this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2024
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To all full-grown hexbears, NO DUNKING IN MY THREAD...ONLY TEACH, criminal scum who violate my Soviet will be banned three days and called a doo doo head...you have been warned

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[–] [email protected] 76 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

I don't mean this as a dunk, but usually what has to get taught about leftist politics isn't the specific claims of Marxism or what socialism is. Usually what western people have to be instructed with is current/former socialist countries are legitimate places and not cartoonish dictatorships. The nationalism brain worm runs far deeper than the capitalist one. And it's that kind of sentiment that will entangle itself with their understanding of what western socialists advocate.

It's pretty normal to accept anti-capitalist sentiment, even right wingers will use that kind of rhetoric, but it's far less normal to praise the west's enemies or to even view them as valid human beings. It's why it's so common for western leftists to first and foremost condemn the west's enemies as doing socialism incorrectly.

That's just what I experience most of the time when I get curious questions about socialism. I might get the odd question about how you motivate people without money, but the bulk of questions are about stuff like what haircuts are illegal in the DPRK.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (5 children)

Usually what western people have to be instructed with is current/former socialist countries are legitimate places and not cartoonish dictatorships.

To reinforce your point here, I cannot stress enough how important a step learning actual details about the USSR and China was for me. Because as you say, people don't think of these as real places where countless real people had mundane, normal lives, they just imagine literal cartoon caricatures they passively absorbed from pop culture. Like one that stands out to me is reading a thorough description of the Soviet court system, where even though it took pains to stress how dysfunctional this feature or that feature was all I could think was "I've had family go through the courts in the US, I've seen firsthand what a completely mad and not at all functional system the US has, and by comparison what the Soviets were doing over half a century ago was meaningfully less dysfunctional than what we have now."

And for China, ironically it was something from anti-CPC ultras (Sorghum and Steel) that helped me realize what China had even been doing at all, because even if they stressed this systemic failure or that one they still went into detail about what the policies in question were, what the material situation on the ground was, and why those decisions were being made, leading to a clear picture of China struggling against an impossible material situation and eventually succeeding. Like every western history is just "grr arrg mean devious celestials tricked the peasants and then Mao ate all the sparrows cause they're dumb, grrr" but in the actual context even the catastrophe of the Great Leap Forwards starts to make sense in terms of the model emerging from rural communes that had implemented it successfully (or were claiming to have done so, at least) and the model of highly decentralized rural industry that's far from the coast being extremely appealing given how vulnerable centralized coastal industry would be in the event of a war with the US; the Great Leap Forward didn't work in practice, obviously, but there were clear reasons and pressures behind it instead of just the "lol gommunism dumb no food where iphone" bullshit that makes up the sum total of what liberals believe.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yeah I agree with this totally, it's why I try to hammer home that people focus on breaking down nationalism first and foremost, it is the primary issue.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 9 months ago (3 children)

imperialism is the current greatest threat to socialism worldwide, so much of a threat it even trickles down as brainrot in the minds of western people

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[–] [email protected] 67 points 9 months ago (26 children)

What’s it truly like to live in communist north korea right now? I know that most of the buzz around how it’s a failed state and they’re starving the people are mostly propaganda, but it’s so hard to tell fact from fiction especially since there’s propaganda within the state as well.

[–] [email protected] 74 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I don’t claim to be an authority, but I have spent the last couple years trying to learn about the DPRK as much as I can from more independent sources (like from people from China who go there as tourists).

From a material perspective… very broadly it seems like it’s better to live in the DPRK than to be poor in the United States, but someone in the US who isn’t poor is probably better off than most DPRK citizens. That of course should not be a surprise, given how heavily the DPRK is sanctioned and how restricted their trade is. Interestingly from the time shortly after the Korean War (after the DPRK was able to recover from having every bit of its industrial capacity destroyed and ~20% of its people killed) up through the 80s, the DPRK was seen as the wealthier of the two countries on the Korean Peninsula.

Honestly, the only way to deny that the people of the DPRK are doing ok materially is to use the line about how whenever you see videos of people having fun a water park or whatever, they’re all just actors. For that, idk I think any application of critical thinking would tell you how ridiculous that is.

That said, there’s some truth to the famine thing, but that’s more an artifact of recent history. There really were famine conditions and suffering in the 90s. But that was more a function of some unique weather/climatic conditions plus the collapse of the USSR. The environmental and terrain conditions in the DPRK are not ideal for farming (cold and mountainous), so there’s a lot less margin for when things go bad. The famines could have been alleviated if the DPRK was allowed to have normal relations with other countries, but at the time the US and their allies used that suffering to try and put the screws to the DPRK instead.

I don’t know enough about the political situation to be able to speak to it with confidence.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 9 months ago (1 children)

What a cruel thing the US did to use the suffering of the north koreans as ammunition against north koreans

[–] [email protected] 54 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Wait till you read about what the US did to the people of Nicaragua by supporting the Contras (who were for all practical purposes a part of the US military), if we’re talking more recent US atrocities…

[–] [email protected] 69 points 9 months ago

I've known people who've been there. I've known an Indonesian guy for instance who used to go on vacations to the DPRK to go skiing. Apparently it's a fairly normal vacation destination for Indonesians because they can get into the country easily.

From what's described to me, day to day life is pretty comparable to any other poor country in Asia. Life out in the countryside is probably the hardest. It seems like the worst aspects of living in the DPRK all relate to poverty rather than the cartoonish goofy dictatorship that westerners claim the country is like. They don't have great internet access, but from what I'm told nearly every person in the DPRK buys USB drives full of pirated stuff anyway.

Other than their media, the DPRK is pretty normal, and in fact doing quite well considering their decades of sanctions and international aggression. They haven't had widespread food insecurity in a while. Their healthcare system seems stable. They had energy instability for a while in the 90s they seem to have managed.

[–] [email protected] 64 points 9 months ago

This is a fascinating documentary called My Brothers and Sisters in the North by a South Korean woman who had dual citizenship in Germany and then used that German Citizenship to visit the DPRK.

https://yewtu.be/watch?v=nSd48emp0lI

She goes to a number of different places in the DPRK and visits people living much different lifestyles.

Things to remember when watching vids regarding inside DPRK is that they are basically under siege by Western Powers for almost a century now. So when they're being interviewed, they're basically talking to extensions of their oppressors and they're very aware of that.

There's also The Haircut by BoyBoy. https://yewtu.be/watch?v=2BO83Ig-E8E

You'll probably recognize some of the locations they went to from the documentary as there's a basic tour every tourist goes on and then people who visit as part of the DPRK's cultural exchange program get to visit more relevant locations to their project in addition.

Speaking of. If you can find a torrent of Aim High in Creation you'll get to see a much more behind the scenes look of people in DPRK just doing their job and living their life. The facade of stiffness falls to the wayside and you get to see Filmmakers who aren't typically dealing with tourists just being themselves and shooting the shit. See if you can tell when the Australian director is being inadvertently rude to them.

Trailer https://yewtu.be/watch?v=CvrWdj79aT4

[–] [email protected] 50 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Keep in mind that the DPRK had 20% of its people killed off in a matter of 3 years and much of its land destroyed.

So, while there have been a famine in recent memory (during the 1990s), this has been a result of the economic embargo and sanctions on the country.

I'm trying to be as honest as I can with you here.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

Yeah that’s wild, i just listened to the Blowback podcast and during the korean war the US military ran out of north korean targets to bomb.

People keep referencing that north korea is a hermit kingdom and that it actively does not want to participate in the global economy and … that makes sense? I too would be paranoid and disinclined to negotiate with the outside world after having the outside world literally burn me into rubble.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Keep in mind that North Korea, or the DPRK, can't really trade except for with countries like China and the Russian Federation (and even then illegally while those two countries look the other way).

It's literally in an embargo that's been going on for decades now.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 9 months ago (6 children)

That too. Although, I wonder what the terms of the embargos are, and what north korea has to do on their side to appease the west and allow trade.

Oh why is this country so corrupt and backwards! Let’s put more sanctions in to restrict its trade and starve its citizens.

Western logic 😵‍💫

[–] [email protected] 39 points 9 months ago (1 children)

what north korea has to do on their side to appease the west and allow trade

Cuba tried to ask for such terms and was told no terms would be offered.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 9 months ago

Per Blowback, Che offered to the US, in exchange for lifting the blockade:

  • No exporting Revolution

  • No military alliance with the USSR

  • Cuba wouldn’t / couldn’t directly pay back the US for appropriated property, but were willing to reimburse the US over time through terms of trade

Really, the only non-negotiable was that Cuba was a communist country, and would have communist governance and a communist economy. JFK thought it was a sign of weakness on Cuba’s part and turned them down.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 9 months ago

Yeah, there are virtually no terms (from what I've read), as the country's leadership is seen as undemocratic and dictatorial and, therefore, the United States and its allies dictate the terms (and DPRK has to follow them) while North Korea doesn't get a say. It is called a rogue state partly for that reason (as opposed to a country like Saudi Arabia, which has often been a staunch partner of the United States).

But we know that it has a functioning democracy at various levels; certainly no worse than most Western democracies.

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Oh, also regarding defectors. Most that you hear about are monetizing their story through USA backed Libertarian think tanks. Atlas Network being the big one. Freedom Factory is another if I remember correctly.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 9 months ago (1 children)

i swear. Propaganda, propaganda everywhere. We talk about America having “free speech” but it feels like the only ones able to speak and have their voices heard are the ones that are able to buy their way into the ears of millions through social media and mainstream media.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Manufacturing Consent machine goes brrrrrrrrrrrr

Noam Chomsky - The 5 Filters of the Mass Media Machine - this is a quick little 5 minute primer on the topic, if you're not familiar.

I see you've listened to Blowback, have you had the opportunity to watch Yellow Parenti yet?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP8CzlFhc14

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, NK's state media has always had a very off and somewhat idealist view of the DPRK. Most information you find on the nation doesn't pass the sniff test. They also seem to be the oddball of the socialist countries.

This is one that made me question the western narrative on NK. An article about a stoner getting some North Korean weed and smoking in a restaurant like it was no big deal.. Very good read

[–] [email protected] 31 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

The demonization of marijuana is such a bizarre thing. The US wanted to criminalize black culture so they deemed weed in the same category as meth or heroin, and countries in the imperial core and imperial periphery followed suit. But in places untouched by US influence weed is just … a part of their lives and culture. Just another plant that made you feel funny, like tea. And it’s refreshing to see places where weed isn’t just a drug that was decriminalized and made legal again, but actually had its legality preserved throughout and had no taboo associations stemming from it.

Anyway, fuck US culture for demonizing weed and shrooms. The US single-handedly destroyed a source of innovation for mental health research globally for having such a draconian stance on them and sheeple countries follow suit.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 9 months ago (2 children)

As someone with schizophrenia, I can say that the west demonizing psychedelics (shrooms and DMT specifically) has probably set back the treatment of schizophrenia really hardcore. There is a very heavy DMT presence in schizophrenia. I don't know what role is plays exactly, but it is clear as day that DMT is partially responsible for the visuals. And people around me say I pretty much always act like I'm on shrooms. Psychedelic trials are essential to ever getting good schizophrenia treatment.

Also, the coca leaf was a lot like this before the west came in. Chewing a coca leaf doesn't get you super high, it's like a slightly harder cup of coffee, not even particularly addictive when treated right. America literally ruined every common plant medicine. Even starting to fight kratom even though kratom is essential for alleviating the fentanyl crisis in the nation. The US wants criminals, not functioning people

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 9 months ago (9 children)

Both my husband and I are children of expats from former Soviet countries. And while I think I'm fairly open to socialist ideas, I do get caught up on the fact that the people among our relatives who are most nostalgic for the Soviet Union are also VERY racist, homophobic, terrible to animals and just generally mean to everyone around them. And their food, in all its hyper-processed mystery meat and mayonnaise glory, kinda sucks.

Any tips for getting over that bias?

[–] [email protected] 58 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (4 children)

There’s a Chinese communist from the early days of the CPC - and I feel bad that I’ve forgotten his name - who I have read some of his thoughts on this. He said the first generation after the revolution will still have brains full of worms, even among the best and most upstanding comrades. This will get better over time, but you’re talking many generations. Because we are all products of our environment. We cannot escape the social conditions we grew up in. Being a communist doesn’t mean you are now some new person completely cleaved from any connection to the world around us and our personal histories. The Soviet Union did make attempts to fight sexism, racism, nationalism et al within their borders, but thinking you can just propagandize people into right thinking is idealism. The USSR had to start with the social conditions they inherited - and that society, which was part feudalist part capitalist - had a lot of sexism, racism, nationalism, etc (and of course cruelty to animals).

I’ll make a confession: I still sometimes have reactionary thoughts and ideals pop into my head. And it takes active, conscious thought to tell myself “what the fuck dude, cut that shit out”. If I was not actively engaged in checking myself on that, it is possible that the brainworms could come back. It’s something we are all susceptible to in some form, I think.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I think it really is a generational thing, especially with people who grew up during the liberalization era. Plus people wrongly try to make sense of the collapse of their lives, so they may fondly remember Communism, but associate their new shitty conditions with stuff like LGBTQ rights instead of everything else the west brought. This is why a cultural revolution was a necessary idea, even if not executed well. People didn't retain the materialism of the ideology even if they are nostalgic for the world it created.

I always think about this conversation @[email protected] and @[email protected] about her family and how her grandmother so quickly became pro-LGBTQ, while her more liberal parents are not as quick to change. https://hexbear.net/comment/3310448

[–] [email protected] 25 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Yeah she pretty quickly came over once she read some literature on it. I think the conditions of her time made communists more left thinking, I do really believe that if somehow the communists kept continuity and were able to stay in charge, czechoslovakia would be one of the most LGBT accepting places on the planet, along with Cuba. The biggest things that seem to help LGBT acceptance imo are urbanization and access to information. I really want to do a deeper dive on numbers and historical circumstances for LGBT people in every country so we can see what policies are best to aim for in the long term. Right now, a lot of queer research pretty much is just international-community-1international-community-2 governments saying their allies are good for queers and doesnt attempt to predict trends

[–] [email protected] 34 points 9 months ago

I think reading Blackshirts and Reds by Michael Parenti would be helpful. He doesn't make excuses and acknowledges the racism in the USSR. I think laying bare the actual shortcomings of the project places it in reality instead of the cartoonish evil depicted by mainstream Western history. It allows for a clearer understanding of the good alongside the bad and shows where we can improve in the next iteration of a socialist project

We're all human and need to see where we can do better, and despite the issues of past socialist experiments, it seems to many here that this form of government is the most likely way for humanity to do the most good for all

[–] [email protected] 27 points 9 months ago (1 children)

This has more to do with the 1990s to 2010s than it does with the Soviet days.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 9 months ago

I do get caught up on the fact that the people among our relatives who are most nostalgic for the Soviet Union are also VERY racist, homophobic, terrible to animals and just generally mean to everyone around them.

i've noticed this when talking to my cousins abroad but have no answer, because it's kind of true and disturbing, but at the same time in the US, mean american people wander into my life all the time. I think that the US is just slightly ahead of Russia in what you might call the less-economic types of a cultural revolution (specifically, LGBT rights, animal rights, etc.).

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 9 months ago (7 children)

how does the toothbrush schedule work?

[–] [email protected] 23 points 9 months ago

it's more of a waiting list/lottery situation than a "schedule"

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Dear socialists you claim to hate the USA, but you follow a doctrine started by the us state department (it's even in the name soCIAlism): curious

[–] [email protected] 28 points 9 months ago

Oh shit oh fuck

[–] [email protected] 38 points 9 months ago (3 children)

But what if I'm an introvert? I don't wanna be forced to socialize

[–] [email protected] 32 points 9 months ago

GRAB YOUR GEAR AND GET IN THE TEACHING TRENCHES!

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 9 months ago (14 children)

I have two cows. What's gonna happen to them?

[–] [email protected] 36 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Subsistence farming is very different from owning means of production and exploiting workers. Unless your two cows are a metaphor for owning land and cattle that are worked by peasants while you keep the surplus value literally nothing happens.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I hire a furry to draw them as smokin hot babes

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 9 months ago

*** TO ALL NEW HEXBEARS OR LEMMT LIBERALS! THE FOLLOWING PASSAGE IS SOMETHING THAT MUST BE STEIVED TOWARDS, FKR IT IS PERFECTION ***

The last time I smiled was on August 19th, 1991.

I wear a dirty ushanka at all times, do not shave, and only take cold sponge baths because hot running water is bourgeoisie decadence.

Every day at exactly noon I have the same meal of an expired Maoist MRE I store in a pit covered in old issues of a revolutionary newspaper.

I sleep in a bed made of flags from every failed revolution so that they are never forgotten.

In the evenings I stare at a picture of vodka by candlelight, but I do not allow myself to drink because there is nothing to celebrate.

Every local org has banned me after I attempted to split it by assassinating the leadership.

There is no plumbing in my house I shit in a brass bucket with a picture of Gonzalo and Deng french kissing in the bottom of it.

My house is actually an overturned T34 in an abandoned junkyard in Wisconsin.

I have a single friend in this world and it is a tapeworm named Bordiga that I met after ingesting spoiled borscht on 9/11 in the ruins of building 7 (I blew it up after finding that a nominally leftist NGO inside of it wasn’t sufficiently anti-imperialist, the attacks on the world trade center were a perfect revolutionary moment for me to enact direct praxis against liberalism).

My source of income is various MLM schemes in the former soviet bloc that have been running for so long no one remembers who I am, they just keep sending money.

I have not paid taxes since McGovern lost the Democratic nomination for president and my faith in electoralism died more brutally than my childhood dog after it got into an entire jar of tylenol.

I own 29 fully automatic rusted kalashnikovs and three crates of ammunition entirely incompatible with them or any other firearms I own.

My double PHD in marxist economics and 18th century Swiss philosophy (required to understand Engels) sits over the fireplace of my home, my fireplace is a salvaged drum from a 1950s washing machine that was recalled for locking children inside of it.

I chose that washing machine model on purpose because I am anti-natalist.

During the latest BLM protests I firebombed a Nikes outlet in the middle of a peaceful candlelit vigil.

William F Buckley and I wrote hatemail to one another for 47 years until my final letter gave him an aneurysm. The only water I drink is from puddles.

George Lucas and I dropped acid together during an MKULTRA southern baptist summer camp and he went on to write the movie Willow about our time together.

The best way to test whether an electrical wire is live is to drool on it and shrimp salad is racist. You can make an IED out of potassium and the instructions are online thanks to Timothy McVey, who was actually a committed antifascist communist slandered by the deep state as part of operation condor.

Every time a liberal files a restraining order against me, I carve a mark into the wall.

I am running out of walls.

When Amerika finally collapses I will be ready to lead the revolution.

I am very smart and people like being around me.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Happy to also help answer questions! (And will scold/bonk judiciously as needed for hostility)

[–] [email protected] 25 points 9 months ago
[–] [email protected] 25 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 26 points 9 months ago (1 children)

counterpoint, why not marxism? marx-hi

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