Anti-Imperialism

We need to discuss the current state of anti-imperialist discourse.

See, there used to be a time when anti-imperialism was interwoven with leftist ideologies, mainly Marxism-Leninism. People who supported anti-imperialism usually did so on the basis of their anti-capitalism, with a certain degree of intellectual clarity and political command. Many anti-imperialist struggles of the Cold War era from Vietnam to Palestine were informed partly or in whole by the writings of Lenin, Che or Mao — and so were their supporters at home and abroad.

Then the Soviet Union collapsed and other state socialist regimes turned towards market reforms. Trade unions declined and left-wing parties turned towards social-democracy or neoliberalism. Class struggle subsided and militants turned towards political niches. It was a huge blow to the Left; its ability to produce and circulate proper theory obviously suffered greatly in the process.

That's when people outraged by the US military and NATO forces fucking shit up all over the globe could no longer turn to a coherent theoretical framework offering a materialist explanation for why this was happening. Instead, they had to rely on material haphazardly collected from magazines, political pamphlets or the Internet — many of which have nothing to do with social emancipation.

What's that? Conspiracy theories about Jews or globalists starting wars to achieve world domination. Media outlets peddling obvious Serbian or Iranian state propaganda. Backwards Islamists branding themselves as liberators opposed to Western decadence on social media. Crypto-Fascist cults using anti-imperialist jargon as a cover for their ethno-nationalist metapolitics. In short, anti-imperialism reduced to memes divorced from actual anti-capitalism and class struggle.

There's been a trend among leftists lately that consists in shutting down any and all critical assessment of contemporary anti-imperialism as the work of a shill, COINTELPRO, controlled opposition — whatever epithet fits the situation best. The reality is that leaving the state of anti-imperialist reasoning and rhetoric unexamined only allows our enemies not only to seize it for their own purposes, but even to use uneducated leftists as a vessel to further popularize them.

By allowing vulgar anti-imperialism to flourish unquestioned, we are leading rightfully upset people into the arms of the reaction.

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Other urls found in this thread:

la.utexas.edu/users/chenry/pmena/coursemats/2009/batatu-4326249.pdf
sci-hub.tw/10.1080/00263208408700577
sci-hub.tw/10.1080/00263208908700793
sci-hub.tw/https://www.jstor.org/stable/4326249?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
libgen.io/book/index.php?md5=25D692F207FB241B780BB56CAD37EA8B
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

I haven't seen many of these vulgar imperialists, as they are described here, posting in here.

Probably because modern leftists don't consider anything to be wrong with neoliberal imperialism as opposed to traditional imperialism. Let's back this up and just say that anti-imperialism means criticism of globalization as it has been done since 1991, because globalization since 1991 has largely been imperialist in nature. When the argument is framed like that most leftists refuse to criticize the existing system at all because they believe in it because they believe that humanity's inevitable future is the brown racemixed mass of college educated cosmopolitans meaning the only critics of their system is Zig Forums. This is why organized leftist parties and academics have no opinion on the middle east, because Islamic extremism is another form of criticism of imperialism but one which their worldview does not allow them to criticize.

This also pertains to a simpler paradox: many leftists own brand name iphones because they like how Tim Cook came out as gay, yet don't care about the conditions of the workers who created the phone in the first place and consider their plight to be unimportant except when discussing trade protectionism (a thing which threatens imperialism) in which case those workers become more important than domestic ones in America or the west.

Of course this all happens due to capitalist programming, which won't wear off until enough percentage of the population has been fucked over by student loans where they cannot participate in capitalism.

People literally get banned for being critical of Assad or Shia Islamism, mate.

What the hell does your comment have to do with the subject? It's obvious you just wanted to vent about liberals, tbh. Libs are not "leftists" and I didn't even factor them in the opening post.

...

If our enemies all become anti-imperialists then we've won you dipshit

anyway fuck off state department

wasn't this thread already posted

What if a Communist Country behaves imperialist? For instance annecting other countrys to free them from the chains of capitalism or as an intervention to prevent barbaric inhumanity and so on. Is imperialism inherently bad or just when Capitalists or Fascists do it? have'nt read Lenin so don't be to harsh if I missed something here>>2511927

If a nation-state in which a communist revolution took place seek to expand its revolutionary activities in neighboring countries on behalf of and in collaboration with the local working class, I don't think that would qualify as imperialist because the point isn't to amass capital or influence but to spread revolution.

I don't get your point. What would we "win" if "all our enemies" (?) went "anti-imperialist"…?

It has no use after the collapse of Soviet Union and the cold war. Its just propaganda to make 3rd world countries to align with Soviet Union.

You raise a good point OP, it's something which has been bothering me aswell. Anti-imperialist struggles which aren't explicitly socialist in nature are still worth supporting but one has to properly check how anti-imperialist it actually is and if they're not too reactionary. And if they're not socialist but worth supporting we shouldn't delude ourselves by talking about how Ba'athism is socialism or Iran is a "proletarian state" (actually saw someone say this)
For example, the Comintern supported the KMT for a while, but they never believed they were socialist.


Yugofags with the terrible takes as usual.

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This doesn't make any sense

Lenin says socialist countries can't be imperialist by definition

Assad is not a "backwards islamist".

I haven't seen other than pol falseflags.
The IRI is supported only in the context of their opposition to reactionary salafism and American imperialism in the region.


Imperialism is the highest stage of Capitalism. It's not when a country uses their military, it's a series of economic, and often military, policies of foreign domination and wealth accumulation.>>2511988

The main problem is that the vast majority of people on the "left" seem to have no idea what imperialism is or what it entails. It's often:

That user never said Assad was islamist. He certainly is dictatorial, an alawite supremacist and a neoliberal (he was a darling of the western press in the early 2000s until the Civil War thing broke out. he was "liberalizing" the economy and those neoliberal reforms are partly responsible for cauisng the civil war)

Was one of the points raised in the OP.

Liberal talking point.

Contentious.

I don't like this particular buzzword, but he was liberalizing Syria as a matter of fact, but never to the point where it advanced Syrian capitalism to the point they themselves could become imperialists.


I think they'd get shitposted endlessly for it if Zig Forums was around back then.

He was obviously referring to literal Islamists like Al Qaeda
dictatorship doesn't have to be good or bad, but it's a perfect description of what modern syria is. perhaps "authoritarian" is a better word. you can't deny that dictatorial methods are used. Have you ever heard of Hama massacre? How Assad was subcontracted by the CIA to torture islamists and such?
how is that contentious? the alawite has a monopoly on the military since the French colonial establishment recruited them for these positions. They used their monopoly on military force to capture the state and are the movers and shakers. Yes they have won the collaboration of other minorities and sunnis who have gotten economic kickback for collaboration but your delusional if you don't understand that this is one of the main constants in modern syrian history.
What submitting to IMF and World Bank strictures is to offensive to your narrative? Who cares to what extent he adopted it, Assad embraced neoliberal reforms and those reforms accelerated the contradictions of his regime and was the main factor in civil war.

sources BTW:
Hanna Batatu- Some Observations on the Social Roots of Syria’s Ruling Military Group and the Causes for Its Dominance (1981)
la.utexas.edu/users/chenry/pmena/coursemats/2009/batatu-4326249.pdf
Mahmud Faksh- The Alawi Community of Syria: A New Dominant Political Force (1984)
sci-hub.tw/10.1080/00263208408700577
Daniel Pipes- The Alawi Capture of Power in Syria (1989)
sci-hub.tw/10.1080/00263208908700793

working link of batatu
sci-hub.tw/https://www.jstor.org/stable/4326249?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

and finally a book

Nikolaos van Dam- The Struggle for Power in Syria: Politics and Society under Asad and the Ba’th Party
libgen.io/book/index.php?md5=25D692F207FB241B780BB56CAD37EA8B
description from libgen

Uh? I never said that. His secularism is pretty much his best quality.

I was banned a few days ago for being critical of the Hezbollah.

ITT: Support America in their struggle against backwards ME shitskins' imperialism

Imperialism will always be worse than anti-imperialism, that's just a fact. Even the wildest bourgeois fantasies about the "Assad rayjeem" can't compare to what NATO does in one week.

At no point in the OP do I lump Assad and Islamists together. You're deliberately misreading my arguments.
I sincerely hope edgelords who like to shriek "lmao freedom isn't real you goddamn liberal" at every occasion end up sent to a labour camp or shot by a death squad.
Alawite domination of the government is a fact. And it's an obvious problem.

False dichotomy.

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What point are you even trying to make? Nobody here is defending imperialism.

complaining about anti-imperialism is what the fascist ruling class does to smear communists

litany on the American Civil War. While they insult the free states of the North, they anxiously defend
themselves against the suspicion of sympathising with the slave states of the South. In fact, they
continually write two articles: one article, in which they attack the North, and another article, in which
they excuse their attacks on the North.
t. Karl Marx

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fugg didn't mean to post image pls ignore it

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idiots are out in full force today

Hand wringing over how far is too far on anti imperialism is stupid and only matters for people with platforms in the mainstream who have something to lose by offending the wrong crowd. They want to be seen as radicals by opposing the endless war machine but not so much they lose credibility by offending liberal sentiments like being opposed to muh dictators, who coincidentally have come to embody their entire government and country.

At which point did I defend the status quo?

This is the shit that pisses me off the most about "anti imperialists" is that as soon as people start critiquing their darlings then suddenly they have to act like everyone is the MSM except them and there is no socialist discourse. It's just flat dishonest and it's not tricking anyone except maybe themselves.

I just want the American empire and its proxies to be destroyed. Global communism can wait until we have a multipolar system. Honestly I don't know why we are having these discussions considering that R*java isn't a thing anymore.

How Does It Feel Like That The Damage Is Already Done?

… But we already have a multipolar system.

What did he mean by this?

How have you people not been banned yet?

BO is too busy sucking tranny cock

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They do so because they're brainlets. They're not willing to do the reading and critical thinking to be a principled leftist so they think if they mindlessly parrot the slogan of "anti-imperialism" to prove their credentials.

kys you sanctimonious cunt