I mean, if things descend into civil war, I would hope that some country out there is willing to throw their hat in the ring like that, like Canada or some countries in the EU, but I get the vibe that they'd be afraid to take a side in case the left lost.
But if they want to actually jump in, I'd certainly welcome the help!
from someone that admittedly doesn’t read anything that might not agree with their existing beliefs.
As I mentioned before, I did read them, and I concluded that further research into ML will not be fruitful.
You just generalized so much history into a single sentence it’s embarrassing.
I only generalize due to longer comments being undesirable (more detail in the long previous comment, if you like).
Either way, further discussion will only result in needless conflict. I genuinely wish you the best. Farewell.
God, I wish anarchist actually had a successful revolution to point to so us MLs could pick apart every little failure of its post revolution society too. But, alas, they have never lasted long enough to actually be able to defend themselves.
I actually mentioned in my long comment you didn't want to read there were no successful Anarchist revolutions due to ML's betraying them each and every time to quash any chance of them succeeding.
If I suggested to you that a died in the wool capitalist and white supremacist wrote the best treatise on a particular historical event, I think you would be highly rational to be extremely skeptical of that claim, and not give it much time, if any (I certainly wouldn't), due to how likely it is that the material is extremely biased and likely to misrepresent reality, rendering its use as a lens of historical analysis useless.
I see Marxist-Leninists as similarly biased, and in some ways cult-like, as it requires an inordinate amount of cognitive dissonance to give an earnest look at it today and truly believe it to be the best path forward (In my opinion, anyway, and that ultimately matters very little). I would say the same to someone trying to convert me to become religious, and they too would likely say my dislike and lack of willingness to read their scripture is irrational.
Obviously to someone in that world, I'm speaking heresy, but it does exemplify that we're both quite opinionated on the other's views in the same way two offshoot religions are, and like those religions, there is little chance of converting one to the other when they are both set in what they think of each other, though I do still hope that you see ML for what it truly is someday.
tl;dr, you said I lacked an understanding of history, and didn't understand what I meant by authoritarian. I elaborated. I don't trust Marxist-Leninism due to numerous historical examples of their failings to cooperate with other anti-capitalists (I.E, killing them), and consistant human rights abuses.
I've watched his Yellow speech, and I've read segments from Blackshirts and reds. I understand his point of view, but I fundamentally disagree with his conclusions.
Seizing land from capitalists is fine, it's what bureaucratic marxist-leninist regimes do with it afterward that bothers me. It's an age old disagreement between ML's and Anarchists that stretches back to at least the Russian Revolution war, and is something that cannot be compromised on.
Cuba's agrarian reforms eventually centralized the majority of farming land under state control instead of simply all of it to the people in a decentralized manner, which they were later forced to do after the USSR fell in the 90's (but did not cede such power without that outside force).
That centralization, that state control, is what I detest and denounce, as it furthers the ability for coercive and unequal hierarchies to exist and flourish in an ideology that is supposedly intended to eliminate them. The ML argument is that it must be done to survive against the enemies of socialism, and may point to the fact that there was never a long-term anarchist society as proof that decentralized power doesn't work, but then they conveniently pass over the fact that all promising Anarchist revolutions were actively fought and suppressed by ML's, such as the betrayal of Nestor Mahkno's Black Army of Ukraine, the Anarchists during the Spanish Revolution, The Kronstadt Rebellion, and many more.
You suggest I simply misunderstand history, yet it was through intense historical research that I came to what, at least to me, seemed like self evident conclusions based on historical fact. The fundamental disagreement between us is that we will likely always disagree on what is fact, misinterpretation, or fiction. You trust your sources, I have come to trust mine, and thus our conclusions, and perhaps even our mental reality, will lead us to reject each other's solutions to the same problem we all face: Capitalism.
To return to Parenti; his view is to suggest that the downsides of Marxist-Leninist regimes do not offset the material living condition improvements for the people living under them.
I contend that minimizes just how unjust and evil those downsides truly are. I would personally find living under the USSR just as hellish as living under Capitalism. I might have better healthcare, but then I'd have to contend with living in a deeply distrustful society where having the wrong thought could land me in the gulag or executed, all while a bureaucratic elite dictate how things will be structured and run no differently from a capitalist boss.
I have read enough ML literature and watched enough documentaries to know that I want nothing to do with that ideology, and I assume you feel the same about Anarchism, otherwise you'd be one, eh? 😅
If not, then I would implore the same from you, in that you open yourself up to Anarchist critique of Marxist-Leninism.
Eh, generally not a fan of Parenti, as he gives far too much of a pass to authoritarian marxist-leninists regimes for my comfort.
Thanks for the going through the legwork to share the link, though.
Is that not exactly my point?
Fair enough. It's wild to me people don't understand email since they have to remember the @something.bleh, but I guess for them it just 'is' like that, and they don't understand the why.
(Like you can login in the outlook app with your gmail and yahoo account, see the email analogy doesn’t even true)
Outlook is an interface for email, so it kinda does hold true in that Outlook is an analog to using a lemmy mobile app, which allows you to log into any instance (not with the same credentials, though).
This is the flag of Henry Avery, with anarchist red below. The white bar represents sand and bones. The pirate Republic was a short-lived de facto confederation that took up the Lucayan archipelago (Bahamas).
Found that the book mentioned in the video on how to configure and use these radios is available for free on Archive:
https://archive.org/details/ncscout-the-guerrillas-guide-to-the-baofeng-radio-2022