I'm sure I've heard a lot but one that stuck with me is "gunboat diplomacy and imperialism is good actually." From the same mouth a minute later: "the only reason the KMT lost [the fucking Chinese civil war] was because the US stopped giving them weapons. Communists are fundamentally incapable of accomplishing anything on their own."
this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2023
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It's like his mind had to course correct mid-sentence because he was close to fucking up his own world view.
It does seem like that, but I do believe he thinks it's all internally coherent.
Destroying the 3 Gorges Dam is both easy to accomplish and desirable.
Equating communism and fascism.
I mean we seen that a billion times in various versions in mainstream and got used to this but still it's the stupidest fucking thing ever.
I just used the "social democracy is the left wing of fascism line" and the response was "well ackshually communism is the left wing of fascism and all the damn populists are spoiling our perfect social democracy" Completely braindead.
I know, right? The body count of fascism is laughable compared to communism.
Britain EVEN WITHOUT THE HELP OF THE UNITED STATES would have been able to execute Operation Unthinkable and win due to Bomber Command and the British Navy alone. They also thought that they would save quote “10’s of millions of democratically aligned people, and German soldiers from dying in Russian Siberian Death Camps like Vorkuta, because seeing how awful it was inside a Gulag from CALL OF DUTY BLACK OPS 1 made them hate Russia.
This is a person who is an ex-friend of mine attending Princeton while studying foreign policy.
We live in a cruel simulation.
Idk if this counts as a hot take but one of my coworkers got drunk as shit at the airbnb our group was staying at and he started ranting about how Jews and Spaniards mixed with Central Africans to create "high yellows" or some shit then complained about his elementary school having too many black people even though it was still majority white in a ritzy part of Atlanta. He also talked about how women are only good for fucking while being married and crying about his cheating wife. Dude clearly drove his first wife away right into the arms of a black guy
Sounds like he was already nuts and the alcohol just loosened the screws
Oh yeah in a better society he would've been shot long ago. Unfortunately the Iraqis that blew a 50 cal barreta that split him open and his war buddy's head that he couldn't stop crying about didn't do it.
i do not know if this counts, but i have seen wild hottakes related to communism mentioned by you all, so might as well.
one time, an in-law talked with my dad, as i have mentioned to them that i have studied a bit of marxism and feminism in literature theory class.
the reactions were funny. they said "oh my god are you brainwashed? marxism is satanic! i forgot why and i can't show a video about it, but it's satanic and evil" (they like jordan peterson which explains it all.) while my dad said "karl marx is german so he made nazism".
my dad's claim is especially funny as he lived during the communist era of my country.
i hear a ton of stupid stuff from my relatives, but this is my favorite
I was discussing with a hardcore neo-liberal, almost to the degree of ancap about government and he pointed out, that when centralizing power thr rights of minorities are often overlooked, he said: "Suddenly 3% of the popultation just becomes a meaningless number that can just be sent to their death". The next day, we were discussing about covid restrictions, where my point was simply, that individual freedoms don't count anymore, when there is harm to other. He simply responded with. "oh the 3% that are actually in danger when getting covid, can just stay inside, as if it was worth it restricting myself for them."
This is a subtle point throughout Hayek's writings. He's always expressing concern for minorities and at first it's like, I thought this guy was supposed to be a neoliberal? Then it slowly dawns on you: the only minority he cares about is the rich.
Aren't earlier liberal writings very explicit about such "minority rights"?
I think so. Hayek is very subtle about it, though.
That's the quiet part out loud. Minoritarianism is how all bourgeois democracies are structured.
i remember in school, i was taught that gays should be put into concentration camps and Jewish people should he forcibly converted to Christianity. and there's still people that parrot that, every time i have the misfortune to use social media. :)
"homeless people are landlords" 💀
This sub conveniently forgetting about 200 years of Russian imperialism & going to bat for Russia in Ukraine. Like I know u guys don't like Western powers but countries shouldn't be able to conduct "special military operations" just because they're bigger than their neighbor.
Username checks out.
Imperialism isn't "country invades another country"
Sometimes it includes invasion... This war is fallout from the Ukrainian revolution in 2014.
Are you a demsoc? Do you think the Soviet Union was imperialist?
When is a hegemony not imperialist?
The soviet union was not a hegemony. I'm sure someone here can explain.
I once had a coworker fucking uno reverso card me when he started talking some weird white Islamo-nationalist shit and then went onto some really racist tirade against black folk.
He kept talking about the need to defend ones' own people, so I brought up the Black Panthers and what they stood for, what they did in service to not only black people but for the people entirely. I told him they protected their own and that our state killed them for it.
He brought up Hitler. He said "just like Hitler, he was protecting his own"!
I don't even remember what I said after that, I was flabbergasted and almost certain we were both wasted.
white Islamo-nationalist
WHAT
It is a simple one really: that imperialism brought civilization, technology, and relative prosperity to the natives (some youtube channel that "debunked" communism said this)
Sounds more or less like modernization theory, which is indeed absurd. Yet the empire's court economists and political scientists continue to write about it in an effort to make it seem serious and believable.
Of course! They have to create agents of capital from amongst the workers, and that means proclaiming the "benefits" of imperialism.
A combination of
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Don't tell people to read theory, you have to explain things in simple terms.
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Marxist-Leninist ideas of revolution won't work with today's technology and economy.
How to tell someone you haven't even tried to read theory, and then criticise theory based on what you think the theory is, and encourage everyone around you to adopt the same choice of ignorance.
I have to say I agree with point 1.
"Read Theory" is "Google It" for Communists. It's annoying and a little arrogant. Of course reading theory is good. But they're here for the social aspect. If you were sitting down with a friend for lunch, or talking to a coworker at work, and they asked a question about socialism, you wouldn't tell them to go to the library and rent a book, would you?
It is far better, I think, to be specific on the work of history or theory you're advocating for than to tell others to read a book/learn history/etc. Many such works are integral to destroying the braincage of, for instance, Amerikan exceptionalism.
In a hypothetical conversation wherein I am trying to dissuade someone from engaging in Amerika apologia, I would recommend Rogue State and Killing Hope by William Blum before anything else, while giving them my own thoughts and opinions regarding Amerika's crimes.
Were the issue, say, unconditionally defending the traditional family structure, I would cite Engels' The Origin of the Family. The necessity of the state and the banality of most "anarchism"? On Authority and Anarchism or Socialism? by comrade Ioseb. I would also direct that someone to read these works.
And other works, depending on specificity of issue and political learnedness of the individual being engaged with. If there is a point to my rambling, it's that literally saying "read theory", while potentially a funny (and fair) meme to throw at trolls and bad faith actors, doesn't do much for educating anyone. What theory? I think that's important.
We should be able to understand that theory and history well enough to put it into digestible reality for the working class, of course. But directing others to that theory only strengthens communism's presence in political thought. Those who become educated in said theory will tell others who will tell others. This is good.
And I guess, for honesty's sake and for anyone reading who potentially does the same, I have told others, in the past, to "read theory" without diving into specifics because I did not heed my own advice and thusly could not actually give them specifics. I was being hypocritcal in my posturing, at the time.
It's definitely important to read and understand. It's also incredibly important to treat others with empathy and as fully cognizant beings capable of rational thought, who when guided towards genuine education and not hit with directionless platitudes may actually change their understandings of the world. For the most part, anyway.
It's worth noting that no one expects you, the reader of this, to know everything, nor do you have to. We strive to learn as much as we can, and that is a worthwhile endeavor. Just as worthwhile is putting that knowledge into action.