• Nakoichi [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
          0·
          22 days ago

          I see a bunch of us giving you all far more patience and grace than you deserve in the face of ignorance and insults so yes when you keep going on about shit in the way you and some others here are to the point you veer into double genocide theory and downplaying western atrocities you forfeit your moral high ground.

          When db0 starts weaponizing neurodivergence to excuse shitty behavior yes we get pretty pissed. Fuck y’all.

  • scott@lemmy.orgEnglish
    0·
    24 days ago

    ITT: red fash pissed anarchists got wise and ain’t gonna do their dirty work anymore. Figure it out.

    • Infamousblt [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
      0·
      24 days ago

      Well you see decades of CIA propaganda, started by the Nazis in the 40s, have become such widespread narratives that most people take them at face value without thinking about it

      • LeeeroooyJeeenkiiins [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
        0·
        23 days ago

        i just realized i think the guy who posted this is like the db0 that the dbzer0 instance is named for

        like this was literally bait posted by the dipshit running this place and then they cry about “blah blah blah you’re so divisive calling us anarkiddies” like they didn’t explicitly ask for this exact treatment by posting this fucking bait

    • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      0·
      22 days ago

      I guess it’s tempting to say stuff like this when you can point to capitalists moving their factories to China to take advantage of cheap costs of production, but you do realize that capital is recoiling in total fear of the monster that their investment in a legitimately socialist country has created, right? If Marxism-Leninism is the ideology of the factory owner, why are American imperialists (who politically answer to and are controlled by the forces of capital) so dead-set on isolating and crushing China? Why are they trying to open 3 fronts around China, separating them from Iran and Russia, as well as creating a proxy army in Taiwan?

      Furthermore, why is it that liberals and fascists can more or less be trusted to reliably communicate what their intentions are (within some margin of error, it’s especially necessary substitute “development” for “colonization” when you listen to them talk about the economy), but when it comes to communists they actually mean the opposite of what they say? Fascists are pretty open about believing that the causes of conflict are the impure rabble that have corrupted the noble races. Liberals are pretty open about believing that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the system of liberal democracy in the West, the problems are with foreign influence (Russiagate, TikTok) and with poor regulation/over regulation, or with too little government influence and too much (depends on which side of the Keynesianism debate a liberal lands). But when communists say, labor must seize the means of production and become the rulers of society, what they really mean is that a small cabal of vanguardists should rule over the workers like dictators? Why is it that the communists are understood as inherently duplicitous?

      • masquenox@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        0·
        22 days ago

        legitimately socialist country has created

        What legitimately socialist country? Are you referring to the one where “Capitalism With Chinese Characteristics” is the law of the land, perhaps?

        so dead-set on isolating and crushing China?

        It’s a complete mystery, I tell you… why would the US want to crush it’s most powerful imperialist rival? You know… the one that helped the US push the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan back in the 80s?

        Furthermore, why is it that liberals and fascists can more or less be trusted to reliably communicate

        Lol!

        Liberals can be trusted when they pretend that liberalism is compatible with democracy? Fascists can be trusted when they pretend to be doing something in the interests of nationalism?

        Again… lol.

        Why is it that the communists are understood as inherently duplicitous?

        History, perhaps?

        because communists rely on the masses

        Oh, yeah… they rely on the “masses,” all right. I guess the Gulags existed to keep them “reliable,” eh?

        they can’t trick the masses into believing one thing, then implement another;

        You mean that exact thing all the (supposedly) “Actually Existing Socialist” countries have been doing since their inception to one degree or the other?

        The fundamental cleavage between Classical Liberalism and Modern Liberalism

        There would only be a point to this if we were discussing liberalism. But it’s not liberals brigading this post, is it now?

          • masquenox@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            0·
            22 days ago

            or did you just skim over it looking

            If you want my undivided attention, tankie, you should have a word with your fellow tankies about the brigade you launched on this post.

            • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
              0·
              22 days ago

              I think it’s pretty funny that you’ve just become openly anti-intellectual, though. There’s now multiple subthreads where you’ve disgracefully taken on the most stereotypical image of an anarchist telling the adults that bed time (good epistemology) is fascist. If you can’t be arsed to read through an argument, what (if not arrogance) makes you feel the need to refute it?

                • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
                  0·
                  22 days ago

                  What’s a good argument, then? Citing Orwell and Arendt? Fangirling over slave-owning Greek lesbians on Tumblr? What’s the rhetorical magnum opus of the online-anarchist cultural milieu?

        • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
          0·
          22 days ago

          I’ll just ignore your other remarks because they’re reductive and show that you simply didn’t read my comment (as you confirmed in your other reply)

          Liberals can be trusted when they pretend that liberalism is compatible with democracy? Fascists can be trusted when they pretend to be doing something in the interests of nationalism?

          No, those are the contradictions in their ideologies. I know that they’re contradictory and they get spun around in circles when they try to figure out those contradictions. That’s why I’m not a liberal or a fascist. But when you read liberal and fascist texts, they don’t really hide their motivation. The liberal wants the victory of freedom over backwardness and enlightenment over dogmatism. The fascist wants the victory of the will and the ubermensch over the rabble. They don’t really obscure those motivations, they’re clearly spelled out and intelligible. I’m asking you why it is that when communists state exactly what they are motivated by, they are the ones that actually mean the opposite.

          • masquenox@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            0·
            22 days ago

            when they try to figure out those contradictions.

            Lol! To those with institutionalised power ideology is not a science, tankie. It’s art. It’s not contradiction - it’s merely the paint they work with. You know… institutionalised power? That thing you tankies are only comfortable talking about as long as it’s only liberals and fascists that have it?

            The liberal wants the victory of freedom over backwardness and enlightenment over dogmatism.

            Do we live on the same planet? The one on which I live liberals want whatever it is that makes the rich richer and the poor poorer - and that is pretty much it. And yes… everything they say and do is designed to obfuscate that.

            Perhaps we should investigate why it is that you have such a hard time seeing that - I sincerely doubt it’s purely due to naivety.

            So no, tankie… you are not the only one.

            Does that make you feel better?

            • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
              0·
              22 days ago

              You’re conflating ideologues and pragmatists. John Locke and Stuart Mill vs. Actually Existing Liberalism. Kamala Harris believes in nothing, I’m honestly not concerned about what goes on behind those eyes, but it helps to know what the people who do believe in something that are setting the tone for where the state is headed are talking about. FWIW I think the most relevant people to look into for that end are the neoreactionaries, people like Nick Land and Curtis Yarvin. It seems like Thiel and other billionaires currently setting the course for how America will deal with its waning hegemony are following in that model.

              I’m very familiar with the postmodern condition and how power wields hegemony to make reality what it will, what this means for people that are in danger of being defined out of existence and exterminated. That’s an important thing to understand and criticize.

              Look, obviously institutional political power and the state are things that naturally lend themselves to oppression. “While the State exists there can be no freedom; when there is freedom there will be no State.” Are MLs usually a bit annoyed to argue about this point a lot? Yeah, because when someone who hasn’t read Lenin but is familiar with that quote gets in an argument like this, they start to make a lot of claims like “Lenin just wanted to make his own dictatorship to replace the Tsar” or something similar to that. You start to argue that, actually, it would’ve been best for nothing to have happened because all attempts at seizing power are inherently corrupt and reactionary. I don’t have a lot of patience for that, and I’m not even really an ML personally, I just think that it’s a very privileged position to have that because all states are oppressive the workers ought to just nobly stop having a state at all.

        • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
          0·
          22 days ago

          Remember when after signing Molotov Ribbentrop, Stalin was best buddies with Hitler, they split Poland, and nothing happened afterward? No particular thing, no largest land war in human history, no 27 million dead Soviets who were killed by the fascists that the UK and other Western European allies had… also signed treaties with?

              • db0@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPM
                0·
                22 days ago

                You wrote that explicitly to shame people from using a rule meant to cool down comment sections, and you wrote that to promote the “left unity” delusion by jumping on the attempted bullying bandwagon, so their assumptions are rational at least.

                • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.ml
                  0·
                  22 days ago

                  You wrote that explicitly to shame people from using a rule meant to cool down comment sections,

                  that’s quite an accusation, I think it’s reasonable to infer insincerity from my words, but shame? I think that’s coming from somewhere else. I was mostly being glib responding to someone calling your post bait.

                  you wrote that to promote the “left unity” delusion by jumping on the attempted bullying bandwagon, so their assumptions are rational

                  that’s an awful lot to read into one word. I’m pretty sure I was just making a joke, sorry that it was at your expense but I don’t think that’s bullying.

                  Follow up question: if that was bullying then what does that make people doing red scare smear campaigns based on what server people are on?

                • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
                  0·
                  22 days ago

                  Are you the leader of anarchism that gets to decide who is and isn’t an anarchist? I’ve been trying to find whoever is in charge of the anarchists, it’s an honor to meet you!

              • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
                0·
                22 days ago

                Soviet simping “anarchist” on the .ml instance who posts like a hexbear, huh. Bold claim, let’s see who’s dumb enough to believe it.

                • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
                  0·
                  22 days ago

                  Can you actually point to anything she’s done that disqualifies her from being an anarchist? Like, I can show receipts of you going to the right of the US State Department to defend American Imperialist narratives about Taiwan (nice leftism you got there, Chiang Kai-Shek!). Has she done anything specific that is objectionable?

                • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.ml
                  0·
                  22 days ago

                  Soviet simping “anarchist”

                  Love the scare quotes, do you do any actual organizing as an anarchist or do you stick to posting?

                  I have plenty of criticisms of the USSR, I just don’t care to participate in red scare circlejerks and that clearly rubs some people the wrong way.

                  on the .ml instance who posts like a hex

                  I’ve been here for years, it was literally my first instance and it was the most annoying Lemmy users constantly whining about hexbear that got me to start digging though their modlog and checking it out in the first place lmao.

  • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
    0·
    24 days ago

    It’s almost as if corrupt sociopaths are drawn to positions of authority regardless of stated values, and a vanguard party is no exception. Church, State, HOA, offer a crumb of power and bastards will say anything they can to snatch it up. The value of an organizational system has very little to do with its aspirations, and everything to do with the obstacles it erects to obstruct corruption. Build a dictatorship of the proletariat, and the proletariat will be abandoned by the dictatorship.

    • shiftymccool@programming.dev
      0·
      23 days ago

      This sums up my thoughts on human behavior quite nicely. I really want to believe “true communism” is possible but I just don’t see how when power-hungry assholes exist. My thoughts are that it can only happen at small scales where you know everyone in your “tribe”. It’s far easier to oppress nameless strangers than it is to oppress Jenny with a heart condition a sick kid.

      I’d be very interested in an honest answer about how this is handled from someone with more knowledge on communism.

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
        0·
        23 days ago

        It’s more that the user you replied to made a strawman of Marxist socialism.

        First of all, “true” communism isn’t a thing, there’s no such thing as a pure system and to think of purity as a requirement is to make the perfect wonderland in out heads the enemy of flawed but real progressive movements.

        Second of all, administration isn’t inherently corrupting, nor is it impossible to have democracy and recall elections in case of bad actors, like socialist states have.

        Finally, the Marxist conception of communism, as a post-socialist system, can only be global, as class is only abolished when all property is collectivized and planned. A small-scale society cannot be “stateless” in the Marxist sense (though anarchism can exist, it uses different definitions of the state).

  • Eugene V. Debs' Ghost@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    0·
    20 days ago

    And of course here’s Hexbear posting about how they hate this place after they came here breaking the rules of our instance.

    https://hexbear.net/comment/6307751 https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/48342361

    Be warned @db0 they’re insulting you in there, because they’re such good, moral, and just socialists. Also mocking other users in here like @masquenox for not satisfying their debate bro tactics.

    And here’s them admitting to lurking on the thread to Gotcha! and leap onto users.

    https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/48132283/19880859

    Hexbear, the totally innocent instance!

    • db0@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPM
      0·
      20 days ago

      As is tradition. I don’t care though. They’re well known to constantly lie and misrepresent people they hate in their own comms. So long as they don’t come and shit in here.

        • db0@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPM
          0·
          20 days ago

          At this point, so probably would I. Funnily enough, they think my experience with KKE was what disillusioned me against MLs, but in truth I was never that much against them specifically instead of their ideology only. But my hexbear experiences and the absolute constant of bad faith, ableism, bullying and disinfo I see from them, made me far more wary of MLs as people.

          The latest case of them not respecting requests for disengagement and goading people to be their lolcows is just the lowest they’ve ever fallen in my eyes.

  • Eugene V. Debs' Ghost@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    0·
    23 days ago

    Man hexbear is pissed and just can’t help but defend their lust for authoritarians. Then ask for left unity when we won’t want to be with people who uncritically support China and North Korea.

    Maybe someday hexbear will learn better but today isn’t that day.

    • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      0·
      23 days ago

      Then ask for left unity when we won’t want to be with people who uncritically support China and North Korea

      Feel free to ignore if you’re organizing in South Korea or Vietnam, but how do the leftists around you “supporting” the DPRK or China impact their actions at all? Do they want their governments to start giving military aid to those countries and that’s something you disagree with? Do they want to change their country’s diplomaric stance towards those countries and that’s an issue you draw a line in the sand over?

      Edit: just to make my point clear so I don’t have to drag us around in the Socratic method for 5 hours: regardless of whether you “support” China, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, Venezuela, Burkina Faso, and the DPRK, it makes absolutely 0 difference on what you’re doing locally[1], if you can accept the basic principles of sovereignty then it’s really stupid to get up in arms about there being pro-Xi people in your leftist org when you’d rather some other policies be implemented in China. Dude, you don’t get to decide that for them. It’s simply not our business.

      1. unless you live in a country where relations with those countries are a nuanced issue, such as the ROK with the North and Vietnam with China ↩︎

        • Chookitypok@piefed.socialEnglish
          0·
          23 days ago

          And that guy who pretends that hexbear doesn’t tolerate ableism while you can hear crickets from them when Yog-something is, to paraphrase him, “calling into question the functioning of someone’s brain [which] is pretty neuronormative” in every other dot ml’s c/worldnews’ post… Pure gold 🤣

          • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
            0·
            22 days ago

            You called out that pedo mod I don’t remember the name, then Nutransphobic. What prevents you from calling out Yogthos if not a lax stance on ableism?

            Not to excuse ableism, but there’s a pretty big difference between a mod going to bat for allowing drawn or AI generated CP, an admin actively espousing transphobic views (and this was called out most actively by Marcie, who is an ml user, though Hexbear joined in on criticism), and a user that might use problematic language sometimes. I mean, first of all, if you do take this seriously then why not show us some examples of what this user is doing that we’re failing to call out? It really helps to make your criticism actionable.

              • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
                0·
                22 days ago

                There’s probably a million comments made every day across Lemmy that Hexbear doesn’t make an endorsement or condemnation of. Are we supposed to be the Lemmy police? We call out some stuff that gets directed out way, sometimes we call out things that are directed more generally that we think are bigoted or problematic, but unless you’re arguing that we have a responsibility to police every interaction on the platform and pick a side to endorse every time, I don’t see the problem here.

                • Eugene V. Debs' Ghost@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
                  0·
                  22 days ago

                  Well seeing the moment someone calls out authoritarian socialist policies y’all jump to defending them, I think y’all could stand to use the same energy to do something slightly better.

            • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
              0·
              22 days ago

              Can you point to some specific time that Hexbear’s mod team or admin team should have banned someone or removed their comments for ableism and didn’t?

                • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
                  0·
                  22 days ago

                  here’s all the results for “ableism” inside that comm. Many of them are from a 10 month old thread where the OP is no longer visible. I guess it’s possible that the ableism referenced is coming from someone aligned with Hexbear or Lemmygrad, but it seems more likely that they’re just discussing ableism pretty generally.

                  Can you provide an example, if that comm really is full of them elsewhere?

                • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
                  0·
                  22 days ago

                  Scrolled through the modlog. The only one I found (and maybe there’s more, I had to go through a few pages) was Professor Owl, who was arguing with db0 after db0 said the reason they posted bait then ran away by telling everyone with solid arguments to disengage was their autism. That’s not something autism makes you do. I can see the “arguing compulsively” part, but the whole “running away and telling everyone that shows up with actual evidence against my claims to shut up” is not autism, it’s just cowardice.

        • db0@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPM
          0·
          23 days ago

          quick, explain how that’s ableism. Like holy shit you peeps are completely shameless in trying to do quick gotchas.

          • Eugene V. Debs' Ghost@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            0·
            22 days ago

            Notice how they didn’t explain it but will say they don’t support or tolerate ableism when their users have been banned here for ableism.

            Wanna take bets they don’t ban the users from Hexbear? I’ll give db0 $10 if they do.

            • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
              0·
              22 days ago

              Why did you leave this comment 8 hours ago when 19 hours ago @CascadeOfLight@hexbear.net already explained why it was ableist?

              Also, this is just my opinion, but it seems like everyone here is throwing accusations of ableism performatively. I don’t think Cascade honestly believes that db0 was being ableist towards tankies just for saying that tankies can’t take criticism, he’s just rhetorically paying back the equally cynical accusation of ableism. I don’t believe there’s a single instance of ableism in this whole thread, honestly, just people trying to get one ups on each other with varying levels of evidence to back up their claims, and using appeals to neurodiversity or ableism to protect poorly researched positions.

              • db0@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPM
                0·
                22 days ago

                “Cynical accusation of ableism” meaning when I explain my ND compulsions and coping mechanisms and got gaslit and told I’m just making it all up because I’m actually just a coward. Yeah Hexbear doesn’t tolerate albeism at aaaall when they cover up for the ableists among them. The self-righteous fucking accusation by more than one hexbear that I’m “using my neurodivergence as an shield”, like every other fucking neurotypical tells us all our life, being the cherry on top of this shit cake. Clearly ableism is using the R-word and nothing else. Go on, continue to dig that hole further.

                • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
                  0·
                  22 days ago

                  I think Professor Owl already did a pretty good job of showing how you’re behaving pretty cynically here. For the record, I’m autistic too, and I also get into arguments pretty compulsively. I think that what you’ve done here shows a tendency to avoid personal accountability, though, because you’re just inflaming conflict then taking shelter behind your ability to problematize the people trying to hold you accountable.

          • CascadeOfLight [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
            0·
            23 days ago

            Calling into question the functioning of someone’s brain is pretty neuronormative.

            I’m not being that serious though, because I also can’t find any example of someone being ableist to you beyond calling you stupid (it was me, I did that).

            Hexbear has probably the lowest tolerance for ableism of any place I’ve seen on the internet. The raiding parties you see coming into your instance to bash liberals on the internet and correct their disinformation are not really representative of the tone of conversation on the actual instance itself between people who aren’t spoiling for a rumble, not that I would expect ableism even then. The mods of Hexbear are very strict about that kind of thing, so watching clown-to-clown communication between you and your buddy as you just outright lie on the internet about the nature of another online community, in a farcical echo to how your forebears fabricated lies about socialist states, demanded comment.

  • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
    0·
    23 days ago

    I understand that this is an anarchist comm, so you’re free to post whatever you want, but I don’t think it’s productive to take a stance that fundamentally rests on misrepresenting what you’re critiquing. Since you invoked my username in one of your comments here, I’d figure I’d give the Marxist stance its fair representation.

    First, there is no such thing as “true communism.” The obsession over purity in politics is a result of dogmatism and book workship.

    Secondly, for Marxists, the stance isn’t that you “do a state” and then “stop doing the state.” For Marxists, not just Marxist-Leninists, the state is purely a body that resolves class contradictions through class oppression. It isn’t hierarchy, and it isn’t organization. Communism in the marxist conception, as a stateless society, is stateless in that once all property is collectively owned and planned, there is no class distinction. Administration remains, and is not to whither, as that’s a necessary product of mass, industrialized production.

    Taking that into account, the state can only disappear if all class disappears, and class cannot be abolished until all global production is collectivized. There has never been that point, you cannot have communism in one country. You can be socialist, in that public property can be the principle aspect of the economy and the state can be proletarian in character, but the state can never whither until all states are socialist, interconnected, and borders fading away into one democratic system.

    Socialist countries like the PRC do rely on commodity production to engage with the global economy, as they must for the time being. They can’t achieve a global system as one single country. As long as the state holds control of the large firms and key industries, and resolves class contradictions in the favor of the proletariat and against the bourgeoisie, then as the economy develops and grows it will continue to take on an increasingly socialized character. You cannot “declare socialized production” with the stroke of a pen, it’s something that must arise from development. That doesn’t mean the character of an economy that is dominated by public ownership is capitalist, either, just that it is on the “socialist road,” ie it is socialist, and working its way to higher levels of socialization until communism is achieved.

    This is all starkly different from the anarchist position, that we can develop from the outset a decentralized, horizontalist society. I’m not going to debatelord here, this is an anarchist comm, but if you’re going to misrepresent the views of Marxists, then I feel you’re doing a disservice by making anarchists less prepared to engage in productive conversation with Marxists.

    • _cryptagion [he/him]@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      0·
      23 days ago

      As long as the state holds control of the large firms and key industries, and resolves class contradictions in the favor of the proletariat and against the bourgeoisie, then as the economy develops and grows it will continue to take on an increasingly socialized character.

      When has this been achieved in communism?

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
        0·
        23 days ago

        Cuba, USSR, PRC, etc, though these are/were socialist. Communism, in the Marxist sense (not anarchist), must be global, fully collectivized, etc, while these are examples of single states in the context of a globally capitalist-dominant system.

        • Samskara@sh.itjust.works
          0·
          22 days ago

          The USSR dissolved for myriad reasons, such as liberal reforms

          The USSR collapsed because of internal contradictions and oppression.

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
            0·
            22 days ago

            The former, yes, the latter, no. The large majority of the people supported the system and wished to retain it until the very end due to the social instability at the time, and the larger majority regret its fall. The “internal contradictions” were the liberal reforms that added elements embodied into the system that worked against a collectivized and planned economy.

            The soviet economy was relatively strong, but towards the end because of liberalization, as well as problems from needing to dedicate a large proportion of production to millitarization to keep parity with the US, it began to decrease the rate of growth that was so rapid earlier on.

            More importantly, it’s absolutely true that the dissolution of the USSR was avoidable. The mistakes made by the soviets don’t need to be repeated, we can learn from what worked so well with the socialist system while also not repeating their mistakes. The torch is carried on by countries that have learned, like Cuba, the PRC, etc.

            Marxism is a science, and is improved through practice.

            • Samskara@sh.itjust.works
              0·
              22 days ago

              Marxism is a political religion with sacred texts, prophets, a promised paradise on earth, and superficial pseudoscientific trappings. It has killed more people than any other ideology in history.

              • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
                0·
                22 days ago
                1. No, political theory is not the same as religion.
                2. No, there are no sacred texts in Marxism. One of the key elements of Marxism is Dialectics, it’s an ever-evolving theory. One of the more important works is Oppose Book Worship.

                Whatever is written in a book is right — such is still the mentality of culturally backward Chinese peasants. Strangely enough, within the Communist Party there are also people who always say in a discussion, “Show me where it’s written in the book.” When we say that a directive of a higher organ of leadership is correct, that is not just because it comes from “a higher organ of leadership” but because its contents conform with both the objective and subjective circumstances of the struggle and meet its requirements. It is quite wrong to take a formalistic attitude and blindly carry out directives without discussing and examining them in the light of actual conditions simply because they come from a higher organ. It is the mischief done by this formalism which explains why the line and tactics of the Party do not take deeper root among the masses. To carry out a directive of a higher organ blindly, and seemingly without any disagreement, is not really to carry it out but is the most artful way of opposing or sabotaging it.

                1. No, Marxism does not promise “paradise on Earth,” in fact it directly tackles the Utopians that tried to make such a paradise, like Robert Owen and Saint-Simon.
                2. No, it doesn’t have “superficial pseudoscientific trappings.”
                3. No, it has succeeded in lifting billions out of extreme poverty, ended famines common to feudal countries like nationalist China and Tsarist Russia, and more. Meanwhile, liberalism created industrialized mass-murder in the Holocaust, caused Chuchill to divert food from India to the deaths of millions, has created the conditions for mass murder, genocide of Palestinians, and so much more. The death toll of liberalism, both by ratio and in total, far surpasses Marxism and it isn’t close.

                You’re deeply unserious.

                • Samskara@sh.itjust.works
                  0·
                  22 days ago

                  Marxists will always have a wall of text full of theoretical facts and logic to point to. Practice looks very different. It means no diversity of opinion, oppression, secret police, gulag, millions of deaths.

                  Contrary to you I actually know people who have lived in socialist countries. I even have a former high ranking party member in my family.

                  lifting billions out of extreme poverty

                  Industrialization did that, not Marxism.

    • Schmoo@slrpnk.net
      0·
      22 days ago

      That doesn’t mean the character of an economy that is dominated by public ownership is capitalist, either, just that it is on the “socialist road,” ie it is socialist, and working its way to higher levels of socialization until communism is achieved.

      This is the crux of the disagreement between anarchists and MLs. I would argue that state ownership - if the state does not adequately represent the will of the people - is not public ownership. A hierarchical state with a flawed and bureaucratic democracy that is prone to corruption inevitably creates and maintains a class of bureaucrats with social, political, and economic privilege. The state - in order to preserve itself - maintains a monopoly on collective ownership, preventing workers from organizing on their own terms.

      This is what anarchists mean when they call something “state capitalist.” They are arguing that the state itself is a private entity pretending to represent the will of the people.

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
        0·
        22 days ago

        I’d say the real crux of the argument is in full centralization and collectivization, or full horizontalism and decentralization. The endpoints are different, so the means are different.

        Either way, I don’t agree that administrators represent a class. Public property is not bourgeois property, it doesn’t exist in the M-C-M’ circuit of production, it’s collective and planned. Even if there’s administration, it’s a physical, real thing. There will be flaws, there will be issues, but to let perfect be the enemy of progress is an issue. It’s less about some metaphysical “will of the workers” and more about material relationships to the means of production and the sublimation of property.

        Secondly, the state doesn’t “preserve itself,” at least the Marxist conception of the state. The state isn’t a class, it’s a representative of a class, and when all property has been sublimated, there is no class, and no state. There still exists administration, but not special bodies of armed men to oppress other classes, as there are no classes to oppress.

    • dzsimbo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      0·
      23 days ago

      It feels a bit disingenuous to hear the following:

      to engage in productive conversation with Marxists.

      I mean I got your point the other day, that I shouldn’t necessarrily argue about Communistic dogma without reading all the literature, but I had to fight tooth and nail to get to that point and not just be waved away as a bad faith actor. So I was already working hard just to be told to go and read up.

      OP is using the same intensity hammer you guys got going on over there. Is it fair?

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
        0·
        23 days ago

        I don’t remember having this convo with you, so I don’t have any reference for that convo. OP is misrepresenting the Marxist stance. It’s one thing to critique the genuine positions Marxists have, it’s another entirely to invent a strawman to argue against. The intensity of the argument isn’t the problem, the illegitimacy of the argument is.

        • dzsimbo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          0·
          23 days ago

          The intensity of the argument isn’t the problem, the illegitimacy of the argument is.

          Yeah, I know OP is trolling. I see it is causing calls to not pull apart. Sure, maybe not every thread goes for the jugular on the hex server, but it fept by going against the grain I was a pariah immediately.

          I mean at the end of the day it is petty squabbles on the internet, I just feel that we’re missing out if we don’t make a connection. Like, you seem smart, well read, and have a pretty novel world view that would interest me. I grew up in the context that communism is not of the devil, so it was terribbly disjarring that I finally saw a safe space to talk about the fallies of communism with hobby scientists on the matter.

          I dunno, maybe I was devil’s advocating and triggered a healthy response. It still feels off that I felt shut up there and now I see members of that community pleading for more open communication here.

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
            0·
            23 days ago

            Hexbear is a space for communists and anarchists to hang out, and there’s a culture of cedeing no ground to ill-informed takes in order to help protect that space in a deeply anticommunist English-speaking internet. There’s a strong culture of requiring well-sourced, developed, and informed takes in order to go against the grain.

            The reason OP is coming under attack is because it’s obviously just left-punching and baiting a response, and the post itself is ill-informed and misrepresentative.

            I suggest that if you want to learn more on Hexbear, you try to use more open language. I see in that thread when you tried to be more clear that you aren’t just another anti-communist, you got kinder responses.

            • dzsimbo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
              0·
              23 days ago

              I did get kinder responses, that is true. Though my main take-away wasn’t a ‘wow, these guys are awesome, I wanna read everything’, more like a ‘I’ll only comment on anything political when and if I get past the literature they recommended’.

              It is alright, I am sure the revolution will do just fine without my organizational skills. I am just arguing that OP is right to troll in this instance.

              Again I want to emphasize, that I am really digging this convo, but I guess I have very little to lose as well. It feels like we are communicating, but I don’t think I need to ‘be the bigger man’ by understanding the other side (these are my neuroses, no shade towards you, just where I’m coming from).

              I feel you do understand me, yet don’t really concede any points or validate them.

              • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
                0·
                23 days ago

                I understand you, I even agreed with what you guessed, that Hexbear gets a ton of bad-faith users and that sours interactions with better-meaning users that aren’t on their A-game. However, I also disagree, I don’t think OP is “right” to troll. As we already agreed, OP is doing so based on clear misrepresentation, it would be one thing if it had merit, but it doesn’t, so that brought on a ton of users correctly debunking OP and pointing out that left-punching isn’t productive to begin with.

                You don’t need to join Hexbear, it’s totally fine to never go there if it isn’t a good fit for you. At the same time, Hexbear isn’t under the requirement to accomodate users that are antagonistic (which you at least appeared to be in the beginning, hence the backlash). It’s totally fine for you to make dbzer0 your home and maybe peak into Hexbear if you see a good meme or two.

                • dzsimbo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                  0·
                  23 days ago

                  Well, thanks for being open. I feel we still didn’t really address my concern, but that’s alright. I see OP’s post as a legit reaction to the emotions I got from there, even if they are clearly bad faith posting here.

                  Hey, maybe I’m just butthurt you didn’t spoon feed me where I’m wrong, so no love lost.

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
            0·
            23 days ago

            Oh, good catch!

            I sure do love being treated like I’m a part of a hivemind, and that everyone on Hexbear is interchangeable with no individual characteristics… 🫠 /s

            Seriously though, I thought that was an odd statement, but that makes sense.

            • dzsimbo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
              0·
              23 days ago

              Yup, that was me. Sorry for mixing you up. I guess you spoke to me like a human there first, that’s why your name stuck.

              I feel it still doesn’t take away too much from my argument. While OP’s post is outright malicious and is meant to start a fight, I wasn’t doing that on what I thought was a proper place for discussion.

              Again, I don’t want to jump to conclusions, and I did make a mistake, but don’t you see what I’m trying to get at?

              • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
                0·
                23 days ago

                Personally, I try my best to adhere to the principle of “no investigation, no right to speak.” I’m not perfect at that, but I do my best. Someone who has a strong stance on a subject without doing the due dilligence to justify that strong stance muddies the water. I believe you were guilty of it over in that thread, and I believe OP is guilty of it here. Does that make sense?

                • dzsimbo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                  0·
                  23 days ago

                  Goodness, does it ever.

                  But my problem was that the group put me in a box. Nobody wanted to know my level of education, just if I read this or that book on communism.

                  It is a totally fair reason not to engage in argument. It’s just… How can I put it…? Just because I didn’t read a book, I can’t be knowledgable on a subject?

                  My guesses are that your community is so exposed to bad faith arguments, so you cannot give everyone the time of day. I haven’t gone back to reread the thread, but you can probably see how I was basically backing into a corner through the whole thread.