All the time I hear about "the CIA will coup this", "America supported that", "These people opposed US Imperialism". A topic could have absolutely nothing to do with america and involve a place on the exact opposite part of the earth and Americans will find a way to make it about America. For example, people talk about Russian politics and Putin yet seem to support Putin wholeheartedly because his Russia "opposes american imperialism". This framing of the conversation seemingly ignoring how Russian people feel about his reign, how the EU has been having to drag america into the latest sanctions against Russia, and how for the last 4 years America had an ostensibly Pro-Russian president. I swear American Leftists don't care at all about Capitalism or Communism and just want to oppose the United States. Most of the world and people don't care about American influence, let alone to such an obsessive degree.

  • entrancefee [none/use name]
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    4 years ago

    the largest war in the history of the world had the US handing millions of dollars of stuff to communists so they could fight some anti-communists. During Karl Marx' time communists all thought the greatest country of reactionary thought that was an existential threat to communism was Russia and that is where the first successful communist project happened. I think its an inherently negative mentality to think america is the hopeless backwater that will eternally oppose communism

    • Wojackhorseman2 [he/him]
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      4 years ago

      Russia had a revolution ergo America will/could have one isnt a materialist view of the situation it’s not logical, their conditions are completely different especially considering America being a bourgeois country founded by a bourgeois revolution and has always throughout its history taken its function to be serving its bourgeois interests over any others.

      No one thinks it’s a hopeless backwater country that will eternally oppose communism, it’s the hopeless seat of global capital. All of its material interests are aligned to fight communism in every way. Nothing has ever fought communism as hard as America has and it has funded and has ties to every anti-communist movement precisely bc its material interests lead it to do so.

      The history of its (white) populace has strained to find their place in the labor aristocracy and in petit-bourgeois privilege afforded to them by the world wide imperialist theft it has done since it was barely out of its infancy. even its socialists and communists have been guilty of this western/American white chauvinism as recently as the iww in the 20th century and right up to today.

      The amount of Americans that have any degree of class consciousness and have a healthy amount of intersectionality and anti-imperialism/chauvinism in their analysis is vanishingly small. The overwhelming majority of Americans, be they liberal, conservatives and a high degree of even leftist (white leftists in America have a history of selling out their poc comrades for petty privileges and even stealing their jobs in the days where that was easier to do without real backlash) do not fit this mold and are unlikely to be able to for a multitude of factors including propaganda, racism, global class interests (i.e. our benefit from the theft of imperialist theft), chauvinism taught to us, and myriad other factors

      I suggest settlers for a good history of America’s failing to attain any kind of revolutionary fervor and how it has sacrificed its principles for petit-bourgeois privilege all through its history, it goes from the earliest days of colonization to near present day.

      As far as discussion being to centered on it, well we definitely are entirely too Euro/Anglocentric in the west in general but we are unfortunately going to have to talk about the us a lot being as, again, it is the seat of global capital’s imperialist forces, it’s unavoidable for most discussions. They make themselves involved everywhere

      • entrancefee [none/use name]
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        4 years ago

        the "seat of global capital" whatever that means used to be the united kingdom and it didn't have much issue moving over to the united states and won't have issue moving over to the next country when the time comes. if the United States were "the seat of global capital's imperialist forces" the seat would just move to the next country. But all that is just pseudo-marxist drivel. The American state only protects american capital like any other state protects its own capital.

        • Wojackhorseman2 [he/him]
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          4 years ago

          Famous socialist country the Uk lol.

          All other capitalist countries, including the Uk, capitulate to America’s interests bc of America’s status as the prime seat of capital and bc they benefit from it.

          None of that is “pseudo-Marxist drivel” it’s just the fact of the world as it is. Everything I said is the result of circumstances in America, you can deny that it exists bc you want to hope real bad for what you want America to be but it doesn’t change the material reality or historical facts.

          Your view of it is moralist nonsense based on nothing but gut reactions and tenuous connections you’ve made on surface level pattern recognition.

          I’m not saying that because these things are facts it means we shouldn’t personally strive to make our community better in America but understanding them and using them to keep from repeating the mistakes we have throughout history is vital (I proselytize communism to everyone who will listen in the way I think they’ll be receptive, I volunteer and do what else I can in the face of it). And it does mean that America is astronomically unlikely to develop into anything given its history and its status as a country , we’ve fumbled it every time and there’s a reason for it and it isn’t just that you hadn’t come along yet to tell everyone America can have a good revolution finally actually.

          Seriously read settlers, at least it’ll help you see some of the history of the country from a non-capitalist apologia POV and fills in a lot of the holes.

          • entrancefee [none/use name]
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            4 years ago

            "just the fact of the world as it is" is just pseudo-materialism. most of what you say is just left-wing american exceptionalism

            • Wojackhorseman2 [he/him]
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              4 years ago

              I was just making shorthand for “this is the current world order and there are several events in history that led us to this point and in turn they will influence the future ” that is materialism.

              Your conclusion isn’t even materialist at all it’s just a want that you’re not basing on anything other than want.

              There is nothing exceptional about America other than its depravity and it’s wild expropriation of labor and wealth from the imperialized world and from its bipoc population throughout its history. It’s ability as a world power is a result of “exceptional” exploitation of those people. You may not like that it wields that power but it does, and those things did happen. And the vast majority of Americans have historically been complicit in that theft and beneficiaries of it.

              Again, maybe we can have a revolution one day, I would like to see it but it’s really insurmountable improbable and by the time America could have the type of cultural revolution to align themselves that way we’d probably be dead by climate change. This stuff isn’t just going away just cuz you have good opinions, look at the average person in America and it’s history and how people have acted historically to inform your assumptions that’s much more grounded in reality.

              • entrancefee [none/use name]
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                4 years ago

                I really have no clue where you're getting this analysis of me basing reality on some want. I don't care about america getting a revolution anymore than any other country. Its not a real crazy idea to think america may have a revolution someday. All I'm getting from your paragraphs is america is exceptionally bad

                • Wojackhorseman2 [he/him]
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                  4 years ago

                  Lol well I mean it is pretty bad and always has been.

                  I think it’s certainly possible but it would most likely have to be when it collapses, it’s equally probable at that point, given the average type of views the average American has, that it’ll emerge as a fascist country or something as well tho.

                  All I’m saying is there have been a lot of left wing pushes in America’s history which have all failed spectacularly and we’ve been repeating those patterns even up to present day bc of class relations and their intersectionality to race. Those factors made revolution exceedingly difficult, and a lot of them, hell, most have never gone away and won’t for the foreseeable future, coupling that with the state of the modern military defending capital and I think it should be easy to see how difficult it is if you think about it deeper than “well it’s certainly possible” which is the assertion i was making about how deep you’ve thought about this with the want thing.

                  But look I hope you’re right. Im only trying to bring up these historical factors bc they inform the present and continue to inform the future.

                  • entrancefee [none/use name]
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                    4 years ago

                    The materialist doctrine that men are products of circumstances and upbringing, and that, therefore, changed men are products of changed circumstances and changed upbringing, forgets that it is men who change circumstances and that the educator must himself be educated -Karl Marx. Humans forge our own destinies and nothing is unchangeable and forsaken

                    • Wojackhorseman2 [he/him]
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                      4 years ago

                      I mean that sounds nice but you’re up against a propaganda machine and 400+ years of situations that have fallouts that are more in charge of the forge than a leftist with some flowery language.

                      Again I’m on your side here, i want that, I’m just asking you to think about some of this stuff a bit and not just rebuke it bc it doesn’t fit with some super bloomer view that’s like “yes I can imagine socialist America therefore socialist america.” Because it does matter you can swim against the current but it’s there. Maybe I should take some more super recent events in mind when thinking about these things but maybe consider reading some of our history and taking a real look at the state of our affairs really, there is not a real left in America. The best we ever had was the panthers and they were literally slaughtered by the feds

                      But Ill agree with you, it’s certainly possible, I’m not as optimistic about the details or when but who knows. Anyway I’m going to sleep have a good day or night.

      • entrancefee [none/use name]
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        4 years ago

        yeah but that can describe a lot of countries and there are plenty of countries even more anti-communist that used to be communist countries and had opposite propaganda

    • RNAi [he/him]
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      4 years ago

      I'm not saying the people from murica will never be communists in heart, I say "the US state" (ie US oligarchs) is the major threat to humanity ever, and of course to communism. Are oligarchs from, say, Perú any better? Of course not, but they haven't the biggest fucking army ever at their disposition.

      For Russia to become a stable communist country they had to kill or gulag a lot of rich people, and it's hard to do it when they have several layers of armed forces with all the money in the world protecting them/their interests

      • entrancefee [none/use name]
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        4 years ago

        the army switched sides in Russia and I can't see how you'll have a revolution in america without them doing the same