#121

swampman posted:

I ruined my chances at seeing somebody again last night because she asked me what my astrological sign was and I said "oh I don't believe in that shit" haha dang I got a problem



Fascism has opened up the depths of society for politics. Today, not only in peasant homes but also in city skyscrapers, there lives alongside of the twentieth century the tenth or the thirteenth. A hundred million people use electricity and still believe in the magic power of signs and exorcisms. The Pope of Rome broadcasts over the radio about the miraculous transformation of water into wine. Movie stars go to mediums. Aviators who pilot miraculous mechanisms created by man’s genius wear amulets on their sweaters. What inexhaustible reserves they possess of darkness, ignorance, and savagery! Despair has raised them to their feet fascism has given them a banner. Everything that should have been eliminated from the national organism in the form of cultural excrement in the course of the normal development of society has now come gushing out from the throat; capitalist society is puking up the undigested barbarism.

-Trotsky

#122

babyhueypnewton posted:

swampman posted:
I ruined my chances at seeing somebody again last night because she asked me what my astrological sign was and I said "oh I don't believe in that shit" haha dang I got a problem


Fascism has opened up the depths of society for politics. Today, not only in peasant homes but also in city skyscrapers, there lives alongside of the twentieth century the tenth or the thirteenth. A hundred million people use electricity and still believe in the magic power of signs and exorcisms. The Pope of Rome broadcasts over the radio about the miraculous transformation of water into wine. Movie stars go to mediums. Aviators who pilot miraculous mechanisms created by man’s genius wear amulets on their sweaters. What inexhaustible reserves they possess of darkness, ignorance, and savagery! Despair has raised them to their feet fascism has given them a banner. Everything that should have been eliminated from the national organism in the form of cultural excrement in the course of the normal development of society has now come gushing out from the throat; capitalist society is puking up the undigested barbarism.

-Trotsky



Haha as if the belief that the world’s workers share a common interest is any less mystical than the stigmata or bundling

#123

Everything that should have been eliminated from the national organism in the form of cultural excrement in the course of the normal development of society has now come gushing out from the throat



Oh how I loathe this spergy, goony, hate-filled vein of marxism

#124
[account deactivated]
#125

Ironicwarcriminal posted:

babyhueypnewton posted:

swampman posted:
I ruined my chances at seeing somebody again last night because she asked me what my astrological sign was and I said "oh I don't believe in that shit" haha dang I got a problem


Fascism has opened up the depths of society for politics. Today, not only in peasant homes but also in city skyscrapers, there lives alongside of the twentieth century the tenth or the thirteenth. A hundred million people use electricity and still believe in the magic power of signs and exorcisms. The Pope of Rome broadcasts over the radio about the miraculous transformation of water into wine. Movie stars go to mediums. Aviators who pilot miraculous mechanisms created by man’s genius wear amulets on their sweaters. What inexhaustible reserves they possess of darkness, ignorance, and savagery! Despair has raised them to their feet fascism has given them a banner. Everything that should have been eliminated from the national organism in the form of cultural excrement in the course of the normal development of society has now come gushing out from the throat; capitalist society is puking up the undigested barbarism.

-Trotsky

Haha as if the belief that the world’s workers share a common interest is any less mystical than the stigmata or bundling



actually the science of marxism-leninism is the opposite of mysticism. anti-communism will not be tolerated.

#126
It really surprises me when communists support the PDPA but not Karzai when the former was just as brutal if not worse.
#127

mustang19 posted:

It really surprises me when communists support the PDPA but not Karzai when the former was just as brutal if not worse.



What does this sentence even mean? Why would communists care about 'brutality' and what is the commonality between the pseudo-socialist regime of the PDPA and the american puppet regime of KArzai?

#128
Good answer. The pseudo socialist remark is bordering on deviation though.

If you oppose the PDPA you might as well oppose all the other Soviet and Chinese puppets whose statues people shat on in 1989.
#129

babyhueypnewton posted:

mustang19 posted:
It really surprises me when communists support the PDPA but not Karzai when the former was just as brutal if not worse.


What does this sentence even mean? Why would communists care about 'brutality' and what is the commonality between the pseudo-socialist regime of the PDPA and the american puppet regime of KArzai?



Both consist of individuals using a political system to gain personal status and power while using rhetoric and ideology to provide a cover for their desires.

#130
"Absolute power corrupts, absolutely" -Yoda
#131

mustang19 posted:

Good answer. The pseudo socialist remark is bordering on deviation though.

If you oppose the PDPA you might as well oppose all the other Soviet and Chinese puppets whose statues people shat on in 1989.



The Soviet Union and China didn't have puppets, socialist allies (even revisionist ones) were free to choose their own paths. I know it's hard for capitalists (even begrudged ones like yourself) to imagine that socialism was actually better than capitalism, but imagine the existence of anti-revisionist Albania within the USSR like if Wyoming or Nevada was a fully communist state that was allowed to exist within the U.S. and regularly publish criticism of American imperialism.

#132

babyhueypnewton posted:

"Absolute power corrupts, absolutely" -Yoda



fucked up but true

meet the new boss



same as the old boss

#133

babyhueypnewton posted:

mustang19 posted:
Good answer. The pseudo socialist remark is bordering on deviation though.

If you oppose the PDPA you might as well oppose all the other Soviet and Chinese puppets whose statues people shat on in 1989.


The Soviet Union and China didn't have puppets, socialist allies (even revisionist ones) were free to choose their own paths. I know it's hard for capitalists (even begrudged ones like yourself) to imagine that socialism was actually better than capitalism, but imagine the existence of anti-revisionist Albania within the USSR like if Wyoming or Nevada was a fully communist state that was allowed to exist within the U.S. and regularly publish criticism of American imperialism.



Britain regularly publishes criticism of the USA just like Albania did of the USSR

#134

babyhueypnewton posted:

mustang19 posted:

Good answer. The pseudo socialist remark is bordering on deviation though.

If you oppose the PDPA you might as well oppose all the other Soviet and Chinese puppets whose statues people shat on in 1989.

The Soviet Union and China didn't have puppets, socialist allies (even revisionist ones) were free to choose their own paths. I know it's hard for capitalists (even begrudged ones like yourself) to imagine that socialism was actually better than capitalism, but imagine the existence of anti-revisionist Albania within the USSR like if Wyoming or Nevada was a fully communist state that was allowed to exist within the U.S. and regularly publish criticism of American imperialism.



In Eastern Europe at least their existence was dependent on threat of Soviet intervention, and they even had to exercise it in Hungary in Czechoslovakia. That's why they all collapsed at basically the same time, when Soviet power started to falter. Yugoslavia and Albania were technically a separate bloc but the USSR would never allow them to go full ghoulash. The USSR's problem with them was literally that they weren't liberal democratic enough.

There wasn't even a significant civil war outside Yugoslavia and Armenia, and both had nothing to do with communism. Once people had a chance to throw off the Soviets, they took it. It's like Mubarak's Egypt, and even then at least the majority of Egyptian military leadership wasn't American "advisors".

When AmeriKKKa sets up puppets it at least gets bored after a few years and leaves, the USSR held on to them until it collapsed.

Edited by mustang19 ()

#135

babyhueypnewton posted:

Why would communists care about 'brutality'


catchphrase

#136
I miss when trolls picked weird positions, like anarcho-primitivist, islamic fundamentalist, neo-fascist, anarcho-capitalist and stuck with it for a while. Without that you get trolls who turn into communists when they're arguing with liberals and turn into liberals when they're arguing with communists.

Like I say all the time, if I wanted to argue against liberal positions I could go on literally any forum on the internet, and I could argue with people who genuinely believe what they are saying. the end
#137
What makes you think I don't genuinely believe what I'm saying? The person I am now isn't the person you banned two months ago.

“I’m not going to argue with a troll”: cowardice, obfuscation and the myth of authenticity on the internet

Edited by mustang19 ()

#138

mustang19 posted:

The person I am now isn't the person you banned two months ago.

no, you are much, much worse now

#139
That's not very nice.

I think trolling is really a response to how awkward political discussion is, it's clear to both parties that their views have less to do with reality than how their parents potty trained them when they were four. This doesn't make discourse futile though, because there are obscure issues which don't stir emotion and can be discussed rationally. And because of the way Oprah Magazine and CNN work, the issues nobody cares about are actually the most important.
#140
btw when people complain about 'not believing what you say' it has nothing to do with wanting authentic belief or thinking discussion has could change your mind. it's that when you're like iwc and you change positions for every discussion you end up with a poor knowledge of all of them. it's the height of arrogance to think you deserve a response or that you're capable of fooling anyone when it's clear you don't know the first thing about the subject.

i will say you're no worse than iwc or getfiscal, they just have been here so long that we sort of ignore them as posts that will appear in every thread to scroll by, sometimes we'll read a couple of lines sometimes not. if you want to reach that level and be a troll presence in our small community be my guest.
#141

i will say you're no worse than iwc or getfiscal, they just have been here so long that we sort of ignore them as posts that will appear in every thread to scroll by, sometimes we'll read a couple of lines sometimes not. if you want to reach that level and be a troll presence in our small community be my guest.



Personally I gained something from this discussion, not just that an autonomist communist Nevada would be analogous to Hoxha's Albania. I learned that even if they posses different ideologies the closed economy anticapitalist states are inevitably going to form a common bloc against international capital and the US. You probably already knew this, but it's a big lightbulb for me.

The problem with posting my actual political opinions on the internet is that they would creep people out beyond reason.

Edited by mustang19 ()

#142
Well one of the problems with what you were saying was that Albania seriously resisted the forced imposition of capitalism, going so far as to require an invasion by the UN to put down revolutionary forces. Belarus obviously resisted the IMF imposed 'end of socialism', Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Yugoslavia experienced civil wars that had to be suppressed by NATO imperialism. It's odd you mention Armenia but don't mention Azerbaijan and the restoration of the soviet government in 1993. Basically the idea that the USSR broke up peacefully or that people gave up socialism for anything but brute force by NATO is a myth. Of course all those non-white people don't count, we only care about the petit-bougeois counter-revolutions in Germany, Hugary, and Czechoslovakia because we've already been told what to think about them.
#143
It's also extremely dishonest to compare the color revolutions with the Egyptian revolution, economically and politically they are much closer to the Libyan revolution. The result, which is the looting of the country, the imposition of 'democracy' which means corrupt imperialist puppets and ponzi schemes, and the amazingly rapid impoverishment of the majority of the population to create a small upper class of extremely wealthy is basically the same as well.
#144

mustang19 posted:

That's not very nice.

I think trolling is really a response to how awkward political discussion is, it's clear to both parties that their views have less to do with reality than how their parents potty trained them when they were four. This doesn't make discourse futile though, because there are obscure issues which don't stir emotion and can be discussed rationally. And because of the way Oprah Magazine and CNN work, the issues nobody cares about are actually the most important.



actually, "trolling" is just "dialectics" and its been around for literally "thousands" of "years"

#145

babyhueypnewton posted:

Well one of the problems with what you were saying was that Albania seriously resisted the forced imposition of capitalism, going so far as to require an invasion by the UN to put down revolutionary forces.



I think that's rather misleading, the West stepped in to rescue their embassy staff in 97 after the country went full ancap and it stuck around to humanitarian all over the place. There wasn't any real socialist opposition at the time, or even much of an organized resistance of any kind. It was an imposition of capitalism more like Somalia in 94.

Belarus obviously resisted the IMF imposed 'end of socialism', Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Yugoslavia experienced civil wars that had to be suppressed by NATO imperialism. It's odd you mention Armenia but don't mention Azerbaijan and the restoration of the soviet government in 1993. Basically the idea that the USSR broke up peacefully or that people gave up socialism for anything but brute force by NATO is a myth. Of course all those non-white people don't count, we only care about the petit-bougeois counter-revolutions in Germany, Hugary, and Czechoslovakia because we've already been told what to think about them.



Arabs and Central Asians... are pretty much white. Belarus is a market "socialist" country little different from China or Cuba. The other countries did have civil wars but they were ethnic conflicts which had little to do with trying to rescue socialism from the imperialist aggression incurred in cutting off Soviet military aid.

If the fall of the Berlin Wall was led by petit-bourgeois then almost all East Germans are bourgeois considering the blue collar workers began fleeing by hundreds of thousands as border controls eased in the mid 80s. Pretty impressive accomplishment for a socialist state to create so many petit-bourgeois who want to get the hell out.

Uzbekistan is the only example of a country where socialism really stayed, although it would probably fall under your "pseudo-socialist" classification for forcing farmers to sell at a loss to subsidize agricultural exports for capital accumulation. The country is also working closely with NATO as is Turkmenistan.

It's also extremely dishonest to compare the color revolutions with the Egyptian revolution, economically and politically they are much closer to the Libyan revolution. The result, which is the looting of the country, the imposition of 'democracy' which means corrupt imperialist puppets and ponzi schemes, and the amazingly rapid impoverishment of the majority of the population to create a small upper class of extremely wealthy is basically the same as well.



This is true, however they now have slightly less prozionist governments than before. Egypt enacted Sharia Law which was a pretty significant change. Not necessarily progress in your eyes but it's closer to what people want.

Libya wasn't all bad, it fueled terrorism across North Africa including insurgencies in Mali and Nigeria which are indisputably anti-imperialist and antiliberal.

#146

mustang19 posted:

babyhueypnewton posted:

mustang19 posted:

Good answer. The pseudo socialist remark is bordering on deviation though.

If you oppose the PDPA you might as well oppose all the other Soviet and Chinese puppets whose statues people shat on in 1989.

The Soviet Union and China didn't have puppets, socialist allies (even revisionist ones) were free to choose their own paths. I know it's hard for capitalists (even begrudged ones like yourself) to imagine that socialism was actually better than capitalism, but imagine the existence of anti-revisionist Albania within the USSR like if Wyoming or Nevada was a fully communist state that was allowed to exist within the U.S. and regularly publish criticism of American imperialism.



In Eastern Europe at least their existence was dependent on threat of Soviet intervention, and they even had to exercise it in Hungary in Czechoslovakia. That's why they all collapsed at basically the same time, when Soviet power started to falter. Yugoslavia and Albania were technically a separate bloc but the USSR would never allow them to go full ghoulash. The USSR's problem with them was literally that they weren't liberal democratic enough.

There wasn't even a significant civil war outside Yugoslavia and Armenia, and both had nothing to do with communism.



Lol what? if the economic system collapsed in America and lynching or slavery returned would you say it had "nothing to do with capitalism"

#147

babyhueypnewton posted:

you change positions for every discussion you end up with a poor knowledge of all of them.



but enough about hueys vacation!

#148

mustang19 posted:

The problem with posting my actual political opinions on the internet is that they would creep people out beyond reason.

We have a poster who spent most of every day talking about how nothing is being done about women raping men in the United States of America, so, yknow, put up or shut up

#149
My personal opinion is that the military should begin going city to city through the USA spaying and neutering all cats. And then they can keep maybe a few thousand cats and try to breed them into weird shapes. I honestly believe that IRL. So what.
#150
[account deactivated]
#151

babyhueypnewton posted:

Why would communists care about 'brutality'



because marxism is humanistic, do you not know that?

#152

mustang19 posted:

The problem with posting my actual political opinions on the internet is that they would creep people out beyond reason.



I don't see how they could be worse than your admiration of the Boston terrorists, which is already distasteful beyond measure. Perhaps you believe in population reduction? Or maybe reduction of... specific populations? Maybe you believe we should strive to create a Hell on Earth, so that every living person is born and immediately thrust into ceaseless torment, which is extended as long as possible. Those who build this terrible device will willingly submit themselves to it, so all humanity can suffer together in agony forever. Truly an aesthetic masterpiece. Well, you're too late. We already have capitalism.

#153
I'm a nondenominational religious fundamentalist, kind of like you.

Depopulation is a liberal policy, feminism and secularism are tools to achieve it. The most honorable thing George Bush did is stand beside the Pope in opposing contraceptive aid.
#154

mustang19 posted:

I'm a nondenominational religious fundamentalist, kind of like you.

Depopulation is a liberal policy, feminism and secularism are tools to achieve it. The most honorable thing George Bush did is stand beside the Pope in opposing contraceptive aid.


oh come on dude tell us your real "real" political theories

#155
Seriously though, read NSA 200.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Study_Memorandum_200



"We must take care that our activities should not give the appearance to the LDCs of an industrialized country policy directed against the LDCs. Caution must be taken that in any approaches in this field we support in the LDCs are ones we can support within this country. "Third World" leaders should be in the forefront and obtain the credit for successful programs. In this context it is important to demonstrate to LDC leaders that such family planning programs have worked and can work within a reasonable period of time."