• SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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    3 months ago

    Socialists do nothing -> Fascists receive no consequences -> Socialists do nothing -> Fascists seize power -> Socialists join the fascists and say it’s all the fault of the liberals.

    Complain all you want about the liberals voting to prevent fascists from getting power, but they’re doing something while socialists do nothing except complain.

    I’ll let you in on a little secret, many liberals are socialists that got tired of doing nothing. Voting in many successive elections to get the change you want over many decades is far more admirable than sitting on the sidelines complaining about the people that are making an effort.

    • schloppah@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      This is where I’m at, admittedly. I see no substantial action from any alternative group. I can’t be the change I want to see because I’m not a leader. So given the options I have to choose one of them. I finally get the “lesser evil” shit. I used to think it was a cynical slogan meant to get people used to the idea of supporting heinous crimes, which it is, but it is also a genuine sentiment that holds some weight. I was blind to that before. The way I see it now, no matter my choice, evil will come, so I might as well cast my ballot for the one that is a ostensibly less evil. So I’ll begrudgingly vote for Harris because the rhetoric coming from the republicans is fucking terrifying, and JD Vance especially makes me feel very nervous. He’s exactly the type of slimy opportunistic creep that should be kept as far away from power as possible. At least it’s not Biden or Shapiro. C’est la vie.

      • bastion@feddit.nl
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        3 months ago

        Yeah. Mainly, find ways, wherever you are, to do right with the small amount of power you have. It matters.

        Some of that is voting. Some of that is whatever political support you can manage. Some of it is just saying “that seems like a bad idea” when you’re in a meeting, or choosing a more ethical supplier if you’re at some company.

        Always know that, no matter how small the power you hold seems, it matters.

        • Pup Biru@aussie.zone
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          3 months ago

          every day make the best choices you can with the energy you have available. you may or may not win; you may or may not even make a difference; one day you may just need a fucking cheeseburger from macdonalds despite your usual moral misgivings… and that’s fine!

          make choices to change the system, sure, but be aware of the direction you want and head in that direction… change is proactive; participants make the rules

    • alcoholicorn
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      3 months ago

      Socialists join the fascists

      What kind of ahistorical shit is this??

      In every single case historically, from Germany to Italy to Spain to Indonesia to Chile to Brazil, liberals have always sided with fascists against socialists.

        • alcoholicorn
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          3 months ago

          If you think the SA were socialist, do you also think the Democratic Kampuchea was democratic?

          “First they came for the communists”, they were putting actual socialists in camps in 1933.

          In 1919 , the SDP won the first elections, and proceeded to literally arm and direct the Freikorps against the socialists for the next decade or so.

          And then supported the guy who made Hitler Chancellor in 1933.

          • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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            3 months ago

            Yeah and the Nazis killed off the socialists on the Night of the Long Knives when they were no longer useful to them.

            I’m not claiming the Nazis were socialists. I’m saying it was a fascist movement that socialists joined. Fascism isn’t really an ideology, it’s mostly just a grift to gain power using emotional manipulation. Socialists have a weakness when it comes to people saying they’re going to completely change society, and a weakness towards anti-semitsm (because of the greedy capitalist jew trope) which can make socialists susceptible to fascist emotional manipulation. The Nazis weren’t called National Socialists because it was a socialist movement, it was called that to scam socialists into joining them. But once the socialists were no longer useful, Night of the Long Knives.

            Instead of being in denial of this tendency, socialists should look at it head on so they can avoid these kinds of scenarios from happening again.

            • alcoholicorn
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              3 months ago

              Those weren’t socialists any more than social democrats are socialists, just a different faction of fascists who wanted more scraps for their section of the working class at the expense of other sections of the working class.

              The Night Of Long Knives was 6 years after the nazis started putting the KDP and SPD in camps.

              a weakness towards anti-semitsm

              The fuck? Antisemitism was punishable by death in the USSR at a time Britain was promoting zionism as a way to rid the country of jews and Henry Ford was making sure every one of his dealerships stocked The Dearborn Independent.

              Liberals think negative effects of capitalism are caused by individuals failing to do capitalism correctly, so they’re easily duped by antisemites saying that it’s just <insert minority> at fault.

              The core of socialism is understanding that those flaws are inherent to capitalism, so someone coming in and going “actually capitalism doesn’t tend towards crisis and your entire political program is wrong, it’s just the jews” isn’t very attractive.

              • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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                3 months ago

                Liberals think negative effects of capitalism are caused by individuals failing to do capitalism correctly, so they’re easily duped by antisemites saying that it’s just <insert minority> at fault.

                Did you mean to write Libertarian there?

                Generally liberals want regulation on corporations, maybe even a little trust-busting, and Keynesian economic policy. Which indicates they understand capitalism will fail without proper stewardship.

                • alcoholicorn
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                  3 months ago

                  Typically the left uses liberal to include anyone who supports capitalism as it’s been used historically.

                  Keynesianism can kick the can down the road (ironically, trust-busting can speed it up by making the rate of profit fall faster), but it doesn’t fix the underlying issue. Antisemitism still pops up in social democracies due to the same mechanism.

                  • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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                    3 months ago

                    Well since we’re talking about Keynes… in the long run we’re all dead anyway.

                    It seems you might be on the more theological side of the socialism thing. The socialists that believe there’s an inevitable end times coming.

                    I’ve always wondered… why are we in “late stage capitalism” now, but we weren’t in late stage capitalism in the great depression of the 1930s? If this inevitable end times socialist judgment day can be forestalled long enough for people to have entire lives where they work for a fair wage, have houses, raise families, etc. why can’t it be forestalled permanently? In the long run we’re all dead anyway.

                    Any machine will inevitably break. The rational solution isn’t to try to invent a new machine that won’t break (because that’s impossible), but to do the required maintenance and repairs needed to keep the machine working. Both socialism and capitalism are machines. They will both break without maintenance. Keynesian policies, trust-busting, labour uniions, etc are well known ways of keeping the machine of capitalism in good working order. Just had a problem with oil prices causing economic chaos leading to “Reaganomics” (which was a scam) that got us to be into second so-called “late stage capitalism” phase. But things are swinging back towards the policies (and way from the oil chaos) that had the economy running smoothly for over 60 years before oil and Reagan screwed it all up.