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[1] https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-m...

    they are like reeeally left wing

The historical record of the extreme left is extremely pro-state, pro surveillance. Indeed, the Marxist corrective to freewheeling capitalism was a strong socialist state (to cover the period before communism emerges and the state withers away) [1]. Many modern surveillance techniques were pioneered or refined by the likes of the OGPU [2], the NKVD [3] and their equivalents in satellite states like the Stasi [4] in the GDR, or the secret police in China (sorry I have no good reference). Note that both Wilhelm Zaisser [5](founder of the Stasi) and Kang Sheng [6] (founder of China's secret police) had worked in Moscow under Stalin in the security services.

This is historically very well documented, but seems to be somehow unpalatable ...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_State_Political_Director...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NKVD

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Zaisser

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kang_Sheng

Edit: replaced "left" by "extreme left" for additional clarity.

46886532558 3010 days ago

> fear of leftist politics...

What I said, huh?! Maybe before you throw in the Stasi Wikipedia article, you should check out the CCC's. They advocate for a strong state regulations, strong democratic structures and freedom of the individual, including privacy. Transparency for the state, privacy for the individual. Large parts of their member base are anticapitalists and anarchists, minding the collective welfare, so I figured from an American perspective that's quite far left.

You won't find advertisement or any commercial interests on their very large conferences, which are completely organized and managed by volunteers. On every level. There is absolutely no tolerance for right wing ideas, police or military.

That's why I think their political background here is important, they always been activists advocating for everyone's welfare and rights. Something rather unusual for non left wing politics.

pjc50 3011 days ago

Not so much unpalatable as irrelevant? Using a descriptor like "left wing" to ignore people's actual politics and go straight to accusing them of being Stalinists?

[1] http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2018/03/20/scl-a-very-british-c...

I was clearly referring to 46886532558's "reeeally left wing", i.e. extreme left.

It is historically accurate to identify the extreme left with the ComIntern, i.e. the Soviet communist party, ruled during his lifetime by Stalin. Almost all communist parties were in the mould designed by Lenin, and refined by Stalin.

Even today, socialist / communist parties operate using the Leninist style of organisation, e.g. in the UK the SWP or RS21.

It is useful to know this, just as it's useful to know that Cambridge Analytica was owned by a company whose board is full of UK military/security-service types [1].

> It is historically accurate to identify the extreme left with the ComIntern, i.e. the Soviet communist party, ruled during his lifetime by Stalin.

No, it is absolutely not.

I invite you to defend your claim.

Start by asking yourself which non-fringe socialist/communist party was not using the Leninist model of organisation, and which was not a member of the ComIntern and its successors? Which did not receive funding and ideological schooling in the Soviet Union?

You have an uphill struggle against history against you.

How would you define 'fringe', and how does this not include views that are less pro-state?

IAmEveryone 3011 days ago

Here's a list of talks given at the CCCongress: https://fahrplan.events.ccc.de/congress/2017/Fahrplan/events...

You don't have to go from "left-wing hacker collective" right to Stalin if there's data readily available on the actual subject being discussed.

(There should actually be a left-wing equivalent of Godwin's law. Maybe "There-Is-No-Godwin's law"?)

I have commented not on the CCC but on user: 46886532558's original claim that being "reeeally left wing" is somehow a plausible reason for being anti-surveillance. This association is misleading, and I feel a responsibility to correct this historical mistake.

This correction is especially apt since Germany is still full of Stasi victims.

> The historical record of the left is extremely pro-state, pro surveillance

I think the problem with your comment is that you're flat-out misrepresenting the 'reeeally left wing'. There are plenty of 'leftist' movements that are just as opposed to 'the state' as they are to our corporate overlords. Arguing otherwise is either plain stupidity or intentional misrepresentation.

Railing against "the state" or "our corporate overlords" is not a mature political position, but merely unfocussed, reflection-free rage that gets tooled / channeled by political organisers and activists on the left and right, not to mention commercially exploited by the Facebooks of this world, whence Zuckerberg's "Dumb Fucks".

> Railing against "the state" or "our corporate overlords" is not a mature political position

Why not? Historically anarchists played a mentionable role in this whole leftist thing.

EDIT: Also, could you elaborate on what you mean with 'a mature position'? I've found that kind of statement to be an effective but dishonest way to dismiss things.

IAmEveryone 3011 days ago

Yeah–the comment didn't use talk about "reeally left-wing". It was "reeeally left wing anticapitalist idealists and antiauthoritarians".

The description uses "left wing" to help you conjure up the right mental image. Because "anticapitalist idealists and antiauthoritarians" would also describe buddhists and anarchists.