I think the real division on the "left" can be boiled down to those using all the language and rhetoric of left wing ideology but in service of fascist and conservative ideas.
For example, tankies or people who have been brainwashed by tankies; a person can spend all day talking about how they support Palestine and BLM and LGBT rights etc. but then turn around and defend the CCP, which completely undermines any claim that they're actually on the left/center.
So in that way it's less of a "progressives never agree" and more of a "anti-progressive ideas are constantly pushed into progressive spaces to undermine them."
I mean, you can use that same logic on the US government, even Democrat run ones, which have supported genocides in the past and even current ongoing ones, and have tried to stomp out left movements, been racist, sexist, and homophobic. But people have still supported the US and the Democratic party and called themselves leftist. The point is, I assume as I'm not a CCP Stan myself or anything, is to give critical support to back an actual socialist project and give a counterweight to a pure single superpower world (esp. When that superpower has destroyed or undermined almost every left project it can in the world). Critical support meaning you pick out the good from the bad, supporting the good and criticizing the bad. China actually puts a leash on its billionaires = good. But they seem to be forcing some cultural integration of Uyghurs = bad. But they're providing lots of housing and cheap EV's = good. But they can have bad working conditions = bad. But they're helping support economies and infrastructure in the global South with the Belt and Road project = good. But they keep doing that shit with territory in the south seas = bad. But they seem to have a long-term plan for implementing communism that they are actually following = good. And so on. I do think some people go too far in being CCP supportive, but I also think some people on Lemmy go too far the other direction, and think everyone that gives the slightest critical support to China or analyzes some US propaganda on China a bit before swallowing it is a CCP troll.
In the end, it's a mixed bag, but I do think there is some worth to not having a single hegemonic superpower in the world, so other leftist countries or colonized global south ones have alternative access to allies, trade, and support without bowing down to the US and their often reactionary policies. Cuba for example was doing pretty good until the Soviet Union fell and basically the only market became the western, US-controlled one that they had been mostly sanctioned the hell out of. I wish it was a better country than China, but hopefully they improve their social issues as they improve economically, which tends to be the pattern. I just wish they'd stop doing the aggressive maneuvers near the Philippines and Vietnam.
This is exactly what I see. Many people see critical support and assume it as uncritical support, then extrapolate nonsensical views from that. Like, if someone says they think it's cool that China has high speed rail, that doesn't mean they wish 100 Tianannmenn massacres annually and to personally fellate Xi.
I think it is often more subtle than something like Tankies defending the CCP or Russia. A lot of people who call themselves left or progressive still think the world just needs the "correct" strong-man, when one of the biggest defining things of "left" is going against engrained power structures.
While it is possible to be left-ish and support particular leaders, it is seldom a sign of an actually enlightened person if they think only a "strong man" can fix things. Tankies fit squarely in the center of that, but there are LARGE fringes where people seriously do not understand some of the core axioms of "left" politics while also not being full blown tankies.
i mean i wouldn't be opposed to a strong man leader, provided they're an absolute saint and ceaselessly preach about being good to one another and spends shitloads of time practising what they preach.
Humans do naturally gravitate towards having leaders, however it's important that everyone keeps in mind that leaders get their power because people trust them, and if they violate that trust they shouldn't keep the power.
Being a leader shouldn't really be a position of power, it should be a position of responsibility and scrutiny.
agreed. but some people can't really decipher what some politicians say because they don't inform themselves enough, or didn't learn.
While I agree largely with your conclusion that anti progressive ideas are pushed to undermine progressive spaces, I don't really agree with how you get there and with the examples you choose to arrive at that conclusion. There obviously are actual bad actors, and actual hegemony to get these bad actors into being, but there is also a lot of real people, actually still learning about the topics, or just plainly with a different perspective on some of the issues that you might be discussing.
For it to be an ideology that is self consistent leftism actually needs differences and disagreement, or said in another way: if we were to prescribe beliefs instead of trying to teach them we'd also just be trying to build our "own" authoritarian hegemony. I can invoke successes of or defend the CCP and the soviets just as I can invoke successes of the US or EU or India realizing that all states are fundamentally bad, still sometimes perhaps by accident they do good things. And that examples and mental shortcuts, as well as actual experiments that might be of a socialist nature, are just what they are argumentative tools.
I've been called a tankie just because I see the downfall or backsliding of the US as good thing and don't really accept that china would be as bad as the US has been for the last 40 years or so. Which is perfectly normal for someone who doesn't really reap the benefits of US hegemony, and sort of just ranks authoritarian institutions by size(strength)(wealth) to arrive at a measure of subjective dislike.
It's almost similar to someone calling me a tankie because I purchase Pepsi instead of coca cola on that given day, when we all know I should make my own tea or at least just buy the supermarket/local brand to begin with.
I don't know where you are and what kind of people you meet on a regular basis but to me the simple and fast ways of understanding other people almost never hold true, most of us humans just lead to complicated lives to easily subjectify us. And honestly I wish most leftists would not try to subjectify other people to begin with.
Yeah, this is kind of what I'm talking about. You can't on one hand say you're for progressive leftist ideals, which are centered on human rights and democratic freedom and then also employ the rhetoric of a far right dictatorship. You're just soft-selling authoritarianism at that point in defense of some empty label.
Criticizing the US is one thing, even wanting their power balanced by other nations is sensible, but pretending the CCP is anything but a far-right totalitarian dictatorship isn't productive if the goal is a world with more opportunities for progressive ideas to take root -- there is no scenario that manifests out of the CCP increasing its geopolitical influence that isn't objectively worse, regardless of what bones there are to pick with the right-wing in the US. The goal should be defeating the far-right in the US, not kneecapping the US so the CCP can start expending their imperial ambitions.
China accumulating power only moves the global needle further towards authoritarian norms, not away from them. It results in more cross pollination between right-wing groups internationally. We are witnessing it right now, as US democracy declines (not US power) and China rises we see a not-so-coincidental rise in far-right groups everywhere else too (which China and Russia happily foster and weaponize. Very progressive of them).
In the US (or any democracy) there is still much more political diversity, so if you criticize US actions you're really criticizing one of those groups and their abuse of US power. By contrast, China has a single state party with a single person at its head with more or less unrestricted power. It is quite a few steps ahead on the road to fascism even compared to the US. So it doesn't make sense to try and bill them as the same thing.
There is no internal force within China working to reform it, not even potential for it, but there are progressive groups in the US pushing against the right-wing authoritarianism rising in their own country. If there weren't we wouldn't be seeing the evolution of public perception on issues like Israel/Gaza. That is a direct result of Americans themselves pushing from within using their (slowly diminishing) rights. You see nothing like that in China because it's simply not possible, fascism is already locked in there. It doesn't help you or anyone else for them to gain more influence.
Dictatorship and authoritarianism are diametrically opposed to every progressive political goal, they aren't concepts that can be harnessed for some greater good, they are never a means to an end.
This is because, as you allude to, the defining characteristic of the "left" is that it is always looking to evolve society past the solutions that have proven to be failures (like monarchy, theocracy, corprotocracy, communism, libertarianism etc.) in favor of decision-making that's based on reality as we understand it now and can be adapted without concentration camps and mass graves.
"Leftism" is when people try to use knowledge for the goal of fostering human dignity, well-being and freedom, but it is also when people are ready to cast aside ideas that fail to produce. It doesn't matter what flavor of progressive someone is, those are still the central defining notions that unite anyone inclined to be "left wing".
If someone finds themselves defending ideas or groups that don't serve those basic purposes they're simply no longer promoting progressive/left ideas -- they're promoting failed ideas that will inevitably be incorporated by the right to open new routes to the same resolution as any right-wing effort. That's what conservativism is; a failure to move as our understanding of reality moves.
So, yeah, some people only just becoming politically aware might have muddled thinking about things they were taught along the way, but they need to be shown how those ideas don't really reinforce the end goal they actually want, not to have those ideas treated as legitimate and valid forms of progressive political philosophy. They need to be taught how to examine any idea for what it is, not what they want it to be.
This is the problem with having loyalty to labels, specific theories and personalities over basic principles and practical realities. You become inflexible and vulnerable to having your good intentions exploited, ending up in these weird positions where you're supporting the very thing you claimed to be against (like self-proclaimed leftists who still defend Stalin or the CCP despite the mind-boggling levels of human suffering they've produced)
I don't care about implementing one specific left-branded ideology or another, my concern is more with ejecting conservative political thought so that ideas and information can be discussed and debated to find the solutions that actually produce good for everyone. That simply isn't possible until the people get past the corpses of their darlings, whatever they may be.
That deliberation should be able to happen without people dogmatically attempting to shoehorn in ideas that have already been tried and failed. Progressives should not be precious with ideas that way and should be willing to label ideas based on what they produce in reality, not just in theory.
I'm having a hard time understanding the perspective of someone who believes that lefties would benefit by having the world's largest army and nuclear arsenal under a government backsliding all the way into theocratic authoritarianism. Like step one is a little putsch, step two is murdering all your political opponents, then it is time to invade neighbors to steal resources. Yes, the US is already invading countries to steal resources, no, I don't think having an authoritarian cancelling voting will help reduce that any. What am I missing? Just fuck it, ramp up climate change and war, get it over with, and pray socialism crawls out of the rubble?
I think what annoys me is when people assume I support shit like the CCP or Putin just because of my leftist views, or because I didn’t make sure to criticize them every single time I criticize anything/anyone else (good ol’ whataboutism). The amount of times I’ve been attacked by supposed leftists that are really just liberals in disguise, is far too high.
“Hey, you didn’t criticize Putin in your comment that clearly isn’t even about Putin in any way, so I’m going to make a sweeping assumption and say that you support him.”
Don’t criticize Biden here, or they automatically say that you want Cheeto Hitler to win and you’re actually a fascist. So many people fail to see that their commentary and childish reductionism is counterproductive to a leftist movement. They also fail to see that what they’re doing is a tactic of neoliberals and fascists. It’s divisive language that solves nothing, and is used to always keep the opposition in a defensive stance. We’re seeing it first hand today with Israel and the US government repeatedly stating that defending Palestine is considered antisemitism. They went as far as redefining the word entirely just so they can drown out the peace movement with noise.
Isn't that the point of the meme? Leftists can share 94% of views, but if they disagree on one thing they are treated as the worst enemy, rather than the people who share 0% of the same views.
Those things people disgree on are entire political axioms, so yes it is much bigger than a meme. Tankies think strong men are a good thing, which should be antithetical to anyone with the faintest hint of actual big boy anarchy in their politics. Worshiping leaders OR positions is literally and directly antithetical to MUCH of the left.
OFC there will be infighting when most people don't even understand what the left stands for. IMO, we shouldn't even dignify tankies and other strong-men liking idiots with a label anywhere close to "left". They're just idiot fascists wearing a different coat to try and fit in.
thats because china is not right wing. we defend the mostly good things accomplished by the current and past socislist experiments in eg. cuba, china, ussr etc, not the bad things that happened there in the way here. the world is not black and white.
we MLs advocate for learning with past experiments and we were never urging anyone to view the tiannamen incident, the ukraine incident or similar, as exaggerated and propagandized as they were by the west as a good thing we should repeat. we don't want bad things repeated.
[ In fake Scottish accent ] They're natural enemies. Like fascists and leftists! Or neoliberals and leftists! Or moderates and leftists! Or leftists and leftists! Damn leftists! They ruined leftism!
You leftists sure are a contentious bunch.
YOU JUST MADE AN ENEMY FOR LIFE
Gotta prove that I am more left than every one else. /s
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Anti capitalism is just anti capitalism. That's not a theory for how a society free from capitalism should work. Those theories will of course be diverse, and there will be disagreement.
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Divide and conquer works for detroying social movements, and is one of the ruling classes favorite weapons of class warfare. It's easy to get agitators to derail the conversation or movement as a whole. There are fundamental differences in what anti capitalists believe should be done and how power should be distributed. I don't believe all leftists think the same thing, but I believe that the vast majority of "leftist infighting" is just agitation by the ruling class.
Regarding point #2:
I am very particular about whom I allow into my circle of trust. That last 6% doesn't seem like much, but it is to me; if you don't believe every Nazi has a backpfeifengesicht, think capitalism should be "tweaked" instead of demolished, or complain about BLM or Pro-Palestinian protestors causing damage, then we're not gonna be best friends.
That being said, that 6% isn't nearly enough for me to consider you the enemy. Billionaires and the fascists they inspire are the enemies, and no attempt they make to divide and conquer us will ever be successful. I will march and scream alongside you in favor of the 94% we have in common.
I don't care who's standing next to me when we eat the rich. The enemy of my enemy and all that.
The problem is not enough people see the rich as the problem. Or at least, not as big of a problem as they are.
If that 6% is someone believing the billionaires and fascists are NOT the enemies, then that's a pretty significant 6%... But otherwise, yeah, the rest we can work on
I'm gonna have to disagree. Here's my essay on why:
So .ml would be the worst offender for how quickly they ban anyone who steps outside a particular ML orthodoxy?
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Nah leftists true enemy is the luke warm centrist who will agree in theory but not in action. Fascists are atleast honest and easy to spot. Its the people in the middle who bothsides evey argument till we are sitting here watching genocide happening before our eyes and still nothing is done to stop it.
the luke warm centrist who will agree in theory but not in action
So, like the entire half of Lemmy calling for armed revolution against the US government?
Is there someone we can point to that started this movememt? That sounds like my kinda people
Soooo whens the genocide against MAGA? That's a genocide I can get behind
Bad bait, go away
CIA’s Simple Sabotage Field Manual
This should be required reading in every school
CIA’s Simple Sabotage Field Manual
https://www.cia.gov/static/5c875f3ec660e092cf893f60b4a288df/SimpleSabotage.pdf
for anyone interested :)
That's why even if I have my own personal views, I identify primarily as an anti-sectarian Leftist. Whether Marxism, Anarchism, or some other flavor of Leftism begins to truly lead the movement, it will be more important to push the movement forward than to spend effort on infighting.
Only a mass worker movement can get any real change.
I can get behind that. I'm not nearly as left as a lot of folks on this platform but in the US we're so far to the right that at this point we should all just be pulling left. We can duke it out once we move the Overton Window a bit.
I would even argue that open discussion of ideas is fantastic and shouldn't be discouraged, but that this shouldn't stand in the way of praxis and collective action.
If Marxist groups are leading the charge and Anarchists spend more time disagreeing with Marxist principles than actually moving forward, or vice-versa, then those people are no better than Counter-Revolutionaries.
Again, if the Revolution doesn't exactly take on the character I want it to, I am still supporting it far more than criticizing it, because movement to the Left is the primary necessity.
Of all -isms that's probably Platformism. Whatever helps reach the goal. I find that pragmatic and rational.
That is very distinctly not Platformism.
MLK was spot on about the white moderate.
Malcolm X had similar things to say
You lefty’s are a contentious people.
You've just made an enemy for life!
damn leftists, ruined socialism.
Like a Scot and a Scot
You lefty’s
This bothers me more than any political disagreement ever will.
Holds 94% of the same political views, but misuses an apostrophe. Burn him!
You just triggered all the tankies. They're now chanting "nuke the west".
This is the third time this week.
This is the third time
this weekin the last hour
The Judean Peoples Front. Or is it the Peoples Front of Judea?
Those damn splitters!
Reminds me of when I was still religious lol. I was a part of the confusingly named Christian Church denomination (or something like that). But hey, because some churches believed in "once saved, always saved" we didn't get along! Which is hilarious because being away from it now all three of these very devisive topics
- Once saved, always saved
- You can lose salvation
- Pre destination
All are really talked about the same way. If you don't act in what people believe is a god fearing manner then you were never actually saved to begin with.
But for real, basically every other part of the doctrine is the same. Jesus was the son of God who was fully God and fully human who died and was resurrected 3 days later. But because they taught sprinkling instead of immersion for baptism oh my god what a horrible misunderstanding of the scriptures!
Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, "Don't do it!" He said, "Nobody loves me." I said, "God loves you. Do you believe in God?"
He said, "Yes." I said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?" He said, "A Christian." I said, "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?" He said, "Protestant." I said, "Me, too! What franchise?" He said, "Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?" He said, "Northern Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?"
He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region." I said, "Me, too!"
Northern Conservative†Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912." I said, "Die, heretic!" And I pushed him over.
--Emo Philips.
If you're motivated, I recommend this video (peertube) where he does an exegesis about Jesus, who becomes the most radical lefty against the church.
Feels sadly true sometimes
There's a reason for the "joke": if you put 3 leftists in a room out comes 5 political parties.
Don't forget leftists that actually share all the same views but describe them in slightly different ways.
skill issue, i <3 my 94%ers
This joke is old, but isn't 'leftism' is generally understood as aknowledging different and unique instead of cutting everyone to the same template?
The authoritarian "lefties" are more interested in authoritarianism than being leftist. They're praising economic systems like China's, which produces plenty of billionaires, or North Korea's, which cannot even keep its lights on.
This is fake Western news.
The lights illuminating the statues of our Dear Leader shine 24 hours a day.
we are currently experiencing this in France for the european election (and also the previous elections...), not funny when the far-right is at 30%.
Next at 5: Watch tankies, democratic socialists, and anarchists engage in a full blown shit flinging contest!
In my experience, Anarchists and democratic socialists usually get along just fine, so long as they don't argue over semantics. Tankies aren't leftists.
We take the whole "You have my sword. And my axe." trope a little too literally.
It’s the differences that define us. I share 99.9% of the same opinions as Republicans, but where our opinions differ we are irreconcilable.
We are not at war. There is no enemy. This is a rescue operation.
Wrong. Both sides don't agree to war. You're either in one or not. With how agressive the right throws shade at the left, and confuses the waters with NewsMan gaslighting, the left IS ABSOLUTELY under attack. Mostly not from within.
The left IS ABSOLUTELY at war. Like it or not. We just need to pick up our anti-spy game a bit and realize that we need to start on some actual offense. We need more AOC's and Bernie's in Congress and far fewer R's of ANY type, let alone Russia-loving losers like the current GOP.
I'm here to rescue you with an ice pick
I understood this reference.
fud
one of these days, i hope people leave the idea of politics behind.
None of it is built to do anything other than prevent people from removing the people in power. The fact that this meme even exists is kind of ironic isn't it?
libertarian??? O.o
nah i just can't fucking stomach the fact that everytime a political debate happens and i bitch about politics being a shitty machine that shits out dysfunctional rhetoric and polices for the purposes of preventing actual real change from happening.
Because it fucking is, people lose their shit and call me any number of insults, including telling me to literally "kill myself" because apparently, having semi nuanced viewpoints is bad.
I also flem flam bleh bloo
i wish
