Congratulations to the Greek left! The movement against austerity....

It's the same old airbrush tactics except it doesn't work very well when you don't actually have the power to ban books, censor the internet, or send your critics to concentration camps. In particular the "Marx was an anarchist" *******s seems to be flatly contradicted by his own writings.

I do notice though that all these "libertarian Marxists" seem to end up supporting uniformly statist solutions to any practical problem. There's actually a poster on this board called Anarchism101 who embodies the type completely. Almost everything he posts is in defence of statist socialist policies and parties.

Have you ever actually read any Marx? Marx undeniably was an anarchist in the sense that he wants to see a stateless society. The only real difference between Marx's ideology and an anarchist one is that Marx saw the state having a role in reaching that society and anarchists dont.

Well the successors to him are the Islamists, and the West is currently working on getting rid of that too.

ChaoticButterfly is right that the West was happy to ally with lesser-evil dictators, or dictators with ideologies that weren't likely to spread or be dangerous (as you seem to admit), like Pinochet and Franco. It did this for expediency. But now there's no big enemy, so the West doesn't need these people, and all the idiots of every flavour seem to have coalesced onto a side that doesn't have any coherent beliefs, except a sense that the West is an enemy and that if they don't stick together everyone is doomed.

In the old days for instance Putin's Russia would have been an obvious candidate for a right-wing dictatorial ally against the officially communist PRC, but today we have rather better relations with the PRC than we do with Russia, since we believe the PRC is willing to get with the program eventually whereas Russia has overtly refused to budge on a few key issues. (I'm not convinced this analysis is correct, btw, but it is certainly believed in the West.)

In the old days you would have never seen an alliance between communist Cuba and clericalist, anti-Ba'athist Iran. But today we have the hilarious spectacle of Casto writing op-eds condemning the morality of nuclear brinkmanship in an effort to help preserve this key member of the Axis of Losers.

The last remnants of the old Western puppet dictatorship system are places like Saudi and Bahrain and to a lesser extent Pakistan. But as we saw in the Arab Spring, it's a fair weather support at best. If you can preserve yourself, we will pretend that you are our friend, but if your subjects break into your palace and start bayoneting the courtiers of their own accord, we are happy to join in dancing on your grave. And maybe lob a few bombs for good measure.

The intellectual left's reaction to the collapse of the USSR is quite interesting, anything that is not a narrow libertarian brand of marxism is regarded as not really socialist.

By buddying up with the world's largest exporter of wahhabist Islam and the bank of Al-Qaeda?

Libertarian socialists and anarchists existed well before the soviet union was even a thing.

Hardly got a choice, unless they want to invade the country.

Why are the two choices be BFF's or invade? Is there no happy medium? Why can't we make them a pariah state as we have done with Iran?

Because BFFs is more conducive to economic activity regarding the huge amount of oil which sadly exists under Saudi Arabia. I bet if the mullahs in Iran were friendly to the West, they'd be licking their arses too.

Because BFFs is more conducive to economic activity regarding the huge amount of oil which sadly exists under Saudi Arabia. I bet if the mullahs in Iran were friendly to the West, they'd be licking their arses too.

Oh yes of course, I'll freely admit that the West often sides with evil in an effort to preserve its own interests, primarily when the alternative is yet more evil or a greater evil. Saudi Arabia is a good example, as you point out.

You seem to be ignoring the elephant in the room though: Islamists. That's the new "axis" in my opinion, though it could be thought of as two opposing axes:

1. Iran and its shia proxies
2. Sunni rebel groups (including Islamic State, Al Qaeda etc.) and their underhand gulf state supporters

I'm not convinced Cuba is significant, now that the USSR is gone. Cuba is an example of an anti-Western state which just sides with whatever tyranny is currently available. Tragically, much of the Western left shares this attitude, which is why you see them rallying behind things like Palestinian terror groups.

Exactly. So we're not looking to get rid of the Islamists then? We're looking out for our economic interests as we have always done.

Until 79 i'd wager that Iran was probably our preferred friend for centuries.

Exactly. So we're not looking to get rid of the Islamists then? We're looking out for our economic interests as we have always done.

Libertarian socialists and anarchists existed well before the soviet union was even a thing.

Yes but the left was historically a wide movement like the right is today. Since the USSR you've essentially engaged in a marketing exercise to limit 'real socialism' to a narrow type.