"I hate the pigs ... but the justice system in China, DPRK etc is awsome"

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

There is obviously a lot of understandable criticism of the police in the US, Britain, Germany, France, Israel etc etc, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this. However, when it comes to the actions of police states under various "dictatorships of the proletariat" the excuses are endless. Why the double standard? Practically speaking, there are similar problems with the police forces of Western states and of various so-called "Communist" republics. Pigs hosing protesters in the face with pepper spray in the US is detestable and should be criticized, but I see people making all sorts of deflections when it comes to similar actions from States which are nominally Red, be they excesses of "Revolutionary terror", brutal crackdowns on protests or extreme punishment of prisoners. Pepper spraying protesters is terrible of course, but why make excuses for regimes that shoot protesters, send them to labor camps or "disappear" them?

I have my own thoughts on this, but I'd like to see the opinions of others.

[Ele'ill]

Yeah I agree with you, all cops under flowers. Is there anything else to even add?

[Fourth Internationalist]

I think that there aren't really many of us here who think the remaining red states' governments are justified in their actions regarding their police attacks and overall oppression against their citizens. Even the most radical Stalinist thinks they're revisionist. Others think they're capitalist or highly beurocratic and deformed. So I don't think this really applies to most people here. Maybe if you went to a tankie forum this might apply, but overall it isn't to most communists.

[adipocere]

I personally have never met anyone who says the justice system in China, DPRK is awesome, but I sort of understand what you're getting at.
At most, I think people are defensive of -insert underdog here - where they perceive that the criticism is hypocritical or blown out of proportion as a means to underline conventional talking points.

On the other hand, what I do frequently see are people who take defense of certain things out of context and try to re-frame a position to imply some total apologetic black/white stance - to create strawmen arguments that prevent them from being critical or honest about their own biased world view - which people tend to take for granted as absolute.

For instance, where China is the underdog, nobody assumes that people who criticize the justice system in China are defending the system in the US or the other way around - however people who may be defending China on something entirely separate might get attacked because the Chinese justice system can be criticized and as such becomes a reactionary way in which to attack the entire pro-China position.

Or take N.K - daring to suggest that maybe we blow shit way out of proportion in the west where it concerns N.K in no way should be construed as a blanket endorsement of every aspect of N.K. - though it frequently is by people who don't want to change their opinion. See Confirmation Bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias).

I personally don't see much of evidence of what you're saying, unless you want to cherry pick around the fringe - another type of strawman. However I do see evidence of people who are categorically dismissive of criticism of other countries because they are so wholly and irrationally opposed to the default society (US, UK etc). I dunno knee-jerking goes both ways.

[Tolstoy]

Ultimately, I would say that the DPRK and China are workers states that have deformed beyond recognition and should receive no support from any Marxist. We should look to Cuba as a good example of a Socialist Nation while still looking forward into creating something more democratic and even more wonderful

[Fakeblock]

Communists attack the police force and military of capitalist states, because they exist to preserve capitalist society. When the working class is in power the state exists to advance the interests of the proletariat, i.e. to abolish capitalist society. Communists should therefore support crackdowns on resistance by the working class against reactionaries. It's not a double standard, it's taking sides in the class struggle.

That said defending the justice and police system of the DPRK or China is moronic, most of all for communists. Are you talking about the 'anti-imperialists'?

[Fourth Internationalist]

Ultimately, I would say that the DPRK and China are workers states that have deformed beyond recognition and should receive no support from any Marxist.

If they are workers' states, as you think they are, then they deserve support in that regard while advocating political revolution there.


We should look to Cuba as a good example of a Socialist Nation while still looking forward into creating something more democratic and even more wonderful

We should view Cuba as a deformed workers' state, one in which we recognise the proletarian property relations (as with North Korea, China, etc) and the bureaucratic government that should be overthrown.

[Brutus]

What do you mean by proletarian property relations?

[Fourth Internationalist]

What do you mean by proletarian property relations?
A general outline of proletarian/collectivised property relations is in my signature.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

As much as I hear of some nutters out there, I've never seen anyone defend China's police and military. To claim to be a communist and then support the mass arrest of striking workers and shipping them to slave labour re-education camps, you'd pretty much have to be a walking contradiction.

[Brotto Rühle]

At least in the US you don't get jail time for not crying or clapping long enough for Dear Leader.

[Red HalfGuard]

But you do for defending yourself from transphobic nazis!

[o well this is ok I guess]

How about we use examples that people on revleft could be caught defending
say, the guardia civil circa 1937 or the Cheka

From what I've read of bog-standard leftist rags like Socialist Worker, it's ok if it's a workers party. You know, cuz that's in the interest of the proletariat, not the bourgeoisie, even if a few proletarians get offed.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

But you do for defending yourself from transphobic nazis!

I assure you the same happens in the PRC. Hell, the transphobic nazi you mention might even be a party member (meaning you don't even have the ability to raise a platform of protest).

[Jimmie Higgins]

From what I've read of bog-standard leftist rags like Socialist Worker, it's ok if it's a workers party. You know, cuz that's in the interest of the proletariat, not the bourgeoisie, even if a few proletarians get offed.Um, check your sources - it would be hard for "socialist worker" to defend the police of worker states when it believes that these states were state capitalist and the brutality and betrayals of these "worker's parties" were actually due to representing a different ruling minority class.


Why the double standard? Practically speaking, there are similar problems with the police forces of Western states and of various so-called "Communist" republics.Often groups seem to actually back-handedly excuse the police by claiming that the protesters are paid by the CIA or whatnot. Not that it's unheard of, but if it's more than some small group of people, then obviously there are some real grievences in that society even if somehow the initial agitation was some kind of spy-thing. But yeah, it's a cold-war era double standard basically.

[Red HalfGuard]

I assure you the same happens in the PRC. Hell, the transphobic nazi you mention might even be a party member (meaning you don't even have the ability to raise a platform of protest).

You're talking 'might', i'm talking somethign that actually happened. CeCe McDonald is serving decades right now for defending herself. And of course there's Chelsea Manning. And our prison population is much larger than the PRC both as total and percentage.

[Os Cangaceiros]

well according to this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_China#Legal_status

the status of LGBT rights in the PRC isn't exactly good. Homosexuality is legal (since 1997) and isn't considered a mental illness (since 2001), but that's about it.

[Os Cangaceiros]

And the "USA cops bad, PRC/DPRK/Cuba/etc cops good" logic makes sense to me, if you subscribe to the Brezhnevite viewpoint. Because the USA is an imperialist power, and the PRC/DPRK/Cuba/Zimbabwe/whatever are worker's states that are deformed to varying degrees, or at least they're nominally anti-imperialist.

That's not my position, though, personally I think that they're all capitalist states w/ varying degrees of state involvement which are more often than not linked to capital expansion by trading blocs which may or may not be hostile to the USA.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

You're talking 'might', i'm talking somethign that actually happened. CeCe McDonald is serving decades right now for defending herself. And of course there's Chelsea Manning. And our prison population is much larger than the PRC both as total and percentage.

If you seriously believe that the PRC government is either any more accepting of LGBT issues than the American one, or any less inclined to mass imprisonment and privatisation of prison systems, then you're deluding yourself.

On LGBT abuse:

http://lgbtweekly.com/2013/05/24/china-activist-detained-on-international-day-against-homophobia-and-transphobia/


Xiang Yuhan, 19, has been detained for at least twelve days in the southern Chinese city of Changsha by authorities after he organized a rally on the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia, reports Voice of America. The young activist was detained shortly after police showed up at his hotel room. In China, a person can be held against his will for up to 30 days without a trial.

Many argue that Yuhan was singled out because of his high visibility in a country struggling with the still-taboo subject of homosexuality. “Gay couples still face much discrimination in China, due to the lack of a legal recognition of their union,” said Beijing layer Huang Yizhi. “For example, in Shanghai, homosexual couples are barred from purchasing a house because they cannot marry.”

http://www.queerty.com/chinese-gay-groups-parents-protest-homophobic-educational-guide-20120905/

In a sign of just how far progress has been made in China, both parents and LGBT activists are decrying the inclusion of anti-gay commentary in the latest version of an educational booklet published by educators in Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province in Eastern China.
The booklet, “Parents, Please Walk Your Child Through Puberty” (right), claims that because homosexuals are not generally accepted, they tend to be antisocial and eccentric. “They are also starkly different from normal people in terms of outlook on life and views on morality,” reads on passage. “These problems are evident in their relationships with each other and in their relationships with other members of society.”


The self-styled experts in the Hangzhou Education Bureau and Hangzhou Education Research Institute go on to argue that if only homosexuals could practice some measure of restraint, they would be rid of their antisocial tendencies.

Activist Wang Long worries that these sorts of cure-the-gay elixirs—which even the Chinese Psychological Society has dismissed—are being taken as gospel by locals. “Once these textbooks are delivered to children and parents, they are very likely to be regarded as the truth, and this will mislead the public.”


http://www.womenofchina.cn/html/womenofchina/report/145767-1.htm


An online survey on homophobia in China's school and university campuses was released at the Netherlands Embassy in Beijing on May 14, 2012, revealing that 77 percent of respondents have suffered bullying, mostly in the form of verbal attacks, as a result of their sexual orientation.

The one-month survey interviewed 421 students, four fifths of whom were either homosexual or bisexual, and was launched by three LGBT organizations this April.

The survey shows that 59 percent of respondents admitted that bullying had a negative impact on their studies and 63 percent said it had a negative mental effect on them.

[Red HalfGuard]

Wait, wait wait...You're singling out China on the bullying issue? Do you have any idea how many LGBT youth here in the states commit suicide because of bullying? I'm no fan of Dengist reformism but...

http://www.bullyingstatistics.org/content/gay-bullying-statistics.html

In fact, about 9 out of 10 LGBT teens have reported being bullied at school within the past year because of their sexual orientation, according to the most recent gay bullying statistics (http://www.bullyingstatistics.org/content/bullying-statistics.html). Out of those numbers, almost half have reported being physically harassed followed by another quarter who reported actually being physically assaulted. Unfortunately most teens who experience bullying of any kind are reluctant to share their experience or report the incident to a teacher or trusted adult. Even more unfortunate are the gay statistics that report a lack of response among those teachers and school administration. According to a recent statistic, out of the students that did report a harassment or bullying situation because of their sexuality, about one third of the school staff didn't do anything to resolve the issue.

As a queer myself, I say: clean your own damn house. If you're straight, maybe you should work on combating homophobia in your own communities before you start trying to use us as brickbats against foreign governments.

[Red HalfGuard]

Also: http://www.prisonstudies.org/info/worldbrief/wpb_stats.php?area=all&category=wb_poprate

The USA is demonstrably more inclined to mass imprisonment than the PRC. About six times as inclined. More than anyone else, in fact.

[KurtFF8]

There is obviously a lot of understandable criticism of the police in the US, Britain, Germany, France, Israel etc etc, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this. However, when it comes to the actions of police states under various "dictatorships of the proletariat" the excuses are endless. Why the double standard? Practically speaking, there are similar problems with the police forces of Western states and of various so-called "Communist" republics. Pigs hosing protesters in the face with pepper spray in the US is detestable and should be criticized, but I see people making all sorts of deflections when it comes to similar actions from States which are nominally Red, be they excesses of "Revolutionary terror", brutal crackdowns on protests or extreme punishment of prisoners. Pepper spraying protesters is terrible of course, but why make excuses for regimes that shoot protesters, send them to labor camps or "disappear" them?

I have my own thoughts on this, but I'd like to see the opinions of others.

One of my favorite lines from the film The Legend of Rita (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Rita) is "red pigs are still pigs"

But I will have to say, policing is likely to be different under a socialist system than a capitalist state (and I would imagine there are some good arguments for how a place like Cuba has a different kind of police force than a place like...say Mexico) although I don't know much about policing in places like Cuba in all honesty.

[Red HalfGuard]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/aug/03/cuba.duncancampbell2 These might have something to do with it.

It seems highly likely that if the CIA had had access to a werewolf, it would have tried smuggling it into the Sierra Maestra at some point over the past 40-odd years.

Someone please write that.

[ArrowLance]

The difference is that one police state is working for the bourgeoisie, and the other is working for the proletariat.

[Brotto Rühle]

The difference is that one police state is working for the bourgeoisie, and the other is working for the proletariat.

Yeah...no. That's just a dumb-as-fuck statement to make.

[Decolonize The Left]

Yeah...no. That's just a dumb-as-fuck statement to make.

Please re-read the rules on the Learning forum before you post.


The difference is that one police state is working for the bourgeoisie, and the other is working for the proletariat.

I'm not sure if you're kidding, but many people here do not adhere to the notion that the Chinese state is controlled by the working-class. I think it's pretty clear to most that it is a capitalist country (to what degree it is so is usually being debated).

[helot]

But I will have to say, policing is likely to be different under a socialist system than a capitalist state

It definitely will be different. One of the more obvious differences will be there wouldn't be a police force due to a police force being a recent phenomenon, one inherently linked to class society.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Wait, wait wait...You're singling out China on the bullying issue?

No I'm not. How on earth did you even pick that up? From the first comment you made (in reply to mine, which was about the hypocrisy of communists supporting the armed forces of a rightist state because its' government flies a red flag) seemed to imply that the PRC is more progressive than most of the US in terms of the persecution of LGBT persons, so I responded with a rebuttal.


As a queer myself, I say: clean your own damn house. If you're straight, maybe you should work on combating homophobia in your own communities before you start trying to use us as brickbats against foreign governments.

I'm sorry, what? I'm queer as well, and this has nothing to do with what we were talking about. I distinctly remember you taking this anti-critical guilt attack line a while back with Devrim when he claimed that Mao was a bourgeois nationalist. I couldn't give a shit what you think I 'should' and 'shouldn't' do - the fact remains that the armed wing of the Chinese state is incredibly anti-working class, defends the interests of Chinese capital and is mired in right-wing worldviews, and any attempts to whitewash such monsters with claims that they or their bureaucratic benefactors are more tolerant than their American counterparts (utter nonsense, as I have shown earlier in response to you) is, consciously or not, revolting apologia for the running dogs China's capitalist regime.

[KurtFF8]

It definitely will be different. One of the more obvious differences will be there wouldn't be a police force due to a police force being a recent phenomenon, one inherently linked to class society.

Socialism is still a class society. The bourgeoisie does not evaporate as a class over night and I'm sure that most posters here would agree with that. It' just a class society with a different ruling class.

Policing would likely be necessary to some extent, but it would take on a radically different form. But it's not really worth it to speculate too much for hypothetical future social society. I would think it would be more valuable to look at how policing in a place like Cuba transformed over the 20th century. (Yes I know there are plenty of people who believe that Cuba is for some reason pretending to be socialist, but such a stance makes it a bit too easy to dismiss their structures)

[Dagoth Ur]

Supporting the DPRK or PRC doesn't entail wanting to be subject to their law system.

[ArrowLance]

Yeah...no. That's just a dumb-as-fuck statement to make.

Yeah...no. It's called class analysis.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Yeah...no. It's called class analysis.

You could call it class analysis, but if you think the PRC is a "Workers' State", I would call it, "You don't know what the fuck you're talking about." Particularly in light of the last few years of widespread workers' resistance, including strikes, bossnappings, and burning shit down - carried out against the official CP-controlled unions, and in the face of tremendous police violence - defending the Chinese police is particularly vile.

Thankfully, one can support the struggles of the Chinese working class without being a stooge for U$ foreign policy objectives. In fact, given the relationship between Chinese elites (both the nouveaux riches of the private sector and the CP bureaucratic parasites) and American capital, one could even surmise that the two things are intimately related . . .

On a related note (pertinent for real on-the-ground organizing), what the fuck does China have to do with how terrible the prison industrial complex in [insert the name of your home country]? I mean, sure, they're related if we take a broad view of things (as we should), but, like, when does this come up in conversation? Like, I'm not the world's most active prisoner support or anticop organizer, but I have yet to have a conversation go:

Me: "Prisoners in Pelican Bay State Prison are on hunger strike against inhumane conditions in the SHU."
Person who doesn't exist: "BUT WHAT ABOUT PRISONERS IN CHINA?!"

[Spruce]

What does disliking the police have to do with communism?

[Brotto Rühle]

Yeah...no. It's called class analysis.

What are the organs of working class state power in the glorious Democratic Korea?

Do North Koreans volunteer to work for shit wages in Siberia, for the good of the workers state?

Seriously, it's neither an analysis, nor is it a comment that had any bearing in reality.

[Dagoth Ur]

The DPRK has a much better case for being a worker's state than the PRC which has allowed open bourgeoisie membership in the Party. Sure it's Barracks Communism but what the fuck else was North Korea supposed to do? They're still at war with Japan and America and their Occupational Government in Seoul (a government directly descended from Japan's WW2 Occupational Korean government).

Before we jump on the imperialist "fuck North Korea" bandwagon lets remember what Western (aka "South" Korean) intervention has meant for the DPRK: 30 percent of your people dead, the government your revolution was truly against is still propped up by Japan and America, economic sanctions that turned a food-exporting nation to a starving one, etc. Sure the DPRK has massive problems and I'd never want something like that, but I'm not North Korean or subject to the horrorshow history they own.

[tachosomoza]

There is obviously a lot of understandable criticism of the police in the US, Britain, Germany, France, Israel etc etc, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this. However, when it comes to the actions of police states under various "dictatorships of the proletariat" the excuses are endless. Why the double standard? Practically speaking, there are similar problems with the police forces of Western states and of various so-called "Communist" republics. Pigs hosing protesters in the face with pepper spray in the US is detestable and should be criticized, but I see people making all sorts of deflections when it comes to similar actions from States which are nominally Red, be they excesses of "Revolutionary terror", brutal crackdowns on protests or extreme punishment of prisoners. Pepper spraying protesters is terrible of course, but why make excuses for regimes that shoot protesters, send them to labor camps or "disappear" them?

I have my own thoughts on this, but I'd like to see the opinions of others.

This is why people make excuses for them. They don't see North Korea as a dynastic regime where people are starving to death in labor camps for making remarks about the color of Kim Jong Un's shirt, they see it as a bastion and mighty fortress against Western Imperialism that has cool marching music and a red flag. They don't see China as a neo-imperialist police state with superpower ambitions, they see Mao Zedong. People will lie to themselves, practice selective vision and hearing, and make all sorts of excuses when they like the propaganda, the rhetoric and personally like the leaders. In a lot of people's eyes, if a state throws out vaguely leftist rhetoric, they'll defend it to the death and it can do no wrong, or what wrong they do is justified.

[Dagoth Ur]

You sound like a liberal. Also explain this concept of neo-feudalism.

[tachosomoza]

You sound like a liberal. Also explain this concept of neo-feudalism.

You're a Stalinist, you think everybody is a liberal.

[Dagoth Ur]

No I think everybody right of social-democrats are liberals (excluding the far-right of course but they're lackeys of liberals so that's almost worse) and that's who you sound like. I'm not trying to say the DPRK is any kind of ideal but their material situation is hardly ideal either. Attacking the DPRK is to heap on more misery to a people ravaged by imperialism.

You could use some solidarity.

[tachosomoza]

No I think everybody right of social-democrats are liberals (excluding the far-right of course but they're lackeys of liberals so that's almost worse) and that's who you sound like. I'm not trying to say the DPRK is any kind of ideal but their material situation is hardly ideal either. Attacking the DPRK is to heap on more misery to a people ravaged by imperialism.

You could use some solidarity.

I'm not to the "right of social democrats". The people of the DPRK are ravaged by the Kim Dynasty, the solidarity should be with them, not with the dictators that sap their resources and oppress them.

[Dagoth Ur]

The Kim "dynasty" is the face of the War and Revolution in Korea. They haven't ever really had a chance to sit back breathe and get past old ways. Kim il-Sung was an actual ruler, Kim Jong-il was a stand-in son for many of the wartime generals who really rule Korea, and Kim Jong-un is just an attempt to maintain legitimacy.

[tachosomoza]

The Kim "dynasty" is the face of the War and Revolution in Korea. They haven't ever really had a chance to sit back breathe and get past old ways. Kim il-Sung was an actual ruler, Kim Jong-il was a stand-in son for many of the wartime generals who really rule Korea, and Kim Jong-un is just an attempt to maintain legitimacy.

The Kim dynasty is the face of kleptocracy, terror, and starvation that misguided leftists make excuses for because they also use vaguely leftist rhetoric. A true socialist state doesn't have a family of rulers, they don't throw their people into labor camps or execute them for criticizing that family, and they don't use public resources to send the sons and daughters of the ruling family and generals to schools in Europe and maintain opulent residences, private trains, cars, and lifestyles while the people are malnourished.

[Brotto Rühle]

http://greatmomentsinleftism.blogspot.com/2013/08/meanwhile-in-pyongyang.html

[o well this is ok I guess]

Um, check your sources - it would be hard for "socialist worker" to defend the police of worker states when it believes that these states were state capitalist and the brutality and betrayals of these "worker's parties" were actually due to representing a different ruling minority class. I'm not saying that Socialist Worker supported the guardia civil or the cheka, I was just using them as an example of a rag that takes an "it's ok if we use it" stance on issues.
I mean, I've received no indication that Socialist Worker is against police as police, rather than as police as an armed wing of capitalism.

[synthesis]

What does disliking the police have to do with communism?

They are the thugs of the ruling class and the buffer between them and the working class, the first line of defense against revolution.

They also just generally have a negative impact on a lot of people's lives, which is an inverse relationship to those people's positions on the capitalist totem pole.

[ind_com]

I denounce both open imperialism and leftism-clad imperialism equally. But one interesting observation I have made is that those who make a big deal about leftists not denouncing the erstwhile socialist nations are usually the ones whose political arguments give the exact end results of those of open imperialists. In the places where I have participated in organizing, these same people also claim that Stalin, Mao etc. were evil dictators, that India is not a Hindu fascist state, Muslims are troublesome people or that China attacked India in 1962. And obviously, they also oppose the people's war tooth and nail. I am not claiming that being concerned about the degeneration of socialism is wrong, I am just pointing out that if you talk and walk like a wolf then you are a wolf.

[Dagoth Ur]

Socialists cannot be imperialists for very obvious reasons. Your argument is invalid.

[tachosomoza]

Socialists cannot be imperialists for very obvious reasons. Your argument is invalid.

People can call themselves anything they want, doesn't make it so.

[Rusty Shackleford]

How about we use examples that people on revleft could be caught defending
say, the guardia civil circa 1937 or the Cheka

From what I've read of bog-standard leftist rags like Socialist Worker, it's ok if it's a workers party. You know, cuz that's in the interest of the proletariat, not the bourgeoisie, even if a few proletarians get offed.

guardia civil (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Guard_(Spain)) were fascists.

[Dagoth Ur]

Socialists are socialists because materially they act as socialists. Ideas of what you are have no meaning compared to what you actually are.

[o well this is ok I guess]

guardia civil (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Guard_(Spain)) were fascists.
Some were, yes

Thus, it supported the dictatorship of General (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General) Miguel Primo de Rivera (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Primo_de_Rivera) (1923–1930), but it also supported the Second Spanish Republic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Spanish_Republic) (1931–1939). During the Spanish Civil War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Civil_War), the Guardia Civil forces split almost evenly between those who remained loyal to the Republic, 53% of the members(which changed their name to Guardia Nacional Republicana - "National Republic Guard") and the rebel forces.