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Something tells me I'm gonna be spending a lot of time in the next two weeks looking for my old 20th Century Russia textbooks to explain why, in point of fact, communism is not some good shit. :|
Socialism is some good shit. At the VERY least, communism needs to be run through a good-quality filter that removes particles of Stalinist and Leninist contaminants.
I sentence all you young antifa whelps to eat in a Polish milkbar for the rest of eternity.
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@zebratron2084 Communism's got problems for sure. Good thing we have this republic democracy hybrid with no problems whatsoever!
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@zebratron2084 @mawr Or, you know, we could talk about all the non-Russian communist -- really more akin to anarchomutualist than classic Marxist -- implementations and remind people that Russia is not a role model, but a strong counterexample.
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@literorrery @mawr I have a horrible sinking feeling that any such argument among the three of us would swiftly descending into semantics over what constitutes "communism" exactly.
But I'll eagerly concede that there were quite a few socialist governments, esp. in Latin America, that would probably have been quite humane but never got to Do Their Thing because of US Cold War interference (read: "discreetly shooting people").
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@zebratron2084 @literorrery I know you know that socialism isn't a form of governance, it's an economic platform. The closest thing we have to the practices of socialism in the form of a system of governance is loosely defined as "communism" with many many many different methods and applications named after the dictators who attempted to put their method in practice.
As a result, "Communism" is frequently used as an umbrella term for socialist governance.
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@literorrery @zebratron2084 So when folks say "communism is some good shit" they probably have an ideal form in mind that's never actually been tried on a large scale.
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@mawr @literorrery I just want some awareness of the very real negative historical baggage that comes with that term. I am TERRIFIED the same thing will happen to my leftist friends that happened to the right. I feel like I'm already seeing it happen.
Dammit, I'm not angry, I'm shit-scared. ;_;
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@mawr @literorrery I know, Mawr, and I really do apologize for getting into it with the both of you -- it's especially silly, because if there's ANYBODY I would trust to do due moral diligence in the event of Really Bad Leftism rising in this country, it'd be you two...
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@zebratron2084 @literorrery It's all good, hon.
Stuff like this, by the way, is why I cut so much slack for those SJW kids you rag on so much. ~.=.^
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@mawr Umm...
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@mawr @zebratron2084 I will say that many SJW kids need a good lesson in how not to cause harm in the course of Doing The Right Thing(tm), 'cause my biggest complaint about the movement is that many of its members don't seem to care if they cause more pain than is necessary in the course of protecting folks. I'm all for their aims; I just wish more folks prioritized de-escalation over counterattacks. Save the fights for after peace talks fail.
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@literorrery @zebratron2084 That is absolutely valid.
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@zebratron2084 @mawr There's a huge amount of clustering in that phrase: "the same thing." Lots of things have happened to "the right." Some of it I don't think can happen to us. Some of it can and should, like defining our moral center. Some of it can and shouldn't, like using our out-groups as a tool for generating in-group cohesion. Seen way too much of that, and it bugs me.
If I'm to offer more than vague reassurances, I could do with more clarity.
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@zebratron2084 @literorrery I can't speak for everyone of course, but I wouldn't back a movement that wasn't well considered-- but I absolutely will enthusiastically support the excitement of the base that will inevitably produce such a movement.
Fight or flight sucks; it teaches us to display anger in public opposition and compassion in private-- and it hurts to switch those things around, but that's how social progress is made.