this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2026
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I had a suspicion it had something to do with this, but didn't want to assume. Best I can gather is you think I'm trying to emotionally blackmail you or something, and tell you that you must feel sympathy for people who are on the wrong side of history.
This is the furthest thing from what I'm saying and it frankly isn't about you, it's about the message you are putting forth and whether it is ideologically correct or misleading. If that is "harassment" to you, then I really don't know what to say. SHOW me where what I have said has the character of harassment. Do not simply say it as if it is a given, which poisons the well on what I'm arguing.
What I'm doing is something I'm pretty sure I'm pretty consistent about on here: pushing back against people who post in favor of selective empathy (or in some cases, selective humanization) and then try to say it is somehow still communist because it's against the baddies. This is the ideology of the empire but with the flag changed, not what communism is about and certainly not what dialectical materialism teaches us about the world.
If you don't want to cry bitter tears over some rabid neoliberal or whatever, I don't think most people are going to care, much less ask you to. That doesn't mean you need to announce that you don't care and insist that this is justified because "it's easier for them to learn now". If China thought in the imperialist way about the world, they would be readily justified in going to town on imperial core states with missiles the moment they thought they could pull it off. People need to be conscious of the fact that the original ideology you grew up with does not evaporate the moment you change alliances.
It is frankly frustrating how often this comes up as an issue and it is very irresponsible. There are fash out there who are shamelessly willing to try to infiltrate communist spaces and steer them in a darker direction, and when people recklessly promote this stuff they are doing a favor for the fascists by normalizing pre-existing imperialist thought as okay, as long as it's semi-coded in working class language. That is part of why I am so staunch about it. And I say to be preemptive, do not confuse this for me being pacifistic about the imperialist threat. It is in fact an act of trying to root out imperialist thought in people who haven't fully unlearned it.
Well said! An important application of the masses, elites and rebels analysis around why people have the beliefs they have, and how to change people's minds and beliefs. Might be worth plugging the essay too as it's a good one and regularly passed along here: https://redsails.org/masses-elites-and-rebels/
Losurdo likes to bang on about aristocratic ideologies and aristocratic democracy too which is very much in this vein of critique. A good chunk of Liberalism: A Counter History covers it alongside the analysis of Herrenvolk Democracy. I haven't read it but he often footnotes his own work on Nietzsche when covering this stuff too.