a friend of mine got a DEI the other day and was barely drunk, i think it's overexaggerated
just plain capitalism. it's a lot easier to see without all the Reaganite bullshit getting pushed next to a weakening USSR.
this is as raw as it gets in "peace times," peace in the Western definition where we aren't technically fighting Russia and we're just using a bunch of proxy forces and/or economic policy.
It's all uneven, too, so it would be bold to claim this is progressive or regressive or even neither. Some countries are on their way to knocking down capitalism, others are coming with a more Third World nationalist type of approach (think Non-Aligned Movement). Of course the liberals are dominant in the West, they aren't really doing much and their failures are openining up the gates of hell. Unfortunately some of the "socialist" movements we see are more of the socially conservative, or even National Bolshevik, types, so we have the international fascists alongside the national communists - don't ask me how that makes sense...
Yeah, just expect all those contradictions Marx warned about back in the 1800s, when all the middle classes of Europe were celebrating their new economic success after the brutality of the initial industrialization, to come back. Just like the end of the 1800s leading into the end of World War I.
We just have to remember the US invasion of Iraq (2003) and the Russian invasion of Ukraine (2022) are just the typical markers of something fucked up to come. A little bit of rivalry and jealousy among the different capitalists goes a long way.
For what people like us, Communists and other leftists of the more revolutionary edge, we just have to stay disciplined and get some work done while we're ahead. There could be a civil war in Germany tomorrow for all we know lol. It's just business as usual, no different from the 1840s, 1870s, 1910s, 1960s, etc
or from the boondocks, the community's favorite show(i think it's just me) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipg4EL_JUyE
he was a wannabe cult leader, in a cult already being led. he was disposed of, and now plays around with other side characters. There are so many allegations at this point against so many people that I highly doubt any accusations against Maupin in particular played a role in this. He's not built to be the grandiose vision he manufactured for himself in the reflection of Lyndon LaRouche
No.
I assume "tankie" is a roundabout way to lump revolutionary leftists with those fomenting red-brown alliances. That is, a "tankie" in the modern day is a way to describe someone as Strasserist, NazBol, LaRouchite, etc.
I didn't really get that out of it at all, but I developed a skill to see past a lot of the garbage. It was fear-mongering and overall just a scary way of saying China has reduced the use of death penalty, there are better mechanisms in place to prevent unlawful/unnecessary use of death penalty, and a drive to replace gunshot execution with lethal injection. The "victims" included are simply multi-million dollar fraud (essentially) and an abused kid that went on to (cw: violence) rape and kill.
You are right, in that there seems to be no widespread use of this van in the event that it is seriously used.
When you were a kid (if you ever grew out of being a kid, that is), did anyone tell you the story of the apples and oranges? Did you ever hear someone talking about comparing apples to bananas? Anything of that nature? You still can't explain why you specifically chose to compare Hitler and Bin Laden to Raisi.
Let me break it down for you slow, in hamburger American terms.
Say I want to talk about America. Should I compare America to McDonald's and apple pie? Or should I compare America to shrimp and gyros?
Fill in the blank: As American as _______.
Did you say "apple pie" or did you say "shrimp and gyros"? Why? Reflect on this in your own time.
You mean to tell me that Israel, with all those billions of dollars, couldn't see with their own eyes people flying in to their territory with guns? There is no convoluted middle east history, at least not any more than anywhere else on this planet. There is no excuse to kill anyone in violation of international law, especially when the politicians guiding that policy see the enemy as less than human and makes reference to genocidial intent in doing so. If you want to talk about history, the history that is so convoluted and confusing to you, just start in 1947-1948. That should make it a lot easier for you to understand.
Every event in 'Israeli' history can be checked. They never acted in genuine self-defense. They always had ulterior motives, to drive their force as an imperialist proxy with a massive budget, extremist ideology, and settler-colonialism. There is no blame game. Palestinians have fought against occupation. Israel is the one occupying. Now this rougue state is claiming, implicitly, that they lay claim to a Greater Israel project that threatened the entire Middle East and North Africa region. Rather than occupying territory in war, they occupy territory in aims of extermination of the native population. If they were an occupying force in war, they would be required to ensure every citizen has access to food, water, security, and other necessities of life. Instead, they occupy territories and kill or displace the population there. Either it's not a war or this rogue entity is incapable of conducting itself without constantly committing war crimes.
Just admit you make awful comparisons and fail to make analogies work.
Hitler, for one, had a specific fascist ideology comparable to Mussolini. I'd feel comfortable comparing the two. Not only based on their alliance and ideology alone, but also their actions taken.
When we compare people to Hitler, we generally make the assumption that we are talking about genocide, fascism, and an extreme passion for exterminating and villifying the "other" (whether that be Jews or Muslims or Slavs or something else). I wouldn't even make a comparison between Hitler and Netanyahu if I had to be professional and make time for an appropriate comparison.
On to Bin Laden, now. Why isn't he similar to Hitler? Back in the day, the US had a strategic alliance with Saudi Arabia. Backing the dollar with gold wasn't the best plan for us, we didn't gain a strong advantage doing so. Saudi Arabia was happy to help us with new US policy abroad. We went above and beyond to treat Saudi monarchs to the best life available, all at our expense. We even ignored the Saudis backing of people like Bin Laden back when we first knew of his type, all the way in the 1970s. We even used his allies and people with the Mujahideen that fought against the Soviets in the 1980s. Long story short, we had a blowback incident. 9/11 came around to hit us, likely with Saudis allowing it to happen while US intelligence was too incompetent or bogged down to act effectively (or maybe we knew and couldn't or wouldn't do anything). We went to war with Iraq and Afghanistan - not Saudi Arabia. Afghanistan was a failure the US contributed to actively for about 20 years, not including the interference from years prior. The Taliban is still governing Afghanistan today in fact. It wasn't anything like Hitler, except for the brutal anti-Communism. It certainly wasn't like Raisi either, considering that Iran and Afghanistan's Taliban aren't on the best terms.
I would compare Raisi to General Torrijos. Why is that? Because they were both nationalists, both concerned with sovereignty and not bending the will of their country to the US, yet each of them were not inherently accepting of either far-right extemist ideology or Communism (or other explictly left-wing political movements or ideologies). In spite of ideological differences, they both had a desire to stay neutral, choose key allies, and were rather accepting of liberation movements. People didn't really celebrate the death of Torrijos, at least in Panama. I wouldn't say people were exceptionally happy in Iran about the death of Raisi either. They weren't good leaders per se, but they stood on principles. I don't care for either figure myself, but I recognize who they were and what they fought for as humans.
Again, I know what an analogy is. We already established that. So, that means I do know Hitler is not just a nom de plum or alias for Raisi, or vice versa.
It's just not a good analogy. Look at the names I wrote and think about it for a second.
Why do I think comparing Hitler to Bin Laden is not a good comparison? Why do I believe comparing General Torrijos to Raisi is a good comparison?
Then, back to you. "[Celebrating] the death of horrific people is not necessarily a bad thing." You didn't even clarify what made Raisi a horrific person comparable to Hitler. You sound like everyone else in that Reddit-esque circlejerk.
If you read closely, you can see I don't really mind the act of celebration itself. My problem is that there is no acceptable reason to compare Raisi and Hitler, first of all; and, secondly, the people celebrating don't even know who Raisi is. Your comparison alone tells me you're in that group, the people who are celebrating without even knowing.
I can celebrate the deaths of Hitler, Mussolini, Kissinger, Pinochet, Reagan, and so on. That's because I actually know who they were and what they did.
idk about that. For instance, a lot of users like the concept of the "PMC" (Professional Managerial Class) that many well-read Marxists would scoff at. I just like Lemmygrad because I know the communities better. Hexbear feels more like shitposts.
I understand what an analogy is. But you know (and I know) that we don't make analogies at random. There's a specific reason you chose Bin Laden and Hitler to make the analogy. Even comparing Bin Laden and Hitler is dishonest and lacks appropriate context.
I'd say Raisi's death celebration is more akin to celebrating the death of someone like Omar Torrijos (Panama), and I'm not speaking of similarity of death itself or the conditons that created the death. I'm talking about their respective policies.
Death happens everyday and you chose to make the specific comparisons you did. It wasn't an accident, no one forced it into your brain. You did that.
tl;dr - There is no better or worse when discussing American policy on Israel. We will head on the same trajectory regardless. No need to give Trump nor Biden any credit.
Likely worse. His team is fully of anti-China, anti-Iran warhawks. I don't think he'd approve of getting or keeping Americans away from Syria, Iran, Palestine and occupied Palestine, Taiwan, Japan, the Phillipines, etc.
We all know the story. Yes, Democrats and bad. Yes, Republicans are undeniably worse in every way at every level.
His team this time around will also be more competent. Maybe he will pivot to an "America First" agenda... then what? The open NED-type operations will be less noticable, others will be taken up by partners of the EU and other NATO members besides the US. Covert operations and the other dark, buried, illegal shit will boost exponentially.
But look. Biden has his support base, he has his voters secured. So does Trump. They're both Americans and both have already been president for 4 years each. We already know what has been happening and we know what is happening. The US will continue doing what its government and key capitalists already have been planning to do.
If you think Iranian leaders are equivalent to Biden Laden and Hitler, you still have a few years (or decades) of brain development left. Please at least make an attempt to sound educated when making comparisons. This place is going to be more embarrassing than Reddit soon....
It's not the fact that they celebrated his death that is most important. It's the fact that the people celebrating have no coherent understanding of who he was. All they know is "Media told me Iran bad. Iran bad means Iranian dying is bad man dying. Funny meme death of people I don't see as human."
You can tell based on responses they haven't read even a single article in full about anything even tangentially related to the man.
If you ever have the misfortune of using X (formerly Twitter), you'll see dozens of them everyday, embarrassingly, through hidden replies and replies with no likes, talking about vatniks and Putler and Russian bots
and you know the worst part of it all? Shit like this culminates in some [CW: violence]
spoiler
lone-wolf terrorist killing American-born, Trump-loving, ethnically Korean or Japanese people, all because of this idea - no, this delusion - of illegal immigrants stealing jobs and China infiltrating the US.
A little more than a century ago the world’s superpower was the British Empire. Despite being a constitutional monarchy where the aristocracy and monarchy still retained significant power, the British Empire was arguably the birthplace of the industrial revolution and it played a significant role in...
As I talked about in one of my last posts, there was some concern that the modern leftist movements had infiltration issues with LaRouchites, Duginists, and other concerning viewpoints.
These were my exact fears and this website has published an article recently that proves some of my fears as based in reality.
Is anyone familiar with this magazine and its related party? They are not pro-NATO and also not on the side of Ukraine during this Russo-Ukraine War, and these points are valid.
(Archive Link Below)
https://web.archive.org/save/https%3A%2F%2Fsocialistmag.us%2F2024%2F02%2F18%2Fthe-fascist-mimicry-of-anti-imperialism%2F
As pointed out by Georgi Dimitrov, the Thirteenth Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International defined fascism to be "the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital". Yet, so many fascists claim that fascism and their movements are there to stop finance capital.
One instance I would point out here is that Michael Hudson has done a lot of writing on finance capital. When these discussions come about, you can see fascists by the dozen coming to agreement with someone who almost talks like a Marxist. It goes without saying that Michael Hudson has been hosted, on Geopolitical Economy Report, with Pepe Escobar, a journalist who has made mention to philosophical discussions with people like Alexander Dugin. Interestingly enough, Pepe Escobar has specifically mentioned, in an interview relating to geopolitics (of the current Israeli situation), that he would suggest reading a text about Jewish people. This book was anti-semitic in ways I have never seen before. Relating back to Dugin, I'm at a point where I see "geopolitics" or "multipolar" and assume some relation to the man, so I was already highly suspicious anyway.
So the question is: why do so many reactionaries and fascists try to claim the fight against finance capital is their fight? I haven't seen any evidence that fascists actually do anything to stop finance. It all gets blamed on immigrants or Jewish people or something else.
----------Unrelated Rant Starts Here----------
Additionally, what is the deal with all the attemps to form some type of red-brown alliance of sorts? Everything left-wing in nature always seems to hold mention, directly or indirectly, to something that comes out of the LaRouche or Dugin playbooks. These people aren't even Communists, they're just fascists.
The worst part is that we know American fascism actually claims to be uniquely American and thus not fascist at all because American fascism just isn't European. Franklin D. Roosevelt was almost like a competent Mussolini, yet purely electoral and allowed Communists to exist (but under scrutiny and surveillance), and even had a real plot against him by real fascists. On the opposition, it looks like we even have people reading Marx and Engels and Lenin at length, but still co-opting the messaging to do some PatSoc/NazBol/Duginist/Strasserist/etc. adjacent work.
If you sit in pro-China spaces too long, you find a bunch of fascists. If you sit in anti-China spaces too long, still fascists everywhere. If you speak up for Korea, same thing, attacked by anti-Communists on one end and your message is co-opted by neo-fascists claiming Korea is an ethnostate or a PatSoc state, and worthy of praise, on the other. These are the same tactics NazBols would use for recruiting back when Stalin was running the USSR, claiming Stalin as one of their own.
Now we have more anarchists and other leftists attacking Communist spaces for holding a bunch of "tankies" and people like us are getting lumped in with Jackson Hinkle and Haz.
If reading all the theory doesn't solidify our principles, if our organizations are still infiltrated heavily, if our message is dilluted by opportunists, and if we have people engaging in real-life praxis still falling victim to cult-like behavior and taking on fascist-adjacent viewpoints, then what do we have?
and I won't ignore people trying to minimize this either. If you look at any left-wing organizations in the "West" (yet another euphemism I hate since it just sounds like right-wing garbage pitting East against West, or Atlanticist fascist against Eurasian fascist), we notice that there are no serious organizations like there used to be. Definitely nothing like the Black Panther Party is alive today.
Then look at how quickly the fascists switch up and adhere to their new lines, like it was a script. From pro-Ukraine to pro-Russia; from pro-Israel to pro-Palestine; from anti-China to pro-China or vice versa. People who were screaming about Communists and (((globalists))) taking over the WEF and the global institutions are now celebrating Javier Milei's election in Argentina. When leftists bring up international orgs ran by the US? Well, the fascists already had their anti-WTO, anti-World Bank, anti-NED, anti-IMF lines ready to go, getting their voice out and their opinions boosted while the legitimate opposition was censored or removed.
Sorry for the rant. I just need someone to make some sense out of all this. It feels like the internet has been stuck in psyop mode for so many years that every form of opposition left, right, and center, has been infiltrated to the point of never challenging anything. Weird times lie ahead.