this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2023
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As soon as you have any actual answer on how to demonstrably improve peoples' lives and do this either within this system in a way that they'll let you, or without this system in a way that they won't assassinate you, I'm with you. I'm serious about that. But you don't have an answer, I already know, because all I see is posturing and arm chair theorizing.
Edit for Michael Parenti who ofcourse has absolutely amazing things to day on the issue: https://youtu.be/6gtUaGV6mNI?feature=shared
If we're talking about the United States, the "answer" is historically clear: collective action, the spread and dissemination of the history of the labor movements, what our laws say about capital and labor today, what our personages in government's rhetoric is about labor, when the next elections are for their office, and how to organize, starting locally and building to the state and federal level. Kind of like what's happening now.
If violence and aggression occur, be extremely wary of how quickly it can lead to purges and an even darker more authoritarian system, even if the religious, fascists, and/or corporatists are defeated. The pigs who squeal the loudest about how they're the voice of the people tend to be quickest to put people's backs against the wall.
This was my original point. Your whataboutism is expected and is boring.
This is exactly what I see and hear when I talk to the latest Bolshevik boot-lickers who pass themselves as experts on Marxist theory, capital and labor, history, and how to depose the government of the US.
At least those people are looking at places where actual revolutions happened and were sustained. Contrary to the US, where unions get busted, action groeps cointelpro-d, leaders assassinated, police violence used, and only the threat of the USSR to gain any social progress. And where QoL is on a steady decline? Please give me a better example.
Furthermore, historically, no one socialist nation has ever existed without being under continuous attack from those very forces - religious, fascists, corporatists, so I don't know what your on about. You're clearly passionate but I read your comments as incredibly idealistic to a fault.
Edit: and what's happening now is the very likely possibility of a 2nd Trump administration and this insane 2025 plan they're cooking up. So I don't even know where you are getting your information.
Hopefully this will be abundantly clear and we can both move on with our lives:
I'm not here to give examples of whatever vague (and very predictable) whataboutism tactic you throw at me and get caught up in some pointless argument with you on a meme thread.
My original point in answering this meme question posed by OP is to not trust authoritarian tankies who historically, time and again, purge their luckless proletariat "allies" after deposing the original authoritarians to retain a stranglehold on power and bring about an even darker and bloodier regime after they co-opt and hijack any mass political movement they can sink their parasitic little tankie dictator teeth into.
I don't care if you don't believe that.
Just like how neo-nazis think the Holocaust wasn't real, plenty of tankies believe the USSR never really invaded Poland the same time Nazi Germany did. Or the purges in Ukraine weren't that bad. Or not that many people died during the invasion of Tibet. Or in the Cultural Revolution. Or Tienanmen Square. History from multiple non-western sources have a lot to say about the so-called authoritarian left. You can start with The Kulak Archipelago.
When I said "what's happening now", I'm referring to recent labor union victories all over the United States that have been documented in the news.
Though you might be, I'm not a Bolshevik true-believer (obviously) and I'm done with the authoritarian Kool-Aid. I'm old enough to recognize wannabe jack-booted thugs and dictator ball-garglers pretty easily nowadays. It's not that hard, they're everywhere from just about every economic and political stripe.
The only thing that ties them all together is when they say something along the lines of "tHe true VerSiON oF __________ HASN't BEeN Tried YeT", while glossing over the historic oceans of blood on their ideology's hands.
And as soon as you mention any of that? "wHatAboUt ________ism aND tHEIr blAh BLaH BlaH blAH?"
Whatever point you're trying to prove, you're not going to convince me. I used to be pretty hard Auth-Left myself, back in the day. I've left that cult in the dumpster where it belongs. You're either trying to catch me in some "gotcha" circle-jerk, or are too butt-hurt about me condemning tankies to remember what the original point of OP's thread was, or are just really dense.
You go your way, rhetorically fellate whatever autocrat-of-the-week your heart desires, and I'll go mine, and, hopefully, we won't ever have to meet in real life.
You clearly care, deeply. I look forward to reading something you write on the subject, or to see you organise.
In the United States, I was part of IATSE. Now, due to my wife's health diagnosis I live in the Netherlands.
Writing about Authoritarian cultists will only remain a hobby. Far better men have written far more important pieces on the matter.