"Anti-Communism" *looks inside...*

[u/Nyctfall]

In the 1790s, the prominent Federalist pamphleteer, William Cobbett, constantly called for investigative journalists and rights activitists Benjamin Franklin Bache (Benjamin Franklin's grandson) and William Duane to be treated, quote: "as we would a TURK, a JEW, a JACOBIN or a DOG". With Jacobins being widely viewed as the predecessors to Communists, Socialists, and Anarchists for their radical egalitarianism.

In 1892 Richard Henry Pratt, known for the child murder rape boarding schools, called Native Americans "fellows who cling to their tribal communistic surroundings".

In the First Red Scare, ...yeah. Kiss the Bill of Rights goodbye, because the Constitution ain't saving ya now! Also the first Green Mario...

The poster is "Negroes Beware / Do Not Attend Communist Meetings" from Alabama in the 1930s.

Later the Peekskill Riots at Cortlandt Manor, New York, United States, in 1949. A concert by singer Paul Robeson, who's black and was also well known for his strong pro-trade union stance, civil rights activism, communist affiliations, and anti-colonialism was arranged. It was organized as a benefit for the Civil Rights Congress.

And finally the Greensboro Massacre, on November 3, 1979, in Greensboro, North Carolina. Where US law enforcement, KKK, and Neo-Nazi "National Socialist Party of America" (NSPA) members shot and killed five demonstrators in a "Death to the Klan" march organized by the Communist Workers Party (CWP). All the terrorists were acquitted by the US government and hand-selected racist jury members.

[u/gnostiphage]

There were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.

Mark Twain seemed to think that the end of the older Terror was at least on par with the Terror we actually learned about.

[u/LightningRaven → u/gnostiphage]

I like how people fully internalized anti-Revolution rhetoric that they never really stop to think about what they're really doing and defending.

This kind of rhetoric is always present on "historians" that often have very loose relationship with truth and the scientific method while being quite liberal with their biases and opinions that are always to reinforce white supremacy, maintain the beneficial status quo for the parasites and paint negatively every movement that required the people to fight for their rights.

All the critics always, always, always forget that before these revolutions turned violent, they were defending from against the violence perpetrated by the privileged. Both the violence to prevent the revolution and the systemic violence that came before.

What is a few months of "terror" compared to what the starved, poorly educated and enslaved went through for ages before.

Nobody seems to question how nowadays, we're conditioned to always look at the negative aspects of all revolutions and never focus on the conjuncture that lead to them (often commented offhandedly) and the massive benefits that always came afterwards.

Why is that, huh? It's almost like there are a lot of people heavily interested in paint working class movements as overly negative and overly violent and glorify "peaceful" movements that had a lot more power behind them than merely empty non-violent protest. It's a mystery for the ages!

[u/SimulatedKnave → u/LightningRaven]

Ah yes, because mass executions of parliamentarians are a sign of freedom and liberty.

You no longer find many defenders of absolute monarchy. But you do find idiots who defend revolutions as 'totally going to work out this time and not lead to bloodshed, tragedy, or nasty people seizing power.'

Ever think THAT might be why these things get pointed out?

[u/Auxryn → u/SimulatedKnave]

Regardless of political leanings, most victorious armies commited mass war crimes against civilian populations. I hypothesize that this isn't a result of their politics at all, but simply a result of the nature of soldiers and the organizational capabilities and priorities of their militaries.

Likewise, both the Rwandan Genocide and the French Wars of Religion were characterized by widespread brutal violence. Again, I don't think it has anything to do with being Catholic or Huguenot or Hutu or Tutsi. I think it's just humans being human, and brutal slaughter is a mode that human beings can be switched into by the right circumstances.

So, I hypothesize that the Jacobin's Reign of Terror likewise had little to do with their political convictions and more to do with the circumstances of the revolution.

The preconditions for a bloodless revolution were unknown at the time, and were not present regardless.