Re: <nettime> The Left Needs a New Strategy

[Dmytri Kleiner <dk@telekommunisten.net>]

On 2021-01-19 07:16, Andreas Broeckmann wrote:

> > However, as we all know, the government of China enjoys broad support
> > from it's people.

> > After all, by every measure they are doing better
> > than we are in terms of getting what they want from their government.

> I'm not in the "we" group of your first statement, and I doubt the
> second.

"since the start of the survey in 2003, Chinese citizen satisfaction 
with government has increased virtually across the board. From the 
impact of broad national policies to the conduct of local town 
officials, Chinese citizens rate the government as more capable and 
effective than ever before. Interestingly, more marginalized groups in 
poorer, inland regions are actually comparatively more likely to report 
increases in satisfaction"

-- Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Harvard 
University [1]

This is widely known, confirmed by many studies such as this one from 
Harvard.


> (It's strange that you decline to know enough about prisoners,
> but this you are sure enough of for all of us, readers.)

It's not that I decline to know, it's that I decline the white man's 
burden and support the self-determination of the Chinese people, and 
since I also oppose imperialism, I feel our duty is to prevent our own 
countries from promoting insecurity in China by way of aggression.

Thus, the strategy I have proposed is that we trust the people of China 
to improve their own situation, while we do the same hare and focus on 
preventing our own governments from doing harm.

This is the strategy known as proletarian internationalism.


> For someone who complains so much about people around him shouting 
> (even if they
> aren't),

Where I have made such complaints?


> you shout a lot...

There is no shouting happening here.


> The self-declared Stalinists of the
> Marxistische Gruppe at my university in the 1980s sounded like this;
> and they were also always right, and kept on shouting until everybody
> was exhausted and the lecture was declared over. I always thought that
> Western Stalinists were people hopping between denial, apology, and
> assertion (at that time, with regard to the USSR, but exactly at the
> pitch you also choose to singsing).

I'm sorry about your experience in the 80s with white western leftists, 
but it has nothing to do with the discussion here.


> If this was a conversation, I might ask what, in your view, is 
> "Stalinism".

"Stalinism" was not introduced here by me, it was introduced as a 
bargain-bin pejorative by Brian, which you are now making rollmops of as 
a red herring.

If this was a conversation you would address the topic, namely the 
questions of left strategy that have been discussed.




[1] 
https://ash.harvard.edu/files/ash/files/final_policy_brief_7.6.2020.pdf

--
Dmytri Kleiner
@dmytri
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