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Does one have to be an iconoclast or revolutionary these days to be validly left? I consider myself to be left of center, and very much in favor of progressive policies.

However I find myself being disagreed with quite often, mostly for not advocating or cheering violence, “by any means possible” change, or revolutionary tactics. It would seem that I’m not viewed as authentically holding my view unless I advocate extreme, violent, or radical action to accomplish it.

Those seem like two different things to me.

Edit: TO COMMUNISTS, ANARCHISTS, OR ANYONE ELSE CALLING FOR THE OVERTHROW OF SOCIETY

THIS OBVIOUSLY ISN’T MEANT FOR YOU.

muad_dibber ,
@muad_dibber@lemmygrad.ml avatar

Here’s an excellent overview on why pacifism doesn’t work, and has never worked.

Red Phoenix - Pacifism - How to do the enemy’s job for them. Youtube Audiobook

Sickos ,
@Sickos@hexbear.net avatar

TO COMMUNISTS, ANARCHISTS, OR ANYONE ELSE CALLING FOR THE OVERTHROW OF SOCIETY

THIS OBVIOUSLY ISN’T MEANT FOR YOU.

Ok boomer.

Sickos ,
@Sickos@hexbear.net avatar

Do you wish to stop capitalism? Do you think the bourgeoisie will willingly give up their cushy lives and positions of power?

Melatonin OP ,

No?

fox ,

If someone lives like a king, but directly because their wealth is earned by the suffering and death of thousands, is it not morally just to stop them? At what point is the life of one billionaire worth more than the life of the, say, five hundred children that starved to death because of that billionaire? Is the system of economics that results in that not utterly reprehensible?

We want capitalism to stop killing people. It cannot stop killing people. So we must dismantle capitalism. But the bourgeoisie will defend, violently, the perpetuation of capitalism. Thus, they are taking on a direct moral responsibility for the deaths capitalism causes.

Revolution is only violent because capitalists wield violence to brutally suppress even peaceful protests, and we must respond in kind to defend ourselves. The violence of self-defense is not the same as the violence of oppressors. If the capitalists saw peaceful protests and willingly put their fortunes aside and returned their means of production to common ownership, there would be no need for revolution. But in all history of this struggle they’ve chosen instead to maim and murder protestors.

As a snapshot, Food Not Bombs are an anarchist group who do nothing but give food to the unhoused. Police will arrest every FNB member to stop them, when what they’re doing is literally just feeding the poor. But if FNB members carry firearms, police leave them alone, and the unhoused receive food.

Sickos ,
@Sickos@hexbear.net avatar

If that’s “no” to the first part, you’re simply not a leftist. If that’s “no” to the second part, welcome to team violence.

Alaskaball ,
@Alaskaball@hexbear.net avatar

This is off topic but is there something wrong with the hexbear client or is everyone here just making individual comments at each other instead of replying?

Erika3sis ,
@Erika3sis@hexbear.net avatar

Which client are you using?

Alaskaball ,
@Alaskaball@hexbear.net avatar

Well it doesn’t necessarily matter anymore because your reply fixed it lol

gAlienLifeform ,
@gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world avatar

I already dropped one wall of text on this post, but something you might find interesting - there was a history podcast called Revolutions that looked at revolutionary periods in history, when it wrapped up the host did a whole series of appendix episodes on different recurring themes he saw in the different periods he looked at, and in one of those he talked about how the word “radical” can be hard to define because throughout history there were people who had radical goals they wanted to achieve through moderate means and people who had moderate goals they wanted to achieve through radical means and the inverse of both of those

yewtu.be/watch?v=0nukt_9HmLE&t=2m21s

So yeah, I think it’s helpful to separate out how big a transformation in society you want to see from how far you’re willing to go to get them

flamingo_pinyata ,

Political spectrum of Left-Center-Right is not only pointless but very much harmful.

You have some goals in common with other people but you disagree on the means of achieving them. That’s it. Doesn’t make any of the views less valid. It makes them opposed in some circumstances, which is different from “validity”

Erika3sis ,
@Erika3sis@hexbear.net avatar

Left and right are always relative terms. I like to describe those who feel like they are or could be represented by a political party in the governing coalition of an average western liberal democracy, as the “non plus ultra” left. This comes from the old story of the Pillars of Hercules on either side of the Strait of Gibraltar, which were said to bear the warning “non plus ultra” — “nothing further beyond”. For as far as people knew back then, there truly was no land for sailors to find further to the west of that point; but now Europeans are well aware that there is a whole gargantuan continent across the Atlantic, a continent that makes the idea of the Iberian peninsula and the Maghreb as the furthest western extent of land in the world seem downright laughable.

And so those who call themselves left-wing, but who would be comfortably represented in the government of a liberal democracy… Well, they would be left-wing by the standards of the beliefs which can be comfortably represented in the government of such a country. So they’re left-wing to that extent. But in the grand scheme of things, they’re no further left of the parliamentary center compared to Marxists and anarchists, than Gibraltar is west of the Prime Meridian compared to Alaska. As I’d see it, frankly, all the beliefs which can find success in a liberal democracy, can be said to occupy the same “continent” of politics; and all those beliefs which cannot, can be said to occupy a different “continent”, and those on the former continent would certainly stand to benefit from “crossing the sea”, so to speak.

Melatonin OP ,

How does this relate to violence?

Erika3sis ,
@Erika3sis@hexbear.net avatar

Put simply, in the trolley problem, my continent would pull the lever, and your continent would give drugs to the people tied to the tracks to ease the pain.

GBU_28 ,

No way.

Anyone who calls for collapse or revolution is playing out a survivor fantasy where they hope they (and their ideology) will come out on top.

memfree ,
@memfree@lemmy.ml avatar

I liked the (long) piece over here: slrpnk.net/post/11395506

tldr;

You can’t blow up a social relationship. The total collapse of this society would provide no guarantee about what replaced it. Unless a majority of people had the ideas and organization sufficient for the creation of an alternative society, we would see the old world reassert itself because it is what people would be used to, what they believed in, what existed unchallenged in their own personalities.

Proponents of terrorism and guerrilla-ism are to be opposed because their actions are vanguardist and authoritarian, because their ideas, to the extent that they are substantial, are wrong or unrelated to the results of their actions (especially when they call themselves libertarians or anarchists), because their killing cannot be justified, and finally because their actions produce either repression with nothing in return or an authoritarian regime.

SnokenKeekaGuard ,
@SnokenKeekaGuard@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Labels don’t matter. Stop worrying about whether people think you are left or right wing. Your beliefs are yours and will continue to evolve and thats all that matters.

Sincerely, A pro revolutionary tactics man.

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