This is my experience as well. It's also laughable that they call themselves communists and love China and Russia. Those people aren't communists, they are authoritarians.
That's why I too am not a believer in horseshoe theory and actually agree that communism hasn't been practiced properly before. A peaceful emancipation of the common person is still unpracticed. If this is all tankies said, I'd be fine with it. But they say communism has never been practiced before along side arguments that the Soviet Union and China are communist. They are parroting real modern communists without understanding them and mixing in their revisionist history to create a paradox they don't seem too concerned about.
I think it's more about rebelling against their Reagan loving, USSR hating dads than sound political theory.
The previous comments were specifically talking about communist "regimes," and I clarified what I thought they meant to say. You shifted the framing to be pedantic, unless you genuinely count hippy communes as communist regimes.
A truly communist "regime" is not something that should ever exist as communism is a stateless philosophy thus inherently not authoritarian by its very nature.
It's the bit in between capitalism and communism that historically has been coopted by bad actors to create authoritarian regimes, these regimes tend to still call themselves communist because "lol fuck your revolution I'm in charge now" doesn't have the same PR value.
Communism is authoritarian because it puts the needs of a social construct (a "commune" or "society") over the needs, rights and freedoms of an individual. It doesn't matter how you want to paint it, it's always authoritarian.
To be fair. "that wasn't true Communism" is true. The problem is dictatorships keep getting sold with its name. Ironically proving how hard it would be to actually achieve a world or country of communes.
Except those people prefer the Chinese and USSR style of social autocracies to actual socialist projects. Some of them even trash worker coops, although that was more true to the InfraHaz style lolcows than the tankies of lemmy...
I think it gives them too much credit. They might give you housing but they'll kill you in the middle of the night because someone gave your name to stop the torture.
The Mensheviks wouldn't have been much more different than German and French socialdemocrats who accepted capitalism. But there were other relevant left-leaning political forces during the Russian Revolution that were neither Bolsheviks nor Mensheviks - I wonder what happened with them?
"Accepting capitalism" is a bit like like "accepting crime."
It's a natural byproduct of a series of extremely complex systems which exist in every society, and you either need to understand the right way to respond to it and restrain it, or you will become a dystopian hellscape trying to eliminate it entirely. This is pretty much the lesson we have learned from every ML experiment this far. They always seem to end up with an even worse form of capitalism, just like "tough on crime" societies always end up with an even worse form of crime.
Eliminating capitalism requires conditions which we should work towards, but will likely never exist in our lifetime. But in the meantime, there is a lot of good we can do to diminish the social ills we have now, within that context, without being otherwise distracted by something which is effectively impossible in the short term.
That's the problem though. When you study revolutions you overwhelmingly find there is a group doing reforms in a civilized way after the previous government is removed. And they almost always get lined up against a wall by a power hungry asshole.
You have to remember that your slow and patient reforms can drag their feet to the point it becomes indistinguishable from malice. That's what happened to e.g. the "socialists" who allied with the Russian provisional government and kept supporting the war against the will of the people.
The masses supported the Bolsheviks in the summer and fall of 1917 because they were the most radically and consistently antiwar party, regardless of their other faults. It was the most urgent issue in politics at the time for reasons that should be obvious. This is a pretty widely accepted narrative even among right wing historians.
That's also why I think people are too quick to reject pax America. It's a locally stable region in which we can build. Reverting back to a revolutionary stance has a very real possibility of going quite far in the wrong direction before we can advance over the status quo.
Unless, of course, the path to post scarcity communism is just "21st century tech, 17th century population." Which I suppose is probably valid.
Right, the problem is they turn around and defend the dictatorship because obviously Marxism cannot survive less you continuously sanitize the marketplace of ideas.
Communism is inherently authoritarian as it puts the needs of a social construct (in this case a "commune" or "society") over the needs, rights and freedoms of an individual. It is hard to achieve anything good with communism, because totalitarian dictatorship is the only possible outcome for any advanced enough authoritarian ideology.
Oof the individualists didn't like that. I don't think it's inevitable though. I just think it's going to take some special people and circumstances we haven't found yet. For example a George Washington like figure who refuses to become another king.
Oh good, this seems like a good place to ask something that's been bothering me for a while.
I see the posts from Hexbear and Lemmygrad. I can understand why they are in favour of theoretically communist regimes like China. What I can't for the life of me see is why they seem to unconditionally support modern Russia which is surely as far away from communism as you can get.
European here. The US are far from being the great country that they are presented as in a lot of US media, but it's also far from the terrible place that some people will claim it to be. Sure, it has some massive flaws, but it's still "better" than a lot of other places. You can love plenty of things about it. It's not just black or white.
The government doesn't have a secret police force to blackbag me for what I say.
I live in a beautiful place near the mountains.
The elections aren't rigged.
The people I know are here.
It's impossible to stage an effective invasion.
There's lots of things to love about the place I live. That doesn't mean I think it's perfect, and I still think about how to make life better. Throwing in with Russia is not an effective strategy to affect positive change, and so I think those who do so are foolish.
I don't see how that's relevant to the previous topic. You asked a question, and I answered. Before that, the discussion was about how naive lionizing Russia is when the motivation is counteracting U.S. imperialism. Frankly, it was the wrong question to ask.
Its not even that, its more the USSR apologism that is horrifying to me, it is clear they have never interacted with someone who has lived through the USSR, especially non-russians. They keep parroting how bad most post-soviet economies are, conveniently leaving out what the USSR did to those same economies on its way out.
But you see, Russia is just what is left of the glorious soviet union who got destroyed by the western evils. Whatever they do is totally justified in their bid to rebuild the union under a dictator, dont you know anything? And Ukraine is full with jewish nazis.
in those places you will usually see the term "critical support". that means we are critical to most aspects of modern russia, but are supportive of their anti-us goals, simply because it helps us break free of their imperialism.
I don't think it's reasonable to try to break free of an imperialism enforced primarily by markets via support of an imperialism enforced primarily by mass genocidal violence and threats of disproportionate nuclear retaliation. Furthermore, Marx's writing indicates that revolution needs to start in the most powerful industrial country on earth before global revolution can take root. Fighting against people trying to reform the U.S. and trying to destroy it without a revolutionary base goes directly against the strategy Marx recommended. That is to say, if all you do is counter one imperial power with another in hopes that the first will fall, all you get is a revolving door of imperialism.
marx' (more like lenin's in this case) writings say the opposite, revolution more easily happens in the more oppressed places, because people are actually seeing the problems of the system firsthand much more intensely. china was a prime example in the 50s. also according to lenin, anti-imperialism is the #1 priority when trying for global socialism, because it will alleviate suffering the most, and weaken the empire's grip on the world.
nobody is expecting the revolution to simply just happen from russia resisting the us, by far, but burgeoise infighting will make the us hegemony weaker. the us is not even close to a reform where we can just wait for them to stop. maybe i'm wrong on this one but i dont think any empire was ever reformed in this sense.
africa is seeing some liberation movements right now that would probably be impossible if the us wasnt invested in spreading themselves thin with a few wars elsewhere. the BRICS are another example of something that would never happen with a strong us influence.
Yeah, that's part of the problem. This is why I don't think MLs can form effective long-term coalitions with Socialists, Communists, and Anarchists. Lenin's writings are (with the benefit of hindsight) transparently nothing more than an effort to garner support so that he could seize power. His words and actions contradict leftist writings, ideals, and practice. I don't think anyone who looks at his actions though the clarity of hindsight and sees someone who we should study for what to do correctly should be taken seriously. I'm certain there's a few diamonds in the rough we can find, but he shouldn't ever be used as an authority.
burgeoise infighting will make the us hegemony weaker
We're talking about innocent people (e.g. Ukrainians) being killed, taken, raped, or some combination thereof. It's not "burgeoise infighting" it's war. You can talk about the practical implications and how we can take advantage of tragedies without pretending that Russia is a force for good. And I say that because there is a contingent of self-proclaimed "leftists" who routinely act in such a fashion. Furthermore, Russian propaganda is pushing the United States towards fascism, which endangers the slowly building leftist movement that we need to let the world as a whole move past capitalism.
africa is seeing some liberation movements right now that would probably
I don't think the numbers here are clear enough to claim positive Utility from this trade-off. Yes there's the potential for the revolution to lead to better conditions (maybe even a truly left-wing society), but it's extremely uncertain if that will be the case. Furthermore, if the dominant power in the world isn't left-wing that makes that potential left-wing society's chances of surviving absolutely bleak.
BRICS
Okay. You've used a mechanism of countering U.S. hegemony as an example of a benefit of when the thesis is that countering U.S. hegemony is a good thing. Do I need to explain why this is a really bad facet of your argument or is that enough for you to figure it out?
This is why I don’t think MLs can form effective long-term coalition
Material reality shows the exact opposite. Leninist-adjacent socialist experiments are the only ones to survive decades on a big scale, even if they still have (or had) faults, or needed adjustment over the years. You can't have perfect from the get go, and these move slowly at a generational pace.
garner support so that he could seize power
You said it all but we don't need hindsight to see its transparent, its exactly the stated intention behind a vanguard party. Without it you can't really seize power in large country-wide scale, simply because success is very rare without it. Even the current liberation movements in Africa are seemingly led by vanguard groups, even if they turn out not to be marxist.
You can talk about the practical implications and how we can take advantage of tragedies without pretending that Russia is a force for good.
Thats exactly what I did. We cannot stop this war, period. But we can understand how it can help us. By burgeoise infighting I mean two capitalist states commanded by two different sets of competing oligarchs, of course. This was predicted by Marx, and happened many times before.
I don’t think the numbers here are clear enough to claim positive Utility from this trade-off
Key word here is probably. Also this is not a trade-off, kicking out imperialism is always good. Every single anti imperialist movement paves the way for them to start actually fixing things unimpeded. That of course depends on what they will do next, liberation from imperial powers is just the first (albeit not any less important) step. There is a reason anti-imperialism takes the forefront in the third world when it comes to this. But you can't just say being under the boot of a brutal foreign power is any better.
BRICS
Read above about imperialism because it applies here. BRICS would not be allowed to advance as much as its doing now if the US still had a tight grip on us. You can take quite a lot of their military and political interventions around the world as an example. Every country in the past (that i know of, at least) had their shit beaten out of them for even trying to have wiggle room outside of the absurd demands of the imperial burgeoise and the IMF.
My own country was trying something similar before it was couped by the US and my own country was almost couped recently with their help, again, because we are slipping from their control just slightly. BRICS is one such motivator, if not one of the main ones.
You seem to have a very imperial core-centric view of the world, like most non-leninist leftists tend to do nowadays, moreso the ones from the imperial core. Things are not black and white, and every little victory helps when we barely have any space to move.
They dont unconditionally support Russia. I disagree with them but they see Ukraine and the US as even worse. Considering the prelavance of Nazi imagery in the Ukraine military, or how Ukraine banned leftist opposition parties, or how they removed minority language rights etc.
I think in their minds in a fight of two reactionary autocracies they prefer the one fighting against the west.
I'm my experience, they tend to be authoritarian first and Leftist second at best. Note that I'm not talking about all M-Ls, just those that support military force and violence to quell dissent.
i don't think "that wasn't true communism" belongs with the rest. saying Russia good , USSR good and China good requires you to pretend they are true communism, isn't that what tankies do?
i think this is more what actual leftie/communist people say about those countries because they think the authoritarian regimes don't reflect communism, not to mention the fact that Russia and China are capitalist countries in everything but name.
saying Russia good , USSR good and China good requires you to pretend they are true communism
Russia hasn't been anything resembling Communist since perestroika and the subsequent dismantling of the USSR. Might as well call France a monarchy or complain about Japanese Imperialism.
The long struggle session over "Is China Communist?" has been tilting back in the "Enthusiastic Yes!" column for years, as Xi's abandoned the Dengist market integration strategy and increasingly put his chips on a new Third-World Export model for Chinese aid and trade (incidentally, much more in line with the USSR peace dividend strategy circa 1950s/60s). If nothing else, Xi's proposal to have a housing sector that is 30% public (up from the current 5%) would be the AES guy's wet dream.
Russia and China are capitalist countries in everything but name.
Russia after '91 spend a solid decade under the Shock Doctrine mass sell off of domestic assets. Its rapid transition to capitalism had more in common with a pillaging than any economic reform. The Russian state was never fully integrated into the European trade model. And it was always held at arms length by NATO military advisers, limiting the possibility of fully internationalized markets. After the second failed "Russian Reset" under Obama, the state has begun re-nationalized a host of traditionally private assets as multi-national industries abandoned the country.
Chinese single-party state administered economic policy - the Five Year Plan model that's been building steam since the 1950s - is about as far away from the Western Laisse-Faire model of capitalism as you can get and still plausibly cling to the name. If China is capitalist, it is doing capitalism in a way wholly alien to any Chicago School economics professor or McKinsey consultant.
You might be able to shoehorn their economies into the broad definition of profit-seeking private ownership. But in both form and function, they look radically different from a US, German, or Japanese private economy.
I'm not sure I thought just 1 thing about it when I finished it. Can you be more specific in your question?
Go easy on me now, I haven't read it in probably 14 years. You would probably get more of asking me about "Red Victory!", and its portion on the early months of famine.
Yeah i like communism and all but can't for the life of me figure out why they like russia and china . Is it because there used to be (a kind of) communism there ? I stand for the idea of communism not the people or places that are (kinda) associated with them .
Tbh I can see how communism is a pretty romantic ideal utopia but when you look at the people proposing communism it's consistently been used as a sort of scam to take power and the freedom of the people that they rule over its like the geopolitical version of saying hey I've been trying to contact you about your cars extended warranty
Even when there are serious people reforming systems to provide more rights and equality they jump in and sell a more radical version to take power. It also doesn't help that the KGB used that as a signature move to install pro soviet dictatorships. Personally I've always thought democracy would be the stable way to move to the left. But we need to have actual education and get past the neo liberals drip feeding us reforms.
Well care to cmv i am not the one to act like i am very good at politics or know everything and i am open to changing my views if i am presented with information that proves me wrong .
i wrote this in this thread but basically we use the term "critical support", meaning we dislike modern russia in general but support its current goals of pushing back US influence.
this helps us because every time the US interferes anywhere that isnt the west, we end up much worse off than before. this can be for a variety of economic and political reasons, but we generally call it imperialism or neocolonialism.
my own country was interfered with recently and we are still reeling from it.
China is basically still communist, though apparently they have mixed with capitalism as well, and so is Russia basically, with the Russian communist party still a party in Russia and is the 2nd largest party in the country.
Russia sold off all of the publicly owned industries to their now plutocracy, and China having a mixed economy is exactly not communism.
The United States has a communist party and a mixed economy, no one would ever argue the US is Communist (expect maybe Republicans when a Democrat takes office.)
china is a market socialism or dengist, which means taking a couple of steps back from building socialism to be able to participate in the (capitalist) global markets until they have self sufficiency to fully cut back on the capitalist aspects currently pervading it, and survive the sanctions that will invariably come.
they currently have the goal of being a fully socialist economy by the 2050s. xi is already taking some action in this direction but we don't expect it to happen overnight.
on the other hand, russia is currently fully capitalist, yes, but they dont kneel for the US hegemony which is why we support some of their goals.
Dengism as it really exists is not market socialism, it's not even a proper social market economy (broadly speaking the EU model). Welfare is full of cracks people fall though, billionaires exist, arguably to a larger degree than in Europe. Neither is the case under market socialism which you should rather understand as "communism without central planning and councils relegate decision making to the market in certain areas" than the half state capitalist half private capitalist system China has going on.
Actually, France comes close: China is dirigisme without unions, worker's, or generally human rights. And infinitely more corrupt.
im not 100% in agreement with it, but yes dengism is the doctrine that gave rise to the current market socialism in china, still very much in line with marxism if much slower than the transition in the ussr. very much on track to a fully socialist economy.
you trying to argue france is more socialist than china? what?? france is literally one of the most capitalist and imperialist nations on earth. are you aware africans have to be exploited for some of france's nuclear reactors to be powered on right? shit, most of the continent is in as bad shape as it is largely because of france...
im sorry but im struggling to see much sense in what you said. are you just trolling? in any case let me just say "welfare state" or "assistentialism" isn't what socialism is at all, and you should really look into how the so-called developed nations in the EU acquired their wealth...
you trying to argue france is more socialist than china?
France has, for European standards, a very large state sector. That's what I was saying: They very much don't shy away from taking state money and whipping it around in the economy to direct it -- hence the term dirigisme. And no all those state-run nuclear power plants don't need Nigerian uranium to run, they run on uranium from anywhere, and in fact do. Kazakhstan, Australia and Canada are all giant producers which don't happen to be Russia or Nigeria.
By and large colonialism has been a net economical loss for France.
socialism doesnt have much to do with how big the state is, and aims ultimately to end it. thats a very common strawman for comparing apples to oranges though.
By and large colonialism has been a net economical loss for France.
ahahahahahahahahahahaha what the fuck. try to find out what european interests are doing to africa if you want to have a peek at actually real imperialism and genocide, happening right now. nothing about history here, this is still the present.
i was actually going to engage further but you are either trolling or need to seriously humble yourself and leave the bubble you are in, because the stuff you are saying is comically nonfactual.
Russia is a Bourgeois Dictatorship so it cannot be Communist. China has a Socialist Market Economy, which is a transitional state towards Communism along traditional Marxist lines.
You may want to read Engels' On Authority, strong government power isn't enough to consider something anti-Communist, at least according to traditional Marxism.
Note: that doesn't mean a strong government is good, necessarily, it just means that it is compatible with Socialism and thus not inherently anti-Communist.
But i do not thibk of mao or marxist as true communists as even tho they maybe considered as communists the things they did does not sit as good with me and seems a little anti-communist and i don't value their ideals or words because of that . I know i may not be a real communist as while i do like some communist ideologies i do not like the people or places that are often associated with it
Hmm maybe definetly not conservative tho hate like 99.99% of their views and ideologies but i do usually vote for communists and encourage others to do the same .
In that case, I suggest studying Marxism and Anarchism. Try reading Marx, Engels, even Lenin for Marxism, and try reading Kropotkin and Goldman for Anarchism.
Reading Principles of Communism by Engels, How Marxism Works by Chris Harman, and The Conquest of Bread by Kropotkin might be eye-opening for you.
I'm quick to ban communities from my feed that are political. I'm just here for the memes and tits - Not to doomscroll or argue about shit I don't understand.
That's fair and I hope those communities continue to grow and mature. I do enjoy the good faith discussions that happen here more often than other sites myself.
If you want to post what you want to post, it is not a good instance for that, though. They'll straight up delete your comments for expressing certain views, and there's a bot that will edit your comments to remove certain curse words from them.
I received a ban for my comment on this thread, down at the bottom. That's not like way out at the margins of acceptable speech; it's literally just what I think and the reasons for it.
They're not shy about it: Saying Joe Biden did something bad is allowed, saying he did something good will earn you a ban. It's a one viewpoint instance. If you don't have any opinions that conflict with that viewpoint, then I guess that's fine, but to me I don't see the point.
The double standards are blatantly obvious, criticizing the CCP in basically any way is "xenophobia" but criticizing the US government is almost a participation requirement
Db0 is the tits, no complaints from me whatsoever. I was indeed mad about the censor but it wasn't the sole reason for my move from my old .ml acct during the reddit exodus, db0 started existing and was simply a better fit for me.
I can attest to this as well, db0 is a good alternative. And I got a little upset the first time I commented a swear, the redaction actually made it funnier though. Not really something to be bothered by tbh.
The volume of posts when sorting by all from .ml is much more varied and there's a lot more of it.
Is ml on many defed lists? I dont think it is, lemmygrad.ml is heavily defeded. I switched to lemmy ml a while back because of world having issues and find it okay, the porn is off my feed, but basically everything else (including hex and grad, unfortunately) is in, could be that im missing something, but none of the big instances afaik.
God, I'm just so genuinely happy to see someone use the word, "Tankie," properly. A shocking number of people on .world seem to think anyone left of Joe Biden is a Tankie.
A lot of the content on Lemmy.ml that is endorsed by their admins breaks rules 1, 2, 4, and 5.1 of the Lemmy.world terms of service. By staying federated with them, the admins are facilitating this content's transfer to Lemmy.world's servers, which is against their own terms of service.
"USA bad" should be the free space, because anyone with as little as half a rotten brain can identify that it's true - The US is a shithole. That does preclude conservatives, of course.
Mostly, they are the ones other places can ignore because they aren't the cultural battleground for the world at large. Not that I'm complaining, since we're not generally the physical battleground for the world at large.
Mostly, there's not a good culture of actually facing issues and processing them, anywhere in the world, outside of some spiritual practices. If you're someone who does do that, though, the US is the place to be.
Not really. I'm not saying melting pots don't exist elsewhere, nor am I saying that somehow the US matters more because of the ideologies it (barely) holds. I'm just saying that the US is one of the largest melting pots, globally. But the ideas it holds are more important than the nation by far. Those ideas will continue to exist (and find another center) whether or not the US manages to be centered in them - for example, if the US is torn apart in the process of those cultural interactions.
But whether or not you like it - regardless of whether you think it's arrogant, that's the way it is, currently. And if that cultural battleground shifts to some other nation, or some other individual nation becomes comparable (there are plenty of ways that could happen), you'll probably also assert that they overrate their importance. And likely, some of them will, just as plenty of folks in the US do.
Edit: Also note, when I said
Mostly, there's not a good culture of actually facing issues and processing them, anywhere in the world, outside of some spiritual practices. If you're someone who does do that, though, the US is the place to be
..that it's both because this is a cultural battleground, and because the issues manifest here. It's not exactly a "positive" statement.
I just wish more people would identify that too much centralization is the root problem versus pointing the finger at the opposing yet equally centralized political systems. There needs to be a balance between centralization and decentralization yet few understand this. So frustrating.
I feel like no matter what instance I go to I'm probably just going to end up disliking a large chunk of the posters, because I think after 20 years of being raised online, I just fucking hate memes straight up.
It makes sense; the leaders they admire ban people from real life for questioning the narrative. They're just doing in kind with the limited little bit of power they have right now.
Why they think they'd be in the "good" grouping if this stuff comes to power in the West, I have no idea. You'll notice that precisely 0 of the people posting are (openly) coming from mainland China, and precisely 0 of them have any plans to move there at any point now or in the future.
Edit: nevermind. I opened it in my browser. I wonder if I have this community or person blocked in Boost for Lemmy.
Copied with some formatting:
You can see on ProleWiki what Lemmygrad.ml’s stances are, in their words, and why. Their article on the Russian Federation backs up what you’ve said, they believe it is extremely reactionary with horrifying treatment of LGBTQ people and is currently ruled by the Nationalist party, but critically support Russia insofar as it opposes Western hedgemony and Imperialism, and no more than that.
Critically, Lemmygrad, Hexbear, and much of Lemmy.ml see Lenin’s definition of Imperialism as the number one obstacle in Socialism’s advance, that is, the state in Capitalism where Imperialist countries export machinery and finances to the third world in order to super-exploit outsider populations for super-profits domestically. This is a necessity within Capitalism to combat the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall. It’s the concept of unequal exchange.
Now, of course you do not have to agree with Lemmygrad or Hexbear or Lemmy.ml, but as someone who regularly sees these posts, there are no delusional posters who somehow think the Russian Federation is still Communist or that Putin is secretly rebuilding the USSR.
ProleWiki:
Political line
We are guided by Marxism-Leninism, mainly the works of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Vladimir Lenin. Based on that, ProleWiki upholds the currently developing dictatorships of the proletariat in:
Republic of Cuba
People's Republic of China
Democratic People's Republic of Korea
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
Lao People's Democratic Republic
Really‽ They hold North Korea in high regard? I can see liking some of what Cuba, China, and Vietnam have done, but NK? I don't know enough about Laos to comment.
Edit: nevermind. I opened it in my browser. I wonder if I have this community or person blocked in Boost for Lemmy.
you probably did what I did after my first week on Lemee, and just block the .ml instance completely from my feed. it's absolutely insane and is the prime example of why Federation doesn't really work great if not all federated servers are subject to the same rules.
.ml will outright let hate, violence and threats stand. But will instance ban anyone who questions their tankies.
Even in a historical context? Colonialism was absolutely real, 1930s neoliberalism was a real political movement, and the British Empire was absolutely a western imperialist system.
I never said they weren't real, did I? I just said I don't have to hear about it in every goddamn comment. Someone shits in the woods and an ml account will login to mention colonialism of neo-liberal policies influenced the color of my shit in the woods. It doesn't have to be repeated. every. goddamn. time.
It's usually * Russia/China does something horrific *
Normal People: Hey, this is pretty terrible.
Tankies: IT'S NOT TERRIBLE BECAUSE WHAT USA DID IS MUCH WORSE.
In 98% of my Encounter with Tankies, they are the one who try to steer the topic away from the horrible thing China/Russia has done and towards: LOOK USA BAD! Even if the USA has NOTHING to do with the topic at all. It's like that's their go-to argument. And of course: " Yeah, it's not bad because the puppet States of China and/or Russia said it's not bad. "
They usually skip the morality and jump straight to the whataboutism. They know that the thing is bad and won’t argue that, but they will try to sweep it under the rug and change the narrative to US doing something bad too.
At the end of the day they’re like kids in a playground justifying that they can do something bad because someone else did it too.
Oh and I can tell that someone will misinterpret my comment and think I’m downplaying the sh*t that the US did
"Is it a misfortune that magnificent California was seized from the lazy Mexicans who did not know what to do with it?"
-Karl Marx
"Being in his quality as a hard R slur removed, a degree nearer to the rest of the animal kingdom than the rest of us, he is undoubtedly the most appropriate representative of that district."
-Engles, regarding Marx' son in law Paul LaFargue, who Engles said possessed "one eighth or one twelfth hard R slur removed blood."
Bonus points:
"The Negro is indolent and lazy and spends his money on frivolities, whereas the European is forward-looking, organized and intelligent."
-Che Guevara
Why idolize such virulent racists who say things that would make even Ted Cruz (Cruise? Kruz? Fuck it) blush? Seems like it may be a bad crowd to follow.
This is my experience as well. It's also laughable that they call themselves communists and love China and Russia. Those people aren't communists, they are authoritarians.
That's why I too am not a believer in horseshoe theory and actually agree that communism hasn't been practiced properly before. A peaceful emancipation of the common person is still unpracticed. If this is all tankies said, I'd be fine with it. But they say communism has never been practiced before along side arguments that the Soviet Union and China are communist. They are parroting real modern communists without understanding them and mixing in their revisionist history to create a paradox they don't seem too concerned about.
I think it's more about rebelling against their Reagan loving, USSR hating dads than sound political theory.
Communism in practice is USSR and China type dictatorships. Fantasising about "real" "peaceful" communism ever existing is delusional.
If you want to abolish private property and there are people who disagree (and there will always be) the central power will need to "neutralize" them.
This is what Marx envisaged socialism as - the transitional stage between capitalism and communism.
Shame that every single time this has been attempted its been quashed externally or coopted internally by bad actors.
Isn't that pretty much exactly what a "Tankie" is? An authoritarian communist? One that believes the revolution can only occur through state violence?
I think it should be updated, as Russia and China are not communist and those people love them.
I feel like the "communism" was used, because "authoritarianism" sounds worse.
Communism is inherently authoritarian. Thus they're Communists.
Source: your anus.
All communist regimes are authoritarian by nature
Is this a comment on the inevitably of human nature, or a misunderstanding of communism (which if done properly is stateless)?
Yeah it's like I said, communism done properly.
Yeah that's fair.
Probably just that every rendition of communism so far has been authoritarian.
Hippie communes are a counterexample.
Every large scale rendition, then.
Goal posts successfully moved
The previous comments were specifically talking about communist "regimes," and I clarified what I thought they meant to say. You shifted the framing to be pedantic, unless you genuinely count hippy communes as communist regimes.
Goal post was successfully moved when hippie communities were brought up as a “regime”.
Hippie communes are not countries and are dependent on the goodwill of everyone else around them.
I would argue that an authoritarian state cannot be communist, though plenty have called themselves so.
There can be no other rendition.
Is it better if I rephrase it as “all regimes founded on communist ideas and visions are authoritarian by nature”?
A truly communist "regime" is not something that should ever exist as communism is a stateless philosophy thus inherently not authoritarian by its very nature.
It's the bit in between capitalism and communism that historically has been coopted by bad actors to create authoritarian regimes, these regimes tend to still call themselves communist because "lol fuck your revolution I'm in charge now" doesn't have the same PR value.
In short: a true communism cannot exist.
Communism is authoritarian because it puts the needs of a social construct (a "commune" or "society") over the needs, rights and freedoms of an individual. It doesn't matter how you want to paint it, it's always authoritarian.
I think that's a gross misunderstanding on your part.
No, I think that's a gross misunderstanding on YOUR part.
Well you would wouldn't you, what with the whole gross misunderstanding part?
Are you talking to a mirror?
As should be the fucking case, you chimp. Otherwise, I am free to bash your head on the pavement as part of my "individual freedom".
Oh look, Nazis are here.
Right, the famously Nazi Communists... can you make a single sensible remark, or is it all brain rot?
Come back when Commies start supporting human rights and freedoms.
To be fair. "that wasn't true Communism" is true. The problem is dictatorships keep getting sold with its name. Ironically proving how hard it would be to actually achieve a world or country of communes.
Except those people prefer the Chinese and USSR style of social autocracies to actual socialist projects. Some of them even trash worker coops, although that was more true to the InfraHaz style lolcows than the tankies of lemmy...
Social Autocracy, oh wow that's a new one on me. They're just brutal dictatorships with a shiny veneer.
I call any dictatorships that barely does anything more than the Baltic states, while calling themselves as "socialists".
I think it gives them too much credit. They might give you housing but they'll kill you in the middle of the night because someone gave your name to stop the torture.
The only kind of Communism I'm willing to accept is the Star Trek Communism. Until then I'm pro Team "Social market economy"!
Fully Automated Gay Space Communism or bust!
I'm with you there. If we get poop->food magic machines then all bets are off. Until then we need a democratic state to prevent abuse.
The bolshivek revolution made it certain that any communist nation is a dictatorship. The menshiveks would have achieved better results.
The Mensheviks wouldn't have been much more different than German and French socialdemocrats who accepted capitalism. But there were other relevant left-leaning political forces during the Russian Revolution that were neither Bolsheviks nor Mensheviks - I wonder what happened with them?
Gulag happened to them.
Wait until you learn whatt the SPD did to the Spartactus League.
"Accepting capitalism" is a bit like like "accepting crime."
It's a natural byproduct of a series of extremely complex systems which exist in every society, and you either need to understand the right way to respond to it and restrain it, or you will become a dystopian hellscape trying to eliminate it entirely. This is pretty much the lesson we have learned from every ML experiment this far. They always seem to end up with an even worse form of capitalism, just like "tough on crime" societies always end up with an even worse form of crime.
Eliminating capitalism requires conditions which we should work towards, but will likely never exist in our lifetime. But in the meantime, there is a lot of good we can do to diminish the social ills we have now, within that context, without being otherwise distracted by something which is effectively impossible in the short term.
That's the problem though. When you study revolutions you overwhelmingly find there is a group doing reforms in a civilized way after the previous government is removed. And they almost always get lined up against a wall by a power hungry asshole.
You have to remember that your slow and patient reforms can drag their feet to the point it becomes indistinguishable from malice. That's what happened to e.g. the "socialists" who allied with the Russian provisional government and kept supporting the war against the will of the people.
Well that's what the Bolsheviks claim at any rate. It's always what the dictator claims.
The masses supported the Bolsheviks in the summer and fall of 1917 because they were the most radically and consistently antiwar party, regardless of their other faults. It was the most urgent issue in politics at the time for reasons that should be obvious. This is a pretty widely accepted narrative even among right wing historians.
I agree with that but it's still just one issue that could have been solved with actual representation.
That's also why I think people are too quick to reject pax America. It's a locally stable region in which we can build. Reverting back to a revolutionary stance has a very real possibility of going quite far in the wrong direction before we can advance over the status quo.
Unless, of course, the path to post scarcity communism is just "21st century tech, 17th century population." Which I suppose is probably valid.
Toussant would've been better for Haiti than Dessalines. But him being a tyrant doesnt make me not an abolitionist.
Right, the problem is they turn around and defend the dictatorship because obviously Marxism cannot survive less you continuously sanitize the marketplace of ideas.
Well their version can't at any rate. I'd say Marxism can't survive violence in the ideas market.
By that stupid definition there's no true capitalism either, so what's your point?
Oh? Are there no countries with private ownership of industry?
Oh? Are there no countries with state ownership of industry?
If that's your criteria, then yes, there are both truly communist and truly capitalist countries.
Tell me which country claiming to be communist is not actually just a dictatorship with a veneer?
None? That was like 200% sarcasm. You used a single criteria to mark countries as truly capitalist, so I though I might as well do the same.
Communism is inherently authoritarian as it puts the needs of a social construct (in this case a "commune" or "society") over the needs, rights and freedoms of an individual. It is hard to achieve anything good with communism, because totalitarian dictatorship is the only possible outcome for any advanced enough authoritarian ideology.
Communism is a classless, moneyless, stateless society.
Whose going to take care of the utilities?
It ✨ d e p e n d s ✨ on what kind of communist answers.
Lmao, good point!
Only in your imagination.
I thought that was the point. That actual communism only exists in the imagination. Until we get star trek tech as others have mentioned.
Well, that just confirms that Communists are lunatics.
This week in "didn't understand the prompt":
This week in "Nazis pretend they're not Nazis".
Oof the individualists didn't like that. I don't think it's inevitable though. I just think it's going to take some special people and circumstances we haven't found yet. For example a George Washington like figure who refuses to become another king.
Oh good, this seems like a good place to ask something that's been bothering me for a while.
I see the posts from Hexbear and Lemmygrad. I can understand why they are in favour of theoretically communist regimes like China. What I can't for the life of me see is why they seem to unconditionally support modern Russia which is surely as far away from communism as you can get.
I must be missing something but not sure what?
"I hate the US"
"Oh Russia and Iran hate the US. I love Russia and Iran!"
Unfortunately sometimes people are actually as stupid as they make themselves out to be.
What is there to love about the U.S.?
European here. The US are far from being the great country that they are presented as in a lot of US media, but it's also far from the terrible place that some people will claim it to be. Sure, it has some massive flaws, but it's still "better" than a lot of other places. You can love plenty of things about it. It's not just black or white.
Mensch Hubi, dich hab ich hier aber nicht erwartet
Ich bin überall 👀
There's lots of states where weed is legal.
The government doesn't have a secret police force to blackbag me for what I say.
I live in a beautiful place near the mountains.
The elections aren't rigged.
The people I know are here.
It's impossible to stage an effective invasion.
There's lots of things to love about the place I live. That doesn't mean I think it's perfect, and I still think about how to make life better. Throwing in with Russia is not an effective strategy to affect positive change, and so I think those who do so are foolish.
I don't see how that's relevant to the previous topic. You asked a question, and I answered. Before that, the discussion was about how naive lionizing Russia is when the motivation is counteracting U.S. imperialism. Frankly, it was the wrong question to ask.
Because they’re anti-west not pro-communist.
Anything critical of Russia is obvs western propaganda and as Russia is an enemy of the west, they will support them.
They see the enemy of their enemy as their friend, instead of realising it’s just another enemy.
They're not actually communists, it's just a facade for Kremlin and CCP propaganda.
Noo you don't ._. Their train of thought is more often than not "USSR=Good. USSR hates USA. USA=Bad. Modern Russia hates USA. So Russia = Good."
I bet they have never been to Russia
Its not even that, its more the USSR apologism that is horrifying to me, it is clear they have never interacted with someone who has lived through the USSR, especially non-russians. They keep parroting how bad most post-soviet economies are, conveniently leaving out what the USSR did to those same economies on its way out.
you havent been listening. thats not our opinion about it at all.
Care to elaborate?
But you see, Russia is just what is left of the glorious soviet union who got destroyed by the western evils. Whatever they do is totally justified in their bid to rebuild the union under a dictator, dont you know anything? And Ukraine is full with jewish nazis.
The better question is what are they missing.
in those places you will usually see the term "critical support". that means we are critical to most aspects of modern russia, but are supportive of their anti-us goals, simply because it helps us break free of their imperialism.
I don't think it's reasonable to try to break free of an imperialism enforced primarily by markets via support of an imperialism enforced primarily by mass genocidal violence and threats of disproportionate nuclear retaliation. Furthermore, Marx's writing indicates that revolution needs to start in the most powerful industrial country on earth before global revolution can take root. Fighting against people trying to reform the U.S. and trying to destroy it without a revolutionary base goes directly against the strategy Marx recommended. That is to say, if all you do is counter one imperial power with another in hopes that the first will fall, all you get is a revolving door of imperialism.
marx' (more like lenin's in this case) writings say the opposite, revolution more easily happens in the more oppressed places, because people are actually seeing the problems of the system firsthand much more intensely. china was a prime example in the 50s. also according to lenin, anti-imperialism is the #1 priority when trying for global socialism, because it will alleviate suffering the most, and weaken the empire's grip on the world.
nobody is expecting the revolution to simply just happen from russia resisting the us, by far, but burgeoise infighting will make the us hegemony weaker. the us is not even close to a reform where we can just wait for them to stop. maybe i'm wrong on this one but i dont think any empire was ever reformed in this sense.
africa is seeing some liberation movements right now that would probably be impossible if the us wasnt invested in spreading themselves thin with a few wars elsewhere. the BRICS are another example of something that would never happen with a strong us influence.
Yeah, that's part of the problem. This is why I don't think MLs can form effective long-term coalitions with Socialists, Communists, and Anarchists. Lenin's writings are (with the benefit of hindsight) transparently nothing more than an effort to garner support so that he could seize power. His words and actions contradict leftist writings, ideals, and practice. I don't think anyone who looks at his actions though the clarity of hindsight and sees someone who we should study for what to do correctly should be taken seriously. I'm certain there's a few diamonds in the rough we can find, but he shouldn't ever be used as an authority.
We're talking about innocent people (e.g. Ukrainians) being killed, taken, raped, or some combination thereof. It's not "burgeoise infighting" it's war. You can talk about the practical implications and how we can take advantage of tragedies without pretending that Russia is a force for good. And I say that because there is a contingent of self-proclaimed "leftists" who routinely act in such a fashion. Furthermore, Russian propaganda is pushing the United States towards fascism, which endangers the slowly building leftist movement that we need to let the world as a whole move past capitalism.
I don't think the numbers here are clear enough to claim positive Utility from this trade-off. Yes there's the potential for the revolution to lead to better conditions (maybe even a truly left-wing society), but it's extremely uncertain if that will be the case. Furthermore, if the dominant power in the world isn't left-wing that makes that potential left-wing society's chances of surviving absolutely bleak.
Okay. You've used a mechanism of countering U.S. hegemony as an example of a benefit of when the thesis is that countering U.S. hegemony is a good thing. Do I need to explain why this is a really bad facet of your argument or is that enough for you to figure it out?
Material reality shows the exact opposite. Leninist-adjacent socialist experiments are the only ones to survive decades on a big scale, even if they still have (or had) faults, or needed adjustment over the years. You can't have perfect from the get go, and these move slowly at a generational pace.
You said it all but we don't need hindsight to see its transparent, its exactly the stated intention behind a vanguard party. Without it you can't really seize power in large country-wide scale, simply because success is very rare without it. Even the current liberation movements in Africa are seemingly led by vanguard groups, even if they turn out not to be marxist.
Thats exactly what I did. We cannot stop this war, period. But we can understand how it can help us. By burgeoise infighting I mean two capitalist states commanded by two different sets of competing oligarchs, of course. This was predicted by Marx, and happened many times before.
Key word here is probably. Also this is not a trade-off, kicking out imperialism is always good. Every single anti imperialist movement paves the way for them to start actually fixing things unimpeded. That of course depends on what they will do next, liberation from imperial powers is just the first (albeit not any less important) step. There is a reason anti-imperialism takes the forefront in the third world when it comes to this. But you can't just say being under the boot of a brutal foreign power is any better.
Read above about imperialism because it applies here. BRICS would not be allowed to advance as much as its doing now if the US still had a tight grip on us. You can take quite a lot of their military and political interventions around the world as an example. Every country in the past (that i know of, at least) had their shit beaten out of them for even trying to have wiggle room outside of the absurd demands of the imperial burgeoise and the IMF.
My own country was trying something similar before it was couped by the US and my own country was almost couped recently with their help, again, because we are slipping from their control just slightly. BRICS is one such motivator, if not one of the main ones.
You seem to have a very imperial core-centric view of the world, like most non-leninist leftists tend to do nowadays, moreso the ones from the imperial core. Things are not black and white, and every little victory helps when we barely have any space to move.
They dont unconditionally support Russia. I disagree with them but they see Ukraine and the US as even worse. Considering the prelavance of Nazi imagery in the Ukraine military, or how Ukraine banned leftist opposition parties, or how they removed minority language rights etc.
I think in their minds in a fight of two reactionary autocracies they prefer the one fighting against the west.
The delusional part comes from supporting countries that have a tendency to kill gay people and saying that they are against lgbtq oppression
It is a weird world where the Tankies align with Moscow Marjorie
It's not surprising at all, they're working for the same people.
I'm my experience, they tend to be authoritarian first and Leftist second at best. Note that I'm not talking about all M-Ls, just those that support military force and violence to quell dissent.
Leftist = authoritarian.
"Russian special military operation in Ukraine is an anti-imperialist project."
"US military aid to Ukraine is an imperialist act."
Statements made by the utterly deranged.
My additions:
I am sure there are more
Edit: More
(Comment Removed by Mod) made me LOL
The Gish Gallop is often used, although you've kind of covered it with point 2 and 3.
Extended Version:
Needs an "EU BAD" square
>thread about cakes
Tankie: This is US propaganda!
Source?
Red Devil cake
does the concession sell popcorn? cause I'm down for this.
i don't think "that wasn't true communism" belongs with the rest. saying Russia good , USSR good and China good requires you to pretend they are true communism, isn't that what tankies do?
i think this is more what actual leftie/communist people say about those countries because they think the authoritarian regimes don't reflect communism, not to mention the fact that Russia and China are capitalist countries in everything but name.
Russia hasn't been anything resembling Communist since perestroika and the subsequent dismantling of the USSR. Might as well call France a monarchy or complain about Japanese Imperialism.
The long struggle session over "Is China Communist?" has been tilting back in the "Enthusiastic Yes!" column for years, as Xi's abandoned the Dengist market integration strategy and increasingly put his chips on a new Third-World Export model for Chinese aid and trade (incidentally, much more in line with the USSR peace dividend strategy circa 1950s/60s). If nothing else, Xi's proposal to have a housing sector that is 30% public (up from the current 5%) would be the AES guy's wet dream.
Russia after '91 spend a solid decade under the Shock Doctrine mass sell off of domestic assets. Its rapid transition to capitalism had more in common with a pillaging than any economic reform. The Russian state was never fully integrated into the European trade model. And it was always held at arms length by NATO military advisers, limiting the possibility of fully internationalized markets. After the second failed "Russian Reset" under Obama, the state has begun re-nationalized a host of traditionally private assets as multi-national industries abandoned the country.
Chinese single-party state administered economic policy - the Five Year Plan model that's been building steam since the 1950s - is about as far away from the Western Laisse-Faire model of capitalism as you can get and still plausibly cling to the name. If China is capitalist, it is doing capitalism in a way wholly alien to any Chicago School economics professor or McKinsey consultant.
You might be able to shoehorn their economies into the broad definition of profit-seeking private ownership. But in both form and function, they look radically different from a US, German, or Japanese private economy.
I think you may have missed the word "pretend" there
They'll make both arguments, but yeah you're right otherwise
Does enemys have to be misspelled to get bingo?
Don't worry, it will be.
You forgot a square for circle-jerking over reading theory.
You have a problem with educating yourself?
I hope you find your way out of this bullshit spiral you're descending in, best of luck to you
They aren't making fun of you for having read The Conquest of Bread.
They are making fun of you for thinking that was enough.
Currently I am reading the island of the day before by Umberto Eco.
Its pretty good, but not his best.
I'm not sure I thought just 1 thing about it when I finished it. Can you be more specific in your question?
Go easy on me now, I haven't read it in probably 14 years. You would probably get more of asking me about "Red Victory!", and its portion on the early months of famine.
You got downvoted for defending education. We truly live in “interesting” times.
You forgot “a meme response that is barely relevant to the discussion.”
Yeah i like communism and all but can't for the life of me figure out why they like russia and china . Is it because there used to be (a kind of) communism there ? I stand for the idea of communism not the people or places that are (kinda) associated with them .
Tbh I can see how communism is a pretty romantic ideal utopia but when you look at the people proposing communism it's consistently been used as a sort of scam to take power and the freedom of the people that they rule over its like the geopolitical version of saying hey I've been trying to contact you about your cars extended warranty
Even when there are serious people reforming systems to provide more rights and equality they jump in and sell a more radical version to take power. It also doesn't help that the KGB used that as a signature move to install pro soviet dictatorships. Personally I've always thought democracy would be the stable way to move to the left. But we need to have actual education and get past the neo liberals drip feeding us reforms.
Cowbee explains this.
i can understand if you hate china if all you know about it is western propaganda.
i dont think many tankies "love" modern day russia
Well care to cmv i am not the one to act like i am very good at politics or know everything and i am open to changing my views if i am presented with information that proves me wrong .
i wrote this in this thread but basically we use the term "critical support", meaning we dislike modern russia in general but support its current goals of pushing back US influence.
this helps us because every time the US interferes anywhere that isnt the west, we end up much worse off than before. this can be for a variety of economic and political reasons, but we generally call it imperialism or neocolonialism.
my own country was interfered with recently and we are still reeling from it.
China is basically still communist, though apparently they have mixed with capitalism as well, and so is Russia basically, with the Russian communist party still a party in Russia and is the 2nd largest party in the country.
Wut?
Russia sold off all of the publicly owned industries to their now plutocracy, and China having a mixed economy is exactly not communism.
The United States has a communist party and a mixed economy, no one would ever argue the US is Communist (expect maybe Republicans when a Democrat takes office.)
china is a market socialism or dengist, which means taking a couple of steps back from building socialism to be able to participate in the (capitalist) global markets until they have self sufficiency to fully cut back on the capitalist aspects currently pervading it, and survive the sanctions that will invariably come.
they currently have the goal of being a fully socialist economy by the 2050s. xi is already taking some action in this direction but we don't expect it to happen overnight.
on the other hand, russia is currently fully capitalist, yes, but they dont kneel for the US hegemony which is why we support some of their goals.
Dengism as it really exists is not market socialism, it's not even a proper social market economy (broadly speaking the EU model). Welfare is full of cracks people fall though, billionaires exist, arguably to a larger degree than in Europe. Neither is the case under market socialism which you should rather understand as "communism without central planning and councils relegate decision making to the market in certain areas" than the half state capitalist half private capitalist system China has going on.
Actually, France comes close: China is dirigisme without unions, worker's, or generally human rights. And infinitely more corrupt.
im not 100% in agreement with it, but yes dengism is the doctrine that gave rise to the current market socialism in china, still very much in line with marxism if much slower than the transition in the ussr. very much on track to a fully socialist economy.
you trying to argue france is more socialist than china? what?? france is literally one of the most capitalist and imperialist nations on earth. are you aware africans have to be exploited for some of france's nuclear reactors to be powered on right? shit, most of the continent is in as bad shape as it is largely because of france...
im sorry but im struggling to see much sense in what you said. are you just trolling? in any case let me just say "welfare state" or "assistentialism" isn't what socialism is at all, and you should really look into how the so-called developed nations in the EU acquired their wealth...
France has, for European standards, a very large state sector. That's what I was saying: They very much don't shy away from taking state money and whipping it around in the economy to direct it -- hence the term dirigisme. And no all those state-run nuclear power plants don't need Nigerian uranium to run, they run on uranium from anywhere, and in fact do. Kazakhstan, Australia and Canada are all giant producers which don't happen to be Russia or Nigeria.
By and large colonialism has been a net economical loss for France.
And don't get me started on China and imperialism, just like Russia China, in its current form, is an imperial empire. France's attitude towards its colonial history is a whole other topic but at least they don't currently have a genocide going on.
Also France has better healthcare, pension, heck even housing and that's despite of Banlieus.
socialism doesnt have much to do with how big the state is, and aims ultimately to end it. thats a very common strawman for comparing apples to oranges though.
ahahahahahahahahahahaha what the fuck. try to find out what european interests are doing to africa if you want to have a peek at actually real imperialism and genocide, happening right now. nothing about history here, this is still the present.
i was actually going to engage further but you are either trolling or need to seriously humble yourself and leave the bubble you are in, because the stuff you are saying is comically nonfactual.
They are authoritarian yknow the exact opposite of communism ?
Russia is a Bourgeois Dictatorship so it cannot be Communist. China has a Socialist Market Economy, which is a transitional state towards Communism along traditional Marxist lines.
You may want to read Engels' On Authority, strong government power isn't enough to consider something anti-Communist, at least according to traditional Marxism.
Note: that doesn't mean a strong government is good, necessarily, it just means that it is compatible with Socialism and thus not inherently anti-Communist.
But i do not thibk of mao or marxist as true communists as even tho they maybe considered as communists the things they did does not sit as good with me and seems a little anti-communist and i don't value their ideals or words because of that . I know i may not be a real communist as while i do like some communist ideologies i do not like the people or places that are often associated with it
Hmm maybe definetly not conservative tho hate like 99.99% of their views and ideologies but i do usually vote for communists and encourage others to do the same .
In that case, I suggest studying Marxism and Anarchism. Try reading Marx, Engels, even Lenin for Marxism, and try reading Kropotkin and Goldman for Anarchism.
Reading Principles of Communism by Engels, How Marxism Works by Chris Harman, and The Conquest of Bread by Kropotkin might be eye-opening for you.
"enemys"
I'm quick to ban communities from my feed that are political. I'm just here for the memes and tits - Not to doomscroll or argue about shit I don't understand.
That's fair and I hope those communities continue to grow and mature. I do enjoy the good faith discussions that happen here more often than other sites myself.
My instance owner was bemoaning being blocked by lemmy.ml and literally all the comments are like "so? Lemmy.ml sucks dude. Don't worry about it." lol
What’s a good privacy respecting instance besides lemmy.ml? I don’t wanna be blocked from seeing content for being on .ml :(
If you want to post what you want to post, it is not a good instance for that, though. They'll straight up delete your comments for expressing certain views, and there's a bot that will edit your comments to remove certain curse words from them.
I received a ban for my comment on this thread, down at the bottom. That's not like way out at the margins of acceptable speech; it's literally just what I think and the reasons for it.
They're not shy about it: Saying Joe Biden did something bad is allowed, saying he did something good will earn you a ban. It's a one viewpoint instance. If you don't have any opinions that conflict with that viewpoint, then I guess that's fine, but to me I don't see the point.
The double standards are blatantly obvious, criticizing the CCP in basically any way is "xenophobia" but criticizing the US government is almost a participation requirement
Seconding lemm.ee. The moderation Philosophy is built heavily around curated your own experience
Db0 is the tits, no complaints from me whatsoever. I was indeed mad about the censor but it wasn't the sole reason for my move from my old .ml acct during the reddit exodus, db0 started existing and was simply a better fit for me.
I can attest to this as well, db0 is a good alternative. And I got a little upset the first time I commented a swear, the redaction actually made it funnier though. Not really something to be bothered by tbh.
The volume of posts when sorting by all from .ml is much more varied and there's a lot more of it.
Is ml on many defed lists? I dont think it is, lemmygrad.ml is heavily defeded. I switched to lemmy ml a while back because of world having issues and find it okay, the porn is off my feed, but basically everything else (including hex and grad, unfortunately) is in, could be that im missing something, but none of the big instances afaik.
Can an instance even collect data that isnt public excluding IP addresses?
You forgot "great man theory" (i.e. any criticism of Putin or Xi) and "horseshoe theory" (i.e. any indication that left wing violence is bad).
Ahh yes, let me fix that
Meh, add to your block list with hexbear, you won't miss em.
Not true a lot of great privacy/open source communities there
Anything good gets reposted elsewhere. Signal to noise at hexbear is too poor to leave it unblocked. I don't miss it.
I'd rather miss that content and spare myself reading the drivel of useful idiots
God, I'm just so genuinely happy to see someone use the word, "Tankie," properly. A shocking number of people on .world seem to think anyone left of Joe Biden is a Tankie.
The nickname tankies is pretty funny because tanks are becoming obsolete.
Is the name meant to be related to war machines or the things you keep fish in? 🤔
the war machines
it was something about who defended the USSR rolling tanks into a country to get it into the USSR or smth
The LW admins are violating their own ToS by allowing LML posts to get federated to LW.
I'm not sure what you mean?
A lot of the content on Lemmy.ml that is endorsed by their admins breaks rules 1, 2, 4, and 5.1 of the Lemmy.world terms of service. By staying federated with them, the admins are facilitating this content's transfer to Lemmy.world's servers, which is against their own terms of service.
It's always really sad to see otherwise good leftist ideals held back by ML campist brain rot tbh.
It's much easier I find in .ml to just ignore the tankies tbh. Though the bingo sheet is admittedly, very funny.
"USA bad" should be the free space, because anyone with as little as half a rotten brain can identify that it's true - The US is a shithole. That does preclude conservatives, of course.
We definitely have our issues.
Mostly, they are the ones other places can ignore because they aren't the cultural battleground for the world at large. Not that I'm complaining, since we're not generally the physical battleground for the world at large.
Mostly, there's not a good culture of actually facing issues and processing them, anywhere in the world, outside of some spiritual practices. If you're someone who does do that, though, the US is the place to be.
You far overrate the importance of your country.
Not really. I'm not saying melting pots don't exist elsewhere, nor am I saying that somehow the US matters more because of the ideologies it (barely) holds. I'm just saying that the US is one of the largest melting pots, globally. But the ideas it holds are more important than the nation by far. Those ideas will continue to exist (and find another center) whether or not the US manages to be centered in them - for example, if the US is torn apart in the process of those cultural interactions.
But whether or not you like it - regardless of whether you think it's arrogant, that's the way it is, currently. And if that cultural battleground shifts to some other nation, or some other individual nation becomes comparable (there are plenty of ways that could happen), you'll probably also assert that they overrate their importance. And likely, some of them will, just as plenty of folks in the US do.
Edit: Also note, when I said
..that it's both because this is a cultural battleground, and because the issues manifest here. It's not exactly a "positive" statement.
Where do I claim my prize?
I just wish more people would identify that too much centralization is the root problem versus pointing the finger at the opposing yet equally centralized political systems. There needs to be a balance between centralization and decentralization yet few understand this. So frustrating.
I feel like no matter what instance I go to I'm probably just going to end up disliking a large chunk of the posters, because I think after 20 years of being raised online, I just fucking hate memes straight up.
I was banned from communities there for "facism" and "nationalism".......
I'm center-left BTW.... Not "left" enough for them, it seems.......
It makes sense; the leaders they admire ban people from real life for questioning the narrative. They're just doing in kind with the limited little bit of power they have right now.
Why they think they'd be in the "good" grouping if this stuff comes to power in the West, I have no idea. You'll notice that precisely 0 of the people posting are (openly) coming from mainland China, and precisely 0 of them have any plans to move there at any point now or in the future.
They never read Animal Farm.
They did, but they identify with the pigs
Cowbee made an excellent comment in this thread that explains the confusion over Marxism-Leninism.
Edit: Here’s a direct link for those having trouble accessing.
What is this linked to? Not opening for me.
Edit: nevermind. I opened it in my browser. I wonder if I have this community or person blocked in Boost for Lemmy.
Copied with some formatting:
You can see on ProleWiki what Lemmygrad.ml’s stances are, in their words, and why. Their article on the Russian Federation backs up what you’ve said, they believe it is extremely reactionary with horrifying treatment of LGBTQ people and is currently ruled by the Nationalist party, but critically support Russia insofar as it opposes Western hedgemony and Imperialism, and no more than that.
Critically, Lemmygrad, Hexbear, and much of Lemmy.ml see Lenin’s definition of Imperialism as the number one obstacle in Socialism’s advance, that is, the state in Capitalism where Imperialist countries export machinery and finances to the third world in order to super-exploit outsider populations for super-profits domestically. This is a necessity within Capitalism to combat the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall. It’s the concept of unequal exchange.
Now, of course you do not have to agree with Lemmygrad or Hexbear or Lemmy.ml, but as someone who regularly sees these posts, there are no delusional posters who somehow think the Russian Federation is still Communist or that Putin is secretly rebuilding the USSR.
ProleWiki: Political line
We are guided by Marxism-Leninism, mainly the works of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Vladimir Lenin. Based on that, ProleWiki upholds the currently developing dictatorships of the proletariat in:
Really‽ They hold North Korea in high regard? I can see liking some of what Cuba, China, and Vietnam have done, but NK? I don't know enough about Laos to comment.
you probably did what I did after my first week on Lemee, and just block the .ml instance completely from my feed. it's absolutely insane and is the prime example of why Federation doesn't really work great if not all federated servers are subject to the same rules.
.ml will outright let hate, violence and threats stand. But will instance ban anyone who questions their tankies.
I don't block entire instances, just the individual communities. I've been tempted with that one and beehaw(sp?) but I haven't yet.
These words also instantly make me lose respect for anyone who repeats them:
There has to be some memo that gets passed around and every ml comment is contractually obbligated to include these phrases.
Even in a historical context? Colonialism was absolutely real, 1930s neoliberalism was a real political movement, and the British Empire was absolutely a western imperialist system.
I never said they weren't real, did I? I just said I don't have to hear about it in every goddamn comment. Someone shits in the woods and an ml account will login to mention colonialism of neo-liberal policies influenced the color of my shit in the woods. It doesn't have to be repeated. every. goddamn. time.
well when we are from those places and still suffer from the consequences, its reasonable to still be mad about it regardless of your feelings
Ok chief. Safe to say we've all been impacted in one way or another. Did y'all just wake up yesterday and discover Reaganomics or some shit? C'mon.
what makes you think we started hating neoliberalism yesterday?
Dunno. The fact that you guys bring it up incessantly in every conversation like it's fresh news?
nah, we bring it up like most of you are ignoring it.
those are three things that actually materially destroyed my country.
Someone says: USA Bad (with proof)
USApes: It must mean they think China and Russia are good.
¿Por Qué No Los Tres?
It's usually * Russia/China does something horrific *
Normal People: Hey, this is pretty terrible.
Tankies: IT'S NOT TERRIBLE BECAUSE WHAT USA DID IS MUCH WORSE.
In 98% of my Encounter with Tankies, they are the one who try to steer the topic away from the horrible thing China/Russia has done and towards: LOOK USA BAD! Even if the USA has NOTHING to do with the topic at all. It's like that's their go-to argument. And of course: " Yeah, it's not bad because the puppet States of China and/or Russia said it's not bad. "
They usually skip the morality and jump straight to the whataboutism. They know that the thing is bad and won’t argue that, but they will try to sweep it under the rug and change the narrative to US doing something bad too.
At the end of the day they’re like kids in a playground justifying that they can do something bad because someone else did it too.
Oh and I can tell that someone will misinterpret my comment and think I’m downplaying the sh*t that the US did
Two wrongs always makes one right
Yep. If anyone doubts this, try telling them how Marx was an antisemite and watch their heads explode in an epic rage-filled whatabout rant.
Have you by chance read his letters to Engles?
-Karl Marx
-Engles, regarding Marx' son in law Paul LaFargue, who Engles said possessed "one eighth or one twelfth hard R slur removed blood."
Bonus points:
"The Negro is indolent and lazy and spends his money on frivolities, whereas the European is forward-looking, organized and intelligent."
-Che Guevara
Why idolize such virulent racists who say things that would make even Ted Cruz (Cruise? Kruz? Fuck it) blush? Seems like it may be a bad crowd to follow.
You’re being obtuse, they actively defend Russia/China.
Is not propaganda if it affects you /s