Cowbee [he/they]

No problem! 🫡

In my experience, when communities don’t make an effort to hash out important questions and form a principle line to follow, they fail to quell the more socially reactionary among themselves.

Hey, found this comment from searching my name (I’ll fully admit that I do so from time to time, out of morbid curiosity). I’ll clarify 2 things:

1. I only have 2 accounts. @Cowbee@lemmy.ml and @Cowbee@hexbear.net. I swap between them, but take care to never mix upvotes (I keep my Hexbear upvotes pretty purely on comms on Hexbear and Grad, and use Lemmy.ml for everything else). I am an admin on neither, I only moderate Hexbear.net’s c/theory, and only to pin and unpin the weekly Capital and Super-Imperialism reading threads. I have never removed a post or comment, nor have I banned anyone, ever.

2. I do push Marxism-Leninism. I’m a Marxist-Leninist, I don’t attempt to hide that. My goal is to create more comrades and to develop a more “correct line” among comrades on Lemmy. That’s the big purpose of my Lemmy.ml account in general, my Hexbear.net account is more for relaxing, talking about video games, or following the news. Helps me compartmentalize. I wouldn’t call it pushing shit, but I do push Marxism-Leninism, and do so openly.

I can also address @SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world’s claims. The “alt” they can’t see me on is my Hexbear.net alt. I cannot mass downvote them with it even if I wanted to both because we cannot downvote on Hexbear, and because I can’t even see Lemmy.world accounts from Hexbear. I also don’t upvote myself, that takes too much effort and I only care about upvote/downvote ratios so far as it helps me gauge the effectiveness of my argumentation, so that would get in the way of that.

I cannot verify that others are not using alts to up or downvote comments, but at the same time I don’t think anyone can verify that the reverse is true, either, except perhaps admins looking at up and downvote history. SoftestSapphic has already accused several other accounts that in no-way speak like me of being alts of mine, without any proof.

What this means is that SoftestSapphic has nothing more than a gut feeling asserted as an unchallengable truth, the idea that the “tankies” are using deceptive measures to manipulate public opinion. Moreover, said user regularly gets banned for general hostility even on non-Lemmy.ml communities, just check their modlog. No proof is ever offered for their claims, but they will certainly parade their theories around in an attempt to discredit me, which is why I am even responding to this character assassination in the first place.

Sometimes SoftestSapphic is 100% correct, and I’ll frequently upvote them when they are. Calling out the ineffectiveness of Leftists trying to work with the Democrat Party in the US, rather than build up our own working class parties and orgs, is undeniably correct in my opinion. Fascists should be opposed violently as well. I also like this comment, for example, going over the ineffectiveness and disillusionment with voting in the US Electoral System, especially because the system itself is the target, not the whims of individuals subject to it. This is good Materialist analysis! The issues start to arise, in my view, when they lose sight of Materialist grounding and resort to gut feeling and what I would consider conspiracy theories.

This form of “Left-dogmatism” has been a long-running problem within the Marxist current (no idea what SoftestSapphic personally ascribes to, just speaking from what I am familiar with), and has manifested in movements like the Peruvian Shining Path under Gonzalo, which focused more on assassinations than building a legitimate and inclusive party, accomplishing little more than terrorism. When you abandon consistent materialist analysis, you run into errors in judgement that do more harm than good. Mao summarizes this problem quite concisely in On Practice:

We are also opposed to “Left” phrase-mongering. The thinking of “Leftists” outstrips a given stage of development of the objective process; some regard their fantasies as truth, while others strain to realize in the present an ideal which can only be realized in the future. They alienate themselves from the current practice of the majority of the people and from the realities of the day, and show themselves adventurist in their actions.

SoftestSapphic, if you’re reading this, I do think you have a promising future as a good Leftist. You have a very strong will, and your heart appears to be in the right place. I recommend you make it an effort to focus on theory and materialist analysis right now, perhaps join an org if you aren’t in one. On the off-chance you decide to take my advice, I can recommend theory for you if you let me know what you’ve already read, or answer questions you may have about Marxism-Leninism. Or, you can just check out the introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list I made, it even has audiobook equivalents if that’s your preference.

Hope that answers everything!

They answered the Marxism question here in case you missed it.

Thank you for answering! I love kimchi as well, one day I would love to try Pyongyang style Naengmyeun.

Drawing and painting is very cool! I wish I could do that too, but I am very bad at it…

I see about intranet, understand.

I am a Marxist-Leninist in the West, so it is interesting to hear about it in the DPRK. It is never taught in school and is mostly from small Communist parties.

I hope one day the sanctions on the DPRK will be lifted!

1. What are the trending foods in the DPRK? As in, are there any new foods that became popular after the division that are unique to Northern Korea?

2. What do you and others do in your free time? What are some common hobbies?

3. What are some unique websites on the Intranet that people outside the DPRK may find interesting?

4. Do the people of the DPRK retain hope that one day Korea will be re-unified?

5. What is the level of study in Marxism-Leninism and the Juche idea within the school system, before specializing? Example, does everyone study Marxism, or is that more for those who specialize?

It’s a direct comparison to what calling the PRC “West Taiwan” means. It means you uphold the Nationalist Kuomintang as the wrongfully overthrown dictatorship that should have never lost the Chinese Civil War.

No problem!

It varies by instance, some are more Marxist, some are more Anarchist, some are more liberal, some are blends of 2 of those. However, the 2 biggest factors are that the Developers are Marxists and thus Marxists have been building communities here from the beginning, and the rejection of Reddit, a highly corporatized social media platform, in order to jump to a smaller FOSS platform, fits neatly with general anticapitalism.

No?

That’s kinda like if the Confederacy, upon losing the Civil War, fled and occupied Cuba, and was propped up millitarily by, say, the UK as a millitary foothold to keep the US in check back when the UK still had Imperialist chops, then saying the Confederate-occupied Cuba is the real US.

The fact is, the Communists and Nationalists had a 2 decade long civil war, and the Communists won against the Nationalists, who then fled to Taiwan, where the Nationalists have maintained that they are the legitimate government of China.

As with any revolution, such as the French, American, Vietnamese, Russian, Cuban, etc, I don’t think it makes much sense to declare the French Monarchy, British Empire, French Colonialists, Russian Tsarists, or fascist Batista regime the “rightful” rulers of the countries the people themselves overthrew, and that extends to China.

As for Taiwanese people, the overwhelming majority support maintaining the status quo, with few wanting hard independence or reconcilliation. This may change now that the US is pivoting away from them as well, but both the PRC and ROC seem to be content to maintain the uneasy status quo for the time being. War would be devastating for Taiwan in particular.

That’s kinda like if the Confederacy, upon losing the Civil War, fled and occupied Cuba, and was propped up millitarily by, say, the UK as a millitary foothold to keep the US in check back when the UK still had Imperialist chops, then saying the Confederate-occupied Cuba is the real US.

The fact is, the Communists and Nationalists had a 2 decade long civil war, and the Communists won against the Nationalists, who then fled to Taiwan, where the Nationalists have maintained that they are the legitimate government of China.

As with any revolution, such as the French, American, Vietnamese, Russian, Cuban, etc, I don’t think it makes much sense to declare the French Monarchy, British Empire, French Colonialists, Russian Tsarists, or fascist Batista regime the “rightful” rulers of the countries the people themselves overthrew, and that extends to China.

As for Taiwanese people, the overwhelming majority support maintaining the status quo, with few wanting hard independence or reconcilliation. This may change now that the US is pivoting away from them as well, but both the PRC and ROC seem to be content to maintain the uneasy status quo for the time being. War would be devastating for Taiwan in particular.

The US places a much greater emphasis on individualism, while the PRC’s economic system is much more focused on central planning and a common, collectivist culture. Holdovers from the Cultural Revolution, where citizens were encouraged to always look upon their local officials critically, led to less trust in the local governments. The central government, on the other hand, has had sweeping and targeted programs focused on rural development in recent years, as the CPC has acknowledged the stark division between the highly developed urban areas and the underdeveloped rural areas.

China is pretty complicated, and getting a good picture of how they are today requires analyzing what the CPC takes issue with and what it approves of in how they performed under Mao, the Gang of Four, Deng Xiaoping, and now Xi Jinping. There have been other leaders, but these really represent 4 different “eras” for the economic makeup as a whole, and has most Chinese very hopeful for the future.

The Ash Center Research Team found that approval for the CPC surpasses 90%. Crucially, the study acknowledges the state control of media and propaganda, but points to the actual dramatic rise in living conditions over the decades that has made the most impact:

While the CCP is seemingly under no imminent threat of popular upheaval, it cannot take the support of its people for granted. Although state censorship and propaganda are widespread, our survey reveals that citizen perceptions of governmental performance respond most to real, measurable changes in individuals’ material well-being. For government leaders, this is a double-edged sword, as citizens who have grown accustomed to increases in living standards will expect such improvements to continue, and citizens who praise government officials for effective policies may indeed blame them when such policy failures affect them or their family members directly. While our survey reinforces narratives of CCP resilience, our data also point to specific areas in which citizen satisfaction could decline in today’s era of slowing economic growth and continued environmental degradation.

This is reflected in increased upward mobility, manifesting in increasing feelings of the country being “headed in the right direction,” a stark contrast with the direction the US is moving:

JDPON Don fulfilling his duty to the Global South by tanking the US Empire from within 🫡

I don’t fault the origins entirely (though it is suspicious nonetheless), I fault the staying power and the overwhelming usage by right-wing westerners. Why isn’t Obama referenced as Tigger, or Shinzo Abe as Eeyore?

Sure, so why Pooh and not a Panda?

Here’s where they admit to it. They claim to have gotten better, but they were radicalized by it, and their behavior indicates that they haven’t actually moved too far beyond it, such as when they complain about “encountering wokeness.” In another instance, they blame far-right radicalization on “forcing equity,” which is just anti-DEI nonsense.

Wikipedia actually doesn’t state that it was chinese users that started it, just that the Chinese internet started taking the comparisons down (same with all of the articles I found and the ones Wikipedia references as sources). Additionally, the original image of Xi and Obama together as Pooh and Tigger, and the subsequent picture of Xi and Shinzo Abe as Pooh and Eeyore, emerged as group pictures of world leaders, but only the comparison of Xi to Pooh stuck.

Further, that doesn’t explain the immense popularity among westerners in portraying Xi as a yellow bear, nor why it seems to be especially popular among western right-wingers.

Curiously enough, MWoG is maintained by a gamergater. Curious indeed.

Quick question, what’s the humor in satarizing a Chinese man as a yellow bear, specificially? Why not a Panda?