Who knows? Who cares to find out? Chomsky is an ideological windvane.
He's... fine when he's criticizing the US empire but there are much better sources out there and Chomsky is only useful for his prominence but much like Richard Wolff he's got some really trash takes (barely) below the surface.
Is it because he's an op? Is he a reflection of the ideological hangover from the New Left era? Is he just an opportunist? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Chomsky is what zero materialism does to an MFer. Here he is, literally arguing for MLism in a completely different context:
I'm not in favor of people being in cages.
On the other hand I think people ought to be in cages if there's a saber-toothed tiger wandering around outside and if they go out of the cage the saber-toothed tiger will kill them. So sometimes there's a justification for cages. That doesn't mean cages are good things.
State power is a good example of a necessary cage. There are saber-toothed tigers outside; they are called transnational corporations which are among the most tyrannical totalitarian institutions that human society has devised. And there is a cage, namely the state, which to some extent is under popular control. The cage is protecting people from predatory tyrannies so there is a temporary need to maintain the cage, and even to extend the cage.
🥴
Went on a reporting spree a while back when there was yet-another Pinochet/helicopter meme video and all the comments were like "Better dead than red" and advocating for torture and expressing the desire to do this themselves and shit.
You can already guess that the admins couldn't see any validity to the claims about inciting violence, can't you?
Getting banned from Reddit is like receiving a restraining order from the local sewage processing facility.
Sucks to hear that you got banned without cause, especially given how cautious you were to avoid trouble, but take it as a good indication of how cynical Reddit admins are and how they will take any measures to ensure that the discourse on reddit will never be revolutionary.
"Hey Communist Party of Great Britain (ML), how's it going?"
"Bourgeoise."
"...yeah."
The absolute state of UK politics when the communist party can't even spell bourgeoisie right.
What a stupid hill to die on.
There are actual problems to deal with that are a far greater priority than this one, even if you are a transphobic revolutionary and for some cursed hellworld reason that this article of theirs has any relevance to reality (which btw it does not); imagine prioritizing this over capitalism, imperialism, fascism, neoliberalism, the climate crisis...
The sooner that the senescent "empire" collapses into the obscurity it deserves, the better. I just hope it takes the CPGB-ML and all the transphobes on terf island with it.
In many ways, the work at present is to focus on anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism at an entry level point.
Yes, getting people to realize that Stalin wasn't the devil incarnate or that The DPRK is actually the good Korea is a huge victory but ultimately the primary task is talking to people where they are at and linking the current issues they face to the broader context of capitalism, imperialism, colonialism etc.
It's better to talk to a SocDem and to ask them if they think the world is moving forward in a positive direction and if they believe that enough is being done to deal with catastrophic climate change to prevent the developing world from being obliterated by famine and disease, y'know?
As for your partner, that's a tricky matter. I would study up on which European powers signed treaties with Nazi Germany, I'd look into the so-called "denazification" and I'd take a very gentle approach. It's probably better to realize that West Germany/reunified Germany isn't nearly the wonderful place that lib historians make it out to be than trying to uphold comrade Stalin as the people's hero that he is (at least not openly with your partner anyway.)
The history of the NATO stay behind organizations is a real "Are we the baddies??" moment and it doesn't matter how bad the Cold War was, unleashing far right paramilitary terror organizations to murder European populations in cold blood to, essentially, subvert liberal democracy in order to prevent SocDem and socialist movements from gaining traction in Europe because of the fear of the red menace is utterly inexcusable. That shit was like ISIS-tier political violence and if learning about it in depth doesn't make you think that Stalin didn't go far enough then you are a lost cause.
