https://twitter.com/SocialistNY/status/1599139288389939200

https://twitter.com/SocialistNY/status/1599421220143140864

:cringe:

  • 420blazeit69 [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Maybe the way to approach these folks is to ask them what they would like to happen to China. Ask them if balkanizing a country has ever benefited the people of that country. Use the USSR as an example of how that would play out in reality. Ask them if the U.S. would ever allow free and fair elections if there's a chance in hell they'd be won by anybody left of Reagan. Point out all the times the U.S. has overthrown elected reformers. Ask them how any of this is to be accomplished short of nuclear war or a massive campaign of foreign propaganda. Ask them if a massive foreign propaganda campaign might elicit any sort of legitimate response from a sovereign state.

    Get them to think beyond "China Bad." Force them to play out what they are asking for.

      • 420blazeit69 [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Some people will double down, some will ignore it, but some will come around, even if not immediately.

          • 420blazeit69 [he/him]
            ·
            2 years ago

            :sankara-bass:

            We can never stop explaining, and all that.

            I agree that the group who will come around after that sort of conversation is a minority, but I think it's a significant one. The last several years (since about 2015 in the U.S.) have seen a generational explosion of interest in the left. And it doesn't stop at free healthcare -- it's deep enough that we're seeing members of congress talk about imperialism and media-savvy gulf dictatorships use that language to defend their sovereignty. Neither of those are "real," international leftist sentiment themselves, but they reflect a growing segment of the imperial core's left that will go that far.

              • 420blazeit69 [he/him]
                ·
                2 years ago

                A lot of those folks simply haven't thought through their stances on foreign issues to the same extent they've thought through their stances on domestic issues. They aren't intentional social imperialists; they just pay less attention the further away an issue gets, which means they fall back on the Democratic Party line or at best "this country is bad but we shouldn't get involved."

                In short, they're reachable. If we can't move those people in the right direction, how are we going to build a mass movement?

    • TheGamingLuddite [none/use name]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Many of them don't need to be asked these questions because they see domination by a state, any state, as fundamentally worse than domination by the market. If Jack Ma did a coup and sold off state owned assets to oligarchs and imposed austerity, millions would die, but since they theoretically had the opportunity to make wise financial decisions, it's their fault. They believe in the fundamental religious tenets of neoliberalism, they just justify it differently.