I’ll never understand why it’s so hard for some people to understand that the US is literally an evil empire that exploits, oppresses, and murders people all over the world. Of course all rightwing governments suck, but it’s easy to see that the US is the primary enemy of leftist movements across the planet. If we want communism, we need the US to collapse and movements all over the place preventing the vacuum from being filled by something worse.
Idk seems like anyone left of liberals would understand this.
“I’m comfortable which means the US can’t be that bad”
Similar reasoning for why suburbanites generally don’t care about police violence.
I think it literally is because books like 1984 and other propaganda has given people this idea that “authoritarian” countries are just this miserable 24/7 nightmare for everyone who lives in them and therefore any country that has any significant population of people who seem happy and comfortable can’t be evil. It’s like how liberals shit their pants when they hear accounts of people living in the USSR who actually enjoyed their lives and did fun stuff like go to the beach and have barbecues cuz apparently under evil communism everyone is just supposed to work in the orphan crushing factory all day and then go home to eat gray mush.
“In bad countries, the color pallet is dark gray or tan. In good country, they use all the colors of the rainbow.”
Russia isnt even that authoritarian so in this case it’s literally propaganda
Plus, even if Russia wasn’t much weaker than the US, I still can’t do anything to affect them except support the Military Industrial Complex or their candidates. I’m not gonna do that anyway. So what does it matter if, emotionally, I like Russia? It’s not like my “support” for them means anything.
Right.
Any correct thinking leftist in the west would obviously be against their own government’s imperialist actions. They should all support limiting military spending, aiding arms embargoes, withdrawing our forces, pushing for peace/ceasefires in all of our active conflicts, etc. Any anti-war hippie knows this, even the lib ones going totally on vibes.
So as long as you do that part, actually opposing your own empire in material ways as directly as you can, what does it matter your opinion on the russian or iranian states are? We aren’t russian or iranian, we can’t do anything to change their policies from without - all we can do is beat the drums of war of our own empire to do it on our behalf, which directly contradicts the goals above. What’s the point in even bringing up how evil Russia or Iran are as a westerner? Whether they are pure saints or demons incarnate it doesn’t change what your short-term tangible goals are, so why are you wasting time squabbling over it instead of getting to work?
There’s a chinese saying… something like ‘an egg cracked from within brings new life. an egg cracked from without is someone’s meal’. This is how social progress must work, it must arise organically from within following the natural development of that society advancing. It cannot be imposed from without via violent force, and those who claim to do so are looking for a meal.
What’s the point in even bringing up how evil Russia or Iran are as a westerner
obligatory Masses, Elites, and Rebels: The Theory of “Brainwashing" mention:
In short: Westerners aren’t helpless innocents whose minds are injected with atrocity propaganda, science fiction-style; they’re generally smug bourgeois proletarians who intelligently seek out as much racist propaganda as they can get their hands on. This is because it fundamentally makes them feel better about who they are and how they live. The psychic and material costs are rationally worth the benefits.
So as long as you do that part, actually opposing your own empire in material ways as directly as you can, what does it matter your opinion on the russian or iranian states are? We aren’t russian or iranian, we can’t do anything to change their policies from without - all we can do is beat the drums of war of our own empire to do it on our behalf, which directly contradicts the goals above. What’s the point in even bringing up how evil Russia or Iran are as a westerner? Whether they are pure saints or demons incarnate it doesn’t change what your short-term tangible goals are, so why are you wasting time squabbling over it instead of getting to work?
it doesn’t materially matter directly to the situation but the analysis that gets us to our position and all the media literacy and so on are still relevant.
it’s potentially productive to tell libs who are mad at the democrats but don’t know anything besides nonviolent brunch marches that euromaidan was a coup, that western media was reporting on the nazi stuff and then stopped because they’re an extension of the government, that russia is in the right at the very least to protect the separatists from nazis, that they’d want canada to intervene on behalf of the PNW if those “greater idaho” nazis popped off shelling seattle for 7 years etc.
Yes, helping them see the bigger picture is beneficial - you are right. But I think right at the outset it’s important to determine whether you and the other person are even on the “same team” so to speak. If they can agree to opposing their own empire first and foremost, I’m willing to have further discussions later to get into the weeds of history and analysis and understand things better. However, if you cannot get them to agree to opposing American empire first and foremost, and they insist on continuing their chauvinistic attacks on “enemies” then this person is not on “your team”. You can never come to an understanding with such a person until you get them to accept the primary and first axiom, their revolutionary defeatist duty, that they are part of the evil empire and must oppose it first and foremost.
yeah. “look they did a fuckload of coups and ukraine was one of them” ought to be enough to get people on board with hating the empire, along with the invasion of iraq and a thousand other crimes against humanity.
In many cases it’s because they live in that empire and benefit from its economic subjugation of the world.
The biggest problem reaching westoids really is just western chauvinism in the plain-ass dictionary meaning, but if you call it out it just sounds kind of gay and european to the Usian ear, so it’s hard to get them to stop and register chauvinism as a bad thing and not just a funny thing to say.
I feel like even before I became a socialist I realized this. Like it shouldn’t be that hard (in the sense of breaking from stated liberal theory) to recognize it for the average lib… I could imagine a lib even being moderately successful in being aggressive against “conservative aggression costing us so much abroad”.
Some conservatives and chuds seem more aware then the average lib about foreign meddling. Often its because they want to be isolationist/bring home fascism, but a lot of “average joes” at least say they don’t see the point in constantly stepping in shit (that we left) overseas. Its really funny. Its like the conservatives yell about X thing abroad, but (some number) don’t actually believe it to be a threat. But then the libs pick it up and unironically believe it. Like at this time, I’d expect more conservatives to say something like Iraq was bs that obama kept us in, then a liberal saying it was bs that bush dragged us into.
During college I got a lot of the “intellectual elite” libs saying that liberalism, free trade, etc, brings global peace and prosperity. Peace of Westphalia, magna carta, or w/e shit they pull out for “modern civilized” global-national organization… All of it is just the weakest cover to pretend to be nice while being 20x as evil as they say Stalin was.
Ok Contra, but you don’t support any opposition, State or non-State.
You don’t have any problem with the state or capital, only see those running it as incompetent and wish they’d fulfill their part of the class collaborationism deal.
She supports the only opposition that matters: democrats and socdem video essayists
No, those aren’t an opposition. They’re people who peddle ideas to the government and hope to take the wheel for a few years.
I am once again screaming into the void that is the yankoid skull “YOU GOT WHAT YOU FUCKING WANTED, YOU DISSOLVED THE USSR, YOU WON, PUTIN IS LITERALLY YOUR GUY, SHUT THE FUCK UP”
The USSR was a vastly more rational geopolitical actor it’s astounding the Yankoid brain still counts transferring control of a giant nuclear arsenal to a less reliable government as “winning.”
I hate them. I hate them so fucking much.
Ok I have to disagree ,Russia is not any less rational than the USSR was under Brezhnev
Lenin invented revolutionary defeatism and it lead to the revolution. Luxemburg and Liebknecht said the main enemy is at home. From both follows, that the main task of leftists in the imperial core is, to oppose “our” imperialists. The ones we actually can affect. I’m happy if I see comrades in Russia do work against their oligarchy but I won’t get tricked into supporting western oligarchs’ NATO wars. Guess that’s campist now? It just makes sense to spend time and resources where they actually change things - unless you don’t really want fundamental change, because you enjoy your white western privilege too much.
From both follows, that the main task of leftists in the imperial core is, to oppose “our” imperialists. The ones we actually can affect. I’m happy if I see comrades in Russia do work against their oligarchy but I won’t get tricked into supporting western oligarchs’ NATO wars.
Pretty good way of putting it, comrade! I’ll definitely try to explain it along those lines next time I chat with my more liberal leaning progressives.
Yeah this is how I frame it always. There is nothing I can do to affect a change in Russian policy from the US as a broke ass communist. All I can do is organize and speak out against/try to undermine our own imperial forces. Same with when people talk about Chinese data harvesting, I give not one fuck what china has of my internet data why would they give a fuck about me? I do care about my data being in the hands of corporate black box algorithms and US federal agencies.
I’m a lot more anti-ethnic cleansing than I am pro-liberal democracy. If one side of a conflict is doing ethnic cleansing, and the other side’s biggest failure (relative to the first side’s) is not being a liberal democracy, I’m taking the side that’s stopping ethnic cleansing 10 times out of 10.
Also, FWIW, Ukraine’s political system is obviously is at least as corrupt and antidemocratic as Russia, and the other obvious example is Israel, which doesn’t even give equal voting rights to all Palestinians. So even if you were a Fukuyamist who only cared about which side is a liberal democracy, you still can’t make the argument to support the West in either conflict just based on that. All roads lead to
Really it’s more a question of how much red carpet they lay out for Western corporate interests. Saudi Arabia is a majority Muslim country led by a monarchy that offs journalists for being critical of them. But they get the pass from
because they play nice with the oil industry.
jesus, they’re gonna bring back “campists”? I thought they already exhausted that one past its expiration date back in 2020 or something?
“Campism” in practice always just looks like “knowing what side you’re on and rooting for outcomes accordingly.”
Streamers and other e-celebs who make their money off of “challenging people’s ideas online” (contain your laughter!) hate the idea of people making up their minds and moving on.
Endless Debate Club is what they want. Endless content drama.
Liberals keep raiding the Trotskyist piggybank for left-punching terms. Once campist gets used up in 10 years they’ll go with “left-deviationist” or something.
They’ll circle back to Stalinists eventually
Libs will use “ultras” in 5 years.
I’ve already seen it use sometimes. They’re definitely using “purist” in the exact same way.
Remember when she said she was going to become a white liberal woman and we laughed at the bit. I am starting to think it wasn’t just a bit.
going to become a white liberal woman
Nah, I think she was a soc-dem at least at some point
soc-dem
she was already called a liberal white woman.
Yeah, but a liberal couldn’t have posted as hard as she did in her prime before she because enraptured by beauty
Nah, there was a time where her stuff had potential. I think maybe before she got mixed up with genX vs GenZ queer discourse.
Okay, to be clear, social democracy literally is a form of liberalism definitionally as they want to reform, and therefore retain, capitalism.
There was a point in her career where she was clearly anti-capitalist but it has passed.
Then she wasn’t socdem
it’s safe and comfy to her. i don’t think she goes outside much.
she seems really driven by anxiety and social anxiety
my kind of materialist analysis
It’s crazy that anyone who glazed Hillary of all people is taken seriously in any capacity amongst left leaning people.
To be fair, she had a good video or two…ten years ago. Now its just “look at me i have money and lol tankies mad.” Its been that way for 9 years at least, I clocked that shit a mile ago.
If people pay you to live your life like that, cool, great, get the bag. But don’t pretend to be some arbiter of the left when you’re cozying up to
Idk, I could be wrong, im speaking after not having seen any of her content for a decade…but something tells me im not.
“They dont want power, they want to critique power”
No fuck you we want power why did we spend all that time and effort trying to elect local socialists in my city? Why was PSL on the presidential ballot in a lot of states? What is wrong with critiquing power anyways?
She’s still mad at Ralph Nader ,she is a liberal
You are right. In her most recent video she calls herself a liberal and this time she seems to mean it, even if she can’t fully remove the smirk from her face as she says it. And she keeps punching left for no reason and in ways that shouldn’t even make sense to a liberal who has, like, actually talked to a Marxist before, even for one tweet.
In my experience people think im unconditionally for Russia if I make any criticism of Ukraine
It’s infuriating. I’ve literally got that thrown at me IRL, by people that know I’m very active in anarchist groups…like fuck.
that’s why you just z post
They’re going to believe that of you anyway
Z posters
I once went through my stance on this issue and got a very sincere response that what I said “sounds like Kremlin talking points.” I asked the person if they’ve ever actually listened to or read a translation of what the Kremlin says beyond the extremely clipped paraphrasings on NPR and such, and they said no. It’s impressive that they could recognize the sound of something they had never heard.
Fortunately for me, I have actually read and listened to speeches by Putin, and could explain to them some of what Russia says regarding Ukraine and the US and the degree to which I think they are correct or incorrect (e.g. Putin does like using revanchist rhetoric and I deeply despise that, and we don’t need to talk about his social views).
Anyway, I think the place to start with such people if you’re going to talk to them again is to say that reactionaries can and do opportunistically tell the truth. If you’re speaking to an American, ou can use any number of things they’d probably be familiar with from Presidential campaigns in the US, where Republican called Biden a senile old fool and they were completely right (but were not speaking from any sort of principled objection). Reactionaries have platforms based on lies that require them to lie a lot, but that doesn’t mean that they are devils who are forced to speak only in lies.
So like when Putin says he wants to get rid of Ukro-Nazis, he is almost certainly telling the truth. He doesn’t have any problem with fascists, but in Ukraine overwhelmingly the most dedicated enemies of Russia are going to be the hardline nationalists, including the Banderites. That doesn’t mean he has any interest in stopping Russo-Nazis, though clearly he also can find them to be a problem for political reasons, from Navalny to Wagner (eventually, after far too long).
I would like Natalie to tell me which western country will support any newly socialist country.
Of course we oppose them. These alternative enemies of the west will occasionally support socialist states.
Does she even claim to be a socialist? She only ever talks about cultural issues and “deradicalization.” I appreciate her for having been an important part of my process of learning about politics several years ago, but she barely talks about anything economic ever.
Not to my knowledge but the point stands. Do not be surprised that the socialists oppose the countries that are our greatest enemies while being strategically supportive of reactionary countries that aren’t our outright opponents.
She never did. She flirted with more radical left positions pre-transition, when she was struggling financially - a wonder why. But when she gained social acceptance when she approached a more social acceptable form of gender expression and financial “stability” she quickly discarded the community that embraced her. Its a perfect exemplary case of the opportunist streak amongst the left.
Even if every claim of Russian ebil oligarchy was real, to which many of the claims are bogus, at worst it is still an economically and militarily less-influential version of the US-NATO empire?
Surely, even if you were an anarchist or otherwise anti-nationalist on the left, you would see the historic importance of said US Empire suddenly biting off more than it can chew and being drawn into collapse?
I know there are exceptions like the A"C"P, but most people on the left I know that “support” Russia are just supporting the growing attrition and contradictions against the imperialist system. Those same people are all very aware of limitations and contradictions within the Russian, Chinese, Iranian states.
In short, you can’t expect to win against the imperialists if every time the imperialists face a challenger you spend countless hours criticising the challenger’s politics as if this wasn’t already universally agreed within the statement critical support.
Calling people “campists” while retweeting the NAFO camp.
All while the usa is preparing to invade and slaughter a country of 90million together with his bestie, little hitler
Trotsky, the inventor of the term “campist”, thought that the trial in the process of decapitating the CPUSA would be a great platform to offer testimony to warn the world of the evils of Stalinism and tried to work with the US government to testify. It only fell through because they decided they had no use for him.
Wow what a fuckin tool.
I should have included the obligatory link:
Not interested in the takes of someone who has barely expended a breath calling out genocide
“No one is uniquely evil everyone is bad but Russia and non western countries are worse than the west; I deserve patreon bux for this highly novel opinion you can’t find anywhere else”
“I got depression because people got mad at me for simping for democrats in 2016, 2020, and 2024 and that’s my whole personality now it was really bad I was inside all the time and took drugs I had door dash for every meal and was able to always pay my rent/bills also the fact that you’re referring to that privilege is making me even more depressed and victimized”
Hillary Clinton, a right wing genocidal oligarch and recipient of $2.3 million dollars of AIPAC money
Contrapoints leaping to defend her for some reason
