OBJECTION! @ Objection @lemmy.ml Posts 19Comments 2,782Joined 1 yr. ago
leftist infighting
Yeah good luck walking around telling the average American that isn’t already a leftist “yeah come join me, I’m a socialist communist!”
Do you… not see what the right would… do with that?
Whereas if I just say, "Yeah come join me, I'm a socialist" the right will just call me a communist anyway. I'd rather own it and wear it with pride than allow it to be used as a boogeyman. The way I see it, reclaiming the term means I have a better chance to define it, if the right says, "Communists believe this," I can say, "I'm a communist and none of us believe that shit, this is what we're actually about." Whereas if I let it be a boogeyman then I'm stuck giving them ground and punching left, "I'm a leftist, but I'm not like those dirty commies." They're still gonna hate my fucking guts for being a leftist and in the process I've alienated potential allies and given in to their rhetoric.
It's no different from reclaiming other insults, except it wasn't originally an insult and we shouldn't allow it to be.
Not only are you butchering the reality and history of these terms
Please define them and explain how they're different, because again, I genuinely don't know how you're using them. The way they're commonly used varies tremendously and generally leaves a lot of ambiguity, I'm guessing the difference is that communism has a harsher vibe or something.
Socialism as a system is a transitionary state that aims to establish communism, that is, a classless, moneyless, stateless society. A socialist is someone who aims to establish communism through such a transitionary state. I guess you could distinguish socialists from anarcho-communists, who seek to go straight to communism without a transitionary period. There is also a distinction between Marxists and Social Democrats, but Social Democrats, at least originally (Karl Kautsky, Eduard Bernstein, etc), still claimed that their end goal was communism, and that they could achieve that through reforming existing systems. And on the other side of that, the USSR was called the USSR and not the USCR, because it did not claim to have achieved communism but rather to be a transitionary state towards that eventual goal.
leftist infighting
You ignored the question… and continued to make attacks that have no actual end result/point to the convo you claim to be trying to have.
What question did I ignore, exactly? And what convo do I "claim to be trying to have?"
Again. Re read #3 because I’ve already said it multiple times. Do you have any actual other point than that besides “dems & Cheney bad?” That’s what I’ve been trying to get to.
I mean, if you want to get into a more general discussion of why the democrats lost, we can do that - the main reason being that they were associated with a declining status quo. I talked about the Cheney's because that was the specific topic being discussed.
I don't really get why you seem to be taking my points so personally.
I mean… you have to go beyond socialism into communism to not think that some form of capitalism should exist. And I’m not saying I’m not on board with SOME of that, but you’re kind of driving my point home that you’re just… saying shit.
I’m a basically a fuckin’ socialist you turd.
I don't understand how you're using any of these terms. To me, "communist" and "socialist" are pretty much interchangable in the same way that "liberalism" and "capitalism" are.
this whole time when I’ve addressed the Cheney point MULTIPLE times, which was your only real complaint until you kept attacking random shit.
See, I don't have any understanding of why you think my criticism of the Cheney's or the Democratic Party was an attack on you that you had to defend against.
leftist infighting
The influence of “bots” is highly overstated and is basically just a way of dismissing legitimate criticism
Ah, bootlicker/propaganda bot it is.
Well, that didn't take long 🙄
Every statement you’ve made has been in bad faith, purely attempting to derail the argument and make readers glaze their eyes over.
I love when people just say shit. Like, you haven't pointed to any actual reason why anything I've said is "bad faith" or "emotional." Really just rolling out all the go-to methods of categorically dismissing any and all criticism, huh?
Fox News is watched by 60% of the country
Lmao no it isn't. You got a source for that number?
No, the NEOliberal status quo. We have never been a leftist nation. Our Overton window is very far to the right. Bernie is like a single step to the left of the center. Check out any other major democracy.
Yeah, no shit? Why are you telling me this as if I don't already know?
Attacking "liberal"ism is straight kremlin propaganda.
Lmao. A liberal is a supporter of capitalism, as a socialist, of course I'm opposed to liberalism. I guess every socialist in the world is a "Kremlin propagandist" in your view.
Why do you think the right-wing, free market "Liberal Democrats" of the UK are called that?
leftist infighting
Did you not read that I opened with I hate Cheney?
I never claimed otherwise? Very confusing reaction.
If you stopped responding emotionally
Excuse me? In what way was my response "emotional?"
or with the intent to derail and attack
By now the inaccuracy of your attacks
What "attacks" are you talking about? All I did was disagree with you on certain points.
Propaganda has influenced EVERY democracy.
They've got propaganda, we've got propaganda, everybody's got propaganda, and always has. The Democratic party has plenty of money to get their message out, the problem is their message sucked and didn't resonate.
MAGA/US, Brexit/UK, Marine La Pen/France, Bolsonaro/Brazil, AfD/Germany, Polliviere/Canada… the list goes on.
All of those were driven by material conditions, yes propaganda had an effect but the reason the propaganda resonates and has influence is because of people being dissatisfied with the liberal status quo.
The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems countries will slip through your fingers. Every year, more and more middle income countries that were unaligned are buddying up with China and the ones that were buddying up with the US are playing the field. China is keenly attentive to this global battle over hearts and minds while Americans are too preoccupied to even notice, and don't care when they do.
leftist infighting
gaza will be torn apart and sold to the highest bidders
Sorry, now that's going to happen? What the hell did you think was happening before?
leftist infighting
I think you should welcome (almost) anyone against an enemy like Trump.
I would much rather have the people who hate the Cheney's guts in my coalition than have the Cheney's. How many people do they even represent? Who doesn't hate them, and with good reason?
But not voting for Kamala because the coalition allowed Liz Cheney in is probably just as dumb
First off they didn't just "allow" Liz Cheney, they actively campaigned with her. But secondly and more importantly, it's not about whether it was right or wrong for that to influence people's decisions, it's about the fact that it likely did. Call it "dumb" or "irrational" all you want, if voters were all rational and intelligent then maybe we wouldn't have to think or care about messaging or image at all, but that's not the world we live in.
The influence of "bots" is highly overstated and is basically just a way of dismissing legitimate criticism and preventing any kind of self-reflection or learning from mistakes.
:::spoiler spoiler
Try adding a decimal after the 3
Bombing places and doing genocide only creates more enemies and more reasons to hate us. It's so fucking stupid, we literally spent 20 years in Afghanistan learning that lesson (not to mention Vietnam!), but apparently some people still haven't gotten the message. Other countries somehow avoid being bullied despite not being bullies, the US is the biggest bully on the planet and gets blowback as a result.
Our leaders know it'll happen, they count on it, more enemies means more justification to funnel money to the cronies in the military industrial complex. The real suckers are the ones who buy into that bullshit when they're not even profiting, when their tax dollars are going towards lining the pockets of a Raytheon executive.
...when said military is in the process of supporting a genocide, yes.
Hi, quick question, I'm trying to farm a plot of land, but I only have two tools, one that spreads salt over it and another that spreads nuclear waste over it, how should I proceed?
When both tools are actively harmful to the tasks you're trying to accomplish, you shouldn't use either. In fact you should dismantle them entirely, maybe once they're fully destroyed you can salvage something useful from the parts. But you certainly don't use the machine that salts the earth if you're hoping to grow plants, and you certainly don't use the Democratic party if you're looking to advance progressive causes.
These people hate us and everything we want to accomplish, why on earth would we just fall in line behind them, asking nothing in return?
Btw, the right is far more inclined towards defection from their party when they don't get their way. That's the reason why the Republican party has been shifted to the right. It's liberals who are die hard committed to this suicidal and irrational ideology of "lesser evilism."
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Putting aside the, "Everyone but an idiot knows the poor must be kept poor, or they will never be productive" logic, it's also just dumb as shit to claim that "able-bodied young men" are going to be super motivated to get off the couch for the sake of health insurance - not even real healthcare, we're talking about paying hundreds of dollars a month so that if you get sick you can "only" be saddled with a very high deductible.
I fucking hate these people's guts. Something something Luigi's Mansion.
leftist infighting
Liberals will say shit like this and then be baffled why leftists don't want to fall in line behind the party of moderate fascists.
You throw trans people under the bus and you also lose, or at least depress turnout, of everyone who supports trans rights. You also make it clear to every minority that if they're in the crosshairs next, they'll be sacrificed next for the same reasons of political convenience. Jews represented <1% of the population of Weimar Germany, and you may be familiar with a poem about what happened after they came for them.
Furthermore, by ceding ground to the Republicans on this you make them look correct and you discredit your own side for having previously denounced their position as bigoted, which makes people more likely to support Republicans. We saw this happen with the border, when the Democrats turned from "Building the wall is racist" to "We're the ones who are actually going to build the wall," they didn't win over moderate republicans, instead they lost on virtually every demographic. The people who are pro-immigration hated it and the people who are anti-immigration saw their views as being validated and if they had any lingering reservations about voting Republican, those reservations vanished.
Framing politics as a Trolley Problem is extremely stupid, and fundamentally not how the world works, it's liberal brainrot and one of the reasons Democrats are worthless. They literally did this "strategic" sacrifice with Palestinians and immigrants (and it's not like they fully supported trans rights either) and they still ate shit with the worst electoral map since the Republicans took California. When throwing trans people to the wolves doesn't work, which minority will you sacrifice next?
leftist infighting
Tankies... calling socialist countries that succeeded with market socialism revisionist “Tito is a revisionist prick delaying global Revolution”
Hate to break it to you but supporting Tito would make you a tankie in the eyes of most people on Lemmy who use the term (though you may get a pass for denouncing others).
God, what a shit perspective.
Comparing someone to a category as an insult is also insulting the people in that category regardless of whether the person it's directed at is part of the category or not. Calling a white person the n-word is offensive to black people, calling a straight person the f-slur is offensive to gay people, and calling neurotypical people the r-slur is offensive to the mentally disabled.
If I call you a "pasta eater" it would only work as an insult if there's an unstated assumption that eating pasta is bad. If I call you "gay" it only works an insult with the unstated assumption that being gay is bad. This isn't rocket science.
I like how you completely ignored my arguments.
Is it acceptable for a white person to tell another white person they're "acting like an [n-word]?" Yes or no.
And i mean, you can make that argument if you want, but then like, where do we stop? Is telling people to kill themselves morally unacceptable
Yes. 🤦 Jfc, "asking me not to use a slur against disabled people is a slippery slope to asking me not to tell people to kill themselves." Fucking, good!
Btw, you can make your argument if you want, but then like, where do we stop? If I call a straight person the f-slur, is that acceptable? I'm not actually saying it at a gay person, I'm just insulting someone by suggesting that they're gay. Is it ok for a white person to tell another white person they're acting like an n-word? Exactly how far are you willing to take this bullshit?
To me, a sane, educated, and healthy society with a legitimately working legal and justice system should never fall to fascism.
That's not really how it works. Fascism doesn't arise out of a lack of those things, it arises because of the capitalist drive for endless growth encountering the tendency of the rate of profit to fall as economies become more developed. When there isn't a lot of room to grow, fascism presents a solution in the form of artificial growth through cannibalizing minority businesses. As this cannibalism continues, the definition of the in-group continuously narrows to ensure there's always a target.
No matter how many checks and balances there are or how well functioning the system is, the material pressures will eventually overwhelm it, and there will either be nationalizations to remove the profit motive from already developed industries and remove the pressure, or there will be enshittification, economic cannibalism, and fascism. "Socialism or barbarism."
Systems only matter to the extent that people with guns say they do. We have a check on the sorts of things Trump is doing, SCOTUS ruled that he has to return a prisoner sent to El Salvador, and he's just opted to ignore it. And it turns out he can just do that even though it's illegal because SCOTUS doesn't have guns and the people who do have guns don't care.