Nero thought so as well.

Funny coming from a straight up pro-genocide Zionist.

But that's exactly the kind of person .world will coddle to "own the commies"

The point is instances don't have to federate with them if they're causing problems for their members but from what I've seen I'd say they're relatively benign, it's not like they're fascists.

Actual communists here are on Threadiverse seem quite emotionally capable and are among the more pleasant to chat with. Examples there include slrpnk.net. I used to also say db0 though there always seems pushback nowadays whenever I include it, but I can't get anyone to give me a solid answer as to why besides unsubstantiated accusations that even on their face looks like pure BS to me. So I guess I'll keep saying it, just noting that it is a controversial point.:-)

Hexbears on the other hand are trolls, pure and simple, with zero regard for anything other than "the dunk" process of pwning someone - or rather, appearing to, from their own extremely childish POV.

Lemmy.ml and lemmygrad.ml then are the leftist MAGAs, believing in alternative facts rather than living in reality. e.g. most claim that they would move to the likes of North Korea in a heartbeat, except, you know... I guess they took an arrow to the knee or some such. 🤪

I am so glad that I can block people from an entire instance. If I could, I would make an exception to the devs Nutomic and Dessalines out of respect for having offered the Lemmy sourcecode as FOSS, but other than that, I have not missed a single interaction with anyone on Lemmy.ml since I have done so, every time I've checked to see what I might be missing. They are the most batshit insane comments across the entirety of the Threadiverse, after Hexbear obviously.

Now that you're a grown up who can speak for yourself, what is the Hannibal Directive?

they don’t discuss and they don’t read. they just shout and quote russian/chinese state propaganda

I do not understand how you can't see the irony here.

We actually do read and discuss theory quite a lot, both online and when we are at party meetings (though many times the meetings are for organizing things like protests, or other matters). What you may be noticing is that we don't tend to "quote farm," ie find a relevant quote from a Marxist theorist, and use that as an argument. It's unconvincing and comes across as book worship.

This creates a 2-sided problem: either we worship theory, or we don't read it at all, in the eyes of liberals. It's a perfect, thought-terminating bubble where there's a great excuse ready-made to not take communists seriously, either we don't know what we are talking about, or we are detached from reality. It's simply impossible for us to not rely on quote farming while actually knowing what we are talking about. Same with "state propaganda."

I was a communist when I was 15, but even back then I was into the utopia part, not the mass murder fantasy part.

This more speaks to yourself not knowing what communism is, though. Marx and Engels have railed against utopianism, and were proponents of scientific socialism. Same with the idea of a mass murder fantasy.

they tell you that those are american propaganda and all lies and ONLY THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT IS TELLING THE TRUTH

It's better than that: you can back them into a position that runs directly counter to official CCP policy and they'll claim that it's a "western agitprop translation" from the original language. Support it with translation and testimonials from actual Chinese citizens and those get dismissed because they're impure enough to speak a dirty western language.

Some fun ice breakers for any ML post:

• Why is it illegal to form a union in China?
• Why does the PRC constitution guarantee freedom of the press but journalists require a liscense? [Bonus: how can you quantify a requirement like "journalist ethics"?]
• Why is the number of executions in China a state secret?

Edit:

Cowbee spending 30k words in this comment section to explain how PRC citizens have so many freedoms but they can't use them because it could be counter-revolutionary but that's fine because everyone's interests are perfectly represented by the proletariat government but they don't need a vote in central government because that might undermine the state but they wouldn't vote against the CCP anyway because they're so open and transparent but the CCP shouldn't need to tell their citizens when arrests and executions happen but if they do tell you just trust that it's internal party corruption but a corruptable party doesn't give the proletariat an exuse organize themselves in other ways, which they could but they definitely...

[and also every ML insists that you don't know an AES state even if you were born in and lived there half your life, you gotta read more T H E O R Y]

Death to America

I dunno man, all other things aside (I have no opinion on specific Lemmy instances at all), when you're quoting Osama Bin Laden as part of your own beliefs or opinion, that's probably not cool beans, you know?

You are talking theory.

Now, in practice invite the MAGA over to your side, and see what happens.

Good luck!

Translation: consent needs to matter. Tankies do not care about your consent. They want to advance the cycle through the destruction phase to get to the other side that is all magical rainbows and fairy dust - just exactly like Russia, China, and North Korea are so well-known for, obviously.

And they will not let anything get in the way of achieving their goals. Not even facts.

Please do not allow yourself to become used like a tool by the oligarchy. Like both the (leftist) tankies and the (rightist) MAGAs have. They share in common a love for authoritarianism - and guess who gets to be at the top there? Hint: it ain't us!

Tankies want me and everyone that I have ever known or even met to literally die.

Something something bOtH sIdEs SaMe.

I really do love the tagging feature for the boost app, all I see is green tankie tabs everywhere when you guys show up.

Did you vote for Kamala or did you allow Trump to take power?

Moral purity beatings will continue until morale improves.

Wouldn't it be Leninists? Like the 'l' in 'ml'?

And Stalin's out for both of 'm just cuz gulags are fun.

I mean, if they all want to move to Russia or North Korea or China, go right ahead, I am not stopping anyone from chasing their bliss. Perhaps I should note that they will end up as fodder for a warlord's lust for conquest, but at the end of the day that is not my call to make as to what to do with your lives.

But damnit I would like to have some tint amount of control about what to do with my own! Including the ability to block them, if I happen to want that. I almost left Lemmy over precisely this issue, preferring instead to simply read books offline than to have to wade through endless immature eternity of September crap. Fortunately, that's exactly when PieFed started coming up, offering an alternative besides Mbin, and which now offers a heck of a lot more features than either of them.

Is that really how you view this? I don't want to start a big argument but I don't find that summary accurate at all.

But on the other hand, perhaps I should smile more, even as I am being murdered? (Dials gaslighting up to 11) Yes, it is surely I who am in the wrong here, rather than them.

(/s in case it is not abundantly clear)

I think this is pretty insightful. There also is no definitely right answer. Some people may view China as communistic and others may view them as a dictatorship.

Considering they made more billionaires than the US this last year I think the communism thing is a bit of a stretch. At this point they are looking pretty fascist to me. Obviously ML isn't going to agree to that

Megathread

OpenStars spewing bullshit once more, shocker

that's weird because both you and the right both support genocide and 'tankies' are the only ones who don't

The overwhelming majority of practicing communists are Marxist-Leninists, and genuinely carry out Marxist principles. When this runs counter to liberal narratives, liberals assume communists must be brainwashed.

The "tankies" have the same platform as pretty much every real life communist organisation, lemmy.worlders have the same platform as your generic European social democratic party.

I'd have more respect for people just admitting that they're anti-communist rather than trying to redefine and obfuscate the meaning of the word.

MeanwhileOnGrad is run by a Zionist, and the comm itself serves as a bit of a Nazi bar. Many of the posts also erase vital context, or otherwise misframe users.

If you disagree that .ml are communist and insist that they're "tankies" instead, it seems to imply that not all communists are "tankies." However, every single communist I'm aware of is called a tankie. What does a communist who isn't a tankie look like? Are there examples of such a thing?

MLs aren't "fans" of Russia or Iran, but value their geopolitical opposition to the west, the imperialist hegemony. MLs do tend to be fans of the PRC, as it's a socialist country. The idea that a country has to be 100% ideologically aligned in order to get even critical support from a communist just plays into the idea that communists are obsessed with purity testing, but that's not the case.

I got deleted for pointing out Putin runs a mafia state.

From checking the modlog you got a comment removed and a temp ban for insulting someone

I wonder how much the "Russian running ML" is getting paid to shape the opinions of all 25 people on this platform. Must be making bank

Great to see straight up McCarthyism come back into fashion. Why consider other views when you can just declare anyone who disagrees with you to be a non-human foreigner.

Kremlin and China.

It's a shame, because I do think China is doing a lot of things correct right now. But these people make me question every fucking thing I read about them.

Right. You guys don't just "support" communists; you worship them.

Tbh I blocked all ml posts from my all feed and started blocking ml users on sight for my own mental health

I get in almost zero arguments online now and actually enjoy using this platform

Sorry about the block. It’s not you, it’s your instance.

This is an absurd caricature of Marxism-Leninism and liberalism.

It's literally called Lemmy.MarxistLeninist get your head out of Stalin's arsehole.

lol, dunning meets kruger.

I'm not hopping instances, I will just leave. Social media is worth very little to me. Abandoning it would mean nothing to me.

The fediverse isn't going to be one all-encompassing thing like reddit. As time goes on, there will be different "sections" of the fediverse to accommodate people with different interests.

Lemmy.world, being run by pussies, thinks that because they're the largest instance right now that they get to dictate the direction the fediverse goes in. As more people wake up to their censorship, more instances will sprout up to resist it.

It's great that nobody is beholden to the decisions of either instance's admins. That's the beauty of the fediverse.

Obviously I'm generalizing and don't think everyone on either instance is such a simplistic thinker. But I've been on the receiving end of plenty of insults from .ml accounts implying that ALL Americans are indistinguishable from Jefferson Davis.

Also, I respect your insistence on using a term other than American to describe people from the US.

Growing up in the US, calling ourselves American is a hard habit to break, but I recognize how dismissive and insulting it is to the rest of the people living in North and South America.

The PRC isn't imperialist, though. For example, BRI isn't imperialist, because it results in mutual development. Where the west goes in and plunders and underdevelops the global south, countries in BRI see rising wages and industrialization, escaping the endless trap of imperialism. Does China benefit too? Absolutely. Is it imperialism? No. Here are some good articles:

• Five Imperialist Myths About China's Role in Africa

• China debt trap? PH an 'expert in bad loans,' Locsin says

• Deborah Brautigam Debunks the Chinese Debt Trap Theory in New Research Paper

• China's Debt Relief for Africa: Emerging Deliberations

• Is China doing colonialism in Africa?

Instead, Imperialism is characterized by the following:

-The presence of monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life.

-The merging of bank capital with industrial capital into finance capital controlled by a financial oligarchy.

-The export of capital as distinguished from the simple export of commodities.

-The formation of international monopolist capitalist associations (cartels) and multinational corporations.

-The domination and exploitation of other countries by militaristic imperialist powers, now through neocolonialism.

-The territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers.

The global north, Europe and the US included, uses this export of capital to super-exploit foreign labor for super-profits. It also engages in unequal exchange, where the global south is prevented from moving up the value chain in production, allowing the global north to charge monopoly prices for commodities produced in the same labor hours.

The point I am making isn’t simply about land conquering, but an ongoing process of shifting surplus value and resources from the imperialized to the core. Finance capital is the primary mechanism by which this functions.

As for Tibet, Tibet was a feudal slave society backed by the CIA. The PLA liberated Tibet.

Two exerpts from Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth:

::: spoiler CW: descriptions of torture

Drepung monastery was one of the biggest landowners in the world, with its 185 manors, 25,000 serfs, 300 great pastures, and 16,000 herdsmen. The wealth of the monasteries rested in the hands of small numbers of high-ranking lamas. Most ordinary monks lived modestly and had no direct access to great wealth. The Dalai Lama himself “lived richly in the 1000-room, 14-story Potala Palace.” [12]

Secular leaders also did well. A notable example was the commander-in-chief of the Tibetan army, a member of the Dalai Lama’s lay Cabinet, who owned 4,000 square kilometers of land and 3,500 serfs. [13] Old Tibet has been misrepresented by some Western admirers as “a nation that required no police force because its people voluntarily observed the laws of karma.” [14] In fact it had a professional army, albeit a small one, that served mainly as a gendarmerie for the landlords to keep order, protect their property, and hunt down runaway serfs.

Young Tibetan boys were regularly taken from their peasant families and brought into the monasteries to be trained as monks. Once there, they were bonded for life. Tashì-Tsering, a monk, reports that it was common for peasant children to be sexually mistreated in the monasteries. He himself was a victim of repeatedremoved, beginning at age nine. [15] The monastic estates also conscripted children for lifelong servitude as domestics, dance performers, and soldiers.

In old Tibet there were small numbers of farmers who subsisted as a kind of free peasantry, and perhaps an additional 10,000 people who composed the “middle-class” families of merchants, shopkeepers, and small traders. Thousands of others were beggars. There also were slaves, usually domestic servants, who owned nothing. Their offspring were born into slavery. [16] The majority of the rural population were serfs. Treated little better than slaves, the serfs went without schooling or medical care. They were under a lifetime bond to work the lord’s land — or the monastery’s land — without pay, to repair the lord’s houses, transport his crops, and collect his firewood. They were also expected to provide carrying animals and transportation on demand. [17] Their masters told them what crops to grow and what animals to raise. They could not get married without the consent of their lord or lama. And they might easily be separated from their families should their owners lease them out to work in a distant location. [18]

As in a free labor system and unlike slavery, the overlords had no responsibility for the serf’s maintenance and no direct interest in his or her survival as an expensive piece of property. The serfs had to support themselves. Yet as in a slave system, they were bound to their masters, guaranteeing a fixed and permanent workforce that could neither organize nor strike nor freely depart as might laborers in a market context. The overlords had the best of both worlds.

One 22-year old woman, herself a runaway serf, reports: “Pretty serf girls were usually taken by the owner as house servants and used as he wished”; they “were just slaves without rights.” [19] Serfs needed permission to go anywhere. Landowners had legal authority to capture those who tried to flee. One 24-year old runaway welcomed the Chinese intervention as a “liberation.” He testified that under serfdom he was subjected to incessant toil, hunger, and cold. After his third failed escape, he was merciless beaten by the landlord’s men until blood poured from his nose and mouth. They then poured alcohol and caustic soda on his wounds to increase the pain, he claimed. [20]

The serfs were taxed upon getting married, taxed for the birth of each child and for every death in the family. They were taxed for planting a tree in their yard and for keeping animals. They were taxed for religious festivals and for public dancing and drumming, for being sent to prison and upon being released. Those who could not find work were taxed for being unemployed, and if they traveled to another village in search of work, they paid a passage tax. When people could not pay, the monasteries lent them money at 20 to 50 percent interest. Some debts were handed down from father to son to grandson. Debtors who could not meet their obligations risked being cast into slavery. [21]

The theocracy’s religious teachings buttressed its class order. The poor and afflicted were taught that they had brought their troubles upon themselves because of their wicked ways in previous lives. Hence they had to accept the misery of their present existence as a karmic atonement and in anticipation that their lot would improve in their next lifetime. The rich and powerful treated their good fortune as a reward for, and tangible evidence of, virtue in past and present lives.

Selection two, shorter: (CW sexual violence and mutilation)

The Tibetan serfs were something more than superstitious victims, blind to their own oppression. As we have seen, some ran away; others openly resisted, sometimes suffering dire consequences. In feudal Tibet, torture and mutilation — including eye gouging, the pulling out of tongues, hamstringing, and amputation — were favored punishments inflicted upon thieves, and runaway or resistant serfs. [22]

Journeying through Tibet in the 1960s, Stuart and Roma Gelder interviewed a former serf, Tsereh Wang Tuei, who had stolen two sheep belonging to a monastery. For this he had both his eyes gouged out and his hand mutilated beyond use. He explains that he no longer is a Buddhist: “When a holy lama told them to blind me I thought there was no good in religion.” [23] Since it was against Buddhist teachings to take human life, some offenders were severely lashed and then “left to God” in the freezing night to die. “The parallels between Tibet and medieval Europe are striking,” concludes Tom Grunfeld in his book on Tibet. [24]

In 1959, Anna Louise Strong visited an exhibition of torture equipment that had been used by the Tibetan overlords. There were handcuffs of all sizes, including small ones for children, and instruments for cutting off noses and ears, gouging out eyes, breaking off hands, and hamstringing legs. There were hot brands, whips, and special implements for disemboweling. The exhibition presented photographs and testimonies of victims who had been blinded or crippled or suffered amputations for thievery. There was the shepherd whose master owed him a reimbursement in yuan and wheat but refused to pay. So he took one of the master’s cows; for this he had his hands severed. Another herdsman, who opposed having his wife taken from him by his lord, had his hands broken off. There were pictures of Communist activists with noses and upper lips cut off, and a woman who wasremovedd and then had her nose sliced away. [25]

-Dr. Michael Parenti

:::

Tibet is no longer under such a tortured regime, and has since seen skyrocketing quality of life metrics like life expectancy, industrialization, and more. The west uses the narrative of "oppression" as though the working classes of Tibet want to return to such brutal conditions, but in reality it's the former aristocracy and the Dalai Lama that wish to return to their positions as a ruling class.

Almost no one is apologizing for what the west does.

Ukraine.

The whole thing where you gotta copy a sentence from Principles of Communism to join makes it pretty clear, but yeah maybe it ought to be signposted more. It seems like lemmy.ml isn't really the "default" lemmy instance anymore, so IMHO it would come at little cost to be transparent about its ideological tilt.

Disclaimer: this is my alt account and I'm not really a .ml user, I don't want to come across as an authority on this matter

I guess that's a start.

Yeah I was right, that's annoying.

I am trying to be objective, but I'm also a Marxist-Leninist. I'm biased, as everyone is.

History shows that simply telling the truth isn't actually convincing for those who choose not to be open to new ideas. We all do this, none of us are immune, but only those with class interests aligned with communism tend to be open to new information challenging liberal mainstream perception.

I don't even mind communists, it's tankies I hate

Fascism is not "when the state uses force." Fascism is when capitalist decay forces strong state repression against the working classes to force austerity and consolidate bourgeois control, which isn't how socialist countries function.

Can you name a fascist movement of the past that wasn't killed off by commies/tankies? Where exactly do you think that 80mil number comes from?

More billionaires made in China than the US this year is pretty much incompatible with a belief they practice communism.

The entire Chinese revolution shows us it was a violent revolution not a peaceful evolution.

There is no such thing as a "peaceful revolution." The act of taking hold of the capitalist state, smashing it, and replacing it with a socialist one necessitates violence.

Capitalists govern the secondary and small/medium firms in China, as market forces help socialize production (a key observation for why Marx said capitalism creates the basis of communism). As these firms grow, more billionaires are created, but they are also folded more into the public sector as they grow.

China is socialist. Public ownership is the principle aspect of the economy in the PRC, and the working classes control the state. For example, when looking at publicly owned industries, we can see the following:

Even checking Wikipedia, data from 2022 shows that the overwhelming majority of the top companies are publicly owned SOEs. This is China's strategy, they've been honest about it from the beginning. The private sector is about half cooperatives like Huawei or farming cooperarives and sole proprietorships, with the other half being small and medium firms. As these grow, they are folded into the public sector gradually. This is China's Socialist Market Economy.

As for the state being run by the working classes, this is also pretty straightforward. Public ownership is the principle aspect of the economy, and the CPC, a working class party, dominates the state. At a democratic level, local elections are direct, while higher levels are elected by lower rungs. At the top, constant opinion gathering and polling occurs, gathering public opinion, driving gradual change. This system is better elaborated on in Professor Roland Boer's Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance, and we can see the class breakdown of the top of the government itself:

Overall, this system has resulted in over 90% of the population approving the government, which is shown to be consistent and accurate. If you want to learn more, while not nearly as in-depth due to time limits as Roland Boer's work (and mostly focused on the Xi Jinping era), Red Pen's A Summary of Xi Jinping's Governance of China can be a good primer! There's also This is how China's economic model works: Explaining Socialism with Chinese Characteristics by Geopolitical Economy Report.

Socialism is not the absence of private property, but the transition between capitalism and communism, indicated by public ownership as principle. Collectivization of production and distribution is a gradual process, and to dogmatically apply this to secondary and small industry before markets naturally centralize them and prepare them for public ownership isn't necessary.

Kdr?

I am sure there is, but they don't represent everyone. That is the cool thing about World. It is okay to have differing opinions.