With the way they’re acting, you’d think that these dudes wanted Republicans to maintain control. Like, I don’t have a lot of faith in democrats to actually get the shit done that they need to, but the defeatism is absolutely absurd.
They probably wanted progressive wing to collapse before getting back in the seat. Now people have a reference point to compare them to and hopefully democrats that can’t live up to that will get rooted out instead.
With the way they’re acting, you’d think that these dudes wanted Republicans to maintain control.
Oh believe me, they do. I’ve literally been told how much more awful Democrats are than Republicans. IIRC, the reasoning behind that was some vague shit about liberals watering down true leftism or something. Like, yeah, one side wants to establish a fascist totalitarian government and has literally set out to murdering foreigners and dissenters with ICE, but hey, your identity politics are more important.
I swear to god the double trauma of COVID and Trump during formative periods of some peoples’ lives made it pathologically impossible for them to take a win for even a day or two. That’s how you burn the fuck out. Don’t rest on your laurels, but making people feel like nothing is ever enough is how you get them to stop showing up.
I see it a lot in organizing, like taking even a second to breathe is going to accidentally infect you with an airborne centrist virus.
And then the going gets rough and all the “We can rest after the revolution” types are burnt out so they start publicly infighting at the first disagreement because they’re tired and hopeless and miserable.
I’ve always been a fan of the color red. Imagine if (let me dream) the republican party falls and the DSA can take red as their color against the establishment dems’ blue. Fighting on the red side would feel good then!
Its much more likely that the DNC would assume the mantle of a fallen republican party, and change their color. They were always only pretend blue anyway.
Gonna need like 50 years to wash the stank off that color. Every time I see a red baseball cap I get alarmed and concerned about a very untrustworthy person I should avoid. Usually it’s just a sports team hat but it never fails to raise my blood pressure.
Believe it or not, the colors were reversed or kinda random for a long time actually. Dems were red, GoP blue. Iirc, that didn’t shift until 2000, lol.
I mean Schumer and Jeffries are out there taking the “high” road again, so the first indication that positive change is coming would be those two fucking off to the other side of the sun.
You’d think that but have a look at hexbear’s midterms containment thread. The way they speak about it internally is different. They are very happy the Republicans lost, they jsut don’t care that it’s the democrats who won.
I blocked the “Tankie Triad” so I don’t even see their fascist propaganda. Because I experienced it on multiple instances, I literally can’t imagine using the Fediverse while still having see all their bad-faith shit…
All the tankies I’ve talked to seem to be fully in favor of accelerationism – just wanting whatever will cause the most damage to the US the fastest. So, yeah – they were absolutely rooting for the Republicans.
I am hoping that the accelerationism this country needed was a cultural one rather than a violent one – that the conservatives showed so much ugly to the world that the American people pushed the Overton window a bit away from conservatism and will continue to reject that whole world of bullshit in the future.
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. - JFK
This is why I always advocate for replacing First-past-the-post voting with a voting system that gives 3rd parties the freedom to run for election without a spoiler effect. But I guess blue maga thinks the democratic party is more important then the United States of America.
I guess blue maga thinks the democratic party is more important then the United States of America.
When it comes to the party leadership and many politicians, absolutely.
I think ordinary people who are registered democrats and “vote blue no matter who” types are much more receptive to the idea of a sensible voting system. Ranked choice has the name recognition, but there are better systems like STAR.
Even here on Lemmy, we have plenty of debates/arguments of “vote blue because of harm reduction and (first past the post + game theory)” versus “vote for the candidate that matches your ideals even if they aren’t one of the two that has a chance of winning.” What I do not recall seeing, however, are debates about how first-past-the-post is actually the superior voting system because of reasons XYZ.
Any “arguments” in favor that I can think of are typical conservative bad faith bullshit talking points. The people do not favor it, except probably for a big chunk that gets their information about the world from the talking heads’ conservative bad faith bullshit talking points.
I’ve been highly disappointed by the American voters before, and I expect I will be again.
But, yeah. I’d wager that a simple fuel price graph could predict the outcome of the next several elections. If it’s high, people will vote out whoever is currently in power.
That’s tankie propaganda, which seems to be the whole reason for you creating your account.
Tankies are the violent authoritarian wing of socialists, who believe liberals, landlords, bankers, intellectuals, etc. should be put to death. Stalin, Mao, etc.
They’re kinda like fascists as far as loving violence and purging their undesirables except the boot is a different flavor:
“We will live in a utopia if you merely give us the power to kill everyone we dislike!”
You understand comments are public, so it makes no sense to lie about previous interactions, right?
In any case, yes, this explicitly is propaganda, specifically nazi propaganda. Circa 1930s, repackaged in the 1960s.
Tankies are the violent authoritarian
Define either of these words in a way that excludes any state that has ever or could ever exist. You can’t. Every single state is violent, and it is authoritarian. The entire concept of politics is to decide who has the monopoly of power, and for what it is used.
wing of socialists,
All socialists are violent because:
who believe liberals, landlords, bankers, intellectuals, etc. should be put to death. Stalin, Mao, etc.
Besides liberals and intellectuals, both of which are not including in the list of ‘victims’ of ‘violent’ socialists, all socialists should want the deaths of landlords and bankers.
They cannot be reformed, see the Kulaks who chose to kill themselves rather than pay their workers a wage and collectivize their land.
They’re kinda like fascists as far as loving violence and purging their undesirables except the boot is a different flavor:
The only possible way you could believe this is if you think all violence is bad, which makes you a naive, ignorant child; but the common reason to state this is to equivocate violence based on immutable characteristics, and violence based on mutable characteristics. Which is what nazis are want to do, in order to justify their unjustifable actions.
Practically every single adult on the planet accepts that violence is necessary. The only disagreement is to whom and to what extent said violence should be done. Pretending this isn’t the case is again either ignorance or intentional theatrical naivety.
“We will live in a utopia if you merely give us the power to kill everyone we dislike!”
What is your solution to people with unlimited wealth, no morality, and a psychotic devotion to harming society?
You can’t imprison them forever if you’re a poor country. You can’t send them to the fields to try to reform them, they are physically incapable of it at that point. You can’t let them live free, otherwise you will spend half your hard earned resources on defending against them from within and without.
I recognize that the group called tankies is the group of people that supports the DPRK, PRC, Vietnam, Laos, and Cuba, and I support them, so I belong to the group called tankies. I’m self-aware of that, so don’t pretend my support for these countries isn’t going to get me called a tankie.
As “one of those people” you are talking about, we’ve been here before. Yes, it feels awesome to get such a decisive victory over the republicans. I’ve seen this before. Over and over again. The pendulum has swung back to the left. But, just because we voted in a bunch of Dems, hell even a bunch of Socialists, that doesn’t mean they will, or even can, fix the most broken parts of this system. Democrats have enabled and even facilitated some of the worst aspects of what we’re seeing right now from Trump and Republicans. I mean, you yourself even admit it: “I don’t have a lot of faith in democrats to actually get the shit done that they need to”.
The difference is, we know what needs to be done. A really famous guy wrote about it over a 100 years ago. Having Blue majority didn’t improve anybody’s material conditions in the past. Why would it now? Yes, they’re “less bad”, but Dems are still pretty bad. What makes this time different?
I love the outcome of the election. It was a bloodbath. But I’m not deluding myself that wholesale change will ever come from national electeds. Defeatist? Maybe. I’m just tempering my expectations, even from DSA endorsed winners.
this post sums it up best imo. Prove me wrong. Prove all of us MLs and “tAnKiEs” wrong. Prove to us that voting can and does work, that we can materially improve people’s situations without protest.
Don’t get me wrong, I see what you’re saying and I generally agree with your leftist sentiments.
That said, you are incorrect that the Democrats have been totally unsuccessful in improving material conditions for people. I’m with you that it hasn’t nearly been far enough, but they did accomplish significant things for women and black people.
JFK passed the equal pay act. LBJ passed the civil rights act. Clinton passed the violence against women act. These things had an effect that was tangible, even if we need more.
In Texas, my grandmother wasn’t able to have her own bank account without my grandfather signing a permission note until John Connally, a Democrat, passed the Marital Property Act of 1967. My mother never had that problem because a Democrat changed the conditions for women in this country.
Do I want a true left to rise in the United States? Yes. Do I think the Democrats have any hope of fixing capitalism? No. BUT, this victory is sweet, and I’ll be raising a glass to the Democrats today anyway.
JFK passed the equal pay act. LBJ passed the civil rights act.
You’re skipping why those passed when they did. Postwar US was in a red scare, Communism spreading across Europe, fear of uprisings at home, and that fear forced progressive concessions. The one era of capitalism people romanticize is that one, and it was shaped by fear of Communism plus massive grassroots working-class movements. JFK and LBJ didn’t pass those laws out of kindness. Cities were burning, people were organizing at rates this country had never seen, demanding better material conditions.
Clinton passed the violence against women act
This law was very limited and a classic neolib policy. It did not, in fact, dismantle any systems of oppression. It was another concession to the feminist “radicals” of the era.
In Texas, my grandmother wasn’t able to have her own bank account without my grandfather signing a permission note until John Connally, a Democrat, passed the Marital Property Act of 1967. My mother never had that problem because a Democrat changed the conditions for women in this country.
Democrats didn’t do this though. That’s my whole point. Sure they may have signed the law, but the pressure and the framing came from socialists and activists, through fear of revolution, strikes, boycotts. Yours is a standard liberal talking point, and it whitewashes history and erases the struggle that was actually fought for.
Do I want a true left to rise in the United States? Yes. Do I think the Democrats have any hope of fixing capitalism? No. BUT, this victory is sweet, and I’ll be raising a glass to the Democrats today anyway.
On this we agree. Victory was sweet yesterday. I’m mostly celebrating. But we need to continue to organize and fight for what we want. Capitalists and billionaire oligarchs will not just give us what we want out of the kindness of their hearts. That’s simply not how any of this works. Don’t become a “If Harris won we’d be at brunch” kind of person.
Respectfully, stand down, comrade! I’m on your side and not becoming a Kamala brunch enthusiast. I appreciate your opinions on history and thank you for sharing your thoughts.
The fight definitely continues, but a little win feels nice. I can go back to my usual full on class warfare in the morning.
A theocratic autocracy will rise from the ashes. Unless you kids have done more prep work that you let on, your not winning the war if it goes hot, and the crazies with stockpiles and organization in place have the advantage over unprepared forum users.
Socialists believe in a real try at social equality. Tankies believe you must murder people or at least ignore large amounts of suffering to force it in one fell swoop.
“tankie” is pejorative term used by fascists and libs for Socialists and Communists. the people who use the term tankie unironically often denounce many or all existing Socialist states (Cuba, China, DPRK, etc) as “authoritarian”.
No it isn’t. It’s a pejorative term for fake leftists who do not have regard for human life even though that is supposed to be the only concern they have. Sure, it might get overused or incorrectly applied on this platform. But that’s because we’ve seen so many damn true tankies.
It’s a pejorative for what you perceive as fake leftists, but in actuality are just the group of people that support the DPRK, PRC, Cuba, Vietnam, and Laos. You perceive this support as a disregard for human life, because you view these countries negatively. The actual base of what makes a tankie is support for these socialist countries, though, your opinion on them is not the definition. In any case, by your definition the Black Panther Party were fake leftists with no regard for human life:
In reality, tankies are just the socialists that support the actuality of existing revolution, the Black Panthers being predecessors to the modern tankie in America.
“tankie” is pejorative term used by fascists and libs for Socialists and Communists. the people who use the term tankie unironically often denounce many or all existing Socialist states (Cuba, China, DPRK, etc) as “authoritarian”.
I repeat: You have a very warped view of what Socialists believe in.
I’ve seen a lot of hysteria around “tankies” since I started using Lemmy and I gotta say I really don’t get it. Yes, there are people here who are to the left of Democrats. No, that doesn’t make them the enemy, or secretly MAGA or Russian or whatever. They just… disagree with liberals. I see opinions attributed to “everyone from a .ml community” that I’ve never seen from any of the actual users. People gleefully brag about blocking swaths of other users, yet I’ve almost never seen any .ml user actually being as toxic as they get branded. I’m pretty sure I’ve even heard people say that you are a particularly bad one, but I haven’t witnessed it.
Also, lemmy was created by ml’s right? It’s one thing to have very little tolerance for different political opinions, but it’s another thing entirely to literally just be the gray characters from this meme and still somehow think you’re in the right.
People should run their lemmy instance as they want.
The non stop feudposting about what people do in their own instance is ridiculous. Block the instance and move on with your life if you need to. Block me to while youre at it! Who cares?
It seems there is some other agenda at play with those who are on this dumb ass crusade against .ml
I think people generally think of themselves as progressive when they come here, and it might be their first run-in with revolutionary socialists. They get caught between their progressive beliefs, largely around the Bernie/AOC area, and this suddenly new group (to them) of people that despise reformism and the Democrats almost as much as the Republicans. It creates a lot of friction, IMO. And yea, Lemmy was and is made by MLs, which means we have a permanent foothold here.
Have you tried browsing hexbear.net and Lemmygrad.ml? Lemmy.ml has its own vibe because we don’t really defederate from anyone, but Lemmygrad.ml and Hexbear.net are pretty good examples of what “tankies” are like when we aren’t getting into constant squabbles with liberals. You’ll see tons of queer people, a lot of passionate people, and a lot of normalcy, to be honest.
I’m not going to lie, as an outsider this always seems to be the case. Could you explain what you actually want and what you could see realistically happening if the fascists won?
what you could see realistically happening if the fascists won?
Arguably, and I would, the fascists are already in control. Just think of the tech enshittification at the hands of technofascists. Think of the endless wars; how much say in those wars do you truly believe you have? Think of the military budget outspending every single other country combined. We are the most powerful and richest country in the history of this planet … and 50% of americans can’t afford a 1 bedroom apartment. Americans can’t afford groceries. Real wages have been stuck in the 1970s. We are bankrupting ourselves with medical and student debt. Nobody can afford a house. Kids still in cages, guantanamo bay still operating, ICE record funding every year,
How much say do you have at your job? Unions are being squashed and suppressed. Have you attended a pro-gaza rally lately? How did the police treat you?
…I want a better world in which the 99% actually have a say, actually have a better life, and we don’t have 1% of people hoarding all the power and wealth of the world. This IS possible.
Not who you asked, but I want socialism, which requires revolution, which itself requires a mass working class revolutionary party, a militant and class conscious working class, and instability within the capitalist class. The first two are directly actionable through joining socialist orgs like PSL and doing large amounts of outreach, agitation, etc. The latter is out of our control, no matter if the Democrats or Republicans win in elections, and is more a matter of course as capitalism decays.
Fascism isn’t something that can be elected. Fascism is when the capitalist class oversteps the legal boundaries and restricts the civil rights of the country, when bourgeois democracy is replaced with outright direct rule by capital. Republicans winning or losing does not actually increase or decrease the chance of fascism, because fascism is a response to economic conditions and rising socialist organizing outside of the legal system.
This is important, because it means Democrats winning does not stop fascism. Fascism is out of the control of the working class, and can only be prevented by socialism, and stopped once in action by fighting it directly. In either case, mass socialist organizing is both the vaccine and the cure for fascism, depending on the timeline.
I have seen that sentiment directly expressed many times and I’ve seen it implied many times. Still see it despite blocking the shit out of sources of those kinds of opinions. Just today someone said to me “if you don’t think it should be burned down now, what would it take?”
Do I know you? I’ve seen you make reasonable comments and then today multiple doomer ones. I don’t think I know you, but I do think you seem somewhat open to feedback even if you do make excuses.
They’ll tell you that they do. I’ve had some tell me that electoralism won’t bring about socialism and things have to get way worse before the people revolt.
Why do you think this meme is applicable here? Calfpupa never said socialism never works, she said you can’t vote your way to it. If your point is that you’re happy with the neo-colonialism of northern Europe, yeah we know the liberal position.
Norway voted themselves into socialist policies. Then leftists say it’s not Socialism. But when you say it’s bad in a different argument, they are held up as an example of Socialism. If the voting continues as it has in the past it could become full socialism.
With the way they’re acting, you’d think that these dudes wanted Republicans to maintain control. Like, I don’t have a lot of faith in democrats to actually get the shit done that they need to, but the defeatism is absolutely absurd.
https://abcnews4.com/news/nation-world/james-carville-says-he-prefers-gop-win-midterms-because-dems-would-be-hostage-to-dsa-democratic-socialists-of-america
They probably wanted progressive wing to collapse before getting back in the seat. Now people have a reference point to compare them to and hopefully democrats that can’t live up to that will get rooted out instead.
Oh believe me, they do. I’ve literally been told how much more awful Democrats are than Republicans. IIRC, the reasoning behind that was some vague shit about liberals watering down true leftism or something. Like, yeah, one side wants to establish a fascist totalitarian government and has literally set out to murdering foreigners and dissenters with ICE, but hey, your identity politics are more important.
Immigrants and dissenters have always been murdered. And children and women.
I swear to god the double trauma of COVID and Trump during formative periods of some peoples’ lives made it pathologically impossible for them to take a win for even a day or two. That’s how you burn the fuck out. Don’t rest on your laurels, but making people feel like nothing is ever enough is how you get them to stop showing up.
I see it a lot in organizing, like taking even a second to breathe is going to accidentally infect you with an airborne centrist virus.
And then the going gets rough and all the “We can rest after the revolution” types are burnt out so they start publicly infighting at the first disagreement because they’re tired and hopeless and miserable.
IMO, you should have higher standards.
We have plenty of wins, built on the hard work of working class Americans door knocking, phone banking, canvassing, signature gathering, etc.
I’ve always been a fan of the color red. Imagine if (let me dream) the republican party falls and the DSA can take red as their color against the establishment dems’ blue. Fighting on the red side would feel good then!
Its much more likely that the DNC would assume the mantle of a fallen republican party, and change their color. They were always only pretend blue anyway.
Gonna need like 50 years to wash the stank off that color. Every time I see a red baseball cap I get alarmed and concerned about a very untrustworthy person I should avoid. Usually it’s just a sports team hat but it never fails to raise my blood pressure.
Mario cosplayers in shambles right now!
Haha somehow in that context it never crosses my mind
I bet Mario would be pro-union
Can’t say I disagree.
Believe it or not, the colors were reversed or kinda random for a long time actually. Dems were red, GoP blue. Iirc, that didn’t shift until 2000, lol.
As I remember it, the colors were more business pinstripe gray for the conservatives and blue for the democrats.
Would be more like the UK parties’ colors then.
I mean Schumer and Jeffries are out there taking the “high” road again, so the first indication that positive change is coming would be those two fucking off to the other side of the sun.
You’d think that but have a look at hexbear’s midterms containment thread. The way they speak about it internally is different. They are very happy the Republicans lost, they jsut don’t care that it’s the democrats who won.
Hexbear is as toxic as 4chan I’ll pass looking at any of their shit.
I blocked the “Tankie Triad” so I don’t even see their fascist propaganda. Because I experienced it on multiple instances, I literally can’t imagine using the Fediverse while still having see all their bad-faith shit…
I’m so glad my instance is defederated from them
So, are they lying to us, or are they lying to each other?
Neither, people read everything through hermeneutics of suspicion or innocence and pre-judge accordingly.
For anyone who doesn’t know what hermeneutics is, it’s when you read things through the eyes of this guy:
That’s hermaneutics you heretic! Or hermanneutics if you’re trying to hide from Gloria Vanderbilt.
All the tankies I’ve talked to seem to be fully in favor of accelerationism – just wanting whatever will cause the most damage to the US the fastest. So, yeah – they were absolutely rooting for the Republicans.
I am hoping that the accelerationism this country needed was a cultural one rather than a violent one – that the conservatives showed so much ugly to the world that the American people pushed the Overton window a bit away from conservatism and will continue to reject that whole world of bullshit in the future.
It can’t just be the gas prices, right?
This is why I always advocate for replacing First-past-the-post voting with a voting system that gives 3rd parties the freedom to run for election without a spoiler effect. But I guess blue maga thinks the democratic party is more important then the United States of America.
When it comes to the party leadership and many politicians, absolutely.
I think ordinary people who are registered democrats and “vote blue no matter who” types are much more receptive to the idea of a sensible voting system. Ranked choice has the name recognition, but there are better systems like STAR.
Even here on Lemmy, we have plenty of debates/arguments of “vote blue because of harm reduction and (first past the post + game theory)” versus “vote for the candidate that matches your ideals even if they aren’t one of the two that has a chance of winning.” What I do not recall seeing, however, are debates about how first-past-the-post is actually the superior voting system because of reasons XYZ.
Any “arguments” in favor that I can think of are typical conservative bad faith bullshit talking points. The people do not favor it, except probably for a big chunk that gets their information about the world from the talking heads’ conservative bad faith bullshit talking points.
I’ve been highly disappointed by the American voters before, and I expect I will be again.
But, yeah. I’d wager that a simple fuel price graph could predict the outcome of the next several elections. If it’s high, people will vote out whoever is currently in power.
No because we know fascists would take control. We want you to read theory, join PSL, do mutual aid and help build a vanguard.
If you have enough self-awareness to call yourself a tankie, you’re not a tankie.
Tankie is just anyone to the left of burning orphans for warmth. It’s also a nazi dogwhistle.
That’s tankie propaganda, which seems to be the whole reason for you creating your account.
Tankies are the violent authoritarian wing of socialists, who believe liberals, landlords, bankers, intellectuals, etc. should be put to death. Stalin, Mao, etc.
They’re kinda like fascists as far as loving violence and purging their undesirables except the boot is a different flavor:
“We will live in a utopia if you merely give us the power to kill everyone we dislike!”
Psychotic comment, what the actual fuck is wrong with you?
That’s the nazi propaganda being dogwhistled, yes.
No it isn’t. Facts that you don’t like aren’t automatically propaganda.
Yesterday when we talked about what exactly you believe as far as Stalin, Mao, et al., you just diverted into ad hominem rather than answer the question.
Want to try again?
ACAB
You understand comments are public, so it makes no sense to lie about previous interactions, right?
In any case, yes, this explicitly is propaganda, specifically nazi propaganda. Circa 1930s, repackaged in the 1960s.
Define either of these words in a way that excludes any state that has ever or could ever exist. You can’t. Every single state is violent, and it is authoritarian. The entire concept of politics is to decide who has the monopoly of power, and for what it is used.
All socialists are violent because:
Besides liberals and intellectuals, both of which are not including in the list of ‘victims’ of ‘violent’ socialists, all socialists should want the deaths of landlords and bankers.
They cannot be reformed, see the Kulaks who chose to kill themselves rather than pay their workers a wage and collectivize their land.
The only possible way you could believe this is if you think all violence is bad, which makes you a naive, ignorant child; but the common reason to state this is to equivocate violence based on immutable characteristics, and violence based on mutable characteristics. Which is what nazis are want to do, in order to justify their unjustifable actions.
Practically every single adult on the planet accepts that violence is necessary. The only disagreement is to whom and to what extent said violence should be done. Pretending this isn’t the case is again either ignorance or intentional theatrical naivety.
What is your solution to people with unlimited wealth, no morality, and a psychotic devotion to harming society?
You can’t imprison them forever if you’re a poor country. You can’t send them to the fields to try to reform them, they are physically incapable of it at that point. You can’t let them live free, otherwise you will spend half your hard earned resources on defending against them from within and without.
I recognize that the group called tankies is the group of people that supports the DPRK, PRC, Vietnam, Laos, and Cuba, and I support them, so I belong to the group called tankies. I’m self-aware of that, so don’t pretend my support for these countries isn’t going to get me called a tankie.
Yeah? Can you show us one?
Read the thread lmfao
I did. I see a bunch of .ml’s clearly and strongly saying that we don’t believe in accelerationism.
It would be difficult because I’ve already blocked them.
I’ll take that as a no, then.
As “one of those people” you are talking about, we’ve been here before. Yes, it feels awesome to get such a decisive victory over the republicans. I’ve seen this before. Over and over again. The pendulum has swung back to the left. But, just because we voted in a bunch of Dems, hell even a bunch of Socialists, that doesn’t mean they will, or even can, fix the most broken parts of this system. Democrats have enabled and even facilitated some of the worst aspects of what we’re seeing right now from Trump and Republicans. I mean, you yourself even admit it: “I don’t have a lot of faith in democrats to actually get the shit done that they need to”.
The difference is, we know what needs to be done. A really famous guy wrote about it over a 100 years ago. Having Blue majority didn’t improve anybody’s material conditions in the past. Why would it now? Yes, they’re “less bad”, but Dems are still pretty bad. What makes this time different?
I love the outcome of the election. It was a bloodbath. But I’m not deluding myself that wholesale change will ever come from national electeds. Defeatist? Maybe. I’m just tempering my expectations, even from DSA endorsed winners.
this post sums it up best imo. Prove me wrong. Prove all of us MLs and “tAnKiEs” wrong. Prove to us that voting can and does work, that we can materially improve people’s situations without protest.
Don’t get me wrong, I see what you’re saying and I generally agree with your leftist sentiments.
That said, you are incorrect that the Democrats have been totally unsuccessful in improving material conditions for people. I’m with you that it hasn’t nearly been far enough, but they did accomplish significant things for women and black people.
JFK passed the equal pay act. LBJ passed the civil rights act. Clinton passed the violence against women act. These things had an effect that was tangible, even if we need more.
In Texas, my grandmother wasn’t able to have her own bank account without my grandfather signing a permission note until John Connally, a Democrat, passed the Marital Property Act of 1967. My mother never had that problem because a Democrat changed the conditions for women in this country.
Do I want a true left to rise in the United States? Yes. Do I think the Democrats have any hope of fixing capitalism? No. BUT, this victory is sweet, and I’ll be raising a glass to the Democrats today anyway.
You’re skipping why those passed when they did. Postwar US was in a red scare, Communism spreading across Europe, fear of uprisings at home, and that fear forced progressive concessions. The one era of capitalism people romanticize is that one, and it was shaped by fear of Communism plus massive grassroots working-class movements. JFK and LBJ didn’t pass those laws out of kindness. Cities were burning, people were organizing at rates this country had never seen, demanding better material conditions.
This law was very limited and a classic neolib policy. It did not, in fact, dismantle any systems of oppression. It was another concession to the feminist “radicals” of the era.
Democrats didn’t do this though. That’s my whole point. Sure they may have signed the law, but the pressure and the framing came from socialists and activists, through fear of revolution, strikes, boycotts. Yours is a standard liberal talking point, and it whitewashes history and erases the struggle that was actually fought for.
On this we agree. Victory was sweet yesterday. I’m mostly celebrating. But we need to continue to organize and fight for what we want. Capitalists and billionaire oligarchs will not just give us what we want out of the kindness of their hearts. That’s simply not how any of this works. Don’t become a “If Harris won we’d be at brunch” kind of person.
Respectfully, stand down, comrade! I’m on your side and not becoming a Kamala brunch enthusiast. I appreciate your opinions on history and thank you for sharing your thoughts.
The fight definitely continues, but a little win feels nice. I can go back to my usual full on class warfare in the morning.
I’m more just shouting at clouds than at you specifically. Cheers! 🥃
roosevelt
Who said anything about without protest?
As always, voting is one of several strategies we must pursue at once … and it’s not even the most important one.
🧐
The tankies want Trump to win because they think that after he’s destroyed the US, a socialist utopia will rise from the ashes.
A theocratic autocracy will rise from the ashes. Unless you kids have done more prep work that you let on, your not winning the war if it goes hot, and the crazies with stockpiles and organization in place have the advantage over unprepared forum users.
There will be several theocracies arising in various places. And they’ll all be at eternal holy war with each other.
At least some one will keep the ashes warm for us.
Not a single tankie believes in utopic socialism
Of course not. But it’s what they claim to believe in.
No?
You have a very warped view of what Socialists believe in.
Socialists believe in a real try at social equality. Tankies believe you must murder people or at least ignore large amounts of suffering to force it in one fell swoop.
Socialists are not tankies, and tankies are not socialists (despite often claiming otherwise).
“tankie” is pejorative term used by fascists and libs for Socialists and Communists. the people who use the term tankie unironically often denounce many or all existing Socialist states (Cuba, China, DPRK, etc) as “authoritarian”.
Everybody should denounce the DPRK.
I denounce every single nation state past present and future. These nations divide the working class against ourselves. Fuck them all.
Because the Capitalists and billionaires told you to?
No it isn’t. It’s a pejorative term for fake leftists who do not have regard for human life even though that is supposed to be the only concern they have. Sure, it might get overused or incorrectly applied on this platform. But that’s because we’ve seen so many damn true tankies.
It’s a pejorative for what you perceive as fake leftists, but in actuality are just the group of people that support the DPRK, PRC, Cuba, Vietnam, and Laos. You perceive this support as a disregard for human life, because you view these countries negatively. The actual base of what makes a tankie is support for these socialist countries, though, your opinion on them is not the definition. In any case, by your definition the Black Panther Party were fake leftists with no regard for human life:
In reality, tankies are just the socialists that support the actuality of existing revolution, the Black Panthers being predecessors to the modern tankie in America.
I’m talking specifically about tankies, you know that kind of people who worship the likes of Putin and Xi and root for Hamas and the Houthis.
“tankie” is pejorative term used by fascists and libs for Socialists and Communists. the people who use the term tankie unironically often denounce many or all existing Socialist states (Cuba, China, DPRK, etc) as “authoritarian”.
I repeat: You have a very warped view of what Socialists believe in.
Yeah. Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Lmao show us anybody claiming any of this shit.
Not even that – they just want to clear the way for Russia/China to gain more power.
Tankies don’t want a socialist anything though
The problem here is a red fascist carrying water for free and someone paid to troll on behalf of black fascists look the same on the Internet.
No, nobody has said this, lmao.
I’ve seen a lot of hysteria around “tankies” since I started using Lemmy and I gotta say I really don’t get it. Yes, there are people here who are to the left of Democrats. No, that doesn’t make them the enemy, or secretly MAGA or Russian or whatever. They just… disagree with liberals. I see opinions attributed to “everyone from a .ml community” that I’ve never seen from any of the actual users. People gleefully brag about blocking swaths of other users, yet I’ve almost never seen any .ml user actually being as toxic as they get branded. I’m pretty sure I’ve even heard people say that you are a particularly bad one, but I haven’t witnessed it.
Also, lemmy was created by ml’s right? It’s one thing to have very little tolerance for different political opinions, but it’s another thing entirely to literally just be the gray characters from this meme and still somehow think you’re in the right.
People should run their lemmy instance as they want.
The non stop feudposting about what people do in their own instance is ridiculous. Block the instance and move on with your life if you need to. Block me to while youre at it! Who cares?
It seems there is some other agenda at play with those who are on this dumb ass crusade against .ml
I think people generally think of themselves as progressive when they come here, and it might be their first run-in with revolutionary socialists. They get caught between their progressive beliefs, largely around the Bernie/AOC area, and this suddenly new group (to them) of people that despise reformism and the Democrats almost as much as the Republicans. It creates a lot of friction, IMO. And yea, Lemmy was and is made by MLs, which means we have a permanent foothold here.
Have you tried browsing hexbear.net and Lemmygrad.ml? Lemmy.ml has its own vibe because we don’t really defederate from anyone, but Lemmygrad.ml and Hexbear.net are pretty good examples of what “tankies” are like when we aren’t getting into constant squabbles with liberals. You’ll see tons of queer people, a lot of passionate people, and a lot of normalcy, to be honest.
I like hexbears cute pictures, even if they dont like me. lol
This is very incorrect.
I’m not going to lie, as an outsider this always seems to be the case. Could you explain what you actually want and what you could see realistically happening if the fascists won?
Simply put: I don’t want billionaires controlling every single aspect of society, as they do now.
If you’d like to read more, I agree with all of this.. I also agree with all of this.
Arguably, and I would, the fascists are already in control. Just think of the tech enshittification at the hands of technofascists. Think of the endless wars; how much say in those wars do you truly believe you have? Think of the military budget outspending every single other country combined. We are the most powerful and richest country in the history of this planet … and 50% of americans can’t afford a 1 bedroom apartment. Americans can’t afford groceries. Real wages have been stuck in the 1970s. We are bankrupting ourselves with medical and student debt. Nobody can afford a house. Kids still in cages, guantanamo bay still operating, ICE record funding every year,
How much say do you have at your job? Unions are being squashed and suppressed. Have you attended a pro-gaza rally lately? How did the police treat you?
…I want a better world in which the 99% actually have a say, actually have a better life, and we don’t have 1% of people hoarding all the power and wealth of the world. This IS possible.
Not who you asked, but I want socialism, which requires revolution, which itself requires a mass working class revolutionary party, a militant and class conscious working class, and instability within the capitalist class. The first two are directly actionable through joining socialist orgs like PSL and doing large amounts of outreach, agitation, etc. The latter is out of our control, no matter if the Democrats or Republicans win in elections, and is more a matter of course as capitalism decays.
Fascism isn’t something that can be elected. Fascism is when the capitalist class oversteps the legal boundaries and restricts the civil rights of the country, when bourgeois democracy is replaced with outright direct rule by capital. Republicans winning or losing does not actually increase or decrease the chance of fascism, because fascism is a response to economic conditions and rising socialist organizing outside of the legal system.
This is important, because it means Democrats winning does not stop fascism. Fascism is out of the control of the working class, and can only be prevented by socialism, and stopped once in action by fighting it directly. In either case, mass socialist organizing is both the vaccine and the cure for fascism, depending on the timeline.
I have seen that sentiment directly expressed many times and I’ve seen it implied many times. Still see it despite blocking the shit out of sources of those kinds of opinions. Just today someone said to me “if you don’t think it should be burned down now, what would it take?”
I’m old enough to remember Blue Waves hitting the rocks of Decorum and Civility and doing fuck all. I’m not getting my hopes up ever again.
And you’re gonna try your best to pass that feeling on
U mad?
BLue mAgA
If I keep these thoughts inside they’ll take me to the grippy sock hotel.
Plus you know me. You know this isn’t my best. I’m sorry to disappoint but I’ve been dealing with the bullshit that happens no matter who got elected.
🫂
Do I know you? I’ve seen you make reasonable comments and then today multiple doomer ones. I don’t think I know you, but I do think you seem somewhat open to feedback even if you do make excuses.
I make doomer comments all the time
Noted.
They’ll tell you that they do. I’ve had some tell me that electoralism won’t bring about socialism and things have to get way worse before the people revolt.
Accelerationism is imo the left wing equivalent of the american conservative-christian death cult.
Yeah accelerationism is bad mmmkay
Yes that is my opinion what are you implying?
I was agreeing
Cool cool. The ‘mmmkay’ threw me off ✌️
That’s true.
I mean, it’s true.
Doomer bullshit.
Things get better by making them better not making them worse with no plan to make it better again.
Leftists go like this
Step 1: Bring down the government
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Socialism!
We’ve laid out the plan multiple times. Doomed is thinking this is as good as it gets.
You have no plan.
I just laid it out for you. This smacks of privilege. “I got mine, FU!”
You haven’t laid out a plan though because you don’t have one.
Prove this wrong then. It’s never happened.
Why do you think this meme is applicable here? Calfpupa never said socialism never works, she said you can’t vote your way to it. If your point is that you’re happy with the neo-colonialism of northern Europe, yeah we know the liberal position.
Norway voted themselves into socialist policies. Then leftists say it’s not Socialism. But when you say it’s bad in a different argument, they are held up as an example of Socialism. If the voting continues as it has in the past it could become full socialism.