[characters surround a flowchart]

Do you agree with me ideologically?\

• No: Then you are not a leftist\
• Yes: Proceed
  
  Did you ever disagree with me online?\
• Yes: Then you are not a leftist\
• No: Proceed
  
  Have you ever read theory?\
• No: Then you are not a leftist\
• Yes: Proceed
  
  Did you reach the same conclusions as me?
  No: Then you are not a leftist
  Yes: Proceed
  
  Do you believe in left unity?
  Yes: ??? -> just kidding -> loop back to the same question
  No: Proceed
  
  Are you to my left or to my right ideologically?
  Right: Then you are not a leftist
  Left: I hate you because you are a tankie -> Bruh -> Then you are not a leftist
  We agree: I hate you because you are a liberal -> Wait what -> Then you are not a leftist
  
  https://thebad.website/comic/true_leftism_flowchart

we agree

I hate you because you're a liberal

hmmmm

I get the tankie label a lot, moreso on Reddit, but sometimes on Lemmy too.

You'll get the label for such burning hot (?) takes as "the cold war wasn't about good vs evil" or "I don't support NATO" or "Cuba did pretty good given its circumstances actually", some people let the CIA live rent free in their head and really do believe anything to their left is automatically authoritarian.

I hate authoritarianism though :( I even wrote an entire manifesto on how the USSR went wrong when Lenin purposefully ignored Marx's remarks on radical recallability of vanguard party members back when I was a lil wee revolutionary teenage lad, before the neoliberal 2000s crushed the revolutionary spirit of the millenial youth.

It's a nice theory, but we all know this flowchart has never been tried.

Do you believe in left unity?

The leftists are as bad about this as any liberal, conservative, or fascist. "We all need to rally together... around me. Anyone who diverges is a splitter who has undermined the party!"

Re: Hillary Clinton / Kamala Harris stans

Claudia De la Cruz is electable if you fucking vote for her, you swine. It's HER TURN!

Yeah, I scroll smugideologyman on reddit sometimes and see that.

Case in point,

kneecap

I love kneecap btw.

Don't care for their music, but they're beyond based humans and I sincerely wish them the best.

History will remember them fondly.

Yes, but have you considered a stray comment from a week old account called 'commiecoomdumpster42069'? Their comment is unhinged and irrelevant, but they must represent leftists and leftism everywhere, past and present. You must answer for it! It's clearly your alt account!

No? Well I don't believe you! Checkmate in the marketplace of ideas.

I'm currently reading Zizek's "Less than nothing" and he criticizes Marx for not being Hegelian enough. Resetting my thermostat now

reddit has always been a cesspool, the reddit sentiment is that you only believe in communism if you are a teenager trying to be edgy, and if you are not that you are obviously a troll

Bruh, you can't just point out how different ideological groupings suffer from the same underlying human cognitive biases like that.

What do you mean with NATO? Other than the US being currently involved, I am pretty neutral about its existance.

Also, isn't cuba quite authoritarian?

Finally a thing we can all agree on

After WWII the Americans put Nazi leaders into positions of power within NATO.

I generally feel that someone is a tankie when they become emotional about some topic that is not worth the emotion as if you thinking something slightly differently is a personal attack.

The entire point of NATO was to extend the power of the usa and prevent communism spreading/open a front against the USSR if war broke out.

It is a racist imperial project architected by the worst people in the world.

On this website alone I've been called a lib, tankie, anarkiddie, russian bot, Chinese bot, Russian psyoperative, and fascist.

They can't all be true lol.

My takes are things like "We should understand the material and political realities behind the actions of the USSR so we can replicate the triumphs and avoid the tragedies, some things the Chinese government does are pretty good and people are broadly very satisfied with their government there, western powers feeding Ukranian men into a meat grinder to weaken Russia is bad actually and conscription is evil, governance committees that cannot be held accountable by the people they govern without violent revolt are bound to hurt the people and wander astray from their purpose, and so called 'liberal democracies' are neither really"

The classic anarchist situation

https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/01/02/capitalisms-court-jester-slavoj-zizek/

I feel like the left in the US is almost seen as center by people in other countries. The overton window has drifted a lot to the right along the years

NATO is a coalition of imperialist countries, designed to protect them from backlash from the global south, and to isolate and break up communism.

Cuba is a state, so by definition it's a monopoly on violence. It's also democratically run by the Cuban working classes. You can call that "authoritarian" in that it's a tool to oppress the capitalists, landlords, and fascists, but it's also democratic and uplifting for the working classes.

I mean authoritarian as in, castro was the leader since its creation, and when he died it was passed onto his brother. Really dont see how it can be democratic.

To clarify, is your position that democracy means regular change in position of the head of state? In that case, President Miguel Diáz-Canel isn't related to the Castros at all, so your cause for concern should be alleviated. Personally, I don't see authority and democracy as contradictory, all States are monopolies on violence, as I said. Democracy in my view is rule by the majority, which I see as rule by the working classes. Cuba has a complex system of democracy that goes above western conceptions of democracy.

Cuba has what they call a participatory democracy. People participate in all levels of government, and the government is led by the PCC. The democratic structure relies on delegates sent to the various organs of government from among the people, and this translates into popular rule by the working classes themselves.

Long-serving leaders are not indicative of a lack of democracy, but more towards stability. In the context of a country under siege, stability is critical, and regular turnover introduces chaos that they cannot afford. In fact, the low term limits of leaders in countries like the US are there to prevent lasting change from ever happening, and instead let the ongoing background processes take priority, those processes being capitalism and imperialism.

Thanks. Very helpful.

But still to.be honest, Marx always feels 100% solid to me when explaining capitalism, but on much less solid ground when predicting the future.

How so?

Here in Norway, Bernie and AOC would be considered center. Even our conservative party would be considered radical left by Fox News.

In the US, the overton window is so weirdly deformed that it's not even on a building anymore. It somehow ended up hovering mid-air a short walk away from the nearest wall.

Parfait

:)

Plus que parfait!

...needs a 3rd option out of the initial box, through "I don't know. What's in your ideology?" and on to other Socratic inquiry.

Lefties don't just exclude people for having mildly different opinions - they go full "incel maga ICE nazi rat" on you.

Like you could agree on the fundamental problems, the general causes, the general solutions, etc but if you are just slightly sympathetic to insecure 16 yearold boys being bullied then you are OBVIOUSLY an incel sympathizer. If you think the use of 'nazi' and similar terms should hold weight and never be used unless there is evidence of nazi ideology, then you are somehow a holocaust denier. If you state that the democrats are corporate sellouts that provide nothing for this country without also stating how much you hate maga and 'are voting blue anyways', then you are obviously just a trump voter.