What should be done about the Donestk and Luhansk People’s Republics?

Oh then in that case I agree!

Communists have, that’s why the rise of the USSR forced western countries to adopt large safety nets, and why the PRC is so heavily demonized.

This one. The US Empire cut Korea in half, made the government the Koreans were forming for themselves, the PRK, illegal, then placed compradors from the time of Japanese colonialism in power in the new millitary dictatorship they installed. The US millitary retains a permanent presence, slaughtered countless Koreans on both sides of the parallel, and the US Empire treats it as a millitary base. The comprador government used forced prostitution to service the US millitary.

You’re also on Lemmy.ml, don’t be surprised when .ml users are on Lemmy.ml communities.

The foundations do not exist within the ROK, but the spirit of resistance common to Korean history over the last century and a half. The ROK as a permanently colonized millitary base for the US Empire, where the former compradors for Japanese colonialism were given high positions of power in the new ROK government after dissolving the PRK, results in extreme tension, instability, and heightened contradictions.

The US Empire must leave the peninsula.

Ah, gotcha.

The ROK is deeply anti-democratic, and is run by 3 companies in a trenchcoat and the families that own them, called 재벌 (chaebol). That said, the ROK has a history of strong, fierce struggle as a result of such a striated society, meaning despite having many dictators, many of these are actually punished for their crimes, or are coup’d. What the west can learn from the ROK isn’t the idea of “democracy,” such can be learnt better from countries like Cuba or China, but instead the fierce resistance of the working classes in their constant struggle for better.

He tried to stage a false flag attack from the DPRK to spark war and solidify his power. This is absolutely the right decision.

Thanks! 🫡

Correct.

Good lord man. I’m not having a philosophical discussion about idealism and materialism.

But we are. We are specifically talking about ideology, how it relates to the PRC, and your own thought process.

I’m not religious and I don’t believe in the supernatural, if you need to know. I’m by training and engineer, physicist and mathematician.

And yet you use supernatural explanation by treating phenomena as unknowable, ie not a part of the material realm, and appeal to a vague “human spirit.”

I also don’t believe that any ideological system can approach perfection, and I’m pragmatic enough to understand that if you believe that, it is borderline delusional.

This is what I mean. You are appealing to the idea that no ideology can correctly understand the world and help us understand it better. Your own ideology is idealist.

I don’t think China has a perfect society and I expect I would not be happy there. I’m perfectly happy here with 3 kids, my pets, my wife (who owns a small business), a modest house and a family cottage, on a decent salaried job, in a country with a reasonable approximation of universal health care (I wish it were better), that makes attempts at regulating the excesses of capitalism with social programs and government oversight, that gives some freedoms in respect of rights, that values individual liberty and doesn’t get in your business on everything, that doesn’t overwhelmingly exert its will outside of its territory, that allows me to build a small consulting business and occasionally rent our cottage, that has a proud military history of which I have taken a small part, that is open to immigrants and ranks very high on multiculturalism and low on racism, that has enormous economic potential with one of the most educated populations in the world, that ranks highly in press freedom, democracy and economic mobility.

You live in an imperialist settler-colony as a well-off person married to a business owner. Your own class outlook is forcing you to see the world through a specific lense, and is pushing you towards idealism. You’re a labor aristocrat married to a petite bourgeois, and an occasional landlord.

My country has problems, but you’re not going to convince me that I’d be better off under a government like China, or a Marxist ideal, even if I thought it would be possible to change this country without enormous violent upheaval in which, very likely, members of my family or friends would suffer and die.

You probably wouldn’t be better off, personally, but the global south would be better off without Canada imperializing it of its surplus value and resources. Your class interest has made you hostile to working class, internationalist perspectives. This is your own, idealist philosophy.

And as I’ve tried to say since my very first words on this topic, you’re not going to convince me that a government organized according to Marxist thought will be - unlike every other human organization in history (that is, not ideal, but in practice and based on historical evidence and experience) - somehow a utopia that is incapable of oppressing people or attempting to exert its will on others who do not consent to it.

I have never said Marxists cannot oppress people, just that Marxism-Leninism is anti-imperialist, and that fighting imperialists is a good thing. Landlords, the bourgeoisie, etc would be oppressed by Marxist governments as their property is collectivized.

Having said all of that, my claims are clear. What is your objective in this discussion? Of what are you trying to convince me?

I suppose I am trying to convince you to become a class traitor and side with the working classes, or highlight for other working class folks the flaws in idealist thinking that you display.

The economic size and success of China means you should probably try to see why they do what they do. As for the book, no, idealism is the belief in supernatural explanations for phenomena, intentionally or not. It is opposed to materialism.

The 3 major assertions of idealism are as follows:

1. Idealism asserts that the material world is dependent on the spiritual.
2. Idealism asserts that spirit, or mind, or idea, can and does exist in separation from matter. (The most extreme form of this assertion is subjective idealism, which asserts that matter does not exist at all but is pure illusion.)
3. Idealism asserts that there exists a realm of the mysterious and unknowable, “above,” or “beyond,” or “behind” what can be ascertained and known by perception, experience, and science.

The 3 basic teachings of materialism as counterposed to idealism are:

1. Materialism teaches that the world is by its very nature material, that everything which exists comes into being on the basis of material causes, arises and develops in accordance with the laws of motion of matter.
2. Materialism teaches that matter is objective reality existing outside and independent of the mind; and that far from the mental existing in separation from the material, everything mental or spiritual is a product of material processes.
3. Materialism teaches that the world and its laws are fully knowable, and that while much may not be known there is nothing which is by nature unknowable.

When I called your arguments “idealist,” I meant it because of your habit of using “human nature,” or vibes, as a method of explanation, as well as treating phenomena as unknowable. When I linked Cornforth’s book (which I stole the 3 aspects of idealism and materialism from), it’s so you can study the reasoning behind the communist perspective and why it is different from past philosophies, and not subject to the same failings.

Further, I highly disagree with your take on China. It’s too vague to directly answer, though.

Communists control the world’s largest economy by PPP, so I’d say you should at least learn a bit more about what we have to say. I recommend starting with the subject of dialectical materialism. Maurice Cornforth’s Materialism and the Dialectical Method is a good intro! It especially helps explain some of the problems I have with your arguments relying on idealism.

If you had actually maintained a sense of honesty when reading and replying to the original comments, then it likely wouldn’t have spiraled into this. I can empathize with you feeling attacked, but from the onset you weren’t interested in good-faith discussion based on how you read my comment and refused to accept any clarification.

Why does it matter? I’ve said so before, so it isn’t really a secret, but what is the purpose?

Great talk.

No I don’t. OP did when they hoped for increased militarism.

I’m OP, and no I didn’t make that claim. I used “millitant” to refer to taking an active role, rather than a passive one. That’s why I said you assumed all intervention is violent based on my use of the word millitant.

No I don’t. Foreign military adventures are not always imperialism.

But you did. You said millitant intervention leads to imperialism.

You’re starting to get to what I was claiming, which is that unchecked power backed by ideology convinced of its moral, ethical or political superiority will eventually aim to spread itself, likely through violence, military or otherwise. Marxism is no different, and the implementation of it in China is not showing any moral superiority beyond what I’ve seen in history from any other soon to be superpower, colonial or otherwise. We’ll soon see how that plays out in Taiwan I’m sure, which will be the next example of China’s ‘beneficence’.

This is idealism, though, and is based more on the supernatural than the material. By claiming that no ideology can actually be genuinely anti-imperialist, you treat anti-imperialism as something unknowable, beyond the material, and therefore the realm of the supernatural. Materialism teaches us that there is nothing truly unknowable, while your reasoning relies on some grand “human spirit” to explain your insistence that ideology inevitably turns to imperialism.

I admit I didn’t read anything past your three points because your first two interpretations of my claims didn’t impress me (so I’m not really interested in how you rebut the claims you made up) and moreover this entire exchange with everyone has been insulting and lacking in any good faith whatsoever so I’m disinclined to attempt further discussion with anyone.

And this is why your argument is getting correctly deconstructed by everyone, you aren’t actually listening and have made up your mind that you’re correct.

It is, though.

So you’re not different from your opposition. For sure you’ve got the right answer, and your might will prove it.

You aren’t arguing about the answer. When we say “violence against fascists and imperialists is justified,” you attack the fact that this is ideologically driven.

It’s not about me, it’s about the principle you’re espousing. Also you don’t know anything about me, and presuming you do does nothing for your position.

This argument, again, is saying principles are incapable of being good.

believe a Marxist regime is immune to abuse of power

I don’t, though, and neither do other communists.

None of you have given me any indication of good faith, and quite a few have in fact made some rather abhorrent claims about me, someone they know nothing about.

I’d like an example, because I don’t know how to discuss this otherwise.

We should collectively take this as an indication that there is no discussion to be had here.

I don’t see evidence that that’s the case. I understand that you feel attacked by Marxists, but I don’t see what you mean by that practically.

Gotcha, just nonsense.