Linked the thread because the comments deserve to be dunked on.
A lot of the same people (wrongly) claiming Corbyn was going to do a purge any minute are of course strongly backing this.
A lot of the same people (wrongly) claiming Corbyn was going to do a purge any minute
(wrongly)
in hindsight, that was a grave error
Everytime us leftie tries to plays it nice shit like this happens, every single time.
And every time they play nice they STILL get blamed for "Plotting the purges" or whatever, so the damage is pretty much the same.
If you're to the left of Kissinger they're going to call you Stalin, so you might as well act like him. :josus-stalin:
The downfall of Indonesian communist is definitely something more lefties should learn about, it was basically a solid proof that trying to play with the system when that system also hosts reactionaries is absolutely foolish.
Even after the multiple CIA backed rebellions, the PKI keeps trying to work their goal through the political system, all of their strength wasted on supporting Soekarno, and their supposed revolutionary action like smuggling weapons from China turns out to be just Orba propaganda.
When leftist orgs are in a position of enough strength to start an armed struggle, they should pick that choice every time. Like some sort of a prisoner's dilemma, in which the other choice always results in White Terror.
One should watch "The Act of Killing", which goes into the 1965-66 purge of suspected "communists", resulting in a million deaths. Even though Suharto is gone and Indonesia is now a "democracy", the legacy of the killings is still strong, the perpetrators are celebrated as heroes and the country is pretty right on the Overton window. It was sobering and definitely made me reexamine my own thoughts on "Authoritarianism". The enemy won't give a damn if you play by their rules.
On a side note, look up Iran's Tudeh, which has a history of casting their lot through electoralism/aligning with reactionaries and getting screwed over twice respectively (in 1953 and throughout the 80s). China is one of the rare exceptions where the Communist Party was able to bounce back after getting stabbed in the back by liberals and reactionaries.
This isn't to say Leftists shouldn't form united fronts with non-Leftists when its practical to do so, mind you.
Corbyn was a genuinely nice person. Too nice. The left doesn't need more of these principled boyscouts. The left needs more assholes, we need our own Trumps, people who will not launch an investigation when centrists accuse them of antisemitism but instead laugh in their faces, call them sore losers and talk about the lying elitist media.
Should've learned from the tragic mistake of Salvador Allende by making the Stalin purges look like a gradeschool game of heads down thumbs up
Whats the politics of that thread? Labour should be more like the tories to win. But if the point is not to have different policy, why is it important to defeat the tories? Arent you admitting to being useless?
the point is to have the same ghoulish neoliberal policies enacted by people that look more respectable when they're doing it
when obviously cruel policies are enacted by corrupt oafs the libs can't pull their "well it's actually nuanced and complicated" and they hate when they can't do that
I don't think people like blairites, democrats or succdems are knowingly part of some big conspiracy to keep the world shitty. Objectively they are but they have completely bought into the TINA message of bourgeois propaganda and believe that anything but neoliberal austerity will result in disaster.
Pair that with their megalomaniacal sense of being entitled to the unquestioning support of anyone to the left of Genghis Khan and you get some of the worst people in existence.
oh for sure, not implying they're doing it deliberately, see "kids in cages" vs "migrant overflow facilities"
The point is that the team in red jerseys should win and the team in blue jerseys should lose.
And to do that they do politics as marketing research, they interview focus groups and finds out most people likes the Tories. It then follows that to gain market shares they have to be more Tori-like.
the neolib side of labour have always (since '97 at least) taken the stance that the british public are simply more right wing than us lefties would like to believe, thus it is only possible to be elected by being sufficiently right wing.
they cling to this idea so dearly, ignoring the fact that there were extenuating circumstances surrounding new labour's success (ample media support e.g. the s*n; collapse of conservative's establishment and popular support due to pro-eu stance etc.), that when they get their way and it still doesn't work out (e.g. losing the election despite forcing corbyn to concede to a brexit redo that nobody wanted, or starmer's perpetual unpopularity) they immediately start talking about how racist the common unwashed are and that we must become blue labour and focus on immigration and social conservatism.
when that inevitably fails, they'll probably start going on about how we must become the fascist labour party in order to appeal to the sensibilities of the average brit.
All expulsions are MLs and Trots if anyone was wondering. Mostly MLs, definitely a few clueless actual antisemites though and those few will be the only examples used to tar the rest.
A lot of the same people (wrongly) claiming Corbyn was going to do a purge any minute are of course strongly backing this.
Corbyn fucking should have purged as many blairites as possible. Why is the electoral left always such a bunch of spineless boyscouts who thinks they can get anywhere by playing nice?
Probably cause if they weren't then they wouldn't be the electoral left
Yeah...the leftists that pose a genuine threat to the political status quo don't tend to get very far playing electoral politics
It would've been a repeat of how Bernie took a huge amount of flack for merely pointing out planned parenthood was part of the democratic establishment. Too many of the people who need to go are high up in other liberal orgs that leftist respect and support. So when you get rid of them the headline won't be about Corbyn purging anti leftist, it'll be about how he hates puppies and ice cream and is a secret bigot fascist. Which to be fair already happened from the center and right, but this time it would be progressive NGOs saying it and a bunch of lefties will eat it up.
You're completely right about that. However as we saw with Corbyn playing it nice doesn't prevent you from getting flak, it might even stand in the way of launching an effective counter-attack. Hysterical slander from the entirety of the liberal establishment is a given for any leftists trying to enter the mainstream.
The reason I think we need a leftist leader with some of the same qualities of Trump is that the guy lived from the flak and all the liberal pearl clutching. He used it to energise his base and build a (totally underserved) image as an outsider. The sentiments that made "drain the swamp" and "lying media" so appealing could also be activated for the left.
cuz USSR bad, with all these electoral failures and fight back by the right, I wonder if all these demsocs will realize you can't play nice with the rightwing ruling elites. Any chance they'll get, they'll look to destroy you.
Purge the centrists before they have a chance to purge you.
There’s a reason people keep bringing up 1930’s Germany over and over again. but of course, the libs don’t want to have that discussion.
Sucks when the Social-Fascists of today are Blairite Neolibs.
