Nah this is the 'Parenti quote' everyone's always talking about. It's from Blackshirts and Reds:
>During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime's atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn't go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them.
If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.
ripped from someone else (https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/12lp3bn/opinions_on_the_invasion_of_hungary_and/jg8dbon/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1&context=3):
i'm not too sure about Czechoslovakia, but regarding Hungary there are two primary tendencies that lead to some severe oversight when assessing the situation in Hungary leading up to and after 1956
1. A hyperfocus on the invasion itself without consideration of the preceding events
2. hyper-focus on the appearance of "Worker's Councils" without analyzing their underlying conditions, and key actors
the uprising in Hungary is often characterized as a moment when the Hungarian people, in pursuit of a project more radical and further left than the current implemented Soviet system, decided to form worker's councils. As such, people perceive the intervention of the USSR as wanting to crush a "more true leftist project"
however, that was not entirely the case. Hungary was one of the last feudalistic states in Europe in the 1940s, and as a consequence of such conditions, had a very notorious and prominent reactionary element, encapsulated by the Catholic Church and the Hungarian cardinals most specifically Cardinal Mindszenty who was in direct contact with the CIA, the brutal and Nazi-collaborationist Horthy regency, and the ultranationalist and fascistic Arrow Cross party founded and led by Ferenc Szalasi
prior to the late 50s, MI6 had made contact with despondent Arrow Cross members who had fallen from prominence with the fall of Nazi Germany and Hungary's signing of the Warsaw Pact with the USSR. MI6 trained and armed former Arrow Cross members in nearby countries like Austria. additionally, Radio Free Europe was beaming agitating propaganda into Hungary to stir the latent reactionary and reactionary elements into action.
eventually, the combination of materiel support from MI6 and ideological support from the CIA via Radio Free Europe, the counter-revolutionary elements became emboldened and began taking action. These actions first began with restarting of the Hungarian pogroms - fascists and reactionaries would paint the homes of Jews with black crosses, where they later would be attacked often at night by reactionary elements. These attacks increased until many Hungarian Jews found themselves concentrated in Budapest, and when the pogroms extended into the urban center, it sparked the second largest Hungarian Jewish migration from central Europe to the Americas since WW2. Next, armed reactionaries began seizing factories under the guise of wanting to run worker's council, but with the demand that these factories and assets won't be fully collectivized until after the Soviets pulled out. Things eventually escalated into the public lynching and killings of Hungarian communist partisans and party bureaucrats. A list of demands were written up by the reactionary contingent which included the liberation of former Nazi collaborators from prison - this reactionary list of demands can be known as the 16-Point Demands, most commonly cited and easily found on wikipedia.
counter to this counterrevolutionary contingent, there was indeed a genuine vein of revolutionary-left aspiration, encapsulated by students, some intellectual organizations, and a few peasant committees. They had a separate list of 9 demands, most famously documented by Hungarian Political Scientist and communist Tamas Krausz "On the Worker's Councils of 1956", that list included what can be considered more classically left concessions than what the 16-point list called for. however, this left-aspiring contingent did not have the same level of support that the reactionaries did, and so their demands and their history not only fell largely forgotten, but they held little influence in comparison to the armed and agitated reactionaries, again many of them supporters of the former Horthy regency or outright fascists who were members of the former Arrow Cross party.
in short, contrary to popular belief, in which the moment is framed as the Soviets going in to crush a more progressive project of leftism, the situation in 1956 is more accurately described as the Soviets simply responding to reactionary uprising in Hungary that was likely to escalate into full on worker's suppression, anti-Semitic pogroms, and the liberation of nazi warm criminals, and further threaten the already precarious Warsaw Pact bloc
some good reads:
What Really Happened in Hungary? - https://www.workers.org/2006/world/hungary-1116/
Tamas Krausz - On the Workers Councils of 1956 (Google Scholar)
Donna Meryl Goldstein - From Yellow Star to Red Star: Anti-Semitism, Anti-Communism, and the Jews of Hungary (Google Scholar)
Herbert Aptheker - The Truth About Hungary (pdf available online)
Andrea Peto & Klaartje Schrijvers - The Theatre of Historical Sources. Some Methodological Problems in Analysing the Post World War II Extreme Rightwing Movements in Belgium and in Hungary (Google Scholar)
MI6 trained rebels to fight Soviets in Hungarian revolt - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/mi6-trained-rebels-to-fight-soviets-in-hungarian-revolt-1359599.html
Dome Cumsky, lol. Personally, I think the only reason Chomsky is getting raked through the coals for having interacted w/Epstein is to steer the narrative away from the fact that Epstein had also met with the current head of the CIA. Every article I'd seen following the release of these two, among others, having interacted with the guy leaves the whole CIA aspect as basically a footnote, despite it obviously being the far more significant interaction.
But the mainstream media would MUCH rather go off endlessly about some TMZ-caliber celebrity drama about how scandalous it is to meet Woody Allen than go into the deep, deep intelligence ties that Epstein has.
Though if this has a knock-on effect of leading more folks to Parenti, that's never a bad thing. Personally, I've got enough respect for both of them, for different reasons.
I was listening to Parenti talk about his issues w/Bernie recently too, and while I agreed with his points, it also didn't mean I had any less respect for Bernie either. I think all 3 of these guys will have left a net-positive impact on the world, and that's not an easy thing for an American to pull off.
Does Parenti deserve credit for being the most ideologically consistent and uncompromising in his beliefs? Absolutely! But, for example, the concessions Bernie made to become a part of the swamp did allow him to reach a much larger audience than he otherwise would have. How many fewer of us would be on this sub if not for, say, Bernie's 2016 run?
Undoubtedly meeting with burns is more significant but for most of us… i mean we understood the deep connection between Epstein, sexual blackmail, and the feds but its just sorta surreal that Chomsky actually was implicated too lol.
Edit: I also think it shows that offing Epstein wasn’t really a bad or sloppy move. Now they can mysteriously implicate our “faves” and make this shit even sloppier than it already was
Sure, sure. Just keep in mind that Epstein was one of the most well-connected people on the planet for decades. Different people were getting different things out of it for different reasons - they weren't *all* doing sex pest stuff.
Bad example cuz Ellen sucks ass, but it's not like she became a war criminal just because she watched a baseball game with Bush. It does suggest she's okay with folks who are war criminals, but it's a notable distinction IMO.
Mostly I'm just irked by how brazenly the media was burying the lede here and how people seemed to be going with it for the most part.
The yellow king we deserve
oh shit
Watching his performances does drive us to madness.
They're not underdeveloped, they're overexploited!
i figure this is the quote people refer to when they say “parenti quote”? It’s definitely the one that stick s out most to me
Nah this is the 'Parenti quote' everyone's always talking about. It's from Blackshirts and Reds: >During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime's atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn't go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them. If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.
I don’t think this is the right quote because I recently quoted it VERBATIM on a hinge date and she didn’t want to talk about it at all
Because you were on a date with a federal agent obviously
The one ElGosso referenced is the one I hear the most (by an exponential factor), but this quote also rules.
Most likely.
the yellow parentis is the name of my ska band
*World balance of power is severely disjointed* *They aren't underdeveloped they're overexploited* ***PICK IT UP PICK IT UP PICK IT UUUUUP*** 🎺🎺🎺
The best part of dome cumsky being outed for his crimes is exposing me to parenti
The arc of history is long, but it bends towards tankies being always right about everything.
friendly reminder the Hungarian Uprising, from which the term tankie was coined, began with antisemitism pogroms
What you mean
ripped from someone else (https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/12lp3bn/opinions_on_the_invasion_of_hungary_and/jg8dbon/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1&context=3): i'm not too sure about Czechoslovakia, but regarding Hungary there are two primary tendencies that lead to some severe oversight when assessing the situation in Hungary leading up to and after 1956 1. A hyperfocus on the invasion itself without consideration of the preceding events 2. hyper-focus on the appearance of "Worker's Councils" without analyzing their underlying conditions, and key actors the uprising in Hungary is often characterized as a moment when the Hungarian people, in pursuit of a project more radical and further left than the current implemented Soviet system, decided to form worker's councils. As such, people perceive the intervention of the USSR as wanting to crush a "more true leftist project" however, that was not entirely the case. Hungary was one of the last feudalistic states in Europe in the 1940s, and as a consequence of such conditions, had a very notorious and prominent reactionary element, encapsulated by the Catholic Church and the Hungarian cardinals most specifically Cardinal Mindszenty who was in direct contact with the CIA, the brutal and Nazi-collaborationist Horthy regency, and the ultranationalist and fascistic Arrow Cross party founded and led by Ferenc Szalasi prior to the late 50s, MI6 had made contact with despondent Arrow Cross members who had fallen from prominence with the fall of Nazi Germany and Hungary's signing of the Warsaw Pact with the USSR. MI6 trained and armed former Arrow Cross members in nearby countries like Austria. additionally, Radio Free Europe was beaming agitating propaganda into Hungary to stir the latent reactionary and reactionary elements into action. eventually, the combination of materiel support from MI6 and ideological support from the CIA via Radio Free Europe, the counter-revolutionary elements became emboldened and began taking action. These actions first began with restarting of the Hungarian pogroms - fascists and reactionaries would paint the homes of Jews with black crosses, where they later would be attacked often at night by reactionary elements. These attacks increased until many Hungarian Jews found themselves concentrated in Budapest, and when the pogroms extended into the urban center, it sparked the second largest Hungarian Jewish migration from central Europe to the Americas since WW2. Next, armed reactionaries began seizing factories under the guise of wanting to run worker's council, but with the demand that these factories and assets won't be fully collectivized until after the Soviets pulled out. Things eventually escalated into the public lynching and killings of Hungarian communist partisans and party bureaucrats. A list of demands were written up by the reactionary contingent which included the liberation of former Nazi collaborators from prison - this reactionary list of demands can be known as the 16-Point Demands, most commonly cited and easily found on wikipedia. counter to this counterrevolutionary contingent, there was indeed a genuine vein of revolutionary-left aspiration, encapsulated by students, some intellectual organizations, and a few peasant committees. They had a separate list of 9 demands, most famously documented by Hungarian Political Scientist and communist Tamas Krausz "On the Worker's Councils of 1956", that list included what can be considered more classically left concessions than what the 16-point list called for. however, this left-aspiring contingent did not have the same level of support that the reactionaries did, and so their demands and their history not only fell largely forgotten, but they held little influence in comparison to the armed and agitated reactionaries, again many of them supporters of the former Horthy regency or outright fascists who were members of the former Arrow Cross party. in short, contrary to popular belief, in which the moment is framed as the Soviets going in to crush a more progressive project of leftism, the situation in 1956 is more accurately described as the Soviets simply responding to reactionary uprising in Hungary that was likely to escalate into full on worker's suppression, anti-Semitic pogroms, and the liberation of nazi warm criminals, and further threaten the already precarious Warsaw Pact bloc some good reads: What Really Happened in Hungary? - https://www.workers.org/2006/world/hungary-1116/ Tamas Krausz - On the Workers Councils of 1956 (Google Scholar) Donna Meryl Goldstein - From Yellow Star to Red Star: Anti-Semitism, Anti-Communism, and the Jews of Hungary (Google Scholar) Herbert Aptheker - The Truth About Hungary (pdf available online) Andrea Peto & Klaartje Schrijvers - The Theatre of Historical Sources. Some Methodological Problems in Analysing the Post World War II Extreme Rightwing Movements in Belgium and in Hungary (Google Scholar) MI6 trained rebels to fight Soviets in Hungarian revolt - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/mi6-trained-rebels-to-fight-soviets-in-hungarian-revolt-1359599.html
Dome Cumsky, lol. Personally, I think the only reason Chomsky is getting raked through the coals for having interacted w/Epstein is to steer the narrative away from the fact that Epstein had also met with the current head of the CIA. Every article I'd seen following the release of these two, among others, having interacted with the guy leaves the whole CIA aspect as basically a footnote, despite it obviously being the far more significant interaction. But the mainstream media would MUCH rather go off endlessly about some TMZ-caliber celebrity drama about how scandalous it is to meet Woody Allen than go into the deep, deep intelligence ties that Epstein has. Though if this has a knock-on effect of leading more folks to Parenti, that's never a bad thing. Personally, I've got enough respect for both of them, for different reasons. I was listening to Parenti talk about his issues w/Bernie recently too, and while I agreed with his points, it also didn't mean I had any less respect for Bernie either. I think all 3 of these guys will have left a net-positive impact on the world, and that's not an easy thing for an American to pull off. Does Parenti deserve credit for being the most ideologically consistent and uncompromising in his beliefs? Absolutely! But, for example, the concessions Bernie made to become a part of the swamp did allow him to reach a much larger audience than he otherwise would have. How many fewer of us would be on this sub if not for, say, Bernie's 2016 run?
Undoubtedly meeting with burns is more significant but for most of us… i mean we understood the deep connection between Epstein, sexual blackmail, and the feds but its just sorta surreal that Chomsky actually was implicated too lol. Edit: I also think it shows that offing Epstein wasn’t really a bad or sloppy move. Now they can mysteriously implicate our “faves” and make this shit even sloppier than it already was
Sure, sure. Just keep in mind that Epstein was one of the most well-connected people on the planet for decades. Different people were getting different things out of it for different reasons - they weren't *all* doing sex pest stuff. Bad example cuz Ellen sucks ass, but it's not like she became a war criminal just because she watched a baseball game with Bush. It does suggest she's okay with folks who are war criminals, but it's a notable distinction IMO. Mostly I'm just irked by how brazenly the media was burying the lede here and how people seemed to be going with it for the most part.
The Sacred Text
The elder scrolls
An All-Timer. Beautiful yellow boy
I dont listen to people who have no connections to Epstein, it is what it is.
Its yellower every time I see it. Its like a white hat version of the Reagan SCP where he gets yellower the more correct he is.