OBJECTION! @ Objection @lemmy.ml Posts 24Comments 2,878Joined 1 yr. ago
Funny, I would've thought "the worst part of the worst periods of 4chan" would be all the bigotry, racism, transphobia, and that sort of thing.
And to think, there are people around here who accuse me of not being a "real" leftist. Who but a leftist would post a page from from a webcomic that's 90% text? Checkmate libs.
Oh, ok, so tell me, what's your vision for Syria, exactly? Have Turkey and Israel annex the whole thing? Or maybe create a power vacuum in ISIS's backyard? Practically speaking, one of those two assholes was going to end up in power, and if they didn't, the situation was going to be even worse.
Your argument would be a lot stronger if our side was the one calling for active support of one side. You've got it completely backwards. My alleged "support" for Assad was always just, "I don't think either side is worth supporting, so we should leave them alone." Which is, you know, the proper "null" position when looking at any conflict. But the "null" position of anti-tankies seems to be, "Whatever the news says." So rather than neutrality being the zero point, it's seen as "supporting" the opposing side. So much so that you don't even seem to realize how much your argument is shooting yourself in the foot.
Your side, the side that labels us as "tankies" and "Assadists" and so on and so forth every time we advocate non-interventionism, is the side that "defends one asshole because you like the other less." In virtually every foreign policy debate, it's not between which of two sides should be supported, it's between supporting one side or not supporting either. If you want to convince me to adopt a position of interventionism when both sides are flawed, then you need to argue the exact opposite of what you just said.
Yeah, they're in the broader thread.
Besides, being a .world lib is like being a boomer, it's really more of a state of mind 😉
Right, but for some of us, our upbringings and experiences include, "Reading actual works of political theory" while for others it involves, "Watching cable TV." An ignorant viewpoint is not on an equal level as an informed one.
Of course, uniting the working class is important, but that doesn't mean falling into "Tailism," that is, adopting reactionary views to ingratiate ourselves to a reactionary population. The goal is to spread education and knowledge to make the population less reactionary. It is necessary, to a degree, to meet people where they're at and to accommodate their concerns, but there is a line to be drawn. Engaging in Tailism fractures the left, alienates comrades who will object for legitimate reasons, legitimizes reactionary views, and makes a movement far more susceptible to opportunists, who are only concerned with their own advancement and willing to sell out members of the working class, since, you know, that's what Tailism is.
If you want to actually build a working class coalition, the most important thing is to practice solidarity. Everyone is part of a minority, in a sense. For instance, whatever job you have, most people aren't involved in that field. Being a minority in a democracy is inherently precarious, because the majority could take your rights away. Solidarity means an alliance between disparate groups to stand together for mutual defense. But that alliance is broken when you sell out a group for political gain. Not only do you lose that group, but every group in the coalition starts wondering if they'll be next, and starts worrying about themselves than coming to the defense of others who might be more in the crosshairs. If solidarity breaks down, then how can the working class be united?
Both.
Conservatives have nothing of value to contribute to discussions. I say that on the basis of having made serious attempts at engagement with them. They are very anti-intellectual and bring down the quality of discussion to quips and shouting matches. BlueMAGA types are similar, but they are at least toned down a few degrees, and importantly, they aren't openly bigoted and exclusionary. Like, you're never going to have trans people and MAGA coexisting in the same online spaces and I'd much rather have the former than the latter, as there's a much higher probability of them saying something worthwhile.
It's like, imagine two doctors trying to discuss the intricacies of their field in a room where a conspiracy theorist, like, say, Jimmy Dore for example, is listening in for some phrase they can twist around and take out of context and attack them with. That's what it's like having conservatives in an online space.
Outside of online spaces, conservatives are largely incompatible with a functioning society, they don't understand basic concepts needed for the government to function, and their heads are instead filled with a bunch of harmful and objectively wrong ideas. They will fight tooth and nail against their own interests just to stop anyone else from having good things.
On the rare occasions when they accidentally stumble into a correct take, it's because they're wrong twice, and it only muddies the waters for people who have a similar take for coherent reasons.
Name one thing that conservatives contribute to any discussion that's worth listening to.
IE people who defended Assad
I don't think y'all get to use that talking point anymore after 1500 people upvoted a .world post calling the only realistic alternative to Assad, "a known terrorist."
Seems like most people on here hold the position that the US shouldn't have even lifted sanctions on al-Sharaa, let alone given him weapons and supplies. And not wanting to give al-Sharaa weapons and supplies is what you're describing here as "supporting Assad," is it not?
Watching .world libs talk about Hexbear is always entertaining because it's like a bunch of kids sitting around a campfire swapping stories, with the bear growing 5 ft taller with each retelling.
You want to know why they think Putin's a communist? You know you can just go there and ask them. They'll tell you 1) they don't, 2) what they do think about Putin, and 3) why they think what they do. It's not hard, it's not like it's some big secret.
But I want you to bear with me and embark on a little thought experiment. Imagine for a moment that you're a full on MAGA chud, like, you believe George Soros is the communist CEO of Antifa aiming to kill all white people. But then you're like, "Maybe I should try talking to these people so I can understand why it is that they want to kill all white people," and you leave your bubble and seek out communists and antifascists all over the place and make a genuine attempt to understand their perspectives (regardless of what you think of it), and then you come back to Truth Social or whatever and try to share what you learned. How do you think that'll be received? It'll be received very poorly. They'll say you're a communist trying to spread lies or that you were duped by them and what they actually believe is what they're said to believe, in the MAGA lore. If, on the other hand, you just repeat what everyone else in the community is saying about Antifa, putting no effort into understanding the actual beliefs of the people you're talking about, you'll receive praise and agreement, and those oh so precious upvotes. This is how their collective fiction is maintained, growing ever more divorced from reality.
Now, if you step away from lemmy.world and go to hexbear.net and make a genuine attempt to understand their perspective, and then come back to your community and try to share what you learned, how do you think that will be received? As opposed to just repeating what everyone in your community says? It's the same shit, it's the exact same social dynamic at play. If you want upvotes on .world/truth social, you have to accept the collective fiction about hexbear/Antifa and then develop and expand upon that fiction. Saying the truth will only earn you scorn, exclusion, and downvotes (see: this comment's ratio, soon).
But like, at least internally, you should have the self-awareness to realize that obviously there isn't any logical rationale for why someone would think Putin is a communist, in the same way that there is no logical rationale for why Antifa would want to kill all white people. Because it's not based on any real thing that people believe, it's a strawman created as part of a collective fiction that you're not allowed to challenge if you want to be a part of a particular in-group.
"We have to give them everything they want from us first, and then we can start pressuring^[writing politely worded letters to] them!"
I learn from the best! This comment would have been unironically upvoted a year ago by all the people downvoting it now.
You're exactly right. There's absolutely no way to influence the Democratic party's decisions through criticism or making it clear that they're on track to lose. Joe Biden is who we're stuck with and if you say you won't vote for him, you're completely useless. He's the only one who can beat Trump.
Strangely, he wasn't listed on my ballot so I just had to write him in.
Wow, this thread is full of Russian bots and Trump supporters. Biden is the picture of health, extremely spry and cognizant, personally, I thought he handled himself very well in the debates, despite the media attacking him unfairly over his stutter. Regardless, he's the nominee, whether you like him or not, no amount of complaining will change that. He's the lesser evil so we're stuck with him and you just have to vote for him, unconditionally.
there is a perfectly good flag for England that people refuse to use
Well yeah, but these days, you say you're English, you'll get arrested and thrown in jail 😆
We can't condemn the Nazis because if we condemn the Nazis people will think we're Nazis. When people see that we won't condemn the Nazis, that's how they'll know we aren't Nazis.
Non sequitor. Not what I said and not a Republican.
Campaigns are about winning swing states, those are just the rules of the game. Kamala lost that game worse than any Democrat in nearly 40 years. Maybe the rules we have aren't fair, and if they were different, she would've lost by a smaller margin. But then, both campaigns would've been run completely differently, the same candidates might not have even been the nominees, etc.
By the actual rules of the actual game, Kamala lost extremely badly.
This was literally the worst electoral map for the Democrats since 1988 when Republicans won Illinois and California.
:::spoiler Which Country is the Greatest Threat to Peace? (Gallup, 2018)
I'm confused, when you talk about voting "Democrat," do you mean, for the Democratic-Republicans? I was thinking of voting Federalist, personally.
Since our system makes it impossible to change from the two currently existing parties, it follows that the two parties we have now must be the ones we started with.
But regardless, this is typical shortsighted liberal (i.e. capitalist) analysis that only looks at the immediate outcome and only at electoral politics. If a significant portion of the electorate can make a credible threat to sit out if their demands are not met, then they can leverage that threat to get what they want. The right is much more willing to do this because they put their values above reason, and it works - many Republican candidates understand that if they look soft on things like abortion or guns, a sizable portion of their base will defect, even if it means voting for a crank and throwing the election. Democratic voters are much more committed to being "reasonable" and so refuse to set any red lines anywhere, and the results are clear: the right successfully shifts the Republicans to be more extreme, the Democrats follow, and the left falls in line and accepts it. We are desperately overdue to start learning from their successful tactics and from our own failures, setting down red lines, and thinking beyond the current cycle. And we can debate where exactly red lines should be set, but if genocide doesn't deserve one, nothing does.
Moreover, the facts of physical reality, the material conditions, and the myriad of crises we're facing demand radical changes beyond what we are told are possible in the existing system. But those things are physical, natural, immutable facts, while our political system is, on a fundamental level, manmade. We do not have to abide by its rules and what it tells us is and isn't possible - but we do have to do that regarding the laws of nature, which tell us about things like climate change. Monarchy had no mechanism built into the system to transform into liberal democracy, and yet, here we are. That's because there are fundamental mechanisms for change that exist within every political system, whether the system wants them to or not, and I don't just mean revolutions, but demonstrations, strikes, etc. And so, the party I voted for, PSL, participates in electoral politics for the express purpose of building organization beyond electoral politics. Helping a candidate who I see as fundamentally unacceptable win an election is less important that helping to promote that sort of organizing.
Bit idea: Guy who's desperate to prove he's not a Nazi so he just starts doing everything the Nazis accused people of doing, up to and including helping Jewish people commit genocide
Maryland Sen. Van Hollen meets with mistakenly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia in El Salvador
Banned for calling out a mod after they claimed that criticism of Japanese Internment was "not legitimate"
If you thought missiles were disruptive to trade, wait til you see what policy can do
On a scale of 1-10, how accurate do you believe the charge scene from "Enemy at the Gates" is?
Add "Havana Syndrome" to the list of fake stories that you're not allowed to question on .world
Dear CEO fans, when you watch Andor, you need to understand that Syril Karn is about you.