Hasan studied political sciences and communication studies

I felt the exact same way. The thing is, I sometimes question if scientific socialism really provides the correct (right) answers for the questions as to why things are how they are. I am a socialist because I think Marx, Engels and all the people after them were really good in analyzing the underlying conditions, contradictions in capitalism and solutions for those problems, but I also remain skeptical to the way they want to solve things. I don't think there is an universal way how to make way for change, as any situation requires different methods. All roads lead to Rome one way or another, we just have to stay on the road and don't turn back. But then again, isn't this basically the essence of dialectical and historical materialism? Anti-Dogmatism and Self-Criticism? I saw many self proclaimed communists that think Mao's way is the only right way and any change to it would be reactionary, but Mao himself basically wrote / said that this type of behaviour is not counter-productive, so I don't understand where these people are coming from.

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

Thank you, that was very uplifting. But what exactly do you mean with the last sentence? Do you seriously think that fascism is a solution for ending this, just because it could accelerate the change to communism? Did I get that right? It sounds like a very dangerous (and to me, disgusting, no offense) theory. Sorry if I am being rude, please explain if I misunderstood you, but there is nothing more in this world I hate more than fascists.

Why do you feel the need to be told the solution? Her videos are often meant to provoke thought. The video on stoicism for example is very well made and teaches how harmful such a philosophy can be. It is an educational channel. The goal was never to fight prevailing political narratives.

Imo, what she does is very good for educating a broader audience and that already is not an easy task to say the least. The videos have to be made the way they are, because otherwise the audience would become an echo chamber of like-minded people, which would be counter-productive to the goal of broaden people's views on the world.

Also, if some people misinterpret the videos and/or use popular youtube video essays as their main source of information, they are just ignorant. It might not work wonders, they won't change their whole set of opinions after watching one video essay, but it is a step in the right direction, even if there are still some issues.

That meme is more like a self report. It is not based on empirical data. These are traits that can be attributed to a personality.

This is a bad example for this (since it's a bad comparison, sorry), but it helps illustrating this: It is an observable truth that a paraplegic can't walk. But if you just look at one paraplegic that has for example developed depression because of their reduced mobility or maybe even other factors, you can't say that every paraplegic person has depression.

Does every person on the spectrum hate surgeons or have a "cute jiggly ass"? Certainly not. So why would the other traits be universally applicable to every autistic person?

Sorry for the late reply. She and Alice Schwarzer (a prominent TERF) protested on February 25 2023 together with members of the AfD.

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I have some questions about the "funny memes" about President Xi as Winnie the Pooh or Chairman Mao as a cat (I'm sure there are many more, for example I heard some people call President Xi an "accelerator in chief", a very narrow minded and rude term in my opinion).

I basically only know the western narrative about those memes, I want to learn about how they are regarded in China, if they are actually illegal and/or "censored" and why, what their origins are, what they mean (I know from my scarce knowledge of Hanyu that Mao also means cat for example), and who made them.

I am trying to "de-propagandize" my mind, since I grew up only being taught the opposing side's narrative. I don't want to be disrespectful, and if I am please tell me, it is not my goal to be rude.

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This whole system is purely designed to keep a few people in power and it is fucking insane. We wouldn't even have the internet if a governmental institution hadn't created it, because the free market deemed it unprofitable. How can we as a society achieve progress like that?

I am constantly surrounded by people that defend free market capitalism without questioning it nor having independent thoughts about it, even though they are not stupid. I feel constantly alienated because I have to discuss the most ridiculous thing with me peers when I try to show them the massive amount contradictions of this system,, and they just reply that it does not work. Without having a single grasp of how politics work. I don't mean to say that the general population is stupid, but it feels like they are constantly influenced by pro-capitalist information sources. I don't know, I regularly question my beliefs and apply constructive criticism to my thoughts, but I always come to the same conclusion. Am I getting insane, or am I just to alienated?

That is true, but her supporting Nazis is not an opinion you can have

Ah okay, sorry. Here: SPD: Social Democratic Party of Germany, CDU: Christian Democratic Union (=Conservative, CSU is their Bavarian branch, which has been even more conservative historically). Grune: Green Party, started off from 'Maoist' extra-parliamentary movements, but has since become a neoliberal party that makes the poor pay for their climate programs instead of the rich, FPD: Free Democratic Party, Neoliberal, they like the taste of US' imperialist boots, AfD: Alternative for Germany, right-wing populist to neo-nazi party, has radicalised a lot since 2020 Die LINKE; The LEFT, Marxist, democratic socialist party, largest left wing party that is not offically surveilled by the intelligence, has been losing a lot of votes since Sarah Wagenknecht went crazy.

many reactionary / conservative newspapers, large amount of anti-socialist propaganda, voters only care about identity politics and who can bash who the most, large conspiracy theory movements, east germany gets constantly exploited since 1989 by west german capitalists and news outlets have stirred a large amount of hatred for east germans, so that noone could think for one second that socialism is good -> resulted in hatred for the government in east germans and west german fascists taking control of said hatrid, immigration caused by US imperialist wars has brought up an easy target for bigots to say immigrants are the problem, government fails to stop alt-right movements and is generally incapable of governing, people misinterpret the real causes of late capitalism, etc etc etc, you get the idea, its generally the same as everywhere else in the western world.

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I recently had a discussion with someone about socialism etc... I thought about countering the argument that socialism doesn't work, because it has failed once. I came up with: "Well, the first French revolution failed, and the people still continued establishing a second bourgeois democratic republic. So why should we stop to create a second socialist republic, just because the first attempt failed / has issues?"

Does this argument make any sense, or is this incomparable (I know it kind of is, but still)?

Also, isn't it a core value of Marxism-Leninism to learn from past failed policies and politics, and correct them in the future?

betterredthandead

joined 2 years ago