are fucking morons. I'm so tired of anti authoritarian "revolutionaries." They want the revolution but the second it was won, they'd be planning the counter revolution immediately.
The subject takes pride in not having any relationship with the entire historic concrete movement of the working class socialist and liberation revolutions. They take pride in not having any theoretical or political connection to the revolutions in China, Russia, Korea, Vietnam, Algeria, Mozambique and Angola. They are, instead, proud of the supposed purity that their theory is not contaminated by the hardship of exercising power, by the contradictions of historical processes. Being pure is what provokes this narcissistic orgasm. This purity is what makes them feel superior.
from Western Marxism, the Fetish for Defeat, and Christian Culture by Jones Manoel
Many westerners come to socialism not out of necessity, but out of disillusionment. We are raised with the idea that Liberal Democracy is the best system of political expression humanity has devised. When confronted with the reality of its shortcomings, rather than narrowly discard liberalism or electoralism, the western anti-capitalist tends to draw sweeping conclusions about the inadequacy of all existing systems. Curiously, though it would at first seem that such denunciations are more principled and severe, they are in fact more compatible with existing and widespread beliefs about the supremacy of the western system. That is to say, when a Marxist-Leninist asserts the superiority of existing socialist experiments, they are directly challenging the idea that westerners are at the forefront of political development. By contrast, the assertions from anarchists and social democrats that we need to build a more utopian future out of our current apex are compatible not only with each other, as discussed earlier, but also do not really offend bourgeois society at large. They in fact end up not sounding too different from the arch-imperialist Winston Churchill holding forth on how ours is the worst system, except for all the others which have been tried. Western chauvinists, consciously or unconsciously, struggle with the idea that they should study and humbly take lessons from the imperial periphery. [15] It is much easier for the chauvinist, psychologically, to position oneself as at the very front of a new vanguard.
from https://redsails.org/why-marxism/
I would disagree with this defeatism having its origin in Christianity as the Catholic church and Puritan movements whatever else you may have to say about them have historically been very results focused and capable of taking and maintaining political power.
Martyrdom and defeatism on the left is taken from christianity. As you know, there is considerable difference between christian theory and practice in politics. Their political organizations were and still are among the most ruthless in human history, but their basic religious theory is full of martyrdom at every step. You might also consider that the left movements in christianity and christian movements on the left through entire history since their beginning are consistently and all the time preaching against the practice and for the return to theory (which is also incredibly consistent with their political and philosophical idealism!).
I think the martyrdom aspects of christianity actually helped its spread.
I think the defeatism of the western left comes quite simply from the fact that the sheer scale of state forces in the imperial core makes a local revolution within their lifetime impossible and so the best they can hope for is to weaken that machine and thus enable others in the third world to throw off their shackles and weaken it further.
I think the martyrdom aspects of christianity actually helped its spread.
For sure, christianity was a new quality in the religious propaganda, both for its methods and content, as it was spefically aimed for poor and downtrodden and offered them hope. You just need give the only thing you have, your life, for the god, and the eternal reward will be yours.
Among the rich it was basically unknown for long* until it became so popular and threatening to stand first Diocletian, then Constantine and finally Julian before the choice what to do with it. Exact moment of change was even specified, it was when it spread in the military. Constantine might be ruthless monster but even he know not to stand between army and their religion (Julian apparently made that exact mistake and died because of it).
is to weaken that machine and thus enable others in the third world to throw off their shackles and weaken it further.
Too bad most of them end up empowering that machine and participate in it against the global south for over a century now.
*This is actually a fun bit, Suetonius, writting his famous book around 121 CE, who was definite rumormonger of upper crust of Roman society, had literally no idea who christians even were, despite at that time the religion was already pretty spread among the lowest strata of society.
They will have the right to free housing at the bottom of this abandoned coal mine
I think the more interesting question to ask communists (both regular and left) is "will there be rights for liberals?" If they answer yes, you could say they're ceding ground to the capitalists we're supposed to be supressing. If they answer "no", then they're positioning themselves to the left of Hugo Chavez, Xi Xinping, and Ho Chi Minh.
Imo, this is actually an important question for our movement and the fact that it's been polemicized like this is actually super unhealthy.
This is silly, rights are not portioned out by demonstrating ideological purity. That isn't "rights", it's privilege.
Private property won't have rights, people will. In that sense, there wouldn't be "rights" as liberals think of them. But people would still be treated with respect and dignity.
You fool, protecting ideals is a higher form of equality than having ideals. And if you fight for your ideals you're just showing your intolerance and hypocrisy.
You cannot fix ideals, not on vet benefits, not in this economy.
Yeah ultra left communists kind of blow my mind. There’s a certain type of person that thinks only the Russian revolution was a true proletarian revolution and it was shortly corrupted/failed, and every subsequent revolution on Earth was Stalinist and bourgeois.
If you believe this, why even be a communist? 200 years of trying and that’s all we’ve got, just go be a liberal at that point right?
Unwillingness to read. Che and Fidel went from like a dozen people to overthrowing the entrenched government of Cuba, if that's not a proletarian revolution I don't know what is. And now Cuba is economically oppressed by America without Soviet aid. They have achieved 99% literacy, exports healthcare and has a life expectancy that exceeds their oppressors, which also happens to be the richest nation on the planet? That's red fash authoritarianism?
An infantile disorder is too polite of a description.
Very much that
Overthrow the government, but without violence
So, with magic?
Meme
It's another byproduct of "no veggies at dinner, no bedtimes" pop-anarchism.
Being well rested and shitting regularly are bourgeois heirarchies!
I'll shit when and only when I've had my first tripple shot caffeinated energy drink of the hour!
Libs: "Then explain why we, as total supporters of capitalism, are constantly constipated?"
Knew a self-proclaimed NYC anarchist that was exactly this. Once went off on an unprompted and weird rant about seatbelts and how it was the American spirit to fight back against them and that people who didn't like their cigarette smoke couldn't "censor" them.
"DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DOOOOOOOOOOOOO" self-described leftists are among the worst. They're not even deliberately wreckers as much as... uselessly selfish.
I think seatbelt laws are primarily used as a means for cops to pull you over and harass you, particularly if you aren't white. Then they hit you with a "is that weed I smell??" and they're turning your car interior inside out on the side of the roadthat and the actual public health measure bit of it was advertising to kids to get their parents to buckle up. there's ways to handle this shit other than enforcement through police violence.
sure the laws surrounding them have flaws but this person was ranting about them existing at all.
Some of them embrace basic parenting instructions when they come from a right wing grifter later, with all of that attached baggage
i'm neither of those things, but as an anarchist (☝️🤓) I would be remiss to let the ridiculousness of the last sentence in the OP pass unnoticed. If any subversion of the dominant order "after" the revolution is "counter" revolution, then how can you say the revolution has won? And if one side tells the worker to put down their guns and return to the factory, to the office, to the market and the home, and the other refuses, who is in revolt and who counter?
What if workers weren't allowed to post and it was a lurkers revolution?
they don't really want worker revolution, they want to be petty bourgeois revolution
USA is one of the first countries to both have and complete bourgeois revolution and now they are living with its consequences.
They like the comfort of living off of imperialism and want social-democratic reforms. The same types who think a peaceful revolution is possible with how unhinged the right-wing is.
A lot of them believe a sufficiently epic speech toward Mr. Trump Sir Sir will cause an epic musical score to blast out as he has a change of heart.
The only wars they are OK with are the ones on the other side of the world for which they don’t have to deal with the consequences
Class war is literally the only war worth fighting for
Show me a ideology of political economy without a genocide or two under its belt, I’ll show you one that’s only existed on paper.
This is the liberal idea of ‘democracy’ ‘bipartisanship’ ‘balance of powers’ that are really just propaganda when it is ingested by people in the west who would be leftists who don’t recognize those concepts as propaganda used to maintain capitalism and/or justify organizing a counterrevolution by capitalists to socialists gaining power. They are very naïve about the lengths greedy people will go to to stop socialists in power.
I don't think the Spanish civil war was bad. Kronstadt either.
Hexbear: Why no left unity? Also Hexbear: This thread.
I think Kronstadt was a tradegy, those were socialists fighting against socialists. It was a situation without a good solution, and Lenin was right to do what he did, but those were comrades and to say differently does them, and us, a disservice.
