Thoughts?

    • @aworldtowin@lemmy.ml
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      141 year ago

      Man I wish I could remember that Parenti quote about how the imperialists always say two contradictory things. One second the scary commies are a threat to the entire world and could take over the US, the next they scream about how socialism can’t succeed with anything.

      • Parenti BotB
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        101 year ago
        The quote

        In the United States, for over a hundred years, the ruling interests tirelessly propagated anticommunism among the populace, until it became more like a religious orthodoxy than a political analysis. During the Cold War, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them. If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.

        – Michael Parenti, Blackshirts And Reds

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    • @communist_wife
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      1 year ago

      It calls on ‘western democracies’ to ‘catch up’ with China. Why? Just vibe. Just let the world be cool and let someone else make cool shit? It’s all good man.

      • @rigor
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        101 year ago

        If catching up meant developing their own capacities—ignoring ongoing imperialism—then I would agree. The US has lots of potential—again ignoring imperialism—and should redevelop itself ideally.

        Yet, as we all know the US and the imperial core prosper not on their own innovation, but on unequal exchange and imperializing the rest of the world. When ASPI says ‘catch up’ they mean intensifying imperialism and destroying AES/anti-imperialist countries.