My hobby is gardening. I am involved in local politics. I do Union organising as well. I’m sorry your fantasy doesn’t align with reality, maybe if you vote harder, abduct more unwilling Ukrainians to the meat grinder, or bomb more brown people it might.
I regret to inform you that not only do I touch grass, i get involved in local politics too. All of my municipal representatives, mayor, state reps know me and my politics. 🙃
People attacking the .ml people for organizing while under pressure from the biggest worldwide alt right push in our generation is the funniest shit to me. God forbid the leftists start thinking collectively, you saw what happened to the donald? We’re currently fucked by all that chicanery but heavens forbid you start thinking in the opposite direction too much, wouldn’t want to get out of the right wing mess that we’re living through, least of all if we put in place all those policies my right wing propaganda says are evil. Yeah this is so seruious that we should definitely all quickly jump into being right wing surveillance states to prevent the leftists from doing something about us all eating massive amounts of shit right now.
see that’s the funny bit. I’ve met like 2 self proclaimed tankies irl, all other leftists think they’re lame as hell.
they don’t organize, they just sit behind keyboards and pretend they are.
as long as they show up and help, I have never met anyone who has a problem with them existing in irl leftists groups on ideology alone. it’s when they say shit like Ukraine is full of Nazis, or voting isn’t even worth showing up to the polls, or that the uyghur genocide is a lie, then they gotta go.
Sharing my experience: I have found that online, “tankie” just gets thrown at any leftist that “goes too far” authoritarian or not.
Do I agree with the Soviet use of tanks to suppress dissident in Europe in the 19th century? In so far as I wasn’t there and therefore don’t know fuck all about it: no. Am I going to clamor to distance myself from people who are accused of being tankies on Lemmy, especially if the people making the accusations are soc dems or centerists? Nah. Not engaging with that nonsense.
I’ve never met someone calling themselves that IRL, but that might be because it’s more of a youth thing. I agree that there is a lot more cooperation IRL, which is what’s important.
I appreciate some attempt at answering it, but I gotta be honest and say it seems pretty dogshit so far. I clicked on the “proof” that “showing any support for Ukriane would get you banned” and the post is inaccesible, the comment is too and the only context I have is some user, who has since received a bunch other moderation strikes, claims that they just wrote “slava ukraini”. On what post? No clue. Given how often someone makes up some story about how they were just a uwu smol bean who totally just said “I think we should all be friends” and then the meanevil [outgroup] just BANNED them out of the blue!! Then I have my doubts on that one.
So I looked for some other comment that might showing a large group of ml users declaring their undying love for neoliberal russia, the oligarch putin, and a hatred for all things marxist. In lack of that I clicked on the post that had undeniable PROOF of the admin of .ml declaring his wholehearted support for RUSSIA only to see… A common meme
If this counts as proof that this guy supports everything about Russia, may I then say it is safe to assume you love:
You know, since apparently sharing a meme that indicates any sort of support for a country means you support everything about it. I just want to make sure. And before you respond with “well Russia is bad too” or “whataboutism” or something like that, let me make it clear: I think Russia sucks and I hope the country undergoes major changes. My question here isn’t to justify some international action, it’s to make sure I understand your logic.
After this point of link-clicking it kind of seemed to me like the links didn’t really prove anything or say what they said, and were more just something made by some guy who was butthurt at leftists, so I stopped looking. Please share me any specific link if you have one. Let me know if I missed a “good one” in the aggregation of things that don’t describe what they claim to describe.
People attacking the .ml people for organizing while under pressure from the biggest worldwide alt right push in our generation is the funniest shit to me
There can often be a lot of apathy and de-motivation coming out of .ml; particularly around elections and harm minimization. The way they talk about voting you would think its as much effort as having a week long strike.
The way they talk about voting you would think its as much effort as having a week long strike.
“The way they respond to me constantly talking about voting, in a thread with a strawman position on what leftists say about voting” would be a more honest portrayal. But you struggle with honesty.
Since you’re using me as an example, my point is about the enormous efforts and resources some organizations pour into increasing voter turnout and electoral strategies over the time-tested and far more effective strategies of actually struggling and organizing. No, an individual taking a couple hours to vote isn’t a problem. It’s a problem when an organization makes preparing for, canvassing for, advertising for, and organizing for elections their primary focus. That takes far more effort than even week-long strikes, yet it’s a common strategy.
The point isn’t that individuals shouldn’t spend a couple hours to vote. The point is that voting cannot establish socialism, so organizations that pour a ton of resources into electoral campaigns are wasting valuable resources that could be poured into unionizing, organizing tenants, educating cadre, and growing the organization through on-the-ground struggle.
It’s intensely dishonest to frame it as opposition to spending a couple hours voting on election day. The entire political theatrics that surround elections is a months-years long process that takes up mountains of resources better spent on growing and organizing than pinning all hopes on candidates being able to change the system from within.
It’s a problem when an organization makes preparing for, canvassing for, advertising for, and organizing for elections their primary focus
Things that will also be happening when doing any other organizing. So taking some time to also have a candidate in primaries to shift the conversation further left is worthwhile. Not to even bring up minimizing harm as a last resort when needed.
So forgive me, but I don’t see my framing as dishonest.
Your framing was that Marxists oppose “sparing a few hours to vote.” This is incorrect, and now that I drew attention to this mischaracterization you’re pivoting hard from this. Many Marxist orgs do run candidates, such as PSL, but this is never the focus, as resources can always be better spent. You used my comment as an example, so it’s important that I set the record straight.
Your framing was that Marxists oppose “sparing a few hours to vote.” This is incorrect
Your wording, and that of many others in .ml is ultimately one that is demoralizing those who are also helping on that front and one that is by and large read as against voting, as well as being self defeating. Maybe you personally are not, so perhaps pass some notes to the rest of the crew.
demoralizing those who are also helping on that front
This is the most honest statement I’ve seen on the topic. Yes, absolutely, it is obvious that when we educate people about the lack of impact voting has that people get demoralized. In fact, they think we are attacking them because they feel anxiety, fear, and despondency.
I don’t think there’s any denying that. But it’s basically the same argument as when white parents say that we shouldn’t teach kids about the horrors of slavery because it will make them feel bad about themselves.
The truth is painful sometimes. It is difficult to have your beliefs challenged and more difficult to change your beliefs and your behavior as a result.
All of that is true.
But what Cowbee is saying about wasting millions of dollars and person-hours and political capital and trust on something that is a dead end is worse for harm reduction and liberation. Everyone ought to vote. End of story. No one ought to donate to the DNC. No one should be spending their time door knocking for Democrats. No one should be fighting with their fellow workers if they don’t feel like voting. No one should be spending time getting more people registered to vote. None of it is useful and it propagates a falsehood about the path to liberation.
If you want harm reduction faster and sooner start organizing with revolutionary organizations. You and I do not have enough time to be part of three or for political groups, attend rallies for multiple parties, and to develop the skills and rhetorical training for multiple goals. For anyone who wants the world to change for the better the absolute fastest path is a general strike and literally anything that takes away from that is slowing down justice and harm reduction.
People say we can walk and chew gum at the same time. I agree. Individuals will vote and then do revolutionary organizing. But don’t tell me that someone holding down a full time job can volunteer for the DNC, the WFP, and also do revolutionary organizing at the same time. I’ve tried it. It was impossible for me, there’s just not enough time to do it all, let alone do it well.
We will all see massive harm reduction if we focus on the root cause. That’s what it means to be radical - go to the root. Abortion, medicine, food, racism, misogyny, xenophobia, racialized mass incarceration, homelessness, ecocide, war, human trafficking, the opioid crisis, poverty … you could spend your whole life trying to fix these things by voting for the right candidates and make no progress. Or you could do the root cause analysis and organize to address the root cause. The root cause is the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and their maintenance of the imperial capitalist system. That’s it. One solid root cause, one place to focus all of our efforts, all of our messaging, all of our education, all of our training, all of our organizing, and all of our relationships and trust building.
That one thing will protect all of your friends and family and the oppressed in your community and around the world more than 100 years of voting ever will. And that’s why all of the research, evidence, and history proves out. From centuries-ago history to recent history, it all points to the same conclusion.
So yes, this analysis is demoralizing for people who volunteer earnestly every year for a Democrat candidate they really believe in. Yes it’s demoralizing for the people who donate every month, listen to the podcasts, follow the inside baseball, and hang their emotional well being on electoralism on the faulty premise that this is how we will save people and the planet. Yes, of course it’s demoralizing. But just as you have no obligation to make people feel a certain way about their false beliefs, I and those who share my position have no obligation to maintain the morale of people who believe voting will save us or even result in harm reduction. Our obligation is to propagate our analysis of the way the world works, to constantly revise our understanding based on research and data and lived experiences, to debate within our own communities about the various positions we have, and to adapt our understandings and our behaviors to have the maximum positive effect on the world. In our analysis, that means shutting down the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie as fast as possible by any means possible. The general strike is the least harmful and most readily available means.
And while people are striking, they can still take time to vote their conscience.
So, to retread that comment, I said 2 important things:
Organizing is the method by which to grow working class power and gain change
Marxists do not emphasize voting because capitalism cannot be reformed into socialism from within
I fail to see how identifying a working strategy and arguing against a failed strategy is “demoralizing.” If anything, knowing for a fact that organizational practice is key, effective, and practical is extremely uplifting. I am also explicitly in this comment against focusing on elections, not against voting in any and all capacities.
Perhaps you should stop spreading disinformation and sowing division by misrepresenting the views of Marxists? Then you likely wouldn’t see such strong pushback from people correcting the record. It’s the same tired strawman as those that say socialists support Trump because we also oppose the DNC.
I’ve said this time and time again. They do not care about Palestinians either. They want people like Trump in charge, because they’re just fascists in a different coat of paint and millions or even tens of millions of casualties is completely fine as long as it harms the reputation of a western country, any of them in fact.
Have you ever actually listened to the people for whom you’re so busy constructing a tenement in your brain? Or do you just wait for them to finish talking so you can continue to argue against imaginary positions?
I’ve had too many discussions with tankies praising genocide to listen to them anymore. Not everyone from .ml is a tankie, but far too many are and tankies are absolutely disgusting human beings. They’ve constantly shown that people dying is great if it happens for the right cause.
I’ve had too many discussions with tankies praising genocide
I’ve yet to see that happen once. You people keep making these claims and whenever you get asked you make vague gestures about it happening "soooo often, too many times I just can’t bear to repeat it!"
It’s the worlds laziest copout.
If it happened so often then it wouldn’t be that hard to find a few easy quotes to illustrate it. And lets be honest, if it happened so often you make it out to, then you would not be saying this. You would gleefully pull out some fucked up sketchbook to prove how evil these damn tankies are.
In my experience most of people from your instance (and .world) are generally frothing at the mouth racists, and I would not have a hard time to support that claim, if asked. Now I don’t have a sketchbook, but I can go looking. I usually just jump into any thread about China or Russia and I’ll see a bunch of people out with their calipers.
It’s wild how you people just make up shit all the time and people just buy it uncritically, because it’s about a group they’re preconditioned to hate.
Edit: funny how theres always radio silence as soon as one asks for proof for the preposterous claims
None of us want Trump in charge. Accusing communists of being fascists or not supporting Palestinians simply because we emphasize the importance of grassroots organizing over trying to change the system from within is dishonest.
Yet if you don’t vote against fascists, you’re legitimizing what they’re doing. And voting doesn’t mean you need to stop the grassroots organizing. Voting should be only one of many things you do when fighting against fascism, but it should still be one. Every American who did not vote for Harris knowing she was the only candidate with the ability to stop Trump 2.0 from happening, shares part of the blame for everything Trump’s done this term. And no, this doesn’t absolve the DNC from guilt for giving you a shitty candidate in the first place… But if your options are literally “let fascists win” or “bite the bullet and buy 4 more years to hopefully change things via midterms and primaries”, what kind of a sick joke is telling everyone to NOT vote against Trump? That voting against Trump makes them support genocide? Millions upon millions have suffered because of it since January 2025. AS HE PROMISED.
Much less than if you vote for them, which is what people want you to do by voting democrat. And by not voting for a fascist you are in fact signalling they don’t have your support, which means they are less legitimate. There’s a reason why “authoritarian dictators” generally have voter participation in the +90% range and receive the vast majority of votes. It makes them appear more legitimate.
Every American who did not vote for Harris knowing she was the only candidate with the ability to stop Trump 2.0 from happening, shares part of the blame for everything Trump’s done this term
We might be getting into some complicated politics here, but the way voting works is that if you vote for someone, then they get your vote. If you don’t, then they don’t.
What you’re presenting here is also Harris as if she’s not just basically Trump, which she is. She ran on committing genocide, pursuing brinksmanship with all of the US’ enemies, continuing her support for Israel, deporting more people than trump, giving more money to cops, being less woke, cracking down on protesters, increasing the military budget and all the stuff we don’t like when Trump does it.
But if your options are literally “let fascists win” or “bite the bullet and buy 4 more years to hopefully change things via midterms and primaries”
They were both fascists. Yet here we see something interesting, you introduce a longer-term scope - something beyond the immediate. So why is it, that when we argue voting for the democrats, we can apply a long-term perspective, but when we argue against voting democrat, then suddenly it is all here-and-now? How do you think an alternative is created? Do you think it appears out of thin air? No, it grows slowly. Which is why people vote third party or don’t vote democrat (or republican, but that’s a given.)
Finally, you make it out to be that the only thing that matters is wether or not someone voted for Kamala. In other words: Voting is everything, nothing else matters. This is such an odd position, yet I see you DNC-dogs take it constantly. When you are told “don’t vote for the democrats” or “voting does not matter” then you respond “Oh, so I should just do nothing then??”
People not voting for Harris does not mean they did nothing (and by not voting they have already done far more to work against american fascism), but you assume it does. Telling.
I did vote against fascists, just not for the DNC, who are also a party of genocidal imperialists. Fascism is not an organic movement, it’s what happens when the capitalist class realizes that bourgeois democracy stands to risk their control. It’s also why voting can never establish socialism, or prevent fascism, it’s the decision of a class that is in control of the state to begin with.
A Harris presidency would have continued to see genocide in Palestine, as Biden did, and would have continued the US Empire as normal. Domestic conditions would likely have been a bit more stable, but the fundamental imperialist system that props up both the DNC and GOP would continue to face the same decay and reaction we see under Trump today.
The only way to actually prevent fascism is to organize at the grassroots, and establish socialism through revolution. You place a horrendously false binary of “let fascists win” or “bite the bullet and buy 4 more years to change things via midterms and the primaries.” The former is out of our control to begin with, and the latter is not an actual path forward. The only path forward is revolution, which requires focusing our efforts on building a unified, disciplined, educated working class party that stands opposed to the imperialist system from the outside.
Framing the hours of effort I give every week, every month, every year as “supporting Trump” because I don’t take an electoralist focus is absurd. The only way to end the rule of the DNC and GOP is not through trying to reform the DNC from within, but from fighting the system directly.
wrong, i absolutely do not want trump in charge. i want the democrats to suck less. i put the 2024 election loss at their feet. i wish they had actually delivered things for people (other than bombs to the genocide) so they didn’t eat shit.
the people blaming voters for the democrats obscene incompetence are actively making things worse by refusing to learn anything.
i wish they had actually delivered things for people (other than bombs to the genocide) so they didn’t eat shit.
@boonhet@sopuli.xyz, see I don’t think they are being fake here. They have a point here.
Still they are not under siege, so its easy to keep your purity clean and say something is not good enough. Would a total stop to support of Israel be good? Of course. The overall tone is all or nothing; which surprise they got nothing given their tendency to walk away from the table and surrender all possible influence they might have, so they cannot even muster a reduction of aid to Israel.
Its not clear what their superior community engagement has brought to that or other causes. I suppose they could travel to Yemen and enlist in the Houthis’ army. For what its worth they did say they are standing up to Israel and taking serious action.
the people blaming voters for the democrats obscene incompetence are actively making things worse by refusing to learn anything.
Its a fair point, but also a self fulfilling prophecy. If you walk away from the conversation you lose your position. It is not a surprise that those who left got nothing. Or that when they return they have nothing to build from their previous success. Mamdani is a good example here. The DSA can point to his record for re-election and other DSA can point to him and say lets bring that here; rather than just abstract talking points.
Its okay if .ml isn’t the tip of the spear on the electoral front, but their disparaging is counter productive and damages overall leftist unity.
the “walk away from the conversation” framing assumes that conversation is a place where meaningful negotiation happens.
the democratic party has demonstrated repeatedly that left pressure doesn’t move them. they take the votes and ignore the demands, then they act as if they were always going to win and never needed you (at least until it’s time to cope about a loss, then we’re entirely to blame).
doesn’t matter if it’s for palestine, trans healthcare, minimum wage increase, universal healthcare, more often than not it’s the democrats calling the cops on people for speaking up.
i’ve said before but your vision of ‘left unity’ reads like attempts to discipline leftists, ie get us to shut up about things that make liberals uncomfortable and precompromise with them.
i’ve said before but your vision of ‘left unity’ reads like attempts to discipline leftists, ie get us to shut up about things that make liberals uncomfortable and precompromise with them.
I didn’t tell anyone to shut up. I am saying your surrendering an important part of our class war. Even Lenin said we should engage in electoral politics. We are on a complete back foot here and mls have a defeated complex about building momentum.
Like I pointed out. Not every place is fortunate to have a DSA or PSL, so we must do the best we can. Everyone who defeated imperial powers did it over the long term not on a blitz.
Struggling directly against the capitalist state at every opportunity, on the ground, is “actively helping Trump and the GOP win elections?” What kind of nonsense double-speak is this?
Okay this might be difficult to understand, but the people who didnt vote for Kamala because of her many issues also didnt vote for Trump due to his many issues.
That’s something I actually like about .ml it allows me to find literature on important current topics without the capitalist mindset, that’s so hard to come by. On the other hand the blind following of concepts like Lenin’s democratic centralism and Mao’s defence of state oppression, makes it difficult to convince with, along with the silent support for capitalist autocracies like the Kremlin and Xi.
I’m currently reading the Red Book from Mao and there some parts that are needlessly dangerous that use crusaders logic to defend atrocities for a promised future.
Just to spare you some sanity as I’ve told others – and you’re probably already well aware – most of these tankies who have a hard-on for and simp on behalf of Eastern Authoritarian genocidal apologists have a tendency to be a part of the 50 Cent Party or some derivative troll farm. In other words, they literally get paid to post comments; meanwhile Lemmy itself has limited control over sock-puppet account duplication. Just know there are sane people on here and don’t waste your time too much. Stay on message in the first comment or two and let them run their mouths if they wish, but many of them get a paycheck from dragging you into comments (if aren’t actual zealots themselves). You never know. though – it could just come down to them thinking, “Hammer & Sickle cool!” or something.
I’m all for exploring other ideologies; but that tends to stop short of ends-justify-means utopic fantasy whereby many are oppressed; when there are double-standards when geopolitically-expedient for the likes of what is occurring in Gaza, but conveniently not for what is happening in Ukraine, to Uyghurs, to Tibetan Buddhist monks, to Hong Kong democratic protesters, to Taiwanese sovereignty in blatant imperial conquest.
Yeah it would definitely help to know who downvoted or upvoted some blatantly heinous comments.
Having now been fodder to a couple of the 50c army I’m now much less inclined towards the label of Socialism so I’m not sure for the overall motives other than Cult purity.
I’ll be looking for a mbin or piefed instance now 👋
Oh no I’m sorry. My vision isn’t what it used to be and it’s tiny on my screen lol. That’s funny though
Honestly, I don’t have any good recommendations except to say that over the years and having kind of visited most of the points of the political spectrum I’ve started to settle down here. That when looking for something better that has also been realized somewhere in the world already, I keep coming back to the Nordic Model. Perfect? Maybe not. Best we’ve seen? By the data, I contend yes. Moreover it doesn’t seem like we have to engage in this ends-justify-means pursuit of an unrealized dream like I mentioned before.
That’s something I actually like about .ml it allows me to find literature on important current topics without the capitalist mindset, that’s so hard to come by.
this is exactly why i was originally drawn to browse the hexbear.net/c/news. living in the US the corporate run media maintains pretty tight control over narratives. i prefer to know as much as i can of the entire picture and decide for myself.
none of the orgs i’m in are even dem cent. it’s a framework for organizing which i think fits a particular type of moment, but is not without its issues outside of those moments.
“blind following” Yeah alright, sorry for reading something, relating it to what I know, investigating its claims, find them to be well-founded and the arguments to stand up to reason, and therefore I decide to incorporate it into my worldview. I suppose a much better method would be to read falsehoods written by someone the CIA decided to fund or whoever you want.
Eh, I think there’s a decent amount of intellectual overlap between authoritarian right wingers and authoritarian left wingers. They will both prioritize state control over people.
You messed up the “don’t use variations of the word” step.
What do you mean by
“Established authorities” and
“conventionalism”?
How does a “high degree” of submission look different from a “low degree”?
What constitutes “aggressive” defence in relation to regular defence and why is it definitionally authoritarian to defend something “aggressively”?
I don’t think you understand the word totalitarian or it’s variations. You probably understand authoritarianism, but you have a vested interest in not understanding it.
Try doing some reading, authoritarian personality is well studied.
No, I understand it, which is why I am asking you to define it. Because any actual definition is one that is either so broad as to describe all states (like yours does) or so specific as to be redundant because one could just say the name of the specific state or institution one was thinking of.
Lemmy.mlis more broadly federated than piefed.social, which also has a head developer that made lists of leftists to permaban. Being a communist on the English-speaking internet is already a dissenting view, we cannot escape non-communist viewpoints like non-communists can. Thus, echo-chambers to actually exist must affirm widespread positions while shutting out any dissent, which in the west means liberalism.
I guess it can be true for many people but i heartly disagree that it’s all people, for example I don’t belive to be in a eco-chamber, i interact with all sort of peope which half is prolly socialist people but the other half is all sort of ideologies (especially conservative and border-line fascist ones)
Nah, i just thought it was funny that you followed exactly the type of stereotypes about the instance you are on
To be clear: i was on .ml too once, i just moved after that because people were de-federating from it and i wanted to use a more local instance (feddit.it is Italian and i am Italian)
Plus, I doubt anyone on .ml touches grass enough to be a security risk :P
who do you think are the people recruited for a terrorist attacks here and there? they are not from taylor swift fanclub. most of them won’t go further than bitching on the internet from their parents basement and will never be a problem in real life, but 1 in 1000 is all it takes.
Can we not do a surveillance state, pls?
Plus, I doubt anyone on .ml touches grass enough to be a security risk :P
My hobby is gardening. I am involved in local politics. I do Union organising as well. I’m sorry your fantasy doesn’t align with reality, maybe if you vote harder, abduct more unwilling Ukrainians to the meat grinder, or bomb more brown people it might.
Sorry, I’m a certified grass-toucher.
I regret to inform you that not only do I touch grass, i get involved in local politics too. All of my municipal representatives, mayor, state reps know me and my politics. 🙃
People attacking the .ml people for organizing while under pressure from the biggest worldwide alt right push in our generation is the funniest shit to me. God forbid the leftists start thinking collectively, you saw what happened to the donald? We’re currently fucked by all that chicanery but heavens forbid you start thinking in the opposite direction too much, wouldn’t want to get out of the right wing mess that we’re living through, least of all if we put in place all those policies my right wing propaganda says are evil. Yeah this is so seruious that we should definitely all quickly jump into being right wing surveillance states to prevent the leftists from doing something about us all eating massive amounts of shit right now.
see that’s the funny bit. I’ve met like 2 self proclaimed tankies irl, all other leftists think they’re lame as hell.
they don’t organize, they just sit behind keyboards and pretend they are.
as long as they show up and help, I have never met anyone who has a problem with them existing in irl leftists groups on ideology alone. it’s when they say shit like Ukraine is full of Nazis, or voting isn’t even worth showing up to the polls, or that the uyghur genocide is a lie, then they gotta go.
Sharing my experience: I have found that online, “tankie” just gets thrown at any leftist that “goes too far” authoritarian or not.
Do I agree with the Soviet use of tanks to suppress dissident in Europe in the 19th century? In so far as I wasn’t there and therefore don’t know fuck all about it: no. Am I going to clamor to distance myself from people who are accused of being tankies on Lemmy, especially if the people making the accusations are soc dems or centerists? Nah. Not engaging with that nonsense.
I’ve never met someone calling themselves that IRL, but that might be because it’s more of a youth thing. I agree that there is a lot more cooperation IRL, which is what’s important.
They are authoritarians. They are only against trump because its not their boot thats stomping. They dont fight trump they only fight the left.
Define “authoritarian” without using the word “authoritarianism” or variations thereof or “totalitarian” or variations thereof.
https://lemmy.nz/post/22289983
I appreciate some attempt at answering it, but I gotta be honest and say it seems pretty dogshit so far. I clicked on the “proof” that “showing any support for Ukriane would get you banned” and the post is inaccesible, the comment is too and the only context I have is some user, who has since received a bunch other moderation strikes, claims that they just wrote “slava ukraini”. On what post? No clue. Given how often someone makes up some story about how they were just a uwu smol bean who totally just said “I think we should all be friends” and then the mean evil [outgroup] just BANNED them out of the blue!! Then I have my doubts on that one.
So I looked for some other comment that might showing a large group of ml users declaring their undying love for neoliberal russia, the oligarch putin, and a hatred for all things marxist. In lack of that I clicked on the post that had undeniable PROOF of the admin of .ml declaring his wholehearted support for RUSSIA only to see… A common meme
If this counts as proof that this guy supports everything about Russia, may I then say it is safe to assume you love:
You know, since apparently sharing a meme that indicates any sort of support for a country means you support everything about it. I just want to make sure. And before you respond with “well Russia is bad too” or “whataboutism” or something like that, let me make it clear: I think Russia sucks and I hope the country undergoes major changes. My question here isn’t to justify some international action, it’s to make sure I understand your logic.
After this point of link-clicking it kind of seemed to me like the links didn’t really prove anything or say what they said, and were more just something made by some guy who was butthurt at leftists, so I stopped looking. Please share me any specific link if you have one. Let me know if I missed a “good one” in the aggregation of things that don’t describe what they claim to describe.
There can often be a lot of apathy and de-motivation coming out of
.ml; particularly around elections and harm minimization. The way they talk about voting you would think its as much effort as having a week long strike.We could have better discourse and solidarity.
“The way they respond to me constantly talking about voting, in a thread with a strawman position on what leftists say about voting” would be a more honest portrayal. But you struggle with honesty.
Heres a comment I wrote about why leftists talk about voting as they do
Since you’re using me as an example, my point is about the enormous efforts and resources some organizations pour into increasing voter turnout and electoral strategies over the time-tested and far more effective strategies of actually struggling and organizing. No, an individual taking a couple hours to vote isn’t a problem. It’s a problem when an organization makes preparing for, canvassing for, advertising for, and organizing for elections their primary focus. That takes far more effort than even week-long strikes, yet it’s a common strategy.
The point isn’t that individuals shouldn’t spend a couple hours to vote. The point is that voting cannot establish socialism, so organizations that pour a ton of resources into electoral campaigns are wasting valuable resources that could be poured into unionizing, organizing tenants, educating cadre, and growing the organization through on-the-ground struggle.
It’s intensely dishonest to frame it as opposition to spending a couple hours voting on election day. The entire political theatrics that surround elections is a months-years long process that takes up mountains of resources better spent on growing and organizing than pinning all hopes on candidates being able to change the system from within.
Things that will also be happening when doing any other organizing. So taking some time to also have a candidate in primaries to shift the conversation further left is worthwhile. Not to even bring up minimizing harm as a last resort when needed.
So forgive me, but I don’t see my framing as dishonest.
Your framing was that Marxists oppose “sparing a few hours to vote.” This is incorrect, and now that I drew attention to this mischaracterization you’re pivoting hard from this. Many Marxist orgs do run candidates, such as PSL, but this is never the focus, as resources can always be better spent. You used my comment as an example, so it’s important that I set the record straight.
Your wording, and that of many others in
.mlis ultimately one that is demoralizing those who are also helping on that front and one that is by and large read as against voting, as well as being self defeating. Maybe you personally are not, so perhaps pass some notes to the rest of the crew.This is the most honest statement I’ve seen on the topic. Yes, absolutely, it is obvious that when we educate people about the lack of impact voting has that people get demoralized. In fact, they think we are attacking them because they feel anxiety, fear, and despondency.
I don’t think there’s any denying that. But it’s basically the same argument as when white parents say that we shouldn’t teach kids about the horrors of slavery because it will make them feel bad about themselves.
The truth is painful sometimes. It is difficult to have your beliefs challenged and more difficult to change your beliefs and your behavior as a result.
All of that is true.
But what Cowbee is saying about wasting millions of dollars and person-hours and political capital and trust on something that is a dead end is worse for harm reduction and liberation. Everyone ought to vote. End of story. No one ought to donate to the DNC. No one should be spending their time door knocking for Democrats. No one should be fighting with their fellow workers if they don’t feel like voting. No one should be spending time getting more people registered to vote. None of it is useful and it propagates a falsehood about the path to liberation.
If you want harm reduction faster and sooner start organizing with revolutionary organizations. You and I do not have enough time to be part of three or for political groups, attend rallies for multiple parties, and to develop the skills and rhetorical training for multiple goals. For anyone who wants the world to change for the better the absolute fastest path is a general strike and literally anything that takes away from that is slowing down justice and harm reduction.
People say we can walk and chew gum at the same time. I agree. Individuals will vote and then do revolutionary organizing. But don’t tell me that someone holding down a full time job can volunteer for the DNC, the WFP, and also do revolutionary organizing at the same time. I’ve tried it. It was impossible for me, there’s just not enough time to do it all, let alone do it well.
We will all see massive harm reduction if we focus on the root cause. That’s what it means to be radical - go to the root. Abortion, medicine, food, racism, misogyny, xenophobia, racialized mass incarceration, homelessness, ecocide, war, human trafficking, the opioid crisis, poverty … you could spend your whole life trying to fix these things by voting for the right candidates and make no progress. Or you could do the root cause analysis and organize to address the root cause. The root cause is the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and their maintenance of the imperial capitalist system. That’s it. One solid root cause, one place to focus all of our efforts, all of our messaging, all of our education, all of our training, all of our organizing, and all of our relationships and trust building.
That one thing will protect all of your friends and family and the oppressed in your community and around the world more than 100 years of voting ever will. And that’s why all of the research, evidence, and history proves out. From centuries-ago history to recent history, it all points to the same conclusion.
So yes, this analysis is demoralizing for people who volunteer earnestly every year for a Democrat candidate they really believe in. Yes it’s demoralizing for the people who donate every month, listen to the podcasts, follow the inside baseball, and hang their emotional well being on electoralism on the faulty premise that this is how we will save people and the planet. Yes, of course it’s demoralizing. But just as you have no obligation to make people feel a certain way about their false beliefs, I and those who share my position have no obligation to maintain the morale of people who believe voting will save us or even result in harm reduction. Our obligation is to propagate our analysis of the way the world works, to constantly revise our understanding based on research and data and lived experiences, to debate within our own communities about the various positions we have, and to adapt our understandings and our behaviors to have the maximum positive effect on the world. In our analysis, that means shutting down the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie as fast as possible by any means possible. The general strike is the least harmful and most readily available means.
And while people are striking, they can still take time to vote their conscience.
So, to retread that comment, I said 2 important things:
Organizing is the method by which to grow working class power and gain change
Marxists do not emphasize voting because capitalism cannot be reformed into socialism from within
I fail to see how identifying a working strategy and arguing against a failed strategy is “demoralizing.” If anything, knowing for a fact that organizational practice is key, effective, and practical is extremely uplifting. I am also explicitly in this comment against focusing on elections, not against voting in any and all capacities.
Perhaps you should stop spreading disinformation and sowing division by misrepresenting the views of Marxists? Then you likely wouldn’t see such strong pushback from people correcting the record. It’s the same tired strawman as those that say socialists support Trump because we also oppose the DNC.
I’ve said this time and time again. They do not care about Palestinians either. They want people like Trump in charge, because they’re just fascists in a different coat of paint and millions or even tens of millions of casualties is completely fine as long as it harms the reputation of a western country, any of them in fact.
Have you ever actually listened to the people for whom you’re so busy constructing a tenement in your brain? Or do you just wait for them to finish talking so you can continue to argue against imaginary positions?
I’ve had too many discussions with tankies praising genocide to listen to them anymore. Not everyone from .ml is a tankie, but far too many are and tankies are absolutely disgusting human beings. They’ve constantly shown that people dying is great if it happens for the right cause.
I’ve yet to see that happen once. You people keep making these claims and whenever you get asked you make vague gestures about it happening "soooo often, too many times I just can’t bear to repeat it!"
It’s the worlds laziest copout.
If it happened so often then it wouldn’t be that hard to find a few easy quotes to illustrate it. And lets be honest, if it happened so often you make it out to, then you would not be saying this. You would gleefully pull out some fucked up sketchbook to prove how evil these damn tankies are.
In my experience most of people from your instance (and .world) are generally frothing at the mouth racists, and I would not have a hard time to support that claim, if asked. Now I don’t have a sketchbook, but I can go looking. I usually just jump into any thread about China or Russia and I’ll see a bunch of people out with their calipers.
It’s wild how you people just make up shit all the time and people just buy it uncritically, because it’s about a group they’re preconditioned to hate.
Edit: funny how theres always radio silence as soon as one asks for proof for the preposterous claims
Absolutely nonsense, communists don’t praise genocide. Share receipts or stop the blood libel.
None of us want Trump in charge. Accusing communists of being fascists or not supporting Palestinians simply because we emphasize the importance of grassroots organizing over trying to change the system from within is dishonest.
Yet if you don’t vote against fascists, you’re legitimizing what they’re doing. And voting doesn’t mean you need to stop the grassroots organizing. Voting should be only one of many things you do when fighting against fascism, but it should still be one. Every American who did not vote for Harris knowing she was the only candidate with the ability to stop Trump 2.0 from happening, shares part of the blame for everything Trump’s done this term. And no, this doesn’t absolve the DNC from guilt for giving you a shitty candidate in the first place… But if your options are literally “let fascists win” or “bite the bullet and buy 4 more years to hopefully change things via midterms and primaries”, what kind of a sick joke is telling everyone to NOT vote against Trump? That voting against Trump makes them support genocide? Millions upon millions have suffered because of it since January 2025. AS HE PROMISED.
Much less than if you vote for them, which is what people want you to do by voting democrat. And by not voting for a fascist you are in fact signalling they don’t have your support, which means they are less legitimate. There’s a reason why “authoritarian dictators” generally have voter participation in the +90% range and receive the vast majority of votes. It makes them appear more legitimate.
We might be getting into some complicated politics here, but the way voting works is that if you vote for someone, then they get your vote. If you don’t, then they don’t.
What you’re presenting here is also Harris as if she’s not just basically Trump, which she is. She ran on committing genocide, pursuing brinksmanship with all of the US’ enemies, continuing her support for Israel, deporting more people than trump, giving more money to cops, being less woke, cracking down on protesters, increasing the military budget and all the stuff we don’t like when Trump does it.
They were both fascists. Yet here we see something interesting, you introduce a longer-term scope - something beyond the immediate. So why is it, that when we argue voting for the democrats, we can apply a long-term perspective, but when we argue against voting democrat, then suddenly it is all here-and-now? How do you think an alternative is created? Do you think it appears out of thin air? No, it grows slowly. Which is why people vote third party or don’t vote democrat (or republican, but that’s a given.)
Finally, you make it out to be that the only thing that matters is wether or not someone voted for Kamala. In other words: Voting is everything, nothing else matters. This is such an odd position, yet I see you DNC-dogs take it constantly. When you are told “don’t vote for the democrats” or “voting does not matter” then you respond “Oh, so I should just do nothing then??”
People not voting for Harris does not mean they did nothing (and by not voting they have already done far more to work against american fascism), but you assume it does. Telling.
I did vote against fascists, just not for the DNC, who are also a party of genocidal imperialists. Fascism is not an organic movement, it’s what happens when the capitalist class realizes that bourgeois democracy stands to risk their control. It’s also why voting can never establish socialism, or prevent fascism, it’s the decision of a class that is in control of the state to begin with.
A Harris presidency would have continued to see genocide in Palestine, as Biden did, and would have continued the US Empire as normal. Domestic conditions would likely have been a bit more stable, but the fundamental imperialist system that props up both the DNC and GOP would continue to face the same decay and reaction we see under Trump today.
The only way to actually prevent fascism is to organize at the grassroots, and establish socialism through revolution. You place a horrendously false binary of “let fascists win” or “bite the bullet and buy 4 more years to change things via midterms and the primaries.” The former is out of our control to begin with, and the latter is not an actual path forward. The only path forward is revolution, which requires focusing our efforts on building a unified, disciplined, educated working class party that stands opposed to the imperialist system from the outside.
Framing the hours of effort I give every week, every month, every year as “supporting Trump” because I don’t take an electoralist focus is absurd. The only way to end the rule of the DNC and GOP is not through trying to reform the DNC from within, but from fighting the system directly.
Nah, that’s a complete mischaracterization
wrong, i absolutely do not want trump in charge. i want the democrats to suck less. i put the 2024 election loss at their feet. i wish they had actually delivered things for people (other than bombs to the genocide) so they didn’t eat shit.
the people blaming voters for the democrats obscene incompetence are actively making things worse by refusing to learn anything.
@boonhet@sopuli.xyz, see I don’t think they are being fake here. They have a point here.
Still they are not under siege, so its easy to keep your purity clean and say something is not good enough. Would a total stop to support of Israel be good? Of course. The overall tone is all or nothing; which surprise they got nothing given their tendency to walk away from the table and surrender all possible influence they might have, so they cannot even muster a reduction of aid to Israel.
Its not clear what their superior community engagement has brought to that or other causes. I suppose they could travel to Yemen and enlist in the Houthis’ army. For what its worth they did say they are standing up to Israel and taking serious action.
Its a fair point, but also a self fulfilling prophecy. If you walk away from the conversation you lose your position. It is not a surprise that those who left got nothing. Or that when they return they have nothing to build from their previous success. Mamdani is a good example here. The DSA can point to his record for re-election and other DSA can point to him and say lets bring that here; rather than just abstract talking points.
Its okay if
.mlisn’t the tip of the spear on the electoral front, but their disparaging is counter productive and damages overall leftist unity.the “walk away from the conversation” framing assumes that conversation is a place where meaningful negotiation happens.
the democratic party has demonstrated repeatedly that left pressure doesn’t move them. they take the votes and ignore the demands, then they act as if they were always going to win and never needed you (at least until it’s time to cope about a loss, then we’re entirely to blame).
doesn’t matter if it’s for palestine, trans healthcare, minimum wage increase, universal healthcare, more often than not it’s the democrats calling the cops on people for speaking up.
i’ve said before but your vision of ‘left unity’ reads like attempts to discipline leftists, ie get us to shut up about things that make liberals uncomfortable and precompromise with them.
I didn’t tell anyone to shut up. I am saying your surrendering an important part of our class war. Even Lenin said we should engage in electoral politics. We are on a complete back foot here and mls have a defeated complex about building momentum.
Like I pointed out. Not every place is fortunate to have a DSA or PSL, so we must do the best we can. Everyone who defeated imperial powers did it over the long term not on a blitz.
All the .ml users replying to you:
“I don’t want trump in power!” Proceeds to actively help trump and the GOP win elections at every opportunity
Struggling directly against the capitalist state at every opportunity, on the ground, is “actively helping Trump and the GOP win elections?” What kind of nonsense double-speak is this?
Okay this might be difficult to understand, but the people who didnt vote for Kamala because of her many issues also didnt vote for Trump due to his many issues.
In a war of memes and information bubbles, people not touching grass is a security risk
crazy how the main audience for this kind of two minutes hate thread for .ml is always zionists
lol
The whole ml user base is public knowledge too so you won’t mind us quickly checking how much they support Russia and use it against them
ml’s are natural comedians
Everything I don’t agree with is woke, I mean zionist.
Wild comment. It’s woke to dislike genocide now? If we rearrange your words, they make a little bit more sense; “I don’t agree with anything zionist.”
The word woke doesn’t mean anything anymore, so we can let that one slide.
the guy is an endless fountain of hasbara, plus you’ll call everyone to the left of joe biden a tankie, glass houses
I wouldn’t consider folks from .ml to be dangerous tho - they are simply a book club that is being mean to people on internet.
Right-wingers, who don’t touch grass, on the other hand, are far more dangerous - just remember QAnon, this shit was started by some 4chan troll.
The US State certainly seems to think communist organizers are dangerous.
Ironically I don’t think anyone considered 4chan very dangerous until the whole QAnon shit.
It is called “Memetic warfare” or “5th-generation warfare” and it is as real as MOABs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth-generation_warfare
https://www.lineofdeparture.army.mil/Journals/Gray-Space/Archive/2026-Edition/5th-Generation-Warfare-Already-at/
And you think the people arguing against the establishment position are the people with enough resources to do that a significant scale?
That’s something I actually like about .ml it allows me to find literature on important current topics without the capitalist mindset, that’s so hard to come by. On the other hand the blind following of concepts like Lenin’s democratic centralism and Mao’s defence of state oppression, makes it difficult to convince with, along with the silent support for capitalist autocracies like the Kremlin and Xi.
I’m currently reading the Red Book from Mao and there some parts that are needlessly dangerous that use crusaders logic to defend atrocities for a promised future.
Just to spare you some sanity as I’ve told others – and you’re probably already well aware – most of these tankies who have a hard-on for and simp on behalf of Eastern Authoritarian genocidal apologists have a tendency to be a part of the 50 Cent Party or some derivative troll farm. In other words, they literally get paid to post comments; meanwhile Lemmy itself has limited control over sock-puppet account duplication. Just know there are sane people on here and don’t waste your time too much. Stay on message in the first comment or two and let them run their mouths if they wish, but many of them get a paycheck from dragging you into comments (if aren’t actual zealots themselves). You never know. though – it could just come down to them thinking, “Hammer & Sickle cool!” or something.
I’m all for exploring other ideologies; but that tends to stop short of ends-justify-means utopic fantasy whereby many are oppressed; when there are double-standards when geopolitically-expedient for the likes of what is occurring in Gaza, but conveniently not for what is happening in Ukraine, to Uyghurs, to Tibetan Buddhist monks, to Hong Kong democratic protesters, to Taiwanese sovereignty in blatant imperial conquest.
Thanks ❤️
Yeah it would definitely help to know who downvoted or upvoted some blatantly heinous comments.
Having now been fodder to a couple of the 50c army I’m now much less inclined towards the label of Socialism so I’m not sure for the overall motives other than Cult purity.
I’ll be looking for a mbin or piefed instance now 👋
https://rdctd.pro/defense-against-cult-control-tactics/
Sadly I fear that’s part of their intention (we further cannot rule out far-right nazis masquerading as leftists in order to muddy the well).
Though I completely get your concerns. Have you looked much into Social Democracy?
I take it you haven’t seen my red rose profile picture 😉
But no not as literature, I thought I’d get the foundation of Marx but took a detour on Mao do you have any recommendations?
Oh no I’m sorry. My vision isn’t what it used to be and it’s tiny on my screen lol. That’s funny though
Honestly, I don’t have any good recommendations except to say that over the years and having kind of visited most of the points of the political spectrum I’ve started to settle down here. That when looking for something better that has also been realized somewhere in the world already, I keep coming back to the Nordic Model. Perfect? Maybe not. Best we’ve seen? By the data, I contend yes. Moreover it doesn’t seem like we have to engage in this ends-justify-means pursuit of an unrealized dream like I mentioned before.
this is exactly why i was originally drawn to browse the hexbear.net/c/news. living in the US the corporate run media maintains pretty tight control over narratives. i prefer to know as much as i can of the entire picture and decide for myself.
none of the orgs i’m in are even dem cent. it’s a framework for organizing which i think fits a particular type of moment, but is not without its issues outside of those moments.
“blind following” Yeah alright, sorry for reading something, relating it to what I know, investigating its claims, find them to be well-founded and the arguments to stand up to reason, and therefore I decide to incorporate it into my worldview. I suppose a much better method would be to read falsehoods written by someone the CIA decided to fund or whoever you want.
Have you read the Red Book?
Maos quotations?
Yes
Then yes. Been a bunch of years though and the translation seemed shoddy.
Eh, I think there’s a decent amount of intellectual overlap between authoritarian right wingers and authoritarian left wingers. They will both prioritize state control over people.
Define “authoritarian” without using variations of the word or variations of “totalitarian”.
Three criteria:
You messed up the “don’t use variations of the word” step.
What do you mean by
“Established authorities” and
“conventionalism”?
How does a “high degree” of submission look different from a “low degree”?
What constitutes “aggressive” defence in relation to regular defence and why is it definitionally authoritarian to defend something “aggressively”?
I don’t think you understand the word totalitarian or it’s variations. You probably understand authoritarianism, but you have a vested interest in not understanding it.
Try doing some reading, authoritarian personality is well studied.
theauthoritarians.org
As a counter, I think you should consider reading Towards a Critique of the Category of “Totalitarianism.” Losurdo touches on much of the problems with theories of “authoritarianism” and “totalitarianism.”
No, I understand it, which is why I am asking you to define it. Because any actual definition is one that is either so broad as to describe all states (like yours does) or so specific as to be redundant because one could just say the name of the specific state or institution one was thinking of.
This. I was going to ask if MAGA are dangerous.
Information bubbles are dangerous. Tribalism is dangerous.
The antidotes are inclusivity and critical thinking
Right, and you’re definitely not in any sort of echo chamber.
“This surely can’t be…” i though while clicking on your profile
“...@lemmy.ml”
Welp, name checks out ig, i didn’t realize it was a troll
Lemmy.ml is more broadly federated than piefed.social, which also has a head developer that made lists of leftists to permaban. Being a communist on the English-speaking internet is already a dissenting view, we cannot escape non-communist viewpoints like non-communists can. Thus, echo-chambers to actually exist must affirm widespread positions while shutting out any dissent, which in the west means liberalism.
I guess it can be true for many people but i heartly disagree that it’s all people, for example I don’t belive to be in a eco-chamber, i interact with all sort of peope which half is prolly socialist people but the other half is all sort of ideologies (especially conservative and border-line fascist ones)
I, too, love to dismiss people based on my preconceived notions of their character rather than what they write.
Nah, i just thought it was funny that you followed exactly the type of stereotypes about the instance you are on
To be clear: i was on .ml too once, i just moved after that because people were de-federating from it and i wanted to use a more local instance (feddit.it is Italian and i am Italian)
At most they go jump in the meat grinder for Russia
who do you think are the people recruited for a terrorist attacks here and there? they are not from taylor swift fanclub. most of them won’t go further than bitching on the internet from their parents basement and will never be a problem in real life, but 1 in 1000 is all it takes.
Considering the people who have tried to shoot Trump so far, you seem to be a far better candidate for recruitment than I do.