I don’t even disagree with you that many people focus too much on the surface level. I do disagree with generalizing this to “the left.” It’s the general trend of society, and leftists are if anything more resistant to it but not immune.

The problem is that there’s an image of leftists that exists in people’s heads that doesn’t really bear much relation to reality, because you can just cherry pick bad takes from 10 years ago and a handful of bad takes by a handful of random teenagers live on forever and are used to paint an entire movement.

In this very thread you have people calling Idiocracy “pro-eugenics”

Yes, how could anyone see themes of eugenics while watching this? So loony!

The arguments in the opening are exactly the arguments used historically to justify and promote eugenics. If you don’t want people to see eugenics in your movie you probably shouldn’t start it off by essentially looking directly at the camera and saying, “Social Darwinism is correct.”

So, when you say “the left” is trying to boycott Lucas Pope over something that happened 13 years ago, what you actually mean is that one Tumblr account, which went inactive 10 years ago, once asked people not to buy his game. When you say that “brains turn off,” you really mean more like one specific brain turned off.

At some point, we, as a society, need to come to terms with the fact that you can always find some stupid person saying some stupid thing if you look hard enough, and that that isn’t representative of a larger movement.

They’re over here trying to boycott Lucas Pope

Who is “they” and do you have a source about this?

I can’t tell if they aged poorly because I also hated them when they first came out.

Famous 2000’s movie, Blazing Saddles.

A judge can also have biases, but they are supposedly at the very least a professional and an expert on the law, and are meant to act accordingly.

“Are meant to” and “supposedly” but unless there’s a mechanism to hold them accountable those are just wishful thinking. And at a certain point you run into “who watches the watchman?” I don’t have confidence in a jury to put aside bigotry but I don’t have confidence in a judge to either.

Is THIS the sort of extremist, radicalizing content you want to see on the fediverse?

I DEMAND to see more photos of Femcel Memes!

Yeah, you might even find people on here celebrating John Brown or the French resistance in WWII. The horror!

Than there is no reason to be against american imperialism as long as the countries are already capitalist which is pretty much all of them.

In some cases, yes, that’s true. For example, Imperial Japan claimed to be fighting against Western colonialism and building it’s “Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.” But it was a colonial empire that was even worse than the colonizers from the West. Certainly, I would not consider it justified for Imperial Japan to draft people in it’s fight against the US.

But generally it’s a complex topic that needs to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Two countries may both be capitalist, but one may be a resource colony of the other, and that’s not exactly the same system in both. The theoretical standard that I’m applying is whether there’s a significant difference in the expected quality of life, and pointing out that they’re both capitalist countries is only one practical indication of that. You could argue that Ukraine is fighting for economic autonomy as opposed to being a resource colony of Russia, but it looks to me more like they’re fighting to be a resource colony of the US, considering the fact that they signed an agreement with the US that handed over mineral rights in exchange for military aid.

Outside of extreme cases like WWII, I don’t consider it my determination to make, that a movement resisting my own country’s imperialism should just law down their arms and surrender. Because of my position as an American citizen, it’s better to recuse myself from that, for three reasons. First, to avoid any lingering subconscious bias from affecting my judgement. Second, to avoid the appearance of that nationalistic bias, which is important for the sake of building international solidarity. Third, because it makes little practical difference, because I generally don’t have the ability to affect those countries, except through trying to control them by force from the outside, and I have a greater responsibility to critique my own government. There are many imperfect movements that oppose the US, sometimes for the wrong reasons, but it is up to the socialists from those places to critique and correct them, not me.

Words change, aristocracy in ancient greece

I don’t live in ancient Greece, I live in the modern day where words are understood to mean what they mean now, not what they meant thousands of years ago.

I’m trying to play chess with a bunch of pidgeons who think they’re winning, smh

You are the pidgeon.

Did you mean to say “autocracy?” Like another user said, aristocracy involves a class of nobles with inherited rights.

Now, the system China had before the CPC came to power, that could reasonably be described as an aristocracy. But literally one of the first things that happened after the communists came to power was that that class was forcibly eliminated and their land was redistributed to the people who worked it.

Thank you for listening to my perspective.

I don’t think it’s strategic to ally with someone who won’t agree to a certain bare minimum of what’s necessary. Let me use an example.

The US spends nearly a trillion dollars on the military every year, more than the next nine countries combined. Putting aside the humanitarian and ecological reasons I oppose that, the US is also now nearly $40 trillion in debt. It spends even more on interest payments than on this globe-dominating force. That debt is mostly because of those military adventures, and because the government cut taxes on the rich while it was doing them. I wouldn’t call myself a deficit hawk, but it’s hard to imagine that this situation is at all sustainable.

What needs to happen is a drastic reduction in military spending. If we cut it in half, we’d still be easily outspending any plausible threat, and at least part of that could go to actually helping people instead of hurting them. That still wouldn’t fully solve the issue, and I would prefer to go further, but it would be a reasonable compromise, bending to what will be necessary before we’re forced to. If a Democrat ran on that, then I can certainly see how it could be a strategic alliance.

But to maintain it where it’s at would be totally unacceptable as a compromise. It’s a problem that needs to be addressed, and if Democrats only maintain it while Republicans increase it, then the problem is just going to get worse and worse.

But they don’t even offer to merely maintain it! They actively increase it. They are not merely failing to address the problem, they literally are the problem! They are actively making things worse!

Now, are they the lesser evil on this issue, compared to Trump? Sure. Trump said he wanted to increase the military budget to the unbelievable $1.5 trillion. The rate that one party wants to dive headfirst into this debt crisis is faster than the rate the other one does, but on the dive itself, there is complete bipartisan consensus.

When the other shoe drops, when we’re faced with massive inflation and a debt crisis, then all bets are off about what parts of the budget are “untouchable.” And if the military isn’t cut, then it may well be social security.

The Democrats are giving us a hard no right now, hitting record highs and talking about “the most lethal military in the world.” When I say that foreign threats are overblown and that we need to reduce military spending, the damn liberals even accuse me of just trying to weaken the country and of being a secret agent hired by Putin or Xi. Because militarism is a political rule right now. The minimum that needs to happen is politically impossible.

But there are weeks when decades happen, when those rules can be shaken up. And those weeks will come, because that is what it means to be unsustainable. Since it is impossible to achieve what is minimally necessary now, all we can do is prepare for the moment when the conditions change. And part of that preparation includes distancing ourselves from the sources of the problem, so that we cannot be credibly blamed or associated with it, and another part involves identifying and criticizing the sources so that people can point fingers in the correct direction. If we’re standing next to them, covered in shit too, nobody’s gonna listen if we try to say, “Called it!”

And if we don’t, or aren’t able to do that? Then when that time comes, it will be the right that’s offering explainations, which will be total bullshit, but if those are the only explanations anyone’s hearing, then it won’t matter that they’re bullshit. Then, they will be the ones able to influence which political rules get broken. That is the absolute worst-case scenario. But if you can agree that what the Democrats offer is less than what is minimally necessary to avert disaster, and you think the left should join them regardless, then, logically, you are making that an ineviability.

No wonder it’s a shitty description.

if Harris were to involve the US militarily, she would at least provide some forms of aid to try to mitigate the regime’s massacaring people and restore communication between people stuck their and the worldwide Iranian diaspora

Would she? Biden’s sanctions on Afghanistan created a humanitarian crisis, people were starving to death. Getting humanitarian aid would be dependent on them overthrowing the government. This is the whole argument behind economic sanctions, in every country they they subject to them - if the people are suffering, they’ll blame their own government and revolt.

This is, in many cases, delusional, or more about wanting to “do something” to look strong to voters. Because the Democratic party is assumed to be more progressive, they sometimes go even further in order to prove that they’re not soft and weak. This was the same logic behind mass incarceration under Clinton.

Congress, which if it is ®-controlled would keep a short leash within the War Powers Act.

Did the Republican-controlled Congress ever do anything to stop Obama from continuing the war in Afghanistan? Those people fucking love war. Every one of them is in bed with the military-industrial complex, as long as bombs are dropping, they’re thrilled.

So overall, I will still push back on the argument that always springs up around American election-time that Harris/Dems will be equally bad therefore don’t vote

To be precise, my position is not that they’re equally bad, but that they’re both fundamentally unacceptable. I cannot envision a future either of them would lead us to where we are not completely and totally fucked.

Four years of Biden brought declining economic conditions, record military spending, countless dead in Palestine, and four years closer to ecological collapse. When the average American sees that, they’re going to be dissatisfied and want change, which is why Trump won. What would four years of Harris get us? According to her, she wouldn’t do anything differently and refused to distinguish herself from him in any way. So, it’s reasonable to assume that things would continue in that direction, the same way they have for decades, across both Democratic and Republican administrations. Even if they somehow squeaked out a win in 2024, they would lose in 2028.

This whole mentality of lesser evilism is based on accepting the choices we’re presented with and trying to make the best of it. But my approach is to start at what actually needs to happen, and then try to work out how to get there. The crises we’re facing (climate change, for example) are part of the physical world, governed by the laws of physics. What a political system is capable of doing is only governed by human laws, by human norms and customs. If there is a disconnect between what a human system says it can do, and what a physical system says needs to happen, then the human system will bend and break. Either the rules of what our political system treats as possible will bend now, or they will break later, when, for example, cities are flooded and millions of climate refugees are starving at the border.

There is a giant boulder headed straight towards us, and one party denies it exists at all while the other acknowledges that there’s a boulder, but says that saying we should step out of the way is unrealistic, unamerican, and probably somehow antisemitic.

From a physical perspective, what needs to happen are drastic fundamental, changes to the system, because none of this shit is sustainable. If the political system does not give us that option, if we are only offered options that completely refuse to bend to what is physically necessary, then the political system is simply broken and destined to fail, and all we can do is prepare for that.

And the best way I can see to prepare for that is to call out it’s inevitable failure and to distance myself from the people responsible. Because as the system is failing, the far-right are the only ones positioning themselves as an “alternative” (even though, as the Iran War demonstrates, they’re just more of the same), and if that’s the only alternative then that’s where people will turn. There needs to be a left-wing movement that can plausibly distance itself from the establishment’s failure and can be ready to step in and pick up the pieces, or else the far-right will be the only game in town.

Tl;dr: When shit hits the fan (and it’s going to) people are going to find their ideas of what’s “politically possible” changing very rapidly. We need to be presenting a real alternative and not be associating ourselves with the people actively launching shit towards the fan.

Y’all really just pick negative words at random to describe China as, I swear you picked “aristocracy” out of a hat.

Even if she as President had a stroke causing her to take Bibi’s bait and start a war with Iran, she wouldn’t have alienated beforehand every single potential ally through tariffs and belligerent rhetoric, that most nations would provide the USA some token support which would keep it from being as disastrous for the USA as it is.

That’s a point against. I don’t want the war to be done competently. I would rather we get our asses kicked so badly that the administration gives up, and even talking about fucking with them again becomes politically toxic. We had an international coalition going into Afghanistan, and then we were there for 20 years and accomplished nothing but blood and death. If Europe had reacted like they’re doing with Iran, how many lives might have been saved by the war being cut short? Since the war is unjustified, surely it’s better that we lose. Or are you saying, “My country, right or wrong?”

Granted, I don’t fully agree with the other person’s position. I think that Trump is doing more damage than Harris would have, I just don’t believe that you should automatically support the “lesser evil.” And I don’t know really know how unlikely it really is that she’d stay out of Iran with her rhetoric about “the most lethal military in the world,” her campaigning with Cheyney, and with Biden increasing the military budget to an all time high. I’m not aware of anything she ever actually said that indicated that she was inclined to a peaceful foreign policy.

To interject I’m really enjoying this conversation with you we’re mostly keeping things civil

Thank you, and I do think that people jumped down your throat too quickly.

On the other hand using said trauma as justification that military defence can not exist in other countries is an overreaction.

As I said, it can exist if there’s an actual, material difference to the average person who wins, either because the state is doing things for the people, or because the alternative is exterminationist.

It’s not that I’m unsympathetic towards Ukrainians. If we could go back, say, 25 years ago, and give them a bunch of foreign aid to build schools and hospitals and things all across the country, I’d be fine with that (although I would also like us to build schools and hospitals here at home). Perhaps if we’d done that, there wouldn’t be any separatists, there wouldn’t be any need for Euromaidan, or banning opposition parties, or any of that. And then if Russia just attacked, then it’d be worth fighting for, and the people in the east would have believed in it more.

But nobody involved actually gives a shit about helping average, ordinary Ukrainians. They only want a chance to weaken Russia and expand their political and economic influence. This isn’t a fight over whether Ukrainians get to live in a nice little progressive social democracy. It’s a fight whether they will be an exploitative, capitalist state whose resources go east or west. That’s why it’s not a battle worth fighting.

There are countless countries in the world where our influence is slipping, due to neglect. They are where Ukraine was 25 years ago, where we have the option to solidify support through peaceful investment and actually improving people’s lives, where we could spend “an ounce of prevention instead of a pound of cure.” But we don’t do that. Pretty much the only time the US spends money on other countries is when it’s bombing them. Meanwhile, China invests both domestically and internationally, while steering clear of military entanglements, and that’s the reason it’s ascending on the world stage as the US is declining.

Even worse, there is a serious possibility in the US that the far-right will seize power to an even greater, and more permanent, way than what they’ve already done. And this is driven by economic conditions. It’s not just other countries that are being neglected. And the threat that the domestic far-right poses is not a boogeyman, it is very real threat that is exterminationist, and there is a serious possibility that they will win and throw me in a camp. In fact, it’s hard to see a way that they’ll lose. I am not the most informed about the conditions in Europe, but I know that far-right movements are growing in strength there as well. And one of the things they take advantage of, rhetorically, is that governments keep spending money on foreign conflicts instead of spending it domestically, which resonates with people who are struggling.

It is crucial to shift focus, both because it would do more to actually benefit people, and because it’s necessary to keep the far-right out of power. This is, again, especially true from an American perspective. People look at our country and see a backwards, capitalist hellscape, they see all our problems and think, “If that’s how people in the US are treated, how are we going to be treated if we align with them?” In fact, that’s exactly how I see things, when looking at Ukraine. If we’re not getting healthcare, you think they will? We have to get our shit in order at home, and the same holds true for any country with a growing far-right movement.

Territorial integrity definitely has a material impact to the populace ask Anne Frank.

Again, I already said that it matters in cases where one side is exterminationist, like the Nazis. I also already pointed out that, literally every major conflict since WWII, people have tried to justify it by invoking the Nazis.

I think perhaps you’re not really understanding where I’m coming from, speaking as an American to a European.

When we asked the ruling class nicely to please give us healthcare, they called us commies and told us to go fuck ourselves with a rusty crowbar. When we asked them to stop murdering black people in the streets, they used tear gas against our peaceful demonstrations. When we asked them to stop actively arming a genocide, they violently suppressed us and tried to redefine words to make believing in human rights “racist.”

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not some naive idealist. They want to rule through violent suppression, because it works. It’s just business. They’re the ruling class, they want to rule over us with an iron fist, the fuck can we do about it? They have the most powerful military in the world. They got us by the nuts.

But if they then turn around and go, “Help us! Our empire’s under attack! Foreigners might get some valuable minerals on the other side of the planet that we’re trying to control! Won’t you please give us your support?” then I’m going to tell them that they can go fuck themselves with a rusty crowbar, just like they’re always telling me. Why on earth would I not? Am I expected to just forget that they’re constantly shitting on me? I don’t give a shit about their empire.

And so, your only choice is to try to invoke some boogeyman from 70 years ago to try to get us to fall in line. The same boogeyman that you have invoked, time and time again, across generations, to justify pouring endless blood and treasure into these pointless imperial persuits that have only ever benefitted the ruling class.

Meanwhile, your own side keeps doing things like applauding a Nazi soldier or engaging in Holocaust revisionism live on German TV. Meanwhile, Holocaust revisionism is becoming mainstream across Eastern Europe while the ruling class is asking themselves, “Hey, these people hate Russia and hate Socialism, so who cares what really happened 70 years ago?”

Yeah, I’m not buying it. The boogeyman wasn’t real any of those other times and it’s not real this time either.

The second sentence would make Vladimir Putin proud. When as the great empire of Ukraine gained any ground over the lines drawn after the collapse of the USSR?

“Great empire of Ukraine?” No, the empire is the US and NATO, obviously. Ukraine is simply the next prospective territory they want to expand into. And they did in fact gain significant ground after the collapse of the USSR.

That’s fair so long as bombs aren’t flying on your neighbours house.

Nope. Territorial integrity would still be the ruling class’s problem.

If that happened, I would be calling for surrender and trying to avoid the draft and help others to avoid it. Because I have absolutely no interest in fighting on the behalf of my oppressors to uphold their “right” to exploit me.

Again, why would I give a shit which flag my oppressors are waving?