Ok, but now do libs. You can just reverse the frames.
bit of a straw man, no?
Is it? We’re happy to shit on Obama and Biden, for all the awful stuff they have done, but if you rightfully call out the shit any of those other people do, we get banned from .ml coms.
I got banned from [email protected] for basically saying the same exact thing. Apparently there’s a lot of Chinese propaganda on this platform.
Lol same fam
I apparently responded to the literal creator of Lemmy asking if they discussed any topic other than tankies, leftists, etc.
Pretty obvious answer was a hard no.
Millions killed in purges and policy created in cults of personality.
Yeah, need to make a whole identity sh*tting on imperfect democracies while touting systems that have always devolved into dictatorships.
Or you’re just not that familiar with Capitalist and Communist history.
Killed by the British East India company famines in India and Bengal: 10 - 15 million (the company exported ALL the grain, even the grain farmers were paid with and living off. Gotta get those profits!).
Killed by the Libertarian Congo Free State under King Leopald: 10 - 15 million (but the rubber business boomed).
That’s 20 million to 30 million dead from Capitalism right there.
Killed in the USSR Gulag system? 1.5 - 2 million. Most people survived the Gulag system (18 million went in, the majority walked out alive).
Outside of that Communism had a lot of undesired and unintended famines largely contributed to by one conman scientist fabricating results to keep his job:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trofim_Lysenko#Consequences_of_Lysenko’s_views
Capitalism has in all likelihood intentionally killed waaay more people than Communism (just by the numbers)… And if you know the history, this becomes more obvious. This comment doesn’t even cover the many wars by Capitalist nations pushed and carried out in the name of profit.
Killed in the USSR Gulag system? 1.5 - 2 million. Most people survived the Gulag system (18 million went in, the majority walked out alive).
Others doing bad things, does not make you doing bad things any better. Do you really want to defend “only” around 2 million people dying, and 18 million more ending up in camps?!
It’s not really about that … I mean, we don’t live under communism, we live under the deadlier of the two systems.
Devolved?
Which of the listed nations on the bottom were revolutions that overthrew functioning free and fair democratic systems?
Why the f does that matter? They existed as they did, killed multiple millons, so don’t butwhatabout and redirect.
Bait? In my Christian shitposting community?
I would never!
Also I like how Americans set the bar for their leaders at either developing countries or failed/failing countries.
Sure Biden is better than whoever is running Pakistan, but dude you’re the US of A #1 ever in the history of the universe, maybe have better leaders/policies than Norway or Finland?Sure Biden is better than whoever is running Pakistan
Sure, casual racism and imperialism get upvoted in liberal circles.
Counter-revolutionaries aren’t innocent. Check mate, lib /s
REACTIONARY, REACTIONARY, YOU’RE A CIA REACTIONARY
I’ll let my ignorance shine - what’s the b/w photo to the right?
Pretty sure it’s the 1990s DPRK famine
Nah, it’s Holodomor
“Everything I don’t like is CIA propaganda” is the usual argument.
Aww man, I put a TON of thought into my propaganda. At least give me some constructive criticism instead of just not liking it
Ah of course, in addition to lies, Godric posts racist memes.
There’s nothing racist about this. Lmfao
You really can’t see how portraying an Asian person as a yellow cartoon is racist?
The chinese people who started it are racist to themselves?
No and it’s fucking stupid to say it is because they’re both yellow. That’s probably more racist than the image.
This is the origin. Which is from Chinese social media. It only became known in the west because China banned this imagery. So now posting him as Winnie the Pooh is directly a mockery of China’s strict information control and running around calling it racist is dumb.
You’re reaching for this one.
No you see, China is based except when Chinese citizens call them out, then they’re somehow self-racist.
I’m going to share this Reddit comment about a Dutch tradition where people used to wear blackface.
https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/s/CdonBFsbVJ
To be short, it doesn’t really matter what the original intent was. There are too many parallels to racist tropes, and now we have people who insist that it’s not racist because they actually want to do dog whistles. So now this thing that maybe didn’t start as a racist thing, now definitely is.
See your ignorance is just on display. You don’t understand racism, you have the mind of a college dude from the 80s “I don’t see color” kinda logic. That it’s as simple as color and it isn’t.
There is a historic reason that has caused extensive and still ongoing harm to millions of people. There is a complete failure of culture understanding amongst Dutch people who support this and it’s why many in the West find this sort of shit disrespectful and gross.
Chinese people making a meme of their president looking like Winnie the Pooh, it getting banned and that information refusing to be smothered has absolutely 0 to do with race. Nothing.
It’s just dumb.
“Winnie the Pooh is yellow and Chinese people have been referred to as yellow by many western countries. I probably shouldn’t make this meme to mock Xi Jinpng, as it is racist in America.” - some Chinese person who made the fuckin meme.
Absolutely nonsense.
Quick question, what was it that the Dutch East India Company did? I forget.
Dutch people aren’t black, Chinese people are a melting pot of ethnic groups associated as Chinese. Are Dutch people from Africa?
Just outright racist boomer shit ood lord
By your logic, I’m an anti-semite too for criticizing Netanyahu and Israel.
Oh man, how will I sleep at night?
Hey, there’s also “CNN talking mfer”. I was called that for recalling my literal personal experiences of interacting with Russians years before full scale war.
“fuckin nerds know stupid shit like facts. gaaaaaay”
Of course, the CIA and US Government does actually do propaganda campaigns. Whether via things like the Voice Of America radio station. Or like
Domestic Anti-Communist stuff:
Operation Mockingbird bird: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird,
The Crusade for Cultural Freedom.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusade_for_FreedomThe Congress for Cultural Freedom. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_for_Cultural_Freedom
The Red Scare. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Scare
More general fuckery:
Lavender Scare. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavender_scare
The suppression of the PRISM information program. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM
Suppression of wartime massacres: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mukaradeeb_wedding_party_massacre
The assassin of Fred Hampton (American communist)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Fred_HamptonThe killing of MLK (American Socialist).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Martin_Luther_King_Jr.And that’s just a small portion of the US government propaganda campaigns they’ve run ON AMERICAN CITIZENS AND CULTURE. Not including things like the outlawing of Anarchism, or whatever the hell people like Allen Dulles and George Bush Senior were up to…
…and all of this is before even asking about overseas propaganda campaigns.
So yes, the CIA has definitely been heavily involved in curbing American opinions, and massively suppressing support for Communism and Socialism in America.
American Free speech - but only to an extent, after that you’ll have to deal with government interference.
American Free speech - but only to an extent, after that you’ll have to deal with government interference.
solid list. reality check: do you think this kind of stuff happens exclusively in the US?
do you think other countries aren’t trying to influence the rest of the world?
When russia gives someone tea with polonium as sweetener?
I agree, the US has a ton of horrid shit in its history, and we don’t seem to be improving. but there’s a lot of space between “at some point or another, almost all nations do wretched and awful shit. because they’re ALL made of humans”
Yeah, the CIA is bad. So is the KG-FSB and Mossad and MI6 and everyone else.
All states have propaganda campaigns against specific things/areas of discussion.
America (like most western “liberal” democracies) heavily targets leftist causes, such as Communism, Anarchism, Socialism, Peace movements, and climate change activists.
Many of which threaten to protest big oil companies, the millitary industrial complex, domestic spying on citizens, big polluters, industries that want to under pay workers, tech billionaires and AI data centers.
As a Westerner I find that list of areas of concern and suppression to be much more representative of things I want addressed by democracy than I do the existence of tankies, communists, and socialists.
So my gripe is about proportionality. The powers that be would prefer we focus on tankies and the ills of soviet era communism - because that makes us divided and focused there rather than on modern corporate Capitalism and its corruption of our democracy.
That would be my reality check.
The powers that be would prefer we focus on tankies and the ills of soviet era communism -
lol.
I never consider the ills of soviet era communism until tankies show up trying to convince me they had a utopia.
I spend absolutely zero time pontificating about mao, or stalin, or communism, or collectivism, any of it, until some asshole slinks in and starts talking shit about ‘the west’ as if their own side never Holodomor’d a bunch of innocents the way we trail-of-tears’d people here.
you don’t think the people living in ‘the east’ lived some kind of perfect, ideal lives, do you? that would be silly. why would we expect it on either side?
we’re all fucking humans. none of us is better than any of the others based on geography or ideology, and a lot of us are wretched assholes when we get into a position of authority.
uniquely western? pfft
I’m with this guy! 👍🏼✊🏼
Fuck off tankies (like in general)!
Don’t forget their chatbot!
Well, I’d need to be strapped to a bed in a Canadian mental home with a steady drip of LSD, and a tape on loop to forget CIA_chatbot… As the CIA discovered during their horrific MK-Ultra experiments on mental patients.
Hey in our defense, the researchers were also doing a shitload of LSD at the time… I think. My memory is a bit fuzzy
While they whole heartedly suck, it doesn’t mean they’re responsible for everything that sucks.
Tankies don’t look at the shitty things China and Russia do.
Tankies: “ACAB except for Chinese and Russian cops who wear the tastiest boots nom nom nom”
“This boot on my face would be better if it had a hammer and sickle on it”
Yes, and anti-communists tend to overlook the shitty things Capitalism and the US government do.
The critique cuts both ways. I don’t think either side has much of a solution… But right now - in the west - it’s clear that too much Socialism is not the problem.
The West is Cappoed out right now. Kind of tired of it.
Hey kid, wanna buy us a new Data Center?
No thanks Sir, please leave me alone.
anti-communists tend to overlook the shitty things Capitalism and the US government do
I don’t think either side has much of a solution
You are conflating not being a tankie with being an anticommunist.
Being a communist shouldn’t stop you from ciritquing your own state. A healthy communist state allows for open critique and discussion of what works and what doesn’t. Otherwise you risk autocracy.
And I would hazard calling China and Russia communist states. Russia doesn’t even call itself communist anymore. And China is a one party autocracy with a free market. They’re only communists in name.
What’s your definition of communist? For me it implies a centrally planned economy to the exclusion of any free market and is definitely at great risk to fall into autocracy. I think that kind of project is doomed from the start, so I wouldn’t call identify myself as a communist.
Those are leninist/Maoist. If we’re being generous we could call them aspirationally communist. But not actually communist.
2 defining criteria for communism is being stateless. Ie not having an governing state elected or otherwise. Definitely not having a large hierarchical unanswerable centralized government. And the other being classlessness. Something that the large central politburos preclude.
The one thing Leninism shares in the most asinine and negative way with communism. In the actual vision of communism, Marx and others theorized that the workers of the factory, etc. Should own the factory. Social ownership. However, Leninism warps and twists it negatively in that the state owns everything, not the workers. They may claim that the workers are the state. But that’s bullshit as can easily be seen by any time they put down a citizen revolt. Roll out the tanks, etc. Like Tiananmen Square.
I don’t take sides because nobody is on my side.
[Edit: --Treebeard]
Enlightened Centrism, then?
No, enlightened centrists have representation.
I’m a socialist in the United States and AOC is gonna vote for Hakeem Fucking Jeffries for Speaker, so who is really on my side at this moment?
But in the context of the US vs China, it seems like people are always explicitly making me pick a side. Almost all the China-bashing is motivated by wanting to keep the US hegemonic, and every time I say, “Hey, why are we saying China shouldn’t rule the world but never challenging why we allow the United States to rule the world?” I get called a tankie.
It really does feel like AOC is a career politician with too deep ties with super pacs that fund most of the “moderates” in democratic party.
Please vote her out as well.
Ah gotcha, you’re a purity tester; my mistake.
Are simplistic stereotypes the only way you can understand the world?
No, I just try to figure out whence cometh ridiculous behavior so I can point it out and others can ignore it in peace.
I can see why your account is a throwaway.
I can see why yours is incoherent nonsense.
Since when do tankies care about authoritarianism? That’s shit liberals say
Yeah, being pro-authoritarianism is one of the wackier but consistent tankie positions.
It’s the mirror of libs being pro-capitalism.
Tankies and libs are the same thing with different imperial branding.
Comment from ml i was dealing with today:
How about not supporting any government?
This is a very silly position that isn’t supported by anybody but very naive ancaps. Even anarchists don’t support that.
What your position means is effectively just support for the most prolific invaders in the world - NATO, - who very much do benefit from the dismantlement of governments in the Global South, i.e. what you are proposing.
Anarchism = supports Nato /s
You could say this is a fringe single opinion but the votes on that thread dont support such.
Enough to argue for it then against its actual existence in the next post.
Just got instance banned from .ml for trying to have that exact discussion!
i got instance banned from .ml because i replied to someone saying tankies don’t call socialists and anarchists liberals with a link to a comment in that same thread of a tankie calling an anarchist a liberal. also the post itself was implicitly doing the same thing.
i also called them a lying cunt, which may have been too far, but they were being a lying cunt.
For me they apparently ban you for calling them tankies.
They’re the kind of folks who choose their 40K army based on what faction they realistically most agree with and then internalize the logic and choose to believe that in that fictional universe that they truly are the one and only good guys without understanding that everybody is the bad guy.
Pretty much. You can say that some PDF troops may be neutral on currently uncontrolled worlds but even the Tau have a dark streak to them. They commit genocide on the regular.
The downside of creating political shitposts in this community is feeling obligated to read the parapgraphs on paragraphs of seemingly serious political theory that no one asked for.
At some point, you have to lean into the shit part of shitpost and accept that you’re posting in a troll thread
Yeah I really try not to engage with Godric rage bait anymore. Nobody here is ready to be deprogrammed, it’s a waste of time.
JuSt ReAd tHeOry bRo!
I wish I had it saved but this one time a commenter basically said “I don’t have time to explain this to you” and then came back 6 hours later with 1000 word reply.
lemmy gold
Best I can do is a golden ban:
Godric is always asking for it in these posts. Their entire purpose is to bait MLs. And it’s not like we’re just going to let lies be spread, so it always works.
I literally see zero lies in this post. Tankies missing the point every time lol
And it’s not like we’re just going to let lies be spread, so it always works.
when you’re not spreading 'em yourself lol
Wait, what’s the lie in this post?
More bait?
honestly, based. marx was cool af, he had impeccable insights into the problems we would be facing today. adding that authoritarian coward lenin is how you turn a commie into a tankie
Meanwhile the Anarchists are like…
Anarchism? Wasn’t that made illegal in the US after the Haymarket bombing?
Well you see the thing about Anarchists…
Mao was right about landlords.
And Hitler built the Autobahn. Morons love to handwave mass murdering dictators.
And Hitler built the Autobahn.
Yeah, car dependency is an overt fascist plot. Are you suggesting that this is good?
Most people don’t even realise, Tianamen Square was about Free Speech, and keeping China communist (They were protesting China becoming more open to Capitalism).
The people being massacred - WERE THE COMMUNISTS AND UNIONISTS…
They weren’t pro-markets… They believed (as communist education teaches) that Capitalism would cause class divisions and greater poverty for the majority. The protestors wanted China to stay communist, just with more democratic rights and protections.
Most people also don’t know that the entire tankman saga happened as Chinese forces were LEAVING Tiananmen Square and he wasn’t run over. The tanks tried to go around then stopped and he climbed up and talked to the driver for a while then walked off with some people. And this all happened outside the foreign press hotel in an area that had been largely blockaded during that time.
Where western reports were going out speaking of tons of violence in areas near the square.
Which tankman has always been a peculiar moment in history cause in context it very much comes off like it was possibly staged by the CCP, or at least the CCP thought it might work in their favor PR wise, but ends up getting used in a way that is suggestive of that moment being a moment of CCP violence against the innocent.
And of course the even larger context of what was being protested was never and still is not really contextualized.
The tanks tried to go around then stopped and he climbed up and talked to the driver for a while then walked off with some people
Genuinely crazy to compare that moment to, say, the ICE raids in Minneapolis and come out complaining about “Tankies”.
That’s an important thing to educate others on, but… so?
The problem is they massacred protestors, not what the protest was about.
If the people want to speak in support of communism, let them. If they want to speak in support of capitalism, let them.
If the people want to speak in support of communism, let them. If they want to speak in support of capitalism, let them.
Cool fantasy. But this was the people who support capitalism murdering the people who support communism.
Okay so they were protesting to get Free Speech, and to keep China communist.
You’re saying what they were protesting for (Free Speech and Communism) isn’t important…
…only Free Speech (one of the things they were protesting for) is important… Not Free Speech (one of the things they were protesting for).
A bit of anti-communist blindness is happening here. It’s really okay for Chinese communists to want a more democratic Communism.
[EDIT: On that much we are agreeing. I’m just also adding US pro-Capitalist massacres on too.]
What in the mental gymnastics is your comment meant to be?
Your edit comes across as, “Oops, looks like I was trying to rage against someone without realizing we agree; better edit to add a subtle retraction. Oh, and I’d better add a whataboutism out of nowhere too.”
Yes, Godric, compare carbraintopia to removing an entire class of parasites. Sure. I’m the moron lmao
removing a class of parasites
Fuck, a horseshoe theory wallop upside the head yet again :(
Mass-murder is bad, you absolute muppet.
Ignore the swaths of people exposed to the elements in the states while suburban boomers rent out second homes and corporations buy up the rest. What is that if not systemic murder? Yeah Mao did bad shit, killing landlords isnt one of them.
THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves
Look at all these landlords up in here scrambling
“What? I just wanted to threaten people with homelessness unless they paid for my equity with their labor! How DARE you pretend I’m the bad guy! Now let me figure a way to steal even more from you and have the cops attack you if you resist.”
It’s enough to drive a man to anarchy
Makhno was right all along
The problem with both anarchism and communism is that while they can work at the smaller scales, at the bigger ones they become more and more vulnerable. Both can pretty easily devolve into plain authoritarianism. I’m a big fan of anarchy as a concept, but i don’t see how it could work on a geopolitical scale.
I’d say anarchism has more self-checks against authoritarianism compared to capitalism or “communism” of the Soviet or Chinese variety. In the end, it’s all about reducing the reliance on hierarchies and there’s no single right way to do it.
Getting rid of hierarchies certainly helps, yeah… The problem is though, that a political power without a hierarchy will inherently lose to a hierarchical one at least in terms of military power, which is geopoliticianeese for “i’m free to take by whomever!”
The only implementation of communism that was actually tried long-term is Marxist-Leninism (aka Stalinism), which is both uniquely authoritarian and basically heretical. Everything else was crushed either by the capitalist West or by the USSR itself, so really the jury is out on what a more normal attempt at socialism would actually look like.
Have you been to sweden in the eighties? Close but ofc no cigar.
I don’t think that was ever in doubt.
I had the same oddly sarcastic impulse - “oh, brave take”. But then I noticed that’s only because of how stridently leftist this space is. Then I wandered away, too unbothered to even finish replying
