But have you considered that a system that leads to fascism is still better than actually manifested fascism?? And yea, maybe we should fix it before it gets there, but if it can’t be fixed with voting now then we should have voted harder before, and vote harder next time
Voting gives the illusion of choice and power. If it really made a difference we wouldn’t be allowed to do it.
Voting gives choice and power. If it didn’t make a difference they wouldn’t try to stop you from voting
Roger Stone got Bush elected by swarming a court house
Trump has harassed the authenticity of voting, voting laws and registration rolls to prevent people from voting.
Removed by mod
it’s not, actually, any better to be falling off a cliff that to have finished the fall.
Of course it is, you’re only panicking, not panicking while in incredible pain.
the pain is inevitable. it’s no better.
Might as well kill everybody since everybody eventually dies
not the takeaway you should have had there. how about you do something besides jump off the cliff, like oppose liberal democracy
Are you a god damned child?
Yes. Action for the sake of action is fascist. Wjat these damn dirty commies dont understand is that actually doing anything ever is the real fascism
And then we really would be no better than the red team!
Pretty sure the implication is that you’ll be dead at the end of the fall
Darnittt and I’m already voting against who I want in charge rather than who I actually want to have a majority. 😩 Is there like a fascist lite party I can vote for or something?? Obviously, I’d prefer no fascism but as we all no, it’s that kind of talk that leads to the fascists taking over!
Sorry thats sounding suspiciously like action
Which is fascist.
As a soc dem, capitalism is only slightly better but the system needs heavy regulations. But with the burgeoning AI and automation, I am starting to lean more towards socialism. I mean, after AI “companies” stole our data to train their AI with, isn’t it only right that WE should actually take rightful ownership of that? At some point, AI and automation will become advanced enough that most jobs will be gone and humans would not be needed anymore. When that time comes, the ordinary folks should take their rightful stake in that automation revolution by taxing robots or take communal ownership of AI to fund universal basic income and services. That is the best socialism we can get. Not only we can finally rid of social ails that plague humanity due to unbridled capitalism, but also we are taking away full power from oligarchs who stole our own data to begin with. They would not be there if it weren’t for us to begin with.
Action for the sake og action is fascist, therefore opposing fascism is fascism! Checkmate, fucking commies! They fucking got you!
Have you considered that this is a false dichotomy?
It is sad reality in the two-party states.
… if you’re dead set on maintaining a liberal democracy, where “maintaining” refers to what you’re seeing in the US with Trump right now. Also, it’s not restricted to two party systems. Look at Europe.
Nah, I mean literally the US without some kind of revolution. States aren’t THAT separate in the US.
Nope the only choice is fascism and that which leads there
Liberal *slower death cult.
“Guys guys, lets work for the slow death instead of the fast death.”
Gives similar vibes to “capitalism is the least bad system”
Lol
I just want a little fascism … not a lot of fascism.
“How about half a genocide?”
Let’s just go for the whole genocide, otherwise we might have to pay for bananas.
With our latest promo, you can even have a full genocide as long as your communication remains civil !
as long as your communication remains civil
Alternatively, you can just call anyone calling out the genocide “antisemitic”. /j
Just a little exploitation for my benefit, as long as it doesn’t happen near me.
The global south can have a little exploitation, as a treat.
What have they ever done for us? /j
“So long as we’re exploiting the brown people in countries I don’t have to care about, it’s all good”
As a treat!
No, you got it all wrong!
We shouldn’t do fascism, we should do imperialism! since we’re not affected, problem solved! Because as long as i don’t see the brown people suffering, it’s all okay.
Guys guys, lets work for the slow death instead of the fast death
i mean… yes?
What about working for the no death ?
They’re not mutually exclusive. I’d argue it’s easier to work on the no death solution under a slow death regime than a fast one. We’ve still got a lot of work to do to get to an ideal solution. Lesser evil solutions ensure slightly more favorable conditions while we do that work.
Removed by mod
Well that’s called necromancy and is generally frowned upon (ofc i get what you mean, avoiding death is the goal)
we all are working for it but clearly aren’t there yet, to draw a parallel, we don’t have a cure for cancer YET but you can bet your ass i’m gonna do chemo if i end up with it
To reuse the analogy, I’m not saying that everyone becoming immortal will happen in a finger snap, I’m saying that “just dying from cancer Vs. chemo for a few wealthy” is a bullshit choice. The first wee basic step we should strive for is to make the treatment available to all those suffering from cancer.
The wee basic step we should strive for is to make the treatment available to all those suffering from cancer.
right. so the slow death. the one you were previously criticizing.
In politics, the first wee basic step we should strive for is not a complete revolution without the support of the masses, but to put in power someone who, if not better, doesn’t ruin more the already tragic and delicate system we have, to give us time to organize better.
And uhh yeah we kinda failed at that
without the support of the masses
Good thing clinton and harris had all that support of the masses, love how they managed to get all that support from the masses. Im glad me not voting for them didn’t matter, because ‘the masses’ supported them so much!
Said it already, the slow death is accepting that the treatment should go to those who can afford it. That’s the unacceptable compromise for leftists…
the slow death is accepting that the treatment should go to those who can afford it.
and how does that relate to politics, especially seeing as you are actively sabotaging the party that wants medicare/medicaid
But how is liberalism [the slow death cult] going to get us there. Liberalism has been the dominant system for the past 70 years. And I’d say we’re worse off economically then we were in the 60s.
Liberalism is what USA is founded on
No. If there is any hope of actual survival, that comes before all else. Accepting the slow death of “voting blue no matter who” means that there is no possibility of averting fascism whatsoever. It is an inevitability that if the only side representing “the left” is associating itself with a declining status quo while refusing to do any of the things necessary to keep that status quo functional, them people will abandon it, and if the only ones offering an alternative are the far-right, then they are the ones who will win. There is no hope of survival whatsoever.
There are, however, two possibilities that do offer some slim hope of surviving. One is that the Democratic party can be pressured into doing the basic, minimal tasks of governance necessary to avert fascism - tasks that they will never simply choose to do of their own volition. The second is that the left can establish a credible alternative outside of the organization of the Democratic party, whether electorally or otherwise. Both of those objectives are furthered by voting third party when the Democrats are offering someone insultingly unacceptable, while “voting blue no matter who” flies directly contrary to both goals.
You’re thinking of it as doing chemo when there’s no cure. That’s not what this is. This is deciding to just take a nice little nap in the comfy snow because your legs are so tired and you’ll totally get up again in just a few minutes, rather than choosing to get up and push forward through the darkness in the hope, however slim, of finding an actual shelter.
This “buying time to organize” line is constantly thrown around, I don’t buy it as sincere at all, for starters. But regardless, time is not on our side, buying time only means allowing conditions to deteriorate further, it’s just procrastinating and kicking the can down the line. And how do you effectively organize an alternative to the status quo and present yourself as separate from it while simultaneously trying to rally around it and supporting it unconditionally? It’s nonsense.
This “buying time to organize” line is constantly thrown around, I don’t buy it as sincere at all, for starters.
I’ve heard that line for close to 30 years. So, when is that organizing supposed to start? When things get so uncomfortable that we have no choice? Not sure how that’s materially different than the accelerationist position, except that it means fighting the proverbial 800lb. silverback gorilla instead of an adolescent.
You’re thinking of it as doing chemo when there’s no cure. That’s not what this is. This is deciding to just take a nice little nap in the comfy snow because your legs are so tired and you’ll totally get up again in just a few minutes, rather than choosing to get up and push forward through the darkness in the hope, however slim, of finding an actual shelter.
No, they were right. Chemo is the right analogy. Fascism is cancer, liberalism is chemo, leftism is the cure. Cancer kills, chemo is miserable but it’s better than dying of cancer, and a cure isn’t ready yet. Your options are to die of cancer waiting for the perfect cure, or doing chemo to live long enough to maybe see that cure.
This “buying time to organize” line is constantly thrown around, I don’t buy it as sincere at all, for starters.
It’s constantly “thrown around” because it’s true. Your posturing as the sincerity police doesn’t change that fact. The Dems told Palestinian activists to wait their turn to talk, MAGA stripped their degrees, arrested, and deported them. It’s easier to organize on the sidelines than from prison.
But regardless, time is not on our side,
Exactly, because of the idealists who refused to help buy more
buying time only means allowing conditions to deteriorate further, it’s just procrastinating and kicking the can down the line.
No, conditions are deteriorating either way. Buying time is just slowing that deterioration, so enough structure remains to build upon.
And how do you effectively organize an alternative to the status quo and present yourself as separate from it while simultaneously trying to rally around it and supporting it unconditionally?
It’s not unconditional, it’s based on two conditions: as long as fascism is getting enough votes to win, and as long as there’s no viable alternative. I see plenty of suggested alternatives, but none that are viable. This mindset vastly overestimates the political will of the average voter, and vastly underestimates the time and effort necessary to effectively organize an alternative.
People aren’t just going to spontaneously rally around a vague impetus for revolution. Certainly not enough people to actually succeed. They need to see a specific plan of action, organization, and popularity. Third party candidates pulling <1% aren’t it. You’re suggesting a cancer patient replace their chemo with keto and essential oils.
When there’s a cure, I’ll be behind it 100%. Until then, I’m sticking with chemo so I can live long enough to see a cure.
liberalism leads to fascism. it’s the cause of cancer, not the cure in any sense.
Didn’t say it was the cure. Chemo isn’t the cure for cancer, it’s a treatment. Baby tigers lead to adult tigers, but I’d rather be locked in a tiger cage with a baby than an adult.
but that’s not the option. it’s being locked in a tiger den, and you’re choosing to play with the cub. you should be trying to get out of the den or kill the tigers.
How do you figure? Getting out of the cage and killing the tiger are both tasks which are easier to do when trapped with a baby tiger than an adult one.
I’ve tried reasoning with you before so I know you won’t listen, you are a devout believer in voting blue no matter who and I’d have about as much luck trying to reason with you as if I tried to convince my parents to become atheists.
Everything you say is wrong, and your words constantly show your true beliefs that you refuse to admit. For example, “The Dems told Palestinian activists to wait their turn to talk,” when in fact they disrupted protests through force, arrested many of them, denounced them as antisemites, and refused to give even the token gesture of allowing a Palestinians speaker at the convention. You don’t mind any of that, because despite what you’ll say, you don’t care about the issue.
I have no interest in discussing anything further with you.
Okay but have ypu considered that suggesting i shouldn’t want to die is ageist and attacking my culture? Whos the real imperialist, huh, boomer?
The thread has made it to /all, lord help us.
Oh fuck the liberals found us 😂
We gotta bunker down, its time for the whatabout people.
oh lord help us! not the accountability!
The accountability of “making fun of things that suck”?
So capitalism leads to fascism, and its socialism we want; is that right?
Blame everyone except the fascists
There is this wild concept called “two things existing at once”
You can simultaneously blame the fascist for their actions while also holding the liberal establishment accountable for theirs. The two are not mutually exclusive.
Since we’re on the topic of nuance, would you also say it is possible to support the liberal establishment in defeating facism while also pushing for change within the party?
No, I wouldn’t, explicitly because of the nuanced differences between leftist ideology and the right-wing, neoliberalist establishment that make them fundamentally oppositional. Their interests as owning class citizens means they have fundamentally vested interests that are diametrically oppositional to our interests as working class, and will never truly change beyond offering mild concessions to prevent systemic collapse. If we want left wing progress, it won’t be from within the current party. We need a fundamentally new party that actually holds the interests of the working class at priority.
Though, personally, as an anarchist, I do not believe change will come from within the system. It is structurally designed to force internal actors to capitulate to the interests of the economy, essentially tying their interests to the strength of the capitalist economy as a means to strengthen or maintain their own political power once in a seat if authority. Thus, will never be allowed through internal means to exert the will of the working class.
That isn’t to say we shouldn’t build dual power to protect our interests, just that our focus should be at local and state level, not the federal. It doesn’t matter what the federal agency does or says, they still have to be able to enforce their rule. If the local communities are banded together so that when push comes to shove, we can actually do some shoving of our own, they won’t be able to enforce their authority over us.
would you say it is possible to support the liberal establishment in defeating facism
Not if their past or current behavior is any indication.
No, sorry, there is only one thing, and all divisions are imaginary. You. Me. The ocean. Alpha centauri. The concept of corrugation. These are all the same thing.
Scratch a liberal…
As opposed to Tankies? Lol
We’re well past identifying the source of the problem. If aliens invaded and everyone was debating how best to fight back, you’d be sitting there saying “Why is nobody blaming the aliens!?” Everyone who would understand that the country is falling into fascism already does. Anyone who doesn’t simply hasn’t yet admitted that they like fascism.
Yes, fascists exist, and are to blame for a large chunk of the failures of society. Now is the time to figure out who’s going to help fight against them in a way that keeps them away for as long as possible, and who’s going to claim that they had some good points, setting the stage for their expedited return.
Alright but you’re also additionally alienating the party who majority aligns with your supposed policy stances as well as the people who vote for them, unless you dislike accountability, democracy, and worker solidarity.
If you think the Democratic party in any way, shape, or form supports leftist (especially anarchist) ideology, then you are so politically illiterate that it isn’t even a joke. It’s just sad.
then you are so politically illiterate that it isn’t even a joke. It’s just sad.
They’ve previously defended Nazis and continue to claim they never did so, they’re amazingly politically illiterate and refuse to learn
Devotion to capitalism and the status quo will certainly complicate forming a unified front based around against changing the economic system.
I’ve yet to converse with somebody who has any realistic plan to do away with capitalism unless their definition of capitalism is “western nation”.
Let’s just tax the rich and regulate the markets.
And what’s your plan to get that done? What, you’re going to convince wealthy politicians to give you those things, and piss off their donors, just out of the goodness of their hearts? What about when they don’t do that, are you going to find your backbone and criticize them directly instead of turning all of your vitriol to the left of you?
No, of course not. Your plan is to vote harder and throw up your hands when the things we desperately need as a class are explicitly left off the table; spoiling the vote, btw; because the things that would really get people out to vote, across party lines, just happen to be things that go against the interests of the ruling class. Then you’ll shout at the rest of us for “dividing the left” when we point out the fucking obvious that those who derive power from capital are not going to give up that power voluntarily and the whole thing was smoke and mirrors to keep you invested in the system that affords them that power.
We as a class will need to organize and build class consciousness so that we can pull our collective power together and use it to force the hand of the ruling class. That’s what a realistic plan looks like. That is the only way meaningful change has ever been wrought about in this country.
Fair democracy with an educated populace to minimize all human suffering and avert maximum harm.
Don’t like wealth hoarders? Tax them.
Don’t like shady businesses? Regulate them.
If something needs to be overthrown it’s a wannabe despot, not the concept of goods traded for legal tender. Constant progress has occured for hundreds of years. Theres hardly ever a time in the past better than this decade in the USA.
Capitalism is not only “the concept of goods traded for legal tender”, it is an ideology that wealth accumulation is the one true moral good to strive for above all else, no matter who or what you have to exploit for it. It is a system where power and capital are one and the same.
Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism, fascism is imperialism turned inwards. It’s a corporate capture of government to remove all obstacles for wealth accumulation, private growth at the expense of the working class using the out-group as a scapegoat. It’s not only a really bad guy getting into power, it is the natural progression of capitalism.
Theres hardly ever a time in the past better than this decade in the USA.
This is laughably false. Holy shit you’re brainwashed.
If anything you suggested worked, we wouldn’t be here. We have had all of that in the past, and it didn’t solve the core problem that allowed all of it to then be taken away.
It’s a great thought experiment, but it’s not a plan and it doesn’t help anyone who was already struggling before the last decade.
I think its possible to blame one group in this meme and another group in another meme.
Fascists are bad, they don’t listen to criticism.
Liberals are less bad, and claim to listen to criticism.
So why not try to criticize the people who are “fighting” Trump for better plans and actions? One person alone has a good idea but not a great execution. Gathering an idea and people to fight for it is worth doing.
Plus if you think no one here is calling out fascists, you’re hella ignorant and blind. We call out the people who enable and slow roll fascists. We can blame Biden for not arresting Trump because he wanted two wins in a roll.
Because a lot of the people in here didn’t vote last election.
- Most people here did. I did for Harris. Somehow everytime someone says that, they’re saying it to people who voted.
- Non-voting democrats were further to the right. https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/democratic-nonvoters-policy-preferences/
You can probably drop this trope now that there’s plenty of data showing that. It was largely moderate, working class Democrats who didn’t vote, not online leftists.
Okay but what if i really want to feel sanctimonious, but believe in nothing but empty shibboleths of virtue?
It seems like if those things were true, dropping it would be super against my best interests! Maybe consider other people and their feelings sometime, jerk. The left are so cruel.
Wait, now i can drop the first thing.
I was homeless so i didnt get the mail, and in jail literally that day so i couldnt try to vote in person.
Not that i would have, but it was dem policies responsible for both things.
No but see you spent an entire minute not calling out fascists while you responded to liberals saying we should accept the proper party submission position© for the fascists. So you’re basically the same as a fascist. Sorry; i don’t make the rules, i just fetishize and enforce them only on my ideological enemies.
Because the better plan has historically always led to a failed state and all of our enemes are cheering it on.
When Anarchists and Tankies are capitalising on a situation the outcomes are as predictable as the Trump Agenda.
Oh look, blatant historical ignorance to the reasons that led to a failed state. Of course it was intrinsic to the philosophy, absolutely not due to outside interference and manipulation from decades of concentrated effort by the capitalist hegemony.
Look, the state itself as a concept has its issues, but your perspective of the situation is just flat bullshit.
historically always led to a failed state
Failed state (USSR) is when you turn a feudal backwater country (Russian Empire) with a life expectancy of 28 years into the second world industrial power within 50 years and provide universal free healthcare, education, pensions for retirement, eliminate unemployment and homelessness, and you don’t exploit the resources and labour of the global south. Oh, and you save Europe from Nazism, which is what this post was originally about.
In this hypothetical also get to starve millions of people to death and your legacy gets to be sending out late night death squads to kill dissenters. Well, not you. You would never be in charge. You will never be Joseph Stalin, somebody else will be and you will suffer with the rest of the peasants.
Millions of people routinely starved in pre-Soviet Russia and you don’t seem to have a problem with it. Soviets ended hunger after WW2 through the mechanisation of agriculture, as all countries which eliminated hunger did. Suffering famines during civil wars, during Nazi invasion of your territory, and during mass collectivisation processes, isn’t exclusive to the Soviet Union, it’s a rather common thing in preindustrial societies as the Soviet Union was at that time. That’s in opposition to England murdering many millions more of Indians in the Bengal famine during WW2 by purposefully extracting essentially all food from some regions of India.
your legacy gets to be sending out late night death squads to kill dissenters
Thats just, like, your opinion, dude. The legacy of the Soviet Union (a project much greater than a single man who was president for less than 3 decades of the project) saved Europe from Nazism (saving tens if not hundreds of millions of lives in the process), industrialised 300 million people without abusing colonialism and extraction of resources and labour from the global south, rose life expectancy from 28 years to 70, guaranteed free education to the highest level to all women and men of the country, produced the lowest historically recorded levels of inequality in the region, and eliminated homelessness and unemployment.
Stop swallowing and spreading western anticommunist propaganda, the evil is the western empire oppressing billions in the global south, not a country that suffered famines during land collectivisation.
No that’s not accurate. Centralized agricultural planning in pre-soviet Russia was still better than what the Soviets implemented, this was all very well documented that more people died as a result of the changes made.
Centralized agricultural planning in pre-soviet Russia was still better than what the Soviets implemented
Life expectancy was 28 years old before the Bolsheviks, after the land reforms and WW2 life expectancy rose dramatically to 60, what on Earth are you talking about
Yeah. If we had all just fallen in line president delacruz would be fixing shit right now. She was electable if these fucking anarchists would have voted for her!
Who?
Clearly didnt even read your ballot. Fucking shameful. This is why we’re being ruled by fascists.
Hey, remember all the time the blues defended red team by taking all the momentum, monopolizing possibility, and then just throwing as hard as they possibly could at the last second, up to and including surrendering a presidemtial election that they won?
Remember when they murdered the concept of hope for my entire generation?
If you didn’t vote delacruz, you clearly didn’t take this electoralism stuff seriously.
I don’t wanna blame anybody. I want to criticize the people that I think have the best chance of actually being influenced to do the things we need them to do. And guess who that is?
The royal we while you literally advocate against a united left and democracy
Do you wanna explain to me where you’re seeing me “advocating against a united left and democracy“?
No, I am honestly at a loss as to how you don’t see the subtext of our conversation.
You know it’s pretty outrageous to insist that you know what I think better than I do, especially after exchanging only a few sentences
Skill Issue
My issue with this is that Dale and Boomhauer aren’t in the back of the truck then they are.
Total immersion break. Unplayable.
That’s Bill and Boomhauer in the back
Omg I can’t believe my hubris 😭
Liberals: best I can do is tittering at the edges.
If i sit on the fence, I will never be on the wrong side.
The fence is very squarely with medical for all, free education, democracy, and taxing the rich while the other side is about a mile away from the fence in 1930s Germany, so…
If the Democrats were willing and capable of getting Americans things like universal healthcare, why didn’t they do it while they were in power?
Democrats haven’t had 60 senators since 1979. They had 58 in 2010 for exactly 72 days and tried to pass public option healthcare but only 1 independent voted with them so they settled for the lesser medicaid expansion that the current Republicans are gutting in the budget. For the record, that medicaid expansion passed with supermajority as every singe Republican voted nay.
If an army is attacking your enemy you dont send your military in against both sides just because you dont like either. You will either sit and watch it play out (not a real option) or join the side you hate the least knowing that I the end they will need to go.
Modern Democrats are just old-school 1980s Republicans.
Modern Democrats are just old-school 1980s Republicans.
Is that why they love Reagan and Reaganomics so much?
/s
They love globalization. We all love it’s cheap consumer goods tho. That and cocaine. In those ways, we’re all 80s republicans.
So do socialist governments.
Unless you love tinkle-down economics and gays dying of AIDS you’re not an 80s republican.
Participating in democracy doesn’t lead to fascism, capitalism does. Protest non-voters are idiots that gave away the one best power our system offers. Congratulations on your new fascist overlords, dummies. Anarchism is about power to the people and power to communities, you vote for the best thing for your community regardless of your personal feelings. Do I wish there was a better candidate than Kamala Harris? Hell yeah I do, but she is lightyears better than Trump for my people so she got my vote. You have to start where you are, not in some fantasy land where leftists have a viable alternative. You want change? Go find a milquetoast liberal running uncontested and primary against them. Ask hard questions and make them accountable. Sitting on your high horse while the world burns is not only useless, but an insult to the people who are actually suffering because of your choices. Fuck off.
Participating in democracy doesn’t lead to fascism, capitalism does.
Democrats are Capitalists. The entire rest of your rant doesn’t follow from the first sentence.
democracy, the act of people voting for one outcome over another. is not inherently linked to any monetary system.
if i vote to grow potatoes in my garden lot, and others in my group vote for tomatoes, and they win, so we grow tomatoes, thats democracy. what we want to do with the crop afterwards, and why, is what links it to another system.
democracy by itself is not capitalist. its just used in capitalist systems, and various others.
It’s obvious from context that by “Democrats” I meant the Democratic Party. The post I replied to was ranting about how protest voters who refused to vote for Kamala are to blame for fascism.
Hey look, it’s someone who still hasn’t noticed that the Dems and repubs have the same bosses
Anarchism is about power to the people and power to communities, you vote for the best thing for your community regardless of your personal feelings
Yes, we anarchists famously believe that liberation from repressive structures can be achieved first-and-foremost through voting.
I get that this is your perspective, but I think you’ve missed the point of anarchism if this is what you think it entails.
My perspective is that you fight on ALL fronts and you don’t leave power on the table for fascists to grab just because it doesn’t fit in with your revolution fantasy narrative to do so. I never said nor implied that voting is enough. It isn’t. But it is a simple way to keep dangerous people away from power.
That’s dandy, but that’s not an anarchist perspective. Fascism arises from capitalism under threat - if you’re not ready to defend yourself against the state abusing it’s monopoly on violence, then you’re not an anarchist.
The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.
It’s the people’s house. We built it. It’s been stolen and you let them. Who’s the anarchist?
The state, something that anarchists famously believe is made by and for the people.
If the house of government was ever truly the people’s, it was stolen from us the moment it was done being built.
Democracy is only a small measure of power, and in a liberal democracy, most of that power is ceded to capital.
Let it burn I say. fuck Elon’s kids
inevitably
Yes, “inevitably.” What the fuck do you think is going to happen when one side is “A declining status quo that we refuse to fix as it gets worse and worse,” and the other is, “Let’s see what’s behind door #2! (hint: It’s fascism!)”
Inevitably people will grow dissatisfied with the status quo, and look for any alternative. Inevitably. 100% chance. What part of that is so hard to understand?
This is actually how it goes. Capitalism in Decline leads to some kind of fascism. Just think in terms of the interest of the capitalist class and how they guide the herd. Liberals are neoliberals and neoliberals are fascist. America is an imperialist, empire, and Nazis are the useful idiots of empire. You know, you could look at it like the Imperial Boomerang. It’s not like we’ve changed. It’s just the veil’s been removed and the ruling elite is dealing with blowback as they continue to march forward towards their selfish goals. We are just keeping it real nowadays, living in the world of the lowest common denominator. First world nations usually turn towards fascism while countries that are more collectivist culturally turn to socialism. And we gotta go fash to the extreme before eventually anything changes because the herd does not recognize what they’re stepping into. The herd does not know where it came from, where it’s going, so it’s only through collective suffering that anything will ever change, and it might even take a lifetime.
So if “the status quo” inevitably leads to fascism, the only way to avoid fascism would be a society that is in constant change? Well, for one thing, every society is in constant change unless you install some kind of religious dogmatic dictatorship, and even those break after some time under the stress of sociological pressures.
Fascism, or things very much like it, happen whenever you let fear mongering powerhungry fools who deny reality in favor of some kind of nostalgia infused “greater” image of your society get away with their bullshit.
Human leadership leads to fascism at some point, because humans love their fears and their tribal behavior.
Society is constantly changing, yes. The problem is our institutions have not kept up.
A given institution (or complex of institutions) incentivize a certain set of behaviors. Not everyone adopts those behaviors, but enough do that the effect accumulates. Eventually something will break, some set of behavioral interactions start negatively interacting with the system (like, say, a for-profit healthcare system that incentivizes not treating the sick and wounded).
In a functioning system, this would be where you study what happened, and use what you’ve learned about the problem to try adapt the institution. This will create a new set of incentives for a new set of behaviors… and inevitably a new problem will grow out of it and the process starts over again.
I can’t speak for other places, but in the US that is very much NOT what happens. Our status quo is stagnant. We’ve had the same problems for decades now. That is what creates fertile ground for fascism - when the guy saying, “We’ll burn the rot and go back to when it was better” sounds more appealing than, “Nothing will fundamentally change”.
Yes, problem is that there often is gradual change that is not seen enough. I don’t live in the US, the healthcare system there that bleeds the state and the population spectacularly is incomprehensible to me. I don’t understand how there is not a new Nintendo character doing his thing every week, given the cruelty combined with the amount of desperate people who have guns.
I live in a country in the EU that has institutions that rather constantly get updated and change to try and keep up with the needs of society (and the need for politicians to show how useful they are).
The constant change is somewhat exhausting to be honest as the agency where you apply for something today might not exist next year, the requirements for applying for the same thing might be different next month…
Yet even here right wing gains every election because they present a world view with simple solutions to complex problems.
So if “the status quo” inevitably leads to fascism, the only way to avoid fascism would be a society that is in constant change?
No, that doesn’t follow at all from what I said. The present, declining status quo is leading towards people losing faith in it, and in the present conditions, the far right are the only ones capable of offering the convincing appearance of an alternative. Not every status quo is declining, in some cases, it may be possible to address such decline, and in other cases, the left is able to present a realistic alternative to both the right and the status quo, and so the rise of fascism would no longer be an inevitability - if there are more doors than door #2, people may pick another door.
Fascism, or things very much like it, happen whenever you let fear mongering powerhungry fools who deny reality in favor of some kind of nostalgia infused “greater” image of your society get away with their bullshit.
No, Fascism is not some random aberration, it is capitalism’s rational solution the problem of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. When there is no room for the economy to grow, society is divided into an gradually shrinking in group and an ever expanding out group, by seizing the assets of the out group and feeding them into the in group, artificial growth can be maintained, for a time. A more permanent and viable solution is to nationalize developed industries, removing the profit motive once it is no longer useful, that is, socialism.
This is the fundamental difference in worldviews between liberals and leftists regarding the present situation. Liberals see Trump and the alt-right as this sort of bizarre fluke that seemingly came out of nowhere, and may well return to nowhere just as spontaneously. Leftists actually study the material reasons that caused them to come into political relevance, and thereby understand that even if you cut the weeds, the roots are still there and will regrow, that the material reasons that created them in the first place must be addressed.
The liberal status quo inevitably leads to fascism. This shit doesn’t happen in Cuba, Vietnam, or China because they dont let capitalism stop them from addressing societal problems.
Well you could say they start with an authoritarian regime that doesn’t do well with things like human rights to begin with if they don’t go to fascism it’s because they have a system that has, for a large part, most of the same downsides.
lmao talking about human rights when we have the highest prison population in the world. Have you ever felt like you had influence on the state’s actions? The average cuban has, in their lifetime, been able to help write their own constitution, and then vote for it by referendum. The average Chinese feels their government represents their interests.
We, do not. I’m not American. The US to me is an absurd place where wealth gets way too much power and respect.
If you could have voted, didn’t vote for Harris, and aren’t actively out in the streets hucking bricks at ICE and trumpers, then I have no respect for you.
You played the game and you played to lose. You played to lose when we had everything to lose, and nothing to gain. You made the 4th worst choice I can think of in the last 30 years.
It honestly made fuck all difference how I voted. My state went for Harris. My state was always going to go for Harris.
Matter of fact? My state is the only state that actually went MORE for Harris than it did for Biden.
A lot of people agree with you. In fact, so many agree with you that a lot of people in firm red and blue states didn’t bother voting. Because of that, Trump won the popular vote, and people said it wasn’t the electoral college’s fault that he won. But it was. The electoral college made people like you lose hope that you could have an impact.
If more people like you had voted, then Kamala would have won the popular vote. If Trump had won without the popular vote twice, it would be obvious to the layperson than the electoral college needs to go. We’d have much more fuel for a popular revolution to dismantle the electoral college. Right now, people are hopeless. They think most Americans want Trump. Because of people who thought like you.
Harris would have abolished ICE and gotten rid of the cages that Trump set up and Biden ignored, right?
…Right?
Ignored? Biden did try to reunite with their families the migrant children who were caged under Trump’s first term. Some couldn’t be found because of the Trump administration’s lax recordkeeping, but they didn’t just ignore them. That’s just a lie.
So everyone was freed form the cages and they were removed, making it harder for Trump to keep doing it? Zero people in there by the end of 2024?
If we’re talking about the cells that were built during the Obama administration as temporary holding cells, which Trump then used to permanently hold migrant children who were separated from their guardians by his inhumane policy, then yes, there were no children being held in those cells by the end of 2024.
Nah you’re right. Good thing trump is getting rid of them…OH WAIT.
“What about Trump being evil?”
Yeah he’s fucking evil, good going dodging my question.
It’s all liberals know how to do. Cannot for the life of them take responsibility. Blame the left for their failure while using the right as a boogeyman to force compliance.
No cages is obviously the ideal case. Fewer cages is obviously better than more cages, which was the choice at the polls.
“I don’t believe in voting” fine, enjoy the more cages option.
But the cages didn’t go down with Biden. COVID was ignored under Biden. Trump wanted these things and Biden kept them. It’s not lesser evil, its incremental evil.
I also didn’t say anything about not voting. I voted for Harris. I’ve proven it before and I will proven it again if needed. It was useless here in California but I did it anyways.
Sorry, couldn’t answer your question because I don’t live in an alternate reality where trump didn’t win. Maybe ask some of the other people here?
So Harris would have kept ICE then, got it.
Probably, since ICE was created by Congress as part of the 2002 Homeland Security Act. The President oversees it, but funding and removing the organization is a power of congress and not the president. You would know that if you bothered to learn a little bit before forming opinions.
“You see we need to keep the Gastapo, parliament passed it so why stop it?”
I understand Harris can’t write bills as president, you dingus. A president has sway over their party. What Biden wanted, Dems pushed. What Trump wants, Republicans demand.
If Harris, a brown woman said “Hey ICE is a racist police organization made post-9/11 to go after brown people, let’s push to get rid of it” that would spark movement in Congress.
Shouldn’t you be spending your gaslighting budget on your fellow liberals who actually understand what the term genocide means, liberal?
They have to proselytize and guilt trip for a politician failing at their job of winning over voters.
It’s not just a politican they are proselytising for… they are proselytising for an entire ideology that has hit rock-bottom. Liberalism’s lies have come crashing down - and it’s adherents will happily consign colonised peoples to the abyss if it means they can pretend it hasn’t.
They will keep talking to themselves as how voting the only thing that matters, everyone has to vote for the 2nd most evil candidature, and then fail at earning votes.
And then blame people for not being interested in “I will have as strong as a border as Trump, I will have the strongest military ever, I will abide by rules for anti-trans states, and I will do nothing about Gaza.”
They will keep talking to themselves as how voting the only thing that matters, everyone has to vote for the 2nd most evil candidature
I think you need to re-read my original comment. To summarize it here though…
You are either working within the system (voting/or abstaining from voting) or working outside the system (overthrowing by force), but I have no respect for people who work within while intending to fail, knowingly risking everything for that failure, for no possible gain, and then have the audacity to think that other people are the deluded ones making poor choices.
If you didn’t vote for Harris, and you aren’t burning shit, then you’re either a trumper who is fine with all the shit that is going on, or you’re a spineless imbecile who was willing to ruin everything for everyone, but unwilling actually make a meaningful attack on the system.
It’s not gaslighting if it’s the truth.
By voting (or just not voting) you participated in the system. If you want to be against the system, then you need to overthrow it.
You played to lose, which was dumb, and you played to lose when there was nothing to gain, and everything to lose (which is even more dumb). If you aren’t burning shit, then you never actually cared enough to be against it, you’re an apathetic asshole who squandered their only voice to say “I don’t care if the facists win, Kamala isn’t perfect and I can’t stand that”. You may not have voted for trump, but you sure as fuck voted for all of this. I have no respect for the people that lack neither the intelligence to make the right decisions, nor the conviction to live with the consequences of making the wrong one.
It’s not gaslighting if it’s the truth.
So you admit to gaslighting, then. Plus one for honesty, I guess.
By voting (or just not voting) you participated in the system.
Soooo… neither participating nor not participating means anything - is that correct?
and everything to lose
LOL! Lose what, genius? Did you really think that glorified pig was going to actually protect you from the fascists? I guess you don’t understand why the libs institutionalised that very thing we call “fascism” today in the first place, huh?
Wake the fuck up.
By voting (or just not voting) you participated in the system.
Soooo… neither participating nor not participating means anything - is that correct?
Couldn’t be more wrong. You are either playing to win, not playing to win, or not playing. In a 2 party system, a non-vote is the same decision as a vote. If you want to not play, then you need to be hostile to the system.
LOL! Lose what, genius?
Well, let’s see… My grandparents Medicare, my LGBTQ friends and family members rights, retirement savings, what little healthcare we actually had before, literally climate and the ability to live at or near the equator and coasts… Didn’t even have to google any of that. I guess if you want the full list, you can read project 2025, and the also draw conclusions from related activities. Oh, vaccine availability and herd immunity. 1st Amendment rights. Habeas corpus just to tack on a few more there.
You wake the fuck up and look and the fucking mess you made because a perfect person wasn’t put up against Orange Hitler.
You are either playing to win
Win what, liberal? Four more years of liberals doing absolutely everything in their power to make life easier for fascists?
Well, let’s see…
Oh… you mean those things your precious liberal racketeers haven’t lifted a finger to protect in any way whatsoever? Do tell, genius - what did your “good cop” overlords do when the fascists took away Roe vs. Wade? What did they do when Trump sicced a white supremacist lynch mob on the US capitol?
Except tell you to “vote harder,” that is?
Again… wake the fuck up.
Your plan is working so well right now!
Palestine is doing great! Economy has never been better and inflation is under control! People aren’t being rounded up and sent to extra-national torture prisons without a trial. The world you’ve heralded in is just doing so fucking great!
Palestine is doing great!
About that… how is that lie - oops, sorry, I meant to say “prediction your ilk peddled” - that Trump was going to be (supposedly) “worse” for Palestine turn out?
Your liberal-funded genocide - which the people you voted for enabled, of course - now looks pretty much the exact same as it did under Genocide Joe.
Do tell… will you be peddling this same lie again in four years’ time?
Well, let’s see… My grandparents Medicare, my LGBTQ friends and family members rights, retirement savings, what little healthcare we actually had before, literally climate and the ability to live at or near the equator and coasts… Didn’t even have to google any of that. I guess if you want the full list, you can read project 2025, and the also draw conclusions from related activities. Oh, vaccine availability and herd immunity. 1st Amendment rights. Habeas corpus just to tack on a few more there.
But why worry about that when you can decry THE LIBS for trying to avert catastrophe? Don’t the LIBS know that just averting catastrophe won’t bring about utopia?
There are other parties. There was Jill Stein. If you could have voted, didn’t vote for Stein and aren’t actively out in the streets chucking bricks at ICE and trumpers, than I have no respect for you.
You played the game and played to win. Exactly what both right wing parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, want you to do. You’re easily set up to blame your fellow people instead of a system that has made you a tool to their disposal. You’re a spineless husk that listens to a leader that supports bombing children on the other side of the world just because the other party is “more evil”.
Stop voting for evil, vote for good. Because voting for the lesser evil will still end in evil.
Stein barely got 100k more votes than Kennedy, who had dropped out of the race and endorsed trump.
I understand your satire, but clearly you did not understand what “Playing to lose” meant.
I see 862.049 people who voted for a better world.
I can jump off a building using a parachute in hopes it will open and generate enough drag to save me in time. A miracle, but it can happen.
Or I can board the skydiving plane everyone is boarding and reduce the risk of above happening.
If you don’t want change, that’s okay. There’s people who do, though.
I do want change. Unfortunate for you, I am not in the US. I am from the rest of the world that was affected by your selfish decisions and ‘moral high ground’ decisions. Thanks for voting for some 3rd party that wouldn’t have any realistic chance in today’s US of winning. Instead of, you know, helping the rest of the US push for Harris. Under Harris you had all the time in the world to get people in the millions if you wanted to vote for Jill or whoever else. You must have slept so well that night knowing you didn’t help everyone pushing to stop Trump with a lesser evil.
But sure, preach to me how you want change by doing no realistic action contributing to it. You were on a sinking ship and you put a plaster over a breached hull. Congrats.
Next time, if you want to take down any system, you must first partake in the system. Everyone has hopes & dreams of a 3rd party winning in the U.S. but it was very. Very fucking vital to give that idea up with Trump on the ballot.
What made you think I’m from the US? I’m from the Netherlands, a country that, thank god, hadn’t americanized to the point of only having 2 parties to vote on.
I’m active in my local politics, work in the social field, I’m spending most of my live making the world a better place. I’m active in resistance communities in support of immigrants, repressed students, and the current cost-of-living crisis here. What are you on about.
You make so many assumptions it’s fucking hilarious.
The way to fix the fasiscm is not by playing the fascism game. It’s by acting and showing that there’s a social alternative. And that alternative has fuck all to do with liberalist like the dems.
Go seethe in your corner while the rest of us try to make the world a better place for everyone.
I see 862,049 people who went all in and bet their house while holding an 8 and a 2.
There is a word for that kind of behavior…
People who want change instead of more of the same wars, murder, anti-consumerism and billionaires. I agree, although it’s a little more than one word.
Nope. The word is “Stupid”.
What are the top 3?
Trump 2024, Trump 2020, and Trump 2016.
Perfect example of the lib thinking that just voting means they actually did something so they don’t have to do any direct action. Which is of course why your country inevitably goes to shit.
Bytemeister didn’t say they don’t have to do any direct action. You made that up out of nothing.
You have to do both. That’s what Bytemeister is saying. If you didn’t vote, and you’re not actively in rebellion, then claiming you’re the side who does direct action is an obvious lie. And they’re right, you are lying. You’re tanking our chances of overthrowing the government through revolution.
if not (voted for Harris) and not (actively out in the streets)
then (no respect for you)
And requires that both conditions are true. So if you voted for Harris, then at most one condition is true, and Bytemeister’s respect for you remains at its current level.
Yeah, if you voted for Harris, then you’re not actively fucking up the revolution by making the secret police bolder, so you don’t have to make up for it by hucking bricks at ICE. You’ve proven that you have the long term thinking required to participate in organisation through safer methods like unionising, rallying, helping organise, weapons training, and recruiting.
But if someone didn’t vote for bullshit reasons, they let Trump escalate the ICE deportations and concentration camps. They made things harder for the revolution. They’re not a useful member and they should go remove themself from the situation with a glorious final stand.
Lol revolutions have happened in far worse political climates than Trump. You’re delusional if you think a worsening social situation makes revolutions less likely or “fucking up”.
As the person you’re replying to said, the original argument made is that it’s enough to vote to maintain their respect. Therefore they’re not doing anything else.
Now fuck off from anarchist spaces with your moralizing about useless electoralism. You have the rest of lemmy for that shite.
Your post is moralising about electoralism. It’s just moralising against electoralism. And it’s a useless waste of my and other anarchists’ time. Infighting over pointless bullshit instead of talking about direct action. Complaining about the anarchists who do things you don’t like one day a year isn’t getting us any closer to a revolution.
Electoralism isn’t about 1 day a year. There’s immense amount of volunteer resources and time wasted on this farce in the previous years. And the more we pretend electoralism is useful, the more justified they feel in wasting those resources.
And my post is just a meme. You don’t have to “waste your time” on it.
they let Trump escalate the ICE deportations and concentration camps
no one has stopped that. everyone let that happen.
Case in point
How many trumpers have you hit with a brick?
You need to re-read the comment.
You voted, so you excuse yourself from the violence you demand of others, I get it. I just see a lot of people saying if you don’t do x,y, and z violent thing to stop american fascism you are the problem, coming from people who have likely never been in a fight.
They are saying if people couldn’t atleast put forth the effort of slowing facism down, and not now putting their life in peril to stop it, then they are actively allowing it to happen. We had a chance to stop it with civility, but were pretty much pass that point.
We had a chance to stop it with civility, but were pretty much pass that point.
When? Like, sometime in the 70’s, perhaps?
I know that, now throw the first stone, go ahead, do it
Speaking as someone who’s had cops intervene at a protest… I threw that first rock a while ago. Some soccer moms in San Diego yesterday ran an ICE squad out of town. Consider your excuse null and void.
Like I said. No respect.
And you have no idea what I have done. Ohh, you went to a protest that the cops intervened on, I was doing that 25 years ago.
The electoral college?
Which itself was appeasement to the slave states to get them to ratify the Constitution.
I’d like to hear your thoughts on this one more.
I can see the senate as exactly what you described since it grants equal representation to all states regardless of population. Thus granting more power to the lower population slave states of the south.
The three fifths compromise did bolster slave state population numbers helping them in terms of population based seats in the house and the population determination of the electoral college.
But the electoral college system still favors states with the highest population. It gave more power to the more densely populated northern states that tended to be against slavery. If anything is gave more power to the abolitionists. For example, imagine a Pennsylvanian farmer that lives along the border with Maryland or Virginia (rememberin this time West Virginia was still Virginia). They may see the wealth of these plantation owners and grow envious, people can be greedy after all. They may even be encouraged to vote in favor of slavery, but it wouldn’t matter. Philadelphia was the most populous city in the United States at the time and would always swing the state away from pro-slavery candidates. Meaning 100% of the states presidential votes would go to candidates that oppose slavery. The free states almost always had the most electoral college votes. It was the senate that prevented slavery from being abolished.
Or at least this is my understanding, but I really would like to hear your perspective
EC gives more weight to lower population states, because the number of electors is the number of Representatives plus the number of Senators.
How would that make a difference?
Since it is equal between states the starting baseline of 2 votes seems negligible when compared to the much more substantial number of votes determined by the house of representatives. That would still give a much higher weight to the most populous states.
Well, also EC is winner take all except in NE and ME. That’s probably a bigger impact.
The system installed by slave owners to enable slave owners have more sway than the slaves?
What about it?
This is some Marxist nonsense my dude. Societies don’t have inevitable endpoints.
Have all the western countries that have had rising fascist dictatorship movements in the past few years come about through some other unrelated means?
We’re clearly in a trend of rising authoritarianism, but that doesn’t mean it’s inevitable. Such waves have receded in the past and they likely will again.
I just don’t like these inevitability narratives because they deprive people of agency in shaping society. Sure, maybe liberalism has a tendency to creep towards fascism, at least under some conditions. But this happens through the actions of the people that make up those societies and it can be resisted.
I agree. But I also think capitalist systems make facism easy. And naturally trend towards it.
I agree “inevitability” is too strong and a little too marxist oversimplification of history for me.
Capitalism inevitably results in fascism. It’s just the end result. The choice there is people maintaining a system that’s results in fascism.
Capitalism has existed for centuries and usually did not end in fascism. There’s no historical support for this claim. It’s simply an invention of authoritarian leftists because it’s useful to convince people they need to choose one brand of authoritarianism or the other.
Fascism at its core is a way for a minority of the population to say, “we deserve wealth and power over everyone else regardless of merit. We’re going to take away rights and opportunity from everyone in order to give ourselves an unfair advantage. We’ll make it so only our group counts a fully legally human, and we’ll dominate society and the economy accordingly.” In this general sense, capitalism for the vast majority of its history has been some flavor of fascist, in the general sense. Obviously as a specific political system, fascism is more particular. But in the general sense of its mechanism, where one group tries to take control by stripping the rights from everyone else? That is the norm in capitalist societies, not the exception.
For the vast, vast majority of capitalism’s history, it’s been built on defining a certain in group who have rights, and an out group who have no rights and can be exploited. Western countries didn’t even give economic freedom to the majority of their population until the last 50 years or so. Women were legal property and couldn’t have bank accounts. They were legally not considered fully human in the same way men were. Men didn’t want to compete with women, so they took away women’s freedom and didn’t allow them to compete in the marketplace. The majority of the population, completely excluded from economic life, in the most capitalist societies on Earth.
Or you could look it from a racial lens. De jure discrimination was written into the law until the 1960s or so. And de facto racial discrimination never went away. You say that capitalism doesn’t usually end in fascism, yet the US kept a substantial portion of its population in a nightmare system of fascist apartheid. White people didn’t want to compete with black people in the market, so they stripped black people of their civil rights.
The key thing to keep in mind about capitalism is that in a true free market, no one earns any profits. If there were no barriers to entry, starting competitors would be easy, and profit margins for all businesses would be razor thin. But that’s not how capitalism works in the real world. There are barriers to entry, and in capitalist countries, owners and those in power do everything they can to give themselves unfair advantages so they don’t have to compete in the market. And one of the easiest ways to make sure your group doesn’t have to compete freely in the market is to simply declare large swaths of the population as not fully human and thus undeserving of economic freedom.
Interesting points but I think you’re conflating fascism with what I would call authoritarianism. If you define fascism as any system where a minority clique takes control of society then you’re going to have to call nations like the USSR or China fascist. Which, while I agree they have similar features, are getting pretty far from the colloquial and academic definitions of fascism.
But you’re absolutely right that no modern society has had universally equal rights. We still have many groups that don’t have much legal protection including felons, children, immigrants, even animals could be viewed through this lens as well. But I don’t think that makes any societies that don’t meet this very high standard fascist.
It’s an easy thought-free assertion which makes all opposition to a system heroic, which means it gets wide traction.
Absolutely. This is a thought pattern I find very annoying. Just because you’re opposed to capitalism doesn’t make every critique of it correct. Defeating it means understanding and identifying its real features, not some caricature.
The last waves of fascism this advanced in America were in the 1930s. Throughout the latter half of the 20th century outright Nazis were generally associated with skinheads and were almost universally hated by mainstream culture. There are now actual Nazi movements in control of western nations. And even where they aren’t, they are winning over sizable percentages of the population.
This isnt going to pass as easily as you seem to think. Genocide has been live streamed around the world for almost 2 years and resistance to it has been relatively minor in terms of what you would actually expect. White western Christians (men especially) are actually mostly very down with white supremacy and neofascism. It benefits them specifically. And they represent the largest voting block in most western nations.
Liberalism could have prevented this by preventing Nazis from ever coming into positions of economic / cultural / political power in the first place. Liberalism is primarily concerned with countering revolutionary politics, moreso even than preventing fascist uprisings. It’s more important to them that pro capitalist values are the dominant ones in politics and culture than whether anti fascist values are. The ruling class almost entirely stands to benefit either way, they’re ambivalent towards fascism.
I didn’t say it would be easy, just that fascism is not inevitable.
Can you elaborate on how liberalism could have prevented this? This seems in contradiction to your overall point that fascism is inevitable under liberal governments.
Support working class politics. Support public ownership. Essentially, become a working class state. Outlaw fascist rhetoric. Redistribute wealth from billionaires to the working class. The main reason that fascist media organizations exist is because billionaires do. They wouldn’t be able to mass indoctrinate if they did not have essentially boundless economic power. Fascists won in Germany and America both because of media dominance and manipulation of the western liberal political system. In very comparable ways honestly.
The German democracy failed to respond in any way to the rise of the fascists. The only political party attempting any actual resistance of the fascists was the communists. The conservative and liberal parties were more interested in combating the communists than they were about combating the fascists. It was more important to them that the institutions of capital remains unaffected than fascism being stopped. They could have never let Hitler step foot out of a jail cell again. They honestly could’ve shot him, and a fair number of his nazi party upper echelon. People were calling for it, literally. Most people believe that Hitler mass indoctrinated all of Germany and won a landslide election and from there dismantled German democracy. That actually isnt true though. The final fair and democratic elections in Weimar Germany resulted in an extremely slim victory for the Nazi party. The communists were very close behind them. And in turn were conservatives and social democrats close behind the communists. On the whole, the majority of the nation voted for other parties. Once a bad actor was chancellor, all he had to do was find an excuse to enact emergency powers. He was handed the best possible opportunity on a silver platter by a young communist who was doing his part to fight back. If only others had followed his example, maybe history wouldve ended differently. As it was, Hitler enacted emergency powers to suspend all civil liberties in Germany. He banned the communists from any political organization and started literally rounding up communists and communist politicians and putting them in concentration camps. This was in 1933. The first camps were for communists. Then when Hindenburg died a short while later there was literally nothing standing between him and pure absolute dictatorship.
He could’ve been stopped at many points if liberal democracy was an ideology that prioritized the rights of the working class. If they had had an aim whatsoever of stopping fascism, it was preventable. Much like the democratic party though, their primary aims were to protect the ruling class of capitalists and the institutions that allow them to steal working class labor.
Support working class politics. Support public ownership. Essentially, become a working class state. Outlaw fascist rhetoric. Redistribute wealth from billionaires to the working class
Literally all of this is in opposition to liberalism, there’s a reason why the trend is the opposite in quite literally all liberal democracies
Yes, i very much agree. Liberalism will never present a legitimate defense against fascism, and will never prioritize working class rights.
Societies don’t have inevitable endpoints, in the same way that you can’t predict with 100% certainty that an individual will die of old age.
Old age isn’t even a thing you can die from. This analogy fails on multiple fronts.
Pedantry is the last refuge of fools.
Historically, “conquered by neighbors” or “environmental collapse” are both strong contenders for “where societies inevitably go.”
Well I guess if you have a long enough timeline everything possible becomes inevitable. But I don’t think that’s quite what the meme is saying.
Well, to address the meme in particular then, it’s a fairly common saying that fascism is either capitalism in decline/crisis or is the end-game/final-form of capitalism. The first form is a direct quote from Vladimir Lenin: “Fascism is capitalism in decay.” The latter arises from statements by Mussolini, though it does seem the commonly cited “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism” may be a misquote or misinterpretation of his meaning.
I would actually lean into your rebuke somewhat, fascism is a form of authoritarianism and can make use of capitalism as a tool, but ultimately the totalitarian has as much interest in truly free markets as they do in truly free societies. I would say the inevitability is after allowing the market to centralize through unregulated monopolizing, the fascist would then nationalize the industry or otherwise bring it under their own personal control.
Fascism is fundamentally a cult devoted to power: they’ll ally with whichever power currently holds non-government sway, be that capitalists, feudal lords, or gang leaders. What fascists are deeply against is any form of distributed power: be that a truly free and well-regulated market, a trade union, or anarchism of any stripe.
Historically though, capitalist societies have been built on fascist techniques of stripping broad swaths of the population of their civil rights. The most infamously capitalist society in history - the US - cares so little about actually living up to the ideals of “the free market” that up until the 60s or so, only about a third of the population was actually allowed to participate in the free market. A third of the population was legally allowed to operate independently, start businesses, etc. The rest were denied equal protection under the law, a legal regime intentionally designed to force the majority of the population into precarious wage slavery.
That is in the most capitalist country on Earth. The most capitalist nation on Earth hated free markets so much that they had to exclude the majority of the population from the free market in order to maintain a pool of easily exploitable labor.
Thank you, this is very well said. Any socio-economic structure that centralizes power in the hands of a few is vulnerable to fascism.
So how many countries have failed due to authoritarian power control? It’s a consistent through all time and cultures. Power corrupts, and the people in power want more of it.
Fascism is a recent political invention, but authoritarian power that is unstable as soon as the wrong person is in control is a time honored tradition, from Rome to the dynasties of China. Even stable democracies have power grasps, limits of freedoms overtime, and so on.
History does not repeat but it does rhyme.
I completely agree. But to be clear, not all nations go down this path of increasing authoritarianism, and not all of those who do end up at fascism.
It might seem like a small distinction but this idea of the inevitable course of history is such a common thought terminating cliche and it leads to all sorts of wrong ideas and wrong political strategies that I feel a need to call it out. Even though my own position is not completely dissimilar.
What a naive and simplistic view. The people who think this have never lived in a country with an unstable government. Not everybody wants to join a revolution. Some people just want to live their life.
Germans said the same in 1938
Yeah and there were a lot of quiet heroes in Germany who did small-scale acts of rebellion and saved a lot of lives by hiding people and helping them escape.
There’s a lot of quiet libs doing small acts of rebellion hiding immigrants or escorting people to get abortion or providing plan b.
I feel like some of you “revolutionaries” have lost the plot, like the revolution only matters if it’s big and cinematic. I think you’ve made it more about your ego and internal revolution LARP than actually helping people.
Exactly this, I never said I wouldn’t help people hide, or give out information to ICE or any other dickheads who are looking for legal immigrants to deport. Just bcz I dont want to pick up a gun and run around shooting people doesn’t mean i dont care.
lol who said anything about “pick up a gun and run around shooting people”. Y’all are erecting some mighty tall strawmen.
How many peaceful revolutions do you know of, not many im aware of…
Diversity of tactics.
Revolutionary acts aren’t constrained to violence. Prefiguration is revolutionary and as much, if not more important than throwing molotovs while wearing a facemask with a big circled A on it.
You realize that revolutions turn violent because the rulers don’t want to lose control, yes?
OK but what actually defeated fascism? The people within fascism that did small-scale acts of rebellion? Or the people in the neighbouring country who eliminated fascism within through socialist revolution, and then killed 80% of all dead Nazis in the war?
The USSR and US, the biggest contributors to the defeat of the Nazis, were/are both internally very fascist. The USSR originally sided with Hitler, and the Nazi party drew their inspiration from Jim Crow in the US. US and modern Russia have just slid even further into being imperialist authoritarian regimes.
Fascism thrives wherever there is military might, and power concentrated in the hands of a few.
both internally very fascist
Fascism is when you eliminate unemployment, guarantee housing, give free healthcare and education to every single person in the country, reduce wealth inequality to the lowest levels seen in the history of the country, and kill Nazis.
The USSR originally sided with Hitler
This is an especially disgusting lie to hear as a Spaniard. In 1936 in Spain there was a coup d’etat by the fascists against the Republican government, and the ONLY country in the world to supply weapons to the republicans against the fascists was the Soviet Union, while the Nazis supplied the fascist side and directly bombed the Republicans. The Soviets were fighting Nazism and fascism in Europe before anyone else.
The Soviet Union proposed France, Poland and England in 1939 to send ONE MILLION soldiers together with artillery, tanks and aviation, in exchange for a mutual defense agreement against Hitler, but these rejected. After ten years warning Europe, the Soviet Union decided that it wasn’t going to face Nazism in a one-on-one conflict (as that would be devastating for the country and would have likely ended the Soviet Union and killed tens of millions more of people than died already in the conflict), and instead decided to pursue a non-agression pact with the Nazis to postpone the war as much as possible. The Soviets had gone as far as offering to collectively invade Nazi Germany as an alternative to the Munich agreements, which again the allies rejected.
Stop trying to rewrite history. The Soviets saved Europe from Nazism, whether you like it or not.
instead decided to pursue a non-agression pact with the Nazis to postpone the war as much as possible
A non-aggression pact which splits Poland and Eastern European countries between Stalin and Hitler via the secret protocol? It was imperialist opportunism. If you aren’t opposed to Soviet imperialism, you aren’t opposed to imperialism.
Ok, I’ll try to explain this in detail and in good faith. Please, I beg you do the effort of reading through my comment, I’ll explain the reasons why I believe Molotov-Ribbentrop wasn’t imperialism:
1) Most of the invaded “Polish” territories actually belong to modern Lithuania, Ukraine and Belarus. In 1919, Poland started the Polish-Ukrainian war and invaded Ukraine, Belarus and part of the RSFSR. This so-called “carving of Poland by the Soviet Union” liberated many formerly oppressed non-Polish national ethnicities such as Lithuanians in Polish-controlled Vilnius arguably being genocided, or ceding the city of Lviv to the Ukraine SSR. Here’s a map of the territories of modern Poland that were actually invaded by the Soviets, and which ones (the vast majority) actually belong to modern Ukraine and Belarus.
And here’s a map of the pre-Molotov-Ribbentrop Poland and the majority ethnicities per region:
Please look at those two maps, and notice how the “Polish” territories invaded by the Soviet Union in 1939 were actually Ukrainian/Belarusian/Lithuanian majority and were returned to their corresponding republics after they were invaded and forcefully taken by Polish nationalists in 1919.
2) The Soviet Union had been trying for the entire 1930s to establish a mutual-defense agreement with Poland, France and Britain against the Nazis, under the doctrine of the then-People’s Commisar of Foreign Affairs Maxim Litvinov. This decade-long proposal for mutual-defence went completely ignored by France and England, which hoped to see a Nazi-Soviet conflict that would destroy both countries, and Poland didn’t agree to negotiations by itself either. The Soviet government went as far as to offer to send one million troops together with artillery, tanking and aviation, to Poland and France. The response was ignoring these pleas and offerings.
Furthermore, this armistice between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany happened only one year after the Munich Betrayal. The Soviet Union and France had a Mutual Defense Agreement with Czechoslovakia, which France (together with the UK) unilaterally violated in agreement with the Nazis when ceding Czechoslovak territories to Nazi Germany. Stalin offered France, as an alternative to the Munich Betrayals, a coordinated and two-front attack to Nazi Germany, which France rejected in favour of the Munich Agreements.
3) The Soviet Union had been through WW1 up to 1917, the Russian Civil War up to 1922 (including a famine that killed millions) in which western powers like France, England or the USA invaded the Bolsheviks and helped the tsarist Whites to reestablish tsarism, which ultimately ended with a costly Bolshevik victory; the many deaths of famine during the land-collectivization of 1929-1933, and up to 1929 was a mostly feudal empire with little to no industry to speak of. Only after the 1929 and 1934 5-year plans did the USSR manage to slightly industrialize, but these 10 years of industrialization were barely anything in comparison with the 100 years of industrialization Nazi Germany enjoyed. The Soviet Union in 1939 was utterly underdeveloped to face Nazi Germany alone, as proven further by the 27 million casualties in the war that ended Nazism. The fact that the Soviet Union “carved Eastern Europe” in the so-called “secret protocol” was mostly in self-defense. The geography of the Great European Plain made it extremely difficult to have any meaningful defenses against Nazis with weaponry and technological superiority, again proven by the fact that the first meaningful victory against Nazis was not in open field but in the battle of Stalingrad, which consisted more of a siege of a city. The Soviet Union, out of self-preservation, wanted to simply add more Soviet-controlled distance between themselves and the Nazis. You don’t have to take my word for all of this, you can hear it from western diplomats and officials from the period itself. I hope nobody will find my choice of personalities to reflect a pro-Soviet bias:
“In those days the Soviet Government had grave reason to fear that they would be left one-on-one to face the Nazi fury. Stalin took measures which no free democracy could regard otherwise than with distaste. Yet I never doubted myself that his cardinal aim had been to hold the German armies off from Russia for as long as might be” (Paraphrased from Churchill’s December 1944 remarks in the House of Commons.)
“It would be unwise to assume Stalin approves of Hitler’s aggression. Probably the Soviet Government has merely sought a delaying tactic, not wanting to be the next victim. They will have a rude awakening, but they think, at least for now, they can keep the wolf from the door” Franklin D. Roosevelt (President of the United States, 1933–1945), from Harold L. Ickes’s diary entries, early September 1939. Ickes’s diaries are published as The Secret Diary of Harold Ickes.
"One must suppose that the Soviet Government, seeing no immediate prospect of real support from outside, decided to make its own arrangements for self‑defence, however unpalatable such an agreement might appear. We in this House cannot be astonished that a government acting solely on grounds of power politics should take that course” Neville Chamberlain House of Commons Statement, August 24, 1939 (one day after pact’s signing)
"It seemed to me that the Soviet leaders believed conflict with Nazi Germany was inescapable. But, lacking clear assurances of military partnership from England and France, they resolved that a ‘breathing spell’ was urgently needed. In that sense, the pact with Germany was a temporary expedient to keep the wolf from the door” Joseph E. Davies (U.S. Ambassador to the USSR, 1937–1938) Mission to Moscow (1941)
I could go on with quotes but you get my point.
4) The Soviet Union invaded Poland 2 weeks after the Nazis, at a time when there was no functioning Polish government anymore. Given the total crushing of the Polish forces by the Nazis and the rejection of a mutual-defense agreement from England and France with the Soviets, there is only one alternative to Soviet occupation of Eastern Poland: Nazi occupation of Eastern Poland. Seriously, what was the alternative, letting Nazis genocide even further east, killing arguably millions more in the process over these two years between Molotov-Ribbentrop and Operation Barbarossa? France and England, which did have a mutual-defense agreement with Poland, initiated war against Germany as a consequence of the Nazi invasion, but famously did not start war against the Soviets, the main reason in my opinion being the completely different character of the Soviet invasion. Regardless of this, please tell me. After the rejection of mutual-defense agreements with the Soviet Union: what was the alternative other than Nazi occupation of Eastern Poland?
I beg you answer point by point on my response because I’ve taken the time to do the actual reading on this, and I’m yet to see anything that can really challenge any of the points I’m making. Maybe you do have knowledge I’m missing and which would help me understand the history of Molotov-Ribbentrop better.
Thanks for reading anyway.
And fwiw, I’m sure Nazi Germany has it’s share of revolutionary LARPers who fantasized about overthrowing Hitler but never got out of their house to do it.
Exactly, because being a LARPer at home isn’t being revolutionary. Join a fucking antifascist organization, I already have.
I would hope that anybody who is talking about overturning a system for the betterment of society is already putting in work to better society instead of just creating a personal armory. I.e. volunteering for some sort of community work.
You would hope, but some posts just scream “chronically online, no social interaction with local community”.
Be mad at libs but they are community involved, in mutual aid, and protests, local elections. If you want to help your community, you’re going to find yourself allied alongside lots of libs.
Be mad at libs but they are community involved, in mutual aid, and protests, local elections. If you want to help your community, you’re going to find yourself allied alongside lots of libs.
But working with LIBS is impure. Only pure victories in a society that is fucking 99% further right than us allowed.
Holy strawman Batman!
edit:
Cute, can’t even respond to being called out.
Holy strawman Batman!
Chill bro it’s satire.
Everyone was smart enough to not yell “strawman” at what was obviously a silly low effort bait post, but not smart enough to the silly low effort bait replies.
Downvoting is truly the cruelest form of shitlib oppression.
Don’t you have tankiejerk posts to mass-downvote or something?
Also, lmao
EDIT:
Christ, you even downvoted me for questioning a Lenin quote’s veracity? Thanks for introducing me to Lemvote, I guess.
I feel like some of you “revolutionaries” have lost the plot, like the revolution only matters if it’s big and cinematic. I think you’ve made it more about your ego and internal revolution LARP than actually helping people.
Counterculture as politics. It’s insanity.
Germany’ Republic fell in the early 1930s because a splintered left failed to form a government for years and a right wing party took control as a result.
Failed to form a united Left because of right-wing liberal dipshits parading as leftists, sowing division, and playing controlled opposition for the rising fascist regime.
Gee why does that sound familiar?
German Communists: “guys we either do a revolution RIGHT NOW or we’re getting overrun by fascists”
German Socialdemocrats: murder Rosa Luxembourg and end the communist movement through state violence
German Socialdemocrats: “dang, how did the fascists get so powerful? Must be the fault of the communists I guess”
When Rosa Luxembourg was murdered fascism wasn’t an international threat but a local Italian movement at best. Or is everything you don’t like fascism to you?
Funny how communists were aware of the dangers of fascism though and tried to warn anyone and everyone about it though. Maybe because their (our) political analysis makes sense?
That might be funny if you can show an actual contemporary quote, otherwise it’s just your non-historical babbling.
I really don’t know what kind of mental exercise you’re trying to do. Do you really think that the core characteristics of fascism were invented in Italy in that particular period? Rosa Luxembourg, as any revolutionary from the late 1910s, was very aware of the core belief system of fascism. Proto-fascist groups such as the Black Hundreds in Russia were well known, and Italian/Nazi fascism doesn’t stray very far from the core of these people.
If your only options are taking what you want with violence or having things taken from you with violence, you’re a shit negotiator.
Libs like you saying “let’s negotiate with fascists” is exactly why fascists get to power. Please remind me, who eliminated fascism in WW2 and how did they do it?
You’re the one making the Fascists the option in the hypothetical. There does not need to be any fascism.
You’re negotiating with the general population as a whole.
making the Fascists the option in the hypothetical
The hypothetical? Do you really think that when I talk of 1930s and the murder of Rosa Luxembourg by the German SPD I’m talking about hypotheticals? I’m talking about historical events
Talk about naive…
Let’s say you or someone you care about (other than yourself that is) is in an accident of some kind and while laying down dying, someone passes by. They take a look and say “Not everybody wants to save others. Some people just want to live their life.”, then walk away.
Wouldn’t you feel even a shred of anger at the indifference? Or maybe want some kind of retribution to befall this kind of cruelty? After all, had they acted, you or your loved one might have been saved.
We’re emotional creatures. That’s why, not helping is the same as hurting. So when you choose to stand aside, you actually choose to harm.
Your example, there should be a potential cost to the person. How much is a human life valued at these days? 4 million usd? They may or may not have to pay 4 million dollars to get this stranger treatment.
Resistance isn’t free. Setting up systems to ignore, prevent, or cover the cost is nearly as important as the resistance.
Do you think I’m not angry about whats happening in the U.S.? I don’t see you starting a revolution either, just typing on your keyboard. So honestly, how are you any different?
Didn’t say i was different. Just letting you know it can and likely will get worse even if you just wanna live your life.
OP wasn’t suggesting helping people, but calling liberals a death cult for not overthrowing a Capitalist system.
So more like, you see that person on the side of the road, you help them, and the OP says “how dare you spend your time helping that one individual while living in a society that exploits people globally”.
I don’t think OP really meant that but it was low effort bait for fake internet points.
