3 out of 4 of those are monarchies AOC
AOC, are you seeking to become an actual queen
Better to be Yassss Kweeen than Slay kweeen like Kamala Harris
Queen AOC passes law that all Republicans must grovel at her feet in her presence, and may not speak until they submitted to her rubbing the sole of her foot in their face.
AOC's approval rating then skyrockets among Republicans.
This is the kind of demsoc I can support. One who understands the concept of solidarity. Something American “leftists” have not yet begun to grasp.
How can you shout at us about unity while simultaneously throwing socialists under the bus by denouncing and distancing yourself from the USSR or Cuba?
In regards to your edit, I think our best strategy is a professional party that hastens national suicide so the hegemonic empire will collapse. Only once this happens will the American masses be susceptible to radicalization. Before this there is too much material benefit from empire and any reformist movement will always turn social-chauvinist and imperialist.
If the battle is “is actual socialism good or not” that’s pretty much a necessary rhetorical battle that they can’t shirk on
Cuba is one thing but how is it relevant to current solidarity to stake out a position on whether or not a political system that has not even nominally existed for nearly three decades was or was not true socialism? The decisions of the various actors over the course of Soviet history were products of the material conditions of a time and place that no longer exists, conditions that in most respects are entirely unlike those of the present-day United States. I don't understand why people feel the need to have endless struggle sessions about people and events and decisions that bear such little resemblance to the situations they actually face.
Whether you like it or not, the USSR is the face of socialism. You can deal with this by trying to detach the USSR from socialism, or by defending the USSR from the propaganda and smears that have shaped western perceptions of it. You don’t have the luxury of ignoring it, although every ultra and radlib wishes they could.
I wouldn't take a tribute made right after his death before kruschev's speech came out for much. Allende was extremely critical of non democratic action, supporting the Hungarian uprising and Czechoslovakian one.
Plus Allende got his start in a socialist party that was a popular coalition of trotskyists and anarchists, and some social democrats, against the Stalinist supporting Chilean communist party.
I think Rashida is basically AOC, but with better foreign policy. Still not good foreign policy, but at least pro-Palestine and more staunchly anti-war.
Ilhan is also good, but I feel like she's had some yikes takes, though I can't think of what exactly off the top of my head.
All of them are still fairly pro democratic party in a way Sanders clearly wasn't. They all tend to exist in a space somewhere between Sanders and Warren rather than to his left. This said, Cori Bush is absolutely to left of squad 1.0, Nina Turner who had some worse politics than most of these folks previously is also far less afraid of attacking the Democrats head on than AOC/Ilhan/Rashida.
The Squad was clearly more closely mentored by Jayapal than by Sanders, although I do also imagine a big part of this comes from the fact that they are members of the house and not the Senate and it's much easier to have independence as a Senator due to their procedural rules.
I'm with you on this one. I don't know why some folks expect her to start stanning ML states when neither she (nor Bernie!) have ever painted themselves as anything other than social democrats, for all practical purposes.
Like literally, what would make you think either AOC or Bernie are socialists other than the label they occasionally use for themselves? 99.9% of their words and 100% of their actions point to social democracy, and they don't pretend otherwise. And you know what, I think that's ok. Personally I think social democracy represents the outer left limit of what can be accomplished via electoralism in the US.
(btw I will always try and include Bernie whenever AOC is mentioned because even though their politics are exactly identical AOC seems to get a lot more hate for some reason...
You get that none of those states are Socialist and she calls herself a Socialist, right? What is this bullshit excuse making all over the place?
Fuck anyone defending this. Idc how deeply propagandized the American people are, 100s of thousands of people are dying, millions are losing their livelihoods and our social fabric is crumbling while China, Vietnam, Venezuala, Cuba, etc. got a handle on the pandemic within months and are having fucking pool parties. If you're not using this moment to make the case that what the American people think they know about how foreign countries work is bullshit, you are completely fucking useless.
Some real clown hours when you see leftists talking about the 4chan shit of "hiding your power level"
"hiding your power level" can only work when you are already perfectly fine operating within the capitalist-imperialist paradigm which most fascists are A-OK with.
Meaning "hiding your power level" is a perfectly good strategy as your goal is to get some sliver of power and do stuff like cut bus lines to black communities to impoverish them (by stopping them able to travel for work into white communities) or sign crime bills designed to incarcerate blacks
The last 150 years of the labour movement has proved that if you pretend to be an opportunist and social chauvinist..... You end up an opportunist and social chauvinist
Communists openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.”
-Karl Marx
Entryism seems to be changing the people who enter more than the institutions they enter. Who could've thought...
Also lol at anyone that sill believes the "hiding your power level" stuff
I think you’re underestimating how fucking propagandized the American people are. At best she could get away with saying some mildly positive shit about Vietnam cuz they’re our allies, a single good word about Cuba, China or the DPRK and she’d lose her next election for sure and the FBI would probably leave a bag of coke and some child porn in her apartment.
This isn’t a defense of AOC, she can fuck herself, but honestly I don’t think her suddenly “revealing her power level” (assuming she actually is more left than she lets on (she’s not)) would achieve Jack. Everyone would hate her, she’d become ruined and irrelevant in a year and maybe even in jail. It’d achieve nothing for her besides scoring some points with us, and achieve nothing for anyone else.
Just take the 3rd Worldist Pill and hope Xi invades us like I do.
No offense intended, but I feel like this is basically doomer talk with slightly more nuance. Not that the revolution can't or won't start in the global south - in fact, that's pretty much the only way I see it happening - but the idea that we can do nothing but sit and wait until then just seems too cynical to me. We should put in the work to build socialism at home, even if we know we're going to fail, because that's how we set the groundwork for the next generation.
Look how hard they went in on Bernie because he said that Castro's literacy programs worked. He was still talking about how much of an evil dictator Castro was, but they jumped down his throat either way. Literacy became bad overnight.
AOC is not, never has been, and likely never will be a communist. But she is the far left of US politics, and should be half-embraced and pulled left by half supporters who can point out how dumb these takes are. That's basically the definition of critical support.
They went hard on Bernie because he was seeking to disrupt the political establishment, not because he made a positive comment about Cuba. There's no sense in biting your tongue to appease a media that is against your political agenda.
Can't believe AOC is a lib? She doesn't want to resurrect Lenin?
She might be actually ideologically committed to the "nordic model" honestly
Imagine being ideologically committed to the social-imperialist petrostate model lool
Of course she fucking is, Jesus Christ! The level of DemSucc delusion here is astounding.
I think she might be a bit more to the left, and that it's a strategic goalpost, but it hurts to see American leftists praising your Nordic country
No matter what chuds are going to say she’s a Stalinist so why not lean into it?
If libs start calling her one too that’s when she starts having problems
The strategy is clearly to soften people's hardcore opposition to even the mere mention of socialism. This is the subtext of the exchange:
Q: By socialism, do you mean scary, evil stuff that has been the target of an unparalleled anticommunist propaganda machine for decades? Please say yes; doing so is one of the few things that could end your political career.
A: Haha fuck off with the bait, I'm talking about stuff people generally view positively, especially when it comes to socialized healthcare, because, you know, healthcare is currently the biggest entrypoint into leftism.
I don't know what power level she's hiding, but it doesn't really matter. The intent is good, and the answer does more to advance us towards socialism than a discussion of how to classify the Soviet or Cuban government.
I never really understand this strategy because we're going to get called socialists anyway so long as we're not ardent, steel eyed Republican voters with American flag tattoos on our foreheads. The strategy has confusing results too because now libs I know are referring to Kamala Harris, with praise, as a socialist.
If that's the case, what would be more important is advancing and focusing on class politics regardless of the terms involved. The subtext I get out of what she said is a "no, don't worry. We're not scary. I'm a good liberal." It's being backed into a corner. She could have easily said that what she regards as socialism is what promotes the interests of the working class above other concerns or what other countries are doing or have done.
libs I know are referring to Kamala Harris, with praise, as a socialist.
What fucking libs do you know?
I live in the south. There's a topsy-turvey kind of contrarian streak I'm seeing (anecdotally) where southern libs are taking the chud claims of Biden being a Marxist at face value and concluding that if Biden is a socialist, therefore they are also socialists.
The idea is that people will be more willing to seriously consider socialism if they don't turn their brains off as soon as the word is mentioned.
She could have easily said that what she regards as socialism is what promotes the interests of the working class above other concerns or what other countries are doing or have done.
This would have been a good answer, too, but the answer she gave (1) responds to the part of the question about which countries she wants to emulate, and (2) is in a broader context of pointing to stuff like Britain's NHS as a superior healthcare model.
I know that's the goal of the idea. I'm skeptical about its efficacy or that it will lead to anything. I'm only seeing socialist becoming another term for liberal.
If "socialist" becomes as mainstream and inoffensive as "liberal," that makes it far easier to talk to people about socialism. You can talk about socialism as socialism, you can point them to openly-socialist resources, it's easier to get them to reconsider what they know about actually socialist countries.
Maybe I've simply had poor experiences with this, but it's only become more difficult talking with them. Now they won't accept that they might have a wrong idea of what socialism means or what we should be advancing. I already have associates who treat socialism (the term) as inoffensive, but they still basically promote mainstream liberal centrism. They refer to American cops as socialist. They call Biden a socialist and act all proud.
The only thing that's changed is they'll refer to what they previously called socialist (Cuba, USSR, Marxism, class politics, etc) as "authoritarian" or "divisive" or whatever word they come up with on the spot. All they've done is take the spooky s-word and replace it with others.
Unless your associates are completely post-fact -- and that's increasingly common, although those people aren't persuadable anyway -- they're going to get tied to the real definition of socialism at some point. It's like debating people about what is or isn't capitalism (another term that's popularly nebulous). At some point, if the person is at least someone connected to reality, you can go to authoritative sources on the matter to establish what it really means. I won't deny that this is a whole process, but at least you're talking about socialism at that point, and they're not just shutting down the conversation out of hand.
I just think by avoiding america’s enemies, it avoids the question of how illegitimate the government is.
Consider how radical "the U.S. government is illegitimate" is. That's not an idea that's going to click with very many people who watch CNN; they're going to reject it as it's too far outside their current beliefs. You can't throw people in the deep end right away, you have to bring them along a little bit and at least get them comfortable treading in leftist waters. It's a pipeline to leftism, not an instant conversion.
Then there's the idea that most people don't care about foreign policy much anyways, and so you're not going to score points with anyone for having great foreign policy takes most of the time. There's no much to gain, but you can easily get roasted -- look at how Bernie got a crucial week's worth of bad coverage over extremely innocuous comments about Cuba's healthcare and education.
I have also never really had much push back on claiming the government is illegitimate.
Are you talking to the average CNN viewer, though? And might people be willing to entertain more radical ideas in person, from a regular guy, than they would from an elected official?
Its true that it softens peoples opinion of the word Socialism, but it does so by changing its meaning.
So what does that leave us with? More people becoming open to learning about Marxism, or a surplus of liberals and social chauvinists calling themselves Socialists?
I don't think it changes its meaning so much as it erases preconceived opposition rooted in decades of anticommunist propaganda. That makes it easier to educate people on what socialism actually is, because starting from a roughly blank slate is better than starting with dug-in opposition.
Say you want to convince Jimmy that basketball is fun and good. He knows nothing about basketball, but his entire life he's been subjected to a media environment telling him basketball is dangerous, unfun, and no one gets laid if they play it. You try to talk to him about what basketball actually is, but his response is "nah, fuck basketball, I don't even want to hear it."
But a few years pass and the media environment changes to where people call damn near anything basketball. Jimmy, not actually knowing what basketball is, now hears about it all the time -- often positively, if inaccurately -- and his hardline opposition to even the concept of basketball changes to "hell, they'll call anything basketball these days." Now if you try to talk to him, you aren't going to get that immediate, visceral opposition, and he might listen a bit if he likes you and thinks you might have some clarifying information.
Yeah I've been thinking about it and I 100% agree. I'm sure most of us all started the same way. It just takes patience and education.
Months back a small, unscientific poll here suggested that somewhere around 75% of us used to be libs (I know it's 100%, and I know it's not "used to," of course). IIRC the next biggest group was libertarians, at about 10%.
Everyone defending AOC needs to get one thing through their fucking skulls: you will never bring Socialism by disavowing Socialism. No amount of "I'm a Socialist but Stalin is bad" will ever be enough, as evidenced by half the country thinking AOC is a "Stalinist."
"Socialism was bad everywhere it's been tried but I'll be good if we do it" is a dogshit argument that convinces no one, and pointing to nations that are not even fucking close to Socialist as Socialist doesn't make people open to Socialism, it halts their progress into Socialism, like the fucking Vaushites who think you can do entryism in the Democratic Party.
I'm sorry that this politician you like isn't a Socialist. She's not hiding her power level, she's a fucking Liberal.
No amount of “I’m a Socialist but Stalin is bad” will ever be enough, as evidenced by half the country thinking AOC is a “Stalinist.”
Trying to relitigate the 1930s for the thousandth time is about as far away from a Mass Line as you can get.
It's just a waste of fucking time. You're not going to break a primary education's worth of Cold War propaganda with a sound bite, and people need to stop pretending like "pro-Stalin" is some kind of line in the sand for a Brooklyn leader of the DSA.
Just stick to talking about what matters and stop pretending AOC's job is to make cool Stalin memes.
This is definitely the lamest attempted AOC dunk thread I've seen yet. Why do you even care? What is this meant to prove?
I don't care if you criticize AOC and I'm not a sucdem, I think threads like this are lame and pointless.
I get the joke, and it’s a good one - but add healthcare costs to the tax burden on most American workers and you might be paying more for less
Or you could enforce lower healthcare costs and decrease spending on things like the military and tax cuts
The proper response to this is that all those countries seized their resources from foreign invaders and internal parasites with the state apparatus and chartered a path of self determination that led to improved lives for the majority of their people and maybe we could learn a thing or two from that. Maybe include that anyone losing their minds at the mere mention of these places (or using them as dog whistles) is engaging in bad faith and should be entirely disregarded.
I don't think she actually knows and/or cares though. She is like every other social democrat after 1917 who only wants to build a release valve on the empire so that it does not explode.
Is AOC sanctioning China "hiding her power level" you fucking RadLibs?
And let's address the argument that there's something to be gained by "hiding one's power level."
What? Did you people watch Bernie's two campaigns and somehow come away with the idea that working with the Democratic Party is a way to advance our interests? If so, you took away literally the opposite of what you should have, and are demonstrating exactly what happens when you water down Socialism.
She's talking about the NHS, which is in fact socialized medicine.
Reasonably certain she's talking about the NHS, not the Wizarding Academy
I mean what was she supposed to say? Doubt she could debunk the fucking Holodomor in one interview.
I don’t like her don’t get me wrong, but I don’t get all these “muh progressive Dems aren’t stanning Lenin on MSNBC!” owns. Yeah no shit it’d be career suicide.
Succdems need to just stop calling themselves socialists and be honest about their social chauvinism
In a country where one of the two major political parties calls Joe Biden a Marxist, the problem is definitely not what AOC and company call themselves.
They are parts of the problem, Republicans aren't the only ones calling everything socialism
Arguably, the more things that are called socialism right now, the better. It's the Boy Who Cried Wolf effect. If the word is used for everything left of Reagan it's no longer taboo to anyone persuadable, which makes it easier to talk to those folks about what socialism actually is. We've already seen this work: Republicans called Obama communist and socialist and Marxist and whatever other trigger words they could think of, and by the time Bernie came along "socialist" was no longer a smear capable of putting a fork in him.
Yeah but what does that matter if socialism just means welfare and Medicare in the eyes of the average American. We're not actually moving to the left we're just lying to people and changing the definition to make it less scary to libs, who hate socialism because of its actual substance, not because it's a bad word.
If we got a working welfare state and Medicare for All that absolutely would move us to the left. First, it would dramatically improve the material conditions of hundreds of millions of people, which is a pretty fundamental goal of socialism. Second, it would lift the boot a little bit off workers' necks -- it's a lot easier to challenge management when you know it won't cost you your healthcare, and when there's a safety net if you wind up losing your job. Third, it would be concrete proof that we can do big things for people and not destroy the country, and it would similarly be proof that the folks on the left might be worth listening to.
I see your logic and I agree that moving to social democracy would be a huge improvement but we already experienced this during the Great Depression and it only lasted long enough to cripple the nascent socialist movement in America and then started to get stripped away once we were no longer a serious threat to capital. And because of the trajectory we are on with the climate and capitalism in general just decaying to shit, we're going to get punished for that because we've tied ourselves to the withering welfare capitalist system and the only alternative that Americans would be interested in at that point is fascism because there's no independent socialist movement that made itself distinguished from the liberals that have ruined everyone's lives.
I mean I agree. Not many people is the states know the difference between Succ, Socialist and Commie so it’s not like it’d make any difference in anyone eyes save us online commie dorks.
Are y'all like, chuds who bought into Fox News propaganda that AOC was literally the next Stalin and then the only thing that changed was that you started thinking that was good? It's baffling to me how this site keeps getting completely shocked that AOC isn't something she never claimed to be.
Its equally shocking that socialists should want to expose and resist liberals coopting "socialism" to divert people from building actual socialism into supporting a bourgeois imperialist party :thinkin-lenin:
Well damn thank you for exposing AOC for not supporting Stalin I would not have known that if not for your noble efforts.
I wouldn't mind as much if we had more variety. Just seems like AOC lives rent free in a lot of people's heads.
There should be a rule that for every post dunking on AOC you also have to dunk on a random congressperson who's not in the squad.
This is some real "why won't you also talk about how bad Republicans are" shit
I just think that focusing so much on one random congressperson doesn't make any sense.
Well they're not random when they're considered the face of the 'far left'
I think it's a fascist plot to undermine the left by shifting the narrative.
Universal healthcare, free higher education, and labor rights? Nah, Stalin did nothing wrong, guillotine everyone who owns private property, and all mainstream news is CIA disinfo.
In terms of framing, don't be surprised when the next wave of false flag domestic terrorism is going to be dressed in red hammers and sickles.
Universal healthcare, free higher education, and labor rights? Nah, Stalin did nothing wrong, guillotine everyone who owns private property, and all mainstream news is CIA disinfo.
This sort of shift is especially sus when it's coupled with dismissing all progress towards those first few things as not worth bothering with. When you can't even muster a "critical support" for the likes of AOC, that's an issue.
And when the highlighted criticism isn't even about capitalism, but imperfect idpol, it makes the propaganda all the more transparent.
