Imperialism much?

Wut? Oh, you think that's imperialism? Stating the fact that Taiwan is part of China and that Hong Kong is also just a region (SAR if you even know what that is) of China? All this shows is you have no fucking clue what imperialism even is. You literally don't know what that word means. Not by ML standards clearly, but not even by general layman standards. And it shows you know absolutely nothing about the history of this situation, which is typical of the sinophobic liberal. Taiwan is ran by a fascist nationalist government that tried to wipe out the workers movements and that still claims to be the "rightful" rulers not only of all of China but also other sovereign nations like Mongolia. And you're saying that China allowing them to continue to operate while slowly working towards future reunification is "imperialism." That's just sick. Take a look at what the US via the IMF and World Bank does to impoverished global south nations (that are impoverished solely because the US impoverished them for the purpose of subjugation and unequal exchange) to begin to understand what imperialism looks like. Then come back and tell me China's lenient position on Taiwan is "imperialism."

The US being bad doesn't make China good.

Never said it did. BUT part of why China is good is because it is overtaking the US which is unambiguously bad. This is one of the many things China is doing (in this case passively, but it does a hell of a lot of active good too) that is beneficial to humanity.

There is no nation in this world worth simping for.

I don't know what you think "simping" for a country even means, given it's a slang term involving romantic attraction, but if by "simping" for a nation, you mean "expressing vocal approval and ideologically supporting it," then yes, there are nations absolutely worth "simping" for. Cuba immediately comes to mind as the obvious one. But China also deserves the vocal approval and support of leftists since it is in fact a socialist state and is in fact doing much good in the world, both for the masses of people living within it as well as for most of the rest of the world through BRI and the fact that it is undermining the actual imperialist's ability to beat the global south into submission. Russia deserves critical support for the latter bit as well, seeing as it is doing more than any other state to actively fight imperialism and the monopolarity of US hegemony.

If China is so great then why does it feel the need to dictate over Hong Kong and Taiwan?

It doesn't. Taiwan and Hong Kong ARE China. If anything the high level of autonomy that China allows reactionary regional governments to have is what should be criticized.

Does China have gay marriage? Trans rights perhaps?

China allows for civil unions for LGBTQ. https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1162943.shtml It made civil unions legal across the nation before USA made gay marriage legal in every state. Like all places in the world (some more than others) China has a long way to go on LGBTQ rights. But that's just it, China is improving along those lines, while the US is rapidly regressing. China is improving with trans rights and has been punishing companies that violate them. So yes, we should absolutely support China in continuing to move in the correct direction.

It's a nation state (a far too big one at that), which are by definition tools of oppression.

Lol, by whose definition? A state is only as good or bad as the ruling class that wields it. A bourgeois (capitalist) state will always be oppressive. As a socialist state (and China is a socialist state), the CPC uses its power to suppress the constant attempts of the bourgeois to oppress the working class.

tankies claim to be communists but spend all day parroting their favorite Russian or Chinese state propaganda

Tell us how these "tankies" are "parroting" propaganda and we'll tell you exactly how your geopolitical opinions align with the US State Dept.

When did I say I agree with US propaganda?

For starters, right here where you showed your whole ass and said: "If China is a socialist state worth supporting then I'm a donkey with a laser dick"

You do seem to be quite a donkey but clearly it's just overconfident false advertisement about the laser.

Oh come on, didn't you know that more DPRK soldiers have been killed in the conflict than Russian soldiers?? You haven't been eating enough onion and beet slop, I can tell.

For sure. And I don't mean to paint all anarchists with the same brush, since there are genuine anarchists as well as people who use the label anarchist and who even believe themselves to be anarchists, but who I think we would all here would agree are just radlibs at best. But even drawing on my own experience as my leftism developed (which it still is), it wasn't like a conscious "I want to impress liberals" thought process, but more like wanting people to know that I was aware of the "evils of authoritarianism" and that being a leftist and anticapitalist didn't require a submission to "authoritarian" doctrine. I imagine I'm not the only one who felt that way, and even though I know better now, I can still see it sometimes in other people who call themselves anarchists, people who correctly recognize liberals as the common enemy of all leftists, but who still are careful to avoid being associated with "tankies."

I was a little reluctant to even use the software analogy because I tend to have the same reaction to it. But I think the problem there for me anyway is that the bazingabrain (lol at your username in this context) dipshits who loved using it so much not only made it cliche but failed to understand it was an analogy and took it as literally true, which is fucking absurd. In this case, I figured it was fitting enough that I could get away with using it.

You're right, there is definitely theory reasons too, but I think that's more general to states as a concept and doesn't do much to explain the specific grudge against the USSR or why there seems to be hatred for it that goes beyond states in general. There's historical reasons for that specific hate of course, which other comments covered better than I could, but I answered the way I did because of Frank's (OP's) edit about sources of information.

I think there's still another aspect for the specific anti-Soviet sentiment that has to do with many anarchists wanting to differentiate themselves from MLs or "tankies." Since we all agree we're on the left, there's a desire for a lot of anarchists to draw a clear distinction between themselves and those they perceive as adversaries or enemies, and strong disapproval with the USSR is a pretty obvious way to do that. I suspect part of that may in some cases come from a kind of "I'm one of the good ones" or "pick me" attitude, since they can say to liberals "yes, I am a radical leftist, but I'm not like those bad authoritarian tankies that we all know are the bad guys!" But the need to do even that I think has a lot to do with the general anti-communist milieu, that "malware" we're all indoctrinated with by default.

I think AssortedBiscuits answered your question in the first couple sentences of their comment:

Most Westerners already hate communists and carry the grudge against the USSR. Anarchists don't really deviate too much from some generic Westerner.

It's really not any deeper than that. There's no need or reason to single out anarchists from any other average westerner when analyzing the source of animosity for the USSR because the answer is going to be the same whether you're talking about chuds, liberals, or anarchists. Even the non-western anarchists who hold a grudge against the USSR, the answer is probably still the same just because of the prevalence of western cultural hegemony all over the world. In your edit, you specify:

I'm curious about what information sources - mentors, friends, books, TV, cultural osmosis, conveys that information to people. Where do individuals encounter this information and how does it become important to them.

But the answer to that is the same information sources you yourself were probably exposed to early on. It's all the same shit we're steeped in, the ubiquity of anti-communism throughout western culture. Animal Farm and 1984 were required reading for me in junior high and high school respectively. The class discussions around these books were centered around teaching us that the USSR was corrupt, oppressive, and that these communist ideals that may sound like good ideas will always and invariably lead to "authoritarianism" and "totalitarian dictatorships" like the Soviet Union. Everyone absorbs that shit young, even the people who might later go on to question the truth of what they were taught, like anarchists.

You say

Newly minted Anarchists have to learn to hate Lenin and Stalin and whoever else they have a grudge against.

But no they don't. Not as newly-minted anarchists anyway. That brainworm software was already installed long ago before they became anarchists. A major part of becoming a leftist is going through a process of uninstalling all that brainworm malware. Anarchists who still hate the Soviet Union are people who have been successful at uninstalling much of the brainworm malware, it's just that they haven't completed the process by uninstalling the anti-Soviet or anti-"tankie" worms... yet. And I say all this as someone who long considered themself an anarchist.

You can do it, comrade. Try to keep yourself occupied and engaged with things, just preferably not things you're only used to doing while smoking tho. I'm sure you know all that already, but those kind of small reminders were helpful for me.

You got this.

I mean he's old enough that statistically he really should have, he's over 100 now so it's a bit shocking when you remember that he hasn't. I always remember he's alive just because of those factoids though. He's been alive for 40% of the entire history of this despicable settler colonial fash country.

I honestly would have thought it was a bit making fun of dipshit libs if they hadn't gone mask off in other comments and proving once again the validity of the "scratched liberal" saying.

That's kinda funny because yours is a username I have recognized for a long time as one that writes impressively well and is always on point, a name that when I see it I think "yep, this will be a good comment."

This "frothing mess of a comment"? LOL, it was clear, coherent, consistent, well written, and it took you to task on how slimey and ignorant not to mention hypocritical you are, so you call it a "frothing mess." I wonder who is really and here.

But no surprise the only thing you're "getting out of it" isn't something she even implied.

How tf did the dems fuck up so bad?

×gesturing broadly in all directions×

• Gaza if anything has an ever slightly better chance than if the current regime that is currently funding its genocide had won.

• Yeah, Ukraine is fucked, but it was anway and would be no matter who won. Also, this is a good thing.

• No more than they already were.

• No more than they already were.

• No more than they already were.

• The Biden/Harris regime loved doing brinkmanship to bring us closer to WW3 and did so far more than Trump did during his previous presidency. We'll see though.

• The Biden/Harris regime did more deportation than Trump, they built his wall, and they were promising to do even more to ruin lives and families if elected again. It was a competition with Trump on who could be worse and more evil.

• It does suck that Elon Musk is probably happy, I agree.

When I go there, it still says

"502 Bad Gateway. The backend of this service is currently down, but it will probably be up again soon."

But yeah, hopefully it will be soon, so I'll keep checking. We need more invidious instances, especially now when almost all the youtube frontends got wiped out.

This may sound like I'm making this up but I'm actually not. As I was looking up that text emoticon to copy-paste we just had an earthquake here (though I'm not actually near Yellowstone... still). The coincidence of that is slightly messing with me. Someone I used to roll my eyes at would be screaming "synchronicity!" at me right now.

Yellowstone take my energy ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ

I just wanted to broaden the horizon and yap about an interest

It was an excellent comment, I learned from it and have an even deeper appreciation for GPS now.

I agree that GPS has had a significant even profound effect on us as a global society and as individuals, I just think that it's far from the only technology that has. But fair enough on it being one of the better examples.