ImOnADietšµšø (He/Him)There is a spectre haunting the lemmyverse
ShikadiI havenāt heard of you yet, what are they complaining about? Iāve only heard complaints about Nazis and fascists, not commies
Canāt tell if this is supposed to be a ātankie red fash lolā dig but Iāll take it in good faith anyways.
We uphold socialism here, not that socialist states are/were perfect places, but that they are/were legitimate attempts at building worker states, and demonstrably improved the lives of their citizens. Liberals (we use that to mean anyone from a nordic soc dem to moderate republican, or even unserious anarchists) really really donāt like this. The accuse us of āgenocide denialā or just being ādelusionalā for questioning the dominant western narrative
roux[he,they]It doesnāt help that there really is nuance in discussing previous and current socialist experiments but even that has practically become a meme and is met with ācommunism has never workedā commentary from liberals.
Exactly, often times we just give up because liberals constantly make bad faith arguments, so we just respond with goofy āstalin did nothing wrongā memes
Iām actually working through some thoughts on how to even explain that there is bad and good in these systems. But unless you have a good understanding of history, theory, or even dialectics(which I donāt quite yet) itās really tough to do without resorting to whataboitism. At least for me it is. A common point that I see brought up on the left, and I think itās a good argument, but when the black book of communism number of 1 gorbillian dead get brought up, you can easily argue that you can calculate 100 million excessive deaths every 10 years in the US as a counterpoint but I think we can all agree that excessive deaths are bad regardless. Well unless they are fascists of course.
This was one of the hardest parts of my transition to socialism, finding good information that didnāt require a doctorates degree in history and/or philosophy. The S4A podcast has been running for years and is just now getting to the end of their āintroduction to Marxismā seriesā¦ Like, you canāt expect most people to do thisā¦
After buying a number of books I am making my way through them and they are fascinating. But it did require me to self-investigate and open my mind a lot, and read a lot, to decide to study further.
The nuance is so strong and so many people have been taught bad information that itās hard to even begin a good conversation, so we resort to jokes because at least we can get a laugh out of it. Iāve dumped walls of text, and gotten some good results, some bad results.
Iāve been on the lookout for short/easy introductions that arenāt in-your-face-about-it (Worked for me, but not for everyone). Thereās no reason to pander unnecessarily, but to provide reasoned arguments in short-form, to plant the seed of information that could bring someone out of their propaganda. I guess the biggest problem is just getting past the initial ichy feeling most people have when the word ācommunismā is thrown out.
I think for me it started with just anti-capitalism, and US military actions that were obviously against our ācore valuesā. But thatās not enough for everyone.
I am also working on a short list that I can recommend so once I am at home and can type them up we can compare notes maybe lol. Iām trying to find books that arenāt super dense but still cover all that needs to be to get the point across. For example, I had an easier time with Principles than I did with the Manifesto because Principles reads a lot like it was written recently. Still read the Manifesto tho, ya know?
Iāve found myself also starting to attempt to explain things in simple terms and idk where that even came from. Understanding how Marx developed his ideas for Marxism from a philosophical perspective is crucial I think but damm is it tough at times.
And yeah you can describe socialism or communism to quite a few people and not call it those words and they tend to jive with it but as soon as you drop the C or S word itās all over. I work closely with a local Dem club where Iām at(I know still liberals but a lot of them seem to mean well, and a few of them do knowy views) but a few weeks ago socialism got brought up and 2 of these older dudes started in on how āsocialism has never workedā and without skipping a beat one said we need to go back to aggressively taxing the super rich. Same set of people want M4A, affordable healthcare and school and all the other stuff and Iām like yeah thatās kind of socialism my dudes. And again, their is even nuance to what actually is socialism in that context but you get it.
Donāt be defensive. Donāt defend communism or any state with socialism. Only defend the instances where it works. Like Cubaās 99% literacy vs. Americaās 82%. Be offensive. Criticize capitalism and itās wealth disparity. Homelessness and access to medical care. Encourage them to research it on their own. Be courteous. Be respectful. Donāt condescend. We all have to start somewhere.
US capitalism isnāt working, so thereās that as a counter point lol
PolandIsAStateOfMindOh, US capitalism is working exactly as intended. They just lie about what was intended.
rjs001It works fine enough for the exploiting bourgeois and the imperialists. It wasnāt meant for us and hence doesnāt work for us.
I think youāll fit right in here.
Thank you for taking it in good faith, itās not meant as a dig, I appreciate the responses
CriticalResist8In the minds of some, we communists are apparently one and the same with fascists.
But the reason there are so few out and out fascists on Lemmy is exactly because itās a communist project, and we were the biggest instance before the reddit exode. They actually discussed this on reddit in some of the more reactionary subs and decided it wasnāt worth getting on lemmy because of this.
What do you mean when you say itās a communist project?
š»Sleepless Oneš»FediTips has moved! (@[email protected])
Content warning: Please don't use Lemmy :( Human rights, oppression
Drewfro66Itās an instance for Communists, specifically Communists who support AES (actually existing socialism). In short, we think that the USSR and PRC (among others), while not perfect, were legitimate attempts at building Socialism and better than Capitalism as it exists in the West.
Other people donāt like that because, to them, Stalin was just Red Hitler and Xi Jinping is literally committing a genocide right now. Neither are true.
Ah okay I can see how thatās controversial, given China is heavy on censorship and control, and in reality theyāre just another form of capitalism run by a rich oligarchy. Plus with the way the world has changed, I think a new system is needed because weāre heading towards enough automation that not everyone should need to work.
I donāt know much about the USSR so I wonāt comment on that
commiespammerChina is not run by a rich ogliarchy. source: www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIOg_K6Z1fg
Never Gonna Give You Up But It's MIKU Instead
I approve of the source, however disagree with the conclusions
Ok but in all honestly, just because there are rich people in China doesnāt mean itās a ācapitalist ogliarchyā. Sure, there are billionaires in the party, but they have just as much power as any farmer or worker, no more and no less.
Thatās not true in the slightest though? I mean the very fact that there are different wages, thereās poverty, China invests heavily in foreign companies (both the government and private Chinese corporations), thatās all capitalism. The farmer doesnāt have any say in what tencent or the China Evergrande Group does
Oh my god there are companies, guess thereās no more socialism guys!1!1!!1
Just because there are companies does not mean that China is revisionist. And Tencent and China Evergrande have nothing to do with the government. Why would they?
Weāre talking about communism here not socialism, I didnāt say China doesnāt have socialism
Iām confused. Do you expect China to be instantly fully communist without money or class? Do you know that China started as a poor and feudal country and has constantly been under pressure and sanctions from the west?
Itās like giving you control of an island full of people with almost no food and enemies thirsting to attack at any moment. Go on, build communism.
No, Iām saying China is a capitalist oligarchy. Currently, right now. I donāt believe it can ever become communism with the current people still in power. That can be debatable, but what they are right now is definitely not communism, and thatās all I was saying
Yes, itās not communism right now. But Xi Jinping is not a ācapitalist oligarchā. And China has pulled millions out of poverty, build an advanced public transport system, given massive amounts of aid to third-world countries while helping them develop, and has cracked down on corruption. If this is a ācapitalist oligarchyā then I will gladly support it.
I mean, I would also call the US a capitalist oligarchy, wouldnāt call Biden an oligarch, and would say theyāve done the same in the past, so yeah I would still call it that personally. Thatās generally how industrialisation under capitalism goes. Iād even go as far as to say the US and UK had a lot of influence on it getting where it is in the first place, and itās very difficult to do trade with the west in this world without shifting towards capitalism. (Not impossible, but difficult)
The US has not eliminated poverty. Where did you get that from? In addition, the US has done nothing to help 3rd world countries at all, only to exploit them for resources. Before you say thatās what China is doing too, itās not.
I did not say the US eliminated poverty and you didnāt say China has eliminated poverty?
The US has indeed exploited countries for resources, but that does mean they havenāt also helped in some cases, even if itās a minority of cases
China has eliminated poverty. And China helped in every case, while the US exploited in every case. I donāt see how those two are similar.
Youāre splitting hairs at this point, I donāt understand why
How is that āsplitting hairsā? If I go to your house and help you build it, is that really the same as blasting it down with explosives?
No, Iām saying you took one small piece of what I said and latched on to it. Letās say the US has never helped another country before for sake of argument. It doesnāt change the fact that I see both countries as capitalist aristocracies
Even if China is a capitalist aristocracy, itās done mostly good for the world. Besides, having rich people does not make a country an aristocracy.
I also want to add, I feel like I was legitimately trying to engage with you and youāve become defensive/lumped me in with others, which isnāt really fair
š³ļøāā§ļø ę°ę [she/they]Not the person you replied to, but we get a decent amount of bad faith posters here from other instances, and you were repeating some of those points. I donāt think there was ill intent by either of you, but I can understand the confusion.
I hope we donāt feel like a hostile place and I hope you learned something!
The CCP controls the media and limits free speech,
In my country like three completely unnacountable megacorporations own the media and controp free speech
and makes decisions for everyone
I donāt remember being consulted on the decision to invade Iraq, continue the illegal blockade of Cuba, send missiles to Nazis in Ukraine, make food twice as expensive, have the sky turn blood red every couple years, be watched by police snipers at a football game, or drink microplastics for the rest of my life.
To the first part, to my knowledge they only care about health and safety in specific cases, but they allow for working conditions with things like lead, asbestos, toxic chemicals, etc. Foxconn is the first example that pops into my head, where workers were searches and beaten, and some were committing suicide. And back when China was buying US E waste, workers would be scavenging through dangerous phosphors and mercury, plus some mild lead exposure.
To the second part, I am not comparing China to the US, I donāt believe the US government is good either, so thatās irrelevant
Foxconn is a Taiwanese company, headquartered in Taipei. While China has a ways to go on working conditions, the overall trend (as with pretty much every other metric) is that their conditions continue to improve due to increasing regulation, ours continue to decline in the dearch for increasing profits. Iām definitely hoping they achieve a better work/life balancr, although having been to Taiwan, Iāll say they certainly canāt throw any stones in that department either lol
Yes foxconn is taiwanese, but the factories Iām talking about are in Shenzhen China, therefore subject to Chinese labor laws. I do agree that things are improving over there, but they have a long way to go before I would say the country cares about health and safety of everyone
I donāt know if the user in the rest of this thread reflects the rest of this community, but theyāre basically putting words in my mouth and disagreeing with things Iām not even saying. Iām anti capitalism, but that kind of behavior definitely makes me think this isnāt a place I want to be a part of.
Lemmygrad is a space for Communists who support AES. If you do not support China, youāre probably correct that this instance is not for you.
But I think youāll find itās a fine place to engage as long as you keep questions about the legitimacy of past and present Socialist experiments to the !communism101 comm.
The fact of the matter is that, while China does have billionaires, it is not an Oligarchy in the same way the United States or Russia is because these people do not hold the power in society. In China, the Communist Party does; and while you might say that the CPC overvalues its own bureaucracy and the so-called āLabor Aristocracyā, it still more-or-less represents Working Class values. There are laws in place that mandate certain proportions of Communist Party membership and leadership come from certain positions and industries specifically to avoid it becoming beholden to the very-rich.
Iām not pro China, but that doesnāt mean Iām not open to learning about why you are pro China. Your response is constructive and brings to the table things I didnāt know and can now further research. From the perspective of someone who works for a US corp that does business with China, and who has co workers from China, workers best interests arenāt being protected at any reasonable level like they are in say Germany. But I also am aware that even though my working conditions are fine, the awful working conditions for other jobs in the US (some from the same company I work for) are covered up and hidden from the public eye as well
Calling Stalin just red Hitler kind of softens what an absolute monster he was.
I know thatās the US narrative, but Iām not so sure thatās based in fact.
I figured this would be something you would identify with:
Socialism will win
I think you are confused. The fact that you canāt disambiguate your own main character fetish for yourself doesnāt mean the rest of us have to pretend you or I are important.
Iā¦ donāt think Iām important. I made a low effort post on comradeship, where these posts belong. Still, the United States and the rest of the west has shown itself unable to contain China and are slowly collapsing, which gives me some joy as an unwilling participant in this genocidal empire
Then you donāt understand what I am saying comrade. Your op is the same as the pick me energy on tick tock.
What are you saying then? Iām not exaggerating when I say that anytime I go into the all section I find a post/comment complaining about the ātankiesā here. So I just made this jokey low effort comradeship post, there is literally nothing āmain characterā about that
āoooo look how edgy and cool we are. I bet most the other groups despise us! Our thoughts are so special that nobody else understands us. I know that because they call us names!ā
Thatās your post. That is what you look like. Thatās main character energy.
Do you realize youāre being the exact type of user weāre complaining about?
Itās just an observation to say that thereās a lot of anti communist posts on other instances, and thereās a decent amount of these people (including yourself) who come to our instance for whatever reason.
Capitalism is strained thin by globalization. It has no where else to go/grow. Which is why China is focusing on Africa. It may reinvent itself, it has done it before, but the ball is rolling. Climate change is the Boss that capitalism canāt beat. Socialism will be necessary to adapt to climate. Itās only a matter of time.
JoeKroganWell Iām reading this on .world so it is not blocked there. I think these days people like to put others in boxes to make it easier to have us vs them.
Personally I only block spammers and abusive accounts. I consider myself socialist too if that matters.
Yes, we arenāt blocked by 2 of the biggest instances. I didnāt mean āhalf the usersā, but every time I see a new instance in a username I go check their blocklist and it seems like ~1/2 the time lemmygrad is blocked. You would be welcome to post here even if you werenāt a socialist, you just canāt post capitalism apologia
No need to worry about that š. Capitalism has done enough damage already.
Red Wizard šŖI love how the Spector seems to imply an evil in the heads of most Normans. I see it in my friends group and I will admit I had heard the line in the past and thought the same. Then I decided to actually read instead of parrot and realized itās a Spector in the same literary sense as the Spectors from A Christmas Carol that haunt Ebenezer Scrooge.
The Spector of Communism exposes the world to the material realities of itās past and present, which lay the stones that lead to the grim shadows of a future yet to come. Shadows, dear reader, that we might change by leading an altered life.
JucheBot1988Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come