I think you may have confused me with the other poster. I don't think you are astroturfers. I'm saying I can see how other westerners would make that mistake - they're just not aware that real communists exist. We should be better informed, but we're not. Sorry.
I don't even "disagree" with communism personally, it's just that's it's largely impossible in the US. I'm willing to have discussions about it, but I also think compromise is important for any ideology. And communism seems to not want any compromise, which makes it hard to have a discussion. I could be wrong about that, though.
As for the vibes... I do think this is valid and I'll explain why. Most theories sound good on paper. Even our conservative fiscal policies sound reasonable in theory. But when you hang out with the conservatives who support these theories, you find out they don't actually care about the theory, they're just hiding their hateful culture war stuff behind the fiscal policy and saying "watch what we say, not what we do." So studying communist theory is all well and good, but what I'm really interested in is getting to know actual people who stand behind the theory.
I can't remember who said it (it might have actually been Stalin) but the "works in theory but not in practice" idiom is bad and should be abandoned. Political theory is for the purpose of practice. If it fundamentally does not practically work, then the problem is with the theory. If it isn't fundamentally broken, then you can't speak in such generalizations about it.
Conservatism is vile when you drill down into what they are saying and don't just let them wax poetic about pastoral bullshit and wealth. You don't even need to look at the real world, you can get their hate from the theory once they start talking about the poor. Marxism in no way resembles this.
I think you may have confused me with the other poster. I don't think you are astroturfers. I'm saying I can see how other westerners would make that mistake - they're just not aware that real communists exist. We should be better informed, but we're not. Sorry.
I don't even "disagree" with communism personally, it's just that's it's largely impossible in the US. I'm willing to have discussions about it, but I also think compromise is important for any ideology. And communism seems to not want any compromise, which makes it hard to have a discussion. I could be wrong about that, though.
As for the vibes... I do think this is valid and I'll explain why. Most theories sound good on paper. Even our conservative fiscal policies sound reasonable in theory. But when you hang out with the conservatives who support these theories, you find out they don't actually care about the theory, they're just hiding their hateful culture war stuff behind the fiscal policy and saying "watch what we say, not what we do." So studying communist theory is all well and good, but what I'm really interested in is getting to know actual people who stand behind the theory.
I can't remember who said it (it might have actually been Stalin) but the "works in theory but not in practice" idiom is bad and should be abandoned. Political theory is for the purpose of practice. If it fundamentally does not practically work, then the problem is with the theory. If it isn't fundamentally broken, then you can't speak in such generalizations about it.
Conservatism is vile when you drill down into what they are saying and don't just let them wax poetic about pastoral bullshit and wealth. You don't even need to look at the real world, you can get their hate from the theory once they start talking about the poor. Marxism in no way resembles this.