If Iran keeps at what they’re doing effectively, perhaps the west will soon learn what this feels like.

Well here’s a definition I can find on extortion:

to obtain from a person by force, intimidation, or undue or illegal power

the act or practice of extorting especially money or other property

I’m not sure I can even envision how exactly Cuba would go about taking money from its overseas doctors through threats. (Which is the only related scenario I can think of that would fit the definition.) Cuba is not exactly an empire who can make shit happen at will with military force outside its borders. It’s under siege by the empire as we speak.

Like what would they do? End the program and make the doctors come home if they aren’t doing what they want or something? How are they going to enforce that?

It sounds a lot like an example of psychological projection. The empire acts in extorting, forceful ways across borders. So people who pick up on this might project this trait onto other countries that they think are being led by “bad leaders”.

The possibility that people could be loyal to the revolution and want to work towards its success because it has supported them and works toward humane goals is completely off the table for that kind of worldview. Every sign of struggle means someone is a victim of communism and every sign of success must be propaganda.

“nonfalsifiable orthodoxy” as Parenti put it:

Thank you for doing such a detailed breakdown on it. This is the kind of post I wanted to link but couldn’t find in my bookmarks (I’m sure there have been similar posts in the past, but was not finding them). I’m bookmarking this one for the future.

That was not the kind of clarification I meant. Anyone can say they’re not racist. Did you mean China or the CPC?

“Why do you think you know China better than the billion+ people who live there?” Completely irrelevant.

No, it’s very relevant, actually. If you have no humility about the subject and think you can effortlessly judge China from the comfort of an ivory tower based on one of its trading partners being israel, it’s going to be hard to have a reasonable discussion about it.

there are a lot of Chinese people who don’t like China

Self-hating racists then? You forgot to say the line “the Chinese government”. Or do you mean to sound racist? Please clarify.

Joined 13 hours ago, 1 comment, and it’s ultra-left shlock that conflates trade with capitalism. Come on.

Why do you think you know China better than the billion+ people who live there?

the ability to make decisions that benefit a country

For who though is always the question of decision-making. The US’s focus is making decisions that benefit the hyper wealthy and exploit marginalized groups. China’s focus is making decisions that benefit regular people, that keep the capitalists under control and the imperialists at bay, and that work to transition to socialism and then communism.

I think this only makes sense in a capitalist POV though

Yes, I think the idea of AI “saving us” in some way is an expression of capitalist realism (“it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism”). In AES projects, they didn’t need AI to dramatically improve quality of life and China’s use of it now is more measured, as far as I can tell, than the haphazard western implementation, more cognizant of the need for it to do tangible social good. But in the heart of capitalist empire, when people are convinced there’s no alternative system because “communism ebil”, it makes a kind of sense they’d turn to the latest tech development as a hope for escape.

Great work to you and the others who backed you up. Glad to hear of it.

What’s the pact you’re referring to?

I was thinking the same, like how is this real.

Christianity didn’t invent morals or ethics

The issue isn’t having morals or ethics? Every society has those in one form or another. Everyone has biases and it’s unavoidable.

The issue is the western “left” has this thing for purity and self-image over tactics and strategy, when it comes to efforts to overcome its awful tendencies. This leads people to doing a thing where they posture to look the most “clean” of the imperial blood spilled with the most pure of positions (ex: ultra-left positions), rather than put their energies into stopping it in its tracks even if it makes them unpopular. It’s not an “everybody in the west” thing, of course. Just applies to some people some of the time.

We are trying to fight a war, a class war, and we cannot do so without getting angry at those who defend the status quo.

Anger at injustice arises from a great love for humanity, for the people. Don’t lose sight of where it comes from. Anger is a tool. It is not the heart of what motivates liberation. It has its time and place, of course, but it is kind of like fire. When wild, it is like a riot. When marshaled, then it can help fuel revolution. So yes, be angry. Just don’t let it burn you out. This is a marathon fight.

“No u” style defense with McCarthyite characteristics.

destroy our way of life

I mean if the way of life is mass murdering children, then yes, I would very much like to destroy that way of life so thoroughly that it can never be again.

I sort of get your argument but I also don’t get the historical comparison used because as far as I can tell, it’s more uncharted territory than you make it sound. For example:

Has the above idealism worked ever in history or you know, did we need to raise a massive advanced bolshevik army to defeat the nazis? Would you understand why the above would be considered idealism and ahistorical?

The USSR was not created as a response to Nazism in order to fight Nazis. No doubt, it was the primary military force that fought and ultimately defeated Nazi Germany. But it wasn’t like Nazi Germany was this established thing, known for genocide, and Lenin was trying to figure out how to fight it, so the working class took over a different, adjoining region specifically to fight Nazi Germany.

For parallels, it may be more insightful to go back and look at Rome or something, but I don’t know much about Rome’s history in general. Just that from the standpoint of looking at downfall of empires, that may be more of a clue as to precedent when it comes to internal collapse and changing of power.

The other point I want to make is that if, in this analogy, US soldiers are like Nazi soldiers (or worse), what does that make the rest of us who live in the imperial core? People who, whether we participate in the maintenance of the machine or not, don’t pull out all the stops we can trying to break it? This, I think, is the main “moral supremacy” point that the OP was trying to make with:

Class consciousness is not an achievement to be proud of, you didn’t do it, it happened to you.

We have all had liberal and imperialist ideas that we now recognize are wrong.

Or if it wasn’t intended that way, I will make it myself: Just how far removed from participating in the oppression are we? (I’m sure some here are among the more marginalized, but not all.) Should the revolution only recruit from and aim for the most marginalized? I don’t think that’s a bad idea as material analysis goes, it’s just, that’s a minority of people in the region who has already sacrificed a lot struggling for basic not-being-immediately-murdered-over-nothing (which still isn’t a solid thing).

Why does it need to be one or the other is the other place my mind goes. I’m aware there have been betrayals in the past, which is why it’s so important to keep an eye out for the patsoc types and the opportunists who are looking to improve their own QOL a bit via reforms and then stop there. But like, if there’s somebody who is ready and willing to put themself in the line of fire for marginalized peoples, why get shy about that? Marginalized peoples are not perfect victims. Their material interests are more aligned with the cause, but their knowledge and experience isn’t de facto ready for revolution. So to this question:

what a veteran can do that a non-veteran can’t

Exclusively? Very little. Maybe the only exclusive thing would be being able to potentially provide insight into how the US military is trained to fight if they are a recent veteran. However, assets are assets, provided we are not confusing help with “taking over.” Putting lots of energy into recruiting veterans though? I would agree that’s not a good place to put energy. Not if it’s at the cost of recruiting from the most marginalized.

Not saying that you’re guilty of this, but I’ve often gotten the impression that people who talk about stuff like the “poverty draft” or whatever genuinely think these people had zero responsibility in what they ended up doing. Same goes for stuff like “the government, not the people” which is …uhhhh.

All I can say is, when it comes to people in this space specifically, I’ve never gotten the impression that there is any kind of broad intent to excuse, but more like to assess. So what I see in the “poverty draft” narrative is hoping, really (and maybe it’s wishful thinking if that narrative is full of holes). Because if people are joining more so cause they’re poor and need the money, that means: 1) they are less committed than the true believer generational military member type of person and 2) if given other opportunities, they are more likely to quit. e.g. their allegiance is more for sale than the true believer.

If, on the other hand, most are true believers and patriotic fanatics, that’s a much uglier situation to deal with and much harder to overcome. It would mean that the people who have the majority of the guns are also some of the most ideologically dedicated to upholding the empire, not just mercenaries for hire who are going to quit or cave under pressure, or if alternatives are presented to them.

Odds are not all of them are true believers. If the majority are, that would still be a major problem, but those who aren’t probably have a greater chance of being swayed in a conflict (and are also probably less likely to be among the ones who have directly participated in war crimes: the desk jockeys, logistics people, ones who spend more time at home on practice drilling for potential threats than they ever do deployed anywhere).

Obviously this goes without saying. Personally though, I believe that it’s quite possible to acknowledge that these people aren’t ontologically immoral but ended up there because of real material reasons while also believing that they should be held accountable for their actions.

I fully agree on that. The part that I keep circling back to though is the how. It’s not a trivial thing to get to the point where they can be systemically held accountable in the first place. Short of the US starting a war with China and China invading it, it’s not like there’s a major vanguard in the region who can stand up to them with any kind of parity. I’m not trying to say it’s hopeless, just that the fundamental asymmetry of the situation has to be accounted for somehow. Maybe thinking of it in terms of defectors is too limited thinking as strategy, but like, take the Black Panther Party for example. The military didn’t even need to get involved on that, as far as I know. FBI and cops was all it took to assassinate and destroy what they were doing. And they were a group that was serious about being militant, they weren’t playing footsie with elections as a saving grace.

That’s the kind of disparity it can look like. I don’t know if it’s that bad in other areas of the imperial core, but point being, we cannot expect some vanguard to materialize out of nowhere and take on the whole armed forces.

This kind of topic has definitely come up before the US and israel started attacking Iran. It’s a real thing that people have to contend with who live in the imperial core, how they deal with the millions of enforcers of empire as a strategic and logistical problem to confront, so it’s going to keep coming up.

I will remind like I reminded someone else that the OP was specifically addressing the western left. It’s not a scolding of peoples who are trying to survive the empire’s attacks. The western “left” has chronic problems with a fetish for defeat, with moralizing over practicality, with repeating colonial patterns of its own socializing in how it talks about how to deal with problems, and more.

For example, you mention dehumanization. That’s one of the things people in the west need so badly to unlearn in the first place; it is an attribute of colonialism here, not anger directed at someone who is killing you. When somebody in an imperialized/colonized country looks at the west and says “fuck em” or whatever, that’s fundamentally not the same characteristics as somebody who grew up in an imperial culture that promotes selective dehumanization of life looking at itself and saying “fuck em”. But westerners will talk as if they’re living the same life by association and sympathy as the empire’s victims.

Does that make any sense or am I seeming off in la la land? Solidarity is born from actions, not words alone. When a western “left” group goes to some ties-building event at another country, or brings them aid, that’s at least something in action as solidarity. When a westerner on the internet goes “yeah I hate them too” about the west, it’s vacuous. It’s gonna be pretty easy for a westerner to say hateful and murderous things compared to those who were raised in a more loving, communal culture. We get socialized, via the shoddy justifications for imperial aggression, that as long as a group is labeled the enemy, it’s all on the table. That’s something westerners have got to unlearn and it’s frustrating that trying to get that across gets interpreted as wanting to coddle war criminals.

I’ve been reading the stuff on here about the attempted ACP fuckery with it and I’m happy for you that you’re free of it.

I wish. Though it’d probably be more practical to start with some of the land that is sat on by corporate entities and go from there.

I can’t speak to what draws his dedicated views in such numbers, but I can tell you what stands out about him to me: Good faith sincerity stands out in a region overflowing with grifters. That is, the convincing appearance of it anyway. He could have skeletons in his closet for all I know. Maybe he’s a really good actor. But from what I’ve seen, he comes off like somebody who is really trying his damnedest to be fair and sincere, and go through things in detail. Doesn’t mean he has all the right takes of course. It’s just more pleasant in its way, I think, amid all the corporate shlock or “authentic youtubers” whose takes sound suspiciously like every garden variety liberal who has never tried to understand politics beyond “some people are greedy and bad”.

If he were a clear ML, I’d probably watch him more than rarely. But unfortunately, the likelihood is I’m going to be cringing on a lot of his takes and wanting him to take it further than he is. Which is a way I feel about most youtuber/podcaster commentators. If I watch only to feel like I need to argue/correct them, then it’s probably not worth it. I want to be learning things I can take away from the time.

Or maybe the problem is they were under duress and had to make a judgment call on what might help their people and made the wrong one. Not that they are completely naive to the cruelty of the empire. There are times in history where strategic retreat worked, so it would not be odd to think it could have bought them more time. The armchair quarterbacking on the fate of a people is easy to do in hindsight, but it’s not so easy to make that call in the moment.

I think Aisha Gaddafi is 100% correct for this specific situation. Iran has no reason to back down and every reason to set the conclusion of this own their terms, so much as they are able. Meanwhile, over in Venezuela, Delcy Rodriguez is having to make a different sort of calculus due to not having the military strength that Iran does, nor sufficient help from other countries in the region.

I’m personally not at all interested in the success of a movement that is willing to go against everything it’s supposed to be about just to extend the olive branch to some Graham Platner type. If you’re willing to throw the world’s poorest under the bus just so that first worlders can have free healthcare and feel nice-fuzzy about having “rehabilitated” a child killer, then what’s even the point of calling yourself an anti-imperialist or Communist? At that point, just call yourself a liberal or a socdem.

Good, I’m not either. What makes you think I am? Seriously, what exactly?

Also, institutions are made up of people. They can’t exist without personnel that enable them to be, they have to be upheld by someone. You can’t have settler colonialism without settlers choosing to participate, you can’t have imperialism without people choosing to uphold it. Criticism of institutions is also criticism of people, they don’t pop out of nowhere and aren’t allowed to continue existing because of some invisible hand.

So what exactly are you trying to promote as point of view here? In contrast to what? As a contrast to “individuals aren’t responsible for anything”? Cause nobody said that. As scientists of dialectical materialism, however, it is important to acknowledge the heavy ways in what material conditions influence people. If you refuse to acknowledge that and instead just insist on moralizing all day, what you get is a church, not a vanguard. You can enjoy the ivory tower feeling of being part of a church if you want. There are plenty to join and many that offer a pre-made feeling of superiority, so long as you adhere to their tenets. But few have any relationship to political power and the ones that do are heavily pragmatic, not just preaching.