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Comments
Truth be told, the one doing most to make me shut up (and the other stuff) was Jane (known here IIRC as Super Lazuli), not you. However, you and others did join up, backed her up and ignored that that's what she was doing, so same thing.
As for the socialism stuff, no, I do not believe there's an important difference in those forms of socialism. Socialists can preach all they want about how some socialists will believe anarchy stuff, some will believe democratic stuff, or whatever, but when push comes to shove virtually all these will chant in unison supporting and opposing the same things, so I do believe I'm justified in dismissing those differences as besides the point.
For instance, I have no intention whatsoever to forget that less than a year ago Chávez was still an idol for the left-of-mainstream-social-democracy that you mention, and Maduro an important figure for them, before turning to not-real-socialism. Or the bawling over the Caribbean mummy half a year ago. Those are just recent examples, of course, the same thing happened with virtually all socialists throughout history to the point of becoming a cliché, one which I have the first-hand experience to assert is well founded.
But all this is irrelevant for my experiences at HH, because no one ever brought up anything other than social democracy "socialism" or dictatorship-of-the-proletariat socialism, usually with me being the one doing the distinction between them while others feel offended on the latter's behalf regardless of context. You claim I don't understand, but I do and that's why I often phrase things differently and use US related analogies to explain myself, yet a common pattern at HH was putting little effort in seeing where I'm coming from, apparently figuring that if I lash out against socialism it's because I'm some right-wing stereotype arguing about "uninfluential" abstractions, ignoring the obvious fact that the reason I'm passionate about this is because, unlike them, for me it's a very real thing.
You claim you do care about our situation. I think I can trust you over this, however I can say without a shadow of doubt that Jane does not care one bit (despite posting similar disclaimers), so forgive me if I didn't feel I was being empathized with as others joined her in dismissing our problems.
Not many people in the US identify as "socialists", but what you're describing seems to be a pretty common behavior for some issues and not others. What I mean is that the phrase "when push comes to shove" depends on the issue -- for example, liberals/progressives in the US are very united when it comes to reproductive rights, generally united when it comes to advocating for a single-payer healthcare system, and noticeably less united when it comes to opposing Syria's Bashar al-Assad, so depending on the issue, them "chanting in unison" may or may not happen.
Anyway, Hugo Chávez was, while certainly less unpopular amongst the U.S. left than the U.S. right, still not particularly popular amongst the U.S. left, where quite a few people had qualms over his respect (or lack thereof) for things like human rights, among other issues.
There are people who are dumbfucks about Russia and Cuba on the left in the US in the same way the right was all gung-ho about Pinochet and the Contras back in the '80s. It's disgusting, but it doesn't say much about the ideologies or any inherent tendencies within them, only about the myopia of their adherents. There are plenty of stupid lefties, as your current government so elegantly demonstrates. Here, stupid rightists are far more common. Interestingly, both your ruling lefties and our ruling rightists are rather socially conservative and alarmingly authoritarian, in your case even worse than ours. Perhaps their inability to countenance new ideas or accept dissent is as much the issue as their inept interpretation of what constitutes Marxist praxis? I would say so. People who can't accept being wrong will always fail. Kleptocracies always fail. The world may not be just, but it does punish stupidity fairly well in the long run.
When you say all socialists want something that will lead to X bad thing, not only do you treat people like me with roughly the same respect as you would a deranged Twitter Maoist, but you treat different definitions of the redistribution of wealth and abolition of current late-capitalist market systems as a bloc when their means and ultimate aims can be quite diverse. Most socialists do not believe in an absolute control economy or seizing personal and private property willy-nilly; nor are they gold-hoarding mercantilists who seek to pursue extreme protectionist policies which turn the receipt of foreign goods into a nightmare of tariffs and supermarket hoarding. You understand socialist theory through your own narrow, national lens and apply it everywhere that you see the word, and in the process demean and wildly misrepresent a body of literature and ideas far bigger and more diverse than you acknowledge. Did you know that there are non-Marxist socialists? That there are neo-Marxists who vehemently disavow the Soviet Union and follow the likes of Gramsci? That Karl Popper, known positivist philosopher, friend of Hayek and intense anti-Marxist, was himself a socialist? I can take all this in good faith and say you've only educated yourself so far as maybe reading the Communist Manifesto and having a decent idea of what market and command economies are—which, contrary to popular belief, don't really define capitalism or socialism, but I digress. The problem is, I think you're better informed than that. So what am I supposed to take away? That you reject new ideas which don't fit how you look at the world? Everyone does this to some degree, but her it feels almost bold.
A Twitter Maoist is presumably someone who talks about Maoism, a specific strain of communism, on Twitter, and presumably someone who talks about it poorly, since a lot of political wanker on Twitter tends to be rather poor anyway.
A Taoist would be advocating a spiritual philosophy about living in harmony with things.
Anyway, I probably know a little more about politics than you do, but enough to know that the labels are not something I like but rather something I think often forces people into pigeonholes with regards to positions on issues and ideological affiliations.
Also I'm hesitant to talk about Jane behind her back, since that seems rude, but I admit that I don't like her dismissiveness either, yet despite my distaste for it, I feel a bit sympathetic since she probably just leads a stressful life and goes to HH to unwind, rather than to see controversies that irritate her, and she's simply letting that known.
I'd rather she do it differently, but...well, do not hate humans, for theirs is already a hard lot. :P
Anyway, yeah, I felt like "Twitter Maoist" was clearer than "tankie" for no-wonks, but it's still kind of obtuse if you're not familiar with the history. Long story short, tankies are the Nazi apologists of the left.
But enough with resisting socialism on the streets, time to do it on internet forums as well.
Well, that's not true, I did post quite a bit on the video games thread and Glenn's thread, I probably even posted more in the US politics thread (about stuff unrelated to socialism) than anywhere about socialism, plus every now and then in all those short-lived threads.
But that's not as important as something else; I was very rarely the one to bring up in the first place. For instance, let me remind you that during the argument that sparked the discussion we're having now the very first thing Jane did was derailing it to being about socialism (specifically my hate for it) and I had to be the one to rerail it (before Alduin/Elektross revealed that, yeah, it was about socialism). Similar stuff happened elsewhere, like that one where others were already insulting socialism but me joining in was too much, and so on.
See what I said about not trying to understand where I'm coming from? That I'm very rarely the one to bring it up is not an unimportant detail in understanding my posting habits. That I post often about socialism is moreso a reflection of how often socialism is posted about, which is a lot.
About the gung-ho stuff, I think I nailed it when I mentioned anti-anti-socialism. I'm repeating myself here but whatever: Heapers won't identify with socialist regimes and they may even make fun of 'tankies' or whatever from time to time, but god forbid someone comes and actually cares about that stuff, that if someone takes it much more seriously than some random Joe in the US or somewhere there must be some underlying right-wing reason and at that point I get questioned about whether I hate welfare or something. All this in a forum that is absolutely not casual at all when it comes to US politics.
As for the stuff about dumb lefties/righties, no, I'm not willing to ignore the adherents when it comes to judging a governmental ideology. I'm very sorry but ideologies don't put themselves into practice, their adherents do, and if said ideology is doomed to fail due to its adherents, whatever value it may have elsewhere, I'd say it's pretty worthless to use it as a basis of government.
However, I'll admit (and have admitted at least once here) that socialists are usually good at figuring out a (non-socialist) society's grievances.
As for that last paragraph, I've read the commie manifesto, The Open Veins of Latin America (or however it's translated), The State and Revolution, the other stuff Ironweaver recommended to me plus the other stuff he's linked throughout this forum, Revolution Betrayed before I got tired of Trotsky's whining, part of the manga version of Das Kapital because of course I did, and shitload of articles and stuff back when I was obsessed about trying to understand the world around me, plus frequenting socialist forums.
Not the most comprehensive reading, I'm aware, I'll keep at it, but I feel I've done my due diligence, I've done more reading than the average socialism supporter and should be allowed to have strong opinions about it.
Also I'm very well aware of the cultural hegemony dude and trivia about important, smart figures being socialists, thank you very much.
From that last part you seem to think that the reason I'm dismissive about these things is because I haven't run into them, and that I haven't run into them because I refuse to look further into it for national reasons. Quite the opposite, the PSUV is what drives me to look more into it, even if the underlying reason is 'know your enemy'. Once upon a time my opinion about it was something along the lines of "they say they're socialists doing a socialist revolution but they lie a lot about stuff so that's probably not true", it wasn't until I looked further that I learned (don't deny it) how orthodox many of their ideas are, how much less tame the orthodox version of their other ideas are, and how much genuine support they had among socialists over it. If it weren't for this my opinion on socialism would be a boring shrug.
Well, I'm sorry but it's been a constant that the more I read about socialism, the lower my opinion on it gets. If you think you have a resource that will be an exception, be my guest, I promise I'll put effort in looking through it.
If it matters, I don't care if she ends up reading this. As far as I'm concerned you can tell her if you feel the need to, she most likely already knows what I think about her anyways.
I've seen a lot of political/philosophical/ideological terminology thrown around on HH but I don't remember ever seeing that term before.
> I'm very sorry but ideologies don't put themselves into practice, their
adherents do, and if said ideology is doomed to fail due to its
adherents, whatever value it may have elsewhere, I'd say it's pretty
worthless to use it as a basis of government.
I interpret this as being that the ideology itself is an unimportant label, and at most a guiding principle, rather than something to be categorically opposed or supported. Rather, I'd rather focus on the specific issues, and their implementation and their political viability due to framing (where ideology can come into play but is more typically a distraction or a tool than anything more substantive).
(Note that I personally consider myself to be a "conservative". Anyone else is free to decide what they would label me, of course, since I can't control how they think, but I can certainly tell them what I think.)
I think I've seen it before, maybe I'm wrong. At any rate 'Twitter Marxist' is the one I've seen the most, although of course that's internet specific.
I... umm... I wanted to apologize to the thread regulars for the incident over the last few days.
I often keep a mental note on things to post, sometime it's a silly joke or something weird I found out, and I wait patiently until an opportunity comes up. For example, I was waiting since forever to mention that there's a manga version of Das Kapital out there.
Sometimes what I mean to post is some potentially contentious thing, and I wait until the chance comes up to post it in which I think it won't cause drama. I think I'm good at it, it usually doesn't cause trouble and even when I think I'm risking it it turns out I was worrying too much.
And so something happens at HH, I am heavily embittered about it, so I wait (about two months) really, really wanting to let my grievances out, so what seems like a good opportunity shows up and I take it. Turns out I made a bad call, my rant didn't go by without raising a fuss, I caused drama to be imported and I know this was something many of you did not want to see.
So, umm... I'm sorry about that. I'll try to do better next time.
P.S. Just now I was looking for a link to that Das Kapital manga and turns out there's at least one other such manga out there, part of a large series of manga versions of important philosophy/sociology works.
It's not the same thing but maybe you're thinking of pragmatism.
But yeah, the protests have been raging for over a month now with no signs of stopping, drawing heavy crowds despite the heavy repression (e.g. this). The opposition congresscritters are very involved in them, lobbying the shit out of foreign governments and the OAS when not in the middle of protests getting a dose of tear gas.
Perhaps I should update the Venezuelan politics thread more often.
I myself do lobby work for an org against extreme poverty, some general social entrepeneurship charity work (collecting donations, etcetera), sometimes write articles about security issues which bend leftish (latest was a Manning apologia), plus attended a few protests against Trump shenanigans over here (which, admittedly, isn't really focused on local issues). Still feels like it's hobbyism, but whatevs, I've met MPs and am now strongly convinced the animal rights party is the only one not falling prey to neoliberal centrism (or outright fash stupidity).
At the very least I don't think I'll go alone again (stuff happened at the last minute and either I had to go alone or not go).
^ Yeah, this has spread well outside our borders, with stuff happening in Panama, Spain, the US and Canada, although I haven't had the chance to see exactly what they've been about.
Dutch is nearly intelligible in English without any formal familiarity.