They’re scared :lenin-laugh:
Also this is just a list of countries where the US killed indiscriminately to end socialism (not Cambodia)
“ Whereas the “Father of the Constitution”, President James Madison, wrote that it “is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest”; and
Whereas the United States of America was founded on the belief in the sanctity of the individual, to which the collectivistic system of socialism in all of its forms is fundamentally and necessarily opposed: Now, therefore, be it resolved that Congress denounces socialism”
Lemme just cite a slaver on the violation of one class of citizens for the benefit of another
The ouroboros that was unknowingly begun by red scare reactionaries is mildly funny to look back on; after many years of the conservatives using 'socialism' as a cudgel against liberals for decades out of shameless opportunism, a significant contingent of conservatives now actually believes the liberals are socialists
Everything they say is real to them even when they know it’s not.
Do they know it's not? I can deprogram chud family members fairly regularly and with almost no real issue when I'm there, but the very next night of Tucker Carlson undoes all of that. With that in mind, I struggle to find any explanation for it besides that on some level, they literally do not know how to put together a cohesive world view. So maybe everything they say is real to them because they have no prior education that allows them to form a cohesive understanding of the world around them, even under a liberal framework?
Okay but now I'm clueless about who is "they"? There are normal people that are conservatives just because they literally don't know anything. Like literal calcified rock-brains that are byproducts of a horribly inefficient and counterproductive education system. Those people are definitely not excused from having shit takes, and when they get in the way, I promise I won't have any qualms about which of them goes against the wall, but I think it's a massive stretch to assume they are consciously nefarious agents, when they are so clearly dullard in everything they know. This is especially the case when we consider that we can clearly deprogram 90% of these people when we use language that doesn't offend their sensibilities. The only reason I'm under the impression these "ordinary chuds" are the "they" of conversation, is because your general reflection back to "the conservative mind" after you make your point about their political leaders.
If we're discussing "they" as in, the political leaders of conservatism, then to that I entirely agree, on both your psychological analysis and the dialectical one premised in the first part of your comment.
My limited but direct experience with capitalists and Congressional politicians is that their socioeconomic understanding is right around the median for all college-educated Americans, which means they basically have zero understanding at all. I'm talking even just bourgeois, pro-capitalist knowledge; much less a real materialist understanding.
Michael Hudson talks about how his single largest book buy of Superimperialism was from the CIA, who saw it as a how-to manual. Reading between the lines, I bet what Hudson wrote was news even to most folks in the CIA.
That's a dangerous assumption. I do agree that many of them do and always have, but there are also more than a few who knew very well how to weaponize it (Cheney, Kissinger, Nixon, even Mitch McConnell to a degree, etc).
That said, the vanguard of clever conservative bastards seems to be dwindling; DeSantis is considered the 'brilliant' evil to be running, and while he is better able to leverage his power than some he still comes across as incapable of the sort of insidious nastiness the aforementioned types were
I guess we're getting into semantics here vis a vis liars believing their own lies or not; I agree wholeheartedly that people can absolutely buy their own lies while trying to peddle them (and not necessarily just be idiots while doing so), but I just am extremely skeptical of the idea that figures like the ones I mentioned bought into their own lies. Maybe I do give some of them a bit too much credence.
it's not quite the point I was trying to make though; I was more asserting that conservatives can be brilliant and dangerous in much the same vein as some libs, though the numbers seem to be declining (mercifully), apologies if it came off differently
What’s strange sometimes reading candid quotes from US “cold warriors” is they often have some basic understanding of theory. Comes as a shock when you’re used to the brain worms.
I think it also made liberals a lot more comfortable with "socialism" and gave us a lot of ground.
Marx and Engels are only proven more correct with each passing day
yeah, there is no functional left in America rn. They arent scared, theyre doing victory dances.
They are scared. Just look at online spaces, actual communism is being talked about a lot. Queer spaces are pushing back against rainbow capitalism. Neurodivergent people are naming capitalism as a problem. People are rejecting grind culture. It's not even close to a unified left yet, or even just enough to slow capitalism, or translating to irl space that much yet, but people are starting to see the game, understand what's happening. Marx's greatest triumph was naming the beast, revealing the system which was established over us. There's been an awakening starting as material conditions worsen, and they are scared.
They are scared. Just look at online spaces
ngl had to stop here
I think there has been positive movement in the US in the past 5 years, but this is a poor example. Motion online is perpetual, directionless, and often detached from real forces in people's lives. The vast majority of people do not take any kind of political commitment (beyond maybe voting) from beliefs they get online. Upticks in unionization, protest movements, and even the most basic party organizing matter vastly more than the tone of discourse online, and the facts are there to be encouraged by those changes. There is more real political activity than in the recent past. That's a better metric than the state of the internet.
Either way, it should be acknowledged and studied that the direction in the US is nowhere near as encouraging as progressive developments in the global South and the ongoing transition to multipolarity. The left, such as it is, in America (and Europe) should learn from these examples and prepare to take opportunities that will come out of these changes geopolitically
I definitely agree with this.
The presence of communism in discourse right now massively outweighs its representation in organised form though, what they are truly scared of is that communists will find a way to convert the online discourse into an organised form offline.
This however is quite a chasm to bridge, but when we figure out how to bridge it things may move very quickly.
. I don’t really even bother trying to pill Libs anymore, anyone still a total shit Lib now is going to the grave that way
I disagree strongly many people simply don't know much about politics
All it takes is one bad interaction with the American healthcare system to shatter that worldview
lol. Have you tried talking to people.? The media landscape has hardened the anti-socialism and liberalism crust to concrete. I still try, but the living conditions will have to get a lot worse for people to move left. Even the nicest liberal you know wholeheartedly supports police, will bomb some brown folks in a heartbeat, and will never support expansion of social welfare policies, because "the wrong people will abuse them"..
the latter isn't actually that big of a group and most of them are just people without much interest in politics trying to seem like they do
Because the USA is crumbling as we speak, and the socialists will be there when it all falls down.
If you truly believe you are doomed, what the fuck are you even doing here? Go outside and have fun or something, you don't need to torture yourself being sad about problems you don't think you can affect.
Yeah, learning a language is a form of fun! Go forth and do it, you'll feel better.
When you're not scared of something you don't bring it up, it is a non-thing to you.
arbitrary seizures
The word "arbitrary" does a lot of lifting in that sentence
My seizure of the means of production are not arbitrary.
They are necessary ;)
Oh but when the third largest country on Earth exists entirely on stolen land that's 100% good and okay
Fidel made sure to nationalize his own family's property first, making his sister so mad she defected to the US and took CIA money.
It makes sense when you realize that they think "socialism" is raising taxes to make social security solvent and adding a public option for healthcare
If they were concerned they'd be approving a spending bill that sends tanks to local police departments. This is PR, which is all the western left has
maybe mass public opinion is a lot worse for the bourgeoisie than they allow to be reported
It's not an arbitrary seizure if we made the property :mao-aggro-shining:
They list Kim Jong Un and Kim Jong Il as dangerous ideologues, but I guess they're totally fine with Kim Il Sung
most Americans don't even know who :kim-il-young: is
The person who introduced this bill is a Miami Gusano. Shocking. The bill has been introduced since the 25th of last month and hasn't really gone anywhere since, along with her other proposals.
Even if it passed it wouldn’t meaningfully make the US more anti communist. It’s just funny it exists
Nice argument against the reform camp, I guess. I mean this has always been the case, but they just put it into words. "I am a Socialist" would actually mean something when said, if it automatically made you a subversive or even a criminal.
