Except the troubled ones. Our orange “Fuchs” was hit by a car, the driver (a veterinary) took his operation on, to fix the pieces of his pelvis together. He limps a bit since then but is just a nice guy enjoying being cat, nothing of the asshole behavior.
But seriously that guy. A few days after the op, still couldn’t walk all bandaged up, he used the wall as support to get to his people eating supper. ♥️
I know what you mean here, but it’s a bit egotistical of humans to be like “we literally know what this creature who can’t talk” is thinking when they can barely properly guess what their long term partner or friend is always thinking 🤣 cats MIGHT be more simplistic in thought patterns than humans, but to assert what all cats believe based on an incorrect reporting on John Bradshaw’s studies of cats is just plain wrong- please do a quick search! You’ll see there are conflicting reports of what his book seems to claim, but he himself does not assert that that’s what cats literally believe. 😬
Edit to add: here’s the article where he’s being interviewed about it, and the relevant part!
“I’ve read articles where you’ve said cats think of us as big, stupid cats. Is that accurate?
No. In the book [I say] that cats behave toward us in a way that’s indistinguishable from [how] they would act toward other cats. They do think we’re clumsy: Not many cats trip over people, but we trip over cats.
But I don’t think they think of us as being dumb and stupid, since cats don’t rub on another cat that’s inferior to them.”
@liztliss My personal theory is that they know we aren't a cat like them, but they figure we think the same way they do and that most everyone shows affection and communicates like a cat. I could be wrong, but it seems to fit.
Yeah we can’t literally know what cats are thinking, but humans do tend to anthropomorphise so we can’t really help attributing our observations of their behaviour into what we believe they are thinking. Very egotistical of us.
My observation they think we are a bit useless comes from the ‘gifts’ behaviour of bringing things into the house. My cat brings in small lizards- thanks buddy! Could be any number of reasons they do it, but I find it amusing to ponder if he thinks I’m not good at hunting, so he better take care of this important cat business.
More accurately, they treat us how they treat other cats. They haven’t been bred to do otherwise like dogs have. It doesn’t mean they think we’re cats.
But we only ever have 2 evils. There is no “other” to choose. The old folks make sure of that during primaries, they vote and they choose people who look like them and are their age, so we always end up with the 2 worst choices.
The right loves anti-electoralism on the left, it means that they have less of a fight from the left.
Can you imagine how bad things would be if people didn’t vote if they felt like they were picking between the lesser of 2 evils?
This nation would look a whole hell of a lot like modern Florida with it’s politics because Republicans in general turn out way more often than anyone else to vote.
Because Republicans? We’ve not had plenty of blues elected. We’ve seen abysmal showings from the left and republicans being elected across the nation who are setting out to destroy people’s rights.
Do you think gay marriage would have been protected?
Access to birth control secured?
Anti-sodomy laws getting struck down?
The Affordable Care Act passing?
Disability rights?
Do you think any of those things would have happened if Republicans been able to seize power and hold it unopposed over the last 50 years? No. None of those things would have happened. Those things happened because people further left than them got elected, the lesser of 2 evils won some elections.
They’re sitting on shaky ground because Obama refused to seat a justice, RBG refused to retire when she could have been replaced, and because Biden et all refuse to stack the courts.
Obama didn’t refuse to seat a justice, he was blocked by Mitch McConnell. Who also blocked every single judge appointment that Obama should have been able to make in the last 2 years of his presidency. And Republicans were talking about leaving that seat open until a Republican won the presidency. This is why trump has the most judicial appointments of any president.
And RBG reduced to retire likely out of pride during the Obama years, but smartly didn’t retire during the trump years.
Biden refusing to stack the courts is pretty shitty, but if he does so it’s going to open the flood gates for that being a possibility. Do I think he should? Yes. But I also think that if he does so their should be a cap put in place, but to put a cap in place would require a constitutional amendment, and there’s no way that will get through our current Senate.
It would have been on a state-by-state basis, which is what we’re coming dangerously close to anyway.
We don’t go around campaigning specifically to discourage people from voting. Our project is to get people to see beyond the seesaw spectacle.
When someone offers you two poor options, the right thing to do is to create a better option, even if you take the less bad option in the short run. Voting a Democrat into office and then congratulating ourselves on doing it is how progress slips and how we lose sight of what’s needed.
Gay marriage isn’t protected. Scotus can shoot it down on a whim
Lol Biden lost Roe
Court decision
Sucks
What rights? SSI tops out at 700$ a month, I can never have more than 2k in assets, and if I get married I lose it all. Just happened to a friend of mine, they’re going to have to annul their marriage so they don’t starve to death. “disability rights”.
Ummm because nuance is a thing that exists. Global conditions, etc. I mean the guy in power during the pandemic saying we should inject bleach or nuke incoming hurricanes sure as shit helped things be worse.
The crux of the issue is, where you see a democracy that is keeping fascism at bay, we see through the illusion of choice that keeps allowing the slow steady march towards fascism.
It’s a ratchet. Gop moves everything rightward (including the Dems) and the Dems refuse to push left in the name of “bipartisanship”. Then conditions get worse (because the policy is further right than before), Dems eventually lose because they allow gridlock and the ratchet suddenly frees up and cranks to the right again.
Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.
further down:
In the United States, our findings indicate, the majority does not rule — at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes. When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the U.S. political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it.
What is it, like, 70% of Americans want single payer healthcare?
No the right actually hates that. Democrats have been shrieking at us to vote for years even though the entire left in the US is a tiny fraction of the registered electorate. But the right wing won’t stop screaming at us about it.
If I have a truly evil person, say a Hitler like figure. Then I have a guy who is kind of an idiot. How does voting for the slight idiot end up way worse than a guy who wants to commit genocide. The slight idiot becomes the worst evil imaginable, but how?
Biden doubled Trump’s deportation numbers and gave record breaking funding to corrupt police departments all over the country, also striped one of the largest unions in the country of its right to strike, something Republicans haven’t managed to do since the Traffic Controller firings in the 80s
So 2 years of record low deportations and 1 year of his hands tied in the courts (of which I can’t find numbers anyway). How exactly is he “doubling” Trump’s deportation numbers?
What you MIGHT have misunderstood is that the number of border crossings have gone up dramatically under Biden, likely because he’s against the draconian and horrific policies of his predecessor. More border crossings than ever. Fewer deportations than ever. Whatever your opinion is of that, your claim was wrong.
And I’m pretty sure it would be turn into a shitfest if I tried to discuss the rest of the issues because I know you see them with Marx colored glasses. But you’re making some factually incorrect statements and it can’t be more clear than the deportation numbers. And more refs.
And I’m pretty sure it would be turn into a shitfest if I tried to discuss the rest of the issues because I know you see them with Marx colored glasses.
Honestly this bit makes me extremally curious what your response to the other two issues are. Do you think they’re both good things? I just want to know what I’m dealing with here.
He didn’t even know about Title 42 and its use by the biden admin to deport twice as many people as Trump, I doubt he has informed opinions on police funding and strike breaking lmao
And this circlejerk is why I block hexbear on the apps I have that allow me to. There is no point in continuing conversation at this point. I’m less than human to you and yours.
??? You literally didn’t know what Title 42 was, and you were spreading poorly researched misinformation about an important issue, also “less than human to you” ??? bro we’re debating on an Internet forum chill out
Dude, you’re commenting on a thread about the liberal tendency to write off communist human beings as literal robots, the irony of you being so bad at taking corrections that you immediately jumping weepily onto the cross and play the victim just to avoid having to type out “damn, I didnt know that” is powerful and embarassing.
Dude, I was commenting on specific fabrications someone was spreading, and out came all the responders to tell me how ignorant I am because I disagree with them. I’m not a liberal who writes off communists. Neither “a liberal” nor “write off communist”.
Do you believe it is possible for a person to be a communist and also spread something that is not 100% honest truth? Do you all take the Three Oaths?
Sorry, but no. Nice comic, if only it were accurate. You drew yourself with a chad face, so I lose.
Look, nothing personal, but you can still treat someone like shit just because other people treat you like shit.
Dude, I was commenting on specific fabrications someone was spreading
Like someone else said, it’s incredible, you got proven wrong to your face, in public, and didn’t even blink. Just erased the interaction from your memory to preserve what is evidently a load-bearing smugness on your part. You’re like a terminator tbh, if you simply acquired a more factual worldview to argue from you’d be a posting juggernaut.
Like someone else said, it’s incredible, you got proven wrong to your face, in public, and didn’t even blink
By bringing up something that isn’t deportation? Ya’ll are willing to lie together. But as someone else JUST reminded me, you don’t care about my vote. We socdems are going up against the wall with everyone else.
We socdems are going up against the wall with everyone else.
Its so fucking funny that you’ll concoct a whole politically illiterate persecution fantasy just to avoid having to admit you didn’t know what Title 42 is. Do you also fake your death to get out of doing the dishes? You’re the second lib to do this in as many days, you guys can stop being scared any time, I’m not gonna send the Stasi.
That’s funny. I hear people lying and want to avoid turning this into reddit 2.0, and you think this is about people calling out my bullshit.
You know what happens if you call out a lie and 100 zealots claim it’s “bullshit”? You still have a fucking lie. Apparently, if I don’t think every single American is literally as bad as Trump, I’m a fucking moron.
Well, working on “having nothing left” by blocking you.
No, I assure you incredible confidence in your own unfounded beliefs and complete ignorance of the depths of your ignorance is extremely human, as is retreating in to cliches and retrenching when you’re confronted with evidence that contradicts your ideological beliefs.
WRT police, the budgeting is not unprecedented. I, too, support defunding police, but as far as all the metrics I’ve seen, nothing about Biden’s budget effect on police funding is out of the ordinary.
WRT the Union stuff, it’s complicated. He used a law meant to protect the country for the way it was indended, and empowered 8 of 12 unions to sign a deal they agreed to. There has never been any evidence of overt or covert threat of actually arresting members of the other 4 unions if they did strike. You might disagree with that, but it was a bold faced lie to say he “(sic) striped one of the largest unions in the country of its right to strike, something Republicans haven’t managed to do since the Traffic Controller firings in the 80s”
You get to decide whether someone on your side lying is better or worse than someone who is merely far-left non-communist calling bullshit what it is. There is exactly one way to guarantee never having my vote, and it’s lying.
It’s not like we’re even remotely subtle here about this fact, we literally glorify the revolutionaries daily, and constantly spit on the idea of electoralism
But no. I’ve been reminded hundreds of times that you intend to bring communism by putting guns to the heads of the majority of your fellow proles like myself who don’t want what you do. I know I’m going up against the wall, along with over 90% of my country, if you ever win.
But that’s why I know you won’t win. You can’t execute 400M people, and you can’t turn their hearts by threatening to.
With all due respect, I was replying to someone who made perfectly clear that the will of the majority (vote) was meaningless to them. How exactly do you intend to seize control from 90% of a country who wants something different if not at gunpoint?
Don’t worry about responding. I blocked you too. I’m mid-migration towards servers that defederated the /c/thedonaldmarx communities, so blocking individual people is all I have right now.
“Given the grave harm that the Title 42 policy inflicts on desperate, asylum-seeking families, and the public health community’s view that the policy is not necessary, we would have hoped the administration would simply accept the ruling, especially given its repeated claim that it wants to distance itself from the Trump administration’s asylum practices,” said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s immigrant rights project.
Customs and Border Protection said 25% of the 209,000 people it encountered in August had been stopped at least once over the previous year, compared with 14% in earlier years.
Hmmm funny how numbers change when you account for all avenues of abuse
What you MIGHT have misunderstood is that the number of border crossings have gone up dramatically under Biden, likely because he’s against the draconian and horrific policies of his predecessor. More border crossings than ever. Fewer deportations than ever. Whatever your opinion is of that, your claim was wrong.
the weekend show U.S. Border Patrol agents on horseback violently grabbing Haitian migrants attempting to join the Del Rio encampment. This, the Biden administration claims, is in the name of safety: The mass deportations have been authorized under the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Title 42, which enables expedited deportations in the name of public health during the Covid-19 pandemic. Under Trump, nearly half a million people were removed under the law; the Biden administration has already used it to deport nearly 700,000.
Its use against migrants at the southern border sends a clear and vile message as to whom the U.S. deems to be the public, deserving of health and safety. Under Title 42 — in the name of safety, that is — those being rounded up and flown to Haiti were given no option to apply for asylum or temporary protection status.
It is worth emphasizing, too, that the majority of deportees have not lived in Haiti for many years, having left to find work in South America after a catastrophic hurricane devastated their home country in 2010. Struggling to find enough work to survive in South America, thousands risked perilous journeys to the U.S. border, only to be summarily removed — to Haiti.
Next time before you put on the lib tinted glasses, don’t just look for sources that only count ONE method of deportation and immigrant abuse, count them all, also you used Cato.org, straight up a right wing source lmao
Also because the Biden admin could no longer sustain the use of Title 42 because of the lifting of the final covid restrictions, they now are reviving an older and even worse Trump policy for the border
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco by the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies and other groups, alleges the Biden administration “doubled down” on the policy proposed by Trump that the same court rejected. The Biden administration has said its new rule is substantially different.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, about 85,000 migrants have been “repatriated” since Title 42 was lifted. That’s up 65% since the same period last year, which saw 51,246. During the same period the previous year, there were 33,087 repatriations, according to it.
I upgraded my Intel system to AMD today. And I didn’t have to reinstall a damn thing, because my existing Linux installation Just Worked™. It really is to the point that I could never imagine going back to Windows.
CPU vendors are usually pretty seamless to swap on Winblows, other than the fact that Windows will possibly whine that you’ve modified your system too much and need a new license 🤓
Windows will possibly whine that you’ve modified your system too much and need a new license
If the MAC address changes, Windows activation will always fail. I just don’t see any of that as worth the trouble anymore since The Windows Difference™ is just telemetry overhead and updates that need to happen while I’m trying to get something done.
What’s the difference between a fascist and an “anarchist” who does everything they can to kneecap the only viable left leaning political party in the US?
There’s no practical difference, just window dressing. They both cheer on oppression and pain for those suffering under Republicans.
And don’t even get me started on communists. Left and right authoritarians, I’ve gotten death threats from both of them. Whether it’s some leftist telling me I would “get the wall” when the Revolution comes or some fucking Republican telling me that the US was only for Christians and that they’ll go after “traitors” soon, you get to the same fucking place at the end of the day. The only real difference is that there’s far more Republicans, and they’re far more organized than left authoritarians.
What’s the difference between a fascist and an “anarchist” who does everything they can to kneecap the only viable left leaning political party in the US?
what's the difference between a cuckold and someone who votes for racist, homophobic, classicist establishment politicians no matter what; there is no difference.
Whatever lies you have to tell to make sure America gets worse, I guess. No honest, thinking human being could think there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans. That’s how we all know people like you are either useful idiots or just cosplaying Republicans.
Left is literally the opposite of authoritarian. You seem to be conflating a whole lot of ideas and terminology here. You sound like an ideological leftist who has been confused by the right's deliberate language-muddying.
Left is egalitarian. That takes many different forms: socialism, communism, direct democracy, anarchism, etc.
Right is authoritarian. That also takes many different forms: monarchy, feudalism, oligarchy, corporatism, etc.
Authoritarianism (or vertical/hierarchical power structure) is THE defining characteristic of the right. "Auth-left" is Doublethink; an oxymoron meant to distract from the fact that wealth and power are one and the same.
Authoritarianism (or vertical/hierarchical power structure) is THE defining characteristic of the right. “Auth-left” is Doublethink; an oxymoron meant to distract from the fact that wealth and power are one and the same.
This is so incredibly naive. Stalin? Mao? Evil authoritarianism comes in all flavors left and right. If you truly believe leftists aren’t capable of evil you need to study more history.
Not a Marxist, but I won't tolerate deliberately lying about terminology or muddying language. That's a bad faith authoritarian/rightist tactic and I won't let it slide.
State-imposed collectivism is left-leaning authoritarianism. It is the authoritarian and non-voluntary implementation of leftist economic policy. It is an extremely simple concept that I cant fathom how you aren’t able to grasp.
Um, “the state” is whatever the government is. Are you actually suggesting that True Anarchy is the only leftist organizational structure that can fit the definition of “Leftist”? Because that’s what you are alluding to.
Also, you absolutely did not provide the “definitions of left and right”. These definitions aren’t even universally agreed upon. I am assuming you mean “Liberalism and Conservatism” when you say “left and right”, and it is just untrue that Liberalism is incompatible with authoritarianism, and it is equally untrue that conservatism must be accompanied by authoritarianism. For example, Libertarianism is a patently right-leaning ideology that completely rejects authoritarianism. At the same time, communism is state-imposed redistribution of economic means; that is 100% undeniably a left-leaning ideology that accepts and implements authoritarianism.
I am assuming you mean “Liberalism and Conservatism” when you say “left and right”
I do not, because those are not the same thing in the same way buttered toast is not a pizza. Liberalism is "centrist". It appears egalitarian at first glance, but if focuses heavily (if not entirely) on means rather than ends, allowing for (and even encouraging) consolidation of wealth & power; that is: rightward drift. "Conservatism" is a relative term, not an absolute.
Libertarianism is a patently right-leaning ideology that completely rejects authoritarianism.
Libertarianism's origins are leftist/anarchist, but the term itself has recently been co-opted by rightists and liberals the same way authoritarians always always co-opt leftist terms.
communism is state-imposed redistribution of economic means; that is 100% undeniably a left-leaning ideology that accepts and implements authoritarianism.
That is not the definition of communism. Regardless of what you think about Marxist concepts themselves (or their feasibility) Marxism/Communism requires the "withering away of the state." So long as there is entrenched leadership, that society is not leftist in the same way the Nazis were not socialist, and Republicans are not "pro-life". And yes, that means the USSR was right wing, not left. At no point did the USSR meet the criteria or definition of communism. The definitions lead to the label, not the other way around.
Regardless of what you think about Marxist concepts themselves (or their feasibility) Marxism/Communism requires the "withering away of the state." So long as there is entrenched leadership, that society is not leftist in the same way the Nazis were not socialist, and Republicans are not "pro-life". And yes, that means the USSR was right wing, not left. At no point did the USSR meet the criteria or definition of communism. The definitions lead to the label, not the other way around.
I have disagreed with almost everything you have said, and am likely a member of the group you are railing against in this discussion. However, IMO you are spot on here.
Thank you for that. Keep this in mind though: I'm just saying the same thing over and over in different ways each time.
"Auth-left" is just another kind of "both-siding". It's rightists claiming that other rightists are actually leftists so that the masses will be too afraid to consider actual leftist proposals seriously.
Leftist/egalitarian systems tend to be inherently unstable because of the existence of human greed. Greed will always lead to certain people trying, and succeeding, to hoard wealth and power for themselves. I refer to this as "rightward pressure". The trick is pushing the dial as far left as possible while ensuring it remains stable and preventing rightward drift.
Lenin and other revolutionaries recognized this catch a long time ago, and so tried to justify "temporary tyranny" as a means to establish a leftist ends. Lenin didn't have a lot of success with that in life; then upon Lenin's death, Stalin seized power and never let it go... meaning that for all the suffering and bloodshed, Lenin and his Bolsheviks merely traded one right wing dictator/Tzar for another. Same story in China... And North Korea... And Cuba...
On the flip-side you have liberalism; which are leftist means that deliberately ignores "rightward pressure", eventually resulting in rightist ends... as wealth and power accumulate and snowball for a few at the expense of the many (e.g. "late stage capitalism").
So the question is: given that people are selfish and greedy, and any rightward movement cannot be safely considered temporary; how do we reach leftist ends while using only leftist means?
My personal stance? Democracy. We use Democracy to bolster Democracy a bit at a time... and the first thing we need to do to make that possible in implement a very aggressive progressive taxation system that caps how much wealth (and therefore power) any one individual or entity can control. Until we can fix that one thing, the politicians will continue to control the public instead of the other way around. That is the essence of leftism.
I consider myself a leftist, not a liberal, but looking at the totality of your comments, I'm doubtful you consider me one.
However, I'm also in the camp of "I have one party I can vote for who leans more to the right than I wish they did, and another who is literally courting fascism in the short term. So why are you busting my balls?" 😁
Authoritarianism is literally a defining feature of communism. Redefining terms to escape the reality of what ideologies look like when implemented is just dishonest.
Communism literally - by Marx and Engel's own definition - requires the "withering away of the state". As the creators and originators of the very concept of "communism", can you name one society that has met their criteria or achieved the goals laid out in their definition?
Yes, I understand that Marx and Engels did not have realistic political ideals and that every attempt to implement their ideology has diverged from their utopian vision into authoritarianism when reality hits that ideology. That’s the point.
I see you moved the goal post to a different field.
If you want to criticize the specifics of Marx/Engels proposals, that is very different than - whether by ignorance or malice - outright lying about them.
Since communism has proven to be impossible to implement and every attempt has resulted in brutal authoritarian regimes, we can either say communism is an incoherent mess of a utopian ideology which can’t exist, or an ideology that de facto endorses brutal authoritarianism. Dealer’s choice
Once you’ve read some Marx, Engels, and maybe even Lenin - you can come back here and criticize the actual ideas and arguments behind Communism rather than the completely imaginary ones you’ve blindly accepted from others.
Until then, we really have nothing more to talk about.
I’m less concerned with 100+ year old theory and more concerned with reality
I mean for fascism I’m going to look at Nazi Germany, not look at ideological texts surrounding the ideals of fascists
Reality always beats theory. You refusing to admit that communism is communism does indeed make it so that we don’t really have anything to talk about.
Yes, I understand that Marx and Engels did not have realistic political ideals
Have you read any of Marx? I’m not an ML but if you even glance at Capital you can tell that Marx’s whole schtick was using science to come up with realistic political ideals.
This is why libs get clowned on so hard. You claim to support “the only viable left leaning political party”, and yet you’re kneecapping large swaths of people on the ground engaging in direct action advancing left leaning values. Remember, segregation wasn’t ended because black people voted, blood was spilt in the streets. Same with the LGBT community, see the stonewall uprising, aka, the first pride parade.
I don’t care how you vote, but if you can’t see the difference between an anarchist engaging in direct action against an oppressive state and fascists doing hate crimes; well, I’d say it’s time to get off your high horse and do a little introspection.
yet you’re kneecapping large swaths of people on the ground engaging in direct action advancing left leaning values
Direct action is meaningless if you’re hostile to building a coalition broad enough to actually gain any significant political power. It doesn’t matter how many lit memes anarchists and communists share on social media and how much they horn on about “direct action,” this is a democracy and without votes going to candidates who can win, it is ultimately meaningless.
You want me to do some introspection? I did. I remember being young and convinced socialism was the way forward. Then I grew the fuck up and did some introspection.
Direct action is meaningless if you’re hostile to building a coalition broad enough to actually gain any significant political power.
Spoken like someone who’s never done organizing, participated in protests or any other direct action. You’re a keyboard warrior who’s probably never even interacted with a socialist IRL.
this is a democracy and without votes going to candidates who can win, it is ultimately meaningless.
Not a democracy and also I already gave 2 examples showing the contrary.
I remember being young and convinced socialism was the way forward. Then I grew the fuck up and did some introspection.
No need to be a condescending dick. I’m also guessing I’m older than you, not that it’s relevant.
I’ve participated in dozens of protests. Protests with political organization can lead to change. Protests without political organization are just yelling at a wall.
No need to be a condescending dick.
If you don’t want someone to take offense at what you write, don’t smugly tell them to learn introspection. Act like an arrogant dick, get treated like an arrogant dick.
Protests with political organization can lead to change. Protests without political organization are just yelling at a wall.
Right… I’m not sure why you think I’m not in favor of organized resistance.
If you don’t want someone to take offense at what you write, don’t smugly tell them to learn introspection. Act like an arrogant dick, get treated like an arrogant dick.
You were doing a “both sides” between anarchists and fascists, eerily similar to Trump, while claiming to be “left leaning”. I think my response was warranted, if not understated. But frankly, that’s plain ignorant.
Like I said, attempting to degrade the only left leaning political coalition means someone is hostile to any sort of positive left leaning activism. If that doesn’t describe a given anarchist, then what I said doesn’t apply to them. If it does, then they might as well be a Trumpster.
Who or what is this sole “left leaning political coalition”? If you’re referring to Democrats they are neither left leaning nor a coalition. They are a center-right political party. Coalition implies multiple parties. And the Democratic party isn’t exactly known for activism, unless you’re counting fundraising events.
And the Democratic party isn’t exactly known for activism
They’re the only hope for getting anything actually done, like the climate change actions taken by Biden. I don’t always agree with the Democratic Party, but nobody other than them or Republicans are organized better than a herd of cats or numerous enough to win office, so…
They’re the only hope for getting anything actually done, like the climate change actions taken by Biden.
Then we’re fucked. Because idk if you’ve noticed, but the planet is still dying. We are well on our way to passing the point of no return.
but nobody other than them or Republicans are organized better than a herd of cats or numerous enough to win office, so…
This actually has nothing to do with popularity or ability to organize. Its a problem with how our constitution is written, primarily the fact that we use first passed the post, see Duverger’s law.
Then we’re fucked. Because idk if you’ve noticed, but the planet is still dying. We are well on our way to passing the point of no return.
You’re right. What’s been done so far won’t fully solve the problem. Better undermine support for people trying to get what can be done, done, and then doom all over the Internet.
This actually has nothing to do with popularity or ability to organize
Nah, even in areas with ranked choice voting, third parties are jokes. Don’t get me wrong, I’m in favor of reforms designed to allow them a more reasonable and equal access to the political levers of power, but the two most significant third parties are the Greens and Libertarians. Neither one is a political force, and not just because of first past the post voting. Niche, ideologically focused parties will always underperform wide coalitions within democracies.
You’re right. What’s been done so far won’t fully solve the problem. Better undermine support for people trying to get what can be done, done, and then doom all over the Internet.
The libs are the ones undermining the progress. It ought to be self evident by now that radical measures need to be taken, and that the markets will not solve the climate crisis, the kind of regulation we need would kill entire sectors of the economy. Even when it comes to moderate improvements, Democrats are obstructed by both the minority opposition and members of their own party (as libs are always quick to remind me).
The Democrats will never be able to do what needs to get done. So you undermine the chance for meaningful change when you tell people, “don’t worry, Biden is on it, just vote and everything will be fine”.
Nah, even in areas with ranked choice voting, third parties are jokes. Don’t get me wrong, I’m in favor of reforms designed to allow them a more reasonable and equal access to the political levers of power, but the two most significant third parties are the Greens and Libertarians. Neither one is a political force, and not just because of first past the post voting. Niche, ideologically focused parties will always underperform wide coalitions within democracies.
Which areas? Areas in the US? Yeah, hundreds of years of entrenched power at the local, State, and federal level will do that. Would take time and likely ranked choice at the federal level to change.
“we just need to kill the economy to save the planet” doesn’t seem like a productive way to sell reengineering our economy to lead us towards carbon neutrality, doomer
“Look, I’d love to have a habitable planet, but have you considered the stock market?”
If you don’t think a global problem that’s intertwined with every aspect of the economy might require a similarly far-reaching solution, you aren’t taking this seriously.
Jesus Christ even the things you think are the goal are woefully weak and limited. You think “carbon neutrality” will solve climate change? We need massive carbon negativity.
Because who else would greenlight controversial pipeline projects that will accelerate the rot of remote ecosystems and the pollution of our atmosphere and waters? Oh right, any other elected official on either side of the Dem / Republican line…
I’ve participated in dozens of protests. Protests with political organization can lead to change. Protests without political organization are just yelling at a wall.
Protests !== organizing. Organizing achieves political change. Protest does not. Leftists know how to organize, liberals do not.
Liberals don’t know how to organize precisely because the Democratic party dominates the elections. No need to organize when the organization already exists. All they need to do is to “vote blue no matter who”.
Direct action is meaningless if you’re hostile to building a coalition broad enough to actually gain any significant political power
The US isn’t a democracy, you can’t build coalitions with people who want to destroy everything you stand for, direct action got George Floyd justice not votes, and the people you back turned around and decided to fund the police to record levels, it’s a war not an electoral campaign
I remember being young and convinced socialism was the way forward. Then I grew the fuck up and did some introspection.
Do you know how to communicate in anything other than thought terminating clichés?
This is delusional. Direct action absolutely has its place, but all the things you mentioned were ultimately won at the ballot box. As it should be. Don’t let a childish revolution fetish blind you to what constitutes a viable framework for lasting progress.
Edit - “Has.” As in he has a ball. Or she has a textbook.
Not an ML. And certainly don’t think I’m the only leftist. Lots of different types of leftists, many I disagree with. But unless you’re opposed to capitalism, then you’re a liberal, not a leftist.
An anarchist is fighting against military/police. A fascist belongs, or wants to, to military/police. An anarchist is fighting against people who hold some power. A fascist is fighting against people because of their religion or origins. An anarchist likes to vote and discuss. A fascist likes to follow orders. An anarchist tends towards decentralization. A fascist tends towards centralization.
This are only some differences but spoiler alert : anarchist and fascist are not the same. They do not act the same way, they do not think the same way.
I understand that you hate them both, it is your point of view, and it’s okay. But please, follow my advice : avoid trying to justify it with sentences as universal and strong as “There is no practical difference”, it makes the whole thing ridiculous.
In the end, saying there is only “one viable […] party”, and even believing in a party itself, are also part of the problem imo. If you truly believe in this sentence, no wonder why you dislike anarchists and why they probably dislike you. But does it imply that either you or them are fascistic ? And if yes, did you considered that it could be you, who are defending a single “viable” party as the only solution, hating on every other option ?
If an “anarchist” is trying to undermine any politician with a realistic chance of making office who is at all sympathetic to efforts at police reform, they’re not fighting the police, they’re fighting reform efforts.
His point was that “anarchist” was in quotes because they self-identify as an anarchist but behave in contradictory way.
And I would say my experience with a few lemmy instances is exactly that. “I am an anarchist” is a way of creating group lines, consisting of the in-group of anarchists, and everyone else in the out-group (fascists and liberals together).
It’s really silly because it’s an inherent contradiction. The point of being an anarchist is that there is no out-group, and yet they’ve just recreated the in-group out-group mentality all over again.
Oh, okay thank you for clarification. I agree with you, sectarianism is to me one of the biggest problem in far-left groups. But I still think that this is not enough imo to justify that “There is no practical difference” between them and fascists, even if restricted to their behavior on those communities. Anyway, i understand this comment better now, thank you <3
Oh yeah, there’s a huge difference between tankies and fascists. Tankies are 10,000% better.
Suppose my only two choices in a vote were between a tankie that punched me in the face and slept with my mother, and a fascist. I would not just vote for the tankie, I would also donate money, canvas for them, and tell all my friends to vote for them.
I think it’s just an online problem, anybody who gets radicalized in an echo chamber loses the plot of their own cause. It’s just optics.
Is your issue with anarchists or authoritarians? I somehow doubt that anarchists are sending you death threats. Nor do I see anarchists kneecapping the Democrats. Anarchists don’t want a state, though many do vote for the moderate right-wing (not “left leaning”) Democrats simply because they think it’s the right thing to do.
Your sweeping generalizations and attempts to paint all of us with the same brush betray your own lack of knowledge, but don’t worry, I’m sure the planet will last long enough for the Democrats’ slow incremental change, and I’m sure my family in border camps are very thankful to be in liberal concentration camps.
Apologizing after saying something stupid is a level of grace we rarely see from the smugtrust
Any objective measure of politics puts them on the right wing. Your only measure is relative. Because you have no ideology whatsoever you have no underpinning with which to judge a political party.
The point isn’t somehow that Conservatives are left wing, but that Democrats aren’t “reformers” either! Most of what they do is “rehabilitate” and I don’t mean that with respect to the criminal code.
I think you’re giving too much credit to “authoritarianism” as a political dimension beyond those weird conservatives who want ersatz father figure heads of state
the only viable left leaning political party in the US
I vote for Democrats because shit, why not? But what is the worth of a party that:
Does not function as a party (single defectors routinely kill major legislation without consequence)
Is incapable of countering the rising tide of fascism, or unwilling to do so
Has no plan to address the Supreme Court, which will continue to kill anything legitimately good if left unchecked
Is too beholden to capital to push even the most tepid climate change legislation (the Green New Deal)
Constantly attacks its left flank, preferring to chase the votes of suburban reactionaries
Isn’t even reliably pro-labor
Tailed popular movements on all sorts of civil rights issues
Still can’t be bothered to even de-schedule marijuana, the most slam-dunk popular policy one could imagine + a huge driver of mass incarceration
Is on basically the same page as Republicans with respect to foreign policy
Generally offers nothing besides “at least we’re not as bad as Republicans, most of the time”
Where is that party going? It’s never going to meaningfully address climate change, it offers only crumbs to the working class, and any social change has to be led from the outside.
the only viable left leaning political party in the US?
There is no “viable left leaning political party in the US” lmao. You are a far right country. Both parties are far right. If you were over here in the UK you would all be tories and even then I’m not sure if that’s far enough right for the average democrat.
Commies and fascists are the same thing because they do the violence. The reasons they do the violence is not relevant.
I, a good democrat, don’t do the violence. Those bodies that keep piling up in other (dirty, evil) countries during Democrat run governments are coincidental. All the funding I give to police departments totally aren’t related to the police blasting people in the streets daily. I know this because my ideology is totally not conservative.
the only viable left leaning political party in the US?
I might be misunderstanding you, so I apologize if that is the case, but if you are referring to the Democrats they are far from left leaning. They aren’t even center leaning.
You can’t even say they have a better track record than the Republicans. They bomb countries as much (or in recent years even more) than the Republicans. They advocate for wars. They fund ICE even more than the Republicans. They stand up just as much for reproductive rights (read: not at all). They just do all of it while waving a rainbow flag.
I really hope you meant the Greens or the CPUSA; which have their own issues but are certainly more left than either the Democrats or Republicans.
I was sure it was gonna be ironic when they started comparing anarchists to fascists, but fun fact: no, they actually mean it. Anarchists are fascists, everyone. You’ve heard it here first!
I swear, if there’s something liberals hate more than what’s on their right, it’s what’s on their left.
What’s the difference between a fascist and an “anarchist” who does everything they can to kneecap the only viable left leaning political party in the US?
There’s a viable left leaning political party in the US? What is it?
What’s the difference between a fascist and an “anarchist” who does everything they can to kneecap the only viable left leaning political party in the US?
Left leaning? According to who or what? If you said socially progressive there might be a point here, but the democratic party is no where near left wing. And the social progressiveness only serves to take advantage of those being oppressed in order to win votes. It’s hollow, and when people start losing rights (like women and abortion) the Democrats will make 500 excuses about why they can’t do anything, instead of actually doing something. The democratic party serves as a ratchet to kill and absorb left wing movements and keep the acceptable discourse within the sphere of economic liberalism.
I’m begging Americans to read literally anything about their political system from a non American, non Eurocentrist perspective. Begging. I’ll start by linking some here.
The specific combination of factors in the historical formation of U.S. society—dominant “biblical” religious ideology and absence of a workers’ party—has resulted in government by a de facto single party, the party of capital. The two segments that make up this single party share the same fundamental liberalism. Both focus their attention solely on the minority who “participate” in the truncated and powerless democratic life on offer. Each has its supporters in the middle classes, since the working classes seldom vote, and has adapted its language to them. Each encapsulates a conglomerate of segmentary capitalist interests (the “lobbies”) and supporters from various “communities.”
American democracy is today the advanced model of what I call “low-intensity democracy.” It operates on the basis of a complete separation between the management of political life, grounded on the practice of electoral democracy, and the management of economic life, governed by the laws of capital accumulation. Moreover, this separation is not questioned in any substantial way, but is, rather, part of what is called the general consensus. Yet that separation eliminates all the creative potential found in political democracy. It emasculates the representative institutions (parliaments and others), which are made powerless in the face of the “market” whose dictates must be accepted. Marx thought that the construction of a “pure” capitalism in the United States, without any pre-capitalist antecedent, was an advantage for the socialist struggle. I think, on the contrary, that the devastating effects of this “pure” capitalism are the most serious obstacles imaginable.
If the democrats truly are the only viable “left” option then the only reasonable course of action would be to burn the whole state apparatus down and start anew.
You won’t advocate for that of course because the fact is you don’t really care about things being better, you care about pretending to be on the moral high-ground, so vague platitudes about things getting better in the abstract you get from democrats is just enough for you, because you probably endure no economic hardship and politics is just an extension of sports to you.
The far-right is the most militant and by far outnumbers the far left. Right now, if things were started anew, it would be a new far-right government. A militant far-left uprising would literally just get murdered, and most republican voters would be ok with it.
A course of action that seems obvious to me (I may be wrong) would be for left-wing people to organize within the Democratic party to get left-wing people elected as Democrats. Kinda like the “Tea Party” or MAGA movement.
The US has two right wing parties. Never mind nationally, I’ve had Democrat electeds oversee cops “sweeping” encampments just as brutally as any Republican would, what exactly is supposed to be the harm getting reduced here?
The Republican Party is blatantly fascist now. The next time the Republicans get the house, senate, and presidency, you can guarantee women and trans people will no longer have bodily autonomy nation wide. Children will be kidnapped from their lbgt parents and put into the system. All social safety nets will be gutted. Democracy will be eliminated. If they let public education still exist, it will just be used for job training and indoctrination of fascist ideology. They will shoot immigrants at the border instead of just laying traps. They will expand the mass incarceration program to make room for the dissidents and utilize them for more slave labor in prisons.
What’s the difference between a fascist and an “anarchist” who does everything they can to kneecap the only viable left leaning political party in the US?
Sorry which party is this? Dems are not even a remotely left-leaning party. Joe Biden literally criminalized the rail workers using their legal right to strike.
This is also like a children’s picture book-level of understanding of fascism. As if the Dems’ policy of 4 more years of the status quo could prevent fascism at all. That has literally never worked as a way to combat fascism.
No he fuckin did not, the rank and file wanted 14 days, the rank and file pushed for a strike, which union leadership did not want, the rank and file did not vote to sabotage their striking rights, Biden and the Capitalists wanted 0 days and no strike, the Squad “wanted” 7 days and were willing to sacrifice the right to strike despite knowing perfectly well the 7 days bill would die in the Senate
4 days is an insulting crumb to incentivize workers from not engaging in unauthorized slowdown measures, sick and tired of you Blue MAGA slugs
What’s the difference between a fascist and an “anarchist” who does everything they can to kneecap the only viable left leaning political party in the US?
What party in the US is even left-adjacent? The dems still firmly support the police, Israel, massive corporations, prolonging the war in Ukraine. Their actions in Iraq alone should prevent them from ever being considered a party that serves the working class.
All US aid to ukraine is doing is making the war longer and bloodier. Have you seen what Ukraine has been bombing? It’s apartment buildings, gas stations and civilians. (Russia isn’t better on that front, they bombed a literal kindergarten this week). If this war keeps up, all of Ukraine and Southern Russia will end up like Bakhmut. US aid isn’t enough to win, only to continue the bloodshed.
Also, you are the one backing the US above every single socialist project. You are the one who tolerates imperialism because it’s blue. You are the one bothsidesing leftists and fascists. Every single one of your accusations is a confession.
What’s the actual genuine alternative then where Ukraine doesn’t have to fight to free it’s territory from Russia? A ceasefire is worthless as Russia will build up forces again and just attack, trying to set out what it tried to do for years, take Ukraine under Russian control. And then people such as yourselves will then be criticising Ukraine and the west again when they put up another fight. Ukraine can’t win in your eyes.
I’ve been following the war since February last year and it’s been day after day after day of Russians explicitly targeting civilians, literally machine gunning them down in the streets, shooting at cars with tanks, raping and murdering them, targeted rocket attacks at hospitals, apartment blocks, places where people are trying to seek refuge from the war, stealing Ukrainian children and sending them to Russia, the list just goes on and on. There maybe unfortunate collateral damage from Ukrainian forces, there always is sadly in any war, but it’s highly unlikely that Ukraine are targeting the very people they’re trying to liberate.
US aid isn’t enough to win, only to continue the bloodshed.
That’s a strong argument for the US to drastically increase its aid or even get involved to end the war very quickly. The US and its allies would very likely have the war over within weeks if not literally days. That would be a win win right? No more bloodshed like you said. No more hundreds of Ukrainian or Russian soldiers lives wasted. Ukraine gets it’s territory back. The genocidal Russian imperialists get pushed back to their own borders.
You’re working from a number of false premises - Like the people in the DPR and LPR don’t want to be part of Ukraine, because the Galacian fascists who control the government in Kiev won’t stop trying to kill them. What about the self-determination of people not to be slaughtered by Banderite fascist death squads? What about the self-determinations of Crimeans to finally break with Ukraine after trying for thirty years? Ahh, you will say, but those elections weren’t real, so I can say that no one in any of those regions actually wants to be free of the violence directed at them by hte Rada.
ANd I could go on and on and on but you know what the truth is and you know I’m a lying tankie and blah blah blah we’ve all done this dance before.
they can to kneecap the only viable left leaning political party in the US?
Are you talking about the party that doubled Trump’s deportation numbers, expanded oil drilling and fracking and striped the rail unions of their right to strike? I know you’re not talking about THAT party, you think we’ve all been at brunch and hadn’t been paying attention like you jackasses?
What’s the difference between a fascist, a democrat, and a Republican? At least the fascist makes the trains run on time while he’s running concentration camps and murdering minorities in the streets.
Oh so Title 42 didn’t expand under Biden, and the concentration camps haven’t grown multiple-fold in the last few years? They didn’t put literally record breaking funding into the very police forces that have been proven definitively not only to NOT reduce crime, but to systematically oppress the poor and minorities? The democrats pulled out of all of our foreign invasions and curtailed military industrial spending, closing bases around the world and bringing troops home? They stopped the absurd sanctions regimes intended to specifically starve civilians in many countries around the world?
I guess when you’re a middle class American, you have the luxury of not caring about the explicitly fascist behavior of thecUS government. Those of us in minority groups and the lower classes, and even more so those of us not in the US, don’t have that luxury. US fascism is maintained by force both internally and externally.
The Biden administration ended title 42, kid. And police forces do reduce crime. What’s needed is to get accountability for bad cops and to reform training, not neuter the justice system.
Police forces don’t reduce crime, and it’s laughable that anyone could still think so after this many years of empirical data showing that increasing police presence and funding is not correlated with a decrease in criminality. Improving economic conditions for lower classes, however, is correlated with reduction in criminality.
Biden admin didn’t end title 42, they ended the pandemic which prevented them from continuing the policy, and so now they’ve gone back to Trump Era policy of refusal at the border for anyone who came through another country along the way, a definitive violation of international refugee laws. Even that only happened after years of use of Title 42 to deport hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants a year.
Yes, police forces do reduce crime. That’s long been established in social science. I don’t care what your ideology is, if you’re denying reality, then I don’t know what the point of having a conversation with you is.
And I’m glad you admitted that the Biden administration ended Title 42.
Lmao. Still nothing on the concentration camps, nor their expansion under Biden, nor the illegal use of Trumps pre-covid policy, and nothing but apologia for Biden using title 42 for 2 full years to deport well over a million refugees.
If it were the case that more police means less crime, crime rates around the country would be at record low rates after the billions of dollars pumped into law enforcement by the federal government. Not to mention that the average city spends between 30-60% of its entire yearly budget on police forces. Is your belief that if they increase that to 70%, 80%, 100%, it will reduce crime? Do you not realize funding is indeed a zero sum game, and that putting more money into police necessarily means putting less money into social programs that have shown actual efficacy in reducing criminality?
What’s the difference between a fascist and an “anarchist” who does everything they can to kneecap the only viable left leaning political party in the US?
Mutual Aid: A Theory of Evolution is available on Gutenberg. Go learn something.
It is important to note here how well-indoctrinated the US and Europe are to “point the finger” and absolve responsibility…
We don’t refer to stuff as “deforestation,” we call it “urban planning” or “development.”
We don’t talk about “poaching,” we just accept that farmers and the agriculture industry finds natural predators inconvenient, so we allow them to kill off coyotes, foxes, mountain lions, etc.
We have just as many people doing similar, but for some reason we’re only taught to lose our minds over conservation elsewhere, in the places where the US intentionally destabilizes (with Europe) to keep prices low for us. After all, it’s what our economies are built upon: ruin everywhere, so we can call ourselves the heroes for killing off indigenous folks to areas just for the crime of living and wanting things to feel fair.
Well, that’s naive and misinformed. And also irrelevant; endangered species are too important to the environment for poor people to justify killing them off to buy food. Poor people have agency and therefore responsibility for their actions too. Your stance is both anti-environment and anti-working class.
We can and should help the poor in ways that don’t involve absolving them of responsibility for driving endangered species extinct.
Well articulated. We can’t absolve people of responsibility just because they are poor, unless we absolve them of all responsibity and treat them like children, and put the ones who have no caregivers in a foster care system. I’m fairly certain nobody wants that.
Yes, I am aware poverty is not something you can just wish away, but they know what they’re doing. Same as the people illegally cutting down forests in Eastern Europe. They’re also poor but they’re also assholes. They also have a penchant for shooting people who try to stop them. Pretty sure them rhino poachers would do bad stuff to anybody getting in their way as well.
That’s exactly it: we’re taught “white good; everyone/everything else bad” and it seeps into our conservation and environmentalism efforts, getting spun into a tizzy about what happens in the Amazon or Africa, but, telling-ly, not really having the same depth and strength of emotions for wildlife conservation at home.
I have found Linux to have excellent HW support for all older hardware. Only notable exception is fingerprint readers. Granted, it’s been years since I tried gaming.
Funny anecdote about FP readers: got an XPS 13 for work. At first I tried to make do with Windows, and everytime I tried to register my fingerprints, the laptop rebooted instantly. Then I got fed up jumping through hoops to set up my workflow, installed Ubuntu, installed the FP reader driver, and it worked like a charm.
As for gaming, I finally got rid on Windows on my gaming PC (AMD GPU), and all my games work very nicely (I don’t play multiplayer games). Most problems were fixed by selecting another proton version through Steam, biggest issue I had was manually updating the fucking Ubisoft launcher thing for AC Syndicate.
I don’t think the fingerprint reader is the problem it is how the OS supports it. I tried with my framework laptop and it just stopped logging me in after a misread or something like that.
Active directory and it’s integration with services such as DNS and DHCP is pretty great though. I wish Microsoft started focusing less on cloud and improved the user (or rather admin) experience of their server tools, they are quite awful is some cases.
AD is the easiest in Windows. We can argue about DNS, but DHCP? You can’t even change the subnet size after the fact without destroying and remaking the scope.
And sometimes they make a new tool that’s better, kinda. And then they never bother updating it to make it good. Looking at you AD admin center.
GPedit is the most annoying tool ever. Why the hell can’t I just edit GPO settings values from the active settings menu, without having to open the entire GPO and navigate the huge mess of settings.
I guess I don’t see it as a circle jerk. It seems more that there are a bunch of windows fans that haven’t tried Linux in the last 5 or 10 years (or ever) trying to convince the Linux community that Linux has a bunch of pitfalls and shortcomings that we don’t seem to run into.
Just the other day I was posting complaining about a thing I was trying to do that should have been simple but Linux made really hard for some reason. Still prefer it to Windows tbh.
Oh, that’s why I moved from W10. My audio card refused to work with this OS. The solution: go back to W8.1 which I just skipped as hell. I could never get rid of that problem in W10, BSOD as soon as it rebooted into W10. No matter what I tried, couldn’t debug the problem. Fuck it, Linux may be complicated, but at least you end up knowing what’s going on. I can’t go back to not knowing.
Even im weirded out by how thoroughly the left was suppressed on reddit and other platforms. People on reddit only saw themselves mirrored and thought they were the only ones who existed.
Dozens of major leftist subreddits were literally banned, CTH being the most famous example, thousands of users received constant arbitrary 3 day bans over and over again with no explanation, the admins and mods who worked with them were pretty open about their suppression of the left
Yeah you keep telling yourself that horseshit, just ignore the fact the admins flatly said we were banned for “inciting violence” in the form of “KIll all slaveowners”
Also “brigading” that’s an interesting word, is that what you’re doing right now?
No because brigading is encouraging a subset of a website to raid something else. A single person cannot be brigading anything as a single person isn’t a brigade.
This community was banned for violating Reddit’s rule against promoting hate.
Doesn’t say anything about brigading.
And since we weren’t a hate sub in any way, my only conclusion is they think “kill all slave owners” is hate, since they LITERLALY complained about that and removed our comments saying so. john-brown
“Remember the human. Reddit is a place for creating community and belonging, not for attacking marginalized or vulnerable groups of people. Everyone has a right to use Reddit free of harassment, bullying, and threats of violence. Communities and people that incite violence or that promote hate based on identity or vulnerability will be banned.”
That’s Spez’s quote on the reason for CTH being banned. Looks like it was for all the threats of violence and harassment, which I absolutely regularly saw from CTH posters, and it had nothing to do with hatespeech.
Yes because only nazis oppose a system that does not achieve much other than mass murder leading to authoritarianism.
The British and American empires also led the anti-communist crusade. You’ll note the massive stacks of bodies and constant installation of puppet governments each one is responsible for.
If you think the Soviets weren’t less mass murder-y by a magnitude less than capitalist or monarchist governments you need to learn more about the constant stream of violence that capitalism produces. Even the massively exaggerated death counts of all socialist countries put together by anticommunists pale in comparison to just the British empire.
Also revolutions are the most authoritarian thing in existence. It is literally one class exercising control through physical violence and coercion against the class that has been socially murdering them and oppressing them until they collectively couldn’t take it anymore and were organized enough to fight back.
I’d say both are true. The left is actively suppressed on the platform AND the userbase is not that progressive (particularly on geopolitics) because of it being American-centric.
I mean Reddit’s director of policy, Jessica Ashooh, is former Deputy Director of the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Strategy Task Force — she’s literally a state department plant.
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