Remember folks: China is communist in the same way that North Korea is democratic and the Nazis were socialist.
It’s just a smokescreen.
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 the rocket instead of some MBS degree.
Last time I checked I dont think factory workers in China that make all our shit can do that.
Yes. That was the point of what they posted. None of those groups are what they claim to be beyond nominally.
ThAt’s jUst WeSTeRnn prOpaGAndA
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.)
And ceos are somehow significantly worse and consistently (and in many industries), almost exclusively make decisions directly opposing the common good including intentionally leading the world forward into societal and ecological collapse and quadrupling down on that stance… Because it makes them more quarterly profit. I guess we just have to let AI do it.
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”.
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.
I think in both cases (modern China, and the USSR), there is a genuine feeling/desire towards the ideals.
In both cases though, it is co-opted for propaganda purposes, and falls pretty flat when inequality is off the charts.
Which is a shame, if you have socialist beliefs
I wish them the best though, and hope they figure things out to bring outcomes more in line with the ideals.
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 (mostly)? 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.
This is why we need to reeducate people and stop using the traditional left-right spectrum and start using the axis spectrum
I think Saudi Arabia is the perfect example of why even that model isn’t even enough. I mean sure they are a monarchy and quite self-focused but not really in a nationalistic way. To be fair I don’t know much about their domestic politics. To put them into the same corner as Russia, eh dunno.
Authoritarianism doesn’t necessarily require nationalism or vice versa, though they’re often linked, that doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. The USA is pretty flag waving, nationalist brained but individual freedom exists. Versus a country like Saudi as you mention is not particularly nationalist, but repression is widespread.
They are quite different than Russia, but looking only at individual freedom, the two are similar in that freedom of speech is not respected and leaders are not fairly elected.
The thing is, Left vs Right is already a measure of authoritarian vs Democratic.
The original use of the terms comes from the French Revolution. There was a vote on if the King should have an absolute veto over laws passed by the assembly. Those who said no sat to the left of the Speakers podium. Those who said yes sat on the right.
The reason why left and right were applied to economic policy was because Marx described Communism as a form of extreme Democracy. Whereas Capitalism concentrates power into the hands of a select few.
It’s still a measure of where the power rests. In the hands of the people or the hands of the state/leader.
You can break it down to dozens of categories, but it’s all authoritarian vs Democratic in the end.
As a note, Lenin style single party “communism” is about as far from Marx’s ideal as you can get.
Dictators and Kings are all the enemies of the people.
“NOOOOOOO you have to pick one of the two teams or you’re a RADICAL CENTRIST!!!”
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.
Radical centrism:
^needs ^more ^jpeg, ^I ^know
You could’ve gone with Radial centrism though
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
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.
Or you can not join a team and evaluate things individually based on their merits
You still have to commit to an actual decision when the times come. Adjusting each cycle is what everyone should be doing, knowing that each person will likely stay where they’re at because why wouldn’t they?
That’s what I do.
Not surprisingly, the Republicans are always the worst and the only local opposition that has a slim chance of winning are Dems so I end up voting a straight Dem ticket despite refusing to register for the party. If there was an independent with a chance of winning I would consider them, but haven’t seen any on the local positions.
Yeah sure that works, unless one team is the Republican party.
If you like being ineffective at driving change, then yes this is an option. Otherwise, you’ll have to work through one of the gate keepers.
You do have to take the context of power structures around you into account, but you do not have to assimilate into tribalism to be an effective voter.
Oh, absolutely true. Never call yourself a Democrat. Don’t join them, use them.
Once you talk about “both teams”, you imply there are only two instead of supporting those who to this day resist all states
If you’re talking about a presidential election, there are two teams. The rest of the time, you should work on your own team, but when the big race is happening, there are only two viable contenders.
The meme is about US imperialism versus (supposedly) Chinese imperialism. And the election is over, not every meme is about that anymore.
So the two teams are China and America?
Yes, it’s an anti tankie meme
Shouldn’t you be then using some amendment to restore democracy? Because that surely isn’t democracy.
My preference is the first amendment, although progress has been slow.
Is this intentional misinterpretation for mischief purposes, or is this your best?
No, I’m saying there are “radical centrists” who pretend they are above the fray and claim both sides are equally flawed, while invariably showing up to vote for conservatives.
You are banned from /c/hexbear
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
I chose it as my first instance since I wanted a leftist one. Oh boy did I earn an experience
Basically horseshoe theory
Good
It’s easy, mmmm’kay!
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?
If you find one, let us know
Probably on DB0.
Of course you can, unless you’re on a certain lemmy instance.
It’s hard finding people with this opinion, sadly. I’m with you on this one comrade
go make one, id join ;3
assuming you arent a delussional leftist yourself, unaware of your own delusions…
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
souns good to me :3 btw im only gonna lurk sowwy in advance
Seems like a good start @ComradeMiao@lemmy.world :)
Can’t say I’m terribly creative, the only community I mod I just copied when migrating from Reddit:
https://lemmy.world/c/engineeringmemes
So in terms of inventing one from scratch, I dunno haha
For names (suggestions/spitballing) a play on words with the political compass?
- DueLeft
- NegativeX
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.
are there any left leaning subs that aren’t delusional?
Not on lemmy, no.
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.
TYpIcAl ShItLiB
I HatE when cApiTal lEtter ALternation doesn’t hoLd a hidDEn BUt relevant meSSage, don’t You?
“I heat E all Debussy?”
I needed a t… call it poetic license
He ate all DeBussy?
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.
Ah yes, the Noem Chomsky. Famously when he was defending Pol Pot’s regime.
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. Just like it was different every other fucking time an empire ideologically justified it’s imperialism. Because this one time is exceptional, unlike all the other instances of exceptionalism. Furthermore, I consider Carthage to need to be destroyed
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.
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.
Ah, Cato the Elder. He had a good cheesecake recipe, but was otherwise a complete jackass.
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.
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.
As a Venezuelan who’s against Yankee imperialism and our current oppressive “”“”“Socialist”“”“” government, I approve this message.
Would be nice having the “real socialists” condemn the fake socialists
We do though, look up BadEmpanada
I was going to ask about the downvotes and then I remembered this is Lemmy lmao 🤣
I think people should separate
A) ideal world they want
B) what has to be done now to survive because everyone is an assholeThis is literally why the LGBTQ+ community trusts neither the left nor the right, because historically both sides have brutalized them.
Corporate leftists, the “libruls”, are right wing political actors pretending to be left wing for a variety of reasons. Supporting business over people is fascism and the liberals are fascists who don’t mean to be.
Supporting business over people is fascism and the liberals are fascists who don’t mean to be.
Fascism - Any right-wing, authoritarian, nationalist ideology characterized by centralized, totalitarian governance, strong regimentation of the economy and society, and repression of criticism or opposition.
I understand your sentiment, but please stop pulling shit out of your ass.
Same as the disability community.
Except they do thrust to the left
That’s cuz LGBTQ+ attack all of them with their fake victim narcissism, the REAL question is why would anyone sane tolerate their nastiness Hell even LGBTQ+ attack other LGBTQ+
What do you mean by „fake victim narcissism“?
How is this a shitpost? there’s no shit!
Its a magnet for shitpost comments, comrade
can’t deny that
… or to hide their own imperialism.
“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.”
imperialism against imperialists is good
100% this.
