#socialists against totalitarianism
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Just blocked a bunch of tankies.
My gods they disgust me so much. 🤮
#democratic socialism#tankies fuck off#fuck communism#socialists against totalitarianism#a dictator is a dictator#communist dictators are still dictators#westerners' bullshit#fuck authoritarianism
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The thing is, I have nothing against socialism or communism as a political ideology; trust me, I'm as anti-capitalist as they come. The leftism is really not the problem here.
The problem is when in their leftism, people – Americans, really, and western Europeans – use the ussr as this sort of goal, this complete antithesis to the modern capitalist society, this almost-utopian place to live. They use hammer and sickle symbol, the ussr anthem; sometimes, as a joke, sometimes, not so much.
Not only that clearly shows that they know absolutely nothing about the ussr – it's also spreading russian propaganda, whether it's on purpose or not, which is especially insidious now, when russia is literally committing a genocide.
The ussr wasn't a socialist utopia where everyone is equal. It was a totalitarian dictatorship, responsible for colonisation and genocide of multiple people and cultures. Just like the russian Empire before it. Just like modern russia continues to do now.
For many Eastern European and Central Asian people, hammer and sickle is not just a symbol of a political ideology. It's the symbol, under which people were starved to death, imprisoned or executed for daring to write in their own language; in which cultures were erased, people – forcefully assimilated, stripped of their own national identity.
It's the propaganda of being "the same people, the same nation" that russians love to use; that westerners love to believe, for the sole reason of the oppressed daring to look similar to the oppressor; for the sole reason of Americans being unable to look past their own history and realize oppression comes in many shapes and forms.
By using the ussr symbols in your political movement, you're denying the atrocities commited under that symbol and spreading russian propaganda, whether it's on purpose or not.
It's not "progressive" to wave around a hate symbol.
Do your research.
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what do you think of "extremism". i see it used often in the context of like, horseshoe theory, the "extreme" right is like the "extreme" left, or at least the two sides of the same coin, and i do have to wonder if that's not obscuring what's actually happening to profit a "both sides" narrative.
like for example, i think that right-wingers becoming "extreme" is simply a natural conclusion of their ideology. tbc i don't think that becoming, like, a fascist isn't "extreme", but whenever i see the word "extremism" used in this context the implication is "passed the tolerable threshold for bigotry" even tho i think that any kind of sustained bigotry was just going to turn into that anyways.
meanwhile for the left, i can actually sort of see an argument for that being the case, but most cases of "extremism" there usually seem to be fundamental misunderstandings in the ideology they're pushing for which leads to blind dogmatism rather than actual social-political analysis and activism, if that makes sense. i don't know if that counts as "taking it too far", which extremism would imply.
what do you think?
'extremism', much like 'totalitarianism', is an obfuscatory tactic to delegitimize radical positions by posting a false equivalency to fascism, racism, &c.
furthermore, because what makes a position 'extreme' or 'not extreme' is of course profoundly contingent on the status quo, the broad and nebulous concept is similarly used as a repressive cudgel against all dissent and the existence of marginalized communities. for example, prevent (the uk's "counter-extremism" program) is basically just a vector for state-sponsored islamophobic harrassment. in fact, the uk government has recently unveiled plans to use broad and far-reaching charges of 'extremism' against any group or ideology that 'undermines the uk's institutions and values' (!)
so, yeah. i don't think that the concept of 'extremism' has any value outside of that paradigm of proscribing acceptable relations to the status quo & power and tarring socialist, anti-imperialist, and social justice causes with the brush of some unspecified equivalency to fascism and hate groups. silly concept for unserious people
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petition for that long rant on revolutions here, i really enjoyed the way you laid out your facts and explained the first rant and am not too good at reading theory myself (i am still trying tho) thanks!!
Okay okay so the problem with revolutions is they get messy. Real messy. You get counter-revolutionaries, moderates, extremists, loyalists, and everything in between. One revolution turns into 5, and even if your side wins, its almost guaranteed to have been tainted some way or another along the way.
Take the first french revolution. It started as civil unrest, the estates general initially called for reform of the french state into a constitutional monarchy similar to Britain. Even king louis XVI was in support of this. But extremists wanting a republic and counter-revolutionaries wanting absolute monarchy clashed and things became more and more chaotic and violent. Eventually the extremists won, the jacobin reign of terror ensued, and 10s of thousands of people were executed. Now don't get me wrong, i am all for executing monarchs and feudal lords, but look what happened a few years later; Napoleon used the political instability to declare himself emperor, a few more years later his empire had crumbled, and the monarchy was back with Louis XVIII.
Or take the 1979 iranian revolution. It started as protests against pahlavi, who was an authoritarian head of state and an American pawn. As the protests turned into civil resistance and guerilla warfare it took on many different forms. There were secularists vs islamic extremists. There were democrats vs theocrats vs monarchists. Etc. Through all the chaos, Khomeini seized power, held a fake referendum, and declared himself supreme leader and enforced many strict laws, particularly on women who previously had close to equal rights. Many of the millions of women involved in the revolution later said they felt bettayed by the end result.
Or the Russian Revolution. It started as protests, military strikes, and civil unrest during WW1 directed at the tsar. He stepped down in 1917 and handed power over to the Duma, the russian parliament. This new provisionary government initially had the support of soviet councils, including socialist groups like the menshiviks. But they made the major mistake of deciding to continue the war. Lenins bolsheviks were originally a very tiny group on the fringes of russian politics, but they were the loudest supporters of peace, so they gained support and organised militias into an army and thus began the russian civil war. Lenin won and followed through on his promise to end the war against germany, but its a bit ironic that they fought a civil war, that killed about 10 million people, just to end another war.
Im not saying any of these results were either bad or good. They all have nuance and its all subjective. But the point i am trying to make is that they get messy. The initial goals will always be twisted.
France wanted a constitutional monarchy, they got an autocratic emporer.
Iran wanted democracy and an end to American influence, and well they ended american influence alright but also got a totalitarian theocrat.
Russia wanted an end to world war 1 and got one of the bloodiest civil wars in history.
I cant think of a single revolution in history that achieved the goals it set out to achieve.
But again, im not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, just a warning against revolutionary rhetoric and criticisms of reformism. Sometimes revolution is the only option, when you're faced with an authoritarian government diametrically opposed to change, then a revolution may be worth the risk. But it is a risk.
But if you live in a democracy, claiming revolution is the only way is actively choosing both bloodshed and the risk of things going horribly wrong over the choice of peaceful reform.
So when i go online in some leftist spaces and see people claiming revolution in America or UK or wherever is the only way out of capitalism I cant help but feel angry.
I know our democracy is flawed, and reform is slow and can even go backwards, but we owe it to all the people who would die in a revolution to try reform first.
I know socialist reform is especially hard in our flawed democracy where capitalists own the media, but if we can't convince enough people to vote for socialist reform what hope do we have of convincing enough people to join a socialist revolution. Socialism is supposed to be for the people, but how can you claim your revolution is for the people if you can't even get the support of the people?
So what I'm trying to say is; if youre one of those leftists that are sitting around waiting for the glorious revolution, doing nothing but posting rhetoric online - at least try doing something else while you wait. Join your labour union, recruit your coworkers, get involved in your local socialist parties, call your local representatives (city council, senator, governor, member of parliament, whatever) and make your opinions known, push them further left, and keep pushing.
#thank you anon this waa fun#also when i say i cant think of any revolution in history that achieved its goals#im not counting wars of independence#i know americans call the american war of independence the revolutionary war but its not a revolution l#(for reference - the first rant that anon mentions is a reblog a couple days ago about the communist manifesto)
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What does tankie mean?
Marxist-Leninists. When Soviet Russia sent tanks into Hungary to crush the uprising there in 1956, a significant pro-Stalin communist faction sided with the Soviet government. Tankie therefore means Marxists that side with totalitarian governments like the Communist Party of China, Russia even under Putin, and North Korea (tf is the communism even?). They think just because the US is a shitty imperialist, all the human rights abuses and fascism of communist governments throughout history is propaganda manufactured by the US government, that Hannah Arendt who coined the term "totalitarianism" was a neoliberal shill, that genocides from Holodomor to the Cambodian killing fields to the Uyghurs are hoaxes. They call any Global South uprisings against socialist and communist governments "colour revolutions" funded by the US, swallow Putin's line that he's trying to invade Ukraine for legitimate reasons, that Ukraine is full of Nazis and the war is only going on this long because NATO is deliberately prolonging it as a proxy war against Russia (that's not what proxy war even means). The motherfuckers actually cheered when Putin attacked Ukraine, not unlike the Israelis watching the IOF. Pretty sure they even support Assad, possibly an even greater monster than Netanyahu, because he's Putin's ally against the US.
Basically they think the world revolves around the US, will subject people to terrible harrassment when their victimization by fascist governments is inconvenient for their narrative, and jump on any Global South trauma they can use like white on rice. They're currently exploiting the fuck out of Palestine for clout and speaking over actual Palestinians instead of boosting them. They're the scum of the earth and the white and western userbase on this site won't take them seriously because their main targets are Global South people, same as they didn't care about Zionists until now.
#western leftists#tankies#free palestine#tankies and neoliberals are both fascists#global south#imperialism#racism#colonialism#genocide denial#knee of huss#asks#anon
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The Nazis were not socialists nor where they leftwing.
The Nazis persecuted socialists and stood against social collectivism, which is the core idea of socialism.
Nazism is rightwing because it's an extension of fascism, which is rightwing.
Why is fascism rightwing? Because it's an extension of totalitarianism, specifically right wing totalitarianism.
You’re an ignorant chucklefuck Annie. Nice try though. I’ve made elaborate posts over the years explaining quite clearly the differences between Left vs Right, progressive vs conservative, etc and your closed mind clearly can’t grasp the most basic concepts of this conversation.
Socialism is socialism is socialism no matter how you feel about those imposing it upon others.
The “Nazis” fought the Soviets, not because they hated the ideology but because they were the enemy taking their land. The idea that everyone should have healthcare, land, food, and education provided to them by the almighty government isn’t a new concept and it sure as Fuck ain’t a right wing belief. Put it i. whatever box helps you sleep at night Anon, it’s not a “right wing conservative” system. Changing the whole status quo is by definition “progressive” and very much in opposition to “conservatism”, just because it hurts your feelers to think you’re on the same side as the nazzis doesn’t mean you’re right.
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A list of Jesse Eisenberg's writing
I made a list of Jesse Eisenberg's writing.
2009
NOV 30 Manageable Tongue Twisters.
2010
FEB 24 Marxist-Socialists Jokes
2011
JUL 21 A Post Gender Normative Man Tries to Pick Up a Woman at a Bar
DEC 07 ACTOR & PLAYWRIGHT JESSE EISENBERG ON THE THRILL OF THE STAGE
2012
JAN 25 Courage Is Just an Act
FEB 15 Jeremy Lin Has Helped Me Through Some Pretty Tough Times
MAR 12 Jesse Eisenberg on His Lifelong Aversion to Youth Culture
MAY 24 Sushi Nozawa
JUN 06 Masgouf
JUL 09 The Whiskey Blue Bar at the W Hotel
AUG 01 TCBY
AUG 20 Robert Frost Elementary School Cafeteria
OCT 02 Organix vs. the San Gennaro Street Festival
NOV 21 Thanksgiving With Vegans
DEC 11 Body Rituals Among the Lauxesortem
2013
FEB 22 Matthew’s House
MAR 17 Marv Albert Is My Therapist
APR 15 The League, Passed Down
APR 17 I Didn’t Win Any Pulitzer Prizes This Year
APR 25 A Marriage Counselor Tries to Heckle at a Knicks Game
JUN 03 Fuddruckers and an Unreliable New Friend
JUN 24 Separation-Anxiety Sleepaway Camp
AUG 06 A Crawfish Boil and Dad’s New Family
SEP 09 A Bully Does His Research
OCT 02 A Post Gender Normative Woman Tries to Pick Up a Man at a Bar
OCT 07 Final Conversations at Pompeii
NOV 01 The Museum of Natural History and Making Compromises
NOV 12 Alexander Graham Bell’s First Five Phone Calls
DEC 12 The Ashram and Mom
2014
JAN 20 If I Was Fluent in . . .
JUN 10 Carmelo Anthony and I Debrief Our Friends After a Pickup Game at the Y.M.C.A.
2015
MAY 25 Men and Dancing
SEP 01 My Nephew Has Some Questions
SEP 09 My Spam Plays Hard to Get
NOV 22 THE GUY WHO HATED NOW YOU SEE ME, A SHORT STORY
NOV 23 An Honest Film Review
2016
JAN 27 What Do You Do When Your Mother Won’t Shut Up at The Ballet?
FEB 04 Act Like You Know
FEB 12 Why I Broke Up with the Little Mermaid
MAY 19 My Cousin Recently Became A Realtor
NOV 04 SELF-DEPRECATING HEROES
DEC 11 LOW TALK IN HIGH PLACES
2017
JAN 23 YOU NEVER REALLY KNOW
JAN 25 My Very Good Friend
FEB 01 发现肉——致中国读者
MAR 04 HAVE YOU DINED WITH US BEFORE?
NOV 14 Mongolia
2018
JAN 15 Sad Stuff on the Street
MAR 20 Thanks, Giving
MAY 14 My N.B.A. Knowledge Comes In Handy
MAY 18 One Small Blow Against Encroaching Totalitarianism: The Natural Order of the World Depends On It
MAY 31 Jesse Eisenberg on the Relentless Work Ethic of Philip Roth
DEC 05 The Cast Members and Their Crew
2019
JAN 03 MY SISTER PUSHES THE LOBSTER
NOV 21 My Two-Year-Old Requests Just One More Song Before Bed
NOV 23 Jesse Eisenberg: Recommends four contemporary plays
2021
MAR 02 Writer Courtney Zoffness and Jesse Eisenberg on the Radical Compassion of Art
2022
NOV 07 Content Warning
2023
FEB 20 A G.P.S. Route for My Anxiety
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You like George Orwell? You do know he was a vehement socialist right? In fact he said that literally everything he ever wrote was in support of socialism and against totalitarianism.
And you know that both 1984 and Animal Farm were attacks on "Socialism", right? On "The Left" rather than "The Right"? The totalitarian state in 1984 is itself called "Ingsoc", an abridging of the words "English Socialism".
Orwell was, I believe, the best political essayist to ever live, and it's been my joy to read every one of his works. But he longed for a rather idealized democratic Socialism that as far as I know has never been practiced anywhere, and he was never able to square that utopian dream with the horrors of every totalitarian state that he saw arise everywhere Socialism was attempted on a national level. But his writing was honest enough to contain both the dream and the nightmare, and that's why he was great, and why he cannot be claimed by any "side": he's bigger than that.
My own position is that there are things of value, that make sense and address genuine and genuinely important concerns of large numbers of people, in virtually all of the main models of political thought, whether they be Democracy, Socialism, Anarchism, Communism, Fascism, Liberalism or Libertarianism, and an honest, grown-up appraisal of politics has to recognize that none of them in reality work the way they are presented and sold to us, and so the dialogue between them and beyond them has to continue.
I don't actually know why you felt impelled to send this ask, but those are my thoughts on such matters, which I guess you must have wanted to hear.
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By: Matt Johnson
Published: Jan 27, 2023
“Christopher Hitchens: From socialist to neocon.” It was an irresistible headline because it’s a story that has been told over and over again. The novelist Julian Barnes called this phenomenon the “ritual shuffle to the right.” Richard Seymour, who wrote a book-length attack on Hitchens, says his subject belongs to a “recognisable type: a left-wing defector with a soft spot for empire.” By presenting Hitchens as a tedious archetype, hobbling away from radicalism and toward some inevitable reactionary terminus, his opponents didn’t have to contend with his arguments or confront the potentially destabilizing fact that some of his principles called their own into question.
Hitchens, who died in 2011, didn’t make it easy on the apostate hunters. To many, he was a “coarser version of [conservative commentator] Norman Podhoretz” when he talked about Iraq, and a radical humanist truth-teller when he went on Fox News to lambaste the Christian right: “If you gave Falwell an enema,” he told Sean Hannity the day after Jerry Falwell’s death, “he could be buried in a matchbox.” Then he gave Islam the same treatment, and he was suddenly a drooling neocon again. He defied easy categorization: a socialist who spurned ideology, an internationalist who became a patriot, a man of the left who was reviled by the left.
The left isn’t a single amorphous entity—it’s a vast constellation of (often conflicting) ideas and principles. Hitchens’s style of left-wing radicalism is now out of fashion, but it has a long and venerable history: George Orwell’s unwavering opposition to totalitarianism and censorship, Bayard Rustin’s advocacy for universal civil rights without appealing to tribalism and identity politics, the post-communist anti-totalitarianism that emerged on the European left in the second half of the twentieth century.
Hitchens described himself as a “First Amendment absolutist,” an echo of historic left-wing struggles for free expression—from Eugene V. Debs’s assertion of his right to dissent during World War I to the Berkeley Free Speech Movement. Hitchens argued that unfettered free speech and inquiry would always make civil society stronger. When he wrote the introduction to his collection of essays For the Sake of Argument in 1993, he had a specific left-wing tradition in mind: the left of Orwell and Victor Serge and C.L.R. James, which simultaneously opposed Stalinism, fascism, and imperialism in the twentieth century, and which stood for “individual and collective emancipation, self-determination and internationalism.”
Hitchens’ most fundamental political and moral conviction was universalism. He loathed nationalism and argued that the international system should be built around a “common standard for justice and ethics”—a standard that should apply to Henry Kissinger just as it should apply to Slobodan Milošević and Saddam Hussein. He believed in the concept of global citizenship, which is why he firmly supported international institutions like the European Union. He didn’t just despise religion because he regarded it as a form of totalitarianism—he also recognized that it’s an infinitely replenishable wellspring of tribal hatred.
He also opposed identity politics, because he didn’t think our social and civic lives should be reduced to rigid categories based on melanin, X chromosomes, and sexuality. He recognized that the Enlightenment values of individual rights, freedom of expression and conscience, humanism, pluralism, and democracy are universal—they provide the most stable, just, and rational foundation for any civil society, whether they’re observed in America or Europe or Iraq.
And yes, he argued that these values are for export. Hitchens believed in universal human rights. This is why, at a time when his comrades were still manning the barricades against the “imperial” West after the Cold War, he argued that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization should intervene to stop a genocidal assault on Bosnia. It’s why he argued that American power could be used to defend human rights and promote democracy. As many on the Western left built their politics around incessant condemnations of their own societies as racist, exploitative, oligarchic, and imperialistic, Hitchens recognized the difference between self-criticism and self-flagellation.
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One of the reasons Orwell accumulated many left-wing enemies in his time was the fact that his criticisms of his own “side” were grounded in authentic left-wing principles. When he argued that many socialists had no connection to or understanding of the actual working class in Britain, the observation stung because it was true. Orwell’s arguments continue to sting today. In his 1945 essay “Notes on Nationalism,” he criticized the left-wing intellectuals who enjoy “seeing their own country humiliated” and “follow the principle that any faction backed by Britain must be in the wrong.” Among some of these intellectuals, Orwell wrote: “One finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States. Moreover they do not as a rule condemn violence as such, but only violence used in defense of the Western countries.”
Hitchens observed that many on today’s left are motivated by the same principle: “Nothing will make us fight against an evil if that fight forces us to go to the same corner as our own government.” This is a predictable manifestation of what the American political theorist Michael Walzer calls the “default position” of the left: a purportedly “anti-imperialist and anti-militarist” position inclined toward the view that “everything that goes wrong in the world is America’s fault.”
Indeed, the tendency to ignore and rationalize even the most egregious violence and authoritarianism abroad in favor of an obsessive emphasis on the crimes and blunders of Western governments has become a reflex. Much of the left has been captured by a strange mix of sectarian and authoritarian impulses: a myopic emphasis on identitarianism and group rights over the individual; an orientation toward subjectivity and tribalism over objectivity and universalism; and demands for political orthodoxy enforced by repressive tactics like the suppression of speech.
These left-wing pathologies are particularly corrosive today because they give right-wing nationalists and populists on both sides of the Atlantic—whose rise over the past several years has been characterized by hostility to democratic norms and institutions, rampant xenophobia, and other forms of illiberalism—an opportunity to claim that those who oppose them are the true authoritarians. Hitchens was prescient about the ascendance of right-wing populism in the West, from the emergence of demagogues who exploit cultural grievances and racial resentments to the bitter parochialism of “America First” nationalism. He understood that the left could only defeat these noxious political forces by rediscovering its best traditions: support for free expression, pluralism, and universalism—the values of the Enlightenment.
Hitchens closes his book Why Orwell Matters with the following observation: “What he [Orwell] illustrates, by his commitment to language as the partner of truth, is that ‘views’ do not really count; that it matters not what you think, but how you think; and that politics are relatively unimportant, while principles have a way of enduring, as do the few irreducible individuals who maintain allegiance to them.” Despite the pervasive idea that Hitchens exchanged one set of convictions for another by the end of his life, his commitment to his core principles never wavered. They are principles that today’s left must rediscover.
Matt Johnson is a journalist and the author of the forthcoming book, How Hitchens Can Save the Left: Rediscovering Fearless Liberalism in an Age of Counter-Enlightenment, from which this piece is excerpted.
#Matt Johnson#How Hitchens Can Save the Left#liberalism#liberal ethics#universalism#pluralism#freedom of speech#freedom of expression#free speech#first amendment#identity politics#identarianism#woke authoritarianism#authoritarianism#tribalism#religion is a mental illness
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"Some times ago, the Anarchist Students asked Albert Camus to come and speak to them, in a room of the Learned Societies, on a theme of common interest – such as the death penalty or revolutionary violence.
The author of The Plague accepted, provided that the room was small, that the welcome was fraternal and that all took part in the conversation.
These requirements did not surprise us. We know, in fact, that the volume of “certainties” that are expressed in a given room is proportional to its sound capacity. Albert Camus is too keen on this set of sharp doubts which constitute his personal convictions to present them disguised as affirmations at a meeting. Nothing is less thunderous than his books, where tragic pessimism lay at the bottom under clear water; or his plays, where the idea while there, never presents itself as an impudent spectacle.
What we imagined of the writer and the playwright – if not and even more – we met in the conversationalist and the man; we loved even more his punctuality, his simplicity, his intimate sense of freedom, and – I insist again – his intellectual modesty. And direct contact having been established, we listened, questioned, interrupted, replied, proposed, without any conventional feeling of "distances", seeing a friend whose problems were ours, and whom we found difficult to leave.
_
No confusion, by the way. Camus, a libertarian sympathizer, and who knows anarchist thought very well, smilingly proclaimed himself “a radical socialist”: we might as well say a “liberal humanist”. He refuses to leave this middle position which consists of retaining, in the order of practical reason, part of what was imperatively denied to him in that of pure reason. The intransigence of metaphysical judgment is accompanied here by a “realism” that he took care to accentuate for us, riders of chimeras and fanatics of freedom. But if Camus marks this refusal to renounce the “duality of human things”, it is less in the face of the practical dangers of commitment than in the face of the excessive security of extreme positions.
This attitude has its beauty, but socially we deem it untenable. Still, our interlocutor poses both the use of violence and murder (whatever the revolutionary ends) as fully unjustifiable, and Tolstoyian non-violence, the search for complete innocence in the face of social murder, as completely inapplicable. We generally agree with this thesis. But Camus' Pascalian dualism leads him, on the one hand, to throw down, in absolute terms, the entire edifice of repressive moralities, with their penal sanctions - and, on the other, practically, to accept a minimum of legality sanctioned by force, consecrated by the State, applied by the police and the courts – in order to oppose a “lesser evil” to the vendettas, furies and lynchings of anarchic society, to the attacks of sadists and madmen, etc. He does not seem to see that the State, absolutist by definition, never allows itself to be reduced to the modestly technical role of a good policeman and a keeper of justice and peace. That to refuse to completely justify its violence in the name of the absolute that it embodies is to completely deny it. That there are also forms of social security based on autonomous conscience and the freely debated pact and that between these forms and their complete annihilation by the totalitarian State, everyone is, today, forced to choose.
_
Authority, for Albert Camus, can be relatively good. We do not all, I admit, have this breadth of acceptance, and our adversaries do not have it. The very idea of authority is fused for me, in all possible aspects, with the “power to punish” – a power which, not only is morally unjustifiable in its attacks against the life or freedom of individuals, but which is also unjustifiable scientifically or technically as a means of social therapeutics.
“Man is the only species that beats its young when it falls,” said Montherlant, without seeming to appreciate all the moral and intellectual monstrosity that there is in the religious idea of redemption, progress, rehabilitation, compensation, improvement, redress, amendment, retribution, beneficial suffering, eternal salvation, etc., provided by the strongest to the weakest in the form of blows added on those of “destiny”. Our total refusal of authority means that we are ready, for our part, to admit all the personal insecurity of a “social jungle” (where man would at least be responsible and free, therefore susceptible to ethical growth), rather than the wisest and most honest of “comfortable” violence, weighing crimes and punishment on its balance, in the most rigorous medico-legal asepsis. If violence seems to us to be exclusively the right of the oppressed and this in the very moment of their resistance to oppression, if by tearing down the prisons we want to burst open our universal concentration camp; if murder seems too repulsive in itself to be the object of any ritual consecration; if the modern State is odious to us (as to Camus, as to Nietzsche) because it is "the coldest of cold monsters", it is not to make us admit, in any practical measure whatsoever, the blows given by the man to his young when he falls; blows whose only excuse could be anger, and which would be a thousand times more cowardly if they were measured in cold blood.
We are not the helpers of the executioners of history, of society, of destiny or providence. We are on the other side. The very meaning of tragic existence, thus conceived, imposes this rule on us: we may as well be forced to kill those who prevents us from living, to destroy what makes us murderers, but we will never consent to punish."
-André Prudhommeaux/Prunier, "A conversation with Albert Camus" (Le Libertaire, 18 june 1948)
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A vote on language condemning the "horrors of socialism" split House Democrats on Thursday, which one Republican said reveals a soft spot some Democrats have for a political philosophy that has resulted in impoverishment and death for hundreds of millions of people.
Republicans called up the resolution as a way to remind the public that socialist policies – which they fear have been creeping into American life after two years of Democrat control in Washington – go against the values on which America was founded. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said Thursday that socialism is "one of the most destructive ideologies in world history."
As expected, the resolution split Democrats, as some have openly described themselves as adherents of "democratic socialism." As a group, Democrats narrowly voted in favor of the resolution by a 109-86 tally, even though every Democrat who debated the bill spoke against the resolution.
In another sign of how the bill split the party, 14 Democrats voted "present." The resolution passed 328-86 thanks to unanimous Republican support.
WHERE DO THE SQUAD, DEMOCRATS STAND ON SOCIALISM? GOP WILL PUT THEM TO THE TEST THIS WEEK
Democrats justified their vote by saying while they oppose socialism, the decision to call up the measure is a warning shot that Republicans are looking to cut Social Security, Medicare and other social welfare programs, an assertion Republicans have rejected for weeks.
Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., went further by accusing Republicans of calling up a resolution that is an indictment of major elements of the federal government that helped millions of people during the pandemic.
"Americans know better than the fearmongering we see here today," Waters said. "They know, for example, that when the pandemic hit and people were dying all across this country, it was the federal government that stepped in to provide trillions of dollars of support to small businesses, workers, ranchers, students, seniors, and would you believe it, even Republican members of Congress."
"Historically, Republicans have tried to label as socialist any Democratic actions that improve the lives of Americans," added Rep. Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y. "This is what Republicans call socialism. From climate action and public education to affordable care and Social Security, Republicans classify popular government programs to help working families as socialism."
Republicans said Democrats were over-complicating the issue.
"Despite my Democratic colleagues’ claims, there’s nothing in this resolution about entitlement programs or banning social services or anything of the like," said Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C.
After Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., pointed out several historical political leaders who were socialists and argued that not all forms of socialism deserve condemnation, McHenry thanked him for acknowledging that Democrats so have a soft spot for this system of government.
"If this resolution would just simply draw out my Democrat colleagues to just say, yes, they are in favor of socialism, maybe this is a worthwhile endeavor," McHenry said.
Socialism is broadly understood to be an economic and political theory that calls for putting the means of production into the hands of a public collective, and "democratic socialism" is seen as a philosophy that calls for a heavier government hand that might approach the governing styles of some European nations.
The resolution approved by the House says history shows that any move toward socialism "necessitates a concentration of power that has time and time again collapsed into Communist regimes, totalitarian rule, and brutal dictatorships."
It says socialist policies have led to "famine and mass murders, and the killing of over 100,000,000 people worldwide," along with some of the "greatest crimes in history" committed by Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, Pol Pot and others.
"[B]etween 15,000,000 and 55,000,000 people starved to death in the wake of famine and devastation caused by the Great Leap Forward in China," the resolution notes. "[T]he socialist experiment in Cambodia led to the killing fields in which over a million people were gruesomely murdered."
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A bridge of tension between Brazil and Argentina
This week, an article ignited a heated debate surrounding Javier Milei, Argentina’s presidential candidate who represents the emerging extreme right in South America. The article revealed that President Lula had pulled some strings to assist Argentina in securing a $1 billion loan amid its perilous economic crisis.
According to the article, this loan would have a positive impact on the current presidency of Alberto Fernandez and also bolster the campaign of his affiliated candidate for the upcoming elections, Sergio Massa. Milei took to social media, accusing Lula of conspiring against him and emphasizing his commitment to freedom of expression, which stirred controversy within the opposition.
However, the entire situation was promptly refuted by Planning Minister Simone Tebet, who had overseen the entire process. She asserted that Lula’s alleged interference had never occurred and clarified that she had approved the loan from the Development Bank for Latin America (CAF), with support from Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela. Notably, Peru was the sole country that opposed the loan. Ms. Tebet also emphasized that Brazil had only one vote in the negotiations, while the other countries had two.
Despite the denial of interference, the tension between Milei and Lula remains palpable. The candidate has openly voiced his distrust of Lula, labeling him as “a socialist with a totalitarian inclination.” He has repeatedly stated his unwillingness to engage in any dealings with communist nations. Milei’s proposed solution to Argentina’s economic woes involves dollarization and a resolute stance against forging alliances with countries like Russia or China.
Continue reading.
#brazil#politics#brazilian politics#argentina#argentine politics#luiz inacio lula da silva#simone tebet#javier milei#international politics#foreign policy#mod nise da silveira#image description in alt
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Central Intelligence Agency Report 2, Review of the World Situation as it Relates to the Security of the United States (cover, p.1), 11/14/1947.
File Unit: National Security Council - Meetings File, 1945-1953: Meetings: 2: November 14, 1947, 1945 - 1953
Series: Subject Files, 1945 - 1953
Collection: President's Secretary's Files (Truman Administration), 1945 - 1960
Transcription:
[handwritten: "NA 16"]
[handwritten: "Action 12"]
SECRET [crossed out]
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Review of the World Situation as it Relates to the Security of the United States
CIA 2
14 November 1947
Copy No. 1
[stamp: "DECLASSIFIED
E. O. 11652, Sec. 3(E) and 5(D) or (E)
OSD (crossed out, "C.I.A." handwritten] letter,
April 12, 1974 [crossed out, "3-29-77" handwritten}
["PROJECT NLT 77-1" handwritten]
By NLT-HC, NARS Date 4-15-77"]
SECRET [crossed out]
THE PRESIDENT
[page 2]
SECRET [crossed out]
REVIEW OF THE WORLD SITUATION AS IT RELATES TO THE SECURITY OF THE UNITED STATES
14 November 1947
GENERAL
1. Political. [italicized] Since our previous report (CIA 1, 26 September 1947) the most significant development has been the deterioration of the Communist (Soviet) political position in Western Europe. This process, which apparently began with the announcement of the "Truman Doctrine," has been accelerated by Soviet countermeasures, particularly by the establishment of the Cominform. The decision to establish that agency itself reflected an apprehensive realization that the European recovery program was about to become an effective reality and a corresponding recognition that the Communist political program in Western Europe had already failed. The Cominform, with its clear identification of Communist parties as agents of the Kremlin, its proscription of the non-Communist Left, and its threat to the best hope of European recovery, sacrificed whatever political prospects the Communist parties yet had. The general popular reaction is reflected in recent elections in Rome, France, Denmark, and Norway, all of which were decidedly anti-Communist in their implications.
Accepting political isolation as an advantage, the Communists have now abandoned the "democratic front" and "socialist unity" techniques and have adopted a "purer" concept of their mission as the only worthy representatives and leaders of the "masses." In the countries of Eastern Europe, which they control, the result has been an acceleration of the evolution from the "democratic" coalition toward an absolute Communistic totalitarianism. In Western Europe, where they are not in power, the application is a reversion toward action by a hard core of militants to create a "revolutionary situation."
The propaganda barrage against U.S. "reaction," "imperialism," and "warmongering" which has accompanied this shift in Soviet strategy has been of such volume and virulence as greatly to heighten the general political tension and increase apprehension that the conflict between the United States and the U.S.S.R. may soon lead to war. It is still probable, however, that the U.S.S.R. does not intend its provocations to produce that result, but only to intimidate those, in Europe and Asia, who could not escape involvement in such a catastrophe.
2. Economic. [italicized] The world economic situation has not changed materially. Acute shortages continue in many commodities such as wheat, coal, fertilizers, agricultural and mining machinery, and transportation equipment. The foreign exchange hold-
SECRET [crossed out]
[stamp: "DECLASSIFIED
E. O. 11652, Sec. 3(E) and 5(D) or (E)
OSD (crossed out, "C.I.A." handwritten] letter,
April 12, 1974 [crossed out, "3-29-77" handwritten}
By NLT-HC, NARS Date 4-14-77"]
1
#archivesgov#November 14#1947#1940s#postwar#cold war#CIA#foreign affairs#national security#declassified
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non-exhaustive list of sources that are imo especially interesting/thought-provoking, just really solid, or otherwise a personal favorite:
MISC
“Leaders and Martyrs: Codreanu, Mosley and José Antonio,” Stephen M. Cullen (1986)
“Bureaucratic Politics in Radical Military Regimes,” Gregory J. Kasza (1987)
A History of Fascism, 1914–1945, Stanley Payne (1996)
The Fascist Revolution: Toward a General Theory of Fascism, George L. Mosse (1999)
Fascism Outside Europe: The European Impulse against Domestic Conditions in the Diffusion of Global Fascism, ed. Stein U. Larsen (2001)
Ancient Religions, Modern Politics: The Islamic Case in Comparative Perspective, Michael Cook (2014)
MARXISM
“Crisis and the Way Out: The Rise of Fascism in Italy and Germany,” Mihály Vajda (1972)
“Austro-Marxist Interpretation of Fascism,” Gerhard Botz (1976)
“Fascism: some common misconceptions,” Noel Ignatin (1978)
“Gramsci’s Interpretation of Fascism,” Walter L. Adamson (1980)
ARGENTINA
“The Ideological Origins of Right and Left Nationalism in Argentina, 1930–43,” Alberto Spektorowski (1994)
“The Making of an Argentine Fascist. Leopoldo Lugones: From Revolutionary Left to Radical Nationalism,” Alberto Spektorowski (1996)
“Argentine Nacionalismo before Perón: The Case of the Alianza de la Juventud Nacionalista, 1937–c. 1943,” Marcus Klein (2001)
BRAZIL
“Tenentismo in the Brazilian Revolution of 1930,” John D. Wirth (1964)
“Ação Integralista Brasileira: Fascism in Brazil, 1932–1938,” Stanley E. Hilton (1972)
“Integralism and the Brazilian Catholic Church,” Margaret Todaro Williams (1974)
“Ideology and Diplomacy: Italian Fascism and Brazil (1935–1938),” Ricardo Silva Seitenfus (1984)
“The corporatist thought in Miguel Reale: readings of Italian fascism in Brazilian integralismo,” João Fábio Bertonha (2013)
CHILE
“Corporatism and Functionalism in Modern Chilean Politics,” Paul W. Drake (1978)
“Nationalist Movements and Fascist Ideology in Chile,” Jean Grugel (1985)
“A Case of Non-European Fascism: Chilean National Socialism in the 1930s,” Mario Sznajder (1993)
CHINA
Revolutionary Nativism: Fascism and Culture in China, 1925–1937, Maggie Clinton (2017)
CROATIA
“An Authoritarian Parliament: The Croatian State Sabor of 1942,” Yeshayahu Jelinek (1980)
“The End of “Historical-Ideological Bedazzlement”: Cold War Politics and Émigré Croatian Separatist Violence, 1950–1980,” Mate Nikola Tokić (2012)
EGYPT
“An Interpretation of Nasserism,” Willard Range (1959)
Egypt’s Young Rebels: “Young Egypt,” 1933–1952, James P. Jankowski (1975)
“The Use of the Pharaonic Past in Modern Egyptian Nationalism,” Michael Wood (1998)
FRANCE
“Mores, “The First National Socialist”,” Robert F. Byrnes (1950)
“The Political Transition of Jacques Doriot,” Gilbert D. Allardyce (1966)
“National Socialism and Antisemitism: The Case of Maurice Barrès,” Zeev Sternhell (1973)
“Georges Valois and the Faisceau: The Making and Breaking of a Fascist,” Jules Levey (1973)
“The Condottieri of the Collaboration: Mouvement Social Révolutionnaire,” Bertram M. Gordon (1975)
“Myth and Violence: The Fascism of Julius Evola and Alain de Benoist,” Thomas Sheehan (1981)
GERMANY
“A German Racial Revolution?” Milan L. Hauner (1984)
“Abortion and Eugenics in Nazi Germany,” Henry P. David, Jochen Fleischhacker, and Charlotte Höhn (1988)
“Nietzschean Socialism — Left and Right, 1890–1933,” Steven E. Aschheim (1988)
The Brown Plague: Travels in Late Weimar and Early Nazi Germany, Daniel Guérin, tr. Robert Schwartzwald (1994)
“Hitler and the Uniqueness of Nazism,” Ian Kershaw (2004)
HAITI
“Ideology and Political Protest in Haiti, 1930–1946,” David Nicholls (1974)
“Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s State Against Nation: A Critique of the Totalitarian Paradigm,” Robert Fatton, Jr. (2013)
IRAN
“Iran’s Islamic Revolution in Comparative Perspective,” Said Amir Arjomand (1986)
IRAQ
“Arab-Kurdish Rivalries in Iraq,” Lettie M. Wenner (1963)
“From Paper State to Caliphate: The Ideology of the Islamic State,” Cole Bunzel (2015)
“Iraqi Archives and the Failure of Saddam’s Worldview in 2003,” Samuel Helfont (2023)
ISRAEL
“The Emergence of the Israeli Radical Right,” Ehud Sprinzak (1989)
“Max Nordau, Liberalism and the New Jew,” George L. Mosse (1992)
The Stern Gang: Ideology, Politics and Terror, 1940–1949, Joseph Heller (1995)
““Hebrew” Culture: The Shared Foundations of Ratosh’s Ideology and Poetry,” Elliott Rabin (1999)
“Israel’s fascist sideshow takes center stage,” Natasha Roth-Rowland (2019)
“‘Frightening proportions’: On Meir Kahane’s assimilation doctrine,” Erik Magnusson (2021)
ITALY
“The Fascist Conception of Law,” H. Arthur Steiner (1936)
“The Goals of Italian Fascism,” Edward R. Tannenbaum (1969)
“Fascist Modernization in Italy: Traditional or Revolutionary?” Roland Sarti (1970)
“Fascism as Political Religion,” Emilio Gentile (1990)
“I redentori della vittoria: On Fiume’s Place in the Genealogy of Fascism,” Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht (1996)
JAPAN
“A New Look at the Problem of “Japanese Fascism”,” George M. Wilson (1968)
“Marxism and National Socialism in Taishō Japan: The Thought of Takabatake Motoyuki,” Germaine A. Hoston (1984)
“Fascism from Below? A Comparative Perspective on the Japanese Right, 1931–1936,” Gregory J. Kasza (1984)
“Japan’s Wartime Labor Policy: A Search for Method,” Ernest J. Notar (1985)
“Fascism from Above? Japan’s Kakushin Right in Comparative Perspective,” Gregory J. Kasza (2001)
PARAGUAY
“Political Aspects of the Paraguayan Revolution, 1936–1940,” Harris Gaylord Warren (1950)
“Toward a Weberian Characterization of the Stroessner Regime in Paraguay (1954–1989),” Marcial Antonio Riquelme (1994)
ROMANIA
“The Men of the Archangel,” Eugen Weber (1966)
“Breaking the Teeth of Time: Mythical Time and the “Terror of History” in the Rhetoric of the Legionary Movement in Interwar Romania,” Raul Carstocea (2015)
RUSSIA
“Was There a Russian Fascism? The Union of Russian People,” Hans Rogger (1964)
“The All-Russian Fascist Party,” Erwin Oberländer (1966)
“The Zhirinovsky Threat,” Jacob W. Kipp (1994)
Russian Fascism: Traditions, Tendencies, Movements, Stephen Shenfield (2000)
“Why fascists took over the Reichstag but have not captured the Kremlin: a comparison of Weimar Germany and post-Soviet Russia,” Steffen Kailitz and Andreas Umland (2017)
SLOVAKIA
“Storm-troopers in Slovakia: the Rodobrana and the Hlinka Guard,” Yeshayahu Jelinek (1971)
SPAIN
“The Forgotten Falangist: Ernesto Gimenez Cabellero,” Douglas W. Foard (1975)
Fascism in Spain, 1923–1977, Stanley Payne (1999)
“Spanish Fascism as a Political Religion (1931–1941),” Zira Box and Ismael Saz (2011)
SYRIA
The Ba‘th and the Creation of Modern Syria, David Roberts (1987)
TURKEY
“Kemalist Authoritarianism and fascist Trends in Turkey during the Interwar Period,” Fikret Adanïr (2001)
“The Other From Within: Pan-Turkist Mythmaking and the Expulsion of the Turkish Left,” Gregory A. Burris (2007)
“The Racist Critics of Atatürk and Kemalism, from the 1930s to the 1960s,” İlker Aytürk (2011)
UNITED KINGDOM
“Northern Ireland and British fascism in the inter-war years,” James Loughlin (1995)
“‘What’s the Big Idea?’: Oswald Mosley, the British Union of Fascists and Generic Fascism,” Gary Love (2007)
“Why Fascism? Sir Oswald Mosley and the Conception of the British Union of Fascists,” Matthew Worley (2011)
UNITED STATES
“Ezra Pound and American Fascism,” Victor C. Ferkiss (1955)
“Populist Influences on American Fascism,” Victor C. Ferkiss (1957)
“Vigilante Fascism: The Black Legion as an American Hybrid,” Peter H. Amann (1983)
“Silver Shirts in the Northwest: Politics, Personalities, and Prophecies in the 1930s,” Eckard V. Toy, Jr. (1989)
“Women in the 1920s’ Ku Klux Klan Movement,” Kathleen M. Blee (1991)
“‘Leaderless Resistance’,” Jeffrey Kaplan (1997)
“The post-war paths of occult national socialism: from Rockwell and Madole to Manson,” Jeffrey Kaplan (2001)
“The Upward Path: Palingenesis, Political Religion and the National Alliance,” Martin Durham (2004)
“The F Word: Is Donald Trump a fascist?” Dylan Matthews (2021)
“Castizo Futurism and the Contradictions of Multiracial White Nationalism,” Ben Lorber and Natalie Li (2022)
#this is not The Masterpost this has just emerged along the way#and there's definitely plenty that could go here that aren't bc i just got tired of listing them#i need somewhere and preferably multiple places to put sources so i feel like ive accomplished something when i finish reading them lol
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Bill Cooper: Part 1 👇
Bill Cooper on the deep state's never ending quest to disarm the people, Waco, and the Hegelian principle at work:
They have to keep the momentum going. The agenda is gun control. To disarm all Americans. You watch this gun control pick up momentum like its never had before in history...
Don't you get it?
They only care about their agenda. Their agenda is to enslave the population of the world in a totalitarian socialist world government.
The only reason that the founding fathers gave us the second amendment was to protect us from the government not to hunt..But to defend ourselves against the old tyranny from which they escaped in the old world. The tyranny of kings, monarchs and dictators...
Tragedy fueled push for more gun control is based on a lie.
The truth is that despite the second amendment guns are less accessible today than at any time in American history."
This is why Trump held his rally in Waco, Texas. 🤔
#pay attention#educate yourself#educate yourselves#reeducate yourself#knowledge is power#reeducate yourselves#think for yourself#think for yourselves#think about it#do your homework#do your research#do your own research#question everything#ask yourself questions#ask yourself#there are no coincidences
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“The Marxian Class Conflict Doctrine
(…)
Marxian Ideology Doctrine
The only retort that Marx, Engels, and all their followers down to the Russian Bolshevists and the European and American professorial admirers of Marx knew to advance against their critics was the notorious ideology doctrine. According to this makeshift a mans intellectual horizon is fully determined by his class affiliation. The individual is constitutionally unfit to reach out and to grasp any other doctrine than one that furthers the interests of his own "class" at the expense of other "classes." It is, therefore, unnecessary for a proletarian to pay any attention to whatever bourgeois authors may say and to waste time refuting their statements. All that is needed is to unmask their bourgeois background. That settles the matter.
This is the method to which Marx and Engels and later Marxians resorted in dealing with all dissenters. They never embarked upon the hopeless task of defending their self-contradictory system against devastating criticism. All they did was to call their opponents stupid bourgeois and to ascribe their opposition to their bourgeois class affiliation.
But Marx and Engels also contradicted their own doctrine in this regard. They both were scions of bourgeois families, brought up and living in a typical middle-class milieu. Marx was the son of a well-to-do member of the bar and married the daughter of a Prussian nobleman. His brother-in-law was Cabinet Minister of the Interior and as such the Chief of the Royal Prussian Police. Engels was the son of a wealthy manufacturer and a rich businessman himself, he indulged in the amusements of the British gentry such as riding to hounds in a red coat, and snobbishly refused to marry his mistress because she was of low ori-gin. From the very Marxian point of view one would have to qualify Marxism as a doctrine of bourgeois origin.
The Destruction of Marxian Ideas Demands Vigorous Criticism
The enormous power that the Marxian ideas and the political parties guided by them enjoy in the present is not due to any inherent merits of the doctrine. It is an outgrowth of the moral and intellectual indifference and apathy of those whose duty it ought to be to offer unswerving resistance to false doctrines and to disclose their untruth. Some eminent philosophers and economists have provided irrefutable arguments to show the perversion, the misrepresentation of facts, and the self-contradictions of the Marxian creed. But their books are not read by those whose responsibility it is to enlighten the public. Thus the masses today indolently endorse all the socialist slogans and look upon every step forward on the way toward totalitarianism as progress toward the establishment of an earthly paradise. It is the inertness and sloth on the part of many of our most eminent fellow citizens that make the impetuous advance of the communist power possible.
The task of fighting Marxian dialectical materialism and all the various epistemological, philosophical, economic, and political doctrines emanating from it can only be accomplished by well-informed people. Those who want to contribute seriously to the defense of Western civilization against the onslaught of the dictators must acquaint themselves with the doctrines they plan to fight and must with full vigor study the writings of those authors who have long since entirely demolished all the Marxian fables and distortions. One has to admit that this is not an easy matter. Yet, there are in this world no great things that can be accomplished but by moral resolution and strenuous exertion.” - Ludwig von Mises, ‘Christian Economics’, October 3, 1961.
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