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i moved to .world from .ml because of the annoying ass tankies. it's not what they were saying that annoyed me it was their attitude. they acted like 14 years olds that just discovered atheism and think everyone else on the Internet is Catholic.
but also, the intense defense is Russia and China was pretty dumb. i get hating America. that's fair and valid, but to do so while pretending that these other imperialistic super powers don't also suck is pure denialism.
I get down voted from the .ml crowd for informing them their support of Trump, either direct or inadvertent, isn't going to save Palestine its just going to get trans people killed and this gets me either blocked or banned. These people see an authoritarian and they can't help but get a boner.
I'm a socialist. But I'm an anti authoritarian first.
"I am a socialist, that's why my political activity consists on calling people who oppose genocide trump enablers"
If you oppose genocide then you'd do everything you could to prevent as much genocide as possible. Enabling Trump by not voting and encouraging others not to vote is going to get a lot of people killed. It's going to get people put in concentration camps, deported to counties they've never been to and will struggle to survive in, result in the erasure of trans people, get women killed in childbirth, get people killed on the job as workers safety rights diminish, get children killed as child labor laws disappear, expand the power Russia has over Ukraine (a country they have commited genocide on before), and still get Palestinians in Gaza and the west bank murdered. It honestly makes "you" almost as bad as the fascists in my opinion. Maybe everyone who didn't vote because of Palestine can go vacation in Gaza after Trump has built a few hotels there and see the real true work all those protest votes helped accomplish.
I'm not absolving dems for being involved in the genocide in Gaza. Their support for Zionism is obscene. But a lot more damage is going to be done now that the power is strengthening in the executive branch under trump and it's extremely privlidged to act like a protest vote was the morally superior option.
But I'm a socialist because I also think that the means of production should be owned by the workers.
extremely privlidged to act like your protest vote is the morally superior option
You don't get the logic of "protest vote" then. Beyond being a simple "I'm too morally superior to vote for a genociding party" (which doesn't seem outrageous to me), it has a logic: I'm going to force the party that campaigns for my vote to change its policy on certain issues if it wants to earn my vote.
The fact is that the democrat campaign wasn't willing to give up genocide for those votes, which means either of two things:
a) These votes weren't enough to change the outcome of the election, so it's not the fault of the voters who conditioned their vote on an end of genocide that Trump got elected
b) These votes were enough to change the outcome of the election, but the democrat administration decided that maintaining the genocide was more important than winning the elections against Trump
Which choice do you believe best represents reality?
And seeing as you're a socialist, could you point me to any historical example of socialism you support?
The truth is the dems suck. They will do anything for a buck. They will support genocide for a buck. And they will lose an election they know they could win because the electorate will just swing right back to them in after they had another taste of republicans for 4 years if it means they keep getting that sweet sweet AIPAC money.
From a pragmatic standpoint, not voting isn't teaching the democratic establishment a damn thing. They're far more afraid of you voting for change within the party than they are afraid of you not voting and temporarily ceding power to the right. Then they get to leave in the obscene things the Republicans enacted that also make the dems money without it looking like they wanted it to happen.
The reality is that if more people voted consistently then the political machine would actually be beholden to the voters. Politics would actually shift left towards popular policy instead of just swing back and forth. But people don't vote. So they can just ignore what you want most of the time. And now we have the deal with whatever the fuck the authoritarians leading project 2025 can manage to fanangle. And if they get their way the american people will either accept things the way Russians and Hungarians have and the worlds largest army will be run by uninhibited authoritarian fascists, or the country will get very bloody.
But on the front of this single election and not voting. Its a literal trolley problem. Vote for 1 person to get run over or don't vote/flip the switch and watch 3 people get run over. Either way, blood is on your hands. It's on mine. But there's a little less. No decision is still a decision. Not voting for genocide enabled more death. I don't see how that can be morally superior when the practical outcome is worse.
You call yourself a socialist but you have a very, VERY tenuous understanding of the way to fight fascism and the way to achieve meaningful socialist progress. This tells me that you haven't actually done much at all in reading of socialist history, socialist attempts, and the struggle against fascism.
The reality is that if more people voted consistently [...] politics would actually shift left towards popular policy
No, it wouldn't, because that's never been the case. The leftist policy approved in the 20th century in liberal democracies isn't a consequence of people voting consistently, it's a consequence of intense struggle of the workers through unionisation movements, and the compromise of the governments in the west in fear of a widespread socialist revolution in Western Europe (which also explains why such policy was much more tenuous in the US) following Eastern Europe during the decades of maximum growth in the Eastern Block.
Fascism has never been fought by liberal democracy and votes. Fascism has been defeated by communist movements and armed struggle. Fascism is an advanced stage of capitalism in which the bourgeoisie, in fear of losing their privileges, prop oppressive far right nationalists into the governments either democratically or through coups, as in the case of Nazi Germany, Fascist Spain and Italy, or Pinochet's dictatorship. Nazism in Europe was defeated through the tremendous struggle of the Soviet people who lost 25 million lives in the war against Nazism.
We won't vote our way out of fascism. We won't vote our way into leftist policy. The US tried with Bernie and it didn't work. Greece tried with Syriza and it didn't work. Spain tried with Podemos and it didn't work. The only weapon against fascism and in favour of socialism is mutual aid and organization.
You asked what kind of socialism I like. I really liked the elected leader of Sweden Olof Palme who enhanced socialism by strengthening unions with the long term goal of turning them into workers cooperatives. He was unfortunately assassinated before he could see that through. But this form of non authoritarian socialism is how I would like to see the rise of socialism.
I also agree that unions and class struggle work too. But part of that is being politically involved and voting. I'm not diminishing the work of unions, my whole point is emphasizing the power of voting. Not voting is literally throwing away the limited amount of political capital you have.
Organize. Unionize. Share theory. But also vote.
P.s. I'm not down voting you. I known that's silly to comment but I don't try to punish people having good faith arguments with me.
"The kind of socialism I like is the one that dies as soon as its leader is murdered" doesn't sound like a particularly strong kind of socialism to me.
The kind of socialism that's just state owned capitalism isn't even socialism at all if you ask me.
The kind of socialism you call state owned capitalism is the one that saved Europe from Nazism, the one that set the standards for free healthcare, working hours, worker rights, free education and pensions, the one that fought the staunchest against imperialism, and the one that allowed for its countries to stop being western colonies.
Arguing that either China or Russia suck comparably as much as the US as current things stand is crazy. Most criticism of China is made-up anticommunist propaganda, criticism of Russia is often coated in russophobic tropes originating in Nazism and highly chauvinistic in nature (yes, Russia is on a downwards spiral of concerning fascist trends in government, but so is the entire west, literal Sieg Heil in US president inauguration and fascist parties in Germany and Austria).
Westerners focusing their criticism on countries doing a fraction of the evil their own countries do is simple western exceptionalism and nationalism. Neither China nor Russia have anything in their recent history remotely comparable to the genocide in Gaza, the invasion of Iraq, the carpet bombing of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Korea, the history of coups and support of fascist regimes, and the history of colonialism of the west.
i never said they were as bad as America lol. why do you have to go so far out of your way to defend two of three largest and most antagonistic countries in the world. they all suck, splitting hairs about degrees of evil isn't worth the time.
don't be expansionist.
don't be imperialist.
don't hate people for how they were born.
don't antagonize ethnic minorities.
all three countries are failing at more than one of these right now. they all suck.
they really don't need the help either...
Saying that Russia is on a downward spiral towards fascism is defending it?
My point isn't that you should be defending Russia or China, my point is that there's a very disproportionate amount of criticism of Russia/China compared to the US in the west, especially flagrant if we compare how actually harmful each of these is.