O7

Iran is fighting for a green new world

Yep, agreed! The electrification of global infrastructure is going to be massive going forward.

Unsurprising, and with no sign of stopping. It isn’t simply a matter of the US falling, but China is also rising in approval, and this gap is widening as the old imperialist world order is dying away and multilateralism is rising.

This implies the global south enjoyed imperialism before Trump. The global south should be far more against the US Empire in the top image.

You can expose the problems of fascist speech without legally protecting the right of fascists to spread disinformation and misinformation, which you’ve been arguing for. I don’t want to “hide” it, I want to eliminate it from public discourse and study it academically so as to prevent it from rising.

Sure, but considering this entire speech you’ve been talking about how you want to protect the rights of fascists to spew fascist bullshit, talking negatively about political correctness is almost assuredly about the modern usage. You can’t fault me for reading this as you yet again arguing for fascist speech to be protected.

“Political correctness” has often been a dogwhistle for censoring bigotry:

Political correctness (adjectivally “politically correct”; commonly abbreviated to P.C.) is a term used to describe language,[1][2][3] policies,[4] or measures that are intended to avoid offense or disadvantage to members of particular groups in society.[5][6][7] Since the late 1980s, the term has been used to describe a preference for inclusive language and avoidance of language or behavior that can be seen as excluding, marginalizing, or insulting to groups of people disadvantaged or discriminated against, particularly groups defined by ethnicity, sex, gender, sexual orientation, or disability. In public discourse and the media,[4][8][9] the term’s use is generally pejorative, with an implication that these policies are excessive or unwarranted.[10][11] It can also be humorous, or ironic in nature.

You’re referring to instead how political figures massage words.

Political correctness isn’t “hiding the truth,” you’re implying that racism, homophobia, etc. are “the truth.” You’re caping for fascism and bigotry.

Nah, revolution is the only way out of this mess. The DNC is a party of imperialists just like the GOP, neither are a path to progress.

If historical record sounds like the soviets were overwhelmingly better than the west, then that’s just your evaluation of the actual historical record. That’s what happened, it isn’t because soviets good and US bad, it’s from fundamental differences in how fascism is treated by communists vs. by liberals.

The communists were never allies with the Nazis. A non-aggression pact is not an alliance. The communists spent the decade prior trying to form an anti-Nazi coalition force, such as the Anglo-French-Soviet Alliance which was pitched by the communists and rejected by the British and French. The communists hated the Nazis from the beginning, as the Nazi party rose to prominence by killing communists and labor organizers, cemented bourgeois rule, and was violently racist and imperialist, while the communists opposed all of that.

When the many talks of alliances with the west all fell short, the Soviets reluctantly agreed to sign a non-agression pact, in order to delay the coming war that everyone knew was happening soon. Throughout the last decade, Britain, France, and other western countries had formed pacts with Nazi Germany, such as the Four-Power Pact, the German-French-Non-Agression Pact, and more. Molotov-Ribbentrop was unique among the non-agression pacts with Nazi Germany in that it was right on the eve of war, and was the first between the USSR and Nazi Germany. It was a last resort, when the west was content from the beginning with working alongside Hitler.

Harry Truman, in 1941 in front of the Senate, stated:

If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible, although I don’t want to see Hitler victorious under any circumstances.

Not only that, but it was the Soviet Union that was responsible for 4/5ths of total Nazi deaths, and winning the war against the Nazis. The Soviet Union did not agree to invade Poland with the Nazis, it was about spheres of influence and red lines the Nazis should not cross in Poland. When the USSR went into Poland, it stayed mostly to areas Poland had invaded and annexed a few decades prior. Should the Soviets have let Poland get entirely taken over by the Nazis, standing idle? The West made it clear that they were never going to help anyone against the Nazis until it was their turn to be targeted.

I am being honest here, that’s why I can recognize that since fascism and liberalism are both built on capitalism, they are diametrically opposed to socialism and have more in common with each other than they do with socialism.

Purges were necessary, that doesn’t mean the executions were. Purges often meant simply expelling someone from the party or a prison sentence, not necessarily execution. What’s clear when studying the soviet union, though, is the sheer siege and subterfuge targetting them from right when they first began. We can understand why they did what they did, while also understanding that if they had better resources and political stability then the better option would have been imprisonment and potentially rehabilitation.

The liberals only opposed fascism once it was clear that the Nazis were going to attack them as well. Fascists like Batista in Cuba were worked with to the very end, never once opposing them. As for the soviets, they never did collaborate with the Nazis.

What happened was the soviets spent an entire decade trying to form an anti-Nazi alliance, while the liberals were gleefully working with the Nazis. The soviets signed a non-aggression pact on the eve of war to buy time.

That’s one of those things that’s hard to quantify. I’ve seen people use that frame of argument before, but not in the last few years.

I don’t believe I’m misunderstanding you at all, though I agree we are speaking in circles. I think that adds to my point, the marketplace of ideas is a fantasy.

You explained your reasoning, I just disagree with it entirely for reasons I have given. You depend on a false understanding of how ideas are spread in society in order to defend the presence of fascist press in socialism. The bourgeoisie need to be silenced because otherwise they use the press to spread misinformation and disinformation to incite counter-revolution, again, see how Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia are used historically.

You aren’t applying a scientific approach, you’re erasing concrete reality in order to appeal to how you want society to function, ie you want for open debate of fascist ideas to prevent their spread, but that’s not how ideas work and that’s not how debate works. You’re proceding from a false premise and trying to justify it by erasing the context of a single article by Marx.

The working classes know well why fascist ideas should be shut down, rather than legitimized, that’s why the working classes have shut down fascist press in socialist societies using the state. That’s the dictatorship of the proletariat in action.

You can’t focus entirely on the base and utterly ignore the superstructure of society, otherwise you leave society open to reverting to capitalism and the disaster that becomes. Further, you cannot simply abolish class overnight, and the process of collectivization itself takes time, in both cases you must still employ forcible means to oppress the bourgeoisie while supporting proletarian science and culture.

Allowing fascist press does not weaken fascism, it strengthens it, and allows for manipulation that kicks off counter-revolution as was seen in history provoked by outlets like Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia (which you also linked). What this amounts to is you not taking fascism seriously at all.

Again, what have you read of Marx that leads you to believe these ideas that Marx would have supported fascist speech? Is it just that one article advocating for less censorship under capitalism, so that the working classes may more freely spread their ideas?

I agree with open study of truth, what I disagree with is giving fascists the tools to manipulate public opinion and undermine socialism.

Secondly, yes, communism is stateless. Socialism is not, though, socialism is the dictatorship of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie. This is where the proletariat strips the bourgeoisie of all political power using the state, so that class may be abolished through collectivization of all production and distribution. See Marx responding to Bakunin:

(Bakunin:) We have already stated our deep opposition to the theory of Lassalle and Marx, which recommends to the workers, if not as final ideal then at least as the next major aim — the foundation of a people’s state, which, as they have expressed it, will be none other than the proletariat organized as ruling class. The question arises, if the proletariat becomes the ruling class, over whom will it rule? It means that there will still remain another proletariat, which will be subject to this new domination, this new state.

(Marx:) It means that so long as the other classes, especially the capitalist class, still exists, so long as the proletariat struggles with it (for when it attains government power its enemies and the old organization of society have not yet vanished), it must employ forcible means, hence governmental means. It is itself still a class and the economic conditions from which the class struggle and the existence of classes derive have still not disappeared and must forcibly be either removed out of the way or transformed, this transformation process being forcibly hastened.

Socialism is not “big government,” nor is it antagonistic to the state. Socialism is the transition between capitalism and communism, when the proletariat has control of the state and uses forcible means to end class society. Socialism is a mode of production by which public ownership is the principal aspect of the economy and the working classes control the state, using it to oppress the former ruling classes and abolish class in general alongside collectivization of production and distribution.

What have you read of Marx that leads you to believe he supported free speech for fascists and was against the dictatorship of the proletariat? This is a deeply confused understanding of Marxism you have.

Marx was a scientific socialist, and developed dialectical materialism. One of the key advances of dialectical materialism, as opposed to vulgar materialism or metaphysical materialism, is that everything must be considered in its necessary context. In the context of the press and the state, Marx is advocating for the “free press” as it can only exist in the hands of the working classes, in other words as collectively owned. Marx is not arguing for everyone to be able to own the press, including capitalists and fascists, but instead the working classes.

What you are doing is erasing Marx’s class analysis from his arguments to argue for letting fascists own and run their own press and spread their ideas. The reasoning you claim to be doing so is because “truth will win in the argument,” but that’s not how debates work or are “won.” People already have their minds made up before debates happen, and are inclined to side with their percieved class interest. What you are advocating for is making it easier for fascists to organize and more difficult to stop that from happening.

The last century has proven the danger of not addressing the class nature of culture and the press. You’re using Marx as though he were a prophet and not a scientific socialist, and are throwing away his dialectical method in favor of metaphysics, in order to support fascists undermining socialism.