https://twitter.com/stealyoredbull/status/1369310124125413379

  • hogposting [he/him,comrade/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Nothing more terminally online than calling some of the furthest-left people in the country, who are actually going out and winning some measure of political power, fascists.

  • CyborgMarx [any, any]
    ·
    3 years ago

    End of the day this online person is far more likely to be correct than the online idealists in this thread

    • ThisMachinePostsHog [they/them, he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      I was just thinking of how far my radicalization has come over the last year that I agree with the poster in the screenshot lol. (Except for the social democrats being fascists-lite, that's hyperbolizing just a little)

      • CyborgMarx [any, any]
        ·
        3 years ago

        When Prophecy Fails but for socdem berniecrats, eventually they'll figure out that their obsession with an ideology that died in the 1970s is just as fringe and online as any other leftist tendency that can't get its head out of mid-twentieth century

        Anyway I can't wait for AOC to start twitch streaming with these newly elected DSA members and finally rebuild the industrial welfare state

        • ChairmanAtreides [he/him]
          ·
          edit-2
          3 years ago

          It's all a part of the plan: 1.) Build socdem movement

          2.) Build anti-war movement

          3.) Build welfare state

          4.) Make people fall in love with welfare state

          5.) Use Anti-war movement to allow global south breaking out of supply chain

          6.) Capitalism can't sustain welfare state

          7.) Americans don't want to lose welfare state again

          8.) ??????

          9.) Chairperson Hirsi of the USSA denounces hexbear.su for liberal revisionism and has us put to the sword

          • CyborgMarx [any, any]
            ·
            3 years ago

            The more likely scenario 1.) Attempt to build socdem movement

            2.) Capitalism can’t sustain welfare state

            3.) Attempt to build socdem movement...again

            4.) Capitalism still can’t sustain the welfare state

            5.) Attempt to build socdem movement one more time just for the heck of it

            6.) Global South gets tired of waiting and decides to revolt against the global supply chain on its own

            7.) America goes full fascist and triggers World War III

            8.) Ten years after the post-atomic horror the Vulcans land

            9.) ???

            10.) FULL COMMUNISM

        • CyborgMarx [any, any]
          ·
          3 years ago

          SocDems are historically fascist in regards to the Third World, not in relation to their own domestic politics

                    • thelastaxolotl [he/him]
                      ·
                      edit-2
                      3 years ago

                      Socdem Jimmy carter supported the purges of communists in indonesia that saw 1 million communist killed

                      and here is a comment from @JoeySteel about other atrocities the socdems goverments of the US and UK supported

                      Up until Reagan and Thatcher US and UK were Social Democratic. Under these Social-Democracies they (this is just off top of my head I am too lazy to research for this thread) :

                      • 3 million Bengalis by starvation (Churchill deliberately stopped US and Australian ships from docking with famine relief)

                      • Dropped 2 nuclear bombs on Civilian cities

                      • Setup death camps in the 1960s in Kenya to suppress Kenyans who opposed British rule. While the Soviet Union had shut down the labour camps in the 50s the British were building death camps in Kenya and whining about Iron curtains

                      • killed 20 percent of the North Korean population and dropped chemical and biological warfare on them

                      • Dropped more bombs on Laos than any country in the second world war (so literally blitzkreiged a country more than Nazis)

                      • Invaded and killed millions in Vietnam

                      • Supported a genocide in INdonesia which saw 5 million trade unionists, socialists and communists murdered to destroy the largest Communist Party in the world outside of China

                      • Starved Iraq in the 1990s and when the secretary of State was asked about it on TV about 500,000 children starving to death responded it was "worth it"

                      • Destroyed Yugoslavia and turned Serbia into the cancer capital of europe with depleted uranium

                      • Killed 2.5 million people in Iraq and turned Fallujah into a place with more birth defects than Hiroshima

                      I could go on if I began to google. Off the sheer misery Social Democrats spread around the world I am of the firm belief that Social Democracy is a twin pillar to fascism. That it is moderate fascism pushed to the forefront with the class warfare spread "over there" not at home (to bring home imperialist exploits for the working class of imperalist nations). Social-Democatic economies (capitalism) are based on war economies and the export of fascist-imperialism manifests itself under the context of social-democrats routinely supporting war "over there".

                      This is why Bernie Sanders voted to destroy Yugoslavia and turn Serbia into the cancer capital of Europe. I would characterise this as social-fascism

                      Some people think that the bourgeoisie adopted “pacifism” and “democracy” not because it was compelled to do so, but voluntarily, of its own free choice, so to speak. And it is assumed that, having defeated the working class in decisive battles (Italy, Germany), the bourgeoisie felt that it was the victor and could now afford to adopt “democracy.” In other words, while the decisive battles were in progress, the bourgeoisie needed a fighting organisation, needed fascism; but now that the proletariat is defeated, the bourgeoisie no longer needs fascism and can afford to use “democracy” instead, as a better method of consolidating its victory. Hence, the conclusion is drawn that, the rule of the bourgeoisie has become consolidated, that the “era of pacifism” will be a prolonged one, and that the revolution in Europe has been pigeonholed.

                      This assumption is absolutely wrong.

                      Social-Democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism. There is no ground for assuming that the fighting organisation of the bourgeoisie can achieve decisive successes in battles, or in governing the country, without the active support of Social-Democracy. There is just as little ground for thinking that Social-Democracy can achieve decisive successes in battles, or in governing the country, without the active support of the fighting organisation of the bourgeoisie. These organisations do not negate, but supplement each other. They are not antipodes, they are twins. Fascism is an informal political bloc of these two chief organisations; a bloc, which arose in the circumstances of the post-war crisis of imperialism, and which is intended for combating the proletarian revolution. The bourgeoisie cannot retain power without such a bloc. It would therefore be a mistake to think that “pacifism” signifies the liquidation of fascism. In the present situation, “pacifism” is the strengthening of fascism with its moderate, Social-Democratic wing pushed into the forefront

                      https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1924/09/20.htm

                      • Pezevenk [he/him]
                        ·
                        edit-2
                        3 years ago

                        Since when is Jimmy Carter a socdem, wtf? Jimmy Carter was a run of the mill liberal who was I guess a little bit more progressive than most of the other ones. It is ridiculous to call the US social democratic at any point in its history except maybe for a brief time during the New Deal, and even that doesn't really count. Also look at the date of that Stalin quote, and look at the history of fascist movement. The circumstances under which that quote was produced have nothing to do with the subsequent history of fascism. And I don't understand why every wrong thing Stalin said must be taken as gospel.

                        Social democracy as it manifests in countries of the imperial core doesn't challenge imperialism. In periphery countries it is different. Fascism itself is not the same thing always, there is fascism as a movement before it takes power and fascism as a form of governance, which is still not the same as a "typical" imperialist liberal government (though I don't want to say that fascism is not fundamentally related to imperialism). This Stalin quote comes before the side of fascism in power was even really widely seen. The silliness of "social fascism" has been demonstrated every time communists have realized that they have to work with social democrats etc to fight the rise of fascism. The entire concept was developed in the framework of the Comintern's theory that the world was entering a new era of instability at which the social democrats (which, again, referred to particular parties in Europe, not every liberal) would be the main enemy of the communists as the entire world would try to rise up. This turned out to be extremely wrong and rejected in 1935. So I don't understand why people have to drag up mistaken concepts from 100 years ago as if we've learned nothing more about these things.

                    • vccx [they/them]
                      ·
                      edit-2
                      3 years ago

                      They weren't really in a position to stop it anyway. Social democrats fundamentally can't square the circle that their way of life still requires the same violence and robbery of the third world as laissez faire liberalism.

                      The U.S military just does the brunt of the dirty work, European and Canadian mining corporations are still extracting resources and commodities out of the countries that the U.S has by the throat.

                      https://www.vice.com/en/article/qj4743/land-defenders-are-killed-in-the-philippines-for-protesting-canadian-mining

                      Without warning, a dark van pulled in front of them and two armed men with rifles stepped out and opened fire. Claver was shot three times in the shoulder and once in the stomach. His wife was shot seven times in the chest. A bullet grazed their daughter’s head.

                      Just Right Wing Death Squads with more pragmatism and less excess.

                • CyborgMarx [any, any]
                  ·
                  3 years ago

                  What do you think most imperial clients state are like, in many Third World countries the state is the perfect union between the international and local corporate elites and the military, the only major historical difference between these states and the European fascist states is the defense industry is international instead of internal

                    • CyborgMarx [any, any]
                      ·
                      3 years ago

                      It's the primary element and the one that matters the most, the only elements I didn't mention are the underlying conditions and the cult of nation, which frankly when talking about the political structures of third world states I assumed was a given lol

                    • vccx [they/them]
                      ·
                      edit-2
                      3 years ago

                      Those core elements of their ideology only concern the people inside their borders. Under globalization the excesses of fascism must necessarily be lanced away. Seizing territory is a 20th century phenomenon and explicitly reinforcing racial hierarchies hasn't been necessary in the United States.

                      The meritocratic self-justification of hierarchies and automatic self-neutralization of dissent under liberalism is materially far superior to any results that Hitler and Mussolini's old and inelegant methods could ever obtain.

    • rolly6cast [none/use name]
      ·
      3 years ago

      I think the dumbest thing about "social democracy is social fascism" is social democracy sucks enough and is already openly capitalist enough to not be imprecise with calling it fascism.

      • CyborgMarx [any, any]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Historically social democrats become social fascists when they have to maintain the resource extraction from the Third World for their industrial export economies, the United States was a social democracy when it rained an apocalypse worth of ordnance on Southeast Asia, and France was a social democracy when it waged a colonial war of terror against Algeria

        Industrial welfare capitalism requires industrial capitalism, which in turn requires imperialism which is maintained thru fascism in the global south

        • rolly6cast [none/use name]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Yea, they often will fund fascists abroad if it means extraction while being socdems at home, but I think it fits best to call them capitalist still. Before fascism, capitalists did imperialism and rained hell and horror upon colonized regions just as effectively. Social fascists tends to make the argument around "well domestically they aren't fascist", and allows some "left" capitalists to imply a type of non extractive non exploitative capitalism.

          Social democrats are capitalists, which means they'll utilize imperialism and ally with fascists to suppress the working class abroad while defusing it at home.

          • CyborgMarx [any, any]
            ·
            3 years ago

            In light of the typical socdem response in regards to the upcoming global mass migration as a result of climate change, it's probably a better idea to stick with the 'Social Fash' label

            • vccx [they/them]
              ·
              3 years ago

              You can already see that playing out with ethnonationalists taking power across Norway and Sweden. Only a matter of time before the rest of the social democracies face the same contradictions.

              And there aren't enough socialists in succdem Scandinavia to win that fight.

            • rolly6cast [none/use name]
              ·
              3 years ago

              The socdem response doesn't make it fascist either is my point, capitalists are entirely capable of doing racism and whipping up racial fears themselves without becoming fascists. It makes the issue centered around "socdems are actually fascist" as if capitalists that aren't fascist aren't just as much a threat to communism and the proletariat or as capable of employing horrific policies.

          • Dimmer06 [he/him,comrade/them]
            ·
            3 years ago

            Social democrats are capitalists, which means they’ll utilize imperialism and ally with fascists to suppress the working class abroad while defusing it at home.

            This is why we call them social fascists. There is no distinction. The only reason communists stopped openly calling them that was because the Comintern saw the Second World War coming and desperately needed allies. At the end of this road is communism or barbarism, and the social democrats cannot decide which one they hate more.

            • Pezevenk [he/him]
              ·
              edit-2
              3 years ago

              The Comintern only called them fascists during a specific era which was right around when fascism started emerging as a phenomenon. It's extremely silly to claim there is no distinction and proven wrong in practice, especially when online American leftists don't even seem to understand how the different stuff they call "fascism" is different. People should start actually analyzing stuff instead of using old aphorisms and pretending it's actually insightful. Yeah, you CAN act like everything ever is literally the same, except then your analysis will be nonsense.

            • rolly6cast [none/use name]
              ·
              3 years ago

              Then don't call them social fascists, call them what they are-capitalists. Capitalism is enemy of the proletariat and we should be clear about that rather than giving socdems a chance to go "well see we're personally anti-fascist in this or that way". If the end of this road is communism or barbarism, why attack them with "fascism", allowing some capitalists that would lead us to barbarity to pretend there's a middle ground? Unless you mean to extend fascism to everything, in which case you should just use capitalist because that's what those that oppose communism already are.

          • CyborgMarx [any, any]
            ·
            3 years ago

            "sOcial DemOcRacY hAsn'T beEn triED yEt" Social democracy is the political manifestation of Keynesian general theory applied to western macroeconomies post World War II, intended as a mass state-brokered collaboration between labor and capital designed to deescalate tensions between the two classes to combat the growing influence international communism....frankly it's a terrible name for a such fucked up and unstable ideology, they don't deserve those combinations of words, but they got dibs so too bad

            • Pezevenk [he/him]
              ·
              3 years ago

              No, it's been tried a million times. Just not in the US. The US has been more regressive than anyone else for a long time.

              • CyborgMarx [any, any]
                ·
                3 years ago

                Doesn't matter how regressive the US was, it was still a social democracy, GI bill, Cola contracts, Reuther's Treaty of Detroit, creation of Social Security and Medicare, Section 8 Housing Program, Federal Works Agency, Mutual Ownership Defense Housing Division, the US being the primary backer of the Bretton Woods system, the US was the world's leading innovator in socdem tech

                Social democracy ain't about being woke

                • Pezevenk [he/him]
                  ·
                  3 years ago

                  Since when did I say it is about being "woke"? Regressive doesn't only mean "not woke". And what even is "socdem tech"? European social democrats went far beyond any of what you are describing, nationalizing big sections of the economy, creating public health systems. You can even see what Europe social democrats said about Roosevelt, Truman etc at the time, who were explicitly emphasising they weren't "socialists" which is what they used to call themselves. The US never had as powerful a labour movement as Europe.

                  • CyborgMarx [any, any]
                    ·
                    3 years ago

                    lol what are you talking about, Europe was a post/pro-fascist pile of rubble while the United States was busy establishing the Keynesian global consensus, eurotrash need to cut it out with this utopian "socialist" pan-European mythology bullshit, that's not how anything happened, while the US dropped the ball on healthcare it wrote the entire rulebook on how to create a Keynesian export lead macro-economy which is the only reason the barbarous snow-apes of Europe can claim to even have healthcare

                    Regressive doesn’t only mean “not woke”.

                    Yes it does, since you can't claim the US wasn't a social democracy on political and economic merits, it has to be the social repressiveness alone, which is literally why a word like "woke" or "not woke" is used

                    • Pezevenk [he/him]
                      ·
                      3 years ago

                      Oh my god this is embarrassing. Beyond the fact that you obviously don't know what progressive or regressive means in terms of leftist politics and are apparently unaware that it has meaning beyond its use by Democrats, the rest of your post is also aggressively ignorant of history.

                      First of all, do you know what country Keynes came from? Furthermore, since apparently you seem to think social democracy and keynesianism have been one and the same throughout all history, wanna know what party he belonged to?

                      The US was last or almost last in most of the big demands. For instance, almost all of Europe had nationally established the 8 hour work day before 1920, it took the US until the New Deal to do that. Something similar happened with prohibition of child labour, union protection, etc. You talk about healthcare as if it is only a thing because of US Keynsianism (lmao) when the first social health insurance system was in Germany in 1883, and it wasn't even socdems who did it, it was fucking Otto von Bismarck. Socdems had been in power on many places within Europe long before FDR, even for many years in some places (look up Red Vienna for example). Also does the Popular Front in Spain ring any bells?

                      Post war, the US went through a period of keynesianism but again it was still the preeminent proponent of limited concessions and limited intervention compared to everyone else, and allowed much less labour power, which is evidenced by how hard they tried to sabotage or antagonize not just communists but even some socdems in Europe. For instance Olof Palme in Sweden, which lead to a brief rupture of US-Swedish relations in the 70s. Meanwhile the US had installed a bunch of puppet regimes the intelligence services of which they DIRECTLY controlled and which they used to prevent the rise not just of communists, but also persecute more radical socdems such as PASOK and its predecessors. Most European countries didn't go through as crazed anticommunist fervor during the Cold War as the US, except for the ones with US puppet regimes, which helped with labour power. The much larger public sectors, broader welfare states and much stronger unions in Europe didn't come out of nowhere, they were for the most part built BEFORE the mid 80s and started deteriorating together with the American ones, and the concessions by FDR didn't come without precedent, stuff like that had been happening in Europe even before the 20th century, and especially when the social democrats were in charge even before the great depression. Throughout the 20th century and especially post WWII the US and to a lesser extent the UK were considered the preeminent bulwarks of conservatism, and I don't mean social, but especially economic. Does the fact that unlike pretty much every place in Europe, the US never had a socdem party or a particularly powerful communist party not sound any alarm bells for you? A number of European counties had explicitly communist parties coming in first or second in elections (though they never managed to form a government or do a successful revolt, although they tried in at least 3 different occasions).

                      I don't know if that nonsense you are spouting comes from genuine ignorance or some kind of weird nationalist sentiment but it is objectively wrong and ridiculous. Idk where the meme calling the US a social democracy came from but it is very new. This has nothing to do with Europe being "utopian", it wasn't, it was a horrible place and the restrictions of social democracy became horribly evident especially when it started deteriorating, but what you are saying is simply ahistorical. Excluding a brief period around the New Deal, throughout the 20th century the US was the most anti-labor country around, because its isolation from other countries as well as rapid economic growth and establishment of a robust surveillance state meant it was harder for labour movements to grow and get influenced by movements in other countries, and the white population was more content because they could expect wages to grow just by virtue of the ridiculous growth.

                      • CyborgMarx [any, any]
                        ·
                        3 years ago

                        Beyond the fact that you obviously don’t know what progressive or regressive means in terms of leftist politics and are apparently unaware that it has meaning beyond its use by Democrats

                        Claims I don't the meaning of the words yet fails to provide the actually apparent meaning, subtly revealing that you yourself are fully aware that these words are fluid in meaning and based on definitions that shift depending on the person using it

                        First of all, do you know what country Keynes came from?

                        Keynes was famously ignored in his own country by Parliament in favor the infamous 'Treasury View' this state of affairs continued all the way into the post-war era and is a contributing reason for Churchills loss, I know my history bruh :)

                        since apparently you seem to think social democracy and keynesianism have been one and the same throughout all history, wanna know what party he belonged to?

                        lol WTF is this gibberish, there is no social democracy without Keynesian general theory, it was the foundational organizing principle of the post-war consensus and provided the social liberals with the necessary academic clout needed to shift certain factions of industrial capital toward state-broker capitalism

                        Post war, the US went through a period of keynesianism but again it was still the preeminent proponent of limited concessions and limited intervention compared to everyone else

                        Limited social democracy is still social democracy, you're undermining your own point, all social democracies had differing regimes of capital accumulation which necessitated differing manifestations of Keynesian economic theory and practice

                        and allowed much less labour power, which is evidenced by how hard they tried to sabotage or antagonize not just communists but even some socdems in Europe

                        Competition and power plays between different national factions of global capital is perfectly in line with the nation-state ethos at the heart of the social democratic vision of society

                        Meanwhile the US had installed a bunch of puppet regimes the intelligence services of which they DIRECTLY controlled and which they used to prevent the rise not just of communists

                        We're talking about the manifestation of social democracy in Europe and the United States not the oppression of communist in Europe by US empire, you're deliberately trying to conflate socdem political movements in Europe with communist movement in Europe,

                        Throughout the 20th century and especially post WWII the US and to a lesser extent the UK were considered the preeminent bulwarks of conservatism, and I don’t mean social, but especially economic

                        I'm sorry you can repeat this horseshit all day long, it isn't true, the US literally underwrote the economies of the European social democracies, that fact alone made it the preeminent broker of the post-war era, along with massive public works projects, unprecedented expansion of the industrial sector and creation of the housing and education programs that dwarfed anything attempt by both cost and population, US conservatisism were only bulwarks in the realm of culture and social relations not economic management

                        but especially economic. Does the fact that unlike pretty much every place in Europe, the US never had a socdem party or a particularly powerful communist party not sound any alarm bells for you?

                        That's not simply an expression of economic conservatism, that is the result of POLITICAL institutional structures centered around the electoral systems of those specific countries, and let's not pretend the so-called communist and socdem parties were a universal expression of proletariat organizing, many of these parties were explicitly liberal in outlook, theory and structure. Most of their members wouldn't have been seen as out of place among the country clubs of the American New Dealers, you simultaneously over-sell the radicalism of European socdem movements and under-sell the radicalism of the American New Deal, you have a poor grasp of American labor history

                        Excluding a brief period around the New Deal

                        The New Deal lasted thirty years, the Bretton Woods system lasted thirty years, the subsidized expansion of the American middle class lasted THIRTY YEARS, what are you talking about, the US was a social democracy, a racist, imperial, blood soaked social democracy that collapsed in the 70s

                        and the white population was more content because they could expect wages to grow just by virtue of the ridiculous growth.

                        This was literally every social democracy, you are describing a feature of the socdem ideology, not some American particularity

    • ennuid [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      The state doesn't really need social democrats on its side when it can far more easily crush their attempts at progress. So I don't think that person, or the people in this thread are likely to be correct.

    • acealeam [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      yeah we have "social democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism" as a byline

      • Fakename_Bill [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Yup and I roll my eyes every time I see it.

        Words, they have meanings folks

        • Quimby [any, any]
          ·
          3 years ago

          yes, though we also have bylines like "when we cum one we cum all." they aren't meant to be taken seriously.

      • CyborgMarx [any, any]
        ·
        3 years ago

        "Social democracy is class collaboration" is a way better byline, mods need to change it

  • Fakename_Bill [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Hot take here:

    The whole "social democracy is the moderate wing of fascism" thing really pisses me off. If liberals == fascists, then words don't fucking mean anything.

    • vccx [they/them]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      How is it any different? Because they kill 20 million communists in Indonesia and Latam instead of inside their own borders?

      Edit: The DSA aren't in power nationally and have yet to truly confront the contradictions of imperialism and the welfare state. In the best case scenario where they take power they will be forced to confront them.

      The party will eventually have to choose between taking a revolutionary stance or choose reform and thereby wither in consent to capitalist imperialism. That will be decided by whether the socialists can win out over the social democrats.

      • Pezevenk [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Why do you think it has to do with how many people someone killed and where?

        • Nuttula [comrade/them]
          ·
          edit-2
          3 years ago

          Berniecrats tend to not understand imperialism or completely support it through ways they think is different than right wingers. The difference between saying that putting kids in immigrant cages is bad but unilateral bombings in the middle east is good is superficial, from the point of view of the victim both are fascist actions.

          • Pezevenk [he/him]
            ·
            3 years ago

            There is no such thing as something that is "fascist" according to the point of view of the victim. Fascism is not an action, or a relation between humans, it's a movement, or a way to organize a state. Imperialism alone isn't fascism, it is meaningful to make distinctions because we have historical precedent and we have to know what precisely something is similar to to know how to treat it.

            The Bernie libs are by far the best allies you can have right now in the US, including for anti imperialism. It is fascinating that a sub full of people who were Bernie libs 2 years ago or less is so intent on calling them fascists.

    • DetroitLolcat [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      I forget where I heard it (might have been on here), but someone once posted that a better way of looking at it is that social democracy is the left wing of capitalism and fascism is the right wing of capitalism. I never liked the original quote, there's no such thing as moderate fascism.

      • richietozier4 [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        social democracy is the carrot of capitalism, while fascism is the stick

        • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Except capitalism tends to exploit the wealth difference between regional and ethnic cohorts, while social democracy tends to smooth them over. As anyone familiar with the Volker-Era and the demand for a permanent tranche of unemployment can tell you, it's neither fascism nor social democracy that forces people into poverty through monetary policy. Neither are responsible for artificial shortfalls in food, health care, housing, or education.

          The artificial scarcities of capitalism may polarize people into social democrat (we have enough if we redistribute it) and fascist (we only have enough for my people) camps. But they are not wings of capitalism, just political outgrowths of the material conditions capitalism creates.

      • vccx [they/them]
        ·
        edit-2
        3 years ago

        I don't think it's any different when liberals kill and improvish millions of foreigners to maintain their hegemon and rate of profit but they're "nice" to people living within their borders.

        Even then look at how Sweden and France reacting to refugees and how thin that veneer of civility and tolerance is. They don't really see the others as full and equal human beings. They still see themselves as more worthy than the poor under their boots, when they even think about them at all.

    • KrasMazovThought [comrade/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      There's a real and ~ m a t e r i a l ~ difference between social democrats and fascists, like as an active leftist who do you need to know is in your neighborhood, social democrats going to brunch or actual fascists with guns and an explicitly extremist agenda for racial extermination?

    • neebay [any,undecided]
      ·
      3 years ago

      I don't literally believe that but I say it to be provocative to soc dems when they support US interventions and stuff like that

      • Fakename_Bill [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        3 years ago

        See, I find that saying things that mangle words to the absolute limits of their meanings for shock value is actually a bad way to make people have better opinions.

        • neebay [any,undecided]
          ·
          3 years ago

          what's a better way to address a person trying to convince me there's a pragmatic number of children to blow up?

  • rozako [she/her]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    Thinking about Black Red Guard saying western internet leftists are just insufferable and all need to surround themselves with normal people more often

    • Grimble [he/him,they/them]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      It's incredible how many people get genuinely offended when you point this out. It makes sense if you put it that bluntly but being a western leftist myself it sometimes feels like we see any kind of criticism of our attitudes, beliefs, or tactics as some kind of sabotage to the left (which hardly meaningfully exists here anyway). If someone so much as suggests that we should change the way we approach everyday people we want to radicalize, they get snapped at by a bunch of kids who have never even been part of an org and think it's a personal attack. It's insane, entitled behavior and it sometimes happens here, too.

      • rozako [she/her]
        ·
        edit-2
        3 years ago

        That reminds me of another BRG tweet: “ how is the American Left qualified to seize power if it handles minor beef like celebrities and gossip columnists? You want to cancel somebody for saying something that you took out of context and got offended over god knows how you'll deal with the masses who say fucked up shit.”

        Not gonna link it cause I’m on mobile but I’m sure you can find it easily by searching those words on twitter. But yeah, I think westerners in general are so used to individualistic culture and way of living that any critique of their beliefs or approaches gets perceived as an intense attack on THEM, personally, rather than how WE should go about things. If that makes sense? Sorry I’m ESL and always have a hard time describing abstract ideas in English. But I think some western (especially white) leftists should occassionally take a step back and be like “would leftists from the global south think i’m a clown for this? does this really matter THIS much?” a great example of this is the 300+ comments we have on main right now about veganism lol.

        In the end, being a communist surrounded by non-communists is more beneficial than being in an insular community as well. You can learn a lot from them, and they’ll learn a hell of a lot from you by virtue of you being a morally upright person who is vocally advocating for your beliefs, you are always advocating for leftism.

    • Jadzia_Dax [she/her]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      Based on some of the trash-tier takes I've seen from some people here, I agree with this. Go talk to people.

      • rozako [she/her]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Being around non-leftists is truly a form of praxis (in my opinion). We can learn a lot from them and they will learn even more from us. Honestly it’s our duty to just be nice, normal people because we are always advocating for leftism. Though some may disagree with that. Idk I have many thoughts on stuff like this but it’s always hard to put into words.

  • Alaskaball [comrade/them]M
    ·
    3 years ago

    It'll depend on the actions taken by those in nevada to prove whether or not they'll act for the benefit of the working class in acting to erode the state's power, or be assimilated into the machine work of the bougeoise.

    Any communist worth their salt, pepper, and maybe some sugar as a treat, will investigate and observe the actions to be taken before passing judgment.

    As the saying goes, NO INVESTIGATION, TO RIGHT TO SPEAK.

  • Ryan_Holman [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Call me crazy, but maybe calling everybody who disagrees with you a fascist is not a good way to get people on your side.

  • ssjmarx [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    the large, unexpected gain by people to the left of the country's "left party" isn't a full on revolution, therefore it's bad to be excited by the possibilities it creates

    I'm a commie too but come on guys, if we're gonna uphold people like Maduro or Lula or Morales then the fucking DSA are our comrades too. The practical fact is that the left in the United States is still far too small to be picky about who gets to be inside the tent, the only people you should wreck are wreckers.

    • ABigguhPizzahPieh [none/use name,any]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Maduro, Lula, or Morales aren't tripping over themselves to prove to the right wing in their countries that they're happy to drop bombs all over the world or sanction poor countries into starvation.

  • Wrecker [they/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    $20 bucks says 100% of this person's "praxis" is being online

  • GOODPostGOODComment [none/use name]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    A lot of the posters in here should really check out Clara Zetkin's "The Struggle Against Fascism"

    Facism is a very specific phenomenon, where the decline of the bourgeois state and its institutions, and defeat/failure of working class movments, pushes the middle layers of society petit bourgeois especially out of their privlieged positions, where they turn to fascist movements.

    Yes obviously soc dem parties and states uphold imperalism and unequal development, and inherently cannot resolve capitalism's contradictions. Historically the failure of reformist of soc dem movements (Italy and Germany) lead to the rise of fascist movements, as people who wrongly equate them with socialism and communism see their failure and are demoralised with their promise of socialism which are unfulfilled . Statements like soc dems = fascism aren't really helpful. Being precise in our study and definining of fascism is essential if we want to combat and fight it properly.

    • hogposting [he/him,comrade/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      The liberal-to-ultraleft pipeline is often accompanied by an obsession with labels that have no applicability outside of branding on internet forums. What’s the difference between a De Leonist, Council Communist and a Syndicalist when none are able to fill the room they reserved at the library with working people? ...

      This also applies to electoral abstentionists, many of whom were loudly and proudly part of the mass support for democratic socialist candidates in the past. These newly radicalized liberals then abandon the very mass work that brought them and countless others into the movement in favor of “more radical tactics.” The obsession with radical tactics comes from the fact that liberals believe that they had always been armed with the right morality and analysis but had simply lacked the right tools to succeed.

      https://washingtonsocialist.mdcdsa.org/ws-articles/21-03-breaking-the-cycle

  • toledosprinter [none/use name]
    ·
    3 years ago

    If it isn't an aesthetic social revolution, why bother!? :penguin-dance: oh the joys of western leftism