Since the beginning of the conflict I have a growing suspicion that Iran is more modern and bottom-up that the west wants to admit. I share the sentiment about a holy book being the main framework for politics but the clergy in power in Iran today is more capable of materialist analysis than liberal politicians
And imperialism promotes theocratic attitudes in places that are subjugated. A society can’t progress when, well, it’s progress is stopped by imperialism. This is a truism but people still ignore it and smear developing countries while ignoring the circumstances
What’s confusing? Yeah, they’re protag coded right now. But they’re still a theocracy. Governments are not good, but governments ruled by religions are even worse. I get not everyone is an anarchist here. But this is not a war between good guys and bad guys just because the US are comically evil all the time.
You’ve got to zoom out and look at things more holistically. This focus on individual states and the exact structure of them instead of the bigger picture is the individualist mindset expanded to geopolitical analysis.
The contradiction in the world today is between imperialism and anti-imperialism. Many of the countries on the side that we call anti-imperialism are imperfect or even reactionary. But siding against them means siding with imperialism.
Take Russia for example. Analyse it at the individual level the state is bad and we are absolutely not fans of it. But analyse it in a more holistic picture of the world and you realise that it is the supplier of weapons, defence, resources (oil/gas) and intelligence for every actually-good country on the side of anti-imperialism, such as Cuba, Venezuela, Burkina Faso, etc etc etc. Literally every single country on the side of anti-imperialism has Russia as a crucial ally, supplier and supporter.
Analysing these states as they are individually is not enough to draw a picture of correct strategy. They have to be placed into the context of the whole picture. Iran is the Russia of the Middle East. You don’t have to be its fan, but you do have to realise how completely fucking essential it is to resistance to imperialism.
Any complaint about what countries individually are can wait until the primary contradiction has been resolved. Every attempt to reduce people’s views down to the individual analysis of each state is just an attempt to break apart support for essential countries on the anti-imperialist side.
No I do get that, but we’ve been having zoomed out discussions. Sometimes we do need to remember what these entities are in the daily lives of their people. Especially the USA, our government is salivating at christian theocracy. I do get that as you zoom out it state relations begin to just resemble people, and most are just acting in their best interest.
In the daily lives of the Iranian people this “entity” is the thing standing between them, a mass murder campaign, and imperial rule by a puppet regime installed by nato to dominate the region and exploit its resources for the imperial core. The Iranian government is what the people overwhelmingly support. And I support it too.
Yeah because of the US. Without this war I’m sure its less fun to live under a theocracy. Which support for it shot up the minute that became true. I think thats rather obvious on a survival basis why that is. But, come on, theocracy, we can admit thats not the best. And I can certainly say that under non war circumstances I wouldn’t find myself usually agreeing with a theocratic government. Like I dont think thats outlandish or weird or imperialist to say.
I really have to ask… What are you imagining? Have you traveled anywhere outside the western world at all in your life?
You keep saying theocracy as this scareword mantra, have you actually ever visited anywhere else in the world to understand what places are really like for the average person? Iran is an incredibly normal ass country in most ways.
Ok so travel is expensive I can forgive that… Do you ever like, watch a walk through of cities or places elsewhere in the world? Just uncut everyday walk through a city?
What do you even picture Iran being like? Do you know it snows heavily in Tehran every year? Not relevant perhaps but understanding what seasons a country experiences is somewhat important basic-ass understanding of what living in that country is actually like. Do you know what home ownership rates are? Living standards? Literacy rates? Do you know what literacy rates were BEFORE the theocracy you keep complaining about? How about poverty before and after?
I’m really trying to get a better picture of what’s going on in your head here because I suspect your vibes-based idea of what the world is like does not match up with reality.
Do you ever like, watch a walk through of cities or places elsewhere in the world? Just uncut everyday walk through a city?
There is a Chinese women on YouTube who does this and her videos are very grounding. Walking around Siria or Iran and having a very normal experience; people being generous, being funny, being cool, set against their conditions which are often very difficult.
You might not know these people lived under a “theocracy” based on her direct experience. People are just living their lives, working, watching children, going to school, going to church, playing games, listening to music.
The war has been ongoing for years; sanctions are simply the modern form of siege warfare.
That’s why I support Iran - not because I like theocracy, but because the only alternative while under attack is surrender. We can either support Iran’s theocracy and all of its many internal contradictions, or we can support Western imperialism. That’s it.
Less smarmy response because I have a bad habit of doing them:
To label Iran as a theocracy in this way feels very tone deaf to me. In addition to what Awoo said, the clerical elite/revolutionary leaders of Iran have sacrificed so much of themselves to defend the Iranian nation and its people. Not to mention how there is a whole electoral power system alongside the clerical class. This callous off-hand reference to reducing the material conditions of Iran to “just a theocracy” is the sort of ideological alienation Marxists should seek to avoid.
The US has repeatedly invoked religious rhetoric in the Ramadan War, explaining to its own military that this war is about securing Christianity (or something else I can’t remember). The Iranian side has not done the same, every diplomatic movement from Iran is made using calculated, materialist decision making that is aligned with “International Law” to a frustrating degree and repeatedly punished for it.
Also Persepolis (2003) and its consequences were a disaster for the western perception of Iran not rooted in veiled women and repressive “totalitarianism”
Are you including the Republic of Malta and the Kingdom of Denmark under theocracies or is that only reserved for scary brown Muslim countries like the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia?
That’s bad child anarchist reading of things, government is good because it’s literally just a formalized structure for a community to work together and resolve disputes
When an anarchist says “government is bad” they’re talking about institutionalized government. When its the community governing itself that is not what we are speaking of. Come on, dont claim child when you’re eating it at face value too.
I think you’re conflating/mixing the state and the government. The government serves a necessary function of organisation and administration. The state is the organised institutions of class rule.
I think what I mean to say at heart is most governments suck and we can do better as people. Because as other commentors and yourself in a way said, a government can be your community in a building together counting raised hands.
Because as other commentors and yourself in a way said, a government can be your community in a building together counting raised hands.
That’s not really what I’m saying. I’m not arguing for reducing society to loosely linked city-states or town halls counting raised hands for everything. That would be a massive regression. I like hospitals, public transport, social safety nets, infrastructure, large-scale planning, disaster response, and all the other things that require complex administration.
I believe taking issue with the notion of government in and of itself is slightly silly. A government is necessary in any complex modern society. The real issue is the state, and more specifically the class character of said state.
In most countries today, the state is a bourgeois state: its courts, police, bureaucracy, laws, military, and political institutions ultimately defend private property, capital accumulation, and the rule of a small owning class over the masses.
It is much more logical and reasonable to fight to replace bourgeois class rule with institutions serving the working masses, while keeping and in places expanding the necessary administrative capacity for modern society. Than it is to fight to destroy large scale planning and administration as a whole.
In communist terms, yeah. The distinction doesnt really matter to anarchists as long as its not the people just governing themselves we dont really like it.
the distinction does matter because the answer to “why don’t the people govern themselves” matters
“democratic” government under liberal bourgeois democracy doesn’t represent the people because the economic and political power afforded to the bourgeoisie by their ownership of Shit is mutually exclusive with actual democracy
That doesn’t mean “government” is the problem because that’s literally the word you use for the collective of “the people governing themselves” unless you’re on some fucked up Josiah Warren* every man a small proprietor governing themselves shit which just isn’t realistic and also isn’t anarchism because anarchism isn’t “no hierarchies!” it’s concerned with the abolition of unjust and arbitrary hierarchies i.e. “i have all the political power because i literally own the town” is a problem but “we discussed it and adopted a constitution by a vote empowering executive representatives” isn’t (literally the people governing themselves)
anyway im drunk good night
*prob not accurate look dawg i’ve read a lot but i don’t read yknow
That’s for the Iranians to sort out without our interference. In fact its the only way it will be sorted out. When there are constant outside threats there isnt much room for instability.
Yeah it is, and we should remember to have the nuance to back them and not stan for the government even after looking awesome as fucc standing up to the USA, as long as its their decision and not another color revolution.
That’s kinda taken for granted here unless otherwise indicated. I dont think there’s much uncritical support for Iran here, we like to goof and gag, so our current cheering on cause they spat in America’s eye and america blinked can sometimes seem like whole hearted support of everything Iran’s current government stands for. That isnt the case, it’s just a tight enough knit community that we get when someone is being hyperbolic for humor at least most of the time
Its fucken crazy how much the Trump admin has me agreeing with a fucking theocracy. I hate bizarro world
it’s because the primary contradiction in the world today is between imperialism and anti-imperialism
Thats a better perspective. We’re still very much in the dark ages of governance tho.
Since the beginning of the conflict I have a growing suspicion that Iran is more modern and bottom-up that the west wants to admit. I share the sentiment about a holy book being the main framework for politics but the clergy in power in Iran today is more capable of materialist analysis than liberal politicians
I think all countries are more modern than the west wants to admit.
And imperialism promotes theocratic attitudes in places that are subjugated. A society can’t progress when, well, it’s progress is stopped by imperialism. This is a truism but people still ignore it and smear developing countries while ignoring the circumstances
So you agree with the Trump admin then? I’m confused.
What’s confusing? Yeah, they’re protag coded right now. But they’re still a theocracy. Governments are not good, but governments ruled by religions are even worse. I get not everyone is an anarchist here. But this is not a war between good guys and bad guys just because the US are comically evil all the time.
You’ve got to zoom out and look at things more holistically. This focus on individual states and the exact structure of them instead of the bigger picture is the individualist mindset expanded to geopolitical analysis.
The contradiction in the world today is between imperialism and anti-imperialism. Many of the countries on the side that we call anti-imperialism are imperfect or even reactionary. But siding against them means siding with imperialism.
Take Russia for example. Analyse it at the individual level the state is bad and we are absolutely not fans of it. But analyse it in a more holistic picture of the world and you realise that it is the supplier of weapons, defence, resources (oil/gas) and intelligence for every actually-good country on the side of anti-imperialism, such as Cuba, Venezuela, Burkina Faso, etc etc etc. Literally every single country on the side of anti-imperialism has Russia as a crucial ally, supplier and supporter.
Analysing these states as they are individually is not enough to draw a picture of correct strategy. They have to be placed into the context of the whole picture. Iran is the Russia of the Middle East. You don’t have to be its fan, but you do have to realise how completely fucking essential it is to resistance to imperialism.
Any complaint about what countries individually are can wait until the primary contradiction has been resolved. Every attempt to reduce people’s views down to the individual analysis of each state is just an attempt to break apart support for essential countries on the anti-imperialist side.
No I do get that, but we’ve been having zoomed out discussions. Sometimes we do need to remember what these entities are in the daily lives of their people. Especially the USA, our government is salivating at christian theocracy. I do get that as you zoom out it state relations begin to just resemble people, and most are just acting in their best interest.
In the daily lives of the Iranian people this “entity” is the thing standing between them, a mass murder campaign, and imperial rule by a puppet regime installed by nato to dominate the region and exploit its resources for the imperial core. The Iranian government is what the people overwhelmingly support. And I support it too.
Yeah because of the US. Without this war I’m sure its less fun to live under a theocracy. Which support for it shot up the minute that became true. I think thats rather obvious on a survival basis why that is. But, come on, theocracy, we can admit thats not the best. And I can certainly say that under non war circumstances I wouldn’t find myself usually agreeing with a theocratic government. Like I dont think thats outlandish or weird or imperialist to say.
I really have to ask… What are you imagining? Have you traveled anywhere outside the western world at all in your life?
You keep saying theocracy as this scareword mantra, have you actually ever visited anywhere else in the world to understand what places are really like for the average person? Iran is an incredibly normal ass country in most ways.
Ok so travel is expensive I can forgive that… Do you ever like, watch a walk through of cities or places elsewhere in the world? Just uncut everyday walk through a city?
What do you even picture Iran being like? Do you know it snows heavily in Tehran every year? Not relevant perhaps but understanding what seasons a country experiences is somewhat important basic-ass understanding of what living in that country is actually like. Do you know what home ownership rates are? Living standards? Literacy rates? Do you know what literacy rates were BEFORE the theocracy you keep complaining about? How about poverty before and after?
I’m really trying to get a better picture of what’s going on in your head here because I suspect your vibes-based idea of what the world is like does not match up with reality.
There is a Chinese women on YouTube who does this and her videos are very grounding. Walking around Siria or Iran and having a very normal experience; people being generous, being funny, being cool, set against their conditions which are often very difficult.
You might not know these people lived under a “theocracy” based on her direct experience. People are just living their lives, working, watching children, going to school, going to church, playing games, listening to music.
Her channel is here: https://youtube.com/@littlechineseeverywhere
I highly recommend it.
The war has been ongoing for years; sanctions are simply the modern form of siege warfare.
That’s why I support Iran - not because I like theocracy, but because the only alternative while under attack is surrender. We can either support Iran’s theocracy and all of its many internal contradictions, or we can support Western imperialism. That’s it.
Which comes back to my original comment, which somehow started all this.
Less smarmy response because I have a bad habit of doing them:
To label Iran as a theocracy in this way feels very tone deaf to me. In addition to what Awoo said, the clerical elite/revolutionary leaders of Iran have sacrificed so much of themselves to defend the Iranian nation and its people. Not to mention how there is a whole electoral power system alongside the clerical class. This callous off-hand reference to reducing the material conditions of Iran to “just a theocracy” is the sort of ideological alienation Marxists should seek to avoid.
The US has repeatedly invoked religious rhetoric in the Ramadan War, explaining to its own military that this war is about securing Christianity (or something else I can’t remember). The Iranian side has not done the same, every diplomatic movement from Iran is made using calculated, materialist decision making that is aligned with “International Law” to a frustrating degree and repeatedly punished for it.
Also Persepolis (2003) and its consequences were a disaster for the western perception of Iran not rooted in veiled women and repressive “totalitarianism”
Are you including the Republic of Malta and the Kingdom of Denmark under theocracies or is that only reserved for scary brown Muslim countries like the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia?
That’s bad child anarchist reading of things, government is good because it’s literally just a formalized structure for a community to work together and resolve disputes
When an anarchist says “government is bad” they’re talking about institutionalized government. When its the community governing itself that is not what we are speaking of. Come on, dont claim child when you’re eating it at face value too.
I think you’re conflating/mixing the state and the government. The government serves a necessary function of organisation and administration. The state is the organised institutions of class rule.
I think what I mean to say at heart is most governments suck and we can do better as people. Because as other commentors and yourself in a way said, a government can be your community in a building together counting raised hands.
That’s not really what I’m saying. I’m not arguing for reducing society to loosely linked city-states or town halls counting raised hands for everything. That would be a massive regression. I like hospitals, public transport, social safety nets, infrastructure, large-scale planning, disaster response, and all the other things that require complex administration.
I believe taking issue with the notion of government in and of itself is slightly silly. A government is necessary in any complex modern society. The real issue is the state, and more specifically the class character of said state.
In most countries today, the state is a bourgeois state: its courts, police, bureaucracy, laws, military, and political institutions ultimately defend private property, capital accumulation, and the rule of a small owning class over the masses.
It is much more logical and reasonable to fight to replace bourgeois class rule with institutions serving the working masses, while keeping and in places expanding the necessary administrative capacity for modern society. Than it is to fight to destroy large scale planning and administration as a whole.
ok but what you’re thinking of is bourgeois government
In communist terms, yeah. The distinction doesnt really matter to anarchists as long as its not the people just governing themselves we dont really like it.
No, in like, terms
the distinction does matter because the answer to “why don’t the people govern themselves” matters
“democratic” government under liberal bourgeois democracy doesn’t represent the people because the economic and political power afforded to the bourgeoisie by their ownership of Shit is mutually exclusive with actual democracy
That doesn’t mean “government” is the problem because that’s literally the word you use for the collective of “the people governing themselves” unless you’re on some fucked up Josiah Warren* every man a small proprietor governing themselves shit which just isn’t realistic and also isn’t anarchism because anarchism isn’t “no hierarchies!” it’s concerned with the abolition of unjust and arbitrary hierarchies i.e. “i have all the political power because i literally own the town” is a problem but “we discussed it and adopted a constitution by a vote empowering executive representatives” isn’t (literally the people governing themselves)
anyway im drunk good night
*prob not accurate look dawg i’ve read a lot but i don’t read yknow
That’s for the Iranians to sort out without our interference. In fact its the only way it will be sorted out. When there are constant outside threats there isnt much room for instability.
Yeah it is, and we should remember to have the nuance to back them and not stan for the government even after looking awesome as fucc standing up to the USA, as long as its their decision and not another color revolution.
That’s kinda taken for granted here unless otherwise indicated. I dont think there’s much uncritical support for Iran here, we like to goof and gag, so our current cheering on cause they spat in America’s eye and america blinked can sometimes seem like whole hearted support of everything Iran’s current government stands for. That isnt the case, it’s just a tight enough knit community that we get when someone is being hyperbolic for humor at least most of the time
I really would not assume that to faceless usernames over the internet no matter how close the community seems in a social media setting.
You dont know Hexbear
Thats wild you’d admit you are that open to a psyop attack as long as the vector is hexbear.
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