Do you think fascism is something unique? Different from capitalism in some way?
Fascism is not unique or different from capitalism. It is capitalism converted into a format that allows the highest level of extreme violence to be carried out against its enemies. It occurs when capitalists feel threatened by socialists, gaining monetary support, media and backing from the bourgeoisie who recognise the need to use ultra-violence to exterminate the revolutionary threat to their existence. It is not a separate or unique thing to capitalism. It is still capitalism.
We only need to look at the places where fascism was not defeated to see proof of this. The fascists won in Spain and in Chile, they were not defeated like they were in Italy or Germany. What happened there? Did fascism ever become anything unique? No it did not. The fascists maintained and even increased capitalism, the term "privatisation" comes from Hitler himself. Over time in the countries where fascism won, once they defeated the left, exterminated them and their leadership, rendered them inert and no longer a threat to their bourgeoisie, these countries simply morphed back into liberalism which is a more efficient form of exploitation and extraction. Once the ultra violence was no longer required they morph back into "friendly" versions.
It is this that you are seeing when we discuss fascists and liberals in the same breath. They are allies in their support for capitalism and opposition to socialism.
And who exactly becomes the fascists? They don't simply spawn out of a spawning pool. They were liberals until the media, money and influence of the bourgeoisie backing the conversion of society to fascism successfully radicalises them to the cause.
here's a link to the picture this person posted https://lemdro.id/pictrs/image/d6c8a45d-d579-48de-903b-6d7f5f885fe0.jpeg
maybe I'm daft but this picture makes no sense to me. So leftists are on the left, liberals are in the middle, and... I guess the point is that instead of continuing rightward it loops back around to liberal again? Are you mocking leftists for lumping liberals and conservatives together?
I never finished writing my response. ADHD and too many tabs :/
We lump them together because liberal and conservative politicians are unanimous on a lot of topics we care about.
off the top of my head, US politicians from both parties:
do nothing about climate change
want owners rather than workers to control production -- this is sort of a big deal to communists!
serve (and often are themselves) business owners, bankers, and landlords rather than working people
Clinton deregulated finance and contributed to the 2008 crisis, allowed huge corporate media mergers, and tried to privatize social security
Obama let Citigroup pick his 2008 cabinet, did fuckall to help foreclosed Americans, and presided over the largest upward transfer of wealth in US history
Biden has done next to nothing to protect American workers from COVID, and rail workers are still on-call 24/7 with only eight sick days a year
70% of Americans want single-payer healthcare but it remains politically impossible
liberal media helped sell the Iraq war, which caused over a million further deaths in Iraq
Obama obliterated the once-prosperous country of Libya, and there are now open-air slave markets
Biden continues to support the siege in Yemen, which has killed hundreds of thousands
support massive wealth extraction from the global south
IMF and World Bank loans that enforce austerity and depress wages
and on social issues, democrats are one half of a one-way ratchet: republicans make it worse, democrats do not make it better
some more thoughts
I think there are two reasons democrats are ineffective on social issues, and maybe you'll find them too cynical: 1) as long as our basic rights are in jeopardy, we have no leverage to ask for progress, on things like universal healthcare, that the rich donors oppose, and 2) offering effective resistance would set the precedent that the government has the power to help people, and then people might ask for more improvements to our lives, which, again, the rich donors oppose. And for that matter, a lot of the politicians themselves have backgrounds as rich businessmen, bankers, executives, and landlords, so their own class interests oppose ours.
So, anyway, liberal and conservative politicians look similar to us.
But sometimes the voters also look similar, especially the well-off ones! I have heard so many disgusting takes about the homeless from well-off liberals. And no one seems to really oppose the massive wealth extraction from the global south. And too many support wars and coups at the time and then oppose them later when the lies come out, only to support the next one and believe the next lies. Too many liberals seem to support awful things, tolerate them, or have no knowledge of them.
Now this is me going on a petty tangent, but I also think there are some annoying cultural differences between certain liberals and socialists. Many liberals buy into meritocratic myths. They see liberal politicians as the adults in the room making the hard decisions, while ignoring the class interests of those politicians. They fawn over British royals. They watch shows about aristocrats and DC politicians. They watch game shows where working class people try to appease a panel of rich judges. And way too often, liberals seem to care more about civility and norms than about what actually happens in the world. As soon as Trump came to power, W. Bush was fucking rehabilitated in an instant. Never mind the wars, never mind 2008. At least he was civil.
Maybe I'm being too harsh, but this is the impression I get.
...But anyway, the bottom line here is that we're socialists. We want workers to control production. Liberals, and conservatives, don't.
you might disagree with the points I raised, and that's fine — just realize that we communists do have our reasons to lump liberals and conservatives together. It’s not just vibes. We have an actual coherent perspective lol.
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Hexbears be like
*removed externally hosted image*
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Politically illiterate dumbass posts a self-own.
This image depicts liberals and fascists being close to each other, while the far-left (hexbear) is far away from them.
Yes. And that's what "hexbears be like".
Because you call anyone not far left a liberal, therefore not differentiating between people who are not far left.
Do you think fascism is something unique? Different from capitalism in some way?
Fascism is not unique or different from capitalism. It is capitalism converted into a format that allows the highest level of extreme violence to be carried out against its enemies. It occurs when capitalists feel threatened by socialists, gaining monetary support, media and backing from the bourgeoisie who recognise the need to use ultra-violence to exterminate the revolutionary threat to their existence. It is not a separate or unique thing to capitalism. It is still capitalism.
We only need to look at the places where fascism was not defeated to see proof of this. The fascists won in Spain and in Chile, they were not defeated like they were in Italy or Germany. What happened there? Did fascism ever become anything unique? No it did not. The fascists maintained and even increased capitalism, the term "privatisation" comes from Hitler himself. Over time in the countries where fascism won, once they defeated the left, exterminated them and their leadership, rendered them inert and no longer a threat to their bourgeoisie, these countries simply morphed back into liberalism which is a more efficient form of exploitation and extraction. Once the ultra violence was no longer required they morph back into "friendly" versions.
It is this that you are seeing when we discuss fascists and liberals in the same breath. They are allies in their support for capitalism and opposition to socialism.
And who exactly becomes the fascists? They don't simply spawn out of a spawning pool. They were liberals until the media, money and influence of the bourgeoisie backing the conversion of society to fascism successfully radicalises them to the cause.
I just see *removed externally hosted image*
here's a link to the picture this person posted https://lemdro.id/pictrs/image/d6c8a45d-d579-48de-903b-6d7f5f885fe0.jpeg
maybe I'm daft but this picture makes no sense to me. So leftists are on the left, liberals are in the middle, and... I guess the point is that instead of continuing rightward it loops back around to liberal again? Are you mocking leftists for lumping liberals and conservatives together?
yes
They are all liberals. Liberalism is the ideology of capitalism. They are all ideologically committed to capitalism.
I never finished writing my response. ADHD and too many tabs :/
We lump them together because liberal and conservative politicians are unanimous on a lot of topics we care about.
off the top of my head, US politicians from both parties:
and on social issues, democrats are one half of a one-way ratchet: republicans make it worse, democrats do not make it better
some more thoughts
I think there are two reasons democrats are ineffective on social issues, and maybe you'll find them too cynical: 1) as long as our basic rights are in jeopardy, we have no leverage to ask for progress, on things like universal healthcare, that the rich donors oppose, and 2) offering effective resistance would set the precedent that the government has the power to help people, and then people might ask for more improvements to our lives, which, again, the rich donors oppose. And for that matter, a lot of the politicians themselves have backgrounds as rich businessmen, bankers, executives, and landlords, so their own class interests oppose ours.
So, anyway, liberal and conservative politicians look similar to us.
But sometimes the voters also look similar, especially the well-off ones! I have heard so many disgusting takes about the homeless from well-off liberals. And no one seems to really oppose the massive wealth extraction from the global south. And too many support wars and coups at the time and then oppose them later when the lies come out, only to support the next one and believe the next lies. Too many liberals seem to support awful things, tolerate them, or have no knowledge of them.
Now this is me going on a petty tangent, but I also think there are some annoying cultural differences between certain liberals and socialists. Many liberals buy into meritocratic myths. They see liberal politicians as the adults in the room making the hard decisions, while ignoring the class interests of those politicians. They fawn over British royals. They watch shows about aristocrats and DC politicians. They watch game shows where working class people try to appease a panel of rich judges. And way too often, liberals seem to care more about civility and norms than about what actually happens in the world. As soon as Trump came to power, W. Bush was fucking rehabilitated in an instant. Never mind the wars, never mind 2008. At least he was civil.
Maybe I'm being too harsh, but this is the impression I get.
...But anyway, the bottom line here is that we're socialists. We want workers to control production. Liberals, and conservatives, don't.
you might disagree with the points I raised, and that's fine — just realize that we communists do have our reasons to lump liberals and conservatives together. It’s not just vibes. We have an actual coherent perspective lol.