Cowbee

@Cowbee@lemmy.ml

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do .ml users get a bad rep?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Gotcha.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do .ml users get a bad rep?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Awesome, thanks! I hope they’re useful for you!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do .ml users get a bad rep?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  What is a “proper communist country?” The people on Lemmy.ml by and large agree with what the broad majoroty of practicing communist parties believe, including groups like the Black Panther Party.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do .ml users get a bad rep?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  It is true though, users should be able to pick up on that the instance that makes copying communist theory a part of the sign up process might have communists.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do .ml users get a bad rep?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Not a single person says the Russian Federation is socialism. You’re confusing people critically supporting its movements against the US Empire with people believing it to be socialist. They do have rising socialist sympathies among the populace, but that doesn’t make them socialist.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do .ml users get a bad rep?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  To be fair, Lemmy.ml does as well, it forces you to copy a section of The Principles of Communism before joining.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do .ml users get a bad rep?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Technically it’s Engels, in The Principles of Communism, last I checked.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Don’t know what you mean by the concept of base and superstructure being “insane.” It’s a general observation that the way we produce shapes our culture, which reinforces the way we produce.

  You’re also fundamentally entirely wrong about communism. Communism isn’t when you have a bunch of tools in a pile and everyone can walk up to it and use it, then throw it back into the pile, or anything, it’s a fully collectively owned and planned industrial economy. The tragedy of the commons doesn’t apply to, say, the post office, as an example.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  The 1930s famine in the Soviet Union wasn’t anything intentional, but was the result of adverse weather conditions combined with kulaks destroying grain and livestock rather than let their property be collectivized and benefit the workers they exploited for centuries. Tragic, yes, evil? No, if anything the kulaks have a better claim to that.

  I don’t know if you know this, but the USSR dissolved 3 decades ago. Putin isn’t a communist, nor is the Russo-Ukrainian War a genocide, but a war. The extermination of Palestine at the hands of Israel is a genocide. Really confused why you’re bringing up Putin unless your point is that Russians are intrinsically evil, when we are specifically talking about the Soviet Union.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Thr Nazis murdered KPD members and other union organizers, that was how they came into power. They also massacred Jewish people, disabled people, queer people, etc. They came into power as an answer to “Judeo-Bolshevism,” they didn’t simply want power for the sake of power, but to protect private capital.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  You’re equating famines that were a combination of mismanagement and weather disasters in undeveloped countries with the deliberate and intentional industrialized mass murder machine that was the Holocaust. Clear false equivalence. Further, famine was common in Russia, China, etc pre-socialism, and were eradicated once the communists successfully developed industrialized agriculture. The Nazis on the other hand had extermination as their goal.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Just to clarify, are you calling me a fascist/14 yo/etc? I’m a communist, I organize in real life, I’ve read more than wikipedia, and I’m a working adult. None of what I said that OP is quoting is particularly out of the norm for the Marxist understanding of base and superstructure, and it was all in good faith that I responded, I even clarified more over here. OP seems to be anti-union, anti-safety net, etc and came into a months old comment chain, and I still gave them a clear and coherent overview without copying and pasting dozens of Marx and Engels quotes to make my point.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  No, this is just Double Genocide Theory, and is a form of Holocaust trivialization. The Nazis brutally oppressed the working class and created a system of industrialized mass murder, the communists oppressed the capitalists and doubled life expectancies, tripled literacy rates, provided free and high quality eduaction and healthcare, and far more.

  The idea that the Soviets were anywhere close to as evil as the Nazis requires erasing the Holocaust, and equating the suffering of the small portion of society as the capitalists and Tsarists to the large working class in Germany, both groups were victims in their respective countries but clearly the brutality of the Tsarists and capitalists against the working class is what earned the revolution in the first place.

  I recommend reading Blackshirts and Reds.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The base is the mode of production and the relations to it, and the superstructure arises from it and reinforces it. This doesn’t mean the superstructure doesn’t exist, or that you can have a base without a superstructure, what it means is that the superstructure is secondary to the base and comes from it.

  As an example, feudalism as the base, and monarchist divine right to rule as superstructure, as well as the church. Agrarian production with large lords to be paid rent to was the form of the base, while the superstructure arose from that base and formed kingdoms and justifications for said base. They could not exist without each other, but the base was the driving factor.

  As another, we can see capitalism and liberalism. The ideas of private property rights, bootstraps mentality, and the idea that everyone has an equal chance at success are the ways the system justifies itself, even though that isn’t how it works in practice.

  This is a very old concept, not one I invented. There’s even a page on Wikipedia for it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Self starter⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  We do not exist in a world with technology sufficient to entirely eliminate labor. Even highly automated industry like in the PRC, labor-power is still paramount for production. A transition to socialism can allow us to better direct production consciously, rather than letting the eldritch god capital decide everything based on profitability, but we will not be able to eliminate labor, only center it, rather than capital.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  You’re extremely confused, I’m not blaming “low information voters” of any sort. Electoralism is not a valid path for leftism. I’m not using a money excuse, either, though your erasure of money’s influence on media is also oversimplified. You haven’t taken any steps back, you’ve invented a caricature of “the left” in your head and are acting like you’re the only one to see things as they really are. It’s very silly.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  There have never been left presidents in the US. Mamdani is not the leader of the revolution. You’re very confused about what’s going on, and you’re out of touch with why Trump won. It wasn’t “memes,” it isn’t some masterful play, nor are liberals left wing.

  You need to take a step back and familiarize yourself more with what’s going on. Try to take a materialist outlook, not an idealist outlook.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  No, lol. The Left is fine on the internet. You can touch grass and organize, and do online agitprop. Mamdani won because people are being radicalized.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The Left is fighting an uphill battle. Capitalism is the status quo, and the US relies on imperialism using its vast financial capital and massive number of millitary bases to keep goods relatively cheap, but this is crumbling. Change works as quantitative buildup until significant, qualitative change. Orgs like PSL are growing rapidly. They are still small, but the rate of growth is large. Time is on the Left’s side.

  Just look at Palestine, as an example. 5 years ago, the vast majority of the US was Zionist. Now, the majority oppose the genocide. Mamdani winning the primary in NYC shows that more overtly left-leaning individuals are valued over right-wingers like Cuomo. Change works on trends. History doesn’t reset every day, eventually water droplets bore through stone.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The Left does both. The purpose of real life stikes and protests is because its proof that Leftist organizations have the logistical capacity to plan, demonstrate, and act in a cohesive and unified manner. Organizing is more important than meme sharing. Memes, agitprop, etc are very useful recruitment tools, so they should not be ignored, but it’s more important to actually put in the work of organizing effectively once recruited.

  Sharing memes without actually organizing is just an outlet for people to express frustration, but organizing is an actual necessary and important step in toppling the existing system and replacing it with a better one, as the hard work on organizing has already been laid out.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨RIP America⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Deeply unserious managers of empire continue to self-cannibalize their own productivity in an effort to go even more all-in on financial capital, all while the global south is doing its best to pivot towards more favorable relations with countries like China. When the US Empire runs out of countries to exploit, and financial capital ceases to be profitable, it will have no developed industrial base nor a strong scientifically trained worker base to pull itself back up. The US is cooked, this is just speedrunning the demise of the empire in a faster and harder fashion.

  The good news is that the worse this gets, the more favorable the conditions for organizing become, and the more vulnerable to revolution the state becomes. We can legitimately take advantage of this, and gain mastery over capital, rather than the inverse. We can re-industrialize, become socialist, and begin the long and difficult but necessary path towards legitimate progress. It won’t be easy, but it will be doable.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is Lemmy attempting to radicalise people to enforce class wars?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  1. The devs are communists.

  2. Using Lemmy over Reddit is already an ideological choice for many of us, ergo you will find people with a stronger ideological backbone here.

  3. Conditions in the English-Speaking world are getting more dire. The US Empire is struggling to prop itself up, billionaires control more and more of the wealth while working class folks control less and less, and more people are getting involved in reading theory and organizing.

  4. Many leftist subreddits were shut down and fled to Lemmy, the same has not happened to the same degree for right-wing subreddits.

  It’s as simple as that, really. I suggest you start reading some leftist theory, I made a Marxism-Leninism Beginner Reading List to help people who want to start doing that (comes with audiobook versions, too).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨alternatives to lemm.ee?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  You too!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨alternatives to lemm.ee?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s important to contextualize, though. Restrictions of some speech in Socialist countries is usually a defense against outside influences, where Capitalists dominate. Capitalist systems don’t appear to restrict speech as much because the only ones that control it are wealthy Capitalists, you can speak out as much as you want but none of that has any power.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨alternatives to lemm.ee?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  What do you mean by “directly auth?” If people have a greater degree of political freedom in one party proletarian states than in multiparty states where the bourgeoisie is in control, it seems freedom is greater for more people in the proletarian states. I think the whole “auth” concept is flawed to begin with.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨alternatives to lemm.ee?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve been reading a bit of Hegel and authors like Plekhanov’s The Significance of Hegel. If liberals genuinely grasped dialectics to the level of Hegel, they’d most likely just be Marxists and drop the idealism. Hegel’s thought was a specific product of his conditions and his time, to the point where looking back at him and his thought the jump to Materialism feels obvious, but Marx’s advancements were quite revolutionary at the time.

  Basically, there are a very small number of people who accept dialectics and follow Hegelian thought over Marxist thought, as compared to Marxism. Would be an interesting stance to take in a world after Marx.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨alternatives to lemm.ee?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The struggle with such a standpoint is that both Marxists and Liberals have (to a varying degrees) coherent systems of values and understandings. For Marxists, as an example, Dialectical and Historical Materialism is the baseline, while liberals tend to be more idealist and deny aspects of class struggle. If you agree with either premise, then other conclusions necessarily follow.

  Plus, I don’t really think labeling Marxists as “auth” makes sense. All states are “auth,” as all states are instruments of class oppression, but the class in charge is what makes the biggest impact on how society is run. Liberalism is “auth” as the bourgeoisie rules, Marxism is “auth” as the proletariat rules. It is only by abolishing class that the state can be abolished, and class can only be abolishef by sublimating all forms of property ownership into common, public ownership.

  Either way, tangent aside, I recommend finding instances that match your interest, rather than strictly broad federation. Mander.xyz is a great example of an instance based on science, but it also has broad federation. Check Join-Lemmy.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨alternatives to lemm.ee?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I didn’t see any of that when glancing through your comments on Hexbear, mind providing an example with the context?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨alternatives to lemm.ee?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Doesn’t seem to be the case, looks like you got into one fight regarding electoralism but you’ve even been upvoted on Hexbear in numerous other occasions.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨alternatives to lemm.ee?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s a Left Unity space, plus historically Anarchists and Marxists work together more often than not. The Anarchists on Hexbear can speak for why they enjoy it.