are occurring.
Clearly the only way birthrates can decline is through forced sterilization, which will totally help advance the goals of the Chinese government somehow.
Here's China's response (from a CNN article):
Up until 2015, the Chinese government enforced a "one-child" family planning policy countrywide, which allowed most urban couples no more than one baby. Ethnic minorities, such as the Uyghur people, were typically allowed to have up to three but Xinjiang expert Zenz said that families from these groups often had many more children. When China officially began the two-child policy in January 2016, Uyghur citizens living in cities were limited to two children for the first time as well -- their rural counterparts could still have up to three. The Xinjiang government attributed the sudden drop in population to Beijing's family planning policies finally being properly implemented in the region after 2017. "In 2018, the number of newborns decreased by approximately 120,000 compared with 2017, of which about 80,000 were because of better implementation of family planning policy in accordance with law, according to estimates by the health and statistics department," the response to CNN said. The government insisted that those who complied with the family planning policies did so voluntarily.
The article also talks about IUDs, which also aren't forced sterilization.
Edit from my comment below: Xinjiang’s birthrate of 10.69% is literally higher than a number of places in China according to the 2019 data you gave. It’s literally higher than Beijing (8.24%) and only slightly lower than the national average. It seems like this statistic alone pretty much disproves the concept that there’s something unusual happening. It resulted in a greater decline because the birthrate in Xinjiang was higher than in other places before policy implementation in those places ie they were being very lenient in Xinjiang (probably to help the Uighur population increase more). I’m not sure how you could look at your own data and conclude that Xinjiang is being singled out somehow. The data shows that after implementing family planning in Xinjiang, birthrate decreased to the same as most other places. People can do endless fiddling with data to make any narrative you want of course, this is something American propaganda is great at doing.
You're extremely dense. The article is literally a hit-piece against China that quotes Adrian Zenz, but even they included the Chinese government's perspective and were more truthful than you're being.
RE the stuff you edited in afterwards. There are lots of places that do bilingual education. There are tons of people who speak their native language and English. It's a neccesity for many people and helps integrate people into the larger society.
'criminals'
There's literally an al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist organization operating there that's behind shit like a mass axe murder and has sent people to join the Free Syrian Army.
Making revolutionary movements all about the leaders and what they did is anti marxist and plays right into liberal and even fascist politics.
A lot of reactionary trends in workers revolutions past played cults of personality to their advantage.
It does nothing to raise workers consiousness, if everything is the because of the genius actions of one great leader, then the workers do not realise their collective power.
I know this really wealthy international student from China who "house sits" one of his uncle's properties, and he explained that all the richest Chinese people are buying real estate outside of China in cash so they can hide it from the government and send extended family out to squat. He says Chinese people are just as crooked and greedy as Americans, and when I asked him about a move to Socialism, he laughed in my face.
So yeah, I'm pretty sure the elite in every strata of every country are selfish pricks, and the people here who harp on about the transfer of the CCP from capitalism to socialism is complete bullshit. It might be for 99%, but the 1% who hoard the wealth won't be playing by the same rules.
Using aesthetic signifiers of former socialist/communist states is harmful to the aims of communism. It's literally aesthetic conservatism. We are looking to forge a New, Classless, Stateless World. It will not and cannot resemble the Soviet Union because what's past is past. This preoccupation with historic signifiers demonstrates a deep lack of imagination for the future and a naive nostalgia for a past that never was and never will be again. This is worsened by the Beatification of historical Communist figures, and obsessing over their theory and image.
Of course we must learn from history and we always stand on the shoulders of giants, but Communism in the 21st Century requires 21st Century Theory, Tactics, and Aesthetic that will appeal to the Proletariat of TODAY. Not the aesthetics of naval-gazing Posters.
Tendencies named after historical figures are a dead end and constrict the political imagination of Leftists and Communists. These labels and preoccupations with particular historical moments serve mostly as a way to mediate cliques in leftist circles and alienate outsiders. Fuck your Idols.
