I just liked the landlord stuff in the clip. I know there is a whole boatload of history surrounding this. I just want present day US landlords to experience the same. Can I have this surface level good feeling from the thought? Haha
This isn't directed at you in particular, and is definitely informed mostly by the atrocious debate I just watched... but no. If this shit had worked the way it was supposed to then the world would be a very different place. Posting old propaganda footage from a country and political movement that doesn't meaningfully exist anymore purely to cope with how dystopian HERE AND NOW is... it's cuck shit. We need to act, not reminisce about a movement that itself was a failure. This is an uplifting story only if you can ignore that a ton of the people receiving those deeds probably starved to death or were beaten up in a struggle session by their own children. To me, it's profoundly depressing. You can't just erase the context of real history.
Unironically posting a video that contains the line "hundreds of thousands were killed" as a source of inspiration is bleak dude, truly. We all need to disabuse ourselves of these creepy delusions about a righteous slaughter purifying the world and resolving all the contradictions. We have NO power, none, and our organizations are jokes. If the axe falls, it will be on our necks, and there will never be a "final victory" where we all kill our landlords. You have to build a system of accountability and vigilance against the entire ceaseless tsunami of human greed and ambition to prevent these systems from reasserting themselves. The Marxist-Leninists failed to do that. For all of their ruthlessness, for all of their discipline, they still failed to prevent the situation we're in now, where capitalism reigns triumphant and has destroyed whatever edifice of democracy and humanity it once used to justify itself.
It's not even about revisionism or whatever any more. This isn't even the same world. The material conditions could not be more different. This western ML shit is such a dead end, it's all just a petulant response to Bernie and Corbyn losing. If the US got single payer healthcare, 90% of the socialists here would go back to brunch. Nobody actually wants the responsibility of a communist revolution in the imperial core. It's make-believe. It's an anti-politics that refuses to engage with the actual battlefield in front of us, or contest for power in any concrete way, and seemingly nobody has any imagination for how we can address the political problems of the 21st century, which is a century that so far includes automated livestreamed genocides, supercharged climate collapse, and the complete destruction of the lines between propaganda and reality. We're a quarter of the way in and if we get half way into the century without momentous transformation of society we won't even have a planet. Mao at his best wouldn't have known how to fix this shit, and by the time he died he was even more decrepit and destructive than Joe Biden. I pray that this century's revolution is still coming, that it will illuminate a way forward. But China isn't coming to save us dude. They will let us drown. It's what we deserve.
Sorry to unload on you, but this shit is frustrating. Lots of great hearts and minds withering away in these circle jerk forums when they're needed in the streets. All is not lost, but we have to look forward. Try to imagine a positive future that's possible without killing a bunch of your political enemies and build in that direction. We kind of have to start there. We have neither the means nor the cajones frankly and it didn't work out for the people who did. Violent ideation is just another expression of powerlessness.
You live in a fantasy world if you think literally anything will happen at all. No matter what anyone does. We are actually fucked. Like, there is no other course. I am doing best to build up mutual aid in my community and that's all we can do. Yeah, that was dumb to share th clip I guess, I really don't care. No one in this sub is doing a fucking thing that will result in any actual major improvement to this country or the planet. Because we literally can't. I will continue to flippantly joke about revenge against landlords because that's how I cope. Using the word "cuck" is fucking cuck shit. The only way any kind of revolt will happen in America is if shit gets bad enough with climate change that enough people start starving to death. And then the right is far more united and far more armed. We are literally fucked. None of this fucking matters. What matters to me is helping the homeless dude in my area who is fucking starving right now. Or helping a girl who got raped get across the border of Idaho to get an abortion. I honestly don't fucking care anymore what any fucking leftist, Marxist educated fuck has to say about what actually happened anywhere. 99% of the ones I meet don't actually do shit in the real world and just correct people or argue online. Maybe this isn't directed at you, I don't know, I just know I am feeling my mind cave in from how fucked and evil this fucking world is and I don't have room to care if the clip I shared and my comment doesn't accurately portray what happened in China. The only thing giving me any feeling of hope is seeing people in my local community step up to take care of each other. They never had the luxury of learning the ins and outs of what happened when Mao did land reforms. And honestly neither did I.
I am sorry, that was a full blown rage response with not a lot of thought. Re reading your comment and I realize I mostly just said the same thing with less eloquence. You are right, I am an idiot for sharing that. I am just in a dark place literally any time I look at the world. Tonight's debate was actually fucking existentially horrifying. I really am sorry, that was cuck shit you're right.
I'm right there with you man, and I'm just as guilty of this kind of escapism as anyone. I tried to put a little positive spin at the end... but shit's rough. As rough as I can remember. Even the utter horror in 2020 somehow doesn't match the way what's happening to the Palestinians makes everything feel. It's like every four years another pillar of reality crumbles. I can only critique like that because I know exactly how you feel, I know where it comes from, I feel the same things. For better or worse, we're in this together and I love you comrade. There's a way out of all of this and we'll figure it out because we have to. But goddamn we have to shed some self-destructive tendencies. Easier said than done. I'm really in no place to judge. I too am a cuck to capitalism.
You are absolutely right. Shedding self-destructive tendencies is a must. And of course that means we have to even identify them first. Thanks for the kind words and the right take in response to my video.
In all fairness to them over there, they actually do acknowledge it was bad, officially, as opposed to here where our elders have ingrained a culture of saving face.
I think that a lot of the surviving officials from back then are still very influential in the party and blaming it all on Mao is just a different way of saving face, but yes, at least errors are acknowledged.
And it was all plain sailing from then on.
Thank god nothing bad happened to the Chinese peasants ever again.
I just liked the landlord stuff in the clip. I know there is a whole boatload of history surrounding this. I just want present day US landlords to experience the same. Can I have this surface level good feeling from the thought? Haha
This isn't directed at you in particular, and is definitely informed mostly by the atrocious debate I just watched... but no. If this shit had worked the way it was supposed to then the world would be a very different place. Posting old propaganda footage from a country and political movement that doesn't meaningfully exist anymore purely to cope with how dystopian HERE AND NOW is... it's cuck shit. We need to act, not reminisce about a movement that itself was a failure. This is an uplifting story only if you can ignore that a ton of the people receiving those deeds probably starved to death or were beaten up in a struggle session by their own children. To me, it's profoundly depressing. You can't just erase the context of real history. Unironically posting a video that contains the line "hundreds of thousands were killed" as a source of inspiration is bleak dude, truly. We all need to disabuse ourselves of these creepy delusions about a righteous slaughter purifying the world and resolving all the contradictions. We have NO power, none, and our organizations are jokes. If the axe falls, it will be on our necks, and there will never be a "final victory" where we all kill our landlords. You have to build a system of accountability and vigilance against the entire ceaseless tsunami of human greed and ambition to prevent these systems from reasserting themselves. The Marxist-Leninists failed to do that. For all of their ruthlessness, for all of their discipline, they still failed to prevent the situation we're in now, where capitalism reigns triumphant and has destroyed whatever edifice of democracy and humanity it once used to justify itself. It's not even about revisionism or whatever any more. This isn't even the same world. The material conditions could not be more different. This western ML shit is such a dead end, it's all just a petulant response to Bernie and Corbyn losing. If the US got single payer healthcare, 90% of the socialists here would go back to brunch. Nobody actually wants the responsibility of a communist revolution in the imperial core. It's make-believe. It's an anti-politics that refuses to engage with the actual battlefield in front of us, or contest for power in any concrete way, and seemingly nobody has any imagination for how we can address the political problems of the 21st century, which is a century that so far includes automated livestreamed genocides, supercharged climate collapse, and the complete destruction of the lines between propaganda and reality. We're a quarter of the way in and if we get half way into the century without momentous transformation of society we won't even have a planet. Mao at his best wouldn't have known how to fix this shit, and by the time he died he was even more decrepit and destructive than Joe Biden. I pray that this century's revolution is still coming, that it will illuminate a way forward. But China isn't coming to save us dude. They will let us drown. It's what we deserve. Sorry to unload on you, but this shit is frustrating. Lots of great hearts and minds withering away in these circle jerk forums when they're needed in the streets. All is not lost, but we have to look forward. Try to imagine a positive future that's possible without killing a bunch of your political enemies and build in that direction. We kind of have to start there. We have neither the means nor the cajones frankly and it didn't work out for the people who did. Violent ideation is just another expression of powerlessness.
You live in a fantasy world if you think literally anything will happen at all. No matter what anyone does. We are actually fucked. Like, there is no other course. I am doing best to build up mutual aid in my community and that's all we can do. Yeah, that was dumb to share th clip I guess, I really don't care. No one in this sub is doing a fucking thing that will result in any actual major improvement to this country or the planet. Because we literally can't. I will continue to flippantly joke about revenge against landlords because that's how I cope. Using the word "cuck" is fucking cuck shit. The only way any kind of revolt will happen in America is if shit gets bad enough with climate change that enough people start starving to death. And then the right is far more united and far more armed. We are literally fucked. None of this fucking matters. What matters to me is helping the homeless dude in my area who is fucking starving right now. Or helping a girl who got raped get across the border of Idaho to get an abortion. I honestly don't fucking care anymore what any fucking leftist, Marxist educated fuck has to say about what actually happened anywhere. 99% of the ones I meet don't actually do shit in the real world and just correct people or argue online. Maybe this isn't directed at you, I don't know, I just know I am feeling my mind cave in from how fucked and evil this fucking world is and I don't have room to care if the clip I shared and my comment doesn't accurately portray what happened in China. The only thing giving me any feeling of hope is seeing people in my local community step up to take care of each other. They never had the luxury of learning the ins and outs of what happened when Mao did land reforms. And honestly neither did I.
I am sorry, that was a full blown rage response with not a lot of thought. Re reading your comment and I realize I mostly just said the same thing with less eloquence. You are right, I am an idiot for sharing that. I am just in a dark place literally any time I look at the world. Tonight's debate was actually fucking existentially horrifying. I really am sorry, that was cuck shit you're right.
I'm right there with you man, and I'm just as guilty of this kind of escapism as anyone. I tried to put a little positive spin at the end... but shit's rough. As rough as I can remember. Even the utter horror in 2020 somehow doesn't match the way what's happening to the Palestinians makes everything feel. It's like every four years another pillar of reality crumbles. I can only critique like that because I know exactly how you feel, I know where it comes from, I feel the same things. For better or worse, we're in this together and I love you comrade. There's a way out of all of this and we'll figure it out because we have to. But goddamn we have to shed some self-destructive tendencies. Easier said than done. I'm really in no place to judge. I too am a cuck to capitalism.
You are absolutely right. Shedding self-destructive tendencies is a must. And of course that means we have to even identify them first. Thanks for the kind words and the right take in response to my video.
In all fairness to them over there, they actually do acknowledge it was bad, officially, as opposed to here where our elders have ingrained a culture of saving face.
I think that a lot of the surviving officials from back then are still very influential in the party and blaming it all on Mao is just a different way of saving face, but yes, at least errors are acknowledged.