… or to hide their own imperialism.
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.
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.
Whataboutusm is a russian invention and is 9 times out of ten usad to excuse russia agressions.
Trying to change the subject was not invented by anyone in particular, but the US likes to slap that label onto everything that directs criticism at them. For example, the US has the highest prison population per capita but will preemptively scream about enemy countries imprisoning people with countless stories in the media. Calling out the hypocrisy is countered with accusations of “whataboutism” but that’s not whataboutism, it’s simply pointing out hypocrisy since it’s the same subject.
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?
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.
Gaza is happening because of US imperialism. Biden said that’s what Israel does in the region very clearly.
Someone had their Chomsky-o’s for breakfast this morning.
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
Nice caricature, but it has nothing to do with my post. Pointing out that the US is the biggest source of imperialism doesn’t mean no one else is doing bad things, but thanks for proving my point. Fuck Starbucks and Apple, by the way.
The whole point of the OP is that being against US imperialism doesn’t mean you have to be very purposefully silent about yhe atrocities committed by the US geopolitical rivals because they are US enemies therefore good.
It’s a very prevalent thing about US lefties, if you’re not aware, I’m telling it to you, as a Ukrainian lefty myself. I agree, fuck Apple and Starbucks (never had one and heard from friends it’s shit). Also fuck Russia for killing a bunch of my friends and fuck those US “leftists” like Chomsky, who suck Russian dicks.
One problem I see is that people feel like they have to work in absolutes or match their opinions 100% with everything within a group. How the grouping forms is not always clear, but apparently if one is associated with that grouping, they feel the need to defend everything in that grouping and attacking everything that isn’t.
There is some discussion to be had in the role of the US using proxies to undermine global rivals, but that does not justify Russia invading Ukraine, nothing does. Absolutely, fuck Russia.
Thank you.
I just don’t like the pushback against this meme, when all it says is “Yes, US imperailism is bad, it doesn’t mean that Stalin did nothing wrong”, but for some reason people push back with “US imperialism is bad FULLSTOP, shut up about everything else”. Which is exactly how Nortb Korea-glorifying tankies behave. I may have lumped your comment in with those, sorry for that.
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!
Remember folks: China is communist in the same way that North Korea is democratic and the Nazis were socialist.
It’s just a smokescreen.
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.
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.
My money is on fusion before proper socialism.
There is always someone willing to twist the rules and game the system to get more money and power than everyone else. The 1% have always existed and so have the worker class. It will always shake out to that.
Even just as a technicality, the 1% have not always existed, most tribal societies did not have class divisions like that. Both anthropological studies of existing tribal societies show examples of that, and the archaeological record, too, lays out it was common.
And I understand feeling like that, but it is a pretty weak argument, tbh. It is even hard to engage with, because it’s basically starting at a completely different outset of concepts and understanding. Firstly, it reduces socialism to only systems of perfect equality of power - when even Marx acknowledged that this is not only impossible but also undesirable.
Then it just packs all kinds of class arrangements into “The 1%” and “the worker class”. Was European feudalism like that? Ancient palace economies? Tribal gift economies? Pre-historic tribal arrangements? The Incan/Andean planned economy? Each with their own complexities, class relations and all showing that the basic idea - humanity evolving along it’s material capabilities and necessities - hold true.
Lastly, related to the idea that proper socialism would mean perfect equality of power - sure, corruption in some way has probably always existed. People will also always murder each other in some way. Using that as an argument to say it is impossible to establish a system that minimises murders is how your reasoning sounds to me.
And the system is always what limits or enables the way this corruption and gaming the system plays out. How much property and/or power can be concentrated? Capitalism concentrates vastly more wealth and capital than the systems before it, both for good (e.g. the development of productive forces has enabled many things) and ill. Just because perfection may not be possible, does not mean a system without exchange of value and capital accumulation is impossible (has existed before for sure, yes, even for more complex economies than a small tribe), and it does not mean it has to exist in a way that is more barbarous than the current state of affairs.
My money is on fusion before proper socialism.
Utopia is literally “no place” for a reason, and anything less than a utopia will be deemed “not proper socialism” (like literally every place that has ever tried some flavor of communism/socialism) so my money is on fusion as fusion is more likely than utopia.
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.
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.
This is why we need to reeducate people and stop using the traditional left-right spectrum and start using the axis spectrum
Even the axis spectrum is unproductive, ideologies and frameworks cannot be distilled into single data points on a map, no matter how many axes you add.
The axis spectrum has proven to be very efficient imo. A lot of the politics we talk about are mainly composed of social and economic elements which the axis spectrum portrays well.
How in the world has it “proven to be very efficient”? Did you run laboratory tests?
You cannot distill complicated views into linear axes, though.
And yet tankies do this daily as a defining aspect of their identities.
Inb4 Biden caused ww3 somehow.
These views aren’t complicated though, or aren’t as complicated as you think. Most of our political opinions can be boiled down to any of the 4 quadrants of the axis.
Can you name any view that doesn’t fit into this axis?
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.
I couldn’t ask for clearer evidence than not accepting Saudi Arabia as authoritarian to demonstrate that “free vs authoritarian” are just propaganda terms and that how “free” a country allegedly is is really just a function of how aligned it is with the US.
In what universe is Saudi Arabia more free than Cuba?
I think some aspects of freedom are to some extent objectively observable, eg, is freedom of speech or religion observed? These can exist independently of US alignment - there are many countries in the global south that can qualify as free or partially free.
Mhm. I wonder, which objective metrics led you to list the US as more free than Cuba?
Cuba’s family code is one of the most progressive pieces of legislation in the world concerning LGBT rights and gender equality, meanwhile, there are parts of the US where you can get arrested for using the bathroom, or for merely failing to rat out trans kids to the cops. The US performs mass surveillance on all citizens and has the most sophisticated spy network in the world, it has used extrajudicial, indefinite detention without trial (in addition to having the highest incarceration rate in the world), along with torture (ironically, on illegally occupied Cuban soil). The US has kangaroo courts where children as young as six have to represent themselves in court with no right to an attorney, against threat of deportation. The police are equipped with military-grade equipment designed to fight insurgents, with the police budgets of individual cities exceeding that of the militaries of many countries: Cuba’s military spending is several times less than the police budget of Phoenix, AZ.
Does any of that factor into your analysis?
Cuba’s one-party communist state outlaws political pluralism, bans independent media, suppresses dissent, and severely restricts basic civil liberties.
Cuba lacks basic freedom of speech or freedom of the press, to say the absolute least. Typical tankie whatabout-ism. In fact, you’re proving the point of the person I originally replied to in this thread!
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.
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:
Question 17 : Will it be possible to abolish private property at one stroke?
Answer : No, no more than the existing productive forces can at one stroke be multiplied to the extent necessary for the creation of a communal society. Hence, the proletarian revolution, which in all probability is approaching, will be able gradually to transform existing society and abolish private property only when the necessary means of production have been created in sufficient quantity.
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. Given that the PRC is Marxist, it stands to reason it is useful to analyze them with a Marxist lense. I have yet to see a genuine Marxist take on why the PRC is not Socialist, only liberals paying lip service to Marx yet vulgurizing him into a Utopian Idealist, and not a Materialist.
You can call their economy whatever you want, doesn’t stop them from being a dictatorship.
That’s moving the goalposts though, isn’t it? I was responding to the claim that the PRC isn’t at all Communist, which is false regardless of your opinion of it being “good” or “bad” whether overall or in comparison to the US.
Further, I am not sure why you describe it to be a dictatorship, even Mao was forced to step down after the tremendous struggles during the Cultural Revolution. Xi is an elected official, and there are 8 political parties besides the CPC that actively contribute to the decision making progress of the PRC, the CPC is merely the largest at 96 million members out of 1.4 billion people.
In order to accurately judge the merit or lack thereof of the PRC, you have to actually take a real look at what it looks like, question why Beijing has an over 95% approval rate, and see what the living conditions look like for the people that actually live there. If you perpetuate sloganeering because it is convenient, then actual, systemic problems you could be criticizing go under the radar.
Xi is an elected official, and there are 8 political parties besides the CPC that actively contribute to the decision making progress of the PRC,
Right right right, just like Russia and North Korea has “elections” lmao
Beijing has an over 95% approval rate
Lol, and I’m sure that has nothing to do with the fact that speaking against Xi and the CCP makes you disappear or that China has been known to lie about official statistics all the time
You didn’t just drink the Kool-aid, you’re drunk on it
That’s really funny, given that you listed 0 sources against what I said. Just general suspicions and vague gesturing. Why is it that you believe I must have drunk kool-aid yet believe yourself to be immune to it?
Is Harvard now Chinese propaganda? "While the CCP is seemingly under no imminent threat of popular upheaval, it cannot take the support of its people for granted. Although state censorship and propaganda are widespread, our survey reveals that citizen perceptions of governmental performance respond most to real, measurable changes in individuals’ material well-being."
What about the fact that the US passed 1.6 billion dollars to propagandize against China? These are public record, you are not immune and neither am I. We exist in largely the same systems and probably similar circumstances, and those circumstances include direct US State Department propaganda against the PRC.
You have no counter-narrative, when faced with real, present facts you toss them aside and come up with your own justifications, rather than re-evaluating your prior perceptions. That’s no way to get to the truth of the matter, it’s dogmatism and reflects an unwillingness to tackle real problems.
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?
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.
I appreciate this comment immensely. I wasn’t being facetious about my comparative lack of understanding on the topic. This was well-worded and informative, and I’m going to take some time to process this into my understanding. Thank you.
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!
Marxism is not the same as worker cooperatives, or workplace democracy. In fact, with respect to worker cooperatives, Marx and Engels were more against than for with respect to the concept of making them the base of the economy. For Marx, Public Ownership and Central Planning were the way to go. Moreover, what denotes a system as Capitalist vs Socialist is not purity but dominance, ie which is the principle? Is it public ownership and central planning, or private property and free markets? No system is devoid of the other, but to pretend that one isn’t transforming into the other is anti-dialectical.
For the PRC, a hair over 50% of the economy is in the Public Sector, and nearly a tenth in the cooperative. This alone means it is certainly heavily public, but not alone does that mean it is Socialist. Within the public sector are key industries like steel, which the remaining private sector relies on. You cannot divorce the Private Sector from the Public, because it depends on it, and this is what additionally adds credibility to its Socialism as the driving factor.
You ask “what the point” of Socialism is if you aren’t “picking your boss” and whatnot, but the real answer is efficiency and supremacy over Capital. Markets have a natural tendency to centralize, but at the peak of this they stop actually progressing, because the amount of information required to direct production becomes massive. Central Planning alleviates this, and by folding all property into the Public Sector related industries can be better coordinated, all in service of maximizing human happiness and raising the floor as high as possible.
That doesn’t mean democracy isn’t also incredibly important, but it does help show that democracy isn’t the goal, either. Democracy is simply another tool for satisfying the population, and its one employed in the PRC as well.
Hope that helps!
You ask “what the point” of Socialism is if you aren’t “picking your boss” and whatnot, but the real answer is efficiency and supremacy over Capital. Markets have a natural tendency to centralize, but at the peak of this they stop actually progressing, because the amount of information required to direct production becomes massive. Central Planning alleviates this, and by folding all property into the Public Sector related industries can be better coordinated, all in service of maximizing human happiness and raising the floor as high as possible.
You lost me here. I’m afraid this is above my comprehension. I’m not arguing against it, I don’t understand what you’re saying (I assume this is my ignorance not any lack of eloquence on your part).
Regarding the public vs private sector that preceded that section, I want to ask clarifying questions if you’ll allow: to you understand does this pathways towards eventual goal then include plans for further assimilation of key assets of the private sector into the public somehow? Is this possible/necessary or is the presumed reality of the ideology at play that some level of capitalistic private sector is inevitable? If it is within the plan, what does this look like?
Well, for starters, I have an introductory Marxist reading list linked on my profile if you want to take a look, or you can get there from here. No need to do so, just if you want to learn more for your own personal knowledge.
As for your question, an emphatic and wholehearted YES! You nailed it, Marxists believe at lower levels of development markets are faster at developing, but that eventually public ownership and planning becomes more efficient. The PRC does this, it increases state ownership incrementally and graduallly, without risking Capital Flight. It’s a “boiling the frog” approach, and it’s necessary because it keeps the PRC integrated with the world economy and rapidly developing alongside it, as it sees the USSR’s isolation as a key aspect of its downfall.
This is an interesting reframing of my understanding of the situation. I appreciate you replying; I’m going to process this for a bit.
No worries! Feel free to ask any questions or dig in for yourself elsewhere.
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.
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.
ThAt’s jUst WeSTeRnn prOpaGAndA
Yes. That was the point of what they posted. None of those groups are what they claim to be beyond nominally.
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.
How is this a shitpost? there’s no shit!
Its a magnet for shitpost comments, comrade
can’t deny that
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.
No, they are saying one side being bad doesn’t make “the other side” perfect or immune to criticism
The US participating in the Palestinian genicide does not excuse Russia invading Ukraine. The US invading Iraq does not excuse nationalists in India attacking Muslims
It is not the same thing, and western imperialism doesnt make non-western imperialism ok. Even if it is a lot worse
Right, and what I’m saying is that by that very same logic, Trump supporting the Palestinian genocide doesn’t justify the democrats supporting the Palestinian genocide - they should not be considered immune to criticism either, and when people criticize them, they should not be assumed to be supporting the other side.
Right, so I was replying to you trying to make the meme into a " both sides bad" or “both sides are the same”-argument, pointing out how it is not
I find your answer to my reply irrelevant to the point I was making
It’s not saying that both sides are bad? You sure about that one, chief?
What’s it saying about US imperialism? Good or bad?
What’s it saying about countries the US opposes? Good or bad?
Nothing is as black and white as it is in your head.
Grow up 🫶
Non sequitor. Where did I say anything was black and white?
Silence, imperialist.
No u.
Both sides can be bad in different ways. Just because both sides are considered bad, doesn’t mean they are the same.
Correct, whether it’s about countries or parties.
“Quit hitting yourself, quit hitting yourself, quit hitting yourself”
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
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?
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.
where Xi made himself essentially life time president now.
What? When?
It’s hard finding people with this opinion, sadly. I’m with you on this one comrade
If you find one, let us know
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.
Of course you can, unless you’re on a certain lemmy instance.
Yeah, Lemmy.world.
Yeah, I hate how they brigade discussions and spam bear stickers.
Least incoherent .worlder
Probably on DB0.
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
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
Seems like a good start @ComradeMiao@lemmy.world :)
souns good to me :3 btw im only gonna lurk sowwy in advance
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.
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.
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.
Ah, Cato the Elder. He had a good cheesecake recipe, but was otherwise a complete jackass.
Fixed it .
Why not just change it to “imperialism is bad” lmao
Unless there’s some good imperialism somewhere…That would be better
Average ml user
Just ignore the part you don’t like because it makes you feel bad. Typical.
Weren’t you saying you ML mfs don’t support authoritarianism like a week ago?
Why is this fixing it? Both memes work, they dont contradict each other
TYpIcAl ShItLiB
I HatE when cApiTal lEtter ALternation doesn’t hoLd a hidDEn BUt relevant meSSage, don’t You?
He ate all DeBussy?
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.
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.
Israel? Fucking peanuts with its genocide of Palestine. PEANUTS!
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.
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
“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.
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.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.
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.
It’s important to recognize that when you equate two countries, you tacitly support the dominant narrative. Saying “ABC Bad and XYZ Bad” without doing work to contextualize the extent, impact, and level of “Badness” serves to exaggerate the evils of the “less bad” and understate the evils of the “more bad.” Condemning equally is therefore an unequal condemnation for unequal evils.
See, that’s the issue.
Pointing at state A and saying it’s bad invokes the response “Well B is by far more bad, if you look at contextualized extent, impact, and level of badness!” thus down playing the bad state A has done.It’s like, A hit X with a fist, but B hit Y with a bat, twice and on the shins, so what A did isn’t so bad actually. Instead of just admitting hitting is wrong.
It’s best to correctly contextualize all bad. Simply saying X is bad if one country does .5X and another does 2X equalizes each into merely “X.”
Exactly! :)
My point is that that is bad, it obscures reality and leads to incorrect conclusions.
Just like how both the Democratic party and the Republican party are bad, but somewhere here it always ends up with competition where the Republicans are worse, the rest is somehow excused when .world is involved.
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.
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?
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).
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.
Hmmm… well, with Trump dissolving our coalitions, we’ll get to see how a nice a place the world is after the pax Americana. Next thirty years should be interesting.
Are you really sure you want to be ascribing global trends to the US empire?
Yes., absolutely. The post-WW2 world order was led and architectured by the US. Think of the Marshal plan, Breton Woods, NATO, the UN, the space race and cold war, and the huge impact of the US Navy providing global security for oceanic trade.
Whoosh
“Everything is very good, actually”
Seems like this post is about you! :)
Facts gets downvotes here!
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.
Let’s just summarize the argument made here using actual facts:
Everyone says Russia is so bad for bombing children’s hospitals and rest homes and apartment buildings, but look at the US’s military budget!"
It’s pathetic.
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?
Ignores the point of my comment
Hyperfocuses on one tiny detail
.ml username
What a shock.
“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. 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.
And you have the gall to accuse me of making a bad faith argument. Once again, pathetic.
“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.
your conditions are too specific. what the US did to Iraq, Vietnam, Korea,… is already bad enough. But these dont qualify because they arent neighbors of the us, and the intentions arent exactly what you listed. still, these are already bad enough.
I absolutely love the part where you guys are all so vocal about “but the US did this and this” but have literally nothing to say about @mydude@lemmy.world up there acting like Russia and North Korea are perfect little saints while actively trying to wipe out civilians.
Just Tankie Things™️
So you have no defense for your selective defense of US imperialism and lash out at others when it is noted.
Anarchist instance btw
Selectively defends by accusing others of selective defence when they accuse you of selective defence
Fucking lmao
Anarchist instance
DOUBLE LMAO
Acting like Putin and Kim are chill is about as “anarchist” as Elon Musk thinks he is.
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.
dont blame me for the opinions of someone else. Just note how hipocritical you sound by dismissing criticism of the us while criticizing russia. Why not both?
Of course the US citizens won’t agree with this, so their government has to do it somewhere else, so the US could wash their hands. Funnily enough, last time someone did this, a CEO was murdered to get accountability.
This kind of crap is another level of hypocrisy.
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Russia and Iran are the only reasons Assad remained in power, where he gassed his own citizens with chemical weapons and tortured, murdered, and jailed political opponents or anyone suspected being as much.
It seems to be a recurring theme with your shit countries. Threatening the world with nukes, instating the world’s worst and most oppressive dictatorships, arming African warlords to exploit gold mines to prop up your shitty nazi landgrab war, building bases on land that doesn’t belong to you and you weren’t invited too, and the list goes on and on.
Yeah but those people aren’t white so it doesn’t count
I’d say…
Facts gets downvotes here!
Do you know how opinions are different from facts?
Such a sad excuse for an intellect.
It’s an opinion backed up by facts.
Such a sad excuse for an intellect.
Downvoted for being a dick.
