this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2023
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Hi! I'm sure someone will recognize me. Someone may even have insults to hurl. Go for it if you want, I'm not spending all day in this comment thread.
But I do want to offer an outside perspective. I get the concept in the article re:"Stalin did nothing wrong" and I see how that has value from an internal perspective. However from an external one it looks as much like apologetics as someone saying "Benjamin Franklin did nothing wrong" does to you except they may not have the state of mind to be critical and self examining. That can quickly turn in to one of two things
They take it at face value and assume you legitimately mean they did nothing wrong which it seems we already agree is incorrect.
They assume you're trolling.
In either of these circumstances nothing is accomplished but another wedge being driven between such a person and the message they need to hear.
I get it, I do. If you say, "yeah they did this bad thing" then all too often they'll take that and run with it. But if you're not willing to be critical of leaders then how do you expect them to take you any more seriously than you take them?
I don't say this because I think I'm more capable of whatever. I say this because I have a different perspective and a different opinion. I offer my perspective in kindness because if I can't do that then we won't be able to have any kind of discussion and we'll never find the unity I've seen this instance being purported to be about.
saying that phrase is legitimately intended to be trolling- it's not meant to be convincing to the recipient or "activism". at some point you start to care less and less what reactionaries think. It's nigh impossible to convince anyone with arguments on the internet anyway.
There's also a stereotype of leftists needing several paragraphs to explain their ideas when the right wing can get people frothing with mere catchphrases. The balance between nuance and people actually listening is a tough one.
I agree that memes like "Stalin did nothing wrong" are unlikely to convince anyone, but they're not really designed to. It's just a way to state you're not going to be drawn into an argument that you believe is in bad faith, and maybe give other online communists a chuckle. Although I have known a couple of people who saw that kind of statement and found it such a shock to the usual discourse they actually went and did some reading on Stalin, something they'd never done before.
It's up to each individual comrade when they see the need, benefit, or can be bothered to engage and educate. I also don't think there's that much downside to comrades occasionally just giving that kind of glib response. Amongst the enormous tide of an anti-communist western hegemony and incredibly extensive state and capital funded disinformation networks, it's a homeopathic level drop in the ocean of what might turn people off.
What did Ben Franklin do? Besides help found America, I mean
A fun quote from a letter Franklin wrote to a doctor that is cited in Losurdo's Liberalism:
So not something he did, but more a look into his frame of mind. He really didn't care for the poor.
I may have been unintentionally mixing stories and confusing the subjects. I'm sure there's something there but I'm not sure what off the top of my head right now.
The name can be swapped with plenty of others and the point remains the same though. Thomas Edison, Obama, any Bush, etc etc