hogposting [he/him,comrade/them]

  • 2 Posts
  • 19 Comments
Joined 4 years ago
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Cake day: July 26th, 2020

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  • She’s not saying Maduro is an authoritarian here, though.

    But if you goal is to build class consciousness

    There are dozens of better ways to build class consciousness than talking about countries no one in America really knows about except in talking point form. Talking about universal healthcare instead of getting into a struggle session over a country that hasn’t existed for 25 years is one of them.


  • If you tell your buddies Cuba is great, the worst that can happen is they’ll think your political opinions are shit. And because you get to have an actual exchange with them – i.e., whatever you say about Cuba isn’t filtered through network media and social media until it becomes nothing more than “@hagensfohawk loves commie dictators” – you have a shot at breaking through superficial talking points and getting your buddies to reconsider what they know.

    If a politician says Cuba is great, well, we know what happens – Bernie did it not even a year ago. He gained zero support from the left that he didn’t already have. All it did was launch a few fresh media cycles of “Bernie’s a commie!!1!!!” And while you’re right that they’ll call you a commie anyway, playing the same hits gets old after a while and loses its effectiveness. Giving them fresh meat can’t help and only hurts.

    The only way to change that is if you and I have enough conversations with our buddies to where “hey, Cuba’s actually good” becomes a majority opinion.


  • Changing perceptions about socialist states has to come from the bottom up, not the top down.

    Look at how Bernie’s entirely truthful, extremely moderate statements on Cuba’s healthcare and education programs was wielded against him. That’s what happens when political leaders try to change the tune about socialist states in a country that’s been strongly anti-communist for most of the last century. We have to have those conversations on the ground first.







  • There’s a chance it’s for the better.

    spoiler

    In the book, Paul does everything he can to avoid the jihad he sees coming, because jihad = religious fanaticism = bad. A crusade is also religious fanaticism and is also bad, but portraying the term “crusade” as an evil to be avoided could be a good thing for an American audience. Crusades are a part of Christian culture, and if you’re going to write religious criticism there’s less of a risk of it being misinterpreted if you use the audience’s dominant religion as an example. If you criticize religious fanaticism using the religion of the Other, it’s easy to interpret that as nothing more than “Other bad.”

    Plus, we’re almost guaranteed to get some Christian chuds throwing a fit over it, especially with the rise of right-wing “crusade” imagery. That’s always good for a laugh.

    Spoilers for a book that came out half a century ago, I guess.