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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
“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
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?
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 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.
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!".
Fascist proceeds to press the trigger 3 times and get dissapointed they could not shoot the liberal as well.
Another anarchist arrives then punches the fascist and takes his gun.
The liberal concludes the anarchist to be the real fascist.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The only actual threat in the room is the fascist. Anarchists aren't actually dangerous, they're just annoying, they never actually do anything they just talk a lot.
The Marxist won't kill you either. They'll just argue with you.
There are violent and nonviolent ideologues on all sides of the political spectrum. There have been violent Marxists, fascists, anarchists, liberals, vegans. Just the same, there have been nonviolent members of all of these ideologies. I wouldn't consider some tankie or neofash teen making hexbear or /pol/ posts in their bedroom to be violent.
I would say that the fascist and the Marxist are equally threatening to my safety, all else equal.
the lib gives the gun to the fascist
the fascist shoots the lib in the back of the head twice,
the fasicst then gaslights the marxist into believing the lib committed self harm
Hide the gun, stand back, and wait. Then beat whoever's still breathing once the others are done killing each other. Now they're alone and still have 2 bullets.
While the conservative that planned this insane and illegal real life thought experiment jerked off into a dirty sock while wearing a trump mask and somehow, despite not even touching the gun, still shot themselves in the foot.
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.
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.
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.
I hate predatory micro transactions and day 1 dlc. I don't blame the people that boycotted them for the prevelence of mtx? I blame the people that demand they be sold first, then I blame the people that sell them, then I blame the people that bought them. It's not the fault of the people that didn't buy them. Except in politics for some reason.
Sorry, I just got recommended a "games are shit now corpos took over, it's the leftist's fault games are bad". The misattribution of blame from 'capital interests' to 'leftists' is so pervasive even the "I'm left of center" crowd are doing it. I didn't engage there but still need the catharsis
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.
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.
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.
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 freikorps to massacre communists before staffing the cabinet with fascists and making Hitler chancellor.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.