Katy Perry in the aftermath of Manchester

[FireIceTalon]

Your reality is where you get to judge and label Maduro, and Chavistas not Left enough, then eschew labels.

Indeed I do, and I am calling them as they are - not as they or others think they are, but what they ACTUALLY are. They do not represent or even desire international proletarian revolution, and are content, at best, with 'socialism in one country', which has proven time and again that it cannot work within a global capitalist system. I'm all for socialism, but never in just one isolated country because it will eventually crumble under external capitalist forces, or be forced to regress back into capitalism. Chavez was more or less a social democrat regardless of how much lip service he gave communism, Maduro is probably not even that, probably closer to a liberal.

communist nations

Oxymoron. Communism by definition must exist worldwide to be realized, and therefore there can be no such thing as a "communist nation" by definition. None of these countries ever were communist, nor could they be ever since there are no "nations" in a global communist society. Some of them were, perhaps arguably at one point, in a very very early stage of socialism, but thats about it (and socialism and communism are two very different things, different modes of production). Even that is highly debatable; and they certainly weren't anywhere near communist. Except in name, which means absolutely nothing.

It seems no one exemplifies the ideal of Leftism for your approval.

Most communists, as well as Anarchists, disapproved of the concept of 'socialism in one country' long before Lenin was even a thought, let alone myself. It has nothing to do with my approval, and everything to do with the fact that it was well established scientifically in the communist movement that proletarian revolution must be international in nature. 'Socialism in one country' is fundamentally flawed for obvious reasons, anti-Marxist, and doomed to failure; just as capitalism is.

If one thinks capitalism can be reformed or saved, then no, they are not a leftist. Not by a long shot, no matter how much they think they can make it fair when it is an exploitative, vicious, and rotten system to its very core. That is idealism at its finest. If you support capitalism (regardless of how fair you think you can make it), you support inequality, exploitation, and despotism by DEFAULT - those are traits inherent to the capitalist mode of production. And therefore, by extension, you cannot be a leftist.

And someone with a reactionary tendency like homophobia, like Maduro (who also, not to mention, for all his supposed "leftism", has enacted many anti-worker policies and has illegitimately laundered money to himself - which is as anti-working class as you can get), SURE AS HELL ain't no leftist.

Who is the real idealist?

It would seem you, since it is you who desires to put his own definition of communism to turn it into something that it isn't, so that you may suit your own purposes. You also think its possible for one to be a leftist when they support a system (capitalism) that is, by its very nature, oppressive, backwards, barbaric on many levels, economically irrational and destructive towards the environment.

I guess we have very different standards of what leftism qualifies as, and quite frankly, ill stick with being a communist because soc dems and liberals are, at the end of the day, just as bad as right-wingers. In a way, even worse, since at least right-wingers wear their archaic and disgusting views on their sleeve so they are easily identifiable. Soc dems and liberals pretend to be for the worker and the oppressed, when in reality they aren't.