If you were a CIA operative, working out the details of, say, COINTELPRO, and knowing there is a substantial amount of Marxists and communist-leaning people out there... AND one of your goals was to demonize the AES states... Wouldn't you want to tear off a chunk of potential revolutionaries and defang them, turning them into armchair communists who never achieved anything and who always criticize everyone who did?

Bear in mind that a lot of those are in the West. Parenti spoke ostensibly about leftcoms/ultras (and left-anticommunism). This gets a few people off your mind, making the situation safer for the capitalist state machine at home.

"Neither Washington nor ~~Moscow~~ Beijing" shit

[–] Xiisadaddy@lemmygrad.ml 21 points 1 month ago

I have found a really simple reframing that can work on a lot of those types of people is "my enemies arent in (insert foreign capitol city) they are in washington"

A lot of them even if they dont get out of that anti-americas enemies mindset recognize the bigger threat to them is domestic politicians.

[–] MarxMadness@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 1 month ago

Parenti's quote about "supporting every revolution but the ones that succeed" really hit home with me. See also the broader concept of critical support, and viewing states as X% good and Y% bad instead of simply good or bad.