tiennamen

not even close, really demolishing your own credibility and claims to have read anything

天安门工厂 is a place, not an event. btw in China it's called "June 4th Incident" and common knowledge, easily findable on Baidu.

The Tiananmen Square ‘Massacre’: The West’s Most Persuasive, Most Pervasive Lie.

NATOPedia claims that cellulose is used now, not cotton

Guncotton was originally made from cotton (as the source of cellulose) but contemporary methods use highly processed cellulose from wood pulp.

[aimixin responds to: What makes a country "socialist"?]

A society where public ownership of the means of production, a state controlled by a politically organized proletariat, and production for societal use rather than for profit is the principal aspect (main body) of the economy.

Key term here is principal aspect. There is a weird phenomenon from both anti-communists as well as a lot of ultraleft and leftcom communists themselves of applying a "one drop rule" to socialism, where socialism is only socialism if it's absolutely pure without a single internal contradiction. But no society in the history of humankind has been pure, they all contain internal contradictions and internal contradictions are necessary for one form of society to develop into the next.

If you applied that same logic to capitalism, then if there was any economic planning or public ownership, then capitalism would cease to be "true capitalism" and become "actually socialism", which is an argument a lot of right-wing libertarians unironically make. The whole "not true capitalism" and "not true socialism" arguments are two sides of the same coin, that is, people weirdly applying an absolute purity standard to a particular economic system which is fundamentally impossible to exist in reality, so they then can declare their preferred system "has never truly been tried". But it will never be tried ever because it's an idealized form which cannot exist in concrete reality, actually-existing capitalism and socialism will always have internal contradictions within itself.

If no idealized form exists and all things contain internal contradictions within themselves, then the only way to define them in a consistent way is not to define them in terms of perfectly and purely matching up to that idealized form, but that description merely becoming the principal aspect in a society filled with other forms and internal contradictions within itself.

A capitalist society introducing some economic planning and public ownership doesn't make it socialist because the principal aspect is still bourgeois rule and production for profit. This would mean the state and institutions carrying out the economic planning would be most influenced by the bourgeoisie and not by the working class, i.e. they would still behave somewhat privately, the "public ownership" would really be bourgeois ownership and the economic planning would be for the benefit of the bourgeoisie first and foremost.

A similar story in a socialist society with markets and private ownership. If you have a society dominated by public ownership and someone decides to open a shop, where do they get the land, the raw materials, permission for that shop, etc? If they get everything from the public sector, then they exist purely by the explicit approval by the public sector, they don't have real autonomy. The business may be internally run privately but would be forced to fit into the public plan due to everything around them demanding it for their survival.

Whatever is the dominant aspect of society will shape the subordinated forms. You have to understand societies as all containing internal contradictions and seeking for what is the dominant form in that society that shapes subordinated forms, rather than through an abstract and impossible to realize idealized version of "true socialism".

Countries like Norway may have things that seemingly contradict capitalism like large social safety nets for workers funded by large amounts of public ownership, but these came as concessions due to the proximity of Nordic countries to the USSR which pressured the bourgeoisie to make concessions with the working class. However, the working class and public ownership and economic planning never became the principal aspect of Norway. The bourgeoisie still remains in control, arguably with a weaker position, but they are still by principal aspect, and in many Nordic countries ever since the dissolution of the USSR, the bourgeoisie has been using that dominant position to roll back concessions.

The argument for China being socialist is not that China has fully achieved some pure, idealized form of socialism, but that China is a DOTP where public ownership alongside the CPC's Five-Year plans remain the principal aspect of the economy and other economic organization is a subordinated form.

Deng Xiaoping Theory is not a rejection of the economic system the Soviets were trying to build but a criticism of the Soviet understanding socialist development. After the Soviets deemed they had sufficient productive forces to transition into socialism, they attempted to transition into a nearly pure socialist society within a very short amount of time, and then declared socialist construction was completed and the next step was to transition towards communism.

Deng Xiaoping Theory instead argues that socialism itself has to be broken up into development stages a bit like how capitalism also has a "lower" and "higher" phase, so does socialism. The initial stage is to the "primary stage" of underdeveloped socialism, and then the main goal of the communist party is to build towards the developed stage of socialism. The CPC disagreed that the Soviets had actually completed their socialist construction and trying to then build towards communism was rushing things far faster than what the level of productive forces of the country could sustain and inevitably would lead to such great internal contradictions in the economic system to halt economic development.

The argument was not a rejection of the Marxist or Marxist-Leninist understanding of what socialism is, but a disagreement over the development stages, viewing socialism's development as much more gradual and a country may remain in the primary stage like China is currently in for a long, long time, Deng Xiaoping speculated even 100 years.

I recall reading somethings from Mao where he criticized the Marxian understanding of communism, but not from the basis of it being wrong, but it being speculative. He made the argument that Marx's detailed analysis of capitalism was only possible because Marx lived in a capitalist society and could see and research its development in real time, therefore Mao was skeptical the current understanding of communism would remain forever, because when you actually try to construct it you would inevitably learn far more than you could speculate about in the future, have a much more detailed understanding of what it is in concrete reality and what its development stages look like.

In a sense, that's the same position the modern CPC takes towards socialism, that the Soviets and Mao rushed into socialism due to geopolitical circumstances and did not have time to actually fully grasp what socialist development would look like in practice, and Deng Xiaoping Theory introduces the concept of the primary stage of socialism based on their experience actually trying to implement it under Mao.

Despite common misconception, the CPC's position is indeed that China is currently socialist, not "will be socialist in 2049" or whatever. The argument is that China is in the primary stage of socialism, a system where socialist aspects of the political and economic system have become the main body but in a very underdeveloped form.

individual consumer choices are not politics. boycotts are a useful tool in concert with an organized political movement (like BDS or a union of striking workers) but can be ultimately counterproductive on their own:

The revolution will not be bought: Ethical consumption is seductive but dangerous to the values ethical consumers seek to promote

In short, a strong belief that ethical consumption will lead to ethical practices is not warranted – purchasing as voting is a weak feedback mechanism at best and there are other actors who are able to influence the system. The danger, however, comes in believing that this mechanism can make substantial political change. Ethical consumption gives the individual the illusion of contributing to progress; of “doing their part” by making purchasing decisions. This illusion can detract, and probably has detracted, from trying to put forward an avowedly political agenda that seeks to mobilise people collectively to make the changes they support. Instead, it individualises ethics, it individualises politics and it reaffirms us as consumers rather than citizens – it is a part of the profit-maximising, pathologically-externalising neoliberal market system that has caused many of the problems ethical consumerism seeks to alleviate, rather than being an alternative.

uncritical support for the 🇰🇵DPRK🇰🇵 in its heroic struggle to liberate occupied Korea from the genocidal American empire

The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit— and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.

There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate— died of malnutrition— because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

"economics" for the last hundred years has just been liberals inventing new ways to ignore the labor theory of value

https://taiyangyu.medium.com/addressing-common-criticisms-of-the-labor-theory-of-value-bdf49281fab

we owned the news

Columbia won't do shit

you've heard of One Piece, get ready for Cod Piece

In 1991, in the context of the destruction of the Soviet Union (Cuba’s largest trading partner), with neighbors salivating at the prospect of capitalist restoration, a Mexican journalist asked Fidel Castro, “why do you not allow the organization of people who think differently, or open up space for political freedom?” He answers frankly:

We’ve endured over thirty years of hostility, over thirty years of war in all its forms — among them the brutal economic blockade that stops us from purchasing a single aspirin in the United States. It’s incredible that when there’s talk of human rights, not a single word is said about the brutal violation this constitutes for the human rights of an entire people, the economic blockade of the United States to impede Cuba’s development. The revolution polarized forces: those who were for it and those who, along with the United States, were against it. And really, I say this with the utmost sincerity, and I believe it’s consistent with the facts on the ground, but while such realities persist, we cannot give the enemy any quarter for them to carry out their historical task of destroying the revolution.

(This implies, for example, that political dissidence will not have a space in Cuba?)

If it’s a pro-Yankee dissidence, it will have no space. But there are many people who think differently in Cuba and are respected. Now, the creation of all the conditions for a party of imperialism? That does not exist, and we will never allow it. [8]

As far as I can tell, on this score, there’s only two main differences between Fidel Castro and Western leadership. The first is that he stands for anti-imperialism and socialism, and they for imperialism and capitalism. And the other is that he’s honest about what Cuba does and why, whereas capitalist states brutally crush communist organization with mass-murder and imprisonment — COINTELPRO, Operation Cóndor, Operation Gladio, etc. — then simply lie about embracing plurality. Just think here about the notion of white North Americans celebrating “Thanksgiving.”

And I tend to think that this is, in the final analysis, the crux of the matter. The question of “free press” and “free speech” is not separable from the question of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie versus the dictatorship of the proletariat. The idea of “political plurality” as such turns out to be the negation of the possibility of achieving any kind of truth in the realm of politics, it reduces all historical and value claims to the rank of mere opinion. And of course, so long as someone’s political convictions are mere opinion, they won’t rise to defend them. And so the liberal state remains the dictatorial organ of the bourgeoisie, with roads being built or legislation being passed only as commanded by the interests of capital, completely disregarding the interests of workers. Under regimes where political plurality is falsely upheld as a supreme virtue, the very notion of asserting oneself as possessing a truth appears aggressive and “authoritarian.”

from https://redsails.org/brainwashing/

not asking the guy who called immigrants "cockroaches" anything