I can see why we lost the election considering people like OP.
This is stupid, you will just get Lemmy labeled as extremist and then we will have one less antifascist platform.
Democrats are fascists
Nuh uh, you’re stupid, in fact you’re the worlds dumbest man.
Why couldn’t your meme show like solar punk utopian imagery, and people living in beautiful harmony with nature.
Oh, that’s why.
The problem with Solarpunk is that it isn’t really grounded in theory, it’s a vibe and an aesthetic, a hope for a better future but without any real binding ideology. It’s easy to transform, like cottagecore being weaponized into upholding traditional gender roles.
Solar will absolutely be a huge part of the future, but getting there requires taking supremacy over Capital to go against the car and oil industries. This requires Socialism.
Oh yeah fair points. It’s an ideal not anything near an immediate option by any stretch.
Which side are you on?
The left side with the heroes and not the right side with the imperialist murderers. You should read Fanon.
The title says, Leftist.
Both can be correct, it’s not a hard black and white split
The leftist revolutionary heroes are resisting the people on the right, it is a hard split. The people on the right are shepherds of the US carceral state and imperial murderers
Until we get ranked choice voting, you still need to support them though.
Ranked Choice Voting is both too ineffective to make any change, and too difficult to get in the first place. It’s the perfect endless carrot on a string, the eternal “just one more lane and traffic will be gone.”
Even if that’s so, you’d still need to vote for the people on the right, because voting third party in first past the post is objectively just terrible for everyone with similar goals.
The people on the right work with the Republicans. They aren’t resistance. Revolution is a necessity.
Even so, voting third party or not voting is worse than voting for the people on the right.
Alternative voting methods have proven useless against capitalist power. Countries like Australia and Japan use them, and it does nothing. It might make candidate stacking a little more expensive, and they have to pay more to advertise their candidates, but that’s it.
Alternative voting methods allow for smaller parties, ones who’s values may align more with the general population, an actual fighting chance. You gotta admit at some point that having only two realistic choices is a bit of a problem, right?
It seems like it should help, but in practice, its been useless. You end up having a greater diversity of candidates and parties, but if capital still stands above the political system and controls it, it just means more capitalist puppets, and more advertising money required to get those preferred puppets elected.
Multi-party Bourgeois parliamentarism is not really any different from the ancient roman imperial senate. Its government by oligarchy / the wealthy entrenched class.
In current Polish sejm there is 17 parties and 42 indpendents (on 460 seats). But every single one of them is procapitalist, proimperialist, pro USA, anticommunist. Alternative voting methods do literally nothing by itself.
Last time I checked, that’s not how that works, everyone has a wide range of ideals and views. Not 1 or 2, there can be 1 1/2, 1 1/3, 1 1/10000, whatever
leftist : anti-capitalism :: liberal : pro-capitalism
Why is this so hard for some radlibs to understand? I think it is all the propaganda they passively consume.
Liberal means PRO LIBERTY. Its right there in the fucking name leftoids
Liberalism means PRO CAPITALISM.
The first sentence from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism:
Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, the right to private property and equality before the law.
From the first paragraph of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_property†:
Private property is foundational to capitalism, an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit.
Liberalism: A Counter-History (online copy)
†Not to be confused with personal property.
That line says nothing about capitalism. Pro ownership? That is a tenet of some branches of leftism. I dont agree with corporations or the state having a monopoly on land ownership. Though the government cant come and take an individuals shit for no reason. Being an abusive billionaire though has an asterisk in the foot notes.
Though I’d argue that anyone owning shit comes a large and wide second or 3rd to human rights.
philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed
It says it right there.
Sound like you got some reading to do
Of course. Its the “liberty” of capitalists do to whatever they can get away with. Unlimited power for the capitalist class.
The freedom to buy an old growth forest and bulldoze it
Liberal means pro capitalist liberty. Nothing about personal freedom, equity and social safety nets in that.
based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed
Okay buddy. You guys just want to twist a good ideology into a wedge issue. The only thing vaguely “capitalist” about a liberal is the belief that the government isnt allowed to seize your shit unlawfully. The right to own property comes way after personal liberty in my book. That means billionaires dont get a pass for abusing the populace.
Yes, it’s hard for them to understand because of a lifetime of anti-socialist & pro-capitalist propaganda, propaganda which most of them aren’t even aware of, because for them it’s just common sense.
no no no. Left is when you love democracy and freedom and liberty and rightwing is when you love authority and disciplined organizations.
Capitalism is so all-consuming it’s like water to fish. “Capitalism” becomes synonymous with words like economy, markets, trade, laws, and government. It no longer is an ideology, but an immutable force in the universe.
deleted by creator
Maybe idk
I’ll say it again, in the United States the term “liberal” is used to refer to liberal social ideas NOT liberal economic ideas. To the average US citizen left and liberal are synonyms. This doesn’t mean your definition isn’t correct for academics and the entire rest of the world. But this meme, and this left vs liberal argument for this post, are US based.
You can tell us what we already know ’till you’re blue in the face, but that won’t dissuade us from trying to deprogram Americans from the Orwellian newspeak they’ve been mistaught so they can develop class consciousness.
I’m not sure how colloquial vocabulary usage prevents developing class consciousness. I’d potentially argue refusing to accept the evolution of language and refusing to communicate to people in the terms they use and understand inhibits said deprogramming.
Again very US centric in this definition but it’s who needs deprogramming.Sometimes the evolution of language isn’t so much organic as it is a political project, such as a century of red scares and socialist purges.
Americans believe Sanders when he calls himself a socialist because they’ve lost a vocabulary for socialism itself. And they think Sanders’ centrism is “the left,” because the Overton window has shifted so far right that there is no left left.
We can’t simply use their terms, because their terminology is both muddled and lacking.
Sometimes the evolution of language isn’t so much organic as it is a political project, such as a century of red scares and socialist purges.
Ok. But regardless of the cause, organic or political project, it doesn’t change the fact that the language has moved on correct?
We can’t simply use their terms, because their terminology is both muddled and lacking.
But there’s the rub. You/we ARE using their terms and the message is muddled and lacking BECAUSE OF the difference in perceived definitions. And as the past couple decades have shown there is zero chance of getting the American people to learn things, or unlearn as the case may be.
I assume very few people this far down a thread into a political discussion, on Lemmy, don’t know what the Overton windowS are and how fucked the US is because of the current far right position on the left/right scales. I find it lacking and dislike it’s libertarian origins. We are even now discussing the difference of a word being used for social vs economic ideas and these two scales do not necessarily overlap.
You don’t think words can mean things?
You just live in some kind of word salad blob?
What? That’s literally the opposite of what I’m saying… I’m saying words can have multiple meanings depending on context.
But the point of this was how does “liberal” having a different colloquial definition from how op was using it have anything do with “developing class consciousness” which can be done regardless of this single word?Yes
This is American Exceptionalism, and I won’t stand for it. This is like that “they trained them wrong on purpose … as a joke” meme. The ruling class has subdued many people with a maelstrom of bullshit politics, and the only sound strategy is to shatter these exceptionalist brain worms and actually do real analysis of the political economy.
Americans can have a little education, as a treat.
This is also wrong. US liberals are just as anticommunist as their further right counterparts, and their “social liberalism” goes only so far as not to infringe on capitalist “freedom” to do whatever they can get away with. Hence their hatred of homeless / the poor, communists, and colonized peoples.
As the saying goes, US liberals are against every genocide except the current one. Hence their staunch support for Israel’s genocide of Palestinians.
Isn’t it progressism?
But anyway liberalism is the ideology of capitalism. The artificial differences created between conservatives and progressists is just a smoke screen to create a false debate and prevent from challenging capitalism, switching the enemy from the rulling capitalist class to the person next door with different views
Leftist ≠ Leftwing
Liberalism is Leftwing leaning but isn’t leftist
Liberalism ≠ Leftwing
FTFY
🧠🪱
Nope, Liberalism is the “center” of the modern world in that it’s the default status quo position and ideology of the ruling class.
Social liberal is the center. Liberal is centre-right to right-wing.
Just realized were in .ml my guy. These guys have thrown the brick on trapos crazy koolaid jammer and only want to circlejerk about liberals and their infallible god kings stalin and marx
Who are those ninjas?
Zapatistas
I’m confused what the pink hat is supposed to have to do with the rest of the images
nothing, it’s just anti-trans, anti-queer bullshitting.
No, it’s anti-pinkwashing. It’s anti-liberals failing to protect the vulnerable yet again. What have we gained since the pussyhat movement but the loss of reproductive rights under Biden’s watch?
the loss of reproductive rights under Biden’s watch?
What did Biden have the authority to do that wasn’t done (to avoid this loss)?
The Supreme Court ruled that any Official Act done by the President is Constitutional.
Surely you can think of some pretty cool stuff this enables?
By removing, with official acts, justices who violated their oath of office.
Failed to make an executive action codifying abortion rights.
That would have just been superseded by the next admin
So do nothing, got it. Shoo lib begone
If you just want to do things for the sake of doing things so you can say you’ve done things, even though absolutely nothing materially changed. Typical you.
Yeah there is no point in eating, you will just shit it out later so best to not bother at all.
Now this would be like eating things but you’ve had your stomach and intestines removed. Then your analogy works. But it’s a pretty stupid analogy.
Officially named Pussyhats, they were first worn symbolically at the 2017 US Women’s March in Washington DC. Created by Krista Suh and Jayna Zweiman (who met at an LA knitting club), the hat was made in direct response to grab em by the pussy remark from tdump. The original idea was for marchers to knit, sew, or crochet hats to create a visual statement —a sea of pink. “If everyone at the march wears a pink hat, the crowd will be a sea of pink, showing that we stand together, united,” reads the introduction to the knitting pattern on the Pussyhat Project website. The actual hats were created by people who could not attend physically, but wanted to show their support.
Since then, some have come out against it as any one symbol isn’t as all encompassing as they would like, but none have yet given or inspired a good replacement for such a strong show of women’s solidarity.
Well you see, catgirls are bourgeois decadence /s
Ooh, the fascists aren’t gonna like this one
I’m okay with it.
I hate those stupid transphobic hats.
We should make a special political spectrum just for these people. Let’s call it the imperial political spectrum.
Who mean those on the right? They don’t even self identify as leftists, why should some of their followers say that?
Yeah a better title would have been “I’m left wing” or something but I hate the English language and refuse to respect it.
So just right of centre?
Both are good, one is better
should i mention that under one of them many coups around the world were orchestrated? no, dems are no better than gops.
dems are no better than gops
Unless you’re gay, lesbian, trans, atheist, Muslim, Jewish, Satanist, black, brown, female, an immigrant, or really anything other than a straight white Christian man.
What an incredibly privileged take. Try having some empathy for other people sometime.
And also, the US bombs all the groups above you just mentioned without distinction. The Obama administration for example dropped an average of 80 bombs every day of his presidency on the middle east and north africa.
For trans people in the U.S., the difference between a GOP win and a Dem win in the house, senate, and presidential elections is the difference between having or not having certain rights.
Federal prisons now will force trans women to be transferred to male prisons and they will be denied gender-affirming care like access to estrogen.
If you are a trans person in the U.S. there is a clear difference between the Dems and the GOP - one is clearly better than the other.
Nothing in response has responded to this, shown it to be false, etc.
It does not require that we overlook that the Dems have far-right policies, especially on immigration and international affairs. It does not require we defend U.S. imperialism to say the Dems are better than the GOP for trans people in the U.S. Both are true.
I understand the moral disgust and the impulse to see how villainous the Dems are, I feel the same way, but if you care about the political outcomes, you can’t ignore that there remain significant and tangible differences between the parties and their policies.
Rights are proclaimed and fought for by the marginalized, not gracefully given by our rulers. If you put so much emphasis on which group of tyrants to vote for, you’ll never think “maybe I should become a Stormé DeLarverie and actually make a difference”
Ah, I think you may have missed my point - I am responding to the claim that both parties are equally bad. While I can understand if you are primed to expect my points to be accompanied by a liberal attitude that voting is the main form of political action, let me clarify for you that this is not what I’m saying.
Obviously middle-class Americans have a tendency to think voting is the most significant political action that can be taken, maybe if they are really into politics they might make different consumer choices (avoiding Chick-fil-a, refusing plastic straws, etc.), and even more extreme people might participate in a peaceful protest.
Brick throwing on the other hand is something people who have nothing left to lose do, desperate acts from those who are barely surviving poverty, who are being harassed, jailed, raped, and killed by the police, and so on. Brick throwing isn’t done to carve out civil rights, it is survival.
To that end, Democrats who might advocate for and uphold civil rights have a pacifying and stabilizing effect in so far as some of those pressures that result in marginalized groups throwing bricks are alleviated. The GOP on the other hand seems to care little about stability, they are unskillful tyrants in that sense.
Ultimately all I am saying is that elections do have consequences, which is so obvious it should not have to be said. My statements do not imply elections are the only political events that matter.
Well, except you are wrong. Biden reversed Trump’s decision to pull out of Somalia. You are just being fed right wing propaganda to make one of the groups seem better than the other.
of course. let’s have some respect for the american minorities while minorities abroad can be tortured in some basement in a third world shithole while being watched over by a cia agent.
and i get to be called privileged by some oversized gringo. oh the imperialist exceptionalism.
No way you’re unironically pulling out the identity politics when just about every single revolutionary party in the US’ history was led by minorities. We are the first to feel the brunt of capitalism and for that reason we are the ones to lead the charge against it while the privileged sit in their condos waiting for everything to blow over so they can say “Oh I actually supported civil rights this whole time :)”
Just because US democrats stopped calling them “detention camps”, and prefer “influx” facilities, doesn’t mean they did anything to dismantle the immigrant prison system that’s currently holding 30,000+ people in camps.
Always relative to the point of view, for an far right wing everybody else is an leftist/communist.
nope, they are objective and discrete categories. The left are anti-capitalist, while the Liberal centrists are not. The rightwingers are just factually wrong and incredibly uneducated and ignorant when they miscategorize liberals as communists
This makes me sad, I thought we mostly agreed that what FDR did is a good way forward.
All he did was save capitalism which inevitably led to what the US has today. There is no future for humanity with oligarchs like him and his family despite their supposed good intentions
He did a lot more than “save capitalism”. Social Security, the Citizens Conservation Corpse, and the full blown WW2-era command economy (complete with ration cards and production quotas and public housing for all the rapidly mobilized industrial workers) had far more in common with Stalinism than Coolidge’s laisse-faire market economy. Hell, FDR even had his share of gulags, when you consider how Japanese Internment Camps were created and administered.
There is no future for humanity with oligarchs like him and his family
There’s a sharp line between an oversized land baron clutching a fist full of stock certificates and a popular elected bureaucrat charged with administering the public labor force.
Oligarchy can’t just be “guy with rich parents” or it quickly descends into austerity fetishism. Oligarchy is fundamentally anti-populist. It requires a strong centralized police force to compel a broad, disorganized public into acting against their own material interests. FDR’s New Deal was a meaningful shift away from oligarchy precisely because he adopted policies from his left-leaning proletarian base in defiance of the Depression-Era economic elites. And he implemented them with the enthusiastic support of the body public. Nobody was getting held up at gunpoint to take a salary from the Parks’ Department or to pile into Keynesian school house construction programs or to patch up wounded soldiers at the VA.
FDR’s personal wealth gave him a platform upon which to propagandize left-liberal policies on a national stage. But his messages resonated because they had a popular basis not because he simply hammered people with Madison Avenue propaganda.
You seem to be arguing that FDR was a leftist because of the policies he implemented. But I think what you are missing is why he implemented those policies. I think the truth is he didn’t really have the public interest at heart. His agenda was to contain a growing threat to capitalism in the form of the Communist Party of the 1930s. His strategy to contain the CP was to neuter the party by bringing it into the Democratic party fold, alienating their most militant members, and slowly squashing their agenda. Of course he had to appeal to their interests to do so. But it was a temporary strategy, not a real shift in US policy. There are a few articles on the topic if you are genuinely interested. Here’s one. And here’s a quote from another.
The New Deal reforms Sanders evokes were not the product of a farsighted, enlightened reformer, but responses to tumultuous class struggles in the early and mid-1930s. These reforms sought to contain explosive social struggles and were never truly universal, excluding women and African-Americans, for example. After mass struggle ebbed, Roosevelt shifted back to his original goal of stabilizing US capitalism while moving toward establishing US global domination during World War II. Progressive reforms came to an abrupt halt in the late 1930s, allowing the rollback of many popular gains during the 1940s.
FDR was a leftist because of the policies he implemented.
Its hard to argue a politician is something other than his policies.
you are missing is why he implemented those policies
The why hardly matters. Only the consequences. You can definitely argue that FDR failed to cement the more progressive programs (fully employment through public agencies, public control of finance and agriculture, a long term peaceful coexistence with the Soviet states). And for that reason, he was a kind-of failure. But I would argue putting the weight of the world on one man’s shoulders is deeply unfair. FDR took US policy as far as he could. Then it was Truman and Eisenhower and their lackeys who fumbled the bag (or capitulated to corporate interests deliberately).
His strategy to contain the CP was to neuter the party by bringing it into the Democratic party fold, alienating their most militant members, and slowly squashing their agenda.
The Democratic Party, as a whole, has a vested interest in neutralizing rival movements and harvesting their members. That’s not a strategy FDR invented or pioneered. Neither was the DemSoc liberalism of FDR incompatible with a more Reform Oriented American Communist Movement. The strategy worked in large part because American Communists saw FDR’s outreach to Stalin’s Russia and Mao’s China as a positive turn foreshadowing a real global movement.
I might argue that Stalin’s “Communism in One Country” and Mao’s failure to open China up until Nixon, thirty years later, that did more damage than FDR’s liberal-washing of Communist organizing efforts. I could easily argue that the Truman/Eisenhower Cold War was what ultimately did in the American Communists. Socialists couldn’t uproot Hoover from the FBI or unseat McCarthy from a strong union state like Wisconsin or keep guys like Nixon or Kennedy from worming their way into the upper echelons of the US government on a wave of mafia money.
At some point, you have to acknowledge the failures within the leftist organizing movements that happened in the US. Deng and Khrushchev and Ho Chi Mein and Kim Il Sung didn’t collapse in the face of these problems in their home states and they all had it much worse.
“You can’t trust those leftists because they’re just tankies”
The Tankie they’re referring to:
