“A man’s ability may be great or small, but if he has this spirit [of selflessness], he is already noble-minded and pure, a man of moral integrity and above vulgar interests, a man who is of value to the people.”

Profile picture: Norman Bethune.

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Cake day: May 4th, 2023

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  • I know from close of one guy who fell into the patsoc spiral and never came back from it. Leaving aside the grifters that benefit from it and “lead” the movement (kind of sad for a political movement to be led by twitch streamers if you ask me), from what I have seen I would describe patsocs simply as people that, while working class, are in a socially comfortable position (for what I have seen they are mostly straight, white, cis, male and relatively well economically) while at the same time are simply not able to handle the fact that they will likely not be at the forefront of any revolutionary change.

    There is an obsession amongst western circles of idealizing revolution into an act of individual heroism and sacrifice (to the point of martyrdom sometimes, it’s been talked about here before) and with talks about decolonization, land back and other forms of national liberation for the oppressed people within the USA, these people simply cannot accept that they could not have that chance to be leading the fight and that this one could be spearheaded by the oppressed peoples of the US’ settler-colonial project. They want the USA of always but with socialism: a socialist USA with the same colonial administrative regions and borders, with the same race relations and with the same cultural settler dominance, because that is the only way they have to keep being the protagonists in this story. It is, fundamentally, an abandonment of what communism is about.





  • Valbrandur@lemmygrad.mltoMemes@lemmy.mlCapitalists don’t care if we burn
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    6 months ago

    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