If you think it’s bad now, it’s gonna get worse in the coming years.
Reading and analysing what’s been happening around us for the past 10-20 years, it’s clear that we’re in a Nazi Germany situation. And when fascism will be here, we will ask “how did that happen?”
The future looks bleak.
My brother in Christ, fascism started with Usonian independence and it hasn’t stopped since. If anything we are beginning to see liberation by its collapse, happy decades are a-coming.
I’d like to say this is true, but without a doubt the Amerikkkan state is crumbling and its not going out with out a fight. Not to mention the increased support for fascism is the general psych of the public with support of Ukraine. Most importantly however, queer rights are on the decrease, trans rights are going down the drain, gay ones will be next, and after that wouldn’t be surprised if civil rights are next.
(Note: This doesn’t mean im a doomer, if anything more people will become radicalized if they’re clearly on the chopping block, or care about helping those on it. Still just a note)
Maybe you live in the global North, but I am from Argentina and mostly no one thinks the shit in Ukraine is as the US and its leap dogs paint it, I have spoken with middle left, right and right and as long as they aren’t US bootlickers they think it is all US meddling as usual. Cuba just this year passed a reform of the constitution that adds a lot of rights for queer people, so I don’t know, in Argentina we achieved free abortion, maybe you are suffering from capitalist realism?
Yeah Im sorry I should’ve clarified a bit more I was talking about the US. Its just I kinda assumed were talking US here, because being honest, yeah the rest of the world is looking positive. So I suppose we should rename this post: The Eurocentric world is going to shit, everywhere else is looking mostly good lol.
Everything you say is true … For the imperial core. In the global south things are looking much more positive. Cuba, Vietnam, China have all been taking very positive steps lately with respect to LGBT rights. A good number of leftist (albeit only socdem) governments in Latin America have been pushing back against neoliberalism. The global south is asserting itself economically and breaking free from neo-colonial domination. Yes there are still some countries where the imperialists are able to cause trouble, to temporarily reverse progress with coups like the ones that have taken place in Pakistan and Peru. But a lot of countries that have been in the crosshairs of the US for regime change are proving to be more and more resilient to US hybrid war and color revolution attempts. Iran, Syria, Hong Kong, Kazakhstan, the empire has been taking a lot of L’s. And more will follow, some very big ones like losing the proxy war in Ukraine. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, India, all once solid US allies now drifting away from the imperialist camp. Most of the world does not buy into the west’s propaganda about the Ukraine conflict. Most of the world regularly denounces the US embargo on Cuba, and everyone but the Anglos (US, UK, CAN, AUS), the Zionist apartheid state and the Europeans voted with Russia in the resolution against the spread of Nazi ideology. You have to put things in perspective. Yes westerners are very brainwashed and very reactionary and only getting worse. But at the end of the day they are a clear minority of the world’s population.
But at the end of the day they are a clear minority of the world’s population.
What about in terms of power projection?
The ability of the west to project power globally is waning at an accelerated rate as the global south develops economically and technologically. There are three components to power: economic, military and cultural. The latter two ultimately derive from the economic base. Without the global economic (and technological) dominance that the west has enjoyed up to now their power cannot be maintained. Every year the west makes up a smaller portion of the global economic pie. De-industrialized and sliding ever deeper into economic crisis the US is already overextended militarily. It still enjoys dominance in the media and cultural (hollywood, etc.) arenas for now, but that too will change, if somewhat slower. In a multipolar world a singular cultural hegemony cannot exist.
Thank you for giving a ray of hope. We need it to fight the fascism
Most importantly however, queer rights are on the decrease, trans rights are going down the drain, gay ones will be next, and after that wouldn’t be surprised if civil rights are next.
Makes me wonder, why the hell are these even happening? I thought people were aware why such rights were established in the first place? Or do they not teach that/have stopped teaching that in Western Academia?
In my experience I know all too much people who think the civil rights era, gay marriage, and trans care, all were established legally by just voooooooooooting hard. In a way the school system sets up people to not understand their rights so they can be taken easier.
In a way the school system sets up people to not understand their rights so they can be taken easier.
What the fuck.
And people have the gall to say “SyStEMic RAcISM IS NOT reAl!”
capitalist “education”
Makes me wonder, why the hell are these even happening?
“Well we want to have cool happy jetpack spacefuture with trans rights, BUT THOSE EBIL COMMIE RUSSKIES AND CHINESE ARE PREVENTING IT AND WANT TO START NUCLEAR WAR TO TAKE AWAY OUR GAY MARRIAGE RIGHTS so we must pump more funds into the MIC and crush those filthy untermen- eeer I mean we must illuminate those who don’t share our values!”
- the brain of your average lib
Yet, simultaneously, I also feel optimistic about a Socialist future.
If most countries don’t switch to Socialism yet, I imagine they will once fascism wrecks them.
The question is - how badly can fascism wreck us all? The weapons at the disposal of the ruling class are far beyond what they had in 1910’s and 1940’s. Not just nukes - biological weapons, computer viruses that can wreck electric grids (with all the consequences of that), plain ol’ bombs and rockets - but better.
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From what you’ve said, pretty damn badly.
I still shudder to think that Bioweapons are a thing when Nukes/Bombs/Rockets exist. Are these people that sadistic? That the thought of their “enemies” succumbing and suffering to illnesses makes them act up?
This is why I sometimes wonder if technological advancement while Socialism still hasn’t been fully established
around the worldis a curse.All it takes is to look at what the US did to Korea to know that yes, they are that sadistic. They used biological weapons in Korea, they used chemical weapons in Vietnam, they used nuclear weapons on Japan, there is no line the empire will not cross especially once it becomes desperate to stop its own demise.
Demons.
As I always say, world peace will never happen until the American Demonocracy falls apart.
A little unknown fact, the first use of chemical warfare was the British fighting the communist ‘insurgency’ right here in Malaysia. It is said that this first use then inspired the Americans to use it in Vietnam.
It’s always communists they enjoy killing, isn’t it?
When was that?
Good question!
I read this factoid so many times that it didn’t even occur to me to even pinpoint the exact chronological timeline.
I realise now that I wrote way too much for such a simple question. Scroll down to the images for the answer to your question.
Right so I quickly searched online for any sorts of sources. Most of them cite pretty much nothing (ie. some form of circular reasoning) and take it for granted. See for example this.
Other articles, such as this one, which is a very good read to get the jist of the ‘Malayan Emergency’, and this (before anyone mentions it: yes I know this site is NED funded), mentioned a NewScientist article as the source.
Was able to find a subject index at first, but finally got to a secondary source.
But finally, I was able to find a list of primary sources here. A particularly capitalist quote I like to mention from the article is this, in the context of using defoliant for warfare:
The UK chemicals giant ICI saw it, according to the Colonial Office, as ‘a lucrative field for experiment’ (CO, 1953b and 1953c).
I was also able to find an online conference/lecture regarding this topic here (it’s the second one, starting roughly 1hr in), for those interested.
Now for evidence of American inspiration; that I was unable to truly certify. A NYT article reiterated this claim (like the other articles mentioned), but it cites no sources.
But it really isn’t too much of stretch to assume that the Brits and Americans had shared intel over matters such as this. If anyone has any information on this do let me know.
We also have to keep in mind that the British purposefully burnt colonial records through the aptly named Operation Legacy (see also this;290-291 and The Guardian; for something less overly academic) before they finally left, leading to the Malaysia we know today.
In addition, the current Malaysian government doesn’t want to shine a light on to the communist ‘terrorists’, so the effect of ‘trioxone’ and its extent in Malaysia, is still unknown. And perhaps, it may never be known. It is just a sad, practically insignificant note in a vast and bloody battlefield that is history.
Thank you for a well-researched reply! I was just confused, because in my mind the first instance of chemical warfare was during WW1, what with Ypr and all.
But you shine a light on a very important topic of western crimes in Asia. Thank you
Partigiano 2: electric boogaloo
Europe is shifting into fascism. At least Western/Northern Europe is. But as history has shown us, there will still be a lot of people willing to fight fascism. I personally have made a pact with some comrades from my party to go rogue if the far right party over here gets in power, as we cannot accept standing idly by while they do their things.
Material conditions in the West/North are decreasing fast for a lot of people. Foodbanks in Amsterdam for example now have a waiting line of two hours in the freezing cold. A big percentage of Belgian people are facing poverty at the moment. The left in both Belgium and The Netherlands is not staying still. Our party is collaborating with the unions and we are out on the streets daily, trying to mobilize the people. New socialist movements are starting in The Netherlands as well, gaining followers fast.
Fascism is rising and I’m not counting out one or multiple fascist states in Europe. But there will be people living there that will not go out without a fight, and right now socialism has a better track record against fascism. And when shit hits the fan internally in Europe/The US, the global south may be able to do their own things as well, especially with China’s focus on Africa and Latin America.
The worst part is that even after 70+ years of people all over the world saying we need to avoid repeating what happened in Germany, at this point liberals and conservatives both are pretty much begging for a fascist state. State controlled media, mass censorship, entire groups being stripped of their rights and shipped off to die. The names change but the goals remain the same. Look at what’s happening with Ukraine, you have a country that is essentially being run by gangs of Neo-nazis and all it took to make them America’s darling was a media campaign and a bunch of sob stories.
It’s incredible that we are falling into fascism by pretending other countries are falling into it.
If you ask me, the point of no return was the George Floyd protests, when cops all over the nation showed that “protect and serve” is an absolute lie. We live in a police state where you can be arrested and shot with no provocation, then the person who saw you get shot is arrested, then the journalist reporting on it is arrested.
The point of no-return was not denazifying after the war. Instead we banally allowed it to proliferate. Fascism is the guard dog of capitalism and will always exist if its master does.
We would not be in this situation in 2022 if we had systematically shot or reeducated all fascists like the USSR did. And for that they were dislocated completely.
I need to make a bot for this post any time fascism gets mentioned.
The western left’s use of the term fascism, is borderline white-supremacist at this point. Fascism was a form of colonialism that died by the 1940s, and is only allowed to be demonized in public discourse, because it was a form of colonialism directed also against white europeans. It was defeated, and Germany / Italy / Japan reverted to the more stable form of government for colonialism: bourgeois parliamentarism.
British, european, and now US colonizers were doing the exact same thing, and killing far more people for hundreds of years in the global south, yet you don’t hear ppl scared of their countries potentially “becoming british colonialists.” This is why you have new leftists terrified that the UK or US or europe “might turn fascist!!”, betraying that the atrocities propagated by those empires against the global south was and is completely acceptable.
I want to expand in this. Colonialism IS a matter of material circumstance and a deliberate program for obtaining material, resources, and labor. It’s an action, a means of doing things.
As the global south rises; it will become more and more difficult to colonize; to imperialize. This DOES NOT MEAN that once colonialism can not colonize abroad, that the methode is defeated and done away with.
What it means is that a colonialism sent into retreat will seek the NEAREST vulnerable group to colonize and extract from. This means it will not target the people half way across the world, but will target even more desperately the community across the street labeled as people who DESERVE the violence. This will mean women, POC, LGBTQIA, and differently abled will once again be the immediate targets of either free labor, prison labor, or the enemies and agents of cultural and metaphysical, and religious corruption and rebellion.
Expect the fight.
Tried to reply to your more recent version of this comment but I don’t think it worked because the post was deleted.
I’d like to know more about this framing - I was under the impression that a key component of fascism is the turning inward of colonialist/imperialist tactics onto members of the working class and specifically minority groups within that class, and less that it was a specific movement aimed at colonizing other nations, white european or otherwise. It’s never seemed to me that the warnings about fascism and the anticommunism it upholds as well as the oppression it brings had any relation, moral or otherwise (not that moralizing has much to do with dialectical materialism), to colonialism.
I haven’t yet read any specific works analyzing fascism, but if you have any recommendations, I’d love to know.
No probs! There are hundreds of books written about fascism, and after reading a few of them, you realize these people are completely ignorant of the history of western colonialism, and unable to say how fascism differs essentially from any colonialist practices. Its such a heterodox term that its almost completely pointless to talk about… ask 10 people to define fascism and you’ll get 10 definitions.
I’d read Aime Cesare - Discourse on Colonialism, its short, and it’s the source of this idea. Not a single person who has tried to define fascism has been able to come up with a differentiator from previous colonialist practices (other than the color line).
There’s also a good chapter on Zak Cope - Divided World Divided class, on Germany, where he explains contrary to the popular “leftist opinion” that fascism was bad for the working classes of Germany, that no, actually the people of germany vastly benefited from its colonialism of eastern and western europe.
All right, thanks! I’ll check those out. On a related note, is Trotsky’s Fascism: What It Is and How To Fight It worth my time?
I’d say so yes, it has a better class analysis of fascism than you get with most liberal dissections.
If it’s any consolation, comrade… We aint getting out of this world alive.
I have no Idea how are we getting out of this…
“Who’s ‘We’, Paleface?”
You’re from the Balkans, right?
We communists.
Yes, I’m from Balkans.
Well our area of the world is deeply infected with anti-com psychosis of various strains. So I don’t know how communists in the Balkans, eastern and western Europe will get out of this, if at all.
Communists in, say, Vietnam should be fine. Provided they and their compatriots don’t take a revisionist turn
If this is the truth, then we must prepare ourselves for what will happen.
