Common 196 W
this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2023
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No it's an insult for red fascists
Explaining a meaningless insult using another one kind of just proves his point
"You don't tolerate Nazis? Perhaps YOU are the REAL Nazis"
Why are you people all the same? Do you get a 50 Cent Army script or something?
I fail to see how your first statement has anything to do with my comment. Of course I don’t tolerate Nazis, fascists or anything of the sort and trying to lump your idea of ‘tankies’ into this category does remind me of what conservatives and reactionaries sometimes do with ‘woke’ Also just because I don’t agree with you doesn’t mean I’m one of ‘you people’ ‘tankies’ ‘red fascists’ or wumaos and you are just lumping me in with anyone who you associate with being part of that vague group. Just because I don’t agree with you on any issue doesn’t mean that I’m a state propagandist.
I fail to see how your first statement has anything to do with my comment.
Not surprising
Maybe you could try explaining your reasoning to me instead of immediately comparing me to the Nazis?
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What would you call the position that defends authoritarian communism even to the point of justifying genocide and brutal suppression of opposition and free press?
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What the fuck does that question have to do with anything? The US could have a personal hatred for every individual Uyghur Muslim in the world and China would still be in the midst of trying to genocide them.
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at what level of desperation do you have to be that you look at totalitarian states and decide they're the forefront of leftism in the world, instead of just like, admitting they didn't work and trying to avoid the mistakes they made? seriously, why? in an ideology and belief system heavily entrenched in nuance why do you view the world in black and white? why is it being a "lib" to say that governments who repress the human rights and civil liberties of minorities are not practicing leftism in good faith? the same governments who have horrifically and violently crushed workers rights movements? who have enforced crippling wealth inequality in their own borders? do you even know what leftism is?
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The state owning the means of production is no better than capitalists. Only when the workers control it themselves will communism be achieved and settling for anything less shouldn't be accepted
I get your general point, but I'd like to say that theoretically you could have a socialist system where the state owns the means of production for certain industries and the workers would have control through the state as long as the state is an actual functioning democracy.
The problem, of course, is that states with that much power almost always devolve into authoritarianism because of the corrupting force of power.
All I'm trying to say is that, if done right, you could have actual worker control via the state as long as the state is actually listening to and, in some sense, subservient to the people.
This is no way defends the state capitalism we see in China and Russia since they are not even close to a functioning democracy.
States with that much power will always devolve into authoritarianism. If there is a power structure, it will be corrupted. That's the issue.
Yea that's where I'm at. Human nature is a bitch.
I believe I'm an anarchist at heart, though I'm not sure the world, with its current population, is ready for that level of self reliance and community building. Lots of learned behavior to break.
We kind of dug ourselves a mighty deep hole as a species. We need to be better.
Growing up in a western capitalist state has left me fairly jaded as far as politics go, tbf
The question always comes down to how do we stop people from being bad. The answer escapes me tbh.
"The question always comes down to how do we stop people from being bad." This is the problem with not having a materialist analysis of the world, its not about being bad or being good or morality at all. At large people are motivated by self interest, perpetuating and sustaining their material conditions. Its only through struggle of the oppressed against those in power that change can come about.
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I am an anarchist. And I understand that. I flip flop between having hope and thinking there is none. Some days I think we missed our chance and now we're too far gone. Other days I look at movements like the Zapatistas and Rojava and think that their may be hope. Ultimately I don't think any first world country is gonna have it happen. Maybe if a country had a successful anarchist revolution and society, it'd be able to inspire people in first world countries. But I do think our hope lies outside of first world countries. At least till there is a proper example to inspire people.
I do still try to put an effort into organizing where I live. As I think it is still important to do that. Even if I don't think it will garner fruit till there is a true example of anarchism in action.
I really feel what you have said.
I've found that the most I can do is to touch people in my everyday, hopefully sparking some sort of revolution within themselves, but not in an intrusive or dogmatic way. I live in a particularly conservative area, and I find that they are just people, people whove been indoctrinated to the point of apathy, with a side of fear of the unknown ie racism etc. I'm knee deep in the shit, and it's overwhelming sometimes.
I am not hopeful for any political or economic agenda. But I am hopeful of the human spirit.
It's pretty resilient, but also malleable. You add in our self perpetuating 'I me mine' mentality and you end up with bad actors taking advantage of the majority, decent people.
I do agree that the 1st world, at least where I am, would need something pretty tragic to spark some sort of sweeping change. We are not taught self awareness, at least I wasn't, and I think that's where alot of our progress will need to come from.
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Supporting Cuba doesn't a tankie make: Good arguments can be had that Cuba is actually a democracy, and not in the "democracy is when party rules" kind of way. Supporting North Korea, OTOH...
@lemmybrucelee @lobster_teapot Go back to lemmygrad bootlicker
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You're just licking a different boot. All forms of hierarchy need to be abolished. State and capitalist. You don't advocate for workers, all you advocate for is state control.
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Maybe quite stabbing us in the back and practice some of that "left unity" you tankies love to preach about
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We'd have more than two if it hadn't been for tankies stabbing us in the back. But go, go on, tell me how Makhno was a counter-revolutionary or something. Kulak? Or was it about not being able to tolerate a non-authoritarian alternative.
As to successful tankie revolutions... there's none. They devolved into either state capitalist tyranny, capitalist tyranny, or straight tyranny. Cuba and Vietnam don't count they were wars for independence from colonial powers first, communist second in Vietnam's case and in Cuba's fourth or fifth or something.
We’d have more than two if it hadn’t been for tankies stabbing us in the back.
This is a phrase that keeps popping up in anarchist spaces but once you look at what it makes reference to it's... Simply not true? It's mostly used to refer to the Spanish Civil War, but one only needs to pick up a high school history book to learn that the May Days were a result of the anarchists attempting to antagonize the entirety of the Republican side by hindering war efforts, and not only the PCE or other Soviet-alligned communists, who held a rather small amount of power inside the Republican government.
But go, go on, tell me how Makhno was a counter-revolutionary or something. Kulak? Or was it about not being able to tolerate a non-authoritarian alternative.
If to not be authoritarian is a priority for you, reading Voline's accounts of his participation in the makhnovist movement should be enough to realize that his project is probably not the one you want to rally behind the most.
Just ignore the Zapatistas who are a current example of anarchism in practice.
And saying the Soviets held little power in the Spanish Republic is just a bald faced lie. The Soviets withheld supplies from non-soviet militias and actively damaged the war effort because they'd rather focus on garnering power than actually fighting fascists.
Just ignore the Zapatistas who are a current example of anarchism in practice.
Their words, not mine. Yes, the Zapatista project has worked at their current scale and is doing well, I have no problems admiting that. That does not mean however that I think their methods would work on a larger scale, especially if they ever became a threat for imperial capitalism to be attacked with military force beyond attempting to contain them inside Chiapas as they have until now. As it happened to the USSR facing invasion during the Russian Civil War, as it happened to Cuba with the Bay of Pigs invasion and as it happened to Vietnam. And the Zapatistas do so too, as they claim that they are not driven by ideological purities and will adopt whatever it is that works for them.
And saying the Soviets held little power in the Spanish Republic is just a bald faced lie.
I said that the PCE and the Soviet-alligned communists had a rather small amount of power within the Republican government, and that is not a lie. The PCE only controlled three ministries within the government during the May Days, which is the event seen as the "betrayal" that led to the anarchists' demise in Spain.
Soviets withheld supplies from non-soviet militias and actively damaged the war effort because they’d rather focus on garnering power than actually fighting fascists.
It is hard to work with abstract mentions, but I am willing to address this if you use more specific examples of Soviet sabotage of the war effort that I can look at and work with.
Edit: formatting.
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Fun fact: you can be opposed to capitalism without being a communist.
You [tankies] maybe opposed to capitalism, but you're still in favor of the coercive control of individuals by a state-level entity. That's just another flavor of authoritarianism.
you can be opposed to capitalism without being a communist
Feudalism might make a comeback lads
Feudalism will be different this time we swear.
You'll get to vote on a lord to rule the town, and they'll get to vote on the barons to rule over each barony, and each barony will basically be its own country anyway so they maintain the right to secede and stuff like that, and the barons will get to elect a monarch and a council to advise them who will rule the country.
So you see it's totally democratic and it definitely won't turn into a de facto autocracy that's not meaningfully different from regular feudalism this time
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