Why is it hard to believe or understand that this, right here and now on lemmy, really is most westerners' first time interacting with actual communists? A lot of us dems are pretty open minded and a lot of us want the US to move toward socialism. But most of our exposure to communism has just been "communism bad." So of course we don't understand the fuller spectrum of leftism, because our fascist conservative party has forced everything so far to the right, and our education system is abysmal.
Then we come here and see a bunch of "stupid libs" memes, which from the outside we can't understand because we identify as liberals (leftists). You folks give off the same vibe of how our fascist conservatives treat us (own the libs, kill a dem to save America, etc), and I think thats why people assume or equate you with Nazis. We've never met real communists, and a lot of stuff on the internet is fake. It's entirely understandable.
You cannot say you are open minded while accusing people who disagree with you of being false flag astroterfers.
A lot of us dems are pretty open minded and a lot of us want the US to move toward socialism. But most of our exposure to communism has just been "communism bad." So of course we don't understand the fuller spectrum of leftism, because our fascist conservative party has forced everything so far to the right, and our education system is abysmal.
Why are you telling me this though; you've already written me off as a 'false flag/astroturf to discredit sincere leftist discourse.' If that's the case, what does explaining this to me accomplish?
Then we come here and see a bunch of "stupid libs" memes
How about this, the amount of bile we get from liberals is enormous, and we're tired of being expecting to respond with perfect manners when we know from experience that 90% of the people talking to us are doing so in bad faith and will spit any sincere effort on our parts back in our face.
You folks give off the same vibe of how our fascist conservatives treat us (own the libs, kill a dem to save America, etc), and I think thats why people assume or equate you with Nazis.
No offense, but if Nazism is just about 'vibes' to someone, then I don't think it is within my power to deprogram them, so why would I try.
It's entirely understandable.
The vast majority of liberals I interact with on the internet are venomous and hateful to me, that doesn't mean I assume they're all right wing false flags.
I think you may have confused me with the other poster. I don't think you are astroturfers. I'm saying I can see how other westerners would make that mistake - they're just not aware that real communists exist. We should be better informed, but we're not. Sorry.
I don't even "disagree" with communism personally, it's just that's it's largely impossible in the US. I'm willing to have discussions about it, but I also think compromise is important for any ideology. And communism seems to not want any compromise, which makes it hard to have a discussion. I could be wrong about that, though.
As for the vibes... I do think this is valid and I'll explain why. Most theories sound good on paper. Even our conservative fiscal policies sound reasonable in theory. But when you hang out with the conservatives who support these theories, you find out they don't actually care about the theory, they're just hiding their hateful culture war stuff behind the fiscal policy and saying "watch what we say, not what we do." So studying communist theory is all well and good, but what I'm really interested in is getting to know actual people who stand behind the theory.
I can't remember who said it (it might have actually been Stalin) but the "works in theory but not in practice" idiom is bad and should be abandoned. Political theory is for the purpose of practice. If it fundamentally does not practically work, then the problem is with the theory. If it isn't fundamentally broken, then you can't speak in such generalizations about it.
Conservatism is vile when you drill down into what they are saying and don't just let them wax poetic about pastoral bullshit and wealth. You don't even need to look at the real world, you can get their hate from the theory once they start talking about the poor. Marxism in no way resembles this.
Why is it hard to believe or understand that this, right here and now on lemmy, really is most westerners' first time interacting with actual communists? A lot of us dems are pretty open minded and a lot of us want the US to move toward socialism. But most of our exposure to communism has just been "communism bad." So of course we don't understand the fuller spectrum of leftism, because our fascist conservative party has forced everything so far to the right, and our education system is abysmal.
Then we come here and see a bunch of "stupid libs" memes, which from the outside we can't understand because we identify as liberals (leftists). You folks give off the same vibe of how our fascist conservatives treat us (own the libs, kill a dem to save America, etc), and I think thats why people assume or equate you with Nazis. We've never met real communists, and a lot of stuff on the internet is fake. It's entirely understandable.
You cannot say you are open minded while accusing people who disagree with you of being false flag astroterfers.
Why are you telling me this though; you've already written me off as a 'false flag/astroturf to discredit sincere leftist discourse.' If that's the case, what does explaining this to me accomplish?
How about this, the amount of bile we get from liberals is enormous, and we're tired of being expecting to respond with perfect manners when we know from experience that 90% of the people talking to us are doing so in bad faith and will spit any sincere effort on our parts back in our face.
No offense, but if Nazism is just about 'vibes' to someone, then I don't think it is within my power to deprogram them, so why would I try.
The vast majority of liberals I interact with on the internet are venomous and hateful to me, that doesn't mean I assume they're all right wing false flags.
I think you may have confused me with the other poster. I don't think you are astroturfers. I'm saying I can see how other westerners would make that mistake - they're just not aware that real communists exist. We should be better informed, but we're not. Sorry.
I don't even "disagree" with communism personally, it's just that's it's largely impossible in the US. I'm willing to have discussions about it, but I also think compromise is important for any ideology. And communism seems to not want any compromise, which makes it hard to have a discussion. I could be wrong about that, though.
As for the vibes... I do think this is valid and I'll explain why. Most theories sound good on paper. Even our conservative fiscal policies sound reasonable in theory. But when you hang out with the conservatives who support these theories, you find out they don't actually care about the theory, they're just hiding their hateful culture war stuff behind the fiscal policy and saying "watch what we say, not what we do." So studying communist theory is all well and good, but what I'm really interested in is getting to know actual people who stand behind the theory.
I can't remember who said it (it might have actually been Stalin) but the "works in theory but not in practice" idiom is bad and should be abandoned. Political theory is for the purpose of practice. If it fundamentally does not practically work, then the problem is with the theory. If it isn't fundamentally broken, then you can't speak in such generalizations about it.
Conservatism is vile when you drill down into what they are saying and don't just let them wax poetic about pastoral bullshit and wealth. You don't even need to look at the real world, you can get their hate from the theory once they start talking about the poor. Marxism in no way resembles this.