Michael Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism:

The pure (libertarian) socialists’ ideological anticipations remain untainted by existing practice. They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be avoided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priorities set, and production and distribution conducted. Instead, they offer vague statements about how the workers themselves will directly own and control the means of production and will arrive at their own solutions through creative struggle. No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except the ones that succeed.

For the still meme confused: Survivorship bias

(Stolen from @[email protected])

  • davel@lemmygrad.mlOP
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    1 year ago

    Whataboutism is itself a thought-terminating cliché.

    From a logical and argumentative point of view it is considered a variant of the tu-quoque pattern (Latin ‘you too’, term for a counter-accusation), which is a subtype of the ad-hominem argument.

    • sudo22@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Yes. I’m saying what this article is essentially saying. I’m pointing out the whataboutism. Comment OP isn’t countering the accusations against communism, they are saying well what about America bad.

      “Whataboutism or whataboutery (as in “what about…?”) denotes in a pejorative sense a procedure in which a critical question or argument is not answered or discussed, but retorted with a critical counter-question which expresses a counter-accusation”

      • 🏳️‍⚧️ 新星 [she/they]@lemmygrad.ml
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        1 year ago

        I think what they were trying to do was deconstruct what you mean by “authoritarian.” What is an authoritarian country? How can we answer if the West is holding AES (Actually Existing Socialist) countries to a double standard if we can’t even define it?

        • relay@lemmygrad.ml
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          1 year ago

          Authoritarian means that they limit what millionaires and billionaires can get away with.

      • relay@lemmygrad.ml
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        1 year ago

        Instead of saying whataboutism, it would be more constructive to say what you think that particular government is doing wrong and what they can do alternatively to accomplish their goal more ethically.

        If your own government is doing the same thing, perhaps you should do something about it, because you have more agency to change your own government than some government of another country.

      • KiG V2@lemmygrad.ml
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        1 year ago

        The Parenti quote itself tackles the “criticism”

        We can start regurgitating facts about AES at you if you like. Would you like to start on the Holodomor or Xinjiang lmao

        • Parenti Bot@lemmygrad.mlB
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          1 year ago
          The quote

          In the United States, for over a hundred years, the ruling interests tirelessly propagated anticommunism among the populace, until it became more like a religious orthodoxy than a political analysis. During the Cold War, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them. If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.

          – Michael Parenti, Blackshirts And Reds

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