comfy

How is that Stalinist? Censorship isn't some unique rare policy, even 5EYES countries regularly challenge the legality of E2EE.

I wonder if it's useful to characterize fascism as a political strategy, as it seems this might ignore the historical conditions which form it and guide it (e.g. returning military, petit-booj resistance to the labor movement to preserve their class interests) and therefore inform us of how other classes will generally act as the labor movement grows.

How would you describe fascism as a political strategy? Does this mean, for example, using scapegoats (like racial minorities and queer folk) as a threat to rally for dictatorial powers?

1) Ideologies are frameworks which guide actions, not a list of symptoms.

Ideologies are formed by material conditions in history, not just a group of ideas put together. That's why neoliberalism and fascism are also distinct, despite all the surface-level similarities we can see around the world.

Fascism wasn't just invented by someone saying 'why doesn't one person have all the power and get rid of minorities'. Fascism grew out of the conditions of the 1910s in Europe during a wave of socialist and communist uprisings which threatened the bourgeois, quelled by returning soldiers from WWI. That's why it's militaristic and ultranationalist, that's why it's anti-communist and anti-liberal.

2. This list ignores other core traits, including those listed in the very next sentence after that quote, such as anti-communism anti-liberalism and anti-democratic ideas, class collaborationist, traditionalism w/ selective modernism, primary support base among the petit bourgeois, denouncement of '[haute] bourgeois capitalism' despite often working alongside the haute booj to subdue the lower class.

Fascism is born out of anti-communist sentiment in the petit-bourgeoisie (lower owning class), while two of those countries are ruled by communist parties. Russia is a haute-bourgeoisie capitalist state, not class collaborationist or petit-bourgious. China and North Korea openly dominate the haute booj rather than vice versa. Contrast these all against fascist states.

3. Saying 'Check' for cases which clearly don't check:

• The CPC ('socialism with Chinese characteristics') and WPK (Juche) are not far-right. They're both generally considered far-left, and certainly not far-right (FWIW, 'left' and 'right' are a poor model for understanding politics).

• Ultranationalism is not 'lots of nationalism', it's when a country "asserts or maintains detrimental hegemony, supremacy, or other forms of control over other nations (usually through violent coercion) to pursue its specific interests." North Korea clearly doesn't have control over other nations.

• China does not believe in militaristism.

• What natural social hierarchy do these states believe in?

• Russia is individualist, not collectivist.

• What regimentation is there?

Some of those other points are debatable (such as congress party structures with a president being dictatorships, where fascists explicitly denounce that as liberalism), but these are some which are just blatant.

I'm being pedantic because lives are at stake, and recognizing different ideologies is how you learn to combat them.

But if you want to treat it like a joke, go ahead. [edit: redacting petty insult]

If you're going to complain about people knowing what they're talking about, you should at least use the right words to describe things.

You can call Russia, China and North Korea dictatorships, but each of those three are just literally not fascist. Fascism arises from different circumstances and acts differently, even if there are surface similarities to notice, and those differences are important to understand if we want to analyze them and prevent them happening here. Russia, in particular, is important to understand when looking at the USA's current neoliberal nightmare.

I doubt Russia is much better but it’s probably at least slightly better.

Regardless of what one thinks of the USSR (and there's plenty to be critical of), its fall was disastrous and is the reason why it's now filled with billionaires doing just billionaire things and at prolonged war with Ukraine. I can't think of any way it is now better. The place was pillaged and the people screwed over even worse than they had before. "Shock therapy" is what they call the liberalization process.

With the exception of Belarus, the Eastern European states adopted shock therapy. Nearly all of these post-Soviet states suffered deep and prolonged recessions after shock therapy,  with poverty increasing more than tenfold. The resulting crisis of the 1990s was twice as intense as the Great Depression in the countries of Western Europe and the United States in the 1930s.

The cost to human life was profound, as Russia suffered the worst peace time increase in mortality experienced by any industrialized country.  For the years 1987 and 1988, roughly 2% of Russia population lived in poverty (surviving on less than $4 a day), by 1993-1995, it was 50%

This is a good point. The pseudonymous internet is like a confessional booth. I can bluntly say all my political beliefs here with little-to-no consequence that I can't solve by registering a new account. There's no risk of alienating a friend or family member who disagrees. As an extreme case, I've met a couple of people online who can be legally killed for their political views (e.g. not following the state religion). So the internet can provide more comfort in free expression and therefore more people arguing over differences.

I’m starting to feel like all this hate and division is manufactured

Even putting aside biases or conspiracies, mass media and (for-profit) social media has an economic incentive to get people passionate and interested and viewing more ads. So there are systematic factors at play, which I'd say are enhanced by digital technology.

Reminder to be aware of darknet mirrors like I2P sites and Tor .onion services - domains aren't controlled by a company so they can't just be taken down by a legal request.

For z-lib, the Wikipedia article lists their .onion and I2P addresses (I haven't verified them so check before bookmarking): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-Library

For my own learning (not trying to argue), can you list some of those basic facts of property rights?

morality

Agreed. I wasn't saying morality is pointless or worthless or anything. Even myself, I often 'do the right thing' on impulse rather than reason. I'm pointing out that morality is an idealistic structure, referencing the ironic appeal to morality from someone who was trying to critique Marxism for being an "idealist ideology". Morality is so subjective and unquantifiable it wasn't even worth arguing against their silly comparison.

It is a powerful tool, although I must admit I have serious issues with the most common frameworks of morality I see today, being framed as absolute rules a vacuum. And like you said, moral arguments can have excellent rhetorical power, and moral righteousness is a powerful motivator. The bottom line is, what anti-capitalists try to do fits into most moral frameworks as clearly good, and that's great!

what was that ideology again? Oh that’s right, it’s Marxist socialism

Marxist socialism isn't idealist. In fact, it's one of the few ideologies which isn't idealist. It's based on an scientific economic analysis of capitalism. Contrast this against our current system, liberalism, which is the failed idealization of liberty. Liberalism neglectfully kills hundreds of millions even in developed and politically-stable countries, but it's just normal at this point.

You’re not morally superior to fascists

Morality is idealism.

If Marxist socialists had a similar movement in size and influence to Trump and MAGA and were in a position to win, the sane majority would be just as terrified

Oh no, they're going to improve life expectancy and stop billionaires wasting all our hard work! The terror!

If anything, you, SleezyDizasta, should want Marxists to be in a position which threatens the ruling parties, because them being threatened is the only way you will ever get any of that big list of reforms you posted, bargaining to try and deradicalize the masses away from unrest. We saw this happen in Western bloc countries near the USSR such as the Nordic countries, considered the most progressive but gradually sinking back in line with the rest of Europe now.

dissolution is genocide

Dissolution doesn't even suggest killing, at all. I don't think you know what words mean.

This is the type of [whole paragraph]

I was referring to Palestine. Perhaps I should have specifically said 'the region of Palestine' but I didn't want to be condescending by stating the obvious.

How dumb do you have to be to think that Americans in America would cheer on for idiots that think their country is evil, illegitimate, and should be destroyed?

How dumb do you have to be to think that most Americans like their governments?

[skipped over a lot of obvious bad-faith bullshit lol]

My mistake, I heard about those but assumed it only applied for state-level politicians, not federal politicians they elect. Thanks for letting me know!