Are there any sources that I could quickly reference? I know The Deprogram has a wiki that I usually use, but are there any others without having to read whole articles? I'm going to read them anyway, but just as quick info.
I agree that staying out of debates that I don't have much knowledge about should be better, however I can't just not respond when people spew misinformation about things. Even when I answer with "China is socialist" they counter by saying that it can't be since they have billionaires etc. It's exhausting.
Another one regarding China is the mass surveillance and social points system. I've made a post in the past asking if the social points system even exists and in essence it doesn't, but what would be a good answer to the surveillance one apart from saying "The West also does surveillance" but to this I've gotten answers such as "The number of cameras in London monitoring people are 30k (idk what the exact number was) and in China it's in the millions".
Is this from Blackshirts & Reds? I have that in my reading queue and it's probably going to be the most important text for me to frame against these types of arguments.
I've gotten replies that this is just conspiracy theories (even after pointing out that the CIA said so in their documents I get hit with "why would the CIA out themselves like that") along with "if the US didn't do that we would be fucked from the Russians"
I'm having difficulty defending ML ideas when talking with people. The biggest issues being "if communism is so great why did it fail everywhere", "Communist were just authoritarian", "China is just as bad as the US". I just don't know how to defend these points properly tbh, I just don't present the ideas clearly enough.
Their initial response was that every communist project has failed, to which I replied that it was due to imperialist forces like the US rigging elections or generatic and support coups.
He didn't elaborate a lot on it, I just kind of stopped the discussion there as I wasn't sure how to answer him.
I play a lot of Magic: The Gathering with friends and my local community. As others have said nature is the shit, hiking, camping, walks, biking etc. also gardening if you have that option. Reading, writing & watching films while I leave my phone in the other room as to not get distracted. I've also recently gotten into bouldering and loving the sport.
As a new marxist who watches Hakim's videos and listens to The Deprogram I'm now kind of confused if the content I'm following/listening is even correct after this post. I wanted to read this book as well, but am now hesitent to do so. Furthermore I'm now sceptical of any literature being recommended to me that isn't Marx/Engels/Mao/Lenin which doesn't seem right?
Or am I being too strict and I should just accept that not all aspects of the material I'm reading are going to be down to the point agreeing with ML thought? I'm just confused tbh.
First time hearing about that term and it actually explains so much. Thanks for this, I'll be saving your comment