cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/455637

I’ve taken it upon myself to bring the ParentiBot we all know and love from the hellsite reddit to Lemmygrad.

Have you ever been in a situation where the Parenti quote applies? As quotable as Michael Parenti is, people pretty much always mean the same quote. There’s no need to go searching for that quote anymore. Simply mention ParentiBot like this: @ParentiBot@lemmygrad.ml; or use the phrase “Parenti quote” (casing and space between characters doesn’t matter) in your comment or post.

I’m open to suggestions as to how the quote should be formatted. Currently the quote is in its entirety all in one block quote. As much as we tankies love our walls of text, I’ve had an admin express concern that having a bot posting walls of text in comment threads can lead to a worse thread reading experience for the threads the bot appears in, and I can see where they’re coming from.

For the more technically inclined, I invite you to view the source code. It has a copyleft license, as all based software should.

Finally, to admins and moderators, feel free to reach out to me if you need help making a bot. The power of bots has been used for cringe purposes here before, like the mass downvoter, but I’ll gladly help make based bots.

I figure this is an appropriate place to make this too in that the bot is a thing that I made.

  • Parenti BotB
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    2 years ago
    The Parenti 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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