• 201dberg
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    48
    ·
    4 months ago

    As one of the few ML westerners that isn’t a fucking ultra and supports AES countries I can say… Sigh… Yeah, this is pretty accurate.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆OP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      38
      ·
      4 months ago

      I’m always amazed how readily the western left discards the experience of the Global South. Imagine thinking that you know better than people who’re actually engaged in the struggle.

      • SugandeseDelegation
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        24
        ·
        4 months ago

        Even though they’re self-professed leftists, they can’t get over their racism and western supremacism so easily 🤷

        • MarxMadness
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          15
          ·
          4 months ago

          It’s plenty of this, but also plenty of getting sold big changes by liberal politicians and then actually given shit. If that’s your experience, then you hear Xi talk about communism while China has low-wage workers and billionaires, it’s extremely easy to cynically write off the whole project from the jump (especially given the wall-to-wall anticommunist propaganda in the imperial core).

          You really have to dig into the details (and frankly look at AES states in a more generous light than western “leftist” projects, which is to a degree warranted) to have a solid “critical support” position.

  • Rania 🇩🇿
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    33
    ·
    4 months ago

    Whenever I’m met with the misfortune of seeing an ultra, I simply call them a cracker and go to sleep

  • DankZedong A
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    30
    ·
    4 months ago

    Easy when you don’t have to actually run a state after a revolution and deal with all the sanctions, counter revolutions, etc. You can just shit on everything and call it ‘not real socialism’ or ‘revisionism’ from the comfort of your western, safe world. But it’s them doing it, your western superior view of socialism is irrelevant to their achievements.

    • MarxMadness
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      4 months ago

      The pure (libertarian) socialists’ ideological anticipations remain untainted by existing practice. They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be avoided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priorities set, and production and distribution conducted. Instead, they offer vague statements about how the workers themselves will directly own and control the means of production and will arrive at their own solutions through creative struggle. No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except the ones that succeed.

      One issue I see is that the language of progress – and I mean real progress, not tiny, crumb concessions – has been so abused by liberals that even a good leftist movement doing good work gets a ton of shit from leftist critics for not immediately smashing the full communism button.

  • الأرض ستبقى عربية
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    28
    ·
    4 months ago

    They are also likely to be Anarchists that somehow support NATO. Or is that what Ultras mean?

    I had so many terrible interactions with western leftists except those who are ML.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆OP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      25
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      4 months ago

      Ultras are basically people who don’t understand the difference between being principled and pragmatic. They see any compromises as a betrayal. For example, ultras denounce China because it has capitalism. Ultimately, they end up being no different from Anarchists in a sense that what they want is not possible in practical terms. So, they just end up cosplyaing at being a communist.

      • supersolid_snake
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        16
        ·
        edit-2
        4 months ago

        You mean to tell me it’s harder to apply theory in a world that’s overwhelmingly capitalist than in a book? Ridiculous, I demand perfection

      • SugandeseDelegation
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        4 months ago

        They take a socialist country that exists in a predominantly capitalist world and which has to contend with that reality, and purity-test it against socialism on paper, abstracted from reality

        • MarxMadness
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          10
          ·
          4 months ago

          Paraphrasing Parenti, they compare it to the People’s Republic of Heaven.