Asklemmy

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Does one have to be an iconoclast or revolutionary these days to be validly left? I consider myself to be left of center, and very much in favor of progressive policies. (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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However I find myself being disagreed with quite often, mostly for not advocating or cheering violence, "by any means possible" change, or revolutionary tactics. It would seem that I'm not viewed as authentically holding my view unless I advocate extreme, violent, or radical action to accomplish it.

Those seem like two different things to me.

Edit: TO COMMUNISTS, ANARCHISTS, OR ANYONE ELSE CALLING FOR THE OVERTHROW OF SOCIETY

THIS OBVIOUSLY ISN'T MEANT FOR YOU.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

I think you are vastly underestimating the horrors of most pre-revolutionary societies, and probably also overestimating what you describe as oppression in post-revoltionary governments.

On the first point, here's an excerpt from a JFK speech where he describes pre-revolution Cuba:

The third, and perhaps most disastrous of our failures, was the decision to give stature and support to one of the most bloody and repressive dictatorships in the long history of Latin American repression. Fulgencio Batista murdered 20,000 Cubans in seven years - a greater proportion of the Cuban population than the proportion of Americans who died in both World Wars, and he turned Democratic Cuba into a complete police state - destroying every individual liberty.

And JFK was no friend of Castro; he greenlit the Bay of Pigs invasion! Revolutions are born from the most brutal forms of exploitation and violence. Not even the wildest anticommunist propaganda about post-revolution Cuba comes close to the reality of what the revolution replaced.