@[email protected] banned me from [email protected] (permanently!) and removed my comment from the post, because I dared to note that there are protests in Iran and shared a link to a crimethinc article with voices from within Iran. They call it “imperialist propaganda” if leftist voices from within Iran are distributed.
My comment:
I get it that the western media narrative is incredibly one-sided, focused on ideological bogeymen and focused on getting the monarch back in power. But I’d like to point out that there is in fact quite massive repression going on against the protestors. Leftist orgs in Iran need international solidarity now.
Their “reasoning”:
reason: Ignoring the post to spam imperialist propaganda
I don’t think that person can be reasoned with if they call crimethinc imperialist propaganda, so I’m not getting my hopes up for them lifting the ban.
I also think that they might be a bit butthurt, because I called out their zionistic worldview (i.e.: that judaism equates zionism) a few days ago.
Seems solid ptb to me. But yes, I don’t think there’s much likelihood of getting it reversed. You made the cardinal sin of calling for leftist aid for the people of Iran against their murderous anti west government. Which by the transitive property of being anti west, means that the power structure of the government is the good guy and victim here.
I knew the moment our hypocritical dumbass opened his mouth certain groups would use it to delegitimize the protests. But this is a learning opportunity. To understand who your actual allies are, and who’s just reactionarily anti west.
Tankies if they existed back in 1917, probably: the Tsar isn’t perfect by any stretch, but he’s doing all he can to oppose and stop the imperialist Kaiser! The so called People’s Soviets and Lenin are just agents of the imperial enemy attempting to install their own puppet!
Here me out. Many of the ‘tankies’ on lemmy.ml, hexbear, and lemmygrad are not actually tankies. People use that insult far too much.
It’s often giving them too much credit.
Here’s an excerpt from a relevant article:
Many of the ‘leftists’ you encounter online fall for the bullshit, as long as it’s anti-western. The esthetic is enough for them because they are invariably young, dumb, naive, immature and/or privileged. For them debating politics is a hobby, not a cry for help or a fight for survival. It’s fashionable and often a phase. They are nothing more than cosplay communists, who pop a Lenin avatar in their profile, but have no grasp of history or Marxism-Leninism. They’re justifiably critical of western capitalism, they watched a streamer, they watched some tiktoks, and have come to the conclusion that any regime that is anti-western is necessarily better. This results in them knowingly and unknowingly parrotting the propaganda of anti-communists, theocrats and outright fascists.
They aren’t like the tankies who supported the Soviets for ideological reasons, who were often willing to overlook or in denial about what happened in Hungary or Tiananmen. My grandparents were like that, and I could understand why they had a hard time accepting that the USSR and China were less than perfect, they had pinned all their hopes on them, and were living in a pre-internet age where western media bias went largely uncontested, and western imperial crimes went unpunished.
Cosplay communists may lie (to themselves and others) that they are critical of authoritarian capitalist states that wrap themselves in the hammer and sickle, but still mindlessly regurgitate the narratives of these billionaire oligarch run states like the useful idiots they are. If you’re genuinely left-wing, it can be comforting to think of these people as allies or make excuses for them, but it’s important to realize that they are not. They aren’t actual allies, just contrarian parrots.
To be clear, this comment does not apply to actual communists. Thank you for attending my lecture. There will be no time for questions.
You’re wrong on that. Many MLs are plenty reasonable and mature in general. They’re just misguided. We’re better than these paternalistic insults.
Also, you’re constantly skirting uncomfortably close to ableist insults for this instance. You have to stop painting people you disagree as unintelligent. There’s plenty of other ways to make your point.
Condescending or patronizing. Paternalistic implies benevolent intent, not contempt.
:)
I’m not sure where I got this info. But I think I readonce that even Kropotkin argued for fighting the Kaiser.
Oh I’m mocking modern campists, saying they’d probably support the establishment over a people’s revolution, if they were around back then. Probably should have made that more clear. And you’re right, Kropotkin was one of the signatories of the Manifesto of the Sixteen supporting the Entente.
Yeah, I got that. Just wanted to share trivia. (:
IKR? I’m Antiathoritarian and Anti-Vanguard Party. If the CCP decided to help overthrow Trump, I would accept their help. They would still be next, but I would accept their help.
Let me preface with saying Iran is indeed an authoritarian regime that killed many opposition. But Iran is rightfully anti west . The US and British did a coup and put the the shah instead who killed many people and when Iranians took back control of their country and kicked out the western agents the west retaliated with sanctions .
If the west want to be liked it should stop supporting settler colonialism, it should stop being complicit with multiple conflicts and genocides around the world
Oh, I never implied otherwise, and I agree 100%. But that doesn’t make the government good. It’s possible to be anti west, but not repressive and slaughtering your citizens in the street.
Did you read my first sentence?
Yes, did you read and understand both of mine?
I’d say most here are pretty up to date on the situation in Iran. Though thanks for the recap. To be frank, I don’t care if anyone likes the west. I live here and I don’t. Though thanks for the downvote. 🤟 If you’re reading anything here and getting “please like the west” try again. The United States stole my family’s homes and lands. The United States tortured, starved and persecuted my family. The United States death marched my family cross-continent. Dumped them off in an arid, strange land that they’d never been too before and left them to fend for themselves. Fuck the US historically and trump/Republicans/fascists contemporaneously. Yeah, there’s lots of good reasons to dislike the west and other rigid unanswerable hierarchies of power.
But there’s no excuse to turn against the people when they stand against one those hierarchies, and another hypocritically endorses them. If you do that you’re no ally of the proletariat, just a reactionary and apologist. None of the many horrific things the west has done justifies or excuses what the ayatollah and his zealous security forces are doing. Full stop. Fuck each and every one of these power structures, east or west. I hope that clarifies the sentiment here.
Your first comment made it look like being anti west is objectively always bad due to lack of details as opposed to my comment where my first sentence is about Iran being an autocratic country with human right abuses yet you keep telling me what I already know as if I think Iran is not as what you described
I’d suggests you should take a look again at context clues. I used the term re-actionarily anti-west. As in if the west likes cookies. Therefore I hate cookies. I don’t know if English is not your primary language. I know I would definitely struggle on any secondary languages I know. And if that’s the case, no shade against you. But I was pretty clear that it wasn’t just about being anti-west.
Iran is not re-actionarily anti-west. It always the west who start with escalations against Iran then wonder why Iran hate them back. Opposing Iranian authoritarian and bloody regime is justified complaining about Iran relation with the west is not. The west hide under the facade of human rights to target Iran to sanctions Iran for opposing the terrorist state of Israel and for their right to develop it’s civilians nuclear program and it’s defense program. Where are the sanctions on the state of Israel(not just one or two settlers and one or two ministers), where are the sanctions on the UAE for backing the RSF committing a genocide in Sudan, where are the sanctions on Saudi Arabia for the same exact human right abuses Iran does?
SMH. That was with regards to the posts subject. Not Iran.
Look if you support the Iranian people, we are 100% in agreement. If you reject them because a hypocritical loudmouthed infantile head of state cheered them on because he thinks he might benefit. Then we’ll never agree and should just disengage. Fuck the Sha, fuck the ayatollah. May the Iranian people be the determiners of their own fate.
It’ll be interesting to see the narratives change, if the regime in Iran falls.
I’m not on twitter, but I was reading that a lot of Scottish pro-independence accounts suddenly went quiet, when Iran closed down the internet.
I assume they’ve also infiltrated leftist spaces.
A reminder to always be critical, especially in the age of the hyperreal, where it’s becoming increasingly hard to differentiate reality from its representation through technology and in the media.
Yes, that’s happened with other groups and I would expect no difference here. I remember reading just a few weeks ago about some internet outage over in Europe taking out a large chunk of maga posters and influencers. It’s an attack the United States famously used as well.