• bigboismith@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    You should be nice

    Mmm actually communists are nice, so you should avoid that

    Brother I hate partisanship

    • angrystego@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      Theoretically. Not necessarily in practice, because it’s always people implementing it. And people tend to screw everything up. Kind of like Christianity is said to value kindness…

  • PDFuego@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Just regarding the post title, John Birch died 14 years before the JBS was founded and had nothing to do with them. They considered him a martyr because he was killed by a Chinese Communist during an assignment so they used him as a symbol of anti-Communism. James Doolittle, a wartime pilot and possibly Birch’s friend (maybe they just worked together, not sure exactly and I don’t feel like looking into it further), said in his autobiography:

    “[Birch] had no way of knowing that the John Birch Society, a highly vocal postwar anti-communist organization, would be named after him because its founders believed him to be the ‘first casualty of World War III.’ I feel sure he would not have approved.”

    As usual it’s these far right assholes hiding behind something/someone more respectable to launder their bullshit.

  • NewDark@lemmings.world
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    2 days ago

    He was a socialist at least.

    And if he was, crazy he would have liked the “sharing is caring” ideology over the “fuck you, got mine” ideology.

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      You’re telling me a black American minister in the 1960s believed capitalism and white supremacy are deeply linked and both are an active defiance of his God? Shocked, shocked I tell you…

      Ok tbh most Americans have no idea that that would be kinda obvious

  • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    2 days ago

    They think they’re being “based” or whatever, but I can’t see this doing anything but potentially backfiring.

    If you’re all in on the brain rot already, then you don’t like MLK, and a post like this does nothing to move the needle.

    However, if you’re like most people and still respect Dr. King, and maybe are too young to be super indoctrinated in the red scare bullshit, this post could really only serve to potentially increase people’s opinion of communism. Like “oh, maybe it’s not evil if MLK was one, let me read more about it” or whatever.

    Did that make sense? It made sense in my head…

  • FiniteBanjo@feddit.online
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    2 days ago

    Honestly, MLK Jr seemed a lot less communistic than other civil rights figures of the time. MLK Jr preached about Jesus and once said “Communism and Christianity are fundamentally incompatible”.

    King was constantly labelled such because at the time the USSR and the Cold War were still the largest threat to American society and way of life and perhaps even continued life on earth, meaning it was used as a label for your enemies in the sociopolitical sphere. It didn’t help that the Russians claimed to promote equality which was a word King used often.

    Now Malcom X and the Black Panthers? Those were some commie mfers. Malcom X wrote a letter directly to President Truman claiming to be such, and the BPP hardly tried to hide it either.

    The Sword and the Shield by Christopher Andrew and KGB defector Vasili Mitrokhin:

    King was probably the only prominent American to be the target of active measures by both the FBI and the KGB. By the mid-1960s the claims by the [Communist Party of the USA] leadership that secret Party members within King’s entourage would be able to “guide” his policies had proved to be hollow. To the Centre’s dismay, King repeatedly linked the aims of the civil rights movement not to the alleged worldwide struggle against American imperialism but to the fulfillment of the American dream and “the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.”

    […]

    Having given up hope of influencing King, the Centre aimed instead at replacing him with a more radical and malleable leader. In August 1967 the Centre approved an operational plan by the deputy head of Service A, Yuri Modin, former controller of the Magnificent Five, to discredit King and his chief lieutenants by placing articles in the African press, which could then be reprinted in American newspapers, portraying King as an “Uncle Tom” who was secretly receiving government subsidies to tame the civil rights movement and prevent it threatening the Johnson administration. While leading freedom marches under the admiring glare of worldwide television, King was allegedly in close touch with the President.

    • arrow74@lemmy.zip
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      2 days ago

      Communism and Christianity

      Makes total sense for him to say that since at the time all of the communist powers banned religion.

      I think King would be down for less authoritarian communism, but being politically active at the time he was I understand why he may not have explored that as an option

        • arrow74@lemmy.zip
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          2 days ago

          I mean I’m an atheist too, but it’s not hard to imagine why a Christian minister living in 1960 wouldn’t consider communism as compatible with their personal beliefs

        • FiniteBanjo@feddit.online
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          2 days ago

          I am an Athiest but I don’t want to take away the rights of others to worship. They do need to start paying taxes, though.

          • arrow74@lemmy.zip
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            1 day ago

            They shouldn’t necessarily pay taxes, but should no longer have a special tax designation. They should be placed in the same category as other not for profit social clubs. Think groups like Shriners, Mason’s, a community operated community center.

            I’m not well versed in tax law so maybe that would mean paying some property taxes. But it places them on the same level and removes many of thei special privileges

            • FiniteBanjo@feddit.online
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              19 hours ago

              Some of them sell services and merchandise. Look up Joel Scott Osteen, dude has mansions and giant “megachurches”.

              • arrow74@lemmy.zip
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                18 hours ago

                I am very familiar, but pretty much everything that allows him to embezzle that much money comes special rules that apply to churches and “ministers”.

                If it were a normal social club the rules would change.

                • FiniteBanjo@feddit.online
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                  18 hours ago

                  Well yes but then every church would have a different tax filing status based on its operations and scale, or in other words “they should have to pay taxes.”

                  Differences without distinction.

          • baggachipz@sh.itjust.works
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            2 days ago

            Agreed, and I also don’t want them forcing their dumb bullshit into our schools or government. My post was a lame attempt at a cheeky joke.

  • melsaskca@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    “Once the capitalistic world burned everyone realized that communism was the good guy all along and that John Birch was getting paid huge sums by nefarious strangers to say that shit.”

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      The John birch society isn’t being paid by those people, it’s comprised of them. It’s an organization initially comprised of wealthy people who think that workers having rights is communists stealing from them

  • njm1314@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    I am downright shocked at the number of comments in here that apparently don’t know what the John Birch Society is. Frankly everyone should know that. If you don’t understand them how can you understand what this country, and the world, are going through right now?

    • MajorasTerribleFate@lemmy.zip
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      17 hours ago

      I keep up decently with things - not as a lifestyle, but pretty much my only YouTube push notifications are leftist progressive independent news - and if I’ve heard of the John Birch Society before, I’ve since forgotten about it.

      This is not to say my experience is typical, or that your assertion is wrong. Just providing an additional data point.

      Edit: I imagine “progressive” is a better descriptor than “leftist” for the media I consume, as I can’t think of any actual socialist voices among what I watch.