Morons of the Internet: The Wessex Scene (15/09/2018)

This is the segment where I scour my favourite forums around the internet and find some particularly interesting articles about current affairs told in the words of my favourite human beings.

In this edition we dedicate yet another rant to bullying student journalists. The 'journalist' in question here not only looks like a twat, and thinks heavilly filtering a profile picture makes you look professional and credible, but also calls himself a radical journalist. Whenever I see the words 'radical' and 'journalist' in the same sentence alarm bells instantly start ringing, but surely The Wessex Scene would never settle for ideological crap with their rigorous quality control. So without further ado let's see what well reasoned arguments have been in their opinions section lately.
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https://www.wessexscene.co.uk/politics/2018/08/30/im-literally-a-communist-is-communism-relevant-today-part-2-investigating-death-tolls/
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Ah, the relevance of communism in this day and age. A big question actually, but unfortunately one this journalist has not bothered to answer. There is a first part to this article which roughly answers the question, but I can't be assed to address that because it's just really dull. Not that the second part is much better, but there are far more juicy hottakes to analyse here. Don't ask me why this article needed to be separated into two sections, but clearly this second part is just excess baggage that should have been edited out.

You can instantly see just how great this article is going to be by the quality of the introduction. Wait, hang on, there isn't one. I've often found that letting the reader find their own way around a news article is the best way to get your point across, especially when you don't actually introduce them to your central argument. I don't actually know what The Black Book of Communism is the quintessential source of, but I can only assume this writer believes it to be some sort of holy relic for those damn capitalists. Once again it seems that I've stupidly made the assumption that The Wessex Scene could manage to produce a quality persuasion piece.

I have a big issue with the limited evidence you provide for discrediting this Black Book. Your primary concerns for rebuking this legitimate source are firstly creative differences, and secondly the poor handling of an already excruciatingly high death toll. You're refuting a whole book based on these two minor points, and not actually providing any counterarguments to support the purpose of the article. There may well be sloppy and biased scholarship found within this Black Book, but by no means does this absolve Chairman Mao of his sins. If we take a gander at a book described as 'the most detailed account of China's great famine' we find a similar estimate of 45 million deaths. Surely two sources can't have got their decimal points in the wrong place. This figure doesn't include the various other political atrocities associated with the Mao regime, just fucking famine. Even if the decimal point is in the wrong place that's still 4.3 million deaths. That's an absurd number of casualties to just brush aside. I'd also like to add that the reasoning behind that second point is really fucking tenuous. It's so easy to point fingers at who is ultimately responsible for The Second World War, so just adding millions of deaths that aren't necessarily based on the direct actions of political regimes makes this comparison all the more ridiculous.

I don't think this writer is particularly fond of capitalism. I'm not sure what gave it away, but it might be the phrase 'capitalism kills' being shouted into the readers face. Saying that in a serious article doesn't at all make you sound hysterical. It's like we're back in 1963 again. We've already seen how communist regimes have killed literally millions of innocent people, but this writer has taken the novel approach of completely ignoring these victims and instead blames only capitalist regimes. Do I detect a double standard? Surely you wouldn't find such shocking bias in a Wessex Scene article. Here we'll happily ignore the benefits capitalism has bought the world, such as an increased GDP, the decrease in global poverty, and the increase in life expectancies, because making rash statements is the only way to conceal the blood of millions. Obviously communist regimes have never launched direct assaults on foreign nations, and its' well accepted by deluded morons that nobody ever invaded Afghanistan in the 1970s. I suppose the lack of communist assaults is why Kabul is so nice at this time of year.

There's no point in pretending this is a serious exploration piece anymore, as you just hold the two opposing sides to completely different standards. The Black Book of Capitalism surprisingly isn't scrutinised the same way as its counterpart, yet this is the primary evidence of capitalism's evil nature, even if the methodology was slated when the shoe was on the other foot. The main point in this piece is creating a false dichotomy where you can only pick and choose between communism and capitalism, with this writer arguing that because communism killed fewer people it should be seen as a relevant way of thinking. If your best advert for a radical change is that theoretically not as many millions will die then I think you need to change your approach. What's even worse is this rose-tinted analysis of communism. Just pathetic excuse after pathetic excuse as to why we should just forgive murderous tyrants. Maybe Stalin didn't purposely cause a famine, but it's still a crippling fault in his regime. I still fail to understand how a failed effort to prevent famine strengthens your point. For some reason it's now fine to experience severe famine if it's not on purpose.

Oh ok, executing prisoners is now fine if you keep it to 4%. We'll ignore that people are being fucking executed and instead blame biased propaganda for making the execution of criminals sound like an atrocity. How deluded do you have to be to start spouting out this nonsense? Once again we're making pathetic excuses for systematic murder. It doesn't matter if your nation is experiencing desperate war years, and I can't seem to recall Britain executing prisoners during these same years, so maybe executing people should be treated as an inexcusable action at any time. There's also this terrible comparison between historically flawed regimes. It would be a much better idea to compare Soviet regimes to capitalist nations of today because the central argument refers explicitly to modern ideologies. Instead we start comparing socialist regimes to equally flawed systems of governance, therefore getting this skewed view of positivity where a slightly shitter regime is triumphed over a catastrophically shit one. Still, these terrible comparisons don't hide the fact that this murderous ideology is at fault for the deaths of millions despite your claims that this way of thinking is false.

I'm not going to let this champagne socialist try and hide the truth by brushing over the atrocities of the last 100 years. Even this biased piece of trash can't hide from the fact that Mao's idiotic ideology was directly responsible for the murder of millions, but in reality this is just the tip of a very bloody iceberg. Can you honestly say we live in a world where these socialist regimes haven't killed millions when leaders such as Stalin and Mao committed some of the worst atrocities the world has ever seen? If communism hasn't killed millions then who is at fault for the millions killed by the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia? Who is responsible for the forceful separation of Berlin and the creation of an oppressive regime inside East Germany? Who is responsible for the political executions and forced labour camps in Cuba? Who is responsible for the ongoing human rights abuse in North Korea? Who is responsible for the murders associated with land reforms in Vietnam? Who is responsible for the mass killings in 1980s Afghanistan? It's irrelevant if capitalist regimes have killed more people than the examples listed here, and has no bearing on whether the events listed above actually happened. Arguing that capitalism has killed more people is detracting from this critical point that socialist regimes have historically ended in catastrophic failures. When will you address this giant elephant in the room?

We unfortunately never get to find out if communism is relevant today, as the question is never answered. Furthermore the title and the actual article have nothing to do with each other. This article is just an excuse to bash capitalist regimes whilst sweeping aside the very real atrocities caused by communist regimes. You sir really are not a radical journalist, but rather just a radical moron, shitting out your contrived propaganda that's masquerading as an informed debate. I don't know why this Black Book is made out to be the great guardian defending the whole world from communism, but you don't need to read this particular book to see how badly certain communists regimes failed during the 20th century. Proclaiming communism as acceptable because it doesn't kill quite as many millions of people as you think certainly isn't a good line of argument, and paints an overly simplistic picture of a very complex debate. I find it disgusting that you simply deny the suffering of millions whilst living in your ivory tower, making weak excuses for murderous tyrants. This is revisionist history at its very worst, and your attitude is excusing genocidal maniacs and even offering them words of support. Here is all the evidence you will ever need that the relevance of communism in this day and age shouldn't be determined by radical lunatics.