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.
Wait. Are seagulls worse than black swans? Are they worse than Australian Magpies? I mean these surely got to be the top three worst birds, personally I’d prefer a seagull to a swan, but I’ve met enough magpie haters so I wouldn’t be so sure everyone agrees
Turkeys are stupid and angry. I think the only bird less intelligent than a turkey would be a guinea fowl, but they have the edge of just being suicidally dumb. I’ve had a Guinea run away from my car and then back in front of it in confusion, but never have I had one openly charge my vehicle. I’ve had a turkey do that, though.
Everything we complain about regarding pigeons are traits humans intentionally bred into them across millenia.
Pigeons did not invade cities. We abandoned them there, after they helped us coordinate building and connecting them. And we inexplicably treat them like the invaders after abandoning them the second they were no longer deemed useful.
I mean, is cannibalism really the worst problem here?
Humans are omnivores and if the alternative is to throw unused human parts underground or cremate them, feeding them to new humans is at least not a waste.
Is it possible to eat those humans? If it’s actually nutritious I don’t see a problem, and it’s less wasteful, as you said. Soylent Green operated on this principle.
I mean, in many cases you could. In many places there aren’t even laws against it. I’m personally of the opinion that we should treat animals similar to how we would treat humans, thus the translation for others to consider the same.
Yes and if you read the Vox article the meme is referencing, this is very much not the case. Mother pigs being torn apart literally as factory farm workers laugh, make jokes, and generally make comments you’d hear out of a dramatized serial murderer.
These practices not only have horrific effects on the animals obviously, but these workers lose whatever shreds of humanity they might have going into it, and I’d assume they have similar sick fantasies about murdering/torturing humans in a similar fashion.
I’d assume they have similar sick fantasies about murdering/torturing humans in a similar fashion.
That is a huge leap. Because of the nature of the work, most people I’ve met who work in animal agriculture just don’t see their livestock as conscious in any way, let alone at all equivalent to a human.
No, they say “Rip that removed in half” prior to splitting a mother pig in half. The article points out that piglets are fed other chopped up piglets and feces and.
The workers are recorded as saying things like “I needed that”, indicating that beating these animals is not just a necessity, but inherently pleasurable to them.
I dont think a person who makes such statements and those that are willing to laugh/nod in agreement at such sentiments are in a healthy mindset. Those kinds of statements in that context indicate these are people who get pleasure out of torturing and killing living beings. I disagree that this is a huge leap. Given enough time in dehumanizing conditions like that, every animal becomes just a hunk of flesh, rather than a being with complex feelings and experiences.
And I’m not naive enough to believe that this kind of work doesn’t attract particularly sadistic people.
I totally agree, we should treat animals the same as we treat humans. I really don’t understand why so many people value animal lives lesser to those of humans.
If I’m not mistaken, any properly prepared meat (muscle tissue) should be fine. Most disorders caused by cannibalism happen when consuming brain matter, which, at least for the most part, humans largely don’t eat the brains of any animal…
I get why people are opposed to it, and I’d never force anyone to eat anything that they didn’t want to. But the fact is, if you only eat the meat/muscle, like we do with other animals, and you prepare it much in the same way through proper handling and cooking, it’s generally not hazardous to your health.
It becomes a problem when you start eating other parts beyond the muscles… Honestly, as long as we’re not breeding humans for meat, and the individual who has expired is okay with their remains being eaten, then I don’t really see any problem with it personally.
I don’t think many, if any, people would consent to their body becoming food for their fellow man after they die, but if they did, I don’t really see a problem with doing it, provided proper food safety is considered (as with any meat).
In general the only time this has happened where people have been pretty okay with the fact that it happened is in cases of extreme desperation, like being trapped on a mountain in freezing cold temperatures after a plane crash, with no food aside from the other (already deceased) passengers… In those cases most of society turns a blind eye saying “they did what they had to do to survive” or some other rationalization.
Well additionally, meat is usually best tasting when the animal is more or less culled during the prime of their life, so not only would a young person have to be prescient enough to write a will, but be in the very small percentage of young people who also desire to be eaten.
This argument, even from a cold logical standpoint, still strikes me as rather nonsensical, as anyone who might actually desire this wjo had thought it through, would have had extensive life experience to come to such a conclusion. This would result in an elderly person essentially saying, “please eat my tough not succulent flesh after I pass away.”
i’d love to have a bbq/funeral were i to die, but unfortunately, in the US, the things you can legally have done with your corpse are pretty limited. basically, you don’t own your body after you die, and neither does anyone else, so you’ve gotta pick from a short list of allowed post-mortem activities.
AFAIK, you are correct. The prion diseases are primarily a risk from consuming brains. However, meat can get contaminated during the slaughtering and butchering process. so eating animals (or people) that have prion diseases is usually strongly discouraged. Especially since prion diseases can take years to show up in people.
It’s also a problem with Chronic Wasting Disease in deer.
It we were living off the good graces of another species who raised us, I guess we'd have no choice in the matter if we were fed other humans, just like these animals
You fucking evil dip shit. We raise those animals to die for our pleasure and you’re acting like they’re a houseguest who overstayed their welcome. Fuck you. I’d call you swine but you don’t deserve to be included in such good company.
Lmao what? Would you feel the same if some extraterrestrial beings just landed here on earth and started to breed us to be as fat as quick as possible so they can eat us? Would you thank them for their good graces?
Other than possible health concerns, I have no moral issues with eating humans that died from some other cause. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong about it, it’s a cultural thing.
Not just “don’t care”, people actively mock and deride those who try to spread awareness.
I think we all know how fucked up the meat industrial complex is, we just don’t want to face it and feel guilty about the ease of access to something so nice.
Also not to mention the huuuge amounts of propganda by Big Meat
Man, a lot of you Americans need to unionize. None of this happens at my work and it’s precisely because we’re unionized and have a contract that specifically says that our employer is bound by strict rules. Granted, we don’t get a month paid vacation, but we can’t be denied time off, can’t be compelled to be on call, can’t be forced to work overtime and we have PTO accounts, healthcare and a pension that get paid into on a weekly basis.
We try and then it’s taken over by corrupt lazy union bosses that don’t actually help or the company just fires you under an at will employment lie and hires scabs. The government has essentially been infiltrated by corporate American to pass legislation allowing them to break unions easier. Lobbying is our problem, not the lack of unions atm.
Over half of Congress would be indicted on corruption if we really gave a shit about threats to our society like the current political theatre claims.
It’s nice to see the latest upswing in labor actions in the US, but the labor movement isn’t what it used to be that’s for sure. Even the way the history of labor is taught now is completely whitewashed and decoupled from any notion of class conflict. Take the history of civil right’s organizers for instance and the connection with labor, MLK is the big one but also Randolph, the famous “I Have A Dream” speech at the March on Washington (“-for Jobs and Labor” is usually left out of the title nowadays.) Also the Jim Crow order is purely seen as a racist order, which is accurate, but the means by which it was designed to deal with the Populists in the late 19th century because of the threat they were as a political force. It’s even in the culture war shit that goes on now, Bud Light for instance, none of that “conversation” ever touched on the fact they were basically forced to first hire queer people because of Teamsters labor pressure and gay bar boycotting their beer.
I think the militant conflicts like Harlan country are pretty well known but again it’s like the class notions are removed in today’s recollections and how it’s taught. It’s focused on some individuals who wanted better wages vs the bad guy running the mine, not about the inherent conflicts between these workers and the owners by design of the economic system, and how that still pervades today. It’s seen as something from the past.
That’s objectively bullshit that is given the lie by the fact that unionized workers, on average, are far better paid and have much better benefits than their non-union equivalents.
You clearly know next to nothing about union organizing and are spouting a bunch of bullshit disinformation that’s been fed to you by big money interests.
Is that your fault? No, not really. You’ve been fed a metric shitload of bullshit all your life and you have never been told the truth and as such can’t be blamed for your ignorance.
The truth is that under the NLRB --and the Biden NLRB is the most labor-friendly in living history-- you have the right to organize and cannot legally be fired for doing so and if you are, you have grounds for a lawsuit that plenty of non-profit attorneys will help you prosecute on principle.
“but we get paid so much more” /s. I’ve heard this before from people in the tech sector, ignoring the fact that should the shit hit the fan we Americans have no social programs to assist us. I’d take half my pay to get what people in Europe are guaranteed.
Just to fight against the hive mind that America is a uniform hell scape. People from my team routinely dip with only a few days notice for vacations and sometimes because they feel like they need a day off.
Frankly I don’t take my PTO but that’s more of a personal problem than my work’s. I was a workaholic through college because frankly I’m not outstandingly smart, and I don’t feel comfortable taking it now. It’s a mental problem that I wish didn’t get minimized so often here.
Unions are a way to resolve long term labor disputes without large scale vandalism and homicide, because throughout history angry desperate men have always done desperate things. It’s a lesson usually learned the hard way.
Not so soon. Only if Putin looses power and coalition of Pirate Party, Communist Party and maybe Russia of the future(if they will survive) gains it. And maybe 20-50 years to restore from Putin.
It amazes me that one of the largest countries in the world, with the most diverse demographics, can only chose between two candidates. This is not democracy. It’s a shit show that has been going on for far too long.
Said by a man who ran a country that outlawed all but the party he was prime minister of. He was probably a little salty about criticism over the lack of democracy in his country.
The USA is proud to have the oldest and longest-standing written constitution. The fact it hasn’t been rewriteen in a long time help explain why there’s still an electoral college, slavery for prisoners (13th amendements), and weak regulation of campaign finance.
Which is honestly meaningless but very convenient for US narrations. There were also older de facto constitutions, which are usually forgotten like the Henrician Articles of P-L Commonwealth. US constitution is famous because it was the one which was loudly proclaimed and imitated later.
That’s not how it works. As long as FPTP exists, it will lock us into two parties. We have had multiple party systems that all demonstrated this principle. Some places are experimenting with alternatives on the state and local level, but it will take time.
You’ve already got one response to this which is correct. I want to add to it to help explain how FPTP voting systems result in a 2 party system and simply voting for another party does not solve the issue.
But first you’re either aware of the problem and want to encourage people to vote third party while pretending not to know how the system works or you’re actually just ignorant to the issue.
I don’t normally like video links in discussions like this but this one is especially good and is only 6.5 mins.
The presidential vote is where it’s fixed. Republicans have already moved to ban other voting types calling them ‘too complicated’. Democrats will join them the second their duopoly is endangered.
Just like how they crack down on student protests and block ballot access for third parties, Democrats have no standards either.
Strange you’re including Republican in there. You believe Biden is winning right? So your money should be on Biden and any other winner would make you lose.
you’re either aware of the problem and want to encourage people to vote third party while pretending not to know how the system works or you’re actually just ignorant to the issu
It is kind of amazing how even those disenfranchised voters will rally to support the hegemony of the “two party” corporatist rule. I suggested recently we could consider rallying behind a single issue 3rd party candidate who would end the legalized bribes and replace FPTP with a more democratic alternative, and was immediately downvoted and told it’s not possible due to FPTP.
It is theoreticaly possible, but praticaly speaking it would be near impossible.
To acomplish this, you need to get 51% of the population (who actually vote) to all vote for one person. However, with FPTP, you get one choice on the ballot. Is the average voter going to risk their vote on a 3rd party, or vote for who they belive to be the “lesser evil” of the two that have a shot at winning?
Even if you do manage to get 51%, there’s the electoral collage. Never forget, our democracy has built in the ability to overwrite the presidential vote.
Your first hurdle is getting any one to name an independent candidate.
I agree with this. But also, this time is the closest to “end of the world” stakes we’ve had in recent memory. We have a literal criminal, rapist, and fraudster who already tried to overthrow the government once leading the polls.
The shitty thing is by the time my states primary pretty much every else has dropped out. We need to run the primary like a real election not piecemeal.
I understand what you are trying to say. Ultimately, there are only two to vote for. Ideally, there should be more than two parties, and more than two candidates. That’s how democracies work. What you have is a dysfunctional system that divides people in two groups, and there are no incentives to cooperate between parties. Proper voting is also suffering due to the two-party system.
In my country, the parties with the majority of votes and the ability to cooperate gets to form a government. We also try to make it easy to get people to vote, insted of your system of gerrymandering.
Yes I know, but the voting system favours the two largest. Thats why they are large. Small parties have 0% chance og getting representatives into the houses, so they are basically irrelevant.
The RNC never intended to run a candidate other than Trump because he controls MAGA, which is what remains of their energized base. The primaries they held were “just in case” Merrick Garland actually did something useful and successfully prosecuted Trump for insurrection, which never came to pass.
The DNC did everything they could to prevent primary elections from occurring in various states, and bullied anyone who was floating a run into submission. This included the state dept making calls to state DNC committees to cancel primaries, or remove certain candidates from their ballots. According to them, it was an insult to Biden admin and their legacy to even suggest another candidate should run. And now look where that’s gotten us.
So no, we didn’t actually vote in primaries this year because the establishment refuses to relinquish the status quo.
Not the Mac n cheese for the last like 20+ years. It used to use real cheese and really did taste better. I know the internet got all uppity against kraft a while back, claiming they started making the noodle portion worse somewhere around 2016 or something, but that’s nothing compared to the big taste difference that happened when they stopped using real cheese.
Look, some people just can’t digest it. As you get older, your ability to process mac’n’cheese without dire intestinal consequences drops off substantially. The pros just simply aren’t worth the cons, not by a long shot.
Lactose intolerance is more common than lactose tolerance globally. In the unites states, something like 1 in 3 people are lactose intolerant.
It’s largely genetic. Lactose tolerance can be traced to nomadic tribes that kept milk producing animals as a food source, adapting to tolerate lactose in their diet over time.
Sure, but I figured that lactose intolerance would typically manifest before the age of, say, 20. I didn’t realize that people could become lactose intolerant as seniors.
I hate selfies, so whenever I’m on vacation I just take pictures of my surroundings but never with me in it. Once, my cousin wanted to see my vacation pics, so I showed them to him. He then asked why I’m not in any of them. When I said I didn’t think it was necessary, his genuine confused reply was, “But how do people know you were really there, then?”
This is how I take pictures, I take pictures of the things I am seeing so I can look back at those moments later. I don’t experience life in third person, observing myself from overhead like a video game, so why would I want myself in the pictures?
the neat part is they don’t. unless you tell them about the trip. I too only take pictures of my surroundings, with my camera app, for myself, without the intend of sharing more than maybe one of them. unless I happend to put something on a family group chat or something
I have a counterpoint. I used to be the same way but then I realized I just had a bunch of amateur photos of places where professional photos were readily available, basically wasted effort. So now I try to capture the people I’m with in the photos as a way to remember our trip together. This is also great fodder to make photo books for the grandmas.
Same for me. I took multiple trips as a young adult where I just took scenery photos. Twenty years later I really regretted not including myself and family in those photos. Think of yourself in the future and skip sharing them online.
I’m the same when I’m going on a vacation with my parents! I want to have as much memories captured with them as possible… But it’s only when I’m with them lol. I usually go to vacations solo, and the pictures without me is still memories to me–even if it’s a bad picture and not professional quality, it’s still something I saw and experienced myself. Like maybe my sunset picture I took is crooked or too dark etc, but when I see it I remember the moment I was there; it captured exact hue of the sky that I saw, the birds that I was watching earlier, the clouds that I thought looked like a Pokemon and made me smile. The better pictures that other people took do not have that, so for me personally, it’s not a wasted effort.
The other day I was looking at my solo vacation pictures from 10, 15 years ago without me in them, and the memories are still with me.
Anyway, I think that although we take them differently, we both agree that vacation pictures should be for our memories, and not for “showing other people that we were REALLY there” (as my cousin said, haha…)
One time I found this old home movie my grandma made of their visit to the Grand Canyon back in the 50s. She’s filming the scenery and a couple times you can barely see my dad and uncles run by. We’re watching this in the mid ’00s – 50 years later, near the end of her life. She goes “Why didn’t I point the camera at them? I don’t care about the Grand Canyon."
That’s when I quit taking pictures without people in them.
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