Leegh [he/him]

The way I see it, Hexbear is a small, incredibly niche forum that exists in a tiny corner of the internet that has zero influence or power in the real world. There’s no point expending so much energy on a niche forum to attack other terminally online people who justify lesser evilism when you could be getting outside and organizing with comrades, educating people in your locale, and agitating the capitalist system. It doesn’t really matter what people say here as much as it does what people say in public rallies, in conferences, and in organizations. Because those things can actually impact the real world. There’s also many other niche socialist spaces on the internet that are more principled than Hexbear on certain topics like bourgeois electoralism, so I’m not losing hairs over this forum having some bad takes.

That being said, you’re not in the wrong to critique people here for being unprincipled and struggle sessions like the ones in the megathread are absolutely essential for socialist spaces to survive, but I know that time will prove us right when the liberals they champion will inevitably fail them, and I’ll be here to help guide them in the right direction once they’ve learnt their lessons.

Because this site is full of American exceptionalists who think bourgeois electorialism and giving a platform to imperialists are fine if it benefits Americans. Before Mamdani and Platner, people here were pro-AOC. In the CTH subreddit days Bernie was the infallible ‘socialist’ idol.

If you’re a non-American on this site (which most people here aren’t) it becomes blindingly obvious if you’ve been here long enough. I don’t bother arguing with these people anymore because it’s a waste of time and reeks of terminally online behaviour.

would be proud, but at the same time would be cursing from the grave the current government led by the “Socialist” Party of Albania for siding against the protesters and allowing Americans and Zionists to use public land like this.

There is something very insidious and real-politik about Tucker in the way he shapes his rhetoric.

He knows the way the populist tides blow and senses the Trump platform (which is something he 100% supports still) is no longer tenable for cultivating an alt right base, but is able to critique Trump and his policies without giving any credibility to left-wing ideologies and preventing his audience from turning against the ruling class. It’s kinda admirable seeing how easily he does this when almost no other mainstream right-wing political commentator can pull it off right now, including many “progressives” who are Democrat-aligned.

He is the bourgeoisie who realizes Trump is endangering their power by destabilizing the state structures that maintain class relations enough to keep the proletariat docile and in their place. To that extent he is very similar to social democrats like AOC in purpose. Unlike social democrats though, he does not want a welfare state (at least not one like modern day European states), but rather a return to the 1950’s American social order where a strong, state-backed industrial base allowed White Americans to prosper while repressive social policies (ala segregation which Tucker is a supporter of) will keep minorities out of the way.

Culture war rhetoric, which is Tucker’s forte, will do the rest of the work to keep the majority White population from questioning this. Foreign policy wise Tucker is no different to Trump or his predecessors, as I’m sure he knows his class position can only be maintained through Imperialism, but he is pragmatic enough to throw certain US vassals under the bus (like Israel) as long as the base at home is appeased.

If he runs for President one day, he will be the competent Trump that everyone has been dreading for years.

He is the American Gorbachev, attempting to “reform” the state by “opening” up the economy to opportunists who can easily strip the copper off the walls, while also letting said opportunists and wreckers enter positions of state power to defend said “reforms” and purge any competent politicians or civil servants left who can still resist the leadership.

Now we wait for the inevitable dissolution of the Union and Trump/ whoever succeeds him decides to shell the US capitol.

All good comrade, some folks here have been throwing big accusations against you recently with little to no basis (one comment straight up called you a reactionary that peddles US/Zionist propaganda) and I felt it unfair that you were not present to defend yourself.

By all means though, you do not have any obligation to post or prove yourself to anyone here.

Redditor-ass response, emojis don’t refute anything I’ve said and makes you look childish.

Do you think you’re actually saying anything useful by constantly making strawman ‘gotcha’ statements that don’t address my points whatsoever and make you come off sounding like a MAGA cheerleader telling people to blindly “trust the plan”?

You need to seriously learn what critical support means and get off the tribalistic mentality that being against America automatically means you’re correct on everything.

The fact that you’ve shifted the goal post from the government to the “IRGC” is already proving my point. The IRGC were NOT the ones who created the ceasefire idea, it was Pakistan and China who had their own interests. The IRGC weren’t even the ones who initially agreed to it and kept fighting in the first couple of days of the ceasefire, it was the Iranian MFA who have been operating independently of the IRGC throughout this war. Members of the Iranian parliament have also opposed ceasefire in recent days, for similar reasons to which I stated in my previous comments that you have completely ignored. You accuse me of not knowing anything about Iran when you don’t even have all the facts yourself. No investigation, no right to speak.

I strongly suggest you log off for a while, apply self-crit, and stop thinking you’re somehow better than anyone else here by being a dogmatic cheerleader for countries you clearly don’t understand.

I think a lot of people remembered that debate because the mods highlighted it and it literally went through multiple megathreads lol.

I did read through some of that discussion as Chinese history is a particular interest of mine and I thought you and XHS both made good points, but I didn’t see the conclusion of that as I felt it was getting too long winded from you and XHS just repeating their thesis without coming to a compromise.

Shipwreck’s 2024 election takes aged like milk. Just jaw-droppingly wrong on so many accounts. I made a joke about how they switched accounts so people wouldn’t be able to read their awful awful election takes which some people didn’t like lol.

Was there ever any confirmation that shipwreck and xiaohongshu were the same person? Going back to shipwreck’s account shows it’s been completely scrubbed so I can’t review their 2024 US election comments, but they did have similar views on China and I think they both favoured books by Michael Hudson.

MarmiteLover123 had a pretty bad analysis about Iranian Internet traffic if I remember correctly.

Yes I do remember that, but he quickly retracted that claim when called out on it.

Nonetheless, I do highly appreciate both of their analyses on the main topics they focus on, and I don’t really condone the idea of unfairly bashing some of our most well-informed commentators while they are absent as it goes against the policy objectives of this community.

We’re only Human after all, and everyone is bound to make a mistake at some point.

What “incorrect and minimally falsifiable” predictions did @MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net and @xiaohongshu@hexbear.net make exactly?

The last time I saw anything from Marmitelover was their (excellent and correct) analysis on the US military buildup and logistics in the months prior to the Iran War before they went silent, and XHS’ main schtick is criticizing China for their neoliberal mindset by not focusing on fiscal deficits/ net imports more to improve domestic consumption, which is a position that hasn’t been proven wrong yet given the CPC itself is now starting to recognize it.

I think it’s far more likely both are just busy with their lives and don’t want to waste time arguing with terminally online idealists who keep calling anyone who applies a good material analysis a “doomer”.

‘Proxy’ is a legitimate term used in political science to refer to organizations or states that are sponsored (either politically or militarily) by a third-party power. Iran absolutely does this for organizations like Hezbollah and Ansarallah and wages proxy wars through them. Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel also all do this.

I don’t really understand the hostility towards anything I’ve said and your refusal to actually engage in the content of my analysis. But since you do not wish to discuss further I will disengage now.

I almost exclusively lurk rather than comment, but I don’t know why much of the rest of the newsmega seems to go along with it so easily.

Largely because this forum is an echo chamber, and like every other echo chamber, it will have people bandwagoning whatever the prevailing popular opinion is at any given time. Unfortunately it seems that the popular opinion on the news comm is currently a MAGA-esque “trust the plan” but for the Islamic Republic. Like, I thought the general consensus was critical support for Iran but some here have forgotten what “critical” actually means. Don’t get me wrong, I still love Hexbear and I very much value the discussions we have here, but sometimes being a Marxist and applying Dialectical Materialism to my analysis can be an uphill battle.

The constant “you’re just a doomer” and “you have no valid concerns or thoughts because you are just a lib/ultraleftist westerner” is beyond off-putting and it makes it harder for me to take the rest of their analysis seriously.

I’ve never taken the “doomer” label seriously and it really shouldn’t be applied to a genuine leftist discourse. More often than not I find those who are accused of it are just being principled socialists or are realistic in their outlook of any given subject. It’s not like I was saying Iran is destined to fail and America is thinking 8 steps ahead of them or something, only that we apply a more measured take on some of their foreign policy decisions.

And again, the ceasefire which I think is a waste of time is not even Iran’s idea to begin with (they were more than happy to keep attacking the imperialists and zionists), it was Pakistan and China’s!

It’s all the more ironic when someone posts a comment they they don’t like (which is anything slightly critical of any of the choices Iran has made) and they pull out the “what, you think you know any better you weak minded westerner?” line, because it’s practically certain that there are elements within the Iranian leadership structure that have similar concerns and probably disagreed with a number of the decisions that were ultimately made.

The funny thing is it’s not just “weak minded” Westerners or “ultras” that have raised concerns of Iran’s past decisions, the Russians and Chinese have also levelled valid criticisms at Iran before over what they see as an unreliable strategic partner.

Comrade Xiaohongshu, who ironically has also been called a “Doomer” here before for their very excellent analysis, made comments here and here at the beginning of this year talking about why Russia and China are unwilling to provide more material support to Iran beyond the very limited aid they have already given. All sourced from Russian and Chinese social media circles who have a much greater grasp of the history and diplomacy between all three countries than many of the people here.

Iran isn’t going to nuke occupied Palestine and make Palestine uninhabitable to Palestinians for generations even if they had nukes. The Zionist entity knows this. This is why MAD with respect to Iran and the Zionist entity is more about Iran destroying Israeli desalination plants with conventional weapons because that won’t poison the land in the same way nuclear fallout would. Once you cross out the Zionist entity as a nukeable target, there’s a lot less targets that Iran could and would want to nuke. It’s basically Turkey and central Europe. Most other potential targets are either countries they have warm relations with (Russia, China, India), countries that border Iran despite not being very friendly (Azerbaijan), countries that are too close to Palestine (Syria, Jordan, Egypt), and countries that are too far away from Iran (the US, the UK). If anything, Iran getting nukes is more about insurance in case Russia or China allies with the West against Iran or Iran has diplomatic fallout with India or Pakistan. It’s not as good of a weapon against Western hegemony since they have no intentions of nuking occupied Palestine.

Good points made here, however I’d like to add a couple of things. Firstly, while nuking Israel would cause massive damage and death especially if it were detonated in say, Tel-Aviv, it would not make the land uninhabitable for generations. After Hiroshima was nuclear bombed in WW2, the city quickly returned to its pre-war population by 1955 with much of the essential infrastructure and amenities rebuilt. Hiroshima and Nagasaki have both been very liveable cities for many decades now, with the aftereffects of radiation poisoning only significantly affecting those who were actually living in those cities on the day of the bombing. In my hypothetical nuclear strike of Tel-Aviv, it would be largely Israeli settlers that will suffer, not the Palestinians.

Obviously state and private sector funding is a big factor behind how fast you can rebuild a city that was completely flattened and Japan received plenty in the post-war period, but there’s an exaggerated perception that a nuclear strike would turn a land into the Fallout series for the next century. I would say the firebombing of Tokyo achieved a similar material result in the end, but the psychological effect of a single nuclear bomb doing that is incredibly devastating. This is the main reason why no nuclear-armed state dares to use nuclear weapons against each other.

Secondly, even if you were to cross out Israel as a target for fear of killing Palestinians, there are still some very viable targets Iran could choose. The first is US military bases and critical infrastructure in the Gulf States, which has already been a major source of retaliation for Iran every time the US/ Israel moves up the escalation ladder. The second is an offshore target that is within range of Iran’s ballistic missiles, like Diego Garcia or even just a US aircraft carrier. The latter option in particular can completely remove potential civilian casualties while still demonstrating to the US that Iran can now retaliate with nukes.

MarmiteLover123 had a comment where the deterrence is more about the DPRK having massed artillery that would reduce Seoul to rumble within hours after a single phonecall.

Must have missed this comment, but it doesn’t change the fact that the DPRK has a nuclear weapon that can also reduce Seoul to rubble with a single strike in seconds (although they would probably want a city left to capture afterwards). They also have ICBMs that can theoretically reach any part of the continental US. Again, it is the mere threat of potential destructive power that deters all-out war from starting.

I mentioned to another user earlier that the brief India-Pakistan war last year, the only such direct conflict to have ever occurred between two nuclear powers, ended so quickly because of the fear of escalation to using nukes. There’s a reason JD Vance and Marco Rubio were in very close contact with both governments during that week. Likewise, if a hypothetical war between the DPRK and the PRC were to start (as unlikely as that would be), I feel the US AND Russia would personally step in to de-escalate as fast as possible.

Again, I do not understand this absolutist mindset some people here have adopted in regard to Iran.

Do you think the Iranian leadership is always correct and have never made mistakes? Do you think it was wise to try and appease the US for the last decade by restricting your nuclear program for some sanctions relief while simultaneously choosing not to work more closely with China?

Nobody is infallible and everything should be subjected to ruthless criticism. Even Lenin criticized Trotsky and Stalin while the nascent USSR was being besieged by every world power at the time.

Iran would severely limit its ability to strike at Israel or the USA if they had nuclear bombs.

Iran having nukes would severely limit the US and Israel from attacking Iran. And that’s a good thing, because it would put pressure off Iran and force the US/ Israel to focus on Iranian proxies instead of trying to attack the heart of the axis of resistance.

Nuclear states can’t be flinging ballistic missiles at other nuclear states, that would just result in nuclear responses.

India and Pakistan briefly did last year, but that did not result in any nuclear response. In fact, I would argue that conflict ended so quickly precisely because both sides were nuclear-armed states and common sense prevailed.

Iran has made the tactical and strategic decision to keep nuclear weapon development at the cusp so that in the event that they deem it necessary they can become a nuclear state quickly,

And at what point will it be deemed necessary to have a nuclear weapon? 40+ years of hostility from the imperialist global hegemon and the Zionist entity? Your nuclear scientists, generals, and civilian leaders getting assassinated? Your country actively getting bombed and your people being killed by them? None of that crosses the red line? I mean, there’s only so much cope people can do here to justify Iran not having nukes, but I really cannot rationalize a single reason for Iran to not have it at this point.

I’m increasingly beginning to believe that nuclear deterrence is only part of why NK has been mostly left alone, and if they had Iran’s natural resources they would be under the eye just like Iran is.

The DPRK is constantly under the eye of the empire, that’s why half of Korea is still occupied by the US. But having nukes prevents the US from doing anything else beyond espionage and sabotage missions. They can’t just go into Pyongyang and kidnap Kim Jong-un because they know the DPRK would retaliate on a level Venezuela never could. If anything, Iran having abundant oil and gas is a strong argument for why Iran should have nukes way more than North Korea or Cuba should.

Either internet space, including Hexbear, is real life and things we say here or anywhere online have real consequence, or on the other hand the internet is not real life and nothing we say here matters. If its the former then the responsibility is clear. If its the latter then why waste time bemoaning these things at all unless to stoke ones own ego?

It absolutely does not matter what anyone says here, and your comments hold no more weight than mine in influencing the real world. I also feel you’re reading too deeply to a comment made in jest.

That being said, as a Marxist I do think everything should be subjected to ruthless criticism, and there is much to criticize about the Islamic Republic of Iran, from its domestic policies, to how it handled its imperialist aggressors before this war started.

Criticizing ceasefire and spreading weird betrayal narratives and claiming Iran “fell for it again” is doing the work of the enemy. Period. Paragraph.

My position on the ceasefire is that it is generally a waste of time that will produce zero results and is delaying the inevitable resumption of war. This is evidenced by the fact that negotiations lasted only a single day before both sides decided to go back home, and neither side wanted to compromise on maximalist terms that would result in the complete capitulation of either side. Iran has learned its lesson after being backstabbed the last two times it tried negotiating with the US and now has more leverage it won’t give up, and the US refuses to move an inch from its domination over the Middle East and tried extracting from Iran diplomatically what couldn’t do militarily.

If anything, the ceasefire (which only occurred because Pakistan and China both pressured Iran into doing to give the global economy a small respite) is just a pretence for both sides to re-arm and re-strategize before the war resumes. This is probably what most Israelis who oppose the ceasefire feel too.

I also strongly suspect Trump will announce an extension of the ceasefire at the last hour that will go on indefinitely because one, Trump is already sick of this war, clearly wants to move on, and this is the best way to do it without denying material reality and declaring victory and two, it will give more time for the US and Israel to rebuild their lost military assets.

I feel that many people assume that they know better than the actual revolutionaries and moreover assume that their opinion is relevant at all. It is a disease of liberalism.

I don’t think it is a “disease of liberalism” to point out that negotiating away your nuclear program for the past decade with an enemy that does not want to coexist with you and has every intent to destroy your government and society for profit is a good idea.

Nor do I believe it is a good idea to issue a fatwa prohibiting the accumulation of the one weapon that would have prevented this war and the 12-day war from killing thousands of your people. There is a reason the Great Satan does not fuck with the DPRK.

Iran has been preparing for this war for 47 years. IRGC and the leader Sayed Mojtama Khamenei know what they are doing and there is no sense taking a public position in opposition to the policy which has clearly been approved at the highest levels within the Iranian revolutionary system.

And the USA has been preparing for this war in the same amount of time. That doesn’t mean they can’t make mistakes or get complacent in underestimating the resilience of their enemy, and the same should apply to Iran. I don’t think it wise to adopt an absolutist mindset in regard to how anti-imperialist factions organize themselves. Strategies always change because previous ones fail, and Iran has undeniably changed their geopolitical strategy from this war. I also don’t know what policy you’re referring to here, agreeing to a ceasefire that wasn’t their idea to begin with?

Virgin Fossilstate vs Gigachad Electrostate

You oppose the ceasefire because you want to destroy Iran and create Greater Israel.

I oppose the ceasefire because I want to see the collective West suffer the biggest blowback it has ever gotten since the Yom Kippur War.

We are not the same.

After failing to reopen a strait that was already open before he decided to start a war, JDPON Don now wants to close a strait that was already closed because of the war.

Strategic genius right here.