cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/72685299

I discovered this after upgrading our instance yesterday, which also upgraded all frontends to their latest versions as well. After I did, our Tesseract frontend stopped working and I noticed immediately as it's been my primary for a while. Initially I thought it was an API version mismatch, but no, it was much worse.

Someone pointed out that the developer of the frontend added an explicit hidden and unmodifiably blacklist which includes any and all instances to the left of Kissinger. There's a commit which also explains their specious reasoning about our instance specifically, as it seems we've been on their shit list for a bit longer than that.

This instance and its admin staff encourages identity politics, groupthink, mob mentality, and extremist solutions to societal problems. Users who advocate violence are not moderated so long as the admins agree with the target. Caution and critical thinking are advised when interacting with this instance or its users.

When you use tesseract to connect to one blacklisted such instance , you just get a message informing you that Tesseract is "incompatible with that instance" which leads one to think of a technical issue, like an API mismatch, rather than the dev being an opinionated coward.

Isn't it funny how all the software developed by turbolibs, like Piefed and Tesseract, end up with hidden control mechanisms from developers who think they know better than everyone else? That they don't just think they deserve to tell you what you should think, but they should manipulate you to think it? Isn't it funny how libs go on about how bad it is to support lemmy due to the ideology of the devs behind it, and yet lemmy has 0 opinions as a software? It does make one think...

Anyway, I forked - it as one does - and disabled the blacklist, but since this is a massively ideologically compromised software, I'll doubt I'll keep this frontend up after Lemmy 1.0. I think we'll bring up mlmym again now that someone's maintaining it again.

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[+] -5 points 3 months ago (39 children)
  • [–] 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

    Which wars have the NYT's been against, again? Which policy of W's were they against again?

    I agree with Cowbees definition, but the NYT's isn't left wing BY YOUR OWN DEFINITION of left wing.

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  • [+] -3 points 3 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago

    Given your lack of reading comprehension, I'm going to stop here.

    The NYT is a tool used to sell the American (supposed) left on literally every war in the last 70 years. Including fun ones like Vietnam, and Iraq.

    There is nothing left wing about that. It's not a hard concept. Try a little.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 months ago (9 children)

    New York Times is precisely as left wing as liberalism. You've been raised to implicitly think of liberalism as the "normal amount of left", and that is not accurate. That's my assumption at any rate, because I was raised that way and carried around a similar misconception.

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  • [+] -4 points 3 months ago (8 children)
  • [–] 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (7 children)

    If everyone but you agrees...

    ...in this case, you simply need to expand your definition of "everyone".

    Roughly everyone in the US is conditioned to see our tiny slice of the political spectrum this way, as you're describing. Democrats left, Republicans right, the precise middle between them being...what? "Moderate"?

    US politics sits within several broader contexts - it is not some magical thing with the power to redefine global and historical political thought. We simply grew up thinking it's mostly all there was and probably the ~best out of other worse sets of ideas.

    And all of us suffer for that, you help us all suffer for that, by simply accepting (defending!) the self-defeating idea that Democrats are as far left as one should go. While Republicans just sprint further right, without penalty. And complicit orgs like the New York Times "report" like everything is mostly normal, instead of a goddamn historic, violent assertion of all the worst fucking things that basically NO ONE agrees with, going on today.

    Okay. Democrats are left-wing. How?

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  • [+] -6 points 3 months ago (6 children)
  • [–] 4 points 3 months ago (4 children)

    You are so wrong it's amazing. Sounds malicious, even deceitful, frankly. Think we're all done huh?

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  • [+] -2 points 3 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    By dropping due process in a hundred ways, by openly murdering people they want to deport, by dismantling election safeguards, by destroying the Department of Education, by installing a fucking quack as the head of our health department and attacking vaccination, by the executive branch refusing to answer to the other branches of government in all the legal ways it is required to, by weakening protections against predatory financial schemes, by discarding truth and nakedly lying as a constant mode of operation, by dismantling the separation of church and state, by rolling back civil rights and Roe v Wade, by facilitating ever-greater mergers and monopolization, by demonizing and attacking protected 1A speech as "left wing terror", by SELLING FUCKING SCAM COINS FOR PRIVILEGED ACCESS TO THE WHITE HOUSE

    Look, I am simply tired of typing - this is nowhere NEAR the list of evidence for the sharp slide right.

    You are either so clueless you should never comment on American politics, or you're acting in bad faith. Either way, go fuck yourself.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago

    By attacking and crippling fucking Sesame Street, AKA the entire LIBRARY of magnificent culture, available and permanently useful to the poorest folks, especially children, provided by PBS.

    By literally violently capturing the head of state from another country that posed zero risks to the one that went aggro. By making it super fucking clear that the only goal there is imperialist extraction.

    By reversing the obviously improving relations with Cuba, in a disgustingly violent way, by simply depriving the literal island of the resources required to uphold a functioning society.

    By cutting off foreign aid like a fucking guillotine, with ZERO prep given for the sudden "guess you can just go die, then, we are done helping".

    Ran outta words I felt like typing again, maybe I'll say more.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 months ago (25 children)

    Both are right-wing. Both uphold capitalism, imperialism, and Zionist genocide. Leftism begins at socialism.

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  • [+] -1 points 3 months ago (24 children)
  • [–] 6 points 3 months ago (23 children)

    I'm not redefining it. Historically, leftism has been used to describe those who wish to advance to the next mode of production historically, ie those who are progressive, while rightism is to conserve or turn the clock backwards. BBC and NYT are both on the side of dying capitalism, wishing to drag the moribund body of capitalism, while leftists would be the socialists and communists. In the French revolution, capitalism was left, because it represented a movement beyond the monarchy and into capitalism.

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  • [+] -2 points 3 months ago (22 children)
  • [–] 5 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    No it is unfortunately you who does not understand what left right and centre means. The centre is those who hold up the status quo. The right are those who long for tradition and a return to the old. The left are those who strive for progress and the new. Liberals lie between upholding the status quo and wishing for a return to status quo of a few years ago when imperialism was less nakedly obvious. Liberals are thus centre-centre right.

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  • [+] -4 points 3 months ago* (1 child)
  • [–] 3 points 3 months ago

    It's literally exactly what they mean.

    LeftWing: Socialism Communism Anarchism Etc All trying to push society to progress beyond the now to new modes of production and organisation.

    RightWing: Conservatism(liberalism) Nazism Libertarianism Feudalism Etc All trying to return to the mode of production and organisation from their imagined golden age.

    The centre then if course is simply upholding the status quo of the current mode of production and organisation be that through inaction or actively.

    You seem think left right and centre are concrete static labels floating above reality as opposed to what they are in reality which is a quick way to note the direction of an ideology in regards to the present.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    The "center" is a pretty worthless intangible the moment parameters are defined beyond "left" and "right". It is interchangeably used as an arbitrary midpoint in policy and as a whole range of politics between, if not including, socialism and fascism.

    Determining how 'far, far' right you need to go to calibrate for the 'far, far left' stretches and constrains where anything falls.

    But let's be real, centrism itself relies on being able to switch sides in that 'slightly' range.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 months ago (15 children)

    You don't seem to get what makes something left vs. right. It's about what direction they take us, in the direction of the status quo, being right wing, or if they take us forwards to socialism, being left wing. In the future, socialism will be right wing, and communism will be left wing. That's just how it is, we must proceed forward exactly as much as we can without letting idealism cloud our judgement.

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  • [+] -3 points 3 months ago (14 children)
  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (13 children)
  • [+] -3 points 3 months ago (12 children)
  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (11 children)

    Why would socialism not be right wing in a communist society? If we advance to fully collectivized production and distribution, and a stateless, classess society, reintroducing class, the state, and decentralized production would be reactionary and take us backwards.

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  • [+] 0 points 3 months ago (10 children)
  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (8 children)

    "Leftism" as a concept originated in the revolutionary side of the French Revolution. Leftism is inherently tied to forward progress. As for socialism (which you call communism), it has worked dramatically well every single time it has been established. It has resulted in removal of the former capitalist and landlord classes from power, and a dramatic uplifting in the lives of the working classes. Your assessment is utterly detached from actual historical evidence.

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  • [+] -1 points 3 months ago (7 children)
  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (6 children)

    Communism is a global, fully collectivized system of production and distribution devoid of classes, the state, and money. It's a post-socialist mode of production and distribution. You are referring to socialist countries that have been run by communist parties.

    In any case, I'll answer in order.

    The Soviet Union was a resounding success for the working classes, the reward for their triumph over capital being doubled life expectancies, tripled literacy rates to 99.9%, dramatic improvements to housing quality and a near eradication of homelessness, free and high quality education and healthcare, unprecedented equality of the sexes, and stable economic growth up until its dissolution. It was gradually undermined by reforms that split the socialist system against itself, a lesson other socialist states have learned from.

    The PRC is the world's largest economy by PPP, the longest standing socialist country, and is continuing it's path to developing higher and higher levels of socialism. The populace recieved many similar benefits to those in the USSR, and unlike the USSR they are becoming the clear world power. Socialism is presenting itself as the only logical path forward thanks to their success.

    Cuba is struggling. Though they have done a tremendous amount thanks to their socialist system, decades of brutal blockades and sabotage by the world's largest empire have left it woefully underdeveloped. Thanks to partnership with comrades in China, they are rapidly developing solar power, and therefore energy independence.

    The DPRK is stronger than ever before. Thanks to their policy of nuclear deterrence, they have been able to peacefully develop their socialist system and gradually minimize the stark divide between the developed and underdeveloped portions of the region. Trade with Russia and China has resulted in an economic boom, brought upon by sanctions on Russia in the wake of the Russo-Ukrainian War.

    Venezuela was never governed by a communist party. It never solidified socialism either. It's currently in retreat after the US Empire kidnapped their democratically elected president, and are recovering from economic terrorism by the US combined with the fallout from Earthquakes.

    You didn't mention them, but Vietnam and Laos are doing well now as well.

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  • [+] -2 points 3 months ago (5 children)
  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (4 children)

    China is a socialist country, the commanding heights of the economy are overwhelmingly publicly owned and the working classes control the state. The fact that they have some level of private capital in underdeveloped industry does not mean they are a "mix" of capitalism and communism, socialism is a transition between capitalism and communism and therefore has elements of each, while being principally socialist. I already explained fairly well the status of ML countries, they are doing fairly well right now, especially China.

    As for communism not being a global system, what do you mean? Since Marx, communists have long understood that communism must be global. Everything preceding it but in transition towards that is socialism.

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  • [+] -1 points 3 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 0 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    The fact that you continue to believe China to be evidence against socialism is proof that you, again, do not understand socialism and communism. Socialism is not about dogmatically collectivizing everything, regardless of the situation. It's a scientific approach. Markets play a subservient role in China's economy, which is dominated by massive state owned enterprises. Markets play a progressive role in creating developed productive forces that can then become centrally planned. It's not that socialism can't work on its own, it's that the system is already socialist, and fully planned economy requires higher developed productive forces than China presently has to be fully effective.

    There is no child nor slave labor in China. There is no "elite class," the CPC is dominated by the proletariat. The state does wield massive power, correct! It uses it against capitalists, fascists, and reactionaries that would overturn socialism.

    As for Xinjiang, no, there is no genocide. Western allegations of genocide didn't stick due to lack of evidence, and as such the west turned to vague allegations of "human rights abuses." These allegations are largely dramatized and exaggerated, but still, you can start to put together the lack of credibility. That's not enough, though, to dismiss. Where did they come from? And why?

    Prior to the establishment of de-radicalization programs, western-backed terrorist attacks were common, in order to disrupt the Belt and Road initiative (where Xinjiang is key to expanding westward). These included:

    • July 5, 2009: The Urumqi Riots resulted in 197 deaths, and 1700 wounded in mass stabbings.

    • October 28, 2013: Tian'anmen Attack, 5 killed, 40 wouded, when a Jeep was driven directly into crowds.

    • March 1, 2014: Kunming Train Station Attack, 31 killed, 141 wounded. 8 jihadists committed mass stabbings.

    • May 22, 2014: Urumqi Attack, 39 killed, 94 injured as 2 attackers drove cars into crowds and threw explosives at buildings.

    And many more. Since the de-radicalization efforts, these attacks have gone down to effectively 0. The reason for these attacks was because Xinjiang is geostrategic for the Belt and Road initiative, which is why the west stoked anti-China sentiment among the Uyghur peoples, funding terrorist groups and separatists. When China responded not with tanks and bombs but with vocational centers and investment in the region, the west pivoted to claims of "genocide," then walked those claims back to "human rights abuses" when no evidence for genocide materialized.

    I recommend reading the UN report as well as (especially) China's response to it, which eclipses it in size and detail. These are the most relevant accusations and responses without delving into straight up fantasy like Adrian Zenz, Christian nationalist and professional propagandist for the Victims of Communism Foundation, does.

    Qiao Collective also has Xinjiang: A Resource and Report Compilation as well. This is my personal recommendation for a Chinese Marxist perspective.

    "General authoritarianism" is a nonsense claim. All states are monopolies on violence. What matters is which class controls the state, not if this or that state has power, as they all do. In China, the proletariat is the ruling class, and they use this authority to direct production and distribution towards pro-social ends. This is because China is a socialist country.

    You have no coherent analysis, so you just resort to insult. It's deeply unserious behavior.

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  • [+] -1 points 3 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 0 points 3 months ago

    Markets are not capitalism, and public ownership is not socialism. Socialism is a form of economy where public ownership is the principal aspect of the economy. Even if we took the incorrect stance that public ownership is socialism, and markets are capitalism, the largest and most important firms and industries in China are all publicly owned. Is your point that small, petty production and medium firms are the key to China's success?

    Secondly, calling me a liar after I disproved your lies is the peak of cope. Blocking me because you cannot respond is dishonest. Just admit to being out of your depth, don't triple down.

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