I was lucky enough to read about china in university and read 3 different books about Mao for varying perspectives. What is happening in the US is strikingly similar to the cultural revolution. Making "anti progress" people kowotow to the revolution, taking away their means of livelihoods. Wait till these people start saying that anyone with a slightly different opinion than the revolution is a racist and needs to be "reeducatted", and long for a social credit system similar to china.
The CCP also didn't start with the goal of oppressing people. It started with the goal of ending century long oppression of chinese peasants at the hands of the ruling elites. If you read Mao's little red book, he even makes some arguments against censorship.
> What is happening in the US is strikingly similar to the cultural revolution
Certainly the Cultural Revolution was way way worse. And yes it brings to mind certain similarities for sure. Taking away livelihoods without due process is bad. Being put to death is worse.
Current events do bring to my mind certain aspects of "self-criticism" [1]. As an observation, I'm thinking of the other HN front page post [2] about de-escalating. I'm not on twitter so maybe I'm misunderstanding this. Apparently if I tweet something wrong, it might explode virally and I might lose my livelihood... and the solution is to de-escalate (maybe with some tool twitter might helpfully provide) by apologizing and learning that there's still a lot to learn, to deeply admit the mistake, and listen deeply and thoughtfully, and to be reeducated on what's wrong with what I thought.
Another aspect brought to mind is "struggle session" [3], "a form of public humiliation and torture that was used ... during the Cultural Revolution". Certainly what happened in CR is absolutely way worse. What happens on twitter and elsewhere online do bring to mind certain aspects I've observed... the public humiliation and shaming, mobilizing the masses online, group of people accusing another 'privileged group or person, revisiting past mistakes.
There are indeed interesting similarities to compare and contrast though.
The actual numbers of murders by police do not support that claim though.
To quote (black) Columbia scholar McWhorter: "black people in the US are 2.5 times more likely to be poor, and they are 2.5 times more likely to be murdered by police."
Highly recommend to take an hour and watch him for example being interviewed by Coleman Hughes (black, Columbia U scholar) or on the Glenn Loury (black, Brown U scholar) podcast.
While your first two statements are true, they are a textbook example of a straw man argument. I did not say they are marxist because they don't want people murdered by the police. I also didn't say they're marxist because they're against celebrating slavers.
If you're willing to learn, you may want to look up what Patrisse Cullors has to say about her own BLM movement. I feel sorry that you think this is comical.
Please enlighten me as to which material achievements you refer. The destruction of neighborhoods and statues? When the distinction between inanimate objects that do not represent their ideology and living human beings fades, the world they will have created will be worse, not better, despite their apparent good intentions.
It's traditional to label any left-wing movement in the US as "Marxist", regardless of the actual content of its views, simply because that's an effective thought-terminating cliche for the rightwing audience. Nobody cares about the historical analysis. The intent is always the same; in this case, to make it clear that if the police aren't allowed to murder people in the street without repercussions, America will immediately become a communist dictatorship.
(Some people in the movement do self-identify as Marxist, yes; so what? That's a convenient way of avoiding looking at their actual politics.)
If one is into black humour, it's amusing that one can find actual slavers arguing that if people were allowed to call for Abolition without repercussions, America would become a communist dictatorship.
(I went wait what at first, but I guess the communists were already a thing in the 1830's, so it makes sense educated people would've been familiar with them)
> "Now, as every well-informed person knows, the fact is indisputable, and has often been boasted of by the infidel press, that anti-slavery sentiments were first propagated by the ultra socialists and communists--those miserable sans culottes, who, during the memorable French Revolution, raised the cry of Liberté, Fraternité et Egalité, and in the madness of their drunken folly enthroned a nude harlot in the Temple of Justice as the goddess Reason, the object of their admiration and worship. At that time England and Massachusetts were virtuously engaged in supplying the slave-marts of the world with cargoes fresh from Guinea and Loango, and our Northern divines had not the least suspicion that the Bible condemned slavery. But, sansculotteism being quelled in France, soon found a foothold in Exeter Hall, and thence spread to the United States. For a long time the clergy resisted the storm of radical ideas, but being only men like the rest of us, and having an eye to benefices, calls, surprise-parties, and the like, as well as "itching ears" to catch the sweet voices of the rabble, they have at last almost surrendered in a body in the Free States, and now seek to lead in the new crusade ..."
> " Already, we repeat, this terrible question is being mooted in secret conclave; and should the time ever come when it shall be mooted openly--when loudmouthed and earnest men, fresh from the people, shall bestride Faneuil Hall, bawling for an equal and exact distribution to every mechanic of whatever craft, to every operative of whatever mills, to every laborer of whatever grade--bawling, we say, for an equal and exact distribution to the workmen of the net proceeds
of their combined labor; and denouncing in the same breath pampered capitalists, as so many lordlings growing rich on the earnings of the moiling and toiling poor, reaping where they have not sown, and gathering where they have not scattered; upon what plausible pretext will you, Sir, then seek to gainsay them? You will have none. Dumb and quaking with fear you would be constrained to acquiesce in their logic; for they would only use in their own behalf the identical arguments you have assiduously tried to impress upon their minds for ten years and more, in order to persuade them to interfere in the affairs of their neighbors."
^F "socialist" for more of the sort. Hundley would've hated 140 characters.
This is a nice example of why I think calling ideologies by their name is more helpful to a discussion than calling a collection of ideas left- or rightwing.
Claiming the CCP and BLM are on the same page would be comical if I wasn't so sure you were serious.