“NOOOOOOO you have to pick one of the two teams or you’re a RADICAL CENTRIST!!!”
Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay
Submitted 5 weeks ago by cm0002@lemmy.world to [deleted]
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/8f195263-da51-47a8-80a8-bfeb52f7ae18.webp
Comments
pimento64@sopuli.xyz 5 weeks ago
themeatbridge@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Now hang on. If you pretend the two teams are the same and refuse to pick a side because neither is perfect so it doesn’t matter, you are an enabler of fascism.
You can support a team while acknowledging their flaws. Refusing to play because the better team isn’t perfect is either naive or malicious.
dmMeYourNudes@lemmynsfw.com 5 weeks ago
Or you can not join a team and evaluate things individually based on their merits
lugal@sopuli.xyz 5 weeks ago
Once you talk about “both teams”, you imply there are only two instead of supporting those who to this day resist all states
pimento64@sopuli.xyz 5 weeks ago
Is this intentional misinterpretation for mischief purposes, or is this your best?
kautau@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Astronauticaldb@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Not really the point, but that’s a funny little oxymoron; to be a radical anything you’d need to be actually committed to something so much that you want to do actual ground work to further a cause.
Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
It is a real thing but the term radical is used a bit different
The radical in the term refers to a willingness on the part of most radical centrists to call for fundamental reform of institutions.[1] The centrism refers to a belief that genuine solutions require realism and pragmatism, not just idealism and emotion
So not radical as in extremist action but radical change
BrainInABox@lemmy.ml 5 weeks ago
Lol, this place has changed its tone a lot now that the US election is over
abbadon420@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
You are banned from /c/hexbear
FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 weeks ago
lemmygrad, and lemmy.ml 😭
Learnt this the hard way, my first account was on lemmy.ml
abbadon420@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
Lemmy.ml is a default instance, so many newbies start there and find out how the admins operate there. So that’s a funny thing with lemmy
MITM0@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Good
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 weeks ago
It’s easy mmmm’kay!
ComradeMiao@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
This is just like how I can praise so many things about China, push back against anti-China US propaganda, and still not pretend it isn’t an authoritarian regime where Xi made himself essentially life time president now.
Speaking of that, are there any left leaning subs that aren’t delusional?
ne0n@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
If you find one, let us know
humanspiral@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
No. Failing to praise all US empire efforts to diminish China is “letting China win”. There cannot be a “some good some bad” view on China. “all bad only” is allowed.
PugJesus@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Probably on DB0.
WrenFeathers@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
are there any left leaning subs that aren’t delusional?
Not on lemmy, no.
TheOubliette@lemmy.ml 5 weeks ago
authoritarian regime
Both of these terms are obfuscstory propaganda that mean a person hasn’t placed enough scrutiny on what they have internalized. That might sound like I am simply attacking you, but I mean this as a way of answering your (combative) question: you want a space where people have some basic ideas about cold war propaganda but where they retain a significant amount of chauvinist framibgs from that propaganda. You can find like-minded people wherever left education arrests itself, which is why you won’t find it in organizations or spaces that require reading on these topics.
To explain my response, I’ll go over the two words.
Authoritarian. This word is poisoned beyond clear meaning. Every state is authoritarian, so what is the meaning of calling a particular state authoritarian? Every revolution is authoritarian, so do you also criticize them as such and seek out anti-revolutionary spaces? In reality, I know that this term is just thrown around in chauvinist contexts as a dog whistle. In this context it just means “bad” and “the enemy”. It’s the liberal version of, “they hate us for our freedoms”.
Regime. This term is synonymous with givernment or state, but just colors it as, again, “bad”. Venezuela must always be described as being led by a regime, not a government. As a target of imperialist propaganda, it must be implicitly propagandized as illegitimate and bad. Think of someone saying, “the Biden regime”. How often do you hear that phrase? If you’ve heard it, it was a socialist trying to make this point and even the playing field.
If you remove the propaganda aspects, your framing becomes, “still not pretend it isn’t a government”. Becomes less spicy, doesn’t it? Despite having no differences in meaning outside of implying it is bad.
Finally, Xi didn’t make himself president for life, he must be regularly reelected. The government itself removed term limits in the normal way: with a vote. Imperialist media calls this “president for life” because they are chauvinists. When the US had no term limits, was every president “president for life”? Aren’t term limits antidemocratic, i.e. more authoritarian?
In short: please do some self-criticism on this internalized chauvinism and you will find it easier to find comrades. You are currently in an incoherent position and that means you’d only find comeradery among the incoherent snd incurious. Be around people that challenge you based on their reading and knowledge.
MisterFrog@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
It’s hard finding people with this opinion, sadly. I’m with you on this one comrade 🐱⚒️
riwo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 weeks ago
go make one, id join ;3
assuming you arent a delussional leftist yourself, unaware of your own delusions…
ComradeMiao@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
I would be willing to try and do that :) What would be interesting to you? A general leftist non-liberal non-authoritarian apologist community? @ne0n@lemmy.world @MisterFrog@lemmy.world
Krauerking@lemy.lol 5 weeks ago
Eh, we are all victims to delusion right? Can’t know what is a dream and what is reality until it’s being lived in the moment.
I think the mark of a true leftist is picking a dream that’s so big you know it couldn’t possibly come true so you could never mistake it for reality, but then work towards it anyways.
BrainInABox@lemmy.ml 5 weeks ago
where Xi made himself essentially life time president now.
What? When?
bigFab@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Live_Let_Live@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
imperialism against imperialists is good
TrickDacy@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
TYpIcAl ShItLiB
Siegfried@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
I HatE when cApiTal lEtter ALternation doesn’t hoLd a hidDEn BUt relevant meSSage, don’t You?
RustyEarthfire@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
He ate all DeBussy?
roguetrick@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Really though, the level of imperialism apologizing I’ve seen has been pretty humorous on this platform. Like people will say with a straight face that we need to support our client state Israel to secure our regional interests. It’s the same song and dance from the concert of Europe giving guns to the corrupt African client kings so they can murder the other guy’s corrupt African client kings. All for the noble civilizing influence of the state. But this time it’ll turn out different.
RustyEarthfire@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Really though, the level of imperialism apologizing I’ve seen has been pretty humorous on this platform. Like people will say with a straight face that we need to support our client state Israel to secure our regional interests.
Is this being federated from some platform other than Lemmy? Because I have literally never seen someone support that position here.
Krauerking@lemy.lol 5 weeks ago
Likely you are understating how often that occurs as much as the person is overstating how much that occurs. You don’t interact with those people and they, trying to argue against, constantly interact with them.
I’ve seen people absolutely take the side of “Israel must be protected, there is no other answer” and plenty of it on Lemmy and it comes from its users.
Don’t diminish other people’s experience when they share it, people are often honest about their perspective even if it might be wrong. Ignoring it does no help for either of you.
chaogomu@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Ah, Cato the Elder. He had a good cheesecake recipe, but was otherwise a complete jackass.
Krauerking@lemy.lol 5 weeks ago
Well it does work until it doesn’t and the high imperialists get out of it can be quite high. A chunk of the oligarchic boomers feel like they have have everything they ever could have wanted even if their younger counterparts are starting to get greedy for more like addicts they are. And now we have fights between the rulers that want it to stay exactly as is and those that want more battling it out while we get nothing for those of us below that want better.
Lessons are learned and forgotten constantly in this world. The next empire along will also justify its existing as a good until it no longer can.
Let’s see what happens when Carthage falls and weapons are handed out asking the meek to pick sides to groups promising to own them better. I doubt that it will be a lesson we learn and pushed off to be learned again later.
roguetrick@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
It works until they start believing their own propaganda, which America did long ago. Using flimsy justifications to steal things from people will enrich you. Driving your empire because you must continuously validate those justifications will destroy you.
mydude@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
I’d say US imperialism is many magnitudes worse than any other governments, except for the brutality of Israel. Who else has more than 750 bases in at least 80 countries worldwide and spends more on its military than the next 10 countries combined. But sure Russia, Iran, China, North-Korea, Venezuela bad.
electric_nan@lemmy.ml 5 weeks ago
It’s funny, but not surprising how much you’re down voted here. The meme is heavily upvoted for equating (presumably US) imperialism and (presumably Chinese) authoritarianism. But give an example of how much worse the US is, and people who pretend to hate imperialism fall over themselves to defend the US.
guy@piefed.social 5 weeks ago
I think the point is that both are bad. But somehow it always ends up with a competition where the US is more bad than the rest, and the rest is therefore somehow excused when .ml is involved
Ixoid@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
Facts gets downvotes here!
Ganbat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 weeks ago
Fools get downvotes here. When the US launches a violent offensive directly on a neighboring independent country with the intent of destroying its people and conquering its land, which NK and Russia are currently trying to do, maybe you’ll have a point.
recreationalcatheter@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
I’d say…
Facts gets downvotes here!
Do you know how opinions are different from facts?
Such a sad excuse for an intellect.
nl4real@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Who else has more than 750 bases in at least 80 countries worldwide and spends more on its military than the next 10 countries combined.
And yet Russia still managed to launch a war with casualties on par with Iraq. Sorry sunshine, if you’re a global power, you’ve got a body count in the millions. Period.
Objection@lemmy.ml 5 weeks ago
if you’re a global power, you’ve got a body count in the millions.
Very true. But is this an inherent trait of the world, or is there some path forward that would change or mitigate this fact?
Shacktastic@lemy.lol 5 weeks ago
Shoot… US imperialism is soft-serve ice cream compared to the empires of history. Those military bases by and large extend the American security umbrella to protect the host country, not to put its population to the colonial boot and extract wealth. Yeah they sort of have to tow the line on US foreign policy, but it’s a far cry from, say, the Boer enslaving natives in South Africa or Alexander the great wiping out populations who defied him.
The US has a long laundry list of dirty deeds, but overall the US “empire” has led to the longest and wealthiest period of global peace and scientific/technical/social advancement in the history of humankind. That doesn’t excuse anything but neither is it particularly useful to condition our allegiances on utopian absolutes of moral purities. When we do, evil wins (e.g., see recent election where 10M Democratic voters stayed home).
archomrade@midwest.social 5 weeks ago
Are you really sure you want to be ascribing global trends to the US empire?
TheOubliette@lemmy.ml 5 weeks ago
Shoot… US imperialism is soft-serve ice cream compared to the empires of history.
Amartya Sen estimated that Indian capitalism killed around 4 million people per year as compared to China’s more planned economy. Indian capitalism was maintained by the British and the US as part of “decolonization” and the superprofits reaped from India and ending up in the US are basically public record.
This is a larger total number than basically any older empire you can think of.
Those military bases by and large extend the American security umbrella to protect the host country, not to put its population to the colonial boot and extract wealth.
Oh sweet summer child. Those are forward bases for US imperialism. They have been used to stage and supply every oppressive US war and to control shipping routes. They don’t all just sit there doing nothing. How much did Vietnam enjoy the “security umbrella” of US bases, again?
This is just plain dishonest imperislist propaganda.
Yeah they sort of have to tow the line on US foreign policy
US bases are a symptom of already being beholden to the US. The people of Okinawa hate the US base there. It is only there because Japsn was conquered in WWII and surrendered to the US, and the US built it into a satellite for harassing Korea, China, and the USSR.
but it’s a far cry from, say, the Boer enslaving natives in South Africa or Alexander the great wiping out populations who defied him.
US imperialism is carrying out a genocide in Gaza right now via their ethnic supremacist proxy and just toppled the Syrian state, which will likely go the way of Libya if it doesn’t balkanize first. The US supports its ckient states that engage in slavery, such as the Saudis or Qatat, where South Asian laborers are brought in and their passports stolen.
The US supported apartheid South Africa in a way that is very similar yo how it supports Israel.
The US has a long laundry list of dirty deeds, but overall the US “empire” has led to the longest and wealthiest period of global peace and scientific/technical/social advancement in the history of humankind.
Where is this period of global peace? The US is engaged in constant war. Where is this wealth? If you exclude socialist blocs the trends on poverty reverse. Scientific advancement was global and much of what you could list will have Soviet or Chinese workers behind it.
That doesn’t excuse anything but neither is it particularly useful to condition our allegiances on utopian absolutes of moral purities. When we do, evil wins (e.g., see recent election where 10M Democratic voters stayed home).
“If we don’t accept evil, evil wins” just listen to yourself, it doesn’t even make sense in this simplistic form.
And who are “we”? Your statements place you squarely against those who suffer under global capitalism, dismissive of ongoing genocide. You’re basically doing the Stephen Pinker thing, and he is full of shit in addition to being buddy buddy with Epstein.
guy@piefed.social 5 weeks ago
Seems like this post is about you! :)
el_bhm@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
I’d say US imperialism is many magnitudes worse than any other governments, except for the brutality of Israel
Read a fucking history book at least once. The only country that makes the top 5 is russia by the sheer scale of terrain it held at one point and age.
Not even sure if US imperialism makes it to the top 5. With all its capitalism, systematic racism, history of camps, military might across the globe. Barely top 5.
Read. A. History. Book.
hark@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
The US is the biggest source of imperialism in the world. We don’t have to always follow that up with “butwhatabout” to distract from that, which is what the US media machine does by running stories all the time to manufacture consent for its own imperialism.
splonglo@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
I’d say that Russia is the biggest source of suffering caused by imperialism in the world right now ( just going by the death toll of the Ukraine war ) . Is saying that a ‘distraction’ from American imperialism?
BrainInABox@lemmy.ml 5 weeks ago
Gaza absolutely dwarfs Ukraine in terms of suffering caused by imperialism.
Honestly, this is why I increasingly believe that people who say things like the OP don’t actually believe American Imperialism is bad, they’re just doing whataboutism to defend it.
bytheclouds@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
People that are being literally killed, tortured, displaced, bombed, denied their identity, starved, raped, genocided right now by China/Russia/North Korea, looking for any support, any help from anyone willing to give it
A Leftist American: US is the biggest source of imperialism in the world and you’re not being oppressed by the US, so you’re not real. Have a good day. takes a privileged slurp from the huge cup of Starbucks and closes his Macbook
UmeU@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Someone had their Chomsky-o’s for breakfast this morning.
RedFrank24@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
No no, you don’t understand. America bad, therefore anything against America is automatically good. It doesn’t matter who it is or what they do.
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 weeks ago
This is literally why the LGBTQ+ community trusts neither the left nor the right, because historically both sides have brutalized them.
NONE_dc@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
As a Venezuela ln who’s against Yankee imperialism and our current oppressive “”“”“Socialist”“”“” government, I approve this message.
humble_pete_digger@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
I think people should separate
A) ideal world they want
B) what has to be done now to survive because everyone is an assholekrimsonbun@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 weeks ago
How is this a shitpost? there’s no shit!
jimmydoreisalefty@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Oh, you reminded me to check out Yanis Varoufakis’s latest videos!
He talks of imperialism and the differences between China and the USA.
Thanks for the meme!
For those interested: lemmy.world/post/23027760
TokenBoomer@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Objection@lemmy.ml 5 weeks ago
Wait, are you saying “both sides bad?” “Both sides are the same?” Am I hearing this right?
Look, if either Xi Jinping or Donald Trump is going to emerge as leader of a global hegemon, then any and all criticism of Xi Jinping is the exact same as being a Trump supporter. When are we going to do something about all these secret Trump supporters pretending to be leftists?
At least, that’s what I’d say if I accepted the absurd logic of lesser evilism the liberals were constantly berating everyone with.
doingthestuff@lemy.lol 5 weeks ago
Take away imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression, and what are we left with? Man I wish you were advocating anarchism, the but I’ve almost given uphope of seeing people understand its wisdom.
TCB13@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
“oppressive govts that use socialism to hide their atrocities” => welcome to European politics.
MITM0@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Except US is biggest imperialist & no one intelligent is supporting Russia just cause America Bad
electric_nan@lemmy.ml 5 weeks ago
Be sure to consider that the past examples of US imperialism were widely supported by Americans just like you. In hindsight, we can often see more clearly since we aren’t immersed in the contemporary propaganda.
Daerun@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
… or to hide their own imperialism.
lorty@lemmy.ml 5 weeks ago
The crimes of the US empire dwarf anything you bring up on any “authoritarian” countries that are curiously always enemies of the US. No complaints on Myanmar here no sir!
archomrade@midwest.social 5 weeks ago
“Quit hitting yourself, quit hitting yourself, quit hitting yourself”
WrenFeathers@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
100% this.
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 5 weeks ago
“And thus I clothe my naked villainy : With odd old ends stolen forth from holy writ; and seem a saint, when most I play the devil.”
Goodtoknow@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
literally Canada :(
slumlordthanatos@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Remember folks: China is communist in the same way that North Korea is democratic and the Nazis were socialist.
It’s just a smokescreen.
JWayn596@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
A core tenant of socialism is a democratized workplace, being able to vote for your wage and company policy, like an Engineer choosing when to launch instead of some MBS degree.
Last time I checked I dont think factory workers in China that make all our shit can do that.
Eldritch@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Yes. That was the point of what they posted. None of those groups are what they claim to be beyond nominally.
Slovene@feddit.nl 5 weeks ago
ThAt’s jUst WeSTeRnn prOpaGAndA
Cowbee@lemmy.ml 5 weeks ago
Workplace democracy isn’t necessarily a core concept of Socialism, at least not in the Marxian sense. Removing the issues that come with the profit motive alleviates issues you describe. Instead, Marxists advocate for public ownership and central planning with extensive democratic controls, without necessitating competing democratic worker coops. Engels argued against such a concept in Anti-Dühring, actually, believing such a system to revert to Capitalism through competition and accumulation.
Antiproton@programming.dev 5 weeks ago
Which is also why socialism will never work. Humans are piss poor at evaluating the common good and making decisions collectively (see also: the last US election.)
MisterFrog@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Eh, there’s a notional aspiration to socialism at least, which is more than can be said about the US sphere of countries.
In practice though? Yeah, China is hyper-captialist, without much of the social security present in wealthier countries.
Why Leftist get a hard-on for the former USSR, Russia and China, or frankly any country, is beyond me.
There are positive and negative outcomes in line or against socialist ideals everywhere (I think people are too black and white about China in both directions personally)
I just do not understand simping for any country, just because they are “socialist”.
Wxnzxn@lemmy.ml 5 weeks ago
That notional aspiration to socialism is basically the ideological smokescreen. It was much more effective in the Cold War era, but it condenses down to: “Suffer through our version of (state) capitalism and exploitative labour for our capital accumulation” - be it by state institutions or even state-sponsored billionaires - “and at the end of it, we promise, there will be communism.”
But that “communism” then tends to be like nuclear fusion - always 20 years away.
AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
The USSR at least outwardly promoted socialist values like solidarity and being kind to your fellow people. They fucked up pretty bad in practice, but at least they made an attempt.
sparky@lemmy.federate.cc 5 weeks ago
IMO this is why it takes an additional axis to define a government, not just left/right but also free/authoritarian. You can find examples of all combinations. Left wing and repressive? Cuba. Left leaning and free? Sweden. Right wing and repressive? Russia, Saudi Arabia, whatever. Right leaning and free? USA.
Obviously, there’s a gradient within these axes, but it’s strange to see people cheering on a country that matches their preferred left or right wing ideology if they’re super repressive.
Cowbee@lemmy.ml 5 weeks ago
China has a Socialist Market Economy, it hasn’t reached Communism of course but at the same time the Public Sector covers over half of the economy, and is gradually folding the Private Sector into it with the degree to which it develops. This is the process Marx and Engels described a Socialist State would take. From Principles of Communism:
The backbone of the PRC is central planning and public ownership, Marx is regularly taught in class, and Marxism-Leninism continues to be the dominant and guiding ideology. They are ideologically Communist, and it is rather silly to protest otherwise simply because they haven’t immediately siezed all property, which would be anti-Marxist as the PRC is still underdeveloped.
The purpose of Marxian analysis of Capitalism is the insight that markets naturally centralize and develop complicated methods of planning. You can’t just will these into existence, and markets provide a quick way of creating them. Once they have sufficiently developed, markets cease to be the best tool to use, and public ownership and central planning becomes more efficient.
cm0002@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
You can call their economy whatever you want, doesn’t stop them from being a dictatorship.
Vespair@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
Look, I’ll admit I’m not as smart as some of the folks who debate this topic, so for me it comes down to a simple question:
Do the Chinese people own the means of production? Not a government body claiming to represent the people, but the people themselves; do the people own the means of production? Can the factory workers choose how the factory operates?
If no, then what’s the point?