Apparently joking about being executed is a big no-no to some people. Either it's exceptional violence or it's not exceptional violence or it's fascist or it's liberal or it's communist or it's hating the young or it's hating the old or...
So I’m in the military, and my unit is particularly pleasant to be at, enough that if there are other military people on here, they might get upset by what I’m about to say.
We have peer group meetings with the Commanding Officer of the base, meaning each paygrade meets with the CO without the people above or below them to hear, and discuss issues. As you can imagine, those in the lower paygrades tend to be significantly younger, and when it got to my paygrade, we were all, almost without exception, millenials.
To give a background, in the military we get 30 days of leave per year (basically vacation), unlimited sick days, maternity and paternity leave (I believe it’s at 2 months for Paternity, which is pretty generous by US standards). Additionally, at my unit, we get a four day weekend for every federal holiday, have various “morale days” through the year for fishing derbies, group hikes, etc, and a 6.5 hour work day (cue all military going WTF?!).
At the lower paygrade peer group, a few of them were apparently asking for “more control” over their time off, and being able to take ask for days off with no notice because the weather was going to be good (for hunting, for example). When the CO brought the stuff they were saying up to us, the older, supervisor, millenials, we were facepalming and talking about the fucking Zoomers. But then something amazing happened:
The CO said he could see their point, and maybe we take some of those four day weekends and instead give a few “Liberty Bucks” at the beginning of the year to each person, that can be turned in to get a particular day in the immediate future off (like getting the next day off to go hunting). That actually worked really well for us, because it made those long weekends easier to schedule, and spread out the days people would be out.
And I realized we Millenials were just so happy to have what we had, we couldn’t fathom asking for something better… but they could, they did, and got it.
My personal theory on why old people become miserable conservative pricks is that we’re born into this world knowing absolutely nothing, and spend every moment of our lives trying to figure out what in the fuck is going on. Over time, you start to figure some of it out. Then, when you’ve finally started to get a hold of some shit, and finally start to get into a rhythm of what you’re supposed to do, the next generations come in and start changing shit.
People aren’t against things being better. But they are against not knowing what the fuck they’re supposed to do in life. The problem is the overlap. Changing something for the better means people that spent their whole life doing it one way are now in a state of chaos and uncertainty, which is followed by fear.
So you slowly become conservative, and resist all change.
At 24, the world hasn’t yet had the time to change that much. I started seeing these effects at perhaps 35. Individuals are different, of course and not everything applies in the exact same way to everyone.
As MellowWheat said, people don’t become conservative as they get older. That’s a myth. People just stop accepting new ideas and stop thinking they can be wrong. They stop changing basically. They get what they wanted, but once they do they don’t want more so they end up just wanting to keep things the way they got them.
Also, even this I don’t think is fully true. The boomers and the next generation or two mostly became conservative when they got older, but I don’t know if this is necessarily the rule. They were just raised to be selfish. I’ve seen it with my parents. They just tend to think about themselves and their family first, and things happened to work out because the economy grew with them so almost everyone had enough, but that’s not the case anymore. We need more cooperation if we’re going to survive.
You know which brand of “leftists” like pull this kind of shit right? Yep, red fash, fucking Tankies. I’d be fucking worried if zoomers are actually acting like this.
If they're red fash I'll be worried, but if they're just going Reign of Terror or Paris Commune or Anarchist Catalonia, I'll accept my execution with good grace.
It’s not that in either case the entire movement was especially authoritarian in their time periods and settings, it’s just that you’re willing to let people literally infringe on your right to live if it vaguely is in service of “the people.” If the world was against me, maybe I’m just an asshole, but I still have to fight for what I believe to be my best interest. Do I have any reason to do anything else?
it’s just that you’re willing to let people literally infringe on your right to live if it vaguely is in service of “the people.”
Yeah, that's normal for people with actual beliefs. Surely you have a few you'd die for?
If the world was against me, maybe I’m just an asshole, but I still have to fight for what I believe to be my best interest. Do I have any reason to do anything else?
Yes. Absolutely. Unless your opinion is that only selfishness is legitimate.
My opinion is that only selfishness is legitimate. Again, give me a reason why not to. I care about my friends and family because I’m alive and get to experience the connection. I care about living in a safe society, and hopefully one that will treat people less fortunate, as I feel I have been given a shitty hand in many regards. This is all self interest. That all goes away when I die.
Edit: Also miss me with this “would die for my principles” shit. You’re literally defending dying for something you don’t agree with.
Is it? I can't remember ever being called a tankie before in my life. I'm pretty ardently anti-Stalinist and anti-ML. Usually people accuse me of being a milquetoast socdem.
“ I don’t mind being executed as long as the government that ends my life is weak, ineffective, predisposed to being taken over by a dictator, and will surely fail within 2 years of its inception.”
I dont think I could make a more L take if I tried.
Which Revolutionary France? The one conquered by Napoleon, or the one conquered by Napoleon III. Just because a revolution kills a bunch of people and then gets conquered by a dictator does not classify it as a success.
It was a success. It is the spark that was necessary to rid France of monarchy. Emperors governed for a short bit, all things considered, but France would still have kings and queens if it wasn’t for the revolution.
They replaced the king with an emperor, and if it wasn’t for the efforts of other kings it would have stayed that way. In all reality France would have gone the English route with the monarchy as a figurehead, or have been conquered by the Nazis.
In more than 300 years, France has had emperors for only 30ish years at most. Get your facts straight. It was a success insofar as it helped establish long-lasting republics. It wouldn’t have happened without that initial spark.
France sees it as a success, and teaches it as such in its schools. And they’re better placed than a Wikipedia warrior to decide.
I don’t see what nazis have to do with 17-19th century France. You’re confused.
The reign of terror french were pretty proto-red-fash tbch, people don’t exactly consider very often WHY it was where the fiercest resistance to this lang d’oil region centered uprising was concentrated in regions like the basque country, bretton country, and the lang d’oc regions. It wasn’t that they yearned for royalist ideals to be reinstated, it was because Robespierre and his even crazier backers were so paranoid by the end that something like movements for language rights were treated as exactly as traitorous as plotting to restore the bourbons to the throne with a counter purge to boot.
Something the modern revolution idealizing french seem to have made fully into one of their “the quiet part” policies with how they implement their version of laïcité.
It wasn’t that they yearned for royalist ideals to be reinstated,
It literally was, though. The language conflict you're describing didn't hit full swing until the Third Republic. The revolt in the Vendee was largely a reactionary movement by peasantry who were miffed at the idea of the bourgeois taking the place of the traditional aristocracy and clergy. The Vendee itself spoke lang d'oil and is, in fact, one of the original regions of lang d'oil.
Bullshit it didn’t hit full swing until the third republic the third republic was just when it also picked up the dynamic of the religious and language rights of immigrant communities because of all the colonialism the third republic was doing in Africa and the ME
Immigrant communities btw who were the actual resistance backbone in WWII, and who go unrecognized because the french right were collaborators who wanted their stories stamped out to preserve french nationalist narratives, and the french left were the backstabbing stalinists who sold them out to the Nazis before liberation came so that they’d get to take credit for all the heavy lifting post war and wanted to cover up their own complicity.
Never trust a “leftist” who thinks state sponsored murder is a good idea. They have no interest in anything except to be the executioner, and to feel nice and self righteous when they pull the trigger.
I mean they literally did exactly that until Stalin ordered them to start fighting after Barbarossa, after which point they began coopting the resistance movement already started by immigrants, jews, and other social rejects who stalinists also cast out for being rootless cosmopolitans or subversive agents of bourgeois decadence.
This is a slap in the face of the communists who died fighting for France. You should be ashamed of yourself. You depiction of Resistance communists as perfid opportunists that appropriated the Resistance movement is despicable. It’s a well-known fact that there were multiple fractions in the Resistance movement, nobody ever claimed it was just communists.
Yes, the PCF had shitty positions but it was controversial back then, even among communists. And even if it took them a while to do the right thing, they eventually did and risked and sacrificed their lives to fight fascism, unlike the vast majority of the rest of the population. So no, they didn’t sit on their asses, even though the PCF made strategic mistakes dictated by the USSR that benefitted Germany.
They literally cooperated with the occupation until Barbarossa because Stalin was angling to join the Axis.
Had the Soviet Axis talks gone as Stalin planned, the French Communists would have readily and eagerly lined up to collaborate on Stalin’s orders, because they specifically didn’t do shit to resist until Stalin ordered it.
This is also why I balk at dismissal of Social Democrats as being unworthy of being called leftist ever, that was a determination made by Stalin in the wake of Nordic socialist parties not bending the knee for him.
Stalin formed a new internationale specifically to exclude them and anyone who also didn’t bend the knee, then meanwhile the same bastard orders non-cooperation with anti-fascist resistance because it’d harsh his street cred with the fascists.
Man sold out europe for the hope of negotiating control Bulgaria and Turkey out of letting everyone west of his borders eat it and die horribly.
Idgaf about what the party leaders thought or did. I’m talking about the boots on the ground. Who were commies, and died. In the north of France, there are commemorative plaques remembering their sacrifice, on the houses they used to live in.
Your takes give Wikipedia-historian vibes. You get some facts right but fail to see the bigger picture. And you do so in a grossly inappropriate way.
You mean took credit from the immigrant communities who actually fought and then were backstabbed so the communists would be able to swoop in and steal all the credit.
Just wait until you hear the word “liberal” being used as a slur. It’s quite a bizarre sight to behold when it’s coming from somebody who’s not a redneck.
Not my example, but it’s still literally objectively correct, the only kind of leftist who yearns to send the opposition to the wall is a tankie.
Anyone who doesn’t have their head up their ass realized trusting the state with the precedent of being able to kill people for any reason at all is the biggest idiot’s bargain save maybe for signing a contract with Donald Trump expecting him to actually pay for something.
Tankie refers to Stalinism, you’re watering down the term to be against any form of violent revolution, which would put EZLN in tankie territory by your own terms despite their being Libertarian Socialists.
I get what you’re trying to do, but I think I’m in agreement, you’re using tankie where it doesn’t belong.
Bruh, if the EZLN is for murder under the color of rooting out counterrevolutionaries then yes they too are tankies, it’s not about the stated ideology, it’s about the authoritarianism they get up to regardless.
Lenin proclaimed an ideology that called for basically syndicalism, still used the cheka to kill all the syndicalists for being counter revolutionary.
It wouldn’t have mattered who was running moscow, what mattered was their supporters demanding they send the tanks in to kill the “counterrevolutionaries” in Hungary.
They fight and kill people who attack them, they are revolutionaries, but violent ones.
I understand what you’re saying, but you’re conflating violence with Authoritarianism, and therefore violence with both tankies and authoritarianism. It’s not really accurate and goes beyond the scope of stalinism.
Violence is a key tool of authoritarianism, especially in aggression, and again, sending “counterrevolutionaries” to the wall is an act of aggression and authoritarianism.
You keep trying to insist I’m saying something I’m not, I’m very obviously talking about executions and acts of state sponsored terrorism against “enemies of the people”, a revolutionary movement is capable of these things same as a post revolutionary government, but at no point have I implied that defensive warfare itself is authoritarian violence, I’m talking about KGB shit and purges and anything else that looks of using 1984 as a how to manual.
Shooting some guy who’s coming at you with a machete, self defense, not authoritarian violence, shooting the same guy in the back of the head well after he’s already been pacified, detained, and put into whatever state of containment is warranted for his case, far over the line into authoritarian violence, literally wasting ammunition, soldiers, and even possible enemy intel over wanting to feel like you’re sticking it to that counterrevolutionary scum
How does being “executed as reactionaries” help anyone? Once you’ve gained social power you shouldn’t need to execute anyone for their beliefs, and you need that social power to execute in the first place.
There were many other socialist boomer groups active in the 60’s and 70’s. They were vocal, organized, but too small in numbers to enact real lasting change. It wasn’t these groups that sold out the future. Some fled, some went underground, others are still intellectually active.
So, remember that a significant portion of boomers were just as based as any millennial or zoomer when others bring up the “generation wars.”
Capitalism corrupts every generation, even this one.
Those boomers actually did enact a lot of change, just not nearly as much as they thought they would. The America of the 50’s was fascist as fuck. The US just used to invade any country they wanted to. The US was an apartheid state. As hard as it is to believe, it’s better now. That’s why Trumpists want to go back to the 50’s. Those boomers did a lot, they just didn’t go far enough.
Liberalism adapted. The income gap reached the lowest point in US history in the 70’s. The US government gave in to a bunch of their demands, like getting out of Vietnam. At the same time Nixon, who won the election by coup, created the drug war to target his political opposition.
If you pay attention, you’ll notice a pattern in US politics. They split the moderates from the radicals (for example, by small concessions) and then arrest or kill the most radical elements. Nixon started it and it ramped up significantly under Reagan. It’s continued to where we are today, with the right pushing hard and liberals defining their whole platform as “at least we’re not the right.”
So the lesson is not that they didn’t do anything, it’s that you have to go all the fucking way or you’ll lose more ground than you gained. The lesson is that if you don’t protect your generation’s most radically leftist elements, your generation will ultimately be seen as reactionary. A lot of those boomers are still with us, and still radical.
Unfortunately, systemic change always takes violence, or at least the threat of violence. Every case where peaceful protest ever worked there was always a parallel violent movement. Any non-violent movement that gets anywhere close to real victory can also count on violence from the other side.
'Course, it is more effective the more directed the violence or threat thereof is. Just killing anyone who disagrees with you will only serve to make you enemies, target it at specific people that are a problem and you’re more likely to gain supporters, as it’s easier to justify than the wide-net method.
That is to say nothing about whether political violence itself is moral or not, I’m generally on the side of “until it’s for anarchism forever, it’s kinda amoral. I’d rather convince the people through words like a human, and then use violence as an absolute last resort against those unwilling to relinquish their positions of power, or those who attempt to ‘fill the new power vacuum’ they don’t know has been filled by ‘the people.’”
If only there was a way we could put candidates in position to enact the change we want…. Hmmmm… Seriously, like… What if we created a system where we the people do something… I don’t know- choose their favorite candidate to do these things in a competition of sorts to see who gets to lead the country…
Not at all. Voting is defensive. Activism is offensive. We vote for the least worst candidate put forth by a major party in national level elections that stands a chance to win. All we need that person to do is stay out of the way. Then we vote for super progressive loval candidates (school boards, city council, etc).
I’ve said this in another thread, but American youths just don’t vote, unlike older folks. This is not a recent phenomenon, this goes all the way back if you look at voter turnout records stretching back from the 1960s.
Young Americans from across generations love to complain but don’t do anything. In other countries, the youths are more energised and proactive. You’d notice their politicians are much younger, manifesting the youthful proactivity. American politicians are older on average, because older folks vote more, and voters prefer someone who is their peers whether they realise it or not.
I’m saying this in this thread, politics isn’t just voting. Liberals think that voting is the only way to effect change, when it is the least effective, if not performative. Organize, create parties, movements, struggle, strike, protest.
If voting made a difference, they wouldn’t let us do it.
If young people actually voted we would have Congress members that understand technology and are interested in fair voting systems. Instead geriatric and withered insider traders or desiccated obstructionist ghouls.
An estimated entire 1/3 of people eligible did not vote in 2020. Do you understand how much of Congress groups could have with those votes?
Meanwhile the insurrectionists vote religiously and they have managed to jam up Congress from doing anything at all. If sane, normal people don’t vote the building fills up with clowns.
is this meme condoning violence or condoning conflating young leftists with violence?
either way this is fucking rancid.
people are being dragged out of their homes to be executed as we speak and none of them by “yesterday’s avant garde.” white supremacy has always been the west’s norm. slavery and economic inequality has always been the norm. violence against those who cannot resist is not edgy or new—it is literally the status quo.
It’s an old joke, about how today’s avant-garde or radical is tomorrow’s establishment. To quote Pterry, 'We Shall Overcome is a song which, in various languages, is common on every known world in the multiverse. It is always sung by the same people, viz., the people who, when they grow up, will be the people who the next generation sing We Shall Overcome at.
Yeah let’s all be extremist terrorists, what could possibly go wrong? Let’s kill those that think even slightly different from us because history has show that to be w great idea, no?
Idiot
Edit: wow, there are a lot more fascists here than I thought, look at all those down votes.
Is every terror attack for political reasons justified then?
“I want to change something and I cant get it democratically so because a revolution requires violence, I have the right to kill everybody” - Is that how you think it works?
Is every terror attack for political reasons justified then?
YES
Who defines what terror is? What is politics? If the policies that govern a society aren’t working for a group, and they are given no other recourse, what are they to do? What justifies anything? Can you justify dropping a nuclear bomb on an unaware city to “end the war?” You can, but it erodes your moral authority to other groups.
“right to kill everybody?”
Not everybody. Violence should only be used if it is necessary to achieve goals. There is a reason Nelson Mandela refused to renounce violent struggle.
So a democracy has no value to you? Not everyone can be perfectly happy with the state of society at any point in time. What makes you feel like you are entitled to achieve your goals against the majority’s will?
If the policies that govern a society aren’t working for a group, […] what are they to do?
Either you accept the constitution, in which case you could protest, say your opinion publicly or just accept what the majority wants, OR
You don’t accept the constitution, in which case you can leave the country/society.
You’re conflating a lot of empty signifiers with “democracy.” So, I’ll focus on the specifics of political activism.
If you, and the political group you ideologically agree with lived in Nazi Germany, but were a minority, would it be morally justified to fight against the government with terrorism if you are unable to leave?
Every political group thinks they are justified in their actions. One group’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter.
I respect democratic decisions and find any form of terrorism against those decisions and thus the democratic system itself unjustifyable.
[About Nazi Germany:] would it be morally justified to fight against the government with terrorism if you are unable to leave?
The Nazis didn’t adhere to the democratic principles themselves, they were very much antidemocratic and were forcibly trying to change the system against the will of the majority (this I find unjustifyable). They were themselves a kind of minority
To answer your question, I think I would be justified to fight that (with force), HOWEVER, it is NOT justified that I push my own minority-opinion (e.g. by establishing a dictstorship with me as the dictator).
If you lived in a fascists society that was systematically killing gay and trans people, and you opposed this action, would it be justified for you to form a group and fight them?
If the answer is yes, congratulations, you are a terrorist to the state.
The question of whether a terror attack is justified becomes a moral question. The bigger issue is violence and politics. Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.
A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery. It cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.
-Mao Zedong
So, you don’t want a revolution, and keep things the same.
Doesn’t matter who said that violence is sometimes necessary that still isn’t a valid response to “maybe let’s not just kill people on an ideological basis”
Sure, but the nazis were actually committing violence against their “undesirables” systemically, en masse. Same with slave rebellions, they were very much so morally just.
However killing my dad because he doesn’t think drag queens should be doing story hour is a bit different. He’s not putting drag queens in camps with signs like “Hosen Macht Frei,” he’s not in support of violence or pogroms to stop them, he’s not attempting to take France and Poland and kill their drag queens, he just is old and doesn’t understand and says words about it. Imo killing people for using their words in a way we don’t like is A) fucked up and B) stooping to the level of the actual nazis, like, the WWII ones.
fascist is a specific thing i'm saying we should attack, and while transphobia is often part of a fascist ideology and movement, it is not sufficient to determine whether the ideology or movement is fascist.
tldr i didnt say we should kill your dad, i said we should kill fascists.
I want a system designed by people who know how to design systems. I want those systems to be greed-proof and have clearly laid out goals. I want economic systems to be circular with caps on the highest and lowest while still rewarding those who excel.
I want corporate and income controls. I want environmental policy that fucks over economic policy instead of the opposite. I want to heavily discourage corporate manipulation of human systems (such as addiction).
I want news to be publicly funded and with honesty legally mandated. I want more and better political parties. I want a legal system that doesn’t need a degree and endless buckets of money to tell you if you’re committing a crime or not. I want a legal system that applies to rich and poor in equal measure and with proportional punishments.
Yeah, I want a revolution. The problem is that everyone who also wants a revolution has a very different idea of the outcome of that revolution and I don’t want someone to get in their idiot head that murdering everyone else who deviates from their revolution is a good idea. Because it isn’t unless you want the revolution to be won by 10 hyper-opinionated assholes.
With what? I know what a revolution is and how they can function.
I was speaking about the outcomes. Just because you get that many people together to agree that something must be done, doesn’t mean they agree with what will happen after you’ve won the revolution.
What policies will be put into place if any? What about when two groups who were formerly together in the revolution completely disagree on what to do with the systems they are building? Do they just all kill each other then?
Sorry. I think I responded to the wrong comment. What you are talking about is Prefigurative Politics. You want the means to justify the end. The problem with revolutions is that it is a coalition against an established power with different ideas of what comes after. I wish I had an answer for you, but I’m just beginning to explore this aspect. Vincent Bevins has a recent book that get into why protests fail and explores the lack of prefiguration in planning. I haven’t read it though. I heard of it from a recent Upstream podcast. Hope it helps.
I appreciate the links and the discussion (not to mention the not devolving into insulting rhetoric).
I am heavily involved in local politics and I’m always interested in revolutionary policies as long as they are economically sound and actually function. Unlike many arguments I’m sure we both had online, I will actively read the links you posted to me.
Yeah, reading through the history of the revolutionary period in China through the 60s and 70s shows how just murdering people to be the one in charge isn’t enough. You end up with murderers and psychopaths in charge at the end. The ones who were the best at fucking people over.
That said. I’m pretty sure we could do with a handful of the current psychopaths that are charge falling out some windows.
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