The Lemmygrad mod team has deliberated and decided that “patsocs”, especially those claiming the title such as Maupin, Hinckle, and Infrared, are hereby banned and are not welcome on lemmygrad.
This ban does not include those who feel some level of “patriotism” (for lack of a better word) for non-settler states ( namely those who have historically been victims of colonialism ).
Discussions surrounding the topics of settler-colonialism, and decolonization will always be allowed, as long as they don’t veer into the territory of defenses of colonialism, or affinity with colonizer over the colonized.
This includes:
- No apologia of settler-colonialism, or defenses of colonizer over the colonized. IE no defenses of Israelis over Palestinians, or European Settlers over indigenous americans fighting for the return of stolen lands.
- Please adhere to the Marxist-Leninist principle of Right of Nations to Self-Determination: especially holding true for indigeous peoples.
- Please adhere to the Marxist-Leninist principle of Proletarian Internationalism.
- No social-chauvinism, or opportunistic appeals to “conservative values” to win converts to socialism.
Here are some Marxist books / resources to learn more about Settler-Colonialism ( Audiobook torrents are linked as well )
- Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz - An indigenous people’s history of the US . audiobook
- Walter Rodney - How europe underdeveloped Africa . audiobook
- Zak Cope - Divided world divided class . audiobook
- Nick Estes - Red Nation Rising: From Bordertown Violence to Native Liberation
- J. Sakai - Settlers : The Mythology of the white proletariat . audiobook
- Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz - Not a nation of immigrants . audiobook
- Rashid Khalidi - The hundred years war on Palestine . audiobook
- Galeano - Open veins of latin america . audiobook
- Vincent Bevins - The Jakarta method . audiobook
- Fanon - The wretched of the earth . audiobook
- CLR James - The Black Jacobins . audiobook
Unless you’re a Patsoc as in Socialism with Patrick Star characteristics. Then you’re a valued member of this forum.
Obsessed with this image
The CIA is probably going to use patsocs to infiltrate marxist groups and distract the public.
Marxist parties in the U.S should hopefully start banning them soon.
Why in particular would the CIA use patsocs specifically?
By turning socialism into a “conservative-friendly” movement, they defang it and take away its revolutionary potential, and easily steer it to social chauvinist directions. There’s a long history of them doing this with labor movements, and this happened in almost every country going back to Lenin’s day.
This is why most of Marxism’s greatest works are polemics against social chauvinists / reactionary “socialists” ( state and rev, the renegade kautsky, reform or revolution, critique of the gotha programme ).
Reread the post text above.
Consider this a 4th of July present for any patsocs wanting to infiltrate Lemmygrad.
The wildest take from them was Zionist defense. I never knew, they believe things as silly as the Israeli working class is brainwashed into wanting free houses, they don’t really want them.
Where are y’all running into these people? I see people who have opened discussion on how to possibly use existing American patriotism as a radicalization tool (I’m against it, but still understand why there are those that see some value in the idea). But I’m fortunate enough not to have run into any of these specifically terrible takes yet. Seriously, who the f are these “socialists” that support Israel?
I know that I am replying to a 2 year old comment but I think that these patsoc types have made more significant moves into spaces outside of their cultish beginnings (i.e., not being from the USA, “MAGA communism” only became apparent to me recently and I joined Lemmygrad because I was so frustrated with seeing “communist” channels on Telegram, for example, allowing this kind of shit and seeing one supposedly “ML” party from the UK (which as an aside I believe to be run by spooks) embrace the “ideology” and to essentially jump on the bandwagon in a truly grotesque, opportunistic move in a desire to be relevant and perhaps gain some new members. I can’t see any other justification for their actions. They make the excuse that the “MAGA” movement contains proletarian elements, which is true, but this is territory similar to suggesting that the “national socialists” contained proletarian elements, or the Union of Fascists of Britain and we saw how that played out. I reminded them that Stalin saw the “national socialists” for what they were before WW2 started, as did most communists I am sure, and also that one of the most significant moments in the history of the proletariat in 20th century England was the Battle of Cable Street, in which antifascists and ordinary members of the public came together to beat the shit out of Oswald Mosley’s thugs. Antifascism has been a longstanding current in Britain generally, and to see what is essentially a fascist movement being supported by “Marxist-Leninists” is a disgrace and should not be allowed.
But my main point is that they seemed to have spread. I was fooled into entering spaces before I realised that these movements were so significant. I have seen people discuss them as terminally online but the attempted “synthesis” (again, grotesque: apologies to Marx, Lenin and of course Hegel) of the Cult of Maga with “communism” is a potential danger which cannot be slept on. MAGA fascists were highly visible and helped to bring fascists out of the woodworks. It could well be that the “MAGA communists” do the same.
It seems to me that the whole thing is a psyop designed to discredit communist theory and “communists”, given the significant emergence of proletarians in the USA discovering Marxist/Marxist-Leninist theory over the last ten years or so. But I do believe that it has the potential to become a more significant threat to being a mere online cult of wackos that are likely being manipulated by some kind of COINTELPRO style psyop into accepting distorted ideas about communism.
It should be noted that I haven’t seen these people defend Israel but they do focus much energy on the proxy war in Ukraine and this was in part why I started to pay attention to some of the articles they put out, coming from places like The Grayzone, but they hardly seem to talk about Palestine at all, which is of course an international emergency requiring the attention of communists around the world as I write this. Also, my only exposure to this is via channels which proclaim to be “communist” but are indeed “patsocs” and who, in these channels, “defend” and promote “MAGA communism”, as I said, to the point that a self-proclaimed “Marxist-Leninist” party in my country jumping on this bandwagon (they are a very small party and are highly reactionary, especially on issues such as trans issues, but they claim to uphold an anti-revisionist line, yet are apparently funded by the state apparatus and I hear this from an old comrade who is approaching 90 and has heard and seen it all before. This party split from the original ML party of the Comintern due to revisionism in the main body of the party, which does have serious problems in itself. Anyway I am rambling).
Can we still quote Lenin and Ho Chi Minh?
I can’t really articulate myself very well right now because I’m in the middle of a mental breakdown and a bender (totally unrelated) but I feel like user SaddamHussein was interpreted in very bad faith regarding what they were trying to say using Israelis as an example.
I haven’t seen any people we regard as patsocs as defending settler colonialism or anything of the sort (though I am not familiar with many, such as Hinkle, Infrared etc.).
I guess in my head, regarding for example the point of “appeals to conservative values to win people to socialism,” I would rather have a liberal who is for gay marriage than a liberal who is homophobic. I would rather have a social democrat who is anticommunist than a fascist who is anticommunist. Likewise, I would rather have a bigot who believes in class war than a bigot who does not believe in class war, and so on.
“Patriotic socialism” is not for me, I would never wave an American flag around for anything but pure satire, and even then it’d feel nauseating. By I also think this is a complicated war with many facets. For example, Frankfurt is dangerous in many a way, by why not also radicalize some academia ghouls? Why not soften up the incredibly reactionary American proletariat to seeing a hammer and sickle? Even if it’s just seen as a step in the radicalization funnel, for then people like us to step in and convince them to drop the Stars and Stripes.
Which I guess is a similar situation with socdems, and we sure as hell don’t need socdems here…
Idk I just am uncomfortable with SaddamHussein in particular getting banned I guess. Seemed like a pretty cool one to me.
I’m sorry if I am late as all hell replying to anything, I have like 100+ notifications and have been procrastinating ever checking them, plus the aforementioned “My Life, O My Life” shit. I respect you all and some of the arguments being made and I hope to not make any enemies with this, I value everybody here.
I agree,while I am kinda indifferent on the whole patsoc thing (literally on the other side of the world),I do think that they could make more good than bad (once again I am not from America,and it would be in my interest if America was destroyed). Also yeah, i personally think that SaddamHussein’s ban was a bit too quick, he was very civil
LG admin here to say patriotism for countries like Palestine, Afghanistan, Vietnam, etc. is acceptable as they were colonized by invaders and “patriotism” for those countries is solidarity with indigenous and local populations and their ways of life, however patriotism for countries like the US, the UK, most of Europe, etc. is not and can not be acceptable, because to be “patriotic” for them you must accept the rape, murder, and theft of the indigenous populations they invaded.
Until the US comes under a red banner, American Patriotism will only stand as an acceptance of the manifest destiny pillaging of Natives, the Jim Crow laws that still in certain ways exist today, the recent overturning of Abortion, etc. Marxism and patriotism for the US are like oil and water, and those who try to mix the two have no business here.
As soon as I learned the most basic beginnings of the Labor Aristocracy, a year or so ago, I competely dropped any semblance of patriotism dwelling inside of me. It made me think, why should our proletariat of the first world take priority over the third world’s exploitation which in most cases is more exploitative, more dangerous, and grants less individual and mass freedoms. And obviously the first world proletariat works hard and they absolutely must be freed, but not at the expense of the third world. Sweden is a decent example. They (not for covid) care about wages and benefits and good stuff like that, but ask them about helping Africa or something and you’ll hear nothing. USA is a great example of the unequal order of labor. The Oil Workers benefit from putting pipelines through indigenous lands. It’s cheapest to put the pipeline on a straight path, in some cases right thru indigenous land, thus needing less construction to reroute and profit is higher. Let’s say that the oil company(humor me for a sec) increases wages because of the massive profits. What we see is the indigenous community being subjugated and tosses to the side for the benefit of the 1st world proletariat. PatSoc can come off as correct when talking about wanting higher wages and better representation, but it’s like the Sex Trade in the fact that when you, the proletarian, have your interests lined up with that of your industry(the petrol industry for “protection of jobs against Climate initiatives” or pimps and johns for “legalization/legitimacy of sex work”) you will be tricked into supporting policies that do not help you but your boss or customers.
This ban does not include those who feel some level of “patriotism” (for lack of a better word) for non-settler states ( namely those who have historically been victims of colonialism ).
How about past or future proletarian states?
Such as?
Past socialist state as in USSR or PRL or DDR for example. Future, as in the ones for which establishment socialists are fighting, names and scope are probably yet to be decided.
Of course not, we support the USSR and DDR here, neither were settler-colonialist states. The USSR and peoples in eastern europe were the victim of european colonialism in the form of nazism.
The nazis really wanted to emulate what the US settler project acheived, and they were explicit about that, and do to eastern europe what the US did to turtle island.
On a side note, can i block single thread or single community on lemmy so to not see it?
You can block communities
How? I just see block user button?
This was a critically important move as the PatSocs here were using our communities to platform some of the most insidious rhetoric I’ve seen in a long time. I have no doubt that the recent surge in Patriotic Socialism is connected with Western propaganda bodies. It’s particularly telling that not only were they present arguments that would lead to the US becoming another “National Socialist”/openly fascist state, but that they were also heavily invested in the idea that Europeans were allowed to be Pat Socs because they weren’t on Turtle Island.
The fact that this also was coming to head just as the US is seeing Proud Boys activity increasing is also one of those “coincidences don’t exist” feelings.
