• SomeLemmyUser@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 year ago

    Agree with you in general, but I think a lot if people here are not really informed what differences there are materialistic ideologies.

    Yes, Stalin bad.

    But Guevara is not Stalin.

    Marx is not che

    Engels is not Marx

    China is not communist.

    Marxism is not materialism

    Socialism is not communism

    Also the amount of people bringing the “the 3 times people tried socialism were bad, so the whole ideology must be bad” argument are way to high IMHO.

    How many times was capitalism tried? How many times it worked out? Is the USA a “functioning” state with all the oppression, racism, greed, invading other countries out of monetarian interest and environment destruction?

    While I agree with you, that oppression is bad, no matter what the oppressor calls himself, we should talk about policies without resorting to dogmas and generalising people in favor of fear the hegemonic class is propagating to stay in power.

      • TrashcanMarxist@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Should probably listen to Blowback Season 3.

        Not to say they’re a perfect country but to pretend that anyone in the West can critique them when their material conditions are dictated by the actions of the West is just comical.

        If you aren’t a materialist, what are you even doing? As if history happens in the realm of pure thought…

          • TrashcanMarxist@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            Something something worlds largest prison population?

            Again, it’s not like North Korea is some shining example or anything, but to pretend that the west has the moral high ground here is laughable.

            Again, listen to Blowback Season 3, recognize that their country was basically bombed to the stone age Curtis le may style and then maybe reevaluate, just a little, the chauvinist attitude.

            DPRK is not a great country but it’s not as if they were ever given a chance either.

            • Sekoia@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              1 year ago

              Yeah, the US prison system is absolutely abhorrent and counterethical to all the principles it’s supposed to hold.

              First, the US is basically the only western country like that:tm:, second, more than one thing can be bad. “‘North Korea is a great country’ is a dumb position”, the only (implied) assertion I made about it in my original comment, is still true, even if they got dealt a shit hand (which, so did most of the east after WW2; South Korea was in a pretty similar state (it was actually worse than NK shortly after the Korean war), yet they’re doing… much better than NK at least).

              Being “basically bombed to the stone age” doesn’t mean a dictatorship is inevitable, nor that their government is suddenly blameless; being victimized doesn’t mean you can victimize others.

              Genuinely, if you take “the west” as a whole and compare it to North Korea… yeah, I do think they have a high ground. No, I’m not saying the west is perfect, far from it. No, I’m not saying communism is automatically bad, I’m totally cool with communists.

              Basically my base position is “a functional democracy is the governance system that works the best”. Most western states are much closer to that than North Korea (yes, I know what the Electoral College is and why it’s bad), so I do think their political system is better.

              • RedMarsRepublic@vlemmy.net
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                1 year ago

                All of the so called ‘functional democracies’ of the West are abysmal, China has 94% government satisfaction where I doubt there’s one western country over 50% (and the US is at 24%)

              • TrashcanMarxist@sh.itjust.works
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                1 year ago

                I still wonder why you’re so obsessed with North Korea. It’s not like the South wasn’t also a dictatorship until very recently. I wonder what the difference in economic outcomes was. Surely not the political system but instead the different material conditions between south and north i.e. embargo and isolation.

                Again, I don’t think that NK is the best example of AES, in fact their country is probably the worst. But I don’t think the people who have produced the economic emisseration of the country and have worked to undermine its regime at every term get to scold them about their political choices.

                Why should democracy be privileged when the choices of that democracy, at least internationally, are immoral. Should we praise democracy when it produces an evil outcome? Why are you so wedded to a system? After all democracy produces trans and drag bans in the south. Is that good? This isn’t to say dictatorship is superior, I don’t think it necessarily is, but to pretend the virtue is in the system rather than the outcome is pretty lib. If democracy produces fascism is it still good? If we throw our trans friends or homeless into the wood chipper because voters say it’s good with 51% of the vote, does that legitimate it?

            • IriYan@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              The country that holds the record for number and percentage of people in prison is the US. In the US the percentage of black people in prison was higher than the percentage of black people in prison in South Africa during apartheid.

              No other western/industrialized (at some stage) nation has had so many political exilees and people whose citizenship was revoked based on “anti-american” views than the US. At some point the general secretary of RCP was in exile in France with his citizenship revoked. So, not all states are equal, and their historic development as modern capitalist states should be studied within context.

    • SuddenDownpour@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      When a liberal says “tankie” they mean anything remotely communist-looking. When a leftist says “tankie”, they mean authoritarians who like red flags and self-proclaimed communists who nonetheless support hierarchies and have no plan or intention to bring them down. I think the vast majority of people here knows this already.

    • 𝔊𝔦𝔫𝔧𝔲𝔱𝔰𝔲@lemmy.world
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      Is the USA a “functioning” state with all the oppression, racism, greed, invading other countries out of monetarian interest and environment destruction?

      I hope you realize that this is an incredibly privileged take. The US is rife with issues, but the hardships experienced by the average western citizen doesn’t even compare to the suffering that you would find in, say, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, or (to a less extreme extent) Maduro’s Venezuela. To compare what a US citizen deals with on a daily basis due to capitalism to what a citizen of any of those countries had to go through is very reductive and may be perceived as disrespectful to many who had to live those experiences.

      • proletariatnerd@iusearchlinux.fyi
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        1 year ago

        The US is rife with issues, but the hardships experienced by the average western citizen doesn’t even compare to the suffering that you would find in, say, Pol Pot’s Cambodia

        I have some fellas from Detroit that would disagree.

      • Definitely_me@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 year ago

        The United States, for all it’s faults, is the pretty side of capitalism.you don’t even need to look to the most poor countries to see a standard of living that makes even directly post ww2 soviet union look like a great place.

      • SomeLemmyUser@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 year ago
        1. Im not from USA, and from my point of view its mich worse than most other countries (no healthcare, no independend courts, murder sprees in schools nearly every day, opression of half of the world (a half of them just to get more oil to destroy the planet faster), one of 3 of the biggest war-pushers in whole earth, polutes and destroys earth mode than every other country per citizens, etc. PP.)

        2. capitalism mostly opresses and profits from people out of the country to Funktion. if its Bad in Venezuela or Cuba or Afghanistan, or even early russia, thats at least partly fault of US.

        3. Venezuela is not communism, China isnt, russia isnt. Most of them have failed, at least partly because caputalist societys atack them and stop a as soon as they are born and they can’t form a stable democracy. Before reading Marx, your bashing of communism isnt worth anything, as you clearly don’t understand what you are talking about. We never had communism, and some would say not even socialism. You sound like you don’t even know the difference, since you keep talking about communism, which is a utopian society after humanity has stopped a lot of bad habits and has learned to live without working against each other in competition and working together instead, which arises maybe after generations of workig socialism, which we clearly didn’t have.

        4.you exactly prove my point. I dont agree with tankies either, but the number of people around here blindly copying capitalist propaganda while understanding nothing they bash about is too damm high.

        • RaoulDook@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          You have a warped view of USA that doesn’t reflect reality. You’re seeing it through the lens of sensationalist news media and hyperventilating social media posts.

          The actual reality for Americans is that it’s a vast, beautiful land with an amazing spectrum of various experience. Violent crime is rare overall, and most Americans have never seen or heard any gun violence in person. Health care is available to pretty much everyone, even if you don’t have money. We have state-run healthcare facilities that the poor can make use of like county health departments.

          My life in the USA is great, because I don’t live in a big city. I live on my own land, in a nice house that I own, and I’m just middle class income level. It’s pretty easy to accomplish if you choose a low cost of living area rather than a big metropolis or suburb thereof.

      • Cynosure@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Well of course the standard of living in the imperial core is higher than the countries it has exploited or destabilized. A lot of American wealth is the fruit of imperialism.

  • BlinkerFluid@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    Thank fuck. I thought Lemmy was some ultra militant leftist hellhole before the shift.

    I don’t like extreme radical left any more than extreme radical right.

    Fuck Che Guevara. Read a book.

            • river@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              the US state department dogma must be a much better read😌

              lmao

              How will you perform a non-authoritarian revolution? How will you quash racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc.? By being polite?

              the main idea is dual power structures. spreading awareness, and people will do whats necessary, mobilize, organize, all that fun stuff. if u can teach people about the struggles of marginalized groups, they will be able to recognize it in their own lives and stand up against it.

              Or are you going to vote us towards communism🤩

              and there wont be a need for political parties to enforce “compliance”, people are naturally empathetic. well not all people, but the vast majority.

              And I have plenty more books, but go on🤗

              try “Are you an anarchist? the answer might surprise you” by David Graeber, if ur ever looking for something else.

              or “Anarchy works” by Peter Gelderloos for a more comprehensive description of these ideas.

        • ATGM 🚀@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          Do you know its possible to read books and disagree with them?

          The ML obsession with treating books as religious tomes is getting tiring.

    • SunsetFruitbat@lemmygrad.ml
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      Che Guevara did a lot of good for people, like the people of Cuba. Considering he fought, and helped Cuba free itself from being a colony to the United States and against Batista. I didn’t know people fighting for the right to not be under colonial rule and have their own self determination is “extreme”.

      Also maybe go check out “On revolutionary medicine” by Che Guevara. I’ll also leave this quote from him.

      …the life of a single human being, is worth a million times more than all the property of the richest man on earth…

  • animelivesmatter@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 year ago

    finds social media developed by tankies

    looks inside

    finds tankies

    fr I’m down with having a good old purge eventually but noone should be surprised

  • buckykat@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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    1 year ago

    What are some good actual communist lemmy communities that aren’t supporting the fucking capitalist imperialist russian invasion?

      • Discoslugs@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        That’s the unfortunate thing.

        Start criticizing the Soviet union and you’ll end up with a bunch of people left bashing in general.

          • Discoslugs@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Okay Stalin’s Moustache,

            Listen there’s more kinds of people than liberals tankies, and fascists.

            There are also anarchist who can critizes these three groups ( and others) with out being within them.

            I have no problem with ML and other comrades of various flavors but if your going to be really Into to stalin your not going to be working with me.

            You should read about the Spanish civil war.

              • Discoslugs@lemmy.world
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                Sure. There are plenty of people who are anarchists, who are people I would not work with. Like armchair anarchists.

                And the word “tankie” does get used by armchair anarchists A lot often inappropriatly.

                But still tankie is a valid crique of Red fascism.

                And if you are a person who believes In communism, and can see it’s benefits but are unable to see it’s faults your probably a tankie.

                Please remember on multiple instances The Soviets turned their back on anarchists. Like in the Spanish civil war.

          • Silverstrings@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            1 year ago

            To tankies fascist means opposing whatever flavor of authoritarian “communism” they prefer regardless of the reasons or context. This conveniently allows any number of pogroms, mass slaughters or engineered famines to be reframed as anti-fascist action, rather than a brutal expression of state power at the expense of the working class.

          • argv_minus_one@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            Then what would you have me call people who make excuses for invasion, oppression, and genocide just because it was committed by the Russian or Chinese government instead of a western one?

        • Frod@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          “tankies” criticize the Soviet union, you know? They also criticize the ebil See See Pee but apparently there’s no room for nuance

          • gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world
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            What’s your definition of “tankie”? If you’re willing to call out Putin’s homophobic journalist murdering authoritarian bullshit and the Chinese government’s massacring of protesters and genociding of ethnic minorities you’re not a tankie imo, you’re just a communist.

              • aski3252@lemmy.world
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                Westerners slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Iraqis for decades on end, and it was fine because we labeled them all terrorists.

                No, it wasn’t fine, that’s kinda the point… It isn’t fine when the west does it, it’s not fine when others do it too…

                • ATGM 🚀@beehaw.org
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                  It’s pretty typical tankie behavior that we’re seeing.

                  When you say it’s bad that Stalin implemented genocidal policies such as against the Krim Tartars, Kalmykks and other ethnic groups, they come back with wHaT aBoUt aMeRiCa.

                  They know that both things can be bad, but they have similar incentives to right-fascists. That is to say they’re liars.

    • HornyOnMain🏳️‍⚧️@lemmy.ml
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      didn’t they have a problem with people doing alt-right dogwhistles about anti-white racism recently? and it got so bad that they had to make a mod announcement telling people to stop doing it and all of the users started trying to explain to the mods how it definitely wasn’t a right wing dogwhistle