On lemmy.world I posted a comment on how liberals use ‘tankie’ as an invective to shut down dialogue and received tons of hateful replies. I tried to respond in a rational way to each. Someone’s said ‘get educated’ I responded ‘Im reading Norman Finkelstein’s I’ll burn that bridge when I get there’ and tried to keep it civil.

They deleted every comment I made and banned me. Proving my point, they just want to shut down dialogue. Freedom of speech doesn’t existing in those ‘totalitarian’ countries right? But in our ‘enlightened’ western countries we just delete you.

      • Valbrandur
        10•2 years ago

        It’s as much analysis as you can expect from the userbase of Tumblr lite.

        • @redtea@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
          2•2 years ago

          It’s partly because liberal westerners can see how shit their system is, see how shit their lives are or are becoming, see how much shit they have to take from unaccountable people, and then cannot fathom how people who they’ve been taught to see as subhuman could possibly achieve anything better. So a combination of racism and self-hatred. The only way out begins with self-reflection.

          • @IntoDaLagoon@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
            2•2 years ago

            We only know the fucked up, one sided abusive relationship we have with our capitalist governments, so we can’t imagine anything different.

            The only way out begins with self-reflection.

            🏅🏅🏅<–In lieu of hexbear medal emojis

            • @redtea@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
              1•2 years ago

              😊

              Not long after I wrote this, I poured a cup of tea and picked up Stokely Speaks: From Black Power to Pan-Africanism by Kwame Ture (a name he took later, leaving behind ‘Stokely Carmichael’). He writes (p. 29–30, emphasis added):

              As for white America, perhaps it can stop crying out against “black supremacy”, “black nationalism”, “racism in reverse,” and begin facing reality. The reality is that this nation is racist; that racism’s not primarily a problem of “human relations” but of an exploitation maintained—either actively or through silence—by the society as a whole. Can whites, particularly liberal whites, condemn themselves? Can they stop blaming us, and blame their own system? Are they capable of the shame which might become a revolutionary emotion?

      • @spacedout@lemmy.ml
        0•2 years ago

        Just because a state brands itself socialist doesn’t say anything about the level of democracy or workers’ control of it.

          • @spacedout@lemmy.ml
            -1•2 years ago

            Well IMHO both USSR and China shows how gaining workers control and keeping it, or moreso making significant headway towards communism, is just much more complicated. Representative worker ownership of the means of production through the state doesn’t have a compelling track record. I think it’s dishonest, reactionary and anti intellectual to laugh off arguments like that of comrade spood from the screenshot above.

            Edit: checked out my claim on calorie intake and discovered it was dubious. Removed, but letting the main argument stay.

            • ☭ 𝗚𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗘𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿 ☭
              1•2 years ago

              The USSR was eventually compromised, so it technically failed in that sense, but how is China an example of failing to retain worker control? If you’re claiming that capitalists control China’s government, I’d challenge you to provide some evidence

              • @spacedout@lemmy.ml
                -1•2 years ago

                Lack of press freedom, organization freedom, social credit system, great firewall of China, over 2000 work hours pr year (France has 1500), severely low scores in democracy rankings. This doesn’t smell much like worker control, more like authoritarianism. But then again, I’m very much from the West. Happy to be educated on my shortcomings in understanding 👍

                • ☭ 𝗚𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗘𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿 ☭
                  1•2 years ago

                  Lack of press freedom

                  Compared to what country? What exactly are workers not allowed to say or write in China that is allowed in the West?

                  [Lack of] organization freedom

                  Compared to what country? There are hundreds of protests every day across China

                  social credit system

                  You mean the “system” that’s been debunked many times by various Western capitalist media outlets?

                  great firewall of China

                  Maintaining Internet sovereignty from the imperial core and having workers in control of the government are not mutually exclusive

                  over 2000 work hours pr year

                  Citation needed

                  severely low scores in democracy rankings

                  Whose rankings, and why do you consider them relevant?

                  • @spacedout@lemmy.ml
                    -1•2 years ago

                    The burden of proof is on you, since you are making extraordinary claims. No matter, here:

                    https://rsf.org/en/ranking china nr 173

                    https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=1000:50002:0::NO:50002:P50002_COMPLAINT_TEXT_ID:4341007 one of many cases. Are you allowed to start a union in China? Doesn’t seem like it.

                    https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/2010-11/FreedomOfInformationChina/great-firewall-technical-perspective/index.html Re firewall - information blockade and surveillance != Worker control nor sovereign internet.

                    https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9049298 One of thousands scholarly articles on this. Next youre gonna tell me IEEE is revisionist?

                    https://ourworldindata.org/working-hours 2200 working hours pr year is ridiculous!

                    You’re not really convincing me that China is a good example of worker control. Let me ask you something:

                    • What evidence or examples can you provide to support your claim that workers exert significant control over the Chinese state? Are there specific policies, decisions, or instances where workers’ influence is evident?
                    • How do you reconcile the lack of press freedom and restrictions on organizing independent labor movements with the assertion that workers have control? Do you believe these limitations are inconsequential or have alternative explanations?
                    • How would you explain the extensive power and authority of the Chinese Communist Party within the political system, considering your claim that workers are in control? What role does the Party play in shaping policy decisions and governance?
                    • Can you elaborate on the role of other influential actors, such as the government bureaucracy, state-owned enterprises, and the military, in the Chinese state? How do these entities interact with workers in terms of decision-making and power dynamics?
                    • Are there any studies, scholarly research, or analyses that specifically support the idea that workers hold significant control over the Chinese state? What are the methodologies and findings of these studies?
                    • How would you account for China’s low rankings in democracy and freedom assessments conducted by international organizations? How do these rankings align with your assertion of workers’ control over the state?
                    • What are your thoughts on the social credit system, the Great Firewall of China, and other control mechanisms employed by the government? How do these mechanisms affect workers’ ability to influence state policies and decisions?
    • @Beat_da_Rich@lemmygrad.ml
      2•2 years ago

      “These gentlemen think that when they have changed the names of things they have changed the things themselves. This is how these profound thinkers mock at the whole world”

      My favorite Engels tweet.