TheOubliette

@TheOubliette@lemmy.ml

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Don't Be A Sucker (1947) (short film warning about fascism and the tricks it uses to gain power)⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  This video has some nice sentiments but it is also rife with inaccuracies and misleads. Of course, dividing and conquering is a core reason for marginalization, but who drives it? With whom did Nazis or the KKK find purchase? Why were they not suppressed? The deeper social forces, those with power, did not really oppose them, and in fact, they created or leveraged them as needed for their own purposes. Namely in response to the conditions they had already created - and the “they” were the liberal bourgeoisie and capitalism itself.

  The Nazis built their ranks largely from the petty bourgeoisie and their children. The people that were beating up communists and lgbtq people were the sons of shop owners during a time of economic downturn. That downturn was itself created by the forces of imperialism and therefore capitalism: Germany had fought in an imperialist war (WWI) to stake a claim in the imperial core and lost. Its new position was that of an imperialized country in capitalist mode of production, stuck with infinite foreign debt, decreasing wages, and spiraling unemployment. In this context, there were backlashes and attempts to organize. The social democrats gained some power but repeatedly entrenched themselves in the liberal system, reinforcing it and therefore continuing its failures and oppressions. The communists broke with this and took more direct action, taking towns and cities through orgsnizational prowess. The socdems threw the police at them over things like this as well as the proto-fascist jackboots that would become the Nazi Party base, those sons of shop owners. In addition, there were monarchists, liberals, conservative nationalists, and fascists.

  It is in this context that the fascists rose. Not simply by “dividing”, but by reacting to the social forces that threatened a vulnerable bourgeoisie: the communists above all. They absolutely scapegoated minorities, yes, but the social function of the fascists and how they grew was actually their anticommunism. This is why they were funded and why they were tolerated, just like how the cops protect Proud Boys and fight BLM protesters. They serve to protect a subset of private property and are funded to do so. The Nazis did things not dissimilar to the cryptofascists taking their guns to “protect businesses” against BLM-adjascent property damage. But they operated over years of unrest from liberal (capitalist) policies and where it was largely communists that threatened capital.

  The Nazis’ rise shortly before Hitler became chancellor corresponded to two major kinds of events: first, economic downturn and therefore displeasure at the consequences if the capitalist status quo (with which most parties had associated themselves) and repeated decisions to build rightward coalitions against communists and, ultimately, simply give the position of chancellor to Hitler in order to expediently resolve a weak coalition.

  So, when watching this video, literally a propaganda film from the US government’s war department(s), ask whether there is any discussion of the material forces at hand, of political struggle, of anticommunism, of capitalism, of the reasons for economic decay, of who funded and worked with Nazis, and why. They tell a story of the “Aryan German” being taken in by the Nazis because his identity matched their propaganda. But there were many who supported or tolerated Nazis that did not match their propaganda and were even targets of it! They tended to be petty bourgeois or the children of them. The film says normal Germans asked themselves how this happened as if it were a surprise. This is a lie: these were open political developments spanning decades at the forefront of everyone’s minds and were part of active and highly local political struggle. The film peddles the many falsehoods of American mythmaking about freedom and empty ripe land, lies to hide the reality of a country built on settler colonial genocide and racialized chattel slavery. There were people on that “empty” land already, they were killed or driven off by the same governmental organizations that commissioned this film. The film says the land is free and skin color doesn’t matter even while at the same time Jim Crow waa in effect. The film says Nazis outlawed speech and that in America you can say your politics without such retribution and then America launched hard into the Cold War and an anticommunist, anti-black purge. The film says that what made Nazis wrong was race hate and militarism and then just a few yeara after thia film bombed out every population center in the north of Korea directly killing 20% of the population while constantly publishing racist claims against Koreans.

  So yes, absolutely oppose Nazis and race hate. But don’t trust a film like this for a valuable history lesson. You will be unable to recognize the patterns and harma that are currently right in front od you.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The dying empire continues to lash out and pax americana is a myth.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Nazis executing civilians is bad. Partisans executing civilians is bad. A bad action is bad no matter the intention. Insert some quote about how the history is filled with good intentions.

  Again, this is not a serious geopolitical thought.

  Tell the ‘unlawful’ killed that it’s ok, it was a growing power who haven’t attacked someone for a long time and just tries to lift your country out of poverty that bombed you to bits not the cashking warmongerer, and see if they agree with your reasoning.

  Respond to my reasoning in any way whatsoever.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This is just a stream of rhetorical posturing to avoid ever directly addressing any of the criticisms presented.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I think you missed my point, entirely. I wasn’t saying that governments committing atrocities in other countries versus their own people were any different, morally speaking.

  Then why say “their own people”? It doesn’t make sense. Parent didn’t use that qualifier. Maybe you used it because it is so often used in combination with the other terms? Either way, I am singling out this qualifier because it is a way that PR and propagandistic terms color our thinking. It does not mean I think you were being malicious.

  I was simply pointing out that the quality of life for the working class, and low amount of wealth disparity, etc in this country is largely due to Socialist policies keeping Capitalism in check, and also pointing out that Capitalist policies cause atrocities, in general.

  But these countries don’t have socialist policies! They are capitalist countries run by capitalists and capitalist parties. I already described the causes behind their social safety nets.

  This was in response to the comment saying that countries were hiding atrocities behind the banner of Socialism.

  I understand. I actually interpreted parent as being critical of the Eastern bloc, but I didn’t comment on this.

  Atrocities of any kind are abhorrent and I agree that they need to be denounced.

  I agree in the abstract sense but just like with “their own people”, what gets called an atrocity, how its veracity is established, and how often it enters discourse are all subject to the propaganda we are all immersed in. In addition, the context in whicj atrocities are “denounced” matters. Were the people tallying up lists of Saddam’s crimes in 2003 just denouncing atrocities like good, empathetic humans? Were they not helping to build consent for a much worse invasion? What about the US’ genocidal sanctions on the country for the prior decade plus? We, of course, do not live in a vacuum and what we are told to denounce is often aligned with ruling class agendas.

  The overall topic of this thread is that baby leftists want to keep criticizing and denouncing the targets of US empire that they are told to hate. They have not engaged critically with the denunciations themselves and when others do so they begin insulting and deflecting. And they certainly don’t exist within any project to actually achieve anything against atrocities, because if they did they would be laser-focused on their own country where they can do actual organizing work, which will largely be in the US and Europe.

  As an example of liberals’ having their attention to atrocities dictated by think tanks and imperialist media, we can look to Yemen. I could not get liberals to care about the US-backed bombing campaigns and US blockade of Yemen. Schoolbuses bombed, weddings bombed, basic civilian infrastructure bombed out to attack food, water, and electricity. Aid rotting on ships because the US prevented them from docking and unloading for 8+ months. Nobody even talked about Yemen in the US or Europe. Not regularly. You don’t see lemmy.worlders bringing it up all the time as atrocities you should denounce every time the topic of the US itself comes up. Every time target countries of US empire are mentioned, hiwever, it is time for kneejerk denunciation ans bad faith insults at anyone with a modicum of understanding of geopolitics.

  I also agree with pretty much everything else that you said. Socialism is near dead and dying in Europe.

  It’s gone. It fell with the USSR and then NATO-led balkanization of Yugoslavia. Europe is capitalist.

  I just think that the sprinkle of Social policies that is left in the EU still holds back Capitalism from being quite as horrible as it could be.

  I might agree but I frame it differently. The social policies remain because they are too popular to remove, but capitalism is eating away at them from multiple directions. Privatization is everywhere, as are benefit cuts to siphon into militarization. The latter is only possible due to fearmongering over Russia. But more dangerously, European countries oppress the left, such as banning communist parties or even expressions of solidarity with Palestine. That results in “the discourse” being dominated by liberald and protofascists. But the liberals are presiding over declines in conditions due to capitalism, so when they lose popularity, protofascists gain it. This will produce repeated one-two punches of austerity, dismantling social programs, and scapegoating marginalized people. And all while the US drains Europe’s industrial base. Europe’s utility as a forward base against the USSR is gone and they are now a bloodbag for US’ vampires.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  “Neighbor” was never an important detail, and only someone struggling to string together some type of deflection from the point would focus so deeply on it.

  Neighbor is the only qualifier that makes your claim arguably true for, say, 30-40 years. You included it yourself, I didn’t make you so it. If you get rid of the term “neigbor”, you are simply wrong.

  Instead of running away from it and trying to blame me for noticing, you could just acceot where I am correct and try to synthesize.

  You will get into conflicts and be consistently wrong if this is how you respond to correction.

  The point, as is abundantly clear to anyone with a couple of braincells to rub together, is that these countries are doing that now, as in at this moment, and are targeting civilians, which the person in responding to gladly ignored with their “but no, everyone says Russia is bad” bullshit.

  That applies to several countries, including US-backed Israel and the US-backed reactionaries in Syria, which is why the term “neighbor” does so much work. And in providing that obfuscatory defense, you are doing the thing you claim others are doing, which is excusing and minimizing war and death on civilians.

  And you have the gall to accuse me of making a bad faith argument. Once again, pathetic.

  It requires very little gall. You are putting on quite the display at the moment with the flurry of insults and deflections.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Notice that rather than address the absurdity if an “anarchist” ahistorically defending US imperialism, you’ve decided to make things up on my behalf.

  Kill the Redditor in your brain.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m glad it’s helpful! I could tell that you are trying to figure these things out and apply them in good faith. Happy to answer any questions you might have. Otherwise, just keep reading and challenging yourself!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  So you have no defense for your selective defense of US imperialism and lash out at others when it is noted.

  Anarchist instance btw

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ 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.

  “Neighbor” is doing all of the work here, as the US had pushed its frontiers far away from itself for about a century. Of course the US has actually invaded:

  • Canada
  • Mexico
  • Cuba
  • Guatemala
  • Puerto Rico
  • Haiti
  • Hawaii
  • Grenada

  [More but I don’t feel like compiling the full list]

  And some of those in the last half century or so!

  Of course, if you remove the morally meaningless qualifier of “neighbor”, your point goes entirely out the window. I think this is obvious to everyone, including you, so really the question is why the need to lie to yourself about US imperialism? Why downplay it in bad faith?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ 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.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  “Both are bad” is not a serious geopolitical thought. Every real project will have negative aspects, so if you reduce your analysis to declaring something bad for having bad aspects you will never be able to discriminate between, say, the Nazis and the partisans who fought them and liberated their countries and concentration camps.

  Or, in this case, being unable to discriminate between the global seat of capital behind basically every single war and an ongoing genocide and a growing power who hasn’t had a war in decades and works to get countries out of IMF debt traps. You prevent yourself and others from seriously contending with how the world works and what place you can have in it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Your instance is full of incurious liberals

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The LGBTQ+ community is not a monolith and you do not speak on behalf of us.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  “against their own people” is a chauvinist attitude. Why would it be particularly bad to oppress people in “their own” country vs other countries? The only way this logic works is if you subscribe to nationalism and are projecting it onto others.

  EU countries overlap with NATO, an aggressive military force that, among other things, destroyed Libya, turning it from the highest HDI African country into a hellscaoe with open air slave markets fought over by warlords. Would it be worse for that to happen to Germany?

  EU countries also still have their own neocolonies. Sahel countries are still trying to kick out the French, who saddled them with debt and still controls their banking systems. Would it be worse if that were happening to French people?

  Finally, there are no socialist countries in the EU, nor “socialistic” countries. Every EU country is run for and by capiralists and by capitalist parties. They have social safety nets left over from the cold war when they were combatting and coopting communists and they are now being slowly dismantled by capital.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ 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.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I recommend backing up a bit so that we can frame these questions.

  One of the more pointless questions anyone asks is a simple binary of, “is XYZ socialist?” Being real people doing real projects in the context of global capitalism and relentless imperial oppression, there is no such thing aa purely socialist, but many things are projects by socialists to advance socialism. When people learn this, they start to use the term as a shorthand: “my communist organization is socialist”, “the Cuban revolution was socialist”, “China is socialist”. These claims only mean that the project is a socialist one. This is different from saying any of those projects have achieved socialism. None of them have and I have yet to meet a socialist who defends China while saying they have achieved socialism.

  So really, this is a question of semantics and language using similar or identical terms with different meanings, and this is one of the reasons why those who read up on the topic have such a dramatically different opinion from those who do not.

  So, for example, China has a stated ambition of becoming socialist within the next 30 years or so, setting concrete targets for what that means. And it is still a socialist project created and maintained by socialists.

  Regarding owning the means of production, this is a Marxist concept. Marx’s postulate was that the ruling class is that which owns/controls the means of production and that society is then crafted according to the interests of that ruling class. Under feudalism, the ruling class was landlords (own/control land), with the major underclass being peasants, serfs (they work the land). Under capitalism , the ruling class is the bourgeoisie, those who own factories, shops, etc and the major underclass is workers, those who work in the factories and shops. Marx hyoothesized that the proletarians who work in ever-concentrated companies would have the capacity to take the means of production by force and then continue running it themselves.

  So why am I giving this crash course in Marxism? Well, because Marx himself described the period in which the working class had seized the means of production from the bourgeoisie not as socialism, but as the dictatorship of the proletariat. A period in which society still functions as capitalist in many ways, as the mode of production has not changed and production itself must be maintained, and the bourgeoisie still exist, but in which the working class has become dominant and can oppress the bourgeoisie. China is firmly in this category, exactly what Marx described as this transitional period of unstated duration, attempting to survive and thrive while under constant pressure from imperialists.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨You don't need to answer this⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Many people do say that I deserve to be murdered, actually. The cool part is that I am right and they are wrong.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨You don't need to answer this⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Nope it is a great, correct, and good way of thinking. These are thieves and murderers and they rarely receive justice.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨You don't need to answer this⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Dead CEOs is a moral good

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I'm not worried you're worried⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  What is the right side of history, dipshit?

  Being against genocide. You should try it sometime.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I'm not worried you're worried⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Maybe you should demand better instead of accepting genocidal candidates that lose.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I'm not worried you're worried⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t have a genocide nose

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I'm not worried you're worried⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  If you think that’s all the US does, you are very naive.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I'm not worried you're worried⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I said this before, and I’ll say it again, since both parties in the election (don’t try and claim that the greens have any hope of winning, they only serve to split the Democrat vote) seem disinterested in the horrific situation in Palestine, you pick the least bad candidate.

  And I’ve said this before: don’t both-sides a genocide. Never again means never again for anyone.

  If you won’t listen to basic moralism, listen to your resounding strategic loss.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I'm not worried you're worried⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Now instead of having a president that supports the genocide of Palestinians you’ll have… checks notes … a president that supports the genocide of Palestinians.

  Yeah maybe you should have demanded better instead of tolerating genocide. Your camp lost. I know I didn’t tolerate it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I'm not worried you're worried⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Oh it can and will be worse, and you know it.

  No, I do not harbor your confusions about how supporting someone complicit in the Biden-Harris genocide is somehow being against genocide.

  Be better and demand better. Try to redeem yourself.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I'm not worried you're worried⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This proves that you need to at least pander to the left to win, i.e. the only consistently anti-genocide group in the country. Maybe you should join them instead of tolerating genocide.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I'm not worried you're worried⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It is kinda what I said though, isn’t it?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I'm not worried you're worried⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  If Trump wins because enough of you idiots couldn’t hold your nose and vote then the blood of those Palestinians is on your hands.

  Or maybe you shouldn’t have thrown yourself in the pro-genocide Genocide Joe Lite camp.

  You don’t get to absolve yourself because you chose not to participate in democracy.

  lmao what democracy? Did you choose Harris? What primary did she win?

  You aren’t opposed to genocide because you couldn’t be assed to do the smallest thing to mitigate it.

  By doing what, voting for someone complicit in the Biden-Harris regime’s genocide? You are so flipped around.

  Never again means never again for anyone. Get it through your skull.