We should make a special political spectrum just for these people. Let’s call it the imperial political spectrum.
Found ⬇️ 87 Liberals who believed they were comrades. 😆
One day these liberals are going to realize the ⬇️ is more telling then a comment
leftist : anti-capitalism :: liberal : pro-capitalism
Why is this so hard for some radlibs to understand? I think it is all the propaganda they passively consume.
no no no. Left is when you love democracy and freedom and liberty and rightwing is when you love authority and disciplined organizations.
Capitalism is so all-consuming it’s like water to fish. “Capitalism” becomes synonymous with words like economy, markets, trade, laws, and government. It no longer is an ideology, but an immutable force in the universe.
Is that a Mark Fischer quote?
I’ll say it again, in the United States the term “liberal” is used to refer to liberal social ideas NOT liberal economic ideas. To the average US citizen left and liberal are synonyms. This doesn’t mean your definition isn’t correct for academics and the entire rest of the world. But this meme, and this left vs liberal argument for this post, are US based.
Isn’t it progressism?
But anyway liberalism is the ideology of capitalism. The artificial differences created between conservatives and progressists is just a smoke screen to create a false debate and prevent from challenging capitalism, switching the enemy from the rulling capitalist class to the person next door with different views
We know that, which is why we’re trying to deprogram Americans from the Orwellian newspeak they’ve been mistaught so they can develop class consciousness.
I’m not sure how colloquial vocabulary usage prevents developing class consciousness. I’d potentially argue refusing to accept the evolution of language and refusing to communicate to people in the terms they use and understand inhibits said deprogramming.
Again very US centric in this definition but it’s who needs deprogramming.You don’t think words can mean things?
You just live in some kind of word salad blob?
What? That’s literally the opposite of what I’m saying… I’m saying words can have multiple meanings depending on context.
But the point of this was how does “liberal” having a different colloquial definition from how op was using it have anything do with “developing class consciousness” which can be done regardless of this single word?Yes
Sometimes the evolution of language isn’t so much organic as it is a political project, such as a century of red scares and socialist purges.
Americans believe Sanders when he calls himself a socialist because they’ve lost a vocabulary for socialism itself. And they think Sanders’ centrism is “the left,” because the Overton window has shifted so far right that there is no left left.
We can’t simply use their terms, because their terminology is both muddled and lacking.
Sometimes the evolution of language isn’t so much organic as it is a political project, such as a century of red scares and socialist purges.
Ok. But regardless of the cause, organic or political project, it doesn’t change the fact that the language has moved on correct?
We can’t simply use their terms, because their terminology is both muddled and lacking.
But there’s the rub. You/we ARE using their terms and the message is muddled and lacking BECAUSE OF the difference in perceived definitions. And as the past couple decades have shown there is zero chance of getting the American people to learn things, or unlearn as the case may be.
I assume very few people this far down a thread into a political discussion, on Lemmy, don’t know what the Overton windowS are and how fucked the US is because of the current far right position on the left/right scales. I find it lacking and dislike it’s libertarian origins. We are even now discussing the difference of a word being used for social vs economic ideas and these two scales do not necessarily overlap.
Yes, it’s hard for them to understand because of a lifetime of anti-socialist & pro-capitalist propaganda, propaganda which most of them aren’t even aware of, because for them it’s just common sense.
Leftist ≠ Leftwing
Liberalism is Leftwing leaning but isn’t leftist
Liberalism ≠ Leftwing
FTFY
Nope, Liberalism is the “center” of the modern world in that it’s the default status quo position and ideology of the ruling class.
🧠🪱
This is stupid, you will just get Lemmy labeled as extremist and then we will have one less antifascist platform.
Nuh uh, you’re stupid, in fact you’re the worlds dumbest man.
Ooh, the fascists aren’t gonna like this one
I’m okay with it.
I hate those stupid transphobic hats.
Alright no hate on Bernie tho, that dude is a role model through and through.
Bernie has been pretty shitty on foreign policy. He supported the NATO bombing of Belgrade for 78 straight days, which is why he fell out of favor with his socialist friend, Michael Parenti. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLNQEHbusSA&t=39s
Bernie is basically a modern day version of Bernstein. Though a century apart, both peddle reformism as a political pacifier, diverting energy from the radical systemic change required to dismantle capitalism. Their approaches, while superficially progressive, function as ideological traps, diverting energy from serious movements necessary to upend capitalism.
Bernstein was a leading figure in Germany’s SPD, and he famously rejected Marxist revolutionary praxis in favor of evolutionary socialism. He argued capitalism could be gradually reformed into socialism through parliamentary means, dismissing the inevitability of class conflict. He neutralized the SPD’s revolutionary potential, channeling working-class demands into compromises like wage increases or limited welfare programs that left capitalist hierarchies intact. As Rosa Luxemburg warned in Reform or Revolution, Bernstein’s strategy reduced socialism to a “mild appendage” of liberalism, sapping the working class of its transformative agency.
Likewise, the political project that Bernie pursued mirrors Bernstein’s trajectory. While Sanders critiques inequality and corporate power, his platform centers on social democratic reforms, such as Medicare for All, tuition-free college, a $15 minimum wage, that treat symptoms instead of root causes. By framing electoral victory as the primary objective, Sanders diverted a what could have been a millions strong grassroots movement into the Democratic Party, an institution structurally committed to maintaining capitalism. His campaigns absorbed activist energy into phone banking and voter outreach, rather than building durable, extra-parliamentary power such as workplace organizations, tenant unions, and so on.
When Sanders conceded to Hillary Clinton and later Joe Biden, his base dissolved into disillusionment or shifted focus to lesser-evilism. Without autonomous structures to sustain pressure, the movement’s momentum evaporated similarly to how the SPD was integrated into Weimar Germany’s capitalist state. However, even if his agenda were enacted, it would exist within a neoliberal framework. Much like FDR’s New Deal coexisted with Jim Crow, imperial plunder, and union busting. Reforms within the system are always contingent on their utility to capital, and their purpose is demobilize the workers.
A meaningful challenge to capitalism requires a long-term strategy that combines direct action, mass education, and dual power structures. Imagine if Sanders had urged supporters to unionize workplaces, organize rent strikes, and create community mutual aid networks alongside electoral engagement. Movements like MAS in Bolivia, show how grassroots power can pressure institutions while cultivating revolutionary consciousness. Instead, his campaign became a referendum on his candidacy, leaving his followers adrift after his defeat.
Bernstein and Sanders, despite their intentions, exemplify the dead end of reformism. Their projects mistake tactical concessions for strategic victory, ignoring capitalism’s relentless drive to commodify and co-opt. In the end, the reformist approach ends up midwifing full blown fascism. By channeling energy into parliamentary politics, the SPD deprioritized mass mobilization. Unions and workers were encouraged to seek concessions rather than challenge capitalist power structures. This eroded class consciousness and left the working class unprepared to confront the nazi threat.
When the nazis gained momentum, the SPD clung to legalistic strategies, refusing to support strikes or armed resistance against Hitler. Their faith in bourgeois democracy blinded them to the existential threat of fascism, which exploited economic despair and nationalist resentment. In the end, SPD famously allied with the nazis against the communists.
The “progressive” wing of the Democratic Party is following in the footsteps of the SPD’s reformist trajectory. While advocating for policies like Medicare for All or climate action, it operates within capitalist constraints, undermining radical change and inadvertently fueling right-wing extremism. The Democrats absorb grassroots energy into electoral campaigns while their reliance on corporate donors ensures watered-down policies that fuel disillusionment.
The SPD’s reformism actively enabled fascism by disorganizing the working class and legitimizing capitalist violence. Similarly, the Democratic Party’s commitment to pragmatic incrementalism sustains a system that breeds reactionary backlash. Trump is a direct product of these policies. We’re just watching history on repeat here.
thanks for the breakdown and for your continued work here.
o7
Maybe for those who wish to support bombing foreigners while funnelling the military industry into their state.
Motherfucker parades around like he’s antiwar because he voted “nay” on a single ballot initiative that was already a shoo-in and inconsequential for him to vote against. Literally a couple months later, he voted to further the funding for those military actions.
Bernie has had blood on his hands for 30-40 years now and continues to try to wash it off with more blood.
Someone who pretends to support the poor at home while simultaneously supporting bombing and invading the poor elsewhere sure is a role model, just not a good one.
Before 2017 sure.
What did he do in 2017?
Continued to support Democrats after they fucked him in the 2016, I’m guessing?
I don’t know, I still like him
Same. He saw *gestures broadly* coming and tried to prevent it as best as he could. What’s that Greek legend about an oracle whose catastrophic prophecies always come true, but they’re never believed and always blamed for them?
Cassandra, cursed by Apollo to have the gift of prophecy but to never be believed.
Absol? (j)
I’m confused what the pink hat is supposed to have to do with the rest of the images
Officially named Pussyhats, they were first worn symbolically at the 2017 US Women’s March in Washington DC. Created by Krista Suh and Jayna Zweiman (who met at an LA knitting club), the hat was made in direct response to grab em by the pussy remark from tdump. The original idea was for marchers to knit, sew, or crochet hats to create a visual statement —a sea of pink. “If everyone at the march wears a pink hat, the crowd will be a sea of pink, showing that we stand together, united,” reads the introduction to the knitting pattern on the Pussyhat Project website. The actual hats were created by people who could not attend physically, but wanted to show their support.
Since then, some have come out against it as any one symbol isn’t as all encompassing as they would like, but none have yet given or inspired a good replacement for such a strong show of women’s solidarity.
nothing, it’s just anti-trans, anti-queer bullshitting.
Edit: after looking it up, if i understand it correctly, it’s misogynistic bullshit? maybe? maybe not? idk
No, it’s anti-pinkwashing. It’s anti-liberals failing to protect the vulnerable yet again. What have we gained since the pussyhat movement but the loss of reproductive rights under Biden’s watch?
the loss of reproductive rights under Biden’s watch?
What did Biden have the authority to do that wasn’t done (to avoid this loss)?
The Supreme Court ruled that any Official Act done by the President is Constitutional.
Surely you can think of some pretty cool stuff this enables?
Failed to make an executive action codifying abortion rights.
It’s always the people who say ‘I’m a hardcore leftist’ or ‘I’m as left as they come’
i’m as left as they come but I think Israel should “clear out” Gaza and that Trump makes some good points about woke going too far
New bit idea: tell people you’re “as left as they cum,” and always cum facing your left.
I’m like Zoolander, I can’t cum left
The right side is just liberalism. This is what happens when the left and liberal are melded together in everyday western society/language and the water is muddied. It’s intended. It confuses people, overwhelms them, and leads them to use the apparatus that the ruling class has placed in front of us to circumvent true working class interests and movements. It’s why liberals scoff at potential allies (leftists), instead of seeing the truth: a unified working class.
Nice instance name.
Is equating the defense of Ukraine with that hat the entire point of the meme?
Yeah this is some not-so-subtle propaganda from our komrades.
literally just poking fun at this brand of american liberals be so serious
Da, all in good fun.
.ml people will stand by people resisting the imperialism of one country, and then condemn people resisting the imperialism of another, and still won’t realize they are effectively nationalists.
Liberals will invent fanfiction about Marxists before genuinely trying to engage with Lenin’s analysis of Imperialism or attempt to have a genuine conversation about it.
the fucking hat lmao
“I’m a leftist!” Helps get a rapist felon fascist get elected
How did leftists help lol
It is so funny when Americans think that the election was fair and they had a choice. You have a kayfabe version of democracy.
It’s hilarious when people think it is anything other than a 2 party system.
It is a kayfabe democracy. It has only oligarchical management, not democratic representation. No matter who wins the elections the policies are predetermined. Rooting for Kamala over Trump is no different than rooting for The Undertaker in Wrestlemania.
Sure sure, because under Kalama Harris this was how January was going to go too, yep.
It’s a one party system.
“Take the Blue Pill and the gradual slide into fascism stops accelerating for four years while the current hellscape becomes the status quo, take the Red Pill and buckle the fuck up as we hyperspeed into fascism”
How many times are memes of this rhetoric going to be posted and reposted?
I’m really struggling to find a party that i fully agree with.
For one, i like true leftist ideals, but i don’t like guns, so i guess the left parts of the image doesn’t apply to me.
On the other side, i think the long-standing support for Ukraine is an atrocious mistake, because it prolongs the suffering unnecessarily (after all, the uproar in Ukraine is mostly an CIA-inspired action after all i believe, and diplomatic solutions were not sought). But shitting on that pink hat (which is clearly a symbol for queer/trans people) is just unacceptable. just leave the people live their own private life as they want. What’s so difficult about that?
Edit: as per the comments, i stand corrected and am sorry for my half-assed take. i’ll leave it up anyways, because i guess it’s a chance to learn for any reader.
How you going to seize the means of productions and depose the capitalists without using weaponry?
wait until they self-destruct, mostly.
i say this as an european
this is laughably utopian and ahistorical, i’m sorry but this is fantasy. There’s a reason that the “violent” and “authoritarian” communists have actually won and seized power while the utopian eurocommies have never accomplished a single thing.
Your nation has never successfully had a revolution. They need to be listening and learning from those that have, following their example, and not trying to invent their own perfect (white) system from whole cloth
There’s a reason that the “violent” and “authoritarian” communists have actually won and seized power while the utopian eurocommies have never accomplished a single thing.
Well yeah i can tell you what the communists have achieved in the Sovjet Union, and that’s 20 million people dead due to stalinistic terror. So much for “winning”. No thank you.
Meanwhile, lots of european economies (and people!) have been doing well since after the second world war. Maybe they have accomplished something.
Keep repeating liberal dogma and ignoring the billions of death caused by capitalism by the same metrics
Life expectancy over doubled from the 30s to the 70s in the USSR. Literacy rates went from the 20s and 30s to 99.9%, above Western European and USian rates. Famine was ended by collectivization and industrialization in a country where famine was common under the Tsar. This same nation, barely industrializing at the start of the 20th century, beat the United States into space, and continued beating it with the first man and first woman in space.
Social Safety Nets expanded greatly. Healthcare and Education were free and high quality. Housing was incredibly affordable, and there was full employment. Abortion was not only legalized, but free. Women played a role even in the highest ranks of politics. The economy was democratized. 80% of the combat in World War 2 was on the Eastern Front, the Soviets defeated the Nazis.
Sadly, there were excess deaths, but 20 million people did not die, such a number comes from anti-communist myth-makers before the opening of the Soviet Archives. The numbers given by the Black Book of Communism include Nazis killed during World War 2, and use various other misdirections to grossly inflate the number of excess deaths. Were there excess deaths? Sadly, yes, and nobody denies this. However, when compared to contemporary peers like the British Empire who intentionally starved millions of Bengalis, the French who were colonizing Vietnam, Algeria, and more, or the United States who killed millions of Iraqis, Koreans, Vietnamese, Cambodians, and more, the USSR played a far more progressive role. From supporting Palestinian resistance against genocide, to helping China throw off their colonizers, to helping Algeria throw off the French, to helping Vietnam against the US Empire and French Colonialists, the Soviets played a far better role.
Wealth inequality went far down, whike GDP growth was constantly positive except during World War 2. It was one of the most rapidly growing economies in the 20th century.
Western Europe (and of course the US to a greater degree), to this day, relies on brutal expropriation of the Global South through outsourcing industry and brutal IMF loans. They have been doing well because they are Imperialists. To say they are doing well is to say the Trust Fund kid working at his father’s investment firm is doing well, he does so on the backs of actual laborers and did not earn his vast wealth, but inhereted it from former and current Empire.
well i guess it’s good for you to spit these facts but i gotta make my own judgement, and i can see the things around me, and saying “They have been doing well because they are Imperialists. To say they are doing well is to say the Trust Fund kid working at his father’s investment firm is doing well, he does so on the backs of actual laborers and did not earn his vast wealth, but inhereted it from former and current Empire.” does not make me believe your point, just fyi
Colonization and now Imperialism have been the driving forces of Western European Economies for centuries. All of this sheer expropriation of wealth hasn’t gone away in any capacity, the IMF still debt traps countries in Africa, Latin America, and other areas in the Global South. Especially during the latter 19th and early 20th centuries, countries like Britain, Germany, and France had industrialized to the point of monopolization, and a blending of financial and industrial Capital. This turned towards the Global South, seeking to export Capital to super-exploit for super-profits.
If you want to read about the origins of this system, the book Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism is quite a quick read, written in the early 20th century (though it mentions many entities that exist today in the same forms, like Deutsche Bank). For modern analysis, Super-Imperialism by Hudson, though it is US based Western European Imperialism is intricately tied to US Imperialism.
But shitting on that pink hat (which is clearly a symbol for queer/trans people) is just unacceptable
That isn’t what that is a symbol for at all. It was a knit hat made for an ineffective Trump protest in 2017. Actually queer and trans people found the hats exclusionary. So did non white people whose genitalia aren’t that color. The entire pussy-hat movement was feel-good liberal activity that accomplished nothing and made no difference. Much like the liberal “support” for Ukraine.
but i don’t like guns
This is extreme privilege. None of us like guns just to like guns. Brother Malcolm was being threatened with his life daily and his home was firebombed then he was assassinated, he was trying to protect himself. Fred Hampton was literally murdered by the police. The Zapatistas and Palestinians don’t resort to violence because they “like it” either, they are targets of the state that act with violence on them and both have learned that civil disobedience has its limits. Sacco and Vanzetti were anarchists that were executed by the state after being framed and falsely accused of a bombing, armed robbery and murder which the state of Massachusetts apologized for in 1977.
None of us like guns just to like guns
LOL yeah… I don’t really fetishize them in the NRA sense but I shouldn’t speak for everyone I guess.
its time to read theory. you are currently at the utopian anarchist stage. which is a step in a better direction, but ultimately irrational.
you need to better understand that the people in the image [conveniently] on the left incorporated violence because they lived under the constant threat of deadly violence. 99% of the violence was directed at them. Fred Hampton was executed by the police not long after that picture of him was taken.
Do you really need to read volumes of theory to grasp what is fundamentally a rather straightforward concept?
Leftism shouldn’t be locked behind intellectual elitism.
TL;DR the capitalist state will use threats of violence/actual violence against threats to capitalism which includes those who stand for progressive ideals. Leftists believe this is a justification to use violence against the state.
Not volumes. As you say, a little can go a long way. But rather than relearn the lessons of history from first principles, engaging with writings from people who have already seriously grappled with these things is the only efficient way to wrap one’s mind around many different major factors working simultaneously in the material world.
There’s merit to your question. Ultimately, as someone who largely hadn’t taken theory seriously until the last couple of years, I think theory is not only useful, but necessary. There are good comrades who do good work without theory, I don’t want to discredit that. However, theory has had a profound impact on my understanding of history, tactics, and life itself. Theory is important because our predecessors have given their lives discovering and handing down the lessons they’ve learned.
From Marx, who dedicated his entire life to discovering the mechanisms of Capitalism to give the Proletariat the tools to surpass it, to Lenin, who analyzed Capitalism’s monstrous evolution to Imperialism, to Gramsci who spent the later years of his life rotting in prison and reflecting on Marxian teachings, to Politzer who stood against the Nazis and taught Parisan workers Dialectical and Historical Materialism before being captured and executed for his Jewish heritage and Communist alliance, to modern theoreticians such as Losurdo, Parenti, and the many Communists who dedicated their lives to the working class. Revolutionaries like Mao, Fidel, Guevara, Ho Chi Minh, Lenin, and more all have unique lessons to tell from their experiences in their existence. People like Mao, Deng, Xi, Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi, and more have helped build and design the largest economy in the world. What can we learn from them? What should we copy, what should change?
We owe it to them to learn from the lessons they dedicated their lives to teaching us. We have a duty to humanity to move beyond the wretched system of Capitalism before the planet is destroyed by Climate Change for the pursuit of profit. We owe it to our predecessors to continue the work they started. We owe it to our successors to use the best tools we can to make their struggles easier. We owe it to ourselves, so that we have a future.
Theory is a tool. If you don’t take every advantage you can against the most heartless, greedy, brutal Empire in history, do you really care at all? If you refuse to truly learn your enemy, in all its complicated facets of expropriation, or learn the successful tactics and strategies for overcoming them, or learn from the missteps of our predecessors or the correct actions they’ve taken, we will not have a decisive victory.
intellectual elitism like “people should defend themselves”
51·5 hours agoDo you really need to read volumes of theory to grasp what is fundamentally a rather straightforward concept?
Yes! The three volumes on shitting are essential reads. (/s)
Yeah, i’m reading theory alright, i’m studying physics, if that’s what you mean, or what?
Political theory. Like this intro reading list
Thanks, i’ll get to it as soon as i have the time.
🫡
On the other side, i think the long-standing support for Ukraine is an atrocious mistake, because it prolongs the suffering unnecessarily
So you suggest they should have let Russia annex and genocide the rest of Ukraine like they did with Crimea?
Dishonest and you know it.
