americans are selfish

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[–] 97 points 7 months ago (33 children)

Unfortunately this is partially because a large portion of the US populace doesn't ever hear the truth. So much time and effort has been spent on overtaking media outlets that even -after- gas prices started rising there are people who don't realize it's because of the war. It's disgusting, and I have no idea what the average person can do about it. It feels like I'm shouting into the void.

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  • [–] 17 points 7 months ago

    Ah yea, if only they would hear the truth, they would totally- Everyone and their mother knows about Epstein. The majority of humans are straight up unable to care one iota about people outside their most immediate tribe.

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  • [+] -21 points 7 months ago (31 children)

    For Americans whose praxis has always been colonialism and slavery, you're shouting at your enemies that you're their opponent.
    Otherwise, ICE and deportations would have never existed in the first place.

    Neolibs hate this graph precisely because it points out their lies.
    ICE killings, DNC highlights

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  • [–] 38 points 7 months ago (22 children)

    ...wtf is that graph? why is biden five years and trump 1 just two?

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  • [–] 8 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    You don’t remember Biden being president in 2020? Gee, if this graph failed to point out that big neolib blunder year it’s almost like it would tell a completely different story with 2021-2024 being four of the lowest years on the graph. Don’t you see how the DNC is just as bad?

    Tap for spoiler/s

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  • [+] -17 points 7 months ago (19 children)

    Obama was still responsible for the killings during his last few days of 2017.

    Biden is only responsible for killing folks after the end of January of 2021.

    Tis why it's a translucent shade of blue, and not opaque.

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  • [–] 17 points 7 months ago (6 children)

    Very confusing visualization. There's gotta be a better way.

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  • [+] -11 points 7 months ago (5 children)

    I welcome comrades to fix it!

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  • [–] 10 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    You need others to fix your errors?

    Why not fix it yourself or (low effort) edit your post?

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  • [–] 5 points 7 months ago (11 children)

    if 2017 is blue, so should 2025. the blue areas should be by month.

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  • [+] -8 points 7 months ago (10 children)

    Agreed. pls🙏 reattempt a better graph.

    I just edited the one from the post.

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  • [–] 6 points 7 months ago (9 children)

    quick edits like that cost credibility.

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  • [+] -9 points 7 months ago (8 children)
  • [–] 5 points 7 months ago* (7 children)

    like, if the graph gets outside of this little bubble we're in, it's so easy to debunk that it can be used as an example of "leftists sure are dumb". not because the data in red is wrong, but because the blue areas look like they've been made wrong on purpose as propaganda.

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  • [–] -5 points 7 months ago (6 children)

    then fix🤷‍♀️. Lemmy needs to mature enough itself from labels and sentences, and intersect when folks err, and mutual aid when they can.

    tis why I have DNIs from folks whose only praxis is sentencing&labeling folks. To nuture understanding, one must lend hands to catch each others’ falterings.

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  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago (5 children)

    just a note for the future. not meant as a condemnation or anything.

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  • [+] -7 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    ad hominems are dumb🤷‍♀️

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  • [–] 7 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    ...yes? don't think i made one. i'll correct it if you point it out.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (2 children)

    Deriving ad hominem as an attack and missing that the intent, perhaps so poorly able to made as there exists no correct distinction of any sense of absolutish. Especially as the only thing truly absolute is that the only exception to it is suicide. Reading that with the mistake of implying narcissism, which I mean as not of any person in particular but rather the error of Unreal logic unclicked into a Closed Source Tournament game. Hash paint I'm sloppy drawing right now as the application relevancy, if you Will.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    Obama was president for 9 years, Trump's first term was 2 years, Biden's term was 5 years? I think everyone hates that graph.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 25 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    *humans

    That is why its so important to teach the values of socialism in context of self identified selfishness.

    If we can guarantee that everyone has the means to live healthy and comfortable…

    Then you are guaranteed to live healthy and comfortable.

    If everyone looks after their neighbours, then your neighbours will look after you.

    We are a long way away from a world where human psychology does not contain an ego, first step to mediate that is to accept it and find a way to be at peace where it can no longer cause harm.

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  • [–] -3 points 7 months ago* (1 child)

    When Russia and China does it, its Russians and Chinese. Sanction them, starve them, embargoes.

    When the west does it, it's suddenly "humans".

    We know the drill.

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  • [–] 6 points 7 months ago

    Troll-gpt?

    This might be shocking to you but the Russians and Chinese are in fact human too and live on the same one planet.

    I don’t particularly care about nations in any kind of form, let alone “sanctions and embargoes”

    I do care about people, and for them to not starve or be involved in any kind of military operation.

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  • [–] 17 points 7 months ago* (1 child)

    checks notes Almost 4,500 children were shot in 2025 in the USA.

    I don't mean to be rude, but the US doesn't even care about it is own children considering dying from a gunshot wound is the number one child killer in the US.

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  • [–] 16 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Yes, well, the raping children was what caused me to first question the current American political leadership but that's just me apparently.

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  • [–] 30 points 7 months ago

    This administration has made me a straight up anarchist. Fuck this bullshit government system, fuck all government, laws don't matter anymore, fuck money and fuck corporations.

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  • [–] 42 points 7 months ago (8 children)

    Copy pasting a comment I made on a similar meme

    Not to give excuses for people but it's also perfectly reasonable to express concern for something that directly affects one's daily life, before an abstract system of domination.

    Moral evaluation is overridden when one's purchasing power and thus livelihood is threatened. The Yellow Vests in France started because of a gas price hike, and then transformed into a political movement. The Boston Tea Party into the American Revolution. Police Corruption in Tunisia into the Arab Spring... It always starts with concrete issues and then expands in critic of the system.

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  • [–] 15 points 7 months ago

    Thank you. People tend to look at individual and societal behaviors from the same point of view.

    Access to quality information, presence of logical frameworks, proper moral frameworks over heuristics, biases, propaganda, etc. play much greater roles in influencing societal behavior rather than a simple explanation of "society is so selfish".

    Just a personal observation, but looking at stuff in this manner creates resentment against society and makes it seem irredeemable. This is bad, as it hinders any motivation to change it for the good.

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  • [–] -2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (6 children)

    I believe I read the fallout of this kind of thinking, precisely because France, American Slavers, and Hamas didn't end in good solidifying endings for every one of these overridden purchasing powers and livelihood [finally] threatened.

    France has Nazis, in a very far right government.

    American never ceased its slave trade if the Epstein files were read correctly.

    And Hamas doesn't condemned slavery. It actively supports it.

    I am not so sure anarchists should solidify with slavers, while 🇺🇲 promises to eradicate Iran from the maps.

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  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago (5 children)

    I feel like some points you make are a bit unrelated?

    • what fallout?
    • yellow vests and the french government giving in to nazis have no relation to one another, but happy to expand on that specific part if you'd like, there a cool article on the subject that summarizes key elements to this movement, translate at your convenience
    • what does hamas have to do in any of this?

    I'm not sure I understand your point but explaining how movements start with material triggers doesn't mean we have to align with governments

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  • [+] -6 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    what fallout?

    The 🧵 where you said your own paste, within context?

    french government giving in to nazis

    So you're saying French people are more selfless after yellow vest and the state moving further Nazi?

    hamas

    The effects of the Arab Spring?

    movements start with material triggers doesn’t mean we have to align with governments

    And I am pointing out where the have ended: slavery. All these triggers lead to slavery. I am praying there are other tactics not to reend there.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

    Yeah I mean what about that other thread? I didn't feel like there was that big of a fallout in the comments, it sounds a bit overdramatic, unless you meant something else.

    About the yellow vests, no that is not what I'm saying, I'm not sure how or why you could reach to that conclusion. I'm giving an example of how a political movement started from concrete material issues that the working class experienced. In fact, the yellow vests managed to get slight concessions. There is no connection that would suggest that movement led to the authoritarian drift in France (those were already experimented in french suburbs, and extensively used to kill any protests moving forward, very good analysis of police brutality in France here https://shs.cairn.info/revue-mouvements-2017-4-page-38).

    Are we sure we're both talking about the 2010s Tunisia protests? I don't see how this is linked in any way with Hamas. It started from the immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi in protest to police corruption and the job crisis (among other things), experienced at that time. Those again started from concrete issues, and then evolved in criticism of the systems and powers in place. I'm hoping you're not making a link between the Arab Spring and Hamas out of ignorance and essentialization, the former started in Maghreb, the latter in the Middle East.

    I feel like you're jumping to conclusions a bit too quickly, linking end-states of governmental action to the premises of various protests. I don't know, there's so many examples in history that contradict your premise:

    • The Yellow Vests protesting gas price hikes didn't lead to the french government adopting far right methodology (Macron has been in power two years before that, and already exhibited nazi-compatible behaviour, even Hollande showcased signs of authoritarianism as early as 2015).
    • The Arab Spring did not lead to a branch of Hamas being a terrorist organization (it exists since 1987 and was being labelled as such as early as 1995).
    • The Boston Tea Party protesting the Tea Act of 1773, the Haymarket riots protesting 8-hour workdays in 1886, the Seattle General Strike of 1919 over wage cuts... they didn't lead to slavery in the U.S. The Atlantic slave trade started as early as the 15th century.
    • The Catalan CNT rent strikes in 1931 over evictions didn't lead to slavery, also they won rent controls before the Civil War and Franco's takeover (1936).
    • Slavery didn't spawn in the UK out of the London Matchgirls' strike of 1888 over fines.

    So yeah we might have a misunderstanding because I don't understand why you would want to argue that protests starting from concrete material conditions automatically leads to slavery. All the progress we made for workers rights, and human rights, were taken from the powers in place thanks to people organizing, very often thanks to anarchist organizations. My point is just that it all started from concrete issues, that the working class was able to transform into something bigger politically, which explains why some (let's say, less politically educated-) U.S. citizen are starting to protest only once material issues (gas price hikes) are hitting them, rather than the abstract (to them) wars waged by their government in foreign countries.

    It's our job to turn this reaction into organized political action against their government, and no, it does not end automatically in slavery.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (2 children)

    It’s our job to turn this reaction into organized political action against their government

    I am asking how, when I’ve been telling them to demolish deathcamps for more than 22 years.
    I’ve reminded to destroy their panoptics.

    How do you organize reactionaries into direct acts against their oppressors, when they let a generation pass them by?

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Well I don't know specifically what methods you've used so far, but in my circles, it would be something like this:

    First we stop preaching to "them" as if they were a singular organised group, and instead talk to the individuals. We tie their concrete issues to direct political thought and action, and later we start widening their perspective on a criticism of the system to help them understand the powers at play. Also we drop the tribalist "reactionary" label and look at it from a class warfare perspective BUT we make the effort to deconstruct any misaligned/ignorant/bigoted/you-name-it views.

    Organise, unionise!

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  • [–] 14 points 7 months ago

    I mean, redpill/ blackpill/ hard right wing BS thinking is what got everyone in this mess in the first place. I'm not sure why doubling down on it would help.

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  • [–] 86 points 7 months ago (41 children)

    I’m getting damn tired of this style of post.

    We get a rare drop, where circumstances suddenly allow a leftist position to become the mainstream position. Then inevitably, someone posts “America only cares about because it started impacting normies”.

    And somehow the reaction is not “Hell yeah it did, brother, now is our time, let’s rolllllll!” but instead passing that tweet around while going “tsk-tsk”.

    What the actual fuck are we doing? If we got a gift horse, we’d probably say “Hold up lemme enroll in equine dentistry school for next semester”. Like goddamn.

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  • [+] 14 points 7 months ago (29 children)
  • [–] 8 points 7 months ago (18 children)

    OP is a psyop.

    A psyop to convince people not to vote for Kamala Harris in 2026?

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  • [+] 4 points 7 months ago (17 children)
  • [–] 5 points 7 months ago

    voting for harm reduction

    To claim Joe Biden was a "harm reduction" candidate, you need to ignore how he extended much of Trump's Term 1 policies and - by refusing to prosecute and imprison any of his first term cabinet - paved the way for even more egregious abuses in his second term.

    The Biden Administration did nothing to curb the abuses of the Republican Party. And, in many cases, normalized and entrenched the fascist policies and powers accrued to the executive branch under prior terms of office. When the ink is dry on the history books, he will be remembered as an enabler of Trump's fascist regime in much the same way he was an enabler of the Bush fascist regime from 2001 to 2009.

    Eitherway, a dipshit.

    Harris adviser says VP ran 'flawless' campaign

    I have to wonder if you genuinely believe people who say this.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (15 children)

    This is an anarchist community, so here's an anarchist perspective. Voting is not and cannot be harm reduction.

    The idea of a ballot being capable of reducing the harm in a system rooted in colonial domination and exploitation, white supremacy, hetero-patriarchy, and capitalism is an extraordinary exaggeration. There is no person whose lives aren’t impacted everyday by these systems of oppression, but instead of coded reformism and coercive “get out the vote” campaigns towards a “safer” form of settler colonialism, we’re asking “what is the real and tragic harm and danger associated with perpetuating colonial power and what can be done to end it?”

    https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/voting-is-not-harm-reduction

    Harm reduction is harmful

    Voting as harm reduction does more harm than good. Accepting reforms through voting makes people settle for a partial goal; it is a concession. From this position of compromise, the state entrenches its position, and it becomes more difficult to push further, for voters fear losing their partial gains. Accepting harm reduction also divides the movement, because some will be satisfied with the crumbs, while others want it all (see the split at the ZAD). Harm reduction also assumes that the harm (the government) cannot be removed entirely, which is an argument that there can be no anarchy.

    Voting is not harm reduction

    For the vast majority of issues, there’s no difference between the political parties. They are all the parties of business, climate destruction, deportation, incarceration, police, surveillance, drone strikes, sacred site desecration, et cetera. By getting you to believe that there is a lesser of two evils, the state dampens your desire for abolishing it, because you are meant to believe that things will be worse if you don’t vote and support a political party. Look at the fact that the George Floyd Rebellion occurred under Trump, where liberals, and progressives, and leftists didn’t get what they want, where the harm was supposedly greater, than under Biden, where those same people lie dormant, accepting the lesser evil world as a blessed reprieve.

    https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anonymous-why-you-shouldn-t-vote#toc1

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  • [–] 5 points 7 months ago (5 children)

    This entire argument assumes no one does anything other than vote

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  • [–] 7 points 7 months ago*

    A lot of internet anarchists are like any other internet leftist: their main "actions" are gatekeeping, purity tests, and virtue signaling that they're real [whatever flavor of the left they claim]. They have zero pragmatism and no actionable plans -- but they get pissed if anyone suggests something that doesn't perfectly align with their professed ideals.

    They don't actually do anything for their cause in the real world: all they do is bitch on the internet and to their close circle of interchangeable friends. They're the dead wood of progressiveness.

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  • [–] 6 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    Which to be fair, is kind of the case for a majority of the population, which is perfectly fine for, and encouraged by, the people of power

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Which to be fair, is kind of the case for a majority of the population

    It's clearly not. I don't sit in a box until election day. I've got a household to tend to, friends to support, family to care for, and an economy to participate in. All of these actions have political implications and consequences.

    People need to recognize that caring for an ailing parent, holding down a job at a convenience store, opening up your house to a roommate (or renting that unit for a profit), driving a car versus riding a bike, calling the cops, littering - these all carry political weight. How you spend the majority of your waking hours is still a consequence of your ideology even in constrained circumstances.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (1 child)

    I'm glad you don't, what I mean is that for a lot of people, participating in a democracy rarely goes beyond voting every cycle, even if they do other actions that can be considered participation to democracy

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago

    for a lot of people, participating in a democracy rarely goes beyond voting every cycle

    The modern political system doesn't offer many opportunities to interact with the government outside of the electoral cycle.

    But that doesn't constrain your politics, because people routinely organize outside the scope of government anyway.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (8 children)

    here’s an anarchist perspective

    Both-sidesism isn't anarchism. It's nihilism. It's the "nothing matters, so there are no rules" surface level "anarchism" take. You can't hide behind hedonistic nihilism by calling it "anarchism". You might as well just come out as the edgelord you want to be and tip your fedora.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    no one is saying "both sides", as though there are only two. we're talking about what harm reduction is, and whether voting qualifies. it does not.

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  • [+] 2 points 7 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (2 children)

    badjacketing isn't allowed here.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago* (1 child)

    badjacketing

    proving you don't read and huff your own farts.

    Badjacketing would be misrepresenting, manufacturing or lying about a person to paint a bad image of them. I literally linked to the thing they just posted, and are doing... nothing about any of that is false or misrepresentative. Just because it makes them look bad and you don't like it, doesn't make it "badjacketing".

    Engage with what is being said instead of trying to appeal to some reddit-tier fallacy argument.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (2 children)
    1. Anarcho-nihilism is a thing. Personally I find it a little bleak, I think we should have a vision to move towards.
    2. So we can criticize voting itself, but not the parties that perpetuate it?
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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    howabout this, rather than sit here and argue theory and bullshit... lets reframe what you're doing here and see if that's the person you idealize yourself to be.

    You're coming to the defense of a powertripping mod that abuses their position to push centrist bullshit and then bans anyone who disagrees with them.
    Would you, as an anarchist, come to defend any other self-appointed hierarchical leader that pushes harmful misinformation and silences critics? Hmm? Is this your ideal anarchist community member?

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago
    1. I don't think the mod is power tripping. They used the piefed default ban length (2100-2026=74), and the mod is allowed to moderate their community as they see fit. They don't allow aggressive neoliberal talking points. That's their choice.
    2. I'm a fan of the community, so I'm familiar with the mod's behavior. They aren't centrist, they were criticizing the democratic party. I don't necessarily agree with the post, but that doesn't make it misinformation.
    3. As a mod of a few communities myself, we're custodians of a community, not "hierarchical leaders".
    4. The principle of free association means that I can freely interact with them as long as both parties see it as mutually beneficial. If I didn't like the mod, what they post, or their community, then I block them. If they don't like me, what I post, or my communities, then they block me.
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  • [+] -7 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (7 children)

    it doesn’t matter if you vote

    voting for harm reduction is the same as voting for harm

    psyop, or duped by a psyop. Eitherway, a dipshit.

    You might as well just come out as the edgelord you want to be and tip your fedora.

    you don’t read and huff your own farts.

    howabout this, rather than sit here and argue theory and bullshit

    Engage with what is being said instead of trying to appeal to some reddit-tier fallacy argument.

    And lets see… a “leftist” in “leftist spaces” making plays from the “alt-right handbook”, misrepresenting them as “leftist” opinions to fracture coalition… what would you call a person like that?

    Maybe if you write it bigger then you win. Actual child

    I’m done playing debatelord with you reddit rejects.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    What is with the large text? I think you make a great point about supposed leftist that are not leftist at all. We see a lot of that here on Lemmy. I think it may be a horseshoe thing or they are just lying to themselves.

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  • [–] [S] -2 points 7 months ago (6 children)

    I’m getting damn tired of this style of liberal comment in an anarchist community.

    We get a rare drop, where circumstances suddenly allow a leftist position to become the mainstream position.

    No you haven't. You've got people who are upset their wallets are hit, that is not a leftist position in the mainstream. Two people can reach the same conclusion for wildly different reasons.

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  • [–] 14 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    When people's wallets are hit it's exactly the right time to convert people.

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  • [–] 25 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    This is why the left is doomed. You cant see the opportunity to bring more into the fold, you only see purity test fails and a chance ro grand stand

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  • [–] [S] -1 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    The left isn’t doomed thanks, we’re doing just fine.

    Liberals and centrists are however doomed as people are moving to either extreme and abandoning a failed system that has only delivered abysmal results.

    Go cry about purity tests some more, maybe that will convince a leftist to vote for murdering children if you do it a few more times.

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  • [–] -2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

    You keep doing whatever you're doing (mostly nothing). But don't expect the rest of the world to not point out your bullshit while your pedophile president is raping the world.

    You are again acting selfish by portraying yourself as victims, while your government is ruining the world. You are NOT the victims, you are the PERPETRATORS.

    Fucking jokers, fix your shithole country if you want the world to stop making fun of you. Because no one else can, the only thing we can do to vent our frustrations is to call out your bullshit.

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  • [–] 16 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Oh just fix the country, why didn't anyone tell us that sooner!

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