Why is that there is more and harsher criticism for american succdems than foreign politicians with far greater tangible power? Anytime AOC is mentioned here, I'll see a laundry list of reasons she is an op who loves nothing more than betraying leftist ideals. Meanwhile, y'all get triggered at the slightest criticism of Ghaddafi.
It is complicated though. The enemy of my enemy is not always my friend. How does the dogma of anti-imperialism absolve him of all other policies and goals?
It doesn't, it just explains why we're so much more critical of American succdems than socialist leaders in the global periphery. Their flaws exist against a background of profound successes. And it's awfully difficult for any anti-imperialist or anti-colonial violence to hold a candle to imperialist and colonial violence.
But also: how the hell is anti-imperialism "dogma"? Global capitalism can't be defeated with the boot of imperialism on people's necks. This goes for workers in the periphery as well as those of us in the core; as long as we can be kept (relatively) comfortable and our state can be kept strong through imperial plunder, the odds of a revolution are very low.
Even when a country's leadership is terrible and reactionary and even anticommunist, it's still in the interest of the global proletariat for them to succeed against the imperialists. The principal contradiction of global capitalism is imperialism; it's the glue that holds the whole system together. Without the threat of the US breathing down everyone's necks, revolutions and socialist development can occur with considerably less risk and capitalist siege. No more CIA, no more Operation Condors, no more color revolutions, no more unilateral sanctions regimes, etc.
Why is it wrong to expect both though? If a country removes the shackles of british and american exploitation and simply persecutes it's marginalized people all on its own, why do we consider that a resounding success?
If woke capitalism is equivalent to open fascism, how is patriarchal conservative socialism unapologetically better?
Because with the imperialists out of the way, any revolution they do have won't be threatened like all successful revolutions and most unsuccessful revolutions in the last century have been. Obviously a successful revolution before then would be ideal, but if it's imperialist capitalists vs non-imperialist capitalists, the latter is significantly better in that they weaken the forces of imperialism - see the relationship between Iran and Venezuela, for example. This is why principled socialists should critically support governments like Iran against the Great Satan, to say nothing of socialist ones.
You really can't overstate how much influence the US has had in impeding the development of socialism over the last 70 years or so; they're behind literally every single overthrow of a socialist country to some degree or another, and are constantly doing whatever they can to brutalize and destroy the ones that are left.
What are you talking about?
I'm talking about Gaddafi's green book, in which he envisions his ideal socialist theocratic society with a very strict patriarchal structure. He states that a woman's primary role is motherhood and any work or education that is not conducive to that is dictatorial. And that contraception is tantamount to murder.
Why does he get a pass on shit like that? How is that not reactionary?
He doesn't "get a pass" on that; of course that's bad.
But we criticize him less because he materially improved the lives of Libyans for decades and was brutally overthrown by American imperialists, and now Libya is in ruins.
American social democratic politicians support the imperialism that seeks to inflict that on other countries, so naturally they get criticized more sharply and more frequently. Also, again, they haven't done anything on par with the good that Gaddafi did with his economic policies and his opposition to imperialism and colonialism in Africa.