• nyar@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    What the fuck is a leftist.

    Be a communist or a socialist, a syndicalist or an anarchist, a maoist or a ecosocialism, but don’t be a fucking “leftist”. Be something with a defined ideology, legitimate theory, and history of practice.

    Leftists are just Democrats who want to seem to not be Democrats.

      • nyar@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Get a coherent ideology. Identify with something other than vague gesturing to better policies.

      • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        I was going to make a joke about me being a social democrat and my greatest enemy is a democratic socialist, but that guy pretty much killed any joke I could possibly make.

    • bouh@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      A leftist is someone who wants anything to be done now, rather than talk and argue to death while waiting for the perfect moment for a revolution.

    • pyre@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      i genuinely laughed out loud. this is hilarious! thank you so much.

    • dactylotheca@suppo.fiOP
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      4 months ago

      W-wait, was… was that a joke, or are you serious? I was about to upvote you because lol, but then I noticed others have taken you seriously and now I don’t know what to believe

      • volvoxvsmarla @lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        There’s a similar comment in their profile on another post so I think that’s their actual opinion and not a joke.

        • dactylotheca@suppo.fiOP
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          4 months ago

          Well that’s a very silly opinion to have.

          Absolutely not at all surprising and this is why the fascists are currently winning just about everywhere in the “western world”, but it is what it is.

          • angrymouse@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Yes, fascists are winning everywhere because of dozen of marxists around the world and not because social democrats abandoned the social part and went balls deep in neoliberal shit. You can complain about marxists but this blame is very typical of a “left” that only wants to blame others and never take accountability, and this is actually a think that took all the “western world”. From europe to the entire america, the hegemonic part of the left are not even trying to talk with workers, it is just cost cutting everywhere making the living standards worse and worse after 2008 crisis, THIS is what actually is making fascists win, and not dozens of radical leftists that are actually warning about this exactly kind of raising of fascism for more than 100 years.

            • dactylotheca@suppo.fiOP
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              4 months ago

              Yes, fascists are winning everywhere because of dozen of marxists around the world

              Not what I was getting at but bravo for proving my point further I guess

    • Ima Memeticist@jorts.horse
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      4 months ago

      @nyar @dactylotheca a leftist is pro-democracy, anti-monarchy, anti-theocracy

      leftism emerged as a coherent position during the french revolution as a common ground for the revolutionary coalition

      also friends don’t let friends be maoists, the environment can’t take another round of that sort of thing

      • nyar@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        That’s again vague enough to apply to some Republicans.

        Or was coherent for the French Revolution, but we aren’t currently undergoing the French Revolution. Also, not aware of a “leftist” party or organizing body from then. Were they the Jacobins, or the Feuillants?

        • Ima Memeticist@jorts.horse
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          4 months ago

          @nyar you’re overthinking it, ‘left’ was merely one of the sides of an auditorium where representatives seated themselves in a self-organizing way, choosing seats near others who shared their beliefs

          also what do you mean this isn’t the french revolution, there’s literally a monarchist plot to reinstall a king with the help of church leaders and sheriffs, people are protesting in the boulevards, bread is unaffordable, guillotine memes are in

          also also please apologize for pushing maoism

          • nyar@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            It’s not the French Revolution because the French Revolution can only happen the once. History doesn’t repeat, but it can rhyme.

            Thanks for explaining to me something I already clearly knew given I gave you specifics about the French Revolution, very appreciated.

            Not gonna apologize cause I didn’t “push” maoism. I’m just asking for people with “left” politics to identify an ideological framework that resonates with them and then apply it to their lives instead of complaining about the right and begging capitalists for crumbs. If that’s anarchism, great. If that’s ecosocialism, great. If that’s maoism, great. Anything is better than identifying as a “leftist”.

            • Ima Memeticist@jorts.horse
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              4 months ago

              @nyar relax, it’s okay that i didn’t take your bait, it was kind of obvious and you shouldn’t feel bad about it not working

              anyway have fun killing the sparrows or whatever ecosocialists do

    • myrmepropagandist@sauropods.win
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      4 months ago

      @nyar @dactylotheca

      “Leftists are just Democrats who want to seem to not be Democrats.”

      This is mostly true. I consider myself a “leftist” I strongly prefer that term because I think all Democrats are ineffective. And I think electoral politics is insufficient but also necessary.

      People who live in any place should have control of the institutions including government should they want one. And it’s up them how that power should be used from social democracy to some kind of anarchism.

    • myrmepropagandist@sauropods.win
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      4 months ago

      @nyar @dactylotheca

      So, because I think that everyone should have a say there isn’t much point in me deciding on some elaborate plan in advance of … getting to know my neighbors and what they want, what they need, what they care about and putting the concerns of those with the lest conventional power FIRST.

      Otherwise I’m just talking to myself and people on the internet.

      I’m very tired of people who try to insult me by calling me a normie or a democrat. Like I don’t care.

      • nyar@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Not trying to insult anyone.

        Asking people to have coherent ideology beyond a few policy points. Something that has a worldview that is looking beyond the next election cycle.

    • dactylotheca@suppo.fiOP
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      4 months ago

      Pain is the price of being connected with the world I guess (in an abstract sense, not in the more concrete sense like internet connections are painful. Or, well…)

  • Tiempo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    4 months ago

    US Democrats: yes, fellow lefties, we must fight for everybody to be equal in dignity and participation, so nobody is left behind! Equal rights! Free market in function of human dignity!

    The left: Who are this people?

    Social democrats: I’m sorry friend, but the left must build a social safety net trough institutions and the state to help everybody to have the best life posible allowing the private enterprise to flourish as part of human desire, but not as nuclear aspect of the good life.

    Marxist-Leninist : flourish the WHAT? Oh no, we must take the means of production so the social results of the industry goes directly in benefits of the workers! We need a vanguard that guide the proletarian masses to liberation from the shackles of exploitation. Up with the soviets! Eventually the State will go too!

    M-Stalinist: Yes, and only throught a strong state that can disolve the classes and allow the mass to emerge we can achieve a nation capable of go side to side in the competition against capitalism ideology! So, sorry friends, but soviets must go in favor of the party state

    Juche-Marxist: Of course, but that is short sighted. If the nation can’t self produce their existence, we will always be at mercy of the capitalist class. Strong army, Strong Country, Strong Industry!

    Anarchists: WTF are you all talking about, you class traitors! You are changing a dominant class for another! The State must be dissolve now! It won’t grow itself out of existence!

    Anarcho-syndicalists: yes! All power to the unions! The workers must own the means of production in a direct way! Only then exploitation will disappear!

    Anarcho-mutualists: But only if the economic system as a whole goes into workers hands. The banks must be comunitary owned! That way riches can go to everybody!

    Anarcho communists: Are you all mad? While there is money it can be hoarded! If it can be hoarded then the condition for exploitation remains when a new rich emerges to become a new bourgeois!

    Anarcho feminists: Can we all stop this darn dammit class reduction! Gender oppression is the base of this all! Even if capitalism is abolish the men will keep opression over all other genders!

    Anarcho primitivists: I’m sorry, but if the planet burns to ashes no liberation will happen. We need to destroy the industrial society if we want a chance for any kind of Utopia and return to a gatherer past where all sentients creatures can be free. To stop in gender is short sighted!

    Everybody else: destroy THE WHAT???

    Anarcho transhumanists: ehm… Sorry, no. Technology is the base that will allows us to get to a post scarcity society where we can transcend human condition and become something else that will reach a true Utopia where anyone can be anything being the universe the only cap for dreaming.

    Everybody else: transcend the WHAT???

    Yeah…

    But, you know… Is just some differences that can be worked out

    Left unity! Yey!

    • dactylotheca@suppo.fiOP
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      4 months ago

      But, you know… Is just some differences that can be worked out

      Fewer than we have with the right. But yeah, let’s just stay in our own silos, I’m sure that’ll help us all achieve what we want.

      This is sort of relevant here: