Cowbee
@Cowbee@lemmy.ml
- Comment on Is communist idea of base & superstructural bullshit? 2 weeks 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 Is communist idea of base & superstructural bullshit? 2 weeks 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 Is communist idea of base & superstructural bullshit? 2 weeks 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 Is communist idea of base & superstructural bullshit? 2 weeks 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 Is communist idea of base & superstructural bullshit? 2 weeks 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 2 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] 3 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] 3 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] 3 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] 3 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] 3 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 3 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? 3 months ago:
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The devs are communists.
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Using Lemmy over Reddit is already an ideological choice for many of us, ergo you will find people with a stronger ideological backbone here.
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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.
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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).
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- Comment on alternatives to lemm.ee? 3 months ago:
You too!
- Comment on alternatives to lemm.ee? 3 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? 3 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? 3 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? 3 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? 4 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? 4 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? 4 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.
- Comment on alternatives to lemm.ee? 4 months ago:
That’s why I said at the end that it’s a very different instance than lemm.ee. I was pushing against the idea that Hexbear is filled with the worst types of people, which is wrong.
- Comment on alternatives to lemm.ee? 4 months ago:
It wasn’t criticism of the CPC alone. This was the comment:
[Dont need to travel to see that chinese people live in poverty, anything can be done when you are a dictatorship, its corrupt and everything is a scam. Fake meat, fake tofu, tofu drag constructions, 4 billion on a road and all the village got was a gravel path. Where a state teaches kids to hate other nations and disrespect everything for something that happened 80 years ago instead of making sure this does not ever happen again. Where its a national sport to go abroad and harass others. Where the state doesnt care about your stolen things, but if you speak out publicly against it, you will be warned with a kind “take that down, or else”.
If their electric cars are anything to go by, i dont even want to step on their most modern trains even if they give me trillions of GBP.
If the regime is supposed to be an example of progress, well guess then we all should go back to european monarchy and imperialism. Europe thrived in the 19th century afterall. Just look at all those rich people living luxurious lifes. All the advancements in science, medicine, transportation, literatur, architectur, social policies, unification of people split appart and more.
If i were to travel to china they would arrest me on the airport for critisising china and not seeing the CCP as legitimite and supporting taiwan, that being if i would even be allowed to enter the country.
The USA train system is shit, yes, thats not even on debate. Against that even the russian train system is amazing.
Also china didnt build its high speed trains on their own. They used EU and japanese tech.
Japan has the best train system in the entire world, and that without being a supressive, all survaling dictatorship. OP here is comparing shit, scooped from the toilet, to a microwave meal, that got a mediocer plate up. Ofc then in comparison the microwave meal will look better.](lemmy.ml/post/31027125/18999614)
The majority of the comment is baseless chauvanism of Chinese people themselves, not their government, such as when they say that the “national sport is to harrass other nations” or that “they eat fake tofu, fake mear, etc.”
- Comment on alternatives to lemm.ee? 4 months ago:
Yep, someone was being genuinely racist, talking about how Chinese people live in filth and their infrastructure is held up with duct tape, that they eat fake meat and fake tofu, etc. There’s a difference between critique of the CPC and veering off into racism, which is why I reported the comments, and then got banned for it for a day.
- Comment on alternatives to lemm.ee? 4 months ago:
Strong disagreement there. Hexbear users frequently brush against liberals and anti-Communists, but as an actual space it’s not toxic at all, in my experience. If you consider yourself a Marxist or Anarchist, you’ll probably fit in well, if not then you won’t, simple as that.
- Comment on Please consider supporting Lemmy development 5 months ago:
The quantity and quality with respect to how de-Nazification was handled in the West vs the East was entirely different, and you are erasing that because the East still had some Nazis, while the West was infested with them. This is affirmed by the links I sent, to which you merely read the titles. The lawyer piece, for example, talks about the entire process of de-Nazification with an emphasis on how the Nazi lawyers were treated.
I could do the same low-effort character assassination you levied against me, but if you’re not even going to read the abstracts or intros of the articles I link, this conversation was never going to go anywhere in the first place.
- Comment on Please consider supporting Lemmy development 5 months ago:
I already explained how this can cascade into a different relationship at a rate more advantageous than the average proletarian, as you already saw fit to distinguish classes.
- Comment on Please consider supporting Lemmy development 5 months ago:
Some do, they just claim Hamas is equally evil for resisting genocide, the good 'ol “two wrongs don’t make a right” adage.
As for East Germany, would you mind stating how your thesis about the government taking an active role in rooting out Nazis somehow made the East more open to fascism isn’t a statement on East Germans being incapable of ruling themselved, and just going along with whoever? You linked literature, sure, but avoided addressing that the West never de-Nazified yet East Germany was thoroughly purged of Communists? Rather than blaming the rise of fascism in modern eastern Germany on the previous antifascist government and the dull acceptance of the eastern Germans due to alienation from politics, why not take an active look at the dynamics at play as the West took over the East?
As for Psychology, no, it isn’t idealism, but your analysis was. In the absence of materialist analysis, you shifted to an assertion that existing in different modes of production shuts off the higher instincts of man. It is true that material conditions shape the ideas of man, but you pivoted that to the idea that existing in a Socialist state dulls the mind, which doesn’t have materialist backing.
Socialism is not “the same fucking river” as Nazism, not to any capacity. I recommend reading Blackshirts and Reds, it’s a good introductory book and a quick read.
As for Nazi Germany’s approval ratings, that’s not really true, as clearly Holocaust victims weren’t polled. Support for Socialism both within post-Socialist states and currently Socialist states is best explained by the real material achievements they made for the Working Class, as one western study said of China:
I’ll leave you with a Parenti quote I think is fitting, from the same book I recommended:
During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them.
If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.
- Comment on Please consider supporting Lemmy development 5 months ago:
One proletarian has the strength of two average proletarians. Does he constitute his own distinct class, as he can leverage that for somewhat higher pay, and therefore eventually become petty bourgeois? No. Again, we can see specialized labor as a substratum, but to confuse it for a class in and of itself goes against the Marxist conception of class.
Now, if you define class as relations of hierarchy, there’s no dissonance, and we can consider managers their own class. But at that point, we have to be careful not to trip over each other’s understanding of class when discussing Marxism vs Anarchism.
- Comment on Please consider supporting Lemmy development 5 months ago:
Is an Engineer a class? They make better money than assembly workers. The answer is no, Engineers are a substratum of the Proletariat, worthy of their own analysis, but not as distinct from the rest of the Proletariat. That’s why Marx, Engels, Lenin, etc all viewed managers as proletarian, doing a separate kind of labor, and even distinct living conditions on average, but retaining the same labor relations to the Means of Production.