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[+] 3 points 1 month ago (34 children)
  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago (21 children)
  • [–] 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (20 children)

    i'm just being observant, an overwhelming amount of people calling others 'tankies' are perfectly fine with team blue sending in the tanks/bombs/drones.

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  • [–] -3 points 1 month ago (19 children)

    No not really, I am way left of Biden, universal Healthcare, free community College, strong social safety net etc. are not radical left ideas, they are centrist.

    I also know enough about history to understand that power systems formed around Marxism communism or anarchism are not inherently good or just when put into practice.

    I despise the wholesale slaughter of civilians by the military industrial complex, I also despise the violent crushing of dissent by 'communist' or 'socialist' governments.

    A good and just society will always be a mix of different 'isms' and marxism definitely needs to be a prominent part of the mix. I'm against total ideological purity, be it capitalist imperialism that can justify industrialized human suffering, or naive tankie bullshit that can justify being on the side of the tanks in Tiananmen square.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 month ago (18 children)

    the "good society is a mix of isms" line is classic lib dead-enderism. it sounds reasonable but it's a way of never committing to anything that would actually challenge capital.

    i am opposed to a system that unpersons people just because they can't pay rent, your 'way left of biden' horizon stops way short of that.

    you seem to resort to thought-terminating cliches to shut down any serious discussion of a change to that system and without engaging with the material conditions those states that did challenge that system operated under.

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  • [–] -3 points 1 month ago (15 children)

    A government of ideological purity is also a dead end. I agree with you that there is no excuse for tossing people out like trash because they cant keep up with the capitalist rat race. It's absolute bullshit, and proof positive the USA needs more socialism. The more robust the social safety net, the less that can happen.

    You seem to need to misinterpret, and put words in my mouth to make your point, which makes the point questionable at best. A 'mix of isms' doesn't mean all isms should be treated equally, and the mix in the USA is horribly off base.

    I want: stronger labor unions that encompass more industries, large increase in wages / the minimum wage. Four day workweek with no pay reduction. Massive reduction in runaway defense spending, and funds conditional on mandatory audits being passed. New improved trust busters equipped to break up modern style monopolies. Renewed focus on spending local and self/community reliance to reduce the power of mega corps, Policing reform with much more training and the requirement for police to carry liability insurance. Strong shift away from burning fossil fuels as an energy source. The list goes on and on, and I'm sure there are many points we agree on.

    I do what I can as an individual, but of course I'm still working on it. What do you commit to? So far I'm not sure.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (14 children)

    yes i get that you're a social democrat, you already made that clear. you goals are to stay entirely within capitalism with a handful of minor reforms to attempt to manage capital rather than actually challenge it.

    what's your plan for when capital pushes back against your reforms? i don't think your framework has an answer outside of wishful thinking.

    What do you commit to? So far I’m not sure.

    i vote in every fucking primary, municipal election and offyear election. i don't participate in electoral campaigns because it's a waste of energy. my organizing work is with antiwar groups and other anarchists making sure people in my city have food.

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  • [–] -3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (13 children)

    You're putting words in my mouth again. I applaud you being anti war and helping feed your community. I think the role capitalism plays in society needs to be massively reduced for sure. Capital only cares at all when you hit them in the wallet, so I try to do that wherever possible.

    Your animosity towards those who dont pass your purity test isn't helpful, and won't help build momentum for your goals, whatever they are.

    For the record I am registered independent, though I do vote for democrats most of the time. I try to pull things left in the primaries as much as possible and I'm not too good to choose the least bad option in the general.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 month ago (12 children)

    disagreeing with your politics isn't a purity test... its a political disagreement. it is also a pretty transparent double standard on your part. in this thread you felt free to complain about 'tankies' as a broad and poorly-defined category, but people being opposed to preserving capitalism is a purity test.

    Capital only cares at all when you hit them in the wallet, so I try to do that wherever possible.

    it sounds like you agree with me, but then refuse to engage with politics that is motivated to actually do that

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  • [–] -2 points 1 month ago (11 children)

    Okay so let's engage. What are you doing to 'actually challenge capital'? I'm always looking for new good ideas.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 month ago (10 children)

    i already stated what i am doing. my work is primarily in mutual aid and antiwar protesting. ie making sure people in your immediate community can eat, building non-commodified spaces that demonstrate things can work differently. for antiwar protests i've done everything from letter writing to bird-dogging my reps/senators. i've been doing tenant union organizing for years. i do other things too, but i'm not going to broadcast those here.

    none of it is glamorous but it builds real relationships and real power outside the state and capital, which is the point.

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  • [–] -3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (9 children)

    That's all good stuff, I don't see our standpoints as mutually exclusive at all. What are some policy goals you support to bring the government more in line with your views? Or is that not something you believe in?

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  • [–] 12 points 1 month ago (8 children)

    as a start?

    decommodify housing, end arrests for homelessness and public camping, universal healthcare independent of employment, universal childcare, free higher education, universal free pubic transit, dismantle the military-prison-border complex and use all of that money towards social infrastructure, abolish the supreme court, abolish the senate, destroy every nuclear weapon

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago (7 children)

    Agreed on all points. For the abolishing supreme court and senate part, I agree in theory, but I'd require a detailed plan for what comes after legally, so as not to just invite a new breed of corruption to take the place of the old.

    We aren't enemies, or even very ideologically opposed at all, and we need as many standing in solidarity as possible to have even a chance of toppling the capitalist behemoth in any meaningfull way.

    Wishing you the best in your efforts to help your community.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (6 children)

    I agree in theory, but I’d require a detailed plan for what comes after legally, so as not to just invite a new breed of corruption to take the place of the old.

    the senate just shouldn't exist; it exists to give slave states a veto over any democratic majority. unicameral proportional legislature would be orders of magnitude more democratic than what we have now.

    courts and judges are mechanisms of state power that enforce property relations and class hierarchy. as a first step i'd like to see restorative/transformative justice approaches instead of punitive and community accountable practices instead of state violence.

    as for the supreme court i don't think it needs to exist with a bunch of life-term assholes in robes appointed by politicians making the calls. randomly select large panels of citizens for each case, like it's a jury but for constitutional questions.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    I'd support all of that, while keeping a keen eye out for corporate interests trying to co-opt and corrupt any new rule set to maintain their stranglehold on power.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    good to hear. the point of decommodifying housing and abolishing/nationalizing the various monopolies dominating our lives is so that those corporate interests do not exist and cannot exert power on the political economy.

    i fear that trying to control these capital formations without crushing them first is going to be a losing battle no matter what changes you try to make. that's my main criticism of the liberal track, i don't think there's any real way these things can be controlled.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    I hear you. I just don't know how that happens without violent revolution , which I'd never rule out entirely, but my reading of history leaves me very skeptical that would end up where I want it to.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    my reading of history leaves me very skeptical that would end up where I want it to.

    it rarely does, and i certainly don't pretend that i have any special knowledge about how to shape that. however, what we have now is not sustainable, it's been effectively uniparty capitalist rule. yeah the colors and culture wars change, the line goes up, but the political economy has fundamentally been in stasis. a political stasis is not a stable situation, it's a powder keg waiting to go.

    the reason i prefer to work on dual power is because when it does go up the only path forward from there that i see is to have an existing network of people i already know who want to work on shared goals (opposing and undermining capitalism). that network of people i have so far is a lot of marxists and anarchists because they're the ones actually seeing the problem and willing to put in the effort now.

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  • [+] -11 points 1 month ago (11 children)

    You're a dumbass. Liberals don't even know what a tankie is, let alone call anyone that.

    "Tankie" is what rational socialists call the irrational people on the extreme fringes of the left who are incapable of arguing in good faith, like you for instance.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 child)

    Liberals don’t even know what a tankie is, let alone call anyone that.

    lmao have you been on the internet in the last few years? it's their latest word that they learned.

    the reality is that ‘tankie’ is one of those terms that gets stretched until it’s just a pejorative for anyone to the left of the person using it.

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  • [–] -2 points 1 month ago

    No, that's not even true. You're just calling anyone a liberal who calls you a tankie, so clearly it's only liberals using the term from your perspective. That's called mental gymnastics.

    Also,

    the reality is that ‘tankie liberal’ is one of those terms that gets stretched until it’s just a pejorative for anyone to the left center of the person using it.

    FTFY

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago (8 children)

    No, "tankie" is just a pejorative for anyone that defends and supports existing socialist states. Being good faith doesn't matter, what matters is what people support, whether they be Marxists, anarchists, or even SocDems.

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  • [–] -3 points 1 month ago (7 children)

    That's rich, coming from you.

    Mind telling us what "existing socialist states" you're referring to? Do the PRC and DPRK feature in that list? Because yes, defending and obfuscating for those authoritarian and rigidly hierarchical ethno-states truly is something that tankies often do. How astute for you to point that out!

    And no, if someone is capable of rational discourse and argues in good faith, then by definition they're not a tankie and I've never seen anyone call someone like that a tankie. Tankies are usually all about "less chat, more splat"

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (6 children)

    At present, the PRC, DPRK, Vietnam, Laos, and Cuba are all socialist. In each state, public ownership is the principal aspect of the economy, and the working classes control the state. They each have hierarchy, sure, but hierarchy isn't class, and calling them "ethno-states" is also bad-faith. You seem to think arguing in favor of these states makes someone inherently bad-faith, but that would mean the Cuban government and the Black Panther Party are also inherently "bad faith." It's a thought terminating technique to immediately assume anyone defending these is malicious or duplicitous.

    As for whether or nor being a tankie is disqualified by good-faith and rational discussion, this is ironically bad-faith. You are not the arbiter of who is and is not a tankie, and I've seen the term hurled against many people, including but not limited to myself, based on what we support, rather than rationality of our logic or how genuine we are. This seems to be more of a way for you to front-load your own views as inherently correct and impossible to criticize, as you immediately assume anyone defending, say, the DPRK is a liar, malicious, ingenuine, etc.

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  • [–] -2 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    At present, the PRC, DPRK, Vietnam, Laos, and Cuba are all socialist. In each state, public ownership is the principal aspect of the economy, and the working classes control the state.

    1.) The PRC is socialist-in-name-only. In reality they're highly capitalistic, it just happens to be state-controlled capitalism. (Class, what do we call state-controlled capitalism?).

    1.5.) Also, the PRC state is controlled by an entrenched uni-party with rigid hierarchies and complete control of the state apparati including elections, banking, commerce, industry, telecom, and media. Not controlled by the working class, despite the "communist" party label.

    2.) I've spent time in Vietnam living with a working class Vietnamese family. They do not "control the state," and everyone there knows that. There's a lot of cynicism and apathy surrounding politics there, but the working class people there generally do not feel empowered. Politics and everyday life are in a completely separate bubbles, and that most of the politicians and government officials are corrupt and self-serving is generally viewed as a given.

    3.) The PRC is literally a Han-dominated ethno-state which habitually commits forced assimilation and cultural erasure as a matter of policy (called "national unity"), which they've committed against the Cantonese-speaking populations in the south, indigenous communities such as the Hmong and other groups, and the local populations of colonized regions including Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia.

    You seem to think arguing in favor of these states makes someone inherently bad-faith

    4.) Obfuscating the facts is bad faith. Calling that out isn't thought-terminating, it's critically engaging.

    [...] as you immediately assume anyone defending, say, the DPRK is a liar, malicious, ingenuine, etc.

    5.) Holy shit... I can't make my fifth point any better than you've already made it for me...

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

    The PRC has a socialist market economy, a form of developing socialism where the commanding heights and critical industries are socially owned, while emerging industries are marketized. This is because the CPC understands the Marxist critique of capitalism, which isn't that private property is morally wrong, but that the basis of social ownership is centralized, socialized production as seen in developed markets, not decentralized and scattered production, which instead suits markets.

    The CPC already tried the more dogmatic method of collectivizing everything, and this went the way Marxists would predict: unstable. The developing areas were in contradiction between their unsuitable level of productive forces, and an attempt at forcing a higher level of social organization upon them. This resulted in dogmatic errors that have since been corrected.

    Regarding the CPC, they are a proletarian party. The state in Marxist analysis can never be a neutral "state," it can only be a "feudal state," a "capitalist state," a "socialist state." They can only represent the ruling class of society, as determined by which class controls the economic base. The proletariat and peasantry took power in 1949, and since then have had dominating control over the base and superstructure. Hierarchy is not class, that is not Marxist. The capitalists that exist in China are under the domination of the state, they are not in power.

    Vietnam is much the same way. A vibes-based anecdote does not actually argue against the fact that Vietnam's economy is dominated by the state, which is run by the working class against capitalists. This was decided by the revolution.

    Regarding the chauvanist claims you've made of China's laws regarding national unity, they are always there to support national identity of ethnic minorities while promoting a greater socialist unity. You sourced none of your claims here, but if you actually listen to what ethnic minorities in China have to say, or if you understand that ethnic minorities are overrepresented in the NPC as a part of affirmative action, then this falls apart.

    I have obfuscated no facts whatsoever. You operate from a position where you assume your own point of view is correct, then again immediately dismiss me as you would Cuba or the Black Panther Party for upholding the DPRK as a legitimate socialist state born out of an anti-colonial struggle. It's enormously anti-critical and entirely bad-faith.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    I have obfuscated no facts whatsoever.

    Your entire comment was one long-winded attempt at obfuscation, complete with PRC state-media sources to back it up.

    You sourced none of your claims here

    Because I don't need to. The facts speak for themselves as easily-accessible "common knowledge" to anyone who looks at objective sources.

    Plus I've had these arguments with .mls like you, and even when I do provide objective sources, you all reject them just because they're not from PRC-controlled state media. I'm not wasting my time.

    You operate from a position where you assume your own point of view is correct

    Oh, really? Traveling to other countries and seeing how people live there, getting a sense of the cultural milieu and the routines of daily life, and listening to people when they talk about how they feel about various things, is all just an "assumption" I'm making that my "own point of view is correct"?

    As opposed to what you're doing, which is what, sitting at home somewhere immersed in rabbit holes on the fringiest corners of the internet? Or are you sitting in a comfy office building somewhere with a database full of party-approved talking points you're getting paid to disseminate?

    A vibes-based anecdote does not actually argue against the fact that Vietnam's economy is dominated by the state, which is run by the working class against capitalists. This was decided by the revolution.

    This you telling me to reject the evidence of my eyes and ears? You don't know shit about real life there, and it shows. If observing first-hand is a "vibes-based approach," then you're rejecting empiricism in favor of dogmatic idealism.

    Regarding the chauvinist claims you've made of China's laws regarding national unity, they are always there to support national identity of ethnic minorities while promoting a greater socialist unity.

    Big LOL there. 'nuff said.

    Also, what's chauvinist in this situation is the Han-dominated PRC committing ethnic cleansings and cultural erasure against every minority in their empire.

    As for the rest of what you said, that's a lot of mental gymnastics just to say "well yes, the PRC is centralized, authoritarian, and hierarchical, as well as capitalistic and market-driven, but it's okay when they do it because they're not the Evil West™."...

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (2 children)

    No, my comment was not "one long-winded attempt at obfuscation." I clearly and explicitly answered each one of your points, grounding them in Marxist theory, and referencing facts where relevant. Only one of the 3 sources was state-backed, and it was one that simply told publicly available information about the demographic makeup of the NPC, which is hardly something controversial. To doubt it would be to believe anything said by the Chinese state is wrong, which leads me to believe that you would tell them they were wrong if they said the Earth is round.

    You aren't providing sources, despite needing to, and you rely on "common sense." This is nonsense. Anyone can see that you are woefully under-prepared, and so you just resort to baseless claims and character assassinations. You have no evidence on your side, so you lie about me and make up some fantasy of me being paid to be a communist online.

    Simply dismissing all of my points as "mental gymnastics" makes it abundantly clear for anyone observing that you cannot actually counter my points, and so are taking a deliberately bad-faith route to dodge the necessity to engage. It's cowardice and bad-faith.

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