InappropriateEmote

I'm really not sure how even getting Ds in office is going to help anyone except by reducing their moral injury

This is really the important bit, I think. The problem with thinking that a wave of Democratic Party wins in the midterms will impede the harm Trump does is that most of the harm he does has bipartisan support. If it were a wave of genuine anti-Israel Democrats then we might be onto something worth celebrating, but as it is most Democrats are all for sending more money to the Entity so it can wipe out Palestinians. How many of the candidates have expressed that they want to put a stop to the current genocidal policy of starving Cuba to death? (Some of them may well have expressed that, I honestly don't know and would be glad to hear if some did). Even with the candidates who purport to be against sending more "aid" to Israel, for me it is a "believe it when I see it" situation, and even if they were truly and actively anti-genocide, their presence, while a net positive, still doesn't erase the majority pro-genocide ghouls in their party.

With respect to solely domestic issues, Democrats rarely if ever do more than give lip service to progressive policies while standing as a shield against actual grassroots efforts attempting to improve the lives of working people. There is no mechanism in place within the US political system that can actually curtail the kind of harm that president after president after president has inflicted on the world and on most people, working class people, in the US itself.

Just block them and move on.

This really is the best thing to do, yes. Part of the problem is that there was a whole loud clique of them, some of whom I actually did appreciate their analysis on other topics. Fortunately their attempts to silence anyone who didn't buy into their Delcy-5D-chess-theory seems to have significantly diminished now that reality has apparently sunk in, at least for a number of them. But I did block the worst one who was full on harassing me and making it outright impossible to have a conversation especially in the newsmega, the same one who called you a "white supremacist" because you weren't sufficiently sycophantic to a leader selling out her country to imperialism. And judging by the fact I can see a "1 more reply ->" button beneath both mine and your comments, that when clicked doesn't load another comment, I'm guessing it's that same pathetic blocked harasser still throwing a tantrum about this, still attacking me every time I de-lurk to comment. But now that I don't have to read their slander and vitriol, it's actually pretty funny.

Anyway, I appreciate your thoughtful analysis on Venezuela and in general. If it weren't for you and a couple other commenters who would calmly stand up to the polyannish nonsense cohort and offer a more realistic if sobering perspective, I would have ditched the newsmega entirely, which would have sucked because it really is a great resource on the whole.

It was getting downright embarrassing around here how one would get pounced on, told to shut up (literally) and showered with abuse for having the gall to suggest that maybe Delcy Rodriguez didn't have the best interests for the revolution in mind when she was opening up Venezuela to foreign capital (US imperialism) and giving warm compliments to the US president responsible for her predecessors illegal kidnapping and torture. It wasn't possible to have any conversation rooted in dialectics without being told you were an instigator (a word no doubt used to get around the no fed-jacketing rule) non-dialectical anti-materialist, among other worse insults. I would hope those holdouts, are now off sulking in a corner where they belong rather than filling up these threads with their bile and flecks of spittle, maybe even doing some very needed self-crit and learning how to look beyond their own egos and personal desires, but I doubt it.

Though as others have mentioned here, sometimes it still does suck to be right. For all their disgusting abusive behavior, I wish the cope clique had been right, and that Delcy was akshually just hiding her power level and building up the revolution behind the scenes while only putting on an elaborate show for Western imperialism by... readily acceding to all their demands. But no, real materialist analysis predicted this was the most likely trajectory even months ago, and sure enough, here we are.

Assuming it wouldn't be pointing a finger at anyone who doesn't want it, do you know what user(s) here actually live or lived in Venezuela? I would have appreciated a perspective from such a user. Especially because all I remember seeing here is a group of weirdly rabid western leftists who would go apoplectic and froth about how everyone else needed to swallow the same ridiculous cope they were main-lining whenever someone dared to express some worry about what was happening in Venezuela. It looks like those users may finally be sulking silently in the corner (like they should have from the beginning) rather than flinging spittle and bile while accusing others of being "instigators" for having the audacity to question Delcy's genuine commitment to the revolution. The worst one I finally just blocked, something I almost never do, because their abuse was just too over the top, so that one may still be coping and raging and I wouldn't know.

It is deeply regrettable what has happened and is happening with Venezuela, that's an understatement. But if we can finally actually talk about it honestly here again without having to defend ourselves against being dogpiled by the Panglossian Posse, I would be grateful at least for that much.

...continued.

Mao is famous for telling people to shut up if they don't know what they are talking about.

Oh, and you're Mao now, on top of being an omniscient telepath? Why haven't you led the world revolution yet? Seriously, do you genuinely not see how fucking cringy arrogant it is to say something like that? Hexbear is not a vanguard party fighting in an active revolution. More importantly, no one fucking elected you as arbiter of truth and get to say which other comrades knows what they're talking about and who doesn't. You may notice that the people you keep telling to shut up never say the same to you. Why do you think there is that asymmetry? Is it because you are infallible and therefore get to judge who deserves to speak and who doesn't? Or is it that the people you are always trying to silence actually recognize they aren't infallible and shouldn't be able to tell you to shut up just for being the other side of a dialectical disagreement? Your lack of self-awareness is really something else, and in my experience, those who lack self awareness tend to be the least equipped to engage in real material analysis. But I never once told you to shut the fuck up for posting your "analysis," the way I have been repeatedly told to shut up for saying that I don't want people who I know are comrades to be silenced for having a dissenting opinion.

After months of asking people what evidence they have for their positions and being ignored with our own evidence,

I've barely been around the last few months because you were already getting too cliquey, hostile, and asinine for me to want to stick around. But before I left, I saw tons of great responses to your polyannish, myopic views of geopolitical events. I saw evidence presented to you and I saw you reject it outright because it didn't line up with your faith. So I am confident that's what has continued to happen these last couple months, you just refuse to recognize it because it pokes holes in your uh "analysis."

And since you are all parroting imperialist and white supremacist positions that only result in dead Venezuelans, the utter disgust you deserve in holding such positions warrants no kindness or civility.

FUCK YOU. I generally am cordial even with those I strongly disagree with if they're comrades, but this is beyond the pale. I work with, sometimes live with families from South America and other global south countries irl in an uphill battle to try to help keep them safe FROM white supremacists, and their unambiguous gratitude is something I'm more proud to have than just about anything else in my life. So you can FUCK RIGHT OFF with telling me I'm "parroting white supremacists" bullshit. I have never in my fucking life, even before learning about Marxism and anti-imperialism done such a thing. Shame on you for sinking that fucking low, you slanderous petty little shit. I hope more people read this and see what a grotesque slimeball you are, and the kind of heinous shit you're willing to heap onto comrades because they dared to disagree with your majesty. Spit. I'm not going to read the rest of your comment, you've demonstrated the kind of vindictive and egotistical liar you really are, worse than I had even realized. Shooting down your spiteful venomous lies isn't worth my time, and anyone with an interest in truth can already readily see this for what it is.

This goes to show you are just an instigator.

Oh fuck off, I have never "instigated" shit. I lurked on the newsmega, speaking up a few times only to defend comrades with sensible analysis getting bullied for having an opinion different than yours, people being hounded for having the audacity to say that the leadership running Venezuela now may be making terrible mistakes. And after that, I fucking left. I barely read it now even though it used to be an enjoyable part of my daily routine. I'm sure you'll celebrate that though, because that's your intent, to drive out any dissent so that you can have an echo chamber where everyone falls in line with how you say things are, period. And yet you call me the instigator? Yeah, you can fuck right off.

Myself and plenty of others have very directly explained and discussed this topic for months, with no hostility.

Maybe so! But if you haven't been dishing out hostility like you used to (which I doubt) it's only because you were successful at driving out anyone who dared question your omniscience. I check in from time to time, see the same garbage being spewed, and go back to reading the news on the rest of HB or other ML news sources that aren't infected with a panglossian clique. But there certainly was plenty of hostility from you. It's why I spoke up months ago, as seen in my account history, and why I left. But again, I doubt that it's true there has been no hostility, it's possible, but I certainly don't trust you to tell the truth, considering the falsehoods you're saying even in the comment I'm responding to now.

Our points are ignored, as well as our questions of how firmly cemented opposing positions are justified, like smugly suggesting an entire movement of millions of people is "dead," a term used over and over

I never said any such thing, and I'm suspicious about your claim that someone else did, but maybe so. I definite would not say it's dead but I would say it is being threatened not just by the imperialist US but also by the capitulation of its leadership to the imperialists. But you can keep going and lying about what people are saying, it doesn't actually help your position the way you think it does.

about these actual people who actually have to deal with what is going on, yet you have the audacity to call us smug for pushing back against people claiming chavistas are not actual revolutionaries.

You're just going to make a long list of my supposed crimes and none of them are going to remotely resemble reality, aren't you? It seems clear all you can do is lie when called out on your bullshit. It's pathetic.

Why are you lot allowed to declare millions of people actively in an ongoing struggle as not revolutionary enough

First of all, unlike you, I am not a member of any "you lot," I spoke up to try to curb what I saw as a nasty current in the newsmega that was ruining a community I enjoyed being a part of from the sidelines. Unlike you, I am not part of a group that is trying to police the kind of analysis that is allowed in the newsmega, I'm not the one dedicated to stamping out any analysis that dares to include the fact that even socialist states are not perfect and pristine and always know exactly the right thing to do in a hostile, complex, and ever-changing world. So I guess I am part of a group if being part of that group just means remembering what happened in the early 1990s and having concerns that something similar is within the realm of possibility. And see, that's another part of it, I freely admit that I don't know for sure what's going to happen but I refuse to rule out negative possibilities like those of you who insist that all of this is absolutely for the best which is an undeniable fact that is beyond questioning and any questioning is actually doing an imperialism. Massive eye roll.

As for the ongoing struggle of millions of people, it is literally my uncritical support of them and a desire to act in solidarity with them as best I can that leads me to have fears regarding what their leadership is doing, which to me and other principled communists (some of whom are in this thread as well), it sure as hell looks a lot like betrayal.

but clutch pearls when we point out you are not only ignorant as fuck but also showing your complete lack of understanding of the very foundation of Marxist analysis?

And there it is, that's your typical bullshit. There has been excellent analysis not from me, but from others who do not toe your line, those who come to mind are @InexplicableLunchFiend@hexbear.net and @Leegh@hexbear.net. But in response to their analysis, your first reaction is to screech things like how they're "ignorant as fuck" and unlike you aren't real Marxists. You're so full of shit with all your whining and fit throwing about the supposed "pearl clutching" of people who don't think you actually know as much as you pretend to. "If you don't agree with my analysis [which depends on knowing the minds of the post-Maduro Venezuelan leadership] then you completely lack understanding of the foundation of Marxism!" You say that to people who have been reading Marxist theory for more than two decades and applying it in the real world through organizational work, community building, and direct aid to families who need it, but your reasoning for telling any Marxist who disagrees with you that they're not real Marxists like you are, always just comes down to you somehow knowing the inner machinations of Venezuelian leadership, and lying, as you have throughout your comments to me. When you do that, you're trying to con us into accepting you're telepathic, and calling it analysis - analysis that can't be argued with. It's not analysis when you're being a petty tantrum-throwing crybaby because others dared to disagree with your magically unimpeachable conclusions. I'd say trying to reason with you is just as bad as trying to get through to a dyed in the wool liberal but it's actually worse because you should know better.

You are really going to cast stones on an entire nation and then cry when you get called out?

More of your bullshit and lies. Making up absolutely absurd accusations to throw at your detractors. Yeah, I'm "casting stones on an entire nation." Wut. It would be laughable if it weren't so aggravating. I never "cast stones on an entire nation," well... not Venezuela anyway, and neither did anyone else you're trying to bury in your bullshit accusations. THINKING THAT WHAT IS HAPPENING, WHAT HAS HAPPENED SINCE THE KIDNAPPING OF THE HEAD OF STATE AND THE FOLLOWING CAPITULATION WITH THE US IS NOT IN THE BEST INTEREST OF VENEZUELA AS AN ANTI-IMPERIALIST COUNTRY is nothing at all like the lies you're accusing me of. And for the record, I wasn't even "called out," I spoke up in defense of others that you and your clique were constantly shitting on.

It is you all who claim to know delcy is a comprador, despite there not being any validity to the claim. You are a hypocrite, plain and simple, assuming you know the inner motivations of a person you just heard about for the first time.

Ok, show me anywhere, anywhere where I claimed to know her inner motivations. You can't, because I never did. I'm not the one whose understanding and "analysis" of the situation heavily relies on faith that Delcy and the current Venezuelan leadership can do no wrong and are masterful 5D chess players whose moves you alone can magically see for what they are. I never even called her a comprador, but I committed the evil crime of considering the possibility she might be, oh no! She may or may not be, I honestly don't know, but I do know it really isn't looking good. We're half way through the looking like, walking like, and quacking like phase, so I am fine with saying that yes, I am worried that it might be a duck.

No, this is what we are pushing back against. It is you all who claim to know delcy is a comprador, despite there not being any validity to the claim. You are a hypocrite, plain and simple, assuming you know the inner motivations of a person you just heard about for the first time.

So you're really just going to flat out do the "every accusation a confession" thing, I see. Bad look on a supposed principled communist. I speak for no one else, but personally I never once pretended to know what Delcy's inner, private motivations are and it's an absurd thing to say that I did. To the contrary, I openly admit I do not know what is going on in her head, if she is knowingly selling her country out, or if she genuinely thinks that she's saving the movement. I go by her actions, which include unnecessarily praising the president of the country that kidnapped her president and murdered some of her comrades, opening up to western capital, and as the title of this OP states, talking about "transitioning fully to democracy." My position is entirely based on what has actually happened and unlike yours, does not rely on pretending to know her mind. So no, the hypocrite is clearly you, who has to invent secret inner motivations to preserve your cope that all of this complicity and kowtowing to the US is somehow obviously done for the benefit of Venezuela.

Same, for the most part, but I will qualify that by adding: while I don't care that they have opinions I think are wrong, I do care about their smug relentless ridiculing of anyone who doesn't agree with them, because that behavior has a real silencing effect on the kind of discussions that can be had, especially in the newsmega. They have this obnoxious air of superiority and insistence that only they are capable of doing material analysis, and only they know the minds of Delcy and any other leader of any state or movement that is the target of imperialism.

Their response to anyone unhappy with Venezuela's "opening up" or the transition to "full democracy" isn't to simply disagree and have a dialectical back and forth, it's to tell you literally to shut up, as seen multiple times even in this thread. If you express any doubt that what is happening with Venezuela is totally good and all part of the socialist plan, then you are shamed and shouted down as being a stupid western lib ultra who doesn't understand the 5D chess that Delcy is playing. You'll even be accused of secretly wanting to see all Venezuelans get killed in a futile attempt to defy the US. And not just in whatever thread the discussion is happening, but in snide remarks in completely unrelated threads. I remember one comment using the emote to equate the people in the newsmega concerned about Venezuela with Zionists. It would be nice to just say I don't care that they're wrong, but in reality I sure as fuck don't want to stick around somewhere where I'm compared to a Zionist because I think it's possible for a socialist state to make an error. And I know I'm not the only one, because as @purpleworm@hexbear.net also pointed out, we've lost a number of people who used to push back against their smug superiority, people who made important contributions to the discussions and added unique non-western perspectives in the newsmega. And I do care about that.

I'd say our lack of experience entirely disqualifies any of us from having any real kind of opinion on this.

Then why the hell do you get to be the one to tell others to shut up and stop complaining? If none of us know, then neither do you.

If you really do think that literally all of us should just "shut up and listen" without pushing your own opinion (an insistence that everything happening is obviously great and for the best) as the only Correct and True Materialist Analysis, then you are in the minority of the clique that usually tells anyone concerned about what's happening in and with Venezuela that they're ignorant ultras, or worse.

Literally just shut up, stop complaining, and listen

Yes, that's the exact attitude I was referring to, what has turned the newsmega from once a great source into being completely unendurable. A clique of pollyannas and panglossians. "Shut up and stop complaining. Oh and listen to chavistas[sic], but really just listen to us, because we know exactly what all of them say because they're a monolith and agree with our analysis, and are all universally happy about how things have gone down in their country. What, you disagree? You must want them all to get shot and bombed, you doomer ultra!"

And look at the kind of responses this post got only a few hours ago: https://hexbear.net/post/9624864

It sadly seems to be the consensus for a vocal cohort in the newsmega: https://hexbear.net/comment/7483074

If anyone says anything except that Delcy is doing right by Venzuela, just carrying on in the face of imperialism and doing what Maduro would have if he could have, they get labeled an idealist ultra who can't understand material analysis, or a doomer without any revolutionary optimism. I've lamented it in the past.

You know this site has been referring to him as "our Big Wet Boy" for years, right? Have you seen the emojis?
and so on and so forth.

What really doesn't belong here is your unwarranted hostility.