Chomsky whines about the USSR and calls its collapse "a win for the left". Absolutely unbelievable. Of course he has nothing to say about 1993 protests or the fact that the majority of Russians who experienced life in the USSR want it back.

Zizek calls China a "bad model for the left". Of course no actual socialist experiment is ever good enough for the ivory tower intellectual. Even worse, he keeps saying he hopes that China will liberalize its government. So fuck the DotP, lets just give away power to the capitalists, because that is literally what will happen in a liberal democracy, and he knows it.

  • AlexandairBabeuf [they/them]
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    4 years ago

    Moreover Chomsky endorsed the bombing of Serbia during the yugoslav wars

    but those aren't the true american thought leaders, its all Saint Parenti who has never ever had a bad take; then nima shirazi and adam johnson--dont you listen to the pod???

    • read_freire [they/them]
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      4 years ago

      didn't parenti write some obnoxious pro-slobo screed?

      narrator: he did

      there are truly no good folks involved in balkanization. slobo wasn't as bad as the west propagandized him to be (he's far from the worst yugo leader involved, in fact), but someone who let the reactionary ultranationalist hawks run wild the way he did deserves absolutely no praise from the left

      at best he's a grifter who doomed one of the most successful socialist projects in the world to enrich himself. at worst he's a collaborator who deserves the wall

      even serbian anti-nato documentaries on balkanization don't try to stan slobo

      • Mardoniush [she/her]
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        4 years ago

        Yeah, every fucking one of those murderous splitters deserves the wall, and the western bombers double deserve the wall. Fucking up Yugoslavia, even with its issues, is something only god can forgive them for.

        • read_freire [they/them]
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          4 years ago

          to be fair, I can think of at least a dozen folks off the top of my head that deserved to face justice before slobo

      • JoeySteel [comrade/them]
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        4 years ago

        Instead of posting an article explain what you disagree with?

        He does not "stan Slobo" but points out how no criticism is ever made of fascist Franjo Tudgman or the Bosnian leader Izetbegovic

        Simiarly nothing was ever said in mainstream press of atrocities committed against Serbs this is despite Serbs being ethnically cleansed under the watchful eye of Nato troops

        • read_freire [they/them]
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          4 years ago

          huh? the article I linked is the Parenti essay I'm talking about

          gonna just point you to the rest of my comments about this in here to answer your second part

          to be fair, I can think of at least a dozen folks off the top of my head that deserved to face justice before slobo
          ...
          Holbrooke, Clinton, Tudman, Tus, Mladen, etc. etc. etc.
          ...
          at least w/ parenti you know it’s just a misguided vehicle for very deserved nato/propaganda criticism
          ...
          and slobo absolutely doesn’t deserve his propagandized rep. there’s a particularly famous speech he made on serbian independence day just as shit was escalating (91 or 92 if I remember right) where he called for yugo unity and absolutely put the serbian crowd to sleep by not calling for croat and albanian blood.

          Yes, the Serbs were subject to a ton of atrocities during balkanization. That doesn't absolve their genocidal ultranationalists (and again, I'm not saying Slobo was one of them, just that he enabled them).

          • JoeySteel [comrade/them]
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            4 years ago

            So you posted a parenti article as if Parenti had a bad take on the Yugoslav wars or a bad take on Milosevic..

            What do you object to in that article?

            • read_freire [they/them]
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              4 years ago

              it is wholly uncritical of the serbian right's role in balkanization/the balkan wars, and the way milosevic enabled those parts of his government/military

              The entire point is that you can point out nato, tudman, izetbegovic, etc.'s atrocities and nazi ties while staying critical of the ultranationalist serbs that rode milosevic into power. Even fucking Serbian documentarians producing social history of the balkan wars do.

              this is clear in my other comments in this thread. I suggest reading them

              • JoeySteel [comrade/them]
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                4 years ago

                Nah you completely missed his point and the fact you can't point to a specific paragraph or point in the article is telling.

                Everyone knows about the Serbs atrocities - he mentions them loads of times.

                The Yugoslav leaders were essentially all involved atrocities of similar levels against each other - but only Milosovic was painted as Hitler whilst ethnic cleansing happened under the eye of Nato troops.

                That's his entire point essentially.

                • read_freire [they/them]
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                  4 years ago

                  the fact you can’t point to a specific paragraph or point in the article is telling

                  The complete failure of Western forensic teams to locate the 250,000 or 100,000 or 50,000 or 10,000 bodies (the numbers kept changing) of Albanians supposedly murdered by the Serbs in Kosovo also goes unnoticed.

                  If this isn't downplaying the serbian side idk what is.

                  I've met Serbians today who use genocidal rhetoric ('infestation', 'sub-human', etc.) to talk about Albanians. To pretend like that sentiment doesn't exist because it's propagandaized as the only genocidal impulse there during the time is asinine.

                  he mentions them loads of times

                  find one fucking quote, cause I can't

                  better to just watch this, which is infinitely more nuanced than Parenti's shitty essay

                  • JoeySteel [comrade/them]
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                    4 years ago

                    If this isn’t downplaying the serbian side idk what is.

                    Prior to the Yugoslav war the US told everyone that 200,000 people had been killed. Heres a little job for you bud...20 years have passed since the US claimed Serbs killed 200,000 people. Show me where thats true

                    There was no such thing. It was a lie to go to war and murder 140,000 people and turn Serbia into the cancer capital of Europe.

                    find one fucking quote, cause I can’t

                    Then read his book To Kill A Nation where he explicitly says the war was more like a limited insurgency with all sides committing atrocities

                    better to just watch this, which is infinitely more nuanced than Parenti’s shitty essay

                    Already seen it. Im surprised you dont think its "downplaying the serbian side" by...telling the truth