16 Matching Annotations
  1. Aug 2020
    1. He was following the clumsy script that China has used repeatedly to cover up its violations of the human rights of the Uyghur people in Xinjiang province

      This is a conclusory statement. The Crux of the matter is that China is saying that they are not commiting humans violations because this is a program to re-integrate former jihadis.

      The west is saying that it is not. You can't hand-wave away the main point of controversy.

  2. May 2020
  3. Dec 2019
    1. He turned to the fanatic Felix Dzerzhinsky, the head of the newly formed Cheka, which during the first year of the revolution officially executed 6,300 people, which I suspect is a huge underestimate.

      Suspect?

      What is your source?

      Explain?

    2. He criminalized dissent, outlawed competing political parties, muzzled the press and instituted a system of state capitalism that stripped workers of their autonomy and rights.

      Citation needed.

    3. ut Lenin in power, like Leon Trotsky, was an opportunist who made promises, such as “all power to the soviets,” that he had no intention of keeping.

      When you make a claim, you need to prove it. You have done none of the above.

    4. His pamphlet “The State and Revolution” was an unequivocal anarchist manifesto, with Lenin writing that “as long as there is a state there is no freedom; when there is freedom there will be no state.”

      Try reading the first paragraph.

      In the first place, at the very outset of his argument, Engels says that, in seizing state power, the proletariat thereby “abolishes the state as state". It is not done to ponder over the meaning of this. Generally, it is either ignored altogether, or is considered to be something in the nature of “Hegelian weakness” on Engels’ part. As a matter of fact, however, these words briefly express the experience of one of the greatest proletarian revolutions, the Paris Commune of 1871, of which we shall speak in greater detail in its proper place. As a matter of fact, Engels speaks here of the proletariat revolution “abolishing” the bourgeois state, while the words about the state withering away refer to the remnants of the proletarian state after the socialist revolution. According to Engels, the bourgeois state does not “wither away”, but is “abolished” by the proletariat in the course of the revolution. What withers away after this revolution is the proletarian state or semi-state.

      Secondly, the state is a “special coercive force". Engels gives this splendid and extremely profound definition here with the utmost lucidity. And from it follows that the “special coercive force” for the suppression of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie, of millions of working people by handfuls of the rich, must be replaced by a “special coercive force” for the suppression of the bourgeoisie by the proletariat (the dictatorship of the proletariat). This is precisely what is meant by “abolition of the state as state". This is precisely the “act” of taking possession of the means of production in the name of society. And it is self-evident that such a replacement of one (bourgeois) “special force” by another (proletarian) “special force” cannot possibly take place in the form of “withering away".

      Lenin clearly is against the state. It was also written in 1918. He is clearly not an unequivocal anarchist.

  4. Jul 2019
    1. that’s questionable.

      adjective

      1. doubtful as regards truth or quality. "it is questionable whether any of these exceptions is genuine"

      synonyms:controversial, contentious, open to question, open to doubt, in doubt, doubtful, dubious, uncertain, unsure, debatable, in dispute, in question, arguable, problematic, problematical;

      not clearly honest, honorable, or wise. "a few men of allegedly questionable character" synonyms:suspicious, suspect, under suspicion, irregular, dubious, doubtful, odd, queer, strange, not quite right, mysterious, murky, dark, shifty, unsavory, disreputable, potentially dishonest, potentially illegal;