Since another "spreading of democracy" seems inevitable again I recommend us putting together a little historical archive documenting the US's relations to North Korea and Iran. Leave your petty bickering for the other threads, this one is for discussing history as it happened and compiling resources. Let's try using NewsAnon's format.
The Korean War’s Brutality Turned the Stomachs of America’s Most Hardened Soldiers “The war in Korea has already almost destroyed that nation of 20,000,000 people. I have never seen such devastation. I have seen, I guess, as much blood and disaster as any living man, and it just curdled my stomach the last time I was there. After I looked at the wreckage and those thousands of women and children and everything, I vomited … If you go on indefinitely, you are perpetuating a slaughter such as I have never heard of in the history of mankind.” warisboring.com/the-korean-wars-brutality-turned-the-stomachs-of-americas-most-hardened-soldiers/
Noam Chomsky: The Iranian Threat What exactly is the Iranian threat? The brutal clerical regime is doubtless a threat to its own people, though it does not rank particularly high in that respect in comparison to US allies in the region. In short, Iran is seeking to “destabilize” the region, in the technical sense of the term used by General Petraeus. US invasion and military occupation of Iran’s neighbors is “stabilization.” chomsky.info/20100702/
Chomsky on North Korea & Iran: Historical Record Shows U.S. Favors Violence Over Diplomacy There was an agreement in 2005 that North Korea would completely dismantle its nuclear weapons and missile systems, end them, finish, dismantle them, in return for a nonaggression pact from the United States, an end to threats, provision by the West—that means by the United States—of a light-water reactor, which can’t produce nuclear weapons but could produce—be used for peaceful purposes, research, medical, other purposes. That was basically the agreement, 2005. Didn’t last very long. The Bush administration instantly undermined it. democracynow.org/2017/4/26/chomsky_on_north_korea_iran_historical
Jimmy Dore: Defense Department Brags About Killing 1 Million Koreans The US dropped 650,000 tons of napalm on North Korea and the establishment cherishes it to this day. youtube.com/watch?v=8Crf7dubJ3k
there is such a thing as too much chomsky, but thanks OP
Carson Jenkins
More on the Korean War genocide from the /dprk/ general:
The secret genocide in South Korea you’ve probably never heard of "The mainstream media often chides the hypocrisy of North Korea for calling itself the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea”, but up until recently, it would have been difficult to call South Korea the “Republic of Korea” with a straight face as well. For much of South Korea’s history, the country was under the administration of various brutal military dictatorships." medium.com/@wolf.aldrich/the-50-s-in-south-korea-what-happened-60f629ac3272
Truth Commission reveals history of Korean War: U.S.-South Korea carried out massacres of civilians "As told by most history textbooks in the U.S., the Korean War started with a June 25, 1950, invasion from the communist north and the freedom-loving U.S. came to the aid of the besieged democratic Republic of Korea in the south. The reality was very different." iacenter.org/korea/skorea070608/
Even more articles and news on the DPRK and the US:
North Korea, “Genocide by Sanctions”: UN Double Standards Pertaining to Sanctions and their Devastating Social Impacts "The United Nations Security Council has imposed multiple sets of sanctions on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. It is striking that in all resolutions imposed on the DPRK, the sanction language used to prohibit items from entering or leaving the DPRK is sufficiently broad and vague that practically any item essential for the normal, healthy functioning of society is vulnerable to proscription and exclusion of use by the DPRK" globalresearch.ca/north-korea-un-double-standards-pertaining-to-sanctions-and-their-devastating-social-impacts/5364484
What War with North Korea Looked Like in the 1850s and Why it Matters Now "In a 1984 interview, Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay, head of the Strategic Air Command during the Korean War, claimed U.S. bombs "killed off 20 percent of the population" and "targeted everything that moved in North Korea." These acts, largely ignored by the U.S.' collective memory, have deeply contributed to Pyongyang's contempt for the U.S. and especially its ongoing military presence on the Korean Peninsula." newsweek.com/us-forget-korean-war-led-crisis-north-592630
Taking the Long View: Why South Korea's Peace Movement Refuses to Give Up "Despite frequent media coverage of North Korea's highly choreographed military parades, increasing missile launches, and Kim Jong-un's threats to turn Seoul into a "sea of fire," far less attention is paid to South Korea's tireless, well-organized peace movement opposed to militarism on both sides of the DMZ." truth-out.org/news/item/41486-taking-the-long-view-why-south-korea-s-peace-movement-refuses-to-give-up
Found this book about antiwar activism in America. Has a chapter dedicated to the Korean War.
Chomsky should kill himself tbh, fortunately he's going to die soon anyway.
Owen Campbell
Since this thread started off with some very bad Chomsky quotes (there may be some useful info in his articles, but that doesn't absolve him of his shit takes) I'll contribute with some actual articles that criticize Chomsky. lorenzoae.wordpress.com/2016/05/31/chomsky-vs-parenti/ All worth a read, Chomsky's game is very transparent if you examine it a bit.
Eli Wood
thank you
Ethan Smith
He's not wrong, just understands nuance.
Joshua Kelly
He's an old, spiteful anticommunist.
Aiden Allen
1)he's not 2)and even if he was he's still not wrong that Iran's government is shit anti-imperialists are willing to absolve autocratic, oppressive neoliberal whores for their national bourgousie having opposing interests to America's, but someone on the left with slightly different views are written off as anti-communist and evil.
Landon Smith
Take the butthurt to the mod thread please
Logan Lewis
Chompsky being retarded is because he came out of the New Left of the 1960's. You see the same bullshit with other figures who came out of the New Left like Bernie Sanders. The New Left's focus on social and cultural shit is because of it's break with the Old Left and the fact that focusing on economic issue made you a target for assassination(MLK, Fred Hampton, etc). I'm not saying that Chompsky is good or bad but he is certainly a product of his time.
Alexander Lopez
I forgot to add that the economic security from the New Deal made economic issues seem less important to activists of the era.
Liam Turner
I'll add some context on South Korea:
amnesty.or.jp/get-involved/ua/ua/2016ua002.html NB: that was sitting protest in 2015. CAIRD - Corean Alliance for an Independent Reunification and People’s Democracy (코리아연대) - created in 2011, advocates reunification with the North and removal of American troops. They use "Corean" because letter "K" is considered Japanese influence (so as to put Korea below Japan in alphabetical order).
I don't think thats to say he doesn't talk about economics either…
Ryan Lee
at all I mean
Aiden Turner
How come Parenti is still alive then?
Cooper White
he does talk about economics but it seems to take a back seat to social and cultural issues
Thomas Hill
Parenti hides his power level
Ryan Phillips
Parenti is an academic not a major activist and organizer. If he lead major unionization drives his ass would have been grass.
Carson Sullivan
Parenti never become a big figurehead or organizer sadly. He stuck to academia, I guess seeing the writing on the wall. Weirdly he used to hang out with Bernie Sanders in Vermont, and clearly came into contact with Bookchin and Chomsky on several occasions as well. Video of him mourning Bernie's turn to Rosa-killing: youtube.com/watch?v=OLNQEHbusSA
Sanders was New Left as fuck dude.He got his start in sit ins and marches. He later ran as part of the Liberty Union PArty in Vermont which was New Left.
David Cruz
He also wrote all those goofy articles about sexuality and shit back then.
Owen Butler
That's not what I was surprised about. Why do you consider either thing as something good?
New "Left" was a subversion, an anti-Socialist movement that sought to replace real Left with plastic simulacra of all kinds of IdPol, both sexual and racial. It is the root of SJW nonsense.
Aiden Jackson
Sanders was active in the YPSL, CORE, SNCC, and LUP in his youth, which points very much to him being of the New Left variety.
Gavin Taylor
so Lenin = Communism now? I don't agree with what he said there but it doesn't make him anti-communist. Literally he's just saying there were other communists, you know like Rosa Luxemburg that disagreed with Lenin, and he tends to be more on their side.
Wyatt Bailey
The post you were referring to very clearly considered the influence of the New Left be a NEGATIVE thing, if you actually read it.
Hunter Hughes
yeah actually.
John Rogers
Also for anyone who watches his video make sure to start it from the beginning to hear the irl ☭TANKIE☭ spergout.
Connor Clark
You're retarded.
Isaac Jenkins
oops I forgot to say 20 yards of Lenin = 1 communism
Jace Ward
I never said the New Left was good or bad. It did some shit that had to be done like the civil rights movement but I agree when you say it is the root of most of the problems plaguing the modern Left. You can directly trace stuff like SJW bullshit, strange ML cults, and red liberal "activism" to the New Left. It was a product of the material conditons in the United States.
Andrew Roberts
It was a product of the material conditons in the United States just as the bad shit stalinism did was a product of the conditions in the Soviet Union.
Anthony Gutierrez
Oops.
Yes. Apologies. I misread a bit.
< anti-Stalinist drivel < ☭TANKIE☭ spergout Can you explain who "tankies" are for you?
Yes. Unless you can explain this True Communism. Because we've had this bullshit already (twice), and so far nobody was able to present any other Communist movement at the time of formation of Third International.
Anthony Jackson
I actually agree with Lenin but its fucking ridiculous to say that you can only be a communist if you agree with him. Were the Freikorps actually in the right when they killed Rosa? I mean not agreeing with Lenin makes you anti-communist and one less anti-communist is a win for workers everywhere. Right? There are in fact a diversity of opinions on the left and ignoring them is pretty obtuse of anyone.
Andrew Reed
This is a ridiculous leap of logic, it's not even worth discussing. The thing worth noting is that Rosa's methods failed, and Lenin succeeded, and all subsequent revolutions subscribed to Lenin and not Rosa. This doesn't mean Rosa wasn't a revolutionary or a real communist.
Michael Hill
this is exactly my point famrade
Jace Lewis
Plans for Middle East - U.S. Army Gen. Wesley Clark "This is a memo that describes how we're going to take out 7 countries in 5 years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran." youtube.com/watch?v=rz5fZziMWEE
Statement by the Communist Party of Iran (Tudeh), Dec 31, 2017 The spiralling poverty, deprivation, high prices and chronic unemployment - which have ruined the lives of a large portion of the population and in particular the youth, - the extensive and disastrous destruction of the environment, due to the catastrophic policies of the ruling power, and the complete economic bankruptcy of the regime as well as escalation of external pressures on the regime, have altogether created a very critical and explosive situation in our society. The heads of the regime who are living a luxury life with an unprecedented fortune that they have amassed over the last forty years by plundering the national resources and wealth of the nation, ask the people to be patient and tolerate the hardship in order to “guard the Islamic regime” - a regime that has brought nothing to our nation except destruction and cultural, political and economic regress. The current rulers have shown in practice that their only goal and desire is to save the current despotic regime and the absolute rule of the dark-minded clergy over our nation at the cost of any crime and any tragedy.
It's not about Lenin per se, but those of his ideas that got adopted by ComIntern - and Chomsky is explicitly against those ideas.
And - yes. Communist International is the defining movement of Communism (unless we are talking about pre-Marxist Christian Communism almost nobody heard about).
That's a low effort bait.
Brody Scott
more on this here: (sadly bumplocked)
Easton Johnson
It's completely irrelevant to Chomsky's point if any other communist movements at the time existed. Lenin and the comintern could have been the only other communist movement in history and still be considered a deviation from Marx.
Lincoln Sullivan
Chomsky is a shill right now but his past work is immaculate. None of this criticism actually sticks and that's the worst part about it because Chomsky /is/ a shill.
Dylan Perry
I thought the criticism of him in that article was quite good.
Matthew Taylor
It is completely relevant to one of the "not real anti-Communism" arguments (unvoiced in this thread). If position hinges on Communist International not really being Communist, but simply stealing the name of "real" Communists, then those "real" Communists need to be presented.
Also, we are not discussing Chomsky's point, but attempts to paint him as anything but Liberal apologist.
Well, that is a completely different position that I did not refute pre-emptively. Would you mind providing some basis for it?
Oliver Morales
the argument being made isn't that comintern wasn't really communist but that they're interpretation of communism is not the only valid interpretation. I have my own problems with Chomsky but not supporting the USSR doesn't make one a liberal apologist.
Jaxson Cruz
Here's the thing, I don't support everything the USSR ever did or even the entire period of its existence as socialist, but anyone who wanted the overthrow of the USSR and its institutions and not their reform/restoration is an anti-communist liberal. Period.
The logic of the anti-Soviet Cold War "left" is akin to the philistine who thinks that replacing yellow trade unions with the open shop and right-to-work is somehow revolutionary. What happened in the former Soviet Union was much worse than all that but Chomsky supported that counter-revolution and celebrated it.
Even leftcoms and trots will begrudgingly admit that the early days of the Soviet Union were revolutionary but Chomsky referred to the Bolshevik revolution as a counter-revolution. If you don't support the first successful attempt to bring workers power into being in a major country then what kind of socialist are you?
What are we to think of those like Chomsky who support every revolution except those that succeed at taking state power?
I guess its slightly off-topic but you really wonder about a guy who admits to being a Zionist youth leader and living on a Kibbutz. It is telling that his rigorous documentation of US state-crimes pales in comparison to his lackluster criticism of Israel and combine that with his gate-keeping about the JFK assassination and 9/11 where the Mossad almost certainly played a role in both cases and the brain-tubes do begin to bubble.
Chomsky is really world imperialism's morally and intellectually compatible dissident.It is unsurprising then that he also has ties to Zionism, and this is understandable, Zionism has been a self-critical and rehabilitative force for world imperialism since WWII. In Zionism, you have essentially a fascist pro-colonialist movement disguised as a progressive anti-fascist, anti-colonial, anti-racist movement that also manages to hide its anti-communism enough to deceive certain simpletons among the proletariat. You don't have to have a degree in theology to recognize that the image of the Holocaust now plays a justifying role for world capitalism–that it is a symbol of the capitalist world's ability to absolve itself of its own sins.
Gavin Davis
Unless you can explain what is the other interpretation and why should it be called Communist, it is a post-modernist argument that attempts to avoid attributing any meaning to words.
Look at yourself: you are trying to downplay a wholesale rejection of October Revolution.
The only way you can do it - and not add everyone (including Fascists) to your all-inclusive "Left" - is by preaching Liberal dogmas about democracy and authoritarianism. By pretending that Liberals are not hypocrites, but have a valid Left position! And how is this different from Liberal apologia?
Isaiah Wilson
Fuck off you liberal reformist.
Jackson Rivera
Guys, a Democratic confederalist Korea might be coming soon, the South might just agree to it for Trump to go to fuckoffityland
Dylan Sullivan
Get an argument, cuck. Just because I agree with the necessity of militant overthrow of the revisionist leadership in the USSR doesn’t mean that supporting its destruction as a country isn’t liberal defeatism.
Anyone who doesn’t agree with the essential idea of the USSR and the Russian Revolution,of institutionalalizing workers power on a vast scale IS a liberal. You can claim that you wish it had taken a different direction or you disagree with its leadership but otherwise you’re just a liberal utopian who isn’t even smart enough to realize how the Russian revolution strengthened the bargaining power and political position of workers everywhere.
