OBJECTION!

I said it’s not liberation but gradually better for sure.

That was not at all clear from your comment.

I have the impression that you read alot into my short comment.

You read in that I treat Marx as a religious text just from me citing him in one comment.

Just because a country doesn’t bomb others doesn’t make it not bad.

This meme doesn’t call China bad, it calls it “imperialist.”

Again, do you get that people are less likely to engage with you when you start the convention by insulting them?

Forgive me if I don’t have a lot of patience for opposing Palestinian statehood without a very good reason.

One basic argument is that structures of power will reproduce themselves.

This is exactly what I’m talking about. You’re not engaging with the arguments and you’re not looking at the material conditions, it’s purely this knee-jerk ideological opposition to states in general, with zero analysis beyond that. You don’t see a problem with that?

Palestinians do not need to be the forefront of some anarchist experiment that they have no desire to be a part of. If they were brought to a similar system to what virtually everyone lives under, it would be a massive improvement in their lives.

Furthermore, while a culture is suffering under the boot of colonialism, it is very hard for it to progress or change internally because there is such a powerful external threat, and any proposed changes will be seen as being imposed from the outside. There have been plenty of states where decolonization has produced real material improvements in people’s lives, in spite of your knee-jerk opposition to states. Can you really look at modern Ireland and say that it’s no different than when the English were starving them because they still have a state?

Imagine if someone’s chained up in your basement begging to be released into the world and you’re like, “You don’t wanna go out there, you’d have to get a job and jobs suck, you’d have a boss which would essentially recreate the structures of power that are constraining you right now. Let’s focus on creating an anarchist system first.” They’re not gonna give a shit about that, they’re only going to be thinking of how to get out. It’s the same way with colonized people, the first priority should be ending colonialism and engaging with them on equal footing before considering these demands about how the resulting system has to be ideologically pure.

Sure.

If you have criticisms of Marx’s arguments and analysis regarding the national question, then let’s hear them. But if it’s just gonna be, “it’s bad because states are bad,” I could get that from a damn an-cap.

Why am I not surprised that that’s the only thing you take away from my comment?

Sorry, what else did you say that was worth responding to?

You use “theory” synonymous with “Marx”

No I fucking don’t. I cited Marx because Marx is one theorist. If I cited Lenin, you’d be accusing me of treating “theory” as synonymous with “Lenin,” if I cited someone like Fanon, same shit.

I’m so fucking sick of you libs acting like this. Like citing a source makes me some kind of religious fanatic. You don’t see me accusing you of worshipping David Graeber or saying that you “treat him as synonymous with theory.” What is it about citing Marx that makes it “holy scripture” but citing Graeber isn’t?

But more than that I’m sick of you lot taking pride in your ignorance and anti-intellectualism. No different than a MAGA chud. You’re not hostile to me because I only read Marx, because I don’t only read Marx and even if I did, there’s not a single thing I’ve said that would indicate that. You’re hostile to me for reading Marx at all. You act like it’s some kind of heretical text that corrupts the minds of all that read it. Or at least, you pretend to, because by lobbing accusations like that, you can avoid any sort of informed, intellectual discussion, and conceal the fact that you don’t know shit about ass.

So congrats, you’ve sufficiently derailed the conversation to cover your ignorance, like y’all always do. Tankies are the only people on earth capable of intelligent, educated discussions because we do the fucking homework and no one else does.

Literally can’t cite any leftist author on anything ever without people jumping down my throat with this “holy scripture” crap.

You should study Marx regardless of your own beliefs and ideology if for no other reason than how much his ideas have shaped history. You can disagree with him all you like, contrary to what you instantly jump to whenever anyone quotes him on anything, I don’t consider Marx or anybody else “holy scripture” and I’m more than happy to listen to critiques, and make them myself. But you should have a basic familiarity with what he believed and the basic outlines of historical arguments regarding the National Question before dropping uninformed takes and declaring everyone else as wrong. Otherwise, you’re doing the political equivalent of someone who never studied physics declaring that they’ve invented a perpetual motion machine.

I’m begging liberals to either read theory, study actual material conditions, or just use basic common sense instead of relying exclusively on libertarian brainworms and propaganda.

It is historically impossible for a great people even to discuss internal problems of any kind seriously, as long as it lacks national independence.

An international movement of the proletariat is possible only among independent nations.

So long as Poland is partitioned and subjugated, therefore, neither a strong socialist party can develop in the country itself, nor can there arise real international intercourse between the proletarian parties in Germany, etc, with other than émigré Poles. Every Polish peasant or worker who wakes up from the general gloom and participates in the common interest, encounters first the fact of national subjugation. This fact is in his way everywhere as the first barrier. To remove it is the basic condition of every healthy and free development. Polish socialists who do not place the liberation of their country at the head of their programme, appear to me as would German socialists who do not demand first and foremost repeal of the socialist law, freedom of the press, association and assembly. In order to be able to fight one needs first a soil to stand on, air, light and space. Otherwise all is idle chatter.

• Karl Marx

lol STOP lmao STOP

It’s also how they get you to start using it. Accept the 0% interest loan, now the app is on your phone, now you’re seeing options for lower monthly payments, now you’re thinking about what you could afford with the app as opposed to what you have right now.

I bought an escooter through one of those apps and paid 0% interest, so it worked out for me, but you have to be careful about it.

Par for the course.

I grew up in the South hearing all about the evil big government yankees destroying our culture and way of life (“an entire civilization, Gone With the Wind”), trying to force everybody to obey the central authority in Washington - nevermind how the states treated people, that’s their business, we don’t need big government coming in and “meddling in our affairs.” The labor conditions in the factories up north were pretty bad too, so “both sides.”

Take all those arguments, go to the other side of the world, and couch them in leftist terminology like “imperialism” and “colonialism,” and you’ve got liberals with Tibet. Can’t talk sense into them anymore than you can talk sense into a redneck whining about Lost Cause shit. Keep people in chains and call anyone who tries to break those chains an authoritarian, as if the “rights” of states to oppress people matter more than rights of people to be free. It’s literally the exact same playbook.

“Tankie” is just how “big government liberal” translates to a different demographic.

May you someday get over the loss of your favorite slavers.

Moving the goalposts. What you said was:

Right a power drawing a line on a map claiming land and then enforcing that claim via violence totally isn’t colonialism.

“Switzerland” is just some lines drawn on a map enforced via violence. So is “France.” So is literally every country.

Why would the line have to include territory that was part of another country? That’s not what you said, nor is it what China did.

As I said, Tibet had already been a part of China for 200 years. It broke away much like the Confederacy broke away from the US, and like the US, China reasserted control and freed the people from slavery.

And no need to say it, it’s the obvious conclusion to your points. Just gotta step away from the boot.

You’re not asking me to step away from any boot, you’re asking me to lick the boots of authoritarian slaver theocrats.

Oh right the old everyone kills their neighbors defense so all genocide is a-ok.

Not even remotely close to what I said.

Feels like you are finally admitting to the imperialism at least

Not even remotely close to what I said.

“States existing” is neither imperialism nor colonialism lmao. Is Switzerland imperialist?

Yeah no, I hold the modern world to a higher standard than that sorry.

A higher standard than could theoretically exist, yes you do. By setting a standard that’s completely impossible for any state to achieve, you can “both sides” anything.

Right a power drawing a line on a map claiming land and then enforcing that claim via violence totally isn’t colonialism.

That’s every state that has ever existed or could theoretically exist, lol. That’s not what colonialism is.

I don’t defend the brutalization of indeginious populations, you do for some odd reason.

The only people who’s “brutalization” I’m defending are slaver theocrats, who’s authoritarian boots you’re licking. The indigenous population was being brutalized before, and fared much better after the revolution.

They didn’t “annex” Tibet because Tibet had already been a part of China for the past 200 years. That’s like calling the Civil War “colonialism” because the Union “annexed” the Confederacy.

This shit about Native Americans is pure projection. Native languages are in danger, in a way the Tibetan language is not and never has been. All you’re doing is taking something the West did and saying, “Well China must have done this too” with nothing to back it up.

100% of the people in a country

Citation really fucking needed lmao.

“”“a country”“” here meaning about 5% of the people in a country.

Lol none of those things are remotely true. Tibetans are free to practice Buddhism and the vast majority speak their own language, as they were taught in public schools. If anything, there are almost certainly more people fluent than there were when the lamas were in charge, the serfs weren’t exactly taught to read and write in any language.

Maybe we strive to support counties that don’t turn people into bone piles or slaves?

That’s a good thought, you should try it sometime. Which makes me wonder, again, why you’re still bearing a grudge over a slaver theocracy being ended 70 years ago.

I’ll keep it simple not defending China’s genocide is not supporting the US.

The US is not what I’m referring to with “slaver theocracy.” I know all y’all are ignorant of history, but can you really be that ignorant?

I refuse to engage with your rampant denial of facts and support of authoritarianism.

No human being deserves to live under a boot

Well, unless that boot belongs to a lama, apparently. Then they’re allowed to force you to work in chains until you die at 30 and anyone who tries to do anything about it, you’ll denounce as an “imperialist” and accuse of “murder” and “genocide.” Then you suddenly become perfectly fine with authoritarianism and think people should live under that lama’s boot forever.

I don’t care which boot smells better

Complete lie, you love this flavor of boot:

Is murder

Murder? Of slave owners? Yeah, that is often required for freedom. Do slavers really count as human enough for it to count as murder? Self-defense at worst.

and genocide

What “genocide” would that be?

Anyway take that boot and shove it up your ass until something pops

Right back at you, I’m not the one defending a slaver theocracy.