Who mean those on the right? They don’t even self identify as leftists, why should some of their followers say that?
Both can be correct, it’s not a hard black and white split
The leftist revolutionary heroes are resisting the people on the right, it is a hard split. The people on the right are shepherds of the US carceral state and imperial murderers
Which side are you on?
The title says, Leftist.
The left side with the heroes and not the right side with the imperialist murderers. You should read Fanon.
The “left” is way too broad of a grouping today. The classic political compass is 2D with left-right referring to economic and up-down (authoritarian-libertarian) to social policy. And even that is oversimplifying it, many saying it should be 3D. Grouping everyone into either A or B is I guess what humans do when their understanding of a topic is too narrow.
I find this especially funny with Trump’s tariffs. You know, the mechanism with which you control the market… closing it… like leftist economic policy does. Trump is a leftist now? Any more tariffs and he’ll be a complete communist! Dismantle more government and he’ll be an anarchist! It just completely falls apart.
While this is somewhat true, in all of the west there are only 3 groups currently : liberals, fascists and leftists.
Liberals are a diverse group, ranging from socio-democrat and liberal green parties to libertarian who leans on fascism.
Fascists are all the brands of conservatives who leverage racism, authoritarianism and nationalism.
Leftists are basically the groups opposed to both fascism and liberalism.
Those are 3 objective groups. They are the groups that determine how likely they will cooperate or oppose each other, or how elections will turn.
Some parties will be a bit in between, but that’s merely political communication. In practice a group that promote itself as a middle group is actually leaning right. This means that “leftist liberals” (who range from some green parties and movements to the socio-democrats) will always pick liberals if they must choose between them and the left. Likewise, conservatives and libertariens are leaning toward fascism when given the choice.
The political spectrum is radicalised and triparted. You can deny this model and blur the information, but it usually means that you are leaning more to the right than you are pretending.
This is supposed to be a tetrahedron, but I suck at drawing 3D shapes. Just imagine that anarchism is the top of the tetrahedron and that the triangle is the base.I’ll offer an explanation, I think it would be helpful.
First, mapping complex political beliefs on ill-defined and vague lines adds more confusion than it clarifies. What is authoritarianism? What is meritocracy? We have a general idea, but these aren’t useful for measuring ideologies.
Second, making it 3D makes little sense. Why is Liberalism in the “meritocracy” column, when one of the most widely agreed countries to focus on an idea of meritocracy, China, is a Socialist Market Economy? Why is liberalism distinct from conservativism enough to be an entirely separate leg?
All in all, it’s nice to think about how to view ideologies, but we should view them as they are, and not on some map that doesn’t exist. For example, why is a fully publicly owned, democratic society considered more “authoritarian” than society decided by the whims of few Capitalists competing like warlords?
EDIT 2: I have no qualm with down-voting, but I would prefer a comment explaining what parts specifically you did not like, so I know how to not make the same mistake in the future.
Political compasses are silly and pointless brainrot. Yes, this includes trying to make new and better galaxy brain political compasses. It especially includes that. “Meritocracy” lol.
There two sides.
1% and their zombies
The rest of us.
Let’s not split up and weaken. 💪
That is indeed the two sides depicted in the meme
What the hell you talking about? These are all revolutionary heroes acting in self defense and promoting solidarity.
Calling Fanon a tankie is the most ridiculous thing I’ve read today. Try reading a book for once in your life. He talks about how violence psychologically harms the revolutionary more than it does the people they attack.
Malcolm X was protecting himself after being firebombed here.
Fred Hampton was a socialist and preached cross racial solidarity and black power as a way of elevating black people into solidarity.
The Zapatistas are indigenous heroes who are resisting oppression of the state, who prefer civil disobedience but will act to protect themselves.
Sacco and Vanzetti were organizing a general strike and were framed then murdered by the state
Leila Khalid was separated from her family at 15 during the Palestinian expulsion and resisting Israeli occupation
Where the hell are the tankies in this pic? What are you people even talking about
horseshoe theory with “I’m not like other girls” characteristics
The term “tankie” was originally used by dissident Marxist–Leninists to describe members of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) who followed the party line of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Specifically, it was used to distinguish party members who spoke out in defence of the Soviet use of tanks to suppress the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the 1968 Prague Spring, or who more broadly adhered to pro-Soviet positions.
The term was literally created by Marxist-Leninists to insult the kind of person who wants to use tanks to suppress a worker’s revolution. Tankies aren’t communists. They’re counterrevolutionaries who want to stop all progress made towards dissolving the state as Marx said.
They were putting chalk marks on the doors of jews and communists. It wasn’t a worker’s revolution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demands_of_Hungarian_Revolutionaries_of_1956
We demand general elections by universal, secret ballot are held throughout the country to elect a new National Assembly, with all political parties participating. We demand that the right of workers to strike be recognised.
We demand complete revision of the norms operating in industry and an immediate and radical adjustment of salaries in accordance with the just requirements of workers and intellectuals. We demand a minimum living wage for workers.
So you’re saying the revolution demanding minimum wage and the right to strike wasn’t a worker’s revolution? Are all tankies this right-wing or just you?
drag does realize that the Hungarian counter-revolutionaries were working with literal Nazis, and were marking the doors of Jews and Communists, right? They were lynching people, and even freed Nazis from jail to help with the lynching. The “political parties” they wanted to be able to participate were not worker parties, but fascist ones.
This is genuinely what liberals often accuse “tankies” of doing: uncritically supporting movements based on nominally being progressive, despite in reality being highly reactionary. Further, Hungary wanted to get out of paying reparations for World War II, that was one of the biggest cruxes of the situation. Who did Hungary fight alongside in WWII, does drag remember?
Spoiler: the Nazis.
Source?
This is a decent overview of the background that led up to the events of 1956, and this is a decent overview of the darker side, where the lynchings happened. Content Warning: lynched corpses. Here is a source on MI6 training and arming the counterrevolutionaries. Those 3 articles give only the briefest overview of the events, but don’t do the real buildup to them, their complexities, what the people actually supported, or the real character in any depth. If drag wants to actually take a deep dive, these are additional sources:
The History of the Working Class Movement in Hungary
1956 Counter-Revolution in Hungary
Others can offer more sources.
Overall, when it comes to geopolitical enemies of the United States in particular, it would not be a bad idea to treat drag’s current understanding with extreme skepticism until you’ve investigated counter-sources as well. That doesn’t mean the US always lies, in fact it frequently tells mostly the truth, but will distory either the quality or quantity of an event.
What do you think “all political parties participating” means in 1956 Hungary?
One of the biggest and most dangerous mistakes made by Communists is the idea that a revolution can be made by revolutionaries alone. On the contrary, to be successful, all serious revolutionary work requires that the idea that revolutionaries are capable of playing the part only of the vanguard of the truly virile and advanced class must be understood and translated into action.
- Lenin, 1922
It probably means they read Lenin and liked his ideas a lot better than Stalin’s nonsense. Now, you were explaining how tankies oppose minimum wage and the right to strike?
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.
Why couldn’t your meme show like solar punk utopian imagery, and people living in beautiful harmony with nature.
Oh, that’s why.
The problem with Solarpunk is that it isn’t really grounded in theory, it’s a vibe and an aesthetic, a hope for a better future but without any real binding ideology. It’s easy to transform, like cottagecore being weaponized into upholding traditional gender roles.
Solar will absolutely be a huge part of the future, but getting there requires taking supremacy over Capital to go against the car and oil industries. This requires Socialism.
We should make a special political spectrum just for these people. Let’s call it the imperial political spectrum.
“I’m a leftist!” Helps get a rapist felon fascist get elected
- Those who didn’t vote, or voted third party, due to the pointless war in the middle east that involved war crimes just like every war I can think of since the Geneva Convention became a thing, that President Biden funded, did so in safe states that VP Harris won.
- The makeup of the United States means that Republicans have an advantage in the Senate and therefore also the Electoral College.
- Republicans gerrymander, Democrats half-heartedly gerrymander, since that is against the ideology of liberalism. This gives Republicans an edge in the House of Representatives as well.
- The Republican advantage in the Senate is so great that the only way for Democrats to get a majority is to include neoliberal or conservative senators like Manchin, meaning progress is continuously stifled.
- The Republicans are allowed to get away with stretching the rules, while the Democrats have to follow the rules at all times. Part of this, again, is due to adhering to liberal ideology, and part of it is due to the ruling class favoring Republicans. There has been a conservative majority in the Supreme Court since the 1980s. Democrats are controlled opposition, in that no matter how hard they try, they will never be able to enact meaningful change.
- An actual left-wing candidate would not be liberal, as is the point of this post. Therefore, they would have no chance of winning the Democratic primary. That would force them to run as an independent or in a third party, and our system makes it almost impossible for a third party candidate to win, at least at the national level.
Yes, it is better to vote for a Democrat than a Republican, but it is much better to build grassroots support for leftism, which, shocker, is what leftists have been trying to do in the US for centuries. If anything, the leftists are doing the most to fight fascism, by trying to get rid of the US system of government that is biased towards the status quo, which by definition benefits the ruling class.
As well as the fact that Elon Musk and Trump have said in no-uncertain terms that they helped fix the election in Pennsylvania as well as the fact that Trump has a history of trying to illegally alter the election results, I think assuming that he necessarily won the vote against Harris isn’t a good base assumption to make in the first place. And that’s not even including the early vote box that was found in the road and the fascist goons who attacked ballot boxes. Even if he didn’t commit election fraud, your points are still completely valid but I think we shouldn’t assume that he was genuinely voted for in the first place.
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 was, yeah. The US was going to implode and decline no matter which person was appointed by your oligarchy. You didn’t vote for any of the corporate board members who control your society and government in November. You also didn’t actually have a choice, in kayfabe democracy the results are predetermined, much like all the elections in authoritarian carceral states.
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”
Found ⬇️ 87 Liberals who believed they were comrades. 😆
There’s 2 kinds of upvotes, ⬆ upvotes from comrades, and ⬇ upvotes from liberals
One day these liberals are going to realize the ⬇️ is more telling then a comment
then a comment
Typical leftoid
Did I hurt your feefees? 😘🩹🤕
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
So you just reject the facts because they feel wrong?
well i guess it’s good for you to spit these facts but i gotta make my own judgement
That would be a funny tagline.
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.
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.
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.
I do! More dakka is always better!
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.
intellectual elitism like “people should defend themselves”
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.
0·14 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.
🫡
Ooh, the fascists aren’t gonna like this one
I’m okay with it.
I hate those stupid transphobic hats.
I’m confused what the pink hat is supposed to have to do with the rest of the images
Well you see, catgirls are bourgeois decadence /s
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)?
By removing, with official acts, justices who violated their oath of office.
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.
That would have just been superseded by the next admin
So do nothing, got it. Shoo lib begone
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.
Liberal means PRO LIBERTY. Its right there in the fucking name leftoids
Liberalism means PRO CAPITALISM.
The first sentence from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism:
Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, the right to private property and equality before the law.
From the first paragraph of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_property†:
Private property is foundational to capitalism, an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit.
Liberalism: A Counter-History (online copy)
†Not to be confused with personal property.
That line says nothing about capitalism. Pro ownership? That is a tenet of some branches of leftism. I dont agree with corporations or the state having a monopoly on land ownership. Though the government cant come and take an individuals shit for no reason. Being an abusive billionaire though has an asterisk in the foot notes.
Though I’d argue that anyone owning shit comes a large and wide second or 3rd to human rights.
philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed
It says it right there.
Liberal means pro capitalist liberty. Nothing about personal freedom, equity and social safety nets in that.
based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed
Okay buddy. You guys just want to twist a good ideology into a wedge issue. The only thing vaguely “capitalist” about a liberal is the belief that the government isnt allowed to seize your shit unlawfully. The right to own property comes way after personal liberty in my book. That means billionaires dont get a pass for abusing the populace.
no no no. Left is when you love democracy and freedom and liberty and rightwing is when you love authority and disciplined organizations.
Leftist ≠ Leftwing
Liberalism is Leftwing leaning but isn’t leftist
Just realized were in .ml my guy. These guys have thrown the brick on trapos crazy koolaid jammer and only want to circlejerk about liberals and their infallible god kings stalin and marx
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.
Social liberal is the center. Liberal is centre-right to right-wing.
🧠🪱
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.
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.
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.
