this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2023
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chapotraphouse
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yours is not the only one captivated. mine and many across latin america are so captivated we actually elect these people to power lol. it’s fine anyway since I selfishly want the government in iran to remain in power long enough to kill israel you can selfishly want the anti-american governments to stay in power to oppose your country. also honduras is a western country too lmao
Yes this is exactly the point being made here. Its not even selfish. Its just how Lenininst antiimperalism works. Wanting American hegenomy to be hurt as an American is actually the opposite of selfish?
Also for the last line, yes its in the western hemisphere but its not part of the imperial core. Which is why we carefully use that language instead. The tem "western" is fairly useless for this reason.
you need to reread lenin he never said anything about “imperial core” that’s just stuff made up by wallerstein called world-systems theory and is neither leninist or marxist
Because in their times there were still competing imperial powers. There wasnt unipolarity at the time.
see I’m gonna trust lenin and marx over a yale and colombia professor who only has ties to the british. zero ML countries adhere to world-systems theory and for good reasons
Cuba and the DPRK dont see the United States as an imperial hegemon?
I don’t think either call it hegemonism that’s a chinese thing and even then there’s a big leap going from hegemonism to imperial core
wrong
dprk: http://www.kcna.kp/en/article/q/90dfd7983762c4e09ba086c93f6c58b7.kcmsf
cuba: https://cubaminrex.cu/en/diaz-canel-there-historically-postponed-world-waiting-our-agreement-and-action
there's a ton of material released by the WPK and the PCC that talks about american hegemony
So what is the view of imperialism in ML countries and how does it contradicr?
depends country to country at different points in time. obviously first i’d have to ask who’s side you were on in the sino-soviet split just as a baseline. or to go further, whether or not you support stalin’s decision to recognize and send aid to israel when it declared independence
Im not sure where i stand on those things need to read more. Just want to know where those countries stand today and how it contradicts the concept of an "imperial core"
the countries don’t exactly deliver press releases saying what imperialism is usually they just say “down with yankee imperialism”. do you want something like a curriculum on how the subject is taught in school? how these countries actually act?
Well you said they dont world systems theory so i assumed you had evidence of that. Saying "down with yankee imperialism" is hardly contradictory. They might not literally read Wallerstein but if youre going to deny his development of theory and its applicability to modern conditions (that Marx and Lenin never observed) based on what you think the DPRK and Cuba think about it i would assume youd have something more solid.
Che said that the United States is the belly of the beast. That certainly seems in line.
the onus is not on my proving they don’t follow some esoteric sociological theory of a foreign professor but on you to prove that they do. and no che using poetic license is not proof of a communist country following a hundreds of page long dissertation. next you’ll say iran follows it too since it says israel little satan and america big satan
I literally said that they may not read Wallerstein. The point is that the broad strokes are not contradictory to the concept of an imperial core existing. I was looking for ideas that actually materially contradict here. Honestly, i dont think you need to follow all of Wallerstein to use the term imperial core. If its useful for describing the current geopolitical situation, which i think it is, then its useful.
Honestly this all just seems like a nitpick to throw me off base. None of it contradicts my core points.
marxism isn’t about what feels useful and isn’t about what’s geopolitically common sense from your perspective. if you oppose communists overthrowing the government in my country and support the demsocs who want to continue capitalist relations and exploitation I don’t consider you a comrade in the same struggle, to put it as simply as possible
When did i say anything about opposing communists overthrowing them lol? I support them against the west, not against communists. Youre reading things in that arent there, perhaps because of prior experiance?
lesser of the two evilism has NOTHING to do with Lenin keep his name out of your mouth before actually opening a book for once
Sorry im taking my lead here from every ML ive ever encountered's opinion on geopolitics. If its ignorant i apologize.
Eta: honestly based on your post history i dont see you as someone i have to take particularly seriously lol
it’s a majority protestant country that speaks spanish. you think it has more in common with east asia or muslim countries or something?
I agree with you as a Guatemalan. I've always considered our countries part of the West and think it's a little patronizing how richer Western nations don't consider us Western. The diaspora like to push this idea that we're majority indigenous and that indigenous cultures are more prevalent than they actually are.
We're kind of like the Balkans. They go on and off as to whether or not we're included as Western or not.
I'm palestinian honduran so I wouldn't even bother trying to argue with the few people I'd run into that seriously consider race what makes someone western. I still don't see why it matters so much to american leftists tho. is bashing on the west too awkward for them if you include poorer countries in the americas and balkans? I don't get the point in bashing anyway I'm not gonna feel guilty for being born in the west
No, I think Latin America has more in common with itself. Tons of countries in Asia and Africa (basically every country) has significant and sometimes complete fluency in a European language, and are Christian, but not considered Western.
Not to mention that many Latin American countries and subregions have huge cultural influences from regional Native American cultures and enslaved Africans
Latin America has never received economic benefits from the Western umbrella in the way that the EU states have. And they probably never will, and their racial origin is the most major reason for this. They are not Western.
Latin America has been westernized by continuous economical, cultural, and imperialist influence by the United States (and other global north countries), it doesn't make sense to think of our countries as some non-Western society, it's inaccurate and a bad framework to try to change our life. Our religions have been westernized, our mode of production is capitalism, our cultural references are western cultural products, our music is dependent on western notions of what is "good" music. The products that we buy and we sell, that we most value are influenced by westernized perceptions of value.
Yes, there are bubbles, territories, regions, where this is not true, maybe even glimpses in everyday life, but it's not the case for the vast majority of people living in Latin America. We may not be part of the west in a historical sense, but we are westernized countries living in the world that the West has created for us with violence.
I'm going to paste what I said in another comment replying to another user just because it mostly applies here too.
Look, neither you or I get to define what "the West" means. It is a racist concept, but that's the unfortunate reality of the situation. "The West" is not defined by who thinks they should belong to it, it's defined by the material reality of exploitation. It's nearly synonymous with "Imperial Core." If you're in the periphery, you are not part of "The West" no matter how much your society mirrors so-called western culture. Just as a regular worker is not part of the bourgeoisie no matter how much they want to be. There are the exploiters and the exploited. Latam, on the global stage, is exploited by the imperial core and there is no escaping that fact. The exploiters will never see it as part of their club because they're exploiting it! It's not like we (hexbears or leftists in general) see this as a good thing or want to perpetuate it. We want to tear it the fuck down. But we can't deny material reality, and it seems like that's what you're trying to do by insisting that Latam is western and getting mad at us for the fact that it's largely racism that determines who belongs to the in-group "Western" and who doesn't.
Absolutely. So you do see it is "The West" that unfortunately gets to define who belongs in the club, and it does so via violence. The West has violently created the world you live in, but that does not make the world you live in part of it, no matter how many people around you mistakenly think it does.