The willpower of the bodyguard to keep a straight face is impressing.

Is this the expression?

I confirm.

I... Words fail me.

From comments below: "Anybody who doesn’t support Ukraine needs to be arrested for treason, enough is enough."

Nice.

I like that he points out hidden suggestion behind word "tankie" that only Western "communists" got the it right, while most other revolutionary movements across the globe got got it wrong.

It comes from a perspective of privilege and ignorance - supposedly we should not support existing revolutionary movements, but sit on our asses and complain about capitalism while condemning every attempt to stop this horrible imperialist machine. Most people who suffer the most would probably not agree with this point of view, but they are ignored.

It seems that these people do not take this into account.

Personally I'd want to deal with this kind of people only if they directly interfere with Marxist movement and I wouldn't mind not interacting with them at all. This idealist ideology has very little revelance outside of it's inner circles and I see no reason to care about it, at least for the sake of our mental health. I'm just glad they are not here and don't have the opportunity to posion this community with their infantile hostility towards Marxists-Leninists.

This is wonderful, uplifting and I love you.

Hello fellow sleep-deprived human! I am not proud of it, but for a brief moment I also thought that way.

What convinced me to reevaluate my views was discovering how brutal the US actions around the world actually are. I already agreed with basic idea of Communism and I thought that whatever Stalin was doing, it could not be much worse than what the US empire did and keeps doing everywhere, so I was curious what other arguments do Marxist-Leninists have.

Understanding that capitalism inevitably leads to imperialism and breeds fascism was another blow that convinced me that whatever happens in China cannot be worse than total society collapse and so on.

I had to peel layers of my prejudice, one at a time, starting from what I considered most believable to least believable. At some point I found myself agreeing with most of the ML talking points and I decided to let my guard down and start reading about provided sources with open mind.

I'm not sure that you can convince someone that there is no Uyghur genocide if they are emotionally invested in this narrative, because, like you pointed out, on emotional level for them it is like Holocaust denial or something similar. Besides, people tend to stick with others who already share their views and bias, so they reinforce their paranoia among each other (just like we reinforce our bias here).

Maybe changing material conditions will make people look for alternatives more seriously and reconsider their views. Maybe some need to actually feel some more effects of capitalism before they engage with a good faith discussion.

Sorry that I have nothing better for you, but I felt like rambling a little.

I remember when someone called him "some stupid communist dictator". I can't get out of my head this picture of Parenti being a communist dictator, it's just perfect.

I was thinking about this issue in the past and I came to the conslusion that what we perceive as "intelligence" is deeply flawed concept, for many reasons. For example, many people who struggle with intelligence tests are just people who have problems with attention.

Additionally, there seems to be very little correlatiom between "intelligence" and understanding of how the world works.

I know some people who are good at maths but have horrible brain-dead political views. nazis had intelligent generals. I also know someone who worked as a juror, company manager and government official at different stages of her life, but still acts very irrational in her everyday life.

At the same time I know people who do not have reputation of being the most intelligent, but they have a very good understanding of social problems, they are "street smart", enphatetic towards others and critical towards what they see in their everyday life. I could argue that they act more rationally than the people from the group above, even though they are not IT professionals or trained academically.

In my opinion, this line of reasoning leads nowhere. (: