A Marxist is stuck in a room with a liberal, a fascist, and an anarchist. The Marxist has one gun and two bullets. What does the Marxist do? Shoot the liberal and the anarchist.
(Based off actual historical events.)
The Soviet Union did more to stop the fascists than anyone else, and 27 million people in the Soviet Union were killed in the fight.
Yeah, but that’s after they made an alliance with Nazi Germany. An alliance Germany broke, not the USSR.
The Telegraph, 2008: Stalin ‘planned to send a million troops to stop Hitler if Britain and France agreed pact’ | Stalin was ‘prepared to move more than a million Soviet troops to the German border to deter Hitler’s aggression just before the Second World War’
Papers which were kept secret for almost 70 years show that the Soviet Union proposed sending a powerful military force in an effort to entice Britain and France into an anti-Nazi alliance.
Such an agreement could have changed the course of 20th century history, preventing Hitler’s pact with Stalin which gave him free rein to go to war with Germany’s other neighbours.
The offer of a military force to help contain Hitler was made by a senior Soviet military delegation at a Kremlin meeting with senior British and French officers, two weeks before war broke out in 1939.
The new documents, copies of which have been seen by The Sunday Telegraph, show the vast numbers of infantry, artillery and airborne forces which Stalin’s generals said could be dispatched, if Polish objections to the Red Army crossing its territory could first be overcome.
But the British and French side - briefed by their governments to talk, but not authorised to commit to binding deals - did not respond to the Soviet offer, made on August 15, 1939. Instead, Stalin turned to Germany, signing the notorious non-aggression treaty with Hitler barely a week later.
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, named after the foreign secretaries of the two countries, came on August 23 - just a week before Nazi Germany attacked Poland, thereby sparking the outbreak of the war. But it would never have happened if Stalin’s offer of a western alliance had been accepted, according to retired Russian foreign intelligence service Major General Lev Sotskov, who sorted the 700 pages of declassified documents.
“This was the final chance to slay the wolf, even after [British Conservative prime minister Neville] Chamberlain and the French had given up Czechoslovakia to German aggression the previous year in the Munich Agreement,” said Gen Sotskov, 75.
The Soviet offer - made by war minister Marshall Klementi Voroshilov and Red Army chief of general staff Boris Shaposhnikov - would have put up to 120 infantry divisions (each with some 19,000 troops), 16 cavalry divisions, 5,000 heavy artillery pieces, 9,500 tanks and up to 5,500 fighter aircraft and bombers on Germany’s borders in the event of war in the west, declassified minutes of the meeting show.
But Admiral Sir Reginald Drax, who lead the British delegation, told his Soviet counterparts that he authorised only to talk, not to make deals.
“Had the British, French and their European ally Poland, taken this offer seriously then together we could have put some 300 or more divisions into the field on two fronts against Germany - double the number Hitler had at the time,” said Gen Sotskov, who joined the Soviet intelligence service in 1956. “This was a chance to save the world or at least stop the wolf in its tracks.”
I don’t see how the fact that France and Britain refused an alliance with the USSR makes the one with Nazi Germany more acceptable.
And do you know why France and Britain refused? It’s in your text:
Stalin was ‘prepared to move more than a million Soviet troops to the German border’
Because between the Soviet and German borders there were countries! What Stalin asked was to conquer independent countries with the benediction of Paris and London. It was not a generous offer, it was an imperialist ultimatum. “Let me invade Poland, Romania and other allies of yours, and that will calm Hitler” was in substance Stalin’s proposition.
And to put true non-aggression pacts like the ones with France and Britain in the same group as an offensive alliance which was actually the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact is intellectually dishonest.
The USSR first sought an alliance with Britain and France which was rejected, so they signed a non-aggression pact with Germany. Britain and France also signed a non-aggression pact with Germany, betraying one of their allies (Czechoslovakia) in exchange.
Should we take the fact that the US and USSR fought on the same side in WWII to say that they were always close friends and ideologically aligned, completely ignoring everything else? Because if anything that would be more reasonable to assert, because it never escalated to a hot war between the two.
The Soviet Union was not entitled to an alliance with partners they were at war with only a decade prior. Britain and France were at war with the entity that would become the Soviet Union until 1922, There was no reason to Trust an alliance from a state that was ideologically opposed to them and wanted to destroy their way of life.
But the Victim complex from the Russians is a venerable beast, it was as relevant in 1925 as it was in 2025.
I’m not sure how it’s relevant whether or not the Soviets were “entitled” to an alliance. What matters is the fact that they attempted to negotiate one there first.
I can ask for a cup of sugar from the neighbor who I wrecked the car of last month. that neighbor is still within his reasonable rights to tell me to fuck off
Again, not relevant. The point is not how Britain and France responded, the point is that the Soviets chose to go to them first.
It wasn’t just a pact of non-aggression. They divided Poland between themselves! France and Britain abandoned Czechoslovakia to avoid a war, USSR made an alliance with Nazi Germany to begin one.
And USSR and the US were on the same side because they were attacked by allied countries (Germany and Japan), they didn’t chose one another. Stop your historical revisionism.
I won’t defend all of the USSR’s actions, but it’s absurd to suggest they were motivated by any sort of ideological alignment with the Nazis as opposed to self-interest and circumstance, in the same way that the US and USSR were motivated by a common interest rather than ideological alignment.
At basically every other moment in history, all across the globe, Marxists and fascists have been at each other’s throats.
Nothing I’ve said is in the least bit “historical revisionism.”
Still, the USSR considered that an alliance with Nazi Germany was ideologically acceptable, even if they were not aligned. Because the only true ideology of USSR was to maintain its leaders in power, Marxism was just a facade. And that’s will always ultimately the case with authoritarian governments.
Of course self-preservation was a priority for the USSR, as it is with any nation. Failure to achieve self-preservation would have meant being ruled by the Nazis.
Not sure how that in any way indicates that “Marxism was a facade.”
A non-aggression pact is not so much of an alliance. Nazis are the ones who broke it anyway. US armed/financed German military-industrial complex.
It was not just a pact of non aggression. They attacked Poland together, and shared its territory. It was an alliance.
ok. The dangerous impression that leads to hate against Russia is “Nazi Germany and USSR loved each other, and so by transitive property of disinformed dementia were the same,” because they had some shady agreements. Modern conservative/western (of Ukraine) naziism revisionism is that Hitler/Germany were socialist liberals “just like USSR”
And the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact included (in secret) an agreement dividing Europe up into Nazi and Soviet halves preemptively.
But only AFTER Hitler violated their agreement and invaded. Prior to that, the USSR had done absolutely nothing to oppose Nazis.
Which the Red Army made up for by murdering untold thousands of German citizens on the way to Berlin. Let’s not pretend the Soviets weren’t huge pieces of shit, the only reason they didn’t start WW2 was because they were too busy shitting in buckets and starving to death.
The only people you idiot .ml users are fooling is yourselves, so I don’t know why you bother with this revisionist bullshit.
revisionist bullshit.
Projection, as always.
The Soviet Union. Or more accuratley, RUSSIA was one of the two aggressors that Started the second world war.
Furthermore, they were not an ally, but a co-belligerent. Why else did the free world go from a period of direct confrontation and war in the 20s, to Cold war in the 30s. to temporary truce for 4 years from 1941 to 1945. right back to Cold war with Moscow from 1945 till 1991? (and then another temporary truce from 1991 until about 2008) right back to more or less being de facto at war with each other again since 2014
And you can’t pin tens of millions of your own people, with Purges, Pogroms, Mentally handicapped suicidal orders. And general paranoid hysterical incompetnece. and blame those on the germans.
especially when large percentages of those people were colonized nations that wanted nothing to do with the Bolshevik Russian Imperial rule (Belarusians, Ukrainians, Poles, Balts etc and were just used like buffers and meat shields)
to temporary truce for 4 years from 1941 to 1945.
Do nations typically put aside differences to make temporary truces with co-belligerents of the nations they’re at war with?
I dont know. you tell me. Outside of the thunderdome in the middle east. whens the last time there was a major conflict with dozens of nations and more than two major ideoligies at play.
If you’re asking in good faith. World War II’s situation was largely unprecedented.
Unlike WWI Where Imperial Russia and France were allied. Soviet Russia was not allied with France, Britain, or western Europe.The point is that the US put aside ideological differences because the USSR was fighting against the Nazis, they were not “co-belligerents.”
for four years. a temporary matter. they went right back to being in a hostile competition for spheres of influence a few weeks or months after V-E day however.
Well, that’s twice as long as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact lasted before the Nazis and Communists went right back to killing each other, not just in a “hostile competition” but in a large scale, total war that left tens of millions of people dead.
If anyone disagrees:
Kronstadt
Spanish Civil War
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact
The War in Ukraine
Etc.
The War in Ukraine
I’m confused.
Did you forget how all the MLs were rooting for Putin and performing apologetics about how Russia had “national trauma from its interactions with the west”? (actual quote, btw.) They pointed out how there were some factions in the military that were antisemitic and ignored the openly fascist policies of the Kremlin.
Were? They’re still rooting for him. As the soviets would say, they’re useful idiots.
JFC… Russia needs to neutralize Ukraine for self defense from demonic NATO intentions to diminish it. Disinformation blaming Russia just allows your rulers and oligarchs corruption profits while your own countries are diminished instead. Pretending that all of your evil benefits Ukrainian people is by far the worst outcome of your hate.
NATO is demonic, that’s a new one. Believing in higher powers isn’t very commie of you, comrade. The only power is the state. Now run along and mind your labor.
Diminishing others is neither humanist or divine, and while west hates Putin for restraining oligarchy, it’s not a commie country, and you/us don’t need to be a commie to denounce evil.
The Spanish Civil War is actually slightly inaccurate. The Communist Party were sided with the Liberal Republicans instead of the revolutionaries - like the anarchists, and other socialists - and later prosecuted those revolutionaries and accused them of being fascists while a lot of them were still in the frontlines fighting actual fascists. The Communist Party were just serving the interests of the USSR, which at that point wanted a liberal government in Spain (due to their relation to France, if I recall correctly) and not a workers’ revolution.
This is why campism is the biggest pitfall on the left. It’s tempting to let others do your thinking for you, but this is where it leads.
- 1932 Germany
- Two months ago, thanks guys, Palestine and immigration policy are saved now
Spanish Civil War
What can drag Google to learn more about tankies fucking up Catalonia?
Historically, the Marxists were the ones that stopped the Nazis. 80% of combat in WWII was fought on the Eastern Front. Meanwhile, the liberals in Germany had linked hands with the Nazis to exterminate the Marxists early on in the Nazi rise to power. Additionally, the Soviets were the only ones materially backing the Anarchists in Spain.
Surely giving the gun to the fascist is a better decision. They’ll just shoot themselves in the foot… Right?
They eventually do. Fascism encourages corruption and incompetence, social division and the fragmentation of non-governmental movements, local dissidents and autonomies. Mussolini was so incompetent that not only was Italy eventually invaded by the Allies and lost its sovereignty to the German Reich, but Benito himself was imprisoned, despite his escape he didn’t make it to Switzerland and was hanged by Communist partisans. Hitler, on the other hand, also encouraged corruption and division within his own structures to prevent people from allying against him or creating opposition. Hitler himself was an incompetent idiot who interfered in the work of his generals. To the end, Adolf believed he could win the war, and when he realised the shit he had created, he shot himself. Fascists aren’t smart or competent enough, they often rely heavily on people who can do things and who are bribed by the fascists to work with them. Hitler often used Göring’s upper class position and connections with prominent aristocrats to get his ideas through, as Hitler himself was just a peasant born in a village with little education and was even homeless for a time. Hitler relied heavily on people more competent than him in important positions to get what he wanted, because he could do shit on his own.
I’d personally give the gun to the anarchist.
…Which would be me holding on to it.
No true Marxist
The Marxist was the only one who gave the anarchist guns, tanks, and planes. But no, they’re surely a bigger threat than the liberal and fascist.
…And then executed them as soon as the Bolsheviks were seizing/had seized power.
Marxists aren’t fascist they have a particular philosophy but they’re not violent. There’s only one violent person in that room.
A leftist is stuck in a room with another leftist and a fascist.
The leftist has one gun and two bullets, and they must be used.
What does the leftist do?
Shoot the other leftist twice.
… then claim the other leftist making an edgy joke at the age of 14 is a proof they were the real fascist.
I mean it says the bullets must be used. You could just shoot the wall
I use my two bullets to shoot the concept of this political thought experimentp. Let me out now puzzle master, we had a deal you can’t keep
Makes it look like a suicide
Based off of current goings-on, this is factual. Constant internal battles about who’s the true leftist while ignoring the real enemy
The only ones ignoring the real enemy are the liberals, actually helping them to fight the leftists.
tHe LiBz!!
Nope
Damn that was fast! USA is not yet full fascist that liberals are already rewriting history!
How are liberals rewriting history if i may ask?
By pretending that liberals didn’t push the fascists to power. And instead blaming the left, as always. The only enemy of liberals are the leftists. It always has been, and it’ll always be apparently.
This is a myopic analysis of why the fascists are in power. The left as a whole is responsible for pushing the fascists to power because of their inability to settle on a common agenda. Some leftists are more concerned with social justice, some with the worries of the working class and some with capitalism entirely.
This blaming of one particular ideological group for why the right were able to usurp power is part of the problem. Looking for who to blame instead of looking for a solution that all leftists can agree on.
Note: When i refer to the left, I’m talking about liberals, progressives, social democrats and the far left ideologies.
Where do you vote, incidentally? Besides Lemmy.
Not the US, clearly.
Well said.
Reminds me of a joke on a Bright Eyes song.
“There’s a Communist and an Anarchist in a car who’s driving? The cop.”
Oooh. What song? The only thing I have in my list from Bright Eyes is At The Very Bottom of Everything.
I have no idea. I just remember it in the intro of a song. Sorry to tease you lol.
google doesnt know either.
I thought that was from David Rovics.
That’s entirely possible. My Brain made it a Bright Eyes song, but on reflection I have no idea why I thought that.
Shoot the fascist twice
That’s what I would do lmao. Fuck that guy
It’s not a joke if it’s true
It’s not true, though. The Marxists, safely behind a wall, convinced the undecideds to give the gun to the Fascist.
No they didn’t, what a boring take divorced from reality.
If liberals ever critically analyzed reality they’d be marxists.
Well I don’t think that’s true at all. I mean Liberals are basically the core of capitalism. In a lot of ways the liberal Revolution was the capitalist Revolution. They’re an entire people that Define themselves by law order and property.
That’s not true, the critical analysis of the enlightenment overthrew the dominance of the church and suborned it to private property. There are several good liberal analysts and historians, in many cases Marxists depend on the analysis done by liberals. Liberalism is a scientific mindset.
But like Marx says in Theses on Feuerbach, as well as a lot of other places, the problem with enlightenment rationalism is it is too objective, like it turns everything, all relationships, all of nature, politics, history, and turns them into objects which have inherent qualities. As such there is a preference over “real” things that can be directly experienced. But as we know, capitalism delivers many false appearances which is where liberals get it wrong but Marxists, who see “things” as relationships created by human beings, can scientifically see much further and deeper than liberals. History appears to the liberal as an assortment of things, whereas to the Marxists we view history as relationships.
Dialectical materialism is a development on, and breaking with, the empirical, objective, enlightenment materialism that came before it. But the two share a common root, if not branch.
But I agree that 90% of liberal commentators are completely intellectually dishonest defenders of private property, and entrenched power; guys like Bret Stephens and Matty Ynglesias. Just completely dishonest grifters playing sophist games with history and events to justify class rule. Many academics like this as well, but I think in reality its more of a mixed bag.
Will the liberals ever grow up and take responsibility for they doing?
Liberals didn’t vote for Trump.
Kamalla was an infinitely better candidate if you value human life. Kamala wanted to tax the rich, Trump wants to cut their taxes AGAIN. How can anybody call themself a communist when they empower wealthy theocratic oligopoly?
Leftists didn’t vote for Trump as far as I imagine. Your argument is stupid. The question is why would leftist vote for Harris when Biden demonstrated he wouldn’t do anything more than what Democrats did in the last 50 years?
If they didn’t vote for Harris, as 6.27 Million former Biden votes stayed home, then they effectively did support the Trump presidency. Just like the Tankies told them to, to “reject the duopoly”. Every Democrat in the last 50 years made things better than they were before. Even Lindon B Johnson promoted more “socialism” than you ever have, 60 years ago.
And that is a lie the liberals tell to themselves. Liberals we’re in charge. They chose to gift promises to the right, expecting the left to vote for them only to fight fascism. The responsibility is to Harris and her side only. Now you deal with fascism and liberals are still trying to deflect their responsibilities, and that’s disgusting a good reason enough to consider them a part of the fascist problem itself.
Marxists in America are a rounding error. This is the first time I’ve seen someone spend too much time on Lemmy.
They’re a very vocal and organized minority, and it is very clear to see their misinformation has had huge impacts on undecided voters.
That is not very clear to see at all.
6.27 Million people who voted for Biden didn’t show up to vote for Harris, giving the USA Election to Donald Trump. The Both-Sides-Bad Centrism mental disease is rampant among the left and it’s being heavily promoted and endorsed by Tankie trolls and bots, including TikTok as a whole.
If Marxists could get 6.27M people to listen to them, you think they’d waste it on an election? Kamala simply ran an out-of-touch campaign.
Pick a man’s pocket and he’ll hate you.
Convince a man that others are picking their pockets and he’ll give you his money.
“Do you know why people don’t like liberals? Because they lose. If liberals are so fucking smart, how come they lose so god damn always?” - Will MacAvoy, Newsroom
Imagine having 4 years to prepare
With all the state apparatus behind them announcing day and night that Trump was “literally the worst human bean ever”
Basically all the universities and all the highly educated population by their side
With massive approval from their voter base
With huge sums of money for propaganda in the private media.
With all the considerably large powers of the current executive
Able to pass laws
Able to influence worldwide political movements to bash their opposition at any time through grants
Able to start or stop wars worldwide should the need arise
And they still lost to Trump LMAO 🤣
Democrats lost the 2024 election in the 2020 election. Biden was a moderate that solved nothing, making poor white people angrier.
The only ways to make poor white people less angry will make billionaires angry.
All because they were unwilling to admit that the working class is struggling and that they were complicit in a genocide.
They’ve run against him three times, and lost more than half the time. Who wants to bet they’ll win in four years when Trump decides to ignore the Constitution and run again?
Great show, great first episode
It was a weird thing to say at the time since liberals (meaning Democrats in their use) have had plenty of presidencies and even weirder to say now that they just had a presidency. People must be absolutely seething at Marxist and anarchists by that metric.
Of course they started with 6 bullets but the liberal and the fascist liked to pass the gun around and take pot shots at the marxist every so often so the marxist couldn’t ever influence or overpower them. This is just the moment the liberal realized there were only two bullets left.
I died laughing in class😂
PoliSci 401?
Marx 315
Same result, but the liberal asks Israel who should have the gun.
Shoot the lock to escape the room, and save the other bullet for whoever locked you up in there.
Okay, this isn’t a movie, the bullet did nothing to the lock, and now you’re bleeding from a ricochet sliver.
I mean It could of been a really shitty lock
And then blame the Party for not providing more attractive choices.
Our choices were Fascism or Corporatism. Why wouldn’t we blame the parties?
I blame the Democratic party as much as anybody else for not being progressive enough, but nobody can blame a party for their own decision not to vote.
Are you one of the people who consider voting third party to be tantamount to not voting?
I think he’s referring to people who didn’t vote because “both sides are bad”
No, voting third party is different from not voting, but in some situations (like when there’s a danger of someone like Trump winning), voting for the most viable candidate is far more rational than voting for a guaranteed loser to send the system a wholly ineffectual message that you’re not happy with it. In that case you’re just jerking off in the corner.
Nah, those are the far-left authoritarians AKA tankies
You don’t have to be authoritarian to think Dems shit the bed.
I mean
Consequentially saying the dems are shit resulted in authoritarianism
So yeah
But what that user was saying is that 90% of the posts on Lemmy about Dems shitting beds are made by Tankies who unapologetically support Trump and Putin.
Consequentially saying the dems are shit resulted in authoritarianism
More like, the dems being shit resulted in authoritarianism. Republicans fight hard to implement fascism, democrats fight hard to keep the status quo, even as it grows more fascist.
democrats fight hard
to keep the status quoto get money from their donors.I’m not kidding, everything about the Democrats starts making sense when you look at them through this lens, right down to their praising Nancy Pelosi for her fundraising ability. They don’t care about votes as long as they get their money.
Fighting for the people means they lose the capitalists that want to make profit from those people without intervention, so they won’t do it except to the extent that it keeps up the appearance of being a viable party. Anything else would be bad for business.
They can’t be anti-war and anti-genocide because they won’t get money from weapons manufacturers and other war profiteers.
They can’t be anti-oil or anti-coal because they won’t get money from the wealthiest profiteers of the energy sector.
They can’t fight for public transport because they would lose the automotive industry.
They can’t go after landlords and their vacant homes (instead choosing to address the housing crisis through exclusionary benefits and deregulation) because they will lose the real estate moguls.
They can’t fight for universal healthcare because they will lose the insurance and healthcare executives.
They can’t allow third parties to be viable because it would encroach on their fundraising.
And they absolutely cannot name the economic recession for what it is or challenge republicans by giving real reasons for it because they would have to attack their donors to do so.
The only moment any of this changes is when their gaslighting ceases to work on the voters, and they make concessions in order to remain relevant. But they will always return to form as soon as the voters divert their attention, which makes the Republican spectacle actually really convenient for them. So it also makes a lot of sense why the Democrats would have propped up Trump for the 2016 election, and then re-hired the same campaign managers that lost that election for the 2024 election.
All this to say; the Democrats are not the answer. Do not fall for their rhetoric.
Lol sure Okay so you think millions of people who voted for biden were right to stay home in 2024?
Doesn’t that just make you a Donald Trump Supporter?
The old orange man cut all funding to hospitals, research, education, SNAP, regulatory bodies, veteran care, and meals delivery service for the elderly. People are suffering and dying because of those stay home voters. Because they didn’t think Kamala eas “good enough.”
How many centuries of power would the Democrat need to do what they’re elected for?
How long have you been leading a large organization?
Well, longer than that.
The last time Dems had the power to pass almost everything they wanted we got almost universal healthcare. So, I’d venture to say a single 4 year term of no-coalition-required dem control would do it, but a decent chunk of the Supreme Court would have to croak first, or get impeached I guess but I’m not sure how that works for the SC.
FYI, this is pretty much what the Republicans have right now, it’s called a trifecta. Unless a few more of Republicans suddenly sprout a moral compass, we are well and truly fucked.
No, we got a massive hand out to insurance companies in exchange for letting everyone get insurance (if they can afford it)
Things like standards of care have killed private practice and have made it so where the required paperwork is a larger part of a doctor’s job than medicine. It helped the consolidation of health systems, which has made the problems far bigger
Let’s not forget, this concept was an older plan by the heritage foundation (who have released countless hits like project 2025) to avoid universal healthcare. The Democrats then negotiated it to be worse from there
All of that was the direct result of having a coalition majority and not a dem super majority. If the Dems had a trifecta without having to rely on “Dems” from red states basically just being Republicans from the 80’s, it would have been better. Keep in mind 34 Democrats still voted against the ACA. It was a shoestring and bubblegum coalition that broke down immediately in political terms. Shitloads of compromises because they had to bring in support from those conservative “Dems”.
(US politics actually has several sub-party groups that don’t identify as a party independent from their actual party.)
Just crushingly depressingly accurate
I’m saving this one. Too on the nose.
“Christo-fascists are coming!”
They’re already here.
“They’re rounding up brown people and LGBT will be next!”
Been saying concentration camps and trains are inbound for years now.
“Give up your guns!”
Perhaps liberals should take a WWII history class?
“But they’ll kill you if you defend yourself!”
Yes, that often happens when fighting fascists.
People don’t consider that there are worse things than going out in a gun battle. Much much worse.
“Christo-fascists are coming!”
They’re already here.
No shit. They wield the gavel now. Thanks to a bunch of shitheads who couldn’t see clear to stop them. That’s the difference.
“They’re rounding up brown people and LGBT will be next!”
Been saying concentration camps and trains are inbound for years now.
So have the fascists, MAGAts and Qanuts. A lot of people might think about why that is. At any rate, thanks to inaction it’s happening right now. Saying it for years did nothing, but voting would have. I’d say you chose the wrong one, but there’s very little chance you’re a US voter.
“Give up your guns!”
What country are you lampooning? Who the fuck has said that, publicly, in the last 40 years? Are you talking about restrictions on assault weapons? Tougher licensing requirements? Oversight of any kind? Not that you’re splitting hairs or anything but those are incredibly different from “Give up your guns!”.
“But they’ll kill you if you defend yourself!”
Again . . . nevermind.
“Give up your guns!”
What country are you lampooning? Who the fuck has said that, publicly, in the last 40 years? Are you talking about restrictions on assault weapons?
My grandfather used assault weapons to kill fascists. Maybe he should have gotten a license from the fascists, or used a pistol?
We didn’t have school shootings while the Black Panthers had access to assault weapons.
Kudos to your grandfather. Are you saying assault weapons are necessary as a civilian?
You can’t figure out any other way to kill fascists? And what the hell does getting a permit to buy an assault wepon have to do with giving up guns?
I can’t think of any way to kill fascists that they won’t ban when it’s effective.
Well that’s probably true, but “give up your guns!” is not a Democratic party thing, or anything but the most pacifist of liberal “things”, afaik.
I’d like to see this fascist white house try to take away assault weapons from their voting base. That’d be a real popcorn event.
What’s a liberal according to Lemmy? Economically liberal and socially liberal? Social democrat? Obama or Bernie?
It kind of has a double meaning. One side is someone who believes in like democracy, freedom, human rights, and the other side is someone who believes in private property. For historical reasons, the two tendencies are like joined together on most things, but there are differences.
A lot of leftists don’t like liberals because they defend private property and capitalism, but a lot of liberals see themselves as leftists because of those progressive values.
Whether or not a liberal is left wing very much depends on the liberal. Every socialist was once a liberal, whether they were political or not. Conservatives are a kind of liberal, but with the progressive parts removed so it only defends private property.
capitalism is really good at like hiding away its injustice behind contracts and laws, a socialist would see those laws as unjust and want to do radical reforms up to and including overthrow of the ruling billionaires. a liberal might not see the injustice, or if they do, tend to want to stick to courts and reforms because it does contain elements of fairness and justice. liberal justice is more fair than feudal justice, but less than what many socialists would like.
The meme is a reference to the idea that social democracy, liberalism and fascism are all different aspects of capitalism.
I’m just curious. How long would you consider a reasonably quick read expressed in hours?
Depends on how quickly you have to read. It’s not a very dense book because like half of it is restating history and context you can just skim by if you’re already familiar with the time period, and it uses very accessible language.
Yeah that’s why I’m curious. I read at about 350WPM so what I consider a fast read may be slow for some.
It also depends on the density of the text. I’ve been struggling through Imperialism by Lenin for like a month.
Sorry, I literally don’t have an answer, I have never timed how long it takes to read something. All I can say is how quick it feels to read something.
Losurdo is an excellent choice.
If you see anti-liberal sentiment that means “capitalism” which means “western world power” because some parts of Lemmy is overrun with CCP trolls and bots.
The actual definition of Liberal is meaningless here, but worth noting it means “advocate of equality and personal rights and freedoms”.
The root of the word liberal is liber which means to make free. Classical liberalism is about making people free. To liberate.
Neoliberalism to the contrary is a far right ideology brought to mainstream politics in the US by Ronald Reagan and in the UK by Margaret Thatcher. Neoliberalism differs greatly from classical liberalism because its about freeing capital not people. Neoliberalism was embraced by the most right wing elements of the democratic party in the early 90’s by Bill Clinton and many others like Nancy Pelocy who restructured the party to reflect the new demand to serve capital over people.
This new desire to serve capital like the republicans who came before them was a challenge the the breadbasket the Republicans relied heavily upon. Needing to differentiate themselves the republicans created a new ideology of neoconservativism. This was led by republicans like Newt Gingrich.The republicans still needed to serve capital but also needed to differentiate themselves further from the democrat embracement of neoliberalism. This is the birth of the right moving ever right courting the never ending supply of batshit crazy.
As the right moved ever right the democrats stayed lock step behind them moving ever to the right. This was the demise of our democracy and led us directly into the fascism we face today.
While classical liberalism and neoliberalism share the root word liber, they are very different in their end goal and overall ideology. This is an important distinction that should not be ignored, overlooked or forgotten.
So I guess OP means neo-liberal rather than liberal in general.
Is it correct to say that neo-liberal is economically liberal but not socially liberal?
I see American conservatives tend to also use “liberal” to qualify their opponents, but in this case it seems to attack the social liberal specifically (typically about gender, sexuality and origin).
Overall, this single term seems to have a different meaning depending on the political section so it’s hard to understand on such an out of context statement, I wish people would use more precise periphrases.Is it correct to say that neo-liberal is economically liberal but not socially liberal?
Yes that would be fair. Neoliberalism is about freeing capital.
Overall, this single term seems to have a different meaning depending on the political section so it’s hard to understand on such an out of context statement, I wish people would use more precise periphrases.
There is a certain amount of historical ignorance involved in this, I once fell into this category. There is also people taking the root word liber in any context to lump everyone into one category as the US conservatives do and some on the left seem to do this as well.
I don’t agree with people on the left or right besmirching or confusing classical liberalism or social liberalism with neoliberalism. All three are different. I fall far more in the camp of social liberalism which is similar to classical liberalism but with more emphasis on the social contract and the thought that governance should play a role in that social contract for its citizenry. My post above left out social liberalism for brevity as I find the two to be very similar.
I would advise never taking anyone on any social platforms definitions for just about anything. Even mine. There is dictionaries and encyclopedia’s for just this purpose, words have definitions often with interesting histories. Below are some links that will give you a far better understanding of the differences and their histories.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism
You are absolutely correct and I’m happy to see this clear comment when the topic seems to usually be purposefully obfuscated
OP means Capitalism. These are the tankie bots and trolls.
I wish people would use more precise periphrases.
This is a shitpost from people who aren’t even in the US and don’t even vote, about US voters. The fact that they’re using “liberal” as an insult should give it away.
If you’re so left wing that the Democratic party is a big scary meanie and you live in the US and are registered to vote, the odds that you’re college-aged are very, very high. As might you be. Which is cool, which is cool.
Everybody else though is doing a great job pretending to be a real live American from somewhere that isn’t on the northwest coast.
HMMM “Classical Liberalism” and “Neoliberalism”…
Funny how we have all these hyperspecific different terms, almost like they’re of contextually different use and meaning compared to other historic terms like Laissez Faire…
Nah I guess it makes sense to just oppose all things Liberal like the CCP tells us to.
I would use the terms as they mean depending on the context of the conversation and who the audience is. If I know that my audience is American and probably less knowing of the original meaning of the terms, I would use the words liberal and conservative as they mean in American mainstream sense. But if I know that the audience is knowledgeable enough to know what the word liberal means in the classical sense, I would use the term in such a way.
TankovayaDiviziya
Wow.
And why not.
I have seen people call lemmy.world users liberals, but never fascists
I have seen someone call lemmy.world admins fascist working with the gouvernment to bring propaganda to lemmy
So between an average lemmy.world user and lemmy.world admin
Yes.
Oh, workerONE eh, very nice. And how’d you get that, eh?
By exploiting workerTWO!
So rich people? 18th century bourgeois were probably quite liberal but I bet a lot of current bourgeois are more conservative than liberal, so it’s hard to understand.
I don’t agree that liberal people are the same as bourgeoisie. Liberalism is a bourgeois ideology, but not every liberal is a member of the ruling class.
Political definitions are historically and contextually dependent. I would agree with your assessment down to the letter, in the 18th century there were revolutionary liberals who wanted to overthrow autocratic feudal systems to implement universal private property ownership. This was a progressive development in society because feudalism was the primary mode of social reproduction for centuries and centuries. One of Karl Marx’s mentors, Ludwig von Westphalen, was a good example of these historic conditions in practice.
Westphalen was a Prussian civil servant and reformer. He was technically a noble, his father was made nobility, but Ludwig believed in all those progressive values: he was an educated reformer, who believed in truth, justice, equality, achievable by seizing control of common lands, and through a legal system and other measures, allow land (and other assets used to make profits) to be owned by private individuals. This had basically already proven to crush the power of nobility in several places, England for example was like the first capitalist country having deposed the power (but not the form) of their aristocracy in the 17th century. French and american bourgeois revolutions in the 18th century made liberal capitalism quite popular, especially since the bourgeoisie, at that time and under feudalism an administrative middle class that had developed basically everywhere, could overthrow the kings and queens and run things themselves. This was progress.
But once bourgeois revolutions were carried out everywhere and the bourgeois ruling class were in control, they stop being revolutionary and become the status quo, which means they defend liberal capitalism with the powers and violence of the state. Marx works out the fundamental conflict of interests between the ruling bourgeois class and the toiling peasants and developing proletarian “working” class, proving that the working class who operate the machines and do the work for the capitalists have the potential to overthrow the bourgeoisie and make a new more fair and just society.
Experiments in 20th century socialism proved this to be a fairly complicated matter, since socialism is internationalist, many problems arise when socialists try to create a socialist state – as Engels says about the bourgeoisie and their lofty ideals, “these great thinkers were constrained by the limitations imposed on them by history.”
But basically the bourgeois class during revolutionary times, pulled a switcheroo when seizing power. They sold their ideas to the toiling masses who very much were done with their despotic kings and queens, and took them up as their own. But once seizing power the bourgeoisie set about establishing capitalism, not truth, justice, and liberty, as the ruling dictate.
So today there are sort of different kinds of liberals: progressives, who IMO share (or once shared) the progressive “spirit” of change and development with socialism, and capitalists who will dispose of those ideals if it allows them to accumulate more private capital.
So the definition is contradictory, but to Marxists every “thing” is made up of two other things in contradiction to each other. In Marxism change occurs when a contradiction is resolved. So its not unusual to look at Marxist conceptions of “things”, such as a liberal in this instance, as being very strange and wrong. The method we use, dialectical materialism, which is a terrible name but w/e, takes a long time to understand, but it is much better at describing history, where one change leads to another, and another, forwards and backwards through time.
Progressives never struck me as sharing the spirit of change with socialism. The progressive movement always felt - to me - an attempt at drawing more attention to social issues. In other words, the core of the progressive movement is based on social issues.
I’m speaking purely in a Hegelian “world spirit” sense. Like at one time liberalism was revolutionary, and that’s where all these progressive values come from. Any individual liberal is more or less moved by those values, liberals of all kinds want to defend private property, but sometimes it is because they want to keep what they think is a fair and just society, and capitalism uses the appearance of these values in society as evidence for its own progressive nature.
For “progressive” I kind og mean removed from its political meaning, beliefs and actions that represent progress for humanity. Socialism is progressive by this definition as well. To me, and this is a fine place to disagree, “progressive” liberals are people who are moved by injustice more than by defending private property. Like they don’t want to get rid of it, but are willing to give up some property if it means more people have rights (a false equivalence but a worthy sentiment.) These people are the ones who can be “moved left”, like I said elsewhere every socialist starts out a liberal (and many socialists revert to liberals, but that’s often said unfairly.)
“progressive” liberals are people who are moved by injustice more than by defending private property.
I completely agree with your categorization of progressive liberals which is why i said the progressive movement doesn’t strike me as caring too much about private property. Except if it means more people gain rights like you said.
Oh sure, I see what you mean. I agree that “defending private property” isn’t exactly a progressive slogan, but it boils down to a difference in strategy maybe? Socialists advocate a radical, revolutionary transformation; progressive libs see the system as sort of neutral and behaving badly, which can be fixed with reforms. So right there at the last second, in theory, the progressive liberals might resist revolutionary change. But in the throes of revolutionary change, All theory goes out and the hard cruel realities set in. We won’t know what its like until we get there. In my mind there wouldn’t really be many progressive liberals left, we would be opposing forces for, and against revolution. Middle strata tend to melt into the whole, or at least seem to, during these times.
I thought about this a little more. I guess a progressive wouldn’t be a champion of private property per se, but they might not be too crazy about tearing down and rebuilding the institutions that undergird private property. The legal justice system is a big institution and presents concrete answers to many contradictions created by private property. Socialism will have to remain a mixed system of some kind, containing different elements of private property relations in different places at different times. So yeah, a Marxist would look at institutional challenges to change, relationships to the status quo and to progress, in order to determine what actions to take, and when.
This is typically where one would start researching Lenin, for practical applications of Marxist theory.
Bourgeois is an au courant term of art for the squishy centrists that upset us so. The historical meaning is not clear because we’re only 22.
Fuck that shit answer. I’d shoot myself twice.
Are you sure? Bullets move very quickly and are quite hard. Might hurt.
If the Marxist is Russian, I’m pretty confident I’d be able to shoot myself twice in the head in that room.
shoot himself in the foot and then the face?
This one, at least as applies to liberals in government in the USA, is a lot more accurate.
Oh and also they need some money for medical bills now. They’ll be sure to send you some texts about it.
