Karl Paul August Friedrich Liebknecht, born on this day in 1871, was a German socialist politician and theorist. Originally associated with the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), Liebknecht later became a co-founder with Rosa Luxemburg of both the Spartacus League and the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). Liebknecht is also known for his outspoken opposition to World War I.

The son of Wilhelm Liebknecht, one of the founders of the SPD, Karl Liebknecht trained to be a lawyer and defended many Social Democrats in political trials. He was also a leading figure in the socialist youth movement and thus became a leading figure in the struggle against militarism.

As a deputy in the Reichstag he was one of the first SPD representatives to break party discipline and vote against war credits in December 1914. He became a figurehead for the struggle against the war. His opposition was so successful that his parliamentary immunity was removed and he was improsoned.

Freed by the November revolution he immediately threw himself into the struggle and became with Rosa Luxemburg one of the founders of the new Communist Party (KPD)

In January 1919, the Spartacus League played a leading role in the Spartacist Uprising, a general strike and armed rebellion in Berlin. The uprising was crushed by the SPD government and the Freikorps (paramilitary units composed of World War I veterans). For their role in the uprising, Liebknecht and Luxemburg were both kidnapped, tortured, and murdered on January 15th, 1919.

Their contributions to European socialism are commemorated annually in Germany during the second weekend of January, an event known as the Liebknecht-Luxemburg Demonstration, or "LL-Demo" for short.

Megathreads and spaces to hang out:

reminders:

  • 💚 You nerds can join specific comms to see posts about all sorts of topics
  • 💙 Hexbear’s algorithm prioritizes comments over upbears
  • 💜 Sorting by new you nerd
  • 🌈 If you ever want to make your own megathread, you can reserve a spot here nerd
  • 🐶 Join the unofficial Hexbear-adjacent Mastodon instance toots.matapacos.dog

Links To Resources (Aid and Theory):

Aid:

Theory:

  • miz [any, any]
    ·
    1 month ago

    anyone recall if there's a good post that explores why liberals must pretend that leftists are right wing

    infuriating to have these morons gaslight and slander you as a right-winger for being upset about genocide

    • bigboopballs [he/him]
      ·
      1 month ago

      Found it: https://hexbear.net/comment/3736815

      Posted by DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml Aug 15 2023

      I think a big part of it is liberals believe they are intelligent, free thinkers who can sift the truth from the lies. Trouble is, they are not given the tools to do so, and liberalism is ingrained in people from the moment we first learn to talk, so it comes as such a natural thing to them that questioning the liberal outlook would be like questioning the existence of the sun to them. It's just a thing that is there, a permanent fixture of life.

      So they believe they are determining the "facts" correctly, but they don't even consider that the framework they use to examine the facts is flawed and doesn't always give correct results. It just "is." and by extension, everyone uses the same framework, because it is the only framework that exists. So when they see someone who arrives at radically different conclusions to themselves on an issue, they have two options in their mind:

      1: I was using the framework wrong.

      2: They were using the framework wrong.

      So when they look at people like QAnon, this is an easy answer, as they also use the liberal framework, but clearly have "gotten things wrong." so to your standard lib, they can point that out no problem, as QAnon is easy to debunk. And in the event of a situation where they are wrong, but within the framework of liberalism, they can have no problem admitting that (some do, but plenty of "skeptics" and that tend to be willing to change their minds on things within this framework.)

      But when they encounter someone outside the framework, like a communist, they just don't understand. We don't fit into either of their two boxes, because we aren't using the same liberal framework to analyse the world. So they awkwardly try to fit us into the "Using the framework wrong." box, but we obviously don't fit into it neatly enough. Worse still, things that liberalism says are "impossible to predict" or "impossible to prevent." are both predictable and preventable within a socialist framework. Things like recessions happen like clockwork under capitalism, but the liberal response to this is to shrug and say "no one knows how they happen." So when we predict a recession, or a socialist country doesn't suffer from one, it causes the liberal a lot of discomfort. We're supposed to be using the framework wrong, yet here we are, understanding an event better than they do.

      So their only option is to insist we are "lying" or "fake news" somehow. When liberalism brushes up against reality, they have to choose liberalism or reality. Most will just plug their ears and force themselves to watch Marvel movies, Clockwork Orange style until they forget all about it, but some realise the system they've taken as a gospel truth their whole lives isn't actually a good framework for understanding the world, and they might like to look for better ones. (Unfortunately, a lot of them fall for fascism at this point, because it offers the same easy answers as liberalism, but pretends to not be liberalism. So it is familiar and comforting to them.)

      • miz [any, any]
        ·
        1 month ago

        no I mean more like they have to pretend they're being as moral "as possible", and if you reject that surrender to the murder machine then they have to invent a way that you are on their right

        sort of like a breakdown the development behind the lie of horseshoe theory

    • theother2020 [comrade/them, she/her]
      ·
      1 month ago

      Not exactly what you are asking but this is a comment from user sexywheat that I had saved. It might have been in a news-mega. It describes the older libs in my life.

      Also I would add the obvious:

      projection

      “In my observations on Libs, I think the biggest challenge for them is that they fundamentally trust the institutions that govern our society. In order to believe in something else, they would have to break that trust on a fundamental level. But that trust underpins their entire worldview, so in doing so they would not only have to fundamentally alter their core values, but also in doing to have to admit that they have been wrong about everything their entire lives. That's a pretty tall order.”

      • PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them]
        ·
        1 month ago

        This is basically it, at least for the "true believers." I used to be one. They take institutions like the courts, the press, the legislature, academia, the military, etc. at face value. When these institutions fail to deliver justice, it is always perceived as a failure of leadership, or a consequence of external challenges. MAYBE something which can be smoothed out with some reforms. The legitimacy of the institution itself is never questioned.

        Liberals believe A: The institutions are tautologically good because their constitutions / charters / mission statements assert a benevolent purpose, and B: that these institutions are the primary (the only legitimate, or the only meaningful) vehicles for social progress.

        From this mindset, they see little difference between the left and the right. Corruption undermines the legitimacy of these institutions. Fascism undermines the legitimacy of these institutions. Anticapitalist agitation undermines the legitimacy of these institutions (insofar as they are instruments of the bourgeois state).

        When the left attacks the New York Times for being transphobic cheerleaders of genocide, they're attacking a core pillar of Liberal Democracy, and in doing so, undermining the engine of social progress. Liberal Democracy requires the Fourth Estate, and their stated mission is to "bring truth to power," so if you're trying to cut the New York Times down a peg or two what you're really doing is letting the powerful off the hook.

        It is pure idealism through and through.

        Boiled down to its essence, this logic becomes hard to distinguish from fascism. As the vehicles of social progress, these institutions become indispensable. Each one is a keystone of civilization. If lost, the only imaginable outcome is barbarism. The military is the Thin Blue Line which prevents despots and terrorists from ruling the world. The Democrats are the Thin Blue Line which prevent nakedly reactionary book burning freaks from ruling the USA. The media and academia are the Thin Blue Line preventing an epistemological crisis. The corporate sector is the Thin Blue Line preventing unmitigated Chinese technological and economic superiority. As the pressures on Liberal Democracy mount, criticism of these institutions will be met with existential hostility.

    • anarchoilluminati [comrade/them]
      ·
      1 month ago

      Libs are truly living, braindead human waste that need to be cleansed.

      Those idiots are so ignorant they can't even comprehend that they are the Right-wingers!

      • miz [any, any]
        ·
        1 month ago

        they are like Cthulhu cultists or something