Yes, I’ve read Marx and Engels. Yes, I’ve read Conquest Of Bread. Yes, I’ve read Lenin. Yes, I’ve read up on the history of socialist movements.
But yeah, I’m just an ignorant anti-tankie swine. If I read one more Holy Text, THEN I would be enlightened.
I adore Marx, and the only reason I don’t regard myself as a Marxist is because I’m not married to many of his interpretations which have been somewhat superseded by later sociological theory on the importance of non-material conditions and postmodernist critiques of structured narratives within the soft sciences. But hey, I’m just some right-wing chud, clearly. I hold every opinion ascribed to me in this comment thread despite often and on this very website espousing the literal opposite position.
This is why tankies and their apologists are so fucking insufferable.
The simplest version of the postmodernist argument is that grand, overarching narratives are just pareidolia for academics - people search for shapes where there are none; and that perception shapes reality to such a degree that one cannot examine simply the ‘conditions’ of a society, even non-material ones, and expect to understand its contours.
It’s more nuanced than that I think, but honestly, it’s been almost a decade since I was last in college and read up on it, so I don’t know how much I trust myself to give a more in-depth explanation, lol.
The admins for fucking one. I’m about to go to bed, but you can check about ‘Sinophobia’ bans for talking about the Uyghur genocide for proof on the admins. I’ll dredge up some choice examples from Lemmygrad when I wake up, if you’re still interested.
I think you might have misread the meme. They aren’t pro-israel, but they’re willing to overlook genocide in China using the same defensive rhetoric that pro-israel people use.
sociological theory on the importance of non-material conditions and postmodernist critiques of structured narratives within the soft sciences.
Maslow’s heirarchy usually holds up to the former. But for the latter? It is a realm rife with grift. Even the best intentions can end up warped or being co-opted. So that’s probably where the contention comes from especially if you start with an aggressive posture.
Oh yeah, the nature of postmodernism means it’s very exploitable. I meant it more as justification for my broader disassociation more than something I bring up; I usually leave postmodernism out of it. Just outlining the internal thought process of why I wouldn’t describe myself as a Marxist.
Aha, and here it comes out. Running defense for genocidal apartheid ethnostate israel by saying “b-b-b-but tankies!! b-b-b-but china!!!” You gotta work on your hasbara game, bro.
Except nobody is denying the tragedy of October 7th. You’re literally creating a straw man argument to ignore US unconditional support for an apartheid regime responsible for killing 15,000 children. Disgusting.
Except nobody is denying the tragedy of October 7th.
What would you say if someone called October 7th a targeted and precise military operation and that 2 civilians killed for each Israeli soldier killed was actually a great ratio?
Because I can cite the very person I’m lambasting here saying that. I have receipts, if you’re genuinely interested enough for me to go back through my comments and grab them.
You’re literally creating a straw man argument to ignore US unconditional support for an apartheid regime responsible for killing 15,000 children. Disgusting.
Fuck man, I have called for the removal of all aid from Israel. I’ve been calling for that since BEFORE October 7th, even, because I recognized a genocide when I see one. I’ve called our support for Israel a stain on our (US) collective soul. I’ve called the Israeli ethnostate an apartheid regime.
How the fuck is calling someone out for Hamas apologia, in that context, creating a strawman OR ignoring US unconditional support? The very fucking meme I posted and whose comment thread you are commenting in suggests the ongoing offensive as part of a genocide.
Ah, so the CCP is the true leftist organization, since that’s the only clearly identified ‘left’ object in the meme other than the tankie themself. Critical support for autocracy, anti-democracy, genocide, and capitalist billionaires with Chinese characteristics!
EDIT: I responded in my inbox, I thought this was a response to the “There are plenty of people left of me” comment I made.
The meme indicates that Israel is committing genocide, so I’m not really sure how the fuck you find it pro-Israel.
No. It really doesn’t. It says tankies can see one genocide and not another. You can try to bootlick your way out of that all you want, but I can quote myself on Lemmy calling the current Palestinian situation genocide many, many times.
We have had reports of emotional damage against a soft, sad tankie. Don’t tell me it’s another case of reality smacking the cheeks of a delusional tankie. The department’s overrun with such calls.
I don’t respect the opinions of people who think that killing two civilians for every soldier killed is the most precise and civilian-friendly irregular anticolonial military movement in history.
What colonial war crimes have I denied? Go ahead. Quote me if you like. Thanks, by the way, for not disputing your support of murdering two civilians for each soldier; my opinion of you can’t get much lower, but it would have been poor form to lie about being a supporter of murder by wannabe-genocidaires.
You lot rely on spewing enough bullshit that some of it will go uncontested and be considered by observers as the actual facts. Whenever called out, you have nothing but more obfuscation and JAQing off to answer with.
You keep making fun of it while failing to mention that colonial resistance that you claim was so peaceful and took great care to distinguish between colonists and militants.
Of course you dont need to do that because evidence is not necessary for libs that just make everything up. You fail to address a single point many times over and proceed to blame someone for “running away” the irony is not lost here.
You keep making fun of it while failing to mention that colonial resistance that you claim was so peaceful and took great care to distinguish between colonists and militants.
I literally never claimed that colonial resistance was peaceful. Feel free to quote me, if you genuinely think as much.
Don’t worry - I know you can’t substantiate your lies.
I’ve noticed that whenever a concern troll gets noticed for how often and consistently they regurgitate their bile, they always throw a fit. A shame. No one takes pride in their work these days!
It’s like they forget Lemmy is a small enough community that people will recognize usernames and patterns of behaviour. They shouldn’t be surprised at being called out on multiple occasions.
I don’t think they’re a tankie, just a tankie apologist. Though one could always look at the “There are 9 fascists sitting at a table” argument, I don’t think they’re ideologically completely aligned. Just enough to be willing to slobber on their boots.
Man, in this very thread the progression I’m bitching about happens with “There aren’t any tankies!” comments.
“Leaves of three, leave it be” isn’t a law, but it’s quick advice. If you’re out in the woods of Appalachia and see some ivy with three leaves, chances are it’s Poison Ivy. “Generally posters claiming there aren’t many tankies on the Fediverse are concern trolls” isn’t a law, but it’s quick advice. If, in the Fediverse, of all places, someone is not merely claiming to have personally not seen many tankies, but firmly saying (or implying through additional statements) that there aren’t many tankies on here, they are generally a concern troll.
As for tankie apologists, I don’t see why a tankie apologist should be regarded differently from a Nazi apologist, or any other fascist apologist. Ardent apologism by people not part of the in-group is a thing, and surprisingly common. Like atheists who praise Christians to high heaven (pun intended), or right-wing minorities playing “They’re not that bad” games about the alt-right.
“You just want to write off anyone who disagrees with you!”
lmao
Sorry for not having a scientific study of Lemmy’s population ready to satisfy you. It’s funny - any time I bring receipts, regardless of how many or how upvoted, it’s always the same story - “It’s just a few bad apples! There’s not a lot of them! They don’t bother you!”
If you make a claim about tankies but never back but beyond the claim of personal experinece, then you at least owe it to yourself to understand that you may be wrong.
Alright, what exactly kind of evidence do you think is possible to gather in this situation? Realistically speaking? Am I to ignore my eyes and (metaphorical) ears because they aren’t a scientific study?
Rigorous studies trump anecdotal evidence, but anecdotal evidence trumps a complete absence of evidence.
A collection of posts, perhaps already deleted and in the mod log? Any users you have personally seen and reported simping for China that the mods continue to have around anyway? Mod policies publicly making this okay? A meme page in love with toltalitarianism?
It doesn’t have to be a scientific study… just any kind of evidence other than “trust me bro”.
Don’t ignore your eyes, but also don’t be so damn pretentious. Show us what you are seeing.
Don’t ignore your eyes, but also don’t be so damn pretentious. Show us what you are seeing.
If I got through the trouble of digging them up for the nth time, what will it take for you to admit that I have a point? Give me a rough number of examples and what criteria you need to accept them as legitimate. I’ve crawled through this shite too many times only for commenters to backpedal and say “Well, that’s not upvoted enough/not in the right community/not enough examples” to go through it blind again.
You’re generally honest in your arguments, at least insofar as we’ve interacted, but I really fucking despise wasting my time. So I do have to insist on you giving your criteria to accept the examples.
Give me a rough number and criteria, and I will gladly hop over and drag out whichever you want, the ‘Sinophobia’ bans and/or the assorted tankie bullshite.
If you have dug them up N times, just paste them here? No? Just a whole dump of everything you got or an old comment would do.
Your reply implies I would readily dismiss the evidence… is there any reason you believe that?
You are wasting everyone else’s time by making claims you can’t back up. I am saying this as someone who hates any authoritarian regime and will do anything to avoid it becoming a reality. We both hate tankies.
Seems like lots of people in the comment section are also talking about what their eyes are seeing and it contradicts your claim. So whose eyes shall we trust?
From my limited and personal experience of the .ml instance, I don’t see any of this happening, just lots of tankie-boogyman rhetoric. But my observations are not enough to make a conclusion. And neither are yours. That’s why we need to back it up with evidence. Do you have any indication of any communities on .ml where the mods let this happen openly? If so, please link it.
If you have dug them up N times, just paste them here? No?
Yeah, if I had a better search option for my ~7000 comment long comment history, that might be viable.
Your reply implies I would readily dismiss the evidence… is there any reason you believe that?
Yes. Because people are generally stubborn and reluctant to admit that they’re wrong, or that their skepticism is wrong. And because I’ve done this song and dance numerous times before in which the person I was responded with 'No TRUE Scotsman’d their way into rejecting everything I gave them and demanding another dozen fucking examples.
Seems like lots of people in the comment section are also talking about what their eyes are seeing and it contradicts your claim. So whose eyes shall we trust?
Lots of people in this comment section are talking about the exact same thing - several people are discussing their personal experiences being banned or banned pre-emptively for going against tankie rhetoric. Are we reading the same fucking comment section?
From my limited and personal experience of the .ml instance, I don’t see any of this happening, just lots of tankie-boogyman rhetoric. But my observations are not enough to make a conclusion. And neither are yours. That’s why we need to back it up with evidence. Do you have any indication of any communities on .ml where the mods let this happen openly? If so, please link it.
Right okay. I was not aware that there are only two… and I think .ml is general use. If anything I thought it was short for machine learning, like .io is short for input/output.
.ml was the domain for the country of Mali. Still is, actually - there was even some light panic a few months ago when Mali started changing terms for usage of the domain. It was chosen for two reasons - one, because the domain was free at the time of Lemmy and Lemmygrad’s founding, and two, because ml is also short for Marxist-Leninist.
I don’t know more you want. If effusive praise of Stalin (and quite clearly not in a sarcastic way; being light-hearted about white supremacy doesn’t make 4chan suddenly a bastion of tolerance, for example) and denial of the Holodomor isn’t enough to be a tankie, I really don’t know what the fuck is.
I agree that some are good examples. I think some are exaggerated but I’ll ignore those.
The overwhelming majority of them are from hexbear finding their way to lemmy.ml. I honestly gotta check who is defederated from who. If we defederate from lemmy.ml, we’d get rid of those but we would be losing a ton of content in communities where there are no insane extremists. What do you think what the best solution would be? I wonder if speaking to lemmy.ml mods about it could help.
The overwhelming majority of them are also very much upvoted, and the tankies ARE the mods themselves on many of the main political communities.
I’m not even advocating defederating from Lemmy.ml, unlike Lemmygrad, because I don’t believe that Lemmy.ml brigades or is aggressively toxic towards other instances.
But that’s not the same as saying they aren’t infested with tankies, or run by tankies, because they very much are.
The only real solution is to be aware of the tankies in lemmy.ml.
Man, it takes ten fucking seconds of hitting ‘search: local’ to find out any of this shit, or listening to half the fucking commenters in this very thread. If you’re expecting an asspatting tone in that context, you’re out of fucking luck.
Painting this with such a broad brush is just a lazy way to discourage critical thought and discussion. Maybe not your intention but it’s unproductive.
“You should try and have a productive discussion with fascists because they have a dab of red paint on them” is not a sentiment that I find productive to cultivate.
Sorry for thinking that genocide under a totalitarian state “Because it will totally wither away bro trust me” is fascist. I’ll be sure to follow the Party Line next time, I promise.
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that the person whose initial comment I responded to was a strawman argument would respond to my comment with yet another strawman argument. I figured it was worth a try but I see you’re not really interested in discussion.
My argument was that suggesting those who have commented on a high tanky comment to actual tanky (tanky_comment:tanky_real) ratio are mostly concern trolls is unhelpful because it writes off dissenting opinions with a simple, if unlikely, solution. I feel you’re shutting down discussion by encouraging others to ignore dissent - ignore them, they’re just trolling.
You responded by refuting paraphrased text whose content is not only absent in my comment, that message can’t even be directly inferred from it, either alone or in conjunction with your original comment. That’s textbook strawman - refuting an argument that isn’t the one being discussed.
Now is that your interpretation, that the consequence of not writing off anyone who has critical observations regarding all the tanky gripe comments as concern trolls is cultivating the sentiment of talking with fascists? If that’s the case, when you skip some steps by not explaining how you came to that conclusion and instead present your interpretation of the consequences as a direct paraphrase of my argument, it comes across as a strawman.
The “There aren’t even that many tankies! You’re just mad at the TRUE leftists!” comments I’m talking about are pretty inevitably from people decrying anti-tankie sentiment in general, not just people saying “Yeah, tankies are shit, but I don’t see them around.” As the latter is considerably rarer, saying that generally they’re just concern trolls voicing that is correct (based on those presumptions). “Generally” doesn’t mean a law, it means a rule of thumb.
This all makes a lot more sense. I’ve had a different experience. I tend to see more comments like your latter, that they’re shit but not around, than the former, although we might frequent different communities. It’s also my opinion so it might be selection bias. Now I understand how we’d both interpret your original comment to have very different implications.
I do apologize, then. I am, even on other issues and in less contentious threads, ‘quick on the draw’, so to speak. I’m sorry for reacting with so much hostility.
No apology necessary, it was a good conversation and gave me some good material to think more about. Thanks for being willing to talk it out, it’s appreciated!
Why do I get the feeling you got banned and are mad about it?
lmao. I’ve observed .ml, but not participated, because I saw it was a shitshow early in my migration. Check the Lemmy modlog if you like; I haven’t been banned from any .ml community as far as I know. I don’t think I’ve ever even intentionally commented on an .ml community past the first month.
But disingenuous bullshit is the constant fallback of concern trolls like you. Spew enough shit, and someone will eat it up, just like the rest of your circle.
So you just read it to have something to your left to hate?
No. I read it because I was curious as to whether it was a good instance to interact with.
I found out very quickly that it was not.
But you aren’t interested in anything except apologia for tankies. I don’t know that you’re a ‘useful idiot’, so to speak, but I do know that you’re useful for them.
I guess that’s one way to live. You know you can block instances, right?
I don’t even have anything I’m not subscribed to on my feed, lmao.
Watch the goalposts change now from “ML isn’t that bad!” to “Well you can just block it!” and, subsequently, it will become “Well the tankies aren’t running your communities so why do you care?”
The accusations change; all that remains is the desire to defend their bootlicking friends.
“Why are you mad? Just don’t interact!” and "Tankies don’t even run your communities, so why are you mad?” differ only in that the latter is more specific about what kind of interaction (I called ‘running’ while you went for ‘presence’), but it’s clearly there. But deny even apparent facts and someone will fall for it.
Frankly, you’re just mad that anyone to your left exists and have decided to call them all tankies.
It’s hilarious that you think tankies are leftists.
No, I learned it because you were saying that people who oppose Netanyahu’s genocide are tankies who support the CCP.
Fucking WHAT?
Where the FUCK did I say people who oppose Bibi’s genocide are tankies? You’re literally talking to someone who has been calling it a genocide since before October 7 and the resulting Israeli offensive.
The meme is “Tankies clearly see one thing, but are completely blind to the same thing elsewhere”.
I called this back when world defederated from grad. That centrists would declare some other instance to be full of tankies and start trying to get it defederated.
Anarchists and libertarian socialists aren’t centrists.
Also, tankies moving to a more popular instance that tolerates them to harass more people is the most predictable thing in the world. (specifically lemmy.world)
Look at reddit. Tankies infiltrate lefty subs and try to take over all the fucking time. So who knows which instance will be the next one. We don’t shift goalposts, tankies find a new angle.
Yes, they’re truly behind every rock. It’s not at all that centrists point at anything to their left and scream “tankie!”
My favorite was when ToiletPaperUSA, a left-leaning meme group, definitely didn’t have half the mod team removed by a handful of tankies who replaced them with their own goons and then subsequently banned and removed all criticism of China until the long-inactive founding mod was reached and restored the old moderators.
I’ve been an active user since before lemmy.world, although I’m new to my current instance. Anecdotal but I now see far more comments to the effect of “tankies sure are gonna hate this”, where tankies then never show up, than those where they do.
It’s especially comical with the Lemmy.world users as their instance has blocked the largest sources of tankies. Even my alts in instances that haven’t blocked .ml don’t see anywhere near as many tankies as people griping about these tanky boogymen that have yet to arrive. I’ve even seen people who obviously aren’t tankies or even tanky adjacent being accused of being one. I’ve been accused of being one for just pointing this all out.
I’ll suggest a possibly unpopular opinion: the term tankies is turning into Lemmy’s equivalent of “woke” - many of those using the term don’t seem to know exactly what it means and its loose definition is expanding toward “anyone I don’t like”.
Lemmy.world is generally filled with extremely ideological Liberals with no real niche interests represented by Lemmy.
Reddit is getting worse and worse. After all, how could it not? The profit motive ruins everythinh over time, after all. Therefore, the people who leave Reddit for Lemmy generally dislike the direction of Reddit, such as Marxists, Anarchists, and ideological Liberals.
This brings us to Lemmy. Lemmy.world is a microcosm of Reddit, it’s the largest explicitly generalist instance. It’s the fediverse for people who don’t care about the fediverse, it’s for refugees from Reddit. The problem is that the leftists are on different instances from Lemmy.world, because they go to the explicitly leftist instances, or other instances for niche interests.
That’s why Lemmy.world represents Liberals too ideological to stay on Reddit, but who also aren’t comfortable with Marxists or even Anarchists. It’s Reddit 2.
I think you’re 100% right. The OP and I just had a really good discussion that helped me understand the heart of our disagreement regarding their tanky take is different perceptions of Lemmy population tanky sentiment. I mostly see comments to the effect of “where are all these tanky comments?”, a sentiment I share, versus “those aren’t tankies, therefore it’s not a tanky comment”, some of which I think they’ve seen as tanky apologia. And maybe it is, I’m sure they’ve had their own unique Lemmy experience. Anyhow, it meant the implications of their statements are interpreted entirely differently between the two of us. This dovetails perfectly with your comment. Not necessarily that they’re a liberal, as I can only guess about their beliefs, but that my experience on different, definitely more leftist instances is likely significantly different than theirs on .world.
Yep, I agree. I think a particularly large part of it is that many on Lemmy.world are tangentially familiar with Marxism and Anarchism, but fundamentally have not yet engaged with the source material. A quick example is Marx’s view on Government, which gets confused with Anarchistic by Liberals who have only heard “Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society” and stopped there, when Marx has always advocated for a Democratic World Republic.
That’s why I try to spend a good amount of time trying to lead Liberals towards Leftist theory like Marx or Goldman, and towards Dialectical Materialism rather than Idealism. The Liberals on Lemmy.world are radical, but directionless, so actual Leftists are scary.
As for OP, they called me a “fascist” for saying voting isn’t going to move America left, outside revolutionary pressure will. I have never advocated against voting, and have also expressed my intention to vote for Biden, but OP can’t resist when it comes to punching left.
They admitted that they’re quick on the draw, which I think explains the punching, but I don’t think they’re intentionally a bad actor. I think we’re all dealing with the application of what you’ve so eloquently explained: we’re talking about the same broad topics but using words and concepts that mean entirely different things depending on the commenter or reader, plus individual personality quirks. We’re all definitely not always benevolent, patient, and reasonable, even when when we think we are.
When I put on my old “I’m liberal but think socialism is edgy cool despite misunderstanding what it is” hat from my younger years, I can see how a lot of things just in the few paragraphs we’ve written can seem really awful or scary. Outside revolutionary pressure? That’s China, right? Tanky!
Oh, I agree! I don’t think OP is an intentionally bad actor, at all really. I would, however, bet with absolute confidence that they have never actually engaged with Marxism or Anarchism, which is why it would be fantastic if they agreed to read leftist theory. It’s just frustrating to see nothing but left punching from OP and judgements on who is left and who is right without engaging with leftist theory themselves.
Your second paragraph absolutely resonates. I myself used to be a “centrist,” then a liberal once I actually grew up a little bit, then became a leftist during my college years and have been reading theory and trying to better my understanding ever since. To be called a fascist when I know for absolute fact that I stand to the left of OP just frustrates me.
That all being said, I don’t believe OP is bad-faith, just not familiar with leftism and haven’t really done any reading. I’d be thrilled if they agreed to read Marx, but they have probably mentally written me off.
Oh, I agree! I don’t think OP is an intentionally bad actor, at all really. I would, however, bet with absolute confidence that they have never actually engaged with Marxism or Anarchism, which is why it would be fantastic if they agreed to read leftist theory. It’s just frustrating to see nothing but left punching from OP and judgements on who is left and who is right without engaging with leftist theory themselves.
What was your stake? You’d lose your absolute confidence bet. Fuck man, I have repeatedly expressed support for anarchists on here. But you know, anyone who doesn’t like tankies just hasn’t read enough theory, of course. If only they read more theory! /s
That all being said, I don’t believe OP is bad-faith, just not familiar with leftism and haven’t really done any reading. I’d be thrilled if they agreed to read Marx, but they have probably mentally written me off.
I’ve read Marx, and expressed on here, multiple times, great admiration for Marx and Engels and their writing, and even cited them at points.
Sorry that that’s not enough to make me pro-tankie. Fuck, if anything, it made me more anti-tankie.
Sorry, on second thought, you should really explain to me what I believe, you know me better than I do.
You know what? If you’ll entertain me, I’ll accept that I lost that bet. What leftist theory have you read? This isn’t a no true leftist, read more theory purity test bullshit, I am curious what you have read and what your conclusions are. As my comment said, it’s frustrating to see nothing but left punching, and calling people fascists with no evidence. Can you understand why that might be frustrating?
Seriously, I am extending an olive branch here. I want to have a productive convo with you and try to come to an understanding. If you don’t want to try, that’s fine, but I figured I’d try anyways. Like I said, I don’t think you’re a bad actor.
The Communist Manifesto, Critique Of The Gotha Programme, Theories Of Surplus Value, and various assorted letters and articles. I attempted Das Kapital, but it was dry enough and enough of a slog that I ended before the halfway point.
The Conquest Of Bread, State And Revolution, Anarchism And Other Essays, various 20th century articles and letters from socialist writers and theorists, ML and anti-ML.
Innumerable books and articles dealing with the actual history of socialist movements, especially anarchist movements, either in whole or in passing.
Okay, a very sizeable list. Not doing the whole Read more theory! bit, just suggesting Value, Price, and Profit and Wage Labor and Capital as shorter and condensed, though half of Capital probably covers more than those do. Socialism: Utopian and Scientific is a good read from Engels on Historical Materialism if you care.
As for Lenin, Imperialism is probably his most important work when it comes to understanding a lot of Leftists on Lemmy, IMO. Many Leftists I see form most of their foreign policy positions on the conclusions Lenin provides in it.
As a precursor, I consider myself a Leftist, not an ML, not an Anarchist. I am anti-sectarian, because I believe the path to Socialism will be different in every country. Whether that be Marxism, Syndicalism, Anarchism, the overall goal is to move leftward and collectivize ownership of the Means of Production.
Do you disagree with any of that? Do you believe it enough to consider me a fascist, or was that a one-off kneejerk reaction?
As for Lenin, Imperialism is probably his most important work when it comes to understanding a lot of Leftists on Lemmy, IMO. Many Leftists I see form most of their foreign policy positions on the conclusions Lenin provides in it.
I feel like a lot of Lemmy Leftists miss Lenin elsewhere on foreign policy, though. Not that I would regard myself as pro-Lenin in general.
Imperialism is as much our “mortal” enemy as is capitalism. That is so. No Marxist will forget, however, that capitalism is progressive compared with feudalism, and that imperialism is progressive compared with pre-monopoly capitalism. Hence, it is not every struggle against imperialism that we should support. We will not support a struggle of the reactionary classes against imperialism; we will not support an uprising of the reactionary classes against imperialism and capitalism.
God, I’ve seen so much apologia for Iranian theocracy on here that it makes my head spin.
Do you disagree with any of that? Do you believe it enough to consider me a fascist, or was that a one-off kneejerk reaction?
No, I don’t disagree. As mentioned before, I’m quick to snap, especially since many people on here openly salivate about the idea of a fascist takeover here in the US, because “Both sides are the same” or “It will move people left”.
I honestly don’t remember calling you a fascist (I’m sure I did, as I am quick to emphasize that supporting the rise of fascists like Trump, actively or passively, IS sitting at a table with 9 fascists, and quick to assume bad faith), but it was probably incorrect, and definitely spoken in anger rather than careful consideration.
I generally agree with the idea that some Lemmy Leftists are picky and choosy with Lenin. I do find that understanding how they view Imperialism makes a lot of their takes make sense from their perspective. however. It brings me to my largest (probable) disagreement with you, however.
I do not expect you to agree with this, but I believe where you and I differ is our stance on Lemmy’s population. It is my belief that on Lemmy, there are relatively few bad actors, and therefore the sheer amount of Leftist infighting causes more overall harm than good. There are relatively extremely few accelerationists, PatSocs, MAGA Communists, or otherwise bad-faith “leftists” on Lemmy, the majority from what I have seen have at least read theory and can be reasoned with.
Again, I don’t expect you to agree with that, but I do want to hear your POV on that.
As for calling me a fascist, you did so here, which I snapped back on. That’s what gave me the initial impression that you are just looking to pick fights with Leftists, rather than have a conversation. We are having one now, so that’s much better than I originally thought, so I’ll take the L on that.
Could be the ratchet effect. Lemmygrad and Hexbear are both explicitly Marxist-Leninist, but .ml is explicitly FOSS and Privacy based, just with Marxist-Leninist admins.
I suppose the “next boogyman” will probably be an instance with a very lax defederation policy like Lemm.ee, db0, or Shitjustworks, if Lemmy.world ever defederates with Lemmy.ml. Either that, or Lemmy.world will jump ship to Sublinks and that will be an entirely different platform.
I mean there are communities dedicated to having a problem with Lemmy itself being developed by Marxist-Leninists. Not sure it’ll stop at the instance level.
But hey: Shitjustworks defederated Lemmygrad since the admin doesn’t like them and hexbear defederated shitjustworks, so I only ever see these kind of after-action-reports from the folks that go out searching for bad takes from those instances or wherever.
My comment was more to the effect that since Lemmy doesn’t really have a large number of Conservatives, the Left in general is the boogeyman for Liberals in Lemmy.world, and they largely won’t stop punching leftward until they either become leftists themselves or they leave Lemmy (perhaps via Sublinks?).
I mean, I’m about as pro-Taiwanese-independence as they come, but the fact of the matter is that the Kuomintang was basically government by mafia, and so corrupt that a large chunk of the Chinese populace decided “hey, let’s throw our lot in with the guy who thinks insect-eating birds are bad for crop yields, he can’t be any worse than the status quo.” That turned out poorly for them, but to a certain degree I think that if you want to recognize Taiwan’s right to self determination you also have to respect the historical decision of mainland China to go a different direction.
But then you can also recognize that the main forces (Taiwan) were massively weakened by the Japanese and had WW2 not happened then they wouldn’t have lost
Did you really just reply with an article that says
During World War II, popular support for the Communists increased. U.S. officials in China reported a dictatorial suppression of dissent in Nationalist-controlled areas. These undemocratic polices combined with wartime corruption made the Republic of China Government vulnerable to the Communist threat.
In response to me saying they wouldn’t have lost without WW2?
Looking at your comments in aggregate, you seem to be taking the position that the legitimacy of a government is derived from the end of a gun rather than the consent of the governed. Is that really a position you want to promote?
Me: “The KMT was corrupt , repressive, and did not have popular support on the mainland for some time before their retreat to Formosa.”
You: “But WW2 depleted their capacity to resist the Maoists militarily, so you can’t say they lost popular support!”
Me: “I fail to see how the former fact supports your latter assertion. Popular support for the Communist side is broadly attested.”
You: block quote supporting my point "See, you’re wrong! Your own source says the KMT was made vulnerable to the communists during WW2!
Me: “It seems to me like you’re valuing the WW2 military contributions of the Nationalists over the broad domestic support for revolution against them.”
You: “That’s not what I said, you’re being ignorant”
It’s not just the military toll as KMT worked to save China while Communist forces hid. The public opposition as per your link was because of the involvement of WW2. If Japan hadn’t invaded then public support wouldn’t have swayed
That isn’t in any person’s mind “because they couldn’t keep killing people”
Governments can and should be criticized without bigotry towards the governed populace. We should always take the side of the civilians, as we are civilians too.
It is in fact these governments producing massive amounts of propaganda to demonize “the other side.” What might they have to gain from global culture wars such as this?
This “global culture war” they’re talking about isn’t about trans people. I’m assuming you mean the culture war in the US. What they meant was the east VS west culture war.
Everyone lives in a culture that’s somewhat manipulated by the government they’re under. I don’t think now is the time to discuss rationalist economics.
Governments can and should be criticized without bigotry towards the governed populace.
In theory, sure.
In practice, there is some tacit understanding that a plurality of residents in a nation will hold views of the popular government.
The end run around this is to assert everyone in Bad Foreign Country are brainwashed or broken. But then you end up with proud outspoken nationalists vocalizing support. So we go to the Wumao/Bot narrative, where everyone speaking positively is paid off or fake.
And then finally you get to an actual conflict of civilizations - an Israeli / Russian invasion that is popular within the invading country - and that’s when you have to square the circle.
When hundreds of thousands of people are killing/dying to perpetrait a national agenda, it can’t just be “Country Bad / People In Gray Area”.
At some point, you have to see trees as part of the forest. It can’t just be a flag that you’re upset by.
Yes, clearly you guys keep losing because of the DNC, not because of your inability to create alliances and earn everyone else’s votes.
Remember, if a candidate needs to earn your vote, then your favored candidate needs to earn their votes too. You’ll find it difficult to do so while you keep burning bridges.
For you, probably not. What I said is for people who actually want to see leftist change happen, not for people who just want to scream and win against liberals even if it means empowering fascist authoritarians.
Oh, you misunderstood. I was referring to the socialists and bona fide leftists who are actually trying to accomplish their goals and ideals.
As opposed to you, who prefers to be right and own the libs at all costs, versus actually seeing their professed ideals become a reality.
By the way, throwing terms around meaninglessly is also a bad idea. At this point I have no idea what you mean by liberal, because it seems to be “anyone who disagrees even a little bit with me”.
I think they’re referencing your using an assumed ideological generality/commitment (“liberal”) to refer to someone in response to a common albeit somewhat tiresome joke.
It looks a lot like you were trying to be dehumanizing, rather than constructively asking the person a question. Most people understand that asking a question or entering into honest discussion requires some generosity, do it’s only human nature that people detected when none or the opposite is given.
You know, that choice, the choice to demean people by ideology - seems to tie into to common fears about Marxist and Socialist systems… That they’re authoritarian or would be “once the mask was dropped and they gained any sort of power”
…and that seems to be the appearance you would prefer to perpetuate. You’re doing Capitalism’s work for free. You’re actively reproducing the cultural mindset you’ve been allocated in its system.
Remove their professed ideology and the people that choose to be dumb, arrogant, angry, tribalistic assholes are all indistinguishable. The way they act, speak, and think are identical.
My point was “this is the kind of person you’re choosing to be.”
There is no such thing as a “socialist” liberal because there is no such thing as an anti-capitalist liberal - once you cross over into anti-capitalist - ie, socialist - territory, you automatically become anti-liberal, too.
Throughout your comments there are quite a few people who are blatantly socialist, and people who say very anti-capitalist things that may be socialists, who you have called a lib. It just seems you perceive it as an insult towards people who hold different beliefs, rather than describing capitalists… not to say that the specific OP here isn’t a capitalist, but some of the others definitely aren’t.
I wouldn’t count myself as a capitalist, personally. I may be more amiable to short-term solutions that acknowledge that we are still in a capitalist society, but I see an investor-driven economy as ruinous to both itself and democracy, and not something that can be sustained in a truly democratic society.
Again, your goal seems to be tracing a very small territory which will obviously be rejected by most… It’s as if that’s your aim is to be more radical and exclusive “than thou”.
To me this is no different to the billionaire bragging about his particularly libertarian agenda, or extremists Randian “egoic motivations”.
Its aim is to perform and adopt an assigned cultural position in order to reproduce the dominant cultural hegemony; positioning and imparting the awareness of the majority population’s moral imperative to avoid both positions as ugly and extremist, and hence their righteousness for staying away from both.
It looks a lot like you’re trying to alienate other leftists from your position, rather than actually make any reasonable arguments for your own beliefs.
Don’t you ever feel like you’re betraying your own beliefs when you go for over simplified attacks.
Like using “liberal” as an insult… I mean, it suggests your preferred ideology would be a kind of fascism or authoritarianism. Something without social liberalism.
I mean, you’re obviously frustrated and a believer that any serious discussion would be futile… So why not just walk away rather than damaging your own political position?
Haven’t you learned how to argue your positions using someone else’s values?
Just seems like you’re the biggest liberal, like you’re doing a big show of the freedoms of political discourse, showing how you’re free to be rude. Showing you’re openly avoiding constructive discussion, and not realising that’s still discussion.
It’s a very liberal thing to do.
…and I’m not sure of the purpose but it doesn’t seem to be bolstering any other political position. Just seems to reproduce a culture in which the far left are under represented and seen as unreasonable. One where it’s seen as just and right to not have a popular Marxist party and to lock that particular rhetoric out.
Why so blatantly lean into the agenda that’s so obviously what economic liberals prefer. Doesn’t that just enforce the hegemonic false consciousness that works against you and your politics???
Same. They can’t allow acknowledgement of Europe being in the most peaceful span of its recorded history thanks to the EU and NATO. That cooperation and allowing people to be different but still respectful has been a success for many.
They’re stuck in the burn it all down phase of being an edgy teenager that finds out life is hard. Unfair. And kinda sucks sometimes. That humans aren’t perfect and therefore our societies and systems also aren’t perfect.
But they’d throw it all away instead of iterating on what already works. My job is literally process improvement and change management. People who try to come up with the best idea on their own fail. It’s diversity of thought and background that leads to the best solutions.
In the late 90s and early 2000s, who exactly was NATO defending itself against? there was no longer an adversary superpower that needed to be fought with mass fighter jets and tanks. Russia was agreeing to let American military aircraft through its airspace for chrissakes
The only reason NATO stuck around back then was that a bunch of bureaucrats really wanted to keep their jobs.
I recently read a book about the relevant history and it’s been 20-30 years since. I was curious about how Russia started on the warpath and the transition from Clinton to Bush (Iraq, the ABM treaty, etc) was a fairly major factor. It was a very jarring contrast reading speeches and news reports from back then, such as the franco-german-russian united front against the iraq war. Things could have gone very differently back then if a few decisions weren’t made.
I can’t believe you fell for that. And 2) back to the original point of late ninties early 2000s, some people can see beyond the very measly 5 years you tried to limit it to. Ciao.
There was serious talk, though nothing ever came of it, of allowing Russia itself into NATO.
NATO is a defensive alliance, because the military of many countries is a stronger deterrent than one. "Russia dead! Time for NATO to dissolve!" is missing the point of the alliance in favor of pointing at the trigger for its creation.
Funny how right after Openskies ended Russia invades a country. Almost seems like all the precautions in place were kinda keeping them from misbehaving.
No, the point is that the situation was a bit more complicated than “Russia is a disease that cannot be reasoned with” within living memory. Sure at this point we’re cheerfully careening towards ww3 with all diplomacy out the window (with Russia as a primary driver). But it didn’t use to be like that
Reality is more complicated than the strawman you were putting into someone else’s mouth? Ya don’t say… I mean that’s sort of the point of a strawman like the one you were making.
But also, I’ve not seen any serious analysis backing the idea we’re currently on a path to WW3. Such a situation is unlikely to be produced by the Ukrainian conflict alone.
To back that claim you’re going to have to rely on theoretical escalations outside that conflict… And that’s not what “careening towards” means.
If a car is careening towards something, it doesn’t mean - it would be happening if it means it is happening BECAUSE…
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was founded in 1949 and is a group of 32 countries from Europe and North America that exists to protect the people and territory of its members.
… treaties don’t just disappear after a short amount of peace. I think it would take at least 50 solid years and probably some democracy for that sort of thing to happen.
It’s because they’re both fat and have similar faces though. I never considered yellow. The Chinese use Pooh to make fun too. So I don’t think it actually meant racially.
The only reason I use it is that it’s banned speech that is banned because it specifically hurts the feelings of a dictator enough to ban it. That is a huge plus for using Pooh Bear for me. Everyone should be able to call their leaders a shithead.
It’s already been shown that psychopaths can live relatively normal lives when given proper treatment. There’s even a story of one such brain researcher (James Fallon) finding out his own brain structures in an MRI result showed a tendency to psychopathy, even though he was a fairly average man who was conducting such a study.
In that case, wouldn’t we want to say, instead, that the researcher’s environment was such that he developed mild tendencies towards psychopathy, but not enough to be socially relevant.
I would go so far to say that the average person has a tendency to psychopathy, considering the social state of our civilisation.
I’m on ml, it’s actually quite nice shitposting and linux memes. I think this is mostly true for the insufferable assholes at hexbear. Just block them.
Sadly blocking them doesn’t prevent them from harassing other people. Their behaviour is awful and it likely drives away new users. They can still vote and reply to your comments, you just can’t see it yourself.
The fun part about being federated with Hexbear is seeing extremely team-based world views that are different from the ones I normally see. I’m used to seeing people who are blindly pro-America. It’s weird seeing people who can’t imagine China ever doing anything wrong.
It’s funny how people that casually see hexbear always say this but there is critique about things China does there all the time, most posts are jokes so outsiders might misinterpret it. Hexbear doesn’t really stan anything as a unit except the end of Western imperialism.
Every time I interact with any hexbear user in anything remotely related to China, it is flying whataboutism “But U.S. …”, “It is unlike the west haven’t …”, “We should fix our own problem first”.
Thanks, I am trying to fix our own problem. I am Chinese… And they would never defend any western allies’ action with the same whataboutism (of course I am not saying they should, whataboutism is a valid excuse to neither China nor the west), like they did with China and Russia. To me, this feels like pro-China/pro-Russia bias.
Besides, the world is definitely not better off with more dictators, people shouldn’t be fine with repression just because they are not in the same country as you.
Thanks, I am trying to fix our own problem. I am Chinese…
I have been accused of not being able to correctly interpret East Asian history because of my eurocentric biases… I am Korean.
It’s crazy how much they (typically white Europeans) accuse people of being sinophobic or eurocentric, and then attempt to explain East Asian history to Asian people in the most eurocentric way possible.
There are a number of users that I enjoyed interacting with but, the instance got way too toxic. They’ve cultivated a culture of rushing to be the first dunk on people, without caring if there may be miscommunication or factuality. It’s VERY tribalistic. And don’t dare question the summary execution of the Romanov children, dissidents, Soviet expansionism, or Stalin’s willingness to divide up the world with Hitler.
Ah so that’s why when I compared the smearing of student protests in the US on the grounds of “anti-semitism” as similar to China calling student protests “counter-revolutionary” I got slapped down by someone for “always criticizing China” and my comment was removed.
I’d never even mentioned Chine until that point so I found it completely bizarre.
Add comment