Bubba Copeland shot himself in front of police on Friday, days after he begged 1819 News not to expose his private life.

  • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    The US uses queer people like me as totems to screech about how progressive it is and how backwards the rest of the world is, and also uses this as the basis to promote political movements to undermine other governments. We become these props to be used to tear down other parties and install US-friendly parties, and so this naturally results in blowback against the queer community. Vulgar anti-imperialists (i.e. blindly oppose everything the US does, Brar seems to be of this crowd) make the error of tailing this blowback and adopting it wholesale.

    As for evidence of communist leadership being openly pro-LGBT, Cuba legalized same sex marriage and adoptions by same sex couples in 2022. President Nicolás Maduro has also expressed public support for reforming the old laws against same-sex marriage, but unfortunately due to the financial crisis caused by the US economic siege the government is ground to a standstill. In fact, I have a lot of optimism for Latin America after the recent wave of pink tide elections (admittedly not communist, but progressive in their own rights)

    • te_st_user
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      1 year ago

      Latin America is doing pretty impressively, regardless of their conditions. It goes to show that those countries can be snubbed by the USA and improve conditions for their people, minorities included, regardless.

      So what the hell’s up with China? And if you want to say it’s not communist, or backsliding from Mao’s original attempt at establishing a communist country, I won’t hold you to that. It’s just that a whole lot of people who call themselves communists look at China, look at its position as one of the biggest, richest countries in the world and go “no they gotta crack down on LGBT media” for some reason

      • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Mao’s essay On Contradiction and his later work On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People actually can give some insight into what happened in this case.

        Contradictions among the people should be resolved democratically through education and criticism, because if they aren’t resolved they can intensify and become a contradiction between the Party and the enemy. That’s exactly what happened, so now America uses people like me as a bludgeon to beat down on other countries that have yet to resolve this contradiction. Now the Party is backed into a corner by this oversight: do they capitulate to the West or do they sacrifice their queer population for the sake of unity among the people?

        Also, this is where the term “critical support” comes in: I support China in its struggle against the US, but I’m critical of them as well for failing to address this internal contradiction… though as soon as the US pendulum swings the other direction and president DeSantis starts rounding people like me into camps, I guarantee China will pounce on the chance to resolve this internal contradiction and reverse course.

        • te_st_user
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          1 year ago

          the Party is backed into a corner by this oversight: do they capitulate to the West or do they sacrifice their queer population for the sake of unity among the people?

          Huh? What are they capitulating? And how must they sacrifice people?

          China has a massive GDP, they have incredible power, they have imperialist international ambitions. They don’t need to blame another group, as they have the capital to just let LGBT people exist.

          • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            It’s not a question of capital, but social cohesion. China has to be constantly vigilant against color revolution, because the US will use any internal contradictions to increase dissent and disorder and discontent among the population. It’s all geopolitics, really.

            So, the US is pushing a pro-LGBT line at the moment, and because China didn’t resolve that contradiction first they are now on the back foot and reacting by pushing an anti-LGBT line to counter the US. It’s not good, I don’t think I agree with the strategy, but that’s clearly what they’re doing.

            • te_st_user
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              1 year ago

              Which sucks, because the anti-LGBT attitude is one that is echoed by people who skew towards supporting countries like China or Vietnam. But I also don’t need to defend them or jump into parties (like CPUSA etc) that ally with them.

              Heck the “color revolution” thing reminded me of Luna Oi, who’s yet another prominent so-called communist…

              Luna nhậu-ing with a radical nationalist group that gas harassed activists and queer people across the vietnamese internet. posted publicly on their facebook page

              https://archive.is/PYwiz

              I saw firsthand much of the coordinated homophobic abuse and harassment targeted at Lương Thế Huy, the (aspiring) politician she is accusing of being a CIA plant in her video

              https://archive.ph/fn9WJ#selection-3443.32-3443.207

              Translation: “Germany under that painter is also a bastion against the pottery makers*. Look how Germany of the 1940s compared to today. People often say all the true Germans have laid down their lives on the Eastern front.”
              * pottery makers or làng gốm is a slang for LGBT

              https://archive.ph/KeNpy

              Why do some Vietnamese often drop a seemingly random statement: “Russia is the last bastion” when discussing gay marriages? That’s a dog whistle and they don’t mean it as a bastion against the nazi, but queer people.

              https://archive.ph/ITpkv#selection-6691.34-6691.250

              a 9th-grade highschooler pointed out that the giáo dục công dân/citizen education textbook is homophobic because it says “the state does not recognize marriages between people of the same sex”…

              this textbook is part of what a prominent Vietnamese YouTuber calls socialist education.

              https://archive.ph/ITpkv#selection-8137.7-8137.98

              ___

              • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                This also creates a mutual antagonism which the US is all too happy to exploit, leading queer individuals to taking a pro-US stance in reaction to the anti-queer reaction in their own countries. It’s understandable, and can only be called a strategic blunder by these communist parties caused by a non-materialist and vulgar anti-USian world view.

                I defend China and Vietnam because I think they have a progressive trajectory - remember, it wasn’t that long ago that the entire West was just as queerphobic. This is something that can change very quickly, and that goes both ways.

                If Trump establishes a New Reich and starts persecuting us, I bet these same anti-queer communists will suddenly become pro-lgbt. It’s a very shallow thing.

                • te_st_user
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                  1 year ago

                  If China is anti-LGBT because of The West (not sure I like the sound of nationalistic reactionary pseudo-socialism), then why wasn’t it pro-LGBT back when the West was anti-LGBT? Why did Stalin’s Russia move to immediately homosexuality?

                  And you need not look much further than the collaborative persecution of Muslims between Israel and China to see that they are clearly happy doing the same thing to a very similar group of people