Cowbee

@Cowbee@lemmy.ml

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  The US Empire failed to raise successors that understand how it works, and thus they raised a generation of “true believers” in the myths and lies the more competent generations of leaders spread to legitimize their policy. Look at the defunding of programs like USAID, which has historically played a critical role in US-sponsored regime change, now seen as “woke” by the current admin.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨John Oliver promoted alternatives to big tech in last night's episode, including Mastodon and Pixelfed⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Bluesky is corporate, Mastodon is FOSS.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Reddit Sub Ban Wave⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  If “tankie” means general leftist, ie Anarchists included, then maybe. If “tankie” means Marxist-Leninist, then that’s Lemmygrad.ml

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Reddit Sub Ban Wave⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  The two biggest spaces for trans users are lemmy.blahaj.zone and hexbear.net, hexbear is larger but is explicitly Communist/Anarchist, while blahaj is more liberal/progressive.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes, this is a positive result, or at least it detects signifiers for pregnancy. You should take more tests, but they won’t disqualify the fact that these signifiers are present now. I would speak with a doctor to see if you can get a more accurate test (these could be wrong, don’t think that if you retest and you only see 1 line that you’re “safe”), and discuss potential next steps if necessary.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Has the USA turned into an oligarchy?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The USA has always and forever represented the will of the Bourgeoisie. The issue we are seeing now is further and further separation between the Proletariat and a smaller and smaller concentration of the Bourgeoisie due to Capitalism’s centralizing nature. The silver lining is that this same centralizing process makes Socialism even easier to implement once the Proletariat siezes control, as these large intricate networks have already developed their own infrastructure for planning that can be folded into the Public Sector, the hard part is getting over that threshold of power.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It's fire... Maybe concerning but fire still⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Can’t wait for Psycho Patrol R, Cruelty Squad is GOATed

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lemmy's gaining popularity, so I thought new people should see this.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Is being a Marxist the same as being a “troll?”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lemmy's gaining popularity, so I thought new people should see this.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Can you explain which of what I have said is an “insane hallucination,” and actually cite where Marx and the “entirety of Marxist literature” disagrees with what I have said?

  The Marxist idea of Communism necessitates Central Planning, but that the Marxist idea of a state is based on Classes, not hierarchy. Here is Engels directly stating as such in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific:

  When, at last, it becomes the real representative of the whole of society, it renders itself unnecessary. As soon as there is no longer any social class to be held in subjection; as soon as class rule, and the individual struggle for existence based upon our present anarchy in production, with the collisions and excesses arising from these, are removed, nothing more remains to be repressed, and a special repressive force, a State, is no longer necessary. The first act by virtue of which the State really constitutes itself the representative of the whole of society — the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society — this is, at the same time, its last independent act as a State. State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The State is not “abolished”. It dies out. This gives the measure of the value of the phrase: “a free State”, both as to its justifiable use at times by agitators, and as to its ultimate scientific insufficiency; and also of the demands of the so-called anarchists for the abolition of the State out of hand.

  Stateless in Marxism is not the same as Stateless in Anarchism. The repressive elements of government upholding class relations die out in favor of the administration of things. Central planning.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lemmy's gaining popularity, so I thought new people should see this.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s why I try to get more people to read theory, the people leaving Reddit usually are the types who care enough to keep up with current events and willful enough to abandon Reddit over ideals, but generally haven’t yet read leftist theory.

  To be clear, many people do read theory, they just aren’t the same people trying to recreate Reddit.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lemmy's gaining popularity, so I thought new people should see this.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Hexbear has Marxists and Anarchists, it’s a non-sectarian “left-unity” instance. Lemmy.ml is admin’d and moderated by Marxists and some Anarchists. Similar, but different.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lemmy's gaining popularity, so I thought new people should see this.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  You’ll note that I did end up continuing the conversation publicly in this thread. I have only once actually taken a conversation into DMs, with Blaze, whom they can probably back me up on. When I say “feel free to DM if you have any questions” regarding theory I have linked, it’s because I don’t expect anyone to immediately buzz off and read a book or article and then get right back, it’s an open offer to continue the conversation at any point in time.

  Can you elaborate on what you mean by not actually answering questions? In this thread you can see it’'s the exact opposite, I am curious what you mean by that.

  Finally, when I make my arguments and leave links for supplemental reading, it isn’t a requirement to continue conversation. It’s supplemental, in case they have doubts or wish to learn more beyond a simple Lemmy thread.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lemmy's gaining popularity, so I thought new people should see this.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Ah, I misread, I thought you said “explaining to Natsocs like you” and not “explaining Natsocs to you.” My bad, I apologize.

  That being said, you were the one coming in to dispute my claim that fascism is right-wing, and the second I pushed back you said it would be a waste of time to explain, I just think that’s a bit silly. Did you expect me to fully agree with you instantaneously?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lemmy's gaining popularity, so I thought new people should see this.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  So, in other words, “I made it up.”

  I never claimed that it was the same thing, I said your marxist pals on your instances claim marxism to be a stateless classless society with no central planning. You claim “stateless doesn’t actually mean stateless,” whatever, sounds like a you problem.

  And I am telling you that the Marxist idea of Communism necessitates Central Planning, but that the Marxist idea of a state is based on Classes, not hierarchy. Here is Engels directly stating as such in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific:

  When, at last, it becomes the real representative of the whole of society, it renders itself unnecessary. As soon as there is no longer any social class to be held in subjection; as soon as class rule, and the individual struggle for existence based upon our present anarchy in production, with the collisions and excesses arising from these, are removed, nothing more remains to be repressed, and a special repressive force, a State, is no longer necessary. The first act by virtue of which the State really constitutes itself the representative of the whole of society — the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society — this is, at the same time, its last independent act as a State. State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The State is not “abolished”. It dies out. This gives the measure of the value of the phrase: “a free State”, both as to its justifiable use at times by agitators, and as to its ultimate scientific insufficiency; and also of the demands of the so-called anarchists for the abolition of the State out of hand.

  Stateless in Marxism is not the same as Stateless in Anarchism.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lemmy's gaining popularity, so I thought new people should see this.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  What gives you the right to call me a Nazi for saying “fascism is right-wing?” That’s incredibly rude, entirely uncalled for, and utterly unfounded in reality.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lemmy's gaining popularity, so I thought new people should see this.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Sure, so can you explain what you disagree with about what I have said, and why you believe fascism to not be left nor right? I am aware of “Third Positionists,” they serve Capitalists and arise from Capitalist decay.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lemmy's gaining popularity, so I thought new people should see this.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Can you point to an example? I haven’t seen any Marxist claim that Communism would be devoid of central planning and hierarchy. If you can point them out, I will be more than willing to correct them, though I am fairly certain you are misinterpreting their words given that you made the statement that “Anarchists and Marxists want the same thing.”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lemmy's gaining popularity, so I thought new people should see this.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Fascism is described as both “Capitalism in decay” and as “Imperialism turned inward.” It served and serves the bourgeoisie and petite bourgeoisie against the Proletariat and Lumpenproletariat, and historically arises when the Petite Bourgeoisie is facing proletarianization. That’s why the most violently MAGA are small business owners and the like, and why they think immigrants are the ones proletarianizing them.

  I highly recommend reading the first chapter of Blackshirts and Reds by Dr. Michael Parenti, which covers the material conditions surrounding fascism and who it served.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lemmy's gaining popularity, so I thought new people should see this.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Then as a student of history, are you saying the Tsars, Kuomintang, Batista regime, and so forth were better for their citizenry than the Communists? It’s very well-recorded just how bad the previous regimes were and how dramatically material conditions improved post-revolution.

  This feels like arguing with a Jehovah’s witness. To your credit, you’re not getting annoyed or abusive in the face of my contradiction. But then that’s also a hallmark of religious people: absolute certitude, which provides a certain peace of mind.

  The fact that I have carefully cited multiple different sources from multiple periods and patiently responded to your bold-faced attacks makes me a “Jehovah’s Witness?” What about those supposed “much better alternatives to Capitalism?” Where are those? I have responded to every point you’ve made, and your response has been to belittle me and take the high-ground without responding in kind. That’s rude.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lemmy's gaining popularity, so I thought new people should see this.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s worth noting that when a Marxist says “stateless,” they don’t mean “governmentless.” The Marxist theory of the state surrounds classes, while the Anarchist theory of the state surrounds hierarchy.

  When an Anarchist says they want a stateless society, they envision a complex web of horizontal communes, networks of mutual aid, like a spiderweb.

  When a Marxist says they want a stateless society, they envision a world Socialist republic that has managed to fully absorb all private property into the public sector, which no AES state has managed to accomplish thus far.

  The idea that Marxists are advocating Socialist states to dissolve into Anarchism is wrong, nobody claims that. What Marxists claim is that their notion of the state will wither away, leaving a classless government.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lemmy's gaining popularity, so I thought new people should see this.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The others here are using it the second way, which I agree with. Centrism meaning the “status quo” can be violently and toxically upheld.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lemmy's gaining popularity, so I thought new people should see this.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Do you not think your remarks have a bit of a religious flavor to them? Quoting a couple of eccentric academics from 150 years ago as if transmitting their divine revelation. Defending your interpretation of their holy words as if you were a lawyer or a priest. Why not just look to first principles instead, to the values you considerate important, rather than citing a gospel like this?

  I quoted both Marx and Engels, while linking modern analysis and theory at the end. Marxism has a long history with numerous writers, when you say the PRC has “reverted to Capitalism” it’s important to point out that they have more accurately reverted to Socialism. Marxism isn’t a religion, it’s a method of analysis.

  I don’t know what you mean by “look to principles instead.” I have values and principles, I desire humanity to move beyond Capitalism and onto Socialism because Capitalism reaches a dead-end when it gets to the stage it is at today: dying Imperialism and Monopolist Syndicates devoid of competition. Socialism is how we move beyond.

  There are much better ideas for how to replace capitalism, though - spoiler - none of them involve a bloody revolution

  I have yet to see anything succeed in replacing Capitalism without a revolution, so I’m curious what you are referring to.

  This doesn’t mean that Marx had nothing interesting to say. Of course he did. His description of society was revolutionary. But the prescription was disastrous and I feel we would do well to just move on from it at last

  Again, post-revolution, Marxism has dramatically improved conditions compared to previous squalor. It isn’t correct to say AES states have been disastrous, especially when comparing to the horrendous pre-Socialist conditions.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lemmy's gaining popularity, so I thought new people should see this.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  My biggest issue is with these two statements:

  But the fact is that capitalism won the economic battle, for better and (I agree) for worse.

  Attempts to replace it completely, in an interconnected world, invariably end in disaster or (China) in a reversion to capitalism.

  For the former, I disagree because AES states still exist, and Marx’s analysis has retained it’s usefulness at full capacity.

  For the latter, most AES states were and are dramatic improvements on previous conditions, such as the fascist slaver Batista regime in Cuba compared to now, where life expectancy is 50% higher than under Batista and disparity is far lower.

  As for the PRC, it isn’t correct to say it “reverted to Capitalism.” It’s more correct to say that Mao failed to jump to Communism, and Deng reverted back to a more Marxist form of Socialism. The Private Sector is a minority of the economy in the PRC, the majority is in the public sector. Here’s an excerpt from Engels in The Principles of Communism:

  Will it be possible for private property to be abolished at one stroke?

  No, no more than existing forces of production can at one stroke be multiplied to the extent necessary for the creation of a communal society. In all probability, the proletarian revolution will transform existing society gradually and will be able to abolish private property only when the means of production are available in sufficient quantity.

  Mao tried to skip the necessary developmental stage. Marx wasn’t a Utopian, he didn’t believe Socialism was good because it was more moral, but because Capitalism creates the conditions for Socialism, ie public ownership and central planning, through formation of monopolist syndicates. Marx says as much himself in Manifesto of the Communist Party:

  The essential conditions for the existence and for the sway of the bourgeois class is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by the revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lemmy's gaining popularity, so I thought new people should see this.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t think this is a good place to have this convo, but I firmly disagree with what you’ve said here. I understand if you don’t want to, but if you want to discuss this further you can shoot me a DM.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lemmy's gaining popularity, so I thought new people should see this.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I tend to recommend their posts because they are written in modern lingo and in the last decade, so there’s specifically modern analysis there. I recommend Marx, Engels, etc. frequently as well, but a lot of their writing is several times longer and as such several times less likely to be read by people I recommend them to, perhaps with the exception of Engels’ The Principles of Communism, which is a great and to-the-point intro to Marxism.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lemmy's gaining popularity, so I thought new people should see this.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Are you using “extremism” to mean “far from the status quo,” or “has absolute belief and violent justification for said belief?” Centrists can absolutely be the latter.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lemmy's gaining popularity, so I thought new people should see this.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Defederation has it’s own uses, yes, but that also ironically makes it more difficult to avoid trolls. When you defederate from an instance for X reason, only the more irrational users are going to create alts to attack. Defederation is often over-used.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lemmy's gaining popularity, so I thought new people should see this.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Social democrats do not code as “right” anywhere in the world.

  Are you trying to say that wherever Social Democrats are found, they are the most left available? That may track, but again, Social Democrats want to “harness Capitalism,” it isn’t pro-Socialism nor anti-Capitalism, hence my categorization.

  And liberals are only “right” when viewed through a partisan US-progressive lens, or else perhaps in southern Europe (where the word is mostly an economic term)

  Liberalism is the ideological framework for Capitalism, this is, again, supportive of Capitalism and against Socialism.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lemmy's gaining popularity, so I thought new people should see this.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t want to spiral this out of control, but I do think you might be interested in Why do Marxists fail to Bring the “Worker’s Paradise?” as well as Why Public Property? The former is a critical examination of why states guided by Marxism haven’t been worker utopias from the perspective of a Marxist-Leninist, the latter is an exploration of why Marx believed Socialism to overtake Capitalism. It isn’t a moral argument, rather, as markets consolidate into monopolist syndicates devoid of competition, they make themselves ripe for public ownership and central planning.

  What is Socialism? is also good, it goes over the various arguments between different strains of Marxism over what can be considered Socialist, but at this point I think I’ve recommended far more than enough articles. Really, the first one about “Worker’s Paradises” is the one I think you’d find the most interesting.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lemmy's gaining popularity, so I thought new people should see this.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I can DM you if you want, this is already spiraling far beyond my intentions of my original statement, that I think it’s better rather than to consolidate communities and overpower an instances mods and admins, to decentralize and replicate so there’s always a space for people, on an as-needed basis.

  The short answer is that Lemmy.world is a very US-focused liberal instance, essentially the Democrats embodied in an instance.

  Sh.itjust.works maintains NCD, MeanwhileOnGrad, and other generally pro-Liberalism, anti-Communist communities, hence why I say it leans right.

  As always, you can absolutely find Anarchists and Communists on both Lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works, my point is more that the moderators and userbase generally consolidate around a given stance, my point isn’t that you can’t be a leftist on Lemmy.world or sh.itjust.works.