Image Transcription:
An 8-panel Phoebe Teaching Joey meme.
The first panel is Phoebe from Friends saying “Russia”.
The second panel is Joey from the same show replying with “Russia”.
The third panel is Phoebe saying “has invaded”.
The fourth panel is Joey repeating back “has invaded”.
The fifth panel is Phoebe saying “Ukraine”.
The sixth panel is Joey repeating back “Ukraine”.
The seventh panel is Phoebe saying the completed phrase “Russia has invaded Ukraine”.
The final panel shows Joey proudly proclaiming “NATO just started a proxy war”.
The political spectrum isn’t really a line. Please don’t imply leftists and tankies are on the same team
You can ignore everything I’m about to write. I’m just thinking through this in written form.
Here goes: it’s a bit confusing for me. Tankies call themselves leftists. In fact, they call us “pro-capitalists” because we don’t believe in authoritarianism.
And it feels weird to me to be in one of two groups both saying, “you’re not REAL anti-capitalists” at each other.
So here goes:
- the Nazis weren’t nationalist socialists
- the USSR wasn’t a republic controlled by worker Soviets
- In fact, the use of tanks on Hungarian worker Soviets was what gave tankies their name. They were actually anti Soviet.
- the Democratic Republic of North Korea isn’t democratic
- the People’s Republic of China does not belong to its people
- Moms for Liberty doesn’t want liberty (and is filled with numerous people who aren’t even moms)
- a majority membership of the National Black Republican Organization is white
So yes, I must acknowledge that a group of pro-authoritarians can call themselves leftists without being leftists.
… it still feels weird though. Because if you view it from their perspective, they are leftists. And we are capitalists’ enablers.
Wait! I think I see it. Their embrace of violent regimes and violent tactics destroys working class unity and alienates non-violent, compassionate anti-capitalists. They actively choose Stalin over Trotsky and Trotsky over Kerensky, and (like they did with Marguerit Duras) drive anyone out of the movement who won’t support that choice.
They are anti-solidarity. And you cannot be a leftist and be anti-solidarity.
They are anti-solidarity. And you cannot be a leftist and be anti-solidarity.
Im a radical leftist. Specifically an anarchist.
I was arguing with tankies the other day, because I defined Tankie as an authoritarian Communists. In an effort to differentiate between communists I would work with as an anarchist.
Many people (mostly hailing from hexbear )really didn’t like it. Cue endless whataboutism and people calling me a lib. Btw according to some hexbear folx. Its not imperialism when the USSR invaded Afghanistan, but it is when the US did it later. Lol.
I too want to exclude tankies from leftism. For many reasons. But the truth is that communism even authoritarian communism is leftist.
We dont need to “no true scotmen” leftism. There are problematic elements that we need to recognize and deal with in a way that is not simply saying “we are not them.” Its much healthier and factually correct simply to say that state communism Trends towards a police state aka towards authoritarianism. And I dont support that.
Just my 2 cents.
We dont need to “no true scotmen” leftism.
Fair enough.
Btw according to some hexbear folx. Its not imperialism when the USSR invaded Afghanistan, but it is when the US did it later.
🤣
Like I said, I don’t think the political spectrum is just 1 line. I think there’s an X and a Y axis at the very least
Yeah, I think tankies and anarcho socialist types want wildly different things only that there’s a not insignificant amount of overlap in how they’re both looking to achieve it.
For the record, I think capitalism is a failed system (well, for anyone other than the billionaire class) but while I and a tankie might agree on certain things it is for different reasons. Cue the Gustavo Fring meme
Capitalism is, at it’s core, any system where d(Power) / dt = k (Power) - a + b (random(t)) where power is your ability to impact or influence the world or not be influenced by it unduely.
Any one who has a/k or less power has it systematically taken from them and assigned to those with the most.
Power can be money or political favour with the party. Window dressing and semantic games don’t reallly matter. Fascism is the exercise of trying to set b to 0.
Tankies are capitalists.
The left is the exercise of trying to make k negative.
Wtf is this equation
Buddy I enjoyed differential equations as much as the next guy, but differential formulae are not a great way to communicate any concepts in a text forum, not even concepts that are modeled by differential equations.
Tankies are capitalists
Fucking lol man I love this site sometimes.
The only good thing about leftists is that they’re this ridiculous about everything.
In what way are the states they worship remotely socialist, communist, or anarchist? The means of production are controlled by a small elite who increase their share of control over the means of prodiction by leveraging this control. The only thing that distinguishes the economic stratification of the CCP or the late soviet union from capitalist states is semantic word games.
It’s the same thing as a market based oligopoly.
There have been left wing states, and left wing projects within right wing states, but worshipping putin or winnie the pooh ain’t it.
I’m here to laugh at ridiculous leftists dunking on ridiculous leftists, not to debate the finer points of tankie theory.
I don’t take anyone who self-identifies as a leftist seriously.
You’re really just making right wing reactionaries look even stupider. So I guess you fit in.
I do also enjoy making right wing reactionaries look dumb
You know, i think that’s your only flaw. You’re an intelligent, reasoned individual with a blind spot, in this self identifying dumbasses opinion. I wonder how your came to dismiss that school of thought specifically? Surely there are as many neoliberal frothers as tankies? Would you mind explaining why?
You might consider me a neoliberal “frother”, though I don’t understand the term.
I believe in evidence-based best practice, in both policy and in life.
If you’d like to get into the weeds on this, I’d be happy to, as you seem quite pleasant. Note that I specifically used the term “ridiculous leftists” because I do in fact have friends I think are just wrong, but not ridiculous.
Aside from the word “started” both are obviously true. We certainly did not start the war in Ukraine, but we are for sure using it to fight a proxy war.
It is fascinating that Zelenskyy has become the sole major voice of Ukraine to the west. Clearly Ukrainians hate Russians and many will die fighting to avoid the kind of oppression and genocide that would happen if Russia took control, but the idea that there is zero dissent and nobody just wants to surrender to stop the casualties does not pass the sniff test. Feels very political like the propaganda wars of the first and second world wars.
Who is saying nobody wants to surrender? I’m sure people wanted to surrender in WWII also. If the majority wanted to, though … they would.
That’s the point of propaganda. It became illegal in the US to work against the war effort and that included protesting the war. Those in power actively fought any majority consensus that would end the war.
I suppose that’s fine in WWII because we had such a clear bad guy, maybe it’s fine in Ukraine, but there are plenty of instances where the opposite was true and a long terrible war was carried on by a state against the wishes of its people. E.g. there were a bunch of reports early on saying a majority of Russians were in support of the war from their side. Clearly, there is a large chunk of Russian citizens who would rather not be involved in this war who get more coverage now, but their voice is still suppressed by Russian state media. .
Not saying it’s happening in Ukraine, but the way we are hearing about it basically eschews us hearing a perspective other than the pro NATO Majority.
You know what makes a population really unlikely to want to surrender? An invading military that’s perpetrating war crimes all over their country and has a propensity for conscripting civilians from occupied regions.
83% of Ukrainians want to join NATO.
Providing arms and aid to a small country that is fighting for its own sovereignty is not a “proxy war”. It’s providing aid to an ally.
Ukraine
small
It’s the second largest country in Europe after Russia (even when only taking Russia’s European territory into account which is larger than India. Russia is humongous, colonial empires do tend to be. Roughly the size of China+USA combined).
Turkey is larger in case you’re counting them in, France larger when you’re counting overseas territories. About twice as big as Italy.
You’re talking about land, I meant population and GDP. They’re in 8th place in population and way down in 23rd place by GDP. Having a country with a lot of land means almost nothing as a factor for winning a war.
Land mass can factor into victory in a war. It can help to spread an attacker forces for example, imagone trying to occupy say California, Alaska, or Texas.
Either that or it is a proxy war, but not the bad kind.
removed by mod
That’s up to Putin, as he could always end his war and abandon his imperialistic goals.
removed by mod
Because Biden didn’t invade Ukraine, Putin did.
Some people say
Which people? Russians? Tankies? Fascists?
Why shouldn’t i take this option?
Because that would reveal you to be a disingenous moron.
removed by mod
You’re serious? The Minsk agreements that were to try and end Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine? Again you say the victim of aggression should not defend themselves or prepare for further attacks?
removed by mod
Right, Ukraine is the aggressor when fighting Russian invaders on their soil, you’ve made that clear. And no, nobody admitted to cheating those agreements so that’s a stupid thing to say.
removed by mod
I’m aware of what she said but you’re deliberately misrepresenting it. The agreement was for a cease fire, and if Ukraine prepares to be attacked again following the cease fire, what’s wrong with that. That’s literally all she said.
And we all know Russia sent troops to donbass but you can pretend otherwise. Or perhaps you’re just uninformed?
War wont stop even if Biden stops sending military aid to Ukraine.
“Some people say” is not a source. Minsk agreements weren’t even about it and the agreements were broken by rus*ia.
Get fucked tankie
removed by mod
Said the tankie, unaware of the irony
removed by mod
I think that breaks the minsk agreement
We should’ve gone to war with Russia when they interfered in our elections https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/nov/26/ukraine.usa
And how are you going to do that without guaranteed nuclear armageddon for all?
Proxy wars, of course.
Of course.
Just put it on the pile with the rest of them.
Apart from the brief respite of peacetime known as World War II, I’m not sure there’s been a point in the last 100 years where they haven’t been in some sort of proxy war with each other.
Another BRICs war.
Another CSTO war.
NATO is not the aggressor. Ukraine is not the aggressor.
And Russia isn’t a victim.
Fuck Russia. Fuck the stooges that defend Russia.
BRICS is going to be hilarious as BRCS after India leaves to make sure they get western military help against China. They can’t even get rule number 1 of being a major alliance member down. (Don’t attack your “ally”)
I’m extremely confused how people who are “I’m so leftist bro!” say you see, this fascist dictatorship HAD to invade a sovereign nation and abuse and murder tens of thousands of people, shoot missiles at apartment buildings and kidnap thousands of children because you see, our own countries and NATO are mean to them, due to the fact that we exist.
I honestly think most of the people that simultaneously take both of these positions are working for the Kremlin. There are probably a lot more bad actors who are being paid to muddy the waters than any of us would guess.
And LLM bots.
the amazing and disturbing thing is all of the republicans in the US who say everything the kremlin does and exhibit the exact same types of behavior.
I mean, not really. They’re already foolish enough to be Republicans, it’s not really hard to hijack the direction of that sort of idiocy. The problem is having that kind of impact if you actually hold yourself to some form of ethical or moral standard.
There’s a lot you can do if you don’t care about how it affects anyone else. If you do, it leaves certain strategies off the table, for better or for worse
I’m not suggesting republicans got the idea or were manipulated by Russia, other than perhaps a few nationally prominent individuals. I just mean they appear to have identical personalities.
Well I sure am.
Sure, they explicitly did and have acknowledged it. I just meant that wasn’t what I was saying right then.
Lmao right? Before this year, I didn’t even realize I was hated by 1/3 of the world for just existing.
We live in their heads rent-free yet we don’t even think about them or acknowledge their existence 🤔
Maybe that’s why they are pissed off? We don’t give them enough attention? Idk
Stalin already did it, it’s a tankie classic: let the imperialists weaken each other so we can take over their ruins (Molotov-Ribbentropp), but then leopards ate his face (operation Barbarossa), as they always do.
“Russia has invaded Ukraine” is a true statement. “Russia has invaded Ukraine therefore I should do/say/support …” is false in general, a deceivingly simple deduction that is hiding a lot of complexity under the rug. For example, what do I want to achieve by doing that? Is it beneficial for the working class? Does anyone want me to do it at all costs to support imperialism? Am I using an appropriate framework for extending ethics reasoning to large organizations and groups of people? What actions are lawful? If no one has the power to enforce that a country will not take unlawful action against another, how is it reasonable of me to expect that the other will not defend itself by unlawful force, if that is de facto its only defense? Am I having a positive impact on the world by simply acting against every country that does something I consider unlawful? If I do so more to some countries than others, am I not acting in favor of some countries? Shouldn’t I choose what countries I act in favor of? If I don’t do it, who is choosing that for me?
This is a great example of dialectics and why it’s garbage.
It’s funny how tankies come up with walls of texts but they always exclude the will of the people. Like wtf, is this just a piece of land for you bigger powers argue about?
Over 90% of the people in the country that is at war want to be a part of NATO.Edit: I was certain that I read about an over 90% agreement about joining NATO but checking for sources the most recent I found said 83%.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/record-83-ukrainians-want-nato-membership-poll-2022-10-03/Yeah, and people in Crimea never ever wanted to be part of Ukraine, and yet Zelensky has promised to take them back. Same for most (although in this case not all) people in the Donbass, which was invaded by Ukraine in 1917. Putin stated he would invade (or “take back”, who cares at this point) just those territories, so doesn’t that make him the good guy here? Of course I don’t believe he is, or Zelensky is, there are no good guys anywhere in this story.
Putin stated he would invade (or “take back”, who cares at this point) just those territories
…then “accidentally” launched an attack on Kyiv, on the other side of the country. “Oops, sowwy 🥺”, amirite? 🤦
You’re still arguing for an invasion of a sovereign democratic (although, like most countries not without problems but they’re definitely taking some massive steps for a more open society and a more transparent government… DURING A WAR) country. And the need for Russia to push through those documented fake elections for separation while they occupied the territory says everything you need to know about how legitimate this whole invasion is.
Yeah, but then it’s not “the will of the people” that matters here, but maybe international law or whatever other principles.
Dude you’re not making sense at this point. Like not even to yourself I mean to say.
Firstly, I’d like to warn you: you’re on [email protected] . You’re not going to find many friends here.
Secondly, I gotta say: I can’t help but notice some questions very conspicuously absent from your list. Very important questions, too.
- How many civilians have died in Russian airstrikes?
- How many Russian weapons have been destroyed or intercepted by lend-leased military equipment?
- How many people would those weapons have killed?
- How many Ukrainian civilians’ lives would have to be saved for their salvation to be worth 10% of America’s military budget?
If a capitalist wanted me to hand a sandwich to a homeless man, and was rolling the cameras and spewing propaganda about how this couldn’t happen in a communist country… I would still hand the sandwich to the homeless man.
Because a man’s gotta eat, you know? His needs don’t change because some monster has an agenda that gets fulfilled when his needs are met.
Thank you, your answer was very valuable to me. It’s helped me get a better perspective on the problem. I have a tendency to cold-bloodedly redirect the trolley, you know? I feel that’s the right thing, but I respect your humanity here.
Thanks for hearing me out.
What actions are lawful?
The ones that are considered that way by the international community.
International law is designed in a way to prevent war and military/economic powers from exploiting others. So basically to uphold everyone’s right to autonomy and independence.
In this case the invasion would be extra unlawful because of bilateral treaties.
Am I having a positive impact on the world by simply acting against every country that does something I consider unlawful?
I mean usually you do unless you are against others having their right to act independently and keeping their autonomy.
I think most would consider that to be positive.
If I do so more to some countries than others, am I not acting in favor of some countries?
Yeah, you would very clearly favor the countries that do not invade others in this case.
I could go on and on but the answer to all of these questions is very clear to the absolute majority of people imo.
You need to perform some real mental gymnastics to arrive at a conclusion favoring an invasion if you based your reasoning on these questions and the respective answers.
I actually thought long and hard about those questions and came to the conclusion that I should support Ukraine.
Probably not what you were after.
That’s a lot of words to say nothing.
You could have said nothing and saved yourself a ton of time, but here you are writing ALL THAT to say literally nothing.
That’s a long way to say you would have opposed fighting against Hitler’s Invasion on Poland and, later, the Soviet Union.
Holy gishgalloping word salad, Batman!
You’re using Russian tactics I see, what with all the irrelevant misdirection, confusion and word masturbation. Shut up.
I don’t know, I wouldn’t like my country invaded by a nuclear power, my house bombed, my family kidnapped and murdered, my workplace destroyed, does anybody in the working class think that helps anyone?
There are many hypothetical ways. For example, that might prevent further war in the future, or might be the continuation of an existing conflict. It might alter the balance of power in the world in a way that is eventually beneficial to working class struggle. Hell I can think of thousands of ways in which not starting a war would have been worse than starting it. The fact that you can simply stamp a meme, appeal to emotion and make a huge logic jump without a single word is perplexing.
Hope you stretched before those fuckin gymnastics
Ok, so I need to think bigger, ok:
The invasion has shifted a lot of power in Europe back into NATO and the MIC.
If russia gets anything out of this, it will only demonstrate that challenging borders by force is worth it to all authoritarians out there (even the ones you don’t like). Keeping unilateral border change taboo is one of the most effective ways to prevent wars, by removing the long-term economic incentive at the short-term cost of lives and working class suffering.
If russia gets what it wants, expect more nuclear proliferation and a more unstable political landscape.
Humiliating the UN as a mediator and multilateralism by adopting an offensive realist perspective where the strong impose and the weak suffer…those are some working class values right there.
All of these are major working class losses, but keep dreaming about how russia’s violence is going to bring about your working class utopia on these foundations of violent bullshit.
Those are very good points, and I agree with most of them. Overall I think this invasion is detrimental to the international interests of the working class. The only part where I disagree with you is that I think bringing about a more unstable geopolitical order (a side effect of the path the conflict has eventually taken) is beneficial, as it will weaken the mechanisms holding together imperialism. I might be wrong though, and I would like to discuss this more in depth to hopefully understand what options I should support. But I fully reject the argument expressed by this meme and some of the people in this thread, as such simple (even emotional) reasoning tends to give me paranoia that I’m being manipulated by ideas created by propagandists. Is it okay if we continue this conversation in the dms?
By stability I mean we’re not going back to russia’s beloved 17/18/19th century many-player politics with wars happening everywhere all the time.
With nuclear weapons on the table, you have 2 options: a hegemon “world police” or a bipolar order (US and China).
If you want a true multipolar order and decentralised power, first you will need strong international law and institutions, not more of this imperial crap.
Ok, I’m done.
The only part where I disagree with you is that I think bringing about a more unstable geopolitical order (a side effect of the path the conflict has eventually taken) is beneficial, as it will weaken the mechanisms holding together imperialism.
Your first mistake here is assuming that imperialism is only when the West does it. If Ukraine is forced to give concessions to Russia in any form, any wannabe imperialist now knows they can now chip away other countries’ land if they are willing and capable of enacting enough violence, whether that country is Western or not, and they might get away with it. Unstability weakens multilateralism; multilateralism disincentivizes unilateral aggression.
Multilateralism is the exact opposite of what would happen if the US manages to fend off Russia and China. The only way multilateralism can truly emerge is a confrontation between two or more blocks where there is no clear winner and thus big countries need to offer more autonomy to small countries in order to win them over. The US sparking wars to keep poor countries sending raw materials home, leveraging the dollar and nuking from orbit anything that even remotely looks like socialism as they’ve been doing right up to this point is the worst case scenario, and the global events that are weakening this should go on as much as possible. The best case scenario is that a revolution becomes easier due to instability, and cooperation between socialist powers appears as a new stabilizing force.
Hmmm. I’m amazed that Lemmygrad and Hexbear users haven’t descended en masse to “dunk” on this.
Yeah, the US has done awful shit. I get it. It’s not the greatest country. We’ve invaded other countries and killed innocent people - Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam (which was really just an extension of the French-Indochina war), and many others. We’re still fighting–and possibly losing–battles against racism, religious extremism, and homophobia in our own borders. We have blood on our hands for sure. But our guilt in other matters does not make Russia innocent in this matter. Nor, for that matter, does the existence of neo-Nazis in Ukraine–including the Ukrainian parliament–mean that the country deserved to be invaded, and innocent civilians killed.
I thought Lemmy World preemptively defederated Hexbear…
That just stops those users from casually seeing it. Any subbed here or who are on a different instance despite frequently using others, such as selfhosted peeps, are able to interact with this post just fine
Are you implying there really are Neo-Nazis in Ukraine’s government? Forgive my ignorance but I thought that was something Putin made up as a rallying point.
They’re a minority that has as many supporters as they do because they were some of the first to respond to Russia’s invasion in 2014.
There are probably neo-Nazis in the American government. Doesn’t mean our government is neo-Nazi.
There was that FBI report stating that many institutions are already infiltrated by white supremacist groups. And that’s made prevalent by how law enforcement and rulings respond to straight white individuals and everyone else.
I think that one of the extreme far-right parties has one seat, or something like that. Kinda like we have MTG, Lauren Boebert, The Pedo Matt Gaetz, Yurtle McConnell, etc. It’s absolutely not a majority. And the fact that Zelensky is Jewish kinda proves that the idea that Nazis run the gov’t is a lie.
One explanation I’ve heard is that “Nazi” is synonymous with “against Russia”. I don’t know if that’s correct, but it ‘feels’ correct.
deleted by creator
Explain how.
Money can be exchanged for goods and services.
deleted by creator
This sounds exactly like an anti-vax reply. Just replace a few key words and it is talking about alternative medicine. It also exemplifies the unbeatable arguments of the anti-vaxers: “explain yourself”
“No”
deleted by creator
Because both extremes are being pushed and used by the CCP to divide their geopolitical opponents
It’s not “fringe left” or “fringe right” (not that that means anything consistent in the first place), it’s just anyone dumb enough to incorporate “Russia are unequivocally good and the US going against them are unequivocally bad” into their thinking.
not that that means anything consistent in the first place
Yeaaaaaaah… I wasn’t sure what to use as the title. By the time I had captioned the meme, I realized it didn’t exclusively describe tankies. It also describes Tucker Carlson’s whole audience.
In hindsight, I probably could have said, “Tankies and far right.” There did not need to be symmetry in my statement.
No worries, everyone does it. Also didn’t realize this was “/c/Tankiejerk”.
I exclude Tankies from the far left. Because at its heart, the left is anti-authoritarian. Tankies lost the plot somewhere and decided that full authoritarianism was the way to go, regardless of the human suffering that lead to.
An authoritarian regime that claims to be communist is no closer to the communist ideal of a stateless utopia than a fully capitalistic state. If the capitalistic state is democratic with popular socialist programs, then it’s actually closer to the communist ideal than an authoritarian state that merely claims communism. I’m using European democracies as my gold standard.
Well said!
deleted by creator
Because at its heart, the left is anti-authoritarian.
Well, no. It’s not. The left/right spectrum is mostly understood as an economic spectrum, with the right believing in individual ownership of capital, the means of production, and land (and, of course, personal property), with the left believing in collective ownership of capital, the means of production, real estate (and in fringe cases, no personal property). Collectivism doesn’t necessarily mean anti-authoritarian; anarchists are just one flavor of collectivists.
Marxist theory states that authoritarian control is a necessary precondition to absolute communism, until everyone is enlightened enough (more or less; I’m greatly simplifying this, since his treatise is 500+ pages and dense as hell) to be able to fully self-govern in a communist utopia.
I tend to agree that a democratic society that has strong collectivist tendencies while preserving strong individual autonomy is more desirable than an authoritarian gov’t. Personally, I tend towards anarchism, but my view of humanity has dimmed enough in the last decade that I no longer believe that it’s a viable form or governance.
Marxist theory states that authoritarian control is a necessary precondition to absolute communism
That’s actually Leninist theory, Marx never went that direction. And Lenin was the one who betrayed the revolution to seize power, followed by a true despot in Stalin.
The actual origin of the terms Left and Right go back a bit further than Marx, they go back to the French Revolution. There was a vote, the question was, “Should the king have an absolute veto over new laws passed by the assembly” Those who said yes sat on the right of the podium, those who said no sat on the left.
Those on the left wanted no king at all, they wanted the people to have the power.
Communism was only deemed a left-wing ideology because the people held the power, not the wealthy few.
As a note, conservatism was also created out of the French Revolution, as a sort of blowback against it. It uses wealth to create and enforce social hierarchies.
Anyway, once you’ve betrayed the revolution and installed a dictator, communism is not considered left-wing, it’s a tool of authoritarianism, where the king owns all and merely allows the peasants to live in his kingdom.
I’m with you on this one. I kinda always thought Marx’s and Engel’s point was:
Capitalism is the stepping stone from feudalism to something far better.
I don’t think they had in mind that the next step after capitalism would be going back to despotism. Like you said, these people lost the plot.
Capitalism is the stepping stone from feudalism to something far better.
And if you let capitalism keep on going while doing nothing to stop, curb or circumvent it, you’ll end up back at feudalism, except with CEO’s & middle managers instead of kings & lords.
George Orwell’s Animal Farm captures it perfectly. Everything is going (mostly) great until the Pigs take over and become despots.
“All Animals Are Equal but Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others”
Once you’re talking about a “dictatorship of the proletariat” you’re not anti authoritarian… let’s not “no true scotsman” communism, being anti authoritarian is something that can be true of communists and capitalists but isn’t intrinsically true of either.
There is no such thing as a “dictatorship of the proletariat”. That’s just a democracy.
No, a dictatorship is when there’s one person in charge, and their word is law. You know, like a king, just one not born into power. A dictator seizes power. Like a king’s ancestors did.
A dictator can be “enlightened” or some bullshit, but they’re still one person calling all the shots, and dictatorships are still the single most corruptible form of government every created.
It isn’t a democracy if you pick a class of people (e.g., property owners) to disenfranchise, and make the argument that an open democracy favors the wealthy and therefore you won’t have one.
You gotta use the actual examples of the folks applying the term to evaluate what it means.
By your weird logic, taxes on the wealthy aren’t democratic, even when the majority votes for them.
True communism is merely that, extreme taxes on the wealthy until there are no individual factory owners, just communal owners. As for land, nothing in communist ideology says that you cannot own your own home, just the opposite. What you cannot do, is own all the homes in a neighborhood and charge ruinous rents.
Communism is about ridding society of the parasite class, those rich bastards who abuse their wealth to exploit others, often causing real harm.
Society creates laws to prevent one person from harming another. We just need to acknowledge the very real harms that the rich inflict on people every day.
Hell, wage theft is the number one type of theft in the US, with dollar amounts greater than all other types of theft combined.
By your weird logic, taxes on the wealthy aren’t democratic, even when the majority votes for them
Of course they are; abolishing the vote because the majority doesn’t vote the way you want, however, isn’t democracy.
True communism is merely that, extreme taxes on the wealthy until there are no individual factory owners, just communal owners
So all the communist governments of the 20th century weren’t “true” communists; it’s a bit no true scotsman, don’t you think?
Going back to my original comment, no they weren’t. They were dictatorships, and dictatorships can’t be communist, no matter what the propaganda they put out. A dictatorship is closer to feudalism than communism. The King owning everything, even your house is no different from “the State” owning everything, even your house, because at the heart of it, the dictator is the state.
True communism might have a government, but it will be made up of the people, and it will serve the people. People would own their own homes, and collectively own their workplaces. It would be like putting the union in charge of the work site.
That’s the dream, but the dream is often betrayed. A dream betrayed is a nightmare.
Also, the rich assholes are actively trying to abolish the vote because the majority support taxing their asses. Because in a capitalist society, the rich hate the poor, and work to prevent the poor from having a voice.
My point (and I can’t stress this enough) is that a political philosophy that relies on dismantling democratic processes and disenfranchising a large portion of the electorate to function is not democratic, even in theory.
Marx’s conception of the dictatorship of the proletariat may not have been authoritarian, but Lenin’s was; I understand what you are saying (essentially that communism must be democratic, and that therefore anything that calls itself communism that is not democratic must in fact not be democratic).
At the same time, communist theorists have made up marvelously positive-sounding terms that boil down to “dictatorship is good if it’s the right dictator”, and that’s what tankies (the people OP was referring to) use to justify supporting authoritarianism.
If you’d like to define “true communism” as excluding all actual communist regimes, do you – I’m not trying to argue over whether communism is good or bad in theory.
The problem with tankies is that they have latched on to the Stalinist notion of the necessity for dictatorship to achieve the unification of the proletariat and the dismantling of the Plutarchy. The other problem is most of them are Soviboos obsessed with Russia and the USSR in general.
It would be fine if they were consistent. Wrong, but fine.
What grinds my gears is the full on simp-itry of Putin and Xi in particular. None are communist in any way. Both full on capitalists. I would argue USSR was never communist but even so the cut off date was 1991 everything after has absolutely no left wing whatsoever.
Tankies are just atheist MAGAs with a different God Emperor they worship.
If Xi is a full on capitalist, how do I make the capitalists in my country charge billionaires with crimes and actually convict them?
Here in the US, our capitalists are so brazen they steal billions a year in wage theft, they spend the majority of their companies profits on stock buybacks and lay off employees while making the remaining workers pick up the extra load with no extra compensation, they buy politicians and literally write the majority of all of our regulation. They bury studies that show their contribution to the climate crisis, they spend billions on misinformation campaigns to take the targets off their back… they sabotage renewable energy and prevent meaningful investment in public transportation. They lobby to further increase our military budget, which serves primarily as a welfare pot for military industrial corporations, who can charge exorbitant prices for garbage products, and who’s lobbying efforts have sufficiently restricted the market as to prevent new players from entering.
I mean, fuck dude, there is literally more inequality than prior to the French Revolution. We’ve walked straight into neo-feudalism, and people are more concerned with utopian visions of the future than actually creating change in the present.
I think the difference is Hierarchy.
Xi and Putin put themselves at the tippy top while in the US due to how “democracy” works, who’s in charge can shift around. Billionaires here are the higher ups while the government acts as contractors/employees to them. You can’t fire your boss.
So what you’re saying is, in China, the capitalists aren’t the boss, but they are here?
My problem with the far left is they seem entirely unable (in history) to contain the leftist authoritarians. They’re like, “surely this time my associate who daily says we need to move faster and more violently won’t do violent things to me to get their way!” Then they’re surprised to be the next “moderate” reformer to end up in front a firing squad.
At least learn from history!
I would love if the US adopted a Euro style social democracy. Shit would be so much better.
Take it from a European - no it wont, we’re like 2 steps behind you in the race to the bottom.
Don’t aspire to have the polite facade over the dumpster fire like we do, aspire to abolish the system entirely.Which country? Europe has a pretty large spectrum of policies depending where you live. On average though I’d say your standards of living are still better than what the average American would enjoy.
Well, at least we have some variety and an actual political spectrum, that’s still better than red-blue monoculture.
at least we have some variety and an actual political spectrum
lol, no, no we don’t…
E: not in the mainstream “ever likely to be elected” category anyway, they all serve capitalism here tooHave you ever looked at the European parliament? Have you looked at the communists and Trotskyists in some European countries’ parliaments? They’re there, you can look it up.
Can you even call yourself real multiparty system until you have viable Bonapartists, though?
We have anything people will vote for, for better or for worse. The same can’t be said for the US or the UK, because of “first past the post”.
deleted by creator
Tankies really are the worst. At least right wing ideology has propaganda that fits their mission.
When you break down tanky ideology, they are just fascists who use leftist populism to garner support. They are just right wingers with extra steps.
Victim blaming at it’s finest! Ukraine gets invaded, it must be their fault!
It’s abusive behavior at its finest. “My wife MADE me punch her in the face 10 times! Poor me”
In my experience it’s more like “My wife’s been getting closer to the most powerful man in town, because I keep threatening to punch her in the face. This dude sometimes does bad things and he made us wear masks because of a so-called pandemic, so I had no choice other than repeatedly punching her in the face. So he’s obviously responsible for this whole mess, I’m a good guy really! Also my wife is a Nazi.”
They’re nazis because the NATO helped them not be colonized and drained of resources by Russia. Not wanting to have your hospitals and schools bombed, makes you a nazi obviously.
I think the Russian conception of Nazi is literally someone who threatens Russia. The rest of the world focuses on the totalitarian ideologies and anti semitism, Russia largely focuses on just that they were against Russia.
I think the Russian conception of Nazi is literally someone who threatens Russia.
Yep. Just like the US definition of socialist/communist/terrorist
Maybe Ukraine shouldn’t have been dressed so provocatively.
Thank you for the laugh, see you in hell. :)
Westerners don’t get it. They didn’t see citizens in Crimea and Donbas walking around in their “fuck me, Putin” shorts and their “imperialism now” borscht stained t-shirts.
