Here is what the China Bad people ask of China Good people:
Basically a bunch of internet only shit. Change the way you talk about China online.
Agree with the worst enemies of the poor and left. Agree with them that China is bad.
This isn't what I hear in these discussions but it's a logical conclusion of believing China bad -- support action against China. Because if you think China bad but nothing should be done then why are you beating up on people for thinking China good? It makes no difference. If you think action should be taken only after we achieve Socialism in the west so we don't use the tools of imperialism to start a cold war, then again it doesn't matter. We haven't achieved socialism yet and having an opinion on China won't hinder it or help it. So until we have socialism and can actually act then it doesn't matter.
Agree that hierarchies are bad and that centralization of socialist power is bad.
Here is what the China Good people ask of the China Bad people:
Stop spreading CIA/State Department/Capitalist propaganda against China (which you shouldn't be doing anyways)
Unite behind critical support for even imperfect and developing socialist countries. Change the way you talk about China online.
Don't support any actions, sanctions, skirmishes, etc against China because that's just capitalists doing yet another imperialism (which you shouldn't be supporting anyways).
Agree that hierarchies aren't inherently good or bad and sometimes they're necessary for socialism to protect itself long enough to develop. Centralization creates coherency and consistency in governance.
The things the China Good people ask are less frictional than what the China Bad people want. That's why China Good always dominate actual leftist spaces. It's not tankies or MLs having a monopoly on discourse, it's that it's easier to stand behind China Good than to not.
People think it's about information. But it's not. It's not about understanding the difference between a high school and a reeducation center. It's not about knowing the definition of a genocide. It's not about stats and witness statements. It's about people online doing the online thing and taking the path of least resistance to the beliefs. But by all means spend hours debating sources and what photographs show.
It's also not a referendum on hierarchies even if you knew with absolute certainty why China good or bad. That's something that would be decided by creating socialism in the West not by what people think of China.
And most of all nobody can do anything about it. If they're Good then you don't have to do anything but argue with libs and chuds. If they're bad then there's no mechanism for the Western leftist to save the oppressed. And to support the US or other countries in sanctions or military action would be bad. Because those actions would come back home just like all the others.
Someone argued that people are allowed to have an opinion on China. And you certainly are allowed. But to take it so seriously as to judge complete strangers about their deeply held ethical stances or to get into a flame war over it is a waste of time. You're allowed to waste your time, but we don't have to take your outrage seriously. Don't turn having a bad inconsequential opinion into a moral failing. There are no stakes or consequences for being on either side. But this is one of those things where people aren't satisfied by having an opinion. They want others to agree with them and they want to see other people outraged too. If that doesn't happen then everyone else is evil. Because how could you not have an opinion on human rights violations?
If you want to save the oppressed, we have to get rid of capitalism. If you want to get rid of capitalism, we have to do the work of opposing capitalism, abolishing it, and then building socialism. To do the work effectively, you can't place so much importance on making sure everyone online has the right opinion on China. And if you're a person who doesn't care about socialism in the west because the third world will rise up and crush it, then who cares what opinion online westerners have on China? You think defending Xi's honor is helping China crush the US? He pays people to do that already. Go help China materially.
I don't know if this theory sits well when applied consistently across opinions. Western leftists basically don't have any power to affect major change in the world as if currently stands, so if having bad opinions on things we can't affect doesn't matter then we leave the door open to extremely bad takes like "the Iraq War was justified" or "Israel has a right to exist."
That's exactly what I'm talking about though. You're worried about bad takes. If right now all the workers in the west united and formed a party to overthrow capital, they would have some bad takes. Some of them would think that the Iraq War was justified or that Israel should exist. You're making takesmithing and policing takes a component of building socialism and it's not. You can't wait to get everyone to agree on everything before having socialism. That's never going to happen. Socialism, as I understand it, isn't defined by people agreeing on inconsequential things. We're going to eventually have to work with people who have different opinions and bad takes.
Before someone replies about does that mean working with Nazis, no. But that's part of the internet brain shit. All behaviors and takes get lumped together in these simple categories. Don't do that.
You’re making takesmithing and policing takes a component of building socialism and it’s not.
Failure to correct bad takes means more mistakes/betrayals the more powerful your organization gets, and the more nations are represented within your international, the worse the effects. Taking the correct positions on issues like the national question, two-stages theory, popular-frontism, permanent revolution, cultural revolution, even something as rudimentary as the definition and character of fascism can be a matter of life and death for your comrades organizing in other countries.
Formulating perspectives and policy can make or break the effectiveness of a political program, something every org needs to attract workers in the first place. They determines what tactics and strategy: the question of whether or not the late-neoliberal US is fascist or not results in implications for questions like, "should we be operating underground right now?".
Furthermore, this determines which organizers you can even consider comrades or allies to begin with, and which are revisionists too dangerous to ignore or even critically support. It can make the difference between siding with would-be revolutionaries in another country and helping the liberals to suppress and kill them. It makes the difference between formulating a successful political program that attracts the best elements of the working class, and one that attracts liberals.
You can’t wait to get everyone to agree on everything before having socialism.
At minimum there should be a revolutionary party/organization within the broader movement of a given country which has maximum possible agreement, and which is linked up with like-minded organizers in other countries. Democratic centralism is impossible without this. Debates over significant questions that reveal irreconcilable differences means a split is unavoidable and necessary. You had better hope you were on the correct side of the split.
Failure to correct bad takes means more mistakes/betrayals the more powerful your organization gets
But you're lumping everything from correcting wrong ideas about parliamentary procedure and opsec to 'I have the wrong definition of fascism so I don't understand letting boog boys into the org.' This is what I talked about in my original post and other posts. People online do this all the time and it drives me nuts now that I recognize it. Of course you think what I'm saying is wrong when you take what I say about bad takes and make bad takes include everything everywhere at all times. I'm not suggesting we not tell people what fascism is or discuss how to run an organization. I'm talking about people online who don't or can't do anything else but post, so they turn posting into a moral crusade. They think they're saving lives by arguing with people online. They think arguing about the definition of fascist with chuds or libs is saving lives but joining a community defense org is a CIA honeypot that they wouldn't be caught dead in.
That's who this is aimed at. It's not aimed at people with an opinion. It's not aimed at people who correct someone when they say things like socialism is when the government does stuff.
Formulating perspectives and policy can make or break the effectiveness of a political program, something every org needs to attract workers in the first place. They determines what tactics and strategy: the question of whether or not the late-neoliberal US is fascist or not results in implications for questions like, “should we be operating underground right now?”.
Again I'm not saying people shouldn't talk about things online. You keep trying to find the most reasonable scenario of saying something reasonable online and assuming I'm talking about that. I feel I'm pretty clear that I'm talking about a specific kind of demographic here. I anticipate that people who are insecure about their posting habits might think I'm talking about them, but I'm not. This isn't "you're not allowed to post online about anything or you're a shitty leftist."
At minimum there should be a revolutionary party/organization within the broader movement of a given country which has maximum possible agreement, and which is linked up with like-minded organizers in other countries. Democratic centralism is impossible without this. Debates over significant questions that reveal irreconcilable differences means a split is unavoidable and necessary. You had better hope you were on the correct side of the split.
And now you're talking as if I was saying all debate is bad or unnecessary. Never said that. China being bad or good is not a debate that reveals irreconcilable differences. And the differences are only irreconcilable because people place so much importance on where they come down on the subject. If you're China Good then you're an authoritarian tankie and I can't work with someone like that, even though you never had to or would ever voluntarily do it because of your prejudices and I doubt you could even fully articulate why you can't work with them. If you're China Bad then you're a State Department dupe who's going to get everyone jailed or killed so I can't work with that. They're the ones attaching all these stipulations on the debate and then declaring moral superiority to people they've never met or will meet or will ever work with even if there was a workers party.
If we had political power and a workers party we wouldn't have to cope with powerlessness by creating these courts of opinion in online leftist spaces. It would still exist because some people are alienated among the alienated. But it wouldn't absolutely color all online leftist discussion the way it does now.
I should probably clarify that I'm an active member of an organization that requires at least 95% agreement on most important issues in order to function at all. One that has comrades all over the world, including in countries with Communist Party presence. My correctness on the PRC issue makes the difference between me indirectly financially supporting a necessary workers' movement in China not led by the Communist Party, or unwittingly doing the CIA's work for them. I have a responsibility to be as educated as possible, take an educated position, and then hold internal discussions with comrades both domestically and internationally of the correctness of that position, if the leadership's current position is incorrect. If my org is incorrect and unwilling to change their mind when the issue becomes too important too ignore, I have no choice but to form a faction and spend less time on other necessary work, to prevent them from making the wrong choice later in a life-or-death scenario, or otherwise to consolidate the faction and split if the disagreement is irreconcilable.
Perhaps you meant to limit the context to online left discourse but again, a single organization's inability to settle these issues internally has real-life consequences. Raising the banner of your organization also requires persuasively and correctly arguing for explaining their position when talking to other leftists. It's not just a matter of whose opinion is right online. The DSA continues to be a clusterfuck in part because it's a big tent that gets bogged down by debate between caucuses of different tendencies with mutually exclusive positions on make-or-break issues like Dem-entryism.
I should probably clarify that I’m an active member of an organization that requires at least 95% agreement on most important issues in order to function at all. One that has comrades all over the world, including in countries with Communist Party presence. My correctness on the PRC issue makes the difference between me indirectly financially supporting a necessary workers’ movement in China not led by the Communist Party, or unwittingly doing the CIA’s work for them.
If you having a stance on China is absolutely necessary for your organization to function, I'm not talking to you and I never was. An organization existing that requires everyone in charge to have a stance on China doesn't invalidate what I said though. It doesn't mean that everyone on a shitposting website needs to have the correct opinion or that having an opinion while on the website matters.
I have a responsibility to be as educated as possible, take an educated position
I'm not suggesting people online not be educated.
If my org is incorrect and unwilling to change their mind when the issue becomes too important too ignore, I have no choice but to form a faction and spend less time on other necessary work, to prevent them from making the wrong choice later in a life-or-death scenario, or otherwise to consolidate the faction and split if the disagreement is irreconcilable.
Is this org chapo.chat? If not, then this isn't relevant.
Perhaps you meant to limit the context to online left discourse but again, a single organization’s inability to settle these issues internally has real-life consequences
We're not an organization. And my context was limited. You're reading this too generally.
Raising the banner of your organization also requires persuasively and correctly arguing for explaining their position when talking to other leftists
Wasn't talking about having an argument in general or trying to recruit others to your cause. This wasn't an argument against persuasive arguments.
It’s not just a matter of whose opinion is right online.
But that's exactly what I'm talking about. It is just a matter of being right online in the context I'm talking about. You're the one trying to say that being right on chapo.chat is tied to being a member of life saving organization where the difference in opinion can kill millions or something. I'm not making that argument, you are.
The DSA continues to be a clusterfuck in part because it’s a big tent that gets bogged down by debate between caucuses of different tendencies with mutually exclusive positions on make-or-break issues like Dem-entryism.
That's an entirely separate issue like all the other rebuttals but in that specific case it sounds like there's not enough goal-oriented planning. If your build an org around a nebulous ideology that could be 500 different things and not built around achieving a goal, it will get bogged down in unproductive debate. People with different ideologies can work to accomplish a single goal. Like if we had to build a house and we started an org called "the build a house org" then we'd attract people who are interested in building a house. We still would debate over the best way to build a house, what materials to use, where to put it, who does what, etc. But there's a goal and there's people who want to accomplish it. But if you just call it the "put wood together org" then there's no clear goal. People are going to ask why you're building a house, why not build a piece of furniture instead? A problem worth discussing but nothing to do with what I said so far.
If I may extend the analogy. We have no wood. We have no hammers. We have no nails. We have no plot of land on which to build. We have a stack of old blueprints of other houses built a long time ago. There are several "put wood together" orgs around, and one or two that's like "use hammers to drive nails org." We're on a website tangentially related to a podcast about some dinguses who think we should build a house sometime soon. Some of our members are fiercely arguing over what wood to use for floor joists. A worthy discussion should we have any wood at all or even our own plans to build a house. But we don't. Then those members declare they could never build a house with one another. That if the other were allowed on the construction project, it would destroy the housing project all together. But if they would just shut up and stop worrying about this inconsequential detail and help us find some wood and hammers and nails or maybe draw up some plans, then we could get to the debate about what wood makes good joists (pine imo).
Rest assured that my org is not chapo.chat, which I acknowledge is not an "org" at all but a public forum for different tendencies to put their ideas forward and discuss news and theory while attempting to avoid sectarian flame wars.
My org's current approach acknowledges we're in the "put wood together" stage and most of our current praxis is wood-gathering and doing united-front work/critical support when possible, but we follow one of the blueprints very closely to guide our wood-gathering effort, and emphasize teaching the blueprint in internal education and attempting to win people within that broader united front that can agree on the "build a house" part over to our specific blueprint. My understanding is this is typical for a single-tendency org that hasn't gone off their rocker and fallen into the "everything is a nail" trap, though some may go further and promote popular-frontism, which my org doesn't (else we'd take the DSA more seriously).
Regarding my comment about the DSA, the qualifier "in part" deserves more emphasis. It wasn't my intention to imply that was the only reason. Their big-tent "let's stop at gathering wood, at most" org clearly has other problems, some of which you've listed.
I should probably have been more explicit about this: right now, in a western context where the old left is only beginning to recover from its old wounds, for the purpose of united-front organizing, a lot of these irreconcilable issues aren't important enough to be life-and-death in our local context. If this weren't true, chapo chat would probably settle towards a single tendency and alienate everyone else. However, as the left continues to grow, precision becomes increasingly important. Being 95% correct is good enough right now. But it might be make-or-break at some point in the future when the organized left is developed enough to be approaching the capacity to build towards dual power, when the stakes dramatically increase and the responsibilities of the working-class leadership grow as they prepare to take on the capacities of a state. At that point, perhaps mere decades from now, continuing to be 95% correct could become more dangerous than being only 50% correct. Reaching this crucial point has historically happened faster outside of the west than inside it.
You’re the one trying to say that being right on chapo.chat is tied to being a member of life saving organization where the difference in opinion can kill millions or something. I’m not making that argument, you are.
This is not the case I was trying to make at all. I was explaining why I specifically have to consider my organization when expressing my position online, because part of my membership involves persuading people to my position.
Of course clearly I can't do a very good job of this individually, because I'm stuck at home and can't talk to people who aren't already politically educated and in the same position I am but in a different organization/tendency. Chapo chat isn't and shouldn't be my primary audience (especially because it's an anonymous site, and I don't use my real name on social media) but posting while involuntarily glued to the armchair was I habit I've fallen into for lack of any physical social interaction with even my own comrades, with whom I used to go out and join for protests, rallies, etc. on a regular basis before covid forced me to move.
Your reminder is a useful one; there are serious limitations to posting in online left spaces that I need to overcome through other uses of my time.
Big tent revolution sounds great and I hope it works. But even if only from a purely opsec perspective, I'm disinclined to trust people with extremely bad takes. If they're willing to swallow obvious State Department propaganda, I can't trust them not to swallow Fed propaganda and sell out.
The point of arguing "china bad" isn't to support imperialism, it's to get the left to dream bigger than well managed capitalism. It's the same reason I argue with people who get really excited about coop businesses.
The problem is that the support isn't critical. The PSL doesn't say "support china against western imperialism" they say "support china on it's long road to socialism." Its the same with Syria.
It's possible to be critical of the DotP states like China while also opposing imperialism. That's not a frictional ask, and it's why irl leftist spaces are dominated by China bad.
The PSL doesn’t say “support china against western imperialism” they say “support china on it’s long road to socialism.”
Please do not make up myths about PSL's line. It's all publicly available. [1]
To the extent that workers and peasants in China rebel or resist capitalist encroachments and abuses, they deserve the support of the world working-class movement—especially to the extent that these protests lead toward reversing the gains of capital. The rightful place of the Communist Party of China is with these workers and peasants in their confrontation with the Chinese government and with the domestic and foreign capitalists. When the communists stand aside, they lose credibility with their historic social base.
However, to the extent that these struggles move from spontaneous battles for economic and social justice to movements that are taken over politically by leadership groupings that seek to overthrow the political rule of the Communist Party—as, for instance, occurred with the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests—these struggles can only, under the current political circumstances and absent an organized revolutionary communist leadership current, move into the camp of reactionary counterrevolution. They will be organically connected to and nourished by the forces of world imperialism.
The overthrow of the Communist Party of China in these circumstances would not only lead to the absolute destruction of what is remaining of the old socialist revolution, it would suspend China’s bourgeois democratic revolution.
Such an overthrow by non-revolutionary forces would hurl China backward in its epoch-making struggle to emerge from underdevelopment. It would return China to the semi-slavery of comprador neo-colonial rule. China would then also face the possibility of splintering, as happened in Yugoslavia and as may happen in Iraq under the impact of foreign occupation.
In the face of this threat, it is the responsibility of all revolutionaries and progressive people to resist the imperialist offensive and offer militant political defense of the Chinese government—de-spite profound differences with the theory and practice of so-called “market socialism.”
That is more frictional because you're arguing a more nuanced definition of capitalism and socialism. Asking people to dream bigger is just asking them to change the way they talk about China. You don't think they dream bigger because they post praises of China. So you're asking them to post differently. Focusing on the aesthetics of posting goes back to my original thesis. I was going to post this yesterday but changed my mind. One of the original parts of the list included "stop holding China up as a model for socialism" but I left it out today because I lumped that in with focusing on posts.
Having an opinion on China doesn't matter.
Here is what the China Bad people ask of China Good people:
Here is what the China Good people ask of the China Bad people:
The things the China Good people ask are less frictional than what the China Bad people want. That's why China Good always dominate actual leftist spaces. It's not tankies or MLs having a monopoly on discourse, it's that it's easier to stand behind China Good than to not.
People think it's about information. But it's not. It's not about understanding the difference between a high school and a reeducation center. It's not about knowing the definition of a genocide. It's not about stats and witness statements. It's about people online doing the online thing and taking the path of least resistance to the beliefs. But by all means spend hours debating sources and what photographs show.
It's also not a referendum on hierarchies even if you knew with absolute certainty why China good or bad. That's something that would be decided by creating socialism in the West not by what people think of China.
And most of all nobody can do anything about it. If they're Good then you don't have to do anything but argue with libs and chuds. If they're bad then there's no mechanism for the Western leftist to save the oppressed. And to support the US or other countries in sanctions or military action would be bad. Because those actions would come back home just like all the others.
Someone argued that people are allowed to have an opinion on China. And you certainly are allowed. But to take it so seriously as to judge complete strangers about their deeply held ethical stances or to get into a flame war over it is a waste of time. You're allowed to waste your time, but we don't have to take your outrage seriously. Don't turn having a bad inconsequential opinion into a moral failing. There are no stakes or consequences for being on either side. But this is one of those things where people aren't satisfied by having an opinion. They want others to agree with them and they want to see other people outraged too. If that doesn't happen then everyone else is evil. Because how could you not have an opinion on human rights violations?
If you want to save the oppressed, we have to get rid of capitalism. If you want to get rid of capitalism, we have to do the work of opposing capitalism, abolishing it, and then building socialism. To do the work effectively, you can't place so much importance on making sure everyone online has the right opinion on China. And if you're a person who doesn't care about socialism in the west because the third world will rise up and crush it, then who cares what opinion online westerners have on China? You think defending Xi's honor is helping China crush the US? He pays people to do that already. Go help China materially.
:grill: :grillman:
deleted by creator
If this is meant to be making fun of anarchist comrades, I don't like it.
If I misunderstood, carry on.
rude
I don't know if this theory sits well when applied consistently across opinions. Western leftists basically don't have any power to affect major change in the world as if currently stands, so if having bad opinions on things we can't affect doesn't matter then we leave the door open to extremely bad takes like "the Iraq War was justified" or "Israel has a right to exist."
That's exactly what I'm talking about though. You're worried about bad takes. If right now all the workers in the west united and formed a party to overthrow capital, they would have some bad takes. Some of them would think that the Iraq War was justified or that Israel should exist. You're making takesmithing and policing takes a component of building socialism and it's not. You can't wait to get everyone to agree on everything before having socialism. That's never going to happen. Socialism, as I understand it, isn't defined by people agreeing on inconsequential things. We're going to eventually have to work with people who have different opinions and bad takes.
Before someone replies about does that mean working with Nazis, no. But that's part of the internet brain shit. All behaviors and takes get lumped together in these simple categories. Don't do that.
Failure to correct bad takes means more mistakes/betrayals the more powerful your organization gets, and the more nations are represented within your international, the worse the effects. Taking the correct positions on issues like the national question, two-stages theory, popular-frontism, permanent revolution, cultural revolution, even something as rudimentary as the definition and character of fascism can be a matter of life and death for your comrades organizing in other countries.
Formulating perspectives and policy can make or break the effectiveness of a political program, something every org needs to attract workers in the first place. They determines what tactics and strategy: the question of whether or not the late-neoliberal US is fascist or not results in implications for questions like, "should we be operating underground right now?".
Furthermore, this determines which organizers you can even consider comrades or allies to begin with, and which are revisionists too dangerous to ignore or even critically support. It can make the difference between siding with would-be revolutionaries in another country and helping the liberals to suppress and kill them. It makes the difference between formulating a successful political program that attracts the best elements of the working class, and one that attracts liberals.
At minimum there should be a revolutionary party/organization within the broader movement of a given country which has maximum possible agreement, and which is linked up with like-minded organizers in other countries. Democratic centralism is impossible without this. Debates over significant questions that reveal irreconcilable differences means a split is unavoidable and necessary. You had better hope you were on the correct side of the split.
But you're lumping everything from correcting wrong ideas about parliamentary procedure and opsec to 'I have the wrong definition of fascism so I don't understand letting boog boys into the org.' This is what I talked about in my original post and other posts. People online do this all the time and it drives me nuts now that I recognize it. Of course you think what I'm saying is wrong when you take what I say about bad takes and make bad takes include everything everywhere at all times. I'm not suggesting we not tell people what fascism is or discuss how to run an organization. I'm talking about people online who don't or can't do anything else but post, so they turn posting into a moral crusade. They think they're saving lives by arguing with people online. They think arguing about the definition of fascist with chuds or libs is saving lives but joining a community defense org is a CIA honeypot that they wouldn't be caught dead in.
That's who this is aimed at. It's not aimed at people with an opinion. It's not aimed at people who correct someone when they say things like socialism is when the government does stuff.
Again I'm not saying people shouldn't talk about things online. You keep trying to find the most reasonable scenario of saying something reasonable online and assuming I'm talking about that. I feel I'm pretty clear that I'm talking about a specific kind of demographic here. I anticipate that people who are insecure about their posting habits might think I'm talking about them, but I'm not. This isn't "you're not allowed to post online about anything or you're a shitty leftist."
And now you're talking as if I was saying all debate is bad or unnecessary. Never said that. China being bad or good is not a debate that reveals irreconcilable differences. And the differences are only irreconcilable because people place so much importance on where they come down on the subject. If you're China Good then you're an authoritarian tankie and I can't work with someone like that, even though you never had to or would ever voluntarily do it because of your prejudices and I doubt you could even fully articulate why you can't work with them. If you're China Bad then you're a State Department dupe who's going to get everyone jailed or killed so I can't work with that. They're the ones attaching all these stipulations on the debate and then declaring moral superiority to people they've never met or will meet or will ever work with even if there was a workers party.
If we had political power and a workers party we wouldn't have to cope with powerlessness by creating these courts of opinion in online leftist spaces. It would still exist because some people are alienated among the alienated. But it wouldn't absolutely color all online leftist discussion the way it does now.
I should probably clarify that I'm an active member of an organization that requires at least 95% agreement on most important issues in order to function at all. One that has comrades all over the world, including in countries with Communist Party presence. My correctness on the PRC issue makes the difference between me indirectly financially supporting a necessary workers' movement in China not led by the Communist Party, or unwittingly doing the CIA's work for them. I have a responsibility to be as educated as possible, take an educated position, and then hold internal discussions with comrades both domestically and internationally of the correctness of that position, if the leadership's current position is incorrect. If my org is incorrect and unwilling to change their mind when the issue becomes too important too ignore, I have no choice but to form a faction and spend less time on other necessary work, to prevent them from making the wrong choice later in a life-or-death scenario, or otherwise to consolidate the faction and split if the disagreement is irreconcilable.
Perhaps you meant to limit the context to online left discourse but again, a single organization's inability to settle these issues internally has real-life consequences. Raising the banner of your organization also requires persuasively and correctly arguing for explaining their position when talking to other leftists. It's not just a matter of whose opinion is right online. The DSA continues to be a clusterfuck in part because it's a big tent that gets bogged down by debate between caucuses of different tendencies with mutually exclusive positions on make-or-break issues like Dem-entryism.
If you having a stance on China is absolutely necessary for your organization to function, I'm not talking to you and I never was. An organization existing that requires everyone in charge to have a stance on China doesn't invalidate what I said though. It doesn't mean that everyone on a shitposting website needs to have the correct opinion or that having an opinion while on the website matters.
I'm not suggesting people online not be educated.
Is this org chapo.chat? If not, then this isn't relevant.
We're not an organization. And my context was limited. You're reading this too generally.
Wasn't talking about having an argument in general or trying to recruit others to your cause. This wasn't an argument against persuasive arguments.
But that's exactly what I'm talking about. It is just a matter of being right online in the context I'm talking about. You're the one trying to say that being right on chapo.chat is tied to being a member of life saving organization where the difference in opinion can kill millions or something. I'm not making that argument, you are.
That's an entirely separate issue like all the other rebuttals but in that specific case it sounds like there's not enough goal-oriented planning. If your build an org around a nebulous ideology that could be 500 different things and not built around achieving a goal, it will get bogged down in unproductive debate. People with different ideologies can work to accomplish a single goal. Like if we had to build a house and we started an org called "the build a house org" then we'd attract people who are interested in building a house. We still would debate over the best way to build a house, what materials to use, where to put it, who does what, etc. But there's a goal and there's people who want to accomplish it. But if you just call it the "put wood together org" then there's no clear goal. People are going to ask why you're building a house, why not build a piece of furniture instead? A problem worth discussing but nothing to do with what I said so far.
If I may extend the analogy. We have no wood. We have no hammers. We have no nails. We have no plot of land on which to build. We have a stack of old blueprints of other houses built a long time ago. There are several "put wood together" orgs around, and one or two that's like "use hammers to drive nails org." We're on a website tangentially related to a podcast about some dinguses who think we should build a house sometime soon. Some of our members are fiercely arguing over what wood to use for floor joists. A worthy discussion should we have any wood at all or even our own plans to build a house. But we don't. Then those members declare they could never build a house with one another. That if the other were allowed on the construction project, it would destroy the housing project all together. But if they would just shut up and stop worrying about this inconsequential detail and help us find some wood and hammers and nails or maybe draw up some plans, then we could get to the debate about what wood makes good joists (pine imo).
Rest assured that my org is not chapo.chat, which I acknowledge is not an "org" at all but a public forum for different tendencies to put their ideas forward and discuss news and theory while attempting to avoid sectarian flame wars.
My org's current approach acknowledges we're in the "put wood together" stage and most of our current praxis is wood-gathering and doing united-front work/critical support when possible, but we follow one of the blueprints very closely to guide our wood-gathering effort, and emphasize teaching the blueprint in internal education and attempting to win people within that broader united front that can agree on the "build a house" part over to our specific blueprint. My understanding is this is typical for a single-tendency org that hasn't gone off their rocker and fallen into the "everything is a nail" trap, though some may go further and promote popular-frontism, which my org doesn't (else we'd take the DSA more seriously).
Regarding my comment about the DSA, the qualifier "in part" deserves more emphasis. It wasn't my intention to imply that was the only reason. Their big-tent "let's stop at gathering wood, at most" org clearly has other problems, some of which you've listed.
I should probably have been more explicit about this: right now, in a western context where the old left is only beginning to recover from its old wounds, for the purpose of united-front organizing, a lot of these irreconcilable issues aren't important enough to be life-and-death in our local context. If this weren't true, chapo chat would probably settle towards a single tendency and alienate everyone else. However, as the left continues to grow, precision becomes increasingly important. Being 95% correct is good enough right now. But it might be make-or-break at some point in the future when the organized left is developed enough to be approaching the capacity to build towards dual power, when the stakes dramatically increase and the responsibilities of the working-class leadership grow as they prepare to take on the capacities of a state. At that point, perhaps mere decades from now, continuing to be 95% correct could become more dangerous than being only 50% correct. Reaching this crucial point has historically happened faster outside of the west than inside it.
This is not the case I was trying to make at all. I was explaining why I specifically have to consider my organization when expressing my position online, because part of my membership involves persuading people to my position.
Of course clearly I can't do a very good job of this individually, because I'm stuck at home and can't talk to people who aren't already politically educated and in the same position I am but in a different organization/tendency. Chapo chat isn't and shouldn't be my primary audience (especially because it's an anonymous site, and I don't use my real name on social media) but posting while involuntarily glued to the armchair was I habit I've fallen into for lack of any physical social interaction with even my own comrades, with whom I used to go out and join for protests, rallies, etc. on a regular basis before covid forced me to move.
Your reminder is a useful one; there are serious limitations to posting in online left spaces that I need to overcome through other uses of my time.
Big tent revolution sounds great and I hope it works. But even if only from a purely opsec perspective, I'm disinclined to trust people with extremely bad takes. If they're willing to swallow obvious State Department propaganda, I can't trust them not to swallow Fed propaganda and sell out.
they are bad tho
curious, you think hierarchies are bad but have a hierarchy of the correctness of ideas
Also i wrote this from a huawei
The point of arguing "china bad" isn't to support imperialism, it's to get the left to dream bigger than well managed capitalism. It's the same reason I argue with people who get really excited about coop businesses.
The problem is that the support isn't critical. The PSL doesn't say "support china against western imperialism" they say "support china on it's long road to socialism." Its the same with Syria.
It's possible to be critical of the DotP states like China while also opposing imperialism. That's not a frictional ask, and it's why irl leftist spaces are dominated by China bad.
Please do not make up myths about PSL's line. It's all publicly available. [1]
That is more frictional because you're arguing a more nuanced definition of capitalism and socialism. Asking people to dream bigger is just asking them to change the way they talk about China. You don't think they dream bigger because they post praises of China. So you're asking them to post differently. Focusing on the aesthetics of posting goes back to my original thesis. I was going to post this yesterday but changed my mind. One of the original parts of the list included "stop holding China up as a model for socialism" but I left it out today because I lumped that in with focusing on posts.
Dioctylterephthalat
okay, understood, I will go buy chinese made goods and services
Starting a communist port on a new shipping route after the ice caps melt mite b cool.
can i buy this or no?
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Good countries can do bad things.
The answer for China is even more Marxism. Like, staggering amounts of Marxism.