• meowMix2525@lemm.ee
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    27 days ago

    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.

  • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
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    27 days ago

    Lemmy.world is such a weird place, man. I also like how in the propaganda version, LW is like this crazy liberal place where you will get banned for saying what based on this comment and voting is clearly the majority view.

    So this story actually happened, in 1932 Germany. No one had the gun at the beginning. The liberal said to the Marxist, “Holy shit that guy is really dangerous, let’s stop him.” The Marxist said “FUCK YOU YOU’RE REALLY DANGEROUS” and started swinging his fists in every direction. The liberal was still trying to talk with the establishment conservative, to gang up on the fascist, while the Marxist was still windmilling to no particular purpose, when the fascist got the gun. The first one he shot, of course, was the Marxist. The anarchist stood in the corner, facing away from the room, and said that turning around would be giving consent to what was going on, and so he refused to do it.

    The Marxist, wounded, left the room, what was left of him, and found the communist room. When he got there, the communists shot him, and killed him.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_Germany and search for “KPD leaders purged by Stalin”

    • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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      27 days ago

      The poster isn’t from world, but yeah theres a constant external pressure from tankies. Its even worse on instances that didnt defederate from Hexbear.

    • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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      27 days ago

      The liberal said to the Marxist, “Holy shit that guy is really dangerous, let’s stop him.”

      The liberal in question had spent the last decade handing military equipment to the brownshirts to massacre communists before staffing the cabinet with fascists and making Hitler chancellor.

      • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
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        27 days ago

        The liberal in question had spent the last decade handing military equipment to the brownshirts to massacre communists

        Citation?

        They also hadn’t been massacring, that I know of, it was street fighting, almost all non-fatal. You can show me if I’m wrong, though, that’s just my impression.

        before staffing the cabinet with fascists

        and making Hitler chancellor

        Incorrect. The conservatives did both of those things. The liberals had gotten castrated by the refusal of the KDP to work with them in any respect, and so they couldn’t really do anything against either the KDP or the fascists, and so the left went down as did the liberals as did the rest of the establishment, without any unified front against the fascists. But the liberals had tried very explicitly to ally with the KDP against the fascists, and the KDP refused, calling the social democrats “the main enemy.”

        I am sure there is some portion of blame to go to the SDP as well. Pointing fingers after a catastrophe is a time-honored tradition and maybe not a useful one. My point was that in the one real-world example of this that I know of, the Marxists absolutely refused to form a coalition against the fascists, if it meant they would have to work with the liberals, and the fascists were able to win amongst all the leftist infighting. So the particular brand of finger-pointing that exists in OP’s meme definitely has a real-world counterexample.

        I actually don’t think there is a strong enough left in the US for this to be a useful model of what just happened in the recent election here. But it wasn’t for lack of trying, by the portion of the supposed far-left that is on Lemmy.

        • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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          27 days ago

          citation

          https://annas-archive.org/md5/c483c46aa433ad04d44312e860111d6f

          It references descriptions from 1919 where the bodies overwhelmed the city’s capacity to store them, and were rotting in the streets, and egbert’s use of the freikorps and other right-wing paramilitaries to kill communists (including Rosa)

          There was also a massacre of sailors with one survivor I can’t seem to find any reference to.

          The conservatives did both of those things

          Egbert is the one who nominated Hindenburg, who made the actual handover.

          the liberals had tried very explicitly to ally with the KDP against the fascists

          They held a rally calling for unity, in which they called for everyone to vote for Hindenburg in the name of unity. That is not an attempt at unity, that is an attempt to make themselves seem like reasonable moderates.

          Naturally the KDP ran on the slogan “A vote for Hindenburg is a vote for Hitler is a vote for war”

          • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
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            27 days ago

            Wait: So after the KDP tried to do a violent revolution against the fragile post-first-revolution government of 1919, including explicitly rejecting the idea of holding elections because they might not go the KDP’s way, they were still so butthurt about the fashion in which the rest of the government had defended itself against getting shot and overthrown, that a generation later they still couldn’t stomach the idea of getting together with the SDP even to ally against literal Hitler. Even though the SDP by that point didn’t give a shit about their own attempted overthrow anymore, and just didn’t want the Nazis. And in your mind, that’s all the SDP’s fault for not just getting shot or exiled, like the KDP had in mind in 1919.

            Like I said: The real life example is very different than the meme. The Marxist tried to shoot the liberal 13 years before, and was still so upset about the shooting-back that they got, and so, the windmilling and FUCK YOU. Great. Sounds like a fun bunch to interact with. Oh, and also, when they finally DID get in charge of things in the East, after the war, it was a fucking nightmare that lasted for decades. Which was part of the SDP’s objection to it in the first place. Great stuff.

    • saltesc@lemmy.world
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      27 days ago

      Most people on LW that are from the US do not know what liberals are. They are often referring to “US libs” which, in most cases, say and do things that are anti-liberal or anti-libertarian. While this is apparent to most, to these Lemmings it is not due to the saturation of US media, social or otherwise.

      In truth, a liberal supporting a fascist is as “classic lib move” as the anarchist fighting for an absolute monarchy. By definition, these things are impossible. So the joke is being told wrong due to being misinformed or to spread more of it.

      • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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        27 days ago

        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.

        • Glytch@lemmy.world
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          27 days ago

          Are you one of the people who consider voting third party to be tantamount to not voting?

          • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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            26 days ago

            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.

        • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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          27 days ago

          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.

          • hark@lemmy.world
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            27 days ago

            Consequentially saying the dems are shit resulted in authoritarianism

            More like, the dems being shit resulted in authoritarianism. Republican fight hard to implement fascism, democrats fight hard to keep the status quo, even as it grows more fascist.

            • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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              27 days ago

              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.”

            • meowMix2525@lemm.ee
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              27 days ago

              democrats fight hard to keep the status quo to 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.

          • bouh@lemmy.world
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            27 days ago

            How many centuries of power would the Democrat need to do what they’re elected for?

            • _stranger_@lemmy.world
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              27 days ago

              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.

              • theneverfox@pawb.social
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                27 days ago

                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

                • _stranger_@lemmy.world
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                  27 days ago

                  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.)

  • lath@lemmy.world
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    27 days ago

    See, the problem is that a Marxist and an anarchist stuck around a liberal and a fascist. Not only that, they spent all that time doing nothing, even though there was a gun in the room and two bullets. Looks to me like the Marxist and the anarchist were kinda dumb.

  • shalafi@lemmy.world
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    27 days ago

    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.

    • Optional@lemmy.world
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      27 days ago

      “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.

      • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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        27 days ago

        “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.

        • Optional@lemmy.world
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          27 days ago

          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?

            • Optional@lemmy.world
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              26 days ago

              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.

    • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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      27 days ago

      It’s not true, though. The Marxists, safely behind a wall, convinced the undecideds to give the gun to the Fascist.

      • bouh@lemmy.world
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        27 days ago

        Will the liberals ever grow up and take responsibility for they doing?

        • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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          27 days ago

          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?

          • bouh@lemmy.world
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            27 days ago

            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?

            • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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              27 days ago

              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.

              • bouh@lemmy.world
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                26 days 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.

      • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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        27 days ago

        Marxists in America are a rounding error. This is the first time I’ve seen someone spend too much time on Lemmy.

        • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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          27 days ago

          They’re a very vocal and organized minority, and it is very clear to see their misinformation has had huge impacts on undecided voters.

            • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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              26 days ago

              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.

              • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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                26 days ago

                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.

                • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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                  26 days ago

                  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.

          • njm1314@lemmy.world
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            26 days ago

            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.

          • Juice@midwest.social
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            27 days ago

            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.

      • Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        27 days ago

        Only if you replace liberal with self-proclaimed leftist. It’s fucking hilarious how similar leftist are to the right wing. You’ve even got the projection thing going.

        • gravityowl@lemm.ee
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          27 days ago

          It’s fucking hilarious how similar leftist are to the right wing

          They are not actually. You simply don’t know the difference

  • oce 🐆@jlai.lu
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    27 days ago

    What’s a liberal according to Lemmy? Economically liberal and socially liberal? Social democrat? Obama or Bernie?

        • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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          27 days ago

          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.

          • Adm_Drummer@lemmy.world
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            27 days ago

            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.

            • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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              27 days ago

              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.

    • RandomVideos@programming.dev
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      27 days ago

      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

      • oce 🐆@jlai.lu
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        27 days ago

        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.

        • Optional@lemmy.world
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          27 days ago

          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.

        • Juice@midwest.social
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          27 days ago

          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.

          • GrammarPolice@lemmy.world
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            27 days ago

            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.

            • Juice@midwest.social
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              27 days ago

              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.)

              • GrammarPolice@lemmy.world
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                27 days ago

                “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.

                • Juice@midwest.social
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                  27 days ago

                  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.

                • Juice@midwest.social
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                  26 days ago

                  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.

    • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
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      27 days ago

      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.

    • Juice@midwest.social
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      27 days ago

      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.

    • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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      27 days ago

      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”.

      • Maiq@lemy.lol
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        27 days ago

        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. The 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 their 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.

        • oce 🐆@jlai.lu
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          27 days ago

          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.

          • Maiq@lemy.lol
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            27 days ago

            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 libre 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

            https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_liberalism

            https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism

            • boredtortoise@lemm.ee
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              27 days ago

              You are absolutely correct and I’m happy to see this clear comment when the topic seems to usually be purposefully obfuscated

          • Optional@lemmy.world
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            27 days ago

            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.

        • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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          27 days ago

          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.

      • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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        27 days ago

        This is all just political tribalism. China and Russia are engaging in and promoting discussions of Marxism in the USA. Capitalism has no meaning to them except “Western World Power”. They do not want America to be saved they are celebrating the chaos and suffering.

        • Juice@midwest.social
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          27 days ago

          Okay well there was a guy named Karl Marx who wrote in the mid-late 1800s, and if you read his books, they are very good

          If you can’t delineate between Marxism and Russia/China then you’re being intentionally obtuse. I promise you, that the Marx that I am intimately familiar with has nothing to do with them. They came after him. I’m morbidly curious about how you would describe the history of China and Russia.

          All I’m saying is that reading hard books is good for your brain. Also can you please define “chaos” and “suffering” because I wouldn’t want to misunderstand how you define those things.

          • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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            26 days ago

            All I’m saying is that reading hard books is good for your brain. Also can you please define “chaos” and “suffering” because I wouldn’t want to misunderstand how you define those things.

            Let’s talk about that and also about Socialism in the same breath then, the state as controlled by the people stepping in to promote widespread equality and redistribution of goods based on needs is very clearly fitting the definition of Socialism. In the 1960s Democrat President Lindon B Johnson signed into law anti-discrimination laws “The Civil Rights Act of 1964” and also FOOD STAMPS. The Civil Rights Act, later expanded to include even more protected classes such as impairment and disability, didn’t have a good way of being enforced for things like hiring preferences, though, so we implemented DEI hiring practices, and Food Stamps were replaced with the SNAP program. Removal of that is death and suffering. Trump is gutting both of these things and countless other programs people relied upon.

            Tankies supported the Donald Trump presidency on their own instances, promoted abstaining from voting Harris on other instances. A bunch of fake Marxists/Lenninists are CRAWLING all over this post’s comments supporting that death and suffering. The real communists all died (sometimes) honourable deaths a long time ago, the terms used in this post are nothing but dog-whistles and mental gymnastics to promote anti-USA and anti-NATO policies, like those of Donald Trump, Russia, and China.

            • Juice@midwest.social
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              26 days ago

              That’s pretty good, I agree with your definition of suffering then.

              So how do you describe someone who identifies as a marxist communist but not a tankie? Say someone who even got banned from some comms on “tankie” instances for defending criticism (albeit left criticism) of, for example, the government of Cuba?

              It seems like there is still some disconnect. For example how does modern day Russia play into all this? They aren’t remotely socialist, they gutted all the socialism out, similar to the suffering you describe now, back in the early 90s. Not trying to equivocate just understand. China has abandoned Marxism in all but an academic sense. The current government is a descendent of “capitalist roader” Dengism, and pres Xi said that China no longer recognizes the class struggle. To me, that’s what makes socialists, participating in class struggle. We know China hasn’t abolished class so they have abandoned Marx.

              As for the other stuff, even if it aligns with the schemes of Russia, maybe China, cant you conceive of any reason whatsoever as to why someone might want the USA to be weakened, other than a strict alignment Roth the goals of Russia and China? The USA has done a lot of horrible things, and it isn’t fair to strawman every USA defeatist as a Russian op.

              • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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                26 days ago

                So how do you describe someone who identifies as a marxist communist but not a tankie?

                I call that a kid being manipulated by the wrong crowd. You can support intelligent social policy without aligning yourself with the USS fucking R.

                As for the other stuff, even if it aligns with the schemes of Russia, maybe China, cant you conceive of any reason whatsoever as to why someone might want the USA to be weakened

                Because they’re hostile militaristic dictatorships which want to expand their borders but people keep getting in their way.

                • Juice@midwest.social
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                  26 days ago

                  Okay wait, I didn’t say the USS fucking R I said Marxist communist. You’re putting things in there that don’t belong, and I shouldn’t have to eliminate every movement of the last 150 years that I don’t want to be associated with. Marxist communist.

                  As for being a child, I’m far from it. Unless you’d like to insult me straight up and infantalize what I’ve spent a long time understanding and explaining to people (mostly to help avoid confusion and campism among other Marxists.) While you and I really don’t agree, I doubt you’d call the last several years of my life that I’ve been a socialist organizer a project that is anti-usa. I’m no fan of imperialism, and the USA is the core, and I’ll fight it when possible. That doesn’t align me with Russia and China, it aligns me with justice and truth.

                  The USA is not rational, global capitalism is not rational. When China behaves IMO pretty rationally for a global power, it goes against the interests of the USA. This is how imperialism and class war turn reason into anti-reason, which anyone with eyes and ears can see is the law of the land here. You can’t look at the world and be like “this makes sense” and that isn’t completely the fault of foreign interests, which def exist and behave maliciously. But again, that doesn’t make unreason into reason.

      • meowMix2525@lemm.ee
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        27 days ago

        This person is ideologically opposed to doing even the most cursory research on marxism and dialectical materialism but thinks they have authority to speak on it, throughout this thread.

        No wonder they think half of lemmy is “overrun with CCP trolls and bots”, they are completely uncurious and, in fact, hostile when it comes to information that contradicts their worldview.

        It’s especially funny of them to throw around the word “propagandist” like that’s not precisely what they are doing.

        • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          27 days ago

          I have them tagged as a Nazi sympathizers after they repeatedly defended Nazis months back

          They continue to pretend that didn’t happen, which is cute

          They’re absolutely unwilling to un-stupid themselves

          • meowMix2525@lemm.ee
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            27 days ago

            I’ve had them tagged as a liberal propagandist for weeks now since they seem weirdly committed to filling that role, having consistently bad takes, and being hostile towards anyone that challenges them. Good to know I’m not the only one who’s noticed.

          • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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            27 days ago

            I’ve never defended nazis but thats pretty rich coming from both-sides-bad centrists who empowered Donald Trump.

            • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              26 days ago

              both-sides-bad

              I do say that, but critically I do not say both sides equally bad or in the same way

              centrists

              Lol, not a centrist

              who empowered Donald Trump

              Voted for Harris here in California, where my vote wouldn’t have mattered had it been for anyone else anyway and actively vandalized trump signs in my area, but go ahead and pretend I in any way helped get orange man elected if it makes you feel better

        • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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          27 days ago

          Your entire ideology and reading list is lofty word salad, the historical impact of these texts when used to promote policy is systemic collapse resulting in mass death in multiple nations in multiple eras, directly responsible for the rise of the two biggest militaristic dictatorships one of which is currently threatening to start a thermonuclear war to end all life on earth if we don’t surrender more land to them.

          Tankies are all self-described marxists but Marx would vomit if he saw them supporting Donald Trump running up to the election while using his name as a club.

  • jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de
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    27 days ago

    My political positions are somewhere on the left outskirts of Social Democracy, so I’ve no love for liberals. That said, when I look at the US, it was not the liberals that just gave a fascist not only a gun but an entire army.

    • Fedegenerate@lemmynsfw.com
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      27 days ago

      When is it do you believe the Marxists and Anarchists were in power? When do you believe they held the gun to be able to give it away?

      Punch up, not down.

      To put it in another reference frame. When a video game fails who’s fault is it? The millions of consumers? Or the corpo overlords? When democrats fail, is it the fault of millions of voters? Or the fault of corpo overlords? When something fails it is always the responsibility of those in power to affect the most change. Except, when it comes to politics, then we forget that it’s those with power that hold responsiblity.

        • bouh@lemmy.world
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          27 days ago

          Oh so it’s fine when Musk says that nazis were leftists?

          But I’m not surprised a liberal don’t care about words or meaning if I’m being honest. They’re usually first into repurposing words for propaganda.

          • Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            27 days ago

            No, I care about meaning. The problem is there’s lots of people who argue about words and ignore the meaning.

            Like calling me a “liberal” wtf does that mean? You don’t know a damn thing about me. But I’m a “liberal”.

            The thing you said doesn’t mean anything. They’re empty words. “social democracy is a liberal doctrine” is an utterance empty of content.

          • _stranger_@lemmy.world
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            27 days ago

            And arguing with him about it is pointless. The propaganda is fire-and-forget and your “No, they’re fucking Nazis” should be equally non-invitational.

  • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    27 days ago

    Anarchist has his own, and due to his knowledge of history he kills the other three before the marxist can attempt to talk him into teaming up against the fascist then turn around and stab him in the back while bickering with the liberal.