western
south Korea
taiwan

Calling legitimate democracies any kind of dictatorships is simply disingenuous. Its just not what words mean. If the majority of people vote for something, that thing they voted for is the will of the people. And if the people/parties they voted for are able to take power, the majority of the populace "got what they want". And if they want a capitalist system with billionaires, well, thats what they are going to get. I feel like a lot of leftists end up stuck saying things like "people in western societies are brainwashed/they dont know what they really want (and I do)" to explain why countries dont want them in power.

That's an overall ML strategy. Dissenting opinion that gets dog piled is removed because it's violates a rule, them all that's left is the arguments against the original opinion. Only replies that lack context about the original argument are left by the non-tanky poster so you can continue to take them apart straw man style.

What you experienced was just pushback and conversation about 1 of your talking points. With a bunch of lucid discussion about why that opinion (which you noted as Russian centered propaganda) is wrong.

It also misunderstands the fundamental issue of Russia. The propaganda is that Russia is capable when they use hard power at all. They aren't. Russia Pound 4 pound has the worst track record of all militaries in the world, and that's being on the winning side half the time.

Russia is great at soft power, but absolutely utter shit at hard power. Ukraine has gotten a 100th of the support Israel is getting, because Israel is the weapon testing platform of the West. Israel is where we're testing how to kill with new technology.

Ukraine has built their weapon systems almost entirely in house and is now actually selling both it's tech and tactics to other nations, much like Iran has done in the east as well.

Russia is just really, really, really bad at war.

I mean yeah. The worst part about being willing to listen and change you mind, is that people want you on their side. Even if you opinion is 80%, 95% of another person's, if you are not on the same page idealogically, you are wrong.

That's kinda how humans work though, not even in a sinister way. There is plenty of sinister people who know and try to exploit that shit. But people love team sports because we naturally love to form into teams. People will unknowingly create teams out of anything and then create methods to identify if you are in our out.

When you have an open mind enough to actually listen to these arguments and try to form an opinion, or approach a topic trying to have your mind changed, people on a team will treat you like you're fucking stupid.

You seem like you are engaging in good faith which is the highest complement you can give a person on a text forum.

Well, before I was banned from r/worldnews, I was a frequent punching bag, with my comments left untouched, so that's what was going on there.

I'm saying I don't feel bad for softballing Russian propaganda here, because it's effectively just pointing out how unpopular and stupid it is when it's attacked like it's been here. I'm not defending it, I'm just putting it out there with the implicit question being, "Is this bullshit? because it kinda sounds like bullshit."

Kinda funny you bring up Russia's military, because just yesterday there was a Russian talking about how awesome the Russian military was, but, reading between the lines, he was mostly saying Russians don't mind killing their soldiers while Americans have, since Vietnam, built their entire strategy around tactics that don't risk soldiers...

So it's a fair criticism. I think the American Empire is only sustainable by violence that does not cost American lives (be it sanctions or bombing campaigns).... but whether Russia has a "great" military is another question entirely.

But that leads me to a question that has really been perplexing me, because on the one hand, maybe Russia will be looking to Poland next, but on the other hand, could it really fight the EU if it's only winning Ukraine via years and years of attrition? The Russian channels so that no, Russia has no such intentions, but also say Russia has a great military and all the other militaries suck, while European sources say Russia is a mortal threat to Europe and that Russia is extremely capable militarily, but the facts on the ground seem to indicate that Russia is a huge country with population, industry, and oil wealth, just grinding their way to victory.

The larger question is where do I get news with a leftist worldview that isn't explicitly biased? I don't think it's possible. And I think the real risk for people who fall off the American Capitalism Is The Best bandwagon is that they'll be suckers for pro-Eastern propaganda if that's the only place pushing anti-US narratives, and maybe that's how we get tankies.

I'd love to read an essay comparing Ukraine and Israel in terms of diplomatic and military support. My opinion is that the US's military is focused on developing expensive hardware as congressional pork and jobs programs; and I think Europe probably has adopted the same model. Whatever happens if Russia attacks Poland, I think Europe is going to be on a steep learning curve.

Kind of the fun of talking with people is finding out where you're wrong. I'll often say something I suspect is wrong in the hopes that someone will show me the light...

It got harder to do that on reddit, where if one toe was out of line, you were treated as a bad actor. And, partially, I get it. In large groups, there are more trolls and people's patience is thinner. On the other hand, mob mentality is real...

News in this time is rough. There is no true left wing news in America, news is fully captured. The only source of unvarnished left wing news is Zines in the House US, and they are extremely idealogical, because they have to be to operate in a news embargo. All information is accepted, all opinions are taken with a grain of salt, existing right now sucks.

We haven't actually had a modern war yet. When you look at Russia v Ukraine, or US vs Iran, you see what the new war looks like.

Israel as a weapon testing platform does not involve actual conflict. There's a small about of fighting from Hamas, but realistically on Israel they can just kill whoever they want however they want.

The US exist as a power in precision bombing, we are fucking allergic to soldiers dying as you noted. You saw what happened when a power can just take precision bombing, just soak it up like Iran. Russia exists as a power in sending waves after waves of people that they are willing to lose, they win through attrition. You're seeing what happens when their opponent stops spending lives and starts killing you autonomously.

Europe is not one place, despite the fact that they have an EU, individually they are not terribly good at working together. You saw how bad Brexit fucked regional trade. In my opinion the entire EU is worried that Nato is bullshit and no wants Russia to try and prove it.

Right now the only untested super power is China. China can produce munitions at a rate that the entire world's production combined can't touch. China has an nearly unlimited number of people and have embraced drone tech. Mark my fucking words, the world is a series of paper tigers next to China. The big powers are rushing to prove it.

Isn't that just sh.itjust.works?

I think your lie detector is broken mate. I could arbitrarily pick a country to shit on and fill pages. It doesn't make my rants accurate. Your truth detector should be based on verifiable facts and information.... Anyways, open my profile and look at my most recent post.

You will get no one to like .ml here. Don't waste your effort.

If we can boycott Israel and totalitarian regimes and amoral corporations, we can boycott lemmy.ml

Why would I have to try if it's there in plain text?

Honestly, South Korea isn't really that democratic, because no matter who wins, they tend to be controlled by the Chaebols.

Taiwan is a true democracy and probably one of the most, if not the most progressive country in Asia.

even overwhelmingly large pro-change majorities, with 80 percent of the public favoring a policy change, got that change only about 43 percent of the time.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B

this is the case in america, I don't know of a similar study done by taiwan, but it's likely the case there as well.

It's clear that the peoples vote hardly matters.

Also by Marxist definition, at least according to MLs single party dictatorships that concentrate power in a ruling elite while giving workers shitty employment conditions are supposedly dictatorships of the proletariat when they are far from it.

they disagree that it's the states giving them shitty employment conditions, and disagree that power is being concentrated in a ruling elite, you'd just have to demonstrate these two things to them.

And my point is that MLs spout a lot of BS about countries that often have better conditions for workers than supposed socialist states.

they believe this is because the material conditions allowed for those advances and didn't allow for them in socialist states for various reasons outside of state control, ex: the embargo on cuba.

We can also boycott the US… whilst still talking to its citizens.

Don’t want them to like it, just acknowledge the possibility that it is a collection of individual humans that vary greatly in view rather than a single entity. Being on .ml shouldn’t automatically preclude you from being part of a bigger thing.

Apparently nuance is dead and everything is black and white, the gray scale has disappeared?

You're doing good work out here comrade. Just wanted to say I appreciate your methods of getting folks to think critically 🫡

Which doesn't make sense since material conditions aren't an excuse to not give workers rights. Like Yugoslavia wasn't necessarily wealthy when they gave their workers control over their own workplaces.

At this point you are just contradicting yourself and probably trolling.

They justify it by claiming the CCP has their fist so far up those billionaire asses that really it's the proletariat controlling all that wealth all along!

Or maybe I’m just a random adult human who, shock horror, holds different opinions to you…

You literally said we shouldn't boycott people and things and then suggested boycotting the US. Make up your mind.

It's the same people claiming the Soviets were socialists, rather than hyper capitalists.

They're an oligarchical setup, just like the soviets were, just like Russia is, just like the US is.

No, I was pointing out that you can boycott that country whilst acknowledging that not everybody who lives there wants complete fascista totalitarianism to wipe out everything that ain’t white and straight and Christian… and therefore keeping in touch with those folks is decent.

Sorry, perhaps I worded it poorly.

What compels people to be like this?

This has some truths in it but they are taken to extreme and modified to suit their own beliefs

Yeah 😅👍. I don't think Taiwan is a dictatorship (or if it is, I didn't realise) but the system of analysis that treats the USA as a Global Empire coercing countries into being their vassal states... it is accurate

Main weird thing in the post is that the OOP uses the term "Amerikkkan" unironically

Well, by all means continue to not vote then.

There's truth detector and there's worldview that explains what is happening and can predict what will happen and can predict would happen if something novel occurred.

A collection of facts is really only interesting in if it supports or detracts from world view and what I'm looking for is an outlet that synthesizes facts and contextualizes it within a worldview, while at the same time, you know, prioritizing the truth value of claims over their ability to support their worldview/narrative.

Roughly one third of any given population tends to be authoritarian.

The Guardian is where I get most of my US news from, and they're UK based, which just shows you the level of capture here. But for foreign policy news, anywhere in the world is willing to criticize the US.

As far as war goes, it looks like we can pound the shit out of each other with missile and drones, but this is just an extension of air supremacy doctrine, which, as you've pointed out, can continue indefinitely without victory.

Given the psychology of the US and Israel, I think one of us will be dropping nukes soon, and then it's time to wait for the octopus archeologists to put the pieces together in a few millenia.

What's your take on Russia's threat to the EU and the EU's capacity to address it?

And here's the thing I notice about China which I'll bring up in the context of someone probably watching a lot of Chinese-friendly media. They do seem to have a fundamentally different, and I'll say morally better, approach to foreign policy than the US. You can make the road initiviative in Africa seem as sinister as you want, it's still better than destabilizing governments by arming pedophile warlords that sow chaos.

China COULD play the proxy war game to destabilize its enemies, but, as far as I can tell, it does not, and that's why I think China is probably going to be the only lead player people are willing to work with..

And that for as long as it takes them to fall to the power madness that all empires fall into.

There is no escaping the wheel.

god it’s a shame that there isn’t a community that could help someone in that situation. maybe somewhere tankie bullshit could be called out and put on blast.

oh wait!

no don’t you get it? their memes are cool! we can just ignore everything else and talk about memes!

the fediverse will die if we don’t share memes with the tankies!!!!

Of course, blocate all those who think an other way than you, so you won't understand their arguments. Their is only one good way of thinking and all those who disagree with you are paid or stupid... And you want democratie so eâeryone can express their opinion and discuss them... but only as long as they agree with you..

Yeah, it would be, so I don't say things I think are wrong, I say things that I SUSPECT are wrong. That is to say, I think they also might be right.

There are quite a few already. They just blocked everyone including each other and are now single instance dictatorships rather than a federation of instances.

The only thing I disagree with is the active push to defederate / total block list an instance based on the incorrect assumption that every single member can, at will, transmute into a homogenous extremist totalitarian hydra.

Do you know the English phrase: could not see the wood for the trees?

this statement would be real silly without all the hyperbole.

go on arguing if you want, but the idea that you’re seeking a good faith discussion here is dubious at best.

That's a strawman. It still got that change 43% of the time, and I vote every election!

This is also you not engaging with their arguments. Nobody says don't vote, they say voting is comparatively pointless next to organization. The study basically proves that if you want change the most meaningful thing you can do is organize and strike, no?

Nobody is saying don't vote, they're saying don't use voting as a way of saying you don't have to organize and strike. It won't on its own produce meaningful change.

So, next time you make this argument, if you want to have an actual dialog, specify which working conditions should be granted to the people, show that they are not, purely because of the political system and then you'll have an argument!

I think to this they would say yugoslavia is not exactly a great example, that system failed rather dramatically.

Yes, that's the purpose of it, marx was talking about the structure of the entire world, vs potential future structures, during his time there was only feudalism and dictatorships of the bourgeois, he was imagining potential alternatives in the future.

Based and factual.

Reading non US propaganda and realizing these are both US neocolonies.

Ok sure I agree with all that. So what is it that's so bad about western democracies again? The combination of democracy and the ability to strike, organize and protest are why western democracies have more civil liberties than anywhere else in the world. Working conditions in, for example, China are markedly worse and the right to protest is nonexistent.

you're dodging the study that was posted. the one that clearly indicates that isn't happening in western "democracy"

the only reason they ever let you is because they're in power, but it'll be quite difficult to explain away making antifa a terrorist organization, for example.

You'd need to compare and contrast which specific rights and civil liberties you're talking about to say which one has more or less, I could point to at will employment and say the US is obviously worse, there's also the fact that the US breaks unions and strikes all the time too.

china has freedom of speech written into its constitution too, it ultimately doesn't matter if these rights are ignored, as they are in both places.

Im not dodging anything, I accept the results of the study, but i dont think its useful for comparison to a non-democracy.

Im not sure what you mean by at-will employment, as it relates to civil liberties?

There are certainly some aspects of Chinese society that are freer than in America, but i think its a false equivalency to say "both sides bad". Look at any rankings and you'll see that.

https://freedomhouse.org/country/scores

You might say, well those rankings are biased, but if you look at what i would say are the core civil liberties:

-freedom of speech/expression
-freedom of religion
-protection from discrimination
-right to representation

There really isn't any comparison. And that doesnt even get into the right to bear arms/the right to form a well-regulated militia. You think the US government is too hard on antifa? Try that shit in China haha

Im not dodging anything, I accept the results of the study, but i dont think its useful for comparison to a non-democracy.

just to be clear here, before I respond, can you state how you think voting works in china, and why it isn't a democracy?

"Freedom House was founded in October 1941, with Wendell Willkie and Eleanor Roosevelt serving as its first honorary chairpersons. Most of the organization's funding comes from the U.S. State Department"

uhhh

-freedom of speech/expression

bad in both places, both have it enshrined in their constitution

-freedom of religion

we'd need to talk about specific points, but yes the US is better, but i'm kinda thinking the US's stance is backfiring hard on this one, religion is pretty evil.

-protection from discrimination

the US is so obviously worse that this isn't worth a discussion? native americans? reparations? all the genocides and human experimentation? every single foreign country they have invaded and "freed"

-right to representation

seems about even to me? awful in both places, the study I gave touched on this, what good is representation if it accomplishes nothing?

https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/view/journals/pp/52/3/article-p360.xml?rskey=wMjlkC&result=26#d1190470e2128

Conclusion

In this article, we investigate whether Chinese local governments are responsive to public opinion on environmental protection issues and how the involvement of various response agencies enables the policy responsiveness. Using dynamic panel analysis, we observe a weak but statistically significant policy responsiveness in Chinese local governments, measured by the extent to which online public opinion has an impact on the fiscal expenditure. We also find that this impact is significantly enhanced by the involvement of response agencies with high levels of political authority and interest homogeneity with the public. More empirical studies are needed to better understand the administrative organisations of policy responsiveness, not only within China but also as comparative studies of countries with different political systems.

slightly better in china, it seems, since there is SOME correlation.