fixed cyberghost's "meme"
fixed cyberghost's "meme"
fixed cyberghost's "meme"
Fidel Castro is morally superior to every US president.
Based
A very low bar that Fidel soars over without even getting close. Even Gaddafi and Assad are better than every US President lmao
No shot on that.
That's not saying much.
Counterpoint: Fidel is the reason Trudeau exists
Jimmy Carter?
Supplied arms to support genocide in Indonesia, among other crimes. Him building homes now is just some light penance before he's shipped off to hell. https://fair.org/media-beat-column/jimmy-carter-and-human-rights-behind-the-media-myth/
Set up all the groundwork for funding the Mujahideen terrorists in Afghanistan, the funding of the dictatorship and death squads in El Salvadore, setting up the groundwork for the fuckery Reagan did with Iran-Contra.
Carter also jumpstarted neoliberalism rot monetization and the drive to privatize. Willingly laid the foundation for Reagan.
Prepare for the 14year Olds on hexbear to come in and pretend that China has a great government
You know, that actually makes sense. 14-year-olds. It would explain a lot about hexbears.
Yeah, the Chinese government is totally very democratic and is receptive to the criticism of its citizens! They never censor words and topics they don't like on their social media platforms!
It also respects women so much and represents them very proportionally
Just got banned from Hexbear for saying something negative about China and the US at the same time. They have no tolerance of any discussion that challenges their preconceptions.
Very interesting how all those "pretend socialists" only exist in the third world, and all the "real socialists" existin the west. Yet all the successful revolutions have been done in the third world by "pretend socialists", and the so called "real socialists" in the west have accomplished nothing. Their biggest success of the "real socialists" in the west being capitalist welfare states or social democracies that rely on old school imperial relationships to fund their welfare in a select few areas.
No Eurocentrism present to this line of thought here at all...
What do you think of Nelson Mandela OP? He was a very good leader, right? You know that he considered Cuba an ally and supported their revolution as Cuba sent troops to fight against the apartheid government in the border wars, took inspiration from Mao and called the Chinese revolution a miracle, thanked the Soviets for giving unending support in the fight against apartheid while receiving the a Lenin Peace Prize? So is Nelson Mandela now a fascist according to your meme?
"Authoritarian" is completely drtetmined by
You exposed their ass
Nelson Mandela was not a great man. At least not great enough to be so admired while F.W De Klerk had his funeral protested (F.W De Klerk helped end Apartheid).
Nelson Mandela did no more besides be a figurehead and help make a constitution that no one (not even when he was in power) follows. The ANC is corrupt to this day
I'm South African, I know who F.W de Klerk is. Don't lie about what he did, there's a reason he was unanimously booed while receiving his joint noble peace prize. He didn't help end apartheid, he was forced into a position where it was the only viable option. Pure pragmatism. He was a member of the NP for many years, he willingly joined that organisation at the height of apartheid in 1972. If he was actually interested in ending fighting apartheid, he would have joined a liberation movement, not the apartheid party.
de Klerk was an apartheid president that was so corrupt he ordered the incineration of evidence of his, and his parties, corruption and crimes against humanity to be carried out by industrial steel smelters. Not to mention what he did with all the "third force" shenanigans towards the end of apartheid that almost caused civil war. It's been revealed that he knew all about it. Or all the racist things he said later in life that revealed his true character, such as refusing to call apartheid a crime against humanity. Yes, I also used to be a liberal that thought de Klerk was a good guy that helped end apartheid, that was until I actually decided to do some research into the matter. Nelson Mandela said it best when it comes to de Klerk:
"Despite his seemingly progressive actions, Mr de Klerk was by no means the great emancipator...He did not make any of his reforms with the intention of putting himself out of power. He made them for precisely the opposite reason: to ensure power for the Afrikaner in a new dispensation."
Yes the ANC is now extremely corrupt, it was effectively couped by corporate interests in the late 90s and early 2000s. Remember the move from RPD to GEAR? Thabo Mbeki and Trevor Manuel? Ramaphosa running away to make money in McDonalds and mining instead of succeeding Mandela? Leaving the door open for Mbeki to become president, a self described Thacherite who instituted austerity measures, underfund Eskom and give South Africa it's first bout of load shedding, and denied that HIV causes AIDS, killing hundreds of thousands in the process? This all paved the way for Zuma's corruption and ineptitude, and for Ramaphosa to come back, even after his shameful involvement in Marikana. Yes the ANC is shamefully corrupt, incompetent and useless, and it's interesting to look at exactly how it got to that position.
Nelson Mandela was not a great man.
Im going to come by your homestead with a handgun past midnight and make you feel true fear, Afrikaner maggot
OP determining whether to believe the US about socialist movements
Also look up double genocide theory and stop trivializing the holocaust by calling communists fascists.
OP is not calling communists fascists. OP is calling the dictators pretending to be communist, fascists!
The initial meme included basically all communist countries, they mean communists.
Also which communist countries had dictators again?
Sorry, who were the communists during the holocaust?
Do you mean the german ones thrown in the camps or the soviet leadership who were the last of the eventual allied powers to do any sort of appeasement with Hitler (after exhausting all attempts to form an alliance with Britain and France) because communism is less aligned with fascist goals than liberalism is aligned with fascist goals, massive underexageration mine? Do you mean the communist low level officials who helped in a massive ethnic relocation program to move vulnerable minorities out of the way of the eventual german invasion? Or do you mean the population of the only communist nation which lost 26 million people, around 1/6th of their population, stopping the holocaust?
Or were you referring to the joke about racism? If so, you gotta look up how the population of the USSR was not considered white at the time. Emma Goldman for example basically called Stalin a slanty eyed conniving Asian, for example. Nowadays slavs are still called orcs and shit by westerners.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...
First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists And I did not speak out Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews And I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me And there was no one left To speak out for me
Cuba is a beacon of progress and humanity in the Americas. Fidel Castro was a hero. Also a pro at dodging the CIA's kill squads.
Cuba did some good things - in education, in medicine - but if it's such a wonderful country, why is everything there a decaying flashback to the 1950s where everything is falling apart?
Lmao, that's a testament to communist Cuba's success. No other form of government could withstand a US embargo for a year and not collapse. Cuba has withstood for DECADES and has surpassed the US in life expectancy. The buildings are kinda shabby, but homelessness, infant mortality, illiteracy are all LOWER than the US, the richest country in the history of the world.
"Why is everything manufactured in other countries from before the embargo started"
American foreign policy since the cuban revolution has openly and intentionally been aimed at depriving Cubans of food in the hopes that the people would revolt. It's being denied the ability to trade with other sovereign nations at the barrel of a gun.
Because the US has been embargoing it for 50 years to prevent it from getting everything it needs.
The UN regularly votes on the US embargo of Cuba, and only the US and its lapdog Israel support it.
are you trolling or have you actually not heard that Cuba has been embargoed for decades
Death to America
why is everything there a decaying flashback to the 1950s where everything is falling apart?
It might be that the capitalist world power next door has had an embargo on them since the 1950s. And look at all they've accomplished despite that. Now imagine what they'd have accomplished had they been allowed to thrive.
so you know how Cuba is a small island nation with a population less than some cities that traditionally relied on exports of raw materials like sugar and tobacco. Yeah well that's why it isn't as rich as major industrial economies
If you compare Cuba with another Carribean nation for example Haiti Cuba is doing far better in literally every quality of life metric
punches you in the face
stop hitting yourself nerd
Maybe because they are economically blockaded yk? 🤔
I agree. Fascist countries like Denmark, Germany and Canada often get called "socialist" and they have been disastrous for the reputation of socialism.
You are certainly American but that's especially stupid, is it a troll?
try asking a real question and you might learn something
Or pour hot mountian dew down your computer so we don't have to see your posts anymore
I think its sarcasm
Would you like more resources or is this enough?
https://www.businessinsider.com/denmark-strict-immigration-policies-ghetto-neighborhoods-2018-7
https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/03/16/denmarks-mismatched-treatment-syrian-and-ukrainian-refugees
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/08/18/germany-afd-polls-krah/
Of course /s. Germany, with Fuhrer Schultz, Denmark with Grand Admiral Frederiksen (I had to look it up lmao), and Canada with Supreme Commander Trudeau. All of them are actively involved in passing legislation against socialists and Muslims. All of them are involved in gathering Muslims into re-education camps. When socialists protested their respective governments for starting to become capitalist, they were run over by tanks. Also, all of these governments prevent their citizens from accessing the internet outside their own countries. Agreed! Very fascist indeed!
Would you like more resources or is this enough?
https://www.businessinsider.com/denmark-strict-immigration-policies-ghetto-neighborhoods-2018-7
https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/03/16/denmarks-mismatched-treatment-syrian-and-ukrainian-refugees
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/08/18/germany-afd-polls-krah/
Also, all of these governments prevent their citizens from accessing the internet outside their own countries
if this comment is anything to go by that's just a massive W for them
Nothing more ‘socialist’ than supporting the current world order but with some welfare
Lemmygrad user detected
Opinion discarded
Neocolonialism in the streets, social welfare in the sheets. Social democracy is neither democratic nor social (except if we're talking about socialising the rampant exploitation of the developing world, I guess?)
You have a lifetime of anti communist propaganda to overcome. You're close, take the last step and realize you've been lied to about AES countries. No place is a utopia, but those countries are lights in the dark.
Internationalism is the most important aspect of socialism. If you choose to believe nationalist western propganda over people you should be in solidarity with, you will only help your oppressors
Well said camarada.
What is an AES country?
“Actually Existing Socialism”
Keep drinking the flavor aide.
If they're so nice, why not live there?
That's a fair question. There's a reason why authoritarian nations don't have immigration issues, unlike virtually all of the west.
People aren't stupid; they can pretty easily see through nationalist bullshit and figure out which, if they have to leave their own country, are going to be the best countries to land in.
Guess what? Nobody wants to immigrate to Russia or China or Cuba or Venezuela. Full stop.
those countries are lights in the dark
That's what North Koreans see at night when they look across the border towards South Korea.
The US prevented a democratic unified korea and killed 20 percent of all Koreans. MacArthur had to have his nuclear command secreted away to prevent him nuking Korea.
Read about it or if youre not into reading listen to the blowback season.
The US bombed and firebombed until there were "no more targets in Korea." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_North_Korea Examine the primary sources if you like, they're decent. It was comparable to genocide.
And now we point and laugh at the DPRK for being less developed than the US-backed South?
Sanctions are hilarious! Bet the leveling of the country during the Korean war was a real laight too.
The pure (libertarian) socialists' ideological anticipations remain untainted by existing practice. They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be avoided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priorities set, and production and distribution conducted. Instead, they offer vague statements about how the workers themselves will directly own and control the means of production and will arrive at their own solutions through creative struggle. No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except the ones that succeed.
At least it's something new instead of a method that has failed to bring about socialism time and time again through history. All those transitory government systems just end up being dictatorships that give as much power to the workers as the fucking US, less even.
You will never achieve socialism if you just prop up a ruling class with vastly different class interests, they will never cede power to the workers.
You aren’t new you are in a tradition of 200 years of stepping onto rakes. Your face plant is not innovative
It's very far from new, and it has failed entirely to bring about socialism time and time again through history.
You will never achieve socialism if you just passively support the status quo while condemning all forms of AES for not being pure enough.
Look, I agree that it's dumb to call yourself a socialist and have zero respect for most attempts at socialism, especially when your critique doesn't come from anything serious but just parroting of cold war propaganda. I agree that these countries weren't literally the devil, nor fascist, not "pretending", that's all fine.
But it's still so dishonest of MLs to dig for quotes and smugly boastbout how "libertarians never succeed". Even if we completely ignore all the very explicit and deliberate attempts at sabotage anarchists had to endure from their statist "comrades" (which we shouldn't but we always casually seem to be forced to do in the name of "unity"), it doesn't change the fact that vanguardist revolutions have all been incredibly flawed too.
You all are very often willing to recognize your failures, most of the people like you I have talked to seem to agree that at some point the revolution was "hijacked", usurped, corrupted, lost aim, usually coinciding with a figure they don't like taking over the revolutionary government and messing things up.
The supposed "strong state that crushes all opposition" being taken over by the reformist opposition and then the capitalist one in the case of the USSR and Leninists. The market reforms of Deng in the case of China and Maoists. But you all never seem to ask yourselves the question "Why was that allowed to happen?". Why am I supposed to put my trust in some authoritarian bullshit solution specifically justified as a means to protect the revolution when it failed at doing so? Why do you have to be so smug and condescending at me for not trusting in things that didn't work?
Why do you instead of learning from the mistakes in your methods that most of the time you yourself recognize and trying to come up with new ideas and systems for the current age, insist on still clinging to material analysis of the world of a hundred years ago as the gospel, the sole undying and absolute truth on how to Make Socialism, merely saying "it'll totally work right this time" instead? Why do you insist on mocking and """dunking""" on anyone who refuses to do that?
They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be avoided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priorities set, and production and distribution conducted.
This is all completely false. It genuinely is just lies. You can disagree with the explanations, but to claim there literally aren't any is just ignorance and a complete lack of good faith. Look, if you're a socialist in the internet, you probably have dealt with confidently incorrect liberals whining about strawmen that you don't believe, because they haven't read anything about it - and it's probably been incredibly frustrating. So why do you never think twice before doing the same thing with anarchists?
I'm always told to read Lenin and a ton of authoritarian essays and I always do in good faith, but it's extremely rare for me to ever be afforded the same honour, and then all the conversations I have end up with people telling me shit like this and me having to explain anarchism 101 to them because they genuinely don't actually know anything.
No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except the ones that succeed.
I am also always told to be charitable and nuanced about the failures and mistakes of vanguardist revolutions, but no one ever has the same honour with anarchist ones.
I am quoting Parenti. You'll need to read Blackshirts & Reds to get an answer -- that's where the quote is from -- or one of his other books.
Instead, they offer vague statements about how the workers themselves will directly own and control the means of production and will arrive at their own solutions through creative struggle.
No, it's pretty simple. It's called "profit sharing" where workers get the lions share of profits. It's more realistic than alternatives in a country that thinks Joe Biden is a communist.
Not sure what your point here is mate
Oh shit it’s the person from the original meme
When you give everyone in your nation a house, food, and healthcare while protecting yourself from the West that's actually fascism.
Land reform is authoritarianism! You can't just take other people's property. That's against the rules!
Think of the landlords.
Can't they just lift themselves up by their bootstraps?
Repeating CIA approved talking points to own the Tankies
"I'm socialist but i don't support AES and believe US State Department propaganda" is not the flex you think it is
What's your opinion on Cuba OP?
Traitors who didn't submit to the great Socialist country called the United States of America
This is what I'm expecting from them.
Cuba is an interesting one.
The problems with Cuba are political prisoners and their handling of AIDS. And a huge chunk of issues intertwined with the trade embargo.
As with all nations, it could be better, but it's far from the worst nation in the world.
Better than the US that's for sure.
Cuba is failure but you could easily argue that outside forces made that happen, and it least it’s not a giga corporatocracy calling itself communist like China is. China feels like late stage ultra capitalism with shortcuts. Yay corporations are married to the government…Pretty much where the US is headed.
Why is Cuba a failure in your eyes? It seems to be doing better than other countries in the region. It has a higher life expectancy than the US even, and standards of living have risen dramatically since the revolution.
Wtf does "Cuba if failure" mean? What a bizarre thing to say.
Also telling that you spent 95 percent of a comment that was supposed to be about Cuba ranting about China.
Educate yourself with blowback season 2.
Westerners deciding who's doing real socialism or not. Westerners expressing their most vile sentiment for foreign countries rather than their own imperialism. Westerners praising the words of their own imperialist intelligence agencies. Westerners unironically praising their own nations for civil liberties like the freedom of fascists to assemble, freedom of racists to express themselves, freedom of parents to own their children, and freedom of school districts to continue racial segregation. Westerners praising imperialist nations like Norway as socialist while using bold language like fascism to describe places under that same exact threat of imperialism, like Cuba and Vietnam.
Westerners claiming foreign governments are merely pretending to be socialist, while claiming unorganized misinformed chauvinistic westerners are the true heirs to socialism, despite all they do is post online and complain about foreign nations.
Westerners praising anarchist movements from 100 years ago despite having no common cause with those movements, no connection to the circumstances within them, and probably no actual admiration of them. Westerners praising a bastardized, sectarian, perverse form of anarchism rather than attempting unity with organizations in their areas. Westerners refusing to speak with actual anarchists in their area, who by and large don't give a shit and just want to hand out food or help at shelters. If Buenaventura Durruti were alive today he'd be regarded with scorn by western chauvinists.
Westerners continuing to bring up Trotsky of all people, who wasn't relevant to world affairs for the last 15 years of his life and certainly not the past 80 years. Westerners not reading a single word of Trotsky's work, westerners focusing entirely on Trotsky's feud with Stalin, westerners not knowing that Trotsky was a literal military commander. Westerners calling themselves Trotskyists in 2023 for some reason. Westerners deciding they have a feud with Joseph Stalin, a man who died in 1953.
Westerners attempting to praise their own socialist leadership, who happen to be a scattered group of imperialist-aligned social democrats, Twitch streamers, and actual antisemitic grifters such as in the case of Caleb Maupin.
Its hard to challenge your opinions when you gish gallup 500 talking points
You gish galloped, you ad homin-ed, you no true scotsman-ed, you one true scotsman-ed, and then you mot and bailey-ed.
Checkmate sir
500 talking points and you couldn't find a single thing to call into question
If their post is short, accuse them of not engaging properly.
If their post is long, accuse them of gish gallop.
It's hard to challenge my opinions because I'm cool as hell and I exude a pleasant aroma
Nobody's interested in becoming an anti-communist. It's you who must change your opinions because they are wrong
We're talking about 6 countries and at least 5 people in the first place, and that's only the ones named. Sorry, reality is complicated like that.
Warning: this is a hexbear user
Google "line breaks". Google "paragraphs". Thank me later
That's precisely the point. These guys have a toolbox of fallacious arguments and techniques that they regularly trot out. The Gish gallop is one of them. Another, that you see being put to wide use in this thread, is redefining words and terms to fit their narrative.
Fascism.
I'm confused, are you saying he's using it wrong?
Here's a copy paste from Webster.
often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
Replace the word race with party and you've got an incomplete yes, but not necessarily inaccurate description of Stalins USSR.
Seriously not trying to just be a troll or shill here, so if you feel I'm wrong please let me know how and why. I am legitimately, in good faith, curious about the perspectives of some communist here. It is an ideology I am somewhat interested in.
Replace the word race with party
That's a pretty significant difference, don't you think? Exalting racism and exalting a political organization that opposes racism are diametrically opposed things, not equivalent.
Replace the word race with party and you've got an incomplete yes, but not necessarily inaccurate description of Stalins USSR.
Replace the Sodium in Sodium Chloride with Hydrogen and OH GOD IT BURNS IT BURNS OW OW OW OW!
You can't just swap words out and assume the framework is the same. It literally makes no sense. Changing one word can, and does, have a huge effect on overall meaning of a sentence.
I don't want to dogpile and axont already pointed out a pretty good scholar who talks about the subject, but I did want to add for clarity the reason that it's important to have a precise definition: We could look at, say, Victorian Britain, Ancient Egypt, the Roman Empire and Suleiman the Magnificent and argue that they were all unquestionably ruled by either a single or a small handful of rulers with no real checks on their power, that they oriented the economy and society around themselves, that they suppressed dissent etc. and conclude, from Webster there, that basically every government except modern American government is fascism. Simply in historical terms that would be an enormous problem, because it collapses all the nuance and distinctions that exist, obviously, between these extremely diverse forms of government.
When people talk about fascism, there's a reason they think of Hitler and Mussolini (who self-described, which makes that a bit easier I guess) even if it's hard to put a finger on exactly what the unifying factors are. Very clearly, Mussolini and Hitler thought their projects were incompatible with communism/socialism, it's why their first steps upon achieving power in their countries were to purge the left and ensure that left resistance couldn't be organized against them. Even if you have critiques of Stalin (I certainly do) I think there are pretty obvious differences between the USSR and the fascist axis that it ended up fighting against, reasons that were ultimately persuasive to Roosevelt and Churchill despite their own misgivings about communism. Everyone at the time understood there was a difference, and we need to be able to distinguish if we're going to talk intelligently about forms of government that western countries don't themselves use.
So in short, I'd say that definition from Webster is too vague to be useful, I'd say there are factors like palingenetic ultranationalism and hostility to the left that seem to be constant in any real fascist regime that should really be a part of a definition of the term. Otherwise 'fascist' just means 'mean' or 'bad' because all of its distinctives are gone.
Personally I like the definition that the historian Robert O. Paxton uses. Now, he's a liberal, but he does have good insight into fascism and he doesn't fall into that trap of deciding that communists and fascists must be the same thing. His definition isn't materialist, but it's a good start.
To paraphrase, his definition is "a suppression of the left among popular sentiment." By left he means things like socialists, labor organizations, communists, etc. Fascism is a situation where a country has found its theater of democracy has failed and the capitalists need anything at all to keep themselves in power, even if it means cannibalizing another sector of capitalists. The fascists are the ideological contingent of this, who put forward a policy of class collaboration between working class and capitalist, instead of what socialists propose, which is working class dominance in the economy. Fascists exalt nationality or race because that extends through class sentiments. It brushes aside concerns like internal economic contradictions. I once had a comrade say something like "Fascism is capitalists hitting the emergency button until their hand starts bleeding."
Communists using a vanguard party is to defend their own interests against capitalists or outside invaders. The praise of the CPSU in Stalin's era was precisely because it acted as a development and protection tool for the working class. It did its job and people were wary of any return to the previous Tsarist or liberal governments. Women began going to school, women were given the vote for the first time. Pogroms ceased. In less than one lifetime of the CPSU administrating the country, people went from poor farmers to living in apartments with plumbing, heating, and clean medical care. That's why there was such praise of the party, because they actually did things people liked, and they didn't want anything to threaten them.
Also, what does it matter if there's one party or two? The working class have a singular, uniting interest to overthrow capitalism. Why are multiple parties needed? Anything the working class needs to negotiate for can be handled within a socialist, democratic structure, not two or three competing structures against one another. Take a look at Cuba, which has one party, but doesn't use their party to endorse candidates. Everyone's officially an independent in the National Assembly.
"Replace the word 'pollution' with the word 'jews' and captain planet looks pretty fascist!"
A different response, which comes from a different angle to those pointing out that Marxism-Leninism is not fascist:
The word 'fascism' is used so fast and loosely outside of a technical context that I wouldn't say one interpretation is necessarily right or wrong. It depends on context. (Incidentally, same for 'socialism', even principled well-read communists can't agree on a definition.)
For example, if we're talking about the actual Fascist ideology (think of Mussolini and associates) then I would even hesitate to include Nazism due to the very different roots: they're both nationalist anti-liberal anti-democratic, anti-socialist 'third way' ideologies and they did ally in the war, sure, but to group them both as 'fascism' trivializes core differences in how they formed, why they successfully formed, how they appealed to their followers (fascism actually recruited many self-identifying socialists in Italy and its important to recognise why to prevent it), and why they were ultimately antisocial and unsuccessful in their goals.
This isn't just some academic masturbation nitpicking or anything: I believe that the ignorance of Classical Fascism by lumping it in with the far more obvious and baseless idiocy of Nazism makes it harder to recognize and counter, especially when neo-Nazis are such ridiculous cartoonish farces. Fascism stemmed from National Syndicalism and has core economic ideas like corporatism (from 'corpus') that could fool people, and sounds much less stupid that Hitler's bizzare esoteric fantasies about Aryan racial supremacy: even Mussolini considered Hitler crazy.
The point of me making this distinction is that the dictionary definition you gave isn't even wrong in describing fascist ideologies, but, I don't think that list of common traits should be mistaken for a definition. Those traits are the results, not the foundation of the ideology, and a neo-liberal state like the USA can easily match many of those traits despite being a very distinct ideology. Any you will absolutely see people saying 'USA is fascist' as a shorthand for nationalist, racist, imperialist, oppressive, blah blah blah, but it's definitely not post-National-Syndicalist faux-socialist corporatist collectivism. We should obviously fight both but they are not the same and manifest differently.
:::spoiler Excerpt from Michael Parenti's Blackshirts and Reds
Some leftists and others fall back on the old stereotype of power hungry Reds who pursue power for powers sake without regard for actual social goals. If true, one wonders why, in country after country, these Reds side with the poor and powerless often at great risk and sacrifice to themselves, rather than reaping the rewards that come with serving the well-placed.
For decades, many left-leaning writers and speakers in the United States have felt obliged to establish their credibility by indulging in anticommunist and anti-Soviet genuflection, seemingly unable to give a talk or write an article or book review on whatever political subject without injecting some anti-Red sideswipe. The intent was, and still is, to distance themselves from the Marxist-Leninist Left.
Adam Hochschild, a liberal writer and publisher, warned those on the Left who might be lackadaisical about condemning existing communist societies that they "weaken their credibility" (Guardian, 5/23/84). In other words, to be credible opponents of the cold war, we first had to join in cold war condemnations of communist societies. Ronald Radosh urged that the peace movement purge itself of communists so that it not be accused of being communist (Guardian, 3/16/83). If I understand Radosh: To save ourselves from anticommunist witchhunts, we should ourselves become witchhunters.
Purging the Left of communists became a longstanding practice, having injurious effects on various progressive causes. For instance, in 1949 some twelve unions were ousted from the CIO because they had Reds in their leadership. The purge reduced CIO membership by some 1.7 million and seriously weakened its recruitment drives and political clout. In the late 1940s, to avoid being "smeared" as Reds, Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), a supposedly progressive group, became one of the most vocally anticommunist organizations.
The strategy did not work. ADA and others on the Left were still attacked for being communist or soft on communism by those on the Right. Then and now, many on the Left have failed to realize that those who fight for social change on behalf of the less-privileged elements of society will be Red-baited by conservative elites whether they are communists or not. For ruling interests, it makes little difference whether their wealth and power is challenged by "communist subversives" or "loyal American liberals." All are lumped together as more or less equally abhorrent.
Even when attacking the Right, left critics cannot pass up an opportunity to flash their anticommunist credentials. So Mark Green writes in a criticism of President Ronald Reagan that "when presented with a situation that challenges his conservative catechism, like an unyielding Marxist-Leninist, [Reagan] will change not his mind but the facts." While professing a dedication to fighting dogmatism "both of the Right and Left," individuals who perform such de rigueur genuflections reinforce the anticommunist dogma. Red-baiting leftists contributed their share to the climate of hostility that has given U.S. leaders such a free hand in waging hot and cold wars against communist countries and which even today makes a progressive or even liberal agenda difficult to promote.
A prototypic Red-basher who pretended to be on the Left was George Orwell. In the middle of World War II, as the Soviet Union was fighting for its life against the Nazi invaders at Stalingrad, Orwell announced that a "willingness to criticize Russia and Stalin is the test of intellectual honesty. It is the only thing that from a literary intellectual's point of view is really dangerous" (Monthly Review, 5/83). Safely ensconced within a virulently anticommunist society, Orwell (with Orwellian doublethink) characterized the condemnation of communism as a lonely courageous act of defiance. Today, his ideological progeny are still at it, offering themselves as intrepid left critics of the Left, waging a valiant struggle against imaginary Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist hordes.
Sorely lacking within the U.S. Left is any rational evaluation of the Soviet Union, a nation that endured a protracted civil war and a multinational foreign invasion in the very first years of its existence, and that two decades later threw back and destroyed the Nazi beast at enormous cost to itself. In the three decades after the Bolshevik revolution, the Soviets made industrial advances equal to what capitalism took a century to accomplish—while feeding and schooling their children rather than working them fourteen hours a day as capitalist industrialists did and still do in many parts of the world. And the Soviet Union, along with Bulgaria, the German Democratic Republic, and Cuba, provided vital assistance to national liberation movements in countries around the world, including Nelson Mandela's African National Congress in South Africa.
Left anticommunists remained studiously unimpressed by the dramatic gains won by masses of previously impoverished people under communism. Some were even scornful of such accomplishments. I recall how in Burlington Vermont, in 1971, the noted anticommunist anarchist, Murray Bookchin, derisively referred to my concern for "the poor little children who got fed under communism" (his words).
Those of us who refused to join in the Soviet bashing were branded by left anticommunists as "Soviet apologists" and "Stalinists," even if we disliked Stalin and his autocratic system of rule and believed there were things seriously wrong with existing Soviet society. Our real sin was that unlike many on the Left we refused to uncritically swallow U.S. media propaganda about communist societies. Instead, we maintained that, aside from the well-publicized deficiencies and injustices, there were positive features about existing communist systems that were worth preserving, that improved the lives of hundreds of millions of people in meaningful and humanizing ways. This claim had a decidedly unsettling effect on left anticommunists who themselves could not utter a positive word about any communist society (except possibly Cuba) and could not lend a tolerant or even courteous ear to anyone who did.
Saturated by anticommunist orthodoxy, most U.S. leftists have practiced a left McCarthyism against people who did have something positive to say about existing communism, excluding them from participation in conferences, advisory boards, political endorsements, and left publications. Like conservatives, left anticommunists tolerated nothing less than a blanket condemnation of the Soviet Union as a Stalinist monstrosity and a Leninist moral aberration.
Related excerpt:
The pure (libertarian) socialists' ideological anticipations remain untainted by existing practice. They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be avoided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priorities set, and production and distribution conducted. Instead, they offer vague statements about how the workers themselves will directly own and control the means of production and will arrive at their own solutions through creative struggle. No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except the ones that succeed.
Fun fact: the word count of the people shidding and pissing and cumming about how long this excerpt is now exceeds the word count of the excerpt itself.
Libs out here proudly being like
Gonna paste a comment I made a couple weeks ago. Seems relevant again, both because of the accusation levied against hexbears and also because Parenti.
Oh a hexbear. ... You lot only have overly simplistic takes.
When we respond to blatant ignorance with carefully chosen wording, backing up our position with citations and links, and calmly explaining the nuance of complex geopolitical realities, we get accused of "always throwing walls of text at people." When we answer that same ignorance with short and pithy responses, we "only have simplistic takes."
There's no winning with you simple-minded dronies, but I guess there never is when one side can just make shit up that fits their vibes-based outlook on the world.
Doubt
TLDR
Do you guys actually write this shit out or are you ctrl + v from some source? Every time i see hexbears they write up a whole journal article as a comment that most likely nobody is going to read.
...I said "Excerpt from Michael Parenti's Blackshirts and Reds," because it's, uhh, an excerpt from Michael Parenti's Blackshirts and Reds.
I copied it from a pdf of the book I cited because I found it relevant. Really, if you want to fully understand how fascism and communism are different and not comparable, you should read the whole book. I know, I probably sound like a crazy person for suggesting that people read a whole entire book to better understand politics instead of going off vibes, but that's just how I roll I guess.
most likely nobody is going to read
Being too lazy and uncurious to read a handful of paragraphs is not something to be proud of
It's a quote from a book they read. You should try reading books sometime, it's cool.
If you want a summary, the last two paragraphs they quoted could serve as one.
Can you read,serious question?
Are you asking if she copied and pasted an excerpt from a book? Yes, of course she did. Lol
Edit: If I took a video of myself retyping it or writing it by hand, would you read it then? I'll do it.
Just read it ffs you libs are just the laziest
It’s like 2 sentences. Your post is practically the same length
I think a part of good, honest discourse is recognizing and respecting the time of the person you are talking with.
If you are going to respond with 11 paragraphs quoted from a book, you should preempt it by saying something to diffuse it. Something like, "oh man, this is super long but actually quite beneficial. I wrote a tldr though at the end in case you don't have time to read the whole thing."
I use this site while I'm at work. I literally don't have time to read all of that lol.
My feed got a lot less irritating when I blocked posts from CyberGhost.
imagine lemmy if we could user-level defederate lemmygrad & hexbear
paradise
It's such a fucking pain in my ass to have to block every single community from Lemmygrad and Hexbear. I'm so tired of seeing their dumbass 7th grade love of fascists and racism.
It's coming, likely in the next Lemmy update.
Or simply choose a instance that defederates fascists and authoritarian loving dipsshits. Never had a problem here with far right or tankie content.
In Connect it gives you the option of banning the instance. It will block out comments with a message that is was filtered. You get the option of viewing the content anyway, If you feel like it.
On sync for Lemmy you can block instances by putting it in it's filter list.
The connect app allows you to block instances. Not the same as defeding obviously, but it helps.
What’d I miss?
To summarize: More tankie bullshit
define fascism
Cheering on the genocide committed against ukraine for example
Misuse of the term genocide is considered soft-holocaust denial.
Literally no such thing. The Holodomor is a fiction created by Nazi propagandists to paint the failures of Soviet agricultural policy in dealing with a famine as a deliberate attempt to exterminate Ukranians.
Important to note, this was merely the latest in a long series of famines which had historically plagued this part of eastern Europe. It was also the last.
war=genocide now
So the Us did a Genocide in
Lybia Cambodia Iran Iraq Afghanistan Nazi Germany Japan The United States
to name a few
Do you seriously not see how degranged it is to change the definitions of words based on vibes to try to win an argument online?
Fuck ooooooff
You're the one doing holocaust denial by crying crocodile tears over nazis
not a genocide by any reasonable definition of genocide, and calling non-genocide things "genocide" dilutes the term in a way that is beneficial to nazis.
none of us cheer the invasion, we shit on boris johnson for sabotaging peace talks you dolt.
Yeah like America, a country which pretends to be democratic but is actually a dictatorship of the bourgeois. I'm glad we're on the same page.
So many hexbear users here lmao
We out here
This has made my Lemmy experience considerably better
How do you do instance-based filtering (other than starting your own instance and defederating)? This is something I’ve been looking for.
Libs are subconsciously uncomfortable thinking about real politics. Too many contradictions with their world view. Leftists are not. Hence a lot of us engage with these threads, it gets to the top of our all, and more engage.
The_Donald of the Left.
lMao
Holy shit. Too bad instances can't defederate HB. They seem to not understand that they're tankies.
What is a tankie?
I support crushing fascists with tanks.
Nooo not tankies! Don’t they know it’s illegal to be a communist
Too bad instances can't defederate HB.
Can you please elaborate?
They seem to not understand that they're tankies.
Tankie is a social construct and is used to lazily discredit everyone to the left of bernie. It functions to libs the same way as "woke" functions for chuds. As a term it's basically meaningless to anyone outside of the internet.
Have fun worshipping the machinery of enslavement and death. As it crushes you, I hope it comforts you knowing at least you weren't a tankie.
As they get banned from more instances, the instances they are not banned at start seeing a higher concentration of them.
Not how federation works.
We can smell liberal lies from a mile away
Not a socialist, but I am genuinely curious.
Is there any socialist revolution that you wouldn't class a fascist?
Well, Chile was a democratic election but then came the CIA because those nasty people wanted their own resources for themself!
OK, that's as good an answer as any.
Salvador Allende got couped three years after his election. Are there any ways you can think to prevent a foreign power from undermining future hypothetical socialist governments that wouldn't be authoritarian?
Are violent revolutions not a form of democracy? They generally require popular support to succeed.
Chinese socialist revolution before Mao's leadership is pretty legit. Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao, are all real socialists, they truely cares about the worker and envisions a better future for China.
If anything, many Chinese intellectuals in the republic era really cares about the little man, like Lu Xun, Lao She, etc.
I don't think I've seen this position before and it sounds pretty wild ngl. Let me just lay out my understanding.
Mao disagreed with the party on the basis that he felt the peasants had more revolutionary potential than the small, new proletariat working in what few factories existed in China. Mao's arguments were rejected, and the party's commitment to rigid ideology over analysis of the specific material conditions of China led to them being crushed by the Nationalists and massacred. It's the whole reason that the Long March happened.
The few surviving members of the party regrouped, though they were hunted to the ends of the earth and had extremely little manpower or resources. Despite this, because they used Mao's approach of appealing to the peasants, who reflected the majority of the working poor, the communist revolution spread like wildfire, gaining more and more supporters everywhere it went.
I don't deny that the party before Mao had good intentions, but it seems to me that history has proven their approach wrong in an incredibly decisive way. They tried their approach when the party was in a better position and failed miserably, they tried Mao's approach after that miserable failure and it succeeded on an enormous scale. I'm pretty curious to know where you disagree with that.
Chinese socialist revolution before Mao's leadership is pretty legit. Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao, are all real socialists, they truely cares about the worker and envisions a better future for China.
So no revolution at all? 95% of the critical mass and anything that can be called a large scale revolution (with organizational successes of the masses) happened in China in the 30s and had little to do with Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao previous work ,no matter how admirable. The CPC almost died and was built back up multiple times by the time Mao succeeded and Mao was vital in that. You cant get more legit than revolution under Mao. Under probably the worst odds and situation any communist party and revolution had to face they endured, made correct and miraculous choices and political and military manuvers at every turn and won, uplifting and liberating hundreds of millions of peasants and women. No Mao, no successfull revolution in China and no emancipation of the masses. Good luck doing the long march and outmanuvering the KMT from the countryside by amassing immense support with Chen Duxiu's ideas about the peasantry.
Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao may have envisioned a better socialist future for China but they were and would have been unable to make it happen. They lacked both the military genius, the correct analysis on the peasantry or the rhetoric and vision of mass politics that Mao had that allowed the CPC to pull through against all odds and win
OK that's a lot to look up, thanks for the recommendation.
400 comments and I’m going to read none of them
Significantly fewer for me. I smell hexbear
Only 100 here on my side.
Calling communists fascists? Lmao please read theory, like any theory. Fucking anything at all would be better than this lib bullshit.
Could you show this meme to any of your friends or family and succesfully explain a) why it's funny and b) who it's for ?
I doubt OP could show any of their friends or family who are still willing to talk to them.
Yeah. They would find it hilarious that the meme this was based on thinks that North Korea is a bastion of freedom.
Unironically better urban planning there than anywhere in Burgerland
Tankies forget that Trotsky existed.
The fact that you think Trotsky would've been less authoritarian than Stalin betrays that you don't know shit about him yourself.
Even alternatehistoryhub, infamous youtuber known for his weird conservative takes, came to this conclusion
Ok
I'm glad you could enlighten us with a post that doesn't bother to explain anything.
Tankies forget that anything that isn't stalinism is also considered socialist
Just FYI no "tankies" use "stalinism" as a descriptor because it's not a thing, the man was simply a Marxist-Leninist
Why would you defend a guy who ordered deaths alongside Lenin then immediately left and cozied up to 1920s American fascism to make books about "The Betrayed Revolution" because he didnt get his share?
Trotsky was a socialist. After his defection, he did next to nothing to advance socialism, only to passively denounce the closest thing the world had then to a Socialist Order. And he did this by going to their enemies, objectively the least socialist-tolerant bloc on Earth. Archetypal example of a self-centered "leftist" who folds inward and exclusively talks about their own life/'persecution' after one falling-out with the organized left. Look at Trotskyists nowadays and tell me they aren't walking parodies who talk like Broadway characters. It says a lot abt how off-kilter you have to be to throw yourself behind Trotsky's weirdo 'cause'
EDIT: To be clear, while I havent seen much of his work, I respect parts of his legacy. I'm sure there's a lot of insight in his writing - reading criticism from a seasoned former Bolshevik is interesting, and the perspective is useful for making sense of the wider movement. I also understand he was under a lot of personal pressure at the time he fled the USSR. Despite any merit Stalin showed in WW2 or the Union's massive industrialization effort, it must've seemed unfair to many party members that he was chosen to succeed Lenin (not sure of specifics on that event). I'd even say his assassination wasn't necessary, and the graphic details aren't something I take pride in. However, at the end of the day Trotsky's decision to defect was a net negative for socialism in the early 20th century. He should've tried to be a different kind of conscientious objector, not a voice of anti-Soviet dissent.
Wow. I guess someone has never actually read Trotsky or anything from Trotskyist. Try some Tony Cliff. Also, how you think Trotskyist sound today is not an indictment of Trotsky. Being critical of a revolution that has failed and the leaders and politics that followed is not the crime you think it is.
Jesus fucking Christ this is not the revolutionary left we need. Grow the fuck up.
edit: That's funny, either you posted your edit while i was typing my response or I didn't see it some how. either way. I'm sorry for being such a dick. I'm just so fed up with folks online regarding, what i would call state capitalist countries as genuine socialism, and rejecting any criticism of said states, as capitalist loving trash. Somehow Marxism has become a ridged dogma for these people. With the campist and the tankies distorting revolutionary socialism so much i fell like i live in upside down world. again sorry comrade. I would suggest "the two souls of socialism". side note Trotsky was Lenin's pick as leader not Stalin. Had he not "defected" he would likely have been killed by Stalin much earlier, like many of the seasoned former Bolsheviks who lead and then tried to defend the revolution against Stalin.
If trots manage to start up a successful revolution I will drop everything and support them
I'm a trotskyist, you are wrong.
I will have you shot
No 🧢
Western chauvinism moment
Suck off me
*authoritarian, not fascist. There is a difference.
*authoritarian, not fascist. There is a difference.
When authoritarians are in power long enough, whatever ideology the revolution the previous generation had gets replaced by an emphasis of simply maintaining power through whatever means necessary. And fascism is the easiest way to accomplish that.
We can debate over whether Mao was really socialist or whatever, but he's dead it doesn't much matter now. The CCP today is accepting of billionaires, capitalism is legal, labour unions are illegal, the leadership is misogynistic, oppressive towards minorities, promotes the "century of humiliation" narrative. Oh and people live in fear of another Tienanmen Square style massacre. Whatever China was in the past, it's fascist today.
And Russia? WTF are leftist (or so they claim) weirdos going on about there? The Soviet Union collapsed and was replaced with a capitalist democracy which became fascist under Putin's regime.
There's this weird thing where so-called leftists think that if some kind of socialism existed on a patch of earth then they need to carry water whatever fascist that's ruling over that patch of earth today.
All governments are authoritarian. Its a meaningless term.
"I hereby appoint myself the final arbiter of all terms and definitions!"
All you guys do this, for obvious reasons.
In this context, in political science, "authoritarian" does in fact have a very specific and well-defined meaning. Pretending otherwise just excludes yourself from the conversation. Maybe that's for the best.
Yes, instead of Wikipedia let's just use this random wiki that is heavily biased toward those authoritarian states.
Ah yes, the tyranny of small differences. Let us tear each other apart over this trifling distinction.
Fact; fascism falls under the larger umbrella of authoritarianism.
The problem is that people throw around "fascism" like my 70 year old mom uses the word "communism." She couldn't even define the actual meaning of communism let alone her use of the word.
In the common internet usage fascism just means "anything authoritarian and to the right of where I stand." It also has the issue of making people think that the problem is with left versus right politics when authoritarianism can and has existed everywhere in the political spectrum in history.
Man this comment section is a treat.
could use some sort by controversial ability right now
Don't even need it, upvotes aren't frequent enough here to sort out the good from the bad.
Seems like all shit opinions come from chuds on lemmygrad
I wonder why
I really wonder if they're CCP sympathizers using VPNs to bypass the Great Firewall, just to removed about "Western Authoritarianism" lmao.
No they're just idiots
Link to the original meme?
OP be like: "Yes, I'm a socialist. No, I've never read Marx nor Engels, I get my ideas from CNN. Why do you ask?"
another American who doesn't understand sociadism
What did the original say? I haven’t seen it
Probably some tankie shit
You're probably missing out on a free headache by not seeing it
Because so much tankie shit is so frustrating I get a headache
This is the way
How did i end up in memecirclejerk?
Alas, poor Vuranitute! I knew him, Horatio (before the tankies bombarded him with their "well, ackchuyually")
It really is oppression to get responded to.
If you hate facts so much, no one's forcing you to read our posts
So you hate Nordic countries?
Sorry, this meme doesn't make sense, what do you think socialism is?
This is a weak meme lol.
oh no the tankies be tanking
I'm not the one telling others they "don't know shit" on a meme sub.
-Country: Elects socialist leader.
-America: Disrupts country to dispose leader.
-Success: Country no longer Socialist.
-Failure: Strongman comes to power to resist. Resists disruption, becomes dictator. Country no longer Socialist.
Why is memes of all places political, amma head out
Lemmy users: yes socialism is good
Everyone else points to a country where it failed
Lemmy users: that wasn't real socialism
you're right ;)
Yeah, I lived in Venezuela for 30 years, experienced the democratic Republic and the authoritarian regime of Chavez/Maduro
9/10 times a proper attempt at socialism or communism was made, imperial powers intervened and corrupted it.
Here’s a tip: Git gud
Moving the goal post from "it's not real socialism" to "it was the imperial powers that intervened"
It's always something else ;)
You forgot "I wonder why fuel prices are sky rocketing even though we voted a president that promised to fight fossil fuels for climate bullshit"
Enjoy! I'll be here laughing.
Until you understand what socialism is?
Anyone that learns what socialism really means and then thinks it is a bad thing must be selfish and self centered. There is no alternative, you either don’t get it or you believe society should continue to hold “certain people” down for the uplifting of “us”
I'm a socialist/communist btw
My big issue with socialism is more about the implementation. I'm not sure there is a way of enforcing socialism that isn't antithetical to the goal of socialism- a more even distribution of power (which we quantify as wealth in a capitalist society).
In general, I don't think there are any stable economic systems that don't decay into feudalism when abused. At least for the economic systems we've come up with so far. The best one I know of is the gift economy, but that requires people to not expect something in return, because otherwise it could be reduced down to capitalism.
In short, all the economic systems so far, despite their best intentions, reinforce inequality.
Socialism is based on public ownership of means of production. In order to shift to socialism in foreseeable future and in the past, it requires forceful removal of private property and converting it into public, since I can not imagine that all people would do this voluntarily (and they did not do that voluntarily historically). So, yes, you require forceful state, a dictatorship. Soviets openly called that “dictatorship of the working class” when they were nationalizing means of production. That included by the way farmers who used seasonally hired labour. They fought to destroy those farms and farmers were treated as enemy to socialism. Ukrainian Holodomor that killed millions of people is a good example of such fight.
So, before blank-calling other people self-centered and selfish, maybe you should learn a bit more about socialism and its history?